#//i have actually had a url reserved for this for a while just in case i ever needed it

[lovenpeace-pkmn]

... @lurantis-love

Girl help all my mutuals on my furry sideblog are reblogging a painting full of stealth Plasma iconography

[famedroleplayarchive]

There won’t be an activity check today and you can count it as a free week because I have some big but hopefully not too big news. Famed is going to undergo a restructuring, and this is going to involve me asking everyone who would like to remain in the group to resubmit an application to keep their muse(s).

To be clear, this is not a complete revamp. Most of the major processes of how the roleplay work will not change and claims and development on muses will be able to be kept unless you put them in a majorly different position (in which case, claims that will no longer work can be refunded!), but the the size of the roleplay will be cut down over half from 135 spots to 65 spots. Many of the groups will be merged and all will be changed to some extent so that we have a total of thirteen groups, all with four to six members instead of the over twenty groups, many of which are rather large, we have now.

I want to disclaim that I know there will be members who connect less with the roleplay after the restructuring. I also want to apologize to anyone who is inconvenienced by the changes made, but please know I am only making these changes because I feel it is absolutely critical to the long-term life of the roleplay. A restructuring of some sort is something I’ve been thinking about for probably over a year or so now and I’ve been trying to avoid it for the sake of disrupting everyone as little as possible, but it’s become apparent to me that it’s necessary to keep the roleplay going, not because of member activity but because of my own ability to handle everything as an admin. I created Famed over four years ago when I was in a much different place in my life and had very little experience with idol roleplays and no experience at all running an idol roleplay, so I haven’t always been totally happy with how everything is set up. While I always did my best to make sure I was confident I could handle things before adding anything else onto my plate, naturally, several major life events have occurred over the past four years, especially the last one, that have altered the amount of time and energy I can commit to roleplaying, often making it draining and difficult to manage the group at its current scale.

Taking on another admin or mods would ultimately mean quite a bit more being required of me for at several months in order to evaluate any options presented to me and to help introduce a new person to all of the intricacies of the roleplay at a speed we’d both we comfortable with. It would also require me to be able to find someone I would be confident placing that responsibility on since I wouldn’t want to do it by half measures, which isn’t a guarantee. With all of that considered, I feel that this restructuring is the best course of action to keep the roleplay alive for the foreseeable future instead of risking my own discontent and stress leading to a fizzling out of the roleplay. The changes being made are all ultimately being made in hopes of making a more enjoyable and sustainable roleplaying experience in the long term for everyone involved, including me on the admin side and hopefully members as well!

Speaking of which, this will also be a chance for members to look at their own experience in the roleplay and muses and make their own changes to their muses as they find appropriate for improving their roleplay experience. I’ll be asking everyone to send in an updated application for the new changes since some details will probably have to change for every muse to some extent. Members are welcome to change what they feel necessary (or might be required by nature of the changes), from the muse’s group, to their position, faceclaim, age, background, etc. This means you’ll be able to pick new past claims made on your application too and a new past claims system is being put in place that will actually allow muses to have a more established career in their backstory! You’ll also be able to potentially refund points claims made that no longer fit changes you have to make to your muse, but that will be handled once the re-application process has been completed.

New main blogs have been created for the purpose of having a fresh start void of any old information that might still be lingering around blogs that will no longer be accurate. The new structure of the groups and companies can be found here on the new main (the URL will be changed to famedroleplay tomorrow!). On August 15 at noon EDT, exactly forty-eight hours after this post, I will be opening up for reserves to keep muses. You may only reserve spots for existing muses at this time, not for new muses, and muns will unfortunately now have to be limited to a maximum of three muses due to the decreased size of the roleplay.

Currently in-use faceclaims will be held for the muses they are used for unless the mun chooses to reserve a different faceclaim for the muse or until the period of accepting applications for keeping muses is up. Since groups, positions, and model groups have been moved around so much, I decided not to assume the assignment of positions to any muse, so it will be up to muns to reserve the spot they feel best suits their muse. Everyone will get a couple of days to look positions over before reserves are accepted to make the reserving of positions as fair as possible. I plan to do three acceptances on August 18, 22, and 25 that will be reserved solely for those applying to keep their muses, and the August 29 acceptances will be the first time we open for new muses again. Activity will start up as normal on August 22!

Members planning on keeping their muse may continue to write during this time if they’d like and work out that they’ll be keeping those plots, but points can’t be collected for anything that wasn’t already in progress since you might end up retconning it anyway.

Thank you all in advance for your understanding and I hope you’re able to find this exciting in some way! I know I’m hopeful for what I see as a fresh phase of Famed. Famed version 1.2, if you will. I’m aware this will likely be the end of the road for some who aren’t as interested in the new structure or can’t find muse within it or just don’t agree with my decisions, and to anyone who finds this to be your parting of ways with Famed, thank you for the time you did dedicate to the group! I do request to please avoid sending rude messages for the sake of being rude if the restructuring isn’t your cup of tea, but I will be sad to see anyone go who does leave. The alternative was me most likely, at best, having to put the roleplay on hiatus by the end of the year to take time to deal with real life, so this choice has been made so that I don’t have to do that and I can keep this home for so many wonderful muses running as long as possible!

A post with more information about the process of re-applying has already been posted to the new main by the time this post goes up. Check out the updated FAQ on that blog as well since it highlights a few of the more major changes already!

[rpbetter]

what's the nicest possible way to tell a close friend their roleplay blogs suck and if they want followers and interaction like they keep complaining about they have to actually put effort into it instead of just making blog after blog and slapping a character on it like that's they need to do. I've tried to suggest this to her before by comparing other blogs that play her muse but she just feels inadequate instead of inspired to emulate them which I understand but it's very frustrating when I suggest a million ways to make her blog better and she brushes them all off for one reason or another and I don't want to say anything because she's like a sister to me. sigh.

Unfortunately, the short answer to this is that there really isn't any way you can make her see this unless she's ready to see it.

But, I don't like giving those sorts of answers, they feel hopeless and shitty, so, let's try this...

Understanding what the problem with your friend and her connecting with this information is, is important. It might help in talking to her about the issue.

What I find in these instances, and a lot of similar ones, is that the mun is unhappy about the results but quite happy with the process. She's enjoying some part of this, it's just not the lack of interaction, obviously. It's the very things she's doing to turn people off of her muses.

I think a lot of people get kind of addicted to new muses. I mean, the entire process of having a new muse:

interest to outright fixation, no matter how short-lived, in a new, inspiring muse

who is almost certainly in a new fandom, and probably, one that is very busy and popular at the moment

"someone stop me" phase, even though they've already decided

picking the perfect URL, creating the new blog, making the graphics and batches of icons

reblogging All The Content about the new muse, at least, the visual content and maybe, a couple of "oof, right in the feels" style short meta posts

plugging the new muse on the old blogs, through friends, etc.

mass follows

new mutuals! Shiny new meme asks in the inbox! New threads!

It's about the newness, the excitement, and the irrationally promising feeling that damn it, this time, the blog and muse is going to be successful, popular even, beloved, the actual favorite iteration of the character in the RPC. Like anything exciting, it's addicting for people. And like anything addicting, it can take hitting rock bottom and going several more feet down, a few times, before they're over it and want to change.

Which is, of course, where you come in with your as-yet failed RP interventions.

What makes what you're trying to do here very difficult is that there isn't a total bottoming out she's going to reach. There will always be something new and exciting coming out with a new and exciting muse that'll fix the problem, in her mind. There will always be the option and availability to create another blog, slap another muse on it, rinse and repeat. With shampoo and conditioner that never runs out.

You definitely had the right idea by trying to get her to contrast between why what she is doing isn't working the way she wants and why what someone else is doing is working out that way. It's just, as you found out, often not the best idea, no matter how well-intentioned it is. With her blogs constantly failing for reasons she refuses to believe, it's incredibly likely she's already done some comparison in all the wrong ways, ultimately going back and forth between blaming the other iterations, finding nothing but errors in the way they write the character and set up their blogs, and feeling depressed that she's not good enough, but they are.

So, you might have unintentionally inflamed all of this! She could be in a place where she's even more likely to believe that what she's doing is great as a defense mechanism for being hard on herself.

I'd also like to say that I'm aware the "right" advice here is, "there's nothing you can do, you'll just make her feel bad, people have a right to RP however they want." But, you're also her friend, and you have to be around the complaining and upset when this just keeps happening.

Furthermore, when we have very close friends like this, we automatically keep trying to fill in the gaps for them at cost to ourselves - every time they make another blog/muse, we get roped into writing things we know are just going to be dropped, making them things we know are going to left on a deserted blog, and so on. Eventually, it makes you feel bad about yourself because your efforts aren't good enough, either. It can really ruin the hobby for you, sucking away enjoyment and creativity you could be spending elsewhere.

I don't think you're wrong in trying to help both her and yourself.

Keep being honest with her. When she complains, be honest about why this is happening. And you can, indeed, be kind and honest!

Let's say that she says something about how she wrote all these opens and no one is going for them.

You could say something like, "that sucks. I liked this one, it's the one that feels and sounds like the character to me. What were you doing when you wrote that? You should rewrite the others to be a little more like that, I think people are looking for more of the character like we saw them in the series."

You're acknowledging that she's right, it does suck, it's a shitty feeling no matter how at fault for it she is. While pointing out something she did good (and, okay, maybe she didn't, maybe they all categorically sucked lol but find one that was even a tiny bit better/that has elements you can use to both boost her confidence and show her what is right, not just wrong). Then, giving her an idea - whatever she was thinking, watching, listening to at that time, she tapped into something more like the actual character, and she could do it again. And telling her what the problem is, at least with this, that people don't want a cardboard cutout muse, they want the one they like from the fandom book/show/movie.

No need to actually compare with another active mun and muse, or tell her that it's because what she's doing is terribly and driving you nuts. Even if both are true.

If she's the one that compares herself to another blog this time, seize the opportunity!

"Well, people like that the muse is developed and like the character they know. When you interact with another canon, don't you want them to be like the character you liked? You liked -current muse- for a reason. When I've felt like that, I reminded myself of why I was drawn to the character and worked harder on writing them accurately and getting their voice down. I think this other blog has done that and you haven't yet."

It's a little harsher, but she may very well only be looking for validation from you that this other blog actually sucks and she's doing great. A lot of complaints on tumblr are that - seeking validation, not help. The entire culture of that shit is not at all helpful. You don't want to try to sort of shock her out of it by being too harsh, but you do want to make it clear that you're not going to just give ass pats and tell her what she wants to hear.

You're telling her why this other blog is more successful, that the muse comes off as the character and is enjoyable to write with. Because the mun put in the effort to make them both accurate to the character and a muse that's fun/interesting/engaging to write with in RP.*

*Not all characters transfer over well to RP, either, and this might also be some of her problem. For whatever reason, some people are deeply drawn to the worst possible choices for them. They will find the least applicable character in a whole series, one with a billion characters that spans decades of material, plenty of viable options all around, but no, it's got to be this one. The one that's impossible for them to pull off, boring or disliked by the fandom, is incredibly difficult to interact with (think manic pixie bullshit, villains that are extreme loners, incredibly quiet and reserved characters, or those who are only ever seen in their canon to be bantering with friends and enemies - people they have established relationships with, unlike someone else's muse, even if that muse is a canonical friend or enemy), or is an active turn off in RP, like an outrageously overpowered character whose entire existence is based on being OP as fuck. That's going to be what they go for. Every. Damn. Time.

If you notice she's doing this, she could be compensating without even realizing it by turning the string of muses into identical and empty clichés she thinks people want to interact with, but that she can still handle writing. And unfortunately, your job is even harder, OP, because everyone has a character type...and your bestie's is Fucking Impossible to RP for 90% of the RPC Population Type lmao I'm...I'm so sorry.

Maybe if this is the case, you can get her to try out a different character that has some of the traits you've noticed she seems to always be drawn to, but without the complications. Work smarter, not harder, though! Propose this as you desperately wanting your muse to interact with x. Some people react very badly to being told "you'd write a great -muse name," others are flattered by it. If you don't know for certain that she'd be flattered, or at least not offended, that she doesn't hate this character or anything, do not say this. Just tell her that you love this character, you think she could handle them as a NPC in a thread, could she please try?

And make that the single most interesting thread in the history of threads. Specifically, for her. Give her tons of engagement with this NPC of the sort she tends to want the most. It might stick and reset some of her perspective on the types of characters she keeps choosing.

You're reminding her that she's a RPer, too, which sounds like a crazy thing to have to remind a RPer, but we do weirdly lose track of this. We get very invested in what we're putting out more than what we've successfully been given, especially when we're not being given much of what we want. So, you're prodding her to recall that there are two parts of this equation, she's been on the side of it - she's wanted to interact specifically with a canon muse because she loved the character/ship with hers/whatever, and has, as we all have, experienced both the disappointment of running through a ton of them who just are not that character and also finding the version that very much is.

This helps to put other people back into perspective in a way that isn't just "interactions." (Read as "desired attention." Which isn't a slam, it's true. It's also not a problem, we all are here to interact, we all enjoy having devoted mutuals and such. It's only a problem when we stop seeing them as anything other than a means to an end for ourselves.) She might be able to relate to them, thus, why they don't like her muses, if she can put herself back into their shoes.

You stick with that and transition it into why she picked the current muse. It's the same deal, there was something about the muse that sparked interest, creativity, etc. What was it? Something that isn't there, or there enough, in her writing. In all the excitement of muse-creation, she's probably let whatever it was slide right out the door. If you can get her to recall that feeling of interest and identify for herself what all triggered it, she might be able to stick with it.

And you've encouraged her again to give people what they want if she wants interactions by developing her muses. You've also done so, if it all applicable and true, by using yourself here, making it feel like not just a common problem, but one experienced and overcome by someone she cares about and trusts.

She might have an issue with needing a lot of high-interest, high-reward scenarios, too.

This is a high-effort, minimum reward situation for her. A lot of us in the RPC have shit like ADHD that can really make this difficult once we're experiencing it in this way, but even those who don't absolutely fall into it as well. So, you'll need ways to make it fun, but...I think if you can sort of kindly trick her into experiencing the effort as its own reward, it'd go a long, long way.

I can't really say what I do, having this problem with high-effort, minimal reward because I don't tend to experience that in RP. The writing is the reward for me, as much as I lose it utterly with happiness every time a writing partner is loving what I've given them. My reward system is set up around the writing and exploring characters. Hers seems to be set up around the reaction to it and amount of engagement with it. You need to try to use the latter to give her some of the former.

If she likes Halloween or Christmas, Fall or Winter, this could be your way into doing it!

Get her hyped about a seasonal prompt list you're doing. This does, yeah, mean you will have to do it, too lol but in the end, any time you aren't able to produce something daily like these lists usually are set up for, you're showing her that it isn't a job she's got to fulfill - the rules are only as strict as she wants to make them for herself. And if you keep yours short and fun, she'll feel like it's perfectly fine and good to do it this way as well. That it doesn't need to be a damn masterpiece or anything, just fun, something different to show off her muse.

While what she's actually doing, in addition to that, is getting in touch with and developing her muse. Importantly, when we write in a way that is just for ourselves like this, we tend to kind of...bond, for lack of a less weird sounding way of putting it, with a muse. It makes them stick with us longer, raising their importance and easier availability to us.

Let her know you're doing this, pick one out you genuinely like, and don't expect her to be down with it immediately. It's work with no foreseeable reward. Except, it's very hard to listen to our friends be excited, proud of themselves, enjoying themselves without wanting to join in. It'll be especially helpful, though, if you think people you interact with will like the posts and comment on them, or even try to turn them into threads if you include their muses (with their consent, of course, and no pressure). If she sees that, it might make it even more interesting to her. You might also have to pose this as her helping you out, that you don't think you'll get more than two done if she isn't doing it as well, as a sort of a challenge she can hold you to.

