#no wonder they consider this an “entirely different IP”

[fabiansociety]

judgment is pretty good — the structure so far is a lot better than 6/7s of the previous like a dragon games, the mood is great, it's so nice to be a character that isn't a yakuza dumbass (love you guys) — but man do i miss karaoke

[maxwellatoms]

In one of your last answers, you said “series reboots are usually pretty gross and sad”, and I was wondering if you could expand on that? Assuming “reboot” covers any kind of continuation of a currently cancelled or finished show (and maybe that’s the wrong assumption!), from the outside looking in it feels like a pretty mixed bag. On one hand, if I love XYZ Show, it’s cool that I get more stories with these characters and another chance to support XYZ Show and its creators. On the other, it definitely feels like a lot of ideas can only get funding if they’re tied to something already, meaning creatives are having to now tie whatever cool idea they have to some reboot/relaunch/retread, which can feel pretty disheartening if you don’t want to do a reboot/relaunch/retread. Is that a similar feeling from your side of the industry?

Thank you so much for all your answers and insight!

Usually reboots and spin-offs are just cash grabs. It happens a lot in animation. In fact, I would argue that the entire industry is just one big cash grab now. In the 80s, everyone complained that cartoons were just half-hour commercials for toys. And they were right. And we're right back there, but now that you can't legally push toys all day, it's just general "IP". Mugs, posters, more spinoffs, whatever.

I was offered three show running gigs over the pandemic. All reboots that I would consider unwise to pursue because they were "of a different time" and didn't (in my opinion) have anything more to say. Two of them were properties created by notorious sex pests, so there's also that. The animation industry loves to prop up its sex pests.

I turned all of them down, partially because I didn't respect the original creators but also because none of them had anything going for them except just being "more of the same".

I don't think any of those projects survived the intervening years, so in retrospect I maybe should've taken the job. I'd probably feel a bit gross, but at least I'd have floors in my house.

The entertainment industry is in a bad spot. The whole thing. I've had I don't know how many pitch meetings in the last few years, and they all start the same way:

"Hey! Before we start, we just want to let you know that we're not actively producing anything right now. We think maybe soon, but we won't be picking anything up today..."

And then later:

"The little we are doing is IP, so if you have a new take on our IP or a new IP you're connected to that you can bring in, that'd be great."

I always wanted to make original stuff. There came a time when I'd had my fill of Billy & Mandy and wanted to do something else new and original. That never manifested, and I was constantly being offered IP to produce. I turned too many of those down, maybe, before deciding that it was probably better that I run the IPs that mean something to me rather than having some hack do it.

But now those jobs have all gone to celebrities and fallen live-action writers, who are also slowly being eaten by the system. WB was hot for Scooby stuff a few years back, so I pitched some ideas. A few of them were turned down for being "off-brand" in a variety of ways. WB has now made (I think) all of those off-brand shows (or something close) with celebrity show runners.

I was going through a whole Midlife Impostor Syndrome thing recently where I was wondering if maybe I don't just suck. Like, it's weird that for a couple of decades I'd have people calling me trying to get me to run shows, and now nobody will call me back about the possibility of a design job.

Talking to some friends and realizing that they were in a similar situation helped me feel like I wasn't alone. That was nice. Talking to some of the most talented colleagues in my industry made me made me realize that those people weren't getting jobs either. That was unnerving. Talking to complete strangers in other parts of the entertainment industry now has me thinking that the whole house of cards is coming down. That's real concerning, yo.

It's hard not to think it's purposeful, when deranged billionaires own the entirety of our media and want to shape a society where they can't be criticized. We're letting wealthy tech bros firebomb the very heart of our culture, and it's weird that no one is talking about it. Because (for now) we still have that capability.

[mareastrorum]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[razorblade180]

Silver Wolf:*gaming*

Firefly:*swings door open* Can you keep a secret?

Silver Wolf:If I couldn’t, everyone’s IP address would be in danger. What’s up? Accidentally set one of the Trailblazers on fire?

Firefly:No, not this time. I have a date with Caelus soon and I’m pretty nervous. I wanted some tips considering you two have been acquainted longer.

Silver Wolf:Firefly, do I look like the type to go on dates? Caelus and I eat junk food and play video games whenever we interact. Well, for the most part anyways.

Firefly:Meaning?

Silver Wolf:Do you see that water bottle over there? *tilts head*

Firefly looks towards the window and sees a long metallic cylinder covered in purple markings.

Firefly:Is water actually in that?

