#this was just like another background test but im posting it cuz why not | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thisiskindagross · 8 years ago

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Satan and Me Asks

1.) for the questions thing - are you cool w sexuality headcanons for ur characters??

I’m assuming you mean if people in the fandom make sexuality headcanons? And of course. You guys can do whatever you want. I know I’ve only posted about a few sexualities, so there’s not much to go on anyway.

2.) Is hell really gone out of Satan forever? How long does Nat's wish last?

Hell’s not gone from Satan. It’s still inside of him, but he doesn’t hear the constant voices in his head anymore because of Natalie’s wish. That was what she sold her soul for, so the wish will stay in effect the rest of his existence.

3.) Will we be seeing Pax or Felix soon? What about that small little boy?

Pax and Felix looking for Zadkiel is kind of a side plot in the comic, so I can’t say for sure when they will intercept. My guess is anywhere in the next 15 updates?

4.) Do satan's earings indicate his emotions as well?

When Satan is in “human” form, his earrings are like his horns. They will change between yellow and red based on his mood.

5.) is gabriel ok?

At the moment, no. He’s in considerable distress, but he will be. You’ll see this arc.

6.) So im a ask, how does satan really feel about nat being damned to hell and him not being able to figure out how to stop it? He seems to care if she does.

He doesn’t like it at all, but since they can’t change it atm he is choosing to not think about it.

7.)�� Has Satan thought about sex with Nat?

He’s been too preoccupied with the Apocalypse and the recent Titus thing (and now Natalie being sick) to really think about anything like that, I’d think. That’s not to say he’s never thought about sex in general, but just the plot never called for him to so? He really hasn’t.

8.) any ships you generally don't like?

I mean, my taste in ships change all the time and have no effect in canon. There are some ships that become/are already canon that I don’t care for, and there are some I really like that I know will never be canon. For example, I used to hate Ganthea, but now I like it. It really depends. I flip-flop around a lot. I’d feel bad though listing ships I don’t care for, just because I don’t want to make anyone feel bad for liking something. Just because I don’t shouldn’t mean that you guys can’t like them.

So in the spirit of not making someone feel bad IDK if I can fully answer this question.

9.) any insights into how angel society works/what it generally is like for the various background angels? what do they get up to? are they all the same ones who were created back at the Beginning? how do they view current comic events (if they generally know anything)? what do they think of their 'leaders' (the archangels)?

Loaded question lol Well, the angels canonically in the bible are ranked. There are a lot of classes of angels; the archangels are actually second from the bottom. They’re literally just protectors and foot soldiers, I guess that’s the closest I could equate them to. So the vast majority of angels are just the society in the comic, whereas the ones who follow the archangels actually enlist to be in the army.

Each archangel leads a squad (except Raphael, who only works with the medic angels in the hospital). Each squad has a certain duty (ex: Jophiel’s is trained in recovery and surveillance, Zadkiel’s was p much the ones who take on tough jobs that have a low mortality rate, Gabriel’s is trained in support and backup to other troops, etc). They’re sorted and placed under an archangel depending on their test results. I actually do plan to do a dumb little comic about angels enlisting at one point.

Angel society as a whole aren’t 100% up to current events, because the archangels and higher up angels dictate what information is allowed to be trickled down. They also don’t want to cause alarm so they bend the truth a little bit. Right now majority of the angels aren’t even aware what really happened with Titus (like they didn’t know that someone was trying to overthrow Satan).

Not all of them were created at the beginning. Some were, others are fairly new. It really depends. It also depends on their personality if they like the archangels or not, so it’s hard to lump them all in together. For the most part the angels not in the army are blissfully unaware of the things around them. They stay in Heaven and mind their own business.

10.) Why is Angel Michael so upset about Human Michael? And what does Human Michael think about Angel Michael?

Angel Michael is upset not at Mike P, but the situation. He likes humans but he doesn’t want to be a human. So the idea of being put into his body upsets him a lot. Mike P. doesn’t know anything about Michael; he’s just trying to process the information. When he does, he will want to get to know him.

11.) Have any of the angels actually crushed on a human before

Quite a few have, but virtually none act on it. They would be executed if they procreated with a human, as would the nephilim baby. It’s a “look but don’t touch” situation.

12.) okay okay you wont tell us the end game ships & das okay, but can you tell us who you personally ship Natalie with?

Natalie’s the rare character that I can ship with 95% of the cast, if written a certain way. The list would be too long lol

13.) Do we get anything about Luce's past in the comic? I know there are parts from where he's an angel but maybe how he grew up or him as smol babe? Perhaps some cute scenes where they interact with God as their father and cutesy things?

There will be comics like this, yes.

14.) What are the places/businesses Ipos and Sheila set up in the past?

Ipos spent a lot of time around various parts of the world. During the 1700-1800s he stayed in Ireland, where he met Sheila officially. She spent most of her time in the Southern Hemisphere, and stayed in Australia for a while.

