my great-grandfather had to leave italy in the 20′s because he hit a fascist with a tuba, so if you think I am going to take this sitting down you are going to have to catch these hands and also this tuba
Fun story my Great Great Grandma left Germany in the 1920s because she had family in the US and could get citizenship pretty easily and once she was over in the US she then smuggled over 15 jewish families out by forging family documents so now my aunts are currently in the process of trying to tell the real ones from the fake ones because my great gran just died and there are legally over 100 surviving descendants but we know that math is a lil screwy.
Sometimes a family is you, your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids, and the 15 Jewish families you helped smuggle out of Nazi Germany.
I mean at that point I think you’re family regardless.
As of July 4th 2018, the Internet as we know it might be dead for good.
The European Parliament is passing a new Copyright Directive. Article 13 #CensorshipMachine will impose widespread censorship of all the content we share online. Art, fanfiction, parodies, remixes, mashups, memes, etc.. Anything that you do not hold the rights over will be taken down.
Article 13 would force all online platforms to police and prevent the uploading of copyrighted content, or make people seek the correct licenses to post that content. Internet platforms hosting large amounts of user-uploaded content must monitor user behaviour and filter their contributions to identify and prevent copyright infringement.
Such filters will be mandatory for platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit and Instagram, but also much smaller websites.
Last Tuesday (19th June 2018) a group of more than 70 people who have played important roles in building the internet and developing it (Tim Berners-Lee, Vincent Cerf,
Jimmy Wales, Mitchell Baker…) into what it is today addressed an open letter to the members of the European Parliament:
“As creators ourselves, we share the concern that there should be a fair distribution of revenues from the online use of copyright works, that benefits creators, publishers, and platforms alike.
But Article 13 is not the right way to achieve this. By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users. […] The damage that this may do to the free and open Internet as we know it is hard to predict, but in our opinions could be substantial.”
wrote this way back in january so uh…here you go. a rare moment of taako-emotional-vulnerability.
The world of the forty-sixth cycle can’t much be called a world at all; there are no oceans, no water in the sky, no green grasses underfoot to sustain life. The globe is made of warm liquid mantle and charred, burnt crust. If there was life on this planet, it died out long ago, when liquid was vaporized to less than air.
The Light of Creation was almost comically easy to find — surrounded by a world so dark, magma chipped dark and jagged, it seemed to glow even more brightly than ever.
Merle wakes with the crack of dawn, or what could be considered dawn on this planet; days are longer here than the days of their homeworld, the sun too far away to sustain life, but he rises to greet it regardless. Homeworld or no, it’s a sun, and Pan created it all the same.
However, when he shuffles into the kitchen — muttering to his deity about how much he’d better appreciate the sacrifice Merle’s making and by that he means at least a single vine in the next world, just one, he’s not asking for much, really — and yawning, popping his back, he’s not alone.
“Gods, Taako,” Merle breathes, hand over his heart. “You scared the bejeebus out of me.”
“That’s not a real word, old man,” Taako bites, and slides a coffee mug toward him. Merle sniffs it; chamomile tea. He takes a tentative sip, expecting to taste ground Smarties in it in lieu of actual, decent sugar, and is shocked to find it untainted.
“Thanks, kid.”
“Don’t mention it.” Taako takes a sip from his own mug, wipes his chin. “No, really, don’t.”
“Reputation. Got it.”
“Yeah. Taako don’t — Taako don’t care about shit.”
Merle hums absently. Silence falls as he and Taako patter halfway through their respective mugs. Merle can smell the acrid scent of too-black coffee from his side of the table, but decides against commenting. Kid did make him tea, after all.
“Not much to do this year,” Taako says after a while, voice carefully neutral.
“Eh, I’m sure you’ll make the best of it,” Merle shrugs. “Take good notes for me, yeah?”
“Always do.”
Just last night, Merle finished reading the journals from the previous cycle. Lucretia takes care, now, to add quips into her records, so that after Merle dies and reforms and lives another day, he can at least get a kick out of her words. He appreciates the thought.
They’d found the light ten months in, after ten long, arduous months of hard work and subterfuge and stealth. It was captured by a bunch of nobles in their stuffy castle and Merle had laughed, late and long into last night, to read about Taako’s dramatic exploits seducing the prince while Lup and Davenport snuck into the vaults. Heh. That’s always been Taako’s forte, he thinks, and shakes his head, amused that he can’t decide whether it’s the seduction or the drama he’d thought of.
“You don’t have to go so soon.”
“Hmm?”
“To Parley,” Taako says. He doesn’t meet Merle’s eyes. “You could — y’know, kick it with us for a bit.”
“Eh, I appreciate it, kid, but the fact of the matter is, the longer I wait the more I forget. And let me tell you, talkin’ with this dude is like walkin’ through a minefield. One wrong word and poof! Black fire.”
Taako takes a sip of his coffee and, when he sets down the mug, it clinks loudly against the wood. Merle blinks at it. “I know, old man, you’ve explained your logic,” he says, and his voice even. Scarily so. “But you could just tell Lucretia what happened and, I dunno, chill for a year. We’re not awful, y’know.”
“Not sure this is the plane I’d want to chill on, to be honest,” Merle chuckles.
“That’s not the point.” Taako isn’t looking at him, and Merle realizes — obvious, in retrospect, but so sue him, after dying almost a dozen times on repeat, he’d nearly forgotten — that this is one of Taako’s rare moments of honesty. The jokes are gone from his voice, the nicknames erased from his vernacular, his eyes pinned to the grain of the wood of their table. It’s customary, at the beginning of each cycle, for Taako to transmute wood and Magnus to carve it. They spend their days before the Light falls doing interior decorating, and apparently the theme this year is a bright orange, the cushions of the couch deep red and the carpets an orange-blended yellow.
Last cycle was purple, the cycle before that a matte black, and before that deep ceruleans and greens for an underwater world populated with merpeople. Merle remembers the decorations like they were yesterday, because to him, they practically were.
Funny thing, dying. His last hours are much more vivid.
Two pro heroes are complaining about having to work at a convention and deal with droves of sweaty fans, while two booths down a little kid is crying while meeting Deku, and Deku is crying right back. The mum is panicked. She knows how to handle a crying child but doesn’t know how to handle a crying top hero. Everyone in line is taking photos. Deku and the kid are hugging like it’s the end of the world
For my 3D production class I had to create a three shot short that was a remake of an existing movie scene- with muppets. I ran out of time to do the particle water effects, but this is basically Pacific Rim anyway.
Fat and beauty can coexist. “You would be beautiful if you lost a bit of weight” and “you still have a pretty face” are not compliments. You are beautiful now and your whole being is pretty. Your soul is alight. You are radiant.
Hi, the name's Jason. 24. Ace. They/them~
I'm a pretty laid-back person. I like video games and animals. I fix/install elevators but have a degree in Mech. Sys. Engineering. I'm trying to get better at chatting so feel free to hit me up!
Hi, the name's Jason. 24. Ace. They/them~