Silver Wolf:Yeeeep. Typically I wouldn’t care much about my water intake, but being dehydrated and dealing with Caelus is the shittiest thing you can do for stamina.

Firefly:Wait…*red* You’re that far in your relationship!?

Silver Wolf: *pauses game*….Firefly, that was basically our starting point. It’s nothing serious. The two of us just chill. *resumes game* You know me. I don’t really dabble with emotional stuff much. It’s of a physical thing.

Firefly:You sound so calm about it. I don’t think I can handle a moment like that without feeling the pressure.

Silver Wolf:Oh don’t get me wrong, I was freaking out! He’s twice my size as a person. He’s twice your size. He could probably throw you with one arm.

Firefly:You aren’t inspiring confidence here, Silver Wolf.

Silver Wolf:Oh, is that what you wanted? In that case I don’t see why you’re worried. You’re better at social queues. Also Kafka always went on about “making Caelus with me in mind” whatever that means. I naturally had a disadvantage. You’re more equipped.

Firefly:Huh…I wonder if Kafka did anything like that in Stelle’s case.

Silver Wolf:Why? Having trouble with her too?

Firefly:No we’ve already slept together. Hehe, I rocked her world. *puffs chest out* She was really cute about the entire-

Silver Wolf:*drops controller*…..Sam?

Firefly:Y-Yes?

Silver Wolf:If you’ve conquered one challenge, why the heck are you shaking in your boots now!?

Firefly:Boys are different! I don’t know what I’m doing! Plus Caelus is so aloof. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

xxxxxx

Guinaifen:Sup my beautiful chatters! Today I’m going to be doing a chubby bunny contest with a very special guest.

Caelus:Wooo! Bring on the marshmallows!!! I’m going for fifteen!

Bailu:You will stop at ten. I don’t think I can save you after ten.

Caelus:Then what if we do the cinnamon challenge instead?

Bailu:NO!

[lxmelle]

Headcannon alert!

In the night parade of a hundred demons, Gojo was fighting with Miguel, the strongest from his continent:

Can I also just add that the animation is fiiiiinnneeee 👌🏼 AF - gets my heart going and I knew I recognised the fight scene movements - it was from Ip Man. 💘

Oh be still my heart.

Anyway, sorry, back on topic!

We know Gojo has done the following:

(Image unashamedly stole from reddit)

Which leads me to surmise that he probably really really hates the idea of anything messing with his skills/technique, and possibly affecting his impenetrable defences - limitless.

This circles back to isolating himself and how this comes round to backfire on the poor man.

It goes to show how a significant event, like losing to Toji, how it is internalised and processed, greatly affects people, whether they categorise or recognise it as trauma or not. Combined with Geto defecting, it’s understandable how Gojo effectively seals himself in a coffin of sorts. They both dealt with it in differing ways, but end up sacrificing a part of themselves in the process.

Back to Miguel.

Gojo is irritated. He is MAD.

He just blasts away the giant curse without bothering about anything. He just focuses on Miguel. If I’m not mistaken, we rarely see him like this. Sparring, having a strong opponent has been... fun for him? Either that, or he goes into extreme dominance mode. Engaging with multiple targets.

There source of his irritation that even ichiji comments something? It goes without saying that the whole issue with Geto sparking war would be getting to him, too. Especially considering the build up and entire situation where forces are all at two locations and Geto is scheming something he had just become aware of.

AND. This is satosugu indulgent: He’s possibly annoyed that Geto had this strong dude by his side all this while, whom he confided in, to provide INTEL AGAINST HIM, no less!

Making light of a really dark situation here, and I’m sorry (not really) but a jealous Gojo tickles me. Did that also make him a bit irritated? That Geto had specifically found someone to target him? Did he feel insulted that he was replaced by someone else - weaker, no less?

Yes, we are now entering pure headcanon indulgence. In my SatoSugu head, Gojo is irritated that Miguel could’ve been sparring with Geto. This man is buff and strong, and has been around Geto for an unknown duration of time. We know Geto likes sparring and he is goooood at it. Did geto change? Can he still trust Geto not to kill any of the young sorcerers? (Yes, Yuta included. Because we can see Geto was battling within himself about following through, and doing so would mean a loss of his humanity in favour of strength - something not really in his nature - he nevertheless tries and we know how it ends when someone in the verse strays from themselves...).

I digress. Gojo probably also wanted to just go see Geto already, but dreading it at the same time. They both were under no illusions about how it was going to end, hence the sombre nature of the anime.

