#Interstate Projects

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Surveillance pricing

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Correction, 7 June 2024: The initial version of this article erroneously described Jeffrey Roper as the founder of ATPCO. He benefited from ATPCO, but did not co-found it. The initial version of this article called ATPCO "an illegal airline price-fixing service"; while ATPCO provides information that the airlines use to set prices, it does not set prices itself, and while the DOJ investigated the company, they did not pursue a judgment declaring the service to be illegal. I regret the error.

Noted anti-capitalist agitator Adam Smith had it right: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

Despite being a raving commie loon, Smith's observation was so undeniably true that regulators, policymakers, and economists couldn't help but acknowledge that it was true. The trustbusting era was defined by this idea: if we let the number of companies in a sector get too small, or if we let one or a few companies get too big, they'll eventually start to rig prices.

What's more, once an industry contracts corporate gigantism, it will become too big to jail, able to outspend and overpower the regulators charged with reining in its cheating. Anyone who believes Smith's self-evident maxim had to accept its conclusion: that companies had to be kept smaller than the state that regulated them. This wasn't about "punishing bigness" – it was the necessary precondition for a functioning market economy.

We kept companies small for the same reason that we limited the height of skyscrapers: not because we opposed height, or failed to appreciate the value of a really good penthouse view – rather, to keep the building from falling over and wrecking all the adjacent buildings and the lives of the people inside them.

Starting in the neoliberal era – Carter, then Reagan – we changed our tune. We liked big business. A business that got big was doing something right. It was perverse to shut down our best companies. Instead, we'd simply ban big companies from rigging prices. This was called the "consumer welfare" theory of antitrust. It was a total failure.

40 years later, nearly every industry is dominated by a handful of companies, and these companies price-gouge us with abandon. Worse, they use their gigantic ripoff winnings to fill war-chests that fund the corruption of democracy, capturing regulators so that they can rip us off even more, while ignoring labor, privacy and environmental law and ducking taxes.

It turns out that keeping gigantic, opaque, complex corporations honest is really hard. They have so many ways to shuffle money around that it's nearly impossible to figure out what they're doing. Digitalization makes things a million times worse, because computers allow businesses to alter their processes so they operate differently for every customer, and even for every interaction.

This is Dieselgate times a billion: VW rigged its cars to detect when they were undergoing emissions testing and switch to a less polluting, more compliant mode. But when they were on the open road, they spewed lethal quantities of toxic gas, killing people by the thousands. Computers don't make corporate leaders more evil, but they let evil corporate leaders execute far more complex and nefarious plans. Digitalization is a corporate moral hazard, making it just too easy and tempting to rig the game.

That's why Toyota, the largest car-maker in the world, just did Dieselgate again, more than a decade later. Digitalization is a temptation no giant company can resist:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wwj1p2wdyo

For forty years, pro-monopoly cheerleaders insisted that we could allow companies to grow to unimaginable scale and still prevent cheating. They passed rules banning companies from explicitly forming agreements to rig prices. About ten seconds later, new middlemen popped up offering "information brokerages" that helped companies rig prices without talking to one another.

Take Agri Stats: the country's hyperconcentrated meatpacking industry pays Agri Stats to "consult on prices." They provide Agri Stats with a list of their prices, and then Agri Stats suggests changes based on its analysis. What does that analysis consist of? Comparing the company's prices to its competitors, who are also Agri Stats customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

In other words, Agri Stats finds the highest price for each product in the sector, then "advises" all the companies with lower prices to raise their prices to the "competitive" level, creating a one-way ratchet that sends the price of food higher and higher.

More and more sectors have an Agri Stats, and digitalization has made this price-gouging system faster, more efficient, and accessible to sectors with less concentration. Landlords, for example, have tapped into Realpage, a "data broker" that the same thing to your rent that Agri Stats does to meat prices. Realpage requires the landlords who sign up for its service to accept its "recommendations" on minimum rents, ensuring that prices only go up:

https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating

Writing for The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein lays out the many ways in which these digital intermediaries have supercharged the business of price-rigging:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-05-three-algorithms-in-a-room/

Goldstein identifies a kind of patient zero for this ripoff epidemic: Jeffrey Roper, a former Alaska Air exec who benefited from a service that helps airlines set prices. ATPCO was investigated by the DOJ in the 1990s, but the enforcers lost their nerve and settled with the company, which agreed to apply some ornamental fig-leafs to its collusion-machine. Even those cosmetic changes were seemingly a bridge too far Roper, who left the US.

But he came back to serve as Realpage's "principal scientist" – the architect of a nationwide scheme to make rental housing vastly more expensive. For Roper, the barrier to low rents was empathy: landlords felt stirrings of shame when they made shelter unaffordable to working people. Roper called these people "idiots" who sentimentality "costs the whole system."

Sticking a rent-gouging computer between landlords and the people whose lives they ruin is a classic "accountability sink," as described in Dan Davies' new book "The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – and How The World Lost its Mind":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

It's a form of "empiricism washing": if computers are working in the abstract realm of pure numbers, they're just moving the objective facts of the quantitative realm into the squishy, imperfect qualitative world. Davies' interview on Trashfuture is excellent:

https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/fire-sale-at-the-accountability-store-feat-dan-davies/

To rig prices, an industry has to solve three problems: the problem of coming to an agreement to fix prices (economists call this "the collective action problem"); the problem of coming up with a price; and the problem of actually changing prices from moment to moment. This is the ripoff triangle, and like a triangle, it has many stable configurations.

