#protected disclosure

[ryanwclement]

WHISTLEBLOWING!

by Ryan Clement, barrister IN THIS BLOG I discuss Protected Disclosures aka ‘whistleblowing’ within the context of employment, which is what a whistleblower has to make in order to be protected from suffering a detriment or be dismissed because they ‘whistleblew.’ A PROTECTED DISCLOSURE is a qualifying disclosure that is made by a worker to, for example, their employer or a body that has legal…

[reasonsforhope]

"The world's coral reefs are close to 25 percent larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers (24,700 square miles) of coral reefs – an area the size of Ireland.

That brings the total size of the planet's shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers – the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.

Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there's a hard bottom – rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral – the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.

You might wonder why we're finding this out now. Didn't we already know where the world's reefs are?

Previously, we've had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world – and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.

Pictured: Geomorphic mapping (left) compared to new reef extent (red shading, right image) in the northern Great Barrier Reef.

[AKA: All the stuff in red on that map is coral reef we did not realize existed!! Coral reefs cover so much more territory than we thought! And that's just one example. (From northern Queensland)]

We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba, and Australia.

To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is – and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.

The result: the world's first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas. [You can see the interactive maps yourself at the link!]

The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs."

-via ScienceDirect, February 15, 2024

[uncanny-tranny]

Every now and then I remember I am significantly older than the legalization of gay marriage in my country and I take psychic damage every time. I am not that old, like my life has just begun.

Just... Remember our rights didn't just descend from the heavens hundred of years ago. It is still a fresh memory, a blip compared to the timeline of the world.

[jaxihammer]

You will never convince me that Isabel Lovelace is not disabled post-canon. Think about it.

Of everyone in the crew, she's spent by far the longest time in space. Sure, she's probably been exercising, but that isn't going to fully stop her muscles atrophying. Her bones are going to weaken. Not to mention the fact that she went into the cryo chamber, which we know isn't GREAT for you (I know Eiffel is kind of an outlier but still. Even once is gonna fuck you up at least a little).

Then add to THAT the fact that the body Lovelace has now was created by the dear listeners. Not only are they recreating a body that's already undergone almost a thousand days of the trauma of space; they're doing it with zero existing knowledge of how a human body functions in Earth's gravity. The clones are almost perfect, but there are notable differences in internal organs, and I wouldn't be surprised if Lovelace was put back together with some inconsistencies.

All this to say, I think Lovelace would become a mobility aid user when the crew lands back on Earth. Everyone on the crew would probably end up in physical therapy, but the damage done to her body would be by far the most extensive. Whereas I don't doubt Jacobi, Minkowski, and Eiffel could regain most if not all of their mobility, I think Lovelace would use a wheelchair, and eventually with PT could use crutches or a cane some days. Even if she were to regain muscle function, she would probably have some sort of chronic pain that would necessitate mobility aids!

In conclusion Let Her Be Disabled thank you for coming to my TED talk

[luesmainblog]

