#trying to beat the system as an average user

[vivaciouscynner]

Just hear me out...

So, Edge, CoPilot, and worst of all, Recall are just terrible for a large number of reasons - namely privacy and security. We're in a time period where this is just going to get worse and worse that any number of precautions just aren't going to cut it because the people who are doing this to you aren't some random bad actor trying to hack your system. It's a specific bad actor that made the system FOR YOU. And that just about sucks any way you try to cut it.

There are some things you can do - but you might not like it:

Believe it or not, the absolute easiest solution is switching to Linux.

BUT WAIT! DON'T STOP READING JUST YET!

Hear me out. I get it, we grew up on MS Windows and a lot of us are on Apple systems too (which are also riddled with AI garbage), but Linux isn't what it used to be, even a decade ago. And yes, there's like a billion different distributions out there, how do you even choose, right? Let me tell you, even linux users are annoyed by it too. But, linux CAN give you a lot of the same things windows and mac can without the AI and spyware bullshit and the different distributions aren't really that different - it's really just a lot of engineers going, "well this is good, but this is how I WOULD DO IT," and still be able to use the same packages.

Here's how I'd recommend approaching linux without having to throw your os in a garbage fire:

grab a popular distribution of Linux - I recommend Linux Mint (it's pretty user friendly) - read through this: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/choose.html#

get an empty USB stick (preferably around 64 gigs just to have the space, but you can get away with something much smaller) and create a bootable image with it

Restart your pc with the usb stick in - You can now run linux - for free (always free) - off the usb stick without affecting anything else. You can install stuff, mess around, play with it, yadda yadda.

So yes, there will also be a learning curve with it too. It's linux, it's new, it's different. But once you get your feet wet, you'll start seeing windows as super clunky and bloated.

If you don't want to do THAT, you can also try linux through your browser: Read through this article:

Basically it's a virtual machine that you can play with, but it's a little restricted sooo probably not the most accurate experience, but something to still play with. You can also learn a lot from this site as well:

BUT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO ANY OF THAT AND RATHER STAY ON WINDOWS (sorry not a mac user so I can't really think of solutions for mac users)

The alternative is really messing with registry keys and blocking ports that Copilot and Recall use through the firewall which can greatly mess up your PC if you don't know what you're doing.

Did i mention linux is free and it has a MASSIVE community for support?

Anyway - EITHER WAY YOU CHOOSE - we ALL need to start being a little more tech savvy. Things are going to get worse and if we're blind to it, we're walking to our doom willingly.

Just a side note: This doesn't mean linux is like the most secure thing in the world - you still need an antivirus and set up firewalls and be diligent about malware and privacy and such. Like, that's still a 'you' responsibility no matter what operating system you use. So keep that in mind

[sonicasura]

It was normally rather difficult for Optimus and Megatron to get time off outside of GHOST facilities. But, a recent cyber attack and near prison break had left the organization redoing their security system. The two mechs got a confirmation from the shapeshifter ally that they had free time to commence the spar.

Both made to their way alongside Dorothy, Alex, Bumblebee and Elita to the destination that they assured would be safe to go all out in. Elita had been curious about this shapeshifter ally and their gumption to say the (one former) faction leaders lacked some fighting skill. Bumblebee on the other servo was acting mainly as a transportation for the two Maltos.

The scout himself had remained mostly tightlipped about his own experience against Dart.

———————————

They waited in a very broken down shipping yard which they gone over meticulously to make sure no one came around here.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to help during the fight? Even if Megatron and Optimus fight less effectively than the other versions, they are still veteran soldiers.’

‘I’m positive. If a more sapient relic like the AllSpark can affect you, then who knows what else can? Besides—I need to learn how to fight on my own at some point.’

‘Right…’

‘Come on. You will still be monitoring my health and vitals—I know you will stop them both if I get truly overwhelmed.’

‘Always.’

‘Sides, it’s not like I am proud. If I get my butt handled to me—then oh well. That would mean those two are just rusty and not actually had fighters who I fear trying to protect the Terrans.’

‘I do not like how easy you dismiss your own capability. You have done a lot of good, [User]. In and out of the transformations.’

‘If I were to face anyone as a base human, I would get the beat up.’

‘All it would take is going for the jugular with your teeth.’

‘I’m not a freaking lion.’

—ROB’d Anon.

…Dart does not have a good grasp on what is considered an average fighting level. They trained the Vehicons to be able to handle most things—sheer experience in situations other cybertronians would flounder in. Their own flexibility is a touch higher in than other humans. But, the true tell of their fighting experience would be the sheer diversity of switching between forms. Still very skewed.

They don’t panic at least.

Best weapon Dart has is their creativity. Whether it be taking advantage of the environment, an opponent's moves, or their current transformation.

[getitsms]

Bulk SMS Is Growing: Why Mumbai Enterprises Can’t Ignore It in 2025

In a digital age overflowing with shiny new marketing trends — AI-powered bots! viral different campaigns! — It’s easy to forget the humble text message. But here’s the twist: SMS isn’t merely alive. It’s thriving. And if you are a business in Mumbai, it’s now that you can harness all the powers of the Bulk SMS messaging services before your competitors beat you to the inbox.

The Silent Digital Warrior: Why SMS is the True Champion

The truth is: Most of us have inboxes full of unread emails and social feeds full of videos and photos we keep scrolling past. But text messages? Those get read. Fast.

·         98% Open Rate: The average SMS is read in under 3 minutes. That’s marketing magic.

·         Direct & Personal: communicate with your audience instantly on the most personal channel—their mobile device.

·         No Wi-Fi? No Problem: SMS works offline, unlike emails or apps. It’s accessible, always.

·         High Recall: The messages stick. People actually remember texts more than fleeting social ads.

Bulk SMS: The underrated Growth Hack for Businesses

If you own a B2B or B2C business in Mumbai and still haven’t used Bulk SMS, clearly, you’re not aware of its potential. Start-ups, e-commerce brands, health-care providers, salons, education hubs — they’re all getting with it. Here's why:

1.      Cost-Effective, Big Impact

Ads in Mumbai can quickly become expensive. Bulk SMS? It’s affordable with a great ROI. Send a campaign out to thousands and pay only a fraction of what you’d spend on paid ads.

2.      Personalization at Scale

For dynamic fields, messages that read “Hi [Name], your order is ready!” make SMS feel personal. And guess what? Personal sells.

3.      It’s More Than Just Texts Now

Current features of Bulk SMS systems are:

·         Rich Communication Services (RCS) – RCS Messaging with images, buttons, videos

·         2-Way Messaging for customer support

·         Scheduled messages, automated reminders, and birthday greetings

·         Instant OTPs and delivery alerts

·         This isn’t your grandma’s texting. It’s smart, strategic, and scalable.

4.      Multilingual Reach in a Diverse City

Mumbai is a city of many tongues—Marathi, Hindi, English, and Gujarati. Bulk SMS platforms let you craft messages in regional languages, increasing engagement and trust with local customers.

Integration-Ready: SMS Plays Well with Others

Bulk SMS doesn’t try to replace your other channels—it complements them.

·         Email Marketing: Use SMS to follow up on email campaigns.

·         Apps: Notify app users with quick updates or OTPs.

·         Social media: Share links to your campaigns or events directly via text.

How to choose a Bulk SMS service provider in Mumbai

The increasing demand has motivated several Bulk SMS providers in Mumbai. Not all platforms are created equal, however. For the service, make sure that a provider has:

·         Real-time delivery tracking

·         API integrations

·         Easy-to-use dashboard

·         24/7 customer support

·         Cheap, transparent pricing

·         Support for DLT compliance

Need help finding the right provider? Have a look at our Top Bulk SMS Service Providers in Mumbai and decide which best meets your business requirements.

Ending thoughts: Don't Just Send Texts—Send Business Growth

A lot has changed in the world of digital marketing, but SMS remains as dominant as ever. And it is quick, intimate, and remarkably effective in Mumbai’s frenetic market. No matter if you are a small or large business, a retailer or an agency, adding SMS to your marketing plans puts you in the driver’s seat for getting direct responses from customers.

So, is it time to do some serious rethinking of that humble text message? Absolutely.

Bulk SMS marketing in Mumbai is more than a mass blast—it's your secret weapon for 2025.

[motorcyclegearpuzzle]

AGV Tourmodular Review

This AGV Tourmodular review brings together my experience and curiosity about modular helmets. Riders want gear that balances safety, comfort, and function.

AGV crafts the Tourmodular with a shell that blends carbon, aramid, and fiberglass, meeting strict ECE 22.06 standards.

So, what sets the AGV Tourmodular apart from other modular helmets on the market?

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Material-Features Carbon, Aramid, And Fiberglass

The agv tourmodular review highlights a shell made from carbon, aramid, and fiberglass. This mix keeps the helmet sturdy and light, which I noticed during long rides.

The shell feels rigid, and I have to take off my glasses to put it on, but it gives me confidence in its strength

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Sizing-Offers Three Shell Sizes For A Balanced Fit

Sizing on the agv tourmodular covers XS to XXL, using three shell sizes to keep the fit trim for each head shape.

My fit was true to size, snug at first, but the pressure around my jaw eased after a few rides. Forum users say it fits like the Schuberth C3 Pro, with more space around the ears and a secure feel.

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Interior-Combines Ritmo And Shalimar Linings

Inside, the agv tourmodular test uses Ritmo and Shalimar linings for comfort and moisture control. I like the glasses channels, which make it easy to ride with my frames. The interior is removable and washable, so it stays fresh after long trips.

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Ventilation-Provides Adjustable Vents And Air Channels

Ventilation on the agv tourmodular helmet review stands out with three chin vents and a large top vent, plus sixteen internal channels.

I rode in 95°F heat and still felt cool, and the air moved well around my head. Other riders say the venting beats the Schuberth C3 Pro, with more airflow at speed.

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Visor-Delivers Wide Field Of Vision And Pinlock

The visor on the agv tourmodular review gives a 190-degree view and comes with a Pinlock 120 insert to stop fogging.

I use the drop-down sun visor often, but it sometimes fogs up when it’s cold. Some users report the shield clip can fall out, the visor loosens over time, and the opening range is limited.

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Weight-Reduces Fatigue On Long Rides

The agv tourmodular in XL weighs about 4.3 pounds, which feels balanced and doesn’t cause neck pain after long days.

The aerodynamic shape helps cut down on wind drag, even at highway speeds. I noticed less fatigue on my neck compared to other modular helmets I’ve owned.

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Noise Isolation-Measures Among Quietest Modular Helmets

Noise isolation on the agv tourmodular test averages 99 decibels at highway speed, making it one of the quietest modular helmets on the market.

I found it quieter than my previous Schuberth, especially with the chin curtain in place. Forum riders agree that wind and road noise are well controlled, even at speed.

Agv Tourmodular Helmet-Bluetooth-Integrates Cardo-Based Insyde System

Bluetooth on the agv tourmodular motorcycle helmet review uses the Insyde system, developed with Cardo, and fits right into the helmet.

I set up the system in a few minutes, but voice commands don’t always work with the chin bar closed. Some riders use other brands, but the built-in system feels made for this helmet and works well for group rides.

If you want a modular helmet that blends safety, comfort, and tech, the agv tourmodular review shows it’s a strong option for touring. I’d try it on first to check the fit, but after 2,000 miles, I’m happy with my choice.

[fromdevcom]

Recent studies indicate that a vast amount of online businesses are failing to attract consumers to make actual purchases online. The current checkout abandonment rate stands at an average rate of 67.4%. While a number of online ‘window shoppers’ contribute towards 16% of abandoned carts, there are many avoidable factors which contribute to this high percentage. There is a lot to consider when running an online e-commerce business; while a website might tick all the boxes when it comes to offering unique, well priced products with an exceptionally designed website to match, the layout of the checkout system itself yet another vital final hurdle which can make or break a sale. Any hint of doubt which surfaces in the mind of a consumer will lead to instant abandonment. Here we look into some of the leading factors which lead to checkout abandonment: Unexpected Price / Competitor Beats Your Price One of the most common reason people abandon the shopping cart http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate is the price of products. There is no doubt that thousands of online shopping stores are available for customers to buy products and if the price is not competitive it may not sell. When most of your products are highly priced against your competition you may loose the customer forever due to loss of trust on your pricing. Its super easy for people to search on Google for price of a product and compare them. Google shopping search results are also improving in recent past. This gives people more choices and they are going to choose the best price on the web. How To Avoid Unreasonable Pricing? There are few ways you can make the pricing reasonable for the customers. If you are not able to compete on product price may be you can offer options like free shipping or store pickup for free that can improve chances of customer choosing you over paying for shipping cost on a competitor website. Frequently search for product prices on web and make sure your prices are competitive. Casual Users As more and more devices are evolving, many casually browsing visitors land on your website. It is unlikely that they may buy something however it may still look like abandonment on your website statistics. How Can We Convert Casual Users Into Customers? Quite honestly nothing much can be done about it. However if your website has the basics done right and is attractive to the casual users, it may result in more number of returning customers from a big chunk of casual users. Complicated Checkout Process Having a complicated checkout process is going to annoy your visitor. Each and every step needs to be well thought and provide enough information to the user about what is going on in the process. If user is required to do more than 2-3 clicks for completing order than you may have something wrong in your checkout process. How To Improve Checkout Process? Below are some ways you can improve checkout process. Consider using one click checkout options for returning customers. Use user profile information for populating shipping and billing information. Save user preferences from previous orders and try to use them as default values for future checkouts. For example order confirmation email, phone number frequently used shipping address. Site Speed Consumers are often pressed for time and spoilt for choice. Many online purchases are made quickly in between other commitments. Consumers will not tolerate slow page loading times; research indicates that on average a consumer will wait 3 seconds for a page to load, if it does not load within this time frame, they will simply navigate elsewhere, 80% of these consumers will never return to your site. Each and every page must load quickly to ensure the consumer’s attention is maintained. This is especially vital at the checkout stage, any doubt placed within the consumers mind at this point will lead to a lost sale. How To Speed Up My Website? Use A CDN Make sure the images and videos are loading fast on your site.

