#we can profit off this!!

[aresmarked]

the fact it’s a for-profit writing AI really, really gets my goat, along with the feeling of bitter inevitability that’s been rising with all the troubles visual art siblings have been having. torn between ‘it’s only been a matter of time’ and ‘it never had to be like this’.

[healpimp]

The games been bot-free for a few months now. At worst I've run into a few closet cheaters.

I won't spend a dime on the game till at least a year has passed, but the game's playable. #FixTF2 did what it needed to. It feels super weird to say, but the game is essentially fixed. You can queue into casual without expecting a lobby full of bots spewing gross and hateful shit in the chat (now its just the bottom scoring scout doing that, though with a significant lack of cheats).

For now I'll be enjoying the game to the fullest.

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[soracities]

Hi! So I tried not to say anything about some anti makeup posts I saw on your blog but I need to say this. I think you're very wise and I agree it's very important for us to love ourselves as we are. But some people like myself doesn't care about 'empowering' of makeup or whatever but we just have fun with it and we just love it. I say we because I know there is a lot of people like me. Yeah, we are feeding capitalism or whatever, but world is beautiful and it's also terrible so people trying make themselves feel good, have fun, ect. I see a lot of people who don't wear makeup and i'm happy for them! I didn't wear makeup until i turned 20 i think and felt good.

One thing I wanted to add is in response of post about feminine girls. I think everything needs balance and sometimes people tend to overreact in their opinion and divide everything in black and white. Personally I never cared how women around me looked and what they were wearing. But I would like to have same treatment, and not to feel silly for wearing pink or feminine clothes.

Sorry, I don't know English very well so maybe I can't translate my idea entirely. What I'm trying to say i think everyone should do what they like and leave each other in peace.

Sorry for this essay, just wanted to share my point of view.

Hi, anon! I'm sorry for the delay in getting to this, but I appreciate you writing this (and your English was fine, don't worry)

I think the main argument of those posts (and my own feelings about this) is not about makeup on its own, or even judgement about who does and doesn't choose to wear it--what they are criticizing is a particular part of the society we live in which puts a huge emphasis on women's beauty and appearance in order to fulfill an idea of what a woman "should" be, and the role that makeup plays in that as a result. Because whether we like it or not, whether we believe in them or not, whether we feel pressured by them or not, these expectations do exist. How we personally respond to them does not change that.

I personally don't have an issue with makeup or the concept of it (in almost every culture on earth, humans have been using makeup of some kind for literally thousands of years)--but what I do have a problem with is when we treat makeup, or other traditionally "feminine" forms of expression as neutral things when they are not. A comb or a hair tie is neutral--it's just a thing. Lipstick and eyeliner are also just things, but only when they exist by themselves--and in reality they don't exist by themselves: they exist in a world where we value women on their physical appearance before we value them for anything else--lipstick and eyeliner exist to emphasise parts of your appearance, to make you look a certain way--and in a society where we put so much importance on women looking a certain way, they aren't just ordinary things you toy around with for fun. You can have fun with them, but it doesn't change their role. They can't be treated as exceptions from the world they are used in.

I think sometimes people assume that being anti-makeup is the same as being anti-women-who-wear-makeup, which misses the point (and also suggests a very dangerous idea which I think, sometimes, is why people respond so angrily to these criticisms: because if we believe that being anti-makeup = being anti-women, then therefore makeup = womanhood, and this is simply not true). Whether you wear these things just for fun and to enjoy yourself isn't what is being talked about because these criticisms are not about you on a personal level: they are about looking at a society that is as image-obsessed as ours, and asking why makeup has the role that it has when 1) it is almost exclusively aimed at women--women who, as a group, have been historically marginalised, and whose value, historically, has almost always been measured in terms of their beauty before anything else and 2) the makeup that is emphasized, the trends and styles that come and go, are often not so much about self-expression (if they were, people would be freely wearing all sorts of wild colours and styles: when we talk about "makeup culture" it's not the same kind of makeup used in the goth, punk, or alt scenes for example where makeup plays a very different role) but almost always about achieving or aspiring towards a type of beauty that is valued or expected: to make you look younger, to make your eyes brighter or larger, to make your lips bigger or sexier, your cheekbones more prominent etc--again, on their own, these things may not be a big deal, but they exist in a world where having these looks means you are valued in a certain way as a woman. And when this exists in our kind of world, where the power dynamics we have automatically mean women's perceived power is through beauty, and where we insist so much on women being a particular kind of beautiful (and this starts in childhood) we have to ask and investigate WHY that is--why this type of beauty and not another? why (almost only) women? who benefits from this? who suffers as a result?

