#must-have iphones in 2024

[blogtey45]

2024 iRevolution | Top 5 iPhones That Will Blow Your Mind | AJs_CineHub

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada shouldn’t retaliate with its US tariffs

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Five years ago, Trump touted his "big, beautiful" replacement for NAFTA, the "free trade agreement" between the US, Mexico and Canada. Trump's NAFTA-2 was called the USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) and it was pretty similar to NAFTA, to be honest.

That tells you a couple things: first, NAFTA was, broadly speaking a good thing for Trump and the ultra-wealthy donors who backed him (and got far richer as a result). That's why he kept it intact. NAFTA and USMCA are, at root, a way to make rich people richer by making poorer people poorer. Trump's base hated NAFTA because they (correctly) believed that it was being used to erode wages by chasing cheaper labor and more lax environmental controls in other countries. Neither NAFTA nor USMCA have any stipulations requiring exported goods to be manufactured by unionized workers, or in factories with robust environmental and workplace safety rules.

The point of NAFTA/USMCA is to goose profits by despoiling the environment, maiming workers, stealing their wages, paying them less, all while poisoning the Earth. Trump's "new" NAFTA was just the old NAFTA with some largely cosmetic changes so that Trump's base could be (temporarily) fooled into thinking Trump was righting the historic wrong of NAFTA.

However, there was one part of USMCA that marked a huge departure from NAFTA: the "IP" chapter. USCMA bound Canada and Mexico to implementing brutal new IP laws. For example, Mexico was forced to pass an anti-circumvention law that makes it a crime to tamper with "digital locks." This means that Mexican mechanics can't bypass the locks US car companies use to lock-out third party repair. Mexican farmers can't fix their own tractors. And, of course, Mexican software developers can't make alternative app stores for games consoles and mobile devices – they must sell their software through US Big Tech companies that take 30% of every sale:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Shamefully, Canada had already capitulated to most of these demands. Two Canadian Conservative Party politicians, Tony Clement and James Moore, had sold the country out in 2012, throwing away 6,138 negative responses to a consultation on a new DRM law (on the grounds that they were "babyish" views of "radical extremists"), siding instead with the 54 cranks and industry shills who supported their proposal:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

When Canadian politicians are pressed on why these anti-interoperability policies are good for Canada, they'll say that it's a condition of free trade, and the benefits of being able to export Canadian goods to the US without tariffs outweigh the costs of having to pay rents to American companies for consumables (like car parts or printer ink), repair, and software sales.

Sure, when Canadian software authors sell iPhone apps to Canadian customers, the payments take a round trip through Cupertino, California and return 30% short. But Canadian consumers get to buy iPhones without paying tariffs on them, and the oil, timber, and minerals we rip out of the ground can be sent to America without tariffs, either (oh, also, a few things that are still manufactured in Canada can do this, too).

Enter Trump, carrying a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods, which he has vowed to impose on his first day in office. Obviously, this demands a policy response. What should Canada do when Trump tears up his "big, beautiful" trade deal and whacks Canadian exporters? One obvious response is to impose a 25% retaliatory tariff on American exporters:

https://mishtalk.com/economics/canada-says-it-will-match-us-tariffs-if-trump-launches-trade-war/

After all, Canada and the US are one another's mutual largest trading partners. American businesses rely on selling things to Canadians, so a massive tariff on US goods will certainly make some of Trump's business-lobby backers feel pain, and maybe they'll talk some sense into him.

I think this would be a huge mistake. The most potent political lesson of the past four years is that politicians who preside over rising prices – regardless of their role in causing them – will swiftly feel the wrath of their voters. The public is furious about inflation, whether it comes from transient covid supply chain shocks, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or cartels using "inflation" as cover for illegal, collusive price-gouging.

Canadians are very reliant on American imports of finished goods. That's another legacy of NAFTA: it crashed Canada's manufacturing sector. Canadian manufacturing companies treated the US as a "nearshore" source of non-union labor and weak environmental and safety rules, and shipped Canadian union jobs to American scabs. Canada's economy is supposedly now all about "services" but what we really export is stuff we tear out of the Earth.

Countries that are organized around resource extraction don't need fancy social safety nets or an educational system capable of producing a high-tech workforce. All you need to extract resources is a hole in the ground surrounded by guns, which explains a lot about shifts to the Canadian political climate since the Mulroney years.

Since Canada is now substantially reorganized as an open-pit mine for American manufacturers, cutting off American imports would drive the prices of everyday good sky-high, and would be political suicide.

But there's another way.

Because, of course, Canada – like any other country – has the capacity to make all kinds of things, including high-tech things. Sure, it's unlikely that Canada will launch another Research in Motion with a Blackberry smart-phone that will put the iPhone and Android in the shade. The mobile duopoly has the market sewn up, and can use predatory pricing, refusal to deal, and other anticompetitive tactics to strangle any competitor in its cradle.

But you know what Canada could make? A Canadian App Store. That's a store that Canadian software authors could use to sell Canadian apps to Canadian customers, charging, say, the standard payment processing fee of 5% rather than Apple's 30%. Canada could make app stores for the Android, Playstation and Xbox, too.

There's no reason that a Canadian app store would have to confine itself to Canadian software authors, either. Canadian app stores could offer 5% commissions on sales to US and global software authors, and provide jailbreaking kits that allows device owners all around the world to install the Canadian app stores where software authors don't get ripped off by American Big Tech companies.

Canadian companies like Honeybee already make "front-ends" for John Deere tractors – these are the components that turn a tractor into a plow, or a thresher, or another piece of heavy agricultural equipment. Honeybee struggles constantly to get its products to interface with Deere tractors, because Deere uses digital locks to block its products:

https://honeybee.ca/

Canada could produce jailbreaking kits for John Deere tractors, too – not just for Honeybee. Every ag-tech company in the world would benefit from commercially available, professionally supported John Deere jailbreaking kits. So would farmers, because these kits would restore farmers' Right to Repair their own tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

Speaking of repair: Canadian companies could jailbreak every make and model of every US automobile, and make independent, constantly updated diagnostic tools that every mechanic in the world could buy for hundreds of dollars, rather than paying the five-figure ransom that car makers charge for their own underpowered, junk versions of these tools.

Jailbreaking cars doesn't stop with repair, either. Cars like the Tesla are basically giant rent-extraction machines. If you want to use all the "features" your Tesla ships with – like access to the full charge on your battery – you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in subscription fees over the life of the car, and when you sell your car, all that "downloadable content" is clawed back. No one will pay extra to buy your used Tesla just because you spent thousands on manufacturer upgrades, because they're all downgraded when you sign over the pink slip.

But Canadian companies could make jailbreaking kits for Teslas that unlock all the features in the car for a single low price – and again, they could sell these to every Tesla owner in the world.

Elon Musk doesn't invent anything, he just takes credit for other people's ideas, and that's as true of bad ideas as it is for good ones. Musk didn't invent the extractive Tesla rip-off: he stole it from inkjet printer companies like HP, who have used the fact that jailbreaking is illegal to turn printer ink into the most expensive fluid in the world, selling for more than $10,000/gallon.

Canadian companies could sell jailbreaking kits for inkjet printers that disconnect them from "subscription" services and disable the anti-features that check for and reject third party ink. People all over the world would buy these.

What's standing in the way of a Canadian industrial policy that focuses on raiding the sky-high margins of American monopolists with third-party add-ons, mods and jailbreaks?

Only the IP laws that Canada has agreed to in order to get tariff-free access to American markets. You know, the access that Trump has promised to end in less than a week's time?

Canada should tear up these laws – and not impose tariffs on American goods. That way, Canadians can still buy cheap American goods, and then they can save billions of dollars every year on the consumables, parts, software, and service for those goods.

This is hurting American big business where it hurts – in the ongoing rents it extracts from Canadians through IP laws like Bill C-11 (the law that bans jailbreaking). Canada could become a global high-tech export powerhouse, selling "complementary" goods that disenshittify all the worst practices of US tech monopolists, from car parts to insulin pumps.

It's the only kind of trade war that Canadian politicians can win against Americans: the kind where prices for Canadians don't go up because of tariffs; where the price of apps, repair, parts, and upgrades goes way down; and where a new, high-tech manufacturing sector pulls in vast sums from customers all over the world.

Canada can win this kind of war, even against a country as big and powerful as the USA. After all, we did it once before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CK3EDncjGI

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

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/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

[littlerequiem]

the hitchhiker's guide to isekai ˚⁎⁺ levi x gn!reader

CONTENT — Levi getting isekai'd into our world, (questionable) humor, slice of life, swearing, Levi is a boomer when it comes to technology, pop culture refs, suggestive, mentions of bondage (wc: 1.1k words). Written for Day 3 - Isekai, Levi Month 2024 - @levievent

For as long as you could remember, Levi Ackerman had always been your favorite fictional character. There was something about his strength, his empathy, and his kindness that drew you to him.

Then, one day, the universe delivered him on a silver platter.

It was midsummer night when you found him. There he was, lying in your new antique wardrobe, groggy and half asleep, dark hair tousled to the side. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing; was this really your favorite anime character, in the flesh?

Before you could think on the logistics of it all, however, Levi was already reaching for the small knife tucked in his boot.

And threatening you with it.

It all happened in a flash.

With your heart drumming in your chest, you remember fumbling for words, looking straight into those sharp, silver eyes you’d always imagined must shine like starlight (and gods, they truly did).

Looking back, your first words lacked a certain decorum. “Wh—who—is this some kind of skit, huh? Are you some kind of pervert?!?”

Levi looked at you then like you were a complete idiot.

As it turned out, Levi was not, in fact, a pervert, nor did he mean to end up here in the first place.

Instead, he told you the hard facts: that he was Levi Ackerman, Captain of the Survey Corps. That he owned the same closet in his office, only in his own world. That the last thing he remembers was falling asleep in this piece of furniture, an attempt to hide from Hange who’d been up in arms trying to convince him to help with an experiment.

Your reality, it seemed, was connected to the Attack on Titan universe through a mysterious wardrobe.

(Like fucking Narnia.)

It was then that it was decided that he would stay with you until he found a way home.

A month has passed since this first moment, and to say that your daily life has been altered would be an understatement. You’re living with one of your personal heroes, after all—not that you let him know you view him as such.

Levi is trying to get back to his world, and in the meantime, Levi gets to discover your world: the joys of washing machines, the taste of matcha tea, the ease of hoovers, rock music.

And today, he’s uncovering the mystery that is the internet.

“I don’t understand,” Levi grumbles, his voice rough like sandpaper. Lines of tension form across his pale forehead, his gaze fixed on your laptop propped on the kitchen table. “People spend their time looking at cat... paintings?”

He’s perusing your blog.

“These are actually photographs that you’re looking at, but I suppose people also love drawings of cats. Cats are a very popular topic, see,” you explain, coming closer as you stop him from clicking on a sketchy looking pop up: ‘Free iPhone 15! Claim Yours Now’.

Levi's charged gaze follows as he watches you go about it; you have the thought he smells nice, like fresh linen and tea.

You clear your throat, withdrawing from his personal space. “Um... anyway, that’s not all you can do with the internet. People use it for all sorts of things: you can look up the news, the weather, forums…”

He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in the chair. “What’s that? Sounds like a disease.”

Ah, where to start...

“Forums are online spaces where people can discuss things. You can host debates, provide instructions, and more. Personally, I use them to gush about things I love. Like books!”

Levi clicks his tongue. “So, a bookclub?”

“Mm, yes, and no. Like sure, on the forum I'm a mod for, I love to discuss the plot, the characters, and the writing, but I also just enjoy goofing around with my friends and sharing memes.”

“Me...mes.” Levi looks puzzled by this word.

You stifle a snort. “Memes are like... jokes. Only sometimes, they're also cultural staples.” At his skeptical expression, you shrug. “I guess this world is different from yours, in that respect. We have... less immediate dangers, more free time.”

