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sightseertrespasser · 1 month ago

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Digging Up Secrets

Reverse Mecha AU spawned by @keferon

Nothing like being trapped underground with just your crush and concussion for company.

———————————————————————

Time stopped.

Or.

Prowl stopped.

Everything was loud moving crashing dangerous move move move.

The radius of destruction. Inside-outside.

He pushed Jazz Outside. Radius.

Fell. He fell. The floor, hollow topped cylinders of raw materials, Inside Radius.

Prowl was Inside the.. Radius of. The radi..

He can’t See. He can see. But he cannot See. He can’t see behind himself anymore. He can’t see outside himself anymore.

Immobilized. Blinded. Living.

Failing. His body was failing. Crushed beneath tons and tons and tons and-

A sound, different from ringing ears or groaning metal. Choppy. Static.

… voice?

“Prowl?”

A voice. He knows that one. It’s new but he knows it. He does, it’s.. His name is..

All Prowl can hear is static.

“Prowler? C’mon babe talk to me.”

Jazz.

“Ja- agh.” Prowls voice was sticky and his mouth tasted like blood. He swallowed dry air and tried again.

“Ja-azz?”

His voice cracked halfway through. Dully, Prowl hoped Jazz wouldn’t be upset.

“Prowl! Oh man I am so glad to hear your voice!” The reception was poor, or maybe Prowls hearing had finally gone with his eyesight. Either way, the pilot pressed his bleeding ear to the warm and rumbly speaker.

“You made it?” Prowl strung the words together like taffy.

“Yeah, I made it. Thanks for the assist by the way. Can I get a location?”

Task. Prowl had a task to do. Leaning backwards into his own mind, Prowl was met with collapsed corridors and broken edges. He navigated, carefully until he found the correct data packet that thankfully survived the crash.

He forwarded it to Jazz.

Just as he was about to slip under again, Jazz crackled through the comms once more, “Uh Prowler? This is for the pickup location.”

“Yes?”

“I need your location.”

“Um.” Prowl tried to think. “Down?”

Why did he need his location? His mecha was an unfathomable wreck, he couldn’t access the programs to run the numbers, but this kind of damage outpaced the repair costs.

His body was a dead weight.

“You okay man? You’re not talking like yourself.”

Prowl tried to run a diagnostic on his comms, why wouldn’t he sound like himself?

Talking.

Jazz said Talking like himself. His brain caught on there was an implication in that wording and Prowl trudged after it like a dollar in the wind.

“What do I talk like?” He needed more information.

A jump in static that Prowls brain interprets as laughter precedes Jazz’s response.

“You talk very precisely. Like. . you talk like if you don’t get everything out exactly right and in the clearest way possible then people won’t listen to you. Or they won’t understand you.”

“They don’t.”

“You also don’t usually use contractions this much.”

“They do not.” Prowl fixed. There. He was fine.

He could smell his own breath. It smelled bitter, like cleaning chemicals and hospitals.

“Can you keep talking? I think I can get a read on where you are by the strength of the signal.”

That was incredibly sensible.

“You’re so smart. Why are you so.. You- you’re the smarter-est. Smart-trest.”

There was a long pause where Jazz processed and Prowl did the human equivalent of a computer dial up tone inside his skull.

“Ooookay, hey Prowler? What do I do if I find a human with brain damage?”

The tactician pondered this riddle.

Mentally, Prowl pulled up a file of information and read it aloud, “Don’t.. let them do stupid shit..”

“Gotcha.”

The letters in his brain didn’t make sense, he tried to remember instead.

“You need to, you keep them awake because, because it’s bad if they go to sleep.”

“What happens if they go to sleep?”

“They don’ wake up anymore.”

“Hey Prowler?”

“Yeag?”

“Yeah, hey I need you to keep talking to me okay? Can you do that?”

“For the signal search?”

“Yeah, for the signal boo.”

Okay. He had a task again. Talk.

Talking is just making words with sounds and doing them in an order that you want them to do and it will make them sound like they’re not going through with what you don’t want them to do, which is the thing that is not the good thing.

Yes.

Good.

What?

“Oh ho WOW you are super out of it.”

His head lolled back towards the speaker, “What?”

Jazz’s voice was coming through much clearer than before, “I was asking about your favorite foods, then you said you didn’t remember and I was all like “Is memory loss a sign of brain damage in humans?” And then you said you didn’t remember because it’s been so long since you’ve enjoyed eating and I was like “Okay that’s actually somehow worse.” And then you asked me “what’s worse” and this is now the third time I’ve had to repeat this conversation.”

Prowl considered this information, sifting through his memories.

“It’s doughnuts.” He mumbled.

“What’s doughnuts?” Jazz grunted between his words like he’d been exerting himself.

“M’favorite food. It’s um, a circle? With a hole, in the middle. .” He tapped a finger subconsciously. “A torus.”

“Can humans taste shapes? What does a torus taste like?” A little bit of wonder was in Jazz’s voice.

“Nooo no no.” Despite himself, somehow Prowl was giggling. “They don’t taste like much. Lot’s of toppings and sweet stuff, but we used to get plain and I’d dip mine in coffee.”

“So a coffee doughnut then?”

He sounded absolutely whiny but didn’t care, “Nooo coffee doughnuts are different. Plain Doughnut dipped in, um, in plain coffee is.. what’sit.”

Prowl tried to put it into words. Sunlight through a window. Sitting on a desk and a peeling office chair. Splitting the torus because there weren’t enough left for two this time. Bitter and sweet, because Prowl got a coffee and hot chocolate for their usual order. Talking, eating, listening.

“Not plain.”

