#my work just feels...dishonest | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justanotherwriter140 · 2 months

Text

Kung Fu Panda 4 - The Movie

The last really, really long discussion post (for now).

Major spoilers ahead!

This review is full of spoilers, so please refrain from reading through it until you've watched KFP4. I would highly suggest doing so, as I want everyone to form their own opinions without my influence. The movie has its flaws (some of which admittedly being a bit distracting), but it's a fun film that has things to offer.

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a fun movie (take that as you will) that takes its audience on an action-packed, surprisingly funny, yet relatively contained adventure on which Po doesn't really do much. It's an inconsequential, safe sequel that doesn't really hurt the franchise but adds close to nothing.

I had a good time watching the movie. It was obviously produced with its theater experience in mind and the action scenes especially reflected that priority. The humor was actually funny sometimes and I enjoyed Po and Zhen's dynamic. During the film, I was able to put most (most!) of my grievances aside and take the movie for what it is. I've discovered that the best way to watch KFP4 is with low expectations and an open mind.

I have a lot of things to say about KFP4, both complaints and compliments (though the former might be taking the forefront in this review), and I hope this review can help those of you who have seen the movie organize your thoughts. I've been having a lot of trouble with that specific aspect of things myself. Those who get it get it.

With that said, let's get into my full review of KFP4! I've been waiting for nearly 2 years to write this and I'm so excited to share every single thought.

I'm going to follow the format of my first discussion post and curate a bulleted list of my thoughts, followed by an analysis of each of these points. Keep in mind that everything I say is IMO and this is more of a rant post than anything else.

Here are my main points:

The Furious Five's role is comically minuscule in the context of the film. Their actions are inconsequential and add nothing to the plot (a confirmed last-minute add), and they have 30~ seconds of screen time. Shifu is also largely irrelevant.

Mr. Ping and Li's presence has little to no effect on the movie (though I won't complain too much because they were pretty fun to watch and this movie has bigger problems). In almost any scenario, I am adamantly against having characters present that don't add anything to the narrative; however, Mr. Ping is an exception. I love Mr. Ping. James Hong is a gem.

Zhen's screen time is not utilized well and her character is underdeveloped. She definitely wasn't annoying, but I didn't find her either compelling or funny enough to warrant the screen time she was given, especially considering it wasn't used to establish a backstory/strong motives. This makes me feel bad for the character because the movie kind of screwed her out of any substantial development.

The Chameleon, while complimented greatly by Viola Davis, is an underwhelming villain. Viola Davis is amazing in this film and I would suggest watching it for her performance if for nothing else, but the Chameleon is underwhelming considering the super cool concept behind the character.

The film feels very rushed. Apologies to those who disagree, but I think the pacing is atrocious and the final fight is anticlimactic. The movie felt like a word-vomit with no discernible intermissions that stops abruptly when the film ends.

I felt as though Po didn't change/grow as a person and the audience never had a chance to either bond with or relate to his character. His internal struggle is kept to a minimum and we don't spend a moment alone with him as an audience, which is disorienting and distracting. Watching the film felt like running into an old friend at the store who's too in a rush to have a real conversation.

The action scenes were strong with few exceptions. Creative art direction was utilized and I thought the martial arts choreography was entertaining and dynamic. I love the color palette of the film and many scenes were very impressive visually.

With my main points established, I do believe it's ranting time. Strap in, folks.

Let's start strong with the Furious Five: I'm gutted. Chagrined, despondent, crestfallen, etc.

The lack of the Furious Five negatively affects KFP4 so much, because not only does their absence hurt the atmospheric integrity of KFP as a franchise, it also forces KFP4 to bring in a slew of different characters—all while still noncommittally including the FF at the very end because I believe the marketing team required it—that clog up the cast a bit. It all goes to show how important strong, established side characters are.

The Furious Five are side characters, but the role of "side character" does not equate to being irrelevant, expendable, or exchangeable. I recognize that the Furious Five aren't super developed as characters beyond a handful of lines that allude to traits sprinkled sparingly among the members; however, I believe that the tiny bits of development we have been given have proved impactful in the past. Tigress's development in KFP2 is a prime example of how much narratively conscious changes (however small they may be) can positively affect these movies.

Because of limited runtimes, the Furious Five often operate as more of a singular unit than five individuals. Even so, I don't think discarding them is valid. They're so important to the KFP universe (to Po's universe!) and not having them with him feels so wrong. The Furious Five are fully integral to the heart of Kung Fu Panda, which is why I believe a lot of those who have seen the new movie have expressed something feeling "off" or something being missing.

I agree with this sentiment. To me, KFP4 didn't feel like a KFP movie. I don't need a Furious Five spin-off movie and I can be fully content with a KFP5 centered around Po's journey as an individual as was intended from the beginning, but he can't carry an entire movie on his back. As strong as he is in every sense of the word, he is only one character. He's the centerpiece of the franchise, but a centerpiece can only go so far without the rest of the design, so to speak.

For me, the Furious Five's absence is one of this film's biggest faults. It's huge and glaring. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, either, because the friends with whom I saw the film refused to talk about any other aspect of the movie after seeing it. Seeing them at the end was better than nothing, of course, but it was a disappointing culmination after eight years of waiting.

That all is to say I feel robbed. Despite all of this, though, I understand that there were reasons why the Furious Five weren't included in the movie. I don't believe the production team would exclude the Furious Five unless they weren't given a choice.

Shifu and Po's dynamic continues to be thoroughly delightful but their interactions are short and simplified. I would have loved to see more of them in this film, especially considering the extreme relevance of teacher-student relationships in KFP4. I (somewhat) digress, though, because the idea of Shifu having to live at the Jade Palace with only Po for an extended period of time is hilarious enough on its own. Maybe that's what the short film is about!

The comedy is odd but has some jokes that stand out. Po maintains a healthy relationship with his inner sass, which I think makes him more fun to watch and kind of eradicates the man-child verdict. Some jokes don't land, of course, but I genuinely thought KFP4 had some funny moments. Mr. Ping was consistently awesome and Po had some good lines sprinkled throughout the film.

As for Mr. Ping, he and Li Shan are the subjects of the film's B-plot as they follow Po to Juniper City out of shared concern for their son's safety. In my mind, they don't add anything to the story that couldn't have been brought about by other characters, but they had their moments of being entertaining. I enjoyed their silliness and thought they had a cute dynamic if nothing else.

Speaking of other characters, I want to discuss KFP4's deuteragonist and why I genuinely feel bad about the way her character was treated.

I want to let it be known that I'm still not on board with Po passing the Dragon Warrior torch to another character. While I agree that his arc is now calling for him to have a student, I disagree with the notion of him retiring from his DW role.

As I stated in my first discussion post:

Didn’t the initial significance and nuance of the title come from the fact that there is only one person who can be the Dragon Warrior, because the concept of the “Dragon Warrior” isn’t so much a title as it is Po himself? The universe (Oogway) must choose the Dragon Warrior because they are a singular being of legend. It is one person, and that person is Po. Wasn’t the point of the first film that the title ultimately doesn’t really matter because there is no “secret ingredient,” so to speak? The title doesn’t actually give Po anything. “It’s just you,” Po says, and that was the resolution.

When it comes to Zhen as a character, contrary to what I predicted I would think of her, I thought she was okay. While I was still a bit distracted by how out-of-place her design looks, I wasn't truly annoyed by her at any point and she and Po had some cute moments. Even so, I think their relationship could have been a bit more refined and developed.

While it's evident that Po and Zhen are meant to have a teacher-student/mentor-apprentice dynamic, I think their relationship feels half-baked. There were parallels that contradicted one another and ended up being confusing come the film's conclusion, and the nature of their relationship seems to vacillate depending on the scene. Additionally, the strength of their bond goes from zero to one hundred within thirty-ish minutes and left me with a bit of whiplash.

We're shown that Po and Zhen care about one another, but we're never shown why. They have a brief conversation during which they bond over being orphans, and Zhen says at one point, "You're actually a good guy," but that's it. This obvious lack of development is a bit disorienting because we're later led to believe that Zhen and Po care very deeply for one another when there's almost nothing to back it up.

A scene that sticks out to me when discussing this is when Zhen attack-hugs Po in a way that explicitly mirrors Tigress's hug from KFP2. This happens around the beginning of the third act, and while it had the potential to be an endearing moment, I think it fell flat.

The impact of Tigress's hug was brought on by her character's hardcore nature and reputation of being heartless, further strengthened with the knowledge that she was hugging Po (which was obviously way outside her comfort zone) as a show of companionship and fundamental understanding. Tigress hugged Po because he needed someone to recognize his strive for closure.

Zhen's hug had little to no impact because she had no reason to do it and it didn't indicate growth. She hugs Po because she's sorry for betraying him and doesn't want him to be killed by the Chameleon, but neither of these things are newly-established via this hug; we have already gathered by now that Zhen regrets betraying Po and doesn't want him to get hurt.

The hug is far from the movie's weakest point, but I think it's unnecessary given the context. I'm big on hugs in movies (an underutilized form of platonic affection, in my opinion), but it didn't fit here. I don't hate it, and I see it as an honest effort to bring emotionality to Po and Zhen's relationship, but it seems arbitrary.

Zhen and Po's relationship has a lot of potential and I'd be open to seeing more of them in the future, but I think some more thoughtful development needs to occur before I can humor it further. Even so, I can see myself featuring Zhen in some future post-KFP4 one-shots—sparingly, of course, because we have a lot of Furious Five content to compensate for.

Overall, they had a cute dynamic and some sweet moments but I'm not attached. I'm on board with Po having a student but I think their relationship needs a lot more development, something that this film unfortunately didn't give them time to either accomplish or earn.

Now, onto the Chameleon!

The concept of the Chameleon's character is admittedly super interesting. She's the deuteragonist's fastidious mother figure who feels that Zhen owes her a debt and as a result holds her to an impossible standard. That dynamic had the potential to be so interesting but I didn't think it was explored at all. There is no indication of Zhen having any internal conflict about fighting the Chameleon, no emotional complexity between them at all; it's disappointing because I think it would've added a bit of earnestness to the film.

Additionally, the idea of a shape-shifting villain is versatile. A shape-shifting villain gives those telling the story a lot of room to experiment with the protagonist and different ways in which the main character can be challenged and tested. It's yet another good idea utilized poorly. Just one idea: the Chameleon could have disguised herself as one (or several) of Po's family, friends, etc. and brought to fruition a new arc with his character (seeing as he arguably doesn't have one in this film), but she only disguises herself as Zhen very briefly in the movie.

