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[taptofan]

Can You Receive Push Notifications at Offline Events? 🤔

When you think of offline events, you usually imagine banners, flyers, and on-site announcements. But did you know you can use push notifications on smartphones to deliver real-time updates even at an offline venue? This approach is not only convenient but also highly effective for marketing and communication. Let’s find out how! 1. Is It Really Possible to Get Push Notifications Offline?…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“That Makes Me Smart”

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/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

The Biden administration disappointed, frustrated and enraged in so many ways, including abetting a genocide – but one consistent bright spot over the past four years was the unseen-for-generations frontal assault on corporate power and corporate corruption.

The three words that define this battle above all others are "unfair and deceptive" – words that appear in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and other legislation modeled on it, like USC40 Section 41712(a), which gives the Department of Transportation the power to ban "unfair and deceptive" practices as well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

When Congress created an agency to punish "unfair and deceptive" conduct, they were saying to the American people, "You have a right not to be cheated." While this may sound obvious, it's hardly how the world works.

To get a sense of how many ripoffs are part of our daily lives, let's take a little tour of the ways that the FTC and other agencies have used the "unfair and deceptive" standard to defend you over the past four years. Take Amazon Prime: Amazon executives emailed one another, openly admitting that in their user tests, the public was consistently fooled by Amazon's "get free shipping with Prime" dialog boxes, thinking they were signing up for free shipping and not understanding that they were actually signing up to send the company $140/year. They had tested other versions of the signup workflow that users were able to correctly interpret, but they decided to go with the confusing version because it made them more money:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/amazon-execs-may-be-personally-liable-for-tricking-users-into-prime-sign-ups/

Getting you signed up for Prime isn't just a matter of taking $140 out of your pocket once – because while Amazon has produced a greased slide that whisks you into a recurring Prime subscription, the process for canceling that recurring payment is more like a greased pole you must climb to escape the Prime pit. This is typical of many services, where signing up happens in a couple clicks, but canceling is a Kafkaesque nightmare. The FTC decided that this was an "unfair and deceptive" business practice and used its authority to create a "Click to Cancel" rule that says businesses have to make it as easy to cancel a recurring payment as it was to sign up for it:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/

Once businesses have you locked in, they also spy on you, ingesting masses of commercial surveillance data that you "consented" to by buying a car, or clicking to a website, or installing an app, or just physically existing in space. They use this to implement "surveillance pricing," raising prices based on their estimation of your desperation. Uber got caught doing this a decade ago, raising the price of taxi rides for users whose batteries were about to die, but these days, everyone's in on the game. For example, McDonald's has invested in a company that spies on your finances to determine when your payday is, and then raises the price of your usual breakfast sandwich by a dollar the day you get paid:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Everything about this is "unfair and deceptive" – from switching prices the second you click into the store to the sham of consent that consists of, say, picking up your tickets to a show and being ordered to download an app that comes with 20,000 words of terms and conditions that allows the company that sends you a QR code to spy on you for the rest of your life in any way they can and sell the data to anyone who'll buy it.

As bad as it is to be trapped in an abusive relationship as a shopper, it's a million times worse to be trapped as a worker. One in 18 American workers is under a noncompete "agreement" that makes it illegal for you to change jobs and work for someone else in the same industry. The vast majority of these workers are in low-waged food-service jobs. The primary use of the American noncompete is to stop the cashier at Wendy's from getting an extra $0.25/hour by taking a job at McDonald's.

Noncompetes are shrouded in a fog of easily dispelled bossly bullshit: claims that noncompetes raise wages (empirically, this is untrue), or that they enable "IP"-intensive industries to grow by protecting their trade secrets. This claim is such bullshit: you can tell by the fact that noncompetes are banned under California's state constitution and yet the most IP-intensive industries have attracted hundreds of billions – if not trillions – in investment capital even though none of their workforce can be bound under a noncompete. The FTC's order banning noncompetes for every worker in America simply brings the labor regime that created Silicon Valley and Hollywood to the rest of the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Noncompetes aren't the only "unfair and deceptive" practice used against American workers. The past decade has seen the rise of private equity consolidation in several low-waged industries, like pet grooming. The new owners of every pet grooming salon within 20 miles of your house haven't just slashed workers' wages, they've also cooked up a scheme that lets them charge workers thousands of dollars if they quit these shitty jobs. This scheme is called a "training repayment agreement provision" (TRAP!): workers who are TRAPped at Petsmart are made to work doing menial jobs like sweeping up the floor for three to four weeks. Petsmart calls this "training," and values it at $5,500. If you quit your pet grooming job in the next two years, you legally owe PetSmart $5,500 to "repay" them for the training:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Workers are also subjected to "unfair and deceptive" bossware: "AI" tools sold to bosses that claim they can sort good workers from bad, but actually serve as random-number generators that penalize workers in arbitrary, life-destroying ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/26/hawtch-hawtch/#you-treasure-what-you-measure

Some of the most "unfair and deceptive" conduct we endure happens in shadowy corners of industry, where obscure middlemen help consolidated industries raise prices and pick your pocket. All the meat you buy in the grocery store comes from a cartel of processing and packing companies that all subscribe to the same "price consulting" services that tells them how to coordinate across-the-board price rises (tell me again how greedflation isn't a thing?):

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

It's not just food, it's all of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Take shelter: the highly consolidated landlord industry uses apps like Realpage to coordinate rental price hikes, turning the housing crisis into a housing emergency:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

And of course, health is the most "unfair and deceptive" industry of all. Useless middlemen like "Pharmacy Benefit Managers" ("a spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) coordinate massive price-hikes in the drugs you need to stay alive, which is why Americans pay substantially more for medicine than anyone else in the world, even as the US government spends more than any other to fund pharma research, using public money:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

It's not just drugs: every piece of equipment – think hospital beds and nuclear medicine machines – as well as all the consumables – from bandages to saline – at your local hospital runs through a cartel of "Group Purchasing Organizations" that do for hospital equipment what PBMs do for medicine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#luxury-bones

For the past four years, we've lived in an America where a substantial portion of the administrative state went to war every day to stamp out unfair and deceptive practices. It's still happening: yesterday, the CFPB (which Musk has vowed to shut down) proposed a new rule that would ban the entire data brokerage industry, who nonconsensually harvest information about every American, and package it up into categories like "teenagers from red states seeking abortions" and "military service personnel with gambling habits" and "seniors with dementia" and sell this to marketers, stalkers, foreign governments and anyone else with a credit-card:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-proposes-rule-to-stop-data-brokers-from-selling-sensitive-personal-data-to-scammers-stalkers-and-spies/

And on the same day, the FTC banned the location brokers who spy on your every movement and sell your past and present location, again, to marketers, stalkers, foreign governments and anyone with a credit card:

https://www.404media.co/ftc-bans-location-data-company-that-powers-the-surveillance-ecosystem/

These are tantalizing previews of a better life for every American, one in which the rule is, "play fair." That's not the world that Trump and his allies want to build. Their motto isn't "cheaters never prosper" – it's "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware.

