#Trust Lawyer

[yanderefoeyay]

I can imagine if Adam was staying at the hotel and lucifer might still be wary of him but one day adam finds one of his rubber ducks

Adam: This little guy is amazing, he’s freakin adorable

Lucifer shocked: wait you like ducks?

Adam: Yeah of course they’re the best, I used to play with one in Eden, love these little guys

Lucifer immediately pulling out a wedding ring: Marry me 💍

[mareastrorum]

Never Stop Blowing Up Disclaimer: Not all lawyers have venom gland implants so they can spit venom into opponents eyes. That's an LA County thing, and they also charge you an annual licensing fee.

[laurrelise]

see the problem is i defend house with my life and then he goes and hits on a fifteen-year old girl with no shame in sight

what the hell man. i can no longer defend you

[gum-iie]

studying is going great guys

[abbysciutosnumberonefan]

Mumbo's newest episode:

[luvingsolace]

Some of y’all talk about solangelo and Will Solace in such a freaky way you actually need to be sued

[flurmitcraff]

Joe being completely on board and happy with his log deal with Doc is great because it means one half of the log collective is a self-described supervillain creeper goat man and a blue felt puppet while the other half is a pair of mafiosos who made up a mafia in the first place entirely to annoy Doc.

The best part? The puppet is probably the most savvy out of all of them.

[mearcatsreturns]

I have a bookstagram, and I recently followed someone because they posted about the overconsumption issue that most bookish social media seems to have. Today, though, they posted another controversial "opinion": that listening to audiobooks isn't reading, and people who claim to have read a bunch of books that they listened to as audiobooks are lying and/or deluded. Listening to audiobooks, she said, is just consuming books.

I disagreed in a fairly politely worded reply, and I intend to unfollow/block, because I find it unlikely this person will change their mind, especially since I'm far from the only person to point out that this is exclusionary and ableist. But this is tumblr/my house, and now I'm going to be as blunt as I want to be.

I'm a librarian and archivist. So much of the work I and others in my field do focuses on making books and reading more accessible and less exclusionary. It is, in fact, incredibly ableist to negate how important audiobooks are for people who have certain disabilities or challenges, and I would in no universe say they aren’t reading. For that matter, a busy person who only has time for audiobooks and for people who just prefer them--it still counts, as far as I'm concerned.

See, there's a difference between an audiobook and a podcast or long song or radio program. An audiobook is still a book--it was written with a particular narrative structure, and the author plays a defined but limited role (once the book is written, it's written; the author isn't tuning in next episode with comments and corrections based on what listeners said). An audiobook is a book, ergo, listening to one is reading. Using braille is reading, and listening to audiobooks is reading.

The part that has me in full Captain Raymond Holt "apparently that is a trigger for me" mode is that this bookstagrammer called listening to audiobooks consumption. In the context of her other posts about overconsumption as an issue in the bookish community (again, agree, but also...mind your own business), this seems particularly insidious to me. Conflating influencer-driven (and capitalist hellscape) consumption with listening to an audiobook (again, a massive boon for the visually impaired and those with disabilities like ADHD, dyslexia, etc.) is rude at best and dangerously exclusionary at worst. Stop letting comparison be the thief of joy; mind your own business and stop looking at the pages that bother you. Focus on the kindness of leaning towards inclusion, meeting people where they are, and leaving judgment behind.*

*This person also said "feel free to comment if you disagree but please don't be mean or judgmental," as if they hadn't just posted the most ableist and judgmental sludge I've seen today.

tl;dr: don’t be a gatekeeping shithead, mind your own business, and

(gif by matalyn on tenor, couldn't find on tumblr)

[calsvoid]

harvey just said he thinks mike’s a real lawyer which is basically like telling him i love you marvey’s canon let’s go

[ethan-acfan]

Connor is an emotional drunk AND I CAN BACK THIS UP

So connor is already a pretty loving guy (if you've seen what he's like during the homestead missions or when he was younger, it's adorable), but as he got older, he had to repress a lot of those emotions and become the stoic, unmoving, cold guy we see for most of the game (joining a war at 16 does that). So when he gets drunk, he's less focused on reeling in those emotions, and he 100% is extremely emotional, like ugly crying on the side of the road cuz he saw a stray cat, emotional, and I absolutely love him for that.

