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spirit-lanterns · 6 months

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THIRST COMMENTS

synopsis: (celebrity! AU) reacting to thirst comments with your celebrity girlfriend. (part 1/2) part 2 here.

featuring: kafka, himeko, serval, yukong, topaz

rating: 18+ suggestive (men and minors dni)

warnings: celebrity! fem reader, no smut but very suggestive, mentions of strap ons, mentions of tit-sucking, jealousy, possessiveness, secret relationships, teasing, sugar mommy relationship (topaz), se.xual innuendos, dirty talk, mentions of mommy, milf, legal age gap relationship (yukong), may be ooc.

art credits: act-age

KAFKA

“Anonymous said: I will let Kafka break my back like a glow stick.”

Kafka’s eyes widened slightly and she let out an amused chuckle, staring at the camera with a subtle, yet flirtatious grin. “My, my…I had no idea my fans were quite the masochists.” She hums into the mic, trailing a seductive finger across her lips and whispering in a lower tone. “Perhaps I should star in an 18+ BDSM movie at some point. What do you think, darling?”

Kafka gave you a teasing nudge and you laughed as you continued scrolling through Twitter for more thirst comments. The two of you have been invited to read thirst comments on the set of one of those giant social media platforms, but the crew had no idea that you and Kafka were actually dating behind closed doors. They had just invited you both since you were frequent co-stars for various films, yet they didn’t anticipate the amount of tension you two would have while being filmed without any scripts.

“Only if I get to star as the main girl.” You reply teasingly, Kafka giving you a light flick on the forehead as you laughed and read the next comment. “Okay, okay, here. Here’s another thirst comment for you,” you say jovially, handing Kafka your phone.

“Hmm, I’ve been getting too many of these recently.” She chuckles, taking your phone and reading the next thirst comment out loud.

“@/itsmeanobody said: I know she’s strapped and I’m not talking about the gun.”

Kafka let out a breathy laugh and covered her mouth with her hands, clearly flattered by the subtle innuendo. “Oh, dear…”

“I can confirm, she is very strapped.” You smile at the camera, giving it a playful wink and watching as the director’s face slowly morphed into one of shock. Kafka squeezed your thigh under the table to hush you with your words, causing you to gasp under her grip. “Shhhh, careful dear. You don’t want to tease the fans too much…” She grins and reads the next comment, eyes widening slightly as she reads it out loud.

“Speaking of the fans. This next comment sure is interesting. Anonymous said: "When Kafka came on screen, so did I.”

Your secret girlfriend bites her lip at the comment and can’t help but let a few laughs escape her throat. “You naughty, naughty fans…” Kafka purrs, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you closer against her. “I didn’t expect my fanbase to be so dirty.”

“Well, have you seen the ten thousand TikTok edits of you in Flash and Furious (Parody of Fast and Furious)? I’ve seen more content on you than anything else from the movie.”

“Awe, come on,” Kafka pouts, giving your cheek a little squeeze and giving a snide smile to the camera. “Can you blame me? I was cast in such a sexy role.”

“I think I was sexier.”

“Yeah, you were.”

Kafka grins lazily and sits back upright, the tension so unbearably strong, all the people on set were blushing and sweating under the stage lights. You and Kafka didn’t mind, though. As celebrities, you knew the tension between you was more than enough to have fans buzzing, and despite actually dating in real life, you wanted to keep the buzz going.

“Mm, one last thirst comment before we move on to your turn, dear.” Kafka says as her eyes trail down to your phone. “Anonymous said: I want Kafka to mess up my insides with that big strap she hides in the back.”

After that very bold comment, Kafka sucked in a breath and watched as you frowned slightly in a bit of jealousy. Though you were aware that fans often thirsted for both you and Kafka, you couldn’t help but grow a bit jealous as fans wanted so desperately to sleep with your girlfriend.

“Actually, that big strap is just for m—”

Kafka quickly covered your mouth.

“Haha, we’ll be right back!”

After your accidental slip up, the camera was cut and Kafka turned to you with a knowing smile. “Darling, are you jealous?” She chuckles with a sly grin. “About four comments in and this one is the one that gets you all riled up?”

“It’s true though, that strap is mine and mine only.” You whisper into her ear, giggling a little before playfully shoving her. “What, like you wouldn’t get jealous when it’s my turn.”

“I happen to be very good at concealing my emotions though, dear.” Kafka replies in a sultry tone. “Besides, you’re the only girl who’s bed I would willingly climb in.” She grins and lowers her voice to a husky whisper. “And the only girl who’s insides I’d ruin with that ‘big strap’ of mine.”

Your cheeks heat up at her words and you feel a jolt of arousal pulse at your core.

“Ugh…stop trying to turn me on, we're still in the middle of filming.” You mumble.

“Sorry, sorry.” Kafka replies before resting her chin on her hands. “Why don’t you begin reading your thirst comments, darling. I promise, I won’t even get jealous.”

She laughs and gives you a flirtatious wink, causing you to roll your eyes and signal the director that you were ready to continue filming. “Sure, sure. I bet your face would turn all green from envy.”

“We’ll just see about that.” Kafka smirks. “Go on, let’s continue shall we?”

“Oh, sure.” You smile, playing along as you knew Kafka would eventually fall prey to her jealousy. “This thirst comment says…”

And you watch with joy as Kafka’s hand twitches slightly at the start, making you smile with amusement as your girlfriend was not as good at concealing her emotions as she said.

HIMEKO

“Anonymous said: If Himeko’s breasts are feeling a bit heavy and in pain, I’d gladly suck the pain away.”

After reading the first thirst comment, Himeko’s face flushed bright red with embarrassment. Her hand instinctively shot out for yours under the table, as she tried her best to remain calm in front of all the cameras. “O-Oh…Oh my…” she laughs a bit nervously, unsure of what to do with the raw desire of some of her fans. “That is uh, well…thank you for the offer, anonymous commenter. Your generosity is quite admirable.”

You chuckled softly at Himeko’s attempts to remain calm and polite, before cupping her hand under the table and giving it a comforting squeeze. “To be fair, Himeko does have a nice chest.”

“Hey—”

Himeko narrowed her eyes at you before instantly smiling and jabbing at your sides. To the public, you were just a pair of co-stars who had “intimate” moments with each other that seemed to spice up your careers. But behind closed doors, you and Himeko were closer than ever, as you had secretly gotten together after the filming of your latest movie.

“But it’s true, Himeko has a very nice figure. It’s nice to admire it once in a while.”

“Darling, that's called being a pervert.”

“No, it’s called appreciating your beauty.”

You smiled and winked at her, causing Himeko’s face to flush as red as her hair. Your tension was a lot more…romantic than some of the other celebrities in the industry, and whenever you and Himeko got together, you always made her laugh.

“This next comment is from another anonymous user. Anonymous said: "Everyone repeat after me, Mommy Himeko.”

Himeko raised a brow at this, confused by this certain comment. “…Darling, what do they mean by… ‘Mommy Himeko?’ I don’t have children yet.”

You burst out laughing at her reaction, Himeko’s obliviousness to the comment clearly showing her age. “Himeko, they’re calling you mommy because you’re very…mother material. In a hot way.” You clarified, Himeko only growing more confused at this. “In a hot way? Isn’t that ince—”

“No no no—!”

You took a brief intermission pause and cut the cameras. After a good two minutes of explaining to Himeko what being called “mommy” meant, the cameras were turned back on, as you and Himeko sat back in your seats.

“And we’re back!” You exclaim jovially, your girlfriend Himeko just hiding her face on the table as steam poured out of her ears. Too embarrassed after realizing what being “mommy material” was. “Sorry about the cut, I had to teach old grandma Himeko what being a Mommy meant.”

“I’m not…old.” Himeko grumbles against the table. “Let’s just read the next thirst comment already.”

You chuckle and slide Himeko your phone for her to read, the redhead hesitantly picking up the device and reading the first comment that caught her eye. “@/sinsmockingbird said: Ahhhh the need to suck on Himeko’s titties is so strongggg”

“…Again with the tit-sucking.” You chuckle behind your hand, Himeko’s face burning even brighter than before as she groaned. “I— how do people say these things on the internet…” Himeko stutters, her eyes unable to look at the cameras and choosing to stare at the floor. “I am just…shocked at how bold people can be.”

“Yeah, the internet can be pretty bold at times.” You laugh softly, running a comforting hand through your girlfriend’s soft locks. “Do you wanna do one more thirst comment before it’s my turn?”

“Ah…I suppose.” Himeko says with an awkward expression, mustering up the courage to read another comment. “It can’t be that bad after this, right?”

No. She severely underestimated how down bad her fanbase actually was.

“Anonymous said: I would totally have a threesome with (Reader) and Himeko. They can punish me whenever.”

After reading that final comment out loud, Himeko couldn’t help but let her face slowly fall as she reread the comment multiple times.

“…Wow. I didn’t expect that comment to be in there.” You laughed softly, a little surprised yourself as you had no idea Himeko’s fans would also be lusting after you. “That must mean we’re a pretty hot couple, eh Himeko?”

You nudged her playfully, expecting her to nudge you back like you always did for your playful banters, but Himeko said nothing. Just staring at the thirst comment in silence as her eyes kept trailing over the words like it was a paragraph.

“…Himeko?”

