#delta league

[pluralsword]

Upcoming Chapter 18 of Addendum

For everyone waiting on Chapter 18, we made a lot of headway on it recently, it is 2/3rds done currently :3 Hope and plan to release soon. Most of this chapter is a Rampage point of view (who we write as transmasc and his sister Trans-Mutate as transfemme, both part of the Anti-Functionist resistance known as the Delta League or the Anti-Vocationist League, back during the era of the autocracy of Nova Prime. the art we posted here is an edit of a larger piece from chapter 13), it's really amusing to us to write from his perspective how idw1 optimus early in the Great War has no way to conceive of a transmasculine cybertronian because that's the level of conceptual damage and societal harm the legacy of functionism has caused with it's pushing for an androcentric world of only cybertronian maleness as genderlessness assigned guys.

If you haven't heard of Addendum (an IDW1 Arcee novel fanfic) and are wondering what we're on about, you can check it out here and read the released chapters here, and here's a blurb over generalities of what the fic is:

It is a fanfic revolving around IDW1 Arcee, that seeks to add to her already detailed and beautiful arc of a trans woman errant warrior sage coming to terms with xemself (we're affirming her/xem in the text here since in this fic unlike canon xey eventually want to use xey pronouns too but face immense challenges to that as the story will show) and deciding to trust people and herself. We love her transformations very dearly, and wanted to further reconcile xeir appearance in Spotlight: Arcee with her later writing (canon did a rather fabulous job in this respect in Phase 2 and 3 that makes rereading her story from first issue in 2008 to last a real joy for us), drawing on wisdom gathered through study and experience, and imagination to connect the dots. As you can tell just from the appearance of Codexa and others in the story, this revisiting of IDW1 Arcee’s tale is in part made possible by later writing of gal transformers who we adore, and we will note we draw from ones from all across the decades of fiction of Transformers. What can we say, we love them, and know so much more about ourselves than we ever would have because of them. There are also a lot of trans / gender expansive headcanons tossed in here for bots across the gender spectrum. They're transformers. Emphasis on trans.

[paingoes]

Rubies

Communication

authors note: kitty uses the word ‘nonverbal’ here in a way that isnt really medically accurate. thats kind of a whole discussion im not gonna get into now but tl;dr delta has selective mutism and autism but he isnt “nonverbal” per se.

(Content: living weapon whumpee, discussion of past captivity, past abuse, discussion of war, (internalized) abuse apologism, dehumanization, emotional whump)

================

katkittykat: hiiiiii :3c

nodiving: hey

He glanced over the top of his laptop screen, across the room where Kitty was curled up on the armchair. She flashed her teeth at him when she smiled. Her nails clicked against the keys when she typed.

katkittykat: this is so smart lowk idk why i didnt think of it sooner

nodiving: yeah

nodiving: i’ve seriously been drafting forum arguments in my head this entire time

nodiving: all of them probably think they won just cause i termed

nodiving: would it be weird if i just pick them back up like nothing happened

katkittykat: ya u might have to let those go tbh

nodiving: :/

It was very hard to type with the cast on. It took him much longer to write than it normally would. Luckily, she didn’t interrupt until she heard the typing stop.

katkittykat: so like whats the deal w u

katkittykat: are u not talking cause ur scared to?

nodiving: no

nodiving: yeah

nodiving: its not that im scared necessarily its just that its very very unnatural for me 

nodiving: it still feels rude and overfamiliar to me even if i know you dont see it that way

nodiving: this is a lot easier thank you

katkittykat: you dont have to talk if it’s uncomfortable !!!

katkittykat: its cool if ur nonverbal we can just keep texting like dis

nodiving: i think i do want to though

nodiving: its just hard

nodiving: please dont like…stop talking to me

nodiving: im trying

katkittykat: u will have to deal w us talking to u FUREVER !!!! >:3c

nodiving: <3

katkittykat: aaaaaaaah <33333

He hesitated a long time before typing the next message.

nodiving: do you think i should have stayed

katkittykat: what???? D:

nodiving: on a purely strategic level it seems like this was not the most optimal outcome

katkittykat: urghhhh 

katkittykat: well on a ~purely strategic level~ im not the best person to ask tbh

katkittykat: like im ngl galatea was NOT prepared for sudden reunification and thats why levon is so pissed at us X)

katkittykat: but it would have been hard no matter what and if the war had gone on we wouldve had to fight along 2 different fronts which is also noooooot good

katkittykat: and if we had to do that. we would have had to fight you! which would have been v v v not good  X(

katkittykat: so idk if there was really a better outcome? and even if there was like

katkittykat: its not ur problem

katkittykat: ur not just a chess piece to be moved around

nodiving: i kind of am though

nodiving: theres obviously been a huge fallout because of this and it feels wrong to write all of it off just because of. my rights or whatever.

nodiving: i feel like i kind of jumped the gun leaving when i did

katkittykat: aw jeez :(

katkittykat: i was curious abt that tbh i assumed there was some final straw for u but i didnt wanna pry obvs

katkittykat: seems like it was bad ?

nodiving: i dont know 

nodiving: i was more scared by the escalation it represented than anything that actually happened so i feel like i may have overreacted a little bit

nodiving: its hard to explain

katkittykat: ur ok! u can talk abt it when ur ready

katkittykat: but fwiw i really doubt you overreacted

nodiving: thank you

katkittykat: if anythin u seem to be kinda? downplaying it????

nodiving: it really wasnt that bad

nodiving: i could have gone longer

katkittykat: idk delta it kinda seems that bad

katkittykat: i think u got used to it

katkittykat: but that doesnt mean it wasnt bad

He gave her a nervous glance from across the room, his hands stilling on the keyboard. He reluctantly began to type again.

nodiving: did you say i didnt have to talk about it

katkittykat: yes!!!! mb

katkittykat: do u wanna play league omg we actually have time now

nodiving: yessssss

===========

nodiving: hi

sunspot: Hi Delta!!!! :)

sunspot: How are you !!!!

