#top 10 chinese apps

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lina Khan’s future is the future of the Democratic Party — and America

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

On the one hand, the anti-monopoly movement has a future no matter who wins the 2024 election – that's true even if Kamala Harris wins but heeds the calls from billionaire donors to fire Lina Khan and her fellow trustbusters.

In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

It's amazing to see the DoJ racking up huge wins against Google's monopolistic conduct, sure, but first blood went to Epic, who won a historic victory over Google in federal court six months before the DoJ's win, which led to the court ordering Google to open up its app store:

https://www.theverge.com/policy/2024/10/7/24243316/epic-google-permanent-injunction-ruling-third-party-stores

Google's 30% App Tax is a giant drag on all kinds of sectors, as is its veto over which software Android users get to see, so Epic's win is going to dramatically alter the situation for all kinds of activities, from beleaguered indie game devs:

https://antiidlereborn.com/news/

To the entire news sector:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Private antitrust cases have attracted some very surprising plaintiffs, like Michael Jordan, whose long policy of apoliticism crumbled once he bought a NASCAR team and lived through the monopoly abuses of sports leagues as an owner, not a player:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist

A much weirder and more unlikely antitrust plaintiff than Michael Jordan is Google, the perennial antitrust defendant. Google has brought a complaint against Microsoft in the EU, based on Microsoft's extremely ugly monopolistic cloud business:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-files-complaint-eu-over-microsoft-cloud-practices-2024-09-25/

Google's choice of venue here highlights another reason to think that the antitrust surge will continue irrespective of US politics: antitrust is global. Antitrust fervor has seized governments from the UK to the EU to South Korea to Japan. All of those countries have extremely similar antitrust laws, because they all had their statute books overhauled by US technocrats as part of the Marshall Plan, so they have the same statutory tools as the American trustbusters who dismantled Standard Oil and AT&T, and who are making ready to shatter Google into several competing businesses:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265832/google-search-antitrust-remedies-framework-android-chrome-play

Antitrust fever has spread to Canada, Australia, and even China, where the Cyberspace Directive bans Chinese tech giants from breaking interoperability to freeze out Chinese startups. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid – again:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-11-cant-believe-im-writing-about-iv-fluid-again/

What's more, the conduct of global monopolists is the same in every country where they have taken hold, which means that trustbusters in the EU can use the UK Digital Markets Unit's report on the mobile app market as a roadmap for their enforcement actions against Apple:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

And then the South Korean and Japanese trustbusters can translate the court documents from the EU's enforcement action and use them to score victories over Apple in their own courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

So on the one hand, the trustbusting wave will continue erode the foundations of global monopolies, no matter what happens after this election. But on the other hand, if Harris wins and then fires Biden's top trustbusters to appease her billionaire donors, things are going to get ugly.

A new, excellent long-form Bloomberg article by Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin gives a sense of the battle raging just below the surface of the Democratic Power, built around a superb interview with Khan herself:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-09/lina-khan-on-a-second-ftc-term-ai-price-gouging-data-privacy

The article begins with a litany of tech billionaires who've gone an all-out, public assault on Khan's leadership – billionaires who stand to personally lose hundreds of millions of dollars from her agency's principled, vital antitrust work, but who cloak their objection to Khan in rhetoric about defending the American economy. In public, some of these billionaires are icily polite, but many of them degenerate into frothing, toddler-grade name-calling, like IAB's Barry Diller, who called her a "dope" and Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis, who called her an all-caps COMMUNIST and a LUNATIC.

The overall vibe from these wreckers? "How dare the FTC do things?!"

And you know, they have a point. For decades, the FTC was – in the quoted words of Tim Wu – "a very hardworking agency that did nothing." This was the period when the FTC targeted low-level scammers while turning a blind eye to the monsters that were devouring the US economy. In part, that was because the FTC had been starved of budget, trapping them in a cycle of racking up easy, largely pointless "wins" against penny-ante grifters to justify their existence, but never to the extent that Congress would apportion them the funds to tackle the really serious cases (if this sounds familiar, it's also the what happened during the long period when the IRS chased middle class taxpayers over minor filing errors, while ignoring the billionaires and giant corporations that engaged in 7- and 8-figure tax scams).

But the FTC wasn't merely underfunded: it was timid. The FTC has extremely broad enforcement and rulemaking powers, which most sat dormant during the neoliberal era:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The Biden administration didn't merely increase the FTC's funding: in choosing Khan to helm the organization, they brought onboard a skilled technician, who was both well-versed in the extensive but unused powers of the agency and determined to use them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

But Khan's didn't just rely on technical chops and resources to begin the de-olicharchification of the US economy: she built a three-legged stool, whose third leg is narrative. Khan's signature is her in-person and remote "listening tours," where workers who've been harmed by corporate power get to tell their stories. Bloomberg recounts the story of Deborah Brantley, who was sexually harassed and threatened by her bosses at Kavasutra North Palm Beach. Brantley's bosses touched her inappropriately and "joked" about drugging her and raping her so she "won’t be such a bitch and then maybe people would like you more."

When Brantley finally quit and took a job bartending at a different business, Kavasutra sued her over her noncompete clause, alleging an "irreparable injury" sustained by having one of their former employees working at another business, seeking damages and fees.

The vast majority of the 30 million American workers who labor under noncompetes are like Brantley, low-waged service workers, especially at fast-food restaurants (so Wendy's franchisees can stop minimum wage cashiers from earning $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at a nearby McDonald's). The donor-class indenturers who defend noncompetes claim that noncompetes are necessary to protect "innovative" businesses from losing their "IP." But of course, the one state where no workers are subject to noncompetes is California, which bans them outright – the state that is also home to Silicon Valley, an IP-heave industry that the same billionaires laud for its innovations.

After that listening tour, Khan's FTC banned noncompetes nationwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

Only to have a federal judge in Texas throw out their ban, a move that will see $300b/year transfered from workers to shareholders, and block the formation of 8,500 new US businesses every year:

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/g-s1-18376/federal-judge-tosses-ftc-noncompetes-ban

Notwithstanding court victories like Epic v Google and DoJ v Google, America's oligarchs have the courts on their side, thanks to decades of court-packing planned by the Federalist Society and executed by Senate Republicans and Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. Khan understands this; she told Bloomberg that she's a "close student" of the tactics Reagan used to transform American society, admiring his effectiveness while hating his results. Like other transformative presidents, good and bad, Reagan had to fight the judiciary and entrenched institutions (as did FDR and Lincoln). Erasing Reagan's legacy is a long-term project, a battle of inches that will involve mustering broad political support for the cause of a freer, more equal America.

Neither Biden nor Khan are responsible for the groundswell of US – and global – movement to euthanize our rentier overlords. This is a moment whose time has come; a fact demonstrated by the tens of thousands of working Americans who filled the FTC's noncompete docket with outraged comments. People understand that corporate looters – not "the economy" or "the forces of history" – are the reason that the businesses where they worked and shopped were destroyed by private equity goons who amassed intergenerational, dynastic fortunes by strip-mining the real economy and leaving behind rubble.

Like the billionaires publicly demanding that Harris fire Khan, private equity bosses can't stop making tone-deaf, guillotine-conjuring pronouncements about their own virtue and the righteousness of their businesses. They don't just want to destroy the world - they want to be praised for it:/p>

"Private equity’s been a great thing for America" -Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital;

"We are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. Shouldn’t we judge a society by how they treat the most successful? Do we vilify, tax, expropriate and condemn those who have succeeded, or do we celebrate economic success as the engine that propels our society toward greater collective well-being?" -Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo

"Achieve life-changing money and power," -Sachin Khajuria, former partner at Apollo

Meanwhile, the "buy, strip and flip" model continues to chew its way through America. When PE buys up all the treatment centers for kids with behavioral problems, they hack away at staffing and oversight, turning them into nightmares where kids are routinely abused, raped and murdered:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/they-told-me-it-was-going-be-good-place-allega-tions-n987176

When PE buys up nursing homes, the same thing happens, with elderly residents left to sit in their own excrement and then die:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001

Writing in The Guardian, Alex Blasdel lays out the case for private equity as a kind of virus that infects economies, parasitically draining them of not just the capacity to provide goods and services, but also of the ability to govern themselves, as politicians and regulators are captured by the unfathomable sums that PE flushes into the political process:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control

Now, the average worker who's just lost their job may not understand "divi recaps" or "2-and-20" or "carried interest tax loopholes," but they do understand that something is deeply rotten in the world today.

What happens to that understanding is a matter of politics. The Republicans – firmly affiliated with, and beloved of, the wreckers – have chosen an easy path to capitalizing on the rising rage. All they need to do is convince the public that the system is irredeemably corrupt and that the government can't possibly fix anything (hence Reagan's asinine "joke": "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help'").

This is a very canny strategy. If you are the party of "governments are intrinsically corrupt and incompetent," then governing corruptly and incompetently proves your point. The GOP strategy is to create a nation of enraged nihilists who don't even imagine that the government could do something to hold their bosses to account – not for labor abuses, not for pollution, not for wage theft or bribery.

The fact that successive neoliberal governments – including Democratic administrations – acted time and again to bear out this hypothesis makes it easy for this kind of nihilism to take hold.

Far-right conspiracies about pharma bosses colluding with corrupt FDA officials to poison us with vaccines for profit owe their success to the lived experience of millions of Americans who lost loved ones to a conspiracy between pharma bosses and corrupt officials to poison us with opioids.

