#Create Business Program Reviews

[mostlysignssomeportents]

End-stage capitalism

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in BLOOMINGTON TODAY (Apr 4), and in PITTSBURGH on May 15. More tour dates here.

Karl Marx predicted that capitalism would eventually fail, torn apart by its own contradictions. He called the bourgeoisie, who epitomized these contradictions, capitalism's "grave diggers":

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels marvel at capitalism's adaptability, its ability to reinvent itself in the face of seemingly terminal crises and emerge in a new form. For nearly two centuries, Marxists have treated capitalism as an intermediate stage between feudalism and socialism – a lengthy, but still impermanent, regime whose purpose was to produce the systems of plenty that socialism would deliver to democratic control.

But as capitalism lurched from crisis to crisis, some Marxists speculated that capitalism would give way to something even worse. In 2023, Yanis Varoufakis proposed that capitalism might end up being a transitional phase between feudalism and another kind of feudalism – technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

But Trump's disastrous policies – tariffs, suspension of the rule of law, pointless military expansionism – doesn't serve Varoufakis's technofeudalism or any other kind of feudalism. As Hamilton Nolan writes, Trump represents a rupture of the customarily unshakable class solidarity of the wealthy. Trump's policies are not good for business. Trump is going to make America much, much poorer – and since the vast majority of American wealth is held by a tiny minority of very rich people, any program that vaporizes an appreciable fraction of American wealth will make a lot of rich people a lot poorer.

Hamilton Nolan wrote about this a couple days ago, enumerating all the ways that Trump – who LARPed a TV businessman – is extremely bad for business:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/divergence-from-the-interests-of

Gutting state capacity

As Nolan writes, there are plenty on the right who don't care about the idea that public education produces the skilled workers needed to run and expand the economy, and who believe that paving half the national parks and putting a $500/day admission price on the remainder will suit them just fine. But even the most hardcore plutocrat needs a functional immigration system so they can source workers who can do the jobs Americans won't – or can't – do. You can't be a finance guy in a country with a collapsed, corrupt Treasury Department that periodically reaches into institutional bank accounts and drains them of millions in pursuit of "obscure witch-hunts":

“stupidly breaking the parts of the government that allow our financial markets to function smoothly with no apparent plan" is not “populism” any more than a bite from an alligator is a kiss

Ending the rule of law

Anyone who claims to love "free markets" loves the rule of law. The predictability of a laws-based society is a necessary precondition for capital formation, long-term investing, and the use of contracts to coordinate business within a transparent, known set of rules.

Trump's lavish corruption – his crypto companies (which someone called "a tipjar for the Oval Office"), his sale of commutations and pardons to flagrant criminals, and his purging of Democrats within the DoJ to create space for "buffoons" who run his witch hunts – all offer good reason for investors to stay the hell out of America, and for businesses to get the hell out of the country:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5182515-senate-democrats-complaint-ed-martin/

The spectacle of the top executives of world's most powerful multinationals openly paying bribes to Trump, while seated at Trump's own members' club, makes an eloquent case for seeking your business opportunities in another country – practically any other country:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/trump-dinner-mar-a-lago

Then there's Trump's interference in the Fed, "endangering financial markets for short term political gain":

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-bid-to-control-fed-puts-us-economy-at-risk-by-kenneth-rogoff-2025-01

And finally, there's his defiance of federal court orders, and his attacks on law firms that employ lawyers who had the temerity to sue him. As Nolan writes, "This is not good for business." Sure, it's grimly satisfying to think about all those rich fools who howled because Biden had the temerity to suggest modest tax hikes and improvements to labor law now having to watch as "the world’s most sophisticated corporate legal regime [is replaced] with a system in which you must grovel at his toes in a ridiculous red hat in order to get anything done."

Military adventures

Trump is apparently going to go to war with Iran, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, and several other countries to be determined at a later date. Sure, America's military spending is higher than all the rest of the world's combined, but getting involved in several wars at once is – once again – not good for business. For one thing, he's going to kill Boeing, Lockheed, and all the other US-based arms dealers that rely on a friendly relationship with America's erstwhile allies for billions of dollars per year in business. Things are no better for the companies that do other kinds of business with the countries America is apparently on the brink of war with. This kind of "Hitlerian" program of economic growth was a failure in the previous century, and it will fail again:

Did Hitler’s wild invasions ultimate make Germany richer? No. They started a world war. And, no matter what anyone tells you, world war is not good for business.

Tariffs

Finally, there's Trump's deranged tariff plan. As David Dayen writes for The American Propsect, these aren't really tariffs at all – they're sanctions, punishments visited upon every country in the world (even uninhabited islands!) for a bunch of imaginary crimes:

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-04-03-theyre-not-tariffs-theyre-sanctions/

Trump's tariffs make no sense as an economic policy, but they are familiar to anyone who's spent time around organized crime (like, say, Trump):

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910/

Dayen likens Trump's approach to "a mob boss moving into town and sending his thugs to every business on Main Street, roughing up the proprietors and asking for protection money so they don’t get pushed out of business." Trump's demands – such as they are – include forcing America's trading partners to do away with their privacy, food safety and antitrust laws:

https://tacd.org/wp-content/uploads/TACD-Statement-Tariffs-3-April.pdf

Even if it was worth it for other countries to dismantle their laws to enjoy continued access to US markets (it isn't), no one trusts that giving in to Trump means that he'll carry out his end of the bargain. As Brad DeLong reminds us, Trump personally negotiated the USMCA terms that Canada and Mexico have been living under since he last left office, and those are the two countries he's most pissed off at:

https://braddelong.substack.com/p/draft-mar-a-lago-discord

This isn't capitalism – it's gangsterism. It's a system that will annihilate trillions of dollars in value to put billions of dollars in the pockets of Trump and a few of his cronies – at the expense of all the other rich people.

Nolan concludes that Trump is "insane" – that his actions are irrational, disconnected from reality, impossible to understand. For Nolan, the question isn't "What is Trump trying to accomplish?" It's "how has this insane man managed to gain control of the government of the world’s richest and most powerful nation?"

He's got a hell of an answer, too:

That, my friends, is the unfortunate outcome of an economic system that has so profoundly failed to enforce economic equality, and a political system that so profoundly failed to protect its democracy from the influence of capital that it allowed itself to be totally captured by extreme lunatics backed by extreme wealth.

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/2025/04/04/anything-that-cant-go-on/#forever-eventually-stops

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent the first six weeks of the new Trump administration turning the federal government upside down. It has moved from agency to agency, accessing sensitive data and payment systems, all on a supposed crusade to audit the government and stop fraud, waste, and abuse. DOGE has posted some of its “findings” on its website, many of which have been revealed to be errors.

But two federal auditors with years of experience, who have both worked on financial and technical audits for the government, say that DOGE’s actions are the furthest thing from what an actual audit looks like. Both asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t permitted to speak to the press.

“Honestly, comparing real auditing to what DOGE is doing, there’s no comparison,” says one of the auditors who spoke to WIRED. “None of them are auditors.”

In September, in a speech during the presidential campaign, then candidate Donald Trump said that he would create a government efficiency task force, headed by Musk, which would do a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.” Musk initially said that he wanted to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, more than the entire 2023 discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. Musk has since tempered his ambitions, saying he’d aim to cut $1 trillion in government spending. Still, he has alleged that much of this money can be cut by identifying waste, fraud, and abuse, and has continued to claim DOGE’s cuts of agency staff and resources are all part of an audit.

While there are certainly instances of government money siphoned off to fraud—a Government Accountability Office study published in 2024 estimated that the government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud each year—even recovering all that spending wouldn’t amount to the $1 trillion Musk hopes to cut from the budget.

The auditors who spoke to WIRED allege that not only is Musk’s claim not true, but also that DOGE appears to have completely eschewed the existing processes for actually rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.

“An audit that follows Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), also known as a Yellow Book audit, is conducted in accordance with the standards issued by the US Government Accountability Office,” says the first auditor. Audits can focus on the finances, compliance, or performance of an agency. “That is the gold standard for how you audit the government.”

There are generally five phases of a GAGAS audit, the auditors tell WIRED: planning, evidence gathering, evaluation, reporting, and follow up. Auditors work to define the scope of an audit, identify all the applicable laws and standards, and come up with an audit plan. Next, auditors conduct interviews with staff, review financial records, and comb through data, reports, and transactions, documenting all the way. From there, auditors will assess that information against policies or procedures to figure out if there’s been some kind of alleged waste, fraud, or abuse and issue a report detailing their findings and offering recommendations. Often, those reports are made available to the public. After an audit, the auditors can follow up with the agency to ensure changes are being made.

There are also very technical definitions for what constitutes waste, fraud, or abuse. Waste could mean that there are inefficiencies in a program that might lead to purchasing more of something that goes unused, or paying more for a service than is necessary. Fraud involves intentional deception—for instance, bribery or falsifying business records. Abuse means doing things that aren’t necessarily illegal, but that are unethical. This could look like nepotism or favoritism in hiring, or spending excessively on travel.

In a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Musk said he believed that the government was “one big pyramid scheme” and alleged that “entitlements fraud” is a “gigantic magnetic force to pull people in from all around the world and keep them here.”

The two auditors told WIRED that going through the technological and financial minutiae of even just a single project or part of an agency can take anywhere from six to 18 months.

“You can’t coherently audit something like the whole Social Security system in a week or two,” says the second auditor. It’s exactly this rush to crack systems open without full understanding, the auditors say, that has led to Elon Musk’s false claims that 150-year-olds were receiving Social Security benefits. “It could be that DOGE didn’t de-dupe the data.”

“In no uncertain terms is this an audit,” claims the second auditor. “It’s a heist, stealing a vast amount of government data.”

Federal workers who have spoken to WIRED say they are worried that their own data could be used to surveil and target them for firings based on their identities or political views. There are also concerns that DOGE could access contracts and procurement data that contain sensitive information that companies provide in order to work with the federal government. DOGE has also deployed an AI chatbot within the General Services Administration (GSA) and appears to want to expand the use of such tools, bolstered by access to government data. New court documents also indicate that Marko Elez, the former DOGE representative at the Treasury Department, shared a spreadsheet with personally identifying information outside the agency.