Whatever you think might work best for engaging her, you know her well, you can do it!

Be there to help her out with ideas if she goes for it. Throw out some easy, fun suggestions you think she might like, that even give her some opportunity to write something with her muse that she doesn't get a chance to. Pull from the muse's canon, is there something in their canon that goes with the prompt word "snow," for instance? Is it something she enjoyed about the canon story? Suggest it. Thinking about both the muse and your friend, is there something else that came to mind about that prompt you could suggest? Do it!

Again, whatever she's most into, it's an angle. Humor? Her serious muse is forced into a ridiculous, funny situation that involves the snow. Angst? A sad memory associated with the snow. Shipping? A romantic, fluffy scene (or steamy one). And so on.

Be there to express interest and encouragement while she's doing it. Don't do things that are going to come off as pressuring or helicopter moming her, of course! Like, asking how much she's gotten done, did she start working on it yet? That's a bad idea, unless she enjoys that sort of thing. Instead, tell her how much you can't wait to see this, ask about how it's going, tell her about yours to encourage her to talk about it.

And be there to be her audience when she posts it. This really seems to be her highest reward, so give it to her. Like the post, comment on the post, tell her in messages. Not individually, all of those things. If you can find a way to that doesn't mess up what you've got going on with your blog, mutuals, other friends, etc., mention it on your blog.

At this point, people might be both aware of her RP habits and wary of engaging with her, but someone might bite if you're enthused and go like the post. If it's applicable, make some jokes about it on the dash, turn it into a moment of inside joke-like crack for people to see. Mention that she wrote this and you loved it, link it or outright reblog her post. Hell, mention that you and her are doing such and such prompts for whatever holiday or season before the fact, that way, it doesn't come out of nowhere to your mutuals, either. Again, if applicable, you can ask to turn it into a thread.

The point, at this juncture, isn't to attract people to her blog and posts, it's to demonstrate to her that this is fun and rewarding. If you can get people to go like the posts, great, but you can only count on yourself to do it at first.

Most people enjoy those sorts of prompts on their dash from mutuals, though. You're always going to have some who feel like it's annoying because it wasn't strictly a RP reply, but whatever, they're not the majority in most fandoms anymore, thankfully. Point is, it's literally showing her mutuals that she's capable of thinking as her muse and working on her muse. It's showing off good things and making her muse more interesting and uniquely hers in a good way. And it's totally possible that she's going to organically generate likes, people wanting to use this as a plot with her for RP, and mutuals who are increasingly following along with every post made.

The hope is that she experiences the beginnings of more interest in the muse than she does making muses, gain some confidence in doing this with the enjoyment of it, and stick with a muse longer than five seconds so that she can actually end up with the interactions she wants.

There are definitely other ways of doing this, the prompt thing just came to mind because it's major prompt season. You've got a prompt list floating around for literally every popular point of interest right now, from whump to extreme fluff to horror to humor. And it's going to keep going until January. It's also something that can be as short as a paragraph or as long as several thousand words, and that a hell of a lot of people don't do all of. So, it's easy, so long as she's got a reason to find it interesting and stay on course with it even a little bit.

You could also try getting her into doing something like moodboards for her muse but with little additions of writing that go along with them. Nothing major, just things like a quote from her muse or a sentence from a starter, thread, whatever.

So long as you can get her to start refocusing on RP being enjoyable from the inside and not just the outside, it's valid as hell to try it! She seems to be experiencing RP as instant gratification and basing that gratification on things she can't control, like popularity.

Right now, even giving her the sober truth that one can write the best version of a canon muse there is to be found, be someone enjoyable and interesting in OOC interactions, and be an amazing writer without that being enough to garner popularity, or even the plots that are wanted. That being a very popular RPer and having more interactions than you know what to do with (honestly sucks ass) isn't a set of absolute values, but rather, variables that are always in flux and often, totally mysterious. It's usually a mixture of total luck, visual appeal, and both mun being on point with what people want to see right this second and muse being the mixture of fanon that is desirable, also, right at this exact second. It is seriously not within anyone's control, no matter how much effort, quality, or even outright bullshit they have to put out there.

If she's ever going to stick to a muse and not find herself envious, upset, and bored it's absolutely got to come from herself. She's got to be popular with herself, enjoying herself regardless of what others are seemingly achieving or want to give her. It's not going to be recognized no matter how harsh or sweet you are about the problem, unless she's capable of really looking at those problems as problems, and I don't think she's going to get to that point through negatively bottoming out. She might get there through the opposite, though!

It's...just going to take a lot of effort and patience from you, with no expectation of reward yourself.

Because it's still likely as hell it's just not going to happen. And while it seems like you are the kind of friend who would find the effort worth it because you care and are invested in her, please know that there's no shame in merely contemplating this and noping right out.

You've got a life and are trying to enjoy the hobby as well! And if it seems like something that could sour your friendship? It's not worth it. You're better off just accepting that she'll inevitably tire of doing this and move on to another hobby, maybe decide to do fandom blogs or something instead that you can support her in.

It's definitely an unenviable and frustrating position you're in. All you can really do is try not to let this negatively impact the friendship, to keep refraining from just outright telling her things she'd find hurtful, and try your best to show her that it's rewarding to develop the muse and stick with it, not a task. That there are improvements she can make to her blog, and that it isn't a negative reflection on her that they can be made. You can try all the compassionate trickery in the world to lead her there, but it's ultimately up to her whether she brushes this off as well, don't let it hurt your feelings or exasperate you too much!

Also, it's totally possible that even if you met through RP and/or it has been a big part of the friendship, you might have grown in different directions in the hobby.

Growing within the hobby is inherent to any hobby you stick to for long enough, especially if you started out in it young. Some people seamlessly just keep growing to things that make them happy, others experience a lot of growing pains along the way as they're maybe ready for change, but only in select areas they have to discover for themselves. Still others grow in a way that doesn't make them very happy, but they're both not ready (or willing) to approach why and what they can do, and also still too attached to the good times they had to reassess whether it's still something they want to do, or if it's something better moved away from into something else.

That's always very difficult as a friend. Difficult in watching your friends not go the same directions as you anymore, even in something as comparatively silly as a hobby, in seeing them not enjoying themselves, and in the possibility that it could signal the end of enjoying the hobby with them. It's sad and frustrating, and can feel lonely, but if you're close enough friends, you've got so many other things to still be good friends over, so keep that in mind!

She might need to keep doing this with her blog and muse situation until she comes not to the realization that she needs to change how she's RPing to get what she wants, but rather, that she wants to stop RPing. That could be the burnout that happens here eventually, but again, not only can you still be great friends, if it makes her happier, it's good.

[dramarising-replacement]

Re: https://dramarising-replacement.tumblr.com/post/617916922335543296/so-ive-had-a-subspecies-since-september-i-noticed

TL;DR: Things are fishier than they seem, and M might actually be more of a thief than SB. At the very least, M 100% falsely accused SB of theft; at the worst, M stole SB’s idea and went on an editing spree to cover their tracks.

I don't have a tumblr so usually commenting on posts here is more trouble than it's worth, but I just have to on this one for some reason. Maybe it's because I think the entire concept of “subspecies” is stupid, maybe it's because thanks to a namedrop I could easily dig everything up... but from what I found the drama OP (M) definitely seems shady. Brace yourselves, my salty friends, for an unnecessarily long deep-dive into stupid drama (because what else are you going to spend quarantine doing?).

First, let's take a look at the timeline.

According to the original post date, the drama OP (M) created their subspecies in Dragon Share on September 13 2019. The thread has moderate activity levels up (~2 week post gaps max) until December 13 2019, when it apparently dies (barring any ghost bumping of course). The next post on the thread is made May 11 2020, when M suddenly becomes active again. M also created a new subspecies thread in Dragon Share on May 9 2020 at 13:05 FR (exact times will become relevant later on); it seems the posts were filled in with edits made within the next couple days, as is standard. Also of note is the fact that many of M’s posts in their original thread have edits made May 9 2020 from 10:39-13:27 FR (this will be key); additionally, a majority of these edits are made on posts that contain the guidelines for the subspecies- not sales, affiliates, pinglists, etc. that would require any sort of update.

The “accused” in this case (SB) created their hatchery thread in Dragons For Sale on December 24 2019. Aside from sales/affiliate posts, no edits to the main hatchery posts were made since December 29 2019 (likely filling in from a structure laid out 5 days prior), except for on March 19 2020, when it looks like they might have converted how they list dragons for sale to be linked to a tab instead of posted/adjusted g:t ratio. In any case, I believe these particular edits do not really play a big role on the overall timeline and drama, same as M's edits on their new thread. For a user that describes themselves as “barely active”, they do a decent job at bumping posts, with ~1 week between bumps except for 2 spans of ~1 month: from Feb-Mar, and after a short bout of bumping, from Mar-Apr.

The drama begins when M makes their post on SB’s hatchery thread May 09 2020 at 10:10 FR, which is edited less than a minute later (maybe a typo correction?). So here’s the timeline all pieced together:

September 13, 2019 – M creates the subspecies

December 13, 2019 – M seemingly goes inactive on their thread

December 24, 2019 – SB creates their hatchery thread

peace, until…

May 09, 2020 @10:10 – M accuses SB of “stealing” their idea on SB’s hatchery thread

May 09, 2020 @10:39 – M edits their subspecies requirement post

May 09, 2020 @13:05 – M creates a new subspecies thread

May 09, 2020 @13:14 – M edits their old subspecies main post

May 09, 2020 @13:21 – M edits a post about ‘Queen’ variant(?) requirements on their old thread (Important)

May 09, 2020 @13:27 – M edits a post showing examples of ‘Queen’ variants on their old thread (Important)

~BONUS~ May 12, 2020 – people start defending M on SB’s hatchery thread. The posts weren’t exactly the nicest, so who knows if they’ll still be around by the time this gets out of the queue

Ok, I know what you’re all thinking- what does all this mean? How is this shady?? For that, we will have to dive a bit more into the content of the posts to put some context to that timeline; but first, let’s take a look at the threads and see if the theft accusation is accurate.

M’s old subspecies thread:

Messy layout/design. Links are left as ugly long URLs, but most importantly… there is no consistency on what the subspecies design is! In the main post, no colors are listed, but the genes are specified to be Slime/Lionfish, Sludge/Bee, and Capsule. In their next post on the subspecies requirements, genes are listed as Slime, Sludge/Bee, Capsule- no Lionfish to be found! Color specifications are kept vague, with only a Honey tert required, though they do also lay out 4 specific named variations using Amber/Amber, Amber/Gold, Lemon/Gold, and Lemon/Lemon. The post with the ‘Queen’ requirements lists genes of Slime/Hex/Capsule, with no colors specified except for the same 4 variants made earlier.

M’s new subspecies thread:

Still a work in progress, but looks to be pretty much identical to the previous thread; the only main change is that banner is replaced with an original (credited!!) logo (good job on that, M). The main post specifies genes of Slime, Sludge/Bee, and Capsule. The color rule examples post contain the subspecies and the ‘Queen’ variant (Slime/Hex/Capsule), and include some additional variants as well- ‘Crystallized’ (Bee sec), ‘Wasp’ (Lionfish prim), Pollenators[sic] (Glimmer tert), and ‘Hornets’ (Pinstripe/Sludge/Glimmer).

So if you’ve been paying attention, M’s ~super special unique subspecies~ has color requirements of “anything honey-like” (while also having 4 specific color combinations) and a combination of random genes in addition to the “official” genes thanks to the addition of “variants” that have nothing to do with the original Slime/Sludge/Capsule premise. The only consistency seems to be Honey tert.

SB’s hatchery thread:

Aside from some hard-to-read colors used, has nice formatting. Lists 6 pairs, which are strictly either Amber/Amber or Grapefruit/Grapefruit, with a small range of matching terts for each pair (not necessarily encompassing Honey). 5 pairs give primarily Slime/Hex (+small gem gene chance), and 1 is Slime/Sludge. As far as terts go, 2 have terts weighted towards Capsule, 1 is Capsule/Runes, 1 is Opal/Glimmer, and 1 is Glimmer. So primarily Slime/Hex/assorted, in an xxy Amber/Grapefruit+assorted.

So to put that all together:

M’s claim of subspecies “theft” would really ONLY pertain to their ‘Queen’ variant, not their main subspecies (only 1 of SB’s pairs has a 50% chance at making M’s subspecies). In addition, the range built into SB’s pairs violate the only seemingly consistent rule of M’s subspecies: a Honey tert. The only argument for “theft” would pertain to the gene combo of Slime/Hex, which appears in 5 of SB’s pairs and M's ‘Queen’ variant (though again, SB’s pairs do not have the right tert color/gene most of the time!).

Now, do you remember that timeline? After accusing SB of “stealing” their idea (presumably for the ‘Queen’ variant), what did M immediately do? They went back to their thread and specifically edited the posts pertaining to the requirements for the subspecies and the ‘Queen’ variant! It’s theoretically even possible that the ‘Queen’ variant didn’t even formally exist when SB made their hatchery- all the dragons mentioned/posted in M’s thread are the standard Slime/Sludge/Capsule subspecies, and 3 of the registered dragons of the ‘Queen’ variant were bred in January (well after SB started their hatchery), with 1 other dragon acquired from untraceable sellers at some point (likely around the same time as it is the parent of the other 3). You might even say that perhaps M “stole” the idea for the ‘Queen’ from SB… M also posted the proof themselves in the OP that they use shady edits to change the narrative in their favor- SB specifically mentions this in the screenshots after calling out M for removing their link, who then backs it up by claiming they were “project” dragons; yet M placed them in the “Completed breeders” tab, which was hastily edited to now include “Breeders that need gene alterations”, a shady move that SB commented on and M decided to post proof of for some reason lol.

So if this is true, and M accused SB of stealing their idea, then raced to edit their posts to create a narrative to justify their claims… why would they do it? My theory is simple: an honest mistake combined with jealousy. There are only 12 registered dragons listed on both the old and new subspecies threads, half of which are owned by M. On the other hand, SB’s hatchery lists 22 dragons sold, only 1 of which is exalted. Now I don’t know anything about hatcheries, but I think that is a decent amount for just under 5 months of sales, especially when taking into account the periods of seeming inactivity. I think that M either went on hiatus or forgot/gave up on the subspecies back in December, before SB created their hatchery. SB then created their hatchery, using similar (but definitely not the same!) ideas. Time passed, and one day when browsing the sale forum M comes across SB’s thread. Seeing SB’s hatchery have the popularity they never had, combined with poor memory of the details of their subspecies after such a long time had passed, M comments mistakenly accusing SB of theft. However, not long after they find their old thread, and realize that SB isn’t at all copying their Slime/Sludge/Capsule xxy Amber-ish/Honey, and rush to make the edits needed to tidy up their claims. In the process, they quickly realize it’d be best to just start a new thread altogether, as the current thread was a mess and had no more reserved space past the ‘Queen’ variant (which may have been reserved/lore space before M covered their tracks). Far less sinisterly, perhaps M continued their subspecies idea after abandoning the thread, and after accusing SB they realized that they never actually officially updated their subspecies.

  But who’s to say? There might not be a smoking gun one way or the other, but there’s enough circumstantial evidence to say M doesn’t look as innocent as they sound. As far as SB’s response, it was definitely out of line and way too harsh. But you’ve also gotta admit you’d be pretty peeved if you had been peacefully minding your own business for months and suddenly someone comes in out of the blue, wrongfully accuses you of being a thief, demands you give them credit for all your hard work, then proceeds to buy your dragons to make them part of their “rightful” hatchery, erasing any mention of you as just another slap in the face. From looking at the dragons they’ve sold, SB doesn’t really seem to care what happens to them- genes have been changed, links have been removed, no drama that I can see. It really seems like they are reacting more to M’s shadiness over the whole deal than anything else. That said, nobody likes being namecalled, so SB’s parting remark wasn’t right even if they were wrongly accused of theft.

