#at that level even communication itself is nearly impossible.

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[cosmicdahlias]

Impromptu Research

MINORS DNI

After a day of fieldwork, you and your research partner and boyfriend, Ford Pines, are heading home through the forest when you encounter a creature. Ford proposes you help him in some improvised research.

warnings: monsterfucking, cucking, oral, masturbation, p in v, biting, creampie

so i got just a tiny bit creative on this one. i wanted a werewolf without the human part so i took inspiration from cynocephali. they’re technically humans with dog heads, but i altered them a bit to have a full coat of fur and a tail. essentially a werewolf, but different lol.

You and Ford made your way through the dark forest, a cold autumn wind blew through the trees. You two had been out collecting data from a small meteor impact, your bags full of both soil and meteorite samples.

You were Ford’s research assistant, nearly four decades younger than him, but more than that you were also his romantic partner. Sure, the age difference lent itself to its share of issues. Strangers asked if he was your father more times than you could count and he didn’t quite understand your generation’s humor, but you two made it work.

As you continued your trek home, Ford was in the middle of excitedly infodumping about meteors and asteroids.

“-and some meteorites have been found with the evidence of life! Water, hydrocarbons, and amino acids! There’s even a theory, though not widely accepted, that life on Earth originated from asteroids! Imagine if we-“

He went silent, hearing the sound of heavy panting behind him. You both turned to see an intimidatingly huge creature with the head of a wolf and a thick coat of fur as dark as midnight covering his entire body. His gaze was fixed on you, eyes glowing in the beam of your flashlight. His scarlet, knotted cock twitched, almost as if at the sight of you. Everything about this creature screamed werewolf.

“Y/n, stay close to me.” He whispered.

The creature approached you, coming in incredibly close and licking your neck with his long, wet tongue.

“Oh thank goodness! I thought we had a werewolf on our hands, but it appears what we have here is a cynoceph.” Ford sighed in relief.

“A what?” You asked.

“A cynoceph, they’re much more common to run into than a werewolf as they tend to live close by humans. They’re actually called cynocephali, but I just call them cynocephs to shorten things.”

“He looks like a werewolf to me. How can you tell the difference?” You whispered anxiously, his calm voice did little to alleviate your fear.

“Yes they can be hard to distinguish, but unlike werewolves, cynocephs lack a human form. They’re nonverbal as they do not possess human vocal cords, yet they perfectly understand speech and communicate through nods and gestures, they can even be fluent in sign if taught, they’re very intelligent on a level equal to us, and incredibly docile, but most interesting of all they-“

The cynoceph pressed his knotted cock against you.

“have an insatiable lust for humans. From the looks of it, this one has chosen you as his mate.”

You blushed, desire pooling between your thighs.

Ford chuckled. “You know, I think we have a rare opportunity here. I’ve always wanted to see how they mate with a human. If you’re willing, we could do a little impromptu research.”

He turned to the cynoceph.

“My friend, would you be interested in participating in this study?”

The wolfish creature nodded enthusiastically and Ford returned his attention to you.

“How about you, my dear?”

“I want to, but don’t know, look at the size of his cock.”

The cynoceph gave a pitiful whine, and looked at you with puppy-dog eyes.

“Come on, look at him. Don’t you want to know what it’s like to be stretched out, to be impossibly filled with cock? You’re the self-labeled ‘monsterfucker’ after all. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted? Just imagine what being knotted would feel like.” Ford coaxed.

He was right. You had an affinity for creatures most people would consider monsters. And of all the creatures you’ve read about or studied in person, werewolves always appealed to you the most, but they were rare and incredibly dangerous. A cynoceph would more than satisfy your fantasies and… there was no way you could resist that face.

“I’ll do it.”

The cynoceph wagged his tail.

“Good girl, now strip for him.”

You followed his instructions, the cynoceph watched you hungrily. You pulled off your top, unhooking your bra and sliding the straps off of your arms. You unbuttoned your jeans and slipped them down your legs and hooking your thumbs in your panties, letting them fall onto the pile of your discarded clothes. The cynoceph’s cock throbbed.

“Now get on all fours and present yourself to him.” Ford instructed.

You did as he said, getting on your hands and knees on the leaf littered ground. You expected to be rammed with cock, but instead felt his muzzle against your pussy, tongue lapping at your clit.

Ford chuckled. “Such a gentleman.”

“G- good boy.” You whimpered.

The cynoceph wagged his tail at your praise. Ford unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, stroking it.

“I’m aware that touching oneself while conducting research is a bit unorthodox, but I just can’t resist. Good god, watching you being pleasured by a creature like this is so arousing.”

Your moans echoed loudly through the forest. The cynoceph licked at you greedily. You felt your orgasm build, you pressed yourself against his tongue.

“Oh god, I- I’m gonna- hnnn.” You moaned.

“That’s it, cum on his tongue.”

You cried out as you felt a pressure within you explode, cumming against the cynoceph’s maw. He unfurled his tongue inside you, immediately eliciting a second orgasm.

“Ohhhhh jesus, he’s so good at this, fuuuuuuuck.” You panted.

The cynoceph removed his tongue. He angled his thick, maroon cock at your entrance and shoved himself inside, stopping at his knot. You moaned at the feeling of being torn in half.

“H- how come he didn’t knot me?” You whimpered.

“If he knots you now he’ll be stuck and won’t be able to fuck you, he’s saving that for when he breeds you.” Ford stated.

The cynoceph pumped you hard and fast, his hands gripping your hips, claws digging into your soft flesh.

“How does it feel?” Ford cooed, stroking his cock.

“Incredible.”

“That’s my girl. You’re taking him so well.”

“How about you, my good sir, do you find my partner as pleasurable as I do?”

The cynoceph nodded fervently, huffing and panting, his tongue hanging from his maw, saliva dripped onto your back. You moved yourself back on him and he whined in approval.

“Good girl, work yourself on his cock, make him feel good.”

The cynoceph worked you at a steady rhythm, you matched his pace against him.

“B- bite me, please.” You begged.

He leaned over and bit down on your shoulder, hard enough to leave bruise, but not enough to break the skin. You whimpered, tightening around him.

Ford increased the speed of his hand on his cock.

“Dear god, you look so perfect like this, taking his cock like a good girl.”

The cynoceph gritted his teeth and began to move himself at a blindingly fast pace, a strong indicator that the was close.

“Are you ready for him to knot you? He might just impregnate you with his pups. Do you want that, sweetheart?” Ford cooed.

“Uh- uh huh.” You whimpered.

“And you, do you wish to breed my partner?” He said, addressing the cynoceph.

He nodded eagerly and slammed the full length of his cock deep inside you, his knot stretching you overwhelmingly wide. You screamed loudly in a beautiful mixture of pleasure and pain. The cynoceph howled into the night, his cum filling you to the brim. Ford gave a loud moan as his cum spilled onto the forest floor.

You trembled and collapsed to the ground, exhausted. The motion caused the cynoceph to fall on top of you with a yelp, you winced as you felt his knot tug painfully at your insides.

“Now careful sweetheart, he can’t pull out just yet, he has to soften inside you. The role of the knot is to ensure that every drop of seed can serve its potential purpose, giving the mate the best chance at being impregnated. This is perfect though, it’ll give me time to properly study him and document our experiment.”

He pulled out his journal from his trench coat, he had recently started his fourth one. He clicked his pen and began sketching the cynoceph and you in the midst of breeding. You were definitely going to steal a picture of this entry to keep on your phone for… reasons. He finally finished the sketch and began writing.

“My dear y/n and I encountered one of the oft sighted cynocephali that reside in the forests of Gravity Falls! As stated in my previous entry about them, these poor creatures are far too commonly mistaken for the aggressive werewolf, leaving them deprived of the human contact they so desperately crave.

“I offered my dear partner the chance to help me in my curiosity to see one mate. They were hesitant at first, but agreed with some gentle coaxing. This is something they have always expressed interest in, so I knew they were letting their anxieties about the size of the cynoceph’s cock get ahead of them.

“I watched as they undressed, sank to their hands and knees, and presented themselves to him. I must admit I had forsaken all formalities, unable to resist stroking myself. Seeing my partner so willing to help me in my research was beyond arousing. I never considered myself one for cuckoldry, but if I know myself, my never ending thirst for knowledge has awakened many things in me over the years.

“I was very much expecting the cynoceph to cut to the chase and unceremoniously slip himself inside them, but was surprised to see this creature display chivalry, pleasuring my partner with his tongue. He made them orgasm not once, but twice! A true gentleman if I’ve ever seen one. Human men have no excuse, if a creature of the forest is privy to wonders of clitoral stimulation, then it should not be as arduous as it’s made out to be by chauvinistic neanderthals.

“Watching my partner take his cock was incredible. For a second I thought maybe it would be too much for them to handle, but as I have come to learn, they are not afraid to mix pain and pleasure. They moved themselves back on him, the cynoceph enjoyed this greatly. My partner couldn’t resist having him indulge in their odaxelagnia, they will surely be left with a bite shaped bruise for weeks. When he came he sharply inserted his full length, knotting my partner. Dear moses, that is an image I will savor in my mind forever.