And without time spent for auditors to understand a new data system—like interviewing agency staff or learning the coding language—the first auditor believes it’s likely the DOGE team is flying blind. “When they collect a dataset, they don't get it with any sort of description, I imagine,” they say. “There are no terms of use for any government systems … There's no supporting testimony from data system owners, from data system experts. They don't even know the language and the database systems that they're working in. That’s why they keep messing up.”

The auditors described a lengthy vetting process that allowed them to get the permissions necessary to dive into an agency’s data and systems. In addition to going through the initial vetting process, the auditors say that they are required to engage in continuing education.

“None of them have any auditing background, none have any certifications, none have any clearances,” says the first auditor.

Federal workers who have spoken to WIRED expressed concern that DOGE’s operatives appear to have bypassed the normal security clearance protocols in order to access sensitive systems. WIRED found that many of DOGE’s youngest members, all of whom were 25 or younger, have very limited work experience, and none in the government. One, Edward Coristine, who goes by “Big Balls” online, appears to be a 19-year-old high school graduate. Despite this, they were given high-level access at places like the GSA, the Social Security Administration, and the Treasury. Others, like those at the Federal Aviation Administration, come directly from Musk’s own companies and were not fully vetted before their start dates.

The auditors also noted that even canceling contracts, as DOGE has done, can add to costs, rather than reduce them, in the long run. For instance, often the government negotiates deals on large purchases where it gets discounts for bulk purchases. Canceling a contract likely not only means the government needs to pay some kind of fee to compensate for the contract cancellation—maybe 10 to 15 percent of the contract amount—but if some or part of that purchase needs to be reinstated later, that initial bulk discount will likely be gone, making it more expensive overall. This was the case with many of the software licenses that DOGE said it wanted to cut.

Since sweeping through the government, DOGE has canceled thousands of government contracts, including 10,000 specifically for humanitarian aid. According to reporting from the Associated Press, 40 percent of those canceled contracts through late February will likely not save the government any money.

“They'll end up costing more in some way, whether it's time, inconvenience, or money,” says the second auditor.

But the auditors say that there are ways DOGE could get it right. “If DOGE wanted to be the good guys, they could,” says the first auditor. “I’d start by looking at existing Inspector General recommendations.” On the website for the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, there are more than 1,200 recommendations that have yet to be implemented that could potentially save the government hundreds of millions of dollars.

In an interview on FOX Business with Larry Kudlow, when asked about how his team was identifying what to go after in the government, Musk replied, “We look at the president's executive orders, and we also just follow the money.”

The auditors say they aren’t necessarily against bringing in people from outside the government to help streamline government processes—something that the government was already doing before Trump was sworn in for his second term. For instance, 18F, the digital services agency within the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, was explicitly designed to serve as an in-house consultancy that would allow federal agencies to leverage private sector expertise. As part of DOGE’s sweep of the government, however, it has gutted the group, putting a pause on several ongoing projects to make government services more efficient for users.

And it’s these actions, the second auditor says, that best show that DOGE’s intentions may not be geared toward “efficiency” at all. “It’s a con,” they allege.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[thesamoanqueen]

Onlyfans

Raiting: 18+

Warnings: smut.

A/N: this one-shot showed up in my mind because of John Cena and me thinking impossible possibilities.

He usually bring it with him all the time, but at home he paid no attention. He had left it on the table to go and do something when the first notification had arrived. Y/N hadn't even looked up from her laptop, too busy with the program sent from Stamford the previous evening and which she was reviewing as always before sending it back to the office. Two minutes had passed and another notification had arrived. Roman hadn't shown up then either, but when the third had been followed by a fourth, Y/N had held out her hand with a sigh. She didn't want to pry, she didn't even want to know, she justs cared about making that sound stop to work in peace and let Roman know of whoever had that urgency to talk to him.

What had appeared on the screen, however, had made her put the laptop aside without thinking twice, pushing her to get up and find out what the hell was that stuff.

She couldn't believe her eyes, it was crazy.

When she found him, he was busy with a box full of old fitness equipments, smile ready as soon as she came into his sight.

- Hey gorgeous – he greeted her and Y/N stopped to look at him, her perfect handsome man.

- Is there something you want to tell me? – she asked, holding back to give him a chance.

Roman froze completely, his gaze serious, back straight.

- whats up? – she heard him ask, pretending he didn’t know or maybe not knowing for real, Y/N at that point was not sure anymore.

- I don't know, should I?! – she immediately echoed him, refusing to prolong that game to place his phone in front of him, the message he had received still open.

Leaving aside what were their habits as a couple, habits that had never displeased either of them as far as she knew, they had established from the first moment they would discuss everything, to be open-minded and fair with their feelings. They had been on a verge of a breakup because of an unspoken nonsense, they had learned from the past and since that moment there had been nothing they hadn't shared, bad moods, doubts, problems, fears. She trusted him, she wasn't obsessed with knowing what, where or who he was with, not even knowing what revolved around him and was proposed to him before, it had never even crossed her mind. She had chosen a man, a good real man, one who wanted a family, with no fear about serious relationship and without warning now she found out an Onlyfans notification on his phone? At home? While she was there working?!

- I didn't mean to watch, there could be anything in there, whatever, but here Ro? For real? and honestly If you have a reason or not, I thought we were better than this- she said, unable to hold back any longer and immediately saw his expression change, an amused smile replacing his worried expression.

- Babygirl, slow down. We got no problem, there's nothing in there I want, trust me. I don't care about that stuff, its shit, I’d never do it when I’ve you – he winked, trying to pull her into a hug, but more he laughed more she tensed.

- ‘kay then what?!

- You know, John did it, an account… boys at work were joking, saying that I should make one too. Locker room chatter, bullshit, sometimes they still get me involved.

Surprised, she looked at him speechless, turmoil quickly slipping away, while his information created a strangely valid picture in her mind about possibilities.

John was a funny dude, strange at times and that stunt had actually made the news. She had seen some clips online, nothing R-rated as one might imagine, but she hadn't connected the two things. And she had never even thought that someone might have thought of doing it, even though she knew of Roman's fame among the fans, rumors, fantasies and the whole package on the most unlikely platforms. In some way it was her job to know what people thought about wwe’s top guy and she played with it to for promotion.

- A real onlyfans – she repeated flatly, staring at him and he gave her one of his billion dollar smiles.

- I'm quite successful, it might work – he joked and she reflexively batted her eyelashes, unable to control herself because yes, he was damn right.

People went absolutely crazy for a few well planted cameras shots, a couple of hits not so family friendly in his ring promos and that salt and pepper in his beard, a video or an entire onlyfans account would not have been simply successful, would have unleashed the apocalypse into the wrestling community. During the production phase, behind the scenes, she too had relied on certain shots, specific set-ups, because she knew they would work. There were things that she too was obsessed with despite having him as her in real life partner. If Roman would have really decided to do it, something direct, focused, if he didn't hold back…

The thought made her turn around, going back without another word.

-Y/N – Roman called her, trying to hold her, but she didn't let him do it, quickly marching towards the front door closet where she kept her purse always ready.

She knew Roman had followed her, sensing heavy footsteps behind her as she walked through the house, but when she finally started to reach for what she needed, his hand tightened around her wrist, physically stopping her from doing anything. He gave her a deadly serious look, his gaze dark as she broke free.

- Y/N it was a bad joke, ain’t gonna happen, don't take it that far – he reasoned, standing there as if no one could move him, searching her eyes.

Those brown eyes that would have made anyone's knees tremble, that had made her tremble too an infinite number of times and for the most absurd reasons, at the right times and not, everywhere, always, from the first moment, without exceptions and that now she saw slowly widen, confused, as she handed him what she had taken out of her jacquemus.

-Here – she offered, her personal credit card ready.

Roman stared at it stunned and Y/N knew she had caught him off guard, because that card never left her purse if he was around, he didn't like when it happened even though she was proudly independent he liked to play the role of her provider. With a deep breath, seeing him froze, she decided to take out the second one, adding it to the first and moving closer to slip them into his pocket.

- Let’s say you can have both, but the show is exclusive – she specified, as if they were really in a negotiation and at that last hint she felt him suddenly explode into laughter.

He throw his head back, perfect teeth showing, eyes crinkling, making every inch of his chiseled face smile.

- Someone woke up possessive – he pinched her when he was finally able to speak again and Y/N rolled her eyes playfully, letting him have that little win.

He didn’t like if someone was too close to her, if someone stared in a way or another, when they hadn't yet been in an official relationship Y/N had witnessed scenes of pure testosterone that would have made anyone run and even today he showed no signs of loosening his grip. She had found the notification of a site notoriously inclined towards certain ratings, messages with it, she hadn't worked entirely on her imagination, but were clearly details his ego ignored, too happy to have caught her.

-If your intention is to keep laughing, I'll take them back – she stopped him, stretching out her hand again to retrieve them, but as soon as she took them off, Roman grabbed her wrist.

- For you the show is free, just ask ma'am

His voice was velvetly soft, as was the touch of his thumb stroking her caramel skin. With eyes fixed on hers, she couldn't hold back a smile, seeing Roman return it immediately when he pushed her against the door.

- Then show me sir – she whispered and he twisted his head, making her giggle before lifting her up.

With legs wrapped around his hips, he carried her to the couch to place her between cushions like a precious thing, a rebellious lock hanging out of the bun. He stood there waiting, hands placed next to her, but deliberately not where he should, his whole body close, but not close enough and for a moment Y/N did nothing but admire him.

He was a charming man, the kind of man who captured attention even without anything special or fancy, he made her hands itch and her stomach flutter like the first time she had touched him and she had no longer been able to let him go. It wasn't just the appearance, but rather his attitude, his attentions, they were a drug, they were addictive and the idea of having them all to herself, having him when out there people would do anything to have a crumb of what she had, it made her feel special, in charge.

-You're playing a dangerous game – he warned her, eyes hovering over her full lips.

-Im pretty sure I can handle it – she replied, her breathing slowing as she saw him bend more.

-I know exactly what you can handle babygirl – he touched her with his nose, with that lock and Y/N felt the taste of him on her, even if Roman had kept himself at a sufficient distance not to kiss her.

