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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

Text

Sympathy for the spammer

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).

It's ever been thus. The California gold rush was a con, and nearly everyone who went west went broke. Famously, the only reliable way to cash out on the gold rush was to sell "picks and shovels" to the credulous, doomed and desperate. That's how Leland Stanford made his fortune, which he funneled into eugenics programs (and founding a university):

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/9780316592031/

That means that the people who try to con you are almost always getting conned themselves. Think of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scams. My forthcoming novel The Bezzle opens with a baroque and improbable fast-food Ponzi in the town of Avalon on the island of Catalina, founded by the chicle monopolist William Wrigley Jr:

http://thebezzle.org

Wrigley found fast food declasse and banned it from the island, a rule that persists to this day. In The Bezzle, the forensic detective Martin Hench uncovers The Fry Guys, an MLM that flash-freezes contraband burgers and fries smuggled on-island from the mainland and sells them to islanders though an "affiliate marketing" scheme that is really about recruiting other affiliate markets to sell under you. As with every MLM, the value of the burgers and fries sold is dwarfed by the gigantic edifice of finance fraud built around it, with "points" being bought and sold for real cash, which is snaffled up and sucked out of the island by a greedy mainlander who is behind the scheme.

A "bezzle" is John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." In every scam, there's a period where everyone feels richer – but only the scammers are actually cleaning up. The wealth of the marks is illusory, but the longer the scammer can preserve the illusion, the more real money the marks will pump into the system.

MLMs are particularly ugly, because they target people who are shut out of economic opportunity – women, people of color, working people. These people necessarily rely on social ties for survival, looking after each others' kids, loaning each other money they can't afford, sharing what little they have when others have nothing.

It's this social cohesion that MLMs weaponize. Crypto "entrepreneurs" are encouraged to suck in their friends and family by telling them that they're "building Black wealth." Working women are exhorted to suck in their bffs by appealing to their sisterhood and the chance for "women to lift each other up."

The "sales people" trying to get you to buy crypto or leggings or supplements are engaged in predatory conduct that will make you financially and socially worse off, wrecking their communities' finances and shattering the mutual aid survival networks they rely on. But they're not getting rich on this – they're also being scammed:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4686468

This really hit home for me in the mid-2000s, when I was still editing Boing Boing. We had a submission form where our readers could submit links for us to look at for inclusion on the blog, and it was overwhelmed by spam. We'd add all kinds of antispam to it, and still, we'd get floods of hundreds or even thousands of spam submissions to it.

One night, I was lying in my bed in London and watching these spams roll in. They were all for small businesses in the rustbelt, handyman services, lawn-care, odd jobs, that kind of thing. They were 10 million miles from the kind of thing we'd ever post about on Boing Boing. They were coming in so thickly that I literally couldn't finish downloading my email – the POP session was dropping before I could get all the mail in the spool. I had to ssh into my mail server and delete them by hand. It was maddening.

Frustrated and furious, I started calling the phone numbers associated with these small businesses, demanding an explanation. I assumed that they'd hired some kind of sleazy marketing service and I wanted to know who it was so I could give them a piece of my mind.

But what I discovered when I got through was much weirder. These people had all been laid off from factories that were shuttering due to globalization. As part of their termination packages, their bosses had offered them "retraining" via "courses" in founding their own businesses.

The "courses" were the precursors to the current era's rise-and-grind hustle-culture scams (again, the only people getting rich from that stuff are the people selling the courses – the "students" finish the course poorer). They promised these laid-off workers, who'd given their lives to their former employers before being discarded, that they just needed to pull themselves up by their own boostraps:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/#solidarity-forever

After all, we had the internet now! There were so many new opportunities to be your own boss! The course came with a dreadful build-your-own-website service, complete with an overpriced domain sales portal, and a single form for submitting your new business to "thousands of search engines."

This was nearly 20 years ago, but even then, there was really only one search engine that mattered: Google. The "thousands of search engines" the scammers promised to submit these desperate peoples' websites to were just submission forms for directories, indexes, blogs, and mailing lists. The number of directories, indexes, blogs and mailing lists that would publish their submissions was either "zero" or "nearly zero." There was certainly no possibility that anyone at Boing Boing would ever press the wrong key and accidentally write a 500-word blog post about a leaf-raking service in a collapsing deindustrialized exurb in Kentucky or Ohio.

The people who were drowning me in spam weren't the scammers – they were the scammees.

But that's only half the story. Years later, I discovered how our submission form was getting included in this get-rich-quick's mass-submission system. It was a MLM! Coders in the former Soviet Union were getting work via darknet websites that promised them relative pittances for every submission form they reverse-engineered and submitted. The smart coders didn't crack the forms directly – they recruited other, less business-savvy coders to do that for them, and then often as not, ripped them off.

The scam economy runs on this kind of indirection, where scammees are turned into scammers, who flood useful and productive and nice spaces with useless dross that doesn't even make them any money. Take the submission queue at Clarkesworld, the great online science fiction magazine, which famously had to close after it was flooded with thousands of junk submission "written" by LLMs:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence

There was a zero percent chance that Neil Clarke would accidentally accept one of these submissions. They were uniformly terrible. The people submitting these "stories" weren't frustrated sf writers who'd discovered a "life hack" that let them turn out more brilliant prose at scale.

They were scammers who'd been scammed into thinking that AIs were the key to a life of passive income, a 4-Hour Work-Week powered by an AI-based self-licking ice-cream cone:

https://pod.link/1651876897/episode/995c8a778ede17d2d7cff393e5203157

This is absolutely classic passive-income brainworms thinking. "I have a bot that can turn out plausible sentences. I will locate places where sentences can be exchanged for money, aim my bot at it, sit back, and count my winnings." It's MBA logic on meth: find a thing people pay for, then, without bothering to understand why they pay for that thing, find a way to generate something like it at scale and bombard them with it.