Unhinged beliefs that "they" caused the hurricanes tearing through Florida and Georgia and that Kamala Harris is capping compensation to people who lost their homes are only credible because of murderous Republican fumble during Katrina; and the larcenous collusion of Democrats to help banks steal Americans' homes during the foreclosure crisis, when Obama took Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runway" with the mortgages of everyday Americans who'd been cheated by their banks:

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/this_man_made_millions_suffer_tim_geithners_sorry_legacy_on_housing/

If Harris gives in to billionaire donors and fires Khan and her fellow trustbusters, paving the way for more looting and scamming, the result will be more nihilism, which is to say, more electoral victories for the GOP. The "government can't do anything" party already exists. There are no votes to be gained by billing yourself as the "we also think governments can't do anything" party.

In other words, a world where Khan doesn't run the FTC is a world where antitrust continues to gain ground, but without taking Democrats with it. It's a world where nihilism wins.

There's factions of the Democratic Party who understand this. AOC warned party leaders that, "Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl":

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1844034727935988155

And Bernie Sanders called her "the best FTC Chair in modern history":

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1843733298960576652

In other words: Lina Khan as a posse.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/#there-will-be-an-out-and-out-brawl

[hughungrybear]

PSA for people who also want to read the Chinese danmei, Mou Mou (A Certain Someone) by Mu Su Li:

Sidenote: There's no such thing as free lunch when it comes to Chinese danmeis - particulary those that are fortunate to be adapted to live-action. You need to pay for them. Most danmeis have 4 to 6 volumes with 10 or more chapters each. 😄

A. If you can read Traditional Chinese (Han) with ease, congratulations! You just need to download and install the JJWXC app. The app itself is not available on Google Play (not sure about the other app stores) and must be downloaded directly from the website. Just follow the instructions and you're all set.

B. If you are an international reader (or have a very shaky foundational understanding of the Chinese alphabet like me 😅) and would want an English translation, it will be slightly complicated. Better use your desktop for the following procedure:

1. Read and use this site as a guide: https://bookswithqianya.com/support-authors/#google_vignette

2. Whatever you do, please make sure your browser's auto-translate is ON. Also during registration, keep in mind that the website DOES NOT accept the usual English alphabet (They do accept arabic numerals though).

To solve this, you can open another browser to auto-translate whatever it is you are typing into Han characters, copy then paste.

3. Once registered, the JJWXC website uses points to purchase novel so you need to top up your account. The only international payment method they accept to buy points is PayPal. The cheapest you can buy is 10,000 points for USD 15. This is more than enough as the novel is only worth around 2,000 points. Again, follow the guide in procedure 1 when you buy the novel.

4. Once you bought the novel, take a screenshot of your invoice (turn off your auto-translate atp since the translator only accepts proof of purchase in Chinese), fill up this form with the attached screenshot then submit. You might need to wait a couple of hours before the translator can send you a link to the translation in google drive (or whichever cloud storage device you use).

The translator also has certain stipulations (like not sharing the link to anyone who did not buy the novel, downloading and converting the files to epub or pdf, etc), so please be respectful.

Note: THE TRANSLATION ITSELF IS FREE. The only "payment" the translator requires is that you support the original author by buying a copy of the novel. 😄

Edit: I almost forgot — if you don't like digital copies AND you can read Chinese, you can purchase the physical novel (i think AliExpress and Taobao sells them). The novel has five volumes and 1 extra. Not sure about the price though 😊

[mamadoc]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you to for tagging me, @thisnightissparkling089 !

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

I have only written 6 fics on AO3, but I tend to write long chapters and long stories.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

313,810

Pretty good for 7 months, right?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Only The Rookie. 😎

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Catch of a Lifetime

Snowed In

*Sense* You Know Me So Well

*Sense* You Know Me So Well, Too - The Sequel

The Heimlich

5. Do you respond to comments?

Every comment thread! I love interacting with people who read my stories. I think it's one of the things that makes writing fanfiction so much fun.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I have a few rules in my writing. 1 - Chenford is endgame. 2 - Only happy endings. 3 - No Major Character Death!

My reading and writing affect my mood, and I read to find a little spot of joy and sunshine.

That said, my sequel series, After the Snow Melts, has a lot more angst than my other stories. Although the ending is happy, it's not a perfect resolution of the story.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

The last (third) chapter of *Sense* You Know Me So Well is so amazingly sweet and fluffy that it would rot your teeth.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully, no. I've had a few rude requests for me to continue a story, but that's as close as I've gotten. I'm so grateful for the people that leave kind comments on my stories.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. I'll write 'spicy' scenes, but nothing I would consider smut or going into M or E categories.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No. I've considered it, and I've read a few that are great. But I never have.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

As far as I know, I have not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

No. But I have a few frequent commenters on Twitter/X that comment in other languages. I don't know if they read it in English or translate it, but they comment in Spanish, Portuguese, and German.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. When I first got some story ideas, I reached out to a few writers I admired to see if they would be interested in co-writing the stories with me. None of them were interested. That's when I had to break out my big girl panties and try it by myself. 😂😎 I'm glad I did. It's been such a rewarding hobby.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Chenford🥰

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have several ideas jotted down on my Notes app on my phone. I don't know how many of them will ever be fleshed out and see the light of day.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmmm... I'm not sure. I feel like my writing is very descriptive and in character so that the reader can really feel like they're seeing it all play out. At least that's what I hear back from some readers. My stories are also longer, which allows the reader to disappear into that world for longer.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I still feel very new at this and lack some confidence in my writing skills. I've tried my hand at a few action scenes, but I'm not sure they come together as well as the relationship/dialogue scenes. I'm also an older Millennial, so some of the social media aspect of fanfiction and this fandom are new to me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've done it once. I just used Google translate to get some easy Chinese for Lucy and her mother to have a quick conversation. But I speak French and Korean, so I could potentially add that in sometime in the future. I just don't know how well that would fit into a Chenford story.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

This one. I had never done creative writing in my adult life until 7 months ago, hence my lack of confidence.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I have really loved writing Catch of a Lifetime. I feel like it's different than a lot of the stories I've read on AO3, but it still has the characters we know and love.

*Sense* You Know Me So Well is my favorite of my shorter stories, particularly chapter 2. It feels very realistic and true to what could have happened in the snow.

And chapter 2 of *Sense* You Know Me So Well, Too - The Sequel is the one I feel like draws on the deepest feelings and most genuine heart of Chenford.

Thanks, ladies! Tagging @makeitastrength and @queseraone and @girlintotv and @chenfordspiral if they're interested in talking about their writing.

[theculturedmarxist]

The Chinese healthcare system has a long way to go before it can adequately satisfy the needs of the country's huge population. However, I take great pride in the high quality of China's healthcare at such low costs for the average Chinese person.

Yesterday, a little winged insect flew into my right eye, leaving a red spot on my eyeball. I opened my medical app at 12 a.m., scheduled an appointment at 2 p.m., waited for half an hour, and had a medical examination. Most of the bill was paid for by my national health insurance.

I also tried making an appointment with a neurosurgeon through the Peking University People's Hospital mobile app. When I checked the app at 21:44, I saw that the earliest available appointment with a chief physician (professor) would be 16 hours later and would cost 300 RMB ($41, most of which would be reimbursed by my medical care). [Picture 1]

The earliest appointment I can get with an attending physician is a day later, and it will cost me 50 RMB ($6.8). With my healthcare, I only pay 10 RMB ($1.4). [Picture 2]

For people in immediate need, the system is incredibly affordable and effective (I don't want to have a red eye for days).

Here are some statistics on China's healthcare system.

🏥 When the PRC was founded in 1949, the average life expectancy in China was 35 years; in 2022, it was 77.93 years, mostly due to the country's improving medical care system.

🏥 Its basic medical insurance covers approximately 1.3 billion people.

🏥 China has a three-tier system to grade hospitals, with tertiary hospitals -- which have the largest number of beds and provide comprehensive medical services -- at the top of the system.

🏥 Basic public health services provided at the primary level have been bolstered. In the first half of 2023, nearly 90 million people aged 65 and above enjoyed health management through such services, increasing by 40 percent compared with the same period last year.

🏥 Health authorities and medical institutions have made proactive efforts to ensure the accessibility and equitability of health services. Currently, 82.7 percent of all medical institutions at or above the secondary level in the country have established a system that enables patients to schedule appointments for diagnosis and treatment.

🏥 Internet-powered health services are playing an increasingly important role in China's health system. By 2020, over 1,600 internet hospitals were opened in China, and almost 49 million people had used the service to receive a diagnosis and treatment.

🏥 By the end of 2021, the number of doctors in China had reached 4.2 million, and the number of doctors per 1,000 people had reached 3.04, close to the level of developed countries.

🏥 The Chinese government announced in 2022 a strategy to increase the number of health professionals as part of the country's 14th Five-Year Plan. It aims to increase the number of physicians to 3.2 per 1,000 people by 2025.

🏥 From January to September, medical institutions in China saw a total of 5.11 billion medical visits.

[mariacallous]

Over the past year, TikTok has emerged as a bipartisan target in the United States, with politicians on both sides of the political spectrum raising concerns about Chinese ownership of—and potential influence over—the social media platform. Among these critiques is a worry that Chinese messaging could more readily reach young Americans, who are a majority of the platform’s user base in the United States. This led, in late April 2024, to the passage of a bill in Congress that requires ByteDance, the company’s Chinese owner, to divest from TikTok over the next year or risk a ban of the app across the United States.

