#quest: the navigator | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

secondbeatsongs · 2 years

Note

Hello! I'm Julie from Cariona and I just want to ask if you're interested in doing ads/promotions here on Tumblr? If yes, how much do you charge per reblog?

For proof of legitimate promotions, you can check @catchymemes, @sulfatto, @isnt, and many others.

Website for reference: http://cariona.com Over 200 five star Facebook reviews: https://www.facebook.com/carionaproducts/reviews

Please feel free to respond here or reach out to us on [email protected] for more details! Thank you once again and have a great week!

absolutely fascinating that you decided to send this as an ask, when you also DM'd me. unfortunately, you may realize that this was a mistake - you see, asks can be responded to publicly.

so, allow me to respond:

hi, Julie! I'd never heard about Cariona before, so I decided to go poking around, and I learned something!

well, I learned a few things, actually. from your site, Cariona seems to be a small business that sells reusable menstrual products. and while I will never advertise a product that I haven't used, there's nothing wrong with wanting people to promote your company.

I have, however, found a few problems.

the first thing I found was this post by @crafiet from May 12th of last year, saying that shortly after making a purchase on your website, her debit card info was leaked, and used to make facebook ad purchases.

it seems that at least back then, your payment system was insecure. I'm really hoping you've fixed that, because. yikes.

and when I messaged crafiet to ask if it was okay if I linked to her post, she also mentioned that even though your website says you ship from Georgia, her package came shipped from China, and took a long time to arrive.

that's pretty sketchy.

the next thing I found was some folks talking about receiving cards with their orders that have a QR code on them with the words "Scan For God's Message To You", and that on the other side, have this bible verse:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. Psalm 63:1

fun fact! that's from the King James Version (which I have a lot of thoughts about, but I'm not going to get into that right now).

additional fun fact! that particular psalm is from that time David fled to the wilderness because Jonathan's dad was trying to kill him.

and that's why I have to talk about the verses that follow it:

(ID in alt text; link to the NIV version if you want it)

so...are we like 100% sure it's god that David is thinking about here? because...I mean...that's pretty horny, right? and all of this while on the run from his boyfriend's dad?

I'm not saying anything, but like...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it's a weird verse to choose for this, that's all.

anyway, back to you, Cariona: after seeing people talking about the bible verse cards, I decided to poke around your website more, and allll the way at the bottom of it, finally found your "About Us" page, which ends with this:

...look. there's nothing inherently wrong with being christian. but to say "we do not wish to impose any beliefs on our customers", and to then put bible verse cards in people's orders? that's sneaky, and I don't like it.

I also think it's a bit sneaky that you've flagged your tumblr account as pro-trans on shinigami eyes. at least, I assume you flagged it yourselves, because I didn't find a single post on your blog that mentions trans issues.

(though you have, entertainingly, reblogged some stranger things fanart, and a castiel cat cosplay)

and while your website uses very gender-neutral language, your "About Us" page doesn't say anything about being inclusive of trans people, just that you don't "discriminate against anyone who has a different belief than ours."

unfortunately, that's not good enough for me. I have this sneaking suspicion that "trans people are the gender they say they are" counts as a "different belief".

lastly, since you say on your website that people can message you asking about your faith, I had a friend do that!

baptists. you're baptists, which is a pretty conservative denomination.

and according to you, part of that 10% you donate goes to your local churches, and some missionaries. who are also probably baptists.

so.

in the end, I just...don't trust you? I don't trust that the 10% you're donating is going to organizations that aren't homophobic or transphobic. I don't believe that you're not trying to impose your beliefs on others, because that's what you're obviously doing. I mean, your "About Me" says that one of the reasons you built this company is to spread the gospel.

and I especially don't like it that you reached out to me (an openly queer person) for promotion without mentioning that you're an evangelical company.

so to answer your question, Julie: no. I am not interested in doing ads or promotions for you on tumblr. and honestly, you probably picked the wrong website for this kind of thing.

