#transfer trolleys

[vagonca-rigo]

You like trains, I like trains, I wanna share with you a train that connects us more than one would think!

This little adorable 2' Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk locomotive, built in 1940!

One of the final locomotives built by CKD before it became BMM during the occupation.

And somehow, it made its way from Europe, to California, then over to Indiana. And when it arrived at the Hesston Steam Museum in Indiana in the 80s or 90s, they checked it over and found chalk marks on the inside of the boiler from when it was built.

It had never been steamed before!

Anyway hehe wanted to share an adorable little loco Ive seen and ridden behind

RIDDEN BEHIND?? I'M INCREDIBLY JEALOUS!! AND SUCH PRETTY LIVERY....

And it was THAT fresh? Sounds like a successful attempt at saving it from use/dismantling by the nazis, though I see that the story behind it is a complete mystery with only speculations around...still, very interesting!! :3c

[collecting--stardust]

Me when pretty girls hold my hand

[cleromancy]

Do you have any opinion on the pairing JayCass or JaySteph?

i left this in my askbox for like. over a month i think. because I actually have a lot of thoughts about the ways cass, steph, and jason all play off each other and what they could bring out in each other and the stories that could develop out of that potential but like. when we're talking about ships?

ultimately i just dont really. ship jason with girls LMAO preboot jason is a full blown homosexual to me

[llycaons]

it’s times like this that I’m grateful I don’t have a car

[medicalequipmentabimed]

Patient transfer stretcher

A patient transfer stretcher, also known as a patient transfer trolley or stretcher trolley, is a medical device used for safely transferring patients between different locations within a healthcare facility. Four castor wheels for easy movement.

[vishalmishra]

Efficient Hospital Beds Distributorship Opportunity

Are you a dealer or distributor in the hospitality sector and want to build your market strongly? So just check out the hospital beds distributorship opportunity for pan-India distribution. If you are doing this business or want to become a distributor or dealer of hospital furniture, visit Appoint Distributors, a well-known B2B business distribution channel.

[inquiry-emech]

Best Transfer Trolley Suppliers

ElectroMech’s intershop rail based transfer trolleys are elegant and simple solutions for moving goods across different bays of a factory. A rail track passes through different bays. The motorised trolley runs on these tracks and is connected to the mains through a power supply system or is battery operated.

[rail-transfer-cart]

10T Coil Transfer Car PLC Automatic Control, Rail Coil Transfer Trolley ...

[enwoso]

Ooh a bit of an angsty one!

Can we have something about when Alessia transferred from United to Arsenal and how grumpy reacted to the fans (not all fans but quite a lot of them) turning on Alessia?

Something about the transition period and how they adjusted to the new club please!

Love your writing so much!

FOR THE BETTER — alessia russo x child!reader

sorry to whoever requested this that it has taken me so long, i do apologise! this was supposed to be out last week but then i was ill and then life was busy so it’s been a bit delayed but hey better late than never eh?

ALSO thank you all for 400 followers i love and appreciate each and every one of you all<3🥹

navigation -> grumpy universe masterlist

the past couple of weeks had been a whirlwind for alessia but even more so for you. you weren't used to change nor were you a big fan of change.

you'd had basically the same routine your entire life. same bedtime, same favourite teddy, same favourite colour, same amount of sweets you were allowed before bed.

it was all you had ever known and so was manchester.

so when you got home from being australia it was a little weird to you not be going back home with your auntie ella and the other united girls like you usually would after an england camp.

when leaving for the world cup you didn't realise that, that was going to be the last time you were going to be in that home in manchester, the last time you would wake up in that home.

instead, this time you were going back with lotte and the other girls who lived in london for some strange reason unknown to you.

"mummy! where auntie ella going?" you asked as sat on top of the trolley of suitcases as alessia had went to say goodbye to her best friend not knowing when she would next see her.

"back to manchester lovie" she smiled softly, her voice a little shaky. your eyebrows knitted together a litttle, "why we not go with her, we live dere too!" you pouted, your face struck with confusion.

"lovie, we had this talk before we went to australia" alessia had stopped in the airport, dismissing lotte who stood waiting for her. signalling that you'd catch them back up.

"talk?"

"about mummy,, moving to a new club" the blonde spoke calmly trying to re jog your little memory as your mouth opened to an 'o' shape. realisation hitting you that change was happening as the talk memory appeared back into your head.

"your here, i thought you were watching tv in my room" you jumped a little at the sound of your mummy's voice as she came into your room. you'd been playing a game with your dolls on your bedroom floor.

"you wan be this one?" you asked holding up a doll towards your mum as she smiled, nodding and joined you on your bedroom floor.

"before we play though, i actually need to talk to you" your mum sounded serious as a frown appeared on your face, mummy only ever wanted to 'talk' when you had done something you were not supposed to of.

"oh- your not in trouble lovie"

"so mummy has been asked to join a new football club, called arsenal" she explained to you as the doll in your hand dropped slightly. a slight silence filling the room.

"you still play here?" you asked as your mum shook her head, "no lovie it means we have to move down to london"

you paused for a minute, it processing in your head "oh, but who play tag with after training?" you sadly smiled, you would play tag with millie and ona after each training session.

"i'm sure many of the girls will love playing tag with you, beth and leah play there too" mummy said as you looked back up from the ground.

"from england?" you asked as mummy nodded. it took a little convincing from you but once alessia had assured you, after you were a bit hesitant you agreed and didn't feel as sad about leaving manchester.

since the day in the airport, you had settled into your new home in london. it had already been better than manchester as you already seeing your uncles and grandparents more in the past week than you had the entire time that you lived in manchester.

you had made friends at your new nursery, settling in quick — quicker than alessia expected. as well as decorating your room the colour you wanted as well as picking out a new bed, which mummy had described to you as being your first big girl bed.

alessia of course had already started training for preseason. however you hadn't had a chance to go to training with being at nursery so today would be the first time meeting your mummy's teammates.

you were scared.

you don't remember meeting the united girls, to you they had always been there. but mummy said that was because you were just a baby when you first met those girls.

walking hand in hand with your mummy, your other hand holding your elephant teddy, esme which you'd had since you were really little held close and tight to your chest.

your mummy leading you to where she would put her training bag away, along with your bag before leading you down the long corridors to where the team was having lunch.

the arsenal girls knew that you were coming today and had asked alessia what was the best way to introduce themselves to you, not wanting to make you feel overwhelmed by all the new faces.

alessia suggesting that it be one by one as you weren't the biggest fan of big crowds and being fussed over.

you tugged on your mums arm, asking to be picked up as she did placing you on her hip as she walked deeper into the room. there being a few faces which you recognised that being the three england girls but once you spotted some of the other girls you hid your face deep in your mum's neck.

"oh is that you tiny?" beth beamed as you kept your face hidden feeling the movement of alessia sitting down. her hand rubbing up and down your back to try and soothe you, hoping you would come out from your little shell you'd put yourself in.

"she's gone all shy" alessia shrugged as she tried to peel you from your hiding spot, only whines coming from you as you dug your face deeper into her chest.

