#Paid-Up Share Capital

[myefilingsindia]

Types of Share Capital:

Authorized Share Capital: This is the maximum value of shares that a company is authorized to issue as per its memorandum of association. It represents the upper limit of capital that the company can raise from its shareholders.

Issued Share Capital: This is the portion of authorized share capital that the company has actually issued and allotted to shareholders.

Subscribed Share Capital: This refers to the portion of issued share capital that shareholders have agreed to subscribe to or purchase.

Paid-Up Share Capital: This is the amount of money that shareholders have already paid to the company for the shares they have subscribed to. It's the actual capital received by the company from its shareholders.

Read more: https://myefilings.com/understanding-the-companies-share-capital-and-debentures-amendment-rules-2023/

[sea-jello]

i dont want to hop on the "my toxic trait" train but there are times in my life where i become so unwell about a musical theater actor i go to their imdb and watch every tv episode and/or movie scene theyve done. and then sometimes i stumble upon things like this

this is will connolly playing the role of "dj skillitz" whos dead, uses the word "dudebro" very unnaturally and fucking piece of shit im halfway through the episode and the whiplash ive gotten in the past 7 minutes is incredible

[nullwort]

Still not used to having friends.

[ebizfilingindia-blog]

Raising Authorized Capital

Authorized capital can be defined as an amount stated in the company’s memorandum of capital association. The company’s authorized capital describes several shares it can issue to its shareholders. The firm may increase its capital to the certain amount allowed in the capital clause and the members must update the capital provision at the general meeting by passing specific resolutions if it requires more capital. Raising the authorized capital requires the issue of additional shares and providing more funds to the business.

[pawnshopbleus]

The Songbird

Young!Coriolanus Snow x Fem!Plinth!Reader

Summary - Lucy Gray Baird was the talk of this year's Hunger Games. She had the beauty and the voice to charm her way through the games, but what happens when rumors spark up around the Capitol that her mentor and your boyfriend, Coriolanus Snow, have shared a kiss?

Warnings - Mild angst, Speculations of cheating, Smut (Coriolanus Snow eats you out), Bad communication, it gets sort of better at the ends so just trust me, Very mild Lucy Grey slander (Rachel Zegler they could never make me hate you.), let’s pretend that Snow has the capacity to love, Not beta read.

Being a Plinth meant two things: people hated you because you paid your way to the top, and people loved you because you had enough money to do it. Getting used to life in the capital was hard, but it got easier when you had a boyfriend who cared for you. Your brother, Sejanus, disapproved of his best friend dating his twin sister, but the two of you could care less. 

You met Coriolanus at the Academy. You were charmed by his white hair and the way he carried himself. He also wasn’t as stuck up and snobby as your other classmates. He was easy to talk to and even easier on the eyes. He must have noticed the way you were entranced by him when he asked you out. After many dates and your father's approval, he asked you to be his girlfriend.

Now, you were sitting in the lunch room, picking at the sandwich that was in front of you. It was no secret that Coriolanus’s tribute was the favorite of the capitol. She was beautiful and swept everyone off of their feet with that sweet voice of hers. Your tribute on the other hand was nothing more than a throwaway tribute from District Nine. To be frank, he was short and skinny. There was nothing much you could do for him. Maybe he could be good at hiding, but he wouldn’t last long in the arena. 

“Are you going to eat?” Coriolanus asked as he eyed your sandwich. “You need to eat, dove.”

“I’m not hungry,” you grumbled as you took a sip of your water. 

“Can I have it then?”

You nod your head and hand him the sandwich. You watched as he put it in a napkin and placed it in his coat pocket. 

You tilted your head in confusion. Was he saving that for later? “Coryo, if you, Grandma'am, and Tigris need something to eat, you can come over. You know my home is always open to you and your family.” 

He smirked and shook his head. “No, I’m saving it for Lucy Gray.” 

“Oh.” That was all you could say. Of course, he was saving that for his Lucy Gray. Him feeding his tribute would fuel the rumors that Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird were developing a budding relationship. People were already invested in them after his stunt at the Capitol Zoo. 

You grabbed your tray from the table and left without saying another word. You couldn’t find it in you to confront him about what people were saying. Maybe you were being a bad girlfriend, but your jealousy got the best of you.    As the sun set and the moon rose, you lie in your room, hoping that Lucy Gray wouldn’t accept the sandwich. You wanted her to throw it back at him, scaring him so much that he would never visit her again. But this isn’t about what you want. This is about Coriolanus and his mission to get his tribute to win. 

The next morning, you couldn’t eat. You were physically and mentally sick with jealousy. You were meant to meet with your tribute to discuss a game strategy. In your peripheral, you could see Coriolanus with Lucy Gray. He was so alert when he talked with her. He once talked to you like that, but after the first time he saw Lucy Gray on the screen, he’s become distant. He was always talking about her, visiting her, thinking about her. Part of you wanted her to die in the arena, but your wishes fell upon deaf ears. 

For the first time, you were faced to face with your tribute. He was even skinnier in person. Your heart burned for him. You were so lucky that your parents got you out of the District when they could or else that could have been you on the other side of the table. 

“Okay, Finn, I’m going to be honest, you aren’t the person people root for, but I can make sure that you live as long as possible.” What you said was harsh, but true. You could get your father and his friends to sponsor him. With enough sponsors, he could get food, water, and medicine. That’s as good as it’s going to get. 

“We all know that Lucy Grey’s going to win. Her mentor has been visiting her every night. He brought her half of a sandwich last night. I saw them by the gates. I could see them talking. They were close, real close. I could have sworn I saw them kiss, but-” The rest of Finn’s sentence was drowned out by the sound of static ringing through your ears. 

— — — — 

Your knuckles rapped against the door of the Snow residence. It was later in the day, your tribute was thankful that you somewhat believed in him, but both of you knew that he wasn’t going to make it out alive. If anyone killed the Capitols songbird they would surely live a life of shame. 

Tigris opened the door and smiled when she saw you standing there, but her smile faded as she saw the tears streaming down your face. She opened her arms and trapped you in them, letting your tears stain her dress. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her voice was soft and almost whisper quiet. She was a gentle soul and you trusted her with your darkest secrets. 

“My tribute said that Coriolanus and Lucy Gray kissed,” you said through tears. 

Tigris gasped and looked at you in the eyes, searching for something to say. “I’m-I don’t know what to say. That doesn’t sound like Coryo. He loves you too much to do that.” 

“Really? Lately Lucy Grey is all he can talk about. It’s like she’s his girlfriend and not me.”  “Because he wants to win the prize money. We need to pay rent and we don’t have enough.” Tigris said as she wiped away your tears. 

“It doesn’t help that the capitol likes them together. He might as well date her instead of me. I mean, she’s pretty and she can sing like none other. I just-” You were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. In less than twenty seconds Coriolanus was at your side. 

His hands find their place on your shoulders as he pulls you away from Tigris’s grasp. His eyebrows are furrowed in confusion. “What’s wrong, dove? Did someone hurt you?” 

You wipe your nose with your sleeve. Your mother would kill you if she found out you did something so unclassy in front of a man, but right now you could care less about class. Your eyes looked around everywhere, trying not to make eye contact with his. You knew that you would cry again if you looked into his eyes. The eyes that got you hooked on him in the first place. The eyes that Lucy Grey saw flutter close before they kissed. 

Your shoulders wiggled out of his grasp. His hands fell to his sides and you could have sworn you saw his hands ball up in fists, stopping themselves from coming in contact with your soft skin. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat and said, “My tribute, Finn. He said that you and Lucy Gray kissed last night at the zoo.” It came out more as a whisper. You hated how pathetic you sounded right at that moment. 

You could see Coriolanus search for the memories of what happened last night. He then sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “We didn’t kiss,” he began, “but I can see why the other tributes would think that. We were close, but it was only because I wanted to tell her more game strategies and I didn’t want the other tributes to hear.” 

