#Anti-Crawler

[sorenskr]

How the IP Proxies API Solves Highly Concurrent Requests

With the rapid growth of Internet services and applications, organizations and developers are facing increasing challenges in handling highly concurrent requests. To ensure the efficient operation of the system, API interface becomes an essential tool. Especially when dealing with highly concurrent requests, Rotating IP Proxies API interfaces provide strong support for organizations. Today we'll take a deeper look at the role of the Rotating IP Proxies API and how it can help organizations solve the problems associated with high concurrency.

What is the Rotating IP Proxies API interface?

Rotating IP Proxies API interface is a kind of interface that provides users with network proxy services by means of Rotating IP address allocation. It can schedule IP addresses in different geographic locations in real time according to demand, which not only helps users to access anonymously, but also improves the efficiency of data collection, avoids IP blocking, and even carries out operations such as anti-crawler protection.

With the Rotating IP Proxies API, organizations can easily assign IP addresses from a large number of different regions to ensure continuous and stable online activity. For example, when conducting market research that requires frequent visits to multiple websites, the Rotating IP Proxies API ensures that IPs are not blocked due to too frequent requests.

Challenges posed by highly concurrent requests

Excessive server pressure

When a large number of users request a service at the same time, the load on the server increases dramatically. This can lead to slower server responses or even crashes, affecting the overall user experience.

IP ban risk

If an IP address sends out frequent requests in a short period of time, many websites will regard these requests as malicious behavior and block the IP. such blocking will directly affect normal access and data collection.

These issues are undoubtedly a major challenge for Internet applications and enterprises, especially when performing large-scale data collection, where a single IP may be easily blocked, thus affecting the entire business process.

How the Rotating IP Proxies API solves these problems

Decentralization of request pressure

One of the biggest advantages of the Rotating IP Proxies API is its ability to decentralize requests to different servers by constantly switching IP addresses. This effectively reduces the burden on individual servers, decreasing the stress on the system while improving the stability and reliability of the service.

Avoid IP blocking

Rotating IP addresses allows organizations to avoid the risk of blocking due to frequent requests. For example, when crawling and market monitoring, the use of Rotating IP Proxies can avoid being recognized by the target website as a malicious attack, ensuring that the data collection task can be carried out smoothly.

Improved efficiency of data collection

Rotating IP Proxies API not only avoids blocking, but also significantly improves the efficiency of data capture. When it comes to tasks that require frequent requests and grabbing large amounts of data, Rotating IP Proxies APIs can speed up data capture, ensure more timely data updates, and further improve work efficiency.

Protecting user privacy

Rotating IP Proxies APIs are also important for scenarios where user privacy needs to be protected. By constantly changing IPs, users' online activities can remain anonymous, reducing the risk of personal information leakage. Especially when dealing with sensitive data, protecting user privacy has become an important task for business operations.

How to Effectively Utilize the Rotating IP Proxies API

Develop a reasonable IP scheduling strategy

An effective IP scheduling strategy is the basis for ensuring the efficient operation of the Rotating Proxies API. Enterprises should plan the frequency of IP address replacement based on actual demand and Porfiles to avoid too frequent IP switching causing system anomalies or being recognized as abnormal behavior.

Optimize service performance

Regular monitoring and optimization of service performance, especially in the case of highly concurrent requests, can help enterprises identify and solve potential problems in a timely manner. Reasonable performance optimization not only improves the speed of data collection, but also reduces the burden on the server and ensures stable system operation.

Choosing the Right Proxies

While Rotating IP Proxies APIs can offer many advantages, choosing a reliable service provider is crucial. A good service provider will not only be able to provide high-quality IP resources, but also ensure the stability and security of the service.

In this context, Proxy4Free Residential Proxies service can provide a perfect solution for users. As a leading IP proxy service provider, Proxy4Free not only provides high-speed and stable proxy services, but also ensures a high degree of anonymity and security. This makes Proxy4Free an ideal choice for a wide range of business scenarios such as multinational market research, advertisement monitoring, price comparison and so on.

