#CHIPS and Science Act

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 02, 2024

Trump’s comments to right-wing media figure Tucker Carlson last night at an event in Glendale, Arizona, about former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), coming as they have after the extraordinary racism and sexism of Trump’s Sunday event at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, have have highlighted the centrality of the campaign's attack on women. 

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump told Carlson, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”  

Today, Trump surrogates have tried to say that he was referring to Cheney’s positions on American warfare, but it seems pretty clear he is fantasizing about seeing her in front of a firing squad. Journalist Magdi Jacobs noted the parallels between this statement and his 2020 command to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” the precursor to the Proud Boys’ attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In both statements, Trump avoided explicitly calling for violence, but absolutely set the stage for it. 

This morning, Cheney responded to Trump’s threat “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

While Trump began to attack Cheney openly when she accepted the role of vice-chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, where her presence clearly made Republicans—like Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows—willing to share what they knew, Trump’s recent bloody fantasies appear to have broader meaning.

Cheney has emerged as the key figure to urge Republican women to vote against Trump, and it is becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s reelection is in trouble in part because white women are abandoning him. The early hints that this is happening, like the huge gender gap showing up in early voting, have sparked a right-wing frenzy of attempts to restore the power of white men over the women in their lives. Right-wing men are insisting that wives should vote as their husbands do, or that women should lose the ability to vote altogether. 

Trump’s suggestion that Cheney should face a firing squad seems to be a general expression of the anger of white men accustomed to dictating the terms of public life when faced with the reality that they can no longer count on being able to cow the people around them.

Trump’s attack on Cheney has galvanized his unpopularity with women, while the larger meaning of the MAGAs’ attacks on women got additional illustration with the news broken today by Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana of ProPublica that a pregnant 18-year-old in Texas suffering from sepsis was turned away from emergency rooms twice before doctors at a third visit required two ultrasounds to make sure her fetus no longer had a heartbeat before they would move her into intensive care. She died within hours.  

Today’s news continued to be bad for Trump. Last week, on the Joe Rogan podcast, Trump talked about the CHIPS and Science Act that authorized about $280 billion to encourage domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S. While the law has brought significant private investment into the construction of new manufacturing plants and has created manufacturing jobs, Trump complained to Rogan, “That chip deal is so bad.” 

After listening to that conversation, journalist Luke Radel asked House speaker Mike Johnson in a report aired today whether, with Trump opposed to the bill and with Republicans having voted against it, the Republicans will try to repeal the law if they get majorities in Congress. Johnson responded “I expect we probably will, but we haven’t developed that part of the agenda yet.”

Republicans are determined to cut government spending to make way for more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But the CHIPS and Science Act has brought important supply chains home and has created more than 115,000 new high-paying jobs in the U.S. 

And it has brought significant investment to battleground states: $19.5 billion to Arizona, $75 million to Georgia, $325 million to Michigan, $750 million to North Carolina, and $93 million to Pennsylvania. Johnson quickly realized that acknowledging the Republicans’ hopes of repealing it was a bad mistake days before an election and, claiming he had not heard the question accurately, said he had no intent to undermine the CHIPS and Science Act. 

At a closed-door meeting earlier this week, Johnson said repealing the Affordable Care Act is a Republican priority. He tried to walk this comment back, as well, but Pennsylvania Republican senatorial candidate Dave McCormick kept the issue in front of voters when he was caught on a hot mic saying he wants to reform the ACA and that he opposes the provision in the ACA that allows children to stay on their parent’s health insurance until they’re 26.

Trump’s mental state continues to deteriorate, taking with it the former president’s inhibitions. After going on a rant about the people he blamed for troubles with his microphone at a sparsely attended rally in Warren, Michigan, the Republican nominee for president of the United States of America simulated oral sex on stage.

An official with the Harris campaign told reporters today that they “fully expect” Trump will replay the game plan of 2020 and claim victory on election night, before all the votes are fully counted. In an interview on Wednesday, Harris noted that they were ready if Trump prematurely declared victory: “We are sadly ready if he does and, if we know that he is actually manipulating the press and attempting to manipulate the consensus of the American people...we are prepared to respond,” she said. 

Washington State governor Jay Inslee has activated the state’s National Guard so it will be “fully prepared to respond to any…civil unrest” before or after the election. 

The Department of Justice today announced it would monitor the polls in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states to make sure they comply with federal voting rights laws. Although the federal government has monitored certain polls since 1965, officials in the states of Florida, Missouri, and Texas promptly announced they would not permit Department of Justice officials inside polling stations.

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris made two stops in Wisconsin today before packing the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center in West Allis near Milwaukee. 

In Madison, Harris told a reporter: “What I am enjoying about this moment most is that in spite of how my opponent spends full time trying to divide the American people, what I am seeing is people coming together under one roof who seemingly have nothing in common and know they have everything in common, and I think that is in the best interest of the strength of our nation.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[randyite]

[fisheito]

yakumo kiss data

comparing tongue tango data in the style of @contacthigh520 ! for the love of wobbly science? (original post on dante kisses here)

how were kisses counted? the same as the dante post... to the best of my ability. - kiss animation counts as one - text mention is another. kisses (plural) marked as 2+. - i included kisses on places other than the mouth. - i did not count vacuum succ blowjob as kiss. ? idk why🤣

while we're here... i wanted to test if my pattern recognition skills were actually picking up on something, or if i was hallucinating... so while i was counting kisses, i counted several other Seemingly Recurring Behaviours in the yakurooms:

what do you mean by each of those categories??

tongue activation: do they lick?? turns out: yes. more than kisses, technically. i feel like it's kinda .. expected for H rooms to involve tongue, so the 100% activation is probably common among all characters. if i were to calculate a yaku-initiating-tongue-only count, it would still be a high percentage >80%.

hands: hand holding, and adjacent acts of hand gesture. once again, a lot of rampant tender hand connections here. if you got hands, they're certainly useful in many situations, huh! another stat i think would be similar across clan members.

scent: yaku or eiden specifically mentions the other's scent. i didn't count the general descriptions of "scent of essence" in narration. yaku mentions eiden's scent significantly more than the other way around. but at a less than 50% presence in his rooms, yaku's not COMPLETELY a scent-based freak... (yet)

biting: chompchomp. tbh i'm surprised yaku's not more of a biter. maybe he's trying reeeaaallly hard to stay gentle and just... mouth on eiden instead of eviscerating him 🙂 crimson phantom was the bitiest what with the whole vampire roleplay shtick. eiden bites when he wants to get a rise out of yakumo. maybe once yaku gets more comfortable/less afraid of hurting eiden, nibbles will increase? taste as you go, yakumo. never stop tasting

asphyxiation: because yakumo seems to REALLY like choking eiden with his tongue. what in the name of shoddy breathplay…? turns out, yeah! yakumo is kinda trying to kill eiden via asphyxiation! more than via biting (once you remove all the counts of eiden doing the biting)! what are you, a boa constrictor? too afraid to use your venom?? if you even HAVE venom????? eiden, if you're losing this much oxygen every other time you fuck yakumo, i'm scared for you. you need to put his tongue on a leash.

ear: does yaku's sensitive gem location influence the rooms' overall focus on ears? not really. yaku will occasionally go for eiden's ears, and eiden will rarely, but lethally ,target yakumo's ears for tactical turn-ons. i am once again surprised. expected more of eiden's earplay warfare reducing yakumo to shreds.

nipples: a yaoi classic! not many instances of nipple attention with this pair, and i personally hope it stays that way. let's spice it up, people. we got other clan members for booby nipnoppular specialisation. yaku's reptilian. we can venture outside the realm of mammals.

vore: how many times has yakumo gotten cannibalistic (is it really cannibalism if one is a human and one is a yokai)? LESS than i thought, actually! eiden's got a 1 in 3 chance of activating yaku's vore tendencies depending on unit... and here i thought it was 50% or more? wow. ok. guess yakumo keeps his hunger in check better than i thought. good for you.

miscellaneous: one-offs that jumped to the forefront of my perception. the one instance of hair-pulling. the sickening scene of domesticity here and there. yaku implying that sucking eiden's dick would be a reward. ya know. fun stuff.

what else ya got? General notes. Things that happen , i think, a fair amount, but i didn't count the instances: - i don't think there has been a single time where yakumo STOPS after cumming. it's always marathon sex. R.I.P eiden's hole(s)

- something that is happening more frequently with recent units: eiden remarks that yakumo's dick feels like it GROWS LONGER DURING SEX; it feels LONGER than usual;etc. HOW? WHAT? is this a part of yakumo reconciling with his serpent side? I DONT THINK THAT'S HOW SNAKE DICKS WORK, RIGHT? THEY DONT KEEP GROWING FOREVER AFTER EVERY EMOTIONAL CATHARSIS, RIGHT?????? man is gonna be more dick than torso at this rate. every time he sticks his dick into eiden, it's gonna feel like a plumbing snake. useful for clogs, i guess. - yakumo still has a lotta work to do re: self-control. although eiden says that he's a quick study, and that he's vastly improved his angle/speed manipulation, the default is still yakumo losing control and thrusting into eiden with no remorse. no ease. all hip pain. Waiter Yakumo showed substantial progress with "patience", and i hope we get to see that more in the future... at least for room 5s. (i have zero complaint if room 2s continue to be subby yakumo breaking down and crying for his horny life 4evr)

[jcmarchi]

Global semiconductor shortage: How the US plans to close the talent gap

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/global-semiconductor-shortage-how-the-us-plans-to-close-the-talent-gap/

Global semiconductor shortage: How the US plans to close the talent gap

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The semiconductor industry, which is a cornerstone of modern technology and economic prosperity, has been dealing with a serious labour shortage for some time. The skills shortage appears to be worsening, with more than one million additional skilled workers required by 2030 to meet demand in the semiconductor industry, according to Deloitte. This pervasive issue extends beyond the US, affecting key players worldwide and threatening to impede the sector’s growth and innovation. 

Since countries have been striving to expand their semiconductor capabilities to meet escalating global demand, particularly since the pandemic, a skilled worker shortage has emerged as a critical bottleneck, undermining efforts to maintain and advance technological leadership in this vital industry. With over two million direct employees worldwide in 2021 and more than one million extra skilled professionals required by 2030, Deloitte expects that more than 100,000 hires are needed every year. 

For background, there are less than 100,000 graduate students enrolling in electrical engineering and computer science in the US each year, as per Deloitte’s data. Even countries like Taiwan, South Korea, China, Japan, and Europe are facing challenges in finding enough qualified workers to meet the demands of their rapidly expanding semiconductor sectors. For instance, Taiwan had a shortfall of over 30,000 semiconductor workers in late 2021, and South Korea is projected to face a similar shortfall over the next decade. 

