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vurbubera · 5 years

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What happened with i-am-a-fish? A compilation:

A lot of people are confused about what happened with Tumblr user i-am-a-fish (who I'll refer to as Fish from here on out for the sake of readability), and a lot of rumor, misinformation and hyperbole is circulating. With this post I hope to compile the claims and evidence against him, examine their validity, and hopefully bring everyone up to speed.

Let's get the main thing out of the way first:

Veggiefact is a Twitter account with over 270k followers.

The callout post it references is this one: https://ratsofftoya.tumblr.com/post/189087352976/this-is-a-repost-since-just-making-an-addition-to. A second call-out is making the rounds too, from bubblegumlopunny, and it’s a Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gv0ixX_jw9geWxFc07b9En--AGHcTqVBO1E6TLGLhHI/edit

Both callouts share about 90% of the same information. Bubblegum’s callout includes accusations of racism and lesbophobia as well, and more incendiary language and questionable charges than the Tumblr post, but in this post I’ll only focus on the accusations that Fish is a pedophile.

The child porn accounts on Twitter

The “child porn accounts” it refers to are @krskiii, @Karbuitt and @kamawanu__. The last one is actually safe for work, provided you work at a place that’s cool with you being on Twitter, and the second-to-last one sort-of is, depending how your boss feels about suggestive pin-ups and sex jokes.

Kamawanu posts fanart of various fandoms, but mostly fanart of Rick & Morty and Into the Spider-Verse. Kamawanu is an incest shipper, although they keep that content to a separate, adult-only and locked account. Karbuitt posts artwork of various Nintendo characters, but in particular Viridi from Kid Icarus. Neither of these accounts can be argued to be "dedicated to child porn" in any capacity.

Although some Tumblr users would argue in earnest this is child porn as well.

Krskiii is the only account to have posted questionable content. While the vast majority of their feed is cute, safe for work anime art, they posted lolicon back in januari this year. Both callouts include a second screenshot from a tweet made in 2016 as well.

Was this something Fish reasonably could’ve known about? According to the callout in the Google doc:

This is straight-up untrue.

Not only is it perfectly possible to follow Twitters without checking them first (and many follow-for-follow Twitters operate this way) but even if you do vet accounts, there is no archive or tags like Tumblr has to conveniently show you what kind of content you can expect. You have to manually scroll through a person’s timeline or media tab to see what they post.

You’d only see their most recent tweets, not ones they made almost a damn year ago.

Fish followed this account in a follow-spree that had him hit the follow limit for the day on November 12th, almost a whole year after it was made. Fish's claim that he didn't know about these pictures is not only perfectly believable; it’s unlikely that he would’ve even known about it unles he'd dug through this person's media tab quite far.

This is not the behaviour of someone who curated their following list and carefully vetted everyone on it.

Was this irresponsible behaviour of him, towards both himself and his followers? Sure, you can make that argument. But it’s not evidence for anything more sinister than that.

The Pornhub joke

If you’re still on Tumblr in 2019, you were probably around for the porn purge of 2018, the one that had everyone scrambling for a new online home. With how few alternatives there are of social media sites that allow NSFW content, people started discussing, mostly as a joke, the possibility of moving to Pornhub. It was enough of a Thing that Pornhub's social media department caught wind of it.

I-am-a-fish decided to get in on the joke and created a Pornhub account and posted about “relocating” on Twitter and Tumblr:

How zany! A goldfish on a porn site!

People voiced discomfort over it, so Fish deleted the links from Tumblr and the Twitter bio, but didn't delete the tweet. The Pornhub account itself seems to have never been used.

The sex joke

Part of the callout post is the claim Fish “deliberately exposes minors to porn”, this + the Pornhub thing is what they're referring to.

At some point in late 2018 or early 2019 Fish decided this wasn't the direction he wanted to take his blog into, changed the original post, deleted the reblogs, and hasn't posted nsfw content since.

Also this happened a year ago.

The Discord server

Fish briefly ran a Discord server with a strict no-bullying policy that applied to everyone. This is not a political stance, but it was turned into one. This counts as “believing in reverse oppression”:

Most of the mods were adults, which is supposedly creepy:

One of them thought shipping characters who have been aged-up into adulthood isn't paedophilia:

Someone on the server thought “pedophilia” is a sexuality:

One thing to note here is that none of these actually involve Fish's own thoughts or actions, just those of people he's vaguely associated with (is Mother Allspite a close friend? An acquintance? Someone who volunteered to help moderate the chat?), as well as complete strangers. He's being associated with statements people have made who have no connection to him whatsoever.

Here are the claims I’ve seen making the rounds about the Discord server of which I’ve seen no evidence:

That the mods supported pedophilia

That the mods themselves were pedophiles

That pedophilia was treated as a sexuality you could tag yourself with

That the server was full of pedophiles

The claim that the server mixed minors with adults and didn’t section off nsfw content/discussion is at least a believable one, so I’m not including it here. It’s not proof of anyone being a pedophile, however. It just means the Discord server was poorly managed.

What to make of this?

There is no proof that Fish is anything worse than a young adult (despite the callout posts all making a huge deal out of him being an adult, he's still only 19 years old) who got too popular too fast and didn’t understand the responsibility that came with that. Even for his “worst” offenses there is no proof of ill intent behind them. At worst there is poor judgment, irresponsibility, and impulsiveness. There is certainly no proof that he is attracted to children, much less that he ever acted on it.

Nevertheless,

(I have no idea where the “20+ Twitters dedicated to child porn” claim comes from and found no evidence whatsoever to support it)

#i-am-a-fish #i am a fish #fishcourse #callout post #signal boost #discourse

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kevv · 4 years

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a goodbye letter- abandoning current social media

i'm not the best at writing out my thoughts. forgive me if this feels scrambled and scraped together. my best friend, Fox, once said in abridged words; "it takes two to play out an abandonment fantasy, one to have it, and the other to follow suit".

i've known several handfuls of people who fear abandonment, or more specifically, being the one abandoned; scared that one day everyone in their life will take leave. and sometimes, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, they do. they leave in mass exodus, set into motion by one person who wants to set-forth their own abandonment fantasy– abandoning everyone else.

for me, my own fear of abandonment is not anyone abandoning me, i'm unbothered by people entering my life and leaving of their own accord; i'm scared i'll be the one to abandon everyone in my life. because i have. several times. i still do, even. i'll meet people in my lifetime that i loved harder than the universe itself, a deep love so terrifying i feel that it'll demolish cities and townships, friends and lovers and found-family. my skin will buzz and blaze alight with such an intense fear, a fear that i will ruin them and everything they are so i must run. it's unfounded, but it drives me away, and i fight tooth and nail to get to that escape route for those who won't let me leave quietly, until it ends in disaster. it's my own abandonment fantasy. i recall once, an ex-lover wanted me to stay. tried to lock the door and toss away the key, and said it hurt that i wanted an out. so i caused problems until i could break out through the window. not being allowed an option to leave made me feel like a feral, caged animal; because in the end, that's all i am. i hadn't done it on purpose. the need to escape everything had been there months prior. the events leading up to it had been fuzzy at best, sickly at worst, and i had been spoonfed misinformation. not on purpose, not in malicious intent, but still it struck genuine fear in my heart. like a feral animal, i want the option to roam. to come and go as i please. i can't be kept, i just want the trust that i'll find my way back eventually. if i feel contained, i scratch and bite until i'm released. but if you hold out your hand and wait patiently, i'll come to you. but don't ask me to stay. please don't ask me to stay. there's a lot that lead up to this current migration. the inability to be allowed to stand on my own two-feet and exist as just purely Kevin, not adjacent to someone, was a big one. still to this day i am asked about a youtuber i am no longer affiliated with by my own choice. i don't like attention, it's something i've said to her, said to many, and why i chose to never appear in her videos. which seems contradictory for an artist who posts on social media and previously did all of her older channel art. but maybe now i'm realizing that truthfully, i wanted recognition for me, not for others or for who i made myself sick in order to create content for. it's inescapable. i harbor no hard feelings anymore, i understand i was in the peak of my codependency and was willing to ruin myself for the benefit of another. to run myself broke and dry because at 19 years old i was still a child who didn't know how to handle the extent of his emotions. i want to apologize to penny. neither of us are really blameless, but we were inexperienced and young– still young. it's easy to not know what we're doing, to unintentionally take advantage of someone who was willing to burn themselves to give you warmth, or to latch onto an unfounded rumor and bare my teeth. i hope you're doing well, and i'm sorry. i'd like to give you a proper apology one day, when i'm more ready. that day is not today. sometimes i feel like there are four people living inside my brain, all with dissenting opinions and voices that i can't tell who i am anymore. i feel like i'm constantly contradicting myself because i don't know what my own thoughts are. i don't know who i am anymore. i don't know who i am anymore because i'm several different people all trying to be "kevin", all with different beliefs that go against a previous one. i prematurely deleted my twitter account for this reason, i couldn't stand a second more of being in a toxicity cycle i had previously taken part in, because sometimes that's all social media is. it's very... Online. i want to be one, unified person. whose thoughts and feelings are unadulterated by others surrounding him. additionally, there's the elephant in the room. some have already guessed it, suspected it, saw something like it coming from miles away. but for others who have known me for the past decade, it might be a surprise. someone once told me that words have power, and while at the time i disagreed, i'm starting to understand what she meant now. i've been afraid to speak it into existence, because it means it's real, and coming to terms with this unavoidable truth is a terrifying experience, one i need to face and stop running away from.

i'm detransitioning. giving life to this phrase doesn't make me feel any better. words have power, and that power is to make me crumble and break. since as early as 4 years old, i felt as if i was born a boy who was just being raised as a girl. at 12 was when i learned about and started identifying as transgender. at 18 i legally changed my name. for a decade, i lived as a transgender man. i've mentioned this before, but i'm intersex. i have an androgen insensitivity syndrome. what this means is that androgens, male sex hormones, have no effect on me. they instantly are reconverted back into estrogen by my body. this has been a reoccurring nightmare of mine since i was 14, and having it become my reality is.. heartbreaking, to say the least, crushing a lifetime of dreams and wishes. i've tried testosterone, self-medicated in my teen years, and "officially" more recently. it has no effect on me. a friend of mine says i shouldn't give up hope until i properly see an endocrinologist about HRT, but the reality is– i know my body, and i know my condition. i don't grow body hair, and my body cannot masculinize. these are unavoidable truths. i don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to be told what i already know. HRT will not affect me; i will never be able to transition. any attempt will become a scientific study in which i'm a guinea pig. i don't want that. i will never pass for male. my voice is high, my body is undoubtably female, my face is feminine, and i'm 4'11". it's disheartening and i've shed many tears over it. for what feels like my whole life, i've longed for SRS/GRS, top surgery, a deeper voice, and a couple inches of height. i ache for body hair, masculine fat redistribution, and male pattern baldness. all the good and the bad associated with testosterone is what i so desperately yearn for with such a soul-crushing depravity. i am genuinely heartbroken. maybe it's my punishment for all the bad things i've believed in or done. it's what i'd deserve, i guess. this punishment. it is for those reasons that i feel like i can no longer find comfort in identifying as ftm, to struggle seeing myself as a man. it's crazy, i've referred to myself as male since early childhood, and now that i'm coming to terms with my intersex condition am i feeling wrong in every conceivably way of identity. truthfully, i don't even identify as anything anymore. i'm not nonbinary, cis, or i guess trans. i feel as if i just exist. i just am. you can still call me kevin. it's my name, my legal name– which i love to point out. i'm not changing it. it's the first time i made a decision purely for myself, and went through with it. i love my name. i don't think i will love anything about myself quite like my name. i chose it when i was 12, it was my first choice. i never wanted another name. i still don't. but i like nicknames, particularly kitty and K-K. you can call me those too. these have always been options available. i reiterate– i really like being called nicknames. (: you can still use male pronouns for me. i never minded being "misgendered" because, well, i never passed, and i made peace with that years and years ago. while being called she/her or otherwise will probably always leave a stale taste in my mouth, i've learned to accept the reality of what i am a long time ago. biologically female. you can still use male identifiers for me, like husband or boyfriend or whatever other male terms there are...... actually you'll have to pry those out of my cold dead hands. i will not accept being called a "girlfriend" i will literally go feral and foam at the mouth and bite your ankles until you take it back. there's comfort in these things that i'm not ready to let go of, and frankly, i don't think i'll ever feel ready to. moving forward, i don't really know what i'm going to do. right now i'm taking a break from the internet, so i can soul-search and truly find myself, in all senses of the word and every iteration that it can be built upon. i'll make a new twitter account when i'm ready to, probably. there's a lot more i want to say, to add onto this in addendum, and pour so much of myself into this until it spills out the sides and trickles down into tiny cracks. but truthfully, i don't know how to say it. i don't know its relevancy to this eulogy of an account, and quite honestly, there are still some things i can't find myself able to say. to speak into existence. to give power to those words. admitting aloud to a 6-year long love that burnt like candles catching a home on fire was intense enough (hi Charlotte it's you, it's you and it's always been you and everyone knows this). so maybe i'd rather keep some things to myself, perhaps. preferably. so i guess that's it. i've bared my heart and soul and skin and bones to whoever will read this piece of myself. it's the end to katidoj, one that's been a longtime coming. i've never been very good at staying in one place for very long. please take care, i love you. and i'll miss you. a piece of my heart left with you, here buried deep in this account. (pressing the submit button has never been so hard in my life.)

