“Gusu Lan Sect, Lan Wangji.”

SOME FLOOF 

I wanted to download We Will Rock You, but…

Complex characters are cool and all, but if all you’re gonna do is cry about how the antagonist you’ve imprinted on is “secretly a hero” simply because they were written with as much care and complexity as the story’s actual heroes, then do you even deserve complex characters? Can you handle them?

“Shidi.”

COMMISSION INFO

Some idioms and phrases you should know about part II :

Read The Riot Act : to scold, reprimand, or reprove one severely for an error or mistake.

Be Cleaned Out : to be emptied or devoid of money, food, resources, etc.

The Stars Are Aligned : current situation or set of conditions is ideal for the prospects of some activity or endeavor.

Climb The Social Ladder : to improve one's position within the hierarchical structure or makeup of a culture, society, or social environment.

Wash One's Mouth Out With Soap : to punish one for using rude, vulgar, or obscene language by cleaning their mouth with soap, usually used merely as a threat.

Get Down To Work : to begin being serious about something, to begin attending to business or work at hand.

Have Someone Pegged : to distinctly regard one as being a certain type of person.

Breathe A Word : to share information that is supposed to be kept secret, often used in the negative to encourage silence.

Shake Like A Leaf : to tremble violently with fear or nervousness.

Boil The Ocean : to engage in futile tasks.

Feel Blue : to feel sad.

Hey, y'all, this is a reminder for anyone that has student loans that they are defaulted on or in collections for:

Apply for Fresh Start NOW if you haven't already done so. Like right now. Do it right this very second do not put it off any longer.

If you don't know, applying for Fresh Start will move your loan status from "Default" to "Current," you will no longer have to deal with collections calls! You won't have your wages garnished or your tax refunds taken by the Education Department! The default gets removed from your credit and you become eligible for federal mortgage programs! You become eligible for Income Driven Repayment (IDR) programs that can reduce your monthly payment in a huge way (from $400/month to $50/month for me!) and you get IDR credit for the three years you were in default during the pandemic freeze!

It only has upsides!

I mean it, it can make a huge difference! You can even submit both Fresh Start and an IDR application at the same time. It takes literal seconds. I had my name legally changed and I'm still eligible! I clicked like 3 buttons, checked a couple boxes, and boom. I sent off the application August 22nd and I got the letter yesterday (Sept 20th), but that letter was dated Sept 1st and was only to inform me that my loan was no longer in default would be transferred to a new loan servicer by the end of the month. It took a week and a half to process.

I also became eligible and received a refund check for money taken from me during the starting stages of the pandemic.

The best time to do it is now. Period.

Do. It. Right. Now.

if i think about them too long i’ll go insane (text from @/veniennes on tiktok)

There was a tweet about Jingyi possibly being Jin Rusong, and this popped in my mind 🤣

LJY: What?! I’m your son? I’m Jin Rusong?!

JGY: Yes…Please und-

LJY: Is that why I’m short?!

JL: THAT’S YOUR BIG TAKE AWAY FROM THIS?!

LJY: SHUT UP! You don’t know what it’s like down here.

JL: You’re only 4 cm shorter!

LJY: 4 cm too short to reach the top of the shelf! This whole time I thought it was the bland food, but it turns out I came from midgets!

JGY: …

WWX: *Burst out laughing like a maniac*

JL: HOW ARE WE RELATED?

LJY: HOLY SHIT WE’RE RELATED?! No wonder I hate you!

JL: *In tears* Shut up! I hate you too!

LSZ: Guys, let’s calm down.

QS:…You know, I’m not so disgusted about the incest thing suddenly. But I want a divorce, and we’ll keep it a secret.

JGY: Unless you tell me who sent you the letter.

QS: No.

JGY: I need to know so that I can find out who else knows, and kill them so we won’t be slandered by the Cultivation World. Besides, who ever decided to tell you this now after all this time must be doing it for money.

QS:…It was Bicao. 

JGY: Thank you. Now excuse me future ex-wife. I’m going to go interrogate a maid.

*And thus Nie Huaisang gets found out, and it’s a whole different complicated mess where LXC is the one most shafted by it. In the mean time, Qin Su is happily living at Gusu to get to know her son.*

Tumblr is Tracking Shared Links

It looks like Tumblr @staff have finally implemented tracking garbage into shared links in the Tumblr mobile app. It took them years and years, but Tumblr is finally making an attempt to track shared links you click or links you share with friends.

When you share a post and choose to “copy” a link to your clipboard, you can see that they use their (new?) url shortener, at.tumblr.com.  The shortened URL appears to contain: your blog name; either the ID of the destination post, or the short string associated with the post; and an alphanumeric string.  Eg:

https://at.tumblr.com/pizza-and-ramen/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious/uqndb20nkyob

The shortened URL redirects you to the destination link, but with 2 URL parameters: _branch_referrer and _branch_match_id.  Both are associated with a third-party analytics tool, branch.io.  Eg:

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious?_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D&_branch_match_id=1104914739086906151

_branch_referrer appears to be another shortened at.tumblr.com URL, except it’s been gzipped, base64 encoded, then URL encoded.  Eg:

H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D

URL decode to:

H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86+eK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v/AuVQAAAA==

base64 decode to (in hex for legibility):

1F8B0800 00000000 000315C4 C10D8020 0C00C089 4A1FC68F DB545069 A4805082 32BD9A5C CEABE6BA 20921A6D B286626C 12CC3C06 01450785 648BC802 7BB327C7 03DCF3AF 9E2B7C3C 072A9C5A C53B8C79 EA974BBD F71774BF F02E5500 0000

and unzipped with gunzip:

https://at.tumblr.com/pizza-and-ramen/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious/xlz53wqdowww

which directs to the post with the same _branch_referrer but a new _branch_match_id:

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious?_branch_match_id=1104899685865808870&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D

_branch_match_id, according to this stackoverflow answer, is an identifier unique to you, used to track users.  It could be based on browser fingerprinting, as branch.io’s branch_match_id is.

Anyway, there’s not a terribly easy way to avoid this tracking from the Tumblr mobile app, but if you get a link that has the id, not the string, you can modify it to the format of blog.tumblr.com/ID, like so before sending it to a friend:

https://at.tumblr.com/pizza-and-ramen/118684413624/uqndb20nkyob

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/118684413624

Alternately, you could paste the link in your browser, allow it to redirect, then remove everything past the ? at the end, eg:

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious?_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D&_branch_match_id=1104914739086906151

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious

Anyway, this has been my privacy rant of the day.  Thanks for reading, and let me know if you know more about this than I do!