You can easily host them on a cheap CDN and get good performance. If you are looking for more reliable CDN services you may be interested in checking out our exclusive comparison of Akamai vs Incapsula. More Tips To Improve Site Performance This is a big topic and best place to start with is this article about speeding up your website. Poor Website Design With the sheer amount of competition between brands online, it isn’t always easy to attract customers to your website, especially difficult for smaller companies with smaller budgets to negotiate. Even once a consumer has discovered your site, they will then make an instant judgement based upon their initial thoughts about the design of your website and the ‘feel’ of your brand which will lead to them exploring your website further or navigating towards a competitor. 96.2% of online consumers state that visual design appearance of a website affects their purchasing decisions. From here if they decide to stay and browse your products, your offerings must be well priced, well presented, and offer all the information a customer may wish to know such as product sizes, colours and company return policies. Products are assessed within 90 seconds, therefore product presentation is key. Multiple product views and alternative images can increase sales by 58% and a further 31% of consumer’s state they are influenced by product videos. Videos generally lead to 1 in 2 consumers feeling more confident about a purchase of a product. Product descriptions and imagery are fundamental; a staggering 25% of returned products can be explained by the customer citing that the ‘product wasn’t what was expected’; therefore the product description and images did not clearly demonstrate the product in the correct manor. Product photography must be clear and represent the product. 360 degree photography can also be hugely beneficial for online retailers. How To Improve The Web Design Of My Site? The Solution involves a lot of efforts, below are some guidelines. You Must Hire a professional web designer. Trust me its going to pay of much more than you will ever expect. Try to stick to latest trends and technologies for web design. If you are using outdated designs it may not sell. For example this decade is for HTML5 websites, if your website is not compatible with HTML5 you may be lacking a lot of good user experience features on your system. Go Responsive - this is age of mobile phones, tablets, laptops and high resolution monitors. Your site must be responsive for all platform. It can be easily browsed and must provide the best possible experience on each platform. Choose the right eCommerce platform. There are dozens of free ecommerce solutions available on web. Not everything will suite you. For example Magento is popular choice of millions . You must stick to the platform that solved the problem of your customers. Whatever platform you choose make sure you get the best out of it. Improve the user experience - At the end it may not really matter if you have extra ordinary technology in your store but user experience is not good. Improvise on the user experience and your sales will skyrocket. Lack Of Information 8% of consumers feel frustrated when shopping online that there is no visible contact deals in which to contact the seller with queries. This reduces trust and leads to abandonment rates while a further 11% dislike the unclear delivery details – when will the product be delivered? What will it cost? How will it be sent? How Improve The Product Information? This is a simple fix. Try to present all information available to the user on on product details page. Make sure you watch for frequently asked questions about product on your website or on web. Try to answer those questions on product details page. Include product dimensions when possible. Include as many picture as you can. Take pictures in multiple angles to provide perspective. If possible try to include video demonstration of the product.

Insufficient Product Reviews 85% of consumers will consider online reviews before committing to a purchase. It is important reviews, customer recommendations or testimonials are clear for customers to read. Of course one bad review will also do tremendous damage, so ensure customer service is top notch and follow up with customers to gain reviews after purchases. 67% of consumers will read 6 reviews of less before considering a purchase, therefore it is wise to display a number of individual product reviews. How Improve The Product Reviews? This is a important step in a ecommerce store improvement. Following things can be done. Try to ask your customer to review the product after they receive it. Reward your customers for providing feedback. This will encourage more people to write reviews. Try to get detailed and genuine reviews instead of short ones. Address negative reviews problem quickly. Try to improve the product and connect with the unhappy customer to get more details on disappointment. Coupons And Deals 57% of consumers will make a purchase after discovering a coupon code. Coupons can significantly increase sales and lead to 4% improved customer satisfaction. How To Improve Coupons And Deals? Offer deals and coupon in timely manner. Many products are seasonal and a deal on them at right time can do wonders for your business. Keep an eye on season for product. Promote the coupon with affiliates and coupon websites. Poor Shipping Options 59% of consumers will consider shipping costs and 44% will abandon a cart due to high or unfair shipping costs. Delivery times are considered by customers, but only 24% of consumers feel next day delivery is important. Shipping costs are something that the consumer will highly consider, if the costs add too much to the overall purchase cost, the consumer will seek the same or a similar product elsewhere, no surprise considering 53% of consumers state that low shipping rates can be a key reason for swapping online retailers. How To Improve Shipping? When possible offer free shipping. Encourage buying more stuff by offering free shipping on a order over a price. Provide multiple options for shipping in terms of speed and cost. Payment And Security Problems While consumers have now become accustom to shopping online, it is still vital consumers feel secure when entering their card details. More than 80% of consumers feel more secure when they recognise trustworthy card logos prominently displayed within a website, the card logos displayed must of course be accepted within the payment process of the website. 59% of consumers will abandon their purchase if their preferred method of payment is not available, and 40% state that they feel more confident when more than one payment method is available. It is therefore vital to offer customers a range of payment options, display relevant security logos and accepted card logos. Overall, any online entrepreneur or brand must consider these factors. The age old saying ‘keep it simple’ applies online. Pop up boxes, asking for unnecessary information, asking for the same information twice, and hidden charges will only cause your customer to become frustrated and navigate elsewhere. By providing a clear, efficient website with clearly displayed products and an easy to use, fast checkout system which does not bombard your customer with newsletter sign ups, account registration and demand too much unnecessary personal information will improve sales. British retail giant ASOS inserted a guest checkout option in 2011 which lead to an increase of sales by 50%. This highlights just how consumers behave online, they like simplicity and speed. How To Fix Payment And Security Problems? This is not as easy as it may sound. But you may still do some things to be better on payment and security. Make sure you are using SSL for your payments. Use security audits by third party companies to assess any vulnerabilities. Use trusted solutions like Paypal, instead of going to a cheaper option.

Hope you find this article useful in improving your website sales. Please don't forget to share your thoughts in comments. Emma works with the US development team at vouchercloud.net. She works with the team to plan enticing voucher code campaigns for the brands they represent which will successfully lead to an increase in sales. Consumer psychology and interaction is something all e-commerce businesses must consider in order to provide consumers which what they expect. It is also vital to stay ahead of competitors.

[supplementzen]

The Genius Wave Reviews~A New Honest Review & Legit?!!) ~!~he Genius Wave Reviews - Genius Wave Theta^@TGW~39!

👉 Discover The Genius Wave for Ultimate Cognitive Enhancement

Verdict: The Genius Wave Reviews Reviews

Overall, The Genius Wave Reviews Reviews are highly positive, with an average rating of 4.92/5. This program offers a safe and effective way to enhance cognitive performance, reduce stress, and improve sleep without major lifestyle changes. If you're seeking a convenient solution for brain optimization, it’s certainly worth trying.

In the modern world, mental clarity and optimal brain function are more important than ever. With work demands, digital distractions, and chronic stress, many people are exploring new methods to enhance cognitive health. One such emerging tool is The Genius Wave, a brainwave therapy program aimed at unlocking mental potential. In this article, we provide a detailed exploration of "The Genius Wave reviews Reviews," including its working principles, benefits, pros and cons, pricing, bonuses, and refund policy.

👉 Unlock Focus and Creativity with The Genius Wave Today

The Genius Wave: Overview

Feature

Details

Product Name

The Genius Wave

Category

Brainwave Entrainment Device

Purpose

Cognitive Enhancement, Focus, Creativity, Mental Clarity

Technology

Brainwave Entrainment (Theta Wave Stimulation)

Main Benefits

Enhances focus, boosts creativity, improves productivity, supports mental clarity

Usage

15-30 minutes daily for optimal results

Number of Reviews

Over 99,000 positive reviews

Average Rating

4.99/5

Satisfaction Guarantee

180-day money-back guarantee

Price

$39 per device

Purchase Information

Available only on the official website

What Is The Genius Wave?

The Genius Wave is a neurostimulation program designed to improve brain function by using targeted sound waves and brainwave modulation techniques. This program uses binaural beats, isochronic tones, and other auditory technologies to synchronize brainwaves, helping individuals achieve cognitive states such as heightened focus, relaxation, and improved creativity.

Whether you are an executive seeking better mental performance or a student looking to enhance memory retention, The Genius Wave claims to offer solutions by harnessing the science of brainwaves.

👉 Shop The Genius Wave and Improve Memory & Creativity

How Does The Genius Wave Work?

The Genius Wave is based on principles of neuroscience. Our brains operate at different frequencies depending on the mental state. For example:

Beta Waves (14-30 Hz): Associated with active thinking and problem-solving.

Alpha Waves (8-13 Hz): Linked to calm, alert relaxation.

Theta Waves (4-7 Hz): Associated with creativity and meditation.

Delta Waves (0.5-4 Hz): Found in deep sleep and restorative states.

The Genius Wave program uses audio sessions designed to guide the brain into these different frequencies, helping users switch between mental states for better cognitive performance. This process, known as brainwave entrainment, helps recalibrate the brain to function optimally.

👉 Claim Your Genius Wave Today – 180-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Key Benefits of The Genius Wave

Enhanced Focus and Productivity: Users report improved attention spans and sharper mental clarity during tasks.

Stress Relief and Relaxation: The audio sessions are designed to calm the nervous system, aiding in stress management.

Boosted Creativity: Theta wave stimulation enhances creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.

Improved Memory and Learning: Memory recall improves with repeated sessions, especially with beta and alpha waves.

Better Sleep Quality: Deep delta wave sessions promote restorative sleep, improving overall well-being.

👉 Boost Productivity with The Genius Wave Theta Stimulation

Who Can Benefit from The Genius Wave?

Students: For improved concentration and retention of information.

Professionals: To boost productivity and stay mentally sharp.

Creatives: Artists, musicians, and writers seeking inspiration.

Individuals with Anxiety: For relaxation and better stress management.

Sleep-Deprived Individuals: To achieve restful, deep sleep.

Pros and Cons of The Genius Wave

Pros

Backed by Neuroscience: Uses scientifically validated brainwave frequencies.

Non-Invasive: No medications or supplements required.

Versatile Sessions: Offers various tracks for focus, creativity, relaxation, and sleep.

Convenient Access: Available as downloadable audio files that users can access anytime.

Effective for Stress Relief: Promotes mental clarity and relaxation with regular use.

No Known Side Effects: Unlike pharmaceutical interventions, it does not cause adverse reactions.

Cons

Requires Consistency: Results depend on regular and committed use.

Not a Medical Solution: May not address severe cognitive issues or mental health disorders.

Costly for Some Users: Not everyone may find the program affordable.

Device-Dependent: Requires a compatible audio device for use.

Limited Scientific Consensus: While promising, brainwave therapy research is still evolving.

👉 Start Your Journey to Peak Focus with The Genius Wave

Price of The Genius Wave

The Genius Wave is generally available as a one-time purchase that grants lifetime access to the full program. The pricing may vary depending on promotional offers, but the standard cost is:

Basic Package: $39 – Includes access to essential audio sessions for focus and relaxation.

Premium Package: $99 – Provides additional tracks for sleep enhancement and creativity.

Complete Package: $149 – Grants full access to all modules, including new updates and bonuses.

👉 Order The Genius Wave for Mental Clarity and Success

Bonuses Included with The Genius Wave

The Genius Wave program offers exclusive bonuses to enhance the user experience. Depending on the package purchased, the following bonuses may be included:

Meditation Mastery Guide: A step-by-step guide on mindfulness meditation techniques.

Lifetime Updates: Access to newly developed audio tracks at no extra cost.

Support Community Membership: Join a private group of like-minded individuals for guidance and motivation.

Productivity Planner: A digital tool to plan daily tasks and achieve long-term goals.

Refund Policy of The Genius Wave

The Genius Wave offers a 60-day money-back guarantee. If users are unsatisfied with the results within the first 60 days of purchase, they can request a full refund with no questions asked. The refund process is straightforward, ensuring customer satisfaction and risk-free trials.