China’s shortfall is even more severe, with estimates suggesting a need for over 300,000 additional workers​, even before the current chip growth and supply chain problems. This shortage is attributed to several factors. Many nations have seen their semiconductor manufacturing expertise erode over the years as production moved offshore. 

In the US, for example, the industry accounts for only about 12% of global chip production, with most of the advanced manufacturing know-how residing in Asia​. The lack of awareness about semiconductor careers among potential recruits also contributes to the talent gap, making it difficult to attract new workers to the field​. To top it off, the competition for semiconductor talent has also been showing signs of getting even tighter.

CHIPS Act and workforce development

In response to this growing issue, the US has introduced measures under the CHIPS and Science Act, aimed at boosting the domestic semiconductor industry and addressing the labour shortage. The Act allocates substantial funding towards the development of the semiconductor workforce, focusing particularly on technician roles and jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree. This is significant because about 60% of new semiconductor positions fall into these categories, according to McKinsey’s report.​

The CHIPS Act, passed in 2022, promotes various initiatives to build a robust talent pipeline. However, according to a recent report by Bloomberg, the US government is intensifying its efforts to address the semiconductor labor shortage through new initiatives, under the CHIPS Act, highlighting a significant expansion of educational and training programs aimed at developing a skilled workforce tailored to the industry.

“The program, described as a workforce partner alliance, will use some of the $5 billion in federal funding set aside for a new National Semiconductor Technology Center. The NSTC plans to award grants to as many as 10 workforce development projects with budgets of $500,000 to $2 million,” Bloomberg noted.

The NSTC will also be launching additional application processes in the coming months, and officials will determine the total level of spending once all the proposals have been considered. All of the finance comes from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, the landmark law that set aside $39 billion in grants to boost US chipmaking, plus $11 billion for semiconductor research and development, including the NSTC

Labour shortage: A long-term problem

Even with all these efforts, the semiconductor industry is likely to continue facing labour shortages in the long-term. The report from McKinsey highlights that even with substantial investments in education and training, the sector will struggle to find enough skilled workers to meet its needs. 

This is compounded by issues such as lack of career advancement opportunities, workplace inflexibility, and insufficient support, which drive many employees to leave the industry​, according to various analyses. Moreover, the competition for semiconductor talent is intensifying globally. Companies like Taiwan’s TSMC are recruiting experienced semiconductor workers from the US, India, Canada, Japan, and Europe. 

This global competition underscores the urgent need for collaborative initiatives to attract and retain skilled workers in the semiconductor industry​. After all, the labor shortage in the semiconductor industry is a complex challenge that requires multifaceted solutions. 

(Photo by Vishnu Mohanan)

See also: US clamps down on China-bound investments

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

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Tags: chips act, law, Legislation, Politics, semiconductor

[gf2bellamy]

part one: alert synchronicity

— ★ spencer spends a day surrounded by small reminders of you—and finally understands that he's already lost his heart to you.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader ( no use of y/n ) content warnings: nothing!

masterlist. - part two ✦ part three ✦ part four

Something shifted.

It wasn’t just a minor change, a fleeting blip in the rhythm of his day—no, this was something bigger. It was subtle, almost imperceptible.

Whether it was a trick of the mind or a deeper instinct trying to get Spencer's attention, he didn’t know.

He woke that morning with an odd heaviness in his limbs, the kind that made the simple act of opening his eyes feel like a monumental effort.

The space beside him was empty. Cold.

And for a long, disorienting moment, he stared at the undisturbed sheets, his mind caught between sleep and wakefulness, reality and the lingering traces of a dream he couldn’t quite recall.

You weren’t there.

Of course you weren’t. You had left hours ago, after the movie credits rolled and the apartment had settled into silence.

You had laughed at something he said, before gathering your things and slipping out with a quiet "Bye Spencer."

That had been the plan. That’s how it always went.

Yet, for twenty minutes, he lay there, motionless, his gaze fixed on the vacant space beside him as if expecting it to offer answers. His mind was a paradox—simultaneously blank and overcrowded, thoughts swirling like leaves caught in a gust of wind, too fast to grasp, too numerous to ignore. It was as though a hundred thoughts were scrambling for attention at once, but none of them quite made it to the surface. He couldn’t grab onto anything.

All he knew was that something didn’t sit right.

Was it just exhaustion? The residual effects of too many late nights and too many cases blurring together?

Because the truth was, he had felt it before. That eerie, inexplicable tug of fate, the universe nudging him toward something he couldn’t yet name. And today, it was stronger.

Today, it refused to be ignored.

The sensation clung to him like static, prickling beneath his skin even as he dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom. His reflection in the mirror looked tired—more than usual.

His eyes landed on the toothbrush—the one that wasn’t technically yours, but might as well have been. A soft pink handle, sitting next to his own.

He’d bought it months ago, after the third time you’d stayed over and sheepishly admitted you’d forgotten yours. It had been a practical decision at the time—a small, logical accommodation for someone who kept ending up in his space, in his life, for longer and longer stretches.

His fingers hovered near it, not quite touching, as if it might burn him. A strange warmth spread through his chest, fluttering and restless, but beneath it was something hollow, something aching.

He didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to understand it.

Shaking his head slightly, Spencer wandered into the kitchen. The fridge door groaned as he pulled it open, half-hoping for inspiration, half-hoping to distract himself.

He frowned at the nearly empty shelves. A few containers. Half a bottle of almond milk. Some leftover takeout he wasn’t entirely sure was still safe.

He pouted, just a little. That soft, childlike disappointment that slipped out before he could mask it.

And then, out of nowhere, a thought sparked:

Your cookies. The chocolate chip ones.

The kind you never used to bake until you learned he liked them more than your usual vanilla batches .

The first ones you made had been slightly burnt on the edges, the chips off balance, but you kept trying. Adjusting the recipe, tweaking it each time like it was a science experiment. The way you’d squint at the oven timer and mutter about ratios—it made him smile more than he ever let on.

Over time, they’d gotten better. Perfect, even. To the point where Spencer had started associating the smell of melted chocolate and brown sugar with you—with the way your nose scrunched when you laughed, with the flour dusting your sleeves, with the way you’d always leave a few extra in his freezer "just in case."

Now, the absence of them felt like a physical thing.

He closed the fridge door slowly and let out a long sigh, his back pressing against the cool metal as he leaned there for a moment.

But then his eyes caught something on the counter and his breath caught.

There, on the counter—your box of cookies. The very ones he’d just been craving.

The universe had a cruel sense of humor sometimes, dangling the answer to a thought he hadn’t even fully formed. A coincidence? Maybe. But the way his pulse jumped at the sight made it feel like something more.

A slow, disbelieving smile tugged at his lips as he reached for the box, his fingers brushing over the familiar creases in the cardboard—the same way you always folded the edges to keep them fresh.

On top, a note in your unmistakable handwriting:

“For my favorite genius. I know you probably don’t have anything to eat for breakfast. And you need to stop living off coffee.”

Next to it, a lopsided smiley face, the kind you always drew when you were teasing him.

And beneath it, another slip of paper—this one with a quote:

“I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.” —The Importance of Being Earnest.

His book. The one he’d lent you months ago, dog-eared and annotated in the margins with his cramped scribbles. You’d not only read it, you’d remembered it. Enough to pluck this line, this line, the one he’d laughed at when he reread it next to you.

Something warm and unnameable curled in his chest.

He gently traced the smiley face with his index finger before carefully peeling the note off the box and walking to the fridge. He smoothed the edges against the metal and stuck it there. Right in the center, right beside the magnet he never used. The quote followed, aligned just so.

Two little pieces of you.

He fully enjoyed the cookies—more than he wanted to admit. One turned into two, two into five, and before he knew it, he was staring at the bottom of the box, only two left. He hesitated, tempted to finish them off, but something made him stop. Maybe he wanted to save them. Maybe it felt symbolic somehow—leaving just a little behind.

He set the box aside with a quiet sigh, realizing it was probably time to face reality. If his breakfast consisted of cookies and the last splash of coffee from yesterday’s pot, then yeah—he needed groceries.

The thought alone was exhausting.

Reluctantly, Spencer went to get dressed. As he rummaged through his dresser for a sweater, his fingers brushed against something soft in the corner of the drawer. He paused, then slowly pulled it out.

The scarf.

The one you’d given him last winter, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, a little handwritten tag that simply said “For when the cold gets into your bones.”

He hadn’t worn it much. Not because he didn’t love it. He did. Too much, maybe. He was worried he’d ruin it, spill something on it, or catch it on a subway door or lose it in a moment of distraction.

So instead, it became a part of his quiet morning rituals—he’d look at it while choosing what to wear, smile to himself, then fold it back gently, like preserving something sacred.

It became a small, secret reminder of you that never failed to make his lips twitch upward.

But today, something tugged at him. Wear it.

He paused, hesitating. There was no case today. No flights, no crime scenes, no risk of ruining it in some chaotic whirlwind of work. It was just grocery shopping. A quick errand. No danger. No reason not to.

Before he could overthink it, he looped the scarf around his neck. The wool was warmer than he expected, carrying the faintest trace of cedar and vanilla—your perfume, maybe, or just the ghost of memory.

He slipped on his shoes, grabbed his coat, and stepped outside into the crisp morning air. The cold hit him immediately —but the scarf helped.

You helped.

And for once, Spencer didn’t feel quite so alone.

The drive to the grocery store should have been routine—just another mundane task.

Spencer flipped on the radio out of habit, his fingers automatically tuning to his usual station: the one that dissected quantum physics and debated the ethics of emerging technologies in monotone, academic voices. It was comforting, familiar. He usually looked forward to it. Even if he already knew most of the facts being discussed, there was something soothing about hearing others speak his language.

There was comfort in the predictability of it.

But today, the voices grated.

He listened for maybe a minute, maybe less. The words blurred together, sounding hollow in a way they usually didn’t.

He stared ahead at the red light, fingers tapping rhythmically on the steering wheel. Restless. Unsettled.

His gaze drifted to the radio display. Without really thinking, he pressed the button to change the station.

Click. Static. Then a beat.

And then—your favorite song.

It took him a second to register it, but once he did, his breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t a popular song, not one that played often. In fact, he could count on one hand the number of times he’d heard it on the radio.

But here it was. Blasting softly through his speakers like the universe had handpicked the moment.

The same song you’d hum under your breath while baking, the one you’d insisted on playing three times in a row that one rainy afternoon when he’d pretended to complain but secretly memorized every lyric.

His breath hitched.

For a heartbeat, he just stared, as if the universe had reached into his chest and plucked out a thought he hadn’t even fully formed. Behind him, a horn blared—sharp, impatient—jolting him back to reality.

“Oh. Sorry,” he muttered, flushing as he hit the gas, the car lurching forward a second too late.

He didn’t change the station.

The rest of the drive passed in a haze, the music wrapping around him like an echo of your voice.

By the time he pulled into the grocery store parking lot, the song had faded into something else, but the melody lingered, tangled up in the wool of your scarf and the ghost of flour on your hands.

