#ASP-Hosting

[arcanetwister]

English is not my native language and I spend two hours to understand that letter from captain K. P. Hob to Wrackingspelt. Brennan went monologuing for two minutes using phrases and words I didn't know and in fact after translating a bunch of it I spend extra time to google the meanings for words I didn't understand even in my native language. What a ride. Thank you mister Mulligan for tricking me into studying.

Also here is the captain's letter to Wrackingspelt for everyone who is interested:

My dearest Wrackingspelt, in the execution of one's duties in service to king and court, it becomes necessary at times to place in the confidence of ones most trusted and privileged compatriots, the secret misgivings of tender sentiment to which even the steadiest hearts may be compelled in the face of rank uncertainty and tribulation, defiant of all preparations in the narrow precognition of their host, to wit, the burden of execrable misery, far from waning with the passing hours, counters all adages  and aphorisms, whose musings are rendered mendacious on the passage of time and its remediation of want or injury. It instead waxes with all the venom and ferocity of an asp, such that your humble servant must fail in knowing rest or peace or hope. It is a dull and dreary ache. The most dispassionate tempest whose ruinous wake strands where it cannot destroy.

This pompous speech with complex turns of phrase broke my brain. And what’s even funnier is that in fact this letter was ultimately understood by a HORSE.

[pawborough]

August-September Post-Alpha Check In

Hello, everyone!

With the release of Alpha testing, we have in this update a retrospective on the test itself, a host of content from August, some lore drop, and word on where we are with Moontail and Leopard! 

Let’s begin with some art!

Southern Romanovtsa 

Users in our Discord participated in a community game to see the preproduction designs of our Romanovtsa variants. The Southern olive variant is done!

Design and illustration by Hydde

Crests

We’ve illustrated two more forum crests, Orchard Crest and Spectral Crest!

Design and illustration by Giulia

Currently, Demonic is being illustrated now!

Regal Set recolors

Regal set had its recolors done!

Black, grey, white, red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, pink, and brown, recolors by Emma (@missbluefrost)

New Accessory: Gilded Crest

Next, preview of the design for the Gilded Crest, the sponsored accessory item from the individual who won our sweepstakes: Emma! (Not the one on our team)

KS sponsored by Emma, illustrated by Azarel

Harvest Logo

As promised, the Harvest logo was updated to better reflect the difference in the thematic stone and incense items. 

This visual will slowly be updated in all our content. 

Wheatley and Crowley

Take a peak at the newest progress on Whealtey and Crowley!

Leopard and Moontails Check In

As promised, we want to release these two things together. So where are we? 

Moontails have all patterns but Leopard done. 

Moontail wing colors, a mighty feat, are good to go, but we are currently working on perfecting the tail and whisker glow colors. Moontails will be utilizing the accent 1 color for their glow tint, much like the previous cat creator, and we’ve had to start from the ground up on accommodating all of our colors in a way that flatters the glow. 

In addition, doing this work now will help benefit any glowing mystic breeds in the future... ;)

Here is an example of in-progress glow designs: 

Thistle, Wisteria, River

Overall this breed is very robust in comparison to our other breeds, and it will be extremely rewarding to release all 3 wing types at once. With all the effort gone in, Moontails have certainly earned their place as a legacy breed. 

Leopard

Leopard is all done! Sans Moontails, but they’re currently being worked on. Here is an in-progress example:

WIP by Asp

Though, we are wary of using the designated “tiger” palette for Leopard 100% of the time, as we worry this will create a washed-out look for the pattern in the majority of cases, so while we tool Moontail glows, we’re visiting altering Leopard spot colors. 

As far as art goes as a whole, these two things are concurrently working alongside our main production push. A vast majority of our time is going towards icons or continuing accessory illustration. This will limit the amount of new content we can share, as it will just be the same items repeated several times over! However, we’re dedicated to taking the time to not only prepare our starter breeds, but to expand the breed compatibility for each accessory as soon as possible! 

New Information on the land of Kotemara

New information on the continent known as Kotemara, which is the name for the giant landmass that users will be joining when they play PawBorough. 

Kotemara is home to 7 Boroughs, which each have a capital, we're here to share the capital names for each!

Luna: Kotikansa Sol: Borheim  Upper Abyssal: Tsuribari Lower Abyssal: Umiya Zenith: Felkin Harvest: Hillshire Cogwheel: New Brassgate The Metropolis: The Spire

But there's something else...

The Wastes

The magic of the geological deposits that Catfolk are currently studying and learning has ran rampant in large areas around Kotemara, influencing the localized flora and fauna. These areas are home to large, powerful, magical beasts roaming the land, colloquially called Wastebeasts. Plant life either dies out, save for hardy, shrubby grasses and sparse foliage, or overgrows and mutates into a magical nightmare. 

All Wastebeasts are very dangerous and magically aggressive. Cats who brave the wastes seldom return home, and catfolk settlements bordering the wastes are frequently terrorized by Wastebeast attacks. 

