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#and i need money to buy more papers.
lovelaceisntdead · 1 year
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Just discovered a new brand of decorative papers. Uh oh.
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adore-gregor · 3 months
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Gregor interview behind a paywall, life's not fair 😅💔
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fingertipsmp3 · 6 months
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Swear to god if I was actually a proper reddit user I’d be posting the stupidest AITA posts
#so my friend rang me asking if i could print something out. mind you i got her message saying that and i was responding and she literally#didn’t even give me one minute to answer. so i answer the phone already annoyed because it’s like.. where the hell is the fire#i’m trying to eat my tea here and you make me leap out of my seat to answer the landline because you can’t wait 30 seconds for a reply. why#so i answer the phone and she sounds like she’s been crying so i’m like ‘god what’s this thing she needs me to print… a ransom note??’#why was it a template for a gingerbread house. so i’m like ‘yes of course i’ll print it. are you okay though’ she says she has an upper#respiratory infection. i’m like ‘that’s fucked up. i’ll print your thing but are you sure you should be cooking for people’#she’s like ‘thank you so so much ellen i’m so sorry for putting you out; i’ll pay you’ and like. here’s where i will freely admit that i was#being a dick. but i have told her a million times before to STOP offering me money for random stupid favours like printing literally one (1)#document for her or giving her kid a bag of crisps to keep her quiet or something. it drives me crazy when she does this because it makes me#feel like she’s trying to imply that i’m that much of a frugal penny pincher that i’m going to sit here and calculate how much a piece of#paper and a millilitre of ink costs me and charge for that miniscule sum. or like i view our friendship as transactional or something#which could not be further from the truth. like bitch i’d give you a kidney no questions asked. stop offering me money to print your shit#and she’s soooo apologetic over it too; she’s like apologising for being alive. and the self flagellating bullshit drives me CRAZY#like it does not cause me any trouble whatsoever to open one singular application on my phone and click two buttons. my printer is plugged#in 24-7 because that’s how it tells HP when it’s out of ink and to send more. a service i pay 99p a month for mind you. i don’t notice#i don’t care. most of the time i make my granddad buy my printer paper because he shows up here unannounced asking me to print dozens#of flyers from his club and doesn’t otherwise offer payment so i’m like ‘well can you buy some paper since i now have none’#so what i said to her was ‘if you offer me money one more time i’m never printing anything for you again’ which i think bamboozled her#i was like ‘i’m printing it now. pick it up whenever you want just don’t offer money’ she’s like ‘but i was just thinking—‘#‘DON’T FUCKING THINK’ yeah that was an overreaction possibly. but i was just like. i don’t want to hear your justification for why you want#to give me 5p or something for printing your stupid gingerbread house template. don’t tell me it. i disagree with it#if you want to pay for your shit to be printed that fucking badly you can go to the library#so anyway she messaged me saying ‘i’m not coming over because i don’t want to argue’ i didn’t reply but i was literally just sitting there#thinking… we don’t have to argue. i’ve told you my terms. just don’t offer me money for stupid little favours and you won’t hear an argument#from me. that’s all#i honestly feel like she’s just offering me money because she knows it makes me mad. she loves annoying me. well she’s succeeded#AITA? yes but also for the love of godddd will you just LISTEN to me. if it’s a joke it’s not fucking funny at this point it’s just annoying#personal#rant
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tweltchy · 2 years
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Trying to convince chronic Pokemon fans to play another RPG is like talking to a brick wall. It's useless.
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loud-whistling-yes · 1 year
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(through gritted teeth) im doing this for the A. im doing this for the A. im doing this for the A. im doi (im looking at my economics worksheet) (its empty) (ive been staring at it for an hour) 
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shiningstages · 1 year
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Me lookin' at my lil content: d'aaaaaaaw it's so cute~
I wanted to do stuff before work, but I like blanked out since I'm sleepy (went to bed around 1? 2?? then woke up at 7:11; not terrible but not like Great) then did my required stretchies / looked up stuff for things~ Tomorrow I have my last PT session and follow-up, and then I plan on cleaning my room / generally just chilling out since it has been Forever, but now...I will try and schedule in time for OC thoughts today and tomorrow (still have to decide if Atlas would be primal or astral...and maybe compare some story stuff to make sure it's not stepping on any Canon toes...but maybe we also don't care about that second bit ghffjghfgvcccgkhf).
