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loquaciousferret · 1 year

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Bad People

Summary: A stroke of fate leads one of your trading partners in the QZ to your front door one night, could it lead to something unexpected?

Pairing: Joel Miller X Female Reader

Content Warnings: alcohol, established age-gap, SMUT 18+, unprotected sex, facial, cumplay? Maybe more READ AT OWN RISK

Word Count: 4.3k

A/N: More Joel thots and a serious praise kink going on...? Anyways...

As always, not canon timeline or events. Joel aged maybe 40, 45?, but dialogue references it being 20 years into the outbreak.

NSFW under the cut do not press keep reading if you are a minor pls thx!

“We got to stop runnin’ into each other like this, darlin’.” The cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth wobbled as his lips turned up into a smirk.

He was right. This was the 4th or 5th time this month, and the 2nd time just this week that the pair of you had traded. You didn't answer, just tutting and shaking your head, looking down shyly at your feet. The way he talked to you pleased you a little bit, but you're sure he's like this with everyone.

“You should be more careful.” He frowns. “You’re lucky it was me on the other end of that setup. Could’ve been bad people. There's lots of em around here”

You looked up to meet his eye before screwing your nose up at him playfully. “You are one of the bad people around here.”

His smirk only widened at your remark, his eyes sparkling just a fraction more.

“I can be, if that’s what gets ya goin’…” He took a draw of his cigarette, gaze intense as he released the puff of smoke into the space between you.

You feigned disgust at his remark, clicking your tongue but couldn't help yourself from smiling again as you met his eye, “Goodbye, Joel.”

You shot a look over your shoulder as you left the alleyway and stepped into the street, pleased to find his eyes still fixated on you. A coy smile is sent his way and then a passing truck and a horde of guards pass between you. Once they’ve moved on, he’s gone, retreated into the shadows at the other end of the alley no doubt.

You had been trading with Joel Miller for nearly 6 months, he was a prolific smuggler with access to goods you didn’t even know still existed. In return, you had your own ways of sourcing his vices, cigarettes, alcohol, pills, small items easy enough to steal for someone as small and unassuming as yourself.

Illicit trading within the QZ operated in a variety of ways, one of the most common being through encoded notes or messages left in public places. And Joel was right, it could be bad people at the end of them, or perhaps worse, it could be undercover guards weeding out rule breakers. But often, the goods were worth the risk. And more and more frequently of late, you were finding Joel at the end of these messages.

You found there was something trustworthy about his eyes, despite a hardened and threatening exterior, and the bulges of multiple weapons in his jeans, his jacket pockets. You got the sense he had a soft spot for you and that always came in handy in regards to a good price for trading.

You traveled the short distance to your makeshift home within the QZ, a relatively quiet street and certainly one of the less dilapidated buildings. You knew you were lucky to have this place compared to the living conditions of some friends you’d made over the years here.

You had front door access up a short flight of stairs and fairly large windows, facing towards the centre of the town. You had managed to fabricate wooden shutters that you used for privacy and safety. Unlocking the door and crossing the threshold, you breathed out and released tension you hadn’t noticed you were carrying. Even within the QZ it was a dangerous world, for no one moreso than a single woman. You weren’t naive and knew that whilst living in the QZ kept you save from infected, there were fates worse than that.

You struck a match and lit the candles that surrounded the living area, the end of October meaning shorter days, night was quick to fall and curfew rapidly approached.

You began to empty your heavy pack, you had done a number of supply runs today, some through the legitimate channels. Food, soaps, a perfume for which you had swapped nearly an unjustifiable quantity of ration papers, a very specific red wine courtesy of Joel, which you had wanted for your birthday coming up, and a novel. You stowed the rest of this away in the right places and settled in to the sofa with the book, curling into a blanket that you have had since before the outbreak.

Curfew came and went with all of the city sounds ceasing, replaced only by the occasional stomp of guards patrolling the street.

You hadn’t realised you had drifted off whilst reading until you were sharply awoken by banging on the door. You leaped into action mode, reaching under the sofa for a baseball bat that you stored there. As you creeped towards the door there was another round of banging, and your mind whirred with possibilities. If it was FEDRA they would have shouted and said so. Could it be a friend? You weren’t sure. A possibility you hadn’t considered, was looking through the peep hole and seeing… Joel?

You kept the baseball bat gripped in one hand, breaking all rules and common sense about personal safety to unlock the door with the other. His eyes widen in surprise momentarily and you realise that he hadn’t been seeking you out, he had just knocked on any door. As you registered this realisation he pushed past you into the house.

He slammed the door behind himself, locking every bolt rapidly as if he was familiar with the apartment. He wasn’t, of course, but this is the kind of confidence and self-assuredness with which Joel completes every action. He proceeds to a small chink in the wooden shutters over the windows, sweeping up and down the street. Satisfied, he turns to you.

Eyes flickering between your face and the bat still clutched in your right hand, he smirks, “You gonna hit me with that?”

“I-oh.” You let out a breath of laughter and tossed the bat onto the soft sofa. “I guess not.”

“I was just looking for someone stupid enough to let a stranger into their house, I got lucky.” He explained, confirming your suspicions that he hadn’t known this was your place.

You rolled your eyes. “What are you doing anyway. Is someone after you?”

“No one dangerous,” He responds “Just FEDRA. I won’t have brought any trouble to your door. They won’t find me, idiots can barely track down their own heads.”

You smile at him.

“But seriously, what I said earlier about you needing to be more careful. ‘s true. Would you just let any old crazy person in off the street who needs your help.”

“You aren’t just any old crazy person.” You smiled. “Devil you know, and all that?”

