#Functioning website behaviour

[somegrumpynerd]

Discovered a fun new tumblr glitch where the page froze while I was looking at my inbox and now after I've refreshed it doesn't show me past the first page of messages no matter what I do

[coffeebanana]

tumblr is doing very WEIRD things to my ask box right now

[incelraki]

(Epilogue!) Bill Dickey NSFW headcanons (and drabble)

MDNI!!! this is very much 18+ content, shoo! shoo!

Warnings: general gross behaviour, stalking, dick stepping (mild mention), humiliation, misogynistic terms and cuss words LMK if i missed anything!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

One of those guys to buy a body pillow of his fav or one of a girl that looks like his crush

That thing reeks and we all know it

Only showers if absolutely necessary

soft stalks his person of interests

Uses websites like 4chan to find home camera's of girls near him

Remember that scandal that happened years ago? There were these cameras people has put up in around their houses and you were supposed to enter a passcode to get into your feed Except, most people didn’t do that. So, many hackers were able to easily get into people’s home cameras and watch them without them noticing One even made a site where you could find these cams for free and watch people. This was sent all over 4chan and enjoyed by incel perverts all over the world

Some freaks would go as far as to use the microphone function to talk to people, others would send secret gifts to people’s doorstep’s after watching them, to freak em out

A public security notice was immediately thrown out there by the company when the site was discovered But a lot of people didn’t see the news, never checked their email and left their passcodes unused.

The site is still up, or the cams are at least still able to be hacked into

I know Bill is the type of bastard to find a pretty girl who was too much of a dumb bimbo to change her passcode and watch her. How convenient she has a camera in her bedroom.

Secretly loves having his dick stepped on

and being humiliated by someone far bigger than him (preferably a big-chested bimbo doll)

His glasses fog up as hes fucking his fist while watching some porno

alternatively: he's watching you through a secret camera feed

Whimpers like a bitch in heat when he's getting close

Imagining you fucking bill and him uncharacteristically inviting you over to the Eltingville club

Joining a club meeting a week or so after fucking Bill and everyone knows but no one fucking says anything You’re gaming, probably some rpg with big chested ladies, when you suddenly blurt out how pathetic Bill really is, and how quickly he finished Bill puts on an act, calling you a braid dead femoid who doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about But deep down, his stomach is doing back flips because oh my god he’s so embarrassed and oh my god he has the biggest boner of his life right now

It goes without saying that before meeting you he had never touched a girl before, let alone fucked one

PWP below the cut

"Put it in already." You whine at Bill who is currently fumbling his cock against your leaking cunt. "S-Shut the hell up stupid bitch, let me take my god damn t-time."

You roll your eyes, leaning on your hand as you wait for him to push his cock into you. Sure it's barely over 5 inches but by god do you want it deep inside you right this second. And to think this guy had been following you home from the bus stop not even an hour ago. Christ, what was wrong with you? "You sure y'don't want me to help, dumbass?" You groan, not waiting for an answer and grabbing his cock. Surprisingly he actually has a condom on, even though he genuinely forgot they existed for a split second. ("Oh man I forgot about those.." He just wanted a creampie like in a real porn, man!)

"He-Hey! Careful with that you're gonna rip it off you dumb cuu--nnttt.." His swear was cut short as you guided his swollen glans into your heat. "There we go, loser. Now move your hips, you do know how to do that, right? Or do I have to help you with that too?"

"Shut the hell up.." Bill tsk'ed, and slid the rest of his throbbing dick into your hot pussy. "F-Fuhhh.." He bit his lip so hard he was sure he was going to break skin any second.

"That's good huh?" You giggled, pressing your plump ass flush against his hips. His hairy tummy tickled against your butt slightly once your skin met.

"Oh my f-ff..." Bill's eyes rolled back, pressing himself as close to you as possible and promptly cumming hard into the condom you'd managed to find at the last second. His mind went blank as he pumped a thick load into your warm heat.

"You've got to be kidding me.." You snorted, clearly annoyed. That was your last condom for fuck's sake!

[captainlevi06]

When you are overwhelmed:

Find a quieter place

I find it helpful to go outside or on a short walk, possibly with some soft music or white noise.

Getting away from loud or overlapping sounds helps immensely

I also prefer dimmer lights or natural lighting when possible.

Hydrate

Water is essential for all bodily functions, including sensory and emotional regulation.

Have your preferred water bottle with you and sip slowly. Add flavouring or ice if desired

Eat something

Again, taking care of your needs is key

If possible, get a small snack and eat slowly. My system usually keeps oyster crackers with us. They’re bland but have a good amount of salt which is important for us, as we have POTS

Most of our overstimulation is caused by being hungry and not realising it

Identify irritating clothing

Is an article of clothing too tight? Are you too cold or too warm? Is something itching?

Once you’ve identified anything that’s uncomfortable, make any adjustments you can that will remedy the issue

These solutions don’t have to be conventional to be effective. Flipping socks inside out can prevent you from feeling the seams. Dabbing cool water on your wrist and/or ankles can help cool you down.

Stimming

Stimming, or self-stimulatory behaviour, can help calm you down.

Safely stimming can include tapping your fingers, chewing gum, rocking back and forth etc.

There are also stim toys and chewable necklaces for this purpose. I have recommendations if anyone needs them

Identify and Devise a Solution

What led you to feeling overwhelmed?

Write down, either physically or digitally, what caused this and start to plan a solution

If it is a problem with completing a task, We use an app called Goblin Tools. It’s free on the website and the app is $0.99, neither of which have ads. It has a to do list that uses AI to break down your task into steps. It also has a feature to identify tone in writing among other things.

Break down your plan into small, manageable pieces. You don’t need to do everything right now.

Final steps

Communicate your needs to others. If you need to adjust your environment or tasks to accommodate your needs, tell others clearly what you need and how they can help

Breathe. You’re going to be okay. You are not a failure for needing to take a break. You are not a failure for being unable to take on everything at once.

You’ve got this

[fanhackers]

Help a Researcher

Leigh Ingram, a student at the University of Ottawa, in Canada, is completing a Master of Information Studies. The proposed research for their thesis is on information seeking behaviours in the fanfiction community, with a specific focus on how AO3 users search through the archive and use the embedded search functions on the website.

This study has received ethics approval for an anonymous online survey, followed by a few interviews. The survey will remain open for approximately 6-8 weeks depending on the volume of response. Following completion of the research, the intention is to share the anonymous data collected and potentially submit an article to Transformative Works and Cultures for consideration, so any findings will be shared with OTW/AO3. 

Survey takers must be 18 or older to take part. If you would like to learn more about the study you can review its consent form, which contains the researcher's contact information.

[relleytrots]

On Humanity, Tenets and Convictions

The V5 corebook does an appalling job of explaining how these mechanics fit together and what they represent; I don't think even the Players' Guide really hits it in the terms that are needed. I don't want to jack the excellent post by @vixensdungeon but nevertheless, the urge to explain things on Tumblr dot Com, the App and Website, is very strong in me this morning.

Humanity itself is objective. Each notch on the scale has defined, concrete mechanical impact on what the character can and cannot do, and these are consistent no matter what the character thinks or believes or feels, and these are universally applicable, no matter who your character and my character and her character might be. At one end of the scale your character is Literally Unplayable; at the other, they are more human than most humans, certainly than most RPG protagonists, and might as well be unplayable considering the role of the TTRPG as societally unacceptable behaviour simulator (cf. Power Kill, as usual).

Tenets are subjective but shared. They are the ethical rules on which our story operates: the things that we have agreed should provoke a moral crisis in our vampire protagonists. For Humanity loss to occur, you need these cues and triggers, these "thou shalt not" rules, and for that central fact of the game - that unlife isn't life and living it makes you less of a person - to come up in play, they need to be rules your character is going to break.

Without Tenets you have no idea what makes Humanity vulnerable and precious and worth saving; there are not many universal, objective, "doing this always gives you a Stain" rules in V5. You have to do the work here. The game needs you to decide what's horrific in order for its personal and political horror to exist at all. You cannot skip this. You cannot rely on a universal morality that isn't there and isn't shared to dictate Humanity loss. The game needs you to think about these things.

