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sirfrogsworth · 4 months

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The Death of Physical Media

I keep seeing this concern around all of my home theater circles. Ever since Best Buy decided to abandon physical media there has been a call to arms to save it.

Chris Stuckman did a great video on his love of physical media.

youtube

I admire and share his passion.

That said, I think there is nothing to stop physical media from being scaled back. At best, it will end up like vinyl and only a few select titles will still be pressed.

Which is why I think saving physical media is the wrong fight.

There is a much larger fight that encompasses more than just blu-ray discs...

(I'm going to use really big letters for dramatic effect so don't get startled.)

DATA OWNERSHIP!

(Imagine a long trailing echo when reading that in your mind.)

(Sorry, I probably should have included those instructions in the previous parenthetical. So go back and read "data ownership" again with the proper gusto.)

(Did you do it?)

(Was it cool?)

(Cool.)

A blu-ray is just data.

The disc does not positively affect the visuals or the sounds. It's just 1s and 0s coded into microscopic pits. You can put that data on a hard drive. You can put it on an SD Card. You can put it on a thumb drive and wear it on a necklace.

You can even use WinRAR to break it up into little 1.44 megabyte chunks and save it to floppy disks.

Another 40 more cases of floppies and you've got Avatar preserved for life!

The medium is not important.

The *data* is important.

And as everything turns into a subscription we are losing out on ways to own data. Beyond that, people aren't yet seeing the value of owning data. If renting a digital download is cheaper, they are almost always going to choose that option.

So the fight is two-fold.

We need to fight for the right to parrrrrty own data.

We need to convince the populace of the value of owning data.

This can apply to software, movies, video games. Hell, I don't even own my damn doorbell videos. There is no way to download all of the footage. I'd have to do each video one at a time. And if I don't keep my subscription, I will no longer have access to that data as it will soon be deleted.

We would need a platform similar to Steam—though it isn't the perfect data ownership solution. Many titles require internet connectivity and DRM verification. What happens to our media when a company goes out of business and the infrastructure to verify the DRM over the internet is gone?

So that would need to be addressed. Perhaps a new form of DRM linked to our digital identity that can be verified locally.

I mean, I'd love to get rid of DRM, but that is probably not realistic.

I think the best avenue is probably a congressional law.

"The Own Your Own Data Act"

TOYODA?

We can workshop the name later.

In conclusion, we don't need to save blu-rays. We need the option to buy data and actually own it in perpetuity.

Meaning if a streaming service deletes a movie or a movie studio goes belly up, our data doesn't disintegrate along with it. We cannot let our favorite shows go extinct. We need to be part of preserving that history. Not to mention discs have a shelf life. But data can be transferred to new mediums indefinitely.

My house is just going to be wall to wall floppy disks.

#long post #Youtube

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the-sleepy-archivist · 8 months

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Favorite Firefox Extensions

Firefox is a very extensible browser - through a combinations of addons and userscripts you can make it behave just about any way you want. The best part is, they're all free. Here are some of my favorites.

Note: if you have an Android device, check out my post about Firefox for Android's new extended support for addons!

Note: if you have an Apple device, check out my favorite Safari extensions here!

Last updated March 2024 (added Filtering+ for Tumblr).

Index:

uBlock Origin

Tab Session Manager

Sauron

Bypass Paywalls Clean

Auto Tab Discard

Video DownloadHelper

Highlight or Hide Search Engine Results

TWP - Translate Web Pages

UnTrap - YouTube Customizer

Indie Wiki Buddy

Cookie Auto Delete

ShopSuey - Get Rid of Ads on Amazon and Ebay

LibraryExtension

uBlock Origin

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

This is the first addon I install on any new Firefox browser. It's an adblocker, but at its core it can remove pretty much any HTML element from a website, and it comes with pre-configured lists for removing everything from ads to cookie banners to those annoying popups that ask you to sign up for email newsletters.