Proxy4Free Residential Proxies have the following advantages:

Unlimited traffic and bandwidth: Whether you need to perform a large-scale data crawling or continuous market monitoring you don't need to worry about traffic limitations.

30MB/S High-speed Internet: No matter what part of the world you are in, you can enjoy extremely fast Proxies connection to ensure your operation is efficient and stable.

Global Coverage: Provides Proxies IP from 195 countries/regions to meet the needs of different geographic markets.

High anonymity and security: Proxies keep your privacy safe from malicious tracking or disclosure and ensure that your data collection activities are not interrupted.

With Proxy4Free Residential Proxies, you can flexibly choose the appropriate IP scheduling policy according to your needs, effectively spreading out the pressure of requests and avoiding the risk of access anomalies or blocking due to frequent IP changes. In addition, you can monitor and optimize service performance in real time to ensure efficient data collection and traffic management.

Click on the link to try it out now!

concluding remarks

The role of Rotating IP Proxies API interface in solving highly concurrent requests cannot be ignored. It can not only disperse the request pressure and avoid IP blocking, but also improve the efficiency of data collection and protect user privacy. When choosing a Proxies service provider, enterprises should make a comprehensive assessment from the quality of IP pool, interface support and service stability. Reasonable planning of IP scheduling strategies and optimization of service performance will help improve system stability and reliability, ensuring that enterprises can efficiently and safely complete various online tasks.

[keanu-55]

Malicious Crawlers and Ticket-Grabbing Software: The Truth behind Cybercrimes

As consumers, perhaps everyone has had the experience of participating in flash sale activities on e-commerce platforms, but the results are often unsatisfactory - as soon as the flash sale time arrives, the goods are announced to be sold out. Some participants will blame their own insufficient reaction speed, while others will question the lack of sincerity of the platform. However, for network security professionals, the truth is often more complicated.

The phenomenon that discounted goods are sold out within 0.00001 seconds is mostly caused by malicious crawlers. On the eve of the "618" e-commerce festival this year, the security department of a well-known e-commerce platform (it is said that the platform is JD.com) monitored that some merchants were suspected of defrauding subsidy funds by means of false transactions, involving an amount of more than 5 million yuan. After investigation, it was found that some merchants frequently placed orders for the specified subsidized goods under the instigation of intermediary companies, but the actually delivered goods were mineral water. This kind of fraudulent behavior was finally exposed by the police, and 61 suspects were successfully arrested.

Another example occurred during the Double Eleven promotion in 2020. E-commerce platform A launched a half-price flash sale activity for a well-known product. The activity attracted a large number of real users to participate, and at the same time, it also attracted the attacks of malicious crawlers. The impacts of malicious crawlers on the platform include consuming server resources, affecting user experience, and the goods being quickly snapped up. For this reason, e-commerce platform A used the threat data accumulated by the data shield of Knownsec to intercept known crawler IPs and distinguish real users from crawlers through the human-machine identification function. In addition, it also analyzed the logs during the peak traffic period, updated the threat IP database, and finally set up intelligent speed limits to resist high-frequency queries. Under this series of measures, most of the malicious crawler traffic was successfully intercepted.

In just one year, the number of malicious crawlers intercepted by the Knownsec Cloud Defense Platform was as high as more than 92.7 billion times, accounting for 27.9% of the total annual Web attacks. Thus, it can be seen that the current situation of malicious crawlers is already very serious, and great attention must be paid to the protection against malicious crawler attacks.