The Spire, the head magical academy in The Metropolis, has sworn to make studying and controlling the Wastes its top priority in magical research and modernization. But the latest achievements coming from The Spire have been little more than pithy advancements in magical products...  

Independent organizations like Maven's Guild have cropped up around the Boroughs, with trained recruits helping scared cats cross the wastes, helping to fend off Wastebeasts from catfolk villages, and to assist with mundane errands. 

As you learn about Maven and her organization, you'll discover more about her connection to the Wastes... 

Alpha Retrospective

At the beginning of this month, we started dedicated Alpha testing. This was a challenging time, as we as a team have never before performed public-facing testing of this nature. 

But we are jovial and positive behind the scenes, because we have learned a lot regarding our own application, our development tactics, user feedback tracking, user desires, and community support management. This test-run has given us beginning experience on how the full game will function with an active user base, and has allowed us to foster a more prepared understanding for not only server preparation, but all further development efforts. 

In addition, the mass amounts of testing and QA reporting has truly helped to improve our development, as we can knock out and identify bugs much easier. We are thriving with this, able to swiftly chop and iterate upon any flaws found in the functionality. The flow of tickets means there’s always something to improve on, and we have burgeoned with this setup.  

The warm and positive attitude from our testers has also helped to lift our spirits. We’re very open to the criticism and feedback we have received on the application thus far! In fact, we’re duly grateful that so many users have put in their valuable time and energy to both constructively and bluntly critique what we have. Earnestly, with no aggression nor sarcasm: It is stellar that we have users who care. It means that we have something which people love, and want to see improve, and we could not ask for better! 

That being said, we were expecting more aggression and user vitriol than we actually received thus far, and it’s uplifted the spirits of our team in such a way that we’re real fired up!

Our biggest aspects we want to improve on going forward is: 

Better user-side communication. This will come as we grow and can expand our team. Right now, only two individuals handle user tickets, and with one of them being myself, who also handles a great brunt of not only user-side updates, but also all development management, and it can cause swift and detailed user-side communication to suffer. This is certainly a problem!  The infallible solution will be to hire more help once we have the resources, and for now we’ll do our best to structure the responsibility in a way which prioritizes communication more favorably for users in the coming future. We truly owe you all better! And we are very grateful that you are all so patient while we’re working this hard.

Better code management. In general, we’d like to see things come out the gate a little less breakable, and this is on us to improve. We’ve tightened our form, including running more tests before releasing updates or iterating, and we’re only seeing the application get stronger from here.

Staying vague on promising deadlines. Unfortunately, we did fall a month behind, and taking that into consideration, we're just not in a place to make sweeping promises on the timeline. We admit fault, and will learn from this. From here, we're going to err on the side of caution and simply take the time we need. It smarts that we have had so many roadbumps and delays, but what's important is that we are consistently making progress, and that the final product is robust and surpasses user expectation for fun and enjoyment. We're keeping our heads down and grinding on.

And here’s a summary of what we liked: 

Even without a gameplay loop, users have frequently reported having fun interacting with the mechanics. This implies that there’s an inherent enjoyment to the setup, and is one of the best omens for longevity as a game that we could receive. It means that, at our core, we have an enjoyable game. That’s huge! We can only improve!

We’ve knocked out bugs fast. Users have been happy to see new iterations frequently released for testing. 

Users are very eager to test, giving us detailed reports that improve our development.

In conclusion, this has been a hugely positive experience, and we’re excited to keep building and improving. 

We’re hoping to run this test for a few more weeks while we do the following:

Nail down intended functionality of all working mechanics. 

Iterate a few key functionalities: metamorphics, cross-team play, and potentially combat. 

We’ll then close the test, with an announcement of such a week before closing, and take some time to rest, reflect, iterate on any important aspects of the game that we’re missing, and polish what we have with the most pertinent user feedback. After which, we’ll prepare for the opening of Closed Beta! 

Here is an updated timeline to reflect how things are shaking out:

This will be cross-posted to our socials as we focus on updating them!

If I can provide a small update from myself, the project lead: Overall it’s been great, though I am personally working a lot. Between everything I do, I have been working myself to sleep most days of the week. Right now, I eat, I sleep, and I wake up to work on PawBorough, and many times I forgo the sleep part. So I have been extremely grateful for the positivity and patience from the user base, and I have to pre-emptively request a bit of grace and patience if I disappear for a time to get some rest. 

But saying this, I stress that you all do not worry about me! I am completely alright! In fact I am very happy to be working, and I love it. I simply want to communicate the amount of dedication I have right now, ask for a bit of grace if I'm slow to reply to questions or tickets, and to give a big THANK YOU for the opportunity you all have given me to be doing this. I really could not be more in love with PawBorough, and so far I see a bright path for it to grow its wings and flourish as it improves. I hope all of our supporters and users feel this with me!

And from here, I am going to be taking this upcoming weekend away to rest. But we'll be back bright and squirrelly on Monday!

