#online site interface

[misophoria]

is there any website that's kinda the same concept as skillshare but not fraudulent and also has a functional user interface

[gaussmultimedia]

La Hauss. Máster Online en Diseño UX-UI y Programación Web 2022-23. Diseño responsive de site e identidad para NapNap. Proyecto de Eduardo Rodríguez Barranco:

https://www.gaussmultimedia.eu/thebest/2023/eduardo/

[gothhabiba]

🍉🇵🇸 eSims for Gaza masterpost 🇵🇸🍉

Which eSims are currently being called for?

Connecting Humanity is calling for:

Nomad (“regional Middle East” plan): code NOMADCNG

Simly (“Palestine” plan)

Gaza Online is calling for:

Holafly (“Israel” and “Egypt” plans): code HOLACNG

Nomad (“regional Middle East” plan): code NOMADCNG (can now be used multiple times from the same email)

Airalo (“Middle East and North Africa” plan)

Sparks (“Israel” plan)

Numero (“Egypt” plan)

For Connecting Humanity: if you sent an eSim more than two weeks ago and it is still valid and not yet activated, reply to the email in which you originally sent the eSim. To determine whether the eSim is still valid, scan the QR code with a smartphone; tap the yellow button that reads “Cellular plan”; when a screen comes up reading “Activate eSIM,” click the button that says “Continue.” If a message comes up reading “eSIM Cannot Be Added: This code is no longer valid. Contact your carrier for more information,” the eSim is activated, expired, or had an error in installation, and should not be sent. It is very important not to re-send invalid eSims, since people may walk several kilometers to access wifi to connect their eSims only to find out that they cannot be activated.

If a screen appears reading “Activate eSIM: An eSIM is ready to be activated” with a button asking you to “Continue,” do not click “Continue” to activate the eSim on your phone; exit out of the screen and reply to the email containing that QR code.

Be sure you're looking at the original post, as this will be continually updated. Any new instructions about replying to emails for specific types of unactivated plans will also appear here.

Check the notes of blackpearlblasts's eSim post, as well as fairuzfan's 'esim' tag, for referral and discount codes.

How do I purchase an eSim?

If you cannot download an app or manage an eSim yourself, send funds to Crips for eSims for Gaza (Visa; Mastercard; Paypal; AmEx; Canadian e-transfer), or to me (venmo @gothhabiba; paypal.me/Najia; cash app $NajiaK, with note “esims” or similar; check the notes of this post for updates on what I've purchased.)

You can purchase an eSim yourself using a mobile phone app, or on a desktop computer (with the exception of Simly, which does not have a desktop site). See this screenreader-accessible guide to purchasing an eSim through each of the five services that the Connecting Humanity team is calling for (Simly, Nomad, Mogo, Holafly, and Airalo).

Send a screenshot of the plan's QR code to gazaesims@gmail.com. Be sure to include the app used, the word "esim," the type of plan (when an app has more than one, aka "regional Middle East" versus "Palestine"), and the amount of data or time on the plan, in the subject line or body of your email.

Message me if you have any questions or if you need help purchasing an eSim through one of these apps.

If you’re going to be purchasing many eSims at once, see Jane Shi’s list of tips.

Which app should I use?

Try to buy an eSim from one of the apps that the team is currently calling for (see above).

If the team is calling for multiple apps:

Nomad is best in terms of data price, app navigability, and ability to top up when they are near expiry; but eSims must be stayed on top of, as you cannot top them up once the data has completely run out. Go into the app settings and make sure your "data usage" notifcations are turned on.

Simly Middle East plans cannot be topped up; Simly Palestine ones can. Unlike with Nomad, data can be topped up once it has completely run out.

Holafly has the most expensive data, and top-ups don't seem to work.

Mogo has the worst user interface in my opinion. It is difficult or impossible to see plan activation and usage.

How much data should I purchase?

Mirna el-Helbawi has been told that large families may all rely on the same plan for data (by setting up a hotspot). Some recipients of eSim plans may also be using them to upload video.

For those reasons I would recommend getting the largest plan you can afford for plans which cannot be topped up: namely, Simly "Middle East" plans, and Holafly plans (they say you can top them up, but I haven't heard of anyone who has gotten it to work yet).

For all other plans, get a relatively small amount of data (1-3 GB, a 3-day plan, etc.), and top up the plan with more data once it is activated. Go into the app’s settings and make sure low-data notifications are on, because a 1-GB eSIM can expire very quickly.

Is there anything else I need to do?

Check back regularly to see if the plan has been activated. Once it's been activated, check once a day to see if data is still being used, and how close the eSim is to running out of data or to expiring; make sure your notifications are on.

If the eSim hasn't been activated after three weeks or so, reply to the original email that you sent to Gaza eSims containing the QR code for that plan.

If you purchased the eSim through an app which has a policy of starting the countdown to auto-expiry a certain amount of time after the purchase of the eSim, rather than only upon activation (Nomad does this), then also reply to your original e-mail once you're within a few days of this date. If you're within 12 hours of that date, contact customer service and ask for a credit (not a refund) and use it to purchase and send another eSim.

How can I tell if my plan has been activated? How do I top up a plan?

The Connecting Humanity team recommends keeping your eSims topped up once they have been activated.

See this guide on how to tell if your plan has been activated, how to top up plans, and (for Nomad) how to tell when the auto-expiry will start. Keep topping up the eSim for as long as the data usage keeps ticking up. This keeps a person or family connected for longer, without the Connecting Humanity team having to go through another process of installing a new eSim.

If the data usage hasn't changed in a week or so, allow the plan to expire and purchase another one.

What if I can't afford a larger plan, or don't have time or money to keep topping up an eSim?

I have set up a pool of funds out of which to buy and top up eSims, which you can contribute to by sending funds to my venmo (@gothhabiba), PayPal (paypal.me/Najia), or cash app ($NajiaK) (with note “esims” or similar). Check the notes of this post for updates on what I've purchased, which plans are active, and how much data they've used.

Crips for eSims for Gaza also has a donation pool to purchase eSims and top them up.

Gaza Online (run by alumni of Gaza Sky Geeks) accepts monetary donations to purchase eSims as needed.

What if my eSim has not been activated, even after I replied to my email?

Make sure that the QR code you sent was a clear screenshot, and not a photo of a screen; and that you didn’t install the eSim on your own phone by scanning the QR code or clicking “install automatically."

Possible reasons for an eSim not having been activated include: it was given to a journalist as a back-up in case the plan they had activated expired or ran out of data; there was an error during installation or activation and the eSim could no longer be used; the eSim was installed, but not activated, and then Israeli bombings destroyed the phone, or forced someone to leave it behind.

An eSim that was sent but couldn’t be used is still part of an important effort and learning curve. Errors in installation, for example, are happening less often than they were in the beginning of the project.

Why should I purchase an eSim? Is there any proof that they work?

Israel is imposing near-constant communications blackouts on Gaza. The majority of the news that you are seeing come from Gaza is coming from people who are connected via eSim.

eSims also connect people to news. People are able to videochat with their family for the first time in months, to learn that their family members are still alive, to see their newborn children for the first time, and more, thanks to eSims.

Some of this sharing of news saves lives, as people have been able to flee or avoid areas under bombardment, or learn that they are on evacuation lists.

Why are different plans called for at different times?

Different eSims work in different areas of the Gaza Strip (and Egypt, where many refugees currently are). The team tries to keep a stockpile of each type of sim on hand.

Is there anything else I can do to help?

There is an urgent need for more eSims. Print out these posters and place them on bulletin boards, in local businesses, on telephone poles, or wherever people are likely to see them. Print out these foldable brochures to inform people about the initiative and distribute them at protests, cafes and restaurants, &c. Also feel free to make your own brochures using the wording from this post.

The Connecting Humanity team is very busy connecting people to eSims and don't often have time to answer questions. Check a few of Mirna El Helbawi's most recent tweets and see if anyone has commented with any questions that you can answer with the information in this post.

[tricksterlamb]

hey there, i'm currently working on a feminist website and i'm looking for the help of other women to give their feedback, their opinions, and advice/expertise. the site is not published yet but it is in the development stage, and i would really like as much help as i can get as i have big plans for it and what it sets out to accomplish.

this is a website that aims to promote activism, raise class consciousness, support women of all backgrounds, organize events, share resources, and build community. there is a serious lack of infrastructure in feminist spaces and having us all shouting into the void on social media is antithetical to true feminist action. this website aims to act as a hub for ALL the wonderful resources the women on here post on their blogs, for ease-of-access and the sake of decentralization. this website also seeks to mitigate the amount of discourse and in-fighting within the community in favor of encouraging direct action, change, and connection.

please interact with this post or send me a message if you:

are tired of social media interfaces and would be interested in meeting with other feminists, online and in-person

create feminist art, zines, music, media, graphics, etc.

would be interested in participating in or conducting a workshop for feminist consciousness raising or skill building

know back-end coding

would be interested in contributing whatever you can to a project like this

do not hesitate to ask questions about the project, and reblogs for visibility are very much appreciated.

thanks for reading!

[brandgurus]

Convert Images Between WebP and PNG Formats for Free

As someone who runs a small business online, I'm always looking for ways to optimize my images without sacrificing quality. That's why I was excited to find webppng.com, a free online image converter that lets you quickly switch between WebP and PNG file formats.

For those not familiar, WebP is an advanced compressed image type created by Google that can drastically reduce file sizes compared to PNGs. The only catch is that some older browsers don't support WebP.

That's where webppng.com comes in! Their free WebP to PNG converter lets me upload my WebP product photos and download optimized PNG versions compatible with more websites and apps. And when I have PNGs, their PNG to WebP converter lets me benefit from the smaller file sizes of the WebP format.

I love that webppng.com offers:

Fast bulk conversion right in your browser

Preserved image quality with customizable compression

An easy drag and drop interface that's simple to use

Unlimited usage with no hidden costs or limits

Being able to seamlessly switch between WebP and PNG has been a huge help for my small online store. I can have smaller WebP files for modern browsers while still supporting PNGs for maximum compatibility across platforms.

If you work with lots of product images like me, I'd definitely recommend checking out webppng.com's free WebP and PNG converter. It's an easy way to optimize your site's images for speed and performance.

[cipheramnesia]

I saw you tagged the post re: X with 'stop joining Bluesky' -- can I ask why that is?