Furthermore, the Chameleon completely relies on the powers of previous villains to pose any sort of threat to the main characters. She summons Po's former nemeses from the Spirit Realm (despite there being little logic in doing so considering Kai's literal evisceration) and takes their kung fu abilities for herself.

An excerpt from my first KFP4 discussion post that I think is relevant to the point I'm trying to make:

I don’t think it would be in the best interest of anyone if the past villains were to come back in any way that’s not a flashback (even then, I’m not sure I’d see the point). In all honesty, I thought that the whole point of the villains was that they died and stayed dead. They were defeated by Po once and for all as a testament to the idea of establishing Po's character growth and journey as a person through the bad things he’s able to overcome. It’d be highly contradictory to the messages of the other films if these villains were to suddenly come back.

While there was an honest effort made to portray the Chameleon as intimidating, I never felt as though any of the characters were endangered by either her or her army of lizard henchman. She's a visually appealing character (aside from her eyes, which I thought more resembled those of a gecko than a chameleon) and I greatly enjoyed Davis's performance, but overall I don't see the Chameleon as a notable villain.

The return of Tai Lung (had he been on his own) had the makings to be an excellent story, especially considering the importance of teacher-student dynamics in KFP4. To see him interacting with Shifu would have been incredible and could have led to further closure on Tai Lung's end (because I think that's kind of what the team was going for anyway), but it didn't happen.

It was nice to see Ian McShane reprise his role, but I wish Tai Lung's characterization had been more reminiscent of the way he was in the first film and more complimentary of his overall character arc. Tai Lung isn't a one-dimensional villain with a singular goal and motivation, and I couldn't help but feel as though the complexity of his character was simplified for the sake of KFP4's narrative.

Tai Lung's presence in KFP4 may be odd, but Shen and Kai's appearances are even more so. Kai, if I remember correctly, was fully obliterated by Po, reduced to literal particles on screen (which is kind of wild now that I think about it). Shen being in the Spirit Realm makes sense all things considered; however, Po and Li had no visible reaction to his presence, which seemed a bit unlikely considering Shen's deeds. This plot hole can likely be attributed to the fact that Shen and Kai's cameos (to my knowledge) were last-minute additions to the movie.

I have to talk about the pacing. I have to. I'm sorry, bear with me.

To me, the film's pacing is erratic and disconcerting. While I can appreciate a quick-moving narrative that doesn't dawdle on storylines that aren't interesting/important, KFP4 kind of flings itself too far in the opposite direction and ends up being frighteningly fast-paced. Once the credits began, I felt like I had been holding my breath for the entire movie.

KFP4 is confusing because while the runtime is standard for a KFP movie, it feels incredibly short. At the same time, the film's story moves at a breakneck speed and leaves little time for heart and development. These things culminate into a barreling boulder of a movie that simply doesn't have time to let its characters, story, or audience take a breath.

A fast pace is not inherently negative, but I don't think it worked in the favor of KFP4. The KFP franchise has always been very emotionally grounded (and just very grounded in general), so to see a film in which emotion/heart takes an aggressive backseat in comparison to action and comedy is jarring. While I think it's unreasonable for fans to expect the same emotional integrity as the original films to be present in the current and upcoming ones, I still think there's room for Po to grow and I felt as though the notion of him developing further was brushed aside in this film.

As for Po's growth, I felt it was nearly nonexistent. The previous trilogy wrapped up his character's journey beautifully and I know that KFP4 was bound to struggle with this particular aspect of making another KFP film; however, just because the strongest pillars of Po's character are established doesn't serve as a valid excuse to reverse his development and repeat what he learned in KFP3.

In KFP3, Po learned firsthand that he is capable of spreading wisdom and teaching kung fu. He also learns that he is constantly growing and that change is inevitable; there is always something more to learn.

"If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now."

"I don't want to be anything more, I like who I am!"

In KFP4, Po pushes against this narrative despite fully accepting it in KFP3, actively reversing crucial parts of his character development achieved in the latter. KFP3 was non-ambiguously about learning to cope with change and responsibility, and I can't help but feel like KFP4 is simply copying this message while not adding anything to it.

Additionally, I felt that KFP4's Po generally felt less personal than he has in the past. In every KFP movie up to the franchise's most recent addition, I felt very connected to Po as an audience member. I felt like I was truly seeing the world of KFP through his eyes. I consider this to be one of the franchise's most impressive feats; it's incredibly difficult to build a universe around a character without making the audience feel limited to one perspective and one part of the world.

With KFP4, I felt both limited and disconnected. The world didn't feel as vast and all-encompassing as it has in the past and Po didn't seem fully like himself. This could be me nitpicking (as I'm prone to do), but I can't recall a single moment in the movie in which Po was alone on screen. Scenes like these are crucial for me because I see them as a meet-cute between the character and the audience, a moment for us to cross the bridge into their world in a way that's silent and intuitive. These little bonding moments are absolutely integral to feeling connected to a character.

Po's dream sequence in the first KFP movie is one of the best examples of this. It presents his aspirations, alludes to his way of life up to the point of the movie, and showcases his personality. During Po's dream sequence, the audience is quite literally inside Po's mind; we're there with him, seeing what he sees, subsequently feeling what he feels. Po is a dreamer at heart and makes the audience feel like dreamers, too.

In KFP4, I felt like I little to no point of reference when it comes to how Po was feeling. I didn't feel immersed in him and his world.

I know I've been very "doom and gloom" throughout this post, which is an exhausting mindset for everyone involved. I want to end my critique with something positive because I think some praise is deserved. Let's just say the movie could have been a lot worse, the details of which I'm sure you're all well aware.

The color palette of the movie is beautiful and somewhat reminiscent of the first film. While the animation style of KFP4 is far more simplistic than its predecessors, I was very impressed with its use of shadow and light. Po's many faces were also hysterical, props to those who helped make him as expressive as he is.

Additionally, the movie's action sequences were clearly thought out and discussed in great detail. The experimentation with camera angles was really fun to watch and I enjoyed the majority of the film's fight scenes. They were fun, bouncy, and entertaining, and quite likely reinstated audiences's love of watching a cuddly panda kick butt.

Congratulations, you've reached the end! Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to read this unnecessarily long and detailed review. As long as I help someone translate their conflicted feelings into coherent thoughts, I'll call it a win.

I want to reiterate that I don't hate Kung Fu Panda 4 and I had fun while watching the film. It has its flaws and there are a lot of aspects that I dislike, but the effort of the crew is obvious and I greatly admire and respect the hard work put into the film by those who worked on it. This does not at all excuse my issues with the movie, but it's worth saying.

As for the future of the series, I only hope that the next installment is more considerate of the franchise's origins and why Po's story is being told in the first place. I fully believe that another sequel could be good given a strong, passionate crew with a great understanding of the characters and world (and I wouldn't be averse to some previous directors returning, just to put it out there).

Thanks again to those who took the time to read this crazy excuse for a movie review. Feel free to either disagree with me or add things in the replies/reblogs, I'm always looking for more thoughts to think.

Until next time!

#kung fu panda 4 #kung fu panda #dreamworks animation #kfp #kfp 4 #movie review #i'll add the actual picture of the furious five's cameo when i can get ahold of one of decent quality #my time has come #it wasn't THAT bad #i didn't love it #but it is what it is #it's a tentative 6/10 all things considered #free the five #perhaps i treated kfp3 too harshly #don't get me wrong the movie had good qualities and i can tell a lot of work went into it #a lot of missed potential imo #a lot of characters done dirty #i didn't even mention the score but i thought it was just okay #i wasn't wowed #i know close to nothing about composing though so i should probably just not even go there #credits were the best part both cinematically and musically #i feel mean but i'm not going to be dishonest #bc obviously you all simply must know how i feel about the silly panda movie #a more detailed version of the grievances i have w the dragon warrior plot can be found in my og discussion post if anyone's interested #as well as my thoughts on bringing back old villains #might make some edits to this in the future but this is all i have to say for now

103 notes · View notes

pacifymebby · 4 months

Text

If you can be arsed with all those tags and fancy giving me brutal advice read away haha

#something is definitely going wrong for me because I want to go out tomorrow night with my mate who is thinking about getting a bag in and #and that lowkey sounds like a lot of fun to me and i wanna chip in but like i think B wants to come out and if he does i cant join in with #my pal because B would very much be against me doing that and like ugh #he doesnt even drink at the moment and i feel like out of nowhere hes matured but in all the wrong ways #like in none of the ways ive been wanting him to for the last few years #but in the ways which mean our nights out arent compatible anymore #and i know im the problem for wanting to be nihilistic hedonistic whatever #but i feel like im getting back the bit of my early 20s covid and working in care robbed me of #and hes already had his phase of that sort of stuff but like would be annoyed with me if i was doing coke around him and stuff #im definitely being selfish and should just say no to the drugs and like be a good girlfriend but #ahhhhhh idk if i cant have christmas like and i didn't get christmas eve at the pub then i kinda want boxing day at the pub with my mates #ugh #a tiny part of me is considering changing my plans with b and being borderline dishonest but also i know that #doing that is going to make whatever problem there is between us worse?#ultimately i know that im morally in the wrong here tbh and also like a bit of a loser

11 notes · View notes

yellowocaballero · 10 months

Note

ok so im not very far into trigun (which. you convinced me to read/watch) but ive seen you talk about vash as a christ/messiah figure which. means im kinda obsessed with how you described his impact on the world in no name on the bullet (christ healing the lame, christ feeding the thousand... christ delivering his people from evil.) did you have any specific biblical references you kept in mind while writing?

i also think its super interesting how the fic seems to focus more heavily on healing as opposed to how (what ive seen of) trigun is a lot more gunman focused - is part of that influenced by how knives is a pacifist in a "cold turkey" way, or a choice on your part? i think it makes an interesting dichotomy, christ the gunman and satan the physician

I've gone my entire life without recommending Trigun to anybody, because I always felt it was too weird and ultra-violent and love-it-or-hate-it to actually ask people to watch it. Look at me now. Getting at least 3+ people into it. Boo boo the fool. Also I'm sorry that this response is so long skull emoji.

I'm ex-Catholic so you have asked the right question lol. Vash is very inspired by the Old Testament God. I have a strong mental image of him obsessing over the Noah's Arc story in his cute children's Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah is brought up again much later, in an extremely important way. Garden of Eden and Paradise, as the show does. The Plagues where every firstborn son dies. These is all imagery that Vash specifically evokes on purpose. Vash...uses the Bible to understand his own experiences and feelings and desires (that's the most neutral way to phrase it), but like a lot of people he uses the Bible/God partly as justification for his actions. God destroys cities for being sinful, and Vash is the closest thing to God this planet has, so he's entitled lol. God Complex McGee up in here.

