foone · 4 months ago
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AAA games? Pfft. Indie games? Double pfft.
I only play games from the alternate history where Hillary Clinton was elected in 2008 and banned all video games. You can only imagine how weird their underground gaming scene is. People like to call unlicensed games "bootlegs" but they've got actual bootlegged games! I've played games about helping your grandmother in hospice care realize she's a lesbian by reading Sappho to her, at 2am in a speakeasy in Baltimore. The cops raided it the next night, hundreds of Gamers were arrested. They posted pictures all over Friendster of the Baltimore PD destroying the arcades with axes.
I nearly got busted once because I was imaging old disks from a 386 and someone tipped off the gaming cops that there was a copy of Commander Keen in there. I had to prove that I didn't know it, I was imaging the disks blind and then indexing them later, and I would of course turn over any contraband to the proper authorities.
I was already on a watch list because I'd been known to have some gamedev-related activities pre-ban. They can't arrest me for making games back in 2007 when it was still legal, but they do want to keep an eye on me since I have the skills to break the law.
Anyway that universe's bootlegs are mainly PC games. Can't really have console games if there hasn't been a console release since the Wii/PS3/360 era. At one point Nintendo threatened to release the Wii SDK so game devs in the US could make unlicensed games, but that didn't happen as there were quickly no functional Wiis left in the US, except for very rare holdouts that never move. PC games are easy to distribute samizdat and hide on a USB stick or CD-R labeled "nickelback".
Japan's games industry is still going, so the later Nintendo and Sony consoles still exist, but Microsoft got out of the business of course. They sold the franchise to Sega who were hoping to release the 360 successor (the Xbox One in our universe) as the Sega Phoenix but it never materialized, either through their own financial incompetence or because of pressure from the US. There's a lot of international treaties that the US has pushed "and this aid only goes through if you ban games" clauses into. That would have been an official UN resolution if the USSR hadn't vetoed it. For once, thank God for the security council, eh?
I mainly get my gaming news through Japanese gaming sites (through a set of VPNs, since they're blocked at the border firewall), and some tor onion site run by a weird guy in Minnesota who is obsessed with documenting all the underground US games.
There's a lot being worked on, but it's always a tricky trade off. Too much attention and the police might be able to track down the creators, and it's basically impossible to fund underground games, as the VISA/PayPal etc funds get seized immediately. There's a whole task force for that.
Anyway one of the weirdest differences between our two time lines is that they've gone back and edited out gaming from a bunch of movies. Those that they can, of course. War games was just banned because they couldn't remove the tic tac toe ending. The Net just removed the scene at the beginning where she's playing Wolfenstein 3D, by recording some new screen footage and a new voice over. She's fixing a spreadsheet in the new edition.
(Yes, I've seen The Net from this alternate timeline. On Laserdisc, of course. I'm just that kind of person!)
They even edited Star Wars. You know that scene where R2-D2 is playing holochess with Chewie? They edited it to be a board game instead of holograms, because that made it too "video gamey".
Technically it's not illegal to show gaming in a movie, but it needs to be an 18+ film and you have to show the deleterious effects of gaming and/or the gamesters coming to a bad end.
This has affected films less than you'd think, to be honest. They were never great about showing video games even before they banned them.
Anyway, go have fun playing your AAA games with hundred-million-dollar budgets. I only play indie games made by people under a constant threat of arrest for their art.
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tinystepsforward · 8 months ago
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What do you think the chances are that Mud Pit is gonna be ousted by the people who need Automattic to have good will in the eyes of the community to actually get anything out of this site and wattpad
I know it’s probably low but the fact that he’s acting like a poorer Elon Musk is making my skin crawl and making me hope that a second lawsuit hits the company
ok here's the thing. he is meant to be on sabbatical. automattic gives employees a three-month paid sabbatical every 5 years, so that they can have a break from the product they work on and come back rested and with a new perspective.
matt has never taken one before now. he spent the entire leadup to his sabbatical posting increasingly wild shit in public channels at the company (like the chess thing, or trying to get people to buy a friend's product, or the entire fracas with taking over the wordpress.org twitter account. wordpress.org is an independent non-profit that he is not the ceo of).
i mention this because people were hoping (including me) that he really would actually log off, have a chill time (or, idk, whatever kind of time CEOs who go off the grid bc they got flooded in at burning man like to have), and let the interim CEO get a chance to do a better job. that would help the board make a decision based on data.
he was very clearly spiraling before he even left, and then within the first few days of Company Sanctioned Log Off Time he's pulled multiple Classic Matt things on multiple parts of the company before showing up here. this whole thing is so deeply unfunny but it also is a bit of a tom and jerry or looney tunes bit, where i can only imagine HR or Legal is chasing him around the various accounts/platforms with a comically large inflatable baseball bat and he's just evading them.
he can't do that in person, but he still gets a lot of leeway generally. at the last division meetup (irl meeting for employees, flown from all over the world) he showed up twitchy and exhausted and hyped in a way that was very familiar to me from flatmates who used to steal and snort my adhd medication, then proceeded to drink so much over the course of an evening answering questions from his employees that he had to be firmly babysat off the stage and walked back into the lobby of the hotel to sober up.
i made eye contact with him that night, before he dropped his head back into his hands. two people relatively high up in the company were sitting with him, silently watching him as he struggled to sober up. it wasn't the first drunk shenanigan of his i witnessed at one of these, and this is purely opinion but i have to assume that his current behavior is the result of suddenly having time on his hands to have the world's longest bender and post through it.
back to your question: i do not know if what he's done is enough to get the board to remove him. i wish it didn't have to come to this to hope that they will. but we'll find out.
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mcromwell · 5 months ago
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Four years ago, I installed TikTok and began making art videos to promote my art business. I steadily got better at making videos, had a few big hits, grew my follower count to 75k (my largest on any social platform ever, to this day) and even qualified for the app's creator program, which netted me a fair chunk of change for a few months. Right when I started considering it an integral part of my business, engagement started tanking. Despite my follower count and trying to keep up with trends and editing techniques designed to retain viewers, my videos went from getting about 10k views to less than a thousand--that's not even 10% of my follower-count. The app slowly stopped recommending my videos to anyone, followers or on the FYP. For months. And then after TikTok was voted to be banned in the US, it got even worse, and the CEO even stated in his video addressing the ban that they would "not be able to pay creators as much due to spending more money on legal fees to challenge the vote". At that time I was grimly reminded of what I already knew about social media sites: they aren't your friend and they don't care about you. They'll give you something "nice" (a chance at monetization and virality) with the hope that you'll keep making content for their content farm, and when your videos don't get views, the gambling mindset of "maybe next video will do well" or "the algorithm is just weird right now, maybe it will improve if I just keep going" will keep you addicted.
I finally hit a wall. I can't waste my time. I have very little time to achieve what I want to due to my health. So making videos that get 300 views and no comments is definitely a waste of my time. I used to say good things about the algorithm, how it shows you niche things instead of only just the popular stuff, but clearly that isn't the case. My videos posted elsewhere get tons more interactions and engagement. I am stepping back from TikTok for a while; I even uninstalled it. The endless scrolling is not good for me, either.
All that to say: art videos will be less frequent. The only places I'd be making them for is Instagram and YouTube, and I think if I'm going to pick one to focus on, it'll be Youtube. Subscribe to my channel here, where I am slowly uploading my entire TikTok catalogue of hundreds of art videos.
TikTok did great things for me when it worked. It was really exciting for me to hear folks at in-person events say stuff like, "Oh, I saw a video of this painting!" "Your process is so fun to watch!" I won't forget the support everyone gave me. Thank you.
I hope to use this extra time to focus on my practice more. I want to lean into sketchbook bundle downloads, Patreon, and just simply drawing more! Exploring more! We'll all benefit from that. So here's to newer, healthier directions.
💖 M
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soul-dwelling · 2 months ago
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Yeah the whole "supporting the official release" thing seems to be kinda a relic from a decade or more in the past - where anime was niche and fans bite the bullet just in a desperate hope to make it "big" - and now when its maybe event too big for its own good, think it jjust becomes corporate slavery, supporting sexist assholes and worker abusers - hell I doubt any of the staff that isnt high up and hence loaded already, do get any residuals - maybe dub voice actors, but I doubt if any of the grunt work animators do, but maybe I'm ignorant.
"Sexist assholes--" But enough about [insert the name of the toxic mangaka or actor of your choice].
Okay, time for me to go off on at least four tangents. (Remember when I used to just praise Soul Eater instead of getting more bitter?)
You're not wrong that it is now an outdated phrase.
And it is harder to sustain it when distribution has changed, where a streaming service can erase an entire movie or series from its web site so that you now can't buy it or watch it, depriving both audience from watching and creators from getting any money or attention for their work.
