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feyspeaker · 6 months

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Hiii! Gosh, I love your work SO MUCH. You recently mentioned in an answer to someone that you have ADHD and because of that, you have lots of rituals for your work in order to stay focused. May I ask what your routine is? I have struggled for years and years as a working artist to control or harness my adhd, and I would love to hear what works for you!! Thank you so much for even reading this :)))

Hi there!! Thank you so much. ♥

I'm probably a terrible person to give advice, because I absolutely do NOT have a handle on my ADHD. I often feel like I'm drowning in it, as I'm sure a lot of other people in the same situation can commiserate with. A lot of my issues are exacerbated by my agoraphobia and anxiety, but I won't go too into that stuff because I am not really in a place to talk about that aspect of my life so much. I do think I've become more aware of it as I have gotten older and am definitely better at managing it than I was when I was younger. Also to start off, I'm not medicated for it.

First and foremost, I tend to need to overstimulate myself in order to get down to painting, though this is only so effective. I play really loud, very noisy music when I work. Angelspit, Combichrist, The Gazette, etc. Heavy electronic, industrial, nu metal kind of stuff. It helps drown out my thoughts so I can focus on painting. I need to Not Think to be able to paint. I have to already know I'm in flow state on something and really into it if I'm going to be playing mellower stuff.

I also like to play youtube videos or shows on things I'm currently fixated on. Like I'll watch nothing but videos on Welsh folklore or horse training or whatever the hell. I really struggle with listening to audiobooks or podcasts because they aren't engaging enough.

I have parental controls on my computer set up so that I can block out any distracting websites, however this is really not super helpful because I have to keep social media open at all times as it's part of my job to manage those things. It does help some though. It might work for you! They make browser extensions for it.

I try to keep momentum on pieces. I can't let a piece sit for more than a few days, or I know it's time to bin it and give up. I either hyperfixate on a painting until it's done, or it's not good enough and it's going to be like an anchor dragging my momentum down. The second I feel momentum waning I know I need to make a change. I've made huge changes to how I take commissions in order to help me with this, as this is my biggest struggle. I hate sending updates on things, waiting for emails, painting things I'm not super invested in, etc. I recognize that I am incredibly blessed/lucky to be in a position to be a little pickier about the work I take on and how I take it. But I do firmly believe in general that a commission based artist should try to make sure they are doing work they enjoy and not just slogging away on something that they don't vibe with at all. That's good advice for anyone, but I do think that us folk with ADHD tend to feel burnout and artblock harder. I know when I have artblock literally NOTHING can get me to paint, so that's why momentum is so important.

I also try to recognize things that I know are going to trigger me into avoiding what I need to do for the day, or causing me to spiral. For example, if I know I need to make a phone call I try to do that first if at all possible, otherwise I am going to end up not getting anything done for the next 6 hours. If I know I'm going to have to have to leave the house for an appointment or something scheduled, I typically just let that day be a wash and don't plan any work for it. I end up physically ill when I have something I have to go out and do (like going to some appointment or even something small like going to pick something up off of FB marketplace) so I try to just Avoid That, but if I can't I will just clear my schedule for the day.

I try to maximize my Good Days by minimizing things that trigger my procrastination/lack of motivation/distractions. But when I have bad days I just try not to beat myself up about it. (Still do, but I'm trying to get better.)

The worst thing is letting a whole day be wasted sitting there, knowing the time is passing. Knowing that there is something you should be doing, but you're not doing it. Knowing that you don't want to be doing that thing, and that you'd rather be playing a game or painting something else. But not doing that either. And before you know it, the sun is setting and you've done no work AND had no fun and it's time for bed. Ugh, I've had so many days like that.

It's important to recognize when that is happening, and to just say "fuck it" and go do the fun thing you want to do instead of toiling for hours in indecision. That's probably bad advice for people who have poor responsibility skills (like actually making sure to get work done on the good days) but I am saying this in good faith. Sometimes when that happens I'll let myself go bake a bunch of bread or obsessively clean a cabinet out so I still feel like I did something that day. Next day, I try to do better.

I don't know if this is helpful at all- I know people with ADHD have a lot of different experiences/tendencies, but this is what helps me. I slipped a lot after my dad's cancer diagnosis several years ago and felt myself really just completely letting go into the ADHD time void because my thoughts and worries were so loud I couldn't drown them out with all the screamo in the world. I started fixating on BG3 really hard near the end, and it's absolutely responsible for me being Okay artistically and emotionally speaking after his passing last month. I think difficult situations can make our symptoms worse, and to an extent we have to ride the wave and be kind to ourselves.

That's perhaps my closing thought- be patient and kind to yourself. Our brains don't really work right but it can be a blessing in that I think the flow state we are capable of is really something otherwordly. So try to identify what helps trigger that in you and foster it.

#ask

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mariacallous · 9 months

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Countries have spent decades building critical infrastructure that is now buckling under extreme heat, wildfires, and floods, laying bare just how unprepared the world’s energy and transportation systems are to withstand the volatility of climate change.

These vulnerabilities have been on full display in recent weeks as record-breaking temperatures broil the world, straining power grids, threatening water supplies, and warping roads. July was the hottest month ever recorded—according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service—with intense heat searing Europe, North Africa, Antarctica, and South America, where it is currently winter. Even the world’s oceans haven’t been spared, with all-time high surface temperatures in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic decimating coral reef systems and threatening marine life.

If regions aren’t being scorched, there’s a good chance that they are underwater. China was drenched by its heaviest downpours in 140 years, which triggered massive floods that killed dozens of people and destroyed crop fields. In Slovenia and Canada, surging floodwaters have battered communities and submerged villages; glacial flooding in Alaska has carried entire homes away. Cities in Spain have been flooded worse than Noah and his brood, while southern Sweden is grappling with its heaviest rains in more than 160 years.

“It’s just an unbelievable summer,” said Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and senior fellow at the Pacific Institute. “It’s the kind of extreme weather that we climate scientists have been warning about for decades—it just now seems to be happening everywhere, all at once.”

Climate change, driven by human activity, makes extreme heat and precipitation more frequent and intense—fueling the floods, heat waves, and wildfires that have been wreaking havoc around the world. The fallout has spotlighted how the infrastructure systems underpinning global development weren’t constructed to withstand this increasingly extreme climate reality, and what investment has been carried out has been less than helpful.

China’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure plan has built more coal plants across Eurasia, among other things. Germany shuttered its nuclear power stations, not its coal plants. Florida actually banned state officials from investing public money in green endeavors. The Biden administration’s big clean-energy package angered allies and sparked concerns of a trade war. Meanwhile, Ford sold an F-series pickup truck every minute of last year.

“We have entire cities and transportation hubs that were all built for climate that no longer exists,” said Katharine Hayhoe, the Chief Scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “That’s why we’re seeing terrible things happen.”

China’s most recent bout of flooding, for example, exposed key gaps in its drainage infrastructure. Across Europe, where home air-conditioning units aren’t the norm, extreme heat has throttled communities, strained power grids, and sparked government health warnings—particularly after the continent’s heat wave last year killed an estimated 61,000 people. In Phoenix, Arizona, one flight was canceled because the plane’s internal temperature became unbearably hot, prompting three passengers to faint from heat exhaustion.

Yet even as these threats become more pronounced, experts say countries are still struggling to turn away from fossil fuels and build resilience into their infrastructure systems. In March, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warned that the world was on track to barrel past a key threshold in the next decade—warming 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels—unless industrial governments rapidly cut greenhouse gas and CO2 emissions. “Changes in climate are coming more rapidly than expected,” Jim Skea, the head of the IPCC, said this month.

“The real challenge is that so far, we’re nowhere near addressing climate change with the seriousness that is required to really move the needle,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “If we don’t actually do the hard work of deeply addressing this, then it will continue to get worse. We will see more years like this one, and then eventually years that are significantly worse than this one,” he added.

There are some bright spots: The Netherlands, for example, has spent the last few hundred years building dikes and is now spearheading efforts to build further resilience into its infrastructure amid rising sea levels. More than half of the country’s territory lies below sea level, and the Dutch government has worked to develop a robust water management scheme and implement novel flood control strategies.

“The Netherlands are incredibly vulnerable to sea level rise,” Hayhoe said. “Their water plan is very advanced because they understand the threat, and they’re taking action to ensure that as sea level rises, that they will still have their infrastructure, their homes, places to live, places to grow food.”

Like the Dutch, many governments are increasingly focusing on adapting their infrastructure systems, from incorporating climate modeling into water management to developing heat mitigation strategies. But unless countries take more concerted efforts to both slash carbon emissions and ramp up adaptation measures, experts warn that more suffering lies ahead.

Adaptation “efforts have not been anywhere near to the level to match the threat,” said Alice Hill, a former senior director for resilience policy under the Obama administration currently at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We just haven’t made the kind of necessary investments to protect ourselves and our communities from these extreme events—and with that kind of destruction comes a lot of grief, loss of life, and then economic loss.”

Part of the problem is that retrofitting decades-old infrastructure can come at a steep price. A 2013 study of the world’s 136 largest coastal cities, for instance, found that it would cost $350 million annually in each city to improve defenses against flooding fueled by climate change. While that number pales in comparison to the price of inaction—which by some estimates can run up to hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars—it can be a difficult economic and political tradeoff for many governments.

“We’re talking huge price tags, and we’re also talking something that has not been done systemically before,” Hayhoe said. “We’ve never had to cope with changes this fast in the entire history of human civilization, and so we’re asking people, cities, states, governments, organizations, businesses to do something they’ve never had to do before.”

Physical preparedness is also only one part of the adaptation equation, said Stéphane Hallegatte, a senior climate advisor at the World Bank who was one of the authors of the 2013 study. Beyond infrastructure, a robust response also means developing social systems to help vulnerable communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.

“Adaptation is not only infrastructure,” Hallegatte said. “Adaptation is also insurance, social protection systems—also helping people [have] access to financial tools to borrow when they’re affected.”

Hayhoe likened the urgency of combating climate change to a longtime smoker who needs to quit. Although they may have impaired breathing and spots on their lungs, she said, they are still alive—and every day matters.

“So when’s the best time to stop? As soon as possible. How much? As much as possible,” she said. “Why? Because the sooner we stop, the better off we will be.”

