#and have generally ordered a bunch more things that I needed but with specific accessibility requirements

[dicketysplit]

friends, I have treated myself to a tefal food chopper

[traumasurvivors]

I am finally putting together a FAQ for easy access for people new to my blog since a lot of these posts I think are helpful are buried. Some of these links link to posts on my blog, but some link to my personal website. My website is not monetized in any way, so there should be no ads or anything intrusive.

About Coping

How can I make a self-care box?

Here's some instructions I wrote!

How can I make a safe space?

Here are some ideas!

What are some ways I can ground myself?

Here is an article with a bunch of examples, but there are so many more that aren't listed here!

I'm struggling with trauma around the holidays and/or a traumaversary.

Here's an article I wrote on trauma around the holidays!

Here's an article I wrote with advice for traumaversaries.

General Trauma FAQ

Do I have to forgive them in order to heal?

The short answer is "no." What everyone needs differs. While someone may need to forgive as a part of their healing journey, this isn't necessarily true for everyone. Here's a post I wrote about this.

What about myself? Should I forgive myself?

That's up to you. For some of us, healing is realizing we never needed forgiveness all along. And for others, it can mean that we can't get to a place where we feel we did nothing wrong, and therefore, forgiving ourselves is the best way to move forward. Here's an article I wrote on self-forgiveness.

What is trauma bonding?

This term is often used in a colloquial sense when two people who have suffered trauma bond together over their trauma. This article talks about the technical definition and is about how someone going through trauma forms an emotional bond with the one who is traumatizing or abusing them.

Was it bad enough?

The short answer is yes. But you can read a longer blog post for why here.

I'm struggling with anger after trauma.

That's a really valid way to feel. Here is some more info on it.

What is hypersexuality and/or sex repulsion?

See this article here.

What is Trauma Imposter Syndrome?

This is when a survivor invalidates themselves by saying something like “my trauma isn’t so bad, other people have it worse than me.” Here's my post on it.

How do I talk about my trauma?

First, remember that you do not have to talk about anything you don't want to. But if you do, here are some tips I have.

How do I listen to someone talk about their trauma?

The first thing I want you to remember, when someone tells you that they want to talk to you about their trauma, is that their needs do not negate your own needs. Here's my post on it.

Is Healing Linear?

No. Healing is a rollercoaster. Here's a post on it.

About Abuse and Specific Forms of Trauma

What are some different types of abuse?

Physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, cultural abuse. You can read more about these here.

What is Medical Trauma?

It is a vast term that includes many different things, mostly linked to major emotional distress that occurs as a result of hospital stays, illness, or treatment (so yes, therapy trauma is valid.) You can see my longer article here.

What is Parentification?

Parentification is a form of abuse where a child is forced to take on the role of a parent. You can see my longer article here.

Why do I love and/or miss my abuser?

Nothing is wrong with you if you love and/or miss your abuser. There are any number of reasons why you could be feeling this way, and I will share some examples with you. You can see my article on this here!

Other

Are they trying to manipulate me?

While there isn't a clear cut guide, some of the points in this article might help you in getting more information about one of your relationships.

What is consent?

Consent is a freely-given yes. See this post here.

How can I be prepared for sex?

See this post here.

I also wrote this article that covers the same points as the first post, but focuses from a trauma perspective. A lot of the info is the same.

Why is it important to validate my feelings?

See this post here.

I'm struggling with self-harm/What is self-harm?

Here's a post on this.

[black-salt-cage]

so remember when I made a post not too long ago stating that no requests pertaining to AI related content will be fulfilled? I'm gonna get much more specific with my feelings on this because a friend went down the rabbithole that is the pro-ai side of tumblr and I noticed people within it are following us. And YES, I know I said that I'm not super strict about my dni. but I find this to be a morally reprehensible stance to take so I'm gonna make my opinions on ai abundantly clear before I go and block these people. Unfortunately some of you have been longtime supporters of this blog, but them's the breaks ain't it?

AI is not, can not, and will never be a means to create true and genuine art. Art can only come from true and authentic humanity and that can come from ANY human, regardless of their perceived skill level

Defending AI as a tool for "disabled people" is in of itself ableist. Disabled individuals create art all the time through their own means and to act as if they cannot create true and genuine art BECAUSE of their disability is nothing more than ableism

I do not support ANY form of generative AI. Do not come at me with the "I bet you use chatgpt or character.ai" shit because I don't. I've been drawing and writing since I was a child and I do not need a machine to horribly emulate humanity for me

Comparing being anti-ai to ACTUAL FACISM is uhm. beyond tone deaf. which is about as nicely as I can put it. And to put it rudely and quite correctly: you're one stupid motherfucker and you're lucky I can't chuck a brick at your head to factory reset your sense of logic.

Generative AI is killing our planet. YES we should focus on the billionaires contributing to the pollution of the planet but that does not give you a free pass. You do not get to stab your neighbor because jason voorhees got to stab a whole bunch of people for several movies. You hiding behind this pathetic excuse is indicative of the fact that not only are you an asshole, but you're also a coward too

Your oc being made purely through ai looks bad and you should feel bad. pick up the damn pencil and stop whining

YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO EVERY SINGLE THING YOU WANT. AI steals from artists, steals from our planet, and is being used to rob artists of jobs in order to sustain their own livelihoods. If you refuse to learn how to develop the skill it takes to get the kind of art you want or refuse to pay an artist in order to get that art then you. do. not. deserve. it.

Saying that AI makes art accessible to poor people is WRONG and poor people are not entitled just because of their monetary situations. I am ALSO a poor artist and I learned to draw with dollar store markers, school pencils, and the ol' "stick and dirt on ground" method.

If you rely on AI you will never be an artist and you will never be a writer. If that makes you feel bad then good, you should feel bad for it

I will not budge on any of these opinions and this post is not an invitation for discussion. This is me stating my mind and telling you that if you have a problem with me after this then maybe you should reconsider following this blog.

AI bros can eat shit and cry about having tiny genitals

Apologies for this being a very unusual post for this blog but I couldn't let that slide after realizing that some of these people followed this acc. I'm not intending for this to be reblogged but go crazy if you want. Just know I ain't gonna fight with yappers on this, I'll just block.

[shadowmaat]

The Jedi Order: a different view

From what I can tell the overwhelming majority of fannish content regarding the Jedi, their Order, and their Temple, relies solely on content from the now-discontinued Legends.

I understand the urge since it gives fans a veritable feast of trauma and whump for Obi-Wan and can help underscore the belief that Anakin was a misunderstood, maligned pariah who was never good enough for anyone in the Order.

However. It does get a little... tiresome after a while. Oh, people do some incredible and cool things to try and "fix" the Order, but they still start with the belief that the Order needs fixing. I wanted to ignore all that and start fresh.