Ipos was in the military for a while, too, so he could see more places, learn more about humans, keep tabs on everything. The real Ipos he’s based off of is actually an information keeper, so I tried to keep that true to form in the comic as well. Under different guises, Ipos and Sheila have run restaurants, bars, brothels, a hardware store, gun shops, camping supply stores, construction companies, real estate businesses.

15.) Are all demons fallen angels, or were some just always demons? Also, is it possible for angels to have kids, either with each other or with humans?

95% of demons are Fallen Angels. The few that aren’t are either born from bad circumstance/human sorrow, or have been made in a pact with another higher level Fallen. (I actually have a series that explains the first contracts with demons but that won’t debut for another few years I’d surmise. It’s touched upon as well in future “Here it Comes” updates.)

Angels can have children with each other, though it’s rare, and they can reproduce with humans. Nephilim, human and angel children, are very strong and very unpredictable so they’re viewed as taboos. In the bible it’s a big reason why God flooded the earth with Noah and his ark. Angels had copulated and had children with humans so they drowned them and their parents. (I’ve heard speculation that Goliath from David and Goliath was a nephilim baby too, but IDK how accurate that is).

16.) What is Kristi's family like?

Kristi has her parents, Norma and Ray Lange, and an older sister who is in college, Lily. Kristi’s mother is high maintenance, which is probably where Kristi got it from. Her father grew up in town with Alex McAllister, and he used to bully him a lot. He had a crush on Carla (but was stuck dating her cousin), so that’s another reason he doesn’t like Alex. He settled for Kristi’s mom when he met her later, so it’s not exactly a love built marriage. He’s not too interested in his home life. Kristi’s sister is easy going and nice. She has a good relationship with Kristi.

17.) Does Raphael have any fears about like real physical stuff/like how people have fears of snakes, spiders etc

Raphael doesn’t have a lot of fears like that. His are more mental stuff. But he is scared of bats. Won’t go near them.

18.) Are there things about the story that you wish you could change but can't 'cause it's too late? if so, what?

Yeah, there are a couple. I wish I did more with Jericho. I watered him down for the comic, which I’m regretting. He was going to be more problematic than that. I’d like to keep Ipos and Sheila around a little longer, but they died p quick. There are scrapped updates I wish I went through with, but I can’t do anything about that now.

19.) will we see pestilence and famine interacting with natalie and satan?

Not sure about Famine, but Pestilence yes.

20.) Would it be fair to ask about what kind of piercings each character has? I know that each has their own unique ones and since we don't always see all the piercings (as with Anthea, whose belly piercings aren't revealed until that one episode) and it would be cool to know all the piercings that each has.

That’s a lot to list, but I’ll just say what piercing someone has if it’s under clothing.

Zadkiel has lower back dermals, Pax has a Apadravya, Jophiel has hip dermals.

21.) So how come Lucifer only uses "Festus" and doesnt call Felix "Felix"?

Lucifer’s more formal like that. I’m sure if Felix pushed the issue he would change, but it’s really force of habit cuz that name comes to mind first when he talks/thinks about him.

22.) How do you make updates do you write out a script or do you just make it up as you go?

I make it up as I go. Aside from a few events I know that I want to take place, I have no idea how I’m getting there and just let what happens on each new page take me there. A lot of times I’m surprised how the story changed, but that’s what makes it fun

23.) Are we going to find out what happened to Yup's parents?

If anything it will be subtle if it’s mentioned in passing, but IDK if it will. His dad and mom weren’t married so his dad split. His mom was into recreational drugs and was evicted from their apartment because of insufficient funds when Yup was 6. She left him at the freeway underpass when she couldn’t deal with her situation anymore. When Zadkiel found Yup he’d been on his own for a month or so.

24.) Do any of the angels or demons have any Phobias or fears? Just random things they are afraid of for no reason or for a specific reason at all

They do, it just depends on the demon. Anthea was afraid of driving on the freeway. Felix is afraid of being ignored. Zoe is afraid of small spaces.

25.) i've always been curious... what exactly were titus' spikes made of? were they some type of metal? and did it hurt him to use them?

It did hurt, but he had a high pain tolerance. They were a mixture of calcium and stone (like Cain with Abel).

26.) Do any of the angels have tattoos besides Gabriel and Raguel?

Some do, just depends. They usually have a specific reason in mind if they do.

27.) Do any of the angels look less than human?

Yes.

28.) What was laila's brother's name?

Lyle. Laila’s name is actually Veronique and her middle name is Laila. After he died, she started going by Laila to feel closer to him, since they sounded similar.

29.) Does Michael have an ex and does she have a name?

Michael does have an ex. They were together briefly before she fell, not enough time to really get attached but he was curious enough to try. They aren’t really touched upon in the comic so I never gave them a name.

30.) So something I was wondering, bc I love Ipos and wish he was in the comic longer, does he have an Irish accent because he was in Ireland for so long and decided to adapt it? Also how tf is Ipos pronounced, bc i say it like eye-pos but idk if thts right.

