#like. it does not compute. it makes no sense.

[subjectsix]

I do know most of these have a kind of workaround, and this post has been a great place for people to suggest more and find some for themselves, which rules! Most things I’ve complained about here I’ve got a workaround for already— for those suggesting Linux, I have a machine running Mint

My point is we can’t just wait for The Revolution™️, a vague concept of the future, and the workarounds aren’t solutions, just temporary fixes. My point is it needs to be talked about more (my wall of text got 20,000 notes, that’s wild to me) and we need to be active how we can in carving out our own spaces. I’m debating buying a forum soon and looking for more to join. I cancelled Spotify and I’m working on seeing if a Pi Hole to block ads is good for my household.

I’ve spent a lot of time compromising begrudgingly, so now I’m hopeful (and certain tbh) that people will be the little changes that stop this ball from rolling. Its not convenient or doable for everyone to become Linux users, or all switch to dumb phones, or all quit Facebook— but based on this post everyone’s fed up enough to be heard enough about the fact that we won’t put up with garbage and there are alternatives.

The current major internet spaces don’t foster community well. I saw people on Tiktok lamenting how Ena, an extremely popular series with a new game coming out for free and doing very well for itself, had a “dead fandom” because engagement wasn’t constant and loud. Some people don’t know how the internet was, and don’t know the alternatives suggested in this post.

I guess, really, my point is to not shut up about the fact that ownership of things and the right to repair are extremely important, and to remind people the things we miss can be done right now, and to not let the temporary fixes be the ultimate solutions.

I love love that tons of people on this post are offering to show people their fixes, and providing instructions on how to nuke Edge or Copilot off their computers. I even have a resource post in the works. That’s the online community I’ve missed! It’s still here, we just have to be more proactive about finding it :’)

Its like you say— there are work arounds! And I think everyone is ready for them (and sick of needing them). We gotta form community (small and big) about it and be willing to reject what we can of the growing bloatware and enshittification of stuff

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[trainsinanime]

I've seen a number of people worried and concerned about this language on Ao3s current "agree to these terms of service" page. The short version is:

Don't worry. This isn't anything bad. Checking that box just means you forgive them for being US American.

Long version: This text makes perfect sense if you're familiar with the issues around GDPR and in particular the uncertainty about Privacy Shield and SCCs after Schrems II. But I suspect most people aren't, so let's get into it, with the caveat that this is a Eurocentric (and in particular EU centric) view of this.

The basic outline is that Europeans in the EU have a right to privacy under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an EU directive (let's simplify things and call it an EU law) that regulates how various entities, including companies and the government, may acquire, store and process data about you.

The list of what counts as data about you is enormous. It includes things like your name and birthday, but also your email address, your computers IP address, user names, whatever. If an advertiser could want it, it's on the list.

The general rule is that they can't, unless you give explicit permission, or it's for one of a number of enumerated reasons (not all of which are as clear as would be desirable, but that's another topic). You have a right to request a copy of the data, you have a right to force them to delete their data and so on. It's not quite on the level of constitutional rights, but it is a pretty big deal.

In contrast, the US, home of most of the world's internet companies, has no such right at a federal level. If someone has your data, it is fundamentally theirs. American police, FBI, CIA and so on also have far more rights to request your data than the ones in Europe.

So how can an American website provide services to persons in the EU? Well… Honestly, there's an argument to be made that they can't.

US websites can promise in their terms and conditions that they will keep your data as safe as a European site would. In fact, they have to, unless they start specifically excluding Europeans. The EU even provides Standard Contract Clauses (SCCs) that they can use for this.

However, e.g. Facebook's T&Cs can't bind the US government. Facebook can't promise that it'll keep your data as secure as it is in the EU even if they wanted to (which they absolutely don't), because the US government can get to it easily, and EU citizens can't even sue the US government over it.

Despite the importance that US companies have in Europe, this is not a theoretical concern at all. There have been two successive international agreements between the US and the EU about this, and both were struck down by the EU court as being in violation of EU law, in the Schrems I and Schrems II decisions (named after Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who sued in both cases).