From the couch, Y/N watched as he straightened up and grabbed the hem of his tank to pull it up. Her eyes went hopelessly down his body, looking in religious silence at every inch of his torso, as he undressed with unnatural calm. She watched the abs pop out even without oil to accentuate them, broad pecs, dark tattoo that stood out against tanned skin, those lines that she drew with her fingers whenever she could. And then the arms, bent to pass the shirt beyond his neck to which she used to cling, those arms that she scratched as if her very life depended on them, capable of hurting and carrying her around effortlessly, shaped by years of practice and dedication. Her pulse racing, she saw him turn to put away his shirt, showing her his broad back, his sculpted shoulders as he rolled them back to face her and let his hair down. She watched Roman run his long fingers through the messy locks, trying to fix them during that impromptu striptease in the living room, in broad daylight and anything could have happened, someone even broke into the house and Y/N would not have flinched, focused as she was on him.

He was slow, unnerving. What she would do quickly, throwing everything away, he did in slow motion, to push her desire, make her savor everything, drive her completly crazy. Every gesture seemed to require effort, every action was like a ritual, a video wouldn't have done him justice, he was directing a movie and she was the spectator unable to distract herself while his fingers loosened the knot of his shorts to make them hang on the hips. Enraptured, she followed his usually hidden v, focusing on the portion of skin he was revealing and that left no doubt about what was down there. Concentrated, she clenched her legs without hiding, heartbeat racing as he fill the space between them, a dangerous intense shadow on his eyes that made Y/N hold her breath.

- Why you so silent now sweetheart? – he asked, stopping a step away from her, looking down and Y/N raised her head, body tingling as she felt him tower above her.

-Im ejoying it… no words needed – she breathed innocently, reaching out a hand tentatively and Roman bent over once again following the wandering of fingers playing with his lace, tongue running on his lips.

- Hmm no, I think we need a reaction… feedbacks you know, for that onlyfans stuff

His voice, breathing caused another series of shocks through her, the desire to crash her mouth against him, suffocate in one of their kisses, feel his big hands ravaging her now almost unbearable. Roman locked her wrist once more, his grip hard enough to make Y/N throb where she was probably already a mess, preventing her from exploring more than she should, eyes going back into hers, digging, guiding her where he wanted, only where he let them.

-Its good – she admitted without rebelling, unable to concentrate on anything than those two brown pools that seemed to swallow her.

- Just that? – he asked, pinching her face with his hair and Y/N tilted her head, intercepting the trajectory of his lips with greed.

-More than good – she mewed, leaning forward and feeling him guide her to his erection, never breaking eye contact, avid more than ever on having her undivided attention.

- Not enough for me

Under her fingers, Y/N felt his boner awake, hard and she risked something more, a more intense touch, hoping to convince Roman to let her do something, but it lasted just a moment and he pushed her away, standing up straight again to do it himself. Y/N knew what to expect, she knew what Roman was hiding, and yet when he lowered his pants enough to release his erection and took it into his hand, Y/N couldn't hold back a gasp to the mere sigh of his delicious flesh. She saw him so proud, spit obscenely and his smile quickly turn into an arrogant grin enjoying his attentions in front of her who was now struggling to stay still.

Was the kind of show she was sure many people would sell their souls along with their houses for and that even her, despite knowing Roman's abilities, couldn't say was immune. She wasn't immune at all honestly and when he curled his mouth, carried away by the increasing euphoria, eyes still fixed on her, letting go an excited growl, Y/N jumped on her knees.

-Gawd com’here– she moaned sulkily before crashing her lips on him and Roman laughed at her kissing, his hand finally leaving his now tense erection to keep himself balanced.

-That's a feedback – he approved, watching her quickly undress beneath him.

And Y/N might have replied but her body was begging her to put an end to that game, get some relief and before Roman could decide otherwise just for playing around, she pulled him better on top, wedging his brawny body between her thighs. With one hand on his dark locks and the other feeling his cock, she slowly bit his lip asking with pleading eyes and he pushed himself into her palm, tongue ready to invade her mouth. She moaned against him, letting him move his hips, enveloped in the heat of him, in that tantalizing smell of his skin, lost in the exquisite taste of his mouth, until she heard Roman growl and only then she guided him where wanted. None had touched her, neither him nor herself and yet she felt him slip between her juicy folds with ease, in a feral curse that made her cry and pushed him to bite her neck. Holding her hip he enstablished a pace to fuck her opposite of his striptease, messy, rough, domineering, every thrust crushed her down, nailing her mercilessly and making her sweatin agony.

Sometimes she felt like she was a toy in his hands, but she liked that kind of treatment, more when they had already wasted enough time with other games and the thought of someone else wanting that attention was still in the back of her head. She ran her nails down his forearms, marking him, holding on with ragged breath, gasping with mouth open, as he grunted into the crook of her neck, sinking into her dripping pussy in a concert of obscene sounds. And in the throes of her ecstacy, Y/N made her hands roam over his massive back, over his strong neck, even over his ass contracted in the effort to pound her wildly.

She felt a well known fire building suddenly in the bottom of her belly, uncontrollably, like a wave of pure bliss when Roman pushed himself deeper, lifting without mercy her thigh over his shoulder to get a better angle, his balls slapping against her soft skin and she squirmed crying in pleasure. His grip became more possessive, almost to prevent her from run, even though she was now just a weeping mess, folds pulsing and gripping around his dick, heat growing for what was now a marvelous attack until the delirium reached her head.

- R-Roo… ple-aase…

- Ssh come for me… let it go, you wanted it cmon good girl -

One stroke and another, on that sweet lovely spot, his skin rubbing against her hot clit and Y/N closed her eyes, curling beneath him, her mind white, blank and ì mouth open without a sound to leave her soul. She felt him leave a sweaty kiss on her cheek, continue tenaciously to prolong her sensation and also lift her other leg, aiming it in a shameful, vulgar position to conquer his climax now. Stunned by her orgasm, she watched him with passionate eyes, his expression focused, body tense and furious in the last effort and Y/N placed her forehead against his, holding him in place, tightening with a sob around his cock, folds trembling. With all his weight pinning her down, he willingly went for a couple of thrusts, deep, rough, his breathing more and more heavy until it was enough for him too and Y/N pulled him against her neck, feeling every muscle of his thick body tense and his cock twitching until it fills her up.

As always, he got stuck inside her, refusing to come out until he stopped jerking, hands gripping her soft hips tenaciously to keep her in place and only when nothing was left anymore, he freed her, collapsing though against the couch headboard to pull her against him in a sweaty hug, while they caught both their breath. They probably should have rushed to take a shower, but Y/N wasn't in a hurry and he didn't seem to be either, leaving a trail of kisses on her shoulder.

- I was thinking… - she began, sore but with her fingers tracing his arm anyway.

- Gimme ten minutes and we'll do another live

Tag squad: @sunnyfleur23 @racerchix21 @alyyaanna @reignsangel444 @romanreignsdefencesquad @romanstheory @claymorexpunisher @keybladeofsteel @msbigredmachine @nayys-world @gobbersworld @utika151209 @cumxxslutt @civildawn @romanmydaddy @triscillal @papireigns-05 @helensanders92 @joannasteez @darqchilddaydreamz @meggylynnloves @unfriendly--blvck--hottie @nicolewoo @reignsx @reigns-central-blog @kianaleani @daguenoire @extra-11 @thedonsfactory @snowpanda18 @brattyfics @mzv11 @romanreignseater @tribalchiefdaily @2baddies2furious @vebner37 @depressedneedingrevenge @cyberdejos2 @mahi-wayy @jxtina-86 @harmshake @southerngirl41 @smile1318 @spritelucozade

[diamond-rozie]

scene 03: get in loser, we’re going shopping

original prompt: gotham academy's mentorship program

more at: table of contents

timeline: much later after scene 1 & 2

Danny and Damian sat at one of the corner tables in the library. Danny had finals coming up, and was busy reviewing the term’s worth of topics from all his classes. Damian, who had insisted on joining him, sat bored. having nothing left to study. 

Danny looked at the younger boy when he sighed for the 3rd time in the past five minutes. Deciding that maybe he should take a break and indulge Damian, Danny finished the last problem, and let his book shut with a loud finality. 

Damian looked up at him hopefully, “Are you done, now?” He asked. Danny could tell he was trying his best to not seem too eager, but Danny couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. 

“Yup,” packing his things away first, he waited for Damian, when he noticed what the boy had taken up in his boredom. “Woah, Damian.” He whispered in awe, picking up the paper closest to him. “You did this?” 

Damian seemed to need a moment to understand what Danny was referring to before becoming flustered and embarrassed, a soft pink spreading on his ears, “It was simply mindless work.” He sounded defensive, like someone had berated him for his artist interests before. Danny tried not to react to that, knowing Damian would probably find it insulting. 

The sketch was on the back of a math worksheet Damian had long since completed, it was of a fighter who seemed to be using his sword to attack a nondiscript opponent. Danny knew from his many intensive training sessions with Pandora that the figure's form was slipping into leaving them open for an easy frontal attack from their opponent, while simultaneously leaving the fighter to not have the range of motion they might need to defend themselves. Most of the lines of the drawing were scratchy and short but overly repeated giving the fighter the illusion of fast movement, directly in contrast the hard outline of the fighter’s form made it seem like the fighter was stuck in their position. 

Liminals and liminal-agencent people by definition did not have a strong awareness to manipulate ectoplasm consciously like other more ghostly beings could. Coincidentally, liminals tended to leak their own internally produced and stored ectoplasm when they acted on their deep emotions. Scientifically this usually showed itself as a person ‘harnessing their full potential’ in moments of crisis or in some more extreme and rarer cases accessing their metagene (meta’s were not to be confused with liminals or ghostly beings they hold few to no similarities outside of coincidence). Danny had known from the beginning that Damian was a liminal, likely from prolonged exposure to ectoplasm, and paradoxically had a difficult time understanding and accessing his own emotions. Emotional negligence was never healthy for an ectoplasmic being, and Danny knew it would be a long process for Damian to learn how to properly deal with his layered and complex emotions. 

  That being said, there was a steady level of ectoplasm spread over the paper, something that did not match what Danny would have expected from Damian’s current state with his emotional and subsequently his ectoplasmic abilities. The fighter was clearly a character Damian had either consciously or subconsciously created to represent himself. 

Danny could work with this. 

