#this is peak internet history

[fullmetalbunny16]

I had to pause everything bc I'm in so much disbelief😭

This is older then gay marriage (in the us) btw

[cas-poisoning]

The 2020-2021 Supernatural fandom was so fun

[outeremissary]

Rules : 🎶 when you get this, list 5 songs you’ve been listening to & tag 5-10 people.

Tagged by @turbulentpumpkin43. Thank you! In honor of it being late I will give a very uncurated list. Behold. How I live.

Internet Overdose - Aiobahn feat. KOTOKO (cw: flashing lights)

Kiss the Go-Goat - Ghost

Internet Yamero - Aiobahn feat. KOTOKO (HUGE cw: flashing lights)

Telecaster B-Boy - surii

Birds- Katatonia

@bearvanhelsing and @camelliagwerm, if you want?

[hatake]

.

[serethereal]

I truly believe your favorite epic rap battles of history episode says a LOT about you

[sages-of-hell]

dude number one stress relief during nasty exam seasons is watching autikatariina videos. personally i’m off

[sunderwight]

Okay, concept:

Luo Binghe grew up very poor prior to arriving to QJP. And when he first got to QJP, he was ostracized and neglected. So there are probably a lot of phrases, terms, and ideas that he didn't know were things until SY arrived and started actually teaching him. Right? So the bulk of what he did learn, he learned directly from Shen Yuan's own slightly messy attempts to fake ancient scholarly credentials.

Plus, QJP is supposed to be the peak of scholars and well-read, fancy intellectuals, and YQY probably also doesn't know shit about most of that stuff (having also been a former illiterate street child) and of course is incredibly predisposed to take Shen Qingqiu's side on virtually anything. Especially something frivolous or linked to their shared past, such as someone, say Qi Qingqi, accusing Shen Qingqiu of making up a literary reference or "gibberish" word. If something Shen Qingqiu says is something no one else seems to know, that just proves he's more worldly and well-read than the rest of his peers. Also, Shang Qinghua will probably know it, and despite his many (many) character flaws, Shang Qinghua reads a lot too. There's really very little to convince a former street child turned Demon Emperor whose former education began and ended with Shen Qingqiu specifically and Meng Mo (wildly out-of-touch with human culture anyway) to suspect that some of the difficult-to-source references his master makes really have no worldly source (in this world).

So Luo Binghe, in his quest to become as knowledgeable of all things about his shizun and keep up with him as well as possible, and maybe also put down some arguments he's overheard once and for all, eventually gets annoyed because CLEARLY there is a wealth of cultural knowledge contemporary to Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua that didn't survive to his own generation. His efforts at hunting down all the sources being referenced and origins of certain philosophical ideas or terminology keep coming up empty in certain departments. He's been over the entire QJP library with a fine-tooth comb, but QJP focuses on things pertaining to cultivation, history, and knowledge. Obviously, there are gaps. The archives are unlikely to keep pop cultural references and lowbrow literature, and Luo Binghe begins to suspect (from what tastes his master seems to share with his shishu) that that is that actual source he's missing.

The trashy yellow books and romance literature of their generation! Bawdy poems and lewd artworks so on! Heck, that's probably even where the shared "code" (bad English) comes into play -- disciples are always trying to sneak forbidden material past their teachers and smuggle naughty books into the dormitories. Knowing Shizun and Shang Qinghua, Luo Binghe honestly wouldn't be surprised if the two of them were racketeering that shit in their own disciple days. Shang Qinghua acquiring materials, Shen Qingqiu acquiring buyers, both of them making their extra spending money off of secretly supplying Cang Qiong's population with contraband fiction and art.

Also, that would explain why both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua get flustered and refuse to elaborate if someone asks them what this or that strange turn of phrase refers to. Shen Qingqiu has a very thin face for actually discussing erotica, and Shang Qinghua doesn't like being caught doing illegal shit.

Luo Binghe desperately needs access to trash lit that's older than he is. However, most of that stuff is not printed to last, and turning it up is like trying to find old Spirk zines without the internet.

Shang Qinghua, the obvious go-to source, also seems to not really have anything that old anymore (intimidating him is laughably easy, if he had anything he would have coughed it up by the second or third time Luo Binghe asked and frowned at the same time), and if Shen Qingqiu did have anything he wouldn't want to be questioned about it. Asking too much might even get it destroyed in an act of excessive embarrassment.

Which means there is just one other person Luo Binghe knows who might be able to lead him to some sources. One other person he is absolutely, 100% certain was extensively reading trashy literature around the same time that Shizun was a young man. Someone who would know where to go to even begin looking for it.

Luo Binghe is going to have to ask Tianlang Jun for help with something.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An end to the climate emergency is in our grasp

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

The problem with good news in the real world is that it's messy. Neat happy endings are for novels, not the real world, and that goes double for the climate emergency. But even though good climate news is complicated and nuanced, that doesn't mean it shouldn't buoy our spirits and fill our hearts with hope.