He has a small accent, yes. And yeah, it’s eye-pos.

31.) Have you ever imagined any Satan and Me babies? Not the characters themselves as children, but having children

32.) Since Raguel is only 55, Does that mean he actually has a birthday then?

The day he was created was April 2nd on the 20th century calendar, as opposed to the other archangels who were born at the beginning of earth’s creation.

33.) I was wondering is Michael jealous of how close nat and satan are? like when satan flew off with nat after the scuffle. I noticed Michael didnt look too happy. By the way I love your blog its the best It puts a fun twist on bible stories/charecters.

Michael is very jealous of Natalie and Satan’s relationship. It drives him up a wall.

34.) I actually thought of one, surprise surprise. We know a few of the "who knew who first" scenarios, but did felix know of Lucifer first, or meet Anthea first? I suppose the same question could go for Anthea over Felix and Gabriel.

Felix knew of Satan first and was already enamored with him by the time he met Anthea. Anthea met Felix before Gabriel, though. In that WIP Gabriel and Anthea comic pre-fall I think it’s addressed that they met later down the line.

#satan and me #info #admin #asks #reference

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nickyschneiderus · 6 years ago

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Mastodon is crumbling—and many blame its creator

It’s 9am on a Tuesday, early morning by cybre.space’s standards. Few have logged on to the microblogging social network, and it shows: A follower feed filled with more than 31 users updates at a snail’s pace. It’s much slower than one would expect on Twitter. But then again, cybre.space isn’t Twitter. It runs off a decentralized social media software called Mastodon, and is part of a much larger network of Mastodon communities.

Over on Twitter, users post jokes about President Donald Trump, this time of a fast food feast he prepared for the Clemson Tigers football team amid the ongoing government shutdown. But the words “Trump” and “shutdown” only appear once each on cybre.space’s “local timeline,” which shows posts on the site and any other connected “instances,” or Mastodon communities. It’s even more barren on this reporter’s home timeline: No one is talking about hamberders.

Posting works differently on cybre.space than Twitter. It’s much more like living in a queer house, one that prefers to talk about political theory over current events. Some users chat about democratic socialism and queer identity, while others talk about games, music, fandom, or their difficulties navigating trans healthcare. One user posts a message that reads “re: hrt” with a few lines about their hormone replacement regimen hidden underneath, accessible only via the “show more” content warning (CW) button next to it. Another boosts a post praising Tallahassee by the Mountain Goats, calling it a “visceral experience.”

Cybre.space has just over 2,000 users. Over on Mastodon’s flagship community, Mastodon.social, there are over 300,000 users. But despite the larger userbase, discussions are even less political. On the community’s local timeline, one user troubleshoots installing a Linux distribution. Another shares a news story about a man who tried to turn his home into a restaurant. A third links to an article about Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford. Here, Trump is not the sun; tech, gaming, and the occasional NSFW post largely prevail. It’s as if the outside world doesn’t exist.

Mastodon

Visiting Mastodon feels like strolling through the first “apolitical” social network. There’s no urgency to talk about the Trump administration’s policies or break down ongoing political events—but while that may seem like a pleasant reprieve, it’s actually an indication that all is not well on Mastodon.

Mastodon has long been hailed as a friendly and inclusive safe haven, one by and for people who want the far-right out of social media. But instead of losing the far-right, the platform has lost all politics entirely. That’s a problem for its queer userbase, who cannot be apolitical by nature. Being queer isn’t a hobby; it’s a political identity. And so while Mastodon seems fine on the surface, there is a much larger schism at play across the social media project regarding who should run it: its community, or its creator.

The creator

It’s impossible to understand Mastodon without considering its architect and understanding its structure. Eugen “Gargron” Rochko, a 25-year-old German programmer of Russian and Jewish heritage, began working on Mastodon while studying computer science at the German public university Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jenahad (or “University of Jena” in English). Rochko had experience with decentralized social networks as a teenager, and by 2010 he had already decided Twitter’s corporate-driven structure just wasn’t the proper way to handle online messaging. But it wasn’t until early 2016 that he decided to sit down and look at GNU social, a decentralized social network software and precursor of sorts to Mastodon.

Originally, Rochko considered making an app for GNU social, but he ultimately decided to start from scratch and create a custom implementation of GNU social’s protocol. This became Mastodon.

Simply put, Mastodon is a microblogging software where users can communicate with one another through character-limited messages, called “toots.” The project, which released to the public in October 2016, supports embeds for images, GIFs, and videos, and there’s even a “boost” system similar to Twitter’s retweets. But Mastodon’s biggest feature by far is its “fediverse.” Instead of throwing every account into a gigantic melting pot on one main website, Mastodon users can splinter off into dozens upon dozens of miniature Mastodon instances, which are servers governed by their own rules and with their own communities. These create one large federation, and while each of these instances—like Cybre.space—runs off of Mastodon’s software, they simultaneously exist separately from one another and as part of a larger whole. Instance users can interact with one another or blacklist other instances.

