#and it's free ability charge?

[tenacquity]

(not so) subtly hoards all the emotionally damaged muses and just

quietly stands near

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@q3k@hackerspace.pl/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

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/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[curiouschaosstarlight]

-flops-

rpg maker mz generator parts and plugins cost money -> maybe i should get a job -> no one will hire me -> also im injured -> getting myself un-injured costs money -> i could make video games while im injured i guess -> making video game costs money -> im constantly hungry and hurting -> fixing that costs money -> i need a driver's license so i can reach more places and won't be confined mostly to my house for a variety of benefits -> getting a test costs money -> i have adhd and anxiety -> getting diagnosed and medicated costs money (also is unlikely to happen) -> god i just want to make video games and stories and art and not think about this stuff -> costs money

[halfcaffeinated]

im making a wiki for my homebrew world in my d&d campaign and i'm using wikidot, which has a somewhat unique language for writing/creating pages, and im learning it as i go so ive been sifting through these community forum posts from like. 2008

and it's just insane to me how much the internet has changed in what? 15 years? 10 years? even 5 years!

we really gotta bring back personal sites imho. i tried so many different wiki-building platforms for d&d (kanka, world anvil, obsidian portal, etc) and the best is still just making it your damn self. i refuse to be locked out of how many pages i can have on my site before having to "ugrade" my "account tier" or some shit. i refuse to be unable to change the links on the sidebar on my site without paying for "premium access" or whatever. i refuse to be limited on how many images i can upload or how many widgets i can put on the front page or how i can arrange those widgets. i hate not being able to export in some way all the content ive written on the site. im just really tired of being told how i have to do things before paying money for something that doesn't even change how im using their platform

[sakuravalelp]

Don't eat anything else - DC X DP

Using this prompt

Next part

Masterpost

Danny is sure that if it wasn't for his ghost side, he would have already died from malnutrition. Vlad, the monster he is, doesn't allow him to eat any meal without human meat. It's not that he isn't allowed vegetables, fruits, and animal byproducts, but every meal has human meat somehow. Vlad watches him with piercing eyes while he eats, making sure he doesn't avoid the meat.

He's gone days without eating just to avoid it, but eventually, he does have to eat. He has eaten human meat! He wonders if this is why Dan decided to renounce his human side.

Future Vlad had told him that Dan wanted to get rid of his ghost side due to his grief, but maybe Dan thought he would feel better about eating humans if he were a complete ghost. Danny could understand that, but he now knows it wouldn't work...

The Infinite Realms are full of different species, and the act of eating another species that's able to coexist with you in a society feels just as horrendous as cannibalism. Was finding this out what drove Dan mad?

He isn't getting much nutrition when he does eat either, not with him vomiting at least half the times he does. Not that Vlad cares about that;

"Ectoplasm will take care of your body while you stubbornness dies. I do think it would be easier for you if you just stopped being ridiculous and eat."

Ectoplasm and water are the only things he has free access too, and Danny hates how grateful he is for at least having that.

As if things couldn't be worse, he's also been forced to cook the meat. When he started learning how to cook with Tucker's mom, he never, never, would have imagined he would be using his abilities for this. He has grown numb to butchering human corpses…

Corpses are a frequent view in the kitchen. He's scared one day he'll recognize the face of one of them. Vlad knows it and uses to control him, telling him that if he doesn't behave, their next meal might be Tucker or Sam. He hates to admit how docile he's grown.

He hasn't seen Tucker, Sam, or anyone since the explosion in the lab took his family. Vlad doesn't allow him to leave the mansion for anything besides galas. He has him collared like a dog to prevent him from leaving. Except, his collar is a shock bracelet charged with blood blossoms that would inject into his wrist if he tries to escape.

He thought Vlad was bluffing and tried escaping once. His whole body felt like it was burning up in flames, and he wasn't able to move for a week. Vlad told him that next time, the dose would keep him in bed for a month. He hasn't tried escaping since.

He's still talking with them through chat. He doesn't know if Vlad knows, but he doesn't think he does; he told him his phone exploded with the lab. But he can't tell them anything. How could he? How is he supposed to tell them he has cooked humans? That he has eaten humans? That he has grown somewhat numb to it? He can't, and then he feels like he can't talk about anything else that is happening.

Today, as he serves the entrance dish to the first guests Vlad has had since he took Danny in, he forces a fake smile on his face. Inside, he feels a wave of nausea and dread as intense as the first time he was forced to eat human meat. The grotesque irony of presenting this dish, knowing what it contains, twists his stomach and makes his hands tremble ever so slightly.

They don't know. They have no idea that they're being served their own species. They don't know, and Danny is the one forced to make them eat their own kind.

The appetizer is a vegetable-based soup with barely any traces of meat, but the main dish features a full human fillet. The guilt and revulsion claw at his insides, nearly choking him. He has to at least stop them from eating that. He needs to get them out of here somehow. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to try and put a stop to everything else. He can’t let this atrocity continue.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Tim didn't feel comfortable listening to Masters talk about how good the food would be, while Masters' heir served the appetizer with the fakest smile Tim had ever seen. The teen looked so clearly uncomfortable and scared around his guardian that it was hard to resist the urge to grab the boy and leave.

Masters had praised his godson’s cooking during the gala last week, all the while keeping a hand possessively on the teen’s shoulder. Tim didn't like how controlling it seemed, nor how the grip tightened when the teen mumbled quietly about his name being Danny. It was difficult to witness the entire interaction, especially as the teen appeared to fall into a state of complete dissociation afterward.

They were already planning to investigate Masters due to the suspicious nature of all his contracts, but after the gala, they had to shift their focus to helping the teen. They were fortunate that Masters had granted them easy access to his mansion with the invitation to try Danny's cooking.

They couldn't all go to Masters's and leave Gotham behind, so at the dinner, it was just Bruce, Cass, and Tim. Jason was also in the city because he refused to stay away from an obvious abuse case, but he wasn't allowed at the dinner. He would have attacked Masters just from seeing Danny’s uncomfortable stance under his hand during their greeting.

Masters had insisted that Danny serve the food since he had made it, and now Danny stood beside him, serving him the last plate of soup. Danny stumbled for a moment, and before Tim knew it, he was bathed in soup. Tim blinked, surprised at how the soup wasn’t as hot as he had expected, given the steam rising from the other plates.

"Daniel! What the hell are you doing!?"

Vlad exclaimed, standing up from his place, and the teen beside Tim paled.

“I—I am so sorry!” Danny apologized, using napkins to help clean off the soup, his hands slightly trembling. “Did you get burned?”

"No, no, don't worry about it. I'm okay."

"It isn't okay. Daniel, you ruined Mr. Drake's clothes!"

"Sorry... Let's- I think I have clothes that could fit you... So you could change?"

Oh, so that was why his soup wasn’t hot. Danny had poured it on him deliberately; he was trying to get him alone. Despite how scared Danny looked, it seems he still clung to the hope of escaping. Tim felt a surge of relief and determination. He was glad to see that Danny was looking for a way out, and this chance could be their opportunity to devise a plan.

"Thanks, I would appreciate that." he said as he stood from his sit. He saw how Masters was opening his mouth to say something, but Tim didn't want to risk loosing the opportunity. "Please, don't worry about it Mr. Masters, accidents happen, we'll be back in a moment."

Tim locked eyes with Bruce for just a second, a barely noticeable nod telling him Bruce trusted him to do this right. He then followed Danny through the mansion’s halls and up the stairs, noting that Danny’s bedroom was on the top floor. Danny kept his arms crossed, trying to make himself appear smaller.

"I'm really sorry Mr. Drake. I should have been more careful."

"It's okay really, and please, just call me Tim."

"Oh, um, thanks, but Vlad doesn't like nicknames... would- would it be okay to use Timothy instead?"

“… Yeah, sure.” It seemed Vlad controlled the way Danny was allowed to speak. “Would you mind if I call you Danny then?” Tim asked. He had been mentally referring to him as Danny since the gala and wanted to match that with his spoken words.

Danny shrank farther into himself, and Tim was about to retract his suggestion, but then a small smile appeared on Danny's face and he turned to look at Tim.

"Yeah, I would like that." Danny said in a hushed toned, and a hint of fears in his eyes. Like he was afraid to accept the suggestion.

Tim wondered if Masters had punished Danny for mumbling his preferred name at the gala. However, before he could dwell further on the types of punishments Masters might have used, Danny's eyes widened.

"Ancients, you even have soup on your hair-"

Despite Tim’s attempts to reassure him that everything was okay, Danny continued to apologize throughout the journey to his bedroom. Lamenting how foolish it had been to let the plate slip, and how he should have known better.

Danny’s constant self-reproach made Tim question whether he had misjudged the situation. Maybe it had been a genuine mistake. In theory, it wouldn't matter, because he got to talk alone with Danny either way, but he liked thinking that Danny was reaching out for their help.

Once in Danny's bedroom, Danny beelined to his closet to give Tim a change of clothes. Tim took the opportunity to look around. Danny's room was… impersonal. It was sophisticated and extravagant, like a room that would be featured in a magazine. Tim was sure Danny hadn't decided on the decor. He was surprised to see the bedroom had a large balcony connected to it. Maybe Masters trusted it was high enough for Danny not to attempt escaping through it?

"Would this outfit work for you?"

Danny was holding a suit similar to the one Masters had worn at a previous gala. Now that Tim paid attention to Danny's outfit, he noticed that Danny's clothes today were almost a smaller version of what Masters was wearing, with just enough differences to not be immediately recognized as the same. Thinking back to last weeks gala, their outfits were also similar. To what extent was Masters controlling Danny's life?

"Um... if you don't like it I can grab another one..."

Tim blinked, realizing he had just stared silently at Danny while he offered him the clothes.

"No, sorry, got lost in thoughts, I'm okay using those."

"Okay, I'm glad. Again, sorry for..." Danny motioned to Tims clothes "You can change in my bathroom over there." He pointed to a door beside the bed. "Maybe also take a shower?" Danny got a towel from his closet and offered it to Tim.

"Yeah a shower would be good." Tim said, taking clothes and the towel and entering the bathroom.

He'll talk with Danny once he was changed into clean clothes. If only to calm Danny's guilt about the incident.

Danny's bathroom was spacious, with a jacuzzi bathtub, a separate shower, and one of those popular bidet toilets. From an outside perspective it must look like Danny has anything he could want, but Tim knows better than anyone that money doesn't guaranty a good household. It's sad knowing that any CPS agent that did decide to look into this, would be easily push away by Masters money.

Once Tim had showered and changed clothes, he prepared to go back to the bedroom to talk to Danny, but before he did, a green glow from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Tim sucked a breath when he saw what it was. A syringe with traces of Lazarus waters and blood sat beside the sink.

"Timothy? Everything okay in there? Did the clothes don't fit?"

Tim took a photo of the syringe and sent it to the group chat with the caption, "We may have to add experimentation to Danny's abuse." After taking a sample, he decided to leave the syringe behind, considering the possibility that Masters might use the same syringe more than once and notice its disappearance. He really hoped to get Danny out of there that same day, but if they couldn't, he didn't want to make things more difficult for him.

