#and possible property theft

[veggiecorner]

Food for thought but what if the house in Hateno was just Zeldas at first? Link wanted to give Zelda a place to stay where she can rest without being reminded of her duty every 5 seconds (which was why staying in Kakariko didn't work) and he knew he's not the type to sit around and rest. He does want to stay by Zelda's side however, but also felt awkward about living with her. So he does this thing where he just checks in with her every few weeks/months but travels around doing tasks for the people. Whenever Zelda wants to travel he's immediately by her side, but once she's back in Hateno he's just "...okay see you later......" and leaves. Zelda wants to tell him to stay a bit longer, but is too uncertain to break that boundary between them. Also she doesn't really want him to feel like he has to stay by her side. She wants him to have his freedom.

But suddenly him being gone for 2 months becomes 6 weeks...then it becomes 1 month...then 2 weeks....then a week...and one day he walks up to Zelda and just says "...can I stay over for the night?"

And so the house in Hateno starts to feel a little less lonely from then on.

[ayin-me-yesh]

lrb I am really bothered by the endless questioning I see of Palestinians about their vision for Israelis in a decolonised Palestine

it always seems to come with the following unspoken undertone: "assure me that decolonisation won't be violent and that settlers won't lose their colonial property or else decolonisation isn't worthy of my support and shouldn't happen."

And the thing that really gets me is that they're coming from a belief that an imaginary future possibility of violence or loss of property towards settlers is 100% unacceptable, but the current, ongoing violence and dispossession of Indigenous people must innately BE acceptable because it is the option they will support if they are not assured that decolonisation will cater sufficiently to the settler.

I'm going to spell out our position as settlers in settler colonies: our current position is completely unjust. It was created and is maintained through unimaginable violence.

Decolonisation absolutely should mean settlers do not get to continue being benefactors of injustice. It does mean that the dispossessed should regain access to their land and regain authority over their resources. That does mean taking them back from the settler apparatus.

How violent that process is is entirely dependent on the settlers. Settlers can absolutely side with the colonised. They can support justice for Indigenous people. They can support Indigenous sovereignty movements.

Working class settlers can understand class warfare through the lens of colonialism and fight for shared freedom from the ruling class and justice for Indigenous people. Marginalised communities can see how their marginalisations revolve around colonial paradigms and fight alongside Indigenous peoples to dismantle them.

But if settlers choose to violently uphold a system of theft and murder against Indigenous communities, those communities have a right to resist. Including with violence.

Where settlers in Palestine fit into a free Palestine is up to them. And settlers in Aotearoa, in Australia, and in Turtle Island also need to make those choices.

But do understand that settler colonialism is always genocidal. Is always police states and police brutality. Is always war. Is always dehumanisation. Is always homelessness and statelessness and loss of autonomy. The status quo IS violence in the absolute most extreme. And Indigenous people have a right to fight back.

[vague-humanoid]

An 18-year-old hacker who leaked clips of a forthcoming Grand Theft Auto (GTA) game has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.

Arion Kurtaj from Oxford, who has autism, was a key member of international gang Lapsus$.

The gang's attacks on tech giants including Uber, Nvidia and Rockstar Games cost the firms nearly $10m.

The judge said Kurtaj's skills and desire to commit cyber crime meant he remained a high risk to the public.

He will remain at a secure hospital for life unless doctors deem him no longer a danger.

The court heard that Kurtaj had been violent while in custody with dozens of reports of injury or property damage.

Doctors deemed Kurtaj unfit to stand trial due to his acute autism so the jury was asked to determine whether or not he committed the alleged acts - not if he did so with criminal intent.

A mental health assessment used as part of the sentencing hearing said he "continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated."

The jury was told that while he was on bail for hacking Nvidia and BT/EE and in police protection at a Travelodge hotel, he continued hacking and carried out his most infamous hack.

Despite having his laptop confiscated, Kurtaj managed to breach Rockstar, the company behind GTA, using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone.

Kurtaj stole 90 clips of the unreleased and hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6.

He broke into the company's internal Slack messaging system to declare "if Rockstar does not contact me on Telegram within 24 hours I will start releasing the source code".

He then posted the clips and source code on a forum under the username TeaPotUberHacker.

He was re-arrested and detained until his trial.

[c0l0re]

A non-exhaustive list of TMA characters and the crimes they could be realistically charged with

So I had a conversation with my friends @mossy-bonez, @pictureofdoriaaaaaangay, and @melandrops earlier about what crimes various characters in TMA could actually realistically be convicted of, and now I've made a whole list :')

Note before we begin: Neither I or my friends are at all trained in law professionally, and two of us live the United States, meaning that some laws may be different, have different conditions, etc, and thus may not 100% accurate to laws in the UK/England specifically. It is also completely possible that there are other crimes these characters could be charged with that we simply missed. This is ultimately just for fun as well and not meant to be anything serious, so just keep that in mind when reading through this. With that said, here's the list:

Jon:

Breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of private property, murder, obstruction of justice, stalking, theft, unlawful surveillance, criminal harassment, being complicit in criminal acts

Martin:

Breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of private property, being an accessory to murder, arson, embezzlement (possibly), obstruction of justice, murder, being complicit in criminal acts

Tim:

Breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of private property, blackmail (possibly), reckless endangerment, unlawful possession and use of explosives, arson, embezzlement (possibly), being complicit in criminal acts

Sasha:

Cyber crimes, blackmail (possibly), obstruction of justice, being complicit in criminal acts

Elias:

Murder, unlawful possession and use of a firearm (possibly), tax fraud/tax evasion (possibly), money laundering (possibly), blackmail, reckless endangerment, violations of workers' rights, stalking, obstruction of justice, unlawful surveillance, being complicit in criminal acts

Daisy:

Murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping, blackmail, police brutality, excessive use of force, reckless endangerment, obstruction of justice, badgering of witnesses, leading of witnesses, violation of others' Miranda rights (or the UK equivalent), being complicit in criminal acts

Basira:

Being an accessory to murder, being complicit in criminal acts, obstruction of justice, murder, harboring a fugitive, violation of others' Miranda rights (or the UK equivalent), aggravated assault

Gerry:

Breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of private property, arson, theft, aggravated assault, being complicit in criminal acts

Nikola:

Kidnapping, obstruction of justice, breaking and entering, trespassing, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, murder, being complicit in criminal acts

Georgie:

Obstruction of justice, harboring a fugitive, being complicit in criminal acts, being an accessory to murder

Melanie:

Murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of private property, unauthorized filming, obstruction of justice, being complicit in criminal acts

Gertrude:

Arson, unlawful possession and use of a firearm (possibly), murder, aggravated assault, blackmail, breaking and entering, trespassing, destruction of private property, obstruction of justice, unlawful surveillance, being complicit in criminal acts, unlawful possession and use of explosives, animal cruelty

[poor-boy-orpheus]

I think folks have really lost the plot when it comes to AI.

