#at most i might TRY to use cohost for a bit

[knifegremliin]

oh, uh. btw. i HIGHLY doubt i will be moving there because tumblr is genuinely the only social media i have ever actually liked, but i did go and sign up for cohost.

it's the same as here but without the extra i (knifegremlin)

[bloodsbane]

im seeing more folks migrate over to cohost in light of the Most Recent Tumbler Bullshittery and have already been asked for mine, so here it is!

i've had an account for a while so I also thought i'd offer some very quick bits of advice for the site:

cohost lets you make MULTIPLE PAGES under ONE ACCOUNT. it's a marriage of how tumblr lets you have sideblogs easily accessed via your main blog, but each page has its very own followers, bookmarked tags, etc., like when you have multiple twitter accounts. makes it super easy to make multiple pages for different things without needing to log out to switch, while also letting you totally customize what you see for each page you own

there's no algorithm at work on cohost at all so if you want people to follow you'll have to find them! i suggest dipping into tags for things you like as a starting point, or checking out the pages of people who make funny posts you see shared by friends you DO already follow

wrt tags, there are some Global Tags on cohost that are used by a majority of the site (ex. ArtistsOnCohost, The Cohost Global Feed, Adult Artists On Cohost) that might be useful as a starting point if you'd like to see a very broad range, but they're just big umbrellas. if you want something specific, check more specific tags!

the cohost tag and page search bar is your friend, it will show you all established tags including the word you search, as well as relevant pages for suggested following

i HIGHLY recommend bookmarking tags you have an interest in, there's an easy toggle at the top of your dashboard that lets you switch what you see from your Followed Accounts to Bookmarked Tags. your bookmarked tags are also listed on the side so you can check them individually

oh, also, click+Shift is how you quick reblog posts on there!

cohost has a nice system for placing content warnings on posts, and customizing what you do/don't see, so make sure you look into your settings and fiddle with it

i think that's really everything! i feel like most other stuff is easily intuited or explained by the site itself

last thing though: cohost is currently run by a very small handful of people. so if you'd really like to invest on an alternative to tumblr, if you try cohost out and like the feel of it, i'd highly suggest you consider buying cohost plus ($5 a month/$50 a year) and/or buy some of their merch. basically whatever you'd like to do to offer some financial support. i really enjoy cohost and bought a year's premium already.

[katabay]

STADIUM KISS! coffee date :)

this actually a re draw of a comic I did ages ago, but this time. the story has a name. this one has been sitting almost finished in my work folder for MONTHS (I had most of it finished. ohhhh my god. back in july of this year? my god. and I posted that original sketch for it back in june of 2022) but I couldn't figure out what to do with the backgrounds, so I decided to simply use every single brush I haven't used before just to see what would happen.

god. fucking. sports, man. I keep thinking about this one pre season game I saw on tv two years ago, and there was a moment in the last ten minutes when the third string quarter back went to play and he threw such a beautiful pass and for a minute it was like seeing lightning strike. I am. upset. that I might never see him play on tv again.

this is why that first page has a lightning strike sort of energy to the players crossing the goal line. also because it's a little bit based on a photo I took back when I did sports photography. there's something about seeing people cross that line while everyone else is trying to pull them back that's soooooooooooooooo good. physical body meet force of will and desperation to win, just once.

(the quarterback is K.D 'Kay' Matsuzaka, the guy with the coffee is Yance, Emil is the third guy in the last panel, he's a linebacker, and Yance's sister is Amie)

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[ungrateful-cyborg]

Social media comparison

Alright. I've tried different new/alternative platforms lately in hope to find something I really liked, and there are very promising ones. I didn't try everything, of course, but this is a kind of overview of my journey so far? Or just my thoughts on the matter.

I've tried Pillowfort, Bluesky, Mastodon (didn't last long enough to have much of an opinion, it simply didn't click), Dreamwidth and Cohost (as of today, can't post there yet).

My comparison under the cut:

► I appreciate that they're algorithm free, whether it's because they truly believe in an Internet rid of the most invasive of them or because it's too expensive to implement on a brand new platform or some other reason. Only the future can tell, but for now it's nice.

► Pillowfort: beside the post formatting that I find extremely comfortable, my favourite thing is probably communities. I feel like this is the strongest "pro" in favor of Pillowfort because this is where they truly distinguish themselves from other social media.

