#Operator Tools

[leonbasinwriter]

Explore Where Knowledge Becomes Craft in System Building

@leonbasinwriter 🛠️ Builder Guild Artifact: The Living Forge A framework for creating resilient, adaptive systems RITUAL The System-Building Ritual: “Heart of the Mountain” The Gathering of Stone: The Builder begins by sourcing raw data and foundational principles. This isn’t mere collection, but a communion with the ‘stone’ of information, feeling its weight, texture, and potential. The…

[genericpuff]

Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.

hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry 💀

Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):

Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.

Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself

Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.

Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.

Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)

Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.

If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:

(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).

The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.

And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.

So what can we do?

We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.

For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.

[elysiae]

do you think operator & drifter treat their warframes wildly differently?

somewhat insufficient TLDR: i think the operator and drifter are emotionally attached but in vastly, strikingly different ways, and it manifested very, very differently too.

in operator's case, it isn't that they dont *care*, but they know how durable a warframe is. they know they can take one hell of a hit, and they'll be okay because that warframe takes the brunt of it (albeit with some phantom pain if the damage is bad enough). theyre less comfortable outside the confines of those large, bulky war machines because they know they're ultimately safe. those warframes can take hits. they cannot. the operator knows they were people, but they never met those people before the tragedy. besides... a lot of them really are just empty shells. they're hardly the people they once were, especially since they recreated those warframes from blueprints. don't get me wrong, they do remember the anguish of the originals - they were there, they lived it, and they still have empathy for them... but the operator knows the limits of every warframe like the back of their hand - they can maneuver however they want, they can take hits, they can run into armies and not be too afraid because they (as in the operator and the warframe this time) be fine. even if the warframe is damaged, they can fix the damage, so no harm done.

but drifter on the other hand? at first i think they never really realised the power they had. in their mind they were still them, just running, rolling on the occasion, it took them ages to maneuver those things *properly*, and probably only ever really learned with the operator's guidance. they would not let a warframe take a hit, not because they felt empathy for it (at least not a lot, last i checked you kind of need at least *some* to have effective transference?) but because they were so used to walking around vulnerable. yknow, not inside a killing machine. but what would've really solidified the difference was after they went to 1999. sure, hearing that these things used to be people is one thing, but at the end of the day, to drifter, they're still just machines. drifter never got to experience what the tenno did, they never had to deal with reaching into their freshly scarred minds to ease their anger, sorrow, fear, rein them in like the terrified animals they were turning into and hush their cries with understanding - they only knew the dead inside remnants... but it's an entirely other thing when you go to the past and see the people who were hurt. you meet them and you get to know them, become their best friends - maybe even date one of them - and it hit drifter like a fuckin' freight train. they have this entirely different view on warframes from that cold perspective they had at first. they weren't just war machines. those are people. every time they go into the head of those machines, they're looking through the eyes of *people.* people who had families and desires and hobbies, things they looked forward to, entire futures ahead of them that were snuffed out. people who were scared, people who didn't know what was happening. people who knew what was happening, who lived in fear knowing they weren't able to stop it... people who lived in fear of losing themselves. and i think it hit drifter a lot harder than they'd ever admit.

but thats not to say one of them is more attached than the other - both of them care deeply about their warframes. it's just that, they have different ways of looking at them. after all their experiences were so vastly different, it'd be impossible to look at them the same way.

(too lazy to type it out all over, but i have an example in the tags i think kinda helps pull it together more)

[fancyfade]

i think it's funny that bruce presumably has covered up at least two people damian killed (spook and nobody) in main continuity and probably did it in the the boy wonder continuity too with the random thief bruce is like i'm sorry but we are NOT sending him to baby jail it was just a little mistake. he already looked incredibly sad when i wasn't proud of him for the murder is this not punishment enough?

[m1ckeyb3rry]

what really fries me about people who use chatgpt on their homework in my classes is they get the wrong answer and then they text me and i tell them how to do it and they’re like “😱😱 how did you know how to do that ??” well maybe if you opened the slides instead of rushing to jerk off ai you would’ve realized that the professors tell you how to do what they want you to do 😭😭 you dumb fucks FKDKDNJSND LIKE ??

[kalivasquezart]

weird cats

(made in wigglypaint)

[edains]

Tali'Zorah's Omni-tool

Children of Rannoch - A Quarian Overhaul (LE2)

Tali'Zorah's Hunter Armory (LE2)

[anonymergremlin]

Question for your Operator/Drifter:

Do they talk to their Warframes? And I swear I don't just mean Umbra.

My Operator and Drifter talk to them all the time. Especially to thank them. They know they are not the original 'Warframes', but they also can tell something of them is still inside of those organic metal shells.

My drifter for example calls Sevagoth 'Captain', thanking him for helping her save people where ever they go. She thanks Voruna for being the powerful huntress she is and pats the wolves for being such good pack mates. And last but not least she thanks Harrow, since he is the one Warframe that 'protects' the Operator while she is away. But honestly... They love them all. They are family. For them being a Tenno is more than just them, it is the bond between an Operator/Drifter and their Warframe.

[taritoons]

Major, turns out Para-Medic is a major cinephile!

☕ Support me on Ko-Fi ☕

[thehorizonmachine]

& while i'm at it i really hate the RPG consent checklist. i think it's a very inappropriate use of the langauge of 'consent' that both trivializes the importance of consent as usually applied to bodily autonomy and also creates really weird expectations by just 1-1 transplanting that language into an RPG context. like in the context of sex 'enthusiastic consent' makes sense as a concept because everyone participating is expected to (on some level) enjoy sex. ticking the box labelled "enthusiastic consent: bring it on!" next to 'terrorism' or 'heatstroke' is a weird and baffling thing to expect people to do even if they're totally happy for those things to show up in their RPG campaign. it standardizes an emotional response which makes total sense in its original context and applies it to a context where it makes no sense at all--i'd honestly be a little confused and worried if my players self-described as 'enthusiastically consenting' to a campaign containing 'racism' or 'genocide'!

[nemfrog]

Brain surgery. A compleat discourse of wounds. 1678.

Internet Archive

[catzgam3rz]

Automechanic school is really fun besides the 50% of the day where I want to kill myself yknow?

[ilkkawhat]

[magpie-trove]

Nooooo nobody gets it this isn’t about Cassian becoming a rebel hero (that’s rogue one) this is about Cassian losing his agency until he’s nothing more than a weapon for the rebellion to use at will (how he starts Rogue One)

[historyofguns]

The article "History of the MACV/SOG Knife - The Armory Life" by Randall Chaney delves into the origins and development of the MACV/SOG knife, a unique combat tool used during the Vietnam War. Conrad “Ben” Baker, the Deputy Chief for the United States Counterinsurgency Support Office (CISO) in Okinawa, was instrumental in designing this "non-attributable," sterile knife for U.S. special operations troops, particularly those in the MACV-SOG. This elite group conducted reconnaissance and raids across borders into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. Baker's design was inspired by a combination of historical and practical needs, leading to a knife that served as both a survival tool and a weapon. The article highlights Baker's meticulous process involving steel selection, field testing, and refining the blade to a version of the American Bowie knife. The MACV-SOG knife's historical significance is underpinned by notable users such as U.S. Army Special Forces Major John Plaster and the knife's lasting legacy, which continues through modern reproductions by SOG Specialty Knives & Tools. This account honors Baker’s creativity and his contributions to military gear during and beyond the Vietnam conflict.