“Hm? Oh. Sorry.” She smiles softly and looks up at the camera, flashing her signature smile like nothing was wrong. “Thank you for the flattering comment, anon.”

You felt shivers go down your spine as an aura of uneasiness swept across your body. Normally Himeko would be embarrassed or not understand what the comment was implying, yet this time she was being eerily calm and it was starting to spook you a bit.

“H-Himeko? Ah—!”

You quickly closed your mouth as Himeko trailed a hand down to your hips and gave it a possessive squeeze. Her face was still neutral to appease to the cameras as she slowly turned to you with a smile. “…I believe it’s your turn now, dear.” She says in a calm tone, her hand still holding you roughly which was very unlike Himeko’s usual personality.

“Wh— I…okay…” was Himeko jealous? One look at her eyes and you instantly could tell, she was going to wreck you later on the car ride home.

“Well, go on. Let’s read the first thirst comment together, shall we?” Himeko hums, sliding the phone over to you and ensnaring your fate.

“…Yes ma’am.” You say in a softer tone, shakily picking up the phone to read your thirst comments, and praying for your legs later tonight.

SERVAL

“@/lindseynguyen said: I want Serval to play me like how she plays her guitar. Rough and hard.”

Serval wheezes after reading that and hides her face into the table, laughing like a lawnmower gone bad as she struggles to keep herself from dying. “I ca— what the heck…” she’s close to tears and you have to hit her on the back to stop herself from choking. “Serval…get it together girl.”

“I can’t—” she’s laughing so much and has a bashful blush spreading across her face. The cameras capturing the radiant smile of famous singer; Serval Landau, who could capture the hearts of millions just by existing. “Just— holy sh*t. My fans are so bold.”

She flashes a wink at the camera and grins. “Don’t worry Lindsey, I’ll play my guitar extra hard for you in my next concert. Have a fun time.”

She bursts out into giggles again and pulls you closer to stabilize herself. The two of you are just a bubbling mess as you couldn’t stop yourselves from giggling like a bunch of school girls.

“Okay okay, next comment…” you ushered playfully, smacking Serval on the arm and showing her the next thirst comment. Your girlfriend takes the phone and lets her eyes scan over the comment, bracing herself for what’s to come.

“Anonymous said: Me if I was the guitar 🤰”

Serval’s eyes widened and she couldn’t help but choke a bit.

“…If that’s the case. I got a lot of guitars pregnant in my time.”

She smiles at you flirtatiously and you can’t help but give Serval the death glare. She grins like the mischievous woman that she was and gives your thigh a teasing squeeze from underneath the table. “You’re a weirdo.” You say through giggles, knowing exactly what Serval was talking about as she stares at you.

“Oh, I know.” She giggles back. “But you’d let this weirdo get you preg—”

You playfully kick her shin under the table and Serval winces mid sentence. “AH—!”

The cameras cut for a brief intermission and a few minutes later you were back to filming. With Serval rubbing her shin and making a pathetic “sad” face from your “abuse.”

“You’re so mean…” Serval pouts, resting her face on your shoulder. “Can you kiss it all better?”

“You’re a grown adult, Serval.” You laugh, giving her a gentle pat on the head. “I’m not your babysitter.”

“Yeah, but you could be my mo—”

“Next thirst comment!”

You smiled at the cameras and pulled Serval closer so she could react to the next Twitter comment. Her face immediately lying against yours as she got comfortable beside you.

“Anonymous said: Not a waiter, but I would take her tip.”

Both you and Serval absolutely lose it at this one, the singer sucking in air through her teeth and trembling as she tries so hard not to scream. “Oh god…” Serval is smiling so hard her lips hurt. “Well uh, that’s…quite the compliment.”

“Just an FYI for all you Serval fans,” you chuckle, leaning in closer to whisper at the camera. “Serval doesn’t have the tip—”

“HEY—!”

You laugh as your girlfriend gets offended by that and moves to pull you back from the camera. “Hush now, there are people watching!” You roll your eyes and hold the next thirst comment in front of her for her to read. “What, the video is explicit enough anyways. Just read the next comment so it can be my turn!” You were excited to see what the comments would be about you, so you ushered Serval to hurry up and read the last comment.

“Okay okay!” The singer exclaims, taking the phone and reading the next thirst comment, which ended up being the most downbad and horny comment Serval had ever seen.

“@/itsmeanobody said: Her strap is purple and sparkly. Was on it last night 🤭”

Serval’s face grew flushed and you couldn’t help but raise a brow at the mention of her strap. Though you weren’t jealous by any means, the words spilled out of your mouth faster than you could control.

“Well actually, Serval’s favorite strap is hot pink with ridges instead of spark—”

Your girlfriend stared at you with wide eyes and you suddenly realized what you were saying. Both you, your girlfriend, and all the producers in the studio were all blushing red and laughing nervously before cutting the cameras. “Oh sh*t.” You laughed, Serval blushing red before smiling bashfully and giving your head a small smack. “You dumbass…” she laughs, pulling you closer for a brief hug.

“You’re gonna regret saying that later…”

Your eyes widened at her darkened tone yet Serval resumed her playful and relaxed nature, glancing at the director and making small talk with them as if it were nothing. “Could we cut that part out? We could just resume where we left off and continue onto her turn, yeah?”

The director nodded and gave a thumbs up, the cameras clicking back on as Serval ran her fingers down your back. “Let’s hurry up and get this video done with, hm? Go on, read your thirst comments.” She speaks in a gravelly tone, causing you to swallow nervously as you pick up the phone to begin reading your own comments.

You knew what was waiting for you the moment you got home.

YUKONG

“Anonymous said: At this rate, No Nut November is gonna turn into Nonstop Nut November.”

Yukong raised a brow at this comment and glanced over at you with a confused expression. “Uhm…what is ‘No Nut November?’” Yukong asked with genuine confusion. She was one of the older actresses within the acting industry, so it was common sense that Yukong wouldn’t know a thing about modern terms and slang.

“Uh…it’s like…” you chewed your bottom lip and tried to think of a way to explain it to your older girlfriend. “Uh, perhaps we should move on?”

“No, no no no.” Yukong frowned and stared at you with that intimidating, motherly look that made you feel like a child being scolded by your mother. “What is No Nut November. I want to know.”

You winced and made a hand gesture for the cameras to stop filming.

“Cut!”

There was a brief intermission pause and after a few moments, the cameras resumed to Yukong sitting in her seat with a shocked expression on her face. Her eyes wide with newfound understanding for the younger generation, as she looked like she had just discovered the meaning of the universe.

“…Yukong?”

“Why do younger people call masturbation ‘nutting.’” She sighs, rubbing her temple in dismay. “That— it doesn’t have anything to do with nuts?!”

“Let’s…Let’s just move on to the next comment.” You laugh nervously, rubbing a comforting hand against your lover’s back.

“@/chucapybara said: When Yukong is done with me, I’m not the only one with granny knees by morning ✌️”

Your girlfriend looks almost offended by that and seems to gloss over the sexual innuendo written in that sentence. “Granny knees?! I am not that old…!”

“Well…” you stifle a chuckle and look away, Yukong glaring at you briefly before glancing at the cameras. “Oh please, not you too…”

“Awe, but there’s nothing wrong with being older, Yukong…” you giggle softly, teasing your partner by running a hand over her thigh. “You know I love the age difference…”

Yukong tenses up at your purr and she can’t help but grow excited with the way you were stroking her thigh. Sure Yukong was one of the older people within the acting industry, but hooking up with you was one of the best decisions she has ever made in her life, even if you were several years younger than her.

“I…suppose you are right.” Yukong sighs, a small smile breaching her lips. “Let’s move on then, shall we?”

She makes a move to read over the next comment, but it only leaves her more confused than ever.

“Anonymous said: MILF MILF MILF YUKONG IS SUCH A MILF THAT CAN TAKE CARE OF ME AND RUIN ME, MOMMY I'M ON MY KNEES PRAYING THAT THE LORD FORGIVE MY SINS.”

Immediately after reading that, Yukong turns to you with the utmost expression of concern. The poor woman was still trying to comprehend what she had just read and seemed genuinely worried for the well-being of her fans. “Dear, what is a milf?”

A look of discomfort spread across your face as you sucked in a bunch of cold air between your teeth. You weren’t sure if you should tell Yukong what a milf was, and was starting to regret accepting the invite to be on this show.

“Uhhh…they’re saying that you’re very attractive.” You say with a bit of hesitance, barely lying through your teeth in order to not tell her the true definition.

“Ah, really?” Yukong smiled at the flattering compliment. “I see then…”

She leans forward and grins innocently. “You’re a milf then, dear. A very nice milf.”

You choked on your spit and the cameras cut for a moment. Once you regained your senses, the recordings were flipped back on and you continued on with the video. “Okay…one last comment and let’s switch over to my turn, sounds good?”

Yukong nodded in agreement.

“Okay, here’s another comment for you, Yukong.”

“@/the-voxington-tavern said: I want Yukong to breed me. I want her to be feral and just break me. I want her to just rut her strap into me. I want her to be feral.”

Now this…this comment was one that Yukong fully understood. Her cheeks going hot at the way this commenter was so straightforward, and unable to speak for the first few moments. “Ah…my younger fans surely are enthusiastic…” Yukong chuckles, fanning her pink cheeks with her hand. “And very…descriptive with the way they describe their wants.”

