#grifting stars

[fordtato]

I excluded Mystery Trio because of course that's everyone's favorite, who am I kidding (leave in the tags if you think I'm wrong on that one), and also leave in the tags which of these you've never heard of.

This is for a future Gravity Falls video essay, please reblog if you can.

[chipper-smol]

warmup doodles of a lil somethin somethin that Loop retained post-loops

[trexalicious]

On the same day that the Princess of Wales undertook four engagements during the Amir of Qatar's state visit to Britain, the Sussex's charity Archewell Foundation dropped its annual impact report and accompanying video spotlighting the couple's year of charitable actions...

[obi-wokenobi]

The irony of this gooner accusing game developers or gaslighting and deceiving gamers. While at the same time, using a FAKE IMAGE to gaslight and deceive gamers.

Because this is what Kay actually looks like in Star Wars Outlaws:

Why do these grifters always have to come up with fake images to misrepresent a game?

If these imaginary issues were actually real, they wouldn't even need to photoshop them into existance! LOL

[recurring-polynya]

Summary: Long ago in Inuzuri, Abarai Renji broke his arm. It healed. At least the bones did. His kidou ducts have never been the same. Now that Renji's finally having the surgery to get them corrected, Rukia is determined to make sure he gets the love and care he deserves during his recovery-- whether he wants it or not.

Starring: Rukia and Renji, of course!! Featuring: Their Inuzuri pals! All the (good) lieutenants! H-a-n-a-t-a-r-o-u! The hard-working staff of Kuchiki Manor! (...is byakuya here? unfortunately, you know he is)

Rating: Teen, for violent trauma, cussing, and sexual innuendo.

Updates: Weekly

This time: Sunday turns out to be much more peaceful and relaxing. For Renji and Rukia, anyway. Byakuya has an Entire Day.

Read Chapter 11 on ao3!

[werewolf-cuddles]

So I hear the anti-woke outrage content grift is finally starting to die.

Good. Perish.

[alexander-the-greatest1987]

You know, I have just found out that in Star Trek Voyager, they hired a special Cherokee consultant named was Jamake Highwater, in order to write a Native character in the show. Expect he wasn't a native he was just some jewish guy, so the character was a horrible racist caricature.

And I'm just thinking, why? I mean, solid Grift, but did you think people weren't going to find out? What was his plan? I so confused

[tathrin]

OP I need you to know that I just cycled through all four stages of grief as I tried to figure out how I could have possibly forgotten that Chewie was apparently a mayor on Kashyyyk at some point??? before I realized you were talking about Lando instead. My gods don't do that to people! If you're taking the five of them down to four, you need to clarify which one you're leaving out oh my gods my heart can't take this sort of thing.

you ever think about how in star wars the four heroes that overthrew the tyrannical empire and inagurated a new government are the princess of a tragically destroyed planet, a wisecracking rogue, the last heir of a religious order of wizards who do actual literal magic, and.........a city mayor

[zekethefreak]

Taking Up the Fight Against Anti-Woke

Don't sit around listening to grifters on social media telling you to be angry about a book, a movie, a show, or a game. Instead, go live your life! Create!

Merry Christmas, Friends! Folks, as a Christmas gift to yourself, go out there and do something you enjoy. Read something you enjoy. Watch something you enjoy. Play something you enjoy. Don’t sit around listening to grifters on social media telling you to be angry about a book, a movie, a show, or a game. Instead, go live your life! Create! Subjectively bad Star Wars or Marvel projects aren’t…

[river-taxbird]

There is no such thing as AI.

How to help the non technical and less online people in your life navigate the latest techbro grift.

I've seen other people say stuff to this effect but it's worth reiterating. Today in class, my professor was talking about a news article where a celebrity's likeness was used in an ai image without their permission. Then she mentioned a guest lecture about how AI is going to help finance professionals. Then I pointed out, those two things aren't really related.

The term AI is being used to obfuscate details about multiple semi-related technologies.

Traditionally in sci-fi, AI means artificial general intelligence like Data from star trek, or the terminator. This, I shouldn't need to say, doesn't exist. Techbros use the term AI to trick investors into funding their projects. It's largely a grift.

What is the term AI being used to obfuscate?

If you want to help the less online and less tech literate people in your life navigate the hype around AI, the best way to do it is to encourage them to change their language around AI topics.

