#i'm in a pyramid scheme it seems

[clouds-of-wings]

After renovating comes the populating furnishing of a room. I tried to move my desk into it. It's too heavy, even after disassembly. I'll get some help tomorrow. And there was so much stuff in there. Every time I opened a drawer, 3 more copies of Les Fleurs du Mal fell out. My copies of both versions, plus I bought some extra copies (twice) after the price in the band's store dropped to net-cost because I figured they'd make nice gifts for the right people. A part of music history! That's how I see it anyway. There are so many interesting things about this album, even apart from the music itself. And these copies of it are signed! Special!

Unfortunately the people I know are PLEBS who wouldn't appreciate it. I know exactly 1 other Therion fan and he probably has the CD already, plus he (and his girlfriend) might have questions if I suddenly give him a CD full of romantic-sounding French songs..? I considered my ex-cello teacher but he's a huge snob who hates all non-acoustic music. So I sit here in an ocean of LFdM CDs. I'll probably sell them on eBay eventually... unless I make some cooler friends first.

[wheeloffortune-design]

guys the interview was a disaster but it's not my fault lol

already i was a bit skeptical because their website said they did customer service but didn't name their services, and the emphasis was on how great it was to work for them, apply here

so yesterday my friend decided she would wait at the café downstairs because she didn't trust them or the neighborhood (it was mostly office buildings).

i get to the interview, early, showered, makeup on, practicing my lines.

first alarm bell was the waiting room. it was a small office, brightly lit, with a nice receptionist, but it gave me the feel of a startup, possibly an MLM (multi level marketing, it's a legal pyramid scheme).

from the waiting room i could catch a glimpse of the main comference room. there were huge posters defining the jobs at their company and the perks. "Step 4, Local office manager" said the one I could see.

On the table, magazines.

That's the owner. Inside were all full page spreads on workers and how cool they were. One was litterally the receptionist. The first quality listed was "she's resilient". Why does she need to be resilient, job? No one's first quality should ever resilient!

Still zero information about their products. Only how amazing it is to work there.

(If a company is trying to sell you working at said company more that it sells products, you are the product.)

I'm like, lol I love a good story, I'm going through and see what happens.

Interview time, I'm led to an office as big as a bathroom, stark empty walls, minuscule desk, no windows. (This will be important later.)

It starts normally, I'm good at interviews, no problem.

Now, I need to specify that the job offer said two things. One, it was sales and customer service, and two, it said a salary range + commissions.

The woman seems pleased with my experience and tries to gage how far I want to go in my career, how humgry I am for advancement. (This, also, is a red flag.)

She asks "Do you see yourself working for a great company like this, with amazing opportunities? Having an office like this?"

I look at the bathroom sized office, stark white walls, no windows, no decorations, a singe ceiling bright light. It tried not to laugh. This was straight out of a Severance episode.

Then she tells me the job is actually only sales, for a reputable phone and internet provider (Videotron), and it's paid by commission.

I'm like "The job offer stated it was salary plus commissions."

She's like, "The company cannot make money if you don't make money."

I'm like "That’s not how employment works, lol."

She ended the interview there, wished me coldly a good day.

"If the company is dishonest from the start you can't trust them," I said, laughing and leaving.

"Have a nice say, please leave."

I knew it would be a waste of my time (I woke up early! traveled at the other end of town! i'm wearing makeup!!), but I didn't think it would be that ridiculous. I wasn't expecting the magazines, lol.

At least my friend was waiting for me and now we're hanging out, so not all is lost.

[purseowner4thequalityanimation]

SMT Boardgame Kickstarter Smells Like Suspicious Fish

There's an SMT boardgame. Curb your enthusiasm, you shouldn't back it. And if you did, lower your pledge to like a buck until they clear things up, because as it stands it seems like an incredibly suspect product.

Checking through the Kickstarter comments and Japanese Tweets about the boardgame makes the entire thing seem poorly planned at best. I'll summarize as best I can;

The designer is incredibly infamous in the boardgame community

Naoki Matsunaga, a self-described "board game sommelier", is the designer. You'll find tweets lamenting that "the board game sommelier is involved". Why is he so hated? This thread goes into detail: co_boze on twitter. Part of it is they bashed Werewolf over one game they saw of it, another is they took on a kind of public-face role for boardgames appearing on late night TV shows to talk about them in ways that annoyed boardgamers. They seem to have designed a boardgame based on "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" which ripped off Sid Sackson's 'I'm the Boss". But it's what co_boze talks about next that's really bizarre. The game was apparently banned from most board game cafes and playing spaces. Seminars where people could play the game were hosted, but the venues that hosted these seminars all closed down.

