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insane-control-room · 1 month

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i dont have a pairing prompt but what if you just put some guys in a situation - working for the company? :3

tysm for the prompt <3

Coi_ Factory

Jack's in a bad mood. T'ḥiát takes care of it. May has a not great time.

ft. @greenghostlyjekyll's Jack & @ichaisme's May :3 based on a real conversation lmao

words: 1,250 general fic warnings: light/playful violence; coil-heads

Fic under cut!

Generally, Jack was pretty chill, T'ḥiát would tell you. But really, you should not trust T'ḥiát’s opinion for diddly squat, as they tended to be an idiot. People who had worked with them would tell you that it must be that TZP that they were constantly inhaling like it was oxygen that muddled their brain to hell and back.

Jack was chill, sure, but they also did not mind if you ended up becoming mulch, as long as quota was hit and enough was made to head out to that desolate, far away planet Titan.

Jack, dissatisfied with the newbies, and finding that they had lost one of them on quota number two, decided that the 120 chip price was more than sufficient to enlist T'ḥiát’s services once again - an idea assisted by the fact that T'ḥiát’s price of a fresh TZP can (instead of the empty canisters that the company begrudgingly gave them as payment) was 70% off in the shop. Well worth it, in Jack’s eyes.

Especially after they were bunked up with one of the newbies on the next moon, who asked something so stupid, so ridiculous, so uneducated about Jack’s home planet that Jack only looked at them like they were crazy and stormed off, hoping they would get eaten by a spider or something.

Unfortunately for Jack, the “or something” happened, and that something was ‘got back to the ship only minorly injured from a stupid fall’.

T'ḥiát, darting around the ship in a spazzing manner that defied some law of physics (clearly trying to savor the canister of TZP, only using it on the moons) noticed their bad mood, and zipped over.

“What’s the matter, Jacks?” they asked, bouncing up and down. They stilled suddenly, head tilting. Someone who did not know T'ḥiát might have been unnerved. “You seem a bit miffed!”

“Nothing, nothing, it’s fine, just…” Jack gave a quiet growl. “Somethin’ stupid is all.”

“You can always talk to me,” T'ḥiát shrugged, hopping up on top of the controls console. “Even if you think it’s stupid, if it’s bothering you, it’s bothering me.”

“Someone just asked me, and I quote,” Jack said, raising their fingers to make bunny ear quotations in the air. “‘Does Titan have coil factories’?”

T'ḥiát stared at them - or one could assume so, by the way their blank visor was pointed directly at them without moving.

“Oh, no.” they remarked, in denial. “No one could know that little about the moons.”

“Well, they asked!” Jack gestured without any specific motions. Their helmet was off, so they took the advantage of being able to pinch the bridge of their nose. “Like! Buddy! Where do you think all the damn coil heads come from, Experimentation? Yeah, right, the only good that place is for is faulty V-type engines!”

“Who asked that?” T'ḥiát wondered aloud. Jack pointed at the person ringing the company bell, and growled, “The FNG, who else?”

“I see!” T'ḥiát replied lightly. “I’ll go give ‘em a talk.”

“You go do that, buddy,” Jack grumbled, though their mood was a little uplifted. “I appreciate it.”

“A lesson they won’t soon forget,” T'ḥiát went on, probably with a smile. Jack blinked, raising an eyebrow. “Bye!”

Jack watched them leave, and put a stick of gum in their mouth contemplatively.

“Alright. I guess.”

T'ḥiát came back after a few minutes of chatting with the new employee.

“Done,” T'ḥiát remarked. “We’re going to Titan next quota.”

The snowy expanse of Titan loomed around them. The FNG was already in the complex, gathering loot with T'ḥiát.

Said addict slammed down into the ship, and nudged Jack.

“Doing well!” T'ḥiát chirped, then pressed the can of TZP to the inhalation module on their suit for exactly nine seconds. Their voice slightly higher than normal, they went on, “Going back!”

The next time they came back with a haul, Jack grabbed their arm.

“What did you do to the newbie?” Jack asked. “Why was she so excited to come here?”

“I told her that there were no coil factories on Titan,” T'ḥiát replied calmly, ignoring the eye twitch that was no doubt occurring behind Jack’s visor. “I told them that there’s a coin factory here and that cash registers are all the rage.”

“Mhm,” Jack contemplated their words for a long moment. Then they nodded. “They're gonna die.”

“Ya, probably,” T'ḥiát agreed, then their arm was by their side again, as though Jack was never holding it in the first place. “Unless I feel bad enough for them. Well, going back.”

Jack nodded, and watched them sprint off, chuckling to themself as they went back to the monitor.

Sure enough, there was a red dot in front of the new guy.

The new guy was strafing, one inch at a time.

Jack leaned back and smiled.

“Uh… can I get a bit of help?”

The newbie’s distressed voice bounced along the corridors. T'ḥiát sighed, making their way to the sound's origin.

“Ask nicely!” they called out, gauging the location of the lost employee. “Quick!”

“Please?”

T'ḥiát came up swiftly, tilting their head and walking up to the coil head. They circled around it, and nodded once.

“That there’s a coil head, alright,” they commented unnecessarily. The new guy gave a wheeze of fear. “Don’t you worry, I’ll get you out of here just fine. I see you got your cash register. May, was it?”

“Yeah- yes,” May replied, trembling hard. “I want to get out of here. Now.”

“Calm down princess,” T'ḥiát soothed, shaking their can of TZP. “If you want, you can have a bit of this, it’ll help your nerves. Just promise that you’ll apologize to good ol’ Jack about the coil factories question when we get back. They got pretty offended by it.”

“I didn’t think that it was an offensive question!” she defended herself with some bewilderment. T'ḥiát sighed and pushed her along. “Where are we going?”

“Fire exit. Keep moving forward. I’ve got Mr. Crybaby.”

“Crybaby?”

“Don’t question it. Make a left. Your other left.”

“To the glowing red dot?”

“That’s it. Right out there.”

T'ḥiát waited until they heard the door shut behind them before they phased through the crack.

May was breathing hard outside of the door. T'ḥiát nudged her to get her to start moving.

“You’re a jerk,” May hissed. T'ḥiát shrugged. “I’m going to- to hurt you.”

“Sure, doll,” T'ḥiát replied, just as peppy as usual. “That’s a nice cash register you’ve got there. Better make it count. Better crack my skull open in one shot.”

“I’m not going to do that!?” May gasped, shocked. T'ḥiát tilted their head at her as they jumped down onto the lighting - May taking the stairs, like a normal person. They asked; “Why not?”

“Because- because I’m not going to kill you!”

“Coward,” T'ḥiát hummed. May stared at them through her visor. “Jack’s probably going to kill me when we get back onto the ship. Be more like Jack.”

“Why would they kill you when we get back?!”

“You.”

Sure enough, as soon as they stepped onboard, Jack clonked T'ḥiát on the head with a shovel. They dropped like a popped balloon. May did not like thinking about the fact that their suit looked the part.