"shy? if there's one thing tiny isn't and that's shy!" you heard leah say, as well as your mum hum as she nodded her head in agreement.

it was true when you had the chance you could easily talk for england and would most definitely come away with a gold medal in that type of competition. alessia had her brothers and ella to thank for your chattiness even though she loved to hear you ramble on about anything and everything.

“tiny! do you want to see these photos of myle?” beth tried this time, you had been obsessed with the little puppy that beth had just gotten. myle was so small and any time you were at beth’s you would sit and talk to myle — you considered myle to be one of your best friends since you’d moved to arsenal as she too was getting used to all the new faces just like you were.

this seemed to do the trick as you slowly peeled yourself from your mums chest, half your face turning to look at beth, as the other half was covered with your grey elephant teddy. beth who was on her phone more than likely looking for the photos.

you looked up to your mum still unsure as you could see out the corner of your eye the unknown faces of your mummy’s new teammates. your mummy smiling nodding her head enthusiastically as you slowly climbed down from her lap and over to beth who was sat in between leah and viv.

you fingers in your mouth, you other hand having esme the elephant in it as you walked nervously over to beth, standing next to her as she lifted you onto her lap.

her phone screen in front of you as she showed you an arrange of photos of myle, some with a little scarf wrapped around her collar, some of her just lying asleep around beth and viv’s apartment and the rest were myle with some of the girls who were sat in the room with you right now.

“who dat?” you pointed to one of the girls who was holding myle another one of the girls sat next to her as your face scrunched at the unknown people.

“that’s vic and steph, look their over there!” beth pointed the two girls out as they both noticed you looking at them sending you a small wave, as you returned it. alessia watching on as she talked with leah and viv a smile appearing on the blondes face as she watched you slowly come out of your shell.

beth carried on swiping through the photos as you had now learned who kyra, katie, caitlin and stina were sending them all a small shy wave as beth pointed them out in the canteen.

“who dis?” you pointed to the girl in the photo as beth has swiped to the next photo.

“and that’s lia” beth smiled as you looked at her confused, “no that not leah? le there” you frowned as you pointed to the blonde leah who was sat with your mum across the table from you.

beth chuckling lightly at your little misunderstanding, “no tiny, there’s another lia! look there” beth pointed to the other lia as you awh in realisation, sending the lia a little wave like you’d done with the other girls.

“there two leah’s?” you turn to look at beth, who nodded with a smile on her face.

beth carried on, pointing out each of the arsenal girls as you did your signature shy wave at them as beth felt a slight feeling of accomplishment that you’d began to come out your shell, yes you may have not actually met the girls properly but you’d been introduced to and anyway there was plenty of time for you to meet them, the arsenal girls would not only becoming your mummy’s new teammates but they in time would become part of your family.

alessia had now been at arsenal for a few months now and you both had fully settled in, your home in london had finally come together and your room was fully decorated and in your opinion a lot better than your room in manchester.

and now the league had started and you’d now become fully acquainted with all the girls and as your mum had expected once you’d come out your shell, you loved them all.

after beth sat you down and showed you all the girls, it took you a few days to learn all there faces but you had now learned all about them and they had learned all about you and your little habits too.

katie who you learned was irish and had an accent that you found funny as she would say some words funny like the word three always had you in stitches as it sounded like tree, she was cool too as she would let you get away with being a little naughty sometimes.

caitlin, steph and kyra were all australian, they all had a funny accent to you too but the three of them were all different. caitlin was quiet but she would always let you pass the ball to her and play tag with you once training was done.

steph would let you talk to her as she answered all your questions you had about australia especially after just spending the summer there. and kyra well she would help you cause trouble, she would always sit with you and colour as well as dance around the changing room with you when the music was on.

vic was someone who mummy would sometimes take to training, and who mummy would spent a lot of time with when at training. vic was dutch just like viv. and vic wasn’t a big fan of mummy’s driving and on a morning when you were going to training with the as you sat in the back vic would sometimes sit and complain about mummy’s driving as you would sit in the back in your car seat giggling.

and for lia it had taken you a few days to wrap your head around there being two leah’s as in your mind you had only met one leah and that was blonde leah. so you had decided to give them your own nicknames, leah one and lia two just so you didn’t get confused.

as for the rest of the girls they had all been very welcoming to you and your mummy, helping you both to fit in.

and now it was onto the second match of the season against manchester united, the first time alessia was going to be back since she left. to say she was a little nervous was an understatement but she was trying her best not to show it.

“you okay?” lotte asked knowing how much the blonde had been dreading this fixture to come, and it being so early on in the season was not helping. as she walked into the leigh sports village with alessia, you following suit next to her.

wearing your new arsenal shirt, russo printed on the back in big white capital letters over the top of your hoodie it being a cold october night down in manchester something alessia definitely wasn’t missing since moving back down south.

alessia didn’t say anything just nod as she looked over to her england teammate, her lip bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes making sure not to loose you as you three reached the changing room.

you sat on the bench quietly watching your ipad munching on a few snacks you’d been given as your mummy got changed and did her pre match routine.

“mummy?” you looked up from your ipad, your mum doing her hair as you watched her wrap her bobble around her bun. “yes lovie?” she smiled at you.

“we see auntie ella and mazza?” you asked, you knew that arsenal were playing manchester united as you had overheard mummy talking to auntie ella on the phone you then interrupting and talking to ella and how you were excited to see her after a few months not yet being totally used to not seeing her every single day of the week.

the excitement following through the entire week as it was all you had spoken about to anyone you’d seen, even the staff at your nurseries knew.

“after the game we can, i’m sure they are both just excited to see you” she smiled as you nodded excitedly, you little legs swinging from the bench as mummy kissed the top of your head before smoothing out her kit to change into, your attention going back to your ipad.

the match had now begun and was just nearing half time and you were sat with leah one who had come down on the bus with the team, but she still had a big ouchie on her knee meaning she couldn’t play.

you were wrapped in a blanket with your big thick puffer on which mummy had made sure to zip right up before she ran onto the pitch.

watching with a smile, but that smile quickly dropped as then you noticed.

the manchester united fans were booing your mummy. the same fans which would cheer and shout her name while asking her to sign and take photos with her just a few months ago. they were now booing.

the first time you thought maybe it was just a mistake, but then it happened again. every time your mummy touched the ball, they booed.

“why they booing?” you asked, as leah frowned not knowing how to exactly explain it to you but she could tell it was upsetting you.

“i’m not sure tiny” leah sighed as she pulled you onto her lap so you had a better view of the pitch. making sure your blanket was kept around you to keep you from the crisp cold air.

“me no like it” you huffed, a frown not replacing the smile that was on your face moments ago.

“it’s okay, look your mummy’s got the ball, she might score!” leah tried to turn your focus away from the sound of the booing but that’s all you could hear, it was ringing through your ears.

