#copy text with source link

[furiouslovepolice]

Mention Source URL, an Attribution PlugIn for WordPress

[neworderscans]

Feeling Electronic: An Interview With Johnny Marr & Bernard Sumner

Despite having turned 40, Bernard Sumner still looks bafflingly boyish. Kitted-out in a close-cropped haircut, baggy T-shirt, jeans and chunky-soled canvas sneakers, he bounds into the bar of Manchester’s Midland Hotel with surprising enthusiasm. Surprising because, as the frontman with New Order, he was always renowned as the most reticent of interviewees. As he smiles and shakes hands, he has the air of a changed man about him. His partner in Electronic, ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr— who at just 32 looks the older of the two — arrives early to Sumner’s late. Immediately he lives up to his reputation and is soon settling down to relaxed chit-chat.

Together, Sumner and Marr represent a fusion of two of the most influential and creative bands of the 1980s. As the musical foil to the lyrical musings of Morrissey, Marr created some of the most memorable guitar songs of that period. Since parting company in 1987, Morrissey has failed to scale the same artistic heights. And, many would argue, so has Marr. Sumner, meanwhile, spent most of the ’80s and part of the ’90s fronting New Order, a band which — unlike The Smiths, who under the influence of Morrissey took a defiant stance against the dancefloor — embraced the influences of hip-hop, New York’s gay club scene and house music, revealing the exhilerating possibilities of an open-minded approach to pop’s eclectic pantheon. New Order’s artistic and commercial peak came in 1989 with the album Technique, their first number one. At the close of that same year, Electronic released their first single, ‘Getting Away With It’, a collaboration with Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.

“You’ve got to remember I became a lyricist by default when Ian died. Before that point I never had a single dream or desire to become a singer or lyricist. Never!” Bernard Sumner

Unlike Marr, whose split from The Smiths was clearcut, unequivocal and very public, the situation with New Order — in keeping with much of the band’s career — remains uncertain, open-ended, unresolved. A recent interview with Sumner saw The Independent On Sunday describe the band as ‘now defunct’. Sumner offers a subtle variation on that statement. “The truth is that I didn’t say New Order were defunct, the journalist has made his own mind up about that. The situation with New Order is that we don’t have any plans to record together or play any gigs together, but we haven’t broken up. So,” laughs the singer mischievously, “make your own mind up about it.”

Marr, always eager to add some clarity to the cryptic mutterings of Sumner, adds his own slant on the lack of closure to the New Order story: “A band splitting up is a great thing to write about and a great thing to read about, but it’s not necessarily a great thing to be involved with. Events get carried away with themselves and before you know it there’s a lot of bad feeling and a lot of that is caused by outside influences.”

Different angles, different explanations, but the conclusion is the same: the past weighs heavily on the shoulders of both Marr and Sumner. They have a lot to live down, a lot to live up to. In the early days of Electronic they attempted to purge their music of anything that smacked of their previous exploits. That was before they became at ease with their history. Both, after all, are well versed in dealing with their very public pasts. When The Smiths dissolved, Marr’s response was to dive into a number of collaborations — with The Pretenders, The The, Kirsty MacColl and many others — gaining a reputation as a guitar for hire. “The period between The Smiths and Electronic was a matter of being phoned up by people who I really admire and being asked to make records,” he explains.

This time it’s Sumner’s turn to dig beneath the surface of his partner’s words. “After you’ve been in the confines of a band for a while like both of us had, you want to break the mould. As soon as you get out you do everything you couldn’t do within the group. So Johnny played with a load of different people because he couldn’t with The Smiths. I did a lot of remix work. It’s like with the first Electronic album [released June ‘91]: we put our photographs on the album cover because you couldn’t do that [before]. It was a phase we went through. But now Electronic is the main thing for us.”

For Sumner, of course, his whole career as a singer has been a case of shaking off and living up to the past. When Joy Division singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in May 1980 it left Sumner, the band’s guitarist, not only personally distraught but professionally cast adrift. After deciding to continue as a band and adopting the name New Order on the suggestion of their manager Rob Gretton, someone had to take over as singer. Sumner, a man who maintains that he had never written so much as a childhood poem beforehand, got the short straw: “You’ve got to remember I became a lyricist by default when Ian died. Before that point I never had a single dream or desire to become a singer or lyricist. Never!”

“The two of us expect a lot of ourselves and we just cut out the outside world while we were making the album.” Johnny Marr

Sumner’s lyrics have always been a matter of much scrunity, whether it be to ridicule them — lines like, “I would like a place I can call my own / Have a conversation on the telephone” from New Order’s sublime ‘Regret’ have provoked scorn from detractors — or to celebrate their quite touching ambiquity or autobiographical honesty. But Sumner maintains a quite workmanlike approach to the craft — lyrics, he explains, are written after hearing the finished music, and fitted in accordingly.

“Generally I don’t think, ‘Right, I’m going to write a song about this’. I listen to the music and I’ll see what it suggests to me. And lines or pictures — I’ve always thought in pictures — will pop into my head. If it’s a picture I’ll describe the scene.” Sumner is surprisingly self-critical of the results of this process. “Some of the changes in direction in my lyrics aren’t always welcome, sometimes I get it wrong,” he says, “but I write a lot of lyrics through a kind of subconcious flow.”

