#rug-pulls

[loumandiel]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canonical enshittification

This is the Facebook playbook: you lure in publishers by promising them a traffic funnel ("post excerpts and links and we'll show them to people, including people who never asked to see them"), and then the rug-pull: "Post everything here, don't link to your own site. Become a commodity supplier to our platform. Abandon all your own ways of making money. Become entirely subject to the whims of our recommendation system."

Next will be: "We block links to other sites because they might be malicious."

Then some kind of "pivot to video."

Probably not video (though who knows?) but some other feature that a major rival has, which Twitter will attempt to defraud its captive, commodified suppliers into financing an entry into.

In case you were wondering, yes, this is canonical enshittification. Lure in business customers (publishers) by offering surpluses (algorithmic recommendation and an ensuing traffic funnel). Lock them in (by capturing their audience and blocking interop and logged-out reading).

Then rug the publishers, clawing back all the surpluses you gave them and more, draining them of all available capital and any margins they have, until they die or bite the bullet and leave.

I would also give good odds on this leading to a revivification of the "Pay us tens of thousands of dollars a month for a platinum checkmark and we'll actually show what you post to the people who asked to see it."

That will be pitched as the answer to publishers' complaints about not wanting to turn themselves into commodity Twitter inputs. It will be priced at the same (or more) as the revenues publishers expect to lose from being commodified, making it a wash.

All of this seems to me to be an "unfair and deceptive business practice" under Sec 5 of the FTC Act.

If I sign up to follow you because I want to see what you post, and Twitter shadowbans your posts unless they are formatted to maximize your dependence on Twitter, they have deceived me, and are being unfair to you.

This is *very* analogous to the Net Neutrality debate, where a platform blocks or deprioritizes the things its users ask to see, based on whether the suppliers of those things are its competitors.

I've written about how an end-to-end principle for social media could be enforced under Sec 5 of the FTCA, how it would address this kind of sleazy practice, how it would be easy to administer, and wouldn't form a barrier to entry for new market entrants:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

[captainharlock]

made up an entire fake zero escape dead by daylight collab chapter with my friend who really likes dbd after i got her to play 999. i was thinking it would be called "seek a way out". kind of obsessed.

[horreurscopes]

thirty & flirty & thriving / shower drains HATE them

[tinyarmsmcgee]

YALL ARE TELLING ME YOU GUYS VOTE FOR THE OPTION YOU THINK IS WINNING INSTEAD OF JUST WHAT YOU WANT TO VOTE FOR????

[pdwoozi]

7.14 Theef

[mitski]

RWBY (09x04)

Just answer the question. What are you? Are you sure you know? You have to be sure of what you are, and what you are going to be.

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

It's incredibly funny to me that NPMD has multiple points where you could stop the play and it would leave off on a happy ending. If you stop it right before Max falls, you can pretend they have a party and he stops bullying them because he had a good time. Or, if you stop it the second Richie says he's happy to be alive, you just need to erase the first 3 minutes of the musical from your brain and boom, Richie has been accepted by his peers and he's loving life. Lastly, if you want to stop it at the end of Best of You, you have an upbeat ending worthy of a 2000s Disney Channel original movie.

[canisalbus]

I was reading the hashtags on the ask about Machete and Vasco distancing before Machete's assassination and something about the "we'll figure this out next time I come to visit" just struck a cord with me just the unknowingness, the fact there was never a next time, and the "stay safe" just adds to it, there's just a sense of tragic irony in those words with the scenario

.

[completeoveranalysis]

[9]

MOM HOLY FUCK THEY REALLY ARE SAYING IT

EXCUSE ME

EXCUSE ME

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT IS THIS THE GREATEST THING 

LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS

Clamp absolutely set the precedent for this with our visit to Shura/Shara all those years ago. We’ve SEEN the possibility of being in the past and future of the same world and teleporting between the two. We knew the feathers could appear pretty much anywhere in the timeline of a world, given how time works differently across the mutliverse, and we DID just straight up go backwards and forwards in time via Mokona, so it’s absolutely possible for them to appear in the Past of the Kingdom of Clow. 

