#i basically only log into reddit and tumblr these days

[horseslur]

Someone else can link the tumblr post/reddit link in the replies under this, I'm mostly here to elaborate on uh. How SSE Fucked Up This Time (possibly illegal version).

Disclaimer: Not an actual expert on this stuff, but i am an economics major. and i literally took a class on this sort of thing this semester.

What is SSE doing?

TLDR: as of roughly today (dec 21st 2023) but possibly earlier, you have a chance of, when trying to buy starrider, getting not just the "regular" discount packages that we know, where you pay once and get a bunch of seasonal goodies and the weekly sc, but also a "special" "Discounted" option where you get the goodies and starrider and *no weekly sc*. Meaning you will have to manually buy starcoins if you ever want any beyond the initial 2k or whatever.

Why is this possibly illegal?

I'm not diving too deep into A/B testing, because I know the least amount about it, but essentially it is literally up to chance which option you get, the regular set or the "cheap" option.

Combined with the fact that they sneakily removed the "receive a weekly starcoin allowance" from the starrider page from one day to another, and the fact that a slight graphical change (that being the +100sc not being in the image of the cheap option) are the only acknowledgements of this change, it basically sets them up for a lawsuit in any location they roll out these options.

Trade, market and consumer authorities (the FTC in the US, the European Commission in Europe, Konsumentverket in Sweden for example) have as one of their main and foremost goals the protection of consumers in the country where a product is sold. They're the reason why you can get your money back if you order something online and it doesn't arrive, or something distinctly different from what you ordered arrives instead. Rule number 1 for any company or seller is do not mislead your consumers.

Does removing the sc allowance directly break said rule? No. But doing so in a shady, hidden way that leads people to believe they should be receiving starcoins onto to be told by customer support to suck it up, they bought the wrong thing, and to do so unannounced and randomly throughout multiple regions, Definitely sets up a case against them.

It can absolutely be argued that after a decade of having a premium currency allowance as the Standard in their starrider subscriptions, to remove it unannounced and present it to customers as a regular discount is deliberately misleading consumers to buy a product that is not what they intended to buy. Both new customers and returning customers buying alternate accounts step into this process expecting to pay once for a starrider bundle that, given the ongoing seasonal festival, includes the seasonal cosmetic options, in addition to the "regular" premium currency allowance. This is especially more obvious once you realise that (presumably since implementing this system), you have to have created an account on their site and logged into it to even see which starrider bundles are available to you, which makes people unlikely to ever realise that the offers they are getting might be different from other people in their same region, with one version being significantly worse/different from what they might expect.

TLDR: it's really fucking shady of them to just Suddenly shove a bundle without the weekly allowance in people's faces when people are expecting to have them, especially because they're clearly trying to hide the fact that it's an option at all or different from the regular bundle.

What now?

If you or someone you know is getting this bundle or has bought it and felt surprised/betrayed by the fact that it lacks the allowance, take it to your local consumer protection authority (after you've contacted customer support). If you're uncertain what to tell them, try and add the following points:

You bought an online product to be used inside the game, which turned out to be something different from what you thought it was.

When you contacted customer support over this, they told you that the version you bought does not contain the allowance, but offer no way to correct this mistake. (Unless the customer support script ends up changing. In that case simply add what they did tell you.)

The discounted bundle did not clearly state that it lacks the allowance, nor is it distinctly different from other bundles, and is in fact the first option you were given.

To see what bundles are offered to you at all requires logging into an account on their website, making it difficult for you to compare offers to what other people might be getting, and making it unlikely for you to realise that you got something different from others at all until after you have bought it.

At worst, SSE will be reprimanded and made to add more clearly on their website what the bundle contains and what you're missing out on.

At best they actually go to court and go bankrupt over said costs and we'll finally be truly free

[cy-cyborg]

So, you're old, (no hate but it's true) so that must mean you were on the internet during the AOL days. Which websites are good to post fanfics too? I realise not everyone uses FFN, so should I also upload them to Tumblr? DA? Facebook? How did you start your internet career? Ao3 needs an invite >>

Lmao I'm not even 30 yet, damn 😂 (no offence taken btw, I did get a good laugh from that start to the question though)

While I was technically around then, my home town was a good 10-15yrs behind the rest of the world in regards to the internet, so we didn't get reliable/constant internet access at my house until I was in high school so I missed a lot of that era - and even when we did get it, it was expensive, so my sister and I were only allowed to use it occasionally.

I got my start on Deviantart, but I'm not sure if I can still recommend it - they got bought out a few years ago and have been... not great, ever since. The brought in a lot of changes which drove away pretty much all of the userbase outside of scammers, crypto-bros and AI "artists". I don't know how good they are for writers now but I can't imagine they're much better. I still log on and post occasionally but unless you have nostalgia for DeviantArt, I don't think it's worth it, not for new users. Inkblot might be a good alternative though - they specialise in art but do allow you to upload written works too! I never had any luck there but I know a few others who have, so it's worth checking out.

I'd also recommend against Facebook. I know there are writing communities there, but most of the ones I found were a much older demographic - the few that weren't were not exactly welcoming to anyone who wasn't a straight/cis, white, able-bodoed man. I also know facebook has policies that allow them to use your content without permission - probably not something you need to worry about for fanfiction since it's usually based on existing work but still worth being aware of.

I haven't done this myself, but my partner used to post fan fiction to Reddit for a bit and had some luck there - you just have to find the right subreddits for the fandom you want to create for. some are more active than others, but I know there's a fairly active community there if you know where to look. They can be pretty brutal though, so be prepared.

Honestly, outside of AO3, Tumblr and FFN seem to be the two big platforms today for fan fiction and related content. I'm pretty out of the loop though, I haven't been heavily involved in fandom communities in years so take all this with a grain of salt (if anyone has better advice please feel free to leave it). Honestly, since leaving Deviantart I've jumped around between a lot of different platforms, basically just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck lol. Tumblr, Mastodon and Tik Tok were the three where I got the most traction for my stuff, but Tumblr is the only one where my fandom-related stuff consistently gets any sort of traction.

Also is the Ao3 invite a new thing? I could have sworn I had an account but don't remeber getting an invite lol. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.... fuck I do sound old lmao

[thistransient]

- I managed to log out of tumblr for a grand 24 hours or so. I wish I could say it made me more productive, but I tend to just look at reddit instead. To my credit I did do some reading before bed in place of scrolling, and actually attempted to work on my CV today... before the program crashed and everything was lost 🙄

- I finally bought a new phone, after my old one had gotten to a truly unendurable level of dysfunction (I told myself I simply could not go to job interviews with such a device, which for the past few months has been held together with tape and good fortune, taking at least five attempts to coax the screen on, refusing to run even two apps at once, and freezing at a rate the polar ice caps would envy...) The only benefit of waiting so long is that the regardless of what model I acquire, I'm always blown away by the most basic functionality, much less whatever technological advances have manifested in the past couple years (I am pleased this thing takes tolerable photos in low(er) light though).

- Today I met up with a new language exchange buddy I met while volunteering for the LGBT nonprofit. She picked a cafe I'd coincidentally been recommended by someone else because they used to host linocut classes (indeed the walls were full of interesting art). The reviews, though, suggested the baristas had an attitude, and thus I was a little apprehensive when the door was affixed with multiple signs proclaiming "Full, do not come in" in Chinese (my acquaintance had already staked out a table inside). I sustained some dubious looks upon entry before hastily explaining I was here to meet someone. I am quite sure the exorbitant price for a tiny sandwich was more of a fee for enjoying the atmosphere (and being graced with the presence of the intimidatingly aloof, attractive staff) than a reflection of the ingredients...

- Of course the one day I didn't bring an umbrella it started pouring as I was on the train, and while in theory I knew there was some sort of underground bookstore near Zhongshan Station, I'd never actually been in there, nor known how far the complex extended- it's huge! I was able to pop out of an exit quite near the café and make a swift dash for it. Later on I decided to go for a walk before getting on at a farther stop, and was treated to the sight of a middle aged man dressed all in black with a long ponytail and the wispiest of pompadours still arising proudly from his scalp mount a ludicrously large cruiser and rev it, the very picture of washed up motorcycle gangster...