Convictions are subjective, and entirely personal. They are the "but thou must!" imperatives which allow your character (and only your character) to justify breaking the Tenets and retain a grip on their Humanity. They create the opportunity for your character to resolve their moral and ethical qualms in their own favour every so often; to stop the process of play being a nihilistic rush down the Humanity scale. VtM works if you all speedrun down to Humanity 4 and act like the usual "chaotic evil until proven otherwise" TTRPG protagonists but it aspires to make you think and feel things about that and the rules are set up to demand you meet that aspiration.

If you want a vampire game where the state of being a vampire isn't a moral issue, can I recommend Vampire: the Requiem Second Edition? A game with an objective, universal definition of Humanity and the threats to it as "experiences that remind you you are not a human being any more," and the more fundamental that reality check is, the less likely it is a character will retain Humanity when confronted with it? It's extremely tidy and doesn't demand that you establish and interrogate any of your own principles. It's not moral "degeneration," it's experiential "detachment," and that hits very differently.

Also, none of this is to do with Lines and Veils. Tenets are rules you want your characters to break. They are the substance of your morality play. They will come up in play and they will do so often. Lines and Veils are rules about what you as a player do not want to have to experience at the gaming table and they are not supposed to come up/be directly narrated. One of these things is part of a core gameplay function and one is a safety tool. Know the difference.

[redavexat]

In case you missed any of the text, all of it is written here:

Medical transition works

80% of individuals reported significant improvement in dysphoria

78% of individuals reported significant improvements in psychological symptoms

72% of individuals reported significant improvement in sexual function

positive results across the board, even in 15- year follow ups

Source for all above: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19473181/

"Wellbeing was similar to or better than same-age young adults from the general population" source for the above:

Quality of life increases dramatically with 'gender affirming treatment

source for the above: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6224813/

Long term follow-ups: https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)32422-X/fulltext

The above link shows as unsafe when you open it, it'll give you a message before sending you to the page. I'm not familiar enough with how websites work to confirm whether proceeding past that point is safe, click past the pop-up message at your own risk. I did, and the article IS there.

social transition works

"Shown to correlate with improved psychological functioning"

Source for above: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X1630146X

levels of depression and anxiety which closesly match levels reported by cisgender children

Source for above: https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567%2816%2931941-4/fulltext

puberty blockers are safe and reversible

Hormone blockers are the only treatment used on adolescents that are completely reversible.

Source for above: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/documents/SupportingCaringforTransChildren.pdf

"Current evidence Does not support an adverse impact of gender- affirming hormone therapy on cognitive performance"

"Our results suggest that there are no detrimental effects of GNRHA on EF"

source for above: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453020301402?via%3Dihub

"Relieves stress for trans adolescents"

"is reversible"

Source for above: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/102/11/3869/4157558

"Poorer psychological well-being before treatment"

Source for above: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X20300276

"Behavioural and emotional problems and depressive symptoms decreased"

source for above: https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609515336171

Hormone blockers are not new: "Since the mid 1990s..." and "The Royal college of psychiatrists, in 1998..."

source for above: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895269.2020.1747768

Many more studies: This screen of the video is far too small and compressed for me to read most of these links. If anyone knows of a higher quality version, thatd be great.

Puberty blockers aren't harmful to bone density: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/842073

Puberty blockers don't cause osteoporosis or sterility: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/84/12/4583/2864749 Transphobia is real [personal side note, this comment isn't in the video: Does this really need a source to begin with?]: https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/eu-lgbt-survey-results-at-a-glance_en.pdf

46% felt discriminated against or harrassed within the past year for being trans

29% felt discriminated against when it came to looking for employment

70% hid being trans during schooling before becoming 18 years old

55% had an incident of violence within the past year in part or whole because of them being trans

The ~40-50% Suicide rate is fake It's the attempt rate: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/NTDS_Report.pdf

The suicide rate is undocument and doesn't exist.

Discrimination is harmful

The attempt rate rises for people who: Lost a job due to bias (55%) were harrassed/ Bullied in school (51%) Had low household income were the victim of physical assault (61%) were the victim of sexual assault (64%)

Same source as above for attempt rate

Other factors include: gender-based victimisation discrimination bullying violence being rejected by the family, friends, and community harrassmentby intimate partner, family members, police and public discrimination and ill treatment at health-care system

source for above: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178031/

[Another illegible "Many more studies" screen]

Social/ familial support helps:

[Top link doesn't work]

[next is too illegible]

It can decrease the likelihood of a suicide attempt 57% -> 4%

Chosen name/ pronoun use does the same:

https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(18)30085-5/abstract 71% drop in severe depression 34% drop suicidal ideation 65% drop in suicide attempts

Gender and sex aren't the same These institutions and organisations would like to disagree with you: American Psychological association American medical association American psychoanalytic association Human rights campaign american academy of pediatrics american college of osteopathic pediatricians royal college of psychiatrists United Nations United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) American academy of child and adolescent psychiatry American academy of dermatology American academy of family physicians American academy of Nursing American academy of physician assistants American college health association American college of nurse-midwives American college of obstetricians and gynecologists American college of Physicians American counselling association American heart association American medical association American medical student association American nurses association American osteopathic association American psychiatric assocation American Psychological association American public health association American society of plastic surgeons Endocrine society GLMA National association of nurse practitioners in women's health national assocation of social workers National commission on correctional health care pediatric endocrine society society for adolescent health and medicine world medical association world professional association for transgender health world health organisation (WHO) Stanford medical American pediatrician association National institutes of health Canadian institute of health research scientific american

[zeldasgard]

I kept wondering whether I should make this post or not.

This is the truth about what really has been going on with me and my experience with someone else that you probably know.

Now that I have advanced enough in my healing and that the rose tainted glasses and the distorted filter of love are no more, I have no reason to protect that person anymore.

The images in this post are screenshots from things that were public. I do have further evidence in DMs proving it is indeed them behind the content in all of these screenshots but it wouldn’t feel right to share them publicly.

Backstory

I got bullied by them after having befriended them for around two months in summer of 2021. The whole cyber bullying and online stalking phase lasted for well more than 6 months (started in September 2021, ended in end of March 2022). It started on Instagram with their public stories about me (not naming me, but absolutely dropping my name everywhere in DMs to various people of the fandom) right after lying to my face in DM about how sad they were about the friendship ending. If you saw these stories back then, well yes: these were about me.

Now as a side note to retrospectively defend myself about these claims for people here who might not know me well:

- when visioning these for the first time I was multiple times having doubts if these were really about me with just how much things got twisted out of their context. When showing the stories to people close to me they pretty much had the same reaction and laughed at me when I asked them if I was manipulative (which I was really wondering back then as a result).

- Mind that I got all this treatment all because I was doing “delusional” things along the lines of what this person is currently doing with their yumeship. She got obsessed with self shipping culture and further to an unhealthy extent ever since she knew me.

- I had come across these stories because I wanted to check on them at first to see if they were doing okay, as they had told me in DMs before blocking me saying right before that they were soooo sad that this friendship ended. It was out of a place of concern and not whatever they had depicted here.

- The whole claim about me being a “stalker” and “obsessed” with them was due to me knowing they had a public online activity since around 2015 and checking their profile when they would post Vaati art. I had indeed personal issues back then but that weren’t relevant anymore around the time I started exchanging with that person.

- visibly I wasn’t that “toxic” in the end since afterwards we got into a 2 year long romantic relationship (I know).

Now for the context following these stories:

They couldn’t stop talking about me online for all these months. Among others they kept vague posting on Reddit for months about me, making a whole freaking website for me to find, joining multiple places they knew I was in.

The peak of it was when they joined an online “cringe culture” forum to mock people like me. I was not targeted on this forum but another person had been put in danger because of their behaviour. (You might wonder why and how I know of such a place online in the first place, which is a very valid question. It was a pretty well known place we kept tabs on in a “ficto” community I used to be in to make sure we didn’t have any leaks from private servers).