Right! So! I'll focus on the Jedi on Coruscant, since they're the most relevant to the picture. I'll also start with the Temple itself, since it IS where everyone lives.

THE TEMPLE

The Temple was founded millennia ago and has been building on ever since in an effort to keep up with the growth of the city around them. I'd be tempted to base that at ground level, or the nearest equivalent. Given how high up Coruscant has now become, that implies layers upon layers upon layers, and of course they aren't going to add one level at a time, it'll be multiples.

I would absolutely love to see some archaeology-focused stuff. Jedi explorers delving deeper and deeper into the Temple's depths, discovering lost and forgotten histories, artifacts, art, books, etc. And also notes from previous Jedi archaeologists who also delved down.

With that in mind I've decided that the "Room of a Thousand Fountains" is a vast misnomer. The Temple Gardens extend downward, encompassing previous Gardens and lovingly maintained not only by the Agricorp (who aren't limited to just crops), but also bunches of Jedi, outside gardeners, and of course specialists for the different regions/biomes. There are plants in the Temple that have gone extinct everywhere else in the universe (credit to RoosjeM's Temporary Temple Guards for making me think of this possibility).

The point is, the Gardens are ENORMOUS. There are fixes and workarounds for the issues of sunlight, and I imagine there's a water reclamation/sanitation/whatever system in place to make sure everything (and everyone) stays as hydrated as necessary. I betcha there are secret depths to the Archives, too. Maybe museums full of ancient starships that regrettably had to be walled up whenever the surrounding city got too tall.

Jedi come from nearly every sapient species imaginable, and some of them have specific environmental needs. I know I've seen plenty of fics where Plo Koon's quarters are specially sealed so he can breathe his homeworld's atmosphere and not need to worry about goggles and an anti-ox mask. I think it'd be more interesting if there were entire sections dedicated to (or easily converted to) different atmospheres. This is easier and a lot more convenient when, say, there are multiples of a species in the Temple. Sure, individual room conversions can be done, too, but having a whole mini "neighborhood" of your fellow [species] can be nice as well. Walk freely. Chat with neighbors unencumbered. Enjoy meals together. Communal stuff like that.

I also love the idea of water-filled corridors for the aquatic types. Like that one comic panel that showed naked Kit Fisto happily swimming by on his way to somewhere else. Maybe an underwater training salle so the aquatics can learn how to fight/use their sabers in those conditions.

Dining areas would also be spread throughout the Temple, with some being "generic" fare to feed a wide variety of the most common species and others having a more specific focus, both in terms of species and cuisine types. Open-access kitchen areas for those who want to cook their own food, but not in their own kitchen (MUCH better ventilation in the public spaces, for starters). Also vending machines and automats for those on the go. (This shows up in K_R_Closson's All the Roads We Walk Are Winding and was goddamn genius.)

THE JEDI

In my version of things, the Jedi are much more considerate than fandom generally depicts.

A Jedi can never "age out." While allowances can be made if someone with basic control skills wants to leave, or if they want to find their own path when they reach their species level of majority, no one is ever forced onto the streets or "dumped" into a place not of their own choosing.

When an Initiate enters the Temple the biggest themes they are taught are "Community" and "Choice." Community means that they will always have a home in the Temple, no matter what. They can leave and come back if they choose. There are no legitimate mistakes that can get you thrown out. Failing a class, or multiple classes, doesn't mean you don't belong, it means that you need a more tailored learning experience to help you reach your goals.

Starting at an early age, crèche clans are taken on a "tour" of the various service branches; each one maintains a presence within the Temple itself, not only to maintain connections with the Jedi as a whole, but also to make communicating their needs (to the Jedi, to the Senate, to various interests) easier. And there is always at least one person available to chat about what it is their branch does. I did a whole separate post exploring how varied the Service Corps could be.

As the initiates grow older, they're encouraged to do a work/study thing that matches with their interests and gives them a better taste for what a particular field is like. This can, and usually is, done many times so an Initiate can find the best fit. And if they can't find a good fit, that's fine, too; there's no time limit on choosing a career. In fact it isn't uncommon for a Jedi to switch paths, either within an individual branch (Consular to Sentinel) or an entirely different discipline (Seeker in ExplorCorp to Crèche Master in the Educorp).

The point is, there are always choices available. It isn't shameful to not be a Knight. In fact it's expected that most will choose paths that don't involve a lot of political juggling and aggressive negotiations (although politics do creep into every field).

The whole mess with the Jedi being beholden to the Galactic Senate is a bucket of eels I'm not willing to handle at the moment, but I figure this is a good start to pinning down my ideas and I may venture back if I think of anything else.

[communistkenobi]

what are some of your favorite nonfiction podcasts?

the big one I recommend is just king things - two marxist academics go through the books of Stephen King in publication order. extremely funny and insightful podcast, very accessible (like this is not a theory podcast or anything, it’s very laid back and casual), and I really appreciate their approach to literary criticism.

game studies study buddies is by the same hosts as just king things but this is a theory podcast. Each episode they go over and discuss a book from the field of game studies (ie the academic study of games). I very much recommend you listen to this if you want to like passively absorb critical/leftist theory. The hosts are academics, one of which teaches about games regularly as a professor, so it kind of feels like someone is teaching you about a text. I find it fairly accessible, I learn a lot about games, and as I said they very frequently structure their discussions with left wing theory. I find them very insightful!

blowback is very good, it’s about the imperial history of the United States. a history/journalist type podcast. this can get extremely heavy and difficult to listen to given the subject matter so I would not binge this (I usually listen to it when I’m doing a physical activity) but it’s a really good source of historical information and has helped me develop my political understanding of modern western imperial history. each season covers a different event: S1 is the invasion of Iraq, S2 is the Cuban Revolution, S3 is the Korean War, S4 is the invasion of Afghanistan

ALAB (all lawyers are bad) is good with some caveats. It’s a podcast by a bunch of lawyers who spend a lot of time on twitter discussing how horrible lawyers are, usually either focusing on specific high-profile lawyers (Kavanaugh, Dershowitz), specific american legal regimes (anti-BDS legislation, sanction law, etc), or specific trends in the legal system that causes structural problems (eg lifetime judgeship appointments with no mandatory retirement age). They also sometimes do random funny lawsuits or cover legal responses to events like Jan 6th. A mixed bag in terms of focus but mostly it’s hating on American law and the legal system. This is a critical recommendation because it’s a bunch of lawyers dudes riffing and some of their analysis can be stupid/bad, they say stupid shit that comes off as “anti identity politics” at times, etc. I’m pulling from memory because it’s been a while since I listened to them so I’m sorry if this is overly vague/general. The best way to describe it is chapo-adjacent if that means anything to you lol

