#04 -15-2021 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months

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Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

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

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

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

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

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

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

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

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

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

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griaustinis · 1 year

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Is it weird that i kinda have nostalgia for like 2014. If i had had the mind i have now back then. Such a weird time in pop culture.

#2021 04 15 #i would've loved to have been a grunge alt the neighbourhood arctic monkeys girlie #but that style wasn't really available to me and my mom didn't let me lol #nostalgia #pop culture #2014 #2010s #2010s nostalgia #griaustinis.post #old drafts

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toskarinarchive · 2 months

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Toskarin Database

Last updated: 2024-04-18, 23:13+00:00

Current Toskarinlike Count: 32

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#toskarin #toskarinlike #toskarinarchive

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marybeatriceofmodena · 1 year

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Think of me, think of me fondly...

In honor of the Phantom of the Opera Broadway production closing, here are a few gifts: audios and one video.

(As per usual, if you're the master of one of these and you want me to remove the link, please let me know.)

Audios

Michael Crawford, Patti Cohenour, Steve Barton, Judy Kaye, Nicholas Wyman, Cris Groenendaal, Leila Martin, Elisa Heinsohn, David Romano April 30, 1988 https://www.mediafire.com/file/aybwjye3k647bfy/POTO+Broadway+30-04-1988+-+Crawford,+Cohenour,+Barton.rar/file

Hugh Panaro, Lisa Vroman, John Cudia, Patricia Phillips, Jeff Keller, George Lee Andrews (u/s), Marilyn Caskey, Joelle Gates, Larry Wayne Morbitt May 10, 2003 https://www.mediafire.com/file/834a4sqxgjmsows/POTO+Broadway+10-05-2003+-+Panaro,+Vroman,+Cudia.rar/file

Gary Mauer, Jennifer Hope Wills, Michael Shawn Lewis, Janet Saia (u/s), George Lee Andrews, David Cryer, Marilyn Caskey, Jimmy Smagula (u/s) May 15, 2007 https://www.mediafire.com/file/70690zs3dpyb3dj/POTO+Broadway+15-05-2007+-+Mauer,+Wills,+Lewis.rar/file

Jeremy Stolle (u/s), Samantha Hill, Greg Mills (u/s), Michele McConnell, Richard Poole (u/s), Tim Jerome, Ellen Harvey, Kara Klein, Christian Sebek March 9, 2013 Matinee performance. https://www.mediafire.com/file/zfln9bh0thrg8dx/POTO+Broadway+09-03-2013+-+Stolle,+Hill,+Mills.rar/file

Norm Lewis, Mary Michael Patterson (alt.), Greg Mills (u/s) July 7, 2014 The real 11,000th performance (not the celebration, which was done the next day). https://www.mediafire.com/file/jei306ekuy0usjj/POTO+Broadway+07-07-2014+-+Lewis,+Patterson,+Hays.rar/file

Laird Mackintosh (u/s), Mary Michael Patterson, Jeremy Hays, Michelle MConnell, Ellen Harvey, Christian Sebek December 13, 2014 Mary Michael Patterson and Ellen Harvey's last matinee performance. https://www.mediafire.com/file/kt79nevlbc3yexn/POTO+Broadway+13-12-2014+-+Mackintosh,+Patterson,+Hays.rar/file

Ben Crawford, Meghan Picerno, John Riddle, Raquel Suarez Groen, Bradley Dean, Craig Bennett, Maree Johnson, Sara Esty, Carlton Moe October 22, 2021 Re-opening performance on Broadway. https://www.mediafire.com/file/d4dcjwf9n40yseu/Phantom+of+The+Opera+Broadway+October+22nd+2021+Reopening.mp3/file

Jeremy Stolle (u/s), Kanisha Marie Feliciano (u/s), John Riddle September 17, 2022 https://www.mediafire.com/file/8elrbfv5bsgbfqq/POTO+Broadway+17-09-2022+-+Stolle,+Feliciano,+Riddle.rar/file

Video

Hugh Panaro, Mary Michael Patterson, Jeremy Hays May 3, 2014 Hugh Panaro's last performance, with speeches. https://mega.nz/folder/L6xDgahT#054peSCr8ADIj6aat2MNnA

#phantom of the opera #phantom broadway #audio gift #video gift #too many people to tag #musical trading

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barrencelenny · 1 month

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I feel like fic recs tend to be things that are complete, so I thought I'd rec some things that haven't been updated in a while (>a year) or abandoned, but I still like to go back and reread

with links and comments under the cut <3

Poured Over Ice in an Old-Fashioned Glass by prepandemicwriting (bealeciphers) [2016-02-04, 28k]

-classic bartender!barry fic. they're both kinda disasters all around? hilarious

Run Away With Me by asexual-fandom-queen (2016-05-23, 14k]

-the only time asking someone to run away with you has ever worked lmao.

Painting the Roses Red by Solarcat [2016-07-01, 20k]

-Family of Rogues but there's a third snart sibling that Len's got to protect. Lucy Snart that only exists in this fic and my brain ily <3

I bet these memories follow you around by MissSugarPlum [2017-06-07,5k]

-Lisa and Barry in high school at the same time, Barry being tiny and full of rage, Lisa being reluctantly charmed, mwah. chef's kiss.