Con artists start by conning themselves, with the idea that "you can't con an honest man." But the factor that predicts whether someone is connable isn't their honesty – it's their desperation. The kid selling drugs on the corner, the mom desperately DMing her high-school friends to sell them leggings, the cousin who insists that you get in on their shitcoin – they're all doing it because the system is rigged against them, and getting worse every day.

These people reason – correctly – that all the people getting really rich are scamming. If Amazon can make $38b/year selling "ads" that push worse products that cost more to the top of their search results, why should the mere fact that an "opportunity" is obviously predatory and fraudulent disqualify it?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

The quest for passive income is really the quest for a "greater fool," the economist's term for the person who relieves you of the useless crap you just overpaid for. It rots the mind, atomizes communities, shatters solidarity and breeds cynicism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The rise and rise of botshit cannot be separated from this phenomenon. The botshit in our search-results, our social media feeds, and our in-boxes isn't making money for the enshittifiers who send it – rather, they are being hustled by someone who's selling them the "picks and shovels" for the AI gold rush:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

That's the true cost of all the automation-driven unemployment criti-hype: while we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The manic "entrepreneurs" who've been stampeded into panic by the (correct) perception that the economy is a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs is decreasing at breakneck speed are easy marks for the Leland Stanfords of AI, who are creating generational wealth for themselves by promising that their bots will automate away all the tedious work that goes into creating value. Expect a lot more Amazon Marketplace products called "I'm sorry, I cannot fulfil this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24036156/openai-policy-amazon-ai-listings

No one's going to buy these products, but the AI picks-and-shovels people will still reap a fortune from the attempt. And because history repeats itself, these newly minted billionaires are continuing Leland Stanford's love affair with eugenics:

https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/eugenics/

The fact that AI spam doesn't pay is important to the fortunes of AI companies. Most high-value AI applications are very risk-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology analysis, etc). An AI tool might help a human perform these tasks more accurately – by warning them of things that they've missed – but that's not how AI will turn a profit. There's no market for AI that makes your workers cost more but makes them better at their jobs:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Plenty of people think that spam might be the elusive high-value, low-risk AI application. But that's just not true. The point of AI spam is to get clicks from people who are looking for better content. It's SEO. No one reads 2000 words of algorithm-pleasing LLM garbage over an omelette recipe and then subscribes to that site's feed.

And the omelette recipe generates pennies for the spammer that posted it. They are doing massive volume in order to make those pennies into dollars. You don't make money by posting one spam. If every spammer had to pay the actual recovery costs (energy, chillers, capital amortization, wages) for their query, every AI spam would lose (lots of) money.

Hustle culture and passive income are about turning other peoples' dollars into your dimes. It is a negative-sum activity, a net drain on society. Behind every seemingly successful "passive income" is a con artist who's getting rich by promising – but not delivering – that elusive passive income, and then blaming the victims for not hustling hard enough:

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/12/blueprint-trouble

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

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

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

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robertreich · 4 months

Video

youtube

How Amazon Is Ripping You Off

Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.

Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.

They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie," to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,

If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.

Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.

Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon's sales.

Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.

And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.

Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.

And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.

When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.

By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.

And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.

This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.

This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.

It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.

But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.

We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.

#youtube #Amazon #Video #Politics #shopping #Joe Biden #monopoly

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femmefatalevibe · 9 months

Text

Femme Fatale Guide: Top Career Tips To Set Yourself Up For Success

Figure out where your skills and passions align. Then determine the lifestyle/work culture you thrive in and what sacrifices you're willing to make in your chosen career path (for some, it's always traveling/talking to people 24/7, working late hours, unpredictable/unconventional hours, potentially lower pay/less predictable income, etc.). It truly depends on your top values, your personality, and your goals/priorities in life.

First focus on getting incredibly talented at your craft. Find a mentor(s) who will push you with their feedback/suggestions. Take classes/skills courses/read books & articles to gain more applicable knowledge/hard skills. Join clubs, apply to internships, volunteer, and request informational interviews in your desired field.

Make your skills marketable. Create a professional resume and/or neat portfolio/collection of work samples. Discover and articulate your USP (that should essentially serve as the backbone of your elevator pitch). Frame your skills through a customer/business-centric lens. How does your experience/skillset solve their problems and help a company/client achieve their goals?

Build a network for yourself. Don't be shy to reach out to companies/individuals who inspire you. Speak with your secondary school teachers and professors for connections. Create peer-to-peer networks, too, so you can grow together. Be a fearless networker and connector. Help others, do favors, and make the person glad they met/hired you. Make it your objective to be memorable through your work ethic/providing high-quality work products and showing up with a motivated & overall positive attitude allows people to like and trust you with their time, clients, money, etc.

Master the art of a killer email/cold pitch. Especially in today's world, learning how to sell yourself through intriguing emails/LinkedIn messages is the key to unlocking potential success. One client or opportunity can create momentum that will be useful years down the line, too.

When in doubt, follow up – on an email, pitch, job opportunity, connection, etc.

Be ruthless and relentless with your research. For new contacts, connections, opportunities, and information to support your pitches/job interviews/networking conversations, new technologies, and trends within your field. Read everything credible you can get your hands on. Display working knowledge and practical applications of these concepts and how they can benefit the person in front of you/their business.