and finally the podcast knowledge fight. this is a podcast dedicated to covering and debunking Alex Jones. in all honesty I don’t find this podcast super valuable in terms of analysis, like they are only really focused on debunking the claims Jones makes and explaining why they’re factually wrong. Which like that’s a good thing to do, I’m not saying its bad, but I don’t really need to be convinced Jones is lying about everything lol so I don’t personally find it super useful/insightful. If you have to interact with Alex Jones fans regularly (like family members) then maybe that will be more valuable for you! Totally depends. however the reason I bring them up is because I DO recommend the series of episodes they have titled formulaic objections - in this series they go through all the deposition material from the sandy hook lawsuit against Alex Jones (the one that cost him a billion dollars in damages and court sanctions lol). They play clips of the depositions throughout these episodes, which are so fucking insane to listen to. Like listening to a bunch of employees of an insane fringe right wing media organisation being questioned by lawyers for hours on end is so entertaining lmao. This lawsuit is about the sandy hook school shooting so a warning about the subject matter, it can get dark at times, but on the whole it’s extremely fucking funny to listen to. And the hosts provide a lot of context for what’s going on in the lawsuit, talk about it, and also they debunk the shit Jones lies about in court that you may not know about, so I find that part of it really good.

[gothethite]

Tired of people going 'all goth fashion is super easy to diy and everyone should do that instead' because like... yes a lot of it is but some very much not. So some thoughts on how much I'd recommend diying various goth fashion stuff as someone who does a lot of it:

Simple jewellery is definitely much better to diy and particularly chains and stuff. I remember going to dangerfield one time and they had a chain with a bat ornament on in for 20 dollars 🤣 ... you can get a bunch of chain from the hardware store pretty cheaply and the exact same bat pendant on it I had got like 20 off etsy for 5 dollars. It usually doesn't take that long and extra tools e.g. pliers are helpful but not necessary - 10/10 absolutely recommend for all goths or other people interested in gothic fashion

Same thing goes for distressed clothing/fishnet shirts there are tons of tutorials for that kind of stuff, and it generally doesn't require that much time, experience or materials 10/10

Minor clothing modifications e.g. some tailoring, adding/removing parts, mending damaged old clothing, changing buttons - this is something that is really useful in everyday life, usually doesn't take that long and is very useful for turning normal clothing into more spooky stuff 9/10

Designs on clothes or patches: if you get some fabric paint, screen printing ink, bleach or even acrylic you can paint designs onto clothing pretty easily. Personally I like dilute screen printing ink as it gives the nicest surface, but it can be a bit of a pain to use as you have to do a lot of layers, and it doesn't colour the fabric intuitively in the way that fabric paint or acrylic do 8/10 - would recommend very strongly to anyone who enjoys art, and recommend trying at least once to people who don't enjoy art as much (you can always make stencils), but it does take a long time and you need some materials. Also, for patches particularly for small bands it can be better to order them from the band to support the artist, but also lots of bands don't have patches or merch or international shipping to some countries makes it not accessible

Embroidery: often looks really good and professional in a way that painted designs don't, takes absolutely ages. 7/10 - would recommend very highly for people who enjoy textile stuff and maybe trying a bit for everyone but yeah if you don't enjoy it it's a pain

Smaller articles of clothing: I've made some waistcoats and shirts and stuff which have been pretty fun and it's really good to be able to do specific designs you wouldn't be able to buy (e.g. my skeleton one) and get stuff to fit right. They were all hand sewn and took a pretty long time (however you can also do it while listening to online classes or whatever), + a bit of time to learn techniques and stuff. Definitely a cheaper than buying them 6.5/10 - do it if you enjoy textile art stuff but will probably be a really painful experience if you don't and you're hand sewing. Also useful if you've got sizing or dimensions that mean you just... can't buy stuff that'll fit which is how I got into sewing

More complex sewing: I've made 2 (well, finished one and 98% of the way through another) long spooky coats and one cape with really complicated edges and embroidery and stuff. Coat 1 was entirely by hand out of not great fabric and took absolutely ages but was definitely vastly cheaper than buying it from the store, and it fit well and everything. With the cape, I got repetitive strain injury in my thumb that still is a bit of a problem 3 years later! With the final coat it was mostly by machine and then touching some stuff up by hand e.g. edges of the lining, making the eyelets and stuff, but it still took ages. Also, something I never see people talking about with diy goth clothing is how hard it is to get the materials - there were only 3 black brocade fabrics available in my city - One was really bad quality and I tried to make a shirt out of it, but it kept falling apart. One was 150 dollars a meter. The one I ended up using was really nice and reasonably priced, but I got the last 2.5 meters of it so it almost wasn't an option. So when people talk about diying clothing being cheaper it can actually not be that much because a clothing business can get fabrics in bulk + unless your city is really big there are probably not many options, so there's also shipping costs if you then need to order fabric. Out of curiosity I compared how much the coat cost in terms of materials to the price of a similar looking coat off dracula clothing which is a pretty well known and apparently quality materials and ethically made goth fashion shop and it came out a bit cheaper but not massively so (not counting shipping...) so 3.5/10 - fun to do if you enjoy textile art as a hobby, not even vaguely a practical alternative to buying a coat

And then there's other stuff like more complicated jewellery making and leather work which idk much about

[doubleedgemode]

that post u made about A.B.A regarding her classic GG quotes is so interesting I had no idea she said that! I haven’t played the earlier games, would u happen to have screenshots of where she says that or where I might be able to see some of her classic/unused quotes ? I just like having that stuff on hand lol. Thank you!

Thanks to you, anon, for making me revisit the screenshots, and sure thing! I'm gonna link the page, keep in mind it's super meaty and covers a lot of characters so ctrl F search will be your best friend to find specific character/quotes :)

I found them in this big quote compilation in guiltygear.ru, click the sentence to go there. (Kudos to @/solradguy's big gg neo.cities archival efforts making me find the page)... BUT before anything, important DISCLAIMERS❗:

1. Some of the quotes in general can get kind of explicit or with double entendres so uh keep that in mind.

2. Something I just learnt after going to find you the translations, it's to keep in mind their author: See, this is better explained in the aforementioned ne.ocities archival, but a lot of the site's translations were made by someone who, without going too much into detail, is... a controversial member of the community, who is known for putting a good bunch of misconceptions and mistakes into their translations. (Also they have, in my opinion, unsavory and even problematic takes about the franchise. Don't try to argue with them, just block, per proper net etiquette) I don't know japanese so I don't know if this quote index suffers from that so in the end, we'll have to take all this quote info with a huge grain of salt.

Keeping all this in mind, this is already probably a wordier answer than you expected BUT since we are at it, I'll ramble about some A.B.A quotes (in no order) that I found interesting about the topic under the cut, if you want to read that.

First and third quotes in this picture are pretty self explanatory about this part of her character. The vs Faust intro... Man, that looks straight out of her strive song. Dunno if they pulled inspiration from that, but it seems even in the classic days they had a pretty clear idea of part of A.B.A's story being existing and thriving in her own unique way.. Which makes me kind of emotional for some reason ;_;

These were NOT unused as far as I can tell, but obviously do correct me if wrong!

