#things start getting anti from now on

[lara635kookie]

20-CleoBooker:

CountessBooker? CountessCookie? CleoCookie? Anyway, I've seen people saying they were sister vibes, others saying they were married couple vibes and I honestly can't see either of them. For me, they are more of work colleagues and their relationship is strictly professional. Cookie Booker appeared at the V.I.L.E. island periodically and we don't see her in the V.I.L.E. castle so I think maybe they lost contact? I have a headcanon that Maelstrom is the one that supervises more deeply the finantial part of V.I.L.E. and doesn't let anyone else intervine because of how manipulative he is. I also think Cleo doesn't seem so interested on the overall part of the money, which is the part Cookie Booker probably works with, just the part that it's about her so basically, lack of interactions leaves them here.

21-Maelscleo:

I know what you guys must be thinking but to me they are a little bit like PaperTiger. Cleo seems to be close to "Gunnar" and out of the entire faculty Cleo seemed to be the one Maelstrom hated the least. Maybe because they seemed to have a fair amount of things in common, like, they both have an affinity for gold, elegance and I think they could be something if Maelstrom did some treatning of his condition, to leave it less intense at least, he could be with someone. However, the thing about Maelstrom is that he sees his personality as his biggest strength and his almost complete lack of feelings as an advantage, which means he can't truly form a relationship with anyone because he doesn't want to do the treatment of his condition and it's nearly impossible to help people who don't want to be helped so their ranking seems right.

22-Zarmen:

I like them, but as a platonic ship. If this was platonically ranked, they would probably rank much higher but as I'm ranking them romantically, they wrap it up here because they are just very good friends. Their interactions never showed otherwise so, next.

#carmen sandiego #carmen sandiego 2019 #netflix #carmen sandiego netflix #things start getting anti from now on #which makes carjulia the ship I dislike the least #who would have thought

[coolnonsenseworld]

Last piece ❤️💙

There are still leftovers of the Calendar as well as some A5 prints with calendar pieces 💞

linktr.ee/Mezzy (or check my Tumblr for links)

#klance fanart #klance #voltron legendary defender #ooofff you ever feel like you keep doing things and things are still to get done??? #i keep saying this every five posts #i start to think loving getting in the 'art zone' is my biggest vice #because sure i sketch or do some digital work from time to time but if i haven't sat down to draw for hours #until eyes sting and neck cant move and brain sleepy af? is it drawing anymore? is it living anymore? yeah i thought so #im the main person making grocery shopping in this house did you know? for three people #there is always something running out and like let me tell you i already answer business emails while eating #i cleaned the windows today before my first coffee #okay to be fair i started it but apparently i used the wrong bottle and i smeared anti grease all over the windows #and then finished my coffee staring at the curvy roads of a thin film painted between me and the world promising myself to never do anythin #before first coffee #either way i feel like i havent been very present or entertaining lately #by which i mean on and off for months #am i correct or am i partially correct or reimagining things? who knows #but i keep having so many things i want to do it just keeps on going #i'm starting with commissions now #BUT THEN!! #haha yeah i hope you are having a great November and enjoy this piece!! #sending hugs <3 if you like them if not #a gentle wave from a far

[livelybook]

Me deep in my depression era going hypothetically if I did have money, shouldn't I go get treatment meds/therapy

And out of nowhere, the long lost voice of an extremist anti goverment conspirator went nah with the way the economy is right now, you don't want to have any of your personal informations and issues on record anywhere

#Like it's a thing now to seek treatment and be open about it #Instead of back then when mental health issues were not real and you have to wallow in yourself like your parents and their parents did #Until you strongarmed yourself into carrying on #Which I am very grateful is a thing of the past #But how is it that anti goverment conspiracies have come back with a resurgence #Cause like I saw a few days ago that several period tracker apps are now openly selling your information to the goverment #Like literal drug informants for the goverment to then track who is pregnant and/or having abortions #And now they're coming for no fault marriages #Next is taking away voting from everyone who doesn't look like them #And well #They've always had their foot on the neck of everything lgbt #So there's going to be escalation on that #And I am very sure the next thing is gonna be mental health issues #And it's like if I #A 20 year old something can see this everyone can so how are they getting away with starting this