Yet, much like other social media platforms, TikTok’s viral content is not limited to Chinese state-backed accounts. Amid a fracturing of the online information space, marked by the growth of platforms that cater to more targeted audiences, Russia’s state propaganda apparatus has begun to leverage TikTok’s growing appeal as a new avenue for disseminating overt Kremlin messaging through a network of state-affiliated accounts. How has Russia shifted its approach to capitalize on TikTok’s expanded reach and appeal? How does this compare to the activity of state-affiliated accounts on other prominent platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter) or Telegram? And what has been the focus of messaging from these TikTok accounts thus far? To answer these questions, I draw on data from Russian state-affiliated accounts on TikTok, Telegram, and X. I find that:

Russian state-affiliated accounts have accelerated their use of TikTok since the start of 2024: In 2022, 57 accounts posted at least once during the year, with just one posting on average twice per day. In 2024 so far, 46 accounts have posted, with three averaging 10 or more posts a day. However, the number of active accounts on TikTok, and the number of posts per account, still lags far behind accounts on Telegram and X.

Although Russian state-affiliated accounts are far more active on other platforms, engagement per post on TikTok is much higher: 44 of the top 50 most engaged with posts in 2024 hail from TikTok, while the remaining six were shared by accounts on X. These posts on average have drawn over 3.5 million engagements. On average, TikTok posts draw approximately 100,000 total engagements per post, 3.5 times the rate of Telegram and 20 times the rate of X.1 If we remove views, which may be measured differently across platforms, engagement per post is still 13 times higher on TikTok than on X.2

Russia’s experimentation with TikTok is particularly timely. Amid contested elections in the United States and elsewhere, the results could dramatically reshape support for Ukraine and NATO. Against this backdrop, Russia’s malign influence operations are likely to continue, according to a recent report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Based on an analysis of TikTok posts from the first three months of 2024, I find that:

Posts pertaining to U.S. politics make up a small percentage of overall content shared by Russian state-affiliated accounts, but they represent a slightly higher percentage of total posts on TikTok than on X or Telegram: Across all platforms, content tied to U.S. politics makes up around 3% of all content shared by these accounts. However, on TikTok, 5% of all posts in 2024 cover U.S. political topics, as compared to 4% on X and 1% on Telegram.3

Spanish-language posts focused on U.S. politics are among the most popular on TikTok: 22 of the top 30 most engaged with TikTok posts tied to U.S. politics are in Spanish. The success of Spanish-language content across TikTok mirrors similar successes across other platforms, including X and Facebook, where Russian accounts like RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo regularly draw large audiences and high engagement.

Among posts about U.S. politics on TikTok from Russian state-affiliated accounts, wedge issues feature prominently: Thus far, messaging about U.S. politics has focused on questions about President Joe Biden’s age, protests over Biden’s Israel policies, and political commentator Tucker Carlson’s reflections on Russia and U.S. policy toward Russia, among other topics. Some of these themes are clear wedge issues that shape political debates and are likely to resonate with young audiences, who make up the majority of TikTok’s U.S. user base.

In tandem with shifts in covert influence operations, Russia’s overt messaging has begun to adapt to an evolving information ecosystem made up of many more platforms with distinct identities. The use of TikTok highlights a growing, but still not fully realized, avenue for Russia’s state-backed information apparatus to reach new, young audiences. Additional research to better understand the trajectory of Russia’s engagement moving forward and how these narratives spread across TikTok will be valuable. Despite ongoing questions about the future of TikTok’s ownership, it remains critical to not wholly ignore or disengage from the platform entirely. Much like on other social media websites, Russian state-affiliated accounts are finding a receptive audience. As a result, transparent and proactive pushback against Kremlin narratives is vital to countering their spread ahead of the 2024 elections and beyond.

[choke-me-joey]

Hi! In regards to Hoevember can you do number 50 with Joe? Thank you love.

Thank YOU for requesting bby ❤️

Also massive thanks to @harrys-four-nipples for helping me out with this one, ily 🥰

50. Are you sure? If we do this, I won't be able to control myself.

Joseph Quinn x reader

Content warning: 18+ content minors DNI, rpf (don't like don't read), friends to lovers, angst, reader gets a teeny bit jealous and insecure, lil bit of fluff, Joe is soft until he's really not, no prep (but its cool, reader is SUPER wet), unprotected p in v, creampie because what else would I write

Hoe-vember/Dick-cember masterlist

It was no secret that you and your best friend Joe fancied each other. Every bloody one of your friends knew it, he knew it and you knew it. So why the hell weren’t you together?!

Well, that was totally your bad. When Joe had started landing bigger jobs, you had decided to try and save yourself the eventual heartbreak he was bound to cause you and you tried to move on to other guys with nice normal jobs who weren’t going to shatter your soul by falling in love with a stunning a size 4 actress who was working opposite him.

And it worked. For a bit.

Until the nice normal guys were not nice guys at all, but just the typical London arseholes who were only in it for a quick fuck and chuck, completely not what you wanted. And eventually when yet another boring banker or data analyst was crawling on top of you, Joe’s face invaded your thoughts and it would be the only reason you’d eventually get off, by fantasising about your long-term crush and best friend. In fact, you had even called out his name mid-fuck once. Luckily the guy you were shagging at that time was also called Joe so, no harm, no foul.

So to save yourself even further, you’d stopped dating. Completely. No one. Nothing. And at first, it was fine. But by the 3 month mark of self-inflicted celibacy, you were starting to go a little crazy. 

Which leads you to now, sitting alone in your flat on a Friday night, watching some David Attenborough narrated documentary on the TV with a G&T. Wild. All of your friends were either with their partners, tied down with work or just wanting time at home themselves tonight. The only person you hadn’t contacted was Joe. But he was probably out with Wesley, or at some fancy event or something. You missed him.

Shooting back the rest of your G&T, you pick up your phone and start mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, a 3-app rotation that kept you occupied for all of 10 minutes. Then a WhatsApp message pings through.

‘Hey, wyd? X’

It’s Joe. Your heart flutters at the sight of his name. 

‘Hey, famous actor man. Nm, wanna come over? X’

‘Already outside. Got Chinese x’

You stand up and open up your balcony windows, stepping outside and glancing down to the main door of your building. Sure enough, Joe is stood there, looking back up at you with a plastic bag full of food in his hands. He grins, raising the bag up at you.

He looks so fucking good it should be illegal.

“Hold on,” you return his grin, rushing back inside and buzzing the door open for him. You quickly check over your appearance and make sure you don’t stink like a bin, before opening your front door.

**

About an hour later, bellies full of too much Chinese food and a few beers, you and Joe are sprawled out on your bed. Well, to be more precise he is sprawled out like he bloody owns the place, you’re sat with your back against the headboard picking at the label on your beer bottle.

"Sign of sexual frustration, that." Joe pipes up, smirking at you. You can't fucking look at him right now; you know how he looks when he smirks. You'll want to pounce on him. Your pussy throbs.

"Well, if you hadn't had decent sex for months, you'd be frustrated too." You grumble back, squeezing your thighs together subtly.

"Months? Thought you were seeing that one bloke from your office?"

"Yeah, months ago, Joe. Plus he was so fucking boring. And shit in bed. Had to get myself off when he left." To some videos of you, btw.

"Ah." Joe nods and takes a sip of his beer. "Shame."

"Please don't gloat, Joe, I get it, you're a super hot actor now and the women are throwing themselves at you." You roll your eyes as you speak. Joe barks out a laugh.

"I meant, it's a shame you had to get yourself off after he left, he missed out. Bet that was hot as fuck." He says casually, his dark eyes watching you from his side of the bed. You shove him with your foot. "And you know I haven't been shagging anyone, Y/N."

"Do I? Not even your little red headed friend you were papped with?" You raise an eyebrow at him. Now it's his turn to roll his eyes.

"Jealous?"

"Curious." You lie. Of course you were jealous. She was fucking gorgeous and you knew Joe; the minute those videos surfaced you knew he was flirting with her. But also you knew nothing had happened. Wesley had reassured you. Wesley knew everything. You just needed to hear Joe say it.

"Nothing happened with her. I haven't fucked anyone in months, Y/N. I'm just not interested." Joe sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You know there's only one person I want."

"Joe..." You sigh, your head flopping back against the headboard. "Don't, please. I've told you, I wouldn't be able to handle it if you met someone else, especially some of the women you work with-"

"Fuck, Y/N, what kind of person do you think I am?" Joe sits up, inching closer to you. "I would never, ever-"

"You might though. If we had to spend months apart-"

"Which we have-"

"-you get unbearably horny-"

"-that's what I have a hand for-"

"For fucks sake, Joe, I bloody love you and want you to fuck the shit out of me right now and tell me that you love me too!" You snap, the admission even taking you by surprise. Joe blinks at you. There's a brief, tense pause before he lunges at you, grabbing your head and smashing his mouth to yours. You freeze, brain desperately tying to catch up. Joe feels your hesitation and tries to pull away, but you grab his head and bring him back to you, this time kissing him back properly.

It's closed mouths at first, but you decide to be bold and flick your tongue against his lip. He groans and accepts, opening his mouth and allowing you to taste him for the first time. You thread your fingers into Joe's curls as you kiss, deep and slow, the kind of kisses that make you weak in the knees and dizzy in your brain. Your body shifts against his, making you both moan softly. Joe moves so that you're lying down, him on top of you, and then he suddenly pulls away again, making you whine at the loss of his mouth against yours.

"Are you sure? If we do this, I won't be able to control myself." He says, his voice taking a deeper tone. You nod, and he smiles. "I bloody love you too."

"I know. Can you fuck me now please?"

"Or what, you'll do it yourself?" Joe teases and you laugh. "You'll have to show me that sometime."