The more concentrated an industry is, the easier it is to decide to rig prices. But if the industry has the benefit of digitalization, it can swap the flexibility and speed of computers for the low collective action costs from concentration. For example, grocers that switch to e-ink shelf tags can make instantaneous price-changes, meaning that every price change is less consequential – if sales fall off after a price-hike, the company can lower them again at the press of a button. That means they can collude less explicitly but still raise prices:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags

My name for this digital flexibility is "twiddling." Businesses with digital back-ends can alter their "business logic" from second to second, and present different prices, payouts, rankings and other key parts of the deal to every supplier or customer they interact with:

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

Not only does twiddling make it easier to rip off suppliers, workers and customers, it also makes these crimes harder to detect. Twiddling made Dieselgate possible, and it also underpinned "Greyball," Uber's secret strategy of refusing to send cars to pick up transportation regulators who would then be able to see firsthand how many laws the company was violating:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html

Twiddling is so easy that it has brought price-fixing to smaller companies and less concentrated sectors, though the biggest companies still commit crimes on a scale that put these bit-players to shame. In The Prospect, David Dayen investigates the "personalized pricing" ripoff that has turned every transaction into a potential crime-scene:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-04-one-person-one-price/

"Personalized pricing" is the idea that everything you buy should be priced based on analysis of commercial surveillance data that predicts the maximum amount you are willing to pay.

Proponents of this idea – like Harvard's Pricing Lab with its "Billion Prices Project" – insist that this isn't a way to rip you off. Instead, it lets companies lower prices for people who have less ability to pay:

https://thebillionpricesproject.com/

This kind of weaponized credulity is totally on-brand for the pro-monopoly revolution. It's the same wishful thinking that led regulators to encourage monopolies while insisting that it would be possible to prevent "bad" monopolies from raising prices. And, as with monopolies, "personalized pricing" leads to an overall increase in prices. In econspeak, it is a "transfer of wealth from consumer to the seller."

"Personalized pricing" is one of those cuddly euphemisms that should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. A more apt name for this practice is surveillance pricing, because the "personalization" depends on the vast underground empire of nonconsensual data-harvesting, a gnarly hairball of ad-tech companies, data-brokers, and digital devices with built-in surveillance, from smart speakers to cars:

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

Much of this surveillance would be impractical, because no one wants their car, printer, speaker, watch, phone, or insulin-pump to spy on them. The flexibility of digital computers means that users always have the technical ability to change how these gadgets work, so they no longer spy on their users. But an explosion of IP law has made this kind of modification illegal:

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

This is why apps are ground zero for surveillance pricing. The web is an open platform, and web-browsers are legal to modify. The majority of web users have installed ad-blockers that interfere with the surveillance that makes surveillance pricing possible:

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

But apps are a closed platform, and reverse-engineering and modifying an app is a literal felony – several felonies, in fact. An app is just a web-page skinned with enough IP to make it a felony to modify it to protect your consumer, privacy or labor rights:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

(Google is leading a charge to turn the web into the kind of enshittifier's paradise that apps represent, blocking the use of privacy plugins and proposing changes to browser architecture that would allow them to felonize modifying a browser without permission:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

Apps are a twiddler's playground. Not only can they "customize" every interaction you have with them, but they can block you (or researchers seeking to help you) from recording and analyzing the app's activities. Worse: digital transactions are intimate, contained to the palm of your hand. The grocer whose e-ink shelf-tags flicker and reprice their offerings every few seconds can be collectively observed by people who are in the same place and can start a conversation about, say, whether to come back that night a throw a brick through the store's window to express their displeasure. A digital transaction is a lonely thing, atomized and intrinsically shielded from a public response.

That shielding is hugely important. The public hates surveillance pricing. Time and again, through all of American history, there have been massive and consequential revolts against the idea that every price should be different for every buyer. The Interstate Commerce Commission was founded after Grangers rose up against the rail companies' use of "personalized pricing" to gouge farmers.

Companies know this, which is why surveillance pricing happens in secret. Over and over, every day, you are being gouged through surveillance pricing. The sellers you interact with won't tell you about it, so to root out this practice, we have to look at the B2B sales-pitches from the companies that sell twiddling tools.

One of these companies is Plexure, partly owned by McDonald's, which provides the surveillance-pricing back-ends for McD's, Ikea, 7-Eleven, White Castle and others – basically, any time a company gives you a hard-sell to order via its apps rather than its storefronts or its website, you should assume you're getting twiddled, hard.

These companies use the enshittification playbook to trap you into using their apps. First, they offer discounts to customers who order through their apps – then, once the customers are fully committed to shopping via app, they introduce surveillance pricing and start to jack up the prices.

For example, Plexure boasts that it can predict what day a given customer is getting paid on and use that information to raise prices on all the goods the customer shops for on that day, on the assumption that you're willing to pay more when you've got a healthy bank balance.

The surveillance pricing industry represents another reason for everything you use to spy on you – any data your "smart" TV or Nest thermostat or Ring doorbell can steal from you can be readily monetized – just sell it to a surveillance pricing company, which will use it to figure out how to charge you more for everything you buy, from rent to Happy Meals.