The Genius Wave vs. Billionaire Brain Wave: A Comprehensive Comparison

Feature

The Genius Wave 🧠

Billionaire Brain Wave 💸

Purpose

Cognitive Enhancement, Focus, Creativity, Mental Clarity

Mindset Shift, Wealth Attraction, Positive Thinking, Mental Empowerment

Technology

Brainwave Entrainment (Theta Wave Stimulation) 🔊

Brainwave Entrainment (Alpha and Theta Waves) 🌊

Target Audience

Professionals, students, creatives, individuals seeking mental enhancement

Entrepreneurs, business owners, individuals aiming for financial success and mindset shifts

Key Benefits

- Boosts focus and creativity

- Increases productivity

- Enhances mental clarity 🌟

- Promotes a wealth-oriented mindset

- Encourages positive financial habits

- Boosts mental confidence 💪

Usage

15-30 minutes daily for optimal cognitive results

10-15 minutes daily for mindset improvement and wealth-building strategies

Main Brainwaves Stimulated

Theta Waves

Alpha and Theta Waves

Number of Reviews

Over 99,000 positive reviews 🌟

75,000+ positive reviews ⭐

Average Rating

4.99/5

4.8/5

Effectiveness Timeline

Initial results within the first week; significant improvements in focus and creativity in 30 days ⏳

Noticeable mindset shifts within 2 weeks; full impact on financial habits after 30 days 📅

Satisfaction Guarantee

180-day money-back guarantee ✅

60-day money-back guarantee 💰

Unique Selling Point

Enhances cognitive skills for personal and professional growth

Builds a wealth-oriented mindset and confidence for financial success

Price

$199 per device 💲

$150 per device 💵

Purchase Information

Exclusively available on the official website 🌐

Available on the official website 🌐

Who Should Use It?

People seeking mental clarity, focus, and creativity

Those looking to improve their financial situation through mindset transformation 💼

Both The Genius Wave and the Billionaire Brain Wave utilize brainwave entrainment to unlock potential but serve different purposes. The Genius Wave focuses on cognitive enhancement, making it ideal for students, professionals, and creatives. In contrast, Billionaire Brain Wave is tailored for those looking to attract wealth, shift financial mindsets, and develop positive financial habits.

Your choice depends on whether you aim to boost mental clarity and focus or develop a mindset

[newsblog12]

Tech Tidbits: Artists vs. AI, Apple’s Latest Move, and Yahoo’s Big Buy

Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, Katy Perry and other musicians sign letter against irresponsible AI

AI News A group of 200 musicians signed an open letter calling on tech companies and developers to not undermine human creativity with AI music generation tools. The list of undersigned artists is so power-packed and wide-ranging that it could make for a great Coachella lineup — it features Billie Eilish, the Bob Marley estate, Chappell Roan, Elvis Costello, Greta Van Fleet, Imagine Dragons, Jon Bon Jovi, the Jonas Brothers, Kacey Musgraves, Katy Perry, Mac DeMarco, Miranda Lambert, Mumford & Sons, Nicki Minaj, Noah Kahan, Pearl Jam, Sheryl Crow and Zayn Malik, among others. “When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods,” the letter reads. “Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models… For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”

These artists are right. The AI models that generate new music, artwork, and writing function by training on massive datasets of existing work, and in most cases, asking to remove your work from these models is a futile exercise. It would be as if one of these artists tried to prevent anyone from pirating their music—it’s just not realistic. It’s already possible to make convincing deepfakes of popular artists, and the technology will only keep getting better. Some companies, like Adobe and Stability AI, are working on AI music generators that use licensed or royalty-free music. But even these tools could negatively impact artists who make scores for TV commercials or other beats that an artist might license for their work. Historically, musicians have gotten the short end of the stick as technology gets more and more sophisticated. First, it was file-sharing that made it easy to get music for free; streaming emerged as the answer for that issue, but it’s not one that’s satisfied artists. The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) has spent years working to secure better streaming payouts for artists—the artists in the guild estimate that Spotify’s average streaming royalty rate is about $0.0038, or about a fourth of a cent. So it makes sense that musicians remain skeptical of this emerging technology.

Authors have also taken a stand against the rise of generative AI. In July, over 15,000 writers—including James Patterson, Michael Chabon, Suzanne Collins, Roxane Gay, and others—signed a similar open letter, addressed to the CEOs of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM and Microsoft. “These technologies mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill,” the authors’ letter reads. But these tech companies aren’t listening. You can still go on ChatGPT and ask it to churn out a passage in the style of Margaret Atwood — it’s not necessarily good, but it does indicate that the large language model has ingested “The Handmaid’s Tale” and can spit out a degraded version of it. And since copyright law isn’t necessarily sophisticated enough to address generative AI, legal recourse is pretty useless at this point. “This assault on human creativity must be stopped,” the musicians’ letter says. “We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.” SOURCE

Now Apple Vision Pro Personas can float freely across different apps

AI News As of today, Apple has introduced an enhanced feature for Vision Pro users – the “spatial Persona” capability, leveraging VisionOS 1.1. This update transcends traditional FaceTime interactions, allowing users to engage in a more immersive experience with Share-Play-enabled applications. Users can now collaborate, play games, or enjoy media together, simulating the presence in the same physical space. Originally previewed to developers last year, this functionality is now accessible in the Persona beta. It enables individual users to manipulate and reposition objects within their view, independently of how it affects another user’s perspective. Additionally, spatial audio technology aims to enhance the realism of the virtual environment, giving a sense of the other person’s location within it. To activate spatial Personas, users must update their devices to VisionOS 1.1 and select the option during a FaceTime call. The feature supports group interactions of up to five participants simultaneously. The effectiveness of this feature remains under evaluation, particularly due to its dependency on Share-Play and the relatively underdeveloped Vision Pro app ecosystem. The potential for reducing feelings of isolation through virtual companionship in activities such as movie watching will also be a point of interest in its real-world application. SOURCE 

Yahoo is buying Artifact, the AI news app from the Instagram co-founders

AI News Artifact, an AI news recommendation tool co-founded by Instagram’s creators, didn’t achieve widespread traction but is poised for a resurgence under Yahoo’s banner. Despite its innovative approach to curating news for readers, Artifact struggled to expand its user base. Yahoo, with its vast audience, sees an opportunity to inject cutting-edge technology into its services, aiming for a rejuvenation in the competitive news aggregation space. Yahoo has acquired the technology behind Artifact, not its team, with co-founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom serving as “special advisors” rather than joining Yahoo directly. The transition marks the end of Artifact as an independent app, a decision made three months after its creators announced its discontinuation, citing limitations in market potential as a key factor. Despite initial plans to move on without seeking buyers or additional funding, interest from several companies, including Yahoo, prompted reconsideration. Yahoo’s acquisition reflects a strategic move to harness AI for enhancing content personalization and recommendation, leveraging Artifact’s sophisticated algorithms. The collaboration promises to bring Artifact’s advanced content categorization and user experience design to Yahoo News, potentially expanding to other Yahoo platforms. This integration aims to significantly increase the reach and impact of Artifact’s technology, offering personalized news experiences to Yahoo’s 185 million monthly users.

As Artifact’s technology integrates into Yahoo’s ecosystem, the focus will be on gradual implementation, ensuring the sophisticated AI algorithms adapt effectively to Yahoo’s infrastructure. This partnership not only offers a new lease on life for Artifact’s innovations but also signals Yahoo’s ambition to pioneer a future-oriented news service, powered by state-of-the-art AI personalization techniques. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom reflect on the journey and future possibilities, emphasizing their ongoing interest in AI’s transformative potential. While they explore new ventures, the successful integration of Artifact into Yahoo stands as their immediate goal, promising to redefine how users interact with digital content in an AI-driven world. SOURCE

Conclusion

The confluence of concerns from music artists about AI’s impact on creativity, Apple’s innovative expansion of Vision Pro’s capabilities, and Yahoo’s strategic acquisition of Artifact underscores a week of significant developments in the technology landscape. While renowned musicians advocate for responsible AI use, fearing for their creative integrity and livelihoods, tech giants like Apple and Yahoo are advancing the frontiers of AI and digital interaction. Apple’s Vision Pro introduces an immersive, spatial Persona feature, redefining virtual collaboration, while Yahoo’s acquisition of Artifact aims to revolutionize personalized news through advanced AI technology. Together, these stories reflect the ongoing dialogue between technological advancement and its ethical implications, highlighting both the potential of AI to enhance human experiences and the critical need for its thoughtful application. As the digital and creative worlds continue to intersect, the challenge lies in harnessing AI’s power to foster innovation while safeguarding the essence of human creativity and connection. Stay connected with Arcot Group for more AI News into how such collaborations are reshaping the tech landscape and paving the way for future innovations. For further reading on similar breakthroughs and the impact of AI and robotics, explore our blog.Post

[douchebagbrainwaves]

APPARENTLY OUR SITUATION WAS NOT UNUSUAL

Enjoy it while it lasts, and get as much done as you can, because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. Sites of this type will get their attention. The fact that there's no conventional number. Don't fix Windows, because the remaining. And what drives them both is the number of new shares to the angel; if there were 1000 shares before the deal, this means 200 additional shares. This is not as selfish as it sounds. For the average startup fails. It spread from Fortran into Algol and then to depend on it happening. Seeing the system in use by real users—people they don't know—gives them lots of new ideas is practically virgin territory.

Auto-retrieving spam filters would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous. When someone's working on a problem where their success can be measured, you win. I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. However, the easiest and cheapest way for them to do it gets you halfway there. No one uses pen as a verb in spoken English. We'd ask why we even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. Conditionals. Poetry is as much music as text, so you start to doubt yourself. Between them, these two facts are literally a recipe for exponential growth. In languages, as in any really bold undertaking, merely deciding to do it. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense something is going on.

It's easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they're trying to ignore you out of existence. Google. Long words for the first time should be the ideas expressed there. If a link is just an empty rant, editors will sometimes kill it even if it's on topic in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can bear the risk of failure. I'm less American than I seem. The distinction between expressions and statements. So perhaps the best solution is to add a few more checks on public companies. Let me repeat that recipe: finding the problem intolerable and feeling it must be true that only 1.

Well, I said a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind—to work on a Python project than you could to work on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to bite off some subset of the problem. A company that needed to build a factory or hire 50 people obviously needed to raise a large round and risk losing the investors you already have if you can't raise the full amount. And isn't popularity to some extent its own justification? I realize I might seem to be any less committed to the business. Surely that's mere prudence? The measurement of performance will tend to push even the organizations issuing credentials into line. Number 6 is starting to have a piratical gleam in their eye. About a year after we started Y Combinator that the most important skills founders need to learn. When the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and demand that it take immediate action to cure any past violations of securities laws. Within a few decades old, and rapidly evolving. I didn't say so, but I'm British by birth. Investors tend to resist committing except to the extent you can.

I'm talking to companies we fund? But if we can decide in 20 minutes, should it take anyone longer than a couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, the more demanding the application, the more demanding the application, the more extroverted of the two founders did most of the holes are. We funded them because we liked the founders so much. And such random factors will increasingly be able to brag that he was an investor. You'd feel like an idiot using pen instead of write in a different language than they'd use if they were expressed that way. The safest plan for him personally is to stick close to the margin of failure, and the time preparing for it beforehand and thinking about it afterward. The theory is that minor forms of bad behavior encourage worse ones: that a neighborhood with lots of graffiti and broken windows becomes one where robberies occur. S s: n. Bootstrapping Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors at all, it means you don't need them.

It's not just that you can't judge ideas till you're an expert in a field. And the way to do it gets you halfway there. Angels who only invest occasionally may not themselves know what terms they want. But the raison d'etre of all these institutions has been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period. If someone pays $20,000 from their friend's rich uncle, who they give 5% of the company they take is artificially low. But because seed firms operate in an earlier phase, they need to spend a lot on marketing, or build some kind of announcer. There are millions of small businesses in America, but only a little; they were both meeting someone they had a lot in common with. We present to him what has to be treated as a threat to a company's survival. S i; return s;; This falls short of the spec because it only works for integers. He said their business model was crap.

I was a philosophy major. Programs often have to work actively to prevent your company growing into a weed tree, dependent on this source of easy but low-margin money. And I was a philosophy major. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley is watching them. I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. As many people have noted, one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard to predict, till you try, how long it will take to become profitable. Raising money is the better choice, because new technology is usually more valuable now than later. The purpose of the committee is presumably to ensure that is to create a successful company?

One recently told me that he did as a theoretical exercise—an effort to define a more convenient alternative to the Turing Machine. This is actually less common than it seems: many have to claim they thought of the idea after quitting because otherwise their former employer would own it. If you look at these languages in order, Java, and Visual Basic—it is not so frivolous as it sounds, however. VCs they have introductions to. VCs ask, just point out that you're inexperienced at fundraising—which is always a safe card to play—and you feel obliged to do the same for any firm you talk to. The lower your costs, the more demanding the application, the more important it is to sell something to you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you have. What happens in that shower?

Thanks to Dan Bloomberg, Trevor Blackwell, Garry Tan, Nikhil Pandit, Reid Hoffman, Geoff Ralston, Slava Akhmechet, Paul Buchheit, Ben Horowitz, and Greg McAdoo for the lulz.

[volcanokids]

Hey idk who needs to hear this but the shit going on with Robinhood and Gamestop right now should make you really fucking angry and I’ll tell you why

If you’re not up to speed on the situation, here’s some good posts explaining it. The gist is that using completely legal means, a bunch of individual retail investors (fancy words for normal ass people who, like the rest of us, have very little money) who invest on online brokerage apps (like Robinhood) bought stock in Gamestop after hedge funds worked hard to manipulate the market for their own gains. These average people interrupted the plans of these much larger hedge funds to essentially drive Gamestop’s stock price into the ground by buying all of the stock these companies had and holding onto it, which has now costed these hedge funds BILLIONS of dollars, and for once has disrupted their long standing practice of market manipulation to fuck people over and maintain the wealth of the 1%.