Tab Session Manager

Have you ever accidentally lost all your open browser tabs due to a computer update, or even just accidentally closing Firefox? With this addon you no longer have to worry about that - it automatically saves your open tabs and windows every time the browser closes, and autosaves a restore point of tabs every few minutes in case the browser crashes unexpectedly. Opening all your previous tabs and windows is a one-click deal.

Sauron

Ever wished your favorite website had a dark mode? With Sauron, now it can! Sauron attempts to intelligently figure out how to edit the color scheme of the web page (including text) to make it dark-mode friendly. It preserves the original color of images, but dims them so that they don't blind you. You can disable image dimming or dark mode on a site by site basis too. It's not perfect since it is making guesses about which colors to change, but it goes a long way toward making the internet an enjoyable place for me.

Bypass Paywalls Clean

This addon removes paywalls from hundreds of news websites around the world or adds links to open the article in a wrapper that provides the article text (like the Internet Archive etc.)

Auto Tab Discard

Ever wanted to keep a tab open for later use, but you notice the browser getting slower and slower the more tabs you have open? Auto Tab Discard will automatically "hibernate" tabs that you haven't used in a while so that they use less resources on your computer. It's smart enough not to hibernate pages that are playing media (like YouTube) or that have forms you haven't submitted yet (like job applications). You can customize how fast it puts tabs to sleep too and exclude certain websites from hibernating at all.

Video DownloadHelper

This addon can download streaming videos from most modern (HTML5) websites, and even finds soft subtitles that accompany the stream and downloads those too. Just browse to the webpage that has the video on it, click the icon in the Firefox toolbar, and select the video you want to download and click "Quick Download". For YouTube I would recommend using a YT downloader website (like KeepVid) to download the video directly, but Video DownloadHelper really shines for websites that aren't popular enough to have dedicated downloader websites like that. I've used it download videos from a Japanese film festival streaming portal, news websites, etc.

Highlight or Hide Search Engine Results

This addon allows you to blacklist websites and completely remove them from Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo search results. Don't want to see image search results from AI websites? Blacklist them. Searching for tech support advice and getting frustrated by all the auto-generated junk websites that stuff themselves full of SEO terms to jump to the top of the search results without actually providing any information at all? Blacklist them so they don't come up in your next search. Conversely, you can also whitelist websites that you know and trust so that if they ever come up in future search results, they'll be highlighted with a color of your choosing for visibility.

TWP - Translate Web Pages

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

Does what it says on the tin: auto-detects a website's language and provides a button that can translate it to a language of your choosing. You can also just select individual text on the page and translate just that. Note that this sends whatever text you translate to the servers of your selected translation service (Google, Bing, Yandex, or DeepL), so keep in mind the privacy implications if you don't want your IP address associated with having read that text.

Edit: As of version 118, Firefox now has the ability to translate text locally on your computer, without needing to send it to a cloud service. You can enable this in Settings -> Translation -> Install languages for offline translation. Note that at this time (May 2024), 18 (mostly European) languages are supported. More info here.

UnTrap for YouTube

(compatible with Firefox for Android and they have a Safari for iOS extension too)

This addon lets you tweak the YouTube interface and hide anything you don't want to see. For instance, I hide all the "recommended" videos that come up when you search YT now. They have nothing to do with your search, so they're essentially just ads YT puts in your search results. I also hide Explore, Trending, More from YouTube, and Shorts sections, but you can customize it to fit your preferences.

Note: depending on the particular set of tweaks you want to make to YouTube, you may prefer to use YouTube Search Fixer instead. User preference.

Indie Wiki Buddy

I loathe Fandom.com wiki sites - they are cluttered and filled with ads and autoplaying videos that follow you down the page as you scroll. The organization is also hostile - if a community tries to leave their platform and bring their content to a new wiki hoster, Fandom bans them from the platform and reverts all their deletions/changes. Indie Wiki Buddy attempts to find an independent alternative for the wiki you're trying to browse and automatically redirects you to it, and if one doesn't exist, it will redirect you to a proxy site like antifandom or breezewiki that shows the Fandom content but removes all ads/videos/background images so you can actually, you know. READ it.