“Duly noted.” There was a hint of mischief in Jazz’s voice that had Prowl zeroing in on it.

“You- you’re- I KNOW what you’re doing you- you-“ Prowl pulled on all his linguistic prowess. “Fucker. You’re prying- plying? Probing me for all my secrets!”

Prowl thumped his gloved hand against a random dead screen inside his mecha.

“Ooo you got me there. Alien invader, come to probe ya. So what do you find attractive in a mech? Er, man.”

“Visors r hot.”

Either the speakers were shorting out or Jazz was. The static resolved back into coherent speech, “Oh I was so not expecting you to actually answer that. Your filter is a little broken right now huh?”

Refusing to answer, Prowl grumbled disgruntedly.

“Wait, are you into Tarantulas? Is that why you let him do that shit to you?”

“Wha-? No I’m not- what? Jazz, Tarantulas is just a coworker. He’s necessary. He’s not- I need him I don’t want him Jazz.”

“Prowl I think he’s killing you. What does he do that’s so “necessary?”

Prowl tried to find the words and began a tumbling run of it.

“He listens to me. And it does, feel good sometimes. The attention. And the compliments. But I don’t need that, I don’t need to be liked by anyone. I need to be better and he listens to me and then makes me better. You don’t- you wouldn’t understand. I have to be faster. I needed to be faster and I wasn’t and Tarantulas is the only one who will help me.”

“Respectfully, but someone who lets you destroy yourself isn’t helping as much as you think they are.” The bitterness in his tone made Prowl go quiet.

“Prowl, I’ve seen you do some absolutely crazy shit to save an absurd number of people. You literally just saved my life and now you’re talking like that isn’t enough?”

“You don’t know. Tarantulas knows.”

“Then what the fuck does Tarantulas know about you that I don’t?” Jazz shouted through the speaker.

“If I was faster it would’ve been me!” Screaming into the confines of his mechas cabin, Prowl choked on the stale air.

His head spun. There was an intense pressure against his chest and something wet dripped tracks down his nose, pooling onto his visor.

“He got to the gate first. He- we had to close it from both sides. I wasn’t fast enough and he crossed over first and- and I killed my-“ His voice cracked in two.

Prowl dry heaved. He screamed. Had he ever stopped? He was blind and broken and half the man he needed to be. Stretching out what little remained of his soul until it could cast the shadow of a complete person.

Shooting pains dulled into cracked bones of exhaustion. Where the marrow seeps away to leave nothing behind but a sad sack in the limp shape of a human being.

Why was he so dizzy? Why did everything hurt? Prowl tried to scan around himself but came back with nothing. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t remember why he was crying but the pain was so familiar that he did.

A sound, different from ringing ears or groaning metal. Fast. Gentle.

A voice. A voice he knew.

Prowl hiccuped and tried to lean into the sound.

“Hey hey hey, Prowl you’re okay. You’re okay we don’t have to talk about any of that anymore.”

Jazz. The voice was Jazz, he knew Jazz.

“Can you just start counting or something? Recite the alphabet?”

Prowl felt his eyes start to slip closed. Listening didn’t hurt. He wanted to not hurt.

“I’m almost there baby, you’ve just gotta stay awake a little longer. Just a little longer okay?”

Maybe it was a trade? The foggier Prowl got, the clearer Jazz became. Jazz was supposed to get closer. That was good.

“Prowler? Please say something.”

The sounds washed over him. It continued for a while, lulling him down further.

He couldn’t remember why he’d been hurting.

He couldn’t remember much of anything.

Silence.

Blissful silence.

“HONK”

Prowl woke with a shout.

“Fu- Wha- What?!”

Heart racing, Prowl tried to figure out where the hell he was and what the hell just startled the shit out of him. Coming up blank on both fronts.

“Prowl! Shit. Keep talking to me. I see plating, it’s looks like you’re face down. There’s some metal beams in the way. I can’t lift them. Tell me how to reach you.”

Prowl was still reeling from the honk. He felt out the remains of his mecha.

“There’s a breach. Right side of m’chassis.”

“Okay. Okay. Ah shitting fuck.”

Prowl was slipping again, but he couldn’t. Why couldn’t he..?

“I’m fine. Jazz. You can jus’ tell them where I’m buried. They’ll get the mecha back later.”

“And you’ll live that long?”

“Umm..no?” Prowl didn’t understand the question.

He heard something that sounded like alien cussing.

And then a scraping against his side.

“Prowl?”

“Jazz?”

“Start disconnecting. I’m getting you out.”

Prowl barely initiated the disconnect sequence before an earth shattering screech of metal tearing away whited out his thoughts.

It felt like it went on forever. The residual power sparked around the open chest wound of his mecha. Prowl was blind. Again. So much of him was missing, missing, missing.

He didn’t realize his eyes were open until a bright blue blob bobbed into view.

“Heya Prowler.”

He’d know Jazz’s voice anywhere.

Prowl was pretty much useless. All he strength was going into staying awake. Because Jazz wanted him to stay awake.

That started out easy. Staying awake. With the pain of extraction and disentangling of limbs from harnesses.

It got much harder once Jazz had him. There was this, this sound. Like a hum. But slowly ebbing and flowing, like slow calm breathing.

Prowl pressed his ear to something warm and rumbly. Metal surrounded him. He wanted it to press harder until he could phase out of his broken body. But it just held him steady.

“Dij.” He tried. “Didou get smaller?”

The voice he knew laughed in.. fear? Relief? Prowl didn’t know. Wasn’t his strong suit.

He could feel the rocking of steps. The metal got a little warmer and time ran in little circles around his head.

And Prowl fell under.

