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bambiesfics · 3 months

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𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗹𝘀’ 𝗖𝗼𝗰𝗸 — Ellie x Bimbo!reader

𝜗𝜚 Author’s notes ✦ Butch/femme dynamics, Ellie’s butch, wears a strap. Refers to it as cock, dick etc. Reader’s a bimbo. Just a filthy, filthy description of how you have to cockwarm your butch girlfriend, Ellie. Slight aftercare at the end too for you, considering how much she just stretched your tiny hole.

𝜗𝜚 If you find yourself uncomfortable with the themes in this fic, maybe try educating yourself on Butch sexuality. This heartfelt post may give you a sense of Ellie’s headspace. And this

!!! [ Please help Palestine ] !!!

kisses u. ⋆ 𝜗𝜚 ˚⟡.

You were restless and lonely. Ellie had spent the better part of the afternoon preoccupied with the LED modules shuffled in her laptop, attempting to receive her ServSafe certificate. The online test had been eating up all her time, and Ellie sometimes chastised you for being overly needy n’ pouty when she had her hands full with things to do. So you tried to not add to her plate by pressing for attention, or conversation today. No matter how much you wanted to chit-chat with her. You wanted to be good more than anything.

No one saw you and Ellie as a compatible match, if it wasn’t already made visually obvious, it was definitely made obvious the second you popped your pink lips open to speak, while the brunette butch brooded behind you. This was a chance to shush all those insecurities that crept over you and told you that Ellie could be with a smarter, more capable, more self-reliant girl. You wanted to be a good fit for her. So you distracted yourself by jumping through social media apps, flipping through old cosmo magazines, and touching up the corner of your acrylic toe set with some white polish you kept carefully placed in her desk. But none of that worked. You were bored with everything you’d tried. Worse, your girlfriend had been looking so handsome in her loose plaid button up and dad jeans, as she slumped in her kitchen stool. It was getting so hard to remain detached and unaffected by the pristine silence in the house when you would pass by to check up on her.

Every so often Ellie’s pretty face would cutely scrunch up whenever she was puzzled by a question, which made for very testing times. But not as testing as when Ellie did that thing where she yanked at and ruffled her scruffy wolf cut, when she was in deep concentration. It was the cutest little boyish tic. You had nearly broken your own resolve to go run to her arms and litter her cheeks in glossy kisses. Which all made it so hard to have her near, as handsome as she was, and have her not even look up at you once. Not even allowed to step in her embrace, held by her toned arms, her sweet cologne and that woodsy scented jacket.

You were moping, and that moping turned into whining, and whining turned into annoyed flashes from Ellie’s eyes every time you got too squeaky. Those flashes turned into scowls, and that led to Ellie groaning at you.

“Can I help you with something?”

Ellie’s face was unamused, and it made you straighten your spine.

“N-no.”

“Great. Thanks.” She replied, her voice was just dripping in sarcasm. But that little flash of attention you had received filled your tummy with happy butterflies, until it went right back to her laptop.

You felt a twinge in your chest at how quickly she tuned you out. Did she not wanna talk to you at all? Ask about your day? Wanna know about the influencer gossip you found online? None of it?

“Meanie” you pouted while nudging your chin into your palm and clacking your acrylics on the granite. She didn’t have to say it so mean, she was usually sweeter n’ sillier. But today Ellie was a big meanie.

Ellie huffed and held back a massive eye roll. She stuck her head deeper into her laptop, she had to pretend you weren’t there. This test was important to her. You were too, but this seriously mattered more. Ellie needed more money. She needed to find a better apartment to rent, she needed to be able to support you the way she wanted too, and she needed a position with better hours so she could visit Joel's grave more regularly. You knew all that, so Ellie knew your whining wasn’t from ignorance, it was from childishness. She hated indulging you when you were childish. It was bad manners.

But she also knew if this went on long enough you might start silently crying in your pillow because you felt like your girlfriend hated you. You were clearly feeling neglected by Ellie, and coupled with her little sarcastic quip just a moment ago, Ellie wouldn’t put it past you to start sniffling within the next few hours. You were so pathetic. Ellie often joked that if you weren’t human you would’ve been the little runt abandoned by your pack for being so weak and whiny. And Ellie would’ve been a large reptile; a komodo dragon, who felt bad enough that instead of eating your tiny ass she would’ve raised you. Ellie had a weird little obsession with pliocene history, and because you were dumb, with a brain full of makeup and miniskirts, it went over your head 99% of the time. But Ellie knew you well, and she knew that more than outright being ignored, you hated the feeling that you made Els upset with you. It was your little runt nature, to always seek the validation of the large cold-blooded reptile in charge of your care that could still decide to eat you if you pissed her off enough. This relationship was almost ironically engineered.

Ellie understood you way too well.

Ellie tugged at her hair, because GOD you were such a piece of work. An adorable one, but still, a piece of fucking work!

“Okay.” Ellie breathed out. She ran her palms down her jeans, and spread her thighs farther apart. When Ellie manspread like that, you knew what it meant. But you still wanted her to say it. “Come here baby, come take a seat on me.”

“You sure?” you said hesitantly. Your gaze nervously flickered between her lap and floor.

“Need my baby girl right here,” Ellie said. She cocked her eyebrow and grabbed her bulge tightly. Enticing you.

Your eyes flew open. Your mouth opened and closed repeatedly, like a gaping fish. You wanted Ellie’s attention, maybe to perch on her lap while she worked, but that movement meant something else entirely.

Ellie continued on, enjoying the surprise on your face a little too much. “Since you can’t sit still, come sit on this.” Ellie pulled her zipper down slowly, and shoved her fist in the opening; to fish out her hard cock out of her boxers, and rest it on her thigh. You gulped.

Your eyes fluttered between looking at Ellie's long shaft, and at her face. You could tell from her expression that she wasn’t bluffing. She looked very amused, and very curious as to what you’d do next. “W-what about your test?” You quipped. She lifted the base of her cock, “don’t worry about that, just come take a quick seat on this until you feel better.” You went to her lap, and nervously kept looking back at the cock she expected you to sink onto as you backed up on Ellie’s thighs. Ellie whispered “Why are you nervous princess? You’ve taken this before.”

Which made your hole flutter from the teasing smugness in her voice.

You had taken Ellie’s cock before. But after some prep, after lots of kisses from her, and after your slick was coating your engorged pussy lips from intense arousal. Not by just sitting on it while she was busy attacking a server’s exam.

Your eyes were glossy, Ellie found them so sparkly. You bunched your babydoll camisole higher up your tummy, and spread your ass cheeks. It was a good thing you loved prancing around Ellie’s apartment with no panties, it made spontaneous poundings so much easier. You lined up your hole with Ellie’s cockhead. “Good, now just sink down.” She fisted the base of her dick towards your vagina to help you. You slowly sunk onto her cock, taking it inch by inch. “Nhng, Ellie! feels too big, too big!” You clamped up as another inch forcefully popped through that tight little entrance. Ellie shushed you softly, rubbing circles in your back as she fed you her cock, until she was buried only a few inches deep. You couldn’t take her all the way down, and somehow you were so full. It felt like Ellie’s cock was pressing deep into your tummy. You had to hold back from whining to her about how her cock was definitely in your stomach, probably poking around in there. She’d shushed you for that silly idea once before and teased you for being so airheaded. Not like Ellie had expected you to have any better than a ditzy girl's understanding of anatomy anyway.

But as you felt her cock stretch you open, it was starting to feel like that again, like her cock was in your womb. It felt like Ellie was taking up all the space inside of you. She stretched your plump walls around her like you were her fleshlight. A fleshlight that was stretched to mold around every vein and ridge in Ellie’s cock.

You flexed your ass cheeks, and clamped your cunt around her cock, you tested for how much give you had to bounce up and down. But you gave up almost as soon as you tried lifting off the first time. The base of her cock was just too thick. Ellie felt stuck inside you. Like a wedding band wrapped around a chubby finger. You whimpered at the way her cockhead bumped all those squishy places inside your cunt. Ellie reassured you “Shhh don’t worry about bouncing baby, I’m nearly splitting you open. Just stay right here and get used to this angle.” Ellie turned her gaze back towards her laptop, and picked up from the last module she left off at.

Meanwhile your lower lip was trembling because your girlfriend's cock was resting inside your vagina, it was poking your cervix and rubbing along your walls in ways that made your tummy feel funny. The soreness was starting to subside but the fullness didn’t, and you wanted to move around a little bit. “E-Ellie i-it’s hard to move. No room,” you pouted over your shoulder.

“You don’t have to move, baby. You’re in timeout. Just sit and get my cock nice n’ warm.” Ellie turned her gaze back to her laptop as her other fingers drew slow circles in your lower back. It was such a brazenly lazy attempt at support, but Ellie’s main goal was to distract you — not make you feel pampered.

But you’d get that after anyway.

You tried grinding her cock in you, just to put the pressure of her cockhead in other places and not directly kissing the roof of your cunt. Ellie’s eyes flickered to where you two were connected and she thumbed the sensitive skin there. Which made you pull off slightly, you mewled at the sensitization you felt from her ministrations. Your hole was throbbing everywhere.

Ellie moaned at the sight, “you’re stretched so thin here, how did I fit inside you?”

You kept up with your poor attempts to grind n’ gyrate, so Ellie’s gaze traveled up towards your hips. She palmed your squishy ass; then skirted her fingers over your asshole. Ellie sunk her thumb into your asshole, just stopping at the first knuckle where her metal ring rested and whispered in your back. “I told you to stay baby.”

“Ellie no! Don’t touch over there!” You cried from embarrassment, you got so hot when she did that.

She smiled into your back “Why you shy cause I’m thumbing you right here? After your tiny cunt just swallowed my entire length? Please” Ellie smiled into your back.