He reached a hand up to scratch the back of his neck, your eyes fixed on the strong arm flexing under his thin jacket.

“Listen, uh…” He shifted on his feet and his ever confident appearance faltered slightly. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and I promise I’ll pay you back fairly-“

You were nodding before he finished the question. Of course you would let him stay. You did trust him, despite not really knowing him. And you didn’t want to see him caught or hurt by the guards. His business benefitted you, too. There was a net gain to helping him. But more than that, you found yourself intrigued and almost excited at the prospect of having someone in your home like a normal old day.

“It’s no trouble, really.” You said sincerely, and his eyes expressed relief. “You’ll just have to me owe me one.”

“Anythin’, honestly.” He responded.

“Take a seat.” You urged him, picking up the baseball bat and sliding it back underneath the sofa. “Are you hungry?”

“No, no. I wouldn’t ask you to waste your food.” He shook his head.

“Suit yourself.” You shrugged.

You sat opposite him in an armchair. You had better furniture than many people, mismatched but relatively clean and comfortable. You watched him as he collected a lighter and cigarettes from his pocket, raising an eyebrow when he looks back at you in confusion.

The penny drops and he asks, “Can’t I smoke in here?”

You consider him for a moment over the top of your book. “I guess so.” You offer, but he’s replacing them back into his pocket already. You realise you had made a mistake, then. You recognised a knowing look in his eyes, he knew you weren’t happy with the smoking and yet you had said yes to him anyway. A glint in his eye was questioning what else you might say yes to. You blush as your train of thought continues.

He cleared his throat, breaking the tension between the two of you which you had felt rising. “So, why the wine? You hosting dinner parties these days or somethin’?”

You laugh a little at the suggestion, both knowing the answer. “Nope, I’ve got a big birthday coming up.”

“That right?” He raised an eyebrow. “How old?”

“Guess.” You shot back, folding the corner of your page and setting it on the coffee table.

“Ah…” He tilted his head. “No, I’m not falling into that trap.”

You leaned towards him and put on a theatrical whisper, “Twenty-five”

He grumbled, rolling his eyes. “Oh yeah, ancient.”

“On Wednesday.” You added.

“I don’t celebrate my birthday. What’s the big deal about another year in this place.”

You rolled your eyes. “25? Remember? It’s pretty much all I’ve known.”

A sharp intake of breath from Joel has you pondering. You’ve never been good at knowing other people’s age, but you imagine he has 15 years on you at the very least. He most likely lived a life he remembered well before this, unlike you, who only has faint fragments from your early childhood.

“How old are you?” You asked.

“Old enough to be your father.”

His tone was laced with something unfamiliar. You tore your eyes away from him and returned them to your book. Fine, if that’s how he wanted to play it, you thought. But something about how he held your gaze when he said it made you think he wasn’t expressing disgust or disinterest at all, it was more like a test.

“You live alone?” You ask.

“Why?” His eyes narrowed.

You sigh, “Just making conversation.” You muttered back.

“Yes.” He confirms. “You?”

You gestured around the apartment. “Just me. After..” You trailed off.

He nodded knowingly. “Yeah.”

Details were never needed. Everybody had lost most of those close to them. People with remaining family from before were few and far between and very very fortunate. You weren’t one of those fortunate few and Joel’s entire character made it clear that neither was he. He was out for himself, only. Maybe that could work to your advantage.

“Well, listen. Do you want to share that bottle?” You asked, tentatively. “Today’s Saturday and you need somewhere to stay. Better than me celebrating alone on a weeknight.”

“Don’t see why not.” He says.

Before you could stop yourself, the bottle was empty and you had loosened up. Probably to a degree more than was wise. At some point you had moved from your armchair to occupy the sofa alongside Joel, there had been a reason but you had never proceeded to move away again.

Something about it felt so natural, so normal, like being in the company of a friend. You had even extracted a few laughs from him.

You were watching him, not expectantly, just lost in your thoughts and his deep brown eyes when he cleared his throat and you realised just how close to him you were, warmth radiating from him, a rich musky scent, all contributing to the somewhat magnetic force you felt acting upon yourself.

“It’s been a while.” He said.

You didn’t know what he was referring to. A while since what? Since he drank wine? Since he shared a night like this with another human being? Since…

His mouth latching onto yours interrupted your train of thought. His kiss was hungry, but not desperate, it remained powerful and dominant, just like the energy Joel permanently exuded.

You lifted your hands to tug lightly at the curls at the back of his neck, tilting your head up and deepening the kiss in the process. He turned to face you more fully, a strong arm reaching round to wrap around your middle. And with one movement, that same arm manoeuvring you onto his lap. The kiss breaks for the first time and you pull away ever so slightly to look at him. The sight staring back at you is the most attractive thing you think you have ever seen. Pupils dilated, broad chest rising and falling rapidly as he takes shallow breaths. You feel something growing in his jeans at the place your body connects to his. The affect you were having on him after just briefly making out gave you confidence.

“I’ve wanted you, for such a long time,” He whispers into you as he pulls you closer again, hot breath tickling your neck, your ear, as he flicks out his tongue and nibbles your earlobe. “Tonight I’m finally going to have you.”

You can’t stop an audible whimper escaping and you feel his smirk in return. Of course, you had messed around with other young men in the QZ, friends and such, but never had you felt attraction as deeply as you did to Joel in this moment. Joel knew what he wanted and how to get it. There was nothing awkward or fumbling about this like your previous encounters.

You pressed your lips to his again, rolling your lower half into him. His firm hands gripped your hips and his fingertips lightly grazed the skin as your top started to ride up. His touch was magic, the way in which he managed to be simultaneously so powerful yet remain gentle was expert.