You felt stupid. You felt really stupid to assume that your boyfriend of two years would cheat on you. “But I-I heard people in the shop the other day say that they wanted you and Lucy Gray to get together. They said that the two of you had so much chemistry.”

“First of all, that’s illegal, and second of all, I love you. And only you.” His hand tilted your chin up and wiped the tears that were still falling on your face. Tigris had retired to her room a long time ago. 

Coriolanus leads you to his room. The window that overlooked the Capitol was open, letting in the cold. “Let me show you how much I love you,” he whispered, inches away from your lips. 

“Yes,” was the only thing you managed to say before he kissed you. The kiss started off soft and slow, but as his hands found their home on your waist, the kiss got harder. Your lips found a good rhythm as they got familiar with one another. His tongue skittered across your bottom lip, begging for permission to enter. Your tongues danced with one another before Coriolanus broke the kiss. 

His lips pressed light kisses along your neck. He nipped at your skin causing you to jump a bit. He smiled into your skin and laid you down on his bed. His hand slid down to the bottom of your dress. You had changed after you got home from the visit with your tribute. You wanted to get that stupid uniform off before it suffocated you. 

“Do you want this?” he asked as his fingers inched the bottom of your dress up inch by inch until the only thing that was left covering your bottom half was your underwear. They were already soaked through. He began placing soft kisses on the skin of your things, but he wouldn’t go any further until he got your permission. The last thing he wanted to do was make you uncomfortable. After all, this was supposed to be about you. 

You nodded your head and Snow nipped your inner thigh. “Words, dove.” 

“Yes, Coryo.” 

“Good girl.” He breathed before his fingers hooked into the waistband of your underwear. He slowly took them off of you, dragging this on as long as he could before you went mad. Your chest rose and fell as you focused on the man in between your legs. 

Right now, the games were the least of your worries. The people who started the rumors of Coriolanus and Lucy Grey could go to hell for all you cared. You finally had the truth. Coriolanus loved you, and no District Twelve songbird could change that. 

Coriolanus nuzzles his nose against your clit as his tongue prods against your entrance. Your hand clamped over your mouth as you tried your best to muffle your moans. You would just die if Grandma'am or Tigris heard what their beloved Coriolanus was doing to you. 

Seconds later, his mouth hungrily sucked on your clit. Your eyes went wide and you let out a silent moan. Overwhelmed with pleasure, your thighs clamp around his head, but instead of pushing them back, he keeps them there. He looks up at you and his beautiful blue eyes flutter close, enjoying the way you taste. 

His fingers trace along your wet hole, gathering your slick. First, he inserts his index finger and then his middle one. His fingers are long and skinny, but they feel oh so fucking good. His fingers fuck in and out of you, stroking along your G-spot. 

You can’t hold on much longer. He can tell by the way your pussy clenches around his fingers. He hungrily laps at your clit, drawing small and tight circles with his tongue. Coriolanus loves this part. The part when your back arches off his bed, when your pussy spasms around him, and when your thighs shake as you let out the prettiest moan. Chills run down your body as you shiver with pleasure. You come off your high as he takes his fingers out of you. They’re soaked with your release and he grins down at them. He licks his fingers clean of your slick and kisses the skin right above your hips. 

“That better?” he asked, lying next to you on the bed. 

You nod your head. You weren’t able to form words right at the moment.

“I’m sorry for making you believe that I would ever cheat on you. I really do love you, my dove.” 

Your heart sank to the bottom of your stomach. You let oxygen fill your lungs before you exhale and turn it into carbon dioxide. “Coryo, I’m sorry for being jealous. I know how much this annual Hunger Games means to you. You know that my father would be more than happy to pay your rent. He knows how much you mean to me.” 

Coriolanus shook his head. “That’s not what this is about. Dove, I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you for your father.” 

You got up and straddled his lap, your bare pussy was just inches away from his hard cock. Coriolanus gulps, his Adam's apple bobbing. Your hands wipe away some hair from his face. “Then what is this about? Please, let me know. I want to help.” 

He hides his face in the crook of your neck. “I want to show the Dean that I can win. I want to show him that Snow lands on top,” Coriolanus mumbles against your skin. 

“Figuratively and literally,” you whisper. 

Coriolanus spent the rest of the night showing you exactly what he meant by ‘Snow lands on top.’

[sarahisslytherin]

on the kingsroad.

cregan stark x reader

summary: you try not to let your feelings for lord stark show as you travel to king's landing together.

contains: forced proximity, fluff.

a/n: there was only one bed!!

word count: 1.2k

You struggled to keep your heavy eyes open as your mare clopped down the dirt road. You trotted alongside Cregan, whose gaze was now fixed on the inn that grew closer with each passing moment. “Almost there, my Lady.” The young lord of Winterfell addressed you gently. He was as weary as you were, and longed just as much for the warmth of a bed. You tugged feebly on the fur lining your cloak as you neared the inn. It had been a few days on the Kingsroad in the company of Cregan Stark. 

You both had business to attend to down in King’s Landing and the noble lord deemed it necessary that you be accompanied. Though you were merely a lady of his court, you had never been able to deny the part of you that longed for something more than polite manners from Cregan. The look in his icy blue eyes as he strode down the halls of Winterfell had put you in a trance more times than you cared to admit. Equally culpable for this were the stolen glances during feasts, the electricity you felt at his touch when he would help you out of a carriage. These small moments provided you with enough warmth to survive the longest of winters. 

Soon enough, you were at the inn’s doors. Cregan dismounted first before aiding you as you did the same, his strong, leather-covered hands holding your weight as your boots hit the snowy ground. You thanked him for the help as he led the way inside. The innkeeper marveled at the sight of him. Tall, wide, commanding; a young wolf.

“Forgive me, Lord Stark.” the man stuttered. “But there are simply not enough rooms left to accommodate both yourself and the young lady.” At this, Cregan looked over his shoulder to meet your gaze. Something in your expression must have given away that you didn’t mind sharing chambers for the night, because he swiftly turned to the innkeeper and paid for the remaining room.

You tried to suppress the churning feeling in your stomach at the thought of such proximity to Cregan, thankful you could blame the pink hue of your cheeks on the biting northern cold. You followed Cregan up the stairs, the wooden boards creaking under his steps. The hallway was lit by torches, the warm light leading you to your chambers. “After you.” Cregan bowed his head ever so slightly as you stepped into the room, the stone and wooden walls encapsulating the heat from the fireplace. 

“Gods, how I’ve longed for the comfort of a bed.” you chuckled as you shrugged off your furs, leaving you in your gown. You felt Cregan’s heavy gaze as you undid your simple braid and let your hair cascade down your shoulders. “You must know your company has been a great comfort to me, Lord Stark.” you confessed, offering him a sheepish smile as your eyes met his. He too was in the process of removing his cloak, his thinner garments capturing your attention more than could be deemed fitting of a proper young lady. 

“I am glad to hear it. I must admit that when I heard you would be traveling to the capital on your own, I couldn’t help but worry for your safety. I shall stay close to you at King’s Landing as well. It is truly a viper’s nest, no place for an innocent lady.”

“My Lord, you underestimate me.” you smirked as you stood up from your place by the crackling fire. “Surely the vicious men of King’s Landing cannot be much worse than the brutes back home.”

Cregan laughed at that, a good hearty laugh. “Is your opinion of Northmen truly so low?”

You felt heat begin to creep into your face once again. “I- I meant no offense, my Lord. The men I speak of are nothing like you.” You were too nervous to be sure, but you were quite certain it was a look of amusement now on Cregan’s face.

“Are they not? I am a man of the North, born and raised. What could possibly save me from your damning opinion?” he teased, but you sensed he truly wished to hear the answer.