I find it fascinating how much of clear glimpses these are are into her law obsession (more on that specific one later) and believing herself to be a high class person and looking above "lower classes" shoulders.

Some of these aren't exclusively about the aforementioned topics but they mention her cooking god knows what creatures (like in that one infamous xxac ending) and just.. being a scared, pathetic individual at heart. Sigh.

There are probably more examples of all this but this post needs to end sometime today.😭 So, returning to her law thing being an obsession in capital letters, look at her ingame overdrives:

But before that, the elephant in the room: People's observations of her instakill looking pretty taxing to her to perform and even making a berserk Paracelsus look like even he thinks this goes too far are not far from the truth. "I might not recover this time... Dying!!!" What else can I say, that's just sad.. and very interesting lorewise about the toll of this kind of summonings. Yeah, people noticed that in strive, she can summon the same exact door as in her insta with no struggle (or at least not the same level for sure) indicates her power or skill have improved which is so so fascinating.. Anyways. Back to the law thing. We've always had a huge sign under our noses: Her saying Evidence in her overdrives. While sure it can be evidence in a more general meaning, like proving facts or something, it does call to LEGAL evidence, too

...Maybe that was super obvious for everybodh but I'm afraid to admit I didn't connect the dots til now haha 😅

I cannot access my xxacp copy right now to see if her saying shouko during her overdrives is correct, but were we to take this as truth and also trust a japanese language study site as solid because. Again I have zero knowledge of japanese... According to Nihongoclassroom..

It can be used in a legal setting.

And with this we can neatly wrap this up... Tdlr I guess she's living up to her creator being a mansion owner (which isn't precisely cheap) and it gets so interesting and double edged (HAH) if you believe her classic games was as self aware while doing this and fooling herself as strive A.B.A is.

AND she has or had a HUGE interest in law (and if u allow me to reach mayyybe morality too?). While probably not as core to her as her key thing, she sure has told the audience almost as much as it.

[maya-chirps]

[ID: a screenshot of a reblog by @/fleurtygurl. It reads: "Omg instant follow! I need more Philippines facts in my life!!! 😭😭😭

If you have any facts about filipino myths? That would be amazing. But also I will literally eat up everything you post!

I'm in desperate need of reconnecting with my roots, but I've been so busy that I haven't had any time to do any extensive research...."

/End ID]

@fleurtygurl Decided to make a whole post based on this because I loooove talking about Filipino mythology and researching more about different mythologies within the country and I also hadn't gone around to looking through the things I want to learn about.

Filipino mythology is a pretty huge umbrella term considering that there are hundreds of cultures in the archipelago that have different beliefs, practices, and traditions and especially before the Spanish colonial period. I won't get too deep into it, but basically if you want to learn about some grander pantheon or some general overarching compendium of beliefs that all precolonial Filipinos believe in, you won't be getting that sine historically, Filipinos were not a unified people, but a bunch of different countries and communities that were placed under one governing body for easy management for the Spanish crown.

With so many Filipino cultures and, by extension, mythologies, the best way with trying to reconnect with your heritage, it might be best to figure out which ethnic group you may have connections too and start researching from there. In my case, for example, I would look up both Tagalog mythology, Bikolano mythology, and Ilokano mythology in order to get a good grasp of the mythology of my roots since I'm mixed Tagalog, Bikolano, and Ilokano, and those three have widely different beliefs and especially with folk religion.

I guess the main issue with this is a lot of sources related to Filipino myths are often difficult to find, are unreliable, or plainly just non-existent. Lots of books are often out of circulation and print, or if they are still in print, they are often only sold by specific retailers and often cost a lot of money. Research papers are locked behind a paywall or are only available through specific e-libraries you can only access if you have an affiliation with a university. Online articles may be unreliable and source places that are hard to fact check. Blogs, honestly including mine to be frank, may parrot wrong information from other websites and articles, with their best feature being the possibility that they may have come from oral sources but those are also very few.

Honestly, I was about to go on a long tangent about discussing at least the Tagalog pantheon and mythology because it had a lot of sources I've seen online, but after hours of research, I've found out that there was also a lot of unreliable sources in terms of information about that so I've decided against rambling on further about it for now.

(I am still going to write about my findings on the Tagalog pantheon later but after what I've found out, I might take some time to look through a lot more primary sources which means colonial era texts and harder to find archived works.)

I will say that a good way to connect with more general Filipino folklore outside of mythology itself is probably consuming media that explores folklore and traditional beliefs. I recommend Trese, a Filipino comic turned series on Netflix if you want to see Filipino cryptids being used in a modern-day story made by Filipinos. There are also other comics that focus on Filipino mythology like The Mythology Class and its sequel The Children of Bathala by Arnold Arre.

There's also series and movies that take inspiration from Filipino folklore and mythology with Dayo: Sa Mundo ng Elementalya (English name Niko: The Journey to Magika) as my go-to suggestion. I had also heard good reviews for Amaya, a series created by GMA 7, but honestly I don't think the series clicked with me.

[ashwin-the-artless]

Cities

Here's a post that strongly intersects with @your-tutor-abacus' blog, but I think I'll write about generics and let it reference this post when it goes to write about specifics.

The cities on the Sunspot (`etekeyerrinwuf) are build very differently than most cities on Earth (or, at least U.S. cities) and there are good reasons for this.

We all tend to take for granted what we've grown up with, so when we write about living and doing things in the cities where we've grown up, we'll tend to reference metropolitan civil structures without explaining them. Unless the story has a moment that specifically deals with why those structures exist, then we might get introspective an analyze them.

But, when you gone from one culture to an alien one, it absolutely prompts analysis and you can find yourself obsessed with it for a while, so I'm claiming this subject.

What are Sunspot cities like?

Unlike Earth cities, which have mostly grown up naturally around various human settlements that gathered around important resources, Sunspot cities were designed from the the ground up deliberately.

Some Earth cities were created in similar ways, especially the colonial ones. A country will pick a spot where it wants a city and hire a bunch of professionals (or politicians) to socially engineer the city to meet some sort of national ideal and to practice social engineering in the process.

There are still some real fundamental differences between that and what happened when the Sunspot was built.

Unlike any place on Earth, or the Earth itself, the Sunspot is a constructed world, built literally from the ground up (or inward) to be a safe place for its inhabitants to exist with sufficient resources for everyone.

It's a spaceship, not a planet, even though it's big enough to have multiple cities in it, and a whole ecosystem of plants and animals. And it had to be designed to be indefinitely sustainable.

Part of that was, in contrast to its predecessor ship, was making sure that every living thing on the ship (including every person) had equal access to resources in order to minimize conflict.

So, wherever you might live on the Sunspot, ports in the floor and/or ceiling deliver everything you could possibly need to thrive there.