Cookie Auto Delete

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

Websites store "cookies" - little text files with info about you - on your computer as you browse so they can track you as you browse the internet. This addon automatically deletes cookies from a website a short while after you close the last tab you had open for that site. You can customize how long it waits before clearing cookies too. Note that this can sign you out of many websites, so you can whitelist any site you don't want cookies cleared for.

ShopSuey - Get Rid of Ads on Amazon and Ebay

Removes the ads/recommended products that clutter up Amazon and Ebay search results and product pages.

LibraryExtension

This fantastic addon recognizes when you are viewing a book on many popular websites and can automatically check whether that book is available in any of the library systems or subscription services you have access to, including how many copies your library(ies) have and how many are currently checked out. The best part is it shows the availability for physical books, ebooks, AND audiobooks at supported libraries. The extension currently supports libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, but it also supports some global repositories like the Internet Archive and subscription services like NLS Bard for the blind and print disabled, Kobo Plus, Libro.fm, Anyplay.fm, Bookmate, and Everand. Great extension for people trying to support their local library and also save money.

Filtering+ for Tumblr

This addon lets you add tags or phrases to your tumblr tag filters with two clicks, without leaving the dashboard. I've been asking Tumblr for this tag filtering behavior on their mobile apps (i.e. press and hold a tag to get a filter option) for at least a year now in asks and surveys, without ever stopping to see if someone had already implemented this on desktop. More fool me. This addon is from the author of XKit Rewritten. Note that the right-click tag filtering only works on the dashboard; it will not appear if you are on someone's blog. Right-clicking selected text to filter the phrase works everywhere based on my testing.

#firefox #firefox extensions #internet privacy #mine #long post

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bizarrequazar · 1 year

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Collected Information about the Bangkok Concerts

This is a post collecting information and sources about the concerts held by the Zhang Sanjian scam gang on May 10th and 11th. I will keep this updated as more information comes out. Please let me know if you have any questions, corrections, or additions.

[Masterpost of my informational posts about the situation]

Lead-Up

The earliest account to promote the concert was a planted fan trying to collect information from other fans in group chats, not an “official account”. This was on April 10th, only a month prior to the day the concert would be held. Accounts officially associated with the scam would not start promotions until April 20th.

Someone who contacted the venue on April 20th was told that the hall had been booked for 05-11 but that the venue could not disclose who it was for.

On April 22nd, the Instagram made a post announcing the ticket sales using a promotional photo from 2021 that had been made for the concert the real Zhang Zhehan had been planning prior to 813. This post did not include a link for purchasing; including links to purchases increases the chance of Instagram checking an account for fraud activity.

The production company for the concert is partnered with CAPA.

Seat prices went up to 16,000 baht ($465 USD / 3200 RMB) and went on sale on April 22nd. As a comparative, the BTS member Suga held a concert with VIP tickets pricing at 6200 baht.

Within hours, scam believers were saying that tickets had sold out, but on the actual purchasing site they were instead listed as not available (ie. reserved for sale by scalpers). On May 3rd, these reserved tickets that had not been sold were made available again with less than half sold.

On April 23rd, it was announced via the Instagram that an additional concert would be held on 05-10 due to “popularity”. (As I write this, I realize that it’s odd for them to book 05-10 rather than 05-12 since it means those first comers who bought tickets for 05-11 would not get to be the first ones to see “him”.) Tickets for this became available the following day and “sold out” within ten minutes only to become available again; it’s likely this was just a glitch.

On April 24th, a promotional video was posted for the concert using only footage from 2021 (same context as mentioned above).

Some tickets had been available as a “tour package” through a company that had a history of scamming customers. On April 26th, the tour package’s name was changed then deleted from the company’s website. On April 30th, the Taobao shop selling these packages was closed without refunds and over 400 people who had made purchases had their information leaked. Some people who purchased these packages were later left stranded at the airport for hours when they arrived.