The argument of "not all women" wear makeup for empowerment misses the point of these criticism, because it is focusing on a person's individual choices in a way that suggests our choices can define the world we live in, and they can't. We are deeply social animals. Therefore, how we appear to each other and to ourselves is a socially influenced phenomenon. This applies for race, for sexuality, and for gender. How women are perceived at large, in different social structures, is a social phenomenon influenced by the societies we exist in and the values of those societies. These criticisms are about the society we make those choices in and how that can affect us. For you, makeup may be something fun and enjoyable and that's fine. I'm not saying that's untrue or that people don't feel this way or that you are wrong for feeling this way. It's also not saying that you are brain-washed or oppressing yourself for it. But it doesn't change the world we live in. Someone feeling perfectly happy to go out with makeup or without makeup, and feeling no pressure to do either, is great--but it doesn't mean there aren't a lot of women who do feel pressured into wearing it, and that pressure is a social one. It doesn't change the inequality that exists between how women's physical appearances are judged compared to men's. It doesn't change the fact that almost every childhood story most kids hear (that aren't about animals) have a "beautiful princess" (and very little else is said about her except that she is beautiful) and a "brave" knight/prince/king/whichever: the princess (or maiden or whatever young woman) is defined by how she looks; the male in the story by how he acts.

It also doesn't change the fact that so many young girls grow up hearing the women around them criticize various parts of their bodies and that they carry this into their lives. It doesn't change the fact that we expect (in Western countries at least) for women to have criticisms about their appearance and they are "stuck-up" or "full of themselves" if they don't. It doesn't change the fact that magazines photos, red carpet photos, films, tv shows etc., feature actresses who are beautiful in a way that is absolutely above and beyond exceptional (and who either have had work done cosmetically, or are wealthy enough to be able to afford to look the way they do through top-class makeup artists, personal trainers etc) but who we think are within the "normal" range of beauty because faces like theirs are all that we see--how many famous actors / entertainers can you name who look like they could be someone's random uncle, or "just some guy" (writing this, I can think of 5). Now how many actresses, equally famous, can you think of that are the same? Very, very, very few.

The point of those posts, and why I feel so strongly about this, is that we have a deeply skewed view of beauty when it comes to women, because, as a society, we place so much on how they look in such a way that it is not, and was never meant to be, achievable: therefore anything that contributes to how women look, that markets itself in the way that the makeup industry does in this day and age, needs to be questioned and looked at in relation to that. No one is saying don't wear eyeliner or blush--what they are trying to say is that we need to be aware of the kind of world eyeliner and blush exists in, what their particular functions as eyeliner and blush do in the world that they exist in, that we exist in, and how this does impact the view we have on makeup as a result. Your personal enjoyment may be true to you and others, but this doesn't change the role of female beauty in the world because, again, our personal choices don't define the world in this way. Often, it's the other way around. And we cannot deny this fact because, while it may not affect you negatively, it does affect others.

I absolutely agree with you because I don't care how other women around me choose to dress or express themselves, either--that's their freedom to wear what they want and enjoy themselves and I want them to have that freedom. But my view is not the world's view, and it's certainly not the view of a lot of other people, either. I don't care if another woman loves pink and wearing skirts and dresses--but, like makeup, pink, skirts, and dresses, are not neutral things either. They're tied to a particular image of 'femininity' which means they are tied to a particular way of "being a woman" in this world. I'm not saying, at all, that it's wrong to wear these things. But I'm saying we can't treat them as though these are choices as simple as choosing what kind of socks to wear, because they aren't. They are choices that have baggage. If a woman is seen as being silly, childish, or treated unequally because she enjoys cute tops and ribbons and sundresses, that's not because we are demonizing her choices, or because being anti-makeup is being anti-woman (again, it is absolutely not): it's because we as a society demonize women for any choice. That isn't because of anti-makeup stances--that's because of sexism.

