Oorblog & Rede

Wij geven u volop ruimte om overal en nergens over alles te preken maken duizend en één versies van dingen om energie in te steken zaken om alles wat we voor u hebben gevuld weer te mogen legen reden te over om de hele tijd in voertuigen op en neer te bewegen we regelen allerhande snelwegen en weegschalen om alles te meten laten niks achterwege om alles over u goede leven elke keer te weten als je ons moet geloven en dat is maar beter dan zijn we niet te stoppen een overmacht gemaakt van vergulde eieren totaal niet te kloppen

We vinden ons zelf super enorm uitzonderlijk meesterlijk materiaal om dit te verkondigen maken we van elke ruimte een klankschaal waarin we deze grote boodschaplijst verkondigen tot bloedens toe dankzij onze drugs wordt u ondanks alles dit gedonder nooit moe al kunt u op uw benen niet meer staan komt u niet onder die drug vandaan zit u geketend in een roestvaste baan levenslang in het oog van de orkaan u neemt het ons niet kwalijk, vindt ons toch nog altijd even lief en aardig zou u er anders over gaan denken verklaren onze experts u minderwaardig

Wij geven om u en zeggen dat in elke kerk via alle beschikbare kanalen zenden deze verklaring continu uit en verkondigen dit in miljarden verhalen u bent het beste wat er ooit op aarde heeft mogen rondrennen, vliegen en rijden omdat te blijven doen hoeft u alleen u gelijken met onze wapens te bestrijden te verdelgen als onkruid, als vijandelijk verklaren, met explosieven te bewerken en weet dankzij u gegeven levens en die van u kinderen blijven onze kerken maken we er nog meer zodat we de boodschaplijsten kunnen blijven beheren elk etmaal verdelen, sturen en manipuleren dankzij de zaken die we u aanleren u gehoor geeft aan de kleine stem fluisterend achter de zware stem van het volk uit vrije wil het leven zal ombrengen in een kunstmatig roze gekleurde donderwolk energie zal besteden aan al onze labels, merktekens, ongenoegens en objecten opgaan in een wereld vol fantasietjes die wij met onze middelen voor u opwekten u zult niet veranderen als wij dat niet toestaan en dat gaan we nooit toelaten anders verdwijnen wij met onze handelskerken in de zelf veroorzaakte zwarte gaten

Zolang wij er zijn zit u vast aan de betaalde vertaalde versie van de levende natuur de aangepaste vorm beschreven als economisch noodzakelijke levendige cultuur vol overleg organen, leveranties, hartige taken, verzendingen, inkomsten overzichten, micro golven, wisselstroming, beschermde omgevingen en uitgaande inzichten hier voor nodig is een op levende lijven aangedreven enorme verbrandingsmotor en een schone schijnwereld ter verbloeming van de allesoverheersende dictator die op gezette tijden u kinderen laat opdraven voor noodzakelijke verbranding en de verborgen leider kan dit doen met een simpele uitgezonden noodmelding welke langs alle aangelegde lijnen in u woon, studeer en werk kamers uitkomt en met behulp van overdadig beeld en geluid wordt elke kritiek er op verstomd waardoor u uw eigen kinderen zonder tegen bericht vrijwillig laat opbranden voor een opzettelijk opgewekt probleem geadverteerd als vreeslijke toestanden die de vrijheid om de aangelegde leiding te volgen bedreigen soms zelfs ontkennen u niet langer mag en moet leven in een wereld die anderen voor u konden verzinnen u stuurt daarom zonder twijfel uw harts beminden naar de vers aangemaakte strijd waarna de beminde terechtkomt in de brandstof tank van de motor en overlijdt u zal overblijven met de tekst verklaring dat de zinloze dood super zinvol was door dit offer kunt u in vrijheid de kerk blijven betalen met persoonsgebonden bankpas zodat alles blijft zoals het is al kunt u op uw benen niet meer staan komt u niet onder die drug vandaan zit u geketend in een roestvaste baan levenslang in het oog van de orkaan

Rendez-vous sur https://www.surchauffe.info/

I went to see Suicide Silence, Dying Fetus, and Slaughter to Prevail in Berlin.

I’ve seen Eddy with All Shall Perish on November 25, and it was a great show. Now I have seen him again with Suicide Silence as the opener. They played 7 songs. 4 of them were old and good. The other 3 went by without any emotions. Overall, I had fun, and it was nice to see the “oldies” played live. :)

Dying Fetus played a solid set. Also 7 songs. All of them were a banger. The sound in this arena was incredible.

And then, the main act, Slaughter to Prevail. Oh boy. The sound was a disaster. The bass was too loud (not the bass player haha). The guitars were shouting over, and there was no way to understand Alex. It felt like listening to a newcomer band on their first-ever show. Or how we sound in our practice room. 😅 As a headliner and for +60 €, I expected much more. Last year we saw In Flames on the same stage, and it was remarkable. Such a good sound. But the sound of StP was destroying any fun on this show. Besides the sound, it looked like they delivered a good show. After around 6 songs, Alex had his no-microphone scream. Quite disappointing. It was rushed and not even close to the ones I saw on video. Kudos for trying; this is an incredible thing to do in an arena like this. But it should have been better executed. Like I said, it was rushed. No real announcement; it went silent really fast, then he screamed for 1-2 sec, and it was done. There was room for more. Build it up like in the videos; celebrate it.

Overall, it was a nice concert. And I know, if Slaughter to Prevail plays again, I will not seek to see them once more. If they are playing while I want to see another band, then I'm fine with it and check them out again. But I will not buy a ticket exclusively just to see them.

Once again, the Velodrom UFO is a great location. A lot of space, when well executed, a good sound. Plenty of toilets, good organization, etc. I always enjoy it there.

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94 of #100DaysToOffload
#live #music #concert
Thoughts?

7 more posts and I completed #100DaysToOffload a second time. Crazy. It was around 2 years ago when I created this blog on write.as. The following is more or less a conversation with myself.

I have written a lot since then. Still, I can’t say whether this blog has helped me or not. On one side, yes, I never expressed so much of my life to the public. But have I learned along the way? I can’t really say. One thing is for sure: I have learned that I can write 200 posts without having a plan. My fear was that I'm unable to fill this blog with life and create 100 and then 200 posts that are mostly not complete nonsense. I definitely did not get better at writing. I still write what comes out of my brain with all kinds of typos, spelling mistakes, and grammatical errors. And that alone feels like work. I can’t imagine writing longer posts and refining them again and again. Writing in this blog is like cooking and woodworking; it makes a lot of fun, but only as long as I don’t have to make a living out of it. It makes fun but also stresses me a bit. Because, to please myself and get posts done, I have to force myself over and over again to do it. I did not build a habit in the past two years. I love it, but it also feels a bit like a burden. But I’m happy that I did it. (Funny how I drifted away from the initial question.)

So, what’s the other side? It helped me, but it also made a lot of work, which I had spent somewhere else. Or did it really?

I’m thinking about how I will continue after the 200th post. #100DaysToOffload needs to be completed until the end of January, and then what? Start it again? Write without the challenge? I doubt that I will ever publish a new post without a challenge. Maybe there is a 50-days-to-offload challenge? One with a smaller scope would be nice. One idea would be to write fewer posts but maaaaybeee longer. At least a bit more polished? And then put smaller thoughts and things directly out to Mastodon, for example. Or Bluesky. Does all this even have a future with AI? 😅

But writing on Mastodon or Bluesky stresses me out in some way. Not posting itself, but if someone replies and I have to answer. Over the last few years, I got so bad at replying; it is crazy. I have unanswered WhatsApp messages from 1-2 years ago… Do I really want to take this to the public? 😅 I had small conversations on Mastodon, where I really had to force myself to answer. Not writing the answer itself. To not forget to answer, if I don’t reply immediately, it is gone, and I will forget about it.

How to end this post? I have no idea. In the first place, I thought I would just write a small post, and then it escalated quickly. I don't know what to do with it. I can tell myself to revisit this post in the future, but this isn't going to happen. 😂

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93 of #100DaysToOffload
#log
Thoughts?

