#this is kind of my relaunch

[felsicveins]

I have a Patreon!

Hello!! I have a Patreon where I stream via my Discord server once a week and take drawing requests! It's a really fun time and you can see stuff that I don't post on Tumblr! ❤️

[bumpscosity]

63 cent build a bears lets goooooo

[little-eye-guy]

woolly hooves was very significant to me and i feel kind of embarrassed thinking about some stuff i did on there (i was a kid that's how kids act) and i think about it every once in a while and wonder what ever happened to everyone on there

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

[largeworm]

It's genuinely kind of upsetting how quickly social media's keep shooting themselves in the foot to just have something to show to higher ups and making their sites more and more user unfriendly. It reminds me of the Oreo CEO skit from College Humor/Dropout TV.

The new Discord update for mobile is genuinely disheartening by how little they seem to care about people hating the new layout. Which honestly, the DMs now being at the bottom and no longer swipping to see server members is annoying. But as someone who very easily gets god awful headaches from heavy contrast and light, the new "default" themes are... very unfriendly to people like me. Let me show you the difference in old Discord's dark mode vs the new:

Like, holy shit, it's Bad. The new one on the right is barely usable for me, it was giving me strain after only an hour or two of use. And it's not even their darkest mode, which is pure black, but it's their only other option aside from pure white in Light Mode.

If you don't want eyestrain, you'll have to pay the 10$ a month nitro not to get migraines. I have the 3$ version, and I can not change the theme with it to their other options. I was able to fix it by fighting all of my settings for an hour to get it back to the original color palette, but jfc. I shouldn't have to reset all my phone setting, open and relaunch discord, and pray that it decides the "automatic setting" is the non-eyeball burning classic dark mode.

The world and social media is just slowly getting more and more unuser friendly, especially towards people with light sensitivity (I can rant for hours about car headlight luminosity regulations). Just kinda disheartening to see Discord so adamantly against changing any of the new UI stuff, especially is they decide to no longer have the class color palette accessible in the future :/

[maxwellatoms]

In one of your last answers, you said “series reboots are usually pretty gross and sad”, and I was wondering if you could expand on that? Assuming “reboot” covers any kind of continuation of a currently cancelled or finished show (and maybe that’s the wrong assumption!), from the outside looking in it feels like a pretty mixed bag. On one hand, if I love XYZ Show, it’s cool that I get more stories with these characters and another chance to support XYZ Show and its creators. On the other, it definitely feels like a lot of ideas can only get funding if they’re tied to something already, meaning creatives are having to now tie whatever cool idea they have to some reboot/relaunch/retread, which can feel pretty disheartening if you don’t want to do a reboot/relaunch/retread. Is that a similar feeling from your side of the industry?

Thank you so much for all your answers and insight!

Usually reboots and spin-offs are just cash grabs. It happens a lot in animation. In fact, I would argue that the entire industry is just one big cash grab now. In the 80s, everyone complained that cartoons were just half-hour commercials for toys. And they were right. And we're right back there, but now that you can't legally push toys all day, it's just general "IP". Mugs, posters, more spinoffs, whatever.

I was offered three show running gigs over the pandemic. All reboots that I would consider unwise to pursue because they were "of a different time" and didn't (in my opinion) have anything more to say. Two of them were properties created by notorious sex pests, so there's also that. The animation industry loves to prop up its sex pests.

I turned all of them down, partially because I didn't respect the original creators but also because none of them had anything going for them except just being "more of the same".

I don't think any of those projects survived the intervening years, so in retrospect I maybe should've taken the job. I'd probably feel a bit gross, but at least I'd have floors in my house.

The entertainment industry is in a bad spot. The whole thing. I've had I don't know how many pitch meetings in the last few years, and they all start the same way:

"Hey! Before we start, we just want to let you know that we're not actively producing anything right now. We think maybe soon, but we won't be picking anything up today..."

And then later:

"The little we are doing is IP, so if you have a new take on our IP or a new IP you're connected to that you can bring in, that'd be great."

I always wanted to make original stuff. There came a time when I'd had my fill of Billy & Mandy and wanted to do something else new and original. That never manifested, and I was constantly being offered IP to produce. I turned too many of those down, maybe, before deciding that it was probably better that I run the IPs that mean something to me rather than having some hack do it.

But now those jobs have all gone to celebrities and fallen live-action writers, who are also slowly being eaten by the system. WB was hot for Scooby stuff a few years back, so I pitched some ideas. A few of them were turned down for being "off-brand" in a variety of ways. WB has now made (I think) all of those off-brand shows (or something close) with celebrity show runners.

I was going through a whole Midlife Impostor Syndrome thing recently where I was wondering if maybe I don't just suck. Like, it's weird that for a couple of decades I'd have people calling me trying to get me to run shows, and now nobody will call me back about the possibility of a design job.

Talking to some friends and realizing that they were in a similar situation helped me feel like I wasn't alone. That was nice. Talking to some of the most talented colleagues in my industry made me made me realize that those people weren't getting jobs either. That was unnerving. Talking to complete strangers in other parts of the entertainment industry now has me thinking that the whole house of cards is coming down. That's real concerning, yo.

It's hard not to think it's purposeful, when deranged billionaires own the entirety of our media and want to shape a society where they can't be criticized. We're letting wealthy tech bros firebomb the very heart of our culture, and it's weird that no one is talking about it. Because (for now) we still have that capability.