Once he stepped out of the car, Spencer paused and looked up at the sky. Heavy clouds loomed overhead, dark and swollen with the promise of rain.

He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and muttered to himself, “Alright. Just in and out. Quick.”

October weather was unpredictable. He quickened his pace toward the store, shoulders hunched against the cold. The last thing he needed was to get caught in another downpour.

Like last night.

The memory surfaced unbidden: you, standing in his doorway, drenched and shivering, your hair plastered to your forehead while rainwater pooled at your feet. He’d panicked—of course he had—fussing over the cold you’d surely catch, the inconvenience, the unnecessary risk you’d taken just to watch some movie with him.

And then you’d grinned, wide and unrepentant, before launching yourself at him.

The hug was instantaneous, your arms locking around him, soaking his shirt through in seconds. He’d stiffened—“You’re getting me all wet!”—but you’d just buried your face in his shoulder and mumbled, “We’ll be sick together, Spencer.”

He hadn’t stood a chance.

You’d spent the rest of the evening wrapped in mismatched towels, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch, your laughter warmer than any blanket. And if a cozy evening like this with you made him get sick? Who was he to care? If anything, he had used the rain and the cold to scoot even closer to you on the couch, mumbling a small "My apartment is cold" as an excuse to press his thighs closer to yours.

Now, standing in the grocery store parking lot with the wind gnawing at his scarf—your scarf—he realized something with startling clarity:

He missed you.

Not in the abstract, distant way he missed people when they were gone. But viscerally, like a pit in his stomach, that couldn't be filled with anything but the sight of you standing infront of him with a smile.

The clouds overhead rumbled softly, like the sky missed you too.

Spencer turned toward the store, tugging his scarf a little tighter, and stepped forward, but something caught his eye.

Next to the grocery store, nestled between a laundromat and a pharmacy, was a new coffee shop. That in itself wasn’t unusual. But the name?

His breath caught slightly in his throat as he read the sign above the door.

Drip Drop Brew.

His eyes widened. He blinked, like maybe he had read it wrong. But no—those words stared right back at him, painted in playful script across the front window in soft red and black.

His breath stuttered.

“Drip drop drip drop,” you had murmured just last night as he made you tea, still damp from the rain.

You had stood beside him in the kitchen, doing absolutely nothing useful, your hair still curling with leftover stormwater. You never offered to help—and he never minded. You just liked being near him while he moved around the kitchen.

“Drip drop?” he’d repeated back, bemused, pouring hot water over chamomile leaves.

“The rain,” you’d said, as if it were obvious, tilting your head toward the sound. “Listen.”

And he had. Not to the weather, but to you—the way your voice softened around mundane things, how you found rhythm in the ordinary. It was ridiculous. It was perfect. It was such a you thing to do, finding magic in something as ordinary as the sound of water hitting glass.

Now, standing frozen on the sidewalk, the memory wrapped around him like the scarf still knotted at his throat.

A coincidence. It had to be.

But the way his pulse jumped said otherwise.

He took a slow breath, torn between stepping inside and continuing to the grocery store. He didn’t need coffee.

Groceries were forgotten the moment he pushed open the coffee shop door.

The place was you—cozy and vibrant, with mismatched armchairs in deep red and black , shelves lined with well-loved books, and the scent of freshly ground coffee.

He could already picture you here, curled up in that corner nook by the window, a half-finished report abandoned in favor of people-watching.

You both had a habit of doing reports in cafés—something that started as convenience and turned into tradition. A small ritual between the chaos of the job. He could still remember the first time you'd convinced Hotch to let it happen.

It had been on a slow day, paperwork piling up, everyone dragging. You'd walked into the bullpen and said, “What if we were… slightly more productive in a cozy public setting with caffeine and pastries?”

Complete with your best “convince-Hotch” smile.

Somehow, it worked.Honestly, most of the team had a hard time saying no to you. Even Hotch, who wasn’t exactly known for bending rules.

But Spencer? Spencer never stood a chance. He wasn’t even sure the word no existed in his vocabulary when it came to you.

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he’d ever truly said no to you. The word dissolved in his throat whenever you smiled at him.

He ordered a coffee—black, simple, but he let the barista add a drizzle of cinnamon syrup, just because it reminded him of the way you'd order his drinks when you thought he needed “spicing up.”

Then he settled down in the corner seat, back against the wall, giving him a view of the whole shop. It should’ve felt peaceful.

Instead, the absence beside him was deafening.

He let his eyes wander, taking everything in. The handwritten menu on a chalkboard. Cute drawings of animals, such as ladybugs. The tiny potted succulents lining the windowsill. A basket of dog treats by the door. A stack of used books by the counter with a handwritten sign that read: “Take one, leave one, love always.” C

Time slipped through his fingers like sand.

What should have been a thirty-minute grocery run had stretched into nearly two hours—first the coffee shop, then the quiet absorption of his book (of course he’d brought one; he’d sooner leave the house without pants than without reading material).

Eventually he forced himself to leave.

With a full bag of groceries and a head full of thoughts, he made it home. The sky had darkened even more, a low rumble of thunder in the distance echoing through the streets. Rain hadn’t started yet, but it was only a matter of time.

He unpacked everything robotically, stacking the pantry and fridge, then tossed his coat aside and curled up on the couch, blanket wrapped loosely around him.

He traced the spine of the book in his lap, his thumb brushing over the slight crease near the top.

Your book.

The one you’d pressed into his hands last week with theatrical solemnity, your brows furrowed in mock severity. “This one is my favorite,” you’d said, voice low, as if entrusting him with state secrets. When you’d jabbed a warning finger in his face, he’d barely suppressed a grin. “If anything happens to it—”

He’d waited, eyes bright with amusement, until you’d leaned in close, your voice dropping to a theatrical whisper: “You will know my rage in ways you’ve never known before.”

The threat was absurd—he’d seen you genuinely angry exactly once, and even then, you’d mostly just frowned harder—but he’d played along, snatching the book from your grip with exaggerated defiance.

“Terrifying,” he’d deadpanned, already flipping to the first page.

That was another one of your rituals: swapping books every week, your version of a love language. You’d once called it “literary matchmaking.” Every Friday, without fail, a book would be passed between you—sometimes annotated, sometimes dog-eared, always loved.

This book had been your favorite.

Now, tracing the dog-eared corner of page 111—your favorite passage—he realized with a quiet ache that he could almost hear your voice between the lines.

He’d read three chapters today, but the words blurred together, his focus frayed by the day’s odd synchronicities—the cookies, the scarf, the song, the café.

And now this: your favorite book in his hands, your phantom laughter between the lines.

Spencer exhaled, tilting his head back against the couch.

The universe, it seemed, was determined to remind him of you.

Thirty minutes later, he turned the final page.

The book was finished, and God, he understood now why you loved it so much—the way the prose curled around his ribs like smoke, the underlined passages that felt like secrets shared between just the two of you.

Your notes in the margins had been his favorite part: little exclamation marks beside plot twists, sarcastic commentary in the corners, the occasional doodle when you’d clearly gotten distracted.

With a quiet sigh, he set the book on his lap, but the spine—well-loved and cracked from years of your hands holding it—fell open again of its own accord.

And there it was.

A single line, highlighted in soft yellow, framed by a constellation of pink hearts you’d drawn with the same care you reserved for frosting cookies or arranging flowers in his too-empty apartment:

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

The air left his lungs in a rush.

It hit him with the force of a bullet train—no warning, no gradual buildup, just the devastating certainty of it.

The cookies. The scarf. The radio station. The coffee shop. The way his chest ached when you laughed. The way he’d memorized the cadence of your voice without meaning to. The way every road, every book, every breath seemed to lead back to you.

Oh.

Spencer Reid was in love with his best friend.

And the terrible, beautiful truth was—he’d been in love with you for a long, long time.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #13

April 5-12 2024

President Biden announced the cancellation of a student loan debt for a further 277,000 Americans. This brings the number of a Americans who had their debt canceled by the Biden administration through different means since the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first place in 2023 to 4.3 million and a total of $153 billion of debt canceled so far. Most of these borrowers were a part of the President's SAVE Plan, a debt repayment program with 8 million enrollees, over 4 million of whom don't have to make monthly repayments and are still on the path to debt forgiveness.

President Biden announced a plan that would cancel student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and bring debt relief to 30 million Americans The plan takes steps like making automatic debt forgiveness through the public service forgiveness so qualified borrowers who don't know to apply will have their debts forgiven. The plan will wipe out the interest on the debt of 23 million Americans. President Biden touted how the plan will help black and Latino borrowers the most who carry the heavily debt burdens. The plan is expected to go into effect this fall ahead of the election.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced the closing of the so-called gun show loophole. For years people selling guns outside of traditional stores, such as at gun shows and in the 21st century over the internet have not been required to preform a background check to see if buyers are legally allowed to own a fire arm. Now all sellers of guns, even over the internet, are required to be licensed and preform a background check. This is the largest single expansion of the background check system since its creation.

The EPA published the first ever regulations on PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in drinking water. The new rules would reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people according to the EPA. The Biden Administration announced along side the EPA regulations it would make available $1 billion dollars for state and local water treatment to help test for and filter out PFAS in line with the new rule. This marks the first time since 1996 that the EPA has passed a drinking water rule for new contaminants.

The Department of Commerce announced a deal with microchip giant TSMC to bring billions in investment and manufacturing to Arizona. The US makes only about 10% of the world's microchips and none of the most advanced chips. Under the CHIPS and Science Act the Biden Administration hopes to expand America's high-tech manufacturing so that 20% of advanced chips are made in America. TSMC makes about 90% of the world's advanced chips. The deal which sees a $6.6 billion dollar grant from the US government in exchange for $65 billion worth of investment by TSMC in 3 high tech manufacturing facilities in Arizona, the first of which will open next year. This represents the single largest foreign investment in Arizona's history and will bring thousands of new jobs to the state and boost America's microchip manufacturing.

The EPA finalized rules strengthening clean air standards around chemical plants. The new rule will lower the risk of cancer in communities near chemical plants by 96% and eliminate 6,200 tons of toxic air pollution each year. The rules target two dangerous cancer causing chemicals, ethylene oxide and chloroprene, the rule will reduce emissions of these chemicals by 80%.

the Department of the Interior announced it had beaten the Biden Administration goals when it comes to new clean energy projects. The Department has now permitted more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands, surpass the Administrations goal for 2025 already. These solar, wind, and hydro projects will power 12 million American homes with totally green power. Currently 10 gigawatts of clean energy are currently being generated on public lands, powering more than 5 million homes across the West. 

The Department of Transportation announced $830 million to support local communities in becoming more climate resilient. The money will go to 80 projects across 37 states, DC, and the US Virgin Islands The projects will help local Infrastructure better stand up to extreme weather causes by climate change.

