#also i do technically have a twitter account but it’s from back when i was the tiniest bit addicted to oxy so it’s like

[midmourn]

accidentally revealing your relationship

Originally posted by dazzlingkai

reposting from my old blog.

members ot7 nct dream

summary one of you accidentally reveal your relationship.

Mark. the poor boy had a picture of you and him as his homescreen. yeah, not his smartest choice. he was on vlive and was showing fans something on his phone and he completely forgot about his homescreen and clicked off. "so yeah there's the proof that haechan threatened me," he giggled, pressing his home button to get off the messages, screen still facing the camera for a second. it was just long enough that people were able to see what it was. he squinted at the comments, tilting his head, "what do you guys-- oh." he backed up slightly in shock, eyes widening at the camera before hurriedly turning off the vlive. he stared down at the floor silently before looking up at the manager behind the camera, "oops."

Renjun. so technically it wasn't his fault! literally no one told yall they would be going on vlive and so ... the boys were in their dressing room and unluckily yall happened to be right in the corner of the camera frame ... you reached up to give renjun a kiss on the cheek, and the camera managed to catch that and renjun's face but not your face!! yeah no one knew until the comments started exploding about the unknown person giving renjun a kiss and the boys knew it could only be you. and as always, screamed loudly to get your attention before turning off the live. you and renjun about almost killed them for not telling you or being more careful.

Jeno. okay so you were on your way to sm company to give him his lunch bc he was practicing alone. you texted him that you were there and were on your way up but literally before you could even get in the building, he was already opening the doors and meeting you halfway. “i told you—“ he ignored your words, pulling you in by your jacket to press a kiss on your lips. as always, there are literally fans or outsiders outside of sm’s building at all times. and of course they took pictures and videos and uploaded it to sns immediately. it wasn’t until you pulled away that he realized what he did. “oh.” “yeah, oh,” you mocked, pushing him into the building as you glared at him. “congratulations, our relationship is now public.” “sorry,” but he didn’t seem sorry at all, if the grin on his face was saying anything.

Haechan. haechan … is a very obvious person. he would only compliment you when your group was miraculously brought up(probably also by him) and only sing/rap your parts of your songs. it didn’t help the fact that fans were already suspicious because you two were seen at the same place at different times and you frequently stole some of his clothes and wore it out. BUT! it’s only when he reads a comment about you outloud(“y/n from y/g complimented your vocals!!”) and he says, “yeah, y/n is a very nice partn—“ and cuts himself off before he can finish the word, eyes wide as he stares at the camera. “they’re a very nice, nice— um, idol. i’ve got to go practice, bye!” but like i said, he’s very obvious and fans heard him say the romantic word~~ oops.

Jaemin. it’s no secret that jaemin is a huge fan of having matching couple items, like with his members and especially you— since you’re, you know, a couple and all. his personal favorite was your custom made matching necklaces, so you wore it everywhere. unfortunately, seeing as the owner had no idea of anything concerning you two, when fans asked about your necklace to buy it, he said a young man came in and had it custom ordered. fans put two and two together and … boom. rumors were made up and since it really blew up, your companies denied it despite the rumors being true. even if they denied it, fans were very convinced you two were dating. no more privacy for you anymore! sorry jaemin you should’ve said something or not had it custom made. 🥲

Chenle. you like to take pictures of you and daegal and post it on your private twitter account, so what? he had no problem with it, even being in a few of them since he knew only your members and a few friends were on your private twitter. so when you did that exact thing, he didn’t care and merely posed with daegal sitting on your chest. it’s minutes later when his phone starts getting multiple text messages and he checks it only to see messages about you posting a picture on twitter. “babe,” he inhaled, “did you post it on your private account?” you glance up at him in confusion, “the picture? yeah.” he closed his eyes, leaning his head back, “are you sure it wasn’t on your main account?” it dawns on you right then and there. “oh my god.” in one minute, the tweet is deleted but thousands of people have already seen it and screenshotted. the koreaboo article is up within twenty minutes. . I am so sorry 😀

Jisung. ah, sweet sweet jisung. he was on vlive while you were at the corner store to get snacks for your movie night. he didn’t originally plan to go in vlive but decided to have a voice only vlive because he was bored. he thought you’d be gone for a while and would be done before you got back, so he didn’t text you about it. he was reading comments when you walked in, already talking as soon as you opened the door, “hey babe, i got that ice cream you like, the one—“ when he started coughing loudly in the middle of your sentence, you looked up and saw his eyes widening as he pointed at his phone violently. it didn’t take long for you to understand once you checked your own phone and saw that you had a notification from vlive, signaling someone went live. ‘oh my god’ you mouthed at him and he coughed again to fill the silence, eyes going back to the screen to read the comments to see if anyone heard you clearly. unfortunately … they did, and they heard the petname, too. he made up an excuse to get off quickly and groaned, putting his face in his hands. needless to say, fans reposted the clip of your voice everywhere.

#nct #nct dream #nct u #mark lee #mark #renjun #huang renjun #lee jeno #jeno #haechan #lee donghyuck #na jaemin #jaemin #chenle #zhong chenle #park jisung #jisung #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct reactions #nct dream reactions #nct angst #nct smut #nct fluff #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop reactions #kpop smut

[suzukiblu]

Five headcanons from the obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU for Plot Bunny, which may or may not all make it into the actual fic itself. Headcanons are slightly leaned towards Kon’s powers because Plot Bunny was specifically interested in my headcanons for those in this AU, but also including Tim being a useless bisexual.

Kon brags constantly about the things his TTK does that are either Superman-esque abilities or that he thinks are either impressive or flashy enough to pass for impressive. He does not think to brag about things like “technically I have a 360-degree field of perception”, because he’s like “well it only works if nothing’s flying or hovering and it’s not like vision, so it’s just whatever” as opposed to being like “most things/people cannot fly or hover and it also accounts for things like people hiding behind cover, so actually it’s real fucking useful, isn’t it”. Frequently he just doesn’t think to mention little utility-specific uses of his powers at all, in fact. No, this acid isn’t touching him, he can be acidproof if he wants. No, he can’t actually choke on anything. Yeah, he can set bones and relocate dislocations on himself and others without needing an X-ray or an MRI involved. Sure, he could just stop somebody’s heart, but why would he?? 

Tim has gotten out of the habit of a lot of his hobbies in favor of Robin-ing. Robbies. He has Robbies now, not hobbies. It’s not like he never picks up a camera or a skateboard or a video game anymore, just . . . well . . . like, not never, that’s all. He’s pretty sure he touched his skateboard last week? When he . . . moved it to the other corner while he was cleaning his room . . . uh. Well. Still counts, right?? 

Kon has much better fine motor control over his TTK than he usually bothers to demonstrate in the field because he actually spends a lot of his time bored and understimulated in a lab environment, so he just fucks around with it to entertain himself. For him, it’s an extension of his sense of touch, which makes him incredibly tactile as a person. But he also thinks it might be a little weird how tactile he is compared to other people, so he is much likelier to be petting the soft silky thing with his TTK than his actual, oh, I don’t know, hands? Because people don’t even notice when it’s his TTK, obviously, but they definitely notice when he's doing it with his hands. He actually does a lot of little things with his TTK that people don’t usually pick up on, because it’s just things like adjusting crooked frames and plucking lint off people’s clothes and fixing their hair or tucking their shirt tags into their collars and picking inconvenient locks, and if Tim knew Kon could do that kind of thing so subtly and easily, he would immediately lose his ever-loving mind about it. And also teach him how to pick pockets and crack safes, probably. Kon, obliviously, does not realize just how fucking useful those little things could actually be in hero-ing, because to him they're just normal little tricks he can just do whenever, not anything special or impressive. And like, why would he pick the lock when he could just punch the door down? Superman would punch the door down, right? And punching the door down looks cooler! So obviously he's gonna do that! 

Tim accidentally developed his initial crush on Kon via constant exposure through stupid teen magazine posters. He will swear on his life it started when they first met and fought supervillains together, but no, it was definitely that Kon was hot in those stupid cheesy posters that Tim kept running into while he did research on the new kid in the superhero community. Also he read so many of those lame tabloid interviews. Just . . . so, so many. Ugh. And he actually does keep up on Kon's Twitter and probably his Insta too. 

Kon absolutely accidentally holds himself back from his full potential as a superhero without really realizing it because he thinks “what would Superman do?” while mostly knowing Superman through hearsay, information uploads from biased sources, and what few facets of his personality Clark is actually willing to show him. So he has a very skewed image of him, obviously, and is trying to grow up and be a person Clark isn't and no one really could be. But Kon identifies himself as Superboy because he doesn’t have anything else he knows how to be, and Superboy came from Superman, so he concentrates less on certain aspects of his powers and more on the Kryptonian-imitating ones. Again: he could just unlock the door, but Superman would punch it, right? Right??

#timkon #kon el #conner kent #dc robin #superboy #plot bunny #meta ecetera

[otomiyaa]

nice.png

(literally how I named the image, couldn't think of something else)

Hi guys :') To my followers and tumblr friends, I'm really sorry if my sudden disappearance scared or upset you. It wasn't quite... planned. And today was a busy day and I needed some time to consider what I wanted to do.

Short version of the story:

My tumblr account got terminated for copyright infringement. A certain Mr. Green got me in unlucky trouble (ref 1, 2).

I won't get it back, or try to get it back. It's gone.

Needed a moment to consider 2 options: ask Mia to extend my dramatic farewell letter and stay gone, or make a new blog.

Not planning to post new writing here. I won't be using words like 'never' or 'forever' because I'm a known clown with things like this, but the intention is to no longer post fics. I will finish Tickletober on AO3 and then take a break from writing. So yes, I cancel the swiftscribbles event too, sorry!

When I opened my laptop, I could see my old blog in its final hour lmao (I found out about the loss on my phone). So that's what the snap is from on a fitting grave. It was fun while it lasted!

Long version of the story:

Losing my blog(s): My Tumblr account with main blog + sideblogs got terminated overnight, it was quite the surprise! I've either been reported or tracked by bots. The posts are a bunch of numbered URLs I can't open, but the message is clear: for including anime content, genshin impact or media from other sources (whether it's videos, screenshots, official art, gifs or even fanwork) you technically can get a strike. Upon googling the claimer I quickly found this first, and knew it was a lost cause. Although it feels shitty and unlucky, I am in no place to appeal. It's like when I used to make AMVs in the past, you never knew whether a song or even anime footage was going to give your YT account a copyright strike or even a ban, it was a gamble. I have lost YT accounts before, and now I lost the Tumblr one. With 7+ years of tickle trash content and a bunch of sideblogs. But oh well, moving on!

