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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

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Prime’s enshittified advertising

Prime's gonna add more ads. They brought in ads in January, and people didn't cancel their Prime subscriptions, so Amazon figures that they can make Prime even worse and make more money:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazon-prime-video-is-getting-more-ads-next-year/

The cruelty isn't the point. Money is the point. Every ad that Amazon shows you shifts value away from you – your time, your attention – to the company's shareholders.

That's the crux of enshittification. Companies don't enshittify – making their once-useful products monotonically worse – because it amuses them to erode the quality of their offerings. They enshittify them because their products are zero-sum: the things that make them valuable to you (watching videos without ads) make things less valuable to them (because they can't monetize your attention).

This isn't new. The internet has always been dominated by intermediaries – platforms – because there are lots more people who want to use the internet than are capable of building the internet. There's more people who want to write blogs than can make a blogging app. There's more people who want to play and listen to music than can host a music streaming service. There's more people who want to write and read ebooks than want to operate an ebook store or sell an ebooks reader.

Despite all the early internet rhetoric about the glories of disintermediation, intermediaries are good, actually:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/

The problem isn't with intermediaries per se. The problem arises when intermediaries grow so powerful that they usurp the relationship between the parties they connect. The problem with Uber isn't the use of mobile phones to tell taxis that you're standing on a street somewhere and would like a cab, please. The problem is rampant worker misclassification, regulatory arbitrage, starvation wages, and price-gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

There's no problem with publishers, distributors, retailers, printers, and all the other parts of the bookselling ecosystem. While there are a few, rare authors who are capable of performing all of these functions – basically gnawing their books out of whole logs with their teeth – most writers can't, and even the ones who can, don't want to:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

When early internet boosters spoke of disintermediation, what they mostly meant was that it would be harder for intermediaries to capture those relationships – between sellers and buyers, creators and audiences, workers and customers. As Rebecca Giblin and I wrote in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism, intermediaries in every sector rely on chokepoints, narrows where they can erect tollbooths:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

When chokepoints exist, they multiply up and down the supply chain. In the golden age of physical, recorded music, you had several chokepoints that reinforced one another. Limited radio airwaves gave radio stations power over record labels, who had to secretly, illegally bid for prime airspace ("payola"). Retail consolidation – the growth of big record chains – drove consolidation in the distributors who sold to the chains, and the more concentrated distributors became, the more they could squeeze retailers, which drove even more consolidation in record stores. The bigger a label was, the more power it had to shove back against the muscle of the stores and the distributors (and the pressing plants, etc). Consolidation in labels also drove consolidation in talent agencies, whose large client rosters gave them power to resist the squeeze from the labels. Consolidation in venues drives consolidation in ticketing and promotion – and vice-versa.

But there's two parties to this supply chain who can't consolidate: musicians and their fans. With limits on "sectoral bargaining" (where unions can represent workers against all the companies in a sector), musicians' unions were limited in their power against key parts of the supply chain, so the creative workers who made the music were easy pickings for labels, talent reps, promoters, ticketers, venues, retailers, etc. Music fans are diffused and dispersed, and organized fan clubs were usually run by the labels, who weren't about to allow those clubs to be used against the labels.

This is a perfect case-study in the problems of powerful intermediaries, who move from facilitator to parasite, paying workers less while degrading their products, and then charge customers more for those enshittified products.

The excitement about "disintermediation" wasn't so much about eliminating intermediaries as it was about disciplining them. If there were lots of ways to market a product or service, sell it, collect payment for it, and deliver it, then the natural inclination of intermediaries to turn predator would be curbed by the difficulty of corralling their prey into chokepoints.

Now that we're a quarter century on from the Napster Wars, we can see how that worked out. Decades of failure to enforce antitrust law allowed a few companies to effectively capture the internet, buying out rivals who were willing to sell, and bankrupting those who wouldn't with illegal tactics like predatory pricing (think of Uber losing $31 billion by subsidizing $0.41 out of every dollar they charged for taxi rides for more than a decade).

The market power that platforms gained through consolidation translated into political power. When a few companies dominate a sector, they're able to come to agreement on common strategies for dealing with their regulators, and they've got plenty of excess profits to spend on those strategies. First and foremost, platforms used their power to get more power, lobbying for even less antitrust enforcement. Additionally, platforms mobilized gigantic sums to secure the right to screw customers (for example, by making binding arbitration clauses in terms of service enforceable) and workers (think of the $225m Uber and Lyft spent on California's Prop 22, which formalized their worker misclassification swindle).

So big platforms were able to insulate themselves from the risk of competition ("five giant websites, filled with screenshots of the other four" – Tom Eastman), and from regulation. They were also able to expand and mobilize IP law to prevent anyone from breaking their chokepoints or undoing the abuses that these enabled. This is a good place to get specific about how Prime Video works.

There's two ways to get Prime videos: over an app, or in your browser. Both of these streams are encrypted, and that's really important here, because of a law – Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act – which makes it really illegal to break this kind of encryption (commonly called "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM"). Practically speaking, that means that if a company encrypts its videos, no one is allowed to do anything to those videos, even things that are legal, without the company's permission, because doing all those legal things requires breaking the DRM, and breaking the DRM is a felony (five years in prison, $500k fine, for a first offense).

Copyright law actually gives subscribers to services like Prime a lot of rights, and it empowers businesses that offer tools to exercise those rights. Back in 1976, Sony rolled out the Betamax, the first major home video recorder. After an eight-year court battle, the Supreme Court weighed in on VCRs and ruled that it was legal for all of us to record videos at home, both to watch them later, and to build a library of our favorite shows. They also ruled that it was legal for Sony – and by that time, every other electronics company – to make VHS systems, even if those systems could be used in ways that violated copyright because they were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" (letting you tape shows off your TV).

Now, this was more than a decade before the DMCA – and its prohibition on breaking DRM – passed, but even after the DMCA came into effect, there was a lot of media that didn't have DRM, so a new generation of tech companies were able to make tools that were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" and that didn't have to break any DRM to do it.

Think of the Ipod and Itunes, which, together, were sold as a way to rip CDs (which weren't encrypted), and play them back from both your desktop computer and a wildly successful pocket-sized portable device. Itunes even let you stream from one computer to another. The record industry hated this, but they couldn't do anything about it, thanks to the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling.