I'm trying to do my best with limited funds to try to get a lot of anime that I know will go out of print: Discotek got licenses to a ton of anime that I fear will not be on streaming, and Discotek already announced some of their home video titles were no longer in print. I mean, remember when Baccano and the first Fullmetal Alchemist were going to be out of print with Funimation doing next to nothing to bring them back, where Aniplex kept jerking the audience around with the first Fullmetal Alchemist? I just checked JustWatch.com--I can't find either one on any legal streaming service. Now Funimation, Crunchyroll, Aniplex, and Sony are all the same company--and still no Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 on streaming.
And there is so much manga and anime getting released--and either drowned out by how much art is out there competing for attention that none of them can get as big an audience as older works, so established franchises continued while really good stories either get overlooked (please read Akane-banashi and Show-ha Shoten) or cancelled way too soon (Ginka and Gluna). With My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen concluding, the former at least will persist with spinoffs, the latter is going to leave a void--but as I said, with the competition so high, what can even reach that level of popularity? And that's not even getting into how, I assume, Jujutsu Kaisen probably did not reach what Bleach reached, which didn't reach what Dragon Ball Z reached, and so on.
Supporting the official release is the right thing to do; buying the merch should be sending a message that this thing is popular and should continue so long as the creator wants it to; but if they don't make the merch, and if the merch doesn't sell as much as the company making it wants so it's not profitable, then the story doesn't have a patron to keep buying the creator to make it.
And COVID and the work we're trying to do to protect our health is all comprising what we can do as fans: I am not going to conventions, so I don't get to meet other fans, I don't get to hear firsthand from creators or meet them in autograph lines, and I'm not buying merch and art at the alley in person (although none of that stops me from buying directly from artists online).
I don't get to go out to see films in theaters--I don't get to be one of the people getting a limited distribution of a niche franchise more ticket sales, I don't get to wear a T-shirt with the characters on it at the theater or see people dressed up in cosplay. I don't get to do what I did before COVID, where a local theater would make its own unique posters for the anime film they were going to show, in order to support themselves so they could get lesser known films also distributed at that theater.
(I am curious, but not optimistic, whether Sony can support all of this, given they did announce they were looking to integrate Crunchyroll-distributed films to their new ownership of Alamo Drafthouse.)
I know animators in Japan are working their butts off to get better working conditions--I just wish I had the link in front of me for how people can help.
Meanwhile, dub actors in the United States are working their butts off to get the protections they deserve: https://www.codaunite.com. I can't speak for dub actors, but I anticipate they would point out that, no, they are not loaded, they do not get residuals. Every voice actor I have heard talk about the industry has discussed having additional work on the side--coaching, illustrating, singing, music, unrelated business--and the hustle of always auditioning without pause: it is hard work.
And that's not even getting into the damage voice acting does, especially if you are already doing an anime but your character is in this video game, so now you have to wreck your throat doing 15 different iterations of a scream.
And that's not getting into how the corporations are obsessed with AI, to fuck over actors (as well as the environment)--and, sorry, but SAG-AFTRA has not done enough in my opinion to protect its members and is far too timid to fight against what they think is the inevitably of AI.
And most of what I just said was hearing it from union actors who work in mostly United States-produced animation out of Los Angeles, not anime dub actors, not non-union actors. So, if it is that hard to find work while a union actor in US-produced animation, now imagine how difficult it is to keep getting work in dubbing when the competition for actors is high, where the locations like Texas are flat-out opposed to unions and when Sony and Crunchyroll have not done enough to support unionized actors in Texas.
And think how difficult it is when remote recording opportunities evaporated when lying fuckers pretended COVID was over. So, unless you are an actor usually based out of Los Angeles but are popular enough that of course they'll let you record remotely from your new home in Middle America, now work dries up not only to safely record from home but also dries up for actors who are not in Los Angeles, New York City, Dallas, Houston, and Vancouver. (And even then Vancouver actors want to be in more US-produced anime and can work remotely but many just are not given a chance to audition). And I am wholly ignorant about how they were trying to get dubbing done out of Miami, too, and whether that went anywhere.
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funnywormz · 11 months ago
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one big issue i have with streaming services is like. sometimes i just wanna watch like 1 or 2 series max that are on a particular streaming service. and i would be prepared to make a one-off payment to watch a specific series! i don't mind the idea of paying to watch something that i specifically want to watch!
but the issue is that you CAN'T do that anymore. instead you have to pay $15 a month for a whole streaming site when you're probably only gonna watch like 2 things on it anyways. and then you have to keep on paying that for OTHER streaming sites if you want to watch a series that they have......... and it ends up adding up to WAY more than it would cost to just like. buy a dvd or something.
i (and many others) don't have the kind of money to sign up to every fucking streaming service just bc they have one or two shows on them i might wanna watch. but everything is becoming so scattered between different sites now that that's kinda the only option you have to legally watch a bunch of different series, even though it quickly becomes ridiculously unaffordable. hence, you end up driving ppl to less "official" (🏴‍☠️) sources, even when some of those ppl would be fully prepared to make one-off payments to access a series they like if that option was ever available. it sucks and it's stupid. i want to go back to the days of dvd rentals and dvd shops where you could just buy a movie/series on dvd and it's yours to watch forever
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iviarellereads · 11 months ago
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System Collapse, Chapter 2
(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)
In which the legal complexities are a bit overwhelming.
When they're out of sight of the B-Es, Murderbot takes its weight off Ratthi, and he asks if it's alright. It says it is, but Iris suggests it stay with them for the last router. MB agrees, and Art recalls its shuttle. MB hopes this might encourage the B-Es to believe they've left.
The original B-E team told Art's team that the new ship was a scheduled arrival, not in response to the beacon. Seth thought that was a lie, so they've been operating under the assumption that B-E have more reinforcements waiting at a nearby wormhole. Unfortunately, no support ship from Art's university has been as forthcoming.
"Phase I of Plan A: Get the Hell Out of Here" involved getting decontamination routines into the locals' MedUnits, so they can decontam themselves of the alien remnants. Everything was proprietary and antiquated, so it took longer than expected. At least everyone's level of paranoia about contamination was up to MB's standards, so they didn't have as much trouble as they might have.
Phase II is the legal case for independence, which Pin-Lee is also working on. To summarize without the technical details, B-E has to make a case that the contamination can be effectively sealed to colonize it, and if they can't, the old colonists become salvage. So, the next step is to ask the colonists what they want, but it's unclear who to ask as they've split into even more factions. MB recounts a conversation between Thiago, Karime, and Mensah about how the colonists have been dealing with what they did to each other. MB thinks they should first get somewhere they won't be corporate slave labour THEN deal with their feelings.(1)
The last router isn't too far, and by the time they get there, the other operation, that MB would have been monitoring security for before the redacted incident,(2) is in progress. Karime, with Three, have arrived at the second colony site, where the colonists went after they discovered the pre-Rim site's contamination. MB monitors things from afar.
Iris and Tarik start on fixing the router. MB thinks about how, if the shuttle failed, the humans could walk in the direction of the space elevator until Art's drones found them and it sent down another shuttle. Meanwhile, MB could walk in the other direction and… it tags the rest of that thought for deletion.(3)
MB notices that Three's body language is a little too stiff, and asks if it's running the human gait code. Three says it is, but makes some adjustments, and says it's difficult. MB says it's doing great. It thinks how they don't want the colonists to know Three is a SecUnit, because they'll still remember how intense Art was about bombing the planet to get its SecUnit back.
Art is monitoring everything, because it's still unhappy with its humans being on this planet at all. (MB shares a transcript of a conversation demonstrating how intense it was about it when planning all this. It then adds some context, describing how Iris explained its behaviour: Art has just been through a trauma, and will act out verbally until it's fully processed. In response, Thiago said Art just enjoys terrifying people, and Iris smiled politely and ignored the comment so they didn't have to fight about it. This makes MB realize in realtime that Iris is Art's Ratthi.(4) MB then clarifies that Thiago wasn't quite right: Art doesn't enjoy terrifying people, but it does enjoy getting its way, and terrifying people is one of many tools it uses to do so. But, Iris is correct that Art is still processing, and MB would worry about the fact that Art had such great success with arming its pathfinders, but it's got a lot on its plate right now.)
It's difficult to watch Karime go into this meeting, and it's almost as difficult to watch Three being so awkward, trying to be human. MB knows it must have been that awkward at some point as well, but that doesn't make it easier. They're meeting with Bellagaia, who leads Faction One who want to cooperate, and Danis and Variset, who lead Faction Two who don't know what they want or who to trust. Karime was the best candidate, not only as Art's best negotiator, but also as one of the least threatening-looking.