The Senate confirmed Susan Bazis, Robert White, and Ann Marie McIff Allen to lifetime federal judgeships in Nebraska, Michigan, and Utah respectively. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 193

[jyeoulzhu]

wtf!

summary . y/n casually pulls aeri to the safer side of the sidewalk mid-yap session, leaving her malfunctioning. she clings to their sleeve, still in denial. later, y/n buys her ice cream and warms her hands in their hoodie pocket.

pairing . giselle x gender neutral reader

y/n and aeri have been walking for at least fifteen minutes, and in that time, they've managed to argue about the most irrelevant topics known to mankind.

it started with aeri suddenly gaslighting y/n into thinking that fish can drown. y/n, visibly distressed, refused to believe such nonsense, but aeri, being the menace that she is, kept insisting until they pulled out their phone to look it up. turns out, some fish actually can drown, which made aeri victorious and y/n existential.

"okay, but hear me out," y/n says, still recovering from the betrayal of science. "if the ocean is a giant soup—"

"oh my god, we are not doing this."

"listen."

"no. absolutely not."

"LISTEN."

"if you call the ocean a broth, i am literally going home."

y/n dramatically puts a hand on their chest. "aeri. be serious for a second. the ocean is made up of water, salt, animal carcasses, and seasoning from pollution. tell me that's not a soup."

aeri looks at them like they just committed a federal crime. "you need to be arrested immediately."

y/n cackles, too proud of their logic, and they keep walking, aeri muttering about how she needs better friends under her breath. the streetlights cast a soft yellow glow over the sidewalk, the air is crisp, and the sound of their footsteps fills the quiet night.

and then—it happens.

y/n reaches out mid-conversation, fingers grazing her wrist before gently wrapping around it, guiding her to the inner side of the sidewalk. it's so effortless, like they do it all the time, like it's natural.

aeri freezes.

wait. wait.

she stops walking, her brain malfunctioning, and y/n gets a few steps ahead before noticing she's no longer beside them.

they turn around, confused. "what?"

aeri squints at them. "did you just sidewalk-rule me?"

y/n raises an eyebrow. "uh, yeah?"

"why?"

"so you don't get hit by a car???" they say, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

aeri crosses her arms, trying so hard to act unbothered despite the full-on butterfly migration happening in her stomach. "what if i wanted to get hit by a car?"

y/n gives her the driest look known to mankind. "then do it when i'm not around."

she scoffs, annoyed that they sound so casual about it while she's literally about to go into cardiac arrest.

they keep walking, and aeri, despite her brain yelling at her, does something unhinged.

she grabs onto their sleeve.

not their hand, not their arm—just their sleeve. like she needs to hold onto something, like she's making sure they don't go anywhere.

y/n glances down, noticing it, and instead of teasing her, they just let her.

and that's when aeri realizes.

she's fucked.

—

they end up at a convenience store because y/n randomly decides they need ice cream, and aeri, still lowkey malfunctioning from the sidewalk incident, blindly follows.

she watches, in a daze, as y/n stands in front of the freezers, contemplating flavors like it's a life-or-death decision.

"okay, so like..." y/n furrows their brows. "cookies and cream is elite, but chocolate chip cookie dough has that texture."

aeri barely hears them. her mind is too busy replaying the moment from earlier like a glitching simulation.

"you good?" y/n asks, waving a hand in front of her face.

she blinks. "huh?"

"you've been staring at the freezer like it owes you money."

"oh," aeri says, stupidly. "yeah. i'm fine."

y/n narrows their eyes. "are you still thinking about the ocean soup thing?"

she snaps out of it immediately. "NO. SHUT UP. STOP BRINGING IT UP."

y/n just laughs and grabs the cookies and cream. when they get to the counter, aeri reaches to pay first, but y/n literally side-steps her and taps their card before she can even react.

she glares at them. "why."

y/n shrugs. "because."

aeri, still recovering from the sidewalk thing, is now recovering from this too.

—

by the time they're heading back, the city is quieter, the night air cooler, and the ice cream cups they bought are half-eaten. aeri is happily rambling about some drama she saw on twitter, and y/n is nodding along, responding every now and then with "no way, fr?" to make it seem like they're listening (they are, mostly).

at some point, y/n yawns.

"tired?" aeri teases, nudging them.

"you talk a lot."

"um, RUDE??"

"nah, i like it," they say casually, stretching their arms over their head.

aeri pauses.

hold on.

what the hell is she supposed to do with that information.

before she can think about it too much, y/n does something even worse.

they wrap an arm around her shoulders.

casually. like it's nothing.

like she's not about to explode.

"your hands are cold," y/n mumbles, pulling her a little closer.

aeri literally forgets how to breathe.

her brain is SCREAMING. her soul has left her body.

she's so frozen in shock that she doesn't even realize when she leans into them a little. just enough to feel the warmth, just enough so y/n knows she's not going anywhere.

and if she falls asleep thinking about it... yeah. nobody needs to know.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Horsey

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 11, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 12, 2024

“We’re producing more energy than ever before in this nation. We have the strongest economy in the world, and we are beating China for the first time in decades. More people went to work this morning in America than at any other time in our nation’s history. So I’ve got a message to Donald Trump and all his negativity and his whining: Stop sh*t talking America. This is the greatest country on earth, and it’s time that we all start acting like it.”

Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s words to Jen Psaki on MSNBC yesterday illustrated that Democrats are flipping the script on the MAGA Republicans. 

Since he decided to run for president in 2015, almost exactly nine years ago, Trump’s narrative has been that the United States is in terrible decline and that only he can “make America great again.” In his speech announcing his candidacy on that June day in 2015, he claimed that “our country is in serious trouble” and complained that China, Japan, and Mexico were all “beating” the U.S. and “laughing at us, at our stupidity…. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems,” he said before launching into the idea that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists across the border. “Our enemies are getting stronger and stronger…, and we as a country are getting weaker,” he said. “Even our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work.”

Trump claimed—falsely—that the nation’s gross domestic product was below zero, that the labor participation rate was “the worst since 1978,” that unemployment was between 18 and 20 percent, and that while Obamacare was “amazingly destructive,” he would replace it with something cheaper and better. 

Trump continued this theme of decline and what he called “American carnage” in his inaugural address. He described “[m]others and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our Nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”

Trump initially seemed to blame inept politicians and bureaucrats for what he claimed was America’s decline, assuring the audience at his 2015 campaign announcement: “Well, you need somebody, because politicians are all talk, no action. Nothing’s gonna get done. They will not bring us—believe me—to the promised land. They will not.” But when then–FBI director James Comey refused to drop the investigation into the relationship between Russian operatives and the 2016 Trump campaign, Trump and his loyalists began to warn of a secretive “deep state” that was working to undermine Trump and, with him, the nation. 

Trump’s narrative that he is the true defender of the United States, under attack by dark forces, maps beautifully over white evangelical narratives of religious decline. Trump continued that storyline even after voters turned him out of the White House, insisting that a nefarious conspiracy of Democrats, undocumented immigrants, and foreigners stole the election from him. 

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol estimated that Trump raised $250 million in donations from supporters for an “election defense fund” to pay the legal fees to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But the Trump team never actually set up that fund. Instead, the money went to the Save America political action committee founded and controlled by Trump, and from there the money went to Trump loyalists and pro-Trump organizations.

And therein lies a key reason for Trump’s story of an apocalyptic America: describing the nation as a hellhole that only he can fix also maps over a common pattern of American grifters. So long as supporters send him money, he claims, they will be able to defend the country against dark forces: communists, Marxists, atheists, immigrants, pedophiles, feminists—just what the dark forces are matters far less than that they are a foil for the grifter. 

When Trump made that argument in 2015, it was not all that far-fetched. Economists estimate that the supply-side economics of the past 40 years had shifted $50 trillion dollars from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%, hollowing out the middle class. Schools had been chronically underfunded, and the opioid epidemic, which began in 1999, was claiming more than 10,000 Americans a year (a number that has continued to rise ever since). And by weaponizing the filibuster and gerrymandering states, Republicans had made it extraordinarily difficult for Congress to accomplish anything that would address these issues.

When Biden took office, he was in the unusual position of signing executive orders to establish policies that were not unpopular, like Trump‘s, but that were extraordinarily popular. This began the process of showing that the government could, in fact, represent the people. 

Then, thanks to the election of Georgia senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in a runoff election on January 6, 2021—that was the seismic shift of January 6, 2021, that is often forgotten—the Democrats continued to demonstrate that the government could work for the people. They passed the American Rescue Plan to shore up the U.S. economy after the pandemic shutdowns, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to rebuild roads and bridges and improve broadband access, the CHIPS and Science Act to promote semiconductor manufacturing, the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in climate change mitigation and permit the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to close loopholes in gun purchases.  

Those changes have created a roaring economy with an unemployment rate that has just last month ticked up to 4% after 27 months below that number, with wages growing faster than the inflation that plagued the U.S.—and the world—after the pandemic eased. The highest wage growth has gone to the lowest earners, helping to cut the nation’s extreme wealth inequality.

That booming economy might be partly what’s behind another significant change: for all that Trump and MAGA Republicans still talk about Democratic cities as hellholes, the FBI yesterday released a report showing that violent crime in fact dropped by more than 15% in the U.S. during the first three months of 2024.  As Jim Sciutto of CNN pointed out today, “Murders fell 26.4% and rapes decreased by 25.7%. Aggravated assaults decreased by 12.5%, according to the data, robberies fell 17.8%.” In his own assessment, Biden attributed those dropping numbers to “putting more cops on the beat, holding violent criminals accountable, and getting illegal guns off the street.” 

On June 1, top sports talk host Colin Cowherd anticipated Shapiro’s pro-American stance when he pushed back on the Republican idea that the country is a dystopian nightmare. “[Trump’s] trying to sell me an America that doesn’t exist,” he said. “Stop trying to sell me on ‘everything’s rigged, the country’s falling into the sea, the economy’s terrible,’” he continued. “The America that I live in is imperfect. But compared to the rest of the world, I think we’re doing okay.”

Today, Biden pointedly illustrated one more difference between Trump and the real world. In the wake of his own conviction on 34 criminal counts, Trump has amped up his insistence that the Department of Justice is rigged against him and must be purged of nonpartisan civil servants and repopulated with his own loyalists. Biden today underscored his own respect for the rule of law. 

This afternoon a jury found Biden’s 54-year-old son Hunter Biden guilty on three charges of lying on a form required to purchase a gun in 2018 when he checked the “no” box that asked if he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to,” drugs. That lie permitted him to buy the gun that he owned for 11 days. His lawyer argued that he did not consider himself an addict because he was trying at the time to end his drug dependence. 

