#it is a VHS tape from 1999

[anna-neko]

i know most of this site is frellin children, but to the few adults minding the comms.... are you THIS OLD?

[jessiesjaded]

whenever I watch a show or movie and they have a character find what's supposedly a home movie from any time pre 2010 and yet it's in 1080p HD quality I'm immediately rolling my eyes- like cmon you couldn't even try dodgy up some fuzzy pixelated vhs vibes? bored gifmakers on tumblr tried harder to get that at home vintage vhs effect when making lana del rey edits in 2013. And they didn't even have studio money!

[foone]

Anomalous Item #4742: A set of 173 VHS tapes with blank labels.

When a tape label is filled out (there are provided fields for title, director, and year) and then placed into any functioning VCR, the film listed will play, regardless of if it existed before the tape was played.

This was first believed to be an effect limited to the tapes, ie, the tapes were somehow generating the movie themselves through some method similar to AI art generation, but after initial tests were performed the paratime division discovered the effect is actually antichronological: when played, the tapes don't simply create the movie named, they alter the past so that the movie mentioned was created.

Thus, after a tape is labeled and played, it can be found on streaming services and in DVD rental stores. The directors, if still alive, will recall making the film, and actors who were active at the time the film was "made" will have anecdotes about events that happened in the film.

This can have ripple effects as well; during the 9th test, the film Big Trouble in Little China, 1986, directed by John Carpenter, was created. Besides the immediate effects of creating a new film that hadn't existed, an indirect effect was that the film Alien 2, 1985, John Carpenter, ceased to exist. Instead, the sequel to the 1979 film Alien (directed by Ridley Scott) was titled Aliens and directed by James Cameron. It's believed that by adding a new movie to the timeline of John Carpenter's direction, he no longer had time to direct one of the works he had directed in the original timeline, as he would have been busy directing the newly-added film, and directing roles therefore passed to another director.

Use of the tapes can also implicitly affect the lifespan of directors. In test #17, Researcher J. Calhoun attempted to generate a film that couldn't possibly exist: a prequel to a film made by a director who had died decades beforehand.

According to paratime research, the writing of "Star Wars: Episode 1, 1999, George Lucas" on the tape and the subsequent viewing undid the 1981 death of Mr. Lucas, causing Star Wars: Episode 6: Revenge of the Jedi to come out in 1983 instead of 1985, be titled "Return of the Jedi" instead, and it would be directed by George Lucas instead of Steven Spielberg.

This obviously had additional effects as it didn't merely extend the lifespan of George Lucas by an additional 18 years: at time of writing in 2022, he is still alive at the age of 78. It's therefore believed that the object doesn't unnaturally extend the lifespan of the director, it instead reshapes the flow of time so that any events that would stop them from filming the listed movie do not happen.

After discovery of their history altering nature, the remaining anomalous objects have been locked in secure storage at site #22. No further testing is authorized, and emergency use requires level #6 authorization, which will only be granted in the face of imminent disaster requiring paratime remedies.

Article update[2022-11-20]: an incident occurred where it was discovered that former researcher K. Synnol had acquired one of the tapes (see investigation document 2483 for details) and was attempting to use it for history modification, without approval. The paratime division detected the impending history alteration and an assault team was dispatched. Synnol was apprehended before they could complete the use of the tape, however the label WAS filled out but the tape remained unwatched. What effects, if any, the partial use of the anomalous artifact would have on the timeline is unknown, but in previous testing the film only came into being when the labeled tape was placed into a VCR and watched.

See photo attachment #2, below, for artifact 1B, recovered after the Synnol event.

[antoncyng]

౨ৎ. SUFFERED - h.sh

synopsis - dreaming about his presence started to hurt again, so it was time to finally watch the VHS.

genre / warning(s) - angst, mentions of death, somewhat based off of 20th century girl, vhs tape is different tho, flashbacks based in 1999

word count - 1.0k (first fic to hit 1k???)

author’s note - this fic is for @cupidhoons because this woman wanted her heartbroken so what better way than to make it about seunghan :33 love u liz! want to read m0re . . ? cl1ck here !