But the vast market for surveillance data is also a potential weakness for the industry. Put frankly: the commercial surveillance industry has a lot of enemies. The only thing it has going for it is that so many of these enemies don't know that what's they're really upset about is surveillance.

Some people are upset because they think Facebook made Grampy into a Qanon. Others, because they think Insta gave their kid anorexia. Some think Tiktok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama bin Laden. Some are upset because the cops use Google location data to round up Black Lives Matter protesters, or Jan 6 insurrectionists. Some are angry about deepfake porn. Some are angry because Black people are targeted with ads for overpriced loans or colleges:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/04/meta_ad_algorithm_discrimination/

And some people are angry because surveillance feeds surveillance pricing. The thing is, whatever else all these people are angry about, they're all angry about surveillance. Are you angry that ad-tech is stealing a 51% share of news revenue? You're actually angry about surveillance. Are you angry that "AI" is being used to automatically reject resumes on racial, age or gender grounds? You're actually angry about surveillance.

There's a very useful analogy here to the history of the ecology movement. As James Boyle has long said, before the term "ecology" came along, there were people who cared about a lot of issues that seemed unconnected. You care about owls, I care about the ozone layer. What's the connection between charismatic nocturnal avians and the gaseous composition of the upper atmosphere? The term ecology took a thousand issues and welded them together into one movement.

That's what's on the horizon for privacy. The US hasn't had a new federal consumer privacy law since 1988, when Congress acted to ban video-store clerks from telling the newspapers what VHS cassettes you were renting:

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

We are desperately overdue for a new consumer privacy law, but every time this comes up, the pro-surveillance coalition defeats the effort. but as people who care about conspiratorialism, kids' mental health, spying by foreign adversaries, phishing and fraud, and surveillance pricing all come together, they will be an unbeatable coalition:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

Meanwhile, the US government is actually starting to take on these ripoff artists. The FTC is working to shut down data-brokers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

The FBI is raiding landlords to build a case against Frontpage and other rent price-fixers:

https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating

Agri Stats is facing a DoJ lawsuit:

https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/market-news/agri-stats-loses-motions-to-transfer-dismiss-in-doj-antitrust-case

Not every federal agency has gotten the message, though. Trump's Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell – whom Biden kept on the job – has been hiking interest rates in a bid to reduce our purchasing power by making millions of Americans poorer and/or unemployed. He's doing this to fight inflation, on the theory that inflation is being cause by us being too well-off, and therefore trying to buy more goods than are for sale.

But of course, interest rates are inflationary: when interest rates go up, it gets more expensive to pay your credit card bills, lease your car, and pay a mortgage. And where we see the price of goods shooting up, there's abundant evidence that this is the result of greedflation – companies jacking up their prices and blaming inflation. Interest rate hawks say that greedflation is impossible: if one company raises its prices, its competitors will swoop in and steal their customers with lower prices.

Maybe they would do that – if they didn't have a toolbox full of algorithmic twiddling options and a deep trove of surveillance data that let them all raise prices together:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-06-05-time-for-fed-to-meet-ftc/

Someone needs to read some Adam Smith to Chairman Powell: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

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/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

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

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

[marvinjamal730]

Call up your reps and tell them that you oppose the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act. They're trying to do what they can to make pxrn a federal crime.

[beachyserasims]

♡ Winning Couple Ceremony | GENEVA ISLAND

Part 3 of 3

The final three couples have expressed their feelings and soon it will be time to announce the winning couple.

But first, to announce the second runner up couple...

Jasmine and Justin! With a friendship level of 100, they definitely made an impact on each other that will last a lifetime. And even if they don’t continue their romantic relationship that currently sits at 36, they surely will be friends forever.

That leaves us with the final two couples, Judi with Rowan, and Autumn with Darion!

The couple that is winning pulled through with a friendship score of 82 and a love score of 71. Up until episode 21, this couple was actually in second place, but during the final dates, they committed to each other in ways that no other couple did, bumping up their love 17 points higher than the couple who was forecasted to win. 

And so the winners are… Autumn and Darion!

Judi and Rowan finished off with a friendship score of 88 and a love score of 54. They worked really slowly on their relationship and stayed true to each other, but in the end, neither of them were willing to commit, and Rowan even decided that this experience showed him he doesn’t mind being single. While the same is true for Autumn, she was receptive to the idea of marriage with Darion, which is a loooong ways off for Judi and Rowans relationship.

And with that, the end of Geneva Island has come! We saw a lot of beautiful sims, all with their own uniquely amazing personalities, that showed us a glimpse into their personal lives in a way that no other love island show has. By revealing the true intentions of everyone involved, and allowing them the freedom to be who they really are, which is just the same as they would be behind closed doors, they were able to find love. Autumn and Darion will be moving in together into a beautiful penthouse suite, accompanied by Rowan and Judi!

Thank you to everyone who tuned in! I am looking forward to continuing onto my next series, Geneva legacy, where the story of Autumn, Darion, Judi, and Rowan continues.

Part 1 | Part 2

The Start || Beginning of Episodes || Previous || Next

[tryingtimi]

15 👁️👁️

Let Me Down Slowly

Thank you for the number, love! 🧡This one was a Liahn & Kil song originally, but then I started to pay more attention to the lyrics and it struck me that it would be a great one to a Break Up AU between Kil and his well wife in the story but girlfriend here. So, here is some pathetic Kil, I guess.