“Well,” you sighed as you fiddled with tendrils of your hair, “They are not nearly as handsome, and not one of them has ever made me laugh the way your jests have. And they are unkind, inhumane. They regard me as no more than an object, something to be enjoyed as one enjoys a feast. But you-” you cut yourself off, looking up to meet Cregan’s gaze. The look in his eyes was soft, hopeful even. 

“But I?” he insisted.

“But you are kind. Not only to me, but to your people. You are a rare man of honor, true honor. A man I feel safe with.” you finally said. If Cregan was moved by your confession he tried his best not to show it, his gaze fixed on the ground as if lost in thought. You decided to make yourself busy with the fur covers on the bed. Cregan stood up to help. 

“My Lady, please have the bed.” he said, his voice scratchy from the cool winter air. “I will arrange my furs on the floor.” Your eyes widened at that, your hand reaching up to clutch your heart incredulously.

“Nonsense, I cannot allow you to sleep on the floor when there is a perfectly fine bed large enough for the two of us!” 

Cregan made an effort to suppress his smile, but it was not enough. “Are you absolutely sure? I only wish for you to be comfortable.” he insisted.

“Certainly.” you assured him, allowing your hand to rest gently on his chest. You tried not to focus on the beat of his heart beneath your icy palm. He wasted no time in taking it in his own hands and bringing it to his lips, the gesture awakening butterflies in your stomach. 

You gently stepped away to your side of the bed, slipping in and doing your best to stay on the edge of the bed. You felt the mattress dip where Cregan did the same on the other end. You ensured you were both back to back with room to spare between you. You tried to drown out the thoughts you were having about the Lord of Winterfell as you drifted off to sleep.

It wasn’t until the first rays of dawn began to pour into the chambers that your eyes began to flutter. You were so accustomed to sleeping alone, you didn’t know what to make of the presence you sensed so close to you. Only then did the memories of last night come back to you, and you looked down to your abdomen to find Cregan Stark’s large paw of a hand resting there. You glanced over your shoulder, feeling the warmth of his breath hit the back of your neck. He had pulled you flush against him in his sleep, and it seemed you had done little in protest. The butterflies in your stomach returned as you let your eyes close again and leaned into Lord Stark’s embrace, impatient to continue your journey on the Kingsroad.

tagging: @velvetcloxds @oweninadaydream @spxllcxstxr @lovemesomevesey @shemisseshome @themissgreen24-blog @siriusement @kindgomzeldaquest @gayfordabae @slayis4ever

[milksockets]

why scan?

scanning is something i've done for probably about 12 years now (i'm ancient, for this site), with varying degrees of regularity, intensity, etc. it has ratcheted up since the dawn of 2023, though, which begs the question: why? why put so much time into what could not-wrongly be considered a passive activity, hunched over a piece of clunky machinery with the express purpose of preserving others' creations? the answers are several, and fascinating (not really).

i am a [sober] drug addict. anything i pursue, consume, create--more often than not--ends up taking on addictive qualities. i'll eat the same specific food item for a month, then never want to see, let alone taste it, again. i'll listen to one song on repeat for days until i'd rather hear nails on a chalkboard than have it shuffle on and assault my ears. one of the reasons that my scanning has increased in volume recently is that i acquired library cards to the 3 nyc library systems: nypl, brooklyn, and queens. as soon as i was able to, i pillaged + plundered those fine centers of learning, leaving any given library with as many hefty scan-worthy books as i could [barely] carry. here, finally, was a *free* way of obtaining more + more + more visual media to consume.

2023 saw me get my first legal, full-time job. as such, my adjusting to that hellish reality resulted in a steep decline in my own personal creative output. collaging, writing, and rapping all fell to the wayside as i slowly acclimated to a life of work that almost everyone else my age has known for over a decade is generally unbearable + detrimental to the maintenance of outside pursuits. in times of famine within my own artistic harvest, scanning, archiving, and sharing others' work is a means of feeling as though i am still contributing to the global oeuvre.

there’s an element of losing my mental self in a series of physical motions that becomes almost automatic after some time. “zoning out” is not something endemic to my daily life; if anything, i’m almost always too zoned in. relief is necessary.  especially considering the shitshow this past year has been in terms of my personal life.

i am a product of capitalism’s cultivating a craving for constant consumption. 

it seems that visual content is only going to continue to get more + more uninspired. has everything been done? did social media ruin it all? in any case, i feel a need to document the past. to a degree, it’s my version of doomsday prepping. (god forbid books go extinct altogether.) 

i have always gravitated towards solitary activities. this topic could be a thesis in its own right.

i thrive on external validation. this reliance is something i’ve improved upon over the past several years, but it hasn’t been altogether extinguished. even though the materials i scan are not of my own creation, i nevertheless feel a vague pride in showcasing them. occasional appreciation thereof satisfies this fixation on others’ attention, albeit in a diluted form. 

i am fortunate to live in a city bursting to the gills with cultural institutions. i am also lucky enough to have some disposable income that can be directed toward fulfilling my ravenous desire for visual media. 

((i keep getting messages about the specifics of my scanner + "process":

i have a cheap ass hp envy 6055e and i just use the software it comes with.

there's nothing special or fancy happening here, and i could definitely invest in a better and/or a large format scanner, etc. but i really just don't care enough and it's not like i'm getting paid for this lmao))

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Retirement and How to Retire

How to start saving for retirement

Dafuq Is a Retirement Plan and Why Do You Need One?

Procrastinating on Opening a Retirement Account? Here’s 3 Ways That’ll Fuck You Over.

Season 4, Episode 5: “401(k)s Aren’t Offered in My Industry. How Do I Save for Retirement if My Employer Won’t Help?”

How To Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Workplace Benefits and Other Cool Side Effects of Employment 

Your School or Workplace Benefits Might Include Cool Free Stuff

Do NOT Make This Disastrous Beginner Mistake With Your Retirement Funds

The Financial Order of Operations: 10 Great Money Choices for Every Stage of Life

Advanced retirement moves

How to Painlessly Run the Gauntlet of a 401k Rollover

The Resignation Checklist: 25 Sneaky Ways To Bleed Your Employer Dry Before Quitting

Ask the Bitches: “Can I Quit With Unvested Funds? Or Am I Walking Away From Too Much Money?”

You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

Season 4, Episode 8: “I’m Queer, and Want To Find an Affordable Place To Retire. How Do I Balance Safety With Cost of Living?” 

How Dafuq Do Couples Share Their Money? 

Ask the Bitches: “Do Women Need Different Financial Advice Than Men?”

From HYSAs to CDs, Here’s How to Level Up Your Financial Savings

Season 3, Episode 7: “I’m Finished With the Basic Shit. What Are the Advanced Financial Steps That Only Rich People Know?” 

Speaking of advanced money moves, make sure you’re not funneling money to The Man through unnecessary account fees. Roll over your old retirement accounts FO’ FREE with our partner Capitalize:

Roll over your retirement fund with Capitalize

Investing for the long term

When Money in the Bank Is a Bad Thing: Understanding Inflation and Depreciation

Investing Deathmatch: Investing in the Stock Market vs. Just… Not 

Investing Deathmatch: Traditional IRA vs. Roth IRA

Investing Deathmatch: Stocks vs. Bonds 

Wait… Did I Just Lose All My Money Investing in the Stock Market? 

Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE)

The FIRE Movement, Explained 

Your Girl Is Officially Retiring at 35 Years Old

The Real Story of How I Paid off My Mortgage Early in 4 Years 

My First 6 Months of Early Retirement Sucked Shit: What They Don’t Tell You about FIRE

Bitchtastic Book Review: Tanja Hester on Early Retirement, Privilege, and Her Book, Work Optional

Earning Her First $100K: An Interview with Tori Dunlap 

We’ll periodically update this list with new links as we continue writing about retirement. And by “periodically,” we mean “when we remember to do it.” Maybe remind us, ok? It takes a village.

Contribute to our staff’s retirement!