Ellie’s attention kept jumping between completing her modules and questions and groping some sensitive part of your body. She’d mutter “You’re so tiny, wish you could see how much you’re stretched around me, plugged you up good.” Just to watch the hairs on your nape rise and watch how your hole contracted around her length from her words. Ellie rolled her narrow hips in circular motions, letting you get some little relief from the fat cock bullying your hole, by giving you some friction. The friction felt amazing on her clit too, rubbing along the puffy nub in a way that made heat pool in her belly.

Soon enough Ellie was biting back her own horny grunts, pressure building in her own cunt from the press of the harness. She kept up a slow circular grind to make her little baby feel good, and not feel so stretched out. But Ellie really considered chasing a silent orgasm for herself, it felt delicious to be in you.

You were dizzy with sensations, cock bumping your spongy g-spot just right. Your neglected clit was angry and red, but you were drunk on Ellie’s grinding. You were slurring all whiny “love your fat cock s’much Ellie. S’much ahh, love your coo-ock ahnnng.” Ellie’s hands came up to grope and squeeze your fatty tits. Because FUCK YOU for nearly making her bust after saying that. She kept grinding until your sloppy hole was doing butterflies on her cock. Slick dripping past the seal where you were wrapped around her shaft. Your hole was squeezing and releasing, over and over again as your orgasm tipped you over the edge and your toes turned pointed straight. The bottom of your fingers and palms had turned pink and red from how tight your fist was.

Ellie slowed down the grinding, she was happy enough you got your orgasm. The grinding felt nice on her clit, but she was more grateful at the fact that you might get sleepy and tap out. And she’d actually get some work done for once.

Ellie pulled you off her cock, and onto her lap. She smoothed a hand down your back as you winced when she pulled out. Your cum dribbled out of your weeping little pussy, globs of stringy cum seeped into Ellie’s pants after being plugged up by her cock. It was a mess you frequently made on Ellie after sex. It was evidence of a job well done; and a satiated princess.

You sniffled as you turned in Ellie’s embrace. “You sleepy?” Ellie asked

“Mhmmm” you moaned in her shoulder.

“I got you, you little princess. C’mon hold onto my shirt” Ellie guided your trembling hand to the collar of her button up and shushed you with sweet words about how “well you took her.” Ellie rocked you softly as she went back to her test, by the time you’d knocked out she’d completed a good chunk of her modules. She rocked you until your sniffles had quieted and you were fast asleep on her lap. She tucked her cock haphazardly into her boxers. You could sink onto it again after you woke up from your short nap.

Ellie spanked your ass, and felt the recoil jiggle against her palm. She shushed you again as you stirred from the assault. She whispered “I deserve a little treat after dealing with this bratty ass all day. I’m joking… I got you baby.”

After 45 minutes of not a single distraction to pull her attention away, Ellie completed her test. A solid 93%, way above a passing grade. Good enough to get her ServSafe certificate, and definitely good enough to start serving at her restaurant, and get better pay and better tips.

Ellie kissed the top of your head,

“Did it, peach.”

“Did’itttt wedidi...” You slurred into her chest. She smelled like sweet cologne. Your dreams were so happy.

She smiled into your hair.

Mhm yeah. We both did it.

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reasonsforhope · 5 months

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"In a 4-3 decision released on Friday afternoon December 22, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that Wisconsin’s voting maps as currently drawn violate the state constitution and must be redrawn in time for the 2024 election.

Under the Wisconsin Constitution, state legislative districts must consist of “contiguous territory.” [Meaning: continuous] Yet, the majority opinion states, “the number of state legislative districts containing territory completely disconnected from the rest of the district is striking.”

“At least fifty of ninety-nine assembly districts and at least twenty of thirty-three senate districts include separate, detached territory,” states the majority opinion, written by Justice Jill Karofsky.

Contiguous districts are a safeguard against gerrymandering and help keep together groups of voters who live in the same areas and have the same interests, explains the decision, which includes maps highlighting the islands of noncontiguous voting areas in the state’s current districts.

The voters who brought the lawsuit, Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, argued that the current districts violate the constitution and asked the court to order the adoption of remedial maps. They also asked the court to declare the November 2022 state senate elections unlawful, and to order special elections for state senate seats that would otherwise not be on the ballot until November 2026.

The court’s ruling agrees with the petitioners that “Wisconsin’s state legislative districts must be composed of physically adjoining territory,” and enjoins the Wisconsin Elections Commission from using the current legislative maps in future elections. But it declined to invalidate the results of the 2022 state senate elections.

Acknowledging that it is the legislature’s role to draw voting maps, the majority opinion urges the legislature to draw new maps that comport with the constitution. However, it also states, since the legislature might not draw such maps or the governor might veto them, the court will plan to adopt remedial maps that can be used in time for the 2024 elections and unless and until new, constitutional maps are enacted through the legislative process...

Wisconsin’s voting maps are widely considered among the most politically gerrymandered in the country. This was reflected in 2018 when Democrats swept every statewide election and earned 53 percent of assembly votes cast statewide but only 36 percent of Assembly seats went to Democrats. Voters in Wisconsin are evenly split along partisan lines, and statewide races are often decided by slim margins. Currently, however, Republicans hold a 22-11 supermajority in the state senate and a 64-35 near-supermajority in the state assembly."

-via The Progressive Magazine

Note: Article is a bit wordy but this is a Big Deal. We're going to get fair election maps in an important swing state. The maps thrown out by this decision were deliberately designed to give Republicans a massive advantage in the election.

This WILL make a huge difference in who's elected in 2024.

#wisconsin #united states #us politics #gerrymandering #elections #election 2024 #fair elections #voting rights #voting #voter suppression #good news #hope

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steddiealltheway · 8 months

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(I think I’ve written something like this before but… oh well!)

Steve and Eddie don’t really remember becoming friends.

Sure, they know they must’ve bonded during the Upside Down shit and the aftermath with the series of tests they went through together at Hawkins lab because they didn’t want a repeat of the Will situation.

But they can’t pin point a moment when they started talking to each other as if they weren’t just mutual acquaintances who went through the same hell and shared the same love for Dustin. And the strangest part about it all was that it felt easy.

And here Steve is, sitting in Eddie room, flipping through a magazine he had laying next to his bed, asking question about random things in it just to hear Eddie voice. Plus, he liked all the random information he contained. It kind of reminded him of Dustin, but Eddie was always able to put it into the simplest terms so he could grasp what he was talking about.

But today, Eddie seems somewhat distracted. As if something big is on his mind. And Steve knows that it’s consuming him when he doesn’t answer or acknowledge one of the questions Steve asks about Ozzy.

Steve glances to his right and sees Eddie staring off twirling a silver ring over and over while he chews on his bottom lip. “Eddie,” Steve tries.

Eddie snaps out of it, teeth releasing his bottom lip which is now more plump and red than usual. His hands drop to his thighs as he shoots Steve an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I was off in my own world.”

“What were you think about?”

Eddie shakes his head and leans back against the wall, pulling his hair in front of his face. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Steve continues to stare at him, shifting his knee so it presses against Eddie’s. “You can talk to me, you know?”

Eddie nods but doesn’t look at him. He looks far off again.

But Steve respects his wishes and doesn’t press further. He turns back to the magazine and continues reading on.

“I kissed someone in the Hideout bathroom recently,” Eddie says suddenly.

Steve slowly puts the magazine down and turns to him. “Someone?” Steve prompts gently. Eddie had told him before when they were in matching hospital gowns that he had feelings for men in the past and maybe women too. But he wasn’t sure. He confided in Steve that he didn’t see himself ever dating anyone at the time - didn’t think anyone would want to.

“Some guy,” Eddie answers and sighs, dragging his hands over this face. “I don’t know. It was weird because usually guys want more from me, you know? Especially if they’re dragging me off to the bathroom. But…” Eddie trails off, lost in thought again before he turns to Steve and locks eyes with him. “We didn’t do anything. We just kissed a little, and suddenly he told me he’d see me later. Just winked and ran off. But I can’t tell if he just chickened out or if maybe… maybe this is more than that.”

Steve takes a second to process everything, trying to connect the puzzle pieces of this mystery man to come up with an answer, but he knows there’s a bias within him. He wants so badly for the man to want more from Eddie. For him to want to take it slow and ask him out on a date.

But… a small (big) part of him, which he’s unwilling to admit, wants to find that the man chickened out.

Steve does what he always does and takes the feeling and stuffs it down along with all the other feelings he struggles to hide.

He distracts himself by asking, “And what was the kiss before like?” Which is a horrible question when jealously is practically pulsing through his veins.

Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know. I can’t really tell the difference between passion and lust.” He looks down and quietly adds, “I don’t know if I’ve ever had a kiss that wasn’t lustful.”

The statement fills Steve with a deep ache that he wants to file away with everything else. He wants to be detached from this all, but he can’t.

“Why don’t you show me?” Steve asks.

Eddie laughs. “I’m not going to make out with my hand or something.”

“No,” Steve says clearly, and doesn’t back down. “I mean, why don’t you show me.”

Eddie stares at him, the humor disappearing from his face as it’s replaced by disbelief. “You want me to kiss you?”

The question rings true in way too many ways, but Steve just shrugs nonchalantly. “It’ll help me understand the situation more.”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrow for a moment before he licks his lips, eyes searching Steve’s then dipping down to stare at his lips.

Steve wishes he could read that expression. Is there longing there? Curiosity? Boredom? Nothing but unenthused wonder? Lust? Passion?

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “We can do that if you’re okay with that.”

He’s more than okay with that. Steve nods. “Yeah.” He wishes more words would come out, but maybe it’s better this way.

Eddie jostles the bed as he stands up. Steve looks up at him and his outstretched hand, frowning. “What are you doing?”

“Recreating the scene.”

Steve accepts the explanation and lets Eddie pull him up. He follows him out of his room and into the small hallway.

Eddie gestures to the door and says, “So pretend that’s the bathroom door, okay? I’ll be the guy, and you’ll be me.”