NON-CANON | CHARACTER EXPLORATION | WC: 1,338

The sun’s first peach-coloured kiss tried to wake the drowsy city, attempting to pour life into Kil’s fingers that gripped the stirring wheel. He kept rubbing at the soft scar on his brow, elbow sitting stiffly on the window frame. The touch conjured a memory in his mind; of a warm yellow summer with reckless plans and a passion oh so sweet on the tongue. The summer when he first met Pheni. 

Kil brought his fingers to his lips, pushing them deep into the tender skin. 

“Will he be there?” he rasped, voice strained like the very first words uttered into the world. It wasn’t from a lump, or a bouquet of welled-up tears — no, it wasn’t the freshly cut wound inside. All that, he buried in the graveyard in his heart, far down so nothing would be able to dig it up. No, it wasn’t — couldn’t be from that. It was the strain of lack of use, rather. The consequence of not saying a word long enough to forget your vocal cord’s existence. 

Pheni gently turned her head to him, adjusting her purse in her lap. 

“No, he’s on an ambassador duty outside the country.” She quieted, keeping her eyes on Kil’s profile. He didn’t turn to her. “I told him not to come.” 

A bittersweet half-smile tugged his lips upward, while he turned to the next street. The sun was rising, yet his skin remained cold under the warming breeze that sneaked inside the automobile. 

“I wouldn’t do anything to him.” 

The lie scorched his throat like the strongest mejo. He was plagued by the nauseating rage inside his gut that urged him to do unspeakable things to him. His mind was full of possibilities. He would have done everything to him — and yet. Kil rubbed at his brow to the point of irritation on his skin. He thought and desired all that, but both knew he wouldn’t have lifted a finger should the opportunity arise. Despite the circumstances, respect wasn’t one that Kil would have scattered away. Not even in times like this. 

Pheni averted her gaze, looking at the brightening road ahead. “I don’t fear for him,” she said, and Kil closed his eyes for a single second. They were close as always, the proximity nothing but painstakingly familiar in the automobile. Now, however, there were no more interlocking fingers, nor palms on her tights just to feel her presence. He used to feel if he didn’t touch her; if he didn’t make sure she was real and there, she would fly far away. They used to have an air around them when they were on the road, a silent bubble only they could fill in with unspoken words. 

A bubble that did not disappear, but morphed into a container of everything Kil wanted to shove at, tear at, drench in gasoline and set alight. The lingering implication of Pheni’s sentence made his knuckles whiten over the steering wheel. 

He kept his mouth tightly shut. The boutique Pheni owned crawled into his periphery as they passed it. The soft colours, the smell of fresh flowers and perfume, the shuffling of fabric used to make the place lively, a lovely invitation through the big windows. The once vibrant letters echoed faintly on the ageing wood above, the memory of a time that left nothing behind except the dark windows and a silent shell. 

Kil rolled back his shoulder under the wordless accusations that he couldn’t truly keep inside. He ached to look at her, to find that his sight tricked him and the woman who sat beside him was still that warm fire that charmed him, the blazing ambition that fed both of their growth, the bright love that pushed him in the dirt, defeated. He ached to look at her, to see all that, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He knew if he did, all he would see was a woman whose fire shied away from him, leaving him cold and alone. Whose face was imprinted in his mind, and now pleaded to be forgotten, worn by a stranger. Whose…

Kil’s lips burned under his fingers’s pressure on them. His own words rang in his ears, the frail, hoarse voice still foreign in his throat. 

“You knew,” he croaked to Pheni, clutching at her dress as his head sank into her lap. “You knew what it meant to be with me.”

“I know. I thought… I hoped I knew.” 

She kept her palm on his head but did not run her fingers through his hair anymore. There was no consolation, or soothing — there was only the ashes of their life together blown free in the wind. Kil clutched at her dress harder, his soft trembling shaking his fingers around the fabric. He knew he couldn’t keep her there if she wished to leave. If she wished to live a life without the confines of his clan. He promised he wouldn’t. 

Yet, there he was, bruising his knees on the hardwood, weeping. “Please.” 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and a crack like a splitting eggshell rippled through those two words. 

Kil parked on the deserted sidewalk that led to the airport. He swallowed back all his words, all his thoughts. He still didn’t look at Pheni, letting his head lower under the weight of their memories. He should have listened to Fang; she warned him since he was a boy: “No one should be brought into this kinda life from outside, but if they are, you can’t expect them to stick around. Be prepared to let them go, and hope they’ll let you down gently.” 

The sun was almost fully in its place, bringing its golden shine that still couldn’t mould what was broken. Kil kept his breathing even but did not look up. He closed his eyes for a moment, then stepped out of the automobile, legs stiff and heavy. Dragging his feet onward, he packed out of the back, gently placing the luggage down. Pheni’s lovely legs walked into his sight, as he put down the last of her things. Her steps never gave sound, sparing Kil from memorising the sound of her leaving. 

He buried his itching hands in his pocket, turning towards the airport. There were a million words on his tongue, a hundred pleas clawing at his throat, but he didn’t say any of it. He simply swallowed. “Do you need help to bring them in?” 