Because Twitter has always been a godawful form of social media, news, and networking. Elon Musk turned it into something unusable but in its usable state it had and continues to have an appalling effect on complex ideas and nuanced information. The nature of its character limit forced everything to a reductive sound-bite which effectively enshittified information propagation online, and its enshrinement as the "official" social media site for any person or entity to issue information or communication through dragged everyone down into the same level of garbage communication and analytical skills.

A website like Bluesky which only has "the same interface as Twitter prior to Elon Musk" as a selling point, isn't better for anyone. A short form character limited blogging site is fine as a gimmick and okay for simple person to person communication, which was more or less the original purpose of Twitter. It's absolutely shit for a central hub site for global information. The idea that Twitter's short form format and layout made it useful and popular needs to die immediately. The idea that information should be shared universally in short bites needs to die immediately.

What happened with Twitter, not with Elon Musk's purchase, but from the instant it gained media dominance, is fucking horrible, possibly one of the worst things to happen to online communication in its entirety. Go anywhere you want to get away from X, but for all that is good and hopeful in the world do not put any version of whatever constitutes your "personal official online presence" onto any site resembling any iteration of Twitter.

There is a window of opportunity to finally, finally be free from what Twitter did, but it is closing fast. I don't think very many people remember what it has been like watching information literacy collapsing in real time around Twitter, and I don't think there is much hope of killing that format, and I don't think it's going to solve every problem. But if somehow we do find a way to drive a stake not just through Twitter itself but the foundational ideals it represents, we will have made forward progress.

Kill the idea of Twitter that lives in your head. Don't reproduce the same mistakes just because it's familiar to use. For all our sakes, tweets must die.

[mariacallous]

Why disinformation experts say the Israel-Hamas war is a nightmare to investigate

The Israel-Hamas conflict has been a minefield of confusing counter-arguments and controversies—and an information environment that experts investigating mis- and disinformation say is among the worst they’ve ever experienced.

In the time since Hamas launched its terror attack against Israel last month—and Israel has responded with a weekslong counterattack—social media has been full of comments, pictures, and video from both sides of the conflict putting forward their case. But alongside real images of the battles going on in the region, plenty of disinformation has been sown by bad actors.

“What is new this time, especially with Twitter, is the clutter of information that the platform has created, or has given a space for people to create, with the way verification is handled,” says Pooja Chaudhuri, a researcher and trainer at Bellingcat, which has been working to verify or debunk claims from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the conflict, from confirming that Israel Defense Forces struck the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza to debunking the idea that the IDF has blown up some of Gaza’s most sacred sites.

Bellingcat has found plenty of claims and counterclaims to investigate, but convincing people of the truth has proven more difficult than in previous situations because of the firmly entrenched views on either side, says Chaudhuri’s colleague Eliot Higgins, the site’s founder.

“People are thinking in terms of, ‘Whose side are you on?’ rather than ‘What’s real,’” Higgins says. “And if you’re saying something that doesn’t agree with my side, then it has to mean you’re on the other side. That makes it very difficult to be involved in the discourse around this stuff, because it’s so divided.”

For Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), there have only been two moments prior to this that have proved as difficult for his organization to monitor and track: One was the disinformation-fueled 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the other was the hotly contested space around the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I can’t remember a comparable time. You’ve got this completely chaotic information ecosystem,” Ahmed says, adding that in the weeks since Hamas’s October 7 terror attack social media has become the opposite of a “useful or healthy environment to be in”—in stark contrast to what it used to be, which was a source of reputable, timely information about global events as they happened.

The CCDH has focused its attention on X (formerly Twitter), in particular, and is currently involved in a lawsuit with the social media company, but Ahmed says the problem runs much deeper.

“It’s fundamental at this point,” he says. “It’s not a failure of any one platform or individual. It’s a failure of legislators and regulators, particularly in the United States, to get to grips with this.” (An X spokesperson has previously disputed the CCDH’s findings to Fast Company, taking issue with the organization’s research methodology. “According to what we know, the CCDH will claim that posts are not ‘actioned’ unless the accounts posting them are suspended,” the spokesperson said. “The majority of actions that X takes are on individual posts, for example by restricting the reach of a post.”)

Ahmed contends that inertia among regulators has allowed antisemitic conspiracy theories to fester online to the extent that many people believe and buy into those concepts. Further, he says it has prevented organizations like the CCDH from properly analyzing the spread of disinformation and those beliefs on social media platforms. “As a result of the chaos created by the American legislative system, we have no transparency legislation. Doing research on these platforms right now is near impossible,” he says.

It doesn’t help when social media companies are throttling access to their application programming interfaces, through which many organizations like the CCDH do research. “We can’t tell if there’s more Islamophobia than antisemitism or vice versa,” he admits. “But my gut tells me this is a moment in which we are seeing a radical increase in mobilization against Jewish people.”

Right at the time when the most insight is needed into how platforms are managing the torrent of dis- and misinformation flooding their apps, there’s the least possible transparency.

The issue isn’t limited to private organizations. Governments are also struggling to get a handle on how disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories are spreading on social media. Some have reached out to the CCDH to try and get clarity.

“In the last few days and weeks, I’ve briefed governments all around the world,” says Ahmed, who declines to name those governments—though Fast Company understands that they may include the U.K. and European Union representatives. Advertisers, too, have been calling on the CCDH to get information about which platforms are safest for them to advertise on.

Deeply divided viewpoints are exacerbated not only by platforms tamping down on their transparency but also by technological advances that make it easier than ever to produce convincing content that can be passed off as authentic. “The use of AI images has been used to show support,” Chaudhuri says. This isn’t necessarily a problem for trained open-source investigators like those working for Bellingcat, but it is for rank-and-file users who can be hoodwinked into believing generative-AI-created content is real.

And even if those AI-generated images don’t sway minds, they can offer another weapon in the armory of those supporting one side or the other—a slur, similar to the use of “fake news” to describe factual claims that don’t chime with your beliefs, that can be deployed to discredit legitimate images or video of events.

“What is most interesting is anything that you don’t agree with, you can just say that it’s AI and try to discredit information that may also be genuine,” Choudhury says, pointing to users who have claimed an image of a dead baby shared by Israel’s account on X was AI—when in fact it was real—as an example of weaponizing claims of AI tampering. “The use of AI in this case,” she says, “has been quite problematic.”

[herkonular]

KİRABET - GOLD

Kira.bet is an online casino platform that offers a variety of betting options to individuals in the Maldives . The website provides a user-friendly interface that allows users to easily navigate between the different betting options available. However, it is also worth noting that the trust score of the site is a little low. Despite this, Kira.bet remains a popular choice for people looking to engage in online betting activities in the Maldives. Kira.bet offers a variety of betting options for individuals in the Maldives bet, including sports betting, live casino games and virtual games. Sports betting options include popular sports such as football, basketball and tennis, as well as lesser-known sports such as cricket and volleyball. Users can also participate in live casino games such as blackjack, roulette and baccarat. Virtual games such as instant win lotto and lucky sixes are also available for betting. Since the betting options are so wide, individuals living in the Maldives can easily find the betting option that suits their interests. Kira.bet offers a wide variety of sports and games that individuals can bet on. Users can bet on popular sports such as football, basketball and tennis, as well as more niche sports such as table tennis and handball. Additionally, the platform offers a wide range of casino games, including slots, live casino games and game shows. Other games such as collision games are also available for betting. Users can easily access the platform with the option of downloading the Kira.bet application and participate in betting activities on the go. Overall, Kira.bet provides a comprehensive betting platform for individuals in the Maldives with a wide variety of options to choose from.

[buf309]

Pose Reference Resources

I promised Dia (aka aerequets) that I will make a collection of pose references in the reply of one of her art posts, and then I completely forgot about it. Until now. I'm sorry for my bad memory.

So, yeah, better late than never I guess?

The pose collection I use the most is no longer free. They used to let you download a whole album (more than 8GB worth of data) to use offline, but now you have to pay $40/package or $200 for full sets. I still have the zip file for a very old version of theirs, but I can't legally share it. So, let's skip to the other options.

1/ First, you heard of those 3D dolls program that let you model your own reference pose? This one is an online one and for free, the whole ordeal. Of course since it's online and free, you can't save your model for next time, and it costs quite a lot of time to set the model up. So, you should take as much screenshots in as many tricky angles as you need once you done with the setting. Best using for complicated scenes where those below don't have what you need already available.

2/ This one is free and in 3D, you can rotate the model to any angle that you need. The only set back is the numbers of poses are quite limited. This one is best for using as a basic blocks then build up what you want to draw, or just as a practice to improve your understanding of human anatomy.

3/ This one is free for personal uses and the pose collection is massive. The setbacks are the language barrier (it's in Japanese, English is sometimes tag-a-long) and you have to search through their pages for what you need. The pics for each pose is static but they are in different angle in almost 360 degrees. There are many 2-person and 3-person poses too. Great for illustration inspiration.

4/ This one will only show reference photos of human head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The web interface is easy to use. There are options like searching based on gender, ages, emotions, glasses, facial hair or not, etc. Good for practicing face drawing.

5/ This one will show reference photos for human body parts, at whatever angle you rotate the model, read the instructions for how to do it. The web interface is quite hard to use at first, just tinkering around for a bit, and you will be fine. There are options like searching based on gender and which particular parts that you need refs for. Good for that moment when you go "huh? how is this <body part> will look in this <situation>????"

6/ This one will only show reference photos of animal heads, and only the head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The accurate skull refencence list is their best point. There are enough common species in the drop down list. Tbh, I don't use this much because I often need refs for the whole animal most of the time. But it's best for furry artists, I guess?

7/ Real model photos. They sell pose reference in themed packs, but there are enough free packs to use as drawing practice too.

8/ This is the best for general background reference. Lots of options. Not really good for very specific location results, but good for random background in drawings.

9/ Lastly, for specific objects or background references at strange angles, I often search for 3D models on this site then take screenshots of whatever I need.

That's all, folks. Hope this list can help ease some of the struggles that we will encounter on our quest of learning the art of drawing things 😂

[emotionallyattachednerd]

Unforeseen Reunion | TP Ratchet x Drift/Deadlock | NSFW 18+

Word count: 7000+ 😲

Warnings: Smut ( valve and plug interfacing ), mentions of violence, near death experiance and angst. NSFW 18+.

