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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Toronto, NYC, Anaheim, and more!

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

Almost every car manufacturer does this: Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/

This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.

I've always hated that saying, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," the reason being that it posits decent treatment as a customer reward program, like the little ramekin warm nuts first class passengers get before takeoff. Companies don't treat you well when you pay them. Companies treat you well when they fear the consequences of treating you badly.

Take Apple. The company offers Ios users a one-tap opt-out from commercial surveillance, and more than 96% of users opted out. Presumably, the other 4% were either confused or on Facebook's payroll. Apple – and its army of cultists – insist that this proves that our world's woes can be traced to cheapskate "consumers" who expected to get something for nothing by using advertising-supported products.

But here's the kicker: right after Apple blocked all its rivals from spying on its customers, it began secretly spying on those customers! Apple has a rival surveillance ad network, and even if you opt out of commercial surveillance on your Iphone, Apple still secretly spies on you and uses the data to target you for ads:

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

Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product – provided the company can get away with treating you as the product. Apple can absolutely get away with treating you as the product, because it lacks the historical constraints that prevented Apple – and other companies – from treating you as the product.

As I described in my McLuhan lecture on enshittification, tech firms can be constrained by four forces:

I. Competition

II. Regulation

III. Self-help

IV. Labor

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

When companies have real competitors – when a sector is composed of dozens or hundreds of roughly evenly matched firms – they have to worry that a maltreated customer might move to a rival. 40 years of antitrust neglect means that corporations were able to buy their way to dominance with predatory mergers and pricing, producing today's inbred, Habsburg capitalism. Apple and Google are a mobile duopoly, Google is a search monopoly, etc. It's not just tech! Every sector looks like this:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Eliminating competition doesn't just deprive customers of alternatives, it also empowers corporations. Liberated from "wasteful competition," companies in concentrated industries can extract massive profits. Think of how both Apple and Google have "competitively" arrived at the same 30% app tax on app sales and transactions, a rate that's more than 1,000% higher than the transaction fees extracted by the (bloated, price-gouging) credit-card sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

But cartels' power goes beyond the size of their warchest. The real source of a cartel's power is the ease with which a small number of companies can arrive at – and stick to – a common lobbying position. That's where "regulatory capture" comes in: the mobile duopoly has an easier time of capturing its regulators because two companies have an easy time agreeing on how to spend their app-tax billions:

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

Apple – and Google, and Facebook, and your car company – can violate your privacy because they aren't constrained regulation, just as Uber can violate its drivers' labor rights and Amazon can violate your consumer rights. The tech cartels have captured their regulators and convinced them that the law doesn't apply if it's being broken via an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In other words, Apple can spy on you because it's allowed to spy on you. America's last consumer privacy law was passed in 1988, and it bans video-store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history. Congress has taken no action on consumer privacy since the Reagan years:

https://www.eff.org/tags/video-privacy-protection-act

But tech has some special enshittification-resistant characteristics. The most important of these is interoperability: the fact that computers are universal digital machines that can run any program. HP can design a printer that rejects third-party ink and charge $10,000/gallon for its own colored water, but someone else can write a program that lets you jailbreak your printer so that it accepts any ink cartridge:

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

Tech companies that contemplated enshittifying their products always had to watch over their shoulders for a rival that might offer a disenshittification tool and use that as a wedge between the company and its customers. If you make your website's ads 20% more obnoxious in anticipation of a 2% increase in gross margins, you have to consider the possibility that 40% of your users will google "how do I block ads?" Because the revenue from a user who blocks ads doesn't stay at 100% of the current levels – it drops to zero, forever (no user ever googles "how do I stop blocking ads?").

The majority of web users are running an ad-blocker:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Web operators made them an offer ("free website in exchange for unlimited surveillance and unfettered intrusions") and they made a counteroffer ("how about 'nah'?"):

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

Here's the thing: reverse-engineering an app – or any other IP-encumbered technology – is a legal minefield. Just decompiling an app exposes you to felony prosecution: a five year sentence and a $500k fine for violating Section 1201 of the DMCA. But it's not just the DMCA – modern products are surrounded with high-tech tripwires that allow companies to invoke IP law to prevent competitors from augmenting, recongifuring or adapting their products. When a business says it has "IP," it means that it has arranged its legal affairs to allow it to invoke the power of the state to control its customers, critics and competitors:

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

An "app" is just a web-page skinned in enough IP to make it a crime to add an ad-blocker to it. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model" and it's everywhere. When companies don't have to worry about users deploying self-help measures to disenshittify their products, they are freed from the constraint that prevents them indulging the impulse to shift value from their customers to themselves.

Apple owes its existence to interoperability – its ability to clone Microsoft Office's file formats for Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which saved the company in the early 2000s – and ever since, it has devoted its existence to making sure no one ever does to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Regulatory capture cuts both ways: it's not just about powerful corporations being free to flout the law, it's also about their ability to enlist the law to punish competitors that might constrain their plans for exploiting their workers, customers, suppliers or other stakeholders.

The final historical constraint on tech companies was their own workers. Tech has very low union-density, but that's in part because individual tech workers enjoyed so much bargaining power due to their scarcity. This is why their bosses pampered them with whimsical campuses filled with gourmet cafeterias, fancy gyms and free massages: it allowed tech companies to convince tech workers to work like government mules by flattering them that they were partners on a mission to bring the world to its digital future:

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

For tech bosses, this gambit worked well, but failed badly. On the one hand, they were able to get otherwise powerful workers to consent to being "extremely hardcore" by invoking Fobazi Ettarh's spirit of "vocational awe":

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

On the other hand, when you motivate your workers by appealing to their sense of mission, the downside is that they feel a sense of mission. That means that when you demand that a tech worker enshittifies something they missed their mother's funeral to deliver, they will experience a profound sense of moral injury and refuse, and that worker's bargaining power means that they can make it stick.

Or at least, it did. In this era of mass tech layoffs, when Google can fire 12,000 workers after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years, tech workers are learning that the answer to "I won't do this and you can't make me" is "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" (AKA "sharpen your blades boys"):

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

With competition, regulation, self-help and labor cleared away, tech firms – and firms that have wrapped their products around the pluripotently malleable core of digital tech, including automotive makers – are no longer constrained from enshittifying their products.