“That's not a bad thing,” he mutters, tone oddly soft. He averts his tepid gaze, looking back to your blog as he exhales through his nose. “But your world still makes no sense to me. Especially all of this.”

He nods towards the web page.

“It’s okay, the internet takes a while to get used to," you say. "Even for me... I constantly feel like an old crone whenever I hear all the lingo kids are coming up with these days.”

“Hmph.”

Levi looks unimpressed. So, forums—and the internet, it seems—aren’t his thing. Probably for the better—the last thing you need right now is for him to realize there’s a whole fanbase devoted to discussing his character (not to mention the other, less PG-friendly aspects of the conversation).

“Hey, how about we take a break?" You tilt your head, flashing him an easy smile. "You’ve been staring at the screen all morning. It can be a strain on your eyesight.”

Levi’s half-lidded stare crinkles, his lips pursing into a thoughtful pout, the same look he gets whenever you throw him scraps of information about your world and its strange customs.

“I was planning to make some tea,” you add, “want a cup?”

“… if you're making one anyway,” he mumbles, scowling in a way that reminds you of a grumpy cat. Cute.

You head towards your small kitchen, grabbing Levi’s favorite tea bag and laying out clean cups. As the kettle groans alive and you eventually hear that familiar sizzling that tells you the water’s come to a boil, another noise coming from behind garners your attention.

“Oi, something happened to your cat photo-thing,” you overhear Levi drawl.

You turn with a raised brow.

That’s when you notice that Levi’s somehow ended up on your desktop page, the familiar sight of your screensaver (more cats!) appearing into view.

But that’s also when you notice the mouse is hovering dangerous close to one of your folders... your babygirl folder.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no...

“DON’T CLICK THAT!” you plead, attempting to rush to his side to avoid the embarrassment of a lifetime.

Too late. Levi has entered the folder and somehow managed to click on one of the more scandalous pictures; your peripheral catches his expression, and it's the most stupor you've seen on his face yet... and is that pink dusting his cheeks?

Because Levi is looking straight at one of the fanarts you’d saved of him months ago.

Where his pixelated counterpart is tied up. Stark naked.

Well, shit.

— Masterlist / Join my taglist

[little-diable]

The Test of Time - Tommy Shelby (smut)

This is an idea I have been playing with for a while. It is very dear to me, so I hope it'll also be to you! Please like and reblog if you enjoyed reading this, your comments keep us writers motivated! Enjoy my loves. xxx

Summary: When Professor Shelby meets his new student, he's instantly fascinated by her, not understanding why he feels this connected to her. But the second their hands touch, both feel themselves thrown back in time, meeting centuries ago. It seems like love will always stand the test of time.

Warnings: 18+, smut, piv, lots of fluff, mentions some war time stuff and blood, small breeding kink, professor x reader relationship, age gap

Pairing: Soldier!Tommy x nurse!fem!reader / Professor!Tommy x student!fem!reader (3.7k words)

4th of August 1916, Northern France

The air was sticky, his hands were muddy, dry, and heavy. He had to blink more often than his eyes liked, worsening the headache he had been plagued by for months. A shaky exhale left him, momentarily squeezing his eyes shut to try and keep calm. There was no way out, he was stuck, below the ground, and if there was one thing he couldn’t do, it was panicking – at least not if he wanted to stay alive. He couldn’t risk being shot for going against a command, for being frightened like a boy.

Voices echoed through the tunnel, ringing in his ears like another bomb going off in the distance. They had to work fast. They had to work precisely, otherwise they’d eventually be buried by the dark soil, swallowing them whole as the enemy won the battle. 

“Shelby!” A raspy voice ripped him out of his panicked state, he was shoved, forced to move faster, to keep on digging even though his hands were bleeding and the blisters kept growing. He had to keep digging, had to keep digging, had to keep digging. Before the darkness would swallow him whole. 

February 2024, Birmingham 

The sound of his shoes meeting the ground echoed through the empty hallway, eyes set on his black iPhone. It was too fucking early for his liking, silently cursing his faculty for forcing him to hold these early morning classes. Not once had he met a motivated student who wanted to talk about the First World War with him at 8 am, and as much as Tommy disliked the students he found himself surrounded by, he couldn’t blame them for being tired.

If he could, he’d occupy all afternoon classes, wanting to discuss his research topics with those who were actually interested in modern warfare, strategies, politics, and so on. And yet he knew the chance was slim, forced to back down and make room for those who taught the mandatory classes. 

With a sigh leaving him, Tommy stepped into the room he taught in every Tuesday morning, putting down his bag and shrugging out of his coat before he lifted his gaze. He was still on his own, wondering when the handful of students would pour into the room, probably seconds before class started. 

Tommy plopped down on the uncomfortable chair, he placed his laptop down – hoping that he could at least catch up with the morning news while still being engulfed in silence. He tried to focus on the words, tried to cling to the information he was fed, though without any luck, interrupted by the sickly sweet “Morning!” echoing through the room. 

His eyes found an unfamiliar pair, not used to being greeted this enthusiastically in the morning. It took him a second to reply, eyebrows furrowed as he studied the woman. She must have been young, and yet he instantly found himself drawn to her gorgeous features, the soft hair he wanted to feel beneath his fingertips. 

“(Y/n), right?” She had emailed him about a month ago, warning the professor that she’d have to miss the first two weeks of his course due to some family trouble. Back then he hadn’t cared about her missing out on it, it was on her to catch up with his teaching anyways, but now he couldn’t help but wonder how he had managed to miss out on having her around for even just a second. 

“That’s me! Sorry again for my absence, Professor Shelby.” He shot her a small smile, not daring to speak up as his throat grew tighter. What the fuck was going on with him? Tommy felt as if he was drowning, as if the cold ocean was soaking through his black clothes, sticking to him to add more weight to his frame. He didn’t know her, knew only her name, and yet he felt strangely connected to her. 

He needed to get a grip, needed to redirect his focus before he’d forget his surroundings and the information he was supposed to pass on to his students.

……

“Professor Shelby?” (Y/n)’s voice echoed through his office, making a small smile tug on his lips as his eyes found hers. She stepped into the room, carefully closing the door behind herself before she walked up to him. Wordlessly he pointed towards the chair placed close to his table, piercing blue eyes watching her sit down.

“I have to say, I’m impressed, (y/n). You’re the first to ever score 100 on this essay.” The smile that grew on her lips left Tommy choking on his air, forcing his eyes away from her face. It had been a selfish move to invite all students to his office hour, telling them that he’d like to give them each some verbal feedback. But deep down Tommy didn’t give a single fuck about his students, at least not about the others, having eyes only for her. 

“I wanted to leave a good impression, especially after missing out on so much.” He was forced to look at her again, shooting her another smile as he reached the essay out for her to take. His heart started racing the second her fingers touched his, vision growing blurry, unable to notice that she was going through the same confusing sensations. 

“Help! We need help!” The screams echoed through the tent, ringing in her ears as she watched the soldiers move closer. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the soldier whose face was covered in blood and mud, forcing her to run towards them. 

“Place him down over there, quick!” Panic was flushing through her. No matter how many soldiers she had helped before, no matter how many lives she had saved, (y/n) couldn’t help but fear these moments when she held their lives in her hands. She needed to work quickly, and couldn’t wait for the other nurses to return from their visitations, there was no time to lose. “I need you to hold him down.” 

Her eyes met a pair of piercing blue ones, momentarily robbing her of any air left in her lungs. She had to redirect her focus, bloody fingers trying to clean the soldier’s cheeks as the handsome man held him down. No words were spoken between them, she needed to concentrate, needed to stop the soldier’s bleeding. Feeling the other man near did something to her, something unfamiliar she hadn’t ever felt before. 

“Here, I need you to bite down on this.” She pushed a wooden piece between the guy’s teeth as she reached for her tweezers. A deep inhale of air was sucked into her lungs. Even though it wasn’t the first time she was about to pull a bullet from somebody’s skin, (y/n) couldn’t help but feel nervous. Before she could even try to move, she felt the handsome man’s hand on her knee, softly squeezing the flesh to try and wordlessly support her. She could do it, and could help the hurt soldier, especially with the support of the man who was sitting close to her. 

“Alright, this will hurt.”

“Uhm,” Tommy had to clear his throat, blinking a few times before his vision began to clear up. (Y/n) was still sitting close to him, wearing the same confused expression as Tommy. Both stared at one another for a few moments, wordlessly, before she grasped the essay. Her eyes flickered down to the paper, trying to recollect her thoughts. 

“Thank you again for this, I think it’s best if I leave now.” He didn’t get a chance to reply, could only watch her disappear before he could even try to speak up. Tommy’s heart was still racing, mind not understanding what had just happened.

Had this been some trick of his brain, something he had read about in a book or seen in a movie? And yet it didn’t explain to him why the woman had looked just like (y/n), and why (y/n) had been just as dazed as he had been. 

It took Tommy a while to move, shaking his head as he drowned the last sips of his now cold coffee. He needed to get out of his office, needed to grab a few pints with some friends, anything to distract himself from what had just happened, and from (y/n). 

……

“Here, let me.” She watched him light his match, stepping closer to help her light her cigarette. Both blew out the blue smoke, watching it dance in the warm August breeze. Tommy was covered in soil, hands and face dirty, just like his hair, and yet neither of them seemed to care, wanting to feel one another close.

It had been days since she had helped his fellow soldier, making it through the night and all the following ones, left to survive with a big scar gracing his cheek. Ever since that day, Tommy and (y/n) had searched for one another, needing to learn more about the one they couldn’t stop thinking of. 

“Do you miss home, Tommy?” (Y/n)’s whispers rang in his ears, loud enough to distract him from his surroundings, the shots going off in the distance, the calls, and cries. He was sure that no matter where he’d be, no matter who he’d be surrounded by, if (y/n) was close, he’d always find himself focused on her. 

“Always do.” A hum left her at his reply, unconsciously moving closer to him, breath getting stuck in her lungs as his arm found its way around her waist. Their eyes met, his piercingly blue and full of pain and sorrow, hers filled with questions, longings, and confusion. She watched his gaze flicker down to her lips, taking another drag of his cigarette before he dipped his head down. 

(Y/n) didn’t dare move, silently praying that he’d kiss her, that he wouldn’t pull away, wrapped in darkness’s comforting veil. But before he could move, they heard the calls growing louder, forcing all soldiers to return to their positions. Their eyes met once again as he stubbed his cigarette out, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and disappeared.

(Y/n) woke with a gasp, hands pressed to the warm mattress she had been sleeping on for the past hours. Her heart was pounding, her mind racing, still focused on the dream she had just been forced through. Ever since she had experienced that strange moment in Professor Shelby’s office, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking of him, of what her mind had pushed her through – what had felt like a memory but couldn’t be one. And now she was dreaming of him, her professor, and yet he wasn’t a professor, at least not in her dream.

She needed to talk to him, or at least touch him again to figure out of it had been a trick of her brain or something that would happen again. He had looked just as confused, dazed even, unsure what had happened the second their hands had touched. Perhaps she could speak to him after class, or show up at his office, whatever it took to be close to him again. 

……

“Professor? Do you have a moment for me?” He had disappeared too quickly after class for (y/n) to even try to catch up with him, forcing her to wait a few hours before she could turn up at his office. She watched him take off his round glasses, leaning back in his chair as a soft “Of Course” left him. 

For a few moments, they were engulfed in silence, eyes wandering over one another’s features, wondering how to express what they were plagued by. But even though (y/n) tried her hardest to speak up, she couldn’t, throat too tight, mouth too dry. Professor Shelby broke their silence as he cleared his throat, rising to his feet to slowly move towards (y/n). 

He kept his distance and leaned back against his desk, and yet she felt him close. Though not close enough, feeling herself pulled towards him like a puzzle searching for its last missing piece. With a sigh breaking through him, he reached his hand out for (y/n) to take, watching the hesitation tugging on her features. 