nodiving: im ok

nodiving: im sorry i was such a dick to you before 

nodiving: i was looking at the old messages again i feel really bad

sunspot: No you’re totally good! We were being really pushy i get why you were upset

sunspot: We were just worried for you honestly even when we didnt know you that well

sunspot: It was scary when you would just disappear for weeks at a time like that

sunspot: We just wanted to make sure you were safe

sunspot: Still do!

nodiving: thank you 

nodiving: i was scared too

nodiving: can i ask you something

sunspot: Yes please!!!! Yes I thought youd never ask!!!!

nodiving: is levon going to kill me

sunspot: Oh no

sunspot: He explicitly promised me not to

sunspot: Delta please do not tell me you have been worrying about that this entire time

nodiving: it stood out as a distinct possibility 

sunspot: Didnt he promise he wouldnt hurt you?

nodiving: yes

nodiving: you understand why i may be a bit hesitant to take him at his word

sunspot: Yes I guess thats our bad 

sunspot: But i really don’t think he wants that for you

sunspot: Do you think he’d wait for you to heal just to kill you at the end?

nodiving: not sure

sunspot: That was rhetorical! The answer was no.

nodiving: then what

sunspot: a good question

sunspot: I wish I had an answer for you and I really cant apologize enough for putting you in this situation but I'm afraid it could get very messy for a little while

nodiving: messy how

sunspot: In the broadest possible terms

sunspot: They dont really know what to do with you

sunspot: So that is something we are all going to have to figure that out together

=============

LEVON: Kitty.

LEVON: How are you, my sweet?

KITTY: omg hiiiiiii

KITTY: im rlly good actually things r rlly good!

LEVON: Any progress?

KITTY: ya i think so :)

KITTY: hes opening up a little hes still like. v v shy in person? but not as scared i dont think 

KITTY: hes very polite

LEVON: Poor thing.

LEVON: Does he have sensory issues? I hear that’s a big thing with psychics.

KITTY: ummm yeah hes v twitchy. i think he gets his signals crossed a lot but idk if hes aware of it? he just gets all hackle-y at literally nothing sometimes

LEVON: Interesting.

KITTY: how are things back there

LEVON: Well, it’s a shitshow. You’ll find out soon.

KITTY: eek

KITTY: um can i tell u smth

LEVON: Of course.

KITTY: i dont think hes ready yet 

LEVON: You have the rest of the month.

KITTY: no even then i just dont think hes gonna be ready

KITTY: he needs more time

LEVON: I feel like I’ve been more than generous in letting you keep an unsupervised superweapon(!) in your house for two months without disturbance 

LEVON: I’m not saying I’m going to put him through the ringer or anything but he does need to come back to base.

LEVON: You’re coming with him, so I don’t see what the issue is.

KITTY: will we b able to see him then :?

LEVON: Sure.

KITTY: can he room w me :3c

LEVON: Nope.

KITTY: why D:

LEVON: Security reasons. 

KITTY: levon :(

LEVON: This isn’t coming from me.

KITTY: but ur the boss!!!!

LEVON: Yes, but this isn’t an absolute monarchy. I’m still obligated to follow protocol and I’m obligated to listen to other members of the council.

LEVON: Who I should add, are a LOT less okay with this than I am. 

KITTY: ok i get all that but listen like

KITTY: i dont think u understand how fragile he is rn

LEVON: I think you may actually be underestimating him.

KITTY: uh wat do u mean by that

LEVON: He’s held his own within Empire for nineteen years. That’s not for the weak. He can handle a little strain.

KITTY: lol is that what u call it

KITTY: a little strain?

LEVON: Relatively speaking, yes. I’ll do what I can to make it painless for him. Personally, I think he’s innocent.

KITTY: he IS innocent

LEVON: Can you prove it?

KITTY: ITS SUPPOSED TO BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!!

LEVON: That file you sent me. You made it, didn’t you? You’ve seen what’s on there? The casualty count?

KITTY: but thats not his fault!

LEVON: And I agree with you. But that’s what we’re going to have to establish. 

KITTY: but i dont want him to :(((

LEVON: What you want is not necessarily the basis upon which the courts operate.

==========

katkittykat: doing ok????

nodiving: yeah

nodiving: in my room

katkittykat: what do u do in there

nodiving: kinda just been sleeping a lot

nodiving: im really tired all the time i dont know why

nodiving: i didnt use to be

katkittykat: ur sleep debt is probably insaneeeeeee that why

nodiving: yeah

nodiving: im sorry that im like this btw

katkittykat: u dont need to apologize for resting bby theres nothing 2 b sorry for

nodiving: not just that i mean everything

nodiving: i know im not normal 

katkittykat: u rlly rllllly dont need to worry abt that around us i promise we r all freak bitches

katkittykat: i like talking to u tho and i think its ok if u dont realylly feel “normal” right now u dont need to b

katkittykat: u can just b urself and if u dont know who that is rn thats fine too becuz u have the rest of ur life to figure it out

katkittykat: i will still want to hang out w you anyway <3

It took a long time for him to respond. She thought he may have fallen asleep again.

nodiving: why are you being so nice to me

Her turn to hesitate. That was more of an Apollo question — he could explain it ad nauseam. She didn’t know what answer she could possibly give him, if he even really wanted one. 

There was so little she knew about Delta. Each glimpse she got of what his life had been like painted a worse picture of it. They always said he’s been through a lot when anyone asked; it was a convenient euphemism for a whole array of issues. He tried so hard to play his cards close it to his chest. It felt like a betrayal then, the way the signs slipped through. 

nodiving: you dont have to be

She frowned as she slowly tapped at the keyboard.

katkittykat: i wanna be tho

katkittykat: cause i like u

katkittykat: <3

Another moment of silence. She braced herself. There was no way she could try and unpack all of that herself. She hoped she would not have to. She would do it wrong.

nodiving: <3

…………

tags:

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @vivulapom @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety

[delta-syrup]

a lot of my ocs play baseball in a local amateur league bc i said so (i like baseball also). kazuki plays first base for the wavecrest riptide...!

[nashvillethotchicken]

The way Claudia would actually straight up love being in a d9 Sorority so much. The sisterhood, the history, the performance, the killing and eating of innocent victims*. What's not to love?

