#but the harm it causes is profitable so no one will stop it

[cordialsilence]

One of the benefits of having purchased a long charger is that I don’t have to hang off my bed folded at a 90 degree angle when my phone’s battery is low but on the flip side it’s almost 3am and I lay here comfortable and unfolded with my phone on low power mode at 17% and charging I can’t help feeling like it enables my screen addiction a bit

[ssavaart]

Happy Friday All!

In early 2020 (before Covid), I was painting larger paintings like this with Acryla-Gouache. I was really enjoying the medium.

I was inspired by a couple of photos by Annie Bertram on Deviant Art and asked permission to use them for reference.

Since I was just doing these for myself... I had NO plan. No test drawings. No layouts. I just started drawing on a large piece of paper and figured it out as I went.

Because of this... I never really figured out what to do with the hand on the left.

So... it just kind of disappeared.

I may go back and add it in later, I think.

But, for now... it's always a reminder of a time where I just broke out the paints and... played.

A couple months later... Covid hit and it was 3 years until I did my next large painting (the Gothic Vampire).

(Note: I can't find a reply from the photographer regarding permission or not. My memory is I heard back. But I can't find it.)

I DID hear from the model Theresa Fractale, a couple of years later, who was VERY upset that I had sold some postcards of the painting without her permission.

I was mortified. I hadn't even considered reaching out to the model. I offered her and Annie Bertram all of the profits I made from the sales, but she wasn't satisfied... and we left it at that.

These things DO happen with artists. Sometimes people claim you've "stolen" their art or style or likeness. And sometimes they have legitimate reason to do so.

Me, personally... I believe that artists should use ALL of the world around them for inspiration and if it is HEAVILY influenced by one artist or work of art... CREDIT them.

But change it. Don't directly copy it (unless you're studying someone's work... in which case... copy away).

But always credit.

I believe I REFERENCED the photos above, but didn't copy them.

But, I DID heavily reference them and, honestly, had NO intention of selling it (I still own the painting) or prints (I had only sold a few postcards before being contacted by the model... then stopped).

In any case... if the model or the photographer is unhappy with me selling prints... I don't sell prints. It's that simple.

Their work directly inspired MY work and while I feel that I've changed it enough to be unique... I don't want to cause another artist harm in any way.

Every artist is different. Some are open to sharing their art (like me) and others are very protective of their art.

But, there are no RULES to art. There is no such thing as "cheating" in art. There IS copyright LAW. And that is theft.

But that law ONLY (as far as I know) works if you are SELLING a copy of someone else's work. Profiting from it.

Not for learning. Not for practice. And not for posting online.

Just please... PLEASE credit the artist you're copying. Tell people why you are copying.

Nowadays, if I'm going to do a painting I plan on making prints of, I either use stock photography I've paid for or I get permission and pay the rights holder.

But, this is ONLY for pieces I want to sell prints of.

You do NOT need permission to use photo reference or even copy another artist's work for your portfolio or to post online.

Credit them. Share your inspiration with others. Tell them why you copied the works

But you don't need permission simply to make art. Ever.

Art should be shared. Copied. Studied. And most of all... enjoyed.

Sending Big Hugs from the Hobbit Hole. ♥♥♥

Scott

[sinvilles]

more thoughts: Clay and his alcoholism

to reiterate my first point from the last post:

I'm not concerned with whether any character in the series was "redeemed" or not. the show was cut in half, and so was every character arc. hence we end up with a show that got cancelled when all the main characters were at their lowest point of development in the narrative, and all the surrounding characters getting half developed to a point of mild satisfaction.

I don't think Clay is misunderstood in this fandom so much as misinterpreted. namely the overt focus on his abusive incidents and qualities drowns out any analysis about how and why they emerged in the first place. and the insistence on reading him through this over the top evil villain tunnel vision- Clay is an antagonist, in that his actions are in opposition to Orel's, but he's not a villain. I actually don't think there are designated villains in Moral Orel, just a lot of damaged, self destructive people who rationalize, deny and repress the harm they cause. humans, as Dino called them.

put succinctly, I think we often forget that Clay has a disease, that it is life-threatening, and no one around him is educated enough to see the warning signs- because drinking culture is so ingrained in their social circle that there's nothing to do but repress whatever harm it causes.

earlier on in the show, his drinking is less pronounced. This is not to say he didn't have a problem, because its clear from Help that his binging started early in their marriage. I do think there is a gradual descent beginning with him drinking the boozy milk in church, slowly until Bloberta calls him a "self-destructive alcoholic", and then a rapid plummet after he walks out on Christmas eve. This feels in line with a relapse.

I went back and forth on whether Clay had actually never touched a drop of booze before he met Bloberta- he lied about his father being dead, he must have been shitting her about "isnt drinking a sin?" because even he knows that his mother used to drink- and also the way he keeps on looks like someone who tried to stop before and that this is his relapse. but then he goes on about his "new found superpowers" and thanking Bloberta for helping him come out of his shell so it definitely seems like alcohol is providing him with a burst of sociability and extraversion that he otherwise didn't think he had in him before.

Clay genuinely believed that drinking was making him a better person. This is reinforced by what others say to him: by Bloberta saying "it makes us better people", or Danielle telling him, "you're better when you drink." The word "better" is used directly in his rant- he mimes the alcohol telling him: "I'll make things better, dear! drink me, put me inside you!" in the following dialogue, its very clear that he associates drinking with his relationship with Bloberta, and women in general. And also that the sex he has had with Bloberta might be less than consensual and not pleasurable for him. More on this later.

That's the rub of alcohol. You drink a little to feel good, and you do it until that amount doesn't do it for you anymore, and the tolerance builds up until you need to drink enough to black out, and being black out drunk is where your inhibitions completely disappear. Black out drunk means you might whip out your dick and piss on someone's computer- knew a guy who did it- does this mean you hate that person, or computers? no, just that your senses were no longer functioning to keep you from carrying out every insane impulse you have.

alcohol addiction isn't a moral failing, its a disease. Clay's true moral failing was that he wasn't responsible or mature enough to be left alone with his son in the wilderness. He wasn't a horrifyingly inept father in the past episodes, mostly just spanking Orel before asking him why he (impregnated women in their sleep/sold his piss for profit/did crack/stole his booze/etc). Then he imparts an entirely deranged moral because he feels like he needs to explain to Orel some justification for his punishment, which he might be doing to bond with him the way he used to bond with his mother.

Clay was not properly fathered (or mothered, for that matter), and is not equipped to be a good father. His version of fathering Orel is an attempt to undo the neglect of his boyhood- he is physically present in his life, "a boy needs his father" so he says, he converses with him- while he did spank him, he's never slapped him or battered him, which is interesting to note because Arthur only ever hit Clay in the face. The actual, major fuck up in his life happened when he was black out drunk.

Its notable that after the incident we get an episode of him reflecting on the death of his mother, and how he never got to go on that coveted hunting trip with his dad. the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions.

but he gets worse. He starts ditching work to drink. he ditches church to drink. he's calling up his situationship midday to drink. he has ditched the shot glass and is drinking his brown booze straight from the bottle now. this is ruining his friendships, his professional connections, even the barmaid hates him now. Because he can't reconcile his self-image with what he did to his child, his only narcissistic impulse is to deny it happened, lie about it, to himself, to the doctor, to everyone around him. Then when he can't deny it happened, he hides from his son out of shame, and avoids talking to him for 6 months, only speaking to him again when it becomes clear that his son has publicly sided against him. Right after that he emotionally regresses and becomes susceptible to the manipulations of a seemingly older woman. Clay is in the middle of a mental breakdown.

then the show gets cancelled.

of course they killed it. why would adult swim want to air a show where a character suffers from a realistic depiction of alcoholic dependency? one where a guy pisses his bed because he's too drunk to get up at night, one where a guy almost kills his child (not played for laughs)? the audience doesn't want to be told that they need to kick their habit. they'd prefer a mad scientist who can just grow himself a new liver any time he needs to replace it. Or a cartoon crow who gets into hi-LAR-ious out-RAG-eous hijinks because of his drinking. do you see what I'm saying?

I mean, what if Clay stopped drinking?

("Yeah, what if?")

there's this thing called withdrawal, where if your body is at the point where it is dependent on alcohol for stability, alcohol every day every hour, all year long- like Clay is- going cold turkey can actually end your life.

a caricatured depiction of withdrawal can be seen happening to Orel in the episode "Grounded"- he isn't just "going crazy", Church is an addiction that he needs to feed to feel normal. It's a very silly take on it, but the insatiable cravings, sweats, nausea, shakes, clamminess and the feelings of unmanageable suicidality are the same.

Other effects of alcoholic withdrawal include (not in order) seizures, hallucinations, acute anxiety, mood swings, tachycardia, and in worst cases delirium tremens. with the way Clay drinks he would definitely end up with pretty bad DTs.

And it goes on for at least 6 months.

when this happens, a person needs to be hospitalized. and knowing the medical staff at Martin Luther Hospital, I can understand why he would want to avoid it. I don't think he has the willpower to wait past shaky hands before he reaches for his next drink.

another part of overcoming an addiction to alcohol is community support- support from family, friends, spouses. this was described by Kabi Nagata in one of her memoirs as a kind of "foothold in the world" to keep the patient stable and focused. but as of the start of season 2, Bloberta doesn't care. Clay perceives Bloberta as not being on his side- if your own wife isn't on your side, what hope do you have needing her when you're vulnerable? fuck, even Clay isn't on his own side.

