#they need every site to be twitter to be able to use them

[vinkumakkara]

literally turning the tumblr desktop ui into a copy of twitter’s is definitely extremely funny but i dunno if it’s actually supposed to be funny this time around

[arctic-hands]

Oh the bane of wanting shoes that fit your vibe but you're disabled and need to prioritize comfort over aesthetics and also you're at sub-sub-poverty levels of our abysmal SSI

[the-rad1o-demon]

[Image ID (sorta, basically just the text from it):

GET KOSA TRENDING.

STOP SCROLLING NOW!

AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. OR DOOMSDAY. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.

WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.

I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.

Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.

Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.

Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.

Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.

Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.

Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.

END image ID]

Hey, everyone. So yeah, this is happening. We're still fighting this battle. And we can't give up now. We can't. We can't stand idly by while one of the most important resources that helped us all wake up, or at least start to question things, is being threatened by the government.

We can't stand idly by when kids, teens, and adults just like us still trapped inside might lose access to the resource that could help them wake up. We can't stand idly by when they might lose access to their non JW friends and family. We CAN'T stand idly by when we can do something to stop this bill from passing.

I am sick and tired of this same old song, where conservative fuckers higher up think they can oppress everyone. I am FUCKING SICK of it.

Please, reblog both this post and the original post linked above what I've written, and do what you can to stop KOSA, please. We are running out of time.

I suggest that if it is within your power to do so, that you do more than simply reblog and assume someone else will do something. DON'T assume that. Please do more than just reblogging if you are able to, because that's not really enough at this point.

Call/email representatives in the House and tell them to oppose KOSA (you may want to list different reasons depending on who you're calling, some House representatives are anti-LGBTQ+, so it may be best to tell them to oppose because it violates people's privacy, safety, and anonymity online). Print posters and put them up where legal if you can.

Sharing all this information to other social media sites (Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, the bird app) to reach more people can really help too. The wider the reach, the better.

Thank you. Now let's fucking rip that bill apart like we rip apart Watchtower magazines and eat it for fucking breakfast. (In a "we're eating it and the politicians who are sponsoring it are looking on in horror" kind of way)

[sweetshuga]

How do you get people to notice your fics? I'm new to actually posting on Tumblr and writing fics and stuff but I feel like no one is looking at them cause I've got zero notes on them, do you have any advice?

ᯓ Write smut in the beginning ↴

⟢ You can branch out to different genres later on but smut gets the most recognition.

⟢ If you're not used to writing smut and don't have a lot of experience, I recommend watching porn on Twitter (why twitter? Because it usually has more amateur/homemade videos which is far better than those, usually, unrealistic porn videos made by big companies). I don't personally do this a lot but it helps a shit ton when I'm having a hard time writing smut (which is a rare occurrence).

ᯓ Write blurbs before bigger fics ↴

⟢ If you're intimidated by the idea of writing long fics. Write a blurb! Always start small.

ᯓ Tags are very much needed ↴

⟢ Add tags appropriate to your fics. Matt tags for Matt fics, Chris tags for Chris fics, and so on. Try adding tags like #fanfic smut and #tumblr writer.

ᯓ Reblogs ↴

⟢ Getting your fics reblogged by bigger blogs helps a lot.

⟢ Reblogging other people's fics helps too. It works, trust me.

ᯓ Make your fics more aesthetic ↴

⟢ Especially if you lack good story telling like me, then making your fics look more aesthetically pleasing will lure people to read your fics. (Sites I use often for symbols –> Here & Here.)

⟢ Photopea and ibis paint x are great free apps (there's a site version for photopea) to make dividers and whatnot. Pixelcut.ai is a site (there's an app too) that removes backgrounds really well. Font Generator is a great site (and app) that has so many fonts.

⟢ Also, making plain line dividers is really easy. Here's a little tutorial because why not :)

ᯓ Add pictures to your fics ↴

⟢ Edit them to change the colouring. I use Lightroom which is available on both app store and Google play. (I also use capcut.)

⟢ I made a «tutorial» on how to get your pic centered.

ᯓ Don't make your paragraphs too long ↴

⟢ It'll become harder to read for those that have short attention span.

ᯓ Creativeness ↴

⟢ Find prompts on Tumblr, insta, twitter, etc. if you're having a hard time coming up with fic ideas.

⟢ Listening to songs and reading the lyrics simultaneously helps too. You'll understand the lyrics more that way and maybe you'll get an idea or two from it.

ᯓ Interact with other blogs ↴

⟢ Heavy on this. Because interacting with other blogs will help you grow—as a person and as a blog.

ᯓ Credits ↴

⟢ Give credits if you're gonna use dividers.

⟢ Give credit if you're gonna write something inspired by other writers' au's.

⟢ Give credit if you're going to copy someone's fic layout, blog theme, etc.

ᯓ Consistency ↴

⟢ I used to write like 2 blurbs a day when I first started and I feel like being consistent is important in the beginning. (Doesn't have to be multiple blurbs a day though! Just one small blurb a day or every other day is more than enough.)

⟢ Writing in advance also helps to keep your consistency.

ᯓ Proofreading ↴

⟢ Read your fic a few hours—or preferably a day—after writing it. That way, you'll be able to see the errors you didn't detect when you first wrote it.

⟢ Proofreading right after writing it won't be that effective in most cases.

ᯓ Imagination ↴

⟢ Last, but not least, try to imagine the fic you're writing. Like, play it out in your head. Your imagination plays a huge role in writing fics. The more vivid your descriptions are, the more people would want to read it.

⟢ If it's hard to imagine it then read more books (or fanfics) and train your ability to imagine what the characters are doing.

ᯓ Misc. ↴

⟢ Em dash (—) has many uses. It can be used to create a pause in a sentence. It can be used if a comma is too weak but a period is too strong. It can be used in place of a parenthesis. It can also be used to emphasize a word. It's usually used without spaces (but you can use it with spaces too).

⟢ A semi-colon (;) is used to connect two sentences that are close in meaning but can't be connected by a comma. It can also be used in place of a comma if there are already commas. For example: Jess had long, golden locks; green eyes; rosy, ample cheeks; and a beaming smile.

⟢ A blurb is supposed to be really short (usually around 100-200 words) but fanfic writer's seem to say fuck it and write 1k words and label it as a blurb, so it's fine to make your blurb longer.

⟢ 100 words is a drabble (200 words is double drabble, 300 words is triple drabble, and so on. It's not that important though, we're just writing fanfiction for fun after all).

⟢ Oneshot is a fic that only has one part (it can be multiple parts, but only if all of them can be read purely as a standalone. Otherwise it'll become a series).