The news made the Trump team rush back to their narrative. “This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. Echoing the false allegations MAGA Republicans have made about President Biden, she added: “Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”

But there is no Biden family business, and Hunter Biden is not in the administration. President Biden has kept his distance from the case. Today he said, “I am the president, but I am also a dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery. As I…said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada’s ground-breaking, hamstrung repair and interop laws

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/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

When the GOP trifecta assumes power in just a few months, they will pass laws, and those laws will be terrible, and they will cast long, long shadows.

This is the story of how another far-right conservative government used its bulletproof majority to pass a wildly unpopular law that continues to stymie progress to this day. It's the story of Canada's Harper Conservative government, and two of its key ministers: Tony Clement and James Moore.

Starting in 1998, the US Trade Rep embarked on a long campaign to force every country in the world to enact a new kind of IP law: an "anticircumvention" law that would criminalize the production and use of tools that allowed people to use their own property in ways that the manufacturer disliked.

This first entered the US statute books with the 1998 passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), whose Section 1201 established a new felony for circumventing an "access control." Crucially, DMCA 1201's prohibition on circumvention did not confine itself to protecting copyright.

Circumventing an access control is a felony, even if you never violate copyright law. For example, if you circumvent the access control on your own printer to disable the processes that check to make sure you're using an official HP cartridge, HP can come after you.

You haven't violated any copyright, but the ink-checking code is a copyrighted work, and you had to circumvent a block in order to reach it. Thus, if I provide you a tool to escape HP's ink racket, I commit a felony with penalties of five years in prison and a $500k fine, for a first offense. So it is that HP ink costs more per ounce than the semen of a Kentucky Derby-winning stallion.

This was clearly a bad idea in 1998, though it wasn't clear how bad an idea it was at the time. In 1998, chips were expensive and underpowered. By 2010, a chip that cost less than a dollar could easily implement a DMCA-triggering access control, and manufacturers of all kinds were adding superfluous chips to everything from engine parts to smart lightbulbs whose sole purpose was to transform modification into felonies. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business-model."

So when the Harper government set out to import US-style anticircumvention law to Canada, Canadians were furious. A consultation on the proposal received 6,138 responses opposing the law, and 54 in support:

https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/04/copycon-final-numbers/

And yet, James Moore and Tony Clement pressed on. When asked how they could advance such an unpopular bill, opposed by experts and the general public alike, Moore told the International Chamber of Commerce that every objector who responded to his consultation was a "radical extremist" with a "babyish" approach to copyright:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/copyright-debate-turns-ugly-1.898216

As is so often the case, history vindicated the babyish radical extremists. The DMCA actually has an official way to keep score on this one. Every three years, the US Copyright Office invites public submissions for exemptions to DMCA 1201, creating a detailed, evidence-backed record of all the legitimate activities that anticircumvention law interferes with.

Unfortunately, "a record" is all we get out of this proceeding. Even though the Copyright Office is allowed to grant "exemptions," these don't mean what you think they mean. The statute is very clear on this: the US Copyright Office is required to grant exemptions for the act of circumvention, but is forbidden from granting exemptions for tools needed to carry out these acts.

This is headspinningly and deliberately obscure, but there's one anecdote from my long crusade against this stupid law that lays it bare. As I mentioned, the US Trade Rep has made the passage of DMCA-like laws in other countries a top priority since the Clinton years. In 2001, the EU adopted the EU Copyright Directive, whose Article 6 copy-pastes the provisions of DMCA 1201.

In 2003, I found myself in Oslo, debating the minister who'd just completed Norway's EUCD implementation. The minister was very proud of his law, boasting that he'd researched the flaws in other countries' anticircumvention laws and addressed them in Norway's law. For example, Norway's law explicitly allowed blind people to bypass access controls on ebooks in order to feed them into text-to-speech engines, Braille printers and other accessibility tools.

I knew where this was going. I asked the minister how this would work in practice. Could someone sell a blind person a tool to break the DRM on their ebooks? Of course not, that's totally illegal. Could a nonprofit blind rights group make such a tool and give it away to blind people? No, that's illegal too. What about hobbyists, could they make the tool for their blind friends? No, not that either.

OK, so how do blind people exercise their right to bypass access controls on ebooks they own so they can actually read them?

Here's how. Each blind person, all by themself, is expected to decompile and reverse-engineer Adobe Reader, locate a vulnerability in the code and write a new program that exploits that vulnerability to extract their ebooks. While blind people are individually empowered to undertake this otherwise prohibited activity, they must do so on their own: they can't share notes with one another on the process. They certainly can't give each other the circumvention program they write in this way:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

That's what a use-only exemption is: the right to individually put a locked down device up on your own workbench, and, laboring in perfect secrecy, figure out how it works and then defeat the locks that stop you from changing those workings so they benefit you instead of the manufacturer. Without a "tools" exemption, a use exemption is basically a decorative ornament.

So the many use exemptions that the US Copyright Office has granted since 1998 really amount to nothing more than a list of defects in the DMCA that the Copyright Office has painstaking verified but is powerless to fix. We could probably save everyone a lot of time by scrapping the triennial exemptions process and replacing it with an permanent sign over the doors of the Library of Congress reading "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

All of this was well understood by 2010, when Moore and Clement were working on the Canadian version of the DMCA. All of this was explained in eye-watering detail to Moore and Clement, but was roundly ignored. I even had a go at it, publicly picking a fight with Moore on Twitter:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130407101911if_/http://eaves.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/Conversations%20between%20@doctorow%20and%20@mpjamesmoore.jpg

Moore and Clement rammed their proposal through in the next session of Parliament, passing it as Bill C-11 in 2012:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Modernization_Act

This was something of a grand finale for the pair. Today, Moore is a faceless corporate lawyer, while Clement was last seen grifting covid PPE (Clement's political career ended abruptly when he sent dick pics to a young woman who turned out to be a pair of sextortionists from Cote D'Ivoire, and was revealed as a serial sex-pest in the ensuing scandal:)

https://globalnews.ca/news/4646287/tony-clement-instagram-women/

Even though Moore and Clement are long gone from public life, their signature achievement remains a Canadian disgrace, an anchor chain tied around the Canadian economy's throat, and an impediment to Canadian progress.

This week, two excellent new Canadian laws received royal assent: Bill C-244 is a broad, national Right to Repair law; and Bill C-294 is a broad, national interoperability law. Both laws establish the right to circumvent access controls for the purpose of fixing and improving things, something Canadians deserve and need.

But neither law contains a tools exemption. Like the blind people of Norway, a Canadian farmer who wants to attach a made-in-Canada Honeybee tool to their John Deere tractor is required to personally, individually reverse-engineer the John Deere tractor and modify it to talk to the Honeybee accessory, laboring in total secrecy:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/12/canada_right_to_repair/

Likewise the Canadian repair tech who fixes a smart speaker or a busted smartphone – they are legally permitted to circumvent in order to torture the device's repair codes out of it or force it to recognize a replacement part, but each technician must personally figure out how to get the device firmware to do this, without discussing it with anyone else.

Thus do Moore and Clement stand athwart Canadian self-reliance and economic development, shouting "STOP!" though both men have been out of politics for years.

There has never been a better time to hit Clement and Moore's political legacy over the head with a shovel and bury it in a shallow grave. Canadian technologists could be making a fortune creating circumvention devices that repair and improve devices marketed by foreign companies.

They could make circumvention tools to allow owners of consoles to play games by Canadian studios that are directly sold to Canadian gamers, bypassing the stores operated by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo and the 30% commissions they charge. Canadian technologists could be making diagnostic tools that allow every auto-mechanic in Canada to fix any car manufactured anywhere in the world.

Canadian cloud servers could power devices long after their US-based manufacturers discontinue support for them, providing income to Canadian cloud companies and continued enjoyment for Canadian owners of these otherwise bricked gadgets.

Canada's gigantic auto-parts sector could clone the security chips that foreign auto manufacturers use to block the use of third party parts, and every Canadian could enjoy a steep discount every time they fix their cars. Every farmer could avail themselves of third party parts for their tractors, which they could install themselves, bypassing the $200 service call from a John Deere technician who does nothing more than look over the farmer's own repair and then types an unlock code into the tractor's console.

Every Canadian who prints out a shopping list or their kid's homework could use third party ink that sells for pennies per liter, rather than HP's official colored water that cost more than vintage Veuve Cliquot.

A Canadian e-waste dump generates five low-paid jobs per ton of waste, and that waste itself will poison the land and water for centuries to come. A circumvention-enabled Canadian repair sector could generate 150 skilled, high-paid community jobs that saves gadgets and the Earth, all while saving Canadians millions.

Canadians could enjoy the resliency that comes of having a domestic tech and repair sector, and could count on it through pandemics and Trumpian trade-war.

All of that and more could be ours, except for the cowardice and greed of Tony Clement and James Moore and the Harper Tories who voted C-11 into law in 2012.

Everything the "radical extremists" warned them of has come true. It's long past time Canadians tore up anticircumvention law and put the interests of the Canadian public and Canadian tech businesses ahead of the rent-seeking enshittification of American Big Tech.

Until we do that, we can keep on passing all the repair and interop laws we want, but each one will be hamstrung by Moore and Clement's "felony contempt of business model" law, and the contempt it showed for the Canadian people.

Image: JeffJ (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_Clement_-_2007-06-30_in_Kearney,_Ontario.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

--

Jorge Franganillo (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duga_radar_system-_wreckage_of_electronic_devices_(37885984654).jpg

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

[solacefish]

✎ File contents - Sebastian Solace x Reader ( 1.3k )

⎙ Examination Results - Sebastian can't handle company, the very thought of another's affection or gaze upon him could make him throw up. So he takes it out on you, by mistake.

⌕ Research Gathered - Angst, Yelling and arguments, Unrequited ( suggested requited ) love, Mentions of his experiments + transformation, Mentions of death, Sebastian can't open up ™.

What did it mean to be loved? What did it mean to love?

Was the dull ache at the bottom of his heart - muffled by mutations and a scarring of who he once was. The tales of his childhood, the sounds of a youth he could never return to. Was that what he longed for? What he dreamt of?

Sebastian didn't dream, he didn't recall the last restful night. Memories stirred between azure eyes, eyes that weren't his own. Nightmares seemed a too gentle term to refer, and terrors wouldn't fully commit to the sickness he felt upon awakening.

The night was the same as any other, having passed out by his desk - having never remembered otherwise. Awoken by the sounds of screaming, echoes of his own against those cold damp facility walls. Never a current sound, always a reminiscent of what had happened to get him into this mess. Always.

Had he remembered to take melatonin from the many drawers that littered the science departments, had he bothered to look at all. The feeling of being lulled, forced, to sleep against his will by medication was not something he happened to be fond of. Not at all.

Running a hand through charcoal locks, hearing the footsteps of an expendable from the outer corridors. Not a moment of rest down here, none were allowed. Had you taken time to rest, you'd have to be risking your life. Urbanshade didn't seem too fond of waiting longer then 5 minutes for their prisoners to move, he'd crossed enough corpses and brain paintings to know.