Notes: So yeah, I lost complete control of myself. Holy crap, I'm impressed with myself. I decided I wanted to go with Prime universe as that's what my hyperfixation went with. I didn't completely focus on canon just so everyone is aware. I had way too much fun with this and I'm so obsessed with these two. Enjoy this work of art you beautiful sinners. 🥰

The crash landing was the sign that his luck had run out. Deadlock had been travelling for far too long, isolated in his barely hanging on ship without contact, that's until he managed to receive a transmission from decepticons. He should've been pleased, yet he didn't feel it, just emptiness.

It wasn't until he hit the earth's atmosphere that his ship decided it had enough, power shut off and he came plummeting towards the earth. He tried gaining control but that failed so he tried contacting the decepticons requesting assistance, but even that was a deadend. No help was coming for him.

Bracing for impact he thought he might have a chance but the rough landing was much harsher than expected, throwing him around and a sharp piece of metal punctured through him, slicing his fuel tank and severed a fuel line. Terrific.

Deadlock manages to get himself out of his piece of scrap ship and take a few steps forward, only to collapse onto the ground with a pained grunt and look down at his servo that held his wounded area to see a lot of energon was leaking from him. He can't help but let out a vented chuckle, convinced this was going to be it for him.

Only managing to get a short distance away from the crash site he couldn't walk anymore and slid his back down against a tree, venting out heavily as if a pressure was lifted from him. He knew though, his systems were struggling, warnings flashing before his optics, it won't be long before he shuts down and slowly offline from bleeding out. One more time he tried making contact but got nothing in return. Either his com links weren't working or they didn't care about him.

There used to be someone in his life who was very dear to him. He saved his life after getting himself hooked up on circuit boosters, gave him a chance, and he stayed with him. He loved him with all his spark, then the war started and that's where it all went wrong.

Eventually he would make choices and every choice has a price. Whether it was worth it or not, Deadlock never wanted to answer that himself.

He was one of Megatron's favourites. He's the one who gave him his new name and grew from that back on cybertron. He thought he was making the right choice, but he was wrong, and he's had to live with that all this time. He became emotionless, making him willing to kill when needed or ordered, leaving a trail of horrors behind which was enough to make any autobot and decepticon worst nightmare.

Now, he was dying, alone. Just as he deserved.

Leaning himself against the tree all he could do was observe his surroundings, take in what might be his last memories. Everything grew weaker, more burned out as his fuel tank pumped harshly to get energon through him, only for it to leak out.

His audios managed to pick up some sounds of a ground bridge. Had they finally decided to show pity and come for him? He onlines his hazy optics only to be met with the end of a blaster and an autobot symbol.

"Oh just my luck." Deadlock manages to say between harsh vents. "An autobot gets to watch me die in my final moments....or, you can take the shot, put me out of my misery?"

"Is that what you want?" Arcee keeps her guard up and weapons ready, not wanting to give him any chance to attack if he was faking.

"Does it matter what I want?"

"No, it doesn't." Bulkhead comes up behind, forcing Deadlock to move his helm up to look at him.

"Well you're a big one." He casually smirks through his pain. "So, what's it going to be? What's the...autobot thing to do?"

Arcee and Bulkhead had been sent to investigate the crash sight after it made impact. They knew it was a decepticon shuttle but weren't sure if it was occupied. Upon arrival it's confirmed. Neither wanted to let their guard down just in case he had any tricks or if the decepticons might show up.

"What do you think?" Bulkhead asks Arcee, unsure what they should do. Letting him die without them helping didn't seem right, but he was a con.

"Let's call Optimus, see what he has to say." Arcee answers.

Deadlock heard the autobot leader's name causing him to let out another vented chuckle. "Your big boss is here? Huh. Alright, call him, see if he has mercy on a filthy con." He was just talking, it's all he can do for his final moments.

While Bulkhead makes the call Arcee keeps her optics on him with her blaster still drawn. "You got a name?"

The big ask. "If I told you...you're going to wish you pulled the trigger." He decided to not say his name. If she found out, she might just pull the trigger on him without hesitation, not that he cared.

"I don't recognize you. You're not someone I've bumped into before, and I remember every bot I have. So who are you?"

"How about you tell me your name first?" Deadlock manages to tilt his helm to the side as he meets her optics, letting out a smirk when all she gives is silence, his pearly white dentas and sharp fangs pressing over his bottom lips. "Yeah...that's what I thought."

Deadlock notices Arcee say something else but it all goes deaf to his audios. He's lost a lot of energon and he knows he's in trouble as things in him start slowly shutting down. He manages to activate his audios again and this is when he hears more voices and steps coming closer. If he was to survive, he wasn't even sure what he'd do next, not anymore.

A part of him did want to be offline. It'll end everything for good, and perhaps give him some peace of mind, not that he deserved it.

"Hey, you still with us?" Bulkhead taps the top of his helm to bring him back, causing him to let out a groan and online again.

"Sort of..." Is his only honest answer.

"Well, today is your lucky day con. Our medic is going to come and patch you up. Try to remember this moment that we helped you." Bulkhead adds firmly for him to think about.

"I'm jumping with joy." Deadlock chuckles dryly, a little energon drops from his mouth as he tastes it flooding in his intake. Yeah, he felt it was too late.

"Drift?"

That voice.

He manages to move his helm back up and his amber optics flickered as he meets the gaze of the ghostly familiar figure standing before the ground. Ratchet. His Ratchet.

"You know him?" Arcee was surprised to hear Ratchet say the decepticons name. But Ratchet couldn't answer, he was frozen, as if he was petrified or enthralled by the very sight of what he thought he lost those years ago.

Deadlock, his given decepticon name, lets out a softly dry laugh that lingers longer with a smile, disbelief and sadness overwhelming his struggling processor. He finally found him.

"Perhaps I am lucky." He says with his wide smile, sharp dentas glittering in under the sunlight. "It's good to see you Ratty."

Under Optimus' orders Ratchet came to patch up the new decepticon before sending him on their way. He was a medic, he treated the wounded, but treating a decepticon was different. He's done it before of course, but not often. Ratchet felt his servos shake as he stood there. Hearing the old pet name made his vents hitch a little and his own emotions boiling up, completely deaf to Arcee as she questions him.

It's not until Deadlock slumps against the tree that Ratchet finally acted. Hurrying forward he came to his side and started to work on him. His wounds were bad, he knew this already just simply looking at him from afar.

"How do you know him?" Arcee repeats coming to the medics side.

"Later." Ratchet's focus was on him. "Let me work."

Neither Bulkhead or Arcee have ever seen Ratchet like this before. Sure, they've seen him sad, angry, annoyed, happy, but this is different.

When he feels his servos against his frame Deadlock lets out a shutter, both relief and pain. He tilts his helm up to get a better look at Ratchet and manages to hold a soft smile that feels foreign to him, he hasn't smiled like that in a very long time. There was a deep history there, and the two went through a lot together, right before he hurt his Ratty. He didn't deserve to be saved, or given a chance. Damage was done.

"Saving your life, again." Ratchet mutters mostly to himself, his own emotions rattled. "Reckless. Stupid. All this time and you're online, still. I'm out of my mind. I should hate you, no, I do hate you, but my spark is aching for you." His voice is low as if he's whispering to himself but Deadlock hears it. "Why did you....How could you...." His words break apart and that hits Deadlock hard.

"I'm sorry." Is all he can whisper, touching Ratchet's working servo and gaining his attention. "I'm sorry....I'm so sorry." Apologising won't fix the past or his choices, but it's the first time he's ever said it to him.

As much as Ratchet is hurting he knew he couldn't lose him again. Whatever happens next will be whether it was too late or not.

"Kids, stay back." Bulkhead hurries through the ground bridge first and warns the kids all hanging around the raised platform along with Agent Fowler and June.

"What's going on?" Raf asks curiously, noticing his worried expression.

"Optimus, he won't listen. Can you talk to him? This is crazy!" Arcee is next feeling enraged about Ratchet's decision.

Ratchet comes through next, carrying a badly wounded Deadlock in his arms with strength no one else had seen him with for a long time.

"You brought a Decepticon back here?" June raises her hand over Raf and makes sure the kids stay behind her. "Ratchet the kids are here!"

"Don't like it, find the door." Ratchet barks back, taking many of them off guard. He ignores everyone and places him on the medical berth, quickly gathering tools to start stabilising him.

Deadlock was hanging close over the edge, everything in him hurt and his processor was swimming wildly. He had no idea where he was, only that Ratchet was with him, and that's all that mattered.

"So cool." Miko comes closer to get a better view. Jack tries to stop her.

"Miko-"

"No way I want to watch!"

Optimus comes closer but stays out of Ratchet's way and stares at the decepticon brought in, his optics widening a little as if something clicked in his processor, and Arcee notices this.

"You know him too. Ratchet called him Drift. Who is that?"

Optimus is quiet before looking at his comrades. "Ratchet knows him. Let him work."

"But-"

"Please, Arcee." Optimus knew just how sensitive this would be for his old friend, and can't imagine but he must be feeling right now.

Arcee finally backs off but that doesn't mean she was alright with this. Most of everyone wasn't. Miko sits on the edge of the lower platform as she watches Ratchet do his magic on the decepticon, a fascination. June only manages to keep Jack and Raf away, still not liking that a decepticon was near the kids base.

"Prime, is this safe?" Agent Fowler questions him quietly. "I get that he's a friend of Ratchet's, but that doesn't change he's a decepticon."

"I understand your concern. But please, I'm asking you all to let Ratchet handle this." Optimus didn't want to explain everything in that moment, respecting Ratchet and hoping everyone will follow the same.

Deadlock was in and out of it for a bit, gold optics flashing repeatedly as Ratchet tried to stop the bleeding and keep him stable. Everything hurt through him, but not as bad as the ache in his spark that throbs with grief for his Ratty. He was saving his life yet again, trying to at least.

"Are you still with me?" Ratchet's tone is more gentle as he hovers over him once he manages to stop the bleeding.

"Ah huh..." He manages to say between heavy vents.

"I need to repair the damage and get energon running through you again. Try to keep still, you're at the start of a long road recovery."

Before he could say anything else, Ratchet had gone to get a few things. Deadlock tilts his helm a little to the side and through his flickering vision he spots something, or someone. The pink is what catches his attention first and gives himself a moment to adjust his vision before it clears up almost.

"Well, you're tiny." He manages to say softly through a short chuckle.

"I might be small, but I can rip your spark out." Miko doesn't hold back.

"I better...stay on your good side than. What are you?"

"What am I? I'm human. The names Miko. You've never seen a human before?"