Still, despite this playing down of his lyrics — he says he finds it difficult to talk about them — last year Sumner was picked as a songwriter worthy of study by the psychologist Oliver James. In a BBC 2 programme, James sought to assess how the anti-depressant wonder drug Prozac affected creativity. Sumner was one of several participants, from artists to writers, who were put under the spotlight. Consequently the BBC cameras showed Sumner both at work in the studio putting together the new Electronic album as well as relaxing with his girlfriend and family.

“This quy from the BBC came to me and said, ‘Would you like to take Prozac? We’re doing an investigation into its effects on creativity.’ His theory was based on the idea that creative people were creative because basically they were fucked-up in some way, and he wanted to test out his theory, ie, you get all these people who are somehow fucked-up — and he obviously thought I was fucked-up in some way — you give them Prozac, they stop being fucked-up, does their creativity dry up? Which is very interesting.”

And? “I’m not fucked-up, I’m like everybody else; I have my up days and my down days. I found taking Prozac very interesting ‘cos it filtered out all the lows. I didn’t find that it affected my creativity in any way at all.”

Both Sumner and Marr were unhappy with the programme’s conclusions — Sumner was described as being depressed and suffering from ‘hyper-critical voices’. But the subject of Prozac does have relevance to the new Sumner, a man for many years renowned for his passionate embracing of Manchester’s nightlife and drug culture. These days he says he goes jogging every day — “It sharpens the mind” — and is cutting down on alcohol after stomach problems aggravated by an excessive intake of Pernod and orange (although he adds with a smile that he’s cured the ailment, so he can now get back on the Pernods). These lifestyle changes, partly the actions of a man coming to terms with his age, have a direct relevance to how Electronic make their music.

“It used to be a party ethic, now it’s a work ethic. We’d stay up all night and party and that’s how we’d come up with songs,” explains Sumner, describing a way of working which stretches back to both New Order and Joy Division. “But we’ve done that, and this is more challenging and more rewarding because you’re in the driving seat!”

Adds Marr: “It wasn’t that we weren’t getting results that way, we just wanted to do something different.”

In the past, most of Sumner’s lyrics were written under the influence of one stimulant or another, aiding the “flow of conciousness”. So how does the all-new Mr (nearly) Clean write his lyrics? “What do I do now? I sit in a fuckin’ room and beat my brains out,” laughs Sumner.

It doesn’t show. The new Electronic album, Raise The Pressure, is a finely-polished, well-balanced pop album, which, despite both Marr and Sumner’s claims to the contrary, has clear referance points to their work with The Smiths and New Order, particularly the latter. Their obvious desire to break from their musical pasts is wholly understandable, yet their inability to do so is not altogether a cause for concern. Raise The Pressure may bear some of the hallmarks of their ‘80s incarnations, but it sounds well-placed for the current pop climate, with its sparkling combination of guitar-pop and electronic house-inflected dance. Two years in the making, it is quite obviously a record constructed by perfectionists.

“All Bernard and I have cared about over the last few years is Electronic and our families, and the balance has shifted towards Electronic,” explains Marr. “That’s been our life. The two of us expect a lot of ourselves and we just cut out the outside world while we were making the album.”

“Ian Curtis turned me on to Kraftwerk in 1977 and when he did I thought it was the most fantastic thing I’d ever heard.” Bernard Sumner

Recorded in a studio in Johnny Marr’s old house — he moved his family into a new house because “it was easier to move my family out than to move Electronic. It just really suited us” — Marr explains that “we kind of designed the record.” Part of that design involved bringing ex-Kraftwerk stalwart Karl Bartos into the creative equation. He co-wrote some of the tracks and assisted with production. For Sumner, working with Bartos was another direct link to his musical past, taking him back nearly 20 years. “Ian Curtis turned me on to Kraftwerk and when he did I thought it was the most fantastic thing I’d ever heard. You’ve got to remember it was 1977 and everything was punk. Ian played me Trans Europe Express, which was like the total opposite, black and white.”

On the few occasions when Marr and Sumner emerged from the self-imposed isolation of their home-studio, they took Bartos on visits to ‘Flesh’ at the Haçienda, the pinnacle of gay clubbing in Manchester — “Which was interesting,” smiles Marr. All part of the Electronic masterplan, a plan which saw them whittle down 40 pieces of music to 16 songs, 13 of which appear on the new LP. The managing director of their label Parlophone claimed recently: “They don’t need our help to make an album, although we had to put a marker down otherwise they might have gone on forever refining it.” Fair comment?

“That’s bullshit that,” smirks Sumner. “No-one put down any markers.” “What, someone from the record company said that?” laughs Marr incredulously. “Neither of us have ever dealt with A&R people in our lives,” asserts Sumner.

The pair say they have total freedom to get on with making records as and when they want. And despite moving from the fiercely Mancunian and fiercely independent Factory for their first album to the London-based major Parlophone (part of EMI) for their second, nothing much has changed. “For us the situation is no different than when we were on Factory,” says Sumner. “During the whole two years we never saw anyone from Parlophone. In fact, I don’t think we’re actually signed to any record label. We’re signed to our production company which then licences product to Parlophone.”

“‘We finance everything ourselves because we want to keep control of everything,” adds Marr. “We take care of the sleeves, we just deliver the whole thing to Parlophone and they sell it.”

This desire to maintain their independence is closely guarded, and is reflected in their continued strong links to Manchester, despite both having good reason to have broken their connections with the city. Originally from Ardwick, Marr saw his childhood haunts demolished to make way for new developments when his family was shipped off to Wythenshawe. Sumner’s Salford childhood was disrupted in a similar way, and the dislocation felt following the flattening of the terraced street he grew up in still surfaces today, the song ‘Second Nature’ on the new LP being an autobiographical appraisal of that early experience.