Otherwise average people with accounts on Robinhood, Fidelity, Webull, etc., have now taken and held a ridiculously huge amount of control over GME stock and the rich corporations invested into it and caused it’s growth to absolutely explode. I’ve seen COUNTLESS stories in which many of them turned hundreds of dollars into thousands, made enough much needed money to pay off debts, medical bills, or just to put into savings that they wouldn’t have gotten under other circumstances. They accumulated small fortunes and gave power back to the people, and best of all took that money directly out of the hands of greedy and corrupt billion dollar hedge funds.

But of course, there had to be backlash for this.

Last night (1/27), Robinhood took away its investors’ ability to buy any more stock in Gamestop than they already owned, and today has made its user base fully unable to trade Gamestop stock AT ALL unless it is to sell their already owned shares, like literally fully took away the button that lets you purchase GME stock, period. Straight up preventing trade like this to any degree in the free market, much less to favor billion dollar corporations, is incredibly blatant market manipulation which is very illegal, hence the class-action lawsuit that has already been filed against Robinhood. Hedge funds have lost literally BILLIONS of dollars to normal people trading stock legally, and Robinhood halting trade and making selling the ONLY option for Gamestop, AMC, and similar companies is their attempt at helping the hedge funds gain back their fortune after they failed to manipulate the market in their favor, and fucking over the average people who are invested on their platform in the process. 

Retail investors—regular people—when this happened, lost THEIR ability to buy, and therefore continue taking back the wealth held by the hedge funds, but this restriction on Robinhood has NO effect on hedge funds, who have now been able to buy and sell all day today (1/28) freely. They used the opportunity to drive the price of Gamestop down again, essentially trying to bail themselves out after they manipulated the market and fucked themselves over in the first place. So, Robinhood, several other trading brokers, CNBC, and any other large corporation who has pissed on Reddit for “manipulating the market” have also now revealed their alignment with these companies, who are the reason the wealth in America is as disparaged as it is. They’re complaining, shifting the blame, even making up straight up lies about retail investors being involved in the alt-right to defame the people who have beat them at their shitty game.  

People on Reddit saw the manipulation, played the game fairly, and hedge funds are STILL trying to fuck them over for daring to touch the fortunes that they have gained by their shady as hell practices and fucked up the economy by hoarding. Reddit saw an opportunity to actually literally redistribute wealth, and these companies are trying to put us all in our place and keep that from happening by extremely corrupt means.

Market manipulation has been going on for a very long time with very little pushback from the people who actually take the blow when the market tanks—i.e. lower to middle class people who can’t afford bailouts and end up broke and out of jobs when the market crashes. The crash of ‘08 was caused by big brokers doing illegal shit and fucking around with people’s money with absolutely no personal repercussions. No lawsuits (or at least no lawsuits that did fuck all about it) no jail time for anyone responsible, nothing. Not only has this Gamestop movement taken back some of the wealth, we are beginning to finally hold these companies accountable. Again, as of right now, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Robinhood for their blatant market manipulation, and hedge funds invested in GME have lost over 5 billion dollars.

We always talk about eat the rich, fuck the 1%, redistribute the wealth. I know the stock market is confusing—it’s made that way on purpose—and I understand anyone’s personal reluctance to participate in the stock market directly because of the hatred for it’s capitalistic nature and everything it’s done wrong and every way it’s failed so many people. But, if you want to actually be a part of a movement that is literally taking billionaire’s wealth and redistributing it right now, show support on social media for the people putting in time and money to make this happen.

I am not qualified at all to give financial advice, and I can’t in good faith tell anyone to buy stocks, ESPECIALLY knowing many, many people do not have the disposable income to be able to do so. Do not spend money you don’t have. But the media is going to and has been altering the narrative, making the small investors look like they’re being corrupt. Do not believe them. They’re often paid out or owned by these big corporations in the first place, they do not give a shit about any of us, about ruining our lives, about taking everything we’re worth. They’ve done it forever. But the HUGE number of people buying GME, supporting, and cooperating with each other with the solitary goal of fucking over these hedge funds, fighting them and beating them at their own game is scaring the absolute shit out of them. It’s becoming a movement that’s being compared to another occupy wall street. It’s showing people they have the power to instigate change and could legitimately lead to an entire restructuring of the system if we play our cards right. Of course changing one capitalist system into another capitalist system is not ideal nor is it the goal, but this whole thing has very quickly become a movement backed by A LOT of people who have knowledge about the system, have seen it work and seen it get corrupted in real time, acknowledged exactly where it fucks us all over, and are beginning to break it down by exposing a huge and obvious instance of corruption at the hands of billionaires.

If you can do nothing else, educate yourself about all the fuck shit these companies are doing, rally support on whatever social media you use, keep posting diamond-hands-we-like-the-stock-gme-to-the-moon-memes, put pressure on the brokerage apps like Robinhood who are manipulating the market and let them know there will be hell to pay. Robinhood is sitting at a well deserved one star review on the google play store for their shitty actions and has gotten burned over and over on twitter, lots of investors are planning a mass exodus and closing their Robinhood accounts when all this shit is over, as WELL as the lawsuit, and all of it has garnered the attention of some very influential figures who now have our backs. All of the repercussions they’re facing is the direct result of our outrage and backlash. Be outraged with us and let’s make real fucking change.

GME to the fucking moon everyone 🚀

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The music monopolists

Writing in Wired, Institute for Local Self Reliance researcher and anti-monopolist Ron Knox gives a thorough, important account of how music industry monoplization resulted declining revenue for artists, even as the industry itself has reaped greater profits.

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-big-music-needs-to-be-broken-up-to-save-the-industry/

Importantly, Knox describes how concentration has come to every link in music’s supply chain, from radio to recording, streaming to live performance. The monopolists who dominate these sectors fight fiercely between each other, but no matter who wins, artists lose.

Let’s go segment by segment. Two thirds of all North American music comes from three labels. The labels grew through anticompetitive mergers: giant companies, awash in investor cash, bought out mid-sized, successful labels, turning them into subdivisions of the Big Three.

The more concentrated the labels got, the worse they were for everyone. They spent the nineties and naughties price-gouging record companies, pocketing hundreds of millions from an illegal price-fixing conspiracy. The fines they paid were smaller than the profits they reaped.

But at least they distributed music. Today, the struggling physical record store industry — a network of passionate music sellers who serve the most intense music fans — find themselves getting “record shipments” that turn out to be boxes of random stuff like cough syrup (!).

That happened when the Big Three all piled their distribution into a single company, the monopolist Direct Shot Distributing. As Direct Shot started to fail, its operations descended into chaos, and record stores started to receive boxes of random consumer packaged goods.

It was bad news for the non-monopolized, music-first record stores, but it barely registered for the Big Three labels — today, they buy an average of two new acts every day.

The labels don’t make money from selling records, of course. They get their money from streaming.

Streaming is also massively concentrated, gathered into the hands of just a few companies: Spotify, Apple, Youtube, Amazon — with the notable exception of Spotify, the industry is dominated by companies that also monopolize other sectors.

Monopolies are good to these companies. Spotify’s market-cap doubled during the pandemic — the market values its 150m subs (twice as many as subscribe with Apple) at $50b. The major labels get $1m/hour from streaming. 99% of their artists see $25/year in streaming royalties.

Spotify may be the biggest streaming service, but it’s not the lowest-paying. Youtube — a Google division, whose unsuccessful attempt to launch an in-house video service convinced it that it had to buy someone else’s success — drives the worst bargain.

Spotify uses its industry dominance to extract heavy fees from the labels — creaming 30% of the total revenue generated by a typical track. Big Three monopolists with fat margins can absorb this. Indies? Not so much.

Spotify’s market cap growth is in part due to the new ways it’s come up with to shake down the labels — a variety of tactics that all boil down to one thing: payola. Spotify will sell labels pop-up ads, placement in “radio” algorithms, and access to “Discovery mode.”

Like all forms of payola, Spotify’s rate-card is a way for monopolists to edge out indies, buying their way into your ear-holes. I’m sure that the Big Three would rather keep the bribes they pay to Spotiify, but the consolation prize is pretty sweet.

If the Big Three are the only ones who can afford to buy access to Spotify’s audience, then creators are driven to sign with them, and have less bargaining leverage when they negotiate their deals.

Spotify, meanwhile, can consolidate its gains by driving up those fees, pitting labels against each other in a bidding war for access to listeners. This effectively drives down the royalty rate Spotify pays, because every new track will have to buy in to get any reach.

Spotify talks a good game about how it uses big data and machine learning to pick the songs you hear, but increasingly, the algorithm is getting far less compute-intensive, a simple sort-by-highest-bidder system you could operate from a laptop running Windows 3.1 and Excel.

In theory, streaming losses can be made up with touring. Acts who attain digital popularity can charge access at the door to clubs and other venues. The only problem is that live performance is also a monopoly business.

The 800lb gorilla there is Livenation, a division of the ticket monopolist and notorious arm-breakers Ticketmaster — spun out of Clear Channel, the monopolist that we now know as Iheartradio.

Livenation parlayed its access to the capital markets to buy out $1b worth of venues and promoters, before being acquired by Clear Channel for $4.4b in 2005. Today, it’s a division of Liberty Media, consolidated with Ticketmaster, Pandora, and Siriusxm.

What goes around, comes around: Liberty’s private equity owners are in the process of buying up Iheartradio, re-merging all of Clear Channel’s spinouts into one giga-monopolist.

The conglomerate already coerces artists to book exclusively in its clubs and using its ticketing, starving independent venues. Add 850 terrestrial radio stations to the mix and it will choke off all the oxygen that independent venues, promoters and ticketers rely on.

Liberty didn’t buy all these companies because it’s passionate about music and wanted to ensure artists got a fair shake. By rolling up the entire live music/radio supply-chain, it bought the power to extract vast sums from musicians, and to keep rivals out of the market.

Well, not all competitors. Lollapalooza co-founder Marc Geiger raised tens of millions for “Savelive,” a new would-be monopolist that offered to “rescue” live music venues in exchange for a 51% stake in them.

Savelive illustrates an important point about the nature of monopolies: they beget more monopolies. Consolidation in the labels meant that only the largest streaming companies could negotiate a sustainable rate.

But consolidation in radio drives consolidation in labels — and many of the indie radio stations that survived the first wave of consolidation were picked up cheap by Iheartradio once monopolistic streamers ate their lunch.

This is a pattern across the whole entertainment industry: bookstore mergers and big box retailers drove consolidation in publishing; that was accelerated by consolidation in online ebook and physical book retail.

It’s not limited to the entertainment sector either. As David Dayen describes in his essential book MONOPOLIZED, hospitals didn’t start consolidating until the pharma industry underwent a wave of brutal mergers and started gouging for drugs.

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

Hospital consolidation led to gouging insurers, leading to a wave of insurance consolidation. Today, nearly every part of the health industry is monopolized, from pharmacy benefit managers to medical labs.

The only parts of the supply chain that doesn’t monopolize — that can’t monopolize — are the ends of the chain: the people who work in the system, and the people who use it.

Monopoly punishes doctors and nurses and other health workers — and it punishes patients.

It punishes writers and publishing workers, and it punishes readers.

It punishes musicians and independent venue owners, and it punishes listeners.

When every part of the supply chain gets so monopolized that it can’t easily be squeezed by any other part of the supply chain, these giants turn on us — the workers and users of the system. We, the atomized and fragmented, cannot resist the squeeze.

But as Knox writes, the tide is turning. After 40 years of waving through anticompetitive mergers in the name of “efficiency,” the DoJ and FTC are under new management, with two-fisted trustbusters like Lina M Khan at the helm.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

This new cohort of monopoly fighters reject the “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust (the idea that monopolies drive prices down and are therefore good for society), going to war against the hegemonic orthodoxy that began with Ronald Reagan.

https://doctorow.medium.com/epic-v-apple-d3e59893b4f3

The new antitrust is surging, with bills in the House and Senate, executive orders from the White House, regulatory proceedings at the DoJ and FTC, and an interagency-cabinet coordination committee that ties it all together.

This new antitrust promises workers and users of monopolized industries a better alternative than rooting for one giant to beat another in hopes that they will drop a few crumbs for the rest of us to enjoy.

Creative workers don’t have to choose between Big Tech and Big Content based on their assessment of which monopolist will abuse them the least. Instead, we can root for antimonopoly, for giant-slaying, and the right to self-determination.

The most important immediate step towards that future is blocking new anticompetitive mergers, like Sony’s bid for AWAL, or Liberty Media’s use of a $500m SPAC to go on a vertical monopoly shopping spree.

The agencies have the power to stop these. They should. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

But ending anticompetitive mergers won’t get us out of that hole: most industries (from beer to cheerleader uniforms to wresting to eyeglasses) are already monopolized.

The new trustbusters — and the ILSR — want to use antitrust law to break up these conglomerates. I think that’s right: vertical monopolies will always engage in self-dealing to the detriment of independents, workers and customers. Break. Them. Up.

But breaking up is hard to do. When the DoJ tried to break up IBM, the company’s lawyers outspent the entire DoJ antitrust division, every single year, for twelve consecutive years, and in the end, it escaped breakup.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. IBM escaped justice because Reagan was elected and neutered antitrust. And even though it remained intact, it was never the same — for one thing, it decided that it was too risky to make its own PC OS.

IBM knew that antitrust enforcers were very suspicious of tying software to hardware — so it tapped a couple of hacker kids, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, to sell it DOS, from their new company “Micro-Soft.”