*Disclaimer: d9 members do not eat people. We are just regular degular people we are not demons and we do not worship the devil/practice idolatry for any weird Christians looking at my posts

[187onacop]

Gatewayz Presentz* Ladiee Huslaa* Spaz* Collection* Album --->Coldest Summer<--- July2024 Includes Hit Singles

🔥 #lit

🔥 #future

🔥 #hashtag

🔥 #notip

🔥 #therush

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

❄️❄️❄️❄️

🥶Coldest Summer🥵 snatch a copy @

👇👇🏾👇🏾👇🏿👇🏼👇🏻👇🏻👇🏿

[blaise-recolors]

Pokémon OC Recolors & Edits || Personal

https://toyhou.se/14981737.wyvern-chise

https://toyhou.se/6421946.cinder

https://toyhou.se/16426304.sinclair-sachiryn

https://toyhou.se/4964580.-silica

https://toyhou.se/18559440.redtide

My Pokemon Recolors used for Legend League and my Deltas for OCs!

[justana0kguy]

2023 FEBRUARY 11 Saturday

Pokémon Emerald (DELTA Mode) Rerun PHASE 2 (Post Champion's League) Stage 2 - Eons Bzzzt

EonRed, Latias from Victory Road

EonBlue, Latios from Victory Road

[toriasimmons]

twenty-twenty-two in incomplete, optimistic review

It’s been a year. Some cool things have happened (got a proper job, one of my best friends got married, my wife and friends and my dog and cat nieces are all very neat, I read good books and saw good media) and some shitty things have happened (the end of Roe v. Wade, had Covid, spent a lot of time hunting for said proper job, my cat nephew left us, I smashed up my car, yet another one of my beloved female characters got massively fucked over) and mostly in-between things have happened.

Here’s a breakdown, I guess.

Full text here.

[53weeksorg]

Sunday League Football...

…just before the beers. Rolleiflex 3.5F; Ilford Delta 400

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

BOYCOTTING FOR PALESTINE

The Official BDS Boycott Targets

Campaigns

Block the boat: End maritime arms transfer to Israel

Ban Apartheid Israel from Sports (FIFA, Olympics)

Consumer Boycotts - a complete boycott of these brands

Disney (SPECIFICALLY MARVEL)

Intel

Axa

Puma

Carrefour

HP

Cevron

Caltex

Israeli produce

Re/max

Ahava

Texaco

Siemens

Sodastream

Intel

Organic Boycott Targets - boycotts not initiated by BDS but still complete boycott of these brands

Macdonald's

Dominos

Papa Johns

Burger King

Pizza Hut

Wix

Divestments and exclusion - pressure governments, institutions, investment funds, city councils, etc. to exclude from procurement contracts and investments and to divest from these

Elbit Systems

CAF

Volvo

CAT

Barclays

JCB

HD Hyundai

TKH Security

HikVision

Pressure - boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure.

Google

Amazon

AirBnb

Booking.Com

Expedia

Teva

Here are some companies that strongly support Israel (but are not Boycott targets). There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and boycotting is a political strategy - not a moral one. If you did try to boycott every supporter of Israel you would struggle to survive because every major company supports Israel (as a result of attempting to keep the US economy afloat), that being said, the ones that are being boycotted by masses and not already on the organic boycott list are coloured red.

5 Star Chocolate

7Days

7Up

Apple

Arsenal FC

ALDO

Arket

Axe

Accenture

Ariel

Adidas

ActionIQ

Aquafina

Amika

AccuWeather

Activia

Adobe

Aesop

Azrieli Group

American Eagle

Amway Corp

Axel Springer

American Airlines

American Express

Atlassian

AdeS

Aquarius

Ayataka

Audi

Barqs

Bain & Company

Bayer

Bank Leumi

Bank Hapoalim

BCG (Boston Consulting Group)

Biotherm

Bershka

Bloomberg

BMW

Boeing

Booz Allen Hamilton

Burberry

Bath & Body Works

Bosch

Bristol Myers Squibb

Capri Holdings

Costa

Carita Paris

CareTrust REIT

Caterpillar

Coach

Cappy

Caudalie

CeraVe

Check Point Software Technologies

Cerelac

Chanel

Chapman and Cutler

Channel

Cheerios

Cheetos

Chevron

Chips Ahoy!

Christina Aguilera

Citi Bank

Carrefour

Codral

Cosco

Canada Dry

Citi

Clal Insurance Enterprises

Clean & Clear

Clearblue

Clinique

Champion

Club Social

Coca Cola

Coffee Mate

Colgate

Comcast

Compass

Caesars

Conde Nast

Cooley LLP

Costco

Côte d’Or

Crest

CV Starr

CyberArk Software

Cytokinetics

Crayola

Cra Z Art

Daimler

Dr Pepper

Del Valle

Daim

Doctor Pepper

Dasani

Doritos

Daz

Dior

Dell

Deloitte

Delta Air Lines

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Telekom

DHL Group

David Off

Disney

DLA Piper

Domestos

Domino’s

Douglas Elliman

Downy

Duane Morris LLP

Dreft Baby Detergent & Laundry Products

Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream

eBay

Edelman

Eli Lilly

Evian

Empyrean

Ericsson

Endeavor

EPAM Systems

Estee Lauder

Elbit Systems

EY

Forbes

Facebook

Fairlife

Fanta

First International Bank of Israel

Fiverr

Funyuns

Fuze

Fox News

Fritos

Fox Corp

Gatorade

Gamida Cell

GE

Glamglow

General Catalyst

General Motors

Georgia

Gold Peak

Genesys

Goldman Sachs

Grandma’s Cookies

Garnier

Guess

Greenberg Traurig

Guerlain

Givenchy

H&M

Hadiklaim

Huggies

Hanes

HSBC

Head & Shoulders

Hersheys

Herbert Smith Freehills

Hewlett Packard

Hasbro

Hyundai

Henkel

Harel Insurance Investment & Financial Services

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HubSpot

Huntsman Corp

IBM

Innocent

Insight Partners

Inditex Group

IT Cosmetics

Instacart

Intermedia

Interpublic Group

Instagram

ICL Group

Intuit

Jazwares

Jefferies

John Lewis

JP Morgan Chase

Jaguar

Johnson & Johnson

JPMorgan

Kenon Holdings

Kate Spade

Kirks’

