TODAY (Jul 11), I’ll be at the Idler Festival in LONDON.
Here's an irony: the "gig economy" is a statistical black hole. Workers, customers and regulators know very little about the most basic aspects of it: how much workers get paid, for example, or much unpaid time on the clock a worker puts in before they get a job from the app.
The reason this is ironic is that the "gig economy" is dominated by a handful of massive, data-driven firms that know the precise, up-to-the-second answer to these questions. The problem is that they won't share the data. Of course, workers and customers have the data, too, but our data is widely diffused, with each worker and each customer only representing a single, infinitesimal pixel in this massive picture.
Most of our industry-wide figures about the sector come from painstaking, expensive survey work. The expense and effort involved in conducting this analysis means that the public's understanding of the gig companies' business is fragmentary and thin.
But every now and again, we get a flashbulb glimpse of the full picture. One of those glimpses was captured by David Weil, the former labor standards boss at the US Department of Labor. In 2024, the Massachusetts Attorney General sued Uber over worker misclassification, with Weil serving as an expert witness, who was able to access the raw data on Uber's business operations.
In a new American Prospect longread called "The Dangerous Myth of Flexibility," Weil builds on the public record developed in the case to demolish the central myth of the gigwork companies: that they enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement with their workers by offering "flexibility" that lets workers "choose work that fits the rhythms of their lives, not the other way around":
This quote comes from Tony West, the Uber executive who has led the company's efforts to formalize its worker misclassification program, notably California's Prop 22, a $225m statewide campaign that overturned the state's landmark gig work standards. West is also Kamala Harris's brother-in-law, and he served as her campaign's corporate liaison, senior strategist and economic policy advisor.
On its face, West's statement sounds reasonable, and most of us have heard a version of it, possibly even from an Uber driver. But what Uber calls "flexibility" is really a way for the company to offload its operational risks onto its drivers.
Anyone who runs a business has to manage a key operational risk: staffing levels. A restaurateur who doesn't schedule enough cooks, bussers and servers might have to turn away business at the door if there's a rush. But if the restaurateur schedules too many people for a shift, they'll end up paying for those workers to stand around scrolling Tiktok.
In America, Congress and state legislatures have created a system that allows restaurateurs to transfer this risk onto their employees: the "tipped minimum wage." Federally, the minimum wage for tipped employees is only $2.13/hour, with the caveat that employees are obliged to "top up" their workers' pay if the tips from their shift don't add up to $7.25/hour. So if you work five hours and don't wait on a single table, your boss has to pay you $36.25 ($7.25/hour * 5 hours). But if you have a busy shift and you make $40 in tips, your boss only has to pay you $10.65 ($2.13 * 5 – the tipped minimum).
This is a transfer of risk from bosses to workers. The boss can schedule extra servers and offload most of their wages to diners who come through the doors. If your boss overestimates the amount of business, much of the cost of that miscalculation comes out of your paycheck.
This is quite a sweet deal for bosses. After all, servers have virtually no control over the amount of business a restaurant attracts. It's the boss, not the server, who decides where the restaurant will be, which hours it will keep, which food it will serve, how much the food costs, what advertisements to run, and where and when to run them. The boss controls the decor, staff attire and the music. They make the decisions, and workers pay the price if they decide poorly.
For most businesses, workers are less exposed to risks from their boss's strategic errors. If your boss screws up, you might see a lower annual bonus, or take a career hit thanks to the bad company's presence on your CV. Of course, if your boss really messes up they might lay you off or go out of business altogether, but it's a rare business that gets to externalize its risks onto its workers on a shift-by-shift basis the way restaurants get to.
But as sweet as restaurateurs have it, that's nothing compared to the incredible deal that gig platforms get. Companies like Uber and Lyft get to shift nearly all their risk to their workers, and then insist that they're doing workers a favor by offering them "flexibility." Like a restaurateur, Uber and Lyft control all the mechanisms by which the number of riders is set. They decide how to advertise and how to price their rides. When a driver signs on and makes themselves available – at no charge – to Uber, it is the company's actions, not the driver's, that determine whether that driver gets a job, and how much they'll get paid.
Uber and Lyft claim that drivers have control, too – when (if) they're offered a job, they get to decide whether to take it. This is true, but it's more complicated than that. Drivers get about 15 seconds (!) to decide whether to accept a job, which means they have 15 seconds to calculate the mileage and time-based rate on offer, all while operating a vehicle in traffic. Drivers who accept lowball offers risk having their base pay permanently eroded through "algorithmic wage discrimination," which is when the gig platforms infer that workers who accept very low wages are economically desperate and can be offered even lower wages in the future:
But workers can't simply refuse offers and wait for the wage on offer to increase. That increase may happen, but if a driver is too picky, the platform will punish them for turning down too many offers by excluding them from future opportunities. If this happens often enough, the driver may end up broke enough to start accepting those lowballs, triggering the inexorable downward trajectory of their expected earnings.
This is "flexibility," but mostly it's flexibility for Uber, not for drivers. Uber controls when a driver gets paid, and they control the data about that payment. This allows Uber to claim to be paying well north of minimum wage, while drivers average less than $2.50/hour. Uber exploits its information asymmetry to publish only the numerator (the amount a driver makes when a passenger is in the car) while hiding the denominator (how many hours it takes for Uber to put a passenger in that car):
Uber has perfected a system of algorithmic pricing that allows it to dangle just enough money in front of drivers to maximize their number on the road, irrespective of how many riders are looking for cars. The fact that they have all the information (while drivers have none) allows them to extract vast amounts of totally unpaid labor from those drivers. And then, once a passenger gets in the car, Uber's informational systems let it pay that driver the absolute minimum they will accept for the ride.