And Vash's cult has no Jesus, because there is no forgiveness for humanity, and no way for them to be saved. Which is how you know that Vash's Jesus-ey actions as described in the story are very deceitful on a lot of different levels. Kind of like regular Vash lmfao - as I said earlier, he's VERY much also a messiah deconstruction. Vash is a pacifist partly because he needs it - he needs to be believed that people can be saved, that the world can be good, that nobody has to die, because otherwise the world is nothing but an endless parade of misery and death and his own suffering. It's about saving his own soul, and the memory of Rem.

For me, on a writing level: Cain and Abel, obviously. 'My brother's keeper'-ass mofo lmfao. It's more themes for me, though - redemption, salvation, forgiveness, original sin, sin in general, guilt, fate. Knives is pretty obsessed with all of these topics. I make fun of him for it. None of it's healthy. But Knives embodies a few other Christian ideals that I don't make fun of him for, such as the importance of good works and good actions, and dedicating his life towards helping others without the desire for a reward. There's also some subtle 'shepherd and his sheep' stuff going on later.

Re: the gunfights: can you IMAGINE Knives carrying a gun. He is WAY too proud of his own #biologicalsuperiority and #ultimatelifeform and #impenetrabledefense (literally Shadow AND Gaara-ass mofo) to rely on cheap human trinkets like guns lol.

The plot has more action than my usual (yay! - that was what I was working for lol), but it's based off the skeleton of the Stampede plot, which is genuinely a lot more space opera than Western and as such its action looks different. Turns out that when you remove the Gung Ho Guns from a story, there are a LOT LESS gunfights, lmfao (I don't know what kind of errands Vash sends the GHG out on, I am afraid to find out). So partly there's less gunfights because a) Stamp plots don't require too many gunfights, and b) without a Gunman (TM) there's no reason for the group to use guns to solve their problems if at all possible.

It's also just that, basically, Vash's plots are partly man vs self and partly man vs other. When a character is level 99, the tension of the fight scene isn't if they'll win the fight - it's if they'll win the fight under their self-imposed conditions. In Vash's case, the Q in every gunfight is 'can Vash win the fight and save people without compromising his principles?'. For Knives, he is so ridiculously OP that it's impossible to write a fight scene with genuine tension, and he doesn't care nearly as deeply about casualties. So the most engaging plotlines for Knives are entirely man vs self, which tends to shake out into a lot of trolley problems lol. That's the answer to your Q from a writing perspective.

So it's mostly a choice for plot/writing reasons. But YUP the dichotomy is SUPER JUICY, and the fun part of the story is reading the Ultimate Killing Machine be forced to do literally anything else than Ultimate Kill - to do the only thing he wasn't meant to do. Because doing what he was meant to do reduces him to a biblical figure instead of a person - it makes him just a devil, who's never exercised the free will God gave him, and as such can't be called sentient. It's not what Rem would want. And it's a very juicy juxtaposition to somebody who interprets his own meaning in life as a Christ figure as a divine compulsion to brutally murder orphan.

#my writing #AH SORRY FOR LONG ANSWER AGAIN....#this story's actually a bit more drama and Things Happen-ey than my usual #which is a lot easier when you're following the beats of another person's story F #but its good practice for writing scenes that aren't just 'A and B talk in a location'#I need my stories to be more active AGH #im working on it but improvement is such slow going....#part of the reason why I avoided writing Trigun my whole life #is because a Trigun fic that was entirely talking seemed dishonest lol #sitting down I was like 'it's Trigun I need as much to happen as possible'#succeeded I think but I feel like I cheated.#also still wish it had more gunfights you're so right anon

17 notes · View notes

chemicalbrew · 5 months

Text

achievement get (for the billionth time): take one look at an assignment and get severely overwhelmed AND discouraged for the rest of the day and do nothing

#it's so much and it's dishonest work!! literally dishonest because all i can think of is how bullshit a lot of it sounds. instead of #you know?#actually learning anything?#but this thorough lack of motivation is just gonna get me in trouble isnt it. how do i swallow my emotions and figure things out #its getting harder every year and the feeling that the few people i have close by do not ever truly understand - like at all - is horrifyin #yes sorry this is all i could think of for the past six hours. im having a great day (no im not. i also hate myself for feeling this way)#zero.txt #im sure it hurts the few people who care and who thought i'd actually go on to do things to see me constantly wallowing for reasons #that they refuse to comprehend or have compassion for.#just stop being sad! just get to work piece by piece! have some resilience #meanwhile all ive done is cry. maybe a part of me just likes feeling like this i DONT KNOW #and ofc so often im like. the only reason im still around is im quiet and they havent invented thought police #yet.#how can i have hope when the moment i decide to pluck a silver of it out of my core i read something that in a better world would not even-#-be a nightmare #like. you say things like that with your mouth and expect us to mindlessly repeat if we want anything in life...#fuck my stupid baka life <3 #ugh im just going in yet another circle now when i know trying to put my feelings in words is not helpful. what IS helpful #negative #again sorry. at least you dont have to open this wall of tags #delete later #maybe

4 notes · View notes

garpond · 4 months

Text

Kinda frustrating realizing I'm pretty lonely online too at least compared to how I used to be, like.. I'm not really getting anywhere with irl connections because I don't know how to start, I just consider it a win if I can exist in public places without getting freaked out by all the people and leaving, so much energy goes into managing That that I have zero left for figuring out how to make friends with people offline basically from scratch because I haven't done it successfully since I was a sophomore in highschool. So I always feel like it's my fault if I get lonely but there *was* a time when talking to people online felt like it was enough?.. idk maybe I just don't get as close to people now as I once did. And if I miss them or wish we talked more I feel scared to tell them that. I've also changed a lot and many of the people I used to feel super close to I just can't connect with anymore. Feels like we live in different universes entirely. But I feel like I go through things more or less alone these days... There's only so many times I feel like I can bitch to the same person before getting self conscious and stopping, assuming they even care enough to say anything back, so a lot of the time I'm just like Posting about it or something equally cringeworthy but I don't know. I just have this feeling like there's nobody I care about who cares about Me an equal amount, and that there are people I can't relate to at all who are more invested in me than I am in them. It's just all mismatched. And I'm not happy but I don't know what to do, because I'm afraid of making new friends. It usually happens on accident

#personal #making new friends i think is like. even if i can talk to someone just fine going further is a different matter entirely #i know its because a new good friendship wakes up feelings in me id rather not experience bc they make me feel insane #i don't consider my love to be a good thing in full honesty i think if anyone i cared about knew hiw it really worked they'd leave #and feeling that way doesn't help me feel satisfied in relationships at all! they all feel dishonest abd halfhearted

3 notes · View notes

valla-chan · 5 months

Text

#dude i feel so bad rn #i feel like im doomed forever to be an annoying dismissive troll even to ppl i care about #and on accident sometimes #but theres so much seemingly insane dogshit in the world #so many angry people on edge constantly #sometimes im like fuck the internet fr #i need to delete reddit off my homescreen tbh #i wanna help my friends but i dont know how #idk how im supposed to maintain my own life in a way i like #tired of psuedoscience repackaged as “witchcraft” for teens #tired of constant boring transphobic arguments everyone dogpiles behind #tired of leftist infighting bullcrap #tired of everything conservative #tired of complaining about life #tired of being scared over life #tired of having zero sense of past or future and just existing as this numbskull dishonest shell of a person in the present #tired of my friends getting walked on #tired of working towards goals i give up on when almost done #i feel like the more effort i put into my life somtimes the worse i feel because of how it just does nothing most times #or i dont like whatever whatever i worked so hard towards #does any of this actually get better with time like i think or am i just lying to myself again #idk if i can wash my dishes tonight tbh #i think today is one of those fuck it nights #god #i need to keep working on this god damn game and i just cant too #i want anti anxiety meds #i want adderal #i want anything that will let me function like i should #i dont even care about the depression at this point i can manage that #how do people do this

2 notes · View notes

juniepops · 1 year

Text

I keep wanting to post a ko fi link but I don’t know how to word the post because like. It isn’t that I’m like desperate for money or anything there are people with bigger problems. I just like have big enough stuff to save for that I’m paranoid to ruin my chances if I like. Commission my friends for art or buy too many little treats

#like I would probably do like soft-commissions where if you want something in return for sending me money we can work a little drawing out #but it would feel dishonest asking for money when I’m not like. in real risk of not having enough on my own #I’m probably just being fucking anxious over nothing I’ll figure it out

3 notes · View notes

toastsnaffler · 11 months

Text

my graduation is supposed to be in august + im requesting to graduate in absentia but i feel terrible abt it bc im not telling my parents 😑

#just bc if i do tell them they'll probably pressure me into going. and i dont fucking want to its my degree i can celebrate how i like #i wont even be living here in august!! and its a wednesday which is super awkward + im only allowed 2 guests but i have 4 parents lmao #which means i have to choose between my mum and dad. which will end up in hurt feelings either way #and theyre making us pay for our own robes which is stupid bc they literally have like 40k from me already #i cant sit in a stuffy hall through a two hour long ceremony that i wont even be able to hear with no one i know ill commit homicide #no point in doing drinks aftwr bc none of my friends have the same graduation date and i dont drink #like theres not a single reason why i would want to go. so im not going to #but i can already feel how disappointed theyll be.... and theyll be more mad if i dont tell them beforehand but i dont want to debate it!!#ik this is such a stupid thing but its making me stress like hell #ugh #my current plan of attack is not to tell them until they ask abt it and then the decision will be made so they cant do anything abt it #even if theyre upset abt it. but i HATE lying even by omission im the least dishonest person ever this is making me feel sick #and i have to tell them eventually bc ill need to get my diploma delivered to them so arghhhhhh #i technically got my degree over a year ago anyway bc i dropped out this is so dumb #they shouldve just been like sorry no ceremony for dropouts!! and then it wouldnt be my problem #whatever. deadline for registering is at 5 so itll be out of my hands once that passes thank fuck #.diaries #i think im getting unnecessarily worked up abt it bc im just generally in a shitty mood tbh #gonna go for a walk and find somewhere to sit and read outside until i feel more sane i think

2 notes · View notes

yandere-daydreams · 7 months

Text

tw - kidnapping, manipulation, mentions of physical abuse, and prolonged imprisonment.