Remember the 2016 debate where Clinton accused Trump of cheating on his taxes and he admitted to it, saying "That makes me smart?" Trumpism is the movement of "that makes me smart" life, where if you get scammed, that's your own damned fault. Sorry, loser, you lost.

Nowhere do you see this more than in cryptocurrencyland, so it's not a coincidence that tens – perhaps hundreds – in dark crypto money was flushed into the election, first to overpower Democratic primaries and kick out Dem legislators who'd used their power to fight the "unfair and deceptive" crowd:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2024/02/13/crypto-comes-for-katie-porter-00141261

And then to fight Dems across the board (even the Dems whose primary victories were funded by dark crypto money) and elect the GOP as the party of "caveat emptor"/"that makes me smart":

https://www.coindesk.com/news-analysis/2024/12/02/crypto-cash-fueled-53-members-of-the-next-u-s-congress

Crypto epitomizes the caveat emptor economy. By design, fraudulent crypto transactions can't be reversed. If you get suckered, that's canonically a you problem. And boy oh boy, do crypto users get suckered (including and especially those who buy Trump's shitcoins):

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

And for crypto users who get ripped off because they've parked their "money" in an online wallet, there's no sympathy, just "not your keys, not your coins":

https://www.ledger.com/academy/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-why-it-matters

A cornerstone of the "unfair and deceptive" world is that only suckers – that is, outsiders, marks and little people – have to endure consequences when they get rooked. When insiders get ripped off, all principle is jettisoned. So it's not surprising that when crypto insiders got taken for millions the first time they created a DAO, they tore up all the rules of the crypto world and gave themselves the mulligan that none of the rest of us are entitled to in cryptoland:

https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/07/20/hard-fork-completed

Where you find crypto, you find Elon Musk, the guy who epitomizes caveat emptor thinking. This is a guy who has lied to drivers to get them to buy Teslas by promising "full self driving in one year," every year, since 2015:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/autonomous-driving/timeline-of-tesla-self-driving-aspirations-a9686689375/

Musk told investors that he had a "prototype" autonomous robot that could replace their workers, then demoed a guy in a robot suit, pretending to be a robot:

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-unveils-his-funniest-vaporware-yet-1847523016

Then Musk did it again, two years later, demoing a remote-control robot while lying and claiming that it was autonomous:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/14/tesla-optimus-bots-were-controlled-by-humans-during-the-we-robot-event

This is entirely typical of the AI sector, in which "AIs" are revealed, over and over, to be low-waged workers pretending to be robots, so much so that Indian tech industry insiders joke that "AI" stands for "Absent Indians":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Musk's view is that he's not a liar, merely a teller of premature truths. Autonomous cars and robots are just around the corner (just like the chatbots that can do your job, and not merely convince your boss to fire you while failing to do your job). He's not tricking you, he's just faking it until he makes it. It's not a scam, it's inspirational. Of course, if he's wrong and you are scammed, well, that's a you problem. Caveat emptor. That makes him smart.

Musk does this all the time. Take the Twitter blue tick, originally conceived of as a way to keep Twitter users from being scammed ("unfair and deceptive") by con artists pretending to be famous people. Musk's inaugural act at Twitter was to take away blue ticks from verified users and sell them to anyone who'd pay $8/month. Almost no one coughed up for this – the main exception being scammers, who used their purchased, unverified blue ticks to steal from Twitter users ("that makes me smart").

As Twitter hemorrhaged advertising revenue and Musk became increasingly desperate to materialize an army of $8/month paid subscribers, he pulled another scam: he nonconsensually applied blue ticks to prominent accounts, in a bid to trick normies into thinking that widely read people valued blue ticks so much they were paying for them out of their own pockets:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65365366

If you were tricked into buying a blue tick on this pretense, well, caveat emptor. Besides, it's not a lie, it's a premature truth. Someday all those widely read users with nonconsensual blue ticks will surely value them so highly that they do start to pay for them. And if they don't? Well, Musk got your $8: "that makes me smart."

Scammers will always tell you that they're not lying to you, merely telling premature truths. Sam Bankman-Fried's defenders will tell you that he didn't actually steal all those billions. He gambled them on a bet that (sorta-kinda) paid off. Eventually, he was able to make all his victims (sorta-kinda) whole, so it's not even a theft:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/business/ftx-bankruptcy-plan-repay-creditors/index.html

Likewise, Tether, a "stablecoin" that was unable to pass an audit for many years as it issued unbacked, unregulated securities while lying and saying that for every dollar they minted, they had a dollar in reserves. Tether now (maybe) has reserves to equal its outstanding coins, so obviously all those years where they made false claims, they weren't lying, merely telling a premature truth:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/cryptocriticscorner/episodes/Tether-wins–Skeptics-lose-the-end-of-an-era-e2rhf5e

If Tether had failed a margin call during those years and you'd lost everything, well, caveat emptor. The Tether insiders were always insulated from that risk, and that's all that matters: "that makes me smart."

When I think about the next four years, this is how I frame it: the victory of "that makes me smart" over "fairness and truth."

For years, progressives have pointed out the right's hypocrisy, despite that fact that Americans have been conditioned to be so cynical that even the rankest hypocrisy doesn't register. But "caveat emptor?" That isn't just someone else's bad belief or low ethics: it's the way that your life is materially, significantly worsened. The Biden administration – divided between corporate Dems and the Warren/Sanders wing that went to war on "unfair and deceptive" – was ashamed and nearly silent on its groundbreaking work fighting for fairness and honesty. That was a titanic mistake.

Americans may not care about hypocrisy, but they really care about being stolen from. No one wants to be a sucker.

[geddyqueer]

8, 14, 24 ok tx

kiss interruption, sharing drinks, teasing. alroight… for u, this:

"What is this?" Evan asks, and he grabs Tommy's glass and takes a sip before Tommy can even answer.

"A free for all, apparently," Tommy says, gently grabbing it back. "Why, you like it?"

"Not terrible." Evan licks his lip. "Citra? Mosaic?"

"Both," Tommy says. He pulls up the dumb QR code menu again. Why doesn't anyone print on paper anymore? "At some point you hop it too many times and you're just muddying the flavors."

"I don't know, the last flight was better. This was three let downs in a row."

"Oh yeah? Should I order myself another one for you to steal?"

