#pointless features

[ibboard]

The number of reblogs here that are just "WTF? I don't want that extra crap for a higher price". And I don't blame them!

Major misstep here for @staff, I feel.

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[bookshelf-in-progress]

Most important thing to know before writing: What is the point of your story?

There are two parts to that question.

-What are the main story elements you want to feature? A certain character? A setting? A moment of the plot? A particular theme? Which elements are essential to the story you're trying to tell?

-What type of ending are you aiming toward? It doesn't have to be super-detailed, but knowing something about where the story is going is how you know you have a story and not just an image. Is the main character going to change/grow somehow? Learn the answer to a question? Accomplish a certain goal? Make a friend?

Defining those things before you start lets you know that your idea is a story, not just an image or a concept that won't go anywhere. It also gives you a core to base the story around and keeps you from going off-track.

As long as you have defined the essentials to the story and the general direction that you need the story to go in, everything else is negotiable. You have freedom to adjust the non-essentials and explore different possibilities as you discovery-write, so long as none of those non-essentials interfere with the point of the story. If it distracts from the main point, or turns the plot in a way that'll make it impossible to reach main point of the story, it needs to be discarded. Anything else will most likely enrich your story.

[kaiserouo]

stayed on the orb vallis for too long i saw a kubrodon on a k-drive

(ref)

[subsequentibis]

absolutely the best recurring bit in taskmaster is when they intro a task and greg says 'well these are intelligent people so they're not going to just blunder straight ahead into it, ignoring [obvious obstacle that doesn't immediately occur to a person under pressure], right?' and alex goes 'yes of course. want to see [two to three people who absolutely did that] first?' and greg goes 'yeeaaahh :]'

[shitpostingkats]

been seeing ur descent into ffxv madness - the monarchy's fucked as hell, huh! - and sometimes i think about the chosen king dying for everyone and the like, almost accidential yet heavy anti-monarchy messaging you could take from the game - this long line of kings and queens dying young to preserve lucis which started from one brother wanting to be king over another brother which in turn started from one person martyring themselves to save the world which in turn started from the king of gods (the king of kings) and the starscourage that could not be cleansed,,,,,idk if im cooking really because it's been a hot minute but man. there is a world in my brain where noctis gives up the crystal and the right to be king to go off and fish in a cabin + be a hunter and a commoner. and that is how the chosen king dies. there's a world in my brain where ardyn feels the loss of the armringer (the crystal is gone...the scourge is gone...) and just before he passes he gets to see a world where there are no kings or prophesies or gods or monsters, only humans with other humans. and that is how ardyn passes on. and that is how the chosen king dies... idk! for a lighthearted game about road trippin bros this fucker really is like 'TOTAL CENTRALIZATION OF POWER ON ONE INDIVIDUAL WILL FUCK UP EVERYONE FOREVER AND EVER--' and. yeah. man. im so normal about ffxv

!!!!!!!!!!

Oh anon you have accidentally stumbled upon one of the things that makes me insane which is despite the final boss fight being framed as a smackdown between two kings! Both Noctis and Ardyn! Are very much not! Kings!

Like Ardyn was disowned and Noctis was never formally crowned they are literally two people who don't even meet the qualifications of the position and yeah they have light swords and teleporting but also Ardyn will just straight up kick you in the shins! The monarchy is not grand or special in this moment this is two guys throwing each other around arguing over a chair neither of them really wants but feels they have to want.

The fact that the gods do not care who sits on the throne. The fact that the special uber magic that gods blessed the line of kings with is just a small nuclear reactor that kills you. If it likes you, it just kills you slowly. The fact neither the ring or the crystal have any pathos, they just want to eat and consume and burn anyone that tries to touch them. The fact that the only justification the universe gives Noctis for why he has to die is that many people have already died for him. Pair that with "One aspiring to the role of King’s Shield can stake his life for none but his liege—not even for himself." Noctis is surrounded by people who are told they have to die for him and that they're not allowed to exist if they aren't sacrificing for him and then Noct gets told he has to die because of all the things already given up for him.