“stop! make it stop le!” you whined shoving your head into her chest as your fingers went into your ears. leah’s heart dropping as she watched you start to cry, deciding it was probably best to take you into back inside away from all the noise.

alessia watched each step that leah took, you in her arms. your face hidden, alessia knew straight away that the noise of the booing as well as the nasty chants were upsetting you. alessia had learned with time to block them out when she was playing but you were young and took things more sensitively.

leah had turned back to try and catch alessia’s eyes, quickly realising alessia was already watching leah. alessia mouthing a quick, ‘is she okay?’ knowing that was probably a silly thing to ask but she did always before running to get the ball from katie, still noticing the quick thumbs up that leah threw towards alessia.

the booing only spurred alessia on more, wanting to play that well that it would silence them. something the travelling arsenal fans had been good at, chanting louder than the many home fans.

leah took you back into the changing room just after half time has finished doing her best to calm you down and distract you — it taking a few laps around the inside of the stadium and a trip to the food van before the tears stopped.

back in the changing room, you sat down on the bench, your ipad propped up as you both began to watch a cartoon as you placed your blanket across your legs and leah knees being extra careful to not hurt her ouchie on her knee.

you both being very consumed by the bright light of the ipad screen you both didn’t even hear the sound of the changing room door go, the girls beginning to pile in at the end of the match.

“hey lovie” you mum cooed softly, placing a hand on your head slightly startling both you and leah. but you were quickly jumping into her arms as she twirled you around.

“you okay now?” she asked softly as you nodded, your arms wrapped around your mummy’s neck not wanting to let go. alessia rubbing her hand up and down your back as you placed a little kiss on your cheek, mouthing a thank you to leah who smiled nodding her head.

“good” alessia whispered, as you let go from hugging you mum as you sat on her hip. “why were they booing” you asked innocently, the same frown appearing from earlier, since you didn’t get a proper answer from leah, you might from mummy.

“there just upset i left that’s all lovie, there silly anyway and there nothing you-” your mummy began as your frown still stayed, “-need to worry about, okay” she finished booping your nose a small smile flashing on your lips.

“i know you love me and that’s all that matters” mummy told you with a smile as you nodded.

“now we need that smile to come back, cause i don’t think auntie ella and mazza will want to see you all grumpy!”

[mana-jjk]

i keep looking through the college au and coming up with more questions.

does geto teach a philosophy Gen-ed that everyone has to take?

are nanako and mimiko there? what are they up to?

I have to know more about ijichi's suffering

how close does toge get to dropping out? how often? will he ever actually do it?

do gojo and geto do that thing where they both casually mention their husband but nobody puts together that it's the other professor? (are they together in this au or is there more angst?)

i’m loving the questions !! <3 thank you for taking such an interest ! 🥺

getou’s philosophy:

• so getou has a PhD in philosophy and does research on the side of his position as a professor.

• he’s one of the few philosophy professors, so he teaches up to 4 - 5 classes a semester. this can include higher levels, major-specific, sub-categories, etc. but he always specifically requests a introduction to philosophy class, a requirement in most majors.

• it’s either that, or they take a speech class with Yuki Tsukumo and her teaching assistant, Aoi Todo. Who, yes, as an icebreaker, make you proclaim your type in men/women/other.

• yuuji took that class lol and now they’re trying to recruit him as a TA, no one could believe he would be the first to be recruited for that

• anyway, back to philosophy, getou has way too much fun being as evil and instigating as possible. you have to speak to get a grade in his class, and he will purposely misinterpret what you say.

• student: i just think in the case of the trolley problem, i wouldn’t hesitate to save more people.

• getou: oh? so you assign value to numbers? are human lives stastics to you? if they throw their money out will you also change your mind? i bet you don’t even care if there was a child on the other side huh? murderer

• you leave his class traumatized lol

nanako and mimiko:

• they are here and are still adopted by getou! they didn’t have the best home life, and moved around foster care for a lot of their lives until they accidentally bumped into getou while they were running away.

• he helped them call their social work and were moved into a better situation, though they begged him to stay in contact.

• a complicated and usual amount of time later, enough for adoption process in japan, he has officially adopted them.

• in present day, nanako and mimiko insisted on transferring colleges to the one getou got a job at so they could stay together.

• mimiko is currently a fashion design major and nanako is her biggest inspiration. she exclusively makes clothes for her or inspired by her and because of that she’s struggling a bit in college, despite being the top of her class.

• nanako is a digital marketing and social media major and part-time model who loves showing off mimiko’s designs. she also likes to bicker with nobara by saying her sister is on a whole different level than her. mimiko doesn’t care but likes the support her sister gives her lol

• mimiko will eventually change her major to graphic design, to someday design toys for children. she likes making clothes because it makes nanako smile, but she loves making toys that she and nanako used to cherish while hiding in the closet from their bad foster parents.

• like i said, nanako likes fighting with nobara, but actually has a lot of fun around her. she also loves panda and thinks he’s so fun and would be a great model. they always get chaotic around each other and turn into instigators.

• mimiko ended up finding an unexpected friendship in toge, he was quiet and she couldn’t understand sign but he always carried a little notebook that he would write notes in for her. they would watch nobara and nanako bicker, and toge would make her laugh by making doodles of them in the pages, and then clap when she drew a better quality version in turn. the way he ruffles her hair reminds her a bit of an older brother. (this is my agenda and i’m dying with it)!!

save ijichi:

• poor ijichi is an education major trying to get his master’s degree. being a teaching assistant was one of the requirements for him to graduate, and being gojo’s teaching assistant is the only position available.

• gojo did not want a teaching assistant, he likes to talk like a squirrel, go on tangents, and essentially not follow a schedule or explain to anyone. having a teaching assistant contradicts that so.

• lol

• gojo enjoys going on a tangent, losing everyone and then pointing at ijichi to answer a trick question.

• he also enjoys playing pranks on him, think of jim from the office. but his pranks are so nonsensical and childish that it gives everyone whiplash. once gojo accused him of passing notes and made him read a note out loud that gojo wrote, it only had a picture of a cat wearing sunglasses on it.

• the students feel so bad for him, when yuuta took the class, he always stayed after just to bow as deep as he could to apologize for his cousin’s behavior.

• every day ijichi tells himself he’s going to get a backbone, then gojo starts laughing and a cold chill runs up his spine

• gojo also leaves all the grading to ijichi but routinely complains about how lenient he is as a grader

• this man is fighting for his life

• in truth, gojo plans to give him a glowing recommendation that’ll guarantee him a high-paying, prestigious job, but he can’t let ijichi think he’s too nice, right?

toge drops out:

• so i think that toge would end up dropping out at the end of his second year in college. he’s just started his major courses, so the majority of his credits are transferable should he choose to come back.

• but it’s after yuuta comes back, and toge expects his mental state to get better. in some ways it does, he’s happy when he’s with them, but when it’s time to go to class he’s right back where he started.

• it’s probably kusakabe, one of his professors, that puts the idea of dropping out in his head. just a passing reference to how the professor dropped out several times before finding what he wanted to do.

• and the idea stayed like an infection, it was all toge could think about when he was finishing up his semester. even worse when their past upperclassmen, who did drop out to open their own bar, came for a visit.

• hakari was so open to questions about it, and kiara looked so happy talking about their business. and all he could remember was how bored and unhappy they were, and how they were thriving.

• and then gojo suggests it.

• “i never really cared about your grades,” he said, “you looked lonely, but you aren’t anymore. but somehow, you’re just as unhappy as the day i found you. all i want for you is to be happy, and i don’t think you’re finding it here.”

• the man was always so uncanny in how he could read anyone’s mind. this time in particular, he offered a solution that toge had never thought about.

• “have you ever thought of culinary school?”