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clearancecreedwatersurvival · 6 months

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As a follow-up to my let people use fanfiction as narrative therapy post I would also like to state for the record:

Ain’t nothing wrong with self insert fanfiction. Or Mary Sue OCs that are basically self inserts. Also nothing wrong with people writing ‘bad’ fanfiction that has nothing to do with the canon really. I don’t give a shit. People are making art and that’s awesome. I may not read stuff that isn’t to my personal tastes, but I am Glad people are making their art regardless. Especially young people. Especially people who are otherwise new to writing. Hell yeah, Make Art.

One thing I have noticed about fandom on tumblr is that in very large fandoms with mass appeal, there are often a lot of kids and youths and young folk watching or reading and thus wanting to create transformative art about it. This also means that a high concentration of fic may tend more towards having less to do with the actual canon of the thing and being more focused on whatever those kids really wanted to write or read about it. To discuss one specific example, the largest subsection of fandom that currently exists around the DC batman franchises on this site is the batfam fandom, a fandom comprised mostly of younger fans who are fans more of the platonic ideal of batman and his adopted kids and close associates that only really exists in their own works and also the webtoon**** For most of those people the appeal is the found family aspect, and that’s what they want to read and write about. Hell yeah. Good for them. At least they’re writing. At least they’re making art.

****I know there are a lot of people in the batman comics fandom that have serious issues with the webtoon and the way that dc comics publishing agendas have begun to reflect more what people on the internet are talking about and less coherent storytelling that makes sense based on past canon. And this is a very fair criticism.

But this is not a problem limited to dc. This is a problem of all major production companies who produce art for mass release. TV shows being written in response to what people say on reddit has been ruining creative endeavors in an obvious way at least since Game of Thrones was airing. Books being published based on what will be popular on tiktok derived from the popularity of some frankly terrible novels (yes I do mean acotar) leads to some absolute drivel on the best seller list. Of course the comics industry is also fucking things up the same way.

Your enemy there are not the young fans new to fandom who are just discovering writing fanfiction and doing so by writing about whatever interests them most. Please stop blaming kids and other people who aren’t writing fanfiction close enough to your concept of canon for this problem, it is far bigger than that.

Let people make their maybe bad art in peace. Everyone has to make bad art on the road to learning how to make better art. I am glad they are making their art regardless.

Also no shade meant to those fans this is just an observation and I wish you all well, but I do find it a little funny that the people who Are experts on the dc comics canon who I have seen criticize the existence of the batfam fandom on here are also usually like ‘this is my favorite character, I hate every single run this character has ever been in except this one from 30 years ago and five panels of this one run that got cancelled early.’ Like, you don’t really like most of the canon you wish other people would familiarize themselves with right? Give new fans a chance to want to learn more about it. Most of the fans in that circle are pretty young, they’re gonna have kinda bad taste sometimes and that’s fine and good actually. They’ll grow out of it and maybe some of them will come to know the comics canon more closely.

This is also why even though I am vocal about personally disliking the works of SJM (acotar my beloathed) and its impact on the publishing industry, I am honestly happy for anyone that read those books and enjoyed them. Same for every other book I don’t like. If you read it and get something out of it hell yeah good for you. I was unironically into twilight for many years as a teen I am not here to pass judgement on teens or anyone for that matter for what they enjoy.

Most big fandoms I have dipped my toes into have this same problem. If there are a lot of young people in that fandom, there’s gonna be a lot of fanfic that is written by people just learning to write, and that’s great, I love that actually, good for them. But those are always the fandoms where I see people being perhaps more vitriolic than necessary towards other fans for not being up to snuff. Let people make art that you don’t think is good, please. It’s fine actually. If you don’t like it you don’t have to read it. Just be glad someone is making art that makes them happy and move on.

#this is a long one but I have been seeing a lot of this tendency to blame new writers for not keeping to canon #and I have been having some Thoughts. so #fandom #transformative fandom #fanfiction #fandom discourse #fandom sociology #batfam #publishing #television writing #sjm critical #caitie speaks

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

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A New York law to end to Wall Street's pension ripoff

The “Shield of Boringness” — c.f. Dana Claire — is a scammer’s weapon. Layering scams in complexity lets villains get away with all kinds of nastiness. Some things are hard to understand because they’re complex, but some things are complex so they’ll be hard to understand.

In finance, this is sometimes called MEGO: “my eyes glaze over” — complex scams designed to bore their victims into submission. All of us are vulnerable to MEGO, because there’s only so many hours in a day and at a certain point, your eyes just start to slide over the legal mumbo-jumbo without any of it registering.

For me, the most powerful MEGO is the bottomless scamming of public pensions by private equity firms. In some distant way, I knew that there was something really terrible going on there, and that pension managers and PE looters were colluding to rip off billions, maybe trillions, from workers’ pensions. But despite how awful that is, every time I encountered an article about this scam, I just bounced off it. Just the word CALPERS was enough to send me into a coma.

But finally a piece of reporting has penetrated the Shield of Boringness, perhaps because it’s a rare (unprecedented?) piece of good news about this whole awful mess. Writing for The Lever, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports on New York A09948, “to amend the retirement and social security law, in relation to disclosing certain investment managers and investments.”

https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-biggest-secret-could-be-exposed/

The things this law would require are a kind of inverse-mold of the scam itself, like flipping a doctored photo to negative to spot the tampering. If this law passes, then, for the first time, the Wall Street firms that handle New York’s $269B public pension would have to disclose the cozy — and nakedly corrupt — contracting terms they arrive at with the funds’ overseers. For example, it would require disclosure of when fund managers charge private jets to the pension fund:

https://www.ft.com/content/1212b266-8760-4766-a03e-9e7db203b5d2

But gold-plated expenses are just the obvious part of the corruption. The good stuff is pure MEGO: for example, the Carlyle Group’s contracts reserve the right to invest pensions’ money in ways that lose money for the pension, but make money for Carlyle Group execs and their pals:

https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.aspx?BRCHR_VRSN_ID=500146

Leaked contracts reveal that public pensions have to promise not to demand a jury trial if they get ripped off by private equity firms, and to indemnify fund managers for all misconduct unless it rises to the (very high bar of) “fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct.”

Some of these contracts explicitly waive the “fiduciary duty” — the obligation on fund managers to put the pensioners’ interests ahead of their own.

If passed, the New York bill will expose standard contracting terms that stretch out nationwide, thanks to all of the cities, towns and states that enter into comparable high-risk/high-fee arrangements with the same Wall Street firms.

It will force private equity firms to disclose what they’re buying with pensioners’ money — for example, if they’re buying group homes, laying off staff, and killing and maiming the residents, as KKR did with public pension money:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/kkr-brightspring-disability-private-equity-abuse

These disclosures will bring more scrutiny to the public officials who want to hand even more pension money to PE firms, like NYC comptroller Brad Lander, who received giant campaign contributions from the finance industry and abandoned his campaign promise to halt public pension investments in planet-killing industries:

https://www.levernews.com/new-yorks-pension-reformer-goes-rogue/

Wall Street looters will fight this tooth-and-nail. They call these contracts “trade secrets” and compare forcing disclosure of their deals to forcing Coke to reveal its secret recipe:

https://www.pehub.com/confidentiality-of-limited-partnership-agreements-is-paramount/

It’s their position that terms governing the the public billions they’re entrusted with are immune to transparency laws, and they advise officials to resist public records requests regarding their deals:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/buyout-firms-push-pension-funds-to-keep-information-under-wraps-1415142588

These firms killed similar legislation in Kentucky:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kentucky-pensions/kentucky-pension-funds-push-back-against-fee-disclosure-bill-idUSKCN0VW22O

They buried a class-action suit to force the State of Kentucky to disclose the terms of its deal with the Wall Street firms that lost billions in pension money:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/02/mayberry-v-kkr-kentucky-attorney-general-shows-true-colors-looks-over-eager-to-settle-pathbreaking-pension-case-rather-than-inconvenience-private-equity-kingpins-blackstone-and-kkr.html

In Colorado, an effort to force disclosure died when public pension officials killed it:

https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2018a_200_signed.pdf

The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s co-director Eileen Appelbaum succinctly described the disclosure demand to Cunningham-Cook: “How good are the contracts? What are the fees, expectations in terms of returns?” These are modest demands, and the outright refusal to meet them should raise alarm bells.

This is especially true in light of the corrupt arrangements that have been revealed, like former NYC Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s conviction of taking bribes from Carlyle Group in exchange for access to the city’s pension money. DiNapoli, the new comptroller, promised an ethics overhaul — and then spectacularly failed to deliver. How bad is it? Navnoor Kang, the former NYC head of fixed incomes, went to prison in 2018 for taking bribes from brokers:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-new-york-pension-fund-executive-sentenced-to-21-months-in-prison-1531429910

And now, DiNapoli’s Chief Investment Officer Vicki Fuller has jumped ship for PE giant Blackstone after doing business with the company on the city’s watch. No word on whether she’ll be representing Blackstone in its negotiations with her former colleagues.

https://realassets.ipe.com/news/new-york-common-puts-500m-into-blackstone-and-prologis-funds/10025112.article

This transparency bill cuts through MEGO. Simply enumerating the things it will force disclosure of is a powerful reminder of how bad business-as-usual is today.

https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A09948&term=0&Summary=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y

Image: Ken Lund (modified): https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/7236960208

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

JSquish (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wall_Street_Sign_NYC.jpg

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

Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[Image ID: A street scene, looking down Front Street from Wall Street. Superimposed on the image are a crook-backed elderly beggar, the Charging Bull statue, and a Wall Street street-sign. Dancing atop the sign is a caricature of Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly; he has removed his face to reveal a grinning skull beneath.]

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macgyvermedical · 2 years

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I want to point out, about that thing you said about service industry won't ever again be the same service quality because people died, that how much for example USamerican food service people, pre 2019, were expected to bend over backwards to do things that serve no practical purpose, was considered excessive in most European countries, so it's a question of "normal" being unsustainable to begin with. Also employers CAN and some DO pay more for service jobs, so that's not at all inevitable.

Oh anon, yes I do very much agree with this. The US service industry expectations are (in the case of clients and bosses)/were (in the case of everyone else) fundamentally toxic and weird. Not just for the workers, but for the customers and patients and clients as well.