With those manscaped ads going around again, here is a reminder to my penis-having friends out there: Do not put anything scented on your junk. I’m serious. It sounds harmless, especially since you have a closed sexual system, but it can genuinely be a very dangerous thing to be doing for a number of reasons. 1. You never know if you’re allergic to a product until you use it. Do you REALLY want to find out you’re allergic to some super specific scent oil mix because you put it on your nuts? 2. Whatever is on your balls will end up rubbing onto your underwear, and as you move throughout the day, it will inevitably make its way to your urethra. It may only be a little bit, but if your urinary track is sensitive enough, that can lead straight to a UTI. Believe me, those are incredibly not fun. 3. But let’s say you only wear it during naked times. Totally fine, right? Nope; you’re STILL at a risk for a UTI because of how scent actually works. When you smell something, it’s because there are particles of that thing in the air, and those particles make it into your nose and your nose essentially “tastes” those particles. Now, for most stuff, that’s fine. However, those tiny particles - when there’s enough of them - can still make their way into your urethra over time if they’re close enough, and once again, that can lead to an infection because there is a foreign matter in your pee hole that doesn’t belong there. (this is the reason so many vages end up with UTIs when using scented pads, when normal pads don’t do anything to them. it’s the scent particles.) 4. This product is given to you alongside masculine grooming items, and if you think it’s difficult to shave your knees, you’re about to learn the fear of god the first time you try to shave your nuts. this goes double for especially wrinkly folks. Now, shaving is entirely your choice, but imagine getting deodorant in a bleeding nick on your NUTS. can you say Ow? and god forbid that thing get infected because you introduced a foreign entity your body didn’t like. I don’t think anyone wants infected balls. 5. The following can also apply to any partner you may have if you’ve freshly put it on, or if you’ve been wearing it around all day in a pair of underwear or pants(again, that stuff’s gonna end up rubbing onto the rest of you). So even if YOU’RE not allergic, or sensitive to UTIs, your other half might not want to suddenly get hives in her vag, or a sudden yeast infection, or a frot-induced UTI because you got yourself all deodoranted up before funtimes. none of this even gets into the possibility of irritation, the risk of spraying on one spot for too long(chemical burns on your balls, bro, never fun), the fact that scents could end up masking a change in your scent that would normally alert you to go see a doctor, there are MULTIPLE reasons to consider whether or not you REALLY need to put deodorant down there. I don’t know if this post will blaze, as the message is inherently nsfw, but I sincerely hope it will. You shouldn’t use ball deodorant for the same reasons you shouldn’t use scented pads, and you ESPECIALLY should not be putting a scented SPRAY anywhere near your pee hole. obviously this is all a personal risk thing, some people will be able to go 15 years perfuming the hell out of their sack and never face a problem, but it genuinely worries me that this is being advertised as totally normal, sexy, and risk-free. I just want the public to be informed; y’all might not be as used to the ways beauty companies will lie and hurt you for a quick buck. Be safe out there, and please, take good care of your sack.

[bobbie-robron]

I mean, we’ve only been married a few days. I thought we agreed to stop keeping things from each other.

18-Oct-2018, episode 1

[docholligay]

It's so hard when a story comes at it with completely different assumptions than you. The story calls what's going on with Rue love, and true love, and says that's enough to have saved Mytho. I can respect that the story is about that, and understand that, but it feels so meaningless to me. We found out what, like 2 episodes ago. that Rue even knew him when she was little. So we've had no time in invest in what he might mean to her, we're just supposed to take it on faith.

Not for the first time, I worry that this story is so caught up in the idea of its 'reveals' that it forgets that we need to be emotionally invested in what it asks us to care about, I would say 80% of the time I would prefer time to work on an idea to the surprise of it. A surprise can be done with EXTREME skill, but that's not always or even often the case.

Please note I have never seen this and am watching spoiler-free! Please don’t confirm, deny, or explain anything, even if it’s historical or cultural! Thank you! There is a discussion discord here for all your spoilery needs!

[sad--tree]

bound and determined 2 finish watching season 1 of yellowstone 2nite but god help me if this isn't one of those "awful ppl being awful 2 each other" type of shows. like, im Invested now but christ is it a slog. unfortunately i started having Thoughts And Feelings about these terrible assholes several episodes ago so. :|

[nationallawreview]

CFPB Takes Aim at Data Brokers in Proposed Rule Amending FCRA

On December 3, the CFPB announced a proposed rule to enhance oversight of data brokers that handle consumers’ sensitive personal and financial information. The proposed rule would amend Regulation V, which implements the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), to require data brokers to comply with credit bureau-style regulations under FCRA if they sell income data or certain other financial…

[hamblinfamilylaw]

Prenuptial Agreement Solicitors

Prenuptial agreements are not just for the wealthy or those with trust issues. They are a valuable tool for protecting your financial interests, providing clarity in the event of divorce, and preventing potential conflicts. When considering a prenup, it's essential to have open and respectful communication with your partner and seek legal advice when necessary. Remember that a prenuptial agreement can be a proactive step towards a secure and harmonious marriage. For more info, visit Prenuptial Agreement Solicitors.