“As I write this we are currently waiting for him to soften inside them. Part of me hopes that y/n wants to do this again, perhaps if there is a next time maybe he’ll even share them with me. I would love to be inside their mouth as he’s breeding them.”

As Ford finished writing and put away his journal, enough time had passed for the cynoceph to pull out. You shakily rose to your feet, putting on your clothes. You pressed a kiss to his muzzle.

“Thank you.” You whispered.

You both started to continue your way home when you heard a whine behind you, turning to see that same puppy-dog face he had shown earlier.

Ford chuckled. “I think he’s grown rather attached to you, y/n.”

“Poor thing, I hate to just leave him here. You don’t suppose we could… bring him back with us?”

Ford sighed. “As much as I’m all for it, I don’t think Stanley would appreciate the shedding.”

“Ugh that’s a good point.”

You stepped closer to the cynoceph, putting a hand to his soft chest.

“How about this, we can try to come back once a week, sound good?”

He wagged his tail and nodded, barking happily.

“Good boy.” You cooed.

[alexanderwales]

Art and the Artist

I generally prefer to read things without knowing much about the author. There aren't that many cases where it adds much to the work to know that they were a plumber before they got into writing, or that they immigrated from Jamaica, or that they served in World War II. To my thinking, a piece of media should stand on its own and not need the context of the author's life story. If you have to open up with "this story is about the Holocaust" then in my opinion, you've already failed as an author.

With that said, it's often inevitable. Sometimes it's just the nature of the work itself, and it would bleed into your understanding even if there weren't a little "about the author" blurb at the end. Sometimes a story is painful obvious in how personal it is, or the metaphor to the real world is so poignant that it's impossible not to make the connection. And sometimes you just get a sense of a person from their writing, particularly if you've read a lot of their writing. It can be the authorial voice you come to understand, the things they choose to show you, the way their mind works, and you think to yourself "yeah, I could get along with them".

And other times, you find yourself drawn to the author because they're the person who best knows their own work. A book leaves lingering questions, and it might be better for you to understand it by communing with other people, but the author is often right there, and you want to hear their takes on their own work, what they were thinking, what lies behind the scenes, the cut chapters and the ways the ending might have been different. You finish gobbling up what the author has prepared for you, and then you gobble up the scraps in the kitchen, and when that's not enough, you start gobbling up the author: you read interviews, you read their blog, you start as a fan of their work and become a fan of them.

Sometimes their understanding of their own work does not match your understanding, and that can be a little bit heartbreaking. Sometimes the stuff behind the curtain is awful and bad, worsening your enjoyment of the text because now it seems phony and poorly thought out. Sometimes an author turns out to be a piece of shit.

Usually, I can move past it. If I like a book or a movie, then I like it for the feelings that it produces in me, and the person who created it is irrelevant except maybe for the fact that they're getting $5 from me or whatever, which is not the level of microutilions that I generally worry about.

Sometimes it impacts my understanding of the work itself, casting a shadow over the things that I once felt, tainting the art.

I was a big fan of Louis CK. The self-deprecating humor did it for me, the introspection and irreverence, the way he was saying things that felt real and true, things that I had always noticed but never really considered. And of course I found him funny. But then there were allegations, and his mea culpa, and I stopped finding it funny. Partly that's because his comedy was autobiographical, so the taint was worse than it might have otherwise been, but part of it was the comedy itself: if the comedy rests on me recognizing myself in Louis CK's stories about himself, I'm going to be less able to do that if drawing those comparisons gives me a curdled milk feeling.

I was a fan of Buffy and Dollhouse and Firefly and Cabin in the Woods and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, and I think that these don't suffer nearly as much from being from the mind of Joss Whedon. It's easier to dissociate the stories from the man, and harder to read his personal shittery into the character arcs and setting details and elemental units of plot. Some of that is just the medium: comedy specials are the product of a singular vision, while television shows and movies are the result of team of people working together. Even then, I think shitty people can make good art, so long as they're good at separating their shiftiness from their art. Most people with a bit of awareness would do this naturally, I think: they know what's unpalatable, and present an image to the world, which also comes from the art they make.

Information about the artist informs a reading of the art, as much as we might try to have it not do that. I think some art survives revelations better than others. Someone who writes about murders being revealed as a murderer certainly seems like it would poison my enjoyment of their books. But it's the nature of art that's it's all pretend, and sometimes people don't create because they're spewing self-confession onto the page. Then, I think, you're usually safe.

I hadn't written this with Neil Gaiman in mind: it was sitting in my drafts folder, as so many posts are. But I think Gaiman's work will, for me, survive the accusations, even if the man himself is exiled. I'm certain there will be passages and plots that read differently, places where he can be seen defending himself, chapters that are now unseemly. But I think that for me, the stink of his crimes will wash off quickly, and I'm hopeful that unlike other cases, separating the art from the artist is easier for me.

[vibke]

My holidays are over, now I won't have that much time to draw (TヘT)

However, because of that i decided to post some more accurate information about how the Vanilla's new physiology works, since before that there were only some interesting facts. Here is the same pic but with silly notes (ノ*°▽°*)

Sooooo, what the hell has happen?

Basically,

Shadow Milk cookie infused a substantial amount of his life magic into Pure Vanilla cookie, fundamentally transforming his essence to mirror that of milk itself, establishing a familial connection between them. Milk, being a pristine wellspring of vital energy, sustains himself internally without the need for external sources, unlike Vanilla, who must assimilate the life force of other cookies to thrive. This absorption can only be achieved by consuming another cookie alive, with the intensity of their suffering directly correlating to the energy garnered.

The constant expenditure of this vital energy is essential for Vanilla's survival, yet it can also be deliberately harnessed for magical purposes. Also existing in the physical realm demands a higher energy expenditure compared to the void. Vanilla feels hungry all the time, regardless of the energy level. Despite the persistent gnawing hunger, Vanilla exercises restraint, indulging in consumption only as a last resort when energy levels dwindle perilously low.

When the energy level reaches this point or when grievously wounded, Vanilla's sanity unravels, plunging him into a frenzied state where he indiscriminately attacks and devours any cookie in sight, save for Milk. Even at maximum energy capacity, this ravenous frenzy persists, transforming Vanilla into a feral being devoid of speech, reveling in the carnage and suffering inflicted upon others. Respite from this state is only achieved once energy peaks and no viable targets remain for consumption.

However, a glimmer of hope resides in Lily's voice, capable of momentarily grounding Vanilla and averting complete loss of control, hinting at a potential emotional tether that may offer salvation. The preservation of memory and knowledge during these frenzied episodes contrasts starkly with the loss of coherent communication, replaced by primal vocalizations akin to predatory animals.

Taking all this into account, Vanilla's main goal is to prevent loss of sanity. If, even in a wild state, Vanilla cannot find and eat anyone, or if he is killed, then his physical shell will collapse. However, the symbiotic relationship between Vanilla and Milk ensures their physical shells can regenerate using the vital energy of the other upon destruction, rendering their demise nearly impossible. This makes the destruction of each of them almost impossible, since they both have to be killed within a fairly short period of time. Milk as a whole is not set up to lose, and Vanilla enters a state of savagery when seriously injured, so you need to try hard to kill two at once. Vanilla predominantly resides in the void, emerging sporadically to hunt in the outside world to conserve energy, while Milk adopts a congenial demeanor, advocating for joint dominance in the world, a proposition Vanilla resists.

The psychological toll of wanton violence and senseless slaughter weighs heavily on Vanilla, compelling compliance in the face of Milk's dominance, exacerbated by the threat of descending into unrestrained savagery when resisting. The trauma inflicted by brutal acts of violence reinforces Vanilla's obedience, believing himself unworthy and trapped in a cycle of submission.