“I’ll manage, thank you.” He could hear her small smile in her tone, a warm little curve he didn’t want to see. “I’m going, then.” 

Kil did not nod, nor look. He lowered his head, breathing. His limbs tensed as if he was falling, too fast and too slow at the same time. There was no saying how to do this right. And so he didn’t. 

Pheni stepped closer softly, a tender touch finding Kil’s face. He leaned into it, not having in him to pull away. Her skin hurt over his for the first time, but he didn’t mind — he didn’t care. She gently leaned into his view, the sight of her all too familiar face cracking his chest open. The eyes that would love like none stared at him with the same sorrow he couldn’t scrape out of his bones for a while now. She smiled that small smile, and leaned onto his lip for one last time. It was a peck at the very edge of them, but he leaned into that too. Like a lick of fresh air to the drowning, Kil absorbed the touch of her gentle lips, debating if he should forget or treasure it forever. His hands fell out of his pocket, and he reached for her waist, then stopped at once. Limp, he kept his arms beside his torso, fingers curling into his palm. 

Carefully, Pheni pulled away eventually. She looked at him as a mirror, all and everything written on her face at last. And she said what he didn’t have the strength to. 

“Goodbye, Kil.” 

[thesnailtail]

;; so the au i thought about in this post. thought about it a lot more and oh

;; (up to down, left to right)

;; my bugs :3

[chosen-hero-inari]

Whumptober Day 16: Wound Cleaning

A/n: White Day Ichika time! Once again this au is mostly @yumizurueleonora's brain baby

Reflections

The same knight uniform Ichika’s always worn feels stifling as her fiancée walks down the aisle to her.

Dame Angela went all out, of course, with a brand new dress that flaunts the wealth her family is bringing to their faction.

Gris is a small country on the border of the Light and Dark Kingdoms that is always at risk of an attack from either one and the alliance of having the richest noblewoman in the Dark Kingdom marry one of their best knights will allow them to secure their position and prepare for an attack.

This is what’s good for their kingdom, to keep all her friends safe, Ichika knows this.

Besides, if the one she truly loved knew the truth, she’d reject Ichika in a heartbeat.

“Sir Ichika, are you ready?” the priest whispers as Dame Angela arrives at the altar, and Ichika nods.

The other benefit of this arrangement is that Dame Angela has three older brothers, and an older sister. She’s not expected to produce an heir, and if she did the child wouldn’t inherit anything. So the fact that Dame Angela doesn’t know Ichika is also a woman won’t raise any issues.

Ichika had spun a lie about being unable to consummate their marriage before due to a gruesome injury on the battlefield she never had to actually describe because most of the men in the room simply winced in sympathy and didn’t ask for further details.

Dame Angela simply thinks of her as another accessory, a symbol of status and a way for her to gain more power as the youngest child of a nobleman. Ichika fully suspects that once their “honeymoon” is over, different men will find their way into their bedchambers.

Of course, if it was discovered that two women were married, it would cause an uproar, so for the sake of the nation, Ichika will have to keep this secret with her until she dies.

“Do you, Sir Ichika, vow to love Dame Angela, and take her as your lawfully wedded wife?”

Love her? No, Ichika could never.

But to protect this country? Keep her fellow knights safe? Help Saki ? 

“I–”

“Stop!” A voice rings out from the front of the chapel, and everyone turns to see Saki, one of the Black Roses, the most elite fighters in the Dark Kingdom.

But all Ichika sees, all Ichika has ever seen, is Saki Tenma, her childhood friend she’d left home to find, disguised herself as a man all these years to train as a mercenary, then a knight, just for a chance to see her again.

Her beloved friend with no memories of her.

“Saki? What are you–” Ichika asks but Dame Angela steps forward.

“Even now, you can’t stop trying to steal my husband?” she growls in an uncharacteristically feral way. “I thought we discussed this!”

“It’s not about how I feel, it’s about how Ichika feels!” Saki says. “He doesn’t love you!”

“Love has nothing to do with what you’re interfering with!” Dame Angela shouts. 

“He’s the hero of this Kingdom! Doesn’t he deserve happiness? Not just being a political pawn?!” Saki turns to plead to the gathered knights and nobles and doesn’t see the knife Dame Angela pulls out.

Ichika doesn’t have to think before throwing herself between Saki and the blade.

Dame Angela herself seems shocked when it plunges into Ichika’s stomach, but Ichika stands firm and grabs her fiancée’s wrist.

“Dame Angela,” she says, “I cannot allow you to hurt Saki.”

“ Saki?! ” Dame Angela. “She’s a blight, an intrusion on everything we’ve worked for and–”

“She’s my best friend,” Ichika says. “And I can’t let you hurt her!” 

The world is starting to blur, but Ichika doesn’t dare loosen her grip, lest Dame Angela try and attack Saki again.

“Ichika!” Saki gasps. “Why…”

“Because, what I’ve always wanted to do is… protect… you…” 

~

When Ichika wakes up, she can tell from the gentle swaying of the room she’s on a ship.

“Ah!” Saki pokes her head over her. “Sorry, I was just cleaning your wound.”

Ichika’s heart stops, and her hands go up to her chest. Her unbound chest. “I-I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Saki asks.

“Lying to you a-about being a man,” Ichika says.

