#my rants

[wired-infornography]

Not to discourage using these guides, if you have to use Windows you should absolutely disable this trash. But note that you can only disable Copilot. You cannot uninstall it. Like Cortana was with Win10, it is dug in like a tick. And just like the scripts and registry hacks that disabled the annoyances in Win10, Microsoft will force you to accept security updates that will undo all of your changes and re-enable all the trash you thought you were done with.

Something that people need to understand about consumer Windows now is that Microsoft doesn't care that much about how many copies of the operating systems they sell (at least the ones not sold to enterprise clients). They gave Windows 10 away in large majority free of charge, because they wanted to leverage its position in the market as a way to sell their Cloud and Enterprise services. That's why OneDrive was in the system tray and on the left side of every File Explorer window you opened. It's why they started requiring you to use an online Live account to sign into your local PC. They gave away Windows for free hoping to rope people into their online premium (fee-based) services.

Windows 11 is the same thing, but now they're using it to bolster their AI holdings. Microsoft is the largest investor of OpenAI (the owners of ChatGPT) by far, they basically own them. At this point OpenAI has fed the entire open internet into their models and they still don't have a killer app that anyone is willing to pay for. So they're gonna use Recall to get their hands on everyone's private documents so they have more training to feed to the machine. They've sunk multiple billions of dollars into this, they're not gonna let you turn it off permanently, and they don't care if they snapshot your passwords, banking records, medical data, or anything else.

If you care anything about your privacy at this point, Windows is a non-starter. Apple is currently advertising their privacy features as a selling point, but they're also very much cozying up to AI in their products, so who knows what direction that will eventually take.

But if you currently have a Windows 10 PC, especially one that doesn't meet the system requirements for Win11 for one reason or another, I have an easy suggestion. Linux is currently easier to install than Windows is, and Linux Mint has a very generous learning curve.

Remember, the cutoff deadline for Windows 10 is October of this year (2025), when it officially becomes unsupported and will no longer receive security updates. If you have a working Win10 PC you want to keep, you must install a new operating system before then.

Literal definition of spyware:

Also From Microsoft’s own FAQ: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. 🤡

[theunattainable]

Don't ask to switch just throw me where you want me.

[gingersnapwolves]

You know what since I’ve got a ton of new followers because my post on puberty blockers took off and people apparently want to see me rant, I’m gonna get up on my soapbox for a PSA for tumblr’s aging userbase.

Do not! Get! A Medicare Advantage plan!

Tell your parents not to get one. Tell your aunts and uncles not to get one. Tell your friends not to get one.

Why is that, you might say? Kouri, what is a Medicare Advantage plan, you might say?

tl;dr Medicare is the government healthcare plan for Americans of a certain age or with certain disabilities. It is owned, administered, and operated by the government. You are entitled, if you wish, to outsource your Medicare and have your policy run by a commercial group, such as United HealthCare, Cigna, Aetna, et cetera.

Here’s how it works: For everyone who signs up for, say, a plan that rhymes with Figna Medicare Advantage, Medicare gives Figna a certain amount of money and says ‘use this to take care of this patient’.

You can see where this is going, right? Figna says ‘sure boss! *wink nudge*’ and then shoves as much of that money into their own pockets as possible, and they do that by finding excuses to NOT pay for your medical care.

Medicare Advantage plans are pushed and marketed heavily. They’ll call you. They’ll set up stands in your PCP office to try to encourage you to buy in. They will say things like ‘with Medicare, you have to pay a 20% coinsurance, but with us you only have a 10% coinsurance’ and completely neglect to tell you that having a smaller coinsurance only matters if they approve the fucking care that you need, which often they won’t (while Medicare would have) and if your doctors are willing to accept it, which often they don’t (while they do accept Medicare).

Is Medicare perfect? Absolutely not! I've got my share of bones to pick with them. But simply put:

Medicare is government administered. It is a service. It costs the government money, which is why the GOP is always trying to cut funding to it. Medicare Advantage is corporately administered. It is supposed to make money. Which gives them incentives to deny your care and fuck you over that Medicare simply does not have.

Do not. Get. A Medicare Advantage Plan.

[blonndiec]

The biggest thing we got robbed was the summer episode in the height of their pinning.

I NEED TO SEE THE COMPLETE SCENE OF THE SHOWERS.

Must have been important…they running at the beach and this one in the ending.