[johnbrace]

Applications by Defendant Jack Beecham to vacate 14th August 2023 trial date and have public funds pay for transcript of previous hearing both denied by HHJ Swinnerton at Liverpool Crown Court

Applications by Defendant Jack Beecham to vacate 14th August 2023 trial date and have public funds pay for transcript of previous hearing both denied by HHJ Swinnerton at Liverpool Crown Court                                                            By John Brace (Editor) First publication date: Friday 28th July 2023, 17:36 (BST). Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby…

[just-sg]

Prefacing this that it's meant as an explanation, not by any means a lecture or rant or anything. Genuinely don't know why this came up on my dash, but I figured I'd try to give a sincere answer.

-

It's stalking in as much as any real teenage girl with a celebrity crush is "stalking" her idol by putting up posters and following his every Tweet and insta post. It's stalking in the way that any anxiety-ridden high schooler who romanticizes the idea of "love" but is terrified of rejection might want to find excuses to be close to someone she admires even if she can't work up the courage to talk. These are both real and pretty normal things people do, but in the context of the show, they (like most things) are exaggerated to extremes.

Chloe can't just be rich and spoiled; she has to be the mayor's daughter, literally named Bourgeois, and practically run the town herself. Gabriel can't just be famous; he has to be the most famous fashion designer in the world. There can't just be a local rock star; Jagged has to be a direct parody of Mick Jagger.

And Marinette can't just be an anxious girl who goes out of her way to figure out Adrien's schedule so she can bump into him in the hallway and sit at the next table over at lunch; she has to memorize his schedule for the next 3 years. It's part of "the bit", it's part of the tone of the worldbuilding. In this particular instance, it makes people more uncomfortable than a lot of the stuff, and that's understandable. It's just not meant to be taken more seriously than everything else that's so over-the-top.

As far as the "that's not love" thing though?

Correct! Later on, Marinette herself acknowledges that, in multiple ways on multiple occasions.

Even as early as season 2, she realizes that not being able to talk to someone isn't a basis for a relationship or a sign of love, and also that she is able to talk to him during the times she treats him like a friend. She sees that as a negative sign, but it's always been the root of her genuine feelings. When she fell for him the first time, it was from him sincerely apologizing to her, admitting he didn't have many friends and wasn't sure what to do, and then putting concern for and an effort to be kind to her above his own insecurity anyway. It was a friendly gesture, delivered with a softness that made her want to protect him, even though she couldn't understand that part at the time.

She tries to pull back on numerous occasions, for different reasons and lengths of time. Sometimes it's pure obsession and sunk cost fallacy and force of habit dragging her back, but sometimes it's from other places, and over time it's increasingly that she's becoming closer to him as an actual person and getting past her fangirling and, more importantly, anxiety.

Because that's ultimately by far the root of it. By her own admission, Marinette doesn't actually want big fairy tale happily ever afters and grand gestures. She wraps herself up in fantasies about everything going Exactly Perfect specifically to create an impossible bar for herself so she has an excuse to keep aiming to achieve the unachievable and never has to actually DO any of it. She's so terrified of either being rejected or of getting close only to be disappointed that she works herself up on purpose as an avoidance tactic. And it is deeply, severely unhealthy, and the show is extremely aware of that.

And that's part of what eventually helps make it sweet and satisfying.

On Adrien's side, he's the deuteragonist and has a lot of important moments and agency, especially as Chat Noir, but in his civilian life, he is in very many ways a Damsel in Distress, and that's a good thing. Adrien is abused, neglected, with rock bottom self-worth, convinced love is something to be earned and never sure if he deserves it, but so filled with love for everyone else that he never wants anyone to worry about him. He's also a self-destructive martyr and that's actively a bad thing that causes Ladybug stress far more often than it helps anyone. But Marinette's here saying no, you do deserve love, you deserve to live and to be happy, just because you're you. You don't have to do anything to earn this and I am angry that anyone ever made you think you did. And that's powerful both for dismantling toxic masculinity and traditional ideas that men need to be the stoic protectors, and for telling victims everywhere that no, the people who said you were unworthy were just being cruel, you deserve love.