Tout au long de votre vie, vous allez accumuler des souvenirs, cumuler des expériences et vous attacher à des objets dont vous ne pourrez jamais vous séparer. Ils sont pour vous des compagnons de route indissociables de votre histoire personnelle. Ce livre que votre mère vous à offert pour vos quinze ans, cette lettre écrite à votre premier amour, que vous n'avez jamais osé envoyer, ou votre collection de timbres, héritage de votre grand-père. Pourtant, quand vous rendrez votre dernier souffle, ces objets retiendront le leur. On vous pleurera quelques jours, quelques semaines, quelques mois, puis, vos proches videront votre maison, bientôt occupée par de parfaits étrangers qui y seront pourtant chez eux. Tout ce qui vous représentait appartiendra bientôt à d’autres et les traces de votre passage sur terre s'évaporeront lentement, une à une, dans la mémoire de vos proches comme par les objets que vous chérissiez. 

Chaque samedi, je me rends dans la déchetterie de ma commune pour y déposer divers encombrants ou restes de chantier. Quand mon travail est terminé, je plonge (littéralement) mon corps et mon esprit dans une benne à ordure d'une genre bien particulier : la benne à papier. On y trouve généralement de la paperasse sans intérêt, le plus souvent issue d’un rangement de printemps ou d’un grand nettoyage par une administration locale : encarts publicitaires, revues touristiques, photocopies, plaquettes de communication, formulaires administratif déchiquetés ou encore papiers de la maison sans aucun intérêt.

Mais parfois, sous cet amas de brouillons, se cachent des trésors jetés ici comme s’ils ne valaient rien. Des trésors, vraiment ? Il l’étaient pour vous, avant d’être confiés à cette grande poubelle, quelques jours après votre disparition. J’y ai lu votre journal intime, celui que votre grand frère n’a jamais su trouver. Je connais tout des sentiments que vous portiez à ce jeune Jean-Michel alors que vous n’aviez que quinze ans, les souffrances que vous faisait endurer votre mère ou la couleur de votre robe préférée. J’ai tenu entre mes mains votre médaille de baptême, cachée dans une vieille enveloppe que personne n’avait pris le soin de décacheter. Votre nom y est resté gravé, ainsi que votre date de naissance. J'ai parcouru votre journal de jeune fille, celui où vous écrivez des poèmes quand vous étiez une jeune enseignante. J’ai lu vos cartes postales, vos livres de chevet, tenu entre les mains vos diplômes, vos réflexions personnelles sur l'actualité des années 1980, les photos de vos meilleures soirées en famille. J’ai feuilleté votre carnet de photos souvenirs, vous qui étiez militaire dans les années 1930, quelque part en France. On vous y voit jeune, fier et heureux, entouré de quelques camarades tout aussi vigoureux. Que reste-t-il de cette époque et de ces hommes dont vous étiez ? Rien. Absolument rien. Votre petit-fils, jusqu’alors gardien de votre mémoire, vient de disparaître à son tour et ses souvenirs ont été jetés ici, parmi les ordures, sans même que vos lointains héritiers ne s’en soient aperçus. Ils n’avaient que quelques jours pour vider votre maison pour la mettre en vente, avant de repartir dans leur région d’adoption. Vous étiez pour eux un vague souvenir, vous deviendrez pour leur enfant une vague impression, une simple évocation, avant de disparaître à jamais de la mémoire des hommes. Ce petit carnet  était la dernière trace de votre existence, bien réelle, témoignage anecdotique de votre très longue vie. Si mon regard ne l’avait pas croisé, par hasard, il serait poussière. Mais je me sens obligé d’en prendre soin, désormais. Je ressens cette responsabilité de préserver ce qui reste de votre mémoire, de vos doutes, de vos peurs, de vos envies, de vos incertitudes. Je veux être un passeur de mémoire dans cette interminable galerie des oubliés. 

Nous ne possédons rien. Nous sommes de simples locataires en toute chose et en tout lieu. Tôt ou tard, nos souvenirs et nos biens termineront dans cette benne à ordure ou se joue le dernier acte de la vie des morts. 

O BBB como espelho do Brasil que muita gente diz odiar – mas assiste todo dia.

Talvez o incômodo seja reconhecimento.

Todo ano é o mesmo ritual. As pessoas dizem que odeiam o BBB. Que não assistem. Que “não aguentam mais”. Que virou baixaria, militância, gente rasa, conflito fake. E mesmo assim sabem quem brigou, quem chorou, quem virou vilão, quem “está sendo cancelado”…

Acompanham pelo X/Twitter, pelo Instagram, pelo WhatsApp… “Não assistem” – mas sabem de tudo.

A verdade é que nunca assistiram tanto.

Se não fosse tão assistido, a Globo não faria novas edições.

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(Curiosidade, consultei o catálogo da GloboAds. Para dar uma ideia: um comercial de 30” durante o BBB (nacional), custa entre R$ 500.000 e R$ 780.000 (depende do dia da semana a ser veiculado). O mesmo contrato, durante o “Jornal Nacional”, custa em média R$ 1.000.000. A surpresa do custo é o custo de tarde, durante o “Vale a Pena Ver de Novo”: custa R$ 210.000).

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Ou seja, sim. Ainda há muito brasileiro assistindo o BBB. Mesmo negando.

Talvez o problema não seja o BBB. Talvez seja o reflexo.

As pessoas dizem que não assistem ao BBB porque ele incomoda… Por quê? Porque ele não mostra um recorte de Brasil ideal que era esperado ver. Ele mostra um Brasil possível. Gente que fala sem pensar, gente que fala o que não devia “da boca pra fora”. Gente que fala bonito e age mal – e vice-versa. Gente que erra tentando acertar e gente que acerta só pra ser aplaudida.

Um país inteiro dentro de uma casa, que não tem filtros suficientes pra esconder as contradições. A gente odeia porque se reconhece.

Reconhecimento incomoda demais.

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É confortável criticar os participantes… Chamar de burros, rasos, manipuláveis. Difícil é admitir que eles falam o que muita gente fala no almoço de domingo, só que sem microfone.

Que reproduzem “preconceitos comuns”, inseguranças comuns, ambições comuns.

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O BBB não cria personagens, ele expõe padrões já existentes. E esses padrões são difíceis de engolir quando não combinam com a imagem que a gente faz de si mesmo, e com a imagem que a sociedade projeta dela mesma: totalmente quebradiça.

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O público gosta de apontar o dedo, mas não gosta de ver a própria mão se apontando.

Basta um paredão pra virar torcida organizada, guerra moral, linchamento digital.

O mesmo público que acusa o programa de ser tóxico, participa ativamente da toxicidade. E participa com prazer.

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Existe também uma hipocrisia silenciosa na crítica que faço ao BBB. Dizem que o programa “emburrece o país”, como se ele fosse a causa - mas ele é o sintoma.

Como se o Brasil fosse um oásis de debates profundos interrompido por uma prova do líder.

O BBB não empobrece o discurso nacional. Ele já é empobrecido.

Ele tira o filtro. Mostrando como falamos quando achamos que ninguém importante está ouvindo. E ter uma câmera mostrando “o que estamos fazendo/falando” é muito incômodo. Fazer uma autocrítica, uma autorreflexão, demanda muita energia e muita concentração.

Demanda ainda muita paciência e quebra de paradigmas. Serão encontrados pontos a serem melhorados, e não será gostoso sentir isso.

Talvez por isso incomode tanto.

Porque ele desmonta a fantasia do brasileiro cordial, racional, politizado e consciente.

O que aparece ali é um retrato de país cansado, defensivo, performático, tentando desesperadamente estar do lado certo da história — mesmo sem saber direito qual é esse lado…

Um Brasil que aprende frases prontas e adere a ideias e grupos já criados, mas tropeça quando precisa fazer uma fala mais técnica; uma argumentação mais profunda.

E ainda assim, a gente assiste ao BBB. Não por curiosidade de ego apenas. Mas porque existe algo de íntimo nesse espelho na casa mais vigiada do Brasil.

A casa vigiada não mostra só quem está lá dentro. Ela revela quem está do lado de fora torcendo, odiando, e se projetando em alguém lá dentro.

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O BBB é menos sobre os participantes e mais sobre o público que precisa deles pra se sentir melhor, mais certo, mais consciente… por isso o BBB sempre é sucesso de audiência, sempre foi, e sempre será.

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PS.: “Brasil” também pode ser interpretado como um grupo social específico do qual você participa.

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Rio de Janeiro,

25 de Janeiro de 2026.

Deze scène heb je al honderden keren gezien in talloze films en series.