You, as a living being with a biological vessel, get an allotment of ship resources, and it's probably more than you'll ever use, because the population is kept low enough to do that (which is a dire concern on a generational starship, but a false one on Earth, really).

This means that neighborhoods, communities, and cities are not built around your typical sets of resources. In fact, Belowdecks, they aren't built around any resources.

Abovedecks, in the Garden, the primary resource considered is psychological. Each city is built in an area of the Garden where the environment may best fit the psychological needs of a predicted portion of the population.

So, there are cities in the plains, the mountains, the forests, the shorelines, near rivers, and under the water to create a wide range of possible living conditions and psychological amenities.

But, besides that, the organization of neighborhoods and specialized buildings is totally different than Earthlings may be used to.

Because, the one resource that the ship systems cannot control, just by virtue of the two Living Rights, are people. Community.

But community can be encouraged and accommodated.

So, all quarters and structures Belowdecks are modular and reconfigurable. Designed so that wall can be constructed or removed as needed. Hallways are left permanently in their original locations to make navigation easy and accessible to all, but between the hallways people can do just about anything.

But, by default, the Founding Crew set this up with sets of personal quarters arranged to surround communal gathering spaces. And those communal gathering spaces have been used for libraries, audiences, galleries, warehouses, kitchens/cafeterias, and Artistry collectives of all types. And the resulting structure overall resembles the arrangement of cells in living tissue, with the community spaces serving as the cytoplasm and organelles contained by the cell walls of the living quarters. Each cell developing into a specialized purpose according to its inhabitants whims and agreements.

And then, the Abovedecks cities where designed in a similar way, except that the potential cells were originally simply foundations for buildings, and they were placed spaced out enough so that their development would have minimal impact on the environment around them.

It's been over a hundred and thirty millennia since then, and the cities and communities have evolved a lot. But the basic structure and pressures (or lack of pressures) from resources remain. And certain collectives or types of Artistry have gathered or dispersed in each city over time and given them their respective characters.

Some cities, like Gopra Pyle, have a huge central collective that unifies all the smaller collectives around it, and have developed sort of a singular municipal Art project that everyone's proud of that has spanned generations of contribution.

Others, like Frra, are more diverse, sometimes homogeneous and sometimes divided, with four major collectives to countless collectives more evenly distributed throughout their perimeter.

So, like, in most cities on the Sunspot, you're not going to find anything like a commercial district or industrial site or set of warehouses. You might find an audience with surrounding libraries that's frequently utilized by the local government, and that might look like a governmental district in an Earth city. But the civic pride that is displayed by that area by its architecture and activities is going to be unusual to Earth sensibilities, and likely a lot more fluid and less focused.

With the Network, the resource tubes, and tram system, almost everything aboard the Sunspot is decentralized. And it shows.

If anything in a city serves as a landmark or gets your attention, it's usually a communal work of art commemorating a past even, serving as a meeting place that you too can use, or just sitting there trying to be beautiful.

[a-stubborn-little-fish]

This is gonna sound kind of insane but if any of you have any technology in your workplace or home that is working sub-optimally get it fixed or replaced within the next four months just in case. I’ll explain a little.

So in order to make the silicone needed in processors they have to refine it from silicone dioxide also known as silica to get just the silicone out. Silicone dioxide is most abundant in a mineral called quartz. They’re basically one and the same except quartz is a rock and like most rocks it usually isn’t just made of one thing. Most quartz has inclusions or other contaminants in it from other minerals. If you grind up the average kind of quartz you’re not gonna get pure silica you’re gonna get some other stuff mixed in which makes it insanely difficult to get just the silicone out. Spruce Pine is special because it is the only source of the purest quartz ever found. It has almost no contaminants. There is no other known site on earth with quartz this pure. Having to source less pure quartz from other mines will take a long ass time and then an even longer ass time to refine it thoroughly enough to get just the silicone. Basically if our government doesn’t stop sending money to Israel for five seconds and go fix up this tiny Appalachian backwater quartz mine, the entire world is going to slow wayyyyyyyyy down.

That means new processors will become scarce. And considering the strain that cryptocurrency and now generative AI is putting on our electrical grids, we’re needing even more processors than usual.

So basically if we can’t get this mine fixed the world’s infrastructure is gonna collapse just a teeny bit and a lot of people are gonna lose access to water and electricity because a bunch of wealthy idiots are using it all for their fake money and stolen artwork.

Now you may be thinking that it’s not as big a deal as it sounds. Semi conductors aren’t in everything. Mostly just communication devices.

You’re wrong. This is a big fucking deal and we should all be terrified. Semiconductors are used in pretty much every communication device. This includes satellites not just your phones.

But the loss or slowing of communication isn’t the only scary thing.

This is an opportunity for permanent censorship of vulnerable communities

Right now the only reason we know what’s going on in the world is because we can all talk to each other instantly through this little rock in my hand. That plus satellites. If semi conductors become scarce the priority is going to be for governments and specifically militaries. If we can’t bomb children with drones connected to satellites then Uncle Sam will be very sad and we can’t have that now can we? Basically, the people most vulnerable to censorship will lose their ability to communicate because they will not have access to communication devices. That’s the long term consequence.

Now if the poor people can’t speak on the world stage then naturally some of the more privileged who will still have access to devices will become the voice for the voiceless. This is where the big scary future doom comes in.

The recent targeted attacks in Lebanon were all on communication devices. Pagers, phones, walkie talkies, and even car radios. Basically anything that had a processor. And we all know that the Middle East is where the West likes to test their new war crime toys. Now, if some of the privileged start speaking out, the wealthy elites and the governments of the world will have the capability to permanently silence those individuals.

I know I’m doomsday preaching again. I know I sound like a raving lunatic. I know I’m describing a dystopia that would make a very successful book trilogy and potentially a franchise, but I have yet to be wrong.

I may not be an expert on all this, I may be just a small voice on a very big platform, but I will scream doom from the mountain tops if that’s what it takes to save even one person. At the very least I’ll be able to say that I tried.

My final message is this; prep for the worst, hope for the best.

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 - Fuck Gortash

Mild spoilers:

I took a little break from playing after binging a whole bunch, which I think is good - it’s not as good to do everything in a rush. Need time to savour it. I’m almost done now and I have to make these last moments count. I have very little left to do now - just Gortash, then House of Hope, and then the final battle, and that’s it! That’s all. I’ve been doing this run for six months now and I am almost all done.

Unpopular opinion: I think it’s good Larian is not making sequels or DLCs for bg3. They did start work on something, realized they weren’t passionate about it, and called it off. They’re going to move onto something else. How fucking amazing is that. These days the idea of sequels in general fills me with nothing but dread. IPs are just a crash grab waiting to be milked by a room of higher ups requesting the most bland and generic stories that will appeal to the broadest audience possible and cost the least to produce in order to maximize profits. I know that’s the movie situation anyways - I don’t know as much about how games work. I still think it’s fabulous that Larian realized they weren’t able to bring the amount of passion that they felt they should, and they called off the work.