And that's why your car manufacturer has chosen to spy on you and sell your private information to data-brokers and anyone else who wants it. Not because you didn't pay for the product, so you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

Cars are enshittified. The dozens of chips that auto makers have shoveled into their car design are only incidentally related to delivering a better product. The primary use for those chips is autoenshittification – access to legal strictures ("IP") that allows them to block modifications and repairs that would interfere with the unfettered abuse of their own customers:

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

The fact that it's a felony to reverse-engineer and modify a car's software opens the floodgates to all kinds of shitty scams. Remember when Bay Staters were voting on a ballot measure to impose right-to-repair obligations on automakers in Massachusetts? The only reason they needed to have the law intervene to make right-to-repair viable is that Big Car has figured out that if it encrypts its diagnostic messages, it can felonize third-party diagnosis of a car, because decrypting the messages violates the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

Big Car figured out that VIN locking – DRM for engine components and subassemblies – can felonize the production and the installation of third-party spare parts:

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

The fact that you can't legally modify your car means that automakers can go back to their pre-2008 ways, when they transformed themselves into unregulated banks that incidentally manufactured the cars they sold subprime loans for. Subprime auto loans – over $1t worth! – absolutely relies on the fact that borrowers' cars can be remotely controlled by lenders. Miss a payment and your car's stereo turns itself on and blares threatening messages at top volume, which you can't turn off. Break the lease agreement that says you won't drive your car over the county line and it will immobilize itself. Try to change any of this software and you'll commit a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Tesla, naturally, has the most advanced anti-features. Long before BMW tried to rent you your seat-heater and Mercedes tried to sell you a monthly subscription to your accelerator pedal, Teslas were demon-haunted nightmare cars. Miss a Tesla payment and the car will immobilize itself and lock you out until the repo man arrives, then it will blare its horn and back itself out of its parking spot. If you "buy" the right to fully charge your car's battery or use the features it came with, you don't own them – they're repossessed when your car changes hands, meaning you get less money on the used market because your car's next owner has to buy these features all over again:

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

And all this DRM allows your car maker to install spyware that you're not allowed to remove. They really tipped their hand on this when the R2R ballot measure was steaming towards an 80% victory, with wall-to-wall scare ads that revealed that your car collects so much information about you that allowing third parties to access it could lead to your murder (no, really!):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

That's why your car spies on you. Because it can. Because the company that made it lacks constraint, be it market-based, legal, technological or its own workforce's ethics.

One common critique of my enshittification hypothesis is that this is "kind of sensible and normal" because "there’s something off in the consumer mindset that we’ve come to believe that the internet should provide us with amazing products, which bring us joy and happiness and we spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return":

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-have-great-conversations/

What this criticism misses is that this isn't the companies bargaining to shift some value from us to them. Enshittification happens when a company can seize all that value, without having to bargain, exploiting law and technology and market power over buyers and sellers to unilaterally alter the way the products and services we rely on work.

A company that doesn't have to fear competitors, regulators, jailbreaking or workers' refusal to enshittify its products doesn't have to bargain, it can take. It's the first lesson they teach you in the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Your car spying on you isn't down to your belief that your carmaker "should provide you with amazing products, which brings your joy and happiness you spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return." It's not because you didn't pay for the product, so now you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

The consequences of this spying go much further than mere insurance premium hikes, too. Car telemetry sits at the top of the funnel that the unbelievably sleazy data broker industry uses to collect and sell our data. These are the same companies that sell the fact that you visited an abortion clinic to marketers, bounty hunters, advertisers, or vengeful family members pretending to be one of those:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

Decades of pro-monopoly policy led to widespread regulatory capture. Corporate cartels use the monopoly profits they extract from us to pay for regulatory inaction, allowing them to extract more profits.

But when it comes to privacy, that period of unchecked corporate power might be coming to an end. The lack of privacy regulation is at the root of so many problems that a pro-privacy movement has an unstoppable constituency working in its favor.

At EFF, we call this "privacy first." Whether you're worried about grifters targeting vulnerable people with conspiracy theories, or teens being targeted with media that harms their mental health, or Americans being spied on by foreign governments, or cops using commercial surveillance data to round up protesters, or your car selling your data to insurance companies, passing that long-overdue privacy legislation would turn off the taps for the data powering all these harms:

https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms

Traditional economics fails because it thinks about markets without thinking about power. Monopolies lead to more than market power: they produce regulatory capture, power over workers, and state capture, which felonizes competition through IP law. The story that our problems stem from the fact that we just don't spend enough money, or buy the wrong products, only makes sense if you willfully ignore the power that corporations exert over our lives. It's nice to think that you can shop your way out of a monopoly, because that's a lot easier than voting your way out of a monopoly, but no matter how many times you vote with your wallet, the cartels that control the market will always win:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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ceasarslegion · 2 months

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OK...I'm asking....

Yay!

So this happened in what I consider the worst job I ever had. And that is saying something because I very much worked retail in a mall. I had just graduated uni, I couldn't afford toronto anymore, and I needed a full-time job to make ends meet now that the stability of university was gone. So I went to edmonton because I had one family member I could stay with until I got on my feet. And I was not in a position to turn away a job that paid.

So I took a door to door sales position. For telus. I can hear the canadians in the room wincing so to everyone else: telus is one of the three whole mega megacorporations that control the ENTIRE canadian telecommunications network. And all three of those companies are buddy buddy and have us all by the balls. That's why canadian phone plans are the most expensive in the world. Not in the developed world: in the WORLD.

The meth lab incident happened on my 3rd whole day on my own. I was in St. Albert, which is this suburb of edmonton that is like if a kale smoothie and that guy who won't shut up about bikhram yoga had a baby they abandoned in an HOA meeting. Which is what makes this that much more unhinged: it was in the most cookie cutter suburbia part of the EMR.

So I was doing my knocks in my blue Jay's hat and my telus branded polo shirt with my clipboard and I knock on my next door. I'm greeted by a middle aged woman who proceeds to dump on me that she's divorcing her husband of 30 years and moving to New Brunswick. I'm like okay cool I just wanna sell you cable packages, good luck with that?

I write that off and continue along the cul de sac until I knock on this other lady's door. And when I say talkative I mean a real chatty Kathy. She practically grabs me by the collar and plops me down on her deck chairs, shoves a coffee in my hand, and says "HEY TELUS GUY DID YOU KNOCK ON METH GUYS DOOR???" And points to the house of the lady who just told me she was getting a divorce

At this point I have forgotten about my commission. I have forgotten about my shitty supervisor and how every part of this job sucks and how I wanna go back to Toronto. I have thrown away my clipboard I have started sipping her coffee that could very well be spiked with something and I go "you have to tell me about the meth guy"

That house I knocked on? The weird oversharing lady who was getting a divorce? Her husband was running a meth lab out of the basement THEIR ENTIRE MARRIAGE and she ONLY FOUND OUT THEN?? He called it his man cave and said that she wasn't allowed in?? And then one day she went down out of curiosity and it was a METH LAB??? All the bonuses he said he got at work were meth money.

