#there's alt text in all the screenshots btw

[perfectly-generic-url]

I don't think I have anything to add here. Read paranatural, it's good

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

✨ someone ✨ broke their oath the other night

[thewickerking]

going through the hitlist i made for artfight . do you think these guys like me

[softgrungeprophet]

*reddit voice* AITA????

i am just gonna post all the comments this person left as screenshots here to give an idea of what i'm talking about (some/many of the comments here are mildly to very NSFW just fyi)

So, there's a person who left some guest comments on Redline (my explicit Peter/Mac hotel hookup fic), who I had a long convo with (~11 comments apiece from each of us) that was variously baffling, amusing, and frustrating.

fairly typical opening comment exchange

this is a smut fic so of course conversations about the sex part are not that weird and i was fine with discussing that for the most part and being honest about why i even wrote the fic. i figured that would be fine.

their response?

brother what the fuck are you talking about, did you even read this fic? or did you just skim the parts where peter sucked dick. i think at this point I was thinking like, well they're a little off-base but i can sort of see why they might come to this conclusion, maybe.

"when they first began their trysts"?? This is their only hookup! It's not like there's a sequel to this fic!

trying to engage reasonably with the things they said that are actually relevant while gently dismissing the stuff that's incorrect.

Literally we're talking about my fanfiction in my AU where I can say with 100% certainty that they have never hooked up before, let alone multiple times, and I already said—both in my responses to this person and in my author notes—that this fic isn't even canon to my AU, meaning actually they don't hook up even once in-universe... i have no idea where they got the idea that this is an ongoing thing because the text makes it pretty clear that this is the first and only time the characters have boned, but sure whatever you want to say. multiple trysts.

also re: the pederasty comment, that's on me for being pretentious I guess, cause I made an offhand mention in the fic itself:

(also to be clear about peter's age, he is 19 here and moderately experienced, he's not like... an underage virgin or anything like that.)

But Also

(cont from comment above)

what?

i think this is the point where i was really just thinking to myself, like, this is getting a little weird. also, weirdly condescending. Like, bro, I know what pederasty is, I don't just toss random fucking words into my fics without knowing what they mean. you don't need to define it for me.

also the everything else.

sorry, between formatting and lengthy comments my reply is kind of long and weirdly laid out in the screenshots (but there is alt text if you need it):

Mostly talking about characterization. Being like, no, Peter would not be impressed, etc. First part non-sexual despite the blatant horniness of their previous comment about weight lifting.

(me, internally: how do i tell them their barbell comment is completely stupid without being a dick?)

In retrospect I probably should have just straight up ignored the comment about spanking and shifted completely to my explanation of the fact that they don't have that kind of relationship instead of explaining peter's masochism.

(cont)

this is just me explaining why they're wrong and adding some context from my AU as part of the explanation of why.

Again in retrospect I probably should have just not added the context about Peter's backstory or relationship to submission even though it was to explain that it wouldn't make sense in-universe but i have a tendency to over-explain a lot

(cont)

again prob just shouldn't have brought up literally any of this and left it at the initial points about their personalities and the point about peter having plenty of adults in his life. but foresight and conciseness are clearly not my strong suits.

also ugh the way i explain it make peter sound so wooby... misleading

Kind of out of left field (felicia was not mentioned in any previous comments or in the fic at all except like ONE sentence in my author's notes (which i have since removed for unrelated reasons)) but okay????

also just... "spidey's outlaw girlfriend and fellow rogue to scorpion" once more explaining shit i already know, as if i don't know who the black cat is. i'm not a fucking idiot.

(cont)

"i would like to think"? great i just told you this isn't the case because this is my alternate universe. And if we were talking about 616 it would be moot because we know they do know each other in 616 because felicia employed mac in the comics several years ago, but clearly we are talking about my AU and i just told you that this isn't true. (maybe i should have said that to them instead)

also as a scenario it's kind of out of left field but whatever, sure, threesome!

me: I am just going to smile and nod.

them: anyway i am going to talk about something else completely unrelated that demonstrates i did not pay attention to this fic despite trying to offer extensive analysis and speculation, and also i am going to end on something completely off-topic and random.

to be clear the word "speedo" was not mentioned even once in this fic but this single interaction is why they even brought it up:

I genuinely don't expect any of my readers to actually know what a dance belt is since it's pretty niche equipment but it would have taken literally two seconds to google it instead of seeing the word "thong" and assuming peter uses a swimsuit as underwear for some reason and then going on an aside about how peter ~canonically~ goes commando.

i have nothing to say about the bald part. i don't know what prompted it. it's completely irrelevant.

For those of you that don't know what a dance belt is, by the way, let me save you a google because I already explained it in my reply:

They did not respond to this at all. hm I wonder why

instead they started a new comment thread to ask a question that was answered in my author's note:

(cw discussion/mentions of child molestation and sexual assault/rape for the next few comments)

choosing to believe they genuinely had forgotten. kind of odd comment but again not that weird so whatever, sure, i'll engage, idk why i didn't just ignore them at this point and just say, "who knows!" or something. the need to over-explain strikes again, i am my own worst enemy, and so on.