- In totally unrelated news, the avocado pit I have been trying to sprout has put forth a root 🎉

- I may try to log out of tumblr more often, but never fear, the queue will go on for months even if I meet an untimely end crossing the road or something (as one does in Taiwan).

[ghostofapineapple]

How tf do you change the text on the uuh ask box button??? Is this a desktop only thing I've been here like 2 years and don't know how are you speedrunning the knowledge while I stay dumb. Also how was reddit did you like the reddit. Welcome

sorry I didn't see your ask before

yes I did it on desktop, I don't know if you can do it on the app

Desktop has so many options for customization it's insane. If you only have your phone try logging in through the browser (i use Firefox but anything should work) and turning on desktop mode

reddit was the best thing man. i know the site has a reputation but in my own little reddit bubble it was incredibly wholesome, I got help with so many things from random reddittors

the best thing are the inside jokes and site culture

I feel like Reddit is the United States and Tumblr is Canada. You guys have healthcare and better politics and legal weed but we have so much fun in our shitty nation. And at the end of the day we're basically the same.

[ryuuseirune]

As someone who likes DoL a lot (240 hours logged since last year)... I've never felt like there's a shortage of fanmade content for it. Many of my favorite artists on twitter are DoL fans and regularly draw art for it. Typo (typpo8), Tnso/rabbitguy, and Baiwa/Frog (byebyefr0g) have posted some cool DoL stuff if you're looking for recommendations. There's so many DoL fans online if you know where to look! It has a massive Chinese-speaking fanbase, so if you understand how to navigate Chinese fandom tags you can probably find even more. I feel like I see Sydney stuff at least every other day on the bird app lol.

I've also played a bit of CoC, but I've never seen it in the wild. So... I looked it up to see if there really is a shortage of fanworks, and found that there's actually quite a lot. On rule34, there's like 1.8k results for CoC 1 + 2 and only 1.6k for Funger 1+2. On Sad Panda/exhentai, there's a 432-page ongoing CoC comic that was last updated 3 days ago (September 30, 2024) and 73 other user-uploaded media. In comparison, funger only has 19 entries on exhentai as of the time I'm searching. (DoL has none, in case you're wondering).

I think it all depends on what sites you're on and the people you engage with. What kind of people like the media you're searching for? Are you considering all avenues? As someone who has scoured the deepest parts of the internet to discover pornography that suits my (incredibly specific) tastes, sometimes you'll find hidden vistas around every corner. Discords, surprisingly active forums, image boards (aka booru), Reddit communities, mastodon instances (aethy, baraag)... the list goes on and on.

If you're having trouble finding fandom spaces, I think all of the sites I mentioned above are decent options. It's really easy for fanworks to get lost on larger sites, so I'd stick to the smaller sites if possible. And, if you still can't find anyone after exhausting all your English options, maybe learn a couple languages for fun. (I'd say just kidding, but I'm really not.) Go join a super topic on Weibo. Support Japanese artists on Fantia and Pixiv. There's 2ch.hk if you speak Russian, though you might need to dig a bit before you find fandom stuff lol.

Also, I was talking with a fandom friend about image boards and she actually didn't know they existed, which made me realize that there's probably a lot of newer tumblr users who are unfamiliar with imageboards as a concept. They're basically sites exclusively made for uploading visual media (images/videos/gifs) and sorting them via functional tagging systems, usually with an entirely separate forum section for discussion.

There's a lot of imageboards out there with a lot of different uses/fanbases. I mentioned Rule 34 earlier, which has a lot of stuff for Western cartoons and Overwatch but it's also probably the most well-known image board nowadays just because of its iconic name. Danbooru and Gelbooru are the most popular ones for anime-adjacent stuff. There's also joibooru, which allows captions to pictures. Don't use Sankaku Complex (does that site still exist?); its tag search system is horrid and it doesn't provide image sources (not cool!). If you're a furry, e621 is good because it lets you sort between types of furries (canid, bovine, avian etc). Ehentai technically isn't an image board since you can also share files other than images, but it's been around since 1999 and has one of the largest databases of manga/doujin like... ever. And it has sooooo many images. If you're not using it as a fan of 2000s-2010s manga/anime/games, you're missing out. Its sister site exhentai hosts more extreme/controversial content, and you need an ehentai account to access it - otherwise you get a picture of a Sad Panda. Hence why users colloquially call it Sad Panda. You can also find scans of certain official media on there, so I'd consider getting an account if you want to scrounge up a high-quality PDF of that Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver guidebook you got from the Scholastic book fair when you were a child... just saying.

Anyway, all this to say... never give up hope in finding the porn you want. It's out there somewhere. And if it isn't... I guess that means you've just gotta make it yourself! Or pay someone else to. Or both. (If I revealed how much money I've spent on commissions over the past three years, I think I'd feel a moderate amount of embarrassment at my poor financial management.) I hope you find what you need, anon. I've struggled similarly but just know your people are out there somewhere.

do you ever think about how even though sex and sexuality is a HUGE part of fandom culture and often the main appeal for many people, it's considered weird to be a fandom-level Fan of something that is objectively meant to be porn? like, i somewhat get it with 3-episode shows that clearly just exist to be fetish material and have no real depth, but when it comes to genuine works of art like Corruption of Champions, or Degrees of Ludity, your usual fan spaces have so little room to work. i find it odd, seeing as horror doesn't seem to have the same issue? there's a LOT in Fear And Hunger that you just straight-up cannot depict on tumblr, but that doesn't stop people from drawing tons of fanart and openly loving the characters. but for so many amazing porn games, it's total radio silence.

--

There are fanvids of CockyBoys on AO3. There are some regulars at ye olde slash cons who are always ready with the live action porn recs. Tagame is pretty popular.

You phrased this like it was a general question, but you're talking about something very specific: porn games.

I think the fanworks makers who like CoC hang out on image boards full of dude users and f/monster noncon content. At least, that's where I remember seeing it mentioned.

[legobiwan]

I am so happy the little exposure I have to Twitter is confined to baseball highlights and the occasional reddit shitpost link. I can't imagine willingly searching out that platform for content, yikes.

[madame-mozart]

“A Character Social Network”...?

I’ve been wanting to make this post for a while now.

I know I’m not the only one who’s gotten private messages like this:

(I’ve censored out the account names, though I don’t know if they’re really worth witch-hunting, anyway)

I got this message for the first time (first screenshot) a few months ago, and a second time (second screenshot) a few days ago. The first one was sent to my main blog (the account you’re viewing this on right now, lol) while the second one was sent to one of my sideblogs. The one thing that these two blogs had in common? I posted stuff related to my OCs (Original Characters). Chances are, if you post about your own OCs too, you’ll also probably get DMs like this. 

So why would these accounts target you? Well, as you can see, they will send you a Google Forms link with some kind of “access code”. I noticed that these accounts are basically like any other spambot, as they will have a default profile picture and their pages will be empty. They also followed me and a few other people, including Tumblr Staff (which I think you automatically follow by default when you make a new account). I did some searching, and I deduced these are indeed legit links for a Google Form. However, since I’m a paranoid person, I purposefully logged out of my main Google account and hopped on a burner one to access the form itself:

(The first screenshot is the form linked from the DM I got a few months ago, the second screenshot is from the one I got a few days ago)

Again, very similar wording. TLDR: they’re basically advertising some kind of social “site” where you’d be able to share your OCs with other people and interact with each other. The catch is, they’re “invite only” and you need an access code to get in. As you’ve seen, the only way to seemingly get an access code is to be messaged directly from these spambot accounts. Oh, and they also want your email so you’ll get your actual “invite” to the site.

Hm, yeah, are you sure you’re not also going to leak my data to other fishy sites that’ll end up spamming me? Wait, a bunch of social media sites do that already, don’t they?

Anyway, I simply noped out and marked both these DMs as spam. However, I wanted to do some further digging into what this “Character Social Network” was... what was even the name of this “site”? Why wasn’t it mentioned ANYWHERE in the Google Forms? Who even were these people targeting certain accounts on TUMBLR OF ALL PLACES and sending DMs like this?