Mastodon is a free and open-source software that functions entirely on community contributions via GitHub. Over Discord, Rochko described Mastodon’s development flow: Features, changes, or fixes are submitted as pull requests on GitHub. A contributor codes the feature for Mastodon within the pull request. The pull request must pass through tests for review. But even if a pull request passes those tests, “only the owner of the project can decide” whether a pull request is merged, as Rochko puts it—although he has given that ability to “three or four more people than me” for redundancy’s sake (“in case I get hit by a bus,” as he says).

Since graduating in 2016, Rochko has given Mastodon his full attention. Today, he works on Mastodon full-time with support from over 900 patrons on Patreon (at the moment, he receives over $4,400 per month in total, or over $50,000 per year). But he’s far from the only person making Mastodon a reality, and many of its users take umbrage both with what features Rochko implements and how he credits the project’s contributors.

Mastodon’s former project manager, Maloki, founded a separative community that criticizes Rochko’s “Benevolent Dictator For Life” (BDFL) model for negatively impacting “already vulnerable and marginalized people.” Many queer critics feel Rochko implements features into Mastodon that make it easier for users to discover—and by extension, harass—people of color, queer posters, women, trans folks, and other marginalized groups.

The community

Decentralized social networking isn’t a new idea, nor is the “fediverse” as a concept. But the Mastodon project quickly became popular with queer and left-wing users after Trump’s election in November 2016. Most of Mastodon’s early users shared a common background: Some were furries, others worked in tech, some even developed video games. Many identified as queer and trans. As one Mastodon user said on Nov. 23, 2016: “Holy shit everyone Mastodon is basically gay furry-adjacent Twitter without risk of racist eggs, get here immediately and help us en-culture.”

After Trump’s election, Rochko paraded Mastodon as a Nazi-free alternative to Twitter, pointing out that Mastodon.social, which is personally administered by Rochko, bans Nazis. To this day, Mastodon is the progressive Twitter alternative, one repeatedly praised everywhere from Motherboard to Wired.

But Mastodon’s politics are more complicated than merely banning Nazis. White, queer, middle-class tech workers migrating to Mastodon treated it as an escape from the outside world. CWs effectively hid politics from plain sight, and to this day, the occasional Trump conversation is concealed and tagged under the warning “uspol.” This turned Mastodon into an apolitical space, one where users debate queer theory but try to keep the outside world’s happenings out.

Mastodon’s apolitical approach reflected larger problems at play on the platform. One early Mastodon adopter named “voz” left the platform in February 2017 after feeling increased alienation from Mastodon’s predominantly white userbase. Voz, who is a brown queer trans woman, considered Mastodon “a very white space” that gradually mirrored real-life versions of gentrification: White users made the service “more and more hostile to the Black and Brown users” that were among Mastodon’s initial adopters.

Mastodon

“Whiteness insists on hiding itself, and a veneer of respectability given by ‘banning (overt) Nazis’ is really just a kind of fig leaf for the more mundane white supremacy at work there,” voz said via Keybase.

part of why Im not as active on Mastodon anymore even tho I think its a more ethical funding model is cuz its full of fragile white gentle porcelain dolls earning $150k/year in tech calling me ableist for making them uncomfortable by talking about politics under a content warning

— Shel (@DataPup_) December 14, 2018

Some people of color blamed Rochko, arguing he doesn’t properly moderate Mastodon.social to protect people of color from abuse. Others came to believe Mastodon’s hyperfixation on avoiding politics fundamentally hurt users of color, eventually driving them away.

“What sort of culture thinks talking about politics needs to be behind a content warning? Is me talking about the intersections of my life and society in need of a CW because it’s political? What the hell?” writer and performer Creatrix Tiara asked in April 2017.

The process and the politics

Mastodon’s community and its development cannot be separated from one another: Whoever controls development also steers how its users interact with one another. For example, more privacy and anti-harassment features mean better protection for marginalized users. But these requests don’t always align with Rochko’s vision for Mastodon.

Mastodon’s development process is pretty standard in the free open-source software community, but Mastodon isn’t a standard open-source project, and its queer users have long fought with Rochko over how credit is given out for features. Hoodie Aida Krisstina, who uses fae/faer pronouns, helped push for Mastodon’s content warning system in November 2016 by opening an issue on GitHub after the feature was “born from the community consciousness,” as fae said.

In a Dreamwidth post from July, fae sharply criticized Rochko, arguing queer users initially “begged” him for feature changes to support the community that ultimately turned Mastodon into what it is today.

“Evidently sometimes what [Rochko] does is take the pull request, close it, use that code as a starting point, then later commit it himself,” Krisstina said in an email. “This, tied with how [Rochko] credits others (read: he doesn’t, except for GitHub commit history), means that there is very little evidence, and virtually no recognition for the folx that actually made a feature happen. It’s not unrealistic to state that without the pull request, and without my GitHub issue, there would never have been content warnings.”

