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mostlysignssomeportents · 22 hours

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UK publishers suing Google for $17.4b over rigged ad markets

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Look, no one wants to kick Big Tech to the curb more than I do, but, also: it's good that Google indexes the news so people can find it, and it's good that Facebook provides forums where people can talk about the news.

It's not news if you can't find it. It's not news if you can't talk about it. We don't call information you can't find or discuss "news" – we call it "secrets."

And yet, the most popular – and widely deployed – anti-Big Tech tactic promulgated by the news industry and supported by many of my fellow trustbusters is premised on making Big Tech pay to index the news and/or provide a forum to discuss news articles. These "news bargaining codes" (or, less charitably, "link taxes") have been mooted or introduced in the EU, France, Spain, Australia, and Canada. There are proposals to introduce these in the US (through the JCPA) and in California (the CJPA).

These US bills are probably dead on arrival, for reasons that can be easily understood by the Canadian experience with them. After Canada introduced Bill C-18 – its own news bargaining code – Meta did exactly what it had done in many other places where this had been tried: blocked all news from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other Meta properties.

This has been a disaster for the news industry and a disaster for Canadians' ability to discuss the news. Oh, it makes Meta look like assholes, too, but Meta is the poster child for "too big to care" and is palpably indifferent to the PR costs of this boycott.

Frustrated lawmakers are now trying to figure out what to do next. The most common proposal is to order Meta to carry the news. Canadians should be worried about this, because the next government will almost certainly be helmed by the far-right conspiratorialist culture warrior Pierre Poilievre, who will doubtless use this power to order Facebook to platform "news sites" to give prominence to Canada's rotten bushel of crypto-fascist (and openly fascist) "news" sites.

Americans should worry about this too. A Donald Trump 2028 presidency combined with a must-carry rule for news would see Trump's cabinet appointees deciding what is (and is not) news, and ordering large social media platforms to cram the Daily Caller (or, you know, the Daily Stormer) into our eyeballs.

But there's another, more fundamental reason that must-carry is incompatible with the American system: the First Amendment. The government simply can't issue a blanket legal order to platforms requiring them to carry certain speech. They can strongly encourage it. A court can order limited compelled speech (say, a retraction following a finding of libel). Under emergency conditions, the government might be able to compel the transmission of urgent messages. But there's just no way the First Amendment can be squared with a blanket, ongoing order issued by the government to communications platforms requiring them to reproduce, and make available, everything published by some collection of their favorite news outlets.

This might also be illegal in Canada, but it's harder to be definitive. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in 1982, and Canada's Supreme Court is still figuring out what it means. Section Two of the Charter enshrines a free expression right, but it's worded in less absolute terms than the First Amendment, and that's deliberate. During the debate over the wording of the Charter, Canadian scholars and policymakers specifically invoked problems with First Amendment absolutism and tried to chart a middle course between strong protections for free expression and problems with the First Amendment's brook-no-exceptions language.

So maybe Canada's Supreme Court would find a must-carry order to Meta to be a violation of the Charter, but it's hard to say for sure. The Charter is both young and ambiguous, so it's harder to be definitive about what it would say about this hypothetical. But when it comes to the US and the First Amendment, that's categorically untrue. The US Constitution is centuries older than the Canadian Charter, and the First Amendment is extremely definitive, and there are reams of precedent interpreting it. The JPCA and CJPA are totally incompatible with the US Constitution. Passing them isn't as silly as passing a law declaring that Pi equals three or that water isn't wet, but it's in the neighborhood.

But all that isn't to say that the news industry shouldn't be attacking Big Tech. Far from it. Big Tech compulsively steals from the news!

But what Big Tech steals from the news isn't content.

It's money.

Big Tech steals money from the news. Take social media: when a news outlet invests in building a subscriber base on a social media platform, they're giving that platform a stick to beat them with. The more subscribers you have on social media, the more you'll be willing to pay to reach those subscribers, and the more incentive there is for the platform to suppress the reach of your articles unless you pay to "boost" your content.

This is plainly fraudulent. When I sign up to follow a news outlet on a social media site, I'm telling the platform to show me the things the news outlet publishes. When the platform uses that subscription as the basis for a blackmail plot, holding my desire to read the news to ransom, they are breaking their implied promise to me to show me the things I asked to see:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

This is stealing money from the news. It's the definition of an "unfair method of competition." Article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the FTC the power to step in and ban this practice, and they should:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Big Tech also steals money from the news via the App Tax: the 30% rake that the mobile OS duopoly (Apple/Google) requires for every in-app purchase (Apple/Google also have policies that punish app vendors who take you to the web to make payments without paying the App Tax). 30% out of every subscriber dollar sent via an app is highway robbery! By contrast, the hyperconcentrated, price-gouging payment processing cartel charges 2-5% – about a tenth of the Big Tech tax. This is Big Tech stealing money from the news:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Finally, Big Tech steals money by monopolizing the ad market. The Google-Meta ad duopoly takes 51% out of every ad-dollar spent. The historic share going to advertising "intermediaries" is 10-15%. In other words, Google/Meta cornered the market on ads and then tripled the bite they were taking out of publishers' advertising revenue. They even have an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig this market, codenamed "Jedi Blue":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

There's two ways to unrig the ad market, and we should do both of them.