During the long moment of silence Damian seemed to have grown more and more anxious for Danny’s reaction. Danny let his emotions display easily on his face, wide eyed, “This is so good, Damian. I didn’t know you drew. Do you like art?” 

“I do not draw. Art is a meaningless waste of time and only those without higher goals would indulge in such an activity.” Damian sounded conflicted, and the words he was saying were pretty obviously echoed from what someone else had said to him. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Danny scoffed, “Art is a very important basis for almost everything. I mean it would feel pretty stale to live in a world where there was no uniqueness anywhere. Drawing, painting, writing, acting, sculpting, singing, or whatever else, are all unique forms of making something that no one else could truly ever recreate exactly. Even if it’s minute, there are always differences in the way that one person would commit to something than another person. It’s the basis of humanity and in the core of the human mind. If you try to block it so harshly from yourself, you’ll end up locking up an integral part of yourself that sets you apart from the other 7 million people on this planet.” 

Damain stood there, considering what Danny said. 

Not waiting another moment, Danny grabbed Damian’s bag heading out of the library. “What are you doing?” Damian asked suspiciously, quickly falling in step with Danny, grabbing his bag back. 

Danny smirked at him, “We’re going shopping, Loser.” 

Damian looked scandalied at the nickname, not understanding the reference. “I am not a loser.” he huffed. 

Danny just laughed as they waited for the next bus. Once they got to their stop and entered the store, Danny beelined for where he knew the art supplies to be. Damian followed behind him, unfamiliar with the store.

Sure, if Damian wanted, he could easily buy the more top of the line supplies, after all he was a Wayne. But Danny was pointedly a broke scholarship kid right now, and it didn’t sit right to let Damian pay for things he was buying, no matter how much of a trust fund kid he may be. Not that Danny was exactly broke, but he imagined the cashiers at their local supermarket wouldn’t appreciate him trying to pay for a sketchbook, a couple sketch pens and pencils, and a 25 pack of Crayola markers with solid gold coins. 

It was around 4:30 when they left the store with their stuff, Damian eyeing the bag curiously the whole time. They walked the rest of the way to a local cafe, and Danny sat Damian down. 

“Okay, we’ll be here for the next hour,” He pulled out his own sketchpad, the concepts filling the pages were more accurately  blueprints more than drawings, “Draw whatever you want.” 

“I don’t know what to draw.” Damian huffed, awkwardly taking the supplies from Danny, and examining his surroundings carefully. Damian sat in the corner for a while, blending into the surroundings as he watched how the world spun around him. Danny was half-way through reviewing one of his older designs when Damian finally decided to open the pack of pencils and the first strike on the paper was made. They stayed there for long over the allotted hour, both sucked into their own projects. 

“I finished.” Damian breathed in satisfaction, stretching his hand and back in his chair at the admission. 

Danny eyed him with curiosity. “Can I see?” He asked. Danny wasn’t sure how right he had been about Damian using drawing to help regulate his ectoplasm and emotions, and he wanted to check how consistent it would be. Also he was really curious to see what he had drawn. 

Damian looked a little bashful at his request, but he nodded, handing the sketch book over to Danny. Danny could easily feel the ectoplasmic energy scattered across the page, it wasn’t as constant as the first drawing had been, but it was still there. So he was right. 

The drawing this time was of what had likely originally meant to be the barista, based on the outlines of the industrial coffee machine and register that had started out but been forgotten later for the center of the piece. The man was wearing an apron similarly like the one the barista had been wearing and a similar uniform, but that was the only similarities that Danny could draw from his surroundings in the drawing. The man, unlike their teenaged barista, was quite aged, with thin but well groomed hair, and a mustache. He had a longer face scattered with wrinkles of old age. The old man was looking down, presumably working on something, and seemingly happy with whatever it was. The ecto-signature was more concentrated around the old man, leading Danny to believe it was someone Damian likely loved and admired. 

“You’re so good at this.” Danny complemented, honestly. “Did you have fun?” He asked, it was starting to get dark and they had stayed at the cafe longer than Danny had asked him to without complaint. 

“Yeah, I did.” He answered after a moment. Danny ruffled his hair affectionately, “Hey, you’re gonna mess it up.” He complained, making no effort to remove himself. 

“C’mon, let’s get you home. I have to go to work soon.” Danny led them out of the store, just in time for an expensive looking black car to pull around the bend and expertly stop in front of him. 

“Young Master Damian, I’ve come to pick you up.” An old British gentleman spoke from the driver seat, it was the man from the drawing. 

“Understood, Alfred.” Damian turned to hand the art supplies back to Danny. 

“They’re yours.” Danny refused. 

“I’ll take care of them.” Damian promised, placeing the supplies carefully inside his book bag. 

“I’m sure you will.” Danny nodded, stepping back so the car could drive away. 

“Mister Daniel, I would have no problem taking you home as well. It is quite late now.” The driver spoke kindly. It surprised Danny how accurate Damian had drawn that picture without so much as a reference. 

“No it’s alright.” Danny waved away the idea, “I have to go to work now, and it’d be too out of the way for you.” He explained. 

The driver didn’t press, but Danny noticed how his eye caught on something in the distance before he bid his farewells and left. 

Danny made his way to the bus stop, and waited, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. Moments later another older teen approached the bus stop as well, waiting idly for the transport to arrive. He had black hair with a white tuft in the front, a sign of prolonged ectoplasmic exposure Danny knew all too well, roughly 6’ and some inches, and wore a hood of his red jacket over half his head. 

Danny supposed it was fitting for someone who called himself the Red Hood. 

The bus arrived, and both Danny and his co-passenger got at the stop before Arkham Asylum. Park Row AKA Crime Alley. By the time Danny clocked in and changed into his uniform for his shift it was already dark outside. 

“Welcome to BatBurger.” He said in chorus with the rest of the workers at the bell chime of the door opening. The man walked to the counter silently, his white tuft of hair skillfully swept under a baseball cap he hadn’t had before. When he approached Danny’s station, Danny took his order, and right before completing the transaction, as per procedure, “Can I get a name for your order?” He asked. 

“Jason Todd.” 

[redgoldsparks]

March Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Before I get to the reviews this month, I have to bring up the fact that the current fascist, book-hating administration is trying to defund/destroy the The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums across the country. According to the American Library Association, the IMLS provides "the majority of federal library funds." The IMLS says it awarded $266 million in grants and research funding to cultural institutions last year. This money goes to help staff, fund maintenance, and create new programs. And as of March 31, every single member of its approximately 70 person staff has been put on administrative leave. This could have devastating effects to libraries across the country. (source)

Please! Write or call your state governor and state reps about this. Here's the sample email I sent, which I modified from a template sent out by Authors Against Book Bans:

I am writing to express my support for federal museum and library funding, and to urge you to stand against President Trump's recent Executive Order against the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

As I'm sure you know, the IMLS provides important support for local libraries and museums across the state and the country. IMLS makes grants that bridge funding gaps in local libraries and museums allowing them to better serve our communities by targeting each community's unique needs. These grants improve internet access to rural areas, support tribal libraries, ensure that libraries offer interlibrary loans, fund language programs, subsidize programs for veterans, businesses, and entrepreneurs, and so much more.

As an author, libraries directly support my career. As a reader, I check out over 100 books a year from the library for reading and research, way more than I could ever afford to buy or have space to store. Libraries personally benefit my life in so many ways. Please stand against cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and ensure museums and libraries can continue to benefit communities across the United States.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End vol 1 by Kanehito Yamada, art by Tsukasa Abe, translated by Misa

I had already watched a few episodes of the anime, so the set up of this story was familiar to me. Frieren is an elf mage who traveled with the adventuring band who killed the demon king decades ago. She has not visibly aged, but her traveling companions are all old men how. 50 years after their big victory, she returns to travel with them again. That's the last time she seems one of them alive. She realizes she had not processed how short human lives are in comparison to her own, and vows to do a better job getting to know the next group of humans whose lives touch her own. This is a contemplative and slow burn story, but with a lot of tenderness. I definitely want to keep reading more of this rambling adventure!

I Think Our Son is Gay vol 1 by Okura translated by Leo McDonagh 

A very gentle slice of life story, told from the POV of a mother of two teen boys. She suspects her older son, in high school, is probably gay and has a crush on one of his classmates. She begins trying to support him in subtle ways and slowly educates herself more about the queer community, while wondering how to share this information with her husband (who is often away on work trips and sees their children less often than she does). The chapters are very short and often silly, giving the book overall a very light tone.

Survival of the Friendliest by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods read by Rene Ruiz 

The majority of this book outlines some very interesting animal research on the effects of domestication, specifically self-domestication, over time. The Russian "friendly foxes" project, a silver fox breeding program where the only trait selected for was friendliness/openness to humans, is one of the main studies discussed and I enjoyed learning more about it. Over generations, the foxes selected for friendliness started to show surprising physical changes- wider variety of coat colors, curlier tails, smaller teeth, and increased social communication skills. The authors combine this with studies on bonobo monkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, and human fossil skulls, to present an argument that it was friendliness and cooperation, not strength or "fitness", that lead to humans dominance over other early human species such as neanderthals. The last quarter of the book then tries to turn this research into an explanation on how and why humans also dehumanize each other and how in-groups give rise to fascism. I wasn't as sold on the contemporary political theorizing, but I still think this book is worth a read.

Homesick: Stories by Nino Cipri 

This is a WONDERFUL short story collection, nine stories, each with some kind of speculative or fantasy element, and nearly all with a queer or trans main character. The stories gained momentum as they went a long, many of them making me exclaim "how did you think of that?" A few of the longer pieces are particular standouts- "The Shape of My Name", in which a trans man recons with his family's history of time travel; "Presque Vu", in which the inhabitants of a town connect over their shared personal hauntings (the main character coughs up old keys); and "Before We Disperse Like Star Stuff" in which a queer friend group of academics deals with the fall out of a massive archeological discovery, and the way one of them ran away with the story to publish without the other two, leading a breakup and also a Smithsonian documentary. Nino Cipri is on my immediate-read list!

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat vol 5 by Sakaomi Yuzaki translated by Caleb Cook

This serious continues to be SO CHARMING! Nomoto and Kasuga continue to house hunt, but run into difficulties on renting together as a same sex couple. Their friends are there to cheer lead, and offer resources and support. I love these foodie lesbians!

