#‘they’re fictional’ ‘the actors are of legal age’ do you understand how this comes off as weird

[reikunrei]

No, this is having a mature, thoughtful, and non-puritanical mindset about sex and teenage sexuality behavior.

I don’t understand why you’re trying so hard to get me to change my mind when all I’ve said is I think it’s weird and it makes me uncomfortable to see discussions about child characters having graphic and detailed sex while emphasizing the image of them as children?

the more you try to justify it, the further you implicate yourself, imo

[storiesforallfandoms]

tabloid bs ~ eminem

word count: 1822

request?: yes!

@imaginesforjohnnydepp​ “hi! i was wondering if you could do an age gap eminem x reader imagine where the reader is a singer and is the daughter of a very successful actor and singer and there are rumors of her parents not liking marshall making the rounds in the tabloids?”

description: in which she decides to shut down bullshit tabloid rumors regarding her boyfriend and her parents

pairing: eminem x female!reader

warnings: swearing, age gap (totally legal though, we’ll say the reader is about 25)

masterlist (one, two)

Being the daughter of two incredibly famous actors meant you were in the spotlight from a young age. Paparazzi, crazy fans, fake friends, none of it was new to you by the time you decided you wanted to try your hand in singing.

You were nervous at first, worrying that either you’d only blow up because of who your parents were, or that everyone would shut down your career because of who your parents were. You were happily surprised to learn that everyone genuinely liked you and your music, despite your parentage.

As your career began to skyrocket, you were contacted by none other than Eminem asking to make a song with you. Apparently he was so impressed by your talent that he wanted to get in contact with you and ask you himself for a collab, something that he only did with people who ended up becoming close friends of his (Skylar Grey, Rihanna, 50 Cent, Ed Sheeran, etc. etc.).

You ended up following this trend, except in a much more extreme way. You did end up becoming close with him, but not as just a friend. Within a month of doing your collaboration you found yourself going on a date with Marshall, and within a year you were basically living with him.

The press had a field day when they found out. You were 20 years younger than Marshall, and he was only two years younger than your mom. Of course people didn’t react to kindly to this at first, but it wasn’t as hard to ignore these things as you expected it to be.

The thing that was hard to ignore, though, was the constant stories that were published about your parents hating Marshall, and hating your relationship.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Your parents loved Marshall, both as a musician and as their daughter’s boyfriend. Your dad and Marshall got along really well, and your mom basically viewed him as a new best friend from the moment he walked through the door.

These rumors were harder to ignore when they were brought up so often in interviews and during livestreams or Q&As. You were starting to get annoyed with it and you wanted to make it stop.

Lucky for you, the person interviewing you at that moment gave you the perfect segway to shutting those rumors down.

“I know this is a bit of a private topic,” she started, “and if you don’t want to talk about it we can just move on, but there’s something circulating in the rumor mill regarding you and your boyfriend.”

“Of course there is,” you said, rolling your eyes in a playful manner. You were trying to remain lighthearted about it all, but you were feeling the annoyance bubble up inside of you already.

“There’s a story going around that you blew off your dad’s birthday because he wouldn’t let you bring Eminem to the celebration.”

You felt your face heating up with anger. Oh, so now the media was trying to present you as a bratty singer now too? Saying you skipped your own father’s birthday due to your boyfriend?

No, they were not getting away with that one.

You pulled your phone from your pocket and quickly opened it. The interviewer looked at you in confusion as you scrolled through your pictures before holding your phone towards the nearest camera.

“Here’s a picture of me and my dad two days after his birthday,” you said. “It was taken by Marshall, because the three of us had a special celebration alone. My flight home was delayed and I had to miss my dad’s actual birthday, in which my boyfriend was actually invited to, by the way. Dad specifically asked if Marshall would be coming, even jokingly told me that I had to take him. So no, I didn’t purposely miss my dad’s birthday because of my boyfriend, I would never miss dad’s birthday on purpose.”

“All you had to say was no,” the interviewer mumbled, regarding her notes to move along to the next question.

“No,” you said. “I’m not keeping this one short and sweet. I’m tired of all these stupid, untrue things being said about me and my boyfriend and my parents. Mom and dad don’t hate Marshall, I don’t purposely not see my parents because of him. There’s no hate at all between any of us, and it makes me angry that tabloids make those accusations without any evidence just for clicks. This is someone’s real life, not just some fiction for someone to fuck around with.”

“You sound very passionate about this.”

You scoffed. “Of course I am! Ever since Marshall and I have started dating people have been saying shit about him and my parents and I don’t understand why. There’s never been any ill will between my parents and Marshall, not even any implied ill will. People just like to make up stories so they have a good headline to get views and get people talking.”

“Well, although nothing has been ever been confirmed, you can’t say you don’t understand where those rumors came from. No one wants their kid dating someone who is basically their age, no matter how famous that person is. It’s only natural for a parent to be protective over their kid, especially from such an older person that may just be taking advantage of them.”

Your eyes were wide with shock. You could barley believe what this bitch was saying. She was really trying to spin the story and say that Marshall was trying to take advantage of you, a literal 25 year old adult?

You stood from my chair then and began trying to pull the microphone off of yourself. The interviewer looked at me with concern before trying to stop you.

“I’m done here,” you declared, pulling at the wire once I found it.

“You’re going to break the mic!”

“Send the bill to my people,” you retorted. “I’m not sitting here and having someone tell me that the guy I’m dating is trying to take advantage of me just because he’s older, or hearing you spill some bullshit about my parents. Newsflash: if someone is happy publicly with their relationship, then maybe they’re actually happy. No tragic behind the scene stories or ulterior motives, just two adults who are in love.”