First, we should trustbust both Google and Meta and force them to sell off parts of their advertising businesses. Currently, both Google and Meta operate a "full stack" of ad services. They have an arm that represents advertisers buying space for ads. Another arm represents publishers selling space to advertisers. A third arm operates the marketplace where these sales take place. All three arms collect fees. On top of that: Google/Meta are both publishers and advertisers, competing with their own customers!

This is as if you were in court for a divorce and you discovered that the same lawyer representing your soon-to-be ex was also representing you…while serving as the judge…and trying to match with you both on Tinder. It shouldn't surprise you if at the end of that divorce, the court ruled that the family home should go to the lawyer.

So yeah, we should break up ad-tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Also: we should ban surveillance advertising. Surveillance advertising gives ad-tech companies a permanent advantage over publishers. Ad-tech will always know more about readers' behavior than publishers do, because Big Tech engages in continuous, highly invasive surveillance of every internet user in the world. Surveillance ads perform a little better than "content-based ads" (ads sold based on the content of a web-page, not the behavior of the person looking at the page), but publishers will always know more about their content than ad-tech does. That means that even if content-based ads command a slightly lower price than surveillance ads, a much larger share of that payment will go to publishers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Banning surveillance advertising isn't just good business, it's good politics. The potential coalition for banning surveillance ads is everyone who is harmed by commercial surveillance. That's a coalition that's orders of magnitude larger than the pool of people who merely care about fairness in the ad/news industries. It's everyone who's worried about their grandparents being brainwashed on Facebook, or their teens becoming anorexic because of Instagram. It includes people angry about deepfake porn, and people angry about Black Lives Matter protesters' identities being handed to the cops by Google (see also: Jan 6 insurrectionists).

It also includes everyone who discovers that they're paying higher prices because a vendor is using surveillance data to determine how much they'll pay – like when McDonald's raises the price of your "meal deal" on your payday, based on the assumption that you will spend more when your bank account is at its highest monthly level:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Attacking Big Tech for stealing money is much smarter than pretending that the problem is Big Tech stealing content. We want Big Tech to make the news easy to find and discuss. We just want them to stop pocketing 30 cents out of every subscriber dollar and 51 cents out of ever ad dollar, and ransoming subscribers' social media subscriptions to extort publishers.

And there's amazing news on this front: a consortium of UK web-publishers called Ad Tech Collective Action has just triumphed in a high-stakes proceeding, and can now go ahead with a suit against Google, seeking damages of GBP13.6b ($17.4b) for the rigged ad-tech market:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/17-bln-uk-adtech-lawsuit-against-google-can-go-ahead-tribunal-rules-2024-06-05/

The ruling, from the Competition Appeal Tribunal, paves the way for a frontal assault on the thing Big Tech actually steals from publishers: money, not content.

This is exactly what publishing should be doing. Targeting the method by which tech steals from the news is a benefit to all kinds of news organizations, including the independent, journalist-owned publishers that are doing the best news work today. These independents do not have the same interests as corporate news, which is dominated by hedge funds and private equity raiders, who have spent decades buying up and hollowing out news outlets, and blaming the resulting decline in readership and profits on Craiglist.

You can read more about Big Finance's raid on the news in Margot Susca's Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087561

You can also watch/listen to Adam Conover's excellent interview with Susca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA

Frankly, the looters and billionaires who bought and gutted our great papers are no more interested in the health of the news industry or democracy than Big Tech is. We should care about the news and the workers who produce the news, not the profits of the hedge-funds that own the news. An assault on Big Tech's monetary theft levels the playing field, making it easier for news workers and indies to compete directly with financialized news outlets and billionaire playthings, by letting indies keep more of every ad-dollar and more of every subscriber-dollar – and to reach their subscribers without paying ransom to social media.

Ending monetary theft – rather than licensing news search and discussion – is something that workers are far more interested in than their bosses. Any time you see workers and their bosses on the same side as a fight against Big Tech, you should look more closely. Bosses are not on their workers' side. If bosses get more money out of Big Tech, they will not share those gains with workers unless someone forces them to.

That's where antitrust comes in. Antitrust is designed to strike at power, and enforcers have broad authority to blunt the power of corporate juggernauts. Remember Article 5 of the FTC Act, the one that lets the FTC block "unfair methods of competition?" FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed using it to regulate training AI, specifically to craft rules that address the labor and privacy issues with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8Z5pcJpg

This is an approach that can put creative workers where they belong, in a coalition with other workers, rather than with their bosses. The copyright approach to curbing AI training is beloved of the same media companies that are eagerly screwing their workers. If we manage to make copyright – a transferrable right that a worker can be forced to turn over their employer – into the system that regulates AI training, it won't stop training. It'll just trigger every entertainment company changing their boilerplate contract so that creative workers have to sign over their AI rights or be shown the door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Then those same entertainment and news companies will train AI models and try to fire most of their workers and slash the pay of the remainder using those models' output. Using copyright to regulate AI training makes changes to who gets to benefit from workers' misery, shifting some of our stolen wages from AI companies to entertainment companies. But it won't stop them from ruining our lives.