“It’s alright, I don’t understand it myself, but I guess it’s on us to figure this out. Whatever it is.” Her teeth ran along her lower lip as (y/n) stepped towards him, letting go of one last exhale before she carefully grasped his hand. 

“Look at me, (y/n). I’ve got you, I’m alive.” His voice rang in her ears, watching the tears drip down her cheeks as she stared up at him. She clung to his hand, cursing this very war for pushing these unfamiliar emotions through her. God, she had counted the hours, had lost hope, sure that Tommy was no longer alive. And yet here he was, alive, breathing, not even bleeding. 

She hastily took a step away, eyes wide, lips parted. He had his eyes focused on his hand, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Neither of them dared to speak up, not understanding what was happening, why these things that felt like memories were pushed through their brains. Only slowly did the professor dare to lift his gaze, studying her panicked features.

“What is happening? What is that?” (Y/n) choked on her words, torn between confusion and the pain she felt deep inside of her. It felt as if she was grieving something or rather someone. A pain she was so unfamiliar with, she couldn’t even understand what it was trying to tell her, what she was plagued by. 

“I don’t know, (y/n).” He spoke her name all too softly, sounding just like it had in her head moments ago. With wide eyes she kept studying him, needing to feel what had happened again, still not believing that this was something but a trick of her brain. All he did was watch her, eyes following her every move, even as she came to a halt in front of him, standing far closer than moments ago, he didn’t dare move. If there was one thing Tommy wanted to avoid, it was scaring her. 

“Can I try something?” Their eyes held contact as (y/n) murmured the words, waiting for his spoken consent before she moved. A quiet “Yes” left the professor, wondering what she was about to do, not expecting to feel her soft lips meeting his.

“You have to be quiet, love.” His raspy voice left her buzzing with excitement. Tommy had her pressed against a car, swallowed by darkness. Their lips met carefully at first, with her arms slung around his neck, and his hands placed on her waist. Neither of them could hold back, deepening the kiss within seconds as they hoped that no other soldiers, nurses, or commanders would find them. 

“Don’t stop, please.” He had taken over the kiss, forcing her down on his desk to stand between her thighs. Both were torn between the pictures their minds were painting and the feeling of one another’s hands exploring their bodies. Whatever it was that had pushed them together, they didn’t want to break the spell, needed to keep close. 

“Will you let me have a taste? Ever since I saw you for the first time I wanted to get my mouth between those pretty thighs of yours.” Her eyes were wide, lips parted to try and suck some air into her aching lungs. (Y/n) could only nod her head, forgetting how to speak, how to express the emotions she so desperately wanted to explain to him.

With their eyes holding contact, Tommy undid her trousers, pulling them down her legs before he pushed her damp panties to the side. The groan that clawed through him at the sight of her bare cunt left her walls clenching around nothing, needing to feel his fingers, his mouth on her. But the second he brushed two fingers through her slit, collecting drops of arousal, she found herself stuck in another memory. 

“Oh god, oh god. Right there.” Her eyes rolled back into her head, pressed against the mattress of the bed she hadn’t been lying on for years. It had been hours since they had returned from France, not daring to leave one another’s side once, hours they had spent hiding away from those who had waited on them for years, only focused on exploring their bodies without needing to worry about curious bystanders. His tongue brushed along her folds, moaning at her taste as his arms tightened their grip on her thighs. 

“I guess you’ve always tasted this sweet.” His words drew tears to her eyes, overcome by a wave of unfamiliar emotions, set on drowning her. Tommy kept moving his fingers as his tongue explored the spots she needed him to touch, choking on his name. She needed to hold onto him, needed to bury her fingers in his skin, but her fingers couldn’t move, could only cling to the edge of his table. “My pretty girl, fuck, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” 

“What a sight for sore eyes, I’m a fucking lucky bastard.” Tommy’s raspy voice filled their shared bedroom. He leaned back in his chair, chest bare, legs stretched out. Smoke left his nostrils, eyes set on her naked frame. She walked closer with a smirk on her lips, enjoying the way he marvelled at her, how he watched her every move. “I don’t deserve you, my pretty wife.”

His wife? Them, Married? Fuck, if these flashes were truly memories of their past life, she couldn’t help but thank whoever had pushed them together once again. Another shot at this life with Tommy by her side, another shot at this life with a man she had loved in other centuries. Love that would always stand the test of time. 

“I need to be inside of you, will you let me fuck you?” (Y/n) pulled Tommy in for a kiss, groaning into his mouth as she felt his covered bulge rubbing against her sensitive cunt. Their kiss was all tongue and teeth, growing more heated by the second, while Tommy’s impatient fingers freed his cock. He parted from her to roll a condom down his cock, and yet their eyes never broke eye contact. “Last chance to stop this, I need you to tell me you want this too.” 

“Oh fuck, of course I want this, Tommy. Fuck me, fuck me like you’ve always fucked me.” Her glassy eyes met his, both were clearly overcome by the emotions they still needed to adjust to. He pushed into her slowly, fingers interlaced with hers to hold her close. There was no need to adjust, it seemed like their bodies remembered one another the same way their minds did. 

“Forever mine, I will never let you go.” Tommy rasped his words into the darkness as he fucked her into their mattress. He couldn’t help but admire her, needing to take in every inch of (y/n), silently hoping that tonight he’d get to fuck another baby into her. Her moans left him smirking, fingers rubbing her pulsing bundle in sync with his thrusts, needing to push her over the edge any moment now. 

She didn’t allow herself to wonder what their life together had been like, and how many children they have had together – at least not at that very moment. All (y/n) could concentrate on was the feeling of Tommy fucking her ruthlessly, cock forcing her walls apart with every thrust. 

With her forehead pushed against his shoulder, (y/n) moaned his name, already close to letting go. Both were shaken up by what kept on happening to them whenever they touched one another in another place, bringing up memories that felt like they were straight out of a movie. It was unfamiliar and confusing, and yet it was anything but scary, no, it left them filled with excitement, needing to learn more about one another and the life they had once shared. 

“It’s alright, love, cum for me, cum on my cock.” Tommy’s gritty voice left her choking on her gasps, letting go with a moan. He kept on snapping his hips, enjoying the way she clenched around him, how she trembled from her intense orgasm. All because of him. With his thoughts set on (y/n), he came, letting go with a groan. 

For a few moments, neither of them parted from one another, holding on before he slowly pulled away. Neither of them spoke as they redressed, caught in their thoughts. Only as Tommy pulled her in for another kiss did (y/n) allow another smile to tug on her lips. 

“If you’ll allow it, I want to love you in this lifetime too, hold you close like we were destined to be.” With tears once again welling up in her eyes, (y/n) pulled him in for a breathless kiss. 

Tommy had his eyes set on her sleeping figure, hand stroking her hair. His thoughts were torn between the memories of the tunnel, of the darkness he hadn’t been able to escape from for long. But it had all been worth it, because of her, because of the woman he had married, the woman who was the mother of his children. And if there was one thing Tommy was wishing for, it was getting the chance to love her in all upcoming lifetimes too.

[mariacallous]

In January, Apple agreed to pay out $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit over claims its voice assistant Siri listened in on private conversations. Now, affected users have less than eight weeks to stake their claim to a slice of the cash.

The Lopez v Apple Inc. lawsuit was filed back in December, accusing Apple of recording private conversations as a result of unintended Siri activations, and then sharing that data with third parties. Two plaintiffs claim they had related advertisements served to them after having personal conversations about particular brands, with another alleging they received an ad for a medical treatment following a private discussion with a doctor.

This is not the first time Siri has been accused of eavesdropping. A whistleblower spoke to The Guardian about it in 2019, claiming external contractors assessing Siri’s effectiveness were able to listen in on everything from criminal dealings to sexual encounters.

Apple stopped using these third parties shortly after, and in settling this case, Apple also denies all wrongdoing here. An Apple spokesperson told WIRED in January that “Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose.”

That said, Apple clearly still wants the lawsuit to go away, and—under the settlement—owners or purchasers of Siri-enabled devices who have experienced an unintended Siri activation during a private conversation could be eligible for a payment of up to $100. Each person can submit a claim of up to $20 per device, for up to five devices.

The list of eligible devices includes iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch, iMac, HomePod, Apple TV, and iPod touch—but the devices must have been bought and used between September 17, 2014, and December 31, 2024. The lawsuit is for US owners only.

How to Claim

If you think you’re eligible for part of the payout, you must submit your claim before July 2, 2025. Some people will have received an email or postcard notifying them of their eligibility, along with a Claim Identification Code. If you did, then use this when applying. Otherwise, head to the webiste for the case website and use the Submit Claim page.

Start by choosing “New Claim.” You will need to submit your name and address, the email address associated with your Apple ID, and either a proof of purchase or the serial number and model name of each device you are claiming for.

You will have to declare that you experienced at least one unintended Siri activation during the stated window of time, and that at least one incident happened during a conversation intended to be “private or confidential.”

It’s worth noting that the payment amount per Siri device is capped at $20, but the amount claimants actually receive could be less depending on the number of valid claims submitted. The final approval hearing to decide on the final amounts will take place on August 1, 2025, when the court will decide if the claim is “fair, reasonable and adequate.”

[putschki1969]

すき / DREAMS COME TRUE covered by Hikaru

Hello, this is Hikaru. Thank you for watching! This is the 6th installment of my "Singing & Playing Challenge"🎹 I don't have the proper equipment, so I recorded it on my iPhone😅 The song is "Suki" by DREAMS COME TRUE, a single released in 1994. I fell in love with this song after discovering "DREAMS COME TRUE GREATEST HITS "THE SOUL"" released in 2000. I have a lot of favourite songs by Dreams Come True, but I remember being deeply moved by the words woven together on top of of such a simple melody. I'll read everyone's suggestions in the comment section and think about whether to release another part in the series!

Hikaru Wednesday Music Champ Broadcast

Following her short broadcast last Saturday, Hikaru went back to her regular Wednesday live streams. She had been made aware that lots of people missed the first half of that broadcast so she was kind enough to explain the situation one more time. She didn't really go into much detail, just repeated what she had already shared with us. With too many people involved in the project, things just didn't go according to plan and in their position as singers, they couldn't really do anything about it except accept the less than ideal circumstances. Hikaru then made sure to emphasise that everything she's currently talking about is her position only and it doesn't necessarily reflect Wakana's or Keiko's opinion on the matter. In fact, she says that even if she is able to talk about certain things, that doesn't mean that Wakana and Keiko have the same freedom. They are all operating under different conditions so they can't handle the situation in the same manner. We should also be aware that if there are things she doesn't mention it is not because she is purposefully leaving us in the dark about certain details. It is simply because she isn't able/allowed to talk about those things. She has shared as much with us as she is able to.

KEIKO LIVE in the DARK -Sagittarius- K021🏹 in Fukuoka

Keiko held another Planetarium Live today at the Fukuoka City Science Museum Dome Theater. She was once again accompanied by her guitarist Yas Nakajima to allow for a very simple arrangement highlighting Keiko’s singing and the beautiful starry sky.

Tweet by Keiko | Tweet by Yas Nakajima | Instagram post by Keiko

Title: 『KEIKO LIVE in the DARK -Sagittarius- K021』 Date: 2024/10/26; 19:30 Start (19:00 Open) Venue: Fukuoka City Science Museum Dome Theater Tickets (Ticket Board): Regular Seat: 8,000円 | Regular Seat B (obstructed view): 6,000円 KEIKO Official Fan Club Ticket Lottery: 24/8/21 ～ 24/8/26 General Ticket Sale: 2024/9/7~ Event Homepage: https://planetarium.konicaminolta.jp/livedark/keiko2024_fukuoka/

During one of the MCs, Keiko mentioned Wakana because of course, she can't perform in Fukuoka without talking about Wakana. The final MC must have been something very moving. From what I have seen, Keiko must have cried at some point. Naturally, everyone who attended the event was moved to tears. Unfortunately, they are not sharing any details other than the fact that Yuki must have told Keiko that she wanted her to continue singing in the steadfast manner we are all used to so with these words in mind, Keiko doesn't plan to stop singing any time soon. Setlist-wise, I'm just so shocked to see "Kimi ga Hikari ni Kaete Iku" on there. *sobs* Forever sad that I missed this. Damn it, sometimes I really hate that I live so far away.