(here is where i mention this in my author's note, btw):

...

the dramatic synopsis is genuinely so funny to me like?? this is a comment on gay porn fanfiction... why are you giving me a movie narrator summary of felicia's backstory...

and again the same thing happens and they leave a long hypothetical question—i really should have figured out this pattern by this point huh...

actually this is around the time i realized this person was just gonna keep leaving random unprompted scenarios every time i answered their questions or lightly deconstructed the inaccuracies in their presumptions.

they are right about one thing at least, which is the element of choice.

cue my polite suggestion that they make an account so they can just post fics instead of essentially writing their own fanfiction in my comments, considering how little half of what they've said has had to do with my actual fic. 90% of it is completely unrelated situations of their own devising that have nothing to do with my AU, as you can see by the number of times i've said, "I don't think that applies here" and similar things throughout this extended conversation.

this is where i just give up.

it's like talking to a brick wall, but all the bricks are horny. i should have just said "No???"

after that was silence for a bit, which considering my last reply to them was basically "idk lol" and the previous thread ended with me telling them what a dance belt is and why jock straps aren't practical for acrobatics, is not surprising.

i assumed they were done.

got another comment from someone else about ten days later (3 days ago)

A simple question, my explanation, and... some critique I didn't really ask for. Did I mention that the fic this comment is on... is a porn oneshot? and not a plot-based story? Also was amused/annoyed at the "confuses the audience" comment cause no one else seems to have been confused by it and kita told me she personally read the single line where I mention Mac's scar having not been there before as a way to gauge the passage of time. which was my intent so i'm glad that it comes across, btw, lol

Other than that, the story is okay.

am i being fucking negged???

but, whatever, sometimes you get crit you don't need or want, eh, it's fine

This is the same fucking person, right? This is the same shit? Same style of phrasing (i probably should have realized this when I saw the first comment though, since their initial question about Mac's scars is identically structured to the other questions this person asked before, but like i said, this was like ten days after i thought the convo was over so it's not like i was thinking about it anymore at that point), same sudden segue into power fantasy, pecs and body worship as a previous comment, same mentions of admiration and Manly Masculinity as before—like this comment isn't even a new scenario, it's almost identical to one of the first comments they left which I had already explained wasn't applicable.

The only difference is a guest display name!

but let me tell you after a dozen comments, most of which have had fuck all to do with my writing or story...

as you can see, I am done engaging with this person.

best part? normally i don't even leave guest comments on anyway because i'm self-conscious about my trans flash fics so i kinda leave guest comments disabled for a lot of the fics i post. i just happened to enable them recently on a whim. but at this point i'll probably leave them off permanently lmao

idk

maybe I Am The Asshole for being too friendly and then suddenly getting fed up without offering a previous, less rigid boundary, but also... i already went over the shit they're talking about! over 11 comments! I thought the convo was over by that point, anyway! why are you using a different display name to make a new comment that's almost exactly the same as one of your earliest comments two weeks ago?? do you think i'm gonna give a different answer if i think i'm talking to a different person??????

maybe it's a different person or maybe the response i gave is a sudden ultimatum on my part and i should have, in retrospect, just like... stopped engaging with their random apropos-of-nothing scenarios, but man! hindsight is 20/20 and i'm not very good at interacting with people either, clearly.

sorry if this post duplicates itself on my custom theme on web, read mores seem to play very badly with custom web themes atm...

[pepprs]

dont worry abt responding to my messages!! they can be little trinkets for u to keep forever if u wanna :)))

dear anon… how could i not respond to THESE!!!!!!!!!! 😭💗💗💗💗💗💗💗 you are the sweetest kindest most WONDERFUL soul. it is an honor to receive these beautiful letters and i hope you know how much i cherish each and every one. not just the words but the adventures you take me on and write up for the two of us!!! and the beauty and magic you help me to see in the world around me and the peace and love and love and love you conjure for me in moments when i cant find it or feel it so easy!!!! like idk i know i have no idea who you are outside of being dear anon and i only answer asks once in a blue moon but it truly means the world to me. TRULY.

your writing feels like all the best things, all the things i love most. like leaf piles in the fall and the pikmin bloom soundtrack (btw if you dont play that already i HIGHLY recommend it to you specifically, i think u would really like it and tbh you sending me these letters has the same vibe as my pikmin bringing me postcards from their adventures :"~DDDD!!! if you ever do join it please lmk i would LOVE to be friends and send you postcards and do adventures together!!!!) and frosting on cupcakes and twinkly dust motes in the sunlight and cumulus clouds and dogwood flowers and the way things made of glass refract rainbows and SUNLIGHT SUNLIGHT SUNLIGHT. and even that isnt cutting it. how magical it all is. like i wish i wasnt so exhausted so i could express it better but it truly is so... idk. NOSTALGIC! COZY! HOME!!!!!

so... in order to try to articulate it (and also show my thanks / return the favor / etc.), i am sending this letter along with a care package knitted with word and song and magic and light. enclosed please find:

wind chimes that sing like the sun hitting the lake (also i REALLY want to get a butterfly hair clip!!! i cant wear hair clips or anything else fancy in my hair bc of my mask headbands but id love to have one in case im ever able to wear it in the future 🥹)

a heart-shaped pebble from brighton, to add to your collection (btw i LOVE the part about how you lost them a long time ago but you love them so you remember what they look like. WAUGH. gut punch GUT PUNCH IN THE BEST WAY!!!!)

a mug for hot chocolate, so we can share some together when it gets cold again -- decorated with hand-painted stars in all colors!

a tiny needle to knit your sundust satchels -- like the kind youd find in pixie hollow or the tale of desperaux or something (also both things that have dear anon vibes to me and are also DEEPLY nostalgic for me!)

a recipe for starfait, with illustrations!! (also i LOVE that idea for a replacement for "tesscore"!! but i may end up using that for my personal tag on my undertale / deltarune blog instead bc its so perfect (and also im HONORED that u associate that with me 😭😭😭😭))

a crown and wand for you to wear to match the fairy queen mouse while you write the same kind of magic and comfort she brings!

a packet of magical flower seeds that sprout the most whimsical sweet-smelling flowers, with petals that are soft to the touch!

a hand-woven scarf in your favorite color threaded with shiny silver strands, like comets streaming through the sky (also i am SO late to say this but UNO REVERSE CARD re: your new years wish to me which is genuinely making me lumpthroated and teary eyed reading it again in AUGUST. you are the sweetest EVER. and also ive never played journey before but ive been interested in it for years!!! i'll have to check it out and/or watch a playthrough!)