I tried typing “character social network” into Tumblr’s search engine... nothing really significant popped up (no one was bringing this to others’ attention? I guess I’ll be darned if I’m the first one to do this). I took it to Google, and ended up finding a Reddit thread! Basically, it was the same deal: the OP got a DM from Tumblr advertising the supposed “site” with a Google Forms and an invite code to join. Many other commenters seem to have gotten the same link! One commenter actually used a burner email to try signing up to the site to see what would happen! Surprisingly enough, they made a breakthrough:

CharacterHub, huh? That’s the site behind all these spambot DMs? I wonder what that site looks like...

Ah, I see. It seems like it’s trying to be like Toyhou.se, another character repository site that also happens to be invite only.  Unlike Toyhou.se though (where you’d have to actively search for someone/somewhere to get yourself an invite code), you can apparently request an invite code right there directly from the site!

This is what you see when you click the “request invite” button.  So they’re “invite only” because they really want to offer the service that their users “deserve” and want to create a tight-knit community. Okay, fair enough. You’d probably run the risk of having trolls flood your site if you made the registration public. That’s probably similar to why Toyhou.se has been in invite beta for so long.

But wait, I noticed something: “We’re in the Discord”.

Well, I don’t know why you couldn’t just let people join your Discord server (if it even exists). Again, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt: you don’t want trolls flooding your server. Since you appear to already have people in your “tight-knit” community (including moderators, which I hope to God you have decent ones), why not have these people make Tumblr accounts and send people invites to the Discord server instead of using spambots to spread a fishy-looking Google Form? I get it, maybe it’s not the greatest idea. I shouldn’t be talking, really. But in my opinion, it probably would’ve made you guys look a lot more legit if I got a DM from an actual Tumblr user (heck, you don’t even have to post anything if you really wanted to, but just edit your description or something saying that you’re from the CharacterHub site and you’re giving out invite codes!) promoting an actual Discord server - LOTS of people use Discord!! Funny story, this is actually how I got into one of my own Discord servers! There was this nostalgic game I used to play back in the day, which shut down a few years ago. An actual Tumblr account from that Discord server messaged me and sent me an invite link to the server!

Hold on, don’t leave yet. I’m not done digging through this rabbit hole. Not only did I find the CharacterHub site on Google, but I also happened to find their Twitter!

A breakthrough! The people behind CharacterHub seem to be tied to another similarly-named site called “Charahub”! You guys remember Charahub, right? I do, too! I actually used it back in the day, but it apparently shut down without me (and many others) even knowing!! Seriously, just type Charahub into Tumblr’s search engine - so many more people have been posting about it. It’s very clearly well known to many.

Allegedly, Charahub had quite a bit of issues - I saw some Tumblr users complaining about data leaks the site apparently had, poor communication from the moderators (people have apparently tried to reach out to their social media but never got any responses back), and the fact that it literally just shut down without a warning, effectively nuking every OC and information that people have poured into their profile.

So riddle me this: is CharacterHub supposedly a “revival” of Charahub????

...because honestly, with everything you’ve done/shown through that previous site and what you’re doing now to try and get people to join your site, it’s looking kind of shady right now. I will NOT be joining your site. I’d always been wanting to join Toyhou.se, and I finally got an invite code this year. As far as I know, Toyhou.se doesn’t seem to have many problems with it. You guys shut down a site only to open it back up again? Logic 100.

To anyone who reads this post: take this all with a grain of salt. For all I know, I could be completely in the wrong and CharacterHub is actually an amazing site. I honestly don’t know, but I also honestly don’t care. If you think this is a scam, go ahead! Block all these DMs! Have you decided to ignore everything I said and gone out to sign up to this site? Maybe you’re even a member of this site? Cool story, bro! No seriously, if you’re a member of the site, how about enlightening me (and other people who might be suspicious) on what you can exactly do on this site? Literally NO ONE has spoken up about this site and it really does seem like they want their little “tight-knit” community to be all “hush-hush” about it, too. All I really ask is to not witch-hunt their Twitter or any of their other platforms, okay? The last thing I want to see is people messing around with them and saying they got sent from Tumblr.

Totally forgot to mention this, but I thought it was kind of funny that they messaged me on a sideblog where I post stuff from “Waifu Labs”, a site you can use to generate anime characters using an AI. They apparently called that “my art”, ha. 🤡

[nyerus]

TCGF Donghua Masterpost: How to Watch Legally!~

✨First things to know:✨

There are two places to watch: the official Bilibili App/Website, or Bilibili's YouTube Channel.

Episodes are going to be simulcast, with hard-coded English subtitles on launch!

Both are paid services, if you want to watch on-release as it airs. Price varies per region.

You can also watch for free on YouTube two weeks after an episode airs live. You will not be able to watch for free on Bilibili except for ep1.

The YouTube channel will only have free episodes for a limited time, so if you are watching for free, do not dally! They will be locked behind a paid sub after some time, too.

IMPORTANT: The TGCF donghua on YouTube is region-locked. (Unavailable countries: North/Central/South America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia.) But if you are affected, you can use a VPN. Just pay for the sub and then use VPN.

ALTERNATIVELY: Everyone can watch on the Bilibili website, as it has no region locks! You can pay on the website via PayPal!

The Bilibili app itself is region-locked, but Android users can easily use an APK (and pay with GooglePay) to circumvent this. iOS users are best off sticking to the website only, but some counties may allow the app to be downloaded (just check first).

You will need a Bilibili account if you're going to use the Bilibili App/Website. But it's not difficult to make (guide will be linked below), and if you have one for the TGCF manhua, you can just use that one.

✨"Bilibili or YouTube?"✨

Short answer: Bilibili is better overall, especially the website. But there are pros and cons of each, so you can decide for yourself.

Pros of YouTube:

Easy to navigate for English speakers

Straightforward to subscribe, via Google/Apple Pay, or PayPal

Cons of YouTube:

Region-locked for many countries

Require a VPN if so

Subscription is more expensive in certain regions

Pros of Bilibili:

Website is not region-locked, no VPN required

Can use PayPal to pay for sub via website, or GooglePay/Apple Pay via mobile app

Subscription is cheaper

Cons of Bilibili:

Little confusing to navigate if you don't know Chinese

App is region-locked on Google Play/Apple App Store, and iOS users cannot download APK to get around this unlike Android users (but everyone can still use website!!!)

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⚠️Please expand the following visual guides, as tumblr heavily compresses them for your dash.⚠️

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✨YouTube Guide✨

Important Notices:

The paid subscriptions are just channel-based.

YouTube has tiered subscriptions. "MBBM lv2" is the tier you want, in order to watch both episodes 1 & 2 on launch (October 31st). "MBBM lv1" will only have access to episode 1, thus putting them one week behind the lv2 viewers.

Go to: "youtube [.] com/channel/UCQFy MGc60N MCd6H Ck0ZPA" (remove spaces and brackets)

How to subscribe on YouTube:

If you are from one of the region-locked countries, you can use a VPN after purchasing the subscription. If you don't have a paid VPN, you can use a free one like ProtonVPN (suggested by many fans, who have verified it works with the 2nd PV, as that is currently region-locked too).

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✨Bilibili Website Guide✨

Important Notices:

You will need a Bilibili account. If you have one for the manhua, for example, you can just use those same credentials. If you need to make a new account, please see the end of this post for a link on how to make one.

There are no tiers for the Bilibili subscription; it's just one flat price.

You can choose to buy the 3 month subscription, which will allot you 93 days--more than enough for the airing of the donghua. You can also pay monthly if you wish. (There are other lengths too, but you likely do not need/want them.)

Go to: "Bilibili [.] com" (remove spaces and brackets)

How to subscribe on the Bilibili Website:

Be sure to follow the 天官赐福 page on Bilibili afterwards!~

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✨Bilibili App Guide✨

Important Notices:

If the app is region-locked in your country (most likely is), please download the APK via APKPure!!!!!!! There are two versions of the app, and the one from the Bilibili home page is not the one you want because it requires AliPay/WeChat Pay/etc, all of which require Chinese credentials.

Due to the probable need of using an APK to get it, using the app is only easy for Android users! If iOS users are able to download the correct version of the app, however, the guide is much the same.