Rochko admits that contributors weren’t originally acknowledged in release notes. However, he argues there are an enormous number of feature requests and bug reports, and that he is “a little more ambivalent” toward crediting users for making feature requests, as GitHub automatically records their requests, and “they’re asking somebody else to put in the work and everybody’s got ideas.”

Granted, Rochko thinks it would be “fair” to credit users who come up with a thorough design as part of a feature request, although he claims he hasn’t “seen any feature requests that actually designed a system.”

“Pull requests take higher precedence because people actually put in the work to contribute,” Rochko said. “Also translators, I would say, are a step below that, as translators who submit translations for various languages. So they put in the work of actually writing code and submitting it and I agree that those people should be credited.”

Queer users seem to view the issue differently.

Shel Raphen served as a developer for Mastodon from January to spring 2017 and worked as a “de facto” volunteer coordinator, project manager, and community manager for Mastodon during its boom in April 2017 (or “Eternal April,” as Raphen calls it). Raphen, who uses ze/hir and they/them pronouns, first joined Mastodon in the “November wave” that hit the project after the U.S. 2016 presidential election, one month after Mastodon was officially announced. They became interested in Mastodon thanks to the decentralized fediverse’s potential to protect marginalized users.

“When everyone joined there wasn’t per-post privacy or CWs or anything that people associate with Mastodon today,” Raphen said over Twitter DM. “The new wave of queer users came up with, designed, pushed for, and implemented those features.”

Because Mastodon relies on the BDFL system, ongoing conflict with Rochko can quickly become messy. In one case, Raphen said that they designed a welcome modal in April 2017 that Rochko “hated” and harshly criticized, calling it “stupid.” Raphen confronted Rochko over the modal, telling him that he has to “thank people and appreciate their work” on the project.

After Rochko introduced his own alternate welcome modal, Raphen claims community pressure led Rochko to add Raphen’s design—without crediting Raphen in the project’s release notes.

“I went in and edited the release notes myself and added myself, since I had that privilege, and Eugen got pissed and removed all my privileges and basically booted me from the project,” Raphen said.

When asked to comment on the incident, Rochko stressed that he should ultimately have the right to edit and tweak the onboarding modal as need be.

“I wanted to change some stuff around and they were very upset when I just touched anything and that’s not how it should work,” Rochko said. “If I have some feedback about how this onboarding modal should work, I should be able to change it without causing a drama.”

Raphen’s treatment was a breaking point for Mastodon’s queer community, and its users began openly criticizing Rochko’s control over Mastodon. Two weeks later, Mastodon user and GitHub contributor Allie Hart wrote a post-mortem called “Mourning Mastodon” and a follow-up post, “Mourning What Now?!?!”—both of which Raphen considers “Important Historic Documents” for Mastodon’s history.

In “Mourning Mastodon,” Hart argues its initial leftist, furry, queer, and disabled base was the “most vocal and most frequent of Mastodon’s unpaid contributors,” designing Mastodon’s features from November 2016 to April 2017. After Graham Linehan and Dan Harmon temporarily moved to Mastodon.social and an April 2017 Motherboard story sparked media attention in the project, a new base arrived at the site, one that gave the project’s queer community less leverage in demanding changes from Rochko, Hart argues.

“The recent influx of users to the platform has brought with it new contributors and an expanded revenue stream that has rendered the original nearly obsolete,” Hart wrote in April 2017. “Queer users could leave en masse without harming the project’s survivability, which means that the reciprocity of their relationship has been terminated—queer users still depend on the project, but the project no longer depends on its queer users.”

Granted, Mastodon’s queer community isn’t perfect, and some of the same criticisms leveled against the Mastodon project could be made against the white queer community found on the service from the very beginning. For instance, Hart claims Mastodon’s white queer community would simultaneously demand a bigger voice in development while driving queer people of color off the site. The gentrifiers were now being gentrified, so to speak.

Warring philosophies

While speaking with the Daily Dot, Rochko called Mastodon “the child of my imagination,” arguing he “created it the way that I wanted to do it” and that he “did things the way I wanted them to work.” For the record, he doesn’t consider BDFL a harsh description of the Mastodon project, but rather a programming term to describe its governance. He also believes it’s more efficient than rule by committee.

“When you separate the decision making between different people that can come and go, you sort of have a tragedy of the commons where nobody is fully responsible for it and people have disagreements over all sorts of things, and you add the bureaucracy of [a] voting system, etc,” he explained. “Often times you’ll get requests from the community that are directly mutually exclusive to each other, and you have to make a choice, like, which direction will you go or how do you make a compromise.”

Rochko describes Mastodon’s users as separated between two “camps”: those who prefer discoverability, and those who discourage it. It’s more accurate to say Mastodon is increasingly forced to choose between its marginalized, queer userbase and white, well-off, and male tech workers who support Rochko’s BDFL vision.