This scene always hurts when I see it… Side note: I did always feel like Gojo in jjk 0 (manga-only) was a little cold and to aloof compared to when Gege’s well into the series. I wonder what Gege would change if he rewrote/redrew it? Not that he will, ofc.

Whatever it was, I’m just going to allow myself a small pleasure in that maybe the idea of Geto and Miguel in an alliance ruffled his feathers a little. And then Miguel lets slip that “if I die I’ll curse you, Geto” - and I’m left wondering about the significance of that, if anything, whether it provided context to Gojo or the reader.

And in the aftermath of it all, Gojo recognised Miguel’s strength, utilising him for Yuta’s growth (so in a way Geto and Gojo train him?!? [yes I am hopelessly deep in satosugu shipping]) and I guess it was a link to Geto too. Gojo seemed to have no harsh feelings towards Miguel. Entrusting him with Yuta... and maybe also regarded him as someone who was important to his friend (Geto)...

They became his family, after all.

In light of the most recent leaked chapter - I hope Miguel makes it - and that we also get blessed with some crumbs in the form of flashbacks... it would be nice to see a bit more backstory.

[teamfreewill2pointo]

Hmm...I wonder if the failure of the spin offs is because of the lack of J2 or just lack of the dynamic duo Sam and Dean. I can see in a few years maybe Supernatural might get a remake, especially because in the last several years studios have been enjoying remaking and or rebooting existing IPs (probably because it's easier then paying someone for an original concept lol). Also I think if a hypothetical reboot explicitly confirmed and catered to Destiel it would do a lot better then the other spin offs by miles. Although I'm not sure how J2 would feel about a scenario where randoms took over Sam and Dean though 😅

Anon 2: If Warner Brothers did a total reboot I think it would be successful if it included: The brothers together (duh) Hot younger actors Confirmed bi Dean Strong possibility (if not definite) Dean/Castiel The SPN writers were always tuned into the fandom and if someone decided to make a new SPN it's not unlikely they'd take note as well. Plus attitudes towards portraying queer romances in media are a lot different now then the 00's. Also I think the spin offs were set up to fail, not intentionally, but regardless if Jared and Jensen were in them they would've still failed. The Winchesters was firstly about characters the audience wasn't particularly invested in (especially considering the amount of other characters there are in SPN) but secondly we already know the entire story of John and Mary in detail from 15 seasons of SPN. Wayward Sisters needed more fleshing out before they tried launching it by itself, it come off as haphazard. Neither of these things would of been fixed if both Jared and Jensen had been involved. I think whatever Jared and Jensen do together with SPN going forward will likely do better, less so because it has to have both of them or it will flop, but because they will actally take their time and not rush it (unlike Wayward Sisters) and it will be a story we haven't heard and seen before in SPN (unlike The Winchesters). SPN could easily be a franchise without relying on Sam and Dean but the only time when Warner Brothers or whoever is running things, actually puts in the time and effort for a decent story it's for Jared and Jensen. If that same time and effort was extended for a complete SPN reboot or even other character spin offs, I think it would work, no Jared and Jensen needed. That said don't think a complete SPN reboot is even getting thought by anybody, not for like, at least a decade... or whenever Warner Brothers get to a point they are desperate for ideas.

A huge portion of the GA is conservatives and the country is growing more conservative in general, so I don't think confirming or catering to Destiel would help the chances of a spinoff, but rather the opposite.

Supernatural is an IP that makes a lot of money and I hear the problem isn't WBD, which would be more than happy for a reboot.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Unpopular opinion: I think that the popularisation of "consent" as a talking point re: training AI models is pretty insidious and bad. The internet is a public platform for publishing data; if you have published data to it, then you are consenting to it being seen and accessed publicly. This includes people potentially deriving metadata from it, and then performing analysis on that metadata, which when you get down to it is what AI training is doing.

At most you might be concerned that somebody might create a derivative work from some art you have published using the AI model as a mechanism, and considering that most of the people arguing about this built their internet careers on fanart, I doubt they are strict IP legalists who are opposed to derivative works in general. I wonder if they consider that, by that definition of consent, none of the showrunners/authors/artists they create fanworks for "consented" to their work being "used" for a fanwork either. Now, it is possible to create a derivative work maliciously, in a way that devalues the original work, and directly cloning an identifiable person's work to pass off as original would be that. But that's a different question entirely and has nothing to do with consent (and also is not, typically, what generative AI models are doing in normal operation).

"Consent" is a loaded term, the parallel being drawn when somebody says "I didn't consent" is clearly to sexual consent, and invoking that when the actual argument being made re: AI training is so incoherent cheapens the subject of sexual consent, which I don't think is a good trade for applying an extra rhetorical punch to your argument. I hate that everybody saw that one tumblr post and has adopted that language now.

