Shenanigans @animebookworm - Tumblr Blog

Yahoo says its revenue fell 19 per cent from a year earlier, while its loss widened to $440 million. Yahoo also reported Monday that it's writing down $482 million in charges related to the declining value of Tumblr.

I FUCKING KNEW IT.

SO. IF YOU KNOW YOUR FANDOM HISTORY, YOU CAN SEE THE WRITING ON THE WALL RIGHT NOW.

AND IN CASE YOU DON’T, I will tell you a story.

I don’t know if Yahoo as a corporate entity hates fandom, or if it LOVES fandom in the way a flame longs to wrap its embrace around a forest. Or maybe it’s just that fandom is an enticingly big and active userbase; but just by the nature of our enterprise, we are extremely difficult to monetize.

It doesn’t matter.

Once upon a time - in the era before anyone had heard of google - if you wanted to post fandom (or really, ANY) content, you made your own webpage out of nested frames and midi files. And you hosted it on GeoCities.

GeoCities was free and… there. If the internet of today is facebook and tumblr and twitter, the internet of the late 90s WAS GeoCities.

And then Yahoo bought GeoCities for way too much money and immediately made some, let’s say, User Outreach Errors. And anyway, the internet was getting more varied all the time, fandom mostly moved on - it wasn’t painful. GeoCities was free hosting, not a community space - but the 90s/early 00s internet was still there, preserved as if in amber, at GeoCities.com.

Until 2009, when Yahoo killed it. 15 years of early-internet history - a monument to humanity’s masses first testing the potential of the internet, and realizing they could build anything they wanted… And what they wanted to build was shines to Angel from BtVS with 20 pages of pictures that were too big to wait for on a 56k modem, interspersed with MS Word clipart and paragraphs of REALLY BIG flashing fushia letters that scrolled L to R across the page. And also your cursor would become a different MS Word clipart, with sparkles.

(So basically nothing has changed, except you don’t have to personally hardcode every entry in your tumblr anymore. Progress!)

And it was all wiped out, just like that. Gone. (except on the wayback machine, an important project, but they didn’t get everything) The weight of that loss still hurts. The sheer magnitude…

Imagine a library stocked with hundreds of thousands of personal journals, letters, family photographs, eulogies, novels, etc. dated from a revolutionary period in history, and each one its only copy. And then one day, its librarians become tired of maintaining it, so they set the library and all its contents on fire.

And watch as the flames take everything.

Brush the ash from their hands.

Walk away.

Once upon a time - in the era after everyone had heard of google, but still mostly believed them about “Don’t be evil” - fandom had a pretty great collective memory. If someone posted a good fic, or meta, or art, or conversation relevant to your interests? Anywhere? (This was before the AO3, after all.) You could know p much as soon - or as many years late - as you wanted to.

Because there was a tagging site - del.icio.us - that fandom-as-a-whole used; it was simple, functional, free, and there. Yahoo bought it in 2005. Yahoo announced they were closing it in 2010.

They ended up selling it instead, but not all the data went with it - many users didn’t opt to the migration. And even then, the new version was busted. Basically unusable for fannish searching or tagging purposes. This is the lure and the danger of centralization, I guess.

It is like fandom suffered - collectively - a brain injury. Memories are irrevocably lost, or else they are not retrievable without struggle. New ones aren’t getting formed. There is no consensus replacement.

We have never yet recovered.

Once upon a time… Yahoo bought tumblr.

I don’t know how you celebrated the event, but I spent it backing up as much as I could, because Yahoo’s hobby is collecting the platforms that fandom relies on and destroying them.

I do not think Yahoo is “bad” - I am criticizing them on their own site, after all, and I don’t expect any retribution. I genuinely hope they sort out their difficulties.

But they are, historically, bad for US.

And right now is a good time to look at what you’ve accumulated during your career on this platform, and start deciding what you want to pack and what can be left behind to become ruins. And ash.

…On a cheerier note, wherever we settle next will probably be much better! This was never a good place to build a city.

vantasticmess

i forgot that yahoo was the one that destroyed both de.li.cious and geocities too, dang. But yes - tumblr is a loss and the writing is on the wall. Yahoo won’t run this site purely for charity reasons, so unless something wildly changes, tumblr’s days are numbered. (Maybe now is a good time to check out pillowfort.io …)

tyrannosaurus-trainwreck

So, Patty Tolan?