Create systems. For how you structure emails/pitches, conduct research, different types of workflows/ work template structures for different types of projects, time-blocking, client funnels, etc.

Get comfortable with rejection. Use it as a primer for self-reflection and refining your craft/processes or help you pivot your approach to help you achieve your goals. Never take business decisions on behalf of a company personally (and vice versa).

Give yourself breaks, but don't give up. Tapping out for good is the only surefire way to fail at an endeavor. Be flexible in your path, but zeroed in on your goal(s). Learn when to quit or pivot, and when it's time to coast or seek growth.

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 1 year

Note

Awe anon talking about the doting family going out on adventures has me thinking. Can we see them exploring a camera market or picking strawberries or something?

"Why didn't you go with Bruce?" Dick said, skipping along next to you.

"Because. If I go with Bruce who's gonna keep you from leapin' off the stairs?"

"Fair," Dick said. "Can we get a smoothie?" He pointed to a stand selling fresh donuts and strawberry smoothies.

"Do you want it now or when we get done getting strawberries for Alfred?" you ask, tugging him out of someone's way.

"Probably now," he said, "when we get done I'm gonna be dirty."

"You hope," you snort.

"I just wanna know how dirty I gotta be before you really put me in the washer or let me ride on the roof of your car," he said.

"You can take the boy out of the circus," You sigh before crinkling your nose at him so he could see you were teasing. And Dick grinned, skipping along next to you and swinging your arm with his.

"Don't you want to go with B though?" he asked. "I mean you can-"

"Sometimes," you hum, handing him a basket to pick berries with and picking one up for yourself. "I miss him when he's gone. But hanging out with you is pretty cool. So it evens out."

"Like winning a goldfish instead of a teddy bear at the carnival?"

"More like getting a funnel cake instead of a churro," you muse. "The goldfish always die before you get home. At least funnel cakes and churros are both delicious."

"Does Alfred know how to make funnel cakes?" Dick asked.

"I'm sure he could figure it out... It's been a hot minute since I worked concessions at the boardwalk but I THINK I still remember the basics."

"So..."

"Not today, Dude. We got strawberries to clean so Alfred can make Jam... That way you can put disgusting piles of it on your toast."

"Yum."

"So let's go," you tell him, letting go of his hand so he could race a head of you a little ways to find some berries that looked like they'd make good jam.

#Bruce Wayne #Bruce Wayne x reader #doting husband!bruce #ask answered #minors dni #reader insert

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 6 months

Note

Which cullen would fall prey to an mlm scam first

You mean a pyramid scheme?

Well, the trouble with pyramid schemes, is they can be surprisingly tricksy even if you know what to look for. They're very good at reeling you in and convincing you it's different somehow than a pyramid scheme. See, it's shaped like a funnel and not a pyramid! Or you earn income based on how much you sell and then you can enter another tier!

A lot of people who would think they'd never get roped into a pyramid scheme can end up sucked into one if they're not wary.

But alright, let's do it.

Alice

Alice doesn't fall into this for a few reasons.

The first is that her gift stops her, she sees this venture won't make her money but will get her saddled with a shitty product she can't peddle fast enough to break even.

Alice is perfectly content playing with the stock market.

The second is that Alice wouldn't be interested. She has her own way of making more money than she could ever hope to being a salesman and she'd have no interest in selling the kinds of products that pyramid schemes usually do (which are generally mass produced, cheap, and rarely have any quality to them). Alice wouldn't think they're good products and would have no interest in trying to market them herself and sell them to others.

Bella

Doomed.

Give Bella the right pitch, (and many of these are aimed towards women trying to support themselves), and she's there selling what she believes is a great makeup product/clothes line/what have you and refusing to believe she's made a terrible mistake and been conned along with all these earnest other women.

Edward I imagine has to get rid of the product for her and get her out of the hole (Bella's pride never lives this down).

Carlisle

Carlisle's been in the human world long enough, interacted with it more than the others, and is generally very particular about how he should be viewed and seen that I don't see him biting.

"I am human doctor man" Carlisle says, and has no intention in pursuing any other means of income or anything that would make him not look like human doctor man who is definitely 39 why do you ask?

It's not even a matter of him being swayed or not, he's not listening close enough, and likely makes his earliest escape.

Edward

Edward's actually in a little danger in part because of his gift. The thing about pyramid schemes is that those in the lower tiers (even the mid tiers) aren't in the know. They may suspect it's a pyramid scheme, and that they're in too deep to get out, but it's the ones at the top who really planned the thing. The very low-level grunts generally believe it's a real company (it's how they get hooked and sucked in).

If Edward were to meet someone trying to hook him in (as you generally get rewards for recruiting others) then there's a chance.

Now, the chance is small, because like Alice, Edward's comfortable with his money and has 0 desire to work or be a salesman (notice Edward just goes to high school, then university and never goes off on his own or with one of the others to get a job).

That said, I could see Edward being tricked into believing it's a good product, a good cause, and more by people who earnestly believe it. More, because Edward doesn't really doubt his gift, it might not occur to him that these people are also being lied to or else are lying to themselves.

Edward also believes himself intelligent enough that he'd never fall for a pyramid scheme and so would be less wary of it.

Basically, still unlikely as Edward would never get dragged to one of these meetings or into it, but not impossible and much more likely than Alice.

Emmett

Doomed.

If he was taken to the right pitch, for the right product, even though he himself would never use it he'd think it'd be so cool that of course he should sign up. Hey, then he can make some dough for a change, how about that Alice.

It doesn't last long, though, as Rosalie tells him, "Honey, this is a pyramid scheme".