a hummingbird sculpture on a long stick for you to plant in your garden among the flowers, to sing to them and to you! (also RE: your question about your vocal range -- it just means that you can cover a little over two octaves (the number after the letter is the octave it's in, and each octave is a span of c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c -- so your range starts at about halfway through the third octave and goes to halfway through the fifth!) i think your range is about the same as mine iirc so we can hum along with the hummingbird and all three follow each other's notes :"~D <3)

a golden acorn on a thread for you to wear as a necklace when we go to the bird tea party! (by the way, have you ever read the book ""until the last acorn "when the last acorn is found?" it's a BEAUTIFUL book and it made me cry reading it! i think you and the acorn people would get along very, very well!!)

a lantern made of jelly moonlight and silver foil stars (see: ilomilo chapter 4 :"~D) for you to carry on your walks through the dim nights (you can hang the stars in the sky, and they'll brighten the world and light at your touch!)

a copy of one of my favorite books of all time, "the ten thousand doors of january," which is so much about wedging cracks open into other worlds, and something i think you might like very much / resonate with too!!

a big, big hug.

dear anon: THANK YOU. for all these words and for being you. i dont know how i got so lucky to have you sending me these little trinkets but i will most CERTAINLY keep them forever. i hope you experience all the peace and love and love and love to infinity. may you always know and shine with the light you bring and the light you are.

[justabunchofdragons]

i love you. I LOVE YOU. modern day sidney farber and i LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!

[cepheusgalaxy]

Image descriptions tips & tuts masterpost

[Plain text: Image descriptions tips & tuts masterpost /end PT.] (Tuts is my short for "tutorials" btw)

For when you want to make IDs but don't know how!

Formatting your image descriptions

Image descriptions tutorial

General guide

Describing memes

More detail isn't always better

More tips on describing images (including art)

Yet more little tips

Starting out with your image descriptions

The job of an image description + tips

How to *keep* doing IDs (from someone who does a fuckton)

Friendly reminder

Easy image descriptions to do for begginers

(Edit: added by @anistarrose:)

How to get help writing IDs if you can't make them yourself

IDs for screenshoted tags

Visually impaired person talks about IDs versus ALT text

Why longer is oftentimes not better. At all.

Extra tip from Angel: Tagging your posts as "described" or "undescribed" might help people who need the IDs to filter inacessible posts out if their dash.

[Image description: The "let's take ibuprofen together" meme, edited to say "let's make tumblr more acessible together". /end ID.]

Note: If you have any good posts to add reblog them or send them to me and I'll add them to the original post 💪

[red-dyed-sarumane]

idk how many of u were around for it so one of my favorite vocaP interactions has to be this one.

iyowa posted a blank tweet(which btw u need a special character input to do). hiiragi magnetite replied to it with! a blank tweet. to which iyowa replied with, yet again, a blank tweet

so in response to that hiiragi magnetite quote retweeted and left that blank

iyowa took it a step further by screenshotting the qrt and posting that in a blank post

and then hiiragi magnetite took a screenshot of that and posted their own blank tweet

so obviously the next logical step was for iyowa to print out that tweet and tape it to their wall providing very helpful alt text that's, as u may guess, blank

but it doesn't end there because hiiragi magnetite takes the pic of it taped to the wall and makes towel out of it (theres 2 more pics in a reply to it proving its real)

and to top it all off iyowa took the picture of the towel and made a puzzle out of it and, again, the alt text is blank

and so far that is where this exchange ends

[noctivagant-corvid]

yet another pd dash simulator (pt one pt two pt four pt five)

🎮 wheezerunofficial Follow INSULIN IS 40 DOLLARS! YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD ME TO KILL MYSELF.

🎮 wheezerunofficial Follow please buy commisions so i can afford my insulin!!!!

🎱 flamefestonsixthst Follow this is incredibly fucking depressing. FUCK belltech and FUCK anyone who tolerates them. buisnesses aren't people, they're demons.

🫀livingonasin Follow also they have human experimentation allegations against them!!!

🎮 wheezerunofficial Follow I BEG YOUR PARDON????????????

2,761 notes

🪶 ASHES2ASHES Follow stream at 6 pm cst, playing resident evil. stream sponsored by trix !!

34,512 notes

🤺 tearfulatthefalling Follow hey do you all remember the ghost emo who haunts my college and his purple haired boyfriend. well the boyfriend has been lighting candles without a lighter and either is really good at getting his roots done on time or has naturally purple hair. so. what else is new

🍋 forscoreandsixyearsago Follow this is the deadwood of college dorms.

167 notes

🌳 terabitchia Follow 5k notes by the end of the month and i'll ask the really hot roller derby lady who takes the same train as me on a date. spam allowed .

🌳 terabitchia Follow we reached the goal in two weeks! i hate all of you.

🌳 terabitchia Follow UPDATE: SHE SAID YES WE'RE GETTING ICE CREAM NEXT WEEK!!! EVERYBODY CHEER

7,043 notes

☐ hero-updates Follow Hero "Lightspeed" spotted at an ice cream parlor by the name of "Andy's"! More updates as they arrive!

21 notes

🪼 mackleless Follow i have,,, 506 new followers,,, where did you all come from,, the fucking tidalwave void??????

🔥 killmedead Follow yes

🪼 mackleless Follow Fucking Fair Enough I Guess

8,654 notes

🕰 cringcrong Follow bitches love me for my complex of lightning like scars that stretch across my entire body from when i was possesed by a demon

🕰 cringcrong Follow anyways be sympathetic with chaos demon/trickster survivors, nobody tried to cause the harm they did they were simply thrown in the way

🕰 cringcrong Follow [ ALT TEXT: a screenshot of a notification reading "ASHES2ASHES reblogged your post: "bitches love me fo..." ". End id.] he's got that trix sponsorship!!!!!!!

