#Pre-launch opportunity

[biznocrats]

Here is a rare, time-barred opportunity to turn your $50 into a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of redeemable products and services.

https://social.digitalshoppingmall.net/content/perma?id=8913&cd1=4&cd2=4

[ekingston]

Other than supercorp, would there have been any other kara romantic pairing you wouldn't have minded

lol anon that’s tricky again, because i honestly don’t trust the show would have handled any of them well! for a production that went to such lengths to pair off their characters, they really didn’t do so good with romantic arcs (it’s why i’m actually glad supercorp didn’t become canon don’t tell anyone)

i liked James, during season one (though i’m not a fan of love triangles unless they’re a leadup to a triad situation), but clearly the new showrunners did not. 

i could have liked Mon-El, if they had stuck with him being the comedic relief foundling from a conflicting culture rather than the immoral prince who needed to tear Kara down in order to feel better about himself. i remember rambling to a friend about how much more interesting it could have been if Daxam had turned out not to be the hellscape Kara’s parents had led her to believe it was—if it had been just another lie Kara took for objective truth, Kryptonian propaganda regarding a planet they were at odds with. it would have been another chance for the show to portray Kara coming to terms with the fact that her parents weren't perfect, paving the way for her to acknowledge that she doesn't need to be, either; but even better, it could have showed her dealing with cultural differences in a way that wouldn’t have been too heavy handed or on the nose for american audiences. it also would likely have made Mon-El come off as much less of an asshole, which, you know. bonus, if they wanted us to buy them as a romantic match, and to mourn along with Kara when she had to send him away.

(William was a mistake from the start. he literally feels like a guy shoved on stage during the final scene of the play with no instruction given beyond ‘you’re the romantic interest now, stand there and look pretty!’)

and, you know. this could easily be misconstrued as a vindictive sort of ‘if i can’t have supercorp i don’t want Kara dating anyone at all’, but honestly, i’m genuinely attached to the idea of possibly alloromantic, definitely asexual Kara Zor-El. 

i know it’s even less likely that the cw would have gone with an ace main character than it would have been for them to make supercorp canon, but yeah, in my mind—and this is absolutely shaped by what they actually showed in canon—both of those scenarios would have made the most sense. and—again, completely out of the scope of any cw show—how interesting would it have been to at least explore Kara’s attitudes toward the emphasis most human cultures place on sexuality vs her Kryptonian upbringing (not to mention her alien DNA)?

[heritageposts]

Google-translated, posted October 8th

This piece Manoel wrote in 2020 should also be mandatory reading for all Western "leftists," especially now as the Western illusion of military invincibility is being shattered

[...] Another factor that is very common in the western left is to treat suffering and extreme poverty as elements of superiority. It is very common in Western leftist culture to support martyrs and suffering. Everyone today likes Salvador Allende. Why? Salvador Allende is a victim, a martyr. He was assassinated in Pinochet’s coup d’ etat.

And, on Western leftists support of Palestine (pre Al-Aqsa Flood — Manoel, writing in 2020, was clearly underestimating the military capabilities of the Gazan resistance)

Palestinians are a people who are deeply oppressed, in a situation of extreme poverty, that don’t have a national economy because they don’t have a national state. They don’t have an army or military or economic power. Therefore, Palestine is the total incarnation of the metaphor of David vs Goliath, except that this David doesn’t have a chance of beating Goliath in political and military conflict. Therefore, almost everyone in the international left likes Palestine. People become ecstatic looking at those images -- which I don’t think are very fantastic – of a child or teenager using a sling to launch a rock at a tank. Look, this is a clear example of heroism but it is also a symbol of barbarism. This is a people who do not have the capacity to defend themselves facing an imperialist colonial power that is armed to the teeth. They do not have an equal capacity of resistance, but this is romanticized. Western leftists like this situation of oppression, suffering and martyrdom.

If you're a Westerner, I think it's worth investigating to what extent this image Palestinians as 'defenseless' or 'defeated' (I've seen some of you talk about Palestine in the past tense) factors into your support of Palestine as it is now, under occupation.

Because there will be an after.

Everyone supported Viet Nam when it was under attack, being destroyed and bombed for over 30 years. Viet Nam beat Japan in WW2, then had to fight France, and then had to fight the United States. It passed 30 straight years without being able to build a damn school or hospital because a bomb would drop, first from France and then the United States, and destroy it. When the country was finally able to beat all of the colonial and neocolonial powers and have the opportunity to start planning, to build highways, electrical systems, schools and universities without having bombs land on them the next day and destroy everything that was being done, the country was abandoned by the majority of the left. It lost its charm, it lost its enchantment. There is a fetish for defeat in the western left. It is an idea that defeat is something majestic.

[reasonsforhope]

"Cody Two Bears, a member of the Sioux tribe in North Dakota, founded Indigenized Energy, a native-led energy company with a unique mission — installing solar farms for tribal nations in the United States.

This initiative arises from the historical reliance of Native Americans on the U.S. government for power, a paradigm that is gradually shifting.

The spark for Two Bears' vision ignited during the Standing Rock protests in 2016, where he witnessed the arrest of a fellow protester during efforts to prevent the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on sacred tribal land.

Disturbed by the status quo, Two Bears decided to channel his activism into action and create tangible change.

His company, Indigenized Energy, addresses a critical issue faced by many reservations: poverty and lack of access to basic power.

Reservations are among the poorest communities in the country, and in some, like the Navajo Nation, many homes lack electricity.

Even in regions where the land has been exploited for coal and uranium, residents face obstacles to accessing power.

Renewable energy, specifically solar power, is a beacon of hope for tribes seeking to overcome these challenges.

Not only does it present an environmentally sustainable option, but it has become the most cost-effective form of energy globally, thanks in part to incentives like the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Tribal nations can receive tax subsidies of up to 30% for solar and wind farms, along with grants for electrification, climate resiliency, and energy generation.

And Indigenized Energy is not focused solely on installing solar farms — it also emphasizes community empowerment through education and skill development.

In collaboration with organizations like Red Cloud Renewable, efforts are underway to train Indigenous tribal members for jobs in the renewable energy sector.

The program provides free training to individuals, with a focus on solar installation skills.

Graduates, ranging from late teens to late 50s, receive pre-apprenticeship certification, and the organization is planning to launch additional programs to support graduates with career services such as resume building and interview coaching...

The adoption of solar power by Native communities signifies progress toward sustainable development, cultural preservation, and economic self-determination, contributing to a more equitable and environmentally conscious future.

These initiatives are part of a broader movement toward "energy sovereignty," wherein tribes strive to have control over their own power sources.

This movement represents not only an economic opportunity and a source of jobs for these communities but also a means of reclaiming control over their land and resources, signifying a departure from historical exploitation and an embrace of sustainable practices deeply rooted in Indigenous cultures."

-via Good Good Good, December 10, 2023

[leilakisakabiri]

Cut The Camera (LN)

Summary: Working as a reporter at the Miami Grand Prix when your boyfriend wins it.

Warning(s): None.

A/N: She's back! and with an F1 story of all things. Requests are open.

Word Count: 1.3k+

Masterlist

It was a warm day in May and you and your team were gearing up for another race weekend, this time in Miami.

Since Miami was the home base of your organization, and also your hometown, you decided to take the trip over from Monaco a few days earlier than everyone else.

That meant you had also left Lando behind, promising to see him once the race weekend started.

You wanted to spend some time with your family before work took over.

Now the weekend had arrived and you were busy getting ready in the garage, running through your pre-race questions and attaching your mic.

You were beyond excited. This would be the first time since you began working with F1 that a race would be held in your hometown and you had the opportunity to interview the drivers. Nothing could go wrong.

Pre-race questions went off without a hitch and you were able to interview at least three different teams drivers, which was a win for you.

Of course, you interviewed Lando, who was more than eager to answer any questions you had for him. In reality, he was just excited to see you again after being apart for a week.

"Good luck today." You gave him a genuine smile that the camera couldn't pick up.

He grinned back, handing you back the microphone, hand lingering on top of yours for a second too long, "Thanks. Feeling good about this one."

Since you had started dating six months ago, the longest the two of you had been away from each other was only a measly two days when Lando took a quick trip to London - other than that you had been attached at the hip. Of course both of you working in the same place and traveling to the same locations helped significantly.

However, although the staff at McLaren and around the pit were used to you two being affectionate, the rest of the world was not.

To them you were just y/n, the F1 reporter, who interviewed drivers and had no relations to anyone outside of that. They had never even seen you and Lando interact outside of work. Half the fans didn't know your name, so you flew under the radar pretty effectively.

You and Lando had been talking about the possibility of making your relationship a bit more public, nothing crazy, but just something small so people got the hint that he might be seeing someone. You wanted a soft launch, in hopes of reducing scrutiny, and Lando just wanted whatever you did.

As you passed the six-month mark in your relationship both of you grew annoyed at the prospect of never getting to be around each other. If you guys went to dinner, you would have to arrive first, and then around 15 minutes later Lando would show up. If you went out in a group, again, one of you would have to go first, with the second trailing behind after a couple of minutes.

You planned to wait until the season ended before making any decisions.

That was until today.

Things slowly started unraveling the closer the race got to finishing. You were sitting in the reporter tent, eyes trained on the monitor with bated breath as you watched Lando take the lead. You couldn't help the smile that broke onto your face when he managed to break through, you clasped your hands together, resting your chin on them while staring at the TV and trying your best to seem unaffected.

You shot out of your chair as the race drew to a close and you had to squeeze your eyes shut to not get overwhelmed with emotion once you heard the crowd start chanting Lando's name and your co-anchor in your earpiece screaming about Lando's first win.

You wanted to celebrate with him, so badly. He had done it. And in Miami no less.

You rushed your team as you tried to get to the barricade to watch the trophy celebration. You saw the McLaren team running to the podium, letting out a laugh once you realized a certain driver had jumped on them.

The entirety of the trophy celebration consisted of you yelling your lungs out cheering for your favorite person while also trying not to cry every time he looked up at the sky in disbelief.

"Y/n we're on in 10 let's head back." Your cameraman yelled over the crowd.

Once the drivers started to trickle back into the paddock after the celebration it was pure mayhem. Everyone was excited about Lando's first win and didn't have much to say in the debriefs leading to very short responses.

Finally, the man of the hour himself, came out drenched head to toe in champagne, a large grin settling onto his features once he spotted you, prompting him to immediately cut his conversation short and making a beeline to you.

He reached out to hug you, eyes twinkling with sheer joy, seemingly forgetting the camera was there, and you had to push his hands away below the camera lens so no one would notice.

His eyes immediately shot up to yours at the rejection, and you hoped he would understand once you started talking,

"Hello, Lando! Congratulations on the win, you're very first! How do you feel?" You couldn't hide the excitement in your voice.

He continued to gaze at you for a beat longer before responding, "It feels amazing. I'm so happy to have won, I feel like our team really put in the effort this week and it paid off. I for one wanted to win this weekend in particular."