Kinley Water

KKR

KFC

KKW Cosmetics

Kurkure

Keebler

Kolynos

Kaufland

Kevita

Knorr

KPMG

Lemonade

Lidl

Loblaws

Levi Strauss

Louis Vuitton

Life Water

Levi’s

Levi’s Strauss

LinkedIn

Land Rover

L’Oréal

Lego

Levissima

Live Nation Entertainment

Lufthansa

La Roche-Posay

Lipton

Major League Baseball

Manpower Group

Marriott

Marsh McLennan

Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Mastercard

Mattel

Minute Maid

Monster

Monki

Mainz FC

Mellow Yellow

Mountain Dew

Migdal Insurance

Marks & Spencer

Mirinda

McDermott Will & Emery

Motorola

McKinsey

Merck

Michael Kors

Mizrahi Tefahot Bank

Merck KGaA

Micheal Kors

Milkybar

Maybelline

Mount Franklin

Meta

MeUndies

Mattle

Microsoft

Munchies

Miranda

Morgan Lewis

Moroccanoil

Morgan Stanley

MRC

Nasdaq

Naughty Dog

Nivea

Next

NOS

Nabisco

Nutter Butter

No Frills

National Basketball Association

National Geographic

Nintendo

New Balance

Nutella

Newtons

NVIDIA

Netflix

Nescafe

Nestle

Nesquick

Nike

Nussbeisser

Oreo

Oral B

Old spice

Oysho

Omeprazole

Oceanspray

Opodo

P&G (Procter and Gamble)

Pampers

Pull & Bear

Pepsi

Pfizer

Popeyes

Parker Pens

Philadelphia Cream Cheese

Pizza Hut

Powerade

Purina

Phoenix Holdings

Propel

Ponds

Pure Leaf Green Tea

Power Action Wipes

PwC

Prada

Perry Ellis

Prada Eyewear

Pringles

Payoneer

Procter & Gamble

Purelife

Pureology

Quaker Oats

Reddit

Royal Bank of Canada

Ruffles

Revlon

Ralph Lauren

Ritz

Rolls Royce

Royal

S.Pellegrino

Sabra Hummus

Sabre

Sony

SAP

Simply

Smart Water

Sprite

Schwabe

Shell

Soda Stream

Siemens

StreamElements

Schweppes

Sunsilk

Signal

Skittles

Smart Food

Sobe

Smarties

Sephora

Sam’s Club

Superbus

Samsung

Sodastream

Sunkist

Scotiabank

Sour Patch Kids

Starbucks

Sadaf

Stride

Subway

Tang

Tate’s Bake Shop

The Body Shop

Tesco

Twitch

The Ordinary

Tim Hortons

Tostitos

Timberland

Topo Chico

Tapestry

Tropicana

Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger Toiletries

Turbos

Tom Ford

Taco Bell

Triscuit

TUC

Twix

Tottenham Hotspurs

Twisties

Tripadvisor

Uber

Uber Eats

Urban Decay

Upfield

Unilever

Vicks

Victoria’s Secret

V8

Vaseline

Vitaminwater

Volkswagen

Volvo

Walmart

Wegmans

WhatsApp

Waitrose

Woolworths

Wheat Thins

Walkers

Warner Brothers

Warner Chilcot

Warner Music

Wells Fargo

Winston & Strawn

WingStreet

Wissotzky Tea

WWE

Wheel Washing Powder

Wrigley Company

YouTube

Yvel

Yum Brands

Ziyad

Zara

Zim Shipping

Ziff Davis

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

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

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

[fleur-a-whump]

Overloaded (#5)

Rocky Reunions Pt. 2

More Kai being grumpy plus his team!!

previous | masterlist | next

CW: uhh shock collar, mentioned electrocution, whumpee paraded around, ex-villain whumpee, hero whumper, hero caretakers

Kai plops into the auditorium seat next to Elijah, letting out a long suffering sigh. His partner chuckles slightly, accustomed to his moodiness and drama, but when he catches a glimpse of Kai’s tight expression, he stops.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, as the Hero League Director and council walk out on the stage. They take their seats at the curved council table, outfitted with microphones and interrupted by a tall center podium, settling in to conduct the briefing.

Kai shakes his head, not wanting to get into it when the meeting is about to start. Elijah gives him a look.

“Later,” he promises, softening, giving him a small, reassuring smile.

Elijah nods and turns to the stage as the meeting begins.

Director Jaida Murphy stands tall and composed at the center podium, her serious face breaking easily into a winning smile once the auditorium has settled. Her voice is loud and clear over the speakers, swiftly silencing any lingering murmurs of the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming to this month’s briefing. We have many things to cover on the docket today so let’s go ahead and get going. First and foremost, Secretary Cho, will you read the previous meeting’s minutes?” she says, turning to the older gentleman at the end of the row, who’s set up with a steno machine.

Kai zones in and out of the tedious meeting. He’s well-practiced in discerning the useless and important parts and is assured by the knowledge that Lizzy, another member of his team, is an obsessive and thorough note-taker. If he accidentally zones out for something important, he can goad her into sharing her notes with him. Though he’d rather avoid the teasing that comes along with that.

He snaps back to attention at the words “villain reform initiative.”

“As you all know, a major responsibility of this organization is to invest in the effective reform of the villains we encounter while protecting the city. Team Delta is currently spearheading a new project which both makes use of insider information from some of the most devious crime syndicates in Hyperion City and actively reforming a major villain, directing his abilities towards the greater good. To tell us more about this new program, please welcome Miguel Toro, and Jasper Lane, also known as Tinker.”

There’s polite applause, underlined by suspicious murmuring, as the two join the council on the stage. Director Murphy steps aside and the two take her place at the podium. Jasper stands just behind Miguel, his face carefully neutral. Kai can make out that the kid is still slightly green after seeing it earlier. He doubts anyone else picks up on it though. He hopes he doesn’t get sick on stage.