"Everything is okay! I'll be out in a second."

Tim took one last look around while picking up his dirty clothes, just in case he found anything else. When he left the bathroom, Danny was waiting for him, shifting nervously from side to side. It was time to talk to him.

"Danny, look, I wanted to talk-"

"Ah, let me take your clothes! I'll make sure to clean them and get them back to you!" Danny interrupted him, grabbing his arm and shaking his head with a pleading look.

Tim looked incredulous at Danny for a second, before he realized what was happening and mouthed. "Your bedroom is bugged." He hadn't meant it as a question but Danny had nodded anyway. It was fucked up, Danny couldn't even talk confidently in his own bedroom?

"Right, thank you Danny. I would appreciate that. Perhaps we could take the opportunity to meet again in the future."

Danny gave him the look an adult might give a naive child when talking about an unreachable fantasy, and Tim couldn't help but frown at it. Did Danny believe that even seeing them again was too out of reach?

"That would be great, I'll talk with Vlad about the possibility."

Tim was going to say something else to try to reassure Danny that they would be able to meet, but Danny just handed him two pieces of paper. One was unfolded with text on it, and the other was folded into a small square, smaller than his pinky. He read the unfolded paper first.

- Don't eat anymore of the food. Pretend to have some sort of family emergency and leave, please. Read the other paper when you're far away. -

Tim looked at Danny with questioning wide eyes, but Danny just gave him another pleading look. Tim took a deep breath and took a photo to the paper and sent it to the group chat.

"Oh common, aren't you a little old to ask your guardian about every little meet up you have?" (Would you leave with us?)

Danny gives a nervous chuckle.

"Maybe, but after my family, Vlad tends to be really protective, you know?" He said while pointing to his bracelet.

Tim hadn't noticed how tick the bracelet was before. It was metallic, with a red liquid line in the middle.

"Shock bracelet?" He mouthed.

Danny nodded and then mouthed, "if I scape, it poisons me."

Tim pales a bit at that. They had underestimated how dangerous Masters was.

He motioned to his phone and took a photo of the bracelet after Danny nodded and sent to the group chat with the caption: "Shock bracelet with the capacity of poisoning Danny. We won't be able to get him out right now."

"We should probably go back with the others now."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Group chat

Coffee is my life: *Photo of the syringe*

Coffee is my life: We may have to add experimentation to Danny's abuse.

Death boy walking: Fuck!

Death boy walking: @ Adoption addict, we have to get the kid out of there now!

Bones? What bones?: Bruce is entertaining Masters with Cass at the moment little wing.

Bones? What bones?: I doubt he'll read this.

The blood son: There's no way that buffoon has any relation with grandfather. He's company does not follow any of the leagues morals.

Light & shadow: Maybe he found another Lazarus pit?

Light & shadow: They're supposedly naturally formed right? It shouldn't be that crazy for someone out of the league to have one.

Computer genius: It might not even be Lazarus waters. The tone is slightly off.

The blood son: It is possible that it is a different variation of dionesium.

Death boy walking: Who cares? He's injecting the kid with that thing!

Not Bruces kid: Hate to say it but the zombie is right, we can find what exactly when Danny is safe.

Coffee is my life: *Photo of paper with text*

Light & shadow: ????

Light & shadow: Is the food poisoned!?

Computer genius: Already told them through comms to not eat anymore food.

Computer genius: If the food is poison it hasn't affected them yet.

Light & shadow: Do you guys have a way to deal with the poison there?

Bones? What bones?: Don't worry Bruce doesn't go anywhere without the poison antidote kit.

Death boy walking: Of course he doesn't. The paranoid bastard.

The blood son: It isn't paranoia if the danger is real Todd.

Computer genius: I'll call Bruce in 10 to pretend a family emergency.

Death boy walking: You are NOT going without Danny!

Bones? What bones?: Any possibility on taking Danny with you @ Coffee is my life?

Coffee is my life: *Photo of bracelet*

Coffee is my life: Shock bracelet with the capacity of poisoning Danny. We won't be able to get him out right now.

Not Bruces kid: WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF

Not Bruces kid: Wasn't this a low stakes rescue???

Not Bruces kid: Why is this man coming up with plans in the big villain category?

Light & shadow: I'm scared of whatever "the other paper" that Danny gave Tim says.

Light & shadow: Wouldn't be surprised if Masters was connected with a trafficking ring.

Bones? What bones?: @ Death boy walking?

Bones? What bones?: You're too silent...

Bones? What bones?: Remember you won't be able to barge in without putting Danny in danger.

Death boy walking: I ALREADY KNOW THAT DICKFACE.

The blood son: Tt, don't be so surprise by the warning Todd.

The blood son: Your past actions have prove it necessary.

Death boy walking: Shut the fuck up demon brat. You're not one to talk.

... The blood son is writing ...

Light & shadow: Everyone have had their outburst of bad decisions.

Light & shadow: Can we go back to Danny?

Light & shadow: How likely do you think it is that he's a meta?

Light & shadow: Because, I think it's pretty high.

Not Bruces kid: Did you see something strange in him on the gala?

Light & shadow: No, but the bracelet are pretty similar to the meta-suppressors collars I've seen in the past.

Computer genius: I'm calling Bruce right now.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

next part

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Month

Sorry for being not active this month as I had some health problems. I'll start posting weekly now :) Meanwhile here's some good from last month

1. Widow donates $1 billion to medical school, giving free tuition forever

Ruth Gottesman surprised by her late husband's $1 billion in Berkshire stock, decides to donate it in full to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York City's poorest borough. The donation is intended to cover students' tuition indefinitely, ensuring access to medical education for generations.

A video capturing students' emotional reactions to the news, cheering and crying, circulated after the announcement, highlighting the profound impact of the donation on the medical school community.

2. Electric school buses outperform diesel in extreme cold

In Colorado's West Grand School District, electric school buses outperformed their diesel counterparts, particularly in the bitterly cold temperatures of towns like Kremmling, where morning temperatures can drop below -30 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite common concerns about reduced range in extreme weather, the electric buses maintained their battery charge even in these frigid conditions, providing reliable transportation for students.

This success has been welcomed by the school district, as diesel vehicles also face challenges in starting in Colorado's harsh winter weather.

3. Christian Bale unveils plans to build 12 foster homes in California

Christian Bale has led a tour round the new village in California where he plans to build 12 foster homes, as well as two studio flats to help children transition into independent living, and a 7,000 sq ft community centre.

The actor has spearheaded the building of a unique complex of facilities with the aim of keeping siblings in the foster care system together, and ideally under the same roof.

4. Average lifespan of a person with Down syndrome has increased from 25 years in 1983 to 60 years today

Today the average lifespan of a person with Down syndrome is approximately 60 years.

As recently as 1983, the average lifespan of a person with Down syndrome was 25 years. The dramatic increase to 60 years is largely due to the end of the inhumane practice of institutionalizing people with Down syndrome.

5. Greece legalises same-sex marriage

Greece has become the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to legalise same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples will now also be legally allowed to adopt children after Thursday's 176-76 vote in parliament.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the new law would "boldly abolish a serious inequality".

6. Massachusetts police K9 tracks scent for over 2 miles to find missing 12-year-old in freezing cold

A Massachusetts police K9 followed her nose to help find a 12-year-old who went missing in frigid temperatures last week, tracking the child’s scent for over two miles, authorities said.

K9 Biza, a female German shepherd, was called on to help after officers learned the child left their home at around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and was last seen in the Pakachoag Hill area of Auburn, the Auburn Police Department said.

7. Good News for the Socially Anxious: People Like You a Lot More Than You Think They Do, New Research Confirms

The "Lake Wobegon effect" or "illusory superiority" phenomenon highlights people's tendency to overestimate their abilities, but recent research suggests that in social interactions, individuals often underestimate their likability and charm.

Studies indicate that people consistently fail to recognize signals of others' liking toward them, leading to a "liking gap" where individuals believe they are less likable than they actually are.

Techniques such as focusing more on others during conversations and genuinely expressing interest in them can help alleviate social anxiety by shifting the focus away from self-criticism. Ultimately, understanding that others may also experience similar anxieties can lead to a more relaxed and enjoyable social experience.

---

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.

[lecliss]

I finished grinding the first titles for everyone's abilities and got the third level ones for Milla, Elize, and Rowen, but jesus fucking christ I do NOT wanna do that shit 400 more times EACH for Jude and Leia. Timing the backsteps is so difficult and annoying and tedious I'd rather fucking die than do that 800 times again. But Im going to have to eventually one day for those 4 extra titles 😔

[imnotevenusin]

Placements that give off “cool” energy

Mars in Sagittarius: Sagittarian energy is care-free, explorative, and brave. Mars rules our primal desires, anger, and libido. Sag Mars are kind of reckless people; their desires have no boundaries. These traits are what makes them cool and fun to be around — when you’re not against them. You will not hold them down and keep the contained.

Moon in Cap & Aquarius: The Moon shows us how we emotionally react to things and can tell us about the lessons our Mothers taught us. From what I’ve experienced, Capricorn and Aquarius Moon people keep a cool and calm demeanor—almost intimidating. Capricorn does not like to waste time sulking around in emotions and Aquarius is usually worried about impersonal subjects. Of course, it all depends on the aspects.

Sun conjunct Venus: The Sun is our pride and Venus is what we value and are attracted to. Usually, these people come off as charming and are aesthetically pleasing to look at. They can also take time into crafting an image or have really cool interests in general.

Mercury-Saturn: Mercury-Saturn aspects reply when necessary. They also like to think about things thoroughly. This makes them intelligent and helpful, recognizing communication as a useful tool. Just like Mercury-Pluto, they tend to think about serious topics.

Mars in Capricorn: A perfect placement for an entrepreneur. Mars is channeled into achieving something and going after what it wants.

Venus in Scorpio: Venus is aesthetics and values and Scorpio is intense and intimate. Their sense of loyalty—depending on the aspects—and intimacy overpowers them and this can make them a bit obsessive. But they also have magnetic attraction for some reason, from what I’ve seen.

Moon in Scorpio: Scorpio brings uncomfortable feelings to the Moon. This makes them a no bullshit kind of person.

Mars in Scorpio: Their desires are intense and they have an all or nothing attitude.

Sun in Aries: The Sun is charged by Aries—a sign that rules independence, primal desires, and bravery. These people usually have strong personalities - sometimes obnoxious. Like Sag Mars, they hate being bored, and usually like to make their own rules.

Capricorn Ascendant: The Ascendant contributes to our physical bodies and what energy we give off naturally. Cap Risings have the reputation of looking serious and older than their actual age—which is true, coming from a Capricorn Rising.

Sun in the 8H: The 8H deals with the vulnerable aspects of our lives—the moments that make us transform and rediscover a stronger part of ourselves. Sun in 8H individuals could have very strong and impressive personalities—coming from an 8H Sun person, we do.

