#also the devs have been kinda shitty about certain things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cobaltington · 2 years

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Hi there

If you’re reading this post, that probably means I sent it to you because you asked me how this website works.

So, welcome to hellsite known as tumblr. Buckle up and enjoy the ride. Also as a disclaimer, I haven’t used this thing since 2016 so I’m not fully up to snuff on how this website functions nowadays, but I know the basics.

This will be a small guide to all my mutuals on twitter who might be looking into getting on this site should twitter decide to crash and burn, so lets start going down the list of things to know about this site...

1: This is a “blogging” site

Tumblr was created as an easy way to make a blog for yourself in the mid to late 2000s in a time were blogging was the hip and trendy thing to do. The website has sort of shifted towards a bigger general social media influence since it’s inception, but because of it’s origins it has a few advantages over twitter.

These include:

The ability to use formatting stuff in your posts (like this bullet list)

Basically infinite post length

Fully customizable user-pages with htlm/css/javascript magic

The ability to use more than 4 images in a single post

Unrelated but tumblr compression is less shitty than twitter.

There are downsides to this however. Often times people will use custom layouts for their page, but the html/css will be fucked and the fonts will be incredibly small. These layouts might also be missing various QoL features that the default layout has. Since post length is essentially infinite, you will probably be met with word walls every now and again. Web dev wizards will also usually find ways to make their text float away from their post, or crash your timeline every 2 or 3 weeks. This kinda just happens.

2: How the fuck do these posts work

Some people I’ve talked with are confused about who made a post or how it’s getting on their timeline. I’ll use a diagram to explain instead of words.

Got it? cool. It should also be noted that whenever you reblog something, you’re basically quote-tweeting it, or starting a thread. it’s weird. If you’re coming from twitter though, so long as you just press the reblog button and don’t do anything else (except for adding tags), it’s more or less the equivalent of a retweet. If someone does want to ‘quote-tweet’ it/start a thread, you add your own text to your reblog. It’ll look like this to others:

This can be a little annoying at times because you’re more or less adding to the entire post for everyone who rbs your version to see. tl;dr, unless you’re a genius in comedy or you have something actually important to add, please just don’t.

3: Tagging

I mentioned tagging in the last post so lemme explain. Tags are weird as hell because people use them in a few different ways.

People use tags as normal hashtags

People use tags to sort their content

People use tags as a way to quietly “comment” on posts

Explained:

1) Having a not so in your face hashtag feature is really nice, so people often use it a lot more to garner attention on their posts, as people like searching specific tags like #birds, #furry, or something of the like

2) In addition to searching the website for tags, can also filter your posts on your blog using tags. So, if you’re say an artist, you could make a tag like #myart or #[oc name here] so people interested in your content can more easily find that specific content. It’s a really useful feature!

3) Tags as comments has been a thing people have used for a long time on this site. If you only use this site to chronically reblog stuff and not make your own posts, this is basically your usual way of communicating anything to your followers. Since you don’t add to the post when you comment with tags, it’s essentially tumblr’s reply system. Tumblr added a reply feature a few years back, but people tend to not really like it for whatever reason, so just be wary that certain users will just have the normal reply feature off because of this.

4: Asks

Tumblr has an “ask me anything” feature which can be enabled/disabled. Someone who gets on your blog page will see it if it’s enabled and can just ask you a question. If you’re wary about people being mean to you for no reason I’d suggest turning off anon-asks. But also know that if some shithead is hiding behind anon to harass you they’re a fucking dweeb and a coward because they can’t face you head on.

5: I forgor 💀

I don’t really remember other details about this site!! Thems just the basics!!!!! I guess I should say people can and will get unhinged as hell on here but whatever the case if any of my info is outdated or im missing something and one of you champs who still uses tumblr is also still following me please feel free to add to this post. Alright cool bye and good luck nerds.

#i am a goddamn mess #hope this helps tho #and also hey all I'm probably definitely finally back :)

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cinnamonest · 3 years

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I got these and more asks regarding the post from last night so I wanted to elaborate and explain some things, and also make another point about the anniversary thing and clarify for anyone confused. After this I promise I'll shut up about this lol sorry

1) yeah please do NOT come after the VAs for any of this, not even the actual developer side either is at fault. This is largely an issue with the PR and marketing and higher up people. It's really awful that some people are harassing people who have no responsibility here. And thanks to the original asker's reply, I feel like I'm really bad at conveying my thoughts so I tend to overexplain lol, but thanks that means a lot.

2) I have seen people confused on this so if you didn't already, you should know that this isn't just about the anniversary so much as the anniversary was a final straw. While Honkai has similar rewards/exchange for irl money as genshin, mihoyo itself has some of the worst in comparison to other gachas from other developers. Games like Arknights, Granblue, Azur Lane, Dragalia Lost, hell even a cutesy casual gacha app like LoveNikki have much better real money to game currency ratios, huge anniversaries where they give out tons of free shit, and much more generous systems (such as Arknights giving free 10 pulls with a lot of events/new characters/etc). All despite being smaller, less profitable games. There's major glaring issues with the game that have gone unresolved for a long time despite people asking over and over to change it. It's a combination of the rewards, general stuff, and mihoyo's refusal to solve certain issues for a long time that has people upset.

In any industry, any company is going to be held to the standards set by the mainstream industry, which is what is happening here. It is natural to hold a company to it's competitors for comparison and expect them to match standards, especially when the company that is lacking is the richer one and could easily meet the standards if they were willing to.