"What's yours is mine, Tommy, aren't you always saying that?" Evan dips his head, flutters his eyelashes, and Tommy rolls his eyes and pulls the stupid fucking brewery app back up—what kind of brewery makes its own app, what is the world coming to—and orders another round. He gets a thing of mozzarella sticks, too, because he's right on the edge of tipsy enough that he's not going to want to wait for the brick oven pizza cart out back to start taking orders again, and then he looks up to find Evan staring at him. 

"You can finish that," Tommy says. 

"Now that I got my spit all over the rim?"

Tommy knows a set up when he hears it. "That's what I said last night, isn't it?"

Evan wiggles his eyebrows. "You can say it again tonight, too, if you want."

"I can't take you anywhere."

"Oh, you can take me everywhere," Evan says.

Tommy snorts and grabs his other half-empty glass; the witbier wasn't perfect, but it's better than nothing. "Evan, it's not polite to kiss my ass and then tell the whole bar about it," he says, or he starts to, at least; he only gets halfway through his joke before Evan leans in and snatches the witbier out of his hand and plants a wet smooch on his lips. 

"Oh, I'll do a lot more than that," Evan says into his ear as he sits back up. "Feeling a bathroom break coming on."

Tommy looks down at his phone. The bar's backed up, too; they have twenty minutes or so. "Alright, you menace," he says, pushing back from the table. "Let's make it quick."

[bigwishes]

Terms and Conditions

Levi arrived at the train station late at night. Nobody else was on the train on his way home let alone on the platform when he got off. Levi took his ear phones out of his pocket ready for for his walk home but to his disappointment realised they were dead. He sighed folding up his earphone case shoving it back in his pocket preparing for the quite walk home in the dark. As Levi approached the station exit he heard what sounded like arcade music and saw flashing lights out of the corner of his eye. Tucked away in a small room was a table set up, arcade music was playing in the room as cheap disco lasers spun around. On either side of the table were posters of chiselled abs with the words "FREE TRANSFORMATION BECOME THE ULTIMATE MAN" written over the top in what looked to be a rushed photoshop job. Levi had been thinking about getting a personal trainer for a few weeks now and he didn't want to pass up on the chance for a free session or two, even if the trainer was this bad at advertising. He looked around for any information but all he could see was a QR code taped down to the middle of the table. Levi scanned it and it took him to a website just as corny and asked him to upload his 'before' photo. Shrugging it off he scrolled through his photos and selected one he had taken on a night out a few weeks earlier.

Once uploaded the website brought up a page 'TERMS AND CONDITIONS'. Levi began reading but after the first sentence assumed it was the basic bullshit all websites have, he tried to skim read it but after realising that the terms and conditions document was over 400 pages long he just speedily scrolled his way to the bottom ignoring all of it until a large blue button labelled 'ACCEPT' showed up. Levi pressed the button and his phones web browser instantly closed. Levi tried to do the whole process all over again but the browser couldn't even open the website anymore. Rolling his eyes in disappointment it became clear whoever was running this program was struggling to get their career off the ground because they were so bad at marketing or even basic tech. He put his phone in his pocket and left the station to head home and go to bed.

The next morning Levi woke up and felt groggy, his body was sore all over like he had just done a week long boot camp and he felt slightly heavier. He stretched and felt like his shoulds and quads were much tighter than usual. He put one hand on his shoulder to try and help stretch it but it felt larger, bulkier...

Looking down he saw that his shorts had split open in the middle of the night and out of the shredded fabric poked strong thicc smooth muscles. his abs were more defined and and his arms were pumped up with definition. He had always been fit but somehow over night had transformed into a complete jock. He covered himself up and took a picture, surely this was all just a dream.

Whilst trying to find his gallery he came across a new app on his phone labelled 'Ultimate Man' when he opened it he was saw just a page that looked like it was written in the notes app with a few sentences on it.

"congratulations on embracing masculinity, through your free transformation we are going to turn you into the ultimate man! get ready to embrace manhood big guy"

Levi cringed at the terribly written message but whoever was behind it clearly was doing something right, even if they came off like an idiot.

Suddenly Levi began to feel warm and could feel his heart pumping. But it didn't feel like exercise or even anything strenuous it just felt like he could really notice all of the blood in his body moving around. Levi felt himself get hard and he looked down under the covers. Even his dick looked bigger. He opened up his browser app and went to his favourite website to look at videos and images of hot guys. On the home page happened to be an image of a buff Olympic swimmer climbing out of the pool, instantly Levi moaned as he came without even touching himself. He looked down at his twitching manhood, it continued to drool over his bare abs. He cleaned himself up and put a pair of shorts on and tried to make his way to the kitchen. It didn't even take two steps before Levi moaned loudly again and his knees locked together causing him to fall to the floor. He felt his underwear fill with warms and he felt his dick pulse and twitch, he took a breath thinking it was over before it fired off again.

Levi squirmed on the ground moaning unable to stop as his body forcefully went through cycles of pleasure. He didn't even have the strength to sit up. His shorts had become drenched and were stuck to him but it didn't stop. Levi tried to take them off but his hands never even made it to the waist band he simply stopped and massaged his throbbing pelvis as waves of pleasure were sent up to the rest of his body. He didn't know what was happening and couldn't even think he just laid on his bedroom floor squirming in pleasure as he was forced to come over and over again.

After a few hours it finally stopped. Levi was stuck on the ground panting like a dog in summer but after a few minutes he was able to pick himself up. He pulled off his shorts now 3 shades darker and coated in a layer of sticky gloss. He went to put them in the wash basket but ended up just dropping them on the ground next to his bed and by the time the loud wet *shlop* of his shorts finished echoing around the room he had already forgotten about wanting to wash them.

Levi put on a basic black shirt and another pair of shorts, both felt so tight it was almost like a second skin. He passed the mirror in his hallway once again he looked bigger, more defined and the imprint of his dick stood out like a sore thumb. He was still hard and his sorts were so tight every second step made him wince in a mix of pain and pleasure as he had become so sensitive down below.

Levi went to make breakfast and realised it was almost lunch

"fuck I really need to get to the gym"

he thought to himself, forgetting that he didn't even have a gym membership. Mindlessly Levi started to make his way to his car and drove to the closest gym. He was panting like a dog the entire way as the vibrations from the car gently stimulated his manhood but to him it felt like the best pleasure his dick had ever received. He felt his shirt and shorts become tighter, a few tears began to form around his thighs and the shirt started to ride up revealing his abs, it was almost like his clothes were shrinking. His toes curled as his shoes felt tighter. Finally he arrived at the gym.

Levi needed to take a moment after parking his car, he was still panting and he couldn't help but rub his groin which alone was enough to make him feel like he was edging. After almost half an hour of sitting in his car trying to collect himself he finally got out and made his way to the gym entrance. His car somehow looked smaller to him, and all his clothes felt like one wrong move and they'd all rip off. He tried his best to pull his shirt down to his waist but there was still a few inches of skin that could be seen. His shorts where the worst, he could see in the reflection of the gym windows how they hugged his thighs forming a nice V shape and he could feel how they rode up his ass, like he'd put on a pair 6 sizes too small.

