Harp the Wigglytuff @wigglytuffitout@computerfairi.es

@salsa20 @Tutanota like i just said, i don't mind giving people money for shit.

what i do mind is this bait-and-switch pricing scheme, of "free but only to get you in the door so we can pressure you into paying us money", being held as morally superior and ethical. a company can't expect to shit-talk the others as "not really free" when also doing the exact same thing.

i've said this... about fifteen times, so i think at this point you're just going "LA LA LA LA IT'S COMMIE PINKO BS I KNOW IT"

anyway to pay the fanfic rec forward, if you're an atla fan, may i recommend https://archiveofourown.org/works/424469/chapters/710772

i need to get caught up on it but it is an utter delight of good writing. how good is the writing?

it's so good i need to do close rereadings of it as a study in how to do battle scenes, and it makes sokka/azula a believable and compelling ship.

That Good, folks.

i have a terrible thing to admit, folks: i am an awful fanfic snob. i can count on one hand the fanfics i've read in the last... ten or so years, despite writing (or at least... starting...) tons of the little bastards.

but goddamn if that giraffe don't know how to pick 'em because this is a DELIGHT

@salsa20 @Tutanota if they were stating prices up-front, i'd shrug and move on.

saying "free is never free... except for OUR free, because we're more ethical!", and then, well - it's all the same scummy shit currently infecting mobile games? that's what i object to. that's the moral failure here.

willingly subscribing to microtransaction funbuxx or tupperware party tactics as an Ethical Business Model (tm) is the shit that stinks, and you should be suspicious of.

trust me.

i'm Ethical. ;)

@salsa20 @Tutanota it was free - until it wasn't, because that free was getting you in the door to upsell you. it's free in the same way a "makeover party" from the Avon lady is free.

i'd rather just go buy my makeup from a company that sells it to me directly instead of banking on psychological tricks and pressure tactics.

if they have such a loose idea of what an ethical free service is... you really trust them to handle your data ethically like they say they do?

LOL.

@salsa20 @Tutanota the extra features, for a service you started using because it was... free.

free is never free. in this case, they made an investment on you with that "free" to get you in the door, to give them money. and hey - it was a good investment, since they've got you on the line for five whole years.

there ain't nothing wrong for paying for things you like. but a company that is playing that "oh it's free... until you get here" is not operating on high ethics.

@salsa20 @Tutanota after all, ain't you proof - with your being a customer, giving money to them for 5 years - that the whole thing is just as they said...

...free has never been free.

not even, as tutanota would have it, THEIR free.

you bought it hook, line, and sinker, my friend.

nobody:

absolutely nobody:

nobody at all in #splatoon2 's player base:

me: the final splatfest goes beyond the struggle between the two hosts, the struggle of id versus superego, to introduce hidden lore. consider pearl, the wild child too affluenza'd for consequences yet yearning to be free of her gilded cage, versus marina, raised to be a cog in the octarian military-industrial complex and seeking that familiar order, fed might-makes-right as virtue. in this essay i will

@salsa20 @Tutanota well, you're paying for a free service, ain't you?

it's not my fault if you got duped by the web equivalent of a "get a free stay in a resort (as long as you listen to our sales pitch for timeshares)".

they aren't out to dupe you - they already did. you're giving them money, remember? more than that, you've given trust and blind loyalty.

in fact, they duped you so good that you're willing to immediately defend them and do a PR person's job for them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@salsa20 @Tutanota if all you're paying for is their *assurances* that they're doing the right thing - while the company itself acts in dodgy, shady ways, contradicting itself, double-dealing - i think we both know just how valuable those assurances *actually are*. do they actually deserve your loyalty? your defense? your trust? when they're out to dupe you in return?

and there's a phrase to consider as you continue on: "don't throw good money after bad".

@salsa20 @Tutanota most recent example?

purism! a very ethical service that would never share your data, except for those web apps having data trackers, including google's, in them. for months. whoopsie-daisy! and then it took the brave ethical stance of deciding that all moderation is bad, so despite it putting the rest of mastodon in danger, they were going to happily court neo-nazis.

because the alt reich has money. and they want that money.

super ethical! phwoar!

@salsa20 @Tutanota this is a pattern that i'm seeing again, and again, and again, and again on this website.

a service is "free"! it's so ethical! it's made with open-source! it's so ethical! how is it ethical? well they say they're really very ethical. they pinky promise they're doing all these things. ethics!

and, inevitably, people buy into it with the idea that surely these noble tech bros can't lie to them.

then the tech bros smell profit.

@salsa20 @Tutanota well, at least that shows my point that their game is hitting you up for money later a la "free to play games". that, at least, is how they keep the lights on.

you'd probably do better than to trust folks that proclaim how they offer a free service and then, once your foot is in the door, hit you up for money as it suddenly becomes not-so-free.

i for sure wouldn't be confident to say they weren't doing the same takesies-backsies trick on promises of keeping my data secure.

@SapphicGirafarig@donphan.social i have to admit the second one grabbed me more writing-wise, but also because of the glorious characterization of Battle Gremlin Link

sidon please just lay on your boyfriend until he goes to sleep

@SapphicGirafarig@donphan.social

>Slow Burn, Angst, Eventual Smut, Slow Build, Mute Link

GOD BLESS YOU BEAUTIFUL GIRAFARIG

@SapphicGirafarig@donphan.social and yet simultaneously comes up more often than one might suspect, honestly

cloacas, man......

@SapphicGirafarig@donphan.social maybe no fics wherein fishperson anatomy is examined too hard though

like inexplicable hemipenes, tentacles, etc. are great, but i am a woman of firm limits and that limit is cloacas.

i mean there are other firm limits but in this context, cloacas might be relevant. it comes up rather rarely

@SapphicGirafarig@donphan.social spicy is good! spicy is more than good. though i tend to like my fuckin' with some plot because make your own english major joke about how we can't finish unless there's at least 3 paragraphs about somebody's angsty feelings. some good ol' hurt/comfort is my JAM but i feel like "sidon fussing over a mostly-dead link" is probably a fic concept so obvious that it means it won't have been done at all and i'll have to write it myself LMAO

burning questions as i play breath of the wild include "why does mipha have lipstick though" and "okay i'm now fully on board what are the fav link/prince sidon fics out there. go team fish boyfriend"