You could tell Yukong was struggling to keep her composure, yet you were in the same boat as you couldn’t help but feel jealous that someone wanted your Yukong as desperately as you did. You knew Yukong was yours and yours alone, but you couldn’t stop yourself as you leaned in closer to whisper something into Yukong’s ear that had her perking up with delight.

“Yeah, but I’m the only one you rut your strap into every night, right?” you murmur quietly, a smile curling up on your lips.

The older woman shivers at your words and you see a glint of ferocity appear in her eyes. Though you were just trying to tease her, it appears the teasing worked a bit too well, as your girlfriend was beginning to grow excited the more the video went on. She couldn’t wait for the filming to be over, and it was evident in the way she stared at you hungrily, waiting for you to finish your round of thirst comments so she could devour you when the cameras were cut.

Perhaps after reading your round of thirst comments, her feelings would escalate. After all, not only was she impatient, but maybe she’d even grow a bit jealous…?

TOPAZ

“@/servalisms said: when I die, bury me in Topaz’s thighs.”

Topaz smirked at this and stood up from her seat, lifting her leg onto the table and giving it a confident smack. “I got your coffin right here, baby.”

Everyone on set, including you burst out into laughter, causing Topaz to chuckle before sitting back down. “I’m glad we can appreciate my thighs, though. I’ve been going to the gym to workout on my legs ever since I got that role for Triassic Park (Parody of Jurassic Park)”

“Mm, yeah. That movie was a pain to film,” you sighed, leaning your head on Topaz’s shoulder as she wrapped an arm around you to pull you closer. “Fun fact about the production of the film: Topaz was not expecting to do so many athletic stunts, so she had to work extra hard on an athletic build while filming on set. The first time we met, she was doing squats next to a raptor costume.”

“Heyyyy, at least it all paid off in the end. Now look, everyone is admiring my beautiful physique.” Topaz hums, giving you an arrogant smile. “Look, there’s even more comments about my thighs…”

“Anonymous said: Is it too hard to understand that I just want my head crushed between her thighs? 😔”

Topaz just smirks smugly at this and gives the camera a naughty look like she expected this to happen. “Oh? My fans want me to crush them between my thighs? Won’t that hurt?”

“If it hurts, it would be a good kind of hurt.” You say with a smile. “I’m sure everyone’s preferred death would be getting suffocated by you, Topaz.”

“Oh, everyone is just a masochist nowadays aren’t they?” She chuckles, “If that’s the case, I’d gladly crush any fan’s head. So long as they pay a proper price…”

There’s a mischievous glint in Topaz’s eyes that tells you she’s not even joking. The determination in her eyes making it obvious that she’d do anything for an extra income of cash.

“Hm, so you’d make me pay if I wanted to get my head crushed by you?” You ask in a joking tone, gauging her reaction from your words.

“Pfft. Of course not.” Topaz smirks, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You’re the only one who gets my services free, babe.”

The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife, Topaz chuckling at the way you tensed up at her words and flush at the way she started squeezing your hand. “Anywhoooo I believe we should move on to the next comment, hm?” She grins before scrolling up to the next comment.

“Anonymous said: TOPAZ 😩 I WANT TO BE HER CHAIR!”

“Woahhh there.” Topaz chuckles, ears going a bit pink due to embarrassment. “Is that an offer for me to sit on your face…?” She grins at the camera, pulling you a bit tighter against her figure. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but unless you’re paying me some good money, there’s only one chair I’m sitting on tonight.”

She ruffles your hair at the implications and laughs at the way the producers all flush with embarrassment. Topaz surely was one of the bolder celebrities out there, and she didn’t hesitate to break the filters if she wanted to even if it might cause public outrage.

“Topaz…” you mumble under your breath, getting a little nervous with how blunt Topaz was being.

“What, it’s true.” She chuckles. “But, it’s interesting to know I have so many people willing to become my chair. Perhaps I should ask if any of our other co-stars are interested in it too.”

“I know I am.” You mumble under your breath, Topaz catching the words before smiling a little at the thought. “Oh, I know…”

She lets out a small, amused laugh before opening up the last comment to read. “@/qqinggue said: TOPAZ BE MY SUGAR MOMMY????”

“Hey that’s my sugar mom— MMPF!” Topaz quickly covered your mouth and began laughing at the comment, trying to keep your relationship a secret despite how bold you two could get on camera. “Ahhh, a Qingque fan, eh?” Topaz chuckles, still keeping your mouth muffled as she threw a sleazy grin at the cameras. “You sure you don’t want Qingque to be your sugar mommy instead?”

Topaz continues laughing to cover up your muffled talking before moving in to whisper in your ear. “Don’t throw a fuss. You know damn well we have to keep that part of our relationship a secret.” She chuckles, rubbing a comforting finger across your temple before turning back to the camera.

“Well, that’s all the thirst comments for me! We should move on to (Reader) now, hm?” She smirks and side glances at you like nothing was wrong. “Be a good girl now. Hurry up and finish filming so we can go home.”

Your eyes widened before nodding enthusiastically, eager to comply with Topaz’s requests to begin your round of thirst comments.

Who knows, maybe Topaz will get a little jealous her sugar baby is receiving all this attention…?

#kafka smut #kafka x reader #himeko smut #himeko x reader #serval smut #serval x reader #yukong smut #yukong x reader #celebrity au #hsr smut #hsr x reader #star rail smut #star rail x reader #star rail women x reader #star rail women smut

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cherryschaos · 4 months

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Inheritance games headcanons because I finished my finals

Thea pours milk into the bowl before cereal

The Brothers ways wanted a dog, but Tiramisu is the first because Tobias Hawthorne never let them

Pen whore Grayson will never admit that dollar store pens are some of his favorites @riddles-n-games

Nash has made appearances in soap operas as a heartbreaker with a heart of gold

Xander and Jameson are trying to find Atlantis

Alisa makes those how would you say ___ in legal speak videos

Max’s way of “cursing” is what everyone in Hawthorne House does now

Avery and Libby watch anime together

Grayson wants a relationship, he's just afraid of being open and vulnerable to someone only for his heart to be broken

Gigi volunteers at animal shelters so she can hang out with cats

Libby has given Grayson advice on the whole having younger sisters thing

Grayson changed Jameson’s ringtone to the “I'm just Ken” parody as a joke

Jameson has yet to retaliate

Avery is still going to major in actuarial science, because she likes it

Xander wants to sample every bakery in the world and compile a list of the best for each dessert

Max hosts a Star Wars podcast

Nash reads romance books

Libby can't read spice without blushing

Xander actually wrote “The Care and Feeding of Your Broody Twenty-Year-Old Brother” he recommends leaving a trail of pens or traffic cones leading to the desired destination

Nana insisted on giving Avery and Libby etiquette lessons (think the princess diaries movies)

#the inheritance games headcanon #jameson hawthorne and his traffic cones #grayson hawthorne needs all the hugs #grayson hawthorne #jameson hawthorne #xander hawthorne #nash hawthorne #the inheritance games #avery grambs #the hawthorne legacy #libby grambs #bookish #thea calligaris #the hawthorne brothers #jameson hawthorne head canon #xander hawthorne headcanon

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sleepykyupid · 1 month

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original callout post is by @menheratic !! if you want more info, please ask them. i am merely reuploading the original callout post of ezaki. please do check out the link of the jp community calling him out in 2019 ^^ https://togetter.com/li/1327770

! The following post talks about the various bad things that Menhera-chan's creator, Ezaki Bisuko, has done.

Here a japanese summary of all the shit he did so far, including but not limited to:

• registering Yamikawaii as trademark

• sending his fans after gyaru YouTuber Usatani to harass her into a suicide attempt over unknowingly buying a shirt with stolen PPG fanart he drew

• himself buying products with stolen art, even promoting their sales, because it’s totally ok when he does it

• the reason why Usatan’s original design was changed aka it was a ripoff of Cult Party’s iconic rabbit mascot that was designed by their artist Maromika-chan

• wrote a whole guide on how to legally get away with sex work as child

• proof of him tracing art for the more detailed MCH artworks

• how he attended the Menhera Exhibit only to smear misogynist bullshit with blood on maxipads

• complaining about how anime for little girls are evil feminist agenda TM because ain’t nobody need men to be saved anymore

• boasting about being a fashion designer only selecting the finest fabrics for his merch when it’s actually made by the japanese equivalent of Redbubble

• “parody” works featuring child characters like Chibi Maruko-chan prostituting themself, the message being all women are whores regardless of age for the right amount of money

• the small “terms and conditions” shield he has at his con booths where you agree that you need to buy anything you touch

• how he setup an earthquake victim fundraiser only to keep the money

• telling his english fans they are not allowed to use any of his art for private use, like as icon, unless they pay him

• how he wants to move to the US when he turns 30 because of all the evil haters TM in Japan

• copyright claiming everyone left and right

• japanese Menhera speaking out about he keeps hurting the community

In regards of the maxi pads:

TW, CW // nooses, misogynistic text in red on maxipads

Our favorite being the second row second one, “Abortion is murder”.

Some more recent event: When he started harassing and hating on disabled people after Tokyo Fashion translated a Tweet of his because being disabled is discriminating yourself.