If you keep looking through comments, you start finding claims that his company does multi-level marketing (ie pyramid schemes). To be honest, I don't know if this is true. But even if it isn't, it is really not hard to find people who know of this guy and would really really really REALLY prefer he was not involved.

"Oh fuck, it's THIS guy" is not a reaction that inspires confidence

2. Questionable development and presentation issues.

A regular collaborator with Atlus recently tweeted "The use of AI in Atlus works or derivative works is stictly prohibited." He responded to a reply asking if this was about a board game.

The staff running the SMT BG Kickstarter later clarified the actual -game- wouldn't use AI graphics... but from the looks of it, the promotional materials do.

Dig that... generic metal pipe aesthetic. Nothing screams MegaTen like black plumbing to nowhere.

In totally unrelated news, a board game manufacturer recently tweeted that a Kickstarter used their name without permission, and they're not sure why.

Quote tweets on the post would suggest it was the SMT board game. The comment they are loosely referring to is this:

In a follow-up post, they do specify "The product figures will be made of PVC." and "We will be manufacturing the games in partnership with a factory in China that has a proven track record... " "Figure director Kimura Yuzuru has over 10 years of experience..." and other boring development stuff that I have no issue with. What I do have issue with is how they can say things like they're "considering" which manufacturer to use and namedropping other companies that they're unrelated with. (While I was typing this post, they posted an update that clarified the CMON issue and literally nothing else: here.)

The boardgame is being presented with machine translated English printed on the same cards as the Japanese. But the actual game will have a translator check everything.

they hire translators to localize all game content

Additionally, there was a week long radio silence on the Kickstarter. For reference, Kickstarters are normally very active with the project planners dropping updates, responding to feedback and clearing up any concerns.

Some of the concerns were "How does the game actually play?", a question that would be best answered by dropping a rulebook for people to look at, or better yet showing them an entire run of the game. The SMT BG Kickstarter has boldly chosen neither. Devs have commented the game is on Version 11 and plays well, which makes it strange that they can't share any of it with anyone else.

Actually, when you compare this to how most Kickstarters are run, it becomes very clear the SMT BG Kickstarter is, uh, kinda failing in all possible regards. The first Backer Goal is "Jack Frost Dice" at 2000 backers (not funds raised, BACKERS). Despite getting 300%(!!!) of the initial pledge needed, there are no bonuses or unlocks.

Mind, this lack of information comes after they already delayed the start to supposedly improve Backer Goals and other aspects.

There aren't a shortage of issues - it's ICREA's first boardgame (but not their first tango with SMT; they made the SMT30th Logo, for instance.) The timeline seems totally wack. The staff have been incredibly slow to respond. Cards with tiny font and two languages printed on them. Etc, etc. Maybe individually these issues wouldn't be too concerning. But all of them combined make the product seem incompetently run at best, and at worst an actual scam.

I'm hardly a big influencer in the SMT scene (my biggest contribution is when that fucking succubus gif gets 36k likes on Twitter every 5 months) but I haven't seen any English speaking sources discuss this in detail, when there really should be at least some noise about all of this. Still. if just one of you end up saving 600 bucks on what ends up being a trashfire carcrash project because of this post, then that'll have made the past 30 minutes of typing this shit worth it.

[stickthisbig]

"But Sabine," I have been asked, and I genuinely have been asked this, this isn't just a rhetorical device, "you've studied so much about cults, you'd never join a cult, right?"

You are correct that I know an unreasonable amount about cults and cult psychology. That's why I need you to know this:

You are not immune to a cult.

First off, "cult" is a post hoc description, not a productive category. You don't register as a cult somewhere. Some people do start off to start a cult, I'm not gonna lie and say that's never happened, but if it says Join Our Cult on the flyer, it's probably an improv show or a LARP. You think you know what a cult looks like, but all the things you'd name would be negatives that you associate with things you don't like. There are loads of very devout Christian churches who believe things that you hate, and they're not cults. Other people disagree with me about this, but not all MLMs are cults; a pyramid scheme and a cult aren't the same thing (until they are). You find these people distasteful and you think they're harmful, so you associate malfeasance with them. If they're tacky and gross, must be a cult.

It also means that some of y'all literally wouldn't recognize a cult if you walked into one. When people are talking about getting great results through group living and you like what you see, they're just an organization with good ideas. Did you know I was taking a government management training in the year of our Dark Lord 2025 and it held up a Synanon youth center as one of its examples??? I felt like I was going fucking crazy, and the instructor clearly just didn't know he had anything to worry about.