You finally got the microphone off and basically threw it at the interviewer before turning and leaving the room.

~~~~~~

You stayed at Marshall’s place that night, still partially fuming from the interview. You didn’t tell him specifics (especially not that you walked out in a fury the way you did), but you told him it didn’t go well.

You were awoken the next morning to your phone ringing. When you checked it, you saw your dad’s face and name light up your screen. You groaned when you noticed how early the time was before answering. “Hello?”

“Good morning sweetie,” came your dad’s voice. “Have you been online yet?”

“I haven’t even been out of bed yet,” you responded. “Why? What’s going on?”

“You’re trending for walking out of your interview.”

You sat up in the bed so quickly that it woke Marshall. He rolled over and looked at you in confusion as you put your dad on speaker and started frantically opening your Twitter app.

“Dad, you’re on speaker. Marshall is here,” you told him as you started looking.

“Good morning, Marshall,” your dad said.

“Morning,” Marshall responded, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s going on that has (Y/N) wide awake at 8am?”

“She’s trending.”

“For what?”

There it was, your name at the top of the trending list. When you clicked on it, the first thing that popped up was your interview from the day before.

“Fuck,” you breathed. “I can’t believe they actually posted. It was so bad, I thought they’d just delete the footage and never think of it again.”

“You think too highly of people looking for a good scoop, honey.”

The title of the video read Singer (Y/F/N) Goes Off On Interviewer while Talking About Parents and Boyfriend Eminem. The entire interview was included, luckily enough, including everything leading up to your storm out. Marshall watched over your shoulder as your dad waited, silently, for you to see it all.

“You didn’t tell me what was said,” Marshall said. “Why didn’t you tell me they were saying that shit to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you responded. “I mean, it did matter, but by the time I got here I didn’t think it would matter anymore. Like I said, I thought the footage would be deleted and long forgotten.”

You were nervously biting at your nails as you scrolled through Twitter to see what people were saying. You were expecting a wave of hate and people believing that you truly were a bratty singer, until you started to see how much praise and love you were getting.

“Imagine trying to frame (Y/N) as the bad one in this situation when the interviewer literally said Eminem is trying to take advantage of her”

“Never believed those rumors about (Y/N)’s parents and Eminem. They’re all too tightknit for (Y/N) to date someone her parents hate”

“The way she told the interviewer to bill her for the broken mic that’s QUEEN SHIT”

“It doesn’t seem too bad,” you said as you continued to read. “A lot of people on my side.”

“Oh, I knew no one was against you on this one,” your dad said. “I just wanted to let you know you’re trending, and let you know I’m proud of you for finally putting an end to those rumors. It was getting really tiresome to read why I hated Marshall on any given day.”

You chuckled slightly. “Thanks dad. I’ll call you and mom later. Love you.”

“Love you, too, honey.”

Your dad hung up and you decided it would be for the best to put your phone away for a while. Even though you weren’t getting any negative attention for this, you were still overwhelmed by the fact that the interview went up at all.

You settled back into bed beside Marshall, taking your place in his arms where you loved to be the most.

“I’m proud of you, too,” he said, kissing your forehead. “I didn’t realize my girl was so badass.”

“Yes you did.”

“Maybe I did.” You giggled as you nuzzled your head into his chest more. “You know how much I love you, right?”

“Of course I know, babe. Don’t let that shitty interviewer and her bullshit get to you.”

“Oh she’s not,” he said. “I’m well aware your parents love me and I’m not taking advantage of you. I just wanted to remind you.”

I chuckled and shook my head. Shortly after, I drifted off to sleep, feeling proud of myself for what I had done.

[365days365movies]

February 18, 2021: The Danish Girl (Review)

Before I go into ANYTHING else...let’s talk about the actual Danish Girl, Lili Elbe, or Lili Ilse Elvenes.

Oh, uh, full warning, this is gonna be LONG, so skip to the bottom if you’re just here for the Review! OK, history time!

Now, what the film The Danish Girl notes about the beginning of the transition is pretty spot-on, from what I can tell. After marrying portrait painter Gerda Gottlieb in 1904, the two lived in Italy and France before moving to Paris in 1912. Yeah, that’s over 14 years before they’re shown doing so in the movie. Inaccuracy #1. In 1908 (here comes number 2), Elbe (Einar at the time) painted this portrait of trees along a fjord in Denmark.

Yeah, NOT in 1926, as the film says. But, yeah, that’s a nitpick, I recognize that. Anyway, the revelation came when model Anna Larssen (not “Ulla”, which is Inaccuracy #3) was late, and Gerda asked Elbe to fill in. When Larssen eventually showed up, she suggested the name “Lili”. Basically, this scene from the movie was pretty goddamn accurate.

Except for the dates, anyway. Because while the movie mostly takes place around 1926 and afterwards, this probably happened closer to 1920, in Paris. So, yeah, Lili spent a LOT more time as Lili in real life. Additionally, Lili was pretty goddamn public about the whole thing, inviting guests and hosting parties as herself, rather than as Einar. At the same time, Gerda was getting pretty goddamn famous for her paintings of Lili, like this one.

Which, yeah, are really good! Also, they were considered lesbian erotica by many! YEAH! And here’s a fun fact: Gerda may not have been straight-up straight. Yeah, the film and the book (we’ll get there) kind of ignored the fact that their marriage was annulled by the Danish government, not by the two of them. Inaccuracy #4. Now, obviously, their relationship ended, and Lili ended up getting together with a man (we’ll get there, too), but there are a LOT of unanswered questions about Gerda’s sexuality, and views of sexuality (which is barely hinted at in the “male gaze” speech in the beginning).

After the annulment, the two just...drifted apart. Their relationship dissolved, and the details on that are fuzzy. By 1930, Lili was headed on a completely different path. She wasn’t a painter like Einar (and it turns out that she thought of them as two entirely separate people, like two souls living in the same body, which the movie got mostly right), and she was mostly unsatisfied with her career, life, and other things. And that is where Drs. Erwin Gohrbandt and Magnus Hirschfeld come in, NOT Kurt Warnerkros...yet. He’d come in for the other five (YES FIVE) surgeries, but wouldn’t be involved with the first. Inaccuracy #5, and also #6, while we’re at it! See, the film would make you think that Lili was the first complete gender reassignment surgery, but she was actually the second. The first would be Dora Richter, in a procedure that was performed by Dr. Hirschfeld from 1922 - 1931. YEAH. BIG-ASS INACCURACY THERE. Here’s Dora, by the way:

Anyway, Lili had her first procedure, to remove the testicles, performed in 1930. In the same year, the divorce between Lili and Gerda was finalized, and Lili legally changed her name. Two more procedures were performed, the first to implant an ovary, and the second to remove the penis and scrotum. Inaccuracy #7, by the way. And, hey, let’s go for number 8! Let’s talk about Henrik, a dude who didn’t exist. He and Hans were both very loosely based on an art dealer named Claude Lejeune.

Claude was an art dealer (there’s the Hans part), and was indeed in love with Lili. They got together around early 1931, and he’d actually been in love with her for a good, long time. He proposed to marry Lili, and she accepted, also hoping that the two would be able to have children together. But to do that, it was believed that Lili would need a uterus. And, obviously, having children would be MILES more complicated than that in basically EVERY way, but this was early in medical science’s understanding of some of that biology.

In any case, however, Lili would need both a uterus and a vagina to feel whole. And so, the fourth surgery was scheduled. And she had that surgery in 1931, a couple of weeks after Dora Richter successfully had the same surgery performed. But, sadly, Lili wouldn’t be so lucky.

Lili’s body rejected the uterus, and while transplant rejections of any kind wouldn’t necessarily be fatal now, they definitely were back then. They attempted to remove it, but that subsequent 5th surgery caused infection, which caused a fatal heart attack three months later. Lili Elbe died on September 13, 1931, at the age of FORTY-EIGHT. Yeah, Inaccuracy #9.