[cosmicfunnies]

Navigating Through The Storm - An Update On My Journey

Hello , dear friends and followers,I hope this post finds you in moments of peace and pockets of joy, despite the complexities we all navigate through in our lives. It’s been a while since I've shared a detailed update with you, and I believe it’s important to keep the lines of communication open, honest, and heartfelt.

The past few years have been a rollercoaster, to say the least. I’ve encountered personal challenges that have significantly impacted my ability to create as freely and frequently as I used to, particularly with my comics and creative projects.Depression has been a relentless companion on this journey, making everyday tasks and creative endeavors much more difficult to navigate.

The weight of it often dims the vibrant colors of life, making even the simplest steps forward feel like monumental tasks.Adding to this, the financial strain of losing my full-time job two years ago has cast a long shadow over my life. The search for stable employment has been both exhausting and disheartening, leaving me to juggle financial uncertainty alongside my other challenges.

One of the most heart-wrenching aspects of these years has been witnessing the progression of my mom’s dementia. Her condition continues to deteriorate, and the emotional toll of watching a loved one fade away cannot be overstated. It's a type of pain that words can hardly capture.

Despite the darkness, there have been slivers of light and progress. I’ve been slowly, but surely, working on new things. The journey back to creativity isn’t a straightforward path; it’s filled with starts and stops, especially with chronic fatigue making every step feel like wading through molasses.

But I am moving, nonetheless.I’m in the process of relaunching my store, which is both exciting and daunting. It’s a tangible piece of my hope for the future, a hope that creativity will once again be a full-fledged beacon in my life.Moreover,

I've taken a significant step towards a brighter future by going back to college to pursue my bachelor's degree in graphic design. This decision is not just about career opportunities; it's about reigniting my passion and opening doors to new possibilities and dreams.

Yes, things are moving slowly, but they are moving. The creation of new comics and products is underway, though the pace might not be what I used to manage. This process is teaching me patience and the importance of being kind to myself, recognizing that progress, no matter how small, is still progress.

To you, my dear readers, your support and understanding mean the world to me. Knowing that you are there, even in silence, gives me strength. I am hopeful for what the future holds, for both my creative endeavors and personal growth.

Your patience and encouragement as I navigate this phase of my life are invaluable.As doors begin to crack open, and I peer through to the possibilities beyond, I am reminded that every step forward is a victory. And I am grateful for the chance to share this journey with you.

Jackie

[renthony]

Guess what, everyone? I've overhauled my Patreon! This link will take you to a free post where I talk about what kind of work I'll be doing moving forward, what kind of benefits paid Patrons will have access to, and what kind of posts all followers will get for free! Be sure to follow my Patreon page so you never miss an update!

I've narrowed my focus down to two current projects, which Patrons will get more detailed information on next week!

[Image Description: A banner graphic with yellow text that reads "The Star's Ascent" laid over a background of stars. End description.]

The Star's Ascent is an original portal fantasy comic starring a cast of disabled trans characters, grounded in French folklore and my personal favorite fantasy tropes.

Next Tuesday, October 31st, Patrons will get to learn all about the core concept of The Star's Ascent, the main cast of characters, what my deadline for writing the synopsis is, what art style I'm aiming for, and the general outline of planned development phases moving forward. This story has been in the works for quite a while, and I'm eager to share just how far it's come in the past few weeks.

[Image Description: A banner graphic with a watercolor rainbow background and text that reads, "Horsin' Around in a Gay Way: A Queer Analysis of BoJack Horseman." End ID.]

"Horsin' Around in a Gay Way: A Queer Analysis of BoJack Horseman" will be a video essay breaking down queer themes in the Netflix animated series from creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg.

Next Thursday, November 2nd, Patrons will learn about what got me into the show, what sources I've already gathered for my research, what my research deadlines are, and what my projected development timeline looks like. This is another project that I've been working on for quite a long time, and I'm incredibly excited to finally take further steps toward filming.

[ffverr]

hello I come to you with a request. I watched x men 97 recently and was saddened by how little time the whole magneto in charge of the x men storyline got and I know he does this longer in the comics (I can't say why but the phrase "its seven in the morning max..." lives rent free in my brain) so I wanted to ask if you have any recommendation for comics from that era / any recommendations for comics with mister magnet-os because I want to get into x men comics but comics as always are so daunting

It is my great pleasure to answer this!!

Disclaimer 1, I am still going through a lot of the issues of this era but I will try my best to make it as clear a guide as I can for you!

Disclaimer 2, Headmaster of the school and leader of the X-Men are quite different positions that they kind of fused together in the 97 show so I do want to make it clear that magneto in the "seven in the morning" era is headmaster of the school, teaching young kids, while Storm is leading the X-men team and Scott is leading the X-factor team, so with that said:

Magneto's teacher arc starts in uncanny X-Men issues 199 and 200 (iconic issues containing the trial of magneto that was adapted in the show!) And then he is headmaster of the school in the book "The new mutants" by Chris Clermont, from issue 35 to issue 75. It is A LOT I admit and he gets a more minor place considering the book is about the kickass young class of new mutants that he's teaching. But it is worth checking out! Many consider this to kind of be peak magneto because.... he's trying so hard to be a good teacher and to handle all these kids and it's very humanizing for him!

I mean look at him and his 8 kids!

Now, how to get into Magneto overall? Let's get into it:

I believe it is impossible to get into Magneto without reading his ultimate origin story, Magneto: Testament by Greg Pack. It is a quick intro, it barely features his powers (not an action comic) and it WILL absolutely make you cry. I consider it essential magneto reading!

