People keep insulting the Amazon Lord of the Rings show by comparing it to fanfiction when really it's the EXACT opposite of fanfiction! It's so interesting/awful because it's like the ultimate ANTI-fanfiction! I was talking to someone the other day and wasn't aware that lots of people don't know about the insane complicated rights issues happening behind the scenes of the Amazon Show but it's wild. To give a quick summary of the Battle of the Five Rights Issues, as I currently understand it: 1. Amazon only has the rights to make a show about the pre-LOTR era as described in the Lord of the Rings books-- primarily in the appendices of Return the King, where a handful of pages give a brief timeline of some events that happened before the stories. In practice this means they are unable to use nearly all of the characters, places, and events people are familiar with when they think about Middle Earth. They have to make up everything out of whole cloth-- from characters to events to settings. This is either because of timeline reasons or for legal reasons or for both. Whenever they do manage to scrounge up the rights to something you might even vaguely remember (like Mithril) they announce it with enormous fanfare like they're a marvel movie introducing an avenger.

(Parenthetical: Another weird thing I noticed is that the series features practically zero quotes from Tolkien. I only counted about like 4 lines that were edited versions of lines from the books? While this is just a wild tinfoil hat theory, It does feel to me like there might've been some kind of limitation on the amount of Tolkien's words they were allowed to use, as well as the obvious limitations on characters and plot points and etc. The show has the rights to so few things and always REALLY wants you to know when it has the rights to something. It's desperate to remind you of the original books. You would think that, when it's unable to rely on familiar characters or places or events or plot points or music or etc, they would rely instead on Tolkien's really recognizable prose/poetry/language to form an emotional connection to the original stories. After all, language is the heart of Middle Earth, the author's love of language is the reason the world was created, and the unique prose of the story is kinda the soul of why it's memorable. And again, they theoretically have the rights to everything mentioned in the original trilogy right? Theoretically? So it's really odd that they don't use almost any of the language, unlike basically every other adaptation. It might just be a weird writing decision, but it's so strange that it really makes me feel like they were limited or at least dissuaded from including lines from the books.)

2. Amazon is legally Not Allowed to feature things that were mentioned in the Unfinished Tales or the Silmarillion, despite the fact that those are the books that contain most of the stuff about the era they're theoretically adapting. This leads to a bunch of really weird stuff where they introduce things you'd only care about if you read the Silmarillion, but can't include any of the things that would actually make you care about it. Like people who Aren't deep into the lore have literally zero emotional investment in Celebrimbor, but people who ARE deep into the lore know that you can't reference any of the reasons they care about it. 3. Amazon's series is NOT part of the same canon as the Peter Jackson/New Line Cinema films. They're not. However they obviously want to trick people into thinking they are because those movies are popular and a prequel to them would make money even if it sucked (see the Hobbit films.) But again, New Line Cinema still wants to make its own LOTR content based on the slivers of rights they've managed to grab onto, and don't want Amazon to step on their toes. So IIRC Amazon actually made a deal with New Line Cinema that they were allowed to imitate their movie franchise's aesthetic (to keep the brand popular and in the public eye)........ BUT if New Line Cinema ever felt like Amazon was infringing too much on their territory, they could step in and stop it. So the show just sorta looks and sounds like a bland knockoff of the New Line films, because that's all they're legally allowed to be XD. Like they're supposed to look/sound just enough like them to trick you, but they're not legally allowed to include the specific things from the PJ films that would actually make you feel nostalgic for them (like the famous musical leitmotifs.) 4. Part of the deal was that the Tolkien Estate could step in and change anything in the show if they felt it wasn't true to the lore-- which is ridiculous because again, Amazon basically doesn't own the rights to any of the lore so they're just making stuff up anyway. From what I can tell it seems like this basically means the Tolkien Estate can arbitrarily veto any creative decisions based on whatever they've decided “Tolkien would've wanted,” which obviously limits what Amazon is able to do (and likely prevents them from actually criticizing the awful problematic elements of Tolkien's worldbuilding)