A cult is never just some people you don't agree with. A cult is always about coercion and control, and it is insidious by its very nature. What's gonna happen when it's that cool barista who wants you to come to this meeting? What's gonna happen when it's just some nice ladies from your mom's church who want you to come and have tea? What's gonna happen when it's just a rabbit hole you fall down on the internet, but man, it sure makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Don't fucking convince yourself knowing what happened at Waco is gonna save your life. Learn some actual signs, which you should just be following so you're not a fucking chump in general:

Does everyone you meet understand you? It's fine to think you can see yourself among a group of people, but do they think the same thing immediately?

Do they want to introduce you to their leadership right now?

Do they want you to commit to a lot really quickly? Does it seem like they don't want you to leave the premises?

Do they have secrets about the world that you only really glimpse? Do they answer your questions about their faith/exciting business opportunity/social club in generalities when you're asking for specifics?

Are they asking for money? Are they giving you a lot of free materials? Does it seem like the materials aren't really free, but a ploy to ask for money?

Are these all the same steps not to get screwed at a car dealership? (Yes)

Are they offering psychiatric or addiction services but it sure doesn't seem like there's a doctor around here anywhere? Do they say they have a natural cure? (Still very bad at a car dealership)

In a real social organization that's just folks having a good time, at least one person isn't gonna like you, or they're gonna be cold, or they're gonna acknowledge you and move on. The vast majority of legit religions will just give you the tenets of their faith flat out and/or explain their worldview to you, and if they have hierarchies or advanced mysteries, most people who follow that religion can at least say something like "yeah idk you have to go to classes for that I think, those guys are a little weird but good for them".

Stop thinking that book learning and judgmental looks will save you when the question requires street smarts. You are not immune to cults for the exact same reason that you are not immune to propaganda. Your sense of security in your moral superiority is like delicious catnip to manipulative people in general and to cults in specific. You don't want to join a cult? You're better off just learning to doubt people's motives than reading yet another book about fucking Scientology. You already know what Scientology does. You probably won't have a huge problem avoiding that one.

Shit, if I avoid a cult, it'll almost certainly because I was so damn deep into the Southern Baptist church that it ruined my ability to experience faith in any meaningful way, not because I watch a lot of documentaries.

And we're not even gonna discuss the time I was forced to go to AA

(My favorite book about this is the graphic novel anthology American Cult, it will change your mind about everything you thought you knew about cults and their victims)

[bethanydelleman]

Someone made this poll recently about which Austen character would best deal with a sudden loss of wealth and of course, I have opinions.

First though, it would be very difficult to even imagine impoverishing some Austen characters (male heirs or women with large fortunes), at least to a level that would cause actual struggle. Sir Walter Elliot is far in debt in Persuasion and has to move to an apartment in Bath and rent out his estate, but even so he's nowhere near poverty. His estate and income is also mostly protected by entail, for a character to truly fall from the gentry class they'd need to lose their land and income. The older families also would have so many connections and rich relations. Even today, the newly wealthy are more likely to fall than someone from established, generational wealth, bigger safety net.

I find it very difficult to even imagine a situation where Mr. Darcy or Lady Catherine, for example, manage to lose enough wealth that they would have to struggle; though it would be fun to see Lady Catherine trying to follow her own penny pinching advice. Also, they would have to actively squander money, through gambling or speculation (unstable stock purchases) since their income is largely passive. A normal person can be impoverished by disability, but an estate owning member of the gentry would probably be fine. It's really hard to imagine someone as prudent and educated as Mr. Darcy managing to impoverish himself, because he doesn't seem to have the vices that would lead to wasting money and he'd really have to waste A LOT over a long period of time.

Male characters who could easily fall into poverty would be Frank Churchill (if Aunt Churchill disinherited him over Jane), Captain Wentworth (if he kept up with the easy come easy go attitude with money or if he was injured early in his career), Mr. Rushworth (stupid enough that I could see a wife managing to burn through all his money), Mr. Bingley (losses fortune to speculation), and Edward Ferrars (becomes a poor curate).

Female characters have less stability, but with their large fortunes and protective families, it's hard to see Emma Woodhouse or Mary Crawford falling into poverty, for example, unless something very tragic happened like with Eliza Brandon (family stole her money through marriage, she was an orphan so she didn't have a fall back). Henry Crawford may have declined living at Everingham with his sister, but I am fairly certain he would help her if something very wrong happened.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's so hard to even imagine how Mr. Darcy would become impoverished that I can't imagine the outcome. I guess you could disinherit him because it turns out he has a hidden older brother? Everything about his character and his history says that his money and estate will thrive.

That said:

Colonel Brandon: has been there before, he'd be fine. He'd go back into the military or find another way to climb back out of poverty.

