#high PR profile creates

[sobwh]

Sixaluminium - Devasa+

Aluminum extrusion is a process used to create parts with specific cross-sectional profiles by pushing heated alloy material through a die. This process allows for the creation of various shapes and sizes, making it a versatile method for manufacturing aluminum profiles. Despite its importance, many people may not even notice the prevalence of aluminum extrusions in their homes. In Turkey aluminium manufacturer, companies like Aluminance Aluminum Industry and Trade Inc. and Ş. are leading manufacturers of aluminum extrusion profiles and composite panels. These companies play a crucial role in providing high-quality aluminum extrusion products for various industries, including construction. The construction industry greatly benefits from the use of aluminum extrusion profiles. Aluminum construction are lightweight, strong, and corrosion-resistant, making them ideal for construction applications. They are commonly used in windows, doors, and other architectural elements due to their structural integrity and cost benefits. Additionally, aluminum extrusions offer sustainability advantages as they are recyclable and can be repurposed for other projects . The use of aluminum extrusions in construction also contributes to faster construction timelines, as they can be easily fabricated and installed. Overall, aluminium systems profiles have become an essential component in the construction industry, offering a range of benefits for architects, builders, and homeowners alike. In Turkey aluminium extrusion manufacturers like Ş. have played a significant role in supplying the construction industry with high-quality aluminum profiles. These profiles are used in various applications, including aluminum systems for windows, doors, and facades . The 40-Series Aluminium Extrusion Profile produced in the EU is a popular choice for construction pr aluminium veranda ojects due to its quality and durability. The use of aluminum extrusion profiles in construction not only enhances the aesthetics of buildings but also provides structural stability and longevity. With the continued advancements in aluminum extrusion technology, the construction industry can expect further innovation and development in the utilization of aluminum profiles for various architectural and structural applications.

[racinggirl]

Racing Hearts Masterlist

a/n: hello everyone, it's been a long time since I've written something on here. But I am back. And this time I'm creating my own story! I've never done this before on here, so don't mind any mistakes. I'm in love with the rich lifestyle genre, billionaire romance, grumpy X sunshine, he falls harder type of stories. You will be warned, it's not your average cute romance story, be prepared for loads and loads of angst.

If you want to be added to the taglist, please comment down below or send me a message in my inbox.

Prologue

Chapter 1

He doesn’t believe in love. For Lando Norris, it’s all about racing, entrepreneurship, and success. Besides being a Formula One racing driver for McLaren, he's also the founder of Velocity Estates, a luxury real estate company. He’s successful, wealthy, and accustomed to getting whatever he desires. However, when he meets her, life forces him to reconsider his priorities. Can he still have it all? Or is she the exception to his guarded heart?

She’s never experienced love. Her life consists of high-profile galas and maintaining her parents’ company’s image as a PR Director. She’s smart, talented and dreams of a life beyond the expectations of high society - yearning to travel, experience new cultures, and embrace adventures that challenge her. When she meets him, she can’t help but feel fascinated by how he seamlessly blends the two; the thrill of racing and the demands of running a high society business.  

-

TAGLIST

@smoooothoperator

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Copyright won't solve creators' Generative AI problem

The media spectacle of generative AI (in which AI companies’ breathless claims of their software’s sorcerous powers are endlessly repeated) has understandably alarmed many creative workers, a group that’s already traumatized by extractive abuse by media and tech companies.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

Even though the claims about “AI” are overblown and overhyped, creators are right to be alarmed. Their bosses would like nothing more than to fire them and replace them with pliable software. The “creative” industries talk a lot about how audiences should be paying for creative works, but the companies that bring creators’ works to market treat their own payments to creators as a cost to be minimized.

Creative labor markets are primarily regulated through copyright: the exclusive rights that accrue to creators at the moment that their works are “fixated.” Media and tech companies then bargain to buy or license those rights. The theory goes that the more expansive those rights are, the more they’ll be worth to corporations, and the more they’ll pay creators for them.

That’s the theory. In practice, we’ve spent 40 years expanding copyright. We’ve made it last longer; expanded it to cover more works, hiked the statutory damages for infringements and made it easier to prove violations. This has made the entertainment industry larger and more profitable — but the share of those profits going to creators has declined, both in real terms and proportionately.

In other words, today creators have more copyright, the companies that buy creators’ copyrights have more profits, but creators are poorer than they were 40 years ago. How can this be so?

As Rebecca Giblin and I explain in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, the sums creators get from media and tech companies aren’t determined by how durable or far-reaching copyright is — rather, they’re determined by the structure of the creative market.

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

The market is concentrated into monopolies. We have five big publishers, four big studios, three big labels, two big ad-tech companies, and one gargantuan ebook/audiobook company. The internet has been degraded into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots from the other four”:

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

Under these conditions, giving a creator more copyright is like giving a bullied schoolkid extra lunch money. It doesn’t matter how much lunch money you give that kid — the bullies will take it all, and the kid will still go hungry (that’s still true even if the bullies spend some of that stolen lunch money on a PR campaign urging us all to think of the hungry children and give them even more lunch money):

https://doctorow.medium.com/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism-b885c4cb2719

But creative workers have been conditioned — by big media and tech companies — to reflexively turn to copyright as the cure-all for every pathology, and, predictably, there are loud, insistent calls (and a growing list of high-profile lawsuits) arguing that training a machine-learning system is a copyright infringement.

This is a bad theory. First, it’s bad as a matter of copyright law. Fundamentally, machine learning systems ingest a lot of works, analyze them, find statistical correlations between them, and then use those to make new works. It’s a math-heavy version of what every creator does: analyze how the works they admire are made, so they can make their own new works.

If you go through the pages of an art-book analyzing the color schemes or ratios of noses to foreheads in paintings you like, you are not infringing copyright. We should not create a new right to decide who is allowed to think hard about your creative works and learn from them — such a right would make it impossible for the next generation of creators to (lawfully) learn their craft:

https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2022/12/12/on-stable-diffusion/

(Sometimes, ML systems will plagiarize their own training data; that could be copyright infringement; but a) ML systems will doubtless get guardrails that block this plagiarism; and, b) even after that happens, creators will still worry about being displaced by ML systems trained on their works.)

We should learn from our recent history here. When sampling became a part of commercial hiphop music, some creators clamored for the right to control who could sample their work and to get paid when that happened. The musicians who sampled argued that inserting a few bars from a recording was akin to a jazz trumpeter who works a few bars of a popular song into a solo. They lost that argument, and today, anyone who wants to release a song commercially will be required — by radio stations, labels, and distributors — the clear that sample.

This change didn’t make musicians better off. The Big Three labels — Sony, Warners, and Universal, who control 70% of the world’s recorded music — now require musicians to sign away the rights to samples from their works. The labels also refuse to sell sampling licenses to musicians unless they are signed to one of the Big Three.

Thus, producing music with a sample requires that you take whatever terms the Big Three impose on you, including giving up the right to control sampling of your music. We gave the schoolkids more lunch money and the bullies took that, too.

https://locusmag.com/2020/03/cory-doctorow-a-lever-without-a-fulcrum-is-just-a-stick/

The monopolists who control the creative industries are already getting ahead of the curve on this one. Companies that hire voice actors are requiring those actors to sign away the (as yet nonexistant) right to train a machine-learning model with their voices:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

The National Association of Voice Actors is (quite rightly) advising its members not to sign contracts that make this outrageous demand, and they note that union actors are having success getting these clauses struck, even retroactively:

https://navavoices.org/synth-ai/

That’s not surprising — labor unions have a much better track record of getting artists’ paid than giving creators copyright and expecting them to bargain individually for the best deal they can get. But for non-union creators — the majority of us — getting this language struck is going to be a lot harder. Indeed, we already sign contracts full of absurd, unconscionable nonsense that our publishers, labels and studios refuse to negotiate:

https://doctorow.medium.com/reasonable-agreement-ea8600a89ed7

Some of the loudest calls for exclusive rights over ML training are coming not from workers, but from media and tech companies. We creative workers can’t afford to let corporations create this right — and not just because they will use it against us. These corporations also have a track record of creating new exclusive rights that bite them in the ass.

For decades, media companies stretched copyright to cover works that were similar to existing works, trying to merge the idea of “inspired by” and “copied from,” assuming that they would be the ones preventing others from making “similar” new works.

But they failed to anticipate the (utterly predictable) rise of copyright trolls, who launched a string of lawsuits arguing that popular songs copied tiny phrases (or just the “feel”) of their clients’ songs. Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s got sued into radioactive rubble by Marvin Gaye’s estate over their song “Blurred Lines” — which didn’t copy any of Gaye’s words or melodies, but rather, took its “feel”:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robin-thicke-pharrell-lose-multi-million-dollar-blurred-lines-lawsuit-35975/

Today, every successful musician lives in dread of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit over incidental similarities to obscure tracks. Last spring, Ed Sheeran beat such a suit, but it was a hollow victory. As Sheeran said, with 60,000 new tracks being uploaded to Spotify every day, these similarities are inevitable:

https://twitter.com/edsheeran/status/1511631955238047751

The major labels are worried about this problem, too — but they are at a loss as to what to do about it. They are completely wedded to the idea that every part of music should be converted to property, so that they can expropriate it from creators and add it to their own bulging portfolios. Like a monkey trapped because it has reached through a hole into a hollow log to grab a banana that won’t fit back through the hole, the labels can’t bring themselves to let go.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/08/oh-why/#two-notes-and-running

That’s the curse of the monkey’s paw: the entertainment giants argued for everything to be converted to a tradeable exclusive right — and now the industry is being threatened by trolls and ML creeps who are bent on acquiring their own vast troves of pseudo-property.

There’s a better way. As NAVA president Tim Friedlander told Motherboard’s Joseph Cox, “NAVA is not anti-synthetic voices or anti-AI, we are pro voice actor. We want to ensure that voice actors are actively and equally involved in the evolution of our industry and don’t lose their agency or ability to be compensated fairly for their work and talent.”

This is as good a distillation of the true Luddite ethic as you could ask for. After all, the Luddites didn’t oppose textile automation: rather, they wanted a stake in its rollout and a fair share of its dividends:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

Turning every part of the creative process into “IP” hasn’t made creators better off. All that’s it’s accomplished is to make it harder to create without taking terms from a giant corporation, whose terms inevitably include forcing you to trade all your IP away to them. That’s something that Spider Robinson prophesied in his Hugo-winning 1982 story, “Melancholy Elephants”:

http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html

This week (Feb 8–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’re doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 13. Next are Melbourne (Feb 14), Sydney (Feb 15) and Canberra (Feb 16/17). I hope to see you!

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A poster for the 1933 movie ‘The Monkey’s Paw.’ The fainting ingenue has been replaced by the glaring red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dharna Noor at The Guardian:

Climate experts fear Donald Trump will follow a blueprint created by his allies to gut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), disbanding its work on climate science and tailoring its operations to business interests.

Joe Biden’s presidency has increased the profile of the science-based federal agency but its future has been put in doubt if Trump wins a second term and at a time when climate impacts continue to worsen. The plan to “break up Noaa is laid out in the Project 2025 document written by more than 350 rightwingers and helmed by the Heritage Foundation. Called the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, it is meant to guide the first 180 days of presidency for an incoming Republican president. The document bears the fingerprints of Trump allies, including Johnny McEntee, who was one of Trump’s closest aides and is a senior adviser to Project 2025. “The National Oceanographic [sic] and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,” the proposal says.

That’s a sign that the far right has “no interest in climate truth”, said Chris Gloninger, who last year left his job as a meteorologist in Iowa after receiving death threats over his spotlighting of global warming. The guidebook chapter detailing the strategy, which was recently spotlighted by E&E News, describes Noaa as a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future US prosperity”. It was written by Thomas Gilman, a former Chrysler executive who during Trump’s presidency was chief financial officer for Noaa’s parent body, the commerce department. Gilman writes that one of Noaa’s six main offices, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, should be “disbanded” because it issues “theoretical” science and is “the source of much of Noaa’s climate alarmism”. Though he admits it serves “important public safety and business functions as well as academic functions”, Gilman says data from the National Hurricane Center must be “presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate”.

[...] Noaa also houses the National Weather Service (NWS), which provides weather and climate forecasts and warnings. Gilman calls for the service to “fully commercialize its forecasting operations”. He goes on to say that Americans are already reliant on private weather forecasters, specifically naming AccuWeather and citing a PR release issued by the company to claim that “studies have found that the forecasts and warnings provided by the private companies are more reliable” than the public sector’s. (The mention is noteworthy as Trump once tapped the former CEO of AccuWeather to lead Noaa, though his nomination was soon withdrawn.)

The claims come amid years of attempts from US conservatives to help private companies enter the forecasting arena – proposals that are “nonsense”, said Rosenberg. Right now, all people can access high-quality forecasts for free through the NWS. But if forecasts were conducted only by private companies that have a profit motive, crucial programming might no longer be available to those in whom business executives don’t see value, said Rosenberg. [...] Fully privatizing forecasting could also threaten the accuracy of forecasts, said Gloninger, who pointed to AccuWeather’s well-known 30- and 60-day forecasts as one example. Analysts have found that these forecasts are only right about half the time, since peer-reviewed research has found that there is an eight- to 10-day limit on the accuracy of forecasts.

The Trump Administration is delivering a big gift to climate crisis denialism as part of Project 2025 by proposing the dismantling and privatizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS) in his potential 2nd term.

This should frighten people to vote Democratic up and down the ballot if you want the NOAA and NWS to stay intact.

[elipheleh]

TV & Satellite Week Magazine (issue 418) feature on Red, White & Royal Blue

text under the cut, image by myself.

When Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of US President Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), is invited to a royal wedding in Britain, he's expected to be on his best behaviour and be as diplomatic as possible. Unfortunately, things don't quite turn out that way...

Alex has an ongoing feud with Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), which comes to a head when a fight between the pair causes the destruction of the very expensive wedding cake. To avoid a PR disaster, they are instructed to stage a high-profile friendship until the gossip dies down - but the campaign proves to be far more effective than either of them anticipated.

"In doing their damage control, they discover that they actually like each other -and love each other, says Matthew López, who directed and co-wrote this adaptation of Casey McQuiston's bestselling novel. ‘This was absolutely a passion project for me - I read the book, and it zoomed straight to the top of my "must-do" list. The idea of anybody else making this movie would have thrown me into fits of jealousy.’

López was acutely aware that the key to the film's success would be in casting lead actors with credible chemistry, and he was delighted that Zakhar Perez and Galitzine sparked together instantly.

‘The nightmare scenario for me was finding two perfect actors who did not gel at all’, says López. ‘But what was innate from the moment Taylor and Nick first met was that they played so incredibly well together.’

The two leads were equally keen to make their characters relationship evolve believably.

‘Nick and I felt a responsiblity to bring to life these sexual moments that are in the book in a real, grounded way’, says Zakhar Perez. ‘The intimate scenes were choreographed and specific when it came to whether it was a moment of passion, or a tender experience. In a relationship you go through different stages, and we got to explore those throughout the film.’

For Galitzine, another part of the appeal of the project was the chance to portray a character who was experiencing such an intense internal conflict.

‘Henry feels a very strong sense of duty, but he's completely in denial of his own feelings’, he says. ‘There's something very selfless, if not really heartbreaking, about that. He's in this totally solitary position of this role he was born into’.

In addition to Thurman as the US President, the film also features Stephen Fry in the role of Henry's grandfather, the British King- and López was delighted to have Fry on board.

‘Stephen took no convincing whatsoever, and that was such a happy thing for me’, says López. 'And it was really important to us to create a lot of daylight between the fictional royal family that features in the movie and the actual royals. These characters aren't the Windsors, they are completely made up. But when we had Stephen Fry walk on set that day as this fictional king, I think everybody in the cast and crew stood to attention!’

[selarina]

→ Suna Rintaro x Fem!Reader

Summary: When a guy asks for your number, you sternly insist on a condition that leads to unexpected love.

Content Warning: Strangers to Lovers, Fluff, Suggestive, Eventual Smut, Canon-Compliant, Swearing, Social Media AU, Drinking

Taglist: Open

Series Masterlist

Character Profiles

Y/N and Aoba Johsa:

Despite living eons away from each other, they remain as close as they were in their school years.

Y/N is a micro-influencer who occasionally creates YouTube videos, primarily focusing on book reviews and her experiences attending events.

Oikawa has a public account but it's run by his PR team because he fucked up one too many times. Now, he uses his private account to provide unsolicited movie reviews and picks the occasional fights with Y/N.

Iwaizumi and Y/N live in the same area and meet up quite regularly.

Suna and Atsumu:

Suna's sister is a talented amateur musician who sings at various famous bars around town.

This isn't the first time Suna's threatened to kiss people who show up, inadvertently garnering his sister quite a bit of attention.

Atsumu is a social media savant and has honed his skills on Twitter, effortlessly tapping into the art of acquiring clout whenever the need arises.

Atsumu's favorite Spiderman is Andrew Garfield's version since he did grow up on his movies. (Not necessary to the plot but essential to know regardless.)

While the other members of Inarizaki High School's team maintain a close bond, they are not relevant to this story.

TAGLIST: @wolffmaiden @tenaciouswritersheep

[herejusttosufferalong]

A comment on Reddit just now:

"

The theory that TikTok is beginning to be used by some celebs as an alternative to calling the paps, in terms of keeping their profile high? I don’t doubt there are lots of genuinely unplanned celebrity photos and videos which users take and then upload on there. But lately there have been a few celebs, who used to be notable for calling the paps and the photos then showing up on mainstream websites, who have stopped taking the JustJared approach but have begun appearing more frequently on supposedly candid TikTok videos (which publicists know soon get posted onto other platforms like X), which also conveniently let people know what they’re up to at the moment, or confirm that they’re still dating the person they are thought to be with.

I wondered if there was anything to the theory that some of these TikToks might be arranged with celebs and their teams in an effort to create a more organic-looking approach to keeping someone’s profile high, and look they could be authentically unplanned sightings, in contrast to more obvious attempts at getting photographed and things like the involvement of Backgrid, which people are becoming increasingly aware sometimes means PR at work. Has anyone heard anything similar, or have any knowledge that this might be the case with some celebrity sightings on TikTok?"

This is def something I could see being the case here

In fact I think we all can pinpoint the first instance of this happening within this sordid lil group

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I think there are a couple of reasons why the Sussex Squad became so prolific.

1. Initially, this is between late 2015 to 201, MM spent a lot of money and time, buying bots and then consolidated this bit army to make herself popar on social. Mainly via her website and her personal+tig insta.

2. She used very strategic PR, short videos, cutsey appearances, interviews, pre-election political soundbyttes etc, to make it seem like she was very popular and in demand. Then used paid bots to make these videos and articles popular via engagement. So, then when she blew up on the world stage it seemed like she had a fan following already. New people became fans. And more bots and paid accounts padded the numbers.

3. Sunshine Sachs was a huge win for her. They literally created a fan army for her and then made it seems like a bigger deal than it was. I do think they ran a lot of parallel fan campaigns along with hate campaigns for her to make it seem like she was a bigger celebrity than she was.

4. She bought or paid off the more vocal social media accounts covering her. YouTube, twitter, Tumblr accounts. I think she also created fake accounts, dummy profiles and proxy handlers for YT, Ig, Tumblr, Fb etc as both fan accounts and hate accounts, which garnered followers and pushed her desires narrative. She created cults in either side this way.

5. She employeed certain people, who became the face of her hate campaign or defence campaigns. She also recruited the fans, made a group, and gave them directions about what to do. These individuals in turn, ran their own bots, and ran multiple accounts. Which made it seems like their were more people in the squad, when in reality it may just have been 2 people running 15 accounts between them.

This is just my assumption from whatever has become public knowledge about her more fanatic fans. And from what I know of how PR agencies manage/orchestrate fan followings for celebs.

Apart from all the above, MM also benefits from being - a Hollywood celeb. A biracial American celeb. A woman. A College educated and articulate celeb. An LA girl. Relatively unknown, pre-harry. An American. An American married into the whitest, most privileged, very well known high profile family. The underdog and the inherent bias most people have against Britain's colonial past. Being married to an idiot.

Makes sense.

[pinkcrocss]

Limoreau #2: No Two Sides

A/n: Yay! Another One-Shot while I continue to procrastinate on my multi-chapter fics lol

This one ended up being waaayyyy longer than I wanted and I'm not really that happy with it, but if I don't post it now, I literally never will. Anyway, here's my second fanfiction ever.

The initial premise was "Villain!Marie", but it turned into something else

Think, Jordan and Marie on opposing sides

4,400 words

Dodging the path of the laser beam headed towards them, Jordan felt sweat drip down their face as they sent another pulse blast towards their would-be attacker. Knocking her off-balance, Jordan slid across the ground, swapping back into their male form just as an ice-shard was hurled towards them. Checking the perimeter of the room, Jordan could see the bodies of Vought’s security forces strung around as well as one or two incapacitated rebel Supes.

Initially, the fight had begun at the entryway of Vought tower, when they had been ambushed by members of a supe rebel group.

Well, an “ambush” was far from what it truly was, as Vought actually received intel of the imminent attack a few days prior. That’s why they had seen it fit to ensure that Luke, Andre, Jordan and the other remaining members of the Seven would be in Vought tower that day, as well as beefing up their security forces around the perimeter.

The group, Bloodbath, had been slowly growing in popularity and notoriety over the past several years. At first, Vought had tried to obscure any knowledge of the group’s existence. A group of rogue supes, turning on the very company that created them wasn't exactly a good look. But after several high profile attacks on both public and secret Vought facilities, it had become an impossible task. With a campaign of freeing all the imprisoned supes from Vought facilities like Elmira, Shady grove and even the recently exposed “woods”; their aim to “expose Vought’s true corruption”; as well as a charismatic leader, Jordan could almost understand why so many dangerous/unmarketable Supes had begun gravitating to the group.

In all honesty, Vought had probably viewed the upcoming attack as a PR win. An attack from a small group of dissatisfied, defective supes that they could paint as supervillains, defeated by the Seven on their home turf. This was much needed in the wake of homelander’s recent “retirement”. After having subdued him using the strength of the re-awakened Soldier boy in order to stop Homelander's plans for supe domination at the White House, what remained of the seven seemed a weak imitation of what it had once been. Led by Starlight as the new team captain, the remaining ranks consisted of A-train, Silver Kincaid from the UK, and 5 new grads essentially plucked from the top rankings of God U; which just so happened to include Jordan, Luke and Andre. This was the exact PR event Vought needed to highlight the strength of the new Seven. Unfortunately, what they hadn’t counted on, was her.

Jordan was sure that the other members of the Seven were still preoccupied fighting off the small, borderline army of rogue supes infesting every corner of Vought tower. It was becoming more clear that that was the plan all along. 

Initially the attack had started at the entrance of HQ. A barrage of rogue supes going after every human in the vicinity. But as reports started coming in of similar attacks at every major entry and exit of Vought tower, two things were made clear: (1) Vought had severely underestimated exactly how many supes this group had at their disposal and (2) This was a much more coordinated attack than anybody had anticipated. 

The chaotic coordination of the whole thing was what raised Jordan’s suspicions. There didn’t seem to be a goal. They weren’t targeting anyone in particular, nor did they seem to be moving towards any place in particular. It almost felt like a distraction. And that was what led Jordan to branch off on their own and head to the basement, where they knew the archives were held. It would be the most difficult area to infiltrate, seeing as there was no direct entry from the outside.

And that is where Jordan found themselves now, facing off against a more elite delegation of the attacking supes, that had been dutifully attempting to take down the barriers that sealed the Vought archives, for whatever reason, Jordan couldn't fathom.

The security personnel for the archives had already been defeated, and Jordan had managed to take down two of the rogue supes, leaving them to face off with the remaining three: the girl with laser eyes, the guy with ice powers, and a third one that hadn’t done much of anything yet.

Laser girl was once again rising and Jordan had switched back to their female form so they could dodge the projectiles being sent by the Ice guy. Quickly switching to their Male form as they sensed another laser blast coming from the girl, they didn‘t have enough time to avoid the ice sheet that the other supe had created on the ground behind them, before they fell on their back. Slightly disoriented, Jordan attempted to get up, only to feel the ground around them begin to warp. They felt a sudden sharp heat as if they were being surrounded by hot magma. 

Thankfully, being in their male form kept them from taking any physical damage, but the pain could still be felt. Jordan looked up to see the third supe, who until that moment hadn’t been doing much, carefully maneuvering their arms. At the same time, the metallic ground around them started to change shape and wrap around their torso, arms and legs, essentially sealing them to the ground. 

Jordan hastily tried to maneuver their body up in an attempt to free themselves, but as they had assumed, they were well and truly stuck. For now they would stay in their male form to hopefully withstand the barrage of attacks soon to come their way, as they could only pray that one of their team members would have the foresight to also check down in the archives.

As expected both laser girl and ice guy immediately started laying into them with a flurry of attacks. Jordan’s male form could withstand it for now, but they knew eventually the damage would start to bleed through. 

Quickly they closed their eyes to block out any errant ice shards from the bombardment of ice projectiles hitting their torso. They tried to ignore the mounting pressure of the Laser beams at their chest.

“What the hell?? Nothing's working!” Jordan could hear a raspy voice complain. Probably the ice guy, they thought.

A more feminine voice chimed in, “Just keep going. He can't hold out forever.” Laser girl.

Just as Jordan was beginning to lose hope in any actual help arriving in time, they felt both the ice attacks and Laser attacks suddenly come to a stop. They had just enough time to briefly open their eyes before their ears were assaulted with a piercing screech.

They could blearily make out the shapes of various Vought security forces rushing into the room, having finally picked up on the security breach in the archives. The idiots were blasting the high frequency supe repelling alarm, that while having incapacitated Jordan’s three attackers, was also giving them the sensation that their head was going to literally explode.

Unable to maneuver their arms or body in general, Jordan was quickly reaching their breaking point when they saw a sudden flash of red. Turning their head as far as they could, they could see that the Vought security officer that had been holding the alarm device was screaming while bleeding out of a severed arm, the other half laying on the ground, still holding the awful device. 

He could see fear and panic on the faces of the security guards that didn’t have their masks lowered as a figure stepped into the room, followed by two other rebel supes. She strode in confidently, arm outstretched towards the currently bleeding guard. Her long, dark red trench coat swished by her calves, she was wearing her locs in a complicated braid going down her back, and of course the red lipstick Jordan always associated with her on her lips.

The leader of the rebel group bloodbath calmly strode further into the room until she was right next to the guard that was still clutching what was left of their severed arm. She then cooly stepped onto the alarm device, destroying it. As she slowly pulled out her ear plugs, even Jordan gave a relieved sigh at the blissful silence, though they knew the danger was anything but lessened.

There was an eerie stillness in the room as the Vought security personnel began full on panicking, terrified to make a single move. Jordan could hear anxious whispers and mutters around the room.

“That's her isn’t it?”

“...Bloody Marie? That’s what they call her!”

“Shit! I heard she can turn a person inside out and strangle them with their intestines…”

Glancing up at her face, Jordan caught Marie rolling her eyes. “Are they still calling me that dumb-ass name?” She sounded almost exasperated. “Honestly, at this point I’m fully blaming Andre.”

The other formerly incapacitated, rogue, supes began to slowly rise as they recovered from the auditory attack of the anti-supe alarm. Seeing this, the Vought guards, having broken out of their stupor, were quick to point their weapons towards the immediate threat in the room, Marie.

Seeing a flash of rage on Marie’s face Jordan tried to prevent the inevitable, “MARIE! NO!”

It was already too late as the room descended into a cacophony of head explosions. The guards were running and ducking in panic, some attempting to shoot her with their weapons. 

Marie would simply cause the arms of the guards pointing their guns to explode before turning her sights to more of her victims. Jordan could do nothing but close their eyes as they tried to dissociate from the screams of agony and fear. 

Finally, after what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, there was quiet. They could hear heavy breathing and the sound of liquid dripping. As they opened their eyes and took a look around, they could see how Marie’s little group truly lived up to their name, Bloodbath. 

The entire area was awash in red blood. Dripping down the walls and pooling around the bodies on the ground. Glancing at Marie's face, she looked completely out of it. Staring ahead as if she was in another place at a different time. Just as suddenly she seemed to snap back into herself, glancing around the room with obviously feigned disinterest before turning her eyes back to the other occupants.

“Mel! Jacob! Great job clearing the scene.” She was smiling and speaking to Laser girl and ice boy.

“Why don’t you head out and stay as lookout while we finish up here. Make sure the corridor stays clear for at least another fifteen minutes.”

The two supes nodded in deference, before quickly stumbling out. Still reeling from the after effects of the noise attack.

Seemingly satisfied that she had the appropriate lookouts, Marie walked over to join the other two supes she had brought along with her.

The first was a thin, small mousy looking young girl with Dark skin and big round eyeglasses. The other was a rather stocky, heavy set white guy with limp, brown hair and freckles all over his face.

Marie was looking at the girl, a gentle hand laid on her shoulder. “Hey, Aisha. You got this okay? Just like we practiced.”

The girl who had been staring at the ground nervously, looked up at Marie with pure adoration. You would think Marie had hung the moon in the sky.

“Okay…” she answered in a quiet, shy voice, before bounding over to the keypad that granted access to the security doors of the archives. Jordan watched as she gently placed her fingers on the keypad before her eyes started to emit a bright green glow and she almost seemed to fall into a trance, muttering an array of fast moving words and equations that Jordan could barely make out.

Turning around to the other Supe, Marie angled her head to gesture towards the locked opening of the main archives. “Marco, you know what to do.”

Giving an affirmative nod, Marco, the bigger supe, calmly headed off to stand where Marie had indicated.

Jordan immediately felt when Marie’s eyes landed on them. The weight of Marie’s gaze had become a familiar sensation now. Of the various encounters they had had when dispatched to handle yet another Bloodbath attack on a Vought center, it was a sensation they always seemed to seek out. Sometimes they felt it, sometimes they didn’t.

In the time that they had been lost in their own head, Marie had managed to saunter over to where they were still melded into the ground. Now she crouched down and gently looked over them.

“Jordan…So sorry, you had to get caught up in this.” Her face slipped into a gentle smile. 

“Although, I shouldn’t be surprised you were the only one who saw through our little distraction play.” She let out a humorless chuckle.

“Marie.” Jordan plead. “You have to stop this. Look at all these casualties.” 

Here they tried to angle their head towards the dead bodies scattered all around the room. “This can’t be worth it.”

Marie’s face looked blank. Jordan thought back to all the glimpses of her they’d caught over the years as Bloodbath had been growing into a bigger  threat. Ever elusive, Jordan and the rest of the seven were never able to pin her down as she and her fiercely loyal cohorts would destroy more and more of Vought's detainment centers, leaving behind mass human casualties and adding more unstable supes to their ranks. Those same supes pledging themselves to Marie with a devotion that bordered on spiritual.

Just as quickly, a different glimpse of Marie flashed through their mind. A young, fresh-faced, doe-eyed Marie. Freshly enrolled in God U, fawning over Jordan as if they’d hung the stars up in the sky, desperately excited to join Brink’s crime fighting course and make her way into the seven.

Jordan hadn’t even thought twice about rejecting her. No social media presence, unmarketable powers, she was probably just some overly entitled freshman, Mommy and daddy’s perfect little hero, Jordan had thought. Probably never heard no before in her life. If only they had known…

If they had known, would it have changed anything? If they had known about Red river.. If they had known brink was gonna frame her for the accident at the Vought tower party… if they had known about Elmira, about the woods, about Brink… would they have intervened? Could they have prevented what happened?

Jordan was brought out of their thoughts by a scoff from Marie. Looking up, they caught sight of glaring at them sideways.

“Jordan… Vought has to be brought down. Whatever sacrifices have to be made will be worth it.”

“Really?!” Jordan was frustrated now. 

“Is this what it’s about? Some kind of vengeance kick by just aimlessly slaughtering humans? You think that’s gonna help anybody??!”

Marie actually looked dumbfounded for a minute. “Aimlessly… Ugh, Jordan! Oh my god, I’m not Homelander! This isn’t some fucking supe-supremacy shit. This is about bringing down Vought! I’m not just going after innocent humans.”

Jordan thinks back to that fateful Night at Godolkin. The blood and bodies all over the front entrance to the freshman dorms. As Vought had reported, one of the new freshmen had gone crazy. Lost her mind they said. There were reports that she had been causing a disturbance threatening other students, and when Godolkin had sent security to check it out, she had murdered them in cold blood. 12 innocent humans. Their bodies eviscerated so badly, it was borderline impossible to distinguish them from one another. Then she had supposedly run off, not to be heard from again until a month later when there was a violent break-in at the Elmira Adult facility. 

Jordan could remember the somber faces of the family members of the victims at the Vigil that was held at Godolkin. That was a sight they would never forget.

They looked Marie coldly in the eye. “Is that why you senselessly murdered those 12 people back at Godolkin? In cold Blood??!”

“Senseless… In cold bl-” her mouth gave a sardonic twist. 

“Wow, Jordan. And here I thought you were one of the smarter ones. You truly drank the Vought koolaid, huh? Was it worth it? Kissing ass? Ignoring what was right in front of you so you could get that cushy little spot in the Seven? I can’t believe I actually..”

Here she seemed to stop herself. Jordan almost questioned her before she suddenly turned to look them square in the eye. Jordan could see nothing but rage in her eyes.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHERE I’D BE IF I HADN’T FOUGHT BACK THAT NIGHT?!” The other two occupants in the room flinched, and seeing this, Marie tried to compose herself.

“Innocent people? Please.” Here she gave another eye roll.

“Vought sent those thugs to kidnap me. To take me to Elmira since your precious Brink kicked me out. You never questioned why they sent Vought security to handle an “out of control student” instead of campus security? You never questioned why they were wearing tactical gear? You never noticed the fucking van at the crime scene?”

Jordan tried to ignore the growing anxiety they could feel at the back of their mind. Because yes. The story had always seemed a bit convenient. But what else did they have to go off of?

“They would have kept me there indefinitely. I would have never been free again. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, huh? I mean, you let the woods happen right under your nose.” At this Marie sent them a sadistic smirk.

Jordan felt their face go hot. They recalled when the woods had finally been exposed. Marie and her cohorts had broken into the school. Freeing the trapped kids and revealing all the sick and twisted experimentation that had been happening. The newly freed inhabitants had immediately set upon the school, desperate to enact their vengeance. 

At the end of the day it had been an aptly named bloodbath. The students at the school and Marie’s group had lost people on both sides. Including Luke’s brother. Luke had been inconsolable. 

At the end of the day, Brink, Shetty and a Dr. Cardosa had all been implicated when everything came to light. Jordan had been heartbroken. Contending with the fact that his only father figure as well as moral compass had been mixed up in all of that.

Marie was still speaking. “I mean, when I got there do you know what they were doing to poor Aisha?” At this, she sent a gentle look to the young girl who seemed to be communing with the unseen computer codes within the archive’s security system.

“They had her hooked up to all these devices, trying to see if they could overload her with all the information on the world wide web! She was catatonic for WEEKS after we rescued her!”

Jordan tried to imagine it, and their heart broke a little.

“Jordan.” Marie went on. “This all begins and ends with Vought. Homelander, Soldier boy, Shetty, Brink, me… there’s one common denominator. All the lies, all the corruption, all the bloodshed. If the rest of the world knew what Vought truly was, maybe everyone else could have a chance. Maybe all this misery could actually count for something.”

Now her eyes were looking into theirs imploringly. Jordan tried to think of what to say but was quickly interrupted before they could. 

“Marie! I’m in!” Squeaked an excitable little voice.

Marie turned around, a proud smile on her face. “Aisha, that’s amazing! I told you could do it! Now stand back a bit. Marco, you know what to do.”

The girl, Aisha, did as she was told just as there was a muted BOOM sound.

Jordan flinched, but Marie gently reassured them. “Don’t worry about it. Marco’s gotten really good at controlling the range of his explosive output.” You could almost think Marie was just an older sister cheering on her younger siblings at some kind of school competition. 

Glancing up, Jordan could see acrid smoke around a hole in the center of the archive doors. Just as quickly Marie got up and began making her way over. Pulling some kind of device out of her pockets, she handed it to Aisha, gently murmuring some instructions to her and sending her off.

Jordan was starting to feel panicked. 

“Marie!” They called. “Marie! You can’t do this!”

Marie gave a pause but kept walking.

“I’m sorry!” 

That made her stop.

“I’m sorry! Okay?” Jordan continued. “I’m sorry I rejected you from Intro. I was shallow and I made some dumbass assumptions about you. I’m sorry we left you behind at the Vought tower party. I’m sorry I bought into Brink’s bullshit; that I didn’t realize he’d make you take the fall. I’m sorry I let Vought almost take you. I’m sorry I was so fucking blind okay? But please, Marie. I’m begging you. There has to be another way.”

Marie, who had been frozen up until that moment, sighed, looking almost defeated. Slowly, she made her way to Jordan and crouched down again.

“Jordan… you don’t have anything to be sorry for. My fight was never with you or the other supes, or even the Seven. This isn’t about humans vs. supes, this isn’t some personal vendetta, this is about Vought. All of us are just pawns in the system, and the only way to end this, for our kind to be free, is to bring down Vought.”

She made sure to look Jordan straight in the eye. “You're not a person to them Jordan, you’re a product. I’m trying to save you. Us. All of us.”

They were both looking into each other's eyes. Neither willing to break their stalemate, before Laser girl suddenly came bursting into the room.

“Marie! We tried to hold them off but they’ve figured out we’re down here. I think they’re bringing reinforcements.”

Marie turned to face the door to the archive room. “Aisha?”

The timid girl gave a nod. “I’ve downloaded everything we need.”

Marie gave a sigh of relief. “Okay.” 

Turning back to Jordan, she gently stroked the side of their face. “Jordan, at some point you’re going to see Vought for what they truly are. And when you do, I’ll come and find you. Believe it or not, I always had a spot saved for you, right by my side.”

And with that she bent down, softly brushing her lips on Jordans cheek before getting up to join the rest of her crew.”

Jordan could only watch her lean figure strut confidently out of the room, feeling something like a pang in their chest. They’d have to address that some other time.

As they lay in their grounded prison, waiting for reinforcements to come and finally release them, they could hear shouting and commotion out in the corridor. The reinforcements must have run into Marie’s group. For some reason, this time as they listened to sounds of screaming and agony and fear, all they felt was a cool numbness.

The Next Day

“Tonight breaking news! As new leaks expose decades of violence and corruption from the highest levels of Vought international. Reports detailing the debauched and downright violent behavior of some of Vought’s most beloved heroes, including years of cover ups. Furthermore, the FBI will be investigating accounts of Vought institutionalizing and holding supes against their will in various-”

Ashley quickly paused the news report as she turned to the members of the seven seated around the table in the meeting room of Vought Tower. All of them were in various states of repair as they healed from battles they had fought the day prior. 

Jordan for their part had their arm in a sling, from where it had been bent at an uncomfortable angle for too long and had caused a strain. Other than that, most of their superficial wounds had already healed up. On their cheek, they still felt the ghost of Marie’s touch.

Ashley was in full panic Mode.

“We’re so fucked! Okay, we gotta figure out how to spin this. Homelander’s not around anymore, so we can definitely try to pin the woods and Elmira as his doing. I mean they can’t prove otherwise, he was the face of the company for years!”

Jordan watched as she absentmindedly pulled out a thin chunk of hair.

“Shit! But what can we do about the insider trading and the russian arms deal? Jordan!”

Jordan looked up, the other team members also looking in their direction.

“Jordan this is perfect!” Ashley barreled on. “We need to make sure the younger generations aren’t spreading the mainstream narrative on social media, so that’s where you come in! We’ve been thinking up a new pride campaign for you, you know since pride month’s coming up. This will be a great distraction. You talk about your gender identity, how accepting your parents were, how Vought gave you the confidence to-”

Jordan tuned her out as they watched her ramble with an almost manic smile on her face.

“You’re not a person. You’re a product to them.”

Those words still rattled around in their head.

All Jordan had ever wanted to do was be a hero. But more and more, they were realizing that they no longer knew what that meant. They’d accomplished their biggest dream. They were in the seven, and yet they realized they hadn’t felt heroic even once the whole time they’d been here.

The feeling of this revelation reminded them of how they had felt when they had learned the truth about Brink.

“...at some point you’re going to see Vought for what they truly are. And when you do, I’ll come and find you.”

Jordan recalled those words, as they stared out the large windows of Vought tower, dissociating from the meeting still happening around them.

Perhaps they could take a walk tonight, they thought. To clear their head. No thoughts, just simply see where their feet would take them.

[annislittleshopofhorrors]

I think people need to understand that Hollywood is a business. Things happen behind the scenes that would shock the world. Numerous narratives are “sold” and people believe stuff without questioning anything. The reason it’s so easy to flip flop back and forth between Hollywood gossip is one, you don’t truly know these individuals to make a valid statement, everything is an opinion, based on what’s being sold, plus your own individual opinions, beliefs and experiences. Two is because numerous things are planned to create various narratives…..to keep people talking about *insert any celebrity*, it’s a business, try not to take anything personal.

Now in terms of fans getting looped into Hollywood’s crap, you all need to realize……things aren’t always as they appear. Hollywood cares about money, not you nor these celebrities. They don’t even care enough about their own talent to pay majority of them livable wages. Many high profile celebrities aren’t as “free” to do as they please as many want to believe. Nothing in life is free. If things are upsetting you, walk away. You have a responsibility to yourselves to understand no one is holding any of you hostage nor forcing you to keep up with mess you think you know, yet have no actual clue about.

Many can’t see how they’ve driven themselves mad over things based on their own individual interpretations.

In terms of this Chris Evans situation, many have either chosen to wait to see wedding photos, get confirmation from him or his rep, see him with a ring etc. others are believing any and all thing’s presented and have chosen to believe the inevitable because that’s what it seems, others are gloating for being “right”, not once questioning ……why they were given breadcrumbs and “tea” about said wedding let alone relationship for the past year.

See, people can say he’s married, he’s not married, there was or wasn’t a wedding, It’s real, it’s PR, but in this current moment you all don’t have concrete evidence of anything to 100% go it’s was….*insert opinion*.

See if Chris pops up with ring and says he’s married then you accept reality and move on, some will stay just to watch the continuation of said “shitshow” as it’s been dubbed.

But…..if Chris is announced days, a week, weeks from now to have NEVER been married, it’s going to be a shock to many and they are going to question their sanity, why……..because people still can’t see how their own behaviors have fed into this. Page Six ran a story and EVERYONE jumped on it based on again….their own opinions, breadcrumbs, tea, gossip, guesses, etc. Everyone wants to be “in the know” so MULTIPLE news outlets ran with it, it’s at a stand still……that keeps people, especially those in this fandom talking, wondering and guessing.

This fandom loves to act like they know Chris, yet this all seems so confusing the way he’s acting and what not……right? You all think he’s lost it, is a shitty person, is in a pr situation, is married, etc. maybe Chris never “changed”.

I could say Chris isn’t married and I’d get cursed out or called delusional. I could say Chris is married and be questioned with where’s the ring and marriage license.

I want you all to learn how not to fall ploy into Hollywood bs. If you don’t have concrete evidence of something don’t believe it and even if you think you have solid “evidence” ALWAYS question it.

You guys will be fine and so will Chris. In due time this will all be a faded memory of bs.

Take Care and choose whatever you want to believe but don’t be surprised if you end up “shocked” in the end.

Also, many individuals need to log off and return to reality. If you’re being rude to others and acting superior like you have Chris on speed dial to confirm or deny anything……log off. If you’re gloating or trying to scream how it’s “so obvious” he’s married or not married while calling people delusional for believing or not believing what’s being presented…log off.

If you’re emotionally sick from this please understand you’re too invested and it’s time to walk away. Chris is human and people have placed him on a pedestal over the years, he’s a freaking normal guy who’s widely known and rich, other than that why are you allowing this man to get your blood pressure up?! 🤨☺️ Don’t do that, no person is worth your health. 💙

Again, everyone can believe whatever they want, but I suggest you all fully wait this mess out until ACTUAL confirmation from Chris’ side and if any of you truly believe he’s married…..why even continue entertaining any of this foolishness?

To those who refuse to believe what’s being presented and are waiting for “official” confirmation, once you get it you’ll know what’s what and then you can decide if you want to continue to support him or simply part ways…..it’s as simple as that.

I think that's the current status, everyone is waiting for a confirmation or the wedding pics or both.

[ausssbutlershortstories]

So the girl who posted the Canada video on Twitter, Bri, is the same girl who asked the woman on Tik Tok to post it 🤭 The desperation is reaching new heights.

I'm not sure what the shippers are trying to prove with that video. If it was taken last week or today, sure they'd have a leg to stand on. But a break up seems more than likely at the moment.

The thing that stands out to me are these back to back L&S articles from last week. I mean, I don't anyone outside the fandom really pays enough attention to this relationship to make up stories to the press. It's not like JLO and Ben where both parties are high profile and everyone is watching there every move. Austin and Kaia are not at that level as a couple.

So to me, those articles seem like they are coming from PR of both Austin and Kaia. Why create break up rumors you know? Seems silly when they world doesn't care about them as a couple.

So while Bri may have gotten a happy moment for a day, I think the break up rumors are only going to heat up as Kaia starts promo for her new movies.

IDK why they are so sold on this Canada video . Like and you all KNOW I am on the fence, but this canada video…I am not sold lol so nice try to the shippers but no lol

[mariacallous]

Right then, while you fumble for your credit cards, I will talk about the rise of fakery: fake news, fake images, fake audio, fake politics.

Let me begin with someone I know. I admire Michela Wrong enormously. She does what journalists are meant to do: she afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.

Her beat was Africa, and Michela spent her career puncturing the West’s illusions about its rulers.

After Paul Kagame’s forces overthrew Rwanda’s genocidal Hutu regime in 1994, the world wanted to believe in a fairy story. The mass murder of Rwanda’s Tutsi population would be followed by peace, reconciliation and justice, it thought, as it threw praise and money at Kagame’s government.

Rwanda became the darling of the global aid industry. Under New Labour and the Tories, Kagame was feted.

Now our Conservative government declares that Rwanda is such a serene and safe country, Britain can dump asylum seekers there without the smallest concern for their safety or the faintest suspicion that corrupt officials will siphon off taxpayers’ money.

It was such a compelling story.  Kagame and his idealistic group of young rebel fighters overthrow a genocidal regime ushering in an era of peace and stability. Under his leadership Rwanda became the West’s donor darling, hailed as Africa’s “Switzerland” or “Singapore”

The compelling story was also such balls. Michela exposed the lies, and has suffered a campaign of terrifying vilification as a result.

 As AI and deep fake technology advance, not only journalists, politicians and celebrities, but potentially all of us can suffer equally ferocious attacks as calumny becomes ever easier to manufacture.

But first let me tell you what happened to Michela, then I will move on to the wider implications.

 Her Do Not Disturb, and what a sweet title that was for a book about comfortable myths, was published in 2021.

She looked at the regime’s pursuit of opposition leaders, human rights activists and journalists. She showed how its critics were beaten and cowed into silence. And how, in the most high-profile cases, they  “disappeared,” never to be seen again.

Michela has had her own punishment beating

Writing in this morning’s Observer she described how the regime hired a British  PR company to coordinate the online hate attacks. She expected abuse after the book was published but….

What followed still took my breath away. A tide of vilification, expressed in petition form, on specially created websites, in pseudonymous Amazon reviews, and spread by literally hundreds of anonymous social media accounts. Almost all ignored the topic of my book – Kagame’s extraterritorial assassination campaign – while repeating certain tropes. I’d always taken it as read I would be accused of racism. What was extraordinary, though, for a journalist who reported on the 1994 genocide for Reuters and the BBC, was to be accused of “genocide denial”. But there was method in this malevolence. Genocide denial is now an accusation hurled at pretty much any government critic – including members of Kagame’s minority Tutsis who lost loved ones during the genocide. But it’s a crime in Rwanda, carrying a potential 10-year sentence, so I could in theory be arrested if I boarded a plane touching down in Kigali. When a Brussels restaurant owner cancelled my event after a tsunami of tweets and emails, I wondered if I even needed to worry about being arrested in Belgium. Rwandan government supporters have pushed for the EU’s laws on Holocaust denial to embrace supposed “negationists” like me.

Michela now wakes screaming in the night. Her nightmares convince her that Rwandan agents have broken into her flat.

“In the morning, I sometimes find chairs, duvets and pillows stuffed against the front door: my anxiety has bubbled up in my sleep. A therapist would probably mutter ‘PTSD’.”

As everyone who has been on the receiving end of hate campaigns knows, they work. Years of accusations that Michaela is a “racist” and “genocide denier” meant that…

“Anyone thinking of inviting me to speak at a conference or write an article will, on Googling my name, be presented with a list of accusations only the most stout-hearted – or those who know Rwanda – will casually brush away.”

The experience of Michela Wrong will become commonplace. Here without me needing to go out of my way to find them is a selection of stories from the past few days

Millions of people came across fake sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift on social media. The White House Press Secretary told ABC News the Biden administration was "alarmed" by what happened to Swift online and that Congress "should take legislative action."

As it turns out, there is no federal law in the U.S. that would prevent or deter someone from creating and sharing non-consensual deepfake images. But there is a profitable commercial industry that thrives on creating and sharing digitally manufactured sexual content.

Do not think that fakery is confined to the famous

Yesterday the Times told the story of Helen Mort. In 2020 she found a fake porn film with images of her face taken from social media. Like Micheala she was horrified. She was even more horrified when she discovered that “an estimated 95 per cent of deepfakes online are non-consensual porn featuring women”.

As in the US, there is no single criminal offence in England and Wales that governs the taking, making and sharing of intimate images without consent.

On Thursday digital forensic investigators in Germany uncovered a vast, pro-Russia disinformation campaign against the Berlin government. It used tens of thousands of fake accounts on the social media platform X to attack Germany’s support for Ukraine. Russia generated more than 1m German-language posts from an estimated 50,000 fake accounts. They were dispatched at a rate of two every second.

On Friday Scientific American reported on how artificial intelligence was creating fake tapes of high school principals giving racist speeches. It also automatically generated calls, apparently from Joe Biden, urging citizens not to vote.

“Society,” the journal concluded, “may be woefully unprepared to deal with the resulting inevitable wave of digital fraud and the looming implication that any media item could be fraudulent.”

I don't know where that may in Scientific American’s conclusion came from. Society clearly is woefully unprepared,

Hany Farid, a computer science professor at the University of California described how the malicious actors held all the cards. It was incredibly easy to perpetrate a fraud, he explained.

“I record a person and clone their voice. And then I record myself saying what I want them to say with all the intonation—bad words and all—and it converts my voice into their voice. It’s all the same underlying generative AI technology.”

When it came to uncovering fraud, however…

“Detection is harder because it’s subtle; it’s complicated; the bar is always moving higher. I can count on one hand the number of labs in the world that can do this in a reliable way. That’s disconcerting.”

The falsely accused teachers will find it very hard to clear their name. While those who want to believe malicious fakery will feel justified in doing so.

As well as the innocent being falsely accused, the guilty will be able to say that they are innocent victims and AI generated the evidence against them.

As the technology for fakery explodes, and as states like Rwanda that no one believed capable of running propaganda operations and character assassination campaigns try to distort debate, the question arises what do we do.

I disagree with many of my fellow free-speech defenders who think that little or nothing should be done.  We cannot go on with the Clinton era dispensation, which gave legal immunities to tech companies, without the rule of law falling into disrepute.

Everyone caught up in fake news attacks is baffled by the shortage of legal remedies against the AI companies that are profiting from their misery.

But clearly the law can only go so far. A deep fake outfit based in Northern Cyprus or some other bad land is effectively beyond the rule of law.

It strikes me that there are two possible futures.

The first isn’t so bad. People just shrug when dirt is thrown. They assume the evidence poisonous ideologues and movements use against their hate objects is fake.  Or they follow the “ye without sin cast the first stone” principle. Or, and you can see this happening now, they say that when so many are attacked or are capable of being attacked, once shocking accusations lose their sting.

The second is, I am afraid, as likely. 

Every election is swamped with fake news. The defeated side refuses to accept that they lost in a free-and-fair contest. High levels of trust, on which contented and prosperous societies depend, collapse. As more of us become like Michela Wrong and fear the power of the new technologies to destroy us, the more suspicious our world becomes.

[csrmagnovite24]

GREENWASHING GONE GREEN

Even though JP Morgan joined the Net Zero Banking Alliance and plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the company is nonetheless criticised for its ongoing backing of the fossil fuel sector. Critics contend that despite funding green projects and lowering carbon intensity in particular industries, these activities are overlooked. 

JP Morgan continues to be a significant lender of the oil and gas industry in spite of its pledges, so aiding businesses that are considering expansions that would result in greater pollution. This raises questions about real sustainability activity in light of competitors like Citi's stronger regulations.

Reducing carbon intensity in specific industries, such as energy, alone does not provide the whole picture. JP Morgan's 50% revenue criteria permits finance for businesses like Glencore that have ongoing coal projects, in contrast to competitors' efforts to phase out coal. This strategy calls into doubt the bank's sincere dedication to addressing climate change from all angles.

Low-impact indicators and ongoing commerce with fossil fuel corporations seem to undermine high-profile sustainability pledges. There's rising skepticism over JP Morgan's strategy's compatibility with its declared objectives of environmental leadership.

JP Morgan’s CSR initiatives are further complicated by ongoing legal disputes that reveal internal difficulties linked to diversity and inclusion. In light of these allegations, the bank's capacity to exhibit a sincere dedication to social responsibility is called into doubt.

 JP Morgan, with its enormous resources and power, is at a crossroads. Can the bank take these critiques to heart, create a more thorough and open sustainability plan, and accept its leadership position in battling climate change and advancing social justice? The public's trust is at risk.

TASK IN HAND 

As JP Morgan's head of CSR, will have to come up with 

·      press release defending and outlining your actions 

·      a new CSR campaign to win back stakeholders' trust

·      PR strategies  

·      An idea for a new alliance or partnership like Net Zero Banking Alliance to foster a more sustainable future 

DELIVERABLES:

·      A ppt of not more than 7 slides 

·      A press release 

·      A promotional poster for the introduced CSR campaign

DEADLINE 11:00 AM

[celticcrossanon]

BRF Reading - 1st of December, 2022

This is speculation only

Cards drawn on the 1st of December, 2022

Question: How does Meghan Markle feel about Prince William being in America for Earthshot?

Interpretation: She feels overshadowed and is trying to bring Prince William down.

Card One: The Ace of Pentacles. Aces are new beginnings, and Pentacles are about finances and the material world. Meghan sees this visit by Prince William as a chance to make money. The card shows Poseidon, the god of the sea, rising up out of the water. Water represents emotions in the language of the tarot. Meghan wants to use this event emotionally to create new financial opportunities for herself, either by emotionally blackmailing Prince William so she can be a part of the event (which didn't work if she tried it), or linking herself to him in some emotional way (such as the invitation of the Sussexes for Prince William to visit them while they were in America, an invitation that was put out by their PR and not taken up by Prince William. The emotional bit here was linking herself to Prince William as his sister in law and using that to get money somehow). Neither of these approaches worked.

Meghan will continue to try and make money out of this visit by her brother in law, either by playing up the family tie between them or by trying to stir people up against Prince William (using emotions against him) as she paints herself as the victim of some perceived injustice for the sympathy and the financial opportunities it brings her. Meghan wants to make money from this visit in what ever way she can.

Card Two: The Nine of Wands. In the Rider Waite tarot, this is a card of holding your ground or your position in the face of adversity, and this is the energy that I am getting from this card. Meghan sees this visit to the USA by Prince William as undermining her position. It specifically shows up and destroys all her attempts to be seen as royal, as it shows what a real royal visit looks like, and whatever Meghan has attempted to do in the past is clearly not royal. It also shows very clearly that Meghan is not included in high profile royal events, and that also undermines her 'royal' status. She is being shown to be not a member of the royal family in a very public way (as if she was an important member she would be included in Earthshot somehow).

The card shows the ship the Argo navigating through the clashing rocks. This is how Meghan feels - the visit of Prince William is like the two rocks, set to crush her between them so she sinks without a trace. She feels that she has to be sneaky and navigate her passage through the two rocks/her actions around the royal visit so she survives relatively unscathed. In the story, the Argo lost the projection off its stern as it went through the rocks, but was otherwise unscathed. Meghan is hoping to emerge with her royal status intact in a like manner.

Wands are PR, so I expect Meghan to produce PR around this visit (yes, I know that is like saying I expect her to breathe). As she is in a position of having to try and hold her ground, I expect her to try to bring Prince William down and crush him before he can undermine her 'royal' status any further. She may release PR to show how much better and more 'royal' she is than Prince William, or to try and overshadow him and take the media attention for herself in some way (such as the Ripple of Hope award). She might attempt to ride on the coattails of the Earthshot publicity (e.g. by equating it with her bought for award). She might even attempt to play the 'Happy Family with my brother in law" card, although that seems extremely far fetched.

This is another card with water in it, and water represents emotions in the tarot. The water here is turbulent leading up to the rocks, and smooth behind them. I think that Meghan is feeling a lot of churned up emotions around this visit, and that will be reflected in the PR that she puts out. After the visit, when Prince William is back in the UK, she may even release "secret visit with William and Kate" PR or "olive branch" PR, to show how things are supposedly smoothed over between them, as the water on the other side of the rocks is smooth and calm, although that will depend if she can make it seem possible with both their schedules.

The Nine of Wands is traditionally a card of mental illness, so that topic may appear in some way as well.

Card Three: The Page of Swords. Pages are messages, and/or the beginnings of things, and the Page of Swords is particularly about communication, especially of the spiteful kind. In this deck it is one of my cards for gossip, especially spiteful gossip. Carrying on from the card above, this tells me that Meghan is going to be up to her old tricks on social media, communicating/spreading nasty and spiteful gossip about Prince William to try and bring him down (and/or about his wife, Princess Catherine).

The card shows one of the gods of the winds, whose name escapes me at the moment, but like the wind reaches everywhere all over the world, Meghan wants social media to spread her nasty gossip all over the world. This approach has never worked for her in the past, so I don't know why she thinks it will work now, but it is most likely what she is planning to do. Swords are media as well as social media, so she may foster some nastiness in the media about Earthshot (I'm thinking about how her squad helped lay the ground for and fan the flames of the biased and negative reports from the Caribbean Tour).

However it materialises. there should be some attempt at spiteful gossip on social media and/or other media, either creating it, spreading it, and/or supporting it.

Pages can also be children, and if this was an earth or water card I would suspect an attack on the Cambridge children, but it is air (swords are air signs) and the only air baby is Lili, and I can't see how she would be involved with this (apart from an obvious video or full face reveal for attention).

Underlying Energy: The Five of Pentacles. This is the card of exile, of being and outcast, and that is exactly how Meghan feels. She feels left out in the cold.

If you look at the card, it shows the craftsman Daedalus leaving the city of Athens because he murdered his nephew - the city is barred to him because of his acts. This is how Meghan feels - shut out, and shut out of something that is rich (the pentacles on the house) and stable and hers by right (as Daedalus is by birth a citizen of Athens). The fact that she has shut herself out of the event by her own actions, like Daedalus was exiled from Athens because of his actions, just does not occur to her. In Meghan's mind all her actions have been justified and there is no reason to shut her out of Earthshot; she should be there raking in the money as the star of the show (I repeat, this is in Meghan's mind and not in anyone else's mind).

The energy of this card is as if Meghan expected to be made welcome at Earthshot, to be asked to present one of the prizes, to be an honoured guest at the event. Yes, that is completely delusional thinking, but that is the energy. Meghan feels as if she has been shut out/exiled/left out of something that she views as her right (The 'I'm a member of your family so you have to include me' thinking, as well as the 'You have to include me because the event is in America and I'm the American in the family' thinking).

The energy is of Meghan seeing Earthshot as this big event with lots of money making opportunities, and her not being happy that she has been excluded from the event. There is an energy of injustice around this shutting out, as if Meghan thinks that it is not fair that she has been excluded as she didn't do anything to deserve it. Because of this energy of injustice, there is a desire for revenge in the energy as well - you didn't include me so I am going to bring you down - that sort of energy.

Conclusion: If Prince William had said he would visit Meghan, or if he had included her in the Earthshot Award Ceremony, she would have enjoyed his visit to the USA. As it is, she feels that she has been exiled/excluded/left out in the cold, and that upsets her. By not including her in his events, Prince William has denied her the opportunity to make money and to raise her profile (and hence make more money). Instead, he has very clearly shown that he does not consider her royal enough or important enough to participate (In Meghan's eyes). This is a threat to Meghan's status as a royal, a status that she uses to get deals and make money. She feels under threat and that she has to fight to maintain her royal status (such as it is, most media already refer to her as an ex-Royal).

Meghan will fight to hold on to what little status she has left using PR and spiteful gossip. She will most likely use PR to try and link herself to Earthshot in some way, to use the event for her own advantage. At the same time she will use PR and spiteful gossip to try and pull Prince William down/smear his name, so her position looks better. She wants to use his visit and the Earthshot awards to promote herself and to grab every money making opportunity that she can from it (including things like using it to keep her in the news because of upcoming projects).

[downtowncats]

I've been thinking about Larry since Louis's interview and all the articles started appearing. More specifically, what is the point of Larry? Louis has growth potential, but he stalls out. I think a big part of that is Larry.

There's two parts to Larry. There is the relationship, whatever it is, and the business strategy. I see these as independent ideas. I don't think Larry, the relationship needs to be true to sell Larry, the business strategy. I also don't think the ending of Larry, the business strategy is necessarily the ending of Larry, the relationship. I think they are separate.

More under the cut...

It is a business strategy. If you have any doubt, do a quick google search on Louis's interview and count the articles. All top tier media. Or count the brands in Harry's recent Umbro walk. Larry gets the clicks. There's a lot of discourse. Engagement is high. Larry is a revenue stream for both of them. It's planned and coordinated. It's not coincidences.

Louis's recent press tour (and the Larry denial at the end) was to raise his profile to sell more tickets. I think from a marketing perspective, there's not much of a story to promote. He uses the same talking points in every interview. He won't share anything specific about his personal life, except that one thing, which is also an engagement tool in my opinion, although not an effective one. He's gorgeous, but also doesn't seem to find value in showcasing his appearance beyond clothing choices. He won't share specifics about his songs or the process of making music. He is locked down. As a new fan, what is the hook?

His biggest marketing tool is Larry, the business strategy. He has denied Larry twice in six months for promotion. He is seeking a bigger audience. Larry, the business strategy can be very effective in fan spaces, but if he keeps using it for promotion in the general public - and the only thing he can do is deny it - then how long is it sustainable? Fans who engage in Larry, the business strategy do not enjoy Larry, the relationship, denials.

Larry the relationship, if it were true, is never going to be public. I can't think of a single reason why they would share their private lives for publicity. Larry, the business strategy is effective because of the mystery. If they were openly together, there is no mystery. What is there left to sell? Their actual relationship. Larry at home in a cover story for your favorite lifestyle magazine? No way.

Louis can't grow with Larry, the business strategy. It is a dead end. Either through attrition or resentment, the effectiveness will continue to decline because of the contradictory nature of his promotion. The only way he can grow is to lose Larry, the business strategy. It's a delicate balance because fans who engage with Larry, the business strategy are very invested in Larry, the relationship, being true or false. There's equally high investment in solo fans that dislike either H or L. It's emotional - it creates discourse - and thus that engagement turns into money. He will lose money if Larry, the business strategy ends. At first.

But think of the new, less guarded Louis that could emerge? His cleverness, the sunshine we sometimes glimpse radiating out of him mixed with a little PR image magic, it could be very good. No more Larry cloud over him. It's a risk. Maybe there is a greater purpose for Larry, the business strategy to still be relevant. Time will tell. I'm interested to see if the festivals have a positive impact. I'm rooting for him. I'll be here waiting to see what happens next.

What do you think would happen if he retired Larry, the business strategy? Do you think it would have a positive impact on his career?

[introvertedlass]

I love that you've created a safe space for people to come and vent if they need to.

I'm very disappointed in Chris. I never bought into that whole real-life Disney Prince image that Disney, Marvel, and his PR team tried and succeeded with the General Public to believe, I didn't believe it, but I never thought he would be this horrible. He's almost the absolute scum of the earth. The absolute scum of the earth is the former 45th president. Or as l like to call him orange 💩.

I knew he wasn't a true activist, I knew he wasn't perfect but I didn't think he was a person who would allow an anti-Semitic, fat shamer, body shamer, nazi lover, nazi sympathizer, cultural appropriater into his life, much less a group of those type of people and then turn around and marry a person like that.

The thing that makes me angry is how he has disrespected his fans. Respect is what he owes his fans. Respect is what all high-profile people (actors,pro athletes, etc.) owe their fans. He has chosen to be disrespectful to his fans by having his PR team, himself, and his family run with the narrative that all of his fans are crazy and unhinged when, in reality, it's a small portion of fans that fit the narrative that he, his family and PR team have been pushing.

At this point, it doesn't matter if it's real, PR, taxi cab theory, or booty call gone wrong. His behavior is inexcusable as well as his attitude towards his fans. WOC and Hspanic/ Latino women have supported him, but as the truth comes out about AB, because it will, there are too many screenshots of her and her friends' SM that show the kind of people they are he will lose more fans and nothing, no amount of cute Dodger photos will bring back the fans he has lost, the ones he is currently losing, and that is on him. He chose to associate himself with her and her friends. He chose to marry her. We, his fans, are people too, and we don't have to support him or his bad behavior. He is now a racist in my book because he chose to marry one. He's an anti-Semitic and a nazi sympathizer because he chose to marry one. He supports fat shaming, cultural appropriation, and body shaming because he chose to marry someone who does all three.

I haven't watched Ghosted, nor will I watch it. I will not be supporting any of his projects from now on. I can't be a fan of his anymore.

I know I'm rambling, but I just needed to get this of my chest.

Sorry Anon. This is quite late. I hope you are feeling better now.