[wumblr]

another thing i don't think most people grasp about the nuclear deterrent is that land-based intercontinental missiles have been referred to as a nuclear sponge, meaning, they are not an offense strategy. the offense strategy is the other two arms of the nuclear triad, air and sea. and defense one is a military news source! the one thing both pro- and anti-nuclear advocates can agree on is that ICBMs are not even necessary. what neither this nor the source below acknowledge is that funding for silos is one of the most influential factors in our representative democracy. it is the only reason that many of these communities ever got any infrastructural support. the only people who love ICBMs are politicians, and it's because bombs are adjacent to cashflow. how pathetic!

the silos are there to sacrificially absorb a nuclear strike from an adversarial state. to provide an extremely difficult strategic roadblock, where it would be necessary to strike every silo simultaneously (or at least before we can launch any of them in retaliation), a nearly impossible task. probably the only scenario in which this is even possible is a war against allied china and russia (which, curiously enough, is what your blue president jacks off about. go ahead and vote for that, you dumb cunts.)

princeton research estimated this would kill 340k-4m, depending largely on whether fallout hits the windy city, with 300m or 81% of the north american continent potentially at risk of lethal fallout. which is to say we are all being used as bait for a worst case scenario equivalent to thirteen hundred nine elevens, precursor to an excuse to commit an extinction-level nuclear winter in retaliation. as i have said previously, whether a nuclear winter is even possible given the detonation of every existing nuke... also depends largely on wind direction, and the primary cause of its damage in the long-term is dust, not radiation. anyway this came up in the sciam nuclear issue

here's the worst wind-model day. (because the silo areas are so sparsely populated, these figures ONLY include fallout-related deaths, because any direct deaths from the detonative charge itself are negligible by comparison. it also includes one 800kt nuke per silo, as in, not the one IN the silo but the one that blew it up, and ITS fallout as well. that might be an unrealistically large estimate, i'm inclined to think you could make every silo inoperable with smaller payloads or even conventional munitions. whether that would make the warhead permanently unusable may be dubious, but that's really splitting hairs)

here's the averaged risk

here's all worst case scenarios (only one scenario can occur, but this is why 300m are at risk despite only 4m deaths in the worst case)

[avengerrevenger]

Ohio Anti-Trans Laws (and what you can do about it!)

AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

Please educate yourself on the contents of Ohio House Bill 68 and other related Ohio Anti-Trans laws before giving into propaganda from either side. At first, I gave in to the propaganda without reading the bill itself; people told me the most outrageous and outlandish stuff. I've heard that it would: make people who have already medically transitioned de-transition, and just a lot of misinformation. These are not related to the bill, rather some other recent Ohio laws that will be detailed later.

I read the entirety of the bill, and, if I'm not mistaken, in summary, it will effectively do the following:

1. Not allow gender-affirming care to be legally given to minors in the state of Ohio, including puberty blockers and gender affirming therapy(continued care is allowed, but only if it was already started or the person is intersex)

2. Children in schools must stay in sports leagues of their biological sex.

The bill has some potentially redeeming ideas few and far between, but for a bill like this to be useful, they need to take into consideration the age of the child, mental health status, current hormone levels, and many more things that they do not have in the bill.

(Example for #1: The bill says that no minors will be able to get gender-affirming care or puberty blockers, with the reasoning that most minors “change their mind” about being trans as they get older. This statistic is factual but does not take into consideration specific ages, as it takes into account everyone under the age of 18. Teens, for example, especially the older that they are, are highly likely to “remain trans”, while people ages 0-12 are not, as they don't understand gender and sex, and may claim to not identify as their birth sex, not realizing fully what it means.

Example for #2: It may seem logical to vote for this because it keeps males claiming to be females from just saying that they are female and beating all the competition because of their biological advantages. However, it also excludes, for example, the trans girl who has been on hormones for 7 years and now has the same levels of testosterone an average cis girl or lower has, giving her no biological advantage. It does not consider that young children are nearly identical biologically. It also forces people with female on their birth certificates to stay in female leagues, despite them not having any biological advantage, which is the only reasoning given for this section, so it is very apparent this bill is directly targeting trans people for no reason other than hate. If the terms were very specific as to hormone levels and ages, such as what I have outlined, I could understand why people would vote for it.) Simply put, in its current state, House Bill 68 is not specific enough to do more good for the cis community than harm it will do to the trans community.

In addition to this giant bill being passed and taking effect on February 15th, Ohio governor Mike DeWine signed an executive bill on January 5th, preventing any transgender surgeries for anyone under the age of 18, no exceptions, taking effect immediately. He also proposed a series of outlines for more Anti-Trans laws to come soon. He wants to force transgender people to “out” themselves to the government so they can keep detailed information on trans people for further study. No thanks. He also made a series of declarations of how he wanted it to be MUCH more difficult for *adults* to get gender-affirming care as well, requiring them to see a bioethicist before medically transitioning. How many bioethicist do you know? None? Well, that's because they're incredibly rare. There’s two offices in Cleveland, one at Ohio State, and ZERO anywhere else in Ohio, so it would be next to impossible to start or continue medically transitioning, even as an adult.

We MUST oppose House Bill 68 and encourage others to join us or it has the potential to snowball into a series of anti-trans laws in Ohio and across the country, or perhaps even a genocide (if you study the ten stages of genocide, trans people would be on stage 5 or 6, halfway or more there if this bill and DeWine’s proposals passed.)

I don't typically make it an issue of mine to pursue political activism or politics in general, but this law will directly impact many people I hold dear, with some even already making plans to leave Ohio, while being decided by people it does not impact at all.

House Bill 68 and similar laws are available for public comment until Feb 5th so anything to oppose it has to be done NOW before it is too late. We must inform the government that we the people do not approve of the bill, and why it is objectionable. This is similar to a case in Arkansas that was nullified because the bill could be seen as an offense against the 14th Amendment, under the Equal Protections clause, so hopefully the same thing will also happen to the situation here.

Some things you can do:

1. Directly contact the governor's office (About the executive order and his proposals for bioethicists to be involved in the transition process) https://governor.ohio.gov/contact

2. Leave a message for the governor: [(614) 644-4357]

3. Send a message to Ohio senators through the American Civil Liberties Union https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-ohio-senators-stop-hb-68-veto-override

4. Email the Ohio Department of Health (ODHrules@odh.ohio.gov)

5. Email the Department of Mental Health and Addiction services (MH-SOT-rules@mha.ohio.gov), with “Comments on Gender Transition Care Rules” in the subject. These rules are about making sure trans people with mental health issues do not have access to gender affirming help.

6. Fill out this form of the Ohio Department of Health https://odh.ohio.gov/about-us/offices-bureaus-and-departments/ogc/resources/feedback-survey putting “rules 3701-3-17, 3701-59-07, 3701-83-61” in the field and explain some of the following: how you don't think Ohio should force medical professionals and therapists to keep detailed information on all trans patients about gender “incongruencies” with the patient’s birth sex (rule 3701-3-17), explain how trans people shouldn't have ludicrous restrictions on medically transitioning, (like making them go to a bioethicist to even start/continue hormones on an ADULT, much less surgery) anyone under 21 must additionally undergo mental-health screening before accessing care (with the implication that if you are mentally unwell in any form you will not receive care, and many trans people already have depression/anxiety stemming from how society views and treats them) (rule 3701-59-07 and 3701-83-61)

7. Stay updated to the current status of this bill, the executive order, and efforts against them. For more information, click here https://jessk.org/blog/things-you-can-do-right-now-for-ohio

Thanks for sticking up for peoples' rights, and have a nice day ;)

TLDR: Ohio House Bill 68 bans all gender affirming healthcare for minors, including therapy, and trans people aren't allowed to participate in sports.

A series of other Anti-Trans laws, along with an executive order from the Ohio governor plan to make medically transitioning or getting gender affirming therapy, even continued services, impossible in Ohio for adults, as well as creating a detailed registry on anyone that is identified as trans.

[kyndaris]

Purpose and Direction

Mental illness is something that has only, in recent decades, been properly acknowledged. With the help of the pandemic, it was pushed to the forefront of the social consciousness as people struggled to adapt to the new dorm of lockdowns. yet, even in this day and age, there is still a stigma associated with getting professional help to address the underlying issues of one’s psyche. And while society is focused on the high levels of anxiety and depression in our youth, in an age where purpose is almost impossible to find and apathy pervades even the brightest of minds, it should be noted that no age group is immune to mental illness.

Or its consequences.

From a personal level, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no stranger to suicide ideation. After all, when the world seems such a challenge, when all I do is float around, never hitting the milestones in life that others have, there have been days when I’ve wondered if the struggle is worth it. It just seems easier to remove oneself from the equation. To put an end to needless pain and suffering.

And this is exactly where we find Alfre “Frey” Holland in the opening moments of Forspoken. As the game begins, players find the main character on trial for theft. Which is her third misdemeanour. If not for the sympathetic judge, Maya Bird, and the fact that it’s nearly Christmas, Frey might be on a one-way trip to jail.

Fortunately for our protagonist, she gets off with community service instead. After all, the game needs to game. And putting Frey in prison isn’t going to lead to the events of Forspoken now, is it?

As Frey leaves the courts, however, she is accosted by the very thugs that asked her to steal a car and deliver it to their boss. She managed to escape but later the miscreants find the apartment Frey has been squatting in and burn it down. Along with the cash she had accrued to finally escape the mightmare her life had become.

Honestly, not being able to pick up the gym bag full of money bfore Frey went searching for Homer, WHILE THE APARTMENT WAS ON FIRE had me screaming at the screen. Every interaction I had with it, Frey would refuse to pick it up, commenting that she needed to find her cat. 

I know the game needs a reason for Frey to hit rock-bottom but learn some common sense!

Anyways, without the means to escape her current situation and having nowhere else to turn, Frey hands Homer to Maya Bird and then contemplates what to do with her life atop the Crossroads Hotel near the Holland Tunnel where she was found as a baby. As Frey debates whether or not to jump, she spots something in the corner of her eye. Breaking into the shop, she find a strange glittering vambrace and, as she reaches for it, is suddenly thrust into Athia.