Of course, it works the same way for passengers, each of whom is offered a different price for the same rides, based on the company's surveillance data and its realtime calculations about how much the rider is willing to pay. When Uber launched, driver pay and passenger fares were linked (the same way a server's tips and the cost of a meal are linked). Today, these are fully decoupled. Uber runs a kind of cod-Marxist operation where workers are paid according to their desperation, and passengers are gouged according to their ability to pay:
This works so well (for Uber) that Uber has launched a side hustle selling algorithmic pricing and algorithmic wage discrimination systems to companies in other sectors, so expect this arrangement to infect ever-wider swathes of the economy:
(And this is neither here nor there, but holy shit, is Uber's investor relations site seriously serving ASPX pages in 2026?! Hey Khosrowshahi, the DOJ called and it wants its Clinton-era antitrust evidence back!)
Back to algorithmic pricing: this opaque, take-it-or-leave-it algorithmic pricing arrangement sets Uber apart from other platforms where sellers offer temporary use of their property to buyers. As Weil writes, at least Airbnb hosts get to override the nightly rate suggested by the platform (though I'd add that the platforms will downrank and bury people who resist their suggestions).
As Weil points out, even if Uber had to pay the minimum wage and assume other operational risks associated with running a business, they'd still have access to these algorithmic tools, albeit with different parameters. Rather than setting the wage floor for drivers at $0/hour, they'd have to pay $7.25/hour (the federal minimum wage, or more, depending on the state). This would force the company to refuse shifts to drivers when there were enough workers on the road to handle demand, but drivers would benefit from this arrangement – rather than driving around for a shift, burning gas and putting wear on your car without getting paid, Uber would just tell you to stay home.
Uber could try to offload those risks onto passengers, but remember, Uber is already charging riders a personalized price based on massive troves of surveillance data that is continuously re-analyzed to guess the largest sum you're willing to pay for any given ride. You're already paying the highest price Uber can set for you, in other words.
Weil has been in many forums – including that Massachusetts courtroom – where Uber touted its "flexibility" as a benefit to drivers. But as he shows, Uber could offer all the same flexibility to drivers without the downside risk of driving around for hours without earning a dime. Sure, forcing Uber and Lyft to extend rights and protections that every employee gets would raise their costs – but "the same is true for any company having to comply with employment law and work protections."
Outside of the US, these companies are being forced to shift the risk from their workers' backs to their own balance sheets. As Weil writes, the UN's International Labor Organization has set binding labor standards for gig companies, called Convention 193, "Decent Work in the Platform Economy":
The US government is pulling out all the stops to prevent these standards from being applied to US gig companies, even abroad. Trump's labor boss Keith Sonderling told the world that the US government "will not sit on the sidelines while some foreign governments push to hamper American innovation in the gig economy worldwide":
But, as Weil says, this isn't about innovation, flexibility or AI. It's about gig companies changing the distributional outcome of whole sectors, to shift money from workers to investors.
The rest of the world has its own ideas. In Switzerland, the Supreme Court found that gig companies' businesses were illegal and ordered them to extend normal labor protections to gig workers. Naturally, the gig companies just ignored the law and continued to screw those workers. Gig workers, as noted, are diffused. They don't work in the same place. They have no way to find out who else works for the same boss as they do. The same factors that keep us from gathering stats on gig work also keeps gig workers from comparing notes on how they're getting shafted.
What's a labor organizer to do? The Swiss labor union Syndicom came up with an ingenious solution. They partnered with a popular, pro-union pizza restaurant, listed it on the delivery platforms, and then placed orders for tons of pizzas through the scofflaw food-delivery platforms. They transformed the pizzeria into a pop-up union labor hub, and had an organizing conversation with every rider the company dispatched to the restaurant:
https://vimeo.com/1203473793
This is deliciously ingenious, and the labor organizing need not stop there. Companies like Para have shown how, by jailbreaking the apps used by gig workers, they can allow those workers to comparison shop for the best wage. Rather than getting 15 seconds while navigating traffic to decide whether a job is worth taking, drivers and riders could use a "counter-app" that evaluates all the offers on all the platforms and coordinates with other workers to mass-reject lowball offers:
The only problem is the "anticircumvention" laws that criminalize this kind of reverse-engineering and modifications of apps. These laws make it a literal crime to change how an app running on your own phone works. These laws were invented in America, with 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but in the ensuing years, the US Trade Rep has used the threat of tariffs to force every country in the world to adopt their own anticircumvention laws. By caving into US bullying, all of America's trading partners have left their workers and consumers vulnerable to technological surveillance, manipulation and price-gouging, to the great benefit of the US tech companies that have fused with the Trump regime.
This is the hidden silver lining to Trump's lunatic tariffs: they take away the threat that kept all those US-protecting foreign IP laws in force. When someone threatens to burn your house down unless you do as you're told, and then they burn your house down anyway, you really don't have to keep complying:
The possibilities for counterapps in gig work are endless. In Indonesia, gig rider co-ops commission "Tuyul" apps that mod their dispatch apps in ways small (upsizing the font) and large (spoofing the GPS):
In his article, Weil cites a study showing that customers for gig apps tend not to comparison shop – once you choose your default taxi-hailing app, that becomes your go-to. But with counter-apps, your default could be a price-comparison app that bids out your job to all the platforms and chooses the cheapest one, forcing the gig companies to compete with each other:
The platforms like to pitch themselves as "frictionless," but the reality is that they don't reduce friction so much as reallocate it. Because they control the technology, because the law makes it a literal crime to wrestle that control away, they can shift all the friction from their side of the ledger to yours, whether you're a worker or a customer:
Tony West isn't lying when he says Uber values flexibility – they value their flexibility, which arises out of the constraints (technical, legal) they impose on us: the drivers and passengers.