#;big bubble blowing baby! ( ooc )#( i think...i'm gonna try and schedule my hair cut too. either saturday or next thursday#i love my long flowy hair but i've getting that feeling of just...can't take it anymore ghfjcghfcgkhgcjgv#BUT it's also supposed to get colder so i may wimp out because this hair Protects Me#i also have to talk with my workman's comp doc about specific restriction papers my store director gave me tomorrow (fear)#i don't really like feeling less useful at work; but i also have just accepted that i need to take care of myself#i'm hoping nothing Too Big happens with that because i still wanna bank a lot of money before going back to school#but also a tiny bit less hours a week (since i work around 37-39 rn) would be nice...maybe even an extra day off...more me time#in other news i've also had many vtuber thoughts GFDHGFHGFHJFGHF#the only important one is...accepting that i should just kind of Do It. instead of actively thinking of where i wanna be; if that makes#any sense#and wars gave me Big Incentive to clean my room in like a non-vtuber way; but also just like...the motivation!!! the hype!!!#i have a lot of steps in my mind to do my creative stuff; but my room Must be clean#not that all my stuff isn't on my dad's very nice desk but...i don't want any potential pc i buy to be there#it would be so much better environment-wise (aka not being in my kitchen where my dad always is and near the living room#where my bro always streams) plus it's a two-way street of i don't want to disturb them either#i thought about cleaning my mom's office but she literally told me no because she wants to clean it all herself#which her being like “i have to be the one to go through everything when cleaning” is just...i see where i get my attitude#BUT ANYWAYS#i need to get ready for work gfhgjfjgfhgkjgfcghfg being the closer so much is so tiring;;#hopefully tonight is good and i don't have to have Drama and anyone who freaks out )
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bipidin · 2 years
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Decisions decisions and all of them are giving me a heart attack
#so i have 2300 dollars in my saving rn#and I will owe the school 2800 dollars just about for this upcoming semester#BUT#i want an ipad for notes#bc i have been taking my notes digitally for the past year on my laptop but my laptop decided halfway through the last semester#that it did not like being used as a notebook and now gives me so many headaches with the pen(s)#also it was hard when i was watching lectures to take notes and i prefer digital only bc of how versetaille it is#paper feels so permanant that i become nervous about writing something down bc what if it messes up the flow?but i can lasso shit digitaly#so much less stress and just i fell in love with that - plus cs major im going to snip diagrams/algo codes/flow charts and annotate them#bc help me lord copying that shit down is a nightmare while trying to listen to the actual important stuff#ANYWAY#money#bc that means i wipe out the savings I just built and im just gonna be sad for another year bc i wont be able to afford some nice things#the concert i wanted to see will also be way iut of my budget#im scared of accidently impulse buying - im aware this is a purchase that i've been thinking about since feb/mar#but what if im lying to myself and i dont need it and i regret it - what if i regret not getting it now with the 100 gift card promo#that way the pen is more affordable#even if i dont need it too much this sem im planning a harder next sem#how will i afford the next sem?#thats like 800 dollars an ipad air with case and screen protector and pen - can i deal with messy paper notes?#(no that will give me anxiety - paper notes have to be neat and pretty -> its permanent)#but this IS a want#i shouldnt do it#but i want to#i think im just trying to justify a frivolous expense#but i really cant take digital notes on my laptop anymore#i just scribbled a budget for 20 min and the amount of times the pen would freeze or skip was drving me insane#and by nice things i mean skipping meals with friends(they eat expensive for me)/clothes i will prob need to budget around#small happy things to give me a boost
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lifehacksthatwork · 1 year
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Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023
Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!
Sejda - Free online PDF editor.
Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.
Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.
Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.
12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.
Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.
TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.
OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.
My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.
Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.
Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.
PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.
Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.
Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.
LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.
Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.
Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.
CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.
Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.
I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.
Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.
Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.
Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.
My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.
Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.
Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.
Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.
Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.
Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.
Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.
Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.
This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.
Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.
BitWarden – Free open source password manager.
Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.
Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.
ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.
Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.
Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.
Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.
myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.
DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.
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sukunasteeth · 2 months
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Sukuna has never said no to you.
It didn’t matter what the request was, simple or complicated, easy to fix or a days-long job, Sukuna was always at your side, completing the task as fast as he needed to to keep you satisfied. He would love to deny it, you’re sure, but evidence proves time and time again that he puts your needs and wants at the top of his priority list. 
And you were curious how far you could go with it.
The two of you are sitting in your underwear at the breakfast nook, warming yourselves in the bay window while the morning sun starts on the leftover night time chill. It wasn't quite time for breakfast, still too early for the both of you. In the meantime, you sip on your morning brews, preserving the comfortable silence. Sukuna is flipping through the day's newspaper, his eyes are groggy with sleep and he hasn't said more than a handful of words to you yet. He wasn't a morning person.
You were starting to change that.
"Kuna," You call to him, nudging him with your foot from your corner of the window bench.
"Hmm?" He doesn't look up from the paper, but his hand reaches down and grabs your foot, pulling it into his lap. His thumbs start to subconsciously knead at your muscles.
"I want these." You hold up your phone, which you had previously been scrolling through in an attempt to find something ridiculous for this exact moment. You were sure you had found it, something even Sukuna would find unnecessary. 
And yet, he merely glances at your screen, takes in the sight for all of two seconds, and then returns his attention to whatever news article he was in the middle of.
"My wallet's on the counter." He clears the sleep from his throat not sparing a second look. 
You blink at him in surprise.
"D-Did you even see what it is?" You flip your phone around to make sure you were displaying the correct thing. 