On Bloberta- I get the feeling she might have supported him to stop drinking earlier in their marriage. Or at least to get his drinking under control (as in, not publicly visible). Maybe before Shapey was born? but when he started again, she was through being "on his side" so to speak.

(and I do think his drinking has some correlation to his sex life. according to Bloberta, "when does he ever remember?" and based on what little Orel said in that one promo, Clay is never sober enough to be on top, like he so insists upon being the "right" way. in his rant Clay graphically describes PIV sex with open revulsion. call me crazy, but I kind of get the feeling he's gay.)

but the real reason I think he was triggered to drinking to excess, is Danielle.

its pretty clear from the get-go of season 2 is that Clay was carrying on an affair with him, at least an emotional one if not a physical one. and I can imagine that his attraction to Danielle unsettles him, to the point that he needs to reinforce his concept of masculinity with the markers of it; hiding in his little man cave and collecting hunting equipment- and drinking hard liquor to excess. Everything he accuses Orel of during the hunting trip- being sensitive, soft, a sissy- is just something he projects because he's insecure about it in himself. and the root of it is his fear of loving Danielle.

despite the humiliation he subjected himself to in Honor- him admitting that he loved Danielle was a brief moment of growth. albeit closeted, fearful, it was a revelation of what was really in him. closest comparable moment of honesty in the series was him admitting to Orel that his identity as a father is central to who he is, and without it he would be nothing. and then there's his academy award winning drunken rants.

where could his character have gone... I think leaving his family, aka Orel, aka forgoing his identity as a father, might be the best he could do. that and getting sober. but there's no getting sober without leaving his family, because he associates his wife with drinking. and there's no getting sober if you don't have a friend left in the world. it was sad to see him still with her in the final scene because they both really could've thrived in divorce.

[mister-rad-boy]

I remember around 10 years ago, I met this girl who would wear makeup on a daily basis, and would regularly put on eyeliner, fake eyelashes, and whatever other stuff people put on their eyelids. One day she suddenly stopped wearing makeup. I don’t remember why but I think it was because she couldn’t afford to buy more for a bit. At first, it looked like her eyelids were swollen like she hadn’t slept in days, and it looked like she had aged 10 years, but over the course of maybe a month (or a couple of weeks. I don’t remember), her skin gradually became smoother, and her eyelids looked more normal. Sadly, she started putting makeup on again the next chance she had. I remembered being really sad about that.

That experience makes me think, not only does makeup distort the view of what a normal woman looks like, but can also damage the skin on their faces to make them feel more compelled to keep putting on makeup. Like, is that the result of whatever chemicals they put in makeup? That’s so messed up. They not only cause and use women’s insecurities for profit, but they actively cause physical harm with their products? That’s straight up evil. The thought makes me livid and I want to burn the makeup industry to the ground.

[timeoveritasconsumofigmentum]

Yandere Fisherman x F!Mermaid Reader

Warnings: Obsessive behaviors, Stalking, Kidnapping, Implied murder(?)

A/n: I tried to use actual boat terminology idk if it’s right lmao, but enjoy ♡ (not proofread)

⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.

Mermaid!reader that loves to hang out with her marine friends during the bright afternoons. Exploring underwater caves, collecting the prettiest shells, telling spooky stories in sunken ships. Life was beautiful under the sea.

Mermaid!reader who was dared by Kai the stingray to go one of the many forbidden zones (the one infested with humans.) Despite her fear and uncertainty, she couldn't let that flat face call her a guppie!

Mermaid!reader who encounters dozens of dinghies once in the sunlight zone. Consumed with curiosity, she swam closer to the strange shiny devices hanging from the small ships. Yes the ocean floor collected the ships and it's artifacts, but she had never seen such a device.

Mermaid!reader who felt nothing but awe at the plastic fish that they(the fisherman) threw into the sea from their barnacle covered boats, fascinated by their unusual bright colours and shapes. Giggles at the confusion of her friends, their gurgles of excitement sending waves of bubbles along the currents.

Mermaid!reader who starts investigating with her marine friends but finds out the hard way what the plastic is truly meant to do and it breaks her heart. Dozens of her friends gone in a blink of an eyes, yanked into the unknown world. Mourns for the loss of her friends blaming herself for the lack of awareness, makes herself a promise that no other innocent being would be taken.

Mermaid!reader who helps fishes avoid the sharp hooks, warning all that wander too close that they could be snatched up and never seen again. Swears on Poseidon that no more of her friends will be stolen.

Mermaid!reader who actively tracks ships and fishing patterns. Herding the small guppies and airhead fishes away from the coast, sure they understood warnings but that didn't stop their curiosity or lack of awareness.

Mermaid!reader starts using her sharp iridescent shell to cut the fishing lines and collect the plastic bait, the humans obviously aren't using them so what's the harm in collecting them? Besides it would stop her friends from being caught up by the glittering they produced.

⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.

Yandere!fisherman frustrated from the sacristy of fish coming in. His profit and family business plummeting to the ground from lack of customers.

Yandere!fisherman swore he would get to the bottom of this. His grandmother didn't break every bone in her body for this business to die a sudden death!

Yandere!fisherman who now, never leaves his modest boat, camouflaging himself to stalk the waters every hour of the day. Waits for days with no activity, his sour mood getting even fouler. "If there's nothing there, then where all the bloody fish?!"

Yandere!fisherman who spots a large fin lift out from the water one early morning, a quiet splash following. Snatching his binoculars off the stern pulpit he spotted a human like figure bobbing around the water, clicks his tongue in frustration about to look away when splash! A pearlescent tail jerks out of the water, his eyes traveled along the long fin only to find it connect to the figure he saw previously. Wide eyes stare at the strange creature entranced.

Yandere!fisherman shellshocked from the discovery, sure his grandmother told his stories about how merpeople lived in these water but he just thought it was a bad eyesight and manatees! To think she was right. Wonder soon turned into animosity, so this was the creature causing a shortage of food?

Yandere!fisherman who starts tracking the mermaids every move, determined to capture it. Thinks of the amount of money he would make by selling the exotic legend. He could see it now, towers of gold stacked to the clouds, a large home fit for a king, no longer having to break his back to scrape together enough money to pay his bills, his very being bathed in riches. Oh yes, he would have the sea beast . Dead or alive.

Yandere!fisherman after weeks of planning, decides it's time to capture the beast. Makes a custom bottom trawl, out of clear wire, adjusting it enough to fit the mutant, takes extra care to make it sturdy. As any good fisherman would do, he starts to track her movements.

Yandere!fisherman who writes in detail the spots she would mostly visit(the abandoned boats near the colorful reef seemed to be her favorite?), what distance she was most comfortable in(half a mile away from the dock but continuously inching closer) what time she preferred to come (right as the sun peeked out from the horizon.)

Yandere!fisherman finds out that the mermaid had been stealing the bait deliberately, his callous hands wrap around his booklet in fury wringing the innocent leather, another thing he had to worry about thanks to it.

Yandere!fisherman finally gets a glimpse of the creatures face. Is stunned stupid to see such beautiful features, every detail in her face seemed as they were sculpted by hand with utmost care. The blue hue of the water did little to obscure her beauty, feels something in his chest tighten but brushes it off.

Yandere!fisherman dreams now invaded by the unknown woman. Her opal like scales that seemed softer than cotton, the halo of hair that followed her whenever she moved, bright eyes filled with childlike wonder. Soft supple lips lifted into a small smile. The feeling in his chest returns.

Yandere!fisherman commences his plan at night, gently tossing the net into the water far away from his boat. Lies in wait, white knuckling the thick rope connected to the net ready to pull at any moments notice. Sees the beautiful beast nearing his trap, grits teeth "come on.." he jerks the net snatching the side of her body, her right arm and fin tangled in the thick plastic. Bubbles flurry to the surface panicked splashing accompanying it.

Yandere!fisherman who yanks the net forward creating small waves, the veins in his arms bulging from the amount of force takes large steps back bringing her closer. Has her a few feet away from boat when SNAP the net collapses into itself, her body freeing with every thrash. Let's out a scream of frustration watching the mermaid flee the scene quickly.

⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.

Mermaid!reader swimming back home in pure shock clutching her iridescent shell, unable to filter in the million of questions her friends asked her.

Mermaid!reader who thinks of all the fables and stories of humans snatching merpeople were true, she knew that much, but never did she think she would be one of the missing. She had been so careful, not following the same path or reappearing in the same spot.

Mermaid!reader stays cocooned in her shell like home for days, the soft hues of pink and yellow calming her soul. Small treasures displayed on weaved seaweed shelves warmed her heart, creating a bubble of peace in her rampant mind. The human objects she collected overtime glared at her, an uneasy feeling urged herself to stuff the objects deep in sand. To forget about them and everything about the surface. To forget about the existence of humans.