Oh, but if he's tipsy, then he just zones out a lot. Because he knows he's an emotional drunk so he ends up overcompensating in an attempt to hide that side of him, and it quickly just devolves into him blankly, staring at the wall for like an hour. But if you get him talking long enough, he will get emotional before he remembers he's supposed to be cold, and then he blocks himself off again.

[papaiyatree]

today i repeat that you can enjoy a bad villainous or a morally vague antihero character without "defending them" and just liking them because they're interesting

[mareastrorum]

These are just initial thoughts, and perhaps I’ll learn something that changes my mind on it, but I’m glad to see Critical Role making the leap to their own subscription service with Beacon.

As a lead in: I’m an attorney that has some background in IP law, though it isn’t what I practice currently. I’ve kept in contact with several active practitioners, particularly those that represent small-time creators either in their own independent practice or via nonprofits. I do not have an extensive Rolodex of IP peers, nor do I spend the money to keep up on IP CLEs. I’m just someone who used to know a ton because I did heavy research and work in that space, and that hasn’t been the case for years.

So here’s my thoughts a bit on the IP angle:

The primary reason I’m happy to see this leap is that CR is taking active steps to keep control over its IP. It’s a boring thing to most people, but when I start paying attention to a specific creator (authors, directors, companies, etc.), I tend to be very attentive to how they use their IP. How freely do they license their marks to partner with other creators to make merch? How often do they allow others to make adaptations or derivatives of their copyrights? What is the quality of those products? What is the supply chain like? Are those third parties objectionable in some way? Were the other parties faithful to the original works or marks? Was this a cash grab or an earnest effort to make something worth the price tag?

Honestly, I like how CR run their business. They have a history of tapping fans and fellow small businesses when making new merch or spinoffs. They embrace the culture of fan-made derivative works, both by featuring fanart/cosplay and by sharing their success. Do you know how rare it is for a company to pay fan artists for their already-made and freely posted work and then sell books of it? Let me be clear: CR bought a limited license from each artist so they could print and sell each work in a physical book, then paid the cost of publishing that book with no guarantee that CR would make that money back, let alone profit. I have a copy of the collector’s edition art books: they’re actually very well made and the packaging definitely cost a pretty penny. That’s not a rainmaker idea, that’s genuinely risking financial loss to sell something people could access for free if they wanted to.

The art books aren’t a one-off either. Darrington Press is CR’s separate LLC for tabletop games. (It’s good business practice to split off companies that handle products in different industries.) CR has also made shows based on those games, and the Candela Obscura series has quite a dedicated audience. Everything about Candela belongs to them: the game itself, the rule book, all the art in the book, the web series based on the game, and merch. It’s so successful that they invested in scheduling a live show for Candela later this month. That’s HUGE.

Contrast that with the distribution of Campaign 1 and the first 19 episodes of Campaign 2. CR cannot host those videos themselves; Geek & Sundry still exists and still holds what I presume to be distribution rights (but I don’t have the contract to review). So G&S gets to host those videos on YouTube and reaps the advertising. I can’t speak to whatever share CR gets from that, but considering that CR is locked out of hosting their own copies of those videos, I doubt it’s much, if any, revenue. (If you’re wondering why CR just didn’t buy those rights back, I ask: what incentive does G&S have to sell something that’s making them money for no cost?)

Knowing that background about G&S, I was wary of CR choosing Amazon to host and distribute The Legend of Vox Machina. Originally, TLOVM was not the plan; CR had a kickstarter for an animated special based on C1. It was only because they blew past the goal that CR was able to make an entire season. The reasonable assumption is that choosing Amazon had to have secured CR additional funding for future seasons of the show, which seems evident from how quickly season 2 was announced, Mighty Nein Animated is also going to be a thing, and that season 3 of TLVOM is scheduled for fall 2024. CR had the option of just doing 1 season and keeping it purely in their control, but going with Amazon meant they could animate more of their works. Animation is expensive. I cannot stress enough how doubtful I am that CR would have been able to afford this many episodes and both campaigns if they had not gone this route. As wary as I was in the start, it paid off, and it’s going well—so far. Hopefully CR doesn’t regret that decision if Amazon tries something sleazy. But, as before, we don’t have the contracts and can’t know how secure CR’s position is if any dispute came up.