Communities, in a way, remind me of forums. They're however easier to take in hand since you don't have to deal with as many options and choices. In my opinion, communities on Pillowfort are a bit lacking in functionalities though. I think more tools to easily organize them would help, like a widget or something to link stuff so you can create and animate events within said communities.

(I also feel like Pillowfort would gain from not being dark blue. We have more than enough dark blue websites, and it doesn't go well with the warmth invoked by its name in my opinion, but that's a minor detail and just a matter of taste.)

► Bluesky: basically Twitter but better. No algorithm, for a start. The curated feeds are nice. They're a bit like communities on Pillowfort since they can be moderated but from a non-mod user, it's even easier to post in them: you just have to use the right keyword for your post to appear there. Well, if the mod left it open to all rather than chose to vet who can or cannot post in it. Lots of flexibility and control over your timeline overall.

I don't like the 300 characters limit, however. Never liked it with Twitter either. It's not really conductive to conversations, and the general design tends to make the website feel rather impersonal. It's really more like parallel talking than community building.

Overall I think it's a good tool to promote your (visual) art or website, etc. but not great for hosting conversations past commenting briefly what others are doing. I mean, you can make threads but it'll never be as good as Pillowfort or Tumblr for this.

► Dreamwidth: I'll start with saying that Dreamwidth isn't a social media, it's a journaling platform and I haven't used it much yet. Had in plan to post my headcanons about my muses there and stuff like that so I did spend some time trying to figure out how it works.

First, there is a lot of options to let you have complete control over who can see what. Like, a lot.

You can entirely personalize what your journal will look like. It's a bit easier than having your own website—since I reblogged a post about that yesterday—because you don't start from 0, so it might be a good option if you don't feel comfortable jumping into Notepad++ to start coding. You can just change a thing here and there, or nothing at all, or almost everything. It's pretty old school though, so for those completely unfamiliar with early/pre-web 2.0, it might not look very appealing at first. However, I'd say don't let that stop you! If anything, it's a good opportunity to learn a bit of code without pressure.

You can also create communities, which as you might have guessed is very important to me. When creating one, you can set up whether everyone can join, everyone can ask to join but has to be approved by a community admin or to limit the access to those you have personally invited. Like for your own journal, communities are completely customizable, and Dreamwidth allows adult content.

I'm not sure you can top DW communities in terms of functionalities—aside from making a forum—but it's not as intuitive as Pillowfort (though in exchange you get more customization). You're also more limited regarding image hosting (see here). That said, hosting services exist, many are free, and that's without mentioning that you can post on Twitter and the like and use the picture link in your DW posts. I don't think many will only use Dreamwidth anyway.

► Cohost: I was expecting nothing when I registered earlier today, but this is an overall good surprise: it's Tumblr, but better.

More control of what you see. More user-friendly UI. It's not fucking blue. Adult content allowed. You can change your main blog page and make it private.

The only two downsides I'd mention here would be that you can't customize your blog page appearance and you have to wait for one or two days before being able to post. Although if it means less bots, I'd rather wait.

And this ends my rather non-exhaustive tour of the social media/blogging/journaling platforms. If you catch any mistakes let me know. I didn't dive deep, this was just me sharing my thoughts.

(As far as I know, they all allow adult content and give you tools to not see it if you don't want to.)

[mariacallous]

Two years ago when “Michael,” an owner of cryptocurrency, contacted Joe Grand to help recover access to about $2 million worth of bitcoin he stored in encrypted format on his computer, Grand turned him down.

Michael, who is based in Europe and asked to remain anonymous, stored the cryptocurrency in a password-protected digital wallet. He generated a password using the RoboForm password manager and stored that password in a file encrypted with a tool called TrueCrypt. At some point, that file got corrupted and Michael lost access to the 20-character password he had generated to secure his 43.6 BTC (worth a total of about €4,000, or $5,300, in 2013). Michael used the RoboForm password manager to generate the password but did not store it in his manager. He worried that someone would hack his computer and obtain the password.

“At [that] time, I was really paranoid with my security,” he laughs.