Much, much later, Prowl woke up. Properly this time.

It was a familiar enough sight. Tile ceilings, beeping machines, the general scent of chemicals that denoted Tarantulas’ presence.

The scientist wasn’t immediately here, surprisingly. When Prowl turned his aching neck to find him, instead he saw a plain blue box next to his bed.

Curiosity peaked, Prowl dragged a protesting arm over to the side table, thumbing it open on the second attempt.

Inside, were two plain doughnuts and a closed cup of coffee.

Scrawled on the inside of the lid, “Could you describe them for me later?” - J

———————————————————————

Prowl spent a good 15 minutes trying to work out how the fuck Jazz’s giant metal ass hand delivered that box into a tiny ass room three stories below ground level.

Because there was no way in fuck Tarantulas was going to let Prowl eat that, and it took him another 15 minutes to remember Tiny Jazz. Then another 15 to determine if that was a hallucination or not.

This is future science land were scientists are just wizards with an aesthetic, so Tarantulas will get Prowl back to “normal” pretty quickly.

Additionally, we’re seeing only what Prowl remembers from his conversations with Jazz. Poor dude was digging for hours trying to keep Prowl awake and not set off anymore emotional land mines. With varying degrees of success.

This is probably (for my own sanity’s sake) the only reverse mecha au story I’m writing so if this inspires you go nuts and make it!

-SSTP

#tf mecha universe #reverse mecha au #they have issues your honor #in case it wasn’t obvious Prowl was talking about Bluestreak #he stopped eating food they shared after loosing him #obligatory ‘cops love doughnuts joke’#writing #Jazz DID NOT want to hand Prowl over to Tarantulas #Tarantulas asked for his Favorite Patient and Jazz just. Did not move. Did not speak. and did not make any facial expression #for a good five seconds #and it was the most effective death threat Tarantulas had ever received #he’s honestly a little touched

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gyeomsweetgyeom · 1 month ago

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[1:46 pm]

(cw: f!reader)

( @bluedbliss here you go!!)

"I don't know, I just feel bad. Don't you guys?" Jaehyun asked quietly as his eyes stayed locked on fratboy!Yuta who was staring at something on his phone.

"Do you guys think she's even real?" Mark replied with a confused look on his face.

You, Yuta's so-called girlfriend. There had been so many canceled visits, unanswered calls, late night calls, and dropped FaceTime calls between you and Yuta that at this point, his brothers were concerned. Did Yuta think he needed to make up a girlfriend so they'd like him? Did he feel left out when the other girlfriends came around? They were concerned that they were making him feel left out or that he maybe even had to lie to fit in. It totally wasn't the case. They'd support Yuta with or without a girlfriend.

"So, uh, tell us about how you guys met again?" Jaehyun asked Yuta.

Yuta turned from his seat on the couch with a bright smile, "I went home two summers ago and she was starting her semester abroad. It was love at first sight."

"She's still coming today, right? I feel like you've been waiting out here for a while, bro," Johnny asked in a gentle voice.

Yuta nods, looking back at his phone to check something, "yeah, dude, of course. Her flight was a little delayed and then she had two Ubers cancel, but she's already on her way."

The brothers nod slowly. Excuses, excuses... a couple months ago you could't make it because your flight to them was cancelled. Before that it was that you were swamped with homework. The time before that your flight had emergency landed with a 14 hour layover because a woman had given birth on your flight. There were just too many coincidences for the brothers to not be concerned.

Plus, Yuta never posted you under the guise of, "well, my girlfriend is a really private person." Sure, buddy...

"Tell us about her again?" Mark asked.

"She's a totally gorgeous, way out of my league, beautiful, sunning, breathtaking, genius woman. She's the best person I've ever met. She makes me a better person. She's the smartest person on the face of this planet. My mom loves her, my sisters love her, my dad loves her. Everyone loves her!" Yuta rants excitedly.

Suddenly, there's a knock on the door. Yuta let's out some kind of choked honk before he sprints to the door. The group of confused brothers move in a unit to the hall to get a good view of the front door.

"Baby girl! You're here!" Yuta cheers as he engulfs someone. They all crane their necks, but its impossible to tell who Yuta is hugging.

Then, as if some silent prayers were being answered, Yuta moves and there you stand. "She's actually real," Haechan whispers. They're all stuck in some kind of trance, in shock because, yeah— you are real and you're in their doorway.

Taeyong is the first to greet you with a warm smile and the rest follow suit. Soon enough you're all standing around in the kitchen snacking while making conversation.

Doyoung clears his throat, "so Yuta tells us you're a genius?"

You chuckle, shaking your head, "I'm not a genius, he just says-"

"She is!" Yuta interrupts, "she got into university early. She graduated early with the highest GPA in her university, and she's getting two master's degrees right now!"

"Well, I haven't gotten them yet, I'm pursuing them," you correct softly, squeezing Yuta's hand lovingly.

"Woah, two master's at once. Is that even possible?" Mark asks with his brows arched high.

"For my baby girl it is," Yuta answers with his chest puffed out in pride.

Again, you laugh softly as you correct your boyfriend, "it's definitely not common, but for my program the dual degrees are an option. My program mentors are very supportive and helpful. It keeps me busy, but I have a free weekend since my dissertation is being looked over this week, so I came to see my guy."

"Holy cow, you're so cool!" Haechan exclaims in a whisper.

"Why are you dating him? You know he's failed more classes than any of us here, right? Don't you want someone on your level?" Mark asks.

Yuta glares at Mark, but he calms when you rub his back. You turn to Mark, "I don't expect him to be perfect. Everyone has struggles when they first enter university and Yuta was far from home. There were a lot of other factors contributing to those few failed classes."