As the meeting gets underway and the nicenesses observed, Tarik is carrying the tools back to the shuttle, while Iris tunes into the team feed to watch the meeting, and Ratthi watches Tarik walking.(5)
At the meeting, Bellagaia tells Karime there's another colony here. After some confusion, she clarifies that she means another colony site at the pole, where there's some terraforming still going on. Art cusses, and when Karime clarifies privately, Art suggests maybe Bellagaia is intoxicated. They debate whether their imaging could have revealed it, but they didn't expand much past the terraforming equipment, so likely never would have seen it.
Bellagaia continues that they split when the contamination first became obvious. The equipment blocks some comm signals, so they haven't been in regular contact in some time. Then when the latest outbreak started, they worried about spreading it to a community that was never infected. Danis mutters that they only think the pole colony was never infected, and they could be dead by now.
Karime says they can go to the pole and ask them what's going on and warn them about B-E, but asks if B-E knows about them yet. Danis says Faction Two would never tell them, though Variset is less confident in that, and even Danis acknowledges subfactions might have done so.
Another human points out that the colony site wouldn't have been on the charter, because it wasn't meant to be a secondary site. On Art, Seth groans, and it takes MB a moment to figure out why: this means another revamp of the forged charter, while they're already running out of time.
More debate in the feed about how they missed the site.(6) The unnamed human is named, Corian, who uses vi/vir pronouns, and is the local historian and record-keeper. When Karime asks if there's anything else to know about the other colony site, Corian says contact ended twenty years ago, and there have been reports of attempted connections, but no verified contact since. The group was separatist already, so the lack of communication isn't so surprising. And, vi has no records of where the official site was set up. There were only rumours that it was in a cave system.
This leaves Karime a little visibly sunken, and the rest of the team visibly shaken as well. Karime asks if vi thinks it's another contaminated site, and Corian says either way, the problem is obvious.
Mensah taps MB in the feed, so MB loops her in as well. Some of the other colonists are protesting that there's no evidence of another contaminated site, but Bellagaia looks exhausted, and Karime's still just listening intently to Corian, though vi has little more to add.
Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, “Oh, you have to be kidding me.” Yeah.
=====
(1) A truly noble goal. Though, I'm not sure we'd be better off if more humans were able to detach/compartmentalize enough to do that. (2) Surely this can't last all book right? We have to get an answer eventually? (3) Even aside from its old traumas, Murderbot is dealing with such big fresh ones. It's so much. My poor blorbo. (4) This is one of the little quotes I was spoiled for, and I'm so pleased to find it in its original context. And, we haven't spent a lot of time with Iris, but I can see it. But, this also indicates a little bit of... Well, Ratthi's always been there, but Mensah's always been MB's focus-human. It's interesting that it considers Ratthi its primary human, since that seems to be Art's dynamic with Iris. (5) Another bit I was spoiled for, and WHO CAN BLAME THE GOOD PEOPLE OF TUMBLR?! (6) This is a little bit wearing on me, I feel like they're just repeating over and over to confuse and add tension? Also I don't remember mentions of air bubbles in Network Effect over the settlements… It's all just a bit odd to me.
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Hey, you seem like you'd probably know more than me, but I saw you talking about season 13 the other day not being on DVD yet, and I was wondering if there's a potential release date for it?
I've only been recently getting back into SpongeBob because I found this blog and was interested in the show again after seeing your posts about it, but I don't have cable so other than watching it online where the episodes are scattered since it's not on Paramount+ for some reason, I haven't been able to stay up to date on the newest episodes and would like to have them to watch soon :(
In addition, do you happen to know of any news about the Patrick Star show maybe coming to Paramount+ in the near future? I know Kamp Koral's on there, but I would rather see the former instead tbh and was surprised it wasn't on there??? Either way, it's ok if you haven't heard any news about these 2 things, but I agree on hoping they release season 13 on DVD soon
Sorry this is late but I get how you feel. I haven't had cable for years so I mainly rely on the pirate's life to get me through (excluding the Patrick show, I actually pay for that because it's hard to find it online)
I prefer DVDs because I can physically own it but it takes a while for the full season to come out on DVD so if I want to (re)watch specific episodes I mainly go online for that. I don't like streaming services at all. They're unreliable and you can't even download the content you payed for. Also releases can be super inconsistent with actual air dates.
There are sketchy sites like kisscartoon. It might mine your computer for crypto but it's my old reliable lol. I used to use Soap2Day before it went down but now I use hdtoday.tv Theres also freemoviesfull which works for live action shows and movies if you can withstand multiple popups.
The only problem with these is don't expect anything for the spinoffs. It feels like no website really keeps up to date with the Patrick show or Kamp Koral. I can't survive without my Slappy content so I end up paying for the entirety of season 1 on amazon. It was convenient and kept me up to date with releases. (i dont like amazon tho so take as you will)
There is however a secret third option (wink wink) but you'll have to DM me to get that. For legal purposes this is a joke.
Hope this helps!
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on-noon · 2 years ago
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short story: a Countdown to Magic Prolouge
I look down at my list, check the address. This is the house. Makes sense too, the old houses are the ones with weird taxes, and this definitely looks old. That "no magic allowed inside" sign doesn't seem legal, but I work for the city, not my dad. So it's not my problem.
I knock on the door.
I knock again, louder. There's chatter coming from the inside, so they're definitely home.
It doesn't look warm outside, I should probably get inside soon.
Someone comes behind me.
"What're you doing just standing outside?" the man says
"I knocked the door and was waiting for an answer."
"Who knocks on the door to an inn?" he goes inside, pushing the door open without much care. I follow him.
An inn?
There's a desk in front of the door with a sign on it that reads "wait here to check in." So I wait.
This girl, who couldn't be more than fourteen or sixteen comes and asks "Are you waiting to check in?"
"No, I work for the city, tax collection to be specific, so could I talk to whoever owns this property?"
"That would be my dad, but he's not home yet, he should be back by the time the countdown ends. I also know where all the paperwork is for taxes though, and can pay them if they're due before than," she says.
"The taxes will be due in one and half months, so before the countdown ends, yes. Isn't there an adult here who can handle this? Isn't some watching you?" Hopefully she's not alone, that would probably be child abandonment, and I'd have to go report it to the Mage Society, especially for that long.
"My neighbor's here as the adult, she should be back in a couple hours, but she'd have no idea how to handle any of the tax stuff."
I guess I have to deal with this child now.
"Okay, go get the receipt for when this house��� this inn was bought."
"Follow me," she says. "And this house was never sold, so I'm going to show the other paperwork instead."
This building is oddly far out of town for the property to have never been sold. If I remember correctly, this area should have been part of the area where the city sold the land to the first people who built on it. Either that or it was a farm.
"I don't think I've seen this on the list of properties still with their original owner, but I guess I can look at the certificate. I'll have to verify it though, with the city's paperwork."
The rate for the few properties that have never been sold is set so cheap that we have to make sure there are no scammers. And of course we can't just change the laws.
She leads me up a ramp, through a sliding door to a dark room filled with mostly papers, and a few random objects.
She looks at a few different papers, then hands me a box. "That's our sales records for the year."
She goes deeper into the room.
"Wait, I don't need your sales records. I just need the certificate stating this as a never-sold property, along with a family tree or something to show the line of inheritance."
I don't even know how she came up with needing sales records for taxes.
She comes back with another box of papers. "No, we do need the sales records. You must be a different tax collector than normal. Here's the agreement my great-great-whoever made with the city."
I look at the paper. It seems to be a page long legal document. As I read it though, it starts to get interesting. It claims they never joined the city, but to avoid joining the city agreed to pay a portion of their sales in taxes?
How have I never heard of this?
"I'll need to go look through the city's archives, you understand, make sure this claim is legitimate."
I take the streetcar back to the city archives, the site of the old city hall. I don't know where to look for this. Usually I only need to look at the property records. Would this be shown on maps? Maybe if I can find a map of the city from that time.
I thought I knew how to handle anything now. I read through the entire tax code. All of it, all the fraud types and punishments, all the odd historical exceptions from back when they would just change the law if they had a problem.
And the head collector trusted me.
I look at maps of the city from the time, but I can't tell. None of them are at any useful detail, or technically aren't maps of the city limits.
Where would they put the papers showing the growing of the city or whatever?
I thought I was familiar with the city archives, but I have no clue where to look.
I pack up the maps, they aren't useful, and notice some blood on one of them. I look down at my hands. A papercut. Great. And I got blood on the old documents. I flip through the maps, luckily I only got blood on two of the maps.
I go down to the desk, "Eaohg, I was looking through the maps from the times Lathp Hills was added and got a papercut. I accidentally dropped some blood on two maps, it didn't obfuscate any information."
"Okay, thanks for telling me. What were you doing with the maps anyway? Tax collectors usually only care about the property records," she says.