⟢ AU is the abbreviation for "alternative universe" and you can do whatever the fuck you want there. For example: You can make matt a cold-blooded mafia boss, Chris a father of four and Nick an assassin disguised as a harmless baker. And they don't even have to be brothers—they can be rivals. Nick could be trying to assassinate Matt, the cold-blooded mafia boss. Chris might get caught in the crossfire and somehow ends up getting tangled with Matt's wife (who was forced to marry him). The world is your oyster.

At the end of the day, it's just fanfiction. Do what makes you happy. Write what makes you horny.

Everything written above (except for the misc.) are all my own personal preferences so just keep that in mind. What works for me might not work for you. Because everyone is different, and that's why you have to start trying out different things and see what works the best for you.

[d-emeter]

I LOVEEE UR WORK SM, I first saw ur like cod characters and their fave lingerie thing and I couldn't stop thinking about it omg it was so well done ur blog makes my brain all fuzzy n AAAAAA!!!! ure so amazing omg!!! <3

I don't have a specific thing but I'd LOOVEEEE some rudy content cuz omg he's so underrated <3 do wtv u please with that!!!! Like I think ure so creative so wtv u do with rudy is gonna be so so PERFECCTTT <3

Take care of urself n keep being so lovely n awesome n amazing <3<3<3<3

this ask is making my brain go fuzzy anon🥹 no but you're SO right rudy is highly underrated and i adore him

so first thing that came to mind was this twitter (?) thread with this exact scenario happening but i couldn't find the exact post anymore apologies.

Love goes through the stomach (or: you compliment Rudy's (mom's) cooking) — plus-size!fem!reader x construction worker!Rodolfo 'Rudy' Parra

CW: mama parra playing matchmaker, accidental catcalling?, google translated spanish lol

Who knew a smell could bother you so much? Well, maybe bother isn't the right word to use. No, it wasn't the smell itself that bothered you so much as the fact that you could not, for the life of you, find its source.

For the past week or so, every noon, like clockwork, the most divine scent filled your apartment and notified you of your empty stomach. Your remote job allowed you to take your lunchbreak whenever, so the first time it happened, you simply scoured your pantry for something that would qualify as lunch. It stilled your hunger, sure, but it did little to satisfy the craving for whatever mystery food you were smelling.

You had tried everything. You had scoured the takeaway app, ordering from different cuisines only to be disappointed. You had looked up recipes online with what you hoped had similar ingredients, to no avail. God, you had even stood in the spice isle of the grocery store, sniffing different pots and satchels. You were just about ready to give up your search, to accept that your mystery would remain just that; a mystery. That is, until you're on your way home from your latest grocery store expedition and walk past the construction site next to your building. You damn near freeze when you smell it — you check the time on your phone just to check, and, sure enough, it's noon. Nearly on the dot.

Your eyes scan the fenced-in site, a group of construction workers sitting idly by while eating their lunch. You're able to eliminate most of them, the ones eating simple sandwiches and drinking from soda bottles. Your target is quickly located — the man with the aluminium bundle in his hands, happily chomping away while conversing with his coworkers.

"Hey! You! Mister!"

You're all but smushed up against the iron fence, watching as all heads turn to you. You keep your eyes steadfast on the dark-haired man in the middle of them. He points a hesitant finger towards himself, questioning if it's him you're referring to.

"Yes, you! Get over here!"

With wide eyes and a growing blush on his face, Rudy rewraps the aluminium and wipes his hands on his cargo pants before making his way to you. He tries his best to ignore the grin Alejandro gives him, holding back the urge to kick him when he wolf-whistles. Unfortunately, his best friend was well aware of the stupid little crush he had grown on the pretty lady walking past every day. The same pretty lady that was now hollering on the other side of the fence. He clears his throat, trying to keep himself from looking too awkward when he reaches you.

"Can I, uh, can I help you, señorita?"

You falter a bit when he comes closer, slightly embarrassed at your outburst and a little taken aback at the realization that this man is really hot.

"Uh, yeah, I'm sorry, just- Look, this is going to sound weird, but I live in this building and I think I've been smelling your lunch and I need to know what it is, because I've been trying to figure it out and it smells so good."

It takes a second for Rudy to respond, of all the things he had expected you to say, this was not one of them. With a slightly perplexed grin, he unwraps the aluminium again to reveal his lunch to you.

"Oh, it's, uh, a burrito. My mami makes them. I'd love to tell you what's in it, but she won't even tell me. Her, uh, secret recipe." He manages out with what he hopes is a charming laugh. He can see the clear disappointment on your face, and he would have offered you some if he hadn't already eaten most of it, and he doubts you'd be very charmed by the butt of a burrito with bites taken out of it.

"Ah, dang, I was hoping it was some takeout I hadn't tried yet. Anyway, again, sorry for bothering you. Tell your mom her burritos smell great!" With that you're off again, leaving Rudy to stare after you with his half-eaten lunch in his hand. When he returns to the group, he actually does kick Alejandro when he wiggles his eyebrows.

—

You walk past the construction site again the next day. It's not necessarily on purpose that you do so around noon, but catching a whiff of the unattainable burrito again was not something you were against, even if you couldn't actually taste it yourself. You're snapped out of your burrito-induced daydream when you hear a sharp whistle. Your head snaps towards the source of the sound, an offended look on your face at the fact you seriously just got catcalled, only to come face to face with the construction worker from yesterday.

When Rudy sees your eyebrows scrunch in anger, he realizes his way of gaining your attention was maybe not the smartest thing he'd ever done, and he quickly scrambles to apologize.

"Oh, dios mio, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean- I'm sorry. Here, I-"

He hands you a bundle wrapped in aluminium foil through the gaps of the fence, hoping to God you wouldn't notice how hot his face was getting. Your eyes widen with recognition as you accept the gift.

"Oh my gosh, is this-?"

"I told my mami you complimented her cooking, and she, uh, she insisted she make you one, too. So, here." He cuts you off, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck, occasionally bumping against the edge of his hard hat.

"Thank you so much! Ugh, let her know I'm going to enjoy every bite of this!" It's almost a groan of pleasure, one that leaves Rudy more flustered than he'd like.

"Ye-yeah, will do-" You're off before he can manage to string his words together enough to ask for your number, leaving him to watch after you once again.

—

The moment you step through your front door, you unwrap the aluminium foil, groaning to yourself again as the heavenly scent fills your nostrils. Dropping your bag down, you sit at your table to really, thoroughly enjoy this experience, when you notice a white napkin poking from the wrapping. Pulling it out, you realize there's something written on it.

'Mi hijo es soltero y muy guapo. Dile a Rudy que te lleve a casa y te enseñaré la receta.'