With the arrival of the summer vacation, famous schools in Beijing, Shanghai and other places have become popular destinations for family tourism. However, due to the surge in visiting demand, the phenomenon of "it is extremely difficult to get a ticket" has emerged. A company technician, Li Moumou, developed a ticket-grabbing software. After Wang Moumou and Zhang Moumou learned about it, they cooperated with him. They attracted tourism practitioners by posting on the Internet and other means and set up a "ticket-grabbing studio". They used the ticket-grabbing software to grab tickets in batches on various online platforms and resold them to tourism practitioners at prices ranging from 80 yuan to 150 yuan. In less than a month during the summer vacation of 2023, the two studios illegally profited more than 300,000 yuan. In order to improve the ticket-grabbing efficiency, the software was designed to achieve a violent ordering mode, which seriously affected the normal operation of the system. In July 2024, the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing sentenced 13 people including Li Moumou to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 6 months to 4 years and 6 months and imposed a fine for the crime of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system.

These three cases have revealed a fact: whether it is the college visit reservation system or the subsidy mechanism of the e-commerce platform, they may all become the targets for illegal elements to seek profits. In the face of such criminal acts, relevant departments need to further strengthen supervision and technical prevention measures to ensure that the public interest is not violated and maintain good social order. With the development of technology and the progress of society, the crackdown and preventive measures for such criminal activities need to be continuously upgraded and improved to protect the interests of the general public and network security.

[mongo-the-liensis]

Always thinking about the scene where Carl openly makes a sedition and then has an attempt on his life like two minutes later.

[essektheylyss]

Day 5 is technically a novella, and honestly? Haunting.

The Reflection of Sand by Tan Gang

[smellslikebot]

"how do I keep my art from being scraped for AI from now on?"

if you post images online, there's no 100% guaranteed way to prevent this, and you can probably assume that there's no need to remove/edit existing content. you might contest this as a matter of data privacy and workers' rights, but you might also be looking for smaller, more immediate actions to take.

...so I made this list! I can't vouch for the effectiveness of all of these, but I wanted to compile as many options as possible so you can decide what's best for you.

Discouraging data scraping and "opting out"

robots.txt - This is a file placed in a website's home directory to "ask" web crawlers not to access certain parts of a site. If you have your own website, you can edit this yourself, or you can check which crawlers a site disallows by adding /robots.txt at the end of the URL. This article has instructions for blocking some bots that scrape data for AI.

HTML metadata - DeviantArt (i know) has proposed the "noai" and "noimageai" meta tags for opting images out of machine learning datasets, while Mojeek proposed "noml". To use all three, you'd put the following in your webpages' headers:

<meta name="robots" content="noai, noimageai, noml">

Have I Been Trained? - A tool by Spawning to search for images in the LAION-5B and LAION-400M datasets and opt your images and web domain out of future model training. Spawning claims that Stability AI and Hugging Face have agreed to respect these opt-outs. Try searching for usernames!

Kudurru - A tool by Spawning (currently a Wordpress plugin) in closed beta that purportedly blocks/redirects AI scrapers from your website. I don't know much about how this one works.

ai.txt - Similar to robots.txt. A new type of permissions file for AI training proposed by Spawning.

ArtShield Watermarker - Web-based tool to add Stable Diffusion's "invisible watermark" to images, which may cause an image to be recognized as AI-generated and excluded from data scraping and/or model training. Source available on GitHub. Doesn't seem to have updated/posted on social media since last year.

Image processing... things

these are popular now, but there seems to be some confusion regarding the goal of these tools; these aren't meant to "kill" AI art, and they won't affect existing models. they won't magically guarantee full protection, so you probably shouldn't loudly announce that you're using them to try to bait AI users into responding

Glaze - UChicago's tool to add "adversarial noise" to art to disrupt style mimicry. Devs recommend glazing pictures last. Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

WebGlaze - Free browser-based Glaze service for those who can't run Glaze locally. Request an invite by following their instructions.

Mist - Another adversarial noise tool, by Psyker Group. Runs on Windows and Linux (Nvidia GPU required) or on web with a Google Colab Notebook.