^ Some of the Reddit posts. These were screenshotted a while ago so I apologise for the missing info there although their username was pretty random and really wouldn’t have prove much except if you had access to their posts history. The (multiple) accounts don’t exist anymore anyway. These specific ones were from a time when they thought to leave the Vaati fandom altogether before joining a fandom server again in end of March 2022 where they finally saw for themselves that I was a normal functional human being despite my love for a fictional character.

The relationship and its end

As you see it had started already very unhealthily. I had accepted their apologies and their feelings for me, just grateful that they wouldn’t hurt me anymore, also thinking that they had learnt a lot from it and changed. Overtime I learnt to love them. They do have some nice qualities, I believe in that, although I wonder to this day how much of them I truly knew.

In hindsight some of their behaviour persisted in the relationship. They always said themselves that they were very scared of abuse, always looking for signs of it, always saying that they would never lay a hand on their partner for that reason. And it is true, I have never known any physical violence from them. Their constant vigilance about these topics were a double edged sword however. Somehow in arguments I found myself called manipulative, controlling, wanting to cage them, when in hindsight I realise I was asking for the bare minimum. I ended up questioning my own reality. By the end of our relationship I was getting regularly ghosted. I felt literally insane. “It is not about you, it is about me.” They were going through some issues and I wanted to be there for them. I tried my best at leaving them space. But got angry outbursts from them when I dared checking in on them because I feared the worst (I am keeping it vague on purpose here). So I left them that space by breaking up, seeing that all my partner needs were stressing them out and proposing my friendship instead for the time being so that i could still be there for them but in an healthier way. It still wasn’t good enough and I ended up getting blocked everywhere again.

They came back months after following someone else’s advice because they were seeing me “triggered”. I indeed was alarmed by their behaviour mimicking a lot their behaviour of back then, no bullying this time but including claims of them saying once again that they were “caged” , metaphors about how glad they were free from me and in those new DMs being upset at me that they couldn’t “control the narrative” as they once did after they learnt that I had talked in private about what I am talking here now. We did talk some of the things out. Ultimately I felt like the only reason they wanted to keep me around was to give themselves a good conscience: “I am glad we can be on friendly terms”; to keep me around for self soothing and their own peace of mind. They would say that it would be an advantage for the both of us. It only reopened old wounds for me and gave me false hopes because I was blinded by the idea that their love would help me heal. But it didn’t back then anyway. For that, thank you for turning me down.

That is when I realised once more that we lived in two different realities. It is easy for someone to move on when they were not on the receiving end of everything they did. They were not the one whose name got dragged in the mud, had very private emotional info displayed publicly for everyone to laugh at and judge twisted out of their context (which used to make me feel very shameful hence me keeping my mouth shut until now), spent an entire night deleting private messages with them because fearing them using private info once more against me, were constantly anxious for months then years after around their own social medias because this was the place it all happened on, got their very soul raided for their own “dopamine hit” and are still dealing with the aftermath to this day with them running around in the same online space as if nothing happened.

This is for these reasons that I am doing this post now. Yet I am still doubting myself. Until the very last minute I will ask myself if this is really the right move. If all of this will help me heal. If this will help me move on in a last desperate attempt. If this person deserves it. If I will get once more my words twisted so that I look once more like the villain. If people will start hating me. If it’s too late because the core of it happened “years ago” as this previous partner said. If this really is the right place to talk about this. If people will see me as the crazy one.

But then I remember that they didn’t have any issues destroying me and betraying my trust multiple times.

Final words

I do not want to disguise this post as me doing it to pass a big self righteous message. I think there indeed are several lessons from this experience but I do not want to tell you what to see in it or what to think. In the end I am really making it now to move on, now with a rested mind knowing that I stood up for myself like I was supposed to instead of wondering for the next years wether I should make this post or not.

If anything, the one takeaway I could point out is that it is so scary because it’s never something you think will ever happen to you. That you would never let yourself down to anyone. Then you come across someone who says or does something that you find upsetting and you try to stand up for yourself or ask for explanation. Then you are called abusive for it. You love that person and trust their judgment so from now on you try to watch out your behaviour for any toxicity sign. you slowly end up not standing up for yourself anymore because that would be “toxic” and you do not want to be toxic, do you? And by the time you realise it you already are a shell of your former self. Once it ends, they tell you to cherish all the good moments like they do, they tell you that it wasn’t all that bad, that they learnt so much from being with you, but you cannot because they are tainted by everything else and you didn’t get really anything positive out of this experience. And now it’s your problem for not sucking it up and moving on like they do. Which you obviously cannot because while they might be able to walk away with scratches you are paralysed by open wounds and deep seated trauma.

Before I get eventual backlash from them, I am not perfect. We are all fallible. I had some unresolved issues too, notably considerable ones that the trauma of the online harassment left on me. I wasn’t honest both with myself and with them with blindly believing that their love would make up for everything they did. I also had some issues as well prior to this but I never wanted to make it anyone else’s problems.

By now I have rewritten this post multiple times, not sure of which approach to take in order to not be misinterpreted because I am well aware of how this post can come across with having an ex who happens to have been a well known and very liked figure for years. I know how people tend to treat exes of such people who come forward. In fact there is no perfect approach. No matter how I come forward with this, there will always be people to criticise me for simply coming forward in the first place. No, no one needs to know what happened behind closed doors between two online micro personalities. In fact I HATE talking about personal things publicly (I did try not so long ago being more public about some things as a coping mechanism to make up for my anxiety but it simply is not like me to do that so I stopped). I do want though for people to finally have my side of the story out there as well so that I can finally move on and for that I do, yes, need to talk about some behind the doors things.

Ultimately I hope I can build a safe place here for myself again and no longer have that sinking anxiety when visiting my socials. I want to set the record straight because this is pretty much still widely affecting me to this day.

I still, somewhere very deep within myself, believe that people can change, just I learned that for some it can take several lifetimes.

I know so far I made it sound like everyone will be against me but objectively this is not true today. I have had many people who supported me in private places in the last few months: I am very grateful for that and in fact this is also what today gives me courage to talk about this here. I guess all my concerns are just the trauma speaking again.

I trust you to be mature about this, form your own opinion (or none). This is supposed to be my very last post about this issue and I don’t want this mess to drag on for any longer or give it any more of my energy.

Now I have talked for way longer than I originally intended. Thank you for reading.

[theyilinglaozus]

So for those who, like myself, no longer have x/twitter and perhaps weren't aware, Seven Seas has come under fire again due to a recent licensing announcement.

On February 21st, Seven Seas announced that they had secured the rights to license the Kinnporsche novels into the English language:

This announcement was met with both positive and negative reaction; the negative focusing mainly on two points. The first being that Daemi, the authors for the original Kinnporsche novel, were already under fire for their behaviours and treatment towards an actor in the KP drama, among other questionable behaviours.

But the other main negative reaction stemmed not from the novel or authors that were licensed, but towards Seven Seas themselves.

Kinnporsche is the first Thai BL novel of this kind to be licensed under the Seven Seas name. Yet Seven Seas has caused upset because, despite coming from a different country entirely, they have still decided to brand Kinnporsche as a danmei title.

Many fans took to social media explaining why this was an incorrect thing to do, yet rather than listening to them as well as both the Chinese and Thai communities, they instead decided to edit their websites definition on what danmei means:

For those that perhaps aren't already aware, danmei as a genre specifically applies to Chinese works. It does not apply to any other outside country - and that includes Thai.

It isn't just China that has a unique name for their male/male genre novels. In Japan, similar titles can be called yaoi. Thai takes inspiration from the Japanese name for this genre, often referring to their works as Y.

"Although the term boys-love, or its abbreviation “BL”, is more prevalently used internationally to denote the genre, it is more commonly referred to as waai (วาย) or “Y” in Thai. This term is derived from the first letter of the Romanized spelling of the Japanese expression for the genre yaoi. The term waai functions as an adjective and can be added, according to Thai grammar, after any media formats, such as siirii waai (“Y” series), niyaai waai (“Y” novels), kaatuun waai (“Y” comics). So, the next time you encounter “Y” alongside any Thai series, you will now be able to recognize it as belonging to the BL genre." (source)

While boys' love is the overarching umbrella for all these genres, it is both important and respectful to refer to the genre name of the given country of origin for a novel. Seven Seas has chosen not to do this, and instead has decided to band everything together under the danmei umbrella. This is both wrong and misleading.