“We’ve got an office in London [they are managed by Marcus Russell, Marr’s manager since 1988 and now also looking after Oasis] but we hardly ever go there,” says Marr. After touring the world with both of their previous bands, it seems that Electronic are happiest when back home. And as with New Order, whose unconventional approach to promotion surely stopped them becoming U2-style huge, it could prove an obstacle to Electronic’s progress. Despite claiming that they will be playing live to promote Raise The Pressure, long tours are out of the question, says Sumner. “I don’t want to do 28 dates in America and end up in Kansas on a Sunday night, pulling my hair out and wanting to be in Manchester.”

Welcome home, Electronic.

[hinotorihime]

you'd think that someone, somewhere on the internet would have posted something about how jewish med students navigate sabbath observance in relation to the hospital schedule UGH am i just not searching the right terms

[malpractice-morale]

not my assignment currently looking like a james somerton script

[askshivanulegacy]

I've been trying to find anyone who posted a link to the stories and there's nothing for some reason. Everyone is talking ABOUT them, but never bothering to share. So, here's the best link I could find for anyone curious:

Evidently there's some inaccuracies in the translations. For the Typhlosion one, here's a link that talks about the leak situation a bit and also about some context that's missing from the story:

For the record, the stories are super fascinating! They lend a lot more dimensionality to the Pokemon universe, exactly along the lines as some of the more disturbing official descriptions of Pokemon. They are par for the course, though certainly fleshed out to some extent via short story format instead of a 1-liner.

Also, before anyone goes clutching their little pearls about this because it's Pokemon or because "Pokemon is meant for kids":

They are myths. That tells you all you need to know. If it doesn't, go figure it out.

They're unpublished, so they're not even real! Typhlosion didn't do anything. But even if it did ...

It's fine. It would be cool and fine if the stories were published and canon and if a Typhlosion was actually the husband of a human and they had a kid together. The stories are super neat! They're myths! And they would be super neat even if they were real historical events in the Pokemon universe! Your "god" of humans is a Pokemon. What exactly do you think that means for humans in that world? Lol!

Nothing about this is gross or weird, at least not in the cancel culture way so many people are ranting about.

Nothing about this deserves anyone "defending" Typhlosion. Typhlosion hasn't done anything that requires defending. Child-brain outlook. Embrace the myths.

Nothing about this deserves people raging on other people making jokes. The jokes are funny. See all of the above.

I found a post where some lady was crying the Nile over the very idea that writers had spent their time writing this instead of writing PG stuff, because she couldn't fathom that anyone would spend time on anything that wasn't identically required as the end product ... and because these myths aren't PG, that made it an especial crime.

Tell me you don't have a creative bone in your body without telling me you don't have a creative bone in your body.

Anyway, I invite everyone to go check these stories out.

The Typhlosion one is my favorite and I 110% condone everything Typhlosion has ever done.

Anyway...

[exeggcute]

none of this is new info, but you know I have the "loves to write lists and compile links" disposition, so I thought it might be helpful to share some of the tips I've seen about how to make sure you're sharing legitimate palestinian evacuation fundraisers and bundle all those tips into a single handy reference post.

this is a spreadsheet of legitimate ("vetted") fundraisers on tumblr.

this post explains how the people who maintain this spreadsheet confirm the legitimacy of each fundraiser they add.

this podcast episode ("yousef and the fourth move") explains why evacuation fundraisers are often organized by people who don't live in gaza and/or who may not be immediate relatives of the people trying to evacuate. it's part three of a series about a man named yousef and his family; parts one and two aren't required listening for part three to make sense, but if you have a few hours to spare then I wholeheartedly recommend listening to all of them.

this is the process that I personally have been using to check whether a particular fundraiser has been vetted:

spreadsheet method

open the vetted fundraisers spreadsheet.

inside this spreadsheet, open the "find..." menu. on a windows computer, this shortcut is ctrl+F. on a mac, this shortcut is cmd+F. on a mobile device, click the three dots menu in the upper right corner of your screen, then select Find and replace.

search for the last name of the person or family in the fundraiser. you may get several results because last names obviously aren't unique; keep hitting "next" until you've looked at all the results.

if you find an entry in the spreadsheet that has the exact same name and whose gofundme link leads to the same fundraiser associated with the blog, it's legitimate. if you don't find an entry in the spreadsheet that matches the blog's fundraiser, that does not mean it's a scam. try the next method below!

tumblr search method

copy the username of the tumblr who originally posted the fundraiser and/or sent you a message asking you to boost the fundraiser. (for example, username123)

paste this username into tumblr's search bar.

for best results, click the All types drop-down menu, then select Text. since the search page is often dominated by asks sent by username123 (which people then answer and tag with their username), this helps narrow things down a bit.

look to see if any people who are not username123 have made posts confirming that username123 is legitimate. this includes people who've reblogged fundraisers and added notes, people who've compiled masterlists, and people sharing hyperlinks to other posts confirming a fundraiser's legitimacy. if the message seems to be "yep, looks legit," then it's safe to assume it's legit.

this is not a comprehensive list, but here are some of the usernames I've seen associated with "yep, looks legit"-type posts and who I've come to trust by association. (disclaimers: I am not mutuals with any of the users, and not all of them do the vetting firsthand, but the ones who don't vet posts themselves still seem to be careful about what they share and therefore are a good lead to follow. also, don't bug these people to vet fundraisers for you unless they've specifically indicated that they're open to that.)