To summarize: We shared the Southern Romanovtsa, Regal set recoloring, 2 new crests, the Gilded Crest accessory, the updated Harvest logo, an NPC wip, a lore drop for longterm conflict, and our Alpha retrospective.

What to expect next update: Further asset and development updates. Check-ins for how Alpha is going, updated Borough descriptions to put on the site, and any further plans we'll have to share. 

[forgottenvalentina]

OOC | Valentina & the Tournament

so as per usual, our girl is scheming <3

so some stuff ive already chatted abt a bit:

Valentina wakes up everyday and everyday decides to be the WORST I swear 💀💀💀 honestly I do think eithne does get a reprieve when in public bc Valentina wants to give the impression that they’re one big happy family and def none of her kids are serving the others why would you even ~imagine such a ludicrous thing 👀😅 no but yeah!! Adhkjfdg the more I think abt it the more I think Valentina may have somehow incentivized the og girls all showing up for at least one of the tournament days as a happy family to cheer on their lord and brother (blah blah blah) bc she’s now watching first guin then arthur and now edmund slip through her fingers and she’s realizing it has to do not w her own children but w the og girls (much to her chagrin!) and she’s like DO UR THING GET THEM BACK but wo saying that so and let me just @forgottenbrigit Valentina’s probs giving alms at Malconaire for every day and every girl that appears bc she knows that’s what’ll entice them honestly! Sgjjfdg so while I was initially thinking @forgottenroisin would absent herself (I mean she just learned edmund killed her dad in battle the LAST thing she wants to do rn is watch him fight 💀😭) and I think she did insist she wasn’t coming till Valentina pulled that one out but yeah. Anyway!! Valentina also probs tried to get them all to wear green as both a malconaire and a vasilieva color anddddd I’m thinking she may have at least tried to host a private after party at malconaire for the victors!! Weirdly the peasants couldn’t make it… ;D but she probs didn’t think it was v weird if Brigit disappeared since she often absents herself from such things anyway and really this is abt reminding the princes they want to be here at malconaire!!! Agklgsdhkfd

So yeah idk if eithe Brigit or aoife were receptive to these bribes but rosie was! Tho she probs didn’t spend much time at the stands except whatever was the absolute minimum requirement for Valentina re: being seen there in order to help malconaire etc. Do you guys think ur ladies were receptive to this bribery? Valentina wants to know which jewels she’ll have to sell to bankroll this but if publicity 😂😭

@forgotteneithne Valentina forced to give alms to the poor then throwing a party for the varmonts and the only one to show is freaking @forgottensebastian while having to watch first eithne be publically hailed as cassimirs fiancée and then Cassimir lose like…worst day of Valentina’s life except the day roderick executed all her relatives and the day bran died shljdsjlfjl

Also i defff think Valentina wants them all to show up as a big happy family to support Cassimir (except she has no worries abt eithne not wishing to attend! But she ~will be reminding @forgottencassimir that this is the sort of wife he has chosen, one who will not support him, and it’s still not too late to dump her in favor of literally…anyone else atp!!! She is no longer picky!!!! As long as it isn’t Brigit anyway…afjlgshlg 😂😂😂)

forgottenaoife

@giadesstrin That makes sense! Meanwhile all the girls are like “… him? The guy who won nothing?” (Which good bc Valentina doesn’t need anymore terrible curtains or w/e 😜) but I did write a thing up for Eithne and she ends up coming to SOME of it! And idk if Rosie is there at all but I def think Rosie being their or her being there and also wanting to go asp too? Anyway I do think aoife might have been the last standing Malconaire sister (minus brigit ofc!) there by th end! @giadesstrin Aoife being the only sister to make it through the whole thing AND being the only one who brings back a prince like her step mother wanted… but Valentina like “NOT THAT ONE” is perfect after everything Valentina has put her through! She’s still doing want her step mother wants but it’s actually NOT what she wants! 😂

giadesstrin

@forgottenaoife Aoife can never win 😭😭😭 Valentina: ‘try for arthur next time’ *storms off* jk jk (but only kind of 😭😭😭)

couldn't find where i said it but i do actually think that, if its before the money disappears (if that even happens!), @forgottenroderick ~would come to this party and that @forgottenarthur would then come but largely to run interference for sebastian both re their dad and valentina (if edmund comes he might do a ~lil for him but largely lbr he is here for sebastian!! alkjsdfjks) but yeah honestly arthur is only there if sebastian is -- he doesn't wanna put eithne or sonya through it if he can help it bc hebelieves that valentina will as usual be pushing sonya at him...he'd be in for a surprise there bc valentina would ~def push eithne at him instead and yeahhhh i can't imagine that would best please cassimir or, really, ~anyone but valentina lakjsdfkljsdlkfj

lizzy, do you think sebastian, cassandra, or edmund would show?