And let’s not forget THEY MADE A COUPLE COLLECTION FIGURE OF THEM WITH MAKKA. Where? AT THE BEACH. Must mean something🥲💖

And you know? IT MUST HAVE TO BE RELATED that picture of Viktor drinking at night. And when he is combing Yuuri's hair? That too. And where does that appears? YES, IN THE ENDING. 😭

I need this lost episode. I need at least the keyframes, the storyboard. I NEED MORE.

[latenightsinpemberley]

i think i’ll take the romanticised love story narrative between mina and dracula from the 90s over the nosferatu edition of ellen volunteering to be raped (again) to save the world

[warningsine]

Guys, I know that since the ban "female presenting nipples" have been a no go on this website, but we can still say the word "sex."

This isn't TikTok or YouTube. You don't need to censor yourselves.

Seggs -> Sex.

Unalive -> Dead.

Le$bian -> Lesbian.

[bluesuitcrusade]

Being academically gifted but a huge procrastinator is going to be my villain origin story.....

[gars-weaponeer]

Let's talk about he unwarranted Fox hate.

I often see that a lot of people tend to hate on Commander Fox, often portraying him as a villainous kind of character or very cold and selfish compared to the more heroic and beloved Commander Thorn.

I see these two characters portrayed as "the good commander" and "the bad commander" of the Coruscant guard, when in reality they are both pretty much the same character.

But just for the fact that Fox killed Fives, the public decided to label him as a "bad guy".

But that's not the case, in fact if we changed characters and placed Thorn hunting after Fives and Fox on the diplomatic mission, chances are both situations would have ended the same way: with Fives dead at the hands of Thorn and Fox dying heroically for the republic.

Why is this?

Well for starters we need to understand what a Coruscant guard is.

These were clones that were raised and trained differently from common clone troopers as their assignment was to act as a security police force for Coruscant. As a result, they dealt with different threats than normal troopers.

Clone troopers knew what their enemies looked like, the separatist forces were easy to recognize in the battlefield. But for the Coruscant guard the enemy could take many forms. They would not see battle droids on the streets attempting on the lives of the senate. They would have to deal with terrorists, dressed as common folk or unconscious work droids. They had to be more alert and more skeptic of their surroundings 24/7 as the fate of the republic laid in their hands.

One false move could cost the lives of the chancellor and the senate and with them the Republic would fall. That is the weight these clones carry on their shoulders. This is the responsibility that both Fox and Thorn carry along with the other commanders in red.

Both Fox and Thorn are very similar in canon.

Fox appears more than Thorn and we can see from his canon(and legends) appearances that he is a fiercely loyal clone to the republic, hard working and honorable like many of his brothers. He is the first to charge into battle, leading his troops with bravery and has little patience for criminals.

Thorn seems to have a similar sense of duty, loyalty and bravery that Fox has, as he also stands his ground during battle, refusing to surrender til the very last second. We sadly don't see more of Thorn beyond his one and only appearance.

So why do people hate Fox so much, when he and Thorn are not that different?

Well, he killed Fives.

But I don't think he should be hated for it.

To explain this, join me to see things through the fox's eye, and learn the other side of the story.

We as the audience know Fives since he is a Shiny, and we see him grow up, level up, become an ARC trooper and survive many perils. We see him discover that one plot that we know causes so much death and destruction and even tho we know the ending of the story, we want to root for him and we get frustrated when we see no-one hears him out. We also, as the audience, know that Palpatine is the bad guy, he is playing chess against himself and ruining the lives of countless people for his own sick pleasure in his path to rule the Galaxy.

But Fox doesn't know any of this.

He doesn't know Palpatine is secretly Dath Sidious. He doesn't know there is a secret plot to destroy the Jedi and that he and his brothers are just pawns in a greater scheme.

As far as he is concerned, the Chancellor is the head of the Republic, and if anything happens to him it might mean the end of the Republic and the death of not only him but all his brothers. It's his duty to protect Palpatine from harm. And there are a lot of people trying to hurt him.

He also doesn't know Fives.

He might have heard of him as Fives is a respected ARC trooper from the 501st. But he doesn't know him personally like we do, like Rex does. He has no real connection to him other than Fives being another Clone like him.

So when he hears that there is this erratic clone that tried to kill Palpatine and is now on the run, of course he would see Fives as a threat.

Remember that the Kaminoans covered the whole inhibitor chip thing by saying it was a behavioral regulator, that kept Clones from becoming aggressive and erratic. The Kaminoan even took the example of Tup's chip malfunction as proof that without the chip the clones turn irrational and unpredictable. This is the information the characters have. The ONLY ONES that know the truth are Palpatine, the Kaminoans and Fives.