[xinyuehui]

I was just looking at the casting at the Fox Spirit Matchmaker dramas, and I noticed that in all 3 of the dramas they did not cast anyone for Tushan Susu or Bai Yuechu, which is kind of funny to me considering the Huyao plot evolves around them primarily, they are the protagonist of this universe. Guess the drama have wiped out the entire modern aspect of the show. In the Donghua Tushan Susu struggles with her identity as she's treated as a Tushan Honghong replacement, everyone waited for her death for Honghong's return. Equally with Bai Yuechu as a replacement of Dongfang Yuechu.

It's lowkey ironic they write their existence out in the drama. Ha how spiteful 😅 the erasure is real.

Which now that I think about it...how's the match-making plot gonna work out if there's no modern aspects?? The whole point of the match-making is that Yao (translated as spirits in this ip) and humans have different life spans. Yao lives on but humans die. Humans will reincarnate but they will not have the memories of the past lives. The role of Tushan, the fox spirits (which they call it a job), is to help those infatuated to find their lover's reincarnation, recall the relationship in the previous life.

The drama description doesn't even include the word 'match-making' lmao...sounds like a typical Xuanhuan where it's humans vs spirits vs evil demons. But they did cast actors for the couples that do get match-made in the original 🤔🤔 wonder how it'll turn out?????

[willel]

Have you seen the news about the stage play? Apparently it will feature the Creels and their arrival to Hawkins. But there's some new characters too i guess?

Oh and also apparently Hopper, Joyce and Bob will have roles in the story too. I wonder if the other kids' parents will be featured or will it just feature Jim, Joyce and Bob (also what about Lonnie...? I guess he doesn't exist in the same school as them or something? I am not sure about this part). They also mentioned Joyce's surname before the marriage but i forgot. I am not sure how centered they will be in the story but it still would be enjoyable to watch Joyce's young ages tbh, but I am not sure if they're gonna focus on her relationship with Hopper and Bob.

Oh and the new characters feature a boy and a girl, they are different characters than Henry, Joyce, Hopper and Bob I am guessing, but i might be wrong. But the new characters are said to be 14 years old, so i guess they are entirely different characters or smth?

Interestin, interestin.

“Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy… and the shadows of the past have a very long reach,” the play’s synopsis reads. “Brought to life by a multi-award-winning creative team, who take theatrical storytelling and stagecraft to a whole new dimension, this gripping new adventure will take you right back to the beginning of the ‘Stranger Things’ story – and may hold the key to the end.”

It says it's written by one of the actual show writers and executive producers, so that's a plus. Most of the spin-offs you see are just written by authors hired on to work on the IP. This would be "from the roots" almost. This is probably the most canon spin-off we've seen to date.

Looks like the Duffers themselves actually collaborated on this too so yeah.

As for the story itself, seems like Joyce, Hopper, and Bob are the titular characters. Question is, will they retcon Joyce and Bob not actually knowing each other in school or not. Maybe Hopper will be the thread that ties them together funnily enough.

I don't really know where this falls in the timeline of things. I'm sure I used to know how old Joyce and Hopper were but I also feel like they never explicitly said it...

Let's see...

Looks like people estimate she was born in 1942 along with Hopper, though I'm not sure where they got that Hopper assumption. But let's go with it.

That would make Joyce and them about 17 years old during this stage play. Ok, older than I thought.

In which case, Henry is like, 12 years old in 1959 isn't he? So them meeting each other seems unrealistic. I mean, I know the middle school and high school are on the same campus, but a direct meeting between Joyce, Hopper, or Bob with Henry doesn't make much sense.

The neighborhood Henry lived in also looked like the rich affluent part of town, which I don't think fits Hopper or Joyce's background so it's not like they'd be neighbors.

Hm........... in this stage play, I think we will

Meet Hopper's parents. Specifically his dad who he apparently hated

Meet Joyce's family and learn why she wants to get out of town and how the hell she ended up with Lonnie Byers

I have no idea about Bob but ok

Learn about Virginia Creel and what's actually wrong with that family.

Find out why Joyce's family were such outcasts or why her aunt is considered crazy

Meet some random characters who we will never see again. But Karen will probably be there.

Speaking of Joyce, WE FINALLY GOT A MAIDEN NAME! Maldonado.

I mean........... certainly not what I was thinking it could be. It appears to be of Spanish origin (spanish from Spain)

AND THE MEANING???? LIKE WOW OK. Rude. Giving a lot of "cursed family" vibes. "Bad luck" basically.