#goodbye. i hope to be a better version of myself the next time we meet.

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vurbuberan · 5 years

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What happened with i-am-a-fish? A compilation:

Let's get the main thing out of the way first:

Veggiefact is a Twitter account with over 270k followers.

The child porn accounts on Twitter

Although some Tumblr users would argue in earnest this is child porn as well.

Krskiii is the only account to have posted questionable content. While the vast majority of their feed is cute, safe for work anime art, they posted lolicon back in january this year. Both callouts include a second screenshot from a tweet made in 2016 as well.

Was this something Fish reasonably could’ve known about? According to the callout in the Google doc:

This is straight-up untrue.

Not only is it perfectly possible to follow Twitters without checking them first (and many follow-for-follow Twitters operate this way) but even if you do vet accounts, there is no archive page or tags like Tumblr has to conveniently show you what kind of content you can expect. You have to manually scroll through a person’s timeline or media tab to see what they post.

You’d only see their most recent tweets, not ones they made almost a damn year ago.

This is not the behaviour of someone who curated their following list and carefully vetted everyone on it.

Was this irresponsible behaviour of him, towards both himself and his followers? Sure, you can make that argument. But it’s not evidence for anything more sinister than that.

The Pornhub joke

I-am-a-fish decided to get in on the joke and created a Pornhub account and posted about “relocating” on Twitter and Tumblr:

How zany! A goldfish on a porn site!

People voiced discomfort over it, so Fish deleted the links from Tumblr and the Twitter bio, but didn't delete the tweet. The Pornhub account itself seems to have never been used.

The sex joke

Part of the callout post is the claim Fish “deliberately exposes minors to porn”, this + the Pornhub thing is what they're referring to.

At some point in late 2018 or early 2019 Fish decided this wasn't the direction he wanted to take his blog into, changed the original post, deleted the reblogs, and hasn't posted nsfw content since.

Also this happened a year ago.

The Discord server

Most of the mods were adults, which is supposedly creepy:

One of them thought shipping characters who have been aged-up into adulthood isn't paedophilia:

Someone on the server thought “pedophilia” is a sexuality:

Here are the claims I’ve seen making the rounds about the Discord server of which I’ve seen no evidence:

That the mods supported pedophilia

That the mods themselves were pedophiles

That pedophilia was treated as a sexuality you could tag yourself with

That the server was full of pedophiles

What to make of this?

There is no proof that Fish is anything more than a young adult (despite the callout posts all making a huge deal out of him being an adult, he's still only 19 years old) who got too popular too fast and didn’t understand the responsibility that came with that. Even for his “worst” offenses there is no proof of ill intent behind them. At worst there is poor judgment, irresponsibility, and impulsiveness. There is certainly no proof that he is attracted to children, much less that he ever acted on it.

Nevertheless,

(I have no idea where the “20+ Twitters dedicated to child porn” claim comes from and found no evidence whatsoever to support it)

#i-am-a-fish #i am a fish #fishcourse #discourse #callout post

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goffilolo · 5 years

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Demise!Izuku as a Youtuber?

Yep! You heard me right. Demise server is a strange little land, full of strange little ideas, unfortunitely this one idea in particular wasn’t so little. So without further ado here’s all the shit we came up with in the server in regards to izuku as a youtuber within demise!au:

If Izuku was a YouTuber can you imagine the fucking chaos dumpster fire his channel would be

He's be like an edgy twink Jenna marbles(edited)

Doing Me time every damn day

bandit is jennas dogs

tenya is julien

He'd have weird ass videos like dipping bandits feet in red pet dye then putting a sign on him that says "you pet and you'll meet the last person who dared to"(edited)

And he's also make videos about him breaking into UA and interrupting classes and stuff

"hey gamers, today we're breaking into UA to see my boyfriend and read all of my friend's secret files"

And a video just of him filing Aizawa in weird places and at the end putting him on an inflatable mattress and watching him float away

He wakes up in Canada

They don't know how or why

He just attaches a go-pro to trash bandit and let's him run wild. He probably has a seriesJust letting him loose in weird places

DONT LET TRASH BANDIT EAT AIZAWA'S SLEEPING BAG AT 3AM | VERY SCARY"hey guys so today ill be doing the 'How many bottles of quil can i steal before i get caught by Tsukabitch' challange. feel free to make a video of your own!"

He probably dyes Bandit according to holidays and puts him as the profile picture. The kicker is, he only does it for holidays that his country doesn't celebrate

Like 4th of july

And Canada day

"Hewo soulless fuckers it is me your overlord, King of the soulless fuckers. Today I'll be going up to people in the streets and telling them that I killed God and Satan. But y'all know me, that's not enough. So I'll be asking them which one I killed first and if they get it wrong I take a shot of quil. The quil I'll be taking is the plain ol kind so don't worry your little marshmallow heads about it."

He only makes text posts in OwO speak this just makes me realise demise!izuku would make a great youtuber

He would twitch stream all the time doing the weirdest shit for hours on end

"what is up gamews! today i wiww be weviewing the new game cawwed life! i have been pwaying it fow about 16 yeaws now and i have to say it's pwetty bad my guys!"

I feel like he'd be absurdly popular and whenever someone mentions him and they look up the channel they are like "wth have I stumbled upon?!"

I'm just imagining what his front page would look like

The seasonal trash bandit profile picture, the banner would be a flaming hellscape with people he dislikes burning and trash bandit looming on low opacity in the background

(He made it so that only people who view it on TV get the full experience.)

He probably has his own segment on buzzfeed unsolved

Not talking

Its about him

The intro video would just be him staring into the camera while mixing together a horrible concoction of quil then downing it without breaking eye contact(edited)

His about section is written in 3 different types of code and it's all in owo if you manage to crack it

i love demise|!izuku as a youtube cryptid

Clown Speak and OwO speak mixed together

I feel like in the beginning Izuku was this obscure YouTuber that you only find out about if someone in the know tells you about it until a bigger YouTuber found him out on a deep dive video and just couldn't stop watching yes

i imagine once he gets big people from react channel would invite him to react to videos of people reacting to his videos

What if in one of his videos he started acting like his old self just to freak everyone out. He didn't say anything about it instead he talked about hero analysis with a bright smile and trail off into muttering a few times only to blush when he realized it. He have his hair in a ponytail with only bangs framing his face and some messy pieces falling out. Also her be wearing something plain but like old Izuku, maybe hero merch or something. The comment section was just people flipping out and shit

He never acknowledges the video after he made it

No matter how many comments he gets he acts like it doesn't exist

omg you know wha tthat would actually allign with the demise and canon swap places for a da

yand you know what that gives me a lot of feels

the millions of subscribers get to see the old izuku

Maybe after a milestone he would post a video he made in middle school of him analyzing a quirk in video format to make sure it wouldn't get destroyed

And he put a couple videos of younger him after it

But it starts being supporting Izuku

And his present and past self and stuff

PEOPLE MAKE FAN ART first Its all full of trash and memes

What if that picture of canon Izuku meeting demise Izuku was a fan art someone made of his old self meeting the new him

Kids from his class kinda Piecing together they really screwed up?Some even sending in apologies, perhaps

For mental health day I could see him posting a serious video about what he went through and his time in the mental hospital

And on national stop bullying day he would talk about his decade of abuse including the details of how the school and teachers fucked up and everything aboutbakugou

izuku using youtrube for shitposting and advocating

And for mothers day he features both Rei and Inko?

Endeavor exposure video

What if Rei helped edit or something?To help pass the time for her

Give her something to do

People love the mysterious editor

I feel like villains watch his content like maybe Dabi

rei and fuyumi sometimes make appearances

Dabi just shows up in the videos

Quickly become faves

I feel like Dabi would become a fan and start crying after seeing his mom happy in one of Izuku's videos

"...and this is rei, my hospital mom and this if fuyumi, her daughter so like my sister she helps me keep my shit together and sometimes gives me quil.."

dabi crying from seeing his mom happy in some lunatic's youtube videos

“...and this is shin, dont let the looks deceive you this man went to jail"

Shin comes in and covers the cameras a lot

FATHERS DAY IS A PICTURE OF TRASH BANDIT WITH HIS DADS VOICE SCRAMBLED OVER IT

“and this is the local florida woman and her alligator

WHAT IF BNHA VERSE HAD QUIRKLESS AWARENESS WEEKizuku would go ape shit during that week

"who needs a quirk when my dad gave me a gun!"

He would give axe sharpening tips

"Remember kids! Society won't help you, so you gotta help yourself!"

he would make 'how to cook videos' except it would only be quil combos

What if one day he just put quil in the ovenand pulled out a muffin

Remeber, don't try this at home kids." makes A horrifying quil combo "rememer never ever do this even if you have a quirk that allows it." downs the horror concoction

"so today were gonna do my boyriend does my makeup challange and since both me and tenya are dumb and know nothing i borrowed my mums makeup..."

It’s a given he’s gonna do makeup tutorials. The real question is would they be good or absolutely horrendous?

good or horrendous? Both

Amazing makeup at horrendous things? Hmmm interesting

“Hey guys today I’m turning myself into a real like eldrich abomination with the help of eyeliner and glitter!”

izuku has a whole playlist of videos dedicated to tenya and UA

theyre all jsut shitposty compilations of some footage when tenya isnt looking

Even tho it looks like he couldn't give a fuck he is very selective with which footage makes it online. He's very careful at how much is revealed and makes sure no students or secret identities would be in danger with his content

izuku isnt stupid...hes jsut having a good time

Sneaking into UA highschool by hiding in pro hero eraserhead's sleeping bag | NOT CLICKBAIT

Izuku would totally play carefree and childish games while just being Izuku

Like his animal crossing series

Fucking legendary on his channel in terms of gaming

izuku's sims lets play

it's like a 10 generation long telenovela lowkey based off the todoroki family

He has no straight sims, he recreated UA and class 1a in sims

the wedding of sim izuku and sim tenya is like the biggest party in the sim neighbourhood

He creates endeavor just to lock him in a room with 50 ovens

Omg his draw my life has got to be super depressing

He'd be super blunt and monotone during his whole draw my life going through all of the abuse and bullying that he went through because of his quirklessness and also his suicide attempt and all that jazz(edited)

izuku would paint on a potato

Izuku would make a get ready with me where he does something totally batshit crazy then ends it with "Ah. Yet another day in my life."

Izuku meets Marie Kondo

“Only keep what brings you joy”

“Well this gun from my father sure brings me joy”

Knifemaking videos but with axes

Izuku decided to do a wardrobe tour and like 4 things were bloodstained which he never addressed. The most popular comment was what happened, which of course he never answered.

