#reddit strike 2023

[cherryblossomshadow]

Yeah, people here are way more concerned about being horny and gay than arguing about which of the last two movies is actually trash and which is actually good. (comment courtesy of @gil-galad42)

.

#I hope everyone's being nice OP! #i think my only contribution here is to say #the main difference between codywan and obikin fans #is that codywan have a fundamental belief that Obi-Wan is a healthy reasonably well-adjusted if workaholic adult person #whereas obikin kind of depends on the idea that Obi-Wan is also a dramatic emotional wreck who just holds it together most of the time #do boys REALLY not make their action figure kiss? What are they even for?? (tags courtesy of @saritasoyyo)

youre SO right #and i do believe Obi-Wan is a disaster man #henve why i do not ship codywan (tags courtesy of @gaily-daily)

#OMG somebody liked my tags enough to elevate them!!!! #i can't even stand it #to be clear--i think both the codywan fans and the obikin crowd have justifiable cause for their interpretations #everybody deserves the fun they have with their action figures #i just have preference for the obi-wan who's barely holding himself together who's destined for infinite sadness alone in a blue cave #have fun out there everyone #a galaxy far far away (tags courtesy of @saritasoyyo)

going from the reddit star wars fandom to the tumblr star wars fandom is giving me insane whiplash. the upside is that people aren’t bitching about every single imperfect detail in the entire franchise, but the downside is that i’ve seen more fanart of obi wan and commander cody tenderly knowing each other than i have ever wanted to in my life in the last three hours and it has probably fundamentally altered the way i interact with the entire franchise

[hopethisdoesntawakenanythingnme]

but how are the redditors doing having experienced their first November 5th-like week on the hellsite?

like are y'all still alive?

[stopiwanttotalkaboutcheese]

ALSO ALSO ALSO i LOVED the way that sabine’s first real use of the force was a DIRECT PARALLEL to the first time luke used the force to move his lightsaber on hoth!

[caeliflammae]

im not even a true tumblr vet i’ve been on this site for like. maybe 6 years? a long time but not as long as many others. but god all these twitter people and reddit people... welcome to the end! welcome to the website that is so bad at being anything useable that we somehow avoid being the subject of billionaire circlejerks (for the most part.) it wont be any better literally ever btw <3. its a hellsite for a reason. and now here you all are, coming to us, in your hour of need.

[coastal-stargazing]

RIP Twitter. Imagine if this ends up in the school textbooks. 😆

reblog to let people know you were here before the great twitter migration

[civildisorderstream]

2023, The Year of Self-Sabotage

Has anyone noticed the trend businesses have been on in 2023? There's a LOT of self-sabotage going on in the business world. Throughout my life, and everyone else has their own observations too, once in a while you see a company make a boneheaded decision about their product or service. And once in a while you'll see a decision get made that is bad, but maybe it at least has some justification (even to an anti-capitalist goober like myself). But this year has been nonsensical moves of greed or product/service sabotage that make no sense for longevity or harm what's in the best interest of the consumer.

Activision-Blizzard: The Overwatch debacle, and Diablo Immortal's scummy practices.

Netflix: The account sharing debacle.

Twitter: Maximum divorced loser Elon Musk destroying its functionality and branding and we still call it Twitter.

Reddit: Inspired by Musk's stupidity, the API tools debacle. Shame on the Reddit communities for not knowing how to strike btw (you don't put a time limit on it).

Hollywood: Pulling shows and films from streaming services to declare them as failed products and somehow get a tax write-off for it.

Also Hollywood: Willing to take quarterly losses greater than the annual cost to meet the demands of two striking unions put together.

Unity: Announced in the past day that it will charge developers a fee for installations because greed.

Titan Submersible: "Safety is for losers" says billionaire who proceeds to use his shoddy tech to do a murder-suicide.

Starbucks: Breaking ALL of the labor laws to try and stop unionization. Admittedly a reach to be on this list but the situation (like all the others) is ongoing and can compound.

Embracer: A massive corporate company that bought a bunch of smaller companies. Thought a 2 billion dollar deal with the Saudi government was a sure thing, so they spent 2 billion dollars on stuff. Deal falls through, so they start closing companies they acquired.

That's just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. These aren't business decisions done for the sake of consumers. These are all decisions done to spite consumers or the workers who produce the products and services.

People try to remember years as being the "year of" something. And it's a thing I do too. For me, 2023 is the year of corporate self-sabotage.

[crowleysgirl56]

Updated with edits!

Timeline of the last 12 months 15 months of the Good Omens fandom.

July 2023 - Good Omens season 2 drops. Fans watch on the presumption this season is based on the sequel idea Terry and NG spoke of in the 90’s and 2006. Reactions are mixed but mostly positive. We’re happy with fluff. Initial thoughts: “I don’t see how this story could have been fleshed out into an entire novel, but I guess it was only ever just initial ideas, so I suppose that works.”

July 2023 - THE KISS.

Fandom reaction: NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

August 2023 - NG responds to fandom

NG: “Season 2 isn’t actually based on the idea Terry and I spoke about.”

Fandom: “What?”

NG: “Season 2 is just a bridging story to get us to season 3. That will be the story that Terry and I discussed.”