By the way, you may be wondering: what about Dora Richter, the first successful person to get these surgeries? Well, she disappeared...in Germany...as the Nazis were coming into power...yeah. Fuckin’ YIKES.

And so, that’s the true story of Lili Elbe. And there are far more differences than that, I’m sure, but those 9 inaccuracies aren’t insignificant, that’s for sure. Although, it probably doesn’t help that the movie was based on a fictionalized book.

Oh, uh...did I not mention that? Yeah, this movie is based on The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff, which means that this film is essentially a cinematic game of telephone. Which, uh...not great. Granted, Ebershoof made some other...interesting changes, which the film didn’t inherit. In the book, for example, Gerda is named Greta, and is American? Um...why? I dunno, it’s kind of weird. Oh, and that’s not including one more issue with the movie. But, you’ve waited long enough, huh? Recap of the film is here and here if you wanna check that out! Let’s get to the Review already!

Review

Cast and Acting: 8/10

I am...conflicted. So let me start here by saying that the acting in the film in and of itself is fantastic, all-around. Not a weak actor in here, that’s for sure. Let’s start with the side-roles, for once. Ben Whishaw, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Amber Heard are all good. Heard’s accent is a little shaky, but they’re still all solid performances. OK, how about Alicia Vikander? She’s great! And she won the Oscar for...Best Supporting Actress. Um...wait...Supporting? But not Best Actress? Uh...OK. That’s a little weird, let’s be honest here. But, Alicia Vikander did deserve that win over...oooooooh, Rooney Mara in Carol? Maybe not...damn.

And OK...let’s get into the elephant in the room, huh?

Eddie Redmayne is fantastic as Einar Wegener/Lili Eber, and I genuinely think he had a great shot to win Best Actor...but, yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio definitely deserved it, I think that goes without saying. Hell, that year had a SOLID line-up for best actor. And Redmayne had even won it the year before for The THeory of Everything, another biography where he played Stephen Hawking. But ALL of that said...HNNNNNNNNNG, there should have been a transgender actor cast in this role, ideally. Now, I’m fully aware how difficult that would be, as Hollywood isn’t extraordinarily diverse in terms of including trans actors in massive mainstream projects. It’s better now, but it’s nowhere near ideal. But if anybody knows an actor who would’ve fit this role and performed it well, I’m DEFINITELY interested. So, despite that controversy, Redmayne was pretty goddamn great in this role. But, uh...that doesn’t mean everything is perfect...

Plot and Writing: 5/10

OK, that seems low, I know. But it’s pretty goddamn damning that this movie was based off of a heavily fictionalized book instead of the actual life story of Lili Eber and Gerda Gottlieb. And because of that, there are not only some missed opportunities, but some straight-up damning inaccuracies. That’s a set of pretty poor decisions, I tell you what. Not sure why Lucinda Coxon came to that decision when adapting this screenplay, but it wasn’t exactly nominated for Best Screenplay. And the writing certainly isn’t bad, but it is...overly saccharine sometimes, especially for a film based (loosely) on a true story. I dunno...just not the best set of choices here, sorry to say.

Directing and Cinematography: 8/10

Tom Hooper shouldn’t direct musicals. However, since this wasn’t a musical, directing and cinematography here is pretty damn good! Real talk, this is a gorgeous looking movie, and the way shots are framed are fantastic. Perfect? Weeeeeeeell...given the fact that painting is a main focus of the film, for both Gerda and Einar, there should’ve been more painter-quality shots in here, I think. And while the cinematography by Danny Cohen is pretty fantastic, I can’t say that it’s perfect. Still, in terms of lighting and general skill, it’s still quite a good looking movie.

Production and Art Design: 10/10

But the deficiencies in the direction are EASILY compensated for by the production design! Like, hot DAMN, this is a good looking movie, like I said! That goes from the construction of the sets, to the gorgeous outfits all over the place, especially Lili’s outfits. Some iconic pieces of wardrobe there, that’s for sure! But if I have ONE complaint...this movie never once felt like the 1920s. Yup, good old anachronistic complaints from me again! Yeah, I’ll change the record one of these days, I promise. But even with that, it’s hard to ignore just how good this movie looks, to be honest. It’s just...gorgeous.

Music and Editing: 8/10

As I type this, I’m listening to a track of the film on YouTube, and it is a beautifully delicate tune. I’m not sure that I’d be able to associate it with the film if presented to me on its own, but it’s definitely a nice track to listen to by itself. Playlist worthy? For somebody, almost certainly, but not for me. One of these days, a film like that’s gonna pop up, I swear. But for now, Alexandre Desplat and his score are gonna stay off my iPhone. This really is a nice score, though, I promise. Editing by Melanie Ann Oliver is pretty good as well, and I’ve no complaints about it, to be honest. Overall, this side of things was quite nice, if not the most notable thing I’ve ever seen or heard.

I might have been a little harsh, but it’s still got an 78%.

This is a good movie, but...I dunno, the inaccuracies do bug me. Hell, there are WAY more than what I’d mentioned, and I mentioned a lot. Not to mention the other glaring issue: no trans people at any stage of the production? Really? No script consultants, no writers, no NTOHING? That’s...egregiously bad. Like, holy shit, guys. And, yes, this includes Redmayne, because even though he performed admirably in the role...I dunno. I’m no expert on ANY of this, as a cissexual dude with cissexual experience, but it feels a little...reductive, is all. Like I said, if any other actors have been suggested for this role, I’d love to know. The whole thing feels...I don’t know, just not great. 

And by the way, that’s without even TOUCHING the question as to whether or not this film is authentic to the trans experience. Again, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA, but I’ve also heard that this film isn’t universally acclaimed in the trans community, so to speak. And I’m definitely interested in the reasons for that. All I know is this: from the perspective of a complete outsider, I was intrigued by this films view of the transgender experience, specifically as seen in the earliest days of those realizations happening and being publicly known and reported on. And that’s all I can really comment on, in truth.

WHOOF. That was a goddamn topic, huh? And now, I’m going to continue on the the month of romance with...wait, the 19th is my 5-year anniversary with my GF, pictured here:

Ravishing. Anyway, I think I’ll let her pick from my choices for this next one. Hold on a sec...OK, then. Sing it with me now! AND DO I DREEEEEAM AGAAAAIN, FOR NOW I FIIIIIIIIIIIIIND...

February 19, 2021: The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

[eternitas-archive]

Oh one more thing before I leave

It’s just my two cents but I really gotta speak it into the world.

This is gonna be LONG so here have a read more

You all are hypocritical cherry pickers that want fandoms and communities to cater to your interests and morals

And let me tell you honey, that is gonna ruin not only your own experience, but everyone elses.

Lemme adress some things

Why y’all so ready to cry wolf when someone ages up a character?

The discourse is probably as old as this fucking community. It happens every other month and I am sick of it. “If you age up characters you are a pedo uvu sorry I don’t make the rules.” yes you do. You literally made up your own fucking rules about this. “Well you are shipping with a minor!” they’re aged up. “But you still ship with a minor!!”

Okay by that logic, why are we allowing all these other shippers doing their thing? The people that ship with Sans from Undertale that is a skeleton? I mean he is still just a skeleton linking him strongly to the image of death so necrophilia much?

What about the people shipping with inanimate objects? The people shipping with transformers? Those are aliens and or vehicles? Yeah that is mechanophilia.

What about people who ship with f/os that have animalistic features? I mean they are mainly antropomorphic but they still are animals. Beastiality

“No wait that is all dif-”

How about the people shipping with villains and criminals? Clearly that means they endorse that shit irl.

What about the people that ship with people MUUUCH older than them? some millenia or hundreds of years? or just 20? clearly endorse predatory behavior

While we’re at it what’s up with people shipping with divine beings? Angels? Demons? Sounds like blatant blasphemy to me