Izuku does these new year (like all of the questions from last year) or milestone Q+A’s/AMA's which are basically people just asking a bunch of the things he wouldn't answer or address before. A lot of his viewers write down and timestamp when he does something and doesn't address it. If you don't you'll never hear an answer.

He has his boonk gang phrase which is probably like Bandit gang or some shit like that, which he shouts while breaking into places. UA dorm rooms, UA facility office, UA, Hero Agency’s, Endeavour's bedroom (Don't ask), etc.

He has a variety of videos where he does things from different communities. For example he has a few hair tutorial and following hair tutorial videos. Same for makeup.I feel like Izuku would also have some dresses and slutty Halloween costumes that be put on in a video all while looking like someone who just had finals and was studying for 4 days straight beforehand.

At like 4AM a thought hit Izuku to have Trash Bandit meet Kouta for the first time and learn what his sheep talks about and what he has to say. Needless to say he took his camera, went to UA, stormed the dorms, went up to the shy kid sheep in hand, looked him dead in the eye, and asked “What is my sheep saying.” bandit speaks and Kouta goes from confused and slightly scared to disgusted and horrified. What did Bandit say? Who the fuck knows…

Izuku loves analysis and while he doesn't do it for heroes anymore when he misses it too much sometimes he does it with tv shows or other things.

Idk what yet but Izuku is weirdly good at something and only showed it on camera once. (He's casually known to be a good artist) Whatever he's good at he did it once for a video and it's in one of the most popular compilation videos of him. 15 minutes of Izuku being a cinnamon roll.

Izuku has a shit ton of videos featuring the UA kids. He has some playlists dedicated to certain ones even if all you see is the back of their head.

Any proceeds Izuku manages to get (he is popular but he gets demonetized a lot) goes to different charities for the quirkless.

He made only 1 serious cooking video on his birthday, but instead of using a knife he used an axe.

He has a video called “My sharp things (tour)” where he just shows off all of his knives and axes and shit along with a massive pair of scissors he got Momo to make.

Izuku makes videos of himself destroying endeavor merch while staring at the camera.

#demise!au #bnha #youtuber!au #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #word vomit

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letmeringabell · 5 years

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Legends Never Die - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 : Fancy Meetin’ Ya

I know, I'm posting really fast. But you've just gotta let the creative juices flow before I experience untimely burn-out that makes it harder to write. On the side-note, I really love Ada Wong's design, I think there's something just so mysterious and pretty about her design. So, imagine Vanessa as Ada.

Why Vanessa? Well, I only liked Vanessa because you could shorten it to Van. I also considered Vesper, and Diana, which I think are suitable names.

Also, can you tell I'm a fan of longing glances and slow burn? Yeah, I eat that shit up. I'm a sucker for fics of these cliches, and I always wanna die. But anyway, do tell me what you think of this chapter, whether I'm going too fast, too slow, whether i'm writing too much or too little. If you have any headcanons or scenarios, tell me now or forever hold your peace. Or do I forever hold my peace? I don't know man.

(3185 words)

AO3 link : https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806688/chapters/49454489

The flurry of sand and desert heat hadn’t been too kind on him, but when has Outworld weather been known for Southern hospitality? Nevertheless, he counts his lucky stars that he’s finally back, because the last mission has his bones ragged. The last mission hadn’t been hard, just tiresome; One of Kotal’s ‘trusted’ partner had been selling Imperial secrets behind his back, and who better but Erron Black to chase the bugger down?

Only this partner was highly elusive—Sending him high and low, left and right, and running all around to catch a whiff of the man. He had roamed from city to city, from village to village, and his target manages to sneak away at the last moment each time. The whole cat-and-mouse chase is enough to drive any man insane, but the cowboy isn’t deterred by the challenge so arrogantly posed. In fact, he waits, bides his time on the down-low patiently for any misstep by his target.

Although, a word from the wise is overdue; One must never let their guard down during a chase, especially when the predator had been the masked marauder himself.

Yet all it takes is one afternoon for the man to forget, wondering through busy markets without a care in the world, while Erron patiently stakes out in a room of one of the buildings nearby with his rifle aimed surreptitiously at the man’s head. The reminder had been fatal; All it takes is one shot, and the man falls without a sound.

The chaos that ensues after makes up for the silence in the man’s death. Everyone gathers around the corpse, and screams at the horror of the whole situation. He feels no need to wait around and collect the man’s body; The news of that man’s death will travel around, and that is proof enough that he had been successful in his headhunting. Nature had given everyone something to fall back on, and sooner or later, someone’s gotta fall on it.

And this time, it was that man’s turn to fall.

And it was his time to tap out for the night, had enough of all these games of cat-and-mouse. Gotta rest the old bones before conquering the days ahead.

Imagine his surprise when he got back to the Palace, to see the place filled to the brim with Special Forces units. He sees the Kahn having a conversation with the Commander, and saunters towards them, ignoring the hushed whispers on the sidelines.

“Hola, Miss Cassie Cage.”

“Erron, how awful it is to see you.”

“I assure you Darlin’, the feelings mutual,” He shoots back, “What brings you over to our humble abode?”

It is Kotal that cuts through their ‘cordial’ banter, “I have invited Special Forces here to help strengthen our ties with Earthrealm. Kitana and Jade will take care of their day-to-day needs, you will overlook their sparring sessions.”

Erron glares at the Kahn, but he lets it slide – The Kahn always compensates for his time generously. It is what keeps him loyal, and motivates him to undertake all sorts of janky missions for the sovereign. There is never a dull time serving Kotal, and he appreciates the unpredictability in his missions. It keeps him preoccupied, and least of all, keeps him entertained.

He excuses himself and leaves the Kahn and Commander to their affairs. Besides, he has an errand to attend to; A drop-off of rare medicinal herbs for the doctors at the Infirmary. All of them had requested for this specific breed of Spider Lilly, said it was good for re-energizing the tired soul. He could care less about the methods used in re-creating that effect, what mattered was the results.

He doesn’t bother with knocking when he enters the Infirmary. They know it’s him by the sound of his footsteps and they scramble to surround him like moths to a flame. He hands over the flower, and they thank him profusely. Appreciation and gratitude are good for the soul, but when a man’s tired, nothing sounded more tempting than a sip of whiskey and a comfortable bed to sleep on.

He looks up and catches sight of a woman leaning against the doorway of the unused office. Short raven hair, equally dark eyes, and she stands hardly the height of Sonya nor Cassie Cage (at least, from this distance), but looks strong enough to easily throw a man over her shoulder should he look at her the wrong way – Fitting, for a person working in the Special Forces.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s easy on the eyes as well. So, he tips his hat off to her, Howdy unspoken in his greeting towards her. He knows she can’t miss it, because he catches her in the act of sizing him up as well. Yet, she seemed confused, and a little curious? Nevertheless, she seemed to return the gesture with a small nod of her own before closing the door to retreat into the room.

“Who is she?”

She is one of the Doctors from Special Forces, one of them had replied. She had been part of the Special Forces Delegation, and assigned to the medical unit in the Palace infirmary. She came to learn and bring back Outworlds treatments and cures back to Earthrealm. A question pops into his head-- Aren’t Earthrealm’s medical practice vastly different from Outworld? In Outworld, doctors use high-level magicks to heal wounds of all variety—Burns, grazes, you name it. Given the supernatural nature of Outworlds modern medicine, he highly doubts she can learn anything from these doctors who uses spells instead of science.

(Then again, the only thing he knows of medicinal remedies is when his own Pa spat whiskey into his wounds, and damn, the pain had been one sonuvabitch to swallow)

“The Valerian root helps patients deal with their anxiety, a form of sedative, one might say. But taken in large and uncontrolled amounts, only backfires and induces insomnia.”

“What about this?”

“The Goldenseal root is used as an antiseptic. Again, if consumed in large amounts, is highly poisonous and will only further irritate the eye and skin.”

“And this?”

“The Echinacea leaf is commonly used to prevent flus or colds, but long-term use could disturb the body’s immune system.”

“Basically, too much of anything is a bad thing.”

Making medicine with the herbs and plants found in Outworld is challenging. The art of making medicine in Outworld, she finds, is similar to chemistry – If she places too little of one herb, the supposed effects don’t flourish and are made redundant because it is overpowered by the potency of other herbs. Yet, if carelessness had been her approach, she could easily induce unknown side-effects, or worse, actually kill a person. Thus, the delicate balance of underwhelming and catastrophic are outcomes she monitors like a hawk.

She enjoys this side of her work nonetheless. It allows her to better understand the more traditional aspects of her work, and expand on more creative options should modern medicine fail in being readily available.

However, the paperwork, and regular inventory checks are cumbersome all the same. Her rationale is that sometimes, you’ve just got to sit through the unsavory parts of the job so that you can reap its benefits. That doesn’t mean she can’t silently complain about how uneventful some days, or how stagnant her progress in learning can be. It’s become a point of contention, and it’s only been 2 weeks since her first day in Outworld. Her hands are itching for something new to work on.

Bored eyes cast sweeping glances over the city, and of course, she catches a glimpse of the cowboy himself. Ah, today is the training session between Outworld and Special Forces’ Soldiers. He is relaxed; There is a slight slouch in his posture, and he didn’t seem too interested in the body-tossing action happening right before him. She can tell, that he is still hypervigilant – His arms are at his side, and are steadily poised beside the holsters on his pants. All it takes is one motion to swipe his pistol up, and BANG!

And as much as she hates to admit it, her thoughts do float around the masked man she had met, no, seen. She hadn’t talked to him, nor has she passed him by in the past 2 weeks. She had asked her colleagues about the man, and the responses she had gotten were strangely varied – ‘He’s the Kahn’s main headhunter’, ‘A man who knows how to drink any man under the table’, and ‘Save a horse, ride a cowboy’. The last phrase had been told, but felt unneeded. Any person’s business under the sheets, is nothing she wants to know about. Least of all, his business.

But you are curious, a small voice whispers in the back of her mind, He is the leading man shrouded in mystery and danger.

She reprimanded herself; There are other things to be curious about.

The whole day has been a bore, and its starting to make his hands itch and fret restlessly. Apparently, today’s training session had been requested by Miss Cage, what better way there is to strengthen the bonds of friendship than participating in friendly kombat? He could just shut one eye, and believe her desire for camaraderie between soldiers of two realms, but he can see through her bullshit as clear as day, and it makes him raise a wary brow at the Commander.

The logic behind her unspoken reason had been sound – It is best to fight as many types of kombatants as you can, provided that one chooses their opponents well. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can get the theory down easy. But if you don’t have the practice, the real hand-to-hand experience, one can only expect to have their asses handed to them over and over again. Face-to-face Kombat allows fighters to exercise their real-time reactions, gives them the chance to better their reflexes and recognize the precise moment to either move forward and attack, or retract and defend.

So, today is a masterclass in Outworld Kombat for the Special Forces. However, the session is but a double-edged sword. Just as the Special Forces had come to learn and observe, the army had come prepared to do the same.

His eyes search for any telltale of black within the sea of browns and blondes, and is only greeted by her absence in return. He wants to make her acquaintance, and knows that she is a doctor for the Special Forces. That doesn’t give him the right to be waltzing into her office without any sort of official business. It would only invite talks of rumors and gossip to fly around, and he would be doing them both a favor by abstaining from such behavior.

So, what’s a man to do to earn his trip to the doctor’s office without seeming like such an ass?

He looks at Miss Cage, unless, the stirrings of a brilliant idea come to mind.

“Yo, Clint Eastwood! You too chicken to step into the Kumite zone with me?”

“Put your money where that mouth is, darlin’.”

So maybe he had been a little harsh, but Cassie had no qualms with dishing out her own brand of revenge – One rapid, well-timed kick to the core followed by a solid punch to his face. A just reward for insulting a beloved father. Outworld Soldiers are surprised by his lack of vigor in the fight, but none of Special Forces are surprised that Cassie is fierce in defending her family’s honor.

His face might hurt, and his pride a little wounded, but the fight had yielded results. He is sent to the Infirmary to await doctor’s treatment.