Starting a new blog: It was a serious consideration whether this was my ultimate chance to do what I've always said I wanted to do eventually - quit my blog. My first thought was to ask Mia to share my explanation and literal goodbye with you guys, and stick to my chaos of a Twitter account to indulge in fandom stuff. But then I thought of how happy Tumblr made me, even without the fic writing, but just.. reblogging things, getting random asks, shouting about life and of course, about tickles. I decided to make a new blog after all, but also decided the following:

The 7K+ milestone swiftscribbles event is cancelled, for which I apologize! The follower milestone, together with the motivation to write the fics, and even the asks with the requests I got, all died with my former blog.

I will see how long I can survive without posting a new fic or drabble. A loose headcanon or two might fly around sometime. And if necessary, a link to a new fic on AO3.

Tickletober? Hell yes I'll finish it, I would cringe in bed for 49 days at least if I would stop. I just won't post the fics here, but on AO3.

Reposting/reblogging my old works? Undecided at the moment but I'm tired and lazy. I don't feel too upset since most of my fics are still on AO3 at least and not completely gone.

Anyways, I'll see what happens and how long I can enjoy this nerfed version of blogging.

Surprisingly I'm not upset about losing my other blog, there were a lot of memories but it was also very cringe. I'm gonna be just as cringe here, but at least I feel cleansed.

For those who choose to follow me again, thank you, but please know that there won't be much original content coming from me, for now!:)

#tickle community #otomiya-tickles #announcement

[dnalt-d2]

So we've got a new update on the Admin Situation, and this one's…A little complicated, to say the least.

Basically, Quackity has stated that he is opening the server tomorrow to welcome the new Korean Creators, but for the time being, there will be no NPCs, including the Eggs. He's also temporarily laid off nearly, if not all the workers he has, including the people doing the Twitter Updates.

And apparently many of them found this out through the stream, much like we did. This seems to be the biggest point of contention for many people, and I'll admit I'm not happy about it either. The only justification I can think of for this is that he didn't want people to find this all out second-hand from people who potentially don't have the all the information. But even with that, I think they should have been made aware before us, even if it was just by a few minutes. That wouldn't have been ideal either, but it would've been better than not knowing at all

The person who brought this forward initially, Lea, has stated that she knows for sure that "Jay" (The person who made the unauthorized update before) was fired, but to her knowledge, some of the other Admins who caused the problems are still employed. I think this might be one of those things that she doesn't have the full scope of information on, since we were also just informed that pretty much all the Admins aren't currently employed. We do have to keep in mind that she's getting this information from someone else who is apparently still in contact with the team. However, it's obvious that even some of the Admins who weren't initially fired aren't entirely in the loop, which means she wouldn't have been getting all the information either. So I think we need to take some of the things she says moving forward with a grain of salt

I'm not saying she's lying by any means, but when you have limited information to work with, playing a game of telephone to get that information isn't always gonna be that reliable

On top of all that, a lot of people seem to be in agreement that Quackity may have implied that money was being embezzled from him and Quackity Studios. I'm not going to say much on that, since it's TECHNICALLY speculation. However I will at least say that it doesn't seem entirely out of the question, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to learn that this was the case

Regardless of how it happened, there was a loss of funds, and this loss of funds means that the server has to start slower than before. Hence the absence of the NPCs on the server, and the current stop on Twitter Updates. It sounded to me like he's planning on bringing people back slowly, making sure they're paid for their roles from here on out. And as the financial situation stabilizes, we'll likely see more Admins return to their roles

I want to believe as of now that things are improving. If they weren't, I believe we would have heard about it by now, from the other Admins. We've already seen an Admins in charge of one of the Twitter Accounts say something, and I'm sure we'll get more news like that soon. But we would have DEFINITELY heard if absolutely nothing was going on. I don't think it's fair for the Admins to have not been notified beforehand, and I think that should be the next problem to fix for sure. But the way I see it, what's happening now is a step in the right direction. It's only the first of many, and not even necessarily a big step, but it's a step nonetheless

Once again, I want to remind people that we aren't going to see these changes being made until we're shown them. People can try to tell us what they know as they find it out themselves, but for all we know, they're only showing the bad parts of what's going on. We should really take any future information, good or bad, with a grain of salt as well. It's easy to say things are getting better or worse, but I think we should wait until we see the changes for ourselves and go from there

(I also wanna say that I've seen speculation from a few people, mostly on Twitter, that "Jay" is probably just Quackity trying to cover his tracks and make a scapegoat for what's happening. But with the information we have, that seems incredibly unlikely. Lea didn't know who he was when he first made his unofficial statement, but her recent tweets imply that she knows who he is now. And considering that she's the one who brought all this up to begin with, I HIGHLY doubt she'd keep quiet if he was actually Quackity)

So now, again, all we can do is wait, and continue giving our support to the people who need it. I want to believe that things can get better. I want to believe that Quackity is trying his best to improve things

Try and stay positive, everyone. Even if the server isn't the same as before, we'll be fine. Even if QSMP shuts down entirely, we'll be fine. At the end of the day, people's health and mental health is more important than a Minecraft Server, and if you feel like your mental health is being impacted by what's going on, please take some time for yourself. Worrying constantly over something we have zero control in isn't going to help anyone. If you need to take a step back, please do so. And when you're ready to come back, we'll still be here, even if the QSMP isn't. We've built a great community, and it's been incredibly fun being a part of it. And I sincerely doubt it's going away, regardless of what happens next

So make sure you take care of yourselves

#qsmp #qsmp quackity #quackity #qsmp admin situation

[jscwrites]

Please Follow this Backup Blog for Vendetta-IF

Hey guys, it's jsc, the author of Vendetta. I'm making this blog to backup all of the stuff I've posted over on the vendetta-if blog because I can't access my main account. Until I can access my account again, this will be the blog I'll use to interact with all of you and post updates. And in the worst case scenario, this will become the main blog.

So, please, follow this blog as I will be posting updates and answering asks like usual here. Also, for those who want to share their fanarts and other fanworks, please tag this blog too so I can see it. I'll also start reblogging some posts and asks from the Vendetta blog here in hopes of preserving them as much as I can. So, be prepared for a little blast from the past as we walk down the nostalgia road, I suppose.

I'm really sad because just earlier today, I checked my followers count and saw that we were 30 followers away from reaching 4K Followers in the main Vendetta blog, and I was thinking about what to do to celebrate it. Plus, there are also so many awesome fanarts and asks that I don't want to just be gone, which is why I'm making this blog to reblog all of them.

For those who are new and wondering what my story is all about, please check out the intro post I've reblogged. I might need to make another intro post in the future if I never get access back to my account, but for now, I hope it'll suffice.

IMPORTANT LINKS

[ORIGINAL INTRO POST]

[VENDETTA BLOG ARCHIVE]

[DEMO | Latest Chapter: 6 Part 1 | 272.8K words total] 

[FORUM] 

[PATREON] | [KO-FI]

[DISCORD]

CHARACTER RELATED MASTERPOSTS:

[CHARACTERS LIST]

[ARTBREEDER PORTRAITS] [ROs] [Other Pt. 1] [Viktor] [Other Pt. 2]

[CHARACTER PLAYLIST]

ADDITIONAL LINKS

[PUBLIC SIDE STORIES LIST]

[AO3 WRITTEN FANWORK] -> Currently 3 works

For those who are interested in what happened, I'll tell the details under the cut.

So, a few hours ago, I decided to open my iOS Tumblr app to check on notifications and stuff, as I usually do. But instead, I got hit with the Tumblr error messages over and over as it keeps trying to load in.

At first, I just thought it was my cellphone Internet connection, so I tried logging in on the desktop. At first, after I input all of my login credentials, the page loaded, but it brought me to the viewing page of my Vendetta blog as a non-user. I tried again, and this time, it said that my account got terminated. I never got any email from Tumblr about this, and it came as a shock because I just used my Tumblr earlier today to reblog some fanarts with no problem and I have never really used my account for other non-IF related stuff.

So, I scrambled to ask my members in Discord whether my Vendetta blog is still up, and thankfully it still is. But, my main account is somehow gone. The problem is, my Vendetta blog is actually a sideblog to my main account, jsclarissa.

As you can see here, when I tried searching for my main account, it says "Ghost blog! This blog does not exist." despite me having used that account to respond to comments and send asks to other authors before.

I have sent a support ticket to Tumblr support and also tweeted them on Twitter. I really hope they can give me my account back as I'm pretty sure this is some kind of technical issues on their end. I'm just worried about how long it would take them to respond and of course, the worst case scenario that it actually got terminated, so, I'm making this account.

Even if I got my account back, I'll still reblog stuff from the main blog here and maybe I can finally have a more personal blog where I can talk about stuff that is not really related to Vendetta.

#intro post #important announcement #writing update #if: vendetta #if vendetta #vendetta if #if game #if wip #dashingdon #choicescript #interactive fiction #interactive novel #interactive story #interactive games #cyoa #cyoa game #choice of games #hosted games

[the-timewatcher]

A disgruntled Tumblrina (gender-neutral) made a website and why you should too.

Or "reject social media, return to personal websites".

PART 1: THE PART WHERE I CONVINCE YOU TO MOVE TO PERSONAL WEBSITES

So, the Web 2.0 social media infested landscape seems to be crumbling before our very eyes. Reddit's leadership is increasingly greedy, Twitter is sinking under the weight of Elon's massive, yet increasingly fragile ego, Tumblr is slowly turning into another lifeless corpo-fest, complete with the layout, Instagram continues to be vapid and soulless and Facebook seems to be going the way of MySpace.

(feel free to check the alt text on these, btw)

In these troubling times, where everything looks the same and you're expected to be milked for every dollar you're worth, what is a disgruntled Internet surfer such as yourself to do? Move to an untested alternative that's bound to get overrun by fascists thanks to poor moderation? Stay the course on the sinking ships you're used to?

Well, what if I told you that we've solved this problem way back in the 90's and early 2000's and were merely duped by the Big Zuck into forgetting our legacy? What if there was a cure for the sanitized, dull social media hellscape?

It takes a bit of work, when compared to just using a social media site, but even if your particular use case makes switching difficult (ex. an artist looking to promote their work), it's still a good secondary option to consider.

The core appeal is the ability to customize and individualize, make a corner of cyberspace unabashedly yours,

It can also be an exciting avenue of creative expression, giving whatever you want to say a unique coat of paint,

Most website hosting services are a bit more lax about what you can do on them, due to changes in the profit structure (rather than depending on advertisers and investors, they either have a premium option to give supporters perks, have another product, or, in the case of paid services, you renting that space IS the product),

If you want your website to be more accomodating and accessible, you don't have to file tons of feedback - do it yourself,

If you'd like to connect with other webmasters and promote each other's websites, we have webrings - sets of circular links that connect websites with something in common, be it a topic, aesthetic or friend group,

You're less likely to have your stuff purged by an ill-advised change in policy (especially if you have a backup of your files somewhere),

The more people do it, the less power those massive social media corpos have over the internet,

It can be a load of fun!

If I have you convinced, keep reading into part 2. If you just wanna see what I did, skip to part 3. If neither, feel free to continue scrolling. I won't hold it against you. You'll be missing out, that's all.