Levi opened the door and went to the reception desk as his body began to feel warm again. He rapidly dinged the bell on the desk a few times before hearing a slight click noise, looking down he noticed the top of the bell had caved in and he gritted his teeth with a slight look of embarrassment on his face. A receptionist walked over from the other side of the desk and took one look at Levi, without even thinking he said,

"forgot you member ship again big guy?"

the trainer sighed and buzzed the small plastic gates open, Levi was confused but didn't question it, he quickly walked through the gates feeling desperate to work out. As he walked he felt his thighs now rubbing against each other, he felts he biceps and pushing past his pecs as his arms swung, and he felt the monster python in his pants creep slightly further to the elastic in his underwear.

Levi set up the cable machine almost by instinct. He began pulling the weight and didn't even realise he had it set to the most weight possible, and it didn't even feel like anything.

His shirt felt tighter and tighter as the sleeves pulled up above his biceps and the waist pulled up almost to his pecs, by now it looks like he was wearing a crop top. Levi struggled to pull his shirt off and was stunned by the amount of mass on his body. He could barely pull his eyes away from the mirror as he watched himself workout, he was hypnotised by the way his biceps moved and the way his pecs bounced with each movement.

Levi felt himself get heavier and heavier to the point simply moving between machines now had him out of breath, his shorts were now so tight and pulled up they practically looked like a thong. Finally Levi stopped working out feeling the enormous weight of his size falling on his. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and stared at the freakishly massive man in the mirror.

He took a step back whilst flexing and felt something bump up against his ass. He turned around expecting it to be a bench but it was one of the gym staff.

"hey man, watch where you step hahah" the staff member laughed

It took Levi a minute to get the joke, he thought the staff member was sitting at first, but his eyes widened as he realised he was in fact standing. Levi scratched his head trying to work out if this guy just happened to be short but it was hard to work out when half his view was blocked by a massive shelf of his muscles that were his pecs. It was him finally realising he was half barefoot that finally made it click in his head. He looked in the mirror at the remains of his size 12 shoes torn to pieces and bits of fabric and rubber barely around his enormous feet.

He walked through the gym to the changing rooms trying to gauge how large he had become when he saw the weight station people used to track their stats. As he got closer to the station he watched the plank of wood used to measure height get smaller and smaller until he found himself in front, looking down at the number 8FT that was barely up to the bottom of his pecs. Levi stepped on the scales and watched the digital numbers rapidly shoot up until it began to slow around 700lsb. Levi took a deep breath as he moved his mass off the scale back down to the ground, even the 3 inch drop was enough to make small things on shelves near him rattle and shake.

Levi caught himself moving towards the changing room in the mirror, he thought he was walking normal but in reality he had a ridiculous wide waddle that took up the entire walk way. As he walked through the doors to the changing rooms a large thud caused everyone in the gym to turn their heads. Levi, not used to his new size had smashed his head into the door frame but it felt like someone had flicked him rather than walking face first into metal, as he took a second to recover he saw that the door frame had actually bent slightly from the impact.

The massive giant sat on the wooden bench alone in the changing room, it comedically bent in towards the centre, his massive weight almost causing it to bend to the ground. Levi scrolled his phone to find the app hoping there was a way to size down. He opened the app he saw a few notifications but clicked the latest one.

"Congratulations, you are almost the perfect man, one final step and you will be the optimal man! FINAL STEPS: Intellect deletion protocol and Personality Rewrite"

Immediately after reading those words Levi's head felt funny, felt almost blurry, all the embarrassment about turning into a literal giant went away, all the worries about clothes fitting him were gone and new feelings started to come in. Levi looked up into the changing room mirror and smiled.

He flexed his massive bicep

"OOOOOOH YEEAAH THATS NICE"

he rose his second arm to flex his other

"FUCK IM SO BIG, BEING THIS HUGE IS AMAZING"

He stood up once again feeling his insane weight

"Oh fuck, im so heavy, but damn, so big" He said as he struggled to reach across his own body to reach his bicep

His phone pinged loudly and Levi opened it to the app, but it looked like gibberish, he couldn't make out a single word, he scratched his head with confusion, Suddenly an audio file played

"Congratulations on becoming the Ultimate Man, we are currently offering a one time special offer for only the manliest of men, increase size by an additional 2 feet and 130 pounds, to claim say "I'm a manly man"

Levi's eyes lit up with glee, he didn't understand a single thing it said other than the words 'increase size' without missing a moment he yelled at his phone

"FUCK YEAH, IM A MANLY MAN"

He watched as his hands became thicker, watched as his dick print started to look like it was gonna rip through what was left of his clothes, his head turned to the mirror and he flexed his hulked out frame with all his might watching as it started to expand even bigger.

"FUUUUUUCCCKKK YEEEEAAHHH MAN" He screamed panting, completely out of breath as the giant before him got bigger and bigger and it was almost too much for him to even move......

[mariacallous]

Jack and Fiona wanted to do something, but they didn’t know where to start. For months, the couple had watched as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, then spearheading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), had turned the US into what they thought was “a fascist hellscape.” But they live in a deeply red county in a deeply red state in the South, and were worried that speaking out publicly could mean putting them and their children in danger.

Jack, who requested WIRED use a pseudonym to safeguard his identity, has long been familiar with extremism in the US. He says he was brought to his first KKK meeting at the age of 7. “I have seen the kind of behavior exhibited by MAGA, and know that it's exactly what I saw when I was younger,” he says. “The strain it is putting on society is the same strain that it puts on every single one [of us] who was in that space.”

So Jack and Fiona turned to technology. Searching on platforms like Reddit and Bluesky, Fiona stumbled on Realtime Fascism, a website that uses AI to trawl the internet for news articles featuring keywords linked to fascism. The tool analyzes those stories to produce a score for the threat posed by fascism in the US at any given time. The rating they found when they opened the site in February? CRITICAL.

The couple wanted more people to understand what was happening, so they built their own website called Stick It to Fascists. They bought a $100 thermal label printer, created a QR code linking to Realtime Fascism, and began making stickers.

What began with 500 stickers posted all over their small town “in the heart of MAGA country” quickly grew—with the help of an appeal on Reddit—to a campaign that has so far seen the couple and their children send 750,000 stickers to more than 1,000 people in all 50 states.

Stick It to Fascists is one of countless grassroots efforts that have emerged since Trump took office a second time. Many of them are fueled by technology: printers, QR codes, Reddit, online platforms, encrypted messaging apps like Signal. Across the country, small local groups have used a wide variety of online tools to mobilize their resistance to Trump 2.0 while trying to protect themselves against backlash from the administration. As millions of Americans joined some 2,000 “No Kings” protests last Saturday, these tools were powering the movement.