Setlist (Source)

Alcohol 　MC 1

Yuuyami no Uta

KIMI GA NEMURU KARA

Close to you

Yoru no Uso to 　MC 2

Burn In The Wind

Te to Te to Me to Me

Mune no Yukue 　MC 3

Kaze no Machi e

Latte

Kimi ga Hikari ni Kaete Iku 　MC 4

YOUR

[yuzurujenn]

[2024.10.15] BRUTUS November 1, 2024 issue No. 1018 - Beautiful Architecture and Windows

OPEN MY WINDOW Open your own window. Hanyu Yuzuru special photoshoot.

Yuzuru Hanyu Hanyu Yuzuru / Born in Miyagi Prefecture in 1994. He won two consecutive gold medals in men's singles figure skating at the Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. He has also won numerous World Championships and Grand Prix Finals. In 2018, he received the People’s Honor Award. After turning professional in July 2022, he became a producer and held three solo shows, including "GIFT" and "RE_PRAY." He also has a picture book titled "GIFT" (text: Yuzuru Hanyu, illustrations: CLAMP).

What do you see from your window, Hanyu-san?

One summer day in a house studio, Yuzuru Hanyu was sitting by the window. He gazed at the garden, which glistens in the quiet sunlight shining through the trees. Behind the sound of the shutter, Erik Satie’s "Gymnopédie No. 1," which he had selected from his iPhone playlist, was playing on the portable speaker.

"During shoots, I always choose a song that suits the situation and the intention for each shot. Since turning professional, I've had more opportunities to be photographed not just as an athlete, but as a person and an artist, and each time I am reminded of how many people put in a lot of time and effort to create a single photograph. When I heard that today’s theme from BRUTUS was 'windows,' I approached the shoot as if I were trying to fit myself into a crafted story."

At the beginning of the score for "Gymnopédie No. 1," the performance instructions read, "Slowly, with sorrow." The gentle yet melancholic melody resonates with the struggles a skater must have faced both physically and mentally, before and after achieving glory. Hanyu-san, what do you see from your window?

"When I used to live in Toronto, my house was on a high floor of a building, so I could see the whole city. It was raining in the areas covered by clouds, but I often saw rainbows in the gaps between the clouds where it wasn’t raining at all. That scene left a strong impression on me. I also can’t forget the view I saw from the airplane window during overseas trips. Whether it was on my way to Europe or coming back, I can’t recall clearly, but the plane was flying above the clouds, and only the moon shone brightly amidst the surrounding darkness. The brightness of the moon made it impossible to see the stars, and that scene was so beautiful that I rested my forehead against the window and gazed at it for a long time."

A town in the rain and with a rainbow. Darkness and moonlight. Even these scenes seem to suggest the journey he has taken so far. During the photo shoot, Hanyu was photographed from both inside and outside the window, but which side does he prefer?

"Personality-wise, I guess I'm the type who likes to keep to myself. I'm an introspective person, and I've often thought deeply about myself and people since I was little, so in that sense I might be the type of person who prefers to close the window and focus on being alone. However, I believe that even the most sociable and cheerful people need personal space and sometimes want to close all the windows. But those windows must have handles on them, so that when the time comes, someone else can open it for them, or they can open it themselves… That's what I was hoping to express in that window-shoot I did earlier."

He announced his transition to a professional career in July 2022. It was a declaration of his unwavering commitment to move forward. Although he stepped away from the competitive world where he compared himself to others, his battle with himself continues as he strives for even greater heights. He has already achieved three solo shows, a first in the figure skating world, all of which were a huge success. If we were to compare Hanyu to a house, would it be that he didn’t move to a new house when he turned professional; rather, the house itself remains the same, but the direction the window opens and the view from it have changed?

"Well, it’s true that my fundamental personality hasn't changed at all from before I started skating to the present. I have always been inquisitive and curious, often wondering, 'What is a human being?' In that sense, it is the same house. I probably have windows facing all directions, and I probably hang blackout curtains over them. Sometimes I want to feel the morning sun coming through the east-facing window, and other times I don't want to see anything and keep all the curtains closed. I think humans, myself included, are very selfish and interesting, and sometimes we wish to be part of society, and sometimes we just want to shut ourselves away in solitude. When I'm on tour, I might close the curtains. I want to block out the noise around me, concentrate on myself, and deliver a good performance. Afterwards, I'll secretly lift the curtains to see how the audience reacts (laughs)."

In his solo performance tour "RE_PRAY" from 2023 to 2024, Hanyu himself became the protagonist of a role-playing game, blending skating performances and videos to express a world of opposites, such as success and failure, life and death, light and darkness, and game-over and continue. This unprecedented ice show struck a universal chord with audiences from all walks of life, touching their hearts. What’s next for Hanyu, who always exceeds the expectations of his fans?

“I can’t reveal the details... but I’m constantly thinking about new songs and programs. I said earlier that I haven't changed, but since I became a professional, the way I spend my time has obviously changed, and I don't have time to just sit idle anymore. This year I turn 30, and every day I reflect deeply on what I’ve worked hard for nearly 30 years and the meaning of my existence now.”

After the interview, we returned to the studio for the rest of the shoot, where we could hear Matsutoya Yumi's "Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta Nara" playing in the background. "Open the curtains..." Perhaps now is the time to open windows in various directions and take in new input in anticipation of the next step. I tell myself that everything I see is a message.

Source: BRUTUS November 1, 2024 issue No. 1018, pg 65 Info: https://brutus.jp/magazine/issue/1018/ https://x.com/gucci_jp/status/1846128889573032006 BTS: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_MEmG5MwL0g / https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lAnWsArkHYw

[edupunkn00b]

On a Butterfly's Wing, Ch. 8: Navigating

Prev - Navigating - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ]

WC: 2448 - Rating: M - CW: implied past abuse, scars

Overruled Logan Sanders wakes to a world he could never imagine.

-

Monday, August 19, 2024

A sharp pain at the back of Logan’s neck woke him, and the hand that moved automatically to massage away the fire crackled with an ache all its own. “Meus?” he groaned, feeling blindly at the bed beside him. “Jay? Are you—”

A rapid vibration at his wrist dragged him further into consciousness and he cracked open his eyes, the blurry light of his watch blinding in the dark room. He slapped the watch face and squinted at the time.

05:45 AM

“Wha…” Fiddling at the strap with stiff fingers—how had he forgotten to put it on its charger when he’d gone to bed?—he looked over his shoulder and came face to face with a large pillow. Abandoning the effort to remove his watch, he pushed up to see beyond the barrier. Soft golden curls peeked out from the blankets on the other side. “Aw, Pat…”

It had been years since the boy’s nightmares had stopped regularly driving him to their room in the middle of the night. Eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, he saw no evidence of either Janus or Remus in their bedroom. He must have slept through his husbands trading spots to make room for the boy. “Poor kid,” he whispered to himself, reaching out to stroke his hair. “Must’ve been a really bad night. I’m so sorry I slept thr—”

The bedroom door cracked open, the hallway light cutting a wedge of dim illumination across the carpet. Carpet? “Dad?” Patton whispered, poking his head inside.

Heart stuck in his throat, Logan froze, hand centimeters from the matching curly blonde hair splayed on the pillow next to him that most certainly did not belong to his son.

Patton tiptoed into the room and, after watching the figure next to him for a long moment, moved around to Logan’s side of the bed, crouching down to eye level. “It’s okay, Mom’s still asleep. Are you alright? I didn’t hear you up. I thought… Well…”

Klaxons blared in Logan’s head. Mom?

Logan couldn’t see Patton’s face in the dark, but the worry in his whispered voice dragged Logan’s thoughts away from the woman laying next to him.

“I—I am… awake.” Logan swallowed and squinted again at his watch.

Patton’s grip tightened on his sleeve—what was he wearing? Where were Janus and Remus? Who the hell was in his bed? Why did Patton call her ‘Mom?’ Questions piled up, snagging in his mind’s gears until a tremor in Patton’s hands yanked him back.

“Dad?” he whispered again.

Logan took a slow breath and nodded in the dark. “I am a little groggy,” he half-fibbed and stroked Patton’s hand. “Once I get moving, I will be all right.” And maybe then he could figure out what the fuck was going on.

After a long moment, Logan felt Patton's nod in the dark. “Okay… See you downstairs in a few?”

“Yes. I will be right down.”

The sooner he got away from the stranger in his bed, the sooner he could think.

Patton squeezed his arm one more time before effortlessly making his way through the darkened space back to the hallway. He closed the door with barely a click, plunging the bedroom into full darkness.

Logan slid out of the bed, fumbling on the nightstand for his eyeglasses. They were gone, the surface bare save for an half-filled water glass. No charging dock, no phone, no book. And no glasses. Even the nightstand felt… off. Lower to the ground and smaller.

He found the catch to a drawer and pulled it open, feeling inside. His fingers closed on an eyeglass case and brushed over a worn bookcover. He pulled both out and slid the frames onto his face before checking his watch. The glowing face had perfect clarity. These were his glasses, but…

Get out of this room and get downstairs.

But he still didn’t know where his phone had gone. Clutching the book to his chest, he stood and felt a solid weight in his pocket. He reached inside and pulled out a battered, early model iPhone.

He nearly dropped it when the unfamiliar phone unlocked with his fingerprint.

Sleeping with his phone was foolish. Smothered under blankets or caught between his own body and the mattress, the likelihood of the battery overheating was great. It would run down the battery faster—Logan frowned at the gauge as it ticked down to 17%—and repeated nights would reduce the phone’s overall power capacity. He would never make a habit of this.

And yet… His worn pajama pants had a tiny divot where the phone had been wedged into the pocket night after night. And he’d felt no power cord on the—his?—nightstand. The presence of the book he was reading and his eyeglasses seemed to mark the nightstand as his and the phone…

A sigh came from the woman in his bed—Logan’s brain hurt at even the thought—and he froze, listening. But she slept on. Shaking away the rest of his questions, he refocused. He didn’t understand what was going on but he sure as hell wouldn’t figure it out standing here. What was certain was that Patton was waiting for him downstairs. Tucking the phone back into his pocket, he moved to the closet.

The majority of the rod was consumed with blouses and dresses. A few skirted suits and two longs racks of stilettos and pumps. At the far end, though, were a handful of mens’ dress shirts and slacks. Two belts on a small hanger. No ties. None in the bottom dresser, either, where he finally found boxers and dress socks. Grabbing the clothes, he slipped into the en suite bathroom and flicked on the light.

A different man stared back at Logan from the mirror.

It was him, he couldn’t deny that. Same eyes, same hair color. Same jaw and lips… The reflection in the mirror was undeniably him, but Logan didn’t recognize the creased forehead, the drawn mouth, the puffiness in his cheeks and under his chin. His arms and chest had atrophied and his shoulders sloped, a perpetual slouch. Dark shadows circled his eyes and dry, cracked lips frowned at him from his reflection.

And the scars.

Head tilted far to one side to better see his ear, Logan leaned closer until his eyes ached under the strain. A jagged, keloid scar showed where his earlobe had been torn and poorly healed. Another scar traced the curve of his temple and a third was hidden just under his jaw. He started to peel off his shirt and stared down at his hands. His left palm and insides of his fingers were taut and shiny, an old, old burn. Deckled scars lined his inner wrist, peeking beneath the edges of his watchband. And his right hand…

The cause of the ache in his right hand was now clear. Crooked, misshaped fingers throbbed as he struggled to completely straighten and flex them. Gently, he felt the bones through his skin, tracing lumpy, knotty cracks, fractures healed before they were properly set.