PART 2: SO, YOU WANNA MAKE A WEBSITE!

Good choice, here's some resources!

sadgrl's absolute beginner's guide to Neocities - what it says on the tin!

W3Schools - a more in-depth tutorial site, a learning resource so excellent it substituted for what I was supposed to learn in technical highschool (because our teacher just told us to go on W3Schools instead of teaching us shit)

A list of free layouts for your website - whether to use as a base to learn from or to simply take for yourself,

Neocities - the posterchild for free website hosting for personal websites. Doesn't allow video or audio, but you can get around that by linking those files from elsewhere. Beginner-friendly to a fault - once you have an account just drag and drop your files in,

Gitlab (& Gitlab Pages) - a more advanced option, but it has a few advantages of its own. Gitlab is a website hoster second and a version control service first - which is programmer speak for "keeps track of changes in your code and stores a backup of it online". it helps a lot when working on multiple devices or co-writing with a friend. And secondly, you can use Gitlab Actions to automate putting your website up (even on Neocities, like I do!)

My askbox - I am not joking, if you have any questions about any of this, I'd love nothing more than to help you out!

But with most of my indie web propaganda out of the way, it's time.

PART 3: Welcome to Timewatcher OS.

Of course, because I couldn't be normal when it comes to making a website, I had to turn it into a fake operating system. Each subpage is an "app", opened in a separate embed window. It has unlockable wallpapers (no pay2win, prommy). There's bideo games on it! I even made a music player for it so I can share my incongruent music tastes!

Like I said in my Tumblr bio, if I ever go radio silent for more than a month, it means I've gotten fed up with this hellsite and moved to my own homepage permamently. And I highly advise you make an option like this for yourself too! Lastly, if any of y'all would like to start a webring, do let me know in the askbox - I'm down to manage it if I'm not alone in there.

Anyways, I hope I convinced you to make a website, or at least check out some of the cool sites you've been missing out on! Hope to see you on the Old Web!

#webdev #web development #old web #neocities #webcore #indie web #codeblr #resources #save

[askagamedev]

Thoughts on the Helldivers PSN situation?

For those who haven't been following this story, Helldivers 2 multiplayer originally required a linked PSN account in order to play. The PSN back end was not ready, so the developers turned off the requirement. Recently it came back on and several players were upset because their games stopped working. There was a review bomb and a lot of angry feedback, especially because PSN accounts are not available without a Playstation console in several geographic areas. [Sony posted yesterday] to say that they would no longer be requiring a linked PSN account for Helldivers 2 Multiplayer.

The situation is strange to me because there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason for any real controversy. Sony is making all PC games that they publish on Steam require PSN accounts. That in itself isn't that big a deal - lots of publishers require similar things. EA requires Origin accounts, Ubisoft has their UPlay ecosystem, Activision has Battle.net, Microsoft has XBox Live, and so on and so forth. Helldivers was always supposed to launch with this requirement but they ran into major technical issues at launch and had to disable the requirement (temporarily). I know that Ghost of Tsushima will also require a PSN account for multiplayer.

The second thing with PSN accounts not being allowed in various countries is an issue within Sony itself and has nothing to do with Helldivers. The Helldivers team did what they were contractually obligated to do - require a PSN account to play. Sony's internal PSN team is responsible for which countries are and aren't on the whitelist for account creation via PC. Most game sales are in North America, Western Europe, and Japan/South Korea. There just aren't quite as many players in Uzbekistan or Ukraine. When your customer count in those countries is in the dozens, it really doesn't rank very high on the priority list.

Early on, I think it should have been communicated to players that they would (eventually) need a PSN account to play multiplayer and possibly some other "here's something for your trouble" bonus in game to help provide some value to the player. Now that it's blown up so large, the decision to step it back is probably the right one. I think that, for Ghost of Tsushima PC, the PSN linking should be a requirement for the game from the jump so that people know exactly what they are getting.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

#helldivers #public facing #the business of video games #current events

[mecachrome]

for an incredibly new f1 follower, what would you recommend for getting up to date with teams and racers and performances and history? apart from dts lol

oh that is a good question!!! i don't think i'm even the best person to answer this but honestly i think it all comes naturally if you pick a specific thing/team/person you're interested in and set out to learn more about that topic, because everything is so connected and with time you can fill in those knowledge gaps pretty quickly :') more under the cut:

dts is imo perfectly acceptable for learning names and faces for the first time and basically creating a vague outline of a given subject (i've said it's like using duolingo for learning a new language lol), so if you watch it and are like oh—i'm interested in charles or mercedes or learning more about technical regulations or whatever, then you can just dive deeper into that via wiki / youtube / podcasts + published media + old race archives and build up from there!

otherwise i think the main thing is just to start watching the actual races when the season gets underway, and in order to properly appreciate them then also read up on + watch videos about the technical/strategy side of the sport as well. back in the day i used to really like chain bear and i still always recommend it to anyone who asks! after that i would just seek out like... a community/server/place where other people are discussing news real-time; this could be meeting people on tumblr and twitter, but personally i'm subscribed to r/formula1 because it's the most active composite source of f1 news and Discourse. if you're reddit-averse i also just keep a big list on twitter with a bunch of random data accounts, official driver/team accounts, journalists, etc. that helps me keep up with the season in a tidy fashion—though honestly f1 journalism is so unserious that you don't really need to do that because most journos regurgitate the same three quotes in slightly different formats, so if you want to follow One Guy who won't disseminate bs info i'd recommend chris medland. or just general sport publications like autosport, motosport.com, the athletic if you're already subscribed to it (pretty lacking for f1 though since it's american lol), etc... some sites like the-race are very contentious though so i'd say just tread with caution!!! on the data side i personally enjoy fdatanalysis and f1telemetrydata (i've also used f1-tempo to do my own telemetry analysis but idk if that's useful). but again i'd highly recommend the subreddit since it keeps everything i just mentioned in one place anyway 😭

other media recs:

f1tv, if it's available in your area, has pretty much everything you need to follow f1 in its entirety. i hate to shill for paid media but i genuinely think it's good; you can watch every f1, f2, f3 session real-time, as well as go to the archives and revisit old races for each series from most seasons. it also has technical shows and a whole host of minidocs with bite-sized info that are probably less sensationalized than dts. if you don't have f1tv though then a lot of decent content is cross-posted to the f1 youtube so honestly the official channels are all pretty good for keeping up with the sport.

podcasts: if you're an auditory person then podcasts are a great way to deepdive into f1 history. personally i believe that 80% of men running f1 podcasts should be legally barred from ever having an opinion on motorsport, so i don't listen to that many, but i do enjoy the official f1 podcast beyond the grid (i listen to it on spotify but you can also find full transcripts on the f1 site) since, you know, they get official personnel on and i appreciate the wide range of personalities interviewed—from drivers to tps to various types of engineers. i've also heard good things about shift+f1, the race, and engine braking, but i haven't checked them out so i'd recommend just looking podcasts up yourself and seeing what vibes with you! though some podcasts are just like... I'll eat this because you're interviewing my guy but i would never watch/listen to you otherwise. (cough pit stop...)

books & autobiographies: again if you want to dive more into old f1, then you can always read a book!! i read jenson's autobiography life to the limit earlier and was very endeared, it's a super breezy but charming read ❤️ adrian newey's memoir is also a decent overview of a clearly brilliant and accomplished mind, i enjoyed the technical details and found his early career path especially interesting.

docus, movies, tv: there's also plenty of f1 media outside of f1tv, so you can always check those out; f1 movies aren't necessarily that accurate or frankly good but sometimes it's fun just for the Vibes and the love of the sport. for ex rush (2013) covers james hunt & niki lauda's rivalry, netflix has a schumacher (2021) doc, the brawn gp miniseries ft. jense came out last november, just things like that... some current individual drivers also have their own random miniseries so you can always seek those out, for ex i watched maxv's anatomy of a champion the other day just for the fun of it LOL.

i don't know whether any of this is helpful... but maybe other people can reply with their own recommendations!!!

also if you're interested in f2, f3, etc. then honestly just follow feeder series on whatever platform since they cover everything pretty well; feeder_series on twitter, r/f1feederseries, plus they do interview podcasts on youtube/spotify so i like watching those to keep up with young drivers. you can also watch chasing the dream for succinct f2 narratives; it used to only be on f1tv but it gets uploaded on youtube now so it's fairly accessible. lmk if you have any other questions or something specific you'd like more info about!!!

#ask

[aotopmha]

The FF14 community has a sarcastic saying along the lines of "great community btw", which is used in cases whenever someone or some group of awful people pop up doing something shitty and which I find annoying.

I think it is really obnoxious because having a great community does not mean there will never be any awful people in that community.

Especially when you get an award for stuff like having a great community – something that in many spaces is usually based on popularity or earned via nebulous committee vote.

That's just not how people work. And putting that strange standard on every single person in that community is really unrealistic.

In fact, I think it would be creepier if occasional assholes didn't pop up. Actual cult behaviour entails a situation where nobody is frustrated, critical or says anything bad about each other ever.

And this is doubly so for stuff that is popular.

We have 30 million accounts in the game now. Do you honestly expect not one of them to be made by an awful person?

The second frustration I have is tying social media with the community. Yoshi-P and his team, don't, even in fact, straight-up can't really, moderate what happens on social media, on Twitter, Reddit, Discord etc.

And as far as I know their official accounts keep it pretty basic and chill.

So, a lot of the bad stuff is just the nature of social media and the internet.

Now, this actually does not mean the dev team bears no responsibility because what they can do is minimise the poison within the game itself.

FF14 is probably the cleanest multiplayer community I've been apart of ever. The most I've gotten is generic insults in French.

The lack of gamerwords in my 3 months of time surprised me the most, and so did the occasional actual compliments. We just either talk about the game or what issues there are with us doing the mechs or disband when stuff isn't working out and time is getting wasted.

But I also know many haven't been as lucky and some of the security features were dated even by the time the game re-released back in 2013.

The friendlist is a mess because it doesn't block properly, and I know stories of people who had to go to another region to escape their stalker.

The GMs, while preferrable to any automated moderation, still don't catch everything, sometimes for years, especially whistleblowers who signal stuff in specific codewords and technically aren't breaking the rules.

Unjust massreportings can happen.

Reporting can be clunky and from what I've explored is hidden behind some menuing instead of just being an open option like in many other online games.

So they kinda can't control Twitter or Reddit at all and they can't change human nature, but I think they can modernise a bunch of the social tab.

I also haven't experienced the game as a non-sprout/at endgame yet, which I'm told can make a difference. Part of the reason why I find the game so rewarding is because you find so many different experiences and opinions in just Duty Finder and you just sometimes get to talking with them about the game and then various other things.

Recently, many gathered to honor Akira Toriyama in many of the data centers and people were just kind of talking to each other about DB and other series.

And I've never seen anything like this in any other MMO or any multiplayer games. I know it happened for Kentaro Miura, too, when he died.