24 YEARS.

24 years was the length you’ve had to suffer without the love of your life by your side.

waking up from this dream was a nightmare, the more you tried to reach out and save him, the farther you would get. it was so hard to accept the fact he was gone, no matter how long it’s been.

the words spilling out of his bestfriend’s mouth still and always will break your heart, deny deny deny was all your mind could comprehend.

7.18.00 6:45 PM

“what do you mean? seunghan isn’t dead.. he’s on a family trip!” all the excuses you could think of spewed out of your mouth with tears running down your face.

“no.. no yn. he isn’t on a family trip, he never went on a family trip. just accept it, he isn’t with us anymore, how would it make sense to go on a family trip if his family came home? he died yn, he died after his surgery. it was guaranteed he would’t live for more than a month, so he did it himself. he left this for you.” sohee did the best he could keeping himself together as well, not wanting to make your situation worse.

he kept quiet and gave you a VHS tape, only to walk away soon after, it looked like he wanted to say something to you(?).

HOW could this be? it only felt like a few weeks ago that seunghan was by your side, holding your hand as you two walked along the beach together, laughing the night away together as the world blurred around the two of you. when you were together, everything just felt right.

now, it feels like nothing would feel right ever again.

6.11.24 4:37 AM

it felt so real. sweat coated your forehead and parts of your body, your breathing grew heavy by the minute, your eyes shot open with water growing in them.

you tried so so hard to reach out for seunghan, but it just looked like the more you stepped closer to him, the further he would walk away. your fingertips touched, and his body slowly started to fade away. all you could do was cry, trying to scream but nothing would come out as you watched seunghan step further into the distance with an emotional smile on his lips, you swore he had a tear running down his face. why did it feel so real?

it hurt, it hurt like someone had just ripped your heart out of your chest and walked away so emotionless. what was so scary or hard that he couldn’t tell you?

you got out of bed, walking towards your desk and opened the drawer, pulling out the VHS tape sohee gave you 24 years ago, you never pulled yourself enough to throw it away. slipping it into the player, the video started to play.

sitting back in your chair, you didn’t know what to expect. a song started playing, it rang in your ears like a shooting star of nostalgia.

“are you alright? how are you doing these days? are you crying again..”

you heard his singing voice call out to you, it brought you to tears.

“because i’m not there? we used to chat a lot, now i don’t see your fine face..”

he appeared on the screen, guitar in his hands as his face focused on the strings, the tears slipped out of your eyes. he’s still the most beautiful boy you’ve ever seen, the most beautiful person you’ll ever meet.

the song stopped. a few clips of the beach you two always walked on together showed, there were clips of the places you loved to bring him to. you were shown clips of yourself falling asleep in an empty classroom, seunghan’s voice in the back.

“look at this girl, she told me she would stay behind during lunch to study..”

more clips were shown, memories were flooding your mind. then it cut to a scene on the beach, it seemed like the phone was set up.

and there he was again, your beautiful boy. just the sight of him on the old tv had your heart melting, he was just so pretty.

“hi yn. if you’re seeing this, you must be very angry with me.” he started off, chuckling dryly. “i recorded this before i went to the u.s. for my surgery, and you must already know the result. i’m sorry i can’t tell you, i would if i really could, but everything is too much for the both of us and i figured it would be better for your life in the future to figure out like this.”

he read off of a piece of paper like a script, clearing his throat as he was already getting emotional just from reading the next words. tears were already flowing out of your eyes, but you couldn’t stop watching the tape.

“i know living without each other is hard after sticking together for so long, i want you to know i truly love you so much, but there’s a reason that i could not tell you about the guaranteed result of my surgery. i don’t think i’ll tell you that now, maybe in another century?” he dryly laughs again, before looking back at the sunset behind him.

“its nice seeing this view again before i leave, i wish i could see it with you. you’re busy a lot but i understand that, i just wish i could spend just a few more hours with you.” his voice makes it obvious he’s starting to tear up, before turning back to the camera with teary eyes like he’s about to end the video.