Fandom: “What!?”

NG: “Season 3 hasn’t been greenlit by Prime yet so we might not get it.”

Fandom: “WHAT?!”

NG: “Also I wrote the kiss that way by giving the fandom what you want without actually giving you what you want. So like, stop asking me for things or I won’t write them.”

Fandom: “AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!”

August to November 2023 - The fandom, now lost and depressed, mope through the halls of Tumblr and Reddit, desperately clinging to any piece of information dropped by NG, sharing fan art, creating headcanons and theories, and writing the angstiest of angst fanfiction ever written. Some weep in a corner mumbling about the South Downs. Most just trudge through their daily lives, listless and despondent.

December 2023 - Prime greenlights Good Omens Season 3.

Fandom: YES! OMG HOORAY! WAHOO! Dancing in the streets. Fanfiction turns to fluff and smut. NG is active and happy, answering many questions without actually answering them. Gives us the hilarious gift of Dottie and Sadie.

January 2024 - speculation of when season 3 filming will begin commences. Realisation that it could be quite a while starts to sink in. Actors and writers strike has caused delay to the scripts being written. David and Michael have taken on theatre work which will delay their filming schedules. Douglas McKinnon announces he’s stepping away as director. Fandom has slight freak out, but NG reassures everyone it’s nothing to worry about, and linked to the recent strikes.

Early to mid 2024 - “The invisible and unbreakable line that joins Crowley and Aziraphale”.

Fandom: AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! We inevitably become even more feral. Much fanart is made.

March 2024 - David hosts the BAFTAs and Michael helps him during the opening. David is then nominated for TV BAFTA for Good Omens.

Fandom: OMG YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!! Much dancing and celebration is had once again. We are so in love.

May 2024 - filming schedule for GO season 3 is announced. It will commence January 2025. The fandom reacts.

Fandom: “That’s still so long away!” “Michael and David will have their hair dyed white and red for the awards season!” “Going by the previous production schedule this means season 3 won’t reach our screen until 2026! No!” “Cannot wait for this to start filming we are going to be so feral!” More fanfiction, more fanart.

June 2024 - David hosts Pub in the Park. Michael joins him.

Fandom: THEY ARE SO CUTE! HOW CAN THEY BE THIS CUTE, WE DON’T DESERVE THEM.

Early July 2024 - horrible allegations are laid against NG and the fandom comes to a terrible crashing halt. Much debate and discussion is had back and forth: “Believe the victims”. “Separate the art from the artist”. “Drop the fandom entirely”. “Step back for a moment”. There is a lot of arguing, but there is also still a lot of love. NG has fled all social media.

Late July 2024 - until it’s January, and the show actually starts filming, Good Omens season 3 has now become Schrödinger’s Series. It both now exists and doesn’t exist. Prime at any moment may pull the production due to the backlash against NG. The fandom now re-examines McKinnon’s departure speculating if he left for other reasons. We once again despondently trudge the halls of tumblr and Reddit feeling the same feeling of this time last year.

This section of the post was made in late July was this was original posted: And that pretty much brings us up to date. Anything could happen in the next six months, which is why I feel we’re all worried. It’s why I’m worried. So instead, keep sharing the art, keep writing the fanfiction, keep speculating with theories and headcanons. Let’s be here for each other. Because we created this fandom for each other. It doesn’t belong to NG anymore. Let’s do this for Terry. Personally, I can’t wait to come back to this timeline and add January 2025 - filming begins.

28 July 2024 - Michael Sheen, the absolute angel that he is posts a picture of his tartan socks clad feet alongside the caption “To our world”. Such a beautiful, beautiful man!

10 September 2024 - Amazon Prime announces production for season 3 is paused. Everyone loses their shit. There is much lamentations.

Unsubstantiated posts start circulating that the show is cancelled. People who have a friend whose cousin’s gardener’s former roommate claim they are involved with the production and therefore they KNOW the show is cancelled. More lamentations.

Amazon stays silent for EIGHT. FUCKING. WEEKS.

The fandom walk around in a god damn haze again akin to what August to December 2023 felt like. Will we be left with the final 15 forever?

Mid October 2024 - for about 3 days straight the fandom receives information that is akin to a rollercoaster of emotion. Head graphics designer Mickey tweets out a now deleted post that everyone is going back to Scotland. Then Peter Anderson Studio tweet out a now deleted post referencing the South Downs cottage. Then random casting company updates their subscription website advertising Good Omens: The Finale a TV movie. Entertainment website releases an article referencing this. The fandom LOSE. THEIR. SHIT. AGAIN. We honestly can’t take much more of this.

25 October 2024 - Amazon finally announces the news we’ve been half expecting half dreading with positive and negative ramifications. Neil Gaiman is gone. GOOD! Season 3 will still happen. GOOD! But now it’s just a 90 minutes finale. WAIT, WHAT, NO! But it could have been worse. It was a hairs breath away from being completely cancelled. GOD BLESS RHIANNA PRATCHETT AND ROB WILKINS.

It’s been a wild ride everyone. I’ve already posted earlier this morning (25 October 2024) my thoughts about the whole situation so go read that there. But for now? Gaiman is gone, and we get our ending.