By contrast, focusing on actual labor rights – say, through an FTCA 5 rulemaking – has the potential to protect those rights from all parties, and puts us on the same side as call-center workers, train drivers, radiologists and anyone else whose wages are being targeted by AI companies and their customers.

Policy fights are a recurring monkey's paw nightmare in which we try to do something to fight corruption and bullying, only to be outmaneuvered by corrupt bullies. Making good policy is no guarantee of a good outcome, but it sure helps – and good policy starts with targeting the thing you want to fix. If we're worried that news is being financially starved by Big Tech, then we should go after the money, not the links.

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/2024/06/06/stealing-money-not-content/#content-free

#pluralistic #competition #advertising #surveillance advertising #saving the news from big tech #link taxes #trustbusting #competition and markets authority #uk #ukpoli #Ad Tech Collective Action #digital markets unit #Competition Appeal Tribunal

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catboybiologist · 2 days

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So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

#I hope this rant is at least somewhat intelligible #im in lab late night and typing this out as fast as i can in between experiment steps #stay safe out there yall

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wingsofachampion · 2 days

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OOC

I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not mad at anyone. I love the Pokemon IRL community, and I'm so so happy to be a part of it. And I don't plan on leaving for good anytime soon.

But. Look.

This is getting out of hand.

I've been here since November of 2022, and I haven't seen things being this bad in the community since The Incident.

I'm trying as hard as I can to hold things together, even when it seems like everything's falling apart. But it's getting really exhausting.

So that's why I'm making this post.

There's a lot of problems happening in this community, and I'm going to try to address at least a few of them in this post.

So, here we go.

Part 1: Anon Hate & Other Harassment

There's unfortunately a lot of this in the community. I've been a victim of it myself.

Anon hate is a serious problem that has led several pokebloggers to completely disable anon asks or even leave the community entirely.

I'm not sure how to combat this, unfortunately, other than blocking them as they come, but that's an imperfect solution.

There's also been direct harassment, too, not just through anon asks. I'm unsure how to tackle that either, but I'm spreading awareness just in case.

Part 2: Lack of Engagement

There's a ton of blogs that get little to no engagement, and not for a lack of trying. Pixelated made a great post on this already, so I won't rehash it much.

My main advice is to send asks. That goes both ways. If you see someone struggling to get engagement, send them an ask, brighten their day!

And if you're struggling to get engagement, send asks to as many blogs as you feel comfortable. That way, you put your name out there.

I know it can be scary to send asks, but if it helps, you can send one to me! I won't bite!

Part 3: "Cliques"

There's a lot of subcommunities in the Pokemon IRL community. Eebydeebies, Fallers, Blueberry Academy, and so on. And that's great! What's not so great, though, is how some of these can be rather cliquey.

Sometimes, it's hard to join a subcommunity. Sometimes they push you away, are just difficult to fit in a new blog, or something else.

I've been trying to remedy this in the eebydeeby subcommunity by having Gen send asks to every new eeby blog I can find, but I'm not in every subcommunity, so I can't do this for all of them.

What I suggest to remedy this is, those in subcommunities, reach out! If you see someone trying to join, reach out and welcome them in! Send them asks! Tell other people in the subcommunity about them! Let them know that they're welcome there.

Part 4: Lack of Warnings During MMM

This one is something that mostly just affects me personally, but Muse Mixup Madness has been extremely stressful for me because people keep completely changing up their blogs with little to no warning.

One of my worst triggers is post-apocalypse, and I've been jumpscared by this several times during Muse Mixup Madness by blogs that were previously safe.

Please warn what your Muse Mixup Madness stuff will contain, and please use content warnings, too.

Part 5: New Blogs Dying

This is one of the ones I'm saddest about. Almost every day, there's at least one new person trying to join Pokemon IRL, but 75% of the time their blog dies within a week.

I recommend supporting newcomers as much as you can. If you see a newcomer, send them an ask! Interact with them! Boost them if you feel comfortable with it! Don't let them feel so discouraged that they leave so soon.

I recommend checking the reblogs on realpokemon's pinned post every so often. It's a fantastic way to find new blogs.

Part 6: Exhaustion & A Call for Help

I've been trying very very hard to fix things, but I'm only human (as much as I wish I was a Meganium). I can't do everything by myself.

So I'm asking for help.

I have two blogs primarily made for boosting. @pkmnirlblogboosting and @tacklrnews. Former is OOC, while the latter is IC.

Pkmnirlblogboosting is for boosting blogs that either have less than 75 followers, or are less than a month old. If anyone wants to help me run it and boost blogs, feel free to send me a message asking if you can be added to pkmnirlblogboosting.

Tacklrnews is for reporting on events that are happening in-character. Its primary purpose is to boost stuff happening on people's blogs that they want more people to see and interact with. If anyone wants to help me with this, feel free to send me a message asking if you can be added to tacklrnews.

A caveat with tacklrnews: It's fully in-character, so you'll need to create a character for it to be a part of Pelipper's little news agency. It also writes articles on Pokemon RPC and Pokeask blogs, so to people in those communities, this offer is open to you all, too.

I hope these will both be helpful in revitalizing the Pokemon IRL community.

Part 7: Moving Forward

So, how do we move forward?