• ‘my parents would never - they’re already threatening to disown me -’

• “let them, i always figured you’d take his last name anyway,” toge chose to ignore that, “but you aren’t alone anymore. so why don’t you try being happy?”

• when toge told yuuta, similar to only a year ago when they were in opposite positions, yuuta asked him softly, “what do you want to do?”

• the answer came easier than he thought

• by the start of the next semester, gojo had helped him enroll in a culinary school nearby.

gojo and getou:

• so these men are the most annoying people to exist at this university, and the board regrets hiring both of them everyday.

• both of them are alumni of the college, and this matters because they had been dating when they were students, but broke up very dramatically just before gojo graduated early.

• they went their separate ways for almost a decade and only really started talking again when getou got hired at the university.

• they only started talking again when shoko forced them to meet her, she wanted her friends back.

• she regretted it only a few months later when they started dating again lol

• so they’re still dating, but everyone thinks that getou is dating manami suda because they were often together.

• but no one mistakes gojo trying to flirt with getou so he has a reputation as a homewrecker. even worse is that getou flirts back so everyone thinks they’re terrible people

• and they think it’s so funny so they only enable people into thinking so, yuuta couldn’t look gojo in the face for a month

• only nanako and mimiko know what’s actually happening and they’re both disgusted and not ready to have gojo as their step-father. megumi knows too but he’s suffering so much that everyone just leaves him alone

• yuuji is so distraught that his gojo-sensei is a horrible person, he and nobara do a confrontation and find out that they were dating the entire time.

• everyone suffers after that because now they find amusement in PDA

• but yes after everything, they do a different storyline every new class like theater kids do

[aledethanlast]

Neil Josten arrives at Palmetto on the first week of August. The air is so thick with moisture it threatens to drown him right here in the middle of the parking lot, where the sun can bake him for the carrion.

He wants to hate this place. If he weren't sent here to play exy, he probably would. As it is, he has to settle for bone-deep suspicion, because this is too much of a good thing for his handlers to give him with no strings attached.

Neil's trolley glides smoothly across the tarmac, still black from a recent recoating. There's an expensive looking car parked right by the entrance, probably belonging to the team's coach, and Neil feels a small pang of longing for his bike. His handlers confiscated it, claiming it's "too flashy". He's pretty sure they just took it to have a hostage, in the absence of any family they could threaten.

The large door is unlocked, and the lounge within well lit. He can hear sounds from the direction of the inner court, but for now his attention comes to the large tattooed man who's face he was shown just two days ago.

Neil's considers stammering, then decides to change tacks. "Coach Wymack," he says in an American Midwest accent. Confidently, but with relief, like a lost lamb happy to find something familiar.

"You must be Neil Josten," Wymack says, pushing himself off the arm of the couch. He'd been waiting for Neil, otherwise he would have been with his players further inside. Neil meets him halfway for a handshake and overcompensates on the grip. "Haven't been to the dorms yet, then?" Neil shakes his head. "That's fine. After this I'm heading over anyway to help the rest of the team move in. You can leave the trolley here if you like."

"I'd rather it stay with me," Neil says, and gives the words an edge. Makes his gaze a dare. Wymack doesn't so much as lift an eyebrow. He just leads Neil down the hall to his office and let the desk split them apart as they sit. It's cluttered but not messy. The paper tag on the back of Wymack's swivel chair says Ikea, and Neil has a hunch it was bought on the same day as the desk.

"Was the flight in alright?" Wymack asks.

Softball question. "Oh, I didn't fly in. I was already in North Carolina so Dave just dropped me off here."

"Dave being David Browning, your parole officer."

Neil nods. "He said you've met already?"

"Briefly." He sits back, considering Neil. Unsure what the man is looking for, he considers Wymack back. "What's your story, kid?"

Neil doesn't hesitate. He didn't spend the past two days hammering out his cover story to stumble right out the gate. Step one: don't actually tell him the story. "How do you mean?"

Wymack reaches past his computer speakers to slap a thin file between them. "There are three pages in this file. One has your description and basic the medical history from your time in juvenile detention. Attached to that is your audition CD. The next two pages are instructions for your parole and what allowances I can give you within them."

He pushes the file aside. "Needless to say, there's absolutely nothing in here I can work with."

"They could've sent you more."

"Yes, but they can also lie to me."

"I can lie to you."

"But if you lie to me first I can choose to believe you anyway."

The basis of a good cover is to mix it in with enough facts that the answers feel natural. So when Neil rolls his eyes like he thinks this whole thing is stupid, it's because he really does think this whole thing is stupid.

Nevertheless. "Parents were assholes so I left home. Got caught burning some shit—"

"What kind of shit?"

"I think it was a bank. Anyways, went to juvie in Arizona, warden was a bitch so I got transferred to Colorado, warden got sick of me so I transferred to North Carolina, warden figured giving me parole is easier than transferring me to prison when I hit 18."

Technically, all of those points were true. The lie lay in the omission.

The bank he'd burned down was in Belize, but when the British caught him getting off the boat in Honduras they were actually expecting someone else.

Arizona and Colorado were little more than couple-week bookends on a two-year string of assignments in the Balkans. Then it was Singapore, which he'd turned into Israel, and THEN he got shipped off to North Carolina.

Wymack nods along. "So why are you really here?"

"To play exy," Neil says sarcastically.

"Alright, let's try again: what is the FBI looking for, that you think is minor enough to be worth playing snitch?"

"They think there's a tie between exy and organized crime." Which is true, and Nathaniel is living proof. "Which is obviously the dumbest thing I've ever—"

"No, it's true," Wymack says, flipping a cool penny into the rails of Neil's train of thought. The crash is magnificent.

"You can...prove this?" His mind splits down two tracks: one, how quickly can he get this assignment over with and get the hell out of here. Two, how long can he drag this assignment out before his handlers become overbearing.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Linkty Dumpty

I was supposed to be on vacation, and while I didn’t do any blogging for a month, that didn’t mean that I stopped looking at my distraction rectangle and making a list of things I wanted to write about. Consequentially, the link backlog is massive, so it’s time to declare bankruptcy with another linkdump:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

[Image ID: John Holbo’s ‘trolley problem’ art, a repeating pattern of trolleys, tracks, people on tracks, and people standing at track switches]++

Let’s kick things off with a little graphic whimsy. You’ve doubtless seen the endless Trolley Problem memes, working from the same crude line drawings? Well, philosopher John Holbo got tired of that artwork, and he whomped up a fantastic alternative, which you can get as a poster, duvet, sticker, tee, etc:

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/145078097

The trolley problem has been with us since 1967, but it’s enjoying a renaissance thanks to the insistence of “AI” weirdos that it is very relevant to our AI debate. A few years back, you could impress uninformed people by dropping the Trolley Problem into a discussion:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/25/mercedes-weird-trolley-problem-announcement-continues-dumb-debate-about-self-driving-cars/

Amazingly, the “AI” debate has only gotten more tedious since the middle of the past decade. But every now and again, someone gets a stochastic parrot to do something genuinely delightful, like the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, who sell chatbots that will pretend to be tantalyzingly confused marks in order to tie up telemarketers and waste their time:

https://jollyrogertelephone.com/

Jolly Roger sells different personas: “Whitebeard” is a confused senior who keeps asking the caller’s name, drops nonsequiturs into the conversation, and can’t remember how many credit-cards he has. “Salty Sally” is a single mom with a houseful of screaming, demanding children who keep distracting her every time the con artist is on the verge of getting her to give up compromising data. “Whiskey Jack” is drunk:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-hire-phone-bots-to-torture-telemarketers-2dbb8457

The bots take a couple minutes to get the sense of the conversation going. During that initial lag, they have a bunch of stock responses like “there’s a bee on my arm, but keep going,” or grunts like “huh,” and “uh-huh.” The bots can keep telemarketers and scammers on the line for quite a long time. Scambaiting is an old and honorable vocation, and it’s good that it has received a massive productivity gain from automation. This is the AI Dividend I dream of.