The big climate news this past week is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's clarion call about surging CO2 levels – the highest ever – amid a year that is on track to have the largest and most extreme series of weather events in human history:

https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/during-year-of-extremes-carbon-dioxide-levels-surge-faster-than-ever

This is genuinely alarming and you – like me – have probably experienced it as a kind of increase in your background radiation of climate anxiety. Perhaps you – like me – even experienced some acute, sit-bolt-upright-in-bed-at-2AM anxiety as a result. That's totally justifiable. This is very real, very bad news.

And yet…

The news isn't all bad, and even this terrible dispatch from the NOAA is best understood in context, which Bill McKibben provides in his latest newsletter post, "What You Want is an S Curve":

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/what-you-want-is-an-s-curve

Financier and their critics should all be familiar with Stein's Law: "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." This is true outside of finance as well. One of the reasons that we're seeing such autophagic panic from the tech companies is that their period of explosive growth is at an end.

For years, they told themselves that they were experiencing double-digit annual growth because they were "creating value" and "innovating" but the majority of their growth was just a side-effect of the growth of the internet itself. When hundreds of millions of people get online every year, the dominant online services will, on average, gain hundreds of millions of new users.

But when you run out of people who don't have internet access, your growth is going to slow. How can it not? Indeed, at that point, the only ways to grow are to either poach users from your rivals (through the very expensive tactics of massive advertising and sales-support investments, on top of discounts and freebies as switching enticements), or to squeeze your own users for more.

That's why the number of laptops sold in America slowed down. It's why the number of cellphones sold in America slowed down. It's why the number of "smart home" gizmos slowed down.

Even the steepest hockey-stick-shaped exponential growth curve eventually levels off and becomes an S-curve, because anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop.

One way or another, the world's carbon emissions will eventually level off. Even if we drive ourselves to (or over) the brink of extinction and set up the conditions for wildfires that release all the carbon stored in all the Earth's plants, the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere has to level off.

Rendering the Earth incapable of sustaining human civilization (or life) is the ultimate carbon reduction method – but it's not my first choice.

That's where McKibben's latest newsletter comes in. He cites a new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute, which shows a major reversal in our energy sources, a shift that will see our energy primarily provided by renewables, with minimal dependence on fossil fuels:

https://rmi.org/insight/the-cleantech-revolution/

The RMI team says that in this year or next, we'll have hit peak demand for fossil fuels (a fact that is consistent with NOAA's finding that we're emitting more CO2 than ever). The reason for this is that so much renewable energy is about to come online, and it is so goddamned cheap, that we are about to undergo a huge shift in our energy consumption patterns.

This past decade saw a 12-fold increase in solar capacity, a 180-fold increase in battery storage, and a 100-fold increase in EV sales. China is leading the world in a cleantech transition, with the EU in close second. Cleantech is surging in places where energy demand is also still growing, like India and Vietnam. Fossil fuel use has already peaked in Thailand, South Africa and every country in Latin America.

We're on the verge of solar constituting an absolute majority of all the world's energy generation. This year, batteries will overtake pumped hydro for energy storage. Every cleantech metric is growing the way that fossil fuels did in previous centuries: investment, patents, energy density, wind turbine rotor size. The price of solar is on track to halve (again) in the next decade.

In short, cleantech growth looks like the growth of other technologies that were once rarities and then became ubiquitous overnight: TV, cellphones, etc. That growth isn't merely being driven by the urgency of the climate emergency: it's primarily a factor of how fucking great cleantech is:

https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/the_incredible_inefficiency_of_fossils.pdf

Fossil fuels suck. It's not just that they wreck the planet, or that their extraction is both politically and environmentally disastrous. They just aren't a good way to make energy. About a third of fossil fuel energy is wasted in production and transportation. A third! Another third is wasted turning fossil fuels into energy. Two thirds! The net energy efficiency of fossil fuels is about 37%.

Compare that with cleantech. EVs convert electricity to movement with 80-90% efficiency. Heat pumps are 300% efficient (the main fuel for your heat pump is the heat in the atmosphere, not the electricity it draws).

Cleantech is just getting started – it's still in the hockey-stick phase. That means those efficiency numbers are only going up. Rivian just figured out how to remove 1.6 miles of copper wire from each vehicle. That's just one rev – there's doubtless lots of room for more redesigns that will further dematerialize EVs:

https://insideevs.com/news/722265/rivian-r1s-r1t-wiring/

As McKibben points out, there's been a lot of justifiable concern that electrification will eventually use up all our available copper, but copper demand has remained flat even as electrification has soared – and this is why. We keep figuring out new ways to electrify with fewer materials:

https://www.chemanalyst.com/NewsAndDeals/NewsDetails/copper-wire-price-remains-stable-amidst-surplus-supply-and-expanding-mining-25416#:~:text=Global%20Copper%20wire%20Price%20Remains%20Stable%20Amidst%20Surplus%20Supply%20and%20Expanding%20Mining%20Activities

This is exactly what happened with previous iterations of tech. The material, energy and labor budgets of cars, buildings, furniture, etc all fell precipitously every time there was a new technique for manufacturing them. Renewables are at the start of that process. There's going to be a lot of this dematerialization in cleantech. Calculating the bill of materials for a planetary energy transition isn't a matter of multiplying the materials in current tech by the amount of new systems we'll need – as we create those new systems, we will constantly whittle down their materials.