I have a guide on how to know which app is the right one, if needed. See below this section.

How to subscribe on the Bilibili app:

Once you pay on the app, you'll be able to watch anywhere!

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If you need to make a new Bilibili account, check out the instructions on this reddit post: "reddit [.] com/r/FinalGearEN/comments/di6tme/bilibili_account_registration_guide/" (remove spaces an brackets)

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‼️Differences between Bilibili Apps:‼️

I'm not sure if the alternative version of the app works with PayPal in other regions, but it didn't give me the option when I tried, even when I logged in. Thus, my guess is no, and that only the website offers PayPal, but the "correct" version of the app offers via Google Play.

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✨"When should I pay?"✨

Probably a few days before the donghua releases would get you the most bang for your buck. If you are paying via Bilibili and doing the 3 month sub (93 days), you can pay basically anytime between now and October 31st and have enough days left on your sub for all 11 episodes. (Unless there is a random mid-season break, but I doubt that.)

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Hope this helps! If you have questions, feel free to send in an ask!

And sorry for the ugliness of these images. Graphic design is not my passion as you can see.... 😂

[poormeowmeowcollector]

If you're still looking for hc ideas: Loki discovering social media. Either the reader or someone from the team help them with it

That's such a nice idea.

Instragram

The only one Tony made Loki have.

He doesn't post as much, mostly when it's an important day or something, like every celebrity account.

They follow usually those meme accounts or news accounts (since they know the actual news are lying).

Sometimes, he will post something important or funny he saw on his stories, and that's it

Twitter

Another one Tony made Loki have.

They have seen what happened to those who tweet the wrong thing, even years ago.

So, he has never Twitted anything. It just exists.

And they never will, too afraid that strangers will personally attack them for the tiniest thing.

When Tony complains about this silence, Loki explains why he never tweets, and Tony agrees, and lets Loki delete it if he wants

They deleted it three minutes later

Spotify

He has premium, from Tony's bank account.

They make playlists all the time, with very characteristic titles

It's not on Loki's name, for safety reasons

People still suspect that it's Loki's, mostly because the Thor playlist has clown music.

Tiktok

Once again, it's an account without Loki's name, per say, and he doesn't shows his face or his voice.

After following some accounts for some time, they start making their own content, and slowly revealed themselves.

It ends up being a meme or chaos account, kinda like Kim Rhodes account.

Yet, he stays away from drama, not having the emotional stamina to go through this in public.

Reddit

Loki went once, saw the boys, and logged off.

Tumblr

This one was suggested by you but as a joke.

Loki got interested and you explained the basic rules.

Again, it doesn't have Loki's name or a picture, for safety reasons.

They quickly grow fond of it and it becomes their favourite, and the one they're most active

Everything once in a while, he clicks donation links, makes sure via Friday that it's not a fraud and sends as many money as needed to meet the goal, from Tony's bank account.

People start suspecting it's Loki, due to the large vocabulary and corrections on historical facts, but Loki denies the accusations with vine quotes.