On May 5th, the Weibo Supertopic used by scam believers, which had been filled with people reselling tickets and encouraging others to fake information for travel visas, was deleted. The following day, “official” accounts directed users to a new Supertopic that was created less than 15 minutes after the previous one disappeared despite it taking 1-3 days for Supertopics to be approved. This new Supertopic was made private on May 9th then deleted as well on May 10th.

On May 6th, photos were posted to the Instagram of “Zhang Zhehan” in what appeared to be Thailand. The following day several photos and a video were spread of “chance encounters”, originating from accounts that did not belong to fans.

The scam gang requested that people who had bought VIP tickets provide their home addresses so they could be sent tshirts and light sticks, four days prior to the first concert date. Have fun getting doxxed, I guess.

On May 8th, a new song was released to streaming sites by the scam gang despite it being only two days before the first concert. As a comparative, for his mini-concert to promote his Another Me EP in October 2020, Zhang Zhehan released only two of the three songs for streaming prior to the concert, leaving the third song 不说 to be debuted at the concert before releasing for streaming.

On May 9th, several photos and a video were posted by paparazzi of the venue being set up. It was noted that workers present in these photos were fully dressed despite there being a heatwave with outside temperatures climbing to over 40°C; it’s uncommon for AC to be on during set up, though not impossible.

On the same day, a figure fully covered in sweats and a hoodie was filmed entering the venue for rehearsals. Again: heatwave.

May 10th

The venue looked less than half full less than ten minutes before the set start time.

A collection of some photos that look obviously off: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Chinese CPFs keeping track of things concluded that three different impersonators were likely used, with one possibly being a woman. There were visible differences in the nose, jawline, eyebrows, Adam’s apple, butt, and stature. Furthering this, people watching reported that the costume changes were remarkably fast and there were no breaks over the course of 20 song performances (3 hours).

It’s quite likely that the cameras used for the screens inside the venue were using deepfake tech to correct for these mistakes. Yes this can be done live. It was noticed that the screens seemed to noticably lag more than is standard (example, comparison to another concert) and occassionally jumped.

Some of the audience members visible in photos look quite unexcited to be there. It’s possible that people were hired to fill empty seats, especially given that so many were left unsold that they decreased the number of seats physically present in the venue. A number of people looked to be in quite a hurry to leave afterwards. There is hearsay that some of them may have been students who were paid to attend. [translated chatlog between Chinese fans]

About an hour and a half after the concert started, the bought hashtag #Primordial Theater# suddenly appeared on the general Weibo hotsearch, reaching #14 before completely disappearing ten minutes later. Coincidentally, the Weibo administration account made a post shortly afterwards warning about celebrity impersonation fraud.

Around this time, all photos of the concert posted by Ranyi, one of the “official” accounts, were removed by Weibo and the account was later banned for violating community rules. Similar photos and a video were also removed from Xie Yihua’s Weibo accounts.

A whaler who made a post that she shook hands with him at the concert forgot to change her VPN to Thailand, with it instead saying she was in Japan. 🤡

There are rumors that some whalers who attended said it was fake and closed their accounts, I haven’t seen direct evidence of this yet. Also a rumor that one went to the police. Some whalers were reportedly afraid to speak out about what they had seen at the concert because they had given the scam their personal information.

May 11th

There was significantly less posted footage and discussion of this day. Many people who had attended gave excuses such as phones being too low on battery to film, only having blurry photos, wanted to capture the moment with their own eyes, etc.

Additional photos that look distinctly off: [1] [2] [a whole collection] (Here’s an example of full-face prosthetic makeup btw)

Videos show that barely anyone in the audience appeared to be singing along to some songs, including Surround.