Indeed, they eventually swallowed their bile and started selling their products through the Itunes Music Store. These tracks had DRM and were thus permanently locked to Apple's ecosystem, and Apple immediately used that power to squeeze the labels, who decided they didn't like DRM after all, and licensed all those same tracks to Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store, whose slogan was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me":

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/02/01/amazons-anti-drm-tee/

Apple played a funny double role here. In marketing Itunes/Ipods ("Rip, Mix, Burn"), they were the world's biggest cheerleaders for all the things you were allowed to do with copyrighted works, even when the copyright holder objected. But with the Itunes Music Store and its mandatory DRM, the company was also one of the world's biggest cheerleaders for wrapping copyrighted works in a thin skin of IP that would allow copyright holders to shut down products like the Ipod and Itunes.

Microsoft, predictably enough, focused on the "lock everything to our platform" strategy. Then-CEO Steve Ballmer went on record calling every Ipod owner a "thief" and arguing that every record company should wrap music in Microsoft's Zune DRM, which would allow them to restrict anything they didn't like, even if copyright allowed it (and would also give Microsoft the same abusive leverage over labels that they famously exercised over Windows software companies):

https://web.archive.org/web/20050113051129/http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39124642,00.htm

In the end, Amazon's approach won. Apple dropped DRM, and Microsoft retired the Zune and shut down its DRM servers, screwing anyone who'd ever bought a Zune track by rendering that music permanently unplayable.

Around the same time as all this was going on, another company was making history by making uses of copyrighted works that the law allowed, but which the copyright holders hated. That company was Tivo, who products did for personal video recorders (PVRs) what Apple's Ipod did for digital portable music players. With a Tivo, you could record any show over cable (which was too expensive and complicated to encrypt) and terrestrial broadcast (which is illegal to encrypt, since those are the public's airwaves, on loan to the TV stations).

That meant that you could record any show, and keep it forever. What's more, you could very easily skip through ads (and rival players quickly emerged that did automatic ad-skipping). All of this was legal, but of course the cable companies and broadcasters hated it. Like Ballmer, TV execs called Tivo owners "thieves."

But Tivo didn't usher in the ad-supported TV apocalypse that furious, spittle-flecked industry reps insisted it would. Rather, it disciplined the TV and cable operators. Tivo owners actually sought out ads that were funny and well-made enough to go viral. Meanwhile, every time the industry decided to increase the amount of advertising in a show, they also increased the likelihood that their viewers would seek out a Tivo, or worse, one of those auto-ad-skipping PVRs.

Given all the stink that TV execs raised over PVRs, you'd think that these represented a novel threat. But in fact, the TV industry's appetite for ads had been disciplined by viewers' access to new technology since 1956, when the first TV remotes appeared on the market (executives declared that anyone who changed the channel during an ad-break was a thief). Then came the mute button. Then the wireless remote. Meanwhile, a common VCR use-case – raised in the Supreme Court case – was fast-forwarding ads.

At each stage, TV adapted. Ads in TV shows represented a kind of offer: "Will you watch this many of these ads in return for a free TV show?" And the remote, the mute button, the wireless remote, the VCR, the PVR, and the ad-skipping PVR all represented a counter-offer. As economists would put it, the ability of viewers to make these counteroffers "shifted the equilibrium." If viewers had no defensive technology, they might tolerate more ads, but once they were able to enforce their preferences with technology, the industry couldn't enshittify its product to the liminal cusp of "so many ads that the viewer is right on the brink of turning off the TV (but not quite)."

This is the same equilibrium-shifting dynamic that we see on the open web, where more than 50% of users have installed an ad-blocker. The industry says, "Will you allow this many 'sign up to our mailing list' interrupters, pop ups, pop unders, autoplaying videos and other stuff that users hate but shareholders benefit from" and the ad-blocker makes a counteroffer: "How about 'nah?'":

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

TV remotes, PVRs and ad-blockers are all examples of "adversarial interoperability" – a new product that plugs into an existing one, extending or modifying its functions without permission from (or even over the objections of) the original manufacturer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interop creates a powerful disciplining force on platform owners. Once a user grows so frustrated with a product's enshittification that they research, seek out, acquire and learn to use an adversarial interop tool, it's really game over. The printer owner who figures out where to get third-party ink is gone forever. Every time a company like HP raises its prices, they have to account for the number of customers who will finally figure out how to use generic ink and never, ever send another cent to HP.

This is where DMCA 1201 comes into play. Once a product is skinned with DRM, its manufacturers gain the right to prevent you from doing legal things, and can use the public's courts and law-enforcement apparatus to punish you for trying. Take HP: as soon as they started adding DRM to their cartridges, they gained the legal power to shut down companies that cloned, refilled or remanufactured their cartridges, and started raising the price of ink – which today sits at more than $10,000/gallon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Using third party ink in your printer isn't illegal (it's your printer, right?). But making third party ink for your printer becomes illegal once you have to break DRM to do so, and so HP gets to transform tinted water into literally the most expensive fluid on Earth. The ink you use to print your kid's homework costs more than vintage Veuve Cliquot or sperm from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred.

Adversarial interoperability is a powerful tool for shifting the equilibrium between producers, intermediaries and buyers. DRM is an even more powerful way of wrenching that equilibrium back towards the intermediary, reducing the share that buyers and sellers are able to eke out of the transaction.

Prime Video, of course, is delivered via an app, which means it has DRM. That means that subscribers don't get to exercise the rights afforded to them by copyright – only the rights that Amazon permits them to have. There's no Tivo for Prime, because it would have to break the DRM to record the shows you stream from Prime. That allows Prime to pull all kinds of shady shit. For example, every year around this time, Amazon pulls popular Christmas movies from its free-to-watch tier and moves them into pay-per-view, only restoring them in the spring:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vudu/comments/1bpzanx/looks_like_amazon_removed_the_free_titles_from/

And of course, Prime sticks ads in its videos. You can't skip these ads – not because it's technically challenging to make a 30-second advance button for a video stream, and doing so wouldn't violate anyone's copyright – but because Amazon doesn't permit you to do so, and the fact that the video is wrapped in DRM makes it a felony to even try.