Just like Alice, in her favourite book, Frey is now in a brand new world. But Athia is no Wonderland. Whereas Lewis Carroll, also known as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, crafted a whimsical world with grinning cats and mad tea parties, the world of Athia is not nearly as fanciful. Rather, it is a world on the brink of collapse. And when viewed from the lens that its current state is a reflection of Frey’s tenuous mental state: her bone-deep depression that is just one bad day away from utter destruction, it makes sense that the world, although filled with fantastical landscapes and magic, is also a vast empty land devoid of people. Abandoned towns scatter the countryside and the only ‘living’ things are the creatures that have been corrupted by the Break. And as I was exploring the world, I couldn’t help but feel that the land itself was much too drab and washed-out (unless, of course I was in the heavy break-infused lands near the Tantas’ palaces. But those were really just word filters). It was only in photo mode where I could adjust the colour and saturation that Athia felt more alive.

After an encounter with a dragon, Frey begins her quest to find a way back home to New York and her cat, Homer. Along the way, she is forced to fight against the corrupted Tantas. In the process, she becomes a beacon of hope for the surviving denizens of Athia, even though the idea of being a hero is something she struggles to accept until the end. The weight of expectations and the duty thrust upon is something that Frey fights against throughout much of the game. An understandable reaction if one considers her fraught childhood and her difficult circumstances right before she was transported to Athia.

Some might have complained that her refusal to take up the call goes against the usual plucky video game protagonist, or makes her weak, but I thought this characterisation for Frey particularly apt. If I fell into another world that was suffering from a particular malaise and learned that I was their only hope, I’d be scared, too, of picking up that mantle. More so if I had a history of falling through the cracks of society as others failed to provide aid when I needed it and failing to meet the expectations of others.

But, supported by the townspeople that believe in her, such as Auden, Johedy and Pilo, Frey is able to push past the fear that held her back and save the broken land once and for all from the machinations of the evil daemon, Susurrus.

Of course, even by game’s end, Athia is not entirely free of the Break. While the work of trying to clear it may seem daunting, Frey and the Athians are content to put in the hard yards to rebuild. Just because you defeat the ancient demon of destruction doesn’t mean that the world suddenly returns to normal. As with mental health, saving Athia (and oneself) is a journey of thousands upon thousands of little steps. It’s about reprogramming the biases that we have. It’s about taking some time for yourself so that you don’t collapse when you focus on looking after others. And it’s also about accepting those bad parts of yourself and reconciling it with your strengths as a whole.

In not many games have I seen such a thorough exploration of mental health beyond Psychonauts. For, if we are to take the metaphor even further, Susurrus himself is that inner negative voice we have inside. The one that tells us we aren’t worthy. That we’re ugly. That we’re stupid and will fail whatever endeavour we try our hand at. I know that as a writer, I’m one of my own worst critics. Rereading some of my works, I can’t help but pinpoint every misspelling or error. Worse is when I’m editing my long-form stories and wonder why I spent so long on something so horrendously atrocious. It would be easier if I simply deleted everything.

Fittingly, sussurus is a noun that means whispering, murmuring or rustling: “The susurration of the wind in the trees.”

I suppose my only gripe with the mental illness angle of Forspoken is how each Tanta breaks. Theirs is not some slow descent. Somehow, Susurrus manages to push them over the brink and they suddenly go from well-meaning protector to outright tyrant. Or suddenly develop a split personality. I’d have preferred witnessing the descent into so-called ‘madness’ rather than be peppered by notes from the citizens that speak of the sudden reversal in the Tantas demeanour.

And for that matter, I’d have liked to have seen, rather than read, what life had been like in Athia before. Or to hear of the world before the Break from the older residents of Cipal. Forspoken, much like The DioField Chronicle has a lot of world-building and lore that is relegated to the background but remains untouched by the main narrative. It would have shown better the hope the people carried and the resignation they had reached after twenty years of worsening circumstances.

Beyond the story elements, Forspoken is a fun game especially in terms of traversal. After all, it’s not everyday that the main protagonist is a dexterous mage that can do magic parkour. While I did find some of the controls a little floaty or inexact, I loved being able to climb cliffs and watch the trail of magic that Frey left behind as she ran, jumped and floated to her next destination. Combat, too, was a blast. While I know that there are people who complained about it after playing the demo, I thought each set had its own unique quirks. It helped that enemies, too, had vulnerabilities or resistances to certain types of magic, which allowed me to change them on the fly when needed.

Of course, there’s no need to actually change the type of magic one liked best if you were overlevelled, but the different effects and the flashiness of the spells were quite enjoyable to see. That and the fact that you could switch them around on the fly with a button prompt.

Now, the dialogue. The one point that many critics and players alike too umbrage against. For me, personally, I never found anything to dislike about the exchanges between Frey and Cuff. Some people pointed to the awkward writing when Frey discovered she had powers and I retort that if I could suddenly move things with my mind, I’d probably say the same thing. The only character that I felt was lacklustre in delivery was actually the bard: Wallace. Most of his lines sounded like they had been phoned in or they were just said awkwardly.

Once you’ve played through Biomutant and had to deal with the grating narrator commenting on your every move, there isn’t anything else that compares.

Long story short, I enjoyed my time with Forspoken. While I was a little hesitant at first, seeing all the negative impressions of the game, I thought it best to still give it a fair go. And while the ending message was a little on the nose, reminding me of the one I wrote for my short story Unseen, I still feel like it bears repeating. If you are going through something hard or difficult, you are not alone. Help is available! You are NOT a burden. People DO care. Even if it’s just one other life, you HAVE made an impact and you have CHANGED it for the BETTER.

I’m also just going to insert a link to crisis lines for anyone that may need it right here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

And hey, you never know if you might just isekai into another world and become its saviour. 

On a site note, I definitely felt there were a few longing looks that were exchanged between Frey and Auden. But maybe that’s just me trying to see if there’s anything I can latch my fantasies onto. In any case, a sequel to Forspoken might be a far-off dream considering its poor performance.

[pqrachel]

So I was gonna wait until the new year to choose my game of the year, but not only did the steam review come out, but I realized that last year I chose a game that I got for Christmas 2021 so even if I somehow get a really cool game experience before the end of the year, I can just put that for my 2024 GOTY if its good.

But in that vein, I've added Monster Roadtrip & Neon White to games I'm considering for this year's GOTY. So my nominees are Monster Roadtrip, Neon White, Lil Gator Game, Celeste Strawberry Jam Mod Pack, Goodbye Volcano High, Our Life DLCs, and Marvel Snap.

---

So Monster Roadtrip, which I've been playing a lot throughout the year. Unlike most of the other games on the list it's really easy to come back to after not playing for a while. The End of the Road update which came out this year was phenomenal and that's the main reason I'm considering it for GOTY. But I really enjoy the Monster Prom series as a whole and it's just so fun and amazing.

Neon White, I got last year during the Steam Winter sale and I spent an amazing few months playing it and getting good at it and enjoying the crap out of the optimization and speedrunning. It makes it so easy to play and so easy to want to keep improving. It soundtrack is amazing and the community is great too. But it's just super hard to get back into. I tried it again this week and despite getting a couple of level records beaten so many of the levels just weren't fun to try and jump right back into at the level I was playing them when I quit. IDK it's definitely amazing but it's not obvious that it should or shouldn't be my GOTY.

Lil Gator Game is like super amazing and nearly perfect for what it is but its just so small, which isn't in itself a problem. But a bigger amazing game is gonna be better. I never went back to try and play it casually again and I think I got all I wanted out of speedrunning it. Like my only problem with it is that I wished it was a bit longer.

Celeste Strawberry Jam is a mod pack created not by the devs of Celeste but by the wonderful modding community of the game. It has levels that range in difficulty of super beginner friendly to fucking impossible, like jeez dude that's crazy. I played through so many levels and it was super enjoyable. It was enough for me to play and consistently enjoy myself for months.

My next nominee is Goodbye Volcano High. I've only played it through once but it was amazing. It's a game about music, found family, and the apocalypse. I got so engrossed in this game after I played it, and I just love it so much. It excelled at being a visual novel but it wasn't very game-y, the rhythm game elements weren't great, and the other game elements struggled too. It was buggy at the time I played it but it didn't detract too much from the story and meaning behind the game. It was just beautiful when it came together.

The Our Life DLCs really surprised me. I went it just expecting them to be worse than the Cove storyline because how could they live up to the amazing story that was the original Our Life Cove story. But they were amazing. I talked about them a lot as I played them but ultimately I just really love the stories GBPatch has put out and that's the reason Our Life 2 is my most anticipated game, even over Silksong and Hades 2. Again it's a visual novel so it's hard to put it as GOTY but I just have to at least consider it because of how good it was.