What catches his attention most, and likely everyone else’s, is the collar still tightly fastened around his neck. He’d changed his shirt since Kai saw him, now wearing what could be scrubs—or a prisoner’s top—with a v-neck that puts the collar on prominent display. The brazen showcase makes Kai nauseous. It doesn’t sit well with him, no matter what Jasper has done.

He watches the kid's Adam's apple bob against it in anxiety. Kai’s skin prickles as he remembers how badly the electricity hurt him, second hand. He wonders how often they use it.

“Hello,” Miguel says, loudly, firmly, in an attempt to settle the whispers still rippling through the auditorium. He’s not nearly as effective as the Director, but it does quiet some.

“Thank you for allowing us to present this project to you today. Jasper has been working with us for about six months, and we can report only positive results from this venture. He’s used his technopath abilities to improve our equipment and assist on over two dozen missions, most notably with data recovery from the Blitz Family Warehouse reconnaissance mission down at the Wharf last month. Most importantly, as Jasper is the son of old school villain Nero and protege of Psychosis, Jasper has supplied us with invaluable intelligence from within the crime empires these two are orchestrating.”

Kai raises an eyebrow. He knew Tinker was trained by Psychosis, which was intimidating enough, but the kid is also Nero’s son? Nero had essentially been an untouchable keystone in one of the largest syndicates in Hyperion for like 25 years.

No wonder they wanted to keep him close.

“Jasper has restricted, supervised access to technology and his powers. His movement is also restricted and his location is tracked. Jasper has performed very well within these safety precautions and has been a very useful tool in our belt. We believe with properly tailored boundaries and effort made on both sides, this program is replicable with other villains.”

So, you’re just not going to mention the fucking shock collar? Kai scoffs quietly.

He’s sure the only reason Jasper hasn’t wreaked havoc on the whole tower is they’ve been electrocuting him. Miguel is just peacocking; putting lipstick on the pig that, knowing him, he probably staked his whole career on. He’s been trying to move up the ranks for years.

He watches Miguel bring Jasper forward with what could be a supportive hand on his back, but looks to Kai more like a possessive grip on the back of his neck. Miguel opens the floor to questions, giving non-answers and continuing to speak about Jasper as if he wasn’t there. Jasper stands quietly, entirely stoic through even some of the crueler questions and discussion of his crimes and background. One question does get Kai’s attention though.

“How did this idea come about?”

Miguel stiffens a bit. “We arrested Jasper in the field, and it was my idea to work with him rather than just shuffle him off to prison.”

Kai just barely catches Jasper’s face twitch. He recalls Jasper saying he came to the heroes. He sort of hates that he feels more inclined to believe the villain over the hero.

Then someone finally has the guts to ask about the collar. This time Jasper's response, another twitch like he's holding back a grimace, is more noticeable.

“It's simply a tracking device, fashioned this way to minimize Jasper's opportunities to tamper with it, given that he is technologically inclined.”

Kai nearly jumps out of his seat at that. There's no way he just lied like that. He wouldn't be surprised if a collar like that could kill someone without an affinity for electricity, and Miguel wants to pretend it's just a tracking device?

If he wasn't sure there was something wrong with the whole scenario before, he certainly is now.

Listening to Miguel drone on for the next ten minutes just pisses Kai off more and more. It’s a good thing the presentation was the last order of business. Much longer, and the cups of coffee and water bottles around him would’ve started boiling and bursting as his emotions fueled his powers. Kai’s one of the first people out the door, slamming it open as hard as he can and storming some ways down the hall.

~~~

Kai wants so badly to label Tinker as a villain who should be in prison. He wants to fall back on the comfort of a black and white world that’s been drilled into him by his League training, and not think about the image of the shaking and whimpering villain on the floor just an hour ago. But the whole spectacle made Kai a little queasy; now, he can’t blame Jasper for puking his guts out. And the way Miguel so clearly sees him as a tool, a means to an end to advance his career makes Kai see red. Partly on Jasper’s behalf, partly out of his hatred of Miguel and the politics of the League, and partly out of frustration with himself for caring about, worrying about the infuriating villain.

Kai couldn’t remember ever hearing him speak when they fought—his mask, which covered the lower half of his face, didn’t really allow for it he supposed—but he always got the feeling the kid was laughing at him. That, combined with the way Kai’s powers could actually make Jasper stronger, his electricity more powerful, and how damn fast he was without that even being his power, made every fight so annoying that he’d complain about it till Elijah got sick of it and told him to move on.

Speak of the devil, he hears his partner jogging up behind him as he angrily paces. He stops, forcing himself to let out a long, frustrated sigh as he leans against the wall of the hallway he’d found himself in. Elijah leans against the wall next to him.

“Sooo, I had to set my coffee down during Miguel’s speech because it was getting hotter. Which, y’know, isn’t how that usually works. Wanna talk about it?”

Kai huffs out a light laugh in spite of himself. His boyfriend definitely knows him well.

“Sorry. It was just—well, you know how I feel about Miguel in the first place,” he begins.

Elijah purses his lips. “Mhmm,” he hummed. He’s been hearing about how Kai felt about Miguel since they were in sidekick training together.

“Well, so, I was in one of the bathrooms before the meeting and somebody was throwing up in there, and it was Jasper. Well, before I knew his name was Jasper. I thought, y’know, fucking villain in the Heroes League! And, uh, remind me to tell Mari I burst some more pipes, please,” Kai rambles.

Elijah chuckled. “Will do.”

Kai runs his hands through his hair, putting the thick, dark curls up in a bun to give himself something to do as he speaks. “But, yeah, Jasper told me he was on Miguel’s team, and I went with him to check it out. Halfway there, he just fucking collapsed, twitching and shaking in pain. He was being electrocuted! That wasn't a damn tracker, it was a fucking shock collar!” he exclaims.

“Oh shit,” his partner murmurs. “Miguel lied?”

Kai shakes his head in anger. “Yeah, big surprise. It’s definitely a shock collar, and he’s petrified of it, and they definitely use it. The shock I saw was apparently just a warning.”

“I mean, while I don’t agree with the method, maybe it's a rare thing? They thought he was running away while he was in the bathroom? If he’s confined to their level, I can’t imagine they’d have reason to use it much. Tinker never struck me as the kind to rock the boat with that kind of threat hanging over his head.”

Kai shakes his head again, though he knows Elijah could very well be right. And Tinker is a villain. He’s definitely done bad things.

“I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t care; it’s great that we’re getting intelligence on Nero and Psychosis. And whatever is going on with the “project,” it’s probably better than prison. But I don’t know, something about it is really bugging me. I keep picturing him shaking on the floor,” he finishes quietly, some of the anger ebbing from his body in the calming presence of his partner, only to be replaced by worry—which is almost worse.

Kai tries desperately to find a way to better explain himself, the knot in his stomach that was growing bigger and bigger the more he thought about the kid.

“It’s also just, the whole spectacle, putting him on display and talking about him like he wasn’t even there. He’s obviously just a political pawn for Miguel.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that. It was pretty gross.”

Kai nods. “I don’t know; it pisses me off because I feel bad for him, but he’s a villain, so I shouldn’t, but I definitely do and—ugh.” He runs his hands across his face only to slide them into his hair and tug, totally overwhelmed with the conflict twisting his stomach.

Elijah takes the pause in his rambling to step in front of him and gently pull his hands from his scalp. His thumbs rub soothing little circles across them, as he says, “Hey, first of all, it’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling. You saw someone in pain, and that felt bad, and that’s a good thing. If it’ll make you feel better, maybe we can find a way to visit him. Just to check in? That team asks for extra manpower all the time. They’re hardly balanced.”

“Yeah, okay, that sounds good.”

Kai sighs dramatically, “Damn moral compass.”

Elijah laughs. “Oh, yeah, you poor thing, you have compassion for other human beings.”

The teasing finally pulls an involuntary smile from Kai, and he gently takes Elijah’s chin for a chaste kiss that’s all goofy grins.

“Thanks, Eli.”

“Anytime,” Elijah says, leaning in for another kiss.

Suddenly there’s a loud groan he’d recognize anywhere from down the hall. Kai reluctantly, a little self-consciously, turns his attention to his team coming down the hall—the other three members having finally tracked the two lovebirds down. The groan definitely came from Isla, the young ginger pyromaniac of the team.

Elijah’s not having it though and pulls Kai back with a soft hand on his cheek.

This time it’s Lizzy’s turn to complain, loudly. “Get a fucking room!”

Kai breaks the kiss to laugh at that, and Elijah gives up. He turns to the team, pouting, “Y’all never let me have any fun.”

He chuckles, but still rubs Elijah’s arm in a simple apology, wordlessly promising to make up for it later. He lets himself be pulled into carefree conversation with his team, doing his best to ignore the knot still settled in his stomach, and the image of Jasper convulsing on the floor still imprinted in his brain.