What's more, global instability drives cleantech uptake. The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a surge in European renewables. The story that energy prices are rising due to renewables (or carbon taxes) is a total lie. Fossil fuels are getting much more expensive, thanks to both war and rampant, illegal price-fixing:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-oil-price-fixing-conspiracy-caused

If not for renewables, the incredible energy shocks of the recent years would be far more severe.

The renewables story is very good and it should bring you some comfort. But as McKibben points out, it's still not enough – yet. The examples of rapid tech uptake had big business on their side. America's living rooms filled with TV because America's largest businesses pulled out all the stops to convince everyone to buy a TV. By contrast, today's largest businesses – banks, oil companies and car companies – are working around the clock to stop cleantech adoption.

We're on track to double our use of renewables before the decade is over. But to hold to the (already recklessly high) targets from the Paris Accord, we need to triple our renewables usage. As McKibben says, the difference between doubling and tripling our renewables by 2030 is the difference between "survivable trouble" and something much scarier.

The US is experiencing a welcome surge in utility scale solar, but residential solar is stalling out as governments withdraw subsidies or even begin policies that actively restrict rooftop solar:

https://twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1798049929082097842?s=51

McKibben says the difference between where we are now and bringing back the push for home solar generation is the difference between "fast" and "faster" – that is the difference between tripling renewables by 2030 (survivable) and doubling (eek).

Capitalism stans who argue that we can survive the climate emergency with market tools will point to the good news on renewable and say that the market is the only way to transition to renewables. It's true that market forces are partly responsible for this fast transition. But the market is also the barrier to a faster (and thus survivable) transition. The oil companies, the banks who are so invested in fossil fuels, the petrostates who distort the world's politics – they're why we're not much farther along.

The climate emergency was never going to be neatly solved. We weren't going to get a neat novelistic climax that saw our problems sorted out in a single fell swoop. We're going to be fighting all the way to net zero, and after that, we'll still have decades of climate debt to pay down: fires, floods, habitat loss, zoonotic plagues, refugee crises.

But we should take our wins. Even if we're far from where we need to be on renewables, we're much farther along on renewables than we had any business hoping for, just a few years ago. The momentum is on our side. It's up to us to use that momentum and grow it. We're riding the hockey-stick, they're on that long, flat, static top of the S-curve. Their curve is leveling off and will start falling, ours will grow like crazy for the rest of our lives.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

[genericpuff]

holy crap okay so

I'm two episodes into Kaos

normally I keep my expectations pretty minimal because, let's be real, the Internet - and especially Tumblr - has a tendency to severely overhype new series to be way better than they actually are and it often leaves me sitting there like "that's it? that's what people were freaking out over for weeks?? that was just a bunch of cheap ships and tropes that i've seen 123785902380 times before" LMAO

BUT thankfully compared to other series like Hazbin Hotel and The Amazing Digital Circus, I haven't been worn out on excessive fandom exposure prior to watching Kaos, so I didn't really know what to expect going in besides what folks have told me so far - it's a modern-day Greek epic, and it stars Jeff Goldblum as Zeus (which is, unsurprisingly, peak casting).

That said, I'm very pleased to say that so far, the show is absolutely blowing me away. The set designs, characterizations, weaving of all the players into a central narrative led by a very coy narrator, all of it feels both refreshing and respectful to the source material at the same time.

so uh yeah that LO animated TV show... we have reason to believe now that it's gotten picked up by Amazon Prime, at least according to the showrunner's LinkedIn and posting history from February of this year that seems to imply LO may have been picked up by Amazon-

(but still, nothing's really been confirmed because they're being so tight-lipped about this you'd almost think it's because there isn't a show happening at all cough)

But even then, that means at best we still won't see anything of the LO TV show adaption for another 2-3 years, depending on how production goes.

Why am I talking about LO right now? Well it should be obvious - Kaos double-whammied LO by beating it to the punch at its own game.

I mean, just look at the creative choices alone in the design of the Underworld and its rulers, our beloved Hades and Persephone.

And yes, the entire Underworld is color-graded like this, something so simple and yet effective in communicating the nature of the Underworld and what it stands for - a place where the past lives on through the dead, paused in time, devoid of the vibrant color grading found in Olympus - or "Olympia" as its been named in this retelling - which is, by the way, a visual treat to take in every time it's featured.

(and yes, that is S-tier-companion Billie Piper on the left, but I will not tell you who she's playing, you actually really should go into this show as blind as possible for the thrill of figuring out these characters as they're introduced <3)

That's not even getting into the narrative structure of the plot itself or the phenomenal casting and acting, but again, I don't want to spoil too much as the show is quite new, and I want to actually finish watching the show myself before I get more into the details of its story and how it delivers it (I'm very much hoping I will still be singing this show's praises at the end of its 8 episodes, please for the love of god don't jump the shark, I don't think my heart can take that kind of pain again.)