[chanoyu-to-wa]

Nampō Roku, Book 5 (Introduction), Appendix, Part 2:  Rikyū’s Shin no Dai-temmoku, Onaji Daisu no Koto no Densho [眞の臺天目、同臺子の事の傳書].

I. Introduction.

    In the Sen no Rikyū Zen-shu [千利休全集], Suzuki Keiichi follows the text of the  Nambo-ate no densho [南坊宛の傳書] as it was published in the Gunsho Ruijū [羣書類], which inexplicably combines this densho, which was written in 1586 (along with the Tsuri-dana no densho [釣棚の傳書] of 1582) into the Nambo-ate no densho (1574) -- even though doing so destroys the structure of Rikyū's earlier writing.  Furthermore, the Shin no dai-temmoku, onaji daisu no koto no densho, though also addressed to Nambō Sōkei, dates from much later in his career -- possibly just before Hideyoshi's prohibition on the dissemination of this material came into force in the summer of Tenshō 14 [天正十四年], 1586.

    This brief densho (which will be translated here in its entirety) provides us with important details, regarding the gokushin temae, that will enhance our understanding of the gokushin arrangements that feature prominently in the early part of Book Five of the Nampō Roku.

II. The Shin no dai-temmoku, onaji daisu no koto no densho¹.

     This is the shin [眞] way to handle the dai-temmoku, [coupled] with the shin form of the daisu.  As this is an isshi sōden [一子相傳]², it is because of a desire to accede to all of your most fervent wishes -- and in recognition of your [most esteemed] position -- that [I] am recording these [details] here.

    This information must absolutely not be disclosed to anyone, under any circumstances³.

[The writing reads:  (above, right to left) fukuro ni iri (袋ニ入), temmoku ni fukuro aru [天目ニ袋有]; (on the ji-ita) mizusashi (水さし), koboshi (こ奉し), hoya-kōro (奉や香炉); (below) chasen-oki (茶筌置).]

    The arrangement is as shown [above]⁴.  After the charcoal has been added, the hibashi should be placed down and removed [from the room].  They are put in the sumi-tori and taken in[to the katte].

    Then the chasen-oki is brought out⁵.

    When the lord is visiting, at that time the kan should be raised, and left that way until [the lord departs at] the conclusion [of the temae]⁶.  This should be done when tea is being prepared.

    First the dai-temmoku is lowered from the tray, and temporarily placed [on the ten-ita] on the [left] side of the tray.  Then the chaire is moved into the center of the tray.  [The tray] is then lowered [to the mat] using both hands, and placed in front of the mizusashi.  Then the temmoku (together with its dai) is arranged in its place⁷.

    The koboshi is lowered [from the daisu], and the hoya-no-kōro [ホヤノ香爐] -- with its lid inverted -- is moved into the place vacated [by the koboshi]⁸.

    After that, the dai-temmoku is moved in front [of the host's knees]⁹.  Then the chaire is temporarily lowered [onto the mat], toward the right. and the position of the nagabon is adjusted.

    The fukusa is [removed from the obi and] folded [and then inserted into the futokoro].

    The chaire is moved in front [of the knees] and the fukuro is removed.  The fukuro is [placed] on the side [of the ten-ita] above the kama, with the opening facing forward [toward the host].  Then, [after cleaning it with the fukusa,] the chaire is repositioned on the tray; and [after cleaning it,] the chashaku is leaned against [the rim] of the tray.  The details of were the chashaku rests constitute a ku-den¹⁰.

    Then the inside of the temmoku is rinsed [with hot water] twice.  The second time, the chasen-tōshi should be performed.  The temmoku is temporarily lowered in front of the futaoki¹¹.  Then the dai is wiped [with the fukusa].  Then the temmoku is lifted onto the dai and the chasen is taken out and placed in the chasen-oki, with the tines facing downward.

    The chakin is taken up and the temmoku is dried.

    After that, the tea is put in[to the temmoku].  [The tea] should be prepared with [the temmoku] resting on the dai -- this is a fixed rule.

    However, if the temmoku is a meibutsu, the way to handle the chashaku is different¹².

_________________________

¹The description of this arrangement, and its temae, were discussed in a series of posts entitled Rikyū Densho — the Private Writings of Sen no Rikyū: I. The Nambō-ate Densho (V. Shin no Dai-temmoku, with the Daisu [真の臺天目、同臺子の事]), parts 1 to 5.  The URLs for those posts are:

◦ Part 1:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/73249421617/riky%C5%AB-densho-the-private-writings-of-sen-no

◦ Part 2:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/73382726521/riky%C5%AB-densho-the-private-writings-of-sen-no

◦ Part 3:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/73454320101/riky%C5%AB-densho-the-private-writings-of-sen-no

◦ Part 4*:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/73552853242/riky%C5%AB-densho-the-private-writings-of-sen-no

◦ Part 5:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/73648491774/riky%C5%AB-densho-the-private-writings-of-sen-no

    Note that at the time I produced this translation, I was not aware that the entry entitled Shin no dai-temmoku, onaji daisu no koto no densho represented an independent densho.  The reader should keep this -- and the fact that a span of some 12 years separates the Shin no dai-temmoku, onaji daisu no koto no densho from the Nambō-ate no densho -- in mind when reading these posts.  It is my intention to eventually revise all of the posts, from the beginning of this blog, once the translation of the Nampō Roku is finished, since doing so will allow me to integrate each part into a cohesive whole.  If I live so long.  Unfortunately, when I first started this task, I lacked the ability to make such decisions -- both because of the urgency of my situation (as you may recall, I was blind in my left eye, and sight in my right eye was failing month by month), and because of a fear that someone might claim a copyright violation or otherwise make an attack me (I had been under the impression that the Japanese scholar who sent me the copy of the Sen no Rikyū Zen-shu wished that I would not make this material public:  I met him, unexpectedly, a year ago, and it seemed that, rather than censure, he was filled with admiration for the work I have endeavored to do).  Indeed, particularly in the beginning, I often allowed my translations to be overly influenced by the public position of certain schools, fearing to deviate too far from their well-known versions of things like the Hundred Poems.  While I have always tried to be as accurate as possible in my interpretation of these collections, in the early days I did feel a need to push things as close as possible to earlier translations, so as to make as few waves as possible.

    Whenever I include translations of things that have appeared previously in this blog, I usually prefer to re-translate them anew, rather than simply copy and paste from those earlier posts.  Though the meaning is usually more or less the same, my perspective has continued to evolve -- translating pulls one so much deeper into the thoughts of the person whose ideas one is rendering in English, than is the case when one simply reads for content -- and, since no translation can accurately convey every nuance of the original, I feel that the different versions will each have something to offer, and it is by combining them that the reader may sometimes be brought deeper into what Rikyū is actually trying to say.  This is part of the reason why I prefer to include a new translation, rather than simply cite a previous post, whenever practicable; and yet, after doing so, why I still publish a link to the earlier version, too.

    With respect to this densho, it is important to remember that it was written in 1586.  That means that the room should be oriented with the katte on the left, and the guests seated on the host's right†.

    The kae-chawan and koboshi are on the host's left side during the temae.

    However, at the time when the arrangements in Book Five of the Nampō Roku were sketched out, the usual orientation was reversed -- the katte was on the right, with the guests seated on the host's left.  As a result, the standard width of the utensil mat was not sufficient for all of the things that need to be on the host's right (both the kae-chawan and the koboshi -- and possibly the habōki, too -- were all occupying that side of the mat, along with the nagabon).  This is why the go-sun-ita was necessary for the gokushin-temae.

    Other than in these minor details, the arrangements are the same, regardless of the setting‡. ___________ *This post includes certain details that deviate from the gokushin-temae (in that it mentions the case where a chaire-bon is brought out for the chaire, and the temmoku and its dai are both handled on the nagabon).  The tray used for this temae is what is referred to as the tsune-no-nagabon [常ノ長盆] in the Nampō Roku (this tray is larger than the Gassan-nagabon that was used for the gokushin-temae).

    While this temae was preferred by many of the machi-shū (certain modern schools reserve the details of this arrangement as their “highest temae” -- in other words, it is those school’s isshi sōden [一子相傳]), it is not, strictly speaking, a gokushin-temae.

†The futaoki is always displayed on the side of the ji-ita closest to the katte.  This point allows us to determine the orientation of the room, even when it is not mentioned in any of the accompanying text.

‡This was decided upon based on the fact that the arrangement of the utensils -- especially the position of the furo -- damages the daisu, which made it impossible to reverse things when the orientation of the room changed from “guests-on-the-left” to “guests-on-the-right.”

    That said, it is always important to remember the original orientation when attempting to understand the disposition of the various objects -- especially on the ten-ita -- when decorating the daisu:  this is why the most important things are always placed toward the right -- since that moved them farther away from the part of the room where the guests were seated (whose movement would cause dust to rise into the air).

²Isshi sōden [一子相傳] means a secret teaching (sōden [相傳], secret teachings that were to be handed down from generation to generation) that is transmitted to only one disciple (isshi [一子] literally means “[to] one child [only]”) in each generation.

    This statement, in a sense, marks Nambō Sōkei as Rikyū’s recognized heir.  Offering the teaching to him was probably intended to insure its authentic preservation -- outside of the line of formally designated recipients, who were approved (for political reasons) by Hideyoshi.

    Nambō Sōkei was a monk and chajin, with no political or social aspirations whatsoever.  Most of the other recipients of this honor were military figures, who would be more likely flaunt this knowledge as a mark of Hideyoshi’s trust and esteem, rather than valuing it because it marked the innermost teaching of the practice of chanoyu.  While some of them came to enjoy chanoyu, and even became passionate about it, all of these men had first entered into the practice at Nobunaga’s or Hideyoshi’s behest (since doing so would have given them a certain special standing in their lord’s favor).

³Rikyū wishes to preserve these teachings.  Traditionally, and isshi sōden would be transmitted only once in each generation.  What Rikyū is saying to Sōkei is that he is passing this teaching on to him, with the understanding that he should protect it, and preserve it, and then consider passing it on only to one other, in the event of Rikyū’s own death.

    This is another reason why Sōkei practiced the gokushin temae only in the privacy of the katte, where no other eyes would see what he was doing (since not only the temae, but the way to arrange the daisu, were part of the secrets).

⁴More literally, “at the right.”

    The original manuscript was written on a roll of paper, and the sketch is found between the first section (warning Sōkei not to disseminate this information to anyone else), and the second (which narrates the details of the temae).

⁵While Rikyū's text makes it seem that the service of tea should immediately follow the sumi-temae, this would not necessarily have been the case.  (Still, the concern that the fire not begin to fail during the preparation of tea might have made something resembling a go-sumi-temae [後炭手前] prudent -- though, in the context of something like a tea gathering, this would more commonly take place during the naka-dachi, and so not be observed by the guests.)

⁶The kan were raised immediately, as soon as the lord entered the room, and lowered immediately after he has left the room.  If either of these occurs while the host is performing his temae, he was supposed to pause and attend to the kan before continuing with whatever it was that he was doing.

⁷The temmoku is placed in front of the furo.  However, it should be aligned with the chaire, just as it was when resting on the tray.  It is, thus, closer to the daisu than it will be during the preparation of tea*.

    Placing the temmoku in front of the furo allows the koboshi to be lowered to the mat (and replaced by the futaoki) without danger. __________ *When the dai-temmoku was placed in the nagabon, it was 2-sun from outer edge of the far rim.  It is thus 2-sun away from the front of the daisu.  The 2-sun strip immediately in front of the daisu is yūyo [有余] -- which means that nothing should be placed in that space during the temae (though it is important to understand that trays extending into this space do not count).

⁸The koboshi was placed so that the back side was immediately forward of the center line of the ji-ita, and centered between the body of the furo and the mizusashi.

    The hoya should be oriented in the koboshi-no-ato [コボシの跡] (the space that was vacated by the koboshi) in exactly the same way.  The space between the hoya and the front edge of the daisu is slightly larger than 5-sun.

⁹The temmoku is placed immediately to the left of the tray (it is traditionally said the space between the rim and the right edge of the hane should be 1-bu).  it rests on the line that represents the first fold of the shiki-shi (when the shiki-shi is folded up, the bottom edge is folded toward the daisu, and then the it is folded up from the right side).

¹⁰The chashaku is placed immediately to the left of the second kane.  The bend in the cup touches the tray in line with the far side of the foot of the chaire, and the tip of the bowl is in line with the back side of the chaire.  The handle of the chashaku extends 4- or 5-bu beyond the front edge of the tray.  These details were secret -- and link the length of the chashaku directly to the chaire for which it was made.

¹¹The futaoki is centered between the body of the furo and the body of the mizusashi.  The temmoku, however, is placed so that its foot is immediately to the left of the central kane.

¹²After transferring the tea, the chashaku is tapped against the rim of the bowl.  However, in the case of a meibutsu, it is better to tap it -- very gently -- against the inside of the bowl (in the part of the interior of the chawan known as the chasen-zuri [茶筅刷り] -- this is the part of the chawan “rubbed by the chasen” when whisking tea, roughly the point where the bottom angles upward to the side).

    Since at least the time of Jōō, however, some have advised that it is better to tap the chashaku against the inside of the bowl in the case of every chawan that bears a metal fukurin [覆輪] -- since the soft metal (especially when it is gold) is easily dented.

    If this was the case, then it was felt that something even more extreme should be preferred when preparing tea in a meibutsu temmoku.  In this case, rather than tapping the chashaku against the bowl at all, the first finger of the left hand was extended over the front rim of the bowl, and the chashaku was tapped against it.

[therealfluke]

hello hello ! wld j like to say that if ur already following me and ur like “why” it is because. this is may. i j reserved from my rph so the alias it went under was lucky. which actually,, so fitting w this theme (goes by a name that means an unlikely coincidence, last name is associated with luck, etc.). in addition, if “lucky” by britney spears immediately got stuck in ur head... that was the ultimate goal. also listen,,,, u r not the only one who hates my url. and finally! i saved the old posts on here and j made them private for posterity (obviously) and also,, my sanity.