It’s like a trainwreck that refuses to end, now with 100% more crypto on NFT while shitting on those who warn about the dangers.

His NFT sales can be found here: https://foundation.app/@bisuko_ezaki

For some reason, after 7 years, he also decided to re-release the infamous wrist-cut bracelet to sell at events. The leader of the Neo-Decora group bought one for example:

TW // Bracelet that imitates sh, includes blood

Also keeps doing collabs with “Tokyo Uragawa” under Yamiko so Seigi (Mental illness is justice), which focuses on self-harming girls as fetish objects.

TW, CW // drawn sh

Recently, he also wrote a long-article on his definition of Yamikawaii:

https://harajuku-pop.com/67775/

Still not sure where overseas people got “this is about mental health awareness” from, might be based on mistranslations because the word for mental health and illness is one in the same, and his definition is about glorifying mental illness. In fact, this is why he was banned from Tumblr because he kept posting other people’s self-harm photos to his aesthetic blog Menherabusu.

Next up: Made suicide baiting posts over his following decreasing in the hopes of getting attention, fans sent him photos of cute animals to cheer him up, and he decided to post about destroying the pictures.

Tbh, this list could go on forever as he does this kind of bs on an almost daily basis now, but apparently people don’t care enough to stop throwing money at him.

Meanwhile the Japanese community made a whole Wiki for tracking all of his drama considering how much it is by now.

https://ezabisumatome.wiki.fc2.com/

TW // mention of shotacon

Decided to nickname himself Shotabi, the name being a combination of Shotacon and Bisuko, while using nsfw anime edits of male child characters in sexual situations as decor for his selfies.

𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝:

Is it ok to still like Menhera-chan?

𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫:

Sure, the problem is really only Ezaki himself and his increasing problematic remarks fueled by his ego, the manga is a lot older than him being like that.

Fun fact: Ezaki actually hates Menhera-chan because it's the only thing he ever gets approached for by the media, he constantly rants about this on Twitter. If you have noticed, he barely makes new MCH content anymore (unless he gets paid for it) and mainly reposts old artworks and fanart (without permission) instead because it's the only way he can still get attention as his other works, like the misogynist Manapisu, which is just him hating on women as "dumb wh*res" as a manga, flopped badly.

Just try to not fund his bs by buying new goods.

#menhera #menhera chan #bisuko ezaki #archived #yamikawaii

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smallfrenchstudyblr · 7 months

Text

Justice as spectacle in Fontaine, or a too long word vomit from a tired PhD in Law gushing over Genshin 4.0

Alternative title: “Justice must be seen to be done”, a visual playbook by Genshin 4.0

Intro: This is a valid use of a PhD in law, actually.

I made the mistake of playing the 4.0 update of Genshin while I was finalizing my PhD in law and politics, and the result was my brain refuse to think about anything else than judicial performativity and the use judicial spectacle in Fontaine. So time to make good use of 9 years of University by dissecting why I absolutely love how Fontaine’s justice system is presented. It was initially much longer and covering why justice as a spectacle is not necessarily an issue or sign of a disfunctionning legal system, then what exactly about the Fontainian justice system is actually fucked up, but it got too long so I’m keeping that for the indeterminate future. So the pitch of this thing is: Mihoyo is basically providing us with an animated First Person POV game version of legal ethnographic works on justice and the courthouse, and it is really cool.

And since I am a nerd with both too much time to read and to play, we are making this a proper academic, with literature and all, because listen to me, LEGAL ACADEMICA IS COOL, ACTUALLY, and law and literature at large is a genuine field of study that we, as a society, need to talk about more.

[also there is non-zero chance that I edit this brainrot and submit it for publication at some point]

Warning: I am basing this on 4.0, up to and including Act IV Chapter II (hence no discussion of the prison system) and if Mihoyo thwarts the whole thing with 4.1 [oops I am late so now 4.2, since 4.1 did not thwart it] then let’s do what we do when new results contradict existing theories in academia and just collectively agree to ignore it.

TL;DR: Someone at Mihoyo read Simonett’s 1966 essay on The Trial as One of the Performing Arts [Here, just read it, it is fascinating] and decided to make it everyone’s problem

Part 0: if this was not Tumblr.com I would make a recap explaining broadly what Genshin and Fontaine are but since you are reading this I’m going to assume you already know the context.

Part 1: Ok so how does the Fontanian Justice system work, exactly?

Alright, so each area of Teyvat has 1) one core theme/value and 2)a threat to that core theme/value.

Mondstadt has Freedom and people living in fear of a dragon.

Liyue has Contracts/order and the pandemonium of having Rex Lapis killed.

Inazuma has Eternity and being virtually frozen in time.

Sumeru has Knowledge and being entirely manipulated by the Akademia.

Fontaine has Justice and… Justice being parodied into a spectacle?

WRONG.

Because the spectacle of justice, especially the way it is done in Fontaine, is not antithetic to Justice itself. Spectacle is part and parcel of Justice and of any courthouse. Sure, all the dials are turned to 11 and y’know, it is legit called an Opera, but that is more the writers being a bit on the nose and adding drama for the player. The spectacle of Justice, itself, is not that far off from reality. And, hot take but bear with me: it is not (necessarily) a problem.

Ok, let’s dive into what we know of the justice system in Fontaine.

Broadly speaking, we have seen the criminal justice system, and it is an accusatorial, or adversarial model. It’s the US-style criminal procedure: you have a defendant trying to prove that they didn’t do it your honor, and a prosecutor proving that they totally did it your honor. To avoid this becoming a fistfight, you have a strict procedure to follow outside but especially inside the Court, and in the end, a neutral third party decides on the outcome or the trial.

Ok, now let’s zoom on a few things, and why the theatrics of them are actually very common.

Furina, our cringefail darling, is the prosecutor. And they get a lot of stuff right regarding the role of the prosecutor! She decides whether or not to prosecute, based on the information that she has, and whether she likes her odds or not. Fittingly since she is the Archon, the prosecutor in a trial represents the State, the interest of the State (the judge ! does ! not!). It makes sense that Furina, the ruler (theoretically) would be prosecutor and not judge. Moreover, and as we see plenty of times during the trials, Prosecutor Furina is not concerned with the victim, and not even necessarily with the truth; the prosecutor wants to know how likely they are to obtain a conviction in the end. Her job is to be convincing enough to establish a legal truth.

Neuvillette, for his part, sometimes look terribly powerless… but friends, that is what a Judge sitting during a criminal case often is. The first part of his job is to find sufficient information for the prosecution to decide whether or not to prosecute; he is supposed to be entirely neutral at this stage. He kickstarted the investigation straight after the death of Cowell, and was also the one starting investigation on Vaughn right after Lyney is proved innocent. He gathers enough evidence, hands them over to Furina and asks “So? Are you game or do you want to leave that alone?”

And once the prosecutor has decided to move forward with prosecuting, his job is to make the procedure move along, take some decisions based on new information, ensure all respect the rules (hence Childe’s immediate smackdown when he starts to act out a bit too much at the end. My man is here to make sure the rules are enforced and that also applies to Snezhnayan gremlins). In the liminal space of the courthouse, he is the supreme authority… over the procedure. He can tell anyone, including Furina, to stfu k thx. He starts and stops the trial. He allows witnesses to be heard or not.

And the last party involved at this point is the defense, usually the Traveler and any adorable twink we befriended that day [good for you, Traveler, good for you]. They present evidence, they have to be convincing, it’s basically Ace Attorney, we know that part.

Part 2: Mihoyo makes it clear that we are all actors in the Courtroom

Ok, first moment of pause.

Even though these are the most basic parts of a criminal trial, they are ALREADY steeped in drama and theatrics, both IRL and in Fontaine.

First off, Furina plays a prosecutor, Neuvillette plays a judge and the Traveller plays the lawyer.

No but really: they play their role in the Courthouse.

The game painstakingly presents Furina for the first time not as a prosecutor in a courthouse but as a cringefail princess. When we see her initially welcoming the Traveller, going “Fight Me” at them in the streets of Fontaine, she is not a prosecutor, she is just Furina the cringefail princess. We meet Furina as Furina, and later on only, we see her with her Prosecutor face. Furina is not a prosecutor, outside of the Courthouse.

I don’t even have to explain how much Traveler plays lawyer. We are, and I cannot stress it enough, NOT lawyers (yes, even you who developed an unhealthy obsession with Ace Attorney before Genshin). The developers even took the time to develop an entire new gameplay to really, really highlight that is a behavior that the Traveler can only have in the Courthouse. Traveler is not a lawyer outside of the courthouse.

Neuvillette is a bit of a special case. We do meet him for the first time in the Courthouse, as a Judge. But once again, the moment we meet him outside of the courthouse, he is much more approachable, definitely not the same persona as when he bitchslapped my problematic Harbinger into the Meropides prison [we are so going to write something about the Meropides prison once I have played enough 4.1 my friends – update post 4.1: ok Mihoyo that was weak commentary on the privatization of prison and prison labour but I’ll take it]. Neuvillette is probably the one that is the most associated with his courthouse persona, but there is still this gap between Neuvillette-Judge and Neuvillette-reflecting-in-the-end-of-Chapter-II.