Mermaid!reader traces the angry marks that indented her tail, curling further on her kelp bed. Regrets taking the dare that made her get so close to the land. She could have been blissfully blind if she just stayed with the cities limits, unburdened with the knowledge of what the coast held. Shivering at the daunting feeling, she imagined what awaited her the moment she broke through the surface.

Mermaid!reader who wants to stay rooted right where she was but the other part who knew the truth, she knew she would have to go back and help her friends. But to go back was a death wish there was no telling that luck would be on her side once more, memories of her stolen friends flashed through her mind.

Mermaid!reader with her mind set, decides to go back. Asks around her city hoping to find out more about humans only to hit dead end after dead end. Deflated, swims to the coral library wanting at least to brush up on the human tales that once scared her when she was guppie.

Mermaid!reader who draws a map of sector starfish. Noting where she was almost taken, she tries to remember where her fish friends would go. They weren’t the brightest bunch so she knew they would be scattered through out the water. Despite the numerous problem she was faced with, she pushes forward.

Mermaid!reader who stays at the edge of the sunlight zone, worry seeps in her veins her tail thrashing in agitating. “It’s not a big deal..I’m just going back to the place where I was almost taken, it’s fine. It’s fine, I’m fine..”. She took a deep breath before releasing, groups bubbles tumbled from her mouth caressing her features. A soothing warmness settles in her chest at the feeling as she tried to the keep up with the uncoherent thoughts she had.

Mermaid!reader cautious of every little thing, swimming as slow as possible. Decides to split the area into smaller sectors, one sector a day. That'll keep her safe. Hopefully. Days slowly crawl by, her wavered confidence stayed stagnant riddled with the anxiety of ‘what if’s?’

Mermaid!reader shakes her head disappointed at the fish who swim merrily around the few hooks in sector starfish. ‘All those warnings floated away from them’ she thought glumly. Sees Kai the stingray stuck in a large net, doesn't hesitate to swim forward sharp shell in hand pushing away her dread.

Mermaid!reader determination set in her features she prepared herself to slash haphazardly trying to free her friend as quickly as possible. Let's out a scream of terror dropping her weapon, realizing her friend was already dead and gutted.

Mermaid!reader distracted by the horrifying scene set in front of her, she barely felt another net underneath the sand lift upwards speedily creating a cage around her.

⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖° ⋆｡𖦹 °.

Yandere!fisherman who is quite glum from the lack of appearance of his prize-bag of money. Rereads his booklet, noting she would appear most when the tides were rising. The perfect time when fish would trickle in like children at a sweets shop. Reinforces a seine net and buries it in the sand underneath his ship, is about to rise from the water when he spots stray stingray swimming away from his curious eyes.

Yandere!fisherman couldn’t help but to smile.

Mermaid!reader who's dropped onto the floor the modest boat unceremoniously. Starts to beg the burly fisherman to let her go, that she only wanting to keep her friends safe "Please! I mean you no harm! How would you feel if hundreds of your friends where snatched away from home and they were never seen again? Understand me" she pleaded, voice getting hoarse from lack of water. Her limbs ached from the drop, the tight net reopening the wounds on her shimmering tail and torso.

Yandere!fisherman after weeks of watching her from the boat can't help but to tune her out. Not that her voice wasn't as sugary as he imagined, but to finally be able to drink in her foreign features. Euphoria drenched his body, this was real.

Yandere!fisherman thinks of the dreams that haunted him each night, were nothing compared to reality. Entranced by every crease, mole, and scar that covered her very being, studying her features he memorized every little detail. Dark eyes taking in the strange clothing she wore, lingering on the open wounds on her opalescent tail.

Yandere!fisherman who feels cold at the thought of someone else feasting on her beauty. He was the only one deserved to look at her, he watched for months, weeks of planning and yearning to get to this moment. He knew her. She was his. No one was worthy enough to bathe in her beauty. "Shhh, it's okay. Oh, have I got some plans for you sweetheart. But don't you worry your pretty little head about anything, I’ll take care of everything.”

[slushyseals]

All videos showing people removing barnacles from sea turtles are not rescue videos, they're animal abuse- even if the video is "real".

Please report these videos as abuse and stop letting these people profit off rescue videos

There are many videos where the "rescuer" is actually the one who attached the barnacles in the first place (some you can even see the hot glue underneath as they pull off the pieces). Unless you see the animal in a rescue center with a vet tech treating it, that animal is being abused. How so?

The reason those growths are there is likely something far more dangerous that needs to be addressed. Healthy turtles do not get this level of growth on their shells. So if you see something like this, it’s a sign that this turtle is unwell and has been sick for a while. Scraping off the growths doesn’t solve the underlying issue. Also, doing so without any tools or pain medication can be extremely painful and stressful for the turtle. Often with this level of growth, barnacles will have borrowed through the turtle’s shell into live tissue. And just ripping them off like this without the expertise of a medical professional can do more harm than good. Not to mention that it is WAY stressful and not what the turtle needs most. Imagine if you had a the stomach flu or food poisoning and someone decided to “help” you by first detangling your hair, popping pimples, and exfoliating you when what you really need is fluids and someone to handle you very gently. It’s focusing on the wrong problem first and can worsen the underlying condition.

If you see an animal "rescue" video, always think- how did they find this animal? (Is it likely they just found an animal- or did they put an animal in danger to play hero for clout and ad profits? How did this animal get into this terrible situation in the first place? (The number of giant snakes found wrapped around a dog is pretty unbelievable- usually it's a person abusing two animals they own.) How is this person running into so many animals in dangerous situations? (Especially when you look at their other videos and they reuse the same animals to "save".) I am outside daily and I don't come across anywhere near as many animals needing help like these content farm channels.

Even when videos are real, if they are not a trained rescue worker they are often doing more harm than good! The people kidnapping tortoises and "saving" them by throwing them out into lakes and rivers might have just killed that animal. Many tortoises are land animals and aren't built for swimming like sea turtles, they can easily drown! A surprising number of people don't understand seals need to rest on shore, and end up killing babies and harassing adults by chasing them into the water. Baby seals can't swim for long distances, and chasing them into the water means their mom won't be able to find the baby after she's done hunting fish- the baby will slowly starve to death if actual rescue workers do not intervene!

Heck, some people have found perfectly healthy and happy baby seals waiting for their moms on the beach, but because the person doesn't understand that the mom isn't there 100% of the time think the baby has been abandoned; a man kidnapped a pup when the rescue wouldn't send someone out to get the animal which not only hurt that pup whom he caused to be an orphan, but now that pup is taking up resources that could have been given to babies that actually needed it. Rescues don't have infinite resources and I don't want to put to words what can happen when they reach maximum capacity. (The guy was also very lucky he didn't get bit- seal bite infections are much worse than regular bites!) So many others people mistreat because they don't know better, like the baby seal that had people dumping water and ice on it like it was Free Willy. Or trying to feed them sandwiches. Both of these actions make life worse for the animal.

That video of a dog as a service animal rehabilitating a baby seal? That was made by a couple idiots who likely scared the mother off and caused the baby to starve to death just so they could make their intentionally misinformative video knowing full well they were lieing! Dogs should be leashed and kept far away from any seal as they are a reason many seals are horrifically mauled to death each year! Videos like this are absolutely vile as they misinform the public who own dogs and may see a seal on the beach and think, "Oh! My dog is a good boy and can go play with the water puppy! They enjoy that!" Please do not do this! Seals shouldn't be encouraged to associate with or like dogs, that puts puts in danger not only of cross contamination with things that can make them very sick, but you don't know the temperament of any and every dog that seal will see in its lifetime. All it takes is one- and there are plenty of dogs who act fine around human children and vicious around a random seal they find. The babies don't even have a chance against a full grown dog! Their ONLY chance is that situation never happens; keep your dog leashed, because it will see that seal and shoot off before you can stop it. As well behaved as your dog is on the best day, it has free will and at the end of the day is a dog and will be an animal.

Let's face it, most of us don't know the proper care of any and every wild animal we could run into and can only guess when faced with a genuinely unexpected situation. Any legitimate rescue video should start with the person contacting the local rescue to ask the experienced and knowledgeable staff what should be done if they themselves are not a trained rescuer. Often times the animal is perfectly fine, humans just see something they don't expect and misread what's going on causing a situation that didn't previously exist. Other times if there is an issue, the rescue will instruct the person what to do- which may be to keep an eye on the animal until trained rescuers can arrive. And lastly, please be aware of fake animal rescue channels and report any videos you see and inform others about this so these channels stop being praised and profiting from animal abuse.

[justkissmewip]

I read the intro post about this project and I was so curious, but before jumping in and reading the demo I decided to see the character post for A. And my excitement immediately died.

AI? Really?

I'm not opposed to the concept of AI alone, but right now it's just so deeply unethical. The ecological impact, the thousands and thousands of artists whose work was stolen and used to train those algorithms, sometimes leading to almost 1:1 copies of their creative work being produced and used for profit by someone else - those are all issues that are often discussed in creative spaces.

And even if you don't care about all that - how are your readers supposed to trust you? How are they supposed to trust that you're actually making what you're saying you're making instead of just feeding prompts to AI?