"There's this one weird case, they claim to not be in the city and have some weird agreement. But I don't know where I'd find anything to support that. But how could you make that up? She had even this whole thing about taxes based off of sales?" I say. Hopefully Eaohg will take pity on me and help.
"That would have to be the Weynild's, I think that was mentioned maybe in one of the thousands of other documents in here they're mentioned in. You might find whatever agreement in the Mayor's room, third rack."
"Weynild? Who's that?" Surely she misinterpreted. That girl couldn't have been mentioned in any of those documents. So maybe she was tricking but based off an existing tax agreement we had with someone else?
"The Weynild's are the family that run the inn in Lathp Hills, but that inn has been around longer than anything else in the area. Longer in fact than when Lathp, whoever they were owned the land. And they show up in a surprising amount of records. It's a whole thing. But yeah, Mayor's room, third rack is where the document you want should be."
I easily find it, once Eaohg told me exactly where it was. A copy of the agreement that girl gave me. So know I have to go back, and look through all those records of sales, calculate five percent of that and collect the taxes. No problem.
Except it's snowing now. And I guess it's late enough I can justify ending my workday now. I take the tram home, also I guess the streetcars over to Lathp Hill aren't enclosed, but these trams are, so I made probably the correct decision. I still want to finish the case, though.
When I get home, my mom's painting. Mountains, like in her hometown.
She only says she was worried about me, did I get frostbite, she saw the snow.
I hold out my hands. "Doesn't seem so. Just a papercut."
She doesn't ask about my job. Eventually Horatio comes home, from wherever he was, and he goes straight to reading his magic theory papers. They're for the level of people who study that stuff, they can't be interesting. And then my dad comes home, late again.
He brings the food, so we set the table and get to dinner.
Horatio talks about his magic theory, what he read in those papers. Dad doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, but he does mention that at the Mage Academy here, they need someone to teach magic theory. He almost outright offers Horatio a job somewhere he’s not even qualified to be a student at yet. Horatio took way too long to pick up on it.
I mention that I found a new weird exception in the tax law.
And no one responds, they just keep eating their dinners.
The next day, I’m the second one to leave, after Horatio. I get to Lathp Hills, and this time I just enter the inn, no awkwardly waiting around.
I quickly find that girl, and she brings me to the sales records. I look through a couple random sheets, make sure all the numbers add up on those, make sure there’s no lowering the count between sheets. I even remember an off statistical rule to try and tell if the numbers are made up.
I didn’t make certain they weren’t scamming, but I checked. And besides, the amount they ended up paying in tax was much higher than probably it would be based on property value.
I leave, and look back at the property, try to guess a value.
They've still got the "no magic allowed inside." Which even if they can somehow get out of paying taxes the normal way, they can’t get out from under the authority of the mages. The sign looks old, but surely it could have been removed in the hundreds of years since the Mage Society took control of the city.
But they’re not in the city, not quite.
Maybe I should tall my dad or someone who works under him.
But then would he care about a weird tax situation?
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booklovertwilight · 2 years ago
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☕️ thoughts on different fanfiction sites perhaps? (AO3 vs Wattpad vs ffnet vs whatever else there is lol)
Hi friend! Sorry for the late reply, one of my posts blew up and the notification avalanche scared me off the site for a few days.
So I've been writing fanfic for *checks watch* 13 years now. I've posted it on AO3, Wattpad, FanFiction.net, Reddit, DeviantArt, YouTube comments sections, and blogs I set up myself. I'mma cover the first three individually, and do the others as a sort of collective.
I started off writing on FFnet back in 2009, and even back then I was aggravated by how much work it takes to do something as simple as post a new chapter. The UI to search for and read fic is fine, I guess, but as a prolific writer (I posted over a dozen stories on that site), the fact that it takes like ten steps to post a chapter is just Bad™. Like you have to 1) open your author profile 2) go to the side column and expand the 'works' tab 3) go to 'manage works' 4) scroll through your entire list of fics to find the one you want to add a chapter to 5) click the chapters list 6) click the add chapter button .... etc etc AAAAAAA. I have not written anything on the site in years and I still remember this stupid process. Btw the menus still look & act like this. In fucking 2022.
Wattpad is much nicer in terms of user interface. In fact it's got an option to add cover art which will be displayed front and centre along with the title and summary in search results, which, as a writer/artist who draws his own covers for his fics anyway, I thought was great. Generally, the process of posting new works / new chapters to existing works is a lot more seamless here than, actually, any other site on this list. It's also got this neat feature where you can comment on a fic line-by-line, by highlighting the text, which is a lot more user-friendly than having to copy the text and paste it in quote marks into a comment. But the nice UI/UX can't make up for the fact that -- at least in 2014, which was when I briefly tried writing there -- Wattpad was a cesspool of the most annoying human beings to ever exist. I wanted to post my writing to a community that would give me interesting comments and useful feedback, not write incoherently-spelled rants about how I was taking the source material too seriously. I lasted on Wattpad about 5 months.
After I quit FFnet and Wattpad I went around posting fic to a bunch of random forums, none of which really worked well because they hadn't been designed for that purpose. Posting long-form stories (which is pretty much all I write) to either Reddit or DeviantArt is an absolute nightmare of comment-section-linking. And posting fic to my own blog requires I have some way to bring people to see it, which is remarkably difficult to pull off and requires a lot of work. And on top of all that, there's no community, really, so you get whatever bottom-of-the-barrel internet trolls think it would be funny to harass you.
AO3 is where I post my fic now (@booklovertwilight on there too, in case there's still anyone following me who doesn't know that), and for good reason. I've tried a lot of stuff (perhaps too much stuff) and it's all-around better than anything else available. Its UI isn't the best, but it's manageable. Its site design is pretty good. But crucially, the community on there is just wonderful. Part of this is the fact that the Death Note fandom in specific is just a lovely place to be (nowadays), but even when I've posted fic for larger or more militant fanbases (*cough cough* Sword Art Online), even the criticisms have been coherent and well-thought-out. I felt less like I was being ridiculed in a school cafeteria and more like I was being given a constructive critique by a fellow english major.
There's also the factor of legal recourse. I used to write long disclaimers at the top of my FFnet stories saying things like "I make no money off all this, all rights belong to [creator of canon], please don't sue me I'm broke". Everyone did. I absolutely love the dignity in being able to post fic without having to grovel to the copyright overlords, knowing some lawyer I pay for with my yearly donations is doing it for me. The community is what brought me to AO3, but the legal safety is what's gonna keep me here.
Hope that answered your question, friend! Thank you very much for the ask, this was a lot of fun to think and talk about <3
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lapeaudelamemoire · 8 months ago
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headache. getting sick of using tumblr actually. getting sick of using everything.
usb-c adapter for wired earbuds got bent out of shape because it's a sticking-out liability. always hated it for that reason but it was the only way i could use wired earbuds. now it's no different from the wired earbuds from when we were teenagers and you had to bend it just a certain way and hold it to keep it going. but wireless earbuds get lost fucking easily and headphones make the keloid scar on the top of my left ear fucking hurt and worsens it by pressing on it.
got a tv to watch things on so my eyes won't be so fucked by watching at a shorter distance on laptop so much but can't fucking watch youtube where many chinese dramas are uploaded because the ads are relentless, and the video players on random chinese streaming sites aren't supported by chromecast.
try to go on tumblr on laptop so i'm not looking at my phone so much. rich text editor is a fucking laggy pos. now i gotta remember to type extra < br > and < p > < / p >s for everything.
can't buy contact lenses online here without a prescription which you have to have updated every two years. who tf has time for that when everything is only open during office hours? you want me to have to take time out from placement for this?
probably have to make another appointment with rent legal aid, which is also limited solely to only during working office hours.
i'm so fucking tired of rent shit taking over my entire month, all the energy and time i have, while trying to deal with school and placement.
that's not even what i came on here to say.
also hate typing on this laptop tbh which is a crying shame but
-
i'm not okay and i don't think we should be. i think we should all stop going to work or school or whatever and i don't want to see another mental health practitioner to talk about how i feel about what's going on in the world today and palestine especially because actually i think this is the correct response that we all should be having, we shouldn't be going on with our daily lives, we are being affected as we fucking should, and i don't want to go see someone about it to 'deal with it' so i can carry on going to work and school like this is fine.
i don't want to be 'well-adjusted' aka inured to this happening. we should be feeling shit. we should be doing something about it in the sense of stopping this atrocity, not in the sense of going to talk to someone to normalise it so we can go back to work or go about our day.
i don't mean we should all traumatise ourselves and not attend to our own health mentally and emotionally, but being deeply affected and depressed that this is going on before our eyes is not wrong or a sign that we need to go see someone to diffuse it. it isn't a maladjustment, we're working as we should - as social creatures who co-regulate. and we should be affected enough to be turning out in the streets en masse to stop things going on as if this is acceptable.