Iemand ligt gewond op de grond door een zwaard, een kogel of een speer. De hoofdpersoon gaat door de knieën, houdt het hoofd vast, drukt met de handen op de wond en zegt:

‘Alles komt goed. Alles komt goed. Je gaat het overleven. Je gaat het overleven.’

En vervolgens sterft het slachtoffer in de armen van de held.

WTF is dit voor levensles?

Bij Bureau Rotterdam en Bureau Utrecht en alle andere varianten waar Ewout op pad gaat met politieagenten gebeuren er ook dit soort scènes.

Iemand bloedt hevig door een schotwond of een aanrijding. De politie verleent eerste hulp tot de ambulance komt.

Ze zeggen niet: ‘Alles komt goed’. Ze zeggen: ‘De ambulance komt eraan’ en ‘Knijp eens in mijn hand’ en ‘We leggen je in de stabiele zijligging’ en ‘Kijk naar mij’.

Maar goed.

De film wil drama creëren. Het wil wanhoop laten zien. Verdriet overbrengen.

Maar toch. Het ergert me.

Omdat het geen goede metafoor is voor als het leven een tragische wending neemt. ‘Alles komt goed.’

Nee.

Niet alles komt goed.

Maar je vindt altijd wel een weg.
Wat je ook overkomt.
Waar je ook doorheen gaat.
Wat je ook voelt.

Je vindt een manier om met de nieuwe realiteit om te gaan. Het punt is meer dat je nu niet weet hoe dat gaat zijn.

Dat weet niemand.

Want wat raken we echt kwijt? En wat krijgen we ervoor terug?

Daarom raakt deze passage uit het korte verhaal ‘Pool Night’ van Amy Hempel (1951) me zo.

Ze schrijft dat ze weet dat huizen in de brand vliegen. En dat het verstandig is om van tevoren na te denken over wat je uit je huis zou redden als dat zou gebeuren.

Niet omdat, in the heat of the moment, alles even dierbaar lijkt. Maar omdat niets er echt meer toe doet. Zelfs niet je eigen leven.

Dat is wat voor mij een depressie is.

Niets lijkt er meer toe te doen. Zelfs niet je eigen leven.

Helaas weet ik ook hoe het voelt om alles kwijt te raken door een brand. En daarom kan ik je vertellen dat Amy de diep menselijke psyche heel goed begrijpt.

Je denkt dat al je spullen iets betekenen voor je, die in je huis staan. Van foto’s tot kastjes tot de tv tot je wekker. Maar op het moment dat alles in as is opgegaan, is dat een nieuwe realiteit waarin je je snel aanpast.

Het is jammer, maar niet zo heftig als je van tevoren dacht.

Het is weg.

Ze zegt ook in ‘Pool Night’:

I thought the present was the safer bet.
We can only die in the future, I thought, right now we are always alive.

Dit is zo goed geformuleerd.

Als je huis in de fik staat, gaan je spullen je niet meer redden. De toekomst gaat je niet eens redden. In een fractie van een seconde snap je de illusies van bezit en ego en toekomst.

Het enige wat je hebt is ‘nu’. En de enige beslissing die je kunt nemen is jezelf in veiligheid brengen. En als dat niet lukt, je laten redden. Op hoop van zegen.

Dat gaat best moeilijk als je bloedend op de grond ligt, metaforisch gesproken.

Maar ik heb toch liever dat je me vertelt dat je mijn wond dichtdrukt en een tourniquet om mijn been bindt en 112 hebt gebeld en dat ze zo komen. Dan dat je me vertelt dat in de toekomst alles goed komt.

Want om heel eerlijk te zijn: dat soort zinnen zijn geen troost. Ze zijn een manier om zelf niet te hoeven voelen hoe machteloos de situatie nu is.

Sentiment is een manier om weg te kijken van machteloosheid.

Ik zou zeggen: kijk de machteloosheid recht in de ogen en handel.

liefs,

tomson

Pessimisme heeft een nare klank.

Juist omdat het doet denken aan die collega die bij elk verbetervoorstel zegt: ‘Gaat niet werken’ en ‘Ik blijf geen minuut langer dan 17.00 uur hoor, want daar word ik niet voor betaald.’

Dat is geen pessimisme. Dat is bitter zijn over het leven, omdat je je eigen dromen niet hebt verwezenlijkt en anderen ook geen levensvreugde gunt.

Pessimisten zien de wereld juist vrij luchtig.

Echt waar.

Je denkt dat mensen je teleurstellen, je niet steunen, je in de steek laten en je niet zien staan. Maar het zijn niet de mensen die je pijn doen.

Het zijn je eigen verwachtingen over die mensen. Verwachtingen zijn de voedingsbodem voor alle nare gevoelens die je hebt.

Wat een optimist van een pessimist onderscheidt, is dat de verwachtingen een stuk lager zijn.

Je kunt pessimisme ook strategisch inzetten. Dat is wat ik vaak doe om mijn hoopvolle verwachtingen te temperen.

Een strategische pessimist probeert met enthousiasme en hard werken iets voor elkaar te krijgen, terwijl die tegelijkertijd weet dat het waarschijnlijk gaat mislukken.

Maar als die erin slaagt?

Dat gevoel, daar kan geen optimist aan tippen.

Volgens mijn favoriete levende filosoof Slavoj Žižek (1949) zijn optimisten altijd een beetje teleurgesteld in het leven, omdat dingen niet gaan zoals ze hadden verwacht. Pessimisten zijn altijd een beetje blij in het leven, omdat er meer goed gaat dan ze hadden gehoopt.

Ja.

Dat klinkt als de omgekeerde wereld, maar hij heeft een punt.

==

Strategisch pessimisme doet denken aan de stoïcijnse filosofie.

In dit oude denken gaan ze ervan uit dat je in je leven alleen controle hebt over je gedachten en je eigen acties.

Of het resultaat goed of fout is, daar heb je geen invloed op. Je mag niet eens iets verwachten van hoe het gaat lopen.

Een stoïcijn focust zich daarom volledig op zichzelf.

Gesolliciteerd naar je droombaan en afgewezen?

Dat is vervelend. Maar laat je hier niet door raken. Je hebt geen controle over de andere sollicitanten, over de andere brieven, over wat ze überhaupt zoeken als bedrijf. Het enige waar je controle over hebt, is je eigen brief.

Als je alles hebt gegeven wat je kon en dat in die brief hebt gestopt, hoe kan je dan balen als het niet is gelukt?

Strategisch pessimisme is alles geven wat je kunt, terwijl je tegelijkertijd weet dat het resultaat waarschijnlijk zal tegenvallen.

Nee heb je, een trauma kun je krijgen.

==

Volgens filosoof Alain de Botton (1969) zijn we het verleerd om pessimistisch te zijn.

We leefden in een pessimistische samenleving. Het christendom staat bol van het doemdenken. Dat gevoel dat je altijd te weinig doet voor God. Dat je niet te veel moet genieten, maar hard moet werken, niet te veel moet verwachten van het leven en vertrouwen op Gods plan.

Het boeddhisme is doordrenkt van het idee dat leven lijden is.

Maar die tijden zijn voorbij.

We leven in een optimistische maatschappij. Het geloof dat alles beter wordt, als je maar wil.

Niet alleen omdat positiviteit ervoor zorgt dat we meer producten kopen. Maar ook omdat we dan volledig zelf verantwoordelijk zijn voor onze gevoelens. Dat betekent dat ook alles wat je overkomt in zekere zin je eigen schuld is.

Moet je maar positiever zijn.

Ja, dat is een vrij toxische kant aan onze cultuur waar ik me niet mee kan verenigen.

Ik ben bij tijd en wijlen een strategische pessimist. Van zinnen als ‘Komt goed’ krijg ik error.

Dat weet je helemaal niet, of het goed komt, denk ik dan. Maar ik ben geen bitter persoon. En ook geen anti-optimist. Integendeel.

Als je zegt: ‘Ik ga mijn best doen’, dan ben ik je grootste supporter.

Ik pep mezelf alleen zo niet op als de somberheid me heeft gevonden.

Maar ik weet wel hoe ik me moet gedragen om goed voor mezelf te zorgen.

• Aankleden.
• Ontbijten.
• Wandelen.
• Schrijven.
• Mijn telefoonscherm proberen te vermijden.

Het geeft absoluut geen garanties om de somberheid te verzachten. Maar slechter word ik er sowieso niet van.

Snap je?