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:
SCP!au | part 1 [you are here] → Part 2 →... Part 3 (I will add links as development progresses)
Lucien (no Lou, I banned him) appeared at the complex suddenly, but unnoticed. The Foundation did try to treat him as a psionic being, since NO ONE remembers who hired him or how. However, everyone immediately felt like, "Hmm, I've probably seen him before? He's always been here." Nevertheless, he immediately took the position of a top-secret scientist, and then the head of the [][] site. So his personnel file is indeed filled with interesting notes like, "What year has he been here since?" or about his origins. In fact, if his file had been completed, they would probably have classified him as an archon, because it's not just impossible to lock him in a box... It's possible, but it's impractical, and no one will do it. The Foundation needs him as an amazingly strong and useful employee with a level of immunity to psionic anomalies like 035 (possession mask). And Rire needs the Foundation to satisfy his need for entertainment.
In fact, he managed to make a splash not only in site- [][]. Before the leadership zone, he managed to work in Zone 17 and Zone 19. These are among the largest and most historically influential zones in the Foundation (which is why he became interested in them). Admittedly, they were the most intense for Rire, because WELL, THERE'S A CONTAINMENT BREACH ALMOST EVERY DAY THERE, so you can relieve stress and have fun. And even get respect afterwards (it's nice to stroke your ego).
And even though half the staff is treated with amnestics, Rire still left behind a ton of rumors. In the eyes of the staff, he was a mutated rebel of chaos, a messenger from the Global Occult Coalition, and a chthonic... Particularly interesting was the theory that he was one of the courtiers of Alagadda (an alternate universe), although it was patently false.
In general, Rire is very amused by how people see him. Maybe that's the only reason he hasn't killed them all yet. They're interesting! Still, there's plenty to keep a simple, crazy monster like Rire busy.
Site-[][] (as employees)→
Field Agent (explorer), Security Agent, Scientist (Level 2) and IT Specialist, Medical Unit Nurse ("guys 👉👈") ,Containment Specialist. + Rire as Site director
Btw, there's a direct functional chain between the boys in this AU. It's not a loose collective with a common boss (my AUs usually operate without complex connections), but a functioning structural unit. An explorer discovers an anomaly => a specialist captures it and brings it to the Foundation => a security agent monitors its contents => a scientist studies it => a medic treats each participant in the process.
It turns out that everyone plays an important role for the Foundation at every stage. Well... with the caveat that their site doesn't contain anything extremely dangerous. They're all roughly Level 2 employees, and their site corresponds to their security clearance.
Tr.rus. Caleb: "OH HOW DARE YOU?? I've done so much! I've been through so much bullshit! I even suppressed some of these object-freaks myself! And you call this a promotion? YOU JUST SENT ME TO A KINDERGARTEN FOR NERDS! There's absolutely nothing to do here, it IS humiliating as fuck."
Zeke: "damn :("
The Foundation, as part of a D-Class recruitment program, recruited Caleb, a drug lord serving a life sentence. It was the classic "work for a month and then you're free." Donahue agreed. At the end of the month, as usual, he was supposed to be given amnestics (no one gets disposed of; it's not practical). He had somehow developed a resistance to memory-erasing substances. From there, he could either be killed or integrated into the workforce. So gradually, the D-Class rose to the rank of junior staff member, and was even assigned to one of the Mobile Task Forces, thanks to his experience with SCP.
I asked myself if the characters have a favorite object. Here are a kilogram of headcanons on this topic xD
Non-canon ask from tgc:
An idea was suggested in the comments involving a dangerous object! And while there are no physically strong SCPs in the [][] zone (there are a couple of Keters, but they're psionics), let's imagine a hypothetical situation where a VERY CREEPY [data expunged] escapes.
Tr. "Everything would have been... much easier if they had given me a shotgun."
A sudden throw-in! Grimshaw is also in the AU, just like the others. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Grishaw to be able to construct a canonical branch for him :( but I imagine he could have become a high-level researcher or even a manager. The caveat is that he secretly supports an organization that opposes the Foundation, and right now he's analyzing an interesting object with telepathic abilities *wink*
as per the results of the poll, let's dive into our next willmack lore topic! oh, where to begin...
Who is Logan Cooley?
logan cooley was drafted 3rd overall by the arizona coyotes in 2022 but had a pretty lacklustre rookie year, especially in comparison to mack's breakout performance. he had periods of high-level playmaking followed by stretches where he struggled to produce.
early in the season, he played nearly 20 minutes a game, but his ice time dipped as the season progressed, with some games seeing him play fourth-line minutes, suggesting coaches were trying to manage his development or accountability.
with the suspenstion of the yotes in 2024, all team assests, including cooley, were transferred to the utah expansion team that would later become the utah mammoth where cooley plays as of 2025/26.
he also recently signed an 8 year extension with utah, marking his commitment to the team and consolidating his status as a franchise player.
he's from pittsburgh and actually got his start in hockey playing with sidney crosby's 'little penguins program'! he went on to play triple a with the junior pens. despite this, he says he grew up an ovi and caps fan.
cooley then went on to play for the usntdp, where in 2021/22 he played alongside our very own will smith! (plus all the usual suspects: leno, gabe, zeev, lane too).
he later made his senior national team debut for the usa at worlds 2025 alongside will, where he recorded four goals and eight assists in ten games, tied lead for the team in points, and helped team usa win their first gold medal since 1933!
let's not forget that at this same tournament, mack was playing for team canada, who lost unexpectantly to denmark in the QFs, whilst cooley went on to win gold alongside mack’s boybestfriend...