Sukuna is frowning before he looks up again, curious at your persistence. He gently cups your hand, bringing it only a minuscule amount closer to examine your screen a second time. 
You were on one of the most luxurious brand’s websites, showing him an incredibly regular pair of panties, no straps, no details, all black- with one of the most outrageous price tags you had ever seen for something so ordinary. 
Sukuna cocks a brow at you over your phone, "Can't imagine you need more panties when you're constantly stealing my boxers. But whatever, hand it over. I know my card number-"
"Kuna," You interrupt him with a surprised laugh, holding fast to your phone when he tries to pluck it out of your hands, "they're a thousand dollars."
He glances back, his eyes focusing lower on the screen where you know the price tag to be. The newspaper in his hands drops down, momentarily forgotten by what he sees. For a moment, you think you've found his limit.
"Wait, are those red one's assless?" He points just below the price, where the recommended products are depicted. "Get those too."
You drop the phone down so that he meets your eyes, which are wide with shock.
Sukuna always took care of you. Always insisted on being the provider of any single thing that you may need; a warm meal, a soft bed, anything your eyes twinkled at that was available for purchase- even if you would never think of buying or owning it. Granted, you never wanted much in terms of material possessions, so you didn't realize the true extent of Sukuna's leniency until now.
It was slightly intimidating, and part of it felt wrong. Sukuna had money, plenty of it, but that didn’t mean he should feel the need to spend copious amounts of it on you just because you could ask him to. He was giving you too much power, it felt like.
You huff through your nose, frowning at him, which only has him tilting his head further to the side in question.
You ignore it, setting your phone onto the window seat and crawling your way closer to him, until you can gather up his face in your hands and lock his gaze into yours.
He glares at you past smushed cheeks, but doesn't make a move to break free of your hold, humoring you. "The hell are you doing-"
"You know you don't always have to say yes to me?"
Now that has him taken aback. His mouth automatically opens for a witty response, but your question seems to have effectively taken the words from his mouth. You can see the cogs in his head turning, and what you wouldn't give to peer inside his mind and hear his thoughts.
It takes him a moment, but eventually that familiar confident smile stretches across his sleepy face. His hands seem to instinctively slide their way up your bare legs until his fingers grip your hip bones, pressing into you. 
He hums, "When have you ever said no to me?"
You scoff, ready to give him a prime example, but end up coming up short. The two of you loved to tease each other with disobedience, but in the end you were eager to give Sukuna anything his heart desired. You loved to please him, it was one of your favorite things to do, in fact.
"You never ask anything ridiculous of me." You remind him, smiling as one of his warm hands slides back down your waist and dips into the pair of his boxers you were sporting that day. 
"You know what's ridiculous?” His voice wraps around your throat, and suddenly has you swallowing past the delicious grip. You're folding into him before you even realize it, at the mercy of his calloused hands. "The implication that I wouldn't do just about anything for you."
You can't help but sigh hopelessly, although it comes out as a desperate noise that pleads him for more. You really were all his, just like he loved to tell you.
"Now hand me your phone." It's a whisper, coaxing you. "I wanna see you in red."
You can’t say no. 
At least it was mutual.
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Google’s enshittification memos
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[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]
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When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.
Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:
The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.
https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/
"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."
And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.
How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.
When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.
People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/
Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":
http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf
Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:
https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/
And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/
How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:
https://killedbygoogle.com/
Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.
It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/
With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.
Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.
Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.
It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":
https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d
Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.
Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.
Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":
https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic
After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf
The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."
OK.
But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."
It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."
"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."
And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."
In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.
Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."
For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.
But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar
John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it
Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:
https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554
Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.
For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue
But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:
https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/
When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."
Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).
Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.
But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.
And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.
As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.
But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.
The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."
What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.
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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/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics
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My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!
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mephestopheles · 1 year
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everytime I think the adhd might not be real that I might be twisting myself into these shapes to fit a diagnosis, I then find myself obsessively going through every website that has storage options that are available locally, or deliverable within a decent time frame, only to become frustrated the point of insanity when there is the tiniest of roadblocks
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ms-demeanor · 4 months
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Hey nobody has asked me about this ADHD money management tip and it depends on having at least a tiny bit of flex in your budget but I'm about to spend a frustrating amount of money on flour and I can only do it because of this tip:
Hide cash from yourself like a squirrel.
Use whatever receptacle you'd like, envelopes or a zipper bag or an old wallet, create labels for the stuff you're saving for, and tuck money in there occasionally.
My stash lives in an old wallet with strips of paper around it. It's got dividers for "car registration," "bulk food," "vet visit," and a couple other things.
These are things that I know happen every year or multiple times a year that take more cash than I can easily spare from a single paycheck. If I stick twenty bucks a month in an old wallet it will mean that even if I have to pay late fees, I don't have to put my car registration on a credit card and pay interest on my late fees. If I stick ten bucks a month in an old wallet I can buy 25lbs of flour twice a year. If I can stick a bit more or less cash as it's available into the wallet I can make sure that my twice-annual regular vet visits with senior dog bloodwork and vaccinations aren't going to be too much of a hit to that month's grocery budget.
