God I’m a sucker for characters who are so utterly loyal to someone that they’re completely unhinged. Characters who have no moral compass except their overwhelming devotion to whoever they’ve chosen to listen to. That’s the good shit
found family is "i have endured the fucking horrors with these guys. i would both kill and die for them. i would rip my own bones out to make splints to heal theirs. there is no name for the bond we share"
found family is NOT "this guy is so dad-coded and these guys are so sibling-like and—"
getting comments on ao3 makes me go so power hungry like. oh yeah you read the thing?? you read the WHOLE thing and even took time out of your day to give your WRITTEN INPUT on it???? make out with me.
there are two things i'm really bad at remembering: who I've told stuff to and who told me something
like i'll be at work and be like oh yeah someone showed me that already, no clue who it was though lol
it's not an issue with names, i'm okay with names, but when that happens i just literally can't remember anything about who it was. no face or physical attributes, no nothing.
there's this theory bubbling up in my brain that I don't want to say what it is because it's so much more out there than usual for me. 🤔 plus I want to look over some things with it in mind just to see if it lines up at all.
While I'm writing things that I've been intending to write for a while... one of the things that I think that a lot of people who haven't been involved in like... banking or corporate shenaniganry miss about why our economy is its current flavor of total fuckery is the concept of "fiduciary duty to shareholders."
"Why does every corporation pursue endless growth?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.
"Why do corporations treat workers the way they do?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.
"Why do corporations make such bass-ackwards decisions about what's 'good for' the company?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.
The legal purpose of a corporation with shareholders -- its only true purpose -- is the generation of revenue/returns for shareholders. Period. That's it. Anything else it does is secondary to that. Sustainability of business, treatment of workers, sustainability and quality of product, those things are functionally and legally second to generating revenue for shareholders. Again, period, end of story. There is no other function of a corporation, and all of its extensive legal privileges exist to allow it to do that.
"But Spider," you might say, "that sounds like corporations only exist in current business in order to extract as much money and value as possible from the people actually doing the work and transfer it up to the people who aren't actually doing the work!"
Yes. You are correct. Thank you for coming with me to that realization. You are incredibly smart and also attractive.
You might also say, "but Spider, is this a legal obligation? Could those running a company be held legally responsible for failing their obligations if they prioritize sustainability or quality of product or care of workers above returns for shareholders?"
Yes! They absolutely can! Isn't that terrifying? Also you look great today, you're terribly clever for thinking about these things. The board and officers of a corporation can be held legally responsible to varying degrees for failing to maximize shareholder value.
And that, my friends, is why corporations do things that don't seem to make any fucking sense, and why 'continuous growth' is valued above literally anything else: because it fucking has to be.
If you're thinking that this doesn't sound like a sustainable economic model, you're not alone. People who are much smarter than both of us, and probably nearly as attractive, have written a proposal for how to change corporate law in order to create a more sensible and sustainable economy. This is one of several proposals, and while I don't agree with all of this stuff, I think that reading it will really help people as a springboard to understanding exactly why our economy is as fucked up as it is, and why just saying 'well then don't pursue eternal growth' isn't going to work -- because right now it legally can't. We'd need to change -- and we can change -- the laws around corporate governance.
Corporations today operate according to a model of corporate governance known as “shareholder primacy.” This theory claims that the purpose
This concept of 'shareholder primacy' and the fiduciary duty to shareholders is one I had to learn when I was getting my securities licenses, and every time I see people confusedly asking why corporations try to grow grow grow in a way that only makes sense if you're a tumor, I sigh and think, 'yeah, fiduciary duty to shareholders.'
(And this is why Emet and I have refused to seek investors for NK -- we might become beholden to make decisions which maximize investor return, and that would get in the way of being able to fully support our people and our values and say the things we started this company to say.)
Anyway, you should read up on these concepts if you're not familiar. It's pretty eye-opening.
Yeah, there's actually such a thing as "Criminal Mismanagement", and while it normally applies to corruption, it can, has, and will be used to say "You made a decision that was good for the public. You made a decision that was good for your workers. You made a decision based in ethics. That is the legal equivalent of stealing from the stakeholders."
You know that people don't know what they don't know, right? That it's impossible to know that you don't know something like this?
And that's why I wrote this post in the first place, because I realized that people don't seem to know this?
To be blunt, this information is not made readily available to most people, and that's by design. Most of us aren't taught this in school on purpose. Most of us don't get this explained to us on purpose.
The reaction in the notes of this post is why that's the case! But people don't know that they don't know this fact, which... yeah. That's how knowing things works.
Anyway, that's why I wrote the post in the first place.
So most stories take place when Events are Happening, and this means that no matter what kind of job the characters have, they’re probably not too focused on them. Fanfics, on the other hand, often show the down time. Which means that the writer has to figure out what the hell these characters do in their jobs. Unless the characters have a job the author understands or knows well, the author is often at a loss for what to have the character doing.
So they sit them at a desk and give them paperwork. What is the paperwork for? Rarely specified. It is Paper Work for the characters Important Adult Job they have and they need to read or sign it or something. And there’s always a line about how Character Hates Paperwork. Doesn’t matter if Character is a Mafia Boss or a General or a Diplomat, here they are in an office trying to get out of Doing Paperwork.
There’s also a sense of, like, humor and mundanity that comes with it. Like the examples above, it always particularly stands out to me when a dangerous individual is griping about some paper they need to sign or something. The less you can picture Character doing paperwork, all the better to force it upon them. If Character is saddled with Paperwork, they’re usually now concerned about the physical damages their motley crew causes, because damage = More Paperwork.
Anyway I just think it’s fun or funny, Sephiroth doing paper work and Sawada Tsunayoshi doing paper work and this just in, Tony Stark is doing paperwork. Sorry, Phoenix Wright can’t play right now. Yeah, it’s paperwork.
is it not enough to make us move to the new app to get new functionality, you have to TAKE AWAY FUNCTIONALITY WE ALREADY HAD?
I'm over here really hoping this is a misunderstynding because the rage is rising
granted, I'm not a programmer or anything so I can't say for sure. But it was my understanding that part of paying to upgrade to GN6 was the option of multi-device, non-Apple sync through some method they're hosting. Ok, sure, whatever. But they still do iCloud there too, and iCloud is NOT their infrastructure, they don't have to take on the cost and work of maintaining it. Right??
Maybe they have to pay Apple to use it, or something, but it's not like they aren't offering that feature on the new version and those of us on version 5 are the last holdouts. They're still engaged with that system on version 6.
To me this feels like a move ONLY to keep making the legacy version feel more and more inferior artificially because they can't get enough people to upgrade based on the new version's merits alone.
Today I'm doing the cliche thing and running back off to work because I tried making a leap for my dream but it was not enough, it could not support me so I'm no longer able to focus solely on it.
That does not mean I'm giving up. I've worked and written and I can do it again. People do it all the time. And while it is a little sad, I've taken the first steps and laid the groundwork to continue growing, something that will in some ways be better once I have more resources to put into it. No step forward is a wasted one.
I mean I'm doing a public book signing Jan 13th so there is already something to look forward to on the horizon. <3
dededos
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
yousharknotpass
areudirty