All that's to say though, Kaos is, so far, exactly what us disappointed fans of LO deserve after all these years, and frankly, I feel like whatever is coming for the LO animated TV show is really gonna have to step up to the plate to both live up to the bar that Kaos has set as well as stand on its own without being affiliated as a cheap Amazon knockoff living in its shadow. Sounds a little familiar and a bit ironic, doesn't it?

[x-autumn-moon-x]

okay let's do this..

MY RUN DOWN OF CLUES/ SUSPICIONS FROM THE SNEAK PEAK OF RHRN

1. The 3 red candles:

Red is used to represent Fire, Lust, Romance and Protection amongst other things. There being 3 I suspect could point towards either the 3s in religion (3 wise men, sun/ghost/holy spirit etc) or Terzo (unlikely tho)

2. The Calander:

The Calendar has one of the pin badges stuck between September 11th and 12th 2023..

and the piture matches the Re-Imperator post from the Office Ghost Instagram here

Linking the two together..

3. The Psalms:

I don't know much about them but here's a quick Google result with a few on the number variations (mostly the calender dates)

Perhaps hinting and the resurrection of Old Papa and the fact that Copia 'can't get away'..

4. The bust with Seestor:

The bust with Seestor, after some extensive goggling and comparison seems to he of a Greek Goddess called Clytie. Here are the similarities..

Clytie was a Greek Goddess that basically fell in love with the God of the sun who chose another woman over her.. given the history between Papa and Seestor this fits perfectly..

She was however, rather unfortunately buried alive by him and 9 days later turned into a Sunflower (this is why sunflowers always face the sun)

9 DAYS LATER.. September (on the calender) is the 9th month..

*****************

Now this may all be the ramblings of an idiot BUT this is what Tobias wants.. he WANTS us to think and wonder 😂 he enjoys playing with us!

Well bravo sir! I've spent the last 2hrs deepdiving the Internet and watching the same video to pause it and analyse it.. congrats 😂

[valyrfia]

top five lestappen moment on track or off track from you to change the vibes

You do know how to sweet talk a woman.

5. Lestappen Monaco 2024 hug. Biased because I just have fond memories of this one including but not limited to me putting my phone on the table in a coffeeshop and sliding it across to @thearchercore like it's a particularly sensitive piece of blackmail, but there's literally zero reason looking back on it for Charles to have gone in for that hug. He didn't do it for his future teammate, why Max? WHY THE WAIST? MEN DON'T KNOW THE WAIST EXISTS? It's compelling as hell, and raises a lot of open questions that's for sure.

4. The Austria 2023 wink that's been immortalised across a thousand thirst edits. Charles' entire face goes laser focused the second he sees Max, he winks, proceeds to say good job, Max blushes like Bridgerton protagonist. What's best is that I've seen this in every single Charles thirst edit ever and everyone is slightly ?! when they discover Charles was doing all this at MAX.

3. On track sex at Silverstone 2019. Each other driving like madmen and Charles coming to press afterwards grinning ear to ear saying it's the most fun he's had in his career. Compare to Nico Rosberg's most recent comments about being terrified driving wheel to wheel with Max because Max is a nutcase. It's proof that Max and Charles are able to race each other like no one else, it's the thesis of the entire pairing.

2. The first padel date in October 2023. Lives were changed. Something shifted. Lestappen Gate 2023 began. @tsarinablogs was on a place and I was freaking out in her undelivered messages. Internet went wild. First inkling they might actually be proper friends. What a time to be alive.

1.The 2023 Vegas double interview. With the marriage jokes flying about that weekend it was just perfect timing. Max and Charles' little nerdy racer 'come in', 'copy!' back and forth, them answering questions like a couple while being perfectly weird about each other. I miss them. It was peak Lestappen (so far!) and we didn't even know it.

+1 honourable mention to Austria 2022. I can't not include this iconic moment. Max beaming like HE'S won the grand prix, the sex tape on the podium. It's a Lestappen cornerstone and cemented itself and the ship in the F1 RPF history books.

[bwabys-scenarios]

Anything for his mission

Camboy!Kurapika x Fem!Reader

!!REBLOGS APPRECIATED!!

warnings: consensually filming sex, handjob, mentions of pregnancy/breeding

A/N: Feel free to send camboy!Kurapika requests! Also, I posted this in my discord months ago. If you want to see more stuff like this, you should join! Here’s the link

taglist: @desiray562

if you would like to be added to the NSFW taglist, comment a ❤️!! make sure you have your AGE in your bio, and that you’re able to be tagged/mentioned!

Kurapika discovers that side of the internet one night when he’s researching a paper trail of some person different social media accounts.

He’s absolutely mortified at first. Immediately he’s shutting his laptop and glancing at a picture of you he keeps on his nightstand.