I'm still enamored by how this happened. Did it not smell? Like for those who don't know edmonton there is a HUGE meth problem here. Like across the political aisle we all agree that something has to happen about all the meth, the details get foggy and that's where people argue, but needless to say I have smelled and been offered meth before just by virtue of living downtown. That shit REEKS. Like you know meth smell because it somehow smells like the word "meth." You will know what you are smelling even when you've never smelled it before. And it lingers. It hangs. It gets into walls. I know when I've taken a train car before because the smell of that guy who hotboxed it with meth smoke last week will still kinda be there. There's no way that house didn't smell like ass down to the foundation.

And the "you arent allowed in my man cave" excuse... im enamored by both the sexism towards his OWN WIFE and the way she just... went along with it for 30 years? Never set foot down there? The sexism and the just believing it?

I kept trying to steer the conversation back to the meth lab and this lady I was on the porch of kept actively trying to buy internet deals from me. Like she was the only person I ever pitched who was TRYING to get my bundles. I ended up just handing her my list of products and told her to check off what she wanted and was like "more meth lab?" And she went right to "yknow i think if I was your age I would've been a boy now. We didn't really have those terms when I was a kid" I DID NOT BRING THAT UP MA'AM I DONT HAVE TIME FOR YOUR GENDER CRISIS TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE METH LAB

That job was so shit that that was the only one I ever quit with no back up plan and did not regret for a second. I then went to the mall and handed out CVs and got my retail job by the end of the week from doing that.

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incorrect-murderdrones · 3 months

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ANDDD WE HAVE A QUOTE MASTERPOST! ALL QUOTES BELONG TOO: @the-island-of-quotes HAVE FUN AND FOLLOW THAT PERSON :D -Mod Kai

N: This is what Victor would look like if he was doctor Seuss.

Uzi: There's a socket in my pocket, maybe this will help me fix my sprocket.

Uzi: It's not a 5, or a 6, or a 10, I have seem to have lost all of those again.

Uzi: And when it comes to wrenches, it seems all of them have disappeared off my fucking work benches.

Uzi: So even though there is a socket in my pocket I can't even use it to fix my fucking sprocket

*Next day*

Uzi: Another tool another day, I dropped some more shit in this fucking engine bay.

Uzi: But it's okay because I bought this car to get from point A to point B.

Uzi: And after one week of ownership I'm kinda hoping this thing gets crushed by a fucking tree.

Uzi: I've wanted to sell this car since week one, but nobody wants to buy it when it has every problem under the sun.

Uzi: This car will just remain broken and collect some dust, and eventually this piece of shit will start collecting rust.

Uzi: But at this point I don't really care! I have the time, nor money or energy to try and repair.

Uzi: I'm just gonna say fuck this, and sell this shit on craigslist to some guy named Chris.

______________________________________________________________

V: I now proudly present, the life and times of earnest Hemingway in aproxamently 3 and a half minutes. GO! Born in Chicago in 1899, son of a physician and a musician, reasonably uneventful childhood, decided to study Journalism. Enlisted with the Red Cross during World War I, got BLOWN up in Milan and spent 6 months in hospital with severe shrapnel wounds in both legs. Fell in love with a nurse, they decided to get married. He came home to prepare, she stayed there and ditched him for an Italian soldier, which initiated a life long pattern of him rejecting women before they had a chance to reject him. Got a job as a foreign correspondent, fell in love with his roommates' sister, married her and moved to Paris. They hung out with Gertrude Stein. They kicked it with Pablo Picasso. He started writing in earnest, no pun intended. Moved to Toronto, had a kid, moved back to Paris, published a couple of books. Cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman. Converted to Catholicism... Cut his head open after pulling on a cord thinking he was flushing a toilet and instead ripped a skylight from the roof and smashed it onto HIS FACE! Moved to Kansas City, had another kid, his dad committed suicide, he shot a lot of bears for some reason. Had a car accident, had another kid, went to Africa to kill some wild animals and got dysentery karma! Published another book, moved to Cuba, SHOT HIMSELF IN THE LEG WHILST AIMING AT A SHARK! Cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman. Published "For Whom the Bell Tolls," sold half a million copies in a couple of months and got nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Cheated on his wife, got divorced, married the other woman. Became the self appointed leader of a band of village Militia outside of Paris and was subsequently brought up on charges for contravening the Geneva Convention, and GOT AWAY WITH IT LIKE A FUCKING CHAMPION! Got pneumonia, moved back to Cuba and spent most of his spare time on his boat TRACKING NAZI U-BOATS WITH A MACHINE GUN AND A PILE OF HAND GRENADES I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP! Had a few more car accidents, three more concussions, got CLAWED WHILE PLAYING WITH A LION... Got depressed, drank. Got fat, published a couple more books, went back to Africa to shoot some more wild animals, and barely survived two separate plane crashes in the space of 24 hours, winding up with a fractured skull, internal bleeding, cracked spine, ruptured liver, first degree burns, and a paralyzed sphincter muscle karma! Won a Nobel Prize, had a file opened on him by J. Edgar Hoover, left a bunch of shit in a safe in Cuba and moved to Idaho, paranoid that the feds were following him WHICH THEY WERE BECAUSE HE SPENT MOST OF THE 1940S WORKING FOR THE KGB, AGAIN NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP! Suffered from hepatitis, nephritis, hypertension, hemochromatosis, anemia and impotence, karma. Got committed, received way too much electroconvulsive therapy and came out all fucked up, started hinting at suicide so immediately got recommitted, received another couple of months worth of electroconvulsive therapy, got released, put both barrels of his favorite 12-gauge shotgun into his mouth and BLEW HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF! WHAT A GUY!

______________________________________________________________

N: Welcome to applebees! What'll it be? Apples or bees? Congrats, you get bees!!!

______________________________________________________________

Doll: Now that I've added the milk to the cereal tell me, is that milk now a beverage, a broth, or a sauce? Answer carefully Khan, you're wife's life depends on it!

______________________________________________________________

Uzi: If the conspiracies about life being a simulation are true whoever is controlling my Sim I JUST WANNA TALK!!

______________________________________________________________

N: Do you think god stays in heaven because he too fears what he's created? That's a quote from Spy Kids 2 have you ever seen it it's like peak cinema.

______________________________________________________________

Uzi: Who needs sleep when you run on equal parts NyQuil and Methamphetamine?

______________________________________________________________

V: Just remember Uzi people die when they are killed!