So clearly, the social element is a huge part of the identity of an MMO, so if they mean they're improving the MMO in the MMO, I hope this also includes the social tab features.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14 #FF14 #FFXIV #FF #Final Fantasy

[austinmaris18]

Personal Thoughts on Yona (No Bashing)

I'm gonna be honest, I hate shipping discourse because at the end of the day, characters aren't real and muting tags, posts, accounts are a thing. I also don't want to clog the Sidlink tag with discourse bc it's bad enough on twitter. However, if there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that when something's bothering me, I need to talk about it, if only to process it. So, apologies but here I go. I will say that I feel like this is a nuanced take, so I guess if you're interested in that feel free to read. Disclaimer before I go in: there will be absolutely no Yona bashing. This post isn't to bash or attack Yona, anyone who enjoys Yona individually or paired with Sidon. I don't necessarily dislike her as a character, I'm more annoyed at the writing surrounding her introduction.

I've been thinking a lot, and I think the reason that Yona's introduction bothers me so much is because it mirrors (more than likely unintentionally) a pretty annoying heteronormative trope. In Jeffrey Brown's book Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes (an amazing analytical book in general, would highly recommend) they note that following the publication of Seduction of the Innocent in 1954 - which claimed amongst other things that Batman and Robin were a couple - there was a sort of moral panic about comic books. This was also during the era of McCarthyism, and so to avoid Senate action, the comic industry created the Comics Code Authority, which partly ensured that "illicit relationships" weren't hinted at, and in 1956 Kate Kane as Batwoman was introduced to be a love interest for Batman to reinforce his heterosexuality.

Now, am I comparing Sidlink to the supposed queer subtext of Batman and Robin in 40s and 50s comics? No. Am I saying that Nintendo purposefully introduced Yona for the same purpose as DC did Batwoman? Not necessarily. I just think it's almost comical how similar the situation feels, and the writing doesn't help either. Now, Yona is apparently Sidon's "dear childhood friend" and is also from a different kingdom. That in and of itself feels so awkward because again, we've had Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity AND their respective DLCs, and not once have gotten mention of Yona or her kingdom. Not in a throwaway line from an NPC, not in the murals of Zora's Domain, not in Mipha's diary. (Also, I know that technically, Age of Calamity isn't canon. But it still had input from the Zelda team, and it provides a supposedly canon view of the settlements in Hyrule before the Calamity.) Especially considering the fact that we get confirmation from Sidon's mural and King Dorephan's dialogue that the engagement to Yona is political/arranged, this engagement was not really foreshadowed in any meaningful way other than this sort of heteronormative notion of "He's a prince so he'll have to get married at some point." Like, Sidon had a whole fanclub in BotW, and not one of them knew?? Did the engagement happen in the six/seven years between BotW and ToTK? Again, for a race of long lived beings like the Zora, that feels a bit hard to believe.

This in particular is what makes her introduction so jarring. We've seen all the countless Twitch and YouTube streamers reacting, the TikToks, the tweets and Tumblr posts of people shocked and disappointed. Here's where I point back to the fact that Aonuma and Fujibayashi even addressed the fact that Sidon was so popular during the BotW DLC Dev Talk. That's not to say they were aware of the ship or even cared enough to have taken the action of mitigating any potential queer readings. Other than reactions to the gameplay and the overall story, I don't think Nintendo particularly cares what we do, think, or ship. But they did know that Sidon in particular was a standout popular character, and so it seems so strange to not pair him off in a more well written way.

That's before even mentioning the whole Zora mural where Sidon parallels his relationship with Yona to that of Mipha, literally calling her a sister. There's also no getting around the fact that he uses that phrasing as in Spanish, French, and the original Japanese (those are the languages I read, so that's what I'm referencing) so it's not an English localization quirk. And I know there's the line about his feelings become more "difficult to quantify" but again, why? Why not just say he admired her instead of comparing her to Mipha in that way if they want to show us there was something there even in their childhood? I know it's meant to be sweet and to depict a sort of growth of feelings between them, but it reads strangely.

So we have these aspects and then we compare this to Sidon's interactions with Link this game. (Also before that, I want to acknowledge something: the vast majority of us who ship Sidlink or just enjoyed Sidon's character were never under the illusion that Nintendo would go towards any canonical romance between Sidon and Link.) We arrive to Zora's Domain to find a statue of us riding Sidon from the Vah Ruta battle. There is a whole Hylian bedroom constructed near the area where Sidon and Link fought Vah Ruta (more built out than the bed area Mipha used). The whole "Link Shrine" Sidon has singing his praises. Sidon literally getting down on one knee, taking OUR HAND in both his hands before presenting us the ring (I know that the other champions say the same oath and give us rings, it's the imagery of a proposal that I'm referring to). Link standing equally distant to Sidon as Yona during Sidon's crowning. Yona telling us that when Sidon speaks it's more than likely to talk about Link. Already Yona's introduction so funnily parallels heteronormative tropes, but to actually have so much imagery and subtext for Sidon and Link makes it feel even more crazy? I think this is where people get so hung up on the idea that "Yona was just introduced to get in the way of Sidlink." Honestly, I think the interactions with Link are more probably concessions for fans (not necessarily shippers) because again, the devs know how popular Sidon is. But it compounds with the manner in which Yona is written into the game.

All that being said, I don't necessarily have a neat conclusion to draw from these thoughts, but going back to the Batwoman parallels, I do think it's a shame Yona won't have to chance to canonically develop further the way Batwoman did. After all, despite her original introduction, most people nowadays think Batwoman and think of Kate Kane, the redhead badass lesbian superhero. But that happened over the course of decades in a medium that iterates narratively on the same characters over and over. Even if we get a story DLC for ToTK that has more Yona content, I don't know that it would be enough to smooth over how awkward her introduction was, and it's hard to believe Nintendo would make another direct sequel or carry over Sidon and Yona to the next version of Zelda. But we can already see Yona's iterative growth through fandom!

Now listen. I know myself, and the truth is I'm never going to actively ship Sidon and Yona. But I'm sure there are amazing artists and writers out there who will flesh Yona and her relationship and history with Sidon out (whether that includes Link in a polycule or not). I'm glad that the game has made the interpretation of a lavender marriage between Sidon and Yona who have their respective paramours possible (with the politically arranged aspect of the marriage, Sidon's boisterous actions concerning Link, Yona's acknowledgement of Link's importance to Sidon). I'm looking forward to fics, standalone art and comics that take that route. I'm sure that there will continue to be art and fanfiction that don't acknowledge ToTK or Yona, and I will surely be consuming those as well. I really hope the homophobia and general discourse towards Sidlink subsides, because it's been surprisingly overwhelming on Twitter. I also hope that there aren't people actively attacking posts about Yona. After all, muting and blocking words, tags, and accounts are options across all social media platforms.

This post will definitely be a one off for me, and I don't ever see myself making another post like this again. I honestly might also delete this post in the future now that I've properly written out my thoughts. Anyways, time to get back to drawing practice and working on my fics.

#prince sidon #sidon x link #sidlink #lady yona #tears of the kingdom ship discourse #nuanced ship take #no bashing of female characters #please do not be homophobic in my comments or dms

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

PSA on sharing others' twst merch pictures + jp fandom etiquette

Okay guys, it’s time to sit down and have a serious talk for a second 😣

With the recent deliveries of 2023 Valentine Gifts to Japanese fans, I noticed that many had censored the text (whereas in previous years, it was much easier to locate uncensored letters). At the same time, I've also noticed many international fans reposting pictures (which do show the uncensored text) taken from Japanese fans' accounts to sort of "live react" or scream about the contents (rather than sharing and/or liking the original post they clearly took the images from).

Admittedly, this is an issue that moreso plagues TWST Twitter than TWST Tumblr, but I know that there are fans that frequent both platforms and are unaware of this issue. Here in this post, I'm going to talk about why spreading someone else's merch pictures looks bad for us (in the international TWST fandom), why you shouldn't do it, and what you can do instead.

First thing's first, let's think of it this way: this situation is similar to art/writing/translation theft. One can make the argument that technically since the work being shared around is "not original/not made by the OP" then it is okay to just take it and spread it. That's not the problem here; the problem is that someone else spent their hard-earned money to obtain this item, and some OPs even go out of their way to make elaborate set-ups to take pictures of their merchandise. The act of taking something that isn't yours but still posting it without crediting the OP (and thus taking the credit for yourself, even if not explicitly claimed to be "yours") still pervades. If you want to think of it another way, it’s like not citing your sources properly in an essay. What makes this behavior worse is that it's literally SO easy to just retweet and/or like the original post. But no, instead people are actively making the decision to take their photos without so much as linking back to the OP. What purpose does that serve, especially when it's considerably more effort than liking/retweeting? Not to mention the harm it does for the already shaky relations between Japanese and international fans 💦 I already mentioned before that the number of uncensored Valentine Gifts has gone WAY down in 2023, and I'd wager that this is, in part, due to international fans often engaging in this aforementioned "picture theft". It is seen as something done in poor taste, but it is not often overtly spoken about due to the language barrier and/or Japanese fans not being as outspoken as, say, western fans are. Japanese fans are sharing pictures of their merch to express their excitement and share the love of their favorite character(s) with others. It feels like a violation of those positive feelings to have someone else come along, snatch up the picture they lovingly took, and pass if off as essentially their own without permission or even acknowledging that the OP exists. We also need to consider the possibility that some Japanese fans may be uncomfortable with their pictures being spread around because it unintentionally spoils others. Their excitement should not impact others' experiences, so when this is done outside of their own control it can make them feel helpless. They are NOT posting these very personal pictures for clout, but to spread their joy to their friends and followers. That's why so many Japanese fans now feel discouraged from sharing something they love so much with fellow fans--because their boundaries and intentions are not being respected. We want to see the Valentine Gifts and other awesome pictures of TWST merch in the future? Then we need to give our fellow fans the courtesy they deserve. We should NOT act entitled to or feel owed for what is paid content that other people purchased. This should be a GIVEN act of basic human decency. Furthermore, PLEASE remember that in continuing to take pictures that don't belong to you, you're only going to make it harder for yourself to all to see Valentine Gifts moving forward (save for buying all 28 letters yourself, or hunting down the 28 individually on a platform now scarce of the uncensored versions). The OPs’ feelings are obviously much more important than international fans not getting their fix of merch pics, but if that’s how the situation needs to be reframed to make people reconsider their actions, then reframe it we shall. Merch picture theft, combined with international fans misusing the JP fandom's tagging system to increase visibility of their posts (even when the content is not relevant), acting entitled to translations of official and fan content, and instances of international fans acting aggressively and harassing Japanese fans has created an environment of distrust. It's only going to get worse if we can't draw a line in the sand here and now.

The intention in calling attention to this issue is NOT to gatekeep Japanese merch from an international audience. You have MANY options available to you where you can engage with OP’s post, still see and enjoy the content, AND be polite about it.