There are just so many ethical alternatives and some of them are even free. You could commission an artist. You could look through some archives for free use vintage illustrations of schools like the one you have in your header. You could use picrew for the character portraits to have that visualisation without reaching for AI. Some IF authors just find face claims among actors and celebrities.

It's just disappointing to see someone who's a part of this beautiful, vibrant, and creative group that is the IF writing community, use inventions that currently hurt artists all over the world.

Hmm, okay, this is a heavy one! Ha-ha, a post like this is definitely a good way to wake me up in the morning.

I want to apologize to artists on this forum (well, and all artists everywhere) for using AI art. I did it with no ill-will; I simply wanted a placeholder in the meantime so that readers could get an idea of what these characters look like. AI is a great tool for people who do not have the funds or access to other materials. But, this person makes some great points - there is a lot of uncertainty around AI, such as legality, and particularly the point about AI chatbots being trained using artists work without their permission. I really don't want to cause anyone harm, nor do I want to get into trouble honestly, so I'm going to stop using AI images from now on.

However, I do not appreciate the implication that using AI art is an automatic indication that I am using AI to generate my story and am no longer trustworthy. Writing interactive fiction is a lot of work, as I'm sure many of you know, and I take it very seriously. I want to produce the best product possible of course! So, rest assured that ChatGPT isn't currently churning out the next chapter of JKM. It wouldn't write Sawyer right anyways ;)

Art is not cheap, which makes a lot of sense, because artists deserve to be paid adequately for their work. So, I'm not going to look into art assets too much now until JKM is close to being finished, which is probably not any time soon if I'm being honest. I would rather wait and get some quality work that I think suits the characters then use anything else, especially since I personally imagine the characters in a more comic-book/anime style anyways. I apologize for that! But, the imagination is much better than any AI images I would have uploaded anyways.

To all artists, again, I am sorry! I appreciate and respect your hard work and efforts. I look forward to working with some of you as JKM progresses and I need to commission some art. Because trust me when I say I am not artistically inclined at all :).

To the person who wrote this, thank you for your great points. I can appreciate your passion about protecting artists. Hopefully you can give JKM another chance despite this setback.

Cheers,

Lucky

[lightofraye]

Hi there!

Per request, I cropped your name.

I also sent you an apology privately for how long it'd taken me to get to this. Largely because it's just a depressing thing to talk about. Danneel is doing classic abuser techniques here--putting him down; humiliating him in front of others (when at cons like Wales Comic Con) or having him repeating negative stories at cons himself; continuously finding fault with him; making him feel like the foolish one; disregarding his thoughts and/or emotions; and using sarcasm to cause harm.

Imagine having your own spouse, your partner of what... 17 years?... saying "You'll do" when they're stanning other, wealthier actors and stars. Like, wow. Consolation prize? Thanks? As though she didn't force his hand into proposing to him. Mind, Jensen even said she laid down an ultimatum--propose or she walked. That's love, for sure!

Imagine landing no less than three shows with Amazon and a regular guest starring appearance on a major broadcaster... and still being told "Not impressed". God. That's painful.

He may likely be so busy that despite what some AAs are saying ("It's only 1.5 hour flight to home!"), he might not even fly back home all that much. Why would he? For his kids? Absolutely. For his so-called loving wife? Not so much.

Have you noticed in that clip, Jared had to stop Jensen from rambling? Because he was listening to his friend and brother in all but blood put himself down repeatedly, hearing how his friend's wife is being emotionally abusive... in public, no less. I can't even imagine how Jared feels about this.

Mind, Jared knew Danneel before Jensen did (or so Danneel claimed). Ever notice how they barely ever hang out in the past? If all four of them--Jared, Gen, Jensen and Danneel--did hang out, Jared was rarely spotted with her. He knew what kind of person she was and wanted nothing to do with her.

Even Gen barely engaged with Danneel. Oh, Gen was friendly and warm in public--I'm reminded of that one live video where Gen praised Danneel's acting as Sister Jo/Anael on Sueprnatural and the look Danneel gave her... Danneel knew Gen didn't mean it.

Getting sidetracked here.

I know a lot of anti Jensens won't agree with me here, and that's all fine. We're allowed different opinions. Even those who are "Jensen critical" would disagree as well. Also fine. What I'm about to say next is my own personal opinion, speculation, and observation.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a survivor of abuse. From childhood onward, I've endured a variety. Emotional neglect, physical abuse, even sexual abuse as a child. That wrecks people. Because we're experiencing abuse from the hands of people who should love us. So if our own parents, siblings, relatives, whatever, are hurting us... we start to think: "Did I do something to deserve this mistreatment? Am I such a horrible person?"

And if that isn't corrected--and too often childhood survivors are overlooked and ignored, not able to get the help they desperately need, they often develop and grow into insecure adults with low self-esteem and low self-value.

One very common refrain will ring in their minds: "I am unworthy and undeserving of love."

This is where I feel Jensen's issues stem from. He was exploited by his parents for their gain and profit. Modeling, acting, often told by his father he's being punished out of love (thus creating a negative association of what love really is), and likely surrounded by a lot of people who use him for their gain and profit.

I can't speculate on the relationship between his parents, but what little I've heard and seen of Alan Ackles, it doesn't sound like a healthy example either.

If you don't know what a healthy relationship looks like, or experience it yourself... one struggles a lot. It's how generational trauma is created. My paternal grandfather... was abusive. Emotional and... otherwise (there's a massive skeleton in that closet that left me floored when I discovered it). My own father continued it. I'm determined to break it and I think I've largely succeeded. No, I didn't have a healthy relationship, but I grew strong enough to know what I had wasn't it.

I'd rather be single than in an unhappy relationship. Unfortunately, for so many survivors and victims, it's never easy. Because the voices in their head parroting the fears back to them lie.

It's sadly easier to say "Oh. That person made that choice! It's their own damned fault they're unhappy!" Or "They're the ones who stay!" It's easier to judge than it is to admit that it's not a cut-and-dry situation. That breaking the emotional abuse cycle, that breaking free from abuse in general, is never, ever easy.

I speak from experience. I lost quite a few friends because they actually thought I wanted to stay, or that I was being unreasonable in my fear. Not once did they bother to reach out and try to understand from my end.

"Oh just leave!"

No... it's never easy to "just leave".

Jensen's trapped in a very vicious cycle right now. He finds it easier to put himself down and think he deserves it, than to admit that he's in a situation that he could leave. It's scary to leave. It's the unknown. It's easier, in so many ways, to live with the pain we know than the pain we don't.

Danneel knows it, feeds on it, uses it.

I rambled on a lot. I appreciate your ask and your compassion for Jensen.

Thank you for reading.

[crazy-pages]

The new Rings of Power season still sucks. Let's talk about why.

The thing is, there's enough decent ideas and good acting and definitely enough budget to make excellent television. The problem isn't any one part of the process, the problem is systemic logistical issues.

Streaming services' continued attempts to alter their tv model to undercut legacy profit sharing agreements with unions is causing them logistical issues they can't overcome by throwing more money at the problem. Even if they spend more money than they save undercutting worker profits, it doesn't help because what makes good television is adequate funding of good collaborative project structures, not overfunding bad structures. You can't just pawn a blacksmith's anvil and then pay them twice the worth of the anvil to do good metal working if they don't have any way to get a new anvil!

Like, the new format of shorter seasons with longer episodes lets them streaming services pay talent less for residuals ... but television was structured that way for a reason. It makes it harder to do good pacing.

Cutting staff in the writing room, reducing turnaround time, and taking writers off of the set so they can't do last minute adjustments saves a bunch of money sure. But it also makes it worse writing. Duh. And you can't just pay more prestigious writers or pay writers more to fix this, because the lack of ancillary staff and the shorter timelines are not skill issues.

Tightening control over worker flexibility, local authority, budgetary decisions, and ability to tell their bosses no, along with cycling through different contractor companies over the course of a project, makes it much more difficult for workers to unionize and allows for more precise budgetary promises to upper management.

But it's how you get stuff like the plastic looking armor in the first season on a budget absolutely dwarfing what Lord of the Rings used to make the most impressive chainmail props to ever exist. Because it's just not possible anymore to hire one specific team for almost a decade of project time, hire them before the project is fully committed to give them extra lead time, and give them broad budgetary control and even influence over what battle sizes are going to look like to accommodate for production uncertainties. If you can't say no to your boss if your boss suddenly demands double the armor for a battle next month, or to change a lead character design next week, you can't make it look good, full stop. It doesn't matter the size of the budget you're given because a larger budget doesn't fix the other constraints. You just have to do it out of plastic and foam because there's no alternative which keeps you under budget and reliable and capable of accommodating absurd director whims.

Shareholder capitalism is obsessed with the idea that of you make ever increasing monetary returns the only incentive structure, companies will just figure out how to make it work and deliver on that. There's not any thought given to knock-on effects like instability, or harms like worsened quality of life for workers.

And this glorification of profit as the only thing relevant to a business also means that company executives have forgotten that it takes more than money to make quality. It's not just that more outcomes matter than money, it's that more means matter than money. Throwing money at something is not a panacea, you need logistical structures which are more complicated than their input money values and their output money values! And if you strip mine those structures to make the output money value of a particular business subsection go up, and put constraints on them to make the input money value go down, you can end up with a business thats total is less than the sum of its parts.