Kurapika hesitantly opens the laptop back up, sighing to himself. ‘I’ll just check out the information on that account then delete my search history.’

He doesn’t even know why he’s embarrassed and ashamed, it’s not like you and him are together. Why would you care if he’s visiting some adult website? He’s nearly 20 for gods sake!

He searches through the account, not finding anything to interesting… except that the person has a type.

Skinny blonde boys.

Kurapika blinks. The person he’d been researching had multiple pairs of the scarlet eyes, and so far he hadn’t been able to find any weaknesses in the persons defenses.

Maybe Kurapika would have to get creative…

You blink when Kurapika comes home with a box, not letting you look inside of. You become curious when he locks his door, leaving a “do not disturb” sign on the handle.

This curiosity peaks when you’re searching up some porn to get off to tonight. Despite your embarrassment, you look up people that look similar to your long term crush, Kurapika. He was just so pretty to you, after all, and you couldn’t get off if the person didn’t look like him :((

As you search one night, you come across an account with an awfully familiar username.

“Pika”

You stare at the name for a second, nearly laughing at yourself. “There’s no way, Kurapika would never-“

You click on the profile, and sure enough, from the lips down is YOUR Pika, sat shyly on his bed, jerking off.

He looked stiff, robotic almost. He couldn’t be enjoying himself, and you could see it in the uncomfortable grimace he was making.

The comments were telling him pretty much the same thing.

“Aww, come on pretty boy, give us a smile.”

“You look uncomfortable af”

You sigh, pulling your hands from your panties. Your poor, poor Pika. He had to be doing this for a reason, and it obviously wasn’t for his own pleasure.

You tiptoe to his room, thanking god that he had left his door unlocked. His back was turned from the door, and using In you were able to sneak up behind him.

“Pika, baby, let me help.”

He gasped when he felt your lips on his neck, the blondes face turning a dark shade of red. “(N-Name)!”

“I saw you were live. You know, if you asked I would have helped you out.”

He gasped when your hand wrapped around his length, thumb brushing against his tip. “Poor, poor Pika. Not used to jerking off, huh? Lemme help you feel good.”

The comments come pouring in, but neither of you cared. “Shh, just focus on how my hand feels, okay?”

He whimpered, and you kissed him, allowing his tongue to explore your mouth.

It didn’t take long for him to cum, painting his chest. You kissed his cheek, giggling at his spent expression.

You glanced at the comments, giggling.

“Oh god that was hot!”

“DOMINATE HIM!”

“I love blonde twinks”

“pretty cumshot 😩”

Kurapika cleared his throat, catching his breath. “Th-thank you all for coming.”

He ended the live stream, glancing back at you shyly. “I can explain.”

“You don’t have to, Pika. It’s none of my business what you do with your body.”

You kiss him again, this time the blonde realizes that you’re only wearing a pair on panties and a tanktop. His hands dip down to your waist. “I know, but I want to tell you.”

You sigh. “Sure, go ahead.”

As he shyly pulls down your panties, he continues. “Someone I’m trailing has… an interest in people that look like me.”

“Skinny, pale, blonde boys?”

Kurapika sighed at your words, pulling you into his lap. “Yes. And… I thought perhaps I could get closer to them through this… website.”

You hum, glancing back at his computer as you hover over his cock. “Why not livestream us having sex? That would get us a lot of views, possibly draw in the persons attention.”

He frowns. “I would prefer to keep love making with you intimate and in the bedroom…”

You cooed, kissing all over his face. “Aww, you’re such a cutie Pika. It’s just a suggestion, if you really don’t want to I understand.”

He held onto your hips, his cock twitching below you. “… if you think it’s a good idea, I won’t deny you.”

You laugh. “Alright. I’ll start the stream, okay?”

He nodded, barely holding himself back from pulling you onto his cock. The two of you had some sort of friends with benefits relationship that he wanted to take a step further, but was much too scared that you didn’t feel the same way he did.

“Hi everyone! As you can see, I’m about to get pounded by the lovely Pika!”

Kurapika turned red at your words, pulling you closer. “(Name)…”

He blinks, seeing the viewer count steadily rise. Kurapika does get a little pissed off at the comments, most of them talking about how much they wanted to fuck YOU.

“Ready, Pika?”

He growled, not giving you a second to think as he pushed your hips down. “Eep!”

Kurapika moved your hips up and down, moaning into your mouth. The chat was going WILD.

“YO don’t break her pussy bro 😭”

“twinks gone wild”

You gasp when you feel him pin you down onto the bed, glancing to the monitor to make sure you were still in view. Thankfully, Kurapika made sure neither of your faces would be visible, only your bodies.

“Love you… love you so so much…” he said as he pounded into your, occasionally dipping down to lock his lips with yours. You look up at him, face heating up.

“I-I love you too, Pika!”

Your words seem to affect him, making him go at an animalistic pace. Before long you can feel his cum filling you up, something he’d never done before. Kurapika had always pulled out, it was almost like he was telling you just how much he loved you by claiming your womb as his.