Next up: Two One shots if you want to get a quick primer on the character pre moral arc instead of sitting through his few appearances in the Stan Lee comics:

A classic one: X-Men: God Loves, Men Kills by Chris Clermont. It is an iconic comic book one shot that can be read out of continuity just to see what his deal is when he's not necessarily on the side of the X-Men but fighting for his own ideals! It's also a brilliant comic book!

If you want a more recent retelling of the first appearances of magneto you HAVE to read X-Men Mythos that retells magneto's major first appearance in the 60s in quite a beautiful and amazing way! It also has an absolutely insane magneto scene that makes me scream so do check it out as a primer! (So this would "chronologically" come before God loves men Kills)

Now for his switch from ridiculous villain of the 60s/early 70s to complexe guy in the classic era (80s), read the issues 149 and 150 from the run Uncanny X-Men by Chris Clermont. This is THE pivotal moment for "good guy" Magneto

(know that after issue 150, somehow he falls in the ocean from asteroid M, is rescued from a shark attack by Scott's girlfriend lee forester. They have a quick relationship where he struggled with his change of morals then he comes to the new mutants)

if you want to continue chronologically you read the issues 199 and 200 that I recommended at the start then go to the new mutants I talked about!

If you want MORE MODERN comics, then I advise you get right into what's happening at the moment!

House of X powers of X are two series that intertwine (you'll easily find them in the right order) by the same writer, Jonathan hickman!

It serves as a status quo change/relaunch of the X-Men universe and it is absolutely brilliant! Magneto plays a big part of the story and it's basically all about the mutants winning for once! Don't worry too much if you don't know most of the history of characters, you'll get used to it quickly (that's what I did!) I'd say it's a bold but very functional intro to X-Men comics!

Then he appears as a major character in the GREAT series X-Men Red by Al Ewing alongside Storm, his eternal equal and great duo in my eyes (funny how when he's peak she's always somewhere around)

In this he is- epic, depressed, suicidal, sassy, it's great magneto stuff! This series is widely regarded as the best X-Men comic out right now!

(if you want context for this book read the event X of Swords, or I could explain if interested)

That's about all I will lay on you ! If this is hella confusing, don't hesitate to dm me! I can detail more cleanly exactly what you have to read and when!

Good reading!

[gilbirda]

what are your thoughts on watcher’s new announcement?

So.

I've been watching the Boys since they started back in 2016 (i think around that era), and honestly I'm very conflicted about the decision. I've read so much stuff in favor and against the announcement and I don't know if my answer will satisfy you.

I have managed a community and I have the blessing and curse of being somewhat of a Name, experiencing the ordeal of being Known, and I can tell you that 1)you can never please everyone 2)people will always rush to crush you the second you do something they don't agree with 3)people will always twist everything you do with the worst faith in mind and 4)fandom forget very quickly that at the end of the day you are just human.

I think they made a calculated risk based on a purely economical viewpoint. I think they considered their loyal fanbase and how willing people have been so far with spending extra cash to support them — The live shows, the exclusive streams (like the Valentine's Too Many Spirits) and Patreon. How much of their fanbase was the "broke students" tumblr claim they are and how much was people with spending money willing to pay extra for them.

I also think that the decision seem stupid if you look at it from the perspective of "why the hell would I pay $6 to watch such little variety of content?" and that's a Correct Assumption, but Observe — they have been very slowly pulling everyone that made Buzzfeed famous and enrolling them in. Very recently they gathered the Worth It boys, the second show that kind of carried Buzzfeed back in the day (apart from the Try Guys). I think they can't talk about it right now, but the goal is to relaunch Buzzfeed but without ads and without making it the soulless content machine it became. I think their dream and goal has always been making what Buzzfeed could have been with better management, kind of like "If I was the Management in this company, things would have been better" dream fulfillment. That's why they made the direct jump to a streaming service instead of the logical steps of Patreon-exclusive content or even jumping to Nebula like other youtubers. It was never meant to stay one single channel, it was supposed to be bigger.

Is the projection of making a "better Buzzfeed" worth risking this step? Time will tell. I don't know. I personally never cared about anyone except Buzzfeed Unsolved. I still watch Unsolved on repeat. Is my comfort show. Maybe they are overestimating how much people care about other shows not hosted by them.

Although they did hint that "we want shows not hosted by us". This tells me that they are settling down, they want to ramp down a little bit, do the hook with Ghost Files aka Unsolved Supernatural Lite for the streaming service, and once people are hooked, launch more shows by the old-school Buzzfeed people. Won't be as big as a show hosted by Shane and Ryan, but it will still make people feel like they are getting their money's worth.

I would forgive all of this if only they didn't use the excuse of "if we want to do Netflix-level productions we need money". I'm sorry but that means nothing to me. We loved them when it was a powerpoint slide show with 2 idiots in a set. We didn't fall in love with the toys or the trips or the high tech. We didn't fall in love with the fancy animations at the beginning of Ghost Files episodes that they are so proud of. That was all their idea.

I've seen this trend of content creators ramping up their creations to an unsustainable point, completely crash and burn and then having to apologize about having to step back. Then making it the moral trap of an argument that they have been doing their best to bring quality content to their audience, and of course making it impossible to argue against. If you speak up and say "well we never asked you to break your back" then you are ungrateful audience. That's exactly what's going on in here with the Watcher announcement — "true fans" criticizing people who point out the fact that they created this money problem on their own. Is not the fanbase responsibility to cater to a company's bad money decisions. Is not our fault that they decide to scale up their operation to a point they "haven't been making a profit for 2 years". It's unfair that the fans are at each other's throats for daring stepping back and saying "I don't want to be part of this".