So yes, as the old adage goes, you need to spend money to make money. But executives also need to let other folk down the chain spend company money in ways they don't perfectly control without freaking out over it.

Otherwise you can spend a record-breaking amounts of money and create nothing but mediocrity.

[devil-doms]

If the Brothers forgot about you

(referring to my other post)

TW/CW: harm/abuse, angst, yelling, them acting like demons (if you need more TWs please let me know)

note: i had a tough time writing asmo and beel, so they might be a little out of character

Solomon was over as usual to teach you a new spell. This one was a request from you, a memory loss spell. You were curious if you could make Lucifer forget about your punishment for failing a test.

Just as you were about to cast the spell, Solomon was requested by Simeon to hurry to the Celestial Realm for there had be an emergency. Solomon tells you to wait till he gets back to try the spell, since you won’t be able to reach him for a bit.

After an hour you grow impatient and decide to do the spell yourself, I mean how bad could it go?

Lo and behold you messed up bad, real bad.

After casting the spell everyone in the house grew super sleepy, falling asleep where they were. After you woke up, you did your daily morning routine. But when you finally made it to the dining room, everyone was staring at you with confusion...

Lucifer:

"How did a human get in here? Who are you?" Lucifer asked, "How did you get in here?"

"What do you mean? This isn’t the type of joke you would do." It hit you, Lucifer isn't the type to play jokes, definitely not something like this.

Lucifer stood up, pushing the table back a little bit, "This isn't a game, when I ask who you are, you answer me."

“Wait, do you not know who I am?"

"If I did I wouldn't be asking these questions, now would I? I'm done repeating myself." He starts approaching you, raven-esuqe wings sprout from his back. You panic and look at the other brothers for help, hoping they would tell him to stop. But they don't, they stay silent and resume their breakfast.

Lucifer grabs your arm and starts dragging you to the stairwell, "When I ask you something you answer me, when you want to cause problems you will be punished. A human like you will be lucky to survive the punishments I give."

You panic more, trying to think of things to make him realize he's made a mistake, "Lucifer, come on, its me...I know…that you locked Belphie in the attic because he was a threat, you like your tea on the bitter side...and you're so strict because you want to protect your brothers, you love them."

Lucifer stops abruptly, "How do you know that..." "Because I was here, I live here, we're family..." You say, still trembling with fear.

He presses his fingers against his temple and sighs, "I will speak with Lord Diavolo about this and see what he says about the whole ordeal. If it comes up that you're lying, you will be punished accordingly." To be honest, he really didn't want to punish you, something about it felt wrong.

Mammon:

"How much do ya think they can sell for? We don't get humans down here, its organs should make me a nice profit." He stands up and starts poking and prodding at your body, counting your organs, "Cha-ching, this is a walking money bag right here."

"Very funny." You say sarcastically, thinking it was just Mammon goofing around again.

"Hush, money shouldn't be talkin. I'll deal with ya later." He sits back down at the table to continue eating. A rush of sadness came over you, why would he say something like that? You follow him to the table, "What does that mean?"

Mammon sighs, refusing to make eye contact with you, "I ain't takin care of some human, definitely one like yourself, leave me alone."

Your furrow your eyebrows, "Do you seriously not know me?"

"..."

You lightly shove him, "Answer me!"

He quickly stands up, towering over you. Bat-like wings came out of his back. You felt so tiny, so weak underneath him. You're overwhelmed, your vision begins to get cloudy from tears and you feel them roll down your face, "You know me..." You quietly say.

Mammon's anger quickly turned to sympathy, there was something about you that he recognized, he couldn't bring himself to hurt you, "Somethin's not right, you remind me of someone..."

Levi:

You stare at Levi, after all the weird occurrences that have happened in this house, he should know what’s going on.

"Why are you looking at me? Do you think some otaku like me can't harm you? I can do it, I'll summon Lotan right now-"

You quickly shake your hands at him, "No, no that's not necessary."

He glared at you, "Of course its not, nothing I do is necessary." He gets up from his seat, “I’m going back to my room.” He walks away, taking his food with him.

Did he...not recognize you...? Before any of the other brothers could speak to you, you ran to Levi's room. You knocked on the door, "The second lord." You said, then patiently waited for him to open it.

He cracks his door, "How did you know...?"

"Because we're friends...can I come in...?"

He sighs and opens the door enough for you to slip in, quickly shutting it behind him, "I don't have friends, and I wouldn't even want to be friends with some human normie...”

“Levi…”

“I'm not the type to have loads of friends, I'm not Satan, I'm not Asmo, I'm just some worthless otaku!" You can feel the envy radiating off his body, his hands become fists, you watch him turn into his demon-self.

He walks towards you, arms trembling, "I'm not deserving of it, and you shouldn't be either." Your body is pressed against the wall, there is nowhere to go. You do the only thing you can think of doing, and grasp his hands, interlocking your fingers. He pauses, he's taken aback, "I recognize...your touch..."

Satan:

“Satan, why are you looking at me like that?” You ask, standing in place. Something was telling you not to get near the table.

“Why are talking to me like we’re friends, I don’t know you.”

“Yeah, you do, why’re you acting like that?”

“Who are you to tell me what I do and do not know, you are but a mere insignificant human. You do not know me.” His glare pierced through your heart.

He stood up, "I don’t know why you’re here, the human exchange program ended a year ago, you're not apart of that. You don't matter, I could tear you limb from limb and it wouldn't matter." A green aura surrounded him, he was gonna transform.

You gulp hard, you know that this wasn’t an empty threat. He could if he really wanted to, “You know me…we’re family.”

“Is that so? How are we family if I don’t even know of your existence?” He walks over to you and gets right in your face, waiting for your answer.

“I…I know that you want to be your own person, you hate living in Lucifers shadow. But, you are your own person! You’re quick witted, composed, you tend to overthink things-” You stop when he grabs your wrists, but with a trembling voice you continue, “You…you butt heads with Lucifer, but you really look up to him, you love him.”

Satan grips your wrists tighter, but he’s at loss for words. When he makes eye contact with you, he sees the fear he’s invoked and loosens his grip, letting you go. Something clicked, he messed up, he wasn’t supposed to hurt you, “I’m…sorry…”

Asmo:

"Ohhhhhh~ a human, you can be my new plaything! Come over here and look into my eyes, I want to seduce you."

You were confused but approached him anyways, “You know that seduction doesn’t work for me.”

His eyes widen, “I do? Ahhhh it must be because you’ve already fallen for me then! My powers must be stronger.”

“Do you…not know me…?”

“Of course not, I think I would remember a cute little human like you.” He places a hand on your arm and slowly rubs it.

You back away from him, “I don’t know if this is some new fetish of yours, but stop.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Dear, I don’t think you know who I am. I, the Avatar of Lust, can always  seduce people.” He gets up from his chair, horns slowly start growing out of his head.

You panic and shout, “Asmo, stop!”

Just like that, he did, “I’ve made a pact with you…who are you?”

Beel:

"Who are you? If you came here to harm my family I will not hesitate to make you into a feast."

“Wh…why would you think that I was hear to harm you…?” You ask, “You know it’s me right…?”

“I don’t. You are intruding. Leave us.” He returns back to his food.

You stand in silence, not sure what to do. He was pushing you away, “Beel…come on…” He still doesn’t reply, he looks up at Belphie with an annoyed look on his face.

“Beel…”

He stands up quickly, the chair falling behind him, “Do I need to show you the door?” You flinch and he grabs your arm, escorting you to the front of the house.

“Beel please, I’m family, I…I protected you and Luke…I got Belphie out of the attic…” He grips you tighter, increasingly becoming more frustrated with you. Something was off to him though, but he ignored it, assuming it was only because he was hungry, “You’re hurting me…”

Beel glances down at you notices the tears streaming down your face, something in his brain clicked. He shouldn’t be doing this, he knows you. He lets go of your arm, he can already see the indentation he’s left on it.

He holds your hand, his voice filled with sympathy, “I have the feeling that I’m supposed to protect you…I’m sorry to have let you down.”

Belphie:

He was the only one of the brothers who didn’t look different, since he always looks annoyed.

“Belphie…?”

He sneers at you, “Do you mind? You’re lucky I’m too tired to kill you right now.”

Belphie was always cold, but threatening you like this was quite insensitive.

He raises his voice, “Heed my warning stupid human, that means leave.” But you don’t leave, you stand there, what’s he gonna do? Kill you again? There’s no way the brothers would allow it.

“Is every human this stupid…?” You feel a tail grace past your leg, you look down and see it slowly wrapping around your ankle. You try to back up, realizing you may have made a mistake, but his tail holds your leg in place.

When you look back up you’re met eye to eye with the demonic version of the Avatar of Sloth, and he was not happy. “Belphie, please, it’s me…”

“I don’t know you.” He reaches for your neck, wrapping both hands around it. You place your hands on top of his, trying to pry him off. He slowly lifts you, just enough to where your toes barely reach the ground. Your eyes dart around the room, waiting for the brothers to help, but they don’t. They act like nothing is going on.

You’re weakly hitting him now, maybe to knock some sense into him, but nothing is working. Your vision starts getting spotty, but before it could go black, he drops you. You land on your ass and quickly back away from him.