Imo, the issue we are faced with is not how to prevent ai from being utilized or advancing, frankly I think that ball is already rolling. The issue also isn’t designating sacred work that can’t be touched by AI (I’m sorry to say, art is not inherently better than manual labor). The issue we are really faced with is now that we are embarking on a world wherein AI is rising and gaining genuine ability to match or exceed humans, how will we ensure we are taking care of our people?

A lot of folks seem to be really concerned with protecting the idea of intellectual property, but at the same time don’t we believe in an egalitarian sharing of knowledge? Should we really be prizing exclusivity of access to media or materials? I don’t really think so, but the challenge we face is how to ensure that a society that will increasingly have less and less need for human labor (particularly in data analysis or data entry jobs that AI tends to be the best in) will still see its citizens financially secure.

I have no problem with AI making art, regardless of whether I think that art is “good” or whether someone a machine makes can even be defined as “artistic” to begin with. Frankly, I don’t care. I do care that many artists will be out of a job and we don’t have a mechanism for ensuring they’re taken care of.

And that is where the discourse is so often falling short in my eyes. Many leftists who claim to want to leave the idea of personal ownership behind become the most forceful advocates for protecting intellectual property. A development that should be spurring on the greatest advance in humankind’s ability to universally take care of everyone is instead demonized on the left for somehow being theft and largely ignored on the right as a pipe dream.

AI is growing more powerful exponentially. Our lifetimes will see a shift on the level of the invention of electricity or the internet (if not much much greater) and we need to be prepared for that. The outcry cannot be “You used AI tools and therefore your work is invalid” but rather it must be “How are we restructuring ourselves to better absorb this new change?”

Universal basic income has to become a default. Removing healthcare from being tied to a job is a necessity. Eventually moving past currency might even be a possibility.

You can’t stop the world from turning, you can’t stop this progress from happening. But we still have time to focus our efforts on taking this change and handling it well. History will watch what we say, what we do, and how we addressed this.

[resinfish]

Okay, dollblr, I need your help

My friend's doll collection was stolen on May 19th by his shitty landlord. Charges have been filed, but the landlord and the moving company he used to transport the dolls and other stolen property have been uncooperative in giving the information needed to trace and recover the dolls.

I'm asking that this post be shared as far and wide as possible so he has some hope of getting his most beloved and distinctive dolls back.

If anyone sees a massive dump of Ringdolls and Dollfie Dreams on Mercari, eBay, or Facebook, especially in/around/from the Louisville, KY area, please contact me so I can let him know.

I will update as we assess the full extent of the loss, but the dolls we're asking people to keep an eye out for at the moment are

Ringdoll K fullset edition with attached hair, NS. No outfit. Distinctive features: One magnet fell out and was put back in back upside down, so his headcap doesn't stay closed.

DIM Minimee Ruki head, NS. Distinctive features: Vampire mod.

Custom House Mina (both Saint Mina and LE Sad Mina), NS

Ringdoll Quiz, GS, fullset

Bobobie Pixie. Distinctive features: sky blue skin that yellowed to a minty color. Probably wearing green pajamas with brown airplanes made by me.

ResinSoul Yao, WS. His first doll, probably yellowed a fair bit by now. Distinctive features: a small chip on one of her horns.

DIM Minimee heads of all Gazette and Dir En Grey members. If these turn up as a lot, contact us, it's probably them.

Soom Dain

Soom Dawn

2 60cm Sweetdolls, NS

HZ WangYe head

This ResinSoul Dai and 1st gen Bobobie Apollo, probably still in these outfits

Any dolls that appear in a large group with these should be reported.

I will update tomorrow with more specifics on the missing Ringdolls and DD/DD mods when we've had a chance to sit down and assess the extent of the theft.

@okamikodomo @fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive @buffdolls @laptopcoffee @lupusdarkmoon @lordhigheverythingelse @nyxypixie @freakstylebjd @literally anyone and everyone we've ever met in this community

Thank y'all in advance for any help, he's gutted over this and I am on his behalf. Still in shock that there are people this vile in the world.

[absolutepokemontrash]

Okay gang, let’s split up and search for Stupid Headcanons!

Do you guys think there’s like… insurance in the Devildom for brother related shenanigans? There has to be-

How else would the denizens of hell survive Beel’s hunger rampages? Or Satan’s anger rampages? Or Levi’s ‘I just missed out on my favourite character’s funkopop’ rampages?

Lots of rampages with these guys.

Even without the property damage, imagine the amount of theft courtesy of our favourite scummy sumbitch Lord Mammon Morningstar. The demons running companies for insured property must be making BANK from the exorbitant interest they can charge because everyone knows that Mammon will nab anything that isn’t bolted down.

Surprisingly there is no insurance specific to Lucifer or Belphie related damages. The Murder Cow and Mr “I haven’t slept since the summer of 9 BC” are surprisingly good at not causing damage to unfortunate bystanders. If you deserve it it’s another story-

Asmo, sweet Asmo…….. sorry Devildom denizens, you gotta pay for your own therapy if this guy ruins you. No insurance can possibly pay for the costs of fixing your brain.

But seriously imagine the memes that the background demons make

(Belphie runs the most popular meme page btw, none of the brothers know it’s him)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

'We buy ugly houses' is code for 'we steal vulnerable peoples' homes'

Tonight (May 11) at 7PM, I’m in CALGARY for Wordfest, with my novel Red Team Blues; I’ll be hosted by Peter Hemminger at the Memorial Park Library, 2nd Floor.