I don’t really want to see more content with the characters that we have. I think their stories are interesting and self-contained and complete. I think it makes sense to end it where it ends. And I mean… it IS a fun game but I’m not so invested in the setting that I’m clamoring for more games set in this specific world. So even on that front, I feel like I don’t need more.

Plus maybe it’s my age, but I’m not used to the concept of game updates in general. I don’t expect them. When I was little, you bought a complete game and it was finished and that was what you got, period. The game is the game. It’s complete and it’s good. It’s always there for you to play again, whenever you want it. You can play the different origin plots, you can make different characters, you can make different choices and see what happens, and it’s always there for you. The fact that there won’t be any large additional DLCs doesn’t take this away from you?

So I don’t know. I feel like this is where fanworks step in now. All those little details you want to see, all those little blanks filled in, all those little extra adventures: that’s what fanworks are for. Let’s let Larian work on their next big project now.

Ok anyways, enough of that. Gortash. First you have to get back into the fortress, and all the guards attack on sight. Myeh. After all these very difficult battles, I guess it was nice to have something less hard, but it’s also no fun to feel like you’re shooting fish in a barrel. I did Iron Throne -> Foundry -> then Gortash, I wonder how things change up if you do things in a different order. After killing all the aggrod Fist in the fortress, it was neat to be able to and read all the books I couldn’t access before. Looks like things have gone significantly downhill in Baldur’s Gate recently.

As for the actual Gortash fight: Gortash gets pretty annoying pretty quickly so I cast Otto’s dance on him to keep him boogying. I love casting control spells on this dipshit that’s all about “Blah blah blah, Bane, Control, Bane, Control” well eat this, asshole. I’m a bit obsessive about collecting all the books and notes in the game to read all the lore, so I was pretty unhappy about everything getting destroyed by the constant barrage of grenades. I reloaded and focused on taking out the three grenade launchers at the beginning of the fight and we had smooth sailing. I’m glad I went through the trouble - Gortash has a journal (well, a rough draft of a stupid vain memoir) that details a bit more the plan that I (durge) was a part of, and where exactly in the timeline I was removed from that plan.

Then poor Karlach. So I do really like Neil Newbon, he did fabulous work, his big scene with Cazador was very cathartic and emotional. I think for those of us who have been badly hurt by other people, it’s not an uncommon fantasy to imagine yourself getting the same kind of brutal revenge. His scene made my oldest daughter tear up when she got to it. Me, I’m not sure, maybe I had seen too many clips online beforehand, maybe it was that it was all over so fast, I mean I definitely liked the scene a lot, and kudos to Neil and all the complicated emotions there, but the eyes stayed dry.

Karlach however - that one did make me cry. It really hit hard for me when she was talking about how unsatisfying it was. Now he’s dead but what good did that do, he’s not any more sorry about what he did. She’ll never get that closure. They took her heart and she won’t ever get it back. It’s been almost nine years now, I think? since I left my abusive husband, and that’s still something that eats me up. You can’t ever get that time back. You won’t get an apology for what happened to you, not from them, not from anyone, not from the universe in general. They probably won’t ever even ever recognize that what they did was wrong. And that’s…I don’t know. For me personally, that’s been so difficult to deal with, and to hear Karlach react the same, that hit hard. I had to pause for a moment.

Then she starts talking about her looming death. This whole time she’s been so positive, focusing on what she can do here and now, it’s admirable! But now it all catches up to her at once and she’s so, so angry. I cried. First time the game made me cry.

Fun fact - I actually legit was going to do Duke Wyll. I don’t care if the game is trying to tell me that’s the bad choice, I do honestly believe that’s a good future for Wyll, and it’s great for the city. But Karlach made me so sad here, her grief and anger at having so little time, and I reloaded back and changed my decision.

Now Karlach’s back to focusing on enjoying the moment, and asking if I will be there when she dies. Man.

Back in Baldur’s Gate, with the three netherstones in my possession, the elder brain is lashing out, and immediately, three citizens are turned into mindflayers. These mindflayers had (rather pretty) silvery white blood! Is this a new patch? Do all mindflayers have that now? I’ve killed a few now and I definitely did not see silver white blood before.

Last errand before I head down to the sewer for the final big fight: stealing my contract back from Raphael. At the start of act 3 my tav felt like his soul was disposable, but I guess all the events have left him with a desire to fight for it. Can’t wait, can’t wait!

[weepingpussywillowtree]

Below the read more is a long long rant about people being judgemental about my choice to be sober and also on how judgemental people can be about what is fun to different people. References to family alcoholism/drug addiction contained herein.

Drives me nuts when people pretend like people who don't drink are the judgemental ones when there is a massive stigma around being sober and I literally constantly get called boring for it. Yes, I have tried drinking. Yes, I have tried partying. Yes, I've tried the flashing lights and loud music. I may have not tried all of these things exactly in conjunction, but I have tried parts of them together.

But people just assume I'm a prude or boring or that I'm the one judging them. Like, it's just not for me. That's all. Then they ask a bunch of invasive questions about why you're sober, and it's like no... I don't want to talk about my family trauma and the fact that like many autistic people, when I have access to alcohol I use it to cope with working full time and constantly masking. It reminds me of this friend I had in college who would have people straight up yell at him when he was offered chocolate and he'd politely decline saying that he's not fond of chocolate. People always took it so personally, like it said something about their taste that he just didn't like chocolate. I'm not against alcohol and drugs, almost all of my friends drink and do one kind of drug or another, but when people find out that I made a choice that's the best for me specifically they always act like I'm personally taking a shit on their bed. I'm not against drugs, my cousin is literally moving across the country to a state where she can start legally practicing psychotherapy with psychedelics and I think that's cool and should be legal everywhere! I'm literally addicted to caffeine! I do not care! I'm not sheltered either, I literally grew up with a bunch of alcoholics and opiate addicts, and I still don't think drugs and alcohol are evil.

It hit me the other day how much people tie up being fun with alcohol and drugs when I went to the city for a weekend with my partner. We went to trendy restaurants, went to the aquarium, went to the fine arts museum, travelled all around the city looking at shit, did an escape room, and then stayed up late playing board games and eating snacks at a board game cafe.

We were staying with my aunt, who is a recovering alcoholic, like most of my family. On the second day, after hearing our schedule for the day, she was like "wow you guys are really packing in the fun, huh?". And I realized that's the first time in my entire life I've been called fun. The next day, she talked about how liberating it is to be over 50 now, because she's part of an over 50 social group, and they literally never ask questions about her not drinking. She orders a seltzer water and no one even questions it, whereas when she was younger, it was just constant peer pressure and judgement. I'm just so sick of this idea in general that there's a life script you should follow, that people should do this or that when they're young and this or that when they're old. My aunt is an extroverted person. Imagine how her life might have been better if she'd been able to find other outgoing, non-judgemental friends earlier in life. How revolutionary that might have been for her.