I think we should be more supportive towards others in this community. Less OOC anon hate and harassment, more engagement and boosting. Tell your fellow blogrunners how much you appreciate their blogs! Let them know they have people who care about them.

I love this community so, so much. I don't want it to fall apart and die. I'm doing everything in my power to keep it standing, but I'm just one person. I need your help, too.

Together, we can make this community better.

That's about all I had to say.

If you've read this far, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to read through this.

I'd appreciate any reblogs to spread this around, but don't feel pressured to if you don't want to.

I hope you all have a wonderful Pride Month.

-Bench

#ooc

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olderthannetfic · 3 days

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Since we're back on top/bottom wank again: One sentiment I see a lot from readers venturing into fics without any top-bottom tags is that they were tricked into reading – to continue with the MCU example* – Top Bucky. Which means they saw an E-rated fic, usually with tags for explicit sexual content or even anal sex/fisting/fingering but no tags for who tops and bottoms, and assumed it'd be Bottom Bucky. And instead of realizing they made an assumption and quietly exiting the fic, they comment. Sometimes, it's a polite request for a tag, which is fine to ask—though I see very few of these compared to rude demands. Most of the time, it's some passive aggressive crap about "hey can you tag this top bucky so people don't get tricked lol" or outright nasty insults and accusations. Why are they assuming shit instead of doing their own checking on an untagged fic?

If you're reading a fic tagged with CNTW but can't handle noncon, you'd be expected to either vet the fic yourself or just stop reading. Top-bottom isn't any different. The lack of tags is telling in itself. More importantly, it's an author's choice to tag or not. I know "but shouldn't you want to attract people who want to see Top Bucky" is the usual question when this comes up, but...I don't. Many people don't. I don't tag for maximum visibility. I only tag what I find important. I assume other authors who don't tag top/bottom have their own reasons, and I doubt any or many of them are attempting to trick anyone, considering how heated people get about this shit in the comments. A polite, neutral request would get those who don't mind tagging to tag it. Anything else will likely get you blocked, deleted, or bitched out.

*I'm not sure stucky is the best example ship for this. Back when I was in the fandom circa 2014-16, it seemed like mostly Top Bucky. I heard that changed to a more even split later, and from what the anons say, I guess Bottom Bucky is more common now, but several classic stucky fics and authors I used to see recommended were Top Bucky.

Usually, I just haven't thought about the top/bottom tags, and when I do, I'm not sure whether they'd be more misleading than helpful.

I love dynamics where the top (in whatever sense) is more of a woobie or their interior life is more of a focus, but I'm not necessarily changing anything up from standard fanon in terms of who's on the bottom. I'm often writing OT3s. I'll pretty often have the characters do different things in different sex scenes but there's still a trend towards one configuration, and I don't usually write pure PWP where I feel it makes sense to tag really minutely for sex acts.

Sure, I could think of a pile of tags that describe all that, but it's probably more helpful to just not tag top/bottom and then write the first few paragraphs in a way that makes it clear what my take on characterization is.

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emiko-matsui · 2 days

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i don't think any of you care, but i have blocked that person now and im gonna delete some posts from last night to clean up my own account from that shit. they doubled down on the fact that i'm a creep who's being weird about fat people, and when asked to produce the posts they're talking about that supposedly back them up they either stop replying or just repeat what they said in the previous message. im really grateful so many people have been nice to me about this and sent me messages, but i also wish we don't engage with this person anymore and stop sending them anons. for everyone's sake, but i also grabbed this from underneath one of their posts about the situation

when being asked to remember people online also are real people they completely disregard it, so i believe everyone is best to just move on from this. block them, because this lack of respect is insane and harmful to others in an online space.

lastly i also just wanted to say that i've had issues with my own body for a very long time (i won't say if it's regarding me being fat, skinny, disabled, etc. especially since that was one of the things that person got mad at me for not sharing) and that i, personally, am so grateful that all different body types exist because i think it makes humanity so much more beautiful. the fetishisation of fat people was something this person really hammered about, and i just wanna say that when it comes to your body it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of it, when you have sex or are just naked you are beautiful and sexy, not because someone desires you or says so but because you feel it. i believe this to be true in every situation, but highlighted the naked part because that is what a lot of people struggle with and what i got jumped about by that blog. if any teenagers or younger people follow me and read a lot of my posts i want to remind you that the best feature on the internet is the block button. you don't have to justify yourself in your space, so if you don't like something just move past it. it's always okay to make things up about fictional character to make you feel better, as long as you're not mean to someone else what they think about the same character if they think differently. create your own space online, but also remember that the internet and what exists on it is available for anyone to see, so you can't go on making things up about real people. that goes just as much for someone trying to make up that i have a fat fetish as someone making up things about a mega celebrity like harry styles. it's far more unlikely to reach, but still affects a real person, and that is not okay.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a goddamn short story, so if anyones still reading i just wanna say thank you and remind you that kristen applebees is a chubby girl

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so-far-frogs-and-oscar · 8 hours

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It honestly scares me that I always figure out every detail in watching any series, but I didn't get at all that the new episode was about racism. Whole setting with the internet turned my attention away, because I was expecting shaming younger generation by RTD...