You take a sip of the water in your hand, "and I'm with Yuta because I love him, plain and simple. It's... hard living up to the expectations of all the people around me. I was so used to functioning under a crazy amount of stress in a way that isn't healthy in the slightest. Yuta just made me feel lighter. I met him and I felt like I could just... breathe. He supports me in whatever I choose. If I decided to drop my program tomorrow and move to the South Pole, I know he'd support me with no questions asked. He doesn't care about me because of my school, my academic abilities, or my brain. He cares about my being happy. That's all I can ask for."

"Bro, that's so romantic. Wait, I love you guys!" Jaehyun smiles, as he tugs you both in for a hug.

You hug him back with a watery laugh, leaning into Yuta's side when Jaehyun steps back. Yuta squeezes your side and lays his head atop yours, "and I failed three classes, Mark! Three! Bowling, massage, and judo. Don't make me look bad in front of my girl, again!"

"Judo?! You're Japanese, dude!"

"Mark! I play soccer! You don't fight people in soccer!"

You pinch his hip, "you got a red card a few games ago for tackling too much."

"That doesn't count, baby girl."

(gasp! gyeomsweetgyeom called it soccer!)

#kpop imagines #kpop au #kpop scenarios #kpop reactions #nct #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct timestamps #nct x reader #nct drabbles #nct blurbs #yuta imagines #yuta x reader #yuta fluff #yuta drabble #fratboy!nct #frat!nct #fratboy!Yuta

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keferon · 6 months ago

Note

Part 4 of Hot Rods guide to befriending grumpy old people will be in the works for a bit. But I still love writing for this sunshine child.

Have a lil treat in the meantime.

———————————————————————

Hot Rod: Is Prowl a marsupial?

Ratchet: Elaborate.

Hot Rod: Cause he’s got a pouch in him that holds a mammal.

Ratchet: Yes Hot Rod. Prowl is a fucking koala.

———

Hot Rod: So you can honk as a car right? Can you still honk in mech shape?

Deadlock: You know, I’ve never actually tried?

———

Hot Rod: How did you actually get a job at the mecha program? Like, did you go through a whole human childhood first, got an education, social security number, job application yadda yadda yadda. Or did you just appear inside the building fully formed and nobody questioned it?

Swerve: Holy shit I don’t know. Did I have parents? Were they REAL?!

———

Hot Rod: So the mechas all come with emergency emesis bags.

Jazz: Yeaaah?

Hot Rod: Did you ever, y’know, in Prowl?

Jazz: No and while I’m pretty sure he’d forgive me, I wouldn’t forgive me.

———

Hot Rod: So you hitched yet?

Prowl: No? I do not require any towing.

Hot Rod: Like you tied the knot?

Prowl: What knot?

Hot Rod: Are you married?

Prowl: I do not know that word.

Hot Rod: Oh! I gotchu big man. Go ask Jazz if you should get married.

Prowl: Understood…?

Hot Rod: >:)

-SSTP

LMAO

Hot Rod: Wow you're a good artist

Swerve: Thanks! I had a lot of practice drawing fake ID's for my humansona

Hot Rod:..............do you take commissions?

#tf mecha universe #mecha th #maccadam #how to I even tag it ahahahahhajfkfm

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literaryvein-reblogs · 2 months ago

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How to Paint with Words

When an author paints with words, they use word choice and sentence sequences to figuratively paint pictures in a reader’s mind.

In the visual arts, painting pictures, of course, refers to the act of representing people, objects, and scenery for viewers to behold with their own eyes.

In creative writing, painting pictures also refers to producing a picture of people, objects, and scenes—but the artist’s medium is the written word.

A master author uses care and precision in their writing process to craft evocative word pictures that conjure up mental images for their readers. If you want to bring a painterly quality to your own work, here are 5 writing tips to set you in the right direction:

Treat writing as an art form. Like all fine art, every component of the composition must be carefully considered. Some authors agonize over their book’s first sentence and last sentence, which is of course very important. But what about the second sentence? And the third? To paint with words, you must be mindful of detail in all sections of your text.

If you don’t think you have the right words, keep looking. If you type a verb or adjective that doesn’t feel satisfyingly evocative and you suspect there’s a near-synonym out there that would be a better word choice, continue your search. Use a thesaurus to remind you of words that may be slipping your mind at the moment you’re writing.

Emphasize action words. Action words are verbs that indicate proactivity by a subject. Action words help your reader understand what your characters are actually doing. And when you paint with words, the ability to show what characters do is a vital skill set. Use descriptive verbs to add more color to your action.

Strike a balance between description and prompting readers’ own imaginations. Although it may initially seem counterintuitive, sometimes painting with words requires withholding information so that the reader can imagine a scene for themselves. Let’s say that in your novel, you wish to describe a skyline. To paint the image with words, you don’t necessarily need to describe every single building lined up in a row. Instead, imagine what it looks like to stand on a street and behold five skyscrapers next to each other. Most people can’t process the details of every single building; their eye focuses on one or two and the other buildings are processed as more of a blur. If you represent such a “blurred” sensation in your own writing, you may be better able to give the reader the impression of really being there. So focus your written description on one or two buildings and maybe throw in some non-visual sensations, like the honking of taxis in the background.