Home ownership is the American dream: not only do you get a place to live, free from the high-handed dictates of a landlord, but you also get an asset that appreciates, building intergenerational wealth while you sleep — literally.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

Of course, you can’t have it both ways. If your house is an asset you use to cover falling wages, rising health care costs, spiraling college tuition and paper-thin support for eldercare, then it can’t be a place you live. It’s gonna be an asset you sell — or at the very least, borrow so heavily against that you are in constant risk of losing it.

This is the contradiction at the heart of the American dream: when America turned its back on organized labor as an engine for creating prosperity and embraced property speculation, it set itself on the road to serfdom — a world where the roof over your head is also your piggy bank, destined to be smashed open to cover the rising costs that an organized labor movement would have fought:

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

Today, we’re hit the end of the road for the post-war (unevenly, racially segregated) shared prosperity that made it seem, briefly, that everyone could get rich by owning a house, living in it, then selling it to everybody else. Now that the game is ending, the winners are cashing in their chips:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9

The big con of home ownership is proceeding smartly on schedulee. First, you let the mark win a little, so they go all in on the scam. Then you take it all back. Obama’s tolerance of bank sleze after the Great Financial Crisis kicked off the modern era of corporations and grifters stealing Americans’ out from under them, forging deeds in robosigning mills:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-breaks-down-93-bln-robo-signing-settlement-2013-02-28

The thefts never stopped. Today on Propublica, by Anjeanette Damon, Byard Duncan and Mollie Simon bring a horrifying, brilliantly reported account of the rampant, bottomless scams of Homevestors, AKA We Buy Ugly Houses, AKA “the #1 homebuyer in the USA”:

https://www.propublica.org/article/ugly-truth-behind-we-buy-ugly-houses

Homevestors — an army of the hedge fund Bayview Asset Management — claims a public mission: to bail out homeowners sitting on unsellable houses with all-cash deals. The company’s franchisees — 1,150 of them in 48 states — then sprinkle pixie dust and secret sauce on these “ugly houses” and sell them at a profit.

But Propublica’s investigation — which relied on whistleblowers, company veterans, court records and interviews with victims — tells a very different story. The Homevestor they discovered is a predator that steals houses out from under elderly people, disabled people, people struggling with mental illness and other vulnerable people. It’s a company whose agents have a powerful, well-polished playbook that stops family members from halting the transfers the company’s high-pressure salespeople set in motion.

Propublica reveals homeowners with advanced dementia who signed their shaky signatures to transfers that same their homes sold out from under them for a fraction of their market value. They show how Homevestor targets neighborhoods struck by hurricanes, or whose owners are recently divorced, or sick. One whistleblower tells of how the company uses the surveillance advertising industry to locate elderly people who’ve broken a hip: “a 60-day countdown to death — and, possibly, a deal.” The company’s mobile ads are geofenced to target people near hospitals and rehab hospitals, in hopes of finding desperate sellers who need to liquidate homes so that Medicaid will cover their medical expenses.

The sales pitches are relentless. One of Homevestor’s targets was a Texas woman whose father had recently been murdered. As she grieved, they blanketed her in pitches to sell her father’s house until “checking her mail became a traumatic experience.”

Real-estate brokers are bound by strict regulations, but not house flippers like Homevestors. Likewise, salespeople who pitch other high-ticket items, from securities to plane tickets — are required to offer buyers a cooling-off period during which they can reconsider their purchases. By contrast, Homevestors’ franchisees are well-versed in “muddying the title” to houses after the contract is signed, filing paperwork that makes it all but impossible for sellers to withdraw from the sale.

This produces a litany of ghastly horror-stories: homeowners who end up living in their trucks after they were pressured into a lowball sales; sellers who end up dying in hospital beds haunted by the trick that cost them their homes. One woman who struggled with hoarding was tricked into selling her house by false claims that the city would evict her because of her hoarding. A widow was tricked into signing away the deed to her late husband’s house by the lie that she could do so despite not being on the deed. One seller was tricked into signing a document he believed to be a home equity loan application, only to discover he had sold his house at a huge discount on its market value. An Arizona woman was tricked into selling her dead mother’s house through the lie that the house would have to be torn down and the lot redeveloped; the Homevestor franchisee then flipped the house for 5,500% of the sale-price.

The company vigorously denies these claims. They say that most people who do business with Homevestors are happy with the outcome; in support of this claim, they cite internal surveys of their own customers that produce a 96% approval rating.

When confronted with the specifics, the company blamed rogue franchisees. But Propublica obtained training materials and other internal documents that show that the problem is widespread and endemic to Homevestors’ business. Propublica discovered that at least eight franchisees who engaged in conduct the company said it “didn’t tolerate” had been awarded prizes by the company for their business acumen.

Franchisees are on the hook for massive recurring fees and face constant pressure from corporate auditors to close sales. To make those sales, franchisees turn to Homevana’s training materials, which are rife with predatory tactics. One document counsels franchisees that “pain is always a form of motivation.” What kind of pain? Lost jobs, looming foreclosure or a child in need of surgery.

A former franchisee explained how this is put into practice in the field: he encountered a seller who needed to sell quickly so he could join his dying mother who had just entered a hospice 1,400 miles away. The seller didn’t want to sell the house; they wanted to “get to Colorado to see their dying mother.”

These same training materials warn franchisees that they must not deal with sellers who are “subject to a guardianship or has a mental capacity that is diminished to the point that the person does not understand the value of the property,” but Propublica’s investigation discovered “a pattern of disregard” for this rule. For example, there was the 2020 incident in which a 78-year-old Atlanta man sold his house to a Homevestors franchisee for half its sale price. The seller was later shown to be “unable to write a sentence or name the year, season, date or month.”

The company tried to pin the blame for all this on bad eggs among its franchisees. But Propublica found that some of the company’s most egregious offenders were celebrated and tolerated before and after they were convicted of felonies related to their conduct on behalf of the company. For example, Hi-Land Properties is a five-time winner of Homevestors’ National Franchise of the Year prize. The owner was praised by the CEO as “loyal, hardworking franchisee who has well represented our national brand, best practices and values.”