You arched an eyebrow, a smile ghosting your lips, "Any reason why?"

His smile mirrored your own, "I've always loved Miami. Think this city has my good luck charm," He boasted.

You felt your cheeks heat up at his response, his boldness taking you off guard, as you moved to hastily tuck your hair behind your ear, his eyes following your every movement.

You glanced back up at him, "What does this win mean for you?"

"It means everything." His words were rushed, almost like he physically couldn't hold them back any longer.

You waited for him to continue, "It means that all the sacrifices my parents had to make, all the years spent helping me, supporting me, and allowing me to chase my dreams even though it was a long shot, finally paid off. It means that I was finally able to make a team proud that has believed in me time and time again even when I gave them reasons not to. This win isn't just for me, it's for every single person who helped me get where I am, every person who made me who I am, and for those who continue to shape the person I'm becoming."

Your heart melted at his answer, and you could see the sincerity and passion so clearly in his eyes that it was hard to form a response,

"Well you earned the title you got today, and I'm sure every person you mentioned is immensely proud of what you've just accomplished. I'll leave you to celebrate with your team."

You wanted to end the interview there. After his emotional response, you weren't sure how much longer you could remain professional.

It seemed Lando had other plans though.

As you reached for his mic, his hand landed on top of yours, stopping you.

"No."

"No?" You looked up confused, but he was already leaning down.

His free hand wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you closer as his other hand pushed the mic against the camera, trying to block the shot.

Your head tilted back in his grip and your hand instinctively wrapped around his shoulder bringing him closer. It took your brain a few seconds to register what was happening, and where, and by then he was already pulling away, tugging you into his side as he looked down with a shit-eating grin.

Your cheeks were pink, and your mouth was slightly open, not believing what just happened.

You looked at your cameraman, and he seemed just as shocked, finally you spoke, voice unsteady, "Cut the camera?"

[wileys-russo]

https://www.tumblr.com/wileys-russo/747469515079778304/1-if-i-was-her-gf-best-believe-that-entire-flight

perhaps a tiny cheeky blurb about annoying her like that on the flight 😌🙏🏼

in flight entertainment II a.putellas

you stifled a laugh as your girlfriend finally joined you downstairs, luggage in hand which was left at the front door beside your own, her prized LV makeup caddy carefully balanced on top making you roll your eyes.

but it was her current pre flight outfit that had your giggles setting in.

normally you'd not dare to question whatever it was the spanish captain put on her body given that it could be a burlap sack and she'd manage to make it look good.

plus, you were more than happy to raid her closet at will.

though today the case was that both of you sponsored by nike were headed to an event in paris for a launch and the unveiling of alexia's statue, and so you'd both been sent your outfits for the entire trip separately.

assuming you'd both be sent the same you hadn't really worried to show one another the contents of your packages, but now it was coming to light that was most certainly not the case.

you ducked out of sight as she busied herself clearly checking off a list on her phone, if there was something the footballer swore by it was a list, you cleared your throat and took a seat on the sofa.

"ale!" you yelled from the living room, the blonde hurrying in with a concerned look tossed your way at the volume of your shout for her. "qué pasa?" the taller girl asked with a frown as you pretended to look intently at something on your phone screen.

"did you see the news? there is a viral plague of moths in barcelona! they have been eating curtains, fabric furniture, shoes, cotton, polyester-" you looked up at that point and gasped dramatically.

"dios mio mi amor it is too late, they have attacked you!" you pointed as her once genuinely concerned look melted into a displeased glare. the teasing was directed at the fact that her current outfit of choice, a bright pink nike hooded sweatsuit, something the girl often lived in when pottering around your shared home in winter.

but there was something different about this one in the fact that it was, seemingly intentionally, full of holes. all the same size and scattered around every inch of the set.

mind you, you weren't complaining about the slivers of tanned skin which popped out through these holes but you were far too consumed in how amusing it was over anything else.

but your girlfriend clearly did not share that view.

"you are not funny bebé." the blonde grumbled, shoving you to fall back down onto the sofa as you stood and she passed you headed for the kitchen.

"i hope you emailed nike and told them your outfit came damaged amor." you called out with a snicker, squealing as she balled up and threw at you the hand towel she'd just use to wipe her washed hands on and it landed on your head.

"alexia!" you huffed, shooting her a glare now as she simply winked and ducked down, rummaging around in the cupboard beneath the sink for something.

grabbing the damp hand towel before it stained the sofa you rolled your eyes and followed after her, seeing an opportunity as a smile curled onto your lips.

carefully twirling up the hand towel in your hand you walked past the blonde and struck, snapping the towel against her ass with a satisfying crack as she almost fell forward into the cupboard in shock.

"it slipped!" you smiled innocently, tossing it onto the counter as your girlfriend stood and glared you down. "no!" you laughed as she lunged at you, ducking under her arm and racing off as her footsteps sounded quickly after you.

"alexia!" you laughed louder as she caught you, arms snaking around your waist and lifting you into the air before collapsing onto the sofa, twisting around so your back met the cushions and she hovered over you.

"idiota." the blonde tutted, flicking your nose playfully with a shake of her head. "i saw an opportunity and took it mi vida, can you blame me? you'd have done the same!" you smiled reaching up to poke at her own nose as your girlfriend hummed, unable to really argue that point.

"you look good in pink, i miss when your hair matched." you spoke softer, arms wrapping around her neck as her legs settled either side of your hips baring a little more of her weight on top of you.

alexia only smiled at that, leaning down to peck your lips a few times, your hand moving to cradle the back of her head and encourage it deepen a little to which the taller girl paid no objections.

you exhaled and closed your eyes with a happy smile as the blondes lips lazily trailed kisses down your neck now instead, large hands settling on your waist as her thumbs rubbed small circles into your hips.

"can i ask you something cari?" you questioned after a few minutes as her head popped up, nodding down at you curiously. "do you feel...holy today?" you grinned, sticking your finger through one of the tears in the hoodie and poking at her shoulder.

"hey come back, baby!" you laughed as she immediately pushed up and off of you with a scowl and a shake of her head. "the car will be here in five minutes, levántate!" the catalan called over her shoulder before jogging back upstairs.

~

"amor." alexia warned as your finger hooked through one of the holes in her back, tracing the tattoos which appeared in tiny slivers. you ignored her, continuing to tug and poke and pull at the holes revealing more and more inked up skin.

"para eso!" the midfielder groaned, hand reaching around her back to push you away. "comportarse." the blonde clicked her tongue, her own fingers looping through the belt loops of the parachute pants you had on and drawing your body into hers.

"its not my fault you're like a big blonde beautiful walking fidget toy." you mumbled into her shoulder, the taller girl looking down at you with a confused frown as you chuckled and repeated the phrase back to her in spanish.

"hola sal!" you called out to your teammate as she arrived, handing off her luggage to be stored as the tall girl greeted you both with a hug. "just get out of bed capitana?" salma grinned teasingly poking at alexia who sighed deeply, pushing you away and making a beeline for the jet as soon as it was called for boarding.

"moths attacked our house, put holes in all her clothing." you tutted with a shake of your head, salma laughing as you fell into step with one another following after alexia into the jet.

you gave your girlfriend a look of mock offence as you sat in the seat directly across from her and she rolled her eyes, kicking her as a slightly smile tugged at the blondes lips and she looked out the window.

declining the offer of a drink from the air hostess you tensed ever so slightly as the engines roared to life, alexia noticing right away knowing you were fine once up in the air but take offs always had you a little apprehensive.

"nena, ven aquí." the girl nudged you with her foot, spreading her legs a little more and tapping her lap, eyebrows knitted together with concern. "estoy bien." you shook your head with a small smile, embarrassed that this still bothered you after so many years.

"bebita." alexia called for your attention again, starting to launch into a story from her childhood as a means to distract you, tapping her foot against yours anytime your eyes would stray toward the window.

your stomach lurched and you death gripped the arm chairs either side of you as the wheels left the tarmac, alexia talking even faster and louder and continuing to keep your gaze locked with hers.

finally the seatbelt sign flicked off and with one final dip of your stomach the plane seemed to settle, now flying smoothly as you exhaled shakily and loosened your grip, muscles relaxing.

again your girlfriend spread a little and tapped her lap, pouting dramatically as you shook your head and with a roll of your eyes unclipped yourself and stood.

"much better." alexia mumbled as you sat down on her lap, kissing your shoulder lazily and relaxing back into her chair. you busied yourself speaking with salma and a few members of the team but eventually you grew bored.

it was barely a two hour flight but you were restless, your girlfriend easily having fallen asleep as you felt the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest behind you.

shuffling a little more so you were wedged into the side of the seat you felt alexia stir but rolled your eyes as still hers remained shut, it astounded you that she never found any struggles with falling asleep at the drop of a hat.

so naturally, you found a way to entertain yourself.

you started off by just counting all the tiny holes in your girlfriends sweatsuit, but when that failed to ease your growing boredom it turned a little more physical, your pointer finger poking in and out of them instead.

"mi amor, stop." alexia mumbled tiredly, hand grabbing your wrist and pulling it away, eyes remaining closed. but of course, you continued, moving from the holes in her arm to the holes along her legs, tugging at them.

"bebita." alexia warned, cracking one eye open and raising an eyebrow as you smiled, pecking her lips and moving to poke at the holes in her hood which was draped over her head, finger digging into her neck.

"no." alexia woke properly now, grabbing your hand and holding it in her much larger one, tugging it down to rest against your leg as her eyes closed again. so naturally with your other hand you continued, poking this time at the holes around her torso.

you felt her jolt beneath you as you prodded at a particularly sensitive part of her ribcage, a strange noise halfway between a snort and a laugh leaving her mouth as you dug in a little harder with a grin.

"no no no amor por favor-" alexia begged as you tugged your other hand free, fingers digging into the tiny tears and poking and prodding causing her to laugh and wriggle beneath you.

though the taller girl with her muscular build quickly regained control over the situation, capturing your hands with her own and pinning them to the arm chairs.

you heard her catch her breath with a slight wheeze, your head slumping back to her shoulder and kissing her cheek before she turned and looked down at you with an annoyed glare.

"i love you." you promised sincerely, watching as a soft smile melted into her features and she let your hands go, lightly smacking your forehead before kissing it and repeating the three words back to you.

"what can i say cariño...my life without you is just, one big hole." you quipped teasingly, sticking a finger through the slit in her hood and jamming it into her ear as she huffed and yanked your hand away.

"alexia!" you squealed quietly as she bit your shoulder, pinching your hip with a shake of her head, her hand coming to grab your jaw so you were locked eye to eye, a slight smirk on the older girls own face.

"bebita i am going to make sure that we leave you behind in paris."

[lycanlovingvampyre]

Once again @tmaappreciationweek gets me to finish something I wanted to draw for a while now. In one of the Magnus Protocol streams (I think it was the Kickstarter pre-launch stream?) Jonny or Alex said something about a scrawny, beaten up street cat Admiral (and something about him being a ginger) and my mind immediately went to draw parallels to Jon getting beaten up all the time in S3. So Day 2: Animals of TMA - The Admiral. Again. Won't be able to get something done for every day cause it's con crunch season! But I can't just pass over an opportunity to draw The Admiral. I just love cats...