"Save that for when you're travelling, Quinn." You reply, grabbing the front of his shirt. He looks down at your hands, an eyebrow raised, before looking back at you. He smirks, grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head with one hand.

"Can you keep your hands there for me like a good girl?"

You nod, swallowing, the throb in your underwear almost becoming unbearable. It had been forever, or what felt like forever, since you had been turned on like this. And it's Joe. Fucking Joe who you've been lusting after for fuck knows how long.

He sits you up, still making sure you keep your hands above your head. He tugs at the bottom of your tshirt, looking at you for permission. Again, you nod and he peels off your tshirt, swearing sharply as your tits are exposed, nipples pebbled in arousal. You were pretty glad you'd decided to forgo a bra tonight. Comfort over fashion or whatever it was.

"Fucking hell, Y/N, your boobs are incredible." Joe groans, pushing you down onto your back again and admiring you for a moment. He then strips off his own shirt, taking his place back on top of you, and you whimper at the feel of his bare chest against yours. Joe teases you,skating his fingers along your bare side. His eyes darken, watching your expression as he gently pinches your nipple.

"Fuck, Joe, please!" You whine, bucking your hips into his. The crotch of your leggings brushes over his evident arousal in his jeans and you shiver at the slightest hint of friction there. Joe chuckles.

"Worked up like this already? You really are desperate for a good fucking, aren't you? You're not the only one, baby. I can't wait anymore, need to be inside you."

You're amazed at how he undressed both you and himself whilst still pinning your wrists above your head with one hand. Clearly he has done this before. You swallow down that pang of jealousy; he's with you now, nobody else.

"Hey, you okay?" Joe sees your expression falter as you get lost in your thoughts. His own expression softens as he looks at you with concern. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to-"

"I want to. Fuck me, Joe, and don't be gentle about it. I don't want to be able to walk after." You say with determination, fingers ghosting over his that held you. Joe groans, his eyes fluttering shut.

"You keep saying stuff like that and I won't last long, been thinking about this for way too long." He lets go of your wrists and brings that hand to the side of your head supporting himself as his other hand guides his cock to your pussy. He taps your clit a few times with his cockhead, chuckling at the way your body arches and you squirm with desperation. After he's swiped his cock through your arousal, he pushes in all the way to the hilt, knocking the wind out of you.

He's massive. Well, bigger than what you're used to, thick and long and he bumps your womb when he slides in all the way. The burn is delicious; you can't remember the last time you felt this full, if ever.

"Fuck, Joe," you pant, your walls fluttering around him as you stretch to accommodate him.

"Christ, you're fucking tight. You okay?" Joe grits out, his jaw clenched at how fucking good you feel around him. You nod, and he leans down to kiss you, starting to move slowly.

"No, no, no, no-" you whimper against his mouth. "More, Joe, harder, please, I can take it. Fuck. Me."

Joe finally seems to get the message, and flips you over onto the mattress, face down and ass up. Once again, he grabs your wrists in his hand but this time holds them behind your back. He slams his cock into you, using his grip on your wrists as leverage.

"I was trying to be fucking romantic, love, but you're too desperate for my cock, hm?" Joe grunts, his fast and deep thrusts making you moan into the duvet.

"Fuck yes, Joe, please, I want it!" You moan, every nudge of his cock against your cervix sending a blooming mix of pain and pleasure throughout your core.

Nobody had fucked you this good before. All the guys you'd tried hooking up with to take your mind off of the man who was currently rearranging your guts had crawled on top of you for 10, maybe 15 minutes at a push, encouraged you to touch your clit and left it at that. As long as they shot their load, it was a win for them.

But Joe, Joe was different. So very fucking different. From how he was talking to you, to how he was touching you. He hands leave your wrists and travel to your hair, pulling it into a ponytail and pulling your head back with it.

You let out a sharp moan.

"That's right, baby, let me fucking hear those pretty moans. Does my cock feel good? Cos your pussy feels like fucking heaven, babe, can't believe we waited so long to do this, fuck, i love you so fucking much."

"I love you," you gasp, and Joe pulls you up so your back is against his chest, fucking up into you as one of his hands cups your boob, and the other snakes down to your clit. You turn your head and kiss him, moaning into his mouth as he rolls the pad of his finger over your clit, again and again and again until you break the kiss to cry out his name as you come, long and hard, your pussy holding his cock in a fucking vice grip as a fresh wave of arousal washes over you both.

"Can I come in you?" Joe pants against your mouth, you nod reaching a hand behind his head and keeping it there, tangled in his damp curls as he thrusts a couple more times into you before releasing, cum splashing up against your womb and walls. Joe moans your name out as he comes, his legs shaking with the force of his orgasm. You kiss his face as he rides it out, and eventually his head drops to your shoulder, peppering the skin there with sloppy kisses.

His cock stays in you until it softens, neither one of you wanting to break the connection yet. He hisses with the sensitivity as he slips out of you, and you quickly excuse yourself to go to the bathroom to clean up, albeit on extremely wobbly legs. When you come back, Joe is passed out in your bed, still bollock naked but under the covers, snoring softly. You join him, laying on your side and stroking a hand over his cheek gently. He cracks an eye open and smiles at you, opening his arm for you to snuggle up into him. He places a kiss on your forehead.

"My hand is going to have a hard time comparing to that, just so you know."

[deng-yi-deng]

Top 10 most unrealistic things

In “Love is Sweet” aside from the main plot point that Jiang Jun will immediately faint if she cries because she’s allergic to her own tears. 😭😂🤣💀 Has the girl not heard of epi-pens?

No mention of blockchain by MH bankers or any of their clients.

Wangcai never needs to go for a walk right when her people get home, even if they have worked overtime. Possibly they had her bladder removed? Or there are lots of wet puppy pads just off screen.

Li XIaochan is still in school, so must have gotten IRB approval for his dating app - which somehow involves genetic information. Um....maybe they don’t have IRB in Chinese universities?

Everything about Li Xiaochan’s dating app.

Lin Taimo drinks red wine out of a white wine glass in ep. 29. Seriously? the bad guy use improper glassware? I think not. 

Yuan Shuai does not have a sister and has never dated, yet somehow understands that Jiang Jun has gotten her period. I...have lived with guys for years who wouldn’t notice unless I bled all over the couch. And even then they might think I’d been shot.

Yuan Shuai can cook but is a 30 year old virgin.

Yuan Shuai can drive a car in Shanghai traffic while looking only at Jiang Jun.

Yuan Shuai.

that’s all i got, I mean, aside from 90% of the plot it’s pretty realistic.

[marlo-noni]

Back from China

Now that I'm back in Canada after 26 days in China, here's a link to some of my photos (warning: there are over 500).

I usually travel on my own, and I was with my brother and dad this time, which was fun. I acted as their translator and tour guide (since to get anywhere you have to use Baidu, which is only in Chinese). It was interesting seeing China through their eyes, and we got to do things I wouldn't normally do on my own. We also didn't drive each other crazy - there were no fights, just some stressful moments (which happen when I'm alone too - just part of travel).

We were in Beijing, Wutai Shan, and Xi'an.

Wutai was very interesting - we were the only foreigners I saw for the entire 5 days. The weather was kinda treacherous, which I understand is pretty normal for Wutai. It was very beautiful, though. And we got our fill of temples - there are over 200 there. One of the more "off the beaten path" places I've gone to.

Xi'an is lovely. It's "only" 10 million people, and I'm discovering I quite like Chinese cities of this size. Still bustling and highly developed, but not overwhelming. Suzhou and Hangzhou are a similar size, and I also really love those cities. Xi'an has excellent local food - spicy and extremely garlicky. And of course wonderful historical sites. The terra cotta warriors are really amazing, and we timed our visit well because it wasn't super crowded when we went to see them.

Beijing is the 3rd "megacity" I've visited now, the other 2 being Tokyo and Shanghai. The advantage to cities like this is the endless variety of things you can see and do. You can never really see all of it. I intentionally spent longer there on this trip - 15 days in total - for this reason. We saw (this list is non-exhaustive): the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, the Bell and Drum Towers, the hutongs (old traditional alley residences), Fragrant Hill, the National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Bird's Nest stadium, the Summer Palace, the National Botanical Garden, Ritan Park, and Black Bamboo Park. We also ate an incredible variety of Chinese food - Liu Yuning is right that you can find like every region's food there.

The drawback to megacities, in my mind, is that there are just way too many people for me! It's okay on weekdays, but on weekends and holidays (we were there for the mid-autumn festival long weekend) it's way too crowded no matter where you go. I love a bustling and lively city, but at that scale, it's too much for me.

The drawbacks to Beijing in particular, in my mind, are:

the security is way over the top - even more than any other place in China I've visited. Particularly within a certain radius of Tiananmen, where you get stopped for an ID check literally every block and you have to tell them where you're going. There are also a ton of places you're just not allowed to go that seem stupid to me, like their national sports stadium (near the Bird's Nest in their 2008 Olympic Park), Beijing University, and Tsinghua University (those are by appointment only and the appointments were fully booked even a week in advance).

the air pollution isn't as bad as I saw on TV during the 2008 Olympics, but it's still really bad a lot of the time (the air quality index was often around 150-170).

it's way too spread out. There aren't a lot of skyscrapers compared to Tokyo and Shanghai. It has the largest subway system in the world, but the subway stops are very far apart, so you end up walking a TON to get anywhere. Most people ride bikeshare bikes from the subway station, but we couldn't get the apps working for my brother and dad, despite trying multiple different bikeshare apps - it's a big hurdle for foreigners. If you use Didi (their version of Uber) or take the bus, the traffic is often really really slow.