Comment about the vocals from a trained musician: “The voice doesn't feel open, it feels like it's covered with a layer of veil. Generally speaking, the voice is not clean, and secondly, the breath is not stable, and the voice is obvious. Trembling, as well as out-of-tune and treble, the treble sounds very laborious, and the out-of-tune is also sandwiched between the two notes, and the way of vocalization is not right, it is all in the throat, singing like this is easy to hurt the throat and make it hoarse.” (mtl)

[Video comparing the singing to Zhang Zhehan’s]

A video and group photo showing Xiao Yu were passed around, with him being visibly too short in relation to “Zhang Zhehan” in the photo.

Again, many of the photos posted by Xie Yihua were removed by Weibo.

VVIP ticket holders (on both days) were able to take photos with Zhang Sanjian afterwards: - Reports from them say that Zhang Sanjian was quite touchy-feely and eager with hugs (😰). If you look at old photos and video of the real Zhang Zhehan, he was always very polite and often kept his hands clasped when taking photos with unfamiliar people. - The attendees were assigned a number so the photos could be sent to them afterwards. Standard practice for celebrity photo ops is that the photos are printed there; being sent later allows time for editing to be done. - It took two weeks for people to be sent their photos. Despite this, some of the editing is... not very good.

Followups

Yahoo! Taiwan published an article talking about the concert, referring to Zhang Zhehan as an “artist who insulted China”.

[Written notes] from a Twitter space discussion about the concert. Main points not previously covered here:

It was learned by Chinese CPFs that any Chinese person who wants to hold a concert outside of China needs to get written permission to do so. There is no evidence that the scam gang did this, and it’s doubtful that someone in Zhang Zhehan’s situation would do so.

If you watch the videos of Zhang Sanjian talking at the concert, it looks very performative, not a real emotional response like what you can see in videos of the real Zhang Zhehan at his past concerts. Especially at a concert after 813 and not seeing his fans for two years, wouldn’t you expect him to get quite emotional?

Likewise, there are enunciation differences and dialectic differences in how Zhang Sanjian spoke.

If the point of the concerts was to make money, they would have started promotions much earlier, it doesn’t make commercial sense to announce it at such short notice. The intent of the concert was to get attention.

Another intent seems to be to try to divide CP fans, similar to how last year they succeeded in dividing haizhe and whalers.

Following the concerts, there was a significant uptick in fans of other celebs harrassing those saying the concerts were fake—especially in c-ent fan culture, fans of other celebs can and will happily take advantage of the scam to eliminate their bias’s competition even if they are aware that it’s a scam.

This post was last edited 2023-05-24.

#Zhang Zhehan #Zhang Sanjian #zzh info #my zzh posts

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bradpittwh0re · 1 year

Note

hey love your fake Instagram, can you do one with the face claim Madison Beer

faceclaim: madison beer

pairings: brad pitt x singer!reader

warning:fluff

y/nlegions

liked by user09, y/nfan82 and 8,719 others

y/nlegions y/n's boyfriend @zackbia posted these pictures from their vacation in Cabo

view all 3,274 comments

zackstan72 SCREAMING they are just couple goals

y/nfan21 no they are no their just toxic

y/nstan71 I love y/n but she always goes back to zack, like its so sad

y/nfan92 is it just me that noticed that after she got with that man she does not hang out with her old friends

y/nstan63 allegedly that why Brad and y/n don't talk anymore because he is jealous of him comment liked by bradpitt

y/nfan92 not brad liking the comment the teaaaaa

y/nstan53 by the end of the week Zack is going to cheat on her

y/nfan80 i hate to agree but i think its true

enews

liked by y/nfan44, y/nfan43 and 658,971 others

enews BREAKING NEWS pictures have just leaked of y/n and her boyfriend Zack Bia fighting outside of a party. A source that heard the altercation alleges that the fight was over Zacks's behavior toward other women at the party.

view all 274,974 comments

ynstan79 y/n face in the third picture kills me

ynfan23 I know i just want to hug her so badly.