Patty Tolan.

The other ghostbusters are scientists, right? They’re there because Science!, or maybe in Holtzmann’s case because Boom!. Basically all the plot has to do for Abby and Erin is dangle the chance to do real, replicable science in front of them while removing any excuse to drag their feet. So tangible ghost + fucking fired = done.

But Patty’s not a scientist. Patty’s got a decent job, even if it’s obviously not what she wanted out of life. Patty’s motivation appears to be that she’s basically just a good person and responsible citizen? I mean, obviously she wants some excitement, and to feel like she’s making a real difference, but seriously.

We first see her stuck in her little booth, trying to be cheerful and positive at commuters who appear largely indifferent, until one guy comes along who’s clearly having some sort of mental health crisis. She stays pretty cheerful, she’s kind to him, and then she gets out of her booth and goes looking for him when he disappears and she reasonably assumes he’s in trouble.

Like, she could very easily have called it in and washed her hands of the situation. It’s not her fault/problem that maybe the transit cops won’t get there in time to help if this guy’s suicidal or delusional. I’m pretty sure people doing her job aren’t even supposed to leave their booths on-shift. But no, she gets out and goes after this bro just in case.

And meets a ghost. A terrifying ghost. Who scares the dick out of her.

I mean, what happens in the Aldrich Mansion? The tour guide tells his boss, who goes to Erin. Then they stay as far as possible from the scene while the women investigate. Patty goes herself, on her own time. Maybe her bosses didn’t believe her, maybe she knew she’d be dismissed and didn’t bother trying to explain what she saw, but she knows something’s up, and she takes it on herself to do something about it. And then she goes back to the scene of the haunting with them, to see what happens.

Every time they turn around, she’s handing them useful facts and history about the sites they’re investigating. Her interest in the city is keen and backed up by extensive knowledge. Hell, when she runs into something that shouldn’t be happening and she can’t explain, the first thing she does is head for the likeliest source of expertise to learn about it. She’s excited by it–it’s scary and maybe dangerous, but it’s new and interesting and she wants to figure it out.

Like, Abby might want recognition on top of that, and Erin so desperately wants to be believed that she risks the scientific mission for a shot at it, but Patty just wants to fucking know.

And she feels a genuine duty to help, too. She might not be able to build a ghost-blasting plasma-cannon, but she notices when a teammate’s mood is in the toilet and takes steps to address it. She knows the ghost-booster isn’t supposed to be in her subway, and that this is important. When things get ridiculously dangerous, and city hall’s smearing their names in the press, and she’s still not getting fucking paid for this, she never even looks tempted to say fuck this shit and go home. Her little monologue about going back to her booth is more to soothe/trick the ghost standing on her fucking shoulders than sincere.

Patty’s first instinct is to pool resources, and look after people, and encourage everyone to bring what they’ve got to the table. She might be disappointed or angry when nobody meets her halfway–the concert crowd drops her, and nobody acknowledges her compliments when she’s in her booth–but it doesn’t stop her from bringing her A-game. When the squad rolls out to save the world, it’s wearing her uniform and driving her car.

Just Patty Tolan, everybody.

rob-anybody

All of this is perfect.

Also, it’s really important that Patty constantly acknowledges how terrified she is during everything that happens in the movie, but she still keeps going and she still fights the ghosts.

Unlike the rest of the group, she isn’t used to paranormal activity, she hasn’t been waiting for years to prove all of this ghost stuff true, and everything about it scares the shit out of her, but she never lets her fear stop her from helping people. She goes after Rowan because she’s worried about him, she slaps the ghost out of Abby and saves Holtzmann from falling out the window despite being absolutely terrified, and she squares off against ghost!Rowan to save Kevin because she cares about him, she cares about keeping people safe. Even when she wasn’t a Ghostbuster, she cared about keeping people safe.

