#Sterling Industries

[theslimeologist]

Its viscerally upsetting that our preferences are apparently respected but we’re all automatically opted in for tumblr’s AI 3rd party “partners” to supposedly scrape our posts and content? L O L

BLOG SETTINGS -> VISIBILITY -> ENABLE “PREVENT 3RD PARTY SHARING”

If you’re on mobile *you must first update the tumblr app*

THIS MUST BE DONE FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL PUBLIC BLOG YOU HAVE

[professionalgeekgirly]

the new seasons of Industry and Slow Horses being on at the same time is extremely therapeutic for me because no matter how bad of a day I’m having, Rob and River are having a worse one

[jimquisition]

Describing Wanted: Dead is simultaneously super easy and difficult as all hell. Focusing purely on the core gameplay, I can tell you it’s a standard hybrid of third-person shooter and hack n’ slasher that offers solid - if notably flawed - action across straightforward linear levels. It was made by former Team Ninja developers and that shows in the stylistic violence on offer.

Also it’s weird. Really weird.

[isthissoup]

Steph has been one of the only people reporting on the video game industry that I trust for years now. Most of gaming “journalism” is just advertising, and Steph’s commitment to effectively (and entertainingly) reporting on the actual state and conditions of the industry is so admirable. I cannot more highly recommend her work, especially to anybody who plays games and cares about workers rights.

Caring about gaming means caring about the people who make games, not the companies who employ them.

All skirt/dress wearers when we discover they have functional pockets 😍

[howyouducan]

The One Where Microsoft Admits Game Studios Are F*cked (The Jimquisition)

[pocketmolly]

Headcanon that because of the terrifying expenses superheroing costs, heroes have to take on sponsors

TW: Smoking/Cigarettes, only a little nudity! (It's John Constantine :/), Alcohol (Damian... [Not underage drinking tho])

Like I watched the Crisis On Two Earths movie and that watchtower looks so expensive... Sure Bruce Wayne is rich but he isn't that rich

John Constantine definitely has atleast one cigarette sponsor. Probably Sterling which is British and he's somehow featured on the front of the box in this specific pose despite having never gone for a photoshoot. He laughs it off but he's secretly horrified

Black Canary is fought over by every music app to ever exist but (inevitably) Spotify wins and she becomes the annoying voice that tells you to try Spotify Premium which causes the Arrow Kids to not speak to her for like a month

Wonder Woman, Artemis, Donna Troy, Cassie Sandsmark and Yara Flor get together to do a Lululemon commercial (with colour coding and everything). It goes super viral and sets fashion trends for the next 50 years much to the dismay of Artemis.

The Flashes get a slick Ferrari ad. Like Barry in the front seat of a classic red Ferrari car delivering a smooth line in a seductive tone then it moves to the rest of the Flashes just chilling in sunglasses in the back

Robin has Lego as a sponsor which comes with free trips to Lego Land and free Lego sets. This only serves to piss Damian off and he promptly gets a Malibu (alcohol) sponsorship in the second week of being Robin. This gives Batman and Nightwing simultaneous heart attacks.

While we're on the topic, Batman mysteriously has zero sponsors (the Wayne Industries symbol is secretly on his cape but both are the same black color) and Nightwing has a Wingstop sponsor and his own 'Nightwings' meal that consists of electric blue wings which are very unhealthy and not quite safe

Okay lightning round now!

Zatanna gets Prada

Red Robin gets Red Robin (haha)

All the Green Lanterns get Whatsapp (they have their own sticker pack that the rest of the heroes overuse)

Barbra gets Oracle (haha ×2)

Starfire gets Dior and Tiffany & Co

Red Hood gets Snickers (You're not yourself when you're hungry)

[nhaneh]

tbh I don't want to put blame squarely on the players because for one, it extends far beyond just the players: glowing media endorsements, praise from content creators, advertisement campaigns - all of these are just as if not all the more culpable. For two, it's not like Blizzard's fuckups are particularly unique to them - theirs have been unusually public lately, but you're likely to find a lot of the same shit going on in any games company large enough.

At the same time... the bar is literally so low that it might as well be buried underground on the opposite side of the planet at this point - there isn't anything Blizzard could do that doesn't somehow still have them stumbling across it. There will be voices of disappointment and disapproval, certainly, but the results will inevitably be mostly just token at best.