Do I want you to double down so you can prove yourself right? NO! I want you to understand that you guys are cherry picking and not understanding correlation between topics! Are there legit pedos on tumblr? yes. is it a strangers job to care for all the minors out there? no? If I go into a park it is not my job to hold an eye out for all kids that there are. I am not their parent, guardian or otherwise a person with any responsibility towards them. Same for people on the internet. I will do my shit and keep to myself. and if I happen to enjoy stuff for myself that is my right. Do I halt at a red light bc I want to be a good example for kids so they don’t learn bad behavior? Can I stop every person that crosses a red light and hold them a long ass lecture about how they endorse dangers in the streets? No.

“But there are minors on the internet!” Yes, I am aware, they will always be, always have been, your point?

“We need to make a safe space for the kids!” No we don’t? people need to follow the Terms of Service of a platform and honestly most people that reblog nsfw stuff even clearly state that minors should not interact.

“No like, YOU need to be on your best behavior bc there could be a minor anywhere!”

Since when did I become these minors parent? Since when did someone push these kids into my lap and say “your responsibility now”?

You need to understand that you can’t always just get upset at stuff EXISTING

nsfw fics are usually tagged and marked accordingly, most people that engage in a lot of nsfw stuff usually have “minors don’t interact” on their blog somewhere. Some even BLOCK people that follow them and are clear minors, that’s some DEDICATION.

But I have seen posts catering to FUCKING WRITERS saying “pls keep nsfw out of ur imagines and reader fics :)))) for the minors, otherwise I cant reblog it.” If you want to cater to your minor audience sure, but I can not stress enough how you can not tell others how to run their shit. Yes, you can suggest that to the imagine writers or writers in general but it is their right to say “no I run it like I want to” and proceed with their shit. And there is nothing you can do about it. Besides if minors really want some nsfw, trust me they WILL find it. Should we therefore police everyone and stuck them into horny jail? No.

“haha look at this lame ass adult getting upset they can’t be predatory anymore bc they are being called out on their pedophilia”

Idk how to tell you that it’s none of your fucking buisness what my personal history is and that you have no claim outside of “aging up is pedophilia” but sure go off, bc I am “upset I can not be predatory” anymore and not just outraged people are throwing around unreasonable claims.

Why would I even age up a character if pedophilia is about being into MINORS? Why would I age a character up if the WHOLE THING about pedophilia is that they are kids????

“Okay but then it’s predatory!” There is a point that depictions of an adult dating someione who is “barely legal” normalizes predatory behavior, but honestly, why is that MY responsibility? And who says I age them up to be barely legal? My social media/tumblr/ selfship experience is a very private thing. It’s a very personal thing, so why tf do I need to cater it to people who are NOT ME? When I do that it’s because I want to do it, not because I need to fill some moral obligations. (and yet I can say that YES caring about lgbt, other religious, non white selfshippers and boosting them is something generally people should do)

Like there is a thing about fiction. It doesn’t age like normal people. When I started to love one of my f/os we were the same age. The series eventually ended, it didn’t progress in real time, so I grew up while they stayed their age. And guess what! none of this backstory is any of your god damn buisness!! I don’t OWE it to you as much as writers and others don’t owe their trauma to you just so you can “give them permission” to deal with their trauma through selfshipping or writing. Who do you think you fucking are?

Fiction is not reality. And I am sick being stuck in medevial dark ages europe where people believed everything on a stage to be real life. Where actors were not allowed to exist and the people that did act and depicted a bad guy were generally shunned and hated by everyone bc they didn’t distinguish between fiction and reality.

Does fiction have an effect on reality? Yes. Jaws had repurcussions. Even the german novella “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” had about a dozen suicides following the lead of the main character. 50 shades had an effect. 13 reasons why had an effect. But that doesn’t mean what you believe it means.

In the end I can not take the role of these minors parents to educate them and look after them. It shouldn’t be my job. And yes there are a lot of scummy adults on the internet. Like a LOT. But you need to understand that the internet will NEVER be a child safe place. And most adults take precautions already!

But fics aren’t for morality lessons. Fics aren’t for sex education. Fics aren’t there to be a fucking HOLY BOOK. Fics are just creative writing. And selfshippers are just there to have a bad time. And if they act out SURE call them out but otherwise just leave them tf alone?

“No no, what you write is what you actively endorse uvu”

Then say good bye to Horror and thriller. Say good by to books involving cheating. Say good bye to books in which anyone ever gets harmed. Say good bye to books ever even mentioning any problematic topic that isn’t 100% uwu pure

“Wait no that is different-”

How is it? Is it only problematic when you get off of it? Is that your argument? Are we going the christian route of condemning being sexually free and enjoying something that is legit a very important thing to a lot of people? (yes to asexuals their LACK of sexual attraction can also be a very important topic bc they have the right to express that without being condemed for not wanting to BONE or not being able to get horny by looking at bodies.)

Yes the over fetishization of certain topics is problematic, yes there is a lot of toxicity when it comes to porn and that shit, but kinks are just kinks.

“So you say pedophilia is just a kink!”

No. Pedophilia is aweful and no child should ever suffer through that sort of exploitation.

“But you say rape is just a kink!”

No. Real life rape is aweful and whoever rapes another human being deserves death full stop.

“You just said-”

YES! I know what I said! A lot of people hate real life stuff that they endorse in fiction. Some people are into pissing and shitting into each other! Some people are into hardcore bondage! And they all have their own histories, their own lifes and it’s their fucking thing? Do I want death on all rapists? Yes. Do I sometimes have questionable fantasies that might involve non con or dubious consent? Yes, so? Do I have my reasons for that? Yes, it’s none of your gd buisness?

It all always boils down to entitlement. Y’all need to understand that you can’t just run around demanding everyone to cater to your bullshit. You can not run around accusing people of pedophilia just because they would like to see themselves date a fictional character, but in their age.

If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t follow and interact with those people but you don’t need to pretend to have some moral high ground so you are the better person. You can just... have dislikes?

Even so, as I make this post I can not speak in broad terms because each case, each person is individual. Maybe some get off on shit and endorse it, how should I know? Maybe someone out there is fighting for not policing and censoring stuff because they actively want more pedo content, I don’t know, I am not the CIA or FBI?

It’s also none of my buisness. Is it aweful that these people exist? yeah. Are they prone to be on tumblr? probably? Are they that selfshipper that ages up their f/o so they can smooch? Unlikely.

People have their reasons. Their backstories, and none of that should have to be layed open just to get a strangers “okay” for shipping with the fictional character that makes them happy.

so uuuh before I leave

tldr: y’all full of shit and aging up is not pedophilia, you are just trying to give yourself some moral highground. you sound like a flatearther lol.

Gates closed, bitches

[awickedkiddo]

Oprah Tyson and Gale Dogg Read Fan Mail!

Let’s Talk about Deepfakes

One of the more prominent and rapidly growing areas of technology encompasses digital imaging and virtual reality to combine faces or disguise an individual as someone else. While the use of sculpting faces in 3D and subsequently using that material has been around for quite some time, over the last few years there has been an increased and broad utilization of the method, often involving criminal or harmful intent. 