So, although Beijing has a ton to see, I'm not in a rush to visit it again unless I'm going to meet up with a friend there or as a landing point to visit somewhere else.

As usual, I also did a ton of shopping when I was there, and brought back an extra suitcase (which I also bought) full of stuff with me. I also did some online shopping when I was there. Taobao wouldn't work for me because Alipay wouldn't accept foreign credit cards on it (although you can use Alipay for a ton of other stuff there, including the subway, and I used it quite a bit), so I used Jingdong. It's dangerously convenient! I discovered that Taobao does work in Canada, though, with your Canadian credit card. This could end up being a bad habit!

Haha, I was only gonna write a short post but I got carried away. I need to get ready for work. More perhaps later. Let me know if there's anything in particular you would like to hear about.

[bluesuedeclogs]

gratitude posting 10.28.23

on this unseasonably warm and quiet night grateful for

1. my dennis rodman crop top

2. the commuter rail train to salem

3. consciously not being in salem, ma in the month of October

4. friends who forward job apps

5. evidence of professional and personal growth since graduating despite the covid-19 pandemic

6. upfront time invested in a good cover letter template

7. satisfactory endings to a longrunning series

8. charming, grumpy old men in my life

9. having found a nearby dentist that i love

10. choices i made 10 years ago about which college to attend

11. healthy communication

12. once again, our incredible futon and its daily contributions to our living room ecosystem

13. the single dude at each of my local hardware stores that's knowledgeable and pleasant to work with

14. pinterest app and its role in letting me redirect unreal amounts of fretful energy

15 quail eggs

16. the chinese grocery store downtown

17. my stockpile of halloween costume accessories

18. cute, clean dishtowels

19. optimism's resilience in the human heart

[longeyelashedtragedy]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

i was faux-tagged by @prosopopeya ! it was fun reading your answers!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

147...damn

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

434,625

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now i only write "Men's Football RPF," but occasionally i have the desire to write in my previous fandom, and then never do.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

these are all a song of ice and fire/game of thrones fics from way back in the day

drabbles of ice and fire (does what it says on the tin)

captivated (arya/jaqen AU)

ends and beginnings (arya/jaqen university AU)

egg baby (arya/jaqen, au)

arya saves the day (arya/jaqen, the same university AU)

...as you might have guessed, i was THEE arya/jaqen BNF back then, lol. (if you have familiarity with the characters please note these are all AUs because arya is aged up in order to ship her)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try, i really do! comments just get my executive function so snarled up and i wind up forgetting.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

that's most of them. how am i meant to choose? it's hard for me to get through the end of "i tore off the golden branch" without crying even to this day. "like a song on repeat, nothing has to end" has some nice sad transfer window angst, and as i've said, the ending to "visited upon the sons" really slaps. is it cheating to say mare liberum?--that ending only exists on my notes app, and it's more "tragic" than angsty i guess.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

oh, hmmm. i wanna say... "5.VII." poor dejan, always fearing he'll somehow be alone and unwanted, not good enough, and in that moment at the end of the fic those worries leave him.

“So...that means...these things...These things we do together...” Dejan waits impatiently.  No, he’ll be honest with himself.  He’s waiting nervously.  “We’re just going to have to keep doing them forever, right, brate?”  Dejan lets go of the breath he’s been holding and as he does, he feels those wings again, stretching out from his shoulder blades and shaking themselves out and giving him an incredible lightness. He could float away right now with Šime in his arms. They could float away together.   “Yes. I guess we will.”

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really, i think they're so poorly written or strange that they just don't get much notice. i did see some "piquira" people back in the day talk about how my fic "soy loca con mi tigre," where shakira pegs piqué (RIP) with sergio watching them on video chat, was "weird." god, it must be painful to be that boring

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

unfortunately yes. i think it's usually pretty straightforward, but maybe not blunt enough to be grimy-hot. i don't like anything flowery. i wish i could write some m/f from time to time, but i have too many gender issues to feel comfortable writing about an AFAB body in a sexual sense most of the time. i am trying to channel this discomfort into writing a fic where jamie jamie jamie takes franko out clubbing to drown his sorrows and they pick up some Girls it is what it is!

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i used to with my ex, we had an amazing AU where we crossed over a million different punk/metal/alternative musicians with some other rpf type people. oh, and not to forget--my first ever footyfics were crossovers, lol.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i sure have! it was shameless as fuck. however, justice was served because my version got more kudos and comments, so i didn't even bother to start shit. as they say, she thought she ate!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, into russian, chinese, and persian. i have enough fics translated into russian on ficbook to have my own Author Page on there--a point of pride, because i love ficbook :)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes, many with said ex! i would love to do a collab again--anyone? hit me up

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

idk? rakidrić, šejan, movren, xhakarteta RIP, JAVEY from AFI, cersei/jaime, aged up!arya/jaqen. am i missing anything?

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

maybe my really long 'ivan rakitić coming of age' fic, where the running plot is "what is he doing to keep himself at barça even tho he's out of favor?" as you can see, it would be very outdated, plus it was never intended for a wide audience

16. What are your writing strengths?

not sure :/ characters' emotions, good use of repetition and parallelism (i like to think !) and good use of rhythm. i also think i write a good ending. my bff said "the way you describe love and loss is unlike anyone else" which i thought was nice!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

plot, pacing. good porn, being unfiltered (like--my writing feels too repressed lol)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

it has to make sense so it doesn't feel like tokenization or fetishization and can't be cheesy. the only time i think i was going to include actual multiple lines of dialogue in anther language (spanish), i then changed it so the fic didn't have it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

the first like, true established fandom i wrote for was a song of ice and fire/game of thrones. before that i wrote a lot of bandfic, but mostly for bands and artists who didn't really have any fic or canons. like, 98% of it was private for just me and my ex, but a few of the pieces still exist online here and there.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

i cannot pick favorites. there's so many reasons why something would be a favorite. and i have 147 fics on ao3! plus many things that aren't. plus my unpublished bandfic was some of my best writing. i don't know!

i almost wonder if it's "his return: a story of ghosts" which...i initially wrote as a fic but then changed it up. it was a "magical realism" au based on my undergrad senior thesis, lol. (the most common remark about it in my advanced creative writing seminar was "uh, it sounds like you know what you're talking about.") it's so imperfect, but writing it was SO much fun, and i had a whole soundtrack i listened to as i wrote, and then a few years ago i did a massive edit of it which was even more fun and it's still very imperfect and can't figure out why. i also don't like daniel's name but i named him after 2 ppl i knew at the time and now i can't change it, lol.

OH AND ALSO: granit's first flashback chapter in dangerous AU!

if you write fic, you are tagged, but i definitely tag: @new-berry @protect-daniel-james @fanficburner @purefractals @colorsofmyseason @bsaka7 @arsenalgbt AND ANYONE ELSE I FORGOT please do it if you see it!!!

[renheng-zine]

⚔ IN/FINITE: Q&A THREAD MASTERPOST 🍁

With how unpredictable they are, one can only wonder what Blade and Dan Heng are up to. Shall we review the archives for some of your questions?

❓ ASK US QUESTIONS: https://curiouscat.live/renhengzine

⚔ hi! super excited for this zine :) just wondering if applications featuring nsfw pieces will be allowed (as long as they are properly tagged)?

🍁 Hi! We’re happy to hear that! We strongly encourage you to submit SFW samples, but if necessary we ask that you submit no more than one explicit NSFW sample (properly tagged, of course). Mildly suggestive 16+ content is allowed regardless as this falls within the zine’s rating.

⚔ what is a switch shipper?

🍁 A switch shipper is someone who ships both top/bottom dynamics of a pair, in this case, both RenHeng and DanRen. Because this is a SFW zine, the Renheng dynamic will not be portrayed through explicit works. 

⚔ Are works in Spanish allowed?  Would you be interested in including this language?

🍁 Unfortunately none of our mods are Spanish speakers, so we are unable to moderate and/or beta content produced in Spanish. This zine will only be available in English and Chinese. 

⚔ is there any specific format for samples of writer apps? it's the first time i apply to a zine so i know very little, sorry!

🍁 No worries! As specified in the zine document, all writing applicants should omit identifying information (e.g. usernames) from the sample. As such, we cannot accept direct links to Ao3 fics, Twitter threadfics, Tumblr fics, etc; please copy the text into a document before submitting. We also require each sample to be 1k-2.5k words long. Other than that, there's no specific formatting requirements; just make sure the document is readable!

⚔ "Any remaining profit will then be split between all moderators and participants involved in the project." will the profit be split evenly among participants/mods?

🍁 As we are still in the early stages of this project, matters such as compensation structure have not yet been finalized. We might consider other compensation models apart from even split depending on the Interest Check results. We will, however, have this confirmed before contributors apply so that applicants are aware of what they're signing up for!

⚔ Will you be judging applicants based on content they create outside of the pieces submitted in their application and/or by their social media presence?

🍁 Mods will only be looking at the content provided in an applicant’s samples/portfolio. We will do our utmost best to ensure that no one faces unequal or prejudiced treatment during the creation of this zine. Furthermore, your social media presence, such as how many followers you have, will not affect your application! 

⚔ hello! im a bit confused over the difference of sample and portfolio for the writer's applications? may i ask at minimum how many do we need to submit? thank you so much :)

🍁 Hello! Those applying to be writers should submit a minimum of five (5) works in their portfolio. Three (3) of these works can be your samples--aka, works you especially want the mods to look at and that you are highlighting in your application! You can also submit three samples that are entirely different from the 5-7 works in your portfolio (for a total of 8-10 works total, if you have a large volume of works you think the mod team should take a look at).