Saturn-Pluto aspects: Usually weighed down by harsh circumstances—Saturn is our restrictions and limitations, Pluto is what controls us—they have an ability to change their lives through hard-work and patience.

Honorable Mentions: Pluto in 1H. Sun in the 1H. Jupiter-Pluto. Sun in 5°, 13°, or 17°degrees. Sun-Saturn. Sun-Mars. Sun-Uranus. Scorpio Rising.

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

two of the transfems youre friends with have been talking to you about the clinic they got their bottom surgery done at. apparently its dirt cheap, and the surgeon - despite some oddities and, your friends admit, poor hygiene - is incredibly talented. theyre more than happy to give you her phone number when you ask, and while it sounds simultaneously incredibly sketchy and way too good to be true, at this point youre just so broke, desperate, and tired of gatekeepers that you're willing to give it a shot.

you call on a thursday afternoon, and the call is picked up on the fourth ring, when youre just gearing up to hear an answering machine. the voice on the other end sounds like a middle-aged woman with a smoking habit trying to sound like a cheery, bubbly young girl, and mostly succeeding. hiiiii! what can i do for you? she asks. you say er im looking for a surgical clinic is this the right number? she says mhm! thats me. you say okay, i just have a few questions. she says shoot. you say do you take patients who arent referred to you? she says nobody refers patients to me so yes. then she giggles. youve never heard somebody pull off a giggle in real life. you ask okay, so ive been looking for a place to get my metoidoplasty done, can you do that here? she says i dont know what that is give me like five seconds. then the line goes silent. you can hear her typing on a mechanical keyboard and humming to herself as she reads. youre now convinced that this is not in any way a legitimate medical institution.

youre about to hang up when she comes back on the line. OH you need a dick she says. sure i can do that! does tuesday afternoon work for you? i have that morning free too but i HATE getting up in the mornings so id rather not schedule it if i have to. you say tuesday afternoon is fine, how long should i expect the visit to be? she says i dont know like seven hours? you say seven hours? she says yeah give or take a few, every person is different so i dont know what itll be like until ive got your cunt opened up. honestly probably best to take the whole day off just in case it turns out to be a tough operation. you dont respond to that immediately. she says oh shoot should i not use the word cunt, is that too gendered? sorry. you say no its fine. you say i thought i was just going in for a consult? she says i mean yeah if youd rather. i dont mind doing same-day but some people like having more time to think about their options. do you have somewhere to be tuesday night or something? you say no its just... no tuesday afternoon should be fine. she says okay great!

she gives you her address. she says knock three times so i know its you and not my parole officer. parole officer you ask? she says im being good i promise but i still hate talking to him hes boring. you say if you dont mind me asking what were you imprisoned for? she says the ones i plead guilty to at the trial were a hundred and ninety-two counts of first-degree murder with a parahuman ability, two hundred and fifty-six counts of physical and emotional torture with a parahuman ability, five hundred and six counts of intentional infliction of emotional distress with a parahuman ability, four hundred ninety-eight counts of aggravated assault and battery with a parahuman ability, four hundred twenty five counts of domestic terrorism with a parahuman ability and two hundred and twelve counts without, three counts of arson, two hundred forty two counts of burglary with a parahuman ability, three hundred eight four counts of robbery with a parahuman ability, four hundred twenty seven counts of abduction with a parahuman ability, a hundred eighty six counts of human trafficking with a parahuman ability, three hundred ninety counts of destruction of public property with a parahuman ability, eighty counts of possession of a controlled substance, more than three thousand conspiracy and complicity charges in various felonies, eighteen violations of the Geneva Conventions, and the unauthorized practice of medicine. i plead not guilty to the larceny, sexual assault, contempt of court, corporate espionage, and identity theft charges and the prosecutor didnt really try to fight it since i had already earned seventy life sentences from the other stuff so im technically innocent of those.

you dont say anything to that.

after three seconds of silence she says sooooooooo i'll see you tuesday? you say tuesday, yeah. what was your name again? Riley, she says. Riley Grace Davis. you say thanks again and then hang up.

you debate constantly during the intervening days whether you should go on tuesday. youre grateful your friend group is so slutty; it means youve already seen with your own eyes that this surgery is real and not just a lure to murder you. still, you have some reservations, which you think is perfectly understandable.

you call one of your friends whos been there already. she picks up and you say if this is a joke its only sort of funny. she says if whats a joke? you say the clinic. you say you DID give me the actual number to the place where you actually had your bottom surgery done right? she says yeah, dont worry the surgeons so sweet. you say she admitted to doing two hundred murders when she was on the phone. she says i dont know anything about that but i trust her. you say if i end up dead, kidnapped, or mutilated, its your fault. she says dont worry about it.

tuesday comes. you never agreed to an exact time so you show up as early as you can and still have it be "afternoon" in your mind - 12:30. you climb the rusted fire escape to the third floor door and knock three times. the door is answered by a woman six feet tall in casual but very nice clothes with frizzy brown hair and an expression you cant read. you say er, riley? she says nope. another girl pushes past her, exasperated. she's maybe five foot two and her wavy blonde hair is worn down, with a red bow in it. she's wearing torn jeans - naturally torn, not the sort that you buy with holes in them that youve always hated but the kind that were once normal jeans and now have worn through much of the fabric on the knees. her tshirt is faded and has stains that you cant quite place on it, but youre pretty sure it was once Eidolon merchandise.

she says damnit amy let me answer the door next time. the taller woman, amy apparently, shrugs and steps aside to let you in riley claps her hands together once youre inside and the door is shut. introductions! she shouts. amy, this is, er... I never actually got your name? you tell them your name. she says right! hes one of my clients. and this is Amy, my sister. dont worry about her, shes just a little awkward. amy says can you PLEASE not introduce me as your sister. riley says make me. then she grabs amys shirt and pulls her down, standing on her tiptoes at the same time. they kiss in a very un-sisterly way. you clear your throat politely.

riley breaks away and says right, yeah, sorry! i get distracted easy. youre here to get a dick right. you splutter a bit, both at the bluntness of the question and the fact that amy is still standing right there. riley follows your gaze. she says oh dont worry about her! sorry, i wouldve run her off earlier, i thought you wouldnt come by for another few hours. you say sorry. she says dont worry, its her fault. amy says you didnt tell me you had a client. riley says you didnt ASK. you clear your throat politely again. you say er yes, i did come in for metoidoplasty. she bites her lip and furrows her brow. she says metoido... oh right. well i dont really do that here but i can give you a dick. you say uh im not really interested in phalloplasty. she says whats phalloplasty? amy says its the construction of a penis, usually via tissue flap taken from another part of the body, often followed by the insertion of prosthetics to allow the constructed penis to achieve erection. riley says oh, huh. yeah i dont do that either. i can give you a dick though. she takes a second then puts on an exaggerated scowl. who would want that she asks? amy says lots of people prefer it to metoido for aesthetic reasons or because they dont think theyll be large enough for penetrative sex with metoido. riley says but it wouldnt feel like a dick! man, some surgeons are talentless hacks.

you clear your throat again. you say so if youre- riley says youre clearing your throat a lot, are you okay? you say im fine, its just- she says oh duh were being so rude! why are we all standing around here. come sit down in the living room, do you want anything to drink? she leads you into the living room. it has the unmistakable air of a room thats been cleaned recently, with vacuuming marks present in the carpet and the unmistakable scent of air freshener. the sofa that you're gestured to sit on is, by contrast, unbelievably filthy. stains of every sort are visible on it - some of them are obvious, like the patches of blood and vomit or the ring of a coffee mug. others take you a second to place, like the crusty streak along one cushion that you realize all at once is semen, or the sticky yellow parts that you hope to god are honey. some of them, like the muddy green handprint along one arm of the sofa or the deep black smudge along a seat, are completely foreign to you. you can smell it from several feet away.

amy notices your hesitancy. she says i keep telling her to throw that thing out. riley says and i keep telling HER that its a relic from earth bet! its an antique and itll be worth millions soon. it just needs a good deep cleaning. amy says what that sofa needs is a bullet, not a deep clean. you sit down. drink? riley asks. you say er what do you have? she says water, diet coke, vodka, coffee. no more beer though, SOMEBODY drank the last one. amy says you never said they were off limits! riley says they arent, im just teasing. you say waters fine. riley says aaaaaaaaaamyyyyyyy, could you pleeeeeeaaaaaaaase go get our guest a glass of water and me a diet coke? oh and can you grab the pill bottle on the second shelf of the spice cabinet. amy says sure, i'll be right back.

riley sits down next to you. she says sooooooo what do you want for your dick? you say sorry, if youre not doing phallo or metoido then what exactly are you offering? she says no offense but it would take like literally eight years to give you enough background info for you to understand my explanation, and i dont have that kind of time. im not getting any younger. except for when i am. she laughs louder than you thought a human could. you have no idea how to describe the sound of her laughter. she says just tell me about your dream dick and ill give it to you. trust me, im a doctor.

except that youre not, amy says, returning with glasses and pills in hand. she sets the water down in front of you and you immediately take large gulps, feeling very much lost right now. riley says am TOO, accepting the pill bottle and diet coke from amy. she frowns. why is it can diet coke, she asks? she says glass bottle is so much better. she says why did i even BUY can. amy says they are literally the same liquid, what do you mean its better. riley says theyre not the same, stop deluding yourself. amy says which of us is the REAL doctor? riley says both of us! the PRT finally issued me an equivalency. youre talking to doctor riley davis, MED. amy says oh really? congrats she says. riley beams. then she unscrews the lid of the unlabeled, dark brown glass bottle, grabs three pills, and pops them into her mouth.

what is that you ask. ectasy she says. you want some? you say no thanks. she says you sure? you say i probably shouldnt take drugs before an operation, what if it interacts with the anesthetic? riley says dont worry, i made my own anesthetic that has zero drug-drug interactions. amy says except with sudafed. riley says ok YEAH except with sudafed, how was i supposed to know? she glances at you. you dont take sudafed do you she asks. you say no. she says good. it was such a bitch cleaning the pus off the ceiling she says. you say huh? she says dont worry about it, you dont take sudafed. she says are you sure you dont want any ecstasy? i promise its pure. you say i dont want to get addicted. she says i can surgically remove the addiction pathway from your brain if that would help. amy says riley, no means no. riley says fine. do you want any ecstasy babe? she says no thanks. riley frowns. she says you guys are a bunch of squares. she pops a fourth one and starts chugging diet coke.

she slams the can down after drinking what must be half of it, wipes her mouth with her arm and grins. sorry, we keep getting distracted! she says. she says im getting into the start of a manic episode and that always makes me roll right over people in conversation. what do you want for your dick? you say um. i hadnt really thought about it. its not normally a choice beyond the type of surgery, you sort of just end up with whatever the doctors are able to make work? thats lame she says. why are normal doctors all so lame she says. ok, rude amy says. OBVIOUSLY im not talking about you babe riley says. and stop distracting me from my client! amy holds up her hands in mock surrender, an easy smile on her face.