90-ghost

el-shab-hussein

nabulsi

appsa

northgazaupdates

retvolution

communistchilchuck

neptunerings

a-shade-of-blue

shimamitsu

neither of these methods yielded anything definitive; what now?

it may just be too early to tell. unless a trusted source has shared overwhelming evidence that a particular fundraiser is a scam (which seems to be a very very rare occurrence), the best thing you can do is ignore it. don't report their blog as spam, because there's a good chance it's a legitimate fundraiser who just hasn't been vetted yet.

[thetreetopinn]

Sources for Somerton's Plagiarism from Hbomberguy's Video (as much as I could get)

I went back through Harry's video, focused entirely on the sources James Somerton pulled from in the hopes of creating as much of a comprehensive list as I could--though my Google-Fu is not very strong. I did however find something I thought was forever lost and that made me very happy--specifically the magazine Midlands Zone containing the column by Steven Spinks that Harry poignantly used as an illustration of gay erasure... while Somerton uses it to sound like HE is waxing remorseful about the very subject.

This is not a complete list, I'm sure. For one thing, I was only able to attempt to pull sources that Harry himself mentioned in the video. Surely there's so very much more out there. I expect there to be a great deal more internet archeology to unearth just how much writing and culture Somerton has stolen like he's the British Museum of Natural History but for gay people.

- - - - -

Harry's list of mentioned youtubers:

Alexander Avila - https://www.youtube.com/@alexander_avila Matt Baume - https://www.youtube.com/@MattBaume Khadija Mbowe - https://www.youtube.com/@KhadijaMbowe Lady Emily - https://www.youtube.com/@LadyEmilyPresents Shanspeare - https://www.youtube.com/@Shanspeare RickiHirsch - https://www.youtube.com/@RickiHirsch VerilyBitchie - https://www.youtube.com/@verilybitchie

Harry created a convenient playlist of videos by these and other people he wants to bring to everyone's attention.

Please give them your support.

- - - - -

Midlands Zone Magazine - Column by Steven Spinks

After a great deal of searching, I found an archive of the "Midlands Zone" magazine, where you can read through past issues dating all the way back to February 2014. I have also found the issue from which Somerton took Spinks' poignant discussion of gay erasure: Overall archive Specific Issue - Pages 16-17

It will not allow you to download it, but you can read it exactly as it appeared in print form.

- - - - -

My best effort to find the exact book or article Somerton lifted from to be able to get attention to the original writers

Tinker Bells and Evil Queens By Sean Griffin

The Celluloid Closet By Vito Russo Wikipedia article about the book Wikipedia article about the documentary My weak google-fu could not find where you can access the book or documentary. Check your local municipal or university library for book or documentary, or if you know a good source for one or both, please reblog with it added

Camp and the Gay Sensibility By Jack Babuscio

The Groundbreaking Queerness of Disney's Mulan By Jes Tom Personal site with links to social media accounts

Why Rebel Without a Cause was a milestone for gay rights By Peter Howell

Why "The Craft" is still the best Halloween coming out movie By Andrew Park

Opinion: From facehuggers to phallic tails, is 'Alien' one of the queerest films ever? By Dani Leever

Women and Queerness in Horror: Jennifer's Body By Zoe Fortier

[Pride 2019] We Have Such Sights to Show You: Hellraiser and the Spectrum of Queerness By Alejandra Gonzalez

Revealing the Hellbound Heart of Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' By Colin Arason

Queering James Cameron's Aliens (1986) By Bart Bishop

Demeter and Persephone in space: transformation, femininity, and myth in the 'Alien' films By David Greven

Fears of a millennial masculinity: Scream's queer killers By David Greven (Scholarly site, unable to access original work, offers a way to request a full copy of the text in PDF)

Queer Subtext in Stephen King's It - Part 1: 'Reddie' Character Analysis By Rachel Brands Rachel is the very unfortunate lady who found out she was being stolen from because she supported Somerton through Patreon and saw one of his videos early with her writing--lacking any form of citation or credit

How 'It: Chapter Two' Leaves Richie Tozier Behind By Joelle Monique

When Horror Becomes Strength: Queer Armor in Stephen King's 'IT' By Alex London

Why Queer People Love Witchcraft By Amanda Kohr

'The Favourite' Queers The Past And The Present By Giorgi Plys-Garzotto

(Wuko) Crush (Mako x Wu) By MoonFlower on YouTube

5 Terrible Movies With Awesome Hidden Meanings By J.F. Sargent

The Radicalization of Sexuality: The Queer Casae of Jeffrey Dahmer By Ian Barnard

Netflix's 'Dahmer' backlash highlights ethical issues in the platform's obsession with true crime By Shivani Dubey

The Possible Disturbing Dissonance Between Hajime Isayama's Beliefs and Attack on Titan's Themes Original Article by "Seldom Musings" (Author has made all posts not related to Attack On Titan private and has retired from the blog)

Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan? By Gita Jackson

- - - - -

The following people are otherwise named in the video. There are no direct citations of articles or books by them in said video. I am unable to guarantee that I have identified the correct individual.

Darren Elliott-Smith Michaela Barton David Church Claire Sisco King Amanda Howell Jessica Roy

- - - - -

Telos announced and cancelled a film likely based on this book: The Final Girl Support Group - By Grady Hendrix

- - - - -

I refrained from including certain sources.