5. Ok I don't have a fifth one. SO BASICALLY: Yes, the Amazon series is about a bunch of original characters in almost completely original settings featuring original events and original plot points that (for the most part) doesn't even include any of Tolkien's actual words, and also isn't affiliated with and doesn't include the recognizable things like musical motifs from the New Line Cinema films. But that doesn't make it fanfic. Because fanfiction is when you take another's person's characters and stories and write your own weird personal take on them, even if you don't legally own it. Who legally owns the copyright is irrelevant in fanfiction. Fanfic it's about writing a story with the characters and world you love, about transforming a story you're passionate about even if you don't legally own the rights. Amazon Rings of Power is what happens when an entire show is completely written around what you legally own the rights to. Every aspect of it only exists as an elaborate tap dance around copyright infringement. Again, I think the Amazon series is more interesting as "a study of how corporations/megafranchises can do massive harm and also weaken our ability to create good art" than it is as a tv show, alskdjfsdlf.

If fanfiction is "writing something you love regardless of whether you own the rights" then Rings of Power is "writing whatever fits within the extremely narrow box of the rights you happen to own." And that makes it....a very strange thing to exist! It’s kinda a shining example of how giant media monopolies and copyright laws designed to benefit them end up hamstringing everyone’s ability to create meaningful art, even the corporations themselves.

Thomas and Alito: The Anti-Gorsuchs on Tribal Rights

In the wake of today’s blockbuster decision in Haaland v. Brackeen (upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act against constitutional challenge), and somewhat-less blockbuster decision in Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin (holding that tribal sovereign immunity is abrogated by the bankruptcy code), Josh Blackman observes that Justice Gorsuch appears to have ruled in favor of tribal parties in every case he’s heard while on the Supreme Court. There’s one case on that list that is arguably a bit dicey – Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of Chehalis Reservation – but by and large Justice Gorsuch’s strong affinity for Indian tribes and tribal rights is very well-known.

Blackman thus asks whether Gorsuch has “ever written an opinion that ruled against an Indian Tribe or Member?” It’s an interesting question. But reading Blackman’s list, I noticed that in every case where Gorsuch ruled in favor of tribes, Justices Alito and Thomas were on the opposing side. He even recognizes that Gorsuch “is consistently on the other side of Justices Thomas and Alito” on these issues. Gorsuch has never written a unanimous opinion on a tribal rights question because in every case (at least) Thomas and Alito have voted against the tribes. Just as Gorsuch has apparently always voted on the side of tribal interests, it appears that, at least during Justice Gorsuch’s tenure on the Court, Thomas and Alito have never voted in favor of tribal interests.

This is a striking streak – maybe even more so than Gorsuch’s 1.000 batting average. Obviously, Alito and Thomas don’t have any general negative view towards Gorsuch’s jurisprudential outlook – they’re aligned most of the time. And, whether you agree with Gorsuch or not, it’s hard to gainsay that he is the foremost subject-matter expert on Indian law on the Supreme Court. So it’s surprising that Alito and Thomas have never been willing to sign on to one of his opinions. When I was on the Eighth Circuit, my Judge (the late Diana E. Murphy) was generally recognized as one of the court’s Indian law specialists, and so would typically get some amount of deference from her fellow judges on those questions – not always, and not blindly, but it was there. Yet despite general ideological concurrence, and despite specific reasons to know that Gorsuch is the Supreme Court’s Indian law specialist, Alito and Thomas have nonetheless been as implacable foes of tribal rights as Gorsuch has been a friend.

So again, asking whether Gorsuch has “ever written an opinion that ruled against an Indian Tribe or Member” is an interesting question. But still, I think there’s also a corollary question to Blackman’s. “When is the last time (if ever?) that Alito or Thomas have written an opinion ruling for an Indian Tribe or Member?” Thomas and Alito have been on the Court longer than Gorsuch has, so their record stretches back further than his tenure. But if we wonder as to why Gorsuch is so friendly to tribes and tribal interests, we perhaps should be equally curious as to why Thomas and Alito are so hostile to them.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/yzYjcnP

So like, the Reddit strike going on right now, yeah? I've been seeing a lot of people comment on how they appreciate the protest and then go on to say that this has the notable downside of them constantly looking up questions and not being able to easily find the answers because all of the easily-findable answers are exclusively on Reddit. I am not sure if most of the people making this observation are within the line of thought of "man, maybe this protest isn't such a good idea after all" or "man, it really sucks that we've let the internet get so consolidated," and I'm really hoping its the latter.