idk if guin would be there but if she is then its bc she's still hoplessly in love w cassimir and cant bear to be parted from him in valentina's mind but conversely if she's ~not its just that again she's so hopelessly in love w him she can't bear to see him w eithne so yeah lakjsdfkljsdlkjf

but yeah, valentina is there loudly and proudly in the stands every single day and then feasting it up later!! also!!

valentina offered hers [her favor] to her 'one true champion’ cassimir but idk if he’d already accepted another or what so yeah, anyway hers was a green ribbon w the arms of vasilieva embattled w those of malconaire

@forgottencassimir also yes cormac and valentina are ABSOLUTELY taking turns cheering the loudest for cassimir…meanwhile rosie is booing him (but only when @forgotteneithne wont hear bc she doesn’t wanna hurt ~her) (also this is current!me sidenoting that the only way you can tell if you haven't gotten close etc that the frosts are all there is that you'll just randomly hear lots of booing from everywhere whenever cassimir appears ;D annnd also that valentina is kinda mad when cormac is cheering more loudly than she is and makes the girls cheer and rosie is laughingly like 'sorry i saw a swan i can't' [yes, i stubbed my toe and/or i saw a swan are her new joke excuses for everything] until she offers more alms for it lakjdsfjklsdf)

kate: I still think Eithne maybe didn’t go? But if she did she brought something to @forgottencassimir and I sort of love the idea that Valentina beat her to it? 🤣 but idk what you think cassimir would have done

lizzy: "Cassimir is wearing Eithne’s (sorry mom)"

valentina defffff salty abt her own son turning down her favor SOB lkjsdfalkjsdjf

dldskjfasdf valentina after he fails 'we can all see how much luck the favor of eithne has already granted you...' at least ONCE but...probs more often than that alksdjfalkjsdkfj his losses are deffff her fault btw!!!!! later when she accuses them of witchcraft its probs one of the signs that she cursed him or smth bc otherwise he woulda knocked everyone dead laksdjflksjdfkj

ok so like!! @forgottenmarian im also wondering if marian might mention to valentina abt eithne's pregnancy w arthur's kid bc!! valentina would defffffff run straight to @forgottencassimir w that one being all 'she's just marrying you to avoid the scandal when arthur refused to marry her himself!' laksdjfklsjdf

girl will literally try ANYTHING atp even tho that scandal would def reflect badly on her, on sonya, on cassimir, and on them all, she'd def spread the rumor laksdjflksjdf (SCREAM) hoping that cassimir would leave her lakjdsfkljdsf

ofc what she's noT considering is that would piss off @forgottenroderick to no end bc he doesn't like the way that reflects on ~his family but yeah when it inevitably turns out that eithne's ~not pregnant w arthur's baby he'd blame valentina entirely even tho he thought it too and lakdjsflkdjfdsf mess!!!!! but yeah!! laksjdfkljsdf

anyway there might be more but this is everything i can think of atm alkjsdflkjsdf

[boopitasims]

johnny moved to university, so no scripted events here.

i'll play them for a day or so before regular rotations begin

i made jenny's secondary asp popularity - she seems like the hosting type.

[frazzledsoul]

My Personal Ranking of The Most Fucked Up Gilmore Girls episodes, because I'm sick of seeing the same episodes listed on the clickbait sites

10. Live and Let Diorama (Taylor opens a quirky museum, Lorelai trashes Emily in print, Paris, Rory, and Lane embrace misandry, S5)

This episode is just chock full of cringe worthy moments. The museum is awful, there's this bizarre subplot with Lane and Zach wanting to shop for cleaning products, Paris ends up wandering the streets of Stars Hollow spitting at people, and Rory ends up drunk in the floor crying over why Logan doesn't call him anymore (so call him, girl! Lame). Also Luke flat out lies to Lorelai so he can buy this random house out of nowhere. It's so odd.

9. How Many Kropogs To Camp Cod (Logan formally meets the grandparents, Rory starts her doomed internship, Lorelai randomly wants to sell the Dragonfly and travel the world, S5)

Logan's meeting with the grandparents where he steals from them, Lorelai outs him, and Richard and Emily trip over themselves to impress him is just awful. Rory wandering around the halls of her internship is lame. And why does Lorelai randomly want to sell her dream business and travel the world? She never mentioned anything like this before.

8. Always A Godmother, Never A God (Lorelai and Rory ruin the christening of Sookie's kids, S6)

They actually take the babies outside during the christening to continue their feud. Nice, guys. Real Nice

7. We've Got Us A Pippi Virgin (Lorelai and Luke unwisely double date with a post homewrecking Dean and Rory, S5)

Lorelai bizarrely spends all episode begging to spend time with Dean and Rory and even please to go hang out at Dean's buddy Kyle's apartment, where Dean is currently crashing. She also bizarrely tries to revive the Dean vs Jess debate AFTER the homewrecking debacle, which is just sort of insane (Jess is busy moving to Philadelphia during this time and getting ready to start his slut era and can't be bothered, thank Gawd). Lots of fodder for @saltygilmores DALA theories here but it's very uncomfortable.