Steve nods, heart already pounding in his chest so hard he can hear it in his ears.

Eddie glances at him and lays a gentle hand on his arm. “We don’t have to do this, you know. I can just try to explain it or embarrass myself making out with my hand or a pillow or something.”

Steve smiles and reassures him, “I’m good. As long as you’re good.”

Eddie nods at him once and turns toward the door hesitating before turning back to Steve. “Can I ask you something weird?”

Steve shrugs. “Sure.”

“Can I kiss you before this whole thing? Just as a warm up before I stick my tongue in your mouth.”

Steve laughs and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice.”

“Okay,” Eddie says with a small smile and inches closer to him, hands fidgeting nervously at his side.

Steve grabs them and runs his thumbs over the back of Eddie’s hands, squeezing them gently. He steps forward, hands trailing up his arms, his neck, cupping his face gently. “This okay?” Steve practically whispers.

Eddie nods and takes a step closer, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie says, leaning forward, eyes fluttering shut.

Steve takes a stabilizing breath before pulling Eddie in, letting his eyes close as his lips brush against Eddie’s, pressing in closer in a gentle kiss before they both pull away.

They stare at each other, eyes wide, not knowing what to say. But Steve’s too scared to say anything when he knows he’s going to sound breathless from a mere peck.

“Ready to recreate the kiss?” Eddie asks, moving away from him and breaking the moment.

All Steve can do is nod and remind himself what this is all about.

Eddie shoots him an awkward thumbs up before grabbing his hand and tugging him toward the door, pushing it open and closing it behind them only to press Steve against it.

Steve can’t help the moan that’s ripped out of him at the sensation. But Eddie takes the opportunity to lean in and kiss him, harder than before, almost instantly deepening the kiss, brushing his tongue against Steve in filthy strokes. His hands move through Steve’s hair wildly, pulling him in closer, and tugging at the strands, making Steve practically a puddle of goo in the process.

God, he feels like he can’t breathe in the best way.

His hands come up to press into Eddie back, trying to get him to move closer, to successfully pin him fully against the door, but Eddie keeps his distance. Pulling away from the kiss, nipping at his bottom lip before stepping back completely.

Steve breathes heavily, staring at Eddie’s pupils blown wide, the pink flush to his cheeks, and the glossy look to his lips that Steve can’t help but think is all his doing.

“Well?” Eddie asks.

Steve tries to latch onto the words in his brain floating around. They seem entirely unimportant in this moment, but Steve knows he has a question to answer. A reason he’s doing all of this.

He runs a hand through his hair, feeling the wild strands, wishing he hadn’t messed with it before he got a chance to look at himself. He takes a deep breath and ignores the way he feels and focuses on the question at hand. “It felt more like lust to me.”

Eddie’s face crumples for a moment before he hides it behind his hand. He scrubs them over his face before he laughs humorlessly. “Figures. Jesus H. Christ, I should know by now.”

Steve’s mind lingers on what Eddie said before. “And what if you had a way to know?”

Eddie shakes his head, confused. “What do you mean?”

Steve tries again. “Like, what if you had a measure to know the difference between lust and lo- passion.” Steve silently curses the slip up, hoping Eddie doesn’t notice.

But the other boy just frowns and crosses his arms. “Now how would I do that?”

“The same thing again, only I show you what it’s like on the other side of things.”

Eddie stares at him for a few seconds before inching closer. “You want to do that?”

“Yeah,” Steve replies instantly. “You of all people deserve to know.”

Eddie glances at the ground and shakes his head. “I don’t know about that.”

Steve’s heart breaks, wondering if he’ll be able to show him what he truly means to him. He slowly tilts up Eddie’s chin and takes a step closer, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. He lets his hand linger before resting it against Eddie’s jaw, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. “You do,” Steve says, looking him in the eyes to show him the truth in what he’s saying.

“Steve…” Eddie says as if it’s a plea and simultaneously a disagreement.

And Steve answers him by leaning in and kissing him again. It’s like their first kiss shared in the hall moment earlier, but Steve doesn’t let it be a warm up this time. His left hand presses against Eddie’s back, pulling him in as close as he can. His other hand makes it way into Eddie’s hair, intertwining in the strands as he pulls away to breathe before reangling and kissing him again.

Eddie’s hand comes up to the back of his neck, grounding Steve as his lips move against Eddie’s slowly but firmly. They pull away for a moment, letting their breath intermingle as they catch it before they both move together again.

He lets Eddie learn what it’s like to take his time, enjoy the slowness and linger in the moment. To be held close and gently caressed.

Steve’s hand trails down from Eddie’s hair, tracing the same pathway from earlier but backwards, down his neck, his arms, and to his hands, intertwining their fingers together.

Eddie gasps lightly into the kiss as Steve squeezes his hand, and takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, letting Eddie explore rather than take.

Steve’s not sure how long they stand there, kissing as if there was no tomorrow, lingering in every moment. Breaking away momentarily to catch their breath before swooping back in, not letting the moment end. Because once it ends, they may never come back to it.

The thought hits Steve, drenching his thoughts with painful clarity. This is the moment everything he’s tried so hard to push down finally all comes up. No turning back now.

He pulls away from the kiss and rests his forehead against Eddie’s. He pants out his name quietly when Eddie tries to kiss him again.

He seems to understand, moving to rest his forehead against Steve’s before squeezing his eyes shut. Their hands remain intertwined.

Neither of them say a word, not wanting to break the moment or face reality.

But a question lays heavy on Steve’s mind.

“I don’t think it matters about what the kiss with the guy felt like. What matters is how did you feel during it?”

Eddie shakes his head and squeezes Steve’s hand. “Steve…”

“Eddie…”

Eddie takes a deep breath and whispers into the shared air between them, “Nothing close to what I just felt.”

Steve slowly pulls away and looks Eddie in the eye. “Are you sure?”

“Christ, Steve. No one has ever made me feel the way you just did.”

Steve pauses and asks, “What about other than that kiss? Do I make you feel like that all the time?”

Eddie’s hand loosens it grip as he steps back, shaking his head. “Don’t make me answer that, man.”

He’s stopped when Steve’s grip tightens, trying to keep him close. “You make me feel that way all the time,” Steve says, hoping he didn’t ruin everything they’ve built up to.

Eddie steps closer and cups his face. “You promise?”

Steve nods. “Yes.”

“Thank god. I was about to silently pine for the rest of my life. Shit,” Eddie says with a laugh.

Steve smiles, a laugh escaping from him as joy fills his entire body. “Yeah?”

“I was a fucking goner as soon as you kissed me the first time,” Eddie says.

Steve laughs, “I already was way before then.”

Eddie’s eyes widen. “You’re telling me I could’ve had this sooner?”

It’s seems like Steve’s incapable of doing anything but laugh.

“Steeeeve Harrington, we have so much lost time to make up for,” Eddie says, stepping closer.

“Tell me about it,” Steve says, moving in to kiss Eddie again.

He hopes eventually Eddie will forget what it was like to only know lust filled kisses, but, for now, he settles on helping him learn about passion and love.

#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie ficlet #stranger things

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hyperfix-and-fanfics · 3 months

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Alastor x reader

Alastor reacting to someone threatening reader.

Requested by: @legendofluck

You had been working at the hotel for quite a while now. Everyone at the hotel enjoyed your presence, as you were an absolute sweetheart.

Alastor, especially, had a soft spot for you. You died near the same time as him. You would often dance with him while listening to jazz and gossip and slander Vox and his insecure whiny bitch boys.

You didn’t have any specific job so you just did what was required around the hotel. Right now, you were checking some guests into the room.

You had just checked the last guest into the last vacant room. It was late and everyone was in bed. You often took the night shift even though you hardly got any customers. You sat by the counter idly, humming to some jazz while reading through a magazine when another dinner walked in. Your eyes darted up and you quickly sat up. “Hello sir! Welcome to the Hazbin hotel, how may I help you?” You asked with a gentle smile.

The man sinner glared at you and stumbled through the door, clearly intoxicated. He was a big burly boar demon with large tusks, sharp yellow eyes, and a long snout. He glared at you, a dark glint on his face. Everything about him screamed "caution" like a label on a pack of cigarettes.

You shifted uncomfortably as he trudged closer.

"S-sir...? Would you like to make a reservation..?" Your voice wavered, flinching as he slammed his fist down on the counter.

"Listen here you l-hic-little whore...You better get me a room or I-hic-I'll bash your head into the counter.." He slurred while grabbing your wrist with a vice grip.

You winced in pain and let out a small hiss. Your eyes watered at the retched smell of whiskey and cigars on his breath.

You looked at the man in fear

"I'm afraid that there aren't any rooms ava-" Before you could finish your sentence, you felt a hand grip your hair sharply and you bit back a yelp.

"I said...Get. Me. A. ROOM! Or I'll bash your pretty little head in and watch as your brains cover the walls..."

You nodded weakly, your whole body trembling as hot tears started to spill. You grabbed the phone and dialed in a room number.

"J-just a moment...sir.." You whispered, calling Alastor's room number, praying that he'd be awake.

Ring ring

Silence

Ring ring

Silence

Ring ring

"Unfortunately, room ### is unavailable, please leave a message at the tone."

Your stomach dropped as you frantically tried to think of a way out of this situation. You felt the hand in your hair tighten and suddenly yank your head back. A scream escaped your lips and then a sharp stinging pain shot through you as the sinner slapped you across the face.

"SHUT UP YOU STUPID BI-" He was cut off when a long dark tendril impaled him through his fat beer belly. Blood splattered into your eyes and you were disoriented. You rubbed the blood from your eyes when suddenly you heard a familiar voice.

"Was he bothering you, my dear?"

You stared at Alastor, stunned, before the whole weight of the situation came crashing down on you like an avalanche. You broke down into sobs and crumpled to the floor.

You shook with terror, your vision swimming with hot tears when something unexpected happened.