I said you explained him everything, vine is included

Whenever a mutual of them gets anon hate, Loki makes Friday track down their location and Loki goes there to have a talk

~~~~~~

Taglist: @lucywrites02 @electroma89 @the-emo-asgardian @rorybutnotgilmore @hybrid-in-progress @weirdfangirl2416 @kozkalovesloki

[the-waking-dreamer]

Hi Daniel: How are you doing these days? I don't know why, but I was thinking about you and remembering how you. Last time you wrote, you were asked to pray about God's will before the Blessed Sacrament, during that retreat. I hope you are well and blessed, Fr. Angel

Hi Daniel, You sent this a long time ago, when you had questions about what a priest said to you during a retreat. I never answered because I wasn’t sure if it was more of a comment or a question, but I would say now that prayer during vocational discernment is partially pragmatic (seeing if one has the practical means for carrying through on formation and becoming a priest), but also has an element of “inspiration.” Prayer, during vocations discernment (IMO) is to also help us see if we are in love enough (inspired enough), with the Lord and the Church, to give seminary a try. Anyway, I think of you from time to time and pray that you are doing well. You wrote once that your sister was pregnant and getting married. Did she have her baby? Is she alright these days. God bless you very much! Fr. Angel

Father, I heard that God took you away recently, so I logged in, and it grieved me to see this message in my box. It looks to be six years unanswered now. I am moved that you would think of me and give consideration to all my little trifles. Even though you will not read my response on this Earth, I wish to answer you all the same.

I'm doing well right now. My heart was never large enough to give serious consideration to the priesthood, but you never thought that was a big problem in your previous answers. I married my girlfriend from college, who I spent several years fawning over, several years dating, then several years engaged. We've been married for three years now, and though we have not yet been blessed with children, I couldn't imagine life without her (and I can hardly remember my life before!)

After college, I went on to grad school for my MFA and taught at a high school those same two years before being let go due to downsizing in the English department. It was a temporary certificate to teach, so I never went back to it. It stressed me out terribly, besides. I wasn't able to find work teaching at college so I worked at a printshop, and now, I'm at an assistive tech company answering the telephone. It's not as interesting as teaching was, but it pays the bills. The same year I was fired, I was married, and also disowned by my own family--a long story I won't get into here. I'm looking forward to my hundredfold.

I've been pursuing publication with my thesis from my MFA, a collection of short fiction. Nothing has taken yet save for one of my stories, which has been delayed for a year now. I still submit to magazines at least once a month to keep up the pace. I've been submitting seriously for a year and only one piece has received a personal note on the rejection. That's supposed to be a good sign! Still, the lack of success kills my motivation to write any further. It's hard to perform without an audience.

My wife is a realistic artist, and she also submits to shows and contests. Maybe it's the subject matter or just the area we live in, but she's having similar trouble getting recognition. Right now, she's working on getting her master's at the Florence Academy. We hope that the new skills push her over the to and that this program helps her get the connections she needs.

My sister, whom you advised to pursue convalidation, did end up receiving convalidation. She re-entered the Church along with her husband and their three little girls when they were all baptized some years ago. It was a big hassle, but they pulled through. The priest my brother-in-law was doing RCIA with ended up passing away, and because of military, they had to move parishes--basically losing all their progress. It wasn't until he was out of the military that they were finally able to get it done. I know my sister was put off by her priest previously and saw no way forward. Through your advice and encouragement, she was able to become right with God again. We owe much to you, Father.

Now, she's had her fourth baby--a little boy named Abram. She lives on a farm with her husband where they have chickens, cows, a couple dogs, and a donkey. Right now, she is pursuing training to be a sonogram technician so that she can support the pro-life community where she lives. She's very much an inspiration to me--humble, loving, and strong.

I regret that I haven't been on Tumblr lately, particularly to respond to you here and see your wit at work. Life became busy, and I switched to other sites to evangelize, Facebook and Reddit mainly, though I'm mostly just on Facebook now. I hope you continue to think about me from time to time and pray for my little troubles in Paradise, too.

Pax tecum,

Daniel J Dupuy

[ametrinember]

So, my account was terminated (ಠ_ಠ)

About two weeks ago, I tap the Tumblr icon on my phone screen and it brings up the login page. Weird. It hardly ever logs me out and I basically never log out ever. I enter my password and it doesn’t work. Repeat three times, then I begin to Suspect. Bring up my blog page on my browser and I get the “there’s nothing here” message. Oh boy. I open a support request and get the message that my account has been terminated. And then I start laughing.

I...look, I reblog animals. And nature. And memes. And jewelry. And fandom stuff. Oh, and also flowers. Was it the flowers?? Were the flowers the last straw???

I sit back on my heels and think. I don’t have any enemies (that I know of. If you’re out there, come forth so that we may duel and settle this once and for all.) I don’t sell anything. The only posts I ever make are about my guinea pigs, and I post maybe once every few years. (Did I exceed my annual guinea pig post limit? If so, I regret nothing.)

I don’t have Facebook. I don’t have Twitter. I don’t have Reddit. I have a nail Instagram with nothing on it yet. Tumblr is the only corner of the internet I actively inhabit. It’s my house. And now that it’s gone, it’s like coming to my building and finding a hollow box where my unit would be. Tumblr! Give me back my house!

What, am I gonna hafta get Twitter now? Like the rest of my friends?? No actual shade to Twitter, btw, I am simply a creature of habit, and this Tumblr habit has been going on for a decade. So if I can get my blog back, I would of course prefer that.

I Google my problem like a good little millennial and learn that I should email support directly, politely explain the situation and request that my account be reinstated.

I follow the instructions and then spend the next two weeks opening Tumblr on autopilot, only to be reminded of my current demotion to Person Without A Tumblr Account. So I read. I pick up an old hobby. I scroll Instagram because apparently I can’t function without some type of distraction.

And then I get THIS message:

And I’m all “Ummm excuse me how dare u??? This is your fault, if you recall.” And then it takes me a wholeass day to realize that if Tumblr is sending me a message like that, it must mean it can detect my blog, which means my blog exists again. 

And then I get a message that a pornbot has followed me, and what is that if not a solid-gold real-deal confirmation that my blog exists again. Pornbots. Finally good for something.

I log in and holy mackerel, my house is back. Hallelujah. What a ride. Going by my queued posts, it looks like my blog was reinstated on March 8. Tumblr support never emailed me about the cause, the issue, or the reinstatement. So I’ll never know why it was pulled. 

Bet it was the flowers.

[metrodisco]

fucking crazy nightmare i had last night

as im remembering it to type this down im kinda realizing how absurd this nightmare was but it was so terrifying for me. just so you know, i hardly wake up from any nightmares ever, i usually just go through the whole thing like a psychopath. but this time i actually woke up. i have terrible storytelling and writing skills, but ill try my best.

so lets get to it because it takes a turn.

alright, so it starts with me on tumblr. im scrolling until i see a post from someone i follow, i don’t remember the user, but thankfully i know they’re not real. let’s call them OP. here’s an important thing about OP: they’re those tumblr microcelebrities who have a cult following and who always gets notes on their posts no matter what it is. remember that for later.

anyway, they were saying some things about how nobody should pirate things, that people who do are making excuses. 

so, i started writing an ask - i don’t know why it had to be an ask, i could’ve just reblogged the post and written what i wanted there - explaining inacessibility to certain programs and higher prices for people who live in 3rd world countries, how streaming programs and etc are getting more and more expensive, all that jazz. and here’s the thing: i was being, very, very polite. i literally wrote something like “i respect your opinion, but here’s a few things you should consider”. OP had anonnymous asks turned off, but i still sent it. so, as we say in brazil, everything’s fine until there.

well, that’s where shit starts to hit the fan. i had completely forgotten about the ask, and was still scrolling through tumblr. i refreshed the page, and to my (unpleasant) surprise, there’s OP’s post again. except OP themself posted an additon with the post with part of my ask. they were pretty much mocking me, with a “haha snarky mean comment”. 

for someone who has anxiety, i actually wasn’t that bothered. i thought something like “wow, asshole move. i’ll unfollow you.”. but, surprise surprise: the “unfollow” and “block” button weren’t working. i figured it was just some bug, because staff doesn’t know how to do their job, and decided i’d try again later.

for some reason, i still kept scrolling tumblr. to my lack of luck, more additions kept popping up on the post, with OP reblogging each of them. all of the comments they reblogged were, of course, people talking shit about me. some just lightly making fun of me, some with another mean snarky comments and some just straight up being verbal abuse. 

i was already getting pretty upset with these, so i vented to a real mutual who i basically consider that cool cousin you have. honestly, the only good part of this mess. we ended the conversation with something like “yeah, people can be some fucking cocks sometimes.” 

after that, i was already getting pretty tired of this shit, so i tried the unfollow and block button again. this time, it worked. what a relief.

well, the nightmare isn’t over yet. we’re just getting started. buckle up for this shit.

i finally made a good decision and got off tumblr for the rest of the day. 

the other day, i checked tumblr again, thinking i’d be safe. until i saw the ammount of notifications hovering above the letter symbol. now, i already get nervous when i get 1 ask, which is super rare, so you could imagine how i felt when i saw dozens and dozens of hate messages. i tried my best to ignore them, but a lot of them got to me. i started deleting them, but then i saw something that really caught my attention.

just straight up a picture of where i live. in my dream i apparently lived in a house, and the anon somehow just figured that out. at that point i was fucking terrified. i started hearing noises from outside and looked out the window. there was a fucking angry mob standing outside my house.