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funforahermit · 2 years ago
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every now and then i get sad again that there's no way for me to buy I'm a Fighter Jet
and then i try for the dvd again, but for some reason there are no copies anywhere
i wonder why it wasn't that hard to get the other three shows on dvd, but this one proves virtually impossible to find. did they just have less of them printed in the first place??
i can feel myself wanting to get mean again, because i'm just so frustrated. like, i want to say i didn't like this show anyway (when i watched it illegally that one time, because do you really expect me not to, under these circumstances?). i want to say screw you and your embarrassing magic mushroom bullshit.
but then.... i don't *really* want to be mean. it's okay if it's not that funny, he's still pretty to look at.
i'm just really sad.
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koreandragon · 2 years ago
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i feel like people have become way too comfortable with the rise of streaming services like,, people just can't put the effort to properly pirate anymore it's always where to watch this and that.. and when it's not available they just won't bother watching it? like on the kdrama reddit ppl srsly went like oh no its not legally available anymore guess i won't be able to watch it 😥 like GIRL. it honestly isn't that hard to type a few words into the search bar and look for it. the lengths i would go to back in the day be able to watch media without paying for it.... have we as a species become this weak to just yield to capitalism?? idk where im going w this but this also pisses me off recently 😭 i share ur pain
no i totally feel this??? i've seen so many people just not watch things because it's not available to watch on streaming services like are you crazy?? are you insane?? this is how they get you!! why do you think there are a hundred different streaming services already like why would you pay for anything when it's literally available for free. how is your first thought not typing the show name into google and "watch online" i learned this at 13 years old?? i could name you a hundred different sites and torrent pages where you can just get shit for free? no one cares, you won't go to jail? you are not morally corrupt for watching your favorite show on putlocker? back in the day when there wasn't netflix or hulu or any of that shit, how do you think we watched things? kdramas weren't even made for netflix or viki or whatever like that shit was passed around fansubbed in parts in google drive and you had to wait days for someone to even translate it? the most evil thing about netflix in particular is that despite paying them an obscene amount of money, some kdramas are not available in some countries (like mine) to watch while they're still on the air. i need to use a vpn to access it. now tell me how that doesn't make you want to eat the rich
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enetarch-working-w-adhd · 3 years ago
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Watch Your Tone!!
Have you been told that the tone of your voice needs to change. And, you,re left scratching your head wondering what they are talking about. There are two ways to resolve this issue.
Verbal Communication
Before we begin, let's discuss that the tone of your voice matters. What does tone mean? Let's begin by examining different ways to say the same thing.
Command .. Do That!!
Request .. Will you do that?
Suggestion .. Can you do that?
Offering .. Can I help you do that?
Prognosticating .. I did that for you!
Guilting .. You never do what I tell you what to do, and now look what happened.
Lying .. [ using a half truth ] This becomes more complex and nuanced because, the lie is based on a truth, but also leaves out key details / context.
Peer Pressure .. You said you would do this. Now everyone is here and I'm going to look stupid if you don't.
Non-Verbal Communication
Now that you have an idea of various ways that people communicate verbally, there are a lot of non-verbal ques that people use to communicate with as well.
The definitive book of Body Language, by Allan and barbara Pease. ISBN 978-0-553-80472-0
Being Told
So, when someone tells you that your tone of voice isn't right, ask for 2 things.
1 .. an example of what you said, in full context.
2 .. ask when and who it was said to?
There will be problems with doing this, as most managers want to isolate who said what and when from each other, so that you won't retaliate. This is an excuse however, and doesn't help you with context. If the manager can't provide the complete context of the conversation, then that needs to be noted in the file.
Get as much specific information as possible about the issue that other people are having, because the manager could just straight up be lying to you.
The reason why context is so important to an ADHDr is because of two executive dysfunction issues. The first is .. Out of Site, Out of Mind .. The second concerns associative memory recall. In order to remember a situation, we need to place ourselves back in the exact situation in order to recall it. If a manager can't or won't do this, then report it as abuse.
Report Abuse
If they continue to tell you that you are the problem with no evidence to back up their claim, request a formal inquiry.
When you file your report, make sure you keep a copy of your report for any legal action that may be needed. This can be forwarded to a lawyer, or anyone that is investigating the situation.
The other thing to make note of in your report is to state exactly how and what you would have wanted instead. Be specific. If the manager said X, Y and Z, what did you want the manage to say instead? If the manager did X, Y and Z, what did you want the manager to do instead?
Timing
As noted above, when someone complains about your tone, it is important that you know when it was said. There is a difference between 2 hours, 2 days, or 2 weeks ago. Your associative memory doesn't retain details the farther away from the incident you get.
This could also be considered abuse, so make sure you document the conversation. Even if it's a quick note in your phone.
Recording Abuse
While many states won't allow you to present a recording as evidence without both parties consent, the internet doesn't have that requirement, nor does an office investigation team. So, if at all possible, have your phone record the conversation with your manager. And, don't inform anyone.
Don't post it. Don't let anyone know you're doing it. The only person you can trust to listen to the recordings are you and a lawyer. While the lawyer may not be able to present it as evidence, there are other ways to ask questions that tease the information out about the situation.
If you believe that you are being baited into a situation, use your phone to record the conversation. Then see if a pattern follows where the manager talks to you about the conversation you had. At least then you will have a cause and effect relationship.
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rururux · 3 years ago
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Short thoughts
Little points that I'd like to talk about my gift for the heishin spring exchange 2021
Drawing the flowers were literally the highlight of this
I am currently drawing a flowershop au for kaishin big bang as well - but that requires colouring and it's overwhelming to draw the whole parts of the plants when I just want to draw the flowers
So this was definitely a breather from it
ALSO I JUST GOT CSP AND M JUST SOBBING AT THE FLOWER BRUSHES LIKE PLEASE?!?!?!!
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POPPY, HYDRAGEA, COSMOS, WATER LILY, PLUM, LILY, OSES, MORNING GLORY, SUNFLOWERS
My efforts.... *sobs*
Tempted to redo my whole drawing with csp, esp with the potential of the textured brushes I saw. But later when I have time.
BACK TO HEISHIN GIFT
The idea of cornflowers were actually by my giftee (which they stated in the prompt) and when I looked it up, I immediately thought genius
It had all the painful lovable meanings:
Celibacy; Delicacy; Elegance; Hope; Hope in love; Love; Patience; Refinement; Single blessedness; Single wretchedness
But what stood out to me was the contradicting meaning of "single blessedness" and "single wretchedness"
This is common in flower language and is one of the many reasons why I cross check sites and languages - aka it's a pain
But it worked really well for the writing I was going for - the idea that this love of Heiji's hurts, and yet he wants to keep it. He's so close to Kudo, but yet he's so far from him.
Unrequited feelings are hidden feelings, but through the hanahaki disease they manifest.
So yes, I love the contradictions there.
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Hence I hope that whoever sees the comic realised what I've done here, Where I had the "Single blessedness; Single wretchedness" in a darker colour, with the dialogue "What a contradiction" right at the bottom. Because that's the idea of hanahaki for me for this ship.
Also hopefully, in Page 2 and Page 3 of the comic, you'd notice the link between the dialogue and the flowers.
Manifestation and Truth
Hiding and Bravery
Page 1 - yea... I can't do much about that. But it really fit Shinichi, where Heiji falls in love with how sharp Kudo's mind is, which is intellectual beauty in my opinion and understanding. Maybe I should have picked a flower about beginning?
But... ultimately the flowers are meant to represent Shinichi. That's more romantic and painful to see these flowers as it's what Heiji's fell for. It makes sense for these feelings who originate from these characteristics and qualities to mean them.
Alternatively, I went through the flower language book to make a list of flowers that are poisonous and are the negative and discouraging type. Because hanahaki is painful. I got past the letter A and I already have 6.
Page 5 was a struggle. It was a kiss scene. I was tempted to have flowers there, but with how flowers as shown means that Heiji is hurting, it doesn't feel fitting.
Plus the style of the comic is to be minimalistic. It's empty. It's a journal-esque style. Maybe I could have drawn Heiji's surprised expression? Added some colours?
Hmmm
Perhaps.
I had Kazuha in Page 2, just to clarify that this is going to be HeiShin. But also because I love her.
... Well it's actually a hint to how Shinichi knows and looks for Heiji. You didn't think Kazuha is going to sit there and watch her friend cough out blood did you?
Even if Heji asks her to keep a secret, she will hunt Kudo down. She ain't gonna lose her friend because of stubborness. His stubborness specifically.
And even if Heiji doesn't reveal, I'm pretty sure Kazuha will realise the candidate for the cause of his disease other than her. This "Kudo" person that Heiji won't stop talking about haha.
I really really like to consider other characters aside from the main ship we have in the comic.