(It also doesn't last long as no one would ever pitch Emmett as he looks fucking terrifying and he's huge).

Esme

Esme's so nice, I could easily see her being essentially bullied into joining. The thing is, she actually doesn't get in too deep because she never depletes her initial stock and has no hope of doing so. Esme doesn't go out enough or interact enough with others to actually sell the product so the terrible makeup brand just... sits there...

She's out some amount of money, but she won't dig herself into the hole that usually happens in pyramid schemes where, with the taste of initial success, you just keep going.

Jasper

Jasper's too scary. The others are all too scary but Jasper's really too scary. He's never approached and if he was I imagine him staring dully at these human products not sure what he is supposed to do with them or how he's supposed to sell them with his face.

Renesmee

Doomed.

Renesmee has no idea how anything works and is ridiculously sheltered by the Cullens. I doubt 'theft' is even a concept she understands nor is 'money' for that matter. Now, this might help her, as she has no idea how to sell anything, but like Esme she probably gets conned into signing the dotted line and making the initial purchase because the nice salespeople tell her it's a great idea.

Rosalie

Rosalie has been through a lot and is naturally wary and skeptical of others. More, while liking to be the prettiest in the room, she doesn't seem all that weak to flattery from what we see of her. Rosalie would be immediately suspicious of anyone trying to sell her anything or get her to do something as she'll be immediately wondering what they get out of this and why they're trying so hard.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #the cullens #alice cullen #carlisle cullen #bella swan #edward cullen #emmett cullen #esme cullen #renesmee cullen #jasper whitlock #rosalie hale #meta #headcanon #opinion

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writing-havoc · 2 years

Text

Hat

♡ Summary: Kaz finds out why you've been acting strange for the last year. He takes cares of it.

♡ Pairing: Kaz Brekker x fem!reader

♡ Fandom: Six of Crows, Grishaverse

♡ Warnings: Talk about r@pe in a past tense, but still describes it a bit, blood, torture

♡ WC: 4.6k

As mentioned, this fic contains mentions and a small description of r*pe. Nothing too severe, but still potentially triggering. If that sort of thing could be triggering, then I suggested against reading this fic. Taking care of yourself is the number one priority <3

To the anon who requested this, I hope it's to your liking!

Please excuse any spelling and grammar mistakes. Hopes you enjoy <3

∘₊✧──────────────────✧₊∘

"Please, Kaz?"

"No."

"You're lame."

Enjoying a quiet afternoon seemed to be an impossible task.

For once there were no jobs to be done, ledgers to be looked through, blueprints to sort, or staff to cover.

So of course you had to come up and demand a trip to a street market.

"And you're annoying." Lie. "Not much either of us can do about these problems."

You gaffawed. "I am not annoying. And there's actually quite a few things we can do about that. Like going to the market and looking around. I've got things to buy and maybe you could find something you like, too." He could feel you wiggling your eyebrows at him.

"Have Jesper tag along with you."

"He's fucking Wylan, I can't go with them."

He chuckled internally. "Take Nina."

"I can't. She's sleeping and Matthias is refusing to leave her side while she does so."

"Take Inej."

"Can't find her."

"Take Pim."

"Working."

He took a deep breath through his nose, seizing the movement of the tip of his feather pen on the paper in front of him. It wasn't even important, just a mess of scribbles.

"Why not go alone?"

You took a moment at that, body stuttering in its swaying motion. He looked up at your face.

"Because going alone is boring."

A lie accentuated by your middle finger lightly picking at the skin around your nails.

"The real reason?"

"That is the real reason!" You got down on your knees, crossing your arms on the surface of his desk and resting your chin there. "I like having people to talk to and get opinions off of before I buy something."

He quirked a brow. A question being asked without the use of words.

You groaned, hitting your forehead on your arms. "Okay, you don't have to give an opinion on anything, but I would at least appreciate your company. Plus!" Your head and a hand shot up, finger pointing right at him. "There's not a lot of people out around this time. At least not as much as there usually is."

Your consideration was flattering.

He funneled his attention back to the piece of paper. He can't read a single thing he just wrote, and he's not even sure what he was attempting to write in the first place.

He sighed. "I need a new hat."

Immediately you hopped up, excitement and strangely, relief overtook your features. Shopping alone cannot be that lonely. "There's definitely a booth or two that would be selling hats." You retrieved his coat and hat from the rack.

Both were in perfect working order.

"I am getting a hat, and then leaving." He stood up and slid the coat on, making sure to not spill anything on his desk. "If you don't get your items before that, then you either brave it alone or walk back empty handed."

You clicked your heels together and saluted him. "Yes, sir."

He shook his head, then grabbed his cane.

As much as he wanted to ignore it, there's no way he could. You were odd, and have been odd for nearly a year. There was a time when you first started being odd that any sort of touching from anyone set you off.

He had you followed for almost three months after the first scare and nothing came of it. So whatever happened was either done and over with or they were extremely careful.

Over time it got better, so he called Inej off and let it rest, assuming you would talk to her or Nina, or Jesper and himself if you needed to. It doesn't seem like you did, but there's not much he can do other watch and wait.

He gave you his hat, putting it on your head.

"It would look odd if I went perusing for hats whilst wearing one."

You followed him out the door, adjusting the hat on your head. It didn't go with your wardrobe at all, yet it still flattered you. "Since when did you care about what others think?"

He scoffed. "I don't. But you do."

"It's an innate human thing."

"It's a learned trait."

The humidity knocked any response out of you once the door to the Slat opened. It was a bit worse than usual, so anyone other than locals would be staying inside hotels and clubs.

It'll be a good day for business.