What's NOT okay to do?:

Taking OP's picture and reposting it with no credit.

Taking OP's picture and editing it (filters, drawing over it, etc.) before reposting.

Asking OP to uncensor the image(s).

Contentious to do:

Quote retweet! (Japanese fans are generally iffy with internet strangers in their mentions. This may vary from OP to OP.)

Commenting on OP's post! (Like QRTing, the Japanese fandom generally does not like comments unless they come from mutuals/people they are familiar with. Again, this may vary from OP to OP. It’s best to preface comments with an “excuse me”, “I’m not a mutual but”, or something along those lines to be polite.)

Linking or crediting the OP in a thread, especially if it is the second tweet or beyond (because not everyone will read the entire thread, and therefore they may miss the credit). If you’re going to credit OP in a thread, do it in the initial tweet or as soon as possible in your own post.

Asking for and getting OP's permission to share their picture in a public space. (I would advise against this one due to potential language barriers. This method may also put OP on the spot to give a certain reply.)

So... what IS okay to do?:

Liking OP's post!

Retweeting (or whatever the equivalent of sharing is) the OP's post!

Sharing OP's post or images in private spaces (ie DMs, among friends/group chats, etc.)

Sharing only the TEXT of merch items in public.

Sharing your OWN pictures.

Sharing your reactions to merch in your own post (without any pictures).

Sharing/referencing a database created by the OP (same person who took all the pictures in the database) for the sole intention of being shared.

Asking to see merch images taken by your friends.

I did my best to research this situation and to give appropriate advice on it, but please let me know if I flubbed up somewhere 💦

Anyway!! I hope that you found this post enlightening and that you take its message to heart 🙇‍♀️ Please, let's all try to be more mindful of how we share things that we're excited about in this fandom!! We can still have fun and scream about our favorite characters without souring the experience for other fans!!

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst merch #twisted wonderland merch #disney twisted wonderland #twst en #twisted wonderland en #twst valentine #twisted wonderland valentine #notes from the writing raven #advice #twst valentines #twisted wonderland valentines #twst valentine gift #twisted wonderland valentine gift #twst valentines day letters #twisted wonderland valentines day letters

[kylieneko]

Mod Malware Situation Update

Edit 2023-06-09: The researchers have updated their guidance to all-clear on unmodded versions of Minecraft Java, and work continues with both CurseForge and Modrinth to improve safeguards against new variants or copycat attacks. They are still advising staying away from mods a bit longer while this work continues.

As an additional note, I want to clarify something I don't think was clear in my original post: this was not a failure on CurseForge. What went down here has happened to other platforms. It's just the first time such a malicious package attack has been observed in the Minecraft modding scene. It may not be the last.

Original Post Follows:

As you may have seen yesterday, the modded Minecraft community is experiencing a malware incident.

The quick "do I need to worry" is if and only if all the following are true:

you are using Minecraft Java Edition

. . . and are using any mods or modpacks

. . . and those mods were downloaded/updated in the last 2-3 weeks or possibly as far back as March (timeline still unclear as of my post)

If any of the above were not true for you, then you should be clear. Investigators are advising maximum caution even of vanilla Minecraft, more on that at the end of this post.

If all of the above were true, don't panic. You just need to take a few extra steps to be sure.

A document for non-technical users explaining the situation in more detail and steps to take has been developed on github.

If you used any of the scripts from yesterday to verify your stuff, you may still want to try the new tools which will peak inside the mod files for that extra sure feeling.

The document provides links for checking yourself out, and what to do if the worst case happens.

CurseForge has an update on their twitter:

Modrinth is also in the process of verifying their site as well:

Okay, so, why is the document recommending not even running even vanilla Minecraft Java

There are a lot of brilliant people working on this incident, and they're all smart enough to not give an all-clear until all the facts are known.

Everyone wants fast results. Accuracy takes time.

The way this malware worked was to infect all Java jar files it finds on the system.

Including Minecraft itself.

Including things that have nothing to do with Minecraft.

This spreading to infect other jar files appears to be how it spread to infect legitimate mod files:

The malicious mods have upload dates multiple weeks in the past. Most of them were uploaded by single-use accounts with clearly autogenerated names, and were likely the seed of the infection. Luna Pixel Studios was compromised due to a dev testing one of these mods, as it was an interesting new upload.

At the end of the day, it's all about risk. They can't give a clean bill of health just yet, so they won't. If it turns out that something bigger and nastier was happening, they'd be on the line for that.

This is also why every list of mods published by the investigators comes with the "not comprehensive" disclaimer -- it's what we know. What we don't know can still hurt us.

So, running vanilla launcher for vanilla Minecraft Java is considered a risk. It may be low-risk.

Is it a risk I'm willing to take? Maybe next week, when I know more. (I often wait a week after an update, which coincidentally happened yesterday, so this just happens to align with how I do things normally)

If it's a risk you take, just be safe, stay vigilant, and keep an eye on the main repository of information for more news because I am not a reliable reporter.

#minecraft #minecraft java #modded minecraft #malware #fractureiser #curseforge #overwolf #modrinth #cyber security #minecraft mods #mineblr

[mitigatedchaos]

General Post for Monday, April 15, 2024

(5,700 words, ~28 mins)

💾 "Don't underestimate computers."

6 - Social Media Notes: Recommendation: To limit distraction, limit notifications in order to make social media into its own specific context, rather than leaking into other contexts.

7 - US War Notes: Since at least the year 2000, despite its technical competence, the United States has been bad at managing the political dimension of its wars. Developments since then suggest it may get worse.

8 - Interpreting Statement A: Why "industrialization enables women's rights" could be viewed as right-wing.

9 - Computing Capital Notes 1: The basic nature of computers as capital. (It's about dimensionality in production.)

10 - Computing Capital Notes 2: How should computing be distributed? From a technical perspective, it's an open question.

11 - Computing Politics Notes: Computing has its own politics, and how computing should be distributed is one of its central questions.

12 - Desktop Internet Notes: The old Internet was implicitly gatekept by the price and complexity of personal computers. With the emergence of smartphones, personal computers are becoming less common again.

-☆☆☆-

6: Social Media Notes

Social media tends to drive people to distraction. It's obvious how negative interactions like arguments can be distracting. Someone could pop up and argue, "owning cats is bourgeois decadence," and it's very tempting to just correct them. With smartphone notifications, such an argument could come up at any time, in any context.

Positive interactions can also be distracting. It's just a lot more fun to work with your friend on writing his homebrew Dungeons & Dragons campaign than to do math homework. (Substitute whatever activity you want.)

This is why I strongly recommend muting the vast majority of social media notifications on your devices. Force social media to be its own specific context, rather than intruding into other contexts.

On Twitter, I've gone so far as to mute notifications from every account except ones that follow me. When I want to continue an argument, I just scroll down in my replies to find it, and if I don't want to, then I leave the Cats-Are-Bourgeois guy's reply unread. Would this approach be bad for Twitter if widely adopted? Sure, but it's necessary to prioritize your own life.

7: US War Notes

For decades, the United States government seems to have done well at the technical challenge of delivering bombs on to targets, but poorly at managing the political dimension of conflicts. Back in 2019, Hanania (yes, the troll one) posted a bunch of excerpts of Afghan War documents, pointing to a government that didn't know what the mission was, could not allocate money effectively, and seems to have failed to understand the needs and desires of the population.

The War in Afghanistan took place during both the Bush and Obama administrations, and neither of them managed to successfully resolve the conflict.

Why? Well, we could say that there's a failure of leadership, and I think that's correct.

More importantly, I think it's likely that the legitimizing basis for both the Bush power coalition and the Obama power coalition contained premises that were in conflict with the national development of a poor, arid, inland, mountainous country, operating under a different religion.

This is still a failure of leadership, because the necessary talent to carry out such a project, or to at least make a better attempt, existed within the American system, and a talented political leader who devoted enough attention to the problem would be able to synthesize new ideology to draw out that talent. The greatest challenge is that this would divide the political leader's attention between foreign politics and domestic politics. Bush or Obama would have needed to tap a trusted lieutenant and imbued them with significant authority, as well as working closely with them to perform the necessary political maneuvering. Could the system have provided the right lieutenant?

The United States remains a formidable opponent due to its immense wealth, technological advantage, and the quality of its institutions. It maintains its position by being well-equipped to knock down legible, modernist states, even as India and China continue to industrialize.

However, the political situation has gotten worse.

For instance...

Statement A: Women's liberation as we currently know it is primarily the result of industrialization reducing the child mortality rate from its historical level of around 50% to rates below 1% in developed countries, in combination with labor-saving home automation (such as laundry machines) dramatically reducing women's work at home, enabling women to work outside the home at much higher rates.

Is the above statement "far right"?

Statement B: The ideology of liberalism has powerful inherent advantages in economic development and trade, as well as epistemic advantages due to relative freedom of speech. (One way to think of this is that it uses peace dividends to pay competing parties for mutual disarmament, both internal to liberal society, and between liberal countries.) However, since the early 20th century, liberalism has likely gained a structural advantage due to the global dominance of the United States (enabled by the country's immense size, geographic diversity, and relative cultural unity, allowing for economic and therefore military power), both making it appear successful and making attacks on liberal countries more costly. In the event of a reduction in US dominance, liberalism may face stiffer competition from more authoritarian and particularist ideologies.

How about this statement? Is this "far right"?

I asked Nous Capybara 34B, a large language model based on 01AI's 34-billion parameter Yi model, to answer this question. Nous Capybara was trained on LessWrong posts, and provided the quite reasonable response that neither quotation is "far right," as neither quote advocates for far right positions (such as discrimination).

There's a famous Tumblr post that reads:

drakensberg: The reading comprehension and overall common sense on this website is piss poor.

poupon: how dare you say we piss on the poor

If you want to know what an awful Tumblr discourse post, Twitter tweet, or clickbait article would say, you can actually just straight-up ask Nous Capybara for an unreasonable opinion. So I did. It said:

An unreasonable interpretation of Statement A could be that it promotes extreme right-wing ideologies by suggesting that women's liberation is solely a result of technological advancements and reduced child mortality rates, rather than acknowledging the significant contributions of feminist movements, activists, and policy changes. This perspective may also argue that the statement undervalues or dismisses the struggles and achievements of women in advocating for their rights and equality. Additionally, an unreasonable interpretation might falsely attribute the statement to a far-right individual or group as a means to discredit or manipulate others' opinions about the issue.

Suppose there is a ruling power coalition whose publicly-expressed ideology is that the concept of merit is a "racial supremacist," colonialist construct, and simultaneously that they're better than you because they got into Harvard and you didn't (and that Harvard Extension School, which includes the same classes, but not the same tough admissions gauntlet, doesn't count).

How would they view the two statements? How would they speak about them?

8: Interpreting Statement A

How could statement A be interpreted as "far right"?