Nightshade - UChicago's tool to distort AI's recognition of features and "poison" datasets, with the goal of making it inconvenient to use images scraped without consent. The guide recommends that you do not disclose whether your art is nightshaded. Nightshade chooses a tag that's relevant to your image. You should use this word in the image's caption/alt text when you post the image online. This means the alt text will accurately describe what's in the image-- there is no reason to ever write false/mismatched alt text!!! Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

Sanative AI - Web-based "anti-AI watermark"-- maybe comparable to Glaze and Mist. I can't find much about this one except that they won a "Responsible AI Challenge" hosted by Mozilla last year.

Just Add A Regular Watermark - It doesn't take a lot of processing power to add a watermark, so why not? Try adding complexities like warping, changes in color/opacity, and blurring to make it more annoying for an AI (or human) to remove. You could even try testing your watermark against an AI watermark remover. (the privacy policy claims that they don't keep or otherwise use your images, but use your own judgment)

given that energy consumption was the focus of some AI art criticism, I'm not sure if the benefits of these GPU-intensive tools outweigh the cost, and I'd like to know more about that. in any case, I thought that people writing alt text/image descriptions more often would've been a neat side effect of Nightshade being used, so I hope to see more of that in the future, at least!

[riverkingmarley]

I could never be an author because I would be so annoying about Easter eggs. Mia and Carson would have disappeared Taylor and Rachel Hebert. Every book would have a character named Amy who smokes a lot. Then Amy would give an anti smoking psa in ward. I would role play Lisa when I explained things in WOG. I would have characters disappear from the story by mentioning they were moving to Brazil. Crawler would be there.

[heckcareoxytwit]

Kurt Wagner as the newest Spider hero (a.k.a Spinnenmann, Creepy Crawler, Devil-Spider or any other aliases/nicknames), has a conversation with Peter Parker the original Spider-Man. Kurt is having doubts with himself as he was framed for murder when he was in his monstrous form way back in Legion of X comic. Also, Kurt has a Bamf as his conscience.

Even though Kurt did not tell him what really happened, Peter understands him as he knows what it feels like for being framed (for a few times in Spider-Man comics), being turned into a monster (Peter had been turned into Man-Spider once or twice in the comics) or being hated by public and media (countless times with no thanks to Anti-Spidey rants from J Jonah Jameson).

Uncanny Spider-Man #1, 2023

[c-u-c-koo-4-40k]

You know who could really use a bit of generosity this Holiday season?

Families in Gaza like @samialkhliliy1

Right now families need to survive until the borders open, and evacuation is possible.

To do that they need Shares on their posts, so more people can know they need help!

More shares means more potential donors!

And every donation helps families afford food, and shelter! Not to mention GFM's refund policy lasts for a Year so giving is easy and low risk.

Please consider doing so if you have some income to spare.

Direct Link to GFM here.

2,576 / 30,000 EUR

9% Funded

Tag list to help this spread.

Tag List 4 - DM for removal

@slowopoke @isa-ah @anti-ao3 @lepidopteragirl @aaitwo @lemonlimestar @daughter-of-sapph0

@lab-practicum @ophidiomyces @bonetrousled @privatemumbles @kindestegg @femmemarcille @soranatus

@lesbianslasherfilm @bastardofficial @redsunrisinginthesky @pitbolshevik @poobit @bloodbornebutch @bloodraven55 @thatneoncrisis

@loserlesbianongsa @serotoninny @bambi-on-the-ps3 @routeriver @time-was-over @arianimates @creaking-skull @bluerepository

@kindaorangey @lorelune @smolldust @skautism @localanimalnerd @lazzledazzler @dead-dog-dont-eat @kaguya-muneuji @princess--bongwater

[cannabisexual]

i've said it before, and i'll say it again. all of you should check out and read dungeon crawler carl. i can't even really begin to explain why it's as awesome as it is without getting into spoilers, but if you love the sound of a hunger-games-alien-invasion-with-fantasy-RPG-rules-style story starring an -at first- Normal Action Hero Dude and his pet cat with a sassy AI character and a huge helping of anti-capitalist sentiment, then it's gonna be right up your alley. i'm reading book 7 right now, and my god, this series is fucking gripping. it's silly, absurd, heartwarming, but will also shatter your heart into so many goddamn pieces when you least expect it.

also, the audiobooks narrated by jeff hays are just a delight. he does such a great job of making every character sound distinct, and the added sound effects make the whole experience so much more immersive. if you've already read the books, please share this so we can spread the word!