CNN reported on deep fake technology and generated a comprehensive article discussing the origin, application and recent examples of such content on the internet. So what is a deep fake? According to Haney Farid of Darthmouth/UC Berkley, the term “deep fake” is a simplification of what he would call “A.I. synthesized fakes,” where a “deep neural network” synthesizes an image onto a given face/object. In simplicity, the computer uses computational learning to graft, mold and match the image onto another face, often used in tandem with a library of image material to act as reference. 

Hollywood has used the technology many times such as using Paul Walker’s visage in Furious 7 after his untimely death before production.

*Photo Credit: Giphy

 Another more recent example would be in the movie Rogue One where the actor Peter Cushing, who died in 1994, had his face masked onto another actor’s to reprise his role as Grand Moff Tarkin. 

*Photo Credit: ABC News / Gfycat

An important factor to note is that deep fake technology is not limited to visual features but has begun to incorporate voice impersonation as well. While some simple examples are easy to distinguish by lighting, lips moving correctly or incorrectly and obviously if one is able to recognize a voice or not. I myself can say that I’ve personally used an app that’s allowed me to change faces on a whim, usually for entertainment. However, drawing a line between entertainment and exploitation can prove to be difficult in differing circumstances. It has been discussed before that deep fake technology can create some compromising material especially when celebrities or prominent public figures are involved. 

*Photo Credit: Matthias Niessner / Giphy

So, within the context of deep fake technology, I believe that there’s a deeper, moral issue within use and application. Obviously for entertainment and other similar cases, I think the practice has exceptional potential. We’ve come a long way from when the best we had of CGI was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s head in The Mummy Returns and I’d like to think I’d have that memory scrubbed from my neurons by now. However, there lies serious concern within context of legal disputes and larger, more important and impactful circumstances. The opportunity for this technology to be used for spreading misinformation, doctoring footage to alter context and discrediting or worse proves to be threatening. Personally, I think that with more awareness that such content exists in the world, the more likely an individual is to discern whether what they’re watching is fake or not. 

This leads me to my second point with “shallow fakes.” These are usually videos that are minimally doctored in some way or another. Many articles have examples of “shallow fakes” but I feel that CSO perfectly describes the sort of content that may be considered as such. While deep fake material incorporates a program grafting a face onto someone else, shallow fakes are low-res, doctored videos that rely on exploiting the fine line between truth and fiction. For instance, CSO also uses the example of news reporter Jim Acosta and a video released after a heated press conference that implied he assaulted a white house employee. After initially being shared on twitter by Infowars, it quickly spread on the internet and eventually it was brought to light that the initial release of the footage omitted much of the situation during the heated discussion between the reporter and the president Trump. As it was discovered, a side by side comparison of the video initially shared and then retweeted by a white house secretary differed greatly from the original video shared by NBC. In a linked thread via the article from CSO, a video can be found that compares the materials in question side by side in order to pinpoint inconsistencies between original footage and what was redistributed.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1060420744931434497

Deep fake technology is not new, however the uses of such modern programming have become more consistent in today’s day and age. With advanced computers sitting in our pockets and even stronger, faster and smarter machines in our homes, access to such technology is spread far and wide. I’ve asked people about what they think a company should say to its users and members when technology like what I’ve discussed today exists. We’ve all been warned on what “phishing” looks like and how to identify the key characteristics of a suspicious piece of correspondence, but what about things we can see? Tangible things? What if they sound familiar, or at least recognizable? When the line between real and fake is blurred or danced around, it takes affirmative action on the viewer’s part to determine the legitimacy of what they watch. What could possibly lead to larger concerns are situations where public officials, representatives or other prominent figures share, post or feature such content on timelines that are meant to disseminate news and critical information. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have been cracking down on content that spreads misinformation but have been inconsistent with its barring of shallow fakes. While it shows an initiative and concern for company ethics to incorporate the public, there are larger areas of concern that may or may not fall under the categories of such content to flag and possibly remove which often are exploited for more than just entertainment. 

While certainly new and equally concerning, it goes without saying that deep neural computation is remarkable and a staple of the current generation’s innovation in computer imaging. Photoshop and other programs have become synonymous with virtual and augmented reality and thus have since spawned several different fields of image doctoring that we see on simple apps we often download for free. I cannot tell you how often I have laughed hysterically when I see a deep fake of two celebrities. I will say that I found it remarkably genius and equally as humble to honor Paul Walker’s life by using his likeness from footage to create and pull off the affect for Furious 7′s ending. So, random spouting of facts and thoughts but, as I start to see more of this technology being incorporated into social media with Snapchat filters, Instagram and Facebook lenses, and more, it becomes clearer that anyone who uses such networks or clients to be aware of it being used to purposefully deceive them. When the public social atmosphere involves both meme culture and political culture, it is crucial to know how to navigate the endless spout of media we consume daily and to understand what characterizes such content as deep or shallow. The very fact that anyone can download a number of programs for free, generate such a video or photo and share it online proves that professionals can do the same thing and publish that content on a larger scale.

Stay sharp!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by snoopdogg (@snoopdogg) on May 30, 2019 at 12:46pm PDT

Sources: 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/01/business/pentagons-race-against-deepfakes/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/what-are-deepfakes-and-how-can-you-spot-them

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3293002/deepfake-videos-how-and-why-they-work.html

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3319784/doctored-jim-acosta-video-shows-why-fakes-dont-need-to-be-deep-to-be-dangerous.html

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a28691128/deepfake-technology/

[kuno-chan]

I will say this last piece and then I’m done. So, I’m going to get it all out: (T;dlr in bold if you don’t feel like reading the entire thing)

As far as my responses to Irene Koh? I will apologize if my responses were abrasive. Even rude. While I didn’t ask a question, one of the people she responded to was a good friend of mine and I was quick to defend her when I felt she was being responded to in a sarcastic or rude way. Irene Koh gets hundreds of asks asking about the comics and at some point I get that you’re going to just be like “back off” but at the same time, I felt like the response we got was unwarranted.

That all being said, guys, I was still a teenager when this ship came out. I was eighteen. Maybe nineteen. Hence the -teen part after the number. I don’t quite know where this movement on tumblr came from where eighteen is grown because it’s not. It’s legal, but certainly not grown. When I was that age and I got into the ship, I wrote them in high school going into college because those were real world experiences I was facing at the time. Now that I’m older, the way I’ve interpreted kainora has changed. I hardly even directly write them anymore and write them more through being parents. I’m more interested in seeing them older, what kind of airbending masters will they be? Might they raise a family? Grandpa and Grandma Tenzin and Pema and what about a new, thriving generation of airbenders? Things like that. But people are now framing that like it’s a crime.