I worked in a hospital in the early 2010's that was service above everything- employing the "Disneyland" model of "you are always on stage" (we had multiple trainings per year from high end resorts- and this was not a particularly high end hospital IMO). This was explicitly because there were studies done that stated that even if the actual care was crap, people were less likely to sue if they'd gotten good service. And in the US, if something weird is happening, it's probably litigation mitigation.

The problem was, in reality the choice is: either you have to give everyone their own nurse/aide, or you had to do away with that model. If you're in a room with the world's slowest pee-er who will definitely fall off that commode if you leave, it might be 20 minutes before you can get to that next call light. And when call light times are tracked and staff is tracked via Vocera, including the concept of "93% of your time with a patient should be spent doing only 'medically necessary' things" there's really no way to meet all expectations. I wish the 6 human lives I'm responsible for only peed for 7% of my time. That's not how bladders work, though.

And staffing was already terrible at that hospital before the pandemic (we're talking 6-8:1 on a 40-bed tele floor with 2 aides- normal staffing being 4:1 with 4 aides), so I can only imagine what it's like now.

In some ways, the crisis standards of care were a miracle. Because it implied to the higher ups that you can't ask much more in the way of non-medical things. It also protects the hospital a little more legally, because try to sue us- we're severely understaffed and dealing with a pandemic. 'Good' service to one patient right now might be killing another. And firing someone (especially for something as ridiculous as not providing good customer service) is almost universally a bad idea.

Yes it has now tipped over into 'people are dying' because of this staffing situation. We are aware. Find us some more living, able-bodied-enough people with adequate child care and a nursing license to come in and work. Oh there aren't any? Shocking. Maybe that's why they're not here.

But yeah, we're also in a situation where people have conflated good care with good customer service. And untangling that mess and trying to re-train the population will take someone smarter than me.

#hospital life #customer service #nursing #nurblr #writing reference

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beardedmrbean · 8 months

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I have to both agree an disagree with you and anon on the porn thing, I agree that porn has warped peoples views on sex and body parts to an extent but viewing porn doesn’t inherently make one doubt themselves nor does it cause ill effects, that is a natural reaction to worries of inadequacy that’ve been around for millennia it’s sadly something that is difficult to work through no matter one’s assets, I also believe it’s natural for young teens to explore porn of course absolutely anonymously and without any deeper interaction, we all developed sexual urges as teens in some amount (of course we all keep it hush hush as is proper social courtesy) and it’s best to deal with those urges in a safe and healthy manner but again as I stated some porn has warped people’s perception of sex in fact the industry has an annoying trend towards stereotyping, I believe though these things are a case by case basis not all porn is bad but it’s not all good either as is with many things it is exhaustingly never as easy an simple as we’d wish it were.

Also if I’ve misinterpreted your post I apologize and thank you for taking the time to read my ask.

No apologies needed for much of anything, I'm shockingly difficult to upset and even if you misinterpreted things, you're coming in in a very polite way so no need to even consider fussing about it, if you were being a jerk I'd answer totally differently.

Short answer/summary at the end.

_____________

I wind up confusing people on here a lot because I'm fairly good at leaving wiggle room for myself, for example.

"can do"

Over the years I've developed the skill of avoiding blanket statements as much as possible, kept me out of trouble a lot, and also I agree with you it doesn't get everyone.

all that stuff where you say it doesn't inherently XYZ, be what I said too

Still don't think a 14 year old should be accessing porn, be nice for kids to just be themselves and all that for as long as possible and maybe get some comprehensive sex ed in there focused on the mechanics of it all, porn is terrible for that

I also know it's not going to happen, don't think there's been a time in history where it has, accessing some form of pornography be it peeping tom stuff or those pictures naughtius maximus drew on the parchment he keeps under his bed.

Been different things with all it though.

Ancient Greeks associated a large dong with being oafish and slow, another weird factoid learned while trying to answer a question I had in my mind (can it be done and how, you'll see what I mean) was when the Levant region of western Asia was under Hellenistic (Greek) rule there was a trend among some of the men to attempt to get their foreskins to grow back because they wanted to look "greek" devices they used then are very similar to what's available today.

So ya all that can create body image issues.

I get very jumbled when i start in on these responses because my brain doesn't always go in a linear fashion so I scroll up and add something when it hits my head and it may make other things a bit confusing, sorry bout that. ____________

Short answer: Ya I agree with most of what you said, since most of it was what I said just you used more words.

Porn bit is where we may diverge but I respect your opinion, nobody needs to agree with everything from everyone else.

That would be boring.

Again i hope this makes sense, I'm very aware of how messy my mental process can be and I can't fix it tried for years so disclaimers abound.

#anonymous

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lucytheblackbird · 2 years

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Random Thoughts of the Day

Have you noticed an increasing number of Democrats like John Fetterman are running from debates with their opponents? It’s simple — they’re following the Joe Biden basement strategy. It’s smart when you consider they control mainstream media, public education, Big Tech, and the entertainment industry along with the vast majority of political dark money, so they can totally frame & label their opponents while hiding all their flaws and insane ideas. Debates only expose voters to the truth, which is definitely NOT a winning strategy for Dems.

Speaking of framing the debate, Deep State Establishment RINO Lindsay Graham gave Dems the perfect opening to fire up their base with his ill-timed abortion ban proposal. Never mind that it’s a proposal from one lawmaker, not the platform of the Republican Party, and never mind that it’s a ban only after 5 months of pregnancy. It not only undercuts the argument made by Republicans of letting states decide, it gives Dems the perfect opening to LIE! Nearly every Dem candidate in the country has mentioned Graham’s proposal in their campaigning, but find me ONE SINGLE DEMOCRAT in the country who’s mentioned that it’s only after 5 pregnancy months and contains other exceptions like the life of the mother, in other words a “ban” which two-thirds of the country supports! Don’t count on CNN, MSNBC, or any of the other propagandists to note these important distinctions. It also draws attention away from the economy, inflation, crime, immigration, and other issues that would ensure Dem defeat.

We’ve had a historically low hurricane season, the least active in 30 years, but expect the usual climate change fear mongering with Hurricane Ian. As Biden policies cause gas prices to rise again the next few months, expect the media narrative to switch from “Putin’s fault” to “Hurricane Ian’s fault.”

Do you want an easy way to identify a Propagandist/Ruling Class stooge in business or the financial press? Watch how they use the word “recession.” For example, if they say sometime like, “There’s a good chance we may yet get a recession” or “Recession chances are increasing,” put them on the list. Everyone who has ever taken an economics class knows that the definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. It’s in EVERY economics textbook and has been repeated thousands of times on CNBC since I first found the channel. We’ve just had two negative quarters of GDP, so WE ARE IN A RECESSION! You can’t get higher than a 100 percent chance of recession since we’re already there! But the Biden strategy is to change the definition, and the lemmings & lapdogs of the financial world have just gone along with it. As with the Dem basement debate strategy, when you control all the propaganda outlets, the messaging can be whatever nonsensical crap you want. Good luck in getting any precision in the new definition of recession, which means we will never have a recession ever again–WOOHOO!…unless of course one of those evil fascist MAGA Republicans gets elected!

Speaking of fascism, the term has become the new racist. In other words, an undefined label used to attack opponents and stifle any real discussion of issues. Racist has been so overused, the Left needed a new line of attack for the “far right.” They’ll almost never define what positions are so-called fascist, but if you push them, they’ll find some generic comparison to fascists of the 20th century that have absolutely nothing to do with what made them so terrible. For example, if you talk about God, country, family, freedom from treacherous government — OMG, DEFINITELY HITTLER! (Side note: never spell Hitleeer or Naaaaazi correctly in a social media post as they’re an easy justification for censorship). The vast majority of the world is patriotic, cares deeply about their family, dislikes government, and believes in God. Are they all fascists?! If you want to use the term fascist, at least find some commonality with what made the 20th century totalitarian dictators so awful. For example:

Attacking and dehumanizing millions of people (e.g. MAGA Republicans or the unvaccinated)

Denying 1st Amendment freedoms (e.g. Big Tech mass censorship, using Covid to close down churches, prosecuting peaceful protesters)

Denying speedy trials or imposing unjust sentences on political opponents (e.g. Jan 6th or “election deniers”)

Disarming threats (e.g. assault weapon bans and red flag laws)

Using government agencies to go after political opponents (e.g. FBI raids, illegal surveillance, 87000 new IRS agents)

Implementing 1984-style propaganda control (e.g. Big Tech collusion, DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board)

I could go on, but you get the idea. Always be skeptical when you hear the media describe any politician as “far right.” They will NEVER describe people like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Justin Trudeau as “far left,” but when politicians taking positions supported by the majority of the world are called “far right,” you know you’re living in a clown world pushed by Ruling Class tools.

as published @politicallyincorrecthumor.com, 28-Sep-22

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iriushoothoot · 9 months

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My fascination for strange games #1: Red Tape

It’s no secret that I am drawn to the weird, the mysterious and strange, the things nonsensical and beyond any reason. I admire the stuff that just exist, because the creator thought: “There’s no reason why this should exist but I can make it exist!”. This mindset is something I can’t help but to hold it in high regards. The pure determination, the will with which the creator created the thing in question, the level of not caring, not having any regards of what the world will think of the result; this is something any artist, creator, and maybe everyone should have.

Not that people only should care for themselves; no, quite the opposite actually. People should do stuff just because they can, because it makes them happy, and not change their thing, creation or personality, just because it could make them popular or rich. The best things in life are true, unfiltered and often unrecognized by the general public and yet they create so much joy not only to the creator, but to other people too.

This approach is lived by many indie game developers. Sure, a calculated AAA can be fun, but does it really have a soul? How much personality does a big title by EA, Activision or Ubisoft really have?

Before I drift off too much into the current state of the gaming industry, a state that isn’t too glorious and unfortunately is dominated by predatory microtransactions, countless sequels that change almost nothing and unpolished releases, because companies care about their investors more, rather than releasing a good product for their customers, let’s look at some strange games, as this essay-esque post exists because of those.

Whenever I see a weird game, there’s a huge chance I buy it. If you ever asked yourself “Who would even buy this game?!”, the answer is most likely me. One of the most recent examples would be Red Tape, a pretty new release by DreadXP developed by Pollaris Studios. DreadXP often publishes niche horror games with often outlandish concepts.