The less-fun AI debate is the one over artists’ rights and tech. I am foresquare for the artists here, but I think that the preferred solutions (like creating a new copyright over the right to train a model with your work) will not lead to the hoped-for outcome. As with other copyright expansions — 40 years’ worth of them now — this right will be immediately transferred to the highly concentrated media sector, who will simply amend their standard, non-negotiable contracting terms to require that “training rights” be irrevocably assigned to them as a condition of working.

The real solution isn’t to treat artists as atomic individuals — LLCs with an MFA — who bargain, business-to-business, with corporations. Rather, the solutions are in collective power, like unions. You’ve probably heard about the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike, in which creative workers are bargaining as a group to demand fair treatment in an age of generative models. SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher’s speech announcing the strike made me want to stand up and salute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4SAPOX7R5M

The actors’ strike is historic: it marks the first time actors have struck since 2000, and it’s the first time actors and writers have co-struck since 1960. Of course, writers in the Writers Guild of America (West and East) have been picketing since since April, and one of their best spokespeople has been Adam Conover, a WGA board member who serves on the negotiating committee. Conover is best known for his stellar Adam Ruins Everything comedy-explainer TV show, which pioneered a technique for breaking down complex forms of corporate fuckery and making you laugh while he does it. Small wonder that he’s been so effective at conveying the strike issues while he pickets.

Writing for Jacobin, Alex N Press profiles Conover and interviews him about the strike, under the excellent headline, “Adam Pickets Everything.” Conover is characteristically funny, smart, and incisive — do read:

https://jacobin.com/2023/07/adam-conover-wga-strike

Of course, not everyone in Hollywood is striking. In late June, the DGA accepted a studio deal with an anemic 41% vote turnout:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773926/dga-amptp-new-deal-strike

They probably shouldn’t have. In this interview with The American Prospect’s Peter Hong, the brilliant documentary director Amy Ziering breaks down how Netflix and the other streamers have rugged documentarians in a classic enshittification ploy that lured in filmmakers, extracted everything they had, and then discarded the husks:

https://prospect.org/culture/2023-06-21-drowned-in-the-stream/

Now, the streaming cartel stands poised to all but kill off documentary filmmaking. Pressured by Wall Street to drive high returns, they’ve become ultraconservative in their editorial decisions, making programs and films that are as similar as possible to existing successes, that are unchallenging, and that are cheap. We’ve gone directly from a golden age of docs to a dark age.

In a time of monopolies, it’s tempting to form countermonopolies to keep them in check. Yesterday, I wrote about why the FTC and Lina Khan were right to try to block the Microsoft/Activision merger, and I heard from a lot of people saying this merger was the only way to check Sony’s reign of terror over video games:

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

But replacing one monopolist with another isn’t good for anyone (except the monopolists’ shareholders). If we want audiences and workers — and society — to benefit, we have to de-monopolize the sector. Last month, I published a series with EFF about how we should save the news from Big Tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

After that came out, the EU Observer asked me to write up version of it with direct reference to the EU, where there are a lot of (in my opinion, ill-conceived but well-intentioned) efforts to pry Big Tech’s boot off the news media’s face. I’m really happy with how it came out, and the header graphic is awesome:

https://euobserver.com/opinion/157187

De-monopolizing tech has become my life’s work, both because tech is foundational (tech is how we organize to fight over labor, gender and race equality, and climate justice), and because tech has all of these technical aspects, which open up new avenues for shrinking Big Tech, without waiting decades for traditional antitrust breakups to run their course (we need these too, though!).

I’ve written a book laying out a shovel-ready plan to give tech back to its users through interoperability, explaining how to make new regulations (and reform old ones), what they should say, how to enforce them, and how to detect and stop cheating. It’s called “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation” and it’s coming from Verso Books this September:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

[Image ID: The cover of the Verso Books hardcover of ‘The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation]

I just got my first copy in the mail yesterday, and it’s a gorgeous little package. The timing was great, because I spent the whole week in the studio at Skyboat Media recording the audiobook — the first audiobook of mine that I’ve narrated. It was a fantastic experience, and I’ll be launching a Kickstarter to presell the DRM-free audio and ebooks as well as hardcovers, in a couple weeks.

Though I like doing these crowdfunders, I do them because I have to. Amazon’s Audible division, the monopolist that controls >90% of the audiobook market, refuses to carry my work because it is DRM-free. When you buy a DRM-free audiobook, that means that you can play it on anyone’s app, not just Amazon’s. Every audiobook you’ve ever bought from Audible will disappear the moment you decide to break up with Amazon, which means that Amazon can absolutely screw authors and audiobook publishers because they’ve taken our customers hostage.

If you are unwise enough to pursue an MBA, you will learn a term of art for this kind of market structure: it’s a “moat,” that is, an element of the market that makes it hard for new firms to enter the market and compete with you. Warren Buffett pioneered the use of this term, and now it’s all but mandatory for anyone launching a business or new product to explain where their moat will come from.

As Dan Davies writes, these “moats” aren’t really moats in the Buffett sense. With Coke and Disney, he says, a “moat” was “the fact that nobody else could make such a great product that everyone wanted.” In other words, “making a good product,” is a great moat:

https://backofmind.substack.com/p/stuck-in-the-moat

But making a good product is a lot of work and not everyone is capable of it. Instead, “moat” now just means some form of lock in. Davies counsels us to replace “moat” with:

our subscription system and proprietary interface mean that our return on capital is protected by a strong Berlin Wall, preventing our customers from getting out to a freer society and forcing them to consume our inferior products for lack of alternative.

I really like this. It pairs well with my 2020 observation that the fight over whether “IP” is a meaningful term can be settled by recognizing that IP has a precise meaning in business: “Any policy that lets me reach beyond the walls of my firm to control the conduct of my competitors, critics and customers”:

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

To see how that works in the real world, check out “The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy,” a magisterial piece of scholarship from Sarah Lamdan, Jason M. Schultz, Michael Weinberg and Claire Woodcock:

https://www.nyuengelberg.org/outputs/the-anti-ownership-ebook-economy/

Something happened when we shifted to digital formats that created a loss of rights for readers. Pulling back the curtain on the evolution of ebooks offers some clarity to how the shift to digital left ownership behind in the analog world.

The research methodology combines both anonymous and named sources in publishing, bookselling and librarianship, as well as expert legal and economic analysis. This is an eminently readable, extremely smart, and really useful contribution to the scholarship on how “IP” (in the modern sense) has transformed books from something you own to something that you can never own.