6. We've Got Magic To Do (Rory and Paris dress up like WWII USO girls, Mitchum is scapegoated for all of Rory's problems)

I quit watching in real time when this episode aired. What sent me over the edge? Richard tearing into Mitchum for daring to give Rory a bad performance review so that she's doomed to...become a successful event planner, which probably would have been a better career path than the one she chose. So eye roll inducing. Even more bizarrely, Emily tells Shira off of being trailer trash and thwarting Rory and Logan's perfect love (they break up a few weeks later). Why would Richard and Emily do this? They wanted to move up in their social circle and antagonizing the Huntzbergers like this is only going to backfire. They know this. They're not stupid. So, so dumb.

5. Super Cool Party People (Lorelai and Luke host a birthday party for April, Logan gets hurt and Rory rushes to his side, S6)

I hate this birthday party plot. Luke STILL doesn't want Lorelai around April, we get more gender essentialism with ASP spoon-feeding us the idea that Luke can't be a father to a daughter but that Lorelai will be the perfect parent (April didn't seem particularly girly until this episode, but whatever, I guess), and Luke eventually gives in to Anna's tirades instead of just calling a custody lawyer like he should have done months ago. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I don't have much to say about the Logan plot other than that it just gave Rory a reason why she would WANT to stay with Logan and be happy about it, as opposed to just resigned to it. I don't have a problem with any of that.

4. The Great Stink (The town smells of pickles, Lorelai and Christopher play happy family with Rory, Frazzled tries not to vomit, S7)

It's exactly as excruciating as it sounds. I think Luke is in one scene and that's the highlight.

3. Take The Deviled Eggs (Jess's moonlighting is discovered, Lorelai attends Sherry's baby shower and behaves as horribly as humanly possible, S3)

I quit the show for a year and a half after this episode. Lorelai, are you kidding me here? You're lucky Sherry didn't beat the crap out of you the minute you stepped into that baby shower. Who the hell attends the baby shower of a woman after you screwed her baby daddy? And then you go and try to vandalize her bathroom because you're jealous and take your rage out on Jess's car when you aren't able to do that. Look, hon, you and Christopher are the villains here. Not Sherry. I know it sucks that he chose her instead of you, but deal with it. I am sure this behavior won't influence your teenage daughter's behavior at all in the future.

2. Keg!Max (Jess and Lorelai behave very badly, Lane gets wasted at a kegger, S3)

Not going to comment much but there were some plot decisions here that went in a twisted and ugly direction. Also, Lorelai cheats on Twilight Dad?! How could she.

1. Partings (Lorelai throws a tantrum and then runs off to bang Christopher again, Logan leaves for England)

I hate this episode so, so, so much and it's proof of ASP fulfilling my worst expectations of her. Lorelai knew what would hurt Luke the most and either did it on purpose or just didn't care about the damage she would cause. I have never really forgiven her and I won't ever forgive ASP.

So I didn't include Lorelai and Christopher getting married, Rory's graduation episode, or Lane's wedding episode because I've never been able to bring myself to watch them. My other rankings stand.

[townieverse]

Back to the Lepacy, now starting the most recent, and future, gameplay. In other words, idk what comes long term after this point, but some main things will happen....

Joy, the oldest, settled in Windenburg with Candy Behr, and they should have children in the future, but probably only one later in life. Candy started as an Entertainer with party host asp, but she'll be looking for other fittings options to add different asp and careers to the list

Andrew, the heir, has two toddler boys with Gunther Munch (one half alien, one half Munch) in the main house in Newcrest. They both started with the same renaissance sim aspiration, so Gunther changed to Bestselling Author to fit his professional writer career. Belle (2nd gen heir) was/is also a writer, but more informally as she only worked as freelancer and/or published independently. Andrew is a scientist and I'd like to complete it, but it does conflict with his aspiration so we'll see how that develops. They may have a third child too, just to have more heirs option for next gen, as Allan's future (alien baby) is gonna be a bit different (not directed at becoming heir)

Rich just got married, started the 3rd Gen. spare household in Newcrest with Morgan Fyres, and a family soon after (Already queued). Morgan is yet to find a job, and will change the "friend of the world" aspiration for variety too (completed with Belle)

Jaz, the youngest, is temporarily in Windenburg looking for her own destiny. She is a musician, currently developing a relationship with a local. Not spoiling much until posted, just gonna say the local has some complications, so is not as clean and straightforward as it was for her siblings (not married, jic, but you'll know what I mean soon enough)

Cousin Zo, from 2nd Gen. spare household, lives in Newcrest and works as a cook, but her romantic/personal future's is still undetermined. Whatever that looks tho, as the only child of the spare household, she must stay at Newcrest and should have at least one child herself to continue the branch. (hopefully before her moms die of old age)

[avomagazine]

The live report of WACK in the UK vol. 5 is now online! Check out the highlights of this energetic event before vol. 6 kicks off soon.

