thatoneguy031 - Tumblr blog

[thatoneguy031]

You're battling Team Plasma? How'd you get involved with that?

Yep! And, as fun as it could be, it's also...

concerning. Like, we've been doing pretty good so far, as good as a turbo-based Raichu and Dewott could, anyway. But, at this point with all the stuff with this N dude and some "legendary dragon" stuff he's spouting... something could really go wrong if we make a single screw-up.

But I'm involved both because Guy is as well, but also because that group messed with basically all of my friends. You're not just dumb if you think I'm gonna take that lying down, but stupid too!

As for Guy himself, he's never told me, so-

It's a personal issue.

Yeah, you're not getting much more info from him than that. Probably some deep stuff... Which is why I wanna help him!

WE'RE GETTING RID OF TEAM PLASMA ONCE AND FOR ALL, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES!

I REFUSE TO LET THEM KEEP KICKING ME AROUND!

[thatoneguy031]

Yo, who's the Raichu? What'd they do to Cherry and the other guy? Don't tell me you got rid of them...

Yoooo, you're finally reaching out to make more friends! I wanna see 'em, they're probably awesome!

Wh-

I swear, I've never heard those names before! Excuse me, but I really think you've got the wrong guy...

I dunno, man... You're the only Guy I know. Maybe they're talking about some of those grunts we battled earlier.

Ugh, those guys. What, you want them to tell me I'm a failure again, Shades? I know that already, move on.

...

...But if you really want me to look for whoever you're talking about, I'll keep an eye out.

See, that's the Guy I know. Maybe you should hold back on the helpfulness, though... You need a break sometimes, too

[thatoneguy031]

...

You can still move the thing, at least, right? Hey, hey, easy now! Don't force yourself if you really don't think you can do it.

...I can move it well enough. Shame I can't really get into battling again for a while, though.

Look at the bright side, dude! You learned Revenge! That's an awesome move to have in your kit! Team Plasma doesn't stand a chance!

Yeah... Yeah!

They'll be finished, next time we battle them!

...

//Hey! I decided to do Muse Mixup Madness for this blog instead of Chris's! Especially since one of the prompts fit pretty well with what I had in mind, anyway!

If you don't know, I'm doing "What Once Went Right"! And after today, I'm doing a flashback arc that was heavily inspired by JJK, so you can see what Guy and Max got up to when the Raichu was still alive.

And because this is a flashback arc for Guy, as well as Muse Mixup Madness you won't be seeing Cherry or Frost for quite a while, as Guy literally doesn't know who they are yet.

And on that topic! Feel free to pull a Rindo and try to change Guy's future a bit! His blog already took place in during the end of the Unova Saga, so I figured this would be fun for everyone. Just know that some things are still going to happen as they do in the "current" events, but you'll have to find out what. So, experiment! Try things out! Poke these two a little!

[thatoneguy031]

And THAT's the end of Arc 3, "Adventures Anew"!

Yeah... sorry for the delays. But that's what tags are for, right? Seriously tho. I've been having... I dunno, writer's block, I guess? But anyway. Let's get on with this summary, shall we?

Guy and his friends, Cherry and Mx. Suicune, have all managed to get a ticket to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Sinnoh region. All of which is thanks to the mysterious human that they had met at last year's Halloween party, who goes by Blair.

After some hijinks upon the boat, including a name being formed for Mx. Suicune, of which now being known as Frost, they face a rather interesting situation. They came across Team Plasma again, who had intentions of wrecking the boat and kidnapping Guy, their wording implying that they already knew who he is. Upon everyone in the group asking just who he was and what business he even had with Plasma in the first place, Guy managed to dodge the subject, but he knows it's only a matter of time until he has to give them the full story.

During this, Guy has also gotten the news that this dark power he's been trying so hard to master could be due to his potential ties to an ancient Sinnoh, Hisui, even being shown an image of what exactly Samurotts looked like in that era of wild Pokemon running rampant and separate of human civilization.

After those events, they had finally made it into the Sinnoh region, specifically Sunyshore City. Despite that success, however, everyone still needs a bit of time to recover, including a Mimikyu that Guy has managed to convince to travel with his rather unusual group.

End of Summary.

Some points and takaways from the arc:

-Frost now has a Poke Ball assigned to them. Feel free to ask how they feel about it!

-Blair has now joined the party, assigning himself as the general caretaker of the group until they recover.

-Guy now has an incentive to ensure that he doesn't go too overboard when regarding his dark power. Whenever he does, or when his emotions are pushed past their limit, he will enter a state that isn't too dissimilar to the Samurotts of the past.

-It is now public why Frost chooses not to speak. For reasons unknown to anyone, whenever he opens his mouth to say anything, a severe, town-wrecking blizzard occurs, on par with legendaries much powerful than themselves, such as Regice or even Lugia.

[thatoneguy031]

It's kinda weird that Venusaur, Meganium and Blaziken are the only Starters to have gender differences

I think that's something they should do in future games, maybe redesign some past Gen starters to have some female forms (wouldn't be an odd thing to do, these Starters got their gender differences after their debut generations anyway)

Basically what I'm saying is that I wish female Samurott looked like this.

[thatoneguy031]

Out of the blue, I made pokemon fanart about silly Samurott(s)

[thatoneguy031]

You're telling me, ash (which is 10 I think) picks up this 269lb man, and tosses him at least 10ft - 20ft with little to no effort?

WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN FEEDING ASH

[thatoneguy031]

A snake story, based on an experience I had while I was in Florida.

[thatoneguy031]

Man the animators really put their whole pussy into animating the final battle

God when the theme song came on it was seismic.

Really

[thatoneguy031]

Testosterone shots

[thatoneguy031]

Fluffer

[thatoneguy031]

reblog to give the person you reblogged from the strength to complete The Task™

[thatoneguy031]

[thatoneguy031]

my fursona is chubby and like it's ok to find him hot/attractive it's perfectly ok to find fat/chubbiness attractive. especially saying this as someone chubby.

[thatoneguy031]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

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

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@q3k@hackerspace.pl/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over and anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

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/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[thatoneguy031]

[thatoneguy031]