So everyone is just themselves in their daily life, but there is something about a Courthouse that turns people into their judicial role. That’s what we call the liminality of the courthouse (Hadar, 1999). And it exists IRL, in a way shockingly close to what we see in the Opera Epiclese.

Magistrates, whether prosecutors or judges, do not act in their own names, they have a role to play. Someone woke up that morning, had breakfast, swore at the neighbour who did not park properly again, spilled some coffee on their documents again ffs, stumbled a bit on the little steps leading to the courthouse, and then, they put on their costume and started to play the role of the judge. As someone who has been in what can only be referred to as “backstage” of a court , and entered the courthouse with the magistrates, I cannot stress enough how drastic the shift in person is the moment a magistrate steps into the space of the trial room.

From there on, they are a Role. Furina, like any prosecutor, is not a prosecutor, until they are The Prosecutor, and then they are not themselves anymore, in the enclosed space of the courthouse. Have you ever seen a lawyer talk in their daily life the way to talk in a courthouse? No. Someone is just some person, until their put on the robe and their Lawyer Face and start their Lawyer Movement and Lawyer Tone. Traveler cannot go all OBJECTION when they have a disagreement with a random shopkeeper in Teyvat. The game doesn’t even give you the option – because you are not lawyer, unless you are in the court. None actually plays a lawyer, unless they are in the courthouse.

And an adversarial model encourages this. You have character, but for it to be a play, or an opera, you need a narrative (murder, ok, that will kickstart a narrative) and you need dramatic tension. Drama is created by the opposition of two characters having opposite goals, confronting each other. Simonett, a former Minessotta Supreme Court Judge, has a fascinating article called “The Trial as One of the Performing Art”, which really ecapsulates how an adversarial system is built on this drama:

‘The trial has a protagonist, and antagnonist, a proscenium and an audience, a story to be told and a problem to be resolved, all usually in three acts”.

More than an inquisitory model (hello, fellow continental Europeans), parties are encouraged to bounce off each other, take initiative, undermine and interact with each other. US courthouse TV shows loooove that, and Genshin absolutely leaned into that. The potential for drama was so strong and intrinsic to the story that For the first time, we got to play a character that was not even with the traveler: Traveler was off investigating, and we played Navia in the courthouse, because the sheer drama of being in the courthouse is too good for the game to pass.

Do you see it yet? Here is more. A judicial role is a role. IRL, a lot of it is emphasized by the robes -the - sometimes complete with wigs and accessories- that judges and magistrates must wear before entering the space of the courthouse. You put them on like you put on a costume -defendant, prosecution, judge and even audience alike (Cabatingan, 2018), there is a ritual of preparing for the performance of a trial the way you prepare for a play. Genshin characters cannot change their clothes [give us a proper fancy-af-judge-robe for Neuvilette Mihoyo you COWARDS], so the game does all it can to realllllyy show you a separation between the judicial role and the actor playing I in the courthouse.

Part 3: Game designers said yes this an Opera and a Courthouse because these are the same thing and they are right

[The urge to include Foucault in this section, but I do not have Discipline and Punish with me rn, rip]

Ok, ok, why not. But what about the stuff that is not in your random courthouse, like a damn AUDIENCE and the fact that it takes place in an actual OPERA ?

Aight, we gotta dive a bit deeper into two things: the role of audience in the judicial spectacular, and studies on legal architecture/judicial space. I told you legal research was cool.

Let’s start with the most obvious one: architecture.

The architecture of Courthouse is actually really important for the delivery of justice. The building embodies the task itself, and targets evert single person that interacts with the building in any way? It matters specifically because we take it for granted, that this this is just a building, that there cannot be more to it. Or: “Law in its everydayness, banks on the usage of visual means of representation, for they seem to lack artifice, and thus enjoy high persuasiveness” (Kumar, 2017, also this is a study on the architecture of the Indian Supreme court and it is so good). But thi is, of course, on purpose.

My friends, your local courthouse looks like an opera. Recently, I went to a play which was entirely a trial, and they barely had to do anything to set-up the scene because… the opera looks like a courthouse, and vice versa. Fontaine’s Opera Epiclese is this on steroid, and also actually used for entertainment like the magic shows, but its architecture and structure are so close to a proper courthouse that once you see it you cannot unsee it. Not matter how different they might look from each other, all, ALL courtroom have the same setup:

Judges on an elevated position compared to all other parties : Neuvillette absolutely kills it here [my man is placed so high up I was close to writing something about the religiosity of justice.]

Prosecution and accused on two opposite sides, virtually separated by the judge, even putting the defendant in their own little liminal space in the liminal space (Zoettl, 2016, Mulcahy, 2007)

Audience space and trial space clearly separated, with interdiction for the audience to enter the trial space

Audience space allowing to clearly see all angles of the trial space

The architecture of courthouse is strikingly similar to that of an opera’s, both in its spatial organization and its grandiose. The entire building is an opera, not just the ground of the stage. You even have a lobby, the space right in the Opera but not the courtroom, which is very similar to the space where people mingle during the interlude at the Opera – the social settings were many legal negotiations happen (Hansen, 2008)

[Fun fact: I am pretty sure the design of the audience space of the Opera Epiclese was inspired by two Parisian Opera houses: the Théâtre de la Comédie Française et the Théâtre du Châtelet. The stage itself is almost more church-like ; I am curious if anyone knows what the inspiration for the “outside building” actually was, for the Opera Epiclese?]

Eltringham (2012) has some really cool writings about the architecture, and people interact with the structure of courts (in his case, the International Criminal for Rwanda) and how all these features contribute to making the courthouse this liminal space where people can play their role, whether they realise it or not.

But, Almost-doctor, I hear you say, what about the spectacle ?! The audience enjoying the show ?!

Ah, yes. The audience. Just as with an Opera, the audience and the actors enter through differentiated means (the “segregation of circulatory systems”), all with their own point of access to the stage or the seats, and never the two shall meet. It is so important to a court system that you will find this feature highlighted by the architects that renovated the Bordeaux Courthouse and the US courthouse design and planning guide [These are just fun and striking illustration I stumbled on while writing this, you can find dozens of others from any given country]. These differentiated access path help reinforce the liminality of the courthouse not just for the actors, but for us, the audience as well.

You could even agree, with Garapon, that the audience itself is “playing” the audience, in the Courthouse (go read Garapon’s 2004 book, if you read French, it’s so good I swear and like it fueled 90% of whatever this word vomit is)). You are not really yourself, you have new, liminal role of spectator. A trial has a “need for a public”, even a silent one. “'Performance always intends an audience”, for Kapferere. and we can indeed talk about a Performance of Justice, when talking about how justice unfolds in the courthouse, especially in a criminal trial (Sausdal and Lohne, 2021).

The audience is an inherent part of the spectacle of justice – because is there a spectacle if there I no audience? If comedians perform a play with no audience, did it really happen? In the words of our own European Court of Human Rights (I am quoting the ECtHR on Tumblr.com, what is life): “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done” (Delcourt v Belgium, 1970). For Garfinkel “Legal rituals ... depend on the outside witness to confer on them not only recognition but validity” (Garfinkel, 1956);

Or, to put it more eloquently: “The need for the presence of a validating public at trials is enshrined in many constitutions and built into the very fabric of court complexes throughout the world. (…) Tthe court as a whole requires its reflection in the bodies of validating witnesses in order that this created place will bring sufficient gravity to itself.” (Eltringham 2012).

If a courthouse was just about the truth, or the parties involved reaching an agreement on what the truth is, there would be no need for the theatrics. We could handle a trial in a meeting group like problem-solving session in any run-of-the-mill company. Put everyone around the table, have a moderator, have a decider. That actually exist, it’s called arbitration, and you may have never heard of it despite the absolutely enormous amount of money that are involved (we are talking literal Billions of dollars every year, here), because the whole point is that it is discrete and confidential. But that is not how trials are, anywhere. It does exist though. It is called private arbitration, a form of private justice that focuses on problem-solving, expediency and secrecy, often because my friends, it involves big names and big money.

But justice? My friend, it needs to be a spectacle. It needs an Opera. Because this is how it gains sociological legitimacy, and it needs sociological legitimacy to function. By having an audience, it gains transparency and accountability.

Conclusion: teaser on why the spectacle of justice is not necessarily always totally bad, but also I am too tired to fully argue that.

Now, you might that it’s a bad idea. That what Genshin is doing is denouncing this inherently spectacular aspect of Justice, that there is something inherently wrong in justice being public and publicized for the gain of legitimacy, and sure, spectacular justice can become a parody of justice or a manipulation of justice and this has happened many times in history. And yes, you could go for that (although show trials have typically been at the service of an authoritarian regime in a transition phase, rising or declining, and target political opponents, which we do not see in Fontaine) but… I have another take for you.

Justice being a spectacle is not… inherently bad.

Hear me out. Making justice into a spectacle does not have to affect its outcome. The presence of a public does not change the course of a play.

Spectacular justice brings elements of entertainment such as narrative fulfillment and catharsis. That is clearly what Fontainians want: a satisfying end to the story, the truth exposed. Justice as a spectacle help people make sense of their reality, comfort them in knowing that justice does prevail. That the guilty do not go scott-free, that the good guys win, that justice is transparent, that prosecutor need to be able to build a good story to prosecute, and there is no good story is there is not someone who caused harm, and a victim that deserves justice. And, from the information we have so far, this does not seem to lead to miscarriages of justices, or a generally biased justice system. But frankly this is too long already and I just wanted to show that the depiction of the Spectacular in everyday justice is actually present everywhere IRL, and Genshin is just providing a really handy illustration, at this point of the story.