#asks #carionausa #cariona #additional info for the record:#my friend told me they did say they donate to some environmental stuff #like maybe wwf they thought?#but from the wording they weren't sure #and also another charity called #Connecticut Quest for Peace #which I couldn't find out much about #it doesn't have a rating on charity navigator #but the posts I found about it on tumblr are all...mmm #very religious in nature #and no judgement if that's your jam #but it's not my kind of thing #so #no thanks #I don't like the idea of promoting a company that gives money to the baptist church and other religious organizations #I just don't #sbs rambles #and I couldn't even find much information about cariona besides this #no business registered in georgia under that name so #who knows #I wonder...hmm #if I was just looking at this information #with no other context #with the errors on the website #and the shipping from china #...I wonder where Cariona _is_ based.#or if it is in georgia - what name is it registered under?

2K notes · View notes

animeomegas · 4 months

Text

The Quest for a Second Life - Masterlist

You can’t quite seem to recall how you ended up in this situation… But waking up in what seems to be a job interview with no memory of how you got there was certainly ranking as one of the worst days of your life so far. At least, if this place was to be believed, you aren’t having any more bad days for a very long time. GN!Dom!Alpha!Reader x Omega!Itachi + Omega!Kakashi

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Epilogue

#masterlist #navigation #the quest for a second life

88 notes · View notes

feroluce · 2 months

Text

Sampo & Caelus are so important to me, I love them. To me they are bros. Buddies. Partners in mischief making and chaos. Caelus is a total weirdo and Sampo is always getting Up To Something, and they both hate being bored or stagnating, so they regard each other as an endless source of entertainment and amusement.

They're the kind of friends that just kind of see each other when they see each other, and when they do cross paths they greet with that funny hands-clasped-between-them-and-one-armed-hug thing that guys do. Then they go to a bar, annoy the local population, kick up a ruckus or cause some kind of mischief somewhere, and go stumble into a hotel room to sleep it off.

They did this a few times in Belobog, and Gepard once found them on a morning patrol passed out in a gutter together. Sampo was sacked out with a newspaper over his face. Caelus was sprawled out next to/on top of him in the most awkward and uncomfortable position a human body could possibly contort into. Both refused to explain anything zkzkkskd

#sampo koski #caelus #hsr caelus #hsr sampo #sampo&caelus #honkai star rail #hsr #They're just very cute and funny to me #my silly little guys uwu #I've finally finished Penacony so now I can start making hsr posts without getting spoiled woohoo!!#this is a promise a threat and a warning all three dmzkkskd #I have Thoughts about Sampo and Caelus after the Everything that happened with Firefly too #but I'm waiting until I play Sparkle and Black Swan's companion quest to cement it into a post #so this is just kind of the ground layer. setting them up. the basics of their dynamic and how I see them haha #I wish tumblr was easier to navigate with multiple tags so I could search both their names together #i have no problem with them as ship I just. don't particularly ship them.#I like them best as this. as buddies who have a lot of fun together. they're wonderful. ♡

46 notes · View notes

betterbemeta · 17 days

Text

re @mousebrass

[context]

Sorry for the delay, I just needed some time to simmer my answer. (for frame of reference, I'm mostly referring to fallout 3 and fallout 4. not new vegas, and I don't know enough about FO76.)

When I said 'Bethesda's fallout will never say no to you', I meant in sort of a structural sense. The gameplay and the storytelling combine in Bethesda's fallout games to do nothing but affirm the player's forward motion.

They do this so well the storytelling is ONLY a function of the gameplay loop: a relay race that progresses with total blindness to what the player actually does so long as they hit the checkpoints that advance things along.

Forward motion is good, we need stories to progress and to get from one event to another, we don't want to run around in circles in a game achieving nothing. And we don't want to encounter a true dead end, or a frustrating 'sorry mario the princess is in another castle!' situation where we feel our prior actions were pointless.

BUT. Hear me out. Negativity, 'being told no', friction along the way, is important to an 'adventure' being more than just an endless gopher loop.

Lucy MacLean IS given objectives in her journey. But the narrative is not her personal facilitator; instead she can't proceed UNLESS she does these increasingly heinous uncomfortable things, okey dokey! She COULD choose not to do them, but she'd 'fail' or thinks she would. Her struggle 'drives the story' rather than styling her actions as intuitively synonymous with 'progress.'