Alastor hugged you.

The Radio Demon, Alastor, hugged you.

You buried your face into his shoulder as his claws scratched your back gently.

"There there, he's gone now, your safe..." He cooed while picking you up. "I'll go ask Husker to take over the shift. You need some rest and that bruise on your cheek needs some attention."

You nodded weakly, your eyes red and puffy as your sobs simmered down to whimpers and hiccups. As Alastor walked into his room, he set you down on the bed.

"You stay here, darling. I'll be back momentarily."

And with that he melts away into the shadows. You stare at the ground with a detached look in your eyes. When he returns, his smile is a lot smaller and more strained. He gently raises your chin with two fingers and places an ice pack on your bruised cheek.

"Don't cry, cher" He says while whipping your tears with the pad of his thumb. He slowly takes off your shoes and lays you down into bed with you.

"I will...stay with you for tonight, if it makes you feel safer. It wouldn't be very kind of me to just leave you in such a state." He said while pulling you into his arms. You nuzzled closer into his warm embrace and snaked your arms around his thin waist.

"Goodnight mon cheri"

#Hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel fluff #hazbin #radio demon #hazbin hotel x reader #x reader #requested #alastor x you #comfort #TW #hazbin hotel fandom #fanfic #self insert

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fursasaida · 7 months

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A clear indication of this impasse is the widely noted hesitation of major universities—usually so eager to issue solemn statements on the latest tragedy in the news—to comment publicly on the events of the past week. One example: New York University (my former employer) has thus far not issued a statement on its public social-media feeds on the events in Israel, even as it has made multiple posts in the same timespan commemorating Indigenous People’s Day. In the one email on the subject sent to the university community, newly inaugurated NYU President Linda Mills offered the following stilted reflection: “The violence that is raging now will likely intensify the feelings of those on our campus who hold strong views on the conflict.” NYU’s email also included—as such messages do—the number for the campus mental-health hotline.

Here we find an indirect clue as to the true nature of the “decolonization” project that has become a prominent part of higher education: Like much of what now takes place in elite institutions, it is ultimately a therapeutic enterprise. Battles over land and sovereignty are displaced onto the psyche; the demand for territorial restoration has become a metaphor for internal struggles over identity and belonging for which universities serve as a staging ground. But intellectual history suggests this therapeutic function isn’t as easily detached from the concept’s violent implications as university administrators might like.

the full piece is quite good and not that much longer, you should click through

#palestine #israel #colonialism

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neurologicalanguish · 2 months

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pathetic and sad and depressed leon thoughts cause he’s a dumb fuckin loser who should die (i would do anything he told me) erm… this is also my first post so… bare with me

cw/tw: olderbf!leon(age gap not specified), erectile dysfunction(i know, not my fault he’s a pathetic traumatised mf…), suicidal ideation, nsfw after read more, slight misogyny, porn addiction, choking kink, reader has afab anatomy, nonchalant leon…

would definitely thrash and cry in his sleep sometimes, the amount of horror and gore he’s experienced first hand wouldn’t be taken away just cause he has a pretty thing like you to love.

i feel like he’s always so detached and constantly disassociating that whenever you try to initiate something, anything at all, he just sort of does it out of inertia, just so you can get the relief you want.

he’d be rubbing lazy circles on your clit as you cling and squirm against him, as he has you all nuzzled into his chest with his arm under your head.

but that fucker is probably thinking about something else entirely, he’s just glad you haven’t gotten sick of him yet. how you still so desperately seek his love and validation.

sex doesn’t excite him anymore, sure, he needs to stick his cock in something warm and wet from time to time, but he’s fucked so much in his youth that he doesn’t even see the appeal of it anymore. not to mention the porn addiction he had…

hours on end, just spent in front of magazines, or shitty cassette tapes, that were so old and fucking beat that he’d have to fix them himself in order to not have the whore’s moans sound like they’re from within the depths of hell because the cassette would play in slow motion.

how he’d gotten so desensitised to anything that had to do with sex, that at one point he needed to start reading erotica, just to get his dick hard. he’d just sit on the shitty mattress of the floor of the apartment he was supposed to call “home” , while watching the TV playing porn, like it was some fuckin’ game show.

so it doesn’t come as a surprise, at least to him, that with the years, he doesn’t find pleasure in sex, or anything at all really.

but when he sees such a pretty thing like you, so pathetic and constantly begging him to be pounded, guilt would just wash over him, saying to himself that “it’s the least i could do for the fuckin’ world, right?”

so again, he’d have you under him, peppering wet kisses on your neck, or choking you sometimes. how he’d wish to actually snap your fragile neck at times, it didn’t help when your skin would turn slightly pale, it was almost like it was doing something for him, but he decided to ignore it.

his aging, and the shitty way he had lived up until the time you met him, and even as he’s with you, doesn’t attenuate the fact that his “stupid fuckin’ useless cock” doesn’t even wanna work anymore. he feels so pathetic and helpless. he’d rather jump off a bridge, the sound of his body weight reverberating on cold harsh concrete, as his corpse splays out in a million fuckin’ particles as it hits the ground, leaving behind just a burgundy mess of what was once your “handsome old man” , than have to explain to you that he doesn’t wanna fuck, his dick doesn’t work.

he just tries to be grateful for what he has, at least you cook good food. he’ll keep attending to your needs, eating you out, buying you toys, fiddling with your clit, he’ll keep pretending for his “pretty girl”.

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy smut #leon s kennedy smut #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x fem!reader #leon kennedy x you #leon kennedy x y/n #resident evil #resident evil smut #resident evil 4

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hotdogdynamitezzz · 1 year

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~ Astro Observations ~

Saturn is known as the protector planet as it rules over barriers, restrictions, delays, limits & any protection that can be forced. Look at your chart to see where you will experience the most setbacks yet are protected. For instance, I've noticed someone with Saturn in the 6th house is very hard working and often puts in twice the work to get places, but they can experience setbacks with their colleagues nitpicking or criticizing them. But they are usually protected, their hard work pays off, or they always thrive. I see A LOT of famous people with Saturn in the 6th house.

Libra risings like people who are like themselves or else they completely avoid those who are obnoxious and aggressive as it appalls them. Yet, I commonly see them drawing in these individuals at the same time. Best rising for enemies to lovers as the main protagonist just doing their thing unbothered until an aries rising shows up lmao.

I notice the type of people we are attracted to reflect our 1st or 7th house in some way. For instance I have Venus in 1st and I always attract Aries rising & Mars in 1st house people. I noticed the same for someone who had Moon in their 1st house commonly attracting Capricorn risings or those with Saturn in their 1st house.

The sun sign is actually very important in your chart and isn't just some hocus pocus bogus crap found in magazine horoscopes. From my observations I've developed a theory that Mutable signs adapt using their sun signs qualities they usually start off HATING but find it necessary to utilize for their own personal power. Cardinal Signs seem to dislike their sun signs qualities and chase after everything using THE OPPOSITE qualities of their sign. It's when they use their sun signs qualities to their advantage they will find their initiations successful. While fixed signs struggle the most to master their own sun signs qualities as it sticks with them through and through, they relate the most to their sun sign as these qualities are something inate they use to identify themselves. However, they struggle to figure out how to use their qualities in a positive light as they can easily get stuck in a cycle.

Ex, a lot of Virgo euns hated cleaning or organizing themselves using lists as they were younger but later adapted because of the many health problems this sign usually experiences so found it necessary

Ex, Cancer suns tend to ignore their emotions and lash out at others being deemed insensitive so they focus on Detachment when really they should be utilizing their magnetism and intuition through human connection as they are the sign with the most power over others emotions.

Ex, Aquarius suns struggle with seeing the use of collaboration with others opinions and applying their innovative thoughts towards real life skills. They can get stuck in a constant pattern of not feeling accepted or heard. But mastering their creative thinking and differences to use positively will give them the most recognition.

Conclusion:

Mutable sun sign = Adapting to your Qualities

Cardinal sun sign = initiating your Qualities.

Fixed sun sign = Mastering your Qualities.

This is also why imo it's the hardest to spot a mutable sun sign as they're usually farther away from Adapting to their sun signs qualities until they've gotten more experience in life. Usually looking at the general themes in their life can help you identify them the easier.

Ex, Gemini suns are focused on developing communication skills and confidence in their socializing capabilities.

Ex, Pisces suns usually deals with people taking their dreams for granted and is most likely influenced by a harsh or strict environment.

In Solar Return Charts the most common house placements tend to be the 1st House, 6th House, 7th House and 10th House. ESPECIALLY 1ST & 6TH HOUSE! This is because most of our years are focused on the tangible and everyday aspects of our lives which is ruled by the 6th house, our public person and career is the 10th House, and focusing on ourselves is our 1st House.

If you're a student I frequently see 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th & 9th Houses filled in solar return charts. The 3rd/5th/9th Houses are all about acquiring skills, learning from what's in front of you, hobbies and pleasure, and higher knowledge or lessons to be taught that bring about movement in your life. I also included 6th house because that's our daily life + physical health while the 8th house is about our mental health so it makes sense why students often have that house filled...

Wanna find out how to turn your creative thinking into a weapon and utilize it for success? Pallas (2) can show what you're naturally gifted at intellectually.

Pallas is the asteroid representing Athena goddess of war, strategy, knowledge & creative thinking. I've seen this asteroid work wonders tbh. My friend has it in Libra 12th House and she's a visual artist mastermind. She can piece any aesthetic or visual together like a puzzle.

If you want to manifest any desires, look at your 11th house! This house rules our wishes and what is rewarded after we've put hard work into it. Finding direction will be much easier to achieve if you look at your 11th house and what it's telling you to work for. Basically I've seen Pluto in 11th = earning power over people, Saturn in 11th = earning respect and titles, Venus in 11th = earning love or money (wealth indicator), Neptune in 11th = earning a prophecy, deep undivided loyalty & glamour, Mercury in 11th = earning your name to be widespread, knowledge & fast results.