Mastodon

Raphen believes Mastodon is “getting better, slowly” thanks in part to new queer users challenging its “fragile” privileged queer users. But even then, the platform’s remaining queer community has grown increasingly upset with Rochko’s leadership. After Rochko unexpectedly introduced “trends” tracking for words, phrases, and hashtags in summer 2018, marginalized users who feared harassment from the feature criticized its unexpected implementation. Rochko replied with a toot, arguing he “built Mastodon the way I wanted” and that those who disliked the project should not “give me shit about your failed expectations.”

“There’s the door, there’s the code, there’s the alternatives,” he tooted on June 2.

The future

A June essay from Mastodon user Cassian, titled “I left Mastodon yesterday,” argues Mastodon’s problems start with Rochko’s approach to development. Cassian claims users are rarely acknowledged for their contributions unless they are programmers, and Rochko controls the original instance and gets to decide which features make it into the Mastodon project.

Combine this with Rochko’s perspective as a white male programmer, and his decisions will constantly come from a privileged point-of-view that clashes with Mastodon’s marginalized userbase.

“Like it or not, he is in charge of the main branch of a huge community project and he promises various advantages over Twitter to attract members,” Cassian writes. “The users of his software have needs that he refuses to address but he wants to remain the sole decision-maker and have complete control. He has a right to do that, but it is unhealthy for the project overall.”

Again, Rochko thinks Mastodon users are split between two sides: those who believe the project should help users find one another, and those who prefer to stay hidden from others. But Mastodon’s internal community conflicts can better be described through a queer lens—that is, between privileged users and marginalized ones, and their diametrically opposed philosophies for what Mastodon should be.

“He’s a programmer. Not a leader,” Raphen said. “He’s an amazingly talented programmer. But that’s not enough to lead the project. He takes all the credit for making Mastodon what it is when it was extremely a group effort, not just the programming (the only labor he sees as legit).”

Raphen and Rochko’s beliefs are at Mastodon’s core, and yet they are fundamentally in conflict with each other. One wants a community-driven government system to protect vulnerable users. The other believes only a BDFL can efficiently maintain Mastodon and promote its decentralized, open-source fediverse structure. Both are hopeful for Mastodon’s future, and yet, they represent diverging paths that Mastodon can take.

Meanwhile, Mastodon’s users can’t even agree on how Mastodon should function, let alone whom it should serve. Figuring out an answer will decide Mastodon’s future—and whether its marginalized userbase has a place to call home.

from Ricky Schneiderus Curation https://www.dailydot.com/debug/mastodon-fediverse-eugen-rochko/

#Ricky Schneiderus Curation

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dungeonmasterpoisonbite · 7 years ago

Text

Wednesday Friendsday Mission Logs: Goblins in Suburbia

Keeper Representative #298:

Interparty Communication Hub Rules

1-no explicit nsfw content such as overtly explicit text or imagery

2-more rules will be added as the need arises

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: jevens.

🚐Jevans🎷: thats jevans mate

whats up?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: i have a mix CD. Can i bring it?

🚐Jevans🎷: depends

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: on what?

🚐Jevans🎷: whats on it?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: you know. Good music.

-posts link to bass boosted "Down Under" by Men At Work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC-dS7JmCbY)

🚐Jevans🎷: is there anything else but that song on it?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: absolutely not

🚐Jevans🎷: good

oh oh

El 🐍: do you mean you have twelve to fourteen of the same song on one CD?

🚐Jevans🎷: im pickin you up first sweets

El 🐍: also, um, Mr. Evans? Is it okay to bring food in your car?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: B]

🚐Jevans🎷: so long as theres enough for your driver

El 🐍: okay, well. I'm not sure but my sister ordered Chinese food. She may finish it before you get here, though. Would you like the fortune cookie?

👊Dee Foster thats the best part though el!!!!!

El 🐍: they gave us two... I was thinking he could have mine.

Jev: sure ill polish yer leftovers

👊Dee Foster BUT

fine he can have it -frowny imp emoji-

El 🐍: did....did you want them both?

🚐Jevans🎷: hey dee can have it

i read the docs and dont want her mad at me

👊Dee Foster NO you have it L.O.L.

i was only teasing!!!!

-XD emoji-

🚐Jevans🎷: alright hahahahsdfsdaf

oops

El 🐍: Mr. Evans, would you like any of this ma po tofu?

🚐Jevans🎷: only if yer not eatin eat

its ahrd to eat when im driving with passengers

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: are you texting whilst driving??

El 🐍: are you implying our driver would break the law???

🚐Jevans🎷: hahahaha

👊Dee Foster O.M.G. he better not be!!!!

🚐Jevans🎷: HAHAH

El 🐍: :\

🚐Jevans🎷: absolutely not

speech-to-text mates

Nelherin: that can still be distracting!!