In Bethesda Fallout games. It really doesn't matter what dialog options you choose, progress is inevitable. And blind. If you choose peaceful or guns-blazing approaches. Want to join the fascists? You won't encounter too much content that places pressure on you for doing that. Want to side with the scrappy underdogs? Done, it won't be that much of a strain on your resources. Take the evil option? Except for maybe a few NPCs that could desert you, you won't be constrained by that commitment very much.

It's 'the customer's always right', when that idiom exists basically to facilitate transactions and nothing else.

In fact, the one time in a Bethesda fallout game where meaningful pressure or negative consequences impacted you, in fallout 3, the ending was so unpopular it was retconned in a DLC. But it doesn't have to be this way; there are many times in New Vegas where you might feel conflict or constraints on your actions, a 'no' that makes what you actually choose to do feel more interesting. Like, enough times that I think anyone who's played it, could think of one (their favorite one?) right now. I don't even have to list examples, because the variety is great enough that different people can choose which one feels compelling to them.

Remember when I said we wanted to avoid scenarios where we feel futile, running around in circles, pointless, or obstructed? Well, after a while a lot of Bethesda games become that anyway even if they always take the player's side. People just... give up playing a save usually by level 30. Boundless affirmation towards forward motion, where all paths are THE path and you're the main character of reality, it sucks. it's why Lucy MacLean's wasteland experience will leave you wanting to play fallout and then sighing when you boot up the game that just got a 'remaster' and it's still mostly drudgery. When SHE hits 'quest objectives,' her world doesn't say 'yes! now go do...'

It says "oh, hell no. but you gotta... unless maybe..."

#fallout #belated reply #the bones of the quest chains and gameplay loops show too much in bethesda games #turning them into relay race fetch simulator instead of roleplaying games or even 'action/adventure' games #a constant forward motion is also cowardice and unwillingness to make the player navigate their own choices #if that is the case just... omit the choices. remove the 'roleplaying' element. actually put us on rails instead of pretending.#long post

10 notes · View notes

pinacoladamatata · 9 months

Text

something something down by the river

yeah i could draw something other than two characters gazing at each other with utter heartsick longing but I know what i'm about son

#beware the tags #oh no the vampire spawn is falling in love with the spider princess #also you will never guess where i got inspo from #yeah it was the man from uncle #i will make him look *more* lovesick dont worry. this is gonna rival my martin/hok stuff bc god #i still have not finished his quest bc i know its gonna make me step away from the game for probably 3 days while i recover #ugghhhh i am gonna scream! bc like the fucking headcanons i have about him and my evil little mermaid tav #she's never seen the ocean. bc menzoberanzzan. so when they finally get to the city she's like fuckin. struck by it.#never seen anything so big in her life. so to explain my running along the coast for hours to unfog the map i imagine he's humoring tav #and acting exasperated by her fascination with the water but he secretly thinks is adorable #and she doesn't know how to navigate a city like baldurs gate. bc where are the spires? the stalagmites? where are the stairs?#so he (knowing the city so well) has to basically be her guide/lead her through the whole thing otherwise it would take them 3 years #to find anything.#MEANWHILE she's having a crisis grieving over her recently dead spouse and fleeing her home for failing her 5th trial #and wants revenge on lolth of all things #so they make a little 'revenge pact' to each other but she's being slowly shown signs of eilistraee and having trouble letting go #bc she can never return home. and she misses her baby brother terribly bc he's only 12 and all 6 of her other siblings are not nice #and she's either gonna take the crown to become a god or have a breakdown at night by the water where she decides to move on #they can make each other better they can make each other so much worse

29 notes · View notes

yeahivegotanaccount · 2 months

Text

Crosscode is fun but exposes my failures as a non-gamer.