Meeting a POC in my country is like... once in a year event which means you only pass them quickly on the sidewalk. Which is kind of sad...

watching it literally looked like:

* omg why is everything so pale? Is it a metaphore for phone screen light?

* okay, she blocked him, because people only like watching dumb things on the internet

* she listened to Ruby? okay, she is a woman and she pretended to do a form

* she was thinking that Doctor is different guy than earlier? that's okay I guess, I don't recognize faces from the internet too (adhd ✨)

* she is surprised that they are in the same room? I get it, none of these guys meet anymore

* *didn't notice everyone else is white, because I always focus on the Doctor and british actors are still mostly white these days*

* oh no, Ricky :cc Sorry I misjudged you

* she- oh god-

* "voodoo"? weird choice, maybe her family is from place where they mention it a lot or she was watching witches on the internet

* "pioneers?" Is she American? They can't walk, how are they going to survive lmao

* *subtitles in my language translated her "sir" to plural you, so I was thinking she was talking to both Doctor and Ruby*

* I'd be mad and sad like crazy too if these dumb idiots didn't want to be saved because I'm not from their planet and don't have followers

* cool bugs, they wanted to eat the rich

* they'll die lmao

I literally missed all the signs, I'm an idiot and feel bad. I went to tumblr with ":0". And... I think I should say that, because it's important how many viewers probably missed it too

#disney #disney+#bbc #doctor who #dot and bubble #ncuti gatwa #15th doctor #fifteenth doctor #ruby sunday

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sketchmatters · 3 months

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man i hate twitter. if i didnt need a social media presence for art, i would delete it immediately. g@m3rz are pissing me off

#blaming problems on diversity makes my blood boil #absolute dogshit #sbi is probably garbage but it's not the cause of problems with games #and i hate how the people calling this shit out are getting shat on by randos #there's so many that i can't block all of them #seriously i cant express how angry it makes me. i work in the games industry #it's not that fucking diverse #leadership is probably all white people #the people making the big decisions are all white why the fuck would diversity be the PROBLEM #jfc i would love to work with a more diverse team #it really sucks being surrounded by 99% cis white het men when you're not that #screaming into the void #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa #dumping all my fury into tags bc i can't do anything else and I'm sure as hell not gonna talk about it on twatter #fuck

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dirtytransmasc · 9 months

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Are yyou team green or black? And why?

team green, though I'm not in support of every green character (namely Otto though my opinion of him is complicated. I also have opinions on Aegon and his characterization that makes it even more complicated)

[I have only read bits and pieces of the book, so my opinion is based almost solely on the show. keep this in mind]

I'm team green for 3 big reasons. they're more complex, thought not perfect by any means, more morally "right", and are simply more my vibe when it comes to characters. now this is very simplified and not at all nuanced, so stick with me for a minute.

Firstly, they're more complex. the greens have very deep, detailed, and nuanced lives and stories that lead to them being very complex characters that can't be put into a box. Alicent was a child bride who had lost her mother young became a mother young and suffered at the hands of power and men all her life. her children were affected by this and the world they were forced to grow up in throughout their lives. even individually her kids are drastically different; aegon the child who was forced into a life he did not want and suffered due to his father neglect and mother pain. Helaena who was never understood and grew up treated like an oddity. Aemond who was never seen to his full potential, always ignored or looked over, angry throughout his life. each of them has strengths and weaknesses, flaws and benefits, they're imperfect but never completely horrid. they're also never simplified (not entirely, even when the plot and writers seek to simplify them) to the point that they put on a moral pedestal or made straight evil (i'd even argue that the attempts of the writer to oversimplify them as evil and in the wrong makes them 10x more fascinating). I find TB characters tended to miss the mark on that, always put in the moral light, not even allowed a moment to reflect on their actions, lives, or positions in any nuanced or meaningful way, so they always just feel dull. they're also out on a moral highground that they can never be budged from, which makes them harder to like and honestly, really boring. they get away with everything instead of being emotionally and morally nuanced.

secondly, they're more morally "right". I will never say that any of the greens are perfect, they are far from it (with the exception of Helaena and her kids, who have done literally nothing to anyone, but I digress). what I will say, 9/10 times there is some level of reasoning that has some level of reasoning. Alicent always tries to do whats best for everyone, all throughout the series she tried to do best by the court, the king, her children, the realm, and Rhaenyra. did she always succeed? no, but she always tried and her mistakes were almost always honest. I will say she held resentment towards Rhaenya, but honestly, I can't blame her. Rhaenyra's lies and behavior hurt Alicent over and over again so for her to be angry is expected.when it came to succession, Alicent backed Rhaenyra until it was made clear she and Daemon would be a threat to her children's lives and even than she held mercy for Rhaenyra. Aegon's drinking can be blamed on the abuse and neglect he suffered at Viserys, Otto, and Alicent's (though the abuse and neglect from his mother is insanely different and nuanced. she perpetuated her pain onto him because she couldn't heal herself. so I hesitate to call it abuse, cause its so much more complicated than that) hands. though nothing will justify his rape of Dyana, I personally think it was a bad add in on the writers part, and leave it at that. Aemonds rage after years of being ignored doesn't entirely justify what he did to luke, but he had reason for his cruelty after years of Luke (and jace tbh) being cruel just because they could. TB characters tend to do terrible things in response to either A. nothing B. their own terrible things. Daemon kills who he wants when he feels like it, even for stating facts. Rhaneyra will lie and hurt those around her to protect her bastard children. both of them conspire to protect themselves and allow themselves to be wed, really just cause. while there are times they have their reasons, its a lot less of the time, and typically the backing to their actions, is they were trying to unbury themselves from within their own graves. (to preface, I don't care about rhaenyra sleeping around, it doesn't bother me, but its the fact that she will hurt everyone around her to protect her lies, allowing a child to be maimed and people to be murdered)