This is especially true for people who put money into the game. Due to the nature of gachas/online games, companies that produce these games are usually very adamant on rewarding players because whales/P2Ws, people who buy welkin and similar stuff, etc keep the game alive. When they do not match the standard of the industry, those people will feel unappreciated and go elsewhere eventually, which means they will not be able to afford much progress, then even F2Ps won't have content, and the game will burn out.

3) I probably should have clarified this last post but, I know review-bombing does seem like a kinda shitty tactic at first and I get that, but the reason people are doing that now is because mihoyo has completely ignored people complaining for months normally, and even now has started to censor and ban people, deleted critical posts, etc. Basically it's clear that mihoyo will just ban and censor criticism until people do something that actually forces them to listen, hence review bombing. Banning/censoring criticism is a really, really bad move for any company, historically speaking, it's insulting to players who keep the company afloat and results in losses. The review bombing + a lot of people uninstalled the app apparently + people who usually pay refusing to do so anymore, all of that hits them to where they can't afford to ignore it when people do it en masse. Because it will cost them money/players.

What people are kinda really upset about, even more than rewards itself, is just the silence and censorship on their end, which is more frustrating than the lack of rewards itself. I did have some sympathy for them up until they started censoring and deleting criticism on their site. At that point they're doing this to themselves by doing that.

4) Also, notably, this has worked with plenty of other game devs. You may remember the disaster that was Fallout 76. Bethesda also responded poorly at first, but spamming bad reviews and horrible coverage for Fallout 76 got Bethesda's attention, and they went the whole nine yards formally acknowledging the complaints and more or less apologizing to the whole world of players at E3 and even gave refunds, which is a very surprisingly humble thing for a company of their level of fame to do. The situation calmed down because people felt listened to, and while Fallout 76 was kinda a lost cause and didn't get fixed, the idea is that the refunds/open and honest communication restored the consumer base's relationship to Bethesda. That was a big blow, but Bethesda was willing to take that hit to maintain the sense of communication and mutual respect/value between players and devs.

In contrast, with mihoyo, what most people have been trying to beg/bargain for for an anniversary rewards is a free permanent banner 5 star, which would cost mihoyo essentially literally nothing.

So far they have responded by banning people for literal years on hoyolab, deleting posts, banning people from various social platforms etc, for criticism. Even putting whether or not that's ok aside, it's very unusual and not how game companies usually handle these things, and can only end badly for them.

Also mihoyo has had time to fix this -- it's not like Fallout 76 where they released the game and then the backlash came very suddenly and they had to scramble to prepare a response/plan and needed time. People have been complaining about these rewards for well over a week, so they could have easily fixed it by now if they had any intention of listening to people's complaints, especially considering the proposed fix of a single free permanent 5 star would be very simple and quick to implement.

5) also? it's extra unfortunate and really a marketing team issue bc they could have *profited* from giving more, if they opened rewards to new players as most gachas do. Genshin is incredibly popular right now, to the extent that a lot of people in the gaming/weeb sphere who don't play it, but still know of it, and even know a bit about it.

If you were someone who had never played genshin but had been considering downloading it for a long time, but just kept putting it off or forgetting, and heard "hey join now and you get free Diluc/Keqing," that would have convinced a lot of people to go ahead and join, and they would inevitably get sucked into the game and bring mhy profit. So it's a little strange imo that they chose not to do that, it would have been beneficial to them.

6) also, be aware that the glider we're now getting was supposed to be paid originally. Releasing it free now is damage control. It's also, well, a glider. Again, while it is pretty, it's paltry in comparison to the industry norm and does not have much use to most people.

Finally, criticizing all of this/the game/mihoyo does not mean people hate the game. I do see some people lashing out in defense of mihoyo and I get that bc they produce something we all really like. I really really do not want to see genshin become "that one game that was super popular for a year or so and then died" -- that's why people want improvements, because if improvements aren't made, that's where it's headed. What people are asking for right now is stuff that is very easily in mihoyo's capability and would not cost them much of anything. It would be one thing to ask them for something that would cut their profits or take time to develop, but that's not what's happening. People are asking for very little in the scope of their capabilities/the norm.

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dappersheep · 3 years

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Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (1/3)

So first things first, disclaimers! I do not claim nor pretend to know every nook and cranny, ins and outs of the history of FooFan's conception, existence and uncertain future. I do not own the game nor its characters, only the opinions and thoughts stated hereon out.

This was born to vent out my frustrations with how a game like this was abused poorly by its own developer and publisher instead of being nurtured to become its full potential that could have overshadowed and remained better than the likes of Tencent's Tales of Food --I could dream, but it honestly had the potential to be.

Out of respect for the main tag, I personally will not be tagging this post and the following two with the main tag. If you want to tag it yourself with it, that's your choice. Only followers of my blog will see this.

This analysis is divided into three parts: Funtoy, Elex, and the Community. It starts under the cut. Well let's get started.

Funtoy

Ah yes, the creator. The developer. You'd think that with their sudden rise to fame during their global launch, they'd have used the massive profits they earned within the first quarter of 2018 to improve certain things about the game and then trickled it down as quickly as possible towards Global, right? Yeah, I thought so too.