El 🐍: Wow your dictation software must be very advanced to know to capitalize your laughter with emphasis!

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: magic SIRI

El 🐍: oh my gosh, if Mr. Evans has a magic phone, i want one.

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : is it okay with everyone if i photo document our adventures?

🚐Jevans🎷: this is expensive hardware, you gotta work a long time to get it

but all in good time El

and so long as you dont flash in the vehicle sure

El 🐍: I mean, i've got an iPhone, but it isn't magic.

Nelherin, I'm fine with that, as long as you don't make them available publicly online. Last semester one of my students posted a picture of me on Facebook and tagged it "That Weird Nerd" and I thought that was really unkind.

👊Dee Foster WHAT!!!! YOU DIDNT TELL ME THAT!!!! WHO WAS IT!!!! WAIT IM IN THE ROOM WITH YOU

El 🐍: It was super unflattering too. :(

👊Dee Foster -three red angry emojis-

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : i won't release them publicly! I think that might get me in trouble with the keepers, hah...

El 🐍: okay, that's fine! If you tag me, please tag me as EL SHRIVER.

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: i have stickers

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : okay!

What kind of stickers?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: stickers for a scrapbook

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : oh i love scrapbooking!

Maybe i could photodocumennt with a scrapbook!

El 🐍: I have stickers for coding my planner! There are different ones for meetings, classes, study sessions, and even a little cup of coffee! I'm coding these missions as "gym" so that Dee thinks I'm exercising.

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: well now she knows

El 🐍: Oh shoot.

🚐Jevans🎷: no one tell el they can delete messages

El 🐍: Oh this isn't a static record of our communications?

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : you just told them by saying that??

jevans; well yeah im the cool driver

and no el its not static

El 🐍: Well. I still think we should be keeping some record of what we do and if I just go back and edit what I say, that's like changing history.

🚐Jevans🎷: you could hop over to Keeper Chat and bug 298

👊Dee Foster HEY!!!! I JUST SAW THAT!!!

🚐Jevans🎷: they could prolly change it for you

👊Dee Foster next time i go to the gym youre going with me el!!!!

El 🐍: oh... oh boy.

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : do you think the keepers would be okay with it if i photo document our adventures?

🚐Jevans🎷: dunno

i mean

i snap all the time

no ones said nothin yet

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : in my experience, if anything... strange shows up in pictures, most people usually assume its just photo editing and sfx makeup, so i don't think there should be a problem? But i don't wanna get in trouble!!

🚐Jevans🎷: i dont think theyd mind

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : okay!! i dont think anyone outside of this group will be seeing most of the pictures, but i wanna be safe just in case!!

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: jevens do you have snapchat

🚐Jevans🎷: yee

note

that statement is a BITCH to get speech-to-text to get properly

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : did you have to spell it out??

🚐Jevans🎷: nah i gotta say it like just right

like if i go too much towards yeah itll get that instead

but yeah doesnt have the right spirit yaknow?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: incredible

avery: so like is this the chat or whatever?

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : yep!!

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: hi miss avery

its me, the green one

avery: am i supposed to talk to you guys

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : if you want to!!

avery: um

hey

who are you

El 🐍: Nice to meet you, Avery! The dossier says you're a student?

Avery: who are any of you

yea i guess

i'm in high shook

school whatever

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: im sweet. Sweet ghoulman. We've met. With the wizard?

👊Dee Foster O.M.G. hello!!!!

avery: oh you're the creepy guy

cool i guess

hi?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: oh, thank you.

El 🐍: ... that isn't very nice. :\

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : why is sweets creepy

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: nelherin you havent met me yet

avery: wait if you're in this chat im gonna have to like. Interact with you

yikes

i guess i'm not very nice

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : uhm, you're free to call me henri instead if you wish

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: miss avery we're on this mission together

avery: just avery's fine dude

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: avery we're on this mission together, you have my condolences

but i made a mix cd so it should be fine

El 🐍: I feel like this is an inappropriate use of the word "mix."

🚐Jevans🎷: shhhhhh

itll be a surprise el

unless avery reads from the start

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : i agree with el...

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: only jevans understands me

🚐Jevans🎷: but i dont think avery has that much interest in seeing what weve talked about

El 🐍: thank you! Henri? May I call you Henri?

🚐Jevans🎷: sweets want my snapchat?

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: jevens can i have your #

yes absolutely

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : you can!

Avery: wait we're allowed to have snap chats?

🚐Jevans🎷: alright buddy ill shoot it at you privately mate

avery: dammnit i deleted mine

🚐Jevans🎷: oops

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: B]

avery: can i curse here

🚐Jevans🎷: what kind of curse????

avery: is that allowed or whatever

like can i say fuck

🚐Jevans🎷: cuz like i know yer a wizard-ankle-biter

oh ye

fucking say fucking fuck as many fucking times as you fucking want

avery: literally the fuck now i have to make a new snapchat

god fucking damnit

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: B O

👊Dee Foster -BO emoji-

🚐Jevans🎷: sweets i read that as bow and thought odd but afreed

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: B0

avery: oh not emojis

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : what's wrong with emojis??

avery: come on y'all are older than me right

👊Dee Foster -frowny imp emoji- WHATS WRONG WITH EMOJIS????