I don't think Watcher Entertainment is actively wanting to collapse their fandom like this. I don't think this was a calculated move. But I do think that they are a group of adults trying to make a career of something they enjoy doing. I think they made this move with the perspective that fandom is not end all and they can always rebuild it.

— And that they are planning on making a machine that can work without them, and that requires breaking something in the fans, it requires kicking themselves out of the pedestal fans have put them on. They know they won't be allowed to have a normal life until people stop looking at them waiting for them to say their phrase.

In conclusion I think they made a choice that made sense if they are planning on separating Watcher Entertainment from "The Ghoul Boys" fame, and it makes sense if they are aiming at something bigger than what they've been doing now. Money of course is the goal and the reason presented, but there's a lot that they are not saying and we will not know until it happens.

Until then, it does feel like they have just shot their careers in the foot.

Also I'm salty that I can't join the service because I'm outside the US.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A link-clump demands a linkdump

Cometh the weekend, cometh the linkdump. My daily-ish newsletter includes a section called "Hey look at this," with three short links per day, but sometimes those links get backed up and I need to clean house. Here's the eight previous installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

The country code top level domain (ccTLD) for the Caribbean island nation of Anguilla is .ai, and that's turned into millions of dollars worth of royalties as "entrepreneurs" scramble to sprinkle some buzzword-compliant AI stuff on their businesses in the most superficial way possible:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/ai-fever-turns-anguillas-ai-domain-into-a-digital-gold-mine/

All told, .ai domain royalties will account for about ten percent of the country's GDP.

It's actually kind of nice to see Anguilla finding some internet money at long last. Back in the 1990s, when I was a freelance web developer, I got hired to work on the investor website for a publicly traded internet casino based in Anguilla that was a scammy disaster in every conceivable way. The company had been conceived of by people who inherited a modestly successful chain of print-shops and decided to diversify by buying a dormant penny mining stock and relaunching it as an online casino.

But of course, online casinos were illegal nearly everywhere. Not in Anguilla – or at least, that's what the founders told us – which is why they located their servers there, despite the lack of broadband or, indeed, reliable electricity at their data-center. At a certain point, the whole thing started to whiff of a stock swindle, a pump-and-dump where they'd sell off shares in that ex-mining stock to people who knew even less about the internet than they did and skedaddle. I got out, and lost track of them, and a search for their names and business today turns up nothing so I assume that it flamed out before it could ruin any retail investors' lives.

Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory, one of those former British colonies that was drained and then given "independence" by paternalistic imperial administrators half a world away. The country's main industries are tourism and "finance" – which is to say, it's a pearl in the globe-spanning necklace of tax- and corporate-crime-havens the UK established around the world so its most vicious criminals – the hereditary aristocracy – can continue to use Britain's roads and exploit its educated workforce without paying any taxes.

This is the "finance curse," and there are tiny, struggling nations all around the world that live under it. Nick Shaxson dubbed them "Treasure Islands" in his outstanding book of the same name:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230341722/treasureislands

I can't imagine that the AI bubble will last forever – anything that can't go on forever eventually stops – and when it does, those .ai domain royalties will dry up. But until then, I salute Anguilla, which has at last found the internet riches that I played a small part in bringing to it in the previous century.

The AI bubble is indeed overdue for a popping, but while the market remains gripped by irrational exuberance, there's lots of weird stuff happening around the edges. Take Inject My PDF, which embeds repeating blocks of invisible text into your resume:

https://kai-greshake.de/posts/inject-my-pdf/

The text is tuned to make resume-sorting Large Language Models identify you as the ideal candidate for the job. It'll even trick the summarizer function into spitting out text that does not appear in any human-readable form on your CV.

Embedding weird stuff into resumes is a hacker tradition. I first encountered it at the Chaos Communications Congress in 2012, when Ang Cui used it as an example in his stellar "Print Me If You Dare" talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njVv7J2azY8

Cui figured out that one way to update the software of a printer was to embed an invisible Postscript instruction in a document that basically said, "everything after this is a firmware update." Then he came up with 100 lines of perl that he hid in documents with names like cv.pdf that would flash the printer when they ran, causing it to probe your LAN for vulnerable PCs and take them over, opening a reverse-shell to his command-and-control server in the cloud. Compromised printers would then refuse to apply future updates from their owners, but would pretend to install them and even update their version numbers to give verisimilitude to the ruse. The only way to exorcise these haunted printers was to send 'em to the landfill. Good times!

Printers are still a dumpster fire, and it's not solely about the intrinsic difficulty of computer security. After all, printer manufacturers have devoted enormous resources to hardening their products against their owners, making it progressively harder to use third-party ink. They're super perverse about it, too – they send "security updates" to your printer that update the printer's security against you – run these updates and your printer downgrades itself by refusing to use the ink you chose for it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

It's a reminder that what a monopolist thinks of as "security" isn't what you think of as security. Oftentimes, their security is antithetical to your security. That was the case with Web Environment Integrity, a plan by Google to make your phone rat you out to advertisers' servers, revealing any adblocking modifications you might have installed so that ad-serving companies could refuse to talk to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

WEI is now dead, thanks to a lot of hueing and crying by people like us:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/google_abandons_web_environment_integrity/