‹ OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN, HE/HIM, CIS MAN, BISEXUAL. › levi “fluke” fisher is the twenty-seven year old from salem, massachussets / new york city, new york. when a friend asked them what they thought of the manor they said, ❝ IT FEELS LIKE I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. ❞ they claim final destination is their favorite scary movie, and if they were to die in a horror film they would form an alliance with the murderer, then annoy the murderer into killing him by asking too many questions. their fears include rats, isolation and living the rest of his life without muse d, and they don’t know we know, but… in spite of a promise he made to his family, friends and self, he has a baggie of heroin on him at all times so he can prove to himself he’s strong (which is a lie – it’s really for a ‘just in case’ situation) . hope they enjoy their stay. ‹ MUSE C from OTHERSIDE penned by, LUCKY, 20, EST. ›

QUICK FACTS:

full name: levi “fluke” james fisher

hometown: salem, ma // moved to new york city, new york at twenty-two

date of birth: march 10, 1992*

*does not perfectly reflect the below Big Three Zodiac Chart™ because that’s so much math

zodiac big three: pisces sun, scorpio moon, pisces rising (he is!! so ruled by his emotions!!)

gender & pronouns: cis man & he/him

sexual orientation: bisexual

occupation: museum night guard ( fired ) / leech off of his older siblings

mbti: infp

enneagram: 4w5

the song i listen to on repeat while i write the intro: “stars” - nina simone ( cover )

BACKGROUND INFO:

triggers: death (under mysterious circumstances, but officially dubbed murder), night terrors / hallucinations?, drug abuse / addiction ( oxy, heroin ), accidental overdose, death by overdose

it began with josephine (“jo”), levi, charlotte (“lottie”), and christopher (“chris”) – in that order. or, perhaps, that reverse order – see: chris was the oldest.

they were all born to very kind and lovely parents. the majority of levi’s memories with his parents take place in a large house they were intending to flip. given its size and the price it would sell for, they spent more than their fair share of time in there. that being said, because their parents were often busy flipping and marketing the house, they all relied on each other for fun, even in spite of the sizable age difference between himself (and jo, who i have forgotten to mention is his “younger” twin) and christopher.

the longer they spent there, however, the more uneasy they grew. i mean, it was basically its own version of the manor – it was also guillermo del toro’s wet dream. levi could’ve sworn he’d had some run-ins with spooks, but no confirmation was ever, nor could ever be, offered. so the manor feels... very normal.

anyway, when levi was eight, his mother and father met an untimely demise. a break-in gone wrong while the kids were with their grandparents, they were told. at the time, levi... was eight and, therefore, had no doubts. now, however, he mulls over the many possibilities – it was a big house, the likelihood that they really could’ve been in that wrong of a place at that wrong of a time felt very unlikely. some form of suicide? something otherworldly? they seemed about as likely. he’s pretty sure lottie and chris know the truth, but...

after that, they were sent to live with their grandparents. while not particularly ideal, they recognized that it was far better than the foster care system. however, these recurring spooks didn’t just stop when he moved. his grandparents and older siblings blamed it on childhood night terrors, jo believed him. 

as they continued into his teen years, they claimed it was sleep paralysis. he confided in jo, in secret, that they weren’t strictly at night. he knew very well that, if he shared that with his grandparents or older siblings, they would think he really needed help. maybe he did, he never truly learned.

when chris moved out to go to college, and when lottie followed just a few years after, levi found it was just jo and himself. their grandparents were beginning to go past old age and reach senility. they had bouts of forgetting. 

levi chose not to go to college, but insisted jo, who’d always wanted to go, go without him. she went to new york city, he stayed behind with his grandparents in salem up until their death when he was twenty-two. it was early in his eyes, but for, say, his brother, it was pretty record-breaking. 

when he was twenty-one, after the death of his grandparents, he left salem and all of its reminders of childhood terrors and lies. he found jo in new york and began living with her and working as a night guard at one of the many museums.

but a mere one (1) year later, jo, usually straight-edge, decided she would finally go to her first college party in celebration of being so close to graduating. yeehaw. levi was invited to go with her, but had been warned far too recently that, if he missed one more shift, he’d be fired.

on the topic of his night shifts, his terrors seemed to go away when he moved to new york. it seemed as though he’d left them all in salem, but there were definitely moments in a huge and empty museum that he could’ve sworn he’d seen something. anyway, back to the main point:

jo didn’t return until the next morning and, when she did, she expressed the excellency she had experienced the night before. she wasn’t afraid of telling him she’d tried drugs for the first time – no, that night, it’d just been weed. he’d tried weed in high school, trying to figure out if it would help with his terrors. for a hot second, it did... which is what led to his own demise.

(OK! so from here on out, i’ll be talking about the other muses in the subplot. i’m gonna do my best to leave their story and keep their drug of choice vague! anyway!)

jo began falling deeper into the drug world after meeting and beginning to date muse b and eventually fell into harder tingz™. she never tried to pressure fluke into trying anything, but he witnessed the reaction to it. between that and having looked up to his younger sister ( by, like, two minutes ) for nearly the entirety of his life, he decided to try whatever she did. 

however, unlike her, he quickly escalated to heroin.

he started out smoking it... then snorting it... then began shooting it. he liked shooting it the best – not only because he reached the high quicker, but also because it required more of a ritual. as a fan of ritualistic behavior, the lead-up was almost as enjoyable as the high itself. unfortunately, it did leave him with many trackmarks and an even higher risk of reliance and overdose.

he didn’t go out to many parties after that. he preferred shooting in the company of the few, not the many. if his sister and friends did, that was their prerogative, but it was just... more peaceful...

suddenly, he didn’t ever think about the terrors or the lies or the shadows in the museum. he was eventually fired, yes, and had to start ‘earning’ money via asking his other siblings. 

when the topic came up between himself and his little group of friends on whether or not they should quit, he had no answer. 

in 2018, at twenty-six, his usual dealer had cut him off due to the money he was no longer good for. finding a much cheaper one, he took the same dose, but the amount of other chemicals it was cut with sent him to the hospital. given plenty of naloxone, he came out of it alive and clean and, due to the nature of it all, was deemed a fluke.

he didn’t take to that at first. he was lucky, yes, but a fluke ? it couldn’t have been that unlikely... especially when he fell back into it after finding another dealer and being totally fine. however, when he heard jo had overdosed and actually died ?

yes, he was a fluke.

he was so blinded with rage at muse a at first for leading his absolute crutch to her death, he was so blinded with rage at muse b for first introducing her to a world of harder drugs, he was so blinded with rage at himself for being the one who survived when she was the one who actually could’ve done something with her life.

so he embraced the word ‘fluke’ – he acknowledged that he was one during her eulogy, he told his other siblings he’d been the fluke at her wake. when he began saying it enough times, it caught on, whether he meant for it to or not.

he’s no longer so angry at muse a  and muse b for what they did. muse b wanted to get sober, after all, and muse a , much like himself, was simply an addict. they couldn’t help not being prepared to give it up. he’s still furious at himself.

now that they've all gone clean, however, fluke is somewhat more pleased. he’s fairly certain he’ll never not be in mourning. quite frankly, he’s fairly certain he’ll eventually relapse. even worse, in spite of the group promise, he’s brought contraband with him to “prove his strength” ( see: that’s what he tells himself ).

riffing off of that, in the manor, his terrors have begun returning and he’s unable to nail if it’s because of the similarities between it and the home he remembers so well or if it’s because he’s now sober of it it’s because... it’s just the manor itself. 

he’s still certain it’s all real.

TL;DR:

basically lived in a replica of the manor when he was a kid with his loving parents and three other siblings. is pretty sure he saw some paranormal stuff goin on. parents were “murdered” but he suspects something else. moved in with grandparents and continued seeing some paranormal stuff. only his twin sister, muse d (jo), believed that it wasn’t just night terrors. jo went to college, he stayed behind. grandparents died rip. he went to nyc where jo was and eventually met muse a and muse b when they all fell into hard drug use. almost died because of poorly cut heroin. jo died some months later. hates himself. rip. alexa, play “my heart will go on” but the recorder version.

PERSONALITY INFO:

sad boi energy

if u read thru this and didn’t think “why does she keep basing her characters off of characters from thohh” then,,, u should go watch thohh bc,,, it’s so obvious (we even over here picturing victoria pedretti as jo unless someone applies for her at some point afhsljk) hlfajdsa

has a terrible tendency to find someone to feed off of – someone to be codependent off of. without jo, he’s floundering.

is very * eyes emoji * at,,, many things. the explanation for his parents’ death? * eyes emoji * the spooks that almost everyone came up with excuses for? * eyes emoji * staying sober? * eyes emoji *

didn’t mean to start going by fluke, but started using the word to describe himself so much, it just happened organically.

i have stated before. that im bad at these sections. so feel free to j consult the zodiac / mbti / enneagram above haofuwdlijk

not rly personality but lil hc is that he goes back to that huge victorian house all the time and uses a ouija board to see if he can contact ANYONE :\ the ultimate eeyore :\

another lil hc is that he’s actually a v talented pianist. his mother sort of taught him the basics and he went on to learn classical through sheet music and schooling, then songs from rock bands/artists who incorporated keys in their music. brought the 7-octave keyboard his grandparents bought him... apparently doesn’t need it because there’s a huge piano hajfdkls

if u want 2 hear abt some of my paranormal hcs lmk i wld put them here but?? some r actually creepy (and/or involve blood) which we luv for me!!

FEARS:

rats: when he was living in that big house™, there were plenty of rat infestations. he often got those mixed up with his spooks™. there were also a lot of rats at his grandparents’ house and at his and jo’s apartment. it’s more of a general fear, but. (also... rat poison? drug abuse? symbolism.)

isolation: for an introvert, he’s really bad at being alone. for one things, he gets lonely which is very detrimental to his already fragile mental state, especially considering he’s pretty sure he’ll relapse. in addition, he’s much worse at dealing with any spooks™ that come his way when he’s completely alone. when someone else is in the room, even if he isn’t actively talking to them, at least there’s the comfort of not being alone in it all. 

living the rest of his life without muse d: even if she was the one who began their drug journey, she was the only person who ever believed anything fluke said – she was the only person he ever felt actually listened to him and cared about him with no ‘if’ or ‘but’ attached. he also always found her much wiser than himself and could’ve sworn she would’ve gone to rehab after getting well with muse a one last time. she was the one who was going somewhere and she was the one who loved him unconditionally. no wonder he’s got sad boi energy :\

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

his other brother and sister! i’ll probs send in wcs for them to the main, but if you think they wld sound cool, lmk. luv that. (update!! take one of them you cowards.)

the dealer who actually dealt him quality heroin

the dealer who dealt him heroin cut with god-knows-what

someone he accidentally starts to sink with himself

exes

fwb

ons

enemies (not super great at making them, but is still able to)

the new person he’s decided to latch onto

childhood friends (if there are other salem (or at least massachussetts) characters!)

idk!! we can also look at urs and/or brainstorm!!

ok ! like this or hmu if you’d like to plot !

[jeseniaeep410]

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[spookyashhelps-blog]

Hi Asher! We are a mature, OC, southern gothic, mystery and town rp, that is both heavily plot driven and equally focused on character development. And we were wondering if you might have the time to give us an opinion/a full review, please? Regardless, thank you for your attention

sorry for the wait on this! life has been crazy and i wanted to wait until i had time to actually devote to this. remember, this is all an opinion and take what i say with a grain of salt! this got hella long and i apologize, i just went through everything.

okay, so first things first, i know that it was a trend to have like super short urls and people felt strongly about this?? idk if that’s still a thing really and i think a lot of people will get the reference to the song and it’s a banger, so i don’t have a problem with it, just something to keep in mind.

now, the theme. i think that the fansite style is fine, i know some people don’t like it for the “aesthetic” but they are generally easier to read and i’m all for accessibility. however, i do feel that it’s a little lackluster? the header is pretty and i like it but it’s a little plain and with a plain theme just kinda makes it meh? i’ve always felt that the theme should be an extension of the plot and i feel like this is such a cool and dark theme that it needs something to match it? so i think you should really change up the color scheme on the blog because the white vs off white with a little bit of green is just too plain for the theme.

i do like your graphics a lot! i am also a slut for that neon sign aesthetic.

okay, for the plot, i love it, but there are just little spelling mistakes and odd phrasing here and there. so, i just bulleted them to make it easier to read.

“So what little read thread of fate ties these two strange souls together?“ I think you meant red here? But also, I think there’s just way too make adjectives in this sentence and it’s too cluttered, making it lose the impact of it. at the bare minimum, i would take red out of there but also if you want to, i’d also get rid of strange. again, it clogs the sentence up but also that’s implying that those souls are odd individually. if you were trying to highlight the fact that things people were very different from each other and they make an odd pairing, i’d change the wording.

“A lung full of water,“ This just reads really awkwardly because lungs are always thought of and work as a pair. the only way someone could have a singular lung filled with water is if one of the lungs were removed, which if that’s a signature of the killer, then cool but it wasn’t clear if that’s the case. 

“drown those he deems to sinful to live” that’s a “too sinful”

“So, please do come and join us!!!“ there’s nothing wrong with this really, and this is a note that i really don’t want to come off as rude so please understand that’s not what i’m trying to do. this is a note more on the admins and how they communicate. the over use of exclamation points, the pet names in the admin posts while addressing the tags and the members, doesn’t have the right vibe for this type of rps. you’re trying to attract an older and more mature audience and that just comes across as unprofessional and a little forces. that’s one of the things i have discovered about trying to get apps and and attention, the more professional and relaxed you are, the better. you can totally have a personality and be friendly and funny, but that’s not the way to go, one exclamation point does the trick. 

okay, the next thing, the navigation page. there are way too many links here, and some of them i just don’t think you need and tbh, i’d move some of them around. it’s an odd thing i noticed, but people are more attracted to shorter before and during application sections and a longer after applying section, idk why. i’m doing bullets again because this got long.

the founding families, victims, the about, and the locations could honestly be moved to the after applying section just because if someone really wants to include this information in their app, they’re gonna look at it regardless, but if i was applying for the group, i’d be a little put off by what feels like work or homework almost. 

since the faq is the ask page on your blog, i feel that’s very unnecessary to have it on the navi page. 

i also feel that having a tag for faq and having an faq on the ask is unnecessary

the character directory and the character navigation are very redundant. i would get rid of one or the other, i know the directory says work in progress and if that’s the reason you also have the navigation, just don’t link to the directory. you never want to make unfinished work accessible 

the wanted connections vs closed connections is also redundant, i have never seen the point of putting up taken connections really, but if you really want to do that, i’d say just make a page for it and call it wanted connections and just have two sections. if you want to advertise the open connections, do so on the promo blog, not on the main

the answered asks link also feels redundant with the faq tag and then on top of the faq on the ask page? i’d say trim that down, it’s just too much. my suggestion would be to get rid of the link to the ask and then get rid of the faq tag and just have the answered link. i also feel that can be down below in the after acceptance.

the banned link for the fcs on the navi is too much. you should link that page in your rules. with just a simple “here are the banned fcs” 

i would put the sample and headcanon prompts on the app just again, to clean up the navi page

i’d put the follow list and the trigger links on the checklist page

blogroll is a bit of an antiquated term, follow list, or to follow, or some variant is more popular

and tbh, since you guys have so much info, which is amazing i really do love it, i’d even maybe make an extras section?? like the ooc list, the inspo blog, maybe even the locations page? things like that just because your navi looks like a way of text and it’s a page of links, it shouldn’t look like that

okay, so the guideline page, alright and apparently i’m just going to be doing a commentary over the whole page then bullet points for specifics and that’s the format we’re going with today. it’s a little long and wall of text-y so maybe either shorten them or break it up into more sections?

that first bit about acceptances, i feel you can delete now since you’ve done your first round of acceptances and that’s no longer needed

okay, so the thing about saying we don’t have set dates for applying is that comes off as very unprofessional and while yes, rp is a hobby, the more professional the admins look, the more people are going to trust the admins to run the rp, the more people are going to be attracted to it, and the more they are going to trust the rp to stick around. just say an apps are going to be accepted and if there is any issue, we will keep you updated

i’d say that they deny applications is longer than it has to be, just saying you have the right to deny applications, and that you are more than welcome to talk to us about why you were denied and reapply

the “ (or skeleton) “ is unnecessary and a little confusing. 48 hours seems long to me but that also maybe because i do mainly appless rps and the usual time for the full app maybe completely different. so, if that’s like around about the usual then ignore this bit, i trust you guys

“(somewhat negotiable)” i’d just say negotiable, but that’s a personal and really nitpicky things so eh

“If found to be instigating the drama, you will have two warnings before you will be removed from the RP. We also want you to know that we, the admins, aren’t perfect and if we are every making you uncomfortable PLEASE DO tell us. That is never our intention, and we will very gladly hear your concerns and fix our own mistakes.” that’s two different bullet points right there

now, some people really like discord chats, and some don’t. the thing that i have discovered is that people who don’t have discord or don’t want to join for whatever reason often feel very left out and often leave the rp, this is coming from rps that i have admined myself. so, i’d either get rid of it altogether or make it a requirement that you have discord just so you don’t have that problem

i do get that with these rps where longer threads are more expected the norm, i still feel that 7 days of inactivity plus 48 hours is a bit too long because that’s nine days that someone can go without posting before you have seen that they left, but also, having way too tight activity isn’t good either. i’d say a week without posting or letting you guys know is fair. however you want to divide that out, whether it’s five days plus 48 hours of warning or 6 days with 24 hours warning, i think it’s half a dozen and six of the other 