This means that Amazon gets to seek a different equilibrium than TV companies have had to accept since 1956 and the invention of the TV remote. Amazon doesn't have to limit the quantity, volume, and invasiveness of its ads to "less the amount that would drive our subscribers to install and use an ad-skipping plugin." Instead, they can shoot for the much more lucrative equilibrium of "so obnoxious that the viewer is almost ready to cancel their subscription (but not quite)."

That's pretty much exactly how Kelly Day, the Amazon exec in charge of Prime Video, put it to the Financial Times: they're increasing the number of ads because "we haven’t really seen a groundswell of people churning out or cancelling":

https://www.ft.com/content/f8112991-820c-4e09-bcf4-23b5e0f190a5

At this point, attentive readers might be asking themselves, "Doesn't Amazon have to worry about Prime viewers who watch in their browsers?" After all browsers are built on open standards, and anyone can make one, so there should be browsers that can auto-skip Prime ads, right?

Wrong, alas. Back in 2017, the W3C – the organization that makes the most important browser standards – caved to pressure from the entertainment industry and the largest browser companies and created "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME), a "standard" for video DRM that blocks all adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This had the almost immediate effect of making it impossible to create an independent browser without licensing proprietary tech from Google – now a convicted monopolist! – who won't give you a license if you implement recording, ad-skipping, or any other legal (but dispreferred) feature:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

This means that for Amazon, there's no way to shift value away from the platform to you. The company has locked you in, and has locked out anyone who might offer you a better deal. Companies that know you are technologically defenseless are endlessly inventive in finding ways to make things worse for you to make things better for them. Take Youtube, another DRM-video-serving platform that has jacked up the number of ads you have to sit through in order to watch a video – even as they slash payments to performers. They've got a new move: they're gonna start showing you ads while your video is paused:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/09/20/youtube-pause-ads-rollout/75306204007/

That is the kind of fuckery you only come up with when your victory condition is "a service that's almost so bad our customers quit (but not quite)."

In Amazon's case, the math is even worse. After all, Youtube may have near-total market dominance over a certain segment of the video market, but Prime Video is bundled with Prime Delivery, which the vast majority of US households subscribe to. You have to give up a lot to cancel your Prime subscription – especially since Amazon's predatory pricing devastated the rest of the retail sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

Amazon's founding principle was "customer obsession." Ex-Amazoners tell me that this was more than an empty platitude: arguments over product design were won or lost based on whether they could satisfy the "customer obsession" litmus test. Now, everyone falls short of their ideals, but sticking to your ideals isn't merely a matter of internal discipline, of willpower. Living up to your ideals is a matter of external discipline, too. When Amazon no longer had to contend with competitors or regulators, when it was able to use DRM to control its customers and use the law to prevent them from using its products in legal ways, it lost those external sources of discipline.

Amazon suppliers have long complained of the company's high-handed treatment of the vendors who supplied it with goods. Its workers have complained bitterly and loudly about the dangerous and oppressive conditions in its warehouses and delivery vans. But Amazon's customers have consistently given Amazon high marks on quality and trustworthiness.

The reason Amazon treated its workers and suppliers badly and its customers well wasn't that it liked customers and hated workers and suppliers. Amazon was engaged in a cold-blooded calculus: it understood that treating customers well would give it control over those customers, and that this would translate market power to retain suppliers even as it ripped them off and screwed them over.

But now, Amazon has clearly concluded that it no longer needs to keep customers happy in order to retain them. Instead, it's shooting for "keeping customers so angry that they're almost ready to take their business elsewhere (but not quite)." You see this in the steady decline of Amazon product search, which preferences the products that pay the biggest bribes for search placement over the best matches:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And you see it in the steady enshittification of Prime Video. Amazon's character never changed. The company always had a predatory side. But now that monopoly and IP law have insulated it from consequences for its actions, there's no longer any reason to keep the predator in check.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

#pluralistic #amazon #enshittification #ads #prime #ad-tech #discipline

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dandelionsresilience · 10 months ago

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whether the internet becomes an intolerable surveillance state, ubiquitous subscription model, or unusably ad- or AI-ridden shithole, I think we need to remember

how to do things offline

either on your personal hard drive (just because it’s an app doesn’t mean the information is stored in your device) or on paper. I’m not saying the collapse of the internet is imminent, and I’m not suggesting we do everything completely without technology, or even stop using it until we have to. (to be clear, I also don’t think the internet will just blink out of existence, suddenly stop being a thing at all; rather I think it might continue to lose its usefulness to the point where it’s impossible to get anything done. anyway) but some people may have forgotten how we got by before the internet (I almost have!), and the younger generation might not have experienced it at all.

I figure most people probably use the internet mainly for communication with friends and family, entertainment and creation (eg. writing), and looking up how to do things, so here’s how to do those things offline:

First and most importantly, download everything important to you onto at least one hard drive and at least one flashdrive! files can get corrupted and hardware can get damaged or lost, but as long as you keep backup copies, you have much-closer-to-guaranteed access versus hoping a business doesn’t decide to paywall, purge, or otherwise revoke your access. I would recommend getting irreplaceable photos printed as well

download and/or print/write down:

anything important to you - photos/videos, journals, certificates, college transcripts

contact info - phone numbers and/or addresses of friends/family (know how to contact them if you can’t use your favourite messaging app), doctors (open hours would be good too), veterinarians if you have pets, and work

how-to’s - recipes (one, two), emergency preparedness (what do I do if… eg. I smell gas)

other things you might google: cleaning chemicals to NOT mix, what laundry tag symbols mean, people food dogs and cats can and can’t eat, plant toxicity to pets

and know offline ways to find things out - local radio station, newspaper, a nearby highway rest area might have a region map, public libraries usually have a bunch of resources

also, those of you who get periods should strongly consider not using period tracking apps! here’s how to track your period manually

free printable period tracker templates (no printer? public libraries usually charge a few cents per page, or you can recreate it by hand)

moving on to entertainment, you can still get most media for free! it’s completely legal to download your favourite movies to your own personal hard drive, you just can’t sell or distribute copies (not legal advice)

movies: wcostream.tv (right click the player) - the url changes every once in a while but usually redirects; I recently noticed that it’s hiding a lot of movies behind “premium,” so it may or may not work anymore | download youtube videos

music: how to get music without streaming it | legal free downloads

games: steamunlocked.net - doesn’t have every game and can be slow to update, but very reliable

books: free online libraries | legal free downloads

otherwise passing time:

active outdoor games

for road trips (social verbal games)

for when power’s out

for sheltering in place (not all offline, but good ideas)

board games (often found at thrift stores)

ad-free customisable games collection (mobile)

read, write, draw, or whatever your craft is, sing, dance, clean, reorganise, take a bath

go outside - excuses include napping (if safe), eating, reading, finding cool plants/animals/rocks, playing with the dog

places to go include:

zoos and museums can be surprisingly cheap

parks and nature preserves

library, mall, or game shop

and a few miscellaneous things for good measure:

time budgeting | household management

how to use a planner | I’ve had success with visually blocked-out schedules like these

please add on if you have any other offline alternatives to common uses of the internet!