Below that, a phone number.

translation: 'My son is single and very handsome. Tell Rudy to bring you home and I will teach you the recipe.'

[haletostilinski]

So, I said my next poll(s) would a character battle, so...here we go!

Now that we finished a wild Ship Battle, it's time to move onto a new set of polls. A character battle. Who do you feel is the best Teen Wolf character? So, a few things first:

I believe I got all the important players. There are 64 Teen Wolf characters I was able to come up with. A few are a bit like "wait, who?" but once again, getting it to 64 characters keeps it nice and even, so a few characters who are lesser known or somewhat forgotten on the whole slipped in there. Quite a bit of the smaller characters *didn't* make it in, though, so I'm sorry if one of the smaller characters that you like didn't make it into this poll. 64 is a lot of Teen Wolf characters, though.

The matching up for this was perhaps a bit more intentional by me than with the ship battle. Mostly to keep it a bit interesting. Although a match up might be kinda 'meh' for the first few rounds for a few of them. But bigger characters might be matched up earlier because there's many of them and they couldn't all be spaced out like I was able to do with the bigger ships in the ship battle polls.

WARNING: Obviously, NO CHARACTER HATE IN THESE POLLS. Keep it civil! You can disagree with the winners if you're bummed yours didn't get through to the next round/didn't win, of course, but don't go hating on the other character or its stans. Also no fighting amongst each other, either. That will not be tolerated and if I see that I will either delete the comment if I can/give a warning/block the user/or if it's too many people going too far I will shut this WHOLE thing down. This is meant to be fun and not serious. Remember that, please.

No character and character stan hate ANYWHERE, on ANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM. Not on twitter, tiktok, freaking youtube or instagram, wherever.

HATE WHILE LINKING TO AND ASSOCIATING WITH MY POLLS which could mean quoting or replying to someone linking to my poll! - WILL NOT BE TOLERATED

Also, given what happened in the shipper polls, this has to be warned for just incase: If there is ANY significant spike in the votes in a very short period of time - like say jumping 10% points or something in like an hour of time or something (outside of the initial votes being given at first, of course - I will assume botting has taken place. If someone is making more than 1 account on tumblr to vote, i.e. fake accounts, that is also cheating and THAT CHARACTER WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED. Again, with what happened with the ship battle, this needs to be said. NO making multiple accounts or there will be consequences.

Comments/laughing at/hating on a character that's included will not be tolerated. If you're bewildered by a character winning, just keep comments to a very nice and polite "huh?" As I said above, I will shut this whole thing down if there is too much judgement/hate/etc...

Because this is a character battle, there will be two characters per poll. So you're about to see a LOT of poll posts from me...just a warning if you're wondering why there's going to be continued character poll posts from me 😭

As always, every poll will have a 1 week duration. I will show the brackets as they stand below. And after every round, I will show the updated version, pinned to my blog if you're curious to see every winner of every round.

Lastly, have fun! Let's see what character lands on top 😎

Here are the brackets - ignore the numbers on them, the site I used just did that🤷‍♀️ (and you'll have a pretty good idea who the winners will be up against next round as well). I will start posting the polls momentarily (but might not get all of them up right away, that might be staggered.)

[therobotmonster]

So... Shapeways is going bankrupt.

This is particularly irksome for me, as that's a good 1/3rd of my monthly income, so I'm crossing my fingers while I start setting up a new store on cults. I have literally thousands of items so getting them all up is going to take ages.

But why did this happen?

Well I'll fucking tell you what I think happened.

It was a company run on arrogance and cowardice.

Shapeways made its mark as the cafepress of 3d printing. The weight of this was their marketplace that let people sell prints directly to customers without having to do the printing themselves. At its peak, I made more from Shapeways than from my day job.

The problem was that Shapeways put zero effort into the marketplace. They'd send some of us to a con to promote the idea of 3d printing game minis a couple of times, sure, but when it came to actual site maintenance and design every suggestion and request by sellers was roundly ignored. We asked for better search and categorization options. We asked to be able to name variants in our stores. We asked for better communication from the print techs. We asked for accurate subcategories that actually reflected how customers looked for items. None of it was done.

As such, the site was baffling to customers and difficult to understand. This was made worse by Shapeways' continual renaming of their materials. So after a couple of years Shapeways announces that they're not going to do anything for the marketplace because it's underperforming, and are going to focus on B2B, and in doing so they buried the marketplace in a tiny little link on the front page.

Overnight sales plummeted. We complained again, nothing was done. We asked for a different URL that went straight to the marketplace (something that would literally cost them $80 to do) that we could direct customers to, we were ignored.

The marketplace is underperforming, so we won't put in the effort needed to make the marketplace perform. Makes perfect sense.

Prices go up. Shipping goes up substantially, and then it was a thousand little cuts. The auto-checks were altered to make it impossible to verify anything manually with any accuracy, so it became harder to design for the limitations of their printers.

The site slowed down substantially so every click had a several second pause, making shopping and maintaining frustrating and unpleasant. Shipping costs to many areas of the world became insanely high, effectively cutting off entire markets.

Want to not be Shapeways? Then remember this:

Your users know more about your site experience and their own needs than you do.

If you have a sales site, and the people selling through it say "this isn't working, we need this" then maybe you should listen to them and not just say 'you're wrong' to their faces.

Oh, and also, if goddamn Rolls-Royce comes in filing false DMCA claims over the use of the word "Phantom" in any context on your site, you don't take every item through a multiple day review for every edit and say "LOL, we can't do anything"

You take them to court for abusing the system on behalf of your user base, you fucking bootlicking cowards.

OH, AND I ALMOST FORGOT!

I HAD TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS FROM A DM ON TWITTER.

They've sent me a check every month for half a decade and they don't even send a "We're closing shop" email.

Look upon my prints, ye mighty, and despair.

If you want to help me though the meantime, here's my paypal.me and my gofundme.

[glitchdollmemoria]

do people who disregard photosensitivity realize that seizures can fucking kill or do they just not care. do people not realize that their "aesthetic" "cool" flashing lights that happen without SUFFICIENT warning... are fucking capable of killing people. i dont even care if i sound pissy right now because i am pissy, im sick of feeling like myself and others with epilepsy arent even afforded the right to be an afterthought to most people. im not even photosensitive but ffs this shit makes me so angry.

seizures themselves can be deadly if they go on too long, theyre essentially electrical overloads in the brain, you know, that organ that controls the entire rest of the body? and seizures can result in injuries or death from falls. from choking on our own vomit. from drowning in our own bathtubs, if we think we might be safe to bathe and then get proven wrong. maybe someone just wanted to watch a video or movie while they took a spa day.

did you know that epileptics are more likely to die younger than those without epilepsy, with all those risks and more? and have you heard of SUDEP? sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, death without a known cause, a rare but very real possibility for us. it kills approximately 1 in 1000 epileptics a year, if not more since it may not be accurately tracked. thats thousands of us dead a year. we do not need you to add to our death rates.