Statement A: Women's liberation as we currently know it is primarily the result of industrialization reducing the child mortality rate from its historical level of around 50% to rates below 1% in developed countries, in combination with labor-saving home automation (such as laundry machines) dramatically reducing women's work at home, enabling women to work outside the home at much higher rates.

Self-identified progressives generally proceed from what could be called a "default abundance" mindset rather than a "default scarcity" mindset. In their view, women's rights are the default that always existed, and would emerge naturally in the absence of oppression. In this view, women's rights could have emerged naturally at any point in history, except that the people of the past chose otherwise. Thus, the contemporary male supporter of women's rights is morally superior to the men of the past, who selfishly chose oppression.

[ women's rights ]

Self-identified progressives might extend causation, but primarily to place "women's rights" as part of a broader network of non-oppression. For instance, they might say that "women's rights" both depends on and reinforces "democracy".

[ women's rights ] ⇄ [ democracy ]

The right wing generally have a "default scarcity" mindset, e.g. "if no one plants the field, then there will be no wheat."

In statement A, women's rights are the result of a particular level of economic development, capable of producing modern medical technology and automating household labor.

[ industrial production ] → [ medical technology ] & [ household labor automation ] → [ women's rights ]

The typical self-identified progressive would not say that medical technology, such as vaccination, is bad. Rather, what makes them upset is what could potentially be attached to the first node, "industrial production."

[ social norms & values ] → [ industrial production ] → [ medical technology ] & [ household labor automation ] → [ women's rights ]

Let's take "punctuality" as an example of what I will call a "production value." We'll use the Smithsonian infographic on "white culture" that was yanked down in 2020 as an example. The authors of the infographic wrote:

‣ Follow rigid time schedules. ‣ Time viewed as a commodity.

For many people, punctuality is viewed in moral terms. Being late is considered immoral, or at least rude. However, punctuality also has mechanical effects - if an assembly line depends on 20 workers all being at their stations, and one worker is 30 minutes late, then the assembly line will not run as long, and will therefore produce fewer items.

If those items are, say, vaccines, then fewer children will receive vaccines. If fewer children receive vaccines, then more children will die of childhood illness. If more children die of childhood illness, women will have to spend more time having and raising children, and will have less time to work and earn money outside the home. If women don't raise more children to make up for the deaths, then that society's population will decline, and that society will, eventually, be replaced.

It might not be vaccines. It might be ball bearings for an industrial equipment maker that manufactures conveyor belts used in plants that make vaccines. It might be tires. It might be helicopter rotor blades. Regardless, if people don't show up, then the product doesn't get made. If the product doesn't get made, then it can't get used. If the product isn't used, then something of value may end up missing from society.

Enforcing punctuality is often inconvenient for people who don't take well to it. It can be viewed as a form of oppression - people will not get paid unless they show up on time, and for some people that's a lot more difficult than it is for others.

This is horrifying for self-identified progressives. "What about sick people? What about mentally ill people? What about people from cultures with looser time norms?"

Someone with a globe emoji (🌐) in their name on Twitter might quip, "All of those people would benefit from a wide availability of cheap, mass-produced vaccines," which reduce the required amount of labor for a particular material standard of living.

It's a trade-off. You set a target level of economic production, and given the available knowledge, capital, materials, and energy available, that takes a particular strictness of production norms to reach.

Note that positive rights, such as "every human being has a right to housing," inherently imply the enforcement of production norms.

A self-identified "reactionary," who dislikes women's rights for his own reasons, can leverage the necessity of stricter social norms for high rates of material production in order to promote stricter social norms for other reasons. This is, roughly, what would cause a self-identified progressive to describe statement A as "far right."

We could also imagine a "dark liberal" who likes women's rights, and therefore wants to impose some minimum limits on social norms in order to keep industrial production within the range necessary to support that. (Such a liberal might be a "conservative," conserving a particular liberal order. US politics tends to attribute too much to both labels, calling Communists "liberals" and monarchists "conservatives.")

Many self-identified progressives, like many political footsoldiers, primarily obtain their political opinions socially, and cannot differentiate between the two.

(How legible is all this? Llama-2 agreed once I suggested something like this reasoning, but didn't notice until I told it to. Expect a difference between progressive-tinged people and hyper-online partisan footsoldiers.)

9: Computing Capital Notes 1

I've said this before, but capital is a low-dimensionality construct, and much of the work of labor is to reduce the context of a production problem until it's simple enough that capital can be applied to it.

As an example, think of this mass production metal-stamping machine - it literally goes up and down. Over and over and over again, the main part of the machine is moving along a single axis, and uniform material is fed into it from a single direction at a steady rate.

The job of labor is to maintain the machine, to configure the machine, to ensure the production area is free of anything that might interfere with the machine (like rain or parts intersecting from other machines), and to supply the right input materials. Once the metal is loaded on to the machine, it goes in a straight line, where it gets pressed into the exact same sequence of dies every time.

A blacksmith could make almost whatever shape you like to order. He could use a variety of metals. That's labor. A machine where the metal can only travel in one direction and can only be made into 10,000 of one particular shape? That's capital.

Software is special.

Suppose we are manufacturing some metal part using a metal stamping machine. Once it comes out of the stamping machine, the parts will be painted either red or blue. Simple enough. We have two conveyor belts. One belt goes to the machine where the parts are painted red. The other goes to the machine where the parts are painted blue. We install a second machine that simply pushes parts onto either the blue or the red conveyor belt. It could be a pusher plate attached to a piston. We'll call it a sorter.

What's the ratio of red to blue parts set by our sorter?

If there's no reconfigurable control system, then it's just whatever ratio it was built for. For instance, the conveyor may have a series of belts, and the sorter may just have some gears that activate the piston for every second part that comes down the conveyor, pushing it on to the blue line. This gives one option:

{ 50% blue }

We could make a more basic control system with just a lever and some more gears. The lever would switch the assembly to different sets of gears with different rhythms. We could have three sets of gears, for three options:

{ 25% blue, 50% blue, 75% blue }

We could install a simple electronic system for triggering the piston, controlled by a knob, with ten increments, with the timing set according to the speed of the conveyor belt. This gives us ten options:

{ 10% blue, 20% blue, 30% blue, 40% blue, 50% blue, 60% blue, 70% blue, 80% blue, 90% blue, 100% blue }

We can consider the [ red-blue color ratio ] as a dimension of the production problem, with some range of possible values. In math, it would be a variable. A customer might call in and say "I want an order of 10,000 parts, and I want 6,000 of them red (and 4,000 blue), with a steel thickness of 4mm." If we were plotting out this order, we would use a 3-dimensional graph, with the variables { quantity, color, thickness }.

If we reduce the range of possible values for one of the variables, we can simplify our machine. We are shrinking or reducing that dimension. If we shrink it down to one value, then we've reduced it to a constant and effectively factored that dimension out. If the only color option is { 50% blue }, then we can omit [ color ] from our graph, and just display { quantity, thickness }.

We already had to do a lot of this to get a working machine to begin with. It would be very difficult for the same machine to manufacture both pillows and steel doors.

Computers are special, because they can increase the dimensionality of the production machine.

Suppose we hook up a computer to the electronic sorting piston. If we know the number of parts in total, and we know the timing of the conveyor, we can select just about whatever number of produced parts we like for painting, in just about whatever pattern we like. If the customer orders 10,000 parts, we can paint any number of them blue from 0 to 10,000. We have 10,000 options:

{ 1, ..., 10,000 }

If the computer doesn't have a particular pattern, we can reprogram it with new software. If the computer is hooked up to a network or terminal, we could potentially even change the color for the remaining share of the order while the order is in progress.

This ability of computers to increase the dimensionality of a production system (which makes it more general) is part of why computers and software are so valuable.

10: Computing Capital Notes 2

A floppy disk contains 1.44 million bytes. That's about 1.44 million characters (letters, numbers, spaces, etc) in an old encoding scheme like ASCII. You could fit about 200,000 words in there, enough for a lengthy book.

Let's suppose that we wanted to store a bunch of names, addresses, and phone numbers. We might allocate...

64 bytes for the first name

64 bytes for the last name

128 bytes for the street address

64 bytes for the city

2 bytes for the state

10 bytes for the phone number

...for a total of 332 bytes per record. Dividing the capacity of our floppy disk by this amount, we get around 4,337 records. We'll round it down to 4,300. (Alternatively, we could omit the city and state for about 5,400 records.)

We could describe the memory usage as "rectangular." It's based on the number of records times the size of each record.

If we just talked about books, it would sound like computers scale linearly. 200,000 words would be a long fiction book - it's about twice the length of The Hobbit - but roughly 5,000 records would be pretty short for a phone book (a printed telephone directory, obsolete as of 2010).

It we wanted to make a telephone directory in this way for say, Manhattan (1.646 million residents), we would need about 546 million bytes (546 megabytes), or about 380 floppy disks, which would just about fill a couple of shoeboxes. This would be a "tall" problem, with lots and lots of small records. (This isn't an important term, here. I'm just using it for the example.)

We could also imagine a "wide" problem, where each record is large. For instance, we could be storing college applications, in which each person submits a PDF of their resume (5 MB), a 10,000 word essay (70 KB), an application form with 96 64-character fields (6.1 KB), 5 photographs (300 KB each), and a 5-minute DVD-quality video (367.5 MB), for a combined total of 374 megabytes per application. If we then get 5,000 student applications for the year, we will need 1.87 terabytes (trillions of bytes) just to store them all.

In the telephone directory problem, we wanted to look at each person in very little detail, so each record is small. In the college application problem, we want to look at each person in a lot more detail, so each record is large. Either way, it adds up.

What should we make of these three simple examples, the book, the phone directory, and the college application storage? How much computer you need, whether that's one floppy disk's worth, 546 megabytes, or 1.87 terabytes, depends on the scale of your problem.

That brings us into the second portion.

Suppose the college hires 15 people to spend 3 workweeks reviewing all 5,000 college applications. Which of the following three options should the college use?

15 desktop computers, each with 2 terabytes of storage, and have a full copy of all applications on each computer

15 desktop computers, each with 2 gigabytes of storage, plus 1 server computer with 2 terabytes of storage, and copy the applications as-needed

15 low-powered "thin client" computers, each with 500 megabytes of storage, plus 1 server computer with 2 terabytes of storage, and have the server do almost all the work

This is a trick question - the information provided isn't enough to give a good answer. It depends on things like the rate of data transfer from the server, the price of the hardware, the budget for the project, and just what the workers will be doing with the applications.

Whether it's more appropriate to use a centralized system or a decentralized system, and when it's better to use a remote system or to handle things locally, is a technical question which varies from project to project, and from time to time.

11: Computing Politics Notes

The question of which computers processing should take place on, and who owns and controls them, as well as their software, is also a political one - though not in the sense that it's formally legislated by congress, or that there is some special identity-based way to use a computer.