you didnt bring a toy with you did you, riley asks. you say huh. she says sometimes people bring a toy that they want me to model it after and that makes everything a lot easier. you say no you didn't. you say i hadn't really thought about my preferences, can we go dealer's choice on this? amy pipes up. she says you REALLY dont want riley to go dealers choice. riley says shut up and get me another diet coke, i just finished this one. amy says yes princess. you honestly cant read whether it was meant to be mocking or endearing. riley turns back to you. ok, she says, lets start with basics. primate? canid? equine? suine? dolphin? i could give you a hyena pseudopenis but i dont know if that would be offensive. you say human is fine. she says please dont tell me you're gonna just be boring this whole time. you say define boring. she sighs deeply and starts massaging her temples. amy, having stepped into the room in time to hear the last bit of conversation, tousles rileys hair. she says sorry babe, customer's always right.

you work out the appearance of your soon-to-exist cock this way. riley asks questions about length, girth, hair, amount of semen generated, percentage growth when erect, and you try to give what you think are average answers every time. amy watches, bemused, the whole time. halfway through she leaves to get the bottle of vodka. she drinks five shots in fifteen minutes. you say i didnt think the human body had that much capacity for alcohol resistance. she says it doesnt. riley swats playfully at her arm.

eventually, riley grabs a set of crayons and a cocktail napkin. she says ok, i think we got it, scribbling furiously. she shows you a crayon drawing of a dick. this look good she asks? you squint at it. there are no measurements given and the medium does not allow you to make out any fine detail. you say yeah thats fine. amy tries and fails to hide a smile. riley chucks the napkin aside and rubs her hands together. boring parts done! she says. time to get messy she says. amy pours a sixth shot of vodka. she says dont forget the anesthetic first. riley rolls her eyes. she says OBVIOUSLY i didnt forget the anesthetic. she says ill be right back. as soon as she leaves the room, amy knocks back her shot. she turns to you. she says you mind if i stay and watch? she says i dont want to make you uncomfortable, but i like watching her work. shes cute when shes working. you say at this point youre not sure you would mind anything at all. you say at this point you dont think you would be fazed if she came back with a fully-formed dick wriggling around in her hand like a fish and sewed it onto me. she says dont tempt fate.

riley comes back with a black bag the size of her head, which she sets on the coffee table with a thunk. she points at you and says okay, clothes off. or pants off i guess. you can leave the shirt on. or take it off. i dont care. you take it off. she tells you to lie down and starts pulling things out of the bag. amy stands up from the sofa to give you the space to stretch out and sits on the coffee table instead, one leg pulled up to her chest with her chin resting on her knee.

riley pulls out a syringe from the bag, filled with pitch-black fluid. she says okay this will hurt for a second but only for a second. you say huh? she flips you over onto your belly and jabs the needle against your lower back, into your spinal column. it hurts like a bitch for all of two seconds and then you stop feeling anything at all in your lower body. you also cant move your legs, you realize. what just happened you ask, as she flips you onto your back again. she says i just killed all the cells in the nerves in your lower spine. she says its the easiest way to make sure none of the pain signals slip through, and she'll just replace them with living ones when she's done. you don't know how to respond to that.

she pulls more things out of the bag. a cartoonish array of different cutting implements come out. most of them are various sizes of medical scalpel, ring cutter, or saw, but you also see a pair of chunky pink safety scissors, a pizza cutter, a serrated bread knife, an x-acto, a drill with a comically long bit, a pair of wire cutters, gardening shears, and an awl. she says okay im gonna start operating so look away if you dont wanna see how your crotch looks while its being rearranged. especially if you think you might puke, i hate having to stop to clean up puke in the middle of surgery. you look away. you notice amy is watching transfixed.

for a couple of hours things go on like that. amy and riley make light conversation, with riley filling any silence by humming a wordless tune you dont know. the sounds and smells youre getting are enough to make you slightly sick; you continue not looking.

in the middle of hour two, riley stops. oh goddamnit, she says. what amy asks? riley says she forgot that shed need extra meat. amy says you started a surgery to give somebody a whole new organ and forgot youd need more tissue to do it? riley says shut up, im dumb. amy says no youre not babe. riley says ughhhhh now what. amy says just get his stem cells to grow the tissue you need. riley says nooooooo thatll take forever, and i have places to BE tomorrow, and if i stop putting pressure on him here hes going to bleed out through his cunt. you say wait, what? amy says well i dont know what you want me to do about this situation, i gave you my solution. riley says baaaaaaaaaaabe. amy says whaaaaaaaaaaaat. riley says i think we have some bacon in the fridge, will you pretty please with sprinkles on top go get it? amy says and what do i get in return? riley says a kiss. amy says id get that anyway. riley says my undying love and affection. amy says i have that already. riley says not making me angry at you so you can sleep under my roof without having to worry that ill turn your sweat glands into acid glands in the middle of the night. amy says that, plus i get to top tonight. riley says fiiiiiiiiine, just go get the bacon. amy gets up.

you say look uh i know you said not to question what youre doing but i kind of dont want a dick made of bacon, not to sound ungrateful. also did you say something about me bleeding out? riley says dont worry, if you bleed out ill put the blood back in, im a professional. you say thats not as reassuring as she thinks it is. riley says whos the doctor, mister? you say technically both of us. i have a phd in social sciences you say. she says wow, theyre just giving out doctorates for anything these days, huh? you say hey, rude. she says only teasing. you say anyway, uh, you didnt address the bacon dick thing? she says oh dont worry about it, my amys amazing, youll see.

amy comes back in with the package of bacon. do you need this in any particular shape she asks. riley says nah just give me a good amount of it. and make sure its spongy, so when he gets hard the blood can- amy cuts her off. she says dont worry, ive given you enough penises at this point that i think i know what penile tissue is like at this point. you say given her enough penises? what the hell does that mean? riley says hey, dont kinkshame! she sounds legitimately offended. you say sorry. amy pulls the bacon out of the package, holding it aloft in her left hand. you watch as the familiar look of a half-pound of bacon shifts and warps into a strange lump of fatty, spongy tissue of a waxy color. she hands it to riley. riley says thanks sis youre the best, love you! amy says no problem. riley says id kiss you if i wasnt elbow deep in this guys cunt right now. amy says kiss me after the surgerys done.

another two hours go by. the sounds of flesh being chopped, sawed, and stitched underscore riley and amys meaningless conversation about whether they HAVE to attend their acquaintance lisa's birthday party. riley says lisa probably wouldn't throw a birthday party if there wasn't some sort of scheme going on. amy agrees but says that doesnt indicate whether they should get involved with the scheme or not. you wonder dimly if you will ever feel your lower body again. you wonder if this is purgatory, an endless afternoon of lesbians bickering affectionately while one of them does surgery on you. you turn your head enough to look at the clock. its 5:26pm. where the fuck did the time go?

another hour passes. riley stands up. she is soaked up to her elbow in various bodily fluids - mostly blood, but youre not looking too closely. she says finally! she says just need to regrow your nerve cells now. you say is that going to take long? she says like twenty minutes maybe as she flips you over. you say ok. she jams a different needle into the same spot, injecting a strange yellow paste into your spine. she then flips you onto your back again. you feel brave enough to finally look at your crotch.

there is a completely normal human penis of average size there. you reach a hand down and touch it. you dont have any sensation in it yet since your nerves are all still dead, but it feels warm and soft under your hands. you smile, feeling tears come to your eyes. its over.

rileys talking. she says i followed your specifications except i had to cheat a bit on the nerves, you actually didnt have very many in your clit for whatever reason so your glans has maybe eight thousand fewer nerves than you wanted, sorry about that. she says i gave you balls in your scrotum for shape but since you said you didnt want kids they dont produce sperm. let me know if you want that changed she says. she says it should be fully functional in every respect, but if you notice any erectile dysfunction, incontinence, discoloration in urine or semen, priapism, or any other issue come back and we'll sort it out. if you notice it bleeding in ANY capacity, call me immediately. if im not answering call Amy, ill give you her number. if SHES not answering either then you can start seeing normal doctors, not that those idiots will know how to help you probably. if you want any changes to it call me and ill pencil you in to get it adjusted. get all that she asks. you nod. she says cool. she says itll be like $200, no rush if youre not able to pay right now. you say it might be a bit since youre still trying to pay interest on your student loan debt. wait, she says, they have student loans again? you nod. she says the world ended like thirty years ago, when did they set up student loans again? fuck, how much do you owe? you say a little under eighty thousand. she says jesus fuck, nevermind, its free. goddamn. you say thank you so much. she says yeah of course. do you want us to dress you or do you want to wait until you can move and do it yourself?

[gay-dorito-dust]

Remy fic for @littlekidsteve

It has only been a little while since you and Remy had managed to escape the void along with Electra, Laura and Blade before biding them farewell, all the while you and Remy took a long walk as you both tried to figure out what you were going to do now that you were free.

Out of everyone you and Remy were the closet and so the idea of saying goodbye to one another after everything felt wrong, Remy had become apart of you as you became a vital part of him, so much so to the point neither of you could fathom an life without the other being apart of it some way or another.

‘Got any plans now that we’ve escaped the void?’ You asked him and he hums while shuffling his playing cards, a habit you noticed he had whether he was in need of a distraction or in deep thought.

‘I have been in the void for so long that I didn’t think I’d ever get out mon Cher, nor would get out so I made my inescapable prison a home, so all this is…rather new to me.’ Remy admits as he looked over at you with a soft expression before nudging you with his shoulder. ‘You have lived a life before the void, I think you’d be better suited for that question.’

You chuckled as you rubbed the back of your neck. ‘Yeah well I’m pretty sure they’ve pruned it by now, so I’m just as lost as you are and I haven’t been in the Void nearly as long as you have.’ You told him and Remy couldn’t help but chuckle as he went to grab your hand, intertwining it with his own. ‘Then we shall find a way to navigate our new life, together.’ He promised as he then brought your hand up to his lips before softly kissed it.

‘You promise?’ You asked.

‘I promise mon Cher.’ Remy echoed and suddenly everything felt like it was going to be okay, the void was long behind you both as the future was on the horizon, waiting for your both to take it

And soon enough with time and patience you and Remy found yourselves in your own little apartment -that was funnily enough not far from where Wade, Blind Al and Logan lived- and living a quiet, domestic lifestyle, just like you had wanted for a long time but couldn’t due to certain circumstances. You couldn’t help but smile softly upon first seeing Remy with an peaceful expression on his face as he slept, he looked beautiful and at ease with everything that you found yourself admiring him in silence, not wanting to ruin this moment by sneezing or shifting your weight and waking him by accident.

‘Wade is right. You are beautiful.’ You muttered lowly as you memorised his face and the way the light from the window made his skin glow an almost golden hue, making him look ethereal, as you took the time to appreciate the way his eyelashes kissed the apples of his cheeks. Remy was a handsome man and you were in no shape or form to deny it when you were more then aware of this face since the moment you met, but it wasn’t his physical appearance that drew you in but more or less his heart and his ability to light up anything that he touched, and soon enough you found yourself falling for the Cajun Frenchman more then you’d originally thought.