Bolt from the Blue by town_without_heart [2017-06-16, 170k]

-pre-canon meeting is always delicious to me. eobard being aware of it is the cherry on top (what a creeper)

The Good in You (the Bad in Me) by blue_wonderer [2017-08-02, 26k]

-I have a soft spot for fics where Barry and Lisa are friends what can I say. set pre-canon, and barry is a goddamn delight

Get Me Through The Night by Mentalrebel [2017-08-07, 11k]

-super interesting formatting. it's a lifeline au? I have no idea what that it, but it's fun

Ties and Barricades by yersifanel [2017-09-01, 10k]

-pre-canon meet-ugly where len kidnaps his soulmate as part of his getaway.

Realignment (time & company) by writerdragonfly [2018-02-13, 12k]

-me? rec a time travel fic? of course. time traveller's wife au. gives some really interesting backstory to Len's mother/family

Unexpected Development by nirejseki [2018-04-05, 20k]

-it's so funny it's practically a crack fic. calling the reverse flash Mr. Banana is an inspired choice

since I can remember I've been runnin' from you by youmakemesoangry [2019-01-26, 14k]

-barry getting haunted by post oculus len yes oh yes

Sticky Fingers by MoriartyMastermind [2019-03-05, 18k]

-barry stealing wallets as the flash is like objectively funny okay

Resonance by Moriavis [2019-06-16, 40k]

-looove a soulmate fic and this one is so unique. Barry and Len meet when Barry's still a child, and it ends before they meet as adults, so really it's mainly a Leonard snart character study

Ice and Lightning by vomitingwords [2020-03-26, 2k]

-potentially the only figure skating au for this ship?

Zero to Sixty by scrubmarine [2020-06-26, 25k]

-barry meeting len out of costume because he's running away from Iris is a hilarious set up, and he kind of deserves it

Just Friends by Thundersnow [2021-08-11, 168k]

-a classic fake dating au, trying to figure out how a blueberry coffee could taste good has been a question that has followed me for years.

Shiva by crestfaller [2021-11-07, 17k]

-I always need more fics dealing with the loss of Henry tbh, and this is a really good exploration of grief.

What It Might Cost by Kateera [2022-05-17, 20k]

-a classic deaging fic, len is heartbreakingly cute

Stand Still by Taste_of_Bitterness [2022-09-15, 25k]

-len doesn't go on the waverider after running to stand still. Barry's kind of a mess here, tbh?

I Think I Love You by youmakemesoangry [2023-05-03, 67k]

-it's post Len and mick's legends trip, and they're helping out team flash. there's a truth spell involved. It's a classic trope. (also there's this bit where mick's reading Frankenstein and he calls creature victor's kid, and that's such a mood, my gothic fiction class spent like an hour talking about his daddy issues once)

#might start a little collection of fic rec zines lol #k.txt #coldflash #fic recs

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jockpoetry · 9 months

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golden lovers (2018-2023)

to the dead - frank bidart // njpw road to tokyo dome (photo credit) - 12/15/18 // langston hughes // starrcast 2 // njpw wrestle kingdom 15 01/05/2021 // i have some friends - robert w. service // aew dynamite - 10/31/19 // wrestling with angels - robert stock // njpw g1 climax 28 & aew full gear 2020 // song of myself - walt whitman // 01/30/2021 // wild geese - mary oliver // aew full gear 2021 // wrestling - louisa s. bevington // 09/15/22 // 01/04/23 // aew dynamite - 07/12/23 // to you - frank o'hara // aew dynamite - 07/19/2023 // to the dead - frank bidart

#kenny omega #kota ibushi #golden lovers #hangman page #aewedit #my edit #u: built a pyre and burnt himself up #long post

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valhethella · 10 months

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I got quite a few DMs over the weekend on twitter asking about my brushes, and as with anything, your mileage may vary, and digital art isn’t made or broken by brushes, but having them never hurt! Talking about how you use your tools is just as important as talking about what tools you use, so consider this a small breakdown of my process for digital sketching.

First thing’s first, I avoid sketching on an untextured canvas. If you like to have a flat, solid canvas, I recommend working at 50% grey, or adjusting your canvas to be slightly off-white. The harshness of black on pure-white can be a hang-up for many people, including myself.

I sketch on paper textures sourced from my own old sketchbooks and papers. The one I use most frequently is available in my Sketchbook Paper Pack, and named Off White.

While a true-to-life pencil look is not what I’m actively going for with my sketches, these papers certainly help achieve it.

I do almost all of my work in Procreate, but learned digital art first in Photoshop. Anything I share here in regards to how I use brushes can be applied to any brush, I’m certain!

For my sketches, you’re seeing the work of one brush and one eraser.

For my brush, I use an altered version of Procreate’s native HB Pencil brush that I’ve named HB Pencil Beefy. It’s available in my 2021 Brush Pack.

For my eraser, I use Alexa Sharpe’s Soft Eraser. It’s available in their Eraser Brush Pack.

I use my brush at pretty consistently set sizes that are based on my standard canvas size, which is 6″ x 9″ 400 dpi or I use a double spread of 12″ x 9″ 400 dpi.

(If you work in pixels that’s 2400x3600 at 400 dpi and 4800x3600 at 400 dpi)

HB Pencil Beefy I use at 4%, 15%, and 50% size, with the brush’s opacity set to either 60% or 15%.

I set the brush to 15% opacity when I want to go in very softly with lots of that pencil texture. I use this when I need to scale back and really rough something out, or if I’m trying to get a sense of volume with some shadows or contours.