A computer is a piece of capital equipment. A decent one might have an upfront cost of $1,500. If it's replaced once every 3 years, then the price is $500 per year - whether you use it or not. The marginal cost of electricity for actually using the computer to crunch numbers or store data is low. This creates a pressure towards centralization - every CPU cycle not used is "wasted," and a centralized system can aggregate work requests across people (and also timezones), averaging out usage.

Likewise, to actually maintain the computer, you have to learn how it works and do research, and things are constantly changing. If you like doing this, you won't perceive this as a cost. Some guys like to work on their own cars. Other guys like to install custom computer operating systems for fun. A lot of other people would literally rather pay someone else to do that (and they have good reasons to do so). This also creates an incentive towards centralization, where a lot of computers can be administered by a few experts.

Both of these trends also lean towards remote systems. With the contemporary Internet, for a lot of uses, it's just easier to have someone else build and administer a giant warehouse of computers, and then pay them to use a few computers as-needed. (This is the basic theory behind Amazon Web Services, which accounted for a majority of Amazon's profit in 2021.)

Here's how this gets political.

You don't own those computers. You can only use them in the ways that the guy who owns the giant warehouse of computers allows, and if he doesn't like you, he might cut off access.

Recently on Tumblr there have been reports of Google removing sexually-charged documents from Google Docs. Are these reports true? I don't know, but given how payment processors behave, it seems likely. If your steamy Doctor Who / X-Files fanfic is on gDocs, and Google's legal department decides that it doesn't want that liability - well, those are Google's computers, not yours.

Poof.

Similar pressures apply to computer programs. An unskilled user could accidentally download ransomware or a trojan that steals their credit card information. Many users don't want to learn how to avoid them (and some users might not be able to). On top of this, they don't want to learn about things like files, folders, file formats, or any of a dozen other aspects of computer literacy. Thus smartphones and tablets computers tend to be the computer as appliance, set up to only download new programs from restricted-access corporate "app stores."

It might not be surprising that, according to Pew Research (2021), many younger Americans only use a smartphone rather than a desktop or notebook computer.

Smartphone dependency: Some 15% of U.S. adults are “smartphone-only” internet users – that is, they have a smartphone, but do not have a home broadband connection. [...] Smartphone dependence is more common among younger rather than older adults: 28% of adults ages 18 to 29 are in this “smartphone-only” category, compared with 12% of those 30 and older.

The typewriter is a production device. The television is a consumption device. The smartphone is both a consumption and production device, but this is asymmetric - due to the device's small size and thumb-based interface, it's much more difficult to write text or edit video than it would be with a desktop computer. Programs ("apps") tend to limit power-user functionality (such as access to the file system) in order to be simpler to use for non-experts, allowing a user to access many of the common uses of a computer but with much less control over how it's done. A smartphone will also be less powerful than a desktop computer of the same price.

The idea of writing a program on a smartphone is absurd - smartphone applications are written on desktop or notebook computers.

12: Desktop Internet Notes

Kontextmaschine once wrote (2019):

And if the Anglophone internet is ::gestures:: like this now maybe it’s cause it’s less of a professional-class preserve? The dividing line maybe being smartphones where “people on the internet” went from “people who specifically spend $X/mo on it as luxury” to “people with telephone service”? That’s a real possibility, that for all the “Global Village” stuff the wondrous effect of the ‘90s internet was to create a cultural space that was MORE gatekept by wealth and education.

That’s… kind of depressing, though. “Haha you thought the world was getting better because you were eliminating elitist barriers but actually it’s cause you were making them higher, which is good because the poor and non-elite are disproportionately idiots with worthless ideas and to the extent they’re on top of things the thing they’re on top of is undermining the basis of a good society, and anyway those times were a phenomenon of a narrow early adopter base and you’ll never ever get them back unless you make the non-elite economically and politically irrelevant.”

Suppose we want to divide up the population of computer users. Remember that bit about capital and dimensionality in section 9? First, "shallow" computing needs have sufficiently simplified/reduced context that they can be easily served by software (users won't need to do things like compile code or access the file system), while "deep" needs do not. Second, the users either "want" or "need" to use the computer.

This gives us a nice 2×2 matrix classification. People love those.

Hobbyists - Hobbyists want a great deal of control over the computer. Maybe they're creating mods for a popular video game like Skyrim. Maybe they're programming Christmas tree lights to Rickroll people. Maybe they're developing desktop window managers for fun. Exactly what it is doesn't matter. What matters is that no one produces an app to do whatever it is they're doing, and if someone does, it doesn't appear on the app store. In fact, if someone did, they might not even care, and continue to do whatever they were doing anyway.

Power Users - The power users need a great deal of control over the computer for their work. Maybe they're compiling software. Maybe they're feeding dozens of spreadsheets of observed wombat behavior into a machine learning program. Maybe they're photoshopping wombat pictures for a National Geographic article. Whatever it is, they probably have to access the file system.

Casual Recreational Users - For gamers who don't want to mod games, but just pop in a disk and play, there game consoles. For social media users who don't feel the need to photoshop their photos, there are smartphones. Tablets can be used to watch movies from streaming services, like Netflix.

Casual Workers - For people doing more casual work, who are fine looking at only one application at a time, it's possible to hook a tablet up to a keyboard and stick it on a stand. For a somewhat more conventional notebook computer experience, casual workers could buy a Chromebook and do all their writing, emailing, and presentation creation in the web browser, using Google Docs and GMail. And if it's just ordering necessities off Amazon? Even a smartphone can do that.

To pick four example computers...

The IBM 7090, first installed in 1959, was priced around $2.9 million in 1960, or $23 million in 2023 terms.

The Apple II home computer, one of the most famous computers in history, was priced at $1,298 (2023: $6,530) to $2,638 (2023: $13,260) when it came out in 1977. It had a clock speed of about 1 Mhz.

1981's IBM Personal Computer cost $1,565 (2023: $5,240) at release. It had a clock speed of 4.77 Mhz.

2004's iMac G5 cost $1,299 (2023: $2,095) to $1,899 ($3,063) at release. It had a base clock speed of 1,600 Mhz.

A "decent" desktop computer, in relative terms, has continued to cost a nominal $1,200 to $1,500 since the Apple II, even as the value of a dollar in real terms declined, and even as processor performance doubled every 1-2 years.

The desktop computer starts out as something only for hobbyists who were willing to spend a lot of money (and who had a lot of money to spend), and for professionals who could justify spending the money. There was a huge market, because even without the Internet, uses like spreadsheets are orders of magnitude faster with a computer than doing them by hand.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was still a broad assumption in many parts of US culture that a lot of bad ideas were due to mere ignorance. For a while, to many people, it looked like everyone would have a desktop or notebook computer, and everyone would learn how to use one. The Internet of the era leaned towards more conventional institutional information, and had less search-engine optimization. It was assumed that, with an entire library at one's desk, searchable with just a few keystrokes, people would become less ignorant, and therefore have better ideas.

But that's not how the world works. People have bad ideas for all sorts of reasons other than unintentional ignorance.

The trend of hardware becoming smaller and more powerful continued. The Internet, which had still been limited largely to wired connections in the 1990s, became available through wi-fi, and then cell phone data connections. Internet-connected smartphones emerged, and then became common, merging phones, cameras, and personal digital assistants into a single device.

And gradually, desktop and notebook computers have once again become the domain of hobbyists and professionals, because casual users don't want to spend $600 for a smartphone and then another $1,200 for either a desktop computer that they can't take with them, or a notebook computer that they have to sit down and open to use (and which is a lot more fragile than a smartphone).

But suppose we wanted to go back...

Well first, Kontextmaschine had already setup camp on Tumblr, one of the websites most like the old Internet. In terms of discourse, he was hanging around the orbit of Rationalist Tumblr (or "rationalist-adjacent" tumblr), which had maintained fairly high discourse norms, much better than whatever was going on over on Twitter, Youtube, or Tiktok (although more casual than their parent site, LessWrong). In terms of mechanics, Tumblr allows for lengthy text posts, delivered based on the order they're posted in, from the specific accounts one follows (rather than recommendation algorithms). As for site culture, many of the more dramatic "anti-shipper" sorts of users left for Twitter (and then presumably BlueSky or Mastodon). While one wonders what he would have said about Tumblr's fascination with The Coffin of Andy and Leyley or Dungeon Meshi, he would likely have been neither surprised nor disappointed by it.

In a sense, Kontextmaschine was already living in that high-barrier world, just with a fujoshi tinge rather than the straight gamer bro vibe of the 00's. Not that he would have had much problem with that, either. In 2021, he wrote:

if the last decade means AO3 replaces the ACLU in the pantheon of worthies fine

Is kind of amusing the extent to which "women are horny and want to fuck" is turning out to be the saving grace of the internet. No Girls indeed.

Second, while it's not possible to match the old Internet, because there's only one "The Internet," and any particular new network now is just a competing social media site, which isn't the same thing, some options are now opening up.

A privately-owned personal computer is a measure of power in the hands of an individual, with fewer constraints from large institutions (like corporations or governments) than a centralized computer system has. It is, in some sense, dangerous, especially in the hands of an unskilled user. And it is, in some sense, work to maintain. But it is, like a car, also a potential source of freedom and autonomy. Data is collected by all sorts of companies and you don't have much control over it, but a PC represents at least a sliver of digital sovereignty.

How would you filter a competing network? The simplest method might be a test of that sovereignty: can the user download and install a program not from an app store?

Access to the new network would then be limited to desktops, notebook computers, and devices owned by someone technically savvy enough to sideload applications outside of the app store.

A test based just on hardware capacity won't work, because smartphone hardware capacity goes up every year, and what you actually want are people with basic device operator skill (and maybe to filter out clickbait journalists from Twitter).

#politics #metapolitics #melodramatic mysticism #the invisible fist #the way of the discourse fist #mitigated present #general post series #weekly post

[thearvariblues]

Oh, hey, look, it's another Biu-scandal post.

I've been considering and getting ready to write it for a few days now, but so far my words are kinda refusing to word. I decided I would still try, though, because I feel like I need to formulate the thoughts that have been running through my head for the past week.

Just as the last time, if my opinions make you uncomfortable, please feel free to block me and send me hateful anons, it's always a delight! 💙

First things first - yes, I still support Build. Yes, even a week later. No, I have not changed my mind. No, I'm not planning to. No matter his misdemeanors.

So you are IGNORING–

No. I'm not. I am aware of the fact that the things he allegedly said are what we consider shitty, but that doesn't change my opinion of him. At all.

Well I hope you have a REALLY GOOD REASON–

Yes, I have several, thank you for asking!

Reason one - I simply don't require my faves to be morally superior and clean as a freshly fallen snow. He is human. Humans make mistakes. Humans get frustrated and say stupid shit about their friends to another friends, humans talk shit about their job, humans make stupid jokes, humans are simply human. I don't mind finding out that a man I admire has made mistakes because.... I just don't. Sue me. (Please don't. As opposed to Ms. Ombre Pink, I do not have money to pay.)