I'd say Mercury in the 11th is a big "viral celebrity" placement as they can easily do something and everyone knows their name overnight. Also good for scholars!

The 12th house is also known as the house of Loss. Your planets, sign & rulership could determine what you end up sacrificing or leaving behind. For example, Cancer in 12th could often leave their homes or roots, they usually experience family loss early too. Scorpio in 12th house loses their fear, finances & secrets easily (beware of who you let talk to you). And Sagittarius in 12th house can lose their freedom, knowledge acquired, and faith in others.

The most copied people tend to be Scorpio risings, Pisces risings, Pluto in 1st house, Neptune in 1st house and 12th House placements. That's because with Scorpio energy in the 1st house their identity is literally exploited and used for power dynamics (legit had my friend catfished a bit ago and she has an 8° sag rising with Pluto in 1st conjunct her ascendant). And Pisces energy around the 1st House because people have no barriers with you and feel entitled to take your identity. It can almost feel like a sacrifice of themselves for Pisces rising or those with Neptune in 1st house (ex, Marilyn Monroe & Kim Kardashian, it's not a mistake they both have Neptune in 1st house).

Differences between the angular houses cuz I know we get these mixed up easily:

Your 1st house = How you identify yourself in the world.

Your 4th House = Your roots and how you grow into the world.

Your 7th House = How others identity you, your close connections.

Your 10th House = What you're known for, your reputation.

The houses of legacys are 4th, 8th & 10th. This is your history and how you make your mark on the world, how you will be remembered, and your title in the word.

8th house placements is what we knowingly gatekeep from the world, and the house rulership tells just as much if it's empty. Rich people usually have Jupiter in the 8th house because they are quite literally gatekeeping their wisdom, knowledge, gifts & MASS amounts of power. They also receive money randomly sometimes and have fabulous luck with stocks or investments.

Usually people with Moon in the 8th House tend to be reserved with their deepest emotions and family life. They can often take the longest to open up or trust others as they're used to being blackmailed or having their emotional security taken away from them.

Countries' rising signs MAKES A LOT OF SENSE. Russia has a Scorpio rising (known for intelligence agencies, spies, and cold environment...also destruction of the USSR), the USA has a Sagittarius rising (known for freedom, boldness & diversity...also aggression lol) & Britain is a Libra rising (country known for its fashion, etiquette and tea, its so libra LMAO)

Sun sextile Mars is the best aspect for a natural leader. You know how to utilize your individuality to stand out during competition and you also naturally bring out shining qualities in the people you lead. You take challenges to your ego with ease and although passionate you still remain assured and unbothered by threats. Also high sex drive is present here

A lot of psychics have Moon sextile Neptune because they access otherworldly feelings subconsciously without blockages. And are both Water and Fire dominant. Water rules unconscious and flowing emotions, while Fire represents intuition and gut feelings hence "follow your heart" being their motto.

In general looking at your Moon placement is THE MOST important when figuring out your intuitive abilities as the Moon is the unconscious mind & your personal feelings and behavior. You could determine what suits you best with this!

Ex, Mercury aspecting Moon does well with Tarot & Oracle or any divination that requires pattern connections and using your hands

Ex, Pluto aspecting Moon might be able to talk to ancestors, spirits, and gain information about dangerous events

Ex, Venus aspecting Moon would be great for Glamour magic, Love spells, WEALTH MANIFESTATIONS, and herbalism!! TEA READINGS LOL

I need to stop with Libra & Tea �� istg Tea is ruled by Libra & Neptune BUT THATS JUST MY INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS COMING THRU.

I don't necessarily believe in everything I listed or think it's all good practices like Love magic but I wanted to help you develop an idea of how each planet can be connected for practical use.

I feel like Uranus is actually a hard planet to understand and sometimes value in everyday life because it's just so...out there LOL. Like it's described as sudden surprises, rebellion, electricity, revolution & eccentricity. It's just a hard planet to relate to in general because it's the opposite of conformity so applying it in your life is umm confusing to say the least lol.

Basically I look at Uranus as sudden ups & downs, where we grow FAST but where we get knocked down BAD too. I literally think cancel culture would be ruled by Uranus ngl LOL. It's unpredictable and awakens or shakes up whatever it aspects.

So Uranus aspecting Venus would cause a turbulent love life, a somewhat Detached or Hypersexual character, Very wealthy and a visionary in fashion or with money. But alsoooo struggles to maintain relationships or struggles A LOT with self love.

TW but I've often seen those with Uranus in 2nd & 6th House struggle the most with body dysmorphia and weight fluctuation. Your health can always spike up and down too. It's because these houses rule over our self-worth, body and physical health. Therefore, sometimes it can really shake your eating habits up which would obviously cause a struggle in your mental health.

However I've also seen some of the MOST inflated egos come from people with Uranus in 2nd House. Again the unpredictability and sudden Shockwave to your confidence with Uranus can literally make you feel like God or sunken. It's VERY drastic.

Oppositions to the Ascendant, also known as Conjunctions to the Descendant are qualities we possess that others DON'T accept us for and often make us feel insecure. Lilith Opposite Ascendant would probably be heavily shamed for their promiscuity and manipulative behavior. While Uranus opposite ascendant would be ridiculed for their Weirdness or Intelligence. People would label them as crazy lol�� (totally not me).

Also if you have Uranus aspecting the Ascendant or Mars you are VERY clumsy and accident prone LMAO�� your movements literally come off as a shockwave to others and everything around you. It's just one step and all of a sudden a whole clothing rack comes falling down. Uranus does rule Natural Disasters so...are we even surprised?

When looking at your Solar Return Chart it's not just Pluto to be concerned about BUT CHIRON. This asteroid is the wounded healer meaning it will detail the wounds you have to recover from and face that year. Chiron also highlights where we feel or are literally rejected so...check that fr.

The saddest Chiron placement imo is in the 1st & 4th House. Because your identity and self expression is rejected with the 1st house, while in the 4th house you could be outcasted by your own family and feel blocked put from any form of emotional security.

An example of what I think is a good example of significant Chiron energy would be Selena Gomez and her Venus conjunct Chiron at a 1° orb in Leo 1st house. Basically it shows up as her body being rejected, women rejecting her, and her own creative projects or indivuality feeling rejected. She probably is very self-deprecative because of this as she never feels her appearance or identity is good enough.

Chiron in 1st House people also get copied lots...just sayin

Women tend to be VERY jealous of those with Venus or Moon aspecting Chiron because they view that individual as wounding their views of femininity and project their insecurities onto them. The women with Venus/Moon aspecting Chiron placements are seen in general as being too vulnerable or soft which are stereotypical feminine qualities a lot of women can feel resentment towards brought on by the ✨️Patriarchy✨️

Marilyn Monroe also has Venus conjunct Chiron...��

So does Jessica Alba, Olivia Rodrigo and Kurt Cobain.

Their lovesick songs PLZ what's more Venus conjunct Chiron than that�� excluding miss Alba lol.

The same goes for women with Sun & Mars aspecting Chiron. Men are usually jealous of their success and degrade them because they see them as a threat to their masculinity.

Fun fact: The 4th House rules over the Father while the 10th house rules over the Mother in family astrology. Although I generally always saw the Moon sign as the most accurate representation of the maternal figure in your life but I found the above on astrology websites.

I also found some sources saying the 10th house actually rules your dominant parent? It's a whole debate on Google but it did say the 10th house rules the Mother in my astrology books so...idk I see it. Let me know in the comments your thoughts!

And to end this off, let me know your rising sign degree and I will try to guess your favorite colour to wear lol

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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months

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The surprising truth about data-driven dictatorships

Here’s the “dictator’s dilemma”: they want to block their country’s frustrated elites from mobilizing against them, so they censor public communications; but they also want to know what their people truly believe, so they can head off simmering resentments before they boil over into regime-toppling revolutions.

These two strategies are in tension: the more you censor, the less you know about the true feelings of your citizens and the easier it will be to miss serious problems until they spill over into the streets (think: the fall of the Berlin Wall or Tunisia before the Arab Spring). Dictators try to square this circle with things like private opinion polling or petition systems, but these capture a small slice of the potentially destabiziling moods circulating in the body politic.

Enter AI: back in 2018, Yuval Harari proposed that AI would supercharge dictatorships by mining and summarizing the public mood — as captured on social media — allowing dictators to tack into serious discontent and diffuse it before it erupted into unequenchable wildfire:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/

Harari wrote that “the desire to concentrate all information and power in one place may become [dictators] decisive advantage in the 21st century.” But other political scientists sharply disagreed. Last year, Henry Farrell, Jeremy Wallace and Abraham Newman published a thoroughgoing rebuttal to Harari in Foreign Affairs:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/spirals-delusion-artificial-intelligence-decision-making

They argued that — like everyone who gets excited about AI, only to have their hopes dashed — dictators seeking to use AI to understand the public mood would run into serious training data bias problems. After all, people living under dictatorships know that spouting off about their discontent and desire for change is a risky business, so they will self-censor on social media. That’s true even if a person isn’t afraid of retaliation: if you know that using certain words or phrases in a post will get it autoblocked by a censorbot, what’s the point of trying to use those words?

The phrase “Garbage In, Garbage Out” dates back to 1957. That’s how long we’ve known that a computer that operates on bad data will barf up bad conclusions. But this is a very inconvenient truth for AI weirdos: having given up on manually assembling training data based on careful human judgment with multiple review steps, the AI industry “pivoted” to mass ingestion of scraped data from the whole internet.