And on Marinette's side, it was never the famous model or the handsome prince or whatever fantasies that she wanted. It was just the sweet, soft, sincere, and generous boy who gave her his umbrella. Every single time she falls for any version of him, it's when she's having a bad day or even outright breaking, and he puts aside everything else and puts her first. There's a visual motif every time it happens to mark it.

This is also exactly what makes her so immediately comfortable around Luka, incidentally. But as much as she does also have strong feelings for Luka, the difference I think is that Luka is extremely good at taking care of everyone including himself, and Adrien isn't. Marinette is in the traditionally masculine role here, where love includes fierce protection. That's why so many canon fantasies paint her as the knight to Adrien's princess. She wants someone who will be there for her but also needs her to be there for them in turn. She wants to feel both supported and useful, and that's in line with everything else about her. Being Ladybug is easier than being Marinette, because she stops worrying about herself when other people have problems she can help fix.

And even though 5 seasons was a gruelingly long time to wait, it's been wonderful watching these feelings evolve from Adrien being oblivious and overly naive (through no fault of his own but that doesn't mean it couldn't have rough effects on others at times) and Marinette equating love with obsession and spiraling into it on purpose, seeing them grow into two people who have genuinely been through a lot together and care about each other very deeply.

So, in addition to the identity shenanigans and all the variable dynamics between those of course, that's the appeal of the core ship in Miraculous.

Incidentally my ideal endgame would be a poly ship of at least 3 if not more people, and if I had to choose just one couple I still kind of like Lukanette more, heh. But the Adrinette evolution is still also very sweet and good.

Wane I was a kid, I always just hated miraculous ladybug because she stocks the main love interests, which is like super creepy and I could never get behind why people ship them together and wanted them to end up together. She literally has cut outs of magazines of him and in her room. and knows his schedule like that's not love, that's stalking.and that's werid.

I'm just wondering if anyone else felt the same about this series. If you ship them together do you no hate if you do, this is just my opinion

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Keith Edwards at No Lies Detected:

Fascism doesn’t come for every generation, but it has come for ours.  This is not a fight on the beaches of Normandy, but in our own country. This article begins a series on what opposing Donald Trump and his movement can look like. I hope you will join me as these progress.

[...]

Do not leave. Faced with the might of the United States government aligned against you, you might consider resigning preemptively to avoid the humiliation of inevitable termination. This is counterproductive for at least two reasons: If you leave, you save Trump Administration officials the time and effort of identifying you, which otherwise could have taken months or years. Second, your principled stand would likely only result in your replacement by an unprincipled Trump loyalist. By staying on, you may find yourself helping to implement policies you find hateful, but by refusing to leave, you can ensure that you have some influence on those policies, because then you can...

Delay. Delay. Delay. Waiting out the enemy until he moves on, gives up, or forgets is a time-honored strategy not just among civil servants but also history’s best generals. That email about a proposed rule change to healthcare protections? Bury it in everyone’s inbox by sending it late. A meeting on reviewing the U.S. government’s foreign aid commitments to a region you oversee? Oops, you’ll be out that day! That agency conference your political-appointee boss requested you arrange? Next month didn’t fit everyone’s schedule, so you had to push it to after the new year! Slow-walking is the classic tool in any bureaucrat’s toolbox, and in the next Trump Administration, you can use it in defense of the Constitution.