Read the full live report on AVO Magazine by JJ Grant (text and photography, @/wonderlensmusic on behalf of AVO Magazine)!

[grimowled]

From @usagoos

STOLASSSSSS !

QUITE A CHARACTER, this prince flamboyantly clad in red and gold, a thespian after his own dramatic heart; vassago remains a true ally and supporter throughout, brazenly unafraid to display overt friendship as befits his high rank, and for that, and his enthusiastic endorsement of his performance, the fallen prince welcomes the greeting graciously. artful pretence of shame drips like honey from his rueful drawl;

“my dear, dearest friend. how I hate for you to see me like this.”

elegant talons reach to touch the macaw’s hands, and slide gently up and down over gloved forearms, closing around slender wrists; delicately he brings them toward him, placing them over his once proud chest, now stripped of the blazons and regalia that he can no longer call his own, clad instead in a cheap and coarse fabric of a loosely hanging hoodie adorned with even cheaper graphics - cheeky courtesy of his most generous hosts.

“—but tell me, truly.”

the smouldering intensity of four scarlet crescents venture to capture the prince’s gaze, pin him in his place, quietly huddled together (two friends sharing a tender secret!) and silky tones drop a notch to lace with complicit surreptitiousness, quiet like the hiss an asp;

“—how did I do? what’s the score?”

(he refers, naturally, to his fabulous musical number.)

[nancydrewwouldnever]

When Chris was in his political era, did he ever made any comment about the Palestine and Israel situation? Lots of celebs who have spoke about it are getting hate

To the best of my recollection, no, he did not; he mostly stayed to stateside issues and politicians. Now, if anyone remembers differently, please chime in, as I am very aware my memory is not infallible. ASP got hit hard in 2021 when they were going to do a special series focused on the Middle East hosted by former Rep. Will Hurd. The outcry was very loud about the participants/experts who had been picked for it not being from the Middle East, and the series was never released.

[outofangband]

Fish of the March of Maedhros

Flora, fauna, geography and environment masterlist

Two prominent rivers run in the March of Maedhros. Southeast of the Hill of Himring in the foothills of the March is the river Celon, a tributary to the river Aros which itself is a tributary to Sirion. Upon the hill of Himring is a spring from which flows little Gelion, the stream that meets Gelion to form one of the seven rivers of Ossiriand. 

A variety of freshwater fish can be found in these rivers. I also headcanon there is at least one lake where fish are found and sometimes caught.

Note: due to differences in proximity to the sea, temperature, and unknown factors, such as speed of water, even more than my other animal posts. A lot of these are going to be approximations on real species and their morphology and behavior rather than exact replicas so just keep that in mind. I also headcanon that the March is a strange place.

As I will, as always, I will include some world building notes at the bottom!

Found in the upper reaches of Celon: (a species similar to) giant Siberian trout, freshwater cod, freshwater lamprey (river and brook), white eyed bream, common barbel

Found in little Gelion: rainbow trout, common bream (in slower stretches), common bleak, riffle minnow (slow stretches), common minnow

Both: freshwater eels, Cottus koshewnikowi, asp, freshwater sculpin, alpine bullhead, silver carp

Found in lakes: Arctic char, dwarf sculpin, Abyssocottus elochini, red sculpin, Omul, Coregonus maraena, ide, other minnow species

The lakes, ponds and deeper rivers of the March also contain stranger creatures including iridescent eels, creatures between fish and something else, shadowed giants never seen in their full size and more

World building notes:

-Fish are eaten in the March, both fresh and salted. Indeed dried or salted fish is rare in other elven realms (however both dwarven and human cultures have it more frequently). Roe is also eaten

-Fresh fish are usually served at Himring and in the smaller outposts throughout the March. Scouts often take dried fish in their satchels but rarely catch them as they are highly trained to be inconspicuous and avoid fires to cook

-Fishing in the March is done throughout the year however it can be extremely dangerous during the winter. There are those among Maedhros’s host who particularly enjoy the risk and return yearly to the icy waters.

-Fish are primarily seasoned with salt and with local herbs such as garlic chives, lovage,Rarer dishes might involves dried bay leaves from Nevrast or thyme, primarily from Ossiriand and Dorthonion, pepper from the Ered Luin, and imported wines, also from Ossiriand, Nevrast, and Thargelion

-Trout appear in Avarin lore as guides and are not eaten by them.

-Some of the strange creatures including fish that are native to the March later appear in sigils, heraldry, and art created by the host of Maedhros

[disabledqueerteenlife]

Intro to my disabilities and my life ig

I have:

Autonomic Dysfunction

- most commonly known version is POTS

Amplified Muscular-skeletal Pain Syndrome (AMPS)

- my nerves are fucked up and always sending pain signals to my brain

AuDHD

- Autism and ADHD… need i say more

Depression & Anxiety

- my mental health is a downward spiral

Undiagnosed shit:

- hearing, eyesight, memory are all deteriorating

- hyper mobility

- tics and being a system

- also migraines

My life:

I’m a senior in high school

also a minor, don’t be weird (don’t be weird even once i turn 18 tho)

im a philly kid

and i want to be a librarian… if my body allows it (and my depression doesn’t win)

i love art, but it can be painful to make… i make it anyway

my queerness:

im an oriented aroace, specifically

lesbian

ace flux

cupioromantic

Im also poly.