By calling these technologies what they really are, and encouraging the people around us to know the real names, we can help lift the veil, kill the hype, and keep people safe from scams. Here are some starting points, which I am just pulling from Wikipedia. I'd highly encourage you to do your own research.

Machine learning (ML): is an umbrella term for solving problems for which development of algorithms by human programmers would be cost-prohibitive, and instead the problems are solved by helping machines "discover" their "own" algorithms, without needing to be explicitly told what to do by any human-developed algorithms. (This is the basis of most technologically people call AI)

Language model: (LM or LLM) is a probabilistic model of a natural language that can generate probabilities of a series of words, based on text corpora in one or multiple languages it was trained on. (This would be your ChatGPT.)

Generative adversarial network (GAN): is a class of machine learning framework and a prominent framework for approaching generative AI. In a GAN, two neural networks contest with each other in the form of a zero-sum game, where one agent's gain is another agent's loss. (This is the source of some AI images and deepfakes.)

Diffusion Models: Models that generate the probability distribution of a given dataset. In image generation, a neural network is trained to denoise images with added gaussian noise by learning to remove the noise. After the training is complete, it can then be used for image generation by starting with a random noise image and denoise that. (This is the more common technology behind AI images, including Dall-E and Stable Diffusion. I added this one to the post after as it was brought to my attention it is now more common than GANs.)

I know these terms are more technical, but they are also more accurate, and they can easily be explained in a way non-technical people can understand. The grifters are using language to give this technology its power, so we can use language to take it's power away and let people see it for what it really is.

[fordtato]

Okay! It's the morning!

Special shout out to all the artists and writers I mention in the video, but particularly to (in no particular order) the @thesnadger, @cirilee @evaroze @gravity-what @cbmagus49 @the-subpar-ghost @transcendence-au @ @dodofiasco @relativityfalls @kiki-kit @taccoman @lazy--stars @masspectrum @uberbee @tessellated-sunl1ght @aspiring-procrastinator @sovonight @suitjackets @eregyrn-falls @marypsue @nour386 @jheselbraum @gin-juice-tonic @mollykflood @winterbolt @sightkeeper @impishnature @o-lanterns @captainpicklepuss @thatdisastrousfangirl

Everyone tagged above either created an AU mentioned, had writings or art that I relied on heavily for this project, or had an impressive amount of tagged/organized reblogs that contributed greatly to my research (especially since many of the original AU creators/artists are deactivated and tumblr is difficult to search through.) If I forgot to tag you, I am so sorry. If you would like to be untagged, just shoot me a message and I will do so.

As I say in the video, thank you all for being there during that incredible era of fandom. I'm glad I was there too.

New video. In the morning I will tag specific people who i think i owe thanks to.

[pers-books]

Doctor Who's Jodie Whittaker and Gentleman Jack's Suranne Jones lead heist thriller

ITV has announced a brand new heist thriller, Frauds, which comes from Suranne Jones and Anne-Marie O’Connor and features Jones alongside Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker.

Jones and O’Connor previously collaborated on another ITV drama, Maryland. They have now created Frauds together, which will be written by O’Connor.

The series follows confidence trickster Sam, played by Whittaker, who has been living a quiet, anonymous life in the hills of southern Spain, whilst her grifting partner Bert, played by Jones, has been in a Spanish prison cell dreaming of one last job.

When Bert is released on grounds of compassionate discharge following a cancer diagnosis, the two reunite.

Bert apparently has no one else to turn to in the final weeks of her life, while Sam is clearly burying feelings of guilt, and a past she’d rather stay forgotten.

The duo are immediately pulled back into their complex and addictive relationship, as Bert attempts to lure Sam out of retirement for one final, multi-million-pound art heist. But at what cost?

Jones said in a statement: "Working on Frauds with Anne-Marie and Monumental for the last two years has been a wild ride.

"We took the idea of toxic female friendship and turned it on its head to give the heist genre an emotional heartbeat.

"I have always wanted to work with Jodie, and now I am. I hope you love Bert and Sam and all they get up to as much as we do."

Meanwhile, O’Connor added: "Suranne and I wanted to take a look at the importance and fierceness of female friendship and to do it using the propulsive heist genre.

"I am thrilled to be working with Monumental again, and having Jodie joining us alongside Suranne is a dream."