“Why did you save them!?” Jack demanded when they were in orbit again, shaking T'ḥiát violently. They shrugged, now next to the computer and out of Jack’s grip. “T'ḥiát! Stop teleporting!”

“I don’t teleport. Also - I felt bad.”

May rang her cash register.

#gen fic #control art #lethal company #Employees & Employees (Lethal Company)#T'ḥiát #jack (lethal company)#may (lethal company)#coil head #lethal company fic #control writes #video game mechanics #titan #slice of life #gift fic #prompt fic #t'chiat #we love the company

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bergwerkderbilder · 10 months

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Mass Effect 2 in Gifs

Gen Prompt Bingo Round 24: the prompt was Old Things - the Keepers aren't things but they sure are old as balls

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #me2 #gamingedit #mass effect edit #mass effect gif #gamingscenery #gaming edit #me2gif #gen prompt bingo #gen prompt bingo round 24

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faeriefrolic · 11 months

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It's triplets !!! Honeoye Fraise 🍓Proper | Night Owl Camarosa Fraise 🍓Cat Person | Good Ozark Beauty Fraise 🍓Loves the Heat | Handy

#ts3 #sims 3 #berry sweet sims #jam legacy #gen 1: strawberry #the gasp i let out when the game kept prompting me to name babies...

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disappearinginq · 1 year

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First Sentences Game

Tagged by @dragonnan and @itsjustdg

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway. Tagging 10 people up front: @buckky, @amandagaelic, @21forestglades, @altschmerzes, @vix-has-arrived, @lovelucigoosey, @authorangelita, @djclawson, @cuppachar, anddd.....anyone else who writes and wants to play?

So does this mean I do 20? Do I have 20? ::shrug:: Guess we’ll find out - and I’m not using the ones already published unless I run out of WIPs (which don’t have titles, just the idea that inspired them sooo...).

1. 9-1-1 - mistaken for related prompt

“What’s it like working with your dad?” It wasn’t the first time someone made the mistake. It was admittedly an easy one to make - while they didn’t look exactly alike, there was enough overlap for people to make the assumption just based off similar features. Buck’s hair was a little darker, which Hen liked to tease the reason for was only the lack of gray hairs - most of which Buck gave Bobby himself. Their eyes were a little different, Buck with his electric blue that almost everyone noticed first, and Bobby’s a darker hazel. They were almost the same height, the same build, but mostly though, it was how they interacted. Buck hadn’t referred to Bobby as ‘Pops’ in awhile, especially not in public, but there was a familial ease which Buck would tease and Bobby would tolerate. Most people assumed the firehouse was like the military - the Captain was treated with absolute authority, and a chain of command followed. They naturally assumed that the youngest of the group wouldn’t be so familiar with their boss unless they were related. It was an easy mistake. It’d been made many times, though usually by someone in passing where either one of them could easily pretend like they hadn’t heard it, or smile and shrug it off with a simple head shake. But Career Day in front of a bunch of fourth graders was like sitting in front of a CIA interrogation.

2. 9-1-1 Buck and animals prompt

"Hey...Cap?" Buck asked hesitantly. "I have sort of a weird question. How do you convince a bird to leave the nest?" Bobby frowned, trying not to smile at the dead seriousness of Buck's face. "Well...when it's time to leave, the birds know." "Okay, but what if they don't leave?" Buck pressed. "Is there a way to convince them?" Bobby opened his mouth to reply before he paused, considering. "Are we talking metaphors, or actual birds?" "One hundred percent real birds." "Well....nature runs off instinct for the most part. If a baby bird isn't leaving the nest, there's usually a reason. Maybe it's not actually ready, or it's hurt, or..." "Okay, but what if it's not a baby bird? What if it's an adult?" "I...Buck, what exactly are you trying to figure out?" Buck held out his hands, which were cupped loosely together. "I found this bird, and it won't leave." He lifted his left hand, which was on top, and sitting cupped in Buck's palm was, sure enough, a brown and white bird. Too big to be a sparrow, and Bobby didn't know too many subspecies to guess any further than that, but it didn't fly away as soon as Buck's hand was lifted as Bobby expected. Instead, it looked quite pleased with itself sitting there and it didn't budge. "See?" Buck prompted, lifting the bird higher.

3. Outer Banks - continuation of Limits

“Mr. Maybank,” the ER nurse greeted them, flinging back the privacy curtain. “We meet again.” “Doc,” JJ acknowledged, offering a flippant two-finger salute. The man sighed, flipping through the paperwork from the folder on the foot of JJ’s exam bed. “This time with a police escort, I see.” He nodded towards Shoupe. “Is he under arrest, sheriff?” “He’s in our custody,” Shoupe deflected. The nurse muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘figures’ before looking at JJ. He let out a low whistle. “Damn, kid. What happened this time?”

4. Slow Horses

It’d been eight days. Eight days, and they hadn’t found him. Lamb could easily throw the blame on Cartwright. The man was always wandering off, pursuing his own leads and his own cases, as if he were an MI-5 team of one. His instincts were solid, and if that little shit Spider and Taverner hadn’t purposely torpedoed his training exercise to cover up their own cock-ups, he’d have his golden ticket and golden legacy still in place. Compared to Lamb’s normal throwaways, Cartwright was almost competent. Lamb never felt like he had to keep a tight leash on the young man because of all the Slow Horses, Cartwright was the only one there because of someone else’s mess. It made Lamb complacent. Lazy, he cursed to himself on the fifth day. Lazy, and fucking stupid. Because he allowed himself to forget that River’s ambition and talent were soundly outdone by his absolute shit fuck awful luck.

5. Haunting of Hill House - steven is haunted as fuck prompt

Steven always hated hospitals. True, he couldn’t think of anyone who actually enjoyed sitting in the hard plastic chairs of waiting rooms, listening to the repetitive pages over the announcing system, waiting for the doctors to come and deliver bad news. He clenched the flimsy paper cup in his hands, debating if he needed a distraction badly enough to get another cup of tar-like coffee from the vending machine. Or maybe risk leaving the hospital for Dunkin Donuts. This was Massachusetts - there was a Dunkins at perfectly timed increments based on how long it took the average human being to drink a medium coffee. One was probably close enough to walk to, and guaranteed to be open. Luke liked the sweet ones - triple shot of coconut caramel macchiatto something-or-other with ungodly amounts of whipped cream. Luke mentioned once how terrible coffee was in rehab, thick and bitter that no amount of cream or sugar could fix. Probably the same as the hospital. Steven could rationalize leaving if he said it was for his brother.