Remy has consumed your every waking and sleeping thought, claimed your body and heart as his own with how his eyes never seemed to leave you the moment you entered the room, smiling at you warmly before cross over to stand next to you for the rest of the day while occasionally showing off a new card trick he learnt. Even during combat Remy would stay close by to keep you safe when he felt that someone was getting too close for comfort by throwing one of his kinetically charged playing cards at them, and when you look over at him he just winks at you and continues the fight.

‘I can sense you watching me mon Cher.’ Remy said as he smiles cheekily, opening one eye to look at you as he brought a hand behind your head, pulling you in for a brief but sweet kiss before pulling away to look at you. ‘Am I really as beautiful as you say?’ He adds in a whisper as though he didn’t want anyone else to hear your conversation.

‘You can’t be blind to your own beauty can you Remy?’ You asked as you moved a hand to rest upon his chest, tapping your fingers against his skin in an unheard rhythm.

‘I’m not, I just want to hear you say it.’ Remy replied as he found his eyes wandering across your face with fondness and admiration. You couldn’t help but laugh as you rested your head against his chest, nuzzling into him. ‘You are indeed beautiful Remy Lebeau, the most beautiful man I have ever laid my eyes on.’ You admit as you look at him, pressing a kiss to his chin as you felt his arms tighten on you, restraining you from moving away from him.

‘You flatter me Cher, but it is you who’s the most beautiful.’ Remy says as he presses a kiss to the top of your head, breathing in the shampoo and conditioner you used and closing his eyes, never having the luxury of experiencing peace before in his life but finding himself falling in love with it as fast as he did with you. Remy felt as though he could stay in this bed forever with you but knew with your plans for later today he wouldn’t, though that didn’t stop him from doing whatever he could to keep you in his arms.

‘Wade, Logan, Laura and their friends are coming over soon.’ You murmured.

‘I know.’ Remy relied.

‘We should get up soon.’ You continued.

‘I know.’ Remy repeated as he kissed your head again, cuddling you further into his chest. ‘We’ll get up soon, but for now can we just…stay here, please Cher.’ He adds in a plea and you couldn’t help but feel yourself slipping into sleep the longer you stayed in Remy’s comforting and strong arms.

‘I guess five minutes wouldn’t hurt.’ You said as you nuzzled yourself into his neck, kissing it. ‘Then we’ll have to…to…wake.’ Before you could finish your sentence you had found yourself fast asleep as Remy smiled down at you. ‘I’m sure they won’t mind Cherie, they’ll understand.’ He says before joining you in dream land.

Bonus:

‘Where the fuck are they?!’ Wade shouted as he, Logan, Laura, Al, dogpool and the rest of his friends stood outside in the hallway to yours and Remy’s apartment after banging on the door for the past five minutes.

‘They’re probably still asleep, best we leave them be before we fucking wake the rest of the apartment complex.’ Logan said, side eyeing Wade as he sifted the welcome gifts in his arms.

Wade pouts and just as they were about to leave, a rugged and scruffy looking you and Remy opened the door to greet them as Wade laughs. ‘You two looked like as though we’ve interrupted something between you two.’ Wade the leaned towards you to whisper. ‘Is the French dick that good?’ You glared at him as you flicked him on the forehead, watching him as he winced and rubbed his forehead with a pout.

‘We may or may not have overslept thanks to someone.’ You nudged Remy in the side as he smiles cheekily and brings an arm to your waist, tugging you into his side. ‘Guilty as charged.’ He said proudly as you both stepped aside for everyone to enter your shared apartment before joining them, happy to have known such weird yet beautiful people.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Idea: same premise as Jazz being in Gotham with a deaged Danny and ending up dating Jason, but make it so Jazz is deaged and Danny ends up dating Cass

The first time Cass meets Danny is when he drops off his niece at the dance studio. She is filling in for a friend who typically volunteers as a ballerina instructor but has sprained her ankle in the last show together.

Since the program is meant to offer free classes for the children of low-income families, Cass feels it's important not to cancel classes as often as possible.

She doesn't even greet Danny as she's inside the studio with a group of five-year-olds, and he is out in the lobby.

He signs in Jazz at the front reception, talking to the employee there.

Danny hugs and kisses her cheek before the little girl runs inside to start her warm-up, leaving her father at the doorway of the dance room. Cass will admit she only notices him because he stares after the five-year-old with a smile and deep, wistful sadness in his body language.

Cass has seen enough in her night job to know that Jazz reminds Danny of someone he lost. He loves and adores the child but is constantly reminded of those long past. She has always been able to see someone in mourning, even when they hide it behind words.

The man stared for only a few seconds before he turned around and disappeared to the parking lot. Everyone else would have figured he was only making sure she had safely found a spot for her bag, but Cass could read him better than that.

The other had been traveling through memories as he watched the little girl laugh with her class friends.

Later, after the class is done and the children have all been picked up, she learns from the receptionist that Jazz is actually his sister's kid, who has died in childbirth. Danny had been appointed as her guardian, seeing as their parents had passed two years before, and no one knew who the father was. He had named the baby after the brave woman who had died only after making sure the baby had been born.

The man had moved to Gotham not too long ago, struggling to find work due to his meta-abilities. Lola, the gym receptionist, shook her head sadly. "Rumor has it the state is constantly trying to take Jazz from him. They claim it's to protect her, but we all know it's anti-meta bigotry."

Something about that struck a core with Cass. She, more than anyone, could tell when a father was a danger to his children. Danny's body language does not hint at anything but the love and protection of his niece. She had gone home to ask Babs and Tim to look into Danny's case.

It was worse than they thought, and Danny's continued guardship of Jazz was likely due to Gotham's corrupted system. Tim, head of the Gotham Knights Youth Program, was incredibly outraged that Danny and Jazz had likely not been separated because people in charge were purposely delaying the final outcome by trying to squeeze Danny for bribe money.

They could trace Danny forking over plenty of bribe money to have Jazz, along with several other families, for another month. This meant that he was always shot on his other bills, which did not do him any favors when trying to prove he could provide for Jazz, and the cycle started all over again.

Cass, Tim, and Babs all got to work on cracking down on this horrific shakedown. It would take them months to ensure everyone taking advantage of the system was taken out, and she had figured that other than running by their house as an Orphan, that was all the interaction she would have with the Fentons.

Tim had quickly offered Danny a position within Wayne Enterprises as a janitor and allowed Jazz to be placed in the company-provided childcare program. (Danny struggled to find work because he had no one to watch Jazz outside of school hours.). His new increase and guaranteed paycheck allowed Danny to keep making the br

Yet she found herself running into Danny when visiting Tim and Bruce at work and at Jazz dance practice. They would make the usual small talk—or the average amount for her, which was even less than other people politely—and often separate enough that she started associating Danny and little Jazz with her daily routine.

In the same way, she would consider seeing the same mailman making his rounds and the same beard buns being sold on the corner of Third Street every Tuesday. Nothing stuck with her besides Danny's deep loneliness and sadness hidden within his body language.

It wasn't an odd thing to see in a place like Gotham. Cass often could see more than anyone how everyone felt well walking about. She had learned long ago that while she felt sad, she could do nothing for everyone she encountered. Trying to save everyone from their own sadness wasn't possible, especially if it was due to grief.

But there was just something about Danny. She could not pinpoint what made Cass want to try, regardless of knowing it was helpless. So she found herself and started to reach out.

At first, she would pass along fun, free kid-friend event ideas, like asking him if he thought about bringing Jazz to the children's museum on their movie night? Or was he aware the library was hosting storytime by Jason Wayne? Has he tried the free chess and treat day provided by the frozen yogurt place on Mondays near the petting zoo?

Then she started messaging him. They traded numbers so she could tutor Jazz on some dance moves—free of charge—about anything and everything. Tim took notice and casually requested that she stick close by to see if anyone was off the books bothering Danny or any other meta like him.

Cass found that whatever free time she had, she was slowly filling it with Danny and little Jazz.

What a delight the girl was—smart, mature, and cheerful. Jazz has an obsession with teddy bears—especially her mother's old one that was a play on Albert Einstein—and the two would often find themselves having tea parties with her collection.

Danny would join as the royal king of the tea, and Cass would be the visiting princess. It was so fun that, for a moment, she forgot about the corruption plot she was trying to protect them from.

Danny and Jazz felt so part of her world that one day, while Bruce was trying to set up a Father-Daughter day, she opened her calendar app only to pause at the sight of it being practically filled up with plans.

There were plans involving Danny and Jazz. There were reminders to take Jazz to her appointments, school events for Jazz, Fenton Fudge night, and plans to take Danny out and have her siblings babysit Jazz.

She thinks back to all the times she's over at their house. The cooking, the movies on the couches, the texts between her and Danny. But what she thinks of the most is the warm butterfly feeling Danny causes in her, the genuine adoration for a man inside and out, and it hits her.

"I'm in love with him."

Bruce looks up from his calendar app with confusion. "You're in love with nail tech at Gotham Spa? Well, I can still book us the pedicures, but to request him might be hard-"

"No, Bruce, Danny Fenton."

"Oh"

[opencommunion]

The Stop Cop City movement has sought to prevent the expropriation of part of the Welaunee Forest for the development of an 85-acre police mega training center: a model town to prepare the state’s repressive arms for the urban warfare that will ensue when the contradictions of their exploitation and extraction become uncontainable, as they did in 2020 after the APD murdered Rayshard Brooks.  That murder, and all those that came before, were the lodestars of the Black-led movement during the George Floyd uprisings; their demands were no less than the dismantlement of the entire carceral system. Unable to effectively manage or quell the popular street movements, the Atlanta Police Foundation set out to consolidate and expand their capabilities for surveillance, repression, imprisonment, armed violence, and forced disappearance. One result is Cop City, which has been racked by militant sabotage, land occupation, arson, and popular mobilizations, in an attempt to end the construction and return Atlanta to its people.  As the Atlanta Police Foundation was unable to contain the 2020 Black rebellion, so too have they been unable to quell the resistance against Cop City. The press reports that the project is hemorrhaging money and is mired in delays and difficulties. For their part, the city, the state, and the federal government, have in turn employed every tool in their power to destroy the movement. Last week, the Georgia State Senate passed a bill to effectively criminalize bail funds in the state; RICO charges have been contorted to target networks of support and care that surround the fighters; and last January, APD assassinated the comrade Tortuguita in cold blood while they rested in their tent in the forest. It is clear that Stop Cop City represents one of the conjunctural spear tips for expanding the existing systems of counterinsurgency that span Africa, Asia, and the Arab world.  Today the system’s belly rests atop Gaza, whose rumblings shake the earth upon which we walk. Through its Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, the APD has sent hundreds of police to train with the Zionist occupation forces. And in October 2023, after Tufan al-Aqsa, the Atlanta Police Department engaged in hostage training inside abandoned hotels, putatively intended to “defeat Hamas,” in an advancement of tactics for the targeting of Black people. With every such expansion, the ability of counterinsurgency doctrines to counteract people’s liberation struggles grows. The purpose of counterinsurgency is to marshal state and para-state power into political, social, economic, psychological, and military warfare to overwhelm both militants and the popular cradle—the people—who support them. Its aim is to render us hopeless; to isolate and dispossess us and to break our will to resist it by any and all means necessary. This will continue apace, unless we fight to end it. Stop Cop City remains undeterred: on Friday, an APD cop car was burnt overnight in response to the police operation on February 8; yesterday, two trucks and trailers loaded with lumber were burnt to the ground. An anonymous statement claiming credit for the former, stated: “We wish to dispel any notion that people will take this latest wave of repression lying down, or that arresting alleged arsonists will deter future arsons.”  As the U.S. government and Zionist entity set their sights on the Palestinian people sheltering in Rafah, as they continue their relentless genocide of our people in Khan Younis, Jabalia, Shuja’iyya, and Gaza City, the Stop Cop City movement has clearly articulated its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. They have done so with consistency and discipline, and we have heard them. Our vision of freedom in this life and the next requires us to confront and challenge the entangled forces of oppression in Palestine and in Turtle Island, and to identify the sites of tension upon which these systems distill their forces. This week, as with the last three years, the forest defenders have presented us one such crucible.