If Seven Seas wants to publish such works under a more open branch, they'd be better rebranding under the boys' love term. But they won't, due to the success they've already achieved from their past releases of Chinese danmei. It isn't fair to other Asian, non-Chinese releases to not be referred to by their own title of the genre. Many of these potential new releases we're seeing are the first to come from certain countries - do they not deserve the same respect upon release as others?

I've been in fandom a long time - long enough to see the Japanese yaoi genre grow from being something rarely known in the west to something that's grown hugely popular. I've been here from the beginning of these danmei releases in the past recent years. While seeing how reintroducing stories to new audiences can come with its own difficulties and growing pains, we've come far along enough in the years that there is little excuse for Seven Seas not to show more care and respect when it comes to the way they handle these things; especially given how they've already received backlash in the past with their danmei releases when it's come to concerns over translation, treatment of translators and their work, the decline in quality vs. the rise in time between volume releases, as well as arguments that they don't always do the required research into licensing a title beforehand.

Don't get me wrong, I love that Seven Seas is bringing some of our favorite titles over to us. I just wish that the people behind them cared a little more, especially when it comes to these sorts of things which could very easily be rectified/researched into in the first place.

[tobiwurd]

On Reading Harry Potter Fanfiction

I’ve been reading a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction, specifically “canon-compliant post-war fanfiction”.

Anyone who knows me shouldn’t be surprised, as I have consumed J.K. Rowling’s series since childhood, and fanfiction is how people who share my hobby of writing explore and expand the original universe.

I’ve dived into this kind of content before. Back in 2009, after finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I felt lucky to find authors across many independent archives (websites dedicated to hosting fanfiction) who were willing to fill in the gaps left by J.K. Rowling, especially those in the 19 years between the Battle of Hogwarts and the Epilogue.

Coming back now, 15 years later, it is fascinating to notice how both myself and the fanfiction community have evolved: I’m no longer a teenager, so my interests revolve around a broader repertoire (of fiction, sure, but of life experiences as well) and now I have a better eye for writing technique and aesthetics; the community is better structured, with well-established archives centralising stories that no longer simply fill the gaps left in the books, but have organically formed a new canon for the universe and its characters.

This evolution of readers and writers is, in many ways, comparable to how novels have driven changes in cultural perception since the 18th century.

An example of this cultural shift, as I perceive it, is notable when considering the copyright disclaimers added by authors at the beginning of their stories.

“Disclaimer: Only JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. I am not JK Rowling. Therefore, I do not own Harry Potter.” Author White_Squirrel in Chapter 2 of The Arithmancer

From a functional standpoint, adding the disclaimer is undoubtedly the safest legal practice. However, considering how concepts and ideas are formed and shared through cultural means, any attempt to attribute “ownership of Harry Potter” to any individual is pointless.

Yes, J.K. Rowling might receive all the money earned from exploiting Harry Potter and the rest of the Wizarding World. Still, culturally, if we take ideas and behaviour as currency instead of pounds and dollars, many fanfiction stories today owe their existence to other fanfiction authors, not the original Harry Potter books.

Moreover, the groundwork canon of these stories does not revolve around events from the original saga but around Fred’s funeral, Harry and Ginny’s reunion after the war, Hermione’s trip to Australia, the Death Eater trials, etc. — all of these scenes that J.K. Rowling never wrote, but that were covered extensively by fanfiction authors. 

It’s clear how much recent stories are supported by others published in fanfiction archives over the years, more so than the original books J.K Rowling legally “owns”. The following are examples of how this shift in influence affects my experience of these stories when reading with attention to technique and emotional delivery, focusing on canon-compliant content.

In Beasts (ongoing since December 2023), author @whinlatter does not write the summer after the battle, skipping to Ginny’s seventh year at Hogwarts. Her powerful emotional delivery of the psychological challenges affecting the characters’ lives and relationships in the post-war period is excellent despite the untold chunk of the narrative.

The author supports this choice with flashbacks to missing moments from the original books. Still, I had further support from the affective memories from reading Grave Days, which author Northumbrian completed in 2010. It depicts the funerals and reunions of that summer, and the emotion from these scenes enhances the impact of reading the more recent tale by whinlatter.

Similarly, Knowing Where To Look (finished in 2024) starts immediately after the battle but is told from the point of view of an original character (Gawain Robards). Author ala_baguette indirectly tells the reader about Harry’s development with the other main characters through his late-night conversations with Robards at the edge of the story's main plot.

The result is remarkably engaging, but it would not have the same effect if I hadn’t previously read Ginny slapping some sense into a similarly sulky and reticent Harry in The First Day by author little0bird, completed in 2010 before J.K Rowling even published the canonical pairings for all characters (I never imagined George/Katie, a non-canon pair, could be as good as in this story).

In 2024, fanfiction is already self-referential, both in its conceptual and emotional aspects. It no longer depends too much on the original universe written by J.K. Rowling to thrive. The community participants define the collection of ideas and behaviour around the stories and characters despite not owning the trademarks.

In other words, fuck J.K. Rowling, her money, and her bigoted opinions; all hail the independent authors who renew and refresh the wizarding world and those who culturally inhabit it.

[hollow-dweller]

Talk Shop Tuesday: as someone who is involved in a lot of fandoms (and has seen a lot of horrors), has there been a significant shift in how fandom is today compared to the “good old days” as much as people say?

there are. SO MANY.

to start and to be entirely clear, there is no good old days of fandom. there are things i miss about fandom tendencies of the past, which i'll get into, but as many many many marginalized fans have and will continue to say, Ye Ol' Fandom was as much if not more of a cesspit of racism, misogyny, and queerphobia as it is today. because fandom platforms were more diversified, they were also more gatekept--and i mean actually gatekept, not just "people are mean about this thing i like" gatekept. to an extent this was necessary--fandom itself was much more culturally stigmatized, and existed largely in a legal gray area, so fandom spaces needed to be semi-closed communities for their own protection. however, if you were a fan who tried to bring up systemic fannish issues--such as racism--you could and would be kicked out of whatever fannish space you were in, and there would very rarely be other places to turn.

also as a caveat: this is not anywhere CLOSE to a comprehensive view of the changes in fandom nor the myriad factors that contribute to those changes. fandom is a cultural ecosystem existing within a broader cultural ecosystem, and the ways those things interact with and inform one another are literally innumerable. anyone who claims they know the One Thing That Ruined Fandom is oversimplifying the issue. anyone claiming they know the Twenty Things That Ruined Fandom is oversimplifying the issue. fandom is a living system, and living systems exist in a constant state of change.

but broadly speaking, i think there are two major changes that have informed The State of Fandom.

Consolidation of Fandom Platforms

as mentioned, fandom used to exist as a variety of closed or semi-closed forum spaces, blogs, archives, and other websites, each dedicated to its own fandom or, more often, subsets of a particular fandom. authors/artists had their own sites, particular ships had their own sites, fic had its own sites, art had its own sites, discussion/meta had its own sites, and any or all of these could be hosted in any combination across any number of websites depending on the fandom. some of this was the result of the structure of the early internet, and some of it was, as mentioned above, a function of necessity.

as the internet evolved and fandom platforms became consolidated, this necessarily changed fandom norms and behaviours. the way we write fic is different because of the advent and dominance of ao3, the way we construct meta is different because of the nature of sites like reddit and tumblr, the way we build community is different because of sites like discord, etc. notably, most of the changes we've seen are not created by social media or mass fandom platforms, but rather enhanced by them. ship wank, whether masquerading as legitimate analysis or not, has always been a cornerstone of fandom--it like all things is simply much more accessible to people now than it used to be. the subdivision of fandoms into different subgroups, even within a ship or media, has also always been a thing--people form friend groups with like-minded people and that's normal, actually. the types of conversations and conflicts fandom has have not changed that much--just the places and manner in which we engage with them.

modern fandom platforms are both more accessible and more comprehensive than they ever have been--so fans can more easily than ever be exposed to different corners or subsets of fandom. but also. fans can more easily than ever be exposed to different corners or subsets of fandom.