After playing the game since launch, I've seen and experienced way too many things that just hammer in the fact that this is one of the most unfair gacha I've played in years. Some reasons being the following:

(Note: These are experiences ONLY on Global's version, it may also apply to CN being the original server)

⦁ The game's gacha model is aimed towards maximum predation on its players. F2p are forced to either spend some money (and thus tempt them to keep spending after getting a taste of it), or risk not even getting a good ascension of the unit to be useful at all. Paying for the event packs also doesn't guarantee that you would be able to secure a spot in the ranks. In fact, if you can't comprehend how the battle mechanics work, you could even de-rank. Fun way to burn that 800$, huh? At least you have the skin from rebates.

⦁ A little less known thing and probably theoretical at worst, the long joked about spaghetti coding of the game along with an outdated spine technology for the sprites could very well be the reason why a 2D game like this experiences the shittiest lags. Also how easy it is to hack this game with the right know-how.

⦁ Speaking of bad gameplay mechanics, did you know you could spend over fifty Mirrors and not get that final enhancement from +9 to +10 simply because there's absolutely no tangible safety net before +10?

⦁ If you're F2P, this game is terrible in giving you resources to stockpile. Because Funtoy certainly doesn't have a lot of weekly/monthly or even friendly events wherein you can get resources without spending another kind of resource. The Hawthorne event's rewards are lackluster at best, Bingo is severely limited in what it gives, and Recall also doesn't give much for a big event that only happens (supposedly) every 6 months. Did I also mention that daily resource rewards also kinda suck compared to how much you burn in just one event?

⦁ Monthly subs are a scam. Yes, you heard that right. My point of comparison here is Arknights. A monthly in AK allows you to have enough to 10-pull after 30 days, on top of a bit of stamina to help you. In FooFan? You have two monthly subs that do different things and even then, you won't have enough to 10-pull by the end of 30 days, nor is the stamina you get enough to even stockpile and ease the pressure of your need to save for the Gates or that stamina event that suddenly popped up.

⦁ A conga line of 'Must procure this unit at a high ascension to do well in the following events!'. You missed the first Pizza event? Missed the first Turkey event? God forbid, you weren't able to 5* your Beer on his debut? Well sorry, that 5* Black Tea of yours isn't gonna do squat to give you good damage. No, your 2* B-52 also isn't going to do much of anything with his lackluster damage capabilities. If you want a chance to get those event URs again, you have to wait for their pool with laughably limited pulls... and a bloated price to even pull.

⦁ The events starting after the first iteration of Turkey event get even more paywalled. As far as I remember, by the time Minestrone rolled around, an F2P with ample crystal resources can only get 2* at best. 3* and above are paywalled.

⦁ The game has incompetent balancing. The devs themselves likely have little experience in gameplay design and balancing, especially for a game with a growing roster of characters . A prime example of them launching a character not knowing it would pretty much unbalance the game? Look no further than Beer. The guy had to have a couple of nerfs done to him because he was just too meta. You know what's sadder? Before the 'switch' to Brave meta, almost all meta units was built to benefit off the Beer meta.

⦁ Artifacts. Do I even have to explain how the introduction of such a game feature so early into the lifespan of this game essentially fucked over the balance even more? Not to mention, all the more reason you'd be crying with the Gates of Trials demanding so much out of your stamina and crystal resources. F2Ps are again, the ones that suffer in this part. What's their reason? Profit, of course.

⦁ The nerf of resto chests. This was the primary source for people who were saving up stamina for the Gates... until Funtoy decided they were being too generous to their playerbase and dropped the stamina probability rate to 1% or less.

⦁ Terrible UI layout and design. Come on, be honest now, you've lost several thousand of your hard earned crystals buying screws in the fishing shop because you didn't notice that shiny warning in small text and a green button with the crystal image slapped on it, didn't you?

⦁ Look at all these SRs! All of them! Wow, they even outnumber the Rs by at least 80! What's that? There's more URs now too compared to Rs and Ms combined? That can't be real. But seriously, you'd think Funtoy could make some of these SRs into Rs and add them to the perm pool/shard fusion so people aren't stuck pulling Macaron or Dorayaki every time. They could have also populated the Team Up rewards with SRs instead of Rs. But you know... that won't bring them profit. Haha... haha.... Oh and I haven't even told you about the SP class...!

⦁ Lore. Yes, I'm sure by now you're aware that the in-game lore is different from the ones in the non-SP Food Soul bios, in the SP Food Soul bios that sort of ties in with the New World story (that global will never be getting btw). At this point, Funtoy handwaves the confusion away by saying, 'they're all different timelines'. Yes yes, an easy and cliche move to explain how shitty the writing direction went after a while. I don't know what happened, all I know is that lore got weird(er) when they introduced SP Rice.

⦁ They. Keep. Adding. More. Characters! They fail to see that a lot of their earlier players have imprinted on the first few waves of Food Souls and they sadly also fail to properly give some of them more story expansion... or skins. At the moment, they're shelling out so many JP-centric Food Souls because... as I see it? They're pandering to the last bastion of whales they have.

⦁ Merchandise. And I mean a variety of merchandise that isn't using the same official art every time. Like they couldn't afford to commission a couple of artists one or two times to make unique merchandise that would sell. They started too late on that train, and they even made it too hard for anyone not in CN or JP to even procure what already exists. Not to mention, they keep using the same 'popular' set of characters for their merchandise and never really expanding out to making merch for other characters.

These are all the things I can list off at the top of my head why Funtoy as a developer sucks ass. They could sweeten their words all they want, it won't change the fact that they've certainly made way too many bad decisions and found out about it too late, and now they're desperate to keep Food Fantasy alive to keep their profits coming in to make whatever that cat girl game they have and that supposedly 'side-game' FF2 they announced.