Sea Legs by Jules Bakes and Niki Smith 

Set in 1993, and heavily based on the author's lived experience, this graphic novel follows Janey's very unusual fourth grade year. Her parents own and live on a 40-foot steel sailing ship. They've been mooring in Miami, Florida, and Janey has been attending a regular public school where she has made a best friend, Rae. But Janey's parents want to set to sea again, so Janey and her cat Sassa are off to the Caribbean. There are many wonderful things about sailing- new islands, new food, new views every morning- but it's lonely too. Janey sends letters to Rae but can only receive them when the family stays in a port long enough to get a PO box. She's often bored, doesn't want to do her homework, wishes she had any friends near by. Finally the family's boat, the Merrimaid, stops St Thomas for a while, where her parents get part time jobs. Janey spots a girl only a little older living on another boat in the harbor. Astrid is aloof, challenging, mysterious, and knows a lot of places on the island where kids can get into trouble. Janey is entranced by her, but too young to see the precarious and potentially abusive situation Astrid is living in. This book is BEAUTIFULLY drawn, bright and sharp. I was completely drawn in to Janey's world and the struggles she faces with her parents and her two very different friends, Rae and Astrid. This book brought back how hard it was to maintain a long distance friendship in the 90s, and also pointed out how easy it is for kids without responsible adults in their lives to disappear off the map. It's more challenging and dark than the colorful cover suggests but I HIGHLY recommend it.

I Think Our Son is Gay vol 2 by Okura translated by Leo McDonagh 

This gentle slice of life story continues. Tomoko, mother of two sons, one or both of whom might be queer, borrows a gay manga series to read from a friend and leaves it in the living room for her possibly queer teen to find. She also learns that one of her co-works at work is gay, and open to answering some questions. I really enjoy the slow, realistic journey of a parent figuring out how to be supportive of her kids.

I Think Our Son is Gay vol 3 by Okura translated by Leo McDonagh 

The cast of characters is slowly expanding! A neighbor, who probably has a crush on her gay son Hiroki, starts at Hiroki's high school. I like that we are starting to learn more about Hiroki's younger brother Yuri, who at the moment reads like a very aro-ace character. The main tension point is Tomoko's husband, who has some really basic homophobic beliefs and occasionally says shitty things without seeming to realize they might be hurtful. Tomoko is more patient with him that I would be.

I Think Our Son is Gay vol 4 by Okura translated by Leo McDonagh 

Tomoko is such a wonderful and loving parent to her two probably queer sons. The elder son is dealing with the very normal high school rejection of his crush starting to date someone else, and the younger feels more and more aro-ace and maybe even agender. This is such a gentle, soft parenting story with a lot of sweetness and humor.

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton read by John Pirhalla and Katherine Chin 

The plot of this book is engaging, but the prose is bad. Mickey Barnes is an "expendable" on a terraforming human colony mission on a cold, icy planet. Before the mission left, his entire consciousness was scanned and uploaded to a server, and his biology encoded so the mission can print new versions of him as needed. He is the only member of the roughly 200 person colony who has received this treatment, and it's his duty to do jobs that require a human but will likely get them killed, such as fixing the nuclear reactor, testing out medical procedures, or exploring the system of crevasses and caves below the ice- which happen to be full of insect-like alien species of unknown intelligence levels. This book has some very fun world building and clever twists, but the main character himself is an idiot who regularly makes mistakes that could have been easily avoided with even just a modicum of advanced planning. I would describe the writing as workman-like, just competent enough to get the story told, but often undercutting the emotional impact of the events with quips and fairly shallow character work. I haven't seen the movie but I have a feeling it might be better than the book, a rarity.

I Think Our Son is Gay vol 5 by Okura translated by Leo McDonagh

I'm so glad the main character finally confronted her husband on his careless homophobic remarks! Also I loved the story like of Hiroki getting into a girl idol group named Soup=Soup, what a perfect name for a group. If this is the last book of the series I am satisfied :) If there are more I will read them!

Paladin of Souls by Lois Mcmaster Bujold read by Kate Reading 

Ista is now the Dowager Royina of all Chalion, but she's having trouble shaking the titles she's been known by for most the past two decades: Mad Ista, hysterical Ista, Ista who needs to be watched because she is danger to herself. In her mid-40s, Ista despairs that the family curse, now broken, might define the rest of her life as well. Then inspiration strikes: perhaps a pilgrimage under an assumed name could prove the vehicle to travel, see some more of the world, breath some clearer air, and spend company with some young, adventurous people less defined by their dark pasts. And so Ista takes to the road with just one young lady's maid, two travel wardens, a small trope of soldiers dedicated to the Daughter and one a divine of the Bastard's order as her spiritual advisor. In truth, Ista wants nothing more to do with the gods. But the gods, it seems, are not yet done with her. The simple pilgrimage quickly runs into demons, secret conspiracies, death magic, and a danger that might strike all the way to the heart of the kingdom. And Ista finds that she still has the capacity for both sweetness and steal when the world demands them. This was my second time reading this book, but the first as an adult, and I absolutely LOVED it this go around. The audiobook reader is excellent and I am living for middle-aged fantasy protagonists these days. Give me a character who has seen some shit and nevertheless persists!

Private Rites by Julia Armfield 

Set in a near future world which is drowning under decades of torrential rains, this lyrical, tense family drama follows three estranged sisters after the death of their patriarch father. Isla, the oldest, is a therapist in middle of a divorce; she feels the most pulled to manage the family tragedy of the death, funeral, will, and her more unruly sisters' emotions. Irene, the middle sister, struggles to throw off her teen role as "the angry one", though a very loving partner has softened her rough edges over time. And their half sister, Agnes, younger by 11 years, wants nothing to do with any of this and doesn't feel she owes alliance or family feeling to the others. But all of them are haunted by the ghosts of their dead or missing parents, the abuse and neglect they suffered during a disrupted childhood. Plus there's the matter of the family home to deal with: a cold and luxurious house built on stilts which hold it above the rising water. I enjoyed the lovely prose, the fact that all three sisters are queer, and the exploration of how traumatized people try or fail to build and maintain relationships under many pressures, including climate crisis. The ending is a bit rushed and leaves as many questions open as answered. I might later lower my rating to 3.75, but I rounded up because I enjoyed my book club discussion about it so much.

Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold read by Grover Gardener

Lord Penric is on the way to his betrothal to a local cheese maker's daughter when he comes upon an elderly divine of the Bastard's order collapsed on the side of the road, surrounded by her anxious retinue. He stops to offer aid; he doesn't realized that he will end up becoming the host of the centuries old demon she carried. Suddenly the path of his small and certain future is thrown askew, and the road under his feet leads to places he hardly dared imagine. If, that is, he can figure out how to co-exist with a demonic being. I'm excited to start in on this novella series! I'm such a fan of Bujold's writing and very pleased to find many of these books are available in audio.

Coming Back by Jessi Zabarsky

Preet is the most powerful magic user in her island community; her wife Valissa can't use even the most basic powers. But when the island is threatened by a dangerous withering fog, Valissa is the one who volunteers to try and discover its source. In her absence, Preet does a work of magic which is forbidden by the community to do alone; she and her child are exiled from the island and must find a new place to live safely. Will the two women be able to find other another again, and reconcile their believes about tradition, family, and power? This is a very beautiful and ultimately gentle story, mysterious, but compelling.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach read by Helen Laser

Phoebe Stone, a deeply depressed and recently divorced adjunct English professor, checks in at a beautiful hotel by the sea with the intent of killing herself after the end of one decadent night. But she starts to run into roadblocks immediately, including the fact that the entire rest of the hotel is fully booked for a 6 day wedding. Phoebe strikes up a blunt and unlikely friendship with the bride, and after a failed attempt at her own life, lets herself be pulled into the whirlwind of drama in the bridal party. The humor in this book is often dark, but it is also very funny and very human. I was impressed that the author made this kind of wild premise work as well as it did. I became invested in Phoebe's relationships with the bride, the groom, the groom's preteen daughter from a previous relationship, and various other attendees. I loved that part of Phoebe's decision to stick around and see what else life had to offer was breaking out a creative block and a decision to completely change everything about how she'd lived in the previous version of life. Big content warning for suicide; but I think it was handled thoughtfully.

Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind by Annalee Newitz read by Alexandra Cohler 

This audiobook was by turns informative, engaging, and deeply upsetting. Newitz spells out the history of the use of propaganda in American warfare, including as far back as the war for independence, and the many wars against Indian nations in the attempt to empty the West of its original people to make the land available for white settlers. During the years around WWII, several key thinkers penned books on physiological operations; some also wrote science fiction under other pen names. The same tactics that fed military thought on propaganda was also used by early advertisers. The book also lays out the Cambridge Analytica project and how clearly it falls into the use of psychological weapons by American corporations against American citizens, and tactic which is supposed to be illegal. I listened to this on audio during the Trans Rights Readaton ] and I'm glad I got to it but some chapters on the 2016 election and current targeting of books, libraries, and queer people were not a fun time to listen to. Newitz ends with a short chapter on "Psy-Ops disarmament" and of course it points to all of the things the current administration is trying to destroy: public educations, a robust library system, trusted new sources, and free movement of citizens across borders.

World Heist by Linnea Sterte 

Two thieves, one a cursed child and the other with the face of a cat, set out to steal things as rare and difficult to obtain as a whole magical pocket realm and the lover of a god. Dreamy, brief, and gorgeously illustrated. Linnea Sterte is doing comics on a whole other level!

Penric and The Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold read by Grover Gardener

Lord Penric and his demon, Desdemona, have completed their temple training in a record three years and are now in service to the Princess-Archdivine of Martin's Bridge. He spends much of his time translating and copying manuscripts, but every now and then the Princess sends him out on a more interesting errand. So it happens that when a Locator of the Father's Order arrives on the tail of a runaway shaman who murdered a nobleman before fleeing, Penric is set to join the chase. But of course the case is more complicated than it seems, and more than one lost soul hangs in the balance. I had a great time with this second novella in the series; I finished it on a long drive just as the sun was rising over the Richmond bridge and it set a wonderful tone for my whole day.