The rest of the walk to the street you had in mind consisted of you toying with his hat, putting on in all sorts of ways that truly made you look stupid. Once, you even put it on upside down, the hat staying on for almost five minutes before a gust of wind tipped it forward. He nearly smiled.

The moment you saw the line of shops, your smile turned so wide he worried your cheeks might hurt.

"Okay okay. I know you said you would immediately be looking for a hat, but stay with me here." You were walking sideways, keeping up with his brisk pace. "There's these boot chains and thigh straps I really want your opinion on."

His eyes squinted slightly in confusion. "What would the boot chains be for?"

"Decoration of course." You stooped at the first stall. It various glassware trinkets. A paper tag was attached to all of them with a price displayed in ink. In them he could see a name, which matched the tag worn by the woman attending the stand. "They don't serve much purpose, but I figured I could give them purpose by using them to work on my foot work. Keep the noise as low as possible, y'know."

He nodded, moving along, forcing you to follow. "Inej could always help you with that."

You sighed. "Yeah, but I don't want to feel like a burden. Plus, I feel like it'd make a cool surprise. Impress her with my stealth." You pranced up to a stall a few lots down, the glinting of the chains catching your eye. "She's not the only one that can be sneaky."

"Inej is stealthy because she needs to be. You, on the other, have no reason to be stealthy."

Some of the chains had little trinkets dangling off the individual rings. One had tear drops, another had what looked to be very poorly shaped skulls. The size was definitely the problem, much too small for unskilled hands. Another, which you took interest in, had teeny knives. They surely would make a lot of noise.

Yet, you passed them up, continuing along. "Just because I don't have a reason to be stealthy doesn't mean I can't be." A slight hint of disappointment creeped into your tone. "It just does good to be able to get around without being heard. At least to the untrained ear."

You had him there.

He looked down the street. You were right, not very many people were walking up and down here, but there was definitely enough that he had to be very body conscious. It seemed to continue on for a few meters. Even connected roads had a shop of two.

You stopped once more, at a little stand with leather accessories. He continues on, slightly confused at the way you hurriedly abandon your window shopping to catch up.

That is, until Kaz felt you disappear from his side, getting lost in the trickling stream of bodies that were moving against the general current.

When he turned to look at you, you were hiding. Or at least trying to discreetly hide the fact that you're hiding.

He fully readys himself. Shoulders squaring and eyes scanning his surroundings, hands gripping his cane as he walks in front of a booth and looks around.

There's a moment where your eyes flicker a few booths away and then readjust back in front of you. It isn't much to go on, but he directs his attention that way.

A woman and a child are looking at patterned shawls and wraps, a much older woman attending the stand. Behind her is a man, looking fondly at the both of them, a word or two exiting his lips when the woman turns to ask a question. Standing off towards the corner where necklaces and pendants are pinned to a board is another man, who asks the old woman a question before excitedly handing over a few kruge and leaving with a skip in his step.

This reveals a man on the other side of the booth, staring completely and wholly in his direction.

You seem to notice that Kaz is looking at him, and try to get his attention.

"We really need to get back to the Slat, Kaz."

But it's too late. He's already memorized his face. His eye shape. The mole over his left brow. His complexion. The lack of a left canine as he smirks, eyes narrowing right at you.

The hair on the back of Kaz's neck stands on end.

"Kaz. We need to leave." You move in front of him. His eyes don't hesitate to focus on you, his focus narrowing when you utter a pleading "please" under your breath.

His eyes flicker to the man staring you down, getting one more look, before turning around and heading back in the direction you came.

You never bought anything, he realized, and that's what aggravated him more. If the situation was as he was understanding, you may have been looking forward to going for days, weeks, and didn't because of him.

The walk back was eerily silent, Kaz seething the whole way and trying to keep you within eyesight yet not on your heels. It wasn't until you walked in the doors of the Slat that he spoke to you again.

"Y/n. My office." He told you quietly just before you began to leave to your room. You stopped, your hands balling your pants. He waited a moment for you to think, and then followed you as you turned towards the stairs.

He keeps ample distance between yourself and him, letting you get up a flight of stairs before he starts. You're in his office with his hat in your hands, fingers rubbing the brim for nearly an entire minute before he walks in, letting your thoughts align.

He takes this slow, shutting the door and putting his coat where it's supposed to. He stares at the fabric for a minute, letting his boiling blood cool before he asks the questions he wants the answers to.

"Who was that?"

You let out a shakey breath, gripping the hat so hard he can see it bend and your knuckles turn white.

"Kaz, please. Not now."

"Then when?" He asks, a sharp edge to his voice, completely forgetting about taking this slow. "Is he the reason you've been like this?" He already knows the answer, but he needs the confirmation. He needs it before he does anything.

You look at him, angry tears welling up in your eyes. "Been like what?" You spit the words out, body staying put together and defensive.

"You've been inable to be alone for nearly a year when you go towards the Lid or anywhere in the Barrel, yet for nearly three months you werent able to have anyone touch you or go near you. Everytime you left here alone you were angry and frustrated." He sped towards his desk, opening a drawer and pulling out a candle. He watched as you go on the defensive, taking a step away from the desk. "You couldn't smell this particular scent without immediately shutting down and turning tail to the furthest corner of the building. Do not act and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about."

Tears spilled down your cheeks. "I hate you." You muttered. "I hate you and how- how observant you are. You do not get to make me feel like shit for keeping this to myself."

"That is not my intention and you know it."

"Well you're sure not doing a good job at expressing that." You put your face into the crown of the hat, hands shaking.