y/nfan11 I FUCKING KNEW HE WAS A WEIRD0

y/nfan52 "Zacks's behavior toward other women" aka him cheating

y/nfan46 poor y/n she has to go through this again

zackbiastan62 please delete this, you guys have no right to show this private moment

y/nfan5 bitch no your have got caught being an asshole , too bad

one day later

zackbia

liked by kyliejenner, zackstan82 and 238,921 others

zackbia no caption needed

view all 274,974 comments

ynfan24 are my eyes deceiving me right now

y/nstan52 he did not even waste anytime at all

y/nfan28 he couldn't even wait just one day

ynfan26 i hate it here like I really hope y/n is okay after all this shit

y/nstan21 she better be in the studio after this mess

months later...

y/nfanpage

liked by user09, y/nfan82 and 8,719 others

y/nfanpage y/n and her "friend" brad pitt has been spotted out recently

view all 35,903 comments

bradfan12 OH MY GOOOOOOOD

y/nstan21 not the quotation marks on friends

y/nfanpage well I just personally feel like their too close for friends hahaha

y/npittstan92 my ship is finally coming true , yes

y/nfan85 she honestly looks so much happier now

y/nfan72 ya after being with that man

y/nstan32 when is her new single coming out

y/nfan42 wait she has a new song coming out????

y/nstan32 it just rumours but what brad posted on his story earlier and she has been spotted leaving the studio with @yourproducer who she always works with to make the entire life support album

bradpitt added to story

y/nlegions

liked by y/nfan04, y/nfan82 and 24,128 others

y/nlegions y/n just announced her new single dangerous for her next album make sure to stream, Spotify linked

view all 3,274 comments

ynfan23 WHAT IS GOING ON , we are seated

bradstaan42 ariana(brad) what you doing here

ynfan24 if you check the credits he is credited as a writer

ynfan37 new single alert! , this is not a drill anymore

y/nfan73 she is mothering so much

ynfan45 this yn2 era is going to dominate

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hischierswhore · 1 year

Text

prologue (part 1) (c. pulisic)

TW: cursing // mentions of pregnancy

Word Count: 669

A/N: surprise shawty ! this is a brand new series i’m working on, and i’m really excited to write this one.

next chapter

The 3 years you spent loving Christian were the best years of your life. You still remember all the things he said to you, and it makes your heart ache when you hear his voice in your head now, replaying your final conversation in your head.

“Y/n, I don’t want this to be harder than it already is” He softly spoke as you both sat on your couch.

“Chris I’ll just go with you. This doesn’t have to be the end for us” Tears began to flow down your face.

“I can’t do that to you. I can’t just drag you with me and force you to give up your dreams for me” He looked into your eyes so intensely, his heart was breaking at the sight.

“Please don’t do this, Christian”

“I’m sorry, Y/n, but I think we should end this” He stood up and placed a gentle kiss on your cheek before leaving.

The moment he left, you grabbed onto the fabric of your couch as tears streamed down your cheeks, the sudden pain in your chest piercing through your body.

You laid there crying as memories of the good times rushed over you like a wave. Every part of you hurt when he walked away, and you felt empty without him. Your head started pounding with every beat of your heart. It seemed like it took hours to calm yourself down, all while sobbing quietly into the soft material of your cushion.

You’d lost the love of your life.

—

A few weeks later, you found yourself at the doctor’s office after constantly feeling nauseous. You were initially convinced that it was a stomach bug, but for these symptoms to continue even after 2 weeks, you decided it was time to go get checked.

Normally Christian would’ve been here with you, as he was always worried about you, even if you had a slight cold. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t here because he was too selfless and put your happiness before his own.

So here you are, sat in the exam room all alone, waiting for your doctor to come back with your results.

“Ms Y/n… I have your results back, and it turns out you are 12 weeks pregnant” You felt nauseous at her words. You were pregnant? Of course you were. The universe just had to find a way to keep you linked to your now ex-boyfriend, whom you still loved so deeply.

You thanked your doctor for her time and drove to Christian’s apartment to break the news to him.