The series will be directed by Giulia Gandini (The Split), and it has recently begun filming in Spain.

Whittaker will next be seen in Toxic Town, a Netflix drama from writer Jack Thorne, while Jones has her own Netflix show coming up, The Choice.

Frauds will air on ITV1 and ITVX.

[lady-raziel]

Somewhere, in another timeline...Bernie Sanders is finishing out his second term as president.

(a coping-method scenario)

Back in 2016, the Democratic Party saw that denying his appeal and pushing forward with Hillary Clinton would be catastrophic—she didn’t have the appeal, and pushing forward another historic first right after Obama might galvanize the right wing further into feeling that America was no longer “for them.” The potential risk was too great in radicalizing that bloc, and as strange as it seemed, Bernie was the safer choice. He faces Donald Trump in the general election—and many pundits decry the sad state of today’s politics, where the only choices are a “socialist kook” or a reality television star. Trump’s odd mannerisms and morally questionable behavior, however, manage to turn off enough people that they’d rather not vote at all. After careful consideration, the Democrats do decide to take a chance on a female VP running mate (after all, the Republicans had set precedent with Sarah Palin in 2008)-- Senator Amy Klobuchar gets tapped to balance the ticket. With the slightly lower voter turnout on the right, and the left energized with a surging youth vote, Bernie Sanders becomes the 45th president of the United States, and America gets its first female VP with Amy Klobuchar.

Trump, who had honestly never intended on winning anyway, uses the loss as planned to claim fraud and launch his own cable streaming channel- TNN, Trump News Nation- intended as a rival to Fox News. He repeatedly tries to sue over the “stolen” election—this had all been intended to make sorely needed funds for his hemorrhaging business ventures after all. TNN draws massive ratings on launch, but as the months go by, views trickle off as watchers grow exhausted of hearing about politics through the context of Trump’s own grievances. Most filter back to Fox News, where at least the diet of mostly fabricated nonsense and conspiracy theories are varied. TNN’s most viewed show is a variation on the Apprentice, where contestants compete to gain Donald’s political endorsement and “mentorship.” None of the winning show contestants ever end up winning their political races. By 2018, viewership is minimal and stagnant, any ad revenue has dried up, and TNN shutters its doors. Trump moves on to his next failed business grift, fading from public relevance only to be occasionally remembered as “that time a reality tv personality ran for president…can you believe that happened?” American politics forgets him as another failed presidential candidate, and the GOP moves on, reexamining their strategy after losing to a Democrat once again.

Bernie’s presidency isn’t all sunshine and roses. The young progressives who voted him in find themselves frustrated with the lack of sudden progressive changes he’s actually able to make due to the constraints of the presidency—one still needs to work with Congress, after all. And Washington doesn’t exactly warm up to the formerly Independent senator with a leftist bent quickly. But landmark bipartisan legislation on climate change that includes concessions to congressional Republicans on taxes proves to be very successful. Despite controversy on some of the legislation's corporate tax restructuring (part of Republican demands), the tax cuts and benefits for the vast majority of Americans have appeal to even those who questioned the value of climate change measures.

By the 2020 election, Bernie’s favorability is substantial, in addition to a boost from quick action in tackling a small, ultimately containable new virus. Regardless, Bernie is able to leverage providing funds for vaccine research to help contain and prevent future outbreaks to drug companies, in exchange for negotiating price caps on certain drugs. The combined result is more than enough to hand him a win in 2020 against Ted Cruz—who’s off-putting “serial killer vibes” and right-leaning deep Texas persona prove to be buzzkills for the GOP’s attempt at leaning right as a rebrand.

The fields for both parties are packed in the 2024 primaries—but ultimately Senator Cory Booker clenches the Democratic nomination, and the Republicans take a chance on Representative Liz Cheney, hoping that the combination of the Cheney name and a female candidate a la the Sarah Palin gambit will be what’s needed to turn their losing streak around. It’s a tight race, in the end—pundits pontificate on how “polarized” the nation has become, as rhetoric flies about the Cheney legacy and calling Liz everything from a warmonger to “the worst candidate America has ever seen who will do serious damage to the heart of the nation.” Voters on the left debate the potential of the first female president vs rehashed talking points from the Bush era and the legacy of wars in the Middle East.