But the dream of securing Google against its own users lives on. Youtube has embarked on an aggressive campaign of refusing to show videos to people running ad-blockers, triggering an arms-race of ad-blocker-blockers and ad-blocker-blocker-blockers:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-will-the-ad-versus-ad-blocker-arms-race-end/

The folks behind Ublock Origin are racing to keep up with Google's engineers' countermeasures, and there's a single-serving website called "Is uBlock Origin updated to the last Anti-Adblocker YouTube script?" that will give you a realtime, one-word status update:

https://drhyperion451.github.io/does-uBO-bypass-yt/

One in four web users has an ad-blocker, a stat that Doc Searls pithily summarizes as "the biggest boycott in world history":

https://doc.searls.com/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/

Zero app users have ad-blockers. That's not because ad-blocking an app is harder than ad-blocking the web – it's because reverse-engineering an app triggers liability under IP laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which can put you away for 5 years for a first offense. That's what I mean when I say that "IP is anything that lets a company control its customers, critics or competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

I predicted that apps would open up all kinds of opportunities for abusive, monopolistic conduct back in 2010, and I'm experiencing a mix of sadness and smugness (I assume there's a German word for this emotion) at being so thoroughly vindicated by history:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

The more control a company can exert over its customers, the worse it will be tempted to treat them. These systems of control shift the balance of power within companies, making it harder for internal factions that defend product quality and customer interests to win against the enshittifiers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

The result has been a Great Enshittening, with platforms of all description shifting value from their customers and users to their shareholders, making everything palpably worse. The only bright side is that this has created the political will to do something about it, sparking a wave of bold, muscular antitrust action all over the world.

The Google antitrust case is certainly the most important corporate lawsuit of the century (so far), but Judge Amit Mehta's deference to Google's demands for secrecy has kept the case out of the headlines. I mean, Sam Bankman-Fried is a psychopathic thief, but even so, his trial does not deserve its vastly greater prominence, though, if you haven't heard yet, he's been convicted and will face decades in prison after he exhausts his appeals:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-on-all-charges

The secrecy around Google's trial has relaxed somewhat, and the trickle of revelations emerging from the cracks in the courthouse are fascinating. For the first time, we're able to get a concrete sense of which queries are the most lucrative for Google:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/1/23941766/google-antitrust-trial-search-queries-ad-money

The list comes from 2018, but it's still wild. As David Pierce writes in The Verge, the top twenty includes three iPhone-related terms, five insurance queries, and the rest are overshadowed by searches for customer service info for monopolistic services like Xfinity, Uber and Hulu.

All-in-all, we're living through a hell of a moment for piercing the corporate veil. Maybe it's the problem of maintaining secrecy within large companies, or maybe the the rampant mistreatment of even senior executives has led to more leaks and whistleblowing. Either way, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the anonymous leaker who revealed the unbelievable pettiness of former HBO president of programming Casey Bloys, who ordered his underlings to create an army of sock-puppet Twitter accounts to harass TV and movie critics who panned HBO's shows:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/hbo-casey-bloys-secret-twitter-trolls-tv-critics-leaked-texts-lawsuit-the-idol-1234867722/

These trolling attempts were pathetic, even by the standards of thick-fingered corporate execs. Like, accusing critics who panned the shitty-ass Perry Mason reboot of disrespecting veterans because the fictional Mason's back-story had him storming the beach on D-Day.

The pushback against corporate bullying is everywhere, and of course, the vanguard is the labor movement. Did you hear that the UAW won their strike against the auto-makers, scoring raises for all workers based on the increases in the companies' CEO pay? The UAW isn't done, either! Their incredible new leader, Shawn Fain, has called for a general strike in 2028:

https://www.404media.co/uaw-calls-on-workers-to-line-up-massive-general-strike-for-2028-to-defeat-billionaire-class/

The massive victory for unionized auto-workers has thrown a spotlight on the terrible working conditions and pay for workers at Tesla, a criminal company that has no compunctions about violating labor law to prevent its workers from exercising their legal rights. Over in Sweden, union workers are teaching Tesla a lesson. After the company tried its illegal union-busting playbook on Tesla service centers, the unionized dock-workers issued an ultimatum: respect your workers or face a blockade at Sweden's ports that would block any Tesla from being unloaded into the EU's fifth largest Tesla market:

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-sweden-strike/

Of course, the real solution to Teslas – and every other kind of car – is to redesign our cities for public transit, walking and cycling, making cars the exception for deliveries, accessibility and other necessities. Transitioning to EVs will make a big dent in the climate emergency, but it won't make our streets any safer – and they keep getting deadlier.

Last summer, my dear old pal Ted Kulczycky got in touch with me to tell me that Talking Heads were going to be all present in public for the first time since the band's breakup, as part of the debut of the newly remastered print of Stop Making Sense, the greatest concert movie of all time. Even better, the show would be in Toronto, my hometown, where Ted and I went to high-school together, at TIFF.

Ted is the only person I know who is more obsessed with Talking Heads than I am, and he started working on tickets for the show while I starting pricing plane tickets. And then, the unthinkable happened: Ted's wife, Serah, got in touch to say that Ted had been run over by a car while getting off of a streetcar, that he was severely injured, and would require multiple surgeries.

But this was Ted, so of course he was still planning to see the show. And he did, getting a day-pass from the hospital and showing up looking like someone from a Kids In The Hall sketch who'd been made up to look like someone who'd been run over by a car:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53182440282/

In his Globe and Mail article about Ted's experience, Brad Wheeler describes how the whole hospital rallied around Ted to make it possible for him to get to the movie:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/article-how-a-talking-heads-superfan-found-healing-with-the-concert-film-stop/

He also mentions that Ted is working on a book and podcast about Stop Making Sense. I visited Ted in the hospital the day after the gig and we talked about the book and it sounds amazing. Also? The movie was incredible. See it in Imax.