But adding more unreliable data to an unreliable dataset doesn’t improve its reliability. GIGO is the iron law of computing, and you can’t repeal it by shoveling more garbage into the top of the training funnel:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/05/29/garbage-in-garbage-out-machine-learning-has-not-repealed-the-iron-law-of-computer-science/

When it comes to “AI” that’s used for decision support — that is, when an algorithm tells humans what to do and they do it — then you get something worse than Garbage In, Garbage Out — you get Garbage In, Garbage Out, Garbage Back In Again. That’s when the AI spits out something wrong, and then another AI sucks up that wrong conclusion and uses it to generate more conclusions.

To see this in action, consider the deeply flawed predictive policing systems that cities around the world rely on. These systems suck up crime data from the cops, then predict where crime is going to be, and send cops to those “hotspots” to do things like throw Black kids up against a wall and make them turn out their pockets, or pull over drivers and search their cars after pretending to have smelled cannabis.

The problem here is that “crime the police detected” isn’t the same as “crime.” You only find crime where you look for it. For example, there are far more incidents of domestic abuse reported in apartment buildings than in fully detached homes. That’s not because apartment dwellers are more likely to be wife-beaters: it’s because domestic abuse is most often reported by a neighbor who hears it through the walls.

So if your cops practice racially biased policing (I know, this is hard to imagine, but stay with me /s), then the crime they detect will already be a function of bias. If you only ever throw Black kids up against a wall and turn out their pockets, then every knife and dime-bag you find in someone’s pockets will come from some Black kid the cops decided to harass.

That’s life without AI. But now let’s throw in predictive policing: feed your “knives found in pockets” data to an algorithm and ask it to predict where there are more knives in pockets, and it will send you back to that Black neighborhood and tell you do throw even more Black kids up against a wall and search their pockets. The more you do this, the more knives you’ll find, and the more you’ll go back and do it again.

This is what Patrick Ball from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group calls “empiricism washing”: take a biased procedure and feed it to an algorithm, and then you get to go and do more biased procedures, and whenever anyone accuses you of bias, you can insist that you’re just following an empirical conclusion of a neutral algorithm, because “math can’t be racist.”

HRDAG has done excellent work on this, finding a natural experiment that makes the problem of GIGOGBI crystal clear. The National Survey On Drug Use and Health produces the gold standard snapshot of drug use in America. Kristian Lum and William Isaac took Oakland’s drug arrest data from 2010 and asked Predpol, a leading predictive policing product, to predict where Oakland’s 2011 drug use would take place.

[Image ID: (a) Number of drug arrests made by Oakland police department, 2010. (1) West Oakland, (2) International Boulevard. (b) Estimated number of drug users, based on 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health]

Then, they compared those predictions to the outcomes of the 2011 survey, which shows where actual drug use took place. The two maps couldn’t be more different:

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2016.00960.x

Predpol told cops to go and look for drug use in a predominantly Black, working class neighborhood. Meanwhile the NSDUH survey showed the actual drug use took place all over Oakland, with a higher concentration in the Berkeley-neighboring student neighborhood.

What’s even more vivid is what happens when you simulate running Predpol on the new arrest data that would be generated by cops following its recommendations. If the cops went to that Black neighborhood and found more drugs there and told Predpol about it, the recommendation gets stronger and more confident.

In other words, GIGOGBI is a system for concentrating bias. Even trace amounts of bias in the original training data get refined and magnified when they are output though a decision support system that directs humans to go an act on that output. Algorithms are to bias what centrifuges are to radioactive ore: a way to turn minute amounts of bias into pluripotent, indestructible toxic waste.

There’s a great name for an AI that’s trained on an AI’s output, courtesy of Jathan Sadowski: “Habsburg AI.”

And that brings me back to the Dictator’s Dilemma. If your citizens are self-censoring in order to avoid retaliation or algorithmic shadowbanning, then the AI you train on their posts in order to find out what they’re really thinking will steer you in the opposite direction, so you make bad policies that make people angrier and destabilize things more.

Or at least, that was Farrell(et al)’s theory. And for many years, that’s where the debate over AI and dictatorship has stalled: theory vs theory. But now, there’s some empirical data on this, thanks to the “The Digital Dictator’s Dilemma,” a new paper from UCSD PhD candidate Eddie Yang:

https://www.eddieyang.net/research/DDD.pdf

Yang figured out a way to test these dueling hypotheses. He got 10 million Chinese social media posts from the start of the pandemic, before companies like Weibo were required to censor certain pandemic-related posts as politically sensitive. Yang treats these posts as a robust snapshot of public opinion: because there was no censorship of pandemic-related chatter, Chinese users were free to post anything they wanted without having to self-censor for fear of retaliation or deletion.

Next, Yang acquired the censorship model used by a real Chinese social media company to decide which posts should be blocked. Using this, he was able to determine which of the posts in the original set would be censored today in China.

That means that Yang knows that the “real” sentiment in the Chinese social media snapshot is, and what Chinese authorities would believe it to be if Chinese users were self-censoring all the posts that would be flagged by censorware today.

From here, Yang was able to play with the knobs, and determine how “preference-falsification” (when users lie about their feelings) and self-censorship would give a dictatorship a misleading view of public sentiment. What he finds is that the more repressive a regime is — the more people are incentivized to falsify or censor their views — the worse the system gets at uncovering the true public mood.

What’s more, adding additional (bad) data to the system doesn’t fix this “missing data” problem. GIGO remains an iron law of computing in this context, too.

But it gets better (or worse, I guess): Yang models a “crisis” scenario in which users stop self-censoring and start articulating their true views (because they’ve run out of fucks to give). This is the most dangerous moment for a dictator, and depending on the dictatorship handles it, they either get another decade or rule, or they wake up with guillotines on their lawns.

But “crisis” is where AI performs the worst. Trained on the “status quo” data where users are continuously self-censoring and preference-falsifying, AI has no clue how to handle the unvarnished truth. Both its recommendations about what to censor and its summaries of public sentiment are the least accurate when crisis erupts.

But here’s an interesting wrinkle: Yang scraped a bunch of Chinese users’ posts from Twitter — which the Chinese government doesn’t get to censor (yet) or spy on (yet) — and fed them to the model. He hypothesized that when Chinese users post to American social media, they don’t self-censor or preference-falsify, so this data should help the model improve its accuracy.

He was right — the model got significantly better once it ingested data from Twitter than when it was working solely from Weibo posts. And Yang notes that dictatorships all over the world are widely understood to be scraping western/northern social media.

But even though Twitter data improved the model’s accuracy, it was still wildly inaccurate, compared to the same model trained on a full set of un-self-censored, un-falsified data. GIGO is not an option, it’s the law (of computing).

Writing about the study on Crooked Timber, Farrell notes that as the world fills up with “garbage and noise” (he invokes Philip K Dick’s delighted coinage “gubbish”), “approximately correct knowledge becomes the scarce and valuable resource.”

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/07/25/51610/

This “probably approximately correct knowledge” comes from humans, not LLMs or AI, and so “the social applications of machine learning in non-authoritarian societies are just as parasitic on these forms of human knowledge production as authoritarian governments.”

The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop summer fundraiser is almost over! I am an alum, instructor and volunteer board member for this nonprofit workshop whose alums include Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, Nalo Hopkinson, Kameron Hurley, Nnedi Okorafor, Lucius Shepard, and Ted Chiang! Your donations will help us subsidize tuition for students, making Clarion — and sf/f — more accessible for all kinds of writers.

Libro.fm is the indie-bookstore-friendly, DRM-free audiobook alternative to Audible, the Amazon-owned monopolist that locks every book you buy to Amazon forever. When you buy a book on Libro, they share some of the purchase price with a local indie bookstore of your choosing (Libro is the best partner I have in selling my own DRM-free audiobooks!). As of today, Libro is even better, because it’s available in five new territories and currencies: Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia and New Zealand!

[Image ID: An altered image of the Nuremberg rally, with ranked lines of soldiers facing a towering figure in a many-ribboned soldier's coat. He wears a high-peaked cap with a microchip in place of insignia. His head has been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The sky behind him is filled with a 'code waterfall' from 'The Matrix.']

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

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

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Raimond Spekking (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acer_Extensa_5220_-_Columbia_MB_06236-1N_-_Intel_Celeron_M_530_-_SLA2G_-_in_Socket_479-5029.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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Russian Airborne Troops (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vladislav_Achalov_at_the_Airborne_Troops_Day_in_Moscow_%E2%80%93_August_2,_2008.jpg

“Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Col._Leonid_Khabarov_in_an_everyday_service_uniform.JPG

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

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alexriesart · 6 months

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The Tandem Call was a small fighter developed by over-eager birrin engineers as a way to relearn aviation knowledge lost in the Fall. A variety of unconventional control surfaces, including split ailerons and moving winglets, were all tossed into this single airframe to test several aerodynamic concepts. The team never expected that the Tandem Call would ever fire a shot in anger.

In its test bed role weapons, including a powerful cannon, were added. Onboard magazines and under-wing stores could carry a variety of experimental guided and unguided munitions for use on Kiln test ranges. The bubble canopy gave the pilot excellent visibility, but the Tandem Call lacked radar. This shortcoming was partly rectified when the Reclamation wars began with a detachable underwing sensor pod.

During development the team was also only given surplus small jet powerplants: a second turbine was added in ventral pod when the vehicle was found to be underpowered in combat tests, though this could be easily removed for non-combat reconnaissance missions to increase endurance. This pod necessitated the addition of longer landing gear housed in nacelles extending beyond the wing trailing edge.

Despite the idiosyncratic design, the Reclamation wars pulled the Tandem Call into service, its potent cannons felling slower enemy aircraft and strafing ground targets.