obviously scared for my life, i went straight to my car to get the hell out of there. i managed to get out of the house, but someone broke the front window of the car. just when i thought it couldn’t get any crazier, someone threw a noose, that’s right, a NOOSE, trying to get my neck. 

the whole chase was fucking terrifying, it was like a horde of zombies.

i drove until i got to some forest and that’s when i woke up.

my first thought was “what the fuck” followed by “that was fucking insane i have to write this down.” and went straight to my computer and looked up a community on reddit for nightmares.

it’s been about 30 minutes since i woke up, and i feel like i’m never going to forget this. i think i might log off tumblr for a little while.

i really hope you guys don’t think i made this up. because, trust me, i don’t have the creativity to write something like that. 

[ethdifi1989qi-blog]

Low-key and mystical performance praise What is the investment idea of ??Spark Capital

Two weeks ago, a number of companies invested by Spark Capital completed acquisitions and exits and the next circular of investments by additional first-tier money, including food delivery company Postmates, clever mirror firm Mirror, quick messaging company Discord, and so forth. In June, they also completed 6 new investments. Such outstanding performance during the epidemic is quite rare in the VC circle. This program discusses what kind of fund Spark Capital is definitely, and the evaluation of these invested and acquired companies. What sort of company is Spark Capital Lively and lively: Although Spark Capital is in Silicon Valley, it seems that there is not much discussion about it, in fact it is not really a first-line fund. Louis: Because they started in Boston and are not of pure Silicon Valley descent, they are not on the list of top-tier Silicon Valley funds. But judging from their purchase portfolio, it really is an extremely competitive company. The founders of Spark Capital (Bijan Sabet, etc.) also mentioned that they encountered many obstacles if they "fight" from Boston to Silicon Valley. Lively and vigorously: Their team is not big, mainly divided into two funds, one for earlier investment and the other for growth. Today their initial administration scale is 450 million U.S. bucks, and the growth period is 900 million. The total amount is approximately 4 billion U.S. dollars in AUM (property under management). What makes me more eye-catching is the businesses that Bijan has committed to, such as Twitter, Tumblr, Trello, OMGPOP, Foursquare, and also Stack Overflow. Generally, one vote is one standard. Louis: Bijan is still very good. Both Twitter and Tumblr invested quite early, and he invested in the business when Twitter got just 12 employees. Founder of Bijan Sabet Spark Capital Their partners are not many, and some are drawn from the investee company. For instance, in the first days of Twitter, Kevin Thau was employed as a fund partner. Kevin later on led the investment in Mirror, which was recently acquired. Which companies have you invested in? Lively voice: Let's talk about the most famous Postmates first. Louis: Postmates may be the top foods delivery business in the United States, and its market share is most likely No. 4. The first choice is DoorDash, accompanied by Uber Eats, No. 3 is Grubhub, and No. 4 is basically Postmates. Lately Postmates was acquired simply by Uber, and you will furthermore see Uber Eats' ambitions. Image supply: foodondemandnews.com Suffering from the epidemic, Uber's first-quarter financial report had been ugly. Although overall revenue is rising, the net loss is approximately 3 x that of the same time period this past year, reaching $2.936 billion. They also laid off employees consistently, layoffs about a quarter of these employees inside a month. Although Uber's overall loss is expanding, Uber Eats's business has skyrocketed. Uber Eats' total bookings are US$4.683 billion, which is 30% of total revenue and a 52% year-on-year increase. So the epidemic actually taught Uber a lesson. We all said before that if startups can grasp among the four requires of humans, they may become giants. But Uber is rolling out to this year, and it has discovered that the 4 major rigid requirements may also be in order. Image source: digital.hbs.edu More than a month ago, there have been rumors that Uber can acquire Grubhub, the company with the 3rd largest market share. DoorDash's current market share is 45%, Grubhub has 28%, and Uber provides 17%. If Uber successfully acquired Grubhub a month ago, its total market talk about could be add up to DoorDash. Afterwards, a European giant named Just Eat Takeaway acquired Grubhub, that is equivalent to the merger of Ele.me personally and Baidu Waimai. So Uber could only turn around to find Postmates. Around 2012, Nabeel, somebody of Spark Funds, entered Postmates in a valuation of 73 million through the B circular, and the business was eventually acquired by Uber for $2.6 billion. Spark Capital offers its own expenditure philosophy. The CEO of Postmates will be neither a graduate of the CS main from an American Ivy League college nor a senior executive encounter in a big company. Its CEO is really a German. After dropping out of university, he's got experienced various locations in European countries for a long period. Although the price of $2.65 billion isn't high for Spark Capital, it is not a case of sensation like Twitter. But it can be seen that their investments have become stable. Lively and lively: Postmates has a total financing of nearly 900 million US dollars, so the price of 2.6 billion US bucks did not help make everyone earn often, but at least it is profitable. Their Website had two rounds of financing this past year, one in January and something in September. As you stated, this industry is as well money-burning and competition is as well fierce. Louis: For early investors want Spark Capital, it is still a good result. Uber nearly bought Grubhub. If this list is completed, it is unlikely to end up being still left to Postmates. Lively: How will be Mirror, a relatively new company? Louis: Friends who make use of Instagram should be able to see this company's ads frequently. It is a D2C brand that is a yoga exercise mirror for exercise. It looks no different from ordinary mirrors, but electronic, you can try yourself in the mirror, follow the yoga instructor in the mirror to accomplish yoga, and there are other fitness lessons. Mirror's mirror markets for under US$1,500, also it had approximately US$100 million in revenue last year. Image supply: Mirror official website The home fitness field in the usa is relatively popular. Probably the most popular one is Peloton, which is a bike for exercising in the home. Many huge tech circles and VC circles have this type of bike in the home. The cost of this car is expensive, more than 2,000 US dollars. Peloton was also successfully listed this past year, and the existing market value is about 19 billion US dollars. Lively: Where is the selling point of Mirror? Louis: The prospective market for Mirror is relatively high-end. Individuals above the center class in the usa are suffering from good fitness routines. They cannot visit the gym during the epidemic. Increasing numbers of people are considering how exactly to maintain health and fitness habits in the home. Mirror's $100 million in revenue this past year was not a big explosion, thus Lululemon's acquisition of this company was also a bold attempt through the epidemic. The features of Mirror are reflected in product design and social attributes. The high stickiness of Peloton customers is also due to the social nature. You can view how far your friends have ridden by riding a bicycle every day. Just like Line's methods ranking, there will be peer pressure. Image resource: Peloton official website And the complex threshold of Mirror hardware isn't too high, a few courses on a mirror. Additionally, there are many home fitness startups in China, including startups that benchmark Peloton or Mirror. The prerequisite for home fitness in the usa may be the maturity of the exercise industry and the popularization of outdoor exercise practices. But it continues to be a comparatively new thing in China. As a result, whether domestic exercise can achieve how big is the United States remains to be verified. Another company Spark Capital invested in is certainly Discord, the former entered the marketplace at a valuation of $22 million in the A round. The new round is led by Index Ventures, and today has a valuation of 3.5 billion U.S. dollars and keeps growing very fast. Image source: medium.com Discord can be an software for tone of voice and textual content chat. After logging in, you can see that its interface is very much like Slack, but their audiences are very different. Slack is really a SaaS firm of to B, and their users are all enterprises. The primary audience of Discord is in the gaming circle, where the voice function can be used the most. To place it bluntly, this is a software application for everyone to play video games, and the CPU occupies very little. Along with game communication, additional communication may also be performed on it. Many users of Discord are attracted from Reddit. Reddit is an extremely popular discussion board in the usa. Peer-to-peer conversation is fairly laborious. There is no personal messaging and quick messaging functions. Therefore, many large Reddit stations will open their own servers on Discord. Currently Discord has 45 million users and 9 million DAU. Even though initial feature set was even more casual, which was not the same as Slack's starting place, some schools in Europe already are using Discord for classes. So actually, Discord has mixed the functions of Slack and Zoom. This is a thing that many startups wish to accomplish but have not completed, because the United Claims can be used to doing a single function, and performing a good job first. Discord also found a good entry point in an individual dimension after combining the features of Slack and Zoom. They entered the market through the overall game segment and expanded to other areas. I think the potential customers are quite good. Lively voice: simply talked about the voice interaction and chat field, we are able to mention Clubhouse again. Louis: Clubhouse is also an extremely popular startup in Silicon Valley recently. A16z invested 12 million US dollars, with a valuation of around 100 million US dollars. But Clubhouse's products have not however seen everyone, as the current consumer invitation system. Now generally there are only 1,500 customers, basically all are tech giants, journalists, CEOs or some Hollywood celebrities. The product is founded on voice social media, and Clubhouse really wants to disrupt the podcast industry. They believe that podcasts can be converted into real-time chats. For example, many large bosses are usually chatting, and ordinary people can pay attention to them instantly and take part in interaction. Image source: techcrunch.com Clubhouse's environment is that users can easily see many areas after successfully logging in. For example, in this chat room, you can find leaders from Spark Funds discussing some emerging topics, and I wish to proceed in and pay attention. We just mentioned that it had been invested 12 million US bucks by a16z, including 2 million secondary shares (old shares). Both founders have cashed out US$2 million before the product came out. This is rare in the VC circle, and I don't believe this is a good sign. However, from the perspective of two extremely popular businesses, Discord and Clubhouse, after the epidemic, there is still a lot of room in the voice social and video fields. Lively voice: Spark Capital committed to 