He’d last seen injuries like this… Unbidden, Logan’s eyes trailed back to the door and the stranger sleeping in his bed. He shivered. Logan had last seen injuries like this in a pro bono DV case.

Logan dressed quickly and hurried downstairs before he’d left Patton alone any longer.

He had to get his son the hell out of there.

Backpack already strapped on, Patton met him at the foot of the stairs.

The kitchen and entry were all in the same dull palette as upstairs, varying shades of flat millennial grey. He'd passed a few family portraits along the stairwell, and a large mirror stood just outside the front door. Several month’s worth of Real Simple and 425 magazines were stacked at one end of the coffee table, a thick commercial tome of architectural photography at the other.

He’d yet to spot a single bookcase, nor had he seen any art. No paintings, no sculptures, nothing.

The homey scent of fresh coffee and eggs lingered in the air, but the counter and dining room table were empty and pristine. It took a moment for Logan to register the thermoses Patton had tucked under one arm and the towel-wrapped packets in his hands.

“Ready?” he asked, grinning.

“Y—yes,” Logan nodded and looked at his watch again. August 19. “Patton… You don’t have school today, do you?” he asked before thinking better of it. Summer school exists and though it had been years since Pat had needed to re-take failed classes that didn’t mean…

Instead of another worried look, Patton only smiled brighter. “I have a sleepover at Jax’s after the library. They’re going to drop me off tomorrow afternoon when Mom’s—”

A muffled squeal followed by the rush of water through pipes from upstairs pulled both their gazes toward the ceiling. Juggling the food, Patton picked up a bulging canvas messenger bag from the hall and took out a set of keys from his own pocket before handing both to Logan. “Right on time,” he nodded and bounced down the hall to the front door, holding it open for Logan with another smile. Bright morning sunlight spilled over the floor. “It looks like it’s going to be a nice day.”

Logan stepped out onto a street he did not know.

Gone was his own narrow, tree-lined street filled with its cozy mix of one, two, and three-story homes and duplexes. No hiss of the city bus at the north end and the Capitol Hill streetcar at the south. Flags, flowers, dog walkers and joggers passing each other on the sidewalk… It was all just gone.

Instead, Logan was faced with a long, bland block of die-cut two-story houses. Each painted in one of three of the most boring versions of brown, orange, and green he could imagine, a tiny patch of yellowed grass cut across the fronts of each, valiantly fighting the summer’s sun. Ephemeral rainbows flickering in the sprinklers’ spray were the brightest spots of color on the entire block.

Wide driveways ate up most of the space in front of each house and the house from which he’d emerged was no different. Patton skipped past the shiny red BMW coupe closest to them and waited next to a more sensible—if much older—minivan. Looking down at the big H on the keys in his hand, Logan tapped the unlock icon and the door chirped.

After he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine, Logan’s phone connected with the car’s bluetooth. His watch buzzed again, a tiny map asking if he wanted to drive to Kirkland High School. He glanced out the window and caught the edge of a street sign. Kirkland Avenue NE.

Patton sat mostly still in the passenger seat, worrying his lip between his teeth. By this time of the morning, Patton would have ordinarily shown him five different memes from his group chat and described at least three ideas for his senior year film project. This morning? He was…

“Jax lives on 124th now,” he said, tapping the car’s navigation and pulling up an address from his phone’s contacts.

“Thank you,” Logan managed, biting back the instinct to ask for their last name. He himself seemed to be the only part of Patton’s morning that was out of the ordinary. He couldn’t worry the boy further with questions he should know the answer to.

Logan put the car in reverse and started the route.

“How’s your head?” Patton asked. He didn’t wait for Logan to answer before opening the console between them and pulling out a tiny tactical first aid kit. At the red light, Logan spotted butterfly bandages, several creams, even a small tube of vetbond.

There had been no pets in that house.

Patton tore open a foil packet of ibuprofen, then opened the taller thermos, passing first one than the other to Logan.

“Thank you,” he murmured, quickly swallowing the pills. “How—ah, thank you,” he repeated, letting the green light interrupt his fumbling words.

Following the car’s navigation, Logan turned left. It was only then that Patton sank back into his seat and unwrapped one of the breakfast packets he carried. Humming to himself, he took a big bite. “I added extra mushrooms and spinach to yours, too,” he said after a few chews.

The return of Patton’s softer smile loosened the knot growing in Logan’s chest and he nodded. “Thank you, that sounds wonderful.” Logan’s stomach grumbled of its own accord and Patton giggled before taking another bite.

“Oh,” he said, mouth half-full. “I didn’t tell you yet! I talked to Mr. Hopkins like you suggested. We’re doing Cabaret in the fall!”

“You are?” Controlled by decade-old muscle memory, Logan passed him a napkin from the center console.

Patton accepted the napkin and nodded. “Yeah! Hopkins said we’d hafta adapt it a little but he’s sending out emails next week.” The car slowed to a stop at a red light. “Send it to your work email, right?”

Logan glanced down at the steering wheel, gripped between his scarred left hand and a gnarled, crooked right hand. Ripped from the almost-ordinary morning conversation with his son, Logan nodded. “That would be best.”

The light changed and the car’s navigation beeped as he passed through the intersection. Jax’s house was rapidly approaching. Patton wrapped up the remains of his egg sandwich and tightened the cap on his own thermos. Once Logan pulled over, Patton gave him a half-hug and grinned. “See you tomorrow after she leaves for Dublin!”

He clambered out of the car and up the steps to Jax’s door before Logan could figure out how to respond.

Logan sat in the car for a long moment, debating following Patton up the path. He could make some excuse, sit with Jax’s parents, see what he could learn. This had gone on too long to be a mere nightmare.

Copying Remus’ trick, one he ordinarily discouraged, Logan pinched the back of his hand until the bit of flesh grew pale and stung. The minivan remained around him, the winding suburban street sprawled outside the windshield.

Whatever this was, it was no nightmare. No delusion.

As he wondered what to do next, Logan’s watch decided for him with another buzz.

Drive time to work: 23 minutes

He tapped to bring up navigation on his phone. It would take him to the QLaw offices in Seattle. Putting the car in drive, Logan pulled in a deep breath and nodded.

At least some things hadn't changed.

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Crackling Forest Grasshopper - Trimerotropis verruculata

Here we have another fine post straight from beautiful British Columbia, back when the weather was a tad warmer than it is now. With this insect's mottled colors, it certainly blends in quite well with the wood it stood on. Cryptic camouflage serves Grasshoppers well in the wilderness, since blending into their surroundings helps hide them from predators and allows them the chance to rest after an active day of eating and hopping. When I first received these images, I though this individual might be a Carolina Locust due to that specie's wide habitat range and the similarities in terms of body shape (particularly the compared length of the abdomen and wings) and camouflage ability. However, it turned out to be something else! The immediate giveaway was the lack of a notch on the top of the thorax. If you look closer at these images and direct your attention to the inside of the Grasshopper's hindlegs (Picture 4), you'll find distinct dark banding with sandy-orange sections. Moreover, the individual possesses dark legs tipped with orange tarsal claws, and very faint crossing bands along the hindleg's outside, firmly putting it in the camp of "Crackling" Grasshopper. At least...in terms of appearance. Truth be told, to identify this Grasshopper specie from simple images isn't as clear cut as it appears.

Many individuals in the Trimerotropis genus have a mottled appearance and similar features. Furthermore, there are many genera of Grasshopper within the subfamily Oedipodinae, more commonly known as Band-Winged Grasshoppers, that have similar appearances and features. The identification situation compounds further when you include habitat range on top of that! In any case, how can one be absolutely sure? You must observe the Grasshopper hindwings in flight: the shape, colors and patterning. You could also try and catch it for a closer look, in which case please handle the insect and its appendages with care. While I didn't see this specimen in flight, my dear friend in Squamish was able to observe it in flight several times before it flew out of view. I sent him a few pictures of similar Grasshoppers (their IDs confirmed by Bugguide) and he selected the closest matching wings: distinctly black and yellow banded wings that were more or less equally divided as the wing curved. With that description, a Crackling Forest Grasshopper is probably a safe bet for identification, but there is another way to be sure. If you have an ear from insect sounds, you can apparently distinguish Trimerotropis Grasshoppers from each by listening to the sounds their wings make in flight! As this insect's name suggests, a crackling flutter is heard as it flies (also confirmed by my Squamish friend).

Pictures were taken on October 1, 2024 in Squamish with an iPhone 12.

[fcble]

LOOSE ENDS — A collection of drabbles to pick up the threads I started months ago. TOTAL WORD COUNT: 3.0k FEATURING: Yoon Mingeun, Kang Haksu, Andrew Han, Ahn Jinguk, Lee Taein, Oh Kiyoung, The Midas Touch

JULY 2024. A direct epilogue to this drabble. Previously posted as screenshots on my main but I don't think anyone saw that so here we go again.

Two hours after having his phone confiscated, Mingeun knocks on Haksu's bedroom door.

Haksu opens it, looking clean and put together for someone just sitting in his room. Sitting in his room, and likely eavesdropping on everything they said. "I heard what happened," he says, confirming Mingeun's suspicions.

He steps inside, trying not to look too closely at the Bible on Haksu's bedside table, or the cross hanging above his bed, the only decoration on otherwise spotless wall. A diffuser sits on top his dresser, filling the room with a faint pine scent.

Haksu shuffles through the dresser for a moment, and tosses three iPhone boxes onto his bed. They're all slightly different variants of the iPhone 15, in blue and white and black.

"You can have any of them," Haksu says. "I don't know why our fans keep giving me iPhones when I use a Samsung."

Mingeun doesn't get gifts like that. Haksu has his phones, and Andrew received a high-end laptop. He must be doing something wrong.

He doesn't say anything, just points to the plastic container in Haksu's hands. "What's that?"

Haksu opens the lid, and that's when Mingeun realizes it's full of index cards. "SIM cards."

There must be fifteen or so in the box, by his best judgement. Each index card has the SIM card taped to it, with a phone number across the top and a series of dates running down the right side of the card.

"You keep these?" Mingeun asks, plucking one out of the box. The dates on it cover the end of 2022 and a few months of 2023.

"I trade them in if they get really bad," Haksu says. "The company pays for most of these. I switch them out when I need to."

He flicks through the container and eventually pulls out a card that looks no different from the rest of the cards. "Here. I haven't used this one in a while. You probably won't get too many calls."

The most recent date on it is June 2022. Mingeun accepts it, and tries to peel the card off without ripping the paper. The paper rips anyway.

He looks at the phones again. "This is fine with you? I can take it?"

Haksu nods impatiently. He produces a pen from somewhere and adds a new line to the index card: Mingeun's name and July 2024 to an unknown date. "I don't use them."

Mingeun picks the blue one, because it's the most basic model. His own phone is still the 12. The upgrade doesn't feel right, not when it happened because Daewoong confiscated his phone.

"Thanks," he says awkwardly.

Haksu waves him off. "Don't worry about it." The cards and the two remaining phones disappear back into his dresser, and Mingeun is left clutching his new phone like a lifeline.

SEPTEMBER 2024. A sequel to this drabble.

Andrew's second visit to the Danyoung Group is no less intimidating than the first. It doesn't have to be a meeting at all. It could be an email. A text message. An Instagram DM. Does Jinguk even use Instagram? Probably not.