"Nah, you're the first, Miko."

"What are your first impressions?"

"Well...you did threaten to rip my spark out...so I'm fearful of you." He only meant it as a joke and Miko knew this, and she gave a small smirk at him. She didn't like cons, but this one seems different.

Even Ratchet didn't seem bothered about his interaction with her. June slowly comes closer, Jack and Raf right behind her, still being careful.

"You're Drift, right?" Miko leans her chin against the railing feeling a bit more comfortable to stay.

"Yes." It's Ratchet that answers quickly before Deadlock could. He understood. Meeting his gaze there was that firm and serious blaze he knew all too well from his Ratty. It meant there was going to be no further mention about it.

"Yeah...I'm Drift." Saying the name again after so long felt weird, but guess he'll adjust to it again.

Suddenly, he jolts and groans in pain through clenched dentas as Ratchet wields something into place. It hurts a lot, but at least it doesn’t last too long.

"Could you give me a warning next time?" He vents once it stops.

"Nope." Ratchet answers simply.

He understands.

"How do you two know each other?" It's Raf that bravely asks, mainly both of them.

"We...go way back." Drift answers, optics shifting at the medic at his side. "Ain't that right Ratty?"

"Hm." Ratchet doesn't answer much after hearing his old nickname.

"Ratty?" Miko can't help but smirk at the medic.

"Only he is allowed to call me that." He tells her. No one else ever did.

"He hates it, but I get away with it." Drift smirks lightly before wincing again. "Frag..." Optics manage to cast over at the other autobots standing together outside the bay and staring, most of them looking not too happy causing him to vent out. "Stop."

Ratchet does but only because he's confused. "What?"

"Just...stop. Just...you shouldn't be helping, you know?"

"Do you want to be offline?" Ratchet hits his tool against the table causing the humans the jump and gives an intense stare at Drift. "Do you just want to give up?"

"Your friends don't want to waste resources on a filthy con...I don't deserve it. You...you shouldn't be helping me."

"Well, too bad. You don't get to have a say in what I do, we're well past that. Perhaps you're right about not deserving to be saved, but the only one that gets to decide your fate is me." Ratchet leans closer to Drift, optics burning, before he erupts. "The only way you will be offline is if I allow it, because I'm the only one who has every right to let you bleed out right now! You don't get to decide your fate! I do! Is that understood?!"

His outburst is heard by everyone. Even the humans shrink away a little, never seeing Ratchet this angry before. Something deep was there, but no one knew just how deep.

Drift doesn't flinch. He takes it, accepts Ratchet's rage. He's right, only he has the right to decide what happens next. All he can do is let him do what he wants, he is no longer in control of his fate.

"Understood."

Ratchet lets out a heavy vent and goes back to work on him, only to look up when he feels everyone staring. "What?" He snaps, bothered that everyone was just staring.

"Everyone, let's give them space." Optimus finally says. "Ratchet has work to do." He'll give that privacy to his old friend without distractions.

June leads the kids away and Miko follows to let Ratchet work. Only Optimus understands what Ratchet must be feeling, he knew what Drift meant to him, and knew just what they've both dealt with over the years. The others all had raising questions but at least they weren't hammering either him or Ratchet with them to get answers, and respected what Optimus had said.

It is a long recovery for Drift. Weeks go by, but he is doing better. Ratchet worked hard to repair the damage he received from the crash and make sure his fuel lines were pumping correctly. He worked his magic and did a good job on Drift, never giving up.

"Alright, follow my digit." Ratchet was doing simple tests, everyday he did them, and Drift obeys as his optics follow the moving digit in front of him, clearing and without struggle. "Good. Better today."

Drift was feeling better, both physically and mentally. After being by himself so long it was going to take time adjusting to have others around.

Not the autobots, mainly the humans kept him company. Drift was curious about these organics. Sure, he's come across them before, but not humans. He doesn't mind them.

"Does this mean I'm off bed rest?" Drift asks as he straightens his back. Ratchet shakes his helm with a short chuckle.

"Yeah right. You're clear when I say you're clear. Just because you look and feel better doesn't mean you're fit for duty."

"Duty?

Ratchet stops and looks at him, optics unreadable before venting softly. "You're staying, right?"

It hasn't been something they've talked about really. Drift had no idea what to do next honestly. Since finding Ratchet he didn't want to leave him behind, not again.

"You're here, so I'll stay. Don't think your friends are going to like that though." He didn't think they would welcome him into team prime. "Does that mean I've got to become an autobot?"

"Don't worry about them, I'll handle it. They don't know your decepticon name, yet. I don't want to hear that name ever again. And yes, you'll become an autobot, because I said so."

Drift understands. "Alright." He was willing to do whatever Ratchet wanted. All he wanted was to have him back in his life again, to not throw away his second chance.

"Good. Now, let's have a closer look."

Drift feels Ratchet's servos touch both sides of his cheek platings, examining him further and making sure he didn't miss anything. But Drift slowly leans into the touch, purring, and reaches up to touch them both under his own. The action gets Ratchet's attention and they both stare at one another, the fondness slowly growing as the medic's optics soften.

Ratchet does like the purrs Drift makes, he always did, and hearing it again makes his knees feel weak. Such a strange effect it gives, yet so addictive. It's been so long since he last heard them, causing his feelings to stir wildly. As much as he hated him for his choices, he never stopped loving him.

Neither did Drift. He has a lot of regrets, but the one he'll always carry is he hurt Ratchet. He'll always carry the weight of that.

Leaning closer, Drift presses the front of their helms together, savouring the moment for as long as he can as his optics shutter closed. Ratchet doesn't lean away and lets it happen.

Drift wants to kiss him, and he tries to do this by leaning closer towards his lips, but Ratchet stops him. The moment is gone.

"It's too soon." Ratchet can only whisper, trying to keep his emotions from pouring out. "You left a deep wound, one I could never repair."

Drift knew he deserved that.

"Your injuries aren't the only recovery you'll be going through. There's a lot....between us, that needs time to heal. Won't be simple, but I need time to adjust to this, to trust you again."

"So there's a chance?" Drift held onto that hope.

Ratchet vents softly and caresses his servo against his cheek plating again, running his digit under his optics gently. "I hope so."

That's all Drift needs. "Take your time then."

Optimus gathered everything, even the humans, so they can all listen to what Ratchet has to say. Drift was resting and took this moment to explain some details to his friends. They've all been very patient.

"How's he doing?" It's June that asks, the only one who was kind enough to ask about Drift.

"Doing better. Still recovering, but he's making good progress." Ratchet answers.

He looks up at everyone who stares at him, all focus and attention. His optics glance over at Optimus who was there for him through this. It's time to reveal it.

"Drift and I have a long history, all the way to the time before the war started on cybertron. He hasn't made the best choices in his life, which is why things are messy between us, but he wants to change, make better choices. I'm willing to give him that second chance."

"I understand your concerns." Optimus then jumps in and speaks to everyone. "We both do, but I trust Ratchet to take charge of him, and I believe there's hope for Drift, to become better."

"So he's becoming an autobot?" Jack asked curiously.

"He will. It's a lot to ask but it would be a great help if everyone treated him fairly, so he can settle into this life. He's been alone for a long time without contact, it has affected him, but with time he'll adjust and do better." Ratchet explains.

"Is he like your best friend?" Raf asks innocently.

The medic gives himself a moment before finally saying it. "Drift is my conjunx endura."

"What?' Arcee quirks quickly in surprise.

"You never said you had one!" Bulkhead is just as surprised while Bumblebee lets out a bunch of whirls and beeps along with them.

"Ah, sorry, humans are confused here." Agent Fowler raises his hand. "What's a...conjunx endura?"

"Well, for humans to understand, we're married." Ratchet clarifies.

"What?!"

Ratchet knew this was going to be a shock to everyone, and he'll silently admit he was trying to avoid this moment, but knew that wasn't going to last forever. They had a right to know what Drift meant to him, and what happened.

"Drift comes from a troubled life. He got himself addicted to circuit boosters, drugs for humans to understand, lost himself, and Optimus found him, or at the time he was Orion. He brought him to me where I had my own medical centre, doing what I could for those who were considered lower classes. I saved his life there, and I saw just how lost he looked, so I gave him a choice to stay and help me out, or he could leave. He got clean and stayed, few of the smart choices he's ever made. Over time we grew fond of one another and...well, we ended up together for a long while, fell in love, things were good and we were happy." Ratchet remembers those fond memories with him before he close his optics.

"Than the war started. Megatron approached me, offered me a position as his head medic officer, but I declined. I thought that was it, but I was very wrong. Megatron got to Drift, manipulated his mind, gave him false hope, and he fell for it. The next time I saw him he wore the Decepticon badge. He was already convinced I was going to join him, but I refused. I got angry, expressed my disappointment loudly. The Drift I grew to love left that day and he became stone cold. Megatron gave him the order to destroy the medical centre and he did it, leaving me in ruins. Megatron gives him a new name..." Ratchet went quiet. He couldn't say it, and looks at Optimus, who understands

"Deadlock."

The name rings through the autobots. They all knew that name all too well. The horrors they've heard, the carnage left behind by the same bot that was now in their base.

The humans all take notice of their reactions. "You've heard of that name?"

"The very name that a lot feared." Arcee says to them, voice full of dread. "I never bumped into him, only heard what he had done, and it's nothing good."

"Drift is Deadlock? The very con that Megatron favoured?" Bulkhead struggled to process this.

"Why did Megatron favour him?" Jack sounds worried.

"Because of his lack of emotion, no empathy, and did as he was told without hesitation." Ratchet adds through a shaky vent. "But...he's coming back around, the Drift I know. After what happened, I joined Optimus to try to do what I could for the autobots, all the while trying to silently mend the damage done to my spark. As much as I hated Drift, I never stopped loving him, and always held on some hope he might come back."

"And he did." June says softly, moved by the story he told everyone to have a better understanding of what just happened. Though they were concerned about his past with the decepticons, they understood what Ratchet must be feeling to get his lover back again after so long.

Ratchet lets out a shaky vent and looks at everyone. "I'm willing to forgive for his mistakes, because that's my choice. I need to ask you all to respect our privacy, our past, and for there to be no further questions about Drift's time with the decepticons. Please, don't shut him out, give him a chance, get to know him. He might not be the smartest, and he's made terrible choices, but there is good in him."

"I don't like cons, but he seems...different." Miko perks up, looking over at Bulkhead. "I've gotten to know him a little, he's not so bad. Just have to ignore that history part with the cons."