Upon your arrival, you noticed his parking spot was empty, which meant he wasn’t home, so you drove to his parents house, as that was the only other place he would be at 3pm on a Monday.

You brought yourself to the front door and braced yourself before you would have to see the man who broke your heart.

The door opened and revealed his mother.

“Y/n! What are you doing here?” She moved to the side to let you into her home, one you were all too familiar with.

“I uhm- I came to talk to Christian. He wasn’t at his apartment and I figured he would be here…” You couldn’t look her in the eye, afraid she would be able to detect that something was wrong.

“Oh honey, you didn’t know? Christian moved to Europe for football. He left last week. Your heart dropped at her words. There was no way.

“Oh… I wasn’t aware, but uhm- thank you for telling me” You said your goodbyes and left. On your way back to your apartment, you decided to call him, as you never deleted his number from your phone.

The line rang a few times before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Christian?”

“Uhm no. This is Max”

#✎ natalie writes #christian pulisic #christian pulisic x reader #christian pulisic x y/n #christian pulisic x you #christian pulisic angst #christian pulisic fluff #christian pulisic imagine #christian pulisic fanfic

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iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia · 11 months

Note

Having access to them would ease this poor searchers mind 😄 I would love knowing how to find them! Its sucks that the post was taken down though 🫤 so sensitive nowadays

The Arcana HCs: How the M6 found some cool art

~ no comments on the second half of that ask, but here you go anon friend XD (this accidentally turned into a whole fic, so clear directions will be at the end) ~

It started with Portia

There's this book series that she's been a fan of for a long time, and rumor had it that if you went to a certain part of the town square at a certain time of day, the store that sold the books would be displaying sketches that the author had made

Unfortunately, Portia wasn't able to go. She was out of town doing important ambassador business and missed the window to view it

So she spent the next five hours ranting about it to her brother as soon as she was finished unpacking and he dropped by for tea

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Julian, "but it's just art. Couldn't they show it again?"

"Ugh, I wish. But they said it was an exclusive event, and now some of the people that went keep referencing it and acting like they know more than everyone else, and you know I hate missing out!"

"Understood," said Julian, and he drained his teacup and backed out of the cottage before Portia could keep ranting

Several weeks later, Julian, Asra, Nadia, Muriel, Portia, and Lucio were all gathered at the magic shop. MC was out of town for a while, so they all crowded into their apartment to miss them better

Asra was lounging on the windowsill knitting, Muriel was skulking in the corner next to them, Nadia was reading her messages, Julian was listening to Portia's continued ranting, and they were all ignoring Lucio

"Let me get this straight," Julian began, tired of Portia's yelling

" - you're not." Asra interrupted, lazily stretching as they counted stitches

Julian rubbed at his face and continued. "If you want the art so bad, why don't you just take it?"

"Absolutely not." Nadia somehow managed to issue commands without even looking up from her phone.

"Why does Noddy have a phone?" Lucio asked. Nobody answered him

"Ugh, but I want to see it so bad!" Portia grumbled, letting her head fall into her arms with a thump.

"What was the name of the book series again?" Asra asked, ignoring the warning glare Julian shot their way as Portia geared up for another impassioned speech.

"Lonely Hot People Near You," she said, "but we just call it LHPNY."

"Oh." Nadia said, but it was the kind of "oh" that sounded more intrigued than understanding. "It looks like you might be able to see them after all."

Portia gasped. "Really?"

"Yes, but you'll need a friend."

"I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!" Julian's arm went up theatrically as he geared up to make his own impassioned speech. "It is every older brother's duty to make his younger sister happy -"

"Okay, but how?" Portia interrupted. "I thought you said not to do anything ... iffy."

"One of the bookstore employees made a post explaining how." Nadia held up her phone and the siblings leaned in. Over by the window, Asra was pulling up the link she'd sent them to show Muriel as well.

"You'll have to use their app."