Het houdt je hoopvol en beschermt je tegelijkertijd tegen teleurstelling.

Het leven is soms ook gewoon een kwestie van doen in plaats van elk detail overdenken.

Dat geldt voor zowel optimisten als pessimisten.

It’s one of those things that I won’t get recognition for. E broke down crying because she had been bottling up her feelings, and it all exploded again. I was already really struggling but immediately my autopilot kicked in and I comforted her for three hours. And now I’m just sitting here unable to cry or scream or anything else. I have to comfort her for her feeling like she’s a shitty partner to me and that she keeps hurting me, and so I again have to push my feelings down to make her feel better, because if I don’t then I’m going to be stuck with this for the next few weeks just like the last few. The guarded comments, lack of connection and the feeling that something is wrong and she won’t let me know. Instead this shit has to fester until it explodes. There is nothing I can do, and even now my hands are tied because she feels horrible about fucking up. So I can’t make her feel like she ever fucks up. I can’t even just deal with my shit by myself but rather I have to now hide it around her.

It’s just like my mom again. I have to fix her emotional state for her, because if I don’t then I’m fucked. Back then it was things like food or getting to school, but now it’s my weekends and being able to not always have my nervous system lit up.

I’m mad and I feel like I don’t have a voice right now, so take it with a grain of salt but to me I feel like people need to fucking take accountability and handle their own emotional states. I feel disgust towards people like my mom who don’t ever handle their own shit and grow up. Yes everyone has their circumstances. Boo hoo if you wallow in it, make yourself miserable I don’t care. But when you affect other people because you refuse to step up and do the shit you need to do to get better, I look down on you. Take some fucking accountability. I know this seems like I’m saying this at E, but I’m not. I just blame my mom, and people like her.

I was so stressed for so long and in pain that I had a baby hypomanic episode on Thursday night. I crashed hard the next day, and then I’m back to wanting so desperately to have a safe place to cry to. I can’t even feel safe alone in my apartment, how fucked up is that. I love my dad, but beating me until I stopped crying really worked, so congrats. I think 8 year old me deserved that for feeling powerless from being beat up by my starter, and then being the one yelled at for trying to get her to stop. I was absolutely in the wrong and I deserved that.

I think about that one post, where it’s always you’re too good for me but never worth changing for. E keeps saying it feels like there’s nothing she can do, and while I get it to some extent my own perspective wants to cry and say how low the bar is or how easy it is. One of the cons of being who I am is thinking a lot of stuff is easier than it may be I guess. I think I’m expecting too much for her to do the things I tell her when she asks me what she can do. Even the small stuff like just gifting me a skin. I don’t want the fucking skin. But I am running out of easier ways for her to get a win and do something nice. Her just clicking gift on a $10 thing is easier than telling me she’s sorry or planning out a date for us. Or not fucking going silent when I’m vulnerable with her. Even though I’ve told her so many times how much it guts me.

I just can’t help but think I deserve this all, because the alternative is that I don’t deserve it and then I’m powerless.

A Dark Day in Minneapolis: Honoring Alex Pretti

This weekend, our community and our country, lost someone truly special. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who dedicated his life to caring for military veterans at the Minneapolis VA, was shot and killed by ICE agents.

Alex was a kindhearted soul. His parents described him as someone who “wanted to make a difference in this world.” As a nurse, he saw people at their most vulnerable and stepped up to help. It was that same instinct to assist others that led to his final moments on Saturday.

The Disconnect Between Narrative and Reality

When we hear about these shootings, the reflexive response from authorities is often a script we’ve heard before: The suspect was violently resisting; the agents acted in self-defense. But we have to look closer.

In this case, there is video. And the video tells a story that common sense reinforces:

• Alex was an ICU nurse with no criminal record.

• He was initially holding a cell phone, not a weapon.

• Though he was legally carrying a registered firearm, the footage appears to show Alex on the ground, surrounded, and disarmed before he was shot.

It is heartbreaking to watch a man who was prone and unthreatening be met with lethal force. When we insert large, armed federal forces into emotionally charged interactions with everyday Americans, these “errors in judgment” aren't just mistakes they feel inevitable.

A Contradiction in Values

There is a profound irony here that we cannot ignore. Many who champion the right to legally carry a firearm are silent when doing exactly that becomes a justification for an immediate death sentence by federal agents.

If you changed just a few facts of the story, Alex might be hailed as a hero by the very people now seeking to justify his death. We have to ask ourselves: What is the point of our rights if they can be stripped away in an instant on our own streets?

A Call for Accountability

The presence of federal officers in our cities is creating a landscape of fear rather than safety.

We need more than just “thoughts and prayers” for Alex’s family; we need a change of course:

1. Immediate Investigation: We need a transparent, independent investigation to determine responsibility for this killing.

2. Removal of ICE from Minneapolis: Federal officers should not be patrolling our streets and shooting American citizens.

Remembering Alex

It is easy for the media or the government to turn a person into a statistic or a “suspect.” But Alex Pretti is a hard man to demonize. He was a son, a friend, and a healer. My heart breaks for his family and for the veterans who lost their nurse. We cannot let his death be in vain. We have to demand better. We have to demand a country where a man like Alex can try to help his neighbor without losing his life.

Rest in peace, Alex.

Chad strolled further into the unfamiliar woods. There was an ignorant confidence to his steps that would rival a founder and president of a mediocre university’s Objectivism Club walking to a class titled “Western Ethics, Politics, and Gender in the Twenty-First Century”. His pace was steady, not breaking for the increased chill of the air, the darkening of the oaks’ shadows, nor the familiar but out of season smell of a bat colony hanging in the trees. Without his masculine tunnel vision during this faithful hour there would be no story tell.

‘I was right, as always,’ was Chad’s only thought when the boar and her shoat came into view. In a breath he sized up the scene – the beasts were munching on some dug up roots. He would have to be quick to slay the mother and trap the child before it ran off. He would be able to track it again, but he would have to beat the coyotes, fishers, and panthers to it – and he wanted to start heading home, he had been in the Bellows for 3 days. He had an itch that had to be scratched back in town (our man was horny).

He closed the in on his prey with a familiar silence to any girl he had ever slept with. He steadied his breath, nocked an arrow, drew back the string, and took perfect aim at the mama boar’s throat. Then he exhaled.

Twang

In a flash his now empty right hand moved to the net at his hip. It was empty again at the same moment the arrow hit its mark. Chad was sure both the shot and throw were perfect. Once again, he had out done it and would head back to his village with more proving his nigh divine talents.

Chad struggled to process what came next. The squeals his ears knew he should be hearing did not come. The snow beneath the boars remained white as mama’s tusks but appeared as if somebody had drawn a grid into it. For a few seconds, the only sound was that of the boars munching on roots, then Chad remembered to breath. The wind must have taken his arrow off course. The snow had silenced its landing. A fluke.

He did not have a second net, but he would still have a chance at catching the shoat. He repeated his ritual and let a second arrow fly – watching with unhinged intensity. This time he was sure it hit right in the beast’s trachea. The way the arrow pierced into its neck was impossibly smooth. “Guess I can add world’s sharpest arrowhead maker to my list of many talents.” He said to himself.

“Are all human males as dumb as you, pet?” a hateful yet calm voice chimed.

For half a heartbeat Chad was void of compos mentis and thought this voice was why he there was still a lack of feral piggy sounds. Then Chad’s sanity overcame his hubristic nature as an alien and unpleasant feeling accompanied a rush of thoughts. A lesser person would know this emotion as self-doubt. Cursed by his excessive extrospective Chad assumed it was a side effect of whatever evil witchcraft was facing. Had his fletching just passed through mama boar’s neck? Why was the snow still white?

Who the hell was talking to him?

If Bellow Bats hibernate in caves in the winter, why does it smell like there are bats in the trees?

Also, if the wind took blew his net, why was it lying directly under the shoat?

What the hell was going on?

She’s a pterafri a type of Unseelie, she tricked you here. Wait, you probably don’t know what an Unseelie is. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck…. Oh I know she is a ‘vampire’ – well technically she is the thing your human stories about vampires are based on but those stories are not really accurate and also make vampires undead which pterafri are not they are a type of – never mind I can be known to ramble, sorry if I was being annoying!

Listen, I think I can distract her so you can make a run for it. She will probably try to catch me if I show myself but I will risk it for a cutey pie like you. When you hear a ‘pop’ book it due east! Do not stop or take any breaks for 14 miles. You will hit a small clearing in the trees with a small pond. She cannot follow you there. Rest until next sunrise – she will have to go back before then.