You learn quickly that Nanami is significantly more bearable with he's playing house.

It should've been more obvious, in retrospect. If you hadn't been so terrified, so desperate not to fall into your captor's domestic delusions, you might've been more able to catch on more quickly, to realize how much softer he was when you treated him like a loving husband, rather than an obsessive stalker who had the nerve to roll his eyes when you asked if he had anything for you to wear that didn't involve bows and frills. You were slow on the uptake, but then again, he wasn't the kind of man who wore his heart on his sleeve.

His reactions weren't exactly more pronounced when your aggression started to fade, when you realized that he could barely take care of himself, let alone another person. You were skittish, eager to get in and out of the kitchen before he came home, and he was stoic, offering little more than a nod of his head and a muttered 'thank you' when he came home to find a bare-bones meal on the table or his constantly neglected apartment just a little cleaner. It took weeks for him to come to you directly; his suit jacket in one hand and spare button in the other. It should've only taken a minute to mend, but your hands shook so badly that it'd ended up taking ten. He watched over your shoulder all the while - smiling so softly, you'd been able to convince yourself that it was just your imagination.

You pretended that you didn't mind being with him, that the idea of being his stay-at-home hostage didn't make your skin crawl, and in exchange, he let you watch an hour of T.V. once a week, told you how your family and friends were dealing with your sudden disappearance. It wasn't a fair trade, but it was a trade - his domestic bliss for a handful of basic privileges, his happiness for the illusion of your freedom. When you can build up the courage, when you've recovered (or, recovered as much as you can, anyway) from the last time he bent you over his knee, you press for more. And sometimes, it works.

"I missed you," he mumbles, burying his face in the crook of your neck. His strong arms are wrapped around your waist, his posture hunched to accommodate the disparity between your heights, and you can feel warm breath on your skin, his deep voice reverberating against your throat.

"Welcome home," you say, because he doesn't like it when you lie and 'I missed you too' might've been the most dishonest thing you could've said. "You should sit down. I just started on dinner, and--"

You pause, cursing under your breath. Nanami is tired enough or kind enough to take the bait. "Make me a list." He pulls you that much closer before straightening his back and kissing your cheek. "I'll run to the store. It's the least I could do, for the only person who manages to keep my head on my shoulders."

You let a second of silence lapse between you, then another. "You know," you manage, eventually, just as Nanami starts to detangle himself from you. "Most couples spend as much time together as they can."

You can practically hear his smile. "You want to go shopping with me?"

"...am I allowed to?"

"Of course." He says it like he hadn't kidnapped you. Like he hadn't kept you locked in his sterile apartment for the better part of a year. Like he hadn't taken you by the neck and promised he'd be the only man to ever touch you again every time you questioned his intentions.

There's another kiss, this one to the corner of your jaw. Just when you think your heart might beat out of your chest, he adds, "As soon as hell freezes over and curses go extinct, I'll take you wherever you want."

You might've cried, if you didn't know how much he loved wiping away your tears.

Sometimes, it works.

Most of the time, though, he chooses to remind you whose game you're playing.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jjk imagines #yandere jjk #yandere nanami kento #nanami x reader #nanami kento x reader #yandere nanami #yanderecore #yancore

3K notes · View notes

lewisdidthat · 2 years

Text

sorry i haven't been super active today or yesterday, going back to work has fucked me over :(

#my mental health is in the toilet #my bosses guilted me so much for taking annual leave and have now piled on so much work now i'm back #i worked 8-4 in the office and its 8.15pm now and i just finished working from home because i am so behind #they also out of the blue have started implementing all these new reporting practices and said that because i wasn't doing them before ...#that it made me look dishonest :(#like i am working the way i they trained me yet they are making me feel shit for not doing enough #i am so close to tears :(

0 notes

naeviskz · 2 months

Text

genre. idol!hyunjin x model!f!reader | established relationship

words. 1.5k+ tags/warnings. angst, fluff (towards the end), smut, accusations of cheating, hj is lowkey toxic (but we love it hehe), cunnilingus, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, some mentions of crying, not proofread

this has been in my drafts for years and i finally finished it bc i was tired of seeing it LMAO. btw the position i’m referring to is this (nsfw link), i usually hate vids but this was rlly good imo.

“i think we should take a break...” you admit, voice growing shakier as you spoke. this was never something you wish to say in a million years, you wanted this relationship to work more than anything. but you were at your wits end with everything, talking to hyunjin was like conversing with the wall, never truly grasping any of your concerns.

you noticed the cracks beginning to seep in the midst of six months of being with him. he would often be dishonest of his whereabouts, saying he was out late due to “work” but was actually out drinking at some bar with chan or something. it made no sense for him to lie about such trivial things but he does it without even thinking. this was supposed to be a lovely vacation in paris together but lately you’ve grown tired of feeling like you’re unappreciated. a break from each other might be the best solution in getting his act together once and for all.

hyunjin felt his whole body turn limp as you uttered those words. not only was he blindsided by your decision, but you never indicated before to him that you were ready to propose such a drastic idea. “but why though? don’t you think this is a bit random? i mean this came out of nowhere ___, i thought everything was good between us, why are you suddenly saying this now?” his thick, bushy brows furrowed in confusion, he wasn’t letting you off this easy and you know it.

“i just think it’s for the better right now hyune, we’re both so busy. we have a lot on our plate, especially you… and this relationship is just— it’s only putting more strain on everythi-”

“are you serious ___? do you hear yourself? i knew what i was getting myself into the day i asked you to be my girlfriend. i’m well aware that i can’t be with you 24/7, and neither can you—however, i don’t expect that anyway. all i ever wanted was to have you by my side, i want to work through the hardships with you but if you’re so willing to give up like this then… i don’t know. i don’t even know what to say to this honestly..” hyunjin couldn’t help but cut you off, once his emotions take over, all sense of logic and reasoning is thrown out the window.

he was never one to question his worth in the eyes of his partner, but you were his longest relationship, he saw you as his first and only true love. it never occurred to him that he could lose you, the possibility of this break lasting long enough to make your love fade away was a scary revelation. there had to be a way he could fix this, he couldn’t bear to be without you.

“are you seeing someone else? maybe that’s why you’ve been so distant towards me lately…” he wanted to scream for saying that out loud but at least he got it off his chest. he knows how petty it sounds but he didn’t care, he wanted you to give him answers.

“no! i’m not seeing other people, i don’t have an interest in anyone but you hyunjin. i want to do this for the sake of us, we’re clearly not where we need to be and this break could help with getting us back on track and spending time apart could be beneficial.” you try your best to articulate your words properly but he remained unconvinced, he wasn’t on board with any bit of this.

how could you even be okay with something like this? spending time away from you drove him absolutely insane, he couldn’t fathom taking a break—not from someone as important as you in his life. he just needed to remind you that the love was still there, though it may be but a dull flame, he could ignite the spark again, with the little bit of hope he had left.

the foundation of your relationship was built from shared interests, since you both are part of professions that rely heavily on looks, you refused to see each other based solely off those superficial aspects. instead you got to know each other’s minds, your core values and beliefs, what mattered to you the most. you cherished every one of those deep conversations you shared together, it was a beautiful experience, an indescribable memory that shaped your bond forever.

so why is it now that you feel this way? was he really that oblivious to everything? he should’ve done more to prevent this but now he fears it’s too late. he’s faced with the conundrum of losing you and there wasn’t much time for him to stall or ask for a chance of redemption, he couldn’t waste another second.

“fuck that,” hyunjin angrily spat, his face contorting into a look of pure disgust. “you’re not going anywhere.” he reaches out to grab your waist before you could walk away, aggressively pulling you into his chest.

no matter how much you attempt to escape his hold, he’s not letting you go in the slightest. he’s much stronger than you, could easily lift you up without breaking a sweat. there was no use in fighting, you had no choice but to give in and let this conversation go. once his lips crashed into yours, everything faded to black. as if a simple kiss was the cure-all of mending this decrepit relationship.

hyunjin’s forehead pressed against yours as he pulled away, “shhh, lye down baby,” he hushes your quiet mewls, instructing you to do as he says. “gonna make you feel so good,” his hands slid under your skirt, gently rubbing over your clothed slit “you’ll forget everything.”

* :.･ﾟﾟ･ ✿

“oh my- fuckk, hyunjin!” you cry out, almost on the verge of tears just from how skilled he is, rutting your hips upwards into his mouth as he devours you whole.

the pace of his tongue is relentless, roughly lapping up all your juices like he’s the most starved man alive. you’ve lost count at the amount of times he’s already made you come undone just from his mouth alone. your body’s buzzing with titillation, all you can do is scream and clench your pussy around nothing while he fiercely sucks on your clit.

you couldn’t stop twitching, feeling yet another orgasm approaching. your legs anchored over his shoulders, unable to think or speak coherent sentences as his face was fully buried into your dewy cunt. he relaxes his jaw a bit more, going all the way from the bottom inching further up as he comes back in contact with your puffy clit. at any given moment it feels as if your heart’s about to stop.

“hyunjin-” your heads thrown back into the pillow, digging your nails into his shoulder blades from how overly sensitive you are. “n-need to cum.. can feel it. m’so close.” it surprises you when you’re able to even express such words.

a low grunt can be heard underneath, hyunjin loves hearing you— it’s arguably the best part about going down on you. the hand that wasn’t occupied went straight to gripping a fistful of his ebony hair, continuously moaning his name so loud that you genuinely feel bad for whomever the unlucky people that got to hear this.

just when you thought it couldn’t get anymore intense, he slips 2 of his slender fingers inside, making you gasp from the overwhelming sensation. flashes of white invade your vision, violently shaking as your lips form an “o” in the throes of ecstasy. hyunjin knows your body so well that this is nothing for him, he’s got it all down to a simple science. no one knows your body like he does, and especially no one can make you cum as hard as he can.

“go ahead, make a mess for me baby,” he strongly encourages, picking up his pace as his digits fuck into you faster. “just gonna clean it up with my tongue all over again.”

your eyes roll back to the depths of oblivion, feeling an out of body experience when reaching your climax. a slew of curses leave your shaky breath, limbs trembling and faint tears stain your flushed cheeks. hyunjin slows his movements, rubbing his thumb over your clit gently to make you even more sensitive. you love the way he calls you “good girl” and how proud the look on his face becomes while you ride out your orgasm on his fingers. he doesn’t stop showering you with compliments, only ramping up his affection as he plants fleeting kisses to your thighs, hips, and tummy.

once he’s finally come back up for air you grab his face to pull him into your lips again. moaning in his mouth while getting a taste of yourself was probably the hottest thing hyunjin’s ever witnessed.