First off only focusing on Somerton's work.

Secondly not including anything that might be visible enough to not require amplifying their voice (I cannot speak for all of those I have found links to, but journalism is frequently a thankless job).

Thirdly any source that is of a nature that is antithetical to the very existence of the queer community, such as the right-leaning source that didn't make it into Somerton's video, but Harry was able to identify as a source he had considered using.

If you feel I have missed a mentioned source--or you know of a source from material that was not covered in Harry's video--please do not hesitate to reblog with added details.

- - - - -

Please share this information far and wide, and please add to it if you find more material that can be positively identified and linked to the creator/writer.

[mareastrorum]

Reposting this post in the CR tags since I'm sure quite a few critters bought digital copies of the CR comics. This affects all digital copies of Critical Role comics accessible through the official publisher, Dark Horse Digital.

If you bought the official digital copies, you will lose access to all Critical Role comics later this year.

Text:

Effective February 24th, 2025, we have closed Dark Horse Digital. Sales are no longer offered on the DHD website. But, you can still log in and read the comics in your bookshelf. Support for the Dark Horse Comics and Plants vs. Zombies Comics apps for iOS will end March 31st, 2025. We encourage app users to download the books in their bookshelves by March 30th, 2025. The ability to download to your device cannot be guaranteed after that date. For access through the website, users without DHD accounts should create one and sync it to the app by March 30th, 2025. We appreciate our fans and regret the inconvenience and disappointment caused by this news. We know you have questions so please go to our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information. -- The Dark Horse Digital Team

[source] [link to FAQ]

Some further info from the FAQ (there is more in the FAQ, the below are just some quoted portions of it):

"Users can continue to log in to the website and read the comics in their bookshelves. We plan for online access to the DHD website to be available at least through summer, 2025." "Q. Did I lose access to my comics collection? A. You can continue to log in to the DHD website and read the comics in your bookshelf. We plan for online access to be available at least through summer, 2025. When the website is eventually retired, online access will end." "Q. Do I own the comics in my bookshelf? A. Technically, you do not. As with Kindle, Nook, and other e-book companies, you license the right to read the book on supported and authorized devices." "Q. Can I download comics from the website? Can you send me PDFs? A. Unfortunately, we are unable to allow downloads to your computer or provide PDFs." "Q. Can I get a refund? A. We are able to offer refunds for 2025 transactions made on the website. The deadline to request a refund is April 30, 2025."

[source]

[echoekhi]

I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight

What Are “What If” Videos?

These videos follow a common recipe: A narrator, given a fandom (usually anime ones like My Hero Academia and Naruto), explores an alternative timeline where something is different. Maybe the main character has extra powers, maybe a key plot point goes differently. They then go on and make up a whole new story, detailing the conflicts and romance between characters, much like an ordinary fanfic.

Except, they are fanfics. Actual fanfics, pulled off AO3, FFN and Wattpad, given a different title, with random thumbnail and background images added to them, narrated by computer text-to-speech synthesizers.

They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like “What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings”, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views.

In fact, the process is so straightforward and requires so little effort, it’s pretty clear some of these channels have automated pipelines to pump these out en-masse. They don’t bother with asking the fic authors for permission. Sometimes they don’t even bother with putting the fic’s link in the description or crediting the author. These content-farms then monetise these videos, so they get a cut from YouTube’s ads.

In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.

Project Copy-Knight

Since the adversaries almost certainly have automated systems set up for this, the only realistic countermeasure is with another automated system. Identifying fanfics manually by listening to the videos and searching them up with tags is just too slow and impractical.

And so, I came up with a simple automated pipeline to identify the original authors of “What If” videos.

It would go download these videos, run speech recognition on it, search the text through a database full of AO3 fics, and identify which work it came from. After manual confirmation, the original authors will be notified that their works have been subject to copyright theft, and instructions provided on how to DMCA-strike the channel out of existence.

I built a prototype over the weekend, and it works surprisingly well:

On a randomly-selected YouTube channel (in this case Infinite Paradox Fanfic), the toolchain was able to identify the origin of half of the content. The raw output, after manual verification, turned out to be extremely accurate. The time taken to identify the source of a video was about 5 minutes, most of those were spent running Whisper, and the actual full-text-search query and Levenshtein analysis was less than 5 seconds.

The other videos probably came from fanfiction websites other than AO3, like fanfiction.net or Wattpad. As I do not have access to archives of those websites, I cannot identify the other ones, but they are almost certainly not original.

Armed with this fantastic proof-of-concept, I’m officially declaring war against “What If” videos. The mission statement of Project Copy-Knight will be the elimination of “What If” videos based on the theft of AO3 content on YouTube.

I Need Your Help

I am acutely aware that I cannot accomplish this on my own. There are many moving parts in this system that simply cannot be completely automated – like the selection of YouTube channels to feed into the toolchain, the manual verification step to prevent false-positives being sent to authors, the reaching-out to authors who have comments disabled, etc, etc.

So, if you are interested in helping to defend fanworks, or just want to have a chat or ask about the technical details of the toolchain, please consider joining my Discord server. I could really use your help.

------

See full blog article and acknowledgements here: https://echoekhi.com/2023/11/25/project-copy-knight/

[shadowfoxsilver]

Some quick tips to spotting accounts that are pretending to be a Palestinian needing mutual aid. Please keep in mind that not all of them are scam accounts, and that some may legitimate blogs who just aren’t too knowledgeable on how tumblr works. This guide is based around what I go by when checking certain blogs and usually it’s a quick giveaway the blog is a scam.