Seek opportunities to improve your writing skills. The ability to paint with words isn’t mastered in a single session. Like all aspects of writing, it will always be a work in progress for even the best authors. Seek out the insight of writers you admire: Some have written books about their craft (Stephen King’s On Writing for example), while others share details of their craft via blogging or host their own podcasts. If a local writers’ collective offers an education program, look into it. It’s never too late to learn new prose techniques, literary devices, and storytelling methods.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

#words #description #writeblr #literature #writing tips #writers on tumblr #writing reference #dark academia #spilled ink #creative writing #writing prompt #writing advice #writing inspiration #writing ideas #on writing #writing resources

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abraxo-official · 5 months ago

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Companion rambles: could they operate a vehicle + other random assortment of headcannons

Curie:

Knows every single part of a car. Knows every driving safety rule. Do not let her near a vehicle. Her driving style is mad-max levels of fear. She will giggle and comment about how much fun she’s having, and how she wishes she did this sooner. Danger level: 9/10. You won’t die but you’ll never look at a corvega the same.

Cait:

In trying to hotwire it, will either blow it up or will turn it on for just enough time that the alarm goes off. If she did find a functioning one, it would probably end up in a ditch. Danger level: 7/10

Deacon:

He can drive, but in the same way that a elderly person would: you don’t know if he should be behind the wheel, but goddamn it if he’s not going to Tokyo drift into the last parking spot in front of the super-duper mart. Danger level: 5/10

Danse:

Why concern himself with pre-war ruins that aren’t even technologically interesting? He *technically* can fly vertibirds, but also…heights get to him sometimes. If he did have a car, he would dive super safe and basically act like a midwestern dad. Do NOT try and merge without signaling in front of him. Danger level: 2/10

Mac:

Really good at taking cars apart. Only knows about driving from comics. TBH I think he would be the type to only learn how to ride a bike at 10+ years old. He can’t even start the car. Danger level: 0/10

Hancock:

Would try to drive but would get either lost or just confused after about a half hour. Would probably try to add a bunch of stuff on top, like a missile launcher or a turret. It would be so decked out that it wouldn’t even be functional anymore. Would take joy in doing demolition derbies with Mac. Danger level: 3/10

Piper:

She knows how a car works, but like, only from reading 4 pages of a really old manual when she was board. She claims to defunct know how they work, but has no idea what to do when she lifts the hood. Either causes an explosion or ends up breaking at least one part. Never gets it moving. 6/10

Gage:

He can probably figure it out after about a day or two of trying to compare it to a coaster. When he does start it, I think he would actually hate driving. He’s the sole one in control, with his foot on the gas the whole time, and there is no way in hell he is ready for that. Would probably make up some excuse about how raiders don’t need to use cars to make their points. 2/10

Preston:

The safest driver in the world at first, but then he starts going after bigger things. Trucks would help with transporting supplies to settlements, he argues. If we had a garrison of tanks, imagine how many people we could protect, etc. He’s not wrong, and not bad at driving, but he really needs to stop adopting every bubble-top he comes across. 3/10

Nick:

Can drive. Will drive. Then will have to confront the reality of his muscle memory being from a person he never really was. He’ll still take a spin now and then, especially if going long distances, but he prefers to walk. It’s more….him. 1/10

Longfellow:

Cars, no. Boats? Hell yeah. He’s taught just about every sailor far harbor has. But try to get him to drive on land and he will straight out refuse. It’s not who he is. 0/10

Strong:

No. Car for throwing. Inside small, only for weak human. No need metal shell to go fast. 0/10

Dogmeat:

Sticks his head out the window. Can honk the horn. 0/10

Codsworth:

Listen, somewhere in his programming is knowing how to drive a car. Also how to assemble one from 4 cans and a high powered magnet. Can drive it either completely normal and safe or in a way that would make vin diesel scared. 7/10

X6:

Danger level: 10/10. He would succeed in the way Hancock could not. He turns it into a weapon. Stuff of nightmares. Avoid at all costs.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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Cleantech has an enshittification problem

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit – lots of it.

But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be some personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these should be electric.

Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.

In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations. As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.

But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.

An EV is a rolling computer in a fancy case with a squishy person inside of it. While this can sound scary, there are lots of cool implications for this. For example, your EV could download your local power company's tariff schedule and preferentially charge itself when the rates are lowest; they could also coordinate with the utility to reduce charging when loads are peaking. You can start them with your phone. Your repair technician can run extensive remote diagnostics on them and help you solve many problems from the road. New features can be delivered over the air.

That's just for starters, but there's so much more in the future. After all, the signal virtue of a digital computer is its flexibility. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing complete, universal, Von Neumann machine, which can run every valid program. If a feature is computationally tractable – from automated parallel parking to advanced collision prevention – it can run on a car.

The problem is that this digital flexibility presents a moral hazard to EV manufacturers. EVs are designed to make any kind of unauthorized, owner-selected modification into an IP rights violation ("IP" in this case is "any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers or competitors"):

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

EVs are also designed so that the manufacturer can unilaterally exert control over them or alter their operation. EVs – even more than conventional vehicles – are designed to be remotely killswitched in order to help manufacturers and dealers pressure people into paying their car notes on time:

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

Manufacturers can reach into your car and change how much of your battery you can access:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

They can lock your car and have it send its location to a repo man, then greet him by blinking its lights, honking its horn, and pulling out of its parking space:

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

And of course, they can detect when you've asked independent mechanic to service your car and then punish you by degrading its functionality:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2024/06/26/two-of-eight-claims-in-tesla-anti-trust-lawsuit-will-move-forward/

This is "twiddling" – unilaterally and irreversibly altering the functionality of a product or service, secure in the knowledge that IP law will prevent anyone from twiddling back by restoring the gadget to a preferred configuration:

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

The thing is, for an EV, twiddling is the best case scenario. As bad as it is for the company that made your EV to change how it works whenever they feel like picking your pocket, that's infinitely preferable to the manufacturer going bankrupt and bricking your car.