Like, everyone talks about "put money in savings once a month" or "have an account you don't touch for emergencies" and that can totally work if you can swing it, but I know it's REALLY hard for me to keep from pulling from the "emergency" fund for stuff that's a minor emergency/or is regular maintenance that I should have planned for/etc.
It's much harder for me to pull from the actual cash sitting in a physical room in my house because A) I'll probably forget it and B) that means that I have to think through using those funds in a lot more of a direct way than I would when using a debit card and C) I literally can't access it when I'm out of the house (the emergency fund HAS to be on the card to be accessible, the "i need expensive groceries" money doesn't have to be ready to go at all times and if it is available I know myself and it'll get used before it's expensive grocery time).
Like. If you know you have an expense that you have to pay for every year, hide cash specifically for that expense instead of in a general "expenses" fund because if you're not great with money and you've got an iffy memory you might look at your expenses fund and go "okay my computer crashed and there's five hundred bucks in the fund I can replace it and get back to work, cool" and there goes your car registration and a vet visit. At least if you need to physically grab that cash for an emergency you can make note of what you're going to have a deficit for later in the year.
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elodieunderglass · 2 months
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Honestly thought I'd never hear the word "usborne" again. My mom used to live and breathe that company, and while I certainly don't regret a fair chunk, I do find it amusing as I look back now. I legitimately thought it had fallen off faster than Juice+.
In reference to a post where i mention my kid has the usborne “see inside germs” book.
So if people don’t know, usborne is a weird publishing company that has done indispensable books for British children for generations; they’re in every library, school and nursery, and have shelves devoted to them in every bookstore. They are how many people learned to read, and are the originators of many hyper focuses. They’re famed for doing educational lift the flap books for all ages, like “see inside your body”, as well as as the ubiquitous touch-and-feel series, “that’s not my….” In which a mouse comments improbably on various creatures not being their creature. “That’s not my dragon,” the mouse says, inviting you to stroke a dragon with a patch of fur on it, “its tummy is too soft. That’s not my dragon,” on the next page, where the dragon’s ears are lined with textured paper, “its ears are too bumpy.” This seems like such an inefficient way to find one’s missing dragon, a fact that simmers underneath you through endless repetition. Why does the mouse own so many things (pirates, ducks, polar bears) and why is it interrogating other people’s pirates etc by feeling their legs.
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At any rate, turn a parents’ house upside down and these books fall out.
Which is why it’s completely hilarious that they are also an MLM.
Well. Kind of. In the old school sense. It’s less about signing up a pyramid scheme and more about getting a random citizen to buy a crate of perfectly popular books and try to sell them on from their home. It’s very traditional for Mums On Maternity Leave to do this. Pre-social media and online ordering, they’d hook up other mums at toddler group. Today, they post awkwardly on social media. The idea is that buying from another parent is cheaper than the bookstore, and they get to keep the markup. They get intense about things, and I believe they attend conferences. Nobody makes a huge amount of money and it’s unclear how undercutting local bookstores is helpful; it’s also basically the same RRP as Amazon I think.
And the books are perfectly respectable and sell perfectly well in bookstores.
So. Like. This marketing scheme is completely weird. Why?? Why does it still exist? People buy the books normally! You don’t need to promote them aggressively! You don’t need elaborate independent local middlemen schemes! You can just buy them! I have never understood this. I just file it under one of those weird mat leave hustles.
But don’t worry OP. They’re still going. They’ll never stop. The thing is that your mom got bored and online sales probably ate whatever residual profit margins were left and it’s probably very liberating for everyone to grow out of the “that’s not my cow” stage, but Usborne books are going strong.
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miserycanary · 2 months
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MY HELL FOR YOUR LOVE ᡣ𐭩
♡⃛ ‘A Fixed Heart in Your Hand' alternative ending
pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley & fem!reader
synopsis: alternative ending because I feel bad for hurting y'all
tags: hurt/COMFORT, fluff
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"Sir? Sir!”
Ghost flinches as he realizes he’s been spacing out, the florist now looking at him with furrowed eyebrows. “Are you going to buy something or not?” she snaps, motioning at the display of bouquets. “Uh, yeah. Give me something with hyacinth and baby breaths,” he mutters, handing her a 100 bill. “Hyacinth? Never thought I’d see a day where a man knows a different flower aside from roses, tulips, and sunflowers,” the vendor chuckles, arranging the flowers neatly and covering them with a brown printed paper tied with a twine. “Ah,… if I know something, it’s about her.” The florist smiles, handing Ghost the bouquet and his change while saying, “Well, I can see that you love her dearly.” With a soft smirk, he replies, “That I do.”
You’ve always had a love for flowers. Going as far as to even beg him to make you a flower bed. Ghost didn’t like doing physical labor with him already getting beat from training at the base, yet when you flashed him that smile (and gave a toe-curling blowjob), how could he refuse? Since then, flowers as gifts have been rare between you two. Instances where he’d give you one are when you’re on a terrible period day or during milestones (the flowers coming from the patch he secretly planted months before).