2 months is a very long time for a hiatus and i think it should be cut down by half tbh, because at 2 months, that’s just reserving a character or an fc, i would do baseline of a month and then go case by case for anything longer

The bit about wanting people to let you know they’re leaving is unnecessary. sure, it’s nice to get a heads up, but people are going to do what they do and since they’re leaving, there’s really no disciplinary action to take against that. The reapplying thing is fine though.

as i said, the banned fcs should just be a link to the page because that makes it look neater and it’s less redundant and confusing

you don’t need that diversity bit, it’s clear that you guys feel strongly about it, and that’s not really a rule, so it doesn’t quite belong on the page, unless you want to use that as the segway to talk about the skeletons or you could add a rule that for every “x” amount of white fcs you have, you must have a faceclaim of color or for every “x” amount of under 25 (or whatever you want the age to be) you must have an fc above said age limit

waiting a month to pick up more characters is a little extra? i understand that you can have 3 characters right off the bat and that’s usually as many as people play but it still seems way too long

i guess i don’t understand why you want people to have a para going on and it’s not even a hard fast rule so? i think it’s slightly odd to have in there, but if you really want that in there i’d change it to something a lot shorter like “we’d love to see you guys have a variety of styles of threads, but it’s not a requirement” has the same effect, just said a lot quicker

i don’t think the XV section is necessary at all, i think almost everyone knows that and if they don’t, then that’s something to explain to them one on one because that is going to happen so little 

the cutting posts thing is too long, that can be written in less words and for mobile rp, i’ve found that just having them tag it and having the partners do the cutting is fine and works great

i haven’t seen gray boxes in a 79 years, i don’t think they’re a problem anymore tbh??

you guys are getting way too specific with the dimensions of the gifs, just say small to medium. a note on that, is that 80 px is becoming the new norm so for those new fcs who have popped up recently, they might not have 100px resources so they might not be underused but it’s going to be a needle in the haystack search with little to no results to find 100px resources, so it just seems a little much to me. maybe just saying it’s a strong preference would be better

for the triggers, i’d just say, make sure that you add that onto your app so we can add it to the trigger list

the whole bit on what to do with triggers is again, very verbose, you can cut that down to something a lot shorter

also, i wouldn’t use finally, but if you are, make sure it’s on the last rule

i’d rearrange the last section tbh, because it’s a little all over the place so grouping them together by their subcategories would read better

i love the family page, think it’s great! love the diversity too!

the victim page is great too, but i would just add fcs for all of them since their families are playable.

the about for the town is incredible too

locations page is great too, but the phil’s watches and clocks graphic is broken

the only thing on the faq page that i can see is the bit about mock blogs seems like you heavily favor people who do mock blogs over those who don’t so i would change that wording completely

i already said my bit about the directory but i cannot stress enough that putting up works in progress just isn’t the greatest look and thing to do, but i do freaking love what i see with the page, i just wish the first time i saw it, it was complete

okay, so the banned list, i have some thoughts on it

so the fact that you have the exception of allowing more diverse fcs for the large number of groups you have banned makes it not problematic but

idk, i just find that type of banning a huge turn off for me and i know quite a few people feel that way too just because it kind of makes it about the fcs and the resources when it should be based on writing, which i can tell you guys are trying to promote, so idk, i’ve always felt that it creates a cognitive dissonance when groups ban that many groups of people

for example, i have a character that i absolutely love that he might actually work in this rp, but his fc is automatically banned and i’m very attached to his fc as his fc for him, so those really stiff blanket bans can loose you apps

as for the specific people, it’s kind of a long list. now, if those people are all on there because the muns have personal issues with them, great, case closed. however, if those are because they did one thing and you’re doing it because tumblr said they were bad people, but you don’t have a personal issue with them, then like, that could also loose you apps you know? but as i said, if those people are on their because of personal experiences/triggers, then it’s perf

the app is great, but i have a few comments

i can understand why you want to know how people found you, but it is a little odd, i’d suggest make that an optional thing

the understanding bit is a bit outdated of a concept, like it’s better than a password, but it’s still outdated

i’d completely reword the interrogation explanation paragraph because it’s just way too long and over explains it to the point it starts getting confusing

either the link to the accepted tag is either broken or the tag is empty

as far as the checklist goes, i would move the requirements for the blog to the rules page

and that’s the end of this opinion/review! in summary, i think it’s a great rp with lots of potential just a few things to tighten up. i think the things you should focus on is the theme, do things to make it have an aesthetic that reflects the plot and mood of your rp, work on the professionalism things i mentioned, and cut down on how wordy things are, things often get over-explained that sometimes it gets even more confusing and no one likes things over-explained to them. i wish you guys the best of luck!

[suzanneshannon]

Don't ever break a URL if you can help it

Back in 2017 I said "URLs are UI" and I stand by it. At the time, however, I was running this 18 year old blog using ASP.NET WebForms and the URL was, ahem, https://www.hanselman.com/blog/URLsAreUI.aspx

The blog post got on Hacker News and folks were not impressed with my PascalCasing but were particularly offended by the .aspx extension shouting "this is the technology this blog is written in!" A rightfully valid complaint, to be clear.

ASP.NET has supported extensionless URLs for nearly a decade but I have been just using and enjoying my blog. I've been slowly moving my three "Hanselman, Inc" (it's not really a company) sites over to Azure, to Linux, and to ASP.NET Core. You can actually scroll to the bottom of this site and see the git commit hash AND CI/CD Build (both private links) that this production instance was built and deployed from.

As tastes change, from anglebrackets to curly braces to significant whitespace, they also change in URL styles, from .cgi extesnions, to my PascalCased.aspx, to the more 'modern' lowercased kebab-casing of today.

But how does one change 6000 URLs without breaking their Google Juice? I have history here. Here's a 17 year old blog post...the URL isn't broken. It's important to never change a URL and if you do, always offer a redirect.

When Mark Downie and I discussed moving the venerable .NET blog engine "DasBlog" over to .NET Core, we decided that no matter what, we'd allow for choice in URL style without breaking URLs. His blog runs DasBlog Core also and applies these same techniques.

We decided on two layers of URL management.

An optional and configurable XML file in the older IIS Rewrite format that users can update to taste.

Why? Users with old blogs like me already have rules in this IISRewrite format. Even though I now run on Linux and there's no IIS to be found, the file exists and works. So we use the IIS Rewrite Module to consume these files. It's a wonderful compatibility feature of ASP.NET Core.

The core/base Endpoints that DasBlog would support on its own. This would include a matrix of every URL format that DasBlog has ever supported in the last 10 years.

Here's that code. There may be terser ways to express this, but this is super clear. With or without extension, without or without year/month/day.

app.UseEndpoints(endpoints => { endpoints.MapHealthChecks("/healthcheck"); if (dasBlogSettings.SiteConfiguration.EnableTitlePermaLinkUnique) { endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "Original Post Format", "~/{year:int}/{month:int}/{day:int}/{posttitle}.aspx", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", posttitle = "" }); endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "New Post Format", "~/{year:int}/{month:int}/{day:int}/{posttitle}", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", postitle = "" }); } else { endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "Original Post Format", "~/{posttitle}.aspx", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", posttitle = "" }); endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "New Post Format", "~/{posttitle}", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", postitle = "" }); } endpoints.MapControllerRoute( name: "default", "~/{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}"); });

If someone shows up at any of the half dozen URL formats I've had over the years they'll get a 301 permanent redirect to the canonical one.

UPDATE: Great tip from Tune in the comments: "After moving several websites to new navigation and url structures, I've learned to start redirecting with harmless temporary redirects (http 302) and replace it with a permanent redirect (http 301), only after the dust has settled…"

The old IIS format is added to our site with just two lines:

var options = new RewriteOptions().AddIISUrlRewrite(env.ContentRootFileProvider, IISUrlRewriteConfigPath); app.UseRewriter(options);

And offers rewrites to everything that used to be. Even thousands of old RSS readers (yes, truly) that continually hit my blog will get the right new clean URLs with rules like this:

<rule name="Redirect RSS syndication" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="^SyndicationService.asmx/GetRss" /> <action type="Redirect" url="/blog/feed/rss" redirectType="Permanent" /> </rule>

Or even when posts used GUIDs (not sure what we were thinking, Clemens!):

<rule name="Very old perm;alink style (guid)" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="^PermaLink.aspx" /> <conditions> <add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="&?guid=(.*)" /> </conditions> <action type="Redirect" url="/blog/post/{C:1}" redirectType="Permanent" /> </rule>

We also always try to express rel="canonical" to tell search engines which link is the official - canonical - one. We've also autogenerated Google Sitemaps for over 14 years.

What's the point here? I care about my URLs. I want them to stick around. Every 404 is someone having a bad experience and some thoughtful rules at multiple layers with the flexibility to easily add others will ensure that even 10-20 year old references to my blog will still resolve!

Oh, and that article that they didn't like over on Hacker News? It's automatically now https://www.hanselman.com/blog/urls-are-ui so that's nice, too!

Here's some articles I've already written on the subject of moving this blog to the cloud:

Real World Cloud Migrations: Moving a 17 year old series of sites from bare metal to Azure

Dealing with Application Base URLs and Razor link generation while hosting ASP.NET web apps behind Reverse Proxies

Updating an ASP.NET Core 2.2 Web Site to .NET Core 3.1 LTS

Making a cleaner and more intentional azure-pipelines.yml for an ASP.NET Core Web App

Moving an ASP.NET Core from Azure App Service on Windows to Linux by testing in WSL and Docker first

If you find any issues with this blog like

Broken links and 404s where you wouldn't expect them

Broken images, zero byte images, giant images

General oddness

Please file them here https://github.com/shanselman/hanselman.com-bugs and let me know!

Sponsor: Suffering from a lack of clarity around software bugs? Give your customers the experience they deserve and expect with error monitoring from Raygun.com. Installs in minutes, try it today!

© 2020 Scott Hanselman. All rights reserved.

      Don't ever break a URL if you can help it published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[philipholt]

Don't ever break a URL if you can help it

Back in 2017 I said "URLs are UI" and I stand by it. At the time, however, I was running this 18 year old blog using ASP.NET WebForms and the URL was, ahem, https://www.hanselman.com/blog/URLsAreUI.aspx

The blog post got on Hacker News and folks were not impressed with my PascalCasing but were particularly offended by the .aspx extension shouting "this is the technology this blog is written in!" A rightfully valid complaint, to be clear.

ASP.NET MVC has supported extensionless URLs for nearly a decade but I have been just using and enjoying my blog. I've been slowly moving my three "Hanselman, Inc" (it's not really a company) sites over to Azure, to Linux, and to ASP.NET Core. You can actually scroll to the bottom of this site and see the git commit hash AND CI/CD Build (both private links) that this production instance was built and deployed from.

As tastes change, from anglebrackets to curly braces to significant whitespace, they also change in URL styles, from .cgi extesnions, to my PascalCased.aspx, to the more 'modern' lowercased kebab-casing of today.

But how does one change 6000 URLs without breaking their Google Juice? I have history here. Here's a 17 year old blog post...the URL isn't broken. It's important to never change a URL and if you do, always offer a redirect.

When Mark Downie and I discussed moving the venerable .NET blog engine "DasBlog" over to .NET Core, we decided that no matter what, we'd allow for choice in URL style without breaking URLs. His blog runs DasBlog Core also and applies these same techniques.

We decided on two layers of URL management.

An optional and configurable XML file in the older IIS Rewrite format that users can update to taste.

Why? Users with old blogs like me already have rules in this IISRewrite format. Even though I now run on Linux and there's no IIS to be found, the file exists and works. So we use the IIS Rewrite Module to consume these files. It's a wonderful compatibility feature of ASP.NET Core.

The core/base Endpoints that DasBlog would support on its own. This would include a matrix of every URL format that DasBlog has ever supported in the last 10 years.

Here's that code. There may be terser ways to express this, but this is super clear. With or without extension, without or without year/month/day.

app.UseEndpoints(endpoints => { endpoints.MapHealthChecks("/healthcheck"); if (dasBlogSettings.SiteConfiguration.EnableTitlePermaLinkUnique) { endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "Original Post Format", "~/{year:int}/{month:int}/{day:int}/{posttitle}.aspx", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", posttitle = "" }); endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "New Post Format", "~/{year:int}/{month:int}/{day:int}/{posttitle}", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", postitle = "" }); } else { endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "Original Post Format", "~/{posttitle}.aspx", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", posttitle = "" }); endpoints.MapControllerRoute( "New Post Format", "~/{posttitle}", new { controller = "BlogPost", action = "Post", postitle = "" }); } endpoints.MapControllerRoute( name: "default", "~/{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}"); });

If someone shows up at any of the half dozen URL formats I've had over the years they'll get a 301 permanent redirect to the canonical one.

The old IIS format is added to our site with just two lines:

var options = new RewriteOptions().AddIISUrlRewrite(env.ContentRootFileProvider, IISUrlRewriteConfigPath); app.UseRewriter(options);

And offers rewrites to everything that used to be. Even thousands of old RSS readers (yes, truly) that continually hit my blog will get the right new clean URLs with rules like this:

<rule name="Redirect RSS syndication" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="^SyndicationService.asmx/GetRss" /> <action type="Redirect" url="/blog/feed/rss" redirectType="Permanent" /> </rule>

Or even when posts used GUIDs (not sure what we were thinking, Clemens!):

<rule name="Very old perm;alink style (guid)" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="^PermaLink.aspx" /> <conditions> <add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="&?guid=(.*)" /> </conditions> <action type="Redirect" url="/blog/post/{C:1}" redirectType="Permanent" /> </rule>

We also always try to express rel="canonical" to tell search engines which link is the official - canonical - one. We've also autogenerated Google Sitemaps for over 14 years.

What's the point here? I care about my URLs. I want them to stick around. Every 404 is someone having a bad experience and some thoughtful rules at multiple layers with the flexibility to easily add others will ensure that even 10-20 year old references to my blog will still resolve!

Oh, and that article that they didn't like over on Hacker News? It's automatically now https://www.hanselman.com/blog/urls-are-ui so that's nice, too!

Here's some articles I've already written on the subject of moving this blog to the cloud:

Real World Cloud Migrations: Moving a 17 year old series of sites from bare metal to Azure

Dealing with Application Base URLs and Razor link generation while hosting ASP.NET web apps behind Reverse Proxies

Updating an ASP.NET Core 2.2 Web Site to .NET Core 3.1 LTS

Making a cleaner and more intentional azure-pipelines.yml for an ASP.NET Core Web App

Moving an ASP.NET Core from Azure App Service on Windows to Linux by testing in WSL and Docker first

If you find any issues with this blog like

Broken links and 404s where you wouldn't expect them

Broken images, zero byte images, giant images

General oddness

Please file them here https://github.com/shanselman/hanselman.com-bugs and let me know!

Sponsor: Suffering from a lack of clarity around software bugs? Give your customers the experience they deserve and expect with error monitoring from Raygun.com. Installs in minutes, try it today!

© 2020 Scott Hanselman. All rights reserved.

      Don't ever break a URL if you can help it published first on http://7elementswd.tumblr.com/

[charlinert]

As Easy as Falling 44/?

New Chapter of As Easy As Falling….

Summary:  Felicity Smoak had everything figured out until tragic news causes her to rethink her life. As part of dealing with tragedy she embraces her adventurous side in the form of skydiving. Will love be waiting for her between the clouds or will she let tragedy keep her away from falling.

Read from the BEGINNING AO3

***************

CHAPTER 44

The drive back to the lodge is the worst kind of torture. The silence in the atmosphere is so thick you can cut it with a knife. No one says a word and she doesn’t dare look at Oliver. Even if she did, his gaze is transfixed on the bush flying by the window of the ambulance, he wouldn’t even notice her.