Kinda sad they didn't go with the Jewish angle but I mean, who is to say they aren't? I choose to believe it still.

(also, this is hilarious and the reason why wikis aren't always 100% correct. Horowitz is Winona Ryers' original last name. The yearbook image is not from that Yearbook they official released, it was a fanedit that existed way before that book came out.)

[sysmedsaresexist]

We aren't active on syscourse tumblr anymore, or sysblr in general (just follow a few blogs we like or consider friends), so could you summarize the whole Weskcourse thing?? Who are they, what happened? Also, are you JAS? (I assume the acronym is Just-Another-Syscourse but one can never be too certain! - Prime

UHM, yeah... I can do a dirty, barebones type thing, it's been a week of stuff

Yeah, I'm JAS, justanothersyscourse

- I got put on a blocklist with a couple others, and someone who shouldn't have been on it (this someone was replaced three times with more people who shouldn't have been on it when they received pushback)

- I reblogged the blocklist with a meme because blocklists are dumb, and we ended up going back and forth about whether blocklists were any good and how they were maliciously putting people on it (the last person put on the list was DEFINITELY put there maliciously because of a post they THOUGHT was vagueing them). The blocklist and all arguments are now deleted from OPs blog, but still on mine if anyone wants to go back and check

- weskcourse jumped into this entire argument randomly with this cryptic shit about how I ruined their life three years ago by breaking their DNI (I wasn't on tumblr then, but I was also apparently LISTED in this DNI??), and then I, APPARENTLY, refused multiple requests to take down this post, and blocked all their accounts so they couldn't "bother" me anymore

- I (shockingly) gently (clearly I have trouble with that) explained that I had no idea who they were, or what I might have done, and I have only ever had two people blocked, and I very frequently engage with people who ask me to change or remove posts to figure it out, but if they could show me the post, I would own up to it and apologize

- They changed the timeline to under two years ago, and provided a post I had made about a screenshotted DNI. It's here if you want to scroll, but it was a completely normal DNI with no identifiable features, and it really wasn't anything even interesting? The last point was, "DNI if you think alters can't have disabilities the body doesn't," and I posted it with, "What kind of disabilities?"

(their current DNI was the exact opposite of all other points, for example, the original was DNI pro ship, and weskcourse's current DNI listed them as being pro ship and pro non contact, etc)

EDIT: I did own up to the post and apologize, in case anyone is wondering

- after the post, I received an anon saying, "no, I remember this, you said mean stuff to me about using the word 'cripple'", which immediately jogged my memory, and I pointed out that THAT was from a completely different blog, in regards to the post-- they were mixing me up oops-all-syscourse (not to be confused with the new blog, oopsallsyscourse), and I provided screenshots of the back and forth THEY had been doing about alters with disabilities

- weskcourse then explained (despite the above) that my post had lead their stalker to them, despite it being actually pretty tame and having no identifiable information

- said stalker then randomly showed up in all this professing their love and devotion to me and threatening to leak weskcourse's info

- stalker posted his IP, which was fake-- it's a private IP anyone can use to login and adjust the settings to their router, so that was dumb

- stalker then posted an address that doesn't exist in Canada's postal code database, which weskcourse immediately reblogged with, essentially, "yeah, that's my address" and then started telling everyone and their mother to kill themselves

- stalker started sending me ask after weird yandere ask and I'm rolling my eyes

- when it was pointed out that the IP was fake, the stalker blog immediately disappeared, and it's up for debate whether it was reported and removed, or the person deleted

- another blog VAGUELY and strangely involved in this (not sure if they want to be mentioned, but it raises eyebrows based on the above) received an anon with the stalker's Discord About Me, but never posted it.

- now this random 3 day old blog, ALSO has that about me, and these random chats with everyone in weskcourse's life, and claims to share a server with stalker

- Stalker then tried to join MY server but was instabanned before anyone even told me it had happened

- I made a vague post about cops and weskcourse deleted

The end

[girderednerve]

in honor of tumblr's impending data sale to midjourney (go turn off third-party sharing if you haven't), consider glancing through this article that explains a little bit about what tumblr probably means by "discouraging AI crawlers." the article goes into it more, but here's a summary:

crawlers are little programs which bounce around between linked pages, copying what they find to a server for temporary storage. they're how google and other search engines find content to show you in search results and how companies building large language models "scrape" the internet.