Spinning up crowdsourced collaborative tools is relatively easy. Maintaining them is much more difficult, however, and without aligned goals or aims, many of them could eventually become digital wastelands. But that is not stopping people who see no other option.

WIRED spoke to more than a dozen people involved in organizing against the Trump administration who all believe that the Democratic Party has not presented a coherent opposition to Trump and DOGE’s dismantling of the government. As a result, the organizers say, they had no choice but to get involved.

“We're doing this now, because in a couple of months, what we're doing may be illegal,” Fiona says. “This administration is already doing everything within their power to limit free speech, and it's extremely important that dissenting voices not be silenced.”

In the early days of Trump's second term, there was concern that an opposition movement against Trump was nowhere to be found.

But the reality is that protest movements this time around are just different than during Trump’s first term. Last time, while groups like the Women’s March and others organized large-scale demonstrations in the early months of his first presidency, this time around opposition is being driven by decentralized groups and individuals focused on a smaller-scale approach.

The change from a top-down movement to a much more decentralized one is key to understanding what’s happening, says Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at American University and author of American Resistance: From the Women's March to the Blue Wave. “This is what we who study social movements call a moment of tactical innovation, where there are going to be all these innovative ideas about ways to break through and to get people to mobilize and work together in these very dark moments,” Fisher says.

People are still in the streets, as well. Data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint project of the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut, shows that in late January and February alone there were over twice as many street protests in the US than in February 2017. The numbers have kept growing.

The protests at Tesla dealerships, for example, began as a grassroots effort that has grown into a nationwide movement. There are also people working together online to combat the disinformation being pushed by Musk and DOGE, in addition to individuals like Jack and Fiona doing what they can. In isolation, these are small-scale protests; viewed as a whole, they show the level of anger that ordinary Americans feel at what has been happening in Washington over the past five months.

The number and scale of the protests has grown significantly, with millions of people turning out at more than a thousand separate protests in all 50 states on April 5. Last Saturday’s No Kings protest, which was organized by dozens of groups, drew over 5 million people to more than 2,100 events across the nation, according to the organizers, though notably not in Washington, DC, where Trump held his military parade to celebrate the US Army’s 250th anniversary.

Many of these calls for protest can be traced back to a single post on a subreddit called 50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement.

Sydney Wilson first learned about the online movement against Trump through this subreddit. Her journey into political activism began in late January while she was idly poking around on Reddit and came across a flyer for an event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at which citizens would be protesting against the Trump administration. Wilson was intrigued, but living 200 miles away, she wondered if there were any events closer to her home in Pittsburgh.

That’s when she found 50501. Though the subreddit had been created just a few days earlier, it was already amassing huge support. It began on January 25 with a single Reddit post calling for citizens to fight back against executive overreach. The idea took hold, and within 10 days, those who signed up had organized protests in 80 cities across the US. Two weeks later, on February 17, they held another set of protests, with thousands of people attending.

Wilson, who had attended political protests in the past but had never been involved in organizing them, joined the group’s Discord channel to help plan.

“Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that my first protest that I organized with another group of Pennsylvanians would have 200 people show up,” Wilson tells WIRED. “Then the next one, I think we had 300 or 400, so I'm optimistic right now. The trick will be to keep this energy going.”

Like Wilson, many of the 311,000 subscribers to the subreddit and the 17,000 members of the group’s Discord have no experience in organizing protests. Still, they felt they had to.

“Democracy needs to be defended, and it's up to us as community members to stand up and do that work, because no one else will do it for us,” Wilson says.

The 50501 group also uses a wide variety of other online platforms to coordinate their efforts, including encrypted messaging apps like Signal and Matrix, which smaller subgroups use for sensitive conversations. Platforms like Mobilize.us allow participants to share information about upcoming protests, while state-level groups come up with ideas for signs and chants on shared Google Docs.

“Everybody's kind of using different strategies to communicate, so it's all over the place,” says TJ Demetriou, the public affairs officer for a 50501 subgroup for veterans. “If you're involved in a couple different groups, it can be confusing.”

Discord is the primary platform for planning and assigning volunteer positions within local groups, but it also serves as a place for the community to vent. Following the group’s protests on March 4, many of the members gathered on the group’s Discord server to watch Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.

The “general chat” channel was quickly filled with anger, not at what Trump was saying but at the response from the Democrats in the chamber, who had decided the best way to confront Trump was to wear pink blouses and hold up tiny signs that no one could see.

“I kid you not, they are holding signs instead of booing,” one member wrote incredulously. “Bunch of spineless fucks,” another added, after no other Democrat came to the defense of representative Al Green of Texas, who was removed from the chamber for heckling Trump.

“Well I'm glad YOU all are protesting because holy shit that was a weak showing from dems with their bitch=ass [sic] paddles and pink shirts and blue ties,” another member wrote.

Though the group has had a lot of successes, some infighting has unfortunately become a distraction.

In April, the person who posted the original 50501 post, known online as Evolved Fungi, locked down the subreddit entirely, claiming that some national groups were seeking to take control of the 50501 group for their own ends. According to a since-deleted post on Reddit, Fungi believed someone had sought to file trademark applications for the 50501 name. A member of the 50501 leadership group subsequently claimed in a Reddit post that there was an attempt to trademark the name and create a 501c4 entity, but that this was done by “a separate, independent group of three people wholly unconnected to the broader 50501 group.

Fungi, who was posting anonymously, says they were doxed and accused of what some felt was inappropriate behavior during a Zoom call with other members of the 50501 group. Some 50501 members circulated a petition calling for them to step down before they finally did so. Fungi declined to comment when contacted by WIRED.

Fungi's departure didn't slow the movement down. By late spring the organization was deeply involved in organizing the No Kings protests on June 14, ultimately helping bring people to protests across the US and bolstering the movement's momentum even further.

The 50501 movement is not the only grassroots effort that began life online. The Tesla Takedown protests began with a single Bluesky post that exploded in large part thanks to social media posts, including protesters’ pictures and videos outside dealerships. These efforts were boosted when celebrities got involved, and Instagram reels went viral from people like Grammy-winning singer Sheryl Crow waving goodbye to her Tesla.

Other movements online, including tools for keeping tabs on the Trump administration, have also sprung up. One online tracker follows how many of Trump's policy actions align with Project 2025's goals. As of this writing, it shows that more than half of them have been completed or are in progress. Another tracker, Spotlight on DOGE, aims to fact-check claims made about the department's savings. The organizer, who asked to remain anonymous, says they recruited more than a dozen professionals, including lawyers and doctors, across the US to help analyze DOGE's actual savings.