The pick of Booker by the Democratic establishment, who are fairly eager to regain control over the nomination process and candidate selection after having to cede control and allow Bernie's candidacy last time, ultimately reflects that the party and elites have not learned the lesson 2016 should have impressed upon them. Instead of allowing the voters interests to shape the primaries, they continue to wield control and painstakingly fixate over the specific demographics of candidates, trying to find the right "mix" that they think moderate voters will "tolerate." Booker, despite his accomplishments, is ultimately the victim of this, as he doesn't have the revolutionary appeal of Obama, despite frequently being painted as "Obama 2.0." The Democrats fail once again to learn that what voters truly care about is not a candidate fitting certain demographic boxes, but the strength of their ideas and narrative.

Ultimately, the voters go with Liz Cheney, who historically becomes the first female president of the United States. Republicans are jubilant at taking back the White House (and that they were able to claim a historic first and deny Democrats the honor-- not that they'd say it outright, since they'd sought to strike a contrast between running Cheney just as a candidate and not as a woman). Despite the outcome of the election, it's unclear whether the Democratic establishment finally learns that lesson-- or retreats into itself pointing fingers and throwing blame at "not picking a female and losing credibility as the party of progress." Rumors had been flying that Hillary was going to try again—ultimately turning out to be false (but perhaps not entirely untrue-- she had been approached and was considering it). Some Democrats point out that "progress" should be expressed through innovative and progressive policies that will APPEAL to different demographics, instead of ignoring stagnant policies to focus on demographics alone...time will tell if their voices are heard.

As for Joe Biden, one of the longstanding members of the political sphere, after serving as Obama's VP, he retires to his home in Delaware, only occasionally being seen at major political events here and there. The largest amount of attention he gets is a moment in 2021 that spawns many, many memes-- a viral video is captured of Biden enjoying an ice cream when it falls to the floor, at which point the former VP stares at the melting cone and declares "I'm Dark Brandon." No one has any clue what he's talking about, and it's written off as just another "Uncle Joe" gaffe. Other than that, not much is heard from Biden. People do say, however, that occasionally the man stares off into the distance with a far-off look of horror, as if he is somewhere else entirely...and witnessing something awful.

As Cheney is sworn in as president, the progressive corners of the internet mourn, citing the actions of Dick Cheney and decrying that this new administration might be "the death of democracy." A viral Tweet (yes, TWEET) with millions of likes reads "bruh this has to be the darkest timeline, there's no way this could be any worse 😫"

(If only they really knew...)

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Anyone battling a life threatening illness has one (1) job: HEALING

When the Meghans are low on royal "information" that can be used to distract from their failures, they use Catherine's name and reputation as an online punching bag to satisfy their online temper tantrums.

This "confession" by MEgain Markle is another vain attempt to distract Catherine and her team away from their priorities and into the public for press attacks and online chatter.

MEgain's only talent is seduction. As a seductress we see an unfortunate pattern of ill people, elderly people & animals who interact with Sparry, MEgain and Dorito getting hurt, becoming sicker, or dying.

MEgain never desired a successful 2nd marriage, she wanted 1 thing: to be Princess Diana 2.0.

Wills & Kate were actually in love with one another, not with stardom. The Cambridge's were wise. They chose to focus on establishing a firm foundation in marriage & family BEFORE they became working royals.

William worked full-time PILOTING in his non-BRF Anglesey air ambulance job while his bride volunteered, managed their home, and studied to show herself approved in her new life as a member of a historic family. Even the Cambridge's housekeepers quit their jobs because they felt Kate didn't leave them any work to do.

Fortunately, the Cambridge's learned valuable lessons from the non-royal early years of the long marriage between Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth.

Sophie followed this same advice from QE and today the Duchess of Edinburgh is one of the most respected members of the BRF.

Everything MEgain did in the UK was to create a resume that would advance her lifelong goal of becoming a STAR in Los Angeles.

The Queen advised MEgain to follow in Sophie's footsteps because there was no need to give up acting. MEgain rejected this sage advice because she was desperate to return to CA with a new resume as a humanitarian & a philanthropist. MEgain hired several PR Firms with the post-wedding goal of becoming Princess Diana 2.0. She was in a hurry to achieve international stardom---- if only she had factored in the impact of her unlikeable personality and her poor job performances. The watching world soundly rejected Mrs. Sparry Windsor on every level. Her goal, as explained by the Sussex Survivors Club, was always to FAIL & to BOLT. All of her mini "projects" were designed for her resume, not for the BRF.