The Fontanian system is fucked, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not about the spectacular on its own. Long story short since it be worth its own word-vomit-style essay, it’s because the jury has been replaced by ChatGPT and there is no civil court, only a criminal court, k bye.

#I have no idea what this is it just would not leave my brain until it was written #genshin impact #tagging genshin bc it is the most relevant #law and literature #Usual followers feel free to ignore #Genshin people: this is NOT my usual content #might fuck around and turn it into something publishable at some point #this is probably still full of typo but I am not proof reading a word vomit that goes on this hellsite

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mspaesthetic · 1 year

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speaking of flagrant disregard of stock image licenses, how close does homestuck skirt the boundaries of copyright law? was hussie really allowed to just go to google images, take some random image, and control C control V it into a panel?

I'm no counsel, so anything I say should not be taken as factual or legal advice, but from what I understand about U.S. copyright law, determining what constitutes as fair use is done on a case-by-case basis using four major factors:

1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2) the nature of the copyrighted work; 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Ultimately, it's up to the court to interpret and weigh these factors in their analysis of the new work, so while one case may be declared as fair use, a similar case could be found as infringement. To break down what each of these mean exactly, let's apply them to an example from the comic.

In the hypothetical case of Ornate Victorian Decorative Floral Pattern Artist v. Hussie, 612 U.S. 413 (2011), the plaintiff claimed the defendant infringed upon their work's copyright when the defendant incorporated an unpermitted use of said work into the defendant's own work, Homestuck, an on-line web comic.

The purpose and character was transformative, using the pattern as part of a backdrop in the story, and the more transformational the use is, the less importance is stressed on the other three factors. However, while the comic is made freely available to read on the Internet, Hussie profits off of the comic's ad revenue and sales of related merchandise, such as physical printed books of the comic, making it a technically commercial nature. This doesn't necessarily rule out the use as fair, but it weighs against it somewhat.

The nature of the copyrighted work, the original decorative pattern, has to be determined whether it actually falls under copyright or not. At present, it's impossible to ascertain if the pattern duly belongs to the author, or if it's merely a reproduction of a preexisting Victorian decoration. The concept of an ornamental Victorian era floral style isn't protected by copyright, but a particular rendition of one could be unless it has fallen under the public domain.

The third factor would seem to be counterproductive in defending against the claim, as Hussie markedly used the entire image to produce the repeating pattern, which is where it derives its entire value, at several points throughout the story, but this fact does not bar it to be found as fair use. It just makes it less likely. If the court found it to be sufficiently transformative enough, then this factor would not even weigh in as much.

Hussie's appropriation of the image definitely resulted in the loss of a license sale for the plaintiff (which could have prevented this mutually costly legal battle for both parties in the first place, but that's irrelevant), but the manner of how he used it definitely doesn't act as a substitute for the stock image. Any reasonable person looking to use a stock image of a pattern would likely prefer a higher quality, unmodified, and unwatermarked copy of the original, opting to purchase a license for it that guarantees some clearly defined legal rights. Regardless, the fact that it's licensed could weigh against Hussie's use.

If I was a powdered wig-wearing judge presiding at the trial, I would throw the book at Hussie and his lily white ass in the slammer. Whether this is how it would actually go down in court, I do not know. I'm also not sure of the more dubious inclusions of other copyrighted materials, like the countless movie posters plastering the walls of the characters, or straight up Iron Man and Johnny 5.

I guess the latter's case could fall under parody, since Hussie is at least stating that Johnny 5's sentience is fucking stupid. I still think he doesn't have much solid ground to stand on for everything else, though.

Then there's also the sticky issue of using celebrities' likenesses, as well as the photographer's copyright to those images.

Then you've got using trademarked brands.

In summary, Homestuck in particular is one big potentially misappropriated licensing powder keg waiting to explode (not really).

Oh, before I close out of this topic, there's actually one little curiosity I'd like to cover. On the MS Paint Adventures Wiki, two panels were uploaded on the very same day they were posted in an update that was soon after revised significantly:

It's clear that the changed panels are highly more transformative, the paintings having been flipped horizontally and drawn over. It strikes me as odd that out of all the times Hussie could have been cautious of copyright, the harlequin paintings was where he drew the line. It might not even have been a concern over copyright but a personal matter of aesthetics. If that was the case, it'd be weird to go to such extreme measures for an inconsequential thing. Unless someone can grab a hold of the big man himself and ask, I guess we'll never know the real reason why.

EDIT: I asked an old friend of mine, phantos, who's a veteran member of the MSPA Forums and former acquaintance of Hussie's if they knew anything about this, and they vaguely recall something about an artist not wanting their work to be used in this instance. They also went on to mention that after the incident "it wasn't until he stole the furry porn for Equius' room that [Hussie] even bothered to look for art for 'whimsical room decorations'", which I don't think is quite true since I can think of at least one instance where he did (the witch furry poster in Jade's bedroom), but I felt it was worth noting down.

#question #legal matters

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secretmellowblog · 1 year

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The wild thing about the Fantine/Tholomyes chapters is that —they’re sort of an allegory for the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy?

Fantine is the child of the French Revolution, born during the reign of the Directory. She doesn’t even have a legal name— she’s an “anonymous” Jane Doe stand-in for all the common people who were born during the Revolution and relying on it to improve their future.

Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can say? She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed.

Tholomyes, meanwhile, is compared to the restored monarchy. He’s described as the group’s leader,

one felt the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality; his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout rattan worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to everything

and is once described as speaking with

with the accent of a man who had recovered his empire….

I feel like Tholomyès’s descriptions might also echo contemporary parodies of Louis XVIII? He looks old/ugly but is dressed in clothes so lavish they make him appear ridiculous. In his incoherent speeches to the group, he encourages “moderation.” Being too moderate/not extreme enough was a common criticism of King Louis XVIII, who was too conservative to be supported by liberals/republicans but also wasn’t conservative enough to appease ultra-royalists.

Tholomyès is also a law student, and will later become a court Justice known for being “rigid”/severe— making him an active enforcer of the King’s laws.

Throughout the chapters the effects of the Bourbon restoration are even talked about explicitly in ways that parallel the description of the couples.

We get all these rosy descriptions of how the couples are In Love and everything is Wonderful and Nothing is Wrong and everyone is Happy and Everything is Fine… but there’s something wrong about it. Something feels off. The “love” feels hollow and fake, like a shallow facade. It feels like something bad is about to happen. Things are clearly not fine. And that feeling of wrongness only builds and becomes more obvious as the story continues.

Then, juxtaposed with the descriptions of the lovers, the story is interrupted by similarly rosy descriptions of the Restoration. The opening chapter (“the Year 1817”) lists all the things happening during the Restoration in the way Hugo later lists all the amusements the lovers entertain themselves with. Then we get a chapter interrupting the flow of the story to address the monarchy specifically. The chapter begins by saying Everything is fine. Everyone is happy. Everyone loves the monarchy. Nothing is wrong. Everything is perfect under the Bourbons. Parisians don’t want to rebel anymore, they just want to laze around amusing themselves like bored cats.

Everything was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist security; it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief of Police Anglès to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of Paris, terminated with these lines:—

“Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble.”

But Hugo can’t keep that pretense up for long and it becomes a tirade about how Things Are Not Fine, lots of people hate the Bourbons, and people will be rioting in the streets soon.

Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised by Count Anglès possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to the Minerva Aptera of the Piræus, there stood on the public square in Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too “rose-colored” a light; it is not so much of “an amiable rabble” as it is thought. The Parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek: no one sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not be trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but when there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in every sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of August; give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon’s stay and Danton’s resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a question of liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled with wrath, is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys. Take care! he will make of the first Rue Grenétat which comes to hand Caudine Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be terrible, and his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the Alps. It is, thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the Revolution, mixed with arms, conquers Europe. He sings; it is his delight. Proportion his song to his nature, and you will see! As long as he has for refrain nothing but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world.

It’s clear from the beginning that Tholomyes will betray and abandon Fantine, in the same way the return of the monarchy betrayed and abandoned the poor and vulnerable people who were born into the world of the Revolution.

#Les mis #Les mis letters #Fantine #Tholomyes #lm 1.3.7

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inferno-mp3 · 1 year

Text

FUN LITTLE VISUAL DETAILS IN PROMARE - PART 1

...Brought to you by a guy who has rewatched this movie well over 40 times. My insanity for this film is boundless. Here are just some fun little stuff I noticed in Promare. (Most of the stuff I say here are just my own observations so take it all with a grain of salt)

Varys likes basketball! It's easy to miss, but at the start he is shooting a basketball into a hoop

And his locker also has some basketball jerseys inside of it (and what looks like deodorant?)

Speaking of lockers, each member of Burning Rescue has special details on their lockers!

Starting off with the outside, from right to left we have: Varys, Aina, Lucia, Remi, and then Galo (Galo's is not visible in this shot.) All of them have traces of stickers that have been peeled off.

Varys' has a hart hat and some decals, seemingly more basketball-related things. One right to the left of the hard hat has a paw print on it.