if website owners don't want some crawler or other to look at their content, basically what they do is put a simply formatted text file, robots.txt, in their website directory, which lists the web crawlers that they don't want on their site or which pages they want crawlers to avoid. not all websites have one, but many do. you can see tumblr's right here; it lists some major AI crawlers and bans them from the site entirely, and exempts some other content from being indexed by major crawlers, like google.

the thing here to note is that robots.txt documents represent a request that is generally respected. they aren't strictly enforceable—it's not like a firewall—they're just a longstanding norm of the internet. but there's been an explosion of startups in AI, so there are a lot of companies with crawlers, and it may become increasingly difficult for websites to keep up with the crawlers in circulation. different crawlers are treated differently, so each new crawler needs to be listed separately in these documents. openAI only announced the name of its crawler and the associated IP address so websites could block it after building a large, and currently very valuable, training dataset. it's also very possible that some of these new companies will operate unscrupulously and ignore requests in robots.txt files. in some sense, there are very few practical options for larger websites to avoid being included in AI training datasets.

that's the environment that automattic is responding to with the deal with midjourney. i don't think we need to take this move as deliberately hostile towards users (automattic is hostile in other ways!); instead, it's taking advantage of a current market moment to try to monetize tumblr. reddit did much the same in preparation for its IPO. you might wonder why AI companies that can scrape data from the internet would pay for that data; well, the legal standing of AI is an undecided, very murky issue, with multiple open cases, including a high-profile one brought by the new york times. AI companies may hope that if they purchase the right to use data from websites (which have the ability to change the terms of service their users are bound by at any moment), that they will be protected from potential future copyright fallout.

[widows-writings]

These things can and should coexist. Fandom creations (fanart, fanfic, ect.) Is a valid form of art and should not be criminalized.

The part that artists, myself included, are upset about is this: people are using AI art more than people's actual fucking work. The work that they put so much time and effort into.

Because I see people saying combining art and mashing it together has been how art has grown over time. Of course that's how it's grown over time. Of course you get inspiration from other artists. But it feels like AI art takes that idea and bastardizes it. It takes it and destroys the idea that artists spend their entire lives studying and learning from the greats or who they consider to be great in the modern day and age. Art is about studying, learning, trying and combining what you look up to and how to make it your own. That's not what AI art does. There is no personal twist on it, there is no humanization of it.

And before you come at me about collaging. That's a different ballpark. Because of course that's a valid form of creating art. You're still combining and learning and putting so much effort into what you're creating. Collaging, making fanart/fanfic of a fandom. Taking another's IP and doing something with it is still a valid form of art. Why? Because you're still putting your twist on it. You're taking it and making it your own. But the ethics and morals of what you're doing beyond that is a different conversation (as in, this is not a safe space for you assholes that promote incest and other gross shit like that). THAT'S ART. I'M NOT SAYING IT ISN'T. NOT ONCE DID I SAY THAT IT ISN'T.

Going back to the second point I made. The reason people are upset with AI art and how it's even being casually used. PEOPLE ARE USING IT MORE THAN ASKING AN ARTIST TO DO IT. By showing companies you would rather use AI art because it's cheap, it's easy and wow it was all done with a push of a button IT'S NO FUCKING WONDER THEY WANT TO MAKE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS USING AI WRITING. IT'S NO WONDER THEY WANT TO USE AI INSTEAD OF PAYING PEOPLE PROPERLY.

Because you showed them that's what you wanted. You showed them that you would rather get something easy and free than pay an artist. Then you turn around and wonder why artists are so pissed at AI.

And look, I'm not talking about hobbyists or people who actively use AI to help them. That's what it should be used for. On the fucking down low.

But the people who are promoting AI as a way to create something free and easy instead of talking to and paying an artist? You're why. You're the reason why I never want to share my art or my writing. You're the reason why I want to give up on what I love. Because you would rather love something made by a computer more than you would love something made by an artist.

And look, to the people who don't have the money to pay an artist or a writer, or anything like that, there's a reason people share their stuff publicly. Because they want to share it with you. They want to make it accessible. People just put tip jars or they add the option to pay for a patreon. They add these options, yet still keep their art public (if they're not assholes).

And that's the heart of the discourse. Show that you love and support the actual creation of art (collages and fan works included, because it is art). Not something made by a computer. AI is nothing but a tool, something to help the learning and growth of future artists.

But you do what you will with what I said.

anyway ai discourse is kicking off on my dash again and i just want to reiterate that i fully and 100% believe that "cutting up and remixing pre-existing intellectual property without prior permission" should never be made illegal and it would be utterly horrifying if the united states attempted to criminalize it.