Kazuha, assuming that she isn't aware of Heiji's feelings for Shinichi, after realising it she'll develop the same disease, but takes the surgery after Heiji's feelings are reciprocated.
Assuming that she is aware, she will still develop the hanahaki disease. And Heiji is aware of it. But he isn't able to reciprocate it. Even if Kazuha begs for him to. In the end, due to legal reasons (where Kazuha is not an adult yet and is still under her parents), she takes the surgery. By the way, I'm thinking that this happened definitely before Heiji develops hanahaki.
Ran... Ugh I want to punch Kudo tbh haha
Ran doesn't develop hanahaki. She realises that perhaps Kudo isn't the one for her. He still puts cases above her sometimes - as in even though he does care deeply about her and stuff, the relationship requires a lot of sacrifice on Ran's part. Especially as she begins to meet different people and see the world and explore it, she'll realise that seriously, Shinichi isn't the only fish in the sea.
Hence when Kudo realises his feelings, she lets go. Painful - because despite how sudden and sporadic they spend time together, he was really one of the few constants in her life.
... Seriously hoping no one hunts me down haha
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drshojo · 5 years ago
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The World, My Childhood And My Hero Academia: Vigilantes
Hello friends!  
Its Dr. Shojo coming at you with a post that will be divided into three parts!
Part One: The world as we know it! 
The world has changed a lot since we last connected. For starters, TOILET BOUND HANAKO KUN HAS NOT ONLY A PHYSICAL RELEASE BUT A GORGEOUS ANIME! And not only that, but MY NEXT LIFE AS A VILLAINESS: ALL ROUTES LEAD TO DOOM! IS GETTING AN ANIME AS WELL! The last time I wrote about Katerina there wasn’t even an official English translation of that long-ass light-novel-title. And now?
A WHOLE ANIME. A BISEXUAL HAREM AWAITS! I am JAZZED!
Do you think it’s my fault? No matter, I’ll take all the credit. All the manga I talk about are getting anime adaptations. I’LL DO MY DUTY AND TALK ABOUT SOME MORE!
But first. Let us address the Covid-19 shaped elephant in the room
I deeply regret that it took a whole-ass pandemic to get me back to writing. In my defense, I bought an iPad and started drawing like 900 kokichi oumas. I was really busy with that. And then I started reading fanfiction. Then that got me thinking about how fanfiction such an interesting look into how people interpret fandom, use it for wish fulfillment and escapism, and good god is everyone OK cause that bulimia fan fic was super detailed....and I am officially on a tangent. Off track. Ahem.
We are all staying inside a whole lot more which means y’all probably need some reading material and Dr. Shojo has your back! Go read “Horimiya”! It’s amazing! Ahhhh, my work here is done! I'm serious, if you’re here for a Shojo rec, that’s it! There's also like 8 million more Otome Isekais to check out now. It’s like they’re multiplying like rabbits..............
As a Doctor, I must advise you to stay inside and read some manga and practice social distancing. Embrace your inner hikikomori. 
Allright? All good? Okay now one final disclaimer:
This post is going to be talking about something a little different than usual and I want to start by giving you some context about who Dr. Shojo is in real life. 
Part Two: Dr. Shojo Exposed 
You see, when I was little I was obsessed with Japanese media. This doesn't surprise you at all I can tell. Probably because I walk around calling myself Dr. Shojo and shout about manga that you should read.
Anyways, the reason why I was obsessed wasn’t because of the big eyes or the spikey hair or the interesting new culture. It was because it tended to have more character development and overarching plotlines than the media I was used to in Canada. Dexter’s Lab, Magic School Bus, pretty much everything I saw on TV was episodic in nature, so imagine how much my mind was blown when I saw Naruto and Card Captor Sakura, heck, even Pokémon had the Indigo Plateau! Here were kids that were learning more and more each day and got to see enemies become friends and vice versa. They lived and grew older just like me. Except they were cooler than me. And had more interesting lives than me. I gotta tell you, I was so sad when I was 12 and Kero didn’t tell me I had latent magical powers. But there was magic in my life and it was the magic of a complex narrative story. And not only that, it had a sense of movement and had cool costumes. I was hooked immediately.
Also, fun fact, at that age I happened to be a complete and utter tomboy! I loved pretending to fight my friends in the playground and was really worried that puberty would ruin my life because being a girl sounded so CUMBERSOME.
Which leads me up to my confession. Before I became Dr. Shojo, I was in fact......Dr. Shonen.
Bleach? Naruto? One Piece? I've read every single chapter there is.  
Hundreds of hours of watching fight sequences. Another fun fact, I only got into shojo because my aunt bought me volume 7 and 8 of Fruits Basket thinking “all mangas like the same right? Kids love comics?” It’s a tribute to how episodic western media was back then that she thought buying volume SEVEN and EIGHT was a REASONABLE PLACE TO START READING.
Now you might also say, Hey! Dr Shojo! Cardcaptors was a shojo! And you are right! but back then the anime was marketed to boys over here in the west and they actualy like, edited out episodes that they thought wouldn't interest boys?! Second fun fact, Once when I was in Grade 3 I was told I was not allowed to join a club under the stairs cause I was a girl and it was BOYS ONLY. The point of the club? To talk about how great Cardcaptors was! I Kid you not!
So anyways, your pall Dr. Shojo loves Shonen manga to this day!
The only reason I made this Dr. Shojo blog specifically about shojo is because, being a tomboy with no female friends, reading shojo manga was the first time I really thought about what it meant to be a girl and fall in love. And y i k e s. Shojo manga, like most media, fails miserably most of the time in displaying real world relationships. Or at least, it  doesn't prepare you for how disappointing everything can be. When I had my first kiss, I was thinking about how it didn’t feel at all like how I felt reading Zen and Shirayukis kiss in Akagame No Shirayuki Hime. Those were formative years, and shojo was one of the only places I saw romance being talked about for younger audiences. I liked reading romances where no one had any sexual experiences and were figuring out what love meant to them. But let’s shelve this topic for now.
The point is that gender roles are dumb and if you have an open mind there's a world of stories out there for you. Take this time inside to read something you wouldn’t normally. Critically think about the ways that the worlds you see in stories and how you experience the world differ. What are the messages a story is trying to tell you? And why do you like the stories you do? Reflect on how the stories you tell yourself color your view of the world. Even mindless entertainment leaves an impression on us. Anyways.
Whilst you're doing that, I'm going to absolutely lose my hecking mind over the Shonen Jump series MY HERO ACADEMIA: Vigilantes!
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Part Three: I downloaded the one month free trial of the Shonen Jump app and made you read all that, so I can tell you that today Dr. Shojo is going to rant about a spin-off of a shonen manga
THAT’S RIGHT, OF COURSE I READ HERO ACA AND YES I DID PICK UP THE SPIN OFF SERIES. SHONEN JUMP LETS YOU READ ALL THE NEW CHAPTERS FOR FREE ON THEIR APP. KIDS, IF YOU LIKE SHONEN AND YOU’RE PIRATING ON A SCANLATION SITE STILL GET OUT BECAUSE YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE THOSE WEIRD PLASTIC SURGERY AND DENTISTRY ADDS ANY MORE.
SHONEN IS HERE AND ITS LEGAL AND ITS FREE FOR YOU. GET OFF MANGA FOX OR MANGA ROCK OR WHATEVER THE KIDS ARE USING THESE DAYS.
OK, so by this point in the article you have learned two very important things about me: 1) I love Shonen manga and 2) I read a lot of fanfiction.
Specifically, I read an absolutely biblical amount of My Hero Academia fan fiction and let me tell you, A solid chunk of it is vigilante/ Deadpool / criminal with a heart of gold themed.
So when I saw Hero Aca had a spin off, and it was about vigilantes, I was NOT SURPRISED IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ao3 sure is powerful.
Now, if you will permit me a tangent in a post full of tangents—HOLY CRAP, THERE ARE TOO MANY VIGILANTE AUS. I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF EM. IT’S THE ISEKAI PROBLEM ALL OVER AGAIN. I GET AN EMAIL A FIC HAS UPDATED AND I’M LIKE IS THIS THE FIC WHERE DEKU HAS AN ABUSIVE MOM OR THE ONE WHERE HE HAS SPLIT PERSONALITY DISORDER OR THE ONE WHERE HE’S VIGILANTES WITH HITOSHI. OH WAIT, nvm, it’s the one where deku has a healing quirk.
OH WAIT WHICH OF THE 6 DEKU WITH HEALING QUIRK VIGILATE AU FICS IS THIS ONE?! ARGH WHY DIDN’T I WRITE A DESCRIPTION IN THE BOOKMARK FOR THIS!
My gripes aside, there's a reason why there's such an abundance of vigilante story telling—
Deadpool made like an absolute buttload of money and people love sass and memes.