[3amsnek]

saw your answer about stripe ask and i just want to say for anyone out there: don’t use paypal unless that’s the only option for you.

i made a paypal account and immediately, within a minute of making it, it got permanently limited and after days to contacting paypal they still refused to fix it (saying they can’t reveal why it got limited for their safety) and didn’t let me close my account. basically i can’t use my account and i can’t delete it either so my info will always be stored on paypal, which is ridiculous and not safe.

anyway, like i said, if you have another option besides paypal then use that because paypal sucks. be careful!

^^^^^^ no yeah exactly same hat (og ask)

I have a solid guess on why mine is dead so tiny psa if you’re making a paypal account & have legally changed your name in the past like year before that pls triple check that everything official is as consistent and already changed over as possible and you have new IDs already Before you make the account bc they’ll find one tiny thing that hasn’t fixed itself yet and shut you down for possible identity fraud no matter what you do :)

(also if you feel like you need to have paypal so you have an option for customers who don’t have a card I will once again recommend stripe bc I’ve discovered their direct email invoices allow you to accept bank transfers as a payment method (including internationally) so people can just pay using the online banking account their paypal is linked to without having to go through paypal)

#more than anything they seem to loveeee to break accounts :) #and then ghost you when you send them ids to try to fix it :) #like thanks man glad you have even more of my information now that was soooooo helpful /s #buddy I’m not some carefully organized crime ring im TRANS #I’ve also heard that if you Do manage to delete your p.aypal account it will probably never let you make another one so #I haven’t tried to delete mine bc it’s such a commonly used thing that I feel like I need to keep the option as open as I can #just in case shit changes in like. years. #which Sucks #so if it’s broken and they won’t tell you why trying to just start over will likely only land you in More trouble/fraud suspect from them #so we just get stuck in this stupid position #of them having our info and refusing to let us use their service or properly Stop using their service. wtf man #and the only way they say it can be fixed!! is by giving them more information!!! that they then ignore!!! #anyway. thank u anon for joining my anti-pa.ypal yelling team #for the record none of this frustration is at you at All im just tired & mad at paypal #support beams to you for that stupid website that sucks #snek asks #anon asks à la snek #edit: #ok i will concede that there is One good thing pay.pal has done: apparently it’s how we paid my baby doggo’s adoption fee 7 years ago #but that’s it

[bonefall]

Aight I have to know bc I hate him so much:

Does Brambleshit ever get what he deserves for being such a piece of garbage? Since he's genuinely written as a huge dick?

Depends on your idea of comeuppance. He does have a LOT more consequences for his actions; but still is in a position of power that he really shouldn't have.

One of the things I grappled with in the earlier parts of my rewrite was if I wanted to spend a lot of time fixing Bramble himself and make him the character the Erins see, or if I wanted to keep the narrative intact.

I decided to preserve the narrative. Bramblestar is an antagonist in too many things to ever 'fix' and one of the most consistent characters in Warriors.

I decided to lean into that usefulness as an antagonist to flesh out the struggles of other characters. The Three's feelings about him, Squirrelflight leaving him and finding support in her career and clanmates, Jesse and her kits Alder and Spark have enough issues to fill an SE... Bramblestar is extremely interesting and helpful as an emotionally abusive character.

Though, in doing a lot of rewriting, there are a lot of changes that DO actually make him less bad-- or at least reduce the harm he can do!

For example, he actually steps down as deputy after the fox trap situation, and genuinely regretted everything he did (though he was probably prone to blaming Hawkfrost for his actions eventually). He can't completely grind Squilf to a submissive pulp in OotS because she has a ton of clanmates that support her. He tries to be better for Spark and Alder but sadly, ultimately lapses.