Holy Justin Baldoni that’s a lot of lengthy, well-researched, thoughtful articles on the subject of retirement. It sure took a lot of time and effort to finely craft all them words over the last five years!

In case I’m not laying it on thick enough: running Bitches Get Riches is a labor of love, but it’s still labor. If our work helped you with your retirement goals, consider contributing to our Patreon to say thanks! You’ll get access to Patreon exclusives, giveaways, and monthly content polls! Join our Patreon or comment below to let us know if you would be interested in a BGR Discord server where you can chat with other Patrons and perhaps even the Bitches themselves! Our other Patrons are neat and we think you should hang out together.

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[februarybluues]

You spin my head around (like a record)

summary: hobie never believed in throwing his money away to useless big corporations. but, when you started working at his favorite record shop, he decided to make a small exception. warnings: slight flirting, terrible british a/n: i love this idea so so much and have many ideas for it so if you want a part 2 let me know!!!

If there was one thing hobie hated most, it was capitalism. Having to spend money on things you didn’t need but were marketed in a way that made you feel like you needed them, pissed him off to no end. Especially when it came to big corporations. He didn’t see the purpose of having to feed these ‘money-hungry pigs’, which would only end up causing harm to everything and everyone that got in their way. The only exception was small businesses. He never gave his money away on anything unless he desperately needed it, but that wasn’t often. Until it came to you.

There was a particular record shop in the middle of the city that he occasionally visited. Mainly because it was the only one near him that actually had his favorite artists. – which were rarely sold due to how ‘underground’ they were. Don’t get me wrong, he liked his fair share of mainstream, popular artists, he just also liked his fair share of small garage punk bands. The kind of small bands you’d find playing at your local pub. But, the point is: that specific record shop was the only one he actually liked. But, that didn’t change his hatred for capitalism. Which meant he wasn’t shy to ‘borrow’ a few cd’s, or vinyls from that shop. Actually, he hadn’t once paid for anything, and he’d never once been caught. That’s just how things were. He’d never planned to feed into society’s corrupt ideations. Never. He would continue to visit that record shop whenever he pleased, but never once considered buying anything. That is, until a new employee started working there.

They were perfect. The living embodiment of utter perfection. Every time Hobie entered the shop he was greeted by a sweet smile from behind the till. Everything that person did drove Hobie crazy. - in the best way imaginable. That person was you. You’d only recently gotten the job, around a few weeks ago. It was simple enough, but it definitely was not your dream job. You only got it because you needed the money, even though the pay was barely enough to get you going for the week, it was something! Despite never once having a proper conversation, Hobie knew he liked you. From your genuine, unrelenting kindness, to your style. He was fond of everything you did. And before he knew it, his occasional visits turned to him visiting whenever he could. Not because he wanted to actually buy anything, but because he wanted to see you. Any chance he got, he would rush straight over to you. It got to a point where he had memorised when you were working and when you weren’t. And now, here he was.

“Are you actually gonna pay this time?” you asked him, familiar with his habit of pocketing cd’s and vinyls and then leaving. You never did anything about it for many reasons. One of which was because you did not get paid enough to deal with it. And also, because he was insanely attractive. He laughed. Not like an actual laugh. But, a small exhale, similar to scoffing. “Maybe I am,” he said, handing you the vinyl. You smiled at him and scanned the record, noticing the familiar album cover. “Oh sex pistols!” you exclaimed, mentally taking note of how his music taste was almost as beautiful as he was. “You’ve got good taste.” you said, before putting the record in a bag. You didn’t notice how he lit up at the sudden compliment; freaking out on the inside, but playing it off well. “You listen to ‘em?” he asked, his heavy accent now very prominent. Your smile never once faltered as you looked back at him. “I love them!” you said. You began to hum the tune to one of their songs, doing a dramatic little dance, which earned a small laugh from him. “You know… It’s surprising that you’re actually buying something for once.” you commented, jokingly but also genuinely. He tilted his head to the side in response. “Oh yeah? How so?”  he leaned against the till, hands in his pockets as he talked with you. “Well, I see you here all the time. - Almost every time I'm working, actually. And - I guess I kinda got used to you wandering around and then leaving. It’s kind of weird how this is the first time I’ve heard your voice.” you laughed, and his lips quirked up in a small, almost unnoticeable smile. “What’s wrong with havin’ a look around?” his voice was low, and he spoke innocently. Despite the both of you knowing he was anything but innocent. “We both know you’ve been having a bit more than a look around.” you said, in reference to the many times you’d seen him ‘borrowing’ a few cd’s. He laughed this time. In truth, he cherished this moment. As it had been the first time he’d heard your voice. You were sweet, funny, and apparently had good music taste. All three of those traits were almost impossible to be found in the people Hobie had met. There was just something about you that was so different from everything else. So unique and-

“That’ll be 24.99” you said, snapping him out of his thoughts. 24.99? He repeated in his head, confused. He could’ve sworn that the price tag said 30? Had you given him a discount? For literally the first time ever, he handed the money to you and paid. He regretted a lot of things, but getting to talk to you was not one of them. You handed him the bag and smiled at him once more. Hobie then realised this would probably be the only time he’d ever interact with you again. In a panic, he spoke up again. “D’ya wanna spend time together after this? We could maybe listen t’the record? See if it was worth th’money?” While the usual confidence in his voice remained, there were hints of hesitation laced under his words. “I’d love to!” you exclaimed, blatantly happy. He smiled, now exposing his teeth. “Lovely.”

“I almost forgot–here’s my number!” you pulled out a pen from your pocket and wrote your phone number on the paper bag that you put his vinyl in; trying to make it as neat and legible as possible. Once you were happy with it, you handed it back to him. “I get off work at 6. Call me then and we can organise something, yeah?” you offered, to which he nodded. “It’s a date.” he said, and winked before turning around and exiting the shop; the jingling of the door suddenly sounded way happier than it usually did. Maybe your new job wasn’t so bad after all.

hey pookie just wanted to let u know my requests are opennn and you wanna request something sooooo badly so why don't you just go over there and send one in thanks love u hope you liked that little fic

[wpdarlingpan]

Snow Falls… In Love?

Part 3 (Finale) ❄️

Yandere Coriolanus Snow x innocent!Reader

Female Pronouns

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Manipulation, Yandere, Coriolanus Snow, Hunger Gamed typical warnings

Click below for the other parts! ❄️

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Snow kept his promise. The day after the games ended he woke up next to Y/N as the sun shined in then from the window. He simply laid there and watched as she slept and the ride and fall of her chest. It meant she was alive and that’s all he ever wanted.

She began to stir and her eyes opened tiredly before peering up at the boy who didn’t even try and look away.

“Why are you staring at me? Is my hair that bad?” Y/N teased as she used her fingers to brush down her hair. She’d never woken up beside someone before so that little nagging thought in her mind wanted her to look presentable.

“You look as beautiful as ever.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. She blushed flustered. It was odd. Going from waking up in a dingy vent, fearing for her life every second as more and more people died. Now she was laying in bed with the boy she thought she loved, but it was hard to determine. After all, who wouldn’t grow some sort of appreciation for the one who saved their life?

“Oh I doubt it.”

They continued to go back and forth teasing each other, almost making the air in the room feel that much lighter. To outsiders it looked like a married couple. They got ready and cooked breakfast together in an apartment Corio rented just for her. It was all very domestic as they simply sat in each others presence talking about what the plans are for the future,

After receiving the prize money along with Y/N, they went out to the shops and bought her clothes and the apartment, both of which she greatly protested not wanting him to spend money on her but he ignored her.

Then he paid off all of the debt for the Snow estate so Tigres and Grand’mam wouldn’t have to move for as long as they both lived. Sure it was technically his but he figured he’d be spending more time with his soon-to-be wife before they'd move in.

Coriolanus was someone who always thought about the future and so he made plans. He wanted to be married as soon as possible. It didn’t matter how long they’d known each other but he loved her. He wasn’t going to let some stuck-up capital prick take her away from him.