You watch as he stands there motionless, staring at his hands. He then drops to his knees, “I can’t…I can’t hurt you, something within me is stopping me. I cant help but feel that you’re important to me…”

Conclusion

Eventually Solomon came back and explained the situation to the brothers. Solomon scolded you for not waiting to do the spell, while Lucifer scolded the both of you for doing it in the first place.

Even if it was technically your doing for casting the spell, the brothers couldn’t help but feel horrible for the way they treated you. It was apologies after apologies for a bit. As well as something they’ll most likely reflect on.

[yearningaces]

THAT MAKES TWO LETS GO!

Tw: vauge mentions of death, murder, abortion, semi-emotional neglect(none of these things towards the reader of course)

I've been calling them the Hallewell.

They're a timeless species with very few still living and long lifespans, not thousands of years but a heafty hundreds they can live up to

Hallewell have humanoid forms either during the day or when they choose to retain them, but it's easier to do so when the sun is out or when they're emotionally calm

When they don't appear humanoid though it's a creature of nightmares, each different from the last depending on when and where they're born but the kicker is this

The moment a Hallewell is born, it will take the traits that terrifies one individual closest to them with a 'foul heart'.

Hallewell are born as a sort of boogyman for adults. Those who have been warped and twisted by either greed or envy or lust or hatred. Kids have low level boogymen to scare them, the Hallewell is a creature of nightmare that will hunt those similar to the foul hearted human it first is imprinted on.

If the Hallewell is born nearest to a human with corporate greed that's taken over their heart, knowingly sending workers into dangerous conditions with hardly any pay so that human can profit? The Hallewell will first hunt and kill that human when they're old enough. From then on they will chase down similar hearted humans, those who have fallen to greed. It will be their entire life's mission they will never stop until killed(which is near impossible, think Dullahan levels of difficult to kill) or they pass away peacefully of old age.

And for a fun fact, a Hallewell cannot make another Hallewell. They just happen in a way that no one understands because they're so rare and really undocumented. They might care for their birth families but easily outlive them and move along

NOW, they do have one weakness, and it's their 'heart'. Their moral compass and reason for being more than a hunting dead hearted being.

This person is one individual chosen by fate, in a sort of soulmate way, that the Hallewell would drop its life's duty for. This one individual can never be harmed without their Hallewell loosing it's grip on any semblance of kindness and goin mad to either stop that harm, by blatant torture and murder, or to avenge them.

If it comes to avenging their 'heart' they will go mad. That's their heart, their guiding force on how to be humane and ethical and good beyond their life purpose of hunting foul hearted humans. A Hallewell's heart being killed will lead to the most horrific event of a fully transformed Hallewell tearing apart anything and everything in sight. Only when they reach their hearts body will they stop, carry them away somewhere isolated, lay with that corpse and not move until they eventually die as well. Only moving at this point to lash out and kill anything that has risked getting to close.

If they have no body to protect until death, they won't stop their rampage until killed. Either by another Hallewell who is the only true force that could stop another of its kind at this point, or by some natural miracle.

Before meeting their 'heart', a Hallewell does good by killing off humans that make others suffer, yes. But they're horrible individuals. Not outright malicious for no reason, and often having a soft spot for creatures of innocence, willing to lend a hand in passing. But that's about it. If you're not a Hallewell's heart, they couldn't care less what happens to you. They will be harsh and cold and rude and damn well cutthroat

The only exception and hardly by anything is their own children.

If a Hallewell has children outside of their heart (which could only happen by accident and only before meeting their heart cause they are loyal to the last breath mind you)

They'll care for the parent financially and physically but will have an emotional detachment. If the parent raises the kid, great. Go along have a nice life I'll send a heafty sum of money on the dot each month that should support both of you but never reach out if you don't have to. (Not a good thing, but as I said-)

If the parent refuses to raise a kid, fine. They will but again they'll be emotionally detached. In some ways they would care by keeping the kid safe and secure, but wouldn't form a bond with them. They'd defend them if they felt it necessary but it wouldn't be out of love, moreso just duty.

If it's a female Hallewell that gets pregnant there's almost no other option than an abortion. She won't go through with a child unless the father pleads for the child and swears to leave her in peace afterwards (will still offer financial support they're not deadbeats just so heavily detached from everyone that isn't their fated 'heart')

That's where my specific character comes in

Consider this medieval times, distant little town of Newhaven

Declan is a Hallewell who preys on humans across the lands who focus on greed of power, towns who's Lord overexerts his power over people to make himself feel good, husbands or wives who abuse their family to feel stronger, those sort. Power hungry. He's a few hundred years old, an older Hallewell, has some unspoken history he keeps tabs on but for the most part travels alone. Settling town by town in humanoid form and traveling by night in the form of a beastly creature as tall as the trees and walking on all four clawed paws.

Consider a griffin but instead of an eagle head and a body split between bird and lion it's a true blend.

Feline features yet instead of fur there's soft under feathers and a more coarse layer of dark brown feathers covering them. Heavy wings with a slightly lighter color under them as well as under his stomach and chest. His head looks more akin to a soft beaked hawk, but wider, more broad, covered entirely in those fur like feathers (trico from the last guardian sort of face, but more filled out and completely covered in feathers) elongated ears, sharp large fangs, horns that tip backwards slightly and a lion looking tail but instead of hair at the end it's feathers more dense and long like on his wings. He's a big fuckin monster that does great at appearing human.

Cause in his human form he's a big burly scruffy looking dude with dark brown hair that's slightly greying at the temple and some stubble on his face that could grow into a full beard if he'd stop trimming it. He's just a big fucking dude that looks like a powerhouse (not bodybuilder but heavyweight lifter sort of build. More fat covering that muscle.)but actually is a big fucking monster hidden in that form

And as these stories go, of course, you are his 'heart'

So you decide how he acts, you're his moral compass. If you don't care about something, he won't care. If you want someone dead and gone it's already done, if you want someone kept safe give him a moment to realize he has to aid someone OTHER than you but he will with gusto. He makes up for his hatred of everything else by absolute devotion to his heart

Would 100% kneel at your feet no matter your stature in the middle of town without giving a shit cause in his eyes you're all that matters, anyone else be damned and if they don't mind their business he'll simply be rid of them

So have fun with that

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Universities secretly sold their students to online casinos

End-stage capitalism’s defining characteristic is making money rather than making things. Think of how Jack Welch destroyed GE by transforming it from a manufacturing company to a financial engineering shop:

https://the.ink/p/like-capitalism-itself-business-journalism

Hospitals are invoice-generating factories with a sideline in medicine. The electronic health record only incidentally records your health. Its primary purpose is to record your billing-codes:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/physicians-spending-nearly-2-hours-a-day-on-ehr-tasks-outside-work.html

And universities? Ugh. Most universities now have more administrators than faculty:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/08/administrative-bloat-harms-teaching-and-learning/

Much of that “administration” comes down to begging alums for money to funnel into vast endowments, but heaven forfend those endowments would be used to cover payroll and other essentials, even in a pandemic emergency:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/reneemorad/2020/04/21/harvard-under-fire-for-accepting-nearly-9-million-in-coronavirus-relief-funds/

Nor are endowment funds available to pay the education workers who actually teach students, but can’t afford the rent, food, or family:

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/11/14/nearly-50000-university-of-california-graduate-student-employees-launch-open-ended-strike/

The point of the endowment is to increase the size of the endowment — not to improve educational outcomes or research. That’s why Harvard is “A hedge fund that has a university”:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-hedge-fund-that-has-a-university-1510615228

This is the overwhelming logic of capital: capital exists to increase capital, and the underlying mechanism for that increase is irrelevant. This was the reasoning behind the surreal bid to sell the .ORG nonprofit registry to a secretive hedge-fund.

The point of the .ORG registry is to host domain records for nonprofits; incidentally, this throws off some extra money that is turned into grants for public interest projects. The board decided to sell off .ORG so it could make more of these grants, despite the fact that this would compromise the mission of hosting .ORG domain records:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/org-domain-registry-sale-ethos-capital-rejected-stunning-victory-public-interest

Likewise, this was the reasoning of the Mountain Equipment Co-Op board when they decided to sell off the member-owned co-op (“the most trusted brand in Canada”) to a US private equity fund without consulting the members:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/16/spike-lee-joint/#casse-le-mec

The expand-capital-at-all-costs mindset is a virulent species of brain worms. It’s the basis for surreal movements like effective altruism, which encourages people who want to do good for the world to sell out to the most toxic industries on Earth, amass gigantic fortunes, and then, upon their death, donate them to causes that in some way remediate the harms they themselves wreaked:

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

In his new book Survival of the Richest, Douglas Rushkoff calls this “The Mindset” — “I need to make vast amounts of money, no matter what the consequences, or I will not be able to afford to insulate myself from the consequences of how I made all that money”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Once you let people with The Mindset anywhere near your institution, they will take it over and turn it into a paperclip-maximizing killing machine, one that abandons and then betrays its mission to increase its profits, eventually killing its host. Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop:

https://doctorow.medium.com/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-will-eventually-stop-110ba9711133

That’s what’s happened to higher ed. It’s not just the payroll full of starving adjuncts, facilities workers, etc. It’s not just the way that universities join forces with textbook monopolists to gouge their students:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/07/markets-in-everything/#textbook-abuses

Beyond academics having to rely on food-stamps, students going into lifetime debt to enrich predatory textbook monopolies, and the other horrors of financialized higher ed, there’s the special evil of college sports.