(11 Feb 24)

National Lawyers Guild, Stop All Cop Cities: Lessons For a National Struggle (video, 1 hr 45 min)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

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/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[arieslost]

cinnamon whiskey | ln4

lando norris x fem!writer!reader

summary: you meet a famous race car driver in one of the last places you’d expect— the adirondacks.

word count: 4,578

warnings: drinking, minor injuries (small description of bruising)

masterlist — join my tag list here!

© arieslost 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

Your editor was going to kill you.

Every day brought you closer to the deadline for your manuscript, and every day you could hardly help yourself out in getting to your self-imposed goal of 1,000 words. It wasn’t a difficult feat; you’d done it before, and you didn’t have anything else to be doing. You had absolutely zero distractions: it was just you, your notebook, and your computer. There was only one problem.

The words just weren’t coming to you, and you’d already gotten a two week extension on the deadline. It felt like all your writing abilities had been rescinded.

“I’m screwed.” You professed to your best friend, falling into a pathetic heap on her couch. You needed a serious pick-me-up after struggling to write a measly paragraph, and she had readily offered a girls night.

“I think you’re being a little dramatic. Scoot over.” She replied, shoving your legs out of the way so she could sit. “Maybe you just need to get out of your house.”

“And go where? I can’t just pack up and take a vacation right now.” You grumbled into the couch cushion.

“Why don’t you go upstate?” She suggested after a moment of silence.

“Upstate?” You repeated.

“Yeah, go to the Adirondacks. My dad owns a house up there, remember? We had a blast the last time we were there.”

You and your best friend had gone up to the Adirondacks when you graduated college, and you always prefaced the retelling of it with, “It was one of the best weeks of my life.” You almost felt silly for not thinking of doing something like that in the first place.

“It might be a good idea… Do you think your dad would be okay with me staying there?”

Your best friend laughed. “Yes, you idiot. He’s let me stay there by myself, he’ll definitely let you.”

A mere 24 hours went by, and you were settled in a cozy cabin in the Adirondacks with the desperate hope of having the rest of your manuscript ready by the end of your stay. Otherwise, you might as well just fire yourself and save your editor some time.

It wasn’t the only cabin in the area– it was more like a very small community made up of six houses built exactly the same. The area was usually used by people with a decent amount of cash lining their pockets, so you were extra grateful to your best friend’s father. He had taken one look at the dejection on your face when your best friend had mentioned her grand idea, and simply handed you the keys with the promise that your stay would be free of charge.

You did feel a little out of place, though– you could have sworn one of your neighbors was in a movie you’d just watched, and another one was just so ridiculously attractive there was no way he wasn’t famous for something. You’d seen him out on his front porch when you arrived, and had to force yourself not to stare or salivate over his bare torso.

The change of scenery around you helped tremendously. At first. You always felt refreshed when you went somewhere new, particularly if it was somewhere you felt more connected to nature. You had gotten into the habit of taking walks to calm yourself when you got frustrated, and having new sights was definitely an exciting prospect for when you inevitably slammed your computer shut and stormed out the door like you just did a few moments ago.

You’ll be the first to admit it: the story just isn’t coming together. Your main character has a goal, a purpose, but she is entirely lacking any kind of driving force to get where she needs to go.

She has no motivation.

You can appreciate irony, but there’s nothing funny about it right now.

The dirt and leaves crunch under your feet as you walk down the first trail that you see. It branches off from the main path that runs between all of the houses: yours, the attractive guy’s, and one other, and then the suspected movie star’s and the other two on the other side. Right now, you just want to see nothing but the path before you, the trees in your peripheral vision, the gentle summer breeze in your hair, and maybe a chipmunk or a squirrel here and there.

But, of course, you can’t even have that. You’re alone with your thoughts for all of two seconds before you hear a crash off to your left that sends a few birds flying. You would have ignored it if not for the groan that immediately followed.

“Um… hello?” You call out, doubling back to try and see just what the hell had happened.

If you were in a horror movie, this would most certainly be your death scene.

“Ah…” It’s definitely a man, and he definitely sounds like he’s in pain.

“Are you okay?” You step off the path, getting closer to where the noise had come from.

That’s where you find him— your insanely attractive neighbor, practically in the fetal position, entirely focused on the camera in his hand. His jaw is clenched, whether in pain or concern for the camera, you don’t know. You just know he has a sharp jawline, long eyelashes, and curly hair.

Ugh, you could cry because he’s so good looking.

He looks up at you, eyes meeting yours, and he has the decency to look embarrassed.

“What the hell just happened to you?”

“I, um… I fell out of that tree.” He confesses, pointing to a branch, not too high up, but now dangling in half.

“And you were in the tree because…” You trail off, gesturing for him to explain further.

“Right, well, I was taking pictures and had an idea for a good one from a higher vantage point, so I climbed the tree. Thought I had a good balance, but—” He winces as he pushes himself up into a sitting position. “I didn’t.”

“No kidding. You’re lucky you didn’t break anything.” You marvel, hands held out in front of you just in case he falls over when he starts standing up.

“I’m not too sure about that.” He huffs out a pained laugh.

“You wouldn’t have been able to stand up so easily if you had, and your wrist and shoulder look fine.” You point out. “I have no doubt that you bruised your side up pretty badly though.”

“Yeah? How would you know?” He leans against the tree he just fell out of, his miraculously unbroken camera hanging from the strap around his neck.

“I’m a writer. I’m like a black hole of useless information.”

“I don’t think it’s useless anymore.” He takes a step forward and his face immediately contorts into a grimace. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Well, you’ve already asked so much of me, but if you really have to, then sure.” You tease, and he laughs again.

“I’m probably going to need some help getting back to the house,” he begins, and then continues after taking in the surprised look on your face. “But you don’t have to. I can just crawl or something. Maybe I’ll get lucky and make it back before nightfall.”

Not just attractive, but funny too? You might as well make the most out of these two weeks and use whatever you can to help you finish that dreaded manuscript. Besides, the only other person you’ve ever met who can hold a torch to your sense of humor is your best friend. This has to be a sign of some sort.

“Alright, but at least tell me your name first.”

His name is Lando, you’ve known him for an hour, and you think you’re in love with him.

Sure, you’re frustrated that he completely ruined the solitude that you craved, but the ice maker in his house is broken and he desperately needs some for the bruise that you know is darkening by the second underneath his t-shirt. So he’s sprawled out on your couch, and you’re in the kitchen collecting ice cubes to wrap up in a hand towel.

“Alright, lift your shirt up,” you instruct, walking into the living room and taking a seat beside him.

“I usually take a girl out before I let her see me half naked.”

“But it’s okay if everyone else sees you out on your porch half naked?”

“You were looking?” He tilts his head down a little and raises his eyebrows. “Liked what you saw, did you?”

You blush. “Just shut up and lift your shirt.”

He hums a little to himself as he pulls his shirt up, revealing the beginnings of a bruise on his tan skin that is already swollen and definitely going to get worse over the next couple of days. It looks like it continues below the waistband of his boxers, but you’re not about to tell him to pull his pants down.

“That’s ugly.”

“I’ve had worse.” He shrugs, biting his lip when you gently rest the makeshift ice pack against his side.

“You have a habit of falling out of trees?”

“I have a habit of being in potentially life-threatening situations. It’s kinda part of my job.” He says it like he’s waiting for you to figure something out, waiting for something to click.

You take a moment to just look at him again. His fluffy curls, his infuriatingly handsome face, his thick neck, his toned stomach. And then something you’ve heard your best friend say a million times echoes in your head.

I bet every F1 driver’s contract has a clause that says they have to be hot in order to get in. I mean, you have Daniel Ricciardo, Charles Leclerc, and don’t even get me started on–

“Oh my God. Lando Norris?” You exclaim, almost jumping up from shock but stopping yourself so you don’t jostle him. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“I thought you knew!”

You glare at him. “Cocky much?”

“Well, what did you think when I told you my name?” He asks defensively.

“I don’t know, I thought your parents really liked Star Wars or something.”

He scoffs at this and smacks your hand away, holding the ice himself. “That’s real creative.”

“I’m sorry! My best friend is really into Formula One, but the most I’ve seen is bits and pieces of a race. I’ve never seen you, y’know, not in your car.” You feel like your eyes are practically bugging out of your head. “Wow, this is insane.” You knew he was too good looking to not be famous.

“Want me to sign something for you?” He wiggles his eyebrows at you.

“I will punch you right in your bruise.”

He stays for a couple more hours, readily enduring your endless stream of questions that follow your revelation of him being a Formula One driver, only getting a reprieve when the ice melts and you have to go get more.

He compensates for recounting his entire journey to Formula One by asking you his own questions the moment he’s done. You tell him more about how you became a writer– how you got your bachelor’s degree, got out into the world, and realized you had no clue what you wanted to do with your life, so you took a retail job. It paid a dollar above minimum wage, but it was worth it when something you heard a customer say once inspired you to craft a narrative that your editor liked enough to pick it up. She’d taken a gamble on you; you were her fourth client and the book wasn’t finished yet.

“So that’s why I’m out here,” you pause to catch your breath. “I need to have the manuscript done two weeks from yesterday, and I wasn’t getting anything done at home.”

“Needed a change of scenery.” Lando nods, like he can read your mind.

“Exactly.” You say quietly, suddenly feeling a bit self conscious under his intense gaze but refusing to look away.

The energy in the room shifts as the two of you look at each other, and you break the sudden eye contact when you take note of the fact that it’s dark out.

“I guess that’s my cue to leave,” he breaks the silence, pulling his shirt back down and letting out a quiet groan as he gets up. “I’ll see you tomorrow? There’s no way someone will be able to get up here to fix my ice machine by the morning.”