Of course a big part of that is because the idea that we as consumers hold any power in this relationship was always a lie sold to us in order to distract away from the inaction of those with any actual power, but knowing that doesn't make it any less depressing.

So, let me see if I've got this straight.

When Overwatch 2 launched last October, it was framed by Blizzard as a PvP-only early access preview of a game which would eventually include a substantial PvE campaign, to be added in a later patch.

Today, Blizzard's representatives admitted not only that the PvE campaign mode has been scrapped, but that the internal decision to do so was made in late 2021 – meaning they'd been knowingly lying about the game's planned feature set for nearly a year at the time of the October 2022 early access launch.

Is that about the size of it?

[lufyuu]

(I accidentally deleted the ask last time so bare w me, I'm so sorry anon😓 , it was about how my ocs would react to a trans reader)

Well I'll start with that none of my ocs will treat you differently regardless of the fact you're cis or not! Maybe they have different thoughts of you though

➤Eun Hyunwoo

He probably didn't know you were trans before working with you. He just thought you're a very pretty man<3 I mean, there are feminine looking men in the industry too so it doesn't matter if you're feminine/masculine presenting! He'd be extra careful during sex though, he's not ready to be a father and with your job...it's impossible for you to be pregnant whilst working at the same time. He's also always going to be there for you when the gender dysphoria hits, he doesn't understand it as he himself has never felt it but he'll do anything in his power to make you feel better. He often affirms your gender by calling you all sorts of things. "My pretty boy" is what he loves to say the most. He also loves to refer to you as his boyfriend a lot. And I mean a lot. He's partially flexing the fact that he's dating you too.

➤River Sterling

Mans didn't pay much attention to you before your first meeting, but he had heard about the rumors of you being afab. He brushed it off since it's really none of his business. When anyone talks shit about you just for being trans, he's ready to give them the "shonen background character treatment" if you know what I mean lmao. He's always going to use protection during sex! You're both in your early 20s! No way he's going to be a dad! Loves the idea of it though. He probably once tried to turn you into a cis man, not because he wants you to be one, but it was when you were having major gender dysphoria. He thought he'd be a good boyfriend and give you a dick and balls. Unfortunately, even the powers of a protagonist have their limits. His efforts were still appreciated, though! Loves stroking your hair while calling you "the loveliest boy he's ever met". He's an ass at times but can be sweet when needed!

➤Liu Zihao

Couldn't care less that you're trans. He has a duty to uphold, and that is to punish you for your wrongdoings. Though he does think it's convenient since getting you pregnant would be easier now. Who could blame him for wanting to breed you full of his cum? He's been waiting for you for so long it's only right for him to take what he wants now. He isn't the type of guy to babytrap you though. Gender dysphoria? Now that, you have to explain to him. Despite being in a powerful man both in the political stand and in general, he's only learned about the laws. He doesn't really understand humans. When he does get it though, expect him to be very supportive. Maybe overly supportive. Probably empathizes the word "boy" a lot when referring to you. Not that there's a lot of people he can talk about you to. He just doesn't care what you have under your pants.

➤Han Minho

I'm not sure how this one would work as the way reader met Minho was through military training where everyone was amab but let's say they do meet. Again, doesn't care much. Though he's ready to be a father, it all depends on you whether you want to start a family with him or not. He'd rather your parents know about the situation first before anything that far happens. He doesnt strike as a guy who knows that much about gender dysphoria. Probably awkwardly caressing your back as he tries to again, awkwardly comfort you. "You're a boy..I don't know what's the problem..?", he's trying his best.

[hedwyn-here]

I still see people obsessively hating on Hello Games for the launch of No Man's Sky, saying they will never trust them, never buy a game from them etc... A very ambitious game made by (for most of it's development) less than 10 employees had to cut some of it's planned content before launch. They were (reportedly) pressured into announcing the game before they were ready, their studio flooded, they had to borrow internet from their neighbours by running ethernet out of the windows, they had a huge company suddenly advertising it as the next big AAA release despite the fact the studio was running out of money...

They aren't blameless, but it doesn't take a whole lot to see how a small group who were incredibly passionate about their work (and without a PR team) could get caught up in this situation.