That's what just happened to owners of Fisker EVs, cars that cost $40-70k. Cars are long-term purchases. An EV should last 12-20 years, or even longer if you pay to swap the battery pack. Fisker was founded in 2016 and shipped its first Ocean SUV in 2023. The company is now bankrupt:

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker called its vehicles "software-based cars" and they weren't kidding. Without continuous software updates and server access, those Fisker Ocean SUVs are turning into bricks. What's more, the company designed the car from the ground up to make any kind of independent service and support into a felony, by wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of IP. That means that no one can step in with a module that jailbreaks the Fisker and drops in an alternative firmware that will keep the fleet rolling.

This is the third EV risk – not just finance, not just charger infrastructure, but the possibility that any whizzy, cool new EV company will go bust and brick your $70k cleantech investment, irreversibly transforming your car into 5,500 lb worth of e-waste.

This confers a huge advantage onto the big automakers like VW, Kia, Ford, etc. Tesla gets a pass, too, because it achieved critical mass before people started to wise up to the risk of twiddling and bricking. If you're making a serious investment in a product you expect to use for 20 years, are you really gonna buy it from a two-year old startup with six months' capital in the bank?

The incumbency advantage here means that the big automakers won't have any reason to sink a lot of money into R&D, because they won't have to worry about hungry startups with cool new ideas eating their lunches. They can maintain the cozy cartel that has seen cars stagnate for decades, with the majority of "innovation" taking the form of shitty, extractive and ill-starred ideas like touchscreen controls and an accelerator pedal that you have to rent by the month:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

Put that way, it's clear that this isn't an EV problem, it's a cleantech problem. Cleantech has all the problems of EVs: it requires a large capital expenditure, it will be "smart," and it is expected to last for decades. That's rooftop solar, heat-pumps, smart thermostat sensor arrays, and home storage batteries.

And just as with EVs, policymakers have focused on infrastructure and affordability without paying any attention to the enshittification risks. Your rooftop solar will likely be controlled via a Solaredge box – a terrible technology that stops working if it can't reach the internet for a protracted period (that's right, your home solar stops working if the grid fails!).

I found this out the hard way during the covid lockdowns, when Solaredge terminated its 3G cellular contract and notified me that I would have to replace the modem in my system or it would stop working. This was at the height of the supply-chain crisis and there was a long waiting list for any replacement modems, with wifi cards (that used your home internet rather than a cellular connection) completely sold out for most of a year.

There are good reasons to connect rooftop solar arrays to the internet – it's not just so that Solaredge can enshittify my service. Solar arrays that coordinate with the grid can make it much easier and safer to manage a grid that was designed for centralized power production and is being retrofitted for distributed generation, one roof at a time.

But when the imperatives of extraction and efficiency go to war, extraction always wins. After all, the Solaredge system is already in place and solar installers are largely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the reasons that a homeowner might want to directly control and monitor their system via local controls that don't roundtrip through the cloud.

Somewhere in the hindbrain of any prospective solar purchaser is the experience with bricked and enshittified "smart" gadgets, and the knowledge that anything they buy from a cool startup with lots of great ideas for improving production, monitoring, and/or costs poses the risk of having your 20 year investment bricked after just a few years – and, thanks to the extractive imperative, no one will be able to step in and restore your ex-solar array to good working order.

I make the majority of my living from books, which means that my pay is very "lumpy" – I get large sums when I publish a book and very little in between. For many years, I've used these payments to make big purchases, rather than financing them over long periods where I can't predict my income. We've used my book payments to put in solar, then an induction stove, then a battery. We used one to buy out the lease on our EV. And just a month ago, we used the money from my upcoming Enshittification book to put in a heat pump (with enough left over to pay for a pair of long-overdue cataract surgeries, scheduled for the fall).

When we started shopping for heat pumps, it was clear that this was a very exciting sector. First of all, heat pumps are kind of magic, so efficient and effective it's almost surreal. But beyond the basic tech – which has been around since the late 1940s – there is a vast ferment of cool digital features coming from exciting and innovative startups.

By nature, I'm the kid of person who likes these digital features. I started out as a computer programmer, and while I haven't written production code since the previous millennium, I've been in and around the tech industry for my whole adult life. But when it came time to buy a heat-pump – an investment that I expected to last for 20 years or more – there was no way I was going to buy one of these cool new digitally enhanced pumps, no matter how much the reviewers loved them. Sure, they'd work well, but it's precisely because I'm so knowledgeable about high tech that I could see that they would fail very, very badly.

You may think EVs are bullshit, and they are – though there will always be room for some personal vehicles, and it's better for people in transit deserts to drive EVs than gas-guzzlers. You may think rooftop solar is a dead-end and be all-in on utility scale solar (I think we need both, especially given the grid-disrupting extreme climate events on our horizon). But there's still a wide range of cleantech – induction tops, heat pumps, smart thermostats – that are capital intensive, have a long duty cycle, and have good reasons to be digitized and networked.

Take home storage batteries: your utility can push its rate card to your battery every time they change their prices, and your battery can use that information to decide when to let your house tap into the grid, and when to switch over to powering your home with the solar you've stored up during the day. This is a very old and proven pattern in tech: the old Fidonet BBS network used a version of this, with each BBS timing its calls to other nodes to coincide with the cheapest long-distance rates, so that messages for distant systems could be passed on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

Cleantech is a very dynamic sector, even if its triumphs are largely unheralded. There's a quiet revolution underway in generation, storage and transmission of renewable power, and a complimentary revolution in power-consumption in vehicles and homes:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

But cleantech is too important to leave to the incumbents, who are addicted to enshittification and planned obsolescence. These giant, financialized firms lack the discipline and culture to make products that have the features – and cost savings – to make them appealing to the very wide range of buyers who must transition as soon as possible, for the sake of the very planet.