6. So Help Me Todd - going into shock prompt

“But Mom, that’s not how it works, that makes it a misdemeanor not a felony,” Todd protested. “I know the law better than you, Todd, I think I would know -” “You know about upholding the law, not breaking it!” Allison tilted her wine glass towards her brother, eying the rest of the bottle. “He does have a point there. And that is his area of expertise.” “That’s irrelevant!” Margaret protested. “Don’t they say that lawyers make the best criminals?” Chuck pointed out. “Yes, thank you…” Margaret acknowledged, smiling before the implication sunk in. “I beg your pardon?” “Ha!” Todd cheered, holding his fist out to Chuck who didn’t reach across to bump it, but merely held it up just above the table before the doorbell rang. “You know what Chuck, we’ll get there. We just need to work on your enthusiasm, you got the spirit, you just need the attitude. We’ll work on it when I get back.”

7. So Help Me Todd (even though I technically might’ve pawned this off on @itsjustdg) It’s Not My Blood Prompt

“Oh my god, Mom! Are you okay? Are you - are you hurt, ohmygod, you are! Don’t move!” Todd pressed his hand down on the growing blood stain on his mother’s blazer, hard enough to make her yelp in surprise and pain, but he remembered lessons from Allison yelling at various movies and TV shows about ‘YOU PUT PRESSURE ON THE WOUND, WHAT IDIOT WROTE THIS?’ and he may not pay attention to a lot of things, but he does remember first aid, and the second part of it was calling for help. There was a crowd gathering around, multiple people with their phones but no one sounded like they were talking to 9-1-1. What was it Allison said? You had to tell people specifically to do things? “You!” he shouted at a woman who almost dropped her phone in surprise. “Call 9-1-1! Tell them we have a sixty year old woman, abdominal injury…tell them we’re in front of the Portland Courthouse and don’t hang up on them!” The woman turned paler than a ghost, and for a moment, he thought she was going to ignore him. Or pass out too. But then she seemed to gather her wits, and nodded once, before dialing on her phone. He only paid attention long enough to know she’d reached dispatch, before turning back to Margaret, who was still looking dazed. “You’re gonna be fine, Mom, don’t worry - help is on the way,” he reassured her, keeping both hands on her wound. His hands were shaking from shock, but he tried to keep his focus on her. “Ow…my head,” Margaret groaned, moving her arm to touch the back of it where it’d collided on the granite stairs when he knocked her to the ground. “Sorry about that,” he apologized quickly. “But you’re going to be fine. Okay? You’re going to be fine.” Margaret winced as she put one hand over his, and the other still behind her head. “Todd, I’m fine, it’s just a bump…” Todd tried not to laugh at that. It wasn’t funny. It would be horrifying if he suddenly giggled at his mom right now. “No, I think it’s a little more than a bump, Mom. Try not to move.” That made Margaret frown, and she shifted her hand, brushing against the sticky damp redness on her blouse,and then reaching up to his shirt and he could see the moment it registered just how bad this actually was, and he tried to soothe her before she could really panic. “Don’t worry - help is on the way, they already called.” “Todd…that’s not my blood.”

8. Yellowstone - season 3 fix it fic “You want a way out of this shit?” Jamie snapped. He pointed an accusing finger towards Beth. “Out of the fucking corner she backed us into?” Beth scoffed at that. “I can’t wait to hear this revolutionary plan.” “Gift it.” Beth almost choked on her drink, roughly inhaling whiskey half way up her nose. “If you think after the shit you’ve pulled, we’re going to gift -” Jamie shook his head. “No. Not to me. To him.” He pointed to Rainwater. “To the Broken Rock Confederation. It’s a fix for everything, but the only one here smart enough to know that - who actually has something worth losing if we don’t - is Kayce.” “You can’t possibly be-” “This is your doing, isn’t it, you sonofa-” John moved towards Rainwater, who didn’t flinch even as Jamie did, instead studying Jamie carefully, as if trying to guess where his loyalty truly lay, and what kind of scheme he had up his sleeve. Not that Jamie could blame him.

9. Yellowstone fix it fic “Jamie didn’t turn on you,” Kayce pointed out from his chair. “You made him your enemy.” “All I ever did for that ungrateful sonofabitch was feed him, clothe him, put a roof over his head…taught him everything I know,” John snarled, swiping a hand across his chin. “I sent him to law school for chrissakes. And how does he repay me?” Kayce leaned back, folding his arms across his chest as he let his father rant. Experience said interrupting him just made him angrier. Best to let him ‘buck it out’ before he said anything to the contrary. After several minutes of railing against Jamie, John stopped mid pace, turning to look Kayce in the eye. “You’re awfully quiet.” Kayce shrugged without saying anything, waiting to see if John was finished, or just pausing. “Well?” “Jamie didn’t turn on you. Out of everyone, Jamie is the only one who ever did everything you asked - including give up his dreams, more than once - and it’s like it made you madder. This is why you ain’t broke a reliable horse once in your life - you can’t teach a horse through fear, because one day, they’ll find something they’re more scared of than you. Teach a horse they can trust you, and they will walk through fire for you, even when every other instinct is telling them to run the other way.” “Your brother isn’t a horse.” “No, but I figured you might understand the concept better if it was something you cared about.”

10. Yellowstone Kayce &Jamie fix it

“Why?” Jamie demanded. “If he didn’t want me, if he knew he was never going to love me - why? He could’ve just left me in a foster home, he could’ve just left me alone, but he didn’t. Is…is this a punishment? Is it some fucking mind game he’s been playing my whole life?”

“Jamie you know that’s not true -”

“DO I?” Jamie shouted, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Do YOU? If he hated me so much, if he was afraid of what I might do, why wouldn’t he just let me finish the job with the rifle on the hill? Why not just let me end it? But no, no, he couldn’t fucking let me go. A-and then what? Put me in the fucking bunkhouse with the rest of the orphans? But I went - I went, and you know what, Kayse? That’s probably the happiest I have been in years. And he couldn’t even let that go - as soon as he needed me, he put me back in the district attorney’s office, the same goddamn office he purposely pushed me out of with the Rodeo Queen - and now he’s governor - for what? For what?”

Kayce couldn’t answer - his mind was still stuck on the words ‘finish the job with the rifle’. “Jamie…what do you mean by that?”

“I mean, what the fuck is he doing in an office he hates and doesn’t want, just so I can’t? I-is it power? He doesn’t want me to be higher up than him? What does he think I’m going to do? I’ve done everything he’s ever wanted me to, I made a fucking lynch mob go away when he was lying in a goddamn coma -”

“Fuck the job, Jamie - what did you mean about the rifle?”

11. Magnum PI

“You know,” Thomas said, casting his gaze upwards to the cloudless blue sky. “I lasted twelve years in the Navy, and I was jumped by pirates a whopping total of never.” He turned back to Higgins, not inches from his face. “But somehow, despite the odds, two for two with you. Next time you need a yacht moved, call someone else.”

“Shut up!” the man with a harpoon gun snarled, jabbing the pointed end of the spear gun at Magnum’s arm, drawing blood.

“You can’t honestly blame this on me.” Higgins bristled indignantly.