[thecreepycrawlersss]

INTRO ! !

hiii !!! we’re the creepy crawlers ^_^ we use they/it prns, and we’re a traumaendo neurobased willobased soulbased cephaconscious DID system :3 (origin of plurality is trauma and DID, but not all headmates r traumagenic)

we’re collectively queer and ambimarous, we are physically disabled, we have autism + adhd, BPD, and MaDD !! we’re also possibly somewhere on the schizospec. our system is masc heavy, and also nonhuman heavy due to our autism and trauma

we’re also all pagan and witches ! we’re open to working with all pantheons (except closed ones) and practicing any forms of magick. we’re self described as an eclectic pagan + chaos witch :) we’re also currently going through the process of learning abt an unknown pantheon so we will also be active in conpantheon and PCP (pop culture paganism) communities. we worship Loki and Dionysus, and are currently working with Lucifer !

my dni is zionists, anti endos / sysmeds, queerphobes, racists, ableists, ageists, etc etc basic dni shit, fake claimers, anyone on fake disorder cringe or system cringe, sh and ed blogs, trump supporters, nsfw blogs, mdni blogs

idc if rq’s interact as i am completely neutral on the community

here’s our socials !!

1NSAMN1A on reddit

thecreepycrawlers on simplyplural

thecreepycrawlersss on discord

we also have a build a headmate blog called @creepybah

here are our fronting tags ! (will be adding more soon)

#samuel🧿

@melancholic-mutt

hiii im samuel, our main host !! i use he/it and am a queer genderqueer trans man :) my interests are art, animation, music, magick / paganism, leftism, activism, fashion, and psychology ! im not really good at intros so sorry if this sucked haha

#malachite🧿

@bird-mans-blog

hello !!! im malachite, one of this systems co-hosts. i use he/it/shi/lyr/they, im a aromantic libramasculine xenogender user, and im a fictive + gametive ?? gamegenic ?? idk + songtive !! my sources are slay the princess, the princess, the hero, the voices, and the narrator, and a slay the princess kitchen fork amv on youtube :3 ask before source talk and source mates are okay ! i am also not good at intros but unlike sam i will not apologize ☝🏻

#fern🧿

#eli🧿

@elis-little-scrapbook

hiii!! im eli, i use he/him, and im a little!!! i love gravity falls and sammy is my big brother :) idk what gender i like but i know that im a boy

#dijon / mag🧿

@zombie-postinggg

hello. im a new alter. names r dijon & mag, use it/xe/they/zomb/dead/brain prns, & am a corpsegender zombiething aroace.. im traumaorma and a trauma holder.

im so new that i dont know what i like, so i will add to this later.

#steven🧿

@steven-pluraverse

Hey! I’m Steven, I use he/they/star/she, I’m a fictive from SU, and I’m a musicnaut and timekeeper. I’m a pansexual stargender catgender aliencatgender andersatyr transmasc :)

PLEASE ask before source talk. I have exomemories and kind of! Don’t! Want to talk about all my trauma! Source mates are all okay but if you’re like.. a diamond. Or something. That might be a bit more... Yk.

#blurry / unknown🧿

[oshlet]

Edward South's Vagabond MBT, used against S-11 rebels and his own allies during the revolutionary war. Modern at the time, it was still fairly practical, mounting a tried and tested 120mm smoothbore gun for anti-surface use. South's model was a solo-tank conversion, featuring additional automation and a Brain Interface System, allowing it to be controlled by only a single person.

In his re-emergence as a mercenary, he's now behind the wheel of a jury-rigged civilian crawler. Such a vehicle is slow, and not nearly as well suited to receiving weapons fire, however it makes up for it with its truly eye-watering armament of a huge laser cannon, fitted with three separate hybrid cooling/power cells, each of which can only squeeze out a single shot from the weapon.