Patty Tolan is a bona fide hero.

yahtzee63

In the previews, when we heard Patty say, “I know New York,” I thought they were referring to the all-too-typical “street smarts.” Instead, in the film, her very next line of dialogue is, “I read a lot of nonfiction.” She’s an armchair historian of the city and a damned good one, who’s able to instantly identify the site of a centuries-old massacre. Nor do the other characters (or the script) find her encyclopedic knowledge surprising in the least, or ever doubt her say-so. Patty’s not a scientist, no, but she’s still portrayed as every bit as intelligent, curious and educated as the others.

#ghostbusters

fluxweedstem

this 👏

egoegoegoetc

Kate McKinnon in the new Ghostbusters international trailer

boundlessvoid

#lmao i saw an article that was like ‘new ghostbusters trailer adds eye candy for the ladies’ #and they were talking about chris hemsworth #and i’m just like #bitch #they already have eye candy #her name is kate mckinnon and she makes all the ladies gay lmao (via @hellphine)

#ghostbusters

micdotcom

Watch: Stephen Colbert “stole” the mic at the RNC and mocked Trump

thesylverlining

…I mean, if the world is turning into a ridiculously exaggerated nightmarishly dystopian state-sponsored blood-soaked hellscape, we might as well act like it.

miquerida

HE WAS APPLAUDED THO

#stephen colbert

thescienceofjohnlock

Some great advice from Facebook user Paul O’Connor who might make you think how to handle a potentially dangerous situation differently than a straight on confrontation or silently ignoring it. Good advice on what to do when you find yourself near a racist mouthy twat who is spouting out their crap at some unfortunate person. …

twodefenestrate

Good advice on what to do when you find yourself near a racist mouthy twat who is spouting out their crap at some unfortunate person.

NEVER engage the perpetrator. He (and it is usually he) is looking for confrontation. Instead speak to the person he is abusing. Say hello. Introduce yourself. Shake his or her hand. And just stand with them. Keep talking. About anything. Weather. Bus schedules. Football. This kind of bullying never works against a group of people having a conversation. Usually a single person travelling or a mom with a kid or maximum, two women are targeted.

Form a group of people with and around them if you can. Don’t tell them they are not alone. Just don’t let them be alone. I speak from experience. Once, I encountered a young girl wearing a hijab being abused as a terrorist by a drunk man on a train. I just went and sat beside her and started a conversation with her. After a while, the dude lost interest. I had a lovely chat with a young student from Qatar. She wanted to study literature while her dad was only prepared to pay for engineering or commerce as he wanted her to join the family business. It helped her feel safe and it expanded my horizons.

This is known in behavioral psychology as “non-complimentary behavior”; by not fueling the aggression of another person and you can flip the whole script of all their expectations, and without any footholds for their aggression (like direct provocation and confrontation/conflict) to launch into further tirades against, the aggressor can’t continue their angry scene-building. The more people who participate in script-flipping, the more successful it gets, as in this post you see with the advice to form a protective group between the bigot and their target for that very purpose.

There’s an NPR podcast called Invisibilia which goes into detail about how it works and what sort of people rely on it everyday professionally and for survival alike, in their Flipping the Script episode.

amemait

Ooohhhh

cloama

I haven’t had much to say about the Ghostbusters reboot other than I love the costuming and I’m going to see it twice.

I have to say what’s in my black fat girl feelings right now.

I’m a little surprised that throughout all the discussions about the reboot and the sexism that no-one has spotlighted how the entertainment industry’s beauty standards and the male gaze plays into the Ghostbusters reboot mess?

They’re not only mad because it’s women. They’re mad about not being able to jerk it to The New Ghostbusters lineup. They’re mad because their expectations of getting at least one hypersexualized, female protagonist wasn’t met– not even one sexy secretary. That’s rough, buddy.

Let’s be oh so real here: if it were Megan Fox, Zooey Deschanel, Cameron Diaz, and Jennifer Lawrence in the Ghostbusters reboot, we wouldn’t be having as much of a problem. McCarthy, Wiig, Jones and McKinnon in this movie are not funny-hot, like Cameron Diaz dorky dancing in a pair of underoos in Charlie’s Angels. They’re just funny and serving you soft-butch, wild-butch, nerd-chic and (albeit a little too stereotypical) cut-a-bitch realness and it’s a problem for these assholes.