Despite its experimental nature, the vehicle was put into serial production to fulfil the need for air power in the explosively escalating conflict, giving rise to a legendary group of pilots who were able to use the idiosyncratic aircraft to great effect against what were increasingly sophisticated adversaries

#my art #birrin #aviation #concept art #illustration #alex ries

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sophaeros · 3 months

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arctic monkeys for clash magazine, april 2010

ON THE ROAD WITH… ARCTIC MONKEYS

Words by Simon Harper Photos by Jason Joyce

As Britain’s favourite band headed out on the European leg of their ‘Humbug’ tour, Clash discovered that Arctic Monkeys were less sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, and more cakes, ping-pong and Coco Pops…

The city of Offenbach, about twenty minutes south of Frankfurt, was once noted for its abundant leather industry, and is currently the base of the German weather service, but such claims don’t negate the fact that it’s basically a sterile, grey, typically German suburban borough. The arrival of a fleet of trucks and buses, carrying Arctic Monkeys, their crew and stage gear, heralded the notion that for one night only, Offenbach may just come alive with suitably bustling energy.

Offenbach’s Stadthalle is the smallest venue on the Monkeys’ three-week tour of Western Europe. The band have been through Portugal, Spain and France, and know how to kill time during the day while everyone works around them, building the stage for that night’s show. And so, when Clash finds them, upstairs in the Stadthalle’s back rooms, they’re in the middle of a fierce ping-pong match – the game scores being tallied up across the tour. The table, it transpires, is the band’s own, and follows them wherever they go. A set of football goals lie waiting for action, but the small white balls prove more enticing.

It’s a cold, February Tuesday, and these back rooms are where the band will spend the whole day.

Previous encounters with Arctic Monkeys have been somewhat tough – notoriously reticent and famously press-shy, there’s a tangible wall that surrounds them, which is seemingly hard to penetrate. Suspicious stares cut through you, while succinct answers frustrate you. Today, however, they couldn’t be more accommodating.

Clash sits with the quartet in the band-only room, where their personal equipment is kept in a vertical flight case of drawers, and a small fridge is at hand for cold beers. Nick O’Malley, Jamie Cook and Matt Helders sprawl on the leather couches, while Alex Turner perches on the table, often pacing the room, then escaping in search of a lighter. We’re here to talk about life on the road. What starts as an interview eventually descends into louche conversation; daft chat punctuated by much laughter. Perhaps they’re glad to see a friendly face; perhaps the monotony of touring makes them crave any respite; perhaps there’s nothing better to do in Offenbach.

Is being on tour like real life, or does it feel like you’re detached from what real life is?

Matt: It’s probably real life. It doesn’t seem like it’s too separate or miles away.

When you go home is that normality or is it just a continuation of what you do on the road?

Matt: I don’t find it hard to settle back and switch between the two.

Nick: You feel like you’re unemployed when you go home properly.

Like you’ve got nothing to do?

Nick: Yeah, or like if you’ve got a couple of weeks off.

Matt: Like school holidays.

Alex: Does that make this school then?

Matt: Yeah, but it’s like basketball camp or something you enjoy.

How do your friendships cope with life on the road?

Matt: It’s fine.

Nick: Yeah. We know how to not annoy each other. We’ve never really had friction, because we’ve all got a similar outlook on how not to annoy people, I suppose, so there’s never really been any problems.

Alex: (Mock nastily) That’s what you think, mate.

Nick: (Laughs) I suppose if you see the same people every day, after a while you’re bound to get a bit annoyed, but as long as you keep in your mind that it’s just because of the situation and not because you don’t like the person, then you can kind of avoid outbursts that you might not mean. It’s never really been a problem so far.

Do you notice a huge cultural difference between touring Europe and America?

Alex: Even between places in Europe. I mean, often, to be honest, certainly at this stage that we’re at, days like today aren’t uncommon, where you’re out of town and you don’t even really see where you are, as I’m sure you’re aware. But you can really tell the difference just in the show, from the crowd. We did Madrid and Barcelona over t’weekend, and last week Portugal, and they were really excitable and there was like a frenzy going on when we were playing. Whereas I think crowds elsewhere can be a bit more reserved, can’t they, depending on where it is. I reckon one of the best crowds on this tour was a gig we did last week in Porto. We’ve never played there before. There was this real appreciation or something just from the start. You can just sort of feel it, can’t you; ‘We’re all here to have a laugh’.

Alex lives in the States now. Have any of you considered moving to somewhere you’ve visited on tour?

Matt: Yeah. It’s good that you do get to see places that you might consider moving, like Berlin. I could imagine living there.

Does living apart make you appreciate each other more when you’re back together?

Jamie: [Long pause] Mmmm…yeah.

Gone are the days when you’re living round the corner from each other.

Alex: Yeah, I suppose that’s true. You’ve got to sort of organise to be in one place. I suppose that is a bit of an inconvenient drag.

Are there any essential items that you have to pack before you come out on tour?

Jamie: One of them rolly things that gets fluff of your coat. (All laugh)

Alex: I feel like you’re a lot better equipped than the rest of us with things like that.

Yeah, you’re looking very bobble-less.

Jamie: Ah, cheers. Yeah, I did it this morning actually. A quick roll.

Matt: A skipping rope – except I forgot it this time. I’ve lost mine.

Nick: DVDs, stuff like that.

A ping-pong table?

Jamie: A ping-pong table is essential actually. I don’t think we’d go on tour without that.

Alex: Some kind of series…

Matt: A box-set.

Alex: Kinda really discovered that this last year. It was summat I’d never really got into before.

Nick: Any HBO series.

Alex: (Laughs) Yeah. I’ve really learned to appreciate that sort of continuum, because you can follow a thread.

Matt: You know what you need to do the next day.

What have you been watching?

Alex: We’ve got into Deadwood a bit on the last tour. That’s what’s been missing, I think, for me on this tour, some sort of thing like that.

Have you done The Wire?

Alex: Yeah. I went Wire mad on that tour. I just got so greedy. I get so greedy with them things.

Matt: I couldn’t catch up.

Jamie: Yeah, he ditched everyone. I got ditched on t’second series!

Matt: Six in t’morning, I could hear him.

Jamie: You’d get up and that [theme] song would be on. It’d just be crisps all over, a bottle of…

Nick: ‘Wire Beast’s been up all night again!’

Alex: ‘Where’d you get that dressing gown from?’

Jamie: Just laying there with crumbs all over him.

Have you ever had any scares at customs?

Nick: I got searched yesterday actually.

Matt: It was your squeaky wheels, just as I’d said. I said, ‘Them wheels are gonna attract attention.’

Nick: In Germany. A very thorough search, but luckily no glove action.

Jamie: They probably wanted to mend your wheels for you.

Matt: ‘I’ve got summat for that, some GT85.’

Nick: They were really suspicious of me. They really took everything apart and didn’t put it back as neat as I’d put it in.

Alex: At this end, yesterday?

Nick: Yeah, when we arrived in ‘Munchen’.

Alex: They’re quite, like, strict, aren’t they, Bavarian authorities.

Nick: Yeah. They had a look at me belt, everything. All me case and bag. Took everything apart. Then he were like, ‘Where have you come from?’ I went, ‘Barcelona’. He were like, ‘Have you had any contact with drugs in Barcelona?’ I went, ‘No.’ He went, ‘What do you do?’ I said, ‘I’m in a band.’ And he went, ‘Ah’, and then, like, swabbed everything.

Alex: When I got in t’car yesterday, the fella were like, [German accent] ‘If you like to do drugs, do not try and do it in Bavaria.’

American customs scare me most.

Matt: Yeah, it’s a load of questions.

Alex: ‘What are you doing here?’

Jamie: New Zealand were quite funny. We all got pulled…

Matt: We had to sit in them chairs for a bit…

Jamie: And this guy was asking us directly the last time we ever did drugs. Then someone came over who worked for us…and he soon disappeared rather fast. We were fine. (All laugh)

Alex: I’ve come to quite enjoy the American customs people. (All laugh)

Matt: They’ve always got weird names.

Alex: They’re like, [American accent] ‘So you’re in a band, huh?’ You go, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ‘What do you do in the band?’ ‘Oh, I’m the singer.’ ‘Yeah? You don’t look like a singer to me.’

Nick: ‘Do you sound like Coldplay?’

Alex: Yeah, ‘What kind of music do you guys play?’

Jamie: ‘Do you sound like Staind?’ I went like, ‘Staind? I know them… Fuckin’ hell!’ It took me ages. ‘Yeah, yeah, we sound a bit like Staind.’ When he said it I were like, ‘Yeah, a bit.’

You’ve said before that you wanted to try and get an album out this year. Do you get any time on the road to do any work on that?

Alex: Not really. That’s a bit of a pain in the arse, not being able to rehearse and work stuff out. I don’t think I write very good songs on t’road. They’re all a bit wonky. You get back and you’re like, ‘Hmmm’.

Does it detach you from what we were talking about earlier, ‘real life’? Does it detach you from the things that you want to be writing about?

Alex: I dunno. You can still use your imagination, but I just think, yeah, in your surroundings there’s always about to be something that’s going to happen. You can’t think. I always write wherever I am, but I dunno if the things that come out when you’re touring around always have the shelf life that the other things do.

Have you got any songs earmarked for the next album?

Alex: Yeah. I mean, there’s some ideas, but we haven’t really had the chance to get out the fine toothed comb.

‘Humbug’ was a departure in sound from your previous albums – do you think you’ll continue in that direction, maybe bring Josh Homme in again?

Alex: Not sure, really. We would like to do something with Josh again – it was terrific for us to go on that adventure – but whether or not it’s this next thing, I’m not sure. And also, like, he’s busy! (Laughs) He’s got a schedule himself, doesn’t he?

You went to record over in his place, so do you think next time you’ll have him over to...

Alex: High Green? (Laughs) Homme in High Green? I quite fancy that.

Nick: He’d look like a superhero in High Green, all the bad genetics there are in High Green. He’d look amazing.

Matt: He’d be the biggest man there.

You’ve released a couple of singles exclusively through Oxfam. What made you decide to do that?

Jamie: Laurence and Jonny at Domino came to us with that idea – a great idea for the charity reason, and then cos Woolworths and stuff had shut down, but there were always an Oxfam.