You mentioned that you want to be treated the same as anyone else for wearing feminine clothes--but the fear that you wouldn't be isn't because of the discussions critiquing makeup and other traditionally "feminine" things--it's because we live in a society where women are constantly defined by how they appear on the outside, and no amount of our personal choices will make this untrue. Whether you are a girly-girl or a tomboy, you'll always be judged. And, in reality, when women follow certain beauty standards they do get treated better--but this doesn't mean much in a society where the standards are so high you can never reach them, and where the basic regard for women is so low to begin with (not to mention the hypocrisy that exists within those standards). This is what all those criticisms towards makeup and "empowerment" are about: it's about interrogating a society that is built on this kind of logic and asking why we should insist on leaving it as it is when it does so much damage. It's saying that that if we want everyone to truly feel free in how they choose to present themselves we have to go deeper than just defining freedom by these choices on their own, and look at the environment those choices are made in. And that involves some deeply uncomfortable but necessary conversations.

Also, and I think this important to remember, views on makeup and the social place of makeup will also depend on culture and where you are, and the beauty expectations you grew up with. And when it comes to the internet, and given American dominance online, a lot of these posts criticizing makeup and the way makeup is being used to sell an idea that wearing it is "empowering" to the woman (which is basically saying: you are MORE of a woman when you wear it; you are stronger and more powerful because, in our society, beauty is portrayed as a form of power: it tells you, you can battle the inequality women face by embracing the role beauty plays in our lives but it doesn't tell you this emphasis on beauty is part of that inequality), are based on the way makeup is portrayed in mostly English-speaking Western countries. My views are shaped by what I grew up seeing, and while a full face of makeup (concealer, primer, foundation, mascara, highlighter, contour, blush, brow tint, brow gel etc) may not be daily practice or even embraced in a place like France or maybe other places in mainland Europe (but that doesn't mean they don't have their own expectations of feminine beauty), they are daily practice in places like the US and Britain, and this is what most of those posts and criticisms are responding to.

We can argue as much as we want about makeup, but when you grow up in a society where women feel the need to put on makeup before going to the gym there is something seriously wrong. Embracing makeup and enjoying makeup is one thing, but it cannot be a neutral thing when so much of it is about looking like you're not wearing makeup at all, or when we assume a woman is better qualified for a job or more professional when she wears it. It cannot be a neutral thing when a singer like Alicia Keys goes makeup-free for a red carpet event and it causes a stir online because people think she looks sick (what she looks like is normal--I would argue above normal--but wearing makeup to cover up "flaws" is so normal now that we genuinely don't know what normal skin is supposed to look like because the beauty of these celebrities is part of their appeal: they are something to aspire to). It is absolutely very normal for me, where I am, to see young girls with fake lashes and filled in brows: it's not every girl I pass, but it is enough. I'm not saying they are miserable, or brain-washed, or should be judged. I can believe that for them it's something enjoyable--but how am I supposed to see something like that and not be aware of the kind of celebrities and makeup tutorials that are everywhere on TikTok and YouTube, and that they are seeing everyday? How am I not supposed to have doubts when people tell me "it's their choice!" when the choices being offered are so limited and focused on one thing?

I never wore makeup as a teenager and I still don't, but a lot of that is because I grew up surrounded by people who just didn't. Makeup was never portrayed as anything bad or forbidden (and I don't see it like that either)--it was just this thing that, for me growing up, was never made to be a necessity not even for special occasions. I saw airbrushed photos and magazines all around me, for sure, and I definitely felt the beauty pressure and the body pressure (for example, I definitely felt my confidence would be better if I wore concealer to deal with my uneven skintone, and I felt this for years). But I also know that, growing up, I saw both sides. No makeup was the default I saw at home, while makeup was the default I saw outside. And that does play a part, not just in the choices you make, but in the choices that you feel you are allowed to make. No makeup was an option for me because it was what I saw everyday, even with my own insecurities; but if you do not see that as an option around you (and I know for most girls my age, where I grew up, it probably wasn't) then how can we fully argue that the decision you make is a real choice?