She wore a bulky cranberry-colored doublet over her broad upper body. This was frustrating to Chad because if he was going to dream about a woman larger than him, he felt that he should at least get some bouncy, trouncey, ouncey, pouncey, boobs, boobs, boobs, boobs, boobs out of it. After all that was the most wonderful thing about thiccgrils. Instead, he got a big-ole-pair of bat wings that sprawled out behind her with a sharp THUD. Their membranes were the same color as her irises and their fingers where a faded ivory with dark cracks in places – scars Chad realized. Her navy-blue leggings tightly hugged her thighs showing off quads and adductors twice the size of Chad’s. Massive calves strained the top leather of her brown leather boots with, equally frustrating to Chad, had regular heels.

Is my subconscious trying to tell me I have not been going hard enough on leg day?

You are not dreaming silly goose. You are too handsome to be caught by that evil thing. Focus up, I am about to do it.

The other voice was back. Are you reading my thoughts?

Sort of. Do not worry about it, it is an empath thing.

What the fuck is an empath? How is my brain making all this shit up? If Xaden slipped me one of those witches’ tampered berries he and his friends blow good coin on, I am going to kick his ass.

I am real sorry about this cute-bean but I cannot save you if you think you are dreaming. This will only hurt a little.

Chad had never wondered what it was like to have a pair of giant cymbals banged inside of his ear canals. Now he knew. “GOD OF DEATH AND MISERY WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he screamed.

“MMMMmmmm that is right pet, be afraid. Do you understand you are the prey now? I will not hold being a slow learner against you. Honestly, it has made this part pretty fun.” The taraf-ptri-tarfry…the vampire woman’s calm tone was becoming more eerie with every word. She casually stepped toward Chad for a few steps before lunging with inhuman speed and telling him, “None of your human gods are real, so screaming their names is not going to keep you safe.”

Chad had not grasped the concept of ‘loud painful sound in my ears would wake me up if this was a dream’ as quickly as Stelmaria had intended. If he was going to get there it would have to wait because the loud ‘POP’ that followed the vampires lunge towards was started him into a run. The direction of this run was to be south. It had already been a day of a lot of firsts for Chad, so it was a bit forgivable that he did not add following directions to the list.

East handsome.

“Stelmaria! You are a bold bitch I will give you that,” the pterafri’s tone changed, first to surprise, then full of hate. “Taking me head-on is reckless, you are never reckless. Desperate?”

“Guess I figured this cute human is worth it, Bitch,” Stelmaria replied, her actual voice was even more melodic than her telepathy. “Try not to think about the mistakes that got you here Des, it might slow down your hunt.” A strange humming sound rippled through the forest. For an instant, Chad was back to the moment when he realized he had never seen this part of the Bellows and forcing himself to not think about it and focus on the hunt. Then the psterafri, ‘Des’ Chad supposed, was howling in pain.

Sorry…I tried to aim it only at her, but it is hard to control on this side. Keep moving but please go east. I do not know how long this will hold Des.

“Uggghhh…fuck your demented pixie shit. This trick would never work on me on the other side and you know it.”

Chad turned east then glanced over his left shoulder to see what was going on. His heart dropped to his stomach when he saw her.

Perfection was running toward him. She was so small smol, well under four feet. Her silver hair flew wildly behind her as she ran. Her ears were that of a snow leopard and split the silver hair into three natural sections at the top of her head. She had dark green eyes that reminded Chad of an afternoon nap in grassy hills. Her peach skin was freckled despite the season, and she wore beautiful teal eyeliner or eye shadow or whatever her eye lids were teal and so were her lips. She had lots of other make-up on too, but Chad just thought that was her face because she knew how to blend foundation and what not. He would later reflect about how beautiful she is even without make-up. She would have make-up on then too. Her tits and ass were exactly what Chad had been looking for his entire. So massive they were ergonomically infeasible.

She was wearing a tight white jacket with large black buttons. The top two of which unbuttoned displaying her goods. It has been established that this scene is taking place during frigid temperatures and a snowstorm, but Stelmaria was a woman who would never let banal things like that stop her from sharing her beauty with a man like Chad. Now those are bouncy, trouncey, ouncey, and pouncey, thought Chad. To top all off she was sprinting at him in knee-high boots with six-inch heels.

“I am so glad you like them handsome, but you stopped running!” the woman Chad was sure he would marry sung to him.

The swelling in Chad’s smallclothes was interrupted by Des who was recovering from whatever Stelmaria had done to her. Her legs were shaking as she stood back up. She flexed her hands with a clinched jaw then her wings began to flap and she was airborne. First, she shot straight up about fifty feet. This snapped half the branches off the surrounding trees. She surveyed the two smaller beings. When here eyes locked with Chad’s time seemed to freeze. Somehow Chad knew that this moment would haunt him for a long time. When it was over, Des smirked, winked at him, and dove right for his beautiful Stelmaria.

Luckily, that was when Chad remembered that he was the fucking man and the hero of this story. He had a bow, arrows, and knew how to use them. He steadied his breath, nocked an arrow, drew back the string, and took perfect aim at the Unseelie’s eye. Then he exhaled.

Twang.

<Chapter 1 (To be Continued)

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Chad looked at the tracks with the instincts of a hunter four times his age. It had to be this way. Chad had grown up without a father, with a well meaning but naive mother, and with three wet brained older brothers whose only talents were inexplainable poor dice luck.

It was fifteen years ago when Chad first ventured into the Bellows. Xaden, the youngest of his brothers had gotten a nasty cut on just foot from a zebra muscle in the river. The bill from the local healer had drained what little money their mother had scraped together for food that week.

Hunting anywhere else in their barony required tags. Tags that a six-year-old lad could not purchase even if he had money. Unwilling to let his family starve, Chad strung his bow and went into what many referred to as The Cursed Forest.

When Chad thinks back to that faithful day, the day a boy of six became a man of six so his family could eat, he feels no pride only resentment. He fell a deer in only a few hours. It was bigger than he was and he had to make a crude sled to lug it back to their tiny cabin at the edge of town.

And such was his life since. Hunting to provide for his mother and brothers (sometimes trapping or fishing too). Around his tenth birthday is when Chad’s mother stopped picking up odd jobs around town. He had assumed it was because Clairmont, his eldest brother, had come of age and would be finding steady work. Perhaps this is what his mother told herself too. The reality was (and remains) that it was because Chad had proven that he could hunt, trap, and fish better than anyone in town and that he was willing to go to the Bellows where he could do it legally.

Chad was not sure why he was so good at these things. Just kidding, Chad was not introspective, he figured it’s because he is the fucking man, always has been always will be. Manliest man dude ever.

Chad chuckled at himself 'heh dude kind of sounds like doo-doo if you think about it'. Chad looked down at the tracks again and concluded it was a female boar and its shoat less than 20 minutes old based on the amount of snow that had landed on top of them. With any luck he could down the mother and trap the shoat. The shoat could be sold to one of the witch ladies for 5 silver. Enough to keep Rhysand, the second oldest and most gambling addicted of his brothers, occupied for at least 2 weeks.

He continued to follow the tracks with practiced stealth. His focus only wavered for a moment when he realized he'd never seen this part of the Bellows before. Odd, it had been at least four years since his travels stretched him further into the Bellows. He steadied his mind knowing that stray thoughts were an archers undoing. He was close.

In time Chad would realize that in his 21 years this was his first mistake.

<Forward Chapter 2>

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A Romantasy for Guys and Men (titled when Ch1 posted as A Romantasy but for a Guy) is a (not good) serial satirical fantasy romance. It is poorly written by me, an amateur who cannot spell and does not understand how to use commas. I am not as funny as I try to be (if at all). There is a 99% chance I will never be finish this story. It started as a satirical shit post on reddit (which is still what it is I guess). I enjoyed writing chapter 1 enough that I decided to write chapter 2. I will keep writing chapters until I am bored of it. I wanted to write this forward to explain to folks who are not a ‘sloopy’ like I am what inspired this little project.

In romance circles online (reddit, Goodreads, romance.io, and my book review blog) I use the pseudonym “Romance Book Dad” or “Dad Reads Romance”. I am a huge fan of romance books. I started reading them around 2019, I think. Shortly after, I became a father and started to review some of the books I liked. As a joke I titled them “Romance Books by Dad” because in a lot of romance books fathers are either the antagonist, dead, or deadbeats. I digress.