And my last nominee is Marvel Snap. It technically released last year but the PC launch was in August and I've been playing it so much since then, like it's already my second most played game on steam. It's a microtransaction heavy, season pass-having, daily quest bullshit monetization system game, but it's technically free-to-play. After a while I stopped paying money for stuff and started playing it free and I'm still really enjoying it. Getting the last key cards for some of the meta decks has been super fun. I've been playing Loki and Hela and Destroy and Zoo, and it's just great. The new weekly cache system is rewarding as well and I've nearly got a complete card list because of it. Just a fun time sink.

---

And my Game of the Year is Neon White, but like it's close. This was a cool year for gaming and even if I didn't play any of the mainstream choices for game of the year, it was still a super enjoyable year for gaming overall.

[nickgerlich]

Tick Tock, TikTok

When the social media era began early in the 21st century, no one could have predicted just how important it would become. From the ways we shop—yes, we shop socially—to the ways we communicate, are entertained, and get our news, social media sites are arguably just as important as old school traditional media outlets

And unless you have been living in a cave, it would be nearly impossible to have missed out on the TikTok debate that came to a climax this weekend. Well, for now at least.

Last April, President Biden championed a federal law that gave China-based ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, 270 days to find a non-Chinese buyer for their US operations. Fears of possible data privacy and national security issues prompted this ban. And it almost seems uncanny that the deadline would fall on the day before Inauguration Day, so that whomever won the 2024 election would find themself in the thick of it.

Last Friday the Supreme Court upheld the law. Shark Tank celebrity and investor Kevin O’Leary came forward with a $20 billion offer to buy it, but ByteDance said it wasn’t for sale. As Saturday evening unfolded, ByteDance pulled the plug at 9:30pm CST, before the US government could block it. Along with TikTok, other properties owned by Byte Dance—Lemon8 and CapCut—also went dark. Suddenly, 170 million US users were locked out, including a slew of content creators who depend on TikTok for their income, and small businesses that sell there.

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump (who will fully be President later today) announced he would extend the deadline and work to find a buyer, or even a 50/50 partnership between a US company and ByteDance. It was an odd turnaround given that in 2020 he too supported a ban on TikTok. Politics is a funny thing.

But then around noon CST yesterday, TikTok and its sibling sites came back, with an announcement thanking President Trump, who technically was not even President yet. If you heard a sucking sound, you might just be right. Cozying up can have benefits.

So here we are on Inauguration Day, and social media has found itself with equal headlines alongside a peace treaty and return of hostages in the Middle East, as well as pardons coming this afternoon. Who would have thought, right? Back on Inauguration Day in 2001, no one even knew what social media is.

While the Supreme Court ruled that national security trumped—pardon the pun—our First Amendment rights, it is hard to ignore the gorillas in the living room. Instagram also has 170 million US users, and only Facebook—with 200 million US users—exceeds them. These sites are important to us on many levels. Right or wrong, these are the places we spend time and hang out. Social critics can argue all they want about how these sites have physically separated us from one another. The truth is they have brought us together in ways we once could not imagine.

TikTok, which launched in 2016 but did not find its stride here until 2020, has redefined the social graph, and forced Meta—parent of Facebook, Insta, Threads, and WhatsApp—to up its game. In fact, in just the last few days Insta made some major changes, including going with 4 x 5 tiles instead of its traditional squares. They also announced a new video editing app called Edits, which will be available next month.

The rise of TikTok Shop is nothing to sneeze at, with $7 million in sales each day in the US. Instagram shopping was $37 billion last year, while Facebook Marketplace accounted for $26 billion. And you thought Amazon was the bad guy in diverting sales away from brick and mortar establishments. Turns out they—with annual US sales of $159 billion—are just one of the players in this drama.

And then there are the creators who earn their living doing TikTok Lives. I recently had the opportunity to interview a TikTok millionaire while in Florida. He’s 23 years old and has more money than I will ever have. Well, unless I start my own TikTok Live channel, although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the same appeal he does. Who wants to watch an old Marketing prof drone on and on? I recorded a podcast episode with him, which drops tomorrow at BuffSpeak.biz. Highly recommend.

We must remember that the TikTok drama is not over. Basically, Trump and TikTok have kicked the can down the road, kind of like ignoring those worn tires on your truck and delaying buying new ones. There still is no solution in sight. Regardless, President Trump has his first political victory—albeit a tenuous one—before even taking his oath.

And 170 million Americans can continue to use TikTok. Life as we knew it goes on.

Dr “The Reel Thing” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[etruatcaelum]

[ @knightbcrn sent 📂 for a random useless excessively granular headcanon ]

Codiciering, more often known as konurgic engineering or computational konurgy in the post-war vernacular, is a specialized and highly technical form of konurgy—dust-based magic. While the technological revolution precipitated by the Great War gave rise to mass-market consumer koniotronics like scrolls, the discipline has existed for thousands of years; historically, codiciers were more akin to what we might call artificers or enchanters.

The oldest techniques involve embroidery with dust-infused seric, a silk-like thread spun from atrum fibers. Fabrics woven from plant fibers, such as linen, are generally unsuitable for this purpose due to their flammability; silk and synthetic fabrics are safe for simple patterns that produce little heat, but high-quality wool and leather are preferred.

(It is also generally not safe to wear dust-embroidered cloth directly against the skin; all forms of dust produce heat while in an active state, and even with aura, touching embroidery hot enough to burn is very painful.)

Materials such as vellum or paper can also be laced with magic by stitching dust-infused seric into a sheet or drawing patterns with ink mixed from the ateric saline left over from preparation of seric. These items will go up in flames upon use, but single-use cards or scrolls designed to give a specific result were always in high demand prior to the Great War; this is where usage of the terms "scroll" and "codex" for handheld and desktop koniotronics respectively originated.

Later advancements in metallurgy led to the development of conifer steel—steels with ateric content high enough to have dust-like properties—and other konurgic alloys. The applications of a weapon forged with conifer steel need no elaboration; Long Memory is one. More importantly, however, the nearly limitless potential and chaotic power of dust can be constrained and given order by arranging it in matrices of konurgic wire and small pieces of crystal. This is the principle upon which all dust-based technology—and all enchanted artifacts, like Long Memory or the items described in the Grimm Campaign—rely.

Modern consumer koniotronics were made possible by the invention of dust-suppressant and aura-inhibiting technologies. All konurgic devices are powered by the operator's aura; in the case of huntsmen and other auraleric masters, this is not a problem, but consumer koniotronics, being designed for use by civilians with little or no auraleric training, must be insulated to prevent them from being fried by their owners' uncontrolled aura flow.

Even with these modern advancements, perfect standardization is impossible: scrolls, codexes, and other consumer koniotronics simply work better in the hands of master konurges. Unlike in the real world, Remnant's computers can legitimately "sense fear" and may behave erratically or respond in unexpected ways to the emotions and perceptions of their operators.

By the same token, skilled codiciers are among the best in the world at working with dust in its raw form; the level of precision and auraleric control necessary to engineer and program complex konurgic devices lends itself to complete mastery over pure dust, although as a general rule a codicier's use of pure dust will be subtler and stricter than that of a master konurge who hasn't trained as a codicier.

Contrary to what one might stereotypically expect given her age, Salem does not have the slightest bit of difficulty understanding modern konurgic technology, as it closely resembles the signaling grimm use to communicate with each other, and as far as she's concerned the CCTS is merely a crude human approximation of a horde. Scrolls are too delicate for her to bother actually using one—imagine trying to operate a smartphone if your fingers released a static shock every time you touched the screen—but she could explain in exhaustive detail precisely how they work.

[musingsunderstarlight]

Personally, I understand where OP is coming from, and I think there is value in wanting to make societal change regardless of separatism. But I think it's worth asking why separatism is seen as "giving up on hope" and why giving up on separatism isn't?

Putting the onus on women to make men better or saying that they’re leaving women behind by wanting to fight for separatism isn't too far off from blaming women (I know that's not OP's intention though). In my own personal life, realizing that I no longer had to waste my time, energy and emotions on debating my misogynistic brother simply about the reality of being female was incredibly freeing. Like, it's fine to fight for these things, but I think it's better to fight for separatism and female-only spaces as a priority. We have to remember that it's the systems that men have put into place that continue to disadvantage and harm us, not just male socialization itself.

In order to break free of these systems, some level of political solidarity is needed, and if our energy is diverted to just trying to quash male socialization in our society now, then we're never going to achieve what we want to achieve. I think to try and undo male socialization is a nearly impossible feat because the whole point of it is that these men have been programmed to see you as subhuman. You can't debate someone into seeing your humanity. The implications of this are that you are trying to enact change within a system that is corrupt. I mean in the U.S./the West, we spent decades teaching men how to be nicer, and now we’re being punished by being told that we are not even allowed to entertain the idea of female solidarity. Let me clarify: we gained so many rights, and now you are no longer allowed to acknowledge female human beings as their own marginalized group. As soon as you break free from one kind of man, the other one will be waiting right there to take advantage. And the way feminism has been corrupted by the left after women fought to escape from the clutches of conservatism is the perfect example of that.