______________________________________________________________

V: Ha! You're pointless!

Doll: Thirty nine buried.

*Gunshot*

Doll: Zero found

______________________________________________________________

N: Which one of you was gonna tell me tea tastes different if you put in hot water?

Uzi: Y- you we're putting it in cold water???????

V: N. Answer the question N!

N: Yeah??? I thought for like five years people just put it in hot water to speed up the tea-ification process, didn't realize there was an actual reason.

J: You don't have the patience to microwave water for three minutes??

Doll: Why are you. Putting it in the microwave to boil it?

J: Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove?

Doll: It takes less than a minute!

J: Doll is your stove powered by the fucking sun!?

Doll: How long does it take to boil a cup of water on your stove?

J: LIKE SEVEN MINUTES!

Doll: Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat and it boils in two minutes, less if you use a saucepan.

Lizzy: Crying your putting the whole mug on the stove??? On medium heat??? Your stove is enchanted!

Uzi: Every drone in this exoplanet is a fucking idiot.

Cyn: DO NONE OF YOU OWN A FUCKING KETTLE!?!?! REMEMBER TO FOLLOW: @the-island-of-quotes AS THEY OWN THESE QUOTES :D

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coimbrabertone · 3 months

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Building a Schedule for Indycar: the Struggles of a Recovering Series.

So, in the past week, the shoe dropped - Indycar announced they were going to Fox for 2025. People immediately got fired up, worried that all the worst features of the Fox NASCAR booth were going to infect Indycar and kneecap a series that has such good racing and needs to grow.

Ultimately though, I don't think that's going to be all that much of a problem, actually.

IMS Productions will remain involved in the television product and Fox will put every race on network Fox. That I think is a good thing, and it should give Indycar an opportunity to grow.

What I'm more interested in, however, is the 2025 schedule dropped today as well, and that...disappointed me quite a bit.

The schedule is more or less the same as 2024, with two caveats: one is that Thermal Club is going to be a points race now, and Milwaukee will be a single race instead of a doubleheader like it's scheduled to be in 2024.

This...isn't particularly good.

The biggest reason has little to do with Indycar. That is that, like I've talked about before, NASCAR is flirting with going international as soon as 2025, and it's no secret that they've been flirting with Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, and the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. Both of which hosted Nationwide Series races as recently as the 2000s, but they would be firsts for the Cup series.

The only previous Cup races outside of the US were exhibition events. Calder Park, Australia in 1988, Suzuka, Japan in 1996 and 1997, and then Twin Ring Motegi, also in Japan, in 1998.

Indycar, meanwhile, has a long series of international races - see my Champ Car: the World Series that Actually Was blogpost for details there - but that has disappeared. In 2024 and 2025, Toronto will be the only Indycar race outside of the United States.

That is not good enough.

In terms of drivers, Indycar is as international as it has ever been, but the newest race on the calendar is the return to the Milwaukee Mile. I think that's neat, but, with all due respect, nobody in Milwaukee gives a crap about seeing Rinus VeeKay racing against Linus Lundqvist. Go to Europe, particularly to a track that has been ignored and mistreated by F1, and you might just have an audience that does want to see those guys race.

Even if Europe is too much, too soon, what about Pato's rabid popularity in Mexico? What about the long history of Indycar drivers from Brazil? What about the fact that between Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon, and Will Power, about half the guys that have won this season have been won by guys from New Zealand and Australia. Tap into that market.

If you don't, well...half the Supercars field is moonlighting in NASCAR these days and Kyle Busch is now being linked with a Bathurst 1000 ride.

If Indycar doesn't start planning something now, NASCAR is going to beat them to down under as well.

I feel passionately that Indycar needs to expand internationally again. I'm not saying that it needs to be all it once, but please, start doing something, because your rivals aren't standing still.

And now for the other problem.

Ovals are a hard sell nowadays. I understand that. They're far away from city centers, many have underwhelming amenities, and a lot of casuals see it and just think it's a bunch of left turns. I understand all of that, however...

The Indianapolis 500 is the only big oval left on the schedule. It is the only track 1.5 miles or larger on the schedule, and it will be next year as well.

That is a problem.

More than that, it is starting to show in the oval racing product. A stat came out after the Indianapolis 500 saying that Josef and Pato have finished 1-2 eight times in recent history. Looking into it more specifically, six of those are on ovals dating back to Gateway 2020. Since then, only two indycar oval races have featured a top two that did not include either Josef or Pato:

Texas 2021 race one, when Scott Dixon won over Scott McLaughlin. Indianapolis 2021, when Helio Castroneves won over Alex Palou. More broadly, going back to Texas 2020, the top two oval finishes include the following drivers: Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud, Josef Newgarden, Will Power, Takuma Sato, Patricio O'Ward, Scott McLaughlin, Helio Castroneves, Marcus Ericsson, and David Malukas.

That is ten drivers.

Simon Pagenaud, Takuma Sato, and Helio Castroneves have all more or less retired.

Down to seven.

Of the remaining seven, Pato O'Ward and David Malukas are the only ones that can really be described as young. Marcus Ericsson and Scott McLaughlin are older, but they came from F1 and Supercars, respectively, so I can count them in the new pile as well.

Other than those four, the ovals have been dominated by experienced guys who have been in Indycar for years.

There is a severe lack of top end oval talent from the young drivers in Indycar. One reason for that is that the Freedom 100 is gone, and IndyNXT drivers don't get much preparation for the big tracks.

The other is that Texas Motor Speedway is gone too, so those young drivers, whether they be from IndyNXT or the European ladder, aren't getting that experience in Indycar either.

At minimum, Indycar should put one of their smaller ovals ahead of the Indianapolis 500 to make sure drivers are prepared for the 500.

Beyond that, then I think Indycar should make it a priority to add one or two big ovals to the schedule. Return to TMS, revive an old race like Homestead, Kansas, or Michigan, go to one of the unused NASCAR tracks like Kentucky or Chicagoland, I'm not being picky. Just do something to make sure our drivers are getting experience on these types of tracks.

Otherwise, you're just going to keep seeing Josef Newgarden win on the ovals, occasionally challenged by Pato O'Ward, one of his Penske teammates in the form of McLaughlin or Power, or Scott Dixon pulling some bullshit fuel strategy out of his asshole.

I understand that purists are happy about Milwaukee coming back, I understand that there is a portion of the fanbase that desperately wants the Cleveland airport race to come back, but I ask the fans to think of this: what does Milwaukee do that Iowa doesn't? What does Cleveland do that Mid-Ohio or Toronto don't?