27,653 notes

👁‍🗨 darlingsos Follow [ALT TEXT: a photo of the sword in central new haven with the sunset in the backround. End id.] my friends are contemplating if they could climb up it, and i'm getting a free homework pass for my photography course with this shot 😎

155 notes

🐦‍⬛ noctivagant-notcorvid Follow weare living through a Really Fucking Annoying Chapter of someone's history class btw. trickster AND belltech controversy AND hero criticism AND meatball from space AND villian sympathy at an all time high AND all of the diff chaos demon incidents AND whatever the FUCk is going on with deadwood at All Times AND-

420 notes

☄ tapedtogetherhope Follow more Concerning Things lethe has said: "oh, you don't eat deer if they have more than two eyes. then you'll see it. duh." "the hard part of dead things is making sure they stay dead." "you know, how if you run away from home too many times the forest starts to think you belong to it." "anybody can make a star if they explode enough." "why the hell would you go to a river alone? do you want to be soap?"

🌀 goncharovenoveout Follow see most of this can be brushed off as midwest gothic esque from pre-powered era but. what do you mean do i want to be soap.

18,564 notes

[mydetheturk]

your requested reminder to post knives going nuclear on zazie when you can :)

ok so im going to be reblogging this to the body horrors week later cause. uh. well. knives. quite literally goes nuclear?

all of these screenshots are from the overhaul project cause i haven't managed to catch the dark horse digital editions on sale yet, though i'll provide the dark horse translations where i can because i have physical copies, and the dark horse translations are imo clearer here.

there are ids in all the alt texts for the photos, it's why this took several days longer than i'd originally planned -finger guns- alt texts might look a little weird in the first set btw - tumblr started eating the photoset and i had to spend an extra half an hour fixing it -finger guns-

the pages are volume 11, pages 90-92, and 114-17, because a lot of the pages in between are leadup pages and also have the zazie control worm. thing.

pages 90-2 are the distant explosion (you can click on the first image and see it in the photo viewer, if for some reason it will not view in dashboard mode. But it does exist!)

(on page 90, dark horse is a lot more specific, with "the northeast sky is glowing" instead of "the whole sky is glowing". the other two boxes with text read "what is--?!" and "oh my..!" respectfully as if they were cut off mid sentence.)

so uh.

knives went uh.

literal "nuclear bomb exploded just above a town"

because he kind of did. Unlike a true nuclear bomb, he did not form a mushroom cloud, but the metaphor is still there. that is a nuclear metaphor

per pages 114-117 (pages are from left to right, read the pages right to left. sorry)

(legato's speech bubbles on page 114 in the dark horse edition read: Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. What is about to happen now is a just a logical extension of that. Be very afraid. You are in his presence. Did you not notice, Leader of the Sand Worms?

It reads very differently, imo, more like Zazie was caught up in their own plots and schemes to realize the control worm didn't work. Legato is also telling Zazie that Zazie should be afraid of Knives. Okay? Not asking if Zazie is afraid. Telling Zazie to be afraid. Like some sort of reverse "Be Not Afraid" from the bible.

Zazie's thought bubbles on page 115 are translated as "the dark hole is swallowing the poison" which reads more like knives made a black hole. given the visuals? that sounds more likely. Black holes, as a real life thing that we know about and have tried to study, are often referred to as swallowing things that pass too close. knives made a mini black hole to eat the poison from the sand worm venom. knives has consumed the dependent plants.)

the fact is, as a metatextual read, plants are nuclear reactors. independent plants are walking nuclear bombs. Nightow did this on purpose. We're meant to read them as something nuclear.

This is, as i was saying to @needle-noggins the other night when i was working on it in an attempt to get more of the alt texts written, a casual display of power. Knives is throwing a hissy fit! Knives is throwing a multi-megaton display of power because Zazie tried to take him over with the control worm. Page 91 had needle-noggins and i speechless because on the low end that tower of debris from the explosion is (if we did the very, very rough math right) THIRTY MILES TALL. Twice as tall as the tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons! or roughly five and a half times as tall as Mount Everest. On the outside, because we figured its anywhere from 25-30 times taller than the cloud cover, it could be up to thirty seven miles

Over halfway to space on earth.

like.

I know we love the independent plants and all. But Holy Shit. just.

holy shit

[incorrect-web-novels]

the unconditional love you have given freely to characters, do not forget to give it to yourself too.

I am experiencing emotions against my will

hi! orvies, i'd like to do something small.

in here, could you write something about orv? it could be your experience with orv, a quote, a message to a character, or something you'd want other readers to see. i'd like to collect a little piece of everyone

[fiercynn]

otw july 2 board meeting: what the hell was that

so the otw (@transformativeworks) board had their Q2 meeting yesterday, which was highly anticipated given everything that's gone down in the past months:

the @end-otw-racism campaign demanding action from otw on their own commitments made three years ago to better address racist harassment in otw and on ao3 (btw, support end otw racism's current campaign #Vote To End OTW Racism!)

recent revelations about how otw has mistreated its volunteers, regarding azarias and how the org reacted after the CSEM attacks on volunteers last year, as well as how the policy & abuse committee (PAC) is overworked and treated by the legal commitee overall (documented here)...