He gave it a week.

Y/N and he went on dates and he showed her things she couldn’t ever dream of. Of course, it only brought up her admiration but now she knew she liked him if not loved him.

Life or death makes people do crazy things.

The kiss at the capital zoo was something she thought about constantly. Now that the looming figure of death wasn't influencing her every move, she had time to think about what it meant, as well as the fact he called her 'my love' in the arena. She doubted he even remembered the last part cause he had never brought it up since.

Y/N wanted to believe all of these dates meant something. Meant that they would someday be together. But to her, it seemed like false hope. After all, no one would approve of them nor would Corio deserve to be stuck with someone from the districts.

Y/N and him were in their practically shared apartment when he asked her to come to the living room.

"What is it Corio?" She asked as they sat down on the couch. He took her hand into his and made his features appear sad.

"The President sent a letter today...'' He trailed off to see her reaction which was immediately frightened giving him the cue to comfort her. "He wants to send you back to District 12 to show them the control of the games"

"No! I don't want to go back! There is nothing for me there. My family is dead, I had no friends, I can't go back to that. You are all I have Corio!" She blurted out the last part before covering her mouth as if it was some sort of crime. It only made Coriolanus love her more. After all, that's what he wanted. her reliance only on him.

"He gave an ultimatum" Y/N shook in fear at the idea. What would it be? Would she be forced into hurting more people? Would she be treated worse then she was in District 12? There seemed to be no way to win. But she finally asked what it was.

"You have to marry me" Her jaw dropped and she instantly turned red. "He wants someone to be watching over you, someone from the capital in order to ensure you don't 'embarrass them' as he said. We could try and find you someone else-"

"No. Please." Y/N begged, she did not want to be sent away nor did she want to be stuck with someone she did not love. "I don't want this for you Corio. You deserve someone with a higher standing. I can't help you get anywhere in the capital and we know it is all about connections and standing, to which I have neither. I'll go back, I love you Corio, but-"

Coriolanus froze at the admission. Sure he loved her with his entire heart. Y/N was his reason for living. She was his.

But he didn't know she fell for him just as he did her, even if it was at a lesser level.

He reached over and pulled her into his lap, her legs on either side of his as he put both hands on the side of her face to bring her closer.

"I love you Y/N. I could never imagine being with anyone else. I want you by my side for the rest of my life." He brought her close and kissed her gently to which she reciprocated. Both tried to put their emotions int the kiss once more but it felt different. Y/N did not know how to pinpoint the feeling.

So she agreed.

Coriolanus had never felt happier. He had the girl, the money, and the power.

But all that rises must fall at some point.

It was the day before their wedding. everything was planned out. Even Tigres made her a beautiful dress just waiting to be worn down the aisle.

Corio had been on his way back home to Y/N when he saw Sejanus go down an alleyway looking around hesitantly. So he followed him.

He was led to a door that was thin enough to hear through if someone tried hard enough and oh he did.

"I know a way out. It can get us out of Panem. If you just go north-" Sejanus was talking to an unknown voice. Coriolanus felt betrayed, he knew how much a sympathizer he was to the rebels but he never thought Sejanus would go as far as to abandon Panem. He grabbed a small recorder from his briefcase and slipped it under the door just enough to catch the information more clearly.

They seemed to be in a rush, not even bothering to check out the door if anyone was there. Nor glancing at the blinking red light.

Once he had enough information Coriolanus took it and ran out of the alley. Walking once he got out in order to not look suspicious.

He quickly went home, letting himself in as he heard Y/N cooking in the other room. The idea of seeing her and getting married the next day made him forget about the recorder sitting in his jacket pocket.

"Hello my love" He spoke as he walked in kissing her cheek. She blushed at the name but returned the greeting. Y/N was still getting used to the pet names and casual admissions of love. After that day on the couch determining they were to be married and they loved each other, he had changed. She noticed he was constantly checking in on her and telling her about how dangerous it was to go out without him. After all, they didn't love her like he did. They wouldn't understand what she had been through so they wouldn't treat her right.

He instilled all of these thoughts into her head and her fear of leaving the apartment alone increased by the sentence. Even when she woke up screaming from nightmares of dying or killing someone. He was right there comforting her, he could still see the kind and innocent glint that shined bright, the reason the capital loved her.

After all, she was what they could never be. They were too full of pride, gluttony, lust, and greed.

He asked her about her day, albeit their was not much to do around the apartment so she sketched.

"Could I see it?" He asked and her eyes lit up as he showed interest in something important to her but she shook her head "It's not done yet. How was your day?"

She successfully deterred him from her and he went on about his day, not including the aspect of Sejanus's 'betrayal'.

They finished their dinner and began getting ready for bed. Y/N still was not comfortable changing in the same room so she straightened up the living room.

Y/N spotted his blood-red suit coat sitting on the chair by the entry way and went to grab it to hang it up but as she did something fell out of the pocket.

She looked down and saw a.. box? It fell open on impact leavig a small recorder to fall out. She knew he carried one around to have in classes or whenever he was learning with Dr. Volumnia but he usually left it with his other materials.

Y/N bent down to pick it up, accidently pushing the 'play' button on the side. She was startled and attempted to turn it off when she heard what it was saying. The rebels. Leaving Panem. All of it.

Why would he have recorded this? She didn't know or at least she didn't want to believe it.

Turning the box around she saw "To Dr. Volumnia" Y/N knew of Coriolanus's loyalty to the Capital, he would never leave it. She knew he was working to design the Hunger Games and of course, a part of her broke at the idea. But, he always treated her like she was worth everything and she loved him.

He was planning to turn Sejanus, someone she met and determine she liked, in as a rebel.

Coriolanus Snow walked into the room, annoucing it was her turn to change and get ready when he saw what she was holding. His heart beat faster and his jaw clenched.

Of course it wasnt Y/N's failt, it was Sejanus's for putting him in this postion.

"Sweetheart?" He called softly as if she was a frightful animal.

"What were you going to do Coriolanus" Y/N spoke giving him a look of anguish.

"What is right."

"This is not right! Sejanus is your friend!"

Coriolanus scoffed at the idea of his 'friend' he was a traitor.

Although Corio supposes he should thank him, after all once he turns this in he will be praised and likely bring him and his love even higher up in the world.

"I don't need him." He walked over taking the box and recorder from her hands before returning it to his coat pocket.

Y/N rushed for the front door. The coldness in his voice scared her. He was willing to sacrifice his childhood friend for what? Power? Money? What she did know was that she did not want to be next on that list.

She pulled it open but a hand reached above her head, shutting it instantly before pushing her against it.

He held both of her wrists above her head as she struggled before growing tired. The adrenaline and anger are being replaced by fear and sadness.

"This is for us my love. When I give this to Dr. Volumnia she will tell everyone what I did for the Capital. How I saved it from the rebels and traitors that claimed to be one of us."

"But I am not one of you! My name is Y/N L/N, and I am from District 12. I hold no power with my last name nor do I have a fortune to sit behind. I am part of the Districts!" He kissed her harshly before he began to speak

"Sure right now you are, but tomorrow? We will be married, You will become Y/N Snow. An heiress to the Snow name and future First Lady of Panem."

Y/N scoffed as she looked at him defiantly. Of course she loved him, it wouldnt turn off in the blink of a eye. He was all she has ever known after being alone for so many years but he was foolish to think she would still marry him.

"I would rather be sent back to District 12, Hell even marry some stuck-up prick than marry you." Her words lacked venom which he picked up on but it only mildly dulled his anger.

His delusions of his love didnt allow him to be anger at her. After all, all of this was Senjanus's fault for corresponding with the rebels in the first place. It isnt Y/N's fault that her sweet mind was corrupted by those foolish rebels.

Still, He wouldn't reveal that the president wasn't forcing them to be married, why would he expose more secrets that are already laid to rest.