Despite all the downsides, the intimidation factor of a weapon that doesn't even require a direct hit to disable an enemy vehicle is hard to pass up, and South has become feared for his ambush tactics using it.

[brotoman-exe]

Some costumes I'd like to see in Marvel Rivals

This isn't covering everyone just a few ideas I'd like to see

Venom: Ultimate

Venom is actually a character that I'm already happy with his base skin, Anti Venom alt color, and Space Knight option. But I think the Ultimate skin would be fun especially if you actually somehow textured it like the Ultimate Spider-Man game.

Storm: Hellfire Gala

Honestly Hellfire Gala seems like an even Rivals could do and just go all out giving everyone some Gala fits but for Storm I'd like it a lot just for that hair alone.

Squirrel Girl: US Avengers

US Avengers that could barely get off its feet before getting forced into event tie in hell then being taken out behind the shed and executed. Which is a shame cause it had fun art and designs, with me finding the Squirrel Girl one pretty cute. Also just like goggles.

Loki: Lady Loki

Think that a lot of people would find it fun to have a character you could gender switch on a whim with the costume system. Plus something unique this game could have.

Captain America: Classic

Honestly there is plenty of characters that would be cool to see with more classic outfits but Cap is one I definitely want to have that. Cause I've never really been big on the more power armor style outfits for cap and would like to have the classic shield as well.

Groot: Tales to Astonish

Speaking of classics this old school monster book throwback be a fun option to have in the game. Though it is legally required that all characters record a voice line saying "I defy you Groot!" That only plays if defeating a player with this skin.

Punisher: Angelic Frank

Both the look and the book it's from are terrible but I'd be impressed by the pure audacity if they did this.

Iron Fist: White and Gold

I'd also be down with this costume in green and yellow but either way I appreciate the more simple look and having an option with the full head cover. Can have it be explicitly Danny for this one or not but could be neat if had unique voice lines.

Black Panther: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

Getting cartoon rep is always good, and Earth's Mightiest Heroes has some great designs. Also if they add Wasp as a character the EMH look would be great too. Black Panther having a pretty great one that could have some cool design work done on it. But it needs the cape, I like when he has a cape.

Spider-Man: Unlimited

Last one I thought of right now and second cartoon rep is the Unlimited suit. Cause you got to be honest it was a pretty great alternate design for the wall crawler. Just keep the shadows as part of it cause it looks weird when just red and blue.

[sonicspeeddemon]

Night crawler has two moms now and the anti sjws aren’t taking it so well

To them, having two moms is worse than being the son of a literal demon

[mongo-the-liensis]

Carl is so... He's just some guy. He's the messiah. He's a war criminal. He's hope personified. He has killed babies. He's a cultist. He's a cishet ally but everyone thinks he's bisexual. He has daddy issues. He has PTSD. He's straight but he has a boyfriend. He really loves his friends. He has a mental illness. He loves his cat more than anyone and anything else in the world. He's an anarchist. He is slowly going insane. He's a fan favourite crawler. He's a mass murderer. The AI is in love with him. He makes inspirational speeches. He monologues. He's anti-establishment. He's traumatised. He pulls a lot of bitches but doesn't pay attention to them. He sees his friends as his family. He's street smart. He has gotten hit by a train.

[syrupspinner]

i just defeated Psychopomp Gold

ive never been a fursona kinda person but there's something about the thraits that activate the "I want to be one of those" part of my brain

this is one of those "what can I say" kinda games. so much of psychopomp is the atmosphere, the visuals, and just the general vibe. it's so intense that it's kinda impossible not to have a good idea of if you're gonna rock with it or not from the steam page alone

i was first introduced to this game via a mutual who I think has a good-ass taste in games specifically if they're about the severely mentally ill, like needy streamer overload and... antonball, i guess. hi nephro @thisisntapainting! anyway, I don't really have any first-hand experience with schizophrenia (which seems like what the game is trying to embody) but it seems like it's pretty effective. you can't really describe what happens in this game without it sounding like someone having a psychotic nervous breakdown. like, if you tried describing the plot of any other dark and surreal game like fatum betula or like, that one game with all the smiling as something that happened to you, people would be like "oh from a video game! what a silly YouTube prank you're doing". but with psychopomp you'd just get a sincerely concerned wellness check.