His answer is one word. In hindsight, it's ridiculous he even thought otherwise. All it took was spending a day almost, but not quite, third-wheeling with Jaeseop and Jaeseop's girlfriend, Seoyeon. It wasn't supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be an outing for Fable on one of Jaeseop's rare days off, with Seoyeon accompanying them only because Jaeseop had so few days off. Then the rest of the group started dropping like flies in the days leading up their lunch: Kiyoung and Intak at the premiere of an anime film, Haksu on something akin to a date of his own, Byeonghwi doing something he's been incredibly cagey about, and Mingeun's second or third bout of house arrest this year. Andrew's lost count.

The lack of an audience at lunch gave Andrew the courage to ask Jaeseop about his predicament, and Jaeseop the freedom to chew out Andrew in public—all while Seoyeon sat there quietly and ate her food.

The direct consequence of that day is today. This time, Andrew takes the elevator to the ninth floor, and heads down the hall until he reaches the room labeled 923 in gold text on a shiny black plaque. He knocks first, then pushes the door open without waiting for a response.

The first thing he notices is that the view from the ninth floor isn't much different from the view from the fifteenth. This room, too, has a wall made entirely of glass. Better to lord over the people below you with, Andrew thinks.

He bows politely to Jinguk, standing near the window and doing the very lording Andrew was just thinking of. "Good afternoon."

"It's good to see you again, Andrew," Jinguk says. The words themselves might be warm, but the delivery lacks any sort of emotion. "Have you given any thought to my proposal?"

Straight to the point. Andrew hasn't even taken a seat. To be fair, he doesn't think he wants to take a seat. It's a far cry from the waffling Taein tends to do.

"I have," he says, hovering uncertainly near one of the two chairs in the room.

"Have a seat, and we'll talk." Despite his words, Jinguk doesn't make a move.

Andrew sits, against his better judgement. "I appreciate your offer," he says—calm, practiced, rehearsed, like he's staring down a camera—"but I'm going to have to decline. I'm staying with Fable." His heart jackhammers wildly in his chest, and he has to make a conscious effort to keep his knee from bouncing up and down.

"I suspected as much," Jinguk says. "I hoped you'd be more pragmatic."

Andrew is pragmatic. He's so pragmatic he knows he stands to lose too much if he leaves Fable now. And he's done his research on C Entertainment's artists. He sees two potential paths in that future: being indefinitely shelved or constantly scrutinized for payola.

He gives a half-hearted shrug. "I don't know if you're looking for pragmatism. You might want to try selfishness or greed. I can recommend Mingeun or Haksu." He doubts either of them would take Jinguk's deal, though he knows they'd be tempted in the same way he was.

Jinguk's expression grows stormy. His brow tightens, and he fixes Andrew with a disapproving look. "You must not understand the magnitude of your decision. This is not the sort of opportunity anyone can receive. They are liabilities, more so than you."

But Andrew is a liability too. He champions for himself, enough to butt heads with Mingeun on a wide range of topics. He'll bend and bend and bend—he had to, to debut—but he won't break. There are parts of himself he can't give up on, and that, he thinks, makes him more of a liability than someone like Mingeun. He doesn't say any of that out loud.

"They're people," he says, "not liabilities."

"This is a business, and you are an idol. It is a lesson both you and Taein-ssi have yet to learn." Jinguk's bottom lip curves up in a sneer.

Andrew doesn't know what he has to do with Taein. The side he picked, the battle line he drew in the sand. Something like that.

"It's unfortunate you have yet to come to your senses," Jinguk continues, though he doesn't sound disappointed or resigned in the slightest. He checks the time on his impossibly shiny watch. "My two pm will arrive shortly. I assume you know your way out."

Andrew nods quickly. He recognizes a dismissal when he hears one, and he's only too happy to leave. "If I ever come to my senses, you'll be the first to know."

As he leaves, he can't shake the feeling that he got off too easily, like he willing walked into the jaws of the beast and emerged unscathed. Jinguk appeared to respect Andrew's answer, even if he didn't appear to respect Andrew himself. It'll dog him, he knows, one more enigmatic piece in the puzzle of Jinguk's design.

OCTOBER 2024. Live Haksu reaction to this article.

"What is this?" Haksu asks. He pinches a sheet of paper between two fingers, as if it's poisonous. The glaring headline on the printed article reads, "Zenith Entertainment to Press Charges Against Fable Sasaeng." It's hard to read in the dim parking garage lighting, but Haksu has already committed the important parts to memory.

Taein's gaze, bored and disinterested, flicks over the paper and then Haksu. "It's what you wanted." He steps left in a valiant effort to get to his car.

Haksu mirrors his movements. If he could have snuck into his office to borrow his car keys, he would have. As it is, he has to settle for body-blocking his boss instead. "No, it's not. This is loud and messy. I wanted something discrete."

"Like a hit man," Taein says drily. He makes another unsuccessful attempt to get to the driver's side door of his car.

Haksu shrugs. That would be preferable. He folds the paper in half. Over the past couple of months, he's learned how to play Eunmyeong's game, picked up all her rules and added a few of his own. He's managing so far, by himself. He doesn't need Taein's lawsuit interfering with his carefully arranged house of cards.

"She never assaulted me," he says.

"Not everything is about you."

This is. Haksu knows that for a fact. From the moment he read the headline, he knew the anonymous A was Eunmyeong. No one else followed him home. He doesn't need to be a detective. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could figure that out.

"Think about it, Haksu," Taein says. He rolls his shoulders back. "I'd like to leave work today."

Haksu doesn't budge. "Do you think this will stop her?"

"As much as I'd like to be able to predict the future, I can't say what she will or will not do." He levels a piercing gaze at Haksu. "Don't you know her better?"

There's an accusation in there, if he can be bothered to find it. He's been on more pseudo-dates with her than he'd like to admit. Not enough to have lost count, but enough to recognize certain pillars of their otherwise tenuous relationship. He would know her, if their relationship was more even. As it stands, she's so obsessed with him that they don't talk about much else. Haksu only knows what her last name is because she told his mom. He doesn't know when her birthday is. He doesn't know where she lives or where she grew up or what her favorite food is.

"I don't know her at all," he answers. "Why did it take you this long to press charges?"

"Proper legal cases take time," Taein says, forming each word slowly, as if they cause him physical pain.

Haksu opens his mouth.

"For the second time, Haksu, I don't have any mafia connections you can take advantage of."

Haksu closes his mouth.

Taein continues to speak. "I wouldn't go through with this if there wasn't a reasonable chance the charges would stick. Have faith."

If there's one thing Haksu has, it's faith. He has faith in spades. His faith only falters when it comes to Taein. He should trust his boss more. He doesn't. He steps aside reluctantly, finally giving Taein access to his car.

Taein doesn't even thank him. All he does is pull the driver's side door open and say, "It's not your problem to worry about. Focus on your work, and don't go around giving phone numbers to your group members."

Haksu takes personal offense to that. He tamps it down and responds with his usual decorum instead. "Good night, sajangnim." He doesn't think Taein hears him. The door slams closed as he speaks.

Taein's headlights cast dramatic shadows as Haksu turns tail, shredding the paper as he goes. He doesn't see a problem with giving Mingeun a new phone number—and a new phone. He doesn't approve of everything Mingeun does, but he doesn't have to. He was just doing his duty as a friend.

He pauses as he reaches the fresh evening air, the breeze a welcome respite from the stuffiness of the inside of the garage. Haksu stuffs the shreds of paper into his pockets. Taein can do whatever he wants. Fine. So can he. He wonders if she knows she's going to court soon. It would be courteous to warn her, wouldn't it? He watches Taein's Mazda make a sharp right and nearly bowl over a pedestrian. Then he slips his phone out of his back pocket and writes a quick text.

OCTOBER 2024. Not a sequel to anything. It's more of an update of what Kiyoung is up to and the relevance of The Midas Touch to Fable.

As a collective, The Midas Touch is louder, rowdier, and more energetic than Kiyoung remembers being at their age. The excitement of a newly debuted group is palpable, but not quite contagious. That, and it pales in comparison to the sheer malice simply radiating from Haksu.

"Who pissed you off?" he mutters under his breath, adjusting the mic pack clipped to the back of his waist band more than he should.

"None of your business," Haksu mutters back.

"You'll keep it together?"

"Of course." The words are sharp. He corrects himself a moment later, softening into a more relaxed posture and expression. "I always do." He has the gall to wink at Kiyoung.

It's uncomfortable, watching the ease at which Haksu slides between his true feelings and his perfect image. Kiyoung suppresses a shudder.

Their role today is a supporting one. It's an extremely staged moment in The Midas Touch's extremely staged day. The idea is to present them with the same friendly and relatable boy-next-door image they built as trainees. Kiyoung thinks there are other groups who already occupy that niche, but he's not their creative director or management in any way.

The original plan was for him and Haksu to make a brief appearance to congratulate them on their first music show win. It was supposed to appear spontaneous. That plan fell through last week, when it became very apparent that TMT would be the runner-up to a project group Kiyoung's never hehrd of. Almost all of their music is in English, with the excepption of the song they promoted to win a week's worth of music shows.

So the script was rewritten, and now Kiyoung and Haksu are congratulating them on their debut. Never mind the fact that they already did that, right after TMT's music show debut, back when Fable was promoting their own album. This time is different because Haksu has a cake. He also has strict instructions to give it to Shinji, according to the script Kiyoung read a couple of hours ago. Shinji is, according to the same script, the clumsiest member by far.

He suspects someone is already prepared to clean frosting off the floor.

The long-awaited signal from the couple of supervising producers—a frantic flurry of waving, gesturing, and ushering—finally arrives. The smallest glance sideways tells Kiyoung Haksu is immaculately prepared. He has his cake, and he's turned down the malice to a less overpowering level.

Kiyoung gets the door. He makes it two steps into the room before there are three handheld cameras focused on him—an important part of TMT's relatability. They're greeted with overlapping cries of, "Sunbaenim! You didn't have to!" and "Haksu-hyung, is that for us?"

Kiyoung feels sorry for the editors who have to piece this footage together.

Haksu unceremoniously shoves the cake towards Shinji. The eldest member of the group, Elias, swoops in and intercepts it instead. "He'll drop it," he says, balancing both the cake and his camera.

"That might be the point," Kiyoung concedes quietly.

Though he looks loathe to play along, Elias passes it back to Shinji.

"Congratulations on your debut," Haksu says, an ever-consummate professional.

Then, message delivered, he surprises Kiyoung by making a beeline back towards the door.

Kiyoung grabs him by the wrist. "You can't leave," he hisses under his breath.

"You can come too," Haksu says, tugging his wrist free.

Kiyoung jerks his head towards TMT. "They're filming." A camera is usually the magic switch that gets Haksu to play nice.

Haksu turns around and flashes his usual charismatic smile. "Can you please cut the cameras?" he asks, tone syrupy sweet.

"Deadass?" Arjun asks from behind his own camera. All five of them break into sycophantic laughter.

Kiyoung assumes the cameras are still rolling. "He's not usually like this," he says, making a rather pathetic attempt to salvage the remnants of Haksu's image.

A silent look passes through the group, communicating something Kiyoung can't even begin to imagine.

Elias seems to speak for all of them when he says, "I thought so." He angles his camera back to Haksu. "Anything else for today's TMT Log?"

He's giving them a way out. Kiyoung nearly sags with relief.

Haksu seems to compose himself, straightening up and clasping his hands together. "The Midas Touch are our very precious juniors who recently made their debut. They've worked very hard to get to where they are today. Please make sure to show them lots of love and support!" He rattles off a few lines that are much more fitting of his usual persona.

Elias gives them a little nod, and this time, when Haksu runs for the door, Kiyoung doesn't stop him. He recites his own parting message, spit-balling whatever comes to mind—another congratulatory message, a half-plea to the editors to showcase Haksu in a positive light, permission to visit Fable whenever they'd like.

"I thought you said you could keep it together," Kiyoung says quietly as soon as they're in the hallway again. He suspects most of that footage will be cut. Shinji didn't even drop the cake.