...and ongoing mistreatment of chinese, chinese diaspora, and chinese-speaking volunteers, particularly regarding an incident last year that put volunteers in mainland china at risk, and the board's recent unilateral decision to close the otw weibo account without input from the weibo account leads or any chinese-speaking volunteers

the AI shit

and probably more that i've missed, honestly. so! this is my summary of the meeting, focusing mostly on the issues related to racism; i have screenshots of the whole meeting but will at this point only share those i find most relevant/interesting! alt text will be included for every screenshot in the image, not below it.

and hold on, because this is going to be LONG!

pre-meeting ableism in #help channel so shit actually started going down the previous day in the otw board discord's help channel where there was a pretty ableist resposne to a person who asked if the board could consider adding the pluralkit bot to the server. i wasn't there, but hojarasca on dreamwidth posted about it, and i believe some other folks who were there will post screenshots soon too.

all of that conversation was deleted from the help channel by today, which is not unusual but did mean that a majority of people at today's meeting might not know what went down.

board meeting starts; immediate chaos the board meeting started at 8pm UTC, and it was clear almost immediately that the board was unprepared. what you have to understand about otw board meetings is that they are not really meetings where the board members discuss anything with each other. basically otw board members show up, share an agenda , give written updates on the items on the agenda, take votes on board decisions (but without any discussion publicly), and take questions. none of the materials like the agenda or relevant documents were shared ahead of time, and the board did not offer a way to submit questions ahead of time specific to the board meeting. (otw does have a contact us form to email their board or committee chairs, but i've never gotten a response lol.)

another weird thing that happened before the meeting started was that board member alex tischer was active answering questions in the help channel up to five minutes before the meeting, but didn't stay for the meeting. i don't think a reason was shared for this. this is relevant because alex has been criticized for racist responses to chinese volunteers, particularly those that ran & interacted with otw's weibo account, both in the past & last month when they closed their weibo account without any notice to the volunteers. this will also come up again later in the q&a section...

anyway. the meeting starts. all of the discussion directly about the meeting is supposed to happen in one discord channel called #public-board-meetings; the #help channel is supposed to be for tech issues etc. there is no separate channel for asking questions to the board - those are supposed to be posted in the main board meeting channel. and as far as we can tell, there are no mods of either of these channels apart from board members.

at the start of the meeting there are at least 209 attendees. for context, the last board meeting in march had 31. i've heard from people who have attended board meetings for the past couple years that there are usually 10-40 attendees per meeting. but again, given what's been going down, it's not surprising that so many people showed up!

and because there are a lot of people who haven't attended these meetings before, attendees immediately start asking questions, both process questions about the meeting and actual questions they want to ask the board. which again is understandable because there haven't been many answers given in the #help channel, and the board immediately muddies things further by giving confusing instructions about when to ask questions. they first say this - that they are going to proceed through their agenda, so people should hold questions that are NOT about any agenda items until the end. they imply that questions that are about agenda items are okay as they go through the agenda, but there will be conflicting instructions about this later...

agenda is posted & actual meeting content begins...kind of here's the meeting agenda that was shared. not...terribly descriptive lol

- Decisions taken since the previous meeting - Strategic Plan vote - Update on OTW's Diversity Work - AOB (Any Other Business) - Time for questions

people immediately start asking questions about various agenda items & also procedure questions. very few of these are answered. the first agenda item is posted - decisions taken since the previous meeting.

the board gives us "a couple minutes to read the above". everything's getting a little muddled already because people keep asking questions (reasonably!) about agenda items. there are several questions about the specific agenda item of "decisions taken since the previous meeting". some of the questions are getting answered by otw volunteers but none by board members at this point.

the board moves on to the next agenda item without answering questions about the "decisions" item. people are asking for a separate channel for questions but none is created. board members tell us they will try to get to all the answers at the end, but that we should send any additional answers to the board through the otw contact us form. many people point out that they've rarely gotten responses that way.

board gives a brief update (that was NOT on the agenda) from the finance committee chair, who was not at the meeting, to say that the 2023 budget was posted earlier this year, and that people can send questions via the contact us form. i'll note here that i sent a message to the finance committee with a question about the 2023 budget two months ago and have not gotten a response.

strategic plan update + question procedure still unclear the board then starts to give an update on the strategic plan, which board members are to vote on today. attendees ask if the full strategic plan draft was shared publicly before this meeting and we are told it was only shared with volunteers, not with members or the public.

they do share an infographic summarizing the strategic plan. hilariously, the first version they upload is so blurry that it's unreadable. they then share a gdoc with alt text. if you are new-ish to otw stuff, this infographic and the jargon in it are probably pretty confusing.

the board keeps giving us "a few minutes to check things out". people ask them to not do that and proceed because we can read while they are typing. questions to the board keep going unanswered and various other people say that we're supposed to hold questions until the end. we again get told conflicting things about how to ask questions. a board member asks us to hold ALL questions until the end, but an otw volunteer points to an earlier statement from a different board member & says that questions on the current agenda item are allowed.

at 45 minutes into the meeting, when most questions are going unanswered (and a lot of only being answered by otw volunteers, not board members), the board disables messages in the main channel so that they can proceed with the agenda. this is not usual board meeting procedure and was unannounced until they did it. people start getting really creative with emoji reactions because they can't ask questions. the board admits that they were unprepared for the number of attendees at this meeting.

attendees then start asking questions in the help channel, which has been put on "slow mode", which means each user can only post every thirty minutes. multiple otw volunteers share in the help channel that they warned the board about preparing for the meeting, and the only change the board made in response was to make it 30 minutes longer than usual.

in the main channel, the board does not have any public discussion on the strategic plan (which has not been shared, only the infographic has), and votes unanimously to approve it.

diversity work update, aka a glorified otw news post the board moves on to the "diversity work update", which is now a standard section of every board meeting. they share two updates - firstly, that caste has been added as a protected class in the code of conduct, and secondly that they've heard the concerns coming from @end-otw-racism supporters and others. both of which were already shared a month ago in this OTW news post from a month ago, which they link to.