This same franchisee had “filed two dozen breach of contract lawsuits since 2016 and clouded titles on more than 300 properties by recording notices of a sales contract.” Hi-Land “sued an elderly man so incapacitated by illness he couldn’t leave his house.”

Another franchisee, Patriot Holdings, uses the courts aggressively to stop families of vulnerable people from canceling deals their relatives signed. Patriot Holdings’ co-owner, Cory Evans, eventually pleaded guilty to to two felonies, attempted grand theft of real property. He had to drop his lawsuits against buyers, and make restitution.

According to Homevestors’ internal policies, Patriot’s franchise should have been canceled. But Homevestors allowed Patriot to stay in business after Cory Evans took his name off the business, leaving his brothers and other partners to run it. Nominally, Cory Evans was out of the picture, but well after that date, internal Homevestors included Evans in an award it gave to Patriot, commemorating its sales (Homevestors claims this was an error).

Propublica’s reporters sought comment from Homevestors and its franchisees about this story. The company hired “a former FBI spokesperson who specializes in ‘crisis and special situations’ and ‘reputation management’ and funnelled future questions through him.”

Internally, company leadership scrambled to control the news. The company convened a webinar in April with all 1,150 franchisees to lay out its strategy. Company CEO David Hicks explained the company’s plan to “bury” the Propublica article with “‘strategic ad buys on social and web pages’ and ‘SEO content to minimize visibility.’”

https://www.propublica.org/article/homevestors-aims-to-bury-propublica-reporting

Franchisees were warned not to click links to the story because they “might improve its internet search ranking.”

Even as the company sought to “bury” the story and stonewalled Propublica, they cleaned house, instituting new procedures and taking action against franchisees identified in Propublica’s article. “Clouding titles” is now prohibited. Suing sellers for breach of contract is “discouraged.” Deals with seniors “should always involve family, attorneys or other guardians.”

During the webinar, franchisees “pushed back on the changes, claiming they could hurt business.”

If you’ve had experience with hard-sell house-flippers, Propublica wants to know: “If you’ve had experience with a company or buyer promising fast cash for homes, our reporting team wants to hear about it.”

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A Depression-era photo of a dour widow standing in front of a dilapidated cabin. Next to her is Ug, the caveman mascot for Homevestors, smiling and pointing at her. Behind her is a 'We buy ugly houses' sign.

Image: Homevestors https://www.homevestors.com/

Fair use: https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

[ultra-raging-ghost]

Ok so on top of all the crimes listed by the federation here's the list he's provided us himself (possibly incomplete):

-cannibalism -robbery -Poaching -assassination -public nudity -Possible trafficking -Loitering -squatting -Supplying of illegal food -Vandalism -dumping waste -Summoning things from the underworld -war crimes (Theres like 32 of these) -Colonization/property theft -Kidnapping an alien -Document falsification -Counterfeiting -Organ trafficking -Organ theft -Cyberbullying -Poisoning -Conspiracy -Unlawful surveillance of private property -Pillaging and arson -failed extortion -destruction of private property -Several counts of Identity theft -Espionage -Crimes against heaven and earth -1st degree murder -2nd degree murder -3rd degree murder -money laundering -obstruction of justice -Shoplifting -Assault on a federation personel -Prison escaping -Attempted pyramid schemes -Enslavement -bribary of a government official -Practicing law without a lisence

And the ones the federation listed:

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Ok. It's pretty clear you are more welcoming of AI, and it does have enough merits to not be given a knee jerk reaction outright.

And how the current anti-ai stealing programs could be misused.

But isn't so much of the models built on stolen art? That is one of the big thing keeping me from freely enjoying it.

The stolen art is a thing that needs to be addressed.

Though i agree that the ways that such addressing are being done in are not ideal. Counterproductive even.

I could make a quip here and be like "stolen art??? But the art is all still there, and it looks fine to me!" And that would be a salient point about the silliness of digital theft as a concept, but I know that wouldn't actually address your point because what you're actually talking about is art appropriation by generative AI models.

But the thing is that generative AI models don't really do that, either. They train on publicly posted images and derive a sort of metadata - more specifically, they build a feature space mapping out different visual concepts together with text that refers to them. This is then used at the generative stage in order to produce new images based on the denoising predictions of that abstract feature model. No output is created that hasn't gone through that multi-stage level of abstraction from the training data, and none of the original training images are directly used at all.

Due to various flaws in the process, you can sometimes get a model to output images extremely similar to particular training images, and it is also possible to get a model to pastiche a particular artist's work or style, but this is something that humans can also do and is a problem with the individual image that has been created, rather than the process in general.

Training an AI model is pretty clearly fair use, because you're not even really re-using the training images - you're deriving metadata that describes them, and using them to build new images. This is far more comparable to the process by which human artists learn concepts than the weird sort of "theft collage" that people seem to be convinced is going on. In many cases, the much larger training corpus of generative AI models means that an output will be far more abstracted from any identifiable source data (source data in fact is usually not identifiable) than a human being drawing from a reference, something we all agree is perfectly fine!

The only difference is that the AI process is happening in a computer with tangible data, and is therefore quantifiable. This seems to convince people that it is in some way more ontologically derivative than any other artistic process, because computers are assumed to be copying whereas the human brain can impart its own mystical juju of originality.

I'm a materialist and think this is very silly. The valid concerns around AI are to do with how society is unprepared for increased automation, but that's an entirely different conversation from the art theft one, and the latter actively distracts from the former. The complete refusal from some people to even engage with AI's existence out of disgust also makes it harder to solve the real problem around its implementation.

This sucks, because for a lot of people it's not really about copyright or intellectual property anyway. It's about that automation threat, and a sort of human condition anxiety about being supplanted and replaced by automation. That's a whole mess of emotions and genuine labour concerns that we need to work through and break down and resolve, but reactionary egg-throwing at all things related to machine learning is counterproductive to that, as is reading out legal mantras paraphrasing megacorps looking to expand copyright law to over shit like "art style".