[rubyreduji]

omega envy — lc

summary: chan goes into rut while you two are wrestling and you offer to help him out

tags: smut (minors dni!), a/b/o dynamics, alpha!chan, beta!reader warnings: cringe omegaverse, play wrestling, reader is implied smaller than chan, rough play, explicit unprotected sex, oral (f. rec), fingering, (f. rec), breeding kink wc: 3.2k an: i made a post abt writing an a/b/o story months ago and i told mika i’d write one for her so mika this is for you (tbh i dont even know if ur still interested in this/remember but shhh)

Chan’s restless as you two sit on the couch, attempting to watch a movie that he picked out. You reach over for the remote and pause the movie before turning to Chan.

“What is your problem?”

He stops fidgeting and turns to you, caught off guard. His eyes are wide and he looks like a puppy. “What?”

“Sit still,” you tell him. “You’ve been jittery for the past hour.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he mutters. He turns away from you, pretending like he’s watching the movie again, but you can still see the way his fingers tap against his thighs and the slight bounce of his leg as he taps his heel up and down.

You’re not too annoyed by it, Chan has always been a restless body, but it seems to be even worse than usual. You think about what the other pack alphas would do if they were here right now. Mingyu and Cheol are pretty restless too and they often like to go to the gym to release some tension. You can’t exactly just drag Chan to the gym right now, but you can think of a couple other ways to get his jitters out.

You smirk to yourself before launching yourself across the couch at Chan, tackling him against the cushions. He lets out a yelp that quickly turns into a growl. He doesn’t question you, his instincts taking over as he grabs at you, trying to pin you back.

This is your favorite part about being a beta. The ability to blend well with both the alphas and omegas while still being your own thing. You can cuddle with the pack omegas while they’re in pre-heat or you can wrestle with the alpha when they get too rowdy.

Chan quickly flips you two around, so your back is against the couch as he hovers over you. You’re held down for only a second before you roll both of your bodies off the couch and onto the floor. You know that it’s probably a bit childish to be rolling on the floor, play fighting like you’re still pups, but it’s clear Chan needs this and you don’t mind indulging in some fun every once in a while. 

You can sense Chan’s scent getting thicker as he doubles his efforts, doing his best to overpower you. You’ve always liked the youngest alpha’s scent, a mix of spices like they’re being mortar and pestled right next to you. That’s one thing you’ve always been jealous of being a beta. You like not having to go through a heat or be so controlled by your instincts, but you always wished you had a strong scent. That your pack could better sense your emotions without having to say a word. Chan has always sworn you do have a scent, but you know it’s nothing like the one he has.

You’re not sure how but someone you and Chan are now completely on the other side of the room from the couch. Chan’s got his arms wrapped around your waist as you push at his head, your knee pushing against his stomach to get him off you.

Chan just barely loosens his grip on you, and you take the opportunity to pull yourself free, standing up quickly to regain some composure. Chan scrambles to his feet as well and you’re quickly throwing yourself at him again.

It’s clear that Chan is stronger than you, not only due to his size but also his orientation. That’s not going to stop you from trying to overtake him. You jump on his back, wrapping your legs around his waist as you hook your elbow around his neck, half choking him. Chan claws at your arm, trying to throw you off.

You’re stubborn though and only budge when Chan slams his back down onto the couch, crushing his weight on top of you. You dig your heels into his stomach and Chan squirms in your grip. You both eventually let up and Chan quickly spins his body around so he’s on top of you again. You reach up to grab him but his reflexes are quicker, slapping your hands out of the way so he can pin your shoulders down against the couch, the weight of his body heavy on top of your hips. You wiggle your hips though, trying to buck him off. You reach up and jab at his sides, forcing him to fall back off you.

You try to get up to try and push Chan down, but he gets the upper hand once more. He picks you up only to throw you back down onto the couch. You grab at him, pulling him closer, ready to throw both of you off the couch like you did earlier. Chan doesn’t allow though, holding you down so you can’t move at all. He stares down at you with a fire in his eyes.

And then you feel it. The distinguishable press of something hard against your thigh. Chan lets out a low groan and his hips rut forwards against your thigh even more, his strong scent suffocating your nostrils and throat.

“C-chan,” you gasp out. This seems to wake the boy up from the daze he was in and he quickly reels back from you, falling off the couch and onto the floor.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, his face quickly turning red. “I-”

You wrinkle your nose up at the way his scent turns sour, yet still tinged with arousal. You stare down at him on the floor, allowing your eyes to flick down to his crotch for only a second. His sweatpants protrude out, his hardened cock lying beneath the fabric.

You sniff the air once more, your mouth forming a small ‘O’ shape. “Are you…in pre-rut?”

Chan whimpers a bit, looking away from your piercing gaze. “I don’t know. I thought I still had another two weeks, but you know how irregular it can be for me. I- maybe you should go.”

“Are you sure?” You find yourself asking. You’ve never been a rut partner for anyone in your pack before. You’ve helped some of the omegas out before, but never an alpha. Not that you’d be opposed, especially if it was Chan.

“I mean, I think you’re right so like, it would be best if you weren’t here when I you know…succumb to the urges.” Chan shifts where he’s sitting, his hips lifting off the floor for a moment, exaggerating his bulge. You can see how he’s twitching to shove his hands down his pants.

“And what if I want to be here when you ‘succumb to the urges’?”

“Wh-what?” The sour scent in Chan’s smell fully disperses, the smell of his arousal increasing tenfold.

“Let me help you Channie,” you tell him softly, sinking to the floor next to him. “I know I’m not an omega, but betas can still be great rut partners. You can tell me fuck off you really want me to, but I know it will feel better if I’m here. I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.”

“Shut up,” Chan grits out.

You’re a bit taken back. “Excuse me?”

“I said, shut up. If you keep talking like that I’m gonna fucking mount you.”

“And what if I want you to?”

That’s all it takes for Chan’s resolve to break. He lunges at you, pushing you so you fall back onto the floor. Chan climbs over you so his body covers yours. His nose is at your neck, biting and licking and sniffing all over.

Chan whines. “You smell so good, jagiya.” His hands grip your hips, holding you down.

The feeling of Chan’s mouth all over your bare skin as you wriggle under him, your panties quickly dampening.

As much as you love being a beta, when you presented you had one mortifying thought that you’ve never shared with anyone. You hated that you didn’t present as an omega, because that meant you weren’t able to mate with Chan. You get embarrassed whenever you think about that thought, but it comes to your mind again now as Chan ravages you. If only younger you could see you now.

Chan paws at your shirt, desperate to reveal even more skin. You help put him out of his misery, tugging the article of clothing over your head. Automatically Chan’s mouth lowers, licking over your chest, kissing right above your breasts.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Chan mutters, barely lifting his mouth off of you. “You don’t even know.”

“But I’m not-”

“An omega? I don’t care. You’re you and that’s all I need.”

Fuck. Chan’s words send goosebumps down your arms. God, you need him horrendously.

“Bedroom,” is all you can choke out. Chan picks you up and throws you over his shoulder before carrying you to his bedroom. He throws you onto the bed before shucking his own shirt off.

You’ve seen Chan shirtless plenty of times, but you’ll never not drool a little when you see his nicely formed torso. He’s got the typical alpha physique with a thick chest and rows of abs to spare.

“I’m going to fucking destroy you,” Chan growls, low and primal, making the obsessive need for Lee Chan grow under your skin. Despite your hesitations when you first presented, you’re glad you’re a beta, because if you were an omega you’d have fully soaked your panties and your shorts with slick by now.

Chan pushes his pants down his legs as well and you follow suit, leaving you both in nothing but your underwear. You can see the way Chan takes shallow breaths as he stares at your body, laid out and vulnerable for him.

Chan knocks himself out of his stupor and he descends on you, attacking you with his mouth. His tongue laves over your collarbones and his fingers dig into your hips. His scent is thick in the air as he works himself up more and more, getting closer to hitting his rut.

You feel Chan’s hands push up your torso and dip under your bra, pushing it up your chest to expose your breasts. Chan doesn’t hesitate to get to work, his fingers kneading at your boob, rubbing your sensitive nipple, while his mouth attaches to the other one. It reminds you of a hungry dog, though you guess that’s exactly what he is.

The alpha’s hips are positioned right over yours and you can feel his cock bump up against your clit. You’re sure he can feel your wetness through the thin layers of both of your underwear and you push your hips up a bit to get more friction. Thankfully Chan takes the hint and he trails his hand downward, shoving his hand into your panties to connect his fingertips to your clit. He rubs at it roughly and you throw your head back with a gasp as the pressure starts to satisfy the ache in your core.

“You smell so good,” Chan growls, his voice deep and thick. “Even without my hands on your cunt, I can smell how wet you are.”

Chan moves down the bed, so he’s in between your legs. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of your panties and strips them down your legs. You go to close your legs, embarrassed at being so exposed, and not enjoying the sudden chill of the air hitting your bare pussy, but Chan is quick to grip your thighs and pry your legs open once more.

The boy groans at the sight of your bare pussy exposed to him. “Baby,” he mumbles, “I need to taste you.” He grabs you by the ankles, pulling you closer to him so he can line his face right up to your cunt.

“Wait, wait,” you tell him. “Don’t focus on me, you’re the one in rut.”

“Not yet,” he says. “So let me have this.” With that he dives right in, his tongue licking a thick stripe right through your folds. You gasp, quickly clenching your thighs down around Chan’s head. This just makes Chan bury his head further between your legs, his lips wrapping around your clit. He sucks at the bud harshly, sending jolts of pleasure down your spine.

His mouth is messy against your cunt, kissing and licking and sucking wherever he can. You can hear the soft growls he emits from his throat, the sound getting more aggressive the more he licks at your pussy. Your body is already buzzing with pleasure and all you can do is whine as he pushes your legs apart further, feeding his fingers into your dripping entrance.

You can’t help but throw your head back, moans flowing freely from your mouth as Chan’s finger pushes deeper and deeper into you. 

“Ch-chan!” You gasp as he brushes up against your g-spot. Your hand flies to the bed, gripping the sheets tightly as you lock your legs around his back. 

The smell of arousal in the room increases, overtaking your senses and driving your mind further away from coherency. As Chan prolongs his time between your legs, you can feel his rut creeping closer. You know he feels it too, by the way he starts to get more restless, his hips rutting down against the mattress.

“Can’t take it any longer,” Chan grumbles as he finally pulls his head up from your legs. His face is slick with your arousal and there’s a dark look in his eyes. “Need to fuck your cunt.”

Suddenly Chan’s scent changes, completely overtaken by lust. You gasp as Chan shoves his boxers down his legs, his leaking cock releasing from the confines. It’s huge, larger than you were expecting, and you don’t have time to warn Chan to be careful because he’s lining himself up and pushing his tip in.