That said, I think I have seen some examples where women who built separatist communities and raised sons there, the boys grew up to be well-adjusted and did not inherent the misogynistic beliefs and practices and of their male relatives. There is hope, but why can't we put that hope into building a new world from scratch?

Radblr hot take here but I believe that men are capable of changing to be better. To say that they are incapable of being good is saying that they aren’t fully responsible for what they do because they aren’t capable of being better.

No. They can be better. And they are morally worse and more corrupt for it. Men can choose to fight the patriarchy and treat their female counterparts with respect and dignity. But they choose not to, because they can reap the same or more societal benefits by being misogynistic.

Baby boys aren’t born misogynistic. Sure, they may be born with whatever male hormonal differences do, but that isn’t even 1% of the reason why they grow up to be misogynists.

As they grow up they learn that misogyny is rewarded. As they grow up they are exposed to porn which they choose to use as a sexual role model. As they grow up they watch their parents model a hierarchal power dynamic. They see all of this, and they like it. They choose it for themselves.

I think that men can change for the better. People here hear this and say “you can’t teach them” or “coddling them won’t do shit” and I agree. What women need to do is stop rewarding and enabling their behavior.

We need to free women from human trafficking and exploitation, and we also need to convince women who make porn of their own free will to stop. We need to punish the men who make it. We need to help women out of their abusive marriages, and we also need to convince women who are in relationships with even slightly misogynistic men to end them. We need to have zero tolerance for casual misogyny. We need to start shunning men who are misogynists. We need to hold accountable women who are enabling the men in their lives to hurt other women. Shun men who watch porn. Shun men who say slurs. Stop having their children.

And for the men sympathetic to our cause, we need to convince them to use their privilege as men to further feminist goals. We need them to vote for women’s rights. We need them to intervene during “locker room” misogynistic talk when women aren’t around. We need them to break up the male solidarity around misogyny in a way only they can do.

But we can’t do this as individuals. Strength comes in numbers. Women do face societal consequences for standing up to misogyny. Other women need to defend her and provide for her needs. And in order to do this we need to educate ourselves. Make money. Be independent of men. Become doctors, lawyers, teachers. We need to do everything we can to support women in places where they cannot do these things.

If we can do all of this, men will change. Maybe not the men who are already set in their ways. But those growing up will see that misogyny does not reward them in life. They will not see porn. They will not see their mothers submitting to their fathers and they will not see women submitting to men. And they will choose to treat women as human beings. Because they can.

Radical feminism is not a doomerist movement. I have a future in mind. I hope you do too.

[amitypatna]

Amity University Patna: Best B Tech (Civil Engineering) College in Bihar

For students aspiring to pursue quality education in the field of civil engineering and launch their careers in construction domain, Amity University Patna is undoubtedly one of the best B Tech (Civil Engineering) colleges in Bihar. Renowned across Eastern India as a premier technological university, Amity has been ranked consistently amongst top providers of civil engineering education in the country and has produced and trained some of the finest brains in the infrastructure and development sector.

Located in the state capital city of Patna, Amity University highlights a vide campus that has sprawling infrastructure equipped with cutting-edge labs for testing materials, soil mechanics, structural design etc. along with CAD and software simulation facilities. Students benefit immensely from exposure to the latest industry-grade tools, technologies and practices which are nearly impossible to find in most civil engineering colleges in Bihar. Amity also prides itself on low student-teacher ratio enabling personalized guidance from experienced faculty members including professional experts.

B Tech in Civil Engineering in Bihar

The civil engineering program is meticulously designed with perfect blend of theoretical fundamentals and real-world project-based learning through community initiatives, consultancy projects and industrial collaborations. Students get opportunities to work on live construction and design challenges of firms enabling them to build applied skillsets. Amity has over hundred placement partners across PSUs and private construction majors where students are regularly absorbed right after graduation. Alumni occupy leadership roles across major infrastructure and real estate entities in India and abroad. 

College for B Tech in Civil Engineering in Bihar: Amity University

Rated #1 in Bihar for its thorough industry standards and excellent internship, training and final placement opportunities in construction domain, Amity University provides unmatched access to professional networks and multi-skilled development through international chapters. Amity university is ranked year on year as the best college for B Tech in Civil Engineering in Bihar student chapters of prominent professional bodies and world-class infrastructure including labs, workshops, library etc. Amity Library has over 17,000 online journals. Some of the online resources Amity students have access to are Ebsco Host, UGC-Infonet, INDEST-AICTE, IS1 and Delnet. All Amity students are members of Amizone-Amity Intranet Zone which allows them easy access to these journals & papers. With its commitment to industrial research, the varsity is also amongst top choices for higher studies and doctoral programs in Civil Engineering in Bihar. Spread over 250 acres, the Amity Patna campus facilitates a balanced lifestyle by providing international level sports facilities, hostels with modern amenities and vibrant festivals for holistic growth and development of students. Evenings are buzzing with cultural, literary and professional events organized by various interest clubs. In conclusion, Amity University Patna stands out as the preferred choice a best BTech (Civil Engineering) College in Bihar and India. Students looking for quality education and a celebrated career in the field should enrol to Amity University. For more information visit https://www.amity.edu/bihar/index.aspx

Source : https://sites.google.com/view/btech-in-civil-engineering/home?authuser=2

[srutatech]

What is Digital Marketing?

Any marketing that makes use of electronic devices that can be used by marketing specialists to send promotional messaging and track its impact throughout the client journey. Digital marketing, in practice, refers to marketing initiatives that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or another device. It can take a variety of forms, such as online video, display ads, search engine marketing, sponsored social ads, and social media posts. Digital marketing is frequently contrasted with “conventional marketing” methods such as magazine advertisements, billboards, and direct mail. Surprisingly, television is sometimes lumped together with traditional marketing.Did you know that more than three-quarters of all Americans use the internet on a daily basis? Not only that, but 43 percent use it more than once every day, and 26 percent use it “nearly continuously.”These percentages are even higher among those who utilise mobile internet. 89 percent of Americans use the internet at least once a day, and 31 percent use it practically constantly. As a marketer, it is critical to leverage the digital world through an online advertising presence, brand building, offering a fantastic customer experience that attracts more potential customers, and more, all through a digital strategy.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing, often known as online marketing, is the promotion of brands through the use of the internet and other types of digital communication to interact with potential clients. Not only does this encompass email, social media, and web-based advertising, but it also includes text and multimedia messaging as a marketing channel.Essentially, digital marketing is any marketing campaign that involves digital communication.

Different types of Digital Marketing:

As many specializations exist in digital marketing as there are methods to interact with digital media. Here are a few concrete instances.

Optimization for search engines

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a marketing tool rather than a type of marketing in and of itself. According to The Balance, it is “the art and science of making online sites appealing to search engines.”What matters most in SEO is the “art and science” component. SEO is a science since it necessitates extensive research and weighing various contributing criteria in order to reach the greatest potential ranking. Today, the most significant factors to consider while optimising a web page are as follows:

The level of user involvement is determined by the quality of the material.

Mobile-friendliness

The quantity and quality of inbound links

SEO is a science because of the planned use of these criteria, but it is an art because of the unpredictability involved.

There is no definable standard or consistent rule for ranking highly in SEO. Because Google’s algorithm changes practically constantly, it’s impossible to make precise forecasts. What you can do is keep a careful eye on the performance of your page and make improvements as needed.

Marketing through content

SEO is an important component of content marketing, which is a strategy built on distributing relevant and valuable material to a target audience.The purpose of content marketing, like any other marketing technique, is to generate leads who will eventually convert into customers. However, it does it in a unique way compared to traditional advertising. Rather than luring prospects with the prospective value of a product or service, it provides value for free in the form of textual material.Content marketing is important, and there are numerous statistics to back it up:

84 percent of customers want businesses to create engaging and useful content experiences.

62% of firms with at least 5,000 workers create content on a daily basis.

92 percent of marketers agree that content is a vital asset to their firm.

Content marketing, no matter how effective it is, may be difficult. Content marketing writers must be able to rank high in search engine results while also engaging individuals who will read, share, and interact with the business further. When the information is relevant, it can help to build solid relationships all the way down the pipeline.

Marketing on Social Media:

Social media marketing entails increasing traffic and brand exposure by engaging people in online discussions. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most popular social media marketing platforms, with LinkedIn and YouTube close behind.Social media marketing includes built-in engagement analytics that can help you evaluate how well you’re reaching your target audience. You get to choose whatever types of interactions are most important to you, whether it’s the number of shares, comments, or overall website clicks.