Awfully so, a facility so willing to kill upon the smallest disturbance.

The expendable crawled through the vent, standing unproud with a ripped wetsuit and cracked mask. Lucky your oxygen tank hadn't been chipped, this whole place was filled with water. He smiles, clasping his hands together and gesturing vaguely to the items that adorned his scales.

"Welcome back .. You already know how this goes, hm?"

He'd recognised you. The one who cannot stay gone - a dead man walking as much as he is. Both of you didn't expire when you were supposed to, and for that you suffer in agony every day.

You nodded, wordlessly walking over to pick up a medkit. He'd noticed a few scratches, a limp on your left leg. Perhaps you'd twisted your ankle, there was enough to run from down here. Enough exercise to be had. They could open a gym, it might be a worthy investment. Rather then experimenting, try new yoga...

"How much?" You look up, and he returns the gaze. Thinking for just a moment, enough to act like he hasn't spent the hours and months down here memorising and practicing the exact amounts of data hed request for each thing he scavenged.

"200. No discount services, never have been. You've been here before, haven't you?" His voice is louder then he remembered. After so long without speaking, he'd forgotten how different the services Urbanshade had cost him from who he was.

You nod, opening the box and immediately giving yourself time to tend to your injuries. wrapping it around a wrist, a leg, anyplace with the crimson bleed that ached to be seen. Sebastian didn't mind the company, but the feeling of nausea that came across his chest the longer you remained was hard to ignore.

"Sebastian," A voice, your voice, brings him back for just a moment. You notice the look in his eyes, and he stirrs where he's stationed for just a moment. "You can talk to me, you know? We're friends, aren't we?"

Friends. Was this a comedy setup?

Sebastian's jaw ached for a moment, letting out an exhale as he remembered the bleeding of his teeth upon his own gums. Whilst biting his tongue and gritting his teeth used to work - it happened to be much more painful after the experiments took place. Unfortunate, but with his humanity stripped away, some sass as a defence wouldn't hurt him as much.

"I don't talk, not to you." He responded bitterly, as if he was straining his voice to keep himself in check. "You remember where you're standing." A huff blew some of the locks out from his face. He didn't see you as any worth, the data you served him so happily was enough to satisfy, however the company wasn't something he was interested in.

"It's nice to open up," You begin, "I know where i'm stood, and I don't mind sitting to be here for you. You're a great guy, honestly, and you need a shoulder to cry on like any other person."

He feels his restraint snap, just a moment. A resistance of a rubber band that had been stretched by a child that moment too far - flicking it at somebody else wasn't enough.

"Don't you fucking dare to call me that." He retorted, his voice echoing off the walls. Sebastian swore he could hear those screams again, of a 19 year old with a life ahead of them. A good person? Were you serious? Were you blind?

A man framed of 9 murders, a man who turned it to 50. How to live with the guilt he was what they made him out to be. A living weapon, with a maw for shredding and tearing, and a claw meant to slide across a throat like butter. To look in a puddle of his self reflection and call himself good? He might as well have let the side effects take him.

You'd flinched, he had noticed, but he hadn't cared. He wanted to make himself clear, for the first time in a long time, to be heard. If you were an unfortunate soul who'd be the one to take his frustrations like a sponge, then he can be the ocean to accompany.

"I'm just trying to help!" You state, he growls. Every bone in his body wanted him to lunge, to rip you apart. The human heart caged beneath the ribs that told him to stop, that ached to be sensitive and free. The DNA that told him to attack, to prowl.

His body was at a war with itself, to tear itself apart. He would never have won.

"I don't need anybodies help!" He yelled, the fins in place of his ears were pinned firmly to the sides of his head. You'd shook your head, and he noticed the reflex that had made you take a step back. You were scared of him. Of the monster before you - had you only just realised he was a predator? He was not ever your friend.

"Please-! I love you-!" The words burst through your lips as the same as sebastians breathing worsens. He can't handle it, it's too much. The sickness of bile in his throat, the acid that threatened to release itself. He wasn't lovable, there was nothing to be adored or admired. You were lying to him, you were pitying him.

"Get out!" There's defiance, the rejection to your words. His body ached, his heart hurt. To be loved was a curse, to love was an unknown. With his breathing heavy, a loud crash as he slammed the vent cover back after you'd scrambled out. He could never be in control of a body that wasn't his to begin with.

Sebastian clutched the sides of his head, the serpentine tail curling around his helpless body. The unfamiliar limbs that tore his soul apart. He could never let himself. He could never see himself ever again.

He hated what it meant to be loved. He hated to be seen, to be known. He hated what they'd done to him, what had become of him. To be loved was to be lied to - to love was to deceive.

Seabstian could apologise later. But he hoped you'd never return. He didn't deserve to await you.

taglist ; @fl1ghtl3ssdrag0n

[arkofangels]

Hamster Wars

Pairing: Yelena Belova x Reader Summary: Dating Yelena is going great—except for one tiny, fluffy problem: you could swear her overly protective hamster, Nikolai, has it out for you… and you don’t know why.

A/N: watch me make up shit about this hamster cuz i'm bored, also I’m like 80% sure it’s actually a guinea pig, but we’ve gone too far for edits now.

Word count: 644

Yelena’s apartment was spotless, organized, and—oddly enough—full of tiny chew toys and shredded paper towels. The culprit? A one-pound ball of aggression named Nikolai, a white-and-tan Syrian hamster with the soul of a Russian mob boss and the eyes of someone who knew how to hold a grudge.

You were 85% sure he hated you.

No, you knew he hated you.

He'd squeak whenever you walked in, sometimes even throw a wood chip in your direction. Once, he unplugged your phone charger with his tiny rodent paws. The audacity.

“Yelena, your hamster is glaring at me again,” you muttered, tiptoeing past his cage.

She looked up from the kitchen, where she was spreading mayo on a sandwich like it was a delicate science. “He does that to everyone.”

You leaned in. “He flipped me off.”

Yelena laughed, biting into her sandwich. “He doesn’t even have fingers.”

“He used his soul, Lena. His tiny, vengeful soul.”

Yelena rolled her eyes and crossed the room to scoop Nikolai up. He nestled into her hands like a harmless puffball, letting out a content squeak as she stroked his head. It was sickening how cute he acted in her arms.

“He’s just protective,” she said. “He’s never liked anyone I dated.”

“Why? Because he’s your fuzzy ex?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “He saw the others leave and decided he was the only one allowed to stay.”

You frowned at the hamster, who narrowed his beady black eyes at you from the safety of Yelena’s hoodie pouch.

The stare-off continued for weeks.

Whenever you stayed over, you’d wake up with your sock drawer mysteriously shredded (guess who?). You caught him dragging your shoes by the laces into his cage once like it was a trophy. He gnawed a bite out of your favorite hoodie, and you swore he smiled.

One night, you and Yelena were watching a movie, tangled up on the couch, when Nikolai was perched smugly on the armrest beside you, munching a sunflower seed with unsettling intensity.

“Same energy,” you mutter, glaring at him. “He knows I’m stealing your attention.”

Yelena’s grin widens, and she tilts her head, her lips brushing your ear. “Stealing my attention, huh? You think you’re that charming?”

Your face heats up, but you lean into her teasing. “I mean, I’m at least top three in this apartment. Me, Nikolai, and that vest you love.”

“Bold,” she says, her voice low and playful. She shifts, straddling your lap now, Nikolai gently relocated to a cushion. “But maybe you’re right. You’re… distracting.” Her hands frame your face, and she kisses you, slow and deliberate, tasting faintly of the coffee she drank earlier.

You’re melting into her when—scramble, squeak—Nikolai launches himself from the cushion like a fuzzy missile, landing on your chest with a vengeance. Tiny claws dig into your shirt, and you flinch, breaking the kiss.

“NIKOLAI!” Yelena gasps, scooping him up like a disappointed mother. “No assassinating my date during makeouts. We talked about this.”

You’re wide-eyed, catching your breath, while the hamster smugly nuzzles into Yelena’s palm like he didn’t just commit an act of war.

“He did that on purpose,” you mutter.

“He’s… passionate.”

“He’s unhinged.”

Yelena just shrugs. “He’s Russian.”

Eventually, you and Nikolai reach a truce. You bring him organic pumpkin seeds (bribes), and he stops chewing your charging cables (minor miracle). You even start calling him "little comrade," which seems to earn you one reluctant nose-wiggle of approval.

Yelena, smug as ever, would watch the two of you with amusement. “See? I told you he’d warm up.”

You glance at the hamster, now lounging on a tiny pillow made from your stolen sock.

“Warm up is a strong word,” you mutter. “This is a ceasefire, not a friendship.”

But when Yelena kisses you goodnight and Nikolai doesn’t immediately launch another attack, you figure… maybe that was good enough.

[radiohao]

you belong with me!

sypnosis: it’s a common cliché — the new girl falls in love with the school’s handsome jock. there’s just oneee little problem; he’s dating the captain of the cheerleading squad! don’t worry though, they’ll end up together somehow.

or in which… you’re the captain of the cheerleading team and your classmate confesses her profound love to your popular jock boyfriend. yikes!

pairing: tokuno yushi x reader (she/her pronouns) edit: actually this fic is gn i just reread it LOL ft. sion, aeri, ningning, one (1) mention of tws hanjin LOL

genre: crack, small angst, fluff, soccer player!yushi, cheerleader!reader, uni!au, bulletpoint fic

warnings: baby and sweetheart as pet names, mentions of food (?), cringy, not proofread i’m so sorry

wc: 1.7k

— august 5, 8:00 am

you and yushi are literally the power couple of the campus

the handsome yet quiet jock and the pretty, outgoing cheerleader? a match made in heaven if i've ever seen one

the two of you met in science class when paired for a project back in freshman year

slowly you got close with him and became best friends, an unlikely pairing to some eyes, but it worked perfectly for you two

then in junior year yushi confessed to you

it wasn't anything grand or over-the-top, it was just... a confession

a simple "i've developed feelings for you, and if you feel the same i'd love to be yours just as you'd be mine."

i mean, who could say no to that?

"i feel the same way, ushi."

and now here you two are, starting your final year of university stronger than ever

your couple dynamic started getting more traction when yushi got accepted into the soccer team and you into the cheerleading squad

people started LOVING your little moments together

you and your public affection for yushi, always hugging him or giving him good luck kisses for soccer games

him and his quieter acts of love, holding a matcha latte for you in his hand as he waits outside your class, remembering the little things you tell him

people ATE IT UPPPPP (and so would i)

but since yushi isn’t one for big gestures, you resorted to smaller acts like giving him snacks for soccer practice or making him lunch

he’s more affectionate in private and you always respected that

but things started changing when the new girl transferred

uchinaga aeri

"what a fancy name" you first thought

ningning, your best friend and roommate, introduced you to her

she started getting popular in a way

how could she not? she's incredibly pretty!

very reserved though, only started talking to people in the cheer squad when you invited her to tryouts

she was surprisingly very good! got in right away

you introduced her to yushi because you thought they'd get along since he can speak japanese to her

and you were right! the two immediately clicked

you could tell aeri was very comfortable with yushi because she was much more talkative

they were getting close but you didn't mind! you trusted yushi and you had no reason to be worried

...right?