Unlike any normal omega, you’re not made to take alphas in rut, but Chan isn’t thinking clearly anymore and continues to push into you, ignoring the tight fit and doing his best to put it all in. 

“Open up, baby,” Chan growls. “Let your alpha fuck you.” His thumb rubs at your clit mercilessly and you gasp and whine, doing your best to relax for his cock. Finally Chan is able to bottom out and he lets out a low groan at the feeling.

The alpha barely lets you adjust though, pull his hips back only to slam them back in. Your body is jostled at the sheer force of his thrust and this seems to entertain Chan, as he does it again and again, slamming into your cunt.

The feeling of his alpha cock inside of you has your mind reeling. You’ve never felt anything like it before and you need more, you want him to fill you up as much as he can, knotting you like you’re his omega.

“You’re so tight,” Chan says. “Pretty little beta pussy taking my alpha cock so nicely.”

The pace of Chan’s hips contrast his speech, like they have a mind of their own. His grip on your hips is tight, pinning you down to the bed so you stay in place for him to fuck into. You already feel so close to your orgasm, but you know Chan is only just starting, and even if he does cum, he’ll be insatiable for a while. 

“A-alpha!” You squeal, your fingers digging into Chan’s back. You’re sure his whole back will end all scratched up, but you don’t think Chan will care too much.

Chan leans down, pressing his mouth all over your bare skin. His lips and teeth clash against your shoulder and chest as he nips and sucks all over, marking up your skin. He lets out soft whines as he does this and you run your hands through his hair, petting him like the pup he is.

The alpha’s mind is completely gone now, his only thoughts now being on his growing knot. For the first time in years you start to wish you were an omega, once again. You wonder how it would feel to get lost in pleasure the way they do, going dumb at the feel of an alpha’s cock filling them up. Just the thought of an alpha and omega mating, nothing in their minds but each other, you can’t help but yearn for that feeling.

Almost as if Chan can sense your thoughts, he nudges his nose right into your neck. You can feel his nostrils brush up against your scent gland as he whines into your neck. “You smell so good. Fuck baby, you’re so perfect for me. You know that? Fuck my pretty, perfect beta. Just for me.” Chan grabs your legs, hiking them up around his waist so he can fuck into you at a new angle. “Gonna breed your little cunt. Fill you up with my pups and get you so round and pregnant.”

“C-chan!” You gasp at his words. Your pussy betrays your mind though, clenching at the thought of being bred by Chan.

“See baby, you want it, you need it. And I need to give it to you. You’ll let me, right baby? You’ll let me give you all my pups?” Chan’s mouth strays dangerously close to your scent gland, his teeth teasing the spot.

You can barely think about his words, your mind only on the mating bite you wish he could give you. You know it won’t do much, not in the way it would with an omega, but god do you want it nonetheless. You’re not like Chan, you’re completely in the right headspace, not overtaken by your hormones, but you still want it. You want his bite and his pups and to be his. His beta.

“Fu-fuck, yes!” You cry out. “Breed me, please. Give me your knot.”

Like Chan was holding off until your word, Chan grips your hips tightly and pulls his hips back until he’s nearly pulled out, and with one fell swoop he thrusts his cock back into you, shoving his knot into you as he does. As soon as your cunt clenches down around his knot he’s milking himself into you, his cock twitching as you feel yourself fill up to the brim with his cum.

“Good girl, so fucking good,” Chan mumbles against your skin as his body sinks down against yours. He’ll be satisfied for now, but you’re sure he’ll need a few more rounds until his rut is completely ebbed away. “My pretty beta.”

“Channie,” you say, lifting his head up in your hands. Chan gets what you want and leans forward to kiss you, letting your lips slide together as he deepens the kiss.

When you two pull away Chan rests his head on your shoulder. His mind should be clearing up for the time being, at least until the next wave hits. “Thanks for your help.”

“Of course. I know I’m not-”

“Shhh, don’t. I don’t care if you're not an omega. You’re even better than one, okay? Because you’re you. My beta.”

You flush at the term. You’re not sure if it's still his rut brain talking, but from the way he’s nuzzling his nose right into your scent gland, you doubt it is. You want to talk about it with Chan, but you’re still stuck on his knot and you will be for the next day or so until he’s in his post-rut.

You’re not worried though, because from what you can tell, being Chan’s beta is way better than being any regular omega. 

taglist (rip sorry of yall aren't into a/b/o lol): @ckline35 @toruro @jeanjacketjesus @namjoonbaby @n4mj00nvq @lovelyhan @ovai @scorpiobitch88 @im-gemmy @lllucere @tulipgarland4 @embrace-themagic @sulkygyu @leejihoonownsmyheart @synthetickitsune @yeosayang @miraclewoozi @d0nghyck @soonhoonietrash @violetvoo @yongi-lee @spilled-coffee-cup @morklee02 @17kwans @candidupped @ressonancee @m1nghaos @1-800-jeonwonwoo @anothershorthuman @chwecardcaptor @jwnghyuns @flwrshwa @valentxi @heavenly-mobo @pandorashbox @enhacolor @starlight-night0 @todorokiskitten @miriamxsworld @just-here-to-read-01 @sunnyteume @debsworld23 @seuomo @tinkerbell460 @feat-sun @blxckswxnxge @erwins-left-tittie @dinoissupreme @speaknowlwt

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[matan4il]

Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare. Why Will No One Admit It? | by John Spencer

The Israel Defense Forces conducted an operation at al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas terrorists recently, once again taking unique precautions as it entered the facility to protect the innocent; Israeli media reported that doctors accompanied the forces to help Palestinian patients if needed. They were also reported to be carrying food, water and medical supplies for the civilians inside.

None of this meant anything to Israel's critics, of course, who immediately pounced. The critics, as usual, didn't call out Hamas for using protected facilities like hospitals for its military activity. Nor did they mention the efforts of the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.

In their criticism, Israel's opponents are erasing a remarkable, historic new standard Israel has set. In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the U.S. military, I've never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy's civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The predominant Western theory of executing wars, called maneuver warfare, seeks to shatter an enemy morally and physically with surprising, overwhelming force and speed, striking at the political and military centers of gravity so that the enemy is destroyed or surrenders quickly. This was the case in the invasions of Panama in 1989, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 and the failed illegal attempt by Russia to take Ukraine in 2022. In all these cases, no warning or time was given to evacuate cities.

In many ways, Israel has had to abandon this established playbook in order to prevent civilian harm. The IDF has telegraphed almost every move ahead of time so civilians can relocate, nearly always ceding the element of surprise. This has allowed Hamas to reposition its senior leaders (and the Israeli hostages) as needed through the dense urban terrain of Gaza and the miles of underground tunnels it's built.

Hamas fighters, who unlike the IDF don't wear uniforms, have also taken the opportunity to blend into civilian populations as they evacuate. The net effect is that Hamas succeeds in its strategy of creating Palestinian suffering and images of destruction to build international pressure on Israel to stop its operations, therefore ensuring Hamas' survival.

Israel gave warning, in some cases for weeks, for civilians to evacuate the major urban areas of northern Gaza before it launched its ground campaign in the fall. The IDF reported dropping over 7 million flyers, but it also deployed technologies never used anywhere in the world, as I witness firsthand on a recent trip to Gaza and southern Israel.

Israel has made over 70,000 direct phones calls, sent over 13 million text messages and left over 15 million pre-recorded voicemails to notify civilians that they should leave combat areas, where they should go, and what route they should take. They deployed drones with speakers and dropped giant speakers by parachute that began broadcasting for civilians to leave combat areas once they hit the ground. They announced and conducted daily pauses of all operations to allow any civilians left in combat areas to evacuate.

These measures were effective. Israel was able to evacuate upwards of 85 percent of the urban areas in northern Gaza before the heaviest fighting began. This is actually consistent with my research on urban warfare history that shows that no matter the effort, about 10 percent of populations stay.

As the war raged on, Israel began giving out its military maps to civilians so they could conduct localized evacuations. This, too, has never been done in war. During my recent visit to Khan Yunis, Gaza, and the IDF civilian harm mitigation unit in southern Israel, I observed as the army began using these maps to communicate each day where the IDF would be operating so civilians in other areas would stay out of harm's way.

I saw that the IDF even tracked the population in real time down to a few-block radius using drone and satellite imagery and cell phone presence and building damage assessments to avoid hitting civilians. The New York Times reported in January that the daily civilian death toll had more than halved in the previous month and was down almost two-thirds from its peak.

Of course, the true number of Gaza civilian deaths is unknown. The current Hamas-supplied estimate of over 31,000 does not acknowledge a single combatant death (nor any deaths due to the misfiring of its own rockets or other friendly fire). The IDF estimates it has killed about 13,000 Hamas operatives, a number I believe credible partly because I believe the armed forces of a democratic American ally over a terrorist regime, but also because of the size of Hamas fighters assigned to areas that were cleared and having observed the weapons used, the state of Hamas' tunnels and other aspects of the combat.

That would mean some 18,000 civilians have died in Gaza, a ratio of roughly 1 combatant to 1.5 civilians. Given Hamas' likely inflation of the death count, the real figure could be closer to 1 to 1. Either way, the number would be historically low for modern urban warfare.

The UN, EU and other sources estimate that civilians usually account for 80 percent to 90 percent of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war (though this does mix all types of wars). In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, a battle supervised by the U.S. that used the world's most powerful airpower resources, some 10,000 civilians were killed compared to roughly 4,000 ISIS terrorists.

And yet, analysts who should know better are still engaging in condemnation of the IDF based on the level of destruction that's still occurred—destruction that is unavoidable against an enemy that embeds in a vast tunnel system under civilian sites in dense urban terrain. This effects-based condemnation or criticism is not how the laws of war work, or violations determined. These and other analysts say the destruction and civilian causalities must either stop or be avoided in an alternative form of warfare.

Ironically, the careful approach Israel has taken may have actually led to more destruction; since the IDF giving warnings and conducting evacuations help Hamas survive, it ultimately prolongs the war and, with it, its devastation.

Israel has not created a gold standard in civilian harm mitigation in war. That implies there is a standard in civilian casualties in war that is acceptable or not acceptable; that zero civilian deaths in war is remotely possible and should be the goal; that there is a set civilian-to-combatant ratio in war no matter the context or tactics of the enemy. But all available evidence shows that Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.

Those calling for Israel to find an alternative to inflicting civilian casualties to lower amounts (like zero) should be honest that this alternative would leave the Israeli hostages in captivity and allow Hamas to survive the war. The alternative to a nation's survival cannot be a path to extinction.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, codirector of MWI's Urban Warfare Project and host of the "Urban Warfare Project Podcast." He served for 25 years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book "Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connection in Modern War" and co-author of "Understanding Urban Warfare."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The AI hype bubble is the new crypto hype bubble

Back in 2017 Long Island Ice Tea — known for its undistinguished, barely drinkable sugar-water — changed its name to “Long Blockchain Corp.” Its shares surged to a peak of 400% over their pre-announcement price. The company announced no specific integrations with any kind of blockchain, nor has it made any such integrations since.