For now here’s to seeing our boys with their red and white hair again.

[tailschannel]

/r/Sonic goes dark in protest of Reddit's controversial API changes

Fans will not be able to view the unofficial Sonic the Hedgehog community on Reddit due to a massive site-wide protest.

/r/SonicTheHedgehog and thousands of Reddit communities went dark on Monday in protest against the platform's planned changes to their app programming interface, or API.

Why is this happening?

Reddit's interface allowed third party services and the platform to communicate with each other. Protestors claimed that the site's motivation to monetize access will threaten to shut down off-site applications, drastically affect moderator tools, limit accessibility-focused programs, and alter the ability to impartially access content.

One popular iOS cilent already announced plans to shut down, as it would cost around $20 million USD per year if it were to continue under the new agreement.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman defended the changes in a ask-me-anything thread, and claimed that the platform "can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use."

The changes were similarly compared to Twitter's controversial plan to cut off third-party access to its interface in early 2023, which saw many long-standing third-party clients forced to shut down.

The response

As a result, more than 6,000 subreddits elected to go dark in protest of the changes. Users either saw subreddits in a "read-only" state, which meant that there was no ability to create new comments or posts; or in a "private" state, which meant it cannot be viewed in public at all.

The protests were expected to generally last to a minimum of 48 hours; however, a seemingly defensive rebuke from Reddit managed to escalate numerous communities to extend their outage to an indefinite period.

Affecting you

The Sonic the Hedgehog subreddit went dark just before midnight Eastern time on Monday.

Tails' Channel understands that the blackout will last for a minimum of 48 hours, but it could extend to an undetermined period of time "based on the general climate" of the situation, according to the subreddit's head moderator, @andtails.

"Reddit's entire business model is predicated on the use of free labor to run their communities, so the only way we send a powerful message to their higher ups that what they're doing isn't okay is to strike," said the moderator in a public post.

The statement continued, "even if you are not directly impacted by Reddit's corporate decision-making now, their decision to charge for API access may set a precedence for future corporate decisions down the line that will increasingly hurt the user experience on this platform."

Subreddit users were encouraged to "take a break from Reddit" and submit complaints during the indefinite outage, as the mod argued that the planned changes will fundamentally hurt the platform.

[important-bass-1127]

Yeah, Takeda is The Jin Ling from Mdzs of mortal kombat.

As Be like?(include johnny and syzoth because they’re confirmed in mortal kombat 1 friendship with kenshi)↓

//holy shit Takeda really is straight up the Jin Ling of Mortal Kombat except with dads instead of uncles

thank you @daughterofnero for pointing this out. 

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

When you find a comment that Alex Hirsch is supposedly angry because he treats staff badly (???), so you type in the search engine about controversies and all you find is a rant from someone on reddit that Alex is supposedly blocked for different views, and then you see his the entry for which he was blocked on Twitter and you're like, "Dude, you said, that Trump is not a racist", I found another blog on tumblr and the funniest accusation against it: Anti-Semitism (Alex's father is Jewish, so yes… That's why I burst out laughing when I saw this accusation)

And apparently there was an accusation of racism in GF, because criminals are mainly black in prison… It's a pity that many of these characters are not even aggressive, look how they treat Gideon, for bandits they are quite… Wholsome, in their own way , anyway, we're talking about a cartoon from 2010… It's just a strange accusation for me, reminds me a bit of this article about Steven Univese and how racist he is, and they give the stupidest arguments, completely ignoring the character's personality…

Yes, racism in cartoons is a big problem (Miracolous…), but here it looks weird, it's just weird, and GF was very diverse for its time, which people prefer to forget…

I'm speaking as a person with ASD, and that says a lot, unfortunately, the cartoon is simply of its times, the humor, appearance and such, it's just part of its times, it's strange to judge all the problems from 2010 in 2024, I'm not saying that you shouldn't criticize , I mean sometimes it's just abstract, people have already forgotten what people were like back then, especially corporations and it depresses me :/

Let's just not forget when something was created, it doesn't justify everything, but it can explain, because there is nothing worse than forgetting history, who people were, it's easy, for example, to attack a mother from years ago for leaving a stroller outside, but you forget that it was normal and many mothers have done it, so blaming her for it, that her child was kidnapped is quite unfair

I know, I wrote a lot about it, but I just have the impression that people from 2024 forget about everything that happened and would like them to burn people at the stake, and I don't like that

Now that I have your attention:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Although what do you expect in times when people pull out tweets from years ago (When the author was a child) to call him a racist, anti-Semite and all this other shit? Let's just attack people when they did something wrong, when they were adults, not when they were fucking children

By the way, remember about fundraisers, I know, I wrote too much at the very beginning, but these are simply the things that bother me on the Internet

[buffythecomicslayer]

In an exclusive interview, Amber Benson, James Marsters, and Charisma Carpenter dove into the new Audible original Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, which debuts on October 12. Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, they could not speak on their experiences on Buffy, Angel, or any other struck work.

Slayers is co-written by Amber Benson, who portrayed Tara in Buffy, and Christopher Golden, who has penned multiple books in the Buffyverse. Before the COVID pandemic, Benson began calling her former costars to see who might want to be involved, focusing on the characters she felt weren’t serviced enough in the original show. She also wanted to find a way to highlight what it means to be a slayer who is also a woman of color.