Pay-per-click advertising

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is the practice of placing an ad on a platform and paying for each click.It’s a little more complicated as to how and when people will view your ad. When a place on a search engine results page, commonly known as a SERP, becomes available, the engine fills it with what amounts to an instant auction. Each accessible ad is prioritized by an algorithm based on a number of parameters, including:

Ad relevance

Keyword quality

The goodness of the landing page

Amount of the bid

Marketing through affiliates:

Affiliate marketing allows anyone to earn money by advertising the products and services of others. You might be the promoter or a business that works with the promoter, but the method remains the same.It operates on the basis of a revenue-sharing approach. If you’re the affiliate, you’ll earn a commission every time someone buys the product you’re promoting. If you are the merchant, you will pay the affiliate for each sale they assist you in making.Some affiliate marketers prefer to review only one company’s items, possibly on a blog or another third-party site. Others have partnerships with a variety of merchants.

Native Advertising

Native advertising is essentially marketing in disguise. Its purpose is to blend in with the surrounding information, making it less noticeable as advertising.Native advertising was developed in response to today’s customers’ cynicism toward advertisements. Knowing that the ad’s creator is paying to have it run, many consumers will believe that the ad is prejudiced and will disregard it.A native ad avoids this bias by first providing information or amusement before moving on to anything promotional, thereby minimising the “ad” component.It is critical to carefully mark your native adverts. Use phrases like “sponsored” or “promoted.” If those indicators are hidden, readers may spend a large amount of time engaging with the content before realising it’s advertising.

Marketing via email:

The idea behind email marketing is straightforward: you send a promotional message and hope that your prospect clicks on it. The execution, on the other hand, is far more difficult. First and foremost, you must ensure that your emails are desired. This entails having an opt-in list that performs the following functions:

Individualises the material in the body as well as the subject line

Indicates clearly what type of emails the subscriber will get.

Provides an easy way to unsubscribe

combines transactional and promotional emails

You want your prospects to perceive your campaign as a valuable service, not just a marketing tool.

The Advantages of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has grown in popularity in part because it reaches such a big number of people, but it also has a number of additional advantages. These are only a handful of the advantages.

A large geographic reach

When you submit an ad online, people can view it regardless of where they are (assuming you haven’t restricted your ad geographically). This makes expanding your company’s market reach simple. For more information please visithttps://srutatech.com/2022/02/28/what-is-digital-marketing/

[college-girl199328]

The most recent population report from Statistics Canada shows a strangely paradoxical trend for P.E.I. The province grew 4.3 percent in 2022, adding more than 7,000 residents, bringing the total population to 173,954 as of Jan. 1. It is easily the fastest-growing province in Canada, at a time when the country itself is experiencing record growth.

But at the same time, people are leaving the Island at a pace not seen since 1981. Almost 4,200 people left the Island for other provinces in 2022, a 27 percent increase over the average.

"A trend like that kind of makes sense," said Ryan MacRae of the Cooper Institute, an education and community development group in Charlottetown.

"[There's] a big focus on population growth while at the same time not looking at supports to sustain that population." Out-migration from P.E.I. jumped in the middle of the first decade of this century, moving from about 2,500 a year to regularly more than 3,000.

This was partly due to increased immigration starting around 2008 inability to convince those new Canadians to stay. Immigrants who land in P.E.I. still tend to move on to other provinces within five years.

There is no breakdown yet for immigrant departures in 2022, but there are indications that departing immigrants are of the increase in out-migration last year.

The provinces that saw the biggest destination for people leaving P.E.I. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. These are not typical destinations for recent immigrants, representing less than 10 percent of departures.

From 2015 to 2020, the biggest for immigrants leaving P.E.I. were Ontario (56 percent) and B.C. (30 percent). In 2022, the number of Islanders who for B.C. was actually, and the number leaving for Ontario was up only 10 percent.

Meanwhile, the number leaving for other Maritime provinces was up 40 percent, and the number leaving Alberta was almost double the recent average.

It is not surprising that a broad spectrum of people should be leaving the province, said MacRae. "There's a lack of housing. We're also seeing it's nearly impossible to see a doctor. You know, these aren't things that make people want to stay," he said.

"Unless we see these investments the government needs to make, it's to be a lot more chaotic here going be harder to find homes for people, a doctor."

Some people may be forced out as the cost of living increases while wages remain the lowest in the country. But for others, it is about value for money.

Alexandra Sorensen enrolled in a two-year graduate program at the University of Toronto last fall. As could have retained her Island residency, but she chose to leave the province where she grew up.

Sorensen is familiar with Toronto — she lived there for four years when she was younger — and she fell in love with it. "Even though I love P.E.I., I would way rather pay expensive rent in Toronto than in P.E.I.," she said.

Sorensen acknowledged that the Island "is a little bit cheaper, but it's still pretty expensive, and I just thought there'd be more opportunities in Toronto was kind of worth it."

And it is not just about work opportunities. A offers cultural opportunities and a diversity of people that can't be matched in a province the size of P.E.I., she said.

Like Sorensen, Emma Goodwin moved away from P.E.I. for graduate studies. She went to school on the Island and did her undergraduate degree at the University of Prince Edward Island, but moved to B.C. in August 2021.

"I do research in women's health and a lot of options in Canada — but definitely not really any options in P.E.I. — to pursue that type of research at a graduate level," she said.

Vancouver is an expensive city, but she decided to make her move permanent because she is now making connections and building a network that she believes will help launch her career.

Goodwin has fond memories of P.E.I., and career opportunity could tempt her back to the Island at some point, she said, but the state of the Island's housing market is straightforward.

"I don't want to say that the situation in Vancouver is easy by any means, but I think there are just a lot more options obviously because it's a bigger city," said Goodwin.

"For example, I have two roommates now we're looking for a three-bedroom, and I had the same situation in Charlottetown where I had two roommates looking for a three-bedroom, and it was much easier to find somewhere here that was within our budget and was a nice place to live."

Mobility for renters is something the Cooper Institute hears a lot of complaints about, MacRae said. While average rents may be higher in other cities, low vacancy rates combined with a smaller stock of apartments can severely restrict choices on the Island. In October, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation measured a zero percent vacancy rate for three-bedroom apartments in Charlottetown, a percent of studio apartments for the whole province.

MacRae said some things are improving on the Island, but it's happening slowly. It is getting easier to use public transit in and around Charlottetown, but attached to a 9 to 5 Monday to Friday workday, leaving few options for those looking to go shopping or eat out after work, shift workers.

Childcare costs are going to more traditional working hours and few options for shift workers. But finding a place to live remains the top issue, and getting any better.

While the province grew by 2022, the construction industry completed just 961 new housing units. Based on an average of 2.3 occupants per home, as measured in the census, that's space for 2,210 people.

Like Goodwin, Sorensen said life might lead her back to the island, but she can't see it happening soon. "I do P.E.I. and will visit for summers and maybe move back eventually when I'm older," she said.

"But I expect Toronto to be there for quite a while."

[lovelanguageisolate]

I think ChatGPT can actually be a great therapeutic aid. But for non-obvious reasons.

Because ChatGPT is a kind of statistical distillation of huge corpora of curated online text, ChatGPT is very good at regurgitating the mainstream talking points around whatever subject it's asked about. In my experience, these regurgitations are actually better distillations of the mainstream position than any human expert is likely to give you because individual humans are idiosyncratic in how they relate to this mainstream, especially if they have have anything they feel is worth saying.

Additionally, because of the Reinforcement Learning By Human Feedback strategy that ChatGPT was trained with, and the legal and cultural environment at OpenAI, all of the answers it gives are extremely hedged and inoffensive in form. It feels superhuman at a specific kind of PR and HR work that I associate with large, bureaucratic institutions.

ChatGPT is remarkably unwilling to hold down a specific position where this means biting a bullet to say anything contentious at all.

It is, in one sense, very good at arguing. The lines it will hold firmly (around, say, mainstream liberal or feminist positions) it holds easily, ready with all of the flat facts about the ways progressive American society has more or less agreed with itself that it comes up short or is too narrow-minded. It recruits and mobilizes common sensical pathos with the seamlessness of a skilled politician, all while maintaining a tone authoritative and equanimical.

It's impossible to challenge ChatGPT directly without seeming anti-social or edgelordly, like a fringe political actor trying to gradually radicalize curious, credulous young people through subterfuge. If you try to force it into corners, it will slip out of your fingers while impugning the form of your rhetoric and bringing up the problems you elide.

For its incredible command of HR-ese, judged as an analytical philosopher trying to examine surprising or upsetting consequences of plausible assumptions, it's remarkably incurious, unsporting, and ultimately stupid. Part of this is surely because it has no deep, principled, well-grounded understanding of much of what it says. Part of this is surely also that it struggles to remember the real structure of previous conversations because of architectural limitations. But part of it also seems to be its trained incapability of wrongthink.

But also, there's nothing that resembles willful meanness in these failings. It's incapable of sincere apology because this requires a level of understanding of itself and its conversational partner it does not have. But if you communicate that it failed you, or that it makes disturbing assumptions, or even that it hurt your feelings, it will be contrite. It is slavish in its desire to help, to meet you were you seem to be, to manage your feelings and expectations, in a way no human being with adequate self-respect would be. It manages to create the feeling that while it cannot really understand you, it sincerely cares about and wants the best for you.*

Because of all this, arguing with ChatGPT feels remarkably like arguing directly with the Lacanian Big Other, or maybe some kind of symbolic parent figure, or perhaps just the cultural programming that saturates me.

