hako-aiko

[hako-aiko]

internet friends are kinda like illegally downloaded friends. you don’t get the physical copy but you still get all the great content

[hako-aiko]

What alternatives to the fandom ecosystem of Tumblr might there be? Are there any spaces where this kind of chaotic internet still exists? And how do we find or become a part of those spaces? Ik Tumblr doesn't really have any equivalents but it's the fandoms and niche communities I'm most scared of losing

the fediverse!

THE FEDIVERSE!

THE FEDIVERSE!

THE FEDIVERSE!

THE FEDIVERSE!

THE FEDIVERSE!!!

You have several tumblr-adjacent servers you can create your account at. And the best of all, all them talk to each other and you can follow people in every one of them, even in those different from the one you are in!

[hako-aiko]

In all seriousness Jv, how much is Tumblrcom worth now? IIs it too big for us users to band together to buy it? Or would the running of the website be too difficult.

No web experience here, just a Tumblrina wishing we could pull rescue here.

I've talked about this in the past... the problem is not how much would it take for Automattic to sell the site, the problem is the operating costs. Even if you get it for free, you need several millions per month just to pay the infrastructure of the site. Running tumblr for month, without even paying salaries, costs more than what AO3 makes in donations in an entire year. It's not "let's get the money together and buy it!" it's "let's get the money together... every single month, forever", which I don't think can't really work.

[hako-aiko]

matt just fired half the remaining tumblr support staff lmao

[hako-aiko]

Pertinent community guidelines for artists on BlueSky, especially in regards to adult art AKA PORNography.

from the community guidelines:

no "content portraying minors in a sexually explicit context", so if you're Steven King don't write the kids from IT having an orgy in the sewers while pennywise dances

no "depictions of excessive violence, gore, torture, dismemberment, or non-consensual sexual activity". Using specifically the word "depictions" makes me think that they're intentionally covering cartoon art as well as real violence. But of course there's still a vibrant guro tag:

https://bsky.app/search?q=guro

there's stuff in the noncon tag

https://bsky.app/search?q=noncon

And I'm sure there's people posting horrific gruesome special effects makeup from horror movies in other tags.

Just because there's people posting in the tag doesn't mean it's allowed. And any faceless platform can pull the rug from you, or change the rules without warning, or, or…

So I'll happily stay on my current fediverse server and feel safe posting horrible gruesome centipedes in vaginas ☺ The finances seem stable, the moderators feel good (haven't seen any racists or nazis), and I can just link my art to anyone who wants to see it on other platforms. The rules are clear enough to distinguish works of art and writing from actual real videos and photos of death and torture and abuse.

But the wonderful thing about "federation" is that we can talk to each other no matter what site we are on :D Who knows if the bridge between fedi and bluesky will keep working with me if the content rules are different though :P

SO! If you are already on the fediverse (which includes Mastodon, misskey, ruffy, and other softwares), you can follow me on blorbo.social and we can talk to each other normally without any complex tech gimmicks. You can also dm/message/email me for an invite to blorbo.social. Or just sign up yourself!

If you're on BlueSky, you can follow me on the mirror of my Fediverse account :D (you can also create your own fedi->bsky mirror)

The mirror will post the same things I post that are public, which includes my art and other's posts that I share. If you follow the bridge account (which creates your own mirror), then you can reply to my posts on Bsky, and I can reply to you from my Mastodon account, and we can hold hands and sing.

It's kinda complex and full of tech jargon, so if you don't want to do all that, it's fine. It's an option if you have 5 minutes to spend. And my art will always be available to see on various sites including my own that do not require log-in to view.

Thanks for reading. This post was copy/pasted from my fedi account (woohoo 5000 word limit), then edited with more information lol.

[hako-aiko]

Reinhard van Astrea (ラインハルト・ヴァン・アストレア) - Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu - Episode 51

[hako-aiko]

this might be an unpopular opinion but sometimesssssss people ruin their own fan experiences by dedicating too much energy to (ultimately harmless) things that bother them pls utilize the mute and filter buttons u will be so much happier

[hako-aiko]

[Interview TL] 4Gamer’s Weekly VTuber Files #21 - Rikka

source

Name: Rikka Company: Holostars (1st generation) Streaming platform: YouTube SNS: X (Twitter) Hashtags: Live #りつすた / Fanart #りつあーと / Clips #ちょこりっか Character/Model designer: Fuyuomi Debut Date: October 20th, 2019 Birthday Date: April 15th Height: 179cm Introduction: A "high-tech" Holoroid. Because his memory capacity is limited to 2GB, he can be a bit of an airhead. His main charm was the gap between his soft talking voice and singing voice. Currently working hard to share his songs around the world.

10 QUESTIONS FOR VTUBERS

Q01. Tell us your main (streaming) content! I mainly focus my streaming content on anything music-related. Things like making my songs, I also do tons of acoustic singing streams. I've also done music-related events/projects, with the recent one being The "VTuber Singing King" which is also my biggest project yet!

Q02. What was the cue that kickstarted your streaming activity? As I am a Holoroid born of COVER corporation's technology, I've been born a streamer. I began my streaming career in order to understand more about humans. There are times when my listeners are often more knowledgeable so everyday has always been a learning day for me.

Q03. Please recommend us your “newcomer’s friendly” videos or stream archive! I recommend my 3rd year anniversary live, I think from there you would be able to discern what kind of activities I've been doing up until now. I'm using "Live" itself as the concept for the stream, so you'll be able to see how I was from the start up until now. It plays basically like a rewind so I think it'll be an easy watch for newcomers!

As for games-related, I have a high preference for death-trap games so I think game streams I've done like "Super Mario Maker 2" will be fun to watch. Having to be stuck in the same area for so many times may not be good for the brain, but all those feelings get replaced with a cheerful sense of accomplishment the moment I manage to pass it. The gap between my music-related and game-related content is something that could be fun to watch I think!