Bulkhead groaned in displeasement but knew there wasn't really going to be any other way around this. Drift was going to become one of them, so they might as well start opening up to him.

"We'll do that." Arcee then says through a soft vent. "For you Ratchet, we'll give him a chance."

Ratchet feels himself relax a little hearing this. He had a pretty good team here. "Thank you."

Drift is up and walking. He then finds himself facing the autobots and humans, all looking at him as Optimus and Ratchet approach. Least they didn't have weapons drawn on him, it's a start.

Optimus is first to speak. "Drift, we've all talked to one another and Ratchet has informed the others about your bondage with him. It is Ratchet's wish to give you a second chance, for you to leave behind your past with the decepticons and to become one of our own. I ask for you to have zero connections with any decepticon and to prove yourself among our team here."

Drift looks at Ratchet who gives a simple nod at him. This was his chance to fix what he tore apart between them, to show he could be something better. He wanted that.

"Thanks, Optimus. I'll do whatever Ratty says, I don't want to let him down again, or anyone for that matter."

"Ratty?" June can't help but repeat through a small smile.

"None of you are allowed to call me that." Ratchet points at everyone with a firm glare.

"Only I can." Drift sends him a smirk knowing he was right about that.

"I'm going to lay down a few things as well." Ratchet starts as he steps closer towards him. "You'll follow our rules, our ways, no arguments or whining about it. You'll treat everyone here with respect and you'll be treated the same in return. Everything is going to be stripped, your model, colours, nothing that will give any decepticon a hint who you used to be, a complete new look. Understood?"

Drift listens and doesn't hesitate to nod. Like he said, whatever his Ratty wanted. He was in his control now. "Sure, alright." He gives a smile, sharp denta's lightly exposed.

Ratchet stares before pointing. "I'm removing those modified dentas." Drift's smile slips and goes to say something but Ratchet raises his servo. "Nope! They're going. They look ridiculous on you."

Drift vents heavily. Complete new look. "Alright...whatever you want."

"Wow, who are you and what have you done with Drift?" Miko asks the completely new looking robot sitting in the medical bay. She had just arrived with the others. It seemed Ratchet was very serious.

Drift sends the girl a soft smirk, sharp dentas now back to their default model along with most of his amour, colours neutral grey, ready for a new scan and colour.

"Ratchet wasn't kidding." He answers through a gentle chuckle. "But hey, I think it will be good to have something different."

"Something calm." Ratchet points out as he sets up some programs for Drift to scan and choose from. "Soft, nice, you know? Nothing dramatic."

"Ugh, such a control freak." Miko comes up onto the ramp along with the others.

Drift can't help but snicker. He liked humans. They were different, had a lot of character, he grew to like them very quickly in his short time there.

"What colour, Ratty?" Drift asks as he looks through some models.

"That's for you to decide."

"I want what you want."

"I want you to pick yourself. I'm sure you can't mess up on that." Ratchet doesn't mean for that to sound harsh, but it did. Drift shifts his amber optics at him, looking like a wounded feline, and Ratchet vents softly, lowering his voice. "I didn't mean-"

"It's fine." Drift doesn't want him to apologise, so he forces a smile. "I'll pick myself." He says trying to sound positive.

Ratchet nods and leaves him to it.

"Ouch." Miko whispers while hanging over the railing.

"Are things alright between you two?" The youngest Raf asks kindly.

"It's not simple, but it's progress." Drift answers honestly.

For a moment he scans through the new designs before looking up at Ratchet talking with Optimus. His optics scan over him and he smiles. He's picked a colour. Adding the program he scans the new look, his armour shifting colour and shape right in front of the kids to watch, astonished by the change happening before it finishes.

Drift looks at his reflection and smiles more. He looks good, very good. He now holds a very similar colour matching with Ratchet.

"It's a good look." Jack praises.

"You and Ratchet got matching colours now. That's cute." Miko beams.

Drift shifts his optics at Ratchet who is looking at him now, a lingering enchantment holds in his optics as he stares at Drift. They both do indeed share the same colours, a similar design, with Drift only being more slender framed.

"It is cute." Drift sends Ratchet a wink.

Ratchet has to try to cool himself when he sees Drift. He wouldn't say it, but he feels himself heat up at the sight of his long lost mate looking like that. He likes the new look. Clearing his vocals, he nods simply. "Very nice."

Drift doesn't miss the pink hue at his white cheek plating.

Laying on his berth in his given room Drift finds himself staring at the ceiling and letting his processor run over everything that's happened. He was now an autobot, one of team prime. His servo runs over the new symbol over his chest and lets out a soft vent.

It's not that he was disgusted by it, but it does feel foreign still. All this was going to take time to adjust, to move on from his troubled past and do better for him and for Ratchet.

All that time ago, when he hurt him, he lost himself. He became something dark, horrible, one of Megatron's favourites because he did anything he was told. All those memories will forever haunt him, but he hopes he can move past all that and start over with Ratchet. It's all he wants.

The sudden knock at his door jolts him out of his thoughts and goes to open it. He stares at Ratchet who stands on the other side.

"Did I wake you?" Ratchet asks through a soft tone.

"No, recharge is...it's not easy these days." Drift admits.

Ratchet nods lightly. "Can I come in?"

Drift feels his spark thump rapidly as he nods, allowing him to enter and closing the door behind. He watches as Ratchet turns to face him, and there's that struggling look he held, when he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.

Drift comes closer, calmly stepping in front of him and trying to look into his optics. He can feel the heat radiating from his charris that he wants to touch, but holds back.

"I wanted to see you." Ratchet manages to say. "I...I just want to be with you." Hearing this makes Drift smile, only for it to slip away hearing his next words. "But I'm scared you're going to hurt me again."

"I know." Drift knows he hurt him badly, he'll never forget that. "And...I'm scared you're never going to stop hating me."

"I don't hate you. I'm just trying to trust you again."

"What can I do?" Drift doesn't know himself. "Tell me what to do."

"No." Ratchet shakes his helm, face hardening. "I want you to decide for yourself, not what I or anyone else tells you." On his own free will, not in control.

Drift gets it now. So, he does that. He touches his face plating, running his digits across and savouring the warm feeling, before closing the distance and kissing him gently.

The kiss is simple and short, but it's what Drift wants, what Ratchet wants. It's broken for just a mere moment before Drift dives in again, slowly deepening it as he slides his servos across Ratchet's shoulders and running behind his neck. Without holding back anymore ratchet consumes the kiss they share and backs him back against the berth, leaning over and pressing himself between his thighs as their lingering heated moans fill the room.

"I've missed you." Ratchet manages to whisper between kisses. "Primus...I've missed you so much."

"I'm here, I'm right here, and I'm never leaving you." Drift says before he retracts his panel, revealing his already soaking valve and the housing opens for his spike to throb out. "Please, Ratty, I need you inside me."

Climbing up over him, Ratchet retracts his panel and his throbbing spike emerges from its housing. He rubs himself against Drift, sliding between the lips of his valve, catching his sensitive node with each thrust. Drift throws his helm back against the berth and wraps his legs tightly around his waist, tugging him close and eager to get him inside.

Finally, Ratchet sinks in, groaning lowly as his spike fills Drift, feeling every ridge running against his inner walls, all the while Drift arches his back as he's filled so perfectly, mouth open as he mewls lowly. He missed this, he missed Ratchet.

Ratchet holds himself up as best he could over Drift before he sets a pace, thrusting his hips against Drift while grunting and venting heavily.

"Ratty, so good, so fragging good!" Drift chants as he holds onto him, clenching his valve around his thickness while running his servos along Ratchet's arms.

However, Ratchet makes a blunt noise, as if he's trying something but is struggling, right before he stops moving and lets out an annoyed heavy vent.

"What's wrong?" Drift vents densely as he feels Ratchet's hesitation and tries to avoid his lingering stare, removing himself from his valve as he backs up. "Hey, hey, Ratty, talk to me. D-did I do something wrong?" He touches his face plating and watches as Ratchet's optics shutter closes and leans into his touch.

"No, no, you did nothing wrong. It's me."

"What do you mean?" Drift shifts closer, placing his other servo over his shoulder and listening to whatever he might want to say.

"It's embarrassing." Ratchet rolls his helm a little. Though he knew Drift wasn't going to let this slide, the concern hanging over his face causing him to vent once more. "I'm old. My stamina isn't what it use to be."

Realization hits Drift. So that's it. He can't hold back a smile.

"Don't you dare laugh." Ratchet warns but this only causes Drift to giggle lightly. "It's not funny."

"I'm not laughing." Drift only fails as he continues to giggle.

"Stop that, you're still laughing."

"I'm not, I'm not." Drift forces himself to calm down and bit back his smile before caressing his face. "Ratty, it's alright. Don't worry about it." Leaning close he kisses him gently. "How about you let me on top? Let me take care of you."

Drift gently pushes Ratchet onto the berth and has him lay down before straddling his lap, thighs trapping against his waist while his exposed valve rubs along Ratchet's throbbing spike, causing soft moans to leave from both of them. Drift hovers closer towards Ratchet's face with a tender smile.

"You always took care of me, now it's my turn to take care of you." Leaning closer, Drift kisses him, letting it linger before gently pushing his glossa inside, coiling with Ratchet's.

Positioning himself he sinks back down onto Ratchet's thick spike and starts to ride him, rolling his hips slowly, rocking himself and riding his spike slowly.

Ratchet moves his servos to his waist, gripping his digits into his soft armour while keeping the kiss deep between them, letting out short moans and feeling more comfortable like this.

Drift vents softly into the kiss, letting out short muffled moans as he sucks at Ratchet's glossa, clenching in sync with his movements as he rides him. He moves his servo between them and he starts to stroke himself, rubbing his tip gently before pumping his servo over, arousal and pleasure quickly boiling between them.

"Drift...Primus....you're so tight." Ratchet gently praises between heated moans against his lips.

"Ratty, oh Ratty! I feel so full, filling me so good." Drift presses his forehead against Ratchet's, keeping close while riding his thick spike buried deep in his valve, rubbing against his ceiling node while Ratchet takes over to stroke Drift's cable then.

Moments like these were dreamed between the two over their time apart from each other. So much war, hate, and now reunited, lost in the moment as if nothing happened.