If I wanted to wear a cute skirt outside, for example, and decided to shave my legs--that isn't a real choice. And it cannot ever be a real choice, no matter how much I say "this is for me" or "I prefer it like this" because going out in public with hairy legs and going out in public with shaved legs will cause two completely different reactions. How can I separate what I think is "my choice" from a choice I make because I want to avoid the negative looks and comments? And how can I argue that choosing to shave is a freely made choice when the alternative has such negativity? If you feel pressured into choosing one thing over another, that's not a choice. Does this make sense?

This is how I feel about makeup most of the time, and what I want more than anything else is for us to be able to have a conversation about why we make the choices we do beyond saying "it makes me feel good" and ending the conversation there. Again, I'm not saying people need to stop wearing makeup or stop finding enjoyment in wearing it, but I think we tend to get so focused on our own feelings about this and forget that there is a bigger picture and this picture is a deeply unequal one. That is what this conversation is about. I hope this explains some things, anon, and if I misinterpreted anything please feel free to message me again. x

[bleaksqueak]

I haven't been online most all day, and now I log in to see AI generated junk on the promotion radar. Ew.

[loyalhorror]

also it's so fucking funny to me that like... from what we can tell, armand doesn't have an interest in buying/selling art or property until louis does first, right? ("the first vampire capitalist") so i'm assuming that's something he leaned into because louis liked it, shaping himself around louis' interests... and it made him boring to louis. and now he and louis in the present day are both THEE most boring fucking people alive because they're multimillionaires doing what all multimillionaires do. YOU'RE BOTH BEIGE!!! DULL!! DULL!! FLAVOURLESS!!!

[arsenicflame]

my most bitter proposal for a season 2 fix it is that the crew refuses to let ed back on the boat (as they should) so stede throws a tantrum and ultimatums that if ed stays so will he but the crew just take him up on that.

they make their inn in the wreckage of anne + marys house and the crew goes off and continues to have fun hijinks with izzy as the ship parent

[decolonize-the-everything]

What is your opinion on Ben and Jerry's anti-4th of July stance? Is it just a political stunt to get us to buy their ice cream? Or can we buy their ice cream guilt free and not be worried about being a pawn?

There is no ethical consumption in capitalism.

That said, rather than trying to be "guilt-free" in how you participate in capitalism or decolonization (which is a purely performative act) be more genuine in your support. Instead of trying to alleviate your own guilt focus on alleviating the reasons for that guilt in the first place. Alleviate suffering.

instead of celebrating or acknowledging "independence day" of the USA highlight the need natives have for independence from the USA & how to support that goal

Check out the Landback website and learn about the Landback movement

Spread awareness of our issues

Learn about the American Indian movement

Donate to a union

Join one or talk to your friends about it

donate to some native causes like MMIW or the Lakota Law project

support your local small ice cream businesses instead which will definitely have a Much lower carbon footprint than a corporation that ships & transports supplies/product across the US

[homoeroticgrappling]

Spite Tour 2024 merch is finally here and it's so good (designed by Kyle Crawford)

Okay AEW you'll make merch about it, now put him and the related promo on TV you fucking cowards

[deus-ex-mona]

petition to let them fight over the ichigo au lait

[stacy-fakename]

Rat Grinders:Don’t do anything to the Bad Kids until antagonized, and it’s later revealed that their bad actions were a result of being groomed by one of their teachers for years and then murdered and possessed.

Intrepid Heroes:Fuck you, sending you to hell and you can’t be revived.

[luciolefire]

actually nintendo, the problem is you,

[sarah-yyy]

at that time of the year where i have No Motivation to work

[mantisgodsaus]

More selkieverse worldbuilding time. Fun fact: all selkies are bound to one of the four classical elements (fire, earth, air, water). The specific element varies by individual, but it tends to run in families - due, largely, to the fact that the creature that your pelt belongs to tends to heavily affect how inclined members of a strain may be to being a given element. The best-known, of course, are pinnipeds, who are almost always Water aligned, but marsupial selkies are known for frequently being aligned to Earth, and nearly every single avian strain out there will trend strongly towards Air. Fire tends to be rarest, with no consistent lines, turning up only occasionally in individual selkies.

When aligned to an element, a selkie will naturally be drawn to that thing - Water often produces an impossibly strong draw to water, both the sea and any other bodies of water that may be available to a selkie. Earth might be drawn underground, spelunking or tunneling and going ever deeper until some Earth selkies may wind up not seeing the sun for weeks or months at a time. Air, of course, produces a longing for the air and for flight - and Fire, a draw towards heat and flame which has been well-known to lead to disaster.