Aina's locker has a baseball cap, some rainbow/emoji stickers (one that looks like it just says Inter Net? And maybe a Barbie one?) along with some motivational sticky notes (You are STRONG) and two 'A's. Probably her initials.

Lucia's locker has the most stickers, and to me, it looks like they're mostly of different candy/candy brands. Other than the T and the "ATATA" they just look like candy stuff. She doesn't have any hat hanging there (it would probably be difficult to wear a normal hat with her hair)

(Edit: To quote a-blue-revolution, "Lucia likes videogames!!!! In that close up of the lockers you showed there's an "atata" sticker that looks EXACTLY like the atari logo" There are also some other stuff that show her video game nerdiness. Thank you a-blue-revolution!!)

Remi's locker is just a hard hat and some papers. One's on white paper, and to me it seems printed, like a legal document or something. The other is on yellow paper, and to me looks more handwritten. Who knows what these are.

Here is the outside of Galo's locker. It looks like it has Matoi decals, to the surprise of no one. Some simple characters, the side of a firefighter holding a Matoi, and the tip of a Matoi at the very top. (I'm not completely sure what the dark blue decal in the lower middle is, perhaps a firefighting outfit?)

(Edit: To quote burnt-grapes from the comments: "That dark-blue sticker in the middle of Galo’s locker is actually a Bonshō! They’re large bells used in buddhist in Japan that are typically made of bronze :] (hence the sticker’s colour)" Thank you burnt-grapes!!)

Now for the insides of everybody's lockers:

(I already showed Varys' but here it is again for reference, his hand is blocking a picture of someone playing basketball (you can see it in the next picture))

Aina has some, I think, fashion stickers? There's a figure with a hat in the top left corner, and some sort of ticket or check with what I think is a barcode on the left. To the top right of the mirror, she has a picture of her and her sister (aww). She also has a geometric poster for "Division", and another poster behind that one. My gut is saying a band of some kind?

To match the outside, Lucia's locker is filled to the BRIM with snacks, featuring some great brands such as "Cheetas," "Daritas," "Skettles," "W&W," and what I think is just straight up Milky Ways? And right where her hand is reaching one that says "Trigger." My gut reaction was that it was supposed to be a parody of "Toblerone," but the letters are brown, so it might just be a normal easter egg. She also has some books and red solo cups.

Boring documents on the outside, pinups on the inside. Interesting. Remi also has a picture of him next to a blonde-haired someone, also in a Burning Rescue uniform. (I've heard that that's his girlfriend who got turned into a crocodile, but don't quote me on that) He also has some red solo cups.

(We don't see the inside of Galo's locker, but I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it's probably more Matoi memorabilia)

Speaking of Matoi, when Lucia is working on her computer at the start of the movie, we can see she's looking at Galo's Matoi Tech suit! His Matoi/the folded up version of the suit is on the right, and how he actually fits into the suit is in the middle. (You can see the spikes on the back, identifying it as his special suit)

The computer actually shows all the suits customized for their owner's body types and the suits themselves. Right before Lucia sends out Remi and Varys, the computer shows this:

You can see, Remi's figure is very thin and lanky, and Varys can barely fit in his. Remi's ice canon is contained in his suit attachment, and Vary's is mostly just the arms, with the claw he uses to pry open the door to the scientists.

As Burning Rescue is leaving, a tiny car accompanies them. (if you look closely, you can also count the pixels in that image)

This is Ignis' car, the one he drives throughout the movie. You can see him getting out of it here:

(and a better picture of the car itself)

It seems to have a spoiler on the back. A pretty flashy car overall.

Most people know about this hidden Galo:

But there's actually a second one! As Lucia is fistbumping Varys and Remi, you can see him sulking, partially hidden by the light.

Poor guy. He wants to go so bad.

Aina has a headset with a mouthpiece, which no other characters seem to.

My guess is it's due to the helicopter. It could muffle the sound, and make it so that she can still talk whether she's inside or outside. Or it might be something to do with proximity, since Varys and Remi are both in their suits, and Lucia can have higher quality communication gear in the van that might not be available for Aina's helicopter.

(You can see Lucia and Varys don't have any)

This might just be reading too deeply into it, but right at the beginning, Vary's is launched out of a canon. Perhaps this is foreshadowing halfway through the movie when Lio gets launched?

This also shows the "shape symbolism," which is perhaps the coolest visual detail of all. According to the Wiki, squares are used to represent Promepolis, the city, Kray, Freeze Force, that general sphere. Triangles are used to represent the Burnish. And circles symbolize the freedom/the future. Once you notice that it's EVERYWHERE. The lens flares, the buildings, the clothing of characters, everywhere. And even on the canons here, you can see that Varys gets launched out of a square one, and Lio gets launched out of a triangle.

Goofy little detail is Lucia uses a joystick in the van, oddly enough. While holding it, she twiddles her fingers as if she's typing on a keyboard. Either there are sensory inputs on the ball of the joystick itself, or she's just excited.

(Here, while complaining about Galo being missing, she uses a genuine game controller to move a robot's hand. She likes video games)

Part 2

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magicalgirlagency · 1 month

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We already know how you feel about That Anime, but even you cannot deny its potential. I remember you mentioning some positives about it before...

Yep! While I won't hesitate ripping it to shreds, I also won't deny that there are indeed some cool tropes in it.

First, the plot itself is told from the villains' perspective, which it's quite fresh for the Magical Girl genre! I'm open to these types of parodies where the villain does regular stuff and interacts with the heroes normally outside of action with the occasional and hilarious awkwardness, too. That's why I love Machikado Mazoku and Mr. Villain's Day Off so much.

The heroine Utena is PAINFULLY relatable and self-aware, which it's yet another rare/underutilized character trope in the genre, too. When Venalita read their observation notes on the first episode, I felt like I was being put on blast. Not to mention how I find myself quoting "Why is this happening to me? I like Magical Girls..." every single time an inconvenience happens to me.

I also like how Venalita at least commits to their role as a bad guy. They actually stalk the heroine, manipulate her with a sad story, and threaten to reveal her alter-ego to the world if they refuse to cooperate. Unlike Kyuubey, who just straight up lies/omits to the girls that they recruit, and by the time when they discover the horrible truth, it's already too late (not to mention the overused and shitty "because you didn't asked." excuse).

Kiwi's character is also great, because she's not a villain because she went through some traumatizing sob story that's bordeline manipulative to the audience; she's a villain because she's tired of the Magical Girls stealing her spotlight as the cutest girl. She's not only petty, but also a highly destructive bitch.

And speaking of destructive bitches, Kaoruko/Sulfur is my fave of the Tres Magia. Usually the yellow-coded heroine either plays the role of the soft-spoken and responsible onee-san/senpai or the charismatic and eager Genki Girl; but Kaoruko is just so delightfully unconventional. She beat the shit out of a minion even before she joined the team, she's confrontational and swears regularly, she's got bitchin' gauntlets. She doesn't fit pre-determined molds, and I adore her.

I also like how the fighting sequences are genuinely intense. You usually don't see such high-octane fights outside of PreCure, so this wild change of pace is really cool. There are injuries, different power-ups/forms, creative usage of powers... if I didn't knew any better, I'd say there's some Shonen inspo involved.

But of course, all of that cool stuff I just mentioned is ruined by the constant illegal lewdness that drives the plot forward. I'd like to reiterate that I am not against kinks whatsoever (I'm a adult, miss me with that puritanical bullshit), but if you're gonna make lesbian porn, at least certify that your ladies are of legal age, or else it's a crime.

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bunnieswithknives · 1 year

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I really like how this au is a completely different type of horror compared to the surrealist style of the original. That whole "reanimator" parody just speaks truth on what this is: a 80s Slasher film. David's a fucking slasher villian unironically and I'm all for it. unrelated: Is the magic just "dark" magic or is there anything less...fucked up.

Thank you!! Technically the magic itself is just normal magic, what makes it dark magic is that he's using his own blood to do it. There are safer ways to do it, he just doesn't have access to them because he legally shouldn't be performing magic at all.

#Magic is pretty heavily restricted in most places so its difficult to do safely #two of us AU #two of us!David

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nomadicism · 1 year

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Any more thoughts about the whole Twitter situation? What do you think will happen to that site over the next while?

Hi Anon, thank you for the Ask!

By the gods, what to even say now?

I wish that I had the wit to voice my thoughts with brevity and good humor. The Twitter Musk situation is hilarious-but-also-serious, and alas, I am verbose in my thoughts and not very funny.

I'm not sure that Twitter will survive, if I have time I'll post more deeply on what I think will happen with that.

I don't follow much outside of USA Twitter, so I can see all of this going in a lot of directions, such as the platform being irrelevant in the US, while remaining utilized outside of the USA.

We can still use Twitter and curate our experience by muting every slur that ever existed while using mega block on shitty tweets to expand our block lists, but that's not gonna change the fact if Twitter survives—without Furry Musk-gland backtracking on moderation—then the winners will be authoritarian regimes and con artists. Both rely upon sowing disinformation, distrust, propaganda, and conspiracies.

There are many choice threads on Twitter that reveal the convergence of serious issues, and I don’t even know where to begin summarizing them all. I’ve included a list of URLs to a variety of threads that might be of interest. What's happening here is not a simple thing, it's bigger than one spoiled mediocre man's ego.