#anti capitalism #off grid #internet #technology #how to #my post

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bunlaozu · 3 months ago

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Missing you.

[Redacted] X Reader

type: fluff (this time)

word count: 1614 (not super long this time)

warnings: none! (also this time, more interesting stuffs in the future tho!)

hai this is gonna be basically my intro to tumblr! first post yayyy (੭˃ᴗ˂)੭

i thought to myself hey, what is ren really like at home? and im sure my moots will know what i rly think of him but.. i thought it would be cute to write how i think he'd act a couple years post game, a small domestic moment i thought up for u (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

(also pls pls ignore my bad grammar and punctuation, this is very beta)

You and Redacted had been living together quite a while now, almost two years! Really it was just shy of perfect, something was always happening in your apartment with them, some project or puzzle or new game they'd decided you must play together. This weekend was particularly lazy, with nothing to do actively around the house having done all the chores alone for once.

See, Redacted, you'd discovered early into your relationship, was a nerd. He loved his computers and his small robots, he loved to build and tinker and usually left his office quite a mess. He'd found a part he needed for his latest project off some internet forum, something no longer produced, "rare", he'd said. The only downside is that the pickup was almost 4 hours inland, meaning he'd have to be gone almost the entire day.

Redacted had slid out of your bed much too early in the morning and bade you a kiss goodbye, whispering you softly back to sleep before you'd even really noticed. That meant you hadn't seen him properly since the night before, which.. was fine, and it was normal for partners to be busy. but you missed him anyways, terribly even, especially in his absence of usual texts he sent constantly when not home.

It was about 7pm now and the blood red sunset on the beach cast a glow into your home, spreading across the pristine white marble flooring almost like spilled juice. you stood in the kitchen having decided to cook for once, in Redacted's absence who usually always insisted to do this. You stood at the stove, stupid pun apron on and wooden spoon in hand making spam fried rice with a fruit tart dish in the oven. It wasn't much but it was something he loved and you hoped to surprise him with it when he got home tonight, god willing it be before midnight since the location app the two of you shared wasn't picking him up anymore.

You paused a moment to admire the shining gold band on your left hand, a pretty diamond nestled in ornate but simple patterns. Not that it could be seen but when Redacted had proposed to you just 6 months ago you'd discovered he'd had your rings engraved, just a simple “always” but it was perfect. The metal glinted in the light of the kitchen and it brought a soft smile to your face before eventually you needed to pay attention to the food on the stove again but with a warm feeling throughout.

You stood in the kitchen humming along to some new love song off the radio, tapping the end of the spoon against the counter before ultimately deciding to use it as a microphone because, why not? No one was home after all. The sounds of the stove vent running and the sizzling of the rice in the pan coupled with the music covered anything else, a small little bubble of life which a certain someone was hearing from the foyer as he snuck through the front door.

You didn't notice a thing, eyes closed having a playful moment to yourself until large warm arms wrapped around your waist and picked you up for a spin. you squealed in surprise and wiggled around in his arms gleefully, wanting to get a look at your lover after a whole day gone. "I'm home~ did'ya miss me?" his low warm voice hummed beside your ear, making you giggle in his hold and immediately reach to shut off the stove knowing he was too clingy to allow you to continue cooking.

"Yes i missed you!! Let me go!!" his arms loosened around you just enough for you to spin around, coming chest to delicate paper with him and gasping the moment you saw what he held close. Between the two of you was a beautiful bouquet of flowers, an entire spring mix of beautiful blues and whites and purples with his smiling hopeful face above the flowers. "What do y-" "I love them!!! They're so beautiful, did you know you're my favorite?" you burst out not even letting him ask, taking the bouquet gently from his hold before leaping into his arms and pressing a hard kiss to his lips.

The two of you stood like that for a moment, wrapped up in each other with Redacted's hands running up and down your sides in warm paths till he seemingly had a new idea. He pressed you back and back and back, practically laying you down on the counter top while his kisses migrated across your face, over your hair, anywhere he could reach. his warm breath raised goosebumps across your skin and his smile pressed into your skin caused a new shiver, making you feel much too warm for an already toasty kitchen. "What are you.. a dog? All over me like a puppy.." you mumbled softly with a lovesick expression, hardly even an attempt at discouraging his overeager behavior.

"Missed you.. Can i not miss you? Missed you all day, missed you so much.." he rumbled softly against your skin where his mouth was pressed, hardly even kissing anymore so much as placing his mouth against your skin just to feel. He whispered the words reverently over and over, pressing the sentiment marrow deep to somewhere it would stick and take hold there, something that would grow. Redacted pressed his nose to your neck for a deep slow inhale, making you giggle at the sensation and finally decide to try and push him away while you squirmed in his arms. This only made things worse when he latched onto your waist tighter with a new determined look in his eyes not hiding the sparkle of mischief.

He left small breaths across your jaw and onto your face, pressing feather light kisses and making a point to be absolutely as close as possible. The cool brush from his nose only tickled worse but he refused to let up, leaving a delicate trail of breathy kisses all over your face and going as far to press his nose to yours, holding just like that for a moment. He slowly opened his mouth and bit on the tip of your nose, making you yelp in surprise and scrunch up with distaste. Redacted practically shook above you in a silent laughter, kissing the small nip better in a sincere apology with his soft eyelashes fluttering into a slightly remorseful smile.