He broke the kiss again, his voice husky as he questioned, “You gonna show me to your room or do you want me to take you right here, beautiful?”

You couldn’t speak, just hopping off of his lap in response and taking one of his large hands in yours to lead him to the bedroom at the back of the apartment. The corridor, only a few feet long, had never felt like such a long walk due to the anticipation that was reaching unmanageable levels inside you.

You entered the room and Joel closed the door behind you, plunging the room into darkness. Spinning you round by your wrist to face him, he began stripping the clothes from your body whilst kissing you, quickly taking your sweater off over your head. You fumbled with the buttons on his shirt in return, but he quickly took over, pushing your hands lower to deal with his belt buckle as he tore off his forest green button-down. You successfully undid his buckle and unzipped his jeans, slipping your hand inside to press against the hardened bulge inside his boxers.

A low groan escapes his lips as you apply further pressure, palming his cock as it continues to harden further.

“Don’t tease me baby, you won’t like where it gets you.” He says, as he pushes you gently onto the bed.

You can’t make out his features in the darkness but his tone paints a picture of that signature smirk that is making you grow wetter by the second. He pulls your bottoms from your legs and you hear them land somewhere across the room, before doing the same with his own. His hands widen your thighs and you feel the weight of the bed shift as he positions himself between your legs. You reach your arms around his neck and pull him into a kiss, and he uses this as an opportunity to snake an arm around your back and unclasp your bra.

It drops to the floor to reveal your breasts and hardened nipples, which he teases lightly with his thumbs, continuing to kiss you.

“Isn’t this a pretty sight.” he mumbles as he leans back, taking you in as much as he could in the low light before attaching his mouth to your nipple, sucking and nibbling lightly, eliciting gasps from you.

You feel yourself rolling your hips towards him, finding his thigh and whining at the lack of attention your lower half was receiving from him.

“Patience, sweetheart.” He smirks, gripping your hips and pinning them onto the bed.

He fulfils your request anyhow, gently rubbing you through your underwear as he focussed his attention once again on your breasts. kneading one in one hand whilst balancing his weight on his elbow, and continuing to use his tongue on the other, sloppy kissing and suction on your nipple and intermittent biting that had you whining through gritted teeth.

You were sure he could feel your arousal, heat and wetness permeating through the thin material of your underwear, letting him know the effect his teasing was having on you.

“J-Joel.” You gasped, your tone not far from begging. “Please.”

He obliged at last, “Only cause you asked me so nicely,” He whispered into your skin, kissing and sucking your breasts, your throat, your neck, your ear.

Joel was consuming every single one of your senses, intensifying the pleasure you felt when he finally inserted a finger into you. You felt as though you were practically dripping all over him, malleable and ready for whatever he might give you. He groaned softly as he curled his finger inside you, pulling it out painstakingly slowly to replace it with two this time.

You let out a quiet moan, biting your lip to try and hold back the sounds of your pleasure, not wanting to let him see how much this act alone was affecting you.

“Let me hear you, baby.” He said, as if reading your mind. “Show me how much you like to be touched.”

You let yourself go now as he picked up his pace, curling his fingers hard and fast against that spot inside you that had your toes curling. As he continued this, his thumb found its way to your clit and he rubbed slow circles into it.

“Oh, Joel…” You gasped, twisting the bedsheets in your fists either side of you. “I want you to fuck me Joel, please Joel I- ah” You cut yourself off with another moan as he inserted a third finger, stretching you out and increasing the pace and force with which he massaged your clit.

“Baby, the way you beg so nicely has me tempted. But I need you to come before I fuck you.”

You nodded and reached a hand out towards him, feeling for him with your eyes closed. Your hand connected with his shoulder and you tugged him towards you gently, keen to be enveloped in his warmth, his scent. He reached his lips down to yours and your moans escaped into the kiss. Your eyes shot open when he removed his fingers from inside you and then his whole hand from where it had been working at you.

He pulled away from the kiss and replaced his mouth with his fingers, which you sucked instinctively, interpreting his wordless request.

He moaned as you swirled your tongue around his fingers and tasted yourself and you did too, closing your eyes and releasing your sounds of pleasure.

“Jesus…” He sighed contentedly

He returned his hand to your core and focused entirely on your clit this time, pinching gently before rubbing circles rhythmically. You were close to orgasm already, your deep attraction to him and the power he exercised over you all encouraged your release quicker than usual.

It didn’t take long for his practiced attention on your clit, coupled with his low praise in your ears, when you felt it building inside you.

You arched your back slightly, pressing yourself against his hand to increase the friction however possible.

“That’s it, baby.” He muttered in your ear. “Show me how good it feels.”

“You gonna come for me, good girl?” He breathed.

Your face was screwed up in pleasure, your breathing shallow and erratic as your orgasm built, tension growing more and more.

“Let me hear those pretty sounds, sweetheart.” He urged.

You came hard with noises between moans and wails escaping your lips. Joel’s pace didn’t falter as you enjoyed your orgasm, writhing your lower body against him before you collapsed onto the bed, spent of the energy needed to hold yourself up.

He pressed a wet kiss onto your cheek before moving from where he lay alongside you to position himself over you. He took your hand and guided it to his erection, which you palmed gently, feeling its size again. He sighed at the sensation of your small hands grasping him through the fabric, but he had little patience for this moment and quickly moved on to removing them, pulling them down his thighs and allowing his cock to spring free. You resisted literally letting your jaw drop as you saw him bare and felt the full weight and size of him. Definitely bigger than anything you had experience with.