The Scarcity of Long Running Media and the Dissolution of the Monoculture

the type of media that fandom now orients itself around has changed drastically as a result of changes in the broader media landscape, and this also changes fandom norms and behaviour. it is increasingly more rare for a fandom to develop over the course of years, because long-running serialized (or even episodic) narratives are becoming less common. tv shows especially are released with vanishingly short promotion cycles, and with less and less certainty of continuation. creators have to therefore hedge their bets--the binge model means there is no room to pivot mid-season if things aren't working out, and the lack of certainty around renewal means that seasons have to be relatively close-ended in order to try to deliver a satisfying experience. similar trends affect book publishing--we are seeing fewer and fewer multi-part series being released, and fewer books dominating cultural discussion in the way blockbuster series of the past have.

thinking of cornerstone megafandoms of the past (and present), we tended to see a couple essential elements that contributed to both fandom engagement and sustained fandom activity: they were released over a longer period of time, and they took up a larger portion of the dominant cultural landscape. the Harry Potter books were released over a period of ten years and were, of course, a huge cultural moment. Twilight was released over a shorter period of time, but was similarly a cornerstone of the monoculture, enhanced by the immediate and almost-eclipsing (heh) release of its movie counterparts. The X-Files was released over the course of, again, a decade, and they will be releasing new Star Treks until the mountains crumble into the sea and the stars turn to dust. these fandoms all have greater and lesser degrees of longevity and output, but they and fandoms like them all had the benefit of time and cultural dominance in order to enable the development of the fandom.

this is not universal (nothing i'm saying is universal), but fandoms nowadays tend to be a lot shorter-lived and migratory simply because they have less material to work with and less time in which to work with it. Voltron, as one example, was a megafandom that developed rapidly and burned out quickly, and while it had a decent amount of material, its eight seasons were released over the course of two and a half years. fannish momentum can only be sustained on so much material for a certain period of time, and fannish investment is necessarily going to be curtailed if fans live in uncertainty about the continuation of their favourite media.

this also is reflected in the type of fanworks that we see proliferating. while AUs were not absent from Ye Old Fandom, i do think they were a lot less common/prominent. the longer release cycles and difference in structure between releases (open-ended finales as motivation to hook viewers into the next installment that they knew/were pretty certain was going to happen vs close-ended finales that hedge bets if a series is cancelled) led to a lot more speculative fanworks set within the canon, imagining what was going to happen next. a famous example is of course the HP fandom's Three Year Summer--the period of three years between the release of the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books that was intensely productive for that fandom. fanworks in that period were famously long and plotty canon divergence/canon speculation works branching from the return of Voldemort in book four, and that tendency towards long and plotty canon-based or canon-adjacent fanworks persists within the HP fandom to this day.

fandoms nowadays do tend more towards works that are stripped from their canon contexts (the infamous coffee shop au, media fusion aus, modern setting aus, no powers aus), and while these works did exist in Ye Old Fandom, they were both more rare and their reach was more limited.

Some Kind of Conclusion Because This Is An Essay Now I Guess

to present a synthesis scenario: a particular trope is generated and popularized by one fandom. due to its presence on consolidated platform sites, it becomes ubiquitous within that fandom, spawning further derivatives, copycats, reimaginings, and variations. as people migrate from fandom to fandom, both as a result of the media landscape itself and the ease of doing so on social media/multi-fandom sites, the trope or AU spreads to other fandoms, and is again further transformed by those fandoms. this continues ad infinitum.

this pattern is not limited to tropes in fanworks--it is applicable to every element of fandom, from discourse to meta to creative works to behavioural norms. the state of modern fandom is interconnected to the platforms on which fandom is hosted and the media on which it is based. no longer is the one common unifying element of fandom the source media--the unifying element is fandom itself. this is why we see, for example, people stating they get involved in fandoms for media they have no experience with--they do not know the source text, but they know fandom.

i could literally go on and on--i didn't even touch on things like the destruction of the fandom fourth wall, or the relationship to the practice of filing off the serial numbers, or the existence of BNFs (actual BNFs not people like you seek who just Have Friends and Make Things), or the connection to nostalgia, or the relationship to commentary and analysis-based fandom outlets such as rewatch podcasts, or-

there are literally so many elements here. i could talk about this forever. i probably will be talking about this forever. please god someone let me out of here HELP-

[sophieinwonderland]

Imitated DID Reloaded

(Part 1, Part 2)

After the controversies of the 80s and 90s, the publications of the imitated DID theory and the rename from MPD, DID diagnosis rates and public awareness of the disorder overall plummeted. Recently though, it's been picking up steam online, which led to a revival of the Imitated DID theory.

Clinicians identified five themes common in these cases they deemed to be imitated.

But before touching those...

An important note on methodology.

Notice the name at the front of the paper on the TADS-I, Boon, is also one of the authors of this study, and of the original Imitated DID paper.

Looking up the TADS-I immediately links to Suzette Boon's own website.

In the limitations section, it's mentioned that TADS has yet to be validated.

So Suzette Boon and colleagues used Suzette Boon's unvalidated interview (TADS-I) to assess patients for having a condition originally made up by Suzette Boon. (Imitated DID.)

With that note on methodology, let's dive right in and address everything wrong with the themes!

The Themes

Theme 1: Endorsement and Identification With the Diagnosis

In a modern era, it's pretty common for ordinary people to research a disorder they think they may have. Especially if a mental health professional suggests the diagnosis first, as happened in four of the six cases listed...

If someone says "I think you might have this disorder," MOST young people today are going to look on the internet to determine if it matches up. We literally have this ability in our pocket. Of course we'll use it.

And if you want to establish a theme like this, then you should generally have some type of control group to compare it to.

These were six people out of 85. There are no percentages given of the other 79 who had identified with the disorder beforehand. There are no statistics of how many looked it up online. It seems like it would be easy to get these sorts of stats to test their hypothesis but they aren't there.

Theme 2: Using the Notion of Dissociative Parts to Justify Identity Confusion and Conflicting Ego-States

This one is a bit harder to parse.

The idea here seems to be that people who have conflicting feelings or identity confusion will attribute that to alters.

The problem with this, similar to the first one, is that there's no comparison to actual DID groups.

Victoria lacks a firm sense of identity. And I think it's fair to say her acting in different ways to different people probably isn't a different alter every time. But it's possible and common to experience a lack of identity like this, while also having a complex dissociative disorder.

I can't assess whether she has DID or OSDD, but I don't think experiences like this are indicative of her not having it, and I know many DID systems would relate to her not having much of an identity.

2.1: Dominique and Partial DID

The next example in this section is about Dominique.

The reason for dismissing Dominique having DID is that her characters don't live separate lives or have amnesia. And it's possible she may not have it.

But what's never mentioned once in this paper is Partial DID. This paper was published after the ICD-11, and even uses the ICD-11 for its DID criteria. But the profile for Partial DID is never mentioned in the paper.

From the ICD-11

Partial dissociative identity disorder is characterised by disruption of identity in which there are two or more distinct personality states (dissociative identities) associated with marked discontinuities in the sense of self and agency. Each personality state includes its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, conceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment. One personality state is dominant and normally functions in daily life, but is intruded upon by one or more non-dominant personality states (dissociative intrusions). These intrusions may be cognitive, affective, perceptual, motor, or behavioural. They are experienced as interfering with the functioning of the dominant personality state and are typically aversive. The non-dominant personality states do not recurrently take executive control of the individual’s consciousness and functioning, but there may be occasional, limited and transient episodes in which a distinct personality state assumes executive control to engage in circumscribed behaviours, such as in response to extreme emotional states or during episodes of self-harm or the reenactment of traumatic memories. The symptoms are not better explained by another mental, behavioural or neurodevelopmental disorder and are not due to the direct effects of a substance or medication on the central nervous system, including withdrawal effects, and are not due to a disease of the nervous system or a sleep-wake disorder. The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

This sounds a lot like what's described with Dominique.