Idk, everyone just needs to be nicer and stop assuming that they know what fun means for everyone and that they're more liberated because they do a substance you've chosen not to. Also, while there is value in trying things that you might not like, I see no need to bang my head against the wall trying every party-like experience when I've never liked one before just so I can justify myself to pedantic assholes who are like 'well, have you tried this specifically??'.

[amorficzna]

user experience research in (large) games

Ok I saw user testing catching strays in the tags of another post so I figured, since I've worked as a user experience researcher in larger game studios that I'd give a bit more context on what we actually do - since we seem to catch strays both from random people and from the studios themselves.

1. UXR does not inherently change ideas or parts of a game.

That is not our job. We're not designers! There is, in fact, huge debate about whether UXR should be giving designers any suggestions at all because we're not as close to the project as they are. But I've found it really comes down to the UXR's familiarity with the project as well as their relationship with the development team on if they will take or want suggestions to begin with. Many times, we're showing off results to them where players are finding snags in their play experience, and it's really up to them to find better solutions for how to make the experience smoother.

Additionally, UXR is a mediator between the game development team and players. It's important to capture player experience and insights, but it is also very important to stay in line with the game's vision. You have a weird and fucked up game? UXR is not meant to bring any feedback about how the game is too weird or fucked up to the game team. Because that aligns with the game's visions and goals.

2. UXR is there to make niche parts of the game approachable to all players.

Everyone always talks about making more gritty, edgy, or weird games. Which I 100% agree with. But the rub comes from if players can even access these parts of your game at all. Then you get a bunch of questions. Why can't players use this ability? Is it because it's not useful? Is it because they don't know they have it? Is it because they know they have it but they don't know when they can use or how to use it?

These are generally the kind of questions we're asking players as they work through a game. Without a lot of this work, a lot of this would go under the radar because, unsurprisingly, when you work on a game for a long time, you tend to forget that new players may not know to press U in order to access their character ability sheet, which may also not be properly explained in the tutorial, which may lead to them never being able to access it.

This is especially important for accessibility. Great, you chose a brand new random control scheme. Can you change that control scheme? If you can, can you adapt it enough to be accessible for all players that may need aids to play videogames? If yes, can they access the control options easily to even get to them in the first place?

3. UXR is not there to gather the opinions of players.

At least in my experience (and I'm talking about big studios here) UXR is not, in fact, there to capture the opinions of players and make sure characters are more likeable, etc. We can do that kind of research if the team specifically asks it of us, but generally, if it is not literally breaking the player's experience when they work through the game, it is not important enough for us to bring to the team because they have enough other shit to deal with.

If you're seeing that kind of reaction from collected data, either UXR is not filtering the results and thus production or leadership is looking at it going "yeah ok let's change that" putting the work on the developers/teams, or its from the consumer insights side of things who is looking at general user trends, user reactions, market reactions, etc.

So yes, while we look at trends in data, a lot of the time I was tasked to ask questions like "what was confusing for you" and then I would aggregate that to see where players were struggling with understanding a game.

If there are specific attributes of a game being tested, such as a new champion in Apex for example, then you'd probably want players experienced with the game coming in and testing it to make sure it 'feels right' and balanced, and that they especially don't have issues with it to make sure players can actually play around with all the cool, new, weird, fun stuff you wanted to put in the game in the first place.

There are other parts of UXR like expert reviews (ask me why I don't like them and think they're not useful!) but that's a whole nother pack of worms.

Anyway, that's a little rundown of how UXR can help with games. There's so many issues with it and politics within the industry - for example, if a UXR does a study and finds that players are really not having a good time with a game set to release soon, the development team is going to have consequences. So how high up can those results go? Additionally, if a study finds that players are doing well with a game, and it releases and it bombs, that leads to a whole other mess of shit. Which is why I hate strategic work tbh - it becomes so corporatized and more about future sales output and less about the game itself.

However, that is a cog in a much larger machine of issues within the games industry. And UXR itself is trying to get our work down to make games accessible to all.

[mrfancyfoot]

Fancy's complaining about medication and insurance

I take an immuno-suppressant (generic) that my insurance company has classified as a "specialty medication" with a bunch of hoops to jump through for them to cover it (last year when I started it, it had to get approved and they require a bs re-approval each year for a medication I need to live and will probably never come off of barring an amazing medsci break-through), plus they force me to go through their pharmacy fulfillment partner (which makes me feel like I'm paying them twice since they don't cover it %100), so I can't shop it around to other pharmacies and still get it covered by my insurance. Their fulfillment is such a PITA to deal with. They can never tell me the price upfront, I just get a mystery bill after that is usually in the same ballpark by +/-10$ (but it does keep going up; I started off last year paying much less for the same amount and it's not because of my deductible). I have to call them every month and sit through attempting to explain what I need to their damn bot for half an hour before inevitably being transferred to a human because their online site and texting never works for me to order my meds. They take weeks to "process" and ship my medication to me, so I'm in a constant cycle of calling them. I request "easy open" caps on my medication because I have trouble opening the "child-proof" ones they ship them in due to my condition, but I have to request that constantly.

And then I found out that Amazon carries it in their pharmacy. I still need the prescription but it is, I shit you not, 1/3 the price! Without my insurance covering it! I can order a 3-month supply for the same amount that it cost me for 1 month through my insurance. My doctor even said that it was easier to send them my Rx than to the prior pharmacy fulfiller. I already have to rely on Prime since I can't go out much and don't have many local options. I very much feel like they're undercutting medication prices the same way that they did to other things like books (I was previously on famotidine and my insurance wanted $75/mo while Amazon had a 3-month supply for $18), but the difference is so broad, that, as someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, it makes a massive difference.

I knew the exact price before paying. I put in the order for it and it was at my door in 2 days. There's an easy option on the page that lets me automatically select what kind of cap I want, so they all shipped with the caps unlocked. All of my info is easily accessible and I can find what I need to find. I could throw it on auto-order if I wanted.

I feel and sound like I'm shilling for gd Amazon (I don't want my health info going through them, ugh), but with the profits my insurance company makes (and they're one of the big 3), there is no reason for their process to be so fucking difficult, frustrating, and squeezing even more money out of me. They deny practically everything my doctors send them and make mistakes during the appeal process that are their fault, and drag out the process way longer than it has any right to be. I hope they fucking eat each other because that's the only way they'll be better.

CostPlus Drugs also carries this specific medication for about the same price as Amazon but is a bit harder to navigate (it reminds me more of my insurance's site, if I'm being honest). I have some reservations about it since I burn out quickly from juggling getting my meds from so many different places, but may give it a chance at some point in the future.