That heartwarming tale of healing through big suits is a pretty good place to wrap up this linkdump, but I want to call your attention to just one more thing before I go: Robin Sloan's Snarkmarket piece about blogging and "stock and flow":

https://snarkmarket.com/2010/4890/

Sloan makes the excellent case that for writers, having a "flow" of short, quick posts builds the audience for a "stock" of longer, more synthetic pieces like books. This has certainly been my experience, but I think it's only part of the story – there are good, non-mercenary reasons for writers to do a lot of "flow." As I wrote in my 2021 essay, "The Memex Method," turning your commonplace book into a database – AKA "blogging" – makes you write better notes to yourself because you know others will see them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

This, in turn, creates a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragments that are just waiting to nucleate and crystallize into full-blown novels and nonfiction books and other "stock." That's how I came out of lockdown with nine new books. The next one is The Lost Cause, a hopepunk science fiction novel about the climate whose early fans include Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit, Bill McKibben and Kim Stanley Robinson. It's out on November 14:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/05/variegated/#nein

[texas-chainsaw-fanworks]

Upcoming Event for the TCM fandom!

After the success of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fanworks event back in December, this blog has been relaunched for a new upcoming event!

For one week in July, there will be a corresponding series of prompts and themes relating to disability and disabled characters in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1, 2, and the game. However, as long as disability is the primary focus of the piece, there is no requirement that these prompts must be followed.

By piece, this means that all kinds of fan content are accepted. Fics, art, writing, playlists, covers, edits, moodboards, and so on. Anything you can dream of. I simply ask that no AI generation is used in the process of the creation.

Then, when it’s time to post, participants just use the event hastags! #tcmfanevent AND #tcmdisabilityweek

Additionally, dark and disturbing content will be allowed due to the nature of canon, but with limitations. My harsh limitation is that no proship pairings be featured. This means absolutely no family x family or adult x minor ships. In the case of past trauma or references to unwanted events like these, I ask that the piece be tagged and adorned with warnings accordingly.

If a participant has any questions on limitations or otherwise, this blog is open for messaging and inbox submissions, as well as the moderators own blog @charleslee-valentine. I will answer from any of those places if questions arise.

Finally, I want to clarify that this event is neutral on disability. I am disabled myself and find joy in my life in different ways because of it. Please do not use this event as an opportunity to bash a disabled identity. This is a celebration of the canonically disabled characters in universe first and foremost, like Bubba, the Sawyer twins, and Franklin. Personal frustration, ableism, and difficulty are obviously allowed, and the content doesn’t have to be all sunshine and rainbows, as long as the line into intense and unresolved self-hatred isn’t crossed.

Again, if this leads to any questions, please just let me know.

Onto Prompts! The image below has a least for ease of saving, and there is also a text version down below.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Disability Pride Event Prompt List

Day 1- Alternate Communication

• Bubba Sawyer is nonverbal. What other ways might they speak with their family?

Day 2- Weird Lookin’

• Nubbins Sawyer stims and plays freely, but faces ableism. Feature his relationship to disability in this piece.

Day 3- ‘Nam Flashback

• Chop Top Sawyer has PTSD and head trauma. Explore his experience with disability.

Day 4- Gonna Be A Fun Trip

• Franklin Hardesty is a paraplegic wheelchair user. Highlight mobility aids for him.

Day 5- Victims

• Stretch, Sally, Franklin; How might TCM victims be disabled after their time with the Sawyers? Remember the Sawyers themselves may also be victims in the right context.

Day 6- Underestimated

• Times when a disabled character wasn’t taken seriously.

Day 7- Headcanon Disability

• Your favorite headcanon/interpretation for TCM character disabilities.

_____

The reason this event is limited to TCM 1 (1974) and TCM part 2 (1986) and the 2023 game is for ease of moderation, since these are the only TCM media I, the event runner, am familiar with.

With that said, I hope you’re all as excited as I am for this event during disability pride month! See you July 1st-7th!! No sign-ups required! Just create and post if you’re interested!!

[steterweek]

Hi! Love your work. When will steter week run this year? Thank you

Aww, you're so kind! We're big fans of your work too! <3

Steter week at the end of July each year, and this year it will land on July 28 - Aug 3. (And extra exciting for me this year because my birthday lands right in the middle of the event, but last year it was after!)

We're working on the full relaunch of the tumblr for 2024 and we hope to have that and the prompts ready for early May.

So excited for the early interest!

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

man about town interview | spring/summer 2014

for the tweam! click through for my best attempt at deciphering this (maybe impossible to find?) throwback interview

‘’I don’t think I’m scary at all. It was kind of funny watching myself being scary. Because I’m not scary.’’ Says Evan Peters, the up-and-coming up-for-anything actor best known for his extreme roles on American Horror Story, the prestige television series that treats social taboos as map points. For three seasons, Peters has excelled at playing against his offbeat boyishness by amping up his young Malcolm McDowell intensity, with results that fall somewhere between ‘’teen dream in strangler’s gloves’’ and ‘’terrifying Michael Cera.’’ He most recently appeared in American Horror Story: Coven as Kyle Spencer, the good-natured university student who is decapitated and then reanimated with the body parts of his Kappa Lambda Gamma brothers as a temperamental Rocky Horror who beats his sexually abusive mother to death with a trophy.