Once they reach the lodge Oliver makes sure Felicity is comfortable and helps the paramedics to get her settled in their room, but then he disappears again to where she can only guess is to have a final chat with the paramedics about her condition.

She knows she was wrong to keep this from him and no matter how she wants to justify her actions there’s just no way that ‘sorry’ is going to make this all go away.

Her brain tries to whip up every possible scenario and response to his potential questions but she’s in no way prepared for when he finally walks through the door of their room. He completely ignores her and stares at the river from their patio.

She can feel her heartbeat increasing and she knows she has no other alternative. She needs to do this ‘band aid style’. Face this head on and bear the consequences of her actions. All of this is happening because of her choices, so she needs to woman up and take it, hopefully the solution will come to her while she’s ripping off this proverbial band aid.

“Oliver,” she softly says his name and attempts to get off the bed to join him on the patio.

“Felicity, please stay in bed.” he nearly bites off, still not looking at her.

At least she knows he’s angry now. She has something to work with.

“Look Oliver, I’m really sorry. I didn’t intend to lie to you….I just didn’t want you to worry until….”

“But you did Felicity. You lied! And not just once apparently, numerous times and straight to my face!”

He turns around and his face is a mixture of anger and disappointment and that breaks her heart. The anger she can handle, but disappointment, especially when she’s the cause….that’s a whole other ball game.

“How are we supposed to build a life, make our marriage work when you keep on reverting back to doing things on your own? What else have you been keeping from me?”

“Okay Oliver I know you’re upset, but I think you’re being a bit unfair right now.”

“Unfair? Unfair?! Felicity, unfair is when you’re on your honeymoon with your wife, supposedly in remission from Colon cancer, just to find out that she’s been lying to you about not actually being in remission and nearly passing out in a hot air balloon kilometres from the ground. Unfair is having to handle a situation that you have no control over or could even prepare for because you are completely blindsided due to your wife keeping vital information from you. You want to talk unfair Felicity….that my dear wife, is unfair!”

She has no words. He’s right. His anger is warranted and all she has is ‘sorry’.

“You’re right. I’m so so sorry Oliver.”

He looks at her with an emotion she hasn’t seen before.

“I can’t be here right now.” he admits and walks towards their door.

“Please don’t go Oliver.” his actions sparking a fear she’s buried for years or has she?

“I’ll come back Felicity, but right now I need space….away from you.”

He leaves before she can say anything else and she stares at the closed door feeling the soft tears make their way down her cheeks.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

Her heart is in a million pieces and she has no more tears to cry. It’s been hours since he left and she knows she needs to give him his space but couldn’t he just send her a sign that he’s okay? She’s worried out of her mind as her imagination concocts every worst case scenario known to mankind. He is alone, in a Game reserve where wild animals roam freely. This isn’t a zoo! Wild animals are wild and unpredictable and even though she loves these animals she loves her husband more despite the fact that she messed up their honeymoon.

“Well done Felicity! Your first fight as a couple and not just anywhere…on your honeymoon for goodness sake! What a great wife you are turning out to be.” she mumbles to herself.

She decides to move her pity party out of bed. Watching the ceiling isn’t helping her find a solution, it’s making everything worse. She puts on her bathing suit and takes out a bottle of iced water from the mini fridge in their room. She puts on the motor and gets into their private Jacuzzi on the patio. Maybe the bubbles and the relaxing view will help open her mind and find a solution to this colossal mess she’s created.

After a few minutes she sighs in frustration. There’s really nothing she can do to make this better. She has no other choice but to ride this wave, if only they can talk this out.

She hears the door open and she remains as still as possible, turning on her super hearing to figure out what’s happening inside their room. She hears the closet door opening and closing and rustling of clothes.

Her already bruised heart nearly stops beating when her thoughts introduce a new possibility. He’s packing and leaving her here all alone. She can feel the tears sting behind her now dried out eyes as she keeps listening for his movements.

She hears the fridge door open and close and mere seconds after he turns the corner in his swimming trunks carrying a bottle of iced water and wordlessly joins her in the Jacuzzi.

She is instantly relieved but in the same breath absolutely terrified about the conversation looming between them. At least she knows he is safe and that gives this very dark cloud a bit of a silver lining.

He stares out into the distance, still not saying anything and she decides to remain quiet too. When he’s ready to talk, she’ll be here and answer anything he asks. This is the only way to work through it….honesty….the irony hasn’t escaped her.

“I’m sorry I left.” he finally breaks the silence but he still doesn’t look at her.

She’s not sure if she should answer or not so she remains silent, looking at him from the corner of her eye.

“We’re quite the pair huh?” he jokes and she can’t help it but look at him curiously, waiting for an explanation when he gives her a sad smile. “I run and you go solo. We’re so used to our default ways of doing things that we don’t realise how much we’re actually messing each other up.” he explains.

“Oliver, I’m really sorry. I was going to tell you.”

“That’s not the point Felicity. Whether you were going to tell me or not, you kept this from me. This information wasn’t something like buying a puppy without telling me, this is your life, your health. I get why you didn’t tell me, really I do, but it doesn’t change the fact that I could have handled things differently today if I knew.”

“Felicity, the day we got married I made you a promise that I would take care of you and by keeping things from me, you make me fail at that promise.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are and I want you to know that I’m sorry too.”

“What for? It’s not like you caused our first fight as a married couple and to make this even more interesting as only I can….on our honeymoon.” she tries to lighten the mood but he’s still dead serious.

“For leaving when I should have stayed and worked this out with you. Just like you I also have a default. When things get too much, I run and I realised that little fact about fifteen minutes after walking out of our bedroom door.”

“So where did you go?”

He shyly smiles at her and admits, “nowhere.”

“Nowhere? But you were gone for hours?”

“I sat in front of our bedroom door until I heard you switch on the Jacuzzi. I couldn’t bear coming in immediately, so I waited until I thought you had settled.”

“So you sat outside our door for hours? Why?”

“My stupid pride. I stormed out of here wanting to prove a point and once I got outside I realised what an incredible idiot I am, but then I felt so guilty I didn’t know how to face you.”

“Yeah, you are definitely right….we’re quite the pair.” she laughs shaking her head.

“Felicity,” he takes her hand and wraps it between his two strong palms, earnestly looking at her. “I need you to know that I’m never going to leave you. I am fully committed to you and to our marriage and it doesn’t matter how angry I might get, or disappointed, I’m here to stay okay?”

She gives him a watery smile and nods in acknowledgement.

“But beautiful, we can’t keep doing what we’re doing. We need to start trusting each other if we want our marriage to work. Even if it means moving out of our comfort zones. Are you willing to do that?”

“Yes.” she says without having to think twice. “Yes I am and I’m so so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” he says and pulls her closer to him, giving her a kiss on the crown of her head, “we’re going to be okay.”

She lays her head against his shoulder and gives a sigh of relief.

“So, at least we survived our first fight as a married couple.”

“Yeah, so we did.” he responds and stares out in the distance again. “But you know what they say about fights right?”

“No, what?” she curiously asks.

“After each fight there’s an opportunity for make-up sex.” he explains a-matter-of-factly.

“Really now?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“Well then Mr Queen, what on earth are we waiting for?”

Thank you to everyone who’s supporting this fic by reading and commenting and liking and such! You guys are truly awesome!!!

Please let me know if you would like to be tagged or untagged OR if your URL has changed please :) Amazing people under the cut:

@aguscha333 // @alemap74 // @all-things-olicity // @almondblossomme // @angelalafan // @angelicmisskitty // @aussieforgood // @ccdimples88 // @cinfos // @coal000 // @competitivefornoreason // @cris101071 // @diggo26 // @dontyou-forgetaboutme89 // @fandomlove130 // @felicity-said-just-in-case // @foggydefendorgiver // @geneshaven // @georgiakblog // @ghostfoxlovely // @hope-for-olicity // @hopeful-warrior // @jaspertown // @jcc04220 // @kajunblueyes // @kebarr // @laurabelle2930 // @lgtwinkie99 // @lou-lou26 // @love2luvyyou // @lovejesusarrowavengersblog // @lucymtz16 // @lynaye1993 // @marytagus // @mel-loves-all // @memcjo // @miriam1779 // @missafairy // @myhauntedblacksoul // @nalla-madness // @olicity-in-the-heart // @olliewer // @oliverfel4 // @pimsiepim // @quiveringbunny // @scu11y22  // @smkkbert // @speakandseethetruth // @storyteller0311 // @tdgal1 // @tinaday3w // @to-dwellondreams // @turnupthemusicandscream // @undercover-sparrow // @victoriapolicity // @wherethereissmoak // @yolandi-l // @yourebeautifuleverylilpiecelove // @yryssss

[mylocalofficial]

Look Beyond the Review Star Ratings

Review Star Ratings

Is your Review Star Ratings all that you are aiming for? Your customers will dig deeper than that and so should you. What really makes for a great online review?

I wish I could tell you that there’s a “one-size-fits-all” approach to online reputation management.

The reality is that everyone digests online reviews differently.

The woman who’s searching for a new doctor will be looking for different types of information than the man who is deciding on which baby pushchair is best for his 2-year-old.

Online behaviour is a fickle beast. While there’s no denying that people depend on reviews sites more than ever, they are more discerning of the types of reviews that influence their purchasing decisions than they’ve been in the past.

Think about how you sift through reviews when researching a product. If you’re looking to book a reservation at the perfect hotel for your holiday to Bali, what are the important factors that would influence your search?

Some holidaymakers might be focused mainly on price and value, whereas others might require certain amenities or a prime location.

“Review Star Ratings will lure a prospective customer into investigating your reviews, but real persuasion happens in the written content”.

So what constitutes a valuable review for your business?

Here’s what to look for:

★ It has a decent star-rating attached

★ It is substantial, and therefore credible

★ It is recent and corroborated by other, similar opinions

The Review Star Ratings Must Align

Visual Review Star Ratings are quickly processed

It makes sense that review star ratings have the biggest impact on us when we’re browsing reviews. That visual cue is typically the first thing our eyes gravitate towards when comparing different solutions.

The Search for the Great Steak Enchilada

When people read reviews, they typically have a specific need and are either looking for experts to guide their decisions or someone similar to themselves who can inform them on the practical benefits of a product or service.

Imagine coming across a Mexican restaurant listing with 100 reviews, almost all of them with 4 or 5 Review Star Ratings.

You think to yourself, “Oh, this place looks good! It’s not too far from me. It’s in my price range. Seems to be universally liked. I wonder how tasty their steak enchiladas are?”

Then, you begin to read what people actually have to say about their experience at the restaurant and you start to see a common theme:

“Great food!”

“This was exactly what I was looking for.”

“Good stuff. Yum Yum.”

Well, they seem to all be positive, but they don’t exactly inform us what’s ‘great’ about the establishment.

More information required than just review star ratings

Has anybody tried the steak enchilada?

I’ve had bad enchiladas before, and I bet I can find a different restaurant that’s known for their enchiladas.

Not all written reviews are created equal. A concrete argument with specific details not only makes the reviewer more trustworthy, in that, you can tell they’ve actually used the product, but a specific detail of the experience might actually help the consumer solve their problem.

In the case of my delicious future steak enchilada, if only I had seen a review specifically mentioning my dish.

“The meat was tender and had a smokey flavour that I didn’t expect! The tortilla was fresh and had a hint of sun-dried tomatoes. Thankfully, they did not skimp on their tangy and spicy chipotle sauce.”

I love chipotle sauce! I’m sold. Blog post timeout. I need to go get some enchilada action.

See how a concrete review had much more value to me than someone simply writing “Yum, Yum”?

One of these things is not like the other

Say you’re looking for the best mini-golf course in town. If you’re going to the coast somewhere, there may be plenty of mini-golf courses to choose from.

You find a local course and see 15 reviews that are all raving about the design of the holes and the creative elements of the course in great detail. Then you see one review that complains about how the course lacks creativity.

People will ignore that one bad review because it doesn’t fit in with what everyone else is saying.

Mini Golf Review Star Ratings

Maybe Happy Gilmore decided to take his aggression online after his evil clown encounter.

You’re likely to think that the 14 similar reviews were onto something, and that one negative review is probably from a chronic whiner, or someone who just had a really bad day and took it out on the poor mini-golf course review listing.

Consistency across reviews adds to the credibility of the golf course. While the outliers might provide a strong argument, and be taken into consideration by consumers, they do not have the same impact on the customer’s perception of the business.

Pro-tip: When you’re prompting a customer for a review, use persuasive copy that highlights the importance of specific reasons why they loved your product.

Good Review Star Ratings but their last review was 3 years ago?

A review from this past week is more important than one last year. There’s nothing more frustrating than sifting through reviews only to realize that the most recent review was in 2017.

A lot can change for a business in one year, let alone three!

A review written after 6 months only has relevance to 16% of people. That means that if you haven’t earned a review in half a year, you’re doing a huge disservice to your business.

Funnelling reviews for your business is an ongoing process. It’s not like you can earn 20 reviews, give yourself a pat on the back, and abandon any efforts to continue to secure online reviews.

Ask and ye shall receive

When companies request reviews, the customer is doing a favour to the business.

Simply asking for a review from a recent customer though isn’t enough. People write reviews to help others, yet the average person doesn’t know what constitutes a good review, let alone how to write one.

Interestingly Yelp gets the best reviews because it forces a minimum number of words. This causes reviewers to really think about what they are are going to say and to describe their experience in more depth.

If you’re asking your customers for reviews, you need to provide a little guidance. By highlighting the importance of the written part of the review, as well as distinctly asking for the customer to address specific attributes of their experience, you’re setting reasonable expectations for your customers to be able to provide valuable reviews.

Do you have any recent reviews that have the type of substance that speaks to potential new customers?

Respond to Reviews to add substance

If there are no recent substantive reviews you may consider fixing that with your response. Most review sites allow you to respond. Going back to the example above, if someone just says “This was exactly what I was looking for”, add information in a response. You could say “We are so glad that you enjoyed our homemade enchiladas and spicy chipotle sauce. In fact, all our ingredients are carefully sourced so that you experience how home-cooked enchiladas should taste.” You can adapt this principle to your own business and introduce terms (keywords) that you want people and Google to associate with your brand.

Did you see our recent post on how to take amazing photos for your business?

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https://mylocal.org.uk/online-credibility/reputation-management/look-beyond-review-star-ratings/

[sonyeogscenarios]

Pretend Girlfriend » M. Sana

» Sana • Reader

» High School!AU, Fluff

» So to anyone who doesn´t know what´s going on, this scenario was once posted on a blog which went by this url → k-pop-girl-groups. Before anyone lashes out on me, I was the owner of the blog. Luckily, I had the scenario saved which I´m really thankful for. I really liked the way it turned out and I´m sure that if I re-wrote it, I wouldn´t be 100% satisfied with it. Enjoy!

If there was one thing Sana hated more than being teased for not being in an relationship yet, it was the endless attempts from the football players to get with her. Word ´no´ wasn´t in their vocabulary as they all followed her around the school, firing pick-up lines one after other. Like a bunch of dogs they were all over her, ignoring her tries to get through them. It took Jihyo´s loud voice to get them to voluntarily leave Sana alone. “You need to do something about this. One day they might take it too far.”

Jihyo´s concerned words got stuck in her head, making her wonder what she could do about the situation. She surely wouldn´t have this problem if she was dating someone. But where was she supposed to find a person that would be willing to get into relationship with her. And more importantly; how? In her mind she had already went through rows of possible other halves, none of them good enough to play the role for a time being. None of them, except for one. Y/N L/N.

~

Sana was standing in the main building of the school, hiding from the sudden rain storm that appeared. Not like it mattered to her anyways, she had something completely different on her mind. She wondered if she really wanted to ask you for such thing. Although you two spoke quite a lot, it was true you were a bit reserved. Sana was afraid this might make you uncomfortable. But then again, she thought of the bulky football players and what they were capable of. It was worth a try, wasn´t it?