Henry Crawford: it would probably be very good for him since his main vices are driven by boredom. He'd thrive. He'd probably also be helped by his uncle

Charles Bingley: he's got a good attitude, but this man has never worked a day in his life. He'd have a hard time with it and his sisters would be PISSED because you know it would be him being persuaded into a bad investment or a pyramid scheme. He will have to return to his connections in trade and I think he'd do it.

Emma Woodhouse: I don't think she could handle it emotionally. Being the wealthiest woman in town is such a huge part of her identity. She'd probably marry to get out of it.

Mr. Knightley: he would be totally fine. He's used to living frugally.

Mr. Rushworth: could see it happening (if he married someone like Lady Susan) and he'd be very bad at it

General Tilney/Lady Catherine: I just can't see this happening, but both of them would be terrible at it and extremely angry all of the time. Just constant boiling rage

Caroline Bingley: hard to imagine this happening given her pragmatism, but she'd marry her way out. The girl has ambition and connections

Frank Churchill: he would adjust eventually, but he'd get into debt first like Willoughby. Jane would probably still marry him, but they'd struggle. Maybe she could teach piano, but Frank would hate not being able to provide for her.

Captain Wentworth: if he was able-bodied, he'd go back to war, but I think he'd deal less well than Harville with being injured and poor, partially because he wasn't married and would have a hard time marrying if he was in poverty.

Edward Ferrars: He ends up poorer than he might have been if he inherited and is the only Austen hero who sacrifices wealth for marriage. He'd be fine as a poor curate.

[fuck-customers]

I think my coworkers are trying to get me and our other coworkers to join a pyramid scheme. And even if it isn't, it sounds sketchy.

It started with one coworker, and then slowly almost all of my coworkers were talking about this "great job" The job itself, from what I've been told, is an after-school tutoring program. You would help elementary-high school age kids with their homework or whatever subjects they needed help in. This itself doesn't sound horrible, but I really don't work well with kids, so I put this job on a back burner as an option for myself if I absolutely cannot find another job and I'm desperate.

I expected that to be the last I'd hear of that job. But gradually, more and more coworkers started talking about it. To the point where it seems like every day it is mentioned and my coworkers are always pressing me to apply. And when I ask what they actually do at the job, they just say that they sit at tables and help kids with their homework and there's like a 3:1 ratio of tutors to kids. But also that they desperately need more tutors.

It just sounds sketchy. And as I said, I don't work well with kids. And I'd prefer to have a job unrelated to kids, if possible.

Posted by admin Rodney

[wyervan]

Scheming as to how I can make this version of Moon suffer. And honestly? After reading through this blog, I'm running out of options. Like he's already pretty effed up and a slasher so what can I do to traumatize him further?

Normally Vanessa/Vanny and William are my go-tos but honestly she seems like she's just trying her best. So maybe William is a retired slasher or smth. Ropes Moon into a pyramid scheme to keep "higher authorities" away from the town when disappearances start piling up.

Like I said, idk. I'm just here to make my favorite character suffer.

(Also would you be okay with me posting the fic (If I ever write it ;-;) on AO3? I'll give full credit and tag you of you desire <3)

Frickin' Pyramid Scheme William Afton—this might be his most evil form yet. I love it.

Please torment Moon like he's a Sim and you are the tyrannous god of his world. take away his ladder.

Moon:

and ofc. it's your own work, feel free to post it wherever you'd like. The credit is very much appreciated. Thank you~ 😊 always feel free to tag me.

[ferronickel]

Y'all wanna hear about some inter-office drama?

So when we're not on set, the company I work for is based out of an office building that is also home to a number of other businesses. For the most part these other companies seem pretty nice, and our hallway is just us and a non-profit so it's quiet.

Cut to about six months ago when a marketing company moved in across the hall from us. They have been the biggest source of disruption/entertainment these past few months.

They play music so loud the entire building can hear it, at all hours of the day

From the glimpses I've seen of the interior of their office, the only decorations are a framed photo of the word "hustle" and a single large canvas print of a lion.

For a long time their website was just various stock photos and generic information, except for a long blog post they'd made advocating for using AI to data mine customers in order to better target ads.

They are constantly hiring. Like, I see people going in to interview at least once a week. And they only hire young people, just out of college, who dress like they're auditioning to play a part in Wolf of Wall Street or something. I suspect they are somehow an mlm (of the pyramid scheme variety, not the gay kind), or maybe they're sacrificing these hires to some sort of business demon.

I'm supported on this second theory by the fact that at least once a day they gather and shout these semi-unintelligable chants (again, so loud the whole building can hear). There are multiple, but I caught one of these chants once and they were saying "Last one in the field is the last to make money". As I'm typing this they've been chanting/shouting for the last five minutes straight.