He stood there in silence. Watching you slowly break in front of him and try to keep yourself up. He knows he didn't go about this the right way, and internally scolded himself for being such a teenager.

Being as gentle as possible, he grabbed a chair from one side of the room and put it behind you, pushing on the hat to coax you downwards. You sat in the chair, an ugly sob escaping you.

He grabbed a rag in the bathroom, gently dropping it into your lap. It took you a moment to pull the hat away from your face, tears caking your cheeks and snot just barely escaping your nose quickly being covered again and wiped away.

It had to be him, but he needed to be sure. He needed to know who he was, who he loved, where he lives, how he evaded Inej, what his schedule was, even the names of his fucking dogs if he had any. He needs to know what he did to you, and what he has to do to replicate that pain ten, twenty, thirty times over.

Eventually, you stopped crying, the rag having been folded over and over again to find a dry surface was now soaked in tears and snot. You threw it to the side, towards the bathroom, continuing your hold on his hat like it was your lifeline.

"He..." Your voice was harsh and crackley. "He was a friend of mine. From my childhood. I lost contact with him maybe, seven years ago? He saw me last year and wanted to meet up and like the idiot I am, I said yes, without telling anyone where I was going."

The skin beneath your nose was rubbed raw. "He..." You squeezed your eyes shut, bottom lip quivering. "He raped me Kaz. I don't know for how long. All I know is when I met up with him it was light out and when I escaped it was pitch black. He said all kinds of shit like how he's wanted to do it since we were young and he's been dreaming about this for forever and I just, felt so disgusted I didn't want to talk about it. Not to Nina not to Inej... not to you."

The task of keeping himself level headed enough to finish this conversation with you was all consuming. But he managed to clear his head enough to respond. "Thank you for telling me."

"Well, it's not like you really gave me much of a choice."

He winced. "I didnt-"

"I know, you meant well, but still." Your eyes were tired, exhausted, shoulders dropped. "I just... need some time to recuperate. That's all." With a blank expression, you let your hands rest, fingertips grazing over the hat gently before standing.

You handed it back to him. He took it, staring at the accessory as he listened to you begin to leave. Before you closed the door, he called out, "What's his name?"

The door paused, your footsteps haulting. You popped your head back in, eyes facing anywhere except him, and said "Colin. Colin Norling." You wasted not another moment before closing the door and walking away.

He needed to find Inej.

------

The water from the canals sloshed as people passed by, paddles making waves in the water as boats cut through like a knife. All passerbys kept to themselves, feeling the mood of the black dressed boy walking along the edge, some even knowing who he was moved their paddles faster.

Walking to his destination wasn't hard. Not in the slightest. He memorized the path, scaring it into his mind and scratching it into a map on his desk.

He stopped in an alley, a clear shot of the house in question from around the corner. Lights were on inside, but according to Inej he had a habit of doing that every time he left the house. He wishes his house would burn down.

"Is he home?" He asked.

"Almost." Inej replied, appearing at his side. "Coming up along the road now." She nodded to the left, up the road.

He peeked around the edge, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

Not anxiety, no. His mind was clear, feet planted firmly on the ground, watching with set eyes as Colin Norling walked- no, strut down the cobblestone, a smile on his face. It showed off the missing tooth, the mole above his eye lifting as his face muscles shifted.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"No." He damn near growled, voice low. He could feel his throat and chest nearly begin rumbling as his jaw clenched. "You go back and keep an eye on Y/n. They're in a foul mood."

He feels Inej inch away, and then disappear without a word.

Colin opened his door, disappearing inside. Kaz waited for another moment, watching as the house brighter twice, before he walked out from the alley.

He strode over as casually as possible, even smiling at a woman who waved to him before she disappeared inside her own home.

Jesper would be waiting around back with a boat in another canal just behind the row of houses. This needed to be as simple as possible, as quiet as possible, until they got to their designated area.

The moment he stepped into the house, closing the door behind him, he became Dirtyhands.

"Oi, what're you doin' in my house?" The man nearly shouted, shoulders squared and fists curled. He was muscular, but not overwhelmingly so. It was a workers body, made for endurance rather than big shows of strength.

"I'll give you three guesses." He drew the curtains shut, keeping an eye on the bristling man.

"Three guesses? Wha' kinda game are you playin' here mate? Get out my fuckin' house!" He made a move on Kaz, a grab for the shoulder, but didn't make it far before the beak of a cane came in contact with his knee.

It wasnt enough to break it, but definitely enough to hurt later.

Colin cried out in pain, holding his knee.

"For that, you've only got two left."

He snapped his head back up to Kaz, anger in eyes. He couldn't wait to make them bloody.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! I'm not gonna tell you again you fuckin' loony, get out my house!" He was much quicker than last time, but Kaz was expecting it.

He side stepped, then moved backwards as Colin continued to try and grab at him. He enjoyed every moment that he limped and stubbed a toe, each little injury fueling the fire in him and making him clumsier and clumsier.

"Really not gonna guess, Colin?" He asked, placing them back in the exact same position as when they started this merry go round.

He became a little nervous. "How'd you know my name?"

"Lucky guess." He smiled, then brought his cane up and cracked him against the jaw, beak nearly piercing into the meat of his cheek.

Jesper appeared from the back entrance, rushing to catch him before he fell.

"Bloody hell." Jesper wheezed out. "Man could lay off an extra meal every once in a while, saints." He gripped him about the chest, hands threading under his arms and linking his fingers.

"He won't be worrying about meals anytime soon." He walked past Jesper and to the boat, making sure the planking was secure. The surrounding windows were all dim, curtains drawn. Even the woman next door was probably tucked away in bed, none the wiser.