I've spoken about this more elsewhere if you look at my blog's AI tag.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

helloooooo :)) sliding in with a generic marvel-esque vaguely criminal organization landoscar au with background lestappen because I am nothing if not predictable

Oscar is their resident poison specialist (he makes new poisons, tests them, makes antidotes, etc. for the organization to use). His preference is plant based poisons, like belladonna and nightshade, because he graduated college with a botany degree and therefore has a lot of knowledge about them that he can put for use. He spends most of his time in his greenhouse full of toxic, beautiful plants that he tends too very, very carefully. They’re his babies.

There’s a whole backstory involved with how he came to join the organization that involves him accidentally killing his college roommate

Lando is a former gymnast turned espionage guy who also does theft on the side for funsies that works for the organization. Like vaguely cat woman-y? Obviously he’s super flexible and super good at his job because duh.

His favorite hobby is breaking into Oscar’s greenhouse via the windows and watching him work. Oscar is super fascinating to him, and he’s enamored with how absolutely brilliant this quiet, stoic boy, with maybe five facial expressions total is.

Lando sits there and listens to Oscar ramble about his complex science things. He doesn’t understand most of it ngl, but he loves the way Oscar’s face lights up when he goes on a long tangent about the chemical properties of cyanide and why it’s superior to arsenic.

Also sometimes lando brings Oscar random pretty shiny things that he stole that he thinks Oscar might like and leaves them on his desk, kind of like a crow. Oscar keeps all of them in a box under his bed. He looks at them when he feels down (he doesn’t tell lando that)

Oscar is equally obsessed with lando but this is already wayyyyyy too long so 😭 you just gotta trust me on this one

And then eventually, the rest of the people in the organization pick up on the growing landoscar feelings situation. Alex and George give lando a bunch of (loving and caring) grief about it. A bet between them is born. “$50 lando is too chicken to confess to Oscar by the end of the month”

Yada yada time skip a week or so and lando and Oscar FINALLY do something about the tension between them one night late in Oscar’s greenhouse, lando freshly back from a mission. Boom they kiss and then lando, being the idiot that he is, as soon as they pull apart, goes “lol George and Alex owe me $50 now”

Cue misunderstanding trope. “Oh you only kissed me for a bet?? You don’t actually have feelings for me 😔 I knew it was too good to be true.”

Lando realizes his mistake but Oscar’s already out the door, disappeared into the night.

And then Oscar gets kidnapped by the enemy 🤗 because he’d normally be more aware and vigilant and stuff but his emotions are really going through it so. The ransom note comes through the next day.

Gonna leave it on that because otherwise I will spiral into a full blown fic when I already have too many wips to finish

I'M SO????? HOW DID U JUST RANDOMLY SLIDE IN HERE WITH THIS???? i am so obsessed with these details my god the POISON? CATMAN ESPIONAGEGYMNAST? christ. and then lando leaving him little gifts like a crow. OSCAR ACCIDENTALLY K-WORDING HIS ROOMMATE (and possible guilt)?? the classic misunderstanding thingy "but oscar gets kidnapped" leading to a climactic rescue oh oh oh this is the stuff of dreams.

idk what to do with myself exactly cus this is so gorgeous. anyway have a moodboard for your efforts cus like my goodness this was lovely to read.

[plazmafields]

We're all aware that your favorite (living) 90 year old rocker is a wanted criminal in Night City. Kerry's charges even change each time you meet up with him in game, which is hilarious. But some of the charges are unlike the others.

TW for mentions of murder and human remains/dead bodies.

Here are some of the average charges Kerry accrues throughout the game. Most of them are drug or assault charges, specifically against police and corpo suits. Typical rockerboy shit, really keeping the punk spirit alive. (Also copyright infringement which always makes me laugh seeing it next to literal MURDER)

The charges so far are all pretty expectable for Kerry. We even see charges like "hostage taking" and "unauthorized use of military hardware" that line up with events that take place in his side missions. However, there are two charges that always stood out to me:

So what the hell are these about? When I first saw these charges I assumed they referred to situations where an officer/corpo was already dead and Kerry continued to fire on them. However, if that were the case, the wording would be something more akin to "mutilation of a corpse" or "tampering with a corpse." The specific word choice of "human remains" implies the body had already been processed for burial.

I discovered these charges many months apart and had never connected them to a possible singular event until, while replaying Holdin' On, I remembered these:

Kerry has two urns on his wardrobe. I assume these are for his parents' ashes. However, as is implied in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, it is illegal to keep cremated remains. And although not expressly stated in Cyberpunk 2077, much media in the cyberpunk genre (or with themes of late stage capitalism) give ownership of human remains to the state, or the corporate entity that the deceased worked for. I could absolutely see this being the case in Cyberpunk 2077 as well, seeing as Jackie's body can be seized by Arasaka and claimed as "corporate property." In that case, the urns would just be in memorial and contain no actual remains. I think, though, that most people would prefer to use something from that family member's past to memorialize them, like an object that represented their interests.

So, with Kerry having two distinct charges for both obtaining and "defiling" human remains, and having two urns despite the requirement that cremated remains be stored in the columbarium, I theorize that Kerry stole his parent's ashes back from the city/the company they worked for. Who knows, maybe some of his other charges came about during the theft as well.

[undreaming-fanfiction]

No Such Thing As Stupid Question

This one is for you, Anna! @unclewaynemunson! Congratulations on your academic progress, I'm so proud of you!

Also on Ao3 for your convenience :)

As someone who showed as little interest in romance as possible, Wayne Munson didn't really expect to be come a parental figure. Maybe he'd get a dog when he retired, some older mutt from a shelter, and they'd sit in front of the trailer in quiet company, perhaps a bark here and there as Wayne sipped his beer. Wayne could imagine that. But a kid, never.

But of course, life had a peculiar sense of humor and his younger brother hit a new low - sadly admirable, given that he was already at the very bottom, but someone brought a shovel with him. Grand theft auto, petty crimes all over, domestic disputes (to put it mildly)...Wayne breathed a sigh of relief when he found out he got locked up before he escalated even further. He didn't want to believe Danny had it in him to seriously hurt someone, but given the right or wrong circumstances, he couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be a casualty like a random witness, someone trying to protect their property...yeah, Danny was definitely better off where he ended up.