Reason two - I refuse to judge the level of his shittiness, his homophobia and everything else he's being accused of based on a few out-of-context texts translated by antis who don't even try to make it a secret that they will not stop their bullshit until he either leaves public life, or (preferably) dies by his own hand. Listen, kids, I'm a translator myself, and trust me, I can completely change the meaning of a sentence while technically staying true to it in its bare essence. I can take a vaguely bitchy statement and make you into a monster without breaking a sweat. So excuse me if I don't trust people who are actively trying to destroy him to deliver the most truthful and accurate translations.

Reason three - I won't do anyone's dirty work for them. I have a brain. And I even use it from time to time. (Yayyyyy!) And it just seems... kinda weird that the very moment when Build gets back on his feet, mysterious twitter accounts start popping up and throwing accusations at him until they find something that sticks. They started with private photos, because apparently getting evidence of his relationship with Ombre Pink can turn the fans against him! (Spoiler alert - it did not.) Then they followed up with accusations of him throwing away the remnants of money bouquets - from a year ago, which raises its own questions about for how long has this mysterious person been planning on taking him down. (I'm saying mysterious person, as if we don't know her name starts with P and ends with I, with only one letter in between.) Anyway, this didn't work either, because apparently the fans are okay with him not keeping the wrapping of the gifts they give him. Who would have guessed! Well, the first attempts didn't work, so now we have a new scandal, using the big guns in the form of Bible and Apo's names! That's sure gonna work! And it does. But not on me. Like I said. Sometimes I tend to use my brain. What a shame.

Reason four (but maybe more of a reason 3B) - no matter who is exposing his "crimes", it's very clear to me that this person isn't doing it for our benefit. They don't want to expose Biu as a despicable monster because they don't want the fans to live in a lie or whatever. They are doing it with a very clear and open goal to destroy Build Jakapan. And I will not support that.

Reason five - presumably, all those alleged texts (don't forget that Ombre Pink has forged text conversations before) are from before the breakup, and also presumably from before the famous Phuket trip (and in case you don't know, in the leaked phone call from January, she accuses him of changing after that trip). Now, have you ever met a person who made you change your behavior without even realizing it? I have. Seriously, I know that spending too much time with certain friends makes me a worse person than I usually am. Hell, my mother is a terribly hateful person, and I always have to be careful around her because let me tell you, that hate spreads like a goddamn forest fire. What does this have to do with Build? Oh, nothing. Just a fact that Poi is clearly an extremely hateful, homophobic bitch who hates... you've guessed it, Bible and Apo. Let it sit for a moment.

Reason six - you know what, I think that's been enough reasons, I'm tired of that shit.

My point is this. In the essence, this whole thing is and should have stayed a private matter. It was an ugly, messy breakup after a shitty, clearly abusive relationship.

Listen, it's not coincidence that so many people who have had to deal with a narcissist abuser in their lives took a single look at Poi's behavior (no matter if it was back in January or later on) and went "wait... I know this shit". When you've been through it, you know. Trust me. You know. And it makes you sick in your stomach.

This is, and always has been, a private battle between a man and a woman.

On one side, we have Build, who might have made mistakes, but none of his mistakes are worth being cancelled for. Ever since this whole thing started back in January, he's been staying calm and collected, and he didn't talk shit about his crazy ex even when it could have helped him. Has he leaked their private call and some texts? Yes, but clearly only to clear his name. If you want to hate him for what he's "done", fine. Don't engage with his content. But let us morally fallen monsters enjoy it and support him in peace.

Because remember that on the other side, we have a woman who is openly homophobic (and if you don't see her "he cheated on me, oh god, do I have to get tested for AIDS?!" comment as homophobic, then I really have no words), has been proven to lie and forge evidence on multiple occasions (and had to confess to it) and has used twitter to spill secrets about her ex under the guise of "writing a story" (including, possibly, outing him as bisexual, since her "definitely not inspired by Build" character was bi) and scream at and blackmail him. We also know that as Daemi, she and Yok were being shit to multiple KinnPorsche actors, and they forced Barcode, a minor, to give them massages, claiming that's just a standard in the industry (and then proceeded to make fun of it to a point when Jeff fucking Satur felt the need to step up and say in a livestream that no, it's not a standard, you don't have to do those things, Barcode, you know).

Look. I'm not saying that because she's worse, it makes him an angel. It does not. Like I said, if you hate Build, feel free to, but don't hate on people who still choose to support him. Ignore him, and ignore us. Trust me, we don't want to argue with you all the fucking time.

I'm just begging you to think before you start spreading hate on Biu on the social media. Think who you're serving. Thing whose dirty work you're doing.

And then ask yourself if you are really the morally pure angels if you wish death upon one man and all his supporters because of a few stupid texts.

That's all. Thank you for your attention.

And if you still support Build, remember that I love you all, and you're not alone. 💙

#build jakapan

[crucibleknight]

can you explain the directioner->hockey pipeline, please?

yes i CAN thanks for giving me an opportunity to take a break from my homework.

so, this won’t be a very long story but it is a funny one (to me). when One Direction broke up, the girlies were lost. adrift. i wasn’t among their number, so i’ve only heard secondhand accounts, but the boyband megafans needed a new place to direct their specific type of fandom.

some of them went to kpop, pretty understandably. but a LARGE chunk of them went to the NHL. why? because every year there is the NHL draft where a fresh band of young (18-20) and (sometimes) attractive guys are paraded around like show ponies and snapped up by NHL teams. I just went to double check and the 2015/2016/2017 drafts are FULL of guys that this specific subset of hockey fandom is fixated on. the timing lines up. those draft years had a lot of decent looking guys too, which helps.

i will add that hockey coverage leans on storylines—individual players and their stories/friendships with other players/relationships with their team/achievements (source: i was a hockey reporter). this is perfect for RPF fans, because there’s a basis. two guys that are really close friends on a team are ideal for writing about. two guys who are close friends despite being on different teams provide an alternate type of story to tell. people also like to fantasize about having a relationship with a player they like, just like people fantasize about other celebrities. there are hot guys in hockey, it’s just a fact (source: i’m gay and have eyes).

so the result of this is that the hockey fanbase now consists of a lot of old-timer white men who are set in their ways and fairly conservative. and then a new incoming fanbase of young women and young queer people, who like hockey for very different reasons. i fall into the second demographic, technically, though i didn’t come to hockey through the same channels. the two are often at odds. a lot of ‘traditional’ hockey fans think that being attracted to players or having an investment in more than one team means you’re a fake fan. this is, obviously, bullshit. a lot of the directioners i knew when i was active on hockey twitter knew the game like the back of their hand.

if you look up the one direction to hockey pipeline, you’ll find a lot of tweets about it. it’s pretty established in hockey circles and it’s a point of pride for a lot of people! i don’t like RPF at all and avoid engaging with it, but i do like the fact that a huge demographic of young progressive fans can push the NHL in a better direction. it has some issues too (look up the booktok & seattle kraken drama if you want to see an example), but at the end of the day i would prefer to talk hockey with a 21 year old who’s gonna use my phone number for harry styles early access tickets (real story) than with a 60 year old ‘superfan’ who thinks the NHL shouldn’t have pride night.

#lucas.txt #answered #hockey #nhl #i hope this is enough info feel free to send follow up questions #i love you forever for asking

[coffee-without-anesthetics]

Hello tumblr user coffee-without-anesthetics can you explain Miligram to me like I'm your 80 year old grandmother who doesn't understand why she needs to decide why she needs to either vote to "forgive or do not forgive" this nice-looking lad/lass when you handed the phone to her and told her to tap the button you pointed out

hello!!! yes i can tumblr user kayoi1234, but too bad you're getting the full recap (miligram made me giggle, nice)

alright so we've got 10 buddies (prisoners) in this Milgram prison who are all technically guilty of "taking a life" (not killing someone, only around four of them did that from what we know.)

in the beginning, this is all the info available.

there's 3 trials over the course of years, 1 of which already fully passed, the second of which is more-or-less on the edge being finished -> as im writing this, you can vote for 2 characters, and the last 2 are yet to be judged at all

during each trial:

the official youtube channel releases a new MV (song) about the character currently being judged. (and a cover of a deco*27 song on spotify)

a voice drama of a discussion between the character and the warden (Es) is uploaded on spotify. an english translation by fans is usually uploaded not long after on youtube

and later, when both of the above has been realized for two characters

interrogation questions are answered on twitter. (here's the fan eng account)

INFO 1: in official sources (website etc) they use "guilty or innocent". this is misleading. they're all guilty of something. the only question is your forgiveness. INFO 2: the official english translations of the songs sometimes Suck Major Ass (see: Undercover), but theyre fine enough most of the time.

now that we're onto trial2 we know what an unforgiven vote does, which is: less privileges/freedom, more restrains, mental state done did fucked up if they care, more but can't remember right now.

in-universe, the warden judges them. you influence the judgement with daily votes.

and the most important of all: any reason to judge is a good reason!!

unforgiven cause you think they're reprehensible? sure! forgiven cause theyre cute? yeah! forgiven for the lolz? why not!

…there's also the question if this all is technically a infohazard because by knowing about the vote and then abstaining from voting (or not doing anything at all) is still participating anyway.

TLDR: over time you get more info about 10 characters who all took a life, and with that info you decide whether you forgive them or not in three trials

if you wanted basic info you can stop here.

diversity win! the amnesiac nonbinary 15 y/o prison warden with identity issues can hear the voice anyone who's ever voted! neat!

in the beningening, no one knew what an unforgiven vote would do and the info we had about characters was spotty at best, but we still got 4 characters judged unforgiven.

now more fun stuff!!

(im gonna use prisoner numbers not names cuz i don't wanna type allat)

unrelated: there's a side spin-off manga (???) called minigram. i have no idea what goes on there. random facts: 04 is half-french and the daughter of a landlord. 09 got diagnosed with DID via talking rabbit and teenager. 03 is the twitter-using guy who doxxed a kid to death. there's a fucking smokers club (05, 07 and 09). fun stuff all around

the thing is that the literal last character of the roster to be judged is a Justice Fanatic who got forgiven!! guess what she did to those who weren't.

long story short she got 03 blind in one eye, 06 now has a broken arm + bruised ribs + concussion iirc, 08 is a kid so she got skipped, and 09 fought back but you can see it took a lot.

why aren't any of them dead? the resident medic 05 was judged forgiven so he was free to help them.

there's no conclusion, *gestures at all of them* i just think they're neat

#feel free to ask for specifications and i'll answer to the best of my ability #thing i didn't mention anywhere but still kinda important: you need a twitter account linked to the site to vote #the talking rabbit is called Jackalope. didnt mention him in the post because i didnt find a place to fit him into. #as you can see i have been insane about this for a long time (since february) so i've got a lot to say #it's a fun side-thing to think about #and you get music out of it! which slaps btw listen to Cat and Purge March and Backdraft and and and #kayoi1234 #milgram #post anesthetics posts #an asker asked an ask