There may have been problems out of their control that I or you do not see, but one thing is for sure, they were blinded by greed for the money they were raking in on all their servers at the start, and never actually bothered to invest in more manpower in the right places to improve the game, both gameplay-wise and worldbuilding wise. It's actually saddening that this game could have been so much more with several QoLs and a more fleshed out lore, perhaps even spacing out the number of new units they keep introducing while going back to giving their old units more attention.

That's it for Funtoy. We're moving onto Elex in the next part and boy is that also a trip.

#ravings of a madman #food fantasy but not tagged right

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sneakyneighboururchin · 3 years

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Genuinely asking here bc maybe I've missed/forgotten some stuff but... when homo- and transphobic stuff is said in DA, it's addressed in game as being bad, isn't it? Like Dorian's first personal quest is about his dad acknowleding his homophobia and apologizing to Dorian. And with Krem, Krem and Bull both correct the Inquisitor pretty sternly if you misgender him, and Bull explains how gender identity is respected under the Qun. Not trying to fight you on this, nor do I think DA is by any means perfect, I just don't recall seeing homophobia or transphobia that isn't quickly shut down by the player or other characters. Don't feel pressured to answer tho, I know it's not your job to pull receipts for every shitty thing in a video game lol

Well first off thanks for being so polite and nice in this message, I appreciate it. I'm gonna try and cover the stuff that I've seen myself and have had pointed out to me by other people but keep in mind that I'm not trans, most of what I'll say here on the transphobia issue is me parroting other trans fans who've said this sort of thing before. I am gay though, so I guess we're clear on that front. It's also been a while since i played any of the games so if i get stuff wrong, I'm sorry. This is gonna be long so sorry for that in advance.

So homophobia and transphobia in our world. Why is it a thing? A combination of humanity hating and fearing what it doesn't understand (which Dragon Age also has) and religion, specifically in my experience Christianity (which Dragon Age does not have). Yes the Chantry and Andrastianism is heavily based off of Christianity and Catholicism but it doesn't have any of the bullshit about sexuality and gender that Christianity does. Neither in it's holy texts or it's teachings. The in universe writing about sexuality, a codex by Brother Genitivi, is also kinda homophobic and doesn't explain why this is a thing in Thedas at all. Queer relations and relationships are aparently viewed by most of Southern Thedas as 'peculiar' but no explanation is given as to why. Now I'm gonna go into specific instances.

First off, let's look at some of the stuff you've mentioned. Dorian and his dad. Yeah that whole situation hit me pretty close to home as a queer person who's pretty much accepted at this point that my dad will never accept who I am and my mother died still not having accepted me. What Halward did is definitely portrayed as a bad thing, that is correct. The narrative kind of subtly pushing the reconciliation being the good option is a bit iffy. What Halward tried to do to Dorian is straight up abuse and I really don't like plotlines that push making nice with the abuser and forgiving them as a good resolution. This is kind of more personal feelings than straight from the script fact but I wanted to say it anyway.

Second issue: Krem's treatment. So many trans people have talked about this before me, if you want some more in depth analysis of this you should go check out some of their stuff, it won't be hard to find. The basics though: Krem is voiced by a cis woman. This immediately sets a shitty precedent on the side of the devs lending proof to the theory that they don't care about uplifting trans people, just making money off them. Krem should have been voiced by a trans actor. In the actual conversation with Iron Bull you get the opportunity to be extremely transphobic. And if you do this you get told off, and that's kind of it. The fact that your character even has the option to do that is a) gross from an out of character writing perspective, and b) makes no sense in character. Why would your character have these views? There is no in lore reason for any of the potential groups your character comes from to be transphobic. Also, and this is just my opinion, but if you're transphobic to Krem (even though it makes no sense in universe) the Iron Bull's reaction shouldn't be a bit of disapproval, he should send you through the fucking wall. Seems more in character. Also, gender roles under the Qun also have a lot of potential to be transphobic, they are by no means an improvement on ours imo. Under the Qun your gender is essentially decided by your role. So if you're a fighter you're male. If you care for children you're female. Not only is that pretty hella sexist and reliant on our dumb ideas of gender roles (that again aren't supposed to be a thing in Thedas) it also has potential to be hell for trans people. Yes it would work for someone like Krem, but for someone who was AMAB and good at fighting but they were a woman? Being shoved into male gender roles and treated as a man would not be good. If the writer's intent was to create a society with an entirely different concept of and approach to gender they've done it wrong because of how much of it is reliant on the audience's perception of gender which (going by general gaming demographics) is pretty cis and het normative.

Now I'm gonna talk about the transphobia that doesn't get challenged. Sera makes a couple transphobic comments throughout the game I believe, the one I can remember in detail is in the Winter Palace when she says someone presenting a certain way isn't actually that. And without any further context the only way the audience can really interpret that is that the writers decided to take a cheap shot at someone cross dressing in a bad attempt at comedy.

Sera's writing in general is super homophobic because she was written by a homophobe. I'm not gonna go into all of that in this cos this is already too long and I could write essays about it. Other people already have! But basically, she's the only out and out lesbian romance we have in the series, and her writing in that respect is really not good.

So how about the other games? Well. In origins you can hire sex workers at a brothel. The 'special' on offer is a very masc presenting dwarf in a poorly fitting dress. This was a very transphobic attempt at humour. Zevran, much as I love him dearly, is a walking bisexual stereotype, made worse by feeding into the 'sexy Latine' stereotype on top of that, which isn't an in universe problem so much as it is proof that the writers are guilty of prejudices whether they know it or not. I suspect there's more instances in origins but I can't remember right now.

