To Your Future Career In The Circus

Oooh I have never written somtething like this, that is exciting! Thank you anon :)

This will be Modern AU!

You can still submit prompts in my ask box I'll do them whenever I have time

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It begins seven days into his vacation at the french northern coastline. Verso spent his days swimming, enjoying the summer weather in the water and at the sandy shores every day till the sun set.

On the seventh day, he finds a wierd brown blob resting on the spot he had usually chosen to put his blanket, bag and clothes on before going out into the water in swim trunks.

Curious and cautious, he studies the thing without touching it. At first he assumes it might be a big fat seal sleeping in this little secluded spot at the shore. But it doesn't move, has no face, and looks like nothing he has seen before.

Verso chooses to put his things down a good few meters away from it, and continues on with the day like usual.

The following morning, that blob has moved with him and now rests on his new spot.

But it's definitely not alive. Someone pulling a prank on him maybe? Though the pianist has chosen this secluded bay for a reason - one of the few secret spots that he can be alone at, he hasn't met a single soul since arriving here.

Verso moves away again. And the blob does as well. He regards it the following day with quite a fascination. Now someone decided to put around it a ring of seashells and rocks, decorating it. Trying to make it more alluring, maybe?

But it smells like an animal. Now he fears it might actually be animal hide, someone having killed a poor seal to make this disgusting coat.

"Ok, this is enough." Verso exclaims loudly, hoping to reach whoever must be spying on him. "This was funny and all, now please show yourself and explain - or stay hidden, I don't care, but please stop, I am not going to touch this thing!"

His only answer are the gentle waves crashing on the sandy bay. Verso lets out a frustrated sigh, and moves his things away once more.

Trying to forget this and get back to enjoying his vacation, he swims till night this time. When the stars glitter above him, he finally leaves the water to get his stuff and return to his vacation home nearby.

But he's not alone.

On top of his blanket and satchel, the brown skin blob now rests - needing to be moved for him to reach his things. And right besides it sits a man unlike anyone he has ever seen.

His soft brown curls frame his face, glowing hazel eyes looking intensely at Verso. His trimmed beard shines like having been just groomed with some oil and his beautiful face forms a pout.

And he is completely naked.

Verso tries to keep his eyes on his face. He really does.

"You uhh..." He clears his parched throat, the sheer awkwardness of the situation and the strange man looking at him like he has just put salt on his favorite dessert overshadowed by just how incredibly beautiful this man sitting on his things is. "I need... these are mine... ah-" Verso shakes his head, his wet locks clinging to his face. Never was this confident, flirtatious pianist who has captured the world at loss for words quite like this.

"These are yours, yes." The deep baritone voice of the man answers, and Verso's heart takes a leap as he gets up. He swears his whole body shimmers like the sea, the moonlight and stars maling him look etheral. Verso can't look away. "All of these things are yours. So take them with you."

The man approaches. Verso is frozen like a deer in headlights, every second he spends studying this man getting him closer to fainting at just how breathtaking he is. But the brown haired man simply passes him, leaving behind the scent of sea and animal hide as he stalks towards the water. And disappears in the dark waves.

He's gone when Verso remembers that he can indeed still breathe and move. Left alone and again with that strange blob of a hide.

He must be utterly crazy. But in the corners of his mind, ancient tales whisper to him. Speaking of mythical seal creatures and brides acquired by taking their hide.

That night, he picks the skin up and takes it with him.

Spin the wheel to find out what!

Confirmed.

"training AI on a book without paying for it is stealing" -> "fine, we'll buy the book"

"if you pay for one copy you can only keep one copy" -> "okay, so we'll shred the physical copy and keep the digital one"

"now nobody can read it!" -> "you couldn't read our copy anyway, because we're not interested in selling it, and you've set up a legal framework where you can't read books without paying for them"

Point 3 has been a problem as long as books and markets have existed. Point 2 is the most common legal solution for digital lending libraries. The only thing that's new is point 1, and that's a direct response to lawsuits that people on this website have long cheered.

anyway the reason they are destroying books is because it's simply MUCH easier to get a fast and clean scan of a book's pages if you cut off the spine and can scan the pages flat.

The process, known as “destructive scanning,” involves cutting the spine from a book so its pages can be fed through high-speed scanners before the remaining physical copy is discarded.