Please read this post too from my other blog before you tell people don’t donate to gfms:

1. You was sent the ask as someone who regularly shares Palestine related content such as regular news updates of posts by other Palestinians who are regularly giving updates. You may also get these asks from sharing a popular post that is from the Palestine tag. If you post often about Palestine, you will always start getting these asks. These askers don’t care if you state don’t send the asks. They will anyway. Unfortunately minors also get sent asks.

2. The ask has odd formatting such as having odd quotation marks in it or unusual formatting that may indicate it’s been edited and copied from somewhere else. Often the ask is the same thing as the post itself minus a link to a donation site. These asks rarely change so searching it should pull up if it’s been sent to other bloggers and sometimes the asks are edited only to add new phrases to them in time.

3. The account is almost always a few days old or a week old or long depending on how often they have sent asks. Usually some may even be an hour old and reusing a familiar pfp/ask.

4. The blog has a few Palestine related posts or posts from random tags reblogged to pad out length and then no more. They will have no original posts besides the pinned post while occasionally answering asks that they may have received but otherwise nothing else and no further updates given either.

5. They may have a Linktree link that is called “GoFundMe” as if indicating they have a GoFundMe there. However, they don’t. When clicked on, the Linktree actually goes to a PayPal account whose name may not even match the one their supposed name is. They’ll say it’s a friend, but it’s just the same person not someone else. You’ll see this same name across multiple accounts after a while usually giving away it’s not legitimate even under a different theme.

6. The text used by the blogs are often real stories stolen from legitimate fundraisers and searching parts of it in your preferred search engine should pull up the sources. These sources make no mention of a tumblr account either or don’t have the PayPal account associated with them in the info. Scammers often impersonate a real person in need and will ignore you if you show them the source they copied from.

7. Legitimate Palestinians often link to their own GoFundMe posts that their friends have set up or post links to other social platforms they are found on. They will regularly post updates when possible, post sources to support them when necessary, and also generally have some method of verifying their legitimacy. They may often share links to support others as well or give links to charities that have been shown as reliable. They will have more original posts than just a single pinned one and regularly speak to other tumblr accounts beyond just an ask. Please don’t bother them with asks about possible scam accounts. There are many guides out there that can do that for you if you search. You may find verified fundraisers too.

8. Scammers don’t know anything about Palestine and will often have trouble once you ask them anything beyond the mutual aid post. They don’t know the languages decently and you can tell it pretty easily if you’re one who uses it regularly. Whatever the scammers use is often just copied off the site they got the post from. Sometimes the text is just reused from past scams such as asking for insulin that doesn’t last long.

9. These scammers can and will use names stolen off real Palestinians to look more legitimate and trustworthy. They change names constantly once one of their PayPal accounts is shut down.

10. If you do see a GoFundMe link on a blog, don’t immediately assume it’s a scam just because it’s a relatively new account. Check the post notes to see if anyone’s verified the account yet or wait a bit as it takes time. You likely can search around to see if anyone’s posted anything where the blog has been vetted by others. You may also see if the GoFundMe is referred to on other socials or on lists that compile verified and vetted fundraisers.

Please don’t let these scams deter you from sending support where it needs to go. Even if you can’t donate personally, there are other ways to help. If you are sending money, please make sure that it’s going to where it’s needed and the place it’s sent has been verified accordingly. If you find a blog is a scammer, and have been able to prove it, please make sure to alert anyone sharing the post and report the account.

[hellsitegenetics]

Hi there!

I was wondering if you could see if this mousepad I have links up to anything.

Here's the text from it so you can copy it easier:

atta gcgt tgta ctgc ttgg acaa tgcg catt gatc agtg tacg aact gcga ggtc

Thank you for the work you do!

String identified:

Closest match: Cybosia mesomella genome assembly, chromosome: 13 Common name: Four-dotted Footman

(image source)

[userwonu]

[ access the larger text, image free version of this post here ]

hi, all. i've already made a lengthy post explaining the reasons we should not support this upcoming seventeen album, which you can read here. it is far too long to delve into in any substance here considering this post will already have some serious length to it, however, it discusses the already ongoing boycott and the reasons behind it, as well as the reasons to boycott this album, which include their overwork and mistreatment, and more significantly, their continued collaboation with zionists in the past and on this album, as well as the involvement with a producer promoted his company's work with self professed n/azi kanye west in a highly antisemitic song. i strongly suggest you give it a read.

however, i would like to drive the point home with this post, and that is because both the members and their company continue to be willfully uneducated and ignorant of these matters, and further... unsavory things about their upcoming activities are coming out. they recently announced a 10th anniversary celebration in collaboration with airbnb. airbnb is a pressure target on the official bds boycott list. a pressure boycott per the bds website includes boycotting when there are reasonable alternatives to the company or product. (i don't know about you, but i've never been in a position where i am absolutely forced to use airbnb.)

airbnb is complicit in israeli occupation. settlers list hundreds of homes, apartments and villas for tourists to stay in, allowing both airbnb and illegal settlers to profit off land stolen from palestinian people. they quite literally allow war crimes to be used as tourism. this now makes 2 zionist or zionist adjacent collaborations linked to seventeen's anniversary celebrations, as well as one n/azi adjacent collaboration. i am encouraging you all to boycott more than ever.

there are carats in gaza fighting to survive every day and it is a slap in the face to them that you would sit down and put any money towards this album, even by offering seventeen and hybe so much as a cent of passive income through streams.

those of us wanting to boycott are unfortunately very much a minority but please don't allow that to discourage you. this is how you can use your voice. this is how you can make a difference. if you feel discouraged by the imbalance here, i encourage you to educate others and urge them to join the efforts.