Be intentionally incompetent. As a career employee, you likely have always had the advantage of knowing your workplace better than your politically appointed overlords. This is perhaps your most potent weapon against Trump. Draft rules unlikely to survive judicial review. Favor lengthy rulemaking or review processes over expedited ones. Complete tasks sequentially rather than in parallel to draw out timelines. Add complexity, stakeholders, and process wherever possible. In short, exploit the knowledge gap you hold over your bosses to diminish, defuse, and defeat their plans.

Leak. Federal employees have the right to report what they believe to be illegal or abusive of authority to their agency’s inspector general (IG) without fear of retaliation. Trump however has singled out IGs for replacement after one played a pivotal role in his first impeachment, so the availability of this option may depend on how politically prominent your agency is. Fortunately, you can anonymously tip prominent news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, which boast extensive investigative units and employ rigorous safeguards to protect sources’ identities. You can also seek out sympathetic elected officials, such as Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, whose main function is investigation of the federal government. (If you choose disclosure, be sure that the information is not classified, the unauthorized disclosure of which carries stiff federal penalties.)

Disregard and refuse. When you have exhausted all other options, you may want selectively to resort to riskier behaviors. These include going behind political appointees’ backs to subvert their activities, say by picking up the phone and countermanding their directions. In extreme cases, you may have outright to refuse direct orders to the appointee’s face. Though such actions seem like a fasttrack to termination, you may still be protected by the fact that overwhelmed political appointees might hesitate to go through the onerous process of finding a politically reliable replacement. Remember, the longer you stay in, the harder you make it for Trump to do what he wants. Know your rights. If the worst happens and your agency moves to terminate you, you can still fight back. There are multiple avenues an employee designated for dismissal can pursue to delay, reduce, or reverse agency penalties against them.1 The beauty of these options is that they can take months or even years to resolve and may be appealed to higher bodies, further extending the process. All the while, you are collecting a salary and occupying a full-time equivalent (FTE) position that your agency can’t fill until you finally depart. (This is not legal advice. If you find yourself in this situation, please seek a lawyer.)

Keith Edwards writes in his No Lies Detected Substack on how civil servants can show resistance to the tyrannical Trump 2.0 Regime from within.

[sgrplumditz]

You had his baby and he didn't know (Pt. 2)

A/N: Thank you for all the positive feedback! I am so beyond grateful that you guys enjoyed the 1st part. I never fathomed to get this much attention from my first post, which means I didn’t really intend on making a part 2. But with such gratitude and motivation… here it is!

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

She had told him everything, and through it all he did nothing but soothe her, keeping her small hands in his as her soft voice filled their ears. It wasn't until now that she had realized how absurd it was to feel nervous to tell him the story of her unaccompanied pregnancy, and her introduction to motherhood.

Like herself, he also held no resentment, or distaste toward the secrecy behind the conception and birth of their beautiful baby girl. Simon's only intention was to understand her and her decision to keep their child a secret from him, but in the midst of her reminiscent disclosure he couldn't help but feel alienated, guilty and a rollercoaster of many other emotions revolving her and his daughter.

His usually hard, and stoic gaze had softened for her -- which wasn't an unusual occurrence for him when it came to her, the mother of his child. "Hey, you're alright" he soothed when he noticed a stray tear race down her soft cheek. His thumb instinctively coming up to stop the salty drop of emotion in its track, and likewise she instinctively leaned into the feeling of his large hand that cupped the side of her face.

The moment was tender, intimate, comforting -- it was everything that she craved from him from the moment she found out she was carrying their child. Their baby girl seemed to be emotionally connected to her mother. The sound of her fuss and whimpering coming from the playpen where she had been placed to rest. Both her and Simon's attention was drawn to the infant the moment her restful cooing was replaced with the sounds of discomfort. Her mother knew that she was most likely hungry, but her father, Simon seemed to only be alarmed by the sudden crying. It was evident that his protective nature had taken over -- a quality of his that could not be tamed or ever be put to rest.

"She's just hungry, Si" she spoke, breaking the silence between the two. The melancholy aura of the room immediately being lifted as she chuckled softly at his high alert behavior as it only reminded her of the first few nights that she was home from the hospital with her daughter.