Over a bold chai tea with stevia, at a restaurant in Venice, California, Peters is lighthearted and dryly humorous, like a young Michael Shannon, with whom he should costar in a successful disturbing family sitcom. He wears black jeans, a well-worn t-shirt under a plaid flannel, and a necklace with a toy dinosaur pendant. He drives a 2004 Pontiac Vibe that he correctly describes as ‘’vintage’’; says that he just feels like growing his longish blond hair into a ponytail, and has a red thumbs-up permanently inked onto the to pof his right hand, that was traced over a nightclub door stamp. At one point, he raises his forearm to show off a temporary tattoo that he received the night before at the castle park family entertainment center in Sherman oaks. ‘’This is a Belle tattoo. It’s not real,’’ he explains playfully of a small portrait of the beautiful young heroine from the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast. I tell him it’s very pretty. ‘’Thank you. She’s gorgeous,’’ he responds. I ask if Belle is his favorite Disney princess. ‘’Well, I picked her out. There was also Jasmine, Ariel and Cinderella. My other buddies got those.” ‘’What about Belle appeals to you?’’ ‘’She likes the Beast.’’ Peters says.

This summer, Peters appears as the teenage Mutant speeder Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which has proven to be an eventful ??? movie. In October 2012, director Matthew Vaughn – who relaunched the franchise with much needed style and a new cast of young, indie + credible actors – left the film to be replaced by original trilogy director Bryan Singer. As such, fans were already touched when Singer announced that he would retell ‘’Days of Future Past,’’ the seminal X-Men time-travel storyline from 1980, an ambitious plan turned wild when he revealed that both franchises would merge into one. Cut to the 2012 San diego Comic-Con whereby unthinkable feats of scheduling – the sprawling casts of the modern-day first series and the 60’s era prequel (that include expensive names like Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackmon, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Michael Fassbender, and so on). Convened with ??? new additions like Peters to unhinge popular culture. ‘’You think to yourself, ‘’wow, people really, really love this stuff.” And it makes you appreciate it more. It makes you work harder at it.’’ he says about the experience.

Peters’ role in the films is crucial but concise. ‘’It’s a huge, huge opportunity but I always make sure to tell people it’s just one scene. Easy, it's just one scene.’’ Peters says, as if talking down a rearing horse. Quicksilver has already been the subject of film industry chatter regarding lawful usage of the character, who is both the son of Magneto and a colleague of the Avengers, making him fair game for inclusion in both Days of Future Past and the 20n5 Avengers sequel (in which he will be played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass). An Empire magazine Preview of Quicksilver’s costume design was greeted with comparison to Kid Vid, a ‘90’s cartoon form of the Burger King ‘’Kid’s Club,’’ and the news that Peters had been saddled with the Halle Berry “rough wig’’ role. But his fan’s enthusiasm for the project—in which desperate X-Men from a dystopias future try to stave off mutant genocide by altering the present day—is undimmed. ‘’I think it’s the best film of the francise yet,’’ proclaims Peters. ‘’It’s pretty dire. It’s a pretty epic situation. But there’s definitely some humor in there. Its’s just badass, man.’’

Quicksilver is a departure for Peters in some ways if not others. Both X-Men and Horror Story are tight productions that take extensive precautions to protect story lines. Peters says that he did not receive the full script for X-Men until arriving at the Montreal location days before shooting. Horror Story pages are often delivered the night before a scene. The short lead time can demand a ??? almost improvisational acting process. ‘’The minute we get the script, plans are cancelled, dinner is cancelled,’’ he says about working on Horror Story. ‘’Some of it you’re like, ‘Oh shit, I have to do that?’ Screaming and crying, realizing that my whole body is pieced together and I’m not myself? I’ll probably have to work on that.’’

Peters owes his career to television. ‘’I was watching a lot of TV and I kind of wanted to be on the TV and in movies. I love movies and TV,’’ he says, and cites inspirations like Joaquin Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, George Clooney, JIM Carrey, Chris Farley, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and the millennial teen comedies Even Stevens starring Shia Labeuof and So Little Time with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. ‘’That sort of stuff. I just really wanted to be a part of it and loved acting and performing.’’ He moved to Los Angeles with is mother when he was 15 years old, and steadily won work in television, on shows including Phil of the Future (2004) and One Tree Hill (2008), and in movies like the independent films Clipping Adam (2004), his first big break, and later Kick Ass (2010). Being cast as Tate Langdon in the first season of American Horror Story in 2011 was his tipping point, playing a Skull Boy-faced high school shooter in a latex catsuit who rapes his girlfriend’s mother to please a ghost. He has since become one of the five main players to appear in all three season of the series, sterling company that includes Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe and Frances Conroy.