Fucked up!!!!!

[honeyfractals]

look at them :)

[incinerated-vestiges]

IM SORRY THE SOAP AND GAZ ART IS TAKING SO LONG FACES R HARD OK :(

[never-looked-so-good]

📷 @/leclercsupportsystem

[spurgie-cousin]

🔥 on reddit fundie snark (any/all subs)

anyone who's been around for a minute can probably guess where I'll go with this one lol but I think my biggest beef with fundie snarkers on reddit is the focus on shit that just does not matter....... it's just riddled with things like body/looks shaming, parent shaming, poverty shaming, and sometimes it feels like people there almost WANT awful things to happen to fundies,if that makes sense. like sure, sometimes it is important to call out bad parenting choices, but maybe it's stupid to throw a fit over the brand of high chair this person is using, y'know?

And I think if you asked some of the worst ones why they do it they would tell you something like "to spread awareness about the dangers of Christian fundamentalism" and really believe that, when it's like girl be so for real........ your comment history is just you talking about how poor the Rodrigues kids look on any given day. How is that bringing awareness to anything??

Idk I think a lot of people are attracted to snarking as a whole because they're looking for an outlet to vent frustrations, prejudices, insecurities, etc etc, and fundies are a particular gold mine because it's very easy to justify being awful to them and it just clogs up the legitimate discourse. And it's not everyone even on reddit obv, there are definitely many decent people with genuine interest and good takes, but it makes it hard for me to participate in fundie reddit a lot without feeling kind of icky.

And it certainly makes it hard to be taken seriously when then ARE legitimate concerns, because if you try to sound the alarm on something dangerous that say, Karissa Collins is doing, she has an endless supply of frivolous threads on fundie reddit to point at to be like "see they just hate me no matter what i do".

[indigo]

The thing that frustrates me about the news of Tumblr losing staff and likely becoming largely unsupported is they probably over-invested in Tumblr in the first place. The goal was to have more users and do better financially than Tumblr ever did before. I think probably anyone could tell you that that was never going to happen.

Automattic can't do anything about the fact that Tumblr has existed for 15 years and that it burnt a LOT of its cultural goodwill with the blanket NSFW ban. (I'm glad some steps towards allowing some NSFW content have been put in place. I also know that just "letting porn back on Tumblr" was never a feasible option.) Gaining more new users than ever before was never a viable goal, they were doomed to fail as soon as they made that the goal.

So with that as the goal, we end up with some of the most frustrating, and probably expensive, things that Automattic has done:

whatever amount they're spending on Tumblr Live, which brought in a tiny userbase that doesn't use the core service and otherwise just pisses the core userbase off

the desktop redesign, which promptly got users passing around tampermonkey scripts to banish it

creating an algorithmic tumblr fyp page when the thing basically every tumblr user will tell you they love about tumblr is the chronological dashboard

I kind of wish they had focused on the little things more. Like everyone loves polls. The ability to view tags on reblogs without using xkit is awesome.

I wish they had focused more on developing optimizations to the core experience like this and thinking about ways to become financially stable. But that's not the goal under capitalism, is it? The goal has to be perpetual growth even when anyone could tell you its impossible.

[deliriousblue]

overall enjoying petrichor but i admit i could do without the at-least-once-an-episode reminders that tul is Not Like Other Cops

[sleep-nurse]

tumblr doesn't even know what to recommend me anymore (i have never joined any community)

[silvergyus]

moabong v2 is cute and I can't wait to decorate it!

[pepprs]

acnl is a superior game to acnh in almost every way except the graphics. it’s actually making me mad

[pagesofkenna]

Downloaded Habitica again after like 6 years

[stew-chan]

if Tumblr could get rid of the fast swipe to send post feature that'd be great

I'm tired of accidentally sending posts to people because I tried to scroll in the wrong 10px spot on my phone