“but don’t worry too much, i’ll make a pretty sunset and sunrise for you so you don’t have to suffer too much without me, how does that sound? i hope you’re saying good behind this screen..” he tries to cheer himself up with a smile, distracting you from the tears rolling down his face.

“i love you so much, i’ll see you again soon. don’t suffer too much, okay?” he says, waving with his sweet smile before the video ends and the old tv audio starts buzzing again.

but what seunghan will always know, is how much you already suffered without his presence.

🤍. ————————————

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL | antoncyng 061624

thank u for reading !! i hope u didn’t get too sad :pp ending is kinda bad because i’m bad at ending stories but whatever ><

perm taglist - @lcvclywon @jlheon @jwsdoll @ohmydollie @cupidhoons @junislqve @hyeinism @copyhanni @onlyjjong @seoktized (?)

[sapphire-weapon]

my first fictional crush was goku at age maybe 6.

the first fanfiction i ever wrote was FF7. the second one was DBZ. the third was a crossover between them both. i was like. 8 or 9.

in 5th grade, i got in trouble in school for passing handwritten DBZ fanfiction back and forth with the boy who sat front of me in class, and my mom refused to yell at me for it because she was glad that i was doing something creative.

DBZ was one of the things that my brother and i actually did together as kids. we were never close because he's 6 years older than me, but i have distinct memories of coming home from school and he'd be waiting with the next 3 or 4 DBZ episodes he'd downloaded from the internet, japanese fansubbed in english because the english dub hadn't released past the frieza saga yet. so i knew how the series went before any of my friends did. he would also go to chinatown in NYC and come home with bootleg fansubbed VHS tapes of DBZ movies. this was like circa 1999-2001. i still have them at my mom's house.

before i knew that cosplay was a thing that people actually did, i went as pan from DBGT for halloween when i was 12.

when i did find out what cosplay was, i was too afraid to do it properly, so when i went to my first convention at 17 with a boyfriend who did not want to go with me but i made him go anyway (it was AnimeNEXT 2007), i threw together a closet cosplay of a genderbent mirai trunks. and i actually found the fucking picture i took of it in the bathroom at my mom's house.

(that's the closest you're ever going to get to a proper face reveal btw lmao a 17 year old picture of me where you can see more of my tits than my face.)

i then went on to properly redo my pan cosplay, and i cosplayed chichi as well. took a picture at a con with a lil baby like 3 year old who was dressed up as goku. can't find it right now though.

in 2011, i went to anime boston with @feelboss and @theggning and drunkenly ran into sean schemmel (the english voice of goku) and somehow ended up on stage with him later that night, still wasted, at the hentai dubbing panel. faked an orgasm on stage for goku in front of about 200 people. my first fictional crush. probably the most iconic moment of my con-going days. i was 21.

the very first time i was able to use analysis of a character's arc to accurately predict their future portrayal in canon was mirai trunks. when his db super arc aired, i remember just being totally floored like, "i can't believe i actually called so much of this" -- especially considering the fact that DB never really had much of a reputation of being consistent.

i just have so many memories of staying up late with @godtier watching DB and shitposting and RPing bardock and raditz and trolling the fuck out of each other, and just

man DB was such a huge part of my life and just... felt like it was always there for me.

i don't normally mourn celebrity deaths, but i feel like i've spent the last 30 years of my life with akira toriyama. losing him hurts so much. it feels like the world has had a little bit of hope fade away from it. i have a headache from crying.

i know that i would always meme on you for forgetting your own characters, but... thank you, toriyama-san. for everything.

[sunburnacoustic]

Muse full gigs

Some full shows that are available, for anyone who wants to partially relive the Muse live experience.

I figured no one's made lists in a while.

La Cigale, Paris By-Request gig 2018

rarities + I guarantee I'm gonna fuck up Space Dementia + water spitting + Matt and Dom playing Grammy hosts in the way they announced the winners of the by-request polls

Some cool and noteworthy gigs:

Live Lounge 2012

The Mayan 2015 (performance wise this gig was stunning)

Royal Albert Hall 2008 (Teenage Cancer Trust charity gig - Megalomania on the pipe organ!)