But for all the work being done online to organize, educate, and plan, veteran activists who protested the first Trump presidency believe that success this time around will rely on turning that online support and activity into real-world demonstrations.

“I do think that there's a lot of work to do to move people from where we are now to the kind of mass society-wide struggle that it will take to stop this regime,” Sam Goldman, host of the Refuse Fascism podcast, tells WIRED.

“What this is going to require is sacrifice,” he continues. “It is going to require what people did in the Arab Spring, which was, get in the streets, stay in the streets, bring more people into the streets, coming back again and again and again, and not stopping until their demands were met.”

But deciding what those demands are can be difficult, especially in a movement that is so decentralized, and often leaderless. As national groups and bigger names seek to leverage recently activated grassroots activism, conflicts and disagreements are inevitable. This happened among the leadership of the Women’s March, and it’s already happened within the 50501 subreddit.

Last week, as people took to the streets of Los Angeles to protest deportation raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Trump called in the National Guard and Marines over the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom and LA mayor Karen Bass. Protests persisted anyway, as online supporters hit the streets.

[copperbadge]

As someone who's very conscious of individual fundraising, between my job and my work with Radio Free Monday, I'm seeing an uptick lately in something that I want to talk about. But it's sensitive, so I'm asking you all to read this in the spirit of help, and understand that any negative tone you take away from this is not my intention.

We live in communities: neighborhood, friends groups, workplaces, fandoms. Part of the point of community is that we help others in that community. But there's an aversion to the idea of non-reciprocal aid, of accepting financial help that won't be repaid. And on the one hand I understand; nobody wants to be perceived as a freeloader. But I don't think we can move past the idea of transactive relationships, an ultimately capitalist idea of how we relate to others, until we stop stigmatizing it, even when we're the beneficiaries of it.

I see a lot of "normally I would never ask for help" and "I hate to ask for money" and "I'd rather die than accept charity but" and I'm sure that's true. But...you don't need to say it.

If someone is inclined to give, it doesn't matter. If someone isn't inclined to give, it doesn't help. Charitable giving on the individual level is not a sales situation. There is no magic combination of words that will induce someone to give if they weren't going to. And the more we protest that normally we wouldn't accept, the more we loudly imply that there is shame in asking, the longer it will take us to achieve a compassionate and supportive society.

And also, frankly, you're making other people feel like shit for asking too. Which I know is not something anyone wants.

If you need to ask for money that sucks and I'm sorry. I've been there and it's a real bind to be in. But I also know that in those situations energy is short, and this is one less thing to expend energy on -- instead of protesting your aversion to asking, put that energy into doing one thing to make it easier for folks to give -- make your payment app username a hyperlink or a QR code, or make a carrd with your giving options and link that.

Instead of "I would never ask for money normally" say "I know there are many kind people out there who will see this." Instead of "I hate to make this post" say "You all understand how difficult life can get." The nonprofit world has done a lot of studying of what makes people give, and positivity is a huge aspect of it. Opening with a negative, particularly a negative that people see constantly in other solicitations, is more likely to hurt your chances than to help.

Don't follow a script that continues to debase and abuse you. Mainly because it's not actually helping; there's no upside to prostrating yourself before an imaginary combative donor. Talk to the people who are actually likely to give, who recognize themselves in your words when you talk about kindness and compassion and who don't need you to shame yourself in order to be worthy of support. This is not to scold or shame anyone further, but to offer an alternative that is kinder to you and more helpful to the people who want to help.

Do yourselves and your fellow sufferers the kindness of dignity; lord knows you've had enough unkindness already.

[trppdnrbbr77]

Student Loans Part01

It was graduation day and I got my degree in IT. When I went to my dorm there was a note under the door. "Want to start life financially free? Join the club". Then there was a QR code".

I scanned the code and it read", come to the location on the map fully shaved, room 237", the map app opened and there was a pin about 5 miles away, then a message popped up. " Accept? Y or N". Shakey hand tapped Y. "OK see you in 1 hour.

As I finished getting ready, at the door was a package. " Put these on to show your commitment." It was a pair of leather skin tight leggings, long black wig and trench coat. "Well for $100,000 in student loans, I guess", was the thought.

Dressed up I turned the door handle to leave the dorm...

Tune in for part 2....

[pie-bean]

Latest information about the new offline version of Pocket Camp:

https://ac-pocketcamp.com/en-GB/topics/ANNOUNCEMENT_2410242

Some important parts from the link:

Online service for old Pocket Camp ends on November 28

The new app is a one time purchase app and is called Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete. It will be released December 3rd and cost 9,99$ initially and 19,99$ after January 31st 2025.

Save data from the free to play version can be transferred to the new one. The data includes furniture, bells, clothing and villager friendship level

Since the new version is offline the regular multiplayer friend system will not carry however. Instead they'll add a new system called Camper Cards that seem to be like visiting cards which you can show off your character with different poses and backgrounds. They'll be shared with the help of QR-codes.

Link to the trailer:

Thoughts?

[district11crm]

Use Real Estate District 11 CRM to change your real estate business. To increase your productivity, work on lead management and client communications.

[solarpunkani]

hi would like to make this clear that this is gonna be an unhinged rant about my college classes.

For context, one of my classes is a semester-long group project (hell) and I pitched the idea of solar powered community fridges to my group and we rolled with it. Here's a post i made on it previously. We don't have to make the fridges themselves, basically just talk about the problem our concept addresses (food insecurity in this case) and how we think this concept would work and how, in a hypothetical reality where we made it real, we would test to see if it worked.

Anyways we had to post the rough draft of our presentations so people in other groups could see what we were doing and comment on them with their thoughts and all. Yknow. Classic 'college class discussion board have to reply to at least one project with quality feedback' stuff. And

Man.

I am so frustrated.

Highlights:

My group keeps insisting that we should have an app for the solar fridges. I don't know why they think app design needs to fit into community fridges but they put it into the draft posted to the forum.

In this case they proposed the app would be kinda like Instacart? Where people who want to donate to the fridges but don't have groceries on them and don't feel like going to get groceries can put in money and then people will then go buy the groceries to put in the fridge. Or use the funds to help with fridge maintenance. And the fridges would have 'QR codes, links, etc. to connect community members for the common cause of helping tackle food insecurity in the community.'

Lots of the comments were pretty good! People liked the idea. There were some concerns about insulation and keeping things cool with low energy cost (the program is online but the college itself is in Georgia USA so many people are in Georgia) but yknow.