seriously, nothing new is shared in this part of the meeting that wasn't in that post. some update!

q&a part one the board asks for emoji reactions again to see how many people are in attendance. unclear why they do this unless they were hoping people might have left? but alas for them, there are still 182 people that emoji react saying they are in the meeting!

the board FINALLY starts answering questions, but they do not yet re-enable messages so that users can ask more questions. they start by addressing the pluralkit issue from yesterday, but they don't give any response about the ableism that was allowed to go unchecked in the channel.

then, BAFFLINGLY, they start with answering questions from someone who wasn't able to make the meeting. how did this person submit those questions beforehand? NO ONE KNOWS. fortunately this person had (imo) good questions, but again, why were their questions given preference? unclear.

okay there were a LOT of questions and responses, so i'm going to stick to sharing the ones that were most important to me, which were about addressing racism within the otw and on ao3. hopefully someone else will summarize other issues!

we finally get our FIRST REAL NEW RESPONSE on a diversity/racism issue! the board says they plan to hire a diversity consultant by the end of the year.

we also hear that changes to otw's terms of service are being proposed to give the policy & abuse committee more tools to address harassment, including "racially-motivated" harassment.

board says the best way for people other than otw volunteers to get involved with anti-racism issues is...to stay up to date on what otw is doing, attend public meetings, and send questions through the comment form. what.

the board does not answer how they have reached out to fans of color in their work to address racism, which i assume means they haven't; they instead say that fans of color are free to provide input/feedback via the contact us form. emoji reactions explode

the board says that the strategic plan has initiatives to combat racism including improving diversity in recruitment (of...who? volunteers, board members? potential future paid staff?), hiring a diversity consultant, & forming "volunteer coalitions"

slight digression from my focus on racism issues because of how many times the board has told us to submit questions via their contact us form: very little clarity on how long it will take for answers to be questions, or how long people spend on responses

the goals for the future diversity consultant are to do an audit of the organization and offer recommendations on how to proceed. couldn't be vaguer lol

otw does not currently have plans to have an internal committee for diversity, equity, and inclusion work, since they're relying on the external consultant, but if the consultant recommends it they'll consider

by the time they've gotten through these responses, there are only five minutes left in the meeting! remember, messaging by attendees has been disabled for the past 40 minutes, so everything the board has answered so far is from people who got their questions in during the first 45 minutes (or, apparently, one person who managed to get in questions before the meeting).

q&a part two at this point, the board FINALLY re-enables messaging for new questions, but clarifies that they will only take them until 9:30pm UTC. which means anyone who did actually wait to ask their questions now only has five minutes to ask them! questions start rolling in immediately. again, going to focus on the ones about racism.

i'm listing questions in chronological order that they are asked, but please note that the corresponding answers from the board are coming WAY later than the questions. the board took until 10:20pm UTC (almost an hour after the meeting was supposed to end) to answer all the questions. mostly i'm telling you this because the emoji reactions on the answers by the board get more limited as people understandably have to leave the meeting lol

the first question of round two is about how chinese & chinese diaspora volunteers have been treated re: the weibo account closure, & board member alex tischer's role in this.

board response is horrifyingly empty, only promising the creation of a new "anonymous form" to receive feedback from chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers on the situation.

an attendee asks for better prioritization of racism & equity issues in the meetings, and better preparation from the board. (note that the addition of "diversity work update" to the agenda is not new, i believe it was instituted late last year)

in response, board admits they were unprepared despite volunteers warning them, says they will take advice from this meeting forward. emoji reactions are out in full force

an attendee asks more details about how the diversity consultant research officer (who is NOT a hired diversity consultant, but an otw volunteer in charge of the hiring process for a consultant) engages with the board & what goals they have for the future consultant

response from board is that they meet weekly, and that the research officer is herself in charge of identifying goals for the future consultant

an attendee points out that "curate your space" tools are not enough to protect users from targeted abuse, including racist abuse, and that asking fans of color to reach out to the board instead of the other way around is bullshit (my words haha)

the board's response to this is to offload that onto the future diversity consultant. SERIOUSLY.

an otw member asks if the diversity consultant will also look at accessibility for disabled users across the otw

board essentially says "yeah, sure" lol

an otw member asks how otw will remove barriers to becoming a voting member and diversifying membership & committee leadership

board's response is that they don't know the demographics of their members or volunteers, which...somehow means they can't remove barriers that would help fans of color or non-western fans from becoming members and volunteers? lmaoooooooo

an attendee asks for accountability in ensuring that the incoming board keeps the current board's promises re: DEI, pointing to improvements made by the 2015 board that were later reversed by a new board make-up

board does not seem to understand this question so answers an entirely different one! (seriously, i double-checked which question they were responding to.)

an otw volunteer asks what the plans are to deal with the "ongoing exclusion and alienation of chinese-speaking volunteers"?

the board repeats that they have opened a feedback form for chinese-speaking volunteers. that's it.

so those are all the questions i saw on racism; as i mentioned, there were TONS more good questions on board transparency and communications, protection of volunteers, moderating board meetings better, lack of feedback collection on the strategic plan, etc.

at PRECISELY 9:30pm UTC, messages are disabled again so that no more questions can be asked. all of the otw board responses that i shared above are from after messages were disabled again.

takeaways this meeting was a complete mess. the process was extremely unclear and made things inaccessible; while the board did (from what i can tell) answer all the questions posted, people were not able to ask all the questions that they'd planned because of the unannounced disabling of messaging.

and then, of course, there's the fact that the majority of the answers are bullshit, which is probably the least surprising thing about this meeting.

it's just ridiculous that they weren't prepared for this. given everything that's gone down in the past months, why on earth wouldn't they assume that people would show up with hard questions? the mismanagement and incompetence is frankly astounding. which i guess is the story of the last few months re: OTW anyway!