So in Fox's eyes, Fives turned erratic because he also has a chip malfunction. He became irrational, unpredictable, erratic and has attempted to kill someone before. He might try to do so again and is now on the run. It's his duty as head of the Coruscant guard to find him and stop him before he hurts someone.

When he finds Fives, he has Anakin and Rex as hostages and is talking nonsense, acting erratic and paranoic. He could hurt Anakin or Rex, two very important and prominent figures in the GAR and their deaths could result in disadvantage against the Separatist forces. Fox cannot afford that. And yet he doesn't enter shooting, he points his gun at Fives and orders him to raise his hands and surrender. He gives Fives a chance to go peacefully, to de-escalate the situation. And when he sees that Fives looks at the blaster on his side he even yells at him to stop, he asks him not to do it, not to take the gun and make things worse. But Fives doesn't listen, he takes the gun yelling and Fox has to make a split-second decision.

In a moment like that, when you are a second away of a disaster, when you, your brothers or the hostages could get killed by the shot of a unhinged person. You don't get enough time to think.

Fox reacts and shoots Fives to stop him from harming others.

Sure, we could argue that Fox could have used stun instead, or that he could have shot Five's hand, anything to not kill him.

But we need to understand that in situations like that, when tensions are high, then it's life or death and you have to take a split-second decision, you don't usually have time to be rational.

Even the most trained people can't always take the most rational option, and often choose the best option they can.

Fox took the best option he could in that situation.

And I don't think that Thorn, Thire, Stone or any of the other Shock trooper Commanders would have done any different, any better.

They all would have been faced with the same dire situation, and they all would have had to take the split-second decision.

One could argue that the fact that Fox was not present in the circle of Coruscant guards taking off their helmets as they mourn Fives, could imply that he was indifferent to his death.

And maybe? However I don't think that's the case.

Remember that Fox tried to stop Fives, he tried to give him a chance to surrender and in the end he couldn't stop. He had to shoot a fellow clone. A clone whose face he sees in all his brothers, the companions he trained with, fought with, work with everyday. He did not wanted to kill Fives.

That has to be very haunting.

I like to believe that Fox is not the mourning circle, because he had to take a step back to come to terms to what he has done.

Fox has been proven to be an honorable man. How can he stand a join the mourning of a man he just killed? How can he see into Rex's eyes as he cries for the close brother he has lost? Maybe he felt like he had no right to be there.

Then again this is just my speculation, considering what little canon we have of Fox.

In general I don't think we should hate on Fox for Fives' death. Sure, Fives is easily my second favorite clone, way above Fox in my raitings, and I suffered a lot when he died. But I do think that the situation was way to out of hand and Fox did as best as he could to keep everyone safe.

Fives was not at fault either. Remember he was drugged, and he was feeling frustrated, paranoic, confused, he was panicking and not thinking clearly.

The only one at fault here is Palpatine and his schemes.

That said...

I'm not saying that you should stop portraying Fox as a cold and ruthless character.

Hell, I myself like to represent him as a more stoic and sarcastic person compared to his brothers and I've seen many different portrayals of this character, with many different personalities that I love!

You are free to a enjoy the fandom as you wish after all!

Just keep this post in mind and please don't hate on people who like Fox as a character.

We all deserve to enjoy Star Wars and it's wonderful characters that inspire us.

┕━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━┙

Well, this has been my Rant! If you reached all the way down here thank you for reading ♥

And may the force be with you.

[eschercaine]

Show!Rhaenyra, when Visenya died: *does nothing, says nothing*

Book!Rhaenyra, when Visenya died: “She was my only daughter, and they (the greens) killed her. They stole my crown and murdered my daughter, and they shall answer for it.”

Show!Rhaenyra, when the greens offered terms: *cries over a single page*

Book!Rhaenyra, when the greens offered terms: “With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why then do you serve my half-brother, the pretender? Tell my half-brother that I will have my throne, or I will have his head.”

Show!Rhaenyra, when Luke died: *searches for Luke’s remains, scolds Daemon for the Blood and Cheese plot, then goes on a suicide mission posing as a septa to enter King’s Landing just to talk to the woman who repeatedly betrays her and makes her life hell*

Book!Rhaenyra, when Luke died: *collapsed when told of the news, probably has no qualms when her husband sent Blood and Cheese, the Dance of the Dragons entered a new stage*

I dunno... Am I the only one who thinks that show!Rhaenyra is so weak AF compared to book!Rhaenyra? Ok.