As she normally would she gently picked up their daughter, making sure to keep a firm hand on the back of her neck to support it. Her maternal nature was in full effect as she spoke sweet and soft words to the baby girl. Her cries being soothed, and her simple mind now distracted at the sight and sound of her mother. Simon watched this all divulge in front of him. He didn't know whether his heart ached because he had missed hundreds of moments like these or if he felt such sorrow because he didn't share the same bond with the tiny being that he helped create.

He let his the thoughts and endless "'what if" possibilities consume his mind while she prepared a bottle with the infant still resting in her arm. She was small, measuring out the length of her mother's forearm. Normally she would make the bottle with ease, but as time went by and the baby girl grew, the process slowed down. She was careful and calculated making sure that the baby was always safe in her arms.

"I can take her if you're alright with it" spoke Simon in a mildly nervous tone. “It’d make it easier for you to prepare her bottle, yeah?” he spoke again, using the feeding time as an excuse to finally hold their daughter. But he was nervous? Simon doesn’t get nervous. He has always been incredibly calm and collected to the point of mastering stoicism. He wasn’t nervous to hold the infant — that was the less of his worries.

There were so many special events that he had missed while he was away. Core memories that he doesn’t have with her or her mother. He missed the pregnancy, the first kicks, the birth, the first powerful cries from her little lungs, the first feed from her mother’s full and lactating breasts, the first skin-to-skin contact —which he read was essential for bonding in newborns, the dad walk out of the hospital after being discharged as a family — the one where he knew his overprotective nature would automatically take over.

So many factors playing into the aggregation of his nerves, but there was a single one that was keeping him on edge the most. Simon was nervous that he wouldn’t be able to bond with the small and fragile being that shared half of his DNA. Being absent for so many critical events made him doubtful in his ability to be and feel like a genuine father. All of his nerves dwindling down and relying on this very moment.

But none of it mattered. The pessimistic thoughts that lingered in his brain practically disintegrating. As if the warmth of his daughter’s small body destroyed every doubtful fiber in his own. She was no longer just his biological daughter, but a part of him. His soul was tied to hers, his emotions was connected to hers, his breath was for her. His entire being was engulfed by her.

The baby adjusted herself in his broad, tattooed and muscular arm by leaning her small face into his chest, as if she sensed some sort of familiarity in him. Like mother like daughter.

She watched their entire interaction curiously. She saw his hardened exterior breakdown at the moment their daughter’s infant body fit into his arm like a puzzle piece. It was obvious. Just like she felt her daughter was made for her, she was just as equally made for him. The instant connection between the father and daughter was electric. This was everything she had wanted and more.

She always knew Simon would be a great father — he was a great guy after all — he was attentive, protective, polite, masculine, and so much more, but she never fathomed that it would have been as magnifying as she felt it to be.

Simon’s gaze turned to her and she swore she saw his eyes glistening, tears threatening to spill. No words were exchanged between the two, but she knew exactly what he was feeling and thinking. As their daughter’s mother, she felt those exact emotions as well.

She was then engulfed by his scent. His arms embracing the two most important girls in his life, but it was not just a typical embrace of joy — it was firm, passionate and filled with urgency. He needed them.

With their daughter still resting in his arm, he used his free hand to remove a stray strand of hair from her face before he firmly cupped it. A soft kiss landing on her forehead.

He pressed his forehead to hers and exhaled softly before breaking the silence, “I am so proud of you” he said — his english accent thick and correlating respectively with how emotional he was.

“I am so proud of you” he repeated again, “but you are never doing anything like this alone. We do it together. As a family”.

[evermoredeluxe]

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Grand Total: A Record $2 Billion

By Ben Sisario

For the last 21 months, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been the biggest thing in music — a phenomenon that has engulfed pop culture, dominated news coverage and boosted local economies around the world.

Now we know exactly how big.