And... well, after the Reveal fiasco where he demoted Squilf, the fantastic deputy, his leadership is always... rocky. This comes to a head in The Broken Code where the clan couldn't tell that Bramble was possessed for several months.

Sooo basically, don't expect Bonefall Bramblestar to get beaten with the Bad Boy Stick of Catharsis like I did with Oakstar. But I do approach Bramblestar like the antagonist he deserves to be, with the idea that he's a very human, mundane flavor of bad.

#It matters a lot to me that Bramblestar stays human #It wasn't helpful for me when I was leaving my own abusive relationship to think of my ex-lover as a monster #Because it was like... ''well theyre no monster they love me. So im not being abused.'' #Once I met someone who taught me to seperate Mistreatment from the idea of my ex being A Bad Person THAT was when I was able to leave #Because it started as ''my lover is not a monster but they are mistreating me in this specific circumstance. No matter their explanation.'' #And then that became a realization that they never worked out our differences while I worked extra hard to bridge the gap #Which became a hard moment of cataloguing my feelings every day for a few weeks and realizing I was miserable #Which became a realization that it was over 5 years and not getting better #And then one week I finally realized I had to cut and run after helping someone else through something similar #But the thing I'm getting at is-- I care immensely writing this in a way that would have helped Younger Bones #Bramblestar #Bonefall Rewrite #I project a lot of things onto Bramble tbh. I think about him a lot #He was my favorite when I was a kid and now he's more of a... anti-blorbo I guess #Scrinkly? #He's sharp and makes unpleasant noise in my hands but I can't stop touching him

[killuaisaprincess]

happy new years to the person who stalked and bullied me with their 1,000 plus twitter followers while I had like 30 lol

Stillll was the best thing that ever happened to meeee NOT JOKING

THANKS FOR HELPING ME BECOME MY TRUE SELF ALMOST THREE YEARS BABY OF BEING TRUE ME

AND HAPPY NEW YEARS FOR EVERYONE ELSE LOOK AT THE PRECIOUS BABEY PRINCESS 🥺🥺🥺🥺 I AHHHHHHHH

#personal #AND THIS WAS MY OG ACCOUNTS #Where I had more followers in the span of a few months vs now where it’s been years #it really proves the numbers aren’t everything #I’m so much happier here as I am now #And it’s so funny it’s thanks to some hater lol who’s account that I know of doesn’t exist anymore #though for all I know they’re dedicated to their cause and was one of the guest anon haters on ao3 till I turned them off #At this point I've spent more time as Qutie than Q by a long shot #I'll always be grateful for her getting me started but I love who I am now #I wouldn't be confident happy me without that asshole it's so funny how they tried to get rid of me but oopsie poopsie #They just made me stronger #It genuinely brings me so much joy to do what I love so much #CUTE KI IN DRESSES GONKI #AHHHHHH #And not have that anxiety loooming over me of wanting to fit in but not fitting in cuz I don't like kg I don't like main fandom #and praying my tag blocker saves me and I will keep silent on some things I like and believe in and #yeah I should apologize in my authors tag for writing too much of my niche of G carrying Ki and yeah #I'm so scared of antis and oh no ect ect I look back at her like whooo #Like whooo are uuu all that anxiety? Now my only anxiety is hate comments and that’s cuz of RSD BUT I WILL NEVER STOP WHAT I LOVE #I'll always be grateful for her but it's funny how in three years I went from no confidence me to someone who I AM MY NUMBER ONE FAN #DAMM I LOVE MYSELF not that that happened overnight but! Was a slow crawl but at the least! FULLY Since 2022 esp end of year! I LOVE ME DAM #And this no confidence thing it goes much further back then my blog too so anon changed my life #It's funny how just one person made me course correct and now I'm the person I am today and I love me I don't know how much time I have lef #But I'll spend it doing the things I love I still get depressed and sad from time to time and think everyone hates me but it's like RSD and #Depression it can't always be perfect but I'm so happy and confident most the time I just love what I do #Anon hate is never right I hate shit with my whole being and I've never once thought hmm let me send hate it doesn't make sense to me #And I still get harrasssed by these antis and some bad apple kg people and they don't offer me shit but a headache so I don’t want moreeee #But it's kinda funny how grateful I am towards this hater literally changed my life thank u if your out there man my lady non binary pal #So yeah I unironically sit back and thank them sometimes #IM SO HAPPY I GET TO DO WHAT I LOVE AND LOVE MY KI AND MY GONKI AND AHHHHHHHH