Haksu flicks his bangs out of his eyes. "I did."

They have very different definitions of keeping it together, he thinks, disconnecting his microphone. Whatever is happening in Haksu's head is something he'd never confess to Kiyoung.

"Everything is fine," Haksu says.

Kiyoung suspects this is supposed to be reassuring. He doesn't believe it at all.

[punkrock-bottom]

you're so cute but you use an iphone 😭

Noah fence but still doing the whole iPhone v Android thing in 2024? You must have the driest nastiest pussy :/

[autisticbokutoenthusiast]

vnl 2024 is officially over :(

italy beat japan in the gold medal match 3-1!!

happy for italy (especially de gennaro who made the game for me with her saves)

also happy for japan for winning their first meal on the international stage!! that match against brazil was one for the ages my god. im so proud of them!!!

ceremony commentary:

WIPAWEE PRESENTING THE DREAM TEAM AWARDS LIKE I DIDNT EXPECT TO SEE MY WIFE TODAY WHAT A SURPRISE AHHHH SHE LOOKS SO GOOD IN THAT FIT. (have i mentioned how much i love her haircut...)

koga is the first member of the dream team! good for her because she is a great outside and people over look her cause they only look at japans defense but she shes good AND reliable

next up is sylla my girl. her flopping on the ground when she missed a dig was so funny and so real. funniest outside imo like i could watch her reactions to things forever

next is korneluk. one of the most intimidating blockers imo, especially with stysiak by her side i would nottttt ever test her block...

next is fahr! i thought it woul be danesi but good for fahr. the way her and sylla pretended the statues were phones was funny

KOJIMA LETS GOOO MY GIRL. im so surprised and happy shes playing in us this year im gonna try my best to go see her play!!

orro best setter. good choice! i was worried for her when fahr scratched her in the eye but she recovered quickly

egonu best opposite we been knew like one of if not the best out there rn. and she got mvp like what hasn't she won (i think the only mvp title shes missing is olympic so lets see if she collects them all)

Medals

Poland presented with BRONZE medal

poland getting bronze second year in a row! i was surprised they beat brazil tbh but they were really on it (also i really like the new young outside czyniańska, excited to see more of her in the future). stysiak is my gf and i love her and she did great as always (even tho she keeps fighting the ref like girlie youre gonna get yellowcarded one day and half the time you were WRONG, but shes just passionate <3)

lmaoooo not them having an iphone on the damn podium lolllll like there isn't already a thousand angles of this sdjkfjalkdfj the players are so funny

Japan presented with SILVER medal

ive been saying since the beginning, this team was capable of getting to finals if not a medal but everyone wanted to doubt me. this squad is so impressive, their persistance, their skill, their DEFENSE. like this is the strongest i think ive ever seen them play, call it recency bias or whatever but i have high hopes for them and it payed off

(also shoutout to japan for showing that height can put you at a disadvantage but it doesn't matter more than you're skill, and this team is amazing and deserves their medal they played 2 great matches against brazil and a great one against turkiye, AND the took a set from italy when usa and poland couldnt)

Italy presented with GOLD

I had a feeling they would make it to finals but to be honest i kinda underestimated them. after their vnl performance last year it felt like they had further to go. week 1 they did ok BUT the SECOND egonu came back it was over for the other teams. now italy definitely isn't a one player team, orro used the full squad in the offense when she could rely on egonu, the middles were on it (especially denesi), sylla and degradi being my girlies (tho they need to know how to stand up cause everytime the camera is on them theyre on the floor sjdkfdjls), antropova is also amazing it must be said, but DE GENNARO imo is one of the reasons they came so far like her, nyeme, kojima, and castillo are my fav liberos...

I had said earlier in the tournament i thought the medals would be brazil for gold, turkiye/poland for silver, and italy/usa for bronze.... (ofc also my dream of japan but i was scared to say it cause it seemed so unlikely) and look at what we got. proves that volleyball is a fun sport to watch

god its now hitting me that vnl 2024 is over :( i want it to go on foreverrrrr

like i know we have olympics next month but its not the same :(

there were so many great moments this year it was amazing to watch as always i cant wait until next time!!!

[the-sleepy-archivist]

Online Privacy and Security Tips

I am a firm believer that people should be able to be anonymous and secure online. Over a lifetime of trial and error, I've slowly learned the best ways to protect myself, and I'd like to pass on that knowledge to anyone who wants to hear it.

Last updated May 2024 (added links to news articles about PimEyes being used to identify someone in real life)

Switch to Firefox for your main browser on Windows and Android

Avoid any browser based on the Chromium project (like Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome), as Google has a major conflict of interest that prevents it from truly having users' privacy interests at heart. It makes ~70-80% of its revenue from its highly targeted advertising business, for which it must collect as much information about you as possible. That means that no matter how badly certain parts of Google want to build privacy into the browser, business interests and pressure will always supersede them, or at least force a compromise that still enables some tracking. Firefox is owned and maintained by a non-profit, so it does not have that same conflict, and it shows in the features it builds (and does not build) and the way it treats its users.

I made a list of my favorite Firefox extensions if you want to make your internet experience more pleasant and/or more secure!

Note: on iOS (i.e. iPhones), Firefox' functionality is limited by Apple restrictions and I do not recommend it - using Safari with Extensions like Adguard or 1Blocker is more secure and will give you a better experience. I made a list of my favorite iOS Safari extensions too!

Use a reputable password manager

I suggest 1Password (avoid LastPass and all of the password managers built into browsers, they're not safe). A good password manager increases your online safety by:

Helping you avoid password reuse (a common cause of account hacking)

Generating complex passwords that are difficult to guess or brute-force, and

Allowing you to keep records of all the different sites you have accounts on (so you can quickly change passwords in the event of a breach or delete your accounts on them when they outlive their usefulness)

Delete old accounts you no longer need

If your data has been deleted, no one can steal and leak it if they manage to hack the company.

Sign up for alerts from HaveIBeenPwned (HIBP) to be notified when your data is leaked in a site hacking.

This allows you to quickly change your password, hopefully before anyone is able to decrypt it (if it wasn't stored properly) or use it (if it was easy to guess). If you have reused that password on other sites, be sure to change your password on those sites either.

Note that some leaks don’t actually have any info about what website they were stolen from; if criminals just dump a huge text file onto a hacking forum that has your username and an accompanying password in it, HIBP doesn’t necessarily know what site they hacked to get that info. This is where a password manager like 1Password will come in handy, because 1P can actually use HIBP’s API to check each of your passwords and see if any of them have been leaked before. It will alert you if you need to change a specific password, even if you weren’t aware that site had been hacked.

Note: 1P only sends the first 5 characters of the password hashes to HIBP, not the passwords themselves. You can read more about the feature and how it preserves your privacy here.

Assume all profile pictures on any site are public, and avoid using your face for them if possible

New AI-powered sites like PimEyes can take an image of you, identify your face, and search for it in other, unrelated images around the internet. I searched for myself using a recent image that had never been posted to the internet before, and it immediately identified me in completely separate images I was using as my profile pictures on Facebook and LinkedIn and provided links to my accounts there. In this new AI era, assume anyone who snaps a picture of you can link you to your identity on any website where you have publicly posted your face before. This is not hyperbole; fans used PimEyes to identify a cameraman at a Taylor Swift concert using nothing more than a screenshot of a video taken of him by a concertgoer. Note: for what it's worth, you can submit an opt-out request to PimEyes if you are worried about someone using it to find your accounts online, but it requires you to submit images of your face and your government ID to the company...

Never post the same (original) image on two accounts that you do want to keep separate

Even a simple reverse image search can allow someone to link your different sites together (i.e. don't post the same vacation sunset photo on both Facebook and Tumblr because anyone can use that to link those sites together. Even if your Facebook or Instagram images are private, a follower of yours on one of those sites could still find the Tumblr you are not comfortable sharing with anyone. Marking your Tumblr as hidden only discourages search engines from indexing it; shady companies can and will ignore that and index it anyway.

[agentnico]

The Beast/La Bête (2024) review

Dolls, Blue Moon and… pigeons.

Plot: In the near future where emotions have become a threat, Gabrielle finally decides to purify her DNA in a machine that will immerse her in her previous lives and rid her of any strong feelings. She then meets Louis and feels a powerful connection, as if she has known him forever. A melodrama crossed by the genre, which unfolds over three distinct periods, 1910, 2014 and 2044.

Essentially this is a film that covers every genre possible. From *deep breath* melodrama to romance to thriller to mystery to sci-fi to drama to psychological to surrealism… the list goes on. It is so difficult to stick The Beast (or La Bête as the French title goes) into a specific box, as it’s so many things all at once. This is a bold and audacious piece of filmmaking from French director Bertrand Bonello, based on a Henry James short story/novells “The Beast in the Jungle”. However this film is anything but short. At over 2 and a half hours, this takes you on a disorientating, divergent and daring odyssey through time, and it is both bombastically incredible yet also highly frustrating. Look, this didn’t completely burn out my eye-sockets like Edward Yang’s 1991 epic magnum opus A Brighter Summer Day that was 4 flipping hours long! Don’t get me wrong, that movie has novelistic level of richness in character, narrative and depth, but at that runtime you’re taking the actual mick! So The Beast is nowhere on that scale, but it is definitely a movie that will challenge you mentally, and will make you question everything.

Exhausting is a word I’d choose to use when describing this film. Not in a negative way, but more so how it throws so much at you, but doesn’t explain the half of it. In fact it is very Lynchian in its absurdist style, and reminded me in some ways of Mullholland Drive - a movie at the end of which I too found myself asking the simple yet well earned question of “what the actual f***??”. The Beast feels, especially at the beginning, as if it should have been a piece of poetry, as scenes were happening, and even though there was the loose narrative connection of them being various versions of characters’ past lives, for the most part it seemed like a cluster of random allegorical shorts squeezed together in an anthological format. In the end it does come together granted, but as a collective Parnassus package this movie isn’t supposed to work. It can easily be called out for being pretentious and convoluted and slow, but I do believe this thing somehow, for no genuine explanation, works! It’s a baffling interweaving of the intimate and the spectacular, classicism and modernity, known vs the unknown, yet at this core this is a love story, that is expressed in its varied forms. Essentially The Beast is the answer to the ideology of human connection. Deep.

Wes Anderson darling/Bond girl Lea Seydoux is truly magnetic in this role. She delivers so much through her eyes, and I felt every emotion, even in scenes where I was completely narratively lost. This is easily her best performance I’ve seen from her. George MacKay has less to work with, as he’s more of a foil to Seydoux’s counterpart, but his chemistry with her is solid, and also in the LA segment he absolutely nails this incel character called Louis Lewanski who blogs/monologues on his iPhone about hatred towards women. It’s a performance that is suffused with pitch black humour and a mounting sense of dread. Both Seydoux and MacKay are incredible in this, but also I must applaud the look of this movie. Each shot feels like it should be a painting in a museum. The use of colour to the camera set up to the angle and blocking, with pitch perfect set designs and costumes, this movie looks crisp. The imagery somewhat reflects the movie’s focus on visions and dreams, and honestly this may be the most beautiful looking film this year.

La Bête will stick in my brain and haunt me for a long while, and in fact with how AI is such a current majorly spoken about topic, it does make one wonder if we do become overly reliant on artificial intelligence, will we lose all that is necessary to the human spirit - our emotions, our fears, our doubts? Additionally, the psychological idea of fear and that behind everything that we’re afraid of there is a wish, and the romantic ideal of persistent love…. gosh, this movie is sublime! I do think in parts it does get up its own arse, don’t get me wrong, but this is the type of movie that has something to say, and also is very much the kind of film Letterboxd users would quote as “THIS IS CINEMA!”.