With Alexa Sharpe’s Soft Eraser, I use the eraser set at 2%, 10%, and 25% size. I only scale back the opacity on the eraser if I want to take something back to nearly gone, but still want those lines, faint, there as a guideline.

Jumping back to my file setup really quick, I like to work in a digital sketchbook! It’s just a procreate canvas with a paper texture that’s creased down its center, and all the added layers are my pages. This helps me feel less pressured to create something perfect or finished; It gives me the illusion of just noodling in any old sketchbook.

Okay. Back to the pencil. Below, I have a small idea of my process in sketching and drawing. This is not a how-to-draw demo, and it’s definitely not an anatomy demo – it’s just how I approach drawing using this brush. The page below, and the one above, were both done on a 9″x 6″ canvas at 400 dpi.

01.

Loose and light

using brush at 50% size

this brush does have a tilt dynamic, but I’ve never used it

02.

Nastiest phase

building up a little opacity

still only using brush at 50% size

use eraser at 25% size, if at all

03.

start refining

come in with 15% sized brush

at no point do I abandon larger brushwork, it just becomes about more careful and purposeful use

use eraser to hatch and cut back roughs

04.

hello 4% brush my beautiful little boy ♡

hatching in detail

build up opacity, using eraser to bring it back and to carve volume

jump back to larger sizes for larger forms and volumes

fiddle until “finished”

P.S. the liquify tool is my best friend

#blog #Brushes #procreate brushes #Procreate #Digital #old art reposting saga

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bad268 · 7 months

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Writing Inktober 2023

300 word minimum and no repeats are the challenges this year. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably. (haha yes)

BTW the medal emojis are the winners from the polls :)

01/10 Dream

Sebastian Montoya X Reader (W.C. 386)

02/10 Spiders

Seth Borden X Reader (W.C. 338)

03/10 Path

Max Verstappen X Reader (W.C. 367)

04/10 Dodge

Benny Rodriguez X Reader (W.C. 348)

05/10 Map

Sebastian Vettel X Reader (W.C. 338)

06/10 Golden

Justin Herbert X Reader (W.C. 342)

07/10 Drip

TMR Newt X Reader (W.C. 342) 🥈

08/10 Toad Sacrifice

Andrea Kimi Antonelli X Reader (W.C. 338)

09/10 Bounce

Marcus Armstrong X Reader (W.C. 384)

10/10 Fortune

Johnny Cade X Reader (W.C. 485) 🥉

11/10 Wander

Peter Parker X Reader (W.C. 402) 🥇

12/10 Spicey Scandal

Pierre Gasly X Reader (W.C. 391)

13/10 Rise Tonight

Colby Brock X Reader (W.C. 370)

14/10 Castle

Oscar Piastri X Reader (W.C. 370)

15/10 Dagger Nightmare

Lando Norris X Reader (W.C. 419)

16/10 Angel

Mick Schumacher X Reader (W.C. 395)

17/10 Demon

Kimi Raikkonen X Reader (W.C. 327)

18/10 Saddle

Daniel Ricciardo X Reader (W.C. 318)

19/10 Plump Wet

Ollie Bearman X Reader (W.C. 365)

20/10 Frost

Paul Aron X Reader (W.C. 389)

21/10 Chains Bouquet

Charles Leclerc X Reader (W.C. 369)

22/10 Scratchy Flight

Joe Burrow X Reader (W.C. 390)

23/10 Celestial Redeemer

Corpse Husband X Reader (W.C. 400)

24/10 Shallow Chosen

P! SBI X Reader (W.C. 358)

25/10 Dangerous

Callum Ilott X Reader (W.C. 310)

26/10 Remove Shots

Dennis Hauger X Reader (W.C. 348)

27/10 Beast

Christian Lundgaard X Reader (W.C. 339)

28/10 Sparkle

Dino Beganovic X Reader (W.C. 406)

29/10 Massive Approval

Felipe Drugovich X Reader (W.C. 358)

30/10 Rush

Clement Novalak X Reader (W.C. 386)

31/10 Fire

Pato O’Ward X Reader (W.C. 343)

Bonus: Break

Tadashi Hamada X Reader (W.C. 363)

Average W.C. 369

Want to read other years’ Inktober stories, check these out:

2021 // 2022 // 2024 (Coming Soon)

On a side note, I looked back at last year’s entries, and I definitely thought Bouquet was Banquet, so instead of admitting I was wrong, I did it as a sub this year. If you noticed, no you didn’t :)

Also funny story about Shallow, I kept reading it as Swallow, so I couldn't do it

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

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jiminjamms · 1 year

Text

sex therapy :: 14. sucker for pain

chapter tags/warnings: misogynistic! naoya. pet names ("bimbo"). dirty talking. nonconsenual undertones. infidelity/adultery. strong language. humiliation. classism.

word count: 3.8k

notes: i published this story for the first time in october 2021 on wattpad, and i'm so thankful for and overwhelmed by the support and love that sex therapy has received over the past year. thank you for watching me and my story grow. xoxo

fic masterlist | 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Eat. Sleep. Fuck. Repeat.

This would be the mantra Naoya would live by tonight.

The little date he was taking you on was merely a prequel to the chain of bedroom events he had schemed for the evening. Because warming up first was important, no?