[magpiejay1234]

Anyway, given Midori's statements about the mobile Chao Garden game, and Persona x Sonic crossovers, I guess we will have Chao variants of various Persona characters, but also more Persona skins for future Sonic games.

Given the competitive nature of Chao Gardens, the discussion about which Persona Chao being the best will be amusing to see.

Of course, this will make SEGA incredible amounts of money, but the server costs will be very big as well. This might make or break SEGA's entire mobile divisions.

****

Kinda funny that now that Microsoft owns Actvision Blizzard, Sony's default classic mascot game is now MediEvil (since Jak and Daxter, LittleBigPlanet and Rachet & Clank came much later).

Makes you wonder what Sony will buy next though. They are apparently considering another Sly Cooper revival, but the time schedule probably won't allow that. I guess people would prefer another Gravity Rush game though Sony dissolved their studio, so any new game will be like the new Nordic GoW games, effectively be in a different style.

There are of course a lot of classic titles owned, and developed by others, but the problem is that Sony would have to throw money at them, and since they are winning the home console war, they would rather just buy some old defunct IPs. They are apparently trying to get into the Paramount purchase, which, if it occurs, would likely lead to an attempt to buy SEGA, but that is unlikely since other people are more likely to buy it.

[astropithecus]

Obituaries: Kevin Mitnick, hacker and fugitive turned security consultant, dies at 59

In 1995 I was 11, my favorite movie was The Net, and Kevin Mitnick - sitting in federal prison - was basically a folk hero. He wasn't allowed access to a phone, because the rumor was he could start a nuclear war by whistling modem tones into a receiver. To a kid that grew up watching WarGames that was effectively a superpower.

I spent the next few formative years learning to "hack" - not entirely because of Mitnick, but it couldn't have hurt. I was the textbook script kiddie, a tween with just enough knowledge to scrabble onto the shoulders of giants. My first forays into software development were via Visual Basic, making AOL "progs" to flood chat rooms and "punt" those bold enough to cross me (interestingly, there's good reason to think Mark Zuckerberg started out the same way).

In 1997, I noticed the local library's catalog computers were running a Telnet client connected to a public IP. I had learned the ins-and-outs of Telnet setting up a MUD server for me and my friends (when I see people play D&D over Discord I always wonder if there'd be a niche for a solid, modern MUD server to fill), so I signed out and then manually brute-forced the password to sign back in. I was looking over my shoulder, half-expecting to get escorted from the building, as if anyone was watching the catalog Telnet server that closely. I don't remember what the password ended up being, only that it was a single-case dictionary word - we were still a few years from a public awareness of password complexity - and I managed to guess it.

Now, with a few years of IT work behind me and a healthy whitehat interest in social engineering, I realize Mitnick probably would've just told a librarian the computer wasn't working and watched her type the password. Regardless, 13-year-old me was proud of his ingenuity. I took my newfound knowledge and used it to check what books were available at which library branch without leaving the house, one time I even put one hold until I could convince my mom to drive me there. Mostly I just enjoyed the thrill that I made it work. I wasn't experienced enough to consider using a proxy (or better yet, to not "hack" from my own computer) so I suppose I'm lucky I knew better than to take on anyone with better security than the local municipal library system. I don't think they ever even bothered to change the password. A few years later, they introduced a public website to do the same thing, because information wants to be free.

That was the aspect of "hacking" that I think has been lost in the intervening years. Hacking now is generally about profit - bitlocking data, demanding ransoms, swiping crypto wallets, harvesting credit card details, running scams, selling password hash tables. When it's not, it's about social activism; whistleblowing, leaking documents. Don't get me wrong, cyberdisruption is a valuable thread in the tapestry of civil disobedience, but Mitnick represented a different breed. He never launched a nuke, the "whistling into the phone" rumor was likely an intentional falsehood, vilification promoted by law enforcement, made plausible by the unusual abilities of a 1960's phreaker named Joybubbles. There was no agenda, no malice; there's not any indication Mitnick ever profited from any of his hacks (directly, at least - certainly the infamy helped his eventual IT security career). It was just an obsession with challenging yourself to accomplish things people assume are impossible, and the satisfaction of the eureka moment when it works. That spirit - so prevalent in hacker communities in the 80's and 90's and the phreaker circles that preceded them - has all but vanished from our public perception of hacking. The terms "hacker" and "hacking" themselves have become almost exclusively negative.

Probably just as well. Who needs more Mark Zuckerbergs?

