Hi folks. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what we as fans can and can’t do with the striking happening. So I made a flowchart.
Let me make this SUPER DUPER EXTRA CLEAR. Unless an AMPTP studio reaches out and says “We would like to give you X (money/swag/whatever) to create content for us” (that would include writing or acting in anyway on your part) you will NOT be crossing a picket line.
Cosplay, fanart, fanfic, going feral, sharing marketing posts, watching your favorite show, getting your friends to watch your favorite show, etc does not count.
It is ONLY scabbing if you are getting REIMBURSED by the STUDIO.
Please take this flowchart, repost it, spread it everywhere!
The studios benefit from us being confused. The studios benefit from us not promoting and not watching and cancelling our subscriptions. The unions, the actors, the writers, they all benefit from us promoting in their absence, they get paid when we watch the shows, we bolster their argument when we boost the shows numbers. If we make the media popular and successful the studios have to meet the writers and actors at the table, and the writers and actors will be in the position of power.
And even when it is, people still have a problem with it.
I went back and did some digging, because it occured to me that I didn’t know the date reference of this story and, sadly, there are way too many stories about school lunch debt that they’re easy to mix up.
This particular story was from July 2019 (I reblogged it Sept 2022).
There was a relevant update within a week of the scandal: public outrage was swift, the embarrassed school board redacted the outrageous allusions to indebted students ending up in foster care, and it accepted the CEO’s $20k donation.
It doesnt change the fact that the very concept of “school lunch debt” is disturbing and inhumane (and there are still stories about children…with lunch debt…). And clearly, the district changed it’s tone because it didn’t like the bad PR. But figured it was helpful to have more info and context.
Here are some of the relevant sources; each offer bits of info unique to each specific source:
Remember: Public outrage can and does solve problems.
this link is local for the VA/DC area, but Settle the Debt does continuous fundraising to pay off school lunch debt for entire schools. The woman who started it, Adelle Settle, also works with lawmakers to advocate for both funding and pressure to get schools to provide free lunches for all students.
my brother started calling our cat “doobie brother” which he then lengthened to “dubious brother” and has since morphed into “brother dubious” like he’s some sort of fucked up little monk
if you are dealing with extreme heat or even just. moderate heat in your area right now. 80f/26c is when it starts getting toasty for a lot of people. if you are in a heat wave and you have not done yourself the favor of googling fucking “heat exhaustion symptoms” i am shaking you violently right now. look it up. burn the symptoms into your brain. heatstroke is no joke and it can and WILL sneak up on you before you’re aware it’s even an issue. ohh my god
if you are outside and it is hot and sunny and you are sweating thru your clothes or feeling tired or starting to get irrationally agitated or upset in another way or feeling nauseous or your heart is pounding etc etc if you are feeling Weird and Bad for no apparent reason while you are in a warm/hot area then i have news for you! you need to cool down! right now! oh my god.
and there’s a very good chance that you’re gonna think “it’s not heat exhaustion, i don’t feel any warmer than i have all day” when you consider it as a reason why you are suddenly feeling weirdbad for no apparent reason during a record-breaking heatwave and i would like to say. there is no harm in sitting in the shade and drinking some water even if heat exhaustion isn’t the cause of whatever ailment is inflicting itself upon u. once i swore up and down to my bf that i was just kinda tired and headachy and got bitchy about the possibility of being overheated and needing to drink water. because heat exhaustion tends to make you bitchy. but i did as he asked and drank some cold water and my condition immediately improved. because it was heat exhaustion and heat exhaustion is evil and a liar. sit down. drink water
Duke and Damian on the roof trying to figure out if Duke can use his powers to manipulate the light enough to roast a marshmallow without a fire: I think it’s working
CGI animators should unionize next. normally, their jobs would be too precarious to strike, since studios would replace them without a second thought, but if it’s part of this larger general film strike, they might finally have meaningful power to better their working conditions
if CGI animators unionized, it would kill the MCU. straight up. the the entire business model is built on exploiting CGI animators (i am not a fan of marvel. burn disney to the ground)
I genuinely hope American media sucks for a while! I hope the big companies keep trying to churn out shit and that it’s all embarrassing garbage! I want it to be extremely apparent to everyone how important the writers and actors are to create good media and that they deserve to be compensated appropriately!!!