Her head turned to the side as she heard footsteps approaching. There you were, re-arranging your notes as you walked towards the exit. You stopped when Sana called out your name, smiling at her. Sana watched you walk towards her with a question in your eyes. “What are you doing here so late?”

“I was waiting for you actually.” Sana admitted, making you raise your eyebrows. “Oh really?”

She nodded, not really sure what to say next. The two of you stood there for a while, slight awkward silence enveloping you. Sana decided to break the silence by pointing out the obvious. “It´s raining pretty heavily, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess it is. So did you want something for me?” You asked curiously, unintentionally making Sana a lot more nervous than she already was. Oh, if only you knew what she was about to ask you. What if you thought she was crazy? That would do no good. She took a deep breath and looked at you, forming sentences in her head at last minute.

“Actually, yes. I´m sure this is going to be a bit shocking and hard to comprehend but you´re the only person who can help me with this. Well, only if you want to.” You gave her a nod, intently listening to what she was saying. “I´m not even going to ask if you know out football players, of course you know them. Basically, they´ve been following me around for a very long time now with not so good intentions and it´s getting a bit uncomfortable. So I´ve been meaning to ask you if you´d be willing to…” Sana trailed off, looking of to the side.

“Sana? Willing to do what?”

“If you´d be willing to pretend to date me.” There. She dropped the bomb on you. Sana watched your expression go from confused, to shocked and then flustered. Your cheeks turned pink as blood rushed into them, Sana´s request really something you didn´t expect. You began evaluating everything in your head, pitying Sana a bit as you imagined those guys not leaving her alone. Thinking there was nothing for you to lose, you reluctantly nodded your head, further assuring yourself that you wanted to help her. Sana´s face lit up, an excited squeal leaving her lips at your agreement. She pulled you into a hug. “You´re the best! Thank you so much!”

~

Just holding your hand worked like magic. Your presence was almost like a repelent against thirsty mosquitos (or guys in this case). One week into the fake relationship and Sana was finally able to live through her school days in peace. Maybe it was the fact she was now ´taken´, that forced the guys the other way, or the fact that it was a girl she was dating. Either way, Sana couldn´t be happier now, that she finally got left alone as she wished for. You? It was a little different from your view. Not that you minded being in Sana´s presence, god no, that wasn´t the case. It was the attention that came with it. Small whispers as you moved from class to class, students pointing at you in a not so discreet way, some of them chuckling a bit. Good or bad, you couldn´t care less. It was still an attention; something you weren´t very fond of. But then again, Sana´s bubbly personality made up for it in more ways than one.

In just five days you learned so much about her, and you wanted to know more. Until recently, she was just another cheerleader to you. Not that she was mean in anyway, she was breaking the stereotype fantastically and if you had to tell the truth, all her friends did the same. But now that you spent twice as much time with her during the day, you realized she was a human just like everyone else. She had her own pet peeves, her hobbies and even imperfections. All those things made her who she was, making you appreciate her even more. If someone asked you to name all the choices you regretted making, this wouldn´t be one of them.

~

Six months into the relationship and Sana was beginning to get scared. No matter how hard she tried to force herself to believe she was only imagining things, it didn´t work. Sana tried everything; from meditating to asking her friends for help. No luck in sight. Everything you did suddenly seemed perfect to her. Your laugh was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard in her life, and your smile lit up the room. On days when she couldn´t see you, she became the moodiest one could become. Oh, how scared she was. Infact, Sana was so scared she was no longer in denial of her own feelings. She was in love with you, and there way no way out.

What about you? Were you also scared? The answer was yes; you were terrified. On so many occasions have you considered ´breaking up´ with her, putting an end to the question mark era your relationship was currently in. Yet when she asked you to go to a fair with her, you didn´t find it in you to decline. Just what happened to the rule you set up at the very beginning of the charade? The one that clearly said: ´Only on school grounds.´ You had no idea, and you no longer even wanted to bring it up. When you were with her, you felt so carefree. As if nothing could bring you down. And as months passed, you forgot every single thing you said to yourself that day. Sana found her way into your heart, and you weren´t sure if you wanted her to find a way out.

~

Twelve months into the relationship and here you were, standing by the front gate with diplomas in your hands. It was post graduation ceremony, meaning an end came to a school year as well as your relationship. Or that´s what you were thinking.

“I guess this is it. We´re breaking up.” Sana chuckled, scratching the back of her neck. You shook your head in disbelief, a laugh also leaving your lips. “It sound so silly when you say that out loud.”

“A whole year passed, I can´t believe this.” Neither could you. Who would´ve thought an act of keeping the guys away would last for so long. However, now that it was about to end, you couldn´t help but feel a twinge of pain in your heart. You weren´t ready to see her go, not yet. And Sana? She wasn´t ready to let you go either. Though she wasn´t in denial of her feelings, they weren´t out. They weren´t before, they aren´t now and if she keeps her mouth shut, they won´t be ever.

No, this time, she would do it. She would tell you how she felt, even if it meant losing a friend. Not that it mattered anymore; when you were about say your goodbyes. If only she knew there was a war going on inside your head too. That you were telling yourself the very same things, building up the courage to say those three, simple words who made things so different. You had nothing left to lose. Just take a deep breath and say it;

“I love you.”

[storydevs]

Performance Improvements & “Thank You” Page

Hey all, time for another update!

New Scrollbars

In the past I used a plugin for StoryDevs’ scrollbars. The reason I did this is because only Chrome (at the time anyway) allowed you to style scrollbars. In browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox they were just grey. That’s fine for a scrollbar on the far-right of the window, but when the scrollbar is somewhere on the page and the site has a dark theme... it looks ugly:

Old (top) vs new (bottom).

The default scrollbars were also always visible, even when there’s nothing to scroll! I just wanted to change the colour of them so I decided to use a plugin. It did the trick but it had a couple of annoying bugs and more importantly it also captured all of the touch events.

All you need to know about touch events is that it’s basically a touch devices’ way of saying “hey, someone swiped/tapped my screen!”. Web browsers pass the touch events to your code and you can do whatever you want with that info. So on StoryDevs I used touch events on the mobile version of the site to allow swiping through the columns:

The problem with the scrollbar plugin I was using was that it intercepted all the touch events and wouldn’t pass them along. That meant I couldn’t detect taps/swipes. Pretty annoying! But hey, you know what’s more annoying? Making custom scrollbars myself! So I decided to just try to edit their code — I found the offending lines and commented them out and all was good in the world! ...

... Until I realised that those lines allowed nested scrollbars to work. By “nested scrollbars” I just mean “scrollable areas inside of other scrollable areas” like the code widget in the picture below. See how it has a scrollbar while it’s inside of the right-most column of the page which also has its own scrollbar?

By commenting out the code that intercepted touch events, other things like that code widget broke... I looked at the plugin code and decided it would actually take just as long to understand their code as it would to write it myself and ended up making my own custom scrollbars. Visually they still look the same (I’d already customised the look of the plugin scrollbars way back) but now they’re bug-free and don’t intercept touch events. Yay.

Here’s a summary of the new scrollbars I made:

They fix a couple of annoying bugs where the scrollbars freak out if the content was almost tall enough to scroll but not quite.

They allow mobile scrolling to work properly.

They’re about 540 lines of code (that includes spacing and comments).

I can actually read my code. The plugin code had very long lines that would wrap in my editor, indecipherable variable names, minimal whitespace.

Rids me of jQuery, which was a dependency for the plugin.

Which leads me to...

Zero Front-End Dependencies

A dependency, in case you don’t know, is just a fancy way of saying “someone else’s code”. It’s code you didn’t write yourself but nonetheless depend on. By replacing the scrollbars I was able to get rid of jQuery, the only remaining dependency for the site.

So why even care? Well, other people’s code can contain a bunch of stuff you don’t need. And that means every single user of your site is downloading unneeded data and wasting their bandwidth. In the case of StoryDevs I didn’t even use jQuery for anything except the scrollbars.

Which leads me to...!!!

Site Is Now Uses Less Bandwidth

After removing unnecessary dependencies and optimising the site’s graphics as well as the way code is requested, many initial requests (specifically ones not heavy on images) will be less than 100kb of data.

Let’s take the about page as an example. Can’t fit all of it in one screenshot but here’s the gist of how it looks.

If you visited this page prior to optimisation you’d end up downloading around ~750kb of data. Here are the amounts of data I was able to remove and how I did it:

~390kb — optimising the images.

~130kb — removed the scrollbar plugin and related dependencies.

~110kb — minifying JavaScript and HTML files (the CSS already was).

~110kb — requesting non-critical data after page render.

Keep in mind that I also added code and other stuff during this time, so the end result is that the data required to render the page is ~64kb, down from the aforementioned ~750kb. So about 10x smaller. Woo!  So let’s go over what the last two items above mean...

Minifying code basically just means making it as compact as possible. I had to write my own HTML minifier because I wanted it to minify my templates which have non-HTML code in them like you can see below. The stuff between the <% %> brackets are part of the templating language.

The minifiers I tried would die because of the various broken up tags and code embedded within them. I could’ve just minified the template after it was rendered as HTML but that means it happens every single request which is unnecessary. The templates just need to be minified once then kept in memory.

Here’s how the HTML looks before it’s minified if you view the source:

And here’s how it looks afterwards:

Anyway, the final bullet point above was “requesting non-critical data after page render.” What the hell does that mean? Simply put, browsers try to download everything you need to see the page before actually attempting to display it (i.e., before rendering it). This means if you link to a CSS file in the head of your HTML file the browser will think it’s needed right now and attempt to finish downloading it before rendering the page.

You can use this information to make an optimisation: only provide the exact code and resources needed to display what the user is trying to look at, then send the rest later. For example, StoryDevs now sends the entirety of its JavaScript code after the page has rendered:

Above is a table showing all the files needed for StoryDevs to work, with a graph on the right showing the order they’re downloaded in. The JavaScript and CSS files that I’ve drawn boxes around at the bottom aren’t downloaded until after the page is rendered because they aren’t needed. For example, “modal.css” is styling instructions for modal windows -- not exactly helpful for showing the about page!

Anyway, I think that’s about it for optimisations!

“Thank You” Page

The Patreon looks set to cover next month’s cost for hosting so in light of that I decided to add a “thank you” page for anyone who’s contributed to the site. This includes patrons, as well as people who’ve made one-time donations, acted as consultants, testers, and given moral support. The design is simple for now:

Why are the names pixellated?! Well, I figure some people might not want to be publicly acknowledged or they may not want their real name out there. So I’m going to contact people first before adding them. I won’t ask new Patrons because the reward states you can opt out / provide a pseudonym.

Keep in mind that this isn’t live yet. The in-development version of StoryDevs is quite a bit ahead of the live demo version. I’m keeping a list of all patrons and other folks for when I update. The page will be linked to from the about page and the URL will be storydevs.com/thanks.

Reason For Long Break

A few months back I was having a lot of trouble getting more contract work and got really poor. Now it’s the opposite situation and I have too much work. It’s really hard to find time to consistently work on StoryDevs under those conditions so I had to take a break.

This is the reason I started the Patreon — it got to the point where I couldn’t afford to renew the domain name, pay for monthly hosting, etc. If you want to help, $1 a month will get you permanently listed on the “thank you” page. If you’re not able to, that’s fine. The site will still be free to use and won’t run ads.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and have a good day/night :D

StoryDevs is a place for developers of visual novels and story-focused games to find each other and collaborate. The site is under development but handle reservations are open: www.storydevs.com/reserve

Patreon (new!): https://www.patreon.com/jakebowkett Website: www.storydevs.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/storydevs Discord: https://discord.gg/A2jtNqE Email: support@storydevs.com

[spockandawe]

So you’ve heard Spock is the actual literal devil

Have you heard that I’m a terrible person? A plagiarist? Have you been told that I’m only into transformers at all because I wanted to make this one random guy unhappy? If you’ve been told that, you’ve probably also been told that a year and a half later, I’m still making fanworks just to upset him. You might have even heard that shhhh, don’t disagree with Spock on anything, or they’ll hunt you down and harass you.

Right, okay. This is one hell of a saga that I will attempt to tell in as compressed a form as possible. It’s a lot. Years ago, back in HS, there was this one guy who policed the hell out of one of the character tags. I’m going to call him C. He’d pressure people not to make the content they were making, decry the hateful people reading with a malicious eye who thought the character would ever do anything bad (the character was a creep). And because being obnoxious wasn’t bad enough, if you didn’t cave to his demands, he just might do things like start whisper campaigns about how you support rape, casually out you as a survivor, cute little things like that.

This is not a story about that guy.

This is a story about C’s one-time attack dog, eventual boyfriend, and current ex. We’ll go ahead and call him R. I’ve tried real hard to avoid namedropping on my blog before, but could people find him from this? Probably. Have I stopped caring? Absolutely.

TL;DR, unsubstantiated accusations of serial harassment are a little questionable when they’re coming from someone with a years-long, extensively documented history of serial harassment and a personal grudge against me.

Cut for length.

Edit 7/2/2017: R has posted that he regrets making these posts about me, and admits that he said things that were out of line. And he’s stated that he’s going to try to do better in the future. I genuinely, truly appreciate that. I’m leaving this post up because there have been lies about me floating around for a while and I reserve the right to defend myself, but I really do appreciate that.

Oh balls, none of this makes sense without backstory (I’m so sorry)

If you think I suck or my work sucks, that’s fine! You do you, go enjoy the things that make you happy.

If you think I’m the devil because this one guy told you about my evil, evil past and all my terrible misdeeds, without anything at all to back up his words? You can ask me. I don’t bite, and oh lordy do I have receipts.

To be clear, R is totally allowed to hate me! I don't care. I don't care if he hates my writing, I don't care if he hates me as a person. But now he's escalated to spreading lies about me, and people are believing him, and I’m not enough of a doormat to let that just stand.

And I’m going to cheat a little. Here’s a memo with the cliffs notes version (not the original memo, I made a copy with C’s urls cropped out since he hasn’t attacked anyone in a long while). Warning, digging any distance into this turns up violent fantasies, violent sexual fantasies, creepy interactions with a minor, and lots more, it’s all really, really unpleasant. Evidence is thoroughly documented, please tread with care.

You would not believe how truncated that is compared to the reality.

Now, the worst of this came via C. Who has calmed down a lot these days, and I’m really happy that’s the case. Good for him. I hope his life continues in a direction where he doesn’t find it necessary to do this stuff.

Lucky for me, R was standing by to pick up the slack.

It doesn’t show up as much in the memo, which is mostly C-focused, but R was standing by C this whole time, defending his right to spread around private information about someone’s abuse history, sending nasty messages on the other guy’s behalf, and much,much more. it’s long, it’s awful, it’s unpleasant. R personally hurt people in some significant ways that I don’t want to link directly, for their sake. He expressed deep remorse a few times, but it never stuck.

Here’s my personal favorite quote from R. He’s speaking to the CSA survivor that C casually outed (with information given to him in confidence), and who they’d been running a long, long whisper campaign against, and who was understandably a bit upset over the whole thing:

oh go wank to your own tears [name]

#and get your sympathizers to help #nasty fucking people #maybe if you cry enough youll be able to go into second grade in the fall #ooc

Said, again, to a CSA survivor they outed and harassed. That person is such a sweetheart, and this screencap still infuriates me.

The first time I saw C pick a fight he had lots of friends. Shockingly, as he did things like loudly fantasize about how he wants to mutilate people and rant about how autistic people should die, those friends mostly drifted away. I know one person had a friend even help them stage a faux relationship-ending fight, so they could be sure they’d be able to completely cut and run from C. R stuck with him, though. Eventually they even started dating.