He took a hold of himself, guiding his tip down to rub it through your folds, causing you to shudder slightly with your clit still sensitive from your orgasm. He nudged the tip to your wet hole and you bit your lip as he entered you, slowly at first until he was about halfway in before thrusting himself into you as deep as he could. At this, you couldn’t keep your noise to yourself, releasing a desperate and tortured moan.

He took this noise as a sign to continue at this pace, dragging out of you slowly but thrusting in with force, hitting the deepest parts of you.

You moaned and whined and could barely catch a breath, his thrusts picking up in pace as he used your body for his pleasure.

“God, Joel, yes,” You say, but you are sure it comes out unintelligible. “Please fuck me like that Joel it feels so good oh my god.”

He grunted in response and continued, taking one hand and giving attention to your clit as he fucked you relentlessly, all you could do was babble words of praise and thanks and his name, rolling from your tongue as though you were addressing a deity.

“You’re so tight.” He groans through gritted teeth, bringing his body closer to yours to kiss at your skin as he fucks you.

You sense he won’t last much longer when he slows down his thrusts, and your suspicions are confirmed when he asks “Where do you want my cum, beautiful?”

Your eyes widen and you open your mouth, sticking your tongue out. The look on your face as you do this is almost enough to push him over the edge, “Oh god.” He exclaims, pulling out of you in a rush. A playful look in your eyes as you laugh a little, still keeping your tongue out.

He grabbed your arms and manoeuvred you roughly onto the floor in front at the edge of the bed. He kneeled on the bed above you and you kept eye contact with him, wiggling your tongue as he pumped his cock in his hand.

He groaned as he watched you, you closed your eyes briefly and he scolded you.

“Keep them open.”

You did so, and with another few tugs of his wrist he was exploding all over your face, salty cum landing mostly on your outstretched tongue and inside your mouth but some more leaking onto your nose, cheeks, and chin.

You swallowed what was in your mouth and tongue as he kept his eyes fixated on you, deflating slightly and relaxing lower onto the bed. He reached out and used his thumb to wipe your face, collecting his spent load from around your face and guiding it towards your lips. You sucked on his thumb obediently, and he sighed, totally transfixed and holding your gaze throughout your entire performance for him.

With most of him cleaned up from your face you straightened up higher and he reached over to press a chaste kiss to the top of your head.

“You did fantastic.” He praised, and you hummed, enjoying the feeling of his hand holding the back of your neck and his face pressed into your hair.

When he released you and lay backwards onto the bed, you got up and padded barefoot to your bathroom. You washed your face and rinsed your mouth out, eyeing yourself in the cracked mirror. Your hair was slightly pressed to your forehead with sweat and the rest of it was sticking out wildly. Your cheeks were dark with blush and you still hadn’t quite slowed your breathing down to normal. Yep, you looked like someone who had just been fucked hard.

You crept back to bed, floorboards creaking, collecting your underwear on the way and putting it on before sliding under the covers. He stood slowly and did the same, reaching out to pull you close towards him, attacking the top of your head, your forehead, your throat, your chest, with rapid kisses.

“Joel-“ You giggled, flattered with the kind of attention he continued to give you after the sex was over.

After a final kiss, he kept you close to him, inhaling from the top of your head, his breath tickling you.

You lay this way, content for a while, until something compelled you to speak. “Joel?” You said softly, your voice not quite a whisper, unsure if he was awake.

“Hm?” He responded, rubbing circles on your waist with his thumb where his arm was around you, holding you tightly to him.

“Are we going to do this again?” You asked shyly.

He exhaled with what might have been a small laugh. “Absolutely, sweetheart. You’re not gonna get rid of me now.”

You nuzzled into his neck and eventually, sleep took you. Nothing you could dream about would top the night you had just had with Joel.

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millepara · 8 months

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idol land pripara photo tips 📸

unfortunately, this one is big: memorize all the timing to all the songs. (I have an advantage here bc most are ancient arcade songs I've played enough to encode into my dna.) once you've done this, you don't have to look at the rhythm game and can just watch for photo ops.

luckily, this one is equally big: totally give up on a good score when you want to take photos. don't accidentally miss beats, miss them on purpose. I don't recommend this for promises you create bc it's kind of a waste of a promise ticket, but joining promises is free so it doesn't matter if you miss all the notes. + one truly fantastic advantage the app has over the arcade game is that the photo button removes all of the game ui and leaves only a pretty picture, so all evidence of your bad score is magically whisked away.

take multiple photos at a time. blast the shutter. the timing for the photo button is slow, so chances are you'll miss what you wanted to shoot if you only take one photo. start a little before whatever moment you want to shoot shows up, and then rapid-fire the photo button.

play the same song multiple times. you'll use up your 9 shots way before the song ends if you commit to the above tip, so don't worry about conserving photos for the end of the song. work your way through, taking pictures incrementally each time.

reserve one finger for photos. you don't need both hands to play the rhythm game, so use one finger to play and one to hover over the photo button at all times.

I hope something here is helpful!

#obv as you get better at the song/photos you wont need to play as many times/take as many photos(/mess up as much)#idol land pripara #idk if this is useful or relevant to anyone else but i started to reply and realized i actually have a lot abt it ;;

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mariacallous · 8 months

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A major new work, weaving together historical anecdote and the author’s family history, laments the slow erasure of centuries of linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity in an increasingly homogenised region.