He waits because she is out for the moment, so he takes the chance to look around the room. There is nothing out of the ordinary; There is a couch placed near the door to welcome guests (or, patients), the books are shelved back-to-back against each other, and labelled for trouble-free browsing. He finds that most of the books are medical in nature, save for a select few in herbology and astronomy. A doctor must have her hobbies, he digresses. Everything on the desk is neatly arranged with each item assigned their designated corners; stationeries in one corner and a stack of papers in the other.

He picks up the top most paper on the pile, and lets his eyes roam over the elegant handwriting. He thinks she could easily be an artist because the sketches of various flowers and herbs are so lifelike, they mimic the figure of their real-life counterpart. There are arrows pointing to formulas and possible side-effects everywhere, and although her workspace maybe organized, her notes are just a jumbled mess.

But he admires her tenacity in the research because her notes are an impressive study in Outworld’s green.

Clack!

He turns around, and speak of the devil; She is there in the flesh, and a lot taller than he remembers.

“I’m sorry for the wait. My name is Vanessa, and I will be attending to you this evening.”

She ushers him to the seat beside her table, and begins her task; She listens to his heartbeat, flashes a light into his eyes, and asks him the routine, “Where do you feel pain?” and “Does your family have a history of serious diseases?”. He answers honestly and concisely – It’s just my face, and, I reckon not. She faithfully jots down whatever he says down into a piece of paper, and reaches for something in one of the drawers.

“First off,” She starts, and he sees a medical kit being placed on the table, “I can save you the trouble and stitch your wound now, but you’re also free to leave if you don’t want my medical attention, because in my understanding, Outworld has different and better ways to treat you. So, what will it be?”

Straight to business. “Have on, Miss Vanessa.”

She moves silently and deftly—She is quick at work to prepare all of the equipment, and arranges them in immaculate order on the tray in front of her. She disinfects the problem area, before filling the syringe with a clear liquid from one of the labeled bottles, and once he nods her assent, injects the anesthesia to help numb the pain during the stitching process.

Her gloved hands move nimbly, suture in one hand and the needle holder in the other, the constant loop of entry and exit is executed with practiced ease. Her hands don’t tremble, nor do they hesitate in fear of misstep. She is sure and confident with each push-and-pull, and it assures him that she is not without skill.

He takes the time now, to take a proper and closer look at her. Her short hair accentuates the high cheekbones and angular sharpness of her facial features and her eyes are a darkened grey; a reminder of misty mornings, and ominous fog. Her skin is glass-like, clear, no visible scar or blemish in sight. He spots the light dusting of freckles on tanned skin, no doubt, a result from the sun and heat of Outworld. She is what a cat would look like in flesh and blood, a thought he keeps safely to himself.

He will admit, she is a pretty little thing. Even so, the minute slouch in her posture, the mistiness and redness in her eyes, and the prominent dark circles under them is very telling. Underneath all that loveliness, is a woman exhausted. Whether it is the research or the field work that has her running on low fuel, he reckons that she could do with a few more hours of sleep.

She starts talking, her voice a soothing cadence to distract from the obvious monotone in the environment, “How did you get these wounds?”

“A souvenir from the past assignment, a man had gotten close enough to graze me with his knife, but not smart enough to actually kill me.”

“And why does your face hurt?”

“That’s a souvenir from your Commander,” He catches the question in her eyes, and the amused tilt of her lips, “That clown and his ten-gallon mouth deserved all the insults.”

“You really are a glutton for punishment,” She chuckles, sealing the stitch shut.

She gives him the standard doctor’s order – Rest and no sudden movements, or else he would risk exposing himself to an infection due to his torn stitches. He’s heard it all, from day one until day now, but he is thankful that she keeps it short and sweet.

“Do you sleep well, Mr. Black?” She interrupts him leaving, pulls out a bottle for him to see. “You can take it, it’s free.”

“Well, look who we have here, a doctor playing crafty salesman on a hot Sunday afternoon. Nothing in this world comes for free, so what’s the catch?”

She raises her arms in mock defeat, her expression is full of mirth, and a playful smile reaches her eyes, “Okay, it’s not FDA approved yet, but I know for a fact that it works. Cassie uses it, Jacqui uses it, and a few hundred others can also attest to its success.”

He raises a curious brow at her, a sign for her to continue her sales pitch. No matter how much she tries to hide it, he can tell that she is proud of her creation, because her voice is full of it, “It helps eases tenseness, and makes sleep easier, but unlike other soporific drugs, it doesn’t bring about excessive drowsiness, so you’re still able to react appropriately to any possible threats.”

Soporific, what a five-dollar word.

But he has something else in mind, because he leans in and places both arms rigidly on the arms of her chair, effectively trapping and confining her in the tight space between his arms. He leans towards her, and stops when the gap between them is nose-to-nose. He admits that he is shameless and forward in his flirting, but he wants to see how she would respond-- would she retreat further into her seat, or would she lean forward, would she bridge the gap between them?

So, she responds, neither further nor retreating. She stays still in her position; Her hands are firmly placed in her lap, while her grey eyes are staring straight back at him, her gaze sharpening into that of gentle steel.

“Hey Van, I was wondering if you had- Oh.”

Both of them immediately turn their heads towards Jacqui, the deer in headlights. Jacqui is full of apologies, because she is standing there, stumbling over her words, and says sorry over and over again for disturbing whatever doctor-patient examination they were having, and speeds out of the room faster than the pace she came in. Jacqui’s interruption breaks whatever tension, anticipation and apprehension swimming in the room, and it calms and cools the heat between them.

The Cowboy finally stands straight, his smirk hidden behind his mask and makes his way for the door.

“I’ll see you around, Miss Vanessa.”

#erron black #Mortal kombat 11 #mortal kombat fanfiction #cassie cage #jacqui briggs #johnny cage #Erron Black x F!OC #Slow burn #Fuck-me eyes #mk 11 #mk

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murfeelee · 6 years

Photo

I just want to speak my piece and voice my hopes & concerns about the ideas for a new Sims Networking site.

Disclaimer: Despite the length of this long effing post, I know absolutely nothing about creating a website, or hosting, servers, or anything like that.

In light of Tumblr’s clear and present determination to kill its own website, many ideas are being proposed about The Sims community starting its own website. This would be a safe haven for simmers, where we can all share our content without fear of overzealous censorship and nefarious politico-economic stunts and power-plays.

Having different simmers presenting different platforms and ideas about how to get a simming network started is great, and I support anyone who pitches an idea. I don’t care who figures it out, just as long as someone does, and it’s good. But at this critical point and time what the community really needs is to not be splintered -- that’s what the problem is: that when Tumblr internally combusts we’ll all mass exodus and go our separate ways (to LJ/DW, Twitter, Blogspot, WP, etc), and we won’t all be in one place anymore. :(

There’s nothing wrong with having multiple simming networks, and having a selection of simmers-only social media outlets, not at all. We do that already, with sites like TSR & MTS, etc, that embrace content from ALL the sims games (1-4, etc), but where different preferences/standards/visions naturally lead to different websites doing their own thing separately.

But I think it’s time we as a community had one main home.

IMO, ideally, it would be one that functions like Tumblr did -- just Better and More Positive. ;) It would not be moderated by admins like the other sims sites, and instead the site runners would be there strictly for site support and maintenance. We’ve been moderating the simblr side of Tumblr all these years pretty okay -- aside from the abuse/neglect of the Tags (which I hope we could come to a more unified system with on a new site).

The new site could have all the image uploading/storage and other features we enjoy (Follows, Reblogs, Likes, Comments, IM, etc) but possibly even with an additional forum aspect, with rich text text threads & private messaging, etc. Is that at all possible?

The forum half of the site could have moderators, if only to keep the threads organized, but there would be none of that censoring crap that gets users warned/banned over stupidness like language, adult content, or my personal favorite: filesharing (especially when cc users rely on WCIFs and reuploaders to share content from dead sites and creators who delete their content for one reason or another).

I’d also love to see a return of more community events:

more Simblreen-like photo prompts & challenges for other holidays & seasons

more creative contests (like the one recreating real movie posters as sims images to get featured as new cc)

more visibility for machinimas (those mofos work HARD)

the return of sims magazines for fashion & builders & whatnot

Age and Adult Content Restrictions

The Sims is a borderline Teen/Everyone/Mature-rated game. It’s got sex and violence and crude humor and weirdness that isn’t really suitable for little kids. It's at each parent’s discretion what their kids are exposed to, but most simmers are either in their teens or older (I haven’t come across any 7 year olds playing this crazy game, at least.) As such, I don’t feel this new site should be censoring/blocking adult content and nsfw. Let the tags do their jobs -- even implement a Safe Mode & parental controls if you have to.

When it comes to what the age restrictions are, can’t y’all just have a captcha or one of those buttons you click that says you’re 13+ or whatever the age needs to be? And there are pretty cool captchas out there, too -- we don’t need something as crazy as what Thaithesims had (for those of y’all who don’t know, it was freaking nuts, trust), but there are others that ask a simple math question, or makes you to click the picture of the vegetable, or some Where’s Waldo looking thing to find all the bicycles or whatever the heck. Y’all’ve seen them, I don’t know.

Again, I don’t even know what goes into making a website, and determining what it can & cant support -- or AFFORD.

And that brings me to Money:

While it’s so exciting and heartening to see different ideas coming out now, honestly, it’s not gonna work when all y’all are all asking for money and donations. That’ll have us scrambling to fund & invest in a million different people’s ideas, until someone gets a site working that we’ll actually use.

Of course we know money is THE issue, and of course websites are Expensive AF™. But it would be more realistic for all y'all to get a site up and running, have us use it and test it out, and once the community gives it our seal of approval, then start doing donation drives to keep the site/servers funded. That’s the way fan-made ad-free sites with adult content like Archive Of Our Own do it; I’ve been subscribed there for years, and they make $100k+ every drive, it’s amazing. Sites like Wikipedia & the Wayback Machine no doubt make more. (Didn’t SimFileShare fund itself to get started? They use ads, though, which might force adult content restrictions like what’s happening with Tumblr.)

I wish I had the disposable income to give to ANY of these fantastic websites that I know and love, just to show my appreciation, but I’m dirt poor, so.... But I just feel that it really shouldn’t be up to users to fund free websites, because that’s hardly better than having to pay for subscriptions to join paid sites. I don’t even like pay for CC, or DLC, or even video games at full price. So any bid for money makes me suck my teeth a bit, frankly speaking.

In Closing:

The Sims community deserves its own space, to freely express ourselves.

The Sims is unique from any other game ever made, because simmers create the stories, simmers create the content, and simmers create the gameplay -- it’s not a linear pre-determined storyline, but a more or less open-ended open-world mechanism by which the gamer decides (and can create) everything from the characters to the plots to the locations.

We’re not just posting pictures on the official forums of our customized Lara, Shepard, Geralt, Arthur Morgan or whoever beating a level or discovering a hidden location. No. We’re creating our own characters and worlds and directives, and sharing art through images, storytelling, and custom content. And we’re sharing a bit of ourselves in the process.

Tumblr used to be the one place we could rely on to embrace our individuality, freedom of speech, agency, expression, and be part of a community that supported us and our content. I don’t want the Sims community to be fractured, and certainly not die out. Y’all have been like family to me, for the 5 years I’ve been on Tumblr, and for almost a whole decade now in the online Sims community -- 2019 will make it 10 years (which is a lot, for an antisocial psychopath like me). If Tumblr fails us, I won’t know where else to go, and it really saddens me. The Sims is a Lifestyle.

So I really hope y’all movers and shakers out there who know about web development can come together, figure things out together, and create a Better, More Positive space for us to enjoy playing and sharing our love of The Sims games.

#simblr #the sims #RANT ALERT #mini rant #murf is a derp

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qonqr · 5 years

Text

Fall Clean Up

Today I woke up an hour earlier than usual, and I awoke thinking about new code. I honestly can’t tell you the last time I felt like getting up to write code, instead of going back to bed. It must be at least a year or more.

For most of the past month, I purposely avoided writing much code for QONQR. Partly this was out of necessity. With the newly migrated server code, it is important not to add too much new code while waiting to see what was broken in the migration. Surprisingly, less broke than I expected. There was a multi-day scramble to fix some android subscription and PayPal receipt confirmation issues, but most of the other things were minor and took only a few hours to track down. The migration was far more stable than I anticipated. It is rare that 8 months of work is released all at once with so few issues.