thirdly, they're my vibe. I like morally complex character, who are, to be frank, pathetic. I like characters with complex trauma's and issues, who aren't perfect people but its not entirely their fault. I would much rather watch a whole show about alicent, a child bride who tries so hard to be a good wife, queen, and mother while not prepared for any such role. Aegon who is a boy with severe mommy and daddy issues, a drinking problem, a flawed past, and constantly wet eyes. Helaena an ignored girl who has suffered for no better reason then her family. and Aemond, a boy who was tormented, bullied, maimed, and made stronger by it at the cost of his compassion and emotional stability - over a nepo baby who was coddled by her father, her murderous husband with a knack for unneeded violence, and her similarly coddled children (the show boiled them down to this, in my opinion). one is simply more up my alley than the other. I want character that need to be dissected, who have suffered, who hurt me to look at.

also, team black created almost all of their own problems. seeing as the main source of contention had to do with Rhaenyra's kids being bastards, which was Rhaenyra's problem, which she caused, and kept digging and digging that grave (faking Laenors death just so she could marry daemon, turning the blame on aemond when luke maimed him furthering the divide amongst the house, trying to wed Helaena to Jace putting her in danger, trying to take the driftmark throne and killing Vaemond for a claim her sons did not have, etc,) till viserys's death, earns her a lot less pity from me. at the end of the day, her being a woman was only a needle in a haystack worth of problems she caused herself that hurt her claim. if she had just strived to create to connection with ancient and her kids, and didn't make herself look like a threat to everyone who lessened her claim (which alicents kids would be the first people to be taken out) alicent would have backed like she had all season and there would have been no war, maybe conflict, but no war.

theres also the effect of the fans on my opinion. I have faced more cruelty, terrible media analysis, and outright ableism/misogny/(blood and sexual based) purist ideology/etc. from the TB fans then I have ever witness by TG fans. TB fans have ruined almost all of the TB characters for me in more ways than I can count, so I will say I am very biased.

thats why I'm team green. as a whole they are simply more appealing, their stories are more interesting, demand more attention to detail and emotional understanding, and from my point of view were the "right" side to be on in the war (the war was wrong on both sides, but my chips lie in the favour of the greens).

#THESE ARE ALL MY OPINIONS IF YOU DONT LIKE IT IGNORE THIS POST. MY ACCOUNT. MY EXISTENCE AS A WHOLE.#BETTER YET. IF YOU REALLY DONT LIKE MY OPINION. BLOCK ME.#I dont want drama. so dont bother me if you disagree #and to clarify discourse and conversation (even if we disagree) =/= arguing. name calling. harassment #if you can be constructive and respectful even while disagreeing your fine to stay #(the fact I have to clarify this in this fandom is embarrassing...)#defintly could have gone more in depth and better explained some things #but I'm tired and know if I don't answer this now I won't ever cause I'm a chronic procrastinator #so this is the best y'all are getting #the pity I have for all of them compared to any of the TB fans is honest to god my entire reasoning #but so many people don't understand them at all so I can't just say that #and I say this as someone who on my first watch was swayed by the intentional moral framing to hate the Greens and support the Blacks #with my whole chest. but I've grown and reflected and rewatched the show and realized I was wrong.#so I've been on both sides of the argument #I know what I'm taking about #pro team green #pro alicent hightower #I'm damn near anti TB/Rhaenyra #but I say lukewarm feelings on them to be more accurate #alicent hightower #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aemond targaryen #helaena targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targeryan #luke velaryon #jace velaryon #not tagging TB I like my life and sanity #they're so mean all the time and in the last week I've been harassed by them multiple times

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dimdiamond · 3 months

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Some sketches of Chang throughout childhood to adulthood (according to my headcanons anyway, more in the cut if you're interested)

Chang as a kid preferred to play alone and he loved to pick up rocks from the shore and take them home (his collection only gets bigger and bigger through the years). The Chang family was poor and both parents had to work so the one who stayed with the kid was the grandfather till he died from old age. Chang was still very young though when he lost him and from then on alone. His parents tried to spend more time with him but they still had to work or bring their kid with them as Chang being quiet and not demanding was seen as him being an easy and mature kid.

After losing his parents and going to an orphanage, Chang is still quiet and polite but becomes indifferent to many things and prefers to be alone, spending most of his time reading any book he can find, learning French and English by overhearing the foreigners, wandering around, and mostly at the river. Meeting Tintin changes everything as he makes his first friend and gets a new family but mostly makes him see things differently, finally looking at the world with interest and confidence.

