Animal shelter at the mansion
Something strange is starting to happen in Gotham; multiple reports of different animals running through the streets but they look green and translucent, it seems that no one has been able to capture any of them.
This, of course, catches Damian's attention, who takes ownership of the case the minute he hears about it. He doesn't quite understand what kind of animals they are, but he'll do everything he can to protect them, even if he can barely touch them.
The Batfamily isn't quite sure what to do about it, it's obvious the animals aren't going anywhere but they all seem to be following Damian to the mansion, and as much fun as it is, Bruce already had one too many cardiac arrests at the sight of the green tiger.
On the other hand, Danny is extremely concerned when Clockwork informs him of an unstable portal that the ghosts of the Realms have been using. It's obvious that the humans only noticed the ghost animals, but Danny is aware that many others went through that portal and are about to cause chaos.
604 notes
·
View notes
“streaming services are untrustworthy now”
THEY ALWAYS HAVE BEEN
THEY. ALWAYS. HAVE. BEEN.
You want to own your media. The music you love, the TV you love, the shows you love, the fic and podcasts and fanworks and books you love, DOWNLOAD THEM. I don’t care if you pirate or buy them (though the smaller the creator, the more I’d suggest you buy, or at least donate to them through whatever means available), but if you want to be sure that you’ll always have access, you need to physically own this stuff. Yes, even if it’s all digital.
The thing that streaming services offer is called SVOD. That means “subscription video on demand”. You’re subscribing to a provider, and you do not get a choice what the selection of content is this provider offers. Think of them like a TV channel. You can watch what’s on at any given time, but there is no guarantee that what you’ve seen will ever be shown again.
Back in the day, people started to use VHS to record television content and keep it. Tons and tons of academic writing has been produced on how much changed when people could finally OWN THEIR MEDIA. Do not give that up. Make sure you have this stuff. Turn off your wifi and mobile data and figure out how much media you’ve still got access to. If there’s something you’re dearly missing, go and make it accessible to you offline right now.
Here’s what happened at HBO Max (as far as I understand): they spent money on the merger with Discovery, and then figured out that they’d acquired shows, or now had shows in their catalogue, that they didn’t expect to make money off of, because the shows either didn’t fit their brand or their desired target audience or whatever else stupid reason they had. There’s this tax thing you can do where you can declare an expense a loss, essentially, if you can be sure that you won’t be making money off of whatever you acquired with that money. If it’s declared a loss, you don’t pay taxes on it. Now that they’ve declared the money they spent on these shows a loss, they cannot be found out to be making money off of them. This is why those shows are getting purged. And because nobody ever produced any physical media of these shows, or offered them for paid download where you got to keep the files, they’re just GONE. (And this is why art and capitalism don’t mix, sigh.)
This will happen again. We’ve got so many streaming services now that the smaller ones are starting to get bought by the bigger ones. A streaming platform isn’t a particularly profitable business, and since we have a few big names bouncing around the market, these big names are each going to have to develop their own specific brand in order to be unique enough to warrant a subscription (if they haven’t yet). So we’ve got mergers in an industry that’s struggling to stay out of the red and whose big players are desperately trying to develop individual, distinct profiles. Shows that don’t fit into this silo structure will be dropped and purged. Just like it used to be on TV, anything that doesn’t bring in subscribers (i.e. that doesn’t have broad mass appeal) will not find a place anymore.
Streaming is still better than traditional TV. At least they’re now trying to appeal to the people watching rather than advertisers, and there’s more leeway in regards to the kind of content that can be run. But the creativity is going to narrow. So any show that you love, anything that is exactly the kind of thing that you’ve wanted to see for years but that never got made because it doesn’t have “mass appeal” -- download it. Make sure you own it any way possible. They can take it away at any moment, and they will, because money beats art when you’re running your creative industries for profit.
1K notes
·
View notes
Poly fae got me thinking thoughts Bad naught dirty thoughts but not so much poly thoughts but thoughts never the less. House party leibling and love drunk kissing - just some hot girl shit and koenig and ghost find something they can finally agree on hot damn
Ghost comes back to the group with a basket of chips and a groan of annoyance. König looms anxiously, or perhaps angrily, vibrating with energy but frozen in place. Soap is as frozen as König is, his mouth open with an absolutely astonished grin, half laughing at the way you push your lips against Liebling's.
Liebling, at least, has the decency to look surprised.
Ghost wastes no time grabbing a wrapping a hand around your neck to pull you back. Turning you away from the danger zone and into the much friendlier wake of a well known evil, your moderately annoyed boyfriend. As soon as you're off of Liebling König scoops her up and holds her out of the way.
You very eagerly push onto your toes to kiss Ghost and are held at bay by his grip on your neck.
"What's the rule?" Ghost asks you, stern and unyielding as a brick wall.
"No kissing, no biting, no bitching." Soap snorts, you glare at him.
"Or..?"
"Or I gotta go home," you pout, "but that was barely a kiss, it was like a peck at best!"
"I want an apology," König chimes in.
"Zip it," Ghost growls, quickly turning his attention to König and then back to you, "A rule is a rule, we're leaving."
"Just wanna butt in," Liebling waves from where she's been hoisted, "no apology needed. I'm going to have some great sex after this."
"Says who," König lowers her enough to glower at her.
"Says you, possessive bastard." She responds.
"Are we gonna fuck?" You look up at Ghost with your best 'please' face. He does not look amused.
"No." Damn.
"Are we?" Soap asks, Ghost shoots him a look, considers, then shakes his head. You stick your tongue out at Soap, who responds in kind.
"Come on, both of you out," Ghost hands you the basket of chips he'd procured and grabs the back of Soap's shirt, "Can't leave you alone for two bloody seconds without an incident."
167 notes
·
View notes