"You act as if you have a choice, my love. We will be married tomorrow Y/N Snow. This will all come to pass and we will be the happiest couple in Panem. I will give you everything you've ever desired. My love for you will never die Y/N."

Y/N struggled some more before he reached into his other pocket of the nearby coat. It held some powdered substance. He kept Y/N pushed against the door with his body before quickly opening the powder and blowing a small pinch in her face,

"What did you do?" She cried out, worried it was the same poison se used in the games. "Did you poison me?'

Coriolanus's face grew sympathetic as he put the powder away and picked her up bridal style as her muscles grew limp.

"Of course not my love. I would never hurt you. I'm sorry I worried you, This will just help you get some sleep. After all, we have a big day tomorrow." Y/N went to protest as she felt her eyes close and his grip around her loosened as she was laid in the bed. "Sweet dreams."

Meanwhile, he went and grabbed her sketchbook. He was curious about what she had spent the day drawing and he had nothing else to do before joining his dear fiancée in bed.

He opened it to see a drawing of the two of them, it was an almost photographic image of one of their dates when he took her on a picnic.

Coriolanus tore the page out and placed it in a frame, she claimed it was not finished but he had a feeling it was just cause she was embarrassed to show him.

Walking back to the bedroom he got into bed, kissing Y/N's forehead who was out like a light.

Knowing he would be getting what he dreamed of when he awoke the next day.

~*~

Y/N awoke the next day to Coriolanus out of the room. He sent stylists to help her get ready and had a few guards blocking the exit. The outside at that. He would not allow any men near her while she was getting ready. He didn't trust anyone's intentions, not even the women but someone had to get her ready, and Tigres would cave in an instant. He paid them to get her ready as they were assigned to ignore anything she said about leaving or not going through the wedding.

After all, he couldn't do it himself, it was bad luck to see his bride before the wedding.

After a lot of struggling Y/N figured it wasn't the stylists' fault. She vowed to not lose her values even now.

Then she was escorted to the wedding venue. No one was there to walk her down the aisle and nobody filled the seating area other than Tigres and his Grand'mam.

The officiator stood at the end of the path, white rose petals lining the surface leading her to snow himself.

Y/N walked herself up to the podium where Coriolanus took her hands in an inescapable grip but the poor girl had already succumbed herself to her fate.

She told herself it was because she was tired and there was no way she would get out of this.

But a part of her heart ruled her actions. Just wanting to stay by the man who seemed to love her so dearly that he couldn't stand being without her. She would never admit it.

Not even during their vows where he promised to love her for all of eternity. That she would be his forever.

Not as he slid a beautiful ring on her finger that seemed to be made just for her.

Not even when the question finally came after his own.

"Y/N L/N, do you take this man to be your husband, to live together in marriage in Panem, to love him, to honor him, to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

Coriolanus gazed into her eyes, a look prompting her to say 'I do'.

A tear fell. For what she didn't know, A loss of freedom? or was it happiness to be married to the man she loved? Y/N felt as if she was forsaking her love and kindness, everything her mother wanted her to be, if she didn't try and fight back. But it was just so hard, she was tired of fighting.

"I do."

"I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Snow, you may now kiss the bride."

Coriolanus didn't waste another second as he dipped Y/N lovingly. It was a kiss straight out of a romance novel. She kissed him back unknowingly and he knew right then she still loved him without any words needing to be said.

After all, Snow always lands on top.

~*~

Thank you guys for all the love of this story. I am hoping to do more Coriolanus x Reader in the future. After all once I see the movie again Tom Blythe will pull me right back in. I hope you all loved the ending and thank you again 💙

Also this is just an ironic fact but I didn’t do the word count in purpose.

The first part had 1k

The second has 2k

The third has 3k

Taglist:

@targaryenmoony

@h-l-vlovesvintage

@stelleduarte

@urmomsbananabread

@coconut-dreamz

@bricapellan16

@diannana

@olivetree420

[soulcaretherapist]

Matrix Destiny Compatibility: Why the Couple Came Together

In the Matrix of Destiny Compatibility chart, we determine why the couple came together by looking at the number in the position marked X. Paid Services - Astrology & Matrix Destiny Readings Matrix of Destiny - Purchase reading here

2 - Learning not to bottle up emotions, to communicate, and to express feelings, and resolving conflicts peacefully.

3 - Teaching each other to create material/financial wealth, manage daily tasks, and learn to be practical.

4 - Starting a family, having children, achieving financial stability, ensuring everything progresses according to rules, which could be a challenging relationship.

5 - Sharing knowledge (spiritual, daily life, material matters, etc.), preserving traditions and values, and building a family/business through joint efforts.

6 - Learning to communicate with the opposite sex, where one partner teaches the other to love and respect themselves.

7 - Moving away from their place of birth, enhancing personal development, setting goals together, and starting a business.

8 - Understanding the laws of the universe, karma, and cause/effect relationships, where one partner can save the other from negative outcomes/actions and positively change their life.

9 - Learning to build relationships and show respect, interact with people, and set personal boundaries. 10 - Learning to let go of control, relax together, and understand that everything happens in the best way for them.

11 - Empowering each other, uncovering their entrepreneurial potential, and starting/developing their own business.

12 - Getting out of toxic relationships, stepping out of the victim role, learning to build healthy relationships, and not repeating negative experiences from the past.

13 - Transforming their lives, embracing newness, undergoing changes, renewing themselves, and starting a new life together.

14 - Teaching each other to feel emotions, talk about feelings, and express emotions.

15 - One partner acting as a guide to help the other achieve their dreams and desires, and becoming stronger together in facing challenges.

16 - Building harmonious, long-lasting family relationships, spiritual growth, and meeting during a difficult and uncertain time in their lives.

17 - Being visible in society, spending time together, and bringing out each other's talents/potential.

18 - Learning to think positively, understanding that our thoughts attract our reality, and becoming open with each other and unafraid to share fears.

19 - Learning not to pressure each other or overwhelm one another with excessive attention, and creating joint capital/property.

20 - Building a strong family, uniting two lineages, reliving and working on special moments from past lives.

21 - Accepting the partner as they are and not trying to change them, traveling and expanding opportunities, and moving abroad.

22 - Learning to be free from external factors, starting over (resetting from previous difficult relationships and challenges), and experiencing lightness in relationships.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I love watching youtube videos about tiktok and influencer drama, mainly because I'm completely disconnected from stuff like that (I have never watched an influencer video in my life) so it gives me the thrill of true crime without the tragedy exploitation aspect, but sometimes I also feel completely disconnected from the youtubers too?

Like every youtuber has to offer up a million disclaimers about how they aren't judging influencers or whatever and that's usually fine but like. I do feel that there ARE points where people need to be judged for the content they're sharing and promoting and profiting off of!

"I'm not judging tradwives or saying their content is bad—" I am!! I am absolutely judging tradwives! Extremely harshly! Because the entire "tradwife" movement is conservative propaganda based on misogynistic and patriarchal ideas about history with no basis in reality or in our modern world! And tradwife influencers explicitly target young women and especially teen girls and try to convince them to put their entire lives in the hands of their husbands, which is a horrific recipe for domestic abuse!

These women making hundreds of thousands of dollars off tiktok videos (and often coming from extremely wealthy families) are out here telling young girls that they don't need an education, that they don't need their own income, that if they're just pretty enough and obedient enough then they'll find a rich husband and never have to worry about anything ever and it's fucking scary! And I don't know why we are tolerating it!

We know what happens when people, especially women, give up complete control to their partners. We know what that leads to, resentment and extreme control and total lack of options when things go from totally fine to constant arguing to violence. These influencers, who ARE making extremely significant personal incomes from their jobs as influencers online, lie through their fucking teeth about how perfect it is that their husbands do everything for them and all they have to do is take care of the kids and home (with the help of nannies and housekeepers and personal chefs off-screen. . .) and about how they've escaped from capitalism, meanwhile the people actually in those situations who AREN'T making all that extra cash are either already in abusive relationships or they're in incredibly precarious positions where they could end up abused or thrown out with nothing in an instant.