[disdaidal]

Whoever sent me that ask about a Billy anti, I’m only going to answer you the same thing that I’ve answered others so many times before: block them or ignore them. It’s the best way to deal with them.

I am not going to publish that ask because it gives a direct link to a post and I don’t encourage bullying anyone - even if it’s a person with a ‘bad take’.

#personal #also if i'm being completely honest here #i'm getting tired of talking about billy antis and other billy fans talking about them #when the block button is right there #i had my fair share of billy antis and discourse last summer #i participated in that and said some bad things too yes #and it completely wore me out #it depressed the fuck out of me #so besides taking a two month break from tumblr recently #i've also slowly started migrating back to my old fandoms #because i'm tired #not of hg. or billy. or fanfiction. or the people i consider my friends in this fandom #i'm just tired overall #i want to enjoy this fandom but it's giving me a major headache right now #and i may have to start unfollowing some of you for that #because i'm officially done with antis and anything to do with them #and it seems like some of you (the same few people actually) live and breathe that drama every day #because i always see you on my dashboard talking about that stuff even though i don't even follow you all #so i don't know #i feel bad for having to unfollow some otherwise great blogs #but the drama you bring to my dashboard is making me miserable #i don't care anymore okay #if you can't or don't want to block them that's on you #but i don't want to hear about them anymore #that's why i blocked those people in the first place

[bsaka7]

i am mellowing my anti-english major opinion (some of my beloved friends were English majors ok) bc i just learned about the literary usage of the term "magical realism" and how it's related to post-colonial latin america and latin american indigenous knowledge and practice... something i vaguely was aware of as a connection bc like... Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but really didn't know at all about its categorical use and IMPORTANCE and had no idea how "watered down" the term is popular culture. anyway ppl who know about english and witness my constant book talk/hating/grumping... feel free to weigh in/correct me etc on things like this now and in the future....

#I was previously annoyed with how some north American indigenous authors had been lumped in with my like. Lay understanding #Of magical realism #Which is how the convo started. And I def am learning a lot about the connotations of the term #Needless to say I have removed the tag from my fic that used it and replaced it with 'everyday fantasy' #Idk like it seems like bc of said popular understanding there is a broader meaning #But I know this now and will know it forever #Also like....interesting debate about the contours of the term in relationship to geography and colonial power I think #Definitely well within my interests so very happy to learn #I should clarify I'm like not totally anti English as a discipline lol #But certain kinds of literary analysis r um. Not. My thing. #And have dunked on them heavily in history classes lol. #But I like understand the importance of multidisciplinary connections... Like in this case lol #Anyway we're not getting into my philosophies here I'm just saying I learned something #Also like. I think my misunderstanding of the term was explicitly due to the tag being used in fic lol #I should say also that like my reading world is probably still fairly western centric and American centric which affects this #Though I have been trying to read more translations from across the world #I try to do a balance #Anyway thoughts etc

[my-gender-is-orange-juice]

@moony.420 on TikTok asked for a singular picture of Steve Harrington as Glen from Nightmare on Elm Street and I got carried away so enjoy ♥️