— october 30

2 months go by and aeri has officially joined your little group

it's you, yushi, ningning, and aeri

things are going well! aeri's coming out of her shell and embracing her true self thanks to ning and yushi

she changed a lot from when she first came

aeri dyed her hair a baby pink, started wearing more statement clothes, etc.

very cute look on her! others think so as well since guys started asking her out

and it's nice for yushi too because he has a friend to talk to in his mother tongue

everything is working out!

things are taking a turn for the better

little do you know

— november 11, 4:31 pm

one day, you head to the soccer field to give yushi one of his favorite potato chip snacks

you can't seem to spot him though

"looking for mr. tokuno?" a voice says

you turn around

oh, sion! (pun intended)

"yeah, i just wanted to give him some food"

"i saw him go in locker rooms, try check there"

you thank sion and start heading there

u enter the locker rooms and slowly peek your head through the doorway just so you don't walk into someone changing LOL

and there you see it

yushi and aeri talking on one of the benches

she's saying something in japanese that you obviously can't understand

your bf looks un-entertained

"you shouldn't be here. not even y/n comes back here." he says sternly

aeri scoffs

"so what?"

excuse me????? your brows furrow and a frown grows on your face

"so that means you should leave." yushi's voice firms

aeri giggles and playfully shoves him, "okay okay, i'll go ushi-kun. let's just talk later!"

when did she start calling yushi by the nickname you had for him?

your stomach drops

why do you feel so nauseous?

— november 17, 2:15 pm

a couple days go by and you're still thinking about what you saw in the locker room

maybe you're just overthinking things

if anything you should be glad that aeri is being all friendly!

you're currently walking up to the rooftops of one of the buildings

it's usually where you and yushi go to eat lunch

suddenly, you see ning and sion running towards you like madmen

what the hell is going ON???

"Y/N, Y/N! baby i’m so sorry-“ ningning starts, tears welling up in her eyes

“honey what’s going on?” you ask as she catches her breath

sion finishes the sentence for her

“aeri’s asking yushi out on a date”

you freeze

what?

sion rubs ning on the back soothingly

“it’s okay, we all know yushi loves her, we just wanted to let you know y/nnie”

“this is all my fault! i should’ve never introduced aeri to you y/n i’m so sorr-“

you pull ningning in for a hug

she gets emotional easily lol

“we’ll take you there if you want” sion suggests

you agree

GET YOUR MAN!!!

— november 17, 2:22 pm

the three of you head over to the soccer field

immediately you see it

aeri is standing in front of yushi near the water jug

she’s talking with what seems like a newfound confidence in herself

the rest of the soccer team is on the benches just watching

what a bunch of chismosos, am i right? (sion takes a seat next to ryo and you sit next to him)

it’s like aeri has no shame in talking to YOUR boyfriend infront of his whole team!

but you also have no shame eavesdropping on their conversation

touché

you can hear aeri’s voice clear as day

“ushi-kun, i just wanted to say that i’ve developed feelings for you. you showed me that change is an opportunity for new beginnings, that being myself isn’t something i should be afraid of, and that loving somebody doesn’t have to be grand or extraordinary, that love finds its way into everyday things and mundane matters. thank you for allowing me to be myself. please let me take care of you properly.”

oh

well that wasn’t what you expected at all

you start to think that her confession was even better than yours

it makes you think back to when you first met aeri

she was so quiet, and now she’s much more comfortable with herself

and it’s all thanks to yushi

maybe she makes him feel the same

you can practically feel your body tensing up awaiting yushi’s response

he stares at her blankly and softly says something in japanese

it's short and sweet

yushi then walks away

the sinking feeling in your stomach tells you that it’s better not to know what he said.

he may be your boyfriend, but why does it feel like you're fighting for something that should already be yours?

— january 8, 11:30 am

it’s been less than 2 months since aeri confessed to yushi

you haven’t brought it up since

maybe it's petty or immature but can you really be blamed?

perhaps it isn't even your business to ask

yushi notices you've been distant

of course he does

he just needs to find the right time to talk to you about it

— january 8, 10:56 pm

so this was definitely not the right time

he's practically sprinting to you and ning's shared dorm rn

not only is he out of breath but it’s also pouring rain

horrible timing, he thinks

he arrives at your dorm and knocks on your door frantically

you on the other hand are making dinner

ning's out on a date with some guy named hanjin? you forgot tbh

someone starts pounding on your door like crazy

"DAMN GIRL HOLD ON i'm getting to it!" you shout, thinking it was ningning oops

but you open the door to your very much distressed boyfriend

he's wearing his signature denim jacket with a white tee inside and sweats

and even though he’s basically drenched in rainwater the droplets slide down his cheeks just right and they lay on drop of his eyelashes so beautifully

wow

he looks so pretty ugh no wonder why aeri likes h-

"baby, i'm freezing here."

his voice snaps you out of your trance

oh RIGHT

you apologize and let him in right away, running to the bathroom and giving him a towel to dry his hair

he sits on your couch and you do the same, taking up the space next to him

"why are you here so damn late?” you scold him “it’s pouring out there too! what were you thinking?”

“i know you were there when aeri said she liked me. i know you heard everything. i know you think that i accepted her confession.”

UM OKAY DAMN HOW DOES HE KNOW

your jaw hangs open because hello???

goddamn he NAILED it

you can barely look him in the eyes as you try to respond

“i—“ “y/n.” you look up at yushi, who’s already staring at you very intensely

“listen to me sweetheart, okay?”

you nod (it’s all you can manage to do)

“i do not love her. i belong to you just as you belong to me. i only see aeri as an acquaintance, nothing more. you make me feel safe, comfortable, and loved. you turn my rainy days around and make the sunny ones even brighter. please never think that you will be replaced. the love you’ve shown me is of a price that nothing can buy. i love you, y/n.”

oh

well that wasn’t what you expected at all pt.2

he’s so sweet it makes you want to sob

wait, are you crying?

oh yeah we’re crying

hereee we go with the waterworks

you can’t even get a word out because you’re practicing sobbing at this point but yushi just hugs you tightly and rubs the back of your neck as his other hand is rubbing small circles into your waist

“how do you always know what to say” you ask through sobs

he chuckles

“i can read you like a book”

yushi holds you for the rest of the night, pressing small kisses on your forehead as he does so

— february 27, 8:20pm

back and better than eva baby!!!

you and yushi are doing much better now, if not better than the beginning of the school year

aeri has a group of new friends now, and both you and yushi say hi to her occasionally, but things have changed

and that’s okay!

yushi’s game against the rival uni just finished

close match but yushi’s team stay winning!!!

there was supposed to be a victory celebration at a nearby restaurant but he wanted to go to his dorm so you agreed

he must be tired

as you enter his dorm you take notice of how everything seems so… sentimental?

candles are lit, warm lighting is surrounding the living room, soft music is playing

what is going ON

you step forward a little bit and there it is

all your favorite snacks set up nicely in a basket, your favorite character's plushie sitting on the couch, a HUGE ass bouquet of flowers, and balloons that spell out 'happy anniversary'

you laugh out loud

he's really outdone himself

yushi may not be someone that loves in public, but when he does, he does it right

— bonus

after aeri confesses, yushi says something in japanese so you can't understand

what was it, you may ask?

"my heart belongs to someone else."

—

author's note: AAAAAAA my first actual fic?? i don't know how i feel i'm not good with words so it's probably booty

please make sure to like or reblog if you enjoyed it and pls be nice or i'll cry :') have an amazing night!

[moonlight-prose]

mr. perfectly fine

a/n: i've had this in my drafts since i saw the trailer of we live in time. and honestly it was basically done, so i don't know why i didn't just drop it. so this is me digging it back up and putting some finishing touches on this quick drabble of angst. it's small, but writing it really made me want to re-watch the movies. so we'll see if anything comes from that. for now though, enjoy!

summary: there's a lot you would change in your relationship with peter. how late he'd show up to dates, the massive amount of missed calls and texts, and his forgetfulness. only there's a defining factor that might shift the entire trajectory of your lives together. peter parker was spider-man...and you didn't know.

word count: 2.3k+

pairing: peter parker x reader

warnings: not explicit, angsty as fuck though, peter gets dumped (sorta) but it doesn't last long, lots of tears, secrets exposed, fluff, forgiveness.

New York always seemed to reflect your emotions with ease. Like a mirror you couldn't break, or even avoid. Maybe it happened because you were looking for it without realizing; searching for answers to the never-ending questions that nagged at you. Different ways to work out the equations that held no solutions. A new way of figuring it out.

Yet no matter how many trials you ran, how many times you inputted the numbers, you seemed to always find yourself staring at the one thing that made sense. ERROR.

You counted the times he stood you up, tracked the calls he missed and the texts he only read but never answered. You compiled them like research, as if you were stuck in your lab and he was the experiment. He became the hypothesis you had to back up with well crafted proof. Only science never helped in situations of love. And you found that counting the days, watching the minutes and seconds go by, only made things worse.

The dinner went cold an hour ago, the candles snuffed, and the soft love songs were traded out for something sadder. Like other nights, you half expected you'd see him in the early hours of dawn. The glow of sunrise illuminating him like your very own hero, your favorite person to exist.

Every other time you chose to forget, to move on with your time together and find something happy to focus on. But tonight's calendar had been marked. A red heart written around your initials.

One that he wrote.

Six months passed in the blink of an eye.

Where you used to be awkward—barely able to speak to each other—now you found comfort in the silence. But when the quiet gave way to loneliness, you felt yourself begin to slowly chip away. You always thought he'd be here to put you back together, to save you in moments of brief darkness that left you wandering this shared path alone.

Yet when the clock finally struck midnight, and you were three glasses of wine in, you felt the final thread of hope snap.

You sighed, the burn of tears spilling over as you swallowed the last of your drink. "Happy Anniversary Peter," you muttered, getting up from the table.

The rain outside pounded against the asphalt. Wet streets glimmered with street lights and smelled of discarded cigarette butts. You wrapped the buckle around your waist tight enough to close up what parts of the coat gaped on your body. The dark charcoal wool fabric didn't belong to you. It lingered with Peter's scent, but you couldn't find yours as you rushed out the door.

You didn't want to stay in that apartment longer than necessary.

Perhaps you should have left some message behind—let him know that eventually you'd be back for your things. Somewhere in the back of your mind you understood what tonight was. A defining moment in your relationship. A chance for him to finally pull his act together and be with you.