“can’t believe you’re all mine.” hyunjin whispers against you, gently massaging your aching thighs. “i love you so much baby.”

“love you too hyune.” you instantly say back, feeling more at ease now that things are somewhat back to normal.

maybe a break isn’t necessary after all, how else would you be able to have such earth shattering orgasms?

- 完 ♡︎

#hyunjin angst #skz angst #skz x reader #hyunjin x reader #skz scenarios #skz smut #skz drabbles #stray kids smut #hyunjin smut #hyunjin imagines #hwang hyunjin smut #skz imagines #hyunjin drabbles #hyunjin x female reader #stray kids x reader

493 notes · View notes

luveline · 3 months

Note

Ahh I’m so obsessed with stripper!reader and Spencer!! Do you have any more thoughts about them you’d be willing to share, maybe just a snippet of their life together? So so in love with them and your writing in general

i got a different request for them that I lost about reader struggling to afford essentials and so I thought I’d combine them, I hope that’s ok!! <;3 fem, 1.1k

cw food insecurity/ poverty

You attempt to save money, but the ten dollars you don't spend on shampoo and conditioner gets used on painkillers. You hide fifty dollars in a book and try to forget about it, but your shoes split open on the walk to work, and it takes all afternoon to find it again. You try so hard to stretch your paycheck and something new makes it impossible.

So it's a cold night in late December and you spent all your money for food on the gas bill. Your stomach hurts, but at least your nose isn't that horrible stiff cold that distracts.

It's not just that your stomach hurts, though. You feel miserable about everything, and you know you need to ask someone for help. You've thought about selling something, but you already pawned your watch, and everything else is inconsequential.

I could sell my phone… but how would I talk to Spencer?

It's the stupidest thought you could've had. More importantly, how would you communicate with work? How would you call your electric and gas company, or talk to your landlord?

Spencer would be so sad if he knew you’d sold your phone to pay for food. He’d probably be upset knowing you considered it. And you won’t get paid for another three days, so unless you can somehow live off of olives and cherries from the club bar, you have to ask Spencer for money or get a loan. With your credit score, one situation is more likely than the other.

You bring your phone across the pillow and sigh before clicking on his contact. He’s practically the only number you call.

“Hello?” you ask.

“Hi, Y/N.”

“Hello, handsome,” you murmur, staging an affect of someone who couldn’t be more unbothered by the world.

“Yeah, hi. You okay?”

You don’t want to butter him up. It feels dishonest. You should be straight forward. “Spencer. You know I hate asking you for things.”

“Yes, it’s the only bad thing about you.” He sounds like he’s smiling. You can imagine him on his couch reading something obscure, or watching one of his sci-fi shows, curls in his eyes, grey pyjamas too short for him riding up his calves as they tend to do.

“But I need– um. I don’t have any money?” You don’t mean to phrase it like a question. “Like. Okay, so, I promise you I am not an irresponsible person, just, my gas bill went up and I didn’t know, but it’s so cold I paid it anyways, and now I have three dollars. Um. Total. And I haven’t eaten all day and I’m sorry I’m asking, but I just need like twenty dollars until I get paid on Tuesday. Could you let me borrow twenty dollars, please?”

“Do you want to get takeout?”

You cringe. “No, like, twenty dollars for groceries, Spence.”

“No, I understood. That’s fine, I’ll happily give you twenty dollars. But you said you haven’t eaten today? And I miss you, so it’s an excuse?” Now he’s the one making questions out of statements. “I can get us Thai food.”

Your stomach pangs at the thought. No matter how much you hate this, you know he loves you enough to want to bring you dinner, and you really will pay him back, so he might as well. “Yeah, please. I’d love to see you, Dr. Reid.”

“I’ll be quick,” he promises.

He isn’t. You wonder if he’s forgotten you and your rumbling stomach, curled into a c-shape under the sheets. It’s warm, at least, nearly too warm, the blade of your hunger threatening to drive you mad. It’s not a nice feeling, depending on the kindness of a friend to see you through, nor is it very pleasant to be this hungry. You’ve gone hungry a hundred times, and this is the only time you’ve ever had someone you trusted enough to turn to during that time to ask for help. What if Spencer’s decided he isn’t comfortable with your lending after all and he doesn’t come over tonight?

You’d been looking forward to seeing him again. It’s almost worse than the hunger.

Just as you’re thinking he’s decided he doesn’t want to be your friend anymore, he lets himself in.

Your apartment is small, consisting of three rooms. The bedroom, the bathroom, and the living room kitchen combination. He lets himself into the living room with a cacophony of rustling and a called, “Hello!” followed soon by a muttered swear.

You laugh under your breath.

“Are you coming out here, or do you want to eat dinner in bed?” he asks.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

It’s quiet enough besides his arrival that you’ve no need to shout.

“Well, stay there if you want. Have you been drinking anything? I brought iced tea and some stuff for you to have breakfast tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” You force yourself to sit up. One moment you’re looking at the closed door and the next you’re squinting against the light of the kitchen, Spencer in the doorway like a silhouette against it. “Hey, Spence. You’re taller than last time.”

“I’m the same size as always.”

“You’re still wearing your shoes. That must be it.”

Spencer takes off his shoes and crosses the short distance to you. “Hi,” he says, taking your hand as he sits down. His fingers are freezing. “Sorry I took a while.”

“Sorry for asking you for money.”

“It’s okay. It’s not something to worry about. Everyone has to ask a favour sometime.”

His hair is wind blown, his eyes watery. The cold weather has nipped his pert nose a rosy pink and he’s smiling at you with chapped lips, unaware of or uncaring about his own circumstances in the face of yours. “You okay?” he asks, his pretty brown eyes narrowing, eyebrows pinching together at the starts. “You can’t just not eat all day and not tell me.”

You nod tightly. It’s humiliating to be in this position.

He softens. “Did they tell you the rate was rising? It’s illegal in Virginia–”

You take your hand from his. “They sent me a letter I didn’t open. I knew it would be bad news.”

Spencer looks down at your knees. “I know that you’re used to doing things by yourself, but you don’t have to anymore.”

“‘Cos you look after me,” you say quietly.

“I’m trying to.”

You laugh and jog your joined hands to make him look up. “Okay. Look after me some more then and give me a hug. I’m too warm, and you’re freezing.”

He hugs you tightly, quick to rub your shoulder blade with his thumb. “Stay here, okay? I’ll bring you a plate.”

You cling to him for a few seconds, until hunger wins, and you send him off into the kitchen again.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer and stripper!reader

767 notes · View notes

kirbyskisses · 11 months

Text

miguel o’hara x reader || “te amo”

chapter 3: “danger (spider)” (masterlist)

cw: heavy sexual content (no sex actually happens but miguel has thoughts), mention and depictions of panic attacks.

(minors/ageless/blank blogs, do not interact!! if your age is not on your page, you will be blocked!!!)

“¿míguel, mi amor?” you start, “have you gotten…bigger?”

your husband lets out a stifled laugh upon realizing you hadn’t meant that he’d gained fat, instead offering a snarky response.

“why? do you want my new nickname to be gordo?”

you roll your eyes and pretend not to laugh as you walk away from your tiny daughter’s crib and down the hall to your bedroom where he swiftly follows as you continue.

“i didn’t say fatter, papí - i said bigger. look.”

you stop in front of the mirror and point as he removes his white shirt - too stained from gabriela’s babyish drooling to wear any longer. he runs his large hand through his mess of dark curls and stares.

miguel had only caught glimpses of the version of himself that originated on this earth - but dead or alive he can see that you’re correct.

he’s not just taller than that miguel was but he’s much broader - his arms thicker. his bulkier frame stretches the elastic of his costume more when he’s on duty as spider-man - compared to you and your daughter? he’s monstrous.

“being spider-man making you work out more, eh papí?”

you tease, as your soft lips trailing his neck from behind.

you had not brought it up - presumably because he seemed to have had a traumatic weekend fighting the vulture - but miguel had been acting different sexually too.

meaning, he hasn’t acted at all.

you’d had chaste kisses and tight holds, but his brain cannot let him do more than that. the idea of taking you like that when he’s partially a pretender - it would feel dubious, dishonest, a borderline breach of consent.

he has you all to himself and the idea of touching you - even when you seem so willing and ready to be touched - it drives him insane.

and here you are; hands on his bare chest, smiling up at him in front of a mirror, skin so tightly hugged by your nightgown especially your breasts - full of milk for your daughter.

and he so desperately wants to. he wants to let his hands slide downs your thighs and grope your curves. he wants his mouth to sink against yours until his tongue has memorized the taste of your own. and the the taste of your neck and your collar and your breasts, down and down and down.

he wants to know if you squeal, if you pant and moan when his tongue dips inside that most sensitive area. would it there be a hairy bush or clean-shaven sweet skin awaiting him? are you more of a silent type or would you curse and whimper and beg, hands gripping his hair like a lifeline?

you said he was bigger - you were right.

his hazy memory of this earth’s miguel was smaller - not unfit but thinner and had likely spent less time as spider-man considering his life with you. that size difference… did it apply to down there too? would you notice visually or would it take him entering you - making you squirm and whine about it being “too much” as he pounds it in.

he wants to know. he so desperately wants to know…

he can’t.

he’s the bigger man; he’s spider-man. he has the great power but the fact the allure of a lacy nightgown and sweet skin made him even contemplate betraying the great responsibility? he’s supposed to be the good guy.

the fact he even so much as contemplate taking you like that, on the basis of a lie, makes a feeling of sickness and cold grip his stomach.

“míguel-” you start to purr, in between dashing your lips across his neck. you pause sharply seeing his face in the mirror.

it’s not the usual look of arousal, or the teasing smirk, or even amusement. it’s a look of conflict, lips and eyes expressing sheer unadulterated horror that makes you pull away from him immediately voice almost breaking in concern.

“¿míguel?!” you almost yell out, overwhelmed with surprise and concern, hands the only part of your body that stays in contact with his broad form. you cup his chin and pull down to look him in the eyes.

now you’re worried. god, that makes him feel even worse. it’s clear you’ve been worried for a while - that you’ve observed difference in him; the way he pauses at foods he used to love, the way he seems just a little bit more animalistic as spider-man whenever you catch a glimpse of him on the news, and now his growth and sheer paralysis at the notion of touching you.

his heart is beating faster.