It's not enough for our policymakers to focus on financing and infrastructure barriers to cleantech adoption. We also need a policy-level response to enshittification.

Ideally, every cleantech device would be designed so that it was impossible to enshittify – which would also make it impossible to brick:

Based on free software (best), or with source code escrowed with a trustee who must release the code if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

All patents in a royalty-free patent-pool (best); or in a trust that will release them into a royalty-free pool if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

No parts-pairing or other DRM permitted (best); or with parts-pairing utilities available to all parties on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best);

All diagnostic and error codes in the public domain, with all codes in the clear within the device (best); or with decoding utilities available on demand to all comers on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best).

There's an obvious business objection to this: it will reduce investment in innovative cleantech because investors will perceive these restrictions as limits on the expected profits of their portfolio companies. It's true: these measures are designed to prevent rent-extraction and other enshittificatory practices by cleantech companies, and to the extent that investors are counting on enshittification rents, this might prevent them from investing.

But that has to be balanced against the way that a general prohibition on enshittificatory practices will inspire consumer confidence in innovative and novel cleantech products, because buyers will know that their investments will be protected over the whole expected lifespan of the product, even if the startup goes bust (nearly every startup goes bust). These measures mean that a company with a cool product will have a much larger customer-base to sell to. Those additional sales more than offset the loss of expected revenue from cheating and screwing your customers by twiddling them to death.

There's also an obvious legal objection to this: creating these policies will require a huge amount of action from Congress and the executive branch, a whole whack of new rules and laws to make them happen, and each will attract court-challenges.

That's also true, though it shouldn't stop us from trying to get legal reforms. As a matter of public policy, it's terrible and fucked up that companies can enshittify the things we buy and leave us with no remedy.

However, we don't have to wait for legal reform to make this work. We can take a shortcut with procurement – the things governments buy with public money. The feds, the states and localities buy a lot of cleantech: for public facilities, for public housing, for public use. Prudent public policy dictates that governments should refuse to buy any tech unless it is designed to be enshittification-resistant.

This is an old and honorable tradition in policymaking. Lincoln insisted that the rifles he bought for the Union Army come with interoperable tooling and ammo, for obvious reasons. No one wants to be the Commander in Chief who shows up on the battlefield and says, "Sorry, boys, war's postponed, our sole supplier decided to stop making ammunition."

By creating a market for enshittification-proof cleantech, governments can ensure that the public always has the option of buying an EV that can't be bricked even if the maker goes bust, a heat-pump whose digital features can be replaced or maintained by a third party of your choosing, a solar controller that coordinates with the grid in ways that serve their owners – not the manufacturers' shareholders.

We're going to have to change a lot to survive the coming years. Sure, there's a lot of scary ways that things can go wrong, but there's plenty about our world that should change, and plenty of ways those changes could be for the better. It's not enough for policymakers to focus on ensuring that we can afford to buy whatever badly thought-through, extractive tech the biggest companies want to foist on us – we also need a focus on making cleantech fit for purpose, truly smart, reliable and resilient.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

Image: 臺灣古寫真上色 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raid_on_Kagi_City_1945.jpg

Grendelkhan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ground_mounted_solar_panels.gk.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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aachria · 7 months ago

Text

Y’all I’m literally SO MAD. This is my last week of classes for the semester and I have not had a SECOND OF PEACE to write A SINGLE SENTENCE. So uuuuuuuuuh no chapter today. In my defence I had the worst mental breakdown of my life last week and the seasonal depression has Got my ass.

So anywho instead of a chapter you get some art I keep forgetting I made ✊😔 SSSBMTY will be back after this brief (single chapter) hiatus on our regularly scheduled program — so no chapter next week either, you’re fresh outta luck until the 22nd.

Love you guys, stay safe and stay as happy as you can manage xoxo

Anyway here’s Wonderwall. And by that I mean the (not quite) ladies cabin in stupid ass sleepwear because I thought it was funny.

They’re all standing in the door of the galley staring at Sanji, who just screamed louder than the gates of hell creaking open because he tried to get a midnight glass of water and saw a spider, and the rest of the boys standing around in various states of lucidity (Zoro is asleep on the table, Usopp is actively holding the spider in his hands to take outside, Franky is upright but completely unconscious, and Chopper is just kinda standing on the counter. Menacingly.).

Also Franky has matching bunny slippers with Robin and Chopper is in an identical honk shoo mimimi ass outfit as Ed’s.

Also here’s the full shot of everyone because some idiot (me) drew the stuff that got hidden behind people but would still like acknowledgment that I drew those hands, however poorly.

Anyway I love you guys and I’ll see you in two weeks!!! ❤️❤️❤️

#sssbmty #one piece #one piece ocs #fanfic #fanart #ocs #art #character design #one piece fanart #such is life y’all #sometimes shit happens #I’M NOT GIVING UP THO RAAAAAGHHHH 🦅🦅‼️🦅🦅‼️‼️🦅🦅‼️‼️‼️🦅‼️🦅‼️

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swe3theart-succubus · 20 days ago

Text

community service - rafe cameron smau

PT. 5

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ

by the time rafe had turned his truck around and pulled back into the rec center lot, the doors were locked.

he tried the handle anyway. pulled once, twice. nothing.

figured.

but he knew you were still inside—your car was parked out front, the little sedan with the bumper stickers. something about astrology, one that said don’t honk, i’m crying, and a faded heart-shaped one peeling at the corner.

through the windshield, he could make out a little stuffed animal on the dash. a pink frog, maybe. something soft and stupid and way too you.

rafe cupped a hand over his eyes and leaned toward the glass, peering in.

there you were.

pacing across the front desk area, one hand gesturing wildly while the other wrestled with a roll of tape.

you were clearly annoyed.

even cuter.

he knocked.

three short raps against the glass.

you flinched mid-sentence, spun around, and spotted him.

then scowled.

rafe lifted his hand in a casual wave, the most unapologetic hey face he could manage.

he kept his eyes on you as you made your way to the door, unlocking it without ever losing your pace with whoever you were talking to.

you barely looked at him when the latch clicked open—just gestured loosely for him to come in, then turned and kept walking.