I'm not saying this to disparage Milwaukee or Cleveland either. I like that Milwaukee is back and I'd love to see a Cleveland revival as much as anyone else, but those won't really move the needle.

What I think might is an international expansion.

What I think might is more opportunities for Indycar to show off that brilliant racing from the Indianapolis 500 - all the reactions coming out of Indy were about how people can't wait to see that again. Well, they got to wait a year for it. Indy is all we got in terms of superspeedway racing.

Just after we got two back-to-back good races at Texas though, with a Penske duel in 2022, and Pato dominating 2023 before a caution gave Josef Newgarden the opportunity to snatch a win.

Indycar is a long way off the peaks of the CART era and everyone has different ideas on how to get the series back on the right track, but in my opinion, these are the two most important things schedule wise. Tap into the international market and get on the big ovals again. Both because the series needs to, and because that 200+ mile per hour racing product is something super special that only Indycar has.

On a more personal note...

I usually try to post these on Monday but I'm a bit behind on my AO3 writing right now so I wanted to get this out of the way now. I might have a small blogpost out next week coming out of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but consider this the main blogpost for June 17th.

In the meantime, I have a chapter for my NASCAR story to finish, and then I need to have a chapter for my CART story done by the 23rd.

No rest for the wicked.

#motorsports #racing #indycar #nascar #indy 500

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harveyguilleniconodelamoda · 5 months

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Sustainable Accessories: Vitaly Warp Necklace

It's May the 4th, and you know what that means!

....

Well...a lot of things actually. It's Star Wars Day, for one. Filming for season six of WWDITS is officially over, for another (yes I'm crying about it). But most importantly for this blog, it's Harvey Guillén's birthday weekend!

Harvey has been out and about this weekend, celebrating with friends and coworkers and looking fabulous as usual and sharing the fun with us all via his Instagram stories. But there's one new addition to his wardrobe I want to focus on in particular:

These comfy-but-stylish black overalls and the mesh watercolor shirt are familiar style staples for Harvey (that post is in the drafts, I promise). But something we haven't seen before is that striking necklace he's wearing! So I did a little research, and this is what I found:

This is the Warp necklace, part of the Experimental collection from Vitaly, a Toronto-based company that sells accessories "made for the future with 100% recycled stainless steal" (per their Instagram bio). Their website promises pieces made from the remnants of machines, car parts, and skyscrapers that are waterproof, hypoallergenic, and tarnish-proof.

Vitaly is also dedicated to inclusivity in fashion, which is why all their jewelry is genderless. In an interview with Schön! magazine in 2021, Vitaly CEO Shane Vitaly Foran said:

"We believe that jewelry (and fashion in general) should be inclusive. We want our pieces to be a tool for self-expression, whatever that expression may look like. So we never want to say ‘this is a men’s ring’ or ‘this is a chain for women.’ No matter how you identify, we want to create pieces that make you feel strong and empowered."

This fits so well with Harvey's overall style ethos, which is all about inclusivity and breaking down barriers in the world of fashion!

According to Vitaly's website, the Warp necklace is "an otherworldly neckpiece that uses curving, organic forms to create an alien appearance with a mask-like effect." It retails for $240.

Although this price doesn't meet my usual $100 affordability threshold, I'm hesitant to recommend cheaper alternatives due to the company's overall ethos of sustainability, inclusivity, and the fact that these are genuine art pieces that I've been able to specifically identify the source of (similar to how I didn't want to direct readers away from the artists of PansyAss Ceramics in my last accessories post). It feels ethically iffy in a way that saying "I don't know exactly which boots these are but here are some places you can find very similar boots" doesn't, you know?

I will say that Vitaly is considered a mid-range brand in terms of prices, and does have both frequent sales and many pieces under $100 if you're interested in their style!

(I'll also say that my brain, which has been trained by Taylor Allison Swift to look for easter eggs in everything, wonders if this futuristic piece is an allusion to an upcoming project or role. Something with aliens or futuristic tech, perhaps? Will we see the return of my beloved Dr. José Francisco Morales Rivera de la Cruz in a future installment of the DCEU? Harvey has teased before that this is a possibility! I can only hope.)

#harvey guillén #fashion #accessories #gender neutral fashion #sustainable fashion #vitaly

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allthecanadianpolitics · 11 months

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I want to second that other anon on the Brampton situation as someone who was born and raised there until I moved away at the end of 2020; yea its the fucking city planning and infrastructure that sucks. Apologies for long ass rant:

Every. Single. New house in Brampton built since before I was born has been a 3-5 bedroom, single family cookie-cutter home. Its especially obvious in the north side where all the recent development is. Every neighborhood is a labrynth, I lived in the same house for 20 years and could still get lost walking around my neighborhood cause of the damn maze-like layout AND CAUSE EVERY HOUSE LOOKS THE DAMN SAME. It takes 20 minutes on average to walk to your nearest bus stop and anywhere between 20 mins to an hour for the bus to show up. If you don't have access to a car, you're fucked.

But even if you DO have a car, there's still nothing to DO there. 90% of the city is JUST HOUSES. Heart Lake, Chinguacousy Park and Professor's Lake are like the only major recreational areas, and out of those Heart Lake is the most amount of nature left there; almost EVERYTHING is zoned for residential. Besides that, there's the big malls, and that's basically it. If you work IN Brampton, you probably either work an industrial job, or a minimum wage service job. Most 9-5 career jobs are in Mississauga or Toronto, which you then have to commute by car CAUSE THERES BARELY ANY TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE. I have a whole other rant about the 410 too, but at this point I'll just say it makes the 401 look like a pleasant drive.

Brampton doesn't suck cause of the people living in it, Brampton sucks because it doesn't function like a city should. And it doesn't function like a city should cause it was never designed to be more than a place to hold workers for Mississauga and Toronto when they aren't working.