But you know what? They've spent the last 10 years continually working on that game. Adding more and more content, getting it to where people expected it to be and even beyond in ways nobody could have predicted. Every single trailer they've released since has shown nothing but precicely what the game will offer. And we still see people treating them like industry villains.

There's a particular reason this bothers me so much, and it's name is Randy Pitchford.

A few years before No Man's Sky was released, Gearbox advertised the game Aliens: Colonial Marines with fabricated trailers, gameplay and screenshots. Not just things that had to be removed from the game for budgetary or time reasons, but literally just things they faked purely to advertise the game. What can only be construed as an intentional attempt to lie to the audience so they would buy a game. They were accused of using money SEGA had given them for the development of the game to fund their own proejct, Borderlands. Not only did Gearbox never try to fix Colonial Marines, to my knowledge they never even acknowledged any of the shitty stuff they did. Pitchford routinely attempted to slide that blame onto others (and if I remember rightly even said some pretty unpleasant stuff abotu Steff Sterling for daring to criticise the game on multiple occasions). Yet people are still more than happy to jump on Gearbox games uncritically. Even though they reportedly treat their staff like shit. Have very questionable means of paying their staff that afford them the opportunity to deny them bonuses even management (like Pitchford) are taking home huge bonuses of their own.

This is an example of a large developer very intentionally and maliciously lying to the audience and nobody seemed to give a shit about it even as little as a year after release.

For my money, Hello Games have proven themselves. I'll take an over-ambitious passionate group of artists who can't quite deliver on their promises over a malicious and predatory corporation any day of the week.

Fuck Gearbox.

<3 Hello Games.

I can't fuckin wait to play Light no Fire, I will buy that shit day 1.

[fan-burns]

The Robots sequel except I didn’t jump the shark lol.

Don’t panic, I’m not abandoning the original sequel! I’m just playing around with a more “realistic” idea for a sequel and I wanted to share them!

Story wise, Bigweld kicks the bucket and everyone mourns (especially Rodney). Press bots and Paparazzi of course want to harass interview him, and so Rodney disappears from public eye and shuts down Bigweld Industries. 3 years later he decides to re-open it to the public, but doesn't allow any press inside.

Aspiring inventor Leadbetter sees this as his chance to make it big and meet his idol Rodney one on one. He's surprised to find that he's the only one at the event, but he runs into Rodney's financial advisor Tony Sterling.

Sterling immediately tries kicking him out, saying that Rodney needs to “focus on studying”, when Rodney stops him and immediately takes Lead under his wing (smiling for the first time in years). Of course, now that Sterling has competition for inheritance (and that Rodney gave up on studying for Business in order to mentor Lead), he's even more eager to get Rodney out of the picture...with Lead as collateral damage.

Now this is why I like this new idea. It's a retelling of the original (Leadbetter as Rodney and Rodney as Bigweld/Sterling as Ratchet and Ratchet as M. Gasket) with new elements. It's the same premise as the original, but introduces new elements that make it interesting.

Honestly, if anyone wanted to make a legit sequel fanfiction that stays in line with the original, this is the way to do it. You reuse the same formula that worked before, but include your own unique twists and takes to make it interesting. It's as simple as that.

While my sequel is more action and akin to early dystopia writings, this idea is more in line with the original, which is what is more in line with what people would expect in a sequel. Had I come up with this idea sooner, I would've went with this route. In fact, if I run out of steam with the current sequel, I might pick this idea up and use it!

Again, I'm not dropping the current sequel! I'm going to continue with it for as long as I can! I just wanted to share this idea!

[brucesterling]

The Sharing Association is pleased to announce the 16th edition of the Share Prize, the competition dedicated to contemporary art focusing on technology and science.

The artworks nominated for the prize must follow the theme:

'ALL-NATURAL'

curated by Share Festival artistic director Bruce Sterling and curator Jasmina Tešanović

The platform invites artists from all over the world to submit their works.

Call for entries open from 12 April 2024 to 9 June 2024

The six prize nominees will be announced in July 2024. The announcement will be published on our website: www.toshareproject.it

The winner will be announced during the Share Festival Opening,in Turin from 28 October to 3 November 2024 during the Turin Contemporary Art Week.