Chang is a top student in high school but his rebellious phase doesn't let either the school or his family rest assured. He no longer obeys or stays quiet, he needs to be heard and most of all to be understood and accepted. His dream is to see the world and hopes to meet Tintin again as he many times still lingers to the past, despite the fact he has new friends and a new life (as well as Tintin). Thankfully, his rebellious phase quiets down in the final year and he manages to become more open and direct to his loved ones.

Chang after being rescued by Tintin and Haddock in Tibet, he returns to Shangai, needing to deal with his traumatic experience in his home and with his family. He's underweight, he feels cold all the time and his mind is stuck to the plane and the mountains. In addition, he tries to deal with the fact that Tintin has changed and that their friendship can never be as it was.

Almost a year after the Tibet incident, Chang manages to go to his uncles in London, where he stays for about 4-5 years, studying archaeology (Professor Tarragon comes and goes at the university and Chang has the luck to be in his class and friend). His friendship with Tintin remains strong and they keep in touch more regularly but Chang doesn't depend only on this friendship and makes new friends.

After university, Chang joins Tarragon's team, and from then on he travels around the world, from one archaeological site to the other, always eager to learn and see more. He frequently visits his family in Shangai and his uncles in London and, whenever he gets the chance, his friends, including first and foremost the Marlinespike family. Close to his thirties, his eyesight shows issues and he starts to wear glasses (he wasn't a fan of this at first but he soon got used to it).

#i managed to draw yay #art block be damned i need to draw my boy #tried some new brushes and such i like how it turned out #under the cut it's all blabbering so thank you if you read it #i have so many ideas but these headcanons sum them up i guess #i am just obsessed with chang as a character by himself and his own family and life #and just mentioning i personally can't imagine chang and tintin getting together but if you do you're cool #to anyone who has watched past lives chang and tintin are like the childhood friends to me #anyway i just wanted to get it out of my system hope you like these #chang #chang chong chen #the adventures of tintin #my art

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slumbergoblin · 9 months

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hmm

(unedited version under the cut^^)

#pmatga #my art #betrayus #eyestrain #I used to have a habit (when I was 15) were I drew Betrayus as anything BUT himself #i always drew him as a 'monster' or w/e #so It's been a while since Ive drawn him anything like that #this also isn't much because I am STRUGGLING with artblock right now and it sucks u_u #it's not even like. art block. or maybe it is idk. but I have so many ideas that I *want* to draw. but I can't pick any #and then I end up losing the energy to draw and then I sit there with all the ideas in my head and do nothing with them :(#i also should have made his mustache longer because it blends in with his inner lines hhruhgrngh

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sygneth · 4 months

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Nnghhhh have been fighting the "I am too old to start" attitude for years, finally got over it.

Now I am too anxious to practice because. Neighbors.

#(i got a violin and wanna learn to play but. violin's loud)#i mean. i don't want to bother them too much #idc about being judged i just don't wanna be an asshole who can't yet play well but all the building has to hear him practice #BUT #i won't get better without practice #girl help #how do i play in a fucking multi-family post soviet block #these walls are so acoustic that many filharmonies should be jealous #conversations with the void #rant #don't mind this post

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gonersgoners · 3 months

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remember when i said over a year ago that vegapunk's arc would start revealing even more of sanji's power and potential and how hard that was worrying me? yeah

#i'm clearly talking to myself here since this blog is basically a corner of my brain #but last chapter having sanji deflect a light beam and both kizaru and franky reacting the way they did #and zoro commenting in wano you cannot possibly block a laser... lmao....lmao!#ooooh man i just. feel oda is cooking something for sanji. and since there was a parallel with the wings of the pirate king #in recent chapters (where oda typically shows both sanji and zoro fighting and not just one of them)#just... man. man! man. lol #i know i can't let myself go and talk about all things going through my mind anymore because of. lol guilt and fear of being annoying #but god. that moment stirred something in me. like you're resurrecting a fucking corpse #so i am both scared and excited about next chapters and what this means for sanji #i was saying from DAY ONE of this arc being centered about vegapunk that it would eventually #touch on sanji and this is it. this is happening #if this for some reason isn't it. and oda will for some reason just let this slide or die in the shadows? i won't understand it #because of JUDGE and VEGAPUNK and QUEEN being partners and being linked to vegapunk! like come on. the connection is there #and this laser deflecting thing seems to finally touch on this red thread i've been holding with both my fingers like an insane person #so yeah. lol. listening to a video right now about it and finally. FINALLY i see SOMEONE ELSE point out that #not mentioning judge still is giga weird. so here's hoping. here's hoping #also lol it was very fun to be on reddit and look at so many people being MAD that sanji managed to do that. and that we got a little bit o #mr prince vibes. LMAO STAY MAD. my boy is being treated good right now and i can't wait for oda to destroy me #(again) lol #GG rambles

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iftitah · 6 months

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he hasn't unblocked me yet

#im so done right now #you block your other mutuals and they do to you because that must be your thing #even when ive let you know that blocking is something i totally hate #and if you can't learn to take a joke maybe you shouldn't do it too #like i didn't even say anything insensitive i just made the same reply as you do to my posts #often than not i behave with my mutuals the same way they with me #so you can imagine getting a taste of your own medicine #i could give a shit less how you felt about the reply you've done this just too many times for me to stay neutral #i didn't make those posts to hurt anyone or show mine off i was just happy with mutuals interacting with me #and you turned this such a bitter experience for me saying youll block me after sometime #as if my feelings don't matter here #i keep telling my mutuals who don't like you that its just your personality because i didn't want them to misinterpret you #all that for you to block me #so fucking casual for you #im done being understanding here

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not-poignant · 11 months

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Hey there. Do you have any tips on how to stay consistent with writing, and how to stay focused on the task at hand?