This continues for a while, Kurapika moving you into different positions, cooing soft praises into your ear and whispering ‘I love yous’.

Eventually the two of you collapse on the bed Kurapika reaching over to end the stream.

“Did… did you mean what you said earlier?”

He nods, pulling you into his chest. “Yes, every word.”

“Including the part where you were going to fuck me until I was pregnant?”

He stayed quiet, staring down at you with those pretty red eyes.

“Well… the thought of your stomach swelling with my seed, of you having my child…”

He kissed the top of your head. “It’s all I can think about.”

The two of you cuddle and fall asleep, forgetting about the whole reason you even started the stream earlier. Now, you were both ready to start a relationship, maybe even a family.

The next day, Kurapika is elated to see the person he’s tracking has followed his account.

“that livestream with the girl last night was hot! keep it up!”

‘It seems I’ll have to keep this up for a little while longer…’

If he kept streaming, maybe he could get closer to this person and get some valuable information…

He looks over to you, smiling as you make breakfast while he scrolls on his laptop.

“Angel, would you like to do another stream with me tonight?”

You turn, giving him a smile. “If it means I get to spend time with you, then yes!”

And he blushes, standing up to hug you from behind. “I love you…”

“I love you too!”

[centrally-unplanned]

Watching Tantacrul's analysis of "Facebook and its discontents", as it were, which is a good video even if I disagree with a bunch of it (I don't assign as much credence to the "social media is causing mental health crises" arguments, even if I am open to them, and am far more skeptical of the case of the "misinformation" proponents). What I do think is valuable is that Tantacrul was himself a large facebook user - not only professionally as a musician and game designer, but personally as one of those people who adopted it in his mid-20's right when it launched. He had the complete prelapsarian experience that Facebook, back when it was a tool and not a platform, was supposed to deliver; getting connected to a bunch of old friends, catching up, and sharing things from your personal life (and even effort posts; people did that on FB back then). While surely people do still have that experience on Facebook, it is a footnote of what it does today - few users are there for that anymore.

What strikes me is that there was something inevitable to the decline of that as a service - it relied sharply on momentum and a specific era. Having everyone join Facebook at the same time created a ton of activity and the easy establishment of community - everyone is here and online all in one place, catching up, so lets share things. But while the idea that one tool would Win The Future and be the ur-platform for everything is ofc the dream of every tech CEO, it isn't the dream of the user. "Everyone" made a Facebook in the late 2000's and at least gave the site a shot, so seeing dozens of friendly faces new and old was possible. But for most users it didn't really stick - I gave up on it in days myself, for others it was months, maybe it was a few years but it "getting old" is baked in. Not because the platform Got Worse, but because look, I can text my friends; I don't care anymore about posting a photo for 100+ people to see. The dirty secret of community everywhere is that if it isn't structural, it is temporary; it doesn't inherently generate endless engagement. Over time, you grow bored.

But you know what does generate endless engagement??

The second pillar of the Early Facebook Experience was the era - the internet was young, and "randos fooling around" was the peak of content. Most people weren't bloggers (the fools), most people weren't autistic enough to troll the dregs of Newgrounds for parody Evangelion dating sims (the absolute fools) - the internet just didn't have that much to do. Which meant the content your friends were posting to their facebook wall was as good as anything, right? Their Hot Take on the end of the Second Intifada ("this is a real opportunity for peace in the region") seemed worthy of several dozen back-and-forth debates in the comments. What this model could not anticipate is that its own success in generating online revenue streams meant that professionals would rise to meet the demand of the attention economy, far better than your friends could. Obviously Facebook-as-platform was a perfectly viable place to Share Content, but you do enough of that and someone's graduation photos seem a bit pedestrian in comparison. And again you can just text your friends - Facebook just isn't a good enough medium for all this.

I do think when people look at "the history of website X", there tends to be a lot of focus on the corporate management as the locus for change - the "pivot to video" for ad revenue or whatever. And certainly that is part of the story - I bet Facebook could have, if it had no ambition, stayed a site for people to see what their friends were up to. But that story is the story of website with declining engagement, with less people signing up new accounts as they are busy already on Tiktok, and active users dialing in less than they did. Maybe still better than the current status quo? Possibly, that isn't a debate I am interested in here. Just saying that change is inevitable in these kinds of places.

[marzipanandminutiae]

The Snark Is Real This Morning

Oh no! Some patriarchal shill just had an Illegal Corset Thought on the Internet!

Maybe they said "corsets weren't invented by the patriarchy" or "comfort was actually often a prime concern for most women's day-to-day corset-wearing, as evidenced by mid-late 19th century advertising" or "women didn't go around fainting constantly because most of them didn't tightlace most of the time."

Maybe they brought up "survivorship bias in extant clothing" or "rampant photo doctoring in the 19th/early 20th century" or "treating satirical cartoons and fashion plates as gospel" or "museums displaying corsets laced entirely closed when wear patterns and primary sources indicate that lacing gaps were more common in many times and places" These concepts are actually conspiracies invented by Big Misogyny to sell more booze to depressed history workers!