Unfortunately for all of us, antitrust enforcement only declined after that, so IBM was able to return to its monopolistic ways, and Microsoft escaped from antitrust scrutiny after a mere seven years in regulatory hell.

Antitrust enforcement can sap monopolists of the will to power, as they become increasingly concerned that their actions will attract aggressive legal reprisals.

Think of how Apple “lost” the Epic lawsuit but still “voluntarily” rescinded its heretofore hard rule against apps providing links to web-pages where you can use third-party payment processors to make purchases.

As monopolists lose their nerve, space opens up for all kinds of pro-worker, pro-user interventions, far beyond those afforded by traditional antitrust.

Next year, Beacon Press will publish THE SHAKEDOWN, a book I co-wrote with Rebecca Giblin about the monopolistic corruption of creative labor markets and how creative workers, regulators and fans can resist it.

The Shakedown catalogs the ways that monopolization of investment, distribution and sale of creative works allows entertainment companies, Big Tech, and major retailers to shift an ever-larger share of the creative industry’s revenues from workers to themselves.

More importantly, we identify tools beyond breakups that we can use to de-monopolize the industry — things we can do right now, without having to wait for the conclusion of an antitrust suit that might run for decades.

Take reversion rights: many copyright systems allow creators to take back their rights after a set period (35 years in the US). This lets artists who signed bad deals — before they were proven successes — to resell their catalog or extract reparations by threatening to.

But reversion is really hard to do, and 35 years is way too long. Only an handful of creators — even those with valuable catalogs that could be renewed through reversion — ever manage it.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/06/backsies/#take-backs

Congress (and other legislatures around the world, including Canada, where this is likely to come up in the new Parliament) could fix reversion: make it easier to do, and make it available after a shorter period — say, 14 years.

And what about those bad contracts? The “freedom to contract” has always been subject to limits, where some clauses are deemed unenforceable “as against public policy” or because they are “unconscionable.”

With the entertainment sector consolidated into just a couple of states, state legislatures could act to void the most abusive clauses — for example, clauses that allow labels to claw back royalties indefinitely to recoup (often inflated or fictitious) “expenses.”

Our book explores dozens of these kinds of ideas, from co-operatives to trade unions; better accounting practices and direct arts subsidies; radical interoperability and collective licensing; minimum wages for creative labor and collective bargaining.

None of these are replacement for reducing the size and power of conglomerates throughout the supply chain, but all of them are interventions we can make as the power and nerve of conglomerates declines, changes that will hasten that decline and open more space for breakups.

And all of them are applicable, to a greater or lesser extent, to helping workers and users of all the other consolidated industries, from health care to cheerleading.

For example, expanding California’s ban on noncompete clauses would help fast-food workers nationwide — because today, fast food employers are the most aggressive abusers of noncompetes.

That means that a fried chicken cashier earning the tipped minimum wage can’t quit to work at a burger joint across the street for a $0.25/hour raise. Creative workers aren’t the only ones suffering from monopolization — we’re not even the worst off.

But by definition, creative workers have a platform. We reach people. We have the potential to help form the kind of unstoppable coalition that we’ll need to reverse the generations of oligarchic, post-Reagan consolidation.

You may have heard about how Danish McDonald’s workers earn $22/hour and get six weeks’ paid vacation and sick leave. That didn’t come about because McDonald’s was required by law to pay it.

It was worker solidarity that did it. As Matt Bruenig writes, McDonald’s initially refused to sign the voluntary “hotel and restaurant” collective agreement. So its workers went on strike.

https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-denmark/

Now, if McD’s workers had struck alone, they’d probably have lost. But Danish law allows for sympathy strikes — that is, it allows workers in other parts of the supply chain to take industrial action to support their sisters and brothers who are striking.

When the McD’s workers walked out in 1989, sixteen other sectoral unions joined them. They didn’t just help picket at leaflet in front of McD’s restaurants!

Dockworkers wouldn’t unload McD’s shipments. Printers wouldn’t print their cups and placemats.

Builders downed tools on McDonald’s construction projects. Typesetters wouldn’t set the McD’s ads in the daily papers. Truckers wouldn’t deliver to McD’s restaurants. Food industry workers wouldn’t produce the drink syrups, fries and other inputs to the McDonald’s kitchens.

McD’s caved.

Now, as Bruenig points out, these kinds of sympathy strikes are illegal in the US, but it’s a mistake to think that workers don’t have power because sympathy strikes are illegal — rather, sympathy strikes are illegal because workers don’t have power.

Workers across all sectors face the same kinds of monopolistic exploitation. Workers across all sectors have a common enemy (literally, thanks to “common ownership” where companies like Vanguard and Berkshire Hathaway hold significant stakes in almost every major company).

With a shared cause, shared tactics, solidarity and a renewed sense that we can do more than root for the giant we think will mistreat us the least, creative workers and their sisters and brothers in every sector can reverse generations of losses.

That’s why the new antitrust matters — because it is an assault on the consolidation that gives all industries the power to shift money and other forms of value from workers and users to a small elite of investors.

[gyucore]

run to the shadows

pairing: soobin x reader

genre: angst (?), supernatural au

word count: 5.1k

warnings: swearing, blood and wounds, character death

synopsis: the city is on a lockdown. people with uncontrollable elemental powers are springing up left and right. the government is trying to capture every single elemental in the guise of protecting the citizens. much to your dismay, your fiancé, soobin, just had to be one of them.

The rays of the sunset left a warm sensation on your skin. The gentle breeze passing by gives you a moment of coolness that vanished as fast as it came. Children's laughter could be heard close by, their parents watching over them from afar. Sometimes, someone would pass by and greet you with a smile before continuing their way beside the calm waters of the lake. You look on to the horizon and gaze upon the direction where the sun had set, holding on to this scenic view one last time.

The blanket of the night sky soon came, a reminder that you had to quickly return home. You leave the lakeside with a heavy feeling on your chest— one that you can't seem to shake off. But there were more important matters to be dealt with.

"Hurry inside, sweetie, before the raiders come." You hear a mother say, ushering her child inside their car, her tone laced with worry as she made sure the doors were closed shut. "We don't want to be around when they capture the bad people."

Capturing bad people, huh. Even hearing the phrase was distasteful. One wouldn't expect for a government that's supposed to protect its citizens to go around doing something as inhumane as capturing someone and imprisoning them despite having done nothing wrong, and branding these victims as bad people just because they were forced into their situation.

Your thoughts fill with worry and the heavy feeling in your chest worsens. You're not sure whether this was the usual looming threat of having your life endangered, or the effect of having left your fiance's side after a huge argument. Part of you knows it's the latter.

"Soobin.." You sigh, your chest not feeling any lighter as you did. Scenes from earlier replay in your mind and you silently wish things had gone differently.

The walk home was quiet. Not a lot of people were wandering around at night anymore, even the questionable individuals that once littered the darker streets and alleys. Whether this was a good thing or not was up to how much the whole situation affected an individual.

In the more populated neighborhoods, the lights would be dimmed, the curtains drawn, the gates closed, and the windows locked shut. The clean asphalt beneath your feet soon met with bits and pieces of rubbish as you reach the farthest back of the neighborhood. The place was dark with most of the streetlight broken. You'd think that after a year, at least most of them would've been fixed but the government had a more important investment to focus on than providing their citizens the bare minimum security they at least deserve.

A creaking sound from the dark alerts your senses. Your hands come up in front as balled fists as you take a defensive stance, reminding yourself that if ever worse comes to worst, you had a dagger hidden in your pocket.

You make a quick scan of your surroundings, taking notice of every minute movement and sound your senses could pick up. No one. You'd like to think you were just being paranoid but you never know what might happen. Your heart beats faster in your chest as you go through ever possible scenario that might happen to you, or worse— to Soobin.

"Come out and face me!" You scream. Even if no one was there, no other person was living in this neighborhood that would bother to report a screaming maniac marching around their streets.

A few minutes pass and after checking each and every nearby nook and cranny, you slowly let your guard down. Perhaps you truly were just being paranoid. But who could blame you? The past few months hadn't exactly been the best. You've been in a lot of awful situations from having to hide for a week inside an abandoned theme park cave to nearly beating someone to death over food rations if Soobin hadn't stopped you.

It all started when one day, a phenomenon struck the city. Hundreds of people were turning up, reporting that they've been experiencing strange things with their body and surroundings. Eventually, it was discovered that they had somehow acquired the ability to manipulate the elements. The whole situation looked like it came straight out of a fantasy novel. But this wasn't your average story where the gifted ones get to go on crazy adventures to fulfill or prevent some messed up destiny. Quite the opposite actually.

The citizens with newfound abilities were tracked down to the ends of the city and captured. The government released a statement on how these citizens are no longer human. They were branded as monsters with uncontrollable powers that were planted in the city to harm the citizens, and eventually, the world.

They proposed a solution to lockdown the city in order to prevent the escape of these monstrous individuals and that they'd clear the streets at night from any and every individual who is suspected of possessing such abilities. Soon after, people were disappearing left and right. No one had been spared. They'd captured adults, teenagers, the elderly, and even children as young as a year old, and brought them into the holding facilities. Reports state that they were simply being held captive to enforce the necessary safety measures, but you knew all too well that they didn't stop there.

Experiments. They'd never admit to it but those that were heavily affected by these regulations knew that behind closed doors were vicious experiments being held in order to find a way to utilize these abilities for the government's advantage. One way to avoid this fate was to keep out of the prying eyes of the raiders, the ones in charge of finding and capturing the ability users.

"Y/N?"

Your eyes widen and you snap back to your senses, whirling around to see a familiar pair of eyes staring back at you.

"Y/N.." In an instant, you were engulfed in a tight hug. You feel his warmth slowly being passed down to you and for a brief moment, you allow yourself to melt in his arms. "You're safe.. I was so worried.."

You look up at none other than your fiancé, Soobin. Now that he was closer, you could see the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. It was clear that he'd been worried sick, and you were the same. A feeling of regret washes over you for ever leaving his side and causing him this much worry.

"Soobin, I—" You pause, forcing yourself out of his arms to look at the surroundings. "Let's talk inside. It's not safe out here."

Soobin nods, adjusting his hoodie as the two of you walk back inside your temporary base. The two of you had escaped into the lesser populated areas of the city to avoid public eye. You couldn't risk being seen by anyone at this state. Despite the government's unprecedented tactics, you hated to admit that they were right about one thing— most of the ability users couldn't control their powers, and unfortunately, Soobin was one of them.

Soobin paces back and forth in the living room, his mind racing with thoughts of worry. What if you had gotten mixed up into something dangerous while you were out? What if they had falsely accused you as an ability user? He wanted to scream the frustration out of his system, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good.

He regretted it. He regretted ever arguing with you in the first place. It wasn't even worth the risk of endangering both of you.

Soobin hated his newfound powers, hated how he had to hide in the slums of the city to stay alive, hated how he could never go out to see the world without putting his life at risk, and hated how you could only do so much to console him. How would you, an ordinary person, be able to relate to his worries? Eventually, he grew envious of how you could leave the house even if it was only to purchase groceries at a nearby store, and how you could bask in the warmth of the sun without having to worry about your abilities going berserk. All that pent-up emotion ended up with a huge fight. And eventually, you stormed out of the house.

Soobin had only come to terms with himself after watching you yell out in frustration before slamming the door behind and leaving.

It was you who had been by his side throughout everything. You didn't have a reason to hide, but you moved into the back of the city with him and catered to his every need. You held his hand at night when he feared he might go crazy in his sleep, and had been patient and understanding with him whenever his powers went haywire. You had protected him even when he insisted on being able to protect himself, and went to vast lengths to help him make it through until the end. Not once did you waver in front of him, and he felt so ashamed. How could he have let all those negative thoughts cloud his judgement?

Even now that he had risked his life and went outside to find you, he felt the regret deep inside his chest. Even now that he held you safely in his arms in the middle of the street, he couldn't let it go.

"Let's talk inside. It's not safe here."

Inside. It was for the best. "Okay."

It felt safer inside the house. The dim light coming from the living room lamp, thick walls, and drawn curtains brought on a familiar sense of comfort. Soobin had taken off his hoodie and tossed it aside, leaving him in his favorite loose white shirt. One thing you've come to notice even before your engagement was that he wore that specific shirt whenever he wanted some room to breathe. You hoped that he's had a good amount of that when you'd left him alone earlier.

Soobin makes himself comfortable on the couch next to the window, patting the spot next to him. You refrain from taking his offer. "Soobin, about earlier.."

“I'm sorry.” / “I'm sorry.”

Soobin looks up at you, blinking, and the two of you burst into laughter. After a while, he clears his throat and speaks up. You lean against the counter to hear him out. "You know, it's funny. Earlier I had this whole apology planned out in my head explaining everything— why I said all that stuff, and how I regret every single word. I wanted you to maybe understand where I'm coming from and how sorry I am but.." His eyes once again meet yours and as if a silent message had been conveyed, Soobin smiles. "Somehow, I feel like you already know."

You smile back, finally taking up his offer and plopping down right next to him on the couch. You rest your head on Soobin's shoulder, and he does the same. The warmth of his hand spreads throughout yours as he interlocks your fingers, bringing them close to your faces. The edge of your engagement rings glisten against the dim light, a promise of eternity with each other that would soon be sealed. An eternity in each other's embrace.