“¿qué te ocurre?” you say not in an accusatory tone but one of concern. “te ves enfermo, estás actuando extraño y no me estás hablando.” your strokes his face and he doesn’t flinch nor lean into your touch he just stays still.

your words aren’t reaching his ears except a small, so pitifully exhausted - “miguel. have i done something wrong?”

his breathing starts to become unsteady.

he knows he is the one doing something wrong. and to see you - motherly, beautiful and stubborn you - even for a second, doubt all the happiness you and gabriela have given him in this small time on this earth? he pulls away, absolutely shattered.

there is an internal battle: a devil and an angel on his shoulder yelling at him to tell you, tell you, tell you.

it is just another thing he can’t do.

his palms are sweaty.

first, he thinks it’s his regular spider-like secretion. then, he notices it’s everywhere, his hairs are standing on edge. it is a feeling he only gets as a warning — the spider sense affecting every one of his nerves to tell him something is wrong, and that he should be afraid.

there is danger in telling you that he’s not who you think he is.

you say his name one more time and his eyes flicker red and he realizes - the stoic, tall, ever-serious spider-man 2099 realizes:

he’s having a panic attack.

taglist: @corpsebasil @letharue @shyhairdocoloralmond @d4rno @scaraza @ooaassiiss @bizarrette @luhvbot @juiiaa @kuinnoa @kurxxmi

thank you @cruelmissdior for beta reading. ♡

#miguel o'hara #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara x black reader #x latina reader #x latina!reader #x black!reader #spiderman 2099 #smut #angst #spiderman across the spiderverse spoilers #spiderman atsv #atsv #atsv spoilers #spiderman x reader

1K notes · View notes

girlgenius1111 · 5 months

Text

pay for your crimes

part 4! Ona and R get Alexia and Mapi back for trying to play Cupid. Or they try to.

no warnings!

You and Ona spent the morning... busy. You spent the afternoon busy too, but in a different, less sexy way: figuring out how to trick two of the most observant people on the team was a challenge. The two of you decided that Ona would call Alexia and tell her that you didn't reciprocate her feelings. You would continue your radio silence to Mapi, as if nothing had happened. At practice tomorrow, you and Ona wouldn't speak to each other, and you figured Mapi would corner you and try to get you to talk, if she didn't call you immedietly after hearing from Alexia. You'd tell her nothing happened, and even though she'd presumably know the truth from Alexia, she wouldn't be able to admit it.

The biggest problem here was Ona; she was a horrible liar. Growing up, she didn't hide much from her parents, so she didn't get practice then like most teenagers do. You really didn't know how her call to Alexia was going to go.

Predictably, Alexia answered on the first ring, her voice ringing out into the room over the speaker, clearly expecting to be told how good she was at matchmaking.

"Hola Capi" Ona let her voice quiver slightly. You turned away from her, worried eye contact would cause both of you to break into giggles.

"Ona! How did it go?" Alexia's words were said with so much excitement, you almost felt bad. Almost.

"Not great."

"What?" The confusion in Alexia's tone had you biting your lip to keep from laughing.

"We talked. You were wrong, Ale. She doesn't have feelings for me. And I didn't tell her I had any for her. I think it's better we just keep some space until we can be friends again." Ona's voice was filled with emotion, and you knew it was the stress of lying, but it sounded like she was genuinely upset.

"No, Ona that can't be right. I'm... i'm sure she has feelings for you."

"What because of the way she looks at me? I don't think that is more convincing than her telling me to my face that she doesn't have feelings for me."

"No, Ona it's not just that. Its..." Alexia was clearly struggling to not admit that she had firsthand testimony that you had admitted to being in love with Ona. "It's more than that. You just have to trust me, go talk to her again," she practically begged.

"Ale, I already trusted you. It didn't work out that well. She doesn't feel the same way, it's time to move on."

"Ona if you just-" Alexia sounded almost frantic at this point.

"No, Capi. I just need some time okay? I'll see you tomorrow." And with that, Ona hung up, just in time for both of you to collapse into laughter. She'd impressed you, keeping it together well. It turns out that the shakiness in her voice from being dishonest seemed similar to how she sounds when she's emotional.

The two of you had just stopped laughing, and regained your breath, when your phone rang. Seeing Mapi's caller ID flash on your phone literally only minutes after hanging up with Alexia was enough to push you both into another fit of hysterical laughter. You had to let the phone ring out before you could pull yourself together, wiping a few stray tears from your eyes.

"Alright, keep it together, I'm gonna call Mapi back. And Ona, don't you dare look at me or I'll lose it again." Ona took a deep breath, wiping the smile off her face, and turned around so her back was facing you on the couch. You took a deep breath too, before pressing the call button. Mapi answered before the first ring had even finished.

"Hey Mapi. What's up?" You made sure to sound a little dejected, but as though you were trying to hide it.

"Y/n! Um..." Mapi trailed off; it seemed she hadn't really thought calling you through all the way, and she didn't know what to say. Digging your nails into your palms to stop yourself from laughing again, you waited for her to decide what to say.

After a minute she finally spoke. "Patri told me you left the bar with Ona last night. What happened?" She tried to sound casual, but you could hear the serious tone in her voice. Ona turned to look at you, mouthing the words, Sure, Patri told you, before you pushed her shoulder to turn her back around.

"Oh yeah. I was just kind of drunk and freaked out over those weird guys. She just took me home. Nothing happened." You, as opposed to Ona, were a great liar. You knew how to lie, and how to layer a lie; allowing someone to see through what you wanted them to, but not alerting them to what was really going on. You let your voice shake slightly, trying to sound as though you were putting on a brave face.

You were met with silence from the other end of the phone. You don't think you'd ever lied to Mapi before, and she clearly didn't know what to do with it. She would know from Alexia that you and Ona slept together, and had a conversation, but she had no way of telling you that. She was stuck.

"Are you sure, nena? If something happened, you can tell me." Her voice sounded so genuine, so reassuring, that you had to really fight to keep yourself from telling her the truth.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Nothing happened." You cleared your throat, hoping to make it seem like you were fighting back tears. "I'm hungover though, and I don't really feel that good, so I'll see you tomorrow."

You hung the phone up before she could respond, groaning as you sat back heavily on the couch. Ona turned around, pulling your body to lay your head in her lap. She smiled down at you, and you grinned back up at her, admiring the freckles that adorned her face. You were beginning to think they were one of your favorite of her features. She absentmindedly ran her hands through your hair, and you melted a little at the sweet gesture.

"Should I be worried at how good of a liar you are?" She made it sound like she was joking, but you could sense a hint of insecurity in her voice. Instead of responding right away, you pulled her head down, pressing a deep kiss to her lips. When you broke apart, she was gasping for air, her eyes looking slightly dazed.

"As long as I keep kissing you like that, you don't have anything to worry about. I'll never lie to you, Oni. Promise." She returned your smile, before it fell from her face. Concerned, you asked her what was wrong.

"I'm gonna have to lie to Alexia tomorrow. In person. All day." She looked genuinely terrified at the prospect.

You laughed, "You're just gonna have to try your best to seem like an emotional mess and not a lying one." She sighed, clearly thinking deeply about how she was going to approach the next day.

-----

Ona returned to her apartment that night, and you decided you would arrive early to practice, to see if anyone asked you any questions, and Ona would arrive late, to avoid being asked questions right away.

You walked down the hall towards the locker room, thinking you would be the first person there. You stopped when you heard voices, leaning against the wall to shamelessly eavesdrop.

"-don't understand, why would she lie to me? She's never lied to me before, this is not normal." You felt a pang of guilt at the sound of Mapi's voice. She sounded really concerned, and kind of hurt. You reminded yourself that her and Alexia needed to be taught a lesson about their matchmaking, as they were getting too confident in their skills.

"I don't understand why they won't just admit whats going on to each other. I mean y/n straight up told Ona she didn't have feelings for her. They are making this so complicated, and now we have to get even more involved," Alexia sounded frustrated.

"I hate to point this out," Ingrid broke in, although she didn't sound that regretful, "but if you guys hadn't meddled in their relationship, they might have been able to take their time and figure things out themselves."

You didn't have to see Mapi and Alexia's faces to know they were both glaring at Ingrid.

"Helpful, Ingrid. Thank you. Ale's right though, we have to fix it, maybe we can-"

You walked in then, airpods in, pretending you hadn't been eavesdropping. You made sure to keep your gaze down, and your face neutral as you headed to your locker and set your stuff down. You could feel the three girls staring at you, and you pulled your airpods out before looking over at them.

"Hi?" You acted confused, catching them staring at you.

"Hola, y/n. How are you?" It was Alexia who responded, her eyes looking over you searchingly.

"Fine. How are you?" you turned back to your stuff, still listening, but began to pull your training kit out of your bag.

"I'm... fine." Alexia responded slowly, and you hummed in response, pretending to be distracted. The rest of the team started to trickle into the locker room, and you let yourself fall into conversation with Pina and Patri, who, unlike some other people, would never have mentioned to anyone that she saw you and Ona making out against the wall.

You watched Ona walk in out of the corner of your eye, and she sent you a small smile, back turned to Ingrid, Mapi, and Alexia, who were still huddled together in front of Mapi's locker, looking as though they were trying to construct a solution to end world hunger. They weren't paying attention to you, so you sent Ona a small smile back, before turning back to your conversation.

You didn't notice Ingrid clock the looks you and Ona exchanged, or the way her eyes followed the two of you the rest of practice. You and Ona made a game of it, seeing who could make the fake tension between the two of you the most obvious.

You thought you had won when you pretended to hear someone calling your name on the other side of the field when Ona neared the water cooler you were standing by. However, Ona took the cake when she took you out with a particularly nasty tackle that left you sprawled out on the grass, not bothering to apologize, going so far as to step over you before you could get up. The whole team exchanged looks at that one, and even though your body ached from the impact, you really weren't mad; Ona was competitive, you knew this.

Mapi helped you up, shooting a glare at Ona, and you had to hide your smirk in your shirt, wiping off your face with it. You still hadn't noticed Ingrid watching the two of you carefully, whereas Mapi and Alexia were individually focused on each of you.

When practice ended, you headed into the locker room, leaving a couple players out on the pitch to work on penalties, including Mapi and Alexia. As you neared the door to the locker room, you felt a sharp pain on your ear and yelped, feeling yourself be dragged down the hall. You heard a similar yelp coming from the other side of you, but at the risk of losing your ear, you didn't turn around to look for the source. Instead, you let yourself be pulled into the medical supplies closet, turning to face Ingrid, who let go of your and Ona's ears once the door shut behind her.