“no, pope, i get that,” you said, phone still tucked between your cheek and your shoulder, a flyer in one hand, a roll of tape in the other. “but we can’t just cut the art program. they already took music, remember?”

rafe stepped inside slowly, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft thunk. the building was quiet. cooler than it had been outside. smelled faintly like glue sticks and lemon floor cleaner.

you walked toward the bulletin board, balancing your phone with your shoulder as you tried to smooth out the edges of a flyer.

“i know,” you sighed. “but if we move the fundraiser up a week, i think we can—hold on.”

you looked over your shoulder, finally meeting his eyes. then pointed toward the front desk without saying a word.

rafe followed the direction of your finger and spotted the sunglasses sitting beside a stack of sign-in sheets.

“yeah,” you said into the phone, already turning back around, “the silent auction’s still locked in. it’s just the food stuff that needs confirming. and i think marcos’s cousin still owes me a favor—he did catering for his sister’s quince, remember?”

rafe picked up the sunglasses. hesitated. then leaned against the edge of the desk and watched you work.

you were still in a tank top and shorts, still tired but moving like you couldn’t afford to stop.

and he was still watching.

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ

you finished taping up the flyer with a final press of your palm, mumbling something into the phone about following up with the PTA rep in the morning.

rafe didn’t move. didn’t speak. just watched.

leaned back against the desk, sunglasses now hooked lazily through two fingers like he had nowhere else to be.

you hung up, pressed the phone against your forehead for half a second, then dropped it on the counter beside your clipboard. finally turned toward him.

“you get your sunglasses?” you asked, already walking toward the mess of hand sanitizer bottles and sticker sheets you hadn’t cleaned up yet.

“yup,” he said, slipping them into the collar of his shirt. “didn’t wanna leave you hanging.”

you gave him a look. “how thoughtful.”

he watched you for another second.

“what?” you asked, not unkindly. just tired.

he shrugged. “just thinking.”

“about?”

“how my dad donated a shit ton of money to this place so i wouldn’t go to jail,” he said casually, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms. “and you’re still doing a fundraiser?”

you stared at him.

blank.

then blinked. once. twice.

“are you being serious right now?”

he raised a brow. “what?”

“you think ward’s hush money covers everything?”

“it was a pretty big check.”

you snorted. actually snorted. then leaned against the opposite end of the desk and shook your head.

“that check barely covers our tutoring program. maybe two months of pantry restocks if we stretch it.”

rafe frowned. “pantry?”

“for the kids who don’t eat at home,” you said, like it was obvious. “snacks, pre-packaged meals, drinks. some of them take bags home on fridays.”

rafe didn’t say anything.

just stared.

and you kept going, because now you were annoyed.

“field trip fees don’t pay themselves. neither do uniforms. or basic shit like glue sticks and paint. not to mention clothing, classroom supplies, first aid stuff, actual wages for the people who work here.”

he blinked.

you crossed your arms. “but sure. the ‘shit ton’ your dad gave us? life changing.”

the sarcasm hung between you. sharp. final.

but he didn’t fire back.

didn’t roll his eyes or shrug it off or throw some cocky line at you like he usually did.

just… stood there. quiet.

finally, he ran a hand through his hair. sighed.

“i didn’t know,” he muttered.

you looked at him.

really looked.

and for the first time all day, he wasn’t posturing. wasn’t performing. just standing there in the fading light, messy and sun-warmed, and maybe—just maybe—a little embarrassed.

“yeah,” you said softly. “i figured.”

he nodded once. looked down. then back at you.

your voice wasn’t harsh, not really.

just… tired. like you’d had this conversation a hundred times in different ways, with different people who thought a check could fix everything.

rafe didn’t say anything at first.

he just looked at you. and for once, he didn’t look smug or annoyed or like he had something clever lined up.

just looked. jaw tight. sunglasses forgotten, still hanging from the collar of his shirt.

“i didn’t know,” he said again, quieter than you expected. “about the pantry. the uniforms. all that.”

you nodded once, not really looking at him. “most people don’t.”

he was quiet again. like he didn’t know what to do with that. like maybe, for the first time, he was realizing this place wasn’t just a backdrop for his court-mandated humility arc.

you turned, started organizing the sticker sheets without another word, just to have something to do with your hands.

behind you, he shifted. the desk creaked slightly as he leaned forward.

“you’re kinda scary when you’re pissed off,” he said eventually.

you laughed without looking up. “good.”

“nah,” he said, and when you glanced back at him, he was grinning. smaller than usual. softer. “it’s hot.”

you rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt.

but your mouth twitched. just slightly.

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ

note: lil sum sweet for the kids 🤭🤭🤭🤭 also lemme know if y’all hate this or want more social media thingies, like, I’d love to hear ur thoughts about where u think it’s going??

Also, everybody who’s reblogged and liked and commented I owe u a kiss on the mouth MUAAAHHHH

next part!

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