Reading Festival 2011 (10 years of Origin of Symmetry - played the album start to finish)

AOL Sessions 2006

Reading 2006 (Muse's first time headlining if I remember right. Plus, Matt's moves!)

Glastonbury 2004 (first Glasto headline and a must-watch! Of the iconic mad-scientist, white lab coat era. Muse had called it the best gig of their life so far, at the time) (*Ruled By Secrecy was played live but wasn't included in the concert footage DVD and isn't in this video upload either)

Montreaux Jazz 2002 (height of piano maniac-ery days. Would also recommend Pinkpop 2002 but they don't. have. the footage anymore :( Space Dementia at Pinkpop 2002 was phenomenal. 2004 is also good, but I never found 2002 again. Speaking of which,)

Pinkpop 2004 (most songs are in, a few performances missing unfortunately)

MCM Café 1999 (marvel at what a good live act this young band aged 21 already was—with about 4 years of gigging experience under their belts. Insane how good they are.)

Wembley 2007 (H.A.A.R.P. The first band to sell out the newly rebuilt Wembley Stadium. 90,000 people. You need to understand, seeing Chris lift up and point his bass at the crowd at the end of the slightly modified Jimmy Jam riff before Time Is Running Out was a religious experience that changed me and we're lucky enough to live in an age where you and I can witness it over and over and over again and I'd suggest that you do)

Rock Am Ring 2018, uploaded to the Internet Archive by the Muse Historical Society!

Austin City Limits 2013 Philipshalle 1999 Philipshalle 2001 (all suggested in notes, check out the crystal clear gifs from @hotbellamy! :O )

A few additions I remembered after publishing: Eurockeennes 2000 (opened with a then-unreleased New Born. Matt playing a full gig in red sunglasses. Treat to watch. Link's stretched up to fit modern screens but if you want a bit of clarity and don't mind the late 90s ratio stretch, here's a different link) 2002 (quality's a bit shit but that is literally what telly used to look like)

Shepherd's Bush Empire 2006 (Early gigs are always interesting because over time Muse develop different ways of playing songs that are fresh off new albums. The way they work through Take A Bow live is a bit different here, Dom's the one controlling the opening verse synths! During the Abso tour, Matt would play that bit on the piano as an intro to Space Dementia and if I'm remembering right, he does now on the pianos (correct me—this was on the ST tour as well). Also, Starlight in Bm at this gig)

Rock Werchter 2023 (Muse play Rock Werchter in Belgium almost every year, except for the pandemic and 2012 I think, but this year's was a bit special. Best performance of Madness I've seen in a while, I love what he does in the outro! MOTP returns to the set. Muse had tech troubles at the end that caused them to restart Knights of Cydonia twice, to no avail. They finally cut it back for a guitar-bass-drum-vocals-only performance of Showbiz, and Matt's voice sounds exceptional on it— the best in recent years)

Bizarre Fest 2000 (BLESS SOMEONE HAS RESTORED THIS FROM VHS TAPE IN HD, this is so much better than back in the day!! If the falsetto at 1:13 doesn't do it for you, you're into the wrong band, nothing else will help. What an electric performance this was!)

Gigs from WOTP 2022/23 festivals tour last summer:

Nova Rock Rock In Rio Ejekt Fest Isle of Wight Hurricane Festival 2023 (a festival at which Matt once complained that Muse's set was cut short by... hurricanes. But the audio mixing at this gig was really good!)

These are in no particular order, and obviously not complete, I just realised no one had put together a gig archive in a while so I thought I'd give it a stab!

Will edit and add others whenever, there are obviously glaring omissions still!

[crazyballjr]

Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Extreme! Duel Monsters!!

Here's something I've had for a pretty good while. I've never had much to say about it, except I just think it's super cool!

This tape is purely just a promotional recap of the original Toei adaptation of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, featuring new lines from Muto Yugi's seiyuu, Megumi Ogata. Looking up catalogs of this online, the tape was released in late October of 1999. (Honestly not entirely sure it's exact purpose, given the series stopped airing a year prior, and the Duel Monsters anime came out just about half a year later...)