Another very positive outcome (so far): the old mission server stopped counting launches, but the new one kept going. Hopefully we have seen the last of missions that get stuck.

The other reason for writing so little code was I needed a break from QONQR, as I alluded to in my previous blog post. However, I promptly overfilled that time with way too much other work. I coach a high school robotics team. Last week I took six students from the team on a 4-hour road trip to one of the largest tech conferences in the Midwest. There we put on an all-day camp where kids built small Raspberry Pi robots, using 3D printed and laser cut parts I designed. I spent much of my last month learning CAD, creating assemblies, writing robot code, and testing the parts and code our students would use to teach kids how to make robots. Like many entrepreneurs, taking a break doesn’t mean sitting around, but rather working on someone else’s problem. Working with the students to create a robotics camp was a chance to learn some new skills and accomplish new goals. The team is already planning our next camp this fall.

So today, the second day back from the conference, I woke with new energy. Energy for our community. I’m going to do my best to keep that forward momentum and try to spend at least part of every week working on community stuff. I firmly believe that the QONQR community is why this game has survived so long. More on that in a bit.

But first a word from our anti-hacker department (also me). If you use an app cloner, auto-clicker, root cloak, GPS spoofer, hit our API from your own software, or any other attempt to cheat or manipulate the information about your device, you will be banned. Stop emailing support asking for the account you used for 4 years be unbanned because you didn’t realize it was against the rules to clone the app so you can try to multi-scope. When you attempt to clone QONQR, you are decompiling our app and modifying it. Regardless if you think this is cheating our not because “Android makes it possible without rooting your phone”. You, the human behind the device, violated our terms of service and copyright. All your accounts are banned, not just the accounts on the hacked software.

As part of my “fall cleanup” tasks, I am finally moving our DNS. This process began yesterday and will take a week. Once complete, the old servers will be shut down, and everyone will be using the new servers. Please review my previous blog post for how that will impact the mobile clients. Here is the short list.

QONQR classic no longer supported

Android 4.4 no longer supported

Windows Phone, might break completely and won’t be fixed

Chat and sync lock mini-game definitely broken on Windows Phone

Another clean-up task that is long overdue is to take down the forums. If you didn’t know there were forums, don’t worry, very little good content has been posted in them for years. The monthly cost of the forums wasn’t painful enough for me to take action on them before and there was some good content in the forums that I was reluctant to lose. It wasn’t until I had to avoid QONQR code, that I could invest time in the old forums.

Over the weekend I was able to get a dump of the forums database. With several hours of database querying, I was able to identify nearly 24,000 spam posts, which was about 1/3 of the total content. This was the problem with the forums. It was impossible to create a good integration between the 3rd party forums and our player database. We tried once, it was expensive and broke with the very next forums upgrade. The forums were impossible to manage because we didn’t have good control of the users. In the end the forums failed because it was overrun by bad people. By the way, the creators of the forum software promote their “spam filtering” plugin, which I did have enabled.

Part of my invigoration this morning is that as I was going through the database, I saw the names of our very first players, with whom I spent hours chatting with on the forums. I saw suggestions for game features and advice given to fellow players who were struggling. I saw tutorials, art, stories, and invitations to meetup in person. I saw a connection to the broader community that I haven’t had in a long time.

I want to have a new forums site. One that we fully control. Forums where you can only post if you have launched today. Forums with abuse systems that allow the community to self-manage poor content, and consequences for behaving badly. I dream of players gaining reputation for having a positive effect on the community, and points for helping fellow players find solutions to their problems. I want those who give substantial positive impact in the forums to have recognition for that in the game.

This is a huge effort, one which I am reluctant to undertake with the other goals I had hoped to accomplish this year. However, the prospect has me excited and I want to capitalize on that energy, which I haven’t had in a very long time. Will we have new forums this year? I doubt it. Maybe we will never have the forums I want. However, I’ve been reminded that our community is key to QONQR’s success and will try to spend a little time each week on community initiatives.

If there is anything you want off the old forums, grab it this week. I have an archive of the forums and will be saving the fan art, fan fiction, and other stuff worth keeping. Not sure what I will do with it yet. Don’t post anything new in the forums, I won’t be pulling a new snapshot.

Sometimes you need to go back to the beginning to find your way forward. Thanks for being part of QONQR. Thanks for making an impact.

-Scott (aka Silver)

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kootenaygoon · 5 years

Photo

So,

The Nelson Star office was located right downtown, half a block off Baker Street, in a quaint little brick building at the top of the Stores to Shores development. It was within a short walking distance of my house, though I still drove most of the time, and right above a coffeeshop called Sidewinders that I haunted every day. Next door was a small park that desperately needed some attention, with a concrete staircase leading through a shaded forest slope strewn with garbage and scrub bushes.

The newsroom was on the second floor and was smaller than your average bedroom, which meant I was in ultra-close proximity with Calvin and the two other reporters. Downstairs was the advertising department, our front desk lady Cheryl and the publisher, Sharon Carpenter. One half of a power duo in town, Sharon worked closely with her husband Cam, who was the regional publisher. They were fiercely career-driven, well-connected socially and politically, and had recently become intimately involved in the local soccer league — which meant I was going to end up writing many, many stories about soccer.

Before the Star was born, there had been a century-old institution in town: the Nelson Daily News. Beloved throughout the Kootenays, it had crumpled under its own weight — though most people felt Black Press was to blame. The Carpenters helped finagle the deal to purchase and rename it, a move that left long-lingering resentments in the community. It was about thirty pages an issue, twice weekly, with a regular supplement called the West Kootenay Advertiser and a monthly arts publication called Vurb. When I first picked it up I noticed there were an alarming number of photos with people smiling self-righteously behind big cheques — we called them grip n’ grins — and some of the submitted copy was embarrassing, but there was also an eclectic smorgasbord of different things to read about.

As I flipped through the pages I felt myself getting giddy over the prospect of doing things in a new way. I wanted to bring my literary sensibilities into even the simplest of stories, and stamp my personality proud on the page.

Because I was hoping to create a sustainable future at the Star, I knew I had to make an effort to get along with Calvin. The real problem between Cass and Calvin, I figured, was they had incompatible personalities. Maybe it was a gender thing. It only took a day or two before I had a pretty good read on the guy, though: he was desperate to please, always making vaguely inappropriate Dad jokes, and operated in a near-constant state of panic mode. His ambition was to put in a couple of years as an editor out in the booneys, then leap-frog up to a similar post in the Lower Mainland. Calvin had come over from the Abbotsford News, and he couldn’t have been more out of place in the Kootenays. He had a round face, small glasses and a neat silver goatee. His right-wing politics matched nicely with the Carpenters’, and he was a big fan of Dooley, but I couldn’t believe the editor of a Nelson newspaper could routinely be heard murmuring “fucking hippies” and questioning whether climate change is really that big of a deal. He wore Chicago Blackhawks shirts nearly every single day, ate fast food at his desk, and often wrote his editorials in the mad-scramble final moments of production day.

He was going through a tough period in his life, routinely commuting across the province to visit family, and I knew Nelson didn’t feel like home to him. Eventually I decided he was a dude, doing his best, just like everybody else.

My favourite piece of Calvin advice had to do with job titles. He didn’t believe they should ever be capitalized, a stance which had gotten him into trouble with the public in the past.

“This one guy got so mad at me, told me ‘I’m the president of the company, you have to capitalize my title’,” Calvin said, after putting the paper to bed. He grinned, remembering.

“There just happened to be a garbage man walking by the window and I said ‘he’s the garbage man, you’re the president. I don’t capitalize his job title, why would I capitalize yours?’”

Just before I was hired the Star picked up Tamara Hynd, a world-traveling adventurer a few years older than me. She was a tall and slender brunette, with kind eyes, and an ultra-healthy lifestyle that contrasted dramatically with Calvin’s. Her journalistic instincts were on-point, and I was awed by her ability to shoulder her way into situations to get the story. She started mostly reporting on the school board — there was a teacher’s strike going on — but she also got intimately involved in the Nelson Commons project, a condo development downtown that was struggling to find buyers. She cultivated relationships quickly, was professional to a fault and fearless when it came time to bull into new surroundings. She would eventually be the first person on scene during a deadly shooting incident in Slocan, she traveled by herself to cover the Shambhala Music Festival, and she became a regular on the slopes of Whitewater Ski Resort. She knew how to do the job in ways that I was still learning, and she was entirely modest about it. Sometimes I felt sorry for her, the only woman among three dudes, but she always held her own.

Then there was Greg Nesteroff. During our drive, Cass had called him her favourite person in Nelson, and I quickly learned why. Mild-mannered and polite, he was like a character from a different time. He was easily the most respected name on our masthead, and was also well-known as a local radio personality. At first I had scoffed at some of the prose being produced at the paper, but Greg’s stories were gorgeously rendered and book-ready. He wrote historical features about characters people had never heard of, illustrated with incredible black and white photos, while also covering some of our most pressing crime stories. By the time I arrived he’d already won a number of newspaper prizes for his work, and the plaques were proudly displayed down at the front desk.

One thing I decided to do, right on my first day, was create a new personal Facebook page. I didn’t want my friends at home inundated with Nelson news, and I wanted a professional account that I could connect with any contact without worrying about them glimpsing too much of my personal life. I’d learned about social media marketing through my internship the year previous, and I was keen to mobilize those skills. I searched “Nelson, BC” and then added every organization, every business and every group I could find — effectively turning my newsfeed into a list of story ideas. I was aggressive about adding friends. My plan was to funnel all my content through my newly created Tumblr, Kootenay Goon, so I would have a digital archive of my work.

When I checked out the Star’s Facebook page, I found it barely active and seriously lacking in photos. The Twitter account was even worse. I made it a personal goal to make sure every story of mine was posted on social media, something that wasn’t currently happening in any organized way under Calvin. He was too busy with laying out the print issues while playing catch-up with his editorial duties to really give much thought to the paper’s online presence. If somebody was going to bring the Star into the 21st century, it wasn’t going to be him.

When it came to divvying up the stories, it became clear that the primary hole I was there to fill was in arts reporting. Greg had crime and city hall covered, Tamara was all over the school board, and there was a summer intern helping Calvin with the sports stuff — he himself covered all the Nelson Leafs games. I eventually learned that the arts section was routinely comprised of press releases, published exactly as submitted, that often featured the same photos being used for that organization’s advertisements. The second half of the paper was often devoid of real bylines, with the phrase “Submitted” splattered all over the page, and all these institutions in town had gotten used to funnelling their content into the paper free of any editorial interference. Annoyingly enough, that relationship was symbiotic — there was no way we’d be able to fill the whole 30 pages otherwise. I figured the more stories I wrote for the arts section, the more we could elbow out this embarrassing content and elevate our game.

Calvin gave me the task of laying out the entertainment page, a chore I quickly grew to loathe, though it introduced me to many of the organizations I would come to rely on for leads — Selkirk College, Oxygen Art Centre, the Capitol, the Civic, On the Road Management, Spiritbar and the Royal. It was often the last thing I did on production day, scouring my e-mail and the internet for details on upcoming events. I quickly figured out that the larger I laid out the picture, the less work I would have to do filling the columns. While I poured my soul into my writing and reporting, this part of the job meant nothing to me. I knew that nearly nobody was turning to the hard-copy newspaper to figure out what was going on around town, while meanwhile there were a number of online calendars that were far superior. The entertainment page was a relic of the print past, and I was interested in the digital future.