Also more housing in Brampton won't help the housing crisis in the slightest, unless they're forced to be stupid affordable. New homes are easily several million, even 25yo houses are selling for over a million. Five years ago $1k/month for a 1-bedroom basement apartment was considered dirt cheap, its definitely much more expensive now. There'd have to be legislation involved to force the prices down.

~~~~

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batmanshole · 10 months

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the other day my sister told me id never get a hot boyfriend by acting like myself 😭 girl you date car thieves that sell fentanyl and act like theyre from toronto when they arent. i dont want to date the men youre into

#ask to tag

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tieflingkisser · 3 months

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Efforts to sell ‘Anglo neighborhoods in Israel’ at LA synagogue erupt in protests

Pro-Palestinian protesters accuse companies of trying to sell stolen land in the West Bank, and question legality

Efforts to market homes in Israel and stolen land in West Bank to Jewish Americans are continuing to spark protests across North America, with the latest angry confrontations happening outside a synagogue in one of Los Angeles’s most prominent Jewish neighborhoods.

[...]

The Los Angeles demonstration was the latest in a series of heated demonstrations outside similar Israeli real estate events heldat synagogues across North America this year, including in Toronto, Canada; New Jersey; Baltimore, Maryland; and North Hollywood. Pro-Palestinian protesters have accused some of the companies involved in these events of trying to sell stolen land in the West Bank, and questioned the legality of the marketing efforts. One of the real estate companies named in an advertisement for the Los Angeles event, My Home in Israel, has listed high-end properties for sale in West Bank settlements on its website, including boutique apartments in Ariel and luxury villas in Efrat. Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are widely considered illegal under international law. The US recently restored its position that they are “inconsistent” with international law. Previous US events involving My Home in Israel have prompted calls for law enforcement investigations from Palestinian American and pro-Palestine groups, and denunciations from some local Jewish residents.

[...]

Protesters on both sides of the conflict described an out-of-control situation where people were targeted with bear spray and scuffling in the streets, and criticized police for failing to stop the violence. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators shared video of pro-Israel counter-protesters yelling racial slurs, and said that the counter-protesters had punched them, kicked them, chased them, ripped hijabs from the heads of Muslim women, made rape threats and followed some demonstrators back to their cars in an attempt to photograph their license plates. A pro-Palestine protester who lives in the area said the intensity of the harassment and violence from the pro-Israel counter-protesters was frightening, with “people who came up to me screaming, telling me to get out of their neighborhood”.

[...]

Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, a Los Angeles journalist who specializes in protest coverage, captured footage of pro-Palestinian protesters “pleading with officers for help” as they were “being shoved and hit” by pro-Israel demonstrators with the officers standing by. Several journalists covering the protest were also assaulted, Adam Rose, the secretary of the Los Angeles Press Club, tweeted on Monday. Among then was Beckner-Carmitchel, who said he filed a police report after being assaulted by pro-Israel demonstrators. A reporter for CalMatters said that one pro-Israel protester knocked his phone out of his hand as he tried to film, and later another demonstrator told him “you shouldn’t be here” and snatched away his phone.

#free palestine #usa #california #news

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sellurcar · 1 year

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Sell My Car Toronto

Ready to sell your car in Toronto? Sellurcar is here to help! We make selling your car a breeze with our seamless process. Simply provide us with the details of your vehicle, and we'll provide a fair and competitive offer. Say goodbye to the hassle and hello to a quick and profitable sale. Contact us now to sell your car with ease.

#sell my car Toronto #sell my car #sell car #sell car toronto #sell my car in toronto #car sell #selling car

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scrapcargta · 2 years

Link

Are you seeking scrap car removal services in Toronto? You can trust Cash For Scrap Car GTA to do the job right for you. Our scrapyard team is efficient enough to ensure that the entire car scrap process is smooth for you.

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#scrap car removal Toronto #scrap #scrap car #junk cars #Sell My Junk Cars #junk car removal #old car removal #old cars #junk car

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airfieldddrive · 6 months

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Rupi's Poetry (Revisited)

[A Writer's Achievement]

Walking with purpose across her living room, lighting candles and turning the ceiling lights off

Sitting down with much to do, at peace with herself as reflected in her lovely brown eyes

The sound of trucks and cars on the 427 fades in the distant night time

She's changed, and everything is going to be all right

And it's Rupi, writing poetry in her room

Writing words of love and words that are true

Calmly looking closer with her eyes, a pleasurable delight she has found at the sight of her body

Outside in the Indian garden, the full moon is bright

More than 4 million women, children and men scroll across their phones, reading what Rupi wrote slowly

She walks back and forth with pen and paper held firmly in hand

...And it's Rupi thinking about poetry that she is going to write for you

She writes about pain and suffering and love

Most of what she writes about is true

Far from here

Only she rightfully decides, who she is to embrace in her arms

Feeling good again

For some

Most of the time

[She's A Twenty First Century Woman]

She gets emotional like the kind of scholar that she is who reads book after book like a charm

With eyes that are clear, there is much to digest

Knowing what you know can only take you higher

Putting you in all

She's here again

Here to perform

Putting you in all

Love and peace

Find yourself being released

She's an author, poet, illustrator, performer and artist

She's a twenty first century woman

There is much to what she writes

And all her followers

who have come from many different lifestyles and career paths

will have the time of their life

by buying a ticket and sitting down inside

Where more than a few

are seated

hand in hand

Mostly everyone's glad

She's a walking breathing miracle

She sells eternal sanctuary

She will entertain you

No matter what the temperature is outside

with Rupi inside

Everyone will feel warm

[Brampton And Malton And Toronto Heaven Sent]

We've got a feeling

there's a time to work

and a time to rest

Walking in our hometown fields

Fields that have seen generations of children

Children of the west

British descendants and the rest

Now a land of many brown skinned entrepreneurs

Standing still above ground

Safe and sound

Beating down any personal struggles

The day's chaos has begun, the workplace can be tense and ill at ease

Working hard to please...

And the chance to live in a wonderful world

without hectic commotion

Because love is where all of us need to be

and overtaken by that emotion

And even though everyone's in a good mood

Better to play it safe than sorry as usual

September has been a month to celebrate

And to have a slice of some delicious wedding cake

One of many lovely couple's have sealed their matrimonial fate

A time for celebration

and wedding hall dancing

here on earth before God

[Why Is She So Beautiful?]

Wandering through the forest