Beginnings of a rivalry
the first instance (and probably origin) of mack's beef with logan cooley comes from a moment in the third period of a sharks-utah game in december 2024 where the game was tied 3-3. the game had been particularly physical, with mack getting boarded pretty hard by stendlund earlier on in the game. so when zetterlund got hit by simashev and eky got tied up with cooley, it led to lots of other sharks and utah players getting involved.
alternate crowd pov here! as we can see, mack ends up tied up with sergachev but cooley completely dips on the main scrum to go at it with mack lol. eventually they end up in their own tussle and mack ultimately ends up on top (both literally and figuratively) by the boards.
this was a big deal at the time because it was the first time mack had really gone for it with anyone! and both mack and cooley seemed pretty heated throughout their scrum... i think this photo perfectly encapsulates their feelings about one another lol
when interviewed after the game, mack said:
'I just kinda... I don't know what set it off. If any of my teammates are in a scrum, I'll go help. You can't leave them out to dry.'
'I just saw Eky kind of get jumped, so I stepped in.'
evidently mack didn't like the way cooley went in on eky which is why they probably ended up fighting each other away from the scrum.
Sharks v Utah saga continues
so, the 25/26 season rolls around and the sharks play utah in october. many of us were wondering if mack and logan would be beefing again and, well, lo and behold!
full gif set here! not only does mack drive cooley into the boards, he then also continues to hold him down against the ice (amazing), at which point cooley just starts grappling him down to the ice too and gets mack in a headlock (??) just like, this was truly insane.
the sharks and utah then meet again in december and everyone was much less surprised this time around when mack and logan started beefing at the net. logan gave mack one too many shoves and mack took exception to it, but their teammates and the refs get involved before it could develop into anything more (booo). full clip here! full gif set!
Playoff race
the rivalry between the sharks and utah has become much more scrappy as of late, espeically in the 2025/26 season, because both teams are competing for a western conference wildcard spot!! they're both in very similar places in terms of a rebuild too.
in this interview with army, mack actually names utah as the sharks’ biggest rivals. historically this would be the la kings, of course, but with the wildcard race and the added cooley beef for mack, ofc he said utah 🙃
this post also does a fabulous job explaining the similarities between these two and the lingering bitterness this might instil. essentially, boiling down to both mack and logan being two high draft picks with expectation bearing down on them, the two faces of their franchises, yet only mack seems to get any recognition for what he's doing from hockey fans and the league...
when discussing the rivalry, the sharks broadcast summed it up pretty perfectly here:
'I think both players play at such a high level. I think Macklin is the standard for all young NHL players.'
'I'm sorry, Logan Cooley is not Macklin Celebrini, and I think he knows that.'
... yeOUCH. yeah. if i'm logan cooley, i'd be pretty pissed off and riled up too.
Surveys
quite hilariously, in a survey by the athletic, active nhl players were asked which player they thought was the 'most punchable'. of course the usual names appeared, cousins, tkachuk, marchand, and oh- who's that with one singular vote, you say? mr. logan cooley? hmmm...
of course we immediately assumed this was mack's vote lol, but it would fit! no other player has had such continuous beef with cooley👀
logan cooley also more recently received one vote for 'worst chirper'! haha
In conclusion...
that brings us up to date with mack's beef with logan cooley for now!! i'm sure we will continue to see this rivalry flare up, especially as the sharks and utah continue to battle it out for a playoff spot!
Mamdani has promised to create 200,000 units of new publicly subsidized, rent-stabilized housing and to fast-track projects consisting entirely of below-market-rate units. His campaign website claims that previous administrations relied “almost entirely” on the zoning code to encourage affordable housing. This is not so. For 40 years, New York has run the nation’s most ambitious and successful affordable-housing program, which rebuilt great swaths of the city using billions of dollars in municipal investment. Zoning changes to allow more housing construction are of recent vintage.
“Zohran and his advisers don’t know history and don’t have the slightest grasp of the numbers,” a former top city housing official told me. (He asked not to be identified because he still works with the city on affordable-housing projects.) Mamdani himself has proposed to triple the amount of money spent on housing in the city’s capital plan, pushing overall costs toward $100 billion over 10 years, which overshadows the estimated cost of his rivals’ plans. And he proposes to accomplish this with union labor, which the city’s Independent Budget Office found would add 23 percent to overall costs.
Meanwhile, Mamdani’s proposal to freeze rent in rent-stabilized units ignores fundamental problems: Landlords of much of the city’s rent-stabilized housing stock—including a number of respected nonprofit groups—cannot afford maintenance costs and debt service, the watchdog Citizens Budget Commission wrote recently. Because expenses are growing faster than rents in older buildings, many are “teetering on the edge of a ‘death spiral.’”
I reached out to Mamdani’s campaign for comment on these issues and have not yet heard back. His supporters seem unbothered by the obvious holes in his proposals. His tax increases sound righteous, a socialist holding the wealthy to account. But the state legislature and governor would have to sign off, and that is a very distant possibility.
I needed to pull this section out because, as many of you may know, my job involves dealing with affordable housing and development and whatnot for the city. And Michael Powell (the writer of this Atlantic piece) and the anonymous former housing official are fully correct, and Mamdani is fully wrong.
The city's zoning plan had not received any kind of comprehensive or focused update since the 1960s, and most construction and development (for housing and otherwise) goes through rezoning through either the UDAAP or ULURP process, which involves the city council specifically designating it a certain way to exempt or change the zoning requirements for the property and the project. It's not until Adams and the City of Yes this past year that we had a comprehensive update, and one with a specific detailed housing component.