Alex: Like, in towns where there perhaps aren’t, like, an Our Price or something.

Do you have to think of more creative ways to get your records out there?

Jamie: Yeah, rather than just sat at home.

Matt: They should think about making the journey exciting – paint paths a nice colour to the record shops.

Alex: The yellow brick road.

Matt: Something that makes people want to walk to a record shop. Even if it’s just free parking. (All laugh)

Jamie: It’s just too easy to buy music now.

How do you feel as artists about the devaluing of music? Does it annoy you that you’re working hard to make something, but people can just pick it up from their friends?

Jamie: I suppose we were never in the industry when it were big money, when people used to sell twenty million albums. Has that ever happened since we’ve been around?

Probably someone like Dido has.

Jamie: Yeah, that were probably the last.

Matt: It’s like, we wouldn’t expect anything like that to happen to us, so…

Alex: I do think there is people that always will want to go and get records.

Matt: Yeah, it won’t change everybody.

Alex: I was reading a couple of months ago about there’s an idea where you won’t even have – you know like you pull songs off iTunes or whatever – but they were saying you subscribe to a database and pay to get ’em…

Jamie: Spotify, that’s what that was.

Alex: Yeah. But you can’t get them on…

It streams the music – you can’t download them.

Alex: But you can’t do that on your phone, can you?

Matt: Yeah, you can do Spotify on your phone if you pay about £10 a month. Nokia did that thing where you can just pay a monthly thing and you can have as many as you want…

Alex: The fella had a quote, he’s like, ‘There’s nothing sexy about an MP3 on your desktop’. (Laughs) He’s like, ‘There’s nothing sexy about having a subscription to a database’. (All laugh) But then you could just sort of buy a record and stand it up against your wall. Not that that’s particularly sexy, but, you know what I mean… I like things that you can stand up.

Jamie: Like you said the other day, everyone’s just gonna have an empty house.

Matt: Yeah, there’s gonna be nothing on t’shelves. Not even books now.

Jamie: No one’s got any photos anymore, no ones’s got any CDs or records…

Matt: You’ll just have a screen and a chair.

Jamie: You’ll just go, ‘Sound. This is sound.’

Matt: With nowt on your wall.

Jamie: You can just have everything [at your fingertips]; turn your fire on, open your curtains…

Alex: You’d get in it for your bath. (All laugh)

[Alex goes into the band’s equipment drawer, pulls out a giant figure of Freddie Mercury in full-on rock pose. “See, he said he likes things that stand up,” Matt says.]

Does being on an independent label give you the freedom to experiment with your marketing or promotions?

Matt: Yeah. They [Domino] have as many ideas as us for stuff like that, like the Oxfam thing. They tend to think on a similar level, and, at the same time, if we have a suggestion, they’re open to it. It sometimes is a good thing to have a label like Domino, cos they’re experienced in doing weird stuff, and have obviously signed things that aren’t necessarily to make any money or anything, so we’ll listen to them if they have a suggestion, and vice versa. They’d put records out on tins of beans and all sorts. (All laugh)

Jamie: I wanted to do it on a conifer. I wanted to put an MP3 out on a conifer.

Matt: Or just seeds. Christmas tree seeds.

Alex: Yeah. What did they actually do?

Matt: There’s a Jewish guy, I forgot what his name is, and they did it on a kosher chicken noodle soup or something. You buy the soup and you get the code [for the MP3]. Which is good in a way, because he’s just poo-pooing the fact that there’s not much point. It’s an incentive, but it doesn’t get it in the chart, you see. It’s a give-away. So you can sell anything and just have an MP3 code on it. You can sell a car and you’d just get one song.

Jamie: But then it doesn’t count towards t’charts?

Matt: No. The Oxfam thing don’t either, does it. Only the download bit does. You’re not allowed to give away incentives like free stuff, because that’s obviously encouraging people. See, that’s the thing – people might buy the soup and not download the song. ‘I wonder if they make good soup?’

Jamie: When you see a good cover sometimes…

Matt: Yeah, you buy it for the cover.

Alex: Perhaps the epitome of that is you buying a Lady Gaga picture disc. (Laughs)

Matt: Yeah, I did. I’ve been a fool.

Alex: It’s great, cos she’s wearing like a fuckin’ box of Coco Pops or something. (Laughs)

Matt: You could buy that Freddie Mercury thing and get a Queen album, for instance. You don’t need to put it on or owt.

Jamie: You want to make it awkward.

Matt: Buy a chair. Buy a flat pack piece of furniture and you get a code for an album.

Jamie: You have to put your furniture up and send a picture to someone, then they send you the MP3.

Alex: That would make a good video: playing in a bowl of Coco Pops. (All laugh) Remember that kids programme where they used to have to go swimming in a bowl of cereal…

Jamie: Ah yeah. Didn’t they used to do something like that on The Big Breakfast?

Matt: They did, yeah.

Jamie: It were a massive cup of tea and you used to have to get the sugar lumps…

Matt: Yeah, yeah, that was it: One Lump Or Two.

Jamie: One Lump Or Two, yeah!

Alex: It would be great: kid comes down, he’s having his breakfast – Coco Pops – and then, like, Arctic Monkeys are in his cereal. (All laugh)

Jamie: Hot milk, though.

Matt: Hot milk in t’afternoon.

Alex: (Laughs) ‘Why not try Coco Pops after school?’

Jamie: (Laughs) I love that advert!

Alex: It’s the best!

Do your fans give you CDs of their bands?

Matt: They throw them on t’stage! Imagine if you got one of them in t’eye! Fuckin’ hell! Remember in America, a kid got on stage and he had a handful [of CDs] and someone had to grab him to get him off, but he threw them. So he were getting pulled away and he threw them.

Alex: I’ve been getting less CDs though…

Matt: Now they’re throwing download cards at you!

Alex: I got a pair of underpants…

Jamie: People are chucking downloads at you. You’re like, ‘What the fuck?’

Matt: People are throwing zeroes and ones at you – it’s like the credits of The Matrix!

Jamie: You can’t get any flick on a download.

Alex: They’re chucking Spotifys at me. Maybe that’s what them pants were – some sort of code.

I think it’d be a totally different sort of code! Do you listen to the music that fans give you?

Matt: I listened to one that someone gave me the other day. It just were at home though, he just gave it me.

Alex: No more than I’d wear that pair of pants! (Laughs)

Matt: It were just convenient – I were getting in me car and there’s a CD player there.

What’s the strangest thing a fan has given you?

Matt: Just in Japan – everything you get is weird! Like, a monkey hat – it left your own face in but it’s got ears and a tail.

Jamie: And sweets.

Matt: A lot of sweets.

Jamie: We once said, ‘Oh, we like these sweets’ in an interview…

Nick: There’s someone that makes baked goods.

Matt: You got a good one, where it were like a picture of you…

Alex: Yeah, I got like a diagram of myself…

Matt: A diagram, pointing at every bit, and then asking to fill in, like, what his favourite brand of jeans were.

Alex: Hand it back, and then she’d sort of kit me out.

Matt: She’d buy it all! So, like, ‘Favourite shoes? Trainers or boots?’ It would be like that. He’d fill it in and send it back and then she’d buy it. ‘Will this do?’

Alex: Back it came with this jumper that were perfect actually. She really knew me better than I knew meself.

Nick: With baked goods, I know it’s not [spiked], but you never know… It’s probably fine – it’s more than likely fine – but it is a gamble.

Matt: It’s innocent, but someone might have seen that opportunity.

Jamie: I don’t think I’m ever gonna eat a baked good that some stranger’s made. You learn about that. There is a story there…

What’s the first thing you do when you get home after the tour is finished?

Nick: See your friends and family that you’ve not seen.

Matt: I go and get my photos developed. That’s actually one of the first things I do.

Alex: I usually pick up me guitar. Honestly. It’s a deep breath.

Later that evening, Clash is back in the ping-pong room. The tour manager comes to break bad news to the band - the curtain at the front of the stage is broken. They won't be able to make their usual grand entrance. "Ah, we've got to do it," grins Alex. Do what? "We've been saying on this tour if ever the curtain doesn't work, we've got to go on to this song." Which song? "Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feelin’’," Alex beams. The band are giddily bouncing around, electrified by the prospect of taking the stage to the song that's soundtracked many a menopausal vodka-stained Saturday evening's preparatory gathering.

“But when do we go on?" Matt asks.

"The rap. We gotta wait for the rap," Alex asserts.

"We should wait until "Mazel tov”,” Jamie smirks.

Ten minutes later, Clash is amidst the Offenbach crowd when the lights go out and the song bursts from the PA. A wave of euphoria swells, the irony not lost, and right on cue, just as the Peas declare, "I know that we'll have a ball", the four Monkeys stride towards their instruments.

The nineteen-song set covers their three albums - with Nick Cave's 'Red Right Hand’ thrown in for good measure. The last song before their encore is 'Secret Door’ from 'Humbug’. Just as Matt cracks the snare drum that launches the song's long psychedelic outro, cannons on the roof blast out gold and silver confetti over the joyous crowd below, proving that the Monkeys aren't averse to a bit of showmanship every now and then.

The after party is a subdued affair (well, in Offenbach it's bound to be!), with just the band, some friends, crew, and Clash, diving into the beer and nibbles on offer. A fairly drunken chat with Alex about Johnny Cash, Billie Holiday and Gram Parsons rounds off our time with the band, as they retreat back to the confines of their bus, about to depart for Dusseldor and their next gig.

Such a welcome and warm atmosphere is often rare backstage, especially with a band as celebrated as this, but the Monkeys - ever changing and ever surprising - are beginning to make a habit of defying expectations. Growing up has never been such fun.

#arctic monkeys #alex turner #matt helders #nick o'malley #jamie cook #humbug era #clash magazine #interviews #not my scan #bands #screenshots from vk #in another universe they wouldve started a four white men talking podcast #eye contact #my image id

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