Amber, why did you want to do this now?

Amber Benson: The reason I got excited about doing Slayers was because I wanted to see Charisma be a vampire slayer. I want to live in the meta world where Charisma Carpenter is Cordelia, the Vampire Slayer. That was the pull for me. We spent a ton of time trying to create satisfying arcs for all of these characters that we love so much. It’s been a labor of love. For me, doing this was about diving into a world where I get to have some control over things.

Why set it in 2013 instead of 2023?

Benson: We wanted a passage of time so there was an entrenched world where slayers existed in our world and they were everywhere — especially because we have Laya who takes audiences through this mythology. She’s like a fangirl of vampire slaying, and is on the Reddit forums. We didn’t want it so entrenched that we were so far removed from other times. We wanted that sweet spot of the world knows about this stuff, but it’s not an old hat.

What was it like getting back in the room to record with everyone?

James Marsters: We love each other so much that it was absolutely fabulous. I was just able to watch Charisma step into this role and have it make complete sense. It is so far from the Charisma that we started with years ago. It couldn’t be further, and yet, it makes absolute sense. Just her as an actor, being able to give a strong, loving, slightly world-weary, wise perspective to it, this absolutely seems like what Cordelia would be like in 2013. And I loved watching Amber take her character in a completely new direction. It absolutely makes sense, but it couldn’t be further from the Tara that we started with. And I was in awe of Juliet Landau.

And then Seth Green showed up! He’s not even in it, but he was recording something else in another booth at the building, and he heard we were in there. He comes in, and the whole thing stops. We didn’t do any work for 45 minutes because we’ve just gotta love on Seth. It was a complete love fest the whole time. We’re all in a really good place. All of our lives are going really well, so we could brag about how well we’re doing. Plus, meeting Laya DeLeon Hayes, having her fold into our family — and she’s the most experienced voice actor of all of us!

The last time you played Spike was in 2004. How did feel stepping back into it?

Marsters: I had told the producers way back when: “I’ve been doing Spike for about seven years, and if you want me to do the character, you’ve got about seven more years. I think we can get away with it for a 14-year window.” Spike is a vampire, he ain’t aging, but James is! Seven years came and went; it hadn’t happened, and I put it in the rear-view mirror. Then Amber calls me! And it was perfect.

Tara was a very important character on TV, and it was really devastating how that arc ended. Amber, can you hint at what she’s like now in this alternate universe?

Benson: She’s a very kind-hearted character, and we wanted to give her some meat. So we found a way, without spoiling anything, to give her something to sink her teeth into. We also wanted to keep the goodness of her, and it’s still in there, but we go to some darker places. And selfishly, as an actor, I wanted to work with Charisma, to do more with James, to spend time with Juliet. I have a lot of fun stuff with Juliet!

Charisma, you’ve been very vocal about your experience on Buffy. What was your reaction to getting the ask to come back into this world and bring Cordelia back? Were you hesitant at all?

Charisma Carpenter: When I got a call from Amber in 2020, I said, “You know, my friend, I would follow you anywhere. Of course, I want to be a part of it.” I didn’t know where it would end up, or certainly what medium it would be in, but it wouldn’t matter. I would just do it because I trust her vision. I trust her and I respect her talent as a writer and creator and I just love her to pieces.

How did it feel for you to be able to give Cordelia this entirely new life?

Carpenter: I think I felt a bit lost. Because the description of Cordelia and the scenes were the world-weary, kind of doom and gloom. I’m kind of saddled with this young player that’s super excited. How do I play this embattled slayer, who’s living their purpose and sees it really as the burden that it is — taking on the big bad — and infusing that with the Cordelia from before, which is sassy and witty and pithy and all those superficial things? How do I balance them? So for me, it was such an interesting dilemma to figure out. I spent a lot of time with Christopher and Amber, stressed, going, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I didn’t think it was possible to bring more layers to Cordelia, because I feel like she went through so much in terms of her character arc from beginning to end.

Marsters: It’s so funny because, from my perspective, you came in and effortlessly did this. It didn’t seem to be a struggle at all!

When this was announced, many referred to it as a Spike-focused series because he’s the narrator, but this universe has always been so about female empowerment. Do you guys see it that way?

Marsters: I saw that, and was like, “Oh, didn’t clock that before. I don’t think so, but OK! It’s called Slayers!”

Benson: And he came up with that name!

Marsters: Yeah, first we thought of Spike and Dru, but reading the script, that wasn’t really the thing. We have two new slayers that we haven’t had before: Cordelia and Indira. We’ve been promising the audience there’s a new slayer for a new generation. Every generation has one. We never made good on that promise. So, you had to wait — now you get two.

Benson: I think it’s a multi-pronged narrative. We have amazing Spike stuff. And he is the narrator and he takes us through this and has so many amazing arcs and relationships. The Juliet/James combo is electrifying.