Of course, Dominique could be a non-disordered system too.

What I find concerning is that at no point is the possibility of Partial-DID or of OSDD brought up. It's expected to be DID or nothing for the purposes of this study.

Another thing I need to say... alters aren't usually heard acoustically. I believe they can be in some cases, but it's not the majority. So I don't understand why that was relevant unless the authors misunderstand how voice hearing typically manifests.

2.2 "No participant provided evidence..."

I'm so curious what evidence people were expected to provide. As a reminder, in the last paper, being too open about talking about your alters or describing your switches was seen as a sign of Imitated DID. And it's the same in other parts of this paper.

How do you go about providing evidence for an autonomous dissociative part?

Theme 3: Exploring Personal Experiences via the Lens of Dissociation

There's not much to say about this one either. People who think they have a disorder begin relating experiences to those disorders. Like with all the other "themes" discussed, there is no comparison to the "genuine" DID group, many of whom would likely also have conducted similar research.

People who have autism, for example, will analyze their behavior and wonder how much of it is because of the autism. Same with ADHD, and various personality disorders.

Theme 4: Talking About DID Attracts Attention

Again, no comparison is made to a "genuine DID" group who is out to friends and family. It's likely that, yes, DID is going to be a topic of conversation for those who are out. But the same is true of many conditions.

"People who are imitating DID talk about having DID" wouldn't be a helpful distinction if people who aren't imitating DID also talk about having DID. (With close friends and people they trust.)

Theme 5: Ruling Out DID Leads to Disappointment or Anger

And like with every other theme in this, there's no comparison to the "genuine" DID group.

If you lied and told the other 80 participants that they didn't have DID, how would they react???

I don't know. Because that study was never conducted.

I predict a lot of DID systems who had been diagnosed by others and identified with the label would react the same way though.

This point feels especially insidious, as it's designed to reinforce a clinicians' belief that they made the right decision after saying someone doesn't have DID.

"Well, you got upset when I told you that you didn't have this condition you're certain you had, therefore I'm even more right that you don't have it."

It can't even possibly help you diagnose because it only comes later. It's only about validating the clinicians after the fact.

All these "Themes" have the same flaw

The themes are derived from six case studies (way too small of a sample size) of so-called "imitated" DID. But there's no comparison to genuine DID. No statistics to show that these same themes wouldn't be present in a majority of "genuine" DID cases too.

In other words, these themes have zero utility in differentiating between DID and non-DID phenomena.

Return of the Shame Criterion

Homosexuality was much more hidden and shameful in the 80s than it is today. The same is true of transness. And the same is actually true of many mental illnesses too. We can talk about our own autism more openly than someone could in the 80s.

Shame is often not simply based on the individual but on the culture and the subcultures they exist in.

Like I addressed in the first post in this series, certain disorders, conditions and just general personality types may make someone less ashamed of traits others would be ashamed of.

But more than that, expected shame can change as a culture changes and we become more accepting. And THAT'S A GOOD THING. We should all WANT a world where people with DID can feel less ashamed of themselves. The expectation of shame, the requirement of shame to be seen as valid, is something we need to fight against.

Here's a post I made on that particular subject.

And let me just make another note on these particular patients: These are not people who had just newly been diagnosed. They've had time to heal and come to terms with what they are, and build connections with the rest of their alleged systems.

Someone who has known about their DID for three years will generally have less shame for symptoms than they might have at 1 month.

This section also appears at odds with the earlier implication that patients show evidence of "dissociative parts," creating a very unfortunate paradox where you need to provide proof, but trying to provide proof is evidence of faking.

Other symptoms of DID

Luckily, the paper doesn't just talk about themes. It also discusses symptoms. So maybe these will hold up better to scrutiny.

Voices

I'm genuinely worried by this that the doctors don't understand the internal experiences of the disorders they're diagnosing.

As far as I know, this is how voices typically present in DID. Earlier on, it mentioned that Dominique didn't report an "acoustic" quality to the voices. But that's how the voices typically work. Acoustic voices are possible too, but voices heard are typically mind voices.

The way this is phrased makes me think the doctors were expecting patients to all have vivid acoustic voices.

And I believe this misconception led to a miscommunication with Mary, who clearly is describing parts talking to her.

But allegedly later denied "hearing voices."

My own interpretation, at least, is that Mary was probably confused and thought the clinicians were asking about actual audible voices. Which it actually sounds like they might have been.

Voice hearing is complicated, and this paper is written in a way which might add more confusion, making readers falsely believe that alters will always speak in these sorts of acoustic voices rather than mindvoices resembling internal thoughts.

This sort of misunderstanding is genuinely dangerous to patients.

Amnesia

There are a couple points that need to be made about Amnesia.

First: Under the DSM, there is a presentation of OSDD that includes all the symptoms of DID but without the amnesia. In the community, we typically refer to this as OSDD-1b.

Second: Under the ICD-11, while described as "typically present," amnesia isn't even a hard requirement for a DID diagnosis as seen below:

Third: Partial DID in the ICD-11 also had no amnesia feature at all. At no point is this or OSDD brought up.

Focus on the amnesia criterion here, while necessary for a diagnosis of DID under the DSM-5, doesn't address larger questions of if the patients might have disorders involving "dissociative parts."

The fact that these other disorders exist where amnesia isn't required NEEDS to be addressed this paper.

Language

This is somewhat good advice. I'm against the implication that knowing jargon, for patients who have been told by other clinicians that they have a dissociative disorder, is an indicator of imitated DID.

But I do very much agree with the fact that people who use these terms don't often understand them and you need to ask questions that go beyond the terms selves. Getting someone to describe a flashback is more useful than them saying they have flashbacks, when they may just mean they have vivid memories.

Although for the 1st person perspective, this may just be different ways of contextualizing the same experience, or even trying to phrase things in ways they thing a singlet will understand. I think, for a paper that tries to beat people over the head with how DID is usually a "disorder of hiddenness," they're ignoring how referring to yourselves in the 1st person with other people becomes habitual.

Not to mention that certain parts of the DID community even believe it's healthier to refer to everything they do as a system using singular pronouns, viewing it as a form of system responsibility.

Depersonalization

Are "self-states" not autonomous?

What... actually is the difference between an autonomous dissociative part and an autonomous unintegrated self-state with its own name and identity?

Is there a way to reliably differentiate between these concepts?

Switches

This is the part that I feel rises to actual misinformation.

Before getting to the highlighted part, I'm going to point out that the source for the "shame and fear" of disclosing their internal parts is the study from the previous two posts.

The study THAT DIDN'T INCLUDE ANY EXAMPLES OF "GENUINE" DID CASES.

It was stated as a fact with no statistics or evidence to back it up whatsoever. And one of the authors, Suzette Boon, is also an author of this study. This "source" might as well be Suzette Boon quoting herself claiming something.

Now, to the highlighted part... this is complete misinformation.

I'm shocked it got published.

Some DID patients can, in fact, control switches. This has been observed in fMRI scans:

DID systems DO NOT need to be triggered to switch. This has been proven with actual brain scans, in addition to decades of reports in the literature.

And I need to repeat again that this group was also taken from people who were already in treatment for DID.

In other words, even if they couldn't control switching before, it would be something they likely would have picked up through treatment.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

Ultimately, this is a study which has little reason to exist. In their sample of 85 people, they found only six they claim had Imitated DID. Even if these assessments are were correct. Even if they weren't conducted by people who seem to not understand how switching or voice hearing works in DID... this would leave us with a 7% false positive rate.

Meanwhile... mentioned in this same paper...

26%-40% of DID patients will be diagnosed with and treated for Schizophrenia first. And this doesn't even address misdiagnosis of other disorders like BPD.

Imitated DID continues to be a solution in search of a problem.

But there is a very REAL problem of underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of actual DID cases. Something that will only be exacerbated by convincing doctors that "genuine" DID systems can't possibly control switching (and anyone who does is faking), that voices heard are always acoustic, and that DID systems will always be ashamed of their symptoms.

Papers like this are going to result in fewer systems who need help being able to get a diagnosis.