WHICH IS APPARENTLY ACID TOKYO????

WHICH JUST ABSOLUTELY BLOWS MY MIND WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT A WAY TO TIE IT ALL TOGETHER??

X/1999 IS THE SET UP TO THE CLOW KINGDOM?

THE CLOW KINGDOM IS IN THE RUINED ECOLOGICAL DISASTER OF OUR OWN CURRENT WORLD??? 

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle as a pseudo-not-really-but-kind-of-sequel-event to Cardcaptor Sakura but ACTUALLY ALSO being the sequel-kind-of-but-not-exactly sequel to X/1999???? Or Alternate Timeline X/1999? Where things are ever so slightly different but the world was ruined in the same way?

AND THE RESERVOIR

THE RESERVOIR IN ACID TOKYO IS THE RESERVOIR IN THE CLOW RUINS????

I’m REELING OVER THIS

THEY SET THAT UP

SAKURA WALKED THROUGH THE DESERT TO PURIFY THE WATER TO SAVE THESE PEOPLE AND IT MADE THE RESERVOIR THAT LOVED SAKURA SO MUCH THAT IT PROTECTS HER

AND WATANUKI! WATANUKI WAS AN ESSENTIAL PIECE OF SETTING UP THE RESERVOIR IN A WORLD BEFORE HE EVEN EXISTED IN THAT TIMELINE

And that’s Definitely the feather they’re talking about, isn’t it? The feather that Sakura left in Acid Tokyo is still in the Reservoir right now, and is the reason the water is magic and loves her so much - because it’s a piece of her, and -... well, a piece of her clone. But it’s a piece of SAKURA, and so they resemble and resonate with each other, and that's why the water is so close to her, but 'Sakura' can’t absorb the feather because she’s already a full person and those aren’t her memories, but the memories of her clone.

Meanwhile Sakura (ie, our cloned Sakura) is currently on the other side of the portal at a point in time that DIDN’T exist a few seconds ago, for Original 'Sakura', but the rest of the universe has moved on and decades have passed (even though no time at all has passed for her) and now the feather from her clone has ended up in the past that set up the reservoir potentially centuries before she was even born. 

Timeline!

Oh my god?

Oh my god. 

I’m going to be thinking about this forever. 

No wait I’m not done ACID TOKYO WAS like THE point in the narrative where everything changed forever. And from a Tsubasa point of view it felt like a world picked at random for all the Important Narrative changes to take place - but it never was! It was the most important world of all! It was the Clow Kingdom!

So Syaoran lived his life in the Clow Kingdom, and then his soul collapsed in Acid Tokyo, which was ALSO the Clow Kingdom, and then he went and died defending Lava Lamp, in the Clow Kingdom. All at completely different points in the timeline but all in the exact same world. 

Though I will say I am thoroughly baffled by the connection between the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and THE CLOW RUINS???

ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE THE SAME BUILDING?

Oh my god they’re in the same location aren’t they. The reservoir was underneath it and now it’s under the ruins. I suppose they have Magic so they could probably reshape them however they want but WHAT A CON CLAMP HAVE PULLED ON US

TO SPEND THE ENTIRE MANGA STARING AT THE WINGS OF THE CLOW RUINS AND THEY WERE SECRETLY WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME TO TELL US THAT WE WERE ACTUALLY LOOKING AT THE TOKYO METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT BUILDING ALL ALONG

THE AUDACITY OF IT ALL

[tippenfunkaport]

When you see queer show after queer show get cancelled, I'm just forever grateful Crew-Ra at least got to finish SPOP and end the story their own way.