Marsters: Spike is a great character, but he doesn’t encapsulate the theme. I’m in the project a lot, but what are you going to call it, Spike, the Vampire, Slayer of Vampires? It’s not the same thing. It is much more exciting to keep it focused, as it always has been, on a woman who is overcoming the challenges of life, and using a vampire demon metaphor to talk about those challenges. That’s one of the big strengths of the project since the beginning. I was glad with all the changes, all the updates and all of the surprises that we’re offering, that that kernel is kept. I would never want to get away from that.

Benson: Charisma, you should also talk about this because the “Justice for Cordelia” aspect is very important.

Charisma, please! Let’s hear it!

Carpenter: One of the most important things to me about Slayers is that it is an opportunity to give the Buffyverse fandom permission to enjoy the show, enjoy these characters again in a way that is representative of perseverance, of work ethic, of the familiar. It has really been made clear to me how much entertainment in general and the previous show and what this future show will do to provide comfort, empowerment, self-belief and reminders of our purpose. I think it will be an opportunity to give credit and justice to Tara, to Anya, to Cordelia. Because that show involved hundreds of people to make, and it wasn’t about just one person. So I feel like it’s really a beautiful thing to have this opportunity to bring her back to life — Cordelia specifically — and have her live out a very empowering life, and share her wisdom from that battle. I just feel like it’s very poetic in a lot of ways.

Spike is a bit of a controversial character, especially through the 2023 lens. Amber, how did you come to the decision to have him narrate?

Benson: No. 1, it’s always important to separate the actor from the character. And I know that James has spoken about this. He is one of the best humans, I adore James. But yeah, there is problematic stuff with the character, especially around consent. We really wanted to do something different and not live in the past. So for us, it was sort of a reinvention of the Spike character. We wanted to see more of that human and empathetic version of Spike. That was really important to us — the more James-version of Spike. He still has all the Spike bells and whistles. He’s still sexy as hell. But we also wanted to see that humanity and I think that was one of the reasons James Leary is such a big part of this. There is a humanity. James really wanted to make sure we still kept him Spike, but we updated for 2023.

Again, I know you can’t talk about the past projects here, but many of these characters weren’t there at the end — specifically Cordelia, who’d died in Angel. Are you ignoring the events of Angel completely?

Benson: We really created Slayers away from everything else. We wanted to create a world that felt familiar, but also was different — because I think putting your own stamp on something is really important. I think that’s what Chris and I wanted to do — find a way to do the things that we thought were important, some of those righting of wrongs things. That was important for us. We weren’t really looking at other versions of these worlds to draw from it really was. We tried to keep it its own unique thing.

Well, it is based on characters previously created. Was it a struggle to get permission to take ownership of these characters?

Benson: We can’t really talk about this stuff because of the strike and because also, sometimes, the creation is the creation, and the creators are totally removed. And for me, just personally, I will say this, I always had trouble going to conventions and not being honest about certain situations. And now that all of that is sort of grist for the mill, I feel this relief that I can love this world and these characters and have a little bit of a little tiny, tiny piece of ownership in them. I love this world, I love the family I have because of it. I love the fans I have in my life. A show is not always just the person that came up with a show. A show is a collaboration for us on Slayers.

Speaking broadly about ownership of creative material, it really is a collaborative media. It’s not one person. The auteur theory does not apply here. It takes a village.

Marsters: The genetic material is there because Amber breathed it. She is a fabulous writer, and Christopher Golden has been writing books in the Buffyverse for years. So it’s kind of a seamless continuum. It’s not just like a bunch of people who don’t know much about the lore or don’t care about it. There are people who’ve been involved from the beginning, in the driver’s seat.

Were there other characters or actors you wanted to bring back?

Benson: For us, the important thing is to do service to characters that maybe didn’t get the right servicing in other versions. So we really focused on that. That was really important for us.

Well, Seth Green popped in! Were there ever any talks of bringing him on?

Benson: We were talking about it, but we had such a full slate of characters that once we looked at it, we were like we can’t service everybody if you have too many characters. It was really important for us to make sure everybody had a satisfying arc. If we do multiple seasons, then we can bring in other people and give them new things to do. Seth is definitely on our list. Clare Kramer too, we would love to have Glory come and play. There’s just so many amazing characters to bring in.

Do you see this going for multiple seasons?

Benson: I would love to do more seasons. Emma Caulfield was like, “When do we do the next one?” We really would love to do more. We love the team at Audible and Audible UK. They’re all fans. They all love this world. So we would love to jump back in and do more. It’s really up to the fans!

[saintmeghanmarkle]

PR at its best - the Patrick Adams/Meghan Markle Show by u/wordscapesx

PR at its best - the Patrick Adams/Meghan Markle Show I'm a PR flack so let me tell you how this works - first, with Markle's permission, Adams releases the photos and get huge spash in Daily Markle. Other tabloids pick it up.Then the following day, he apologizes for putting them up during the strike and gets another huge splash.The third day he deletes them. That's the lead story Thursday at 7 p.m. in DM. This was all set up between Adams and Markle - his career isn't going well; and she craves the spotlight.Here's the first article on Sept. 26.https://ift.tt/PWHnEDv the second article on Sept. 27https://ift.tt/BYxRQ9X the third article on Sept. 28 (about an hour ago)https://ift.tt/KirM7xU the same copy, rewritten and almost the same photos in each piece?It's a "three-fer" and Markle is in heaven with all those pix of her and headlines for 3 days in a row. I would think that DM is smart enough not to fall for this crap but gets markled constantly. post link: https://ift.tt/IKx241w author: wordscapesx submitted: September 29, 2023 at 12:51AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[transformativeworksandcultures]