Red Tape was their first release of 2023 and sends the player to the scariest kind of hell; corporate hell. You play as an angel that happens to land in hell due to an error in some paperwork and to escape hell, you need to ascend through the 9 levels of hell, or rather descend if you look at the hierarchy of the corporate hell the same way as the layers work in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, where the deeper the layer, the more severe sinners are located in. So I don’t know if you ascend or descend in your career.

Anyhoot, the game comes in a charming style, where PSX-style 3D environments are blended with 2D paper characters. You start the game as mentioned before, as an angel. I really appreciate the fact, the developer used a biblically accurate angel, an entity that defies anything a human can comprehend.

Soon enough though, you get turned into a demon, so you can work better for hell, your new workplace. Hell becomes a mundane office space, where those who were doomed to spend their life in hell, fulfill trivial tasks or take part in meaningless conflicts with their coworkers. It seems purely comedic, but if you really think about it, wouldn’t that be a terrible fate to suffer? There’s a reason why so many people are unhappy with their jobs, and doing that for the rest of eternity, being forced to interact with people you can’t stand, all what you do are pointless, unfulfilling tasks. This is truly depressing in my opinion, perhaps even more as it is such a fantastic satirical comment on work culture nowadays, If Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in the 21st century, Red Tape is most likely how the result would lookl like.

Maybe I look too far into a silly game that was only made for comedic purposes but that feeling stuck with me during my entire playthrough. I can only highly recommend playing Red Tape for yourself. The game doesn’t have too much gameplay besides walking around corporate hell, talking to characters and going from one point to the other, but the entire experience, the historical and mythological characters you meet along your journey, the way hell is portrayed creates an interesting experience for sure.

#gaming #essay #red tape #strange #weird #game #dante #divine comedy #office #funny stuff

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basstonki · 2 years

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Im pro gmo

#IM PRO GMO MOVIE#

Jones! Without your vision, I would have never had the chance to attend such an amazing university. He convinced us students that our generation was crucial to repairing humanity’s relationship to science, and how we would play key roles in solving immense global issues, such as climate change. Jones, became my main source of motivation to succeed. In particular, physics and mathematics captured my fascination. Throughout my secondary education, I’ve always had a passion for science. I’d like to share how I became aware of this troubling state of affairs. Perhaps the most potent example is Cornell’s deep ties to industrial GMO agriculture, and the affiliated corporations such as Monsanto. Allow me to explain.Ĭornell, as an institution, appears to be complicit in a shocking amount of ecologically destructive, academically unethical, and scientifically deceitful behavior. However, I’m not sure if I want to be one any more. Even Harmon, a highly regarded science journalist, can’t escape this charge: After one of her (ultimately prize-winning) pieces chronicling a non-industry application of crop biotechnology was published, Michael Pollan tweeted that it contained “too many industry talking points.” (The science journalism community leapt to Harmon’s defense and repudiated Pollan.) And after Harmon’s Hawaii piece was published, an anti-GMO group on its Facebook page photo-shopped her in a leopard-skin bathing suit, holding hands with the Monsanto CEO on a Hawaiian beach.My name is Robert, and I am a Cornell University undergraduate student. It’s become hard for scientists and journalists alike to debunk GMO myths and misinformation without being accused of shilling for Monsanto or Big Ag. But when I’ve tried unpacking the company’s real problems (calling out its monopolistic, heavy-handed business practices and tone-deaf responses to critics), that only makes people more suspicious. Of course, the reality is that it is possible for Monsanto to be terrible and for GMOs to still be safe. It’s easy for activists to portray the company as the “evil” face of industrial agriculture. Activists suspicious of the new technology had a field day branding GMOs as the work of mad scientists with a history of poisoning us. In the 1980s, Monsanto was at the forefront of the nascent agricultural biotechnology revolution, but when it pioneered the first generation of genetically engineered seeds, it conveniently made them able to withstand an herbicide it created. Monsanto is perhaps best known for producing pesticides and herbicides like DDT in the 1940s and Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. It’s hard to overstate the significance of that albatross on the GMO debate. In reality, it ought to have admitted that what it is facing is an ideologically charged debate that, like climate change, is increasingly immune to facts. The film, like any good documentary, wants to be the arbiter of a debate over evidence. Unfortunately, there’s no good reason to think this effort will be any more successful at correcting the popular misperceptions and stereotypes around GMOs than Harmon’s thoughtful piece (or several others since, including, for example, one in this very magazine). It is abundantly clear that the film, like any good documentary, is argument-driven, attempting to prove that GMOs, far from how they’ve been painted, are in fact safe. Food Evolution travels to major battlegrounds to better understand the GMO conflict, from Hawaii and New York to California and Africa.

#IM PRO GMO MOVIE#

The majority of councilmembers voted for the GMO ban, an outcome, that as Harmon’s article shows, was likely preordained-and also nonsensical when considering the evidence.įor those seeking clarity on GMOs, the push to get people to accept the facts is just as lonely now as it was in 2014: The Hawaii case also serves as the dramatic centerpiece of an ambitious new documentary called Food Evolution, opening in select movie theaters this week. It’s too much of a slog, and it goes against the very human tendency to accept only information that confirms pre-existing beliefs or mindsets. Those deliberations, contentious as they were, eventually became the focus of a long narrative feature by Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist Amy Harmon, titled “ A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops.” The piece revealed the fraught and bewildering discourse around GMOs and why, even if you took the time to painstakingly verify all the claims and counter-claims (as one “lonely” councilman did), most people aren’t interested in listening or changing their minds based on the evidence. The hearings highlighted the divergent views of pro-GMO scientists and anti-biotech activists, many who assert, without credible evidence, that GMOs are linked to numerous diseases. Several years ago, a county government in Hawaii debated a measure to ban genetically modified crops on the island.

#Im pro gmo

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mckinneyhenry4 · 2 years

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Malignancy is among the most widespread ailments. It impacts the populations of the majority of countries worldwide. Additionally it is one of the least understood and a lot dreaded of illnesses. The facts and ideas in this article can also provide great insight into the disease, reducing most of the worry encompassing it.

To minimize your risk for various cancer, not smoking cigarettes or employing tobacco in any way is probably the best and easiest methods. Smoking has become related not just to lunch time many forms of cancer but also to lung, bladder, cervix and kidney cancers. Don't go ahead and take danger, and quit now, or don't start! It is important to read enjoyable guides and knowledge when you find yourself being affected by malignancy. It is actually a terrific way to uplift your mood therefore making you truly feel robust inside and outside. It is very important keep a very good intellectual photo for the future when you find yourself coping with many forms of cancer. Using a cancer prognosis, interaction is crucial. Chat with your friends and relations people, your medical professional as well as other individuals the city. You simply will not sense as alone if you can show to other people your emotions and what you really are dealing with. This will lead to an amazing support system for you. Reduce your chances of creating colorectal cancers by about 40 percent when you are physically energetic. Those who have a normal amount of exercising are far healthier, and normally have reduced charges of illnesses like diabetes which can cause cancer. Make routine workouts a major concern in your own life. Immediately after your malignancy medical diagnosis, begin looking into insurance policy possibilities. Look into whether your state gives assistance to individuals affected by cancer. You can even want to check out the Family members and Healthcare Depart Work as well as the American citizens With Issues Work it is essential to ensure you are included during this time. Simply being clinically determined to have Cancers is definitely an extremely stressful practical experience, but it is vital that you retain conversation available with your doctors and your family. Shutting your self away from the industry of personal pity is just not how you will will surpass the condition. Maintain your family near you for assistance and maintain your medical doctors available. There are numerous techniques that people manage many forms of cancer. Some of them great and a number of them terrible. Discover a sensible way to cope with many forms of cancer. Some terrific dealing techniques incorporate rest strategies, for example relaxation, carrying out discretion pursuits or creating your feelings downward in a record. Physicians and most people at huge have lengthy acknowledged that reddish colored wine may help combat against heart problems, but more people are discovering that vino can also help work in opposition to being infected with cancer. hospital near me in wine (like individuals located in grapes) help to reduce the effects of and remove dangerous free-radicals. Girls looking to protect against breast cancer should select their physicians wisely. Make sure to visit an expert in mammography. A start-up medical center or a healthcare professional direct away from university might not be the best choice. Find someone with lots of experience to improve the chances of you capturing indications of malignancy early. Cooking or steaming the food much more instead of frying it may help you stop towards malignancy. Since you will certainly be setting up your meals within a more healthy design, you can remove extra weight obtain and so assistance to avoid cancers tissue from increasing inside your body and in the end developing hazardous cancers. It is important to remember that your objectives will not generally line-up with the arena of exactly what is possible. Enjoy the support you are obtaining. Regardless of whether you have a newly released many forms of cancer diagnosis or if perhaps you've been fighting it quite some time, you should enter into a support group of people. It is possible to communicate with other people afflicted to learn ways to cope with cancers, each physically and mentally. Some of these organizations let you bring family, also. The final result that you are striving for would be to surpass that malignancy, no matter how you are planning to do it. Physicians can treat your state of health, but you may not get the best way to cope with many forms of cancer emotionally.

#University Hospital #Hospital F

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zimmermanndidriksen38 · 2 years

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What Does the Shape of Your Face Have to do With Your Hair Cut Style

Trims and hairstyles from hair salon Hobart are things which keep with us for very much quite a while, in any case for any month or two. On the off chance how the style or trim isn't right and doesn't run together with your face, or if the head of hair shading does not run together with your skin shading, you are inside a bad position. Individuals experiencing and enjoying the same issue would not have liked to go beyond home because of unadulterated humiliation! This is the reason it is essential to pay regard for the hairdos you are receiving. Here are a few variables which it could be resolved what style to have. The most imperative variable is that of the state of your face. It is imperative for the reason that your particular hair falls around see your face. The wrong one may seem terrible. For example, a long cut on an expansive square face may look great for a tyke, yet not on the grown-up. The bone structure of the face and the state of the shoulders are necessary deciding elements. This is due to the sharp trims and straight edges which is normal for that face that the haircut is a bit more essential. This is the reason hair planners going beyond good expert establishments have a decent learning from the physiognomy of the human face. Individuals with this learning can ascend to incredible statures in the industry. Taking everything under consideration, styles, trims as well as highlights of the hair ought to be done within the wake of giving careful consideration for the shape and structure with the face. The second thing which decides the haircut incorporate two elements: the trim and also the shading. Think for a minute your head is only a skimming ball. On the off chance who's was genuine, making a style would not be so desperately. The issue is who's additionally comes connected on the body. The haircut subsequently ought not reflect not consequently the state of your head, but ought to additionally be carried out in a real route so that you can mirror the character or state of the body also. A decent style introduces a feeling of style and harmony relating to the face, the abdominal area along with the lower body. The haircut is the fact that essential! Presently, give to us a chance to travel on the subject of hair design Hobart. You may surmise you could utilize any hair expansions Hobart brilliant shading on the tresses. Adolescents adoration to make use of splendid ones, including brilliant hues. Brilliant blue, orange and yellow can be extremely recognized. Be that as it can, you'll not not be a teenager, regardless of the possibility you'll want to be observed together. Doing what they do are able to turn to be absurd. The most vital determinant the following is age and skin shading. You ought not shading the tresses brilliantly if your skin shading is dim. For this situation, an easy shading is more suitable. On the off chance your skin shading is light, then the brilliant shading can regard a passable degree, while an easy shading won't not look so competent. On this post that you just utilize most of these tips, then you'll come with an awesome haircut.