CR also partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make Vox Machina comics and Might Nein Origins comics. What’s especially surprising is that each of the cast had a hand in writing the MNO comics for their characters, with Matt listed for multiple. That isn’t very common with comic adaptations. Often times, IP owners let comic companies go ham with minimal oversight. Being listed as one of the authors comes with IP rights that have to be negotiated. That means that Dark Horse had to talk with CR about whether that warrants more or less revenue going to which party in exchange for that—or, alternatively, whether the comic gets made at all. That’s a ballsy move. You think people can just demand to write the comics that a publishing company is going to pay to print? Pffft. CR wanted some creative control, and that is a big ask. However, Dark Horse still has the distribution rights, both digitally and for physical copies. You couldn’t buy the comics from CR until they came out with the library edition, a book bound compilation of 4/8 comics. But the publisher is still Dark Horse; CR is just allowed to sell the book directly from their own site as well.

Contrast that with the novels about CR characters. CR partnered with Penguin Random House to publish novels about Vex and Vax (Kith & Kin), Lucien (The Nine Eyes of Lucien), and Laudna (What Doesn’t Break). Liam and Laura were vocal about having some say in K&K, whereas Madeline Roux said in an interview that she had full control over TNEOL. Both of those novels were narrated with CR voices, but narrating a book doesn’t come with IP rights, it just brings in a paycheck. There’s a lot less IP control in there compared to the comics, but this isn’t abnormal for book publishing. To be blunt, I doubt PRH would have agreed to publish the novels if anyone from CR had been a co-author or had heavy oversight over the author or the editing. I don’t think PRH even considered that as an option. Either an author that has already managed to sell X number of copies or nothing. Creative control over a book a huge ask, asks come with reduced revenue, and switching to books from a web series is already a leap. The fact that Laura and Liam had any say is surprising, really.

That was a long meandering tour of what we’ve seen CR do with its IP. The reason I bring up each of these things is that navigating the way to protect an IP in this space is rife with challenges. Different types of IP warrant different strategies because of the cost involved in creating each medium and the challenges placed by industries that have already sprung up around them. Any time that a third party is tapped to create an IP, it’s usually because they already have the funds and resources to create the work, and CR has to negotiate for revenue, creative control, distribution, and—the big one—who gets to be the owner. These are not easy, quick, or fun conversations, and CR is always going to be the smaller company at the table.

Knowing that, I’m not surprised or worried that CR is creating its own independent subscription service with Beacon. It tells me that they’re being careful with their IP whenever they can. A subscription service means they don’t have to trade away distribution rights or give up ad revenue to a third party. They’re in this for a long term investment, and that requires solid income not tied to third parties that can definitely outspend them in litigation in the event of a dispute. A subscription for bonus content is one of many parts in a diverse revenue stream.

(All that said, this isn’t meant to criticize creators that cant afford to do this type of thing. It took 9 years for CR to get to the point where Beacon is financially feasible and a desirable business decision. They have enough ongoing, popular content to warrant paying for a subscription, and they’ve built sufficient trust with their audience that more will be added. That takes time and an awful lot of money.)

As a final note, I take this step as a sign that CR definitely intends to stick around. This isn’t a move people make when they plan on ending the business after the current campaign. I’m glad to see CR is taking steps to secure their foundation and keep making new content.

I’m sure people will chime in on other issues (cost, content exclusivity, etc.), but I hope my perspective gives an idea of why this sort of thing is good for business generally and why it would be good for CR.