“Uh, yeah,” Thomas answered. “Yeah, I can. I was literally on a pirate hunting mission. In pirate infested waters. For more than six months. And not once were we boarded by pirates. Zero. Zilch. Never.”

12. Hudson & Rex aphasia prompt

“Okay, I need you to be patient with me, Charlie,” Dr. Gates said, smiling briefly. “I know these questions are gonna sound ridiculous, but humor me, yes?”

Charlie nodded, trying not to wince as the motion pulled on the stitches at the back of his head.

“Only nod or shake your head for the first few. Or, if that’s too much, thumbs up or thumbs down for yes and no. Yes?”

Grateful for the out, Charlie gave a quick thumbs up.

“Is your name Charlie Hudson?”

Thumbs up.

“Are you a police officer with SJPD?”

Thumbs up again.

“Are you at home right now?”

Charlie frowned at that, his opinion of the question plain as day across his face as he gave a thumbs down.

“I told you they were going to sound ridiculous,” Dr. Gates reminded. “Do you have a dog named Rex?”

13. Hudson & Rex Lab Rat prompt

It was Charlie, but somehow…not Charlie.

His hair was a little too long, but it didn’t cover the strangely circular burn on his temple, the angry red contrasting with his otherwise much too pale skin.Dark smudges under his eyes spoke of too little sleep, his normally bright blue eyes dulled and staring a thousand miles away. Instead of a suit and tie, his clothes looked rumpled and filthy, the sleeves on his shirt too short and his jeans long enough that the back ends were catching on his heels. The five o’clock shadow did little to hide the bruising along his jaw, a deep and painful muddied purple that was shaped uncomfortably like someone’s hand.

And that was to say nothing of the gun in his hand.

“Charlie?” Sarah repeated.

He said nothing, didn’t flinch or move the gun, his gaze still fixed and empty of recognition.

14. Hudson & Rex It’s Not My Blood prompt

The door flew open with a crash, kicked in with such force it broke one of the glass panes in the window and making everyone - including the other animals - jump.

Bailey may have screamed. Just a little one though. Like when her brother would lay in wait around a corner in a darkened hallway and jump out at her.

Linda dropped her water bottle with a crack on the tile, choking more than swearing as she spit what was in her mouth across the monitor.

“What the -” Linda swiped at her mouth, angrily turning towards the door, but stopped short.

“I need help!”

An older man - not like, old old, but older than Bailey and younger than Linda - stood in lobby, a large German Shepherd in his arms. The beautiful dog hung limply, and for a horrifying moment, Bailey was sure it was dead.

There was just…so much blood. In the dog’s fur, on the man’s hands, on his suit jacket and white shirt.

And then the dog whined, briefly trying to lift its head, but unable to rise higher than a few inches before dropping back down.

15. Hudson & Rex - caught in a snare prompt

Charlie laughed. Or at least, that’s what it sounded like to Jesse. Or at least, what it was supposed to be, instead of the pained puff of air and the grimace it became.

“You know, as much as this hurts - how stupid is it that I’m glad Rex missed it?”

Without really thinking, Jesse mused aloud. “He does have four feet instead of two - and he weighs about a hundred pounds less than you. It would be easier to carry him out.”

The blood welled up between Jesse’s fingers even as he pressed down hard enough to make Charlie yelp, and Rex immediately pushed his head against Charlie’s, whining.

“Y-yeah,” Charlie admitted. “But animals don’t understand pain like that - there isn’t really an understanding of ‘it only hurts now, but we’re trying to help it feel better’. Rex is the best, b-but…” his teeth chattered for a second, and he looked almost apologetic. “That’s pushing it.”

“So…you promise not to bite me when I try and get this off, right?” Jesse asked, hoping he was actually distracting the older man.

“No.”

16. Hudson & Rex fell down a well (ish) prompt

For the most part, Charlie could laugh at himself. It was hard to deny the accusation of being accident prone when normally simple things, like walking Rex home when his car was in the shop, turned into life-threatening-near-death experiences, like being buried alive. Or diving for a lost camera, something which he’d done a hundred times - the diving part, anyways - before, became an actual drowning incident after having his air cut fifty feet below the water’s surface.

It was easier to laugh at it then dwell on it. He took offense to the constant Lassie and Timmy references only on Rex’s behalf, because Rex’s heroics were real, thank you very much, but it was an amiable offense, rooted in good natured teasing. His usual response was “Excuse you? I have not fallen down a well. Timmy and I are not the same.”

He shivered, shifting in the almost knee deep mud at the bottom of hole he found himself in.

There goes that defense, he thought bitterly.

17. Hudson & Rex claustrophobia

It really shouldn’t have come as any surprise that Charlie developed claustrophobia, but somehow, it did.

Maybe because it started off slowly. Rationally, even - if an irrational fear could ever be considered rational.

After the freezer incident, he stopped crossing the threshold into Sarah’s lab until he ran his fingers across the sliding door, feeling it move beneath his fingers at the slightest touch from the sensor, proving that it wouldn’t lock behind him.

After the diving incident, he stopped closing the door to the bathroom all the way when he was in the shower, facing purposely away from the spray and towards the open door.

After the near-miss with the shipping container, he started avoiding parking in the garage, opting to walk from the further open lot, no matter the weather. He rationalized it was for Rex’s benefit. The shepherd liked the extra walk, especially since it allowed him to get extra snacks and pets from their favorite coffee and donut vendor.

After being buried alive, he stopped sleeping in the dark. Rex changed from sleeping on his bed on the floor to the bed with Charlie, so when Charlie bolted upright in the middle of the night, gasping at air he was sure wasn’t there a second ago, Rex could sidle closer, stretching out the length of the bed so that from toes to shoulder, Charlie could feel the warmth of his body, the softness of his fur, and the cold wet of his nose.

18. The Umbrella Academy - Diego asks Five to help out with a case where kids are going missing from a prestigious boarding school

“I’d rather lick battery acid,” Five growled.

Diego sighed, scratching at the raised scar tissue on the side of his head. “Trust me, Five, you’re not my idea of a good choice, either. You’re not my first choice. You’re not even my last choice. You’re literally the only choice.”

“Guess it’s not happening then, huh?” Five quipped with a smirk, blinking across the living room and back to the bar for his abandoned drink.

“Five,” Diego protested, “it’s not like it’d be the worst thing you’d ever done.” At Five’s raised eyebrow, Diego hastily added, “I mean, how could it possibly be worse than the Apocalypse? Or, you know, ninety nine percent of your life so far?”