#organic hairdresser marrickville #hair salon marrickville #organic hairdresser dulwich hill #hair salon dulwich hill #low tox hairdresser inner west #ammonia free hairdresser inner west #organic hairdresser enmore #hairdresser enmore #natulique salon inner west #organic hairdresser summer hill #organic hairdresser inner west

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shijiujun · 3 years

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on the danmei twitter fight

okay guys i didn’t wanna say anything about this and yes it’s that hot danmei twitter translations saga thing that’s going on, because honestly i feel like there’s nothing much to say but when i see dumb posts on tumblr taking about that, by people who present a misleading hot take and their friends or moots run off with it without even knowing what exactly is going on - it really pisses me off.

and also if you shit talk translators for not continuing their translations or locking their translations whatever - the door is that way on your right and left, but anyway here’s a rundown on what happened because i am seeing people make comments without two brain cells put together, without the slightest bit of consideration for the people who bring them translations

here’s my hot take and thesis: if you enjoy english translations made by fan translators, you don’t, in any way, no matter happens, shit talk fan translators. fan translators do this for free, and whatever their intentions are, whether genuine sharing or like some of you like to say, for clout, if you consume, and you enjoy these translations, i’m sorry, you’re not uninvolved, and you don’t get to sit on a high horse and say translators should or shouldn’t do something. you should just keep quiet, honestly, because someone else is doing you a favour, a favour that you are enjoying and taking. that’s what respect is.

i’m presenting both sides or i guess three sides of the story as objectively as i can, altho my support is still for fan translators who were just minding their own business before this blew up.

===

�� what happened:

so it started because one of the bigger translators in the fandom did this poll - i’m not blaming her at all, i doubt she had any intentions of shaming anyone or causing any controversy and was plain curious, but her poll asked english speaking danmei twitter how many people buy the digital, print copies of the danmei they read, and who did not.

in my honest opinion, it’s not strange at all for her to have created that poll, considering just how much work she’s put into making sure things are accessible for the eng-speaking danmei fandom. i mean i’d be curious too, to know out of my thousands of readers, what the reading and buying behaviour is like. do yourself a favour and don’t read too much into it.

obviously in an era where a lot of people do consume content for free whether the underlying content is profit-making (like anime, donghua, manhua, manga etc.) or not (fanfiction etc.), it was unsurprising to see that the last option - the ones who consume danmei without paying a single cent, came out as the majority. i don’t think this is a surprising result at all, for all sorts of reasons that i will not get into now.

anyway, this is obviously kind of a sore point in the fandom especially for translators who want a wider audience to support their fave author’s works - i won’t get into that for now, but the issue began because other translators or fans started to criticize the majority of people who don’t pay for objectively rather affordable danmei and just consume things for free.

and yes, i don’t deny that the argument on both sides got really heated and emotionally charged with both sides calling each other names which i believe is uncalled for, but it totally derailed the crux of the issue, which basically is that the majority of english-speaking danmei fandom - consumes danmei for free.

anyway this whole thing escalated and fan translators were brought into this for no fucking reason at all except that the people who didn’t want, or were unable to pay for the danmei they usually consume, made what i call a LOGICAL FALLACY in argument by going to the extremes, i will explain why later.

the end result is that fan translators were brought into this (most of them, the bigger ones i know at least) without even participating in the direct crossfire. and obviously, you can see why they’re hurt and decided to lock their translations. let me explain why

===

🔺 kind of like four camps:

(1) translators and fans who criticized those who consume danmei liberally but do not pay for them in any way - no merch, no digital copies, no physical copies, no audio dramas whatever

*** their arguments:

danmei is so cheap right, that technically people should be able to pay for it in one way or another, even if not all

danmei and its authors are, at the end of the day, out here to earn a living, and the industry, like any money-making industry, is a for-profit enterprise - and unlike public goods, if you cannot afford danmei, then there is no obligation for others to make it free for you (fan translators or otherwise, it wasn’t super clearly stated while this shitshow happened) when it is inherently a for-profit industry

yes, i don’t deny that some of them did call the peeps who don’t pay at all, “leeches” and other sort of names. personally, i wouldn’t go that far or even like venture there to be honest because in general, if it’s something that i’ll get punched in the face for if i called someone that in real life i tend not to do it, but i’ll leave my opinions, whatever they’re worth, for later

(2) the readers and fans of danmei who do not pay in any sort of way for them

*** their arguments:

some of them really cannot afford, even the dollar or more, to spend on danmei for several reasons: upbringing, culture, money-spending mindsets, real poverty, struggling to make ends meet etc. - some definitely more valid than others (and when i say not valid, it’s because SOME, a minority or like those few stragglers, say they cannot afford and then you see them like idk, throwing $50 on other merch on kpop and stuff - i’m just bringing up ONE example. not shaming anyone for spending more money on one aspect rather than the other, but yeah you can see why some of them, when making this same argument, are a little invalid, that’s just a small number of them tho)

if translators are blaming them for consuming free of charge, then the fault lies, at its foundation, fan translators who translate illegally, which i mean, in that definition, all of them including me

did i mention that we were called illegal translators like you know in response to being called leeches? anyway-

(3) others translators who literally were just minding their own fucking business before some smart alec dragged them into it

i don’t think most of us had an argument. we were just quietly munching on popcorn and staying out of it and yeah, can you imagine, we provide a service, however illegal it is, for free on our own time, we don’t even check whether people support legally or not, we just... provide, and pray that those who are able to, at least support in some small way or another do so, on their own time. i mean i don’t check, most of us don’t, not the bouncers at your local club before COVID happened do, and then suddenly, to be used to derail an argument, we were called illegal translators. and that we should stop translating, and that it is our fault that there are free riders in the fandom

(4) people who offered to provide JJWXC credits to those who said they couldn’t afford it etc.

honestly i think they were just trying to help - no different than a gofundme. there’s no shame in taking a free thing that people already weren’t intending to pay for. it’s there, just take it!

===

🔺 the shitshow that led to fan translators locking their stuff up:

i would provide some actual examples in the form of screenshots but i’ve blocked most of them, and i don’t want to direct any sort of traffic to them so i guess you’ll have to take my word on it or go search on twitter yourself but-

(1) the affordability issue: i can understand the frustration at being called leeches, and some if not a majority of people, do have valid reasons for not being able to afford something or anything and end up pirating content they enjoy. hey, i am not about to crucify anyone for pirating at some point in their lives. we all have done it at some point, or for example hate disney+ and that $30 they were trying to rip off us for a subpar Mulan live action. i don’t have anything to say about that. inherently, is it wrong and illegal? yeah sure of course it is. do we call people leeches? i wouldn’t go that far.

if anyone cannot afford, cannot access for whatever reason, fine, i’m not gonna go check if jjwxc truly is banned in your country, or is your postal service so terrible that you definitely won’t be able to receive a hard copy of the book you like at affordable rates.

and if you have to pirate? go ahead. i mean it’s always been a rampant thing. the only thing fan translators and fans can do is encourage, motivate and incentivise as much as possible to get people to support legally. they can only put up REALLY COMPREHENSIVE guides as to how to access jjwxc or taobao or whatever.

and if you still cannot afford it and pirate, honestly no one cares about the story behind it. you owe no one justification, just as how no other person is obligated to take it into consideration or understand you or empathize with you. i don’t say this in a malicious way - i do think that in general, you just do you.

(2) the poor people don’t deserve nice things argument: honestly, this was not the point of this entire debacle, altho yes, people were rude to those who could not afford to support legally. but this is not the point of this whole thing.

main point - there are free riders who can support but choose not to because they choose to just consume it for free and if you are able to you should support

everyone going off on a tangent - you guys hate poor people / you guys are leeches

well guess what, no one wins in this argument.

there were a lot of people saying “reading danmei is our only source of happiness, are you saying poor people who can’t access legally don’t deserve to read danmei” (this is just one example i’ve seen, there are other variations), and it wasn’t put across perhaps in the right way, but the other camp of people were saying “you’re not entitled to it for free if you cannot afford it”, which raised a lot of hackles and anti-poor yellings

altho i do not deny that there are those who mean it maliciously, i think what everyone is trying to say is - the danmei industry, like any other profit-making industry, is looking to make profits. the people working in the industry, the authors even, are looking at numbers - traffic to jjwxc or other legal platforms, how much revenue they’re making from their live actions etc., comments, rankings, etc. i think @/hunxi-after-hours made a really succinct post on this aspect which yall should read.

it’s the same as - if you wanted to purchase a standee which costs $20 USD, but you cannot afford it = you don’t get it. there’s no way you can get this standee unless some gifts it to you for free. what the camp trying to ask people to support legally is saying, is that danmei is NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. it is a private, for-profit product. it might be intangible, but it is a PRODUCT that has a price that needs to be paid.

if you cannot afford it, you either don’t get access entirely (i’m saying this objectively and honestly from an economic standpoint). if someone gifts that standee to you for free, count yourself lucky - if someone makes a danmei accessible to you for free, COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY. you don’t have to be grateful and treat them as gods or like obey their every word, but it’s not rocket science. someone did you a favour that you accepted and consumed, show some respect.