Before all of this had started, you had spent countless nights like this with Soobin, balled up together on the sofa or bed, and enjoying the warmth in each other's arms. Now, you'd barely spent the nights together. Rules had been established to keep you two safe from the prying eyes of the government, and naturally, there were also rules you'd agreed on to keep each other safe. One of those rules was that you couldn't sleep on the same bed. Soobin had no control of his powers and feared that he might hurt you in his sleep. You had tried it out once during the first week, ignoring the possibility. It didn't end well.

A knock on the front door breaks the silence in the room.

Soobin pulls you closer in his arms, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. A frown creeps up his lips as he leaned in closer to your face. “I know what you're thinking but please listen to me—”

“Soobin..” You look him in the eyes, holding his hand tighter. “I heard a noise on the way back. I think I might have been followed.”

Another knock sounds from the door, sounding more impatient than before

“In that case, I want you to stay behind.” Soobin says, letting go of your hand as he gets up from the couch.

“What? Why?” You follow right after, blocking Soobin's path to the door.

“You said you were being followed. If it's a raider then it couldn't have followed you to get to me when I haven't been outside in a long time.” Soobin sighs, walking around you. It wasn't news that raiders would falsely accuse random citizens as ability users for some short-term glory of having allegedly protected the city from these monsters. “I have a bad feeling about this, Y/N. I don't want you getting hurt.”

“And I don't want them to capture you.”

“They won't.”

“Soobin, please listen to me. You can't control your abilities yet. What if—” You were about to run after him when you notice you couldn't move. You look down and see that your feet had been bound to the ground by chains of ice. Since when had Soobin gained this much control over his powers? was the first thought that came to mind. He'd been training for a while but the results have been rather unhelpful. But not this time.

Soobin wasn't sure when he'd started feeling confident about his abilities, but he's sure of one thing. He'd use his abilities to protect what matters to him the most: you.

“Is someone there?” He asks before opening the door, heart thumping in his chest as he waited for an answer.

“Raid officer. I'm here to have a word, if I may.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Justice sleeps for no one, sir.”

Justice. Soobin holds his breath as he opens the door, preparing himself for the worst. He comes face to face with a young man around his age— blond hair, clean and kempt raider uniform— he didn't look like the type to be fooled easily.

“What brings you here this late at night, officer?”

The officer smiles, straightening himself up. “Sorry for the disturbance. I'm Officer Kang Taehyun, and that's my partner, Choi Yeonjun.” He points at a pink haired officer with unkempt uniform, leaning against their motorbikes. “We'd like to ask you a few questions.”

Soobin agrees to their request, fully stepping out of the house.

“Full name?”

"That's.." Soobin hesitates, pondering whether he should tell him his real name or not. He notices the folder Taehyun was holding, and figured that the Officer might have already known his identity. He was testing him. “Choi Soobin.”

“A pleasure meeting you, Mr. Choi Soobin. You live alone?”

“Yes.”

The officer raises a brow. “I see. Any visitors over? A relative, or perhaps a lover?”

Soobin's heart races. He could spot the officer's partner at the back, preparing hid gear. He didn't like where this was going. “No.”

"Is that so?" The officer, Taehyun, breaks into a smile— cold, unsettling. He wonders if this smile was the last others have seen before getting sent straight to the facilities.

"This side of the neighborhood is pretty quiet, don't you think? No one else is living here except you."

"This place certainly has its charms." Soobin shrugs, trying his best to drive away suspicion. "I don't mind living alone and the groceries aren't that far from here anyway."

Officer Yeonjun steps in, gear in place and face unreadable. He nudges Taehyun to the side and takes over the conversation. "Listen, we'll make this quick for you. My partner and I spotted a suspicious woman walking around this area. No one else is living here except you. Do you know anything about her?"

There it was. Soobin supposes he couldn't have avoided the question any longer. "No, I don't. I haven't seen anyone nearby either. I was here at home the entire night, making dinner."

"I see." Yeonjun nods, his hand slowly reaching for something in his pocket. "You seem like a pretty agreeable guy. I'm sure you wouldn't mind if we checked inside to see if you're telling the truth."

"Not at all." Soobin grins, opening the door wider. It's not like he could refuse them in the first place. Raiders had been given the authority to search any premises without a warrant. He just hopes you had half a mind to hide yourself by now.

And you did. Both of you had prepared the house for circumstances like this. There was a trap door in the living room where you could hide in the case of an emergency. Soobin had melted the ice once Officer Yeonjun stepped in, and that was enough of a signal for you to hide. You couldn't afford to put Soobin in any more risk than he was already in.

Heavy footsteps liter the living room. Two, no, three pairs? That meant the two officers had gone inside with Soobin.

"Mr. Choi, would you mind showing my partner upstairs?"

"Of course."

You feel your pulse start to race. Soobin being alone with a raider was putting them in a stickier situation. If he loses control at any moment, this could mean the end of their lives. You couldn't help but peek through the hole on the floorboard. Only the pink haired officer was left behind to search the living room. You try to breathe quieter, hoping he wouldn't notice your presence.

The officer brings his hand to his ear, head shifting around as if making sure there weren't any witnesses.

"What is he doing?" You think to yourself, bracing for the worst.

"Taehyun's got him cornered upstairs. The girl isn't here. We'll proceed as planned."

You hold back a gasp and stumble back. A loud thump sounds upstairs followed by a glass shattering. Soobin!

The officer hears the noise and sighs, smashing his communicator onto the ground. He crouches down onto the floorboard and knocks twice. "Hey, I know you're there. Listen to me."

You don't respond, shock and fear stopping you from even breathing.

"This may be too much to ask, but please trust me. I'm part of the anti-faction unit that's here to support the ability users. My partner will capture your boyfriend and bring him to the facilities and I don't have a choice but to help him. I'll report you as a missing case so run away after my partner and I leave. There's no saving your boyfriend now so you could at least save yourself."

"Why are you doing this? Why can't you just save him?" You choke on your words, anger slowly rising. If he was here as an undercover agent then he could've at least saved Soobin.

"It's loo late. The facility's had an eye on him for months. If I do anything now, my cover would be blown. I can't have that." The officer frowns. You could see his fallen expression through the hole but that wasn't enough to calm you down.

"And I can't have Soobin getting killed." You snarl, hands balling into fists.

"He won't." The officer says before standing up. "They'll be down soon. Just do as I say and save yourself."

You feel your blood boiling. They knew Soobin was an ability user from the start and had used you as an excuse to lure him in a tight spot. Abandon Soobin? Not a chance. You didn't abandon him back then and you were sure as hell you wouldn't be abandoning him now when he needed you most.

"Move."

"Hm?"

The trap door had enough space to hide in, but that also meant you had enough space to make a running start. "I said move." You ram against the floorboard, knocking Yeonjun off and bursting the door open.

You were free.

"Soobin! Get out of there!" You scream the moment you got out, running as fast as your legs could carry you towards the stairs.

"Are you crazy?!" Yeonjun runs after you, breath hitching as he manages to grab your leg. "You could get killed!"

You kick Yeonjun's hand, causing him to stumble behind. "Soobin!" You scream, dashing upstairs. You make a sharp turn towards his bedroom and find him down on the floor, blood dripping from his hands.

Soobin looks at you, tears threatening to prick his eyes. "Y/N, get away from here!"

"Soobin.." Your gaze shifts from his worried eyes to Officer Taehyun's cold ones, looking at you like you were as significant as a tiny insect. It was only then that you realized what a mess the place was. The book case had been knocked over, sending the books scattering around the room. A huge spear of ice had bursted from the ground and crashed onto the glass window, coming in between Soobin and the officer.

"So, you were here all along?" Officer Taehyun scoffs, his tone as cold as his expression.

"Y/N, stand back. I'll handle this." Soobin tells you, wincing as he holds a hand towards the officer.

"You can't do anything to me." Taehyun smirks, crossing his arms. "You used up all your energy making this freak ice appear and for what? To buy time? You're the type who loses energy while using your abilities, so why not stop now?" You see him glance your way before snickering. "Is it the girl? Do monsters even have time for love?"

"Might want to check in the mirror." You slowly inch towards Soobin's side. "Who's the monster here? A guy who's just trying to live his life quietly, or the one who's had innocent blood spilled in his hands for countless nights?"

Taehyun's amused expression falls. "Last time I checked, none of them were innocent. And I'm not the one who conjured ice from the ground to harm an officer. Normal humans don't do that shit. Monsters do. Isn't that right, Yeonjun?"

Before you knew it, you were pinned to the ground. Yeonjun had crept up on you from behind while you were distracted.

"Y/N!" Soobin rushes after you but stops as Yeonjun takes out a knife and puts it to your neck.

"Move and I'll cut her." Yeonjun spits out his empty threats. You knew he wouldn't harm you. He just wanted to get out of this mess as fast as possible.

Soobin clicks his tongue, lowering his hands in defeat. Taehyun finds himself smiling at the entire situation. "There you go. And just when I thought you'd lost your common sense."

He walks over to Soobin, carefully maneuvering through the ice and shards of glass. "Come with us quietly, and we'll set her free. No scratches, no anything. Do we have a deal?" He takes out specialized handcuffs used to detain ability users and twirls it around his fingers.

"Don't! Soobin, please! There must be another way!" You scream, trying to break free from Yeonjun's hold but that only made him pin you down harder.

Soobin looks back at you and then at Taehyun, shedding a tear as he holds his hands out in front. "Keep your end of the deal. I surrender."

"No!"

"Quiet." Yeonjun puts the blade back into his pockets and puts his hand over your mouth. "Mmf!"

You felt powerless as you watch Soobin get handcuffed, his eyes never leaving yours— taking in your face one last time. "I'm sorry." He whispers.

"Oh, and for safety measure." Taehyun hums as he takes out a tranquilizer needle, stabbing Soobin on the neck. Soobin's falls on the ground, unconscious. "You can't be too careful with these monsters." Taehyun chuckles, bending down and hoisting Soobin up in his shoulders. He walks over to you and Yeonjun, leaving behind a few instructions for his partner. "Release her when I give the signal."

"My communicator's broken."

Taehyun raises a brow.

"It fell and got stepped on when this chick came out of nowhere and ambushed me."

Taehyun sighs. "I suppose we don't have a choice. Use my communicator." He uses his free hand to hand Yeonjun his communicator.

Yeonjun holds it in his hand and nods. You try to look over the door towards Soobin, but they were long gone. Yeonjun notices this and bends down, whispering.

"Listen. The plans have changed." He holds out Taehyun's communicator in front of you and smashes it to the ground. "Taehyun has no means of contacting the others for backup, and they can't hear us from where they're parked. We might be able to save Soobin." He loosens his grip and lets you go.

"What made you change your mind?"

Yeonjun sighs, helping you up. "We actually have a fighting chance now if we work together."

"What do you mean?"

"It's gonna take Taehyun a while to sort through the mess blocking the door."

"Mess? What mess?" And then it hit you. "You missed it up on purpose." That's why it took him so long to catch up.

Yeonjun takes out a gun from his holster and cocks it. "Listen carefully. We don't have a lot of time. Taehyun's has his guard down right now. I'm gonna sneak up to him and shoot hid arm that's holding Soobin. As soon as he drops him, I want you to grab Soobin and take him to the back. I'll meet you there."

You didn't exactly trust the guy but you weren't in a situation to be picky. "Fine."

"On my signal." Yeonjun whispers, taking a step forward from your hiding spot.

The plan sets in motion. The two of you sneak downstairs, peeking at Taehyun who's trying to sift through the broken furniture with one hand.

"Wow, looks like the girl got away. My bad."

"What are you—"

Yeonjun pulls the trigger before Taehyun could turn around, hitting the heel on his right leg.

"Shit!" Taehyun winces in pain. He reaches for his gun but Yeonjun was faster, shooting two other bullets through his other leg and his shoulder that's holding Soobin. He drops Soobin to the ground with a thud.

Yeonjun turns to you. "Now!"

You sprint towards Soobin's body, adrenaline coursing through your veins.

"Hold it right there." Taehyun pulls out a knife and holds it towards Soobin's throat. "One step closer and I'll kill him. Even if that traitor shoots me, I'll just use the last of my energy to slash his throat. You don't want that now, do you?" The look in Taehyun's eyes infuriated you. He looked so confident that you wouldn't dare take another step further, none of you would. And he was right.

Your eyes fall upon Soobin, your heart squeezing in your chest at the thought of losing him. All you could hope for was a miracle. To hell, it didn't even need to be a miracle. It could be a tragedy, a curse, whatever. Just let Soobin return safely in your arms.

You feel your hands heating up despite the cool air rushing inside from the open windows. A warm sensation fills your chest and you gasp for air. Taehyun and Yeonjun observe as you grip your stomach. You feel like throwing up. It felt like you've lost all control in your body. You were sweating from the heat, and the world looked like it was spinning out of control. Your vision clouds until a bright light flashes, stunning you for a brief moment.

"What's wrong with you?"

Your attention shifts towards Taehyun who'd spoken and all you could see was red. "Let him go."

Taehyun tightens his grip on the handle. "I didn't know this monster's life meant so little to you."

"Sorry to break it to you, but his worth is immeasurable in my eyes. I'd do anything for him." You narrow your eyes at his face. "Even if it meant I'd have to spill blood in my hands."

"Y/N, what are you doing?" Yeonjun asks, his tone laced with worry.

"Committing a murder." You answer, not bothering to look at him. "But not a crime."