“If you say you’re a man, you’re a man,” Saki says, “no one will judge you for it, I know Gris is a very strict place, but Mizuki can–”

“I’m not a man,” Ichika says. “I… I was born a woman. A woman in the Light Kingdom, in fact, when knights attacked my village and took my dearest friend. I traveled to try and find her and ended up in Gris. The only way I could learn to fight, be strong enough to save my friend, was if I pretended to be a man.”

“Why not reveal yourself sooner?” Saki asks. “I mean surely once you were the greatest knight in the kingdom, you could reveal yourself and they’d have to respect you.”

“B-because I met my friend again,” Ichika admits, “and I was scared if she knew I was a woman she’d never love me back. So I continued pretending to be a man to pretend that she would return my feelings.”

“You shouldn’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not just for that,” Saki says. “Be whoever you want.”

“I… thank you, Saki.” Ichika says.

“And for the record,”

“Hm?”

“You know Ichi, I like women as well as men.”

Ichika feels her face turn bright red as Saki continues dressing her wounds.

[meliohy]

Interest check for a fake inworld tower of god magazine

[amplexadversary]

Dragons I have in Flight Rising that are based on G Gundam characters.

In order: Domon Kasshu, Schwarz Bruder, Chibodee Crockett, George de Sand, Argo Gulskii, Allenby Beardsley, Kyoji Kasshu, and Rain Mikamura.

[thursty-gurl]

My followers know I hate talking about politics and current events, and generally refuse to do so, but this is important.

A bill has been introduced in the US that would make all pornography a federal crime. Owning it. Creating it. Distributing it.

Under this law, fanart of nude characters would be a federal crime.

Under this law, depictions of homosexuality or simply being transgender, would be considered pornography and a federal crime.

This bill is not going to pass.

However, the reason for this bill is to continue to push the "overton window". The reason for this bill is to make banning pornography seem more and more normal to everyone until they can actually do that.

And remember, they consider depictions of gay characters and transgenders characters "pornography" in any context, including platonic.

They have been working on this for a decade now and it has been working.

If you are one of the people in fandom who thinks that "nasty" porn on AO3 should be banned because it's "icky" or "immoral", then this mental scam is working on you.

Censorship is never about protecting people.

Censorship is always about control.

Do not let the rising moral panic affect your mind and make you weak to propaganda that lets others control you and control what you watch and read.

Do not fall for the scam.

When they say they are going to ban "pornography" it means they're going to ban anything they don't like by calling it "pornography" and they don't like you!!

[sweet2canyon]

I lowkey feel bad for leaving Mike Lee’s office a voice message that’s just all confused and scared stuttering like “h-h-hello senpai lee.. can y-y-you pwease not ban porn… because uh… small government uh republican buzzword uhhhh”

[miserye]

you think if a prof is reaching out to me based on my application i submitted to a school, it's because I’m in a good position to get in???

[ladytopazart]

Do like reading and writing spicy fanfictions? Do like listening to spicy ASMRS? Do like spicy art? Well sadly it's going to be a federal crime because of this censorship bill being introduced. Have you heard about the obscenity bill that's being talked about? It is called the "Interstate Obscenities Definition Act" or S. 1671. Yes, the bill is introduced & made by none other than the Republican senator of the State of Utah, Senator Mike Lee who made and introduced the bill, this bill was introduced before and got struck down. This bill is an attempt to ban all p*rn online and not only that, it'll get rid of useful information about s*x-ed and the like. But sadly this is in the Project 2025 thing of course and plus it is another censorship bill just like KOSA (which this bill is being reintroduced of course) which is another censorship bill, if you want info here it is:

Sen. Mike Lee's Office: 435-628-5514

DC Office: 202-224-5444

I hope this helps ✌🏾

More info about the bill

More info ℹ️

[ellipsus-writes]

Each week (or so), we'll highlight the relevant (and sometimes rage-inducing) news adjacent to writing and freedom of expression. (Find it on the blog too!) This week:

Censorship watch: Somehow, KOSA returned

It’s official: The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back from the dead. After failing to pass last year, the bipartisan bill has returned with fresh momentum and the same old baggage—namely, vague language that could endanger hosting platforms, transformative work, and implicitly target LGBTQ+ content under the guise of “protecting kids.”

… But wait, it gets better (worse). Republican Senator Mike Lee has introduced a new bill that makes other attempts to censor the internet look tame: the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA)—basically KOSA on bath salts. Lee’s third attempt since 2022, the bill would redefine what counts as “obscene” content on the internet, and ban it nationwide—with “its peddlers prosecuted.”

Whether IODA gains traction in Congress is still up in the air. But free speech advocates are already raising alarm bells over its implications.

The bill aims to gut the long-standing legal definition of “obscenity” established by the 1973 Miller v. California ruling, which currently protects most speech under the First Amendment unless it fails a three-part test. Under the Miller test, content is only considered legally obscene if it 1: appeals to prurient interests, 2: violates “contemporary community standards,” and 3: is patently offensive in how it depicts sexual acts.

IODA would throw out key parts of that test—specifically the bits about “community standards”—making it vastly easier to prosecute anything with sexual content, from films and photos, to novels and fanfic.