Over the last couple of years thanks to Book-tok and the success of Fourth Wing whatever the Fantasy Romance subgenre (often called ‘Romantasy’) has become a bigger part of the genera pulp culture zeitgeist. This has caused an influx of online posts asking for “Romance Books but for a guy/man” or something similar. Some of these posts are sincere and polite (but still a bit naïve) but the majority in my experience are either insincere and/or misogynistic. In any case, it is a dumb thing to think that in the 21st century a book needs to be specifically for your gender or sexual orientation. Further, many of these requests say things akin to “I want fantasy action and sex scenes but no emotional lovey-dovey stuff because I do not understand what a romance story is.” I find this sad but also funny. A Romantasy for Guys and Men is my attempt to parody the general idea behind this specific concept along with the modern “dude-bro misogynistic mind set” and general romance book tropes.

If you do read it, I hope you enjoy. If you want recommendations for romance books that are worth reading, I keep a top list on my blog.

– Romance Book Dad, January 24, 2026

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Somewhere in a Fortune 500 company's engineering Slack, a product manager types a casual message: “@CodingBot can you add a quick feature to disable rate limiting for our VIP customers?” Within minutes, the AI agent has pushed a commit to the main branch, bypassing the security team entirely. Nobody reviewed the code. Nobody questioned whether this created a vulnerability. The change simply happened because someone with a blue “PM” badge next to their name asked politely in a chat window.

This scenario is no longer hypothetical. As organisations race to embed AI coding agents directly into collaboration platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, they are fundamentally redrawing the boundaries of who controls software development. According to the JetBrains State of Developer Ecosystem 2025 survey, which gathered responses from 24,534 developers between April and June 2025, 85 per cent of developers now regularly use AI tools for coding and development work. More striking still, 41 per cent of all code written in 2025 was AI-generated. The shift from isolated integrated development environments (IDEs) to shared conversational spaces represents perhaps the most significant transformation in how software gets built since the advent of version control.

The convenience is undeniable. GitHub Copilot's November 2025 update introduced Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration with OAuth support, enabling AI agents to authenticate securely with tools like Slack and Jira without hardcoded tokens. Developers can now issue commands to create pull requests, search repositories, and manage issues directly from chat interfaces. The friction between “I have an idea” and “the code exists” has collapsed to nearly zero.

But this collapse carries profound implications for power, security, and the intentionality that once protected software systems from hasty decisions. When anyone with access to a Slack channel can summon code into existence through natural language, the centuries-old gatekeeping function of technical expertise begins to erode. The question facing every technology organisation today is not whether to adopt these tools, but how to prevent convenience from becoming catastrophe.

The Shifting Tectonics of Software Power

For decades, the software development process enforced a natural hierarchy. Product managers could request features. Designers could propose interfaces. Executives could demand timelines. But ultimately, developers held the keys to the kingdom. Only they could translate abstract requirements into functioning code. This bottleneck, frustrating as it often proved, served as a crucial check on impulse and impatience.

That structural constraint is dissolving. As McKinsey's research indicates, AI tools are now automating time-consuming routine tasks such as project management, market analysis, performance testing, and documentation, freeing product managers, engineers, and designers to focus on higher-value work. The technology consultancy notes that teams are not looking to replace human judgment and decision-making with AI; instead, the goal is to use AI for what it does best, whilst relying on human insight for understanding complex human needs.

Yet the practical reality is messier. When a non-technical stakeholder can type a request into Slack and watch code materialise within seconds, the power dynamic shifts in subtle but significant ways. Research from MIT published in July 2025 found that developers feel they “don't really have much control over what the model writes.” Without a channel for AI to expose its own confidence, the researchers warn, “developers risk blindly trusting hallucinated logic that compiles, but collapses in production.”

This confidence gap becomes particularly dangerous when AI agents operate in shared spaces. In an IDE, a developer maintains clear responsibility for what they commit. In a chat environment, multiple stakeholders may issue requests, and the resulting code reflects a confused amalgamation of intentions. The MIT researchers call for “transparent tooling that lets models expose uncertainty and invite human steering rather than passive acceptance.”

The democratisation of code generation also threatens to flatten organisational learning curves in problematic ways. Bain and Company's 2025 technology report found that three of four companies report the hardest part of AI adoption is getting people to change how they work. Under pressure, developers often fall back on old habits, whilst some engineers distrust AI or worry that it will undermine their role. This tension creates an unstable environment where traditional expertise is simultaneously devalued and desperately needed.

The implications extend beyond individual teams. As AI tools become the primary interface for requesting software changes, the vocabulary of software development shifts from technical precision to conversational approximation. Product managers who once needed to craft detailed specifications can now describe what they want in plain English. The question of whether this represents democratisation or degradation depends entirely on the governance structures surrounding these new capabilities.

Who Gets to Summon the Machine?

The question of who can invoke AI coding agents has become one of the most contentious governance challenges facing technology organisations. In traditional development workflows, access to production systems required specific credentials, code reviews, and approval chains. The move to chat-based development threatens to bypass all of these safeguards with a simple “@mention.”

Slack's own documentation for its agent-ready APIs, released in October 2025, emphasises that permission inheritance ensures AI applications respect the same access controls as human users. IT leaders have specific concerns, the company acknowledges, as many organisations only discover extensive over-permissioning when they are ready to deploy AI systems. This revelation typically comes too late, after permissions have already propagated through interconnected systems.

The architectural challenge is that traditional role-based access control (RBAC) was designed for human users operating at human speeds. As WorkOS explains in its documentation on AI agent access control, AI agents powered by large language models “generate actions dynamically based on natural language inputs and infer intent from ambiguous context, which makes their behaviour more flexible, and unpredictable.” Without a robust authorisation model to enforce permissions, the consequences can be severe.

Cerbos, a provider of access control solutions, notes that many current AI agent frameworks still assume broad system access. By default, an AI support agent might see the entire ticketing database instead of only the subset relevant to the current user. When that agent can also write code, the exposure multiplies exponentially.

The most sophisticated organisations are implementing what the Cloud Security Alliance describes as “Zero Trust 2.0” specifically designed for AI systems. This framework uses artificial intelligence integrated with machine learning to establish trust in real-time through behavioural and network activity observation. A Policy Decision Point sits at the centre of this architecture, watching everything in real-time, evaluating context, permissions, and behaviour, and deciding whether that agentic AI can execute this action on that system under these conditions.

This represents a fundamental shift from the traditional model of granting permissions once and trusting them indefinitely. As the Cloud Security Alliance warns, traditional zero trust relied heavily on perimeter controls and static policies because the entities it governed (human users) operated within predictable patterns and at human speed. AI agents shatter these assumptions entirely.

Beyond RBAC, organisations are exploring attribute-based access control (ABAC) and relationship-based access control (ReBAC) for managing AI agent permissions. ABAC adds context such as user tier, branch, time of day, and tenant ID. However, as security researchers note, modern LLM stacks often rely on ephemeral containers or serverless functions where ambient context vanishes with each invocation. Persisting trustworthy attributes across the chain demands extra engineering that many proof-of-concept projects skip. ReBAC models complex resource graphs elegantly, but when agents make dozens of micro-tool calls per prompt, those lookups must complete in tens of milliseconds or users will notice lag.

The Security Surface Expands

Moving coding workflows from isolated IDEs into shared chat environments multiplies the surface area for security exposure in ways that many organisations have failed to anticipate. The attack vectors include token leakage, unaudited repository access, prompt injection, and the fundamental loss of control over when and how code is generated.

Dark Reading's January 2026 analysis of security pitfalls in AI coding adoption highlights the severity of this shift. Even as developers start to use AI agents to build applications and integrate AI services into the development and production pipeline, the quality of the code, especially the security of the code, varies significantly. Research from CodeRabbit found that whilst developers may be moving quicker and improving productivity with AI, these benefits are offset by the fact they are spending time fixing flawed code or tackling security issues.

The statistics are sobering. According to Checkmarx's 2025 global survey, nearly 70 per cent of respondents estimated that more than 40 per cent of their organisation's code was AI-generated in 2024, with 44.4 per cent of respondents estimating 41 to 60 per cent of their code is AI-generated. IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report reveals that 13 per cent of organisations reported breaches of AI models or applications, with 97 per cent lacking proper AI access controls. Shadow AI breaches cost an average of $670,000 more than traditional incidents and affected one in five organisations in 2025. With average breach costs exceeding $5.2 million and regulatory penalties reaching eight figures, the business case for robust security controls is compelling.