19. Prodigal Son - totally forgot I had this

“No, JT, really, I want to know,” Malcolm snapped, holding his hand out – steadier than JT could remember ever seeing it – jabbing an accusatory finger at him. “What exactly was I supposed to do? Hmm? If you know, I’d love to hear it, because I haven’t got a fucking clue. I’m a bit of an outlier, you see – people aren’t good with things they can’t categorize. They want to stuff you in a box whether you fit or not, and I’m guessing as a black, male, combat veteran, there’s a couple boxes people like to tick off for you, right? Suicidal. PTSD. Temper problems. Into drugs and alcohol. Anyone ever tell you you’re a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off?” JT didn’t answer – it was rhetorical and both of them knew it. Veterans today had a rate of suicide comparable to WWII, and instead of trying to curb the trend by digging deeper to find out why, Washington just swept it under the rug – denied treatment, refused disability claims, shoved people out on the street like Monday morning garbage. The only time people cared enough to even Google the statistics were November 11th and the last Monday in May.

annnnnnnd 20. 9-1-1 Bobby calls Buck his kid outloud

“He’s my kid!”

The words were out of his mouth before Bobby could stop them, before he even registered what it was he was saying. The gunman sneered at the sentiment, unmoved by Bobby’s plea.

“Your kid, huh?” The man sniffed, ducking his head to swipe the back of his wrist across his nose without moving the gun from where he ground it against Buck’s temple. “Then he oughta be worth somethin’ to you.”

Bobby kept his hands up, placating, and trying not to let them shake.

This was too much like the explosion. Too much like the bomber.

Buck injured, close enough to see but too far to help, while Bobby had to talk a madman down from killing part of his family.

“He’s done nothing to you,” Bobby said. “Nothing to anyone.”

The man’s lip pulled back in a snarl, and gun dug further into Buck’s head. “Nobody’s without sin, Chief.” He gave Buck a swift jerk, making the kid cough again as his windpipe was slowly crushed in the man’s grip. “How ‘bout it, kid? If I go lookin’, what am I going to find?”

#look here #this is a lot #I know that #hopefully they'll all be finished one day #maybe #I'm trying to get out of writing whole epics for every prompt #because I'll be here until I die #writing games #tag you're it #9-1-1 gen fic #9-1-1 #yellowstone #magnum pi #hudson & rex #haunting of hill house #so help me todd #whump fics the lot of them #or at least hurt/comfort #found family for the win except in Todd's case where it is found bio family

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blackenedtruth · 5 months

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Who's that?

"Silver"? What kinda guy is named after a metal .. ? I guess I can't talk, bein' named after a color, buuuut .. I hear they're pretty strong!

#rotomblr #asks #ask game #[ ooc: not sure how the prompt works. do I talk about the ASKERS muses or a random one like sevencolorpasserby did .... ]#[ edit: i was told how jt works <3 sorry gen ur still a good chef ok ]

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freedvmrouge · 5 months

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MASTERLIST.

fandoms: dc comics, marvel, hades game

prompt. fandom. chara.

PACK. dc comics. jason todd. — pov jason todd, jason todd has ptsd, flashbacks, panic attack. jason smells smoke from a pack of cigs for the first time post-resurrection.

HEAT. dc comics. jason todd, koriand'r. — pov jason todd, rhato 2011. beginning of rhato where jason washes up on kori's island.

MYTH/FABLE. dc comics. jason todd, bruce wayne. — pov jason todd, post-doom that came to gotham, child trafficking (implied), prostitution (implied), homelessness. jason's being chased by child traffickers and takes cover in an abandoned apartment building.

MAGNIFICENT. dc comics. bruce wayne, jason todd, roy harper. — pov bruce wayne, parent bruce wayne, roy harper/jason todd, youtuber au, father-son relationship. bruce has empty nest syndrome and longingly watches jason and roy's new youtube video.

INJURY. marvel. moon knight, soldier. — pov marc spector, moon knight (2021-2023), existential dread. marc comes back to midnight mission (is. 25) after a brutal battle and gets patched up by soldier.

ANTICIPATION. dc comics. slade wilson, jason todd. — pov slade wilson, jason todd/slade wilson, omegaverse, alpha slade wilson, omega jason todd, pregnant jason todd, mates. slade tries to do some work while his cuddly omega monopolizes his right arm.

KNITTING AND SEWING. dc comics. kon el/conner kent. — pov kon el, college au-ish. kon is trying to catch up on his college projects when he gets a notification of martha's upcoming birthday and shifts focus.

bingo card.

#masterlist #gen prompt bingo #gen prompt bingo round 25 #bingo card #bingo fill #writing challenge #fanfiction #fanfic #oneshot #one shot #dc comics #marvel #mcu #hades game #hades supergiant #jason todd #red hood #there's just a lot of jason

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warlordfelwinter · 1 year

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19 with Felwinter and Timur please? ❄️

19. … after the storm had passed

"Goodness."

Felwinter glanced at Timur, who had spoken. The warlock stood next to him, eyes wide but expression guarded as he surveyed the damage. A particularly strong blizzard had ripped through the village at the base of Felwinter Peak. The people who lived there were safe, still sheltered up at Vostok, but the wind and ice had taken their toll on the structures.

He didn't move from their vantage, taking in as much of the damage as he could see, trying to catalogue it all so he could determine the most efficient way to start repairs. It would take a while, he thought. It was a small town, but the people were independent and wary, not liking to rely on shared supplies from other settlements for the risk of incurring some debt to a warlord. As a result, most of the buildings were either built from or had been repaired and reinforced with resources from the surrounding forest. Good for self-sufficiency, not as durable as the remnant buildings from the Golden Age that most warlords salvaged from or what the new city under the Traveler was being built with.

"Are you all right?" Timur asked.

Felwinter looked at him again. "Of course," he said.

"I know this place is somewhat important to you, is all," he clarified.

"The people are the important thing, and they're safe," Felwinter replied. "Homes can be rebuilt. I was merely trying to figure out where to start. And the logistics of keeping them all in Vostok for an extended period of time."

"Oh, it won't take that long, I imagine," Timur said. "Maybe, if you were still working alone, but you're an Iron Lord now." He gestured to the other side of the village as they started to filter in from the path up the mountain. Mostly Iron Lords, led by Silimar, accompanied by several of the townsfolk.

"Welcome to the many benefits of having friends," Timur said, smiling. He patted Felwinter on the shoulder as he brushed past him, hurrying down the slope to meet Silimar.

Felwinter hesitated a moment before following him, watching how the people interacted with the Iron Lords. That suspicion they held for lightbearers seemed gone, replaced by laughter as they set to work cleaning up the mess.

Friends, he thought, slowly following Timur down the hill. He still wasn't sure about that, but he was beginning to be sure he had made the right choice.

#i was going to trap them somewhere with like 6 feet of snow #bc i read this prompt after hearing the weather channel talk about buffalo ny getting buried in snow #but that would have trended more romantic in my hands and since the ask didn't explicitly say / i wanted to keep it gen #so just idk #freshly joined the iron lords felwinter realizes that many hands make light work #ask games #replies #rina-lee #destiny #iron lords #fic

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thisbluespirit · 2 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Sapphire and Steel, Doctor Who (1963) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Copper (S&S), Gold (S&S) Additional Tags: Community: no_true_pair, Crossover, Serial: s125 Mawdryn Undead, original elements, Elemental Weirdness, Time Skips, Board Games Summary:

The Brigadier is playing a game.