⚔ Hello, sorry for the questions!! "Three individual samples in a similar quality and style that you would produce for the fanzine" do you mean that it have to be works with the theme of the zine? 

🍁 Not at all! By this we mean your “writer’s voice”; if you hope to produce a lighthearted piece for the zine, your samples should reflect similarly lighthearted work, etc. Also, is your work dialogue-heavy or prose-heavy, does it incorporate elements of social media, etc.? We are not encouraging or discouraging any style in particular; we’d like to welcome writers of varied styles to the zine! The same applies to artists of varying art styles as well.

⚔ "A portfolio containing between five to seven pieces in a similar quality and style that you would produce for the fanzine" can it be works of any other type? sorry to bother and thanks in advance

🍁 We recommend against providing pieces dissimilar from the style you’d like to write for the zine as your portfolio will help us know what to expect from you should you be accepted! However, if you are unsure what you would like to write for the zine and want to showcase the flexibility of your style, you are welcome to do so.

⚔ Is there any visual examples for the writing/artist portfolio? Asking because I don't wanna mess up on it 😭😭

🍁 We have added sample writer/artist portfolios to the Info Doc! You can view those as an example of how to format yours, though they do not have to match exactly.

⚔ what is "xingyue"? Is it another name for renheng ship?

🍁 “Xingyue” refers to the ship of Yingxing and Yinyue-jun, Blade and Dan Heng’s respective names and titles when their previous incarnations met as part of the High Cloud Quintet. Hope this helps!

⚔ Was wondering how much detail are you looking for in backgrounds? I mostly like to draw characters as the main focus taking up most of the space and backgrounds are kind of simple for that reason. Just wanted to know in case I would need to add something that's more background focused to the portfolio. Thank you!

🍁 We'd love to include pieces with both detailed and simple/character-focused background. However, we would still like to see background work from artists beyond a simple flat color or gradient background. Show off your skills!

⚔ Hello! Where will the zines be shipped from?

🍁 The EN version of the zine will be shipped from the USA! We will also utilize an agent to distribute the CN version of the zine to patrons in mainland China.

⚔ Hello. Would it be okay if I participate in the zine though I haven't posted anything on twitter?

🍁 Yes! All we require is that you fill out the appropriate contributor application and provide samples of your work, but a social media presence is not required to participate in the zine.

⚔ will there no longer be poets in the zine?

🍁 After holding the Interest Check, we have seen that the majority of respondents are more interested in forms of writing other than poetry. Therefore, the mod team has decided not to include poetry in the zine and we will not be holding poet applications. We will, however, still be holding prose writer applications!

⚔ If you’re a writer for the portfolio could you post a series (like multiple chapters from a fanfiction) or do the writings have to be different?

🍁 We would prefer to see samples that originate from different bodies of work so that we may better gauge your abilities! 

⚔ must the submitted piece (art and writing) be related to renheng?

🍁 Samples related to Renheng are encouraged but not required. You will need to submit at least one sample related to Honkai: Star Rail, though. 

⚔ Can a writer use an already complete work in their portfolio for the final submission if accepted?

🍁 We would like contributors to produce new and original work for the zine, therefore any work included in an applicant’s portfolio is ineligible for publication in the zine.

⚔ Does an Ao3 account count as a "social media account where we can find your work and/or previous experience"? Or should we avoid linking Ao3 accounts at all?

🍁 You may link your Ao3 account in the given space! Writing applicants' identifying information will be hidden during the voting process; it is only the samples and portfolio that need to be blinded.

⚔ are contributors required to have a twitter account? or is discord the only social media needed?

🍁 Contributors are only required to have a Discord account to facilitate communication with the mod team. If you do not have any social media accounts, you may enter “N/A” in the appropriate field.

⚔ Hello does ao3 count as the portfolio?

🍁 AO3 does NOT count as the portfolio. Please avoid submitting AO3 links for samples or the portfolio. You may link your AO3 profile as your social media or proof of work uploaded before 2022, as these fields will not be visible to the mod team during the process of judging samples.

⚔ Is there a preferred format our writing samples should be sent as? PDF, Doc, etc?

🍁 Any format is fine, so long as there is no identifying information included in the samples.

⚔ hi! could you explain why the portfolio has to be a dedicated folder labeled specifically? does an existing portfolio site not suffice?

🍁 Hi! The naming convention was included on the assumption that applicants would be submitting a portfolio through a folder, as is common in zine spaces, but an existing portfolio site can be used as well! Please note, a writer’s portfolio should not include identifying information!

⚔ why are writer apps blind but not artist apps?

🍁 Writer apps are blind as per the preferences of our Writing Mod, in the interest of removing bias as much as possible. Our team is not as strict on this principle for Artist apps because many of us are deeply involved in the fandom and are therefore familiar with many people’s art styles; thus, an artist’s identifying information does not hold as much sway. Regardless, we are only considering the samples themselves in the judging process, not who created them!

⚔ When I paste the Google Drive link, the name of the email appears, is there a problem with this?

🍁 This is fine, when the team opens the link we only see the name of the file and its contents!

⚔ Is there a problem if people applying speak another language? (but they send the work in English)

🍁 Hi! As long as you are able to communicate with the mod team in English and your piece for the zine is written in English, there is no problem!

⚔ Hi, I'd like to apply as a writer for the zine, and as I'm filling up the forms, I'm realizing that they're asking for 'images' on the writing app. Should I submit my samples as images in a folder instead?

🍁 Hi! We apologize for the confusion; that was a lingering typo! You do not have to submit your writing as images, PDF or word-processor documents are fine!

⚔ Just to confirm, if one were to have no social media, the social media question on the first page of the Google Form should be answered with NA?

🍁 Yup! Social media is not a requirement to participate, please delineate the field as NA if you do not have any applicable accounts.

⚔ are you looking for chinese writers? if so, can chinese works be submitted in the same portfolio as english works?

🍁 Hello! Our Chinese writers will be selected from recommendations provided by the CN fandom during the Interest Check. We apologize for the disappointment this may cause, but we encourage you to apply to the EN zine!

⚔ Hi is double application allowed?

🍁 Hey! If you are asking if you’re allowed to apply to multiple positions (page artist, merch artist, and/or writer), then yes, this is allowed, but you can only be selected for one position.

⚔ Hello, it must have a HSR/renheng piece on the samples?

🍁 Hi, a Renheng sample is encouraged but not required; at least one HSR sample does need to be submitted! HSR samples can feature any of the characters in the cast, not just Renheng.

⚔ hi! i'm very new to this, what goes in pitches in writers apps?

🍁 Hello! The (optional) pitch is where you can share any ideas you want to draw or write for the zine! These do not need to be very detailed; a pitch like “Future Renheng sharing tea on the Astral Express as they make amends” would give us a good idea of what you are looking to create.

⚔ knowing the zine is 16+, may applicants (writers especially) submit NSFW works as sample and/or portfolio?

🍁 As the zine won’t be featuring NSFW works, we strongly encourage applicants to submit pieces rated 16+ or lighter; if necessary we ask that you submit no more than ONE (1) NSFW piece with appropriate content warnings.

⚔ Will earlier submissions be judged first? As such will earlier submissions stand a better chance of being accepted?

🍁 In the interest of returning results to applicants in a timely manner, the mod team will vote on submissions throughout the open period for Contributor Applications. We will not, however, make any final decisions on applications until after the application period is over, and thus earlier submissions will not have a different chance of being accepted compared to later submissions.  

⚔ Can the samples to be submitted be uploaded to ao3/twitter?

🍁 Samples can be independently uploaded to whichever platform(s) you like, but we ask you refrain from providing links to any works in which your identifying information is present. Ex; you can copy the text from your fic on AO3 into a Google Doc but don’t mention your credit name within the sample!

⚔ is it ok if only xingyue writing samples are given? or is a renheng sample needed too? thanks in advance!

🍁 xingyue writing samples alone are fine! There is no requirement to submit renheng or xingyue samples, although we do appreciate them!

⚔ given the contributor breakdown, doesn't the compensation model mean that the mods (even after splitting amongst the team) end up making more % profit than any individual contributor would?

🍁 Hi! We don’t mean to discredit the efforts of our contributors in any way by the slight difference in % compensation. Our model recognizes the large amount of work and time commitment the mod team has taken on in order to bring this project to life, and we feel that we’ve established a fair and reasonable split in potential profits accordingly. 

⚔ Will you send rejection e-mail for the people that were not chosen?

🍁 Yes, we’ll send all applicants an email regarding their application status on October 21st.

⚔ hi! is there a specific time (and time zone) that contributor apps will be closing on oct 15? i only ask because i don't want to accidentally get time zones mixed up

🍁 Contributor apps will be closing approximately 11:59PM EST on October 15th!

⚔ Hi, does your application form send an email when it’s submitted?

🍁 Hello! Yes, our forms are set to send a confirmation email when submitted. It may have ended up in your spam folder; if you still don’t see it, feel free to reach out via email or dm and we can check to see if we received your application!

⚔ Since there are already at least 2 guest writers, does the total of 5 writers for the zine remain unchanged?

🍁 Hi! We have only brought on 1 guest writer. Four more writers will be brought on through the contributor application process!

Last edited: October 7, 2023. This post will be updated as we answer more questions, so stay tuned!

[beardedmrbean]

The Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDance, on Wednesday lost its appeal against its categorization by the European Commission as a "digital gatekeeper."

The EU General Court in Luxembourg ruled that the designation was warranted under the European Union's new Digital Markets Act (DMA) because short video app TikTok exceeded relevant thresholds including global market value and the number of EU users.