TWC 42: Fandom and Platforms [Special Issue]

Editorial

Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard; Putting forward platforms in fan studies

Article

David Kocik, PS Berge, Camille Butera, Celeste Oon, and Michael Senters; "Imagine a place:" Power and intimacy in fandoms on Discord

Kimberly Kennedy; "It's not your tumblr": Commentary-style tagging practices in fandom communities

Axel-Nathaniel Rose; #web-weaving: Parallel posts, commonplace books, and networked technologies of the self on Tumblr

Sam Binnie; Using the Murdoch Mysteries fandom to examine the types of content fans share online

Gamze Kelle; How Covid-19 has affected fan-performer relationships within visual kei

Rhea Vichot; The expression of sehnsucht in the Japanese city pop revival fandom through visual media on Reddit and YouTube

Welmoed Fenna Wagenaar; Discord as a fandom platform: Locating a new playground

Sourojit Ghosh and Cecilia Aragon; Leveraging community support and platform affordances on a path to more active participation: A study of online fan fiction communities

Paul Ocone; Fandom and the ethics of world-making: Building spaces for belonging on BobaBoard

Amber Moore; Analyzing an archive of allyish distributed mentorship in "Speak" fan fiction comments and reviews

Jionghao Liu and Ling Yang; Censorship on Japanese anime imported into mainland China

Lin Zhang; Boys’ love in the Chinese platformization of cultural production

Matt Griffin and Greg Loring-Albright; Platforming the past: Nostalgia, video games, and A Hat in Time

Irissa Cisternino; Players, production and power: Labor and identity in live streaming video games

Symposium

Yvonne Gonzales and Celeste Oon; Public versus private aca-fan identities and platforms: An academic dialogue

Dawn Walls-Thumma; The fading of the elves: Techno-volunteerism and the disappearance of Tolkien fan fiction archives

Martyna Szczepaniak; The differences between author’s notes on FanFiction.net and AO3

Muxin Zhang; Fandom image-making and the fan gaze in transnational K-pop fan cam culture

Sabrina Mittermeier; "One day longer, one day stronger": Online platforms, fan support and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes

Book review

Sebastian F. K. Svegaard reviews "Vidding: A history" by Francesca Coppa

Laurel P. Rogers reviews "Fandom, the next generation," edited by Bridget Kies and Megan Connor

Axel-Nathaniel Rose reviews "Mediatized fan play: Moods, modes and dark play in networked communities," by Line Nybro Petersen

Multimedia

Naomi Jacobs, Katherine Crighton, and Shivhan Szabo; Building the spear: A demonstration in faking and remaking real feelings for an imaginary work

Rachel Loewen; "Darkness never prevails": Doctor Who Covid-19 videos as keystones for pandemic engagement

[chrisgraves09]

Hey, have another one of my ramble posts cause I just wanna get this off my chest.

When I first got into FNaF when the fourth game released, I was growing interested into the community and what it was like. That’s when I started lurking both Tumblr & Reddit in late 2016 during Christmas time. That’s when I getting into drawing. By then in early to mid 2017, I began joining the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit and Discord server and just… wow, seeing an entire community full of great people showing their support and love to this franchise is just incredible.

I began getting involved with showing off my drawing and art of the FNaF characters and lemme tell you, it was really nice. So nice that it was when I began my Freddit Users Drawing series where I would draw almost every single member in the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit. I didn’t even wanted attention for that alone. I was just showing my appreciation and my thanks for being a part of the Five Nights at Freddy’s community. From 2017-early 2020 I’ll say were my best years of being in the FNaF community. Being able to be excited for new game entries, books, merchandise with the community was so good that I wish I could experience that phase once again.

But then in mid 2020, I started getting inactive on Reddit and only focusing on Discord. This ain’t a problem in of itself mostly because I was focusing on the FNaF fangames that were released like Five Nights at Sonic’s, Project Readjusted (😵‍💫), and many others. Not to mention my high school graduation happening. By then, Twitter took over and I have only lurked there until many years later.

2021 came in and the first FNaF related controversy started and it struck a blow in my head. People started fighting, distancing themselves from the franchise, and I’m just sitting there if it’ll affect me in someway. Thankfully (for the moment) it didn’t and I continue making FNaF art like usual. Then 2022 came up with the Pear tree, striking another blow to my heart. And THEN 2023 came up with there being several people being not so good people and the whole FNaF + situation, making me question more and more if this’ll become an ongoing issue. And what do you know it? This year has the goddamn Talbert Files thing happening and probably more coming. And this is supposed to be FNaF’s 10 year anniversary. Everyone is becoming increasingly pissed, fighting with one another, and even leaving the franchise as a whole.