As for his son Eddie...Wayne couldn't guarantee the same, even though he vowed to try his damn hardest.

Eddie was a scrawny kid with an ugly buzz cut and dark eyes so large he seemed afraid of anything and everything. When Wayne met with the social worker and they talked over coffee, Wayne couldn't help but notice how Eddie grasped his milkshake, as if someone would take it from him the very next second. His twitchy fingers wrapped around the glass in a vice-like grip and even though Wayne was convinced he was listening to every word said, he kept stubbornly staring into the drink, refusing to meet anyone's eye. And even though the kid was barely in middle school, Wayne found the rigid focus all too familiar, painfully so. It was the first time he found himself truly and purely hating Danny, feeling a burning coal in his chest at what his so-called upbringing did to this boy.

In the end, Eddie was sent to live with him, only a bag with clothes too big, a few trinkets and a single book, worn from constant reading. The Hobbit.

The first day, the now joint Munson household was quiet. Eddie was chewing on an improvised pasta Wayne had made - on his own, thank you for asking, with all three ingredients - and looking anywhere but at his uncle. And Wayne was a quiet man himself so sure, they could stay in silence until Eddie graduated and moved somewhere else, but there was a part of Wayne that didn't want this for Eddie. He wanted at least one Munson to turn out alright.

"Hope it's edible. I...don't cook much," he tried, swallowing a lump of poorly mixed spices.

Eddie's eyes were fixed to his plate. He nodded, the movement almost indiscernible, and then returned to his pasta.

So Wayne tried again. "I saw that book you have," he mentioned and boy, was that a wrong move. Eddie almost curled into himself, his eyes darting to Wayne for the first time - but not with curiosity. With defiance and fear.

He didn't say anything, only stared at Wayne. As if he was daring him to say something, do something.

So Wayne did. "It looked interesting. The Hobbit? I've never heard of it. Is it any good?"

The slight relaxation in Eddie's shoulders seemed promising. "It's my favorite," he said, his eyes returning to the pasta, stabbing a few offending pieces with his fork. "It has an adventure in it. An unexpected one."

Wayne huffed a quiet laugh under his breath. "Ah. So somethin' like this?"

Eddie looked at him again with those large dark eyes. "...yeah."

And then it was quiet again, but this was less forced, less tense. Wayne thought that maybe this was how Eddie would be normally, a withdrawn soul just like himself, but just as he chewed on the last mouthful of less than ideally cooked pasta, Eddie broke the silence.

"Why'd you take me in?" Eddie blurted out and seemed to regret it immediately, biting in to his own lip. "It's...it's not like you knew me before and you could have refused, I...I would understand that. I think. But you agreed to let me stay and I'm grateful and all, but...I just don't get it. Why?" Pausing for a moment, he added "sorry if that's a stupid question. I just want to understand."

It might have taken Wayne a second longer than ideal to answer, but he didn't want to spit ketchup on the poor boy who already seemed flustered enough. He held his finger up and quickly washed down the food with a gulp of soda. "First rule of this house, son," he said and smiled at Eddie, actually smiled, although his facial muscles protested. "Ain't no such thing as stupid questions. Anything you want to ask, just ask. And if I know the answer, I will give it. Understood?"

Eddie was maintaining eye contact now and he nodded eagerly. Almost too eagerly. It made Wayne reconsider in that very second, because this wasn't a withdrawn soul like he'd suspected - this was a boy who wanted to open up to someone so, so badly. "Yes," he muttered and Wayne couldn't help himself, he reached out, slowly, and ruffled whatever hair remained on Eddie's head. And Eddie didn't move away, just watched his hand like a hawk and, when he ensured he wasn't in any danger, even leaned into it, giving Wayne a small smile.

Returning to his side of the table, Wayne leaned in. "Why'd I take you in? I could give you a bunch of reasons, none would fully cover it. Obligation, sure. You're family, that's another thing. But most of all, I just..." He trailed off, finding the correct words, the truthful words. Throughout all of it, Eddie was watching him, waiting. "I guess I just want to give you something better, Eddie. Danny and I, we didn't have the best family, not sure how much he told you. And there ain't much we can do to fix ourselves, but I look at you and I think...maybe I can make a difference right here. Because you seem like a bright kid to me and I just...I just want to do right by you. Even if I'm the only one."

Eddie swallowed thickly, fidgeting. "And...and if I turn out like him?" he mumbled, struggling to keep the eye contact. "What if you...you do that, but I still fail?"

Damn, Wayne Munson did not cry, but the fear, the insecurity in Eddie's voice tugged at something in his chest. He reached over again and grasped Eddie's bony shoulder. "Then you'll still have home here for as long as you want. All I want from you is to give it your best shot. That work for you?"

The boy smiled at him and nodded, wiping at his eyes. "Yeah."

"Good." They were grinning at each other over dirty plates, the smell of ketchup and cheap soda between them. "And I meant what I said. Anythin' you want to ask, go for it. No question is a stupid question."

Eddie smirked at him and Wayne might have detected a glint of mischief in his eyes. He thought he'd bend over backwards to keep it there, to give this frightened kid a bit of childhood back. "Anything, huh?" he asked.

"Yup. But count on me askin' a lot of stuff too. Like," he paused, rubbing his chin in deep thought.

It was ridiculous. But Wayne remembered what the doctors told him when he returned from Vietnam - sometimes to get moving, you need something unexpected, something to confuse the anxiety right out of your brain. So he dug deep and hard into his imaginative side and pointed at Eddie. "What is the single superior animal noise? No long thinking, go."

Eddie blinked at him, once, twice, and then he burst out laughing. He kicked his knee into the table and the dishes rattled around, but he couldn't stop himself. He was wheezing, grasping the side of the table and trying to breathe. And if that didn't make Wayne's heart swell. "You...you looked so serious!" gasped Eddie between snorts and giggles.

"It's a serious question. Now, Eddie, what's your answer?" Wayne tried to keep his face under control, but Eddie's grin was contagious.