She looked at the two of you, raising an eyebrow, before she reached out a hand and pulled the neck of Ona's training top down slightly, revealing the many, many hickeys littered across her upper chest. It's possible you had gotten carried away yesterday morning, and Ona had to be careful about which top she wore, as the marks were barely covered by her shirt. Ingrid must have spotted one peaking out. You both blushed, and Ingrid sighed.

"You know that you're driving both of them crazy right? They think they've ruined your relationship, and both of you are going to die alone unless they do something to fix it." You fought back a laugh, and could tell Ona was doing the same.

"This is what they get for trying to play cupid. It could have ended like this, and they need to be taught a lesson. Who knows who their next victim could be," you joked, looking for a laugh from Ingrid, but only finding a serious face. "Oh come on, Ingrid, I heard you telling them the same thing this morning in the locker room." Ingrid opened her mouth to respond, but Ona interrupted her.

"Wait, how did you know?" she questioned, and Ingrid rolled her eyes.

"It's painfully obvious to everyone except those two! The little looks, little smirks at each other when you think no on is watching. That absurd tackle. The only people who don't know are Alexia and Mapi, because they're too upset to notice." Ingrid was shamelessly scolding you both, and you started to feel guilty. She turned her attention to you before speaking again. "You know Mapi cried yesterday when she got off the phone with you? She knew you were lying to her and she couldn't understand what she did to make you not trust her."

It made sense why Ingrid was so upset. She was fiercely protective of Mapi, and even though you knew she agreed with you, making her girlfriend cry was clearly a step too far.

You sighed, "We weren't trying to upset them, it was just supposed to be a little joke." Ona murmured her agreement with your statement.

"Well you did upset them. They both really care about the two of you, and thought they had really messed up. So now you're gonna go march into that room and tell them the truth, before you make my girlfriend cry again. Got it?" Her hands were on her hips, and she was glaring at both of you as you hung your heads in shame, and agreed. Ingrid had a reputation for being a big softie, but she could really turn on the stern when she wanted to.

She led you out of the closet, bringing you to an empty conference room, leaving with a warning to stay put. You and Ona looked at each other, exchanging wide eyed glances, not finding the situation so funny anymore.

"Damn, I really didn't expect them to be that upset," you stated.

"You know, I always assumed Mapi was in charge in that relationship, but clearly I've underestimated Ingrid" Ona mused, shutting her mouth tightly as the door opened again.

Ingrid walked in, with an incredibly confused Alexia and Mapi trailing in after her. You met Mapi's eyes, and she looked so worried that the guilt you felt tripled. Ingrid gestured for everyone to take seats at the table, looking like the least professional business meeting anyone had ever had.

"Tell them what you two did," Ingrid said, when it became clear neither you nor Ona were going to start the conversation. Mapi and Alexia turned to the two of you, confused.

"Well. We did talk yesterday. And we realized that the two of you were both telling each other things, and trying to get us together, and we were kind of annoyed, so we decided to tell you guys that we weren't together. But, we are. We figured it out," you started.

Ona continued, "and we didn't mean to make you guys upset, we thought it would just be funny."

Alexia and Mapi looked back and forth between the two of you for a minute, before saying at the same time, "so you ARE together?"

You and Ona nodded, and the two girls opposite you let out huge sighs of relief. Mapi ran her hands over her face, and you hadn't realized how tense she had looked until you watched it leave her body. Alexia looked like she was fighting back tears, which was incredibly alarming; you'd seen Alexia cry maybe 3 times. You and Ona started spouting out more apologies, but Mapi held up a hand, and you both grew quiet.

"We were upset because we though we'd pushed too hard and ruined your relationship. Can you imagine how guilty we felt? Lying to us was really mean. That being said, we shouldn't have started conspiring together in the first place, and for that, I'm sorry." Mapi was so rarely serious, it was really a sight to behold.

"What happened to the little Ona I knew that used to cry every time she lied?" Alexia was glaring at Ona, and you laughed quietly.

"She used it to her advantage. She had to sound upset to be convincing," you responded, and Ona slapped your arm, shooting you a glare.

"Alright, we've all apologized, everyone knows the truth, are we free to go now," Ona asked, directing her question towards Ingrid.

Ingrid looked between the two of you for a moment, before sighing, and standing up, heading towards the door.

"Fine. But you should probably make sure to cover up those hickeys all over your chest before you change in front of everyone tomorrow Oni." She smirked back at you, heading back into the locker room, as Alexia and Mapi looked at the two of you in horror. Ona made to bolt out of the room, and Alexia chased after her, demanding to see what ungodly things Ona had allowed you to do to her.

Mapi still looked grossed out at the thought, but you crossed the room, wrapping yourself around her in a hug.

"I'm sorry I lied. I never meant to make you feel like I didn't trust you," you mumbled into her shirt. She wrapped her arms around you, squeezing tight.

"All forgiven, nena. I can't stay mad at you. As long as you're happy, I'm happy." You pulled back, smiling at her. You heard a shriek come from the locker room, followed by Alexia's voice.

"My god! One wasn't enough, y/n, you needed to leave 15?" You winced, and Mapi looked down at you, her face once again one of disgust. You shrugged at her, and she wrapped an arm around your shoulders, walking you back to the locker room, hopefully to help you save your girlfriend from Alexia, but more likely to join in on the teasing. You found that you didn't really mind it.

-----

this was.. way more fun to write than I was expecting. hope you enjoyed :)

#woso imagine #woso #woso x reader #barcelona femeni x reader #ona batlle x reader #mapi leon #alexia putellas #ingrid engen #ona batlle

403 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

Text

The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals a vast and deadly rot

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

How could this happen? Owners of Chamberlain MyQ automatic garage door openers just woke up to discover that the company had confiscated valuable features overnight, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

Oh, we know what happened, technically speaking. Chamberlain shut off the API for its garage-door openers, which breaks their integration with home automation systems like Home Assistant. The company even announced that it was doing this, calling the integration an "unauthorized usage" of its products, though the "unauthorized" parties in this case are the people who own Chamberlain products:

https://chamberlaingroup.com/press/a-message-about-our-decision-to-prevent-unauthorized-usage-of-myq

We even know why Chamberlain did this. As Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo points out, shutting off the API is a way for Chamberlain to force its customers to use its ad-beshitted, worst-of-breed app, so that it can make a few pennies by nonconsensually monetizing its customers' eyeballs:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/chamberlain-blocks-smart-garage-door-opener-from-working-with-smart-homes/

But how did this happen? How did a giant company like Chamberlain come to this enshittening juncture, in which it felt empowered to sabotage the products it had already sold to its customers? How can this be legal? How can it be good for business? How can the people who made this decision even look themselves in the mirror?

To answer these questions, we must first consider the forces that discipline companies, acting against the impulse to enshittify their products and services. There are four constraints on corporate conduct:

I. Competition. The fear of losing your business to a rival can stay even the most sociopathic corporate executive's hand.

II. Regulation. The fear of being fined, criminally sanctioned, or banned from doing business can check the greediest of leaders.

III. Capability. Corporate executives can dream up all kinds of awful ways to shift value from your side of the ledger to their own, but they can only do the things that are technically feasible.

IV. Self-help. The possibility of customers modifying, reconfiguring or altering their products to restore lost functionality or neutralize antifeatures carries an implied threat to vendors. If a printer company's anti-generic-ink measures drives a customer to jailbreak their printers, the original manufacturer's connection to that customer is permanently severed, as the customer creates a durable digital connection to a rival.

When companies act in obnoxious, dishonest, shitty ways, they aren't merely yielding to temptation – they are evading these disciplining forces. Thus, the Great Enshittening we are living through doesn't reflect an increase in the wickedness of corporate leadership. Rather, it represents a moment in which each of these disciplining factors have been gutted by specific policies.

This is good news, actually. We used to put down rat poison and we didn't have a rat problem. Then we stopped putting down rat poison and rats are eating us alive. That's not a nice feeling, but at least we know at least one way of addressing it – we can start putting down poison again. That is, we can start enforcing the rules that we stopped enforcing, in living memory. Having a terrible problem is no fun, but the best kind of terrible problem to have is one that you know a solution to.

As it happens, Chamberlain is a neat microcosm for all the bad policy choices that created the Era of Enshittification. Let's go through them:

Competition: Chamberlain doesn't have to worry about competition, because it is owned by a private equity fund that "rolled up" all of Chamberlain's major competitors into a single, giant firm. Most garage-door opener brands are actually Chamberlain, including "LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Merlin, and Grifco":

https://www.lakewoodgaragedoor.biz/blog/the-history-of-garage-door-openers

This is a pretty typical PE rollup, and it exploits a bug in US competition law called "Antitrust's Twilight Zone":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

When companies buy each other, they are subject to "merger scrutiny," a set of guidelines that the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division use to determine whether the outcome is likely to be bad for competition. These rules have been pretty lax since the Reagan administration, but they've currently being revised to make them substantially more strict:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-ftc-seek-comment-draft-merger-guidelines

One of the blind spots in these merger guidelines is an exemption for mergers valued at less than $101m. Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, these fly under the radar, evading merger scrutiny. That means that canny PE companies can roll up dozens and dozens of standalone businesses, like funeral homes, hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or e-commerce sellers:

http://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Serial-Acquisitions-Working-Paper-R4-2.pdf

By titrating the purchase prices, PE companies – like Blackstone, owners of Chamberlain and all the other garage-door makers – can acquire a monopoly without ever raising a regulatory red flag.

But antitrust enforcers aren't helpless. Under (the long dormant) Section 7 of the Clayton Act, competition regulators can block mergers that lead to "incipient monopolization." The incipiency standard prevented monopolies from forming from 1914, when the Clayton Act passed, until the Reagan administration. We used to put down rat poison, and we didn't have rats. We stopped, and rats are gnawing our faces off. We still know where the rat poison is – maybe we should start putting it down again.

On to regulation. How is it possible for Chamberlain to sell you a garage-door opener that has an API and works with your chosen home automation system, and then unilaterally confiscate that valuable feature? Shouldn't regulation protect you from this kind of ripoff?