People have a desire for a story in which they see themselves. Or, how they think of themselves.They like a story about someone who maybe came from nothing. Someone who has less money, maybe someone who is unlucky and had some bad breaks. Someone who never learned they had magic, never got their Hogwarts letter, never saw Kero, someone who never got that God-level quirk from All Might. And if your on Ao3 They want someone who also has seen a lot of memes and kind of wants taco bell and is also questioning their sexuality a bit?
Enter our new hero VIGILANTE DEKU.  
But the cannon can't do this, cause hey, Deku is the chosen one. Albeit, chosen by All Might, He’s got his own thing to do. But how can we still cash in on a vigilante story?
And thus enter our New-New hero KOICHI HAIMAWARI—code name Nice Guy and then later The Crawler. True to his relatable roots. He’s just a dude in an hoodie who can go about as fast as a bike.
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First off, I love Koichi. He wants to be a hero and fight crime, but most of the time he has to run away because at the end of the day he's just a dude.
He’s cute but not wildly good-looking, A bit of a nerd but not like an extreme okaku. He’s got a part time job and hates violence.
And this is where Koichi really shines—in every day stuff. He helps out wherever he can. Often, that just means listening to people complain and maybe helping his friends out with whatever they’re going through. He’s the kind of guy who smiles, not because he's especially brave, but because he just takes things one at a time and doesn't sweat the past. I think it’s really telling that he missed getting into hero high-school because he skipped the entrance exam to help someone. He’s the kind of person who lets us experience the superpower of human decency and empathy. And you know what? That’s something the world need desperately.  
This theme of human decency is really the driving force of Vigilantes—it’s a manga about how the laws are there for a reason but sometimes they unfairly impact the poor and vulnerable. It's about how a lot of criminals are just people who fell into bad social circles or on bad times. People have the capacity for cruelty and violence but that’s never all they are.  
Now, speaking of crime, the entirety of Hero Aca falls into some murky water when it comes to its evil doers. Much of the fandom has a huuuuuge problem with how much the franchise is willing to sweep under the rug in the name of redeeming their baddies. RE: people getting mad about forgiving Endeavor’s child abuse, or Bakugo’s suicide baiting. Or Mineta’s blatant sexual harassment.
But this theme is in Vigilantes even more than it ever was in the main series. To start off with, there’s this guy who tries to rape Pop Step early on, and the later he later winds up befriending everybody. It becomes a running gag that each new villain winds up befriending the other villain guys and then they all open a cat café together.
Using jobs as a way to lift people out of lives of crime is great and all but in the story there is no nuance or consequences for past wrong and well.....it feels very weird.  It's like Vigilantes plays at having an opinion about moral ambiguity and the complexity of human existence and then just.......lets everyone get along because who has time to get into all that. Make of that what you will but it sits weird for me personally.
Anyway, let's move on and talk about POP STEP our main girl!
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I love pop stars and I love vigilantes and a guerrilla performer is defiantly a character I could get behind. And I think they do a good job with Pop. She is actually kind of shy, but has this secret edgy persona she puts on when she performs. She is every girl on tumbler in the early 2000s. I also looooove that they make her not that great a singer. SHE’S GOT PASSION AND CHARISMA and maybe not born talent but like why should that stop you! Talent can be earned through practice and this is a great lesson to show people.
Unfortunately, Pop is also a great example of everything wrong with romance in Shonen.
It’s established early on that Pop loves Koichi because she is the girl he rescued all those years ago and yada yada yikes we’ve heard this one before. Many times before.
Sure, it's fine that they’ve met before, but gosh am I sick of damsels in distress. It's like she can't love him just because she respects what a great guy he is in her life and in the community at large, no no, she just needs to be rescued on top of that. And LOLOLOL isn't it funny he never noticed she was a girl because she was a child with short hair?! Once he realizes she has boobs now they will for sure fall in love! That’s how love works!
She's just with him all the time—nothing romantic ever happens she just gets a little tsundere.
I am never ever going to believe Koichi likes Pop because he spends like sooooo much time with her and they never have like, a moment. The first time he considers her is when Makoto is like, ‘hey I would love to get together with you, but have you thought about if you are crushing on Pop’. (Also this entire plot point is suspect—she's arbitrarily falling for Koichi cause he.......is the protagonist?)  
Say what you will about shojo, they give you the emotional conversations, the moments where you think.....ahhh I can see why she is falling for him. They give you context! Shonen likes to just say HERE’S A GIRL YOUR AGE. YOU CAN DATE LATER WHEN THE ADVENTURE IS DONE.
Just when they might get together, Pop suddenly turns evilllllll. The evilllll beeeees made her eeeevilllll (and more sexy).
*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*
Because why on earth would they get together if Koichi didn’t get to rescue Pop one more time?
I’m tired. These troupes are tired. I’m sure you are too. HOWEVER! If your still with me, Let’s move into why I'm really writing this post. Let’s get to the part that got me screaming to my friends, who by the way, don’t even care bout Hero Aca….but listened anyways. May you all find nakama like these my friends.
Anyways,
HOLY FUCK ERASERHEAD’S ENTIRE BACK STORY IS IN THIS AROUND CHAPTER 60 AND IT IS WONDERFUL AND ABSOLUTLY HEARTBREAKING AND IS ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTER BACKSTORIES I HAVE EVER SEEN AND IS THE REASON WHY THIS SERIES IS A MUST-READ FOR MAIN SERIES FANS.
AND BY ALMIGHT.  
WHY. IS. IT HERE.  
I present to you my late night text messages to my friends
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ALSO, AIZAWAS TEACHER IS PRINCE?!?!?!
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AHEM, so as you can see, I kinda lost my shit.
And now, I would like to formally defend my claim that DESPITE HOW AMAZING IT WAS, ERASERHEAD’S BACKSTORY HAD NO BUISSNESS BEING IN THE VIGILANTES SPIN-OFF MANGA.
Eraserhead, aka Aizawa Shouta, is a side character who is working with the police on some crime stuff. He is not a main cast member in this spin off. He’s a guest character that fans of the main series will be like OH COOL. GRUMPY CAT MAN LIKES CATS ON HIS OFF HOURS TOO. LOVE THAT FOR HIM.
So, my imagine my absolute surprise when Aizawa runs into Koichi and the following happens:
It starts to rain, so, like in any good manga, this means some great FORCED BONDING TIME
Except no. It doesn't because rather than start talking, Aizawa JUST STARTS REMEMBERING—ABSOLUTLY SILENTLY TO HIS OWN PRIVETE SELF—HIS ENTIRE TRAGIC BACKSTORY.
AND THIS GOES ON FOR CHAPTERS.
THIS GOES ON LONGER THEN ARC ONE IT FEELS LIKE.
I LOVE IT, BUT KOICHI IS ABOUT TO JOIN ATSUSHI NAKAJIMA IN THE DUBIOUS CATEGORY OF “PROTAGONISTS THE SERIES FORGOT ABOUT IN LIEU OF COOLER SIDE CHARACTERS”.
AND LO IT HAS NO BEARING ON THE REST OF THE PLOT, CHARACTERS, OR STORY
What the ever-loving-just WHY?
WHY?
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
SURE, IT’S A COOL TIE-IN.
YES, OF COURSE I LOVED IT. I SHIP ERASER MIC, I DREW THIS FOR HECK’S SAKE:
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AND YET I AM ANGRY.
I AM ANGRY BECAUSE MY FRIDAY WAS RUINED BECAUSE VIGILATES SUCKER PUNCHED ME WITH AN AMAZING STORY THAT REALLY WASN’T PLOT RELEVANT AND PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE.  
IS THIS WHY THEY TOOK LIKE NEXT-TO-NO CARE WITH POPS ARC?!?
I mean its ongoing, so it’s too early to say but—
In conclusion—
Excuse me one more,
AIZAWA WAS TAUGHT BY PRINCE!?!??!?!?!?!? PURPLE RAIN PRINCE!?!??!?!?!? WHAT!??!?!?!
It’s so ABSURD that I HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I HAD TO WRITE PARAGRAPHS TO JUSTIFY YELLING ABOUT THIS ONE THING. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE—
Ahem,
Anyways, I hope you liked this weird rant/personal-story/random-diatribe in three parts.
If you’re reading this, thank you, stay safe, and I’ll be back with more shojo manga next time.  
Ciao!
Dr. Shojo
(aka Dr. Shonen)
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dramallamadingdang · 6 years ago
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The post I want to make on the MTS forums but can't...
...because they're touchy about discussing the "p" word. As in "piracy." I understand why they are, but I also think that they're wrong to silence people about "pirating" yet not have a care in the world if people tell others to buy used disks, for reasons that you'll see if you choose to read this thing. But...Their site, their rules and that's cool and all that. I’ve got no problems with that. I just think it’s doing the current (and future) TS2 community a disservice. Hence, this post.