Link website:

Link Call:

Link form:

Prize Summary: Winner gets 2500 euro prize Event date: April 12, 2024 to June 9, 2024 Location: Torino Deadline: 09/June/2024

"ALL-NATURAL"

Per la XVIII edizione di Share Festival vogliamo avanzare una proposta che sappiamo essere impossibile.

Qui nell'elegante Torino - città famosa per il suo caloroso sostegno verso ogni forma d'arte - non riusciamo a fare un respiro che non sia contaminato. Non è solo l'intera atmosfera del nostro pianeta a essere inquinata dai gas serra: a causa della sua eredità industriale e della sua peculiare situazione geografica, Torino si trova in una situazione particolarmente preoccupante per via dell'onnipresente foschia dovuta alle polveri sottili che includono metalli, prodotti della combustione e persino polveri agricole. Mentre voi leggete, noi stiamo respirando tutto questo.

Eppure, allo stesso tempo, la provincia piemontese è rinomata nel mondo per la sua dedizione all'artigianalità dello Slow Food, il cibo che nasce grazie alle varietà uniche di piante e animali presenti sul fertile suolo italiano.

Nel prossimo Festival vogliamo prendere di petto questa contraddizione e affrontarla attraverso il nostro mezzo d'elezione, l'arte tecnologica. Possiamo farla diventare un momento dialettico, invece che farla restare una mera contraddizione? Riusciremo a vedere della net-art plasmata sugli uccelli, gli insetti, le api e il paesaggio naturale e locale? Potremo interagire con robot fatti di legno, sculture digitali ricavate dal marmo e opere interattive composte da corni, canne, conchiglie, bambù, paglia, ossa, fossili o - ancor meglio - materiali naturali che rischiano di scomparire e interamente appartenenti alla regione da cui proviene l'artista?

"Difendere l'ambiente" non è sufficiente: questi materiali naturali saranno in grado di infiltrarsi nella sostanza innaturale del domani e prendersi la loro infestante, tremenda vendetta?

Fate del vostro meglio, per favore. Abbiamo bisogno di una boccata d'aria fresca!

Bruce Sterling, Direttore Artistico di Share Festival Jasmina Tesanovic, Curatrice di Share Prize

For the XVIII edition of Share Festival, we make this demand because we know it's impossible.

Here in glamorous Torino -- a city known for its cordial support of "every form of art" -- we can't take one natural, untainted breath. Not only is the planet's whole atmosphere polluted with Greenhouse gases -- here in Torino, thanks to our industrial heritage and our specific geographic climate, we're particularly badly off from an all-pervasive haze of PM2.5 micrometer pollution particles, including metals, combustion products and even agricultural dust. As you read this, we breathe that.

And yet, at the very same time, our Italian province of Piedmont is world-famous for its devotion to hand-crafted, artisanal "Slow Foods" grown from the unique plant and animal varieties of the fruitful Italian soil.

In our forthcoming Festival, we plan to tackle this contradiction headlong -- through our favorite medium of technology art. Can this become a dialectic instead of a contradiction? Can we witness net.art that is all about birds, bugs, bees and natural local landscapes? Can we interact with robots made of natural woods, sculptures digitally carved from marble, and interactive artworks composed of horn, reeds, seashells, bamboo, straw, bones, fossils, or better yet, severely imperiled natural materials entirely unique to the artist's own region in the world?

It's not enough to "defend the environment" -- how can natural materials infiltrate tomorrow's unnatural substance and take some terrible, weedy revenge? Please do your best for us. We need a breath of fresh air!

Bruce Sterling, Direttore Artistico di Share Festival Jasmina Tesanovic, Curatrice di Share Prize

[bebemoon]

look for the name: WAVERLEIGH

@everoutoftouch

edwardian-era combination chemise-drawers cotton underwear

onlinec eramics "dilara bonnet" heather gray zip-up hoodie

antique french hobnail clog work boots

henry rose "fog" eau de parfum

carolin dieler "coroded shackle" choker

carolin dieler x elena velez industrial sterling silver earrings

[fipindustries]

does F.I.P stand for anything in particular or is it a secret

ah, my favourite question to answer, fuck it, this time im going to give the long answer:

a primer on FIP

you know.