so...see you at the next one in a few months, i guess? 🤷🏾‍♀️

[piplupod]

btw artists you should maybe stop posting your art on pinterest if that's something you've been doing, i know a few ppl who have been sharing their art there

i'm not sure if this section has been updated at all or if it's always been this way but I was taking a read through their soon-to-be-implemented update to their TOS to see if they'll be adding anything with the increased usage of AI and this looks like perhaps this section exists (at least in part) for that reason 🤔 [thinking emoji]

unfortunately their report function for art theft/reposting has historically been less than stellar (an understatement) and I don't really see it improving any time soon but perhaps they will improve it with this update to their TOS and privacy policy! one can hope at least!

link to the preview of the new TOS: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/terms-of-service-preview

alt text for the screenshot below, as well as linked in the embedded image description feature:

A screenshot of a section of Pinterest's new Terms of Service. The subsection heading reads: "How we and other users can use your User Content". The highlighted text reads: "By providing any User Content on the Service, you grant us license to use, store, publicly perform or display, reproduce, save, modify, create derivative works, monetize, download, translate and distribute your User Content. Nothing in these Terms entitles you to any payments or the right to share in any revenue from any monetization of User Content."

Image description note: If you want to read the full paragraph, please visit the page I've linked in the post.

[lord-rodentia]

For some reason the wrong song started playing and it magically works with me posting villains-

Anyways Dark Samus and SA-X.

OH, BTW THE TEXT ON THE CRAZY SA-X DOODLE SAID "STOP FUCKING FLIRTING WITH ME" AND THE SCREENSHOT ONLY CAUGHT "FUCKING" AND "WITH ME" SO I AM VERY SORRY IT LOOKS SO WRONG! 🙏

The rest of the canvas is ship art that I have no idea I can share yet because I don't know what it classifies as in terms with these two. I only pulled the stuff I believe is okay.

The teleport concepts are just gags my brain came up with, if SA-X was able to teleport all the stuff I saw saying that Fusion was scary would have it be even more freighting (I have not played Fusion yet but from what I've seen, I am afraid.) I'm pretty sure DS can straight up fucking phase through walls if she wanted to though (she's probably just limited by the suit.)

Also I have HC heights for them compared to eachother plus Samus. The +1" parts is because of the heel to the suits they wear, I noticed it's about an inch heel. Alt text is present because I can't even see this shit with my glasses.

DS is only soft looking is because of how I've noticed Phazon looks in different states, she has the more fluffy looking form in shape of her hair, the crystalized Phazon was used to make the hairtie, liquid Phazon is... Well... Nonexistent as it should with that woman. (Because of her and canon instances of that stuff, I believe that Phazon can take form in all states of matter AND since it looks glowy, it can make light energy.)

Similar inspiration goes to SA-X, I made her sharp and spiky looking instead of jelly-ish because of something I remember seeing on her mutated form and also because she's shown to have hair in DREAD's prologue cutscene, I noticed her hair looked sharp and pointy (compared to Samus' actual hair which has more roundness like actual human hair.) the one thing though with SA-X that I did with the hair is make her ponytail this sort of plastic bag thing(?) or what is used to package dangerous substances and have little X-Parasites just float in there. Her hairtie too is a parasite (most likely a dead one.)

[prinnamon]

[Start ID. Tags that read: #one of them is confirmed dead btw #shephard saw colettes body in xen #who knows what gina is doing #i think abt them sometimes #raging lesbians. End ID.]

Hi, Hello, and Welcome To My Twisted Mind! i don't mean to correct you @freeshephoun but i noticed your tags on my other silly half-wife post and i wanted to let you know hahahaheehoo it's worse than that :) i hope you don't mind me using you as an excuse to talk at length about cross and green and their ambiguous fate

(low-poly blood/corpse screenshots from the game and lots of text under the read more!)

[Start ID. A screenshot of what appears to be Gina Cross in a red HEV suit dead in one of the Displacement Cannon locations in Xen. End ID.]

in Opposing Force, a corpse bearing a striking resemblance to Gina Cross but wearing a red HEV suit can be found in one of the Displacement Cannon locations.

[ID in alt text.]

according to a tweet by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford in 2018, it is indeed Gina Cross. Colette Green's fate is unspecified, but he suggests maybe G-Man found her useful enough/had enough compassion for her to put her in stasis like Shephard.

Opposing Force did come out before Decay, so considering that changes were still being made to Decay's story during development, far enough along that there are some voice lines and animations for the scrapped missions, it's likely they had no thoughts about anything that would happen in Decay's story when they decided to include Dr. Cross's dead body as an easter egg in OpFor. so, despite the confirmation by one of the people most likely to be considered An Authority on what happened in the expansions, the canon-icity of this is... slightly debatable? especially considering that (iirc) "Gina Cross's" body can actually be spotted in multiple Displacement Cannon locations in OpFor. so unless there was a wild teleporter accident that created multiple instances of her who all died in different spots... okay, wait, i said that as a hypothetical and a joke but now i like that a lot as a narrative device, fuck.

but you get what i'm saying. whether or not this is "canon" is dubious because you'd have to reconcile a lot of contradictory story elements in order to explain how one can accept this as true.

...

CHAPTER 7: RECONCILING A LOT OF CONTRADICTORY STORY ELEMENTS IN ORDER TO EXPLAIN HOW ONE CAN ACCEPT THIS AS TRUE

[PT: Chapter 7: Reconciling a Lot of Contradictory Story Elements In Order to Explain How One Can Accept This as True /end PT]

if you choose to take Pitchford's tweet as canon, what's especially strange (and tragic, i'll explain) is that Gina has never been shown wearing a red HEV suit anywhere else as far as i'm aware. she wears an orange suit when you see her hologram in the training program in Half-Life and Opposing Force, and she wears a tan/ivory suit in Decay.