Also the @ in the pics is my TikTok

#artwork #digital art #eddie x steve #steddie #eddie stranger things #stranger things 4 spoilers #stranger things spoilers #stranger things #steve harringon #steve harrington my beloved #steve harrington as glen from Nightmare on Elm Street because i started this at 8 pm and i forgot time exists and now its midnight and why #why did these take me so long #anti speedpaint #eddie munson #steve the hair harrington #steve the babysitter #steve why do you take so long to fucking draw Harrington #im just annoyed at this point #how many tags does this need to get reblogs bc it took forever #im just being repetitive now but like my stuff pls #steve the single mother but somehow looks hot in a croptop #stranger things 4 volume 1 #stranger things netflix #stranger things season 4 #stranger things season four #stranger things steve #stranger things vol 2 #stranger things volume 2 #vol 2 stranger things #stranger things vol 2 spoilers

[morally-gray-omens]

I love the part of the lgbtq comunity that lets you try on lables. The people that don't require proof that you are one way or another, and dont judge you if you figure out you were wrong about a label or find somthing no longer aplies.

It makes me feel good inside.

#rambles #lgbtq community #lgbtq #pride month woooo! #I generally consider myself to be one of theese such people #but i do struggle a bit when it comes to people using contradictory lables #ive decided to just ignore it instead of getting upset or anything #while i try to start accepting it #or at least properly educate myself before forming an opinion #like bi lesbians and whatnot #ive always been anti bi/pan lesbians but to be fair i havnt tried hearing them out #i just heard somthing that sounded contradictory and sided with the people saying lesbian erasure #im deciding to be neutral about it now and try to learn more about it from people who it actually effects #cause as a trans masc mlm leaning individual #i have very little to do with women and lesbians #feel like i should get a proper opinion about theese things lmfao

[docheros]

also let’s remember. all of this fucked up shit only started bc anti killed c!jack and now he’s in coma. does c!jack being in coma is still relevant to the plot?

#honestly i feel it's bc of production differences #but i feel like the things we got before this year was just the epilogue you know #how the story started #like ''so this is anti he got a body partially bc of jack and now jack is in coma #and anti has moved on and is now obsessed with chase. why? well this story will tell'' #''we have a catboy doing a bad magic show a german doctor shouting nonsense a hero also shouting nonsense #our protagonist getting a divorce and also shouting nonsense and also a hot man from the 1920s'' #''oh and anti'' #I'm talking!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

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

#pluralistic #playstation #sony #copyright #copyfight #drm #monopoly #enshittification #batgirl #road runner #financiazation #the end of ownership #ip

[figtreeandvine]

I want to write a movie that is sort of the flip side of a Hallmark holiday movie. Not an anti-Hallmark movie, just like the other side of the same coin.

It starts with a well-dressed professional woman driving a convertible along a country road, autumn foliage in the background, terribly scenic. She turns onto a dirt road/long driveway, and stops next to a field of Christmas trees, all growing in neat, ordered rows, perfectly trimmed and pruned to form. She steps out of the car--no, she's not wearing high-heels, give her some sense!--and knocks on the door of a worn but nice-looking farmhouse. An older woman, late fifties maybe, answers the door, looking a bit puzzled. The younger woman asks if she can buy a Christmas tree now, today. The older woman says they don't do retail sales--and the younger woman breaks down crying.

Cut to the two women sitting at the kitchen table with cups of tea. The young woman (Michelle), no longer actively crying, explains that her mother loves Christmas more than anything, but is in the hospital with end-stage cancer. Her doctors don't think she'll live to see December, let alone Christmas. Nobody is selling Christmas trees in September, so could the older woman please make an exception, just this once? The older woman (Helen) regretfully explains that they have a contract to sell their trees that forbids outside sales. The younger woman nods, starts to stand up, but the older woman stops her with a hand and asks her what hospital her mother is in. After she answers the older woman says that "my Joe" will deliver a tree the next day. "Contract says I can't sell you a tree, but nothing says I can't give you one."

Next day "Joe" shows up at the hospital in flannel and jeans, with a smallish tree over her shoulder. Oh, whoops, that's Jo, Helen's daughter, short for Joanna, not Joe. Jo sets up the tree and even pulls out a box of lights and ornaments. Mother watches from hospital bed with a big smile as Jo and Michelle decorate the tree. Cue "end of movie" type sappiness as nurses and other patients gather in the doorway, smiling at the tree.