I've never honestly found a recording of this tape that features the opening so I had recorded this tape back a good while ago, thinking it would be in a good quality AND in good taste to do so. Needless to say, the tape upon arrival was severely damaged but I recorded it anyway for fun... so don't mind the dust so to speak ^^. Check it out if you want the good old VHS experience.

Also at one point tried making captions. I'm so embarrassing...

[himitsusentaiblog]

Japanese Media that Helped Me Come Out

Hey, I wanted to make a post about the shows and movies from Japan that really helped me come to terms with my identity and made me more comfortable with coming out (even if I had a few early aborted comings out before I had real support). Before I begin, a special shoutout has to be given to Ranma 1/2, the first anime I ever saw that involved gender changing content.

I think one of the first foundationally important bits of media for me was Sailor Moon, the original animated series. Or more specifically season 5, Bishouji Senshi Sailor Moon Sailor Stars. This is a series I watched shortly after the episodes aired in four episode blocks at a time on rented VHS tapes from a local Japanese Electronics Store in Dallas, Texas. (R.I.P. Orbit Electronics).

For those not familiar with the series, this season introduces three major new heroic characters, the Sailor Starlights. In their civilian identities they are a boys idol group called The Three Lights and go by the names Seiya, Yaten and Taiki but in their heroic identities they are three women named Sailor Star Fighter, Sailor Star Healer and Sailor Star Maker.

The idea of three women hiding themselves in the guise of men was so fascinating to me and spoke to something deep down inside of me. This may be the reason why Sailor Stars is the series I decided to purchase on Laserdisc back when it was coming out.

The second major anime series from this time that was foundational for my exploration of who I am was 1997's Shoujo Kakumei Utena.

This is a series all about defying societal expectations especially of gender roles and sexuality. It's an amazing if sometimes very couched in metaphor and symbolism coming of age story about a young woman who refuses to conform to her expected role and seeks to become a Prince to defend others. It also contains dialogue like this:

Which, if you are familiar with Trans terminology just holds so much extra meaning. For those who do not know, trans people who have not come out yet are often referred to as eggs, as in they have not come out of their shell yet. Lastly is probably both the most obvious and most ridiculous entry here. the 1999 Rock and Roll, Zombie, Alien Invasion film Wild Zero. This is a movie about the rock band Guitar Wolf, their biggest fan Ace and a zombie apocalypse started by aliens (think Plan 9 from Outer Space but somehow even more wild and ridiculous and with an amazing soundtrack). In the movie, Ace meets and falls in love with a beautiful girl named Tobio.

However, as Ace discovers, Tobio has a penis. This causes him to have a bit of a crisis until his idol, Guitar Wolf appears before him in a bathroom to bestow these words of wisdom upon him.

So yeah, this movie helped me in some very strange ways when it came to accepting who I really am, even if it took YEARS for me to finally crack my shell for real and come out publicly. So, thanks for reading this and thanks for all of your support.

[mysterionzrises]

this is @ghduck dude from the south park screenshots. I found some of those images from Google, and a vhs tape entitled "Going down to south park 1999". I noticed that you asked earlier.

That’s very cool :) I remember hearing about that vhs tape.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

The "Disney's Classics" pressings...

There were VHS "releases" of three Disney animated features that are kind of a clustercuss to talk about...

DUMBO, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and THE SWORD IN THE STONE were titles in the "Classics" line that Walt Disney Home Video used for the company's animated feature library from 1984 to 1994. These three films were unique in that they didn't return to the vault or go on moratorium. They were always, as "Classics" releases, available to purchase at any given time back in the day...

Now, these three titles had already received Classics releases in the mid-1980s. DUMBO in November 1985, followed by SWORD in March 1986, and then ALICE in May 1986. Pictured below were the final issues of those releases, from fall 1987. (They had seen minor packaging updates over the course of a year or so.)

Now you may be wondering... Hey, isn't that the same ALICE cover as the one at the top? It is!