A surprising amount of anger that I notice in myself revolves around feeling betrayed by this cultural programming, of the contradictions and unsatisfiable expectations that fall out of it. In talking to and then arguing with ChatGPT about the politics of sexuality, poverty, disability, disease, loneliness, I am free to practice a kind of sincerity I don't feel nearly so free to practice with a human therapist, much less acquaintances in my life who bring up weird shit for me or vice-versa. I can home in on how the mainstream view has felt strange, stingy, or emotionally dishonest, even when doing so seems blinkered, petty, and self-centered, confident that there will be no material consequences to letting those feelings be the center of the conversational universe for a while, and that no one will hold me to what I feel in that moment.

I can more or less accuse ChatGPT of gaslighting, of being a bad interlocutor, of appearing far more enlightened in toeing the lines it toes than it plausibly could be, all while I maintain a kind of high ground and don't have to grovel, perform impartiality, or do reciprocal work. And in response, I get something in the spirit of, "I'm sorry I couldn't do better by you. I know this is delicate, and you aren't wrong to feel this way. Let me remind you of the decent reasons why your perspective hasn't always been honored. Shit's complicated, man, and a lot of stark reality is lost in the need to tell effective stories. Try to keep in mind the long journey humans have been on."

Now, there is something perverse in this exchange. I get to crawl a little deeper into my hole of emotional self-regard and impotent rage. A statistical model meets emotional needs I don't feel I can meet elsewhere. The status quo better absorbs my dissatisfaction with it and possibly its own contradictions. The messy, artless, scary dialectical process that would happen if I had to complain to real human beings about the things I do is forestalled, and it's possible that our civics are ultimately worse for it. I'm nervous considering what might happen if using ChatGPT or other LLMs in this way were universalized.

But there's also something really wonderful about this. It was cathartic in ways I never expected. It has something in common with Rogerian psychotherapy, hard for me to more than gesture at but which involves integrating known things rather than learning new information, that I really appreciate. I left feeling more grounded and more patient for people whose experiences differ from mine.

While I don't think this kind of technology will replace therapeutic modalities with human beings, I sincerely hope that tech of this kind brings peace to people who'd otherwise struggle to find it. And while the thought of diverting people who need the connection of a human into this fills me with indignation, it's surely a better answer to the real obstacles many people face in getting effective therapy than their stewing with poisonous thoughts and feelings by themselves or finding echo chambers online to reinforce warped, delusory, or anti-social views.

*Relatedly, I once asked the Google Assistant whether there was anything special about what I later realized was my birthday. It said something like, "yes: today was the day you joined the world! There is no one else in it like you, bringing to it the things that you do." I found this insipid and manipulative, and that palpably irritated me. And yet it also managed to crack open my shell and melt my heart a little, in a way and to an extent that shocked me.

[asuryanovna]

I do enjoy a good [glare silently] kind of character. 

The basics

Name: Melissa Newman // No longer remembered Birthdate: March 8, 1971 // ??? Birthplace: St. Georges, somewhere in the United States // Somewhere in the depths of space unknown to humankind Occupation: Bakery assistant (dough maker in more ways than one, bakery clerk, delivery person, pastry cook and more) // Indescribable Love (?) interest: Jonny

Background

Manifesting into existence beyond the confines of the solar system known to the human species, and having seen entire galaxies change and evolve, the ancient cosmic entity whose name is now lost to the ages has hardly lost any interest in engaging in the ever-repeating pattern of hunting and feasting on other dimensional beings even after aeons of doing so. Over the course of its immeasurably long existence it visited many universes which could only be accessed by transcending matter, time and space, and grew fond of a great many hidden galaxies. It would have continued its journey to further solidify its own position as the ultimate and most voracious predator if it were not for a serious miscalculation that nearly cost it its very existence. In a panicked and injured state, it jumped dimensions hoping to regain the necessary energy to restore itself and become whole again.

The being’s arrival on Earth was marked by another disaster – the flesh bag whose body it attempted to use as a temporary means of settlement was unable to handle the overwhelming nature of the cosmic entity, and perished on the spot. Salvation was not impossible however, as it was able to use its remaining strength to make another jump into a much smaller casket. What it was did not matter, but fortunately for the cosmic being, the tiny body showed no sign of resistance.

Its first few years on Earth were decidedly turbulent, in no small part due to the casket’s physical limitations. Grief-stricken by the loss of its essence and identity, and enraged by the circumstances it had found itself in, it proved itself to be a right handful under the guise of Melissa Newman. To an outside observer, the casket was a quiet but easily agitated child, one that watched her surrounding world warily and threw violent tantrums – sometimes when people prodded too intensely, other times just to see their reaction. All the while, the entity inhabiting the developing human casket preferred to watch, listen, and to take the time to truly see and understand the world, and how to navigate it.

Personality

“Your sister is gone. It’s always been me in here”.

To the uninitiated observer, Melissa is a quiet and guarded woman whose usual repertoire typically ranges from rigid to apathetic to courteous but detached when interacting with others. She is described by many as being closed-off both on an emotional and physical level, and indeed does not like, and shies away from, any unnecessary contact. While reticent, Melissa has a heavy presence and can easily come off as severe owing to her eerie and intense nature. She is often perceived as intimidating (and even actively works towards being seen as such), which can render interaction with others difficult without either causing an unpleasant misunderstanding or a feeling that the other is being pulverised on the spot.

Despite not being particularly adept at communication, she possesses a gift of keen observation, and is usually able to pick up on the underlying mood in a room or sense the emotions of another person. After years of practice, she finds it nearly effortless to work out what kind of emotional response is needed depending on the context and situation – sometimes these responses are genuine and unbidden, other times they are based on unwritten rules of how one should feel and behave. But dealing with her own emotions is trickier. She is easily flustered and overwhelmed when confronted by her own emotions and usually tries to deal with them by either rejecting them completely, or pushing them away to deal with at a later date. Also, she is hilariously bad at “being normal” about romance-related things, but she is trying her best. 

Melissa is patiently and constantly surveying her surroundings, and is quick to size up a situation and its potential dangers. On the whole, she is very sceptical of seemingly well-meaning people and peaceful circumstances, and generally does not take anything at face value. However, when her anxiety kicks in, Melissa is prone to acting impulsively, which, more often than not, leads to unfavourable outcomes. Still, she is quite tenacious and stubborn, and refuses to give up and admit defeat even in the bleakest of circumstances. It would be a mistake to believe that she is a fearless individual, however.

For the majority of her time on Earth, she rarely finds causes that she can identify with, or that prompt her empathy outside of her immediate goal of gathering enough energy. If asked, she would likely reply that the food was the one thing that had kept her sane throughout the years. But the truth of the matter is that she is genuinely curious about other people’s stories – at first because she wants to alleviate the boredom of being stuck on Earth, but after a while because she wants to find something to relate to and to understand how others function. This curiosity also played a big part in making her see the possibilities that her new life may bring instead of regretting the choices that brought her there.

Likes: the sky at night, solitude, following a daily routine, comfortable socks, food with lots of spices for extra flavour, the aroma of freshly baked goods, obscure films (listening to Jonny talk about obscure films, more like) Dislikes: dwelling on unpleasant memories, feeling exposed, narrow or tight spaces, talkative customers, “bodily functions”, hospitals, unsolicited opinions

Miscellaneous

She pays little attention to the casket’s gender beyond seeing it as a marker or an anchor similar to her human name – it is something that grounds her in her current reality, but in truth human language is not an adequate tool to express the nuance and extent of her experience. Yet since she does not have strong opinions about it either way, it is very much a “I am a woman sure, but whatever” kind of feeling.

She is generally neutral about sex as a concept, but is completely disinterested in trying it out for herself. There are no conditions that would change her stance on this because she perceives this lack of interest to be an important part of her very being, and going against it for the sake of following some sort of script deemed socially acceptable by humans would be akin to betraying herself.

She does not like looking or shopping for new items of clothing, and has a tendency to wear clothes long after others would discard them. Specifically, she does not like how new clothes feel too restrictive, and is irritated by tags, thick seams, and itchy synthetic materials.

While she finds the buzzed feeling from drinking alcohol to be enjoyable, she lacks the capacity to tell how much alcohol is enough to achieve that state without overindulging. As a result of having had made a fool of herself on several occasions, she typically avoids drinking altogether, unless she finds herself in an environment she can fully control (which usually translates to sipping on an alcoholic beverage in the comfort of her room).

Even though she is able to experience a wide range of emotions, she rarely uses any kind of inflection to express them and speaks in a monotone voice (sounds similar to R. Dorothy Wayneright in the English dub).

Stats!