Beyond the longing for the elemend one is bound to, one's alignment also tends to offer resistance to one's element - Earth, for example, tends to make a selkie far more resilient against blunt force than other members of its species and offer a strong resistance to the psychological impact of darkness and claustrophobia, and Water selkies are often heavily resistant to both water pressure and any form of drowning.

With most forms of selkie, a strong presence of their aligned element will also tend to make them a bit more difficult to harm - while not offering an offensive advantage, a seal in water tends to simply be harder to hit, a bird in the air will find more ways to dodge you in the air than you knew existed, and trying to chase a weasel into a set of tunnels will have it finding more exits than you ever knew existed.

The final thing that an element affects generally isn't evident until a selkie dies. Upon a selkie's death, the bug body will generally decompose into its associated element within less than a day - though the dead sealskin will remain, the resultant body is rarely stable enough to be formally recognized as a body if you don't know precisely what to look for. Though the exact material varies, it is always tied to their core element - seafoam, lake water, and pond scum have all been recorded from pinnipeds of various forms, cinder and ash is common from Fire, Earth has been known to crumble to sand and leave bug-shaped stone formations in equal part, and Air has the disquieting tendancy to not leave any sign of a body at all.

Though there have been a multitude of rumors and myths suggesting that some selkies may gain the ability to fully control and manipulate their element, when sufficiently attuned to it, there is no concrete evidence to suggest it - historically, all signs have pointed to this being folklore, not fact. Primarily, this seems to stem from a quirk of selkie psychology - something similar to the call of the void. 

Occasionally, particularly when near the ends of their lives (either by old age or should they have the time to feel it after being dealt a mortal wound), selkies are known to seek out any font of their element that they can. Though poorly researched, there are enough anecdotes to construct an idea of the phenomenon. Selkies affected by this will commonly claim that the thing they're seeking out is "calling to them" - an intensification of the pull that element normally has on a given selkie, and an urge to follow it deeper - the bottom of the ocean, the centre of the earth, the very highest part of the sky, the burning heart of a flame.

Should they listen, and follow the call, they rarely come back - losing themselves to the pull of their own essence's wish to join with the greater body of its element. Unlike other methods of death, this does not generally leave a pelt behind, as most selkies will want to bring their skin with them to seek out whatever lies at the other end of this call, and thus the pelt will also be recombined into the core of whatever force of nature they've gone to seek.

[reineyday]

i was looking up the comic pages of the titans tower attack where jason rips off his shirt to reveal the robin costime underneath, and i didnt manage to read it in full but something i found interesting is that tim says, "you're the red hood. you've been cleaning up gotham the easy way."

i dont have the full context for it, but i love that at least standing alone, there's an implication there that tim thinks killing criminals is effective, and he just doesnt find it challenging enough haha. like, there's a lot of other moral judgements you can make about jason's choice to murder, but instead of any of that, tim just decides to point out it's the easy way. 😂

(okay maybe tim said it in an effort to goad by saying jason's taking the easy way out, but i think it's funnier if tim said it 'cuz he doesnt actually disagree with killing and just doesnt do it cuz he follows the bat lol.)

[rawliverandgoronspice]

tbh what I really think is that guilt-trips and pressure over genuine disgust or refusal to engage with the system after its repeated abject failures and current genocide (and worldwide genocide denial) is definitively not the way to go.

if certain elections go... any given way (or any elections honestly, counting the coming french ones where I absolutely intend to vote blank on what I assume the second turn will look like --unless a miracle happens-- and no force on this fair earth can make me do it a third time, I already massively regret having been coaxed into doing it a second time if you must know), it will absolutely not be the fault of the people who refused to engage with a completely broken system that repeatedly failed everybody, but will entirely be the fault of those who profited from said broken system to enable their own power at the literal cost of the powerless dying by the thousands

no matter what everybody ends up doing and what sort of internal peace anyone manages to find within themselves in a truly grueling historical moment, and I genuinely extend my sympathy here, in the name of everything precious let's not get it twisted over who ends up getting blamed in the end.

let's not lose the plot here.