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be a homemaker or stay-at-home parent. I don't think it's wrong to not want to go to college or have a 9-5.

But you NEED options. You need full access to your own money that can't be monitored or controlled by a partner. You need access to a vehicle. You need a life outside of your home and family, especially friends who are willing and able to help you if needed. You need the ability to survive on your own in some way. Because if and when things go wrong in the relationship, THOSE are the things that will save your life.

Also remember that again, these tradwives DO have jobs and their jobs involve selling a fake lifestyle and fake ideals. They are getting paid BIG TIME for the shit they peddle to you, whether that's through the millions of views they get (both from genuine fans and from haters, the algorithm doesn't know or care about the difference) or the many sponsorships they get, they have incomes that they are not disclosing. They have help that they are not disclosing. Many of them started out with extreme wealth but lie through their teeth and cosplay as fucking homesteading peasants. It's all a lie to sell shit to you. Don't buy it.

Disclaimer: Please do not nitpick this post, it's very late and I'm ranting and if this leaves my circle of followers I will regret it deeply. Be nice. Tradwives dni, you're all annoying.

[icarus-phaethon]

"You achieved equal rights why do you need feminism anymore" idk bro you tell me, who is fighting against rape cultute, porn, sex work, human trafficking, for maternity leave, better healthcare for women, against pedophilia, male honour belief system, male supremacy, female infanticide, women's labour paid n unpaid to be honoured, mothers and wives to be honoured, fighting for animals, fighting for women who are being raped, abused, killed, domestic violence, eve teasing, fighting for female only spaces, against climate change that impacts women much worse, safety of women [trad women] who dedicate their lives to their husbands through alimony, equal pay, shared household responsibility that you don't have to raise a 30yo manchild you married, for widows, single mothers, homeless women, etc

If it wasn't for feminism we weren't even being considered for voting rights, until feminists fought for our inclusion in universities we were killed for studying, until feminists fought to be included in medical trials women were fed doses of meds catered for men and poisoned, until feminism fought for mothers there was no maternity leave[we are still the frontrunners in this fight], until feminists fought for us we couldn't have bank accounts, men have never stood up or fought for our rights, we were ignored. They were righting about capitalism, racism and more, but no issues that impacted women.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This is your brain on fraud apologetics

In 1998, two Stanford students published a paper in Computer Networks entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

https://research.google/pubs/pub334/

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/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The co-authors were Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, and the “large-scale hypertextual web search-engine” they were describing was their new project, which they called “Google.” They were 100% correct — prescient, even!

On Wednesday night, a friend came over to watch some TV with us. We ordered out. We got scammed. We searched for a great local Thai place we like called Kiin and clicked a sponsored link for a Wix site called “Kiinthaila.com.” We should have clicked the third link down (kiinthaiburbank.com).

We got scammed. The Wix site was a lookalike for Kiin Thai, which marked up their prices by 15% and relayed the order to our local, mom-and-pop, one-branch restaurant. The restaurant knew it, too — they called us and told us they were canceling the order, and said we could still come get our food, but we’d have to call Amex to reverse the charge.

As it turned out, the scammers double-billed us for our order. I called Amex, who advised us to call back in a couple days when the charge posted to cancel it — in other words, they were treating it as a regular customer dispute, and not a systemic, widespread fraud (there’s no way this scammer is just doing this for one restaurant).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor hassle, but boy, it’s haunting to watch the quarter-century old prophecy of Brin and Page coming true. Search Google for carpenters, plumbers, gas-stations, locksmiths, concert tickets, entry visas, jobs at the US Post Office or (not making this up) tech support for Google products, and the top result will be a paid ad for a scam. Sometimes it’s several of the top ads.

This kind of “intermediation” business is actually revered in business-schools. As Douglas Rushkoff has written, the modern business wisdom reveres “going meta” — not doing anything useful, but rather, creating a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:

https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e

It’s the ultimate passive income/rise and grind side-hustle: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover a whole festering nest of creeps on Tiktok talking about how they pay Mechanical Turks to produce these lookalike sites at scale.

This mindset is so pervasive that people running companies with billions in revenue and massive hoards of venture capital run exactly the same scam. During lockdown, companies like Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats stood up predatory lookalike websites for local restaurants, without their consent, and played monster-in-the-middle, tricking diners into ordering through them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

These delivery app companies were playing a classic enshittification game: first they directed surpluses to customers to lock them in (heavily discounting food), then they directed surplus to restaurants (preferential search results, free delivery, low commissions) — then, having locked in both consumers and producers, they harvested the surplus for themselves.

Today, delivery apps charge massive premiums to both eaters and restaurants, load up every order with junk fees, and clone the most successful restaurants out of ghost kitchens — shipping containers in parking lots crammed with low-waged workers cranking out orders for 15 different fake “virtual restaurants”:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia

Delivery apps speedran the enshittification cycle, but Google took a slower path to get there. The company has locked in billions of users (e.g. by paying billions to be the default search on Safari and Firefox and using legal bullying to block third party Android device-makers from pre-installing browsers other than Chrome). For years, it’s been leveraging our lock-in to prey on small businesses, getting them to set up Google Business Profiles.

These profiles are supposed to help Google distinguish between real sellers and scammers. But Kiin Thai has a Google Business Profile, and searching for “kiin thai burbank” brings up a “Knowledge Panel” with the correct website address — on a page that is headed with a link to a scam website for the same business. Google, in other words, has everything it needs to flag lookalike sites and confirm them with their registered owners. It would cost Google money to do this — engineer-time to build and maintain the system, content moderator time to manually check flagged listings, and lost ad-revenue from scammers — but letting the scams flourish makes Google money, at the expense of Google users and Google business customers.

Now, Google has an answer for this: they tell merchants who are being impersonated by ad-buying scammers that all they need to do is outbid them for the top ad-spot. This is a common approach — Amazon has a $31b/year “ad business” that’s mostly its own platform sellers bidding against each other to show you fake results for your query. The first five screens of Amazon search results are 50% ads:

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

This is “going meta,” so naturally, Meta is doing it too: Facebook and Instagram have announced a $12/month “verification” badge that will let you report impersonation and tweak the algorithm to make it more likely that the posts you make are shown to the people who explicitly asked to see them:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/21/23609375/meta-verified-twitter-blue-checkmark-badge-instagram-facebook

The corollary of this, of course, is that if you don’t pay, they won’t police your impersonators, and they won’t show your posts to the people who asked to see them. This is pure enshittification — the surplus from users and business customers is harvested for the benefit of the platform owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

The idea that merchants should master the platforms as a means of keeping us safe from their impersonators is a hollow joke. For one thing, the rules change all the time, as the platforms endlessly twiddle the knobs that determine what gets shown to whom:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

And they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, because if they told you what the rules were, you’d be able to bypass them. Content moderation is the only infosec domain where “security through obscurity” doesn’t get laughed out of the room:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

Worse: the one thing the platforms do hunt down and exterminate with extreme prejudice is anything that users or business-customers use to twiddle back — add-ons and plugins and jailbreaks that override their poor choices with better ones:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

As I was submitting complaints about the fake Kiin scam-site (and Amex’s handling of my fraud call) to the FTC, the California Attorney General, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Wix, I wrote a little Twitter thread about what a gross scam this is:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948906657878016

The thread got more than two million reads and got picked up by Hacker News and other sites. While most of the responses evinced solidarity and frustration and recounted similar incidents in other domains, a significant plurality of the replies were scam apologetics — messages from people who wanted to explain why this wasn’t a problem after all.