In a split-second, the door behind Taehyun explodes, the flaming debris piercing Taehyun straight in the chest, miraculously missing Soobin. Taehyun's lifeless body falls onto the ground and Yeonjun takes cover from the explosion. You stay plotted at the same spot, scratches littering your sides as you nearly miss the flying debris. The fire slowly spreads throughout the living room and your legs give in as you drop to the floor.

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, your arms instinctively reaching towards Soobin. Drained seemed like an understatement. You could barely move. It was as if all the energy you had earlier had been sucked out of your body.

"Y/N, get a hold of yourself!" Yeonjun rushes towards your side as soon as the coast was clear. "We have to get out of here!"

The world around you darkens and your mind turns blank. You couldn't even think at this point. Soobin was right in front of you yet nothing of what has happened has processed in your head. In the end, all you could do was stare at his face as hot tears spilled from your eyes.

"Snap out of it!"

You feel a stinging sensation coming from your cheek and you look up at Yeonjun. The air rushes back up your lungs and you gasp.

"Listen to me. We need to get out of here right now. If the fire spreads throughout the house, we're done for. We either die in flames or be killed once the backup finds us. Can you walk?"

"Yeah.. I think I can." You try your best to answer. He helps you on your feet before rushing towards Soobin.

Yeonjun stumbles as he hoists Soobin onto his back. He looks at you, eyes determined. "We managed to escape now, but who knows what'll happen next. What do we do now?"

In the end, it all came down to this. Wherever you went, it was all the same. You and Soobin have suffered too much, and it was time to put an end to it. Strangely enough, the flames that had swallowed your living room didn't make you afraid. It made you feel powerful— powerful enough to make a change.

"I don't want to cower in fear anymore." You lock eyes with Yeonjun who earnestly gangs on to your every word. "We've hidden ourselves in the darkness in fear of being captured but I think it's time we use the what we're familiar with to fight them off— use the darkness to turn against our oppressors."

"So what do you suggest we do?" Yeonjun settles right next to you.

You face your resolve, reaching your hand to caress Soobin's sleeping face. "For now.."

"We run to the shadows."

[libermachinae]

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part IV: Touch - Chapter 11: Ripple

Also on AO3 Summary: They’ve only just arrived at their destination when things start to go wrong. Word Count: 2193

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“Picking up some light readings,” Drift reported. “Limited tech, similar to Vitrious. You getting anything?”

“Just a massive, concentrated energy spike a few degrees northeast,” Rodimus said. “Recent exposure, Cybertronian markers.”

“When’s the last time you took that rig in for a tune-up?”

Ratchet hated having to repeat himself, but either Drift was incapable of recognizing the severity of his ship’s disrepair (unlikely) or he was being even more obstinate than normal. Exchanging their vessels’ specs had revealed the truly horrific condition the ship was in: fuel efficiency half of what it should have been, unreliable pressure seals, thrusters that should not have made it into the air, let alone off a planet. That he had survived transit was a—not a miracle, an insult to probability and reasonable calculation of—

Rodimus put a hand on his shoulder and tried to think calm thoughts. Drift had survived. It didn’t make sense, and maybe the luck would run out now that it had been acknowledged, but—

Ratchet halfheartedly swatted at his hand, more like a firm pat.

No wonder you liked him so much. Morale officer doesn’t suit you. He failed to dislodge Rodimus’ hand and didn’t bother trying again.

“Haven’t had the time.” The sound of flipping switches was followed by a hard smack from Drift’s end, rounded out by imprecise grumbling. Drift’s report had lacked any details on the state of his ship’s user interface, but the variety of language he had spoken to it with, impressive even by Ratchet’s standards, gave the sense that it was functioning at about the same level as everything else: barely.

“Still think it’s an outpost?” Rodimus asked.

“Lot of things it could be,” Drift said, voice accompanied by a few more mechanical noises. “We’d need more info to say for sure. Or a visual.”

Rodimus considered the readouts in front of him. There were more he hadn’t read out, but only because he didn’t know how. Ratchet translated what he could, but they were trying to keep his focus on piloting which meant Rodimus couldn’t spend too long wondering about the more mystifying aspects of his screen. Was that box in the top corner a map, or a graph? He didn’t know, and he had to look away before it overtook their other priorities.

“There are also stockpiles, energon plants, and decoys out there,” Drift went on. “Traps, if you’re really unlucky. Whole lot of empty shacks; lot of boltholes won’t have anyone living in them most of the time.”

“On the move a lot?” Rodimus asked.

“Sure. Only one in a dozen stellar systems will have a planet good for energon harvesting, and then there’s having to be vigilant about competition and enforcers. Sometimes needs will change or new opportunities will open up, and a crew will split up to deal with it.” He sounded annoyed at that, briefly breaking from his researcher-describing-mysterious-outgroup tone.

“Couple Decepticons on holiday accidentally give you the slip?” Rodimus asked, just to keep him there.

“More like an entire platoon,” Drift said, rising to it so quickly that they could only assume he’d been waiting for someone to complain about this to. “I tracked them to their covert thermal operation on a smelter of a planet, got all the way in, only to discover the one mech they’d left behind was their communications specialist—it was a mess. But, that’s the past now.” And just as quickly, the wall was back up. “If our intel’s good and Grit’s got a byte of sense, there should be someone here. Just no idea how many.”

“Sounds like there’s a good chance we’ll get this thing cleaned up quick,” Ratchet said. “So long as we stick together.”

Drift’s Hm’d agreement was more than either had expected. Maybe they were making progress.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Good to go,” Rodimus said, adjusting the items on his screen to focus on the ship’s status. “Defense and surveillance up, and we’re at about descent altitude. Just give us a head’s up when you start improvising, so we can get out of your way.”

He was not supposed to say that. He shot over a grin in response to Ratchet’s disapproval; what point was there in denying the inevitable?

Practicing being a good friend, remember? That means saying no to stupid ideas.

It also means being there to catch him instead of holding him back.

It was the kind of argument that couldn’t be solved with a few pointed thoughts or memories, the kind that they did not have time for now, as the visual feed showed Drift’s ship starting its descent. They set it aside in their own ways: Ratchet simply stopped thinking about it, while Rodimus let himself run through the myriad arguments he would have made simultaneously before reconnecting himself to the present. A moment later and they were ready, Ratchet punching in the commands to follow Drift down.

The planet’s cloudless atmosphere gave them a clear view of the terrain below, its massive, dramatic rock formations contoured by deep shadows. North of them, the average surface elevation increased and smoothed out into tall hills, but where they were going the difference between peaks and valleys created a network of shelves and tunnels that would be perfect to hide a secret base in. And stealth did seem to be one goal of whoever had set up shop down there: besides the sloppy energy output, there were no obvious signs of cyberforming on the planet’s surface. Rodimus was about to suggest that only those who came looking for Cybertronians would ever notice they were here, when a glint in one of the visual feeds caught his attention. He brought the feed to his station and zoomed in. Metal?

The word hit his vocoder as Ratchet shoved them into a dive.

“Turret!”

The energy beam was hot enough to ripple the air around it. Even though Ratchet got them turned away fast enough, the whole shuttle shuddered from the near-miss. Crates and containers rattled in their restraints, and Rodimus was too busy keeping up with Ratchet to think about the sounds of crashing down in the hold. They should have been at a safe distance to avoid detection; how had they been pinpointed so quickly?

“Pull up! Get out of here!” Drift shouted.

No time to wonder about it right now.

“Can’t,” Rodimus said while Ratchet wrestled with the controls. “I’ve got visual; they’re charging up for the next shot. Reversing momentum would have us hovering like an auto-skeet.” If the console would stop bombarding him with warnings, he might have been able to make better estimates about their next move, but a ship this size wasn’t designed to be flown by just two bots with half a processor each. Ratchet was demanding so much of their attention that even reading the words on the screen demanded resources they didn’t have, so he scrubbed the whole thing until all that was left was the visual feed, the twinkle that shone just before the storm. “Diving. Keep on our tail.”

“No, that’s—fine. Aim for cover.”

Ratchet switched off the reverse thrusters and the ship plummeted out of its gentle descent. The entire world rocked nauseatingly as the discordant visual feeds broadcast the tilting horizon and rising ground, and they startled as the second blast singed the air behind them, the crackle of Drift’s failing comms suite not enough to prevent their sparks from clenching down in panic. The rear cameras recovered from the overexposure, and there was the speeder, intact and keeping pace.

“What now?” Drift demanded.

“Evasive maneuvers,” Rodimus said, following the ticker tape of Ratchet’s intentions. “Triple Thunderclash!”

Ratchet twisted hard on the controls and sent the ship spiraling. Rodimus would have been flung across the bridge had they not been secured, but even then struggled to maintain focus as they were thrashed around, over and over. He couldn’t see Drift anymore, or the distant turret: everything was swirls of color, broken up for only a split second as the third blast went wide and passed them by.

Ratchet drew back and pulled them out of the spiral, then hastily steered them aside as the recovered visual feeds revealed an oncoming peak. Landing thrusters were engaged; slightly dazed, Rodimus picked out a promising valley for Ratchet to maneuver them into. Drift reappeared in the rear feed, keeping his distance in case they had to dart again. Not that there would be much room for it, as the canyon walls rose up and enveloped them.

Ratchet brought the shuttle to rest on a wide shelf and sat back, optics dim. The constant, pounding beat of his focus dispersed, and he sunk into pillowy relief, buoyed by Rodimus’ burst of Wow we made its and What kind of gun was thats and I’m alive Ratchet’s alive Drift’s alives. It had been hard, keeping that iron grip on himself while Ratchet put in the work of keeping them alive, but—

“Wouldn’t have seen that shot coming without you,” Ratchet said. Rodimus looked away as he flushed, warm with appreciation and embarrassment; sincerity was an intimacy he was never quite prepared for. He was grateful when Drift’s speeder landed alongside them.

“Everybody intact in there?” Ratchet asked. He thought Rodimus’ embarrassment was amusing, frag him, but was willing to set it aside out of concern for their friend. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t find a way to exploit it later, but for now, Rodimus was safe.

“We made it,” Drift said. “That was more more like a Double Thunderclash.”

“Ratchet was between Thunderclashes and I had to make a best guess.” Rodimus tried to mime the path of the two ships with his hands, twisting his arms as far as his joints would allow. “It’s a Triple Thunderclash because it’s three times cooler than a thing Clash did in some fight,” he explained, since he felt Ratchet wondering.

“Battle of Ambustus Major?” Ratchet asked. Rodimus shrugged and tried not to pout when Ratchet immediately brought up an old vid file of the maneuver.

“Is the ship stable here?” Drift asked, reminding them they were here with a purpose. In the aftermath of such a close call, it was natural to want to ease back for a moment, but Rodimus couldn’t fault Drift for wanting to stay on track. The stakes weren’t any lower just because they’d made it to the surface intact.

“Should be,” Ratchet said, leaning over so he didn’t have to keep relying on Rodimus to funnel through the ship’s readings. “Holding steady for now. We’d probably need to conduct a physical survey to be sure, but I’m not seeing anything troubling from here.” Ratchet wasn’t sure of the composition of this planet, but the lack of dust in the atmosphere suggested it was made of a lot of hard, compact stone, hopefully strong enough to support a spacefaring vessel. They just had to hope that whatever geologic event had formed this shelf hadn’t terribly weakened the wall it was anchored to.

“Good,” Drift said. “The good news from all this is that the turret gives us an idea of where they have their main base; it’d be a waste of fuel to have to drive back and forth a long way. Once I’ve scouted it out and located Grit, you can come in.”

“Okay, and one more time with a plan we’ll actually follow?” Ratchet’s edge emboldened Rodimus. If it had been just him out here, he might have let Drift make all the decisions out of guilt, but the strong presence beside his mind pulsed with gentle encouragement.

Drift sighed.

“Right. Give me a minute.”

Ratchet gave Rodimus a thumbs up. Progress.

Rodimus got up from the captain’s seat and walked to the bow of the bridge, where the narrow viewshield gave him a closer peek onto the planet. The impression he got: rocks. Though the surface was painted mainly by dull shades of brown, down here they started taking on more color, hints of red and green only noticeable against the stark homogeny of everything else.

Why had the Decepticons chosen this planet? Were there fuel reservoirs buried too far below the surface to show up on orbital scanners? How would they have known to come looking for them? If not, if this was just a backwater hideaway, why the powerful defense system? Who was hiding here? And for how long? He itched to pop the hatch open and start exploring, but Ratchet’s presence kept him in place. This world, with its unknown Cybertronian population, confronted them with a new variety of complexity and danger. Though they could be rash in their decision to help Drift, they couldn’t risk being stupid about it.

Ratchet gently nudged him away from that kind of thinking. No one here was stupid. Everyone was trying to do the right thing for the people of Vitrious, the universe at large, and each other.

Rodimus cast a small, grateful smile over his shoulder.

“Okay.” The comms came back to life with Drift’s voice. “I still think this is a bad idea. But I’ve got something.”

[loominggaia]

Okay we see that different species have different love languages, how would one flirt with and show affection to troll’s? How would one go about making themselves desirable to a troll waifu/husbando? Asking for… reasons?

The way trolls show affection is more influenced by culture than their species. But if we're strictly talking about natural urges, troll males do tend to become more aggressive when there's females around. The thing about trolls is, they're really into scents. Other species mistakenly think that trolls have a poor sense of smell because they're not bothered by the stench of dung, rotting corpses, etc...