Grand is a famed hardware hacker who in 2022 helped another crypto wallet owner recover access to $2 million in cryptocurrency he thought he’d lost forever after forgetting the PIN to his Trezor wallet. Since then, dozens of people have contacted Grand to help them recover their treasure. But Grand, known by the hacker handle “Kingpin,” turns down most of them, for various reasons.

Grand is an electrical engineer who began hacking computing hardware at age 10 and in 2008 cohosted the Discovery Channel’s Prototype This show. He now consults with companies that build complex digital systems to help them understand how hardware hackers like him might subvert their systems. He cracked the Trezor wallet in 2022 using complex hardware techniques that forced the USB-style wallet to reveal its password.

But Michael stored his cryptocurrency in a software-based wallet, which meant none of Grand’s hardware skills were relevant this time. He considered brute-forcing Michael’s password—writing a script to automatically guess millions of possible passwords to find the correct one—but determined this wasn’t feasible. He briefly considered that the RoboForm password manager Michael used to generate his password might have a flaw in the way it generated passwords, which would allow him to guess the password more easily. Grand, however, doubted such a flaw existed.

Michael contacted multiple people who specialize in cracking cryptography; they all told him “there’s no chance” of retrieving his money. But last June he approached Grand again, hoping to convince him to help, and this time Grand agreed to give it a try, working with a friend named Bruno in Germany who also hacks digital wallets.

Grand and Bruno spent months reverse engineering the version of the RoboForm program that they thought Michael had used in 2013 and found that the pseudo-random number generator used to generate passwords in that version—and subsequent versions until 2015—did indeed have a significant flaw that made the random number generator not so random. The RoboForm program unwisely tied the random passwords it generated to the date and time on the user’s computer—it determined the computer’s date and time, and then generated passwords that were predictable. If you knew the date and time and other parameters, you could compute any password that would have been generated on a certain date and time in the past.

If Michael knew the day or general time frame in 2013 when he generated it, as well as the parameters he used to generate the password (for example, the number of characters in the password, including lower- and upper-case letters, figures, and special characters), this would narrow the possible password guesses to a manageable number. Then they could hijack the RoboForm function responsible for checking the date and time on a computer and get it to travel back in time, believing the current date was a day in the 2013 time frame when Michael generated his password. RoboForm would then spit out the same passwords it generated on the days in 2013.

There was one problem: Michael couldn’t remember when he created the password.

According to the log on his software wallet, Michael moved bitcoin into his wallet for the first time on April 14, 2013. But he couldn’t remember if he generated the password the same day or some time before or after this. So, looking at the parameters of other passwords he generated using RoboForm, Grand and Bruno configured RoboForm to generate 20-character passwords with upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and eight special characters from March 1 to April 20, 2013.

It failed to generate the right password. So Grand and Bruno lengthened the time frame from April 20 to June 1, 2013, using the same parameters. Still no luck.

Michael says they kept coming back to him, asking if he was sure about the parameters he’d used. He stuck to his first answer.

“They really annoyed me, because who knows what I did 10 years ago,” he recalls. He found other passwords he generated with RoboForm in 2013, and two of them did not use special characters, so Grand and Bruno adjusted. Last November, they reached out to Michael to set up a meeting in person. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, they will ask me again for the settings.”

Instead, they revealed that they had finally found the correct password—no special characters. It was generated on May 15, 2013, at 4:10:40 pm GMT.

“We ultimately got lucky that our parameters and time range was right. If either of those were wrong, we would have … continued to take guesses/shots in the dark,” Grand says in an email to WIRED. “It would have taken significantly longer to precompute all the possible passwords.”

Grand and Bruno created a video to explain the technical details more thoroughly.

RoboForm, made by US-based Siber Systems, was one of the first password managers on the market, and currently has more than 6 million users worldwide, according to a company report. In 2015, Siber seemed to fix the RoboForm password manager. In a cursory glance, Grand and Bruno couldn’t find any sign that the pseudo-random number generator in the 2015 version used the computer’s time, which makes them think they removed it to fix the flaw, though Grand says they would need to examine it more thoroughly to be certain.

Siber Systems confirmed to WIRED that it did fix the issue with version 7.9.14 of RoboForm, released June 10, 2015, but a spokesperson wouldn’t answer questions about how it did so. In a changelog on the company’s website, it mentions only that Siber programmers made changes to “increase randomness of generated passwords,” but it doesn’t say how they did this. Siber spokesman Simon Davis says that “RoboForm 7 was discontinued in 2017.”