Now the world gets to enjoy a lighter side of Peters, like when he appeared on a 2011 episode of the G4 networks Attack of the Show and blithely volunteered that he was working a a rap song called ‘’I’ll Tap That Fucking Ass.’’ He laughs off a request to recite a verse. ‘’I can’t. That never materialized. I tried but it was too much pressure. It was just a concept. I was just trying new ideas,’’ he says, and then volunteers a different musical direction. ‘’It’s called ‘Natch Snatch.’ Like all natural snatch. Big bush. Snatch. Cause it’s nice. You know, ‘girl, you’ve got that natch snatch.’ It’s another nice concept. Probably on the same album.’’ Peters laughs in agreement at the suggestion that he is a kook in the best sense of the word. ‘’I get called a weirdo sometimes,’’ he admits ‘’But it’s like, I don’t feel that weird. I don’t feel that different. I look at everybody else and I’m like, ‘’you’re a fucking weirdo, too. You like all of your shit. I like my shit.’’ Why does one have to be weird and one have to be normal? It doesn’t make any sense to me.’’ Meanwhile, he seems to be successfully negotiating his public and private persona. ‘’I’ll try to be myself as much as I can but you obviously can’t be who you are at home in your skivvies eating donuts. You can’t be that.’’ He explains, before confirming that guy exists, with his tongue sort-of-in-cheek. ‘’You bet he does. Yeah, definitely watching New Girl. Crying.’’ But while Peters seems fairly comfortable in the public eye, fame no longer interests him. The development is not unrelated to his intense, closely-watched relationship with fiancée and two-time costar Emma Roberts (on coven and in the 2013 ?? Adult World) ‘’When I was younger I was like, ‘’That would be awesome!’’ now I don’t particularly love it,’’ he says ‘’Emma gets paparazzi a lot, and because I’m with her we get paparazzi, so it’s kind of a weird thing that I don’t love. But it’s so small in the big picture of all the positives that come with this job that I can’t really complain about it.’’ he may be surprised by the attention he and Roberts receive, but he is hardly self-ptying. ‘’Honestly, it’s not that bad. If you don’t set up a Google alert on yourself and go out searching for it then you’re not going to see it. So I don’t see it.’’ Roberts has already endured the Hollywood learning curve that Peters is now experiencing. ‘’She gives me advice, like cut your hair. She likes my hair to look nice,’’ he says, and laughs. ‘’She’s been around and knows the ropes and how to play the game very well. And she has incredible social skills. She can talk to anyone and everyone loves talking to her. I’m not that good at that stuff so she kind of helps me out with that.’’ I wonder what guidance she offers him. ‘’You’ve just got to be personable and talk to people, even if you don’t want to. Put on a happy face and buck up. Grow a pair of balls. Don’t be a little wuss.’’ Petersa says, and laughs. ‘’I mean, she doesn’t say that, but you know what I mean.’’ 

Next for Peters is Lazarus, opposite Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover and Mark Duplass a 2015 feature from director David Gelb, known for the documentary Giro: Dreams of Sushi. Peters describes the project, about a team of brainiacs working magnanimously to reanimate the dead, as a “contained Sci-Fi horror thriller” as it mostly takes place in one laboratory setting. He plays the party animal scientist. Peters encouraging sidesteps the questions of his involvement in the next season of American Horror Story, to be set in 1950 and the present day, for which Jessica Lange is practicing a German accent. ‘’I don’t know what I’m allowed to say so I’m going to say no comment,’’ he says.

‘’At the end of the day it is acting. You want to go with the biggest, weirdest, boldest shit and see if you can actually do it and go there,’’ Peters concludes, ‘’I’m very curious about everything. I feel like I don’t know that much. I’m trying to learn it all and figure it all out.’’

[mortalityplays]

LAUNCH GIVEAWAY - FREE ART TIME!

To celebrate the upcoming launch of my sensible freelance editing business and all-around senseless 'make more free art' lifestyle, I am giving away a whole bunch of my old print stock!

Included in the prize pool are some of my best-selling prints, and a lovely little glossy print edition of Under the Skin - a standalone experimental comic about love and decay.

Here's what you need to know:

8 winners will be chosen randomly from my Patreon followers - 3 Prize A winners and 5x Prize B winners.

Prize A winners will receive their choice of one large print (A3/poster size) and their choice of two small prints (A4/8"x10" size)

Prize B winners will receive a copy of the minicomic (A5) and all 7 postcards pictured (A6).

You do not have to purchase, like or reblog anything to enter. Obviously sharing is appreciated, but the only entry requirement is that you follow me on Patreon (the free tier counts!)

Depending how many people enter, I may add a new prize tier / increase the number of winners. This depends on numbers, I want the odds to be reasonable.

Winners will be chosen and announced on April 1st!

I've written about why I'm doing this here. Simply put: I'm tired of paywalling and ringfencing and worrying about how and why and when people are allowed to look at my art. I made it to be looked at. Nothing makes me happier than the thought of my work on someone's wall. So take it.

I'll be relaunching a paid storefront on my website later in April, where you will eventually be able to buy many of these prints alongside new work. However, I will also be launching a free shop this Wednesday that will host original copyright-free artwork of all kinds, including hi-res prints you can download and print off at home. Keep your eyes peeled! I'm dying to give you stuff!

Obligatory disclaimer: This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed by or affiliated with tumblr. You don't have to buy anything and you're not obligated to keep following me after the prize draw!

[sydcarmyfan]

The Bear is a love story

You can not tell me that The Bear is not like a hallmark movie. Boy meets girl. Girl is so gorgeous, kind, talented and patient while boy is talented but troubled. The boy falls madly in love with the girl, they start a restaurant together and live happily ever after.

The Bear is so hallmark movie-coded. You don’t believe me? Welcome to Mama’s proves my point.

In Welcome to Mama’s, Amy inherits an Italian restaurant after the original owner dies. The restaurant comes with a chef called Frank. To honor the original owner’s memory, Amy and Frank relaunch the restaurant.

Y’all, does it not sound familiar? Carmy inherits the restaurant after Mikey dies. Sydney and Carmy relaunch the restaurant. The Berzattos are Italian! Like I said, we are watching a love story.