As a wonderful husband, Naoya took his precious wife out to dinner at Shibuya’s Cé La Vi, a top-floor restaurant that may not be as vertigo-inducing as its famous Marina Bay Sands counterpart in Singapore, but offered a menu and skyline views second to none.

He had even requested an outdoor table under the fairy lights for the romantic atmosphere, where both the amber hues and soft jazz washed the vicinity with warmth and peace. Exactly what Naoya also needed after his last twenty hours filled with hurried negotiations with publishers, a long flight back to Tokyo, and many private lectures from his outraged father.

At least that was all done now.

Sighing, Naoya gestured at a nearby waiter, who disappeared and returned with a glass of expensive tequila several minutes later. Eight in the evening might be far too early for Naoya to down his third shot of Don Julio, but he needed to reward himself for completing a hectic itinerary without a wink of shuteye in between.

With the drink, he quietly soaked in the low hum of chatter that mingled with the gentle clinking of cutlery. The ambiance was so miraculous that Naoya didn’t know why he hadn’t taken you here earlier.

Now that he thought about it, when was the last time he had taken you out on a proper date anyway?

Oh, when he took you out two weeks ago to skydive in…

No, wait that was with Mari.

He was only two and a half glasses in, but the liquor was already messing with his memory.

So when…?

“We haven’t done anything like this in a long, long while,” you commented when you must have noted his extended silence at the dinner table, although Naoya found it quite funny that you seemingly read his thoughts instead.

He swirled the liquor in his glass but decided against another sip. “You think so?” he asked as harmlessly as possible. “When was the last time?”

Cutting into a scallop on your plate, you bit your inner cheek. “Our…honeymoon.”

Holy crap, that Caribbean trip was months ago. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” you deadpanned.

Oh.

Okay, he might have thought a lot more about spending time with his mistress, and he hadn’t exactly been keeping track of every single date he went on with you, but he certainly did not expect to have such an abysmal track record with his own wife.

Not that he felt guilty about his absence in your life.

Besides, you had the money to entertain yourself as you wished. Whether because you were blinded by sheer stupidity or his bank account, you thankfully didn’t complain much either. All Naoya had to do was to keep you happy and ignorant because—to paraphrase his father’s own words—if Naoya flopped this marriage with the COO's daughter, he would not be welcomed in the Zenin household again.

The difficult part, however, was that you were hard to please.

That was what happened to little girls who grew up spoiled by daddy’s money, Naoya supposed. Mari, on the other hand, would have absolutely been overjoyed in your position. Hell, even Naoya himself—who merely grew up as a spare heir—would have shown some gratitude.

“Sorry that I’ve been so occupied.” The Zenin CEO had to inject whatever sympathy and sincerity he had into his apology before sampling his risotto. “I’ve been buried in work ever since I joined the executive suite earlier this year. I’ve had a lot to catch up on.”

“I know,” you responded very matter-of-factly. “And I understand. You’ve been busy with meetings.”

Right. Meetings with his board in addition to his, well, other more discreet ‘meetings’ where he pounded his paramour into oblivion (but let’s not talk about that, shall we?).

As he pushed the thought away, he placed his fork down in exchange for his drink. “That’s why I invited you for dinner—to spend extra time with you. I’ll make things up to you even more later.”

You glanced up from your meal, blinking rapidly but the ambivalence apparent in your gaze. “Really? Like how?”

Sex, you motherfucking dimwit.

How much more obvious did he have to be?

Of course, he instead replied with, “You’ll see.”

He hadn’t told you his idea to rail your brains out because he didn’t feel obligated to, but if he wanted to a) get his father off his ass and b) be a baby daddy by morning, he had quite the mission to accomplish. Besides, if he calculated the numbers correctly in his head, today was still within your fertility window. A later day in the schedule, but still a fertile time for his wife, nonetheless. This was the perfect time to focus on you, particularly since he wouldn’t be distracted by Mari for some time. Perhaps arriving early from Mexico wasn’t too much of a bad thing.

Tonight, the deed didn’t seem too difficult to do either, thanks to how provocatively you dressed. Since when did you wear off-the-shoulder mini dresses? Was this from your New York fashion haul three months back?

“It’d be nice if you could apologize to me first.”

Naoya froze with his glass by his mouth at your unanticipated comment. What were you even going on about? “Didn’t I already say sorry for not spending time with you?” This was what he meant by how ungrateful you were.

Curling your lips inward, you inhaled sharply. “That wasn’t what I was—”

When the conversation was unexpectedly interrupted by a buzzing at the table, Naoya reached for his phone only to be greeted with a blank screen. Rather, he looked up to see you wiping your hands and staring at your device, mirroring Naoya’s own confusion as your brows creased at an unsaved number.

“Spam,” you concluded and pushed the device away once the caller eventually reached voicemail. “What I was saying,” you began even as your face contorted momentarily with reluctance, “was that you never told me you were away from Japan. I didn’t even know where you were or when you would be back had I not called your secretary.”

Wow, that was what you wanted an apology for?

What an entitled brat.

Admittedly, Naoya should have texted you before he vanished into thin air, but a homemaker like you certainly had no business in his personal schedule. Had he truly had an investor conference to attend, Naoya was certain you would have been just as meddlesome, which was why he found the situation even more sardonic when you confirmed his suspicions by adding, “Sending me a text isn’t too difficult, you know.”

Just who the hell did you think you were?