Grand says that, without knowing how Siber fixed the issue, attackers may still be able to regenerate passwords generated by versions of RoboForm released before the fix in 2015. He’s also not sure if current versions contain the problem.

“I'm still not sure I would trust it without knowing how they actually improved the password generation in more recent versions,” he says. “I'm not sure if RoboForm knew how bad this particular weakness was.”

Customers may also still be using passwords that were generated with the early versions of the program before the fix. It doesn’t appear that Siber ever notified customers when it released the fixed version 7.9.14 in 2015 that they should generate new passwords for critical accounts or data. The company didn’t respond to a question about this.

If Siber didn’t inform customers, this would mean that anyone like Michael who used RoboForm to generate passwords prior to 2015—and are still using those passwords—may have vulnerable passwords that hackers can regenerate.

“We know that most people don't change passwords unless they're prompted to do so,” Grand says. “Out of 935 passwords in my password manager (not RoboForm), 220 of them are from 2015 and earlier, and most of them are [for] sites I still use.”

Depending on what the company did to fix the issue in 2015, newer passwords may also be vulnerable.

Last November, Grand and Bruno deducted a percentage of bitcoins from Michael’s account for the work they did, then gave him the password to access the rest. The bitcoin was worth $38,000 per coin at the time. Michael waited until it rose to $62,000 per coin and sold some of it. He now has 30 BTC, now worth $3 million, and is waiting for the value to rise to $100,000 per coin.

Michael says he was lucky that he lost the password years ago because, otherwise, he would have sold off the bitcoin when it was worth $40,000 a coin and missed out on a greater fortune.

“That I lost the password was financially a good thing.”

[unlimitedtrees]

making character sprites as a one-person indie game developer

(huh. turns out this post on cohost didnt have a “read me” section”. o well. i will put the read me section Here,  before any of da actual text. click it if u dare !!)

so, i've been meaning on making a Big post talkin all about how i actually Make my games and my processes n such ,but also ive been procrastinating on making it for so long that i thought i might as well just make One part of that post now .. and its about making the Character Sprites for my games .

So. these images are the (mostly) full sprite sheets of the three characters from my game UNITRES Dreams, taken directly from the big giant 'charactersprites.png' image that i used for nearly every sprite for Most of the game's development. some quick things to make note of: First off, Trees (the first one) was one of the earliest things i made for the game, and had their sprite sheet redone Twice since then.. this first picture doesnt contain the latest sprite sheet as the new sprites were done on aesprite and im too lazy to make a sprite sheet out of them right now.

Secondly, the Second character (the pink one), had two different designs, being completely redesigned as i didnt like their first design all too much. their redesign's animations was done in aesprite, but i made a sprite sheet out of em before so i was able to just put them here. Lastly, the Third character (the blue one with the big silly hat) remained mostly unchanged as their original sprites and design were pretty good, but they needed to be cleaned up and given better colors so i ended up polishing all of their sprites.

Anyways. it's going to be hard for me to explain my actual process, as i am Bad With Words, but i will try my best.. So. for Most of my time as a game dev, I've used Paint.NET for Everything. This includes backgrounds, tilesets, and every animation ever in all of my games. For my character sprites specifically, i usually start with making the color palette (which is a whole different process where i mess around with the RGB values until i get a specific color that i think looks pretty ... its hard to describe). When making a new character, i usaully start with an Idle animation, just so i have a good base to make all the other sprites on. I just make a sketch of the character, then i do the flat colors (as my games dont have line art), and once i have the colors i start doing the rendering , where i try to pull off a sort of Sonic CD-esque , celshaded style while Also including a bit of anti-aliasing and other modern pixel art techniques to give the sprites more Depth and make them look Sharp. Idk. it's hard to describe my process in words ... i Did make a video Years ago showing off my process, but its old and my editing in that video isnt the Greatest.

So., that's my process Lol . the only thing thats really changed is that Now i use Aesprite for making the Actual Animations , as making animations with Paint.NET is Really Difficult and Annoying , as i have No Idea how the animation will Look until it actually appears ingame .. which results in the early versions of each character's animations looking a little weird (such as Trees' first two versions, the first version of the Pink character, and the Blue character's animations.. .though the blue character isnt as bad as the other two and i kept their animations mostly the same in the final game LOL).