One columnist who stood out to me right away was Anne DeGrace, from the Nelson Public Library. She was in nearly every issue, and she always seemed to have some cutesy or experimental element to her prose. The woman obviously knew her way around a sentence. I would later learn that she had been a single mother who had come to Nelson decades earlier, eventually starting a bookstore called Packrat Annie’s and authoring a series of novels. She was one of the masterminds behind ArtWalk, a yearly collaboration between artists and the business community, and she was an organizer for the Elephant Mountain Literary Festival. A powerhouse. Calvin recommended that I meet her in person and I did, at Oso Negro coffeeshop a few blocks from our office. She seemed a little wary of me, perhaps because I was planning to edge in on her literary niche, but happy to share her expertise. She told me stories about the Nelson Daily News before it died, and about how editor Rob Wall was the only one to successfully make the transition to the Star. According to her, people were still getting used to the new paper in town. There was animosity, for sure. She told me no matter what kind of journalist I was or what kind of work I did, I would be perceived as working for “The Man”. And in a community like Nelson, constructed on an ethos of default defiance and grassroots activism, that was tantamount to being the enemy. She sipped her coffee.

“Now you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The Kootenay Goon

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shirlleycoyle · 3 years

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Pornhub’s Content Purge Has Left Fetish Creators Wondering What’s Next

Before the purge that disappeared more than 75 percent of content on the platform, Pornhub hosted a lot of videos and photos that weren’t humans having sex. There were full-length movies, memes, and video game playthroughs that you might see on a non-adult site like Twitch, but there was also a ton of animation, 3D renderings, audio erotica, music videos, fanfic from furries and bronies, and stop-motion animation like LEGO minifigs fucking.

Pornhub became a dumping ground and safe harbor for a lot of stuff, and a lot of these creators didn't necessarily want to upload a photo of themselves to a huge porn corporation's database in order to get verified. They were just throwing things on the site for fun, to share with others in their respective communities, and the wider world. Compared to a site like Milovana (an adult message board and the birthplace of Cock Hero, videos of which are mostly gone from Pornhub now) or the furry fan art forum e621, Pornhub was a way to reach a more mainstream audience. With last week’s action, a lot of that stuff is now gone.

For victims of abusive imagery and non-consensual porn, as well as anyone who's had to deal filing takedown requests for pirated content uploaded to Pornhub, the removal of unverified content is a positive: between Pornhub's new policy for only allowing content partners and performers in the model program to upload and download, and the retroactive suspension of all this content pending review, the platform seems to be making long-overdue changes that sex workers and victim advocates alike have asked for. But by applying a blanket solution to a complex problem, it's caught small, independent creators from niche communities in its net.

Several creators told me that Pornhub's damage-control scramble has created issues for verified users, locked many unverified creators out of their own content, and left many more wondering whether there's even a future for indie and fetish works on the site.

“It was a betrayal”

In a month when sex on the internet is being attacked from all sides—from Instagram's new terms of service, to TikTok kicking sex workers off the platform, to payment processors leaving Pornhub—some creators are concerned that losing one of the most popular porn sites in the world as a platform is another blow against fetish and outside-the-mainstream content on the internet as a whole.

For a lot of creators, Pornhub's melting pot was a source of inspiration for artists, Lifty and Sylox, hosts of the Furry Frequencies podcast, told me in an email. "Many of the videos that were uploaded onto Pornhub from the furry community were sexual videos of furries partaking in sexual acts in fursuit," they said—which could include videos of furries in fullsuit with “strategically-placed holes” performing solo or with one or more partners. "Some furries perform with just their fursuit head, handpaws, and feetpaws to provide better nude content. An unverified, but significant amount of this content catered to specific fetishes of the furry community, such as feet fetishism or watersports."

"Furries won't abandon PornHub immediately," Lifty and Sylox said, noting that more creators will likely migrate to Onlyfans or communities like Furaffinity to post content. "Changes like this tend to take time before the effects can be measured… PornHub's status as a repository for one-stop furry porn content will eventually diminish significantly."

It's not just illustrators and furries who have lost Pornhub as a platform in the last week. Audio erotica creator Goddess By Night told me that she lost all of her content—about 40 videos. She's been making audio erotica for five years, and in the last two she'd made a business out of it. She makes Gentle Female Dominant and Dominant Mommy-themed stories, as well as Futanari role play and other kink-related fantasies.

"Most of my work is a niche within the adult entertainment industry, and Pornhub allowed me to reach a broader audience, so it’s a pretty significant loss," she said. "However, my community has been incredibly supportive and intend to follow me to the next platform(s) I choose. I don’t plan on returning to Pornhub because of this. It was a betrayal, especially to the loads of creators they explicitly welcomed after Tumblr’s ban two years ago. I know some creators who lost work that they may never get back because Pornhub didn’t offer a grace period."

Each of the creators I talked to, whether they were verified or unverified, said that they weren't given any warning before Pornhub's content suspension took place. Pornhub used the word "suspension," not "deletion," and told Motherboard at the time of the suspension announcement that this meant content would be "removed pending verification and review."

Creators whose content was removed saw a message in place of their uploads that explained the video was "flagged for verification" and invited them to apply for the Model Program or Content Partner Program in order to re-enable the videos, or wait for the new verification process to start in 2021.

They were locked out of their own content at that point and were unable to even download it from the platform.

When Tumblr removed all NSFW content from its platform in December 2018—similarly for allegations it hosted child sexual abuse imagery, but also to appease Apple—the social media platform gave creators about two weeks of notice to get their stuff off the site. Pornhub's announcement came at 7 a.m. EST on a Monday and went into effect immediately. By the time most people saw the news, the suspensions were underway, and more than 10 million uploads were gone by 9 a.m.

This is especially bitter news for creators who, in 2018, took Pornhub up on its invitation to move to the platform from Tumblr.

"Amusingly [Pornhub was] very happy to take advantage of the Tumblr refugees back when all that went down, inviting us to upload all our galleries there," adult content illustrator IzzyBSides told me in a Twitter message. "I think most of us on Twitter know we're living on borrowed time, people have backup accounts set up and occasionally plug them to their followers letting them know to follow it in case their main account randomly disappears overnight."

Because the mass suspensions were meant as a broad solution to get unlawful, abusive content on the site under control, allowing users to download their content would miss the point of stopping the spread of any abusive imagery. But the move also meant that a lot of content that wasn’t abusive and fell well within Pornhub's terms of service was removed in the process. People didn't have the chance to choose whether they wanted to pack their bags and go elsewhere. If they want to recover their own content, they'll have to play by Pornhub's verification rules, which have yet to be announced and won't start until sometime early next year.

One animator who asked to remain anonymous told me that they lost about 20 videos, "including story animations, which I loved very much …This was sad for me as the videos were deleted without warning," they said, but added that they luckily had a backup of their videos saved to their hard drives. "However, I didn't have any income from Pornhub, so it's okay, the videos are saved and I'll just move them to another site."

That illustrator wasn't verified, but even being a verified user didn't save some people from the purge. Pornhub's policy changes were intended to skip over verified accounts, but some users still saw their verified content taken down.

“Sex workers are under attack everywhere”

Another confusing aspect of Pornhub's cleaning spree is the effect it has had on verified creators and performers. Many have reported on Twitter that some of their verified content has been disappeared, seemingly at random, even while other uploads have stayed online. Others in the comments of Pornhub's own verification policy page say that they were verified, but now they aren't. From the outside, there seems to be no consistent reasoning for this.

Before the policy changes, there were three types of verification, according to Pornhub: Content partners, users in the model program, and verified users. The last category is now gone, and only uploads by models and content partners remain. The users reporting verification issues were likely in that last category—verified based on the old standards Pornhub used, which involved sending Pornhub a selfie with your face and holding up a sheet of paper with your name written on it. Those users are all now unverified. But inconsistencies remain.

Riley Cyriis, a performer who's been verified on Pornhub for more than a year, told me that most of her free videos and around 40 of 120 paid videos were removed, along with 20 videos she had set to private, only viewable by her.

"My best guess would be certain tags, like 'teen' or 'daddy,' but it's really just a guess," she said. "The majority of flagged videos were my most successful ones ranging from 200k to 700k views, so maybe it's just how they came up? My profile is pretty obviously made by a real person and I listed my age publicly."

She wasn't using Pornhub as a main income source (although many performers do), so she's planning to focus more on other platforms like Onlyfans and Manyvids.

Pornhub has said that it will restart the verification with new requirements in 2021. But the gap is a long time to wait if you're losing an audience and relied on the site for income. Many performers have already lost significant income due to Mastercard and Visa's decision to drop Pornhub. Performer Mary Moody said in a video about the payment processing news that she was making enough money from Modelhub to cover rent each month.

And the verification process, which still hasn't been clarified publicly by Pornhub, could bring up new issues for anyone who wants to get their content back. IzzyBSides said that they'd received verification rejections before Pornhub's content purge, because their avatar—a fire sprite—obviously doesn't match their real-life face. The reason Pornhub gave for their rejection the last time, before the content suspensions, was that their avatar didn't match their verification photo. "We need to see your face to confirm," Pornhub's customer service email to them said. According to Pornhub, this method of verification is now outdated.

It's unclear how verification will work in the future, but Pornhub has said that identification of some kind will be part of the process. There are obviously many reasons that not everyone would want to use their real face as their avatar on a porn website.

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get verified with those sorts of requirements," IzzyBSides said, adding that performers who wear masks or keep their faces cropped out of videos would be excluded from verification on these terms. "It would force anyone experimenting out of the closet."

I asked performer Dylan Thomas how a verification system with even more strict requirements for identity could impact trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming content creators and performers. He said Pornhub could avoid excluding these groups by consulting with, and hiring, them to help create the new system.

"Some of us with intersectional experience in both creative strategy, the digital space and sex work would like nothing more than to serve our community and get everyone back online, generating income and having an enjoyable, safe and sexy time," he said.

How Pornhub’s new verification policies and process will unfold in practice is yet to be seen, but by including the voices of people who use the site, it could avoid future mistakes—just as it could have avoided this month’s backlash—and listen to the sex workers and content creators who've been asking for things to change for a long time.

"Pornhub was blatant about their disregard to what appeared on the site. But sex workers are under attack everywhere," Cyriis said. "Aside from the payout issues caused by Visa/MC, YouTubers and celebrities are flicking onto our platforms and basically doing whatever they want with no real financial repercussions. The consequences fall squarely on the shoulders of sex workers who built these platforms."

Pornhub’s Content Purge Has Left Fetish Creators Wondering What’s Next syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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xoombscom · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.xoombs.com/short-films/scrambled

Scrambled

Rubik’s Cube has also a heart-warming side as well. Watch and read about the new animation short Scrambled by Bastiaan Schravendeel and Polder Animation.

After Esra misses her train late one evening, a discarded, living Rubik’s cube tries tries to get her attention in an attempt to get solved -Film Synopsis

The Dutch company Polder Animation (founded in 2010), specializes in character driven 3D animation; that means a fine tuning between a visual and character style accessible to a wide audience yet still able to capture the imagination of animators and animation enthusiasts. Also, a sharing of duties between its founders, Sander Kamermans (visual style and art direction), Jean-Paul Tossings (technical director, rigging, simulation work, pipeline tools) and Bastiaan Schraveneel (writing, directing and character animation).

Scrambled started as a side project and a 2-minute short to test stylistic aspects.But things changed when developing the script.

“It had quite a story at its heart” director Bastiaan Schravendeel tells Zippy Frames. “The contrast between the impatient, phone-addicted girl who misses her train and the weathered, forgotten a notoriously frustrating-to-solve Rubik’s cube contained quite some inherent conflict that made a lot of the scenes come out organically”.

In many ways, Scrambled represents a technical advance from the previous Blik and Now you know it anyway, whose stories took place on sunny days, and had a high contrast between lights and shadows.

“Regarding Scrambled, we needed to create specifically moody, nighttime lighting to properly convey a quiet train station” Schravendeel explain. “Therefore, we needed to create soft, moody, nighttime lighting to properly convey this, so we had to rethink many of the stylistic aspects”.

What matters in the film is the mindful interaction and engagement, and for that purpose the character design of Rubik’s cube is paramount. This was a fact that 3D computer animation knows how to do best – but even in that case, the animation team had to reconfigure the whole process.