This Ghostbusters reaction falls into the same category as men who treat women poorly simply because they don’t find them attractive/fuckable/worth their time.

babyyodamom

This is so on point.

dashakay

I need to paste this here for emphasis and truth: “They’re mad about not being able to jerk it to The New Ghostbusters lineup.”

plaidadder

This is absolutely true and something that I greatly appreciate about that film. These women are not there FOR men, either on screen or in the theater. None of them really care what men think of them, except that Erin and Abby could have used some support from their deans. How interesting it is that this provokes so much RAGE from people who are used to female characters being designed for their own pleasure.

whattheforkdude

please unmute this

#hsm

venusaurphobia

I can’t believe B.o.B. released a fucking Neil deGrasse Tyson diss track but I guess that’s just the kind of year it’s going to be

venusaurphobia

I think it’s safe to say that I very seriously and painfully underestimated the kind of year it was going be

startrekdeepspacenine

so last night when i was trying to sleep y’know it was dark and quiet and my eyes were closed but then i suddenly started laughing because i remembered this gif

mattholicguilt

“it would be impossible for this disabled character to be played by a disabled actor because of the things this character can do in this movie” well then maybe…… you fucked up in the writing of this disabled character……

crumplelush

also cgi exists. if you need your disabled character to walk for a couple of scenes use a body double and green screen. this can also be used for trans characters prior to transition.

if it’s possible to make chris evans look 5ft nothing and skinnier than a maypole then it’s possible to cast disabled actors for disabled characters

queen-of-troy

The Spy Kids films had disabled actor Ricardo Montalbán play the kids’ disabled grandpa, and in the third movie he was CGI’d into an Iron-Man style bodysuit that made him look like he was able to walk and take part in a high-speed futuristic car race and other action sequences. And this was in 2003. If a goofy kids’ franchise can do it using embarassingly bad early 2000s CGI, you have literally no excuse.

mohala-sumiko

Mad Max told a story about sexual violence and survivorship without relying on rape scenes to impress upon the audience how *serious* things were.

instead of watching the abuse on screen, we hear about it through the interactions between the wives. they tell us what happened, and in that way they take control of their own narrative.

rather than being voyeurs witnessing the wives’ trauma played out onscreen, we were an audience listening to their story.

and that makes a world of difference.

scarlettohairdye

THIS THIS THIS.

jcalvinist

So instead of showcasing the specific treatment we were told of it, which is the contrary philosophy of most filmmaking (show, don’t tell)

mohala-sumiko

or they made the decision to not sensationalize and fetishize the rape and brutalization of women. and in doing so spared the feelings of thousands of trauma survivors in their audience.

but whatever, film theory 101.

smitethestate

“Show don’t tell” is for FUCKING AMATEURS.

mad-madam-m

This statement:

“So instead of showcasing the specific treatment we were told of it, which is the contrary philosophy of most filmmaking (show, don’t tell)”

demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the idea behind “show, don’t tell.” I would argue that Mad Max: Fury Road DOES show us how the Wives were treated by Immortan Joe. However, it chooses not to do so in the obvious way (which would be showing the abuse), but rather by showing us in other ways.

We’re shown the message the Wives leave behind: “We are not things,” from which we can infer that’s exactly how they’ve been treated for God knows how long.

We’re shown that they wear flimsy white fabric that leaves their bodies on display, unlike pretty much everybody else in the film.

We’re shown them using boltcutters to rid themselves of chastity belts, devices which pretty much exist solely to remove a woman’s ability to choose her sexual partners.

We’re shown rage from the Dag when, even though time is of the essence, she takes the time to run back and kick one of the discarded belts as hard as she can before running back to join the others at the War Rig.

We’re shown Angharad using her pregnant body to shield Max and Furiosa from Immortan Joe, because she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt he won’t shoot her or her unborn child because he still views her as his property.

We hear Furiosa’s “Remember me?” before she kills Joe, and there’s so much fury and anger in those two words that you know she was a Wife before she was an Imperator.