Something that people have kind of criticized about UNITRES Dreams' animations is that some of em dont exactly ... Look Good. a lot of animations are pretty Inconsistent , with characters like Trees having inconsistent sizes in some animations and the movement in animations such as the Pink character's walking animation and various other animations (Especially the ones made in Paint.NET) looking Unnatural.

And Well .. here's the thing about making animations and sprites for something like this. When you're the Main person making an indie game, you have Tons of different parts of the game that need to be worked on while having Very little time to work on others. On Top of making every single animation for UNITRES , i had to make every single Tileset and background for every single level, On Top of making the Level Layouts , Programming , and even making sprites for things like the UI. And you have to constantly Test the game to make sure everything works and things Look good.

So. i had very little time to work on the sprites, and i Knew this. Something you have to consider is that, not only are you making the animations for the main character , you Also have to make Tons of animations and sprites for Literally Every Other Aspect of The Game . this includes Enemies , Level Gimmicks , NPCs, And the UI .. so you end up having to work on Thousands of sprites by yourself in such a short time.

I ain't the best animator , nor the best sprite artist . But , for this game I chose an art style which is Kinda simple and comfortable for me, which made making things like tilesets and backgrounds so much easier for me. The character sprites specificially only use a few amount of colors ,but also i tried my best to give them as much depth and make them as Colorful looking as i could. Also , something you might notice is that all of the playable characters dont actually have a whole lot of animations .. each of the characters only have the Exact amount of frames and animations necessary for them to Look Good moving around the levels. Aside from a few Gimmick Specific animations that arent in the sprite sheets i posted , there arent many Extra animations or animations with Tons of Frames that i wish i could have added .. and it Kind Of Sucks . Having to split my time across Three Different Characters , i had no time to make any animations Too Crazy or Too Smooth , and i couldnt include any extra animations that could add a bit of personality to the characters ... In Fact ,the Idle "animation" isnt an animation , its just a still frame. I didnt have time to even make a simple waiting animation !!

It Is What It Is. For what its worth , Ithink Im pretty proud of the animations i did for UNITRES Dreams. while i think ive become a much better artist and animator since then, i still think some animations and some of the frames look really good ..just looking at some of the still frames is really nice .. so i think i did a good job, especially for a game that was made in 2 years and is Free. And Hey, while the animations in UNITRES Dreams may not be the best or have the most smooth animations , i Did get to experiment with making more smooth animations for TREES' ADVENTURE. while ,now, i think some stuff could use some work, i am Really Proud of how some of the animations look .. ididnt get to make Too Many extra animations (there still isnt even an Idle animation), i Did get to make some cool extra animations , such as individual animations for your Jump that are based on how fast you're moving . (the original post on cohost had a buncha gifs of da animations but im Too Fuckin Tired 2 post em here LOL !!!)

So Yea . the moral of the story: making video games is kind of hard and time consuming , Especially when you're like , the Only one working on them. just make sure to plan ahead and try not to overwork urself .. make what you can and do it when you can. Thats what i think , anyways.

[adreamareads]

Teaser Tuesday

I have a new story going up on Sunday and I'm stressing that it a.) isn't finished, b.) has no title, and c.) has no plot, just vibes

I'm not as concerned with C, because most of my stories don't have a discernable Plot, per se. They just are. Slice of life, I guess? Anyway. I'm frantically trying to get it done in time but we'll get there.

Scene: New Year's Eve 2024, last White House Trio party. They're cohosting with the President-Elect's kids, Jenna and Benjamin.

Teaser:

“Once you tried to tell us David is your assistant,” Nora points out. “But he's not invited to the party.” Henry laughs. “David, who was overwhelmed with just us this morning? He'd hide under a table and not come out until the end of the party. He'll be much happier with Leo.” “I swear I heard Leo refer to himself as ‘Grampy,’” June laughs. “He wants grandchildren so bad. Y’all better get on that,” she teases. “Wedding first,” Henry starts to say, but Alex is quicker. “We keep trying, but no baby yet,” he quips. Nora cackles, June pulls a face, and Henry blushes. For their parts, Jenna and Ben just look vaguely uncomfortable.