I said it before on Twitter and I’ll say it here: This community has devolved into just bitching around for the sake of bitching around and both Twitter and Reddit are especially the case. FNaFTwitter is by far the most miserable side of the community and I mean it. The Freddit community has become so toxic that I’m becoming so ashamed to be apart of it now. It’s not the same Freddit I used to know. I was originally gonna do a third Freddit Users Drawing series last year to remind me of the good old days. But it seems like that ain’t happening anymore. This is just depressing to look at…

All of this controversy, drama, and turmoil this fanbase endured ever since 2021 has unfortunately changed my perspective, mood, and feelings toward any FNaF “fan” that chooses to be an asshole. It’s gotten to the point where I wanna dissociate myself from the community. Specifically FNaFTwitter, Freddit, and even several Discord servers. I’ve became conflicted day by day and week by week and if I really want to stay in this dumpster fire of a community and deal with this bullshit mess or maybe leave everything behind and go on my own terms. I really don’t know what to do. Maybe time will tell in the future, who knows?

Ok, I’m done rambling for now.

[kitonmitons]

It really is incredible how quickly the world of freely-accessible social media is dwindling— either falling apart internally or squeezed under the weight of tech monopolies. Or both.

Tumblr’s decision to remove nsfw posts to avoid strikes from Apple’s app store was what tossed the snowball down the mountain. Its demise was connected to internal mismanagement and the need to compete with other huge social media sites at the time they banned nsfw, which are all now under new management and/or owned by massive tech corporations.

That in particular is a point I would like everyone to think about. Every major social media site that we use is part of a larger billion-dollar corporation. Many of them started humbly— Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit were all created by average people. It goes without saying now that Facebook has become a monopoly itself, and we all know the shitstorm twitter is under, which has left us with two primary platforms for free social media: Tumblr and Reddit. We know what is happening to Tumblr, but what of Reddit?

Reddit is owned by Advanced Publications, who also own or have majority shares in companies like Charter Communications (the company behind Spectrum internet, as well as Vogue and The New Yorker) and Warner Bros. Discovery. With funding like that, obviously the intention is not to make Reddit a place of information and socialization— the real intent is to turn it into a money-making machine.

To ensure this, Reddit is in talks of making their company public, meaning they would have to answer to shareholders when making decisions for the website. Shareholders want to see continuous profit, and that cannot be done only through ad revenue, such that Reddit has primarily profited from for years. People can subscribe to Reddit to remove the ads, but subscription services alone don’t see the profits they want to make. The solution to this problem is to push Reddit competitors out.

Some of their biggest competitors, ironically, were their own userbase. Reddit has a slurry of third-party applications made by Reddit users themselves, using Reddit’s API which until recently has been free. Third-party apps such as Apollo gave users a way to use Reddit WITHOUT advertisements, which was lost revenue for Reddit all while using the site’s base code. As a result, this year (2023) Reddit began charging to use its API, resulting in all of these third-party apps shutting down. With no more internal competitors, it’s time to go public and see how much can be made by shareholders— they might even decide to use their new funds to buy out more social media sites, or further integrate failing ones into their system, just as they are with Snapchat.

All this talk about Reddit in a post that is supposed to be about Tumblr. But, the two are related. As Tumblr begins to fall into disrepair and demoderation, we will begin to witness the fall of free social media as we know it. Big tech has dug its fingers in what has quickly become an important piece to our social fabric. The platforms that give us news, connect us with friends and family, connects us to the world, and spreads information is in the hands of just a few tech companies. Tumblr is failing because Yahoo! is failing. Tumblr is failing because WordPress is failing.

It is incredibly easy to blame staff for their stupid decisions, and it should still be mentioned. However, my main concern is the accessibility to free social media itself. The fall of Tumblr is an example of a social media website whose poor decisions— namely the removal of nsfw posts, poor automated moderation and failures to adjust to an aging userbase— cost it everything, but what really resulted in its demise was competition. Tumblr could never compete with giants like Facebook or TikTok. Nowadays, the only site Tumblr could really compete with was Twitter, which will be under a subscription service come January. And as people flock to sites like BlueSky and Threads, the diversity of the online world will only continue to decline. It is exactly the lack of competition that will make it hard for any Tumblr-like to take off, especially since a site like this has always run on user participation, not profit.

My point is, look at the overarching bullshit that is taking away from online life and question whether it’s worth participating in. Find ways to protest online monopolies that are squeezing out competitor sites and making it harder for people to use social media, especially if they aren’t influencers. And take a step back from the staff drama to look at what hostile monopolies and an undemocratic internet is doing to communities like ours.

[the-archlich]

Let's Talk: Guan Yu

One of the reasons I don't go to reddit is because I don't have to: there's always someone willing to put my words in my mouth for me, no effort required on my part.

So, let's set the record straight regarding my opinions of Guan Yu as of 5/26/2023, after many, many years of reading and writing.

The historical Guan Yu, like everyone in his particular sphere, always suffers by comparison to his fictional counterpart and that's not really his fault. It doesn't help that his fictitious versions also tend to be insufferable. This leads to a bad combination of things. An irritating fictional version gave me a negative predisposition towards Guan Yu, and the fact that the real man didn't live up to the exploits of the legendary one (because of course he didn't), led me to judge him more harshly than I would have someone else. If you've entered into the 3K community through any kind of media (which is probably just about everyone speaking English), you've likely experienced it yourself with one of these people.