Labeled companies are prevented from forcing users in the bloc to consent to have access to a service or certain functionalities.

What did the EU court find?

ByteDance had argued that its global market value largely came from China, rather than the EU.

It also said TikTok does not operate an exponential user expansion model and that it was acting as a "challenger" to digital monopolies operated by established platforms such as Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet, which owns Google. Both companies are also designated as "gatekeepers."

But the EU General Court rejected those arguments, finding that TikTok could no longer be considered a "challenger" on the market, unlike when it joined back in 2018. 

The judges concluded that TikTok had "succeeded in increasing its number of users very rapidly and exponentially" since then, and that its large number of European users does indeed contribute to its global market value.

What is the reaction to the ruling?

A ByteDance spokesperson said the group was "disappointed with this decision" and still insisted that TikTok is a "challenger" to existing market players.

The spokesperson reiterated that TikTok had already taken "measures to comply with the relevant obligations" required by the DMA since March.

ByteDance has two months and 10 days to appeal the decision at the EU's top court, the European Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) welcomed the "good news," saying: "The social medium needs to get consent from millions of TikTok users before their personal data can be used for personalized ads."

As well as ByteDance, the DMA also applies to the operations of US tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft within the European Union, as well as, since May, the Dutch accommodation reservation platform Booking.

[justforbooks]

How TikTok Shop ads turned an obscure, inaccurate book into a bestseller

If you’ve spent enough time scrolling through TikTok, you might have seen a video from an account like @tybuggyreviews, a handle with half a million followers that exclusively posts videos selling products through the TikTok Shop.

The creator, whose verified Instagram account identifies him as Tarik Garrett, used the @tybuggyreviews account to pitch viewers on supplements, water flossers, earbuds, workout machines, bible study guides, probiotics for women to help “that smell down there,” watch bands, inspirational hoodies, inspirational T-shirts, face massagers, foot massagers, rhinestone necklaces, oil pulling kits, and colon cleanses.

In the TikTok Shop, creators earn a commission for each sale linked to their account. Garrett’s product videos got tens of thousands of views. A few even topped a million views. But nothing from his account took off quite like his sales pitch for an obscure 2019 publication called The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies.

“Now I see why they’re trying to remove TikTok. This book right here? This book of herbal remedies? They do not want us to see this book,” Garrett said at the beginning of one Shop video, referring to a new US law that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company to either sell the app or face a ban. TikTok is challenging the law in court, arguing that lawmakers citing national security concerns as a reason to pass the bill did not adequately argue why those concerns should supersede the First Amendment. The law, to be clear, does not cite the Lost Book of Herbal Remedies’s availability on the TikTok Shop as a reason for banning the platform.

Garrett posted his pitch for the book on April 15. As of May 7, the video had more than 16 million views. Garrett opened the book and showed pages of its recommendations, urging users to take screenshots (and purchase a copy of their own) before it’s too late.

The camera lingered on a list of plants that, the book claimed, were treatments for cancer, drug addiction, heart attacks, and herpes. As of Wednesday, the listing for The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies that Garrett linked to has more than 60,000 sales on the TikTok Shop. To put that number in perspective, appearing on a bestseller list generally requires 5,000–10,000 sales in a week.

And that interest isn’t staying exclusively on TikTok. Google search interest in the book’s title spiked on the same day Garrett posted his video. The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies was, as of Wednesday, May 8, ranked 10 on Amazon’s bestseller list for books, and has appeared toward the top of Amazon’s bestseller rankings for the past three weeks.

A spokesperson for TikTok said that videos linking to Shop products must abide by both the community guidelines, which ban medical misinformation, and Shop policies, which do not allow misleading content. If a video violates only the Shop policies, they said, they’ll simply remove the link to the Shop but keep the content up. If it violates community guidelines, the video comes down.

The violations were enough for TikTok to remove his product review account. Garrett did not respond to a series of emailed questions.

How e-commerce took over TikTok

TikTok has long been good at guessing what its users might want to see, but less good at monetizing that trick. When the platform launched its Shop feature in the United States last fall, the For You page shifted, pushing video after video like those made by @tybuggyreviews in the hope that its users will start buying the products that go viral on TikTok directly from their store.

The result became a For You page with constant interruptions from random product pitches. The Shop ads, like much of the content pushed on TikTok, are personalized, though TikTok Shop recommendations are heavily influenced by reporting on stories like this one. Your results may differ. And yet, it is clear that TikTok has catapulted the Remedies book into relevance beyond a niche audience. The company earns money off of the explosion of sales on the shop, some of which come from creators who are explicitly promoting unproven cancer “cures” and conspiracy theories about the platform.

Like the Shadow Work Journal, a workbook that went super viral on TikTok Shop several months ago as a mental health tool — despite its dubious effectiveness — The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies is part of a swell of wellness creators, brands, and products that have found success reaching new audiences on TikTok Shop.

Shop videos have become a sort of “loophole” for health misinformation on TikTok, said Evan Thornburg, a bioethicist who posts on TikTok as @gaygtownbae and studies mis/disinformation and public health. Creators, and those with something to sell, know that Shop videos will get privileged on For You pages. Some creators may use those videos to promote dangerous health claims. In other cases, Thornburg noted, “the creator promoting the material isn’t necessarily spouting off disinformation, but the material that they’re convincing people to purchase is.”

A recipe for misinformation

The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies appears to be a case of both: The book contains misleading information, and creators are circulating misleading health claims in order to sell books. A video with nearly 1 million views promoting the book’s TikTok Shop listing is basically a series of ominous, AI-generated images with an AI voiceover. The video claims that the book contains secrets previously locked away in an ancient book located in the “Vatican library,” and that The Lost Book of Herbal Medicine was previously only available on the “dark web” before surfacing on TikTok. (Not true: The book is for sale on Amazon, the author’s website, and appears to be available through some academic and public library systems.) Another Shop video with more than 1 million views is captioned, “Cure for over 550 diseases, even cancer.”

I scanned through a copy of The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies this week. The 300-page book contains a disclaimer noting that it’s intended to “provide information about natural medicine, cures, and remedies that people have used in the past,” that it is not medical advice, and that some of the “remedies and cures found within do not comply with FDA guidelines.” It’s split into two parts: an alphabetical listing of ailments and conditions alongside the plants that the authors believe can cure or treat them, and an alphabetical list of plants, sorted by region, with instructions on how to prepare them.

The list of ailments the book includes proposed treatments for cancer, several STDs, mental health disorders, and digestive issues, among many other things. A few stand out: The book lists cures for smallpox, strep, and staph infections. There’s an emergency medicine section that includes plant remedies for serious medical conditions like internal bleeding and poisoning.

Flip to the entries for the plants and you’ll find lists of claims referring to research that is not cited. An entry promoting Ashwagandha’s “anti tumor effects” and ability to “kill ... cancerous cells” refers to “research,” but does not note that, while there is some indication that Ashwagandha can slow the growth of cancer cells, these studies were conducted on rodents and have yet to be replicated on humans.

Nicole Apelian, one of the book’s authors, while active on TikTok, it’s not her main social media presence. Her TikTok bio encourages her 17,000 followers there to check her out on Instagram, where she has 100,000 followers. Apelain also runs Nicole’s Apothecary, an herbal shop mentioned in the book that sells some of the tinctures she recommends, sells memberships to an online “Academy” for fans of her book, and advertises her paid appearances and workshops.

The endless whack-a-mole

As a journalist, there’s a pattern that becomes evident when writing about health misinformation on social media: something gets views, you assess the real or potential harm and try to understand its context, you contact the company to ask about the harmful thing. Maybe the video or post or group is taken down, maybe it’s not. The company gives you a statement, refers you to their policies on misinformation, and then you publish the article. This happens over and over because writing about misleading health information is a game of whack-a-mole that feels harder and harder to win.

Thornburg, the bioethicist, noted a couple reasons why we can’t climb out of this purgatory. First, meaningful moderation of a platform like TikTok is somewhat implausible. Social media companies are “never going to prioritize the amount of labor that would need to consistently be put into misinformation management,” they said.

Most sites rely on a combination of human moderators and AI, and it’s difficult to create automated moderation tools that don’t also censor allowed content. For example: health misinformation targeting minority communities often taps into legitimate distrust of medical professionals and institutions that have roots in recent history. An AI tool designed to moderate keywords associated with this sort of targeted misinformation might also sweep up criticism of health care systems in general.

And second, the creators who profit off health misinformation are really good at figuring out what they can say where, and what Thornburg calls “life boating” their audiences from one platform to another as needed. “You will have people who will drive interest in something through TikTok because the virality and the algorithm are aggressive,” Thornburg said. Then, their profile will link out to their Instagram or Linktree or YouTube channel.

Health misinformation on social media is a million cross-pollinating moving targets. TikTok Shop is a hot spot right now. Later, it might be something else on another platform. Chasing this content from platform to platform, harm to harm, viral video to viral video, is exhausting.

At the end, Thornburg shared the question that drives a lot of their work in this space, “Who do we consider accountable for these things that are harmful and regulate them or hold them to certain standards?” Often, it’s not really the person behind the individual piece of content driving the incentives for making it.

As a result, Garrett’s account was taken down, along with a few other popular videos advertising a book that has already sold tens of thousands of copies. As long as the incentives remain, it won’t be long until the next product promising a miracle starts polluting my For You page.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[fukashiin]

rating my mutuals!

i dont have too many but it'd still be fun to rate you guys as a small bday gift from me in return for the interactions and moments I've made with you up until now <33 (if you arent here then i was too shy to mention you but i love your works tremendously!!)