"all these things are known risks, epileptics just have to be more careful-" epileptic people should not have to be on constant fucking high alert. how about instead, people just learn to give a shit about life threatening disabilities? it takes so little effort to just offer a CLEAR and VERY OBVIOUS warning AHEAD OF TIME, for a SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME, before your stupid flashing lights. or just dont add them at all. are they necessary? are they really necessary? would you really fucking rather photosensitive epileptics have to be constantly on guard, IMPOSSIBLY on guard, rather than you just considering their safety? nobody can anticipate every instance of unexpected flashing lights they might come across. but you, creators, are able to provide warnings, and if for any reason you arent, then hire someone else to edit the warnings in or just get rid of the fucking lights altogether.

again, my epilepsy is not photosensitive, but i will never stop being protective of my photosensitive siblings. my own life is scary enough with the form of epilepsy i have, i cannot imagine how terrifying it must be to have to maneuver through the world with photosensitivity, and i dont want careless assholes to go killing my fucking community because you dont give enough of a shit to worry epileptic people. i am pissed off and emotionally exhausted and the shit with elon musk having a flashing gif on his twitter account was the straw that broke my back today so youre getting a pissed off PSA. everyone better start doing a whole damn lot better.

link to the CDC page about SUDEP

link to the epilepsy foundation site page about seizure risks

people without epilepsy are encouraged to reblog but know that i am already angry and will not tolerate bullshit on this post. give a fuck about other peoples lives and safety or im blocking you.

[sapphia]

Much of the internet is bots.

There are more bots every day. Every site that's in any way bot-trainable has bots scraping posts and chats.

We have AI. It can auto-recognise voices. It can mine text for information which it can categorise and file, but cannot process it or use to further its own ideas. It can compile and compartmentalise and label everything ever written, everything being spoken, all words in the world if we let it. But it can't think.

Neither can the bots on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter. They can write arguments. They can repeat arguments flawlessly. They can argue with themselves and you wouldn't know it. They are as advanced as ChatGPT.

It's 2010. Much of the internet is bots.

Reddit is a cesspit. I don't use reddit, except to find useful information. Many users are bots. There are more bots joining everyday.

We have AI. It can autorecogise voices. It can create AI generated photos that are indistinguishable from humans most of the time. A human trained to detect AI-generated faces who had spent ten+ hours learning this skill could identify an AI generated photo 90% of the time. But no one does this, and most of the tiny profile pictures are of dead people anyway.

On Reddit there are people piloting bots to generate targeted discourse. The bots analyse arguments and reply as if they were users. The good answers attract upvotes and downvotes and bots iterate accordingly. A New Zealand journalist notices they are being used for election interference and writes a book on it. We say 'That's terrible!'.

We do not read the book.

We interact with bots every day. We ignore most of them. We are used to these low-quality accounts by now. Because of how many there are, the bots often interact with themselves. It is like a cluster theory of bots, like colliding molecules in the air.

It's 2015. Much of the internet is bots. There are more bots everyday.

Reddit is a cesspit. I have a reddit account for hobbies and history and tv shows and local content. I make posts there, and they get karma. There is a lot of noise. Posting comments in the big subs get you more karma. I spend hours writing answers to ethical social dilemmas in Am I The Asshole?. I get better at ethical social dilemmas. I get better at writing answers.

It's 2022. Much of the internet is bots. Except for Gen Z, we use the internet how we've been using it since 2010. We play stupid games that take more of your money and time. We use the same social media sites. We post memes and vent and chat. We comment. We talk the same politics. We have the same politics. We are the same as we were a decade ago.

So are the social media sites.

We have AI. It can autorecognise voices. It can mine text for information which it can categorise and file, but cannot process or use to further its own ideas. It can compile and compartmentalise and label everything ever written, everything being spoken, all words in the world if we let it.

It can't think. But doesn't need to.

We are 'using' AI via ChatGPT, feeding instructions and questions and conversation into it. It is frequently wrong about easy-to-google answers, even though its conversation is perfect. We laugh at it.

We are worried that students will use chat GPT to write university essays. It is able to do this easily and mostly unidentifiably with a mere modicum of human editing. Some students still do not manage to evade human detection. But many do. Even when the humans are looking for it.

Reddit is a cesspit. I help start a NZ politics sub. Reddit has bots so good it's impossible to fully distinguish between bots and human, even when looking closely at profiles or trends.

I am banned from Reddit.

It's 2024. Much of the internet is bots.

[conceptmobius]

Staff Recruitment

Greetings! This is a post regarding staff recruitment for Concept: “Mobius”, as you probably surmised. Vertekins and I always looking to add to the ranks and make the site as detailed, informative, and cool as it can be. If you’re interested in joining, great! Let’s find you a spot! Incidentally, you may be able to fill multiple roles, but first things first. You need to run before you can Spin Attack, after all.

Concept: “Mobius” is a Sonic the Hedgehog site dedicated to information about the games within the franchise and the worlds, characters, and events within. While there are multiple wikis and whatnot that serve this purpose, we’re trying to do things differently. We want to enrich the world of the Blue Blur and hopefully make it more cohesive, less muddled, and more fun. Obviously, this is too big a job for a few people, hence the slow trickle of updates over the years.

So, we need a team to tackle this endeavor, and we have many branches for all skill sets. You'll also be asked to help out here, as well, but more on that at another time.

Writers

Arguably one of the most important roles. Writers will be contributing the bulk of the site’s content, from articles and reviews to think pieces and news blurbs. You’ll be expected to be able to spell, know your grammar, and write coherently. If the most writing you’ve done is on Twitter, you may find yourself at a loss here, especially since you’ll probably have to be your own editor, unless you ask your teammates for help (which you can, to be clear).

Artists

Another absolutely crucial role. You’ll be responsible for how the site looks: graphics, character art, zone landscapes, etc. It’ll be a big task, but you’ll always be credited for your work, with links going to whatever platform you choose.

Programmers/Modders

Your job will be to modify the games. Why? Two reasons.

We’ll be using various games for clips and showcases, and we need them to be accurate as possible. Many of them are either missing content, have various inaccuracies between one another, or just don’t look/sound/play right for our purposes. We can’t very well show Sonic’s world if it’s lackluster, can we?

We want to show what even the worst of the franchise could look/sound/play like if given the TLC they deserve.

I know this doesn’t sound necessary or worthwhile, but I assure you, it will make sense in the future.