Only a few of them have keys to unlock their doors, so frequently there will be small gaggles of wall-street-wannabes in the hallway waiting to be let in. Unfortunately their attempts to knock of the door go unanswered due to the aforementioned loud music.

As far as I can tell, their actual job is selling 5g internet door-to-door. This involves some sort of mass migration around noon, where they all have to change out of their slim fit suits into polo shirts and slacks, before piling into cars and driving off. They commandeer the only bathrooms on the floor so they can change, making them inaccessible to the rest of the building.

Okay, so, all that to give you a sense of who these guys are. Now, our poor neighbors, the non-profit across the hall, has had to share a wall with them this whole time and has filed a lot of complaints with the building managers. A month ago, the building told the business bros that they had to stop shouting and turn down their music, or they'd revoke the marketing company's lease. The business bros have apparently failed to do that, as I just saw a notice of lease termination on their door and now they have 5 days to move out. However, so far, there has distinct lack of motion towards moving out, and they're making even more noise than usual. So I'm just sitting here with popcorn waiting to see how all this shakes out.

[brazenautomaton]

so here's a conversation I had with a friend just now that sums up a lot of what I think so well I don't want to bother rephrasing it

them

Oh boy are we ready for 48 more months of hearing the Most Sanest Normalest People on the internet act like a right-of-center candidate getting elected when put up against another nagging scold of a progressive "It's Her Turn"-er was a surprise

me:

The Democrats and their wider supporters don't seem to realize people can remember the things they say. They said Biden was fine, it was a wild right wing conspiracy to think he was unfit for office. Then he is clearly, actively disintegrating on stage at the debate, so now it's Harris! Of course it's Harris, what are you talking about, we've always been about Harris! Harris who was, it's important to note, a diversity hire. She was not a popular candidate. She did dismally in the primary, and was chosen as VP because it was Time For A Strong Woman Of Color

them:

Y-E-P God imagine taking the VP of an unpopular incumbent and saying "Yep, she's the one" and being surprised when that goes poorly It is genuinely alarming, though, how absolutely temporally untethered a lot of the discourse coming from the left is. Like, genuinely just "don't believe your lying memories" level of attempt to disregard stuff that happened not just in living memory, not just in the last decade, but happened during the current presidency. The lack of humility is also not just distasteful, but actually alarming. If you make predictions that are wildly off the mark to try to get people behind your candidate, you cannot then treat your wildly off-the-mark predictions as if they did not matter.

the primary strategy of the "guys who spent five years using 'gaslight' to mean 'disagree with'" appears to be attempted gaslighting. you just aren't allowed to notice things they say and do. every time someone is like "I don't like this thing you're doing," the democrats as a whole are all "That didn't happen and you're a bad person."

this is an effective strategy for winning conversations with people and a very bad strategy for winning elections. when people are upset about things you did or allowed to happen, "nuh uh you bad person" is not a response. "that shouldn't count" is not an effective counter even if you genuinely believe it should not count. a million morlocks-holmes saying "this has nothing to do with the democrats because no democratic holder of office has introduced a bill with explicitly racist language" isn't going to convince anyone who wasn't already convinced. you are not entitled to votes, you have to actually do things to win the election.

focusing on how bad and threatening Trump is is a losing strategy when we had a term of Trump and none of the fascist future we were warned of came to pass. Trump had a fucking vision of the future to really behind that more than zero people believed in. Now, I'm not a "typical" ad-watcher because I only saw campaign ads on YouTube (but I feel like this is not super atypical any more), but I saw a lot of Kamala Harris ads, and zero of them were about any of her plans or ideals or vision and all of them were about "You need to give us money right now to win the election." Like if you're using the money to make ads like this, that's kind of like a one-person pyramid scheme.

the Trump presidency will be terrible in a predictable, expected way. there will be no fascism, just a slow crumbling of our already-dismal institutional competence. I don't think the Democrats would have been much better. They'd still be beholden to an activist core of psychopaths and doing everything they can to cover for those people, while also governing incompetently and completely unable to capitalize on or draw attention to any good things they actually manage to do. Leftists and progressives are already going through the whole "the Democrats move us all to the right they only want to move to the right!" but the Democrats don't move at all; they don't think they should change their behavior, because when they lose an election it is because the voters failed them and not the other way around.

[collapsedsquid]

In your standard city-builder, survival settlement, and 4x since the start of the genre the way things work is work is that you build shit, you assign people to work at it, and then you distribute the output. It's a little joke that even the most ostensibly capitalist city-builder actually functions on communism. One thing that I notice is that the more libertarian-minded Davos-brained devs can seem the most wedded to it.

And it sort of make sense, you are organizing production, you are assigning workers, sure it's a "city-builder" but what you are actually doing is making a factory. And the workers or even the managers at the factory don't get to just take the cars home after they finish making it, why that's totally absurd. (For more on this consult the works of Mr Marx.)