A third international agreement is currently being prepared, and in the meantime the previous agreement (known as "Privacy Shield") remains tentatively in place. The problem is that the US government does not want to offer EU citizens equivalent protection as they have under EU law; they don't even want to offer US citizens these protections. They just love spying on foreigners too much. The previous agreements tried to hide that under flowery language, but couldn't actually solve it. It's unclear and in my opinion unlikely that they'll manage to get a version that survives judicial review this time. Max Schrems is waiting.

So what is a site like Ao3 to do? They're arguably not part of the problem, Max Schrems keeps suing Meta, not the OTW, but they are subject to the rules because they process stuff like your email address.

Their solution is this checkbox. You agree that they can process your data even though they're in the US, and they can't guarantee you that the US government won't spy on you in ways that would be illegal for the government of e.g. Belgium. Is that legal under EU law? …probably as legal as fan fiction in general, I suppose, which is to say let's hope nobody sues to try and find out.

But what's important is that nothing changed, just the language. Ao3 has always stored your user name and email address on servers in the US, subject to whatever the FBI, CIA, NSA and FRA may want to do it. They're just making it more clear now.

[schrodingers-hoarding-problem]

i will not elaborate but i cannot grasp the idea that straight hair dan & curly hair dan are the same person, like it just does not compute

however every single evolution of phil's hairstyle makes perfect sense

[dykedvonte]

Silly ask incoming: what video games would the crew enjoy, in your opinion? Especialy, multiplayer games they can play together on their rare breaks? I think Anya eats everyone up in mario cart (she is picking princess peach probably)

-💀

Okay so I know everyone always tries to do cop out answers with saying "They wouldn't play video games yadda yadda" but I'm giving everyone something:

Curly

I think he likes those mindless sort of games. Not like easy but ones where they are a bit methodical.

Likes games with options but also set rules/restrictions. Endless creativity would overwhelm him and make him frustrated as he wouldn't know what to do and when

Honestly? Sims, minecraft, stardew, terria, games where there's options but at the end its like an inverted funnel. Start the same each time but you make it what you want in the end.

I also think he'd love VR type games like Super Hot and Beat saber just for the physicalness and kinda not having to be in reality.

Not into multiplayer too much mainly cause he's actually not that competitive but because he always drags out matches by being the worst

Will happily join a server or world in the games he does play even if it gets abandoned. He's the type to log on for notalgia

Daisuke

We know he's a gamer already. QnA said he likes to go to the arcade and waste time losing.

Also has his little handheld so I think he's into retro games, no specific type just likes how creative they are for how simple they tend to look

Def likes management games. I see him as being into figuring out pro strats and gamer shit like that.

Pikmin, Katamari, Resident Evil, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, etc... He likes the older stuff with a challenge, but proponent in wanting games to be mean to you again.

Gamer rage but in a sulky way like he misses a jump and just turns off the entire TV

A Mario Party instead of Mario Kart guy. Like the random chance of it all and to get aggressive and hype over like line tracing the mini game

Anya

And if I said Anya is like a strict multiplayer competitive like COD lobby girl then what?

Honestly I think she likes games with a lot of story and depth but has guilty pleasures in FPS and competitive games.

Like those RPG maker games a lot Mermaids Swamp, The Crooked Man, Ai Oni. Not for the horror, its a bit cliche but often time its the real people monsters or tragedy that captivates her.

Me thinks she's the type to scroll like Itchio or Game Jolt and plays whatever's free and looks interesting, gamer in the way she's just played games.

Ofc she's competitive, likes any game where she can show off or win, so she's always upset during chance games. Sorry girl, Daisuke won the draw no mario kart for you

Though I think her favorite would be like fighting games just to have subtle shit talk like "Are you sure you're not just button mashing?" Tekken Girlie

Swansea

This was hard cause like I genuinely think he wouldn't care about games and just plays them in the way like parents beat levels for their kids.

Platformers. Idk why but I think its just like its good hand eye coordination, keeps him feeling spry mentally.

Rhythm games honestly but in the sense of like how like piano tiles is a rhythm game.

He's like basic older man who plays like bejweled, solitaire, maybe even penguin diner.