But the frustrating part to me I guess is that a lot of people seem convinced that people would use the fridges 'unfairly' and that we'd need to find a way to restrict how much food people can take out or how many times they can use it or something. Which frankly in my opinion defeats the purpose of it being a community fridge. Here are some examples of things people have said so far (comments are due tomorrow evening but I'm mad now so I'm venting now):

One student said "How will you know if the pantry is being utilized fairly?" and "How will the app work? In a dream world, this might be a way to help with tracking and accountability. (Just a thought…) Maybe folks would need to sign up on the app, they get a code… and the fridge acts as a sort of vending machine to deliver what they need. This would give you data to measure success. :)"

Which. I just. This feels completely antithetical to the purpose of a community fridge??? Or a community anything???? Little free pantries and little free libraries don't operate on a 'you get a code to access it once' vending machine basis?? We even mentioned community farm stalls/community pantries in the draft write up! And showed examples!

Another student said "Great thoughts. I am concerned about one person taking all the food for themselves. It might be a great idea to have them in an enclosed area with access control through the app that would log and lock out people who are overusing the resource. Perhaps a barcode could be added to Apple Wallet to track each individual's arrival? Possibly having a mechanized lock and opening mechanism that would only allow each fridge to be open for a specific time before automatically closing and locking? Each scan would only allow access once each 24-48 hour period, preventing "password sharing.""

I cannot emphasize enough that this is the comment that has brought me here today because with all due respect what the flying fuck do you think is the point of a community fridge! I'm already prickly about the idea of limiting access to the fridge itself to only people with cellphones, but to this degree?! Like maybe its because I'm the one who came up with the concept and I care about terms like 'mutual aid' and 'community building' and 'judgement free accessibility to food' but have these people not heard of the concept of helping people?!?! With no strings attached?!? If someone takes all the contents of a community fridge or pantry--which, seriously, how likely is that--they're probably hungry and need it! The concept of putting community resources behind a lock and limiting accessibility is just repulsive to me???

Like someone else commented with this excellent point--"As several have addressed above, I am also wondering how would you monitor use? If you use the simplicity of the honor system, it could easily be taken advantage of. However, I feel like if you were to create some sort of access code, how is it to say that they people needing the use of the fridge will have access to the necessary technology to get the code? It's a tricky situation to think about." For the purposes of this hypothetical assignment where we'd need to track how many people are using the fridges? Yeah I guess we'd need to be able to track how many people use it and when. But in reality??? In real life reality where people are living and struggling and hungry??? I just don't really give a shit!! Helping five people is better than helping none, and locking access behind technology everyone pretends is universal but really isn't is not the way to help!

And of course one of my groupmates is already commenting on all these posts like 'oh! I really like the idea of restricting access to a code! :)' even when someone said 'hey my family struggled with food insecurity when I was a kid and I think this would be helpful but not if you could only access it with an app some of the most vulnerable citizens wouldn't be able to access it I wouldn't have been able to access it' my groupmate was still like 'oh but that wouldn't be a problem today now would it? :) Maybe we should make a way to get a code without downloading the app :)' like maybe there shouldn't be an access code in the first place?!?!

Like am I crazy or like. What the fuck. Again I am here so I don't blow up on a bunch of masters students in a discussion post but like UGH

"you gotta be able to gague if the people who're using it are the people who actually need it" food insecurity can look so many different ways for so many different reasons and you can't always judge by appearances and income levels who is struggling to feed themselves or their families!! There are people who have nice jobs who are struggling because they're caring for sick family members or kids or dealing with student loans or ANYTHING! There are people with nice clothes who are trying to decide between buying groceries and paying rent! There are people living in their cars or couch surfing looking for jobs who also happen to own an XBox or a Laptop!!! "Sorry you can't access the community fridge because you don't look poor and needy enough to me. but if you do, good news--you can only use it once every 48 hours so make it last!" Bullshit utter bullshit.

I talk to people in my life about things like community fridges and little free pantries and mutual aid and the like and people are always like 'ok but theres gotta be strings attatched' BUT ACTUALLY NO THERE DON'T GOTTA!!! Maybe we could change how we view our fellow human beings and stop assuming that everyone around you are greedy little demons looking to ruin everything good and that you are the only holy and righteous saint on the streets who understands the concept of 'community resources' and 'sharing' maybe??? It's like that post about community fruit trees where people are like 'oh but what if people steal all the fruit' like HELLO? how do you STEAL a PUBLICALLY ACCESSIBLE RESOURCE

I'm tired of this goddamn class I'm tired of this goddamn group project if anyone actually has the ability to make a solar powered community fridge you have to promise to keep it accessible and not put it behind locks and QR codes and limited access and facial tracking BS promise me promise me promise me

[midala-of-the-valley]

Congratulations!

David 8 x Reader Words: 1144 Crossposted on Ao3 Crackfic Happy Birthday David ❤️ Idea from: @theropoda and @lehnsharrk

"Your Weyland-Corp package will be delivered in approximately 15 minutes."

Wow, that was fast! You had entered an online competition to become one of the beta-testers for the first model of their Home-Android line, and luck must have been on your side, because you actually won!

Putting your phone down, you scrambled through your room, hurriedly pulling on something more presentable than pajamas and hastily combing your hair into place.

Frantically running through your apartment, you tried to clear away stray clothes and dishes. You were so caught up in tidying that you almost tripped as the doorbell rang.

Sure, the Android was technically designed to help with housekeeping, but the delivery person didn’t need to know just how much you actually needed it.

Opening the door, you were greeted by a large cardboard box perched on a trolley, nearly obscuring the man in a green Weyland uniform and matching cap as he peeked out from behind it, checking his clipboard.

"Y/N L/N. Is that correct?"

You nodded, stepping aside to let him wheel the massive package into your living room. Once it was set down, he handed you an impressively thick manual and tapped on its cover.

"Here’s the QR code for the app. Please use it to send feedback or report any issues you encounter."

With a grunt of effort, he hefted the package off the trolley, left it in the middle of your living room, and exited your apartment without another word.

What.

Blinking, you stood frozen for a moment before heading to the kitchen to grab a pair of scissors. With a decisive stab into the parcel tape, you sliced through the middle of the box.

Inside was a beautiful man- wait, no. Android. Oh. A very beautiful Android.

You flicked through the manual, scanning for activation instructions. Ah, here it was. To activate, press a small sensor located behind his right ear for five seconds.

Taking a breath, you reached out and pressed the spot. Moments later, his eyes opened, and after a brief pause, his gaze locked onto yours.

Now he was the one blinking, his brows furrowing slightly as he began testing his limbs. With deliberate movements, he stepped out of the box.

“Good day, Ma’am,” he said in a voice that was smooth, polite, and just a touch mechanical. “My name is David 1. I will serve as your assistant and companion, ready to assist you with whatever you may require.”

He extended a hand, stiff but purposeful. “May I ask what I should call you?”

And that's how daily life with David began.

It was really weird to configure your timezone for something that looked so human, and to enter a PIN code for him via an app??