~~~

I can now show y’all funny little bit of speed brain dump that manifested his and elijah’s dynamic

Kai is not fuckin happy to have a villain in the hero building

Kai witnesses some of the abuse

Kai: Elijah (boyf) help I'm not used to being conflicted like this what is happening to me

Elijah: it's called empathy babe.

Kai: WELL I DONT LIKE IT

Bonus scene w/ Kai’s team and Mira: “Did you have to burst the pipes again, Kai?” “Well, I wasn’t gonna use the fuckin’ toilet water.” “What’s the difference?” “Yuck, you used the sewage water, Kai?” “I know which pipes are clean assholes!” *giggling* “Goddamn, how many times have you burst the bathroom pipes that you just know which ones are clean?” *angry waterboy grumbling*

~~~

tags!! hello friends!! lmk if you wanna be added or removed!!

@whumpsday @sergeant-jasper @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @crystalrose141 @aloafofbreadwithanxiety

@paingoes @elizaisnotokay @quaggasus @defire @tonystark604

@writereleaserepeat @whump-queen @clickerflight @gliittergelpens @kawaii-cakes

@whump-in-a-million @scoundrelwithboba @idkwhattodowiththisaltiamsorry @vampiresprite

[pinkhairswagtourney]

please give a warm welcome to the 128 contestants of the pink hair swag tourney, part three !!

we have 57 new contenders and 71 returning competitors vying for the crown !! starting on 06/21/2023, we'll start voting to determine which of these pink haired characters is the swaggiest of all time !!

ROUND ONE MATCHUPS

PART ONE - 06/21 Iris Lovefeather - Tales of the Rays VS Lightning Farron - Final Fantasy Molli Pop - Candies n’ Curses VS Lily Tabacchi - Lily’s Well Yuyuko Saigyouji - Touhou Project VS Kasen Ibaraki - Touhou Project Madoka Kaname - Madoka Magica VS Aya Maruyama - Bang Dream! Vivian - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door VS Anne Faulkner - Paradox Live Reona West - Prism Paradise VS Mirai Momoyama - Sparkling Prism Channel Crona - Soul Eater VS Chibiusa - Sailor Moon Satsuki Momoi - Kuroko no Basket VS Alice Asmodeus - Mairimashita! Iruma-kun

PART TWO - 06/22 Meninas McAllon - Bleach VS Neon Nostrade - Hunter x Hunter (1999) Shima Renzou - Blue Exorcist VS Szayelaporro Granz - Bleach Ln'eta - Sucker for Love: First Date VS Miyako Shikamori - Shikamori’s Not Just a Cutie Hot Pants - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure VS Yasuho Hirose - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Sheena Murphy - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VS Scary Girl - Total Drama Cleo - Dragalia Lost VS Amy Pile - Grand Chase Mashiro Nijigaoka - Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure VS Nodoka Hanadera - Healin’ Good Pretty Cure Rina Tennoji - Love Live VS Mei Hatsume - My Hero Academia

PART THREE - 06/23 Mizuki Akiyama - Project Sekai VS Utena Tenjou - Revolutionary Girl UtenaSakura Miku - Vocaloid VS Goku Black - Dragon BallRose Quartz - Steven Universe VS Bonnibel Bubblegum - Adventure TimeLilim - Puyo Puyo VS Harpy - Puyo PuyoUlala - Space Channel 5 VS Jerrica Benton - Jem and the HologramsKohaku Oukawa - Ensemble Stars VS Ramuda Amemura - Hypnosis Mic Sara - Tales of Link VS Meido - Heaven’s Design TeamNatsu Dragneel - Fairy Tail VS Marluxia - Kingdom Hearts

PART FOUR - 06/24 Popuri - Harvest Moon VS Lyla - Harvest Moon Ramsey Murdoch - Epithet Erased VS Yoomtah Zing - Epithet Erased Trixie Roughhouse - Epithet Erased VS Giovanni Potage - Epithet Erased  Estellise Sidos Heurassein - Tales of Vesperia VS Sophia - Stardew Valley Expanded Clover Field - Zero Escape VS Zizel - Witch’s Heart Nikki - Love Nikki VS Zero Two - Darling in the Franxx Nana Hiiragi - Munou na Nana VS Amu Hinamori - Shugo Chara! Maggie Pesky - The Buzz on Maggie VS Jinmay - Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

PART FIVE - 06/25 Reo Maruyama - Paradox Live VS Kazuichi Souda - Danganronpa Seraphine - League of Legends VS Violet - Arcane Jewelry Bonney - One Piece VS Koby - One Piece Perona - One Piece VS Shirahoshi - One Piece Minato Aqua - Hololive VS Himemori Luna - Hololive Mina Ashido - My Hero Academia VS Anya Forger - Spy x Family Kaoru Sakurayashiki - Sk8 the Infinity VS Nadeshiko Kagamihara - Yuru Camp Molly - Bubble Guppies VS Toadette - Mario Series PART SIX - 06/26 Hitori Gotoh - Bocchi the Rock! VS Mitsuri Kanroji - Demon Slayer Hinako Mishuku - Your Turn to Die VS Nao Egokoro - Your Turn to Die Riamu Yumemi - The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls VS Miyu Sakurada - Dig Delight Direct Drive DJ Sucy Manbavaran - Little Witch Academia VS Chuatury Panlunch - Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Ran - Urusei Yatsura VS Akira Kogami - Lucky Star Ilima - Pokemon VS Pastille - Starry Flowers  Kumatora - Mother 3 VS Amy Rose - Sonic the Hedgehog Setsuno - Toriko VS Genkai - YuYu Hakusho PART SEVEN - 06/27 Aubrey - OMORI VS Iris Sagan - AI: The Somnium Files Muku Sakisaka - Act! Addict! Actors! VS Tori Himemiya - Ensemble Stars Ribbon - Kirby VS Strawberry Crepe Cookie - Cookie Run Cotton Candy Cookie - Cookie Run VS Rambutan Cookie - Cookie Run Narciso Anasui - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure VS Diavolo - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Yanagi Hanabusa - DREAM!ing VS Shion Mikekado - DREAM!ing Delta - Honkai Impact VS Elysia - Honkai Impact Kory Anders - Titans VS Gamora - Marvel Cinematic Universe PART EIGHT - 06/28 Sakura Haruno - Naruto VS Euphemia Li Brittania - Code Geass Kipo Oak - Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts VS Tom Lucitor - Star VS the Forces of Evil “Big” Jack Horner - Puss in Boots VS Princess Poppy - Trolls Machi Komacine - Hunter x Hunter VS Chika Fujiwara - Kaguya-Sama: Love is War Slurpuff - Pokemon VS Tinkaton - Pokemon Hilda Valentine Goneril - Fire Emblem: Three Houses VS Yae Miko - Genshin Impact Ortega - Pokemon VS Nurse Joy - Pokemon Tenebria - Epic Seven VS Tecna - Winx Club