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/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

LBCC was subsequently delisted from NASDAQ after settling with the SEC over fraudulent investor statements. Today, the company trades over the counter and its market cap is $36m, down from $138m.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/textbook-case-of-crypto-hype-how-iced-tea-company-went-blockchain-and-failed-despite-a-289-percent-stock-rise

The most remarkable thing about this incredibly stupid story is that LBCC wasn’t the peak of the blockchain bubble — rather, it was the start of blockchain’s final pump-and-dump. By the standards of 2022’s blockchain grifters, LBCC was small potatoes, a mere $138m sugar-water grift.

They didn’t have any NFTs, no wash trades, no ICO. They didn’t have a Superbowl ad. They didn’t steal billions from mom-and-pop investors while proclaiming themselves to be “Effective Altruists.” They didn’t channel hundreds of millions to election campaigns through straw donations and other forms of campaing finance frauds. They didn’t even open a crypto-themed hamburger restaurant where you couldn’t buy hamburgers with crypto:

https://robbreport.com/food-drink/dining/bored-hungry-restaurant-no-cryptocurrency-1234694556/

They were amateurs. Their attempt to “make fetch happen” only succeeded for a brief instant. By contrast, the superpredators of the crypto bubble were able to make fetch happen over an improbably long timescale, deploying the most powerful reality distortion fields since Pets.com.

Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. We’re told that trillions of dollars’ worth of crypto has been wiped out over the past year, but these losses are nowhere to be seen in the real economy — because the “wealth” that was wiped out by the crypto bubble’s bursting never existed in the first place.

Like any Ponzi scheme, crypto was a way to separate normies from their savings through the pretense that they were “investing” in a vast enterprise — but the only real money (“fiat” in cryptospeak) in the system was the hardscrabble retirement savings of working people, which the bubble’s energetic inflaters swapped for illiquid, worthless shitcoins.

We’ve stopped believing in the illusory billions. Sam Bankman-Fried is under house arrest. But the people who gave him money — and the nimbler Ponzi artists who evaded arrest — are looking for new scams to separate the marks from their money.

Take Morganstanley, who spent 2021 and 2022 hyping cryptocurrency as a massive growth opportunity:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/morgan-stanley-launches-cryptocurrency-research-team

Today, Morganstanley wants you to know that AI is a $6 trillion opportunity.

They’re not alone. The CEOs of Endeavor, Buzzfeed, Microsoft, Spotify, Youtube, Snap, Sports Illustrated, and CAA are all out there, pumping up the AI bubble with every hour that god sends, declaring that the future is AI.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/wall-street-ai-stock-price-1235343279/

Google and Bing are locked in an arms-race to see whose search engine can attain the speediest, most profound enshittification via chatbot, replacing links to web-pages with florid paragraphs composed by fully automated, supremely confident liars:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Blockchain was a solution in search of a problem. So is AI. Yes, Buzzfeed will be able to reduce its wage-bill by automating its personality quiz vertical, and Spotify’s “AI DJ” will produce slightly less terrible playlists (at least, to the extent that Spotify doesn’t put its thumb on the scales by inserting tracks into the playlists whose only fitness factor is that someone paid to boost them).

But even if you add all of this up, double it, square it, and add a billion dollar confidence interval, it still doesn’t add up to what Bank Of America analysts called “a defining moment — like the internet in the ’90s.” For one thing, the most exciting part of the “internet in the ‘90s” was that it had incredibly low barriers to entry and wasn’t dominated by large companies — indeed, it had them running scared.

The AI bubble, by contrast, is being inflated by massive incumbents, whose excitement boils down to “This will let the biggest companies get much, much bigger and the rest of you can go fuck yourselves.” Some revolution.

AI has all the hallmarks of a classic pump-and-dump, starting with terminology. AI isn’t “artificial” and it’s not “intelligent.” “Machine learning” doesn’t learn. On this week’s Trashfuture podcast, they made an excellent (and profane and hilarious) case that ChatGPT is best understood as a sophisticated form of autocomplete — not our new robot overlord.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4NHKMZZNKi0w9mOhPYIL4T

We all know that autocomplete is a decidedly mixed blessing. Like all statistical inference tools, autocomplete is profoundly conservative — it wants you to do the same thing tomorrow as you did yesterday (that’s why “sophisticated” ad retargeting ads show you ads for shoes in response to your search for shoes). If the word you type after “hey” is usually “hon” then the next time you type “hey,” autocomplete will be ready to fill in your typical following word — even if this time you want to type “hey stop texting me you freak”:

https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/provocations/neophobic-conservative-ai-overlords-want-everything-stay/

And when autocomplete encounters a new input — when you try to type something you’ve never typed before — it tries to get you to finish your sentence with the statistically median thing that everyone would type next, on average. Usually that produces something utterly bland, but sometimes the results can be hilarious. Back in 2018, I started to text our babysitter with “hey are you free to sit” only to have Android finish the sentence with “on my face” (not something I’d ever typed!):

https://mashable.com/article/android-predictive-text-sit-on-my-face

Modern autocomplete can produce long passages of text in response to prompts, but it is every bit as unreliable as 2018 Android SMS autocomplete, as Alexander Hanff discovered when ChatGPT informed him that he was dead, even generating a plausible URL for a link to a nonexistent obit in The Guardian:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/02/chatgpt_considered_harmful/

Of course, the carnival barkers of the AI pump-and-dump insist that this is all a feature, not a bug. If autocomplete says stupid, wrong things with total confidence, that’s because “AI” is becoming more human, because humans also say stupid, wrong things with total confidence.

Exhibit A is the billionaire AI grifter Sam Altman, CEO if OpenAI — a company whose products are not open, nor are they artificial, nor are they intelligent. Altman celebrated the release of ChatGPT by tweeting “i am a stochastic parrot, and so r u.”

https://twitter.com/sama/status/1599471830255177728

This was a dig at the “stochastic parrots” paper, a comprehensive, measured roundup of criticisms of AI that led Google to fire Timnit Gebru, a respected AI researcher, for having the audacity to point out the Emperor’s New Clothes:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/

Gebru’s co-author on the Parrots paper was Emily M Bender, a computational linguistics specialist at UW, who is one of the best-informed and most damning critics of AI hype. You can get a good sense of her position from Elizabeth Weil’s New York Magazine profile:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

Bender has made many important scholarly contributions to her field, but she is also famous for her rules of thumb, which caution her fellow scientists not to get high on their own supply:

Please do not conflate word form and meaning

Mind your own credulity

As Bender says, we’ve made “machines that can mindlessly generate text, but we haven’t learned how to stop imagining the mind behind it.” One potential tonic against this fallacy is to follow an Italian MP’s suggestion and replace “AI” with “SALAMI” (“Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences”). It’s a lot easier to keep a clear head when someone asks you, “Is this SALAMI intelligent? Can this SALAMI write a novel? Does this SALAMI deserve human rights?”

Bender’s most famous contribution is the “stochastic parrot,” a construct that “just probabilistically spits out words.” AI bros like Altman love the stochastic parrot, and are hellbent on reducing human beings to stochastic parrots, which will allow them to declare that their chatbots have feature-parity with human beings.

At the same time, Altman and Co are strangely afraid of their creations. It’s possible that this is just a shuck: “I have made something so powerful that it could destroy humanity! Luckily, I am a wise steward of this thing, so it’s fine. But boy, it sure is powerful!”

They’ve been playing this game for a long time. People like Elon Musk (an investor in OpenAI, who is hoping to convince the EU Commission and FTC that he can fire all of Twitter’s human moderators and replace them with chatbots without violating EU law or the FTC’s consent decree) keep warning us that AI will destroy us unless we tame it.

There’s a lot of credulous repetition of these claims, and not just by AI’s boosters. AI critics are also prone to engaging in what Lee Vinsel calls criti-hype: criticizing something by repeating its boosters’ claims without interrogating them to see if they’re true:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

There are better ways to respond to Elon Musk warning us that AIs will emulsify the planet and use human beings for food than to shout, “Look at how irresponsible this wizard is being! He made a Frankenstein’s Monster that will kill us all!” Like, we could point out that of all the things Elon Musk is profoundly wrong about, he is most wrong about the philosophical meaning of Wachowksi movies:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/18/lilly-wachowski-ivana-trump-elon-musk-twitter-red-pill-the-matrix-tweets

But even if we take the bros at their word when they proclaim themselves to be terrified of “existential risk” from AI, we can find better explanations by seeking out other phenomena that might be triggering their dread. As Charlie Stross points out, corporations are Slow AIs, autonomous artificial lifeforms that consistently do the wrong thing even when the people who nominally run them try to steer them in better directions:

https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future

Imagine the existential horror of a ultra-rich manbaby who nominally leads a company, but can’t get it to follow: “everyone thinks I’m in charge, but I’m actually being driven by the Slow AI, serving as its sock puppet on some days, its golem on others.”

Ted Chiang nailed this back in 2017 (the same year of the Long Island Blockchain Company):

There’s a saying, popularized by Fredric Jameson, that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. It’s no surprise that Silicon Valley capitalists don’t want to think about capitalism ending. What’s unexpected is that the way they envision the world ending is through a form of unchecked capitalism, disguised as a superintelligent AI. They have unconsciously created a devil in their own image, a boogeyman whose excesses are precisely their own.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to-civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway

Chiang is still writing some of the best critical work on “AI.” His February article in the New Yorker, “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web,” was an instant classic:

[AI] hallucinations are compression artifacts, but — like the incorrect labels generated by the Xerox photocopier — they are plausible enough that identifying them requires comparing them against the originals, which in this case means either the Web or our own knowledge of the world.

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web

“AI” is practically purpose-built for inflating another hype-bubble, excelling as it does at producing party-tricks — plausible essays, weird images, voice impersonations. But as Princeton’s Matthew Salganik writes, there’s a world of difference between “cool” and “tool”:

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2023/03/08/can-chatgpt-and-its-successors-go-from-cool-to-tool/

Nature can claim “conversational AI is a game-changer for science” but “there is a huge gap between writing funny instructions for removing food from home electronics and doing scientific research.” Salganik tried to get ChatGPT to help him with the most banal of scholarly tasks — aiding him in peer reviewing a colleague’s paper. The result? “ChatGPT didn’t help me do peer review at all; not one little bit.”

The criti-hype isn’t limited to ChatGPT, of course — there’s plenty of (justifiable) concern about image and voice generators and their impact on creative labor markets, but that concern is often expressed in ways that amplify the self-serving claims of the companies hoping to inflate the hype machine.

One of the best critical responses to the question of image- and voice-generators comes from Kirby Ferguson, whose final Everything Is a Remix video is a superb, visually stunning, brilliantly argued critique of these systems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rswxcDyotXA

One area where Ferguson shines is in thinking through the copyright question — is there any right to decide who can study the art you make? Except in some edge cases, these systems don’t store copies of the images they analyze, nor do they reproduce them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

For creators, the important material question raised by these systems is economic, not creative: will our bosses use them to erode our wages? That is a very important question, and as far as our bosses are concerned, the answer is a resounding yes.