Like, all of this? This right here? Reddit making a shitty, anti-consumer grab for money and control over how people are allowed to access the information on their servers, and the website going dark in protest causing tons of people to not be able to access important information? This is exactly what people mean when they say that it's bad that the internet has shrunk down so much and is mostly comprised of, like, 10 websites. It's a fucking problem that one company making one bad decision and causing their website to crash and burn can jeopardize so much of humanity's cumulative information.

This two-day glimpse into the internet without Reddit is the warning shot. Imagine what will happen if Reddit actually goes down for good for one reason or another one day. Imagine what will happen if/when Discord or Fandom bites the dust, or gets rendered practically-unusable without paying an ever-increasing premium because they're owned by blood-sucking corporate leeches.

Another big thing is Twitter clamping down really hard on your ability to DM people if you don't have Twitter Blue. If this goes through, it'll put a ton of artists and sex workers who rely on Twitter DMs for their business operation into a shitty situation. Now, obviously, it's not gonna be the end of the world for them, but once again, it feels like a warning shot to me. Twitter is a sinking ship, and unless something changes and it starts to course-correct, I worry that it'll go under and all of the creators who rely on it will suddenly be in an extremely precarious situation.

These are the sorts of things that we, as the users of the internet, need to seriously think about as time goes on, and if we don't find an adequate answer sooner, we're going to pay for it later. I still hold that the best solution is to start making and using more individual, niche websites. Things like Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. have their place, of course, but I seriously think a lot was lost through the death of things like individual forums and the existence of many different wiki-hosting sites.

We need a concerted effort, not just on the side of larger creators, but on the users themselves, to stop exclusively using these larger websites and support the creation and growth of smaller, more niche websites, and prevent a catastrophe before it actually happens. I simply hope that people with larger platforms than my own pick up on all this and start talking about it and swaying people to act sooner rather than later. I know it's possible to correct the problem of the mysteriously tiny internet before a modern Library of Alexandria moment happens, I just don't know if that correction will actually happen in time.

This cannot come soon enough.

mutual enrichment

I feel at home already

@roadwrkahead

keep seeing Temu ads on here so just to share cause idk if people are widely aware

I had this work friend at my previous job who was gay. Lovely kid, from a kind of traditional family.

He hadn't told anyone he was gay, because he was scared of being judged. But... thanks to the resident lesbian, he was outed to everyone without his knowledge because she clocked him and asked everyone about it while he was off work.

Everyone then put the clues they'd noticed on their own together rather than what they were doing beforehand, that being remaining blissfully and politely unaware of how his variety of behaviours linked back to him being gay.

Had I already clocked him? Absolutely. But I should not have been told about him, before he chose to come out to me.

This pride month, remember that even in the most accepting of environments, even if you personally feel comfortable being out where you are, that doesnt mean someone else around you is too. Do not assume that someone is comfortable with everyone knowing, or that everyone knows.

Because we might not have known. That person might not have told us yet. We might have been politely ignoring the signs because we didn't want to assume.

It's not your place to tell everyone someone else's business.

2003: It sounds incredible, but in the future whole webpages full of images and videos will load in the blink of an eye.

2023: It sounds incredible, but text-only news articles used to load in the blink of an eye.

A 2017 classic updated for the new game.

1. So the idea that Christianity is the fulfillment of what the Jewish faith was is actually also written into the Jewish Torah as as well. Modern Jews simply believe the messiah hasn’t arrived yet while Christians do. So from the Christian theological standpoint yes we have super-ceded the previous faith of the Jews/Hebrews; unfortunately this isn’t something we can just ignore as it’s a foundational concept to the faith. I don’t think this is antisemitic.

As for Judaism being just a less evolved version of Christianity I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone talk about it like that. Most educated Christians will agree that it’s basically a split-schism situation. To say nothing of the fact that modern Judaism has shifted so much from the Judaism of Jesus’ time that you can’t really say it hasn’t evolved at all.

2. This is… also a foundational belief in Christianity. This is one of the few all the the denominations agree on. That you can only reach the Kingdom of Heaven through the Lord Jesus Christ. Like I’m sorry but we can’t just change the founding principles of our faith that’s not how this works.