Simcity doesn't work this way of course, partially because it almost doesn't seem to believe commodities exist. But I have played one city-builder that tried to think of another way of doing this, Children of the Nile. (recommended by Brett Devearux(tm). demo currently available on Steam) It had this concept I'm going to call Appropriation-First city building.

You build your farmhouses, and they cultivate the farmland and grow food. The food they keep some of and send the rest to you. They eat the food they grow and also use it to buy pottery and furniture, you don't pay those goods-makers. You can only manage so many farms yourself, so you let nobles build townhouses you can build more that the nobles manage. Of course those farmers kick their food up to the nobles, who you then have to tax. All the food you get goes to pay state employees, like brick makers, pyramid-builders, priests, scribes to assess tax from pesky nobles, and the rest who you manage more directly, although they have to use that to pay for goods as well as eat. All of this separates the resources you have from the resources the city has. Productivity is separated from appropriation.

The game isn't perfect by a long shot, and how much this appropriation scheme actually matters can vary, but whenever I play a banished-alike or something I really miss that gameplay. Whenever the food just goes straight into my stockpile from the farm and I gotta send it back to them I sort of resent it.

[barbwritesstuff]

After playing the Thicker Than demo I can't help picturing the newly titled Blackwell still learning to navigate vampire politics asking the LI

"Okay I know I'm still new to this whole undead thing, so I may be off base here, but from what I've seen of the Night Court and how things run. It's sounding more like the entire thing is just a really old Pyramid scheme. Is that just me or have others noticed it too?"

Tracy: "That's an unfair comparison to make. Most pyramid schemes are fairer than this shit-fucking-show."

Marcel: "Don't say the word 'pyramid' around here. I'm worried the king might decide to bring those back into fashion."

Erin: "Yeah. It's a pyramid alright, and it's about time we flipped it."

Nathan: "It's not a pyramid. It's a pit. And the deeper you go, the darker it gets."

Iliya: "да. But, on plus side, the parties are good."

Ravima: "Vampire societies might seem momentous... but even the grandest structure will crumble and fall. My advice? Stand back and enjoy the view. The collapse of an undead dynasty is a show most people have to wait millennia to see. You and I, darling? We've got front row seats."

(Freya, Minjo, and Chris were excluded from this because they're not part of vampire society... even a little bit).

[codemiracle]

Can you please tell me the backstory of the ocs...they are so gorgeous omg...thank u !!!...

My first ask... omg....!! (tries to seem calm about it) Thank u for asking!!! I'm glad you like them :((<3 The backstory of my ocs is still mostly a wip even to me (i change my mind often about things, especially when my mind fixates on different topics) But I can tell you more about the two ocs in this post here. tw: mentions of death, stalking, unhealthy behavior, dark stuff overall, and mentions of self-harm on Yuuta's part. (All of the images used here are CGs for the game.)

Yuuta is a deeply troubled person. His mother died when he was very young and he's been dealing with the loss of literally his only parental figure since (his father is literally the leader of a pyramid scheme cult and doesn't know about his existence) He despises how fragile humans can be and since then he tries to understand his own mortality through inflicting pain upon his own body. His mother died due to an illness he also has, an illness that causes parts of his body to suddenly get badly bruised or bleed without warning, his blood is really thin so stopping bleeding is hard for him too. He eventually finds some escape from his solitude exploring his darker side by meeting the MC (the character you control in the game) He gets deeply obsessed with them since he finds that inflicting pain on them (don't worry it's all consensual) is more relieving than doing it to himself. He loves the feeling of power it gives him, the feeling of a life hanging in between his fingers. And this time he won't let go so easily. He might be a little bit of a sharp-tongued person and sometimes can seem pretty harsh with people and even the MC, but it's due to the fear of losing someone again. When he really really gets into you he won't let you go, that's for sure. He can't let go of someone again.

Yotsuya it's quite the opposite of Yuuta, he doesn't hide his true feelings behind a mask of hatred and coldness, instead, he's a more shy but polite person, much more pleasant to be around tbh. But don't let that fool you. He has his own inner turmoil too. He's been following the MC for a while now (for unknown reasons) and seems pretty fixated on them, taking the same train as them after work, trying to make small talk as they bump into each other in conveniently the same places. He's always stressed from work, often you can find him just crying outside his workplace while he smokes (like in the drawing) or standing eerily quiet in the dark of night in the middle of the street. Not much is now about Yotsuya, but the fact he truly despises cheaters, often making remarks about cheating culture and hating on people who cheat on their partners. He seems to know the MC from somewhere else but refuses to say where they met the first time. Doesn't seem to have any connections or family, living alone in some simple apartment. I can't tell you much about him because I want you to discover who the "True" Yotsuya is (that's the point of his route.) But I can tell you, this guy isn't anything like it seems, he's quite the opposite of his sweet and shy persona when he's inside his home. That's his place, his playing field so to speak. He's no longer the meek office worker, but his true self.