Markets value automation primarily because automation allows capitalists to pay workers less. The textile factory owners who purchased automatic looms weren’t interested in giving their workers raises and shorting working days. ‘ They wanted to fire their skilled workers and replace them with small children kidnapped out of orphanages and indentured for a decade, starved and beaten and forced to work, even after they were mangled by the machines. Fun fact: Oliver Twist was based on the bestselling memoir of Robert Blincoe, a child who survived his decade of forced labor:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59127/59127-h/59127-h.htm

Today, voice actors sitting down to record for games companies are forced to begin each session with “My name is ______ and I hereby grant irrevocable permission to train an AI with my voice and use it any way you see fit.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

Let’s be clear here: there is — at present — no firmly established copyright over voiceprints. The “right” that voice actors are signing away as a non-negotiable condition of doing their jobs for giant, powerful monopolists doesn’t even exist. When a corporation makes a worker surrender this right, they are betting that this right will be created later in the name of “artists’ rights” — and that they will then be able to harvest this right and use it to fire the artists who fought so hard for it.

There are other approaches to this. We could support the US Copyright Office’s position that machine-generated works are not works of human creative authorship and are thus not eligible for copyright — so if corporations wanted to control their products, they’d have to hire humans to make them:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/21/22944335/us-copyright-office-reject-ai-generated-art-recent-entrance-to-paradise

Or we could create collective rights that belong to all artists and can’t be signed away to a corporation. That’s how the right to record other musicians’ songs work — and it’s why Taylor Swift was able to re-record the masters that were sold out from under her by evil private-equity bros::

https://doctorow.medium.com/united-we-stand-61e16ec707e2

Whatever we do as creative workers and as humans entitled to a decent life, we can’t afford drink the Blockchain Iced Tea. That means that we have to be technically competent, to understand how the stochastic parrot works, and to make sure our criticism doesn’t just repeat the marketing copy of the latest pump-and-dump.

Today (Mar 9), you can catch me in person in Austin at the UT School of Design and Creative Technologies, and remotely at U Manitoba’s Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture.

Tomorrow (Mar 10), Rebecca Giblin and I kick off the SXSW reading series.

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

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

[Image ID: A graph depicting the Gartner hype cycle. A pair of HAL 9000's glowing red eyes are chasing each other down the slope from the Peak of Inflated Expectations to join another one that is at rest in the Trough of Disillusionment. It, in turn, sits atop a vast cairn of HAL 9000 eyes that are piled in a rough pyramid that extends below the graph to a distance of several times its height.]

[datarobotsuggestion]

help get a cute robot plush made!

artifisouls is a scifi webcomic about a robot who wakes up in an unknown place with no memories of who he is, only going by what he can make of the lettering on his arm, skittie. skittie tries to learn about what his past is while meeting a vast array of characters, including other robots and all sorts of beings! it's a beautifully drawn story filled with action and mystery that i can't recommend enough to robot fans!

you can read it here! it's currently ongoing, so there's more to come after you check it out!

the creator, artifisoap, has the opportunity to launch a campaign on makeship to make a plushie of skittie, the main character of artifisouls! this is exciting, especially since artifisoap has described artifisouls as their biggest passion project in the past few years. i'm sure it would mean a lot if the plush campaign got fully funded!

plus, skittie is super cute. look at them.

i (mod nicole) and mod turing are huge fans of artifisouls, and we'd really like the skittie plush to succeed! please consider chipping in for the $2 preorder so we can see it come to life, and sharing so others can join in!

the ending date is august 18th, so get those pre-orders in!

if you pledged and/or shared, thank you so much! even just reading means a lot. if i've gotten just one more person to read artifisouls, i'm happy. have a good day everyone!

[biznocrats]

Ground-floor opportunity to become a Founding Member of Digital Shopping Mall (DSM) by joining the mall for free and get 1 Digital Shopping Point (DSP) whose minimum economic value is $20,000 and its potential maximum redeemable value for products and services sold in the mall is $2 million, thanks to DSM's unprecedented pre-ordering technology that can cut prices up to 100 times lower.

Invite others and get 1 DSP for each referral up to 10 levels deep.

In addition, Founding Members will be sharing 10% of DSM's monthly revenue for a lifetime.

Get the details below.

https://dsmpartners.net/s/1/21/

[rollinouttahere-writes]

Hello 👋 I am a fan of all your work!!

I was wondering if you were still taking requests? If you are here’s an idea: reader (or Lucky) is turn into a child due to a devil fruit and the yandere Strawhats go into over drive to protect them because the reader can’t fight?

Thanks!!

I decided to do this with Lucky since I haven’t updated Lucky Break in a hot minute (I’m sorry but the requests and au’s have been too good). I’m just gonna stick with the east blue gang for this because if I go any further then I’m gonna spoil some stuff. This takes place post Arlong park but pre Loguetown. Lucky is around 4 here. There really isn't much yandere going on here, it's mostly them being wholesome.

Read Lucky Break for context

Get back here!

Straw Hats x Child Reader (Lucky)

2k words

“Luffy please stop carrying her like that you’re going to drop her!” Nami screeched while trying to snatch you out of his hand. 

Luffy only laughed and danced out of the way, still holding you by the ankle while you giggled right along with him. Blood was starting to rush to your head a little bit, but you were having too much fun to complain about it. You couldn’t remember the last time you had this much fun!

“Lucky’s fine! She wouldn’t be laughing if she wasn’t!” Despite this, he decided to change his hold on you. By tossing you high into the air. Your giggles fell short at the sensation of sailing into the sky and you couldn’t help but stare at the beautiful ocean surrounding you. Gravity caught up, and you fell back into Luffy’s clutches with him holding you under your armpits.

Sanji stormed over and wrenched you out of his grip, and cradling you like a baby, “Are you insane?! What if you didn’t catch her, are you trying to give this one a head injury too?!” You were being squished into his chest while he was aggressively petting your hair and bouncing you as if you were upset. Which you weren’t. Well, you weren’t before but this treatment was more than a little annoying.

Your squirming got his attention back on you as you tried to get out of the somewhat suffocating hold he had on you. This effort was all in vain, as he simply readjusted his grip on you. “What’s wrong, princess? Did that stupid meathead hurt you?” Not even waiting for an answer, he was holding you out to search for any possible injury with a scrutinizing stare.

“No! Put me down, I’m not a baby!” You protested, uselessly kicking your little legs. Sanji’s face fell and he looked like you just stabbed him in the heart. His grip slackened enough for you to be able to free yourself, so naturally you went for it.

The second your feet hit the floor you spun on your heels and ran to Luffy, arms held up to him, “Again! Again!”

Luffy grinned broadly and was quick to do just that, grabbing your tiny waist and launching you into the air before anyone could stop him. Loud shrieks of protest resounded beneath you, but you could barely hear them over the peals of laughter coming out of you. You were so high up that you could look the jolly roger in the eye. Birds were flying past you just a bit higher, glancing at you curiously.

You fell down into Luffy’s hands again, but he learned from last time and immediately ran away from everyone crowding around him with you thrown over his shoulder.

“Would you stop?! What if she fell into the ocean?!” Nami yelled, desperately trying to close the gap between herself and you.

“One of you could’ve gotten her then, right?” Luffy said as if it were painfully obvious, turning to face them and cocking his head to the side.

While his back was turned, Usopp took the opportunity to try and creep up from behind. He made an exaggerated shushing motion to try and keep you quiet. It didn’t work. “Luffy! Usopp’s trying to sneak up on you!” You tattled on him with a smile on your face. Usopp’s jaw dropped at the betrayal.

“Huh? He is?” Luffy whirled around, to verify this. “What are you doing crouched down like that? You tryin’ to play leap frog or something?”

Nami took him having his back turned as her chance. She lunged for you, but wasn’t quick enough. Luffy sidestepped, causing her to plow right into Usopp and tackle him to the ground with a yelp. You giggled and clapped your hands at the mayhem. 

After untangling herself from Usopp, Nami growled in aggravation, “Zoro! Would you quit working out for three seconds and help us?!”

Zoro barely spared her more than a glance before resuming his bicep curls, “Luffy’s just playing with her. What’s the big deal? Relax.”

Sanji ran up from the side, coming very close to grabbing you, only for Luffy to use his stretchy arms to rocket himself up to the crowsnest. There was a cacophony of yelling coming from the deck beneath you. 

Luffy’s whole body shook with laughter as he watched his crew scramble to figure out what to do next. You were perched up on his shoulders now with his hands holding onto your ankles, taking in the sight of the chaos with him. As your own laughter died down, your attention was drawn to his hat. It looked pretty cool to you, and you wanted to wear it.

Without a moment’s hesitation, you plucked it off his head and put it onto your own. His shoulders stiffened immediately, and he snapped his head up to look at you. Not that you were paying much attention to him, rather choosing to smile triumphantly at successfully getting your hands on his hat. You looked down at him happily and asked, “Does wearing this make me the captain now?”

“Wha- Hey! First you steal my hat and now you’re trying to take my position, too?! You’re getting the hang of this pirate thing really fast!”

You weren’t able to bask in your victory for very long, the next thing you knew he pulled you off his shoulders by one of your ankles and you were back to how you were being carried around before.

Your grip on his hat wasn’t strong enough to keep him from getting it back. Luffy fixed it back onto his head with an exaggerated huff. He gave you a “serious” stare that only caused you to giggle more.

“Mutiny is a serious crime, you know! You’re in trouble now!”

This made you stop instantly, eyes shooting wide and panic setting in. You were just playing, you didn’t mean to make him mad, much less mad enough to get you into trouble. The smile that had been plastered onto your face up until now fell and your lip began to tremble. You tried to keep a brave face and not be “an attention-seeking crybaby” as your parents put it, but your resolve wasn’t strong enough and tears started to well in your eyes.

Luffy’s demeanor switched just like that, and he started to panic right with you. “Whoa, hey, you don’t need to cry about it! I was just kidding! You’re not really in trouble!” You were shifted into an upright position and brought in for a hug. He was bouncing you slightly and patting your back (a little harshly, but you didn’t say anything about it).

You sniffled pitifully, “I’m not? You promise?”

“Yeah! I promise!”

“Okay…” you mumbled, rubbing at your eyes with your sleeve to try and stop the tears that had begun to drip down your face.

“Luffy you- Why is she crying?!” Nami had finally made it up to the crowsnest, only to be horrified upon seeing your teary-eyed expression. She barely had a leg in before aggressively taking you into her arms and smacking Luffy’s head.

“Crying?!” Sanji popped up behind her a moment later. He took a second to confirm that it was indeed you that was crying, and then went after Luffy like a rabid dog. “How dare you make the little lady cry!”