It’s been two days since you’ve left the apartment, staying at your friend’s house, but Ghost insists on having you keep some of your stuff in the unit because, “well, you technically have ownership of the place since we shared the payment for this month.” It was a poor excuse, really, but it worked. Ghost knows you well enough to know that you haven’t broken up with him despite what you said. Leaving and staying somewhere else is something you do when you’re hurt and need space, and he knows that deep inside, you’re waiting for him. 
Don’t get him wrong. He doesn’t think you’re “easy to get” and he did really regret everything. The last 2 nights without you knocked some sense into him. The night felt colder, somber, and… lonely. Something he thought he would never complain about. I mean, this man has been through worse situations and he prefers solitude, but not if it’s solitude without you. You’re the one thing he can’t live without.
He has sent you multiple voicemails, messages, and even money as an apology. He’d always drop off by your friend’s place with some poorly attempted home-cooked meal of your favorite dishes. Sometimes he’d be able to steal a glance at you when he saw you coming up to the unit right before he arrived, sending flutters to his heart and butterflies in his stomach like a high school boy with a crush.
Now he stands by the door, hoping he’d leave the place with you in his arms, and him in your heart again. Three knocks (you always say less or more than that are for psychopaths) and a call of your name. Simon couldn’t help but chuckle when he heard your familiar cry, probably from rushing and stumbling. The wooden door cracked open, and the adrenaline that rushed through his nerves just from seeing you again could knock the man dead. He couldn’t even say anything except literally melt and give you the warmest smile. “Hi,” he softly greets, pulling the bouquet out of the paperbag and handing it to you with another gift. It was a charm... a tree bark with your initials engraved. You chuckle, pulling out the letter sticking out. 
One thing you learned about your Simon was that he’s not entirely good at conveying his feelings. I mean, that’s literally the reason for this fight. Yet he got out of his comfort zone, wrote you a fucking letter.
You look at him, tears in your eyes before jumping into his arms.
“I fucking missed you, pretty girl,” he mutters, holding you up by your ass and pressing a deep kiss on your lips. God, you taste like heaven; you taste like salvation. He tangles his fingers in your hair and pushes you closer, afraid you’ll slip from his fingers again. 
From that day on, Simon learned one thing. That he would rather go through the depths of hell (talk about his feelings) than go through a day without your love. 
| The letter: 
‘To my darling flower, I’m sorry for even hurting you. I’m sorry I was a shit-ass about how I processed my emotions and got you involved. You’ve always told me that you’re there for me but I didn’t want to burden you. I always want you to be happy but my actions just did the opposite. I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything that day. That I didn’t even ask you to stay. I’m sorry for being a coward. I’m sorry that I let you go. 
With this letter, I ask for your forgiveness and for you to have me back. I will be better because I cannot afford to lose you for you have my heart and soul. You are my whole life. You are the thing that makes surviving each day worth it.’
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꒰ა ☆ ໒: Now you guys know why Ghost calls Y/N ‘flower’. This the comfort alternative ending because it was also requested. 📩
dividers by @cafekitsune
Please reblog!! Ask is open!
⟢ taglist: @softestqueeen
check out my other works in the masterlist: ୭!
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harryspet · 6 months
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bambi eyes (the holiday special) r.cameron
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[Warnings]soft!dark!rafe cameron x reader, daddy!rafe x little!reader older!rafe, crimeboss!rafe, NONCON, dd/lg, spoiling kink, unprotected sex, heavy on the somnophilia, ittle editing, 18+ READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
word count: 1.6k
In which it's your first Christmas Eve with your Daddy, you don't know what you want but Rafe surely does.
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bambi eyes masterlist
You could think of three things that you wanted for Christmas. Colored pencils, glitter lipgloss, and a small stuffed animal for Bunny. You don’t need any more clothes. You’d been with Rafe for over a month, and there were still clothes in your wardrobe that you had not worn yet. Your room was heaven, with the softest sheets and pillows, and Rafe bought you even more playthings each week. 
Your last gift was a diamond bracelet Rafe gave you because of how well you behaved in front of his friend, Barry. He didn’t punish you for sneaking around downstairs. All you had to do was bring him a slice of cake and sit down on Rafe’s lap while the two of them talked about “getting rid of their problem.” 
There were several trees around the house, but the biggest one was in the living room, by the fireplace, and it was at least two times your height. There were at least twenty presents underneath the tree already, wrapped neatly in paper that was decorated with pink snowflakes. In cozy reindeer pajamas, ones Rafe had also purchased, you sat near the tree checking over your letter to Santa. Although you had a feeling Rafe might secretly be Santa, you let a small part of you believe it was real magic. 
Lana helped you write the letter, and now you were adding a few drawings and stickers to really jazz it up. It took you longer to write it than Rafe preferred, it was already Christmas Eve, but if Santa could somehow bring you exactly what you wanted tomorrow, you’d really believe in him. 