Sorry, that was so much text.... and I feel like I didn't say anything interesting... feel free to ask if you need to know anything else!

<3

[spurgie-cousin]

Jill seems to be struggling financially, hmmmmmmmmm. Fortunately, remembering how much control she has over her daughters lives and appearances makes her feel much better!

I'm sure the fact that Trump lied about being able to make everything cheaper doesn't help, but ever since the cruise debacle I've wondered if she's not bringing in as much Plexus money as she used to. That, or maybe Plexus has told their reps that they're going the way of so many MLMs and getting rid of the pyramid scheme structure, which would eliminate nearly all of Jill's Plexus income to my knowledge.

Either way:

[santae-salt]

Was originally going to post this on the website- under the referral system discussion, but I chickened out because it feels to negative, and I don't want to lose my pets and get banned, soooo. I'm posting it here (Sorry Cloudmin)

I didn't have anybody to refer to for the first batch of referal items- and believe me, I tried. The only reason I got them is because I traded some kickstarter items- which, considering how many kickstarter pets just ended up in rotation, seems impossible to do now.

So, not only is it frustrating that now there's even more referal items I and many others won't be able to get, but it also feels bad because it reminds me that I don't have the connections to complete the collections- especially the plushie and berry collections, which are my favorite- (And I think the only two free collections, aside from instruments?)

Referal systems are already not fun, who would have known it could get worse with a cycling referral system :/

Wasn't going to be in the original post, but I'm adding it here: Santae has a real shitty reputation among pet sites, if I remember correctly, which is just going to make getting more referrals even harder. Didn't think a petsite could turn into a pyramid scheme yet here we are...

☁️

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Devi-Devi Mahou Shoujo Gunko-Chan

Oh no! The wicked, skeletal Soul King's fiendish plot to reawaken Gunko-chan's repressed memories almost stopped her in her mission to uphold truth and justice in the world. Thankfully, our heroine's distant benefactor offered words of encouragement, allowing her to ascend to a new form! The brutish giants are no match for Gunko-chan's Devi-Devi Demon Contract of Kindness! Ganbatte Gunko-chan! We believe in you!

Thank you for humoring me. Now on to our main show. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS CHAPTER!? It was crazy enough when Stussy's dropping bat wings and going all Red Wine Supernova on CP0. Now Gunko's going full LadyDeviMon Digivolution here and whipping out comically oversized shotguns from a spellbook. This was a...sudden escalation. And we're only just now acknowledging our main fighters are still MIA. That said, if this is our first taste of Imu's power I actually do like a lot of what I'm seeing. I think this chapter does a lot to ensure Imu will stay a good foil to Luffy/Nika in the end of this. Because this power is still so wild.

See? God her flippantly doodling a spell circle has me feeling something. But this is crucial. We're seeing a brutal compelled contract power. Something much scarier than Tama's or Sugar's. Especially if it can affect guys like Dorry & Brogy. But it is still framed as something that will allow one to become unbound by logic and reason. Dark Nika. It seems there's some form of restriction where it has to work on someone Imu can rationalize as a King.

I love that hypocrisy. It reminds me of Fruits Basket a little, especially if you look at it through the lens of being a metaphor for the dynamics of the Sohma Family being very very old money. They could all always leave their troubling situations if they accepted growing up and being a normal person who has to live in the real world. Hierarchy is inherently a pyramid scheme. Every little bit of extra power you get over others further down comes with a cost of your freedom in having to maintain the position. The person at the top, be they Imu or Akito Sohma, is so busy maintaining their grip they don't have a life.

Why would I compare worldwide authoritarianism to the dynamics of an abusive home? Well maybe our title and vector for this shift can illuminate. Domi reversi would be Latin for "Returning Home." Why wouldn't I compare those two things? The more I watch far right (and frankly some leftist voices who lost sight of the cause) messaging spiral further and further into naked embrace of brutal repression towards "undesirables" the more the rhetoric reminds me of abusive family members. I don't want to flex stuff like this when talking about a comic book too much, but remember this is coming from someone with a Master's who has heavily studied authoritarianism since well before 2016 and I've worked with the juvenile justice system in the past. Fascist ideologies are really just abuse writ large in so many ways. From Cindry to Gunko and all these girlies in between we see these stories because they're a stand-in for the real world traumas that mirror these fantasy arcs.