The kainora fandom hasn’t heard a peep about shipping them being wrong since the entire the ship came into existence. So, please forgive me and other kainora shippers for not understanding, considering the way kataang came into existence (atla even ended in a kiss) and how, even now, we’ve only ever witnessed them romantically involved with each other in their teen years (aside from the family photo in lok).

If this is the case then if you’re over 18 and are invested in Miraculous Ladybug ships (which is actually aimed at kids) or Star and Marco from Star vs The Forces of Evil or Mike and Eleven from Stranger Things (them as real people/kids/actors and actresses is an entirely and completely different matter) or, hell, even Eugene and Rapunzel (they’re eight years apart), then, shipping that because you’re over 18 is wrong by that definition. And don’t get me started on young adult fiction. Most of that is pretty much outlawed, then. But there’s this movement on tumblr where now we have to police every little thing and I’m not exaggerating. Some of ya’ll don’t want 17 and 18 year olds to date because one is legal.

If this is the case then forget Sukka or Tokka or basically ANY ship from Atla ever also is off the table. Maiko and Zutara are basically non-shippable.

“We saw them grow up though.”

Okay, but... I like writing them and headcanoning them growing up. And the only reason why most of the kainora fandom do this is because we’re filling in the gaps of what we kind of didn’t get in B4.

It’s disheartening and upsetting to have people in my inbox call me an idiot and strongly imply I’m a pedophile because of a ship i got into when I was a teenager. Some of ya’ll are picking apart my (and by extension people in the kainora fandom) entire moral character and who I am behind this computer screen because I decided to imagine, headcanon and write a teen ship at different stages in their life. You’ve never met me a day in your life. Never exchanged a word with me.

I’m not taking Dora the Explorer and super shipping her. That is actually creepy because that is actually aimed and is for actual children. I’m not a brony. I’m not preying on children. But you guys are taking it to this spectrum and implying that I’m some kind of predatory monster. I’m not taking things actually for children and getting super invested in them.

LoK was always themed with more mature themes for a more mature audience. So, is it so wrong to imagine a teen ship in a later part of their life? (let me be clear I basically never write them under 18 because that point-blank just doesn’t interest me.) What do you guys think people were doing before lok was even announced? Older Kataang and older Zutara was definitely a thing back in the day.

But, I digress, I ask that you please understand where I’m coming from and not pick apart the entire moral character of me or other kainora shippers because of a ship most of us got into when we were teenagers ourselves. Irene Koh is almost 30 years old. I get that and not expecting her to really care about kainora. When Kainora became a thing she was in her early 20′s. So, I get that she’s not into it and I respect that. But it was discouraging to see kainora being put down and kainora shippers almost being jabbed for liking it because that’s what the response felt like.  

As for me, again, I apologize for how my responses might have came off. I’m willing to admit that it may have been hypocritical of me to respond abrasively when I was calling her out for being being rude and that’s on me. I own that. I should have responded in a more civil manner to get my point across regardless of how her response was. I responded out of frustration and defensiveness protecting a dear friend of mine.

[purposeofmymind]

Okay. I don’t usually like to get into fandom and shipping drama completely unsolicited, but this has just been bothering me and I feel compelled to write my thoughts out.

What’s with the recent phenomena of anti-shippers who are against “problematic” ships?

And I wanna emphasize recent. I’ll get more into that later.

(Also no read more because I feel like my blog’s text is hard to read. D: This is going to be long.)

More specifically, what’s with these anti-shippers who are against ships where one character is 18 or older while the other is still a “minor” (”minor” is in quotes because the definition is different depending on what country you live in)?

These anti-shippers go so far as to call shippers of these ships “pedophile apologists”. Or even harass the crew (writers, directors, actors, etc.) of the show. Y’all are ridiculous.

Psychology Today defines pedophilia as “the fantasy or act of sexual activity with prepubescent children ” The National Center for Biotechnology Information backs up this definition, defining it “as an ongoing sexual attraction toward pre-pubertal children.“

What do these two definitions have in common? Prepubescent. If the “minor” of a ship is a 10-year-old, then yeah I can see why you’d have a problem with that. When the “minor” is a 16-year-old, a character who has gone through puberty, who has their adult body already, it is not the same. And y’all are hating on ships where the “minor” is a teenager who has obviously already gone through puberty.

So long as the “minor” in the ship is post-puberty, I really don’t understand the issue here. For people to call the 18-year-old in the ship a pedo and to call shippers apologists is just... really wrong. Like factually wrong.

“But it’s illegal because age of consent!” you say. Yeah but the age of consent varies from country to country. In the United States, it varies state to state. That’s not a good basis to use.

I could maybe understand the “it’s predatory” argument. But that will vary depending on the context of a show’s plot and the dynamic of its characters.

In real life, where the adult would be college or working age and the “minor” would still be in high school, yeah I can see why people would not be okay with that. If in reality, a 20+ adult who’s in college/working shows interest in a 16-year-old high school student, that would bother me a bit too. I would question the adult’s intentions. What do they have in common with a high schooler to want to date them or be romantic with them?

But reality is not fiction. Not every fictional ship with an 18+ year-old is predatory. In fictional shows, where the characters are professional world-class athletes or flying through outer space fighting aliens, can you really compare it to reality? No, you can’t. The dynamics of the characters involved are way different from real life people.

Now to get to the point that compelled me to even type this.

This is a recent thing too.

I got into anime back in 2013. I had watched a few old/classic anime, but the first new/currently-airing anime I watched that year was Free! One of the first ships I shipped in Free! (and a ship I still do to this day) is SeiGou. If you don’t watch the anime, Seijuro is a 3rd year and Gou is a 1st year when they meet. Seijuro very obviously has an adorable crush on her. They don’t end up together or anything, but I think they’d make a cute couple! And Free! being one of my first anime fandoms, I was happy to see so many people ship SeiGou too. There was a lot of lovely fan art of them, it was wonderful. If people disliked SeiGou, it was only because they shipped either character with someone else, no biggie.

Now why am I mentioning SeiGou? Because they have the exact same age difference as a more recent ship that has a lot of antis. People who think this new ship is wrong because one of the characters is 18 and the other is 15. That ship is Otayuri.

If you don’t watch Yuri on Ice, Otabek is 18 and Yurio is 15. The episode they meet takes place in December. Otabek’s birthday is on Halloween in October. He barely turned 18 less than 2 months prior. Yurio’s birthday is March 1st. He’ll be 16 in less than 3 months. If they went to regular high schools like in typical sports anime, Otabek would be a 3rd year and Yurio would be a 1st year.

Hmmm look at that. Exact same age difference/gap as SeiGou. But for some reason, there are anti-Otayuri shippers. There were never anti-SeiGou shippers.

While we don’t know Seijuro’s birthday, we can safely assume he turned 18 at some point in season 1 since he was a third year in high school. Either way, he is for sure 18 when he returns in season 2 as a college student, where he is still very obviously crushing on Gou. Season 2 aired in 2014. There was not a single word about the ship being inappropriate or problematic because Seijuro is an 18+ year-old legal adult and Gou is still a “minor”. I never saw any “anti”-SeiGou shippers because Sei was 18+.

So this is completely a recent thing. Why is that? Two things about this are baffling me. 