if you cannot afford to buy the standee - you do not go on twitter demanding that someone ensures that you have access to the standee for free. do you see how ridiculous this sounds once it’s a tangible product? and danmei novels ARE PRODUCTS. they are not FREE CONTENT. if someone cannot afford the standee, this is the equivalent of people going “we didn’t get the standee for free because poor people don’t deserve nice things”

totally missing the point. i don’t even know how it got to this. once again, i do admit that some users were unnecessarily mean, but going to the extreme of this is ridiculous. in argumentative essay writing we call this a logical fallacy:

e.g. “if you cannot pay for merchandise or danmei, it is a fact that you might not have access to it” morphing into “if we cannot pay for food, does this mean we cannot have access to it?!” - this is a slippery slope, and factors are not equivalent!!!! do they not teach people anything in school

don’t confuse fanfiction with danmei - danmei novels ARE PAID PRODUCTS unless for free chapters, just because it’s released online doesn’t mean it’s free public property, and also selected novels (did you guys know the WHOLE of SCI novel is free? about 500 chapters sorry, random, just a tidbit)

there are of course nuances right, like if anyone told me they were pirating disney+ content i’d be like yeah hey get one over those bloodsuckers, they take enough of our money and produce shit content anyway. the difference is that danmei authors, and the danmei industry itself can still be considered a nascent and not-yet matured industry, with a majority of authors if not all, depending on monetary flow, likes, comments, virality on the sites their content is hosted on, for a living, unlike hugeass MNCs trying to squeeze us dry for content that isn’t even interesting.

danmei is priced rather reasonably - and this brings me to another argument that was made, that the value of money is not the same for everyone. i don’t want to make comments on this because yes this is correct to a large extent. a $6 book might be cheap to most of us, but might be expensive to someone else. i’m not gonna comment on how cheap or whatever it is, if you gotta use your money for other things, definitely! i still maintain however, that a novel less than a dollar should be affordable to most people, a majority of people. and i definitely side eye some users who obviously have money but are just creating noise because they wanna continue free-riding

(4) the “they’re losing out on their international audience” argument: honestly, i feel like english-speaking danmei fandom gives themselves a bit too much credit. danmei has long thrived in china in its domestic market - sure the international audience is a plus to have and i’m sure the authors are grateful and flattered that people who don’t understand chinese love their content and love it a lot, but do they and their companies care about fans who basically don’t bring in money? i’m not sure (okay i’ll get to the fan translators doing illegal shit later okay i got it don’t be impatient)

and international fans are great, i don’t deny that - but when i see arguments like “oh but it’s their loss if they don’t cater or deny access to us, they get more popularity and sharing overseas”, i honestly think they don’t care as much as you think. once again, hunxi made a really good argument regarding non-sinophone audiences, but it really irks me, because this is the same as:

an instagram influencer saying they’ll give a restaurant exposure for free to their followers, if they get a free meal

it’s par for par - danmei authors wants earnings, popularity, tangible results that show that they are succeeding. this is life. if i put something out there for sale, i better be getting returns, simple economic logic. they probably don’t care that a non-paying reader is bringing them greater ‘exposure’ - once again, i mean this objectively.

and yes if they’re thriving without the international market then why should it matter that people are pirating right? which brings me to the next point~

(5) it’s fan translators faults for so many people pirating, and fan translators are the ones doing the “illegal” work: this one is like... wow where do i unpack this and how-

firstly, we are talking about assholes who can pay but decide to free ride and not pay for danmei, and we assume that if you really cannot afford and have to pirate, no one’s saying anything as long as you don’t go around spreading how to pirate, how the hell did it get to fan translators from “you guys are anti-poor” and whatever

yes, fan translations are indeed illegal, i don’t deny that, and i also don’t deny that there are translators who translate for clout and popularity but putting these aside - here’s what i have seen from people who ran their mouths and made this argument

“if you guys care about us pirating the book so much than fan translators shouldn’t have translated in the first place” and “if you wanna come after us for reading illegally, then fan translators, you guys should go get the copyright for the book and then translate it cuz what you guys are doing is also illegal”

hooooo i’m telling ya, i am all for translators locking up their translations at this point. see how fucking hurtful that is? you eat from my hand and then now you biting at the hand that fed you the gays in love?

honestly if you’ve made this argument or supported this, you can basically go to hell. yes this is personal because what, you think fan translators don’t take out their personal time and effort and hard work to make translations accessible to you? if you’re ever consumed and read translations, don’t be a hypocrite and make this argument. you benefitted from it, now you wanna say it’s their fault?

most translators want to share and spread the love they have for a novel right, want to show you how wonderful all these authors are, how much enjoyment u get from reading these wonderfully thought out stories of gays in love. yes we all know we are illegally translating, which is why on top of sharing we first, purchase the novels legally ourselves first, and then we try to encourage people to buy etc. and actually put their money to use. it doesn’t make it any less illegal, but we are bridging the gap between danmei and basically the english-speaking fandom, albeit illegally

we aren’t that self-important to ask for gratefulness but some respect would be nice. like i said, you read it, you consumed it, you enjoyed it, you can only access it because of illegal translators - a bit counter-intuitive to yell at these translators, who are simply telling you, if you can, please support. and none of us went “if you cannot afford, begone!”

===

🔺 some people tried to help by offering jjwxc credits so people who cannot afford as they say, can get legal access: honestly, just take it right, guess what some of these users did in response

they said the people giving away credits are trying to redeem themselves for their comments by giving away free stuff

they also said that we are trying to shame the people who cannot afford it with this handout to them, to show that they are the bigger person - the fact that they think this is a handout to them is TELLING. the people offering this is giving their money not to these readers, but to the authors! that’s the point of this exercise!!!

one of them even said “instead of trying to do these giveaways, here, there are greater world problems out there, donate instead to these causes” - love the initiative, but how did we get from being able to afford danmei and entertainment content to saving the world? i just- i cannot

===

🔺 so why i get why fan translators are locking up their translations, because wow, so hurtful:

you have no idea how many fucking assholes went “sure, lock up your translations, deal with the consequences” - ermmmm firstly, thanks for making a threat. like who the fuck do you think you are?

the consequences is... the authors still don’t get the money these free riders weren’t going to give them anyway, so no loss, and they weren’t reading on jjwxc anyway so you know, the authors don’t lose or gain any readership numbers or traffic they didn’t already have. instead, it WILL push and force people to pay for the PRODUCT. once again, it’s a product.

this works, and i’d say Word of Honor’s payment model worked marvellously for Youku, because they fucking forced everyone to pay to access content. ALL OF THEM. sure ok some people still pirated it, but how many MORE people paid on Youku, on Youku Youtube, watched on Viki etc. than if they didn’t? even english-speaking fandom were wracking their brains trying to purchase a Youku pass even if there were no subs initially - and other examples that lovely hunxi brought up in her amazing piece

and for translators?! honestly me for one, i’m glad i don’t feel pressured anymore to churn out a chapter every week since we get called names etc. most of us are glad to have a break to be honest. we’ve lost all motivation to translate because it’s a free service, at the very least we don’t expect like hate, or rudeass fuckers. for those who are doing a proof of purchase thing - go for it honestly!

hopefully it’ll minimize the free rider problem - some people for whatever reasons really cannot buy or support legally, that’s totally cool and they don’t have to justify it, i get that. but for others making the same argument but obviously are just unwilling to pay because they can’t read chinese, think it’s too troublesome when there are guides and translators provide it for free anyway so what’s the point - we all make concessions and make decisions to grab what we like (not talking about the ppl who have their various troubles and difficulties!)

===

🔺 and those who are saying why is it the ‘rest of us suffer’ from locked translations just because of a few bad apples:

IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU. where the hell were all of ya when we were getting called illegal huh? it’s about us fan translators getting shot at for no reason, and then people still demanding things for free. i don’t see any of the people i’ve seen on tumblr complain about fan translators stopping or locking translations defend any of us in any way. instead, you’re complaining.

it is the translator’s prerogative to start, stop and end translations, unless of course the original author starts to sue i suppose. i see people on tumblr going like if they were gonna do this, they shouldn’t have started in the first place etc. - i don’t what world you live in, but when i do something for free, then get called names and am attacked or get dictated on how i should do something that’s already like free, i tend to be less generous.

i’m sorry, do us illegal and free translators owe ANY OF YOU? i wasn’t aware any of us were being paid for this hobby. readers, especially those who CAN and just refuse to support, don’t get to say SHIT. translators deal with so much shit and so many entitled readers, i say they get to lock whatever they want as long as they aren’t profiting off of this monetarily.

let me give you an example - nan chan, which is translated by lian yin, completed translations by the way for all chapters. it is all free for viewing, and she only locked up one extra and asked for proof of payment. some dumbfuck quotes that locked up extra chapter tweet and said “honestly, this turned me off reading this novel because they restricted access”.

the. fucking. entitlement. the whole of nan chan is free, that’s like what more than 80 chapters. she locked up the EXTRA and the money goes to the author, she doesn’t earn anything. AND HERE THAT BIJ is (yes, i’m going to call them names because you know, fucking asshole who didn’t bother to check) going “yeah i didn’t wanna read because 1/80+ chapters were locked”.

AN EXTRA. LITERALLY AN EXTRA!!!!!!

at the end of the day, translators are not like DYING to translate, not like some of you are DYING to read the translations. once again, this isn’t a “BE GRATEFUL” message, it’s a please be respectful to the people who put in time and hard work for free and share the goodness ya know? what’s the use of yelling at fan translators as if we owe you anything?