I know this is almost a cop out but like I can't imagine him like being into gaming even if he was young, like I think he'd like card games, jacks and dice.

Honestly he plays online dominos vs the computer online and complains to his family or the crew (depends on where he is) about it cheating whenever he loses.

Jimmy

For real he's harder than Swansea's cause man doesn't even have hobbies like I don't know what he would actually like and it scares me

I think he's somewhat elitist with his gaming views because he just always thinks he's write but I know he plays everything the bad way

Honestly I think he likes games like Borderlands for the humor and the like fantasy power. Like Handsome Jack's humor a bit too much

Played Halo and Cod but either is so mid it's just not enjoyable enough for him to continue. Like he needs the instant gratification from gaming or he's not playing it anymore

Maybe GTA but again he annoys too many people and gets banned from servers and doesn't care about story mode.

LIkes the sims but in the fucked up girl way where he makes all the sims like live in his basement and paint for him while he get mad over storylines he made up.

I like think they all play monopoly like my family where it takes days because we treat it like real investments and alliances are formed and relationships ruined.

[lloydfrontera]

actually i get very emotional when i think about the giant ants arc because when arcos is told that there's an entire colony of monsters that could easily destroy the estate the very first thing he asks is where lloyd is. and when he's told that he's still down in the mine he doesn't hesitate for even one second to grab his armor and go down there himself just to get to lloyd. like. those things are huge and they're vicious and there's hundreds of them and to face them is *checks notes* "to guarantee your own death". arcos hasn't even touched his sword for a decade. he's not winning that battle. but it doesn't fucking matter at all because his son is down there and arcos is going to get to him even if it kills him.

he just. he fucking loves his kid so much. and this is not even like that far ahead into the novel. lloyd is barely beginning to clean up his body's act. this is chapter 25 it's like 6% of the whole plot. and this man was already completely and unhesitatingly willing to die for his son. how am i supposed to not cry about that.

[gordonfreemanspussy]

happy october :]

@scienceteamtober day 1: before the game

with lovely beautiful awesome forever character art by @winkreallyisntable goes CRAZY!!! full art below the cut.

[nikoco11]

spider nico (spider bot…. sometime i call him circuit too) ((he’s like what if spiderman sucked ass))

[phoutube]

the dan and phil gaming channel is so funny to me like . pc gaming is a solo activity… like what other duo gaming channel can you name? feels like instead of watching one youtube personality, i’m watching two of of them synchronously doing ONE person’s gaming/commentary bits and also they’ve been doing this on the internet for 15 years

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Making Humanoids Less Human

I did make a small post on this, but now I've got the art for a much bigger and more detailed post! so here we go.

I had several anonymous asks that all came in quick succession weeks ago. Every single one of them was basically just a variation on "how would you take (typically humanoid) fantasy being, and make them look less human?"

This blog does not exist for me to just give people original designs for free, my goal is to show off my own personal thoughts about fantasy design and help people figure out how to adjust their own designs to fit their vision better. That means when people ask me questions about how to do something, I want to give them things to think about so they can come to their own conclusion. I don't mind making original designs to illustrate concepts, but a whole flood of "show me how to make this specific thing look different" all at once like that was too much. I'm not answering them all individually, it's just not what I want to do.

But what I can do is show my own thoughts and ideas about how to take any fantasy design and push it further away from "human", and you all can look at my ideas and figure out your own way to do things!

So here are the main 4 methods I've come up with to make humanoids look less human.

(image description: a simplified drawing of a humanoid face surrounded by four altered versions of the same face. clockwise starting from the top left, they are:

Speculative, drawn as a cat person. Additive, drawn with horns, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and a second pair of eyes. Subtractive, drawn with blank eyes, no nose, and no eyebrows. Exaggerative, drawn with a long face and huge eyes, as well as a wide mouth, narrow nose, and big ears.

end description)

I am personally a fan of the speculative route, which means exploring an alternate root of evolution to create a new design. Through this method, I've created monkey elves, frog goblins, and pig orcs.

the additive option is the most common, I think. adding new feature or doubled features to a humanoid form is a very intuitive way to change the design and make it look less human. you see this in most fantasy and scifi designs, like star trek aliens and the dnd player races.

subtractive and evaggerative are the most common options for people that like the uncanny valley. it's really easy to make uncomfortable designs by removing or exaggerating recognizable features, and they're often used together. Slenderman, for example, removes all facial features and skin color but also exaggerates the limbs and body.