[Start ID. A scan of a posed render of Colette Green (left, standing) and Gina Cross (right, crouched) from the Half-Life PS2 manual. Colette Green wears a red HEV suit and Gina Cross wears a tan one. End ID.]

red is Colette's color, which i imagine is probably the source of the initial confusion. which could lead you to conclude that, although this is gina, she's wearing colette's HEV suit. it would explain why she's alone. her suit may have been damaged beyond repair, and it wasn't enough to protect her, so she had to take Colette's as she went off on her own for one last desperate mission that required Gina to enter the Xen even after they and Dr. Keller thought they had successfully sealed the dimensional rift.

so, yeah, picture that. they only had one working suit left. so only one of them could go. and it had to be Cross because of her experience. and even despite their best efforts, despite Green giving up her hazard suit to give Cross the best odds, she still failed.

we know based on the ending of OpFor that the detonation of the nuclear bomb in the car park would have killed anyone still stuck at Black Mesa after a certain point, as Green and Keller almost definitely were if things went back to shit after the end of Decay, which they would have had to if Cross managed to end up dead in Xen. it doesn't make sense to say that they'd then just go "acceptable losses!" and book it, since they took so much responsibility upon themselves throughout Decay's story, so i feel they probably stayed and continued to dedicate themselves to damage control up until the very end. and, like, how would they have known about the bomb? communications were out. probably nobody except Shephard, the black ops team, and that one security guard would have been aware, realistically. so, even if Green and Keller would have wanted to escape and save themselves, there's virtually no way they'd have had enough advance notice to get out of there.

but since Colette's effort was admirable enough for her to deserve a reward in the G-Man's eyes (or maybe just to be kept in reserve in case she's needed later, depending on how you read G's motivations), she, like Shephard, was placed in stasis. and if she ever wakes up again, she'll presumably be without Keller since Pitchford makes no mention of him, and she'll definitely be without Gina.

OR if you don't want to engage with the tragedy of any of this, you can just say that the dead Ginas found in OpFor are uh. y;know. copies of her that were created somehow when she and Colette got caught up in the harmonic reflux after sealing the dimensional rift! which is sad for the clones—and oooky spooky because (mario voice) who REALLY died that day? and who came back??—but otherwise, all three of them got out of Black Mesa together.

I think about them. i think about them a lot. whyyyyy why why why WHY can't dr keller and the half-wifes be from an expansion people have easy access to like blue shit and opposing fart. screams and cries and throws up!!! no actual hate towards Blue Shift or OpFor; i love them, i just wish Decay was also two dollar and on PC

Gina Cross's page on Combine OverWiki was the main source for all my information. i also sourced the screenshot of Cross dead and the scan of Cross and Green's posed render from there. hopefully this post makes people realize that there is interesting shit going on with these characters that is worth exploring.

my final message: dear entire world, include colette green in your drawings of the freezer crew chilling in stasis (nonthreatening suggestion)

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Entrapta from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

- btw this isn't even all the submission notes, I can't physically fit them all on one slide. Entrapta-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a screenshot of Entrapta in the bottom right corner, she has her welding mask down and is surrounded by robots. There are also text boxes around her which read,

"im sure you already know this but she's canonically autistic!!! entrapta has trouble connecting with people, and is just really geeky and i love her <33"

"has trouble understanding social cues and prefers to keep to herself because of it. gets wrapped up in her special interest (mechanical engineering), etc!!!"

"she is sososososo autistic coded. I think it's been confirmed by a showrunner on twitter but not positive. techy girl with issues understanding people and only eats tiny food"

"It's canon baby"

"CANONICALLY AUTISTIC HELL YEAH"

"Her personality was literally modeled after a member of the crew that is autistic. She is canonically autistic"

"I think she is literally canonically autistic? Or at least the creators say she was written as such. She just really loves her machines and talking with people is hard and she "doesn't fit in" (code for autistic)"

"It's actually been confirmed by the showrunners for one. Second, her hyper-fixations are clear and more than just 'wacky quirky.' She is focused to the point of amoral behavior and a severely limited sense of self-preservation at times. The show even went so far as to address her feelings about all this near the finalé."

"It’s her everything. Also she’s not only word-of-god can only autistic, but she was based off an autistic woman (who I believe also did most of the writing for her.)"

"1) LOOK AT HER 2) she likes robots 3) doesnt get people 4) she's JUST like me fr"

"I saw someone say that this was confirmed canonically, but I'm unsure as to how true that is. It's been a while since I've watched the show, but I remember really liking Entrapta and connecting to her. I liked the scene where she said something along the lines of the "You actually want to her about my research?! :D!!! I've waited so long to talk about it!" Really relatable to how I feel about my special interests and my own infodumping. I can't think of more examples since it's been so long since I watched it, but she was really cool and definitely autistic!!!"

"Hyperfocus on her special interest, electronics. Only eats tiny food. Really bad at reading other peoples' intentions."

"She doesn’t get people but she gets tech and she just thought she could use tech to get people to like her but she just messed that up too AND I JUST LOVE HER SHES SO ME"

"Obsessed with robots, tiny food, writer on the show who help fleshed her out is autistic too and gave lots of pointers to the other writers on how to better portray her and her autism. A genuinely good character too"

"She hyperfixaes on technology, will info dump, has certain food preferences such as she can only eat little food, is not great at picking up social cues and also the writers confirm she was written to be Autistic."

"Everything about her <3"

"She struggles to befriend others and can only relate to the emotions and struggles of others via her special interest (robotics), she is consistently treated as other by the cast because she is "weird", and she misses out on social cues incredibly often throughout the show." End ID.]