@jeidoleech ⤷ KHOI !

1000/10

my first ever twst mutual on tumblr actually. you dont understand i squealed like SQUEALED when you followed me back and tagged me in your mutuals list?? i was over the moon <33 your writing style is adorable and it really butters my biscuits AND I WAS OBSESSED WITH YOUR BABY BLUE THEME WHEN I FIRST FOLLOWED YOU GOODBYE. so thank you?? for following me like?? SO much??? you were apart of the reasons why i wanted to continue writing for this fandom <3333 i cant keep up with you altering between jade and Floyd im gnna be completely honest OKAY.

@mifyu ⤷ MIFFY !

youre adorable/10

some of the sweetest people I've ever met hello??? and your themes just??? top it off???? i was super shy to ask if you wanted to become mutuals but ohmygod i wasnt expecting you to be the ballsy one. thank you for becoming mutuals with me your works are just the prettiest and im looking forward to more!! i bet if we had a competition to see who could say 'ily more' you'd win by a mile.

@iuuru ⤷ MILLIE

我愛你你你你/10

HELLO IM SO GLAD I REACHEDJ OUT TO YOU WHAT. you match my energy so well and i love that abt you??? MY CHINESE SPEAKIMG COMPANION???? the moment i clicked on your blog i just KNWEW i had to become your moot you just seemed so fun and lovable AND YOU ARE. i was able to improve my chi vocab by a little bit because of you and im genuinely so grateful?? MY FAV LEONA KISSER YOUR WORKS AND IMAGINATION IS LITERALLY IMPECCABLE ILYSM I HOPE TO SPEAK IN CHI WITH YOU SM MORE AND CRASH THE TAG LIMIT BY FAWNING OVER YOUR WORKS

@tinyletterz ⤷ REMY !

stop being so gorgeous???/10

i could use up all the synonyms for beautiful in all the languages i know and it still wouldn't be enough. your works are the prettiest???hello??? whyre they so soft and fuzzy??? u deserve all the cupcakes and cats in the world ill literally take you to the cat island. youre personality is so lovely i literally go through the whole water cycle whenever you answer my ask??? so thank you for being my mutual<33 ALSO WHAT SHOULD WE NAME OUR CAT CAFE??

newer mutuals who i'd love to know better!

your guys' personalities are amazingf and itms such an honour to be your mutual KISSES

@siphoklansan ⤷ SIPHOK !

YOUREAMAZINGATARTSTOP/10

your works. your animations. who allowed you to be that talented??? ill always remember the time you said i was lively and fun even before we became mutuals! that made my day!! youre literally some of the nicest people ive met on this app so never give up on your passion for art IM LITERKALLY GOBBLING THEJM ALL UP <3

@twistedchatterbox ⤷ NOIR !

9038839/10

i cnat believe your first interaction with me was digging up my thirst post for idia STOP. IM A CHANGED PERSON. but ohmygod youre so good at art too?? can you stop being so talented with both writing AND drawing???? but regardless im so happy to be your mutual you seem so hardworking with every work you post and i appreciate that sm?? AND I LOVE YOUR OC. SHES BEAUTIFUL;

@cupids-chamber ⤷ CUPID !

i relate to you an eerie amount/10

i couldve sworn i started hyperventilating the moment i saw you follow me????? you may not think that your crack fics are funny BUT THEY REALLY ARE??? at the same time your normal ones make me SQUEAL AND KICK MY FEET IN THE AIR IM SO TEMPTED TO GET RUN OVER BY AN ACTIVE SPEEDING BUS. and congrats on 4.35k!! i hope we interact a lot more <33

⤷ FOLLOWERS !

♾/10

FROM DECEMBER UNTIL NOW IM SO SO GRATEFUL FOR THE NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS I CURRENTLY JHAVE??? YOU GUYS READ MY WORKS AND LIKED/REBLOGGED AND ITS LITERALLY SO MUCH MORE I COULD EVER ASK FOR??????? SO I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT YOURE ALL SUPER IMPORTANT AND DEAR TO ME I LOVE YOU ALL SMM<333

[missguomeiyun]

Spirit Bistro deliveries

Tried more items from Spirit Bistro bcos each order met or exceeded our expectations :D We've ordered several times over the past 3 months so I decided to combined everything into 1 post.

Left: Singaporean noodles; Right: chicken + salted fish fried rice

I'll start with the noodles 1st. 9.2/10! Very tasty! Had a nice kick to it & flavour was good. I would say it was lacking in some protein (the bbq pork/cha siu pieces) but again, generous portion size.

The rice was alright; not as good as the noodles but still, I'd give it a 8.1/10. I prefer another type of salted fish - the softer/mushy ones. They used the harder shred-ier kind. I find this latter kind doesn't have as much depth as the kind that I like. Would have been better if they added more.

Over $35 gets you 2 free spring rolls. They were okay; typical spring roll (vegetarian).

The entree we got was the curry beef brisket. Not an item my family gets usually. .. but SO YUMMY!!

Mom's fav~ They have been consistant with this dish so we are very happy!

Th yin-yang rice. This 1 dish came in 3 separate containers: 1 large box for the rice, & 2 smaller containers for the 2 different topping sauces. The white 'cream' one has shrimp & green peas in a savoury egg sauce. The red one has chicken breast & onion. The colour of the red sauce was sketchy NGL. Usually it's a bright red tomato red - almost like pasta sauce. But this was like a dark sick-pink. It was weird o_O However, the red sauce one (kinda like the sauce fr sweet & sour pork) actually tasted better! haha the egg cream one was kind of bland & a little too watery.

Peach & shrimp .. . nope. Peaches & chicken! I have not seen this dish on other menus before... or maybe bcos I keep eating from the same Chinese restaurants lol but yeah, a variation of the classic peaches & shrimp. The chicken was decent but there wasn't much chicken in it, mostly batter. But if you're craving some crunch, I would recommend. The sauce was also good. I don't like having the sauce all mixed in with the fried items usually so when I re-assembled this dish, I only poured a little bit of sauce on top for a slight glaze. The rest of the sauce was left in the small sauce container for dipping (team dip right here *arm up*)

Braised beef brisket. WOW! It may seem there's not much meat / you may assume it's a whole layer of broccoli on the bottom; however, the portion was very generous, so there was actually a lot of beef! Some pieces were fully fat, which I don't eat so I did toss out some pieces. But otherwise, there was a lot. Very well cooked - the brisket was soft & very flavourful. It wasn't too salty & the sauce was very good on rice, even though I'm not a rice person. & broccoli was broccoli haha

The Spirit Rice Noodles. Honestly did not know what to expect for their house fried noodle dish but this was what we got. Thin rice vermicelli noodles with onion, bean sprouts, scant pieces of celery, cha-siu (Cantonese-style bbq pork), baby shrimps, & small pieces of pork. It was slightly spicy & had a good amount of wok-smokiness. It was decent!

**PS: I'm working hard on posts, I swear! My laptop is dying. .. it is so slow. I tried editing on my phone but once in a while, the app crashes & what I wrote didn't save so it is useless. SAWRY

[mkt-magnovite-2024]

10 Cent or Nutties? 

China's gaming industry, the world's largest, is facing new rules that limit spending and rewards in online games. These rules ban daily login rewards, incentives for first-time and consecutive spending, and probability-based lucky draw features for minors. Besides banning reward features, games are also required to set limits on how much players can top up their digital wallets for in-game spending. Games are also banned from offering probability-based lucky draw features to minors, and from enabling the speculation and auction of virtual gaming items.

Rules Change Implemented

•Playtime limits for minors: Since 2021, minors are only allowed to play online games for 1.5 hours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and are prohibited from playing during weekdays.

•Content restrictions: Guidelines restrict games from having graphic violence, promoting gambling, or featuring "effeminate males."

•Stricter approval process for new games: The approval process for new games has become more stringent, with a focus on content review and ensuring alignment with government guidelines.

•Self-regulation pact: Major gaming companies have signed a pact to avoid content deemed "politically harmful" or "historically nihilistic."

The regulations have caused panic among investors, resulting in an $80 billion market value loss for China's top gaming companies.

Shares in Tencent Holdings (0700.HK), the world's biggest gaming company, tumbled as much as 16% at one point, while those of its closest rival, NetEase (9999.HK), plunged as much as 25% after the National Press and Publication Administrations published the new draft rules.

When asked about the draft rules' impact, Tencent Games' vice president Vigo Zhang said Tencent will not need to fundamentally change "its reasonable business model or operations" for games, adding that the company has been strictly implementing regulatory requirements.

Zhang added that minors had been spending a historically low level of money and time on games since 2021 in the industry when minor protection became a focus for Beijing. 

"The removal of these incentives is likely to reduce daily active users and in-app revenue, and could eventually force publishers to fundamentally overhaul their game design and monetization strategies," said Ivan Su, an analyst at Morningstar.

As a result of Beijing's crackdown on gaming in 2021, 2022 was the Chinese gaming industry's most difficult year on record as total revenue shrank for the first time.

Task at Hand:

You are the CMO of NetEase Inc your stocks have dropped down to 25% after the announcement. With regards to these changes, suggest new marketing strategies to promote your games to the Teenagers (having multiple restrictions) or Elderly (having little to no market) (ANY ONE MARKET!!!)

Deliverables: 

Decide your target market and state your reason for the same.

Prepare marketing strategies for your chosen target market.

Provide new pricing strategies for generating income by keeping the new laws in mind.

Prepare a PPT in 7x7 format mentioning all the deliverables.

Submission deadline: 11:20AM