○ this site can be used to watch youtube videos (the music video, the gose episode, etc) if you truly must as it will not give them any official views.

○ this is how you can still use streaming apps like spotify to listen to their music in just a few very simple steps

○ this drive contains a link to every release except spill the feels. you can dm me for stf files and i will reblog this with hbd files when available.

➥ reminder: seventeen are rich. this will not hurt them and this is not an act of hate against them. please consider expressing your love for them by urging them to show accountability, not buying into everything they do.

★ may 21, 2025 // going seventeen special episode: do not watch or engage with the special episode released on this date via any official sources. this means to avoid watching it on youtube/weverse, liking it, commenting it, or engaging in any official plybe posts regarding it.

☆ may 25, 2025 // special "hbd stage" in seoul: avoid official livestreams, official rewatches, and social media content related to this event. pirated content is fine.

★ may 26, 2025 // 'happy burstday' album release: do not stream or purchase the album in any format. do not use any promotional hashtags on social media. do not watch the music video via any official means, or engage with official uploads of it.

☆ june 2, 2025 // release of "nana bnb" show: do not purchase any official copies of the episodes or watch it on any official platforms. (keep in mind disney+, which is will be available to stream on at least in korea, is also a bds boycott target)

do not stream any content from seventeen in an official capacity. this includes title tracks, bsides, solo releases, mvs, and official interviews/performances, past or present. avoid platforms like spotify, apple music, youtube music, etc. do not save, like, or add these songs to playlists. utilize the links included above instead.

limit social media interaction. do not directly like, comment, repost, or share any promotional content.

do not directly buy albums, merch, or paid weverse content. secondhand and pirated content is ok. do not engage in any music show voting events.

do not use any trending tags associated with the comeback or activities. do not use sounds from the album in your tiktoks, edits, or reels.

➥ buy from fans, not from hybe! support ethical artists and creators and purchase their merchandise instead. ➥ donate to the carats for palestine campaign and other palestinian aid organizations. ➥ educate when you have the opportunity to. have tough conversations. loop others in. there are many who hold unfortunate positions regarding this but there are also many who are just unaware.

being a fan of something does not mean you cannot have criticisms or grievances, and it especially does not mean you cannot use your voice. you do not have to swallow your feelings about anything these artists do. you do not owe them anything and they are not entitled to your unwavering support. in fact, when it pertains to matters as disturbing as these, your support of them makes you entitled to speak up when they act in a disappointing fashion.

this is not hatred of seventeen. this is desire for them to better themselves and hope that they will remember their humanity before they act. i encourage you to remember yours, too. you are a human before you are a fan of something. think of your fellow humans, especially those suffering in gaza. act in their best interest, not seventeen's.

[pericardium-and-glass]

Angry about Lore.fm the "AO3 Audible app"

For those who don't know, Lore.fm is an app that's advertised as "audible for AO3". It uses AI text-to-speech voices to read fics on an app completely separated from AO3 and creates a local copy of the fic audio on your device. It is stated to be non-profit.

1. It's opt-out not opt-in, that alone is a red flag and worthy of suspicion. The only way to not get your fic used without permission is to email them - it is unsafe and dubious to hand out personal email addresses to companies you don't know.

2. It takes engagement and agency away from the authors. Readers using this app don't even need to interact with the original AO3 post. Only a link is needed to generate the audio. An extension would've been significantly more ethical than an app.

3. Valid criticisms towards this project are labelled by the developer as "ableist and classist". Most devices and browsers already have FREE screen readers available. Especially for IOS (since this is mainly advertised for IOS), the existing built-in accessibility screen reader is very decent! I'd know cause I've been using it for more than a decade!

4. The developers show zero transparency. The devs listed for this app are also in a company that made an AI WRITING/STORYTELLING APP called Spinoff. The fact that this information is hidden on the appstore for Lore.fm tells me all that I need to know. I found the source for this on this comment by CupcakeBeautiful. [Edit: Unfortunately, the comment has been deleted by reddit for some reason, so I have removed the link to it.]

This whole thing pisses me off. Once again it shows that people don't respect and don't care about actual fic writers. I wish people would stop exploiting fanfiction authors under the guise of accessibility. Please think carefully if this is a company/project you'd want to support.

I don't usually post things like this on this blog, but I don't think a lot of people are aware of this situation on tumblr. Please feel free to add any information that I've missed. If this post comes off as aggressive, I apologise. I am just very frustrated.