2 new companies in June, and the remaining 4 companies are fresh rounds of previous investment. One of the newly invested companies is called Teooh, which is a bit like the Sims 3D avatar. It could socialize, hold meetings, or hold workshops, reside podcasts or remote control team building. There are several consumer scenarios. Spark Funds casts a seed circular. Image resource: teooh.com Louis: Considering its web site now is quite "fun". It has made a 3D animation model for everyone, and the animation level is quite rough. But in the beta stage of the product, we can't use its current design to predict its future development. In case you are beginning to consider the prototypes of Google or Facebook, you may find it inexplicable. Maybe after a year or two, this type of product could have a qualitative leap. Lively voice: Another company that Spark Capital committed to in June is Tatch, whose function is to monitor sleep quality. This company was established in 2017. The form is a small patch like a plaster which can be connected to your body to monitor sleep high quality in eight various dimensions, including breathing and switching over during sleep. In the future, there may be cooperation with doctors. There are various such companies. Why do Spark Capital spend money on this company? Image supply: tatchhealth.com Louis: There are many people in this industry, including Apple. Apple also lately introduced a sleep monitoring function. Spark Capital recently committed to a company, that i think is quite interesting, called Quaestor. It is a SaaS item that connects investors and founders. On the main one hand, it helps investors manage the business they spend money on, and alternatively, it helps entrepreneurs manage investor relations. The management of most VC organizations is in fact very "primitive", and everyone uses Excel and E-mail. The founder of the product can be a VC background, and one of them was something manager at Carta before. Lively voice: Carta can be a particularly interesting product. Essentially, during the past two years, everyone has used it to communicate with investors about the stock situation. Louis: Indeed, Carta basically achieved the monopoly of this type. Carta is really a SaaS software managed by way of a startup company's shares. Start-up companies need to open choice pools for workers and manage shares for traders. This software program can do 409A valuation. You can even trade shares on it. Equity dealings in the principal market supply the impact of a secondary market. So Carta's item supervisor was dug out to accomplish Quaestor, which is reasonable. Image source: Quaestor Quaestor's products presently do not directly cope with equity dealings. At the beginning, they could still start from the perspectives of CRM, data collection, and data management, rather than directly starting finance. Lively voice: Quaestor's main function is to see how very much money is in the account of the invested company, quarterly earnings, etc. Whether it's for entrepreneurs or traders, this is actually very challenging to manage. How to talk about these data regularly without leaking the data is still very complicated. If this piece can be achieved, it'll be a good market segment. The founder's judgment on the problem of the VC industry Louis: Both main companions of Spark Funds are usually Bijan and Nabeel. Bijan may be the founder of Spark Funds in Boston, and Nabeel is really a partner in the San Francisco office, both with an excellent investment history. Each of them also have a podcast, Hallway Chat. In the latest episode, they talked about the development trend of the VC sector this year. Image source: Apple company Podcast Weighed against the household VC sector, Silicon Valley seems "lazy". It feels as though half a year is on christmas every calendar year. There are always a group of holidays beginning with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Xmas and New 12 months. There are basically no people in the last two months Worked. Because these VCs may also be bigwigs, they are not young and their children are older. In summer time, the kids have summer holiday, and they went again during the past two months. Therefore, the overall US VC sector feels very lazy. When the epidemic broke out, it experienced that individuals were not working. Bijan of Spark Funds also asked Nabeel, how can you think the overall purchase of VC changes this year. Nabeel's thinking is not exactly like everybody else. He thinks VC will undoubtedly be increasing this year. Companion, Nabeel Hyatt Spark Capital He said that whenever the epidemic simply started, everyone started to panic. After therefore a long time of VC work, he felt like a startup business for the first time. Following the fall in the US secondary market place, it rebounded strongly, which lots of people did not expect, and it also gave the primary market a enhance. Early investment may not have been affected an excessive amount of, however the growth stage is certainly picking up. It is a boost from the secondary market, and the panic provides gradually stabilized. Nabeel also mentioned that it might not be possible to talk to the founder face-to-face when making investments, so it is often necessary to make more decisive decisions. One pattern they notice is that good startups are becoming more popular. Why Clubhouse can be rushed to vote by the two top VC companies, Benchmark and a16z before the product release, and finally won by a16z, is because of the higher price. Therefore Nabeel believes that this year's VC industry scenario might not decline. But Bijan stated that previously two years in Silicon Valley, everyone feels that bubbles must exist, especially in the technologies industry. In 2019, the bubble in fact existed. So in 2020, if the VC market is still in an upward craze, both of them think it is a far more dangerous signal. Recommended reading Chinese giants retreat overseas. In 2020, overseas dating giants are embracing changes and digging into the wants of owners. Dig An app isn't plenty of. The e-commerce economy is made on Facebook. What would a country look like? The number of confirmed cases is second on earth. What opportunities does the double-edged sword of the epidemic provide to Brazil? Business Cooperation Cassie | Line: 18506490569 Media consultation Ares | Line: 18060664421 Developer docking Liu Yanting | Range: 18850230356 Long press the picture to scan the code Sign up for the Beluga community

[kennadavenportgayle]

Hey, I've been off Tumblr and Choices for a bit. What the fuck is happening with TRR??

Oh MATE!!!! I’ve been off tumblr for a hot second and yesterday I thought it was a good day to just log on for ten minutes or whatever and I just saw everything going to SHIT! So! BASICALLY! PB decided it would be a grand idea to rewrite TRR for literally no reason! Drake is now a sweetheart like all mushy and shit and Liam is an actual douchebag and Hana is literally not there like I know her route is bad to begin with but she’s legit just not present. In chapter two idk if you remember meeting Hana in the boutique but that scene is just fucking gone. We meet Bertrand like three chapters early or something he’s in chapter 2 and he wasn’t in the og version. They changed Olivia’s hair and as someone described it, it looks like she’s a scene kid from the mid 2000s. They even added in NEW diamond scenes, NEW outfits, we can kiss Drake in the second chapter I think? Maxwell seems to be almost untouched besides the fact that there’s a whole new dialogue and stuff. THE THING IS!!! it’s only available for new players! I tried to play it on a different device but couldn’t get the new version so idk how they decided who got it and who didn’t idk. I watched a play through on YouTube and the entire second chapter is different it’s INSANE they also gave out new costumes and shit to other players and I saw on reddit and youtube that they added in new shit to AME and The Freshman idk if this is true but I wouldn’t put it passed PB. It’s so strange and honestly I would replay TRR now while you still can and you’re unaffected! Sorry this was so long but I just don’t know how to cope honestly was thinking about writing a fic about this not even kidding I can’t remember the last time I wrote for fun but I’m about to write a bomb ass fic as I watch the playthrough lmao 

Anyway sorry that was long hope that clears some things up! 

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Why Tumblr Chooses Censorship

It’s a strange day to jump online and suddenly hear about a major policy change on Tumblr from a few people I talk too. Words like “Total Bullshit”, “End of Tumblr”, “Burning Garbage Heap” and so on tossed among them to describe the policy change. Curious enough I logged on began reading over all the purposed changes and I admit I am a bit disheartened. Usually when a digital institution like AOL, Yahoo, Napster, or MySpace falls it because they didn't evolve and became stagnant in what they were providing the internet. I can’t think of a time where a site willfully regressed its own freedom of speech on a broad scale and basically swallowed a poison capsule that destroys their user base (perhaps deservingly so) but here we are.

That point aside, I am trying to have insight and hindsight to understand how/why they were pushed to this reckless conclusion (I will be leaving foresight out because I think Tumblr lacks foresight, the exodus from Tumblr will dramatically change the culture of this site likely for the worse). Tumblr like any social media medium is struggling in the current age of the internet; Bots, Far Right Extremists, Fake News, Illegal Porn, Data Theft, and so on. Many companies are walking this fine line between trying to combat these problems while preserving freedom of speech.

I struggle to find my own footing on this topic because I believe that society with LESS censorship historically does better. You look to countries in the past that repressed sexuality, individual thought, and so on; those countries were often the ones to invite the rise of repressive groups doing atrocious acts in history. While on the other hand because of this open and free social media platform we all see the echoing of those same repressive groups (who are also on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Youtube) and to simply say/do nothing about their posts will inevitably allow them to rise still. This is where I struggle as I believe in that concept of a free society but I do feel that removing fake new stories is essential for the health of democracy.

I imagine the reason why sexual images are the target is that Tumblr makes things so easy to post. It's not hard to imagine pictures of minors getting liked or reposted from one blog or another happening. The problem is many of those pictures will circulate for a long period of time not being flagged as underage and there is good chance that every user has knowingly or unknowingly looked at an image like this on the web. I explore the porn side of Tumblr and have once or twice encountered a Tumblr full of these images at which point I couldn't close that tab fast enough and get the hell out of dodge. So Tumblrs solution of handling this problem instead of playing whack a mole with these underage accounts? Ban all adult content.

I can understand this motivation being a foolproof way of making sure there is no underage porn because there will be no porn. I imagine the result will be very effective, so effective that the various members of the community be they straight, bi, or gay who had their own private collection of legal adult material on Tumblr will stop visiting the site. A slow-moving exodus of users from Tumblr this site to perhaps a new blogging alternative that isn't so restrictive. I don’t suspect Tumblr will be closing its doors the week after the policy kick in (though they will see a HUGE decline in traffic) but even the PG accounts will likely move on because a sizeable user base shifted away and people want to be where the party is at. And much as I love Tumblr, it will not be here (sadly).