Maybe one of them said that she'd worn corsets, or even that she and/or her friends actually found them more comfortable than bras! Clearly she believes this is representative of all women throughout history and in the present day. Besides, she is suffering from Femininity Poisoning and nothing coming out of her silly, weak little brain can be taken seriously. Remember, it is Peak Feminism to dismiss what a woman says because of her gender presentation!

Don't be fooled! All of these statements mean one thing: they are saying that corsets were and are, always and forever, universally feminist and empowering. That no woman in the past ever found them uncomfortable, and that GNC women didn't exist before 1960 and also are icky. Did they actually say that? Doesn't matter! You know what she Really Meant- you've seen P*rates of the Caribbean and Br*dgerton! Corsets were always torture devices meant to oppress women, and any statement contradicting that clearly means the extreme opposite.

So what's a right-thinking and concerned Internet Citizen to do? You have a few options:

See point above re: femininity. Feminine-presenting women are basically brainless, so if a woman talking about dress history Wears An Skirt, you can just write off whatever she says. Easy peasy! Be sure to say something derogatory about her appearance, so others know why they shouldn't take her seriously.

Accuse them of not knowing their history. Any degrees, professional experience, publications, academic accolades, etc. they may have are irrelevant. Their primary sources are...idk photoshopped or something? Best to ignore them altogether. You have Feelings on your side, and that's far more valuable than any research!

Accuse them of accusing you of being a t*rf. Works especially well if they've said anything about the preponderance of t*rfs expressing your True and Correct views- that just means they're calling everyone who thinks like you a transphobe, duh!

Tell them they're not believing women. If they have cited so-called "realities of historical women's lives," well, that's clearly just the rich elite of any given era (who were also brainrotted by Femininity, natch). If you're a woman, and you say corsets were the spawn of Beelzebub, that should be enough ~evidence~ for anyone!

Appeal to common knowledge. Everyone KNOWS corsets were evil; can they really be DEFENDING a KNOWN HATEFUL OPPRESSIVE HELL-GARMENT?! What is the world coming to! If they ask how exactly everyone knows that and where that collective belief comes from, reply with a snarky GIF and block them. There's just no reasoning with some people.

Call them a tradwife. Are they a tradwife? Irrelevant.

With all these tools in your arsenal, you are now well-equipped to fight the horde of vile corset apologists online. Remember: It's Only Real Oppression If The Oppressed Group Is Miserable 24/7!

[fatehbaz]

taking relentless severe psychic damage from watching several hours of videos of television commercial advertisements from the United States in December 1999.

a world-historical moment, an all-time high peak of self-assured smirking arrogance.

ascendant home computers and internet modems. a new millennium! a time after Cold War but before Nining Leven, with saxophone-playing heads of state and cheery Spielbierg-ian sentimentality attempting to plaster over 1970s/1980s disappointments and hangovers with renewed millennarian End-Of-History optimism.

come celebrate with us! look at these images of The Nation! from sparkling Times Square and the cast of "Friends" in bustling cosmopolitan New York City, to sunny Californian prosperity, to those cartoonish frogs in the quasi-mythical Deep South-ish rural periphery of Budweiser ads, and all the suburban Midwestern Kay's Jeweler's in between! planetary hegemony. "Head east from the Colosseum, across the ruts of chariots, and you'll find an imperial estate built by a second-century Caesar. It's a rough ride. And if the agile and durable Chevy Tracker can handle these ancient roads, driving back home will be a walk in the park. Chevy Tracker: It Gets Around!"

or perhaps "our" power extends beyond this terrestrial imperium, into space, conquering the stars. UFOs; space aliens; The X-Files; Independence Day; Space Jam; Men in Black; the Phoenix Lights; Coast to Coast AM on the radio; Space Command in Colorado Springs.

the anxious fragility belied by the desperate constant promotion of an almost religious dedication to recognizable icons.

talking chihuahuas, marketing jingles, annual football game events. self-referential circular cross-promotion maelstrom.

"An all-new holiday spectacular, a Christmas special destined to become a family classic! With music from REM's Michael Stipe, voiced by Ally McBeal's Peter MacNicol, and starring Drew Barrymore! It's Olive the Other Reindeer! At 8/7 Central Fox Friday!"

trying to insist that this "classic" cultural iconography binds us. it has always lived in your heart. fabricating in real-time a supposedly shared history, insisting on this "reality" even at the moment of its very creation. hammering away at the soul.

Daffy Duck saunters in and pronounces: "Eat your way into the new millennium with this 'gigundo' party sub from Subway!"

why aren't you smiling?

[viktorpartner]

✨ THE DAN AND PHIL LORE pt. 2✨

CHECK OUT PART 1: https://www.tumblr.com/ashleyeveerson/760695134744723456/the-dan-and-phil-lore-pp?source=share

Oh sweet 2015... A trip to Japan, which is dubed by DANIEL HOWELL HIMSELF as Japhan, leads to a fan theory in which Dan and Phil supposedly got married there which they talked about in a recent video i can't believe this is real. IN OTHER NEWS: The Amazing Book is Not on Fire is published and Dan and Phil go in their first tour ever!!! TATINOF is just ICONIC, just treat yourself and watch the musical number "The internet is here" THEY. TAP. DANCE.