The most common of these was victim-blaming: “you should have used an adblocker” or “never click the sponsored link.” Of course, I do use an ad-blocker — but this order was placed with a mobile browser, after an absentminded query into the Google search-box permanently placed on the home screen, which opens results in Chrome (where I don’t have an ad-blocker, so I can see material behind an ad-blocker-blocker), not Firefox (which does have an ad-blocker).

Now, I also have a PiHole on my home LAN, which blocks most ads even in a default browser — but earlier this day, I’d been on a public wifi network that was erroneously blocking a website (the always excellent superpunch.net) so I’d turned my wifi off, which meant the connection came over my phone’s 5G connection, bypassing the PiHole:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/28/shut-yer-pi-hole/

“Don’t click a sponsored link” — well, the irony here is that if you habitually use a browser with an ad-blocker, and you backstop it with a PiHole, you never see sponsored links, so it’s easy to miss the tiny “Sponsored” notification beside the search result. That goes double if you’re relaxing with a dinner guest on the sofa and ordering dinner while chatting.

There’s a name for this kind of security failure: the Swiss Cheese Model. We all have multiple defenses (in my case: foreknowledge of Google’s ad-scam problem, an ad-blocker in my browser, LAN-wide ad sinkholing). We also have multiple vulnerabilities (in my case: forgetting I was on 5G, being distracted by conversation, using a mobile device with a permanent insecure search bar on the homescreen, and being so accustomed to ad-blocked results that I got out of the habit of checking whether a result was an ad).

If you think you aren’t vulnerable to scams, you’re wrong — and your confidence in your invulnerability actually increases your risk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed, and it won’t be the last — and every time, it’s been a Swiss Cheese failure, where all the holes in all my defenses lined up for a brief instant and left me vulnerable:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

Other apologetics: “just call the restaurant rather than using its website.” Look, I know the people who say this don’t think I have a time-machine I can use to travel back to the 1980s and retrieve a Yellow Pages, but it’s hard not to snark at them, just the same. Scammers don’t just set up fake websites for your local businesses — they staff them with fake call-centers, too. The same search that takes you to a fake website will also take you to a fake phone number.

Finally, there’s “What do you expect Google to do? They can’t possibly detect this kind of scam.” But they can. Indeed, they are better situated to discover these scams than anyone else, because they have their business profiles, with verified contact information for the merchants being impersonated. When they get an ad that seems to be for the same business but to a different website, they could interrupt the ad process to confirm it with their verified contact info.

Instead, they choose to avoid the expense, and pocket the ad revenue. If a company promises to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” I think we have the right to demand these kinds of basic countermeasures:

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/

The same goes for Amex: when a merchant is scamming customers, they shouldn’t treat complaints as “chargebacks” — they should treat them as reports of a crime in progress. Amex has the bird’s eye view of their transaction flow and when a customer reports a scam, they can backtrack it to see if the same scammer is doing this with other merchants — but the credit card companies make money by not chasing down fraud:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/mastercard-visa-fraud

Wix also has platform-scale analytics that they could use to detect and interdict this kind of fraud — when a scammer creates a hundred lookalike websites for restaurants and uses Wix’s merchant services to process payments for them, that could trigger human review — but it didn’t.

Where do all of these apologetics come from? Why are people so eager to leap to the defense of scammers and their adtech and fintech enablers? Why is there such an impulse to victim-blame?

I think it’s fear: in their hearts, people — especially techies — know that they, too, are vulnerable to these ripoffs, but they don’t want to admit it. They want to convince themselves that the person who got scammed made an easily avoidable mistake, and that they themselves will never make a similar mistake.

This is doubly true for readerships on tech-heavy forums like Twitter or (especially) Hacker News. These readers know just how many vulnerabilities there are — how many holes are in their Swiss cheese — and they are also overexposed to rise-and-grind/passive income rhetoric.

This produces a powerful cognitive dissonance: “If all the ‘entrepreneurs’ I worship are just laying traps for the unwary, and if I am sometimes unwary, then I’m cheering on the authors of my future enduring misery.” The only way to resolve this dissonance — short of re-evaluating your view of platform capitalism or questioning your own immunity to scams — is to blame the victim.

The median Hacker News reader has to somehow resolve the tension between “just install an adblocker” and “Chrome’s extension sandbox is a dumpster fire and it’s basically impossible to know whether any add-on you install can steal every keystroke and all your other data”:

https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension

In my Twitter thread, I called this “the worst of all possible timelines.” Everything we do is mediated by gigantic, surveillant monopolists that spy on us comprehensively from asshole to appetite — but none of them, not a 20th century payment giant nor a 21st century search giant — can bestir itself to use that data to keep us safe from scams.

Next Thu (Mar 2) I'll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who's-who of European and US trustbusters. It's livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free:

https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration

On Fri (Mar 3), I'll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival:

https://elevate.at/diskurs/programm/event/e23doctorow/

[Image ID: A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a scam artist playing a shell-game for a group of gawking rubes. The image has been modified so that the scam artist's table has a Google logo and the pea he is triumphantly holding aloft bears the 'Sponsored' wordmark that appears alongside Google search results.]

[levyfiles]

is it just me or is this kinda not a good idea?

I think it's a gamble. And like anyone who cares about something deeply, watching it take a high-stakes gamble can be terrifying.

What I think people don't take into consideration is just how flooded their recent youtube videos have been with scammy sponsors and cheap fast-product get-rich-quick scheming vendors. Sure, their writers and producers made it fun by adding some really excellent characters to the mix, but I wouldn't touch a thing like Mistplay if you paid me as much as they paid Watcher for their video. However, the thing is, look around at all the youtubers you know who are up and coming. You can't make it on that platform without advertising trash to your audience.

With the vimeo OTT program, i believe there is a shared revenue and more incentive to promote more simple dedicated engagement; it's not ad sense clicks; it's just clicks. It's a soft start and there are going to be some kinks to work out but if they get to control their brand more and decide what gets made without needing some nu-venture, cash hungry sponsor to look at it, then I think they could change media online for the better.

Having said all that, the execution? Not their best. Watcher--listen, I love them so much--has had a consistent and terminal administrative problem and that means stuff falls through the cracks. From a communicative standpoint, when you're about to take your company in a controversial direction, you should know two things.

The backlash! You gotta get ahead of it. You need your PR team on the go a MONTH before launch

Always soft launch a big move. Get your feelers out for how people react especially if you don't have the kind of shark PR person who would know already that people don't respond well to paying for something they didn't used to pay for.

Watcher is still a baby company in so many forms and I will wholeheartedly support their move to do what they can to keep control of their creative content today and in the future. I'm not in their offices so I can't make as prescriptive a judgement as Twitter feels emboldened to about capitalism and greed or whoever they think their audience is however I can and will say that with any form of growth, the growing pains are going to show. i'll give them grace as they pivot and figure out how best to move forward especially with the volume of vitriol the internet loves to spew when they feel entitled to art forms that used to be free.

I'll say it again. At least we're no longer having garbage peddled at us regardless how much I crave Fabian Sax biblically.

[koboldfactory]

I mean this in the most loving way possible: Your art both fascinates me and frustrates me, and for the same reason.

I can tell you have such a rich and beautiful world made up here, with exciting characters and stories, but we are cursed with only getting short glimpses and snippets of that world through the occasional art and ask.

I want to learn and hear and experience so much more of your characters and stories that I could read a novel about it, but I don’t want to bury you under a mountain of asks. So here I patiently wait for all those big projects you’ve hinted at to come out, hoping they will give me the injection of lore I so desperately crave.

I’m so interested and invested in your world but unable to satisfy that curiosity it just makes me…

haha believe me I wish I could share more about my world and make all of the projects in it that I want, but unfortunately I suffer from a beast called capitalism and I require employment doing other things to make money for rent and food so I don't die. If someone paid me a living wage to work on my own projects they would come out much much faster lol

the patreon helps but that alone doesn't come close to covering a fraction of my living expenses unfortunately