[akanemnon]

I saw someone else ask about the "Twin" part of the Twin Runes design, comparing it to the Delta Rune design. My HC for the in-universe design is two delta runes side by side (like twins lol) or just ᛏᚹᛁᚾ.

For my ask part of this ask post: which member of the fun gang do you think would accidentally make a dark world? My vote is Berdly. (He'd stab his desk with a pencil after losing a round of league of legends)

-Anon Y. Mous

(P.S. I love your Berdly design, plz draw him more!)

(Ps the 2nd, i don't phrase things well, so im sorry for this awkwardly structured ask)

Like I said, the Runes part isn't really meant to be taken literally. There are no literal Twin Runes. The whole name is more of a stand in for Undertale and Deltarune as parallel worlds. Also since this connection is more of a recent event there isn't like a legend about it, like with the Legend of Delta Rune. But if you so like you can headcanon the two Delta Runes side by side as a depiction of this crossover. Or come up with a whole new one. Idk... Graphic design isn't my strong suit-

As for your other question. Yep, my money is on Berdly too. Just look at him. He knows it.

[thefreakandthehair]

⚾️ rounding third, sliding home update ⚾️

chapters nine and ten now live: here on ao3 -> or, start from the beginning!

He scrolls to the side and stares at that picture from the diner, with Eddie staring at Steve as he signs the little boy’s baseball card. Everything felt so new then, the butterflies in his chest outweighing the heavy stone he remembers sinking in his stomach. Even then, Eddie had known Steve would leave eventually but he’d allowed himself to look at Steve like this— wide eyed and bewildered— and fall ass over ankles in love with him.  Sometimes, risks don’t pay off.  Eddie sighs and runs a hand down his face, covering his eyes for a brief moment before swiping back to Steve’s feed. The further down Eddie scrolls, the further into Steve’s past he dives— previous seasons with the Dodgers, formal dinners and celebrations he can’t name, moving day when he found his beachfront Malibu condo, his first game with the Dodgers, all the way back to his Minor League days with the Loons.  There’s one that piques his interest, one that he hadn’t noticed in his recent scrolls down memory lane. It’s from a few years ago at Steve’s signing day with the Dodgers. Young Steve, still sporting a babyface before he grew his stubbly mustache, smiles at the camera in his suit with a Dodgers baseball cap fitted over his hair. His smile is contagious and Eddie can’t help but smile along with Young Steve. He pinches on the image to zoom-in, moving the picture around to gather every last detail. Eddie releases the zoom and accidentally likes the picture.  He likes the picture from five years ago at nearly three o’clock in the morning and his phone promptly goes black as his battery dies. 

@steddiebang @hbyrde36 @steddieasitgoes @sidekick-hero @sharpbutsoft @cuoredimuschio @kkpwnall @starryeyedjanai @scarcrossdlvrs @marvel-ous-m @pearynice @judasofsuburbia @fastcardotmp3 @shares-a-vest @hellion-child @pumpkinspicestevie @delta-piscium @perseus-notjackson @withacapitalp @hereforanepilogue @stevethehairington @t-boyeddie @theheadlessphilosopher @imfinereallyy @hexiewrites @maxineholtzmann @starrystevie @steddieas-shegoes @goodolefashionedloverboi @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @hellfiredemon @wynnyfryd @vecnuthy @sungods-healingg @antithetical-dream-girl

[sasheneskywalker]

Weekly Batman/DC Fic Recs (1)

This week I've read two delightful character studies, one focused on Barbara Gordon and the other on Jason Todd. There's also a hilarious SI/OC fic from the perspective of Tim Drake and two fantastic fics where Lonnie Machin/Anarky plays a major role. Apart from that, two delicious smutty fics got an update: Bruce/Dick/Jason college au and Slade/Jason western au. We also have an amazing DCU, MCU and X-Men crossover oneshot! Hope you enjoy the recs <3

Delta T by Havendance In one universe, mere seconds stop Barbara Gordon from sniping Black Mask. In another, she takes the shot.

G | No Archive Warnings Apply | Batman (Comics) | Helena Bertinelli & Barbara Gordon

this city is the place to be by Jezebunny Gotham city is going to be destroyed in twelve hours.

Jason doesn't see any point in stopping it.

What does he owe anybody, anyway?

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Batman - All Media Types | Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne

Domestication Protocols for Nocturnal Fauna by rozaceous, vermillion_crown It’s been years since Tim's thought about the secret identities of Gotham’s winged wonders. A chance encounter while searching for college roommates that won’t burn the place down gives Tim a lead and the hope of new accommodations. The only thing he has to do is pretend that he doesn’t know anything.