“You almost finished, baby?” 
You looked up to see Rafe entering the living room, most likely finished with his work day, “I couldn’t think of anything else to ask for,” You said quietly, remembering how much Rafe encouraged you to ask for absolutely anything. The truth was you never had anything so you didn’t know what to ask for, “I don’t think I need anything else. But I wrote a nice letter for Santa and I thanked him for everything he does. And I made it sparkly.”
Rafe made himself comfortable on the couch and you brought over your letter, “C’mere,” He said, pulling your legs over his lap before wrapping one arm around you, “This is beautiful work, kid. Santa is going to love it.”
You looked up at him, a smile on his face as he read the words over, “What did you ask Santa for, Daddy?”
“Well, since I already have you,” He squeezed you, making your heart leap in your chest, “I asked Santa to make sure that you have the best Christmas. That you’ll love every gift you get and we’ll have a nice, Christmas dinner.”
You smiled back at him, “I wish I could buy you something, Daddy.”
“No need,” Rafe leaned in to kiss the side of your forehead, “I like giving to you, and I have plenty of money for the both of us. Besides, you’re way too little.” 
When Rafe looked at you, he really looked at you. He held your face in his hands, not tight enough to bruise, so you wouldn’t look away. You were still learning not to feel shy under his gaze. You started to understand that you were just like the gifts sitting under the tree. You were Rafe’s gift to himself. He showed his possession of you through his gaze. 
“Your bows are a nice touch,” He complimented, taking notice of the red ribbons tied around your pigtails. Every morning you spent time doing your hair, and you were slowly learning how to do your makeup. When he noticed your efforts, you felt you were fulfilling your purpose, “And I already knew you’d look cute in your pajamas.”
Rafe liked it when you presented yourself a certain way. He liked things to be dainty and soft. He preferred small jewelry over statement pieces. Pastel colors over bright ones. And you should never have on too much makeup. Lipgloss was better than lipstick and concealer over foundation. He wanted you muted but pretty, just like your personality. 
“Thank you,” You batted your lashes. 
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Rafe and you continued your cozy evening in the living room. You’d made it through the first two Home Alone movies and were now in the middle of watching The Polar Express. Rafe excused himself to the kitchen for a moment, taking the chance to prepare some hot cocoa for the two of you. 
When Rafe returned to the couch, you were sound asleep, your arms wrapped around Bunny. Quietly, he set down the cups of cocoa on the coffee table, and the thought of waking you up crossed his mind. After all, your drink would get cold, but you seemed like you were resting deeply. 
Gently, Rafe laid down next to you. You didn’t wake; you moaned softly as you turned your head, nuzzling your face into Rafe’s neck. Rafe stayed with you like this, having found a new love in sleeping next to you. He never really enjoyed next to sleeping next to anyone, until you, and he began to designate certain nights of the week where you’d stay with him in his bed. 
Watching you sleep made him think back to when he first brought you home. You still looked as innocent as ever, but there was something else Rafe liked about watching you sleep – he loved seeing you vulnerable. Obviously, you were in a constant state of being vulnerable to Rafe’s every whim and want, but this was different. 
He tested just how deeply you were sleeping, slowly taking the doll from your grasp When you stirred only slightly, Rafe continued, first touching you above your pajamas. Large, ringed fingers felt over your chest. He massaged them, kneading them, and you reacted by pressing yourself closer to him. 
Lips parted, and holding in heavy breathing, Rafe continued his exploration. He was growing harder in his briefs, imagining the look on your face when you fully opened your eyes. He licked one of his fingers and reached into your pajama bottoms and then into your panties. This was exactly why he never wanted you to wear panties to bed; they only got in his way. 
He stroked fingers up and down, feeling between your folds. Feeling the moisture there, he wondered what exactly you’d been dreaming about, “Rafe,” He heard you whisper, although when he looked down at you, your eyes were still closed. Although the stimulation was waking you, Rafe knew you were too tired to fully realize what he was doing. 
Rafe shushed you, still playing between your legs, “Is bed … time?” You mumbled as Rafe pulled his hands from your underwear, bringing his fingers to his lips. 
“Yes, sweet girl,” Rafe whispered, “Keep relaxing, Daddy’s got you.”
Rafe pulled his body from yours, moving off the couch before he gently started to pull down your reindeer bottoms.  Carefully, he removed them from around your ankles before slowly lowering himself down on top of you, “Cold … please,” You mumbled, “Daddyyy.”
“I’ve got you,” Rafe said in response to your whining; as he settled on top of you, you wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him in like your dolly or a pillow. Meanwhile, Rafe was trying as carefully as he could to free himself from his briefs. He didn’t have to touch himself at all, he was already aching for you.