[gojoest]

little update on my love life hsksjsk

i ghosted and then sb’ed the lawyer guy on ig bc turns out he’s friends with that one psycho man i met a few months ago. i think the latter i only mentioned meeting but never gave tea on the fallout here. it was all fun and games until it wasn’t. he basically tried to be alpha with me and i was not having it LOL but each time i blocked him in one place he found another means to reach me but his options were limited to begin with so eventually he gave up and stopped bothering me. but like, man. digging up all of my socials just to tell me things like “you’re so cold to me whenever we’re not together physically. far from the eye, far from the heart — is this your game?” was the last straw. NO SIR I AM A HORRID TEXTER i don’t play mind games 😭 i just kept blocking him without even bothering to give a reply, it probably pissed him off sm LOL which wasn’t my intention, i just thought there was no point in wasting my time and energy on a man like that, i didn’t even want to clear out the misunderstanding like hello i have a life and ur not my priority 😭 his petty male ego was def hurt, what a dick

so when i found out they were friends my brain went ultra dramatic, i thought maybe the lawyer guy was a setup from the very start and that it was a carefully crafted method by the psycho guy to approach me again. naturally i got paranoid and that story is now over, nothing weird’s happened after that, thankfully

and— you rmr the hq guy? yeah, we’re forced to keep a professional relationship rn bc he often visits the office for work related purposes. today he came. twice. first for work, and then — to bring me sweet treats 😭 out of the blue, like way after his business was done 😭 we hadn’t talked after what happened last time so what’s this now 😭 why can’t men read the room 😭

[moonwoodhollow]

"Didn't you get the memo that we'd have a photographer coming today to get some new headshots for the website?" "I did, why?" "Well, you're not wearing a suit, so I, uhh never mind, it's okay, you look great!" - Walter & Silas, new partners at the law office.

[the-blossica-fan]

Jiu and Yenisei get divorced, but

1. Yenisei doesn't know they're getting divorced

2. Jiu misheard something Yenisei said which is why this is happening

3. They're not even married

4. Mesmer Jr. isn't a divorce lawyer. Please let her have her coffee with Vertin in peace she is fucking BEGGING at this point

5. Happy ending???

Or: The most crack thing I have sent you yet. I am sorry in advance 😭

Why do I have the feeling Yenisei wasn't even speaking English when Jiu overheard things 😭

This all starts in Mesmer Jr's room, against her will because if she had a choice this would NOT be happening. One day, while she tried to get some alone time, Jiu barged, sobbing, into her room with some papers smeared in ink. She had written something, that's for sure, and that something was in Chinese which Mesmer does not know.

Of course Mesmer spent some time trying to kick Jiu out but the sobbing girl clung onto her until she had no choice but to hear her out.

Turns out she's getting divorced from Yenisei, who is not even in the room at the moment, because of some weird thing she said?

"But you aren't married, Jiu Niangzi"

"I--"

And then, to Mesmer's relief, the girl left running.

You would think that ends there, right? Nah

Jiu Niangzi kicks down the door again, this time with a clueless and breathless Yenisei, and stands in front of Mesmer. Right then and there, she asked for marriage, and then, for a divorce

"Erm, Mesmer, what exactly is going on? Why is she marrying me and divorcing me in the same breath?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"...Yes, that's why I asked"

And then it's just a back and forth discussion between a clueless and confused Yenisei and an intoxicated and sleepless Jiu Niangzi over marriage and divorce. "But what about the children?" "What children?! Jiu Niangzi what are you talking about??" "You don't remember our children!?"

And now joins the wooden dolls, and it's just a mess. It's three in the morning, Mesmer Jr is tired and she has to play divorce lawyer for two idiots?

She's not even a lawyer. She hasn't even drunk coffee to handle this situation.

There is even a heart touching scene where Jiu proposes to Yenisei just so they can properly divorce with these fake divorce papers Jiu made five minutes before all of this began.

And this nightmare all ends when Mesmer stands up, walks to the kitchen followed by the happy brides or whatever they are now, and sets the divorce papers on fire.

With no divorce papers, there is no divorce, therefore no divorce lawyer or whatever she's playing is needed. And since they are "married", they're now just some happy married couple with no divorce incoming. Happy ending for everyone.

"And that is what happened" Mesmer tells Vertin next morning over some well deserved coffee.

"That certainly explains the broken door, but why didn't you tell me about it before?"

"I didn't feel like it"