3. You’ll have to give specific examples of what you mean but referring back to point 1 we don’t see the exclusivity of the previous Jewish faith as valid anymore. Jesus commanded that the gentiles, that’s us, be converted and welcomed too. That includes practicing a fair few things of what we’re previously Jewish exclusive practices. Because from the Christian standpoint the Jewish people are no longer the privileged chosen of God.

4. I mean yeah I agree I don’t think we should speak about Jewish stuff in general not our business.

5. I think people mostly bring up the fact that Jesus was Jewish to combat antisemitic Christians and confront them with their hypocrisy. Is not the only reason you deserve care and compassion.

Sorry but you can have the 2nd point without being antisemitic okay. I don’t see anyone in my church ever hating on Jews for any reason.

Also, Jesus literally said “Go out into the world and make disciples of all nations.” He also said “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the father except through me.” Jesus himself clearly stated the exclusivity of Christianity.

Sorry but if you don't see antisemitism that just means you don't know enough about antisemitism.

Jews: There's a long history of antisemitism in Christianity and it's still around today

You, a goy: "Well I don't notice antisemitism so it's not there"

Very Brief Guide to [tumblr], for Reddit refugees

Shit You Must Do Right Fucking Now:

Basic Features of the Site:

Stuff Tumblr Does That Other Sites Don't:

General Etiquette:

Tips:

Have fun on [tumblr], everyone!

This is a lot to take in tbh but this is really helpful to refer to. I really appreciate all the help I've been getting from the Tumblr community. I love the sense of community this place has :))

EXACTLY. And that is why he declared so far in advance. He thought it could thwart an indictment. 

He knew he'd be indicted because he deliberately ignored a request from the National Archives, refused to return all the documents required, did not secure the documents in his possession, told his lawyers to remove some documents before returning others, and lie to law enforcement about what was kept/returned. This goes above and beyond what Trumpsters accused Hillary Clinton of doing.

I encourage everybody to read the actual indictment document.

It's deliberately written as a narrative story and very easy to understand. The DOJ wanted us to see with our own eyes what the former guy did, when he did it, and why it was wrong.

Yes, it's 49 pages, but it's double-spaced with huge margins, crammed with photographs & tables. It only took me a few minutes, even accounting for the times I stopped to re-read some things because they are so batshit insane.

I guarantee you most people defending him haven't read it.

How awesome does this sound though. You get infinite money and once a week you get to take a child to a candy store or toys or us or somewhere they love and buy them as much they want this would be fun given the kid wasn’t a brat.

There is no downside to this at all

This is the best, because it says A CHILD, not your child, so I could pick one of the really poor kids on the streets and go “Your life is going to change right now”, and I could buy everything their family might need, along with a house, a food supply, toys, clothes, and everything they never had the chance to have before. And the best thing is that I could do this with lots of children, and not just one. I could give a lot of children in need a full week of Christmas basically and maybe give them a chance to have a different life. That would be great.

Bless u ^ humanity still exists. 

Plus depending on how you define “child”, you could be helping highschool students who are struggling with application fines and even pay for college tuition, room and board, or books

Bless this post and you kind hearted people.

AND it says “AT LEAST” one week a month so you don’t have to stop at just one week, you could do this literally every day. And it doesn’t say it has to be the same child the whole week so you could easily pick one child each day, ‘cause let’s face it you could probably take care of most everything in that one day and spread your child-helping ability even further. 

*SLAMS BUTTON*

You’re never too old for an airplane! 💛

When in the two-toned fuck did this get 18k notes

@sal-absinthii

Lost DS9 season 8 episode plot : Quark becomes a rainbow capitalist

And we wouldn’t wan’t to disrespect tradition, would we ?

as soon as the internet decided depression and anxiety were the everyman mental illnesses and therefore not to be taken seriously we were all fucked tbh bc the fact that i have to feel embarrassed to admit i have debilitating anxiety because people will think im just an uwu dont call me out coward is ridiculous. its insane that i have to clarify that my depressive episodes are like life threatening and not whatever dipshit dumbed down idea of depression people seem to have like oh yeah i just wanna watch netflix and eat ice cream and not text people back. like bro i think im the devil

like maybe depression and anxiety are household names now but they do still kill people. like. theres a reason they fucking kill people.