MEgain truly felt that if she lived with a chef (Chef Cory) & took credit for the Chef's recipes, she would become a Food Network TV Star. She simply refused to understand why no one was impressed with her ability to make toast!!! She graduated from fake chef to grief grifter and tragedy vulture. She scammed the Grenfell survivors into featuring her name and photos amongst their own recipes & stories. In an effort to prevent the grifter from overshadowing their work, several cookbooks had to be reprinted.

MEgain was desperate to quickly meet A-list celebrities and political icons. She used Markus Anderson's Soho House "friend" to help her ruin the September issue of British Vogue. The magazine had to slash the price by 50% to move the issue. The project had nothing to do with supporting the BRF, and MEgain even stole the cover title and layout from a pair of Australian authors.

MEgain knows nothing about proper work attire, but she was desperate to have her name associated with stores that weren't "Reitman's, Really" so she scammed needy job seekers into dressing up like penguins and restaurant wait staff/hostesses. She fails to understand why DIOR didn't knock down her door with opportunities to connect their name to such a sloppy, messy, unkempt and vulgar member of the BRF.

DIOR has joyful, natural beauties like Sparry's former girlfriend Cressida Bonas to dress the part and to always carry herself in a respectable manner for their iconic brand.

Despite her LIGHT workload, MEgain managed to ruin everything she touched: 26 engagements in 5 months= 1 work hour per week

“I'm convinced "pretty privilege" exists. Kate's had incredibly low work engagements for years (something Kate's been highly criticised for years pre-Meghan), her Early Years "work" isn't exactly groundbreaking, and while I feel sorry she has cancer, I'm disappointed that Kate hasn't been raising cancer awareness (even a quick video call online) instead of attending flashy events like Wimbledon. For those whose say that "she's raising kids - leave her alone!" conveniently forget that she has help (nannies, aides…) and is living on the taxpayers dime…” - Submitted by Anonymous

[ms-boogie-man]

Umm… HELLO-O!!!

Blocking me is not a win

Blocking me does not show evidence to prove your point

Blocking me does not prove me wrong

Blocking me definitely, definitely does not shut me up

Gang-flagging my posts does not stop me

Reporting me to Staff and getting my blogs terminated or shadow-banned does not stop me

Telling me to kill myself is F'n stupid yo… I am already dead

Starting a blog on another site so you can talk shiz about me behind my back is chump-worthy and just made me into a bigger rock star yo

Yes, you guys… these lunatics were raised so ineptly by their moron parents that they actually started an off-site blog about me and thought that was heroic

Mis-gendering me is hypocritical and idiotic… especially in light of the fact that while I AM a girl, you are just morons, boys parading around as female. *Note: I am very good and longtime friends on Tumblr with two cross dressers and two trannies. I use the pronouns she and her in reference to them all, out of respect, and I address them as Ms _________ (fill in the blank with their female first names)

Liberalism is a disease

Liberalism is a mental illness

Liberalism is built on lies

America was not built on the backs of slaves

Marxism is bullshit

The theory of evolution is just that, a theory; and unproven

Fossil fuel is a lie

Climate change, global warming/cooling, rising sea levels, etc, are all a grift

The Democrats are responsible for all the plastic in our oceans

Taxation is theft

All gun laws are an infringement

Free Speech means all speech

It is not our war unless We the People say it is

Fuck that shooter and the people who propped him up

Vampires aren't real because they said so

*nods

Angie/Maddie🦇❥✝︎🇺🇸

[osmanthusoolong]

It’s incredibly funny that every single poster crying her eyes out over the poor sad lives of wealthy right-wing women living the lives they’ve chosen and are making bank grifting off are, consistently and without exception: terfs/radfems, and also rabid swifties. Every fucking time. Weird how their rotten little hearts just break at the very thought of a white woman with more money than they could ever imagine having the slightest inconvenience in the lives and images they’ve put huge amounts of work into cultivating. Truly these poor ladies have suffered like saints in the lives they’ve somehow accidentally fallen into (definitely not incredibly competitive jobs they’ve actively sought, why any woman could end up a billionaire housewife pop star ballerina!).

Like fucking clockwork.