The truth is, capitalists hate capitalism. Inevitably, the kind of person who presides over a giant corporation and wields power over millions of lives — workers, suppliers and customers — believes themselves to be uniquely and supremely qualified to be a wise dictator. For this kind of person, competition is “wasteful” and distracts them from the important business of making everyone’s life better by handing down unilateral — but wise and clever — edits. Think of Peter Thiel’s maxim, “competition is for losers.”

That’s why giant companies love to merge with each other, and buy out nascent competitors. By rolling up the power to decide how you and I and everyone else live our lives, these executives ensure that they can help us little people live the best lives possible. The traditional role of antitrust enforcement is to prevent this from happening, countering the delusions of would-be life-tenured autocrats of trade with public accountability and enforcement:

https://marker.medium.com/we-should-not-endure-a-king-dfef34628153

Of course, for 40 years, we’ve had neoliberal, Reaganomics-poisoned antitrust, where monopolies are celebrated as “efficient” and their leaders exalted as geniuses whose commercial empires are evidence of merit, not savagery. That era is, thankfully, coming to an end, and not a moment too soon.

Leading the fight is the aforementioned FTC chair Lina Khan, who is taking huge swings at even bigger mergers. But the EU is no slouch in this department: they’re challenging the Adobe/Figma merger, a $20b transaction that is obviously and solely designed to recapture customers who left Adobe because they didn’t want to struggle under its yoke any longer:

https://gizmodo.com/adobe-figma-acquisition-likely-to-face-eu-investigation-1850555562

For autocrats of trade, this is an intolerable act of disloyalty. We owe them our fealty and subservience, because they are self-evidently better at understanding what we need than we could ever be. This unwarranted self-confidence from the ordinary mediocrities who end up running giant tech companies gets them into a whole lot of hot water.

One keen observer of the mind-palaces that tech leaders trap themselves in is Anil Dash, who describes the conspiratorial, far-right turn of the most powerful men (almost all men!) in Silicon Valley in a piece called “‘VC Qanon’ and the radicalization of the tech tycoons”:

https://www.anildash.com/2023/07/07/vc-qanon/

Dash builds on an editorial he published in Feb, “The tech tycoon martyrdom charade,” which explores the sense of victimhood the most powerful, wealthiest people in the Valley project:

https://www.anildash.com/2023/02/27/tycoon-martyrdom-charade/

These dudes are prisoners of their Great Man myth, and leads them badly astray. And while all of us are prone to lapses in judgment and discernment, Dash makes the case that tech leaders are especially prone to it:

Nobody becomes a billionaire by accident. You have to have wanted that level of power, control and wealth more than you wanted anything else in your life. They all sacrifice family, relationships, stability, community, connection, and belonging in service of keeping score on a scale that actually yields no additional real-world benefits on the path from that first $100 million to the tens of billions.

This makes billionaires “a cohort that is, counterintutively, very easily manipulated.” What’s more, they’re all master manipulators, and they all hang out with each other, which means that when a conspiratorial belief takes root in one billionaire’s brain, it spreads to the rest of them like wildfire.

Then, billionaires “push each other further and further into extreme ideas because their entire careers have been predicated on the idea that they’re genius outliers who can see things others can’t, and that their wealth is a reward for that imagined merit.”

They live in privileged bubbles, which insulates them from disconfirming evidence — ironic, given how many of these bros think they are wise senators in the agora.

There are examples of billionaires’ folly all around us today, of course. Take privacy: the idea that we can — we should — we must — spy on everyone, all the time, in every way, to eke out tiny gains in ad performance is objectively batshit. And yet, wealthy people decreed this should be so, and it was, and made them far richer.

Leaked data from Microsoft’s Xandr ad-targeting database reveals how the commercial surveillance delusion led us to a bizarre and terrible place, as reported on by The Markup:

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchasers-of-pregnancy-tests-to-the-depression-prone-we-found-650000-ways-advertisers-label-you

The Markup’s report lets you plumb 650,000 targeting categories, searching by keyword or loading random sets, 20 at a time. Do you want to target gambling addicts, people taking depression meds or Jews? Xandr’s got you covered. What could possibly go wrong?

The Xandr files come from German security researcher Wolfie Christl from Cracked Labs. Christi is a European, and he’s working with the German digital rights group Netzpolitik to get the EU to scrutinize all the ways that Xandr is flouting EU privacy laws.

Billionaires’ big ideas lead us astray in more tangible ways, of course. Writing in The Conversation, John Quiggin asks us to take a hard look at the much ballyhooed (and expensively ballyhooed) “nuclear renaissance”:

https://theconversation.com/dutton-wants-australia-to-join-the-nuclear-renaissance-but-this-dream-has-failed-before-209584

Despite the rhetoric, nukes aren’t cheap, and they aren’t coming back. Georgia’s new nuclear power is behind schedule and over budget, but it’s still better off than South Carolina’s nukes, which were so over budget that they were abandoned in 2017. France’s nuke is a decade behind schedule. Finland’s opened this year — 14 years late. The UK’s Hinkley Point C reactor is massively behind schedule and over budget (and when it’s done, it will be owned by the French government!).

China’s nuclear success story also doesn’t hold up to scrutiny — they’ve brought 50GW of nukes online, sure, but they’re building 95–120GW of solar every year.

Solar is the clear winner here, along with other renewables, which are plummeting in cost (while nukes soar) and are accelerating in deployments (while nukes are plagued with ever-worsening delays).

This is the second nuclear renaissance — the last one, 20 years ago, was a bust, and that was before renewables got cheap, reliable and easy to manufacture and deploy. You’ll hear fairy-tales about how the early 2000s bust was caused by political headwinds, but that’s simply untrue: there were almost no anti-nuke marches then, and governments were scrambling to figure out low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels (this was before the latest round of fossil fuel sabotage).

The current renaissance is also doomed. Yes, new reactors are smaller and safer and won’t have the problems intrinsic to all megaprojects, but designs like VOYGR have virtually no signed deals. Even if they do get built, their capacity will be dwarfed by renewables — a Gen III nuke will generate 710MW of power. Globally, we add that much solar every single day.

And solar power is cheap. Even after US subsidies, a Gen III reactor would charge A$132/MWh — current prices are as low as A$64-$114/MWh.

Nukes are getting a charm offensive because wealthy people are investing in hype as a way of reaping profits — not as a way of generating safe, cheap, reliable energy.

Here in the latest stage of capitalism, value and profit are fully decoupled. Monopolists are shifting more and more value from suppliers and customers to their shareholders every day. And when the customer is the government, the depravity knows no bounds. In Responsible Statecraft, Connor Echols describes how military contractors like Boeing are able to bill the Pentagon $52,000 for a trash can:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/06/20/the-pentagons-52000-trash-can/

Military Beltway Bandits are nothing new, of course, but they’ve gotten far more virulent since the Obama era, when Obama’s DoD demanded that the primary contractors merge to a bare handful of giant firms, in the name of “efficiency.” As David Dayen writes in his must-read 2020 book Monopolized, this opened the door to a new kind of predator:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

The Obama defense rollups were quickly followed by another wave of rollups, these ones driven by Private Equity firms who cataloged which subcontractors were “sole suppliers” of components used by the big guys. These companies were all acquired by PE funds, who then lowered the price of their products, selling them below cost.