friends romans and countrymen alike i have one hell of a story for you.
this morning i was scrolling through the silly little reels on my instagram for you page, as one does, and about a good 45 minutes into this i got recommended a candle company that puts (supposedly) real diamonds in their candles.
and in my still somewhat half asleep glory i thought “this sounds absolutely ridiculous, what do i have to lose” and clicked on the website.
upon clicking on said website i was given a 10% off code that i had to use within 15 minutes so basically my mind was already made up and i decided to text brad.
so with what was probably brads approval i scrolled through the silly little website as fast as i could and decided to stick to the more classic scents since i didnt want to be stuck with something that smelled bad (although “wap” and “i hate my boss” did intrigue me briefly) and i went with “tobacco bourbon” because thats always a decent combo.
and then in a last minute decision i decided to also get “chai tea” because it sounded interesting and who knows maybe the diamonds are real.
the court should note that i did absolutely zero research on this company.
and with my 10% off on top of whatever massive sale they were having the total plus shipping came to $63.86.
brad was also very excited about this purchase and said that if the diamonds were real he may put them in my engagement ring.
so now all thats left is to wait 2-5 business days for my candles to get delivered. i have absolutely zero expectations. stay tuned.
an update
it has been a grand total of 7 days since i ordered said candles. my credit card charge has changed from pending to processed, so i assume that it has been shipped. i do not think they have arrived, however i do have 2 packages at the post office i have to go pick up
we have confirmation that the candles have been delivered and i will try to go and pick them up today
candles have been retrieved
they were shipped in this very nondescript box with branded tape
it is 97 degrees today so i hope they are not melted
alright so. the candles have not exploded. more detailed update later after homework.
update
*for legal reasons, these candles were never in my dorm room or were burned in my dorm room*
the tobacco bourbon candle smelled very good actually but the chai one smelled like a craft store from september-december, which is to say, very strongly of artificial cinnamon
the candles are pretty large, about 3 inches across and 4 inches high and are in good quality glass jars
the chai one had melted a little in transit because there was melted (and still melted) wax all over the outside of the jar. but it’s been ridiculously hot so i wouldn’t put that on the company.
the tobacco candle (on bottom) had a very off center wick (tho both were off centered). this happens sometimes with hand poured candles, but it was still odd
each candle comes with this scratch off code thing that links to a certificate of the diamond inside, which is cool
i decided to put the chai candle in the freezer and freeze the wax out of it because i hated the smell and burn the tobacco one.
more updates to come
update
i burned the tobacco bourbon candle for around 10 hours and it has a very clean burn, no exploding, but it did pop a little bit ( that was my fault tho cause i didn’t trim the wick ) and if the wick wasn’t off center it would be a 10/10 candle. no sign of the diamond yet
the chai tea candle was in the freezer for about 24 hours and i was able to tap the bottom of it twice and the candle popped out of the glass and revealed the wrapped diamond
i attacked the wax with a pair of scissors for a few minutes to get the vial out
and then i washed off the vial cause it was covered in wax
the diamond is in that little plastic bag. and yes, it is a little diamond.
i scratched off the code on the side of the candle to get the certificate
so if the diamond is real it’s a .03 carat vs1 diamond worth about 26 dollars, i paid 29.99 for the candle
update
i have been burning the tobacco bourbon candle for three days at minimum 5 hours per day. the candle claims to be 100% soy wax, but brad is very sensitive to paraffin and other artificial waxes and started coughing pretty badly every time he was in my room for an extended period of time. we deduced that it was caused by the candle not being 100% soy wax.
he is upset that i “tried to poison him” (which is understandable and i put on my diffuser and humidifier with air cleaning solution and opened the window and gave him cough syrup so he’s definitely fine, but still holding my questionable candle purchasing over me head and rightfully so). so if you’re sensitive to artificial wax i don’t recommend this
we have decided that i will keep burning the candle for the experiment, but for shorter periods while he is not here with the window open and the air cleaning thing on
update
it has been 2 days and brad is still coughing from the candle (and no its not the plague he took three covid tests and they were all negative)
also the package does not say 100% soy wax it says premium soy wax (which is definitely a lie. brad has several soy wax candles and does not have a reaction to them. this one is definitely made of paraffin or something else synthetic because apparently he gets severe reactions to that kind of wax) (also i would not have bought the candle if it said it was made from synthetic wax)
after listening to brad cough for what is now probably 4-5 days and having scoured a sketchy gas station for cough drops, i have decided it would be a bad idea to continue burning the candle. but i would not abandon my diamond experiment so quickly. so i texted the one person i know that has little regard for their general health and safety: @undercover-vampire
and so it was decided. katya will take the candle and when diamond appears i will get them something slutty in return. you see kids, this is why you accidently get your tumblr mutuals to come to your college.