It should, but it doesn't. Instead, we have a bunch of regulations that protect Chamberlain from you. Think of binding arbitration, which allows Chamberlain to force you to click through an "agreement" that takes away your right to sue them or join a class-action suit:

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

But regulation could protect you from Chamberlain. Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act allows the FTC to ban any "unfair and deceptive" conduct. This law has been on the books since 1914, but Section 5 has been dormant, forgotten and unused, for decades. The FTC's new dynamo chair, Lina Khan, has revived it, and is use it like a can-opener to free Americans who've been trapped by abusive conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Khan's used Section 5 powers to challenge privacy invasions, noncompete clauses, and other corporate abuses – the bait-and-switch tactics of Chamberlain are ripe for a Section 5 case. If you buy a gadget because it has five features and then the vendor takes two of them away, they are clearly engaged in "unfair and deceptive" conduct.

On to capability. Since time immemorial, corporate leaders have fetishized "flexibility" in their business arrangements – like the ability to do "dynamic pricing" that changes how much you pay for something based on their guess about how much you are willing to pay. But this impulse to play shell games runs up against the hard limits of physical reality: grocers just can't send an army of rollerskated teenagers around the store to reprice everything as soon as a wealthy or desperate-looking customer comes through the door. They're stuck with crude tactics like doubling the price of a flight that doesn't include a Saturday stay as a way of gouging business travelers on an expense account.

With any shell-game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Corporate crooks armed with computers aren't smarter or more wicked than their analog forebears, but they are faster. Digital tools allow companies to alter the "business logic" of their services from instant to instant, in highly automated ways:

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

The monopoly coalition has successfully argued that this endless "twiddling" should not be constrained by privacy, labor or consumer protection law. Without these constraints, corporate twiddlers can engage in all kinds of ripoffs, like wage theft and algorithmic wage discrimination:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Twiddling is key to the Darth Vader MBA ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further"), in which features are confiscated from moment to moment, without warning or recourse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

There's no reason to accept the premise that violating your privacy, labor rights or consumer rights with a computer is so different from analog ripoffs that existing laws don't apply. The unconstrained twiddling of digital ripoff artists is a plague on billions of peoples' lives, and any enforcer who sticks up for our rights will have an army of supporters behind them.

Finally, there's the fear of self-help measures. All the digital flexibility that tech companies use to take value away can be used to take it back, too. The whole modern history of digital computers is the history of "adversarial interoperability," in which the sleazy antifeatures of established companies are banished through reverse-engineering, scraping, bots and other forms of technological guerrilla warfare:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interoperability represents a serious threat to established business. If you're a printer company gouging on toner, your customers might defect to a rival that jailbreaks your security measures. That's what happened to Lexmark, who lost a case against the toner-refilling company Static Controls, which went on to buy Lexmark:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy

Sure, your customers are busy and inattentive and you can degrade the quality of your product a lot before they start looking for ways out. But once they cross that threshold, you can lose them forever. That's what happened to Microsoft: the company made the tactical decision to produce a substandard version of Office for the Mac in a drive to get Mac users to switch to Windows. Instead, Apple made Iwork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote), which could read and write every Office file, and Mac users threw away Office, the only Microsoft product they owned, permanently severing their relationship to the company:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Today, companies can operate without worrying about this kind of self-help measure. There' a whole slew of IP rights that Chamberlain can enforce against you if you try to fix your garage-door opener yourself, or look to a competitor to sell you a product that restores the feature they took away:

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

Jailbreaking your Chamberlain gadget in order to make it answer to a rival's app involves bypassing a digital lock. Trafficking in a tool to break a digital lock is a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine.

In other words, it's not just that tech isn't regulated, allowing for endless twiddling against your privacy, consumer rights and labor rights. It's that tech is badly regulated, to permit unlimited twiddling by tech companies to take away your rightsand to prohibit any twiddling by you to take them back. The US government thumbs the scales against you, creating a regime that Jay Freeman aptly dubbed "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/how-to-fix-cars-by-breaking-felony-contempt-of-business-model/

All kinds of companies have availed themselves of this government-backed superpower. There's DRM – digital locks, covered by DMCA 1201 – in powered wheelchairs:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

In dishwashers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob

In treadmills:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

In tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

It should come as no surprise to learn that Chamberlain has used DMCA 1201 to block interoperable garage door opener components:

https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=iplr

That's how we arrived at this juncture, where a company like Chamberlain can break functionality its customers value highly, solely to eke out a minuscule new line of revenue by selling ads on their own app.

Chamberlain bought all its competitors.

Chamberlain operates in a regulatory environment that is extremely tolerant of unfair and deceptive practices. Worse: they can unilaterally take away your right to sue them, which means that if regulators don't bestir themselves to police Chamberlain, you are shit out of luck.

Chamberlain has endless flexibility to unilaterally alter its products' functionality, in fine-grained ways, even after you've purchased them.

Chamberlain can sue you if you try to exercise some of that same flexibility to protect yourself from their bad practices.

Combine all four of those factors, and of course Chamberlain is going to enshittify its products. Every company has had that one weaselly asshole at the product-planning table who suggests a petty grift like breaking every one of the company's customers' property to sell a few ads. But historically, the weasel lost the argument to others, who argued that making every existing customer furious would affect the company's bottom line, costing it sales and/or fines, and prompting customers to permanently sever their relationship with the company by seeking out and installing alternative software. Take away all the constraints on a corporation's worst impulses, and this kind of conduct is inevitable:

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

This isn't limited to Chamberlain. Without the discipline of competition, regulation, self-help measures or technological limitations, every industry in undergoing wholesale enshittification. It's not a coincidence that Chamberlain's grift involves a push to move users into its app. Because apps can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking DMCA 1201 prosecution, forcing a user into an app is a tidy and reliable way to take away that user's rights.

Think about ad-blocking. One in four web users has installed an ad-blockers ("the biggest boycott in world history" -Doc Searls). Zero app users have installed app-blockers, because they don't exist, because making one is a felony. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

The temptation to enshitiffy isn't new, but the ability to do so without consequence is a modern phenomenon, the intersection of weak policy enforcement and powerful technology. Your car is autoenshittified, a rolling rent-seeking platform that spies on you and price-gouges you:

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

Cars are in an uncontrolled skid over Enshittification Cliff. Honda, Toyota, VW and GM all sell cars with infotainment systems that harvest your connected phone's text-messages and send them to the corporation for data-mining. What's more, a judge in Washington state just ruled that this is legal:

https://therecord.media/class-action-lawsuit-cars-text-messages-privacy

While there's no excuse for this kind of sleazy conduct, we can reasonably anticipate that if our courts would punish companies for engaging in it, they might be able to resist the temptation. No wonder Mozilla's latest Privacy Not Included research report called cars "the worst product category we have ever reviewed":

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

I mean, Nissan tries to infer facts about your sex life and sells those inferences to marketing companies:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/nissan/

But the OG digital companies are the masters of enshittification. Microsoft has been at this game for longer than anyone, and every day brings a fresh way that Microsoft has worsened its products without fear of consequence. The latest? You can't delete your OneDrive account until you provide an acceptable explanation for your disloyalty:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/8/23952878/microsoft-onedrive-windows-close-app-notification

It's tempting to think that the cruelty is the point, but it isn't. It's almost never the point. The point is power and money. Unscrupulous businesses have found ways to make money by making their products worse since the industrial revolution. Here's Jules Dupuis, writing about 19th century French railroads:

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches. What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich. And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class passengers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

https://www.tumblr.com/mostlysignssomeportents/731357317521719296/having-refused-the-poor-what-is-necessary-they

But as bad as all this is, let me remind you about the good part: we know how to stop companies from enshittifying their products. We know what disciplines their conduct: competition, regulation, capability and self-help measures. Yes, rats are gnawing our eyeballs, but we know which rat-poison to use, and where to put it to control those rats.

Competition, regulation, constraint and self-help measures all backstop one another, and while one or a few can make a difference, they are most powerful when they're all mobilized in concert. Think of the failure of the EU's landmark privacy law, the GDPR. While the GDPR proved very effective against bottom-feeding smaller ad-tech companies, the worse offenders, Meta and Google, have thumbed their noses at it.

This was enabled in part by the companies' flying an Irish flag of convenience, maintaining the pretense that they have to be regulated in a notorious corporate crime-haven:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

That let them get away with all kinds of shenanigans, like ignoring the GDPR's requirement that you should be able to easily opt out of data-collection without having to go through cumbersome "cookie consent" dialogs or losing access to the service as punishment for declining to be tracked.

As the noose has tightened around these surveillance giants, they're continuing to play games. Meta now says that the only way to opt out of data-collection in the EU is to pay for the service:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/30/markets-remaining-irrational/#steins-law

This is facially illegal under the GDPR. Not only are they prohibited from punishing you for opting out of collection, but the whole scheme ignores the nature of private data collection. If Facebook collects the fact that you and I are friends, but I never opted into data-collection, they have violated the GDPR, even if you were coerced into granting consent:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/the-pay-or-consent-challenge-for-platform-regulators.html

The GDPR has been around since 2016 and Google and Meta are still invading 500 million Europeans' privacy. This latest delaying tactic could add years to their crime-spree before they are brought to justice.

But most of this surveillance is only possible because so much of how you interact with Google and Meta is via an app, and an app is just a web-page that's a felony to make an ad-blocker for. If the EU were to legalize breaking DRM – repealing Article 6 of the 2001 Copyright Directive – then we wouldn't have to wait for the European Commission to finally wrestle these two giant companies to the ground. Instead, EU companies could make alternative clients for all of Google and Meta's services that don't spy on you, without suffering the fate of OG App, which tried this last winter and was shut down by "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

Enshittification is demoralizing. To quote @wilwheaton, every update to the services we use inspires "dread of 'How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity in a world that demands I have this thing to operate?'"

https://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/698603648058556416/cory-doctorow-if-you-see-this-and-have-thoughts

But there are huge natural constituencies for the four disciplining forces that keep enshittification at bay.

Remember, Antitrust's Twilight Zone doesn't just allow rollups of garage-door opener companies – it's also poison for funeral homes, hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or e-commerce sellers.

The Binding Arbitration scam that stops Chamberlain customers from suing the company also stops Uber drivers from suing over stolen wages, Turbotax customers from suing over fraud, and many other victims of corporate crime from getting a day in court.

The failure to constrain twiddling to protect privacy, labor rights and consumer rights enables a host of abuses, from stalking, doxing and SWATting to wage theft and price gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And Felony Contempt of Business Model is used to screw you over every time you refill your printer, run your dishwasher, or get your Iphone's screen replaced.

The actions needed to halt and reverse this enshittification are well understood, and the partisans for taking those actions are too numerous to count. It's taken a long time for all those individuals suffering under corporate abuses to crystallize into a movement, but at long last, it's happening.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

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

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

375 notes · View notes