================

🔴🔴🔴 TOO LONG DIDN’T READ 🔴🔴🔴

some people may need really need to pirate - and no one needs to justify why they cannot afford to purchase etc. pirating happens all the time, translators only hope that when you can, and in whatever way you can, to support legally - in general we don’t ask and we get it! we’re just annoyed that some people think that it SHOULD BE FREE, when it is a paid product, especially for those who CAN afford it

readers are not entitled to shit on translators for what they do with their translations - once again, you’re not OBLIGATED to have it. so what if i start and stop? i’m the one doing the work, i get the only say. don’t be a hypocrite and shit on translators, whose works you’ve read - it’s no loss for translators, we read and enjoy danmei just fine

yes, fan translations are illegal, but you can’t read and enjoy them like some of you have, and then turn around and point the finger at translators - a lot of us are happy to stop translating - this isn’t a threat, but at the end of the day, shitting on translators simply decreases access, and sure, some people can indeed live with you know, MTL or shitty translations from people who’ve learnt chinese for only six months or whatever, but you’re gonna be reading an entirely different book tbh

the people saying illegal translators are at fault - funnily enough, most of them consume the translations, so what the fuck? i mean we know it’s illegal, we’re trying to share the love and trying to minimize the illegalities of it by redirecting people to hopefully support legally. it’s still illegal yes, but i think it’s hypocritical for people who have read translations, stab translators in the back. and now that translators are indeed ‘restricting’ and ‘removing’ their ‘illegal translations’, yall yelling again? and threatening?

fan translators aren’t “elitist” or “classist” - just looking for some respect in a community which seems to have taken them for granted, and also looking for support for their fave authors - and honestly a lot of us were caught in the crossfires truly, don’t be an asshole and demand things from fan translators - who are you talking about? do you know why they decided to lock? do you know know what their locking system is like and what for?

it’s not EASY to lock the translations up - it’s more admin work, it’s putting together a whitelist of people, if given the choice i’m sure translators would prefer to share everything. but not when there are assholes who have a comment on how they should translate etc. and yeah!!! calling us illegal!! i mean we are but still!!

the last straw was seeing that post on tumblr and people in the comments going like fan translators shouldn’t or should do something, without getting the whole picture, without even considering how hard it is for fan translators being caught in this situation.

whoever puts in the work gets to decide, and everyone else should leave them alone.

be nice to the people who really cannot afford as they say so (or just don’t think about it), be nice to the translators feeding you content, and the people who free ride and shit on translators - honestly, i’d say ready the pitchforks.

edit: i forgot to mention this is my hot take and i’ve tried to like present all the arguments i’ve seen so far. i’m definitely not doing all of it justice and i don’t claim to speak on behalf of any of them except maybe one or two- and i’ve definitely left out stuff, but anyway, lmao we’re just tiny people doing what we love. i wish we could solve you know inequality or poverty or hunger or other pressing concerns. if i was that great i wouldn’t be stuck on tumblr or twitter or have to make posts like these like a loser.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#danmei #danmei twitter #rambles #long post #literally cannot take the stupidity of some people anymore

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celestialrry · 3 years

Note

I wish you would write a fic where...

the main character is the daughter of a really important producer harry is working with and he has a major crush on her but 1) he doesn’t want her dad to feel like he’s taking advantage of her 2) she has a rule of not dating musicians

too young

OOOOOOHHHHHH

HIIII GUYS..... i started school again and honestly for the longest time i've had no inspiration to write but then i got this ask!!! (thank you for your patience anon ily) and was like i love this prompt but then i wrote the first part and had no idea how to continue it,,, but I finally finished it!! ε(♡'-')з (this is me giving you all my love and affection for sticking with me)

(NOT EDITED)

warnings: alcohol consumption

Harry was in a dilemma.

Usually, he could sweep all his issues under the rug, save them for another day, but this one... he couldn't do that. Not because he didn't want to, but because this problem was more than just a dust bunny on his hardwood floor.

Y/N was the problem.

Or to be more precise, his feelings for Y/N were the problem.

Harry had confidence when it came to his crushes. He was smooth, flirty, and snagged almost every single person he's caught feelings for.

But not Y/N.

No, she was almost unreachable, for quite a few reasons.

One, the only reason he knew her, met her, was through a producer he had been working with the past few months. Arlo was massive in the industry and Harry was flattered when Arlo approached him with interest in collaborating. And only a month into working together, he met Y/N.

Harry's head snapped towards the door that had just burst open, a girl barging into the studio that he had never seen before. She was gorgeous, he had to admit, but he couldn't ignore her blatant disrespect for coming in and making a scene while he, Arlo, and a few of his bandmates were working annoyed him to no end.

"Dad! Oh my god, you will not believe what just happened, I was on my way over here and I fucking bumped into Zach," The girl began ranting, approaching Arlo and huffing as she stood next to Arlo's chair. "Of all fucking people I could see just walking down the street, it had to be him. The world is against me today I swear. Anyways, I brought that drum pad you wanted."

She dug into her big brown bag that was slung over her shoulder and pulled out the music board, placing it on the table in front of Arlo.

"Where'd you see him, Y/N? We're about to go on break and I can leave and go kick his ass in," Arlo checked his watch. "7 minutes."

Y/N, Harry now knew her as, sighed and crossed her arms. "He's long gone by now, think he shit his pants when he saw me walking near him."

"Atta girl, thanks for bringing my board too," Arlo smiled up at her from his chair. He then turned to see Harry, and Mitch staring at the two of them. "Oh sorry guys, this is my daughter, Y/N. Y/N, this is Harry and Mitch."

She turned to look at them and smiled wide. "Nice to meet you!"

"You too." They both said in unison, looking at each other with a smile, before focusing back on Y/N.

"We'll be done soon, if you wanna go out and get lunch." Arlo said, turning back to his daughter.

"Sounds good, just text me," Y/N replied, giving him a smile before turning back to the boys. "Nice meeting you guys, again."

And before they could even respond she was gone.

Two, Y/N was younger than him. 6 years younger to be exact. It didn't seem like much, but when put into perspective, she was 21, only just being legally allowed to drink in the States, and Harry was 27. Practically 30, if you ask him, and he was positive Arlo would have his head if he found out Harry liked his daughter.

And three, she doesn't date the people her dad works with.

He had found this out one night when he, Arlo, Y/N, Mitch, and a couple other writers were hanging out at the studio, drinking some wine (she had even exclaimed that this would be her first time drinking red, and Harry was yet again reminded of her age) and chatting after a long day of working.

Harry and Mitch were laughing with Arlo about the first time they met Y/N, and her comments about this “Zach” guy.

“He’s my ex, and had worked with my dad on one shitty song that never got far because he’s just so-- music is just not his thing, to put it nicely. But he was an absolute asshole and after him I made rule to never date anyone Dad works with. It would just go terribly.” She explained, letting Arlo take a few more jabs at the guy before stopping him.

So yeah, Harry was in a dilemma.

In all the time he’d known Y/N, he just kept falling for her. She was kind, funny, beautiful, lit up any room she walked into, and treated Harry like fine porcelain.

She was just fucking perfect.

｡:°ஐ

Y/N had probably been in a lot of worse positions than the predicament she was in now.

For example, that time her dad walked in on her and her ex making out in the studio, or her 21st birthday when she got completely wasted and almost got into the wrong car instead of her uber, and the next day found out that the man driving that car was actually a convicted criminal.

So there’s worse things that could happen than her liking Harry.

But it doesn't mean it wasn’t bad.

The thing is, Y/N didn’t fall for anyone easily. Her one and only ex Zach treated her like a queen until he could officially claim her as his. The flowers he gave her before every date remained at the shop and the consistent compliments turned into insults and muttered claims of discontentment.

Hence why he was her ex. It took Y/N quite a long time to work up the courage to end things with him. He was her first kiss, first time, and first boyfriend. She was yet to find her first love, she never really loved Zach. The way he used to treat her in the beginning, she thinks she loved, but him? No, she would never call him her first love.

So when Y/N’s time crush on Harry began to develop into real feelings in such a short span of time, it terrified her. She had really never felt this way about someone before; butterflies would erupt in her stomach every time he shot her a smile and her mind would erupt into pure chaos when his body brushed up against her own.

So yeah, it could be worse, but it certainly wasn't good.

｡:°ஐ

Y/N enjoyed spending time at the studio with her dad, and surprisingly, spending time with her dad’s “co-workers”. Even though she didn't usually hang out with the pop stars and spent time mostly with the backing band/producers (they were usually 50 year old men, but they were pretty nice) she enjoyed herself fully, having lunch breaks and talking about where their children when to school and whatnot.

Sometimes though, every blue moon, Y/N would hang out with a super star her dad was working with. Usually when most stars are at the studio all they did was record, which was understandable, but she never had the chance to meet a lot of them.

With Harry though, everything was different. It wasn’t just lunches at the studio, or dinner at someone’s house, no, tonight they were going out to a bar.

It was completely unexpected too, they had just wrapped up a song, and Harry, being in a particularly good mood had yelled out about going to a bar to celebrate. Of course, Y/N ignored his shout, knowing she wasn’t invited, and after Arlo had said something about “not being able to party as much as I used to”, she gave her dad a hug good night and waved a little goodbye to the band.

“Wait!” Harry had exclaimed, chasing after her in the hallway. “Where are y’going?”

Y/N’s eyes widened and she looked behind her before looking back at Harry. “I was just gonna head back home.”

Harry’s head tilted, and looked at her questionably. “Y’not comin’ to the bar with us?” He practically pouted.

Her brows shot up in surprise. “Oh! I- yeah I’ll go out with you guys.”

Which lead her here, decently tipsy, and sitting in a booth between Harry and Sarah, laughing at a story Adam had been telling. Every now and then she would glance over to Harry just to find his gaze already on her.

Her heart fluttered every time, and if Harry’s cheeks weren’t already flushed from the alcohol, Y/N would have noticed him blush every time they locked eyes as well.

“M’gonna get another drink, does anyone want anything?” Y/N piped up, a resounding chorus of “no, thank you’s” answering her question. Except for Harry who spoke softly, “A beer? Go ahead and put it on my tab.”

She shook her head at him as he stood up to let her out of the maroon leather booth. “Can’t make you pay for that, I offered.” She said, standing to lock eyes with him yet again.

“Nope,” He grinned. “You can, and you will.”

“But-”

“No buts.” He chuckled, giving her a dimpled smile.

Accepting her defeat she nodded and squeezed his arm with a murmured “Thank you.” before making her way to the bar.

Harry sat back down again, eyes trailing her figure as she walked away before looking back at the table to be met with knowing eyes.

“What is it?” He asked, glancing around at everyone.

“You’re whipped, mate.” Charlotte grinned, everyone else nodding in agreement.

“What?! I am not.” Harry pouted, eyes flicking over to Y/N, who was making her way to the table, one drink in each hand, before back to everyone else.

“She’s really sweet H, you should go for it.” Mitch said.

Harry shook his head, eyes now on Mitch. “I’m not interested in her like that, she’s way too young for me, anyways.”

Just then did he hear the soft hit of his beer and her cosmo land on the table. His gaze trailed up her hands to see Y/N’s shattered face. “Here.” She practically whispered to him.