Easy.

("—and they were roommates!" SI/OC edition)

T | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Batman - All Media Types | Jason Todd/Original Female Character(s), Tim Drake/Original Male Character(s), Dick Grayson & Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) & Original Male Character(s), Tim Drake & Original Female Character(s)

The Assassination of President Luthor by the Radical Lonnie Machin by NiteWrighter "Hi. I’m Lonnie. So I guess I should start out by saying, I don’t believe violence is a sustainable tool. It’s not. It’s a reflection of our ugliest, most base instincts. But it is the current language of the state, so I apologize for bringing my voice to the conversation."

President Luthor has been brutally killed by a magical weapon, and Anarky has claimed responsibility. The Justice League is struggling with the ensuing fallout, instability, suspicion, and speculation, while a power vacuum opens up in the world of the Rogues. What does a world without Lex Luthor look like? Is he truly gone? Has a greater chain reaction been kicked off by this single death?

T | Major Character Death | Superman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, DCU (Comics) | Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Diana (Wonder Woman) & Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Lana Lang/Pete Ross, Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin

The Half-Life of Sixty Seconds by sunnymusings "The problem with thinking like a detective is not actually that thinking like one is too strict or structured. There’s organization on a document, but Tim’s mind is not a bullet journal. It’s not a legal form, it’s not a spreadsheet, it’s not a ledger.

It’s messy and human and creative. Loose, unstructured, instinctual. Detectives aren’t good at solving cases because they work like machines; it’s much the opposite. It’s that creative mess which aids in seeing between the structure of presented facts, reading the code, and then cracking it. It’s like tracing a spider web back to its center. There’s an observable track leading exactly where one needs to go— a veritable method to the madness— but it’s still art, all the same, even to the broom that ruins it.

So, when Tim is presented with a countdown, it’s not just a mechanical, factual understanding of time that pushes hard against the inside of his ribs; it’s a too-clear visual of a digital clock-face, neutral and unyielding, counting down from sixty in his neocortex. Artistic and messy and emotional.

There is only one place to go once one is caught in the web."

Based on Red Robin #16. Missing Scenes and Relationship Building.

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics) | Tim Drake & Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin

Making The Grade by MelodramaticMrTails Jason partners up with the rich and beautiful Dick Grayson and quickly finds out the Wayne family secret- and that Dick wants him to join in on it.

E | No Archive Warnings Apply | DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson/Jason Todd

Nothing to Nobody by Jae_Cillian The kid—Jason—stared at Slade with wide, alert eyes. Big and round like a doe—startled in its grazing, frozen in the sights of a predator. He leaned forward, one hand still gripping the pistol but the other anchoring his weight against the floor as if to stand and chase after Slade. But with Slade’s eye on him, Jason didn’t dare move an inch. All tense lines and silent shudders of breath that Slade could see quake along the kid’s ribs, Jason reminded Slade of a stray dog. Snarling and snapping its canines when he got too close, but whimpering and whining when he walked away.

Slade wondered how long it’d take to tame the kid; and, thereupon, realized he might enjoy the challenge of it.

--

In which Slade, while chasing after the Joker gang's bounties and stolen payroll, finds Jason—battered, beaten, and abused at the gang's hands—alone in the mountains. Intrigued by the kid's feral tenacity, he offers Jason a chance at revenge.

E | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics) | Jason Todd/Slade Wilson

Five Supersoldiers Walk Into a Bar by bittercape He spots him through the binoculars, far away and disappearing fast. Logan is, more than anything, a hunter. He knows how to watch, and he watches the sniper moving away, after a single well-placed shot. He moves just like Barnes did. Everyone has a particular way of moving, if you know how to watch. And Logan, as mentioned, knows how to watch.

Logan knows it cannot be him, knows he died, falling from a train. No normal human could survive that. And yet …

He drops down from the watchtower. He’ll catch hell for this, sure. But he has to know.

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Comicverse), DCU (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics) | Logan (X-men) & James "Bucky" Barnes, Logan (X-Men) & Natasha Romanov, Logan (X-Men) & Slade Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes & Slade Wilson, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) & Slade Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Slade Wilson