Cut to Michelle sitting in her dark apartment, clutching a mug of tea, staring out at the falling snow and the Christmas lights outside. Her apartment has no tree, no decorations, nothing. She starts at a knock on the door, goes to open it. Jo is standing there, again holding a tree over her shoulder.

Plot develops: the second tree is a gift, because Michelle might as well get it as the bank. The contract for the tree sales was an /option/ contract, which prevents them from selling to anyone else, but doesn't guarantee the sale. The corporation with the option isn't going to buy the trees, but Helen and Jo can't sell them anywhere else, and basically they get nothing. They'll lose the farm without the year's income. Michelle asks to see the contract and Jo promises to email it to her.

Next day at a very upscale law firm, Michelle asks at the end of a staff meeting if anyone in contract law still needs pro bono hours for the year. No one does, but a senior partner (Abe) takes her to his office and asks about it. She says the contract looks hinky to her ("Is that a legal term?" "Yes.") but contract law's not her thing. He raises an eyebrow and she grins and pulls a sheaf of paper out of her bag and hands it over. He reads it over, then looks up at her. "They signed this?"

More plot develops. Abe calls in underlings--interns, paralegals, whatever--and the contract is examined, dissected, and ultimately shredded (metaphorically). It's worse even than it looks--on January 1st Helen and Jo will have to repay the advanced they received at signing. The corporation has bought up a suspicious number of Christmas tree farms in previous years after foreclosure, etc.

Cut to Abe explaining all this to Helen and Jo while sitting with them and Michelle in a very swanky conference room. The firm is willing to take on the case pro bono, hopefully as a class's action suit for other farmers trapped by the contract--but there's no way it can go to court before January. Which will be too late to save the farm's income for the year. They might get enough in damages to tide them over, but….

After Michelle sees Helen and Jo out, she comes back and asks Abe if there's anything they can do immediately. Abe looks thoughtful for a long moment, then gets a really shark-like grin on his face. "Maybe…."

Cut to Helen wearing a bathrobe, coming into her kitchen in the morning. She looks out the window…and there's a food truck stopped in her driveway. She pulls a coat on over her robe and goes out--two more trucks have pulled up while she does this. Driver of the first truck asks her where they park. Another truck pulls up behind the others. Behind that is a black BMW--Abe rolls down the window and waves. Helen directs the trucks to the empty field/yard next to the house. Abe pulls up next to Helen's car and Jo's truck and parks. He and Michelle get out--Abe wearing a total power suit, Michelle in weekend casual.

The case will be easier if the corporation initially sues them for violating the (uninforcible!) contract, rather than them suing to corporation (damn if I know, but it's movie logic). So they're going to sell the trees now, and rounded up some food trucks and whatnot to draw people in.

Cue montage of Jo and Michelle running around helping people set up while Abe and Helen watch from the kitchen table. The table starts out covered in file folders…and slowly gains coffee cups and plates of cinnamon rolls. It becomes increasingly clear here that Abe and Helen are becoming as close as Jo and Michelle.

Everything gets set up and a very urban, very motley crowd appears--tats and studs and multiracial couples and LGBTQ parents and everything--and everyone is having a wonderful time eating funnel cake and choosing their tree so Jo and a bunch of rainbow-haired elves can cut it for them. At which point someone shows up from the corporation (maybe with a sheriff's deputy?) and starts yelling at Helen, who's running checkout. And suddenly Abe appears from the house and you realize why he's wearing that suit on a Saturday….

Cue confrontation and corporate flunky running off with their tail between their legs, blustering about suing. Cue Jo kissing Michelle. Cue Helen walking over and putting a hand on Abe's shoulder and smiling at her.

I want the lawyers to be the heroes because they are lawyers and know the law. I want a lesbian who lives in the country with her mother. I want urbanites to turn out as a community to help someone who isn't even part of their community. I want Michelle to keep working at her high-power job, loving Christmas and grieving her mother.