Theorists

You’ll be helping with various theories and doing your best to plug up various plotholes in the Sonic universe. Unlike certain other game theorists, however, you’ll be expected to show restraint when speculating and not go off on tangents or grasping at whatever straws you see.

Cartographers

Your job is a doozy: making a single, DEFINITIVE map of Sonic’s Earth. You see, there have been many in the games, and they’ve been different every time, depending on the game or the area it's based in. And each one has been inconsistent. Heck, people don't even know where Green Hill Zone definitively is, despite its number of uses.

THIS.

WILL.

NOT.

DO.

If anyone is going to take Sonic lore seriously (and few people do), we need one map that can be used for every game. That way, there is more consistency in the narrative and people have a more defined view of the world.

Modelers

Your role will be to make various character renders to be used for the cast in the Character Database. You’ll be working with the artists to make the most “true to life” representations of Sonic and the others as you can. You might also find yourself recreating certain areas or scenes from the games, demonstrating various abilities, or just letting the cast style on each other.

News Reporters

You’ll be reporting on everything Sonic-related that is newsworthy, whether it be a game announcement or a funny pic from Sega. Just try not to post any memes.

That'll do for now, although, we're welcoming anyone with a notable skill set. If you think you have something to contribute to Concept: "Mobius" that is or isn't listed here, let us know. Just be aware that we can't afford to pay anyone for their work.

Thank you very much in advance!

~Ryan

[genericpuff]

Just to add to the speculation: Rachel was on Twitter and instagram over the last week being really excited over how she's talking to Webtoon about LO's return date and seemed to be in good spirits, but now that we have confirmation of LO ending and her and Webtoon are now being really quiet about it, I get the impression she was expecting that meeting to be a renewal discussion but instead was greeted by Webtoon asking when she was wrapping things up with no offer of another season. I think WT was considering it since none of the S3 ads mentioned it was the last season, but they must be seeing the internal numbers and with the potential of the TV show not happening and less and less book sales, they must have seen no financial or business reason of renew it. The obfuscation both her and Webtoon are doing right now implies Rachel was blindsided by this IMO.

fucking OOF BRO

That was definitely an angle I hadn't considered, obviously it's still just speculation/tinfoil but from what I've heard about how cagey WT can be about communicating with their creators, it could very well be a possibility. That said, while it would SUCK for Rachel if that was the case, I feel like it's also something she shouldn't have been pressing her luck with for so long. TBH there's a lot of evidence to support the fact that LO has been getting "special treatment" for years now and I think a lot of that was based on the good will of how well the series performed in 2019/2020. When the series started going downhill, WT would have likely been willing to give her benefit of the doubt, but now with things going the way they are where people are clearly DONE with LO and Rachel isn't making any attempts to actually get her shit together, it would make sense if WT is just finally deciding to cut their losses.

Of course that's, again, HEAVY speculation. But I've seen series that weren't controversial or regularly criticized like LO get suddenly dropped without much warning for the creator (see: Yuna & Kawachan). The fact that LO has been going on this downward spiral for so long without any intervention or attempts to improve things just goes to show how much WT was banking on this series to succeed, especially after all of the time and money and advertising they had sunk into it. Even look at the awards that LO won this year, including the Eisner, which isn't an award traditionally won twice, lending credence to the fact that WT is buying her these awards to try and save their golden goose. It's too late to save it. It's barely managing to stay alive on life support.

If anything I hope this is a harsh but necessary lesson to WT to not undercut their other creators and series just to shove all their eggs in one basket. There are so many series on the platform that could be massive hits if WT would just extend them the olive branch and give them the same royal treatment they gave LO for so many years. There's no reason all of their resources need to go into one series, it's not a pie, everyone should be able to get the opportunity to be seen within their library. Otherwise, if for some reason WT can't allocate those resources due to the sheer number of series on the site, then that should be a wake up call to lessen the amount of titles that are being churned out into the Originals catalogue every week. To be fair, the launch weeks have lessened over the past year, they're not quite as overstuffed with launch titles as they used to be, but it's still a lot compared to what it used to be back in the day.

The reality is that LO was released at a time when the site wasn't nearly as oversaturated as it is today so it was created at the right place, right time - if it was released today, it would likely be another buried series with little to no advertising. It was a product of its time and that time is very much long gone.

[jcinkkrp]

JCINK TUTORIAL FOR KRP PART 1 : basics & registration.

what jcink is and how it works

jcink normal vs jcink premium

the structure of a jcink site

how to register a new account

how to edit your profile

how to register sub accounts

how account switching works

in this set of tutorials, you will learn how to use the jcink forum platform. whether you are a complete beginner at forum platforms or want to learn jcink and have used other forums before, this should be the perfect tutorial for all your needs.

what jcink is & how it works

jcink is a forum platform made for the hosting of roleplay sites. it's similar to proboards, boards, or invisionfree but many prefer it over those for all of its unique features.

jcink is not a website, but rather a forum host

each jcink site would be comparable to a collective mewe group, or the collection of blogs that make up a tumblr rp

you can find jcink's main page (where you register new forums and can search for support topics and find contact information for help) here at jcink.com

jcink is free with a paid $9.99 option for premium which allows jcink sites to host 18+ content and gives extra storage etc. more info can be found on that here

you can find jcink's twitter where they post updates if service is down etc @jcink

jcink site structure

here is a dummy site using the default skin made to help teach you how to navigate a jcink forum.

what you're viewing when you first open that link is the board index. this is essentially the home page.

most sites will not look identical to this, and most sites do not use the default jcink skin but rather custom ones.

registering & editing your profile

every site's board index will have a login / register button and a list of the main forums on the site. some, you may have to register an account first before having access to the forums.

you'll use the register button to make a new account, or the login one if you already have one.

you may register on the dummy site to practice. most jcink sites use character names (first last or last first) for accounts, but you can register with whatever username you want for the dummy site.

this is the registration form. some sites will require additional information, but all fields on the left must be filled out to make an account. email addresses can be used for more than one account.

after registering, you'll have full access to be able to post on the site as well as access to be able to edit your profile.

clicking on 'my controls' on the dummy site will take you to where you can edit your profile.

there are several fields set up so that you can practice setting up / filling out a profile. you can type an answer for 'age' and 'pronouns' and link to an image in the 'avatar' field. any image, it won't show up anywhere on the board for you on this skin. when you've filled them out, clicking 'amend my profile' will save the information.

on most sites, this will include both your ooc information and your character information. most sites designate which is which.

you may also upload a gif or image under 'edit avatar settings'. some sites require this or use it for their graphics on their skins. there is a file size maximum for this! i suggest a 100x100 gif unless the site says otherwise.