Penric’s Fox by Lois McMaster Bujold read by Grover Gardener

I am continuing to devour these audiobooks at a ferocious rate! In this third adventure, Penric's vacation is rudely interrupted by a murder; he is pulled into the investigation because of his particular demon-given talents. The victim herself was a temple sorcerer; but who killed her, and why, and where her demon fled after her death are all obscure. This is a clever little bottle episode in the series. I look forward to reading more!

The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag (re-read for bookclub)

This was exceptional. Mags, a recent high school graduate, lives a carefully controlled life. She cares for her aging grandmother, she works her restaurant shifts, she doesn't party, she doesn't let anyone get too close, even the girl she's sleeping with, who has a boyfriend. Also, she's feeding a dangerous secret, something fanged and strange that lives in the dark. Then Mags' careful routine is disrupted when a friend from childhood, Nessa, turns to the little town outside Joshua Tree where they both grew up. Nessa is being chased by a darkness of her own, and wants answers about a confusing childhood memory. The storytelling, the page layouts, the mixed use of color and black and white, all combined to build such delicious tension in this queer horror tale. Highly recommend!

Added in 2025: I re-read this for book club and on the second pass caught some clever foreshading and paid more attention to the elegant use of visual storytelling tools. This book is worth reading and worth re-reading!

Spent by Alison Bechdel 

I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of Bechdel's newest, and most meta, comic. I was genuinely unsure if the premise of this one would work for me, but oh, it did. The main character of this book, Alison, is a cartoonist living in Vermont on a rescue pygmy goat farm. She is the author of a popular memoir about her relationship with her father, a troubled taxidermist who spent time in prison before his death. This book is currently being adapted into a multi-season TV show which is straying increasing farther and farther from reality. Alison's partner, Holly, does the majority of the work around the farm; that is, until one of her wood chopping videos goes viral and she starts dabbling as an influencer instead. Meanwhile, in town, Al and Hol's friends- Sparrow, Stuart, Ginger, and Lois- all live together in an experimental communal home. Yes, that's right, many of the old gang from Dykes to Watch Out For are back, with grayer hair, but just as much wit and spark as ever. JR is a nonbinary, asexual, poly freshman at Oberlin who runs a podcast and participates in campus protests for Gaza. Ginger is still teaching and in a long distance relationship. Sparrow and Stuart are contemplating opening their relationship up. Lois is organizing local events, some of which, unfortunately, turn into covid parties. I have no idea if this book will land for readers who haven't read Dykes to Watch Out For, but hopefully those who have will enjoy this return to the old cast as much as I did. 

All but 5 of the books I read this month were courtesy of the library.

[yuurivoice]

Any advice for someone wanting to break into this niche as a creator?

I'll try to be concise, but as encompassing as I can be! I've tried to answer this many times and haven't put together a proper "here's my advice I always give ppl" post, so let's try taking a shot at this.

General Advice

Understand your "why" as a creator, and make sure you're doing this for sustainable, healthy reasons. In any form of creative pursuit, doing it because you're having fun and pursuing your passions is the best way to make sure your time is well spent!

Respect the arts, use human-made artwork, do not steal. There are numerous ways to find artwork you can use for the purpose of promotion and such.

Don't blow a bunch of money on gear you don't need yet. You're going to be bad at whatever new thing you're trying out, there are people who have crystal clear quality, pretty images, and all the rest...and then they don't actually do anything with it. Or they do, and their ability is disproportionately underpowered.

Getting into any sort of creative venture for the sake of COMMUNITY is kind of ass backwards. Treating business ventures like high school lunch tables is lame ass behavior, and there's no shortage of people going that route. Build your OWN spaces, work on your own filter to keep your spaces safe and free from bullshit, and be aware that not everyone is mature and honest.

ASMR Roleplay

You will continuously get better. Yes you will hate your own voice. Yes you will hear a million imperfections. No, there's no real easy way around it. Everyone starts somewhere. Get out of your own way and get started!

Understand your responsibility as The Voice. People are lending you the reins to guide them. That involves a great deal of trust. Respect that trust. Be mindful of the situations you depict, advice you may give, and subjects you brush up against. Understand that you are probably not qualified to be a fucking therapist, and if you were to present yourself in such a way, you run the risk of creating horrifically parasocial connections with vulnerable people.

There are tons of script fills you can find online. Just be sure to credit the authors and follow their ToS. And be aware that there are diminishing returns to doing the same thing that dozens of other people have already done.

If you're writing your own scripts, that's an entire other skillset you'll be developing as you go and is worth its own laundry list of advice. Understand that writing for non-speaking listener is a unique skill that requires a ton of consideration that general fictional writing doesn't account for. Practice makes perfect.

Consider branding as you get started. Visual identity, the way you stand out from others, how you get recognized regularly, etc. that is also a whole other thing that deserves its own breakdown.

Programs, Equipment, etc.

For just getting started (and well beyond) Audacity is a program that will cover all your bases. It's simple, just make sure you check out a guide or two on how to use it for voiceover.

The space you record in is the easy way to get the best sound out of ANY microphone. Getting into a small space with blankets, pillows, etc. is a tried and true starter pack. Treating a closet with 2" acoustic panels, finding a way to drape a blanket around you, and so on is a good start.

That being said, if you're recording on a $20 tin can USB microphone it will not sound pleasant on the ears. USB microphones have come up in the world, but XLR microphones are the going to give you your best potential results. I use Podcastage as my go-to for microphone reviews, but you'll likely want to find tests with someone who has similar vocals to your own so you get a better idea of what YOUR voice sounds like on that mic. That's a big deal.

That's all a fraction of the advice you could dig up, but it's a decent starter pack at a glance. Also, this is some Internet Dad advice that I offer because I've seen some alarming shit in this niche. Be 18+ before becoming some kind of content creator. While there can absolutely be entirely SFW creators in the space, there is a massive portion of the community that is adult oriented. There are a million reasons why that's a door you don't want to open.

I say this because I've literally seen folks who said they started when they were teens and that's batshit insane to me, particularly because the case I saw was heavily involved in triggering subjects as SFW comfort and it's like........hey maybe a teen shouldn't be serving as an at risk individual's personal hotline? That is fucking nuts, and the fact that no one caught wind of that in time to go "hey, maybe fucking don't?" boggles the mind.

This likely won't apply to anyone reading this because I've found that people who ain't got no goddamn sense don't tend to like me very much and flock to other corners of the internet. But it bears stating, just in case. lol

[thegikitiki]

Computronics TRS-80 Magazine Cover

Issue Number 51, November 1982

H&E Computronics, Inc. was renowned for its business software and TRS-80 monthly magazine. The magazine, initially called TRS-80 Monthly Newsletter, grew to become H&E Computronics Monthly News Magazine, a 70-page publication.

Created by publisher Howard Gosman, the magazine featured articles, columns, reviews, and third-party advertising. Notable columns included "The Crystal Ball," which shared news and rumors about TRS-80 developments, and Hubert S. Howe, Jr.'s columns on assembly language programming.

Although H&E Computronics continued selling business software until the late 1980s, the magazine ceased publication in September 1983, merging into BASIC Computing magazine.

[tomorrowusa]

From Day One, Donald Trump would not have been able to usurp power without the grinning assistance of Capitol Hill Republicans. They share the blame for the destruction and chaos of the last few months.

The fundamental story of Trump’s second term has been his usurpation of powers traditionally granted to the legislative branch. Congress created the networks of federal agencies and programs that help govern the country; Trump has asserted the power to shut them down at will. Congress has the constitutional power to set tariffs and other taxes; Trump has unilaterally imposed them on most of the world in ways that are not only economically ruinous but likely illegal as well. [ ... ] Over the last three months, we’ve seen something even more ominous: Republican senators and representatives acting as willing partners in the destruction of their own branch of government’s power, all on Trump’s behalf. The Constitution is designed for tension between the three branches of government; it cannot function if one branch proclaims its supremacy and the other two give up without a fight.

Even the judicial branch has had more cojones about curbing executive branch power.

The Supreme Court, to its partial credit, took steps to preserve its own authority in recent weeks. (I only give them partial credit because they created this monster in the first place.) Their order last month to immediately halt Alien Enemies Act deportations came from an unmistakable concern that the Trump administration was trying to evade judicial review. The same thing can’t be said for Congress. Republican lawmakers may think that they are following their constituents’ wishes by reflexively obeying Trump’s whims. Allowing a president to usurp the powers of one branch and ignore the orders of another one is not in anyone’s long-term interest—and especially not theirs.

If you want to stop Trump, you have to do it via Congress. That means putting pressure on Capitol Hill Republicans that goes beyond the ineffectual mantra of "call or email your representative or senator".

I've said this before and I'll say it again...

All of our US reps and senators have one or more offices back in their home districts and states. If your GOP senator is up for re-election next year or if your GOP rep won by a relatively narrow margin in 2024, pay a visit to that office during business hours. Post about your visit online. If the visit is unsatisfactory, return with a few dozen like-minded voters from the same district or state and conduct some sort of legal protest; informational picketing, street theater, or prayer vigils can work well. Tailor your protest to the local community.

Only pressure on individual Capitol Hill Republicans can do anything at this point. That means: 1] calling them out very publicly for colluding with Trump's gutting of our American system AND 2] doing precinct work to pave the way for their electoral defeat in 2026. The era of slacktivism and fundraging is over. It's time to become more directly involved in the political process.

People who live in US House districts won by Republicans with margins of 9% or under in 2024 have more influence than most of us. If you live in one of these districts then you have a great amount of leverage over your rep.

If just five of those reps stood up to Trump then the entire Trump autocracy project would get derailed.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime

How did Tyran cluster's Howlback fight Bumblebee? What kind of mission was she on?

Dear Retro Reconnaissance,

Following the battle at Half Dome, Soundwave and Bumblebee clashed several more times throughout the early ‘90s. During that time, Soundwave disguised himself as a van, and was experimenting with subtler means of manipulating human minds than direct blackmail. In Detroit, together with his Pretender partner, Doombox, he infiltrated the techno scene, promoting his shows on the nascent worldwide web, and using a combination of music, psychedelics, and hypnosis to influence the behaviour of club goers. From there, he began distributing mini-cassettes to susceptible individuals with government connections, hoping to gain access to isolated federal networks. Bumblebee was able to uncover and dismantle the scheme, thanks to the help of Dairu and Zauru—but with exception of Garboil, all of Soundwave’s minions were able to escape, amongst the dozens of tapes being copied and circulated within the subculture.