Now, tomorrow we'll talk more about how this Domi Reversi title has a double meaning. You can't ignore how well it works for the cover serial this time too and when it came to Wano taking up/returning swords were a way to mark significant changes in Kiku's story. I can't ignore that happening and transitioning us to the part where she's perfectly poised to be weird and interesting right when a similar character in Gunko tears the wheels off of Elbaph and sends it into free fall. Let's wrap up this chapter, but I think it's a fair point to say any of the next 5-6 could get really clever with our girl in a myriad of ways.

"If I hit em high hit em high hit em high, then you hit em low hit em low hit em low."

Sorry, the original Space Jam soundtrack holds a permanent spot in my brain. The other reason I'd bring Kiku up here is because I cannot ignore how she's a great go-to example of someone who I could argue might be able to resist this type of demonic contract. A fair few but not all of these good-hearted women could but I wanna stick with the one who's got a golden opportunity to tie in via the covers. Let's assume for a second the idea the Knights had to consider a worthy target means there are some limits. I'm going to start from the idea it works like the closest thing we've seen. Big Mom (though Boa Hancock works) who is tied to Elbaf and don't forget we've connected that idea thematically in why the kids' moms were a good symbol. A miracle, even a staged one like Mother Caramel's might just be your best bet here.

Think about it this way. Big Mom's Soul Pocus worked if you had any shred of fear towards her. I get the vibe Imu's contract is the same, but for ambition. That's why a tough honorable warrior dude like Brogy who'd waste a century on a pissing match is susceptible and how Luffy needs to be special to overcome it. That's why someone like Kiku would not have to worry. Sure she was grateful and dutiful but generally happiest when she was part of a grubby little reject family no one would care enough about to laugh at the queer. Position requires obligation. Noblesse oblige is a two-way street. The best ones to wield power and influence are the ones who don't want it. It's not exactly a new idea, same logic as why the Hobbits were portrayed as the virtuous ones who could handle the One Ring's corruption.

When you put powerful men consistently up against women like this. When you take the time to show "good" guys like Oden & Vegapunk freely took advantage of this dynamic...I love the way you see these as two sides of the same coin. The more power you seek, the more humanity you rob from those you have dominion over...but you're losing humanity yourself and the one at the top is arguably in the worst position of all. Living Luffy's greatest fear of being fully alone. His greatest power is rallying anyone he meets to his cause. But you'll only ever maintain that if you never take the devil's bargain of stepping over others to serve your own ends. Even when they're hurt, helpful women who have had parts of their own humanity stripped away by the constant demands of others. Even if you know the exact words that can call her "home."

[jodeliejodelie]

My utterly correct and well-researched predictions for The Sims 5

no research has actually be done by me at all

EA will make the game a monthly subscription "service" which always needs to be online. There will of course be multiple subscription tiers with the higher tiers receiving some utterly mediocre clothes, hairs, furniture, Sims, you name it, paying lipservice to causes like diversity to make them seem important and un-missable (farm that FOMO). Lower tiers will have ads, a limited number of allowed mods/cc, and reduced graphics or some shit.

And of course there will be expansion packs, a staple of The Sims franchise, but you will need to pay for those too. Unless you subscribe to the platinum+ package, which includes a season pass. Of course there will always be certain cc packs that everybody will have to pay for, such as collaborations with big brands like D*sney, big fashion houses or IK*A. Occasionally there will be a freebie, but it will be a shitty print on a basegame T-shirt nobody cares for.

But that's not all! Not only will there be subscriptions, o no, there will be an ever bigger affiliate system. Basically an inbuilt multi-level management system (pyramid scheme) where people can sell their own mods/cc and recruit other people into their downline and make money of the mods they sell. They will give it a cutesy name, like Mod Families, Creator Visionaries, or Simgineers. There will be so many *shitty* mods, but since EA sits at the very top of the pyramid, there is absolutely no desire for quality control. You will see the same hair, with some added strands/removed strands/shorted/streaked/etc. edits over and over again. Of course there will be major fights and drama when the two biggest teams asset flip/convert create the same thing (some uninspired Second Life high poly blouse or something).

Anyway, I'm having a business meeting with EA next week and I'm very excited to share this plan with them.

P.S. Other features:

Extra in game currency like diamonds that people can use to buy even more junk for the game

Limit mods/cc to the Hub, you can't just put things in folders, it won't work

Sponsored events in the game, like a Simlish concert of K*ty P*rry or a Ad*das pop-up store in the mall

More social media integrations

An additional app for mobile devices where you play with your sims in a very limited way, but most importantly earn in game currency by doing stupid tasks, like playing games or watching ads

No pools in the basegame, that was a A+ decision in The Sims 4, so we're keeping that