🚐Jevans🎷: that one is slightly less bow

like a quieter bow

soft bow

avery: just childish

🚐Jevans🎷: avery yer like 12 chill

avery: but if you wanna play it that way then be my guest

El 🐍: I read it as B.O. and was hoping I wouldn't be the only odd-smelling person on the trip...

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : but emojis are fun

👊Dee Foster -worried emoji, anguished emoji, frowning emoji-

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: emojis... are timeless

youll be in good company el

🚐Jevans🎷: except for -watch emoji-

avery: bad joke jevans

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : i thought it was funny!!

El 🐍: L O L

👊Dee Foster L.O.L.!!!!

🚐Jevans🎷: eeeeeeeeeh henri can sit in the front

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : yay!! :D

avery: can i bring my headphones to wherever we're going

🚐Jevans🎷: -another different watch emoji-

sure mate

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: jevens is great

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : jevans, will you be picking anyone up soon??

🚐Jevans🎷: OH SHIT

right yeah

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : ...

🚐Jevans🎷: ill be-CALCULATING

fuckin gps

avery: who're you getting first

🚐Jevans🎷: uuuuuuh

right sweets

okay sweets im gonna be like swinging by you gotta hop in through the window

not comin to a full stop either you gotta just jump in

El 🐍: WHAT???

avery: UM WHAT

LIKE FOR ALL OF US

👊Dee Foster CAN I DO THAT TOO!!!!!

Avery: wait a fcking second im a fucking vampire

never fucking mind my caps lock

El 🐍: DON'T ENCOURAGE DEE TO DO THAT

👊Dee Foster -flexing arm emoji followed by mischievious imp emoji-

🚐Jevans🎷: nah only sweets

if i run sweets over hell be okay

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: thanks

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : uhm....

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: im flexible. Roll down the passenger window

👊Dee Foster IM NOT GETTING IN THE CAR UNLESS ITS THAT WAY

🚐Jevans🎷: didnt you guys get the psych profiles and background check documentaion?

Avery: the what

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : no??

dee, you might get hurt

El 🐍: I read them all very thoroughly

avery: will there be a test on that

El 🐍: Don't worry! I have an annotated copy!

Avery: or um anything actually

oh. gee. How exciting. Thanks

El 🐍: Will there be a test?? : D

👊Dee Foster O.M.G. I WANT TO THOUGH

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : i'm a little bit scared...

🚐Jevans🎷: okay sweets

like five minutes

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: jevens just snapchatted me a picture of a rolled down suv window

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : does your car accomidate tall people??

El 🐍: not a concern for us! : D

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : it is for me

El 🐍: Yes, I know.

Avery: how tall

like 6'0"?

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : exactly

avery: whatever i'm like 5'6"

�� Nelherin ⚡ : ... am i the tallest one??

🚐Jevans🎷: okay one down

okay

henri youre next

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: i landed a little bit on the stick. Its fine i dont bruise

🚐Jevans🎷: ill stop properly

SNERK

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : okay!!

El 🐍: Are the doors locked?

🚐Jevans🎷: not when I stop

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : this music is... strange

El 🐍: Oh, man, someone down the street has a really intense subwoofer situation.

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: thanks

👊Dee Foster I MEANT IT WHEN I SAID I WANTED TO JUMP IN!!!!!!

avery: what music

are y'all near each other

🚐Jevans🎷: dont worry avery

youre the furthest out

might be a bit before we can get you

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: youll hear it soon miss avery

avery

🚐Jevans🎷: but dee and el, ill be there in a mo

avery: of course i'm the last one. Of fucking course

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: move into town avery

avery: couldn't have gotten me first huh?

El 🐍: Oh okay. Never mind about that subwoofer thing.

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: B]

avery: am i the only one left

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: MADE IT!!!!

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: you'll hear us coming

🔥 Nelherin ⚡ : dee landed on the floor!!

avery: are y'all like in the city city? It's gonna be fucking while before me then

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: we are going very fast though

almost inadvisably fast

🚐Jevans🎷: yeah were looking at like thirty mins or so?

👊Dee Foster avery do you want something from 7/11!!!!

avery: dr pepper

and a honey bun

👊Dee Foster good choices!

🚐Jevans🎷: nvm were gettin you first avery give us five mins

LATER AT THE 7/11

🚐Jevans🎷: i want a six pack of something!

Hey

heeeeeeeeeeey

someone get me something

Sweet Ghoulman 💀: jevens what can i get you

jman

juice

🚐Jevans🎷: nah not juice

six redbulls

or something like that

i got twenty bucks

#wednesday friendsday #long post #text #emoji #discord log

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