if you register with the wrong name or at any point want to change the name of your account (or in most cases character) you'll do that under the 'change username' link in the same area.

you are welcome to test both changing usernames and uploading an avatar on the dummy site as well!

this is also where you can find your messenger (if there is no link on the board index, but most sites will have one), subscribed topics / forums, as well as all the settings for your account.

sub accounts & switching accounts

most jcink sites (which are not sandbox sites) require one account per character. i'll explain sandbox sites later.

if you wish to make a new account (for example, when you're making a second or further character), you'll click the 'edit sub accounts' link.

this will pull up a link of all your existing sub accounts, as well as the option to register a new account.

you are welcome to test the register a new account option on the dummy site. it will automatically add the account under yours as a sub account.

on jcink (unlike on tumblr) sub accounts have all the same permissions and abilities as main accounts, and your notifications for any subscribed topics, tags, messages etc can be pushed to your main account so you won't miss them.

to switch accounts from one to another, you'll simply use the switch accounts option which you can find usually somewhere in the header or top of the skin. in our case, it's next to your username and the log out button near the top.

since this got so long, there will be additional posts for each of the subsequent sections. i'll try to post them all in a timely manner! next up will be forum structures and how to navigate forums.

[onecooooooolcat]

holy grail of last.fm and spotify music data sites. i'd still say check the actual link but i've copy pasted most of the info n the links below

Spotify

Sites, apps and programs that use your Spotify account, Spotify API or both.

Spotify sites:

Obscurify: Tells you how unique you music taste is in compare to other Obscurify users. Also shows some recommendations. Mobile friendly.

Skiley: Web app to better manage your playlists and discover new music. This has so many functions and really the only thing I miss is search field for when you are managing playlists. You can take any playlist you "own" and order it by many different rules (track name, album name, artist name, BPM, etc.), or just randomly shuffle it (say bye to bad Spotify shuffle). You can also normalize it. For the other functions you don't even need the rights to edit the playlist. Those consists of splitting playlist, filtering out song by genre or year to new playlist, creating similar playlists or exporting it to CFG, CSV, JSON, TXT or XML.

You can also use it to discover music based on your taste and it has a stats section - data different from Last.fm.

Also, dark mode and mobile friendly.

Sort your music: Lets you sort your playlist by all kinds of different parameters such as BPM, artist, length and more. Similar to Skiley, but it works as an interactive table with songs from selected playlist.

Run BPM: Filters playlists based on parameters like BPM, Energy, etc. Great visualized with colorful sliders. Only downside - shows not even half of my playlists. Mobile friendly.

Fylter.in: Sort playlist by BMP, loudness, length, etc and export to Spotify

Spotify Charts: Daily worldwide charts from Spotify. Mobile friendly

Kaleidosync: Spotify visualizer. I would personally add epilepsy warning.

Duet: Darthmouth College project. Let's you compare your streaming data to other people. Only downside is, those people need to be using the site too, so you have to get your friends to log in. Mobile friendly.

Discover Quickly: Select any playlist and you will be welcomed with all the songs in a gridview. Hover over song to hear the best part. Click on song to dig deeper or save the song.

Dubolt: Helps you discover new music. Select an artist/song to view similar ones. Adjust result by using filters such as tempo, popularity, energy and others.

SongSliders: Sort your playlists, create new one, find new music. Also can save Discover weekly every monday.

Stats for Spotify: Shows you Top tracks and Top artists, lets you compare them to last visit. Data different from Last.fm. Mobile friendly

Record Player: This site is crazy. It's a Rube Goldberg Machine. You take a picture (any picture) Google Cloud Vision API will guess what it is. The site than takes Google's guess and use it to search Spotify giving you the first result to play. Mobile friendly.

Author of this site has to pay for the Google Cloud if the site gets more than 1000 requests a month! I assume this post is gonna blow up and the limit will be easily reached. Author suggests to remix the app and set it up with your own Google Cloud to avoid this. If your are able to do so, do it please. Or reach out to the author on Twitter and donate a little if you can.

Spotify Playlist Randomizer: Site to randomize order of the songs in playlist. There are 3 shuffling methods you can choose from. Mobile friendly.

Replayify: Another site showing you your Spotify data. Also lets you create a playlist based on preset rules that cannot be changed (Top 5 songs by Top 20 artists from selected time period/Top 50 songs from selected time period). UI is nice and clean. Mobile friendly, data different from Last.fm.

Visualify: Simpler replayify without the option to create playlists. Your result can be shared with others. Mobile friendly, data different from Last.fm.

The Church Of Koen: Collage generator tool to create collages sorted by color and turn any picture to collage. Works with Last.fm as well.

Playedmost: Site showing your Spotify data in nice grid view. Contains Top Artists, New Artists, Top Tracks and New Tracks. Data different from Last.fm, mobile friendly.

musictaste.space: Shows you some stats about your music habits and let's you compare them to others. You can also create Covid-19 playlist :)

Playlist Manager: Select two (or more) playlists to see in a table view which songs are shared between them and which are only in one of them. You can add songs to playlists too.

Boil the Frog: Choose to artists and this site will create playlists that slowly transitions between one artist's style to the other.

SpotifyTV: Great tool for searching up music videos of songs in your library and playlists.

Spotify Dedup and Spotify Organizer: Both do the same - remove duplicates. Spotify Dedup is mobile friendly.

Smarter Playlists: It lets you build a complex program by assembling components to create new playlists. This seems like a very complex and powerful tool.

JBQX: Do you remember plug.dj? Well this is same thing, only using Spotify instead of YouTube as a source for music. You can join room and listen to music with other people, you all decide what will be playing, everyone can add a song to queue.

Spotify Buddy: Let's you listen together with other people. All can control what's playing, all can listen on their own devices or only one device can be playing. You don't need to have Spotify to control the queue! In my opinion it's great for parties as a wireless aux cord. Mobile friendly.

Opslagify: Shows how much space would one need to download all of their Spotify playlists as .mp3s.

Whisperify: Spotify game! Music quiz based on what you are listening to. Do you know your music? Mobile friendly.

Popularity Contest: Another game. Two artists, which one is more popular according to Spotify data? Mobile friendly, doesn't require Spotify login.

Spotify Apps:

uTrack: Android app which generates playlist from your top tracks. Also shows top artists, tracks and genres - data different from Last.fm.

Statistics for Spotify: uTrack for iOS. I don't own iOS device so I couldn't test it. iOS users, share your opinions in comments please :).