This maximized the use of those parts in weapons and aircraft sold by primary contractors like Boeing, which created a durable, long-lasting demand for fresh parts for DoD maintenance of its materiel. PE-owned suppliers hits Uncle Sucker with multi-thousand-percent markups for these parts, which have now wormed their way into every corner of the US arsenal.

Yes, this is infuriating as hell, but it’s also so grotesquely wrong that it’s impossible to defend, as we see in this hilarious clip of Rep Katie Porter grilling witnesses on US military waste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJhf6l1nB9A

Porter pulls out the best version yet of her infamous white-board and makes her witnesses play defense ripoff Jepoardy!, providing answers to a series of indefensible practices.

It’s sure nice when our government does something for us, isn’t it? We absolutely can have nice things, and we’re about to get them. The Infrastructure Bill contains $42B in subsidies for fiber rollouts across the country, which will be given to states to spend. Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin breaks down the state-by-state spending:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/us-allocates-42b-in-broadband-funding-find-out-how-much-your-state-will-get/

Texas will get $3.31B, California will get $1.86B, and 17 other states will get $1B or more. As the White House announcement put it, “High-speed Internet is no longer a luxury.”

To understand how radical this is, you need to know that for decades, the cable and telco sector has grabbed billions in subsidies for rural and underserved communities, and then either stole the money outright, or wasted it building copper networks that run at a fraction of a percent of fiber speeds.

This is how America — the birthplace of the internet — ended up with some of the world’s slowest, most expensive broadband, even after handing out tens of billions of dollars in subsidies. Those subsidies were gobbled up by greedy, awful phone companies — these ones must be spent wisely, on long-lasting, long-overdue fiber infrastructure.

That’s a good note to end on, but I’ve got an even better one: birds in the Netherlands are tearing apart anti-bird strips and using them to build their nests. Wonderful creatures 1, hostile architecture, 0. Nature is healing:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/11/crows-and-magpies-show-their-metal-by-using-anti-bird-spikes-to-build-nests

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/15/in-the-dumps/#what-vacation

Next Tues, Jul 18, I'm hosting the first Clarion Summer Write-In Series, an hour-long, free drop-in group writing and discussion session. It's in support of the Clarion SF/F writing workshop's fundraiser to offer tuition support to students:

https://mailchi.mp/theclarionfoundation/clarion-write-ins

[Image iD: A dump-truck, dumping out a load of gravel. A caricature of Humpty Dumpty clings to its lip, restrained by a group of straining, Lilliputian men.]

[phantomrose96]

the part of my brain that took one linguistics class is clawing at the walls wondering if savit-e is also the plural. like not only is it a concept with legal and social implications, but reb is asked by the parents three different times who her savit-e is, which means that is a socially acceptable enough question to ask of casual acquaintances, so everyone knows who everyone's claimed savit-e is. so like. what if you have more than one kid? savine is ten and knows enough to be flattered by the implications of reb calling her this. screaming.

(Savit-e)

So I've definitely thought about this. I also think this line of questioning is more interesting if left without a definitive Word of God on it. Savit-e could become plural if it extends to a concept, like "my children are my Savit-e." Or it may truly be a singular claim. A "you get one."

One thing I WILL say, to me I believe the most common answer to "Who is Savit-e?" is "No one." Because the implications behind it are so heavy.

To identify someone as Savit-e gives you immense legal leeway in ensuring their safety above all else. A partial answer to the trolley problem. "Who do you save? You save Savit-e." And no one who subscribes to this societal idea would fault you.

But it also gives you that immense responsibility to save your Savit-e above all else. Over your other children, over your husband, over your other family, over a school bus of burning children, over yourself. You're not allowed to be a bystander. You're not allowed to NOT intervene.

To me, Savit-e is used most often among people who think there may be a reason to fear danger, and a need for ensuring double-measures to act in the protection of someone. Jira and Savine belong to a class of people the "plum men" target. Declaring Savit-e is a means of protection.

And then it does truly become like a pet name. Like a term of endearment. It's a declaration to the world "You are the person I most treasure, who I will protect above myself and everything else." Anyone listening will think twice about touching your Savit-e because you have free reign to protect them by any means necessary. Having a Savit-e is noble. It's a promise to act.

And there is one way to back out of the promise, and that is to transfer Savit-e to yourself.

This is allowed. But the societal response to someone who has declared Savit-e on themselves may be worse than having simply sacrificed themselves.

[holyshonks]

Do you guys wanna see my really awful Cities: Skylines map?

I enjoy city-builders but I'm not good at them in that I am the opposite of a perfectionist. It's fine. We'll just slap a road on there. Only two people in the entire city take the ferry. It's cool, leave it. This road is at a weird angle? Don't care. Don't mind the preschool next to the crematorium.

I call this map "a tale of two cities" which isn't an accurate metaphor because they both suck pretty bad, but I made the right side first so it got all my beginner's mistakes. By the time I got to the left side it occurred to me that most cities operate on some sort of grid, so it's a little more intentional in its design.

Traffic has always been a pain, but to fix it would probably require a full overhaul of the street system (i.e. creating industry-only roads all along the outskirts) and I don't really feel like doing that. So instead I just keep adding new means of getting around to try limit the amount of drivers. I give you: the bridge next to a railroad over a ferry next to another bridge:

Of course this isn't a good solution, so traffic is still terrible. Gridlock in the smog-a-torium:

But this isn't even the worst part. Easily, the worst part is my underground system, so the metro and tunnels. Dark gray is the tunnels, light gray is the metro lines. My metro system is wide-spanning but I didn't feel like making a central hub, so to get from one side of the city to the other you might transfer five times. My tunnels, well...you'll break your neck making those turns.

My bus system is actually pretty good and the people love it.

My highways.....................................................

I also got into trying out new public transit in a small part of the city just to test it out, which led me to have a farming community that exclusively uses trolleys to get around, and my favorite: the monorail that goes from the bridge-rail-ferry to this industrial area. I tried to spruce it up with a cherry blossom park but the trees all died from the toxins 😭😭😭

This train stop sat unused for in-game years and I fully assumed people just didn't want to use it. One time a bear was there. Finally I took a closer look and realize I never connected it to the street.......

Despite how horrible literally everything is about the design of this city, the citizens are actually happy and don't seem to mind? I once followed a person to see what their commute was like, and it took them a full TWENTY FOUR HOURS to get from home to work and they did not care at all. Either that or everyone is woozy from breathing in smog.