the conflicts of the world she has left

Climbing up a mountain of success

To a plateau of fresh, green grass

and tall trees full of life

Her young figure sits still

her reflection in the water she admires

that's natural

She's been published

and for that she's grateful

Salvador Dali's painting

"The Metamorphosis Of Narcissus" is beautiful

Such a brilliant painter

Narcissus blooms into a flower

Colourful and pleasing

Over and over

[Heydon's Farm]

If you go down to Heydon's Farm

You'll find a gathering of hovering Monarch butterflies

See forever eyes

that's not a surprise

Fox on the run

Over the road rocks by the jet

And there's the large lots

Memories of my mother there before

at the skating rink

where Michelle and her daughter are today

Just like everyone

Feeling both happy and sad

And of course there are good people in the world

Happy to be here

Championship drag racing

In a fast rush

Dealing with problems before the starting flag was raised

that had to be crushed

The moon and the prince

The prince was at the sticker factory

The sticker factory was beside the train tracks

The train tracks are still there amongst the enormous bustle

The bustle is what puts food on the table

and comfort all year round

Fly on a jet plane away

Sweet thing

Up on near the hikng trail

Places to go to and places you've been

You've changed into a fantastic human being

Yes

Happy as can be

And glorified as anyone can see

And fresh and clean in the morning

You've got everything

Always in

Never out

Wildwood wild things

throughout the summer blooming

in a roundabout

Changing seasons

Changes for one and all

Wish you were here

And some Hollywood stars are near

Time has come today

Time has come bringing change

Feel your body, it belongs to you and you alone

A gift from your mother and father

And from them you learn

what it is to work

during working hours

Earning your success

Making you feel tall

In my world

I hear a lot of lies

Up to here

listening to all these lies

Going with the flow

Rupi

In your world are there many that want you now?

And as you listen to your inner voice

To look for hidden doors, decorated floors and audience applause

Here for a good time

Everyone likes you a lot, they like what you've got

Your ancestral history can be felt and found throughout the land

Yes, deep in the land

And in the end, I heard before me, a clairvoyant having a spirit whisper in her head that in the end, we will find ourselves amongst those who all share similar interests

And that we'll all fit into our places

[Alpha Centauri Of The Constellation Centaurus]

With the stars of Centaurus shining bright around

A rocket ship moves slowly upward from its place underground

Rupi is strapped in, tilted back and coming up from beneath

Shimmering silver glitter around her head to below her knees

She lights up the fire in the skies

She knows she's doing well by the look in everybody's eyes

Her poetry is as rich as a sunrise

It ain't easy

Living in a painting and poetry fantasy

She is no longer alone

Made of hardy stock and thick to the bone

And the rocket engines roar

Roaring right down inside your soul

The stars of the constellation Centaurus shine alongside all of their moons

On stage, there's Rupi, reciting the words of a brand new poem

And it's Rupi, with her spoken words so true

At work and not lazy, thinking about the colour blue because it is such a fun thing to do

She's so far from here

Only she, and she alone rightfully decides who she is to receive in her loving arms

Rupi's back again, and everyone in the theatre will have a good time

[Poems]

Can't you feel your imagination get out of sight?

Pulsating colours, in the darkness of night

Like the galaxies that join after centuries, as the cycle of life expands and grows

She has come to your city and to a place that you call home

Rupi's standing shining in the sun, and she's reading with a loud voice

her favourite poems one by one

Poet of poets

Scholar of scholars

She has returned to read to the people, in theatre's close to their home

To make them feel glad that they've come, to listen to her reading her beautiful poems.

-Walter

October 18, 2019

Revisited and revised April 5, 2024

#me #writer #rupikaurpoems

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rainchyna · 2 years

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‎‎‎‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎♡ ❝RATED : SWEETHEARTS!❞ ♡

‎‎‎‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎EPIS♡DE : SIX (V)

warnings! [light angst, worried y/n, had to make them stop at a supermarket bc it’s a road trip, adam is a mess lord oh my god, cussing, y/n and christian talking shit abt people in high school, adam is a wee bit depressed, it’s long]

you wait for christian to load your bags in to the backseat. “you got everything?” you ask. “yeah” he reply’s getting in the front seat. “you do realize that the next show is in two days right?” he asks as you start up the car’s engine. “and that this trip will take eighteen hours back and forth?” he adds. “yep” you answer with tight lips. “but can we put on a show without the third idiot?” you ask looking at him. “right”.

the first three hours of the ride were silent, mostly because christian fell asleep and you didn’t have the heart to turn up the radio to the fill the slightly jarring silence since it might wake him up. all you could think about was how fucking stupid adam was for just getting up and leaving you just like that. he was never the one who runs away from his feelings, he was always upfront and honest with you, even in the smallest most minuscule of things. all you could think about was how he was. you needed to know if he was okay, both mentally and physically. is he sleeping well? has he been eating healthy? he better have remembered taking his vitamins today … or the last couple days.

“god fucking damn it adam”

4:44 pm, that same day…

you were knee deep in thought when christian began moving around. “i’m hungry” was the first thing he said. you had just passed a sign that said that nearest stop was 10 miles away. a thought crossed your mind as lightly gasped. “what’s wrong?” christian asked, confused. you mouth hung open for a second before saying, “adam’s birthday is tomorrow”. “oh shit. we forgot” christian sighed. “oh no, you forgot, i was just distracted by everything” you defended. christian just narrowed his eyes at you, before saying “we’ll get him a key chain or something…” he trailed. you look over at him with a ‘deadass?’ face. “what? it’s not like he’s been the greatest friend for the last couple days!” he said. “true that” you nodded.

slowly but surely, you pulled up on a 7/11. next to it was a subway and a tim horton’s. “can you grab us proper food while i just get junk from the 7/11?” you asking parking the car. “sure” christian said grabbing his jacket. a cold breeze hit your face as you entered the convenience store, these places were always so cold for no reason. you walked towards the fridges at the back, scanning the drinks available through the freezing glass. you grabbed at least eight juice boxes, two tubs of cookie dough ice cream, and on your way to the cashier you took some bags of crisps.

at the register was a younger man, nineteen, twenty at most. curly poofy hair and some pimples here and there. “how’s traffic out there?” he asked with a thick french accent. his name tag read ‘jean-pierre’, “barely any honestly” you replied. “do you happen to sell keychains by any chance?” you ask. without missing a beat, the guy pulled out this massive bowl that had wooden and metallic chains on it. you dug through it as he scanned your items. ‘i <3 canada!’, ‘toronto, canada’ and more canada related ones came up, until one caught your eyes. ‘happy birthday you sexy whore’, was it appropriate for you current situation? debatable. would adam like it? most definitely yes. was it a little too on the nose? absolutely. “i’ll take this one!” you smiled. the guy took it, eyeing the chain then you. “on me, cause you’re my favourite wrestler” he smiled. you eyes lit up, “i’m your favourite?” you ask, “of course! and my boyfriend loves edge and christian, edge is his favourite because he’s more unhinged, but we love you guys!” he said. “i also really like lita” he added