“I just remembered I have an early class tomorrow, so I should go, but thank you guys for inviting me out.” Y/N explained in lighting speed as she leaned over Harry to grab her purse and toss is over her shoulder.

Words of confusion were tossed around the table but she was already booking it out of there, leaving Harry just as devastated as she was.

“I think she heard you, H.” Sarah said, frowning.

Harry let out a muttered “Fuck!” before taking out large bills from his wallet and tossing it on the table. “For my tab, m’sorry, I gotta go.” And he left just as fast as Y/N did, weaving through the tables and people before bursting out the door to see her standing on the street, arm wrapped around her waist and another holding her phone.

“Y/N!”

Her head whipped around to see Harry bustling towards her and she quickly wiped her eye as he approached.

“Wait, don't go,” He said, struggling to find the words. “We all want you to stay, I want you to stay.”

“I have to get to class Harry, plus, I’m too young to be staying out this late anyways.” She grimaced at her own words.

He sighed, eyes flickering from her own to her lips then back again. “I-fuck, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

This time, she fully turned to face him, brows knitted in distress. “Then how did you mean it? Because honestly I don’t think there is another way to mean it.”

This was his only chance, Harry knew it.

“I just, I tried for so long to tell myself it was wrong to feel this way about you because you’re so much younger than me, and m’pretty sure your father would have my head if he knew but m’fucking infatuated with you, Y/N. M’so sorry I said that earlier, age is my only excuse for not asking you out and it’s not a good enough excuse anymore.”

With this her mouth was gaped like a fish, and her face was akin to a deer caught in headlights. In a flash her arms were wrapped around his neck and he was holding her waist, reveling in her touch.

“Oh, Harry,” She pulled away. “I really like you too.” And with that she pressed a swift kiss to his cheek, leaving him a blushing mess.

“Good, thats... thats good.” He stammered.

“So,” she nudged his arm. “Y’gonna ask me out now?”

#wow this was so rushed #not long at all either #but the first part had been sitting in my drafts for months #so here ya go #Harry Styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

Text

Monopolists are winning the repair wars

In 2018, dozens of states introduced Right to Repair bills. These bills are wildly popular among voters, but wildly unpopular among monopolists ranging from Apple to Microsoft to Google to GM to John Deere to Wahl. Every one of these bills was defeated.

Repair advocates regrouped for 2021. 27 R2R bills have been introduced at the state level. Every single one that came up for a vote was defeated, thanks to aggressive lobbying by an unholy alliance of the country’s largest, most profitable, least taxpaying corporations.

In 2014, a pair of American political scientists published a groundbreaking peer-reviewed paper analyzing 30 years’ worth of US policy-making that compared policy outcomes to public polling results.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B#authors-details

They concluded that general public sentiment had almost no impact on US policy making — but the political preferences of wealthy people and large corporations were hugely predictive of what laws and regulations we’d get.

Or, in poli-sci jargon, “Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”

The Right to Repair fight is a hell of a proof of this principle. It’s really hard to overstate the popularity of the idea that you should be able to fix your own stuff, or choose where you get your stuff fixed.

Take auto-repair. As auto-manufacturing has grown more concentrated, car makers have squeezed independent mechanics — as close to a folk-hero as the American imagination can produce! — to the margins.

After all, forcing car owners to use official service depots has huge advantages: manufacturers can gouge on service prices, they can force drivers to buy expensive original parts, and they get to unilaterally decide when a car is beyond repair and force you to buy a new one.

Drivers have a good intuitive sense that this is going on. That’s why, when Bay Staters voted on Massachusetts Question 1 (an automotive R2R ballot initiative) in 2012, it passed with an 86% majority!

Mass Question 1 is a really good example of how monopolists can arm-twist politicians into frustrating the will of the people. Immediately after the 2012 initiative, auto-makers set about retooling their cars to escape the new right to repair rule.

The 2012 rule forced automakers to give mechanics access to diagnostic info from cars’ wired internal networks, so Big Car moved all the useful diagnostic data to their cars’ wireless networks. Hence the 2020 Massachusetts R2R ballot initiative, which closed this loophole.

The 2020 fight over the Mass. R2R ballot initiative was fuckin’ wild. The car-makers ran some seriously freaky scare-ads, in which the ability of auto mechanics to read wireless diagnostic data led directly to women being stalked and murdered.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

I’m not making this up. The underlying premise was, “We turned your car into a hyper-aggressive mobile surveillance platform that incidentally gets you places. If we let other people see the data we’re nonconsensually extracting from you, it will put you in terrible danger.”

Thankfully, Bay Staters saw through this bullshit and passed 2020’s Question 1 with a 75% majority.

The thing is, people completely understand that they should be in charge of deciding who fixes their stuff.

They understand that the risk of poor repairs should be addressed through consumer protection laws (which also bind monopolists’ own authorized repair depots), not by having the repair market privately regulated by monopolists who have vast conflicts of interest.

This understanding has only deepened through the pandemic year, as authorized repair depots shuttered and vital equipment languished thanks to anti-repair laws and technological countermeasures.

For example, Medtronic’s workhorse PB840 ventilators couldn’t be refurbed without using a grey-market activation dongle that a single Polish med-tech homebrewed, encasing them in cases harvested from busted clock-radios and guitar pedals.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Medtronic — a med-tech monopolist that effected the largest corporate inversion in history to escape US taxes — argues that letting independent med-techs fix its products puts patients at risk, but this argument is every bit as flimsy as the auto-makers’ Mass. scare-ads.

It ignores three important facts:

I. Med-techs have always done this kind of repair. The change isn’t that med-techs are demanding the right to do something new — it’s that Medtronic leveraged its monopoly to foreclose on the industry-standard practice

II. Medtronic’s own security track-record is comically terrible. This is the company that makes pacemakers that can be wirelessly hacked from across a room to kill its user, whose software update system doesn’t even use cryptographic signatures.

If Medtronic is an expert on any aspect of patient safety, that expertise is certainly hard-won, derived from its long history of lethal patient endangerment.

III. If there is a problem with indie technicians struggling to fix Medtronic products, the obvious answer is to provide service manuals, parts and diagnostic codes.

The case for Right to Repair is incredibly strong. Not only does R2R protect consumers from ripoffs, it also provides local jobs — 1–4% of US GDP comes from the independent repair sector, almost entirely in independent small/medium businesses.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#r2r

Repair is an important environmental, labor and human rights story. As leaked internal memos demonstrate, Apple’s aggressively landfilling of devices (so customers buy more) is environmentally devastating and creates demand for conflict minerals.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/31/hall-of-famer/#e-waste-apple

The average American family loses $330/year because of the lack of access to independent repair, a $40b annual drag on the economy thanks to monopoly rents collected by monopoly firms.

To say nothing of the impact on jobs: landfilling a kiloton of ewaste creates <1 job; recycling that waste creates 15 jobs, while repairing it creates 200 good, local jobs that can’t be offshored (you don’t send a phone overseas for repair).

https://www.ifixit.com/Right-to-Repair/Jobs-Revolution

Then there’s the food security story: John Deere is an agribusiness monopolist that outraged farmers by claiming that they didn’t own the tractors they paid six figures for, merely “licensed” them on terms that forbade them from fixing their own machines.

Deere leads Big Ag’s anti-repair, forcing farmers to use official parts, preventing modifications that would allow third-party attachments, and collecting outrageous service call fees for a technician whose job is to unlock the tractor after the farmer replaces a part.

This policy means that farmers who fix their own tractors still can’t use them even if there’s a hail-storm coming and they need to bring in the crop. Farmers — who’ve been fixing their own gear since the first farmer built a forge next to their farmhouse — are desperate.

Some farmers download anonymously maintained Ukrainian firmware and overwrite the Deere software, creating unknowable risk of remote attack. Others have to maintain “backup tractors” they use for weeks while waiting for Deere to fix their equipment.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000400896/standoff-between-farmers-and-tractor-makers-intensifies-over-repair-issues

Just like Medtronic and GM, Deere claims that allowing independent service creates infosec risk — but just like its anti-repair comrades, Deere’s own infosec is a dumpster-fire, with tractors across America at risk of mass-scale cyber-attacks:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

The common thread joining these firms is monopoly: a lack of competition that allows them to extract billions from the public, and a cozy cohort of business leaders who can mobilize that loot to ensure that politicians and regulators don’t give the public what it demands.

American industry is experiencing a wave of monopolism not seen since the Gilded Age, and it affects every sector. Take hair-clippers — a category that exploded during the lockdown thanks to the newly created need for home haircuts.

The clipper market is monopolized by a single firm, Wahl. As I discovered — the hard way — Wahl has designed its newest clippers so they disintegrate if you try to take them apart to sharpen them.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1380554358824136706

Instead of sharpening these devices, you’re expected to buy a new $40 blade (for a shaver that costs $60 all in!), and throw out the old one — or, less realistically, you can mail them your razor for factory sharpening.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Wahl is part of the war on repair, sending letters to state legislators warning that letting people sharpen their own clipper blades could lead to fatal housefires.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4446374-Wahl-Opposition-Illinois.html

Two years ago, the FTC convened an inquiry on independent repair called “Nixing the Fix.” The Nixing the Fix report was released earlier this month, and it affirms everything that repair advocates have said all along.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/07/pro-act-class-war/#we-fixit

The FTC calls bullshit on manufacturers’ claims about cyber-risk, housefires, and whether getting your car fixed by your family’s beloved mechanic will lead to your murder. It broadly and firmly endorses Right to Repair.

Which brings me back to 2021, were every one of the 27 R2R bills that has been brought before a state legislature for a vote has been defeated, thanks to heavy corporate lobbying by monopolists.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-20/microsoft-and-apple-wage-war-on-gadget-right-to-repair-laws

These bills were voted down after heartbreaking testimony from ed-tech repair specialists who described the devastating impact that a broken laptop has on poor families whose kids are doing remote learning.

They were voted down despite the record, the public support, the climate questions, the food security issue, the human rights issues — voted down to preserve the monopoly profits of a tiny number of firms whose claim to being “American” is tenuous at best.

These tax-dodging, offshoring companies view the American public as an all-you-can-eat buffet, and disclaim any responsibility to the country — while still expecting its lawmakers to defend their interests, at the expense of the voters.

Image: Jcaravanos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E-waste_workers.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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