Overall score: 8/10

[mariacallous]

Love it or hate it, you have to admit Temu had a banger year. Launched in late 2022, the Chinese-owned ecommerce site, known for selling a vast array of astonishingly affordable goods, took only two years to become a household name in the US. Over the past 12 months, it has topped download charts, surpassing other viral apps like ChatGPT and Threads, and now operates in dozens of countries around the world. Even its biggest rival, Amazon, recently introduced a Temu clone called Amazon Haul that closely resembles the original, both in terms of its logistics supply chain and user interface.

Temu is projected to earn more than $50 billion in total sales this year, according to analysts from AB Bernstein and Tech Buzz China, potentially tripling its 2023 figure. Temu’s website now gets nearly 700 million visits worldwide every month, and Apple recently revealed it was the most downloaded app of 2024 on iPhones in the US.

Temu has now fully replaced Wish, an earlier bargain online shopping site, in the cultural lexicon as the signifier of knockoffs or budget-friendly alternatives. The winner of the recent Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in New York City, for example, calls himself “Temu-thée Chalamet.” Tens of millions of ordinary people have tried out the app, many of whom learned about it through one of Temu’s seemingly unavoidable and relentless advertising campaigns. At this point, your grandma is probably obsessed with Temu, too.

“My friends and family members who didn't know what it was in 2023 do now,” says Moira Weigel, an assistant professor at Harvard University who studies transnational online marketplaces. “Random relatives who know that I study China or ecommerce will say, ‘Oh, you must know all about Temu,’ in a way that didn’t happen a year ago.”

Weigel says that Temu has done a few things right, including identifying the correct suppliers in China, targeting appropriate customer segments, and finding an inexpensive way to ship products from one to the other. That allowed the shopping platform to defy early analyst predictions that it would quickly burn through its cash reserves and flame out.

Temu, which is owned by PDD, one of the biggest ecommerce giants in China, is moving and pivoting at a speed that its Western counterparts can’t really grasp, says Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of the ecommerce intelligence firm Marketplace Pulse. “When you look at a company like Temu, it's going a thousand miles an hour,” he says.

Kaziukėnas believes the most important thing Temu did this year was quickly switch its focus away from shipping small packages through air cargo and start building local inventory supply chains in the US and other countries. “This year, it started with 100 percent of goods coming from China; now in the US, 50 percent of them are coming from local warehouses. For Western marketplaces, these types of changes would have taken years,” Kaziukėnas says.

Still, Temu does not have a shortage of looming challenges. In the US, the Biden administration is eager to dismantle a tariff exemption rule that critics say unfairly benefits Temu before it leaves the White House. In Europe, Temu is under formal investigation for allegedly selling illegal products and getting users addicted to its app. The company is also often criticized around the world for its negative environmental impact, labor practices, and alleged misuse of user data, including allegations from researchers in the US that the app poses a national security risk.

Whether Temu can overcome these hurdles will depend on how fast the company can adjust its supply chain and pivot away from the most troublesome aspects of how it operates—before regulators take action. “What Temu was, is, and what Temu will be in the future are perhaps different things,” Kaziukėnas says.

From $1 Deals to Dupes

Temu made its name by promoting dirt-cheap deals that are often too good to believe, like $5 purses and $2 wireless headphones. It spent millions promoting the tagline “shop like a billionaire” in a series of Super Bowl advertisements, and that’s indeed what the app used to feel like: Identical or very similar products cost only a fraction of what they did on Amazon or Walmart, and it was hard to resist the temptation of adding a dozen more things to your shopping cart when they each were less than $1.

Temu managed to pull it off because it exploited a few areas of untapped potential, says Weigel. On the buyer side, it targeted price-conscious shoppers living in a time of high inflation. On the seller side, it scouted out Chinese factories that needed to keep their production lines running, but had no idea how to enter overseas markets. To connect them, Temu figured out it could take advantage of the so-called de minimis rule to send items affordably through air cargo directly to customers’ doorsteps. The provision allows people to send packages to the US duty-free as long as the goods inside are worth less than $800.

Because this business model is based on shipping everything from China and doesn’t require much local inventory, it’s very easy to replicate in different markets. As of December 2024, Temu’s website shows that it’s available in 86 countries, while Amazon, having been in business for three decades, operates in only 22. “In recent history, like the past 10 to 15 years, the first place people were interested in selling is the US and Europe, because they're large markets, prices can be higher, and so on,” says Weigel, who traveled to China this year to interview vendors selling on Amazon and Temu. “Now, there is increasing interest among these small-to-medium-size Chinese businesses in expanding in Africa, Southeast Asia, and also Central Asia … Multiple people talk to me about how young and rapidly growing the population in Africa is.”

But that doesn’t mean Temu is totally different from Amazon. In fact, the company has begun borrowing a number of tactics from the US ecommerce giant. In March, Temu reportedly started working with local warehousing companies in the US and allowing vendors on the platform to store their own US inventory instead of shipping directly from China. This is essentially what Amazon has been doing for years with its Chinese-based marketplace sellers, a strategy that allows it to deliver orders in as little as a single day. And now, these locally shipped products account for nearly half of Temu’s sales in the US, according to The Information.

What this means is that many of the products Temu sells are no longer exempt from American import duties, significantly reducing the price advantage that Temu used to have. But the strategy allows Temu to ship physically larger items to US warehouses through ocean freight before putting them up for sale, and then, the products can be delivered faster to customers, who previously often needed to wait a week or more for their packages to arrive.

That is why consumers are increasingly buying things like couches or other furniture on Temu, and also why sometimes prices on the site end up not being much lower than on Amazon or other online retailers. “I think it's pretty clear that Temu is becoming a more expensive offering,” says Kaziukėnas. “I talked to someone at Temu months ago, and they said that they're repositioning Temu from cheap to affordable.”

Higher prices can help recoup some of the financial losses that Temu incurred in its earlier days when it was primarily focused on expansion, but it could also create an identity crisis for the platform. If it doesn’t have shocking $1 deals, then what does Temu really stand for? How can it compete with Amazon and Walmart when the other two are often perceived as more reliable, both in terms of shipping speed and product quality? “I think that’s a problem for Temu already, that it doesn't really have a strong brand to consumers,” Kaziukėnas says.

Lingerings Risks—and Rewards

The days might be numbered for the de minimis exemption. The White House announced in September that it would crack down on “abuse” of the provision, citing a sleuth of reasons ranging from intellectual property violations to fentanyl smuggling. It’s not clear yet how exactly the regulation might change—lawmakers may get rid of it completely or lower the price threshold—but a fix could be finalized before president-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.

If it happens soon, the change will no doubt make it harder for Temu to remain competitive, but it’s not going to eliminate it from the field. So much of the conversation in Washington this year has revolved around restricting de minimis to contain Temu, Kaziukėnas says, but the platform has already taken significant steps to reduce its dependence on it. Its ability to ship under de minimis and handle everything from inventory to pricing used to be the main selling points Temu used to lure Chinese suppliers, but now, it’s doing a 180 to address the risks—and the strategy seems to be working. “The regulators are still only now trying to figure out what to do. And by the time they have figured out what they actually need to do, these retailers will be something different,” Kaziukėnas says, referring to Temu and competitors like Shein that rely on de minimis.

Of course, there are other risks that the company needs to address. What TikTok is going through right now—the app could be blocked in the US as soon as next month—should serve as a cautionary tale for Temu, as the latter is already receiving similar scrutiny from lawmakers over its Chinese ownership and data protection practices.

The possibility of being blocked in the US is real for Temu, but Weigel points out that there’s less of a political urgency to act on an ecommerce platform than a social media one that has elicited concerns about things like artificial intelligence and disinformation. “​​While there is a bipartisan consensus that people are concerned with the implications of China's tech rise, the incentives to police Temu are lower than TikTok,” she says. The Chinese ecommerce vendors she has spoken to don’t seem very concerned either. “These people are very nimble and flexible. My sense was that it was a thing people were curious about, but not something they were afraid about,” Weigel says.

After all, Temu’s aggressive expansion into other markets gives them plenty of alternative places to find customers if things get really ugly between the US and China. On a recent trip to Shenzhen, Weigel says she met a woman who heads a cross-border ecommerce industry association. One of the first things she told Weigel: “We don’t necessarily make the American and the European markets our top priority.”

[jerardeusebio]

The Funeral Run

I feel ambivalent about naming inanimate objects. For one, it feels counter to non-attachment, a Buddhist philosophy I’ve embraced and committed to practicing to the best of my ability. Another reason is the implied materialism of such an action. Again, it feels incongruent with the narrative I’ve created about myself. But a few weeks ago, the "death" of my five year-old running watch surprised me. I know this sounds bizarre, and the strangeness starts with its intensity and climaxes in the way I responded to it.

I bought the most basic running Garmin in 2019: the Forerunner 35. This was about a week after my iPhone 5S, which slid out of my running shorts, got run over by a tricycle. Intimidated by the price of iPhones, I decided to buy an Android. What I saved from settling on a more affordable phone would allow me, for the first time in my then nine years as a runner, to buy a running watch. Since moving back to my home campus a year prior, I had renewed my commitment to the sport and was logging considerable miles. A GPS watch made perfect sense.

One fine Sunday, after several days of research on running watches, I marched into the Glorietta 5 Garmin store and bought the thing. I wore it for the rest of that day at the mall. I caught myself glancing at it, trying to catch the minute turn, checking to see how it looked on my left wrist, preening in the mirrors and windows I passed, happy to have assumed this new self. Before the purchase, my vision of who I was and what I did was clear: educator, writer, and runner. Now, I was still all three, except now I was a runner with a GPS watch! In an effort not to name my things, I simply referred to it as “Garmin.”

That day at the mall, there was just no way of knowing what was to come. By my best estimate, Garmin had accompanied me to about a thousand runs since its purchase. Not just this: it had seen me through two falls (the scars from which have already faded), the COVID-19 pandemic (and my shortlived shift to cycling), my tenure, four heartbreaks, countless lectures (both given by me and given to me), classes, students, faculty meetings, committee meetings, meetings with big wigs, awarding ceremonies, speeches, and a whole lot of firsts that would be impossible to contain here. Garmin has monitored my heart rate, informed me every time I hit my step goal, and congratulated me—six times in the past year—when I breached the half-marathon distance.

Garmin stopped working on the morning of June 9th, 2024. My family was in Taal for my parents’ 37th anniversary celebration. Confident of its durability and the many instances I’ve swum with it, I wore it to the pool, ignoring the peculiarly intense scent of chlorine as we approached the water. My guess is that it suffered undue pressure, being caught in between my arm and my mother, whom I lifted from the water as a dare. The high chlorine concentration must have ruined the already worn-down waterproofing. When we got back to our room, I was distressed that it no longer showed the time. I held on to hope for a few days. I buried it in rice. Left it under the sun. Wore it to work for two days despite its uselessness. When I was convinced it was safe, as my last try, I charged it. I left it in an upright position on my bedside table. It still didn’t work when I checked it after an hour. And my heart sank when I saw a little pool of water right where I had picked it up.

What ensued was an intense week of mourning. My attachment to Garmin was such that on the day I accepted its death, I decided to run with it for the last time. One for the road. I ran a kilometer for each year it had spent with me/I had spent with it. At kilometer three, looking at its blank screen and remembering our years of togetherness, a lump began to form in my throat. Cooling down, I held my left wrist up before me, Mt. Makiling in the background. As I studied Garmin, my now really dead inanimate running watch, I whispered a thank you. I then pressed it to my right cheek. It stayed there for a while, as the tears rolled down my eyes.

Back in my room, I placed it in a rectangular black box, where my other old dead timepieces were. Each of them displayed their time of death, clear and final. Only Garmin had a blank screen, its time of death a mystery. Later that night, I stared at the ceiling, awake in the darkness, wondering about my strange behavior, my absurd response. And in the end, I understood the things I was grieving for and over: unrecoverable versions of myself, time and distance past, and the end of a story that brings with it the excruciating, inescapable start of another.