[tragedynoir]

— introducing 015: PRIVATE EYE + [ link ]

a warm, nostalgic google doc template inspired by private detectives, and crime investigation! this template follows the collection of information on your muse from the lens of a private detective, through things such as letters, newspapers and official medical documents. this template features space for long writing as well! this premium template and a full page-by-page preview can be found in the link above or in the source link.

features:

8 unique 14" x 8.5" pages, all with hand-crafted full-page background images

short and long sections, an extra long backstory section, and multiple spaces for pictures

a large array of thematic page types and elements — letters, post-it notes, newspaper clippings, and evidence sheet which can be used to include ooc information or give more atmospheric depth to the template

some elements (muse pictures, text on backing post-it notes, date on envelope, and items in evidence ziploc bag) that can be customized in google drawings

terms of use:

you may edit to your heart’s desire. Change the colours, replace, add or remove elements and images etc.

you may remix pages with pages from my other templates.

you may not remove the credit from the templates.

you may not copy, sell or redistribute my templates whether wholesale, in part (i.e. taking out certain pages) or remixed (i.e. modified).

you will also receive an additional guide with images on how to use and edit google doc templates! if you have any problems or issues, feel free to leave an ask or join our discord server.

this was so much fun to make, but took so much time to put together. I'm really proud of it so I I hope you like it! as always, I appreciate all your likes + reblogs. ♡

[awretchedthing]

Coming Home (But Not to You) + Someplace New Physical Bind

i've done a few rebinds of paperbacks to hardcovers but this is my first ever full bind :')

i really love this universe written by @lesbianherald and i'm so delighted to have a forever copy! i keep coming back to it, so having it on paper will make it much easier to tab out my favourite parts when i need them.

there's definitely mistakes, especially with the cover (pls don't ask about the back cover it's none of my business). i hit a point where i chose done over good because otherwise this would have taken me 6 months. there is no prize to perfection etc.

Coming Home clocks in at around 360 pages and Someplace New is about 60. i included the playlists for both since i'm a sucker for 'bonus content'. in paper, that means 107 sheets of a4 split into 14 signatures of 7-8 pages.

some retrospectives and the guides i followed below:

what went well:

the actual process of folding signatures and sewing the binding was my favourite part. basically all the work that didn't involve fighting technology lmao

i struggled sourcing a4 short grain but i'm really happy i used it! it's such a floppy, soft book and it sits open on it's own

i hated the cover design in canva but on the book it looks sick as hell. very trust the process kind of deal

what didn't go well:

i'll never learn my lesson about text and heat transfer vinyl. this is where i almost lost my mind

speaking of htv, i really screwed up every step of the case creation. my boards are a little short, i wasted a load of book cloth, and i used to much glue for the endpapers that it seeped through a little. not enough to do major damage to the textblock, but the first and last 20 pages are a little wavy

Resources:

How To Typeset in Google Docs - i followed about 3 different tutorials for doing it in word before finding this video. very easy to follow and she shows how to impose to signatures afterwards

How To Bind on a Budget (Beginner Friendly)

French Link Stitch Bookbinding tutorial

[palms-upturned]

[image description: a screenshot of tumblr tags, reading:

think abt this all the time re: liberal zionists and their kind gestures. like the ONE thing about the palestinian cause that zionists never understand is dignity. and permitting people basic human rights because your fellow countrymen denied it is not dignity. palestinians rebuke the very concept of charity because it is their own land. but i often think like… if some foreigner lived in egypt and offered to drive me around to keep me safe from other foreigners, i think i would sincerely lose my mind with anger to live like that. the very act of extending charity is already an admission of power, let alone extending the use of stolen resources while you keep people under siege! how dare you how dare you

End description]

Zionists who talk shit about how they “provide” water and electricity to “ungrateful” people in Gaza never cease to amaze me. Brother that’s just an admission of the occupation. Israel has ownership of their resources. Israel has the power to shut off all life sustaining functions in Gaza. They have literally been doing so for two and a half months. Palestinians are dying of starvation, thirst, disease, and all around unlivable conditions because Israel has the power to shut down water, shut down electricity, shut down the entire medical system, shut down the passage of aid into the strip, shut down telecommunications, shut down all of daily life. Somewhere around 1 in 100 people living in the Gaza Strip prior to October 7th are dead. Even after a ceasefire, people are going to continue dying because of the destroyed infrastructure and because of perfectly treatable injuries that won’t be attended to in time or with the resources necessary. Israel doesn’t “provide” resources to Palestine. No colonial settler state “provides” anything to the indigenous populations it commits genocide against. It deprives them because that is what is necessary to maintain the colonial settler state.

Anyway, what annoyed me just now in the first place was seeing the comment section of a musakhan recipe where some smug zionist said, “cooked on electric or gas stovetop with energy provided by Israel!” Aside from the obvious assholery, it made me fume because Israel isn’t fucking providing energy to Gaza right now. This is exactly why Israel has control of the energy resources to begin with, so that they can enact this kind of collective punishment on the people of Gaza. What kind of cruel, ignorant cunt do you have to be to tout the state of Israel’s “generosity” right now?

Anyway, here’s the response from the person who filmed the musakhan video (chefjjskitchen on instagram) to that Zionist:

Alt text: an interaction in instagram reels comment section. joellevy757 says, “Cooked on electric or gas stove with energy supplied by Israel (Israeli flag emoji)”

chefjjskitchen, the user who posted the reel, responds, “actually no. Unfortunately i don’t live in the holy land of palestine. I wish i could. But hopefully one day. My dream is to at least visit my parent’s village (heart eyes emojis)”

chefjjskitchen continues, “you say that as its a good thing sir. When i give you no options of getting any resources then give you some doesnt mean i am good. I hope you dont get offended by this example but. When masters fed their slaves and gave them clothes they saw it as generosity. Does that mean its a good thing? The whole basis of it is wrong and immoral. So yes, even if they supply them with a tiny bit of resources doesnt mean it’s a good thing. I truly hope you see both sides of the conflict not just one (red heart emoji)”

End alt text