‘Spock followed R into transformers to harass him and stalks his favorite characters just to harass him more’

Then, transformers. Here, let me show you the first post (by R) that ever brought MTMTE to my attention. I spent years being aggressively uninterested in transformers, but this caught my eye

and honestly, ppl (adults too!!!) shipping someone who has the mentality of a child and is quite glaringly lacking a world of experiences and general understanding of things outside of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, with an adult, is just. very alarming and gross to me.

and honestly, the fact that there is a large portion of people who want him to become romantically (and sexually!!!) involved with either one of two fucking adults in canon, and hell, esp those defending it with ‘hes an adult too tho!!’ is really gross.

you can pretend all you want that hes ‘an adult’ because his body is, but theres no way jro didnt intent to code him as a child. stop fetishizing children lmao,

#pedophilia -/-/- #cygate -/-/- #if someone comes at me screaming ‘rule 38′ im gonna shove them in a locker

I didn’t know transformers, but I was pretty sure this was some straight-up bullshit.

(but don’t worry, he ships it now! no hypocrisy here, no sir)

It’s “really gross” to ship this adult with other adults. Mm. Given the reasonableness of the claims these guys have made in the past, and given their extensive history of harassing people over those claims, I hopped to the wiki to check it out. I read a bit about the comic and the plot, and all of it sounded so fascinating that I just had to give the comic a try.

Reader, I married it.

I shotgunned MTMTE 1-47 in two days, started doing fanworks right out of the gate, and I’ve never looked back. A lot of my art was cygate, because come on, the comic wants you to ship it so bad, my first readthrough ended with issue 47, and that was the first ship I’d ever read about for the series, even before I dove in.

Now, both these characters punch me right in the heart, in some painfully personal ways. Tailgate’s the more relevant one here, but I don’t even know if I could do justice to the emotions both of them give me.

I’m still not a fan of how R’s lies about me have edged me into needing to say this in public, but okay. I’m developmentally delayed. It’s been a rough ride. And Tailgate hits me in some of those spots so hard it just takes my breath away. I’ve got a lot of baggage over not being a real adult, and not in the funny oh-no-how-do-taxes-work way, more like an extended months-long meltdown my first year of college because I can tell that my friends are years ahead of me and I don’t know how to even start catching up, and just existing, as myself, is humiliating.

All of my relationship milestones have come painfully, painfully late. The whole thing is still one awful emotional bruise. I hate it, and I hate how easy it is to convince myself that yeah, of course you don’t actually deserve to be treated as an adult and you never will. Just look at you. So then it is unbelievably important to me that I can see someone someone who is like me, being treated as a legitimate adult, and being able to have an adult relationship.

Hearing that shipping someone like me is essentially pedophilia is the opposite of that.

But he ships it now, so everything is fine :)

Yeah, you know what? Another fucking receipt.

uGHGH im so tired of all the rabid cy// /gat// //e fans like even cy’s giving em a look like ‘leave my fucking child alone’

#i just #im hoping jro has some taste tho and doesnt make an adult date a child #and if not im hoping the outcome blows over soon bc im so tired of seeing people defend pedophilia #pedophilia -/-/-

Parental.

This continued even after JRO explicitly confirmed Tailgate was an adult.

Bonus ableism: shipping Whirl (another character who hits me way too hard) isn’t okay either. Even though there isn’t the excuse of ‘but he only lived three years--’ No, at that point, you’re saying that an adult who fails to adult correctly does not count, and isn’t allowed to have romantic relationships. It makes my skin crawl, and it is an issue which is very personally and directly important to me.

So some of my cygate was porn from the start (it’s what I write. it’s what I draw.), and some of the porn was made because I was upset over discourse that says someone like me needs to be treated as a child. I played with cywhirlgate too, because omg how could I not, and some of that was porn as well. It was ages ago, so I don’t remember the details for every little thing I made. But when I saw someone saying that Cyclonus and Tailgate had a parental relationship, I’m sure that helped nudge me in that direction. Maybe R thinks I should have channeled my emotions by starting a whisper campaign to exclude him from fandom spaces. But I think my way of working through bad emotions might have been a little healthier than that.

So when R accuses me of making cygate content to spite him? Half true. Just true enough to be real fucking dishonest. R spent a nice long time insisting that cygate was pedophilia. I channeled my outrage over that ableism into fan creations.

I didn’t attack him. I talked about him some – on a private forum, with people who’d already been aware of him and had been watching him and C hurt people for years, plural. I haven’t told people on tumblr any real details about him until now. And R still is happy to talk about how it was his toxic ex’s right to post torture/rape/murder porn vent fic about actual people.

Tell me, how exactly am I in the wrong?

Bonus pettiness: I posted some cywhirlgate porn. The next day, R vaguely whined about robot pedophilia and turned around and wrote some obviously-a-response cywhirlgate. Where it was super platonic and the text explicitly said it was super platonic and it even had platonic thigh nuzzling. With two “children” involved. Of course I turned around and wrote more fic of my own, because jesus h christ that made my skin crawl. You want to play this game? I guarantee I can write faster than you, let’s do this. (he did not follow through on that)

I’d also like to say that forgetting inconvenient little details like this is a thing with R. Hard to call me terrible for writing spitefic when you write it yourself.

A history of Spock’s personal involvement

Let’s backtrack a tiny bit. You may notice I am up to my elbows in this nonsense for no clear reason.

I was friends with some of the people C was taking shots at, and I was unfortunate enough to believe his original smear campaign about that one artist (I’m still ashamed about that). I cared about a number of people C was trying to hurt. I think one or two fanworks of mine upset him, but he already had loads of targets. I kept tabs on him and R, because anxiety is the gift that just keeps giving.

Eventually, C fantasized about wanting to put my former datemate’s hand through a meat grinder (ey wrote a fic that portrayed his fave in a negative light). And R defended his right to do that.

The person he posted about is still feeling the effects of that incident. I’m still feeling the effects of that. And it wasn’t even directed at me, just someone I care deeply about.

R has recently posted that ‘oh my goodness, C sure was awful, remember when he posted this thing about a meat grinder and how unreasonable it was?’ Thanks buddy, glad you noticed, now just go ahead and keep on blaming me for the aftereffects of what your boyfriend did, and what you defended.

After that, it was months before I could properly look away from either of their blogs.

C posted extensively about trying to track down the street address of his ~enemies~ (including the one whose genitals he fantasized about mutilating). He posted about how autistics should die. He had skype chats about wanting to do amateur brain surgery on people. All while posting very often about finding real addresses.

Yeah, it’s more than a year later, and every so often I get a stab of anxiety and have to head off to double check on what these two are up to.

I will repeat that C has been pretty chill lately. He’s got a career he’s aiming for. Good for him, go find success, please don’t slip back into being an internet bully. It’s sad and upsetting to see R echoing some of the early patterns of his ex, and it’s so strange to see me labeled as his own personal enemy.

‘Spock will totally come harass you too’ and/or various accusations of ableism

So there are some things I did in the mix in this history that I regret. Occasionally, I went out and flipped through the blogs of C and R’s friends, seeing if maybe they’d had said something in their notes, did they have any vagueblogs C liked, did they post about— It got unreasonable. I admit that. Anxiety was at the root of it, but it absolutely got unreasonable. And also it is a massive time sink, and I can’t remember the last time I bothered with it. I enjoy life much more when anxiety and paranoia issues don’t have their claws in me. This hasn’t been an issue in a very long time.

I came down hard on some of the kinfeels and system stuff too, which I do walk back a bit. C’s approach was… hahaha. It was something. And he was my intro to the kin and system paradigms. I saw R talking about C’s approach being unreasonable too, pretty recently. So that was an unfortunate bit of poison in how I processed the next people I met who did that sort of thing. I don’t do kin stuff, but I get it. And DID may not strictly apply to all systems, by the formal diagnostic criteria, but I’ve learned there are plenty of other dissociative disorders out there. And I met people who were multiples and who did kin things that weren’t these two guys. Which helped a LOT.

But the big one, hmmm. C wrote a fic. The idea was interesting, but the execution frustrated me. Everyone but the main lead felt so… flat. Everyone was constantly cruel to the main, for no reason. I saw a way to riff on the original text while staying true to its shape, and writing my bad emotions out is also a major, major thing I do to cope. Now, my big thing is that I should have asked before I remixed. I’d been thinking in terms of, y’know, transformative fanworks. Even with authors like Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice, who fought against fandom, people have still felt that it should be allowed, even against their wishes. So I wrote the remix. I gave full credit on ao3 in the ‘inspired by’ box, linked to the original with positive words, the whole shebang.

The guy was still furious, and… that’s fair. I thought I’d written a thing on self-sabotage that was pretty sympathetic and compelling, and the self-sabotage actually drew a lot on my own personal history. But I gave the main flaws he strongly disagreed with, and I didn’t ask for permission. I get why he was/is angry over it.

I’ve been a fixture on their shitlists ever since :P

It’s remarkable, even while R posts now about ‘oh my god, remember how C wrote the creepiest things?’, I’m still the one who’s the the actual worst, for being skeeved out by the creepy things and finding a constructive way to deal with it. R’s controlling ex gets full freedom when it comes to vent fic, even when it’s about wallowing in torturing, raping, and murdering an avatar for a real person (the original one they harassed!), or punching someone in the face until they agree to be your friend (another artist these guys targeted). But R’s position seems to be that only C is allowed to vent (even if it’s genital mutilation fantasies), and I’m definitely not.

Oh, and R has now expanded this remix into me totally having a consistent pattern of stealing ideas and plagiarism and so many remixes that are obviously done as revenge on anyone who pisses me off. So that’s nice.

So R hates your writing. Is that seriously why this post exists?

Ha, no. Let’s look at the concrete things R is saying. Here, let me post a little sampling of evidence.

These aren’t just things he’s shouting into the void, people have responded saying wow, I never knew that! These are lies that people are believing about me. And then yesterday, June 30, 2017, he warned a friend not to disagree with my meta, or I’d come harass them. A friend I’m aggressively leaving out of this, just as I’m leaving out other responses, because these people don’t deserve to be dragged into R’s bullshit.

Let’s have bullet points. Some of these are the silly spock-is-bad-at-writing complaints. Those are here because this whole mess is pretty fucking depressing and the ridiculous claims make me laugh, but these are all things he says.

Spock is evil – You know what, he’s not calling people pedophiles, which is a step up. I’ll take it.

Spock is a plagiarist – I remixed one fic with full credit, said only good things about the original, and linked to it in extra places so that people would have extra opportunities to click through and check it out. I arguably remixed inappropriately, but that’s not the same thing. Words have definitions. If I’m a plagiarist, so is everyone who’s ever written a fanfic.

Spock is something something mean when people disagree – I don’t even know, man. I’m actually shockingly conflict-averse. Is this because I make walls of text and explain why I hold opinions at great length? I enjoy talking about a thing I love. I’m autistic, I’m hyperverbal, and this is my special interest, so is it that I talk a lot? That’s the best I can do. I’ve talked about things I disagree with on a private forum, in which case mister pot has had a lot of fun in public on twitter, not only talking shit, but also spreading outright untruths. Maybe he wants to rethink this one.

Spock will come harass you if you disagree – You need to back the heck down, pal.

Spock’s meta/fic/characterization is bad and they should feel bad – Hahaha, fite me. He won’t, because I can articulately defend myself at significant length, and his criticisms seem to stop at ‘spock sucks’, but hey.

Spock used ableist language about Whirl - I... what? This one confuses me and makes me laugh so it stays here. Also, holy double standards, batman.

Spock is only into transformers to harass R – I checked out transformers because I was pretty sure R was being disgustingly ableist (he was). I stayed in transformers because I adore it. I had to adore it a lot to make me willing to share fandom space with these two. My god, I have better things to do with my life than spend all my time on something that bores me just to annoy one asshole on the other side of the internet. I’d ask if he thinks I spent dozens of painstaking hours cross-stitching Starscream just to bother him, but….. yep, pretty sure he does.

Spock goes after all of R’s favorite characters to upset him – R latches on to just about every interesting and/or sympathetic character that shows up. When he was dating C, they covered most of the cast between them. I don’t care who R likes best because I don’t agree with his opinions. I tend to stay away from his opinions because I don’t like reading things that bother me. This is asnine. I’m only allowed to like the characters R despises, I guess.

Spock makes fanworks for things R likes just to make him see them – Oh my god, I don’t caaaaaare. I write about things that interest me, unless I’m venting. Say, venting about the way R and his ex have deliberately hurt a shockingly high number of people I care about. ‘Spock made rodistar because I liked it--’ I made it because I wrote a thing about their parallels, and shipping was the obvious next step. R isn’t that important to me. Promise.

This is just exhausting, man. The anxiety bugs had been dying down, and it had been ages since I checked out this guy’s anything. C, who drove the whole initial blowup that led to this, has been quiet and chill on tumblr. But R has learned from his ex’s old example and has been having fun spreading lies about me.

In conclusion

Some fun history.

R was 18 when he told a CSA survivor upset about being outed and harassed to wank using their tears for lube.

He was older than that when he defended C’s right to post about wanting to mutilate someone’s genitals (for the crime of saying C’s logic didn’t make sense).

He was older than that when he complained about that person’s spouse being ‘vicious’ for reacting badly to C’s genital mutilation fantasy.

He was older than that when he nodded along as C called autistic people retards and said they should die.

He was older than that when he talked about being happy that someone he disliked was triggered, and nodded along when C fantasized about that person drinking bleach.

And he was older than that when he defended C, his twenty-something boyfriend, against the thirteen-year-old that C had been having incredibly inappropriate conversations with, despite skype log proof and everything.

And despite all this, I’m still the bad guy, because I didn’t think what they were doing was okay. I’m the bad guy for being upset by C's actions, even though... R is now upset by C’s actions. The ways I responded to C were inexcusable. My only motivation is to hurt people. Every thing I did that ever upset them still means I’m terrible, even though R is saying this while he’s busy posting about how awful C is. And this all means that he needs to warn his friends not to catch my attention, or I’ll come harass them.

So, I’m tired.

I’m very tired.

I’m glad he’s trying to grow past that history. Good. Maybe he can do that without making up a story about how I’m unrepentant villain who lives for villainy and who only takes joy in causing him pain. I’m sure it helps him, because it’s a story that brushes aside the shit he did that he regrets, and makes his past less painful to think about. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with him telling lies about me.

I don’t know why I’m the one boogeyman he has left (I kid, it’s because I’m in transformers, and because he thinks I’m popular. he harps on it a lot, and it’s weird for everyone). I mean, whatever. I’ve aggressively avoided publishing drama details on here for a very long time. But there are two blog tags, miscellaneous other untagged blog content, three forum threads, and hundreds of pages of skype logs with hard evidence of this bullshit.

I’m pretty sure that if he tries to defend himself, one, he’ll place some blame on his ex. That’s fair. C was pretty darn controlling and demanding. But R is still absolutely responsible for his own actions, and is especially responsible for the harm he personally caused. He’ll talk about how it’s bullshit to pull up all these receipts from so very long ago. In that case, his receipts for me (whatever he even has) are equally old, so aren’t they null and void? No, because Spock is the devil. And it’s not so much bullshit if he’s clearly learned nothing, and has gone back to spreading outright falsehoods about people.

To be clear, a lot of the lies he told about me were told a while back. Weeks to a few months to a year. I was letting it sit, because I’d really, really hoped this was over. Yesterday, June 30, 2017, he warned a friend not to publicly disagree with my meta or I’d come and harass them.

It’s been three years since I first saw him doing this. I’ve watched him hurt a lot of people, and I’ve watched him admit, multiple times, that he has hurt people. I thought he’d learned to stop following these toxic patterns. Apparently he has not.

Edit 7/2/2017: To repeat the edit up above, R has said he regrets posting these things about me, and that he's going to try to avoid slipping into this in the future. I very much appreciate that.