i dont have the best memory of my past, i truly dont. i claim that certain things happen at certain ages but there is no way for me to know for sure.

long long ago i decided, a bit at random, that the age at which i came up with the concept of FIP industries might have been when i was eleven. that was a guess, an educated guess but a guess all the same.

i know the very first idea of something akin to fip industries came to me on a family trip after watching the now forgotten cartoon show called the project zeta. and this all happened roughly in 2003 - 2004. so that is why i use that date.

which would mean that its been 20 years since i came up with this project. i do remember distinctly that i promised my self at that age that i would not allow maturity or growing up to take this thing away from me. that i would not forget this story or these characters. indeed that i would make it grow and dedicate the surely considerable resources i would have as an adult to make it come true.

and i didnt.

ten years after that, when i was 21, i wrote a novel called F.I.P. industries. it's... fine, for a first draft of a first work of someone who had never written a novel before at 21 years of age. it develop the story, it crystalized it. it gave it a coherent shape and a strong foundation. what's more, it cemented the arcs of many of its key characters, characters that had started as broken, improvised toys made out of key chains and legos and pieces of toy cars. the lore also went through an EXTENSIVE overhaul, i incorporated elements from other stories, fused characters together into a single character, changed the race and gender of many other characters, changed dates, names and arcs around and streamlined the whole thing.

then in 2020 i decided to overhaul the entire lore a second time. dramatically changing the timeline and the importance of certain characters, cannibalizing a bunch of other stories, retooling a lot of things and, once again, pushing everything into a new direction.

and of course i should add that during those 20 years i kept adding characters, side stories, spin offs, lore, backstories and actually continued the story along. twenty years have passed both in the real world and in-universe.

and given that this is the story's 20th aniversary (i think), it is time for me to share this story with all of you, from beggining to end, explaining every character along the way. this is going to be a long and arduous excercise and i genuenly dont know if i am going to get through it all, but i will try all the same.

ill be making a series of posts under the tag #FIPindustries the story can be divided in three eras, it will be one masterpost per era, where i will go over the main chronology of the story and the main characters in each era.

Era 1, also known as the golden years covers the founding and original expansion of fip industries as a research lab covering multiple different disciplines and fields of studies, trying to find synergies between the different investigations. this was all financed and directed by its founder, Filander Ignatius Patrick. this era ends with the collapse of the company during a terrible incident that ended up killing, vanishing or transmutating most of its employees. what few survivors there were left scattered to the winds. key characters in this era are Montogmery J. Black, also known as the shadow, Craig Sterling, legally assigned as grim reaper, and Franchesca Turimov, cyborg, rabble rouser, bad news.

Era 2, also known as the dormant era, covers the fallout of fip industries collapse and the different stories of the multiple scavengers that managed to salvage the lost technology from the ruins of the company. this era is mainly dominated by Maximillian Sicamore, a sinister man with many secrets and even more plans, who used to be an employee at the company and one of the few survivors of the collapse. key characters in this era are Maximillian Sicamore, criminal mastermind, proud father, The four crazy kids, Marten, Ralph, Sarah and jessica, freelance heroes, The harpsichord crew, sky pirates.

Era 3, is the return of FIP industries to its former glory under the helm of maximillian's son, Erik Sicamore, who takes over his father's empire, re hires many of the old scientists that survived (and many of those who didnt as well), and includes a fresh batch of new blood, amongst which you can find many of fip industries old enemies. Under the control of Erik the company is redirected to more "charitable" goals, such as finding a source of infinite renewable energy for the world (which is all a front for his real plans, killing god). key characters for this era are Erik Sicamore, leader of FIP industries, broken man, trans, Peter, tamed serial killer, Leenard and Sasha, scientists, lost in time, lost in space

with this quick introduction you should be ready to parse whatever the more indepth dives i might make some day on each era in the oncoming posts.

welcome to F.I.P. Industries

[moaccyrk]

I'll be honest, I have very few memories of Minerva Mink, I drew her mostly because I was watching a video about her that actually explained why I don't remember her (beyond her being used as one of the stock image reactions for Stephanie Sterling's videos about the most recent videogame industry capitalist bullshit), she only appeared in two episodes (and made cameos on other character segments).