the first level I played had you going into a sewage treatment plant and helping nuggets of meat with animegao masks kill their queen/filtration system. it's like, a level above the full immersion technique of expecting the player to adjust to their surroundings naturalistically and just tries to actively fuck with you because you tried understanding. you dont get a deeper explanation of why we are perpetually harvesting the bones of children and frankly its pathetic of you to expect otherwise. is that what psychosis is like? welp, nothing to do but choose an extreme schema through which to filter all these experiences. I think the helmet kid is like if I saw the tv glow was about being christ, and also there was a 30 minute long childbirth scene, i wont explain further

i hear the gameplay get compared to kings field a lot (i typed this out, but couldnt verify it? i think i got this mixed up with lunacid lmao), but I think that's just cuz it's one of the only real time fps dungeon crawlers that most English speakers have played. oh, speaking of, did you know this game has a big Russian fanbase? I've never been able to say that about well-adjusted games, it's always shit like hotline Miami and hello Charlotte. are you guys okay? anyway, the gameplay is awesome.

I love how uncomfortable it makes you feel just by trying to force the world into a grid, making things feel claustrophobic or off centre. I like how easy it is to get punished for not having your hammer selected when something starts running at you, encouraging a paranoid playstyle where you always have a weapon out and slowly creep around corners. that part in the childrens hospital where the nature segment leads too a hallway thats juuuust big enough to hide the walls is the darkness so you have no idea how big it is is wonderful. it builds a really effective ludonarrative, where you learn about pompy as a character through how the player naturally acts, in the same way we know sonic likes to go fast because he's always in video games where the player goes fast. (also, no spoilers, but i love how well this is used in the epilogue as well)

she's paranoid, indifferent to the value of life around her, just touching and killing things. she picks needles up off the floor and just shoves em in her blood. she has no thoughts about the cultural wall paintings in the thrait village, or anything to say about the tv playing anti-spaceworm propaganda other than that it's dusty. she's impulsive, she just kinda says things that dont really follow together, she doesn't care about her personal safety or well-being, and barely cares to learn about the world around her beyond what gives emotional gratification like justifying her misanthropy. maybe this is just me reading too deep into it, but I think a good narrative should encourage you to look into a characters head and construct how they think and see the world based on their actions, and video games are special in that regard because they can do so using the player as a conduit. i could also just be straight-up wrong, this game is pretty impenetrable

despite trying to cultivate an air of perpetually having no idea what the fuck is going on, things are established in this game with surprising consistency. like, itll contradict reality as you know it, but it wont contradict itself. theres a poster talking about how venus and mercury are fictional planets, and the moon has an eye, so now you know space is fucked. then when you see the transient area with a hatched cocoon and one with a tv talking about a worm you can reasonably surmise that the space worm is the king/queen of venus. and then therell suddenly be some additional bullshit thatll make you reconsider everything you know like a child that just figured out other countries exist, like how humans evolved two seperate times. i could keep going, trust me, but wed be here all day

i try not to use the word "perfect" too much, but i sincerely believe that this game succeeds in everything it attempts to do. the gameplay does a wonderful job at encouraging a terrified playstyle, with little touches like how you have to put your weapon down to unlock doors. the atmosphere is a perfect industrial mindfuck where everything is a conspiracy-inspiring combination of man-made and realistically impossible. it does everything it can to entice you to try and figure the world out and before you know it youre doing some pepe silvia bullshit, just like helmet freak would be doing if she didnt already KNOW the answers from the start and made this whole mess just to confirm her own delusions.

like. i cant emphasize enough how fucked up this game makes me feel, theres a visceral uncomfortable feeling like my skins on too tight and i need to get the fuck out. i can only play one level a day and i need a variable amount of time before i build up the courage to jump back in there. i missed one of the keys to get the secret thingy (how are you supposed to break that silk door thing in the moth level?) and let me tell you i am NOT going through all that again. this game makes me sweat just because of how stressed out and anxious i feel from the moment-to-moment gameplay and the oppressive ass atmosphere.