1) Where did this “anti” thing come from? I’m gonna quickly address this one. When did that become a thing? I think the earliest I remember seeing anything tagged as “anti-(ship)” was when the Legend of Korra was on, I could be wrong though. I’ve never seen it before then though. Before, if you disliked a ship, you ignored it. Simple. You maybe called it your “notp” at the most. You didn’t make posts against it tagging it with “anti-(ship)” as if that will prevent it from coming up in the search when people search for (ship). There are some ships I dislike, and I don’t make negative posts about them. I don’t waste my time on them at all. So first of all, screw this whole “anti” thing. If you don’t like a ship or a show, don’t blog about it at all. And let people who do enjoy the thing enjoy it, without having to see your negative posts when they search for the thing.   

2) Where did this sudden “the moment you turn 18 you cannot be shipped with anyone younger” shipping mindset this come from?

Newsflash: You do not automatically become some pedo or child predator the moment you turn 18. It doesn’t work that way.

If an 18-year-old was interested in a pre-pubescent child, yes that would be very concerning.

But an 18-year-old being interested in a 15-year-old who’s in the same school club as them? Not a big deal.

When I turned 18, I was still a senior in high school. I had more in common with my 15/16-year-old sophomore friends than I did with any of my friends who had been in college a year or two.

During my senior year, I probably found a sophomore boy or two in my church youth group to be cute. At midnight on my 18th birthday, those feelings did not change. I still thought those sophomore boys were cute. Why? Because we were in the same age group. Just because I could now legally get a tattoo without my parents’ permission and join the military, any attraction I had towards them did not change, and that did not make me a predator.

To relate this to Otayuri: they have a 2 and a half year age difference. They are still in the same age group. If they were to date, that would not make Otabek a predator. 

Also just because people ship something, that doesn’t mean they want the characters to bang right away. Why do antis assume that shipping something means shipping it sexually?

I ship Otayuri. I like the idea of them talking on Skype late into the night and having cute sightseeing dates when they have competitions in the same city . I don’t want them having wild sex. I want them to have a sweet long-distance relationship. I know a lot of people ship them in this same way.

And I’m sure most people who draw or write NSFW art and fics age-up the characters. I know a lot of people have a problem with this “aging up” but I don’t know why. These characters may be in suspended animation in the show, but time goes on. They’ll age eventually. Even if the official show doesn’t show them aging or show an epilogue, the characters are still going to age. Let people age them up. I can understand why it may make some uncomfortable or uneasy, but I don’t see how that hurts anyone.

Now another, more controversial topic that I might as well include while I’m at it because why the hell not

I’m gonna start off saying now: I haven’t really watched Voltron completely yet. I watched the first two episodes and I’m enjoying it so far. However at the moment I’ve only seen a couple episode, so I do not really know the dynamics of the characters completely yet, so I do not really ship anything. (I have reblogged lots of Voltron shipping posts though, but it’s mostly because I saw some fan art that was well-drawn and I wanted to give the artist a like and reblog.)

That said, I really don’t see the problem with Shiro being shipped with Keith or Lance (or Hunk, though I don’t see that ship much so I’ve never seen hate for it either). The age gap isn’t the big of a difference given the context/plot/setting of the show. Let’s say Shrio is 25. Okay. Keith and Lance have been said to be around 16 or 17, I believe?

I’m gonna repeat what I said above. In real life, a relationship between a 25-year-old and a 16-year-old would make me a little uncomfy. Why? Again, because they have little - if anything - in common. Why would a 25-year-old adult who is either in college or the work force want to date someone who is still in high school? I would question the older person’s intentions. And if that relationship did happen, I would probably be a little weary of it and find it inappropriate. It’s not so much the age gap as it is the timing, because in 2-3 years, these two people could date and most others wouldn’t care.

But guess what? FICTION AND REALITY ARE DIFFERENT. Voltron is fiction. It is not real life.

Again I haven’t watched much of the show yet, but I’m seeing that the basic gist of the plot is that they’re defending outer space and have to defeat the bad aliens, right? Shiro and Keith/or/Lance have a much different dynamic than a real-life 20-something/high schooler would. They’re IN SPACE FIGHTING ALIENS TOGETHER for crying out loud. It’s not real life. Shiro is not a college student. Keith and Lance are not high school students. They’re on equal grounds as defenders of space. It seems like their lives are at stake quite often and they’ve been through a lot. I think it’s safe to say that they have enough in common and have gone through important life-changing moments and character development together that a relationship between Shiro and Keith/or/Lance, despite the age gap, would be okay and healthy.

Even if Shrio is their “leader,” I don’t think it’s much of a power dynamic either. Nothing to be concerned about at least. Especially since there’s so few characters and they seem to go through a lot of things together. (Also Shiro seems like a nice guy who would have no ill-intentions in a relationship.)

One thing about anti-shippers that always bother me is they say that if you ship this “problematic” ship, you would support something similar in real life. Hence the apologists arguments. Um. No? No, that’s not at all the case.

Again I must emphasize that fiction is not reality. Most people have a healthy enough mindset to separate the two.

I love the Hunger Games. Does that mean I condone the murder of children in real life? Of course not. It’s just a book/movie for entertainment purposes. I would be horrified if it was a real-life occurrence (praying that it doesn’t actually become real since we’ve got the equivalent of President Snow now).

Most people who enjoy the Hunger Games or any kind of violent book or movie or show would never condone violence in real life. A good chunk of media is violent. So many graphic movies and video games out there nowadays where you kill people. Doesn’t mean it’s okay in reality. And most people know that it’s just fiction and would never condone it in real life. If they do, they’re gonna be put in jail for it. Violence isn’t “normalized” just because there are so many violent video games and movies that “glorify” it. Violence is still a crime (unless self-defense) and looked-down upon.

I’m gonna end this by saying...

If a ship makes you uncomfortable, that is 100% valid. Maybe when you were a young teen, you were in a relationship with an 18 year old who took advantage of you/the relationship was a bad experience/etc. Maybe you just think it’s icky. A few ships squick me out for various reasons, nothing wrong with that. For whatever reason, if a ship makes you uneasy, that is fine.

What is not fine is you harassing and sending hate to people who do ship those ships. 

What is not fine is you harassing the crew and cast of a show for mentioning/supporting/being okay with those ships. Here’s looking at those of you who harassed that one Voltron voice actor on Twitter a few days ago that I heard about. If you participated in that harassment or support those who did it, you should be ashamed of yourselves. 

What is not fine is you making negative posts and tagging it as “anti (thing).” Freedom of speech, yeah, you can do whatever the hell you want, make all the negative posts you want, I can’t stop you. But it’s childish. Especially the passive aggressive, condescending ones like “friendly reminder that (ship/show) is problematic because (reasons) (emoji).” Also tagging it as “anti (thing)” does nothing. That may prevent it from appearing in the “/tagged/(thing),” but I don’t look at tags, I just use the regular search which is /search(thing).” You putting “anti” in front of the thing doesn’t make it not appear in search. When I search (thing) I’m still going to see your negative “anti” post. Imagine someone trying to have a positive experience, wanting to find new art to reblog, and stumbling across your anti post. That instantly puts me in a bad mood. Stop that crap. If you dislike something, why waste your time and energy making posts against it? I don’t understand. I’m going to have to black list the word “anti” so I don’t see all the negativity when I’m just trying to find cute fan art or a translation of an official interview or something, jeez

You have tools to avoid any ships you dislike. Blacklist, unfollow, and block if you have to. It’s simple.

[myreadingexperience]