In the last budget, the city allocated $2.2 billion in capital funding to the city's housing department for funding development of new and existing affordable housing, and that was a remarkably high amount. The state also allocates funding through the state-level housing and development agency (HCR). Additionally, there's a state-established public corporation (HDC) which also provides funding and support for affordable housing development through the issuance of bonds.
With affordable housing, NYC both builds new housing but also "preserves" or rehabs existing affordable housing. The amount of space available to build new housing is limited, the amount of city-owned property is even more so (which would allow for, in theory, quicker building) and there's numerous parties to the deals both internal to the city as well as external, not limited to the developer, banks, lawyers, architects, contractors etc.
Preserving existing affordable housing involves relocating tenants, identify issues ranging from cash flow, maintenance, arrears (rent and utility, both by tenants but also by the property owner) etc. These are some of the most difficult projects to manage, and often involve a lot of financing. These projects also involve more HUD-financing, and so working with HUD is a big part of the work.
All projects involve some kind of community meeting, and often require council member approval (both the council as a whole as well as the specific council members the projects are located in).
Due to climate change, there's resiliency and environmental concerns, particularly with projects that would be located in flood zones (hello to the Rockaways).
Certain projects, if they have federal funds, trigger Davis-Bacon requirements, meaning contractors and subcontractors must be paid at the "prevailing wage", which adds to the costs (and is essentially what using union labor on all projects would do).
There are multiple oversight agencies involved which scrutinize the use of city funds for these projects, from the Comptroller to the Office of Management and Budget, and they all have lengthy review periods and rather stringent oversight and firm jurisdiction, which slows projects and causes problems.
That's not getting into what other parts of the city's housing department do, from dealing with code violations to providing Section 8 vouchers and so forth.
What Mamdani is proposing doing would require not just a fuckton of money, but also a complete overhaul of city procurement and financing processes, administrative shakeups, and intense negotiations with the city council, the state legislature, and the governor. On top of dealing with other mayors and governors in surrounding states (transportation is another area similar to housing with lots of stumbles and challenges) and with the federal government being the way it is.
“Hold still, piggy," the manager mutters, his voice as flat and clinical as the fluorescent lights overhead. He doesn't look at your face, he’s too busy assessing the fresh real estate you’ve developed since yesterday. His gloved hand glides over the soft, doughy muffin top spilling over your waistband, kneading the warm dough of your side before he presses a large, cold stamp against the skin. You shiver as the ink takes hold, leaving a perfectly centered advertisement for the Oreo McFlurry now decorating the bulge of your waist. It’s your first "contribution" of the day, and it earns you a fifty percent discount, but you know you aren't leaving until you’ve earned the whole tray.
He moves to your chest next, muttering about your growth being “impressive” under his breath as he realizes how much your cleavage has overgrown since the last session. He has to ask you for help to push your heavy breasts together, just so he can fit the "20 Pc. McNuggets" stamp across the top of your udders. You’re breathing heavy already, the scent of fryer oil and salt making your head swim while you watch him tally up the "Ad Space" on a digital tablet. You’re becoming a top-tier partner in the Rewards Program, a status that’s reflected in the way your pants are screaming at the seams, the fabric literally failing to contain the "McGriddle" deal stamped across each cheek of your ass as it spills out the back. These days you’re wondering whether you should wear fewer clothes or not, after all it’s more ad space visible and you’ll outgrow them soon enough anyway. He grabs the next stamp~
It’s time for crown jewel, the front and center ad space… the underhang. The manager has to kneel down for it, his hands bracing against your thighs as he hoists up the massive, sagging apron of your belly. It’s thick and heavy, flowing out over your waistband like a slow-motion landslide of fat. He carefully aligns the "Big Mac" logo, pressing it firmly into the center of your belly where the fat is softest and most visible. You let out a shaky breath, your legs trembling from the effort of standing as the ink bites in. It’s a foolproof business strategy really, you’re more than enough proof of that. You’ve grown so much that the ads are starting to warp, the golden arches stretching out into long, thin lines across your hips, but you don't care. You’re too addicted to the constant flow of salt and grease, too deep in the hole to ever pay for a meal with actual money again. You traded it all away for your gluttony.
"Excellent growth," he says, finally looking up with a smirk as he slides a tray across the counter. It’s stacked high with enough food to feed a family, but it’s all for you. "You've got enough room for the Premium Piggy tier today." He pulls out a set of darker, permanent-looking stamps, and your heart skips a beat. These aren't for the menu. He presses the first one into the curve of your shoulder: Body Built by McDonald's. The next one goes right on the peak of your distended gut: Property of the Golden Arches. You watch the ink settle into your stretch marks, realizing that you’ve long since left customer status and moved into the category of ‘asset’ and McDonalds wants a return on their investment~
You’re tearing into the first burger before you’ve even left the counter, your mind a hazy, sugary mess of submission. This happens more often than not, you can’t really stop yourself anymore once the food is front of you. The manager has to shoo you away to a table as you waddle past the line of waiting “billboards”. They’re all different levels of obese, some smaller and some bigger than you, but they all have the fading ink on their overfed, overgrown bodies as evidence of yesterday’s advertising efforts. Most of them are breathing heavy just from standing, but they’ll gladly wait it out for today’s ads and food. You waddle toward a table, each thudding footstep echoing through the restaurant, announcing your presence as a "Fast Food Piggy" to everyone in the booths. You know they're staring at the way the ads jiggle and warp on your flab, but the shame's been drowned in a sea of high-fructose corn syrup and a growing pool of pleasure between your thighs. You're already thinking about tomorrow, wondering if you can squeeze out a few more inches of ad space on your thighs just to see if he'll give you a second tray. It’s worth a shot you think, as you polish off your fries. Every day is a cycle of constant gluttony and anticipation for you, a permanent billboard for obesity, a loyal, branded cow who's found her purpose at the bottom of a fast food bag <3
"Ikemen Sengoku Kindergarten" April Fools 2026 Special Short Story
This is a fan-made translation solely for entertainment purposes with no guaranteed perfection; expect mistakes, grammatical errors, and some creative liberties. All original content and media used belongs to Cybird. Please support the game by buying their stories and playing their games. Reblogs appreciated.┊Read this before interacting
Kennyo: Let’s begin with the staff meeting.