"Redacted.. what is this? What are you even doing?" you said soft and endlessly fond, giving in and closing your eyes to his smirk pressed against your cheek, allowing him his fill of some much needed love. Once he started to nibble on your skin again you finally decided to gently put a hand over his mouth, snickering softly when he just started to gently nip and kiss at your fingers instead. You meant to push him away till his lips met the gold band on your finger, giving it a special devotion with your hand cradled between his own as if he held something to be worshipped. The sight was almost too much to bear, something fuzzy and warm tightening in your chest reminding you that you had this, he really was yours.

"Again, what'll i do with you??" you sighed with the fondest smile and a certain helplessness to your voice as he finally glanced up and your eyes met soft blue, a ghost of a hidden grin on his face, clearly very proud of himself. "Keep me?" he murmured in return, clearly gearing up to dive back in for more kisses which meant quickly squirming away off of the counter, wagging a finger in his direction.

"No more of you! Our dinner will get cold and then what?" you scolded, picking up your discarded wooden spoon to wave in his face. Redacted immediately crossed his arms and puffed his cheeks out in a pout, giving a small kick to the floor with a socked foot like there was any dirt to nudge while glancing up at you to see if his little show was working. "But.. y’could always reheat it..." he said petulantly, reaching for you and not expecting you to dance away, a smile on your face.

He reached for you again with a bit more speed and then it quickly became a game of cat and mouse, doing your best to slip and dodge from his reach while he became continuously competitive. He chased after you out of the kitchen and in front of the couch, smiling so hard it hurt and having worked up a slight pant. when he lunged for you this time you let him catch you, falling back onto the couch with a loud oof and a series of wheezing laughs knocking the breath from you both.

you reached up a hand to cup his cheek, brushing a thumb over the gentle flush from the exertion and excitement. "Got it out of your system? Can we have dinner now?" you said wryly, looking up at him with your best unamused expression. He put on an overly dramatic thinking face and hummed softly, looking around as if this were the hardest thing in the world to decide. his hands ran warm up and down your sides, sliding slowly over the skin under your shirt taking deliberately long touches to burn the feeling of his rough fingers into your skin. Redacted made a sound of affirmation and looked down at you with a smile "Nope. Missed you.”

Needless to say, dinner did need to be reheated and the tart was a little bit too toasty to taste good.

#14 days with you #14dwy #14dwy redacted #14dwy ren #14dwy x reader

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yamumsyadadd · 5 months ago

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consequences

part of the Marquita series. Talks of consent, sexual assault, Jenni’s trial.

It had been odd at home for a few weeks. Your mami and Irene were always talking in hushed voices, both with frowns on their faces. Sometimes random people in suits would be in the living room when you got home.

Olga was busy with the baby, Mami with whatever secret she was dealing with and your mama? You weren’t exactly sure since she had gone radio silent on you.

Alexia knew it was time to have a conversation with you. After Rio was born, she and Jenni had sat you down to have the sex talk. Answering all the questions you had, emphasising not to look up things on the internet again and letting you know that regardless of your sexuality, they loved you.

The conversation they needed to had was around consent. None of your guardians thought you’d be having sex, or really doing anything inherently sexual, but with the trial coming up it was a conversation needed.

You were simply going through the motions. Confused as to why your mama wasn’t talking to you, even why you Tio Rafa wasn’t replying. Your phone was now left at home or in your mamis car more often. You didn’t have social media, something both parents were extremely strict about.

Sometimes you wanted to fight about with them, but then you remembered when Olga let you use her phone and you were scrolling through her instagram, the amount of hate messages, death threats and overall mean comments she received had shocked you.

There were moments, at school with you friends, that you felt like you were missing out because they all had instagram and Snapchat, but you reminded yourself about the awful things said to Olga and you didn’t think you’d cope with that.

The house was eerily quiet when you came home from school. There was no baby noises, or tv. Olga and Rio weren’t in the kitchen, office or in your Mami and Olga’s room. The lounge room was clean, untouched from the cleaner. A apart of you felt forgotten. They had gone out somewhere and forgotten you.

In a major act of defiance, you found your phone and downloaded instagram. To you, this would get their attention, make them feel bad for forgetting you. The ramifications of it didn’t even float in your mind.

It took at least half an hour to figure it out, following a few of your friends from school, as well as your Tia, Abuela and a few of the Barcelona Women’s team members but not your mami, mama or Olga.

You were so wrapped up in discovering how to use the app, you didn’t hear the keys in the front door, or the sounds of both your mami and mama walking down the hallway. It was only when your mama plucked your phone from her hand, eyebrows creased, did you realise they were there.

“Hey!-“

“Since when did you allow her to have an instagram Alexia?” You felt your body fold into itself.

“Never. Marquita, you aren’t allowed instagram. You were told this!”

Both your mami and mama were standing in front of you, mami with her arms crossed and her usual frown, your mama with one hand on her hip, the other looking at your phone.

“Why? Why did you break our trust and make an account. You know how people are, the cruel things-“

“I know! I know okay? I guess I felt left out. All my friends have it, you guys have it. Even Nala had an instagram!”

Your mama sat down in front of you, giving your phone to your mami, “this is a conversation that your mami and I need to have. Without you around.”

“Why are you here?” It clicked in your brain, your mama was here, in February, she was supposed to be in Mexico, playing a game in a few days time.

“We need to have an important, honest conversation with you.” Your mami sat down next to you, grabbing your hand.

“Are you sending me back? I’ll delete the instagram! I’ll do whatever you want but please-“

“Stop, Amor we aren’t sending you back.” Your Mami looked towards your mama, giving her a slight nod.

“Do you remember how Spain won the World Cup in Australia?” You nodded your head, of course you remembered, “there was a moment on stage that something happened. The head of the RFEF did something to me, something I didn’t like and didn’t ask for. Because of this, he stood down and there were charges filed against him and a few others. They were saying some really horrible things to me. About you, about my career and your mamis career.” You could tell she was getting emotional, maybe even a little embarrassed.

“There are certain people in this world that think they can get away with things. Usually it’s men, but sometimes it women too. If you don’t want to do something, hug someone or kiss them or whatever, never let them pressure you. It’s important that if you’re not comfortable, you don’t do it. Even if it’s a feeling in your tummy that you don’t understand, listen to it. You call me, mami, Olga, alba, abuela, or anyone on the team. We will all be there.”

“Okay.”

“Do you understand what we are saying?”

“Yeah. Don’t let anyone make me feel uncomfortable.”