The boy cleared his throat and leaned forwards, brow furrowing in concentration. "So many fine choices," he said in a contemplative voice that made Wayne nearly choke on his soda because it sounded like a poor imitation of a British TV celebrity. "I have to go with ribbit. Unique and well-balanced." Glancing at Wayne, he shot back. "The soup to beat all the soups!"

Wayne smirked and crossed his arms. "That's an easy one. Bean soup. And before you ask - not from a can."

"Knew it."

It gradually becomes their thing.

Whenever Eddie is lost in thought, when he comes back from school with a new bruise, Wayne shoots a ridiculous question at him, what is the best race in the Middle Earth for a basketball tournament, what is the ideal number of dried peas to have in your kitchen, and Eddie's smile is back, as radiant as ever.

When Wayne returns from the plant, grumbling about the stupid idiots from the previous shift making his job harder, he finds Eddie bouncing on his feet, waiting for him to come home to ask what is the ideal sole color for running shoes. "Not the shoe color, the sole, Wayne, what is the sole color that makes you just want to run? No thinking, go!"

Even years after Eddie's hair has grown into the thick wavy locks that Wayne isn't envious of, nope, not at all, they still randomly yell questions at each other across the trailer. Eddie hollers "WHAT'S THE FUNNIEST FRUIT IN THE WHOLE WORLD WAYNE?!" and Wayne shouts back "IT'S PEACH BECAUSE IT'S STUPIDLY HAIRY JUST LIKE A CERTAIN NEPHEW OF MINE AND STOP YELLING, BOY!". Wayne asks between quiet puffs of smoke outside "if you had to wear a hat for the rest of your life, what hat would that be?" and Eddie blows out a circle and snickers "a top hat." There's a joke there and Wayne smiles to himself, wondering if he should acknowledge it.

And eventually, when his boy is returned to him after the hell that was March of 1986, when Eddie slowly heals and the Harrington boy doesn't leave his side, Wayne has the perfect question but he bides his time, watching the two fools dance around each other like the foolish fools they are (has he mentioned they are fools? Because they absolutely are). He's hoping he won't need to ask the question, maybe it will be enough to just wait, but nope, he's had enough. Life is too short for people like him and Eddie. So he grabs a couple of beers, drags Eddie to the porch of their government-funded house and after a couple of cans, starts their favorite pasttime.

"What's the best pink thing to ever exist?"

"Plastic flamingos," responds Eddie and sips his beer. "The one piece of clothing humanity should have never invented?"

"Ties, who's supposed to learn to tie that thing...the best cat name?"

"Household or wild?"

"Wild."

"Fluffles. Imagine being eaten by that in the woods. You'd never live it down, even after dying. The most humiliating job ever?"

"TV weather guy. Must suck to be wrong all the time." He doesn't even pause, just continues in the disinterested, flat tone they always use for their late night rounds of no-stupid-question. "The best place to take Steve for a date?"

"Somewhere calm, I think a picnic, he doesn't do well with a lot of loud noises or people," replies Eddie immediately. He sips his beer and freezes, mid-gulp, when his mind finally catches up with his mouth.

Wayne just pats his shoulder reassuringly. "Sounds like a great plan to me." When Eddie doesn't answer or move, he adds "swallow, boy."

Eddie pours the rest of his beer into his mouth and chuckles at Wayne, breathless. "That sounds more like a second date idea. Uh, shit. Sorry. I mean..."

"I'll pretend I stopped listening at the picnic," says Wayne, but the smile tugging at his lips betrays his sternness. "Just stay safe, Eddie. But if I have to keep watchin' you and that pretty boy dance around each other for a week longer, I swear I'll have you two sit down and talk it out, kindergarten style. So you'd better ask him out before I give him the talk."

With the corner of his eye, he sees Eddie nodding, grasping the can for support. "Will do. Just...are you..." He bites his lip, turns to Wayne. "Does this change anything?"

"I sure hope it does!" Wayne flicks the ash off his cigarette. "For one, I'd expect your room to be much cleaner when you get a boyfriend."

They're both chuckling now, clinking their empty beer cans together. "Smart ass," says Eddie but it has no bite, no venom. "Thank you, dad," he says quietly, and Wayne can't help himself, he throws his arm over Eddie's shoulders and pulls him into a very uncomfortable sideways hug. It's the best hug in his life.

When Eddie throws open the door the next Friday and hollers "WHAT IS THE BEST CHAPSTICK FLAVOR FOR KISSING?" and Wayne answers, he gets corrected for the first time. "Wrong," says Eddie and wipes at his mouth, still grinning wildly. "It's cherry."

And Wayne gets proven right once more when, not even a year later, after rebuilding of Hawkins, practically adopting Steve into their small weird family, Eddie proves to him that he's not just scarily observant, but he learns the worst tricks in the book.

Because sure, Wayne might have buried his own needs and desires so deep they're practically at the Earth's core, but then there was a sympathetic man close to his age, maybe a bit younger, who approached Wayne and told him he's so happy for him that Eddie is back, that he taught Eddie in middle school and he never believed a single word about his involvement because that boy is incapable of harming anyone, that's what he said. And he invited Wayne for a beer because some people were still treating the name Munson as the plague itself and Wayne might be finding himself looking at Eddie and Steve, wishing that he was younger, he had more courage...

So he's still mostly lost in those thoughts when Eddie starts pestering him during one of Steve's shifts, meaning they're home alone and bored. It's late July, they're both sitting on the porch, sipping beer again, and Wayne has already answered questions about the mug to end all mugs, whether soccer would be more fun to watch with human-sized insects and who is the single person from all Hawkins to be sent to Mars to never return. And then Eddie asks "what's the best movie to take Scott Clarke for the first date?" and Wayne's brain short circuits.

When he comes to, Eddie is smirking at him sympathetically, offering him a new can of beer because Wayne dropped the old one. "Come on, did you think I wouldn't notice?" he asks and nudges his shoulder. "I can sense the "desperately in love" Munson eyes from a mile away. I've got them patented, you know. So. Your answer?"

Wayne coughs and stammers out that it would have to be something smart because Scott is smart. And that he isn't smart enough to figure out what he'd like, so it's not really a good question...