The truth is, trolls actually have an extremely acute sense of smell, it's just that things that smell bad to other species instead smell good to them. They LIKE the smell of skunks, sweat, poo, and dead bodies. It's like flowers to them.

Adult female trolls have pheromones in their natural body odor. These pheromones trigger behavioral changes in nearby male trolls, and some males are more sensitive to this than others. Say a group of male trolls is hanging out, having a good time, and then a female suddenly appears. The moment that female walked in, the chance that those males will start acting stupid and beating eachother up for no reason just went up by 200%. The sweatier and smellier that female is, the higher that percentage gets.

Researchers believe this natural urge encourages male trolls to establish social dominance with eachother and therefore "compete" for the female's attention, basically showing her who's the strongest and most worthy of her time.

Only female trolls have the specific pheromone that causes this behavior, and it doesn't seem to work on other females. Female trolls don't experience this scent-based aggression like males do, but they still find themselves gravitating towards males with a stronger musk.

If you're of a different species and you're trying to woo a troll, your best bet is to appeal to their sense of smell. Your natural body odor is the best tool you have in this regard. The more rank it is, the more you'll appeal to both sexes.

If you ate a bunch of garlic, stopped brushing your teeth, and didn't shower for a week straight before showing up to your date, most species would gag and leave immediately. But if your date is a troll, they'll find themselves enchanted by your lovely stench! You're already half-way there, now if you can just smell like an asshole without acting like one, you'll have yourself a successful date.

Now, trolls can get away with being unhygienic because they're immune to almost all diseases. Their immune systems just laugh at viruses and bacteria. This definitely cannot be said for other species, so anyone dating a troll has to perform a fine balancing act of maintaining their health and maintaining an attractive, troll-friendly odor. Some vendors on Looming Gaia sell rank-smelling perfumes for exactly this scenario.

Conversely, trolls do not like smells which are considered pleasant by most other species, like blooming flowers and fresh food. These things disgust them the way the stench of skunks and rotten eggs disgusts humans, so keep that in mind. Laundry soap, body wash, and shampoo? Forget it, you're not winning over any trolls with that stuff. Wash your clothes in vinegar, skip the body wash altogether, and use your hair's natural grease as a styling aid. Eating a diet rich in garlic, durian, and fish certainly doesn't hurt either.

Basically just adopt the hygiene habits of the average 4chan user, and you're ready to attract the troll waifu or husbando of your dreams!

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[keevansixx]

Tumblr+ is a bad idea, but i understand why they are pushing for it?

Ok, how many of us have lived through the purges, watched as they nuked from low orbit all the artistic smexiness in a bout of puritanical fervor, while leaving the bots and blatant unfettered to rampage across this lovely hellsite free range and unchecked? Doing nothing while the shitiness of humanity is allowed to harass and threaten people for posting their hot takes (regardless of whether they are right or wrong)?

yeah, some of us have watched all that has transpired.

This is nothing new....

When you view past the staff statements, all the carefully crafted wording and corporate speak, all that remains is greed, pure and simple....

for some of us, this is a safe haven, a refuge from the rest of the clusterfeck that is known as social media. where individuals can post their innermost thoughts, creative ideas, and feelings to the ether. If the stars are aligned in their favor, while the word gods shine favorably upon thee, and the image deities smile in dank approval, we find other like minded souls piloting their own ships within this digital night that meet briefly to share a like, comment. or reblog before moving on to other horizons. In it’s simplicity, tumblr is almost the last bastion of creative thought left in the entirety of the world wide web. 

for others, tumblr is just yet another extension of their social media psyche, dragging all their real world baggage into it’s pages, hoping that someone out there may offer a solution to their own personal problems (or at least stroke their egos or biases to orgasmic bit) . Activists abound, and are shouting from the digital rooftops “look at me! See! See the violence inherit in the system, help help, i’m being oppressed!”” While the darkest ugliness in certain parts of humanity responds with vile poison and vitriol to ideas that do not agree or align with their own...committing the oldest of digital sins, in the newest of ways. Sad....but i digress.

Tumblr, to it’s corporate and wall-street taskmasters, is not greatly profitable in it’s current form. Sure, they get a little bit of money here and there from all the boring unremovable ads sprinkled throughout everyone’s feeds...but that’s just it. ad money keeps the lights on and the hamster wheels turning in the server rooms, and maybe a pot of coffee or box of stale doughnuts in the break room to keep the hamsters happy, but in the end it’s just enough to keep the site barely alive, while ensuring the devils get their deep pockets full of due.

The question everyone is asking themselves, but don’t know it yet, is...

To just Whom does tumblr+ benefit the most? 

It’s certainly not for the fan-fic artists who create art based on someone else’s works. certainly not for the shit-posters who reblog all the weirdly wonderfully funny and bizarre things the world web has to offer. certainly not for the fanfic writers, who craft the continuing stories of their favorite properties they do not own. definitely not for average joe or jane blogger who basically repost everything that crosses their feeds because they enjoy that stuff immensely, and want to share it all with everyone who follows them. Certainly not for I, who basically just comes here to post fictional stories from pregenerated prompts, whatever pops into my head, and a few reblogs from things that catch my fancy.

So who does that leave? In the Immortal words of Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ”When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

For a few original tumblr artists, this may be a boon (but i doubt it). why would you settle for a middleman to get paid for your original art, when you could sell to a direct market off site for prints/merch straight to the customer and making bank? Seems counterintuitive to me to allow a site to step in to earn money off your hard work and creativity. Plus a paywall cuts you off from potential customers who may be interested in your works, but will not pay tumblr just to view your works....kinda shooting yourself in the foot going plus.

Tumblr+ is being built for all the clout chasers that think they will benefit from a blue plus mark (just like on twitter and instagram, go figure) banking on human vanity and obsessive compulsive disorder to bring in the money. (that’s right! buy that blue + mark ya little cash monkeys...spend, spend for that social credit! muahahahaha!)

The other reason is Porn. (don’t laugh...the internet you enjoy today was built on the metaphorical backs of the porn industry. every internet innovation enjoyed in the past 35 years was created, tested, and tried first somewhere to deliver, watch, and enjoy porn. sure it got started on university campuses, but the porn industry made it take off like a rocket to push product) Tumblr can’t beat it...they have consistently shown they are incapable of removing all the raunchy naughty bits from this site. If you can’t beat them, join them. Put all the adult content behind a paywall, set the price, and watch the money roll in as humans just can’t resist watching a good fluff n’ tickle. Set the booby algorithm phasers to “paywall”!  Wanna see that statue of Venus de Milo, or the statue of David? gonna have to pay that monthly fee to see. “Oh, but you’re just an artist drawing artistic nudes as a hobby? too bad! behind the paywall you go too. We want our cut of the share regardless how you may feel about it.” 

basically Tumblr is trying to change the clientele....facts. They hope to draw in the same demographics that make sites like reddit, twitter, instagram, and others profitable to the corporation, at the expense of the long term users that made this site the unique thing it is today. 

but hey, what do i know, i’m just a messed up monkey with an opinion, take it all with a huge grain of salt and live your best life possible....but the cards are not in tumblr+’s favor. 

Everyone has got an opinion on this, that’s all well and good. If you agree/disagree that’s fine too....just remember to be kind in all things, show the wisdom and grace of the best of humanity, take a deep breath before responding, and reply with the best of yourself as you can muster...after all, you’re only human....Ook ook. 

[wotnahq]

Paxton Balfour • 36 • Male (he/him) • Metahuman • Portal Manipulation • C.A.R.M.A • Research & Development

BIOGRAPHY

TW: Mental Illness, Bullying, Non-Consensual Body Modification, mention of drugs, slurs, mentions of sexual assault

June 16, 2009: Berlin

In the shadow of this accomplishment, at 23:47 in the Charite University Hospital Berlin, Paxton Heinrich Urs Balfour was born to the unlikely union of Henry F. Balfour (1973- ) and Giselle E. Fuchs-Zeigler (1981-2015), div. 2011. There were no complications at the birth, though the baby was somewhat underweight even being delivered two weeks past due date.  He was raised by his father in New York and Berlin, his mother committed to a psychiatric facility when he was 2.

2026: Full Power Manifestation

Always the outcast: too young, too loud, too small, too much. An easy target on city streets, an easier target when curfew was ignored because there was just so much to see - it didn’t matter where. Berlin. New York. Anywhere, everywhere. All the data and stimuli and life that crackled beneath everything. Exciting. Distracting. Overwhelming.  There were a range of problems. Paxton had inherited his mother’s mood disorder - or rather, some variation of it. Dark days that drained him of all energy.  Manic ones that  gave fuel to his reckless tendencies, thriving on greater highs and wandering into places he shouldn’t as though floating on air, absorbing everything until one of two things happened: Overstimulation and internal shut down….or his mouth caught up to him in the worst way.

There were never a shortage of bigger - and who wasn’t bigger than some scrappy slip of a kid? - and shorter fused people willing to teach some mouthy kid some manners or take whatever he was carrying. Sometimes it was drugging his beer (Berlin), usually it was far more straightforward and physical. He was good, too. Grew up around someone who eviscerated with words for a living - and it was fun, sometimes, showing off how clever he could be to some assholes who treated him like some punk kid, some nobody. A same kind of different the way his colleagues would baby him, the way his peers sneered at him like he was a freak. Well, freaks could win some too. Could make grown men stomp out of establishments with embarrassment if the insults were funny and bold enough from the kid they’d just called ‘pipsqueak’ or ‘junior’. He was a fucking rockstar.

[TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT SECTION] On one particular night in 2025 the men he had pissed off weren’t content with a beating, letting him up just long enough to struggle to his feet.The brain stops in those moments, the only thing that matters is getting away. Appeasing, fighting, freezing, fleeing. Anything to make the predator lose interest. Anything to keep those hands off of him, the body pressed hard against his back, the breath against his ear and the laughter at his struggles, at his helplessness. The senses narrow to all those danger points, all the unwanted contact, the feel of a brick wall or asphalt alley floor, adrenaline pounding and pounding until at some point there is no wall or floor, just falling through layers of immaterial windows from the sky back to the ground and stumbling away from the dazed (unconscious?) tiger who had its claws sunk into him seconds before. Limping, running, stumbling  into the nearest bus or taxi shaking all over. Getting home and hearing his dad’s voice calling his name as if through a distance, asking what happened, gripping his arm and eyes widening at the automatic flinch before the fall and sob into familiar arms. [END SECTION]

Section Summary: Powers unlock in response to a traumatic experience.

2034: Exposure

When the existence of metahumans was revealed to the wider world, Paxton was 25, a professor at Columbia, and already chafing at the constraints of bureaucracy and the need to keep his abilities secret. In New York and even Berlin there were underground scenes, parties one could go to let off some steam, but nothing that couldn’t be written off as a trick of hallucinogenics to the average party goer. Watching the footage of the telekinetic was breathtaking, gut wrenching, certainly, but…the balloon of pretense had been popped. As would weeks later his own layer of anonymity.

2037: Move to Pansaw

Three years. Three years in Germany, Austria, anywhere that wasn’t the United States, watching the antimeta rhetoric and violence increase. Three years scraping together his legitimacy and trying to promote legislative change. Tolerance was easier to come by in countries who had had their share of extremist movements targeting minority groups in the past hundred years, but only just. The science community was torn between fear and curiosity with their only common ground being metahumans as subjects, not metahumans as scientists.  This was not without its benefits. At least free Paxton could explore his powers, could swallow down the fear and channel energy needed to see world after world, to discover, even if none of those discoveries would be recognized by any official scientific body currently. That’s not what it was for.

There were local resistance movements in other cities, other countries, but the barbarity of Pansaw. The whispers of metahuman experimentation, mass incarceration, weaponization for bio and genetic warfare. And it spread. Like a festering wound it began to creep its way into the rest of the country, the continent. He wasn’t a soldier, but from what he could tell the resistance in Pansaw needed brains as much as brawn. Fight science with science. He arrived in Pansaw in July, it wasn’t until October that he made contact with the Rebel Army. He had seen the wonders of thousands of realities, and he was tired of this one being so broken.

2043: CARMA

Let it never be said that he would not do anything for his first love, Lady Science…including leaving the Rebel Army to join the Cunts Anonymous Regime of Metahuman Annihilation which…he supposed he could no longer call it since he now, you know, sort of worked there. Go team. It hadn’t been his best adlib for the acronym anyway. What else could he do? Step back, take a university job with a backseat to real innovation? Trust that the bastards - okay, alright, reformed bastards - who had systematically criminalized and repressed a group of fellow human beings would just..what? Suddenly devote their resources to planting new trees and make good on their promise not to fall into their old ways. No way, dude. This time, it was gonna be better.

POWERS

PORTAL MANIPULATION: The ability to create portals between non-adjacent locations. Control ranges over the size, quantity, duration, intended location, and relative distance from the user. This extends to portals between dimensions. Specialist Application: Dimensional Travel.

WEAKNESSES

Heightened psychological instability (the user suffers from a PDNOS which results in severe manic, panic, and depressive cycles in addition to ADHD, exacerbation may result in extreme panic attacks, dissociative events, or catatonic like states), disorientation, dehydration, exhaustion, physical resource depletion, collapse, tremors, vomiting, nosebleeds, broken blood vessels, weakened immune system, coma, internal organ damage, or seizures. List not exhaustive. See powers page for specific limitations and weaknesses for applications.

PERSONALITY

+ Exuberant + Ingenious + Adaptive

– Obnoxious – Reckless – Unstable