#also I have gripes with navigation #why quick menu has access to map but the main menu doesn't? why switching between area maps takes quite a long time when there's quests on #area borders and the teleporter is only on one side of it? (also a very barebones location layout would help with navigating their parkour #hell + loot hunt)(also it's hard to judge characters position when them slightly floating is fair game)#but besides that it makes it very clear that me eating shit when I didn't dodge on time or exploit enemy's weakness is fully my fault #and I do like exploring multi-layered multi-screen maps but it's hard to do it with purpose when you don't know your relative position nor #the overall layout #Also I thought Emilie was doing a bit with her heavily ornamental french but after meeting Schneider I feel like it's in earnest.#CrossCode #dumayu #вышедшее из под моего пера

9 notes · View notes

code-dy · 1 year

Text

Isn’t it wild that Gandalf recommended Bilbo (hobbit who has a collection of maps and probably owns a compass) to Thorin (dwarf who got lost twice on a single road and did not have another plan aside from going through the front door until Gandalf gave him a key to the secret passage) as a burglar?

Anyways, they’re going on an adventure apparently

#the hobbit #thorin oakenshield #bilbo baggins #bagginshield #thilbo #au mochi #my art #gandalf hired bilbo as a navigator probably #queue is for quest

141 notes · View notes

girlbob-boypants · 6 months

Text

"I think ff14 and eso have better new player experiences than gw2"

Taking hallucinogens before playing gw2 doesn't give you an accurate experience of the game??

#girlbob.txt #this isn't even me being a gw2 defender it's actually more of me being an ff14 fan #like how dare you say arr is better than the personal story #i want people to play ff14 long enough to get to the good parts don't say arr is good #also don't come at me for eso if you want my actual opinion on that one #it would have the best new player experience if the game wasn't downright satanic with its stance on expac stories #like if the game was just built with 'yeah you gotta do things in the release order' or at least put you through the base game first #with clear navigation and not like 8 expac quests assaulting you in the city hub #i do actually think it would be the best #but arr is trash and there's nothing to do without doing the story and suffering through how boring early combat is #and while i defend parts of arr that i think are judged unfairly i think it's the worst TOLD story #meanwhile in gw2 if you don't like the story it's kind of optional? i mean i like it and i think it's by far the most fun #however. gw2 rewards you so well for exploration and experimentation that i think it's a better new player experience if a bit freeform

16 notes · View notes

decidentia · 4 months

Text

Inside me are two wolves. One feels like mains hint at an (uncomfy, at least for me) sort of exclusivity. The other thinks that having mains might help with focus.

#i don’t know #i don’t ever want anyone to come to my blog and feel like i belong to a particular clique or tribe #because i’m ALWAYS open to new connections both ic and ooc #but equally i sometimes feel like i’m writing ‘ side quest ’ or ‘ side dish ’ characters #which is all well and good but i also want dynamics that go deeper than that #maybe having mains might help me figure out with whom i’m serving a main course agdfgs #or maybe this is a by-product of how irregular my posting / plotting is #compounded by this being a multimuse #idk how do you guys navigate this?#◈ — ooc; saddest little baby in the room

14 notes · View notes

torgawl · 6 months

Text

trying to avoid leaks like

#what the hell i start reading stuff and suddenly realise it's about the archon quest 😭#i read one navia voiceline about clorinde that one was an okay leak because lesbians 🔛🔝#but it's gonna be an exercise navigating the internet avoiding stuff #okay i also saw skirks design she's really pretty also women 🔛🔝#and arlecchino. there's just so many wives and i'm still waiting for the queen herself myrianelle or however the two braid girl whose hair #looks like scorpion tails is called #honestly a bummer myrianelle wasn't released during scorpio season methinks

14 notes · View notes

muse-write · 4 months

Text

I’m playing LotrO and turning down every single side quest that comes to me. It’s turned into a character motivation at this point; my player character just wants to save this Elf-prince from the dwarves, level up and get better weaponry to fight as quickly as possible, get into as little fighting as possible, and return to Celondim where she can go back to her loremaster ways. Along the way she realizes she’s given up so much (time, money, the opportunity to help others) to become what is basically a tank in loremaster robes—what does that mean for her connection to humanity?

#honestly i get stressed seeing a list of tasks to accomplish and it seems to mess up the quest navigation arrow #and i keep getting lost #lotro

7 notes · View notes

grozen · 2 years

Text