Kennyo: First, Hideyoshi-sensei from the Dragon class, present your report on today’s activities.
Hideyoshi: Alright.
Hideyoshi: All six students of the Dragon class were present today — Nobunaga-kun, Masamune-kun, Ieyasu-kun, Mitsuhide-kun, and Mitsunari-kun.
Hideyoshi: For today’s class program, we held a mock “territorial war” at the playground with the other classes.
Hideyoshi: With Nobunaga-kun sitting calmly at the top of their sandcastle fortress like a lord ruling his domain, Masamune-kun charged to the front lines, swinging two wooden swords as he attacked the opposing class.
Hideyoshi: Ieyasu-kun got caught up in the chaos and was grumbling the entire time, but still managed to flawlessly provide support from behind Masamune-kun.
Shingen: Oh, nicely done.
Hideyoshi: Yeah. But of course, they didn’t stop there.
Hideyoshi: Keiji-kun went around kicking the… “rations”, mud dumplings carefully made by Mitsunari-kun.
Hideyoshi: The battlefield turned into a total bloodbath on their own side.
Saizo: Ugh… that does sound like one.
Hideyoshi: Amidst that chaos, Mitsuhide-kun spread false information and got the enemy teams to turn on each other. That’s how the Dragon class obtained their victory.
Hideyoshi: Naturally, the other classes weren’t too happy with that tactic.
Hideyoshi: Well, we had to step in at the end to mediate things and make peace. Then they all sat down and ate rice balls for lunch together like nothing happened.
Kennyo: … I see.
Hideyoshi: And one more thing — while everyone was eating, Mitsunari-kun got so absorbed in repairing the damaged sandcastle fortress, he almost ended up being the only one who missed lunch.
Hideyoshi: That level of focus is beneficial for his future, but… also a little worrying.
Saizo: I can see that…
Hideyoshi: Also, Mitsuhide-kun’s scheming deepened the mistrust between the kids. That’s another problem.
Hideyoshi: So tomorrow, together with Principal Kennyo, I plan to introduce a sutra-copying session to help calm their minds and focus on emotional development.
Hideyoshi: That concludes my report.
Kennyo: I understand. As always, we need to keep a close eye on Mitsuhide-kun’s covert activities and pay special attention to Mitsunari-kun’s meals.
Hideyoshi: I’ll make sure of that.
Kennyo: Next up let’s have Shingen-sensei from the Tiger class.
Shingen: No absences in the Tiger class. Yukimura-kun, Kenshin-kun, Sasuke-kun, Yoshimoto-kun, and Kanetsugu-kun — all five were present today.
Shingen: Today we held the “Tiger Class • Strongest Swordsman Tournament” at the dojo.
Shingen: But immediately after it began, Kenshin-kun caused a ruckus by running wild and swinging a real blade he wasn’t even allowed to bring to school in the first place.
Saizo: Whaa…
Shingen: Yukimura-kun rushed in to face-off with him using a spear made from bamboo, refusing to back down… but against a real blade, he was clearly at a disadvantage.
Shingen: That was when Sasuke-kun stepped in with a shadow clone of himself, slipping between them and using a log as a decoy to barely hold off Kenshin-kun’s strike.
Hideyoshi: That’s a relief.
Shingen: But knowing them, of course things didn’t end there.
Shingen: Instead stopping Kenshin-kun’s rampage, Kanetsugu-kun flew into a rage and declared “anyone who interferes with Kenshin-sama is an enemy”.
Shingen: It then escalated into a two-on-two battle.
Saizo: Oh nooo…
Shingen: Meanwhile, Yoshimoto-kun remained perfectly composed, sipping tea and fanning himself with elegance.
Shingen: In the end, I grabbed Kenshin-kun by the scruff of his neck, took his blade, and called the tournament off. Due to the violation of equipment rules, there was no winner.
Kennyo: … Indeed, you made the right decision.
Shingen: Kanetsugu-kun’s devotion to Kenshin-kun is beginning to override school rules.
Shingen: I believe the two of them should sit side by side and receive a proper sermon from you, Principal Kennyo.
Shingen: As for evaluation and reflection… despite today’s chaos, as I watch these children, I can’t help but look forward to seeing how they will grow.
Shingen: Yukimura-kun was genuinely frustrated about losing to Kenshin-kun’s real blade.
Shingen: But that drive to improve his skills can serve as a major source of strength for him. I intend to train him personally.
Shingen: … That’s about it for my report.
Kennyo: Understood.
Hideyoshi: Still, the Tiger class is as fierce as ever.
Kennyo: Even so, it's a relief no one was injured. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be stricter with inspections on what the children bring with them to school.
Kennyo: Next, Saizo-sensei from the Phoenix class.
Saizo: Y-Yes.