Drift holds a firmer grip, throwing his weight down over again more firmly, clenching around the perfectly ridged spike throbbing in his valve and rubbing against his inner walls. Moans grew more feral between the two as Ratchet kept his moving servo around Drift, feeling ever twitch and transfluid coating his digits and along the length, wet sounds growing more louder as fluids start to build and pool

Tossing his helm back, Drift lets out a louder mewl, crying out in bliss as he rides Ratchet's spike more densely. "Frag, Ratty, frag, I won't be able to hold it back!"

"Do it, let yourself go." Ratchet gives the all clear between heated vents, because he too wasn't too far off from overloading either. "Let's do it together, same time."

Drift beams warmly through the intense pleasure boiling through him as he grinds himself down over again, venting and gasping sharply, soon muffled as Ratchet kisses him firmly and feels his spike suddenly erupt deep within him, thick ropes of fluids coating his inner walls with some dripping out. Within a moment he bites his lips and gasps out sharply as his own transfluids coat between him and Ratchet, a pink glow covering over Ratchet's digits as well.

Taking his servo, Drift lifts it up to his mouth and sucks at his digits to clean to fluids, tasting himself and letting out a delightful hum around each of them. Ratchet is always heated and flushed, he didn't think it would be possible to be even more, but he was wrong when Drift did this.

"So beautiful." He whispers, allured by the delightful sight as his cooling fans kick in along with Drift's.

"You're just as pretty." Drift whispers through a luminous smile. "I love you, Ratty. I never stopped loving you. My spark will always belong to you, my beloved."

Ratchet feels his very spark jump at his words. "I love you too, Drift. Always have and always will. We'll make this work, I promise."

Drift ends up snuggled up against Ratchet, tangled under his embrace as he purrs gently against his charris. Ratchet missed that purr, a soothing vibration and sound he always cherished.

"We'll be alright, won't we?" Ratchet asks as he caresses the back of Drift's helm.

"I believe so." He hums lightly, giving him a gentle nuzzle. "You've never loosing me ever again."

"Good."

Neither will ever be apart again.

[aadamkempfitness]

HeroFX Review: A Comprehensive Look at the Alleged Forex Scam

In the vast and often volatile world of forex trading, the presence of unscrupulous brokers is a constant threat to both novice and seasoned traders. HeroFX, a broker that has recently come under scrutiny, is the subject of many discussions and concerns. This review delves into the various aspects of HeroFX to determine whether it is a legitimate broker or a potential scam.

Background and Overview

HeroFX claims to offer a comprehensive trading platform with a wide range of assets, including forex, commodities, indices, and cryptocurrencies. Promising competitive spreads, high leverage, and a user-friendly interface, HeroFX aims to attract traders looking for a reliable trading experience.

Regulation and Licensing

One of the primary red flags for any forex broker is the lack of proper regulation and licensing. HeroFX is reportedly not registered with any reputable financial regulatory authority. This absence of regulation means that traders are not protected by any governing body, increasing the risk of fraudulent activities and loss of funds.

Trading Platform and Tools

HeroFX offers its own proprietary trading platform, which is marketed as intuitive and feature-rich. While the platform appears to be functional, there have been numerous complaints about its reliability and execution speed. Some users have reported significant delays in order execution, leading to potential losses.

The broker also provides various tools and resources for traders, such as educational materials, market analysis, and trading signals. However, the quality and accuracy of these resources are questionable, with many users alleging that the information provided is often outdated or misleading.

Customer Support

Effective customer support is crucial for any forex broker, especially when dealing with complex financial transactions. HeroFX has received mixed reviews in this area. While some traders have reported satisfactory interactions with the support team, many others have experienced long wait times, unhelpful responses, and unresolved issues. This inconsistency in customer service further undermines the broker's credibility.

Withdrawal and Deposit Issues

One of the most significant concerns surrounding HeroFX is the difficulty many traders face when trying to withdraw their funds. Numerous complaints highlight delayed withdrawals, with some users claiming they never received their money. This pattern of behavior is often indicative of a scam broker, as legitimate brokers prioritize transparent and efficient fund transfers.

Additionally, the deposit process has also raised suspicions. HeroFX allegedly encourages large initial deposits and offers enticing bonuses that come with restrictive terms and conditions, making it challenging for traders to access their funds.

User Reviews and Complaints

A cursory glance at various online forums and review sites reveals a plethora of negative feedback from traders who have used HeroFX. Common grievances include:

Unresponsive or hostile customer service.

Manipulated trading conditions leading to unexpected losses.

Inability to withdraw funds.

Suspiciously positive reviews that appear fabricated.

These recurring themes paint a concerning picture of HeroFX and suggest a pattern of unethical practices.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while HeroFX presents itself as a reputable forex broker with attractive features, the overwhelming evidence points to the contrary. The lack of regulation, persistent withdrawal issues, and numerous negative user reviews all indicate that HeroFX may not be a trustworthy broker. Traders are advised to exercise extreme caution and conduct thorough research before engaging with this broker. In the unpredictable world of forex trading, it is always better to err on the side of caution and choose a broker with a proven track record of reliability and transparency.

For more check out this article: Herofx-review

[agentbobr]

pissed abt the new discord mobile update so heres my rant.

the new hud is ugly, laggy and impractical. the lil servers button will ALWAYS have a blue light unless you read every server message which is dumb. they should have an option to turn that off or revert it back to the old HUD (like how reddit has its current site and its "old site HUD" verision), it feels laggy to swap between servers and messages and its slow, making it hard to balance having two conversations at once. you cant even see which people are online in servers by swiping to the side anymore and have to press the search button (which takes a moment to even load, adding more to the lag factor), not to mention, messages look weird now since you ALSO cant side swipe to see whos online/status messages, you must press the search tab and then itll lag to load and show up like how instagrams messaging system does, with it separating the media sent, link and some other stuff. overly complex and unneeded.

not to mention, the new "midnight" color background doesnt even look midnight, you'd expect it to be pitch black on all parts but instead they made it blueish, which is dumb and knowing current discord, they'd put pitch black behind the discord nitro color themed backgrounds (which is also stupid but thats a whole other can of worms.)

overall the new interface is annoying, laggy, UGLY, and hard to traverse, the seperation of areas was unneeded, made worse by the fact that discord themself have said that a setting to make it go back to normal wont be made and if anyone doesnt like it, to delete their accounts. (most likely not caring due to the fact that they have no competition in purely texting apps), it is also full of glitches such as: people being able to send messages but it STILL being in the text box, being so laggy its unuseable and from what ive seen, nobody online is happy as it completely removes all user-friendly access to things and makes it generally hard to use.

[utopicwork]

Hi girl, I'm so sorry if you get this question all the time, but I couldn't find it... for ppl who are genuinely-tech stupid, what is Piermesh? I'm a literary critic/dusty trans lady professor who does research with the help of librarians who navigate the college online indexing programs for me, haha. I'm on Tumblr, LinkedIn, E-mail and no other sites. One of my undergrads recced your project to me, I suspect they didn't realise I wasn't joking when I said I'm like an infant around technology. But it seems very interesting, especially because I find it difficult to do cyber-security, in terms of combining my academic work and risky activist lifestyle.

For example, where the website says Piermesh will "be accessible via web interface for end users and via multiple interfaces for operators," what does that mean for me as a potential user? Does that mean like, going to a website on a browser? A different internet program? Or perhaps I am in the wrong about how far along the project is and it's not really meant for users like me yet?

I am asking because I'm interested in spreading the project around to people who might be able to help you out financially, but these folks (like me) need to know more about the project in total laymen's terms before I can offer it to them - or before I can explain it. If you don't have time for this I understand!

Hi! I do get this question frequently but I understand why. Before I get started on your questions I want to mention my wife @potionslushie has been working on a video with a better layman's explanation so I'll keep people updated on that.

So PierMesh is currently still under prototype development, the source is available though that's more about transparency then being able to run your own node at this point. A prototype that people can use should be out near the end of October.

When it is available, all you'll need for connecting to a node someone has already set up is a normal browser (though I recommend Firefox)

If you want to run your own node that requires a little tech savvy at the moment but eventually we'll have an application that makes that easier.

[liu-anhuaming]

Reading Chinese Ebooks on 讀墨 ReadMoo

For the past few years, I've labored under the assumption that I can't read Chinese ebooks because I just can't focus on them. However, I recently saw someone on insta mention the app 讀墨. I was intrigued, and decided to give it a try. And wow, what a shock, I can in fact read Chinese ebooks! I just have to change it to vertical text and make the font very large.

So the past couple weeks I've been trying to read more consistently using 讀墨. The book I started with was slow going at first, which almost made me give up; it was the Chinese translation of The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera. This book really wasn't for me, and I didn't want to keep reading it. So instead of just giving up, I bought one more book and tried again: 《你的孩子不是你的孩子》 by 吳曉樂 (yes, it is the basis for the Netflix show of the same name).

I devoured the book in under a week. So yeah, I think Chinese ebooks work for me if I like the book.

Below is gonna be an overview of the app, and my thoughts on it so far. It's not comprehensive though, since there's a lot of things on this app I haven't explored yet (like the audiobooks).

***Please note that 讀墨 is a Taiwanese app, and as such it mainly offers books written in traditional characters. There are apparently books written in simplified available, but I haven't explored those since I'm fine reading traditional.***

Buying Books

Buying books is fairly simple. You make an in-app purchase of coins, which you then use to buy books. Note: As of writing this, I have recently recently received a notification from the app that their book purchasing system will be changing soon. Instead of being able to buy the books in the app, you'll have to log in to your account in a browser and buy the books there. The books will apparently then appear on the app for you to read.

As it stands, 210 coins costs $10.99, and the books I've bought have ranged in price from 210 to about 300 coins. That means the books cost ~$11-$16, just like a regular book. This could be pricey, but since I'd otherwise be paying for international shipping if I were buying a physical copy, this feels like a bargain to me. (For me, shipping books from Taiwan/China to the US typically doubles the price of the purchase rip)

Once you buy the book, it's in your library for you to start whenever you please.

As for browsing for books, I haven't gone too in-depth yet. I went in to 讀墨 with a TBR and went for books off that list exclusively. When it comes to buying books online, I almost always go on whatever site I'm buying from with a list of the books I'm thinking of buying. I get recommendations elsewhere (e.g., Goodreads or insta).

Reading Books

The 讀墨 reading interface is pretty typical for an e-reader app. What makes me like it way better than other apps I've used is that it has a lot more customization options.