In Dragon Age 2 Seneschal Bran has a relationship of some kind with a sex worker named Serendipity, a feminine presenting elf with a very deep voice. This is played as something that Bran should be ashamed of. At least I think so, it could be that he's ashamed of having a relationship with a sex worker. Not that far fetched considering Aveline's weaponisation of the word 'whore' against Isabela. But this is also something that doesn't make sense honestly. Why is sex work taboo in thedas? Christianity isn't around to make it so and Andrastianism doesn't have purity culture going except for their clergy ( which also is never explained why and makes no sense.) Additionally, Uncle Gamlen is super homophobic. Why? There is no reason culturally or religiously for him to be that way? Yes he's an asshole but why is he an asshole in that manner? And you don't even get to challenge him on it! It's passive dialogue that you trigger when walking into his house and you don't immediately get the option to fucking fight him about it? Why put it in then?!

A good amount of this is off topic from the actual question so sorry about that but TLDR there's a lot of in universe homophobia and transphobia, most of it is not handled well in or out of universe. I do believe that they're trying to do better in this respect, inquisition was a step up from previous games it just wasn't enough of one.

If you want more stuff like this go check out @dalishious cos they have a ton of very good meta on subjects related to this.

#dragon age critical #homophobia #transphobia

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incarnateirony · 5 years

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An apology, but a story.

Okay guys, sorry for uh, talking so much about Pillowfort lately. I do mean it when I say I’m still here to stay until Tumblr totally dies, and I know I’ve been posting a LOT of PF content, but I’m also trying to help tailor an environment over there where this fandom can thrive. Add in momma’s heart attack and coma and my dash has been a hot mess and bare bones of my usual content, and I apologize.

But at the same time I’d like to sort of tell a bit of a flashback story of social media, fandom, and why I really do hope the best for Pillowfort. Some people are too young to remember the slow death of Livejournal, and I’m having like, flashbacks from that. I wasn’t in SPN fandom itself at the time but I was on LJ, so if you’re

worried about your friends leaving

intent on sticking to tumblr hell or high water

kind of upset at some friends trying to manage both

Let me give a little bit of history to explain what people are doing right now and why.

Long long ago, in a digital world far away when the internet still screamed at you when you connected to it, fandom wasn’t really globalized like it is. Twitter didn’t exist. Eventually Facebook was a hot new commodity not everybody adopted immediately. Tumblr wasn’t a sparkle in anybody’s eye.

Fandom was mostly relegated to php forums and places like Livejournal. Livejournal proved to be -- at the time -- one of the best methods to engage in fandom. You could have your own journal, but you could also join communities with your account and comment on long discussions.

There were weaknesses of this to be sure. Notifications were pretty raw to nonexistent compared to how we know of them modernly. You had to basically manually check the comm to stay on top of things, and what was said in that comm was choked to that comm. Now, that had its strengths: you could control the community and posts, ergo minimizing flame wars, but it made fandom a bunch of pigeonhole wings and, to be honest, echo chambers. Lots of things got missed, overlooked, and what have you. And god help you if you pissed off a big name fan in your wing that owned one or most of the communities you went to. Replies and the ilk were pretty limited on what you could do, too. But it was something. It was more than just a standard forum. You could still try to cross-engage.

Then came the LJ Purge, which... is pretty much identical to the Tumblr purge. New rules banishing NSFW to the depths of the internet, some out of control censorship, targeting all LGBT content no matter how pure as NSFW and explicit -- you name it. They didn’t really have wildly out of control filterbots, that’s a new modern invention just to shit in our bin a little better, but you get the idea. What happened -- and is still, more quietly, now that the shock has passed -- to Tumblr is what happened to LJ. People lost mountains of work.

Now, LJ didn’t die overnight. It died over the course of a few years. Some people left fairly quickly, others tried to stay aboard. For example, Destiel fandom was fairly young at the point the LJ Purge kicked off, and were already sort of outsiders among the fandom newsletters that were more Gen or Wincest doused at that point because -- well, duh -- they had a several year running start on that platform. The communities, as above, were really regulated. There just wasn’t room to breathe. Sure, they had their own comms, but once material started vanishing, they were much more eager to, en masse, migrate to a new platform. And yes, some stayed behind longer, because people, even in shipland, aren’t a borg.

Other communities, like gen or Wincest, stayed behind longer. They had years of built up work and huge communities they were attached to there and it was a lot harder for them to let that all go. But it didn’t get better. More quietly, once the hysteria ended, people just lost their will to continue to use livejournal and they more dribbled across.

Some went to Dreamwidth back then. Some went to tumblr. Long term, tumblr worked for everybody until now. Dreamwidth was pretty much Livejournal, minus censorship, plus a few bells and whistles but it worked for a few people, but let’s face it -- that’s not where central fandom ended up.

Now, people are talking alternatives. Some are saying to go back to Dreamwidth. I refuse.

Because there’s a reason it wasn’t the most successful platform in the past and we’ll go back to completely segregated fandom like before and

because certain aspects of fandom that DID go to Dreamwidth and stay there, have still been there, and are a huge thorn in the side to almost anyone with their head screwed on straight, Destiel fandom or not. J2 tinhats are the eternal asscramps of the fandom and they’ve squatted on dreamwidth for their crazy ass tinhat page for years, god knows they probably went to adjacent communities, god knows how ingrained they are into it, and I am NOT willing to deal with that level of horse shit again.