"What's an app??" Lucio asked, but nobody answered him

"I don't want to have an account with them, though," Julian said. "I prefer academic journals."

"Neither of you has to make an account. Just give them your email. You can delete the app and unsubscribe later if you want to."

"Ohhh." The Devorak siblings nodded and pulled out their phones. Even Muriel looked intrigued at this point.

"Why does everyone have emails?!?" Lucio shrieked, as real-life technology became more involved in a plot set in a fantasy world. Nobody answered him.

"Now what?" Portia asked excitedly.

"Now one of you has to look up 'book club'," said Nadia, "and the other one of you has to sit on the page labeled 'streams' and wait."

"I'll look it up!" Portia crowed.

"I'll wait." Julian sighed.

Nadia nodded and continued. "Portia, have you found the selection you're looking for? Go ahead and pull it up. Hit 'stream' instead of 'play'."

"What happens if I hit 'play'?"

"You'll find a paywall that you'd have to pay about 27 USD to get enough points to unlock."

"For all of it?"

"For the first section. And it would only stay unlocked for one playthrough - if you wanted to see it again, you'd have to pay again." Nadia gave the window an inscrutable look

"What's USD???" Lucio begged, but nobody answered him.

"Got it." Portia stuck her tongue out in concentration, Asra coming to lean over her shoulder and get a peek at her screen.

"Pasha!" Julian looked scandalized. "Hotcatlady69? Really??"

"Join her stream," Nadia said unfazed. "Now that you have an audience, Portia, you should be able to unlock it all without paying anything."

Portia shrieked with delight as she tapped through the artwork on her screen. "These are so cool! Should I save them for later?"

"That's none of my business." Nadia sat back in her chair and coolly returned to her messages. She looked up from her phone again a few minutes later when Portia let out a disappointed sigh

"It's already done, and there were only twelve slides. I heard there were more."

Asra plucked her phone out of her hand and scrutinized the display, smirk tugging at their lips. "It's got multiple parts. Do it again."

Portia gasped and snatched it back. "Yes! Ilya, don't sign off."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Julian sighed and sat back, happy to see his sister appeased for the first time in weeks. "Have at it."

"Oh, that one looks like Muriel," Asra commented from where they were leaning over Portia's shoulder, "send it to me."

"I'll put it in the group chat when I'm done."

Nadia sighed and sent them a mildly disapproving glance. "I didn't hear that."

"Whatever happened to 'be gay, do crime' Nadi?" Asra chuckled as Portia finished her second round of artwork

Nadia raised an eyebrow with a small smile and didn't answer.

"There's only two parts!" Portia wailed, ending her stream and leaning back with a huff.

"Are you done?" Julian asked, long fingers wrapping around his phone and tapping at his cracked screen. "I'm deleting the app, then, I need more room for my theatre recordings."

"There'll be more, see?" Asra pointed at the part on Portia's screen that said "ongoing".

"I guess I can wait," Portia sighed, tapping over to her messages and typing away.

Lucio reached into his pocket, where something was beginning to chime, and shrieked when he pulled out a phone of his own. "WHY DO I HAVE ONE OF THESE TOO?!?" he cried, on the verge of a mental breakdown. Nobody answered him

"Why is he in the group chat?" Muriel grumbled

"I don't know," Julian sighed, "he just is. Oh-ho, this one looks like me."

A few days later, Nadia would overhear Valerius grumbling over Lucio's risk-taking habits when he runs across the town square, scattering the art as he goes after Asra dared him to.

"That Fool," she chuckled.

QUICK INSTRUCTIONS:

open the app

you won't need to make an account, just put in your email and give yourself a username and skip the rest

select "the arcana book club" and hit stream

get a friend to hop onto the stream (technically, your stream needs an audience. you only need one viewer)

it'll all show up on your screen when you vote on "unlock"/"continue"

there's multiple parts, so if you choose to replay it you might see more

there may be more parts added in the future

do with that information what you will, your decisions are yours to make

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana crackfic #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

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