Through its 149th and final show, which took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday, Swift’s tour sold a total of $2,077,618,725 in tickets. That’s two billion and change — double the gross ticket sales of any other concert tour in history and an extraordinary new benchmark for a white-hot international concert business.

Those figures were confirmed to The New York Times for the first time by Taylor Swift Touring, the singer’s production company. While the financial details of the Eras Tour have been a subject of constant industry speculation since tickets were first offered more than two years ago — through a presale so in-demand it crashed Ticketmaster’s system — Swift has never authorized disclosure of the tour’s numbers until now.

The official results are not far from the estimates that trade journalists and industry analysts have been crunching for months. But they solidify the enormous scale of Swift’s accomplishment. Just a few months ago, Billboard magazine reported that Coldplay had set an industry record with $1 billion in ticket sales for its 156-date Music of the Spheres World Tour — a figure that is just half of Swift’s total for a similar stretch of shows in stadiums and arenas.

Every date on the Eras Tour was sold out, and spare tickets were scalped at eye-popping prices — or traded within the protective Swiftie fan community, often at face value.

According to Swift’s touring company, a total of 10,168,008 people attended the concerts, which means that, on average, each seat went for about $204. That is well above the industry average of $131 for the top 100 tours around the world in 2023, according to Pollstar, a trade publication.

The biggest single night’s attendance was in Melbourne, Australia, on Feb. 16, 2024, with 96,006. And Swift’s eight nights at Wembley Stadium in London, which she played more than any other venue, drew 753,112 people — about as many as live in Seattle.

As gigantic as they are, the figures revealed by Swift’s company are only part of the overall business that has surrounded the tour. They exclude her extraordinary merchandise sales, for example, a product line so in demand that Swift opened stadium sales booths a day early in some markets to sell T-shirts, hoodies and Christmas ornaments to fans, ticketed or not.

And they do not count the secondary market of online ticket resellers. According to StubHub, the Eras Tour was the biggest-selling tour in the platform’s two-decade history, and last year it outsold Beyoncé’s shows by a factor of five. Another ticketing company, Victory Live, said the average price for resold tickets to the Eras Tour’s three Vancouver dates was $2,952. (Swift earned nothing from resold tickets.)

Beyond its numbers, the Eras Tour has been a mega-event that elevated the already-super-famous Swift to a new level, making her an epochal symbol of cultural saturation on the level of the Beatles in the 1960s or Michael Jackson in his ’80s prime. Swift’s every onstage utterance, outfit swap or offstage sighting was thoroughly documented, on social media and in the mainstream press, with news outlets big and small rushing to capture Swifties’ clicks. Online, fans tracked every tweak to the three-hour-plus set lists.

As the story of Swift’s tour took shape, it seemed to contain its own eras within it. First, in November 2022, came the ticket fiasco, when Ticketmaster was overwhelmed by what it said were 3.5 billion online requests for tickets, many from scalpers’ bots. The furor over those problems led to a Senate Judiciary hearing in January 2023, at which lawmakers from both parties openly called Ticketmaster’s corporate parent, Live Nation, a monopoly. (This year, the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation, calling for a breakup of the company.)

Then came the tour and the folkways that developed around it, like fans trading hand-assembled friendship bracelets. After the tour’s stop in Kansas City, Mo., a public flirtation between Swift and Travis Kelce, the star tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs, developed into a full-on romance, with the pop star and the football hunk sharing a field-level smooch after the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers at Super Bowl LVIII in February. The photographers definitely did not miss it.

In October 2023, she released “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” a nearly three-hour concert film, released through a direct distribution deal with AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest theater operator. It sold about $93 million in tickets during its opening weekend, and ended up with $261 million in worldwide grosses, according to Box Office Mojo. The next step was a streaming deal with Disney+. A 256-page hardcover tour book, released last month through Target stores, sold 814,000 print copies in its first two days on sale.

As the tour moved to Europe in 2024, it narrowly avoided what could have been a major catastrophe when a terrorist bomb plot was uncovered before three planned shows in Vienna. Those events were canceled and never rescheduled.