Under Lee’s definition (which—omg shocking can you believe this coincidence—mirrors that of the Heritage Foundation), even the most mild content with the affect of possible “titillation” could be included. (According to the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the proposed definition is so broad it could rope in media on the level of Game of Thrones—or, generally, anything that depicts or describes human sexuality.) And while obscenity prosecutions are quite rare these days, that could change if IODA passes—and the collateral damage and criminalization (especially applied to creative freedoms and LGBT+ content creators) could be massive.

And while Lee’s last two obscenity reboots failed, the current political climate is... let’s say, cloudy with a chance of fascism.

Sound a little like Project 2025? Ding ding ding! In fact, Russell Vought, P2025’s architect, was just quietly appointed to take over DOGE from Elon Musk (the agency on a chainsaw crusade against federal programs, culture, and reality in general).

So. One bill revives vague moral panic, another wants to legally redefine it and prosecute creators, and the man who helped write the authoritarian playbook—with, surprise, the intent to criminalize LGBT+ content and individuals—just gained control of the purse strings.

Cool cool cool.

AO3 works targeted in latest (massive) AI scraping

Rewind to last month—In the latest “wait, they did what now?” moment for AI, a Hugging Face user going by nyuuzyou uploaded a massive dataset made up of roughly 12.6 million fanworks scraped from AO3—full text, metadata, tags, and all. (Info from r/AO3: If your works’ ID numbers between 1 and 63,200,000, and has public access, the work has been scraped.)

And it didn’t stop at AO3. Art and writing communities like PaperDemon and Artfol, among others, also found their content had been quietly scraped and posted to machine learning hubs without consent.

This is yet another attempt in a long line of more “official” scraping of creative work, and the complete disregard shown by the purveyors of GenAI for copyright law and basic consent. (Even the Pope agrees.)

AO3 filed a DMCA takedown, and Hugging Face initially complied—temporarily. But nyuuzyou responded with a counterclaim and re-uploaded the dataset to their personal website and other platforms, including ModelScope and DataFish—sites based in China and Russia, the same locations reportedly linked to Meta’s own AI training dataset, LibGen.

Some writers are locking their works. Others are filing individual DMCAs. But as long as bad actors and platforms like Hugging Face allow users to upload massive datasets scraped from creative communities with minimal oversight, it’s a circuitous game of whack-a-mole. (As others have recommended, we also suggest locking your works for registered users only.)

After disavowing AI copyright, leadership purge hits U.S. cultural institutions

In news that should give us all a brief flicker of hope, the U.S. Copyright Office officially confirmed: if your “creative” work was generated entirely by AI, it’s not eligible for copyright.

A recently released report laid it out plainly—human authorship is non-negotiable under current U.S. law, a stance meant to protect the concept of authorship itself from getting swallowed by generative sludge. The report is explicit in noting that generative AI draws “on massive troves of data, including copyrighted works,” and asks: “Do any of the acts involved require the copyright owners’ consent or compensation?” (Spoiler: yes.) It’s a “straight ticket loss for the AI companies” no matter how many techbros’ pitch decks claim otherwise (sorry, Inkitt).

“The Copyright Office (with a few exceptions) doesn’t have the power to issue binding interpretations of copyright law, but courts often cite to its expertise as persuasive,” tech law professor Blake. E Reid wrote on Bluesky.As the push to normalize AI-generated content continues (followed by lawsuits), without meaningful human contribution—actual creative labor—the output is not entitled to protection.

… And then there’s the timing.

The report dropped just before the abrupt firing of Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter, who has been vocally skeptical of AI’s entitlement to creative work.

It's yet another culture war firing—one that also conveniently clears the way for fewer barriers to AI exploitation of creative work. And given that Elon Musk’s pals have their hands all over current federal leadership and GenAI tulip fever… the overlap of censorship politics and AI deregulation is looking less like coincidence and more like strategy.

Also ousted (via email)—Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. According to White House press secretary and general ghoul Karoline Leavitt, Dr. Hayden was dismissed for “quite concerning things that she had done… in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” (Translation: books featuring queer people and POC.)

Dr. Hayden, who made history as the first Black woman to hold the position, spent the last eight years modernizing the Library of Congress, expanding digital access, and turning the institution into something more inclusive, accessible, and, well, public. So of course, she had to go. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The American Library Association condemned the firing immediately, calling it an “unjust dismissal” and praising Dr. Hayden for her visionary leadership. And who, oh who might be the White House’s answer to the LoC’s demanding and (historically) independent role?

The White House named Todd Blanche—AKA Trump’s personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General—as acting Librarian of Congress.

That’s not just sus, it’s likely illegal—the Library is part of the legislative branch, and its leadership is supposed to be confirmed by Congress. (You know, separation of powers and all that.)

But, plot twist: In a bold stand, Library of Congress staff are resisting the administration's attempts to install new leadership without congressional approval.

If this is part of the broader Project 2025 playbook, it’s pretty clear: Gut cultural institutions, replace leadership with stunningly unqualified loyalists, and quietly centralize control over everything from copyright to the nation’s archives.

Because when you can’t ban the books fast enough, you just take over the library.

Rebellions are built on hope

Over the past few years (read: eternity), a whole ecosystem of reactionary grifters has sprung up around Star Wars—with self-styled CoNtEnT CrEaTorS turning outrage to revenue by endlessly trashing the fandom. It’s all part of the same cynical playbook that radicalized the fallout of Gamergate, with more lightsabers and worse thumbnails. Even the worst people you know weighed in on May the Fourth (while Prequel reassessment is totally valid—we’re not giving J.D. Vance a win).