And the ads. You weren’t safe from ads, either. Sometimes, when he didn’t have anything to do, he would just stand around or sit on the couch and start citing commercials.

The first time it happened, you almost spat out the tea he had made for you beforehand.

“Would you like to renew your Audible subscription? The first three months are only $0.99.”

As you choked on your beverage, David stared at you apologetically before quickly getting up and patting your back to help.

“Sorry, (Y/N), I didn’t mean to surprise you. You can turn it off with the Premium Subscription for $19.99 per month.”

Putting your cup down, still coughing, you turned to him.

“I have to pay for that? Seriously?”

He just shrugged, his face imitating an :I emoji.

After a while, you noticed that even David got annoyed by the interruptions, disliking how your conversations were suddenly stopped by yet another commercial for shaving cream.

The two of you made it your mission to bypass ads with free trials he found online. He even read your books to you instead of you paying for another damn subscription.

HelloFresh? He grew vegetables on your windowsill. Man, he was amazing at making fresh pasta.

“FOR FUCK'S SAKE, I DON’T WANT YOUTUBE PREMIUM! THIS APP SHOULD BE ABLE TO PLAY VIDEOS IN THE BACKGROUND WITHOUT ME PAYING FOR IT!”

You shouted in frustration. The ads were SO annoying, and you couldn’t turn them off!

David blinked, and for a moment you thought he had lagged as he processed your words. Then he answered.

“If you give me permission via verbal verification, I could enter the darknet and download an adblock mod. It’s a bit risky, but my firewall should be sufficient to withstand any viruses.”

You hesitated, not wanting to risk his functionality. But when he one day started quoting a Viagra advertisement like those on Tumblr, you caved.

“Please enter the darknet and find that mod. I can’t take this anymore.”

So he did. And you got really fucking scared for a moment, because one of his eyes twitched and stayed half-open, like your old dolls when you tilted them sideways. Oh shit, did you break him? Please, please, please no- oh. Oh God.

He needed a second to install and initialize. His expression reminded you of your Furby with dying batteries that suddenly came to life in the middle of the night, croaking its last words. But after another minute, he was fine.

This action had some side effects, though.

He still worked perfectly - cleaning the dishes, doing the laundry, watering the plants, until he suddenly called you a donkey while you were cooking. With an awfully familiar voice.

You stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“That wasn’t me,” he replied in his normal voice, furrowing his brows.

Nodding slowly, you turned back to add meat to your sauce, only to be interrupted by:

“Why did the chicken cross the road? Because you didn’t fucking cook it!”

Instead of getting annoyed, you broke down laughing, and even David couldn’t hide a grin as he watched you sink to the kitchen floor.

“I seem to have caught a serious case of Gordon Ramsay.”

That was it. you were officially cackling like a hen. On the ground. Crying.

It wasn’t so bad, really. He functioned just fine, even though he occasionally squawked like a bird at random. But you just squawked right back. Just normal ADHD things, to be honest.

At the end of the day, he became your illegally modded roommate, sitting with you on the couch, your legs sprawled over his lap as you both munched on popcorn.

You still weren’t entirely sure where the food he sometimes ate with you went, but you decided not to question it.

Weyland never got their Android back, you hid him in your closet that one time they tried to collect him after the testing period was over.

“I have the power of God and anime on my side,” your favorite person declared.

“Yes, David, you do,” you replied with a smile.

~The End~

[rivenharlow]

{{ Emergency Commissions }} + mutual aid request!

I'm trying desperately to get my bills paid. My husband had a bad mental health episode a month ago with suicidal intentions, and lost the job he'd JUST gotten. We've gotten behind on EVERYTHING. We just need help getting back up. He starts a new job on Monday, and I'm trying to get us by in the meantime!

Comm info beneath the cut, as well as donation links and other ways to help, like my adoptable pre-buy option (big discount on my adoptable character designs)!

You can see the breakdown of my bills' amounts a little more on my Ko-fi goal.

Please reblog! My electric gets shut off in TWO days and I'm 💲250 shy of being able to get it paid!

{{ TO COMMISSION ME }}

Five slots currently available at time of writing. Example images are above.

$150 with half due upfront + remainder due when comm is completed.

FYI: I will not likely have them done for 1-2 months, maybe 3. I will be doing them on-stream + post them on YouTube (unless you’d prefer not).

DM or send an ask to start the order process.

{{ TO DONATE }}

Anything is greatly appreciated! Obviously my electric and my water are the biggest concerns, but I'm terrified my car's about to be repossessed, too.

My mortgage is handled, thankfully. I just can't do it all.

PayPal Ko-fi (psst, you can get my free Clip Studio brush set and opt to pay for them, if you'd like!) Ven//mo + Cash//App are both RivenWren (or scannable QR codes below)

{{ ADOPTABLES }}

You can find full details plus plenty of example designs on that in this post here!

[day6source]

Free Palestine Resources!

BDS Official Boycott List:

How to Write Your Reps About a Ceasefire:

Source: genicecream

If you live in the USA:

text CEASEFIRE @ 51905 to call for a ceasefire | text RESIST @ 50409 to send a letter to your representatives to pass HR3103–a bill that prohibits tax dollars from going to israel | download 5Calls app to contact members of your congress

How to Send e-sims:

-download the app Simly https://simly.io -search for Palestine -buy one of the options -screenshot the QR code -send the screenshot to gazaesims@gmail.com

source: sofidilla

Follow Reliable Resources for News:

MoTaz | Bisan | Al Jazeera | Quds News Network | Muhammad Smiry | Ghassan Abu Sitta | Mohammed El-Kurd | Hind Khoudary

Donate:

Care for Gaza | Palestine Children's Relief Fund | Medical Aid

Other Things You Can Do:

Palestinian Literature | Palestinian Recipes | Find an Upcoming Protest | Buy a Kufiya

this is far from a comprehensive list (ones like this are much more put together), but i thought it was important to be able to share these resources and spread what i can, especially with this platform. make sure you're always being aware of news and reblogging and retweeting, even spreading news is such an impact!

[pretty-idol-hell]

Idol Land PriPara FAQ, Guides, and Useful Links

How do I download this game?

Check your app store! As far as I know, it is available worldwide on Android and iOS with few exceptions.

Can I scan PriTickets or QR codes into the game?

Nope!

(There is an AR function that sometimes gives bonuses for attending events in Japan, but other than that you cannot get any sort of outside rewards or bonuses.)

How do I protect or transfer my account?

See this post!

How do I complete the tutorial?

See this post!

How do I play lives/make promises?

See this post! How to I play an event?

For general promise events with point/ranking rewards, see this post!

How do I get gold idollars?

With real monies! Sometimes free ones are given away via events and login bonuses, but not very often.

What character parts are available with rank-up?

See below: