#mcdonalds 2023 ad

[nadaahhmed]

This McDonald's 2023 #RaiseYourArches commercial is marketing genius! Click on the link to find out why📽

[burgers-in-anime]

From September 1, 2023 to September 14, 2023, McDonald's Japan will have promotional tie-ins with Spy × Family and Chiikawa. Happy Meals will contain either a Spy × Family colouring book, or a set of Chiikawa sticker sheets — all McDonald's themed.

(full story here)

[manster426]

2023

[duranduratulsa]

70s McDonalds Gift Certificate Christmas Commercial

Christmas 🎄 Commercial of the day: McDonald's Christmas Commercial #commercial #ad #tvad #mcdonalds #christmas #70s #merrychristmas #merrychristmas2023

[kollectorsrus]

[one-piece-conservation]

One Piece X Mc Donald's Promotional Video

An ad from April 2023 One Piece and McDonald's Collab for Chicken Tatsuta.

Transcript

Narrator: Wealth, fame, tatsuta. The world had it all won by one man: the Pirate King Gold Roger. At his death, the words he spoke drove hunger for countless men out to sea- This year's tatsuta? Find it! I left it at McDonalds. Narrator: And so men set sights on the Grand Line, in pursuit of their dreams. The world has truly entered a Chicken Tatsuta era! Chicken Tatsuta!!! It's back! Chicken Tatsuta! New yuzu Tatsuta! It's a treasure once in a year! Chicken tatsu ta ta~ (Rice Tatsuta) A treasure found in Wano, Rice Chicken Tatsuta. Sanji was recalling Zeff's words: Of course Tatsuta goes well with rice! Someday... I want to try it...!! I finally get to try it-  This tastes great! Don't eat mine. Rice tatsuta! I was waiting for this! Rice Chicken Tatsuta! And, yuzu scented new rice chicken tatsuta too! Next episode, McDonald's "I will eat the rice tatsuta" Rice tatsu ta ta~

-Translated by Marie

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“That Makes Me Smart”

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/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

The Biden administration disappointed, frustrated and enraged in so many ways, including abetting a genocide – but one consistent bright spot over the past four years was the unseen-for-generations frontal assault on corporate power and corporate corruption.

The three words that define this battle above all others are "unfair and deceptive" – words that appear in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and other legislation modeled on it, like USC40 Section 41712(a), which gives the Department of Transportation the power to ban "unfair and deceptive" practices as well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

When Congress created an agency to punish "unfair and deceptive" conduct, they were saying to the American people, "You have a right not to be cheated." While this may sound obvious, it's hardly how the world works.

To get a sense of how many ripoffs are part of our daily lives, let's take a little tour of the ways that the FTC and other agencies have used the "unfair and deceptive" standard to defend you over the past four years. Take Amazon Prime: Amazon executives emailed one another, openly admitting that in their user tests, the public was consistently fooled by Amazon's "get free shipping with Prime" dialog boxes, thinking they were signing up for free shipping and not understanding that they were actually signing up to send the company $140/year. They had tested other versions of the signup workflow that users were able to correctly interpret, but they decided to go with the confusing version because it made them more money:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/amazon-execs-may-be-personally-liable-for-tricking-users-into-prime-sign-ups/

Getting you signed up for Prime isn't just a matter of taking $140 out of your pocket once – because while Amazon has produced a greased slide that whisks you into a recurring Prime subscription, the process for canceling that recurring payment is more like a greased pole you must climb to escape the Prime pit. This is typical of many services, where signing up happens in a couple clicks, but canceling is a Kafkaesque nightmare. The FTC decided that this was an "unfair and deceptive" business practice and used its authority to create a "Click to Cancel" rule that says businesses have to make it as easy to cancel a recurring payment as it was to sign up for it:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/

Once businesses have you locked in, they also spy on you, ingesting masses of commercial surveillance data that you "consented" to by buying a car, or clicking to a website, or installing an app, or just physically existing in space. They use this to implement "surveillance pricing," raising prices based on their estimation of your desperation. Uber got caught doing this a decade ago, raising the price of taxi rides for users whose batteries were about to die, but these days, everyone's in on the game. For example, McDonald's has invested in a company that spies on your finances to determine when your payday is, and then raises the price of your usual breakfast sandwich by a dollar the day you get paid:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Everything about this is "unfair and deceptive" – from switching prices the second you click into the store to the sham of consent that consists of, say, picking up your tickets to a show and being ordered to download an app that comes with 20,000 words of terms and conditions that allows the company that sends you a QR code to spy on you for the rest of your life in any way they can and sell the data to anyone who'll buy it.

As bad as it is to be trapped in an abusive relationship as a shopper, it's a million times worse to be trapped as a worker. One in 18 American workers is under a noncompete "agreement" that makes it illegal for you to change jobs and work for someone else in the same industry. The vast majority of these workers are in low-waged food-service jobs. The primary use of the American noncompete is to stop the cashier at Wendy's from getting an extra $0.25/hour by taking a job at McDonald's.

Noncompetes are shrouded in a fog of easily dispelled bossly bullshit: claims that noncompetes raise wages (empirically, this is untrue), or that they enable "IP"-intensive industries to grow by protecting their trade secrets. This claim is such bullshit: you can tell by the fact that noncompetes are banned under California's state constitution and yet the most IP-intensive industries have attracted hundreds of billions – if not trillions – in investment capital even though none of their workforce can be bound under a noncompete. The FTC's order banning noncompetes for every worker in America simply brings the labor regime that created Silicon Valley and Hollywood to the rest of the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Noncompetes aren't the only "unfair and deceptive" practice used against American workers. The past decade has seen the rise of private equity consolidation in several low-waged industries, like pet grooming. The new owners of every pet grooming salon within 20 miles of your house haven't just slashed workers' wages, they've also cooked up a scheme that lets them charge workers thousands of dollars if they quit these shitty jobs. This scheme is called a "training repayment agreement provision" (TRAP!): workers who are TRAPped at Petsmart are made to work doing menial jobs like sweeping up the floor for three to four weeks. Petsmart calls this "training," and values it at $5,500. If you quit your pet grooming job in the next two years, you legally owe PetSmart $5,500 to "repay" them for the training:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Workers are also subjected to "unfair and deceptive" bossware: "AI" tools sold to bosses that claim they can sort good workers from bad, but actually serve as random-number generators that penalize workers in arbitrary, life-destroying ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/26/hawtch-hawtch/#you-treasure-what-you-measure

Some of the most "unfair and deceptive" conduct we endure happens in shadowy corners of industry, where obscure middlemen help consolidated industries raise prices and pick your pocket. All the meat you buy in the grocery store comes from a cartel of processing and packing companies that all subscribe to the same "price consulting" services that tells them how to coordinate across-the-board price rises (tell me again how greedflation isn't a thing?):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

It's not just food, it's all of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Take shelter: the highly consolidated landlord industry uses apps like Realpage to coordinate rental price hikes, turning the housing crisis into a housing emergency:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

And of course, health is the most "unfair and deceptive" industry of all. Useless middlemen like "Pharmacy Benefit Managers" ("a spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) coordinate massive price-hikes in the drugs you need to stay alive, which is why Americans pay substantially more for medicine than anyone else in the world, even as the US government spends more than any other to fund pharma research, using public money:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

It's not just drugs: every piece of equipment – think hospital beds and nuclear medicine machines – as well as all the consumables – from bandages to saline – at your local hospital runs through a cartel of "Group Purchasing Organizations" that do for hospital equipment what PBMs do for medicine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#luxury-bones

For the past four years, we've lived in an America where a substantial portion of the administrative state went to war every day to stamp out unfair and deceptive practices. It's still happening: yesterday, the CFPB (which Musk has vowed to shut down) proposed a new rule that would ban the entire data brokerage industry, who nonconsensually harvest information about every American, and package it up into categories like "teenagers from red states seeking abortions" and "military service personnel with gambling habits" and "seniors with dementia" and sell this to marketers, stalkers, foreign governments and anyone else with a credit-card:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-proposes-rule-to-stop-data-brokers-from-selling-sensitive-personal-data-to-scammers-stalkers-and-spies/

And on the same day, the FTC banned the location brokers who spy on your every movement and sell your past and present location, again, to marketers, stalkers, foreign governments and anyone with a credit card:

https://www.404media.co/ftc-bans-location-data-company-that-powers-the-surveillance-ecosystem/

These are tantalizing previews of a better life for every American, one in which the rule is, "play fair." That's not the world that Trump and his allies want to build. Their motto isn't "cheaters never prosper" – it's "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware.

Remember the 2016 debate where Clinton accused Trump of cheating on his taxes and he admitted to it, saying "That makes me smart?" Trumpism is the movement of "that makes me smart" life, where if you get scammed, that's your own damned fault. Sorry, loser, you lost.

Nowhere do you see this more than in cryptocurrencyland, so it's not a coincidence that tens – perhaps hundreds – in dark crypto money was flushed into the election, first to overpower Democratic primaries and kick out Dem legislators who'd used their power to fight the "unfair and deceptive" crowd:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2024/02/13/crypto-comes-for-katie-porter-00141261

And then to fight Dems across the board (even the Dems whose primary victories were funded by dark crypto money) and elect the GOP as the party of "caveat emptor"/"that makes me smart":

https://www.coindesk.com/news-analysis/2024/12/02/crypto-cash-fueled-53-members-of-the-next-u-s-congress

Crypto epitomizes the caveat emptor economy. By design, fraudulent crypto transactions can't be reversed. If you get suckered, that's canonically a you problem. And boy oh boy, do crypto users get suckered (including and especially those who buy Trump's shitcoins):

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

And for crypto users who get ripped off because they've parked their "money" in an online wallet, there's no sympathy, just "not your keys, not your coins":

https://www.ledger.com/academy/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-why-it-matters

A cornerstone of the "unfair and deceptive" world is that only suckers – that is, outsiders, marks and little people – have to endure consequences when they get rooked. When insiders get ripped off, all principle is jettisoned. So it's not surprising that when crypto insiders got taken for millions the first time they created a DAO, they tore up all the rules of the crypto world and gave themselves the mulligan that none of the rest of us are entitled to in cryptoland:

https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/07/20/hard-fork-completed

Where you find crypto, you find Elon Musk, the guy who epitomizes caveat emptor thinking. This is a guy who has lied to drivers to get them to buy Teslas by promising "full self driving in one year," every year, since 2015:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/autonomous-driving/timeline-of-tesla-self-driving-aspirations-a9686689375/

Musk told investors that he had a "prototype" autonomous robot that could replace their workers, then demoed a guy in a robot suit, pretending to be a robot:

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-unveils-his-funniest-vaporware-yet-1847523016

Then Musk did it again, two years later, demoing a remote-control robot while lying and claiming that it was autonomous:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/14/tesla-optimus-bots-were-controlled-by-humans-during-the-we-robot-event

This is entirely typical of the AI sector, in which "AIs" are revealed, over and over, to be low-waged workers pretending to be robots, so much so that Indian tech industry insiders joke that "AI" stands for "Absent Indians":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Musk's view is that he's not a liar, merely a teller of premature truths. Autonomous cars and robots are just around the corner (just like the chatbots that can do your job, and not merely convince your boss to fire you while failing to do your job). He's not tricking you, he's just faking it until he makes it. It's not a scam, it's inspirational. Of course, if he's wrong and you are scammed, well, that's a you problem. Caveat emptor. That makes him smart.

Musk does this all the time. Take the Twitter blue tick, originally conceived of as a way to keep Twitter users from being scammed ("unfair and deceptive") by con artists pretending to be famous people. Musk's inaugural act at Twitter was to take away blue ticks from verified users and sell them to anyone who'd pay $8/month. Almost no one coughed up for this – the main exception being scammers, who used their purchased, unverified blue ticks to steal from Twitter users ("that makes me smart").

As Twitter hemorrhaged advertising revenue and Musk became increasingly desperate to materialize an army of $8/month paid subscribers, he pulled another scam: he nonconsensually applied blue ticks to prominent accounts, in a bid to trick normies into thinking that widely read people valued blue ticks so much they were paying for them out of their own pockets:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65365366

If you were tricked into buying a blue tick on this pretense, well, caveat emptor. Besides, it's not a lie, it's a premature truth. Someday all those widely read users with nonconsensual blue ticks will surely value them so highly that they do start to pay for them. And if they don't? Well, Musk got your $8: "that makes me smart."

Scammers will always tell you that they're not lying to you, merely telling premature truths. Sam Bankman-Fried's defenders will tell you that he didn't actually steal all those billions. He gambled them on a bet that (sorta-kinda) paid off. Eventually, he was able to make all his victims (sorta-kinda) whole, so it's not even a theft:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/business/ftx-bankruptcy-plan-repay-creditors/index.html

Likewise, Tether, a "stablecoin" that was unable to pass an audit for many years as it issued unbacked, unregulated securities while lying and saying that for every dollar they minted, they had a dollar in reserves. Tether now (maybe) has reserves to equal its outstanding coins, so obviously all those years where they made false claims, they weren't lying, merely telling a premature truth:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/cryptocriticscorner/episodes/Tether-wins–Skeptics-lose-the-end-of-an-era-e2rhf5e

If Tether had failed a margin call during those years and you'd lost everything, well, caveat emptor. The Tether insiders were always insulated from that risk, and that's all that matters: "that makes me smart."

When I think about the next four years, this is how I frame it: the victory of "that makes me smart" over "fairness and truth."

For years, progressives have pointed out the right's hypocrisy, despite that fact that Americans have been conditioned to be so cynical that even the rankest hypocrisy doesn't register. But "caveat emptor?" That isn't just someone else's bad belief or low ethics: it's the way that your life is materially, significantly worsened. The Biden administration – divided between corporate Dems and the Warren/Sanders wing that went to war on "unfair and deceptive" – was ashamed and nearly silent on its groundbreaking work fighting for fairness and honesty. That was a titanic mistake.

Americans may not care about hypocrisy, but they really care about being stolen from. No one wants to be a sucker.

[norizzsainz]

🌶️ NFY : MCDONALD'S FOR P

[ carlos sainz x singer!fem!reader ] [ wc ] 0.9k words

[ summary ] carlos' and y/n's breakup comes as a surprise to many of their friends. no one ever thought the couple would ever break up, but alas, y/n was always ready to do whatever was best for the love of her life — even if it meant breaking up with him.

[ loki's lines ] this was so much better in my head, contemplating if it should've just stayed there

previous | masterlist | next

━━━━━━━ DECEMBER 03, 2023

max would've burst into laughter on any other day when he saw the way you had arrived at his doorstep.

you wore a hoodie; the strings tightly tied until only your eyes could be seen.

he offered a small smile as your eyes met; brows raised when you lifted a bag to his face.

“mcdonald's for p,” you mumbled. “got you and kelly some food, too.”

max tried not to let his smile fall as he heard your voice, the hoarse tone letting him know you had a really bad cry session — or even multiple of them.

“come on in,” he stated, nodding you inside as he stepped aside after taking the bags from you. “thanks for the food. p will love you forever.”

you only let out a tired chuckle at his words, not adding anything more. max frowned at your lack of response, realizing something was really wrong with you.

you loved p more than anything, and the fact you didn’t say much about max’s words were enough of an indicator as to how bad the situation was.

“aw, babes.” kelly walked towards you with a frown. “what are you trying to do? suffocate yourself?”

“honestly, right now, i'd love that,” you commented with a sigh, wincing as kelly untied the hoodie. “thanks, kels.”

the frown on kelly's face didn't fade; her brows furrowed as she sat you down on the sofa. she observed you well, her gaze softening as she met your bloodshot eyes.

“this isn't like you, y/n. what's wrong?”

max's heart shattered as he watched the way your face scrunched, trying to hold back the inevitable tears that made their way down your face.

you covered your face with your hands, crying harder when kelly pulled you into her embrace, trying to offer any sort of comfort.

“y/n ...” max stood next to you, patting your hair gently as his girlfriend rubbed your back. “tell us what's wrong so we can help.”

“h-he said we had t-to break up.” max frowned, exchanging glances with kelly as you hiccupped over your words.

“carlos? was it his idea to break up?” kelly inquired, confused.

you pulled away from the hug, meeting her gaze. “not carlos.” you shook your head, wiping away your tears with your sleeve.

max tilted his head. “who was it, then?” he asked, waiting for your response.

“his dad. he said we had to break up.”

the couple’s eyes widened, never having guessed your ex-boyfriend’s father would’ve intervened in the relationship and forced you to break up with him.

“what? why the fuck would he do that?”

max sat on the coffee table in front of the sofa you sat on, fisting his hands by his side as he looked at you. 

the man’s frown never faded, staring at you. “why did he tell you to break up with carlos?” he asked, teeth gritted to control his anger.

“he said i was messing up carlos’ focus,” you mumbled, looking at your feet. “told me to break up with him if i genuinely care about his career.”

“so, you broke up with him?!” max raised his voice, flabbergasted by your words. “what the fuck, y/n? why would you do something like that?”

“because i love him, max.” the couple’s hearts shattered as they heard the crack in your voice. “i broke up because i love him.”

“you can’t be serious, y/n.”

“i hate this more than anything, but i’ll have to deal with it. i know how hard carlos has worked to come this far, and i can’t just sit still, knowing i’m the reason he’s fucking up his dream.”

max frowned, shaking his head. “just because he fucks up his races doesn’t mean you are the reason for it, y/n,” he stated, trying to make you understand.

“i am, max. i know that very well.”

“come on, you know–”

“five times, max,” you countered, looking at him. “five times, carlos purposefully did not qualify for the races because he wanted to be there for me,” you confessed.

you watched the way kelly’s face dropped, while max’s expressions remained stoic.

he had noticed too. he knew.

you saw him take a deep breath, biting his lip as he contemplated what to say.

“so, do you think his performance will become better now that you’ve broken up?” max inquired, raising his brows. “because if he doesn't, then this would all be in vain, no?”

“this is what his dad asked for, and i–”

max shrugged. “you are just fulfilling his wishes, obviously. this ‘fucking up his focus’ was just a sad excuse,” he said.

“his dad never liked you, babes,” kelly spoke, patting your back gently. “don't you think this entire thing was just some excuse to get you guys to break up?”

you buried your face in your hands, trying to control your breathing as you sat back on the sofa. everything was overwhelming you right now, and it was sending your brain into overdrive.

these were the moments when carlos would be there for you; listening to your thoughts and sorting them out for you.

but, he wasn't going to be there for you anymore. you had to deal with this on your own.

“whether it's an excuse or not,” you stated, looking at your friends through your teary eyes. “we've broken up now.”

“and that's–”

“and that's that.” you were stern with your words. “i'm tired of all this. i just want some peace and quiet, okay? just wanna forget about this all and go back to living life as i normally do.”

kelly nodded supportively. “if that's what you want, that's what we'll do,” she said, pulling you into her embrace.

“we got your back, y/n,” max added, wrapping his arms around you two. “forever and always.”

you smiled into the hug, utterly failing to keep the tears from falling down.

“thank you for being there for me, guys. i love you both so fucking much.”

[cityof2morrow]

3t2: The Market Basket 001

Published: 1-14-2024 | Updated: N/A SUMMARY Build and buy mode items inspired by The Market Basket, a grocery store from Sims 3: Showtime (EA/Maxis, 2012). This is not an exact conversion. I’ve made several changes and added items based on my own gameplay needs.

DETAILS Requires all EPs/SPs. §100-1000 | Build/Buy Mode All files with “MESH” in their filenames are REQUIRED for all textures/recolors to show properly. This set requires the Repository Pack (Simmons, 2023) and BBNiche1Master (Buggybooz, 2012 – also included in the Repository Pack). You’ll also need one of the following: Shift Everything (Lamare, 2022) OR Object Freedom 1.02 (Fway, 2023).

WARNING: The DiGiMART Grocery Vendor has pulsing, flashing, and glowing light effects. If you are sensitive to visual noise, please download the LIGHT SENSITIVE version of this set. Only use ONE version in-game at a time.

The set includes matching recolors for Poster Pack 001 (Simmons, 2023). ITEMS Billboard (3070 poly, HIGH) Door Frame 001-002 (56-224 poly) Mini Signs 1-2 (92 poly) Single/Double Bollard (60-120 poly) Bulletin Boards 1-4 (18 poly) Shopping Cart (456 poly) Ceiling Lamp (56 poly) Columns (1-Story/2-Story/3-Story) (210-442 poly) Fences 001-002 (Orange/White) (180-315 poly) Garage (Deco) (36 poly) Grocery Display (82 poly) – holds up to 18 nonperishable items. HVAC Units 001-004 (Deco) (18-900 poly) Hanging/Standing Signs 001-002 (26 poly) Store Signs 001-002 (824 poly) Wall Signs 001-002 (18 poly) Rooms 001-002 (Frame/Roof) (672-978 poly) Building Trim (1-Tile/3-Tile) (4 poly) DigiMART Grocery Vendor (72-224 poly) – functional grocery kiosk DOWNLOAD (choose one) REGULAR VERSION (w light effects) from SFS | from MEGA LIGHT SENSITIVE VERSION (no light effects) from SFS | from MEGA SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED Be sure to place door frame 001 and 002 on the same tile. The building frame/roof objects fit 4x18 and 11x24 rooms respectively. Grab them on the front, left tile (see pic).

CREDITS Thanks: UV Mapping Tips (Frac, 2024 via SimCrafters Discord), Visual Noise Feedback (Despondenthottie, 2024). Sources: Any Color You Like (CuriousB, 2010), Bank (TruForm, 2015), BBNiche1Master (BuggyBooz, 2012), Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Great Groceries Display (Balkopat, 2020), Imagery (Freepik, 2023; 2016; 2014; Macrovector, 2020), Lay Me Low – Sims 3t2 ‘Late Night’ Metropolitan Buildings – Part 5 (Misty_Fluff, 2013), 3t2 Market Ads (Amovitam, 2012), Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik), Solar Panel (Autumn Rose, 2020; EA/Maxis, 2020), Supermarket Concepts (Yaun, 2017; McDonald, 2017).

[pigeonwhumps]

BBU masterlist

General contents: pet whump, dehumanisation, amnesia, PTSD

(I've also put disabled whumpee under some of the links – this is a disability that isn't PTSD or I'd have it for all of them!)

Series

Bug and Company

Bug's 18 when they're handed over to BetterPets by their foster parents, going through various owners and sets of training before being freed for good. This is their life, and that of those they've touched.

Contains: lady whump, multiple whumpees, disabled characters, recovery whump, caretaker new whumper, mutual caretaking

Finding Safety

After being kidnapped, dumped at WRU, and shipped to the USA, Cass isn't having a good time. And then Tyrone takes him to be his ring-fighting Guard Dog, alongside Aaliyah, a Romantic he already owns. Now he's definitely not having a good time, and nor is Aaliyah. After losing everything, they need to build their lives again, but with Aaliyah not remembering her past and Cass unable to reach his, it's a challenge, even with assistance.

Contains: lady whump, multiple whumpees, disabled characters, recovery whump, caretaker new whumper, different caretaker *actually* new whumper, mutual caretaking

Pets of the Silver Screen

In the silent film era and the early days of the WRU, young pet number 95, real name Eloise, is bought by film producer Hayes Fletcher to star in his productions. A few years later, he hires Agatha from Foster Montgomery to be her stunt double (read: to scar in scenes where it's necessary, because Eloise is too valuable), and the two young woman strike up a somewhat unwilling friendship.

Over a decade of working on- and off-screen later, it's the roaring twenties, pet liberation is starting to grow, and they're more than ready to leave. Enter Ira Waterhouse – a woman who's had just about enough of the pet industry and is willing to take in two runaways. But WRU is expanding, and running a newly-acquired safehouse in London's docklands isn't a piece of cake. Especially when the two former pets Ira's running it with are a) famous, b) wanted for burning down a film studio, and c) even more traumatised than she originally assumed...

Contains: lady whump, multiple whumpees, disabled character, historical whump, recovery whump, mutual caretaking

Sanctuary

Anita and her grandmother Indira are thrown into the world of pet ownership when Theo, a profoundly deaf unwanted box boy, is mistakenly delivered to the animal shelter Anita works at.

Meanwhile, 785, Theo's bonded, is now struggling to survive Eleanor alone.

As long as she's useful, anyway.

When 785 is refurbished and sold, meeting a defiant illegal pet named Cass along the way, she ends up living alongside a Pet who seems to know her far too well. Meanwhile, Theo discovers that the person he cares about most in the world barely remembers his existence, and Anita is in way over her head.

Contains: lady whump, multiple whumpees, disabled characters, recovery whump, caretaker new whumper, whumpee turned caretaker, mutual caretaking

One-shots

Outside

Ceci talks to Bless about going outside.

Contains: recovery whump, caretaker new whumper

Do you think Guard Dog designated pets should be legally required to wear an auditory identifier in public?

Opinion piece on a proposed law feat. Ade Olayinke vs David Cooper: "Guard Dog class pets will have to wear an auditory device such as a bell collar or proximity alarm at all times whilst in public spaces."

Cry for help

Melanie finds an abandoned pet on a street corner.

Contains: disabled characters, whumpee turned caretaker

Artwork and graphics

Pet Paper and Liberation magazine covers

WRU recruitment brochures

WRU pet wrapping service

Promotional cereal box

WRU x Happy Meal McDonald's advert

Bring Your Pets to Work Day

Petblr dashboard

Fanwork for @octopus-reactivated's Pet Paper – layout for @cowboy-anon's article 9 Essentials for a Hassle-Free Vacation with your Pet

Rent-A-Pet advert

Other

BBU Community Days 2023

BBU Community Days 2024

[taviokapudding]

Protestors consistently ruining the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade footage is actually really great & keep boosting their footage when you see it

Every company featured in the parade sets up a contract (similar to the super bowl) where they buy a spot to then get a l a r g e endorsement via placing their ad on a float or in a balloon. Within the line up this year McDonald's, one of the biggest pro-genocide donators, got a large balloon rather than a float. This is important because balloons gets more air time than floats because of their size. On top of that floats may not have guests performing & paying for someone to perform; ideally McDonald's wanted to have a longer air time with their balloon without paying an hourly cost for performers. More air time = more ad revenue = more eyes seeing them = more customers.

The move by pro-Palestinian protestors to jump in front of McDonald's does 2 things:

1. McDonald's is getting less air time than what they were contractually promised, it'll be up to them to request what is owed (because it depends on the agreement made) by Macy's to them

2. And it messes with NBC's obligations with Peacock as the 2nd most important party of the parade + 3rd party in all contracts

So while McDonald's loses money and Macy's is scrambling to figure out how to loophole their way out of not losing money to owe McDonald's, NBC gets fucked too.

Since Oct 7, 2023, NBC has been one of many US news media outlets who actively lied to the US masses. But why do they matter for the parade? Their job is to be the main outlet who records and then uses their main platform, Peacock, to stream the parade. If protestors are seen throughout all your footage, delay large portions, and cause enough disruption to the footage being aired- that means they don't and won't immediately have their show footage ready to go.

Peacock does an offer every year to new customers to watch the parade for a $1.99 USD (not including taxes) monthly plan that can be canceled at any time with the first month free; but in the last 4+hrs after the parade aired people aren't going to stay for the year because their is no footage as promised. I actually have been checking throughout today and it's not available at all.

So not only is McDonald's going to be hemorrhaging alongside with all the other companies whose footage got cut or edited out to match the contractually obligated run time & censor protestors, but both NBC and Peacock will be losing money with each minute they don't have enough footage and a full stream to air- which is money that Macy's was also supposed to get a cut of. Which btw it's now 5pm cst the same day and there's still no footage - which is a $ problem for Peacock & NBC when folks prioritize now finding a service to watch the Superbowl > Parades.

Do not be surprised if Macy's stuff becomes more expensive and the possibility they'll change which news media outlet + streaming service covers the 2024 parade occurs. And yeah, McDonald's is going to become more expensive than it already is long term. Everybody who were financially complicit in the death of 14,000+ Palestinian men, women, and children will have a financially shit end of the year and rough 2024.

In short, despite the arrests, the protestors who sat & glued themselves to the parade route and those who stayed in the crowd to hold up flags and signs throughout really won. A 4 day cease fire for a very obviously one sided genocide isn't enough & tons of rich people are learning the hard way (as I post) that this is the beginning of their punishment by the universe for the actions.

[beardedmrbean]

A married Missouri substitute teacher is charged with offering money, booze and pot to students in exchange for sex — including with one boy she slept with on a gravel road, according to police.

Carissa Jane Smith, 30, of Dixon, would pay off the students to keep quiet about the encounters, which occurred from August 2023 to September 2024, in return for sex or for allowing her to perform oral sex on them, according to the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office.

One of the victims claimed that Smith, who has children, forced him to ejaculate inside her.

“That was f—ked up,” he told her, according to charging documents. She then allegedly offered him more money.

Smith, who formerly taught in the Dixon R-1 School District, would have sex with the students at various locations, including her home, on the side of the road or even on gravel roads, police said.

One young victim told police he was in middle school when Smith asked him to have sex.

The victim said he first met Smith while she was substitute teaching and gave him her Snapchat contact.

“Smith began sending them pictures of her breasts and buttocks, along with her nude in the shower,” court documents obtained by the Daily Mail state. 

The alleged predator then offered the student money in exchange for sex — but told him to keep his mouth shut.

“[The victim] stated Mrs. Smith told them not to talk about it or else they would get into trouble. Mrs. Smith stated, ‘You know you can’t talk about this with anybody?'” court documents said.

She would typically pay the students $100 to have sex with her or to let her perform oral sex on them but also paid them in alcohol and marijuana.

In one encounter, Smith smoked marijuana with the victim and Smith’s friend Lacey Beam — a former school nurse for the Dixon School District, according to the documents.

Smith dropped Beam off at her home and then took the boy to McDonald’s because her husband was at her home with their children, the docs said.

The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office said she could face additional charges if more potential victims come forward. 

Smith was hired in September 2022 as a long-term substitute for Dixon Middle School, according to the Kansas City Star. 

She was later hired as a paraprofessional and long-term substitute with Dixon High School before she resigned in August 2024.

Dixon R-1 School District Superintendent Travis Bohrer said in a letter to parents on Wednesday that the district learned of the allegations against Smith earlier this year, but was not able to comment as the investigation was ongoing.

The district cooperated with the sheriff’s office and the administrators conducted their own internal investigation.

“This is very disturbing and distressing information for everyone in our school community,” Bohrer said of Smith’s arrest, adding that the district has been in contact with families of the victims.

She was arrested Nov. 12 and is being held on a $250,000 bond.

She’s charged with eight counts of statutory rape; one count of sodomy; three counts of sexual contact with a student; two counts of sexual misconduct with a student; one count of patronizing prostitution; two counts of sexual trafficking a child; and two counts of hindering prosecution.

Dixon is about 130 miles southwest of St. Louis.

[quu-kii]

If Crash felt bad about taking Cortex's food and decided to get another happy meal for him

(Based off the 2023 Crash McDonalds ad)

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (December 17-23, 2023)

Episode 7 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters laid down significant Monsterverse lore, showing the moment Monarch finally revealed itself to the public (under hilarious circumstances) and how the organization's partnership with Apex Cybernetics began. I did not find May's long-awaited backstory super compelling, to be honest, I think because the proto-Apex company was so thinly sketched. And that Frost-Vark better not be dead. :(

An incredible three Godzilla comics released last week: DC/Legendary's Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #3 and IDW's Godzilla: War for Humanity #3 and Godzilla Rivals: Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon. The crossover lit a certain section of the Internet on fire with the revelation that Godzilla did, in fact, kill Superman the previous issue. Writer Brian Buccellato chalked it up to Godzilla's atomic breath having "a radioactive signature similar to [K]ryptonite," which as handwaves go is pretty good. Behemoth and Scylla had moments to shine as well, and the issue ended with Lex Luthor discovering a Mechagodzilla eye. Glad Godzilla won't be the only Toho character in the comic; that would've been a bit lame.

Godzilla: War for Humanity remaining a thrilling read, and the Super MOGUERA debuting in this issue is not to be missed. Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon starts with a content warning for depiction and discussion of attempted suicide, which certainly surprised me. It's another strong issue, neither callous nor didactic, and told so efficiently there's plenty of room for the titular bout (which sometimes has felt like an afterthought in Rivals stories). Also, Jet Jaguar talks—something Toho forbade in a comic earlier this year, for whatever reason. Anyway, he's exactly the 'bot you would expect him to be. Hope IDW can keep him chattering in the future.

You've probably seen my flurry of posts already, but it bears repeating: The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, a drag reality competition found on Shudder, aired a kaiju episode. Reality TV isn't my bag, but I thoroughly enjoyed the competitors' kaiju-inspired costumes and performances. I also kept ping-ponging between awe that Americans are just expected to know what a kaiju is now and yelling at the hosts for, say, not naming any kaiju outside of Toho's Big Five.

Hot on the heels of the black-and-white re-release of Shin Godzilla comes Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, which has to be the best title one of these things has gotten. As with Shin, this is no mere filter; each shot in the film was regraded, with director Takashi Yamazaki striving for "a style that looked like it was taken by masters of monochrome photography." It opens in Japan on January 12; no word yet on whether it will play in any other country.

Godzilla will follow in the steps of pop culture fixtures like The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars with Godzilla: The Official Cookbook by Kayce Baker, due from Titan Books on September 10. (You can tell it's official because he's actually on the cover.) 60 recipes lie within. It's a given that I'm going to buy something Godzilla-related that's this silly; I just have to pick up another cookbook first so it won't be the first one I ever own.

I was surprised to realize that McDonald's has never done anything Godzilla-related; far less prolific fast-food chains have worked with the monster, from White Castle to Carl's Jr. The first salvo in the campaign was pretty underwhelming—BE@ABRICK figures that can only be won via lottery, with an entirely plain Godzilla. That replica MogeGoji suit looked great in the ad, at least. Tokusatsu is being kept alive in the Godzilla franchise through some truly odd means. The follow-up ad/promo was a lot better, but that's a matter for next week's post.

This is at least kaiju-adjacent—James Wan's long-gestating The Call of Cthulhu movie seems to finally be going somewhere, as revealed in roundabout fashion by a Deadline article. I thought the 2005 silent version was just fine, but presumably this will be produced by his company Atomic Monster, which is long overdue for an actual giant monster movie.

[lokiondisneyplus]

How Marvel officially added McDonalds to the MCU

On the very last day of filming on the first season of the Marvel Disney+ TV series Loki, executive producer Kevin Wright sat on the steps of The Citadel at the End of Time with costar Sophia Di Martino (Sylvie), and they started to chat about what might be next for her character. Not in any official script capacity, just as fans of the story they’d just finished filming. 

“This character had been on a decades-long, maybe centuries-long revenge mission, and the classic trope of those stories is that it’s all-consuming and she’s not thinking about what comes next,” says Wright. “Now she has this moment of opportunity, where is she going to go?”

Di Martino thought about it for a moment, and said, “She’d probably be pretty hungry.

There are more than 13,000 McDonald’s across the United States right here in 2023, and untold more across the multiverse. In a new campaign launched this week, the fast-feeder gave Marvel and Loki fans a peek at its own cameo in the series’ upcoming second season, set to launch on October 6.

“As Featured In” is the Golden Arches latest Famous Orders meal campaign and, instead of being tied to a particular artist or character, it celebrates all the instances in TV and movies that McDonald’s has appeared or been mentioned by characters: Friends, The Office, Seinfeld, Space Jam, Coming to America, and many, many more. But at the center of the campaign is Loki, one that hasn’t even happened yet, which is probably appropriate for a show that revolves around the multiverse and many different timelines. 

The meal itself—a choice of a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, or Big Mac, with medium fries, a Loki-branded Sweet ‘N’ Sour Sauce, and a medium soda—is, like the Famous Meals before it, nothing all that special, but that has always been the point. The genius of Famous Orders is that it drives customers to McDonald’s core menu items rather than a limited-time stunt. There is, of course, also a merch collaboration, this time with streetwear darling Palace Skateboards. The packaging features QR codes that customers can scan to get fun Loki content and buy pieces from the Palace collaboration.

Long after his conversation with Di Martino on the Citadel set steps, Wright and his team were developing season two, and they were finding it difficult to pick up a new Sylvie storyline. She had just killed He Who Remains in season one, where does she go? 

“When we stayed in the view of character, this woman who went on the run as a child, had been running through time, a fugitive of time, living in apocalypses, never being able to relax or slow down, the novelty of walking into a 1980s McDonald’s looked appealing,” say Wright. “You play a Little League game and go to McDonald’s. You go to a kid’s birthday party at McDonald’s. Someone like Sylvie would never have experienced that, and would be really taken by that.”

Marvel Studios has been a brand partnerships factory since Iron Man first ate a Whopper in 2008. Typically these things happen when there is a finished script, and producers go through it with the studio’s brand partnerships team to see where opportunities may be. A car chase, you say? What brand of car should we use? Maybe an Audi?

But this latest collaboration happened in reverse. A 1982 McDonald’s was specifically written into the script, so Wright approached Marvel’s partnerships people to talk to the brand about helping them out with the details. “I was worried that McDonald’s would think we wanted to do something ironic or make fun of them,” says Wright. “But we were selling an earnest story, a love letter to nostalgia through a character’s eyes who will see all of the novelty and joy of it.”

He needn’t have worried. “When I pitched it, our internal team said, ‘Uh, you realize we have a partnership with McDonald’s already, right? The fact we’re going to them wanting to do something makes it even better.”

Around that same time mid-last year, McDonald’s marketing execs were on a tour of sorts, meeting with content creators and creative teams at studios like Disney about the brand’s interest in participating in cultural moments beyond the typical product tie-in. That’s when the call from Marvel about Loki came in.

“We tend to embrace things like this,” says McDonald’s global chief marketing officer Morgan Flatley, “which we feel can be an opportunity for us to learn, especially because we felt that between Marvel and Loki, there was a real willingness to take their rabid fandom and mix it with a fan truth around McDonald’s and bring them together.”

The fan truth Flatley refers to is of McDonald’s as a congenial gathering place, a common experience for so many people. “Sylvie’s storyline perfectly aligned with how we think about our brand in terms of providing comfort and familiarity,” says Flatley. Familiarity is the key to the emotion of nostalgia and shelter that Wright was aiming for in the story.

That same familiarity is indicative of a brand so ubiquitous, it’s become a cultural touchpoint. Hence all the McDonald’s references in TV and movies. There’s a reason McDowell’s works as such a big bit in the classic comedy Coming to America. We all get it.

That all sounds great, but many brands get nervous or overprotective when they aren’t in full control of the creative. Not that long ago, McDonald’s was among them. The success of Famous Orders, allowing artists and partners like Cactus Plant Flea Market to play with its brand logos and characters, and the passionate response from fans—along with the sold-out merch and boosted sales—has given Flatley and the brand more confidence than ever in what she calls “sharing the pen.”

“I’ve become a big believer that if we lean into the right kind of creators in the right cultural phenomenon, and loosen some of our control on the brand, magic will happen,” says Flatley. “A few years ago, I don’t know that we would have felt as comfortable handing over key aspects of our brand to be part of a storyline like this, but today we’re really aware of the authenticity of our brand and the role that it can play.”

Wright is very familiar with the pitfalls of ill-conceived brand partnerships, and the impact they can have. “Wayne’s World was making fun of this stuff 30 years ago,” says Wright. “When it’s done poorly, it looks like business not driven by story. I don’t think that was ever a concern for us, mainly because we knew it was being driven by our story, and the more McDonald’s partnered with us, the better we were able to service the story.”

Multiversal marketing? Let’s see McDowell’s try that.

[venusvity]

₊˚ 🌙 ♡𓂋 ☄️ 。ﾟ✷ ⠀  VENUS ATTENDS WATERBOMB TOKYO 2023!

Known as "The Princesses of Waterbomb" everyone was disappointed when VENUS couldn't attend Waterbomb Seoul this year, breaking their four-year tradition of attending the festive. However, VENUS made up for missing Seoul Waterbomb and attended Waterbomb Tokyo causing a big splash as usual!

.ﾟ۪ ♡ ۫     ( LOOK BOOK ! )    

( LEFT 2 RIGHT ! ) ... AKI, YOONAH, JIAH, CHLOE, AND SENA !

.ﾟ۪ ♡ ۫     SET LIST !

BLOW A KISS

1ST MENT

I AM THE WITCH AT THE STAKE

2ND MENT

ILLUSIONS

3RD MENT

IM THE BEST

4TH MENT

SUMMER LUV!

.ﾟ۪ ♡ ۫     VIRAL MOMENTS !

too many to keep track of, truly.

everyone looked SO good. the girls were literally glowing and completely in their element. it was clear they were having a great time.

the entire festival was screaming the lyrics to IM THE BEST like everyone was so excited they finally performed it again.

they were screaming for every song this is a great festival setlist esp for constellations.

yoonah had multiple clips of her go viral just for how pretty she looked. mainly during blow a kiss and i am the witch, many people praising her for her visuals and performance.

the tweets got interesting to say the least but the consensus was that yoonah is very hot especially while wet.

aki also went viral for her visuals. a clip of her during one of the ments, pushing her hair back and telling the crowd "be as loud as you fucking can. we came to have some fun!" went viral for obvious reasons. she's hot.

a clip of sena and jiah covering "what a life" by exo-sc went viral as well. the girls talked about how excited they were to see the boys perform later. they bleed cosmic latte.

yoonah couldn't figure out how to get her water gun to work so she called for aki to help her. when aki came over, she took the gun from yoonah, fiddled with it for a second, then sprayed her with water. it was a cute and funny moment that also went viral!

chloe had a clip of her throwing ass towards the crowd then running away giggling go viral for obvious reasons. she's now been added to the list of idols that can throw ass. everyone clap for chole!

not viral per say but it was talked about a lot how close chanyeol and yoonah seemed, chloe and sehun were also seen walking around together at the festival. chloe would later go to post a picture of her and sehun to her story captioning it: "i love my BESTIE sehun! and he loves having me as a BESTIE! 😁"

yoonah would post a video of her and chanyeol in his car while in the Mcdonalds drive through with the caption "😚" while both of them sip on their drinks. yoonah looking cute and chanyeol looking like he has no idea what's going on as usual.

the only song they did the full choreography for was summer luv just because they had to. the choreo is the most iconic part! but other than that, they were mainly having fun with the crowd, with each other, and just overall having a good time!