In Goodbye, Eastern Europe, a major new work “chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed” from Vienna to the 14 time zones of the Russian Empire, Jacob Mikanowski weaves a rich and amusing tapestry of historical anecdote (and personal family history). His aim is to explode conceptions of Eastern Europe as a grey, featureless bloc – but also to suggest that millennia of tolerance, cosmopolitanism and cultural, linguistic and ethnic variety are slowly being erased. While his epilogue links this diagnosis to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mikanowski’s thesis has perhaps even greater relevance to the Western Balkans.

His historical vignettes are delightful – thieves in the finicky Austro-Hungarian Empire handed four-hour sentences for stealing an onion, elderly Romanian communists leaving Kent Cigarettes on graves to pay black-market bribes in the afterlife – but also serve a larger purpose. This tissue of anecdote is the perfect way for Mikanowski to demonstrate Eastern Europe’s “defining characteristic is diversity”. Each page revealing another “little island of heterodoxy”, down to the ultra-fine level where each village has its minority and each minority its particularities, as in the exhaustive account of a Ukrainian settlement where even the cabinetmakers had their own culture: “As Filippians and Old Believers, they spoke Russian, but with a Novogorod accent.”

To Mikanowski, the phrase “Eastern Europe” is an “outsider’s convenience”, a lump term of little practical application to locals. His argument here recalls Maria Todorova’s “Imagining the Balkans”, which powerfully demonstrates the negative, politically-loaded role of the term “Balkans” – as implied by the always-pejorative neologism “Balkanisation” – applied by outside observers and commentators to a shifting set of states and territories while many of those states try to escape the charge.

As with, for example, Romanian writers claiming a Latin identity to evade the “Balkan” label, Mikanowski notes that particularly in the post-Communist era, many Eastern European countries prefer to consider themselves in “Central Europe”, the “Nordic Community”, and so on, thus distancing themselves from the Eastern Bloc. The Balkans are, perhaps, another such an exception, but with the difference that the term is applied from the outside. Rather than a breakaway clinging to Mitteleuropa (Hungary) or Russia (Belarus), they’re isolated and abandoned – the last island of Eastern Europe.

Mikanowski does sketch the deep diversity and (sometimes uneasy) tolerance which has long characterised the Western Balkans – as well as pointing to the mushrooming of latter-day nationalism and ethnic homogenisation. For example, he takes a fascinating trip to Moschopolis in Albania, the “city of the shepherds”, which was for centuries the heart of the little-studied Vlach culture, but whose Christian churches are now largely shuttered.

Overall, the book has less to say about the Western Balkans than other regions. States are covered in the expected proportions, with Poland mentioned around 230 times, but Bulgaria 50 times and Serbia 40, with Montenegro and Kosovo only just reaching 10. This reflects Mikanowski’s Polish-Jewish origins, personal research interests and certain geopolitical realities, but also suggests the extent to which the Balkans represent Eastern Europe’s own East, encoding the same values for other Eastern Europeans as Eastern Europe itself does to the West.

Nonetheless, his arguments can provide a key for understanding the region, for example when claiming polities like the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth (represented here as the avatar of its contemporary, fledgling US) and the Ottoman Empire were not “nuclear winters” for culture. Rather, they “tended to accentuate difference rather than suppress it”, in the latter case particularly by fostering the “largest and oldest concentration of Muslims on the European continent”, whose contributions are often overlooked when set against Umayyad Andalusia. As with Christopher Clark’s recent effort to rehabilitate the much-maligned Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Mikanowski there is much to commend these vast and unwieldy institutions, which discriminated against minorities while simultaneously allowing for unprecedented religious toleration on the basis of recognized differences.

With these arguments, Mikanowski aims to push back against simplistic, atavistic nationalisms which have defined the post-Communist era – as when he derides the phalanxes of nationalistic statuary in Skopje, or critiques post-ideological, third-way museums in Hungary for implying communism was “just as bad” as Nazi fascism, in a charge equally applicable to contemporary nationalist ideologues in the Western Balkans. At the same time, he cautions, it’s “easy to fall into nostalgia” when discussing Eastern Europe’s pre-World War 1 diversity. Most cities were not “melting pots”, but characterized by mutually suspicious, if tolerant, communities – as in Albania’s Elbasan, once partitioned in sharply-defined concentric circles of Christian Albanians, Muslim Albanians and Christian Vlachs.

Mikanowski’s anecdotal style is less suitable for identifying other meta-historical trends or making political claims. As with the genealogy craze, everyone finds their own great-grandfather’s story fascinating – but what can this tell us about the course of history?

In such a grand narrative, something is always downplayed, and Mikanowski’s focus is on the personal and local. Understandably, the writer is more concerned with tracing the miserable fate of intellectuals under Stalinist communism than any deep-searching assessment of Communist political economy. He has sympathy for Hungarian “Goulash communism” and respect for Tito’s Yugoslavia as the sole anti-Stalinist “exception” and bane of Stalin’s life but doesn’t delve into how it was that Tito could by and large preserve inter-ethnic diversity and solidarity, instead somewhat simplistically presenting the Yugoslav project as an “act of mutual forgetting”.

Rather, the full impact of Mikanowski’s string of personal anecdotes is revealed when he turns to his family’s experiences in the Holocaust. Pushing back against representations of the slaughter of six million Jews as solely an “impersonal, mechanized process”, marked by German efficiency, Mikanowski argues that in Eastern Europe, “the Holocaust was an intimate slaughter”, as neighbour turned on neighbour in an exhaustive, hand-to-hand massacre. Thus, the author, in the book’s most profoundly affecting passage, can trace his great aunt Rosa’s scream as she was executed in the Warsaw ghetto via a secret milk-can archive, preserving the memory of her murder to the present day, where it “haunts” him yet.