He didn’t resist anymore, pushing your underwear to the side and then pushing inside of you, his sweet girl. You were tighter, somehow, causing Rafe’s eyes to roll in pleasure, “Rafe,” He heard you, knowing you in a daze. Currently, he felt quite dazed himself. He knew with his size that he’d wake you but he didn’t account for the fact that your body might try to resist, to push him out. It just motivated him to push deeper, “Rafe. Rafe.”
Your voice was sharper now, scared almost, “You’re okay,” He cooed, “You’re …so so good, sweet girl.”
You loosened your grasp on him, and Rafe took the opportunity to see your face. You were adorable in those red bows, he noticed them first, but then he saw your scrunched-up features, a cute wince on your face. It would feel good soon, he knew that, but he certainly enjoyed seeing you resist. 
“What a fussy little girl, huh?” Rafe thrusted slowly, “Acting like you don’t like Daddy’s cock.”
With each thrust, you were trying to gain your composure, but Rafe was relentless. 
One hand, beside your head, he pressed into the couch to hold himself up, and the other, he reached down to play with your clit, “Cum one time for me,” Rafe commanded, although it was the last thing you wanted. He would give it to you anyway, wanting to see it in your face when your own body betrayed you, “One time, and you can go back to sleep.”
Rafe’s thrust was slow but consistently deep. He switched back and forth from focusing on your pleasure and his. It was difficult for him, he could finish so easily with you, but he held out; Rafe knew when you were getting closer just by the look on your face. Your head tilted back as your orgasm spread through you, and Rafe was quickly behind you. 
Rafe caught his breath, still inside of you, and moved his chest closer to yours, “You okay? You did good, Bambi.”
You nodded calmly, “Did I …Did I miss the whole movie?”
Rafe stared, bewildered for a moment, “Uh … no. We can just rewind it, baby,” He grinned, pecking your lips, “And I can just heat up the hot chocolate again.” 
Your eyes widened, “Hot chocolate like in the movie?”
“Just like the movie, my love,” Rafe’s forehead pressed to yours.
He was grateful for the fact that he could give you the perfect first Christmas tomorrow. He was even more grateful for how perfect you were.
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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!
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fushic0re · 6 months
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𝐀 𝐇𝐔𝐒𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐃❜𝐒 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐓𝐎
𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐓 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆
⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝗦𝗔𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗨 𝗚𝗢𝗝𝗢, 𝗦𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗥𝗨 𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗢, 𝗞𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝗡𝗔𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗜, 𝗧𝗢𝗝𝗜 𝗙𝗨𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗚𝗨𝗥𝗢, 𝗥𝗬𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗦𝗨𝗞𝗨𝗡𝗔, & 𝗔𝗢𝗜 𝗧𝗢𝗗𝗢.
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𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟑 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝑹𝒊𝒌𝒂𝒏𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒅𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑪𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓 ⋆.ೃ࿔*:・
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𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 ─ how they are as gift givers (how soon do they shop, do they shop late, etc.)
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ─ 18+ ONLY; MINORS DNI. a bit of angst for toji because i can’t help myself. mentions of violence.
꒰ ͜͡➸ 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘, 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐀 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆! 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒❜ 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 & 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑! ♡
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𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐈  
WE’RE STARTING OFF WITH THE BEST. 
You literally don’t need to make it overt what you want for Christmas–not even just Christmas if we’re being real. 
Takes gift giving very seriously. It’s more than just handing you things he has bought for you, it’s about celebrating you and how highly he regards you
…..Though there’s no price that can be put on how much he loves you. So, he’ll settle for spoiling you instead. 
Every first of the year, he starts game planning his next gifting season. 
He pays very close attention to you, memorizing your every habit down to your breathing pattern. Do not be surprised by the fact that his gifts are always immaculately packaged with wrapping paper that is the exact shade of that new color you’ve been into (yes, that one) paired with a complimentary bow and card to match. 
A professional spy when it comes to purchasing your gifts.
Oh, that top you looked at for literally only 5 seconds? He’s already putting it on hold in your size for him to come pick up later. 
If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought Kento never bought you anything because you never noticed a change in routine. Not a single one.
He also doesn’t put his gifts under the tree until two days before Christmas so that your nosey self doesn’t snoop through them. 
You literally wake up one morning to the tree flooded with gifts and him just nonchalantly sipping his coffee. 
His favorite gifts to plan are vacations for you guys. You are his motivating factor to rest and actually live the life he has made for himself. 
While his gifts are immaculate, it’s his cards that are the real tear jerkers. 
He writes you the most beautiful things. You stopped reading his cards when people were around because they made you sob. 
Truthfully, the real gift is the sweet messages your lover leaves you. 
𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔 𝐆��𝐓𝐎 
Suguru is right up there with Kento in terms of gift giving. 
This man is observant and prepared, putting in lots of time, care, and effort into buying you gifts. 
He isn’t above sourcing your friends too. Every year, your friends get a text like, “If she mentions wanting something to you, text me ASAP please. Thank you!” 
At this point, he has a whole database of things you like and want.
Unlike Kento, Suguru won’t be as secretive. He knows you know when he’s out shopping for you and loves teasing you when you get curious. 