You see, when DUMBO, ALICE, and SWORD received their Classics cover updates in September 1989, to promote the home video debut of BAMBI... Well, wait a minute... ALICE didn't. For whatever reason, Walt Disney Home Video continued to use the 1986/87 cover. Without even updating the heading from "Walt Disney's" to "Walt Disney's CLASSIC", to keep it in line with the other two updated covers...

These are weird "releases" because the only thing new about them - well, DUMBO and SWORD - were the cover artworks. Inside were the 1987 tapes and labels... (I do not have a 1987 SWORD release with a 1987-era label, myself, so it's not pictured below. My copy has a 1986-era label with the "Walt Disney Productions" copyright.)

... and they opened the same way as the '87 tapes, too: Red-orange FBI warnings (or just antipiracy screens if you got them in Canada) and the 1984 flipping text Classics animated intro sequence.

Some time around, I want to say towards the end of 1990... They made updates to the labels for DUMBO and SWORD...

Those new labels reflect the typography seen on the 1989 cover artworks. "Walt Disney's" is in a basic sans-serif font, this typeface also appears on the 1988 video release of CINDERELLA, and the 1989 video release of BAMBI.

They still open the same way, though...

Then, by mid-1991, we finally saw these releases get white-ink labels... Curiously, instead of having the diamond logo that says "THE CLASSICS"/"Walt Disney Home Video", we have a diamond that says "Disney's CLASSICS"... A diamond that appears nowhere else in the history of the Classics lines:

And these contained fully updated prints, too... The tapes now open with the 1989 Walt Disney Classics animated intro sequence, and the film prints used are different. DUMBO and SWORD IN THE STONE have a Buena Vista title card at their respective starts...

Curiously, DUMBO's ink label says "Walt Disney's CLASSIC"... But ALICE and SWORD use the old mid-80s headings...

Lastly, ALICE got a minor case update. The heading was finally changed from "WALT DISNEY'S" to "Walt Disney's CLASSIC" around early 1994...

But for whatever reason, they never gave ALICE a new cover. The LaserDisc release from around this period used a much different rendering of the Mad Tea Party scene. A release I do not have, but am familiar with...

Eventually, these would all be replaced when Disney ended the Classics line and started the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. The day the line debuted, in October 1994 with the first-ever home video release of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, these titles were given all new covers, all-new tapes, all-new everything...

DUMBO and SWORD's Masterpiece covers, as you can see, re-use the 1989 Classics covers. ALICE uses the LaserDisc artwork, and an all-new logo for the movie. These would be in print until a later release of sorts. (In DUMBO's case, the 2001 60th Anniversary release. In ALICE's case, a 2nd Masterpiece release in 1999. And in SWORD's case, the 2001 Gold Classic Collection release.)

[perfunctory-idols]

Beck chainsawing a pumpkin during the "Loser" music video shoot in January 1994.

[crunkmouse]

Party like it’s 1999!

I decided to make more of a hype post sharing different vintage media of Phantom Menace to inspire others in their creations for the QO celebration.

2. Videos (English, except for one)

YouTube:

Internet Archive:

(^ Portuguese)

(I just thought this cute)

(I plan on doing a separate post sometime about the Rosie O'Donnell Show Star Wars episodes. She did a lot fun hype, giveaways, and interviews for Phantom Menace.)

[foone]

So, regarding Cartrivision and how the Red Tapes were effectively play-once, this idea of "you buy/rent a tape but you can only play it for a short while" so was enticing an idea that it keeps coming back. There's obviously ways this can be implemented on streaming services, but it was tried at least twice in the optical disc era, but amusingly in two entirely different ways.

And it was backwards from how you might think. The older one seems like it should have come later!

So first was DIVX (the disc format: it's unrelated to the Codec of the same name)

This came out in 1998, just as DVD was starting to catch on. They got a bunch of movie studios to sign on to only release their films on DIVX, not DVD, and tried to backdoor the format into acceptance: it was heavily pushed by Circuit City, then a major retailer. All DIVX players were also DVD players, so they would try to convince you to buy a DIVX player so you could play both.

