Wibbly-Wobbly Ramblings

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

This post feels like watching an iceberg go by in clear water. The amount of stuff going on beneath the surface of AO3 just astonishes.

(ID in alt)

The thing is. The reason Ron DeSantis wouldn't win isn't because of the transphobia. Or the book bans or the racism or the voter manipulation or anything else. It's because all his opponents have to do is say THIS MAN HATES MICKEY MOUSE.

Also: Steamboat Willie goes into the public domain next year.

While Disney is going to play absolute havoc with attempting to make trademark law do what copyright law does, it means that there will be ten thousand weird fanworks of Mickey 1.0.

Including gifsets. Including memes.

Right now, DeSantis doesn't have his public speeches shown side-by-side with Mickey arguing against him, because Disney would sue anyone who uses their character without permission.

Next year, Mickey is not Disney's character. He's everyone's character.

The thing is. The reason Ron DeSantis wouldn't win isn't because of the transphobia. Or the book bans or the racism or the voter manipulation or anything else. It's because all his opponents have to do is say THIS MAN HATES MICKEY MOUSE.

Also: Steamboat Willie goes into the public domain next year.

While Disney is going to play absolute havoc with attempting to make trademark law do what copyright law does, it means that there will be ten thousand weird fanworks of Mickey 1.0.

Including gifsets. Including memes.

Right now, DeSantis doesn't have his public speeches shown side-by-side with Mickey arguing against him, because Disney would sue anyone who uses their character without permission.

Next year, Mickey is not Disney's character. He's everyone's character.

Handbinding Project: My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie

This really started over a year ago, with a project started in the Renegade Bindery server: people would format different chapters of My Immortal, without knowing what anyone else was doing, and we would put them together into one file. It was agreed upon that everybody would disregard both good design and good taste. 

(If you click on each image, the caption lists who designed the page in question. I couldn’t include them all here, but every page is basically a work of art. Horrible, typographically hellish art.)

After raiding a Joann’s of materials I thought belonged in Hot Topic circa 2005 (before it just became Think Geek II: We Don’t Light Our Store,) I almost immediately tested positive for covid. So I made most of this over the last four days, and with varying levels of coherent thought and common sense. The process is documented in a thread here

*applause*

Muppets Supernatural with Misha Collins as the only human character. However, he is constantly carrying around and manipulating a muppet “vessel” because the muppets won’t talk to him otherwise

oh mY GOD and every time he tries to speak without wearing the muppet vessel all the surrounding muppets shriek and cover their ears and glass windows break all around him even though he is speaking at a totally normal volume and with no identifiable differences with how he speaks wearing the vessel i am CACKLING

I’m so sorry

Honestly ngl as funny as this is it’s also a REALLY GOOD legit metaphor for the actual show and how Cas The Actually Angel interacts with and compares with mankind.

i don’t know anything about spn, but please tell me this isn’t true. otherwise…. it would be like a human man fell in love with a muppet. and told that muppet… through a muppet… and then got swerved… by a muppet

I mean that’s basically what happened: Cas’s true form is, if I’m recalling canon correctly, a “beam of celestial intent” the “size of the Chrysler building” with possibly multiple animal heads. And wings. He’s possessing a human vessel so he can interact with people. So yeah he fell in love with a muppet.

Muppets Supernatural with Misha Collins as the only human character. However, he is constantly carrying around and manipulating a muppet “vessel” because the muppets won’t talk to him otherwise

oh mY GOD and every time he tries to speak without wearing the muppet vessel all the surrounding muppets shriek and cover their ears and glass windows break all around him even though he is speaking at a totally normal volume and with no identifiable differences with how he speaks wearing the vessel i am CACKLING

I’m so sorry

Honestly ngl as funny as this is it’s also a REALLY GOOD legit metaphor for the actual show and how Cas The Actually Angel interacts with and compares with mankind.

i don’t know anything about spn, but please tell me this isn’t true. otherwise…. it would be like a human man fell in love with a muppet. and told that muppet… through a muppet… and then got swerved… by a muppet

I mean that’s basically what happened: Cas’s true form is, if I’m recalling canon correctly, a “beam of celestial intent” the “size of the Chrysler building” with possibly multiple animal heads. And wings. He’s possessing a human vessel so he can interact with people. So yeah he fell in love with a muppet.