For starters, you've got 6 options for page/text color. There's the typical black, white, and sepia, but there's also blue and green! I use the 奶綠 option, since I don't like having such a stark contrast between the text and the background when reading on my phone for long periods.

Then there's the options for changing the text size and spacing. You can make it bigger or smaller as you please, and put more or less space between each line of text.

You can also change the font. There's 8 different fonts you can choose from, including the default. There's even a font that puts 注音 next to each character! You can see a preview of that one in the photo below.

And then, there's the option to switch between horizontal and vertical text. The default is horizontal text, but I've come to prefer vertical when reading Chinese novels. If you go to your settings on your profile, you can make vertical text your default, which is what I ended up doing.

Like any good e-reader, there's options to highlight text. There's four different colors you can use (pink, yellow, purple, and blue). If you go the ToC, you can find all of your highlights and filter by color of highlight. Super convenient, since I've been using pink to highlight words/phrases I don't know or find interesting and yellow to highlight key sentences/paragraphs.

Aside from highlighting, when you select text you have the option to look the characters up in a dictionary or online. I've been getting a lot of errors with this recently, but I'm wondering if that's just my phone acting weird? It worked perfectly fine when I first started using the app. Anyways, the dictionary it takes you to is 夢典 MoeDict and it opens in a browser. This personally is a bit annoying bc I actually have this dictionary app installed on my phone, but this is a minor complaint. The dictionary opening in a new browser tab is a non-issue.

Reading Stats

Now, I'm a big dork and love to track my reading stats. To my great satisfaction, 讀墨 keeps track of some stats. The main one is time spent reading. You can set a daily goal (the minimum is 20 minutes), and if you reach it you get a nice checkmark on the calendar. The calendar doesn't update until the very end of each day, so if you've reached your goal for the day it won't show on the calendar until the next day.

Also, keep in mind time differences between where you live and Taiwan. I'm ~12 hours behind Taiwan, so the app doesn't start a new day until around noon for me.

Below the calendar, there's a chart that shows your total reading times for a week, month, or year. I normally can't be bothered to time my reading (especially not when I'm reading physical books) so this is cool to see. I think when it comes to reading in Chinese, being timed is more interesting because I'm able to more clearly gauge progress.

And below all that, there's a breakdown of the genres you read. I don't pay much attention to genre when choosing books, so I don't find this one quite as interesting.

(tfw you're reading a non-fiction book about a tutor so your main genre becomes 教育)

Overall Thoughts

So yeah, I've enjoyed myself so far. Aside from the reading interface, I find the app pretty easy to navigate. I spent a bit of time just clicking around and was able to figure out what's what pretty quick.

Like I said, this isn't a comprehensive review, but I'd recommend giving the app a try if you're willing/able to put down money for ebooks and are able to read traditional. It feels worth the money for me, since the interface is pretty customizable and easy to use.

If you're wondering where to find simplified ebooks, idk. This is my first real foray into Chinese ebooks, so I don't really know where to find them for simplified or traditional. I have heard that it is a little easier to pirate Chinese ebooks since their copyright laws are a little different than ours in the US?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting "Let the Platforms Burn"

This week on my podcast, I read “Let the Platforms Burn,” a recent Medium column making the case that we should focus more on making it easier for people to leave platforms, rather than making the platforms less terrible places to be:

https://doctorow.medium.com/let-the-platforms-burn-6fb3e6c0d980

The platforms used to be source of online stability, and many argued that by consolidating the wide and wooly web into a few “curated” silos, the platforms were replacing chaos with good stewardship. If we wanted to make the internet hospitable to normies, we were told, we had to accept that Apple and Facebook’s tightly managed “simplicity” were the only way to get there.

But today, all the platforms are on fire, all the time. They are rocked by scandals every bit as awful as the failures of the smaller sites of yesteryear, but while harms of a Geocities or Livejournal moderation failure were confined to a small group of specialized users, failures in the big silos reach hundreds of millions or even billions of people.

What should we do about the rolling crisis of the platforms? The default response — beloved of Big Tech’s boosters and critics alike — is to impose rules on the platforms to make them more hospitable places for the billions they’ve engulfed. But I think that will fail. Instead, I think we should make the platforms less important places by freeing those billions.

That’s the argument of the column.

Think of California’s wildfires. While climate change has increased the intensity and frequency of our fires, climate (and neglect by PG&E) is merely part of the story. The other part of the story is fire-debt.

For millennia, the original people of California practiced controlled burns of the forests they lived, hunted, and played in. These burns cleared out sick and dying trees, scoured the forest floor of tinder, and opened spaces in the canopy that gave rise to new growth. Forests need fire — literally: the California redwood can’t reproduce without it:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/giant-sequoia-needs-fire-grow/15094/

But this ended centuries ago, when settlers stole the land and declared an end to “cultural burning” by the indigenous people they expropriated, imprisoned, and killed. They established permanent settlements within the fire zone, and embarked on a journey of escalating measures to keep that smouldering fire zone from igniting.

These heroic measures continue today, and they’ve set up a vicious cycle: fire suppression creates the illusion that it’s safe to live at the wildlife urban interface. Taken in by this illusion, more people move to the fire zone — and their presence creates political pressure for even more heroic measures.

The thing is, fire suppression doesn’t mean no fires — it means wildfires. The fire debt mounts and mounts, and without an orderly bankruptcy — controlled burns — we get chaotic defaults, the kind of fire that wipes out whole towns.

Eventually, we will have to change tacks: rather than making it safe to stay in the fire zone, we’re going to have to make it easy to leave, so that we can return to those controlled burns and pay down those fire-debts.

And that’s what we need to do with the platforms.

For most of the history of consumer tech and digital networks, fire was the norm. New platforms — PC companies, operating systems, online services — would spring up and grow with incredible speed, only to collapse, seemingly without warning.

To get to the bottom of this phenomenon, you need to understand two concepts: network effects and switching costs.

Network effects: A service enjoys network effects if it increases in value as more people use it. AOL Instant Messenger grows in usefulness every time someone signs up for it, and so does Facebook. The more users, the more reasons to join. The more people who join, the more people will join.

Switching costs: The things you have to give up when you leave a product or service. When you quit Audible, you have to throw away all your audiobooks (they will only play on Audible-approved players). When you leave Facebook, you have to say goodbye to all the friends, family, communities and customers that brought you there.

Tech has historically enjoyed enormous network effects, which propelled explosive growth. But it also enjoyed low switching costs, which underpinned implosive contraction. Because digital systems are universal (all computers can run all programs; all nodes on the network can connect to one another), it was historically very easy to switch from one service to another.

Someone building a new messenger service or social media platform could import your list of contacts, or even use bots to fetch the messages left for you on the old service and put them in the inbox on the new one, and then push your replies back to the people you left behind. Likewise, when Apple made its iWork office suite, it could reverse-engineer the Microsoft Office file formats so you could take all your data with you if you quit Windows and switched to MacOS:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

This dynamic — network effects growth and low switching costs contraction — is why we think of tech as so dynamic. It’s companies like DEC were able to turn out minicomputers that shattered the dominance of mainframes. But it’s also why DEC was brought so low that a PC company, Compaq — was able to buy it for pennies on the dollar. Compaq — a company that built an empire by making interoperable IBM PC clones — was itself “disrupted” a few years later, and HP bought it for spare change found in the sofa cushions.

But HP didn’t fall to Compaq’s fate. It survived — as did IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook. Somehow, the cycle of “good fire” that kept any company from growing too powerful was interrupted.

Today’s tech giants run “walled gardens” that are actually walled prisons that entrap their billions of users by imposing high switching costs on them. How did that happen? How did tech become “five giant websites filled with screenshots from the other four?”

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

The answer lies in the fact that tech was born as antitrust was dying. Reagan hit the campaign trail the same year the Apple ][+ hit shelves. With every presidency since, tech has grown more powerful and antitrust has grown weaker (the Biden administration has halted this decay, but it must repair 40 years’ worth of sabotage).

This allowed tech to “merge to monopoly.” Google built a single successful product — a search engine — and then conquered the web by buying other peoples’ companies, even as their own internal product development process produced a nearly unbroken string of flops. Apple buys 90 companies a year — Tim Cook brings home a new company more often than you bring home a bag of groceries:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

When Facebook was threatened by an upstart called Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg sent a middle-of-the-night email to his CFO defending his plan to pay $1b for the then-tiny company, insisting that the only way to secure eternal dominance was to eliminate competitors — by buying them out, not by being better than them. As Zuckerberg says, “It is better to buy than compete”:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing

As tech consolidated into a cozy oligopoly whose execs hopped from one company to another, they rigged the game. They colluded on a criminal “no-poach” deal to suppress their workers’ wages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

And they colluded to illegally rig the ad-market:

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

This collusion is the inevitable result of market concentration. 100 squabbling tech companies will be at each others’ throats, unable to agree on catering for their annual meeting much less a common lobbying agenda. But boil those companies down to a bare handful and they’ll quickly converge on a single hymn and twine their voices in eerie harmony:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/16/compulsive-cheaters/#rigged

Eliminating antitrust enforcement — letting companies buy and merge with competitors, permitting predatory pricing and other exclusionary tactics — was the first step towards unsustainable fire suppression. But, as on the California wildland-urban interface, this measure quickly gave way to ever-more-extreme ones as the fire debt mounted.

The tech’s oligarchs have spent decades both suppressing laws that would limit their extractive profits (there’s a reason there’s no US federal privacy law!), and, crucially, getting new law made to limit anyone from “disrupting” them as they disrupted their forebears.

Today, a thicket of laws and rules — patent, copyright, anti-circumvention, tortious interference, trade secrecy, noncompete, etc — have been fashioned into a legal superweapon that tech companies can use to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers, and prevent them from making or using interoperable tools to reduce their switching costs and leave their walled gardens:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Today, these laws are being bolstered with new ones that make it even more difficult for users to leave the platforms. These new laws purport to protect users from each other, but they leave them even more at the platforms’ mercy.

So we get rules requiring platforms to spy on their users in the name of preventing harassment, rather than laws requiring platforms to stand up APIs that let users leave the platform and seek out a new online home that values their wellbeing:

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/lawful-awful-control-over-legal-speech-platforms-governments-and-internet-users

We get laws requiring platforms to “balance” the ideology of their content moderation:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/16/texas-social-media-law/

But not laws that require platforms to make it easy to seek out a new server whose moderation policies are more hospitable to your ideas:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

The platforms insist — with some justification — that we can’t ask them to both control their users and give their users more freedom. If we want a platform to detect and block “bad content,” we can’t also require the platform to let third party interoperators plug into the system and exchange messages with it.