He’ll literally taunt you about all the things he’s getting you until you’re foaming at the mouth and going feral while trying to guess what he got you. 
Packages his gifts and immediately puts them under the tree when you’re asleep that way you wake up to a new gift every morning until Christmas.
“Oh! Someone got a gift from Santa. Sigh, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.”
Gift giving is symbolic to him as well. Every gift of his is sentimental and has a connection to aspects of your relationship. 
Remember the cherry blossoms that had just bloomed at the park you guys were at when he first asked you out? He stuffed some in his pocket and had them framed. The dried Sakuras now hang on your office wall, a reminder of his love for you every time you work. 
𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎
Money is clearly nothing to this man…but that’s what makes Christmas shopping for you hard.
He literally buys you everything you want on the spot! What the hell else is he supposed to give you? 
Struggles a bit for this reason. 
He tries to splurge on your less throughout the year to build up Christmas, but it’s impossible. He absolutely cannot see something that makes him think of you and not get it.
For this reason, you tell him that it’s okay that he doesn’t get you anything on Christmas since every day with him is like Christmas….this falls on deaf ears.
Really he’s most concerned with getting you something meaningful since like I said, you have everything you could possibly need and want. 
Uses Megumi and Tsumiki for his emotional appeal factor.
For sure asks Suguru and Kento for help.
Ultimately, he decides to go for something simple and sentimental yet still very Satoru–a gorgeous ring with your birthstone with a sweet message engraved inside and a family photo of both of you with Megumi and Tsumiki. 
That ring is just a warm up for the real deal…but he’ll plan that a little bit more elaborately. 
𝐓𝐎𝐉𝐈 𝐅𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐎
Women like perfume, flowers, and shit right? 
God bless this man. It’s been a while since he had to shop for a woman, he’s just trying his best.
He still needs help though. 
Since the passing of his late wife, he hasn’t opened up to anyone, let alone another woman. 
But here comes you in all of your glory waltzing into his life and defying all of his expectations, bulldozing his walls down like they were made of straw.
He wanted so badly to give you a token of his appreciation and love for you, but it’s so hard. 
It’s hard walking through the familiar flower shop he used to frequent to buy his late wife flowers. 
It’s hard thinking of her so much because he can’t help it when he does things like this. 
It’s hard subtly comparing you both as he shops for you, but she’s the only other woman he’s ever loved and his only guide to doing right by you. 
Toji’s not a rich man. He won’t ball out on you the way Satoru or even Kento does. 
He resorts to a lot of homemade gifts with the help of Megumi because lord knows he can’t craft for shit. 
He takes the traditional approach with flowers, breakfast in bed, homemade ornaments–little things that bring life and love into your shared home.
He saves all of his measly paychecks to buy you a locket. Inside is a picture of you, him, and Megumi.
On the other side of the locket are the words he’s too afraid to say out loud because they’ll break him…..
“Thank you for loving me.”
𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀
………God.
Do not tell this man you want anything because he will get it for you, but tenfold.
Oh, you enjoyed your trip to Kyoto? He’ll kill everyone there so you both are the sole inhabitants of the city. Kyoto is now yours. 
You love the ocean? Great, it’s yours and whoever roams it without permission will be considered trespassers and dealt with accordingly. 
Fuck a beach house, he’ll just give you the whole sea. 
He will literally mount the heads of your enemies on the mantel or hang their beating hearts on a gold chain that you can wear around your neck if it brings you joy.
In his head, there are no limits when it comes to his Queen of Curses. None whatsoever. 
He wants you to be instantly gratified. You are the one person he feels the need to prove something to. 
There really isn’t much to be said other than this. 
This man would burn the world if it meant keeping you warm, so don’t be surprised when he does. 
𝐀𝐎𝐈 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐎
……God 2.0. 
Aoi is the kind of guy to buy you a whole present just because you sneezed and that calls for a pick-me-up present. 
He buys you apology gifts when you have to open a door by yourself because he isn’t around. 
Christmas is his time to SHINE. 
He approaches it like it’s an Olympic sport that he needs to win otherwise he’s unworthy of being your man. 
Shops early as hell so that the things you want don’t sell out. 
Not above throwing hands if he needs to snag the last of your items. 
Your wishlist is essentially a binding vow to him and if he doesn’t fulfill it, he’ll die. 
Horrible at hiding them because he gets so overwhelmed with excitement that he wants you to see what he got you right away. The gifts don't even get wrapped.
By the time Christmas actually arrives, his presents are the only ones under the tree because he forced you to open all of yours prior.
He tried to control himself, but at some point he literally starts waking you up in the middle of the night because he will not sleep out of pure adrenaline.
SO DRAMATIC. He practically gives you his presents like he’s acting out a Shakespearean play. 
He’ll kneel, bow, and grandly bestow each present upon you with two hands.  
Your reactions mean the world to him. 
Each time you get all giggly and happy opening gift after gift, his heart swells. 
He could deadass start crying tears of joy right then and there tbh. 
Those reactions are his gift. 
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