Im a genderfluid trans person, who remains outside the gender binary at all times

also.

theres at least seven of us in this body, but this account is mostly run by me, Ashe.

Well, host Ashe cause there’s another Ashe.

Im like the least in denial and realistic about reality.

For reference, the others’ sign offs are as follows

Asp 🐍

Asi 🌌

AsK 🎨

Moss 🖋️

Ashe 🕯️

A 🫥

im gonna make another post with pronouns and shit

Signing off

-Ashe ❤️‍🔥

[ano-natsu-ni-sake]

hi! my name is phineas or mia! he or she pronouns are okay. im the host of a system ( @wonderhorror-sys ) and also a multifictive (phineas asp + mizuki akiyama). my whole identity is kinda weird. tbh i just post about a separate peace. follow me for ramblings about gene forrester. i also love yorushika! and have a bit of a passing interest in project sekai.

[oh-my-damn]

ASP is apparently calling it a Israel-Hamas war so to me that already says a lot. //

I think ASP doing that has a lot to do with their neutral stance they take on almost everything. I remember from the beginning of ASP and Chris discussing it that ASP is a neutral and informative platform. It’s the guests that are the ones who share their thoughts and opinions. Chris and mark or the “hosts” are to stay neutral and just provide the platform and allow the audience to make their own conclusions based on the information presented.

To make this clear: Calling it the Israel-HAMAS WAR is not neutral in any way, shape or form. In order for it to be somewhat neutral it should be "Israel-Palestine conflict". The former is not correct or unbiased, it's actually an extremely pro-Israel misrepresentation of what is actually happening.

And again, an absolute waste of a platform and of someone who says they're interested in politics and "cares so much" he screams about it on twitter.

Never taking a stance is cowardly and absolute bullshit, at least if you claim to be someone who is remotely educated on politics and shame others who don't share your opinion (which he absolutely did during Trump)

You can't cry outrage for one thing and pretend to be high and mighty and then not continue on when the world is on fire.

The fact he even started that site with the knowledge that he would have to be completely silent about his own preferences is absolutely baffling to me. I don't know anyone who is truly political or invested in politics that could silence themselves like that tbh.

But either way, he has a responsibility as someone who gained such a huge following for his political views and rants. That he started a site that "requires" him to be silent is absolute bullshit. I would have hoped humanity came before money, but once again, I am proven wrong, considering his return to social media was not just bland, but also shameless self promoting of his fucking dog food brand.

Absolutely disappointing but not surprising, as per usual with this man.

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

Fine whatever mind vomit:

So it wasn't live, his side was pre-filmed and had a script that everyone was following (they've done this before with the ASP interviews)

Whoopi literally indicated to the other host that's your cue, at first they were kind of out of sync with the timing of the conversation of the script because they weren't able to rehearse it, but overall everyone was following an actual written script.....

List of contractually itemised mentions ticked off etc etc

He's also tilted the camera to show Dodger begging at the table

Which is odd to me given that it was also one of the old photos that he had previously posted of Dodger that they chose to delete off his account right after coming back to IG

But whatever

[lunarsilkscreen]

JavaScript Frameworks

Step 1) Polyfill

Most JS frameworks started from a need to create polyfills. A Polyfill is a js script that add features to JavaScript that you expect to be standard across all web browsers. Before the modern era; browsers lacked standardization for many different features between HTML/JS/and CSS (and still do a bit if you're on the bleeding edge of the W3 standards)

Polyfill was how you ensured certain functions were available AND worked the same between browsers.

JQuery is an early Polyfill tool with a lot of extra features added that makes JS quicker and easier to type, and is still in use in most every website to date. This is the core standard of frameworks these days, but many are unhappy with it due to performance reasons AND because plain JS has incorporated many features that were once unique to JQuery.

JQuery still edges out, because of the very small amount of typing used to write a JQuery app vs plain JS; which saves on time and bandwidth for small-scale applications.

Many other frameworks even use JQuery as a base library.

Step 2) Encapsulated DOM

Storing data on an element Node starts becoming an issue when you're dealing with multiple elements simultaneously, and need to store data as close as possible to the DOMNode you just grabbed from your HTML, and probably don't want to have to search for it again.

Encapsulation allows you to store your data in an object right next to your element so they're not so far apart.

HTML added the "data-attributes" feature, but that's more of "loading off the hard drive instead of the Memory" situation, where it's convenient, but slow if you need to do it multiple times.