[hiddenhome]

It’s so hard to be a feminist on this godforsaken website when I love trans people. Trans women are so beautiful. They make me appreciate femininity in a way that the patriarchy shuts down. Trans women embracing femininity, loving themselves, glowing when they see the results of E or just smiling after discovering themselves a bit more, being accepted, finding their real name— loving being a woman despite EVERYTHING that says you should want to be otherwise. it’s incredibly powerful.

it’s also incredibly sad that the pain that comes with womanhood is something that some “feminists” can’t seem to or. Don’t want to share. It’s like “I Am In More Pain than You So I am More of a Woman and you’re Just Pretending You’ll never Really Know you’ll Never Hurt like Me”. And that might be true, to some extent. And it’s wonderful to be proud of and find the beauty and richness in biological functions like periods and childbirth and breastfeeding and to talk about it in activism, in poetry, and art— and the burden that comes with those things. But those things don’t necessarily Define womanness. And these functions and experiences should be more about what connects us than what divides us. Feminism should be coming together. Solidarity. That’s what makes us powerful. Not exclusion. Not gatekeeping. Not tearing those down who belong. Who support. WHO empathise. Who aren’t our enemies.

Because categories of people shouldn’t be our enemies. It is the institutions, the social behaviours, the systems that put us down that we should be fighting against. God. Please love women. ALL women.

I love women. Those who can give birth, those who can’t now or couldn’t ever, those who bleed, who don’t, who bleed more than they should, those who have stopped bleeding, those who are on birth control, those who aren’t, those who wear makeup, those who don’t, women who have become more feminine over time, women who have become less, women who are redefining feminism, femininity, what it “means” to be a woman in this world, those who never question or might not even think of themselves as feminist. women who don’t have uteruses, who don’t have breasts (whether by choice or not), who are growing breasts later in life or those who choose not to but are women anyway. Women in STEM. Women in the arts. Stay at home mothers. Working mothers. Those who couldn’t become mothers or are still trying to become mothers. Lesbians. Bisexuals. Straight women. Polyamorous women. Married women, widows, women who don’t let relationships define them or who simply aren’t interested. Asexual women, aromantic women. Women who don’t fit traditional “beauty” standards. Women who do. Fat women, thin women, buff women, weak women, sick women, disabled women, young women, old women, middle aged women. Black women. White women. Women of all races, cultures, ethnicities, religions. Nonbinary people who embrace femininity, have experienced womanhood or fall somewhere just outside of “woman”. Lesbians who use masculine pronouns. AFAB women. AMAB women. Intersex women. Nonbinary women. Detransitioned women. Women in the closet. Women kicked out of their homes to be who they are. Women who haven’t even discovered who they are yet. Women who never did or the world never let them try.

I love. Women.

[littlegiganticthings]

Update Notes 6/7/24

(Copied directly from the website.)

--Fixes in Today’s Patch--

New Content

- Added classic skins for Margrave and Griselma

General

- Fixed involuntary pinging when navigating using the D-pad in multiple menus

- Fixed that the upgrade UI Talent category couldn’t be accessed while using mouse and keyboard

- Fixed several collision issues on Picaro Bay, Siren's Strand, Heaven's Ward, Ember Grove, and Ghost

- Fixed infernal portals on Siren's Strand and Ghost Reef

- Fixed rush rewards given to the first selected hero, instead of the most played hero

- Added a Quit Match button for custom games

- Fixed Controller Vertical Sensitivity setting only allowing 1 and 10

- Fixed free cosmetics showing an incorrect cost on the unlock pop-up

- Fixed "New Match" requeue failing when a crew member is still in the match summary

- Fixed that not accepting a custom game kicked players back to the start screen

- Fixed several crashes

Balance Changes

Rush Mode: Jump pads back to the airship are disabled while in combat

General:

- Increased summon time for baby creatures 3 > 5s (this is after the player finishes summoning, but before the creature can move, attack, etc.)

- Increased respawn time increase when another player dies 0s > 2s

Kajir:

- Fixed dodge attack hitting twice

- LMB-Organ Pierce: fixed bleed to actually be 36 damage/s

- E: Cooldown 25 > 20

- E: Copy damage 40 > 35

- E-Boarding Crew: Copy damage 25 > 20

- E-Toxin Shock: damage 85 > 60

- E-Toxin Shock: max stacks 7 > 6

- Copies now walk and sprint when Kajir does so

Roland:

- RMB-Burning Bolas: damage 120 > 80

- Focus: reduced damage to 600/800/1100

T-MAT:

- RMB-Talent, no longer applies burn to AoE hits (still does so for direct hits)

Wu:

- E-Talent (tongue tide): Changed to decrease Tongue's cooldown by 2s and increased focus gain during clash (while retaining the pull effect of Tongue).

- E-Talent (tongue tide): Fixed that the talent introduced bugs for certain upgrades

Imani:

- F-Concentration, reduced focus gain boost 20% > 15%

- Q-Blast Radius, reduced focus gain 4.4% > 3.2%

- Q-Blast Radius, no longer applies burn to AoE hits (only the direct hit, while the base area damage remains)

Margrave:

- F-Concentration, reduced focus gain boost 20% > 15%

HK-206:

- LMB: Heavily reduced the recoil in both regular and fortified mode

Voden:

- Q-Spore Imitation: poison spore arrow damage 75 > 150

- Q-Talent: fixed for all upgrades: now always fires 1 extra arrow, regardless of upgrades chosen

Ramsay:

- E-Lasting Effects, Poison damage 25 > 35 per second

Ezren Ghal:

- E: Fixed and now correctly interrupts on hit

Oru:

- LMB+RMB: range 18m > 20m

Hero Bug Fixes

Rush Mode:

- Fixed the clash talent not being active on most rush maps

Rutger:

- Fixed shield regenerating immediately while receiving any kind of healing

- Fixed Q's cooldown being too high when cancelled while Burrow is active

- Fixed Q-Salt of the Earth restoring more stamina than intended

- Fixed Q-Burrowed Time only extending the shield regain duration, while not increasing amount of shield restored

Aisling:

- Fixed most instances of Cador teleporting underneath the map

- Fixed Focus skill teleporting Sir Cador to Aisling instead of the target area

Voden:

- Fixed E-Recovery Time upgrade not working correctly

The Margrave:

- Fixed E-talent not working with upgrades

Zandora:

- Fixed Q-Rainbow Dash not putting pushed enemies in combat

Additional fixes

- Many other (102) UI and text fixes

- Fixed pings on power circles appearing too high, and out of view

- Fixed players earning upgrade points incorrectly after rejoining a match

- Fixed Practice Arena Jump Pads not functioning for a few seconds when entering the arena

- Fixed Tripp's Stark Reality skin graphical issue

- Fixed rewards sometimes not appearing for levels above 100

- Updated several skill descriptions to better explain how the skill works

- Fixed several weird bot behaviours

- Fixed incorrect behaviour for a few fortunes from Tripp, Griselma, and Rutger

- Fixed several statistics showing incorrectly in the profile screen

Mun Additions

(Not included in the initial notes; felt I should say something.)

- This patch will prompt you to complete the tutorials again. They can be skipped.

- Custom builds have been deleted. I am not sure if this has affected every player, but as a precaution, get ready to remake your character builds.

- The grading system has potentially been fixed. It could have simply been reset. Only time will tell.

Edit:

- Emote wheels have been reset.

- You can now type in chat in the player select screen.

- Potential stealth nerf to Imani's Snapshot 1x scope damage. There seems to be a buff to her 2x damage.

- They have changed the hero mastery UI. Additionally, there is a new animation for when you earn a badge in-game.

- There are new icons and new titles.

- Players who use Quick Chat will have to reenable it. The UI for it has seemingly been removed, so here's a post detailing it.

[drkspc]

I don't have a lot of energy to put into this, but I just finished Cyberpunk 2077, kinda, so I'll pour my half-baked thoughts into the half-baked thoughts website and move on hopefully.

Spoilers! Not right away, but inevitable, so be warned.