Bumblebee finally settled the score with Soundwave during the Battle of Chicago, turning the tables right as the Decepticon was about to execute him. In the aftermath, the Autobots were forced back into hiding, but Bumblebee nevertheless continued to protect humanity from the shadows. While on the road, the Autobots tracked a Decepticon energy signature to Silicon Valley. There, Doombox had leveraged his Princeton connections to get in on the ground floor of a music streaming startup, and had secured a small data centre. It turned out that, before his death, Soundwave had spent years seeding the internet with viruses, tiny shell scripts that each contained some fraction of his own programming. And in a data center at the heart of the Bay Area, industrial servers were collecting and processing petabytes of concert recordings, music reviews, playlists, listening data, mashups, and the lingering consciousness of a digital ghost. Disguised as smartphones, Howlback, Buzzsaw, and Frenzy (who had escaped Seymour Simmons’ basement after the ex-agent’s rather hasty emigration to Cuba) were able to totally control the actions of the company’s founders, and Bumblebee had no way of reaching them without breaking cover. But when it became clear that they intended to turn the entire city into a new body for their master, he convinced Ratchet to help him destroy the data using an EMP blast. It was during this altercation that Howlback fought Bumblebee one-on-one, seeking revenge for Garboil, Ravage, Laserbeak, and of course Soundwave—in her UAV mode, she had him effectively pinned down, until a reckless dive-bomb brought her within reach of his new energon axe. After that, he was able to keep Frenzy and Buzzsaw busy just long enough for Ratchet to wipe the last traces of Soundwave from existence.

Alas, this brief exposure was what ultimately allowed Cemetery Wind to track down and murder Ratchet, with Lockdown’s help. As for Doombox… well, startups come and go. With access to such a heady mix of personal data, cryptocurrency, nootropics, and warm bodies, I cannot imagine he found it difficult to steal a new identity, slip into a life that was waiting for him and his cronies. Rumor has it that they are creating new life, in Silicon Valley… a form of life designed not to live on that planet, but on the next.

[webfarmhouses-blog]

Web designer in Jodhpur

Creative Web Design

We are a web designing company that has a team of skilled and experienced web designers and developers who can create stunning and functional websites for any type of business or domain. We offer a variety of web designing services, such as custom web design, web development, web hosting, SEO, and maintenance. We also provide you with a free web design consultation, where we can discuss your goals, needs, and preferences, and provide you with a web design proposal that suits your requirements and expectations.

What we do in Web Design

Our web designing services are the services that provide web designing solutions for clients who want to create or improve their online presence. It involves the use of various elements such as colours, fonts, images, graphics, animations, and interactions to convey the message and purpose of the website to visitors. Web designing services can help clients with various aspects of web designing, such as Consultation: Our web designing services can help clients understand their goals, needs, and preferences, and provide them with expert advice and guidance on how to achieve them . Strategy: Our services can help clients develop a clear and effective web design strategy that aligns with their brand identity, target audience, and business objectives.Design: We help clients create a unique and attractive web design that reflects their vision and personality, and that engages and impresses their visitors.Launch: Our services can help clients launch their website to the public, and provide them with web hosting, domain registration, and security services.

Our Design Technology

At Web Farm House, we understand that web design is not just about making a website look good. It is also about making it work well, communicate effectively, and provide value to the users. That is why we use the latest web design technology to create websites that are:

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At Web Farm House, we follow a systematic and collaborative work process to create your website. Our work process consists of four main phases: Discovery, Design, Development, and Delivery:

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Design: This is the phase where we create the visual and interactive elements of your website. We will start by creating a sitemap and a wireframe, which are the blueprints of your website’s structure and layout. We will then create a mockup, which is a prototype of your website’s appearance and functionality. We will present the mockup to you and ask for your feedback and approval. We will make any revisions as needed until you are satisfied with the design.

Development: This is the phase where we code and program your website. We will use the latest web development technology to create a website that is functional, reliable, and compatible with different devices and browsers. We will also test and debug your website to ensure its quality and performance. We will show you the progress of the development and ask for your feedback and approval.

Delivery: This is the final phase where we launch and maintain your website. We will upload your website to your chosen hosting service and domain name. We will also provide you with a user manual and a training session on how to use and update your website. We will also offer you ongoing support and maintenance services to keep your website running smoothly and securely.

We will also listen to your feedback and suggestions and make any changes as needed. We will work with you as a partner and a friend, not just as a client and a vendor. we value your input and satisfaction throughout the work process. We will communicate with you regularly and keep you updated on the status of your project.

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Our is provides web design services for clients who want to create or improve their online presence. We help clients with various aspects of web designing, such as consultation, strategy, design, development, testing, launch, and maintenance:

Static web design

Liquid web design.

Adaptive web design.

Dynamic web design.

Responsive web design.

Single-page web design.

Why Choose Us?

We are a One-Stop Solution for delivering the best web design and development services. We render customized and affordable web design facilities to suit your requirements. Choose the best plans for building a responsive web design according to your needs:

Excellent technical support

Core PHP &Codeigniter + MySQL.

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Satisfactory Customer Support.

SEO-friendly web development.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

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

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

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/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

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

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

[eretzyisrael]

by Seth Mandel

The biggest myth regarding the campus anti-Semitism crisis is that it’s about speech. It is a self-serving myth: Institutions and activists that want to disregard their abuse of Jewish students will fall back on the claim that any attempt to hold them accountable for their actions is actually an attack on free speech.

Columbia University is learning what happens when that disingenuous trick starts to backfire: Students and professors take it as a license to do whatever they want, people end up in the hospital, and the government steps in to say this cannot continue to be done on their dime.

The Biden administration was fearful of standing up to the Hamas youth groups on campus. The Trump administration is happy to do so. Thus we have the announcement that three government agencies—Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the General Services Administration—will be reviewing federal contracts and grants with Columbia totaling around $5 billion.

Crucially, the announcement clearly avoids the penalizing of mere speech:

“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Unlawful encampments and demonstrations have completely paralyzed day-to-day campus operations, depriving Jewish students of learning opportunities to which they are entitled. Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination. Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very serious questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”

Assault isn’t speech. Harassment, the definitions of which are laid out in these schools’ policy handbooks, doesn’t include “criticism of Israeli government policy,” as activists and well-meaning but foolish free-speech groups routinely claim. At Harvard, for example, “such aggression must be sufficiently severe or pervasive, and objectively offensive, that it creates a work, educational, or living environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive and denies the individual an equal opportunity to participate in the benefits of the workplace or the institution’s programs and activities. Unless sufficiently severe or pervasive, a single act typically would not constitute bullying.”

Last, discrimination is also not speech. I wrote about one such prominent example last week: George Washington University’s professional psychology program penalized Jewish students for their religious background and Israeli students on the basis of their national origin, a textbook Title VI civil-rights violation.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Craig Harrington at MMFA:

The economic policy provisions outlined by Project 2025 — the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration — are overwhelmingly catered toward benefiting wealthier Americans and corporate interests at the expense of average workers and taxpayers. Project 2025 prioritizes redoubling Republican efforts to expand “trickle-down” tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation across the economy. The authors of the effort’s policy book, Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise, recommend putting key government agencies responsible for oversight of large sectors of the economy under direct right-wing political control and empowering those agencies to prioritize right-wing agendas in dealing with everything from consumer protections to organized labor activity. [...]

Project 2025 would chill labor unions' abilities to engage in political activity. Project 2025 suggests that the National Labor Relations Board change its enforcement priorities regarding what it describes as unions using “members' resources on left-wing culture-war issues.” The authors encourage allowing employees to accuse union leadership of violating their “duty of fair representation” by having “political conflicts of interest” if the union engages in political activity that the employee disagrees with. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; National Labor Relations Board, accessed 7/8/24]

Project 2025 would make it easier for employers to classify workers as “independent contractors.” The authors recommended reinstating policies governing the classification of independent contractors that the NLRB implemented during the Trump administration. Those Trump-era NLRB regulations were amended in 2023, expanding workplace and labor organizing protections to previously exempt American workers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; The National Law Review, 6/19/23; National Labor Relations Board, 6/13/23]

Project 2025 would reduce base overtime pay for workers. The authors recommend changing overtime protections to remove nonwage compensatory and other workplace benefits from calculations of their “regular” pay rate, which forms the basis for overtime formulations. If that change is enacted, every worker currently given overtime protections could be subject to a slight reduction in the value of their overtime pay, which the authors claim will encourage employers to provide nonwage benefits but would effectively just amount to a pay cut. The authors also propose other changes to the way overtime is calculated and enforced, which could result in reduced compensation for workers. Overtime protections have long been a focus of right-wing media campaigns to reduce protections afforded to American workers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023, Media Matters, 7/9/24]

Project 2025 proposes capping and phasing out visa programs for migrant workers. Project 2025’s authors propose capping and eventually eliminating the H-2A and H-2B temporary work visa programs, which are available for seasonal agricultural and nonagricultural workers, respectively. Even the Project 2025 authors admit that these proposals could threaten many businesses that rely on migrant workers and could result in higher prices for consumers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

Project 2025 recommends institutionalizing the “Judeo-Christian tradition” of the Sabbath. Under the guise of creating a “communal day of rest,” Project 2025 includes a policy proposal amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to require paying workers who currently receive overtime protections “time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath,” which it said “would default to Sunday.” Ostensibly a policy that increases wages, the proposal is specifically meant to disincentivize employers from providing services on Sundays as an explicitly religious overture. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

[...]

International Trade

Project 2025 contains a lengthy debate between diametrically opposed perspectives on international trade and commerce.Over the course of 31 pages, disgraced former Trump adviser and current federal inmate Peter Navarro outlines various proposals to fundamentally transform American international commercial and domestic industrial policy in opposition to China, primarily by using tariffs. He dedicates well over a dozen pages to obsessing over America’s trade deficit with China, even though Trump’s trade war with China was a failure and as he focused on China, the overall U.S. trade deficit exploded. Much of the rest of Navarro’s section is economic saber-rattling against “Communist China’s economic aggression and quest for world domination.”In response, Kent Lassman of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute promotes a return to free trade orthodoxy that was previously pursued by the Republican Party but has fallen out of favor during the Trump era.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda would be a boon for the wealthy and a disaster for the working class folk.