Long-term persecution of the Jews and Roma notwithstanding, cataclysmic 20th-century violence was in part so horrific precisely because minorities had lived cheek-by-jowl with their persecutors for so long, in what Mikanowski calls a “ramshackle utopia”, weathering prejudice and the rise and fall of empires.

Mikanowski’s warning over the dangers of homogenisation and decline of this long-standing cosmopolitanism is particularly germane to the Balkans – all the more so in the neo-liberal free-for-all which followed the Socialist collapse. The Jews are gone, the Islamic presence is much diminished, and regional capitals are an increasingly indistinguishable blur of co-working spaces and Starbucks, masking empty rural hinterlands left to the impoverished, the elderly and the ghosts. But so too is his celebration of a “constellation of parochialism… bigger than the sum of its parts”, traces of which still endure in those same hinterlands, despite all efforts to eradicate it.

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longreads · 2 years

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Goodbye to Real Life (2016-2022)

For six years, Real Life Mag (@reallifemagazine) was an indispensable source of tech commentary and critical thought, publishing essays, arguments, and narratives about living with technology. Real Life invited work from a wide variety of contributors, eschewing the idea that digital thought should belong only to experts and academics. Since its foundation, the magazine has made room for a stranger and more nuanced understanding of the web in all its complexity, covering topics such as identity, power, surveillance, beauty, music, video games, influencers, and body horror, to name just a few.

On September 6th, Real Life announced its shuttering due to a lack of funding. This is a massive loss for contemporary media criticism, and their contributions will be sorely missed. Editor-in-chief Nathan Jurgenson has announced the magazine’s intention to preserve the website and its archives indefinitely.

In honor of their incredible work, here’s a selection of some of our favorite stories:

1. Fidelity Angst

"When an audiophile of any gender pursues fidelity, they express a desire for affective, sensory intercourse between creators and listeners, a communication beyond signification."

Mack Hagood on the hopeless pursuit of “the absolute sound”

2. Taking Stock

“Creativity is now understood first and foremost as a business resource, a component of an employee’s skill set, an ability to sell something, anything.”

Rob Horning on the emergence of the term “creator” and its cultural implications

3. The Great Offline

“The problem is, of course, that the boundary between the offline and the online is incredibly hard to situate.”

Lauren Collee on the supposed “wilderness” of technological disconnection

4. Screen Memories

“The screen consumes so much of me — time, labor, attention. I screenshot to lay claim to the act of seeing, which remains mine alone.”

Kelly Pendergrast on preserving memories via the art of the screenshot

5. Clash Rules Everything Around Me

"But more often, video games, in the way they structure our behavior and obtrude into our lives, are less escapes from reality than they are metaphors for it."

Tony Tulathimutte on wasted time and the capitalist themes encoded in Clash of Clans

Click here for a full list of our Real Life Mag picks over the years.

#longreads #real life #real life mag #reading #journalism #nonfiction #reallifemagazine

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allteacher · 2 years

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Orin remembers that she was black-eyed and nauseous with Queensfoil the first time she saw the door.

It was a shape cut into nothing: nine holes in nothing which her twice-restarted brain categorized as windows, all shining with a different light. She looked through them, she knows, but when she tries to remember what she saw her mind goes retuning-blank, frequencies her body must obey but that she cannot pick up.

She remembers stepping toward it, that first time, cheeks stained purple with tear tracks cutting clear lines perpendicular to those strange marks Namqi had loved to trace across her eyes. She remembers fine dust on her palms as she had reached out, remembers how it had streaked against Gol’s shell as he had butted against her hands, unseeing, warning her back.

“Come back to the real world,” he’d said, or she thinks he had. But she remembers how nothing had seemed so real as that door.

Orin thinks the door was cut into nothing but that nothing had been a spaceship, once. Or maybe it was a forest, and it had been a portal like the ones Sjur had told her about, drunk, stories of a universe Orin could not remember. Maybe the door was there, in that secret place.

Wherever the door was she kept waking up and seeing it, or maybe falling asleep and seeing it. She kept seeing it and those nine perfect windows and wanting so badly to step through it, to go somewhere where everything made sense, somewhere she could wake up new again and maybe that would fix things.

And she kept drinking Queensfoil and working her nails bloody against the coin still warm with the heat of Sjur’s anger and talking to dead-eyed Ghosts and other dead things. And she kept seeing the door.

And one day Gol— she— and Gol—

And one day there was nothing left to stop her from pressing her stained-purple hands against the door and pushing. And she opened it and saw something or did something, and emerged, and she is not Orin now. Or she is Orin but she is not in her body anymore, or not always, or not really.

And the thing that was Orin joined the thing that was Nasan (who?) and the thing that was Nasya (who?), selves that are no longer selves, discarded or stored away, somewhere else. She does not know how she feels about being somewhere else, where nothing hurts but she is still so lonely. She has had time to think about it, in the spaces where she can remember who she is or was.

There are still windows and sometimes there are nine but sometimes there are two, and when she bothers to peer through them she can see through her eyes again, catches glimpses of the world and black void and the strange blue-violet of somewhere else.

Sometimes she shutters the windows which makes the things outside the door angry. Or most of them— she thinks the her outside the door doesn't care. If it was her she knows she wouldn't care, because she has always kept secrets from herself even when she didn’t know she was. When she shutters the windows she has time to think about the things that she does not want Them to know, the things that are hers and hers alone:

She remembers Namqi’s hand on her shoulder or on her neck and the way he’d shift his eyes away when they first met, especially when she’d lean close and pretend to look at his ship’s controls. She remembers how he’d send encoded messages through the radio because he knew she loved working them out. She remembers his last message, how he’d been traveling. How he’d promised to bring her a new rifle stock and freeze-dried strawberries.