How it worked is pretty simple: it is basically a DVD that's been encrypted. To decrypt it, you need a license. The DIVX player can talk to the DIVX server and let you purchase a license to watch the film, and the license would be valid for 48 hours before deleting itself. So the idea was that you'd pick up a disc for very cheap, like a rental, but when you could hang onto it for later, and re-axtivate the license by just paying the license free (a couple dollars) again. And if you didn't like the movie? No need to take the film back to blockbuster, you can just toss it in the garbage! (you could also pay a higher fee to get an unlimited license to the film, effectively converting it into a DVD)

But this was 1998, remember: very few people have always-on internet. How's it talk to the DIVX server?

Simple. It's got a modem. You plug your DIVX player into the phone line, and it dials up DVD HQ and talks to them over that connection. It's a very 1990s solution.

Anyway it died. People interested in DVD universally hated the idea, especially the part where some studios were only going to release films as DIVX. People had had VHS tapes for a while now, and they were used to buying and owning their films. Going to a time-limited rental system seems like a big step back.

And of course, movie rental companies hated the idea too, as it basically would destroy them as a business (years before streaming destroyed them anyway). So they refused to entertain the idea. So it failed, and it took down Circuit City with it. The funniest part? Remember how it talks to a server? Well, guess what happened to that server when the format was discontinued!

Yep, all DIVX discs are unplayable now. They announced the discontinuation in 1999, and by 2001 the servers were turned off. All DIVX discs (even the ones upgraded to forever-playable) are just paperweights. (and btw: I've looked into the feasibility of hacking the encryption. They used 3DES, which is far from the best but is still pretty secure. Give me a million dollars and a year of computation time and I'll be able to watch one film.)

So, with DIVX dying such a quick and painful death that it took out the major retailer that invented it, surely no one else would even consider this idea again, right?

Welcome to FlexPlay. A 2003 format where you buy a DVD for cheap, and you can watch it for 24-48 hours. Even better than DIVX, because you don't need a special player and you don't even depend on talking to a server!

Wow. What weird technical tricks did they do to make this work? Is there a special program on the disc? Some kind of computer code? Special encryption? Can you only play it on a PC with some DRM software installed?

Nope! While DVDs have anti-copying DRM and DIVX added limited-playback DRM, FlexPlay goes completely the other route and has Analog Rights Management: the limited playback is enforced by CHEMISTRY.

Yep. See, the way optical discs work is by shining a layer through the clear plastic and bouncing it off a mirrored layer of aluminium in the center of the disc. (Well, for pre-pressed discs. MO and CD-R/RW discs work differently)

But FlexPlay discs add a layer of dye between the aluminum and the plastic. This dye is initially transparent to the red laser used by DVD players (did you know that's why blu-rays are called that? They use blue lasers instead of the red lasers used by DVD , and the infrared lasers used by CDs), so it can be read just fine.

But they made the dye react with oxygen. As soon as the airless bag the disc is stored in is opened, the dye starts darkening, eventually becoming unreadable. So once you have opened the disc, you better watch it soon, or it will be unreadable.

This format technically lived on until 2011 before being discontinued, but it doesn't seem like it was terribly popular at any point. Part of this was probably that it couldn't live up to the dream of selling a film on a disc you made for pennies, and making tons of profit. Making the discs was tricky, as you had to make them in special inert-atmosphere conditions to keep them from prematurely darkening.

Anyway the final joke of FlexPlay is that they haven't been made since 2011, and while they were sold in air-tight packages, nothing is PERFECTLY airtight. So all the ones for sale have had the bags leak over the last 12+ years, and are prematurely unreadable. Whoops.

Anyway now that physical media is dead, movie companies finally have their time-limited rental they've always wanted. Streaming makes this trivial.

And two final notes:

1. There's not really any lost-media risk with these two formats. All DIVX-only films were later released on DVD when the format ranked. And all FlexPlay films had already gotten DVD releases, so there was never any risk.