First of all, forced first-person perspective is immediately disappointing, after I spent fifteen minutes half an hour an hour creating my character. But what is worse is that the voice of the protagonist is at odds with the character I created. In Mass Effect, they animated the character in the dialogue scenes, and even though Jennifer Hale provides the same voice for everyone, the animation makes it seem like her voice is my character's voice. In Cyberpunk, I can't shake the feeling that there's someone else talking from behind my shoulder.

Second (I should be explicit that there is no actual sequence here), I read somewhere that the video game, compared to the TTRPG, lost an important aspect of balancing humanity against the amount of cyberware one can stuff themselves with. By the end of the video game I think most of my body was implants, and this didn't affect much of anything. Gameplay trumps lore, and I don't disagree with this decision, but I wish there was something more here.

Third, I am glad I played the game now, and not back when it came out. So much changed for the better, so many things fixed and modded, it's amazing. Still I encountered bugs, and oddities, and problems with controls, and weird quest design, but it could have been worse, and I don't think I could play this game more than once.

Fourth, it's an amazing city that they have built. It didn't seem all the way alive, but it looks like a city, it quacks like a city, so I am very impressed. There are seams and duct tape, but suspend, suspend the disbelief. Maybe the most important thing are the side missions, which permeate the space and make every corner memorable.

Fifth, the romance paths were okay, but the post-romance hangouts, which were added special I hear, are very awkward. There's just a person standing there in my apartment, not having anything to say or do besides hugging in two dedicated places. Also, sex scenes with a game engine, not there yet. With functional movement, it's easy to let it go, but with dancing or sex, no, the uncanny valley stares back at ya hard.

Sixth, sound design was great. From cars to weapons to cyberware effects to UI, I don't think I have a single complaint, gripe, or peeve. My headphones are not great, heavy and hurty after a while, and I still endured wearing them for hours at a time just to be properly immersed in the game because it was a pleasure.

Seventh, I am a stealth enjoyer, and the game let me do enjoy stealth. There were almost no missions that couldn't have been done quietly. I also installed the Stealthrunner mod which encourages the ninja-like behaviour. I installed a whole bunch of mods, with quality of life improvements and fixes, but I didn't want to alter the core experience.

Eighth, what was up with Phantom Liberty, I'm not sure. It is a DLC with a big side-story that you're supposed to do before going into the point of no return mission; I missed that and reached the ending before setting foot in Dogtown. Then I reloaded and did the DLC, and for the first fifteen minutes I was in disbelief — the writing takes a hard pivot from a cyberpunk dystopia into a spy thriller B-movie. Saving the president, sleeper agents, don't trust anyone! It was fun to play, but the tonal shift left me shook. It didn't feel like the same game I spent the previous 40 hours in.

Ninth, I don't think I will replay the game, but it did have some depth to it. I did all of the side missions, and that made me care about the protagonist a lot more, and that made it that much harder to see the situation from the outside, to create a satisfying narrative. Which is the point of a video game simulation such as this — proper reflection from the inside shouldn't be the point, you play it through, and then think about it. Closer to the end (spoilers, I warned you, spoilers, you still have time to stop reading) there is an option to stop — stop trying to overcome other people to carve out a space for yourself, simply kill yourself. That is a "bad end", but it is a distinct ending, different from just not playing any more of the video game. And it feels good to not choose that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that, and the feeling is worth a lot.

[johnalexcooper]

The Future of Digital Aesthetics: Insights from a Leading Web Design Company

In the current era of extensive digital connectivity, a website serves as more than merely an online presence; it represents your brand's identity, acts as the initial interaction with prospective clients, and frequently plays a crucial role in customer engagement. the deciding factor in whether a user engages further with your business. As the digital landscape evolves, the role of a Leading Web Design Company in the USA becomes pivotal in shaping this transformation. These experts create digital experiences that captivate audiences, enhance usability, and drive success.

Why Website Design Matters More Than Ever

In the digital marketplace, first impressions are everything. Research indicates that individuals develop an impression of a website in just 50 milliseconds. A thoughtfully crafted website not only captures interest but also builds credibility and fosters trust. It communicates the brand’s ethos and facilitates seamless user interactions, ensuring visitors stay longer and engage deeper.

The Leading Web Design Company in the USA recognizes these critical elements. It integrates cutting-edge strategies to ensure that your website is not only visually stunning but also functionally superior.

Emerging Trends in Web Design

The web design landscape is dynamic, constantly adapting to technological advancements and user preferences. Here are some trends shaping the future of digital aesthetics:

1. Minimalistic Design with Purpose

Less is more. Minimalism in design helps declutter websites, focusing on what truly matters—content and functionality. Leading web designers in the USA are perfecting the art of combining simplicity with impactful visuals.

2. Dark Mode and High-Contrast UI

Dark mode has become increasingly popular due to its aesthetic appeal and user comfort. It alleviates eye fatigue and provides websites with a stylish, contemporary appearance.

3. AI-Driven Personalization

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing web design. AI tools analyze user behaviour to offer personalized experiences, making interactions more intuitive and effective.

4. Immersive 3D Elements

Three-dimensional visuals add depth and interactivity to websites, providing an engaging experience. From product displays to virtual tours, 3D elements bring a new dimension to design.

5. Voice-Activated Interfaces

With the rise of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, websites are beginning to incorporate voice-activated interfaces to make navigation even more user-friendly.

6. Accessibility and Inclusive Design

Inclusive design guarantees that websites are usable by everyone, including individuals with disabilities. This approach is not just ethical but also expands the reach of businesses.

Key Features of a Well-Designed Website

To ensure your website stands out, a Leading Web Design Company in the USA focuses on these essential elements:

Responsive Design: A website must perform seamlessly across all devices—desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

Fast Loading Speeds: Users expect a site to load within two seconds; anything longer can lead to lost opportunities.

User-Friendly Navigation: Intuitive menus and logical layouts guide users effortlessly through your website.

SEO-Optimized Content: High-quality content integrated with strategic keywords ensures visibility on search engines.

Engaging Visuals: High-resolution images, videos, and animations captivate users and convey messages effectively.

Secure and Reliable: Robust security measures protect user data, fostering trust and confidence.

The Role of Creativity and Strategy in Web Design

Creativity is the lifeblood of web design, but strategy ensures that creativity serves a purpose. A Leading Web Design Company in the USA combines these two elements to create designs that are not just visually appealing but also strategically aligned with business goals.

Understanding the Brand

Each business has its own distinct characteristics, and its website ought to showcase this uniqueness. Web designers delve deep into understanding a brand’s identity, audience, and objectives before crafting the design.

Data-Driven Decisions

Modern web design relies heavily on analytics. User behaviour data helps identify areas of improvement, ensuring that the website evolves with user needs.

Focus on Conversion

Ultimately, a website should drive results. Whether it’s generating leads, making sales, or increasing engagement, the design should be optimized for conversions.

Why Choose a Leading Web Design Company in the USA?

The USA is home to some of the most innovative and talented web design professionals in the world. These companies set the benchmark for global web design standards by combining technical expertise with creative excellence.

Unmatched Expertise

Web designers in the USA are equipped with the latest tools and technologies to deliver world-class designs.

Tailored Solutions

Rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, the Leading Web Design Company in the USA offers customized solutions that cater to the unique needs of businesses.

Ongoing Support

A great website is not a one-time project. Ongoing updates, maintenance, and support ensure that your digital presence remains relevant and effective.

Preparing for the Future of Web Design

As technology progresses, the future of web design presents thrilling opportunities. From augmented reality (AR) integration to blockchain-secured websites, the next decade will witness groundbreaking innovations. Collaborating with a Leading Web Design Company in the USA ensures that your business stays ahead of the curve, leveraging these advancements to build a digital presence that stands out.

Conclusion

In the competitive digital landscape, having a cutting-edge website is no longer optional—it’s a necessity. Partnering with a Leading Web Design Company in the USA guarantees that your business receives a website that is not just aesthetically pleasing but also strategically designed to achieve your goals.

Invest in your digital future today. Embrace the expertise of the USA’s top web designers and create a website that resonates, engages, and converts. The future of digital aesthetics is here—are you ready to be a part of it?