Don’t think he had not noticed how confrontational you had been as of late, criticizing his actions and then dishing out instructions as though you were anywhere near the place to do so. This change from your typically submissive nature was uninvited, to say the least. Like, at the bare minimum, you could look at your own husband as you spoke, and Naoya wondered if your actions were simply a phase in the relationship or a reveal of the real you. Whatever the reason, he wanted his good and obedient wife back.

“Well then, my apologies." His eye twitched as he spoke, and nothing now could hide the contempt rising in his tone. “Next time, I’ll make sure my assistants send you my entire itinerary from when I sleep to when I use the restroom to—"

Naoya couldn’t even think through his annoyance because, at this point, your phone was ringing for what must be the third time and that irked him even further.

“Please!” he scoffed, his vexation bursting through his voice. “Just excuse yourself and pick that shit up, good lord!”

At least that much you listened to. You pardoned yourself, stepping away just as Naoya pinched the bridge of his nose. On the one date he finally organized with his wife, you just had to ruin his mood with your shit attitude and table manners. Fantastic.

After one long huff, Naoya swung around in his seat and caught the attention of a nearby waiter.

The fuming executive then pointed at his glass.

“Another shot, ASAP."

As much as you were guilty of self-deprecation, you were not masochistic enough to simply swallow your husband’s insults over dinner.

‘Sex, you motherfucking dimwit.’

Simply thinking back to that line sent tiny pricks to your chest.

Did Naoya really think that, just because he mumbled that to himself under his breath, you wouldn’t hear him? What made you even more upset was that, when you asked for an apology, he could not even recognize his wrongs. There was more that you hoped to confront him about, too—particularly about the rumors of his extramarital affairs—but you had half the mind to shut up given his splenetic fury.

Whoever called you, however, thankfully provided you with a reason for reprieve.

You rushed out of the main restaurant venue as you curiously stared at your phone, noticing the missed calls from an unknown number. When the same contact information appeared on your screen in its fourth ring, you pressed the ‘Accept’ button only for the other line to greet you first.

“I still have your dress, kiddo.”

Kiddo.

Only one person called you that.

“Choso?” you nearly shouted in disbelief, unintentionally garnering the attention of some bystanders.

“That’s me alright,” the therapist answered, his reply cool and composed as though he never questioned the fact that his hands landed on your phone number. “I was just about to give up on reaching you.”

Overwhelmed, you sighed. “Sorry, I’m rather busy at the moment.”

“Right, right,” he mulled, a faint rumble sneaking in his tone. Choso then clicked his tongue against his teeth, and you could almost picture the blasé manner in which he would recline in a seat as some shuffling echoed over the line, which would have normally been irrelevant until he added, “Well, I’m downstairs.”

“What?!” was your first reaction. Now, you were certainly getting weird stares. Downstairs, as in, where? “Are you in—”

“Yes, Shibuya. You’re at Cé La Vi right now, aren’t you? Take the elevator down to the first floor. My car’s parked right outside the building’s main doors. That Dolce & Gabbana outfit I made you change out of before the club, I didn’t have a chance to return that since you stormed out of the meeting last night.”

You shut your dropped jaw. “The dress I remember but,” your gaze then narrowed, “how do you know where I am?”

The call suddenly grew quiet, the lull stretching for what must be an hour as Choso carefully contemplated his next words. “When you’re in the right business,” he hinted darkly, no doubt making a reference to his underbelly occupation, “information isn’t hard to come by once you know the right people.”

An assassin with eyes all over the city, huh?

Well, that explained how he got your number as well, albeit you would not be surprised if he had dug through the therapist office’s database for that instead. Sometimes, you had to wonder how an upper-class lady like you got entangled with a man like him, but a five-minute round trip to the first floor could not possibly hurt, right?

“I’ll meet you, then,” you eventually replied and ended the call.

Catching the first elevator car down, you had no trouble spotting the iconic blue Corvette convertible that stood outside the building’s entrance. Upon your approach, Choso rolled down his window and stuck his head out. This evening, his jet-black strands were pulled back into one low ponytail rather than two, his prominent jawline appearing even sharper against the nighttime backdrop.

No wonder this man had a whole harem in the club.

“Hey,” he hummed as his inky eyes ran down your figure, his gaze lingering a little longer on your exposed collarbone before traveling down to your legs. “I like your style.”

At the compliment, you looked away, feeling a bizarre prickle in your stomach. “I’m on a dinner date.”

“With Naoya?” Given how the therapists have recently revealed their disdain for your husband, you were not surprised to see Choso grimace. “Why…would you do that to yourself?”

Great question. “He’s paying, so I can’t complain.”

Choso pressed his lips outward, nodding when he could not argue against that. “I see.”

During the silence that ensued, you clicked your heels together, too busy floundering in the burning presence of your companion that you almost forgot the reason you were here in the first place. “Do…you have my dress?”

Nonchalantly, the man pointed to the back with his thumb. “In the trunk. What? You’re in a rush or something?”

You nodded slowly. “Naoya doesn’t know I’m down here," you explained but, given the psychological pain that your husband had inflicted on you, there was no good reason for guilt to be tugging at your lungs.

Even Choso narrowed his eyes. “You’re going back to that asshole?”

Another great question.

Without saying much, Naoya already made clear that his intention with you tonight was grounded only in sexual gratification, that he viewed you as nothing beyond—as he had put it—‘a motherfucking dimwit.’ Despite the pain, you never failed to find a reason to crawl back to the husband that lashed at your heart.