Hi anon!

So firstly, I've answered versions of this question quite a few times so you might want to go into the 'Pia on Writing' tag because they'll be there.

A quick look has found:

How to write more words regularly - This one is good for just...straight up practical advice.

But I wanted to speak frankly which is - what works for me might not work for you! We all have different strengths and weaknesses and depending on how we orient towards writing depends on what those weaknesses are. For example, I need to learn how to take more breaks and rest more, and not write as much. The 'writing a lot and sometimes too much' comes pretty easily to me these days.

Not all writers are meant to be consistent writers. I don't have a daily habit and I haven't written anything at all in a week and a half. I have my monthly wordcount and that's it. Someone else might need to write or edit every day, in order to not lose sight of their projects. Someone else might need five intensive days a month. It will depend on their nature, their personality.

Not all writers have the same reasons behind why they can't stay focused on a task. I have ADHD, but I can also hyperfocus on characters and a storyline. Others have ADHD, and cannot hyperfocus on their characters or storyline long enough to finish a story. That's a problem I don't know how to remedy, because I don't have that kind of ADHD, so I've never had to 'solve' it before. Some writers are perfectionists which hamper them, I am not a perfectionist and I'd rather the thing be out in the world with some flaws, than on my computer talking to no one. I need the dopamine more than I need something to be perfect. So you see anon, sometimes the things that impact us just aren't universal, which means you need more specific advice. There will be perfectionist writers who will have lots of great advice, there will be ADHD writers who get bored of a story who have great advice. :D

What I will say is that pretty universally, writing consistently and staying focused are both like muscles in the body. I'm where I'm at today because I've had 9-10 years of practice doing this, and when you start out (which the above link addresses) you will need to aim more realistically and reasonably, and start there.

It's also worth having a really grounded sense of why you want to write more consistently / focus more on your writing. Is it for fun? Is it because you want to finish a project? Is that project something you'll feel good if you finish or are you over it? Is it because you want to make an income? (Have you considered there are approximately 40 billion easier ways to make an income?) Is it because you just want to see if you can do it?

Sitting down and thinking about your motivations here will help motivate you if you can keep your goals in mind. And it will also help clarify what you get out of writing in the first place.

Re: Staying focused. It depends on your distractions. I use music, that helps me. That might be terrible for you. I make sure I'm eating well - the brain needs carbs and fats, and my whole body needs protein and fibre - so I'll have a decent breakfast before starting out. Sleep is important. Drinking regularly is important. There's very basic things here which seem obvious that help a ton with concentration, but if you're not doing them, they're a good place to start. You'd be surprised how much just 'eating balanced meals, drinking regularly and sleeping enough hours' helps with concentration. Like, so much.

A friend of mine uses the Pomodoro method (that would drive me nuts), there's using write-ins like Twitch streams to basically 'body double' with other people who are writing at the same time (I find this very motivational). There's gamification like 4TheWords (love this site). There's 'I get to have a cookie if I write another 200 words.' There's 'actually I've lost focus because this part of the story might be broken and if I just do this the river will start to flow again' as a writing technique.

Mostly, you'll need the time and space to just amass the number of techniques you need to help with both focus and writing regularly. But in all of this, it's vital to be patient with yourself. You can't expect yourself to take a week to end up somewhere that someone else took 3 or 4 years to get to. And it won't be...consistent. Don't side-eye me or anything, but like, we're not meant to be machines, even people who write relatively consistently (like me) need breaks, get burnt out, get tired, are over it, and sometimes need brand new techniques to start working again. Knowing that it's not a linear upward curve of ever-increasing focus lets you also just...be compassionate and patient with yourself.

Oh yeah, because you'll have to get good at both of these too anon. :D Learning discipline and being firm with yourself can't work successfully if you also then mentally punish yourself for not doing it 'well enough' to the point where you don't want to do it anymore. Cultivating the 'I'll try again tomorrow' or 'I did great today!' parts of your brain help a ton with consistency. If you know you're going to be kind to yourself for doing well, and firm but compassionate with yourself when you don't, all of this gets way, way easier.

#asks and answers #pia on writing #as i get older i realise that like #i can teach people like me how to write like i do #but there are so many writers who aren't like me #who need techniques that wouldn't work for me #or that i can't even offer advice on because i haven't used them #i realised recently for example that i don't really get writer's block anymore #my biggest issues really are around taking breaks and being more structured #if someone else's biggest issue is they take too many breaks #i'm more likely to need advice from them lol #we are all so different re: how we approach writing and what we need to do it #i am always willing to help #doing the CliftonStrengths quiz really changed the way i thought of this #highly recommend looking into Becca Syme's work re: writing #she's amazing

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