We ARE shown what happened to the Wives. The issue lies in thinking that the only way to show that they were abused is to show the abuse itself. And as MM:FR demonstrates, that isn’t the case.

odin-n-out

Let’s not forget how absolutely important this is when applied to real life though. Being able to carry on a successful and believable plot where women are trying to escape abusive relationships not shown to the audience is exactly what happens in real life. Too often do we have to hear women’s cries for help with “SO never seemed abusive” or “I never saw a problem” (just see Johnny Depp’s domestic abuse coverage). Instances such as in Mad Max Fury Road where the audience is expected to believe in an abuse they don’t see makes it all the more believable in real life. Maybe with enough of a push through the media, people will be more receptive to women standing up to their abusers without crying out for visible evidence of the attacks.

cumaeansibyl

Let’s talk more about how we know that the wives were abused: they left. Okay? They left their extremely nice quarters, much nicer than anyone else’s living situation, and ran out into the desert knowing there was an excellent chance they wouldn’t make it to their destination. That they would accept any danger and privation to get away ought to tell you, if you have any sense whatsoever, that what they left behind was extremely bad.

Here’s the litmus test: not only are we not shown a rape scene, we’re never even told that rape occurred. However, was anyone really confused about exactly how Angharad got pregnant? Didn’t think so.

blueandbluer

Exactly. Being labeled “wives” doesn’t make them consenting.

rat-cyng

let’s be honest though, millennial hate is totally a thing rich folks started because they’re pissed that we have really unpredictable consumer habits and it isn’t as easy to get us to buy into stuff, so they’re mad we aren’t just money giving/traditional economy supporting machines like they expected us to be

like look at how much millennial hate articles are things like “millennials aren’t eating cereal and it’s hurting the cereal industry” or “millennials aren’t buying houses and that’s bad” or “millennials #1 utmost priority isn’t trying to make as much money as possible” and rich folks are mad about it, so just posturing our unpredictability/nontraditional values as “laziness” gets everyone else on board the hate train in some weird attempt to collectively subdue us

jadelyn

“You are Doing Capitalism Wrong and it scares me” - bitter Boomers to Millennials who are not buying into their shit (or buying their shit)

teapotsahoy

Keep in mind that the subprime mortgage crisis was at a pretty pivotal time in Millenial’s lives, and taught them that financial institutions are not on your side, will lie to you, and specifically will lie to you about what you can afford. Like, this isn’t coming from nowhere.

yolandaash

I mean boomers refuse to pay a living wage to anyone and then wonder why those people don’t buy anything? I am sorry but what exactly is the disconnect here?

anightvaleintern-blog1

Millennials value work that has meaning above work that pays well and they hate that as well. It means we can’t be shut up with busy work while they’re made to seem like they’re running a well oiled machine. They come from a generation of a boss being someone who says “do what I say because I told you to” and we come from a generation who values a boss that says “what can I do for you that will help you excel at your job?”

Millennials do not cope well with meaningless busy work so their boss looks better. They don’t cope with being talked down to or not being assisted by their boss when they have a problem. They do not deal well with their innovative ideas being shut down because “that’s not how we do it here.” and I don’t see how any of those things is a problem.

Millennials are also the first generation since the internet was a prominent thing to utilize it as a source of information in a way that is empowering for each other. A single millennial can buy a product and then inform anyone who wants to know about the quality of said product. It only takes a handful of millennials to say “this is a substandard product” to render all the millions of dollars spent on advertising that product completely useless.

Big business has been a blotch on millennials lives since before most of you could even assume a role in adulthood to effect it, so you trust one another more than you trust advertisements or sponsorship, etc.

On the flip side, though, you enthusiastically will push and promote things that you love.

Big business and their baby boomer CEOs and presidents HATE this. Because it means that they can no longer provide a substandard product while making the consumer feel there is nothing better out there.

In the past, if every dish soap was awful, you just had to continue using awful dish soap. Now, you can crowd source an alternative. You can post in a forum, your facebook, a mass text, etc and say “I hate every dish soap, what can I do?” and you will be directed to actual good brands or you will be taught how to brew your own.

You’re a great generation, I’m really proud of you guys.

kyraneko

Seriously, tho.