You blink at him a couple times, still trying to wrap your mind around the fact that you just spent hours talking with Lando Norris, all because he fell out of a tree. You didn’t even offer to make him dinner or anything, and he’s making plans to do this all over again.

You still haven’t spoken, so he waves his hand in front of your face. “Oh! Yeah, of course. Be careful, okay?”

He gives you an obnoxious salute. “I’ll try to survive the 50 steps it takes to get to my place from here.”

You go running for your laptop and start writing as soon as he’s gone.

He’s at your door in the morning, and spends the whole day with you. Then the next, and the next, and the next thing you know, you only have four days left in your best friend’s dad’s house and it feels like you and Lando have known each other your entire lives. He isn’t able to do much in terms of physical activity, and when he trips over a root after insisting he’s fine you make the executive decision to go back to your house.

“Make some room, would you?” You sigh, looking for a place to sit thanks to the fact that he’s taking up the entire couch.

He simply lifts his head up.

“You’re joking, right?”

“I’m in pain. Don’t you want me to be comfortable?” He pouts at you.

“You’re insufferable, and a liar.” All the same, you sit down, and he rests his head in your lap.

He ignores you, eyes closed with a satisfied little smile on his face.

For his antics, you decide to disturb his newfound peace by putting the ice pack directly on his face and laugh when he bats it away.

“That’s just mean,” he whines, pressing his lips together when you put the ice on his bruise.

It’s mostly yellow and green now, like a weird rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Lando had made a game out of poking it two nights ago that ended just as quickly when he poked himself too hard and blamed you for it when you had been in the middle of telling him not to. After that, he hadn’t touched it, and now it looks a lot better. The ice probably isn’t needed anymore, but you’d prefer to err on the side of caution.

“You’ll live,” you say now, patting the top of his head to distract him from the discomfort.

“The last time I had a bruise this bad was when I crashed in Vegas last year.” He says, blinking up at the ceiling. “Took a while to go away.”

“I think I remember hearing about that. You crashed pretty early, no?”

“Yup. Barely got to race.” The sentences come out very clipped, like he’s still upset about it.

“It was a bad crash, huh?”

“Pretty bad.” You don’t have anything to say in response to that, so you start brushing your fingers through his curls. He relaxes instantaneously.

He almost falls asleep with his head in your lap, and that’s when you can’t take it anymore and have to kick him out. He’s almost to the last step when he stops and turns back, making direct eye contact with you.

“Y’know, it’s too bad you weren’t there when I crashed.” He gives you a soft smile. “You’re pretty good at taking care of me.”

Well, shit.

There’s a bottle of cinnamon whiskey sitting in one of the kitchen cabinets that you’ve been waiting for an excuse to open. You should drink it now when you’re thinking about him, but you decide to wait until you see him again.

You open your laptop and write until you fall asleep.

By the time you let him in the next morning, you’re stumped again. You only slept for a few hours and expected to get right back into your groove the moment you woke up, but when you read over what you wrote last night, your brain just refused to comprehend it. It feels like you’re back to square one, but you can’t be too upset about it when Lando makes his way through the door. He doesn’t mention anything about ice like he usually does, which makes you equally happy and disappointed. Happy that he’s feeling good enough to forego the ice, disappointed because that means that there’s really no reason for him to come over anymore.

But if there’s one thing you can expect from him, it’s his spontaneity.

“We should go out tonight.”

“And where exactly would we be going?” You ask, watching him kick back on the couch like he’s the one that lives here.

“I dunno, just outside, I guess. You like stargazing?”

“I love it.” You reply enthusiastically. “I bet the stars are gorgeous out here. I’ve been cooped up every night, I haven’t had the chance to see them.”

“It’s settled then. Cancel your plans, you’re all mine tonight.”

“I didn’t— never mind.” You silently will away the flush creeping up your neck. “Actually, I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“How’d those pictures come out? The ones you were trying to take when you fell?” You lean over the back of the couch in order to actually see him as you’re talking to him.

“That was two questions.” He laughs when you smack his shoulder. “I got a couple action shots as I was falling. They’re terrible, but I’m thinking about keeping them for the memories. Fun story for the kids, don’t you think?”

“Sure.” The kids?! You’re definitely breaking out the whiskey tonight. It’s the first (and only) thing you grab when he goes back to his place to get a blanket.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” You ask the moment the two of you step onto the trail, and he puts a hand over his heart.

“Your concern for me is adorable.”

“I’m only asking because you almost ate shit last time.” You burst out laughing at the immediate change in his expression.

He ends up leading the way for a mile or two before you reach a clearing that you would’ve discovered had he not fallen out of the tree.

“This is beautiful,” you muse, taking in your surroundings as Lando lays the blanket on the ground.

The sun is just about set, a light breeze passing through; a few different wildflowers are waving throughout the clearing. You look around and can’t see any sign of civilization. While that should make you nervous, since you’re with a guy you’ve only known for less than two weeks, it instead makes you relax. You forget entirely about your computer waiting for you back at the house and busy yourself with getting the top off the whiskey bottle.

“Found it the second day I was here. I’ll have to show you the pictures I got once I upload them all.” Lando says, furrowing his eyebrows as you struggle with your task. “Need some help there?”

“Be my guest,” you hand it over and have to force yourself to remain calm when he pops the top off like it was nothing.

“Ladies first,” he hands it back.

With pleasure, you think to yourself. Maybe getting drunk will help you stop acting like a schoolgirl. You take a generous drink, squeezing your eyes shut and breathing out slowly. “That is strong.”

“Hand it over.” He lets out a low whistle as soon as he swallows and returns it to you. “Wow.”

“I actually had a dream like this once,” you say, wincing at the burn of the whiskey as it slides down your throat. “I was just laying there, staring at the stars, with no worries. It was so peaceful.”

Lando takes the bottle from your outstretched hand. “I don’t dream.”

“What?!” The high pitch of your voice slices through the night. “Are you serious?”

“Yup.” He takes a long sip from the bottle before placing it down in the space between you. “Never have.”

“That’s- that’s crazy.” You shake your head.

“I’d think it’s nicer that way, no?” he counters. “I probably sleep better than you.”

“I mean, I guess. But then you don’t have any crazy dreams to share.”

“You always remember your dreams?”

Now, you blush. You’re not sure why you’re embarrassed. “I, um… I keep a journal.”

Lando’s eyes widen. “No way.”

“I have dreams written down all the way back to 2015.” You confess, reaching for the bottle again.

He starts laughing, like he thinks you’re joking.

“I’m serious!” You exclaim, shoving his shoulder. “In my defense, I’ve actually come up with some ideas from my dreams. Fat lot of good they’re doing for me right now, but…”

Lando hums, eyes skimming over your now crestfallen expression. He passes the bottle back.

“Thanks,” you mumble, tilting the bottle up to your lips.

“I’m sure you’ll find some type of inspiration while we’re out here.”

“I only have two days left, Lan.”

He gestures for you to pass the bottle back, and you do. You watch as he takes a sip, looking from his lips, to his jaw, to his neck, to his Adam’s apple that bobs as he swallows. You’re really going to miss this view. He lets out a quiet hiss. “Damn, that’s strong whiskey.”

“I told you.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, and then he speaks again. “My ice machine got fixed.”

“That’s—”

“Last week.” He cuts you off, doing that stupid thing he does where he stares directly into your eyes.

Your heart is in your throat, and your voice is small when you reply. “Okay…”

“And I was supposed to leave three days ago.”

Now your jaw drops. “Why… Why are you still here?”

“Because you’re still here.” He answers evenly, the alcohol clearly working in his favor. “I initially came here for the same reason as you– needed a change of scenery. It’s summer break right now, and my friend Logan told me it was super nice up here. It is, but then I had my little mishap and… it’s been a lot better since you showed up. So I decided to stay a little longer.”

He’s close to you now, so close you can smell the whiskey on his breath, so you say the only thing you can think to say. “I can’t believe you fell out of a tree.”

“I can’t believe you took care of me this whole time.” He brushes your hair out of your face, and his fingers linger on your cheek.

Your internal giddiness rises when you realize he’s actually about to kiss you. Your stomach is doing Olympic level gymnastics and you don’t trust yourself to speak, so you let the whiskey do it for you: you kiss him first.

You can’t remember the last time you kissed anyone, but the moment he pulls you on top of him you know that you won’t ever forget kissing him.

“Lan…” you break away from him to catch your breath, smoothing his curls back from his forehead. You can just see the glint in his eyes as he stares up at you, and it’s borderline painful knowing that you only get to enjoy this view for two more days.

You don’t remember what you were going to say to him. It’s way too soon for “I love you,” and not the right time to say “I already miss you.” You still want to say both.

Like he can hear your inner turmoil, he silences it by touching his forehead to yours. “Kiss me again, please,” he whispers.

You don’t waste a second in giving him what he wants, wanting nothing more in this moment than to feel his lips against yours again. You’re careful to avoid his side as he lays back on the blanket, keeping a firm grip on your hips so you don’t go anywhere. You try to convey everything you want to say into the kiss: I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you. I know I’m going to miss you. Please don’t let me go.

He holds you closer and gently slips his tongue into your mouth, and you melt into him, knowing the whole while that Lando Norris has effectively ruined all other men for you.

Six Months Later.

Your phone is ringing in the other room as you’re in the middle of recounting the kiss to your best friend for the millionth time.

“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” you apologize. “It might be important.”

Thinking it’s your editor, because who else would call you at this late hour, you don’t look at the caller ID before you answer. “Hi, listen, I wanted to talk to you about—”

“The love interest falls out of a tree, huh?”

Your mouth falls open. “Lando?”

“That would be me. Or should I change my name to Darren?”

You roll your eyes, unable to stop yourself from smiling. “I thought you were never going to call me.”

You’d finished your manuscript the day before you went home. He’d been sleeping right next to you as you wrote the final words, and you should’ve brought it up that morning. Instead, you left your number on his porch the day you left, too deep in overthinking mode to actually face him and properly say goodbye. You truly didn’t expect him to call you after that act of such cowardice, especially after the two of you spent almost the entirety of your last days together at various levels of undress.

“I really wanted to,” he admits. “At least ten different times. I think Oscar might have assaulted me if I chickened out this time.”

“Yeah, because you won’t shut the hell up about her!” A voice in the background exclaims, and you hear something go flying.

“Get out!” Lando snaps, and you can hear Oscar’s laughter fading.

“Sweet of you to subject him to hearing all about me.”

“Come to the race at Silverstone.” He says before you can even finish your sentence. “I’ll pay for the flight, the hotel, everything. Just come.”

You feel like the floor just fell out from under your feet. “Lan—”

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” It’s said in a nearly unintelligible whisper, but his tone changes so suddenly you have to sit down.

“I can’t stop thinking about you either.” You confess. “That’s… kind of why I wrote you into my book.”

“Please, come to Silverstone,” he repeats, practically begging. “Come be with me.”