But then, I'm pretty sure the last time I watched animaniacs I was at an one digit of age, so maybe that why I barely remember her instead.

Anyway, the video made me think "oh, she makes some fun faces" and I felt like drawing her then, and then colorized the drawing today.

[chaifootsteps]

so Lily Orchard made a video about Hazbin Hotel and it's kind of odd, tbh?

her coverage of the working / pay conditions basically boils down to 'animators just need to unionize' (seriously, she spends barely any time on it at all), which like, unionization would definitely help but it doesn't let Viv/Spindle off the hook for poor management in the meantime, & it's baffling to me that she implies otherwise. If Lacakdaisy and (as far as we know) other indie productions like Far-Fetched can behave professionally, why can't Spindle? (also like, absolutely zip mention of how the pilot cast were treated. nada. nothing.)

the entire hope of the indie scene was that it could grind up less animators than big studios do, & sweeping all that under the carpet is so deeply unempathetic to me. so animators being subject to poor deadlines, favoritism, unprofessional behavior, having their work literally stolen from them or going uncredited and then getting blocked when they try to correct it is no big deal, apparently? (which strikes me as funny bcause Orchard's work is so obviously inspired by The Jimquisition and Stephanie Sterling's work constantly critiques the game industry for its poor working conditions even though they also don't have unions)

a lot of the vid has this undercurrent of 'Viv has a big hatedom just for being a bi woman of colour and hatedoms are always bad and parasocial' and like - yes, I agree Internet mobs are bad. Yes, I agree people can get into a parasocial hatred of someone just as easily as parasocially loving or defending them. Yes, I agree someone who isn't straight, white or male is more likely to attract haters. And yes, I agree a lot of the criticisms of Viv are stupid.

my problem with this framing is it lumps in all criticims of Viv with the stupid ones. Again, does Lily Orchard not care about people being underpaid, overworked or uncredited? Does she expect unionizing to solve all the immediate issues people have faced with Spindle in the meantime? Also like - what Viv has done herself to feed this toxic environment goes totally unacknowledged. Viv's bad faith framing of her critics and multiple defensive threads get no mention, & Lily's video implies that only the critics of Vivzie are toxic and doesn't mention at all how bad /much worse some of her supporters are. none of the bullying and silencing attitudes from her fans get brought up; it's not like it would be hard to find when researching critiques of the show to see how even big creators like Cartoonshi were harassed into never covering it again.

I find her attitude towards the writing of HH odd, too. I understand why she doesn't like cartoons dragging their heels and stretching things out (goodness knows HB has been wheel spinning basically its entire second season and Western Energy was a complete waste of an episode), but calling HH's pacing 'breakneck' is generous. There's no time to breathe and none of the nuance or quiet moments she claims to want more of in other shows.

If the show is also about Heaven&Hell being an unjust sorting system as Lily claims, why isn't that more clear in the writing? Why is the viewer simultaneously supposed to believe Hell is full of murders and etc. but also is just full of people being unjustly persecuted. Even Angel Dust, the one character we're supposed to believe has developed the most, was a gangster in his human life & presumably killed people along the way, none of which the show bothers to examine even though his sister made it to Heaven and he didn't. (she has said she has no interest in helluva boss, which is a shame because I would have been curious to see if she would have convienently ignored the bootlicking praise for Stolas and the misogyny in the writing just because she seems to feel Viv is getting unfairly criticized)

she has said she's making a follow up that's more about the voodou issue, which she does agree is a problem, but idk. I just find it odd to watch a video where someone is willing to be critical of how voodou is represented, but the additional problem of real harm being done to up and coming animators is treated as not worthy of discussion. I think representation should be critiqued as much as the next person, but aren't the actual materia conditions faced by people working on the show as important, if not more important, than that?

Lily talks a big game for someone who molested her sister.

[observing-guest]

The Chalkeaters have released a song on FNAF. A song that, along with being nicely animated and containing some famous internet personalities, also contains a nice message on accepting new things, and not being the old man yelling at clouds.

Remember, there was a time where video games and DND were considered "uncool" or things for nerds; now both have become entertainment icons, with the former now being a multibillion dollar (or pound sterling, if one is British) industry.

I may not have joined on the FNAF fandom when the first game released, but I am glad for those who have, and for those who are yet to come...