I’d love to buy a house, but I can’t afford a down payment and can’t be certain that I’ll have the same income levels for thirty years and I don’t actually know whether the banks will accept my highly-fluctuating, self-employed-and-seasonal-labor income as stable enough or high enough to be approved for a mortgage.

And also every new housing development I’ve seen in the past five years has been “Executive Housing, Starting At 390K” and the realtor websites are full of last decade’s foreclosed subdivision homes in the $275K region, and there’s legit no one, including the zoning board, that’s going to help me find or make a cute little house on a tenth of an acre in the region of $50-60K, let alone every other millennial who might like to settle down in a place that suits her desires and means.

Oh, and that same zoning means five people aren’t allowed to share that $300K, 5-bedroom McMansion, because fuck us, that’s why.

And what else? The refrigerator that recently conked out on me was manufactured in 1967. That thing lasted almost fifty years, and today if I walk into a big box store’s appliance department to buy a new refrigerator they will tell me I should really buy a warranty to cover the apparently-substantial risk that it will break within two to five years.

Oh, and there’s apparently a $400ish premium to buy one with a convenient configuration because if you want the refrigerator on top and accessible without bending down for anyone taller than your average first grader there aren’t any of those in the entry-level price range. Once again, fuck us.

Then there’s the labor market itself, where “entry level” positions want three-to-five years of experience, and everybody won’t shut up about the trades but even that requires a $5K+ outlay to go to school for it, and every fast-food restaurant out there has a permanent “Now Hiring” sign up because they drive employees away as fast as they can replace them.

And so many food-service jobs involve being forced to throw away loads of food as it expires but if you eat it or take it home it’s viewed as stealing, and retail jobs sometimes require you to smash perfectly good computers with a sledgehammer so nobody can use them, and fuck all of this, yes, I’m gonna make my own goddamn laundry detergent from a recipe I found on the internet, and I’m gonna buy as much of my vegetables as possible in seed form, and I’m gonna fucking read the consumer reviews on shit before I buy it and I’m going to source a refrigerator from Cragislist for approximately the price of the warranty on a new one, and if The Market wants me to buy a house, it can bloody well wait for me to have the money.

Because seriously, with its “Ask not what your economy can do for you, ask what you can do for your economy” mindset and historic, far-reaching fuckery, the business side of the equation has little room to complain about millennials being the selfish ones.

ookaookaooka

no but disturbing realistic superheroes

Vision has no hair anywhere on his body–no armpit hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. No fingernails. His skin tastes like metal. Sometimes, he forgets to breathe for minutes or hours at a time.

Captain Marvel smells like burning. When you touch her, your hand comes away cold because she’s absorbed your body heat. If she gets cut, she bleeds light. She can tell you what the inside of an explosion feels like.

Bruce Banner vomits after de-hulking. His skin is always red and peeling. He looks sick, like he has a fever, and he ingests more medication than actual food. There are blisters on his lips.

Tony Stark has a huge, sunken scar on his sternum where the arc reactor was removed and his chest aches each time he takes a breath. He has callouses in odd places–so does the whole team, really–and there is a permanent bald spot on the back of his head where it has been cut open every time he gets thrown around in his suit.

Spider-Man sometimes forgets which way is up–if you put him in a room with identical walls, floor, and ceiling, he couldn’t tell you which is which. His hands and feet are prickly to the touch, even through his costume. He is very nearsighted.

The Scarlet Witch has no sense of boundaries; if you can’t tell she’s spying on your thoughts, why should she stop? She doesn’t do it out of any malicious intent, just out of curiosity and convenience. She never loses arguments.

Thor speaks about events that happened thousands of years ago as if they were last week. Cats arch their backs and stare at him. Something about him–his eyes, or his skin, or the way he moves–seems slightly off, like he doesn’t belong on Earth at all.

stuff like that.

#mcu

merrychrithmas

What all went down for those still unaware.

furiandarkling-deactivated20130

Reblog if you've ever ruined your sleep schedule just to talk to someone

illustoryart

You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you’ve a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin You’ll make your real friends, Those cunning folks use any means To achieve their ends.

(Everything with this illustrations on Redbubble)

#hp

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