Scrambled Animated Short Film

While a Rubik’s cube is mechanically very simple – it’s just 27 plastic pieces that snap together – analytically it’s a different story. Since each turn affects in which direction any given piece can go the next turn, it’s a dynamic hierarchy which required a custom plugin to work correctly. Simple to explain, surprisingly hard to get to work. Couple that to the fact that, in any given state the cube would have to be able to be animated as a character as well. Our technical director managed to create a rig which could do everything in one, and added the additional bonus of being able to load different ‘states’ onto the cube itself.

Luckily, the cube works in reverse. While I can solve a cube, it’s not something you want to have to consider while animating. We animated the moves as they should, loaded up the solved state at the end, and played it backwards.

This was especially relevant as the cube’s ‘head’ always needed to be a yellow face – the only face that’s consistent over the entire film. Having the head change colour was confusing to the viewer, while for any of the other faces it didn’t make the slightest difference what colour they were.

Animating the cube as a character was technically the simplest rig I’ve worked with, yet at the same time extremely expressive. 4 bottom cubes were feet, 1 center cube the head, the rest merely detail. The only notable exception is the second to last shot which was re-animated 3 times just to get right… but I don’t want to spoil anything – Baastian Schravendeel

Cube details aside, the whole iconography of the film is non-descriptive. Metro numbers and letters are hidden and game letters are not visible, another result of the inherent stylization Polder Animation wants to achieve. “One of the reasons I’ve always liked animation is that the inherent stylisation of the world and characters allows the viewer to identify easier with the characters” Schravendeel states. “They place themselves in that world, with an obviously made up script and no particular location, and no dialogue n- a huge asset when creating a short film“.

Schravendeel still contents that those who know The Netherlands will also recognized the yellow bright trains still.

Those who will watch the film will also recognize that the passing of time needs not to be feared but embraced; also, that the fight between the old and the shiny, the ready-made vs. the scrambled has no easy winner – this is the point that the film brings through clearly and directly.

#animated #cgi #CGMeetup #cube #Short Films

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inhalareexhalare · 5 years

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The Dean Team and the Victim Reflex

...Ms. Charree expected me to join them for lunch! I was happy to join. She seems to like seeing me become more social and more emotionally open. I also decided to tuck my slightly over-sized collared shirt today, since upon looking at a mirror, I saw the imbalance in my visual appearance; I always loved wearing cardigans, but loose shirt plus dangling cardigan is a shapeless creature.

Coincidentally, Ms. Charree had been egging me on to wear crop-tops since yesterday, and I got reminded of that when she smiled, seeing that I’m making an effort now, even just a bit.

I worry if she thinks I’m lying when I tell her that I eat with my old org-mates for lunch sometimes haha. Ms. Dianne also worries about that, but I think she won’t tell me. They’re both worried that I’m hiding from social interactions. They’re half-correct.

This time, I got to eat with Ms. May too! There were four of us, with Ms. Bel. Ms. May doesn’t talk a lot. More because she’s a bit older than any of us three. I’m going 23 this year, Ms. Bel is probably in her late 20s, MS. Charree alse in her late 20s. Ms. May seems to be in her late 30s. She usually can’t relate unless it is about habits or discipline or kids haha. In general she isn’t very talkative either but blends well with people, much unlike me when I first joined them.

Ms. Charre is... how do I put it. She’s crazy hiding under elegance. She isn’t even hiding the crazy part haha. She just looks so ladylike when she’s in a neutral mood. I can still see her teen-rebel self even now. She becomes irresponsible when paired with Ms. Bel.

Ms. Bel is a health-conscious environmentalist. Although she doesn’t want to be considered any of those things because she still has trouble having a completely zero-waste lifestyle. More like, it’s impossible haha. But I love her passion when she talks about these things. She fights for what she believes in, but knows her boundaries and won’t force you to subscribe in what she stands for.

It’s been fun! Too bad I can’t hang out with all of them at once. The other big group (Ms. Len and the gang) is too many for one room and inviting these three people would create chaos and smaller space for individuals to shine.

I want to hagn out with all of them in moderation (since I still haven’t built up good social stamina), but if I’m going to have to choose, I’ll go with Dean’s for now (we’re secretaries under the Dean, Ms. Charree, Ms. Bel, and Ms. May)

I guess I’ll call the other group the Big group haha.

Comments?

Weakness:

(1) I unconsciously grab my phone and open PDFs to read when I hear dead air. The problem is, it breaks my attention from my social goals. And, it helps me ignore my share of responsibility in the group dynamics/atmosphere. I didn’t get to read though, thank goodness. But opening it is already a no-no.

(2) My thought to tongue translation still needs work, so that I can express context and content clearly to people I speak with.

Strength:

(1) I don’t write journal entries in the moment anymore. As I said in the previous paragraph, it breaks my attention.

(2) I have more initiative to ask now too, despite still lacking good thought translation.

(3) There is a bit more comfort in what I call the sufficient-frequency of eye contact now. (too much or too little are both no-no’s!) I observed that Ms. May opened up more in different topics when I initiate a dialogue with her when I share my opinions while making sure to match her eye contact timing.

plus bonus long rant:

I’m also gonna post my tucked-in shape here, for the sake of exercising a bit of shamelessness. I’ve always been fine with my body type, but other people having different perspectives sort of encouraged me to be more doubtful of my body image. I’m severely underweight. For most of my life from elementary. My mom said I was heavy at birth, but I haven’t really weighed myself again until elementary at PE and discovered I was, yes, severely underweight.

Also, it doesn’t help that my arms are naturally proportionally longer than they should be compared to my somewhat long legs. But I’m not so tall. I’m just 5′2 feet tall. So don’t imagine a slenderwoman just yet. I mean relatively long. Longer arms make my arms look even thinner bwahaha This was why my official pen-surname is Armslong. Lobo Armslong. HAHA

I don’t get sick a lot. Besides when I lack sleep for consecutive days, my immune system is actually pretty good on its own, without vitamins and shit. Though my attention problem during eating when I was from the age of ~4 until ~9-ish years probably contributed to me developing a small body, my bones are actually also really thin (dense?) as you might have seen from the little pictures I post. Wrists don’t enlarge. That’s just bone size. Also, my mom was as thin as me for most of her life (she had my body when she got married. She was real pretty though! So beautiful she was, even in her last moment alive in this world with her socially acceptably “normalized” body), until she reached around the early 40s and gave birth to us siblings. (She had trouble forming a child.)

I eat double the amount that my peers do, and healthier food too, and the most I’ve gained in years is 2 kilos. It normalizes back. I am stronger than most of the girls I know (except a few extreme exceptions, like martial arts practitioners). I do have some slightly more developed muscles and they show now, but it’s like it’s the only flesh I got; I have no fat.

I was worried for Karu and I and our potential child/children since I do consider the possibility that this is unhealthy even if my body is working just fine and actively. What if my body can’t take it? And what if my body is incapable of giving enough nutrients? Typical practice in the field of medicine is that the life of the mother comes first. But I don’t want to waste opportunities and time and resources and tears and blood just to cause someone else pain. But it seems this is normal... Waste analysis (feces and urine) shows that my digestion is pretty okay. Nothing weird.

But doctors keep telling me to eat better and buff up some muscles. I strengthen my body with work-outs and dance, and with Karu around, I have the healthiest diet in my whole life since my mom, but my weight doesn’t change.

Anywayyy, nothing big. Just leavin’ this here. For myself, really.

wrist btw.

2019-02-21 14:41 Philippines Thursday

I should be careful to balance some good time with myself.

It's been fun recently, but I must not let myself lose my way. Exciting things can be so intoxicating.

Balance, balance.

I wonder if Karu's at home today? I don't feel like I have to know, and I won't ask. But right now, I'm actually looking forward to, and getting excited planning what good time I'm gonna give myself!

If Karu wouldn't be home, what fun would I do?

And if he is, it'd be fun to experience being alone despite him being around!

2019-02-21 18:06 Philippines Thursday

Huh. Tonight's the first night I ever didn't compulsively look up to see whether there were people upstairs.

My body literally feels light. I have more confidence in the presence of more people now. Maximum of five now, in contrast to two before.

But I won't get sidetracked. I'm here for self time. Reflection.

2019-02-21 18:52 Philippines Thursday

So I had some awesome self time! I got to listen to my old music tastes for the sake of memories, I got to see my super old college original character designs (two of my best ones, Loki and Liam), finish three scribbles for the Peak posts, write my third poem of the day, and meditate in silence.

I took a nap to rest my eyes and to conserve energy. And I got to do this all without a shred of hate nor sadness towards anyone or anything. Despite it being so late, and despite Karu still being away, and despite not having dinner yet.

A pair of feet scrambling around woke me up, and there was Karu! I was overjoyed! I did my best to express that through my voice. I was so proud of being able to be comfortable on my own tonight, and there was balance between my social mission and my self mission, my day and night.

And then, Karu's voice started to sound too loud. He said I should go eat ahead of him. His adrenaline was clearly still pumping. He just got finished with his long errands. For some reason, he scared me. No, the phrasing is wrong: I was scared of him. All he did was give me a light tap to the cheek as a jest form of reprimand when I wanted to say that I had fun waiting for him tonight without panicking or blaming for the first time in a long time.

Then I cried. Quietly as I can. It was hard to breathe. I needed the open window.

And then Karu's energy calmed down amd he wondered what was going on. He did well trying to comfort me and be as safe as he can be even though he didn't know yet that I was afraid of him. But I got to tell him, after a few minutes of being mute. I know he was worried about me. He only really was doing what he can to take care of me.

But that's also why Ma used to beat me up when I was a kid. (I'm thinking now that maybe my childhood reflexes are related to this.) As a kid, I understood enough that she really loved me, and she only ever wanted the best for me. No one can be perfect. Everyone has flaws. One of my angelic mother's was poor anger management. (Even Karu's better at it now than she was before. But she recovered and improved A LOT before she died.)

Everyone has flaws. I wanted to be able to embrace hers. I wanted to understand her better. I wanted to make it work. And we did love each other a lot. But punches still hurt, that's the thing. A slap on the lips tear open the skin and blood comes gushing out. It all still hurts. So in some way, I had to develop my own way of defending myself. I would get destroyed if I didn't.

Fear. Fear became a new sensation. It protected me, and motivated me to keep away from harm, from damage my little body is not built to take. I began internalizing all the unintentionally hurtful things she started to say. I was wrong, I was stupid, I was useless, I was... Many things. All those things, she proved deserved pain.

(Please don't hate my mom. She didn't know how to cope well. We were four siblings, and she had to take care of all of us. In a traditional Chinese family, the dad only takes care of business. Moms hire helping hands but would still prefer to take care of all the children anyway.

It's not her fault. And it's also my responsibility to learn to take care of myself better.)

But now I should know better. I'll be okay.

I'm still learning.

Anyway, so when Karu became a potential threat in my mind, two things happened that led to a major thing:

(1) I got scared of him. I preferred to be inferior and quiet to him. I started to feel that I make wrong decisions and that I can't make decisions, and my feelings don't matter.

(2) I felt discouraged. I feel guilty about wanting to celebrate my latest self improvements.

...And my posture broke.

I'm not kidding. This is a major thing to me. I adapted to the dancer's upright posture, and it honestly gives me a good flow of energy. Having the posture gives me energy, and having energy gives me the posture.

But it broke. Unconsciously. I notice that my back is slouched when I feel depressed or weak or inferior or shit. So you know. Quite a big thing to realize.

Now, writing all these things and accomplishing one of my missions (putting thoughts into words a.k.a. Oral Thought Expression) were good. I told Karu my perspective of today and tonight.

And he gave me his. I've calmed down.

2019-02-21 23:03 Philippines Thursday

This part of my head must somewhat be rewired though. It's better to replace this reaction where I drop myself and roll into a ball (not literally, although I would hug my knees and break my posture so I guess the ball part isn't far off).

It's another thing to overwrite.

But how?

A raised voice isn't exactly a trigger though. I deal with those reactions "excellently" as people at work would say. I humble myself (but not belittle) and allow the other party to have time to cool down. Their favorite was that I don't hold any of it against them personally. Apparently I was good at handling prideful doctorate professors.

I am sidetracked. A raised voice does not suffice as a trigger.