#fanfic #sapphire and steel #doctor who #brigadier lethbridge-stewart #copper #crossover #gen #no_true_pair #elemental weirdness #original elements #(ish)#refs to memory loss #gunfire #anyway i was v amused the randomised prompts gave the board game to an element #obviously the world was nearly going to end

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zukkaoru · 2 years

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hands for the wip game?? <3

[Azula] shoves her phone back into her pocket, and keeps her hands hidden there as well. She’s wearing gloves, but they’re the flimsy knit kind that never really keep her fingers from going numb.

from a sokka & azula fic for gen week <3

#i actually started this fic for gen week last year and never finished it ksdgsfghd #but it fits the prompts for one of the days this year so!! i am determined to actually finish it this time #ty for the ask!!#raii tag #ask game

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deadghosy · 2 months

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I love your work so much imagine ben Drowned in hasbin hotel.

Them crawling out of the TV and alistor is like I don't like tv but can you mess with vox😭.

SURE!! LOL! 🦆💗If anyone wants to do a creepypasta! Reader, I will make it a fanon version cause that’s most easier since I’ve always seen the fanon side of creepypasta when I was into the fandom💗

HAZBIN HOTEL X BEN DROWNED! READER

prompt: after jumping into a tv to hide from being stabbed by Jeff…you accidentally went into a show called HAZBIN HOTEL……

Your dumbass didn’t even check what was on tv…it was just left on as you are now falling to a city in a shape of a…..pentagram?

Welll shit…you are in a hell cartoon…

Meanwhile with Jeff: “where the fuck is that short tacked bitch…” he said holding his knife tightly as his eyes glanced at the tv. “That bastard!”

MEANWHILE WITH YOU: You pointed to a service pole and started to surge through the electrical wire into some random old tv box. You pressed your hand through the tv screen and came out of it. As you came out of it a gasp was heard to see a bunch of characters…..oh boy…

After basically getting chased around the hotel and interrogated…they let you stay by Charlie’s words as she was excited to have another member to her crew at last.

Few weeks later, they have gotten use to you. I mean Alastor still keeps an eye on you as you play games and go through electronics around the place.

Angel thinks it’s funny for you to hack Valentino’s page to make his bio say “I have a small dick.”

Vaggie makes you go out on errands until she can find you a decent duty at least. But she appreciates how you help around a lot.

Husk thinks your pretty annoying because of your gen z & gen alpha humor. I headcannon ben and you to basically be a media specialist to learn the lingo around and to understand the generation.

“Hey husk…” “hey kid…” “you’re so not alpha male…” “…the fuck?” “Sooo not slay.” “Get the fuck out my face.” *cue you doing a gremlin ass laugh*

I can see Velvette making fun of you for wearing the link fit😭 she would be confused as if you were a stinky cosplayer kid-

“GOOD HELL?! What are you wearing dear..” the female vee says as you look down to your link outfit. “What’s wrong with it? I think I look ✨f a b u l o u s✨” you said with sass

“You look horrendous. THAT’S what you look like.” Velvette says. You rolled your eyes as she snapped her fingers giving you black converses, tan brown pants, and a green hoodie. She had let you keep your link hat as you actually liked how you looked.

Maybe when you get back to slender’s mansion you can spend his card to buy an outfit like this.

I imagine Charlie or niffty trying to wipe off the blood tears of your eyes thinking you were crying as you stand there like “what is going on-🤨” most definitely the face look like this “:T”

Angel dust brought you a gaming set from a thrift shop as you smiled happily at this and started to play….only to find out it had knock off versions of the games in the human world….impta?! (GTA) PENTACRAFT?! (Minecraft) hellmon?? (Pokémon)

You immediately thrown the gaming set outside and decided to go hack Vox’s system for fun again.

I can imagine reader sending random “if you don’t like this, Lucifer is coming for you.” posts to random sinner to fuck with them.

I can DEFINITELY see Alastor asking you to go mess with Vox’s tech even if he doesn’t like those picture boxes. “Ben/Reader, my fine fellow..I got a favor to ask of you.” After he asked you to go mess with this dude named Vox. You smiled as you transported into your own tv and go to the vee tower.

You hacked into Vox’s system as he spit his coffee out to see “nya cat” on all his computers and devices as you snicker seeing Vox’s face trying to fix it. You laughed showing yourself as your bloody tears roll down your face because of laughing. “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” Vox asked angrily

“IM YOU! BUT BETTER! GET HACKED LOSER!” You said before disappearing from his system as Vox claws his desk in anger.

Alastor had a good chuckle when you told him what you did. “I never liked this picture boxes…but you my friend, are true entertainment.” After this your relationship with Alastor grew as he would pay you handsomely with snacks as you go and piss Vox off on any other day.

Valentino and Vox hate your guys to the point they want to kill you while Velvette is just chill with you as she helps you with your outfits and aesthetics.

I imagine since Ben drowned also looks like link, you have long hair like link but sometimes cut it down to bit length to not trip on it.

You give off that “new worker at McDonald’s” vibes as you would just play around instead of helping the residents😭

“Can I have keycard?” “….how about no?”

I imagine you just tapping on and off a lamp post boredly as Valentino keeps going towards it and away from. “On….off…on…off…” you liked to mess with people

You had tapped on sir Pentious’s device once and it exploded…yeah you were pretty much banned from his room and lab. But it was worth it.

You definitely wrestle with husk as husk will just try to claw out your eyes only him to just get pepper sprayed by you.

“AGG MY FUCKIN' EYES!!” “I didn’t know this shit would work on demons..”

Lucifer was definitely intrigued with your appearance as you seemed like a human. But also had a demonic appearance. So he questioned you and you just kept saying “SWAG!” He got tired of it and demanded you as the ruler of hell.

It didn’t work as you just shrug with a “:D” face and transported into a wire. Lucifer was bamboozled as he just stood there like “what just happened”

You showed niffty how to beat any person during a game as you, yourself is a hacker and can beat any game personally.

You looked at the phone that you stole from that flat faced dude as you smirked having an idea as you transported into the phone to try and go find Jeff. And lucky you did as he was sitting on the couch watching wrestling.

“Heyyy buddy.” You said looking through the tv to see Jeff. He scoffed seeing that his favorite program was ruined by your face. Jeff turned off the tv. Your face was like a pikachu shocked face. “THAT BITC-”

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bergwerkderbilder · 10 months

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Mass Effect 2 in Gifs

Gen Prompt Bingo Round 24: the prompt was Science, I picked Avina

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #me2 #gamingedit #mass effect edit #mass effect gif #gamingscenery #gaming edit #me2gif #avina #gen prompt bingo #gen prompt bingo round 24

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housethemd · 1 month

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My headcanons for a 2024(ish) House MD (self indulgent sorrysorry)

- House is canonically bisexual, and instead of hookers (or maybe as well as) he’s very open about his Tinder/Grindr hookups.