But Eddie just shakes his head and reaches into his pocket, producing two tickets to the Hawkins movie theatre. "Wrong, Wayne. Or not completely. Mr. Clarke - Scott, shit, that's difficult to get used to, he loves smart things, but he's also a massive nerd, as our lady Applejack loves to call him and everyone within a certain interest group. And I happen to know there's something called RoboCop playing tomorrow. I also happen to have two tickets right here, to know that Scott is free and that he'll be waiting for you 15 minutes before the movie starts."

Wayne gapes at him, mouth hanging open and speechless for the first time in his life. His eyes are traveling between the tickets and Eddie's smile while he's desperately trying to stomp out the flames of hope in his heart. "But...but what if he doesn't see me like that?" he asks and he hates how small and insecure he sounds, but Eddie needs to understand that things are different for people like him, for his age, his...whole person.

His nephew - no, son - throws his head back and laughs into the setting sun. "Look at that," he grins and shoves the two tickets into Wayne's hand. "That has to be the first stupid question I've ever heard from you. Let's see..." he taps on his chin, pretending to think. "Ask me again tomorrow after the movie, okay? If you still need to ask."

The next evening, Eddie leans next to the door when Wayne returns from the movie. "So..." he drawls, raising his eyebrows. "Do you still need me to answer?"

And Wayne huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. "Nah, no more stupid questions in this household."

[otrtbs]

Hey y'all, I'm back again to ask you all for a favor.

It has been brought to my attention that someone is selling copies of Art Heist, Baby! on Amazon for $15. This is not me. This seller uploaded my fic without my knowledge and is now selling copies of it without my permission for profit.

I have reported this Amazon listing to customer service over the phone and via live chat, but I am asking for your help in reporting it as well so that it can be taken down and removed from Amazon as soon as possible!

Here is how you can do that:

Here is the link to the Amazon listing.

Once you click on the link this page should pop up. (Make sure you're signed in to your Amazon account!) Then click on the 'Report Incorrect Product Information' link.

After that, a textbox should appear. In the drop down, be sure to select 'Other Product Details' and then 'Incorrect Information Provided'. In the comment section you can drop a note about how it's intellectual property theft.

I am hoping that the more amount of reports Amazon gets, the more likely this listing will be removed from the site. I would be extremely grateful and extremely appreciative if you could spend a few minutes to report this issue.

AO3 is a wonderful but delicate ecosystem that we get to have as fandom where you can share your stories and you can read other people's stories free of charge and free of the horrors of capitalism! But things like this threaten our fandom and the community we build and maintain. Personal intellectual property theft and exploitation aside, (idek y'all it's been a wild day 😭) this harms our community as a whole and I'm hoping you can help me out for the greater good!!

I know there is so much more to opine on when it comes to uploading fics on Amazon to sell but I am very tired, and I simply cannot do that right now. I did not expect to explain to an unsuspecting Amazon worker that I am an author of a fanfiction that is now illegally existing on their website today, but here I am,,,it took a lot out of me lmaoooo.

Thanks for all your help in this matter! I appreciate it more than you know!

[mell-150]

You can tell who's an anarchist for the style points by their opinions on AI art (you're in it for style). The situationist internationale, the Anarchist artists, said 'destroy art as a commercial enterprise and intellectual property is theft' as loudly as possible fifty years ago. and here you are licking the boots of capitalists angry that someone developed a liberatory means of production that puts the power to create art and craft narratives into the hands of the working class

Yeah Intellectual Property is theft. Yeah art as a commercial enterprise should be destroyed. I'm still against AI Art because automation of creative industry would lead to job displacement of thousands of artists, and as artists are displaced their labor would still be exploited through training data, allowing companies to skip the hassle of paying wages altogether. Sounds like you're the bootlicker arguing for "art as a commercial enterprise" here buddy.

[gretahayes]

soo obviously tim would never kill, but what crimes do you think he *would* commit

I think he’s committed or would commit (under the right circumstances) a lot. Here's a list;

Assault with a Deadly Weapon

Assaulting or Killing Federal Officer

Assisting or Instigating Escape

Aggravated Assault/Battery

Aggravated Identity Theft

Bankruptcy Fraud/Embezzlement

Blackmail

Coercion

Concealing Escaped Prisoner

Concealing Person from Arrest

Conspiracy to Impede or Injure an Officer

Conveying False Information

Credit/Debit Card Fraud

Cyber Crimes

Damage to Religious Property

Destruction of Records in Federal Investigations and Bankruptcy

Destruction of Corporate Audit Records

Disclosure of Confidential Information

Domestic Terrorism

Embezzlement

Extortion

False Information and Hoaxes

False Pretenses

False Statements Relating to Health Care Matters

Falsely Claiming Citizenship

False Declarations before Grand Jury or Court

Fraud Against the Government

Hacking Crimes

Harboring Terrorists

Hostage Taking

Identity Theft

Illegal Possession of Firearms

Impersonator Making Arrest or Search

Injuring Officer

Insurance Fraud

Interference with the Operation of a Satellite

International Terrorism

Larceny

Mailing Threatening Communications

Motor Vehicle Theft

Narcotics Violations

Obstructing Examination of Financial Institution

Obstruction of Court Orders

Obstruction of Federal audit

Obstruction of Justice

Obstruction of Criminal Investigations

Perjury

Pirating

Possession of Narcotics

Private Correspondence with Foreign Government

Racketeering

Receiving the Proceeds of Extortion

Recording or Listening to Grand or Petit Juries While Deliberating

Retaliating Against a Federal Judge by False Claim or Slander of Title

Retaliating Against a Witness, Victim, or an Informant

Robbery

Sabotage

Sale of Stolen Vehicles

Searches Without Warrant

Shoplifting

Smuggling

Stalking (In Violation of Restraining Order)

Stolen Property; Buying, Receiving, or Possessing

Tampering with a Witness, Victim, or Informant

Tampering with Vessels

Torture

Transportation of Stolen Vehicles

Transportation of Terrorists

Trespassing

Treason

Unauthorized Removal of Classified Documents

Use of Fire or Explosives to Destroy Property

Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Vandalism

Violence at International airports

Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering Activity

And possibly more! Hope this helps