Here are the noticeable requirements. They must all exist:

(1) raised voice (has to be directed at me, claiming the stress/problem is BECAUSE of/IS me whether or not it's true)

(2) physical contact/pain

(3) the source being someone I deeply love or highly respect

Sometimes number (2) is not necessary. Like my father's case. I immediately feel all the things he blurts out when he's desperate to be in control are true—ignorant, unbecoming, stupid, dumb, stupid, a waste of resources, a waste of time. I wouldn't give a shit if one of my highschool friends told me that, but because it's him, I instantly take the inferior position and join him in beating myself up mentally.

I'm not isolating this possibility to mere coincidence either. It's the same with my beloved sister Nynaeve who has never done anything particularly abusive to me. There were at least two instances when she snapped from so much stress and her words ripped though me. I took it to heart emotionally even though I knew the truth was that she was just stressed. I almost immediately assumed a surprising inferior position then, and almost cried, feeling like I'm going to be deprived of my sister's love forever. That was unusual because we always treated each other as equals, and I usually responded to her stress in a calm manner (so I guess the difference that made it was that the stress in those specific instances was directed at me).

Heck, when I was raped and physically beat up, I had full capacity to speak calmly and I even tried fighting back (when his skills were proven lethal, I resorted to calming him down. Instant victory/ escape weren't options).

His identity in my emotional aspect still freaked me out so much after the incident though, but less so now. I still don't think myself a victim. I don't give enough shit about him to be hurt, other than physically. In a way, you could say I'm only really actually hurt mentally/emotionally.

So now, what are the things I can do?

(1) Of course, communication is a must. Since this is the human condition that I have, it's important to let the other party know, while making sure they know they are not a monster and I am not a victim. I was just too used to feeling like one, so I now have this victim reflex (oh that's a good name)

(2) Take time off. It's necessary to have a quiet time to recover and assess the situation inside and outside properly. It would allow me to both (a) be reminded that it's just my victim reflex acting up, and (b) be available to empathize and understand more clearly the why of the other party's actions.

This ensures that I am in a proper state of mind before I choose my next moves.

2019-02-21 23:52 Philippines Thursday

#chrono7 #social #mission #goal #fashion #body image #health #victim reflex #cry #fear

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jimblanceusa · 4 years

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As Suspect Press shuts down, are Colorado’s other free, indie magazines in danger of disappearing?

The final issue of Suspect Press, photographed at City O’ City in Denver. (Beth Rankin, The Denver Post)The website for Suspect Press, a seven-year-old Denver literary and art magazine, confronts readers with a stark yet familiar proclamation.

“PRINT’S NOT DEAD,” it states just under its digital masthead, and in relation to its Summer 2020 issue — the magazine’s 26th overall.

Just beneath that, however, is a letter from editor-in-chief Amanda E.K.

“We all know nothing lasts forever — especially not in 2020 — and we at Suspect Press have made the decision, after 7 years strong, to go another direction,” she wrote. “This is the last issue you’ll hold of this version of the magazine before we go into hiatus. Then, when the time is right, our art director Lonnie MF Allen will introduce you to a new draft of Suspect.”

But it wasn’t just the pandemic that did it in.

“We knew already a year ago that our Meow Wolf contract was running out,” E.K. said over the phone. “We were like, ‘What’s going to come next? We could look for grants and investors, keep talking with Meow Wolf, or become a nonprofit.’ We already knew we were going to be struggling in 2020.”

In fact, the $125,000 grant from Meow Wolf — Santa Fe’s buzzy art-and-entertainment company that’s planning to open a Denver location next year — was originally set to run out this week. But having laid off half its staff earlier this year, Meow Wolf ended that contract two months early, E.K. said.

“We used their money to help build our book-publishing business, pay salaries and make this a full-time gig,” E.K. said. “That was extremely exciting.”

With an average, pre-coronavirus distribution of 5,000 copies at more than 300 metro-area locations, Suspect Press looked like a success story amid Colorado’s boom-and-bust publishing scene. Even with the decline of traditional media and the rise of multiple digital-news startups, the Front Range has always boasted a panoply of free, arts-and-culture-focused print magazines that can be picked up at book stores, coffee shops, dispensaries, liquor stores, music venues, bars and restaurants.

Suspect Press editor-in-chief Amanda E.K., left, and former editor Josiah Hesse in a photo shoot for Out Front Colorado — another free, independent print magazine in the metro area. (Veronica L. Holyfield, provided by Suspect Press)”Cool, free, arty zines and publications like that — they’re always a struggle,” said Patricia Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword, Denver’s alternative newsweekly that often sits near these free, local magazines. “They’re usually labors of love. People do things like Suspect Press because they believe in them, not because they’re going to make money.”

Some independent magazines do, however. While Suspect Press was a black-and-white newsprint publication, Denver’s monthly magazine Birdy is a sturdy, full-color art concern that has recently expanded to Los Angeles. The Rooster, a college-aiming magazine based in Longmont, runs more like a national glossy, with copious ads, happy hour guides and other millennial-targeting content.

Edible, which expanded from Colorado Springs to Boulder, Denver and Fort Collins earlier this year, tells stories of the people behind the food we eat. The Marquee, a free, Boulder-based print magazine distributed to more than 30 locations since 2013, has filled in the gap of major-market publications’ coverage since investments in music journalism have dropped in recent years.

The Rooster, a free monthly magazine that’s delivered at drop spots around the Front Range, bills itself as “a magazine that allows you to relax and fully engross yourself in a humorous and provocative editorial journey that won’t drain, but enlighten and excite.” (Beth Rankin, The Denver Post)All of these magazines have wildly different revenue models, goals and character, their publishers are quick to point out. But what they share goes beyond their free-to-take print models.

Plummeting or nonexistent ad revenue, hobbled distribution and overlapping national crises have forced them to consider what these labors of love are really worth, and how long they can be sustained. Owing to their print focus, most of the aforementioned titles had little to no online presence before the pandemic. They’re now scrambling to beef it up amid the overall trend toward virtual life.

That makes free, local, indie print magazines even more meaningful, publishers say, particularly as otherwise mundane, face-to-face experiences — from school lessons to doctor’s appointments — are increasingly conducted digitally. Despite the high costs of paper and ink, and the newly complicated business of distribution, there’s no substitute for the sense of community they encourage.

Ashley Kirkovich took over Edible Denver in January and released her first, retooled print issue in March. (Provided by Edible Denver)”Print is also a break from modern life,” said Simon Berger, founder of The Rooster. “It gives you a moment to step back from the overwhelming bombardment of technology and control your pace of information. There’s a novelty and nostalgia to it, but it really is a reprieve from your phone.”

The Rooster, which Berger launched in 2008, was one of Colorado’s first publications to openly accept medical-marijuana dispensary advertising (and, eventually, recreational ads) starting in 2010. While dollars from that green tide have seemingly lifted all publications in Colorado, Berger knew he had to diversify to keep his core print business afloat.

In addition to locking down big sponsors such as Kroenke Sports and AEG Presents, Berger and his staff launched Red Bird Creative Studios, an advertising agency, and are preparing to debut a digital happy-hour guide next month (yes, even during the pandemic).

But print is still a precarious place to be. The Rooster had to take three months off from publishing earlier this year after the pandemic hit as Berger figured out how to pay for it. With a normal complement of 75 to 100 advertisers, and average distribution of 60,000 free copies in 2,000 statewide locations, The Rooster had significant costs to cover.

Berger won’t say by how much his circulation or distribution has dropped since then. But when The Rooster came back in July with its first new print issue since the pandemic arrived, it was with renewed purpose — and austerity.

(Provided by Birdy Magazine)”We’re conserving cash, cutting our budget and not investing too heavily in anything outside the company,” he said. “And, of course, all of our events are on pause.”

As Berger also began to invest in his digital product, he watched subscriptions — which are typically low-to-nonexistent for free, locally distributed print magazines — jump from about 100 to 1,000.

“We’ve always wanted to create something people would pay for, but that they were lucky enough to get for free,” he said. “We want to be taken home, shared with friends, and displayed on your coffee table.”

Or the dinner table. The Colorado-based franchise of Edible, a free, printed food magazine with products in more than 70 U.S. and Canadian markets, had just relaunched in March when the pandemic hit.

“My timing was terrible,” said publisher Ashley Kirkovich, the former marketing director for Niman Ranch who had admired the magazine (formerly known as Edible Front Range) before purchasing it in January. “We’re a quarterly, so I felt like, for the sake of brand consistency, I really needed to be visible in the market.”

Without bars or restaurants for readers to visit (or for Edible to solicit advertising from), Kirkovich estimates the first issue’s distribution was down by about 60% over previous installments — though she admitted she doesn’t have many data points to compare it to. Her summer issue fared better, even considering that she curtailed the print run from 15,000 copies to 12,000 to adjust for decreased demand.

Jonny DeStefano and Krysti Joméi, co-founders and co-editors of Denver’s Birdy Magazine. (Provided by Birdy)For her fall issue, releasing Sept. 28, Kirkovich will bump Edible’s print run back up to 15,000 copies in anticipation of adding another 30 distribution outlets to Edible’s existing 50 or so. That’s impressive, considering she’s often felt too guilty to ask for advertising from her usual supporters.

“It feels so crummy to say, ‘I know you may not be in business when this comes out, but want to take out an ad?’ ” she said. “So I’ve definitely pivoted toward (advertising from) liquor and retail stores.”

Readership and ad dollars in some Edible markets has increased since March, Kirkovich said, based on calls with other publishers. She sees similar opportunity in serving Front Range foodies who have shifted from visiting every new restaurant that opens to baking, gardening and Instagramming their own kitchen experiments.

Kirkovich has also gotten creative, partnering with community-supported agriculture programs to add a free copy of Edible to the boxes of fresh produce delivered to farm-share buyers. But she refuses to go online-only.

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“Call me old school, but at the end of the day, I bought a print magazine,” she said. “When digital fatigue sets in, people need something tangible to engage with when having a glass of wine.”

Also strongly committed to sticking around is Birdy, the monthly Denver art magazine that has benefited greatly from its artistic partnership with Devo founder and film composer Mark Mothersbaugh. Despite the trials of 2020, Birdy recently expanded its distribution to 140 locations in Los Angeles, with about 1,000 copies of each issue (total average monthly print run: 10,000) headed to potential new readers in that city.

Prior to the pandemic, Birdy was distributed to 300 or so locations along the Front Range, not including national and international subscriptions.

“We could not bail out on the most important moment in our lifetimes,” said Krysti Joméi, co-founder and co-editor of Birdy. “It sounds dramatic to say, but as a magazine, we’ve been through times that are just as hard as right now on our (business).”

As a result, Birdy has not skipped a single issue since March, despite ratcheting down its copies from March through May of this year to 3,000, about 70% off from its usual print run. Along with partner and co-founder Jonny DeStefano, Joméi has also seen Birdy’s web traffic skyrocket, despite her lack of past investment in it, even as they build up their print numbers again.

“We never had much of a website before this on purpose,” she said. “We were always, ‘We’re super punk-rock and analog, just like vinyl records!’ But since March, there’s been a real urgency to provide even more accessibility to our readers.”

In that, all of these publications continue a grand tradition of scrappy, DIY entrepreneurship that has defined the Front Range publishing scene for decades, said Westword founder and editor Calhoun, including now-defunct, nationally lauded titles such as Muse and Modern Drunkard.

“The fact that they’re independent means they generally don’t play well with others,” she said. “They often don’t have organizations behind them. Who’s got time for that? But you’ve got to have a patron, or grants, because publishing in print isn’t cheap.”

Whether or not institutions like D.I.N.K. — a.k.a. the Denver Independent Comics & Art Expo — return in the future (they took this year off, for obvious reasons), the scene will continue to exist regardless of economics. The passion inherent in independent publishing is stronger than market trends, publishers say.

“I’m sad that we’re losing this established platform that actually paid contributors,” Suspect Press’ E.K. said. “But I’m hoping that us fading away will inspire other young kids to come up in the scene, take what we did, and make it their own.”

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from Latest Information https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/14/suspect-press-independent-publications-colorado-coronavirus/

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laurendzim · 4 years