If book!Rhaenyra was to see her show version, she would be utterly disappointed in her. Book!Rhaenyra wouldn’t do what show!Rhaenyra had done.

[missninapea]

Honestly, I don't care that we didn't get what we wanted.

I think we're getting too obsessive with our expectations and headcanons.

And we get pissy and throw a hissy fit whenever they don't appear in certain media.

I don't like how this fandom is becoming overly obsessive with their predictions and all that.

That's my least favorite thing about the Good Omens fandom. And that goes for other fandoms, too.

And I have headcanons myself, and I'm totally fine when they don't appear in my favorite shows.

I'd rather let the movie finale surprise me.

And I don't care what anyone says, 90 MINUTES IS ENOUGH FOR US.

And to be truly honest, I also don't like how we're obsessing over the South Downs cottage. It's cute, don't get me wrong, but I've been seeing too much of it. I'll miss Aziraphale's bookshop and Crowley's flat. If we do get the cottage ending, that's great.

But I'm not expecting that ending. I prefer what we're getting from the finale. A surprise!

I don't care that it'll be "too short" or "rushed". Just lemme be thankful and excited that we finally have Good Omens 3.

🤍🖤

[skywalkr-nberrie]

Yeah Anakin giving his padawan braid to his wife and not his rigid adoptive dad actually makes a lot of sense for his character if you stopped to actually think for once.

[dcangel]

i’m telling yall just imagine lying in bed with stiles; you’re on your back, he’s draped over you/your side. you have an arm around his broad shoulders, nails gliding up and down, side to side on his back over his grey shirt. your other hand is combing through those unruly brown waves on his head, they’re completely messed up from hours of just existing in one another’s presence. and stiles couldn’t ask for anything more than the soothing effect your touch has on him. the room is slowly getting darker over time, courtesy of the setting sun, allowing a gentle orange hue to be cast over his face, making the golden flecks in his brown eyes shimmer like little suns. he’s gorgeous— ethereal, even, while he lets his gaze settle in the path of yours. his eyelids are weighing down, then opening wide, then drooping once more. you’re always stressed about school or supernatural problems, but whenever he places his head near the curve of your neck and lets his arms hang over your body, there’s no weight at all. he’s practically engulfing you like one of those huge ten-by-ten blankets, but who needs a blanket when you have stiles?

[theunattainable]

My tits are perfect stress balls btw

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

I keep seeing people worship Christian Linke for some shit he’s said and ignore the fact this man is antisemetic and heavily insensitive towards non white and straight characters HE IS NOT YOUR ALLY

I genuinely think people just don't know how much of a shitty person he is. Seriously, that dude was quite possibly the worst person to put in charge of a project like Arcane. Here are just some of things he's said that you should know of:

• Linke said the death of every character in Arcane was a direct result of their own actions : "Every single big beat in the end with our characters, whether it’s a death or not, is a consequence of their choices."

So, I'd like you to explain to me how Vander's death was his fault, because I don't quite remember him agreeing to becoming Warwick. Also, maybe having the three characters portrayed as suicidal in the show (Jinx, Viktor, and Jayce) all die, and go on to say it was just the consequences of their own actions... isn't a good message?

• Linke has declared Viktor as asexual on his own, with the sole purpose of discouraging JayVik shippers : "There is a love. I don't think it's romantic [...]. To me, Viktor was always asexual".

Now, the issue here isn't having an asexual character, its having chosen VIKTOR, one of the most important characters for disabled rep in animation and popular media, to be asexual. I've went on and on about how infantalizing that is to disabled/chronically ill fans, because we NEVER get to be perceived as sexual beings. Having a body that's visibly different from the norm, or limits on certain abilities, turns off people, makes them uncomfortable. That's why you just never see a sexually active or a sex positive disabled character on screen. That's why, in all his "sexy" skins in LoL, Viktor is given a six pack, has no visible marks of illness on his body (scars, fatigue lines), and has no medical brace or crutch.

Viktor was always intended to have a sexual swagger in season 1 ("this isnt my bedroom") and that was EXTREMELY important to a lot of us in the community. I've seen a very similar response from the asexual community as well, who feel like Linke is using their identity and experience as a shield from fan interractions he dislikes, and without actual care for what it means to the characters. Don't fall for rep that isn't actually meant to represent you.