“Naoya is already angry at me,” you eventually remarked, twirling the edges of your dress. “If I don’t get back...”

“Then what? Even more of a reason to ditch him, to be honest. Maybe that will teach him a lesson for all the times he left you.” Choso was not the type to talk much, but he inevitably had the uncanny ability to leave you dumbstruck once he did. Oblivious to your state (or not), he then casually adjusted the braided bracelet at his wrist. “Better things to do with your time than stay with him.”

Funny that your first instinct was to defend Naoya again. However, even if you were to dutifully return to your husband, he would internally welcome you with apathy, his only goal to leave you smitten as a kitten just so he would have a pussy to play with.

Abandoning Naoya also came with one other problem, though. “There isn’t much else for me to do.”

How pitiful was that?

Sure, you had a stack of invitations to various charity dinners and networking parties, but—even with all the riches and respect in the world—you found those events pretentious, repetitive, and dull.

You half-expected Choso to mock you. (Because, really, who were you to complain about first-world problems?) However, the man just paused slightly, a dash of sympathy running over his expression as he then motioned to the empty shotgun seat.

“I could take you out for a ride.”

Your brows shot up. Tempting. “Where to?”

“Since I’m free tonight, I was going to take myself somewhere by Tokyo Bay—one of my favorite spots around,” Choso explained as he ran both his hands through his hair. “Although, if you’re interested, I could show you the area, too.”

At the proposal, you tried not to smile too obviously. Who knew that a hardened part-time hitman actually had such a soft spot?

“Then I’d love to.”

Choso drove off the second you jumped into the Corvette, the convertible greeting you with its familiar ashy honeysuckle scents and a The Neighbourhood tune. With a long exhale, you sank into the red leather seat and stared out the window, watching the nearby scenery transform from skyscrapers to highway signs.

Quietly, you relished the soothing silence in the car that was a refuge from the charged cacophony over dinner, reflecting on the steps that brought you to this moment. What a twist of fate, how the man who had detested you weeks ago was now a warm beacon that offered light in the merciless sea, providing you more comfort than you'd like to admit.

When you unconsciously turned in his direction, you tried to not stare too obviously at the metal on his ears, the piercings gleaming as they caught beams from bypassing streetlamps. You might have had a rough start with Choso Kamo, but you still found him ridiculously attractive with his oversized white sweater and black jeans, hiding his athletic physique underneath.

“Need me to pull up Google Maps?” you asked upon realizing your extended ogling.

“No,” he shot back. “I know this city like the back of my hand.”

And Choso sure seemed like he did.

He was focused solely on driving, his palms clasped around the steering wheel as his fingers drummed to the bass of ‘Sweater Weather.’

This close to him, you noticed how his hands were rough and calloused—almost definitive sign of working out. Right where he rolled up his sleeves, veins also weaved beneath his forearm tattoos, the inked vines something you never had the chance to examine extensively either.

This time, you weren’t too discreet given that he caught your gaze. “What?”

Oops. “Nothing.”

You turned away to look ahead, trying to calm your frenzied heart by observing some uninteresting cars on the expressway. A proper lady like you knew better than to gawk at someone for a prolonged time, yet you still got caught red-handed. How embarrassing.

Slumping further into your seat, you pouted as your weird way in mitigating the internal humiliation. “Just…keep your eyes on the road.”

While Choso did as he was told, he held back a low chuckle. “And you could keep your eyes on me.”

“But I wasn’t—!" A complete lie, but you still shouted with flailing arms, defenses hopeless.

Yet, what really disarmed you was Choso’s faint smirk.

One minute, you were frustrated and flustered; the next, you were simply stunned at the amused tilt in his lips, all because his smile was so rare. There was something enchanting about the cocky way Choso grinned as he stepped on the accelerator, the maniacal gleam in his eyes as he stared ahead, the bright colors of the Tokyo evening that glittered behind him.

“Jesus, take the fucking wheel,” you muttered like a starstruck teenager.

“What’s wrong?” he asked harmlessly because this man definitely heard you over the music. He threw you a quick glance even as the smile on his lips stayed. “I mean, you could keep staring if you want to, bimbo. I won’t judge.”

Mouth opened to back talk, your ambitions immediately got cut short as Choso moved a hand from the steering wheel to your inner thigh. While you hid your gasp at the unexpected contact, you only hoped that he did not notice the way you tensed under his searing touch.

But Choso noticed, alright.

“Hm, why are you so quiet all of a sudden?” Choso pressed again, his focus still on the lane as though he was not caressing you, massaging you, his thumb running in hypnotic circles centimeters away from the dull throb between your legs,

How he managed to maintain his composure in such a situation was a mystery given that you, unlike him, gripped hard at the side of your seat.

“Because…” you hissed after mustering all effort.

Then, you stopped.

How could you respond while completely distracted by the tightening in your stomach, practically holding your breath as his hand crept up higher? It was not helping that his fingers were so thick, that he had a small dagger printed by a knuckle, that his scent was reminiscent of burning maple leaves during a New England fall.

“‘Because…?’ Because what?” Choso asked, knocking your thoughts loose momentarily because he—on the other hand—did not miss your incomplete answer. His nails dug into your skin, nearly making you yelp at the incredible burn. “What’s the issue? I don’t remember you being this shy with the other therapists around.”