He signaled to Jesper to load him in. "You know where to go."

"Yep. Meet you there in a quarter bell."

And with that he left out the front door, blood on his cane and purpose in his step. He ducked through alleys and through various businesses he had a share in, taking himself over Haverbridge and down Grafcanal until he got to Black Veil Island.

Jesper was coming up on it the same time he arrived, hopping out the moment he could pull it onto the murky bank and grabbed Colin by the chest again, lugging him up by a sack of potatoes.

It was a good thing Jesper worked on a farm.

He stayed above the mausoleum, watching as the moon began to descend. He didn't intend to finish anytime before the sun rose.

"He's all set up."

Kaz nodded, and disappeared below. The room was simple. Stone walls and a wood chair he had reinforced and bolted to the ground. Colin was tied to it, just waking up, with a thick rope. Various candles were spread around the room for light.

It was crude and simple. He didn't deserve any better.

"Wazzah'." He groaned, eyes fluttering open. Bloody spit ran down the corner of his lip, some dried on his neck. "Whuz 'appenin'.".

"Oh I think you know what's happening, Norling." He shrugged his jacket off, setting it down on the cleanest part of the floor. "You're just too thick in the head to catch up."

That got him awake. His head bolted up, eyes nearly rolling to the back of his skull at the change in position. But he recovered just as quickly, eyes squinting to get adjusted to the low light.

Once they finally did adjust, they narrowed almost completely. "You... you stupid fuck. Let me go!"

Kaz sighed. "Not used to being the one being held down, are you?"

His eyebrows crinkled. "What the fuck does that mean?"

He swung his cane again, hitting him in the knee again. The sound of his scream filled him with adrenaline, heart racing, but he kept it at bay.

"Do not play dumb with me, Norling."

"Fucking hell, mate. Wha' d'you want!?"

He raised his cane, relishing in the way he flinched, and dragged the tip of the beak along his thigh. It made a ripping noise along the texture of his trousers, but stayed perfectly intact for now.

"I want you to tell me why you did it." He stated vaguely.

"Did what!"

"Raped Y/n."

He was stunned, mouth a little open, chin quivering. He almost looked like he was going to cry.

"Who the fuck are you? What happened between us is none of your damn business."

That made him angry. He swung his cane again, hitting him right again his shin. He heard a satisfying crack, Colin screaming in pain. His head swung back, fingers splayed and curling, good leg trying to wiggle free.

"Why, did you do it?"

He didn't answer, tears falling down his cheeks.

Kaz unclipped a knife from the band of his trousers, flicking it open and grabbing the man by the crown of his hair. He held the blade just to the left of his esophagus, against the artery, and pressed.

"Why, did you do it?" He repeated, feeling his panicked and uneven breath. Blood was oozing from his head, eyes crossed trying to look at Kaz up close.

"Fuck you." He muttered, going to spit at Kaz.

He seen this coming, grabbing his face over his eyes and shoving the knife into his mouth. It clacked against teeth, but made a decent sized cut on his tongue.

The muscle bled profusely, Kaz forcing the man's head back so far that swallowing and breathing became strained, mouth pooling with blood as he tried to scream it out.

He left go, watching as his head fell forward and a river of red saliva ran down his chin and onto his shirt.

"I'd ask you again, but it doesn't seem like you'll be able to talk. So I will."

He threw his cane aside, the noise startling the man before him. He took his hat, the hat you were clutching just yesterday, and set it down gently on his coat.

"I am going to make the next few hours of life so miserable you will wish for death. You will call upon all the saints you can think of for forgiveness, for help, for an escape, for someone to rescue you. And nothing will happen." He walked around in a circle, watching with delicious delight as he tried to break his bonds. "I am going to carve out your guts while you're still awake, cut off your appendages, and feed them to you. Especially that one."

He pointed down to his lap, watching as pure unadulterated fear swept over his face. He thinks he said something along the lines of "You can't be serious.", but without the tongue it was only a matter of guessing.

Kaz's eyes narrowed. "You will find that I have am not a man of jokes, rather a man of terrible truths." He balled his hand into a fist, knife still in his hand, and gave him a good punch to his stomach.

He heard the vomit before it was coming, stepping out of the way as he spewed all over his knees. The acid definitely didn't do good for his tongue.

"I will make you hurt in places you didn't even know could feel pain. And you will be able to do absolutely nothing about it."

He dug the knife into his shoulder until he hit bone, the screaming now sounding more like gurgling, choking on his own spit and blood.

Blood gushed from the wound, spraying his face, clothes, and the ground several feet away.

For every tear that you shed into his hat, was an hour of pain and torment Colin Norling was sentenced to.

There were 8 drops.

------

He found you at 5th harbor sitting at a tourist berth, feet dangling over the open expanse of water he had once crawled out of.

At the time he had no one. Just a crippling fear of skin and unfathomable rage that gave him all the company he could ever need, eating at him every day from then on.

He would not sentence you to the same fate.

The ocean didn't scare him. That was something he made absolutely sure of the following weeks after his escape from death. His throat itched a little at the memory.

His approach was silent, the heels of his boots lightly rapping against the wood. It didn't feel new anymore, but he knew it was sturdy and would continue to be so for many years to come.

Without a word, he placed the hat onto your head. You didn't seem startled in the slightest, but you still looked up at him.

Your eyes widened at the blood on his shirt beneath his coat, the color staining his face and hands. It took you a moment to process what you were seeing, and when it seemed you did, you took the hat off.

It had two very thin spurts of blood dried into the dark fabric, the fluid turning nearly brown.