• Linke has directly and openly compared the Zaun and Piltover conflict to the left and right in the United States, and put both sides on equal moral footing : "If you’re asking me whether we were inspired by two sides of one nation who are incapable of even talking to each other anymore at a certain point, yes."

So, I don't think I need to explain how bad this is. Remember that Piltover is the city of wealth and enforcers, and that they've gazed the district of Zaun, dumped chemicals around their water suplies, directed brutal and deadly repressions of civil uprising and protest, offered no financial support to the struggling communities of addicts, disabled people, and orphans, refused Zaun any implication or decisional seat in the city political life, AND THAT'S JUST ON TOP OF MY HEAD. Now, think about what that means with the USA politics comparison, and the idea that they should "just listen to each other". Yeah.

Now, if you know me a bit, you know I live in Canada, so maybe you think this doesn't affect me personally, or that it doesn't affect you because you live outside the US. To that, I want to tell you about a neighbour of mine, who lives on the street parallel to my house, and this truck he owns. The truck has a whole lot of fun stickers and flags on it: the quotes "TRUMP ARREST TRUDEAU" and "CANADIANS FOR TRUMP", the israeli flag, the confederate flag, christian crosses, the blue lives matter flag, and an anti BLM sticker. Now, I'm sure theres more cool things, I've just never gotten close enough to look at the smaller stickers and ornaments because, as a very openly bi arabic woman, I'm scared to death of that man. But maybe I should just hear him out, right?

Tldr, do not think that the state of american politics doesn’t affect the rest of the world.

• Linke has called the people of Zaun and specifically Silco "Svengali", which is an antisemitic name that implies Jewish people are crooks / dirty / thiefs / sexual degenerates. There's a great post on Tumblr that goes more into detail about this (https://www.tumblr.com/endearing-dalliance/769693230696677376/another-blow-against-arcane-anti-semitism?source=share). I'd just like to insist on how bad calling someone "svengali" is. His character was used in many pieces of propaganda in Nazi Germany to picture the "Evil Jew", and to dehumanize Jewish communities by portraying them as ressembling Satan (forked beard, can do unholy hypnosis, targets women...). Linke could have chosen ANY other term to talk about Zaunites, the oppressed community getting gazed by a police state, but he chose that one. That was not an unconscious decision.

I'm a firm believer that it is possible to separate art from artist/studio/company, and to appreciate something while still being aware the person behind it is not a great individual. However, if you're defending all the decisions made in season 2, these are things you HAVE to be aware of.

[whumpypepsigal]

my two fav (whumpy) himbos are coming back in two weeks’ time. i am gonna be so annoying on here when the new seasons are released lol

[nartml]

"You just don't get her deep lyricism and her poetic plays on words—"

Yup. You're right. I don't get it.

Because how am I supposed to get it, when the beat puts me to sleep? How am I supposed to get it when all 31 songs somehow manage to blend into one?

You want me to listen to the lyrics, but I'm too busy nodding off.

I don't give a rat's ass if Taylor Swift is some sort of lyrical genius (which I know she isn't), because if I wanted only good writing I'd pull out a fucking poetry book.

Taylor Swift is a singer. You know, a song artist.

Who makes music. Who is regarded by Swifties as this amazing, misunderstood genius. She's 'objectively good'.

But I say that to be objectively good at music, you're supposed to be able to take care of the lyrics and the rhythm.

You're supposed to be able to both write well and have a good beat in the background. Preferably, one that doesn't sound the exact same as the previous five.

I'm not under any circumstances saying that every song has to have both. Not at all.

But if an album of 31 songs is to be considered actually good, then it better have both to an extensive degree.

There should be variation. There should be something to make it interesting, to pick up the pace.

Now before the whataboutisms kick in, I'm not saying that you can't enjoy it. I'm not saying that it can't be your favourite.

I'm fucking saying that you have no right to act as if we're the crazy ones because we don't "get it".

Or, or, or maybe, have you considered that for some of us, there's nothing to get.

We're not stupid, nor slow. We know what a damn metaphor is. We get what she's trying to say.

But just because there's meaning in something doesn't mean it's good, or smart, or interesting.

'You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum that they raised me.'

Mhm. Yes, Taylor, tell me more about how your parents brought you to Nashville to get famous because you wanted to. About a deliberate choice that you made and keep making, even though that line implies that you had no say in the matter.

Fascinating. How difficult it must be to have a billion dollars lying around in your bank accounts.

That's just cringe worthy.