“The same applies to you. If someone tells you to stop, that they are uncomfortable, you stop. Straight away. If someone expresses their discomfort after the fact, you listen, you apologise, you don’t do it again.”

“Okay I understand.”

“The reason” your Mamas voice broke as she spoke again, “I’m here is because we are going to trial. Your mami, Irene, Tio Rafa, Codi, they are all going to talk at the trial, I’m going to talk at the trial. That’s part of the reason I’ve- we’ve been so hesitant on you having social media. These people, they have been really really cruel, so have the people online and neither of us want you exposed to that.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” You asked almost shyly. Both nodded at you, “when I was on Olga’s phone, I went through her instagram. I saw the messages she gets.”

“Yes. It’s not pretty, your mami and I get them too. Alba probably does. All the girls on the team. When you’re a bit older and, um, sexual activity we will revisit this conversation. Do you have any questions about anything?”

You shook your head. At this current time, there were no questions to be asked. It was a lot of information to take in. The thought of kissing a boy or girl, was too much to think about.

“We are just going to have a chat about your instagram and phone privileges. Do you have homework to get done?”

It didn’t take long for the house to become loud again. Olga and Rio walked in right as you started your homework. Olga gave you a kiss on the head as you took Rio from her. Leaving the two of you in the lounge room as she went to join your Mami and mama in their room.

Sometimes you were jealous of Rio. He was just a baby, a baby that had no expectations, no homework, no chores. His only job was to just survive.

A short time later, your mama, Mami and Olga came out of their room. Your mami taking Rio from you and your mama wrapping her arms tightly around you.

“We have all come to an agreement. You can keep instagram on a few conditions.”

“Okay?”

“1. You make that account private. No one is allowed to follow you expect your friends, family and the girls on the team. If you don’t want them to follow you, you don’t have to accept it, but you cannot accept any strangers. Understand?”

A small smile crept on your face, “I understand.”

“Okay, number 2. You have to give the email and password to us. We are allowed to check what you’re looking at, who you’re following and who is messaging you. I know it seems like it’s controlling but it’s for your own safety.”

“Yes! Yes okay!”

“Wait, don’t get too excited. There’s one more thing: every night, at 8pm, your phone is to be in our bedroom. Just because you are getting instagram, doesn’t mean you’ll be allowed to be on it all night.”

You nodded quickly, before launching yourself at your mama and then mami and Olga. They were giving you a taste of freedom, they trusted you and you wouldn’t let them down.

Secretly, you would search your mami and mamas names. Reading the horrible things people said about them made you feel protective over them. They were the best people you knew, the strongest, most loving. It took a lot of self control and conversations with Mapi, but you learned to ignore it.

#woso community #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso x reader #alexia x reader #barca femeni #fcb femení #jenni hermoso x alexia putellas #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas fanfic #alexia putellas #jenni hermoso x reader #alexia putellas x jenni hermoso #jenni hermoso

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do-you-have-a-flag · 25 days ago

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i'm just gonna call it that we need to practice mindful tech usage and security and i don't mean screentime tracking apps and vpns or whatever i mean starting from early childhood and going into adult wellbeing culture to encourage tactile hobbies and long-form work and the understanding of online devices as commodifying the user with spyware

i'm talking throwback word processors with the same ergonomics as regular smart devices for general educational work and dedicated subjects for working with digital technologies so you have theory in practice and then applying that theory in a contemporary work context. that's where you learn applications, digital safety, and how to implement the generative tools. separately. once you've already developed the critical analysis and expressive skills first.

i have been basically addicted to the internet since i was 13, i've had ups and downs with it, but i've always had a little bit of over caution when it comes to information and identity online. i overshare what i chose to but i think the break down of privacy as a norm when it comes to personal data tracking is genuinely awful.

i like algorithms in some places but i do not think this super-customisation is worth this panopticon of tech.

have you heard about how phone locations can still be triangulated when the phone is off? this is incidentally why if you are gong to protests and you think you are in danger it might be best to leave it at home. but generally if you want to avoid audio and video being used to build a marketing profile you can just switch it off and pop it in a bag or the next room. but with fb trying to make voice command smart glasses a thing (after snapchat and google both failed to sustain the same product) it bears caution that so called wearable tech such as glasses, pendants, watches, earbuds, ect.... even outside of smart cars there's the risk of passive listening for user marketing profiles. we already have location based advertising, ads that track your useage to predict your menstrual cycle or life events, public ads that react to nearby phones

i am going off on this tangent to say that i am not naïve to the fact that we already have to constantly dig into 'dark patterns' of settings to opt out of surveillance and commodification. i'm aware that the easiest path is to do nothing and use the shortcut machines even when they don't actually help or save much time or effort beyond selling you tools that already exist with a new price tag. i'm aware that the plagiarism software with no idea what it's talking about and runs on resource wasting pollution and underpaid remote human labour that also gets slapped in every function role despite basically being fancy autofil and pixel pulp not only has all of those issues but the lay person is either unaware or does not care and companies only care that it is a new way to pretend they're innovating. i know all this just like i know that mass automation is just exploitation unless it is balanced with social structures for all that mean emancipation from the need for labour.

but while i think all tech can be used for good, facilitating human connection across physical distance, carefully trained data analysis on a rapid large scale, removing the tedium of technical drudgery where needed, just providing light entertainment. but we have gotta be better about legislating, moderating, and use culture.

use culture goes hand in hand with convenience. it's why vinyl records are still trendy, not only are they good at what they do, but there is enough cool factor that the inconvenience becomes a feature. CDs are also convenient still! but CDs do not have the cool factor so they get wiped out by the convenience of streaming. playlists in streaming have a cool factor that radio does not despite radio still being convenient. and remember no matter how much streaming claims you can pay to opt out of ads that's usually something that you get payment tiered out of eventually so the convenience facilitated by accessibility is debatable the longer time passes.

looping back to my original point, if we can encourage an understanding of digital privacy as something you shouldn't be complacent about, that you shouldn't have to pay for tools to get out of the spotlight, that it is immensely embarrassing to be too into exploitation by tech companies and make that the problem of everyone around you. user control should be synonymous with convenience. customisability/personalisation through individual control rather than passive scraping. you can still commodify decorative tech.

we gotta make slop and babying algorithm brained tech usage cringe. people don't care to hear that it's immoral so just make them feel uncool at this point. because it is embarrassing that you have the universe of resources at your fingertips and you're too scared to do anything with it other than beg it to put words in your mouth. who cares if you're chronically online or too busy irl to learn a new skill. you are like a little bird pecking at it's own reflection, that's sad. try saying something mediocre and honest. we gotta stop tap dancing into technofeudalism just because we're too complacent to actually talk to each-other.