- Wilson is still a closet case, somehow. All his friends are queer, he is very active as an ally, but has somehow not figured it out. He even has little pride flags in his office pencil holder.

- Cuddy is a lesbian, she and House still flirt for funsies (worth noting I think her and House still had a one night stand in college before she came out, prompting a running joke that sex with House turned her into a lesbian)

- Chase goes viral on twitter (X) when he starts live tweeting House’s antics during DDx’s (his handle is @thataussiedoc and all his DDx tweets are tagged #mycrazyboss)

- The ducklings make tiktok videos when they don’t have a case. The first time House catches them they are expecting him to call them idiots or throw them out of the DDx room, but instead he joins them. Cue House doing a hilarious tiktok dance.

- Non-binary Thirteen my beloved

- Foreman plays Pokemon Go

- House gets a Nintendo Switch for his office so he can game in there, and when forced to go do clinic duty switches to handheld mode

- House and Kutner will game together when they don’t have a case

- There is a PPTH Diagnostics Dept. Discord server

- Foreman hates Apple products

- Cameron has one of those rainbow pins that says “you’re safe with me” she wears on her white coat

- House learns Gen Z slang and spends an entire episode talking exclusively in it - and everyone else is left trying to piece together what he’s saying

- House is canonically autistic but it only comes out during “Lines in the Sand” or similarly themed episode. I feel like either Chase or Foreman get snippy during the DDx and makes a muttered, offhand comment about House, something to the effect of “yeah well maybe you have autism too” and House is like “well duh.” They spend the rest of the episode approaching the other ducklings, Wilson, etc about how they feel, now that they know that House has autism only to be met with general indifference. Maybe it ends when they go to Cuddy and she reminds them what a great doctor House is and all that and eventually they are forced to confront their own internalized ableism.

- PPTH definitely has a float in the pride parade every year

- Chase plays Among Us

- Lesbian Cameron but also CompHet. Like the first couple seasons she hasn’t figured it out yet.

- Hilson is absolutely made canon at some point

I told you they were self indulgent. Might reblog to add more as I think of them!

#house md #james wilson #hate crimes md #greg house #hilson #dr house #dr wilson #wilson x house #gregory house #house/wilson #autistic greg house #non binary thirteen #house md headcanons

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month

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Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

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

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

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

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

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

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

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

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

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

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

#pluralistic

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sumikatt · 4 months

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(Has alt text.)

AI has human error because it is trained on “human error and inspiration”. There are models trained on specifically curated collections with images the trainer thought “looks good”, like Furry or Anime or Concept Art or Photorealistic style models. There’s that “human touch”, I suppose. These models do not make themselves, they are made by human programmers and hobbyists.

The issue is the consent of the human artists that programmers make models of. The issue—as this person did correctly identify—is capitalism, and companies profiting off of other people’s work. Not the technology itself.

I said in an earlier post that it’s like Adobe and Photoshop. I hate Adobe’s greedy practices and I think they’re evil scumbags, but there’s nothing inherently wrong or immoral with using Photoshop as a tool.

There are AI models trained solely off of Creative Commons and public domain images. There are AI models artists train themselves, of their own work (I'm currently trying to do this myself). Are those models more “pure” than general AI models that used internet scrapers and the Internet Archive to copy copyrighted works?

I showed the process of Stable Diffusion de-noising in my comic but I didn’t make it totally clear, because I covered most of it with text lol. Here’s what that looks like: the follow image is generated in 30 steps, with the progress being shown every 5 steps. Model used is Counterfeit V3.0.

Parts aren’t copy pasted wholesale like photobashing or kitbashing (which is how most people probably think is how generative AI works), they are predicted. Yes, a general model can copy a particular artist’s style. It can make errors in copying, though, and you end up with crossed eyes and strange proportions. Sometimes you can barely tell it was made by a machine, if the prompter is diligent enough and bothers to overpaint or redo the weird areas.

I was terrified and conflicted when I had first used Stable Diffusion "seriously" on my own laptop, and I spent hours prompting, generating, and studying its outputs. I went to school for art and have a degree, and I felt threatened.

I was also mentored by a concept artist, who has been in the entertainment/games industry for years, who seemed relatively unbothered by AI, compared to very vocal artists on Twitter and Tumblr. It's just another tool: he said it's "just like Pinterest". He seemed confident that he wouldn't be replaced by AI image generation at all.

His words, plus actually learning about how image generation works, plus the attacks and lawsuits against the Internet Archive, made me think of "AI art" differently: that it isn't the end of the world at all, and that lobbying for stricter copyright laws because of how people think AI image gen works would just hurt smaller artists and fanartists.

My art has probably already been used for training some model, somewhere--especially since I used to post on DeviantArt and ArtStation. Or maybe some kid out there has traced my work, or copied my fursona or whatever. Both of those scenarios don't really affect me in any direct way. I suppose I can say I'm "losing profits", like a corporation, but I don't... really care about that part. But I definitely care about art and allowing people the ability to express themselves, even if it isn't "original".

#i think its because i went on a open-source-only and self-hosting bender a few years ago that i think like this #the internet is built off of 'share-alike' software #so. i guess. i don't mind 'sharing'#like some sort of... art communist #ai art #long post #inflicts you with my thought beams #my art #responding to tags #ahha the ethics of labeling this ‘my art’ . lets just say #the tag is for so it’s next to the comic when you look in my art tag

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hyuuukais · 2 months

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-`♡´ - APARTMENT 143

pairing -> lee minho x fem reader

synopsis -> after a bad breakup, y/n needs to find a new place to live. although she's grateful for her best friend, up-and-coming model hwang hyunjin, for letting her stay at his, she can't keep living with him and his model roommates. so when an opening for somewhere nearby with cheap rent opens up, she jumps on it, despite knowing next to nothing about the 3 other tenants, only that one owns 3 cats. the three quickly learn of her breakup, determined to help get her back on her feet. but what happens when one of them begins to develop feelings?

warnings -> gen, energy is tenseee

MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN -> PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE (partially written! wc: 1.4k)

You sigh, placing your phone next to you as you slide down further into your pillows. Time is running out to ask Minho, you know that, and Lily has been pressing too. The deadline for offering interviews lingers sooner than when they start. With a groan, you swing your feet over the edge of your bed and slip them into the bunny slippers previously kicked off at the end of your bedframe, trudging to your door.

Minho is already pouring a cup of coffee into a dark brown mug when you enter the kitchen, wearing his normal work attire; a tight black t-shirt tucked into black jeans and a belt. Sometimes you were jealous of the simplicity. He doesn't notice you lean on the island, back facing you. When he does turn around, he startles, the tiniest drop of hot coffee running down the side of his mug and seeping under his hand. He doesn't hiss at the burn, doesn't even flinch, just puts the mug down and wipes his hand on the cloth hanging off the oven door.