updates to come.
and an important update from the one and only brad himself @dear-brads-blog
update
we went to brads house this weekend and his mom was upset by the fact that he is coughing, tho she didnt necessarily think it was from a candle. she did give him about 65 remedies tho, including tea, gargling with salt water and nyquill. he is still coughing and in his stubborn glory refuses to do anything more about it.
@undercover-vampire is coming to get the candle tonight to finish burning it
i have still been airing out my room because being in my room makes brad cough more
i emailed the company’s customer service
i could have made it a lot more detailed, but didnt want to come off as a karen or anything. we will see what they say.
update
brad went to the health center on campus and they tested him for covid, strep, bronchitis and mono and it was none of those things. they think its a viral infection from the candle and he could be fucked for up to 2 more weeks. if it gets worse then hes really fucked. we do not want him to be really fucked.
at the end of my night class i convinced my friend to take me to target, except my professor held me 25 minutes late because he has terrible time management and we had to target speedrun before they closed. I was so stressed that i left my phone in my friends car when we went in but i got brad all kinds of stuff to make the cough not as coughy (because he is too stubborn to do it himself). and, fellow romans, my friend was mildly (or perhaps severely) concerned about me cause i was mid break down looking frantically for lemon juice, and saying that this was the only time ive ever gone to target and not looked at the price of anything. then i got carded for buying vicks spray and almost accidentally stole some lemons.
@undercover-vampire came to my room to get rid of the accursed candle and said that if they start to die from it then we will be forced to freeze the wax out. this seems like a very good compromise.
i gave brad his stuff and he only insisted we return 4 of the things (which is decent) and he nearly cried over the soup i got him. this candle has put me through the 5 stages of grief.
then i vaccumed the entire box of baking soda that i had sprinkled off my carpet and swiffered and febreezed the fuck out my room. its really good that it worked cause my carpet looked like i had dumped crack all over it and i dont want to have to do that again.
and it paid off cause brad came in and sniffed my room and didnt immediately die of coughs
more updates to come
update
brad is still very much dying. if he was in victorian times he would have two feet in the grave.
does it sound like a robot wrote it? kind of. is the stay safe part a little ridiculous given the circumstances? absolutely. but at least we got a response
here is my refund:
so they refunded me less than the cost of one of the candles, which is a little annoying, but at least it is something. im actually impressed they gave me anything because their site outlines a pretty strict return policy of 5 days within receiving your candle and no refunds once the sticker with the diamond code is scratched off. part of me wonders if there is someone from the company following along with this saga and that’s why i got a refund…im onto yall…
and if they are reading this post, shout out to marry for deciding that my boyfriends lungs are worth $23.91
a much anticipated candle saga update cause no i definitely didnt forget about this
the candle has, unfortunately, but also to absolutely no ones surprise, fucked up @undercover-vampire. but instead of making them cough violently, they started sneezing and “passing out more than usual.” so we are currently trying to figure out if we know any other poor unfortunate souls who do not care about their general health and safety or wellbeing who want to be part of the experiment. i also still have to go retrieve the candle from them.
and brad is still coughing, its better, but still not good. he went back to the health center and the nurses think it gave him acid reflux and gave him basically tums in a little orange pill bottle that doesnt close very well.
brad also does not want to put the diamonds in my engagement ring anymore so idk what were gonna do with them. i was considering posting them on ebay and auctioning them off to you all.
he also is requiring our wedding vows to contain “i vow to never poison you with a silly candle i bought off of instagram again” and if i do we are getting divorced. i suppose this is fair.
friends romans and fellow countrymen
i have exciting news
we have found a volunteer to be demon candle’s guardian!!! how fun!!!!