#hallmark #anti-hallmark #movie plot

[vamptastic]

Ik it's a fairly small action compared to some other synagogues but during the seder my rabbi made mention of the palestinian death toll and said some stuff relating welcoming the stranger to the need for peace in israel. Which considering everything to this point that he has shown to the congregation has been stuff about returning the hostages from israeli sources, including a lot of videos by IDF soldiers (it's mostly songs, nothing overtly horrible, but it does bug me), is nice. I mean ideally we would be fully advocating for a ceasefire but it's a step up from before, and from the chabad in the area which has always been kind of insane politically.

#I hate having to reconcile practicing my faith with my political ideals so it's nice to see that maybe there won't be some #Inane Israeli propaganda every service that drives me insane. I think my Rabbi as a person is sort of in the middle here but outright #Stating anything nominally anti-Israel would not be received well and he did not want to deal with that. Which I do get #But it feels like by now things are so out of proportion that everybody can say that at the very least the fighting should stop ASAP #Considering we don't actually put any money or political effort into things (maybe birthright trips? but iirc those are a URJ thing) #Like as a congregation with congregation dues. I don't feel bad about continuing to practice or anything #But it's nice to not feel like my faith is always going to be out of line with my thoughts on this one thing #Anyway please refrain from starting a long debate on this post I will not be responding. It's just an expression of my personal feelings #I do not want to get into a longer discussion on Judaism and Zionism right now. I don't know enough and I'm tired

[derogatorydennis]

.

#i’m going back to uni tmr and my bf’s staying w me for the week #and i love him obviously but it’s so frustrating when he’s there i can’t really do anything else i can’t hang out with anyone else bc he #gets upset i can’t do anything without him the only thing i can do is uni #and i live in accom so we’re just sharing one room and he was there for a week before break and after now too it’s like i’ve just been on #hold for a month and a half #i need to sustain my self and do what i want and have full control over what i do and who i hang out with #he’s also anti nic and i can’t use the body wash and hair wash n wtv that i want to #he’s also graduated but unemployed so he doesn’t have anything to do #it’s especially frustrating to start a year/semester having to accommodate him and do everything #like i can’t even go to the gym bc he can’t go #i love him and i love my family but from dec 4 to jan 16 i have not been able to actually live alone and have my own routine #and if i dont soon im going to start tweaking #this is unfortunately just the worst possible situation for me to be in wrt a relationship 😭 #he lives like two hours away from my uni so we’re mid distance which is why i can’t do anything when he’s here and he’s coming up now bc it #our anniversary soon #this is also the only platform he doesn’t follow me on. which is delightful #TO BE CLEAR ! i love him a lot this is just a terribly frustrating situation

[hussyknee]

i'm so confused rn, can you explain the goncharov thing?? i get off tumblr for five minutes

(Edits closed as of 28 Nov.)

Lmaoooo

Nah I getchu. So this post has been circulating for like two years:

Link to post.

But yesterday, it had inspired someone to do this:

Link to post.

Next thing I knew there were fake Letterboxed reviews.

Goncharov moodboards. Really good ones.

Link to post.

Meta analysis. So many fake meta essays. Disturbingly good ones. And of course the memes. (Edit: HAVE I SAID THIS SHIT IS DISTURBING)

As you can see, the myth just started to grow, characters and ships and tropes being added one after the other, almost bizzarely without contradiction, until there was enough of shape to the whole thing for people to start posting fanfic about it on AO3. "No beta we die like ice-pick Joe" is already a tag.

Link to post.

It was hilarious in the beginning, but the way it's developed within less than a day, kind of like it's being willed into existence, is freaking me out a bit. We're toying with powers beyond our comprehension. 😂😂😂

Link to post.

Of course, there could be an ulterior motive as well.

Link to post (tags mine).