"So he's gone then?" Your voice was tight. So, so tight, with emotion. He couldn't see you breathing.

"As gone as gone can be."

The relied was immediate, entire torso collapsing onto your legs nearly sending you off the berth and into the waters below. Your face was buried in the hat once more.

The tears you shed now would have no need to be counted. Instead they would dry and be forgotten. He hoped the hat would bring you relief, a constant reminder that he was gone, and with time you could learn to be dependant again.

Or perhaps you would throw it away, free of the reminder of your defilement, your own peace of mind serving enough reassurance that you were free.

Whichever it may be, it was yours now.

He needed a new one anyway.

∘₊✧──────────────────✧₊∘

Tags:

@b3kk3r-by-br3kk3r @a-candle-maker

#ask #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker fanfic #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x y/n #kaz brekker x you #six of crows x reader #six of crows fanfic #fanfic #anon #rape tw #tw rape #sa tw #tw sa

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anandmahato · 10 months

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#viralpost #create digital products #viralreels #viralvideos #digital marketing #digital products #online selling #sell digital products #sell online #funnel #online course development #online courses #make money online #online

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exitrowiron · 9 months

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Investing 101

Part 1 of ?

A Tumblr mutual has asked me to explain brokers and stocks; I'm not an investing expert but I will share what I know (or what I think I know). The investing subreddit is a great source for those who really want to know the details.

What are stocks? When you buy a company's stock you own a small portion of the company. If a company has issued 100 shares and you purchase 1 share, you own 1/100th of the company. Most companies start out as private enterprises (i.e. owned by one of more individuals) and if the company is successful it may want to sell shares (i.e. go public). Going public is a major milestone in the life of a company. The process of issuing shares, quarterly reports, etc. is highly regulated by the SEC and requires audits, the creation of a board of directors and regular financial reporting, all in an effort to protect investors. In light of this expense, it's fair to wonder why an owner would want to go through the hassle of going public and giving up control of some (or all) of their company.

Going public (i.e. selling shares/stock) is a way of generating capital for the company. Perhaps a company needs an infusion of cash to build a new factory or expand to a new market... new stock issuances often include statements from the company about how it intends to use the proceeds. Issuing public shares is also a way to reward owners and key employees by giving them a way to get cash out of the business. Imagine you started a business 20 years ago and always funneled the company's earnings back into the business to help it grow. You may have a valuable business, but you have all your eggs in that basket and don't have cash to invest in other ways, buy a yacht etc. Likewise, you may have promised key employees partial ownership of the business, this is a way for them to cash-in also.

Regardless of the motivation, companies issuing stocks can choose to sell partial or full ownership of the company. Successful entrepreneurs often choose to retain majority ownership in the business - shareholders may collectively only own 40% of the business, for example, and have the right to elect 2 of 5 directors to the board. This kind of strategy allows the founder to have his cake and eat it too (i.e. cash-out some of the value of the business while still retaining control). A company can also sell various types of shares, each with different benefits. For example, a company may sell Preferred Shares, which are guaranteed to receive a dividend before other shares. Or the company may issue voting and non-voting shares (this is another way for a founder to retain control). Most retail investors (individuals like you and me), purchase Common Shares which have voting rights and are eligible for dividends.

What is a dividend? If you own a part of a company, it is reasonable to expect that you receive your proportionate share of the earnings right? The distribution of a company's earnings to shareholders is called a dividend. Companies may distribute dividends quarterly, annually or in the case of start-up or fast growing companies, not at all. Netflix for example, which had $8.19B in revenue and $1.49B in earnings in 2022 HAS NEVER PAID A DIVIDEND. Likewise, TESLA has never paid a dividend.

Why would anyone want to own shares in companies which don't pay dividends? It isn't at all uncommon for early stage and/or high growth companies to not pay dividends. The thinking is that the growth prospects for the company are so attractive, the money is best spent by reinvesting in the business. Of course there's an expectation that at some point in the future the business will mature and begin paying dividends. This is what happened with Microsoft and Apple for example. As long as the company continues to show accelerating growth, investors will overlook the lack the dividends, betting that the overall value of the company (and intrinsic value of the shares) will grow as well. Again, Netflix and Tesla are good examples of that.

This leads to the conclusion that there are two ways to make money from stocks - dividends and increases in the share price. I may not be concerned if I own a stock with a share price which has been stuck at $100 for the last 5 years if that company is paying me a $10 dividend every year. I'm still earning a 10% return on that investment. Conversely, I may be equally happy owning a stock which has never paid a dividend but is now worth $150 dollars versus my original purchase price of $100.

Stocks whose value is primarily derived from their reliability for generating dividends are called Value stocks. Stocks whose value is primarily derived from the growth of the stock price are called Growth stocks - Netflix and Tesla are examples of Growth stocks; Microsoft and Ford are examples of Value stocks. Admittedly this can be confusing; I remember our first broker asking if we were Value or Growth investors. It seems like a silly question; can't we have both? In truth, older investors like me tend to be Value investors... we like the reliability (and cash flow) of stable companies that declare dividends every quarter. Growth stocks can be exciting, but the stock prices can be volatile and older investors have little tolerance for volatility. Value stocks tend to be stable companies in stable industries. Growth companies are all about the future; there is an opportunity for much greater rewards, but that comes with more risk. Over a longer investing horizon (>10 years), a broad portfolio Growth stocks will likely outperform an equally broad portfolio of Value stocks. Old people don't have a long investing horizon, but young people do and each group's investment portfolio should be biased accordingly.

Next Post - how to buy stocks.

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