its @femme–de–lettres and they have so graciously decided to get poisoned by the candle on behalf of my silly saga
the candle will be mailed Soon once they sign a waiver
update, the waiver has been sent to @femme–de–lettres (brad helped with some embellishments)
the candle has also been shipped and i know this is counterintuitive since the waiver has yet to be signed, but i had to mail it on friday and i know it wont actually get shipped until monday cause of when mail pickup is. they also claimed they sent me the tracking info but they did not. gotta love a campus post office.
not really sure why they mailed it priority mail one day. that seems rather silly and i definitely didnt ask for that.
stay tuned
THE WAIVER HAS BEEN SIGNED
now we wait
and now back to everyones favorite candle saga:
since our last update several of you have had some questions, which i will now answer
1. why not just freeze the wax out of the candle saph? why are you going through the process of poisoning someone else? havent you taken enough lives?
because friends and romans, we have come too far to quit now. i want to know what is in this candle. freezing the wax out would be so anticlimactic. also andie was a willing and eager participant who signed a waiver
2. could it be the tobacco scent? tobacco is a bad scent
i do not think so. brad has a few other candles that have tobacco listed as a fragrance note from notably better brands (diptyque and i think maison margella and threshold?) and he is an avid wearer of the tom ford cologne tobacco vanille. none of these things have ever induced coughing fits whatsoever. i do agree though that it could be a fragrance issue, but the actual tobacco is not the problem
3. is brad okay? i hope brad is okay. and your other friend.
brad and katya have both recovered from their candle related illnesses! brad only had one small relapse when i had to bring the candle back to my room to send it to andie
also really unrelated but idk why you all keep assuming brad and i are engaged, we are not
anyway, with these questions answered we can now move forward
andie, @femme–de–lettres, my friends, romans and countrymen, has been sleuthing (which was not part of the job description as candle guardian) and they have some exciting updates:
and, believe it or not, they did get another response from our good friend marry!!!
this is, needless to say, Interesting Information. i thoughouly scoured their website last week and the only information i found about their candle wax was that it was a “”“soy blend”“” and so good you can “use it as lotion” which seems like a lie.
i am particularly intrigued by the sentence “the combination of raw materials is constantly changing” that sounds sketchy. and the fact that they “try to always offer the safest and best materials whenever possible.” which sounds like. sometimes they do not do that and they know that.
interesting.
anywhoosies, the candle made it to andie and they are going to be unboxing it later tonight so! stay tuned!!
alright we have several updates on this mess
andie has been burning the candle for about 15 hours inside and 10 (?) outside and has not yet died of mystery candle disease. she did some poking around in the wax with a skewer and was able to deduce that there is indeed a diamond capsule in the candle
this is where we stand now with the candle burning
next up is that andie emailed customer service two more times trying to get more information about the wax and marry (who appears to be their one customer service rep) basically just gave them the same information as the first time. it looks like we will not be getting any further with that
as per the request of you hooligans we decided to test the wax with a makeup test it that we got off of amazon. we decided to use the makeup test because it says that it works on body lotion and marry kept telling us we could use the wax as lotion. here were the results:
andie tested the wax first when it was hard and then melted and the melted results seemed more conclusive and that revealed that none of the tests came back with super high results of anything. so the wax probably doesnt have a bunch of harmful chemicals but we are not really sure since we have yet to find a quirky chemistry professor to run test results on the candle. this means that its likely the reactions may come down to fragrance or just a reaction to the wax itself and not the chemicals.
but alas friends, the best has still yet to come.
andie and i did a deep dive on the company.
like a deep deep dive.
the results of which shall be revealed Soon
stay tuned
alright friends romans and fellow countrymen i know you all have been waiting with baited breath for the much anticipated update, considering i have at least 50 asks relating to this. but allow me to first explain why i have Not updated:
-it was mine and brads anniversary (1 year)
-i had every assignment ever due and then five more
-i got tonsils fucky illness (tonsillitis) which is not mystery candle disease
so alas. here we are. also i’m currently in delaware. crazy how these things happen, huh?
anyway did y’all know that ned fulmer is a florida man? kinda on brand, ngl
what’s that? oh. yes. i can get to the point.