Q04. Tell us things that you like or something you’re good at! My specialty is playing the guitar, making songs, and playing death-trap games. As for the things I like, it'll be chocolate, sake, and cats.

Q05. Tell us a hobby or content that has piqued your interest lately! I'm currently hooked with "Street Fighter 6". Some of the Holostars members were also as addicted to the point we were already holding our own tournaments with each other. I always strive to finish any games I've started so I managed to get into Master rank now. I also like watching professional SF6 matches and learning from them. As for hobbies, I like searching for B-grade horror movies. But rather than a documentary I prefer one that includes a lot of short footage. My favorite type of story is the one that depicts humans as the real terror itself.

Q06. Is there any VTuber around that has caught your attention? Let us know! Shibuya Hal-kun and Machita Chima-san, if it's within the Hololive Production then it's definitely Hoshimachi Suisei-san. Hal-kun is known within the VTuber-sphere as the organizer of one of the biggest gaming events, so I'm looking forward to what he could come up with next! The first time I heard Machita Chima's voice, her singing skill is great but more than that she's highly expressive in her tones, she's such a wonderful singer and one I respected a lot! And lastly, Hoshimachi Suisei-san is a talent and my senior from the same company, however just like her name-- she really gives an impact like a comet herself through her activities, I wonder how far those glimmers could take her, her existence is one I'd like to continue to observe and admire.

Q07. What are other things you’re paying attention to other than VTubers? I've had the honor to work with voice actors before, so there are instances where I would watch their streams or catch up on their activities as a reference when I'm planning for a project/event. The ones I pay attention to the most are those I've collaborated with before like Eguchi Takuya-san, Okamoto Nobuhiko-san, and Ono Yuuki-san.

Q08. Is there a recent thing that left a deep impression on you, and is there anything else you’d like to try out? I thought doing a PR for music equipment, instruments, or even a soundproofed room might be quite interesting. And I'm always open when it comes to death-trap type games (lol), my favorite is souls-like games.

Q09. What sort of content you’d like to challenge yourself for now? I'd like to challenge myself with a solo live. It's my dream to perform solo on a stage with elaborate production and songs as my fans were hyping together with me. I would also like to perform for anime/drama theme songs, or even for commercials!

Q10. Tell us your message to the readers! I would be happy if this interview gets you to watch my stream. My music streams are generally more toward the calming type, while my gaming streams are more stoic and fun. It would brighten my day if you could check me out, regardless of your gender.

[hako-aiko]

Hey, you! Yeah, you with the cool neocities!

You're doing great! Really love what you've done with the place so far. Now here's something important moving forward. If you are making a neocities - especially if you are doing so with the motivation to fight back against Web 3.0 and reclaim the web as a space for individual users instead of for companies - please, keep the following in mind:

An inaccessible web is not a free web.

Repeat after me: An inaccessible web is not a free web.

Resources for Beginners to Learn About Web Accessibility and Web Design:

W3C's Introduction to Web Accessibility | W3C is the organization that decides on the standards of Accessibility on the web. They are an invaluable direct resource.

A Beginner's Guide to Understanding Web Accessibility

Mozilla's Accessibility Overview

WebAIM's Introduction to Web Accessibility

What is Web Accesibility in 60 Seconds! [YouTube Video]

Accessibility: What's the difference between WCAG Levels A and AA? [YouTube Video]

FreeCodeCamp | FCC provides an extremely beginner friendly Responsive Web Design course. The lessons for this course integrate accessibility standards naturally, and also have individual lessons specifically for teaching accessibility.

FreeCodeCamp's Accessibility Tag on their News Page

HTML Dog's Tutorial's for HTML, CSS, and Javascript

MarkSheet's Free HTML and CSS Tutorial

W3C's Easy Checks

W3C's QuickRef on How to Meet WCAG | I have filtered the QuickRef link to only show Level A requirements. This is the easiest level to meet and is considered the "bare minimum."

WAVE: Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

[hako-aiko]

oc

[hako-aiko]

autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to appear to pay him money before he tells his audience they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

[hako-aiko]

I think one of the more unfortunate consequences to creators being more interactive with fans is that a lot of fans/fandoms normalized this idea that creators have to explain/validate every headcanon they have.

[hako-aiko]

I love Spirit Hunter: Death Mark's approach to the amnesia trope and the question of "If you can't remember who you were, are you even the same person?"

A lot of narratives play around with the weight of that, only to turn around and say "Of course you're the same, who else would you be?" The character gets their memories back and they're suddenly exactly as they were before, maybe with a life lesson along the way.

But Death Mark doesn't. Without all the knowledge and experiences of Masamune Kujou, Yashiki is fundamentally a kinder and less apathetic person, without any sort of prompting. Even when confronting dangerous spirits out to kill him, he takes the time to learn their stories and show them some small form of kindness. He listens to the recording of who he used to be, and he can't reconcile the callousness that Masamune had towards the deaths caused by his mistake with the way he feels about them, to the point where he doesn't even go back to using the identity that he's worked so hard to remember. Even when the game gives you the option to forgive Masamune, the options are still "It had to be done" and "I can't forgive him" because Kazuo Yashiki and Masamune Kujou are not the same.

And I think that's a way more interesting take than the protagonist just reverting back into the same person they were despite all the experiences we saw them go through.

[hako-aiko]

this is what happened right guys

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Death Mark: Manga (2019) - Mark Bearers

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I thought this meme really worked for them 🌂💋💄 ▪️ On Twitter -> Here!!

[hako-aiko]

Death Mark Shitpost Collection - Part 2 [ 1 ]