Spotify Programs:

Spicetify: Spicetify used to be a skin for Rainmeter. You can still use it as such, but the development is discontinued. You will need to have Rainmeter installed if you want to try. These days it works as a series of PowerShell commands. New and updated version here. Spicetify lets you redesign Spotify desktop client and add new functions to it like Trash Bin, Shuffle+, Christian Mode etc. It doesn't work with MS Store app, .exe Spotify client is required.

Library Bridger: The main purpose of this program is to create Spotify playlists from your locally saved songs. But it has some extra functions, check the link.

Last.fm

Sites, apps and programs using Last.fm account, Last.fm API or both.

Last.fm sites:

Last.fm Mainstream Calculator: How mainstream is music you listen to? Mobile friendly.

My Music Habits: Shows different graphs about how many artists, tracks and albums from selected time period comes from your overall top artists/tracks/albums.

Explr.fm: Where are the artists you listen to from? This site shows you just that on interactive world map.

Descent: The best description I can think of is music dashboard. Shows album art of currently playing song along with time and weather.

Semi-automatic Last.fm scrobbler: One of the many scrobblers out there. You can scrobble along with any other Last.fm user.

The Universal Scrobbler: One of the best manual scrobblers. Mobile friendly.

Open Scrobbler: Another manual scrobbler. Mobile friendly

Vinyl Scrobbler: If you listen to vinyl and use Last.fm, this is what you need.

Last.fm collage generator, Last.fm top albums patchwork generator and yet another different Last.fm collage generator: Sites to make collages based on your Last.fm data. The last one is mobile friendly.

The Church Of Koen: Collage generator tool to create collages sorted by color and turn any picture to collage. Works with Spotify as well.

Musicorum: So far the best tool for generating collages based on Last.fm data that I ever seen. Grid up to 20x20 tiles and other styles, some of which resemble very well official Spotify collages that Spotify generates at the end of the year. Everything customizable and even supports Instagram story format. Mobile friendly.

Nicholast.fm: Simple site for stats and recommendations. Mobile friendly.

Scatter.fm: Creates graph from your scrobbles that includes every single scrobble.

Lastwave: Creates a wave graph from your scrobbles. Mobile friendly.

Artist Cloud: Creates artist cloud image from you scrobbles. Mobile friendly.

Last.fm Tools: Lets you generate Tag Timeline, Tag Cloud, Artist Timeline and Album Charter. Mobile friendly.

Last Chart: This site shows different types of beautiful graphs visualizing your Last.fm data. Graph types are bubble, force, map, pack, sun, list, cloud and stream. Mobile friendly.

Sergei.app: Very nice looking graphs. Mobile friendly.

Last.fm Time Charts: Generates charts from your Last.fm data. Sadly it seems that it only supports artists, not albums or tracks.

ZERO Charts: Generates Billboard like charts from Last.fm data. Requires login, mobile friendly.

Skihaha Stats: Another great site for viewing different Last.fm stats.

Jakeledoux: What are your Last.fm friends listening to right now? Mobile friendly.

Last History: View your cumulative listening history. Mobile friendly.

Paste my taste: Generates short text describing your music taste.

Last.fm to CSV: Exports your scrobbles to CSV format. Mobile friendly.

Pr.fm: Syncs your scrobbles to your Strava activity descriptions as a list based on what you listened to during a run or biking session, etc. (description by u/mturi, I don't use Strava, so I have no idea how does it work :))

Last.fm apps:

Scroball for Last.fm: An Android app I use for scrobbling, when I listen to something else than Spotify.

Web Scrobbler: Google Chrome and Firefox extension scrobbler.

Last.fm programs:

Last.fm Scrubbler WPF: My all time favourite manual scrobbler for Last.fm. You can scrobbler manually, from another user, from database (I use this rather than Vinyl Scrobbler when I listen to vinyls) any other sources. It can also generate collages, generate short text describing your music taste and other extra functions.

Last.fm Bulk Edit: Userscript, Last.fm Pro is required. Allows you to bulk edit your scrobbles. Fix wrong album/track names or any other scrobble parameter easily.

[haletostilinski]

I asked, you guys voted! The next poll? A villain battle, so here we go!

Now that we finished a wild Character Battle, it's time to move onto a new set of polls. A villain battle. Who do you feel is the best Teen Wolf villain? So, a few things first:

I believe I got all the important players. There are 32 Teen Wolf villains I was able to come up with. A few I put together in a croupe (i.e. "The Alpha Pack") mainly to fit in as many I could into 32 slots. So to keep it to 32 characters to keep it nice and even, a few villains who are lesser known or somewhat forgotten on the whole might have missed the list. Most of the villains were able to get on the list, though.

And remember, this is the best villain poll, so even if you hate the character, did they make a good villain? Vote on if they were the BEST AT VILLAINY, not if they were your favorite or least favorite character!

The matching up for this was basically entirely random, except maybe trying to keep the bigger villains further apart from each other. So a match up might be kinda 'meh' for the first few rounds for a few of them.

WARNING: Obviously, NO CHARACTER HATE IN THESE POLLS. Keep it civil! You can disagree with the winners if you're bummed yours didn't get through to the next round/didn't win, of course, but don't go hating on the other character or its stans. Also no fighting amongst each other, either. That will not be tolerated and if I see that I will either delete the comment if I can/give a warning/block the user/or if it's too many people going too far I will shut this WHOLE thing down. This is meant to be fun and not serious. Remember that, please.

No character and character stan hate ANYWHERE, on ANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM. Not on twitter, tiktok, freaking youtube or instagram, wherever.

HATE WHILE LINKING TO AND ASSOCIATING WITH MY POLLS which could mean quoting or replying to someone linking to my poll! - WILL NOT BE TOLERATED

Also, given what happened in the shipper polls, this has to be warned for just incase: If there is ANY significant spike in the votes in a very short period of time - like say jumping 10% points or something in like an hour of time or something - outside of the initial votes being given at first, of course - I will assume botting has taken place. If someone is making more than 1 account on tumblr to vote, i.e. fake accounts, that is also cheating and THAT VILLAIN CHARACTER WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED. Again, with what happened with the ship battle, this needs to be said. NO making multiple accounts or there will be consequences.

Comments/laughing at/hating on a character that's included will not be tolerated. If you're bewildered by a character winning, just keep comments to a very nice and polite "huh?" As I said above, I will shut this whole thing down if there is too much judgement/hate/etc…

Because this is a villain battle, there will be two villains per poll. So you're about to see quite a bit of of poll posts from me…just a warning if you're wondering why there's going to be continued villain poll posts from me 😭

As always, every poll will have a 1 week duration. I will show the brackets as they stand below. And after every round, I will show the updated version, pinned to my blog if you're curious to see every winner of every round.