the results of mine and (mostly) andie’s deep dive:
foreverwick candle co was started in good old 2017 by two students who may have possibly been attending michigan state (according to instagram and linkedin searches). these two people had the original trademark until 2021 when the trademark then went through involuntary dissolution
and you’re probably wondering what the fuck that means. i was too. luckily andie knew what it was:
so it sounds like the two founders either broke up or didn’t agree on something pretty massive. kinda funny considering the company origin story is about a couples first date.
a completely different person now has the candle company trademark. we did find his address, or an address of some sort that was possibly related to him, but it was to a trailer park in texas. sus.
one of the founders had some more trademarks registered to him that never went through, all to skincare related things. he may currently have an operational skin aloe cream something or other company. the highlight of the deep dive was andie finding the contact information for that one:
and there was also this:
we also think that the reason for all the skincare trademarks (cause there were quite a few) was because the founders originally wanted foreverwick to have a skincare component (potentially why they keep telling us you can use the candles as lotion?)
so we have no real answers. and i know this is vague but guys i am not about to get sued over a tumblr post.
we did discover tho that their candles were once featured on fox news, which is really really funny to me.
as this saga goes on, i keep ending up with more questions than answers. who’s to say what we will uncover next.
greetings once again my friends romans and fellow countrymen. i come bearing an update. a very exciting update:
the diamond, as was the case with the first one, is absolutely minuscule:
currently we are trying to figure out how to test to see if the diamonds are real. i will likely take mine to the silly diamond store in the mall that i work at and see if they can test it for me, andie was thinking of a more unconventional method for theirs
just some casual diamond arson y'know. gotta keep the saga interesting as we near what very well may be the close. we will see what happens. several of you suggested trying to scratch glass with the diamond, but they are too small for that to effectively work without them flying across the room when you inevitably lose your grip.
i suppose the end of the saga is approaching. i have many more questions than answers but-
oh?
what is this??
new information that will draw this out even more????
i see.
yes, yes. i understand
oh, this will be good.
stay tuned.
and everyone’s favorite long post continues
first and very foremostly i dont know why i have three separate asks in my inbox about what the delaware post is. astounding that you know what the candle saga is and not the delaware post. but i digress.
secondly thank you to @nuri148 for consulting a mineralogist on twitter and telling us that our diamond testing methods were, at their core, silly:
also now my candle saga is on twitter. not sure how i feel about that but alas these candles do have their consequences and one of them is that this post now has 16k notes.
someone else commented that we should tell consumer product safety about the candles. not sure if that will happen yet, we want to find out whats actually in them first.
which leads me to my next point: if you or someone you know is a slightly unhinged and chaotic chemist who wants to test some candle wax, send me an ask.
and finally. andie. sweet darling wonderful @femme–de–lettres (who is still a spooky halloween girl looking for a valentines day girlfriend, i might add) decided that it would be wise to purchase 2 more accursed candles.
now i had nothing to do with this! i do not condone this behavior whatsoever! but i was curious.
andie picked out two scents:
apple cinnamon and
i will never escape this.
i would like the court to note that andie’s candles were packaged FAR BETTER than mine were:
lets recall what mine looked like:
i like their addition of the “we really appreciate it!” like. i think theyre onto the saga guys. their pr team is reading this and staying updated. marry i know youre invested in my saga. please do not sue me.
anyway
there is a vast difference in pouring here.
andie chose not to scratch off the little diamond code things yet so well see how big her diamonds are.
here is the scent description for the delaware candle:
idk why they would want to go back there or why rushing river water smells like strawberries and vanilla, but at the same time i expected nothing less.
aparently tho. the icing on the cake. the delaware candle. smells like licorice.
andie, who hates licorice, then made this meme to describe her feelings on the candle:
not sure how strong flowing river water translates to licorice but alas, nothing about this company has made sense so far. and also, it aparently does not smell like licorice when it is lit.
lets all hope that andie doesnt die of candle overload.
this is the candle saga for everyone who’s asked me about it
Last night I had a dream I woke up to find that my house had been turned into a Smart House with every wall being a digital screen including the roof so I could see it even laying on bed and the Siri voice said “Don’t worry. You are perfectly safe in your Apple Smart Home™️” knowing I have a BIG phobia of intruders especially at night and it continued with “Let’s explore the neighborhood from the comfort of your home” so it opened google maps and accidentally zoomed past a shitty jpeg of the girl from The Ring standing outside my house and it said “ignore that”. woke up laughing