#ranting again #sorry i've been a bit of a doomer lately i simply know too many things about tech trends against my will

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stevespookington · 4 months ago

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We are heading into severe weather season in the US soon (and by soon I mean tomorrow) (disclaimer, this is all general advice. pay attention to the official weather sources in your area for alerts and important information. I am not an expert, weather info is just a hobby for me.)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Weather Service (NWS) has (for now anyways) the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) which is a great source of information to stay weather aware.

The SPC puts out Convective Outlooks. These show where thunderstorms and severe weather have the potential to pop up. (With temperatures warming up, the movement of warm air leads to convection in the atmosphere which results in thunderstorms and sometimes severe weather. There is a good blog post going into more detail here)

Specifically, the outlooks are:

Day 1 Outlook (today and early tomorrow morning)

Day 2 Outlook (the next 24 hours following early tomorrow morning)

Day 3 Outlook (the next 24 hours)

Day 4-8 Outlook (the next days, but these are never too certain due to the way the models work)

These outlooks are timestamped with Zulu time aka Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You can see how that compares to your local timezone here.

Today (3/13/25), the weather outlook is okay, just a slight risk of thunderstorms across the US. However, Friday (3/14/25) and Saturday (3/15/25) both have a widespread risk of severe weather including strong winds and tornadoes.

If you are in any of these colored regions, stay weather aware! Now, this doesn't mean you have to panic, but keep an eye on the weather reports in your area!

I tend to check the SPC in the morning so I know when I have to really be paying attention to the weather for the day/coming days.

Below is more info on the color coding which you can read more about here. (In addition here is a powerpoint from the NWS with more information "12 Things You Need to Know: Severe Weather Outlooks")

Tips on staying weather aware, it's important to have access to several weather sources.

Check the SPC for updates!

Find your closest NWS Forecast Office via zip code on weather.gov

Keep an eye on the local news and local weather reports

Consider getting a weather radio! (info here from NWS) This is good for if you lose power/internet as you can check the automated radio stations near you

Check the radar (I use the radarscope app) but you can check online with websites like radar.weather.gov or wunderground.com

Ryan Hall Y'all is a youtube channel that livestreams during most severe weather outbreaks

More weather info:

Severe Weather 101

How NOAA Satellites Help Us Stay Ahead of Severe Weather Season

How to Use and Interpret Doppler Weather Radar

TropicalTidbits - Info on hurricanes and other tropical weather

NWS - Emergency Supplies Kit Info

Weather Prediction Center - similar to SPC but more generalized

What to do During a Tornado (via NWS):

Stay Weather-Ready: Continue to listen to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio to stay updated about tornado watches and warnings.

At Your House: If you are in a tornado warning, go to your basement, safe room, or an interior room away from windows. Don't forget pets if time allows.

At Your Workplace or School: Follow your tornado drill and proceed to your tornado shelter location quickly and calmly. Stay away from windows and do not go to large open rooms such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, or auditoriums.

Outside: Seek shelter inside a sturdy building immediately if a tornado is approaching. Sheds and storage facilities are not safe. Neither is a mobile home or tent. If you have time, get to a safe building.

In a vehicle: Being in a vehicle during a tornado is not safe. The best course of action is to drive to the closest shelter. If you are unable to make it to a safe shelter, either get down in your car and cover your head, or abandon your car and seek shelter in a low lying area such as a ditch or ravine.

NOAA and NWS are under threat from everything going on right now. (Hundreds of weather forecasters fired in latest wave of DOGE cuts.) They provide vital services and do very important research about our weather and climate. While 5calls.org does not currently have a template centered on NOAA/NWS, they have similar ones that you could reference, modify, and use. (I have modified one below that you might consider using.) (5calls.org also has other very important scripts that you might use for other issues.) Please consider calling your representatives and telling them how important weather information is to everybody and that they should be protecting it, not defunding it. Not only for severe weather, but for climate change research and more.

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP]. I'm calling to demand that [REP/SEN NAME] oppose any legislation, or efforts by the executive branch to dismantle or abolish the National Weather Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The recent reduction in staff is unacceptable, and will put Americans' lives and property at risk to severe weather. Reduced warning capabilities will put lives at risk and could potentially make response and recovery more hazardous and more expensive. Thank you for your time and consideration. IF LEAVING VOICEMAIL: Please leave your full street address to ensure your call is tallied.

While this is geared towards the US, a lot of this information can be applied via resources specific to your country. And finally, to quote Ryan Hall, Don't be Scared, Be Prepared.

#weather #severe weather #information #psa #us weather #thunderstorms #noaa #nws #national weather service #i might do a followup specifically about reading radar and how to see rotation etc but with the severe weather in the next couple of days #wanted to do a brief overview #if anyone has better templates to call representatives with pls add them on. im not the best at that kinda phrasing #dont be scared. be prepared #tornadoes #thunder storms

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glitchlight · 6 months ago

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Oh No! I got mad about something someone I dont know posted on the internet and I am brooding and angry about it! Instead of posting I will relax and reflect and do something more productive like:

Scuba diving

Yoga

National Park Travelers Club

Becoming A Nudist

Jigsaw puzzles

Wikipedia editing

Inventing A Time Machine

Woodworking

Masturbating

Succumbing To The Amulet

Genealogy

Masturbating

Dark Alchemy

Robot combat

Bungee jumping

Electronics repair

Beekeeping

Lego sets

Shuffleboard

Slacklining

Eating Lugnuts Off The Cars In the Walmart Parking Lot

Photography

Metalworking

Hacking

Golfing

Paintball

Transcending the Limitations of Flesh

Welding

Thrifting

Sleeping

Abolishing The Division of Night and Day

Pet fostering

Meteorology

Getting Gone

Bowling

Dumpster Diving

Book collecting

Amateur radio

Meditating On My Uncountable Failures

Weaving

Ice skating

Graphic design

Brewing

Masturbating

Car racing

Stealing

Camping

Teaching Crows How To Commit Tax Fraud

Getting Really Good At Beatboxing

Cooking

Getting My Stink Salted

Bird watching

Crocheting

Gymnastics

Screaming Into the Night Sky At God

Metal detecting

Masturbating

Driving Off A Bridge

Sleeping

Thinking about Masturbating

Revisiting Classics To See If They Hold Up

Origami

Drinking

Masturbating

Billiards

Chess

Sleeping

Geocaching

Bread making

Launching rockets

Calligraphy

Archery

Jewelry making

Smoking

Video games

Needlepoint

Water skiing

Animal breeding

Stealing

Podcasting

Fantasy sports

Learning Spanish

Wine tasting

Backpacking

Getting Way Too Into Sports

Alchemy

Karaoke

Stealing

Traveling

Turning Straight Women Gay

Taxidermy

Masturbating

Horseback riding

Fishing

Being a DJ

Quilting

Juggling

Record collecting

Baking

Glassblowing

Drones

Stealing Infant Teeth

Crossfit

Improvisation

Attuning Myself To Crystals For the Purposes of Psychic Attacks

Drinking

Playing a musical instrument

Stand-up comedy

Throwing Myself Into A Volcano

Skiing

Remote cars

Bonsai

Furniture restoration

Quitting While I'm Ahead

Drinking

Writing

Smoking

Meterology

Local historical society

Disappearing In A Mysterious Accident

Assassination

Painting

Handball

Masturbating

Cheese-making

Martial arts

Astronomy

App making

Table tennis

Web design

Letting All The Demons Out of Hell

Farming

Hiking

Home improvement projects

Swimming

Skydiving

Volunteering

Animal grooming

Forbidden Alchemy

Remote airplanes

Gardening

Burying A Bunch Of Eggs

Becoming The Worlds Preeminent White Maoist

Digging A Hole To The Center of the Earth

Trivia

Journaling

Video production

Masturbating

Drinking

Crossword puzzles

Vehicle restoration

Candle-making

Drinking

Reading

Art collecting

Drawing

Makeup

Smoking

Running

Dancing On the Graves of My Enemies

Sleeping

Kayaking

Poetry

Knitting

Sleeping

Designing clothing

Sailing

Acting

Rock climbing

Disc golfing

Scrapbooking

Winemaking

Wood burning

Running Away

Museum visiting

Pottery

Escape rooms

Soap making

LARPing

Freestyling

Flying

Smoking

Snowboarding

Board games

Just Eating A Bunch of Candy

Surfing

Masturbating

Mixology

Smoking

Card games

Kite surfing

Masturbating

Composting

Dancing

Creating The Perfect French Fry

Powerlifting

Model trains

The Rites And Rituals Forbidden To Me

Movie reviews

Frisbee Wizardry

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dreamdolldeveloper · 1 year ago

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back to basics

mostly free resources to help you learn the basics that i've gathered for myself so far that i think are cool

everyday

gcfglobal - about the internet, online safety and for kids, life skills like applying for jobs, career planning, resume writing, online learning, today's skills like 3d printing, photoshop, smartphone basics, microsoft office apps, and mac friendly. they have core skills like reading, math, science, language learning - some topics are sparse so hopefully they keep adding things on. great site to start off on learning.

handsonbanking - learn about finances. after highschool, credit, banking, investing, money management, debt, goal setting, loans, cars, small businesses, military, insurance, retirement, etc.

bbc - learning for all ages. primary to adult. arts, history, science, math, reading, english, french, all the way to functional and vocational skills for adults as well, great site!

education.ket - workplace essential skills

general education

mathsgenie - GCSE revision, grade 1-9, math stages 1-14, provides more resources! completely free.

khan academy - pre-k to college, life skills, test prep (sats, mcat, etc), get ready courses, AP, partner courses like NASA, etc. so much more!

aleks - k-12 + higher ed learning program. adapts to each student.

biology4kids - learn biology

cosmos4kids - learn astronomy basics

chem4kids - learn chemistry

physics4kids - learn physics

numbernut - math basics (arithmetic, fractions and decimals, roots and exponents, prealgebra)

education.ket - primary to adult. includes highschool equivalent test prep, the core skills. they have a free resource library and they sell workbooks. they have one on work-life essentials (high demand career sectors + soft skills)

youtube channels

the organic chemistry tutor

khanacademy

crashcourse

tabletclassmath

2minmaths

kevinmathscience

professor leonard

greenemath

mathantics

3blue1brown

literacy

readworks - reading comprehension, build background knowledge, grow your vocabulary, strengthen strategic reading

chompchomp - grammar knowledge

tutors

not the "free resource" part of this post but sometimes we forget we can be tutored especially as an adult. just because we don't have formal education does not mean we can't get 1:1 teaching! please do you research and don't be afraid to try out different tutors. and remember you're not dumb just because someone's teaching style doesn't match up with your learning style.

cambridge coaching - medical school, mba and business, law school, graduate, college academics, high school and college process, middle school and high school admissions

preply - language tutoring. affordable!

revolutionprep - math, science, english, history, computer science (ap, html/css, java, python c++), foreign languages (german, korean, french, italian, spanish, japanese, chinese, esl)

varsity tutors - k-5 subjects, ap, test prep, languages, math, science & engineering, coding, homeschool, college essays, essay editing, etc

chegg - biology, business, engineering/computer science, math, homework help, textbook support, rent and buying books

learn to be - k-12 subjects

for languages

lingq - app. created by steve kaufmann, a polygot (fluent in 20+ languages) an amazing language learning platform that compiles content in 20+ languages like podcasts, graded readers, story times, vlogs, radio, books, the feature to put in your own books! immersion, comprehensible input.

flexiclasses - option to study abroad, resources to learn, mandarin, cantonese, japanese, vietnamese, korean, italian, russian, taiwanese hokkien, shanghainese.

fluentin3months - bootcamp, consultation available, languages: spanish, french, korean, german, chinese, japanese, russian, italian.

fluenz - spanish immersion both online and in person - intensive.

pimsleur - not tutoring** online learning using apps and their method. up to 50 languages, free trial available.

incase time has passed since i last posted this, check on the original post (not the reblogs) to see if i updated link or added new resources. i think i want to add laguage resources at some point too but until then, happy learning!!

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