She remembers Sjur, her bow and how it would coil with a tension unknown to the simplicity of Orin’s hammer, remembers splitting wood for targets in the archery range or for firewood when they went hunting. Remembers the coin, and how there was no funeral.

She remembers seeing the Queen of the Awoken again, stark and alone in cold star-space, sitting in her eggshell throne and watching Orin’s black shadow against the white of an event horizon. She thinks of slamming the door open and forcing herself back into herself, leaning down over the Queen, hood falling around her shoulders, asking did you know they would do this to me? Remembers perpendicular tears, remembers Mara’s stricken face. Remembers the answer.

Sometimes she thinks she will never again open the shutters. Sometimes she thinks that one day she will open the door and walk out into sunlight. She thinks, and thinks, and remembers what it felt like to speak her own words. She remembers the kinetic energy of a downward swing.

She will feel it again. She is a puppet, but she will not feel it when they cut her strings. She will be somewhere else. She will not let something else be her end, not when she can do it herself, again.

#destiny the game #orin the lost #the emissary #my fic #i <3 destiny if i want to write incomprehensible fic i can pick from a dozen characters for whom it's still plausible

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truewrit · 2 months

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Aequanimitas Encoded in Sound and Light

Kōan Jeff Baysa, M.D.

As a curator, my first interaction with Iranian-American composer David Abir was in organizing the group exhibition, One Hand Clapping: The Interstices of Sound, Language, and Silence in the old Smack Mellon space in DUMBO, New York. He created three walls, each inset with a speaker, arranged in a triangular formation, playing Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in staggered and overlayed sequences that one exquisitely experienced haptically and aurally as one walked amongst them.

From his physician father, the artist may well have inherited his sense of music’s healing potential. From his Persian heritage, he was attuned to the characteristics of Persian music that favors a modal system and is deeply connected to emotional expression and the human experience. Studying on his own, he also realized that classical music provides a range of emotions and can evoke calm and meditative resonances.

On another project at the now shuttered Chelsea Art Museum in Manhattan, he presented a version of Tekrar (“repetition” in Farsi), a looming totemic sculpture designed that he designed, loosely based on the anatomy of the human ear. Experimenting with fragments of compositions, he found that playing them slightly out of phase and at graded volumes allowed new patterns to be formed. In combination with diffuse lighting of varying hues and intensities, they exerted a powerful peaceful effect.

During the onset of the COVID pandemic I was in Louisville, Kentucky and encouraged him to work with our Co-Immunity team at the Kentucky College of Art and Design to produce a video to be delivered via virtual reality headsets to afflicted and intubated patients in intensive care units to lessen the trauma of crucial procedures. With visual and aural components that he developed for Tekrar, it would also be broadcast on the closed circuit television network in the hospital wards for its therapeutic effects. In smaller sculptural variants of Tekrar, we proposed placing these light and sound sculptures as calming meditative devices in high stress and anxiety hospital areas: post-surgery and emergency department waiting rooms.

Writing music utilizing sampling and digital technology to create collaged compositions delivered through his soothing light and sound sculptures, David Abir offers elegant alternative remedies for the human condition.

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govindhtech · 2 months

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Get Ready! Xiaomi 14 Series Launches Worldwide!

Latest Features of Xiaomi 14 Series

Xiaomi, a worldwide innovator, proudly launches its next flagship smartphone range, Xiaomi 14 Series, in Barcelona, Spain, at an exclusive launch event. Xiaomi’s dedication to providing world-class experiences is reflected by this announcement. William Lu, Partner and President of Xiaomi Corporation and President of Xiaomi foreign Business Department, introduced its updated “Human X Car X Home” smart ecosystem to foreign markets at the event.

Xiaomi and Leica revolutionized smartphone imaging after forming a strategic cooperation in 2022. The Xiaomi has changed industry norms with each product generation via continuous pursuit of quality. Xiaomi 14 Series, with Leica Summilux lenses, is the culmination of this cooperation. Xiaomi’s worldwide leadership in mobile image innovation is reinforced by its fusion of cutting-edge optical principles and product designs.

Xiaomi also announced Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4, Xiaomi Watch S3, Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro, and Xiaomi Watch 2 for release.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra: Premier Photography, Unmatched Performance, and Innovative Design

Xiaomi 14 Ultra comes in Black and White in international markets and has a circular camera module with a flat back design, inspired by classical camera aesthetics.Image Credit to Xiaomi

Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a sturdy aluminum chassis, Xiaomi nano-tech vegan leather, and Xiaomi Shield Glass. Xiaomi 14 Ultra has 1.38x stronger frame strength thanks to a single metal block. A breakthrough recipe makes Xiaomi nano-tech vegan leather thinner, lighter, and 6x more durable. Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s All Around Liquid Display, made with Xiaomi Shield Glass, blends the visual attractiveness of a flat screen with the tactile input of a curved edge. Xiaomi-custom C8 WQHD+ 6.73″ AMOLED display offers an immersive visual experience with WQHD+ (3200 x 1440) resolution, 522 ppi pixel density, configurable 1-120Hz refresh rate, and 3000 nits peak brightness.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a professional quad-camera setup with a wide 12mm–120mm focal length range. The primary camera’s /1.63-ƒ/4.0 stepless variable aperture allows for smooth exposure changes in various situations. An ultra-large 1-inch LYT-900 image sensor with a 14EV dynamic range ensures excellent picture quality in difficult conditions. The Leica 75mm floating telephoto, 120mm periscope, and 12mm ultra-wide cameras complete the quad-camera configuration.