Lastly, have fun! Let's see what villain lands on top 😎

Here are the brackets - ignore the numbers on them, the site I used just did that🤷‍♀️ (and you'll have a pretty good idea who the winners will be up against next round as well). I will start posting the polls momentarily (but might not get all of them up right away, that might be staggered.)

[rhythmelia]

Support a Translator of Color (1 day left of Crowd Justice fundraising!)

Fresh post for the tags! As I've shared extensively in updates on this post since 2023.06.24, my friend Yilin Wang (yilinwriter on twitter) has had their translation work stolen and used uncredited by the British Museum in a major exhibit on The Hidden Century in Chinese history that featured major feminist revolutionary Qiu Jin, and when called out on that behavior, the museum chose to remove Qiu Jin's poetry and Yilin's translation, silencing both of them. Instead of, yanno, naming the translator and giving appropriate credit and payment. ....yup.

So! Here's the Crowd Justice:

Case updates can be found at that fundraiser (especially as the muskrat has made twitter into an epic trashfire at the moment) but some key points, in Yilin's words:

I need to raise at least £15,000 by July 10th to enable me to instruct expert lawyers in London to initiate a claim of infringement of my copyright and moral rights. I will be working with lawyers in the UK to bring a claim against the British Museum for its infringement of my copyright and moral rights in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), which is a specialist court and part of the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice in London. ......

Please contribute and share if you can - each and every small contribution is very much appreciated! Let’s hold the British Museum accountable together!  I realise that this is a lot of money at any time, and especially in the current economic circumstances, but the cost and difficulty of taking legal action is a huge barrier when it comes to access to justice. My hope is that if I am able to generate enough support to take this point of principle forward, it will give the British Museum and all similar institutions the maximum possible incentive to avoid similar conduct in the future, because they will see that there is collective power in communities who feel disrespected and insulted. .....

Why This Case Matters This case matters to me not only because I believe both my work and Qiu Jin's work should receive the credit and respect they deserve, but because it affects the copyright and moral rights of all translators, writers, and creatives. 

The British Museum has not issued an appropriate apology or taken proper responsibility for its actions, so if it is not held accountable, then this is a cycle that stands to be repeated.

Yilin was able to make the minimum to retain a lawyer, and is now working towards the stretch goal. Here's part of the statement from the lawyer on the crowd justice page:

Accordingly, it is not giving anything away to say that we sincerely hope that the British Museum come to recognise the shortcomings in their conduct so far, and move to make amends rather than fight Yilin all the way. We will make Yilin’s funds go as far as we can, but there is a real prospect of the case being drawn out beyond the funding she has available, so it continues to be the case that every pound she raises towards her stretch targets puts her in the strongest possible position - a position that the British Museum has extensive visibility of - to hold out for what she deserves with help of expert legal assistance.

Currently it's at £16,722 pledged towards the stretch target of £20,000 from 573 pledges in small amount donations. Help Yilin be able to keep going if the British Museum continues to behave badly and try to fight until Yilin's out of funds. Please consider reblogging and/or donating a small amount if you can - about 1 day left to July 10! (I'm in UTC-7 and it's the 8th for me but I'm not sure what timezone the fundraiser site is in, since it says 1 day left there)

tagging @copperbadge, @vaspider and @prismatic-bell on the off chance they might be interested in signal boosting? No pressure though!

[p5x-theories]

hey ! sorry if this has been asked before , just generally curious

how do you normally get access to all of these files ? do you yourself somehow rip them from the beta or something or do you obtain them secondhand ?

sorry if this sounds weird , ive never been able to figure out how people rip files n im curious as someone really into programming n such

Haha, I actually learned how to datamine just for getting the files from this game! I was annoyed that it felt like none of the dataminers I was seeing on Twitter were posting as thoroughly as they could be, so I decided to start going through everything myself.

I've posted about my process before, but things changed a little with the open beta, so here's what I currently do. I don't know how universally applicable for other games this is, but it works for this one!

I download the latest version of the mainland China open beta. I could datamine the Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan one instead, since that's the one I actually play, but mainland gets the updates a week sooner, so even though it has more censorship that's the one I always grab files from. If you already have the game, you don't need to download it from the site again, you can just run the game and it'll update upon startup whenever there's an update available.

I close the game once the update's done, and check which files updated (if you're downloading the game for the first time, obviously they'll all be new, otherwise you can check the date the file was modified). There are two places that could be updated: /client/bin, and/or /client/OuterPackage. In the past /bin was for bigger updates (usually story updates) while /OuterPackage was for other updates, but they've been updating /bin more and more lately. /bin is ALL the game files (stored in vfiles), while /OuterPackage is just the latest update stuff (stored in /Bundles bundle files).

a. If I just need the /OuterPackage files, great! That's way easier and faster, both for decrypting and for sorting through, since it's just a small slice of the files (I think Version 2.3.2's OuterPackage bundles were about 6 GB). I use this tool, the original upload for which was deleted so I uploaded it to share, and just put it in the /OuterPackage/Bundles folder, then double click the file to run it. b. If I need the /bin files, ugh. That means wading through all the files in the game- and a longer decryption time. I use this tool for that, and end up with a huge pile of all the stuff in the game to sort through (right now the vfiles are about 41 GB).

Either way, once the files are decrypted, I can open them in AssetStudioMod to view them and export them into a usable format. For the sake of efficiency, rather than going through every single file manually, I have a list of a ton of file name keywords to search to quickly look for anything interesting and new. The files aren't really sorted, so I do still end up having to check all 200 folders (whether from /bin or /OuterPackage/Bundles) each time to find everything, even when I know what I'm looking for.

And now I have the image files, 3D models, and fonts! It's also possible to export other stuff, like rigging and animation, but I haven't figured out how to actually implement those, and it'd probably be more time-consuming than it's worth.

For audio files, it's way easier- I don't even need to decrypt them, I can just use foobar2000 to open them directly from the game files (/client/bin/Media and /client/OuterPackage/Media). They're compressed into groups that foobar2000 can split back into separate audio files, so it does still take a bit of digging to find anything new and interesting, but it's much faster than the bundles.

There's also the Lua files, in /client/OuterPackage/Lua, though I don't actually check them much since it tends to be the less interesting data about how the game works. You can use this tool to decrypt them, though!

The more interesting stuff (like mainline quest text) is hidden in the Config files (for instance, those in /client/OuterPackage/Config), but I don't know how to decrypt those, and the people that do are very protective of it since that's the kind of serious information that the developers would probably tighten security on if they knew people were getting into it at all.

I hope that's the answer you were looking for, heh! Possibly I went a bit more in-depth than you wanted, but oh well. I try to be open about how I do all this, since it was a bit of a pain figuring some of it out on my own for the first time, when I was only seeing others post tidbits of the process at most.