See Also:

MMFA: Project 2025’s dystopian approach to taxes

[exitrowiron]

Kickr Run Treadmill Review

Our True treadmill was 20 years old and though still functional was starting to show its age after thousands of miles. I did some research on the new Wahoo Kickr Run treadmill and was intrigued. We have two Kickr bike trainers and I've ridden thousands of miles on mine. When it started to malfunction 3 years after purchase, they replaced it quickly for free. That's the kind of company that deserves more of my business.

The treadmill has received universally positive reviews, especially from DC Rainmaker. I like running on a treadmill and I envisioned doing run workouts similar to those I can do on the Kickr bike trainer. I can program very detailed (I.e. exact watts) bike workouts in Zwift and Training Peaks and expected to do the same on their treadmill. The treadmill also has a unique innovation called RunFree in which a sensor monitors your position on the belt and automatically speeds up or slows down as you move forward or back on the belt. Just start running faster and the belt speed will instantly adjust.

The Kickr treadmill is a 400 lb beast. Wahoo requires that it be professionally delivered and setup and it must have a dedicated 15 amp circuit. The treadmill is very well made and sturdy and I'm confident it will last for many years. It is one the few treadmills that can be used to run a 4 minute mile (not that I will ever experience this). Wahoo correctly assumes that most people have their own TV so instead of attaching a crappy one they provide a deck for tablet or laptop with an integrated USB C charging port. That's the perfect solution for using the treadmill in a virtual environment like Zwift.

I ran 20 miles on the treadmill this afternoon and while I can't say the time flew by, it was a good experience. The treadmill works well in Zwift and automatically adjusted the incline (including a 3% decline) as I ran a Zwift course. The incline and speed paddles are intuitive and responsive. Unfortunately you cannot program a run workout in Zwift like you can for the Kickr bike trainer and according to a Zwift help desk rep, it isn't on the roadmap. Wahoo has its own app that includes some preprogrammed training workouts though. It is possible to create a running workout in Training Peaks, but with limited specificity - for example you can't program 400 meters at an 8:00 pace, you have to choose a Zone or percentage of threshold.

The other disappointment was the RunFree function. It is too dynamic, constantly changing the speed of the belt. I've run thousands of miles on a treadmill and wasn't able to stay in the 2 cm zone of the belt which would ensure a consistent speed.

Our last treadmill cost $3,800 in 2005 and lasted 20 years. The Kickr cost - $5,500 (including delivery) and I expect it will last as long. Although I'm a little disappointed in some of the features, I'm still happy with it.

[kickingitwithkirk]

Winchester's Folly

Summary: When Dean gets into trouble John decides to hide the truth for his family

Pairing: Alpha Dean x Omega!Reader x Alpha Sam

Word Count: 862

*Dark! Fic-don't continue if you are disturbed by the subject matter

Warnings: A/B/O, non/con elements , dub/con elements, enslavement, pandemic, non/con drug use, collaring/leashing, forced mating, forced breeding, BDSM elements, show-level violence

*Additional warnings to be added

Square filled: @spnaubingo -Dystopian AU

A/N: * UPDATED 3/24 They say the third time is the charm, this will be the last rework of the Prologue.

A/N II: Still working on reigning myself in, keeping each part reader-friendly length, and have no clue how many parts this will end up being.

A/N III: a few notes about designations in A/O sub-genders for this story.

Alphas-Dominant (head of the pack/family) Subordinate (obey Dominant) Breeders (rare & highly coveted by the government. Can challenge Dominant for pack/family leadership)

Omegas -Domestic (mostly wiped out by plague, few natural born left) Feral (government-supplied breeders sold commonly called O's) House O’s (3rd generation+ Feral/Dominant breed. Used as servants/sex workers) Pack (rare & highly coveted by the government)

*Divider by @firefly-graphics

*No Beta-all mistakes are mine

Prologue

North Dakota

1999

John Winchester slowly drove down the snow-covered drive leading to an old warehouse and parked the ‘67 Impala in the back of its busy lot. All three Winchesters silently climbed out and trudged through the accumulated snow to the front entrance. If anyone had given him the choice between being here or hell, John would have picked hell.

Eighty years earlier

A virulent disease accidentally escaped a research lab, and the following pestilence wiped out 70% of the Omega population worldwide. At the same time, Alphas and Betas were predominantly immune and rarely died from it unless they had a chronic illness.

As in ancient times, the remaining Omegas were fought over, resulting in countries declaring martial law and rounded up the remaining Domestic Omegas. Several years later, a treatment was developed but the damage was nearly irrevocable. Betas had begun to reproduce to the point the other sub-genders would be extinct within a few decades.

At a hastily convened conference, the world's leading scientists offered the governing bodies with a short-term, yet controversial, solution: obtain Omegas from the remaining Wild Packs for a breeding program.

They presented evidence that introducing their genetics, relatively unchanged since splitting from their wolf ancestors, into mainstream populations would create a natural immunity against future resurgence and rebalance the sub-genders. Many argued the idea was insane. Those Omegas, or O’s, were too feral, still living as their wolf ancestors did and incapable of being domesticated.

The scientists then demonstrated an implant they developed containing multiple benefits. It would dampen O’s natural aggression and induce presentation from sixteen to thirteen. Domesticated Omegas had been bred down to present their early twenties and produced one pup at a time. The implant would also shorten the time between breeding seasons and increase litter size by controlled ovulation hyperstimulation.

The world leaders drew up a preliminary framework for each country that signed the accord to follow. Over the next thirty years, they would procure Wild Pack O’s for distribution from government-managed facilities, with an addendum upon review it’d be extend in certain regions if deemed necessary. In the Americas, it was called the Hibbing Procurement Act.

Over those years, the populus discovered other uses for the O’s descendants, who developed into their distinct designation called House O’s. Unscrupulous individuals elected lawmakers who supported extension after extension, even installing loopholes, such as permitting Wild Pack Alphas to accept payments under the table from those on the fringes for O’s the government deemed unsuitable for breeding, creating an underground network of sellers called The Dealers.

And who would complain if some O’s slated for legitimate sales accidentally slipped through and sold for exorbitant prices on the underground market?

John knocked on the steel door in a predetermined code. As it slowly rolled open, he glanced at his almost grown pups, thankful they’d taken a dose of rut suppressants earlier because the air was thick with ready-to-breed O scent.

Walking into the building, the younger Winchesters automatically fall back on their training, checking their surroundings for potential danger. John observes to his left buyers on cell phones circling like vultures eight steel cages displaying O’s clad in elaborate silver collars, high-end specimens selling for exorbitant prices.

The rest of the warehouse is an open space with multiple rows of O’s kneeling side by side, leashed to low railings anchored in the concrete floor. They wear color-coded leather collars denoting their monetary value.

“John Winchester, this is a surprise! To whom do I owe the honor of your presence?” The nasal voice of Everett Helms, a black-haired Beta, oozes the fake, cheerful demeanor of a used car salesman approached the trio. Hunters only dealt with Helms because he was reputed to be able to acquire anything they needed..for a price. John had hoped to avoid him, but after eight days of unsuccessful procurement at other facilities, The Dealer was his last option.

Helms held out his hand, and John felt bile rising, not wanting to touch him when a poorly timed footfall caught his attention. “These must be your pups. My, my my, delicious, aren’t they!” Helms remarks as his eyes rove over Dean and then settle on the youngest Winchester calculatingly when a loud, menacing growl fills the air.

Dean's eyes began glowing red, daring the ogling Dealer to make a move on his ever-growing little brother. He felt Sam huddle closer to his back and release his calming pheromone as, judging from their father’s posturing, John was about to tear into Sam for attracting attention after specifically instructing him to stay invisible. Sam quickly averted his gaze down through his shaggy bangs, glaring at his oversized, sneaker-clad feet, again wishing he wasn’t so fucking clumsy with this growth spurt.

Helms turned back to John, acting as if nothing had occurred. “I hear your oldest got himself in a peck of trouble, and he needs an O to stay out of prison. Well, John, may I call you John? You’ve come to the right place. As you can see,” he waved a hand over his domain, “I can supply any type of O an Alpha could wish for.”

Part I

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx  @lyarr24  @flamencodiva  @lassie-bird @nancymcl @spnbaby-67  @leigh70

Sam/Jared:  @idreamofplaid

Dean/Jensen:  @thoughts-and-funnies  @stoneyggirl2  @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl

WF: @slamminmine

[betterlivingindustriesss]

[Image Description: a fuzzy photo of white daisies and other red flowers in a glass cup END ID]

Got my physics final back today, I scored 83% despite it being one of the worst tests i have ever taken in my life!

Stayed up till twelve last night finishing up (!) the syllabus review stuff so now i'm fully ready to go, i’ll take a mock this afternoon

After i get home: wash hands, watch an episode of the bear, make a fun drink, start on the mock

After i finish the mock: go downstairs and have a snack (noodles!!!) and then grade the test

After grading the test: clean room, finish upcoming homework, final review of any concepts that weren’t crystal clear and highlight them in my notes

This is my last day of skipping dance class, i need to start getting back on track with my extracurriculars making plans for the summer

Summer goals

10k on tiktok

Post regularly on tumblr as a journal

Start photography business

go mushroom foraging

geocache with four different people

go to at least three estate sales

Write a book

make a short film

start teaching art classes and coding classes

Win a hackathon

win an art competitions

finish summer courses with full understanding of materials

fix my weird hack job of a haircut

run a 5k or a marathon

read 100 books

stay on routine and find a well-paying job

start cooking regularly

start an Acapella group

Next year's goals

Concurrently enroll for multivar

Self study ap psych and apes

Apply for a summer program for next year before everything closes again TvT

qualify for TOC in Lincoln Douglas debate and start doing some speech events on the side

attend at least four dance competitions

5.0 GPA with all a's

make at least five new friends

create and maintain an official resume

alsooo does anyone have any recommendations on matcha kits I could buy for my matcha-obsessed friend's birthday? she loves it but she only has the powder right now and i'm not sure how she prepares it