The boys are touring worldwide which gives us very cute pictures of them holding koalas (awww). They also attend the Bronca in which they win EVERY PRIZE TOGETHER except "streamer of the year" which Phil won only to beckon Dan to get onstage so they could share it (THEY MAKE ME SICK). The iconic clip "Can Phil express an opinion?" is also born and Dan blesses our ears by dropping the rap of the century: ROAST YOURSELF CHALLENGE a month without uploading he comes back with a tag THAT NO ONE EVEN TAGED HIM ON

Things are changingggg... Dan ditches the "Dan is not on fire" name and brand of his channel to reflect the changes in his content. He then uploads "Dan and Depression", in which he opens up for the first time about his struggles with mental health (it's a great fucking video go watch it).

Phannies and Phil himself rejoice when Dan decides to embrace the hobbit hair and ditch the straightners (RIP the fringe). And as part of april fool's day a strange video named "Dan and Phil crafts" is uploaded to YT (idk what to say go watch it yourselves). THEY ALSO MOVED TO PHLAT 3 ON LONDON [which we would later discover were 2 separate flats; one to live in and one to record in] (some fans theorized about it before they confirmed idk ya'll scare me)

In 2018 they embark on their second tour "INTERACTIVE INTROVERTS" but the vibes in the channel all lead to the end of an era... Phil ditches the fringe (RIP), the final video of Dan vs Phil is recorded and the LAST AND 10th TATINOF gets uploaded. Now... the nostalgic vibes of this video, the love they have for their fans, the recreation of the first picture they ever took... YEAH THIS ONE ALWAYS MAKES ME SOB -- we enter the INDEFINITE HIATUS --

LOOK AT THEM :( something, something about despite everything, it's still you...

now we enter.... THE DARK AGES. Dan basically disappears from the internet while Phil keeps on uploading on his solo channel with no mention of him. So after everything, WHAT HAPPENED TO PHAN? DID WE GO TOO FAR AS A FANDOM? ARE WE THE BAD GUYS? Let's take a trip down Phandom history, shall we?

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So in the peak years of Dan and Phil uploading a VERY LARGE group had appeared on Tumblr which was soley focused on so called "EVIDENCE" of Phan being canon. Now... the problem being that using the term CANON with real people is problematic to say the least. The relationship speculation that had thrived on fictional tv shows such as Merlin, Supernatural or Sherlock was now being IMPOSED upon two very real people. NOT fictional characters, just two blokes with feelings and a right to privacy.

SO WHO GOT IT RIGHT?? was it the crazy theorists, did Dan and Phil share the sonic underwear, clothes and a bed? Or was it all a lie? A bad rumour? A comercial decision to get more money from the phans? well WHICH IS IT?

WHAT IS THE TRUTH? WE. WANT. ANSWERS.

...

YIKES! Turns out that there is no answer, because we as fans ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THE PRIVACY OF OUR IDOLS. We only deserve as much as Dan and Phil are comfortable and willing to share about their lives with us... Oh and Dan? He has something BIG to share

Yeah so, words can even begin to explain how much this video meant to myself and may others... For me it was the first video I ever saw of someone actually coming out on camera, it was a beacon of light, a promise that things CAN eventually get better and a very brave fucking thing for Dan to do. He gave hope to thousands of young people who were just as lost as he had once been, he became the representation he so desperately needed when he was just a depressed kid. Just, go watch it. It's wonderful, it's a masterpiece, it's funny and heartbreaking in equal parts and above all... it's SO authentically Dan.

So where does that lead us... Let's dissect the popularity of Phan shall we? A LOT OF FANS WERE JUST FETISHISING MEN FOR NO REASON, TRUE. But a lot of them were also queer and exploring their sexuality through the safety of a m/m pairing. Since historically most yuri was catered around men and hetero romance tended to objectify women, slash paring became a way for a lot of girls to explore sex and love. That is, within the safety of removing themselves completely from the pairing. Go read this article if you wanna know more about women's fascination with slash media: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/why-women-love-slashfic

SO SURPRISE, WE ALL TURNED OUT TO BE QUEER!!! Like ofc there was a toxic side of it, but there were also a lot of queer kids who desperately searched for public figures they could relate to.

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Now a couple of edits before returning to the Phan timeline bc these slides turned out to be WAY heavier than intended: Look at my boy Dan look at him!!! Look at him showing those grippers, feeding a deer, going proudly to his first Gay Parade!!!

PHIL LESTER MY BELOVED... dan I can and will fight you on the title of Phil's num 1 trash he'd probably win who am i kidding he's so in love with this man istg

PART 3 RIGHT HERE: https://www.tumblr.com/ashleyeveerson/760714622028349440/the-dan-and-phil-lore-pt-2?source=share