But it's been a long time. I've spent the last several years reading and writing. I've studied other time periods and other cultures, gaining a broader perspective and more grounded expectations.

All of that said, I still don't have a very high opinion of Guan Yu. Before I get into my criticisms, though, it's important for me to give him what credit he is due, because he isn't without achievements. I've dismissed some of these in the past, downplaying their significance or casting doubt on their veracity, and in most cases that was unwarranted.

What's Good?

What's good about Guan Yu? Let's start with the obvious he absolutely was very good in a fight. He was a brave and strong warrior who never shirked from danger. Breaking ranks to kill Yan Liang is the highlight of his feats, but his strength was praised even by his enemies in Wei and Wu. I've downplayed some of his martial achievements in the past and it's just not good practice to disregard the assessments of his contemporaries.

His enemies feared him. There are numerous examples of this. Sun Quan, Lu Meng, and most of their advisers feared what an ambitious Guan Yu could do with control of the Great River. Commanders on the front lines in Jing feared what could happen if he came within striking distance of the capital. While I've always maintained that anyone in such a powerful strategic fulcrum would have been equally feared, that's something that by its nature cannot be proven; and doesn't change the fact that it was Guan Yu who was there and Guan Yu they feared.

He was also a man of excellent conduct (this is separate from his abrasive personality). As a subordinate officer he was always diligent, and he was always personally well-behaved. This is illustrated well by the manner in which he left Cao Cao to return to Liu Bei. He waited until Cao Cao's battle with Yuan Shao was done (rather than deserting in the middle) and refused to accept additional gifts because he did not intend to stay. Such behavior is a particular contrast to his colleague Zhang Fei.

Guan Yu was also a scholar. He could recite portions from one of the Classics from memory. I haven't given him credit for that in the past. If I'm going to praise guys like Li Dian and Huang Gai for dabbling in the literary arts, I should praise Guan Yu for it too.

What's Bad?

Guan Yu was personally skilled in the military arts, but I don't think that translated to being a good commander. He had some bright spots during his campaigns but ultimately I regard them all as failures. His efforts during the Jing Offensive feature his greatest successes but also a number of setbacks. Then he lost a substantial parcel of Liu Bei's territory during the Jingdong Campaign. And, of course, his efforts to capture Fan and Xiangyang during the Jingxi Campaigns ended in such abysmal failure that Liu Bei lost half his country.

Whether you want to blame these failures on Guan Yu's own errors (as I do) or circumstances beyond his control ("he couldn't have known XYZ"), the result is still failure. His efforts to capture the Xiangyang region, in particular, were all for nothing.

Just as bad (and related to those failures) is the fact that Guan Yu's behavior (personally and militarily) angered and alienated Sun Quan and his envoys. The relationship between Liu Bei and Sun Quan was always shaky and Guan Yu made the situation considerably worse. Those who had to deal with him cited obscene arrogance as his most abrasive trait.

He also badly alienated his own subordinates. They defected as soon as they had the opportunity, in significant enough numbers that the loyalists were unable to mount any effective resistance to Lu Meng's army. His behavior turned both allies and subordinates against him and led to a massive loss in territory from which Liu Bei was unable to recover.

What's Ugly?

I've had some different takes on the "arrow story" over the years.

Yǔ was once by a stray arrow hit, pierced in his left arm. Later though the wound healed, whenever it was cloudy and raining, the bone would be in pain. The physician said: “The arrow head had poison, and the poison has entered the bone. The arm wound must be reopened to scrape the bone and remove the poison, and only after will the pain be removed and that is all.” Yǔ immediately extended his arm and ordered the physician to cut it. At the time Yǔ had also invited his officers to meet to drink and feast. The arm blood flowed, filling a pan, but Yǔ cut his meat and drank his liquor, talking and laughing as usual.

It's very difficult to credit the story as written. If you are capable of feeling pain, you're going to. You can take this as an indication that Guan Yu had some kind of nerve condition where he couldn't feel pain. You can take it as a sort of folktale told by his contemporaries to emphasize strength and endurance he actually did possess, even if the story itself isn't necessarily true. There are useful ways to read this but I have difficulty taking it literally, at face value.

Also, everything with Lady Du and Qin Yilu is weird.

That Doesn't Sound So Bad

No, it's really not.

He was a mostly unsuccessful commander and a counterproductive diplomat. His professional failures caused his state irreparable harm. But at least he had many redeeming personal qualities. He was an intellectual, a man of good conduct who possessed personal valor that intimidated his foes. Had he been kept on a shorter leash, perhaps his career would have flourished more.

You know who summarized it well? Chen Shou.

Guān Yǔ and Zhāng Fēi both were praised as a match for ten thousand men, were the era’s tiger ministers. Yǔ repaid with service to Excellency Cáo, Fēi righteously released Yán Yán, both having a state elite’s manner. However Yǔ was stubborn and self boastful, Fēi was violent and without kindness; by shortcomings obtaining destruction, is a constantly repeated principle.

That's pretty much how I feel at this point. Guan Yu had some qualities worth praising and it's a disservice to ignore those. But they weren't enough to save him from his own destruction. His strengths brought him high but they weren't enough to keep him from falling.