And when he finds you in the crowd after taking the win at his home race, and he wastes no time in wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing his lips to yours for everyone to see, you’re immediately taken back to those two weeks you spent in the Adirondacks, where you finally found the inspiration you’d been missing your entire life.

note: this one goes out to my fellow writers who desperately wish their inspiration would fall out of a tree— writer’s block will never defeat us.

this got a little long, so if you’re reading this, thank you thank you thank you.

requests are OPEN, and my inbox is always open for comments, criticism, and conversation! feel free to pop in!

reblogs are always appreciated <33

beautiful dividers by @/saradika !

tags (i’m sorry if i couldn’t tag you!): @venusacrossthestars @anathedivine @xfuckoffx @architect-2015 @violetiss3lfish @havaneselover08 @paigeworlds @whatever7justchillin @xoredmoonlightxo @dovieloovie @totowolffstablexoxo @maddie-bell @lalisgs11 @rrrraaaalllluuuu @formulasportworld @madisonbidaddy @anedpev @estherapz-blog @jess-wither @loveyatopluto @athena-artemis-dorian-gray @lou-larcher5 @clearlyabi @fizzpopsnap101 @fluerlaurent @mcmuppet @positiveaspirations @notturlover @crazymofo-96 @chanthereader @apollo-axolotl

[bewitchingnymph]

The beauty of 12th house

( btw i made my own research, if there's something wrong or i forgot to add something feel free to say something <3 )

☆ The 12th house is the house of hidden, secrets, realm, dreams, mystery, intuition, healing, psychic, self sacrifice and some say is the house of hidden enemies. The 12th house is looked down upon in the astrology community since everyone believes if you have one or two planets or a stellium in 12th house, you're doomed but that's not true.

☆ The 12th house is the house of pisces ♓ ( traditionally ruled by jupiter ♃ and in modern astrology ruled by neptune ♆ ) the sign of arts, the unconditionally love, the mystic beauty. For me it's brings the unknown into reality, can make someone very spiritual, open minded and also very sensitive. But they can be misunderstood like the fallen angels ( alot of people like to call this house the house of fallen angels ).

☆One thing about this house is that you can heal others, you may have abilities to guide other people ( not saying that's gonna be your career, you're just the type of person that will always have their shoulder for someone to cry on but they will not give their shoulder for you to cry on, it happens all the time ) but it can be quite overwhelming so they will isolate themselves, being in solitude helps them especially when it comes to stressful or difficult situations so they go to their special place ( home or they could travel to an isolated place ) it helps them charging their batteries. They will have something to help them deal with their problems, something that brings comfort like listening to music, doing arts ( they have an amazing talent for arts ) and if you have a pet i know that you will die for them, you see them as your angel that basically saved your life.

☆ You must likely been that child that was out of place, you could feel that your family or friends didn't quite understand the type of person you were so you most likely be the one kid that loved animals and the nature, if you lived in the farm or around nature you most likely spent the days hanging in the trees, talking with any type of animals especially bugs, collecting anything that catches your eyes etc. You have quite an imaginative mindset, most likely you had an imaginary friend, you saw stuff that weren't there, probably you had alot of paranormal encounter as a child and aswell as an adult. You probably saw UFOs, spirits, angels, demons, fairys ( i know that probably some people will say " they don't exist " but for the 12th house people, they do and they most likely saw it ).

☆ The thing about 12th house, it can make you have a hard time to open up like a normal person, it can make you uncomfortable so instead you use your talent to express your emotions like writing, singing, drawing etc. but if you dont do that you most likely to keep stuff to yourself

☆ Day dreaming is something that 12th house people do all the time, escaping the reality when things get tough quite like alice in wonderland, they will find comfort in doing this but gotta be careful because it can be a struggle to comeback to reality. They dream alot in their sleep and alot of their dreams come with meanings and also warnings so it's very important for you to remember your dreams and try to solve the message behind it, it can be messages from the other side, kinda like warning you about the person you met or about what's coming for you

☆ You most likely be very religious or spiritual. Praying, manifesting, connecting with the other side is something that you're very natural, you have a gift for it. Some say that you have a third eye.

☆ Solitude, isolation is something that 12th house people find comfort in, if they could they would 100% live in a isolated island. They don't have hard time in being alone, they can be quite introverted

☆ These people can be extremely empathic, can feel other people's emotions, you know that person that cries when someone cries, that's them. They have this compassion that isn't even fake, it's just they're naturally good people, the type of person that easily forgives, even if someone is bad for some reason they still see a good side in them. Probably that's what they're meant do to in this earth as their karmic lesson.

So i kinda wanted to show the beauty side of the 12th house, btw any house in astrology can have the pros and cons not just the 12th house ☆

( that's all, like i said if i forgot to add something, feel free to say )

[planete777]

I WANT YOU BAD・⁠｡♪ LN4

( lando norris x fem!reader )

IN WHICH. y/n (and a good joint) is lando's best distraction. (based on this ask)

WARNINGS. 18+, MINORS DNI!, drug use (as per), unprotected p in v, riding, lordddd they are filty, dirty talk, squirting, high hotness pt 345345, lando is in love with the reader (as per pt. 2), guys it's just filth filth filth

NOTE. yoohoooo im soo back!!! first fic release after like 3 months haha.... but it's high!lando so, forgive me plz 😔🙏 anyways, i'm slowly getting back into the groove of writing (i only wrote a tad bit during my break smh) and im sorry if im a bit rusty. hopefully, its only up from here. enjoy my dearest readers, and feedback is always welcomed <3

SIDENOTE. my askbox is open! feel free to send in any thoughts, scenarios, requests etc for lando 🤍

there's a gentle, warm thrum that bubbles beneath lando's skin, like a premise of excitement, tendrils of smoke tearing and stitching sentience with sluggish countenance. doesn't see a thing beyond a feet before him, and can't feel anything (yet feels everything) sauf the familiar radiation of body heat from the girl pressed limply into him.

two things for the price of one, it barely gets better than this. he feels like a magic act, cartoonish smears of smoke coalescing, then dimming as he inhales and exhales and inhales again. every taut stress from the day slowly flakes off his muscles, and succeeding another drag of the joint, he lets a gentle sigh huff out of him.

"better now?"

y/n's voice sounds like soft lace in his ears, and she snuggles closer into his shoulder, hand splayed, and weighty, upon his chest. she feels completely dead, always getting too high too fast, but never lets the warnings rid her of the euphoria. lando knows that, and can't blame her either; there's something unequivocally beautiful about getting high and losing the ability to connect one thought to another.

he shifts- he thinks he does so- rolling the spliff between his fingers before curling his lips to push out the smoke that began to scratch striations into his throat.

"yeah," he drawls out, "never go wrong with a good spliff."

y/n just barely giggles, palm rubbing up and down lando's chest. he swears he's on fucking fire, neurones charging and buzzing and crackling at every heightened numbness, and all he can do is take another drag.

there's a blanket of silence, comfortable and observing, before lando feels her, wantonly, drag her hand over his crotch then squeezes; and, jesus fucking christ, the moan that's punched out of him is ungodly.

"y/n- fucking hell," he leaves it at that, slowly swivelling his head towards her. she's smiling, largely and so gorgeously that lando feels like he's levitating. why is she looking at him like that?

"wanna fuck you, lan'," she whispers, redundant because it's already so damningly filthy, "make you lose your shit."

lando is struck speechless and completely horny, blood swelling his cock to where it edges pain, but god, does it feel so fucking good that all he can do is moan and tighten his grip on y/n's thigh sprawled across his body.

she smirks, sitting upright and slides to straddle lando, hips grinding heavily into his and the pressure is glorious.

"you like that, huh?" she bites her lower lip and presses harder, lando's head lolling to the backrest of the armchair. he could cum right into his pants if his motive wasn't to do it deep into y/n's cunt instead.

"you know i do, baby," he takes another drag, doesn't know how he musters the effort to, "you riding me is a sight."

she giggles, "just staring at my tits as i'm doing so, you fucker."

lando shakes his head, "nah, i meant all of you, baby. so beautiful," then he's smiling and pulling her into a kiss that's just tongue and want, lando gripping a hand around her nape. he can die like this, he thinks, encompassed in the feeling of a throbbing dick and a sloppy, wet mouth— all of it.

y/n curls her fingers around the hem of his joggers, lifting her hips- their lips still attached- and sliding them down his thighs. cool air caresses his cock, pulsating, weeping and redder than she's ever seen it before, lando moaning at the relief as it slaps against his abdomen.

"oh lan' look at you," she whispers, wrapping her hand around his cock (the way he squirms at that is indescribable), "you need my pussy that bad?"

it's all faux concern, but it does the trick, lando nodding and on the verge of sobbing when she clenches her fist.

"come on- fuck me, y/n," he's whining and squirming, hands grabbing at her shorts to tug it off after wedging the joint between his lips. she stands up, lando's hands trailing away as she goes to slide them off, crumpling at her feet. and all lando thinks is mylovemylovemylove. his skin burns like he's being dipped in lava, yanking his shirt off and throwing it to the ground.

the girl wastes no time crawling back into his lap, hovering over his erect cock as she takes both hands, spreads her cheeks and sheaths him in.

"y/n- ohh fuckkk-"

the slide— it's so so good, lando's losing his mind, he wants to ask 'no prep?' but fuck, she's taking him so well that he just shuts off. he pants roughly, eyes squeezing shut as she whines and bottoms out, feeling deeper than he has ever been. he's tingling everywhere, a shaking a hand plucking his spliff out of his mouth and unto the couch, feeling y/n's tight, hot pussy grip him with every inch of its life. and just when he thinks it's nearly too much, she starts to move.

y/n grinds and bounces like a fucking pornstar, shirt and bra she had on a few minutes ago strewn somewhere in the room, tits jumping and nipples swollen. oh, it's such a view and as much as lando wants to keep watching, a spark of pleasure causes his eyes to hurl to the back of his head, body flushed deeply and mouth slackened as it leaks a thick moan.

"your cock, lan'- shit, i'm gonna cum so hard," y/n's voice sounds so ruined and lando is obsessed with it, eyes opening as he gives her a small smirk. hands run all over her body- her legs, her breasts- before settling on her ass and languidly dragging it up and down his cock. y/n's reaction is immediate, trembling and crying out a high pitched moan that almost has lando cumming right there.

"i want you to cum so hard, baby. this is your cock," he huffs, hips thrusting upwards and slapping against y/n's ass. the sounds make his mind go static; it's so filthily good, skin hitting skin.

y/n smashes her lips against lando's as she works her hips harder, feeling the cold metal of his chain bind to chest. they can barely kiss, panting into each other's mouth- then lando's cock stabs her g spot, hard, and she's screaming and cumming, liquid running between her thighs and cunt squeezing lando so damn tight, he's pushing her hips into his, yelping, and spurting cum, thick and warm, into y/n.

"fuck fuck fuck- oh god baby, just like that," lando speaks into her skin, "just like that."

he rolls his hips to ride out their highs, pleasure setting deep in his veins before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her towards him, leaning back.

"fuck, i love you," lando whispers, pressing kisses into her shoulder.

"even when i squirt all over you?"

lando smirks, placing a kiss on her lips, "especially when you squirt, baby.