Researching cybersurveillance, I stumbled upon the Citizen Lab, and subsequently upon Deibert’s book, Black Code. First book to have read on Kindle, and there’s irony in this, as the more I read, the more data I produced to be collected and analyzed. 

A few of the main ideas: To start with, code is law. As Marshall McLuhan postulated that the medium is the message and Harold Innis showed the bias of communications, we must understand that instructions encoded in software regulate what we can do. Second, a recent change is the movement away from searching the WWW to a push notifications environment where „information is delivered to us” through apps. Third, while in the beginning the internet seemed like a free place, hard to regulate, right now, many countries use censorship and block Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. Internet censorship went from being regulated – like usual things – through law, to being regulated through code and software, and responsibility is put directly on the service providers. For example, China has a particular way of doing this: it sends back to the user an error message, as if the content itself doesn’t exist (Google found a way around this, suggesting users alternate spellings). We must begin to understand and connect the dots, as users and as citizens: the internet is international, but its cables are everywhere, its central nodes are everywhere – but mostly around the US – and the devices we use are from specific nations – bending to specific national laws. From a lawless place, it has became a place of many, many laws. Fourth, the future is at least partly out of the West’s hands. The growing populations of the rest of the world will have access to the net, along with living in increasing inequality due to climate change and capitalism’s mechanism,  so the question Deibert asks is, what kind of web will they craft? As the author shows, in some countries governments outsource to extra-legal intervention groups to deal with unrurly citizens. Coming back to corporations, Google has started issuing transparency reports, showing the number of requests it has received from governments to censor or remove content, and highlighting those it complied with or turned down (most requests are „other requests”, not issued through a court order). Most companies don’t tell users if their data is asked for by the government. In 2002 and 2004, Chinese government requested information on two dissidents from Yahoo!, who complied. When being sued by the families in the US, the company testified that it was following local law. Skype, as well, uses content filtering for China, and can be intercepted, although it promises end to end encryption. After 9/11, a key point in the cybersurveillance debate, governments felt entitled to more and more of citizen’s information, creating the false tradeoff: privacy vs security. Human Rights Watch found that the UN passed several resolutions urging member states to pass laws that expand government powers to „investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute individuals at the expense of due process”. With enough data, a Minority Report future isn’t just dystopian fiction anymore – politically inclined individuals can be monitored before they do anything. Researcher Chris Soghoian pointed out that some companies even charge fees for „lawful access”, with automated process. Cybercrime is real, and just like most crime, its structure is knotted in complicated patterns and networks – many „cyberweapons” (spying software, malware for breaking in, or just hiring a black hat to hack someone) are cheap and easy to buy on the internet, and, as Deibert puts it, how can the West condemn the Syrian Electronic Army when it openly markets computer network attack products at trade shows? Besides, when cyberweapons are perceived as clean, there might be „strong pressures to adopt military over diplomatic solutions”.  Technology is multi-puroposed, and the same is used for surveillance of dangerous targets or of peace activists. Hacking used to have a more positive value – „of experimentation and exploration of limits and possibilities”. Technology can be seen not as a thing, but as a craft, inherently political. In the context of our constant connectedness, the increasing restrictions on cyberspace „are alarming”. The closing off of hardware and software and putting on copyright or other laws to diminish access to them are not only barriers to our freedoms, but ultimately to our security as well. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has found laws (in debate – Article 3 of DAAIS in Europe) that limit the publishing of research on security flaws. The denial of access to knowledge is increasing, together with the tools to dismantle it. One solution could take the form of a distributed model: mixture of multiple actors with governance roles, division of control with cooperation and consent, and restraint. Without humans „cyberspace would not exist”. Deibert pushes for a position of joint custodianship: we either degrade cyberspace, or we extend it. The responsibility is inter-generational. 

I also finished Program or be programmed by Rushkoff. It’s a kind of manifesto for the digital age, with ten main “commandments”, which I quite enjoyed - an easy read, fast and recommended for anyone interested in what it means to live online. Rushkoff is a character, writing that “instead of optimizing our machines for humanity ... we are optimizing humans for machinery”. The base for the ten commands are the biases inherent in the technology we use. First, ‘do not always be on’, as machines live beyond time, from decision to decision, while we live in the present, continuously flowing, so, “by becoming “always on”, we surrender time to a technology that knows and needs no such thing”. Second, ‘live in person’, be local, be there, where you are - technology is biased towards distance, non-space, and scaling. Third, ‘you may always choose none of the above’, as technology draws lines that are too simple, categorizing or binary through our lives, we can refuse all options, or label freely, with tags. Fourth, ‘you are never completely right’, because, “thanks to its first three biases, digital technology encourages us to make decisions, make them in a hurry, and make them about things we’ve never seen ourselves up close”. It is “biased towards a reduction of complexity”. Rushkoff stresses that we should opt for a world in which we learn about our technology, not a world in which it learns about us. Fifth, ‘one size does not fit all’, because this hyper-abstracted model of internet business doesn’t work for smaller start-ups. Sixth, ‘be yourself’, because while anonymity can protect you, it can also make people behave irresponsibly, facilitating angry and revengeful mobs. Seventh, ‘do not sell your friends’, exposes the internet’s bias towards connection rather than content, and how businesses are making money off it. Eighth, ‘tell the truth’, “because this will increase our value to others”, and besides, lies don’t last long. Ninth, ‘share, don’t steal’, shows how our belief in open sharing has lead to the current business model based on ads, and how we should support the work we consume directly. Tenth, and most importantly, ‘program or be programmed’, because if you don’t understand the inner workings, or at least the superficial biases of the technology you use, it will bias you towards certain things, and you’ll never know why.  

When I find the time, I plunge into Haruki Murakami’s short story collection, Men without Women - a gift from my cousin. I re-read the first story, which I hear a few years ago at a “Vocea cititorului” meeting - “Drive my car”. This time, I enjoyed it more. I guess I read the book with a kind of nostalgia, but also detachment. Murakami used to be a favorite of mine in high school, and although I’ve always sensed his novels are far better than his short stories, I have a feeling now I wouldn’t like those as much as I did back then. Men without women is a collection of stories about exactly this - lonely men, left by women in one way or another. I think they’re a bit like writing exercises, in which Murakami tries this and that, typical characters and settings of his, on jazz or Beatles music. None of them contain anything too surreal, maybe just a smokey atmosphere. “Yesterday” is about the narrator’s relationship with his peculiar friend and his girlfriend, “The independent Organ” is about a doctor that is constantly in romantic relationships, for short time and without engagement, with married women, “Sheherezade” contains a woman taking care of a man who can’t go out for some mysterious reason and telling him stories of her youth, “Kino” is about a man whose wife cheats on him so he leaves and opens a bar, “Samsa in love” is, well, a bug turned into a man, and “Men without women” is the narrative of a man who gets a phone call about the death of a love from his youth. I most liked “Kino”, for its emotional, fantastic ending, and “Samsa in love”, because it’s such a nice stretch of the imagination, and kind of lovely all in all.