[from a fortune article about the same subject, not paywalled for me but there might be a paywall if you read too many articles idk]

in contrast, the non-destructive scanning by the internet archive is an extremely slow, manual process with significantly more complicated equipment required (and often a worse result! text near the spine can end up warped just from the way the pages are pressed and photographed)

All agree on the facts of the format change. Anthropic “destructively scan[ned]” the print copies to create the digital ones. Anthropic or its vendors stripped the bindings from the print books, cut the pages to workable dimensions, and scanned those pages — discarding each print copy while creating a digital one in its place. The digital copy was then housed in the “research library” or “generalized data area” in place of the print copy (Opp. Exh. 22 at 145– 46, 193–94). Authors do not allege and our record does not show that Anthropic provided its converted digital copies of print books to anyone outside Anthropic. […]

Here, for reasons narrower than Anthropic offers, the mere format change was a fair use. Storage and searchability are not creative properties of the copyrighted work itself but physical properties of the frame around the work or informational properties about the work. See Texaco, 802 F. Supp. at 14 (physical), aff’d, 60 F.3d at 919; Google, 804 F.3d at 225 (informational); Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (“Sony Betamax”), 464 U.S. 417, 447 (1984) (rightful interests). In Texaco, the court reasoned that if a purchased scientific journal article had been copied “onto microfilm to conserve space, this might [have been] a persuasive transformative use.” 802 F. Supp. at 14 (Judge Pierre Leval), aff’d, 60 F.3d at 919 (reducing “bulk[ ]” “might suffice to tilt the first fair use factor in favor of Texaco if these purposes were dominant“). In Google Books, the court reasoned that a print-to-digital change to expose information about the work was transformative. Google, 804 F.3d at 225 (Judge Pierre Leval). And, in Sony Betamax, the Supreme Court held that making a recording of a television show in order to instead watch it at a later time was copying but did not usurp any rightful interest of the copyright owner. 464 U.S. at 447, 455. Important to the Supreme Court’s reasoning was the expectation that most such copiers would not distribute the permanent copies of the work. Finally, in A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., our court of appeals recognized the reasoning just explained, and therefore rejected by contrast a digitization effort that was touted as space-shifting but in fact resulted in the multiplication of copies shared with outsiders through a file-sharing service. 239 F.3d 1004, 1019 (9th Cir. 2001), aff’g in this part 114 F. Supp. 2d 896, 912–13, 915–16 (N.D. Cal. 2000) (Judge Marilyn Hall Patel) (citing Sony Betamax and Texaco).

Here, every purchased print copy was copied in order to save storage space and to enable searchability as a digital copy. The print original was destroyed. One replaced the other. And, there is no evidence that the new, digital copy was shown, shared, or sold outside the company. This use was even more clearly transformative than those in Texaco, Google, and Sony Betamax (where the number of copies went up by at least one), and, of course, more transformative than those uses rejected in Napster (where the number went up by “millions” of copies shared for free with others).

Yes, Anthropic is a commercial outfit. And, this order takes for granted that Anthropic in fact benefited from the print-to-digital format change — or it would not have gone to all the trouble. But the crux of the first fair use factor’s concern for “commercial” use is in protecting the copyright owners and their entitlements to exploit their copyright as they see fit (or not). See, e.g., Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 562 (1985). That the accused is a commercial entity is indicative, not dispositive. That the accused stands to benefit is likewise indicative. But what matters most is whether the format change exploits anything the Copyright Act reserves to the copyright owner. Anthropic already had purchased permanent library copies (print ones). It did not create new copies to share or sell outside. [...]

As a result, Anthropic’s format-change from print library copies to digital library copies was transformative under fair use factor one. Anthropic was entitled to retain a copy of these works in a print format. It retained them instead in a digital format, easing storage and searchability.

'Human Being' necklaces by Boucheron: Rain, Flower, Light, Tattoo, and Checkers.

From the 2026 Carte Blanche collection.

having boundaries/squicks = I personally hate this thing so I will curate my own internet experience by blocking/muting or ignoring what upsets me and minding my own business while letting others do what they want

Penny Rose: Babbles in Baby

All of tumblr collectively at my husband:

Husband: you don’t even have to understand taxes yet! I can explain them but you’ve got several years before that’s relevant!

Penny Rose: wide eyes, staring at her father, almost intrigued

THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND

Husband: Now Penny there is a lot of misinformation out there in the world and I hate to tell you this but the moon is in fact not made of cheese. That is a conspiracy theory pushed by Big Dairy.

1) Did you participate in baby talk to make up for your husband's deficit, or did you also opt to speak to the Deals Warlock like a very tiny adult from babyhood?

Something funny that has happened is that while she formally calls me Mama when she's answering me in passing she does call me "My Darling Love" and I don't know for sure but I think it's because I call her and her father "my loves" and her father calls me and her "darlings" and she's created a mash up 😂

Penny Rose is now 5 years old and she

1. Starts talking the moment she opens her eyes to the moment she passes out at night

2. Asks, and I am not exaggerating I counted, an average of 892 questions a day

3. Does not accept "I don't know" as an answer to said questions, will usually have a follow up question as to why you don't know OR a suggestion on how we can find out together