Encapsulation also allows for promise style coding, and functional coding. I forgot the exact terminology used,but it's where your scripting is designed around calling many different functions back-to-back instead of manipulating variables and doing loops manually.

Step 3) Optimization

Many frameworks do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to caching frequently used DOM calls, among other data tools, DOM traversal, and provides standardization for commonly used programming patterns so that you don't have to learn a new one Everytime you join a new project. (you will still have to learn a new one if you join a new project.)

These optimizations are to reduce reflowing/redrawing the page, and to reduce the plain JS calls that are performance reductive. A lot of these optimatizations done, however, I would suspect should just be built into the core JS engine.

(Yes I know it's vanilla JS, I don't know why plain is synonymous with Vanilla, but it feels weird to use vanilla instead of plain.)

Step 4) Custom Element and component development

This was a tool to put XML tags or custom HTML tags on Page that used specific rules to create controls that weren't inherent to the HTML standard. It also helped linked multiple input and other data components together so that the data is centrally located and easy to send from page to page or page to server.

Step 5) Back-end development

This actually started with frameworks like PHP, ASP, JSP, and eventually resulted in Node.JS. these were ways to dynamically generate a webpage on the server in order to host it to the user. (I have not seen a truly dynamic webpage to this day, however, and I suspect a lot of the optimization work is actually being lost simply by programmers being over reliant on frameworks doing the work for them. I have made this mistake. That's how I know.)

The backend then becomes disjointed from front-end development because of the multitude of different languages, hence Node.JS. which creates a way to do server-side scripting in the same JavaScript that front-end developers were more familiar with.

React.JS and Angular 2.0 are more of back end frameworks used to generate dynamic web-page without relying on the User environment to perform secure transactions.

Step 6) use "Framework" as a catch-all while meaning none of these;

Polyfill isn't really needed as much anymore unless your target demographic is an impoverished nation using hack-ware and windows 95 PCs. (And even then, they could possible install Linux which can use modern lightweight browsers...)

Encapsulation is still needed, as well as libraries that perform commonly used calculations and tasks, I would argue that libraries aren't going anywhere. I would also argue that some frameworks are just bloat ware.

One Framework I was researching ( I won't name names here) was simply a remapping of commands from a Canvas Context to an encapsulated element, and nothing more. There was literally more comments than code. And by more comments, I mean several pages of documentation per 3 lines of code.

Custom Components go hand in hand with encapsulation, but I suspect that there's a bit more than is necessary with these pieces of frameworks, especially on the front end. Tho... If it saves a lot of repetition, who am I to complain?

Back-end development is where things get hairy, everything communicates through HTTP and on the front end the AJAX interface. On the back end? There's two ways data is given, either through a non-html returning web call, *or* through functions that do a lot of heavy lifting for you already.

Which obfuscates how the data is used.

But I haven't really found a bad use of either method. But again; I suspect many things about performance impacts that I can't prove. Specifically because the tools in use are already widely accepted and used.

But since I'm a lightweight reductionist when it comes to coding. (Except when I'm not because use-cases exist) I can't help but think most every framework work, both front-end and Back-end suffers from a lot of bloat.

And that bloat makes it hard to select which framework would be the match for the project you're working on. And because of that; you could find yourself at the tail end of a development cycle realizing; You're going to have to maintain this as is, in the exact wrong solution that does not fit the scope of the project in anyway.

Well. That's what junior developers are for anyway...

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

#20yrsago @brucesterling's 10 technologies that deserve to die https://web.archive.org/web/20031002013533/https://www.technologyreview.com/articles/print_version/Sterling1003.asp

#15yrsago Adventurer’s Club at Disney World closes https://attractionsmagazine.com/huge-crowd-gives-heartfelt-send-off-to-adventurers-club/

#15yrsago MPAA spokeslawyers insist that they not be identified by name in reports from press-conference https://web.archive.org/web/20081002150019/http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/mpaa-realnetwor.html

#15yrsago Reuters sues academic for making a Firefox plugin that lets you annotate and reference articles https://crookedtimber.org/2008/09/30/gmu-sued-for-zotero/

#15yrsago HOWTO Make a dollhouse out of a gourd https://bitterbettyindustries.blogspot.com/2008/09/gourd-dollhouse-tutorial.html

#15yrsago Terry Pratchett’s NATION: moving and sweet young adult novel about science, superstition and decency https://memex.craphound.com/2008/09/30/terry-pratchetts-nation-moving-and-sweet-young-adult-novel-about-science-superstition-and-decency/

#10yrsago The Incrementalists: Steven Brust and Skyler White’s novel about an immortal secret society https://memex.craphound.com/2013/09/30/the-incrementalists-steven-brust-and-skyler-whites-novel-about-an-immortal-secret-society/

#5yrsago Matt Damon’s eerily good Kavanaugh SNL sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRJecfRxbr8

#5yrsago $100 bills outnumber $1s, and they’re stuffed in our mattresses https://qz.com/1395050/there-are-now-more-100-bills-than-1-bills-in-the-world