Content is king, and Black people did a lot of labor in creating the kind of content that draws users to Twitter. Michael Harriot of The Grio has some words.

Hark! A graph showing Mastodon new user sign up spikes plotted against new user sign-ups on Twitter

A kind and thoughtful thread by Gerard K Cohen about his team members. Their entire team (Accessibility Experience Team) was among the mass firings at Twitter last week.

Of which, the unsurprising firing of thousands of employees (not all of them whom are software engineers) potentially poses as serious legal issue for Twitter due to California’s WARN law.

Also in Ireland (though small potatoes I suppose).

Apartheid Clyde (thank you Black Twitter for this most excellent name for Elon Musk) tries to blame advertisers bailing on the platform on activists. Gets called out by the president and Chief Operating Officer of MMA Global (a multi-national marketing trade association) whom he had just had a call with.

On the value of experts discussing in an open public forum

Concerns from a Chinese dissident

Discount Stark is fact-checked on his lie about advertising

Profoundly bad business decisions. There is no 5D chess here folks. There may well be a case for Tesla stock-holders to sue for breach of fiduciary responsibility.

Being an asshole to everyone and then firing the security team (who were already pissed at you very likely) as you’re rolling out a feature that requires both financial and personal data to be transmitted and stored is beyond foolish.

Ohhhh, hmmm about those critical employees…

Some of the fired employees are here on work visas

Potentially disruptive for upcoming elections in the USA.

Listen, I work in tech. I co-founded a startup back in 2013. No job is worth a 9:30pm stand-up while your colleagues are being fired by a useless billionaire.

Does Twitter really matter though?

Learn to host your own content.

Make a list of your fave Twitter artists, authors, etc.

When parody is only comedy if it comes with a disclaimer

Comedy as a venn diagram

Use lists to get around shadow banning of un-verified accounts

Paying for verification reduces identity to a trademark. The average person does not have the resources to continuously litigate their identity, such people who are recognized experts in their field, journalists, government officials, etc will be the ones impersonated.

A must-read thread about Twitter and counter-convergence (spoiler, Harry Potter was a counter-convergence)

Faith and trust rely on knowing that people are who they claim to be when they speak on subjects with authority and expertise. Undercutting the ability of such people to verify themselves is a form of discrediting, and when that happens systematically to scientists, educators, and public servants, then we have fascist propaganda tactics on our hands.

I hope you find these useful Anon!

(Y'all give me some reblogs because I'm not sure if this post will show up organically since it has links in it.)

#twitter #blue checkmark #verification #apartheid clyde #furry musk gland takeover #ask me anything #anonymous

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mariacallous · 2 years

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In recent weeks, as the defamation trial brought by Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard has continued to overshadow nearly all other news stories and dominate the main social-media platforms, I’ve noticed that the normal people in my life—the ones who have not had the Law&Crime Network live stream of the proceedings running on their laptops since it began, in April—are often under the impression that the case is impenetrably complex. They aren’t entirely wrong: Depp-Heard 2022, playing at least through the end of this week in Fairfax, Virginia, is the sludge pit of an outlandishly toxic relationship. But so much of the online chatter about the trial is noise rather than signal; it has obscured how simple the core matter is, and how that simplicity makes the case all the more bizarre and tragic.

Depp’s fifty-million-dollar defamation claim against Heard rests on the first part of one sentence, which she published in an op-ed in the Washington Post in December, 2018: “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” It is incontestable that, two years earlier, Heard did indeed appear on the cover of People magazine with apparent facial injuries and that, around the same time, she obtained a temporary restraining order alleging domestic violence against her husband; she was photographed leaving the courthouse with what looked like a bruise on her cheek. She also has a trove of text messages, witness statements, and photos of injuries—which, she says, corroborate her allegations of abuse. The careful legal vetting of her Post op-ed may be evident in the wording: Heard calls herself a “public figure representing” abuse, not a victim or survivor of it; she does not name Depp, nor does she specify a type of abuse. (Depp has denied ever hitting or assaulting Heard; she is countersuing him for a hundred million dollars.)

As for whether Heard has “felt the full force of our culture’s wrath,” a quick glance at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms, where she is cast as the Medusa of Sunset Boulevard, may settle the question. The precise demographics of the pro-Depp coalition are diverse, if uncertain in their exact proportions: bots, shitposters, men’s-rights activists, women who were in middle school when “Edward Scissorhands” came out. According to Wired, the hashtag #JusticeforJohnnyDepp has surpassed ten billion views on TikTok. Parody videos of Heard’s emotional testimony are already a TikTok cliché. The conservative site the Daily Wire spent tens of thousands of dollars to promote mainly anti-Heard content on Facebook and Instagram about the trial, per a story in Vice World News. (The Daily Wire has not commented on the story.) NBC News has reported on the YouTube creators who pivoted to anti-Heard videos when they realized how much users and the algorithm liked them.

But that half-sentence in the Post—that’s the whole case. That’s fifty million dollars. Depp lost a 2020 defamation lawsuit against a British tabloid, the Sun, which was far more brazen in its language—it called Depp a “wife beater”—and, despite the United Kingdom’s strict libel laws and a reversed burden of proof, the High Court in London found the vast majority of Heard’s claims to be “substantially true.” And yet, earlier this month, the presiding judge in the Virginia case, Penney Azcarate, rejected Heard’s motion to dismiss. Azcarate cited “evidence that jurors could weigh that the statements were about the plaintiff, that the statements were published and that the statement was false, and that the defendant made the statement knowing it to be false or that the defendant made it so recklessly as to amount to willful disregard for the truth.”

The evidence that jurors must weigh varies widely in its apparent relevance to Depp’s defamation claim. Just today, the jury and viewers at home were treated to closeup views of Depp’s bloody finger stump, injured in a domestic fracas in Australia. Earlier in the trial, we saw images of the deranged, slut-shaming messages that Depp scrawled in paint or blood using the selfsame freshly injured stump. There are also Depp’s texts sent before he married Heard—in which he calls her a “worthless hooker,” jokes about how he’ll “smack the ugly cunt around,” and, at one point, shares a brainstorm with the actor Paul Bettany: “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.” There’s footage of Depp trashing a kitchen and audio recordings of him telling Heard, “Shut the fuck up. . . . Don’t fucking pretend to be authoritative with me. You don’t exist.” Depp, to review, is the plaintiff in the defamation trial, and the one whom most of social media is rooting for.

It should be acknowledged that Heard, at times, has made questionable statements about her relationship with Depp and its aftermath. Both Depp’s legal team and the #JusticeforJohnny and #AmberTurd armies on social media have focussed on flawlessly gorgeous photographs taken of Heard after alleged severe beatings and, especially, on her claim that she appeared on James Corden’s late-night talk show with “two black eyes” and a nose that she suspected was broken. On the other hand, two pieces of evidence that her detractors hold up to allege that it was Heard, in fact, who was abusive—an audio recording in which she admits to hitting him and another in which she mocks any claim he might make of being a victim of domestic violence—both sound uncannily like fragments from a DARVO scenario, in which an abuser denies what he is doing at the same time that he deflects and projects his behavior onto the person he is abusing.

You don’t have to trust Amber Heard to look at twelve words in a newspaper column and wonder why they serve as an invitation to listen to her sobbing incoherently in an ugly argument with her unmoved spouse, or to read texts in which Depp calls her a “gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market.” You don’t have to like Heard to sympathize with her when one of Depp’s lawyers, Camille Vasquez, who cross-examines all of the defense witnesses in a tone of incredulous contempt, repeatedly confirms with her that she did not seek medical attention after some alleged incidents of violence; or, on redirect, when Heard’s flustered lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, is unable to formulate questions that would permit Heard to defend herself. (Vasquez has taken fearsome advantage of what appears to be Azcarate’s unusually rigid application of hearsay.) You don’t have to believe everything Heard says to be startled when a Law&Crime guest, the defense attorney Lara Yeretsian, wonders aloud, after hours of Heard’s testimony, why she stayed with her alleged abuser—a question so exhaustively asked and answered over decades of work by domestic-violence advocates that it inspired an activists’ hashtag eight years ago. “It’s a question that I’m sure a lot of people are asking today,” Yeretsian said.

The longer the trial slogs on, and the more that various third parties profit from it, the more difficult it is to fathom Depp’s motivations for instigating it. He and his supporters say he filed the suit to clear his name, but it has put more terrible behavior of his on the record than any scrubbed and ghostwritten op-ed could do. In fact, if you spend enough time inhaling the sulfurous fumes of the Depp-Heard live stream, what it starts to resemble most is a high-budget, general-admission form of revenge porn, an act in which the person with the upper hand in a relationship forces the other to be complicit in the sharing and dissemination of raw, vulnerable, literally sensational moments for the delectation of an unseen audience. One of the hallmarks of revenge porn is the way it freezes its victim in time, a plight that Heard summoned at the end of her direct examination. “I want to move on with my life,” she said. “I want to move on, I want to move on, I want Johnny to move on, too. I want him to leave me alone.” But the consequences of his legal action against her will never leave her alone. This is who she is now—the victim of an unprecedented Internet pile-on, a bruised face on an iPhone, a woman who makes people laugh when she cries.

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