[aloeverified]

daring being the equivalent to a pg-13 fuckboy was really funny, but i think it would've been so sad and compelling if he geniuely was in love with apple.

they know they're destined to be together, they grew up together and have talked about their relationship many times. they agreed to not date until their destiny takes its course, as apple is paranoid about messing with their story and doing anything ahead of time.

daring sees how hard she works and how far she goes to strive for perfection; following ever task her mother gives her, always being ontop of her studies, never missing a chance to be kind and help others. she inspires him to do the same; topping his sword-fighting classes, using his strength and athletic skills to help others, always seizing the chance to save the day and protect others.

daring falls more and more in love with her each passing year, whereas apple just keeps waiting for the feeling to come to her. she reasons that she doesn't feel anything for daring because he hasn't awoken her from her coma and swallow her worries.

many people still fall for daring, but he tells them his heart is taken and his destiny is sealed: apple white is the only girl for him, and it's his duty to stay loyal to his future wife.

perhaps apple even visits the charming kingdom often, under the guise of spending time with her future in-laws to get away from the heavy pressure she faces at home. she grows closer with darling during these times, who admires apple and her ability to be satisfied with the royal life and expectations she has as a princess.

i think daring could still have a few small and tender moments with other girls, such as his admiration for cerise — but he does his best to push those feelings aside, maybe even feels guilty for them.

it's only after he fails to awaken apple in dragon games, where he is able to start his process on moving on. he agonizes over not being her prince, as it changes everything he knows: his destiny, his true love, and even the fact that he would participate in an out of destiny romance (something so taboo to a royal such as himself).

when finally given the chance to do so, daring asks apple if she loves him — if she ever had or ever could, in the same way he loves her. they have a long conversation, one that ends with both of them in tears. apple does daring, but she's not in love with him. she's always known there was something different about her when she didn't long for her prince charming like other princesses did, and now thanks to darling, she knows why.

daring learns how to move on. it's a tedious process, and one that hurts, but he moves on. and so does apple. he still loves her, and she still loves him. only now, they also love themselves.

[ofthebrownajah]

I do wonder when they're gonna get into "you do not want to be the chosen one" aspect. Cause yes they have shown the madness and what the Aes Sedai want to do to him but we do still have some show onlies thinking being the Dragon is a good heroic figure? Guess I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop in the show where they're like "actually this is more like finding out you're the antichrist."

[lordansketil]

I watched the first four episodes of 'The Buccaneers' and, granted I'm sick right now so I'm probably cutting it a lot of slack, but I hated the first episode, skipped through the second one, but by the third episode I was hooked. It has this tacky Bridgerton-esque exterior, is as bizarre and inaccurate as hell, but it gets SO DARK and I love that. The main character's mother puts doves in golden cages for a ball... and that's it, that's 'The Buccaneers', doves in fucking cages.

It's like the modern music and wild inaccuracies are whispering: "Come closer, child, yes... look at the modern aesthetics, that's right, you want to marry an English lord, do you? So romantic, ahahaha. Yes? Let me teach you about helplessness, let me show you some power dynamics... let's start with a fairytale and then set it on fire."

[badboysteve]

I just finished re-watching season 3 with someone who hasn't seen the show before and anyone who thinks Steve was silly for thinking Robin was into him/ should have somehow known she was gay before confessing to her, really needs to rewatch their heart-to-heart scene in the Russian bunker. Robin tells Steve outright that she was obsessed with him (her, not "all girls") and was watching him close enough to still remembers his exact breakfast down to what kind of bagel it was!! Everything she says, down to the insults, sounds like she's bitter about an unrequited crush. Which she is! Just not on him.

My friend knew going in that she was gay and still thought this was a love confession!

So when Steve confesses in the bathroom, it's not baseless or comes out of nowhere: He's acting based on her words, their budding friendship pre-season, and the intimancy they built under the mall.

He has every reason to think he'd have a serious shot at having his feelings returned, which makes how well he reacts to Robin recontextualizing things for him even better imo.

[the-promise-has-been-made]

me, getting through 97% of The Fall of the House of Usher tear-free: Huh, I guess watching fictional cruel super-rich capitalists that take advantage of normal people loose their minds and die horrible deaths really doesn't hurt that much.

Verna: So, about that bloodline...

Me:

(spoilers: I REALLY had convinced myself Lenore was not actually Freddies child and that's why she was safe, I was completely blindsided...)