“oh my god i would actually die for her”

“girl, she’s so iconic”

“I KNOWWW”

“IT’S THE HAIR AND ATTITUDE”

“SHE’S LITERALLY THE COOLEST PERSON”

you both stood there for at least fifteen minutes talking about your favourite wrestlers, until you remembered that you’re out here for a reason. you quickly said goodbye and left. as you sat in your car seat you were met by a slightly grumpy christian. “you were gone for like half an hour bro” he complained. “my bad, the cashier guy was the best person ever”.

the ride was pretty decent, mostly you and christian eating and talking shit about people from high school. “remember that chick mikaela?” he asked, mouth full of fries. “oh my fucking god, i used to hate her” you said, christian was confused. “i thought you guys were friends..?” he muttered, “ no! bro, she was only friends with me because she liked adam” you said. “deadass?” he was more surprised than confused, “i swear, bro, there were so many girls that were friends with me because they wanted to get closer to adam. and to be fair though, i was a bit of a cockblock. i would always be like ‘oh he’s already seeing someone’ you know”. you admitted. “cockblock! cockblock! y/n, y/n, the cockblock!” he sang.

“c’mon man-“

“cockblock! cockblock! y/n, y/n, the cockblock!”

“i didn’t want anyone near him-“

“wait, you loved him since high school?!” christian asked. “i thought it was obvious”, christian was dumbfounded for a second. “obvious?? you literally friendzoned him so many times bro” he said. “i did?” you were both equally confused. “let me list some of the times you did, lita’s birthday last year, prom, my 17th birthday, during our first european tour, when we first debuted, do i go on?” he said, sarcasm dripping from his comment. “i thought he was being overtly nice”

“he’s literally in love with you”

adam was a mess. he showered once ever since he came back, his hair was tangled, his under-eyes looked like he rubbed his eye with eyeliner on. he was in his old room, the wall in front of him had crayon and marker scribbles detailing his, yours and christian’s heights over the years. there were stickers all over his cupboard and bed frame and his old gaming console sat frozen in time next to three, tiny joysticks. adam laid back on his bed facing the ceiling. the night before he laid on his side staring at his bedroom’s door, he cried and his knuckles got sore. he knew that nothing will happen if he continues ignoring your calls, if he continues pretending that he’s not hurt, pretending that he doesn’t care. it was eating him from the inside, but some how he just wants you more. he felt like a flower bud in concrete, he felt incomplete, he wondered if you’ll ever meet. hopefully you noticed that he was gone by now, hopefully matt wasn’t taking up all your time. i didn’t even matter to him who you were with at this point, he just wanted to see you. so when you decide, it’s your time to arrive, he’s loved you for all of his life.

there was knock at his door, “hey…”, it was his mom, “yeah?” he said voice deep from not speaking in hours, “are you sure you’re okay? ‘cause this is the weirdest break you’ve ever had, y’know? like .. where’s jay? where’s y/n? you three are like conjoined triplets” she said sitting next to him. he sighed deeply, “can i be honest with you?” he asked, “well of course, i am your mom after all” she smiled sweetly.

“i’m in love with y/n, she’s all i can think about. it’s literally consuming me at this point. and like an idiot i ran away from my feelings, instead of saying something and i haven’t heard from her and christian in a while” he breathed out.

“oh” she said, “i thought we’re gonna say something surprising”.

adam just looked at his mom confused, “i just said all of that and it’s not surprising enough to you??” he asked slightly irritated. “that’s not the case, you’re feelings are obviously valid and you’re my son and everything, whatever, but you being in love with y/n isn’t news to me. it isn’t news to anyone, funny enough actually me and y/mom’s/n have this bet that you’ll get married by the time you’re twenty five” she joked.

“you have a bet on us?” adam giggled, first time since he came home. “yeah” she laughed. “c’mon get up, we’re gonna make cookies together, your favourite” she said as she stood my door’s frame. “just like when you were little”.

10:48 pm, even later.

after a long day of baking and listening to music with his mom, adam was slightly at peace. she always knew how to cheer him up. he was sprawled out on the living rooms couch, a plate of cookies resting on his torso while a movie he was watching played in the background. his mom had went to sleep a while ago, leaving adam alone with his thoughts. he thought about it for a while, if having you as his girlfriend wasn’t an option, he didn’t mind remaining as friends. granted it would burn his literal soul, because you gave him butterflies. all you had to do was walk away and pass him by, don’t acknowledge his smile when he tried to say hello to you.

simple as that, yet just the thought of you ignoring him physically hurt him. his mind ram miles and miles away, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways he can continue being friends with you, without it interfering with you and matt relationship. he couldn’t help but get emotional, that was years of friendship going down the drain. but that was the point of unrequited love, wasn’t it?

4:15, early in the morning

christian had taken over, as you were now asleep on the passenger seat. you had finally entered your hometown. the area was a little dark, pretty quite. apart from a couple cars driving into the night, nothing else was causing any type of noise.

he drove past several houses, recognizing some of them. he pulled up on your homes’ block, and there he could see them. the three houses in which you’ve all spent your childhood in. the lights at his house were all out, at your house the front porch lights was the only one on. the lights of the living room in adam’s were on. christian glanced at the digital clock before him, 4:20. (adam’s) mom was about to go on her morning run anytime soon. “y/n, wake up we’re here” he said parking the car. “we are?” you said rubbing your eyes, disoriented. “oh my god, we are”.

you stretched for a bit before asking “what time is it?”

“4:21”

“mom’s gonna go on a run”

“yeah we should go inside before she goes out, at least she’ll open the door for us” he said. you both stepped out of the car. you grabbed a juice box before closing the door. “you sure you wanna do this?” christian asked as he turned to face you. “seriously?” he added, you looked like a child with your little box and little straw. “what?” you asked, “i’m thirsty! plus i need some sugar in my system before we do this, i hate confrontation” you added. you dug in your pocket and pulled out some gum strips, “here” you said handing christian a piece, “if we’re gonna confront someone, we should at least look cool” you said. he took it and began walking towards adam’s house.

this is it.

“ewwww, ugh! oh my god!”

“are you okay??”

“i was! until i decided to chew mint gum while drinking orange juice” you frown. christian smiled.

“never change, y/n”

——————————

adam was shuffling about in the kitchen, looking for a glass to get some water. the large amount of sugar he had consumed from the cookies had caught up to him and he was parched. “oh my god, you scared me! why are you still awake?” his mom’s voice startled him. “i scared you?!” he sighed. “jeez, go get some sleep adam” she lightly patted on his back. “morning run?” he asked, “yeah, you wanna join me?” she asked, “maybe tomorrow…” adam muttered. a knock on the door interrupted their small talk, “can you fill this up for me?” she asked handing him her water bottle. “sure”.

a surprised gasp get from hell lips as she opened the door. “jay? y/n! what are you kids doing here?!”

adam felt his heart drop to his stomach. you were both here.

why were you here?

#rainchyna #rated : sweethearts!#wwe edge x reader #adam copeland x reader #wwe headcanons #wwe imagines #wwe fanfiction

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