The steeliness that underlined his tone…

Was Choso still hung up about your frisky flings with Toji and Sukuna? Even though you should have never gotten sexually involved with them in the first place, you never would have thought that Choso would hold such a grudge.

In response, you cautiously observed his side profile. “Are…you jealous?”

He closed his eyes momentarily at the question, indescribable salaciousness etched on his lovely face, and he shuddered slightly. His eyes opened back as a sharpened glare, Adam’s apple bobbing as the result of a drawn-out swallow.

“Oh, baby,” he growled, and it was the backward tilt of his head that left your mind spinning, “you have no idea.”

Traveling beneath your dress, his hand roamed a little higher, then higher again, his pinky finger brushing at your panties’ seam such that if he decided to travel up any further, he might just feel how miserable and soaked you were.

Just hurt me, you begged silently, legs squeezing together subconsciously as you feel a delicious heat churning through your body, biting back a moan when Choso gripped hard at your thigh before smacking at the flesh.

“Harder,” you accidentally pleaded out loud, immediately clamping your hands over your mouth.

Unsurprisingly, your insanely handsome driver turned to you. When you met his gaze, you only wished that you hadn’t because Choso had a gaze that left you weak in the knees, the murky pool in his eyes enough to leave you whittled to a frantic and blubbering mess.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—"

“Well, I'm curious what your husband would say,” he interjected, debauchery bleeding in his tone, “when I send you home my handprints on your ass cheeks?”

Wow, that really took you aback.

“‘When?’” you bleated. Not ‘if?’

“Yes, ‘when,’” he confirmed with a hoarse thrum. His overflowing confidence clouded your head with something heady, something intoxicating. As much as you think you should tell Choso to stop, words were lodged in your throat once he forced your legs apart with one firm pull, and while you found pleasure in the pain, it was his next suggestion that sent sweet vibrations straight down your spine: “Because I wonder what would happen once I spread you over the car hood and took you right there.”

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

Text

Stellantis wants to make scabbing woke

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

I know, I know, it's weird when the worst people you know are right, even when they're right for the wrong reasons: like, the "Intelligence Community" is genuinely terrible, pharma companies are murderous crooks, and Big Tech really does have a dangerous grip on public debate. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, is what I'm saying:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

When conspiratorialists and reactionaries holler about how the FBI are dirty-tricking creeps who are framing Trump, it's tempting to say, "well, if Trumpists hate the FBI, then I will love the FBI. Who cares about COINTELPRO and what they did to Martin Luther King?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

It's a process called "schizmogenesis": forming new group identity beliefs based on saying the opposite of what your enemies say, and as tempting as that is, it's extraordinarily foolish and dangerous:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

It means that canny reactionaries like Steve Bannon can trick you into taking any position merely by taking the opposite one. Bannon's followers are even more easily led, so it's easy for him to convince them that we have always been at war with Oceania. The right has created an entire mirror world of "I know you are but what am I?" politics.

Anti-vax co-opts "bodily autonomy." Climate denial becomes environmentalism ("wind turbines kill birds"). Transphobia becomes feminism ("keep women-only spaces for real women"). Support for strongmen becomes anti-imperialism ("don't feed the war machine in Ukraine"). These are the doppelgangers Naomi Klein warns us against:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

The far right has even managed to co-opt anti-corporate rhetoric. Culture warriors rail against "woke capitalism," insisting that when big businesses take socially progressive positions, it's just empty "virtue signalling." And you know what? They've got a point. Partially.

As with all mirror-world politics, the anti-woke-capitalism shuck is designed to convince low-information right-wing pismires into buying "anti-woke pillows" and demanding the right to pay junk fees to "own the libs":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

But woke capitalism is bullshit. Corporations – profit-maximizing immortal transhuman colony organisms that view workers and customers as inconvenient gut-flora – do not care about social justice. They don't care about anything, except for minimizing compensation for workers while maximizing the risk those workers bear; and locking in and gouging customers for products that are as low-quality as can be profitably sold.

Take DEI, a favored target of the right. It's undoubtably true that diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives have made some inroads on correcting bias in hiring decisions, with the result that companies get better employees who would have been excluded without this explicit corrective.

However, corporations don't value DEI because they abhor their history of hiring bias. Instead, DEI is how corporate management demonstrates to workers that their grievances are best addressed by trusting corporate leadership to correct their error of their ways – and not by forming a union.

Before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, corporations would create fake "Company Unions" whose leadership were beholden to the company executives. These were decoy unions: they looked and sounded like unions, but when they negotiated with management, they were actually working for the bosses, not the workers.

This is more mirror-world tactics. They're the labor equivalent of the "crisis pregnancy centers" that masquerade as abortion clinics in order to fool pregnant people and trap them with endless delays until it's too late to terminate their pregnancies. Company unions get workers to trust in negotiators who are secretly working for the bosses, who emerge from the bargaining table with one-sided, abusive contracts and insist that this is the best deal workers can hope for.

Company unions were outlawed 90 years ago, and for decades, labor had a seat at the table, with wages tracking productivity gains and workers getting protection for discrimination, unsafe labor conditions, and wage-theft. Then came the neoliberal turn, and 40 years of wage stagnation, increased inequality, and corporate rule.