They’re right — but that doesn’t mean we should defend them. The problem with the platforms isn’t merely that they’re bad at defending their users’ interests. The problem is that they can’t defend those interests. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t merely monumentally, personally unsuited to serving as the unelected, unaacountable social media czar for billions of people in hundreds of countries, speaking thousands of languages. No one should have that job.

We don’t need a better Mark Zuckerberg. We need no Mark Zuckerbergs. We don’t need to perfect Zuck — we need to abolish Zuck.

Rather than pouring our resources into making life in the smoldering wildlife-urban interface safe, we should help people leave that combustible zone, with policies that make migration easy.

This month, we got an example of how just easy that migration could be. Meta launched Threads, a social media platform that used your list of Instagram followers and followees to get you set up. Those low switching costs made it easy for Instagram users to become Threads users — and the network effects meant it happened fast, with 30m signups in the first morning:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/meta-launches-threads-and-its-important-for-reasons-that-most-people-wont-care-about/

Meta says it was able to do this because it owns both Insta and Threads. But Meta doesn’t own the list of accounts that you trust and value enough to follow, or the people who feel the same way about you. That’s yours. We could and should force Meta to let you have it.

But that’s not enough. Meta claims that it will someday integrate Threads into the Fediverse, the collection of services based on the ActivityPub standard, whose most popular app is Mastodon. On Mastodon, you not only get to export your list of followers and followees with one click, but you can import those followers and followees to a new server with one click.

Threads looks incredibly stupid, a “Twitter alternative you would order from Brookstone,” but there are already tens of millions of people establishing relationships with each other there:

https://jogblog.substack.com/p/facebooks-threads-is-so-depressing

When they get tired of “brand-safe vaporposting,” they’ll have to either give up those relationships, or resign themselves to being trapped inside another walled-garden-cum-prison operated by a mediocre tech warlord:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-algorithmic-anti-culture-of-scale

But what if, instead of trying to force Zuck to be a better emperor-for-life, we passed rules requiring him to let his subjects flee his tyrannical reign? We could require Threads to stand up a Fediverse gateway that let users leave the service and set up on any other Fediverse servers (we could apply this rule to all Fediverse servers, preventing petty dictators from tormenting their users, too):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

Zuck founded an empire of oily rags, and so of course it’s always on fire. We can’t make it safe to stay, but we can make it easy to leave:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

This is the thing platforms fear the most. Network effects work in both directions: if your service grows quickly because people value one another, then it will shrink quickly when the people your users care about leave. As @zephoria-blog​ recounts, this is what happened when Myspace imploded:

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

When I started seeing the disappearance of emotionally sticky nodes, I reached out to members of the MySpace team to share my concerns and they told me that their numbers looked fine. Active uniques were high, the amount of time people spent on the site was continuing to grow, and new accounts were being created at a rate faster than accounts were being closed. I shook my head; I didn’t think that was enough. A few months later, the site started to unravel.

Platforms collapse “slowly, then all at once.” The only way to prevent sudden platform collapse syndrome is to block interoperability so users can’t escape the harms of your walled garden without giving up the benefits they give to each other.

We should stop trying to make the platforms good. We should make them gone. We should restore the “good fire” that ended with the growth of financialized Big Tech empires. We should aim for soft landings for users, and stop pretending that there’s any safe way to life in the fire zone.

We should let the platforms burn.

Here’s the podcast:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/07/16/let-the-platforms-burn-the-opposite-of-good-fires-is-wildfires/

And here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @internetarchive​; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446_-_Let_the_Platforms_Burn.mp3

And here’s my podcast feed:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Tonight (July 18), I’m hosting the first Clarion Summer Write-In Series, an hour-long, free drop-in group writing and discussion session. It’s in support of the Clarion SF/F writing workshop’s fundraiser to offer tuition support to students:

https://mailchi.mp/theclarionfoundation/clarion-write-ins

[Image ID: A forest wildfire. Peeking through the darks in the stark image are hints of the green Matrix "waterfall" effect.]

Image: Cameron Strandberg (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fire-Forest.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[saezurumurmurs]

A BL Platform For Everyone

NB: Please reblog this for visibility!

A little over two years ago, me and my BL crew were in our little chat sharing recommendations. 

Cat had an impressive spread sheet, Marcie and I had iCloud Notes, and it was pretty much chaos.

I looked at it and said out loud, "There has to be a better way for us to keep track of our reads and share recommendations. There has to be right?"

Cat said she wished someone would build a BL app with everything already there. Me, a developer of almost thirty years, paused while a floodlight (not a light bulb) went off in my head.

“Well I could maybe build one… cause like, I build stuff. How would that be?”

By the end of the conversation Cat had invited me to build an app for BL. 

Four weeks later, in late February of 2022, digitaljuicy.com was online. 

In the last couple of years, I’ve been listening to the fandom, paying attention to feedback, poured over analytics, read your responses to the Reader’s Survey and continued to craft a platform with all this in mind.

What I have been building is 100% for us... there is nothing but BL and it is an attempt to encompass ALL of BL. Not just the bits and pieces.

But for two years I've been struggling. Struggling in many ways, but specifically to get what I wanted out of the platform. I tried and failed so many times.

In September of 2022 I tried to raise venture capital to build the platform I wanted for us. I pitched it to accelerators and true blue venture capital.

Juicy is what is called 'pre-seed'. Which means were still so new and evolving, under-resourced and while there was interest, there was no joy. No funding was raised.

In December 2023, I realised it was time to rethink Juicy. i have been on the deepest dive for months rebuilding Juicy from the ground up and preparing the framework for the mobile app.

I’ve built something I want to use… and wild, I’m building it and using it as a fan at the same time. I'm at the point where it's impossible not to want to share.

And what kind of platform do I mean? At its most basic level:

You can track your reads, watches and plays

You can review and recommend the titles to the community, your friends, strangers on Twitter, your friend you're trying to corrupt outside the fandom. Your poison.

Timelines for you, for titles, for episodes, chapters… just about everything. I mean everything: The creators, the publishers, the studios, the actors... you can leave reviews and status posts on EVERYTHING. No algorithms, no force feeding... just discovery, recommendations and honest reviews by this community about our community and the industry we feed.

Collections! Lists of stuff you're reading, dropped, want to read, want to buy, love or hate, all pretty and organised and shareable..

A growing database resource of titles, tagged up to its eyeballs with a minutiae of data.. with reading an streaming links and anything else we find that we think is relevant.

But it is also a lot more than this.

I wanted it to be more than what it was. I want to turn Juicy into a mobile app, add some more functionality and more specifically, platform all of BL for its non-Asian fandom.

We get left out of so much, I feel like we need our own thing. 

I don’t know about ya’ll, but I was tired of being banned on social media for sharing content. How you gonna ban me for saying a 2D fictional character needs to be shot with shite and strung with cobweb? But they did… and I know it’s not just me.

What about the creators? How do they interface with the non-Japanese or non-Korean fandoms? On which misogynistic hell site?

What about the publishers and merchandisers? What about the little Etsy sellers? Why does BL have to hidden away in the databases of mangaupdates, anisearch and anilist? Why does every single manga tracker out there seem to have pitiful listings for BL? 

Is it because we’re a female or queer audience? 

Look at this lil video I made:

Either way, I’ve long felt it’s time for us to do our own thing. So I’ve been building it. Pixel by pixel. Feature by feature on my own.

Juicy has been a small chat group, but I’m the only developer. We’ve always been clear about what we wanted to build: A platform for the fandom, the creators, the publishers, the merchandisers… my goal is a one-stop platform for BL and I am damn close to presenting this new iteration.

This was and remains the core of what I’m building: The largest English platform for BL on the planet. The functionality is one thing, but building a database like that is not a one-person job.

So now I need your help.

First to keep the servers online, so I can continue to build and develop and finally, finally release the mobile app. I can't tell you how much I want that.

I’m close to pushing the new Juicy 3.0 out, and I’m very in love with the work I’ve done since December. It’s a new look, and it works 1000 times better than the previous iterations of Juicy.

I just have hit a wall financially, and need your help and support to get it over the line.

Juicy's ass is fat and I been carrying her mostly alone for two solid years. 

I’m going to launch a Kickstarter for this project in a bit so I can hire another developer  to help with the trickier bits and fine tune the mobile app, but for now, I felt a Patreon would at least help us keep the servers up and maybe, just maybe allow us to afford a few crucial bits that will elevate your experience as a user.

And because I’m a developer, and I can do some pretty kinky shit with APIs and such, if you support this Patreon campaign, you will get some nice feature perks on the platform automagically. You won’t have to pay again to access these perks in-app later.

As many perks as I can cook up anyway, not the least of which will be access to some of the nicer functions and features I’ve already built into the platform.

When the mobile app launches, you will get it first and for free! Plus we’ve been talking about a lot of other ways we can make the platform fun beyond what I've done already.

I plan to monetise the platform in various ways, but in a profit sharing model. You contribute to the database, you contribute content, you get a share of whatever the platform makes. This is already built into the system. This will be open to anyone willing, but to Patrons first.

Finally, I'm limiting the number of people who can subscribe via Patreon to 1000 people. Once we hit that number, the rolls will be closed to new membership, and everyone directed to the platform to pay for any services or merchandise.

My goal for this group of Patrons is that you become an exclusive and tightly knit inner circle.

My hope is that you will help me actively shape what Juicy will become. Your votes and say will carry weight. Your feature requests considered and if possible implemented first.

You will get access to exclusive merchandise, exclusive giveaways and promos (like free stuff), and exclusive programming from the team.

With your help we will produce an exclusive podcast for Patrons only discussing all things BL and Juicy (honestly our conversations are generally wild and hilarious... it will be a rollick for sure), along with other content for Patrons only. We've even planned watch parties and other fun shit... I swear, we want you all to be our greatest ambassadors so we are planning as many treats as we can.

Your access on the platform will be specific to your Patreon subscription and your treatment will be VIP for the life of your subscription.

Finally, the way my auADHD are set up, I have no interest in the dramas of the BL fandom, so this is never going to be about gatekeeping access to anything. It’s about making more access possible. You can help bring us all together and make us stronger as a group.

So do you think Digital Juicy sounds like something you’d like in on?

Okute Sea

Saezuru Murmurs