Combining the four methods will give you a really interesting design as well! So for practice I decided to explore an alternate design for Tieflings, the part-demon player race in dnd.

(image description: four examples of differnt tiefling designs using the previously described methods. the additive example is just offical dnd art of a tiefling woman with purple skin, horns, and a long tail.

the subtractive sketch looks very alien, with a bald head, empty eyes, and no other facial featuers aside from a small mouth. it has three fingers per hand and two toe per foot.

the exaggerative sketch shows a hunched humanoid figure with huge eyes and big ears. the neck, limbs, and digits are all long with claws at the ends of the fingers and toes, and the limbs are also quite muscular.

the speculative sketch shows a bipedal figure with features similar to a giraffe, including a long neck, ossicones, and hooves.

end description)

now, because tielflings have such a distinct look to them, obviously my new sketches don't really look like tieflings, do they? the only one that comes close is the giraffe. relying only on one type of alteration to the human form has left the designs rather empty and lacking in the more iconic traits of the original concept. so i tried a sketch that combined my ideas! it came out looking like a completely different creature lol, like it could be a kobold or something, still not really a tiefling.

(image description: a sketch of a creature with a giraffe-like head, long tongue, and sharp teeth. it appears to be roaring at something and stands in a half-crouch. it has long limbs with hoof feet and clawed hands, as well as a long tufted tail curled behind it. end description.)

didn't work out. too far into the animal side of the speculative evolution, I think. so I tried again and got a design I liked much better!

(image description: a digital painting of a tiefling leaping back and casting a glowing orange spell. she is wearing a tunic with a corset and detached sleeves, as well as several pieces of jewelry. Her skin is purple with dark patches like a giraffe's spots, and she has a giraffe's ossicones as well as hoof-like hands and two-toed hoof feet. Her tail is long with a tuft at the end. She has glowing eyes and a flat nose, and there is a single sharp tooth visible poking out of the side of her mouth. end description.)

Brought the face back into slightly more human proportions and that helped a lot. Sometimes designs just take a few tries! that's normal.

and hopefully this is helpful to all of you! there are so many ways to alter humanoid designs to come up with something original and unique to you!

[qwertycake]

stress relief thingy that doesn’t make sense. the plasm wraith is totally canon to pikmin 4 (source: just trust me) song is neverending hum by lemon demon

[ebonytails]

sorry my post is just to complain but guys i literally hate adobe after effects. i can not explain to you the mental torture and how LOW it has brought my mental health because I *need* to use it for my post production class because it's "industry standard". ADOBE After Effects has made me write off the entire film and video production industry as a turn off and I never want to do it ever again.

The amount of times this has crashed on me where I lost everything? 5+ hours of work? 8+ hours of work? It's my fault for not saving sometimes but I also have auto-save on. it didn't save anything so im just left with nothing.

You want a trip to burn out town really quick? Use adobe after effects in an academic setting where you have no choice but to use this program.

I have never in my life TOUCHED a program SO TERRIBLE that it made me never want to do anything about that form of art/media EVER AGAIN

[fairmerthefarmer]

So uh

the Magicians Nephew is canonically set in like 1900 or at least between 1900-1910.

That means that Digory is only like in his 50s by the Lion the Witch and the wardrobe. 🧍‍♀️

My mind is blown my brain always interpreted him to be like 70 at least if not older but no actually that’s not it.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[screamingsquamousthings]

um guys....guys hello...can anyone hear me hello

[accursedvoid]

Godzilla: the series crossover AU but Zilla originally attacked Gotham instead, cut to post-movie and well! Bruce Wayne has acquired yet another child! It’s Zilla jr.

[arrowheadedbitch]

They really do lean in to Ethan being the smarter one the longer the series goes on, don't they? To be fair, he always was *smarter* but Benny at least used to *kinda* try