“Hey, I didn’t do it on purpose! We were just playing around!” Luffy shot himself backwards, tumbling over the edge to escape Sanji’s pursuit. Sanji didn’t hesitate to leap down after him. They both hit the ground with a series of thuds and you heard Zoro saying some swear words. Did they land on him?

Nami was rocking you back and forth and scowling down at them, muttering under her breath about them being a bunch of idiots. When she switched her attention to you, her face softened, “Are you okay, Lucky? Our dumb captain didn’t hurt you, did he?”

You shook your head, “No, I’m okay. He just said I was in trouble for mutiny but then said he was joking so I guess I’m fine.”

“Mutiny?”

“I stole his hat and tried to be the captain,” you admitted to your crimes sorrowfully, still ashamed of your actions even though Luffy said that you weren’t in trouble.

Nami snorted at this, but coughed and tried to hide it, “Yeah, don’t worry about it, honey. I’m sure he was just joking around with you, but I’m still going to yell at him later for making you cry.” She rubbed your back reassuringly, offering you her sweetest smile, “Are you hungry? How about we get you something to eat.”

“Hmm, okay,” you conceded, food sounded pretty good right about now. There was something that was bothering you though, “Hey Nami? How come everyone keeps calling me Lucky?”

Realization flashed across her face, “Oh right! You remember how we said that you’ve been traveling with us for a while now when you first woke up here? Well, you see, you haven’t been able to remember your name so we’ve just been calling you a nickname.”

“Why can’t I remember my name?”

She scowled at the memory, “Because our stupid captain “accidentally” hit your head when you first met and made you forget everything.” Shaking her head to dismiss the thought, she focused her attention back on you, “But now you do have your memories! Why don’t you tell me your name?”

You mulled this over in your head, feeling a little unsure of this crazy story. Nami was staring at you with anticipation, so you made up your mind quickly. “Nope!” You stuck your tongue out at her mischievously, “It’s a secret!”

She gasped and held a hand to her chest in mock betrayal, “Lucky! Come on, please tell me! If you do, I'll keep it a secret, too!” 

“Nuh-uh! I’m not telling!” You nodded resolutely, enjoying having a secret of your own. It felt so powerful!

Nami sulked her shoulders upon seeing the determination in your eyes, knowing she wasn’t going to win this one for the time being. She sighed and began climbing down the rope ladder to the deck, “Fine, you win for now.” She looked over to where Sanji was still fighting with Luffy (and also Zoro for some reason?) and called out to him, “Hey Sanji, Lucky is hungry!”

Immediately, he violently shoved both crewmates away from him and turned to you two with a slightly disheveled appearance. While attempting to straighten out his clothes and hair, he grinned warmly at you, “How could I be so careless as to not check if you were hungry myself? What’s your favorite food? I’ll make anything you want to make up for it.”

“Really? Anything?” Your eyes were sparkling and you felt your mouth watering as all of your favorite foods flashed through your head.

“Yes, anything,” he repeated back.

You squealed in excitement and clambered into his arms once he was close enough, “You’re the best, mister Sanji!” As you began to rattle off some of your favorites, Sanji was clutching at his chest and trying his damnedest not to give out from how cute this was.

“That sounds good! I want some of that, too!” Luffy popped up at his side, eyeing his cook expectantly.

Sanji’s dopey expression twisted into a scowl and he swung his leg at him, “You don’t get any, stay out of my da-” he cleared his throat, “out of my kitchen.”

Luffy dodged it with a practiced ease and kept following anyway, tacking on other foods he thought Sanji should make while he’s at it. All of it was meat.

You swung your feet happily, watching the interaction. You don’t really understand how your grown up self got to know these people, or how you got turned into a child. Seriously, what’s a devil fruit? But, you think you get why you wanted to be with them despite getting hit on the head by one of them. They seem like fun and nice people.

[elsweetheart]

Can I request something? You see, my friends tell me that I tend to flirt without even noticing. And I've noticed I indeed do that. I look people in the eyes and then look at their lips, I lick my own lips while doing that. I also tend to say softs "hmmm" "uhuum" to show them I'm paying attention. But I don't do that with that intention, because when I WANT to flirt, I'm a mess. Can you do Ellie or Abby (you choose) having a crush/dating someone who does that?

omg !!! me !!!!!!! i love this yes yes yea

im gonna do this w ellie because there’s not much to say about abby other than she will simply just bend you over and -

good view

🎀 short drabble in a hc format ?? idk wht this is. pre-relationship ellie x reader :)

• you were kinda out of it. didn’t get much sleep, and the weather was just warm enough to wear a tank top but a breeze still passed through the abandoned building you were all currently held up in, so you were fiddling with the thin cardigan you wore, pulling them over your hands. it put you in a relaxed, sleepy, slow mood.

• you and ellie weren’t together yet, so of course at any given opportunity when she sees you sitting alone she’d make conversation. she slid a chair over to where you were sat alone at a small table, straddling it backwards resting her arms on the back of the chair.

• “did you call dibs on a room? there’s not much choice, i mean they’re all pretty shitty.” she smirked light heartedly as you turned to face her.

• “yeah, picked the one with the good view.” you smiled hazily having being broken from your thoughts and your sleepy daydreams. you were blinking slowly, ellie always thought your eyelashes looked extra pretty when you did that.

• “nice, my window faces a brick wall.” she comment with an eye roll and you giggled which made her features noticeably perk up when she saw the way your teeth sunk into your bottom lip mid giggle to stifle it. she tried not to stare, launching into a story about the time her and Joel passed through a fancy abandoned building and she called dibs on the fancy penthouse bedroom and made Joel sleep in the maid quarters.

• you were listening intently, at first, but you were tired and her features were just so distracting. not even because of your huge crush on her, she just was… interesting. your eyes dragged down to her bottom lip where she had acquired a fresh cut from some kind of scuffle she’d wound up in and watched the way it moved with her mouth as she spoke. “mhm.” you breathed lightly to let her know you were still sort of listening.

• she felt her heart in her throat as she watched your fluttery eyes stare at her lips and completely stumbled over what she was going to say. “it was funny because he was— um… it was funny because fucking—uh…” she lost track of what she was trying to say and this caused you to casually glance back up at her eyes, furrowing your eyebrows slightly in confusion making them look extra big and doe like which did not her help case.

• “wh’s wrong?” you spoke so softly she could barely hear it over the blood thumping in her ears when she realised she was blushing. what made it worse, is she watched you in real time notice her blushing too, your pretty eyes gliding across her face. “c’mon dude.” she laughed, sitting back away from where she was leaning on the chair to wipe her hands down her face.

• “i’m so confused.” you giggled back and she chuckled, fiddling with the chipped wooden table corner for a moment before looking back up at you with a little more determination.

• “can i finish my story please? without you eyeballing me like that?” her tone was jokey, slightly putting on a voice but you could tell she meant it. you sat back a little, tilting your head to the side like a confused puppy. “and like that.” she laughed before flickering her own eyes to your mouth. “s’distracting.” was all she needed to say and you sort of caught on and raised your eyebrows a little.

• “oh…” you willed her to speak more with her stare, so she did. “you’re pretty. drives me crazy, just a little bit.” she scrunched her nose and you smiled, letting it drop slightly as you held her stare. she cleared her throat, feeling overwhelmed. “anyway, as i was saying before you rudely interrupted with your face.” she continued which made you laugh. perhaps you needed to be more mindful about how you looked at people, however you did enjoy teasing ellie.

[felassan]

Game Informer:

"BioWare On Returning To The Dragon Age Series, 10 Years After Inquisition by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 17, 2024 at 02:00 PM With 10 years between 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition, the most recent release in the series, and the upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the latter has much riding on it. It's both a follow-up to a beloved game from a decade ago in one of BioWare’s most beloved series, and it's the first BioWare game since the launch of 2019's Anthem, a live-service multiplayer effort EA sunset less than two years later. Curious about the pressure surrounding the release of Veilguard, I spoke to BioWare about lessons learned from following up on Inquisition and what it's been like returning to this series so many years later."

"We start out in pre-production," BioWare general manager Gary McKay tells me when I ask about BioWare's guiding principle for developing Veilguard. "We spent a lot of time iterating, experimenting, and innovating on different things. At one point, it was multiplayer – we did a hard look at multiplayer, but we felt we really couldn't return to our roots. And when we asked ourselves, 'What is the game that we want to develop,' we really wanted to get back to our roots, which is amazing storytelling. It's about those unforgettable characters. And it's about having the opportunity to influence the world.  "And we really felt multiplayer wouldn't do that. But single-player RPG is really where we wanted to spend our time, so after spending that time in pre-production, really honing in on what the vision of this game is, and [being] afforded the opportunity to deliver on the creative promise of this game, [now] we're really excited about what's coming out." McKay says Veilguard blends seasoned veterans with new voices and perspectives, and "that's really important for this game." For example, people like former Dragon Age producer Mark Darrah, who left the studio in 2021 but is now consulting for Veilguard, and creative director John Epler together have decades of experience at BioWare. They work with people like game director Corinne Busche, who joined BioWare shortly after the launch of Anthem (but brings in a love of Dragon Age from the series' 2009 start), every day to develop the game we'll be playing this fall."

""[You] want to have different perspectives, different backgrounds," McKay says. "If you bring a bunch of people together that have only known one thing, that's not where you see creativity. That's not where innovation comes from. Innovation comes when you have [...] that past history and blend it with some new voices and perspectives.""

"Darrah has been attached to BioWare in some capacity since its early Baldur's Gate days, and when I ask him about the studio's progression from that series to the next Dragon Age, he says it's been amazing. "The thing that is so amazing about Veilguard is this is the game where we finally said out loud that BioWare's greatest strength is telling stories through characters. If you go all the way back to Baldur's Gate 1, Baldur's Gate 2, these games are telling stories through characters, but there wasn't an intentionality behind that. And in this game, we're finally putting that intentionality first and foremost, putting the characters first, building the game around that, around those character moments, which is really the best way that BioWare knows how to tell stories."  I ask Darrah if there's anything Veilguard is doing that BioWare wanted to do on previous games but couldn't, and he says, "Storytelling through animation." In previous games, each character moves in "exactly the same way," and everyone is homogenous in that way, he says. "If you put on a suit of armor, and you put it on Alistair, you looked exactly the same standing right beside each other. "Now, we're able to keep the character coming through in the visuals and the motion, even as you're customizing them, which just wasn't possible in the past."  He also mentions BioWare's confidence in its game development engine for Veilguard, which, like Inquisition, uses EA's proprietary Frostbite. "Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II were doing what they could with the technology they had; Dragon Age: Inquisition did a good job of using Frostbite respective of the engine," Darrah says. "But with this game, there's a better understanding of the engines over a lot more time, but also, the technology of the hardware that the game is going to be played on moving forward [is] able to do a lot more stuff [and] execute it visually to a degree that just wasn't possible in the past." On Inquisition [link to embedded video of old GI coverage on DA:I in the DA:I days - I think it was a shortened version of this one]"

"With 10 years between Inquisition and Veilguard, BioWare has to balance satisfying longtime fans of the series with newcomers jumping in for the first time. Epler says the studio worked hard to ensure Veilguard is respectful and referential to previous games without feeling like you need to have played Inquisition, Dragon Age II, or Origins to fully understand what's going on.  "So while there are references, there are moments that we have callbacks, it really is its own story, its own continuation with a different cast, with different characters," he says. "Historically, Dragon Age has always had a different cast per game, so that gives us a lot of freedom in terms of what we want to lean on in the past and what we want to really bring in that’s new and forward-facing."  Darrah adds that Veilgaurd's events play out with a storytelling goal for the future of the series. "This is a game which takes the ball that Inquisition had, puts its own spin on it, has its own characters, takes its own direction, but continues the path forward into the future," he says.  "Dragon Age has always been about change. Every game has had a new protagonist, and it's been exploring its own space all the time, and this game is no different. [Veilguard] does a good job of bridging that gap. The really super fans of Dragon Age have actually made a lot of really educated guesses, and some of them are pretty right about where the franchise is going. The thing we need to make sure is that people who may have only played Inquisition are understanding what the franchise is really about – it's about a new protagonist, it's about change, it's about evolution – and don't come in expecting a direct sequel to a game they played and then are disappointed. This game is something new, something that evolves, something that is greater than what came before, the same as each game [...] before it." 