Saizo: Uhh… Phoenix class had full attendance today — Yoshiteru-kun, Hisahide-kun, Kanbei-kun, and Rikyu-kun were all present.
Saizo: As for today’s program… sigh… even thinking about it now, it feels like I barely made it out alive.
Hideyoshi: Ah… it’s that incident.
Shingen: What on earth happened?
Saizo: The Phoenix class went on a walk outside the kindergarten together.
Saizo: But right after we set off, Yoshiteru-kun suddenly stopped in the middle of the road and refused to move…
Saizo: I started panicking, thinking it wouldn't even be enough for me to take responsibility by committing seppuku if he collapsed or got hurt.
Saizo: Then Hisahide-kun declared he wasn’t going to walk either.
Saizo: Kanbei-kun looked oddly satisfied, like he knew where exactly someone was going to fall. And Rikyu-kun casually picked some poisonous plants to bring back with him.
Saizo: I was just thinking… they’re already so scary from a young age…
Hideyoshi: I feel the same.
Shingen: Me too.
Saizo: But today’s biggest takeaway is that it’s my fault that a teacher as useless as me was in-charge of them…
Saizo: No one got hurt in the end, but… it might be safer to wrap every single one of them up in futons tomorrow so they can’t move at all.
Saizo: Thanks to a worthless insect like me, poisonous darts were flying around and it was basically hell on earth…
Saizo: I couldn’t stop the children from doing bad things… I’m sorry… I’ll just crawl back under the rock where insects like me belong…
Kennyo: No, you did good enduring today’s events. Apart from Yoshiteru-kun, we’ll need to exercise extreme caution towards the others' behavior.
Kennyo: And I’ll also pray for the wellbeing of Saizo-sensei’s stomach.
Kennyo: Lastly, I will present my report for the Kirin class.
Kennyo: There were no absences in the Kirin class today. Motonari-kun, Kicho-kun, and Ranmaru-kun were all present.
Kennyo: Today, we used the whole playground for a joint programme with another class. We played a game of “Hide-and-Seek”, intending to cultivate patience and strategy.
Kennyo: However, right from the start, Motonari-kun had no intention of hiding. Instead, he skillfully manipulated children from other classes and positioned them as decoys to be caught in place of himself.
Kennyo: Not wanting to be outdone by Motonari-kun, Kicho-kun mimicked the voices of teachers and other children to issue false commands, turning everything into chaos.
Kennyo: The two of them seemed to be enjoying the spectacle from a distance, watching the children fall deeper into their traps.
Saizo: Wahh… just hearing about the Kirin class makes me feel like I’m going to pass out.
Shingen: But knowing the Kirin class’ kids, things definitely didn’t end there.
Kennyo: Indeed. Motonari-kun and Kicho-kun proceeded to execute a plan to earn favour from the children they lead into the chaos.
Kennyo: Fortunately, Ranmaru-kun discretely reported the situation to me.
Hideyoshi: Huh. That so?
Kennyo: Realizing they’d been exposed, the two attempted to flee through the backyard, only to fail because I had Saizo-sensei catch them.
Kennyo: The patience of a Buddha is needed to contend with the scheming personalities of Motonari-kun and Kicho-kun. I have ordered the two of them to recite sutras one hundred times in the main hall.
Saizo: A h-hundred times!?
Kennyo: While Ranmaru-kun’s devotion is commendable…
Kennyo: Motonari-kun’s insatiable desire for control, alongside Kicho-kun’s obsession with chaos, have already surpassed that of ordinary children.
Kennyo: Tomorrow, I intend to deliver a sermon on the topic of “The Honest Will Be Rewarded”, in hopes of purifying their distorted perceptions.
Kennyo: That concludes my report for the Kirin class.
Hideyoshi: Those two are seriously out of control… at this rate, they could demolish a castle or two overnight, and they’re still kids.
Saizo: Ugh… I feel for you, Principal.
Saizo: I can barely control my own class, the thought of carrying the responsibilities of the whole school on my back like you do is so scary, I don't think I’d ever be able to sleep…
Shingen: No matter how much trouble those kids cause, they’re still adorable.
Kennyo: Indeed. Running free and causing a ruckus is the nature of children.
Kennyo: With that, we have come to the end of today's meet—
BOOOOOOOOM!
Teachers: !?
???: Hehe, now THAT’S how you make an entrance!
???: Oh, this is fun. Come on, I’ll take you up on that fight!
???: Hey! Stop swinging that blade around! I’m going to tell a teacher!
Hideyoshi: Those little bastards… weren’t they supposed to have gone home!?
Saizo: AHHH… the playground’s just like my stomach right now — completely wrecked….!
Shingen: They’ve done it again. Seriously, these kids are hopeless.
Kennyo: All staff, proceed to the playground immediately.
The teachers rushed toward the chaos, their backs no longer looking like that of kindergarten teachers, but of warriors charging onto a battlefield—.
What I would have done if I was in charge of PR and marketing for ABH/Redbull/F1 academy [Part 2]:
[part 1]
1. Bring in actual female drivers. Bring in the F1 Academy drivers that could have helped showcase the parallels between the hard work of being a racing driver and challenging the stereotypes by embracing make-up and feminity outside of a race track. Show Alisha and Rafaela being the hardworking drivers they are while showing how they embrace their feminity in their own ways. Liking or not liking makeup does not make anyone vain. Makeup is a form of art, a way to express yourself freely.
2. "But they are not popular enough and won't get the brand enough likes and spotlight":
The post has 76k likes and 119k shares as of right now. That has 'alleged' bots, yes. I understand that likes and popularity matter a whole lot when it comes to sponsorships, but ABH had the option to go for female drivers. You think the Redbull F1A drivers are not popular enough? Fine.