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. Finally, finally, we have reached a turning point in labor, with public approval for unions at levels not seen since the Carter administration and thousands of strikes and protests breaking out across the country:

https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/

It's not just the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, either. For the first time in history, the UAW is striking against all the major automakers, and they are winning:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/striking-uaw-workers-win-key-battery-plant-concession-from-general-motors/

The automakers are getting desperate. Stellantis – Chrysler's latest alias, reflecting the company's absorbtion into corporate-human-centipede of global carmakers – has mobilized its DEI programs, trying to get marginalized people to believe that scabbing is a liberatory activity:

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/10/uaw-auto-strike-stellantis/

Stellantis calls each of its DEI silos a "Business Resource Group" (BRG): there's a "Working Parents Network," an "African Ancestry Network," "Asians Connected Together," a "DiverseAbilities Network," a "Gay & Lesbian Alliance" and more:

https://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com/2021/07/20/business-resource-groups-drive-inclusion-and-diversity/

The corporate managers who lead these BRGs have established a scab rotation for each subgroup, calling on members to cross a UAW picket-line at a Michigan Parts Distribution Center run by Stellantis subsidiary Mopar:

Each BRG will pick a specific day of the week/weekend to volunteer as a team. Help continue to be the RESOURCE the BUSINESS can count on! Stellantis needs your help in running the Parts Distribution Centers (PDC) to ensure a steady supply of parts to our customers while negotiations continue. Working Parents Network has identified Friday, October 13 as WPN’s BRG Day at the PDCs!"

Now, these BRGs weren't invented by marginalized workers facing discrimination in the workplace. They come from literal union-busting playbooks produced by giant "union avoidance" firms that charge bosses millions for advice on skirting – or breaking – the law to keep workplace democracy at bay. All the biggest anti-union consultancies love BRGs, from Littler Mendelson to Jackson Lewis. IRI Strategies touts BRGs as a way to "union-proof" a business by absorbing workers' grievances in a decoy committee that will let them feel listened to.

BRGs, in other words, are the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of workplace discrimination. They're a Big Store Con, a company union dressed up as corporate social responsibility.

Now, let's not pretend that unions have a sterling record on race and gender issues. Giant labor organizations like the AFL had to be dragged into racial integration, and trade unions have sometimes been on the wrong side of anti-immigration panics:

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/summer/american-labor-movement.html

But unions have also been the most reliable way for people of color and women to win better workplace treatment. The struggle for racial and gender justice was fought through labor organizing. Remember that MLK's "I've Been To the Mountaintop" speech was given in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis:

https://www.afscme.org/about/history/mlk/mountaintop

Black organizers have always been militant labor organizers. Labor Day commemorates the victory of the long, hard-fought Pullman strike, where Black workers brought one of the most powerful companies in America to its knees:

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

And women have always fought for gender justice through the labor movement: the New York shirtwaist strike is the Ur-example, when women-led unions fought thugs and scabs on icy New York streets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_shirtwaist_strike_of_1909

It's no surprise that labor activism, anti-racism and feminism go together. Since the earliest days, the labor justice struggle was also a social justice struggle. To learn more check out Kim Kelly's Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

The most exploited, underpaid, and abused workers in America are also the most marginalized (duh).

From nurses:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kaiser-healthcare-union-says-week-long-strike-possible-early-next-month-2023-10-09/

To teachers:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-18/l-a-teachers-win-21-wage-increase-in-new-lausd-contract

To Amazon warehouse workers:

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

To publishing assistants:

https://apnews.com/article/harpercollins-union-strike-ends-0a94238718879066d9b21af6266be526

To baristas:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/29/business/starbucks-union-wages/index.html

To fast-food workers:

https://www.ufcw.org/about/

The vanguard of today's labor surge is Black, brown, female and queer. Without a union, workers who face discrimination are on their own, hoping that their bosses will voluntarily do something about it. Black workers in Tesla's rabidly anti-union shops face vicious racism, from slurs to threats to violence. Without a union, they have to rely on the shifting whims of an Apartheid emerald mine space-Karen for relief, or hope for help from the NLRB or a class-action lawyer:

https://apnews.com/article/tesla-racism-black-lawsuit-class-action-21c88bddf60eca702560be58429495de

The far right isn't wrong when they holler that woke capitalism is bullshit. As with so many of their mirror-world causes, they've got a point, but only a limited one. The problem with woke capitalism is that it's no substitute for a union. The problem with relying on Business Resource Groups to fight racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia is that these struggles are all class struggles, and a BRG is never going to fight against the company that created it.

To understand how bankrupt woke capitalism is, conside this: Stellantis is calling on its "Working Parents Network" to scab this Friday. Stellantis is also being sanctioned by the Department Of Labor for discriminating against nursing mothers – the same "working parents" that the BRG is meant to protect:

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/02/08/investigation-finds-stellantis-violated-rights-of-nursing-mothers-at-sterling-heights-plant/

Woke capitalism is just another kind of "predatory inclusion," like Intuit's campaign defending its "Free File" tax-prep scam, where they're claiming that ending this ripoff is racist because it denies Black families the right to be tricked into paying for something they are entitled to get for free:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

When I learned about Intuit's wokewashing, I thought I'd found woke capitalism's rock bottom, but I was wrong. Stellantis's call for woke scabbing is a new low.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/11/equal-opportunity-class-war/#inclusive-scabbing

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #race #gender #uaw #stellantis #gm #general motors #woke capitalism #wokewashing #strikes #labor #liberalism #company unions

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