"For Busche, balancing newcomers and fan expectations in Veilguard is about managing assumptions. She says Veilguard takes place in a part of Thedas BioWare has only hinted at. The team has hinted at the Grey Warden fortress of Weisshaupt, the depths of Arlathan Forest, the Rivain Coast, the Grand Necropolis of Nevarra, and Minrathous, but now players will finally go to these stories' locations.  "We have a rich history of world-building within the IP, so existing players will be familiar with these places and very excited to go to them and explore their mysteries," Busche tells me. "But for our new players, we're not assuming you know anything about these locations. I would say that also extends to the characters; we've taken great care in how we introduce each and every single companion and major story figure within the game [with that in mind]."" "Epler tells me that Veilguard differs from Inquisition and other Dragon Age games in the way that Rook, the player character, can't save the world without the characters they meet on their journey.  "Dragon Age has always been about characters but to some degree, it's almost felt like we've lucked into that," he says. "Inquisition is a story that ultimately, you, the main character [...] have the biggest part to play. We wanted to tell a story this time where you literally cannot save the world without these characters. Beyond that, though, we also wanted to give them their own arcs that can run parallel to the main story and really give them that kind of deep storytelling our fans really enjoy."  Though he's biased for obvious reasons, Epler says Veilguard is his favorite Dragon Age game he's worked on (and he's worked on all of them, starting as a quality assurance tester on Origins). He says one reason for this is the storytelling in the characters, companions, and relationships."

"They have their friendships, they have their rivalries, and lean into that concept," he tells me. "You're not just pulling together a bunch of people who will do whatever you say. You're assembling a family, and that becomes the core of what the Veilguard is all about. It's about taking this group, this found family, and saving the world, side by side with them." For more about the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below."

[source]

[cheriladycl01]

You built it, you fix it... Daniel Ricciardo x Engineer! Reader

Plot: Ricciardo isn't having an amazing season in Mclaren, and keeps complaining about everything especially Lando's friendship with an engineer. However, Lando seems to be doing just fine.

Mclaren, hadn't really been a top competitor since 2012 when they just came behind Ferrari in the constructors championship. However, you'd been employed halfway through the 2020 season. Mclaren are known for taking risky moves and employing youth over experience, so you being the hot shot graduate who'd interned with them 2 summers ago, they grabbed at the opportunity to have you on board.

You didn't travel with them in 2020, deciding to help in the MTC building the 2021 car, to see if you had any ideas that would make it better.

You had big opinions on the 2021 car, so Zac asked for you to travel with them for the 2021 calendar to keep an eye on things with the head engineer.

You considered this to be a phenomenal opportunity where you could travel while working.

In came, Pre Season testing in Bahrain and Lando was reporting that the car felt good, and much faster than the previous year. Yourself and Lando got on really well, being similar ages and all that. He reported everything about the car to you. Zac had appointed you as Lando's race engineer, while your counter part Charlie focused on Daniel's car. You gave him pointers on how to maximize the best out of a 'mid field' car, knowing that you'd put some little secrets in there (completely legal and within the FIA rules) that would maximize both car's potentials.

This is how he ended up coming P4 in the first race of the season. Zac pulled you into the biggest hug ever, fully lifting you up into the air while the other mechanics and engineers you'd worked with in the MCT came to congratulate you. It was your initiative and new ideas that made the car quicker this year.

To come ahead of both Ferrari's and a Red Bull was something special to all of the team.

Daniel had a larger time gap behind the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, but still came P7 getting valuable points to the team.

"I don't get it" Daniel complained in the debrief room. Zac's head looks at the screen before gazing at the driver.

"What don't you get Daniel?" Zac asked.

"Why's Lando's car looks so much quicker than mine... it looks like a different car when you see Lando pass me and how quickly he did it!" Daniel complains, as he watches the on-board of Lando passing him in Sector 2.

"Both the car's have been built the same Daniel, we can assure you that!" the head engineer, your boss admits.

"Are you sure, because to me it seems like some of you team have their favorites!" he exclaims before sending you a look, you look back at him in shock at the accusations.

"Y/N, are these claims true?" Andrea asks looking over at you before Zac butts in.

"This is ridiculous Daniel... Y/N has worked with us since last year. When Carlos was in your seat. She met Lando way before she was introduced to you. They have become friends" Zac assures in a dad like tone, scolding Daniel for the accusations.

If accusations like that were thrown round the paddock, other teams would want to launch and investigation into Mclaren with the FIA, and that's the last thing Zac wanted this season.

"I just think its odd how Lando was that much quicker as the less experienced driver" Daniel scoffs.

"Daniel, you have to bear in mind that Lando's been driving for Mclaren for 2 previous seasons. He knows the team and he knows the car. You've come from a car that was built to cater for Max Verstappen's driving style, you had to adapt to that before you went into a completely different car in Renault. You are still learning, and its only the first race" you say to him, everyone keeping their mouth shut at the irritated sound and aura leaking from you.

You slouched back in your seat no longer wanting to deal with his dramatics.

IMOLA was even worse for Daniel, Lando was stood sharing a podium with Max and Lewis while he'd come in 6th. It was to him, a very bitter-sweet feeling.

In Portugal, it was proven that Lando was consistent in performing the the top 5 this year as he came 5th. Daniel, coming in 9th. There had been rumors going through Mclaren that you and Charlie were too switch in where the advise was going to. You'd go to Daniel and Charlie would move to Lando.

"Zac?" you ask knocking on the door, you'd heard some raised voices in there. You weren't eves-dropping because you wanted to address the rumors with Zac and see if there genuinely was going to be as switch. You'd do anything to stay with Lando, it was like you guys had become best friends and he was someone you felt safe and comfortable with. You knew how to communicate with Lando, but Daniel... you think you'd struggle with.

"Change it Zac, or you wont have me here for 2022!" Daniel, yells before slamming the door open. He glances at you before walking off down to the garage.

"Zac, what was that?" you ask, looking behind you out the door, no Daniel in sight.

"Y/N I'm sorry but depending how the next few races go... we might have to switch you and Charlie round!" he shakes his head, pen on paper writing something down.

"Why... the teams doing well. I've watched Daniel drive and he's just still getting used to the car. He's not pushing as much as he could, he's playing safe. Lando's taking risks, and he's getting us those points because as of right now, he is the better driver!" you shout, letting all of your annoyance for Daniel out at your boss.

"I'm sorry Zac, I didn't mean to yell" you huff, he points to the chair opposite him, that you take slumping down.

"It's okay, you and Lando work well together. I don't want to change that dynamic as the risk of Charlie not getting Lando those wins like you are, and then there's obvious tension between you and Daniel, so i cant see that portraying well with a switch.

Spain looked at though it was a turning point for Daniel, he'd come in 6th while Lando came behind him. The Ferrari's had changed their car, meaning Carlos and Charles now were at an advantage. It was a difficult race weekend for Lando, and Daniel couldn't help but comment on it in briefing.

You'd promised Lando, you'd get him and podium in Monaco. And you never ever go back on promises.

So Lando coming P3 made everyone's day in Mclaren. But Daniel... he had an awful race, being knocked and ending up coming P12 not securing any points for the team. He'd asked in debrief if something had been done to Lando's car since last week, but again the team assured him we hadn't.

Azerbaijan was similar and at this point, Daniel was getting fed up. Zac had told him because of the accusations and how he was acting that he wouldn't switch you and Charlie around.

France was tense, with Daniel coming behind Lando after being told not to go for an overtake. He knew tensions were high with his team already where he'd been complaining about the cars and the team, and he needed to secure that seat for 2022. So he took it on the chin.

"Y/N, I want to talk" Daniel said pulling you round a quiet corner and out the pack of the hostility where it was quietest, no media.

"Daniel, I'm busy i need to check the car's for Styria!" you say, looking back round, wondering why he had to drag you all the way round.

"What have you told Lando, that Charlie hasn't told me!" he says, pushing you back against the wall slightly, the flexing of the aluminum you are lent against sounding in your ear.

"I haven't told him anything that isn't in the pre-season briefing pack that I wrote available for myself and Charlie. If your engineer has failed to inform you of something that isn't my fault Ricciardo. Suck it up... maybe your just not the hot shot you used to be" you say, yes it was a low blow but considering all Daniel had done since you built the car was criticize and accuse you when Lando was having exceptional drives.

"Excuse me..." he said.

"You heard me Daniel, stop shitting on Lando and the car and do better!" you say with a smirk, telling you were riling him up more and more.

"You built it, you fix it" he says.

"Why fix what isn't broken..." you smile before turning away and walking back to the garage leaving Daniel shell shocked.

Styria was awful for Daniel, and you thought maybe what you said was too harsh on him, but you gave him one look as he got out of the car that had him storming to his driver's room to look at the mistakes he had made with Charlie to try and correct them.

Austria he had picked himself back up into a points position and didn't complain at a Lando podium, he congratulated him in fact with a massive hug and a well done mate. You gave him a nod, which in return you got one back.

Spa was the pivotal moment for Daniel, after what was a hard few races, with some DNF's and some not very good positions Daniel came 4th, and he was grinning the whole day.

"Y/N!" he shouted you over, you job over after rubbing Lando's shoulder being a bit disheartened by his P14.

"I should thank you, for talking some sense into me. I think after Renault last year, my racing mind wasn't what it used to be. It was the first time i realized you were right with what you said in Zac's office. Even Lando's DNF's prove he's the better driver right now, but i think I'm slowly getting back to that 'hotshot' driver" he smirks, making you laugh.

"Well, if that hot shot driver ever wants to join me for dinner, to make up for the pain of this season, i'll be more than happy to attend!" you grin, before turning off and walking away.

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