Pornhub tried a grab, that didn’t work, as it shouldn’t, for a list of reasons as long as my arm; Mastodon was suggested, but has a huge issue in some of its other channels that people don’t want to float in the vicinity of.

And then there’s Pillowfort.

So look, Pillowfort is young, it is a smolbabe. In a few months it went from 4K users to 25K users and is growing innumerably by the day. Its servers are struggling. That turns some people off. I get that. But that isn’t permanent.

So first of all, early pioneers are what make migrations work. Just like LJ had its initial members, and then tumblr had its early migrators, places like Pillowfort can be the same. Dreamwidth already has its foundations. That’s redundant, and foundations I’m not even going to touch, much less the regressive, divisive form of communities that will segregate all of us again. It’s fine if you aren’t one of the first people to take up the platform. The people ahead of you will start laying down content and communities and, if it works out, you can join in when you’re ready.

So what makes Pillowfort so fucking special?

Okay, so check it out. On tumblr, we’re used to reblogging shit into the bowels of the internet. As Pillowfort grows it, too, has that capability with some differences.

The boldest difference is that when you reblog, your opinion doesn’t get attached to the end of the post. It just reblogs the base post. Some people initially complained and thought that was the loss of a feature but came to realize it’s a blessing.

You see, that means someone can’t kidnap your post with a shitty opinion to reblog it to their friends with a shitty opinion that all attach their heckling shitty opinions. Like, let’s say it’s someone that’s Destiel fandom reading this. Ever had an anti shit reblog your post and it run wild? Well, now, if they try to reblog it, all they reblog is... your Destiel post. Thanks for that.

So how do we actually say what we need to?

Well, fam, it incorporated elements from LJ/DW, in having threaded replies. Multiple threads if so needed. The threaded replies are capable of housing just about anything an OP has. So a blog post has, alongside Like/Reblog notifications, comments. Open the post, read the comments, start an actual conversation with some merit. Did some douchebag come to spam your comments since they can’t reblog? No problem, delete their shitty comments and block them, problem solved.

But it doesn’t end there.

See, like LJ, PF has communities. While your post can reblog just about anywhere just like on tumblr, you can blog or reblog them into the communities you follow. Anyone following that community, whether they follow you directly or not, gets that turning up in their feed, maximizing your spread. So sure, it’s a young platform and you only have 20 followers or whatever, but if you make a general Supernatural style post and blog it to the SPN com, 300 people (at current) see it. If you post something to the Destiel comm, over 200 people see it. It’s a way to even find new accounts and friends.

If you don’t like something that’s turning up in a community, you can blacklist shit. And/or find a more appropriate community if it gets out of hand to you.

When you make your own communities you can have internal discussions or blog in/out posts, you can set rules, promote moderators, remove or ban problem users, and generally control the flow of your community to keep out shitlords. But, if for example, you subscribed to a community that turns out to be secretly run BY a shitlord because, IDK, maybe they don’t like that you think Sam is bi or something, most of these communities are large and blog in/out/engageable enough that you won’t lose your contacts, you WILL find your people over time, and you won’t be completely choked off to a singular abyss.

So the base beat is

PF treats every single post like any root post on an LJ/DW comm, but is able to be reblogged from/to communities or your own blog page as freely as tumblr. PF takes the best concepts of current and previous fandom platforms in its base application and lays a groundwork that literally all of us can prosper on if it survives and continues.

But that’s the catch.

And it’s cool if you aren’t ready to completely take that leap yet. I get that.

“I kinda like PF but it doesn’t have X feature-”

Okay look, PF is a smolbabe, like I said. It’s in beta. The thing is, they’re adding things every day. They have a dev list like 2 pages long for goals and things are getting crossed off and added like, biweekly. It might already be on their list to add. And if it’s not, guess what?

The staff actually give a shit and react to questions and concerns. There’s entire beta groups to talk about features with bugs, and/or features that should be added or adjusted. There’s a comm to talk directly to the staff about things.

A small, young platform needs people willing to be out there saying what would improve the experience. So if you go there, you’re not just fandom pioneers, you’re social media pioneers if you so choose to be. It’s not mandatory. You can just fan in your space how you want. Or you can go to the beta groups and staff groups and tell them what you think would improve the experience.

And again, it’s okay if you aren’t willing to move right now.

I’m not moving entirely. I’m double blogging, and will return to my regularly scheduled blogging on tumblr here soon, now that my life is calming down and I got most of my PF heavy lifting out of the way. But I want to make a nest in case this does pan out to be the next forward horizon, rather than taking a step back to something like Dreamwidth that segregates us all again. I want to help them build that platform.

But I’ll still be here with you guys.

But if you’ve felt like friends are abandoning you

Please try to understand the history, please understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, and just try to encourage them to cross blog where you can/will engage. And if you’re feeling daring one day? Try to poke your head into PF.

I have one remaining key that I’m willing to give a really good fandom creator. I gave one to a meta-mind and I’d like this to go to a heavy, inclusive gif creator, because that’s still a sparse art on PF. You’d be the belle of the ball just for crossposting your work, in a place that DOESN’T have a threat of it getting deleted when tumblr throws a hissyfit. Just post on both. Tada. Suddenly you’re the popular kid.

If you’re interested, if you poke your head in, check my recent post listing communities that are growing rapidly and the ilk to know where to get your feet wet. Or send me a DM. I’ll help.