Although Swift has largely avoided the news media during the tour, over time she has pulled back the curtain a bit to reveal some of how it came together. To prepare herself for the physical demands of the show, she trained for six months, with a cardio regimen that included singing the entire set list while running on a treadmill, she told Time magazine.

“I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” the magazine quoted her as saying. “I finally, for the very first time, physically prepared correctly.”

The music video for “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” from her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department” — her third release over the course of the tour, including two rerecorded versions of older albums — has behind-the-scenes clips confirming some of the stagecraft mechanics that fans have carefully cataloged on social media, like how she “dives” each night through a “hole” in the stage (onto a soft cushion held by crew members) and how she is ferried backstage in a dummy janitor’s cart.

The tour concludes just as Swift celebrates yet another win: “Tortured Poets” has returned to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for a 16th week, with help from vinyl and CD sales of the 35-track “Anthology” edition of the album, which Swift released on Black Friday, also through Target. “Tortured Poets” is by far the biggest-selling album of the year so far.

Swift is up for six awards at the Grammys in February, including album of the year for “Tortured Poets” and both record and song of the year for one of its singles, “Fortnight.”

At a recent tour stop in Toronto, as the tour neared its end, Swift teared up as she delivered valedictory remarks to fans.

“My band, my crew, all my fellow performers,” she said, “we have put so much of our lives into this, and you put so much of your lives into being with us tonight and to giving us that moment that we will never forget.”

[genericpuff]

I'm sorry, but this should come as a shock to absolutely no one.

Just a little bit of 'insider info' (and by 'insider' I mean I was a part of the beta testing crew a few years ago) Webtoons has been messing with AI tools for years. You can literally play test that very same AI tool that I beta-tested here:

Mind you, this is just an AI Painter, similar to the Clip Studio Colorize tool, but it goes to show where WT's priorities are headed. I should mention, btw, that this tool is incredibly useless for anyone not creating a Korean-style webtoon, like you can deadass tell it was trained exclusively on the imports because it can't handle any skin tone outside of white (trying to use darker colors just translates as "shadows" to the program, meaning it'll just cast some fugly ass shadows over a white-toned character no matter how hard you try) and you just know the AI wouldn't know what to do with itself if you gave it an art style that didn't exactly match with the provided samples lmao

And let's be real, can we really expect the company that regularly exploits, underpays, and overworks its creators to give a damn about the ethical concerns of AI? They're gonna take the path of least resistance to make the most money possible.

So the fact that we're now seeing AI comics popping up on Webtoons left and right - and now, an actual "Webtoon AI" branding label - should come as zero shock to anyone. Webtoons is about quantity over quality and so AI is the natural progression of that.

So yeah, if you were looking for any sign to check out other platforms outside of Webtoons, this is it. Here are some of my own recommendations:

ComicFury - Independently run, zero ads, zero subscription costs (though I def recommend supporting them on Patreon if you're able), full control over site appearance, optional hosting for only the cost of the domain name, and best of all, strictly anti-AI. Not allowed, not even with proper labelling or disclosure. Full offense to the tech bro hacks, eat shit.

GlobalComix - Very polished hosting site that offers loads of monetization tools for creators without any exclusive contracts or subscriptions needed. They do offer a subscription program, but that's purely for reading the comics on the site that are exclusively behind paywalls. Not strictly anti-AI but does require in their ToS that AI comics be properly labelled and disclosed, whether they're made partially or fully with AI, to ensure transparency for readers who want to avoid AI comics.

Neocities - If you want to create your own site the good ole' fashioned way (i.e. HTML / CSS) this is the place. Independently run, offers a subscription plan for people who want more storage and bandwidth but it only costs $5/month so it's very inexpensive, and even without that subscription cost you won't have to deal with ads or corporate management bullshit.

Be safe out there pals, don't be afraid to set out into the unknown if it means protecting your work and keeping your control as a creator. Know your rights, know your power.