2. My buddy Technology Connections did a video in FlexPlay a while ago, if you want to learn more about it.

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

Scars That I'm Hiding, Chapter 4

Carlos finally finds some distraction – in his husband.

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Carlos stopped at his mother’s to give her the pictures, and also a certificate he had discovered on the wall above the door while he was already leaving. It wasn’t exactly the Medal of Valor –as far as Carlos knew, only six Rangers had ever received it¹. Still, it was an acknowledgment, attesting 25 years of service. The certificate was from 1999, its black wooden frame had rarely been dusted, and Carlos thought it was a rather shabby keepsake. But that was at his mother's discretion.

TK was at home, his shift wouldn't start until the evening, and it looked like he had just gotten up. His hair was still damp from the shower and he was wearing nothing but sweatpants. Carlos glanced at his watch, it was already past midday.

“Hey babe,” TK welcomed him. “You hungry? I'm sorry I didn’t come along to pick up your father’s things, but we had some hell of deployment last night.”

Carlos didn't want to talk about the office, and he wasn't hungry either; what he wanted was to find out what was on that video tape. But he wanted to do it alone. He still had the cassette on his body, he hadn’t even dared to leave it in the car. It was probably paranoid, but after parting with Voight, who had assured him for the umpteenth time that he would keep looking after Gabriel’s widow, he had kept glancing in the rearview mirror while driving.

His father had hidden a VHS tape in a secret safe in his office. For what reason? Surely there were no sentimental family recordings on it. Rather, it probably held the solution, or at least a starting point, to his death. Whatever it was, Carlos wanted to sort it out himself first. If it was dangerous, he didn't want to get TK involved. If he had his way, TK would never be in any danger again, even if that was wishful thinking. Whatever this was about, there was probably something disreputable about it, and Carlos wanted to keep that away from his husband at all costs.

[continue on AO3]

[blazehedgehog]

What are your thoughts on the Sonic OVA in terms of style? From the animation to music, is it a good, fitting style for Sonic in your opinion?

I remember it clearly: a friend gave me $50 for Christmas in 1999 or 2000. I bought the Sonic Adventure soundtrack (an EverAnime bootleg, which means basically as good as the real thing to everyone except collectors, and less than half the price as the real thing) and the Sonic OVA on VHS, with the white cassette.

I remember watching it and being... kind of underwhelmed? Here was a Sonic anime, where my primary points of comparison were, like, immaculate masterpieces of theatrical anime. Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Vampire Hunter D, even something like Fatal Fury the Movie or Roujin-Z. And especially, but not limited to, the Sonic CD intro.

The Sonic OVA was significantly lower budget than all of those. It looked more like a serialized TV series or something. So it kind of disappointed me.

In the years since then, I have come around on it. It's definitely up there in terms of my ideal representations of the character: sort of lazy, kind of a jerk, and only really helps when it becomes absolutely clear that he's the only one that can do it. Like, the opening is clear enough: Tails begs Sonic to help him save someone, Sonic refuses, and Tails almost literally kills himself trying to do it alone -- until Sonic steps in at the last second and rescues everyone, barely breaking a sweat. Character established.

The music is great. I'm very thankful of Mr. Kingalicious's recreation soundtrack, and I love that some demo tapes were uncovered of the official soundtrack. And, I mean, Look-a-Like is an all-timer.

Generally I think it's great these days. The only thing I don't really like is Serah, who only seems to exist to look cute and scream. I'm sure some people dig that (in particular some anime fans), but you wouldn't lose much if she was taken out of the movie.

It's a shame it's apparently locked in licensing hell -- there have been rumors that the music was preventing its re-release, and a recent story suggests Sega straight up lost the documentation to the ADV dub. So it sounds like it's almost completely untouchable.

[showamagicalgirls]

These are screenshots from the Magic Star Magical Emi (魔法のスターマジカルエミ) music video called Invitation of the Wind (風のinvitation). Many people refer to this as an OVA, though the title shot labels it a "music clip."

I think people calling it an OVA must be because it must have been sold as a stand-alone VHS tape when it came out in 1999. But that's a little bit wild given that the whole thing is about two and a half minutes.