What about the famous F1A champion Abbi Pulling? Racing in GB3 with Rodin Motorsports. Had an extremely dominant title-winning run in the 2024 F1 Academy season. Made history by becoming the first-ever female driver to secure a pole position and win a race in the GB3 Championship during a weekend at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. Famously known as the "First Women", a nickname given to her by her fans.
What about Doriane Pin? Another F1A champion. A famous name. She is competing in the LMP2 Pro-Am class driving for the Duqueine Team, where she has put in strong competitive stints, including front-running pace at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. She serves as an official Development Driver for Mercedes, which involves simulator work, trackside support, factory correlation, and mentoring young drivers. She has also expanded her manufacturer roles, acting as a development driver for Peugeot's World Endurance Championship (WEC) hypercar program as well as a GEN4 Development Driver for Citroën Racing focusing on energy management and simulator packages.
Is that not good enough for the brand?
3. "We wanted someone related to Max Verstappen":
Sophie Kumpen. Max Verstappen's mother.
A former champion kart racer who won two Belgian Karting Championships. She claimed victory at the prestigious Andrea Margutti Trophy in Parma, Italy, in 1995. Finished 9th in the 1991/mid-90s Formula A Karting World Championship (ranking in the global top 10 for junior karting), beating future Formula 1 drivers like Giancarlo Fisichella. Competed across five Karting World Championships, racing directly against future F1 icons and champions such as Jenson Button, Jarno Trulli, and Christian Horner.
THAT is a women in motorsports.
4. "We wanted someone with millions of followers":
SUSIE WOLFF!!!!
Was named the British Kart Racing Driver of the Year in 1996 at age 13. Won the 24-Hour Middle East Kart Championship in 1997. Honored as the Top Female Kart Driver in the World in 2000 after progressing through Formula Renault and Formula Three. Competed professionally for Mercedes-Benz in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) series across multiple seasons. Signed as a development driver for the Williams F1 team in 2012. Became the first woman to participate in a Formula 1 race weekend in 22 years at the 2014 British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Served as Team Principal of Venturi Racing and later CEO in the FIA Formula E Championship, guiding the team to its most successful historical season. Appointed as the F1 Academy Managing Director Appointed in March 2023 to spearhead the driver pathway and championship designed to develop young female talent toward higher levels of racing.
And she has a staggering 1.1 million followers on Instagram.
.
The brand HAD more than enough options and yet went ahead with the ad in one of the least impressive ways. Lets not act like WAGs are women in motorsports just because they're dating F1 drivers/were born in a racing family. Not when we have women still fighting for equality and respect in motorsports. Lets actually shine light on the actual women in F1 and other racing categories. The drivers, the engineers, the mechanics. The ones working in broadcasting, journalism, digital content creation, photography, and team PR/social media management.
An EPA document shows that a new Chevron fuel ingredient has a lifetime cancer risk more than 1 million times higher than what the agency us
The Environmental Protection Agency approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency’s own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. Current and former EPA scientists said that threat level is unheard of. It is a million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable for new chemicals and six times worse than the risk of lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking.
Federal law requires the EPA to conduct safety reviews before allowing new chemical products onto the market. If the agency finds that a substance causes unreasonable risk to health or the environment, the EPA is not allowed to approve it without first finding ways to reduce that risk.
But the agency did not do that in this case. Instead, the EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Though the substance can poison air and contaminate water, EPA officials mandated no remedies other than requiring workers to wear gloves, records show.
ProPublica and the Guardian in February reported on the risks of other new plastic-based Chevron fuels that were also approved under an EPA program that the agency had touted as a “climate-friendly” way to boost alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. That story was based on an EPA consent order, a legally binding document the agency issues to address risks to health or the environment. In the Chevron consent order, the highest noted risk came from a jet fuel that was expected to create air pollution so toxic that 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.
In February, ProPublica and the Guardian asked the EPA for its scientists’ risk assessment, which underpinned the consent order. The agency declined to provide it, so ProPublica requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The 203-page risk assessment revealed that, for the boat fuel ingredient, there was a far higher risk that was not in the consent order. EPA scientists included figures that made it possible for ProPublica to calculate the lifetime cancer risk from breathing air pollution that comes from a boat engine burning the fuel. That calculation, which was confirmed by the EPA, came out to 1.3 in 1, meaning every person exposed to it over the course of a full lifetime would be expected to get cancer.
Such risks are exceedingly unusual, according to Maria Doa, a scientist who worked at EPA for 30 years and once directed the division that managed the risks posed by chemicals. The EPA division that approves new chemicals usually limits lifetime cancer risk from an air pollutant to 1 additional case of cancer in a million people. That means that if a million people are continuously exposed over a presumed lifetime of 70 years, there would likely be at least one case of cancer on top of those from other risks people already face.
When Doa first saw the 1-in-4 cancer risk for the jet fuel, she thought it must have been a typo. The even higher cancer risk for the boat fuel component left her struggling for words. “I had never seen a 1-in-4 risk before this, let alone a 1.3-in-1,” said Doa. “This is ridiculously high.”
Another serious cancer risk associated with the boat fuel ingredient that was documented in the risk assessment was also missing from the consent order. For every 100 people who ate fish raised in water contaminated with that same product over a lifetime, seven would be expected to develop cancer — a risk that’s 70,000 times what the agency usually considers acceptable.
When asked why it didn’t include those sky-high risks in the consent order, the EPA acknowledged having made a mistake. This information “was inadvertently not included in the consent order,” an agency spokesperson said in an email.
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