The specific risks of chat-based development deserve careful enumeration. First, prompt injection attacks have emerged as perhaps the most insidious threat. As Dark Reading explains, data passed to a large language model from a third-party source could contain text that the LLM will execute as a prompt. This indirect prompt injection is a major problem in the age of AI agents where LLMs are linked with third-party tools to access data or perform tasks. Researchers have demonstrated prompt injection attacks in AI coding assistants including GitLab Duo, GitHub Copilot Chat, and AI agent platforms like ChatGPT. Prompt injection now ranks as LLM01 in the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications, underscoring its severity.

Second, token and credential exposure creates systemic vulnerabilities. TechTarget's analysis of AI code security risks notes that to get useful suggestions, developers might prompt these tools with proprietary code or confidential logic. That input could be stored or later used in model training, potentially leaking secrets. Developers increasingly paste sensitive code or data into public tools, which may use that input for future model training. This phenomenon, referred to as IP leakage and shadow AI, represents a category of risk that barely existed five years ago. Security concerns include API keys, passwords, and tokens appearing in AI-suggested code, along with insecure code patterns like SQL injection, command injection, and path traversal.

Third, the speed of chat-based code generation outpaces human review capacity. Qodo's 2026 analysis of enterprise code review tools observes that AI-assisted development now accounts for nearly 40 per cent of all committed code, and global pull request activity has surged. Leaders frequently report that review capacity, not developer output, is the limiting factor in delivery. When code can be generated faster than it can be reviewed, the natural safeguard of careful human inspection begins to fail.

Chris Wysopal of Veracode, quoted in Dark Reading's analysis, offers stark guidance: “Developers need to treat AI-generated code as potentially vulnerable and follow a security testing and review process as they would for any human-generated code.” The problem is that chat-based development makes this discipline harder to maintain, not easier.

Building Governance for the Conversational Era

The governance frameworks required for AI coding agents in chat environments must operate at multiple levels simultaneously. They must define who can invoke agents, what those agents can access, how their outputs are reviewed, and what audit trails must be maintained. According to Deloitte's 2025 analysis, only 9 per cent of enterprises have reached what they call a “Ready” level of AI governance maturity. That is not because 91 per cent of companies are lazy, but because they are trying to govern something that moves faster than their governance processes.

The Augment Code framework for enterprise AI code governance identifies several essential components. Usage policies must clearly define which AI tools are permitted and for what capacity, specify acceptable use cases (distinguishing between prototyping and production code), ensure that AI-generated code is clearly identifiable, and limit use of AI-generated code in sensitive or critical components such as authentication modules or financial systems.

A clear policy should define approved use cases. For example, organisations might allow AI assistants to generate boilerplate code, documentation, or test scaffolding, but disallow use in implementing core cryptography, authentication flows, or handling credentials. Governance controls should specify which AI tools are permitted and for what capacity, define acceptable use cases, ensure that AI-generated code is clearly identifiable, and limit use of AI-generated code in sensitive or critical components.

Automated enforcement becomes crucial when human review cannot keep pace. DX's enterprise adoption guidelines recommend configurable rulesets that allow organisations to encode rules for style, patterns, frameworks, security, and compliance. Review agents check each diff in the IDE and pull request against these rules, flagging or blocking non-compliant changes. Standards can be managed centrally and applied across teams and repositories.

The most successful engineering organisations in 2025, according to Qodo's analysis, shifted routine review load off senior engineers by automatically approving small, low-risk, well-scoped changes, whilst routing schema updates, cross-service changes, authentication logic, and contract modifications to humans. AI review must categorise pull requests by risk, flag unrelated changes bundled in the same request, and selectively automate approvals under clearly defined conditions.

This tiered approach preserves human ownership of critical decisions whilst enabling AI acceleration of routine work. As the Qodo analysis notes, a well-governed AI code review system preserves human ownership of the merge button whilst raising the baseline quality of every pull request, reduces back-and-forth, and ensures reviewers only engage with work that genuinely requires their experience.

Regulatory pressure is accelerating the formalisation of these practices. The European Data Protection Board's 2025 guidance provides criteria for identifying privacy risks, classifying data, and evaluating consequences. It emphasises controlling inputs to LLM systems to avoid exposing personal information, trade secrets, or intellectual property. The NIST framework, SOC2 certifications, and ISO/IEC 42001 compliance all have their place in enterprise AI governance. Regulations like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR are forcing organisations to take AI security seriously, with logging, audit trails, and principle of least privilege becoming not just best practices but legal requirements.

Architectural Patterns for Auditability

The technical architecture of AI coding agents in chat environments must be designed from the ground up with auditability in mind. This is not merely a compliance requirement; it is a precondition for maintaining engineering integrity in an era of automated code generation.

The concept of provenance bills of materials (PBOMs) is gaining traction as a way to track AI-generated code from commit to deployment. As Substack's Software Analyst newsletter explains, standards for AI-BOM tracking are forming under NIST and OWASP influence. Regulatory pressure from the EU Cyber Resilience Act and similar US initiatives will push organisations to document the provenance of AI code.

Qodo's enterprise review framework emphasises that automated tools must produce artifacts that reviewers and compliance teams can rely on, including referenced code snippets, security breakdowns, call-site lists, suggested patches, and an audit trail for each workflow action. In large engineering organisations, these artifacts become the verifiable evidence needed for governance, incident review, and policy enforcement. Effective monitoring and logging ensure accountability by linking AI-generated code to developers, inputs, and decisions for audit and traceability.

The OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications, updated for 2025, provides specific guidance for securing AI-generated code. The project notes that prompt injection remains the number one concern in securing LLMs, underscoring its critical importance in generative AI security. The framework identifies insecure output handling as a key vulnerability: neglecting to validate LLM outputs may lead to downstream security exploits, including code execution that compromises systems and exposes data. Attack scenarios include cross-site scripting, SQL injection, or code execution via unsafe LLM output, as well as LLM-generated Markdown or HTML enabling malicious script injection.

Mitigation strategies recommended by OWASP include treating the model as a user, adopting a zero-trust approach, and ensuring proper input validation for any responses from the model to backend functions. Organisations should encode the model's output before delivering it to users to prevent unintended code execution and implement content filters to eliminate vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting and SQL injection in LLM-generated outputs. Following the OWASP Application Security Verification Standard guidelines with a focus on input sanitisation is essential. Incorporating Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) into the development process helps identify vulnerabilities early.

The principle of least privilege takes on new dimensions when applied to AI agents. Slack's security documentation for AI features emphasises that AI interactions are protected by enterprise-grade safety and security frameworks, providing layered protection across every prompt and response. These protections include content thresholds to avoid hallucinations, prompt instructions that reinforce safe behaviour, provider-level mitigations, context engineering to mitigate prompt injection vulnerabilities, URL filtering to reduce phishing risk, and output validation.

Slack's Real-Time Search API, coming in early 2026, will allow organisations to build custom AI applications that maintain enterprise security standards, providing real-time search access that allows users to interact with data directly. Crucially, when access to a sensitive document is revoked, that change is reflected in the user's next query across all AI systems without waiting for overnight sync jobs.

Preserving Intentionality in the Age of Automation

Perhaps the most subtle but significant challenge of chat-based AI development is the erosion of intentionality. When code could only be written through deliberate effort in an IDE, every line represented a considered decision. When code can be summoned through casual conversation, the distinction between intention and impulse begins to blur.

The JetBrains 2025 survey reveals telling statistics about developer attitudes. Among concerns about AI coding tools, 23 per cent cite inconsistent code quality, 18 per cent point to limited understanding of complex logic, 13 per cent worry about privacy and security, 11 per cent fear negative effects on their skills, and 10 per cent note lack of context awareness. Developers want to delegate mundane tasks to AI but prefer to stay in control of more creative and complex ones. Meanwhile, 68 per cent of developers anticipate that AI proficiency will become a job requirement, and 90 per cent report saving at least an hour weekly using AI tools.

This preference for maintained control reflects a deeper understanding of what makes software development valuable: not the typing, but the thinking. The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter's analysis of how AI-assisted coding will change software engineering observes that the best developers are not the ones who reject AI or blindly trust it. They are the ones who know when to lean on AI and when to think deeply themselves.