Yet like everything else...you'd be simply another thing he'd have to let go of.

He wouldn't have a choice.

The salt of your tears mixed with the drops of rain that streamed down your face. You welcomed it as you walked. There wasn't a defining spot you were going—no grand plan once this came to pass. But somehow you wound up in a park, staring at a bench, and picturing a past version of yourself. Nose buried in a science book and lunch propped on your knees. You could see how Peter rushed by, how he nearly broke his neck turning to look at you.

You watched the moment happen all over again right before you. And for the first time in two months, you wanted to stop him.

The door opened with the usual creak. He winced at the noise with the memory of saying he'd fix it eventually. The DW-40 sat under the sink where he picked it up, never getting around to actually completing the job. Simply another let down that he'd never live down.

You said it was alright; claimed that the squeak gave the front door character. And that might have been true.

It still didn't stop Peter from beating himself up over it.

"Babe! I grabbed some food on the way home. Got your favorite." He stuffed his mask in his backpack, discarding it in the hallway as he went. The suit still clung to his already soaked body, but he hoped you wouldn't pick up on the peek of red beneath his clothes.

The plan to tell you was coming together nicely. A romantic dinner on the top of the Empire State after hours surely would give you a chance to think things over. He just had to work out the logistics of setting up everything with the security guard he befriended.

"Also I remembered to ask May about dinner in two weeks-"

He froze at the sight of the dark living room, of the table decorated with candles and plates filled with food. Very little scared the ever living shit out of him now. A familiar territory of adrenaline he’d come to welcome. But the sight of the calendar placed on his chair—the red heart blaring like a signal in the night sky—had his heart dropping to his stomach.

"No..." The food was forgotten about, dropped on the counter as he picked up the offending piece of paper. The clear mark around the date drawn by him two weeks earlier. A reminder to let him know that of all days...he couldn't forget this one.

He couldn't let you down again.

The clock in the corner read ten thirty and his heart lurched at the sudden realization that you finally did it. You gave up on his antics. All the moments he couldn't fix himself. You chose yourself over the madness of loving him. He wasn't sure which was wore. You not being here to give him a chance of groveling on his knees, or the silence in the apartment at knowing that your laughter and love would never fill it again.

He didn't have time to rationalize his decisions. Barely even noticed that he was walking out the door—the loud bang echoing in the hallway—as he went. Somewhere in the city you were mourning a relationship he was determined to fix. Yet he couldn't figure out where the hell to start looking.

This wasn't the first fight you'd had. The first time you left the apartment he found you in a hole in the wall cafe. A place he'd never even heard of before. And after three cups of coffee, a long night of talking, you both agreed to work on the communication. To heal what small wound had been opened.

Only this time was different.

This time the wound festered, grew to the point of being fatal.

This time he wasn't sure he could heal what he already broke.

His web clung to the building as he swung, landing five feet away from the already darkened cafe. Much to his own detriment you didn't bother to try getting out of the rain.

A crackle of lightning echoed in the night sky, thunder rolling in a few seconds later. It covered the sound of him nearly collapsing to the ground as a car swerved by—the horn blaring in his ears. The calendar was tucked in his jacket pocket, the ink bleeding through the soggy paper. But he refused to let it go. He couldn't. That was his final piece of you—the last moniker of a relationship that was worth it.

He only hoped you felt the same.

"Where are you baby?" he muttered under his breath.

After checking your favorite diner, bar, and bookshop. He was starting to run out of options. Almost as if you simply up and vanished from the city entirely.

You didn't want to be found. Yet Peter knew he wouldn't be able to live without you. How could he? When the chance of getting a peek at your smile was worth waking up early in the morning to see you off for work. Little moments of joy kept him going. And nearly all of his were spent with you. Each laugh, kiss, and look, were his to keep.

His to protect.

And he'd fucked all of that up.

Time passed quicker than he would have liked. The rain beat down on his body and he could no longer discern between his tears and the water. Still he searched. He checked every nook and cranny of spots you shared together.

Until the park came into his view atop a random apartment building. His heart leapt in his chest, body thrumming with nervous energy, as he swung down to the mushy grass that squelched beneath his sneakers. The cold shouldn't have made his hands tremble. Although perhaps the weather had nothing to do with what made his stomach twist, body overwhelmed with a fear he might never understand.

He knew why he shook like a leaf. He could feel the nerves beat alongside his heart, echoing his earlier sentiment throughout his entire body.

Letting you down this time wasn't a chance he was willing to take.

"Baby!" he called, running past low lit sidewalks and darkened tree lines. He ran until he felt the cold sting of rain on his face—until his clothes dripped water and the soles of his shoes were puddles.

Only to pause at the sight of a hunched over figure on a bench, their hands gripping the edge of the wood, and shoulders shaking with each stunted breath. Peter's heart tore into pieces. Fluttering to the ground as he stepped closer. Simply a flimsy piece of that ruined calendar. He could hear your sobs, smell the salt of your tears, and that broke him beyond repair.

He did this.

He took the most important person in his life and ripped them a part.

"I'm sorry," he said over the rain, catching the way you jumped—your eyes wide and lips swollen from where you bit down on them.

"Peter-"

Before you could get out the words to dismiss him. He dropped to his knees in front of you, his hands pressing into either side of the bench. Caging you in. This wasn't a chance for him to grovel, to give excuse after excuse. He’d passed that point months before. This was him finally letting you into the final piece of his life—the truth he wanted to shout from the rooftops if it meant getting a chance to see you smile again.

Fuck he'd give anything to see you smile.

"There's no good excuse okay? I don't have one. I'm just sorry." You sighed, moving to unlatch his grip. Only to find you couldn't get him to budge. "I don't want to keep hurting you. So if after this, you wanna go then you can go. I won't stop you, or call you, or even ask you back."

"Don't-"

He shifted closer, surprising you as his speed. "Just know I love you. I'll love you forever baby."

"Peter what are you doing?"

With a sharp gulp of air, he stripped off his jacket and t-shirt. They fell to the ground with a went plop as silence wrapped around the both of you. For a moment, he wondered if you'd take him seriously. Maybe you'd laugh. Maybe you'd leave him faster than before. But you simply stared at him—mouth parted and eyes wide as you took in the spider emblem sewn in his chest.

He coughed, shoving his wet hair out of his face. "This isn't how I wanted to tell you. The dinner with May was actually gonna be me telling you on top of the Empire State Building-"

"That's why you always forget the milk," you murmured, glancing to the side—a dazed expression now donning your face.

"What?"

"Every time I ask you to pick something up from the store at night. You never remember."

Heat spread rapidly across his cheeks. A red flush he knew was bright against the light on the sidewalk. "I don't always forget."

Rainfall filled the void of silence as you dragged your eyes along each web, the itch of your fingers too much to take—finally pressing them along the ridged fabric you’d only seen in blurry newspaper images. A mark that all of New York came to see as hope. The promise that for once in their lives they would be safe on streets known for violence and horrors.

You tried to wrap your head around the truth, pressing a thumb into the spider carved directly above a heart you knew was too good to be true. One that beat in time with yours, a familiar thudding echo you fell asleep to each night pressed tight to one ear. Peter was that man, the savior of a home you couldn’t see yourself leaving, the hero you’d only heard stories about.

“I guess this complicates things,” you finally mumbled, hand finding his chin soaked by the rain.

His sigh bled into the air, filling your lungs with the air you struggled to find. “Does that mean…you’re staying?”

“I’m just glad you weren’t cheating on me.”

Peter laughed, surging up with a speed you’d never witnessed before. “Never.”

His lips were cold against yours, gloved hands rough against the skin of your cheek, but the taste of him was the same. The man who asked for a chance in this park, promising to make your life interesting despite the chaos he dragged atop shoulders stronger than others. He carried the world with ease. Now it was your turn to do the same for him.

“So what’s it like dating Spider-Man?” you mumbled against his lips.

He grinned, pulling you up with an arm around your waist. “Free transportation.”

“Anytime I want?”

Thumbing the top of your cheek he pushed what tears remained aside. “For the rest of your life. If you want it.”

Oh how you loved him.

“I want it.”

[bradleysass]

Breakup - @rosekillermicrofic - wc: 490

Evan leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping his tea as Barty paced in front of him, hands flailing dramatically. "We need to break up."

Evan barely blinked. "Alright."

Barty stopped mid-step. "Alright? Just like that?"

"You break up with me at least once a week. What’s different this time?" Evan took another sip, unbothered.

Barty crossed his arms, grinning like a lunatic. "This time, it’s for science."

Evan sighed. "Of course."

"I want to see how everyone reacts. Like, do they take your side? Do they take my side? Do they start plotting ways to kill me in my sleep? What if someone confesses their undying love for you? What if—"

"Fine," Evan interrupted, already regretting entertaining this nonsense. "But only because I’m bored."

Barty lit up. "Oh, you love me."

"Not right now, I don’t," Evan deadpanned.

—

They broke the news during a gathering at Dorcas’ flat. It was the perfect setting—close quarters, free alcohol, and plenty of people who had suffered through their relationship long enough to have very strong opinions about it.

Barty dramatically slumped onto the couch. "Well, now that I’m single, I guess I have to start dating again. Any takers?"

Silence.

Marlene looked up from her drink, unimpressed. "Literally no one wants that."

"I do," James said through a mouthful of chips. "Wait, what are we talking about?"

Regulus, sitting stiffly in the corner, looked back and forth between them before sighing. "I don’t believe you."

Barty scoffed. "Wow. Zero faith."

"Evan, say something," Mary prodded.

Evan, who had been staring blankly at his drink, blinked. "Barty’s an unbearable boyfriend. I finally had enough."

"Ah, so you finally came to your senses," Sirius said, nodding approvingly.

Dorcas frowned. "No, wait, this is weird. I always assumed Evan would be the one to murder Barty in cold blood before actually breaking up with him."

Peter chimed in. "I had my money on Barty getting arrested and Evan just moving on like nothing happened."

"You bet on our breakup?" Barty asked, a little too gleeful.

"We bet on everything," Remus corrected.

Lily narrowed her eyes. "Alright, what’s the truth?"

Barty looked offended. "You think we’d lie?"

"Yes," the room chorused.

Evan sighed, placing his glass down. "Fine, we’re still together."

Marlene groaned. "I knew it. You absolute menaces."

Regulus looked relieved, but only slightly. "I was prepared to tolerate Barty’s existence for your sake, Evan. I’d rather not have suffered for nothing."

Sirius huffed. "We should’ve let them keep the act up and watched them suffer."

"Oh, please," Barty snorted. "We’re unbreakable." He slung an arm around Evan, who did not react in the slightest. "Admit it, you all love us."

James threw a pretzel at his head. "Absolutely not."

And just like that, the party resumed, with Barty basking in the attention and Evan making a mental note to never let Barty drag him into one of his dumb plans again. (He absolutely would.)