Like all finance-bro motivated reasoning, college sports are sold as a way to do well by doing good: “Look! We’re giving poor people a chance at a great education based on their physical prowess, and we’re racking up tons of money for the university!”

But — like all finance schemes — college sports is a self-licking ice-cream cone that destroys the lives of the people who generate value for it, even as it devours its host institution from within.

Did you know that until very recently, college athletes weren’t allowed to make a penny from their labor?

https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/in-unanimous-ruling-court-agrees-with-athletes-that-ncaa-violated-antitrust-laws/

Did you know that those same athletes experience lifelong brain injuries?

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791303

Did you know that college sports are a cesspit of long-term, officially tolerated sexual abuse?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/30/ohio-state-michigan-doctors-sexual-abuse-college-football

Did you know that the highest paid public employee in many states is a football coach at a state college?

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/highest-paid-college-football-coaches-2022/

Did you know that college coaches conspired with the rich parents to steal sport-related admission slots from poor kids and give them to mediocre winners of the orifice-lottery?

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

In many universities — whether public or private — the sports program effectively runs the show. Take the University of New Hampshire: back in 2016, a university librarian named Robert Morin left his life’s savings to the school after 50 years of service. Morin lived frugally for that half century and amassed a personal fortune of $4m.

He believed so deeply in the university’s mission that he turned it all over to the school without any restrictions. Talk about earning to give! The university blew Morin’s gift on a new jumbotron for their sports stadium:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/16/university-to-buy-1-million-football-scoreboard-with-thrifty-librarians-money-outraging-critics/

The people who see universities as inconvenient adjuncts to exploitative sports teams know that there are still rivals within higher ed who think the point of the school is to educate students.

That’s why the universities that arranged to allow sports gambling websites to target the young people in their care did so in secret.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/business/caesars-sports-betting-universities-colleges.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhlSVUZAybfQMMmqBCdnr_EybEnj2XlaTONTixe1KEfDpSc-kHCILdlZsU-xS-aWN5MK_okQ_h2w-BSJAptVwys6NOiqagyHh8U-8i1T39kmNXER6w5-jvnKWDmIe5ymOTn-hvbbzH1XKzbg2lxIVpvvZY2d12t3yMDwKmVFfVnmYUrhYdXDZ54TT8KZiWY7bK_W1glZoLwPlyL4RI2WupZRTnQgdWfjrsCew5TAl7FJ2httSd-sJgPfYNKY9usakIoa8H8gr4OCmd3LYvPBpQ5RILck70Coqf9dPDE9RFVhqXegnp2EK4F

Writing for the New York Times, Anna Betts, Andrew Little, Elizabeth Sander, Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly and Walt Bogdanich reveal the extraordinary corruption and depravity of college administrators who colluded with sports book companies to bring gambling to campus.

Implicated in the scandal are such top schools as Michigan State, U Colorado Bolder, Louisiana State, Syracuse and Texas Christian Univeristy (mission: “to educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens”).

On the casino side, the major player is Caesar’s, which is only fitting — Caesar’s was driven to bankruptcy by private equity who managed to financialize a casino into ruin:

https://www.ft.com/content/a0ed27c6-a2d4-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2

Caesar’s offered universities millions of dollars for the right to directly sports betting to students. The MSU deal, brokered by university officials Paul Schager and Alan Haller, was worth $8.4m. That is to say, Caesar’s was asking the university to help it drain at least $8.4m from students’ bank accounts in order to turn a profit.

Louisiana State U did a similar deal with Caesar’s, and then embarked on a direct marketing campaign to sell sports gambling to students who were too young to legally place a bet.

LSU says this was a mistake. Cody Worsham, a university official who holds two offices — associate athletic director and chief brand officer (!!) — said that Caesar’s and LSU “share a commitment to responsible, age-appropriate marketing.”

Meanwhile, U Colorado Boulder struck a deal where it earned a $30 bounty every time a student went from non-gambler to gambler — in other words, Boulder didn’t make money by advertising gambling to students — it made money only if its students started gambling.

These student gambling programs are designed to keep children betting even if they lose money, with teaser offers that refund some losses if students keep placing bets.

This is obviously unsavory stuff. That’s why the architects of these programs went to enormous lengths to keep it secret. The state schools involved funneled their deals through private marketing agencies that were shielded from FOIA requests, specifically to prevent the public from learning how public universities were conducting their affairs.

As MSU executive associate athletic director Paul Schager put it: “With the multimedia rights holder, public institutions like Michigan State no longer have to disclose all those sponsorship deals. This helps with the sponsors being able to spend what they feel is appropriate without having the public or employees or stockholders question that investment.”

The deals themselves are far-reaching. As part of MSU’s Caesar’s deal, tailgate parties before big games would be “Caesarized,” with the casino providing ad-copy for the live announcers to read to attendees. As a figleaf, $25,000 of the millions that MSU received from Caesar’s was earmarked for gambling addiction education.

The deals weren’t just kept secret from the public — they were also hidden from top university oversight. At UC Bolder, the Board of Regents was informed of the deal mere hours before it was announced to the public.

These deals have only been running for a couple months and it’s too soon to chart the long-term harms they’ll create in the student body. But, the Times* notes, there is an one harm that surfaced almost immediately: student athletes are now subject to vicious abuse by their fellow students, who lose money they can’t afford when their peers lose a game.

[Image ID: A gaudy casino floor. In the foreground is a figure in college graduation robes giving a double thumbs-up. His head is a grinning skull with a mortarboard.]

[darkmaga-retard]

How monopolized, industrialized, managerialist medicine is harming us and how we can remedy our ills.

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

Sep 11, 2024

Whether the influence of big pharma that profits from sickness, compromised public health agencies controlled by the very industries they are supposed to regulate, a biosecurity state that tends to jump from one declared health emergency to the next, medicine is now in danger of causing more sickness than it heals.

The year I was born, 1976, saw the publication if Ivan Illich’s prophetic book, Medical Nemesis, which opens with the startling claim, “The medical establishment has become a major threat to health.”[i] The book explores the epidemic of iatrogenic disease—that is, illnesses caused by medical interventions—which has only worsened in the nearly half century since this book was published. Most of the current research literature on iatrogenesis focuses on the problem of medical errors, and how to institute systems that can minimize errors. This is obviously important to address, but medical errors are only part of the story of how medicine is harming us.

Illich’s basic thesis was that some systems, including our healthcare system, improve outcomes only until they expand to a certain industrialized size, monopolized scope, and level of technological power. Once this threshold is reached, without intending to do so, these systems paradoxically cannot help but inflict harm and undermine their stated aims. Illich diagnosed “the disease of medical progress” in its early stages; I believe this disease has now reached its advanced stage. The problem is political and not merely professional: he argued that “the layman and not the physician has the potential perspective and effective power to stop the current iatrogenic epidemic.”[ii] Indeed, “among all our contemporary experts, physicians are those trained to the highest level of specialized incompetence for this urgently needed pursuit.”

[purplesaline]

Piracy is preservation, and authors would rather have their books in front of people who can't access many books for free instead of looking those people in the eye and saying "fork over your month's earnings"

Shut up

To be clear, I'm not against Piracy in general. In fact I'm not only an advocate, I'm a prolific pirate myself.

I'm sure you can find a handful of authors who feel that way, but those I know personally (one indie author and one traditionally published) as well as those I've seen comment on the issue are adamant that piracy has caused them significant personal harm.

They'd far rather people who can't afford their books use libraries to access them or, if the libraries they have access too don't carry the book(d), they'd rather people reach out to them personally to arrange for a copy within their budget (sometimes including for free).

Pirating books is not the same as pirating movies. It's the difference between attacking a Spanish galleon and a fishing sloop.

Bigger names like Brandon Sanderson, Steven King, Diana Gabaldon, etc have a entire fleet of sloops and are unlikely to miss a couple going missing, but the less famous (and thus less highly paid) authors can have their entire career ruined by their book being pirated. It can even prevent them from getting offered another book deal, meaning there won't be any more books by that author for you to read.

We aren't entitled to the intellectual property of others. Full stop.

If the author wanted their book to be free, they'd have made it freely available (as some do!). Maybe if everyone had a universal basic income that covered the cost of living we'd see more art available at no cost, but as it stands artists need to make a living too and that means they need to earn a profit to survive. If they can't do that with their art they have to find another way to do it which means less time and energy to make art.

Not to mention the advance an author gets is usual peanuts, and unlike actors who get paid by the time the movie is out, an advance isn't a wage and if the author doesn't sell enough books they have to give back whatever amount of the advance the sale of their books didn't cover. If they get a $5000 advance and only sell $3000 worth of books they owe the publisher $2000.

Again, I'm not against piracy. I am against harming individual artists to the point where it significantly impacts their career. I want more art in this world.