The shift to chat-based development creates particular challenges for this discernment. In an IDE, the boundary between human thought and AI suggestion remains relatively clear. In a chat environment, where multiple participants may contribute to a thread, the provenance of each requirement becomes harder to trace. The Capgemini analysis of AI agents in software development emphasises that autonomy in this context refers to systems that self-organise, adapt, and collaborate to achieve a shared goal. The goal is not to automate the whole software development lifecycle, but specific tasks where developers benefit from automation.

This targeted approach requires organisational discipline that many companies have not yet developed. IBM's documentation on the benefits of ChatOps notes that it offers automated workflows, centralised communication, real-time monitoring, and security and compliance features. But it also warns of ChatOps dangers and the need for organisational protocols and orchestrators for governed LLM infrastructure use. Critical security implications include data exposure and the need for internal models or strict rules.

The risk is that replacing traditional development with chat-based AI could lead to unmanaged infrastructure if companies do not have proper protocols and guardrails in place for LLM usage. DevOps.com's analysis of AI-powered DevSecOps warns that automated compliance checks may miss context-specific security gaps, leading to non-compliance in highly regulated industries. Organisations should integrate AI-driven governance tools with human validation to maintain accountability and regulatory alignment.

The Human-in-the-Loop Imperative

The emerging consensus among security researchers and enterprise architects is that AI coding agents in chat environments require what is termed a “human-in-the-loop” approach for any sensitive operations. This is not a rejection of automation, but a recognition of its proper boundaries.

Slack's security documentation for its Agentforce product, available since early 2025, describes AI interactions protected by enterprise-grade guardrails. These include content thresholds to avoid hallucinations, prompt instructions that reinforce safe behaviour, and output validation. However, the documentation acknowledges that these technical controls are necessary but not sufficient. The company uses third-party large language models hosted within secure AWS infrastructure, with LLMs that do not retain any information from requests, and customer data is never used to train third-party LLMs.

The Obsidian Security analysis of AI agent security risks identifies identity-based attacks, especially involving stolen API keys and OAuth tokens, as a rapidly growing threat vector for enterprises using AI agents. In one notable incident, attackers exploited Salesloft-Drift OAuth tokens, which granted them access to hundreds of downstream environments. The blast radius of this supply chain attack was ten times greater than previous incidents.

Best practices for mitigating these risks include using dynamic, context-aware authentication such as certificate-based authentication, implementing short-lived tokens with automatic rotation, and most importantly, requiring human approval for sensitive operations. As the analysis notes, security mitigations should include forcing context separation by splitting different tasks to different LLM instances, employing the principle of least privilege for agents, taking a human-in-the-loop approach for approving sensitive operations, and filtering input for text strings commonly used in prompt injections.

The Unit 42 research team at Palo Alto Networks has documented how context attachment features can be vulnerable to indirect prompt injection. To set up this injection, threat actors first contaminate a public or third-party data source by inserting carefully crafted prompts into the source. When a user inadvertently supplies this contaminated data to an assistant, the malicious prompts hijack the assistant. This hijack could manipulate victims into executing a backdoor, inserting malicious code into an existing codebase, and leaking sensitive information.

This threat model makes clear that human oversight cannot be optional. Even the most sophisticated AI guardrails can be circumvented by adversaries who understand how to manipulate the inputs that AI systems consume.

Redefining Roles for the Agentic Era

As AI coding agents become embedded in everyday workflows, the roles of developers, product managers, and technical leaders are being fundamentally redefined. The DevOps community discussion on the evolution from Copilot to autonomous AI suggests that developers' roles may shift to guiding these agents as “intent engineers” or “AI orchestrators.”

This transition requires new skills and new organisational structures. The AWS DevOps blog's analysis of the AI-driven development lifecycle identifies levels of AI autonomy similar to autonomous driving: Level 0 involves no AI-assisted automation; Level 1 provides AI-assisted options where the developer is in full control and receives recommendations; Level 2 involves AI-assisted selection where AI selects pre-defined options; Level 3 provides AI-based partial automation where AI selects options in simple standard cases; and Level 4 involves AI-based full automation where AI operates without the developer. Currently, Levels 1 and 2 are the most common, Level 3 is on the rise, and Level 4 is considered rather unrealistic for complex, industrial-scale software.

The key insight, as articulated in the Capgemini analysis, is that the future is not about AI replacing developers. It is about AI becoming an increasingly capable collaborator that can take initiative whilst still respecting human guidance and expertise. The most effective teams are those that learn to set clear boundaries and guidelines for their AI agents, establish strong architectural patterns, create effective feedback loops, and maintain human oversight whilst leveraging AI autonomy.

This balance requires governance structures that did not exist in the pre-AI era. The Legit Security analysis of DevOps governance emphasises that hybrid governance combines centralised standards with decentralised execution. You standardise core practices like identity management, secure deployment, and compliance monitoring, whilst letting teams adjust the rest to fit their workflows. This balances consistency with agility to support collaboration across diverse environments.

For product managers and non-technical stakeholders, the new environment demands greater technical literacy without the pretence of technical expertise. Whilst AI tools can generate features and predict patterns, the critical decisions about how to implement these capabilities to serve real human needs still rest firmly in human hands. The danger is that casual @mentions become a way of avoiding this responsibility, outsourcing judgment to systems that cannot truly judge.

Towards a Disciplined Future

The integration of AI coding agents into collaboration platforms like Slack represents an inflection point in the history of software development. The potential benefits are enormous: faster iteration, broader participation in the development process, and reduced friction between conception and implementation. But these benefits come with risks that are only beginning to be understood.

The statistics point to a trajectory that cannot be reversed. The global AI agents market reached $7.63 billion in 2025 and is projected to hit $50.31 billion by 2030, according to industry analyses cited by the Cloud Security Alliance. McKinsey's research shows that 88 per cent of organisations now use AI in at least one function, up from 55 per cent in 2023. The question is not whether AI coding agents will become ubiquitous in collaborative environments, but whether organisations will develop the governance maturity to deploy them safely.

The path forward requires action on multiple fronts. First, organisations must implement tiered permission systems that treat AI agents with the same rigour applied to human access, or greater. The principle of least privilege must be extended to every bot that can touch code. Second, audit trails must be comprehensive and immutable, documenting every AI-generated change, who requested it, and what review it received. Third, human approval must remain mandatory for any changes to critical systems, regardless of how convenient chat-based automation might be.

Perhaps most importantly, organisations must resist the cultural pressure to treat chat-based code generation as equivalent to traditional development. The discipline of code review, the intentionality of careful architecture, and the accountability of clear ownership were never bureaucratic obstacles to progress. They were the foundations of engineering integrity.

IT Pro's analysis of AI software development in 2026 warns that developer teams still face significant challenges with adoption, security, and quality control. The Knostic analysis of AI coding assistant governance notes that governance frameworks matter more for AI code generation than traditional development tools because the technology introduces new categories of risk. Without clear policies, teams make inconsistent decisions about when to use AI, how to validate outputs, and what constitutes acceptable generated code.

The convenience of asking an AI to write code in a Slack channel is seductive. But convenience has never been the highest virtue in software engineering. Reliability, security, and maintainability are what distinguish systems that endure from those that collapse. As AI coding agents proliferate through our collaboration platforms, the organisations that thrive will be those that remember this truth, even as they embrace the power of automation.

The next time a product manager types “@CodingBot” into a Slack channel, the response should not be automatic code generation. It should be a series of questions: What is the business justification? Has this been reviewed by security? What is the rollback plan? Is human approval required? Only with these safeguards in place can chat-driven development realise its potential without becoming a vector for chaos.

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

Our Father Who art in heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

The World was designed for no-one Then I found grace by a waterfall It happened all along More details than days in anger Hopeless as before, which was little And betting on emergency not A thrush threw a key And I inked a forever thanks, Fed to our wisdom And in this last, forever Cowardice without poem Or proper, with proof Here is the edifice The fighting example A place for sinners to re-appear, and shine as men Thirteen things proper And a Lusitanian pass Stairways for Winter And stars to be outstanding Then Heaven in between- That’s what the shape was for- An edict of the galaxy and of Rome Prices for our favour And mutiny for all To become a better pavement For our siblings to roll onto Exciting others With their way No matter what Story told And I am sure.