Now that EA has announced that they will no longer give out the TS2 Ultimate Collection, I think it's time to address how to get the game if you don't already have it and want it. Or if you have it but your disks are lost/damaged. Or if you suddenly find yourself with a new machine that doesn't have an optical disk drive and you don't have and/or don't want to buy an external one. Or even if somewhere down the line EA removes the UC from your access, if you have it already and you then can't install it on a new machine. (They'd be entirely within their rights to do that, by the way.) If one is concerned about legality, then one ought to know what actually is legal or not and why and where the shades of gray are, so that you can make informed decisions about what you want to do. So, if you're interested in that, that's what I'm going to talk about in this post. 
I'm going to say this up-front, though, as a sort of teaser: Now that EA is no longer giving out the UC like people give out Halloween candy: THERE IS CURRENTLY NO FULLY-LEGAL WAY TO GET OR PLAY THE GAME, if you don't already have it. Yes, the above is true, and behind the cut is why.
Here are my "credentials," if you will: A nice chunk of my income comes from royalties and licensing and stuff. Much such stuff is sold in digital format, music CDs and data CDs of original compositions and stuff like that. I have sued individuals and companies, successfully, who've infringed on my copyrights and/or the licensing agreements that I'm involved in. I'm pretty well-versed in this stuff.
So let's make one thing about this issue clear off the top: You do not these days purchase games or non-game software or movies or music or whatever that comes on a disk or in some digital form like, say, a book you download onto your Kindle. You only purchase a license to use the information on that one, single disk or that you got from that one, single download that you paid for. It's a small but all-important distinction, and it pretty much defines what makes things legal or not when we're talking about getting TS2 now that EA is no longer selling it or giving it away themselves.
Now that EA is out of the picture, at least for now, you have three options for getting the game:
1) Find someone selling disks that you know absolutely for certain have not been used.
Guess what? Still probably not fully-legal. The reason is this: If you're buying from a genuine retailer and not some shady "business" in Taiwan or a guy on eBay or something, EA recalled all new, existing, unopened TS2 discs from all retailers (at least in the US and I believe -- but am not certain -- worldwide) years ago. 2013ish, if memory serves. Those retailers were given full refunds for any unsold discs but were actually not required to physically return those discs. (Because, of course, EA didn't want to pay for return shipping!) They were supposed to destroy the disks, in good faith, in exchange for the refund. Even if they didn't receive a refund, they're still not supposed to be selling disks anymore because they've been recalled. Those disks are not supposed to exist and all end-user (that's you) licenses associated with them are now void. Which means that even if you now manage to find a genuinely unused retail disk, you have no legal license to use the game because EA voided it. They only way it would be legal is if you are buying from an individual (not a retailer of any kind) who bought the game and somehow never installed it...and I'd take such stories with a grain of salt, personally. 
Because, remember: You're not buying a game; you're buying a license to use a game, and EA has revoked those licenses on retail disks that were unsold as of 2013ish. Now, is someone going to come pounding on your door to arrest you or to serve you court documents because they’re suing you? Of course not! But bear in mind that if the above applies to you, your game is not fully legal.
2) You can buy used disks from someone. Ebay and Amazon Marketplace and such are teeming with them.
Also not fully legal. Why? Because, as I said, each disk comes with a license to use the game for a single buyer and his/her household. No one else. That's one of the things that the End-User License Agreement says and that you agree to, probably without reading it, when you install the game. So as soon as the original buyer of the disk you subsequently bought installed the game on a machine, that single user license was used up. It cannot be transferred to another person. The disk can be transferred, sure, but not the license to use it, which when it comes to legality is all that matters. So, if you buy used disks, you still do not have a legal license to use the game.
Again, no one's going to come pounding on your door, of course. No one's pounding on the door of second-hand game shops, either, because it's not illegal to sell the used disks at all. But it is legally shade to actually use those disks when you buy them. So, just realize that your game is not fully legal if you bought used any or all of the disks you have. Then move on and don't worry about it...but also don't claim that you have a "legal" game so you're somehow more moral or whatever than people who pirate it. Because that's not true at all. In fact, legally you're in exactly the same boat -- pirate ship or otherwise ;) -- as people who've “pirated” the game. Which leads me to...
3) You can "pirate" the game. Meaning, you can get it via torrenting so that you never have a physical disk and you use a no-CD crack to play the game. Or you can make a copy of your friend's disks. Whatever.
There are multiple legal issues here. I'm not going to discuss why it's illegal to pass around copies of a game. I trust that everyone understands why that's so.
But you might be surprised to learn that it's actually not illegal to download the game illegitimately, for the same reason why buying and selling used disks isn't illegal. But there’s a catch. Again, the issue is that you don't buy a game; you buy a license to use it. So the problem arises, again, from using what you downloaded (or using that copy you made of your buddy's disk), because you don't have a license to do so. Sure, obviously no one would download something that they wouldn't then use, but my point is that if you download the game from a torrent, your legal problem is exactly the same as the legal problem that people who buy used disks have. And at least you, as a "pirater" did not pay someone for your legally-shady copy of the game. No one profited at EA's expense, in other words, whereas someone did exactly that if you bought used disks, especially if the seller didn't originally buy the disks themselves, which is usually the case at second-hand shops.
If you download the game via a torrent (as opposed to making copies of someone's disks), it's illegal not because you downloaded the file but because of the way torrenting works. It works by sharing your incomplete download with other downloaders as you download, as you go along, as well as after you do so, if you continue to "seed" the torrent after your own download is completed. The sharing part is illegal for what I hope are obvious reasons; the downloading part is not. It’s a technicality, sure, but then all of this discussion is.
In the end, the most-illegal thing you can do when it comes to this stuff is not downloading via torrenting but making a copy of your buddy's disks for your own use because in that case you're transgressing twice. And here's why.
There's a thing in copyright law called Fair Use. This covers multiple things, but the relevant bit here is that it allows you to make a backup of digital media that you've legitimately bought for archival purposes. This has always been on the books, as long as there've been digital formats, which goes all the way back to tapes. So if you have, say, a copy of The Lion King on DVD and your three-year-old insists on watching it twice a day if she can and in the process breaks a disk a week, you have a right to make a copy of the original in order to preserve the original. (OK, you're not supposed to make multiple backups, just one, but seriously? The kid breaks them constantly and Disney disks are terribly overpriced. And no, I'm not talking from experience at all. :) ) Anyway, Fair Use = 1 backup of your legitimately-purchased disks.
But then in the 90s the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) came along. (In the US, that is. There's similar bullshit worldwide, though.) Mostly it came about because movie and music distributors (not the musicians, one needs to point out) are absolute control freaks and were really, really pissed that CDs/DVDs are so damn easy to make copies of. The relevant bit of this was that it said, "Nope, no more personal backups for you! At all! And hey! No ripping that CD to put the songs on your phone or MP3 player, either! You gotta buy another copy of the songs from iTunes or whatever it is that we want to make more money from today!" It all comes back to "You don't buy a movie. You buy a license to view the content on that one disk, so if your obsessive three-year-old breaks it you have to buy a new disk every week. Sucks to be you, but it's really awesome for us." (Needless to say, you can guess what I think -- as a musician -- of this bit of corporate greed.)
My ranting aside, the issue now is that it is technically illegal to make copies of disks and stuff that you legitimately own, even for your own use and you never share anything with anyone. Again, no one's going to come knocking on your door, but you should know about this. (Mostly, in the wake of DMCA, court cases have involved small companies that make software that can rip DVDs by decoding/bypassing encryption, not individuals who make or use copies of disks. They know they can’t pursue such individuals in any practical way. Instead, they seek to take away the tools that allow you to do it.) So, that's transgression #1 when it comes to making a copy of your buddy's TS2's disks. The other, of course, is the same as the other points: You don't have a legal license to use that copy of your buddy's disk. So, you're transgressing coming and going, so to speak.
So, what's a TS2 fan to do now? Honestly? All three options are problematic, legally. Unless you can somehow manage to find genuinely never-used disks from an individual (not a retailer), you will not be fully legit. So, if you want to be pure and clean and looking down on all the sinners from your fine high horse, you can't get TS2 now if you find you need it, unless EA decides to distribute it again. But for the rest of us? I'm not going to advocate any particular thing because, as I said, all of the options are shady and more or less equally so and for the same reason across the board. But you have the info now -- if you’ve actually managed to read all this -- and you can make an informed decision for yourself, should you need to acquire the game again. Or for the first time. But for the love of God, please don't go around saying that you're all legit because you bought used disks while that person over there *gasp* got their game on the torrents. Because you're not legit, and you’re not legit for pretty much the same reason as a dirty pirate is.
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