"Dont sneak up on people, it's not nice," he says, replacing the cloth.

You perk up at his voice. "We're talking again, good, that's good. Listen, I deeply apologize for what I said and I don't even believe that, you know? I'm sure your ex loved you a lot. There was definitely a really good reason for her to hide her husband from you. Maybe he sucked! In any case, you're a great guy, so why wouldn't she choose you?"

Taking a deep breath, you refocus yourself. Minho is staring at you from above his mug, blowing gently on the hot liquid. There's still tension between you two, the air thick and hot.

"Was there a point to all that?" He asks bluntly.

"Yes, um. This is bad timing, but have you decided if you're doing Lily's thing or not yet...?" He sets his mug down with a sigh. "Of course, it's okay if you don't want to! Deadlines are coming up though so she needs an answer whether you're doing it or not."

He takes his time answering, sipping his coffee, running a hand through his hair, stretching. Part of you is getting frustrated. How hard is it to say a simple yes or no? Either he's doing it or not, there's not exactly a grey area.

"I'll do it," Minho finally answers, and you barely contain a squeal of excitement.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" You run around the island and hug him, nearly knocking over your stool in the process.

It's short-lived, pulling away to see Minho's face painted red, no doubt mimicking your own. Clearing his throat, he nods at you and grabs his coffee, turning away from you. You're about to leave when you remembered what prompted you to seek him out in the first place.

"We're having a game night tonight if you want to join? It's just gonna be the boys, Hyun, NingNing, and I invited Soobin too." You lean against the wall of the hallway leading to your rooms, waiting for a response.

"Ah, I might be working late again, but I'll see what Jeongin is up to. Is it okay if I..." He shakes his head. "Never mind, forget that. I'll either see you or I won't."

"Okaaay," you give him two thumbs up, but immediately put them back down when he gives you a weird look.

Game night is in full swing by ten with snacks and drinks taking up the island and bodies filling up the couch. A pile of UNO cards sit messily in the middle of the table, NingNing taking it upon herself to tidy it up every so often, even if it only stays like that for a couple of turns. You're so close to calling UNO, smirking as you place down another pick-up-4 card and watch as Soobin's head slowly turns to look at you with fake disdain. He keeps eye contact as his hand reaches for the deck, barely containing his own smile as he glares at you, and you can't help but giggle.

All night has been like this- teasing Soobin and getting him used to your friends now that you've become a bit more serious. His training under you has finally ended, so you feel less guilty about the whole thing. The only thing is that you still haven't shared it with your boss, but that's a problem for another day. Right now, all you can think of is the way Soobin has his free hand over yours, thumb caressing the back of your hand and only taking it away to place a card down. He fits in nicely with everyone, almost like he's always been there... which makes sense seeing as he was already friends with Beomgyu.

"UN-" you're attention turns to the two bodies walking through the front door, "-oh."

In comes Minho with a girl you don't recognize hanging off his arm, in their own world as they kick their shoes off and laugh at something she whispers in his ear. Neither seem to notice the big group around the table until the girl gives a little, and uncomfortable, wave. Minho has his arm wrapped around her waist tightly, and you follow his gaze to where Han and Beomgyu sit. On their faces are matching angry stares, Han with his mouth open slightly.

"You're kidding," Beomgyu scoffs. "Tell me you're kidding, Min."

"I forgot you were having a game night," Minho shifts.

"Don't ignore the question." You look at Beomgyu, anxiety crawling up your throat. "Why is she here? And why are you acting so... couple-y?"

Han stands, and you can see his hands are shaking. "You got back together?"

"Oh, come on," the girl speaks for the first time, a look of annoyance on her face. "We always get back together."

"I wasn't talking to you-" Han points a finger at her, then directs it to Minho. "You, explain."

"No," Minho sighs. "I don't think I need to. If you're unhappy with your own love lives, you don't need to project onto me. None of you can say shit about relationships here. You're sneaking around because you're ashamed, and Y/n is only with Soobin because she can't get over her ex. Just to name a few."

You avoid eye contact with Soobin, a pang of hurt in your chest, glaring at Minho.

"I'm not unhappy," you say, feeling Soobin squeeze your hand. "You have no right to comment on my relationships because you're jealous."

Hurt flashes over Minho's face for a millisecond, quickly covered by a stoic expression. "Why would I be jealous? People can change-"

"Like hell, they can." Beomgyu stands now, circling around the table and past the couch to get into his personal space. "You said it yourself you don't believe that! And what about your husband?" He looks the girl in the eye and you hear NingNing gasp; you forgot to tell her. "What does he think of all this?"

"We're divorcing," she answers quietly, looking down at the floor. "He wasn't good for me. Not like you'd understand, or even take the time to try and understand."

Her voice turns watery at the end of the sentence, orange hair shielding her face as she curls into Minho's chest. From the shudder of her body, you can tell she's starting to cry. You almost feel bad for her. Taking in her words, you feel there's more to the story than what you know and what the others are willing to listen to, but you're already to upset to care. Han joins Beomgyu, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe we should leave it alone."

"And maybe he should leave, take his princess back to her tower," Beomgyu spits.

Minho's eyes turn dark, jaw clenching. He's holding back hurtful comments, just barely. After another moment of tense staring, Minho breaks eye contact and leads the girl- his ex- back to the front door. Slipping on his shoes, he helps her with her own when her hands prove to be too shaky to tie the laces. When he leaves the room is completely silent, Beomgyu taking a seat next to Hyunjin on the couch and Han walking away down the hall, the sound of a door slamming following his departure.

notes -> maybe we were quick to judge his ex...? maybe.......?

taglist -> @chaeryred @toplinelix @channie-143 @staysinbloom @puppyminnnie @tfshouldidohere @kangaracha @chlodavids @whitney190 @thisisnotjacinta @borahae-reads @brooklynie @gini143 @kayleigh-28 @skz-streamer @babyphotos0325 @scallywag1299 @venusmoonxnight @naomisosoup @fertiliezedtoesw @s00buwu @realrintaro @anothershorthuman @stayatinykatsy @ilovejeongin007 @btswestan @multifandomedsimp @ihrtlix @raehawthorne @euphoric-univers @hyperpixie @evermourning @satsuri3su @jazziwritesthings @minhwa @wyzminho @fic-for-readers @dreamerwasfound @imsiriuslyreal @lailac13 @palindrome969 @lixie-phoria @aalexyuuuhm @sunflowerbebe07 @st4rhwa @lukeys-giggle @jabmastersupriseee @judeduartewannabe @gaysontheprince @stepout-09-15

^^^ orange means i can't tag you

#-`♡´ - APARTMENT 143 #stray kids smau #skz smau #non idol au #stray kids #skz #lee know #lee know smau #lee minho smau #lee know x reader #lee minho x reader #lee know x fem reader #lee minho x fem reader #skz fanfic #stray kids fanfic #smau #social media au

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