All four cameras on Xiaomi 14 Ultra enable 8K 30fps, leading smartphone imaging. The 50MP sensor and Leica lenses record 8K films with remarkable quality, enabling professional post-production editing. Its primary camera can film 4K 120fps with 5x slow-motion. It also has 60fps full-range zooming at 4K. Stabilization and Dolby Vision 4K 60fps video capture are also supported. An extra microphone forms a 4-Mic array for surround and directional sound recording.

The new Movie option uses cinematic industry principles such a 2.39:1 aspect ratio and 180° shutter rule to create cinematic footage with motion blur. The new MasterCinema encodes HDR films in 10-bit Rec.2020 for better details, highlights, and shadows than 8-bit BT.709, particularly on HDR televisions. Director mode has sophisticated parameter settings and Log file filming for flexible post-production. Xiaomi 14 Ultra may be used as an external monitor with Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4 for an immersive production experience.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra Photography Kit, released with the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, offers enhanced functionality in a grip and case for photographers and videographers. A two-stage shutter button, zoom lever, configurable video recording button, and custom dial are included. It charges externally and has 1500mAh battery life. This item is sold separately.

Xiaomi 14 Series: Small, Strong Imagery, Uncompromising Experience

Xiaomi 14 is 152.8mm x 71.5mm x 8.20mm, a small everyday companion. Its slightly curved rear panel provides a stable grip for long-term usage. By moving the speaker to the display and the infrared port to the camera deco, the top and side frames appear clean and simple. A tiny 1.71mm bottom bezel is created using innovative FIAA technology to incorporate panel circuits into the display for an immersive viewing experience.

Xiaomi 14 has a triple-camera setup with a wide focal range from 14mm to 75mm. The Xiaomi 14 has Leica Summilux optical lenses, an improved ƒ/1.6 aperture on the primary camera, and a Light Fusion 900 image sensor with up to 13.5 EV dynamic range. The Leica 14mm ultra-wide camera now features 50MP resolution and the highly regarded Leica 75mm floating telephoto lens with a 10cm minimum focus distance.

Xiaomi 14’s 6.36″ CrystalRes AMOLED 1.5K (2670 x 1200) screen is stunning. With 460ppi, the screen boasts more details than before. The peak brightness of 3000 nits makes colors brilliant and images clear even in direct sunshine. Its variable refresh rate, from 1 to 120Hz, ensures fluid viewing throughout surfing, reading, and gaming.

Uncompromising hardware increases performance

Xiaomi 14 Series consumers get a flawless smartphone experience with cutting-edge CPUs, cooling technologies, and battery life.

The leading Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform powers Xiaomi 14 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which improves CPU performance by 32% and GPU performance by 34% and power consumption by 38% over the previous generation. Xiaomi 14 Series has Qualcomm FastConnect 7800, which provides 320MHz Wi-Fi 72. Xiaomi 14 Ultra revolutionizes high-speed multi-device connection with High Band Synchronous (HBS) Multi-Link, having the broadest channel and lowest latency.

Both smartphones run well in demanding situations like video recording, computational photography, real-time AI, and heavy gaming thanks to the Xiaomi IceLoop cooling technology. Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s Dual-Channel IceLoop technology adds a second thermal channel for the camera module for smoother photos and videos.

Xiaomi 14 and 14 Ultra include the Xiaomi Surge battery management mechanism for all-day performance. Xiaomi 14 has a 4610mAh battery with 90W and 50W wireless HyperCharge. Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s 5000mAh battery has 90W HyperCharge and 80W wireless HyperCharge.

Xiaomi HyperOS explores smart ecosystem future

Xiaomi 14 Series has the cutting-edge Xiaomi HyperOS operating system, developed over seven years. This human-centric solution for the “Human X Car X Home” smart ecosystem prioritizes Comprehensive Refactoring, Cross-Device Intelligent Connectivity, Proactive Intelligence, and End-to-End Security. Xiaomi 14 Series users can enjoy enhanced system fluidity with advanced file and memory management, a graphics subsystem-enriched UI, seamless device connectivity, and comprehensive security and privacy features to ensure a safe, connected experience with Xiaomi HyperOS.

Google photographs integration in Xiaomi Gallery lets users securely back up photographs and videos to Google Photos. From Xiaomi Gallery, users can view, edit, and share Google Photos backups. Xiaomi smartphones worldwide will have this feature in Spring 2024.

Xiaomi 14 Series uses Xiaomi HyperOS’s cutting-edge AI to make life smarter. Integration of large AI models into system applications streamlines and improves functionality. AI subtitles transcribe video conferencing speech in real time. AI Album Search uses natural language processing to help consumers find photographs in their photo collections by describing them. AI Portraits uses powerful algorithms to produce new portraits from existing pictures. AI Expansion also allows realistic visual content additions, expanding creative possibilities.

Xiaomi HyperMind lets gadgets anticipate user wants and respond appropriately. Xiaomi HyperMind uses devices’ environment, vision, sound, and behavior perception skills to learn user preferences and modify devices automatically. After user approval, Xiaomi HyperMind will automatically switch on the living room light upon opening their smart door lock.

Xiaomi changed its group strategy from “Smartphone x AIoT” to “Human x Car x Home” smart ecosystem at the end of October last year, including cars as a key priority. Xiaomi’s worldwide debut of Xiaomi 14 Series, new IoT devices, and Xiaomi SU7, all powered by Xiaomi HyperOS, solidifies its technical leadership. These portfolio developments demonstrate Xiaomi’s dedication to innovation and user experience.