Edit: guys, please tag these posts "unreality" so people with disassociation issues can filter them out (not this one, this is an explainer). <3

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Edit 2: Aparently the boots in the original post are actually referring to a movie called Gomorrah that came out in 2008, directed by Mateo Garrone, based on the Scampia Feud. And other people had also been making posts about the fake movie for a while before the poster took off.

found by @thepotch

Edit 3: Explainer: why did those boots have this movie on them anyway?

Edit 4: Alt text added to all images courtesy of @valentineish ❤️

Edit 5: Turns out tumblr has done this kind of thing before. Nine years in this hell place and I had to have "Squiddles" and penis smp explained in the replies.

Edit 6: This post collects the Lore so far.

Edit 7: Lynda Carter (real one)/ earns more/ Tumblr cred.

Edit 8: Holy shit y'all we have the theme music. With sheet music. And it's on Spotify!

Edit 9: THERE IS A TRAILER WITH THE THEME MUSIC

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I made this post 18 hours after the movie poster went up. Closed edits 27 hours after first posting. So all of the above happened within 45 hours of the movie poster going up.

Edit 10: Google document live-compiling all the lore so far (Day 3)

Edit 11: Masterpost of Goncharov soundtracks (Day 3)

Edit 12: Entertainment news articles covering the Gonch-posting (real) (Contd from yday)

Edit 13: The music from the masterpost all compiled into a 31-minute original score with video edits on YouTube (edit: unfortunately taken down)

Edit 14: Staff's Goncharov art showcase for Tumblr Tuesday

As of closing on Day 3 there are 371 works in the AO3 tag.

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Updating with Day 3 shenanigans I missed yesterday:

Edit 15: Goncharov TV Tropes page

Edit 16: Ethics of Gonchposting

Important PSA 1 (how to reduce harm to Tumblr's neurodivergents)

Important PSA 2 (reality affirmation, anti-bullying)

Important PSA 3 (why you should stop trying to vandalise legit information sites)

Edit 17: Character lore from beezlebub whose poster they originated from

Edit 18: What we know about/ Director Matteo JWHJ0715 (#unreality)

Edit 19: Link to post with screenshotted and described NYT article (scroll down) and this golden exerpt from BuzzFeed: 💀

(alt text included)

End of Day 4 there are now 485 works in the Goncharov tag on AO3

----

Didn't get to update this on Day 5, so these are the Day 5 doings:

More trailers!

Trailer 1 (My favourite)

Trailer 2

Trailer 3

Trailer 4

I also just found out about the Goncharov Game Jam.

It appears this opened a day after after the meme took off.

Goncharov was first entered into Wikipedia between Day 4 and 5 (attempts to vandalise it with fake info don't count, incidentally – please knock that shit off) under List of Internet Phenomena. This was then expanded into its own Wikipedia page at the end of Day 5 because, according to the talk history: "the topic now meets the notability threshold for its own artice due to significant coverage in The New York Times and other sources cited." We're on Wikipedia, people!

And then we made The Guardian half a day later. So while the meme is definitely dying down to embers by now, it still stays winning.

YouTube channels with episodes on the meme:

InformOverlord (4:30)

Lessons in Meme Culture (2:43)

End of Day of 5 there were 511 works on AO3, and End of Day 6 (today) there are 556.

--

🚨BREAKING 🚨 from Martin Scorsese's daughter's TikTok (real actual)

tw: unreality:

We did it you guys!

Clarification: Francesca Scorcese asked her Dad about the meme and Martin played along. Please reblog this PSA to help Tumblr people with psychosis. Thanks.

Final edit: Day 8. Media reactions to Scorcese's TikTok (everyone from Forbes to Vulture). That one Tumblr user who said they'd do a screenplay if their post got notes has promised to shoot a single scene, but please don't be dicks just because you reblogged it; leave them alone until they get around to it themselves. As of end of Day 8 there are 609 works in the AO3 tag. I love all you lunatics. Peace! ❤️

#goncharov 1973 #reasons i can never leave this hellsite #we've ascended from pirating criterion movies to straight up manifesting them into existence #get on our level twits #knee of huss #goncharov #tumblr lore #tumblr memes #tumblr culture