I'm also not telling people they can't, or shouldn't pirate books. I'm against it but I'm not trying to for e others to believe the same as me. I'm providing information so people can make a more informed decision and better understand the consequences of their choices.

So do what you will with the info I've provided. Just be willing to acknowledge the harm you cause with those choices. Even the piracy I take part in causes harm on a smaller scale.

I have no argument against "I don't care, I'm doing it anyway" and I won't bother trying to argue it.

[danielfuckingricciardo]

Why Anita Driver should be Stopped - An Essay(ish) Post

Hi. So I don’t often do long posts like this, you probably know me as a fic writer and shitposter, but this situation has been irking me since I first read about it and so I only felt it right to explain why.

First off, I wanna say that I understand what she’s doing (I’m going to refer to Anita as she/her throughout this though I have no clue on the author’s actual gender identity). I think she’s very intelligent, using pastiche and parody to create content tailored towards a certain specific audience.

But as someone who knows their fandom history, and has moved in fanfiction circles for over 10 years, the attention one specific book I’m not going to refer to by title because I may throw up in my mouth a little, has received has me very worried for F1 RPF writers as a whole.

RPF has always been a main stay of fanfiction culture. Though there are many ‘antis’ who think it’s wrong and inappropriate to write about real people, RPF fandoms, think One Direction, BTS etc have always been some of the biggest out there.

And I’m sure you’ve seen as popular fan works such as the ‘After’ series by Anna Todd and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ by E.L. James have transitioned from fan work into published original novels.

Because of this, fan works are booming. Fanfiction is less of a dirty little secret now, confined to locked sites and email chains, but is something that many people know about even if they don’t consume it themselves.

And so, enter Anita Driver. Capitalising on the BookTok trend of ‘spicy’ fiction (what I would call erotica), the author has taken it upon herself to self publish a novel in that similar style but using Daniel Ricciardo not just as inspiration, but as the main protagonist.

I get what she’s trying to do, I really do. I can see that it’s parody, it’s not meant to be taken seriously, but firstly it’s illegal and secondly it really puts fanfiction communities at risk.

Part One: Defamation

Legally, you can’t take someone else’s identity and profit off of it without their explicit consent to do so. There’s a reason Harry Styles became Hardin Scott, and Edward Cullen became Christian Grey. That’s someone else’s intellectual property, or their identity. You cannot legally make a profit out of that. The subject could quite easily build a lawsuit against the author, and the author would have no grounds for defence. There’s a reason AO3 do not allow you to share fundraising links or anything else similar to that, and it’s to protect themselves and the authors against possible lawsuits.

I’d also just like to add that there’s plenty of erotic F1 inspired books out there. I haven’t read them myself but I know that the ‘Dirty Air’ series draws inspiration from current drivers on the grid, but doesn’t explicitly mention anyone real by name! Every character is the intellectual property of the author, it is original fiction that can safely make a profit.

By using Daniel Ricciardo’s image and personality, Anita Driver is putting herself at risk, in this case, not for theft of intellectual property, but of defamation. I haven’t read the book, of course I haven’t read the book, but I can easily believe that the content within could be considered to be defamatory as it may damage public perceptions of him. Now I’m no expert on law, I took a semester of media law and that’s it, but people have definitely sued for less.

In U.K. law (which I’m going off because I know the most about it) “A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.” (x) It could easily be said that portraying Daniel in this way would cause damage to his reputation. We know his image isn’t squeaky clean, but having this book using his name could easily lead people to believe that he was in some way associated with its production. I don’t think anyone would like their public perception to be that they actively encourage and fund the production of erotica about them.

In a lawsuit, Amazon could also be held liable for this, as their website is the main distribution platform for the book, and Anita Driver is a pseudonym and and an unknown.

“It is a defence for the operator to show that it was not the operator who posted the statement on the website. The defence is defeated if the claimant shows that it was not possible for the claimant to identify the person who posted the statement.” (x) If Anita Driver remains anonymous, Amazon could easily be held liable in a court case. Because of this, it would be in their best interests to remove the book to avoid this. (I do not like Amazon, and while they would easily be able to fight the court case with their billions, it would be much easier for them to remove the book and avoid any possible cases.)

So honestly, it is easy to see why this book is a danger to the author. Now I’m not saying that Daniel would necessarily sue. I think he’d probably just laugh it off even if it does make him feel uncomfortable (which it probably does, it would me!) because he has more important things to do. But I honestly don’t know how F1 and Liberty Media might react to this, they would definitely be more likely considering Daniel’s Reputation in turn reflects their own.

Part Two: Danger to Fan Works

This leads me in nicely to part two, actually, because legal threats against fanfiction writers have been a real problem to various communities over the years. Anne Rice, creator of the ‘Interview with a Vampire’ series, had all works purged from the internet in the early 2000s, and threatened writers with legal action if they continued to post fanfiction.

Fanfiction has always been a niche. It’s a small part of the internet for those who want to put their blorbos in situations, or just to think about them fucking nasty. But fan works haven’t always been accepted. Many people still look down on fanfiction, particularly those feature OCs (original characters) or reader inserts.

Anita Driver’s book would be more at home on Wattpad than Kindle Unlimited. It is a fan work. It is written by fans, for fans, and should be kept to that specific audience (without paying for it of course, because as I said, it’s very illegal!)

A work of fanfiction being a book is nothing new, as I mentioned earlier, the ‘After’ series and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ started out life as fanfiction. But when published, they were no longer fanfiction, they became original works of their own.

Putting fan works out in the open like that only threatens the F1 RPF community. It leaves us open, vulnerable, more so than normal. Sites like AO3 can only protect us to a certain extent, we can lock fics, sure, but that only stops those who don’t have an account from accessing our works.

If this one book is out there, who knows what may happen next. All it takes is for someone to say ‘I don’t want works featuring me published online and I will threaten a lawsuit’ and we’re back to email chains and password locked neocities webpages.

So it genuinely makes me worry.

And with the recent development of Dax Shepard sharing the book with Daniel himself, I feel that it’s all just too close. Fanfiction is never meant to be seen or read by its original subjects. Sure, they may actively seek it out if they want to, but unless they explicitly consent to it, they shouldn’t be seeing it. Daniel has had no say in the matter, it seems. It is being forced on him, which is going to look bad for the fanfiction community as a whole.

Part Three: Conclusion

Honestly, I don’t know whether I’m just being overly freaked out by this whole thing, I hope it just nicely blows over, the book disappears from people’s minds and we get to just keep our niche little side of the internet safe. But part of me is scared.

I’m scared for what may come, if the book is popular, will people try and emulate it? Will people start ripping fics from Tumblr/AO3/Wattpad to sell on Amazon to make a quick buck off the back of this? And will we have another Anne Rice type situation which kills the community completely?

I don’t know. And that’s what worries me. I hope that this whole thing blows over, that Daniel isn’t too freaked out, and that Anita Driver stops using ai image generators to make her book covers (Lance has waaay too many fingers on her most recent one. Caught you out babes x)

This is the end, for now. I suppose I’ll probably add to this if there are any more developments, and if anyone has anything to add (maybe some better law knowledge because mine is basic) please feel free!

Thanks for reading.

[whitehotharlots]

It appears the manic safetyism the left has mandated for the past 15 years has begun to harm their ability to report issues that generate the demand for said safetyism.

A shame, really. Media overrun by guardrails protecting people against threats that were so fleeting and phantasmal they were forgotten long ago, everyone forced to pretend that terms like "unalive" replaced "dead" organically, or at least for reasons understandable to someone, somewhere, who is not completely insane.

I saw a thing the other day--one of the slimiest forms of clickbait where someone re-posts a piece of social media on a different platform, from a bigger account, presumably reaping ad revenue off someone else's content. It was one of them "Am I the Asshole" threads from Reddit. Don't remember its content at all--those are mostly fake, anyway--but it stood out to me because the word "Control" had been censored in the headline and throughout the piece. Apparently that's bad brand association, gives people the ick in regards to whatever Chinese boner pills or Keto supplements or knockoff contraceptive devices need to be sold to keep the internet functioning.

That got me thinking about all the times you'll see a video that contains naughty words that are spoken clearly in the audio but replaced with asterisks in the captioning. I had presumed this was a simple extension of trigger warnings, people wanting to avoid getting yelled at or having their accounts suspended. It's just "being a decent fucking person," after all. Any psychologist will tell you that the profound trauma survivors suffer upon seeing the word rape in print goes away entirely if the word is spelled r*pe. Words are violence, after all. They cause hurt to vulnerable folx. Do you want to be violent? Do you realize how many people you're killing every time you speak? Just do what what we tell you, obey our ever-increasing slew of incessantly weird and petty linguistic mandates or else I'll call your boss, tell your teachers, get you fired, put you in prison, etc etc.

But taking away ad revenue? Oh no, oh shit, that's a bridge too far! Won't someone think of the click merchants?!? Weep for all the important stories that shall no longer be profitably told--the trans influencers changing our perception about public architecture through dance poetry, the brave women exposing the inherent sexism within Behtesda, Maryland public sanitation department, the bold new Alf conspiracy theory that's drivin' fans insane, the development of 6 new cocktails inspired by the third season of HBO's Arli$... all gone, beaten, washed away like tears in the rain...