[rosekushina]

Everything GREAT about RWBY Volume 7 that Volume 8 Completely Ruined (A Retrospect / Salty Opinion) 

You can disagree with me if you like, but everything below is 100% canon :)

~~~

V7: Maiden Powers recognize Penny as a “real girl” even though she’s a robot and has the aura of a man (her father) - an incredible subversion of the Pinocchio trope that validates Penny and sets up her journey as a Maiden

V8: Penny is turned human against her will and DIES (again), the powers transfer to someone else - copy/paste of Pinocchio

V7: Salem is moments away and fast approaching, so the heroes have literal SECONDS to come up with a plan before she invades Atlas. Salem arrives at the end of the season, ready to strike

V8: Salem WAITS in her whale and doesn’t attack right away, completely retconning the urgency and stakes at the end of Volume 7

V7: Ruby, Blake(?), and Nora want to help Mantle the whole Volume. Team RWBY is angry Ironwood is leaving Mantle behind and want to do something about it - have no plan but are willing to try anyway (very noble but naive)

V8: Ruby abandons Mantle in episode 1 and steals Ironwood’s idea for Amity, Blake and Nora go with her. Yang helps out in Mantle for one episode before abandoning it (everyone abandons Mantle, Salem doesn’t even attack Mantle)

V7: The Staff can only be used for one purpose at a time and if someone else uses it, the previous creation will disappear, foreshadowing that Atlas will inevitably fall and Salem will get the Relic. Ironwood establishes the Staff is keeping Amity up and that the Gravity Dust is a cover-up story for the public

V8: Gravity Dust is apparently holding up Atlas anyway so they have time to use the Staff and evacuate people before it crashes. Team RWBY PURPOSEFULLY destroy a whole continent and takes the Relic out of the Vault for no reason (they do Salem's job for her)

V7: Ironwood wants to save all of Atlas’s citizens, Mantle citizens already evacuated, TWO RELICS = saving Remnant (keeping them away from Salem), and a Maiden. Wants to save who he can in the VERY short time he can, knows that in war there are consequences and you cannot save everyone. They cannot beat Salem so why risk his entire city/two Relics in a battle he knows he cannot win? (Salem is immortal). A HERO/war veteran who recognizes the cost of war

V8: Ironwood kills his own citizens for no reason, threatens to bomb his own city for no reason AFTER Salem is already defeated, and only cares about the “plot of land” that Atlas is on, the upper class, and technology. Turned into a one-dimensional antagonist because he disagrees with the protagonists 

V7: Ironwood sacrifices his own arm to successfully stop a bad guy in the greatest act of heroism the show has ever seen (“Hero” plays in the background)

V8: Ironwood "losing limbs represents him losing his humanity" and how he “has sacrificed everyone else”. Now has a Semblance that he cannot control that can potentially control his mind against his will (never brought up and can be attributed to mental health)

V7: Ruby VS Ironwood - different ideologies on how to save people, but neither of them are wrong. Will they come together and stop their common enemy (Salem), or give-in to fear and become divided? No right or wrong answer - complicated, morally grey, trolley-problem

V8: Ruby denounces Ironwood to the world as she preaches about being united, Ironwood is the big-bad of the season and dies a villain while Salem is right there (common enemy). Team RWBY’s way of thinking was right all along even though they only came up with a plan after Salem was defeated and ended up evacuating anyway, the same thing Ironwood wanted to do from the beginning. Do not acknowledge the parallels between them and how team RWBY did more harm than good - Ren tries to bring this up but is later forced to apologize and treated as wrong even though he was spitting straight facts

V7: Ruby lies to Ironwood and gets called out for it, arrested and loses Ironwood’s trust (immediate consequences of her actions). Ruby did the same thing Ozpin did (lie with good intentions), which they got mad at him for but now she is put in his shoes - start of some great character development for Ruby!

V8: Ruby’s lie is never brought up again and there are no long-term consequences for her actions. She gets away scott-free and never admits to her mistakes. Ruby never realizes that she did the same thing Ozpin did and shows no empathy toward him, makes OZPIN apologize to them while Emerald (a bad guy) sits on the steps and watches that happen

V7: Ruby is put in the same position as Ironwood - who can you save in the short amount of time you have ? Has to learn what it truly means to be a leader in a time of war

V8: Ruby sits and drinks tea for half the Volume wondering what to do and then destroys an entire continent on purpose and loses two Relics in the span of two days - does not acknowledge that Ironowod had a point

V7: Salem cannot be beaten, how will they fight her and her Whale?

V8: Oscar blows her and the Whale up half-way through the Volume after Salem does absolutely nothing the whole season. Ozpin now has a magical bomb in his staff he could have used any time

V7: There is NO WAY to save everyone

V8: The Staff has the power to do literally anything so let's create portals to get everyone out

V7: Vacuo is the next target

V8: Team RWBY dump the entire population of Atlas and Mantle into Vacuo, causing a refugee crisis with the knowledge that Salem is heading there next (Emerald knows this and is on their side now, she would have told them)

V7: Ironwood instantly trusts team RWBY with his entire plan, gives them back the Relic, gives them their huntsman licenses. Meanwhile the girls do not trust their allies (good-guys) and lie to them and go behind their backs and betray their trust - a good message on trust the girls will eventually have to learn

V8: Trust Emerald and tell her everything about their plan, trust Hazel with the password to the Lamp. “Trust is a risk” now after they didn’t trust a GOOD GUY for an entire Volume (hypocrites)

V7: Qrow is indirectly responsible for Clover’s death but takes it out on Ironwood in his anger, wants to fight Ironwood and probably kill him in rage. Probably lets himself be arrested so he can get closer to Ironwood

V8: Qrow gets over his grudge and never confronts Ironwood (we all wanted this to happen right?) after sitting out in prison the whole Volume. Doesn't seem to care that his nieces are out there facing Salem as he's in jail

V7: One question left in the Lamp, but they cannot summon Jynn unless they actually have a question this time (via. Volume 6)

V8: Oscar shows Jynn to Hazel and Emerald, and she lets them go without asking a question

V7: Weiss’ mother tells her not to forget about her brother

V8: Weiss sticks a sword in her brother’s face and only thanks him after he proves himself useful 

V7: Fall of Beacon 2.0 promised

V8: Battle of Atlas lasts one episode while the girls drink tea and watch it happen, none of the main characters (or villains for that matter) take part in the battle (it is pushed to the background)

V7: Salem vs Ozpin epic fight/reunion approaching

V8: Salem and Ozpin say two sentences to each other and do not discuss their pasts and/or fight (Oscar is the one who fights Salem)

V7: Amity is NOT finished so they cannot get a message out

V8: Amity IS finished it just needs more dust to launch

V7: Oscar is separated from the group at the end of V7, will the heroes get to him before Salem does??

V8: The heroes instantly find Oscar in the first few minutes of Volume 8, but then Salem gets him anyway (what was the point)

V7: Every single bad-guy ALIVE in the show is present at the end of the Volume

V8: Mercury and Tyrian leave half-way through the Volume after doing nothing, Ironwood is now the main villain even though Salem is right there. Ruby never comes face-to-face with Salem.

~~~

Volume 7 was (still is?) my favorite Volume. It wasn't perfect, it had flaws, but for what it's worth it gave us an INCREDIBLE set-up for what should have been the best Volume ever (Volume 8). I was beyond excited when Volume 8 came out - we were going to see legendary fights! Ruby was going to get some much-needed character development. But instead, the show completely fumbled the ball HARD, ignored everything amazing it had established the previous Volume, and completely buffered every theme, fight, character, and story-line it had going for it. :( As a fan, and as a Screenwriting Major, this is just disappointing. I'm more sad than I am angry, and this leads me to believe that everything I loved about Volume 7 was created by accident.