We good? Cool.

#supernatural #fandom #fandom history #pillowfort #tumblr exodus #livejournal apocalypse

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carcinoaquarium · 7 years

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alright kk, don't say i didn't warn you lmao: Dearest Karkat, I am the anon whom you blessed with that dragon age tangent and i was bettered for it bc that tangent was great. When I played da:i I knew jack-all about the characters and literally only chose to be an elven female bc she had the most romantic options and I was going in thinking 'hell yeah imma romance the first available qunari of the series, you kidding me?' (1/7)

And then i chatted w solas and the literal first 'flirt' option w him is to tell him you aren't going to harass him for being an apostate and that was so /sad/ to think about, like he's so...lonely? Not to mention his greatest fear is dying alone?? Also he was hella intelligent and had interesting conversations and was suave as fuck, and I ended up being like "iron bull who?" and got my hEART RIPPED FROM MY CHEST, OW because solas has gotta be one of my fave villains in media to date. (2/7)

Also loghain, whom I didn't really appreciate until after I'd beheaded him. Whoops. Actually, I'd love to keep talking to you about dragon age?? i haven't been able to chat w a new(ish) fan in ages and these games have such depth. (also, dorian was absolutely my inquisitor's moirail, too, tbh. Although that's technically a romantic relationship, and Dorian is gay...? They're def BFFLs, tho, once Dorian was less racist against elves. Everyone in dai was kinda racist against elves.) (3/7)

Actually, elf Inquisitors kind of got a really fucking short stick in da:i. Not only did all of thedas hate them for being an elf, but there wasn't a single elf in that party that didn't challenge and beat on their religion (which is worse if they weren't already questioning it, as my inquisitor was), and even the people you can date don't seem to comfort you once your entire understanding of the world comes crashing down around your eyes. (4/7) (shit, i might hit the ask limit)

To a lesser extent this happens to the dwarves, too! Like, idk if you played the Descent dlc, but spoiler-free the dwarven religion is kind of picked apart and in the Tresspasser sequel we find out the ancient elves did a lot of shitty subjugating of the dwarven race, and not to mention the qunari are implied to be a race made through scientific genetic SPLICING of human and/or elven genes with fucking /dragons/, and it's like?? Man, give these fantasy races a break. (5/7)

Humans were the only ones who weren't really fucked with, they just kinda showed up from the north and invaded thedas while all that other political stuff was going on. But playing as a human's always seemed so boring to me, lmao. Did you play DA:O and DA2, too? (6/7) I feel like 200% nerd power right now,but the amount of effort and heart bioware put into these games is fascinating and i can't help but love dissecting it. Feel free to respond in private if u don't wanna clog ur blog w DA. (7/7)

YES. LET’S DO THIS. PROBABLY GOING TO BE A LONG REPLY SO I’LL READ MORE THIS SHIT.

ALTHOUGH I ONLY PERSONALLY PLAYED THROUGH ONE ROMANCE I OF COURSE HAD TO WATCH ALL OF THE COMPILATIONS ON YOUTUBE BECAUSE THAT’S JUST THE KIND OF GLUTTON I AM. SO YEAH. I AM FAMILIAR WITH SOLAS’ ROMANCE ARC. AND MAN I HAVE TO SAY YOU HAD TO BE MASOCHISTIC AS HELL TO RIDE THAT ONE OUT AND ENDURE THE MOST HEARTBREAKING OUTCOME OF THEM ALL. BLACKWALL WAS BAD ENOUGH, BUT AT LEAST, YOU KNOW, IT GETS BETTER IF YOU CHOOSE IT TO.

DON’T GET ME WRONG, IT PLAYED OUT BEAUTIFULLY. BUT SADFPSDHFHSDF I WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN ABLE SEE THAT THROUGH.

AND I SERIOUSLY DID NOT SEE SOLAS’ TURN COMING. IT WAS AMAZING. HE WAS SO CONVINCING THE ENTIRE TIME. JUST THE BOOKISH APOSTATE ELF WHO LIKED TO PAINT MURALS AND FANBOY OVER THE FADE IN IAMBIC PENTAMETER. FUCKING. IAMBIC. PENTAMETER. THAT WAS PRETTY AMAZING. ERIDAN APPRECIATED THAT. ALTHOUGH IT WAS HARD NOT TO THINK OF SOLLUX WHEN WE SAID HIS NAME. ESPECIALLY ERIDAN.

fuckin sol

BUT HOLY SHIT. I NEVER SAW IT COMING. AND YET WHEN YOU PLAYTHROUGH A SECOND TIME YOU SEE ALL THE LITTLE HINTS. MY SECOND PLAYTHROUGH WAS FULL OF ME SCREAMING AT THE SCREEN

“OOOOOH, SUUUUUUURE. TELL ME YOUR VAGUE ASS REASON FOR BEING HERE AGAIN, YOU LYING PIECE OF SHIT.”

“I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, DREAD WOLF. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE.”

“YOU KNOW WHAT? THE FADE IS BORING. SPIRITS ARE BORING.”

“MAYBE I SHOULD SKIP THESE ELVEN PUZZLES THIS TIME, EGGSPONGE. OR MAYBE PISS IN THIS WELL. OR FIGHT THE IMMORTAL ELF DUDE. HMMMM??"

“I’M RUBBING MY BULGE AAAAALLL OVER THIS FEN’HAREL STATUE. YEAH. THAT’S RIGHT. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT??”

“WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO GIVE YOU A *HAND* WITH THAT QUEST??? OH I BET YOU WOULD.”

SERIOUSLY THOUGH I THOUGHT THE WAY SOLAS’ CHARACTER ARC UNROLLED WAS MASTERFUL. THE WAY HE PULLS THE INQUISITOR ASIDE NEAR THE END OF THE MAIN GAME TO TELL THEM THAT THEY EXCEEDED HIS EXPECTATIONS AND THAT HE TRULY VALUES THEM AS A FRIEND... I DON’T THINK I’LL EVER REALLY KNOW IF HE MEANT IT BUT I LIKE TO THINK HE DID. AND THAT IT GENUINELY SURPRISED HIM THAT THE PERSON HE WAS OUT TO MANIPULATE NEARLY CHANGED HIS WORLD VIEW IN THE END. THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE A THREE DIMENSIONAL ANTAGONIST.

FFFF. THE RACE SHENANIGANS. DRAGON AGE AND SKYRIM REALLY LIKE TO PLAY UP THE DISCRIMINATION AND OUTRIGHT PERSECUTION OF ELVES, WHICH STANDS IN SHARP CONTRAST TO THE TOLKIENIAN LORE IT ALL STEMS FROM WHERE ELVES ARE (MOSTLY) POWERFUL AND RESPECTED AMONG HUMANS. I LIKE IT THOUGH. IT’S AN INTERESTING SPIN. THE DWARF HATE TOO. I FUCKING LOVED THE WAY THE ORLEASIAN COURT NOT-SO-COVERTLY THREW SHADE AT YOU IN THE WINTER PALACE FOR BEING A DIRTY LOWBLOOD INFERIOR RACE. IT MADE PUTTING THEM ALL IN THEIR PLACE A WHOLE LOT SWEETER. AGAIN. WISH FULFILLMENT.

I HAVE TO AGREE THOUGH THAT THE GAME SOMETIMES KIND OF DID A SHITTY JOB OF ACKNOWLEDGING THE ELF AND DWARF INQUISITORS’ PERSONAL STRUGGLES WITH THEIR RACE, AND I GUESS THAT COMES DOWN TO THE SHIPLOAD OF DIALOGUE CUSTOMIZATION THE DEVS ALREADY HAD ON THEIR PLATE. I REMEMBER BEING ESPECIALLY PISSED OFF TALKING TO DAGNA WHERE SHE FUCKING SEEMED TO FORGET NELLIE WAS *ALSO* A DWARF HALF THE FUCKING TIME.

AND THEN OTHER TIMES THE GAME WAS RANDOMLY REALLY GOOD IN THAT REGARD. IT WAS HIT AND MISS. ERIDAN DID AN ELF PLAYTHROUGH THAT I SAT IN ON AND I REMEMBER HOW COOL IT WAS BEING ABLE TO INTERACT WITH THE DALISH CLAN IN THAT INSIDER KIND OF WAY. BUT IT’S TRUE THAT PRETTY MUCH NONE OF THE ROMANTIC INTERESTS GIVE YOUR RACE MORE THAN *ONE* PASSING MENTION. CULLEN’S ROMANCE WITH A MAGE PLAYS WAY MORE HEAVILY INTO THINGS THAN SAY THE FACT THAT MALE LAVELLAN CAN DATE A GODDAMN *TEVINTER* ALTUS AND THE SLAVE THING IS BROUGHT UP A GRAND TOTAL OF ONCE.

AND AS A SIDENOTE THE FACT THAT IF YOU CHOOSE THE NECROMANCER MAGE SPECIALIZATION, DORIAN-THE-GOD-DAMN-NECROMANCER HAS FUCK ALL TO SAY ABOUT IT. EVEN IF YOU ROMANCE HIM. WHICH AMPORA DID. AND HE WAS PISSED.

SPEAKING OF AMPORA, HE ACTUALLY DID ROLL A HUMAN AT FIRST, BUT FIVE MINUTES IN HE WAS SO BORED WITH HIS CHARACTER HE ALMOST GAVE UP THE GAME FOR GOOD. SO YEAH. I FEEL YOU THERE.

BUT YEAH. THE SUGAR COATING ON THE CONFECTIONERY ITEM IS DEFINITELY THE FACT THAT THE GAME HINGES ON BASICALLY SOLAS DESTROYING DALISH LEGITIMACY. AND AS A DALISH INQUISITOR IT’S LIKE. OH. OK. SURE. MY LIFE WAS A LIE. NO BIG DEAL. NOW WHO’S READY FOR A VACATION IN TEVINTER BECAUSE BOY HOWDY ME AND MY QUNARI FRIEND ARE DOWN FOR SOME FIRST CLASS NORTHERN HOSPITALITY.

AS MUCH AS I CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT A LOT OF IT I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I NEVER PLAYED THE PREVIOUS GAMES BUT I ABSORBED THE DRAGON AGE WIKI AND I THINK I HAVE A PRETTY GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT WENT DOWN. I HAVE DA:O AND I DO PLAN ON PLAYING IT SOME TIME.

THE SADDEST PART IS THAT IT SEEMS PRETTY CERTAIN THAT THE SERIES IS PERMA-DEAD. AND I ACTUALLY WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO WHERE THEY SEEMED TO BE TAKING IT. IT’S A FUCKING SHAME.

#DA:I #DRAGON AGE #KARKAT VANTAS #INQUISITION #saccharineomens

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