WAIT. BAROQUE. ive been trying to think of what this game reminds me of and a steam curator finally said it, fucking baroque for the sega saturn. look it up youll get it

anyway! play the damn game. one of the best and most effective psychological horror games ive ever played, mandatory gaming for anyone who appreciates atmosphere in a video game. if you have fun analyzing esoteric narratives, itll give you something to chew on for... god knows how long really, i still dont really know how to articulate what ive seen. that doesnt stop it from being incredibly effective, honestly the fact that its just a vaguely-themed collection of shit devised from the ground up to freak you out is a point in its favour.

either way, this is one of those games we'll look back on and go "yeah this is where it all started" like we do for shit like devil may cry and grand theft auto, i think this is gonna inspire a lot of people to do a lot of things

things like. make other video games. i feel the need to specify that

[apup1nthest4rs]

Intro:

I use a few names: Pup or Owen.

I'm 🇬🇧 and 17. I'm a trans male werewolf and Gay ficto-Aroace, whilst using Xenos and neos. Also polymind :p I'm too much at this point

My Cardd: https://jekyllfictionkin.carrd.co/

https://www.youtube.com/@A-h0und-in-the-st4rs

Tiktok:a.pup.in.the.st4r3.0

Don't use she or they for me and don't call me nonbinary, please. My pronouns:

-It/itself

-Pup/pups

-Xe/xem

-he/him

-Star/stars

-Swirl/swirls

-Thing/things

-Canine/canines

-Bite/bites

-Fang/fangs

-weres/weres (Like werewolf)

-Howl/howls

-mutt/mutts

I'm an alterhuman and an aliumthrope/aliumkind I've been awakened for over 2-3 years.

-Alterhumanity: ☆Ockin ☆Conceptkin: Science,water+art doll creatures ☆Polytherian ☆Otherkin ☆Physical caninekin ☆Physical werewolfkin ☆Creaturekin/creature-hearted ☆Fictionkin ☆Physical puppykin ☆Alien creature/alienkin

I believe part of my Alterhumanity is connected to my pet regression, trauma,imprinting and also identity/personality issues.

The identities are psychological,emotional,behavioural,situational and spiritual.

Theriotypes:☆Coastal wolf ☆cougar ☆Husky ☆Wolfdog ☆red+artic wolf ☆golden retriever puppy ☆Kiger Mustang ☆oriental shorthair ☆Trakehner

Kintypes: ☆Sea-dragon ☆Winged creature ☆shape-shifting demon

Fictionkins: ☆Kiba and toboe from Wolfsrain ☆Jekyll and Hyde from Tgs + the strange case of Dr jekyll and Mr Hyde. ☆Indoraptor from jurassic world.

OCkin: ☆Pup ☆Kora ☆Shadow crawler

Otherlink/synthpath/Otherhearted: Curly and Daisuke (mouthwashing)

I'm a pet regressor: Golden retriever puppy. Also an Age regressor.

Fandoms: ☆Jekyllandhyde ☆TGS ☆MazM ☆Wolfs rain ☆Mouthwashing

-I like science too: paleontology + biology. I mostly just draw for a hobby :3 Also a dog/puppyboy

I don't have a strong DNI, since I can't exactly controls who sees my posts but:

Basics DNI: Racists,conservatives,anti-Alterhuman/nonhuman,anti-transspecies, transphobes,homophobes,radqueers, pedos,zoos.(If you're recovered fully, idm you) problematic/harmful shippers:darkshippers,proshippers etc.