[lysandyyy]

Okay, so speaking of my Writing and Critical Inquiry class, I have this "Blog Post" project. So, today, we're gonna talk about how poverty affects the education system. I *really* liked this article that I found in my college's library on this subject, so if my post doesn't suffice your thirst for knowledge (which it shouldn't, you should always be thirsting for knowledge, but that's not my point. But please read this article if you have the time it's so good.) I will preface, however, that it was made like decades ago, so he refers to black people only as Negros and says the N slur once. So, y'know. be prepared.

He starts out the article with this quote I actually really liked from Pat Sexton's  "Education and Income: Inequalities of Opportunity in Our Public Schools," where he says, "There is an enormous book by a Mrs. Pat Sexton which indicates that a person is likely to get an education in proportion to how much money he has." I wholeheartedly agree with this because I grew up in Charleston, WV. This led to my parents being eager to move away because they were scared to send my sister to a middle school that was rife with drugs and violence, but they didn't have the money to send her anywhere else. This article is old as dirt, and it's very specific to its time, however, I believe that's why it's scary how accurate this is to the modern day. He speaks on how the main people who are hurt by not getting a proper education are Immigrants and African Americans. Specifically Irish Immigrants, which is my ancestry.

He speaks on what he sees in both his community and in the news across America, how we see underserved and underprivileged kids grow up to be "Criminals" and just generally not good people. He accredits this phenomenon to these kids not getting proper schooling and opportunities, causing them to not be able to work, causing them to have to turn to drugs and brothels. He also partially blames educators for this problem, which I disagree with because there are such nuances and different factors that go into teaching children. There's a bunch of red tape to sift through, and Admin is very strict on what we can teach and talk about with our students. However, I do agree that the education system needs A LOT of work. We need to teach our students things that will give them background on how to be a functioning member of society, but we also need to teach them life skills like taxes, public speaking, tolerance, and social skills.

Which brings me to the problem of America's "Education Debt." Education Debt, as paraphrased from the article "From the Achievement Gap to the Educational Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools," Educational Debt is what the American Education System accrued by giving rich, white men a "head start" on education. By implementing "Residential Schools" and by not letting black kids have access to the same schools as rich white kids, black, native, and immigrant children are less likely to succeed in schools because they are still trying to catch up both historically and economically to their more privileged peers.

All this to say, we need to find ways to make this "debt" shrink. I had to research this for my Teachers in Diverse Societies class, and my findings were that we simply learn and adapt to the environment we're in. The best way to help underprivileged kids is to give them the opportunities they need to be successful. Whether that's having better teachers in schools or districts moving tax money around so that all the schools get the same amount of funding so all kids can be equally as successful, or what. The old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child," but what are we doing as a village to help the children around us and not just our own children? All children deserve to have equal opportunities for success, so we as a society need to stop being selfish and help the kids who need us, not just kids who have the money to pay for that help.

[northwest-cryptid]

What the hell is Tumblr even?

Shoving aside my want to simply answer "a miserable little pile of secrets!" This has been on my mind for some time now. I feel like people are going to be in two camps here.

You might know exactly what I mean by this, you might even be wondering about this yourself.

Or you might be extremely confused as to what exactly I mean by this... So let me explain,

I've been on the internet for a good while now, and I'm a part of a good many websites as a result. Most smaller websites and forums within the web revival movement will talk about the centralization of the internet. Which, might be something you're unfamiliar with. Essentially the idea is that back in the day before Facebook or even MySpace we only really had forums and chat rooms. Social media wasn't even a concept outside of games that really just evolved from chat rooms. People grew tired of posting to their personal blogs, websites they ran themselves; because you'd never really get the social interaction you have these days. So they took to forums, but there you had to talk on threads, you couldn't easily just post about your day unless you made a thread or there was already an existing one. What if the forum was really specific? You couldn't just go posting whatever and expect everyone to vibe with it.

Eventually what we saw was the invention of social media in sites like MySpace, and with it a turning point for the internet as a whole. See at the end of the day advertisers and capitalists saw the internet as a resource for marketing, but there was nowhere on the net where you could safely throw up an ad and have it be seen by enough people to justify the price to put it there. Sure for things like MMOs advertising on gaming forums was fine, that's your target audience but for everyone trying to market a lawn mower or something... No dice.

But hey knock knock, who's there? It's social media! A large gathering of a bunch of people from all different backgrounds. Given easy access to profile customization without the need to learn HTML! Plus they voluntarily give you information, age, gender, interests; everything an advertiser would want in order to know what types of ads to throw at this site. Of course MySpace is a hit, but it wouldn't take long for people to realize it's not too welcoming to everyone. MySpace had a culture to it, if you didn't fit in then you didn't really get the social part of the social media. How do we fix this? By making Facebook of course! A MySpace for the nuclear family.

As Facebook choked the remaining life from MySpace's rotting corpse other sites wanted a piece of that whale fall, sites like Reddit, Twitter, and yes even Tumblr. Each giving something the others didn't. Facebook became more and more corporate requiring real names, pfps, and generally wanting everything listed there to be mundane real world stuff. Reddit tried to mimic old internet forums but lacked any of the personality and community that came with them. Twitter became the Facebook that's fun, with no requirement of verification and all that mundane real world stuff... And then there was Tumblr.

Now, what's interesting here is how Tumblr functions. If I ask you to describe the look of Tumblr what comes to mind? Is it the blue background, the single post infinite scroll website layout. Perhaps maybe it's all the buttons and additional pages and web rings and... What? Wait where did I lose you?

Oh, oh wait hold on... Have you not seen that side of Tumblr? Well of course you haven't, Tumblr doesn't want you to. Except if you know where to look it's all there, yes Tumblr does want to be the neo neocities, but it also wants to be Twitter... Maybe more like Twitter than neocities... Depends on who you ask.

See here's the thing, when you sign up for Tumblr it asks you about your interests, it tells you to follow people; it shows you the dashboard. You know what it doesn't show you? Your site.

Remember how Tumblr said it could give you a personal domain and everyone said "why would I want that?" It's because half this site functions like Twitter, where you'll never see or customize your blog more than a pfp and a header.

However the other half, well they're a lot more old fashioned. See Tumblr actually gives you a fully customizable blog site. Just like neocities, and geocities before it. Tumblr functions like a website, site. Only it does this in the background, in secret; unless of course you go about trying to customize your blog at which point it's all there. Custom layout options through scc and HTML as well as prefabs you can use if you don't want to bother. You can add additional pages, you can install widgets. I see some Tumblr pages where the creators posts don't even show up because they basically just hid all that on its own page you have to actively look for.

What I'm asking here is, what is Tumblr trying to be? Because it has essentially split it's userbase into what I call website creators, and social media bloggers. With only a very small amount of people properly balancing both aspects of this site.