But one thing that shouldn't be up for debate is this: Andor, which wrapped its phenomenal two-season run this week, is probably the best Star Wars project of our time—maybe any time. It’s a masterclass in what it means to work within a beloved mythos and transform it, deepen it, and make it feel urgent again. (Sound familiar? Fanfic knows.)

Radicalization, revolution, resistance. The banality of evil. The power of propaganda. Colonialism, occupation, genocide—and still, in the midst of it all, the stubborn, defiant belief in a better world (or Galaxy).

Even if you’re not a lifelong SW nerd (couldn’t be us), you should give it a watch. It’s a nice reminder that amidst all the scraping, deregulation, censorship, enshittification—stories matter. Hope matters.

And we’re still writing.

Let us know if you find something other writers should know about, or join our Discord and share it there!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[polysprachig]

Polyglot Checklist for Setting Reasonable Language-Learning Goals for 2025:

List out your languages (main(s), target(s), side(s), etc.).

Write 1-3 main areas of focus, project ideas, books to read, films to watch, studies to complete for each language. If you have more than 3, you might list 3 main and 1-3 side aspects you would like to focus on. If you are unsure what to focus on, consider your strengths, weaknesses and as of yet unexplored topics related to the language or culture in specific, then choose 1-3 aspects which speak to your interests the most (regardless of whether they are connected to your strenths, weaknesses or the unexplored).

After making your list, view the points you've listed en masse. Rank the activities in order of most-to-least intersting or most-to-least crucial to your studies and long-term aims.

Now, look at each point again. Ask yourself: how long would it take me to complete this task if it were in my native language? How long if I had C2 level? B2 level? A2? Ask yourself: given my current knowledge base/level, usage (vocabulary + grammar + accuracy with or without resources), and access to the materials required to engage with these points/aspects, how long would it take me to prepare, collect resources, study, and practise/learn the skills/vocabulary/grammar required to engage with each of these points?

Ask yourself: Is my focus something that requires time in order to achieve? Is this skill a grape on a vine to be ripened? Is it a bottle to be cracked open? (For example: If, say, your goal is to write a short story in your target language and you already have a working knowledge of sentence structure and the tenses most required to write fiction in that language, you may be working with a bottle. Expanding your vocabulary/range of expression in order to improve your writing in that case is simply adding spice to mull the wine. But if you are still in the growing phase, your skills hang as grapes you must cultivate in a rich soil. Tend to them first.)

Use this reflection to help you reconsider your list, but do not do away with it entirely. These are interests which you may return to at a later time or in a future level.

Ask yourself (whether you like to focus on one task/language or more at a given time): what are reasonable expectations for me to have for myself, my time, my learning and my output at my current level and considering all my other interests and obligations?

[seat-safety-switch]

Necessity is the mother of invention, but being a total cheap-ass has to at least be an absentee dad. Our society is enormously wasteful, buying hugely expensive things it doesn't need and then throwing them out. If you are bright enough to make use of those things, you can get them for much less money.

Here's a great example: car door locks. They fail all the time. Repairing them is a pain in the ass. Replacing them is expensive. Each model of car has a slightly different one. A padlock at Wal-Mart costs $1.89. Sure, it doesn't look as good, having a budget Master-Lock bouncing off your paint on the interstate, but it does keep the door closed, and accurately communicates to thieves that you have nothing of value contained within.

Whenever I go to a car show, I am not impressed at all by the high-dollar exotics. I don't mean that to sound snooty: I am sure they have ripped off, exploited, or simply murdered a lot of people in order to afford that car. It's a deviousness that doesn't show up in person and that I simply am not aware of enough to appreciate. I am sure they are very popular at accountant conventions. What I like to see: junk being misused. Old leaf-blower being used as a supercharger? Yes. Road signs pop-riveted into the place the floor should go? You betcha. And that all-time, enduring classic, an engine swap from a car of the wrong make, a project both aberrant and delightful in equal measure.

So, if you are trying to impress a bunch of penniless dickheads on this year's custom car circuit, my advice is to hit up the dollar store. And then don't buy anything: follow the employees until they head to the dumpster to get rid of unsold inventory, and pick the lock. You don't have to spend $1.89 to get doors that close properly, it's not a Jaguar or anything.

[asm5129]

We have a major bill to block. Americans, call your representatives. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/mike-lee-obscenity-bill-free-speech-project-2025-rcna206388

The upcoming Republican bill to expand the definition of obscenity and criminalize pornography know as the “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act” or IODA (article linked below) is a deeply troubling proposal that must be stopped. On top of sidestepping the first amendment, Republicans argue regularly that members of the queer community—especially trans people—are sexual and obscene by their very existence . To allow this bill to pass would be to allow them to ban anything they call pornography, with a particular threat to queer and especially trans existence for which they have regularly reinforced the notion that it is not just a choice, but a fetish—and a particularly dangerous fetish that both exposes children to a sexual act and sexualizes children themselves, hence the “groomer” rhetoric. IODA and every bill like it *must* be stopped, for the sake of free expression as much as for the sake of the queer community

here’s what I’m emailing my representatives. Feel free to copy and paste if it’s helpful.

I also link the above article at the end.