Kevin Mitnick's business card, featuring a working punch-out lockpicking set

[impandgnomes]

ngl when I look through communities like this, I'm genuinely reminded of how mythology and stories used to get passed through people's own retellings and embellishments. Things like oral storytelling and the copying of books (or whatever the fuck went on with Dracula's Icelandic translation) kind of find a weird modern place on the internet, with the major difference perhaps being we usually currently have a concretely recorded "original" base telling of the tale that we're usually working off with certainty to varying degrees (and that copyright law seems to have confused people into thinking that nothing is valid in fan works unless it's badly-written smut that somehow sold a few million copies).

Like, I'll pass by posts that really are a jumbled mess of people's AUs (for better or worse) and I wonder about the lineage. Who came up with the first seedling idea that grew into this? How does it reflect on the original - is it "faithful" to that take, is it its own first-generation new idea, or is it a product of other ideas that have become increasingly further removed? Will these new versions of the characters be considered "new" characters divorced entirely from their origins by someone now or some day in the future?

SP is probably one of the weird ones in this respect, not just because of the nature of the show itself - it's one of the ones with both a longstanding user base AND an IP that is still regularly maintained with new content by its creators (ie: new episodes are still helmed by Matt and Trey). It kind of makes it more interesting to watch happen ig lmao

[goodlifewrites]

Should We Stop Calling Ourselves Fanfiction Writers?

I imagine many fanfiction writers have had that sense of embarrassment of applying the term to themselves. We tend to keep our writing within a community of other fanfic writers and readers and rarely, if ever, do we share our stories with “outsiders,” or even let them know this part of ourselves. We have a habit of treating our creative outlet as “cringey” to others, so we never let them in.

So I do wonder if we need to stop calling ourselves fanfiction writers. Because there really is nothing different about what we write compared to most other writers out there, and if re-labeling ourselves gets our amazing work in front of more eyes and gives us more confidence in our writing, shouldn’t we do that?

As a community, we segregate our writing too much from other forms of fiction. I’m not entirely sure why we do this, but my guess is we have tied “true writing” too much to “paid writing.” Our fanfiction will never be bought; legally it can’t. And because of this fact, we all seem to devalue it compared to the writing people make a living off of. But how is it actually any different?

At its core, the Cursed Child story is no different than any story posted on AO3. It takes an existing piece of intellectual property and tells a story based on that IP. The only difference is the owners of the IP gave explicit permission to the playwrights to make money off of this story.  That’s really it. Cursed Child is only different from fanfiction because it was allowed to be monetized.  

Now, many might argue that the big difference is that most fanfiction is bad, whereas most professional writing is good.  I really hate this argument.  For one, Cursed Child sort of exists to counter this argument (how many times have we heard the play is “bad fanfiction”?) But also, I hate the overall argument that fanfiction is inherently poor quality. Sure, most is not great. But one can argue that like most creative works, there is the good and the bad and the cream rises to the top. Can anyone read @annerbhp, @jenoramaca, @floreatcastellumposts, @thedistantdusk or @thebiwholived and honestly tell me their writing is inferior to what gets published solely? And if you do think its weaker, can you honestly say you just haven’t been conditioned to think fanfiction writing < professional paid writing?

The truth is all writing or fiction, in general, is fanfiction. Any movie which is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare is fanfiction.  For example, 10 Things I Hate About You, which we all love, is based off of The Taming of the Shrew. Every trope we see in fiction is rooted in stories written years before it. When a tv show is adapted from a comic book, that’s fanfiction. The most recent Star Wars trilogy is fanfiction. Cursed Child is fanfiction.

The only reason we don’t call any of this fanfiction is because a) the writers got paid for these officially-sanctioned stories and b)fanfiction is considered a lesser form of creative fiction and thus they wouldn’t want to “devalue” what they wrote.

But that’s bullshit.  It’s all meant to gatekeep “real writing” so as to keep the profession closed off from the huge number of insanely-talented writers who simply don’t have the resources or connections to monetize their work. Professional writers like feeling special, that achieving the status of “being paid for my creative output” makes them better than you. Forget the fact that their finished product has gone through extensive edits and reworking from an entire industry of other “experts” and some of the best writing in fanfiction has simply had a fellow writer give it a once-over.

We need to stop devaluing our work just because we aren’t getting paid for it or because a really important person hasn’t officially endorsed it. Calling our writing “fanfiction” attaches a stigma to our work that no other writer does, even though we’re producing the exact same thing. Until we either proudly share our writing with non-fandom friends and family or start referring everything as fanfiction, no one will ever take our writing seriously.