PC Culture VS Censorship Culture

One thing I noticed on the various posts is some people attempting to blame this policy change on the PC Culture. I am not sure I believe that as a valid argument. While I don't get along with PC Culture all the time (part of my free society is believing that humor is apart of it and PC Culture doesn't always like humor), I do think PC Culture has a broad/accepting view of orientation and sexuality. Just important is people having the right to explore those thoughts and feelings of their own free will. Tumblr has been one of those sites allowing emerging gay men and women to find others like them but also explore their sexuality with images/gifs/videos. What Tumblr might have not noticed is that the site itself is kind of a cultivation of the best images from the web, sure you can find some pretty hard porn on occasion but of all the adult sites on the web, Tumblr provides an almost artistic lense to the images that come thru the site.

Censorship can come from various political/social/religious groups but this sort of censorship against the human body, sex, and sexuality, in general, comes from a very conservative mindset. People who don’t wish to see nudity in any form on any medium; people who think a woman's nipple is lewd, that breastfeeding publically is disgusting, and that anything remotely sexual is a sin. And by the nature of Tumblrs policy change their beliefs align themselves alarmingly close to these individuals.

There is a thin veneer of progressive views on the site that remains where they say they are ok with this and that like gender orientation surgery but its just that a veneer. Once a person has transitioned anything that is shared of their new body (nudity or sex wise) beyond the initial transition falls into the realm of ‘smut’ by Tumblrs policies. I imagine the perception they are trying to sell us is “Hey we are still the same progressive safe haven for LGTBQ community! Stay with us!” but secretly thinking “Everything you enjoy in the bedroom is horrible and we fucking hate you.”

Perhaps I am being hyperbolic in that statement but damn if it doesn't feel like a vast policy of censorship on the human body. And whenever this happens (historically) it always comes from hyper-conservatives.

A General Attack On Expression and Orientation

I touched on this topic a little bit above but I feel it's worth stating again that Tumblr might be losing its safe-haven status for gender expression and sexual orientation. When scrolling through Tumblr you will likely see those new expressions of genders that is beyond that of ‘traditional’ male and female definitions. And while I don’t have any attraction to some of these new expressions, I understood why they are there and don’t get upset if/when the cross my feed. Like two men having sex my mind thinks “Not for me but I am sure that will make someones day”. I view sex (in all its forms) as natural, I don’t have to be into it for me to be ok with it (if that makes sense). It’s visual participation if that image you see isn't a turn on for you and does nothing for you, simply move on.

Tumblr’s policy doesn't seem to care about this concept of visual participation and while it is taking away my straight/lesbian porn I enjoy. It is also sweeping up all these new forms of expression and orientation in the process.

I am not sure what else to say... I am a straight male and I try to have a deep empathy for other people when I can. I feel this argument can be better structured but I also come from a position where I don’t know all the details. I add this to the post because Tumblr seemed to go out of their way to suggest that they would protect this community but from a long view that doesn't seem to be the case.

A Lessons To Be Learned

I am not going to say fuck Tumblr. I don’t want to see them fail. I liked what this space was about and what it provided. I prefer they reconsider changing the guidelines and consider a different course of action but I also understand why they want to do this. It’s “The Easy Way” to do things. If they ban all porn then it simplifies managing underage nudity and allows the site to have less criticism drawn to it.

I do, however, think this broad censorship approach will ultimately hurt the site and the community though. People will leave, alternative websites will arise and Tumblr will eventually become no more. I am not going to tell anyone to boycott or delete their accounts. I plan to collect my writing and images, backup my favorite adult gifs (might need to buy a hard drive) and settle into this new reality. I know I will personally be visiting the site less as I used to look at porn here at some of the better cultivated Tumblr archives. That lack of traffic by me and all the other users will hurt the company. I hope they understand eventually I won't show up at all and over time, eventually, no one else will either. Maybe the site will survive and change into something else but right now under these conservative policies of censorship, Tumblr won't last.

Sad Regards, Michael California

Update: Posted this originally with a woman in a shower with large censorship bars over the naughty bits. Flagged despite the fact she was more covered than most Sports Illustrated models. I know I just wrote above I am not advocating leaving the site... but after all this and the fact that Tumblr Support finally responded to a far-right Tumblr blogger photoshopping/doctoring a PM conversation we had before posting it to his blog. I feel as though Tumblr A) hates sex and sexuality B) not only enables but protects racism and harassment on this website. I think it’s time to move on.

[swans-anime-ramblings]

10 random facts about me

I was asked by @majinpiccolo to come up with 10 random facts about me. I tried to think of interesting ones as well as some serious ones. Here we go!

1. I used to be a moderator for the Amino Dragon Ball Z app

If you’re not familiar with Amino, it’s basically if Reddit and Tumblr had a love child. You can only post about the Amino’s topic, (in this case, anything Dragon Ball related) and moderators can “pin posts” to the top of the app, meaning you can submit your blog/ artwork to be considered for feature. I moderated the app for almost 2 years. I absolutely loved the team I moderated with, but everything went to hell in a single day. Sparing the details, the level of toxicity which occurred was so bad the leader of the Amino left, and so did another person. And that made me realize I needed to stop too. Being a moderator means you’re constantly exposed to the worst of the internet. Unsolicited dick pics to minors in private chats, being called “bitch” because some person’s post got hidden, being accused of favoritism and the like. I thought that my leaving would be temporary, and maybe some day I’d go back but...I am free. My mental health is a lot better, lol.

2. I am a contract writer

Basically that means I write blogs for small business owners, do website copy (the text you read on a website) snazzy up people’s Linkedin profiles, and whatever else comes my way. The work is slow coming, but it frees me to....

3. I’m trying to write a science fiction novel

Honestly, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, mostly because it’s a battle with myself. I am a perfectionist by nature and the standard I set for myself and my writing is unattainable. This week for instance, I was so overwhelmed by all the stuff I “need to fix” that I got nothing done, haha. But I really want to do this...it feels important. It’s been a dream I’ve had since I was little. And so, I keep trying to press forward, even when my mental days aren’t good. 

4. When I was a child, my father was diagnosed with a fatal illness society considered taboo

Things are better now for him and society is getting better. But it was a huge burden that I carried, and I mostly carried it alone. I was genuinely afraid if I told my friends my dad was ill (as you couldn’t tell just by looking at him) they wouldn’t want to be around him or me. I didn’t want people to judge him. These days I try to talk about it more, but honestly it’s not something that naturally comes up in conversation. “Oh hey, for most of my childhood I thought my dad was going to die in a horrible way. It really screws with you.” Meds nowadays are much better too, so him dying is not a worry I currently have. He’s in no danger at the present :-) Having a sick parent does alter your life perspective though.

5. My parents are crazy people

Speaking of the rents, they are so...just on a whole other plane of existence that I’ve had SEVERAL people, in different situations all separately tell me I need to write a sit com based on them. Mom is a 100% NY Italian. Dad is 100% NY Puerto Rican. They are unreal. Case in point: one time I took my parents to the beach at night so they could experience a bio-luminescent phenomenon. At 11:30 PM we were walking off the beach and my mother says rather loudly to my father, (in a NY accent) “Well! That was just! I’m telling you, it was better than drugs. And trust me, I’ve taken them! Right babe?! Better than drugs!” 

I normally need to sleep for several days after they’ve visited XD

6.  I’ve got severe ADD

It’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older too. Just recently my nephew was trying to get my attention to help him with his juice box and I had no idea. I realized it after his mom came over to fix it for him. It was rather embarrassing. Normally I’m so much in my brain I don’t see what’s around me. I’ve gotten several bruises from running into doors.

7. I’m married

And have been for quite some time. Me and the Mr were young when we got married. He proposed to me 6.5 months after we started dating and we got married 6 months after that. His parents, who are normal, respectable people, thought we were insane. My parents, who’ve I’ve already established as crazy, thought it was wonderfully romantic. In fact my father called me a month after we started dating to ask me to please let him know when the wedding was so he could be sure to buy a plane ticket. I was like, “Dad. We’re not THAT crazy.” We’ve had our challenges like everybody else, but we love being married and are ridiculously happy. Wouldn’t trade our decision for the world.

8. I love video games

Grew up on the SNES and N64, got back into them when I bought myself a Wii. Most time I’ve logged on a video game is for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s BioWare’s Star Wars version of World of Warcraft. I’ve got over 60 days of time played, and have been playing since 2013. There’s a new expansion coming in December. I’ll be playing.

9. If I’m listening to music, it’s probably an OST.

I just love OST’s. I think it’s because it lets my brain do it’s weird head in the clouds thing. If I’m not listening to an OST, it’s probably Asain Hip-Hop. Favorite artist is named Tiger JK and he does a lot of stuff with his wife Yoon Mi Rae. Sooo good.

10. I love Japan

I suppose that it’s no surprise but, it’s still the truth. I’ve been to Korea twice and Japan once. I feel really at home there, in a way I haven’t experienced in the couple other countries I’ve visited. The Japanese were so welcoming and so hospitable, I’ll never forget it. Would love to go back at some point.

And that’s a wrap. I now tag @yagamitaichi7! Got any rando facts to share? Only if you want to of course :-)