There's more (currently sitting at 3500 words and more to come) but I really liked this bit and wanted to share.

Tagging friends who might want to share on Teaser Tuesday (or WIP Wednesday, or whatever day it is by you): @cha-melodius @cricketnationrise @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @daisymae-12 @inexplicablymine @affectionatelyrs @gayrootvegetable

[bogos-bint3d]

I'm literally only making this so I can feel just a slight bit of order in my life

This is my YouTube channel where I try to post some stuff sometimes

Yeah its just the same as here but with way less stuff. BUT I SWEAR I'm working on it

This is my cohost! which is essentially my backup plan for if I leave tumblr.

Not much there yet since I'm still getting used to it

Hmm, I have an AO3 account I guess, but I haven't actually posted anything on it yet. Still figuring out how to customise it and stuff. Same name as all my other stuff: Bogos_Bint3d✨️

I like a lot of things, but I'd say the things that really have me in chokehold are: Undertale/Deltarune, Infinity Train, Ena, Spider-Man (just in general, but mostly spiderverse specifically), Murder Most Unladylike, Heathers, Sonic a little bit, Gorillaz, Sexyman Descendants (does that even count? Whatever I like it). So if you ever want to talk about these things know I would ABSOLUTELY love to. I especially love finding out new things about them so if you know something about these I don't I will eat that UP. So yeah you can follow if you're interested in any of these. I just KNOW there's a ton I'm missing but there's not really anything I can do about that

I am not in any way normal about Undyne from Undertale so I guess if you want to see me talk about her constantly that's a good reason to follow

I sometimes spam reblog if I see something that really makes me feel stuff I am so sorry about that so you might not want to follow if you don't like it

I tag my own art with #bogos I binted (hehe, get it? Photos I printed, bogos I binted... no? Yeah ok)

I tend to tag undertale art with #hotland art club, but I mostly only tag my own art. If I remember tho I'll tag other utdr art,, just don't count on it

Sometimes I tag art with Miles, Gwen, Hobie, and Pavitr as #these four are literally the besties ever, which I haven't actually done in a long time but, hey! Never know when I will again!

I tag my queued posts with #despite everything, its still queue. Yes I know the "its" should grammatically be "it's". No I don't have the energy to change it

🫨-> cool comma that will work normally in post tags: ‚ <-?! Yep! That comma WILL work if you use it in tags, it's very cool! I don't know why I mentioned that... I like it!

Well that's all there really is to me... I know there's stuff I'm forgetting to add but there's literally nothing I can do about that I'll just fix it later or whatever

[mattdemers]

My safari through current social media alternatives

So I figured that after a week of Twitter doomposting by other people, I'd weigh in with my thoughts on the vibes/applications of social media sites that people have migrated to. This isn't meant to be a scientific tier list, just thoughts.

Tumblr

I haven't been here in years. Things are largely the same, but there's been some UI improvements, and I've liked things like the new posting UI (still needs some work. Would prefer Markdown, but I get how zoomers aren't going to put up with that).

Aesthetically, it feels like the transition from being 18 to 22. Like, the company voice is a bit more older/sassier/"leaning into what people told it that its strengths were" and I don't know if that's good or bad. I feel that it's a bit limiting but I think Tumblr needs all the help it can get.

I've also noticed a lot more gamification, encouragement, "things that you are doing correctly that we are going to enforce" from Tumblr itself, which is probably positive.

Probably will be fine in the short term.

Cohost (Link to me)

"Tumblr, with a shit colour scheme."

I'm having trouble with Cohost mostly because I've done the least amount of exploration for new people to follow or hashtag discovery. I really like the post editor (it's Markdown, see above) but I can understand how that's going to hurt it.

It reminds me of a university/college internal website for students, aesthetically. I don't want to say "who is this for?" but there's a larger deficit when it comes to its identity as a site. Tumblr is clear what it wants to be, and who it wants to house, and Cohost was sold to me "for creators" but I have less idea how/why/beyond that.

Clicking into a tag for "league of legends" (which I guess might be a good comparison across platforms) the last post in that tag was 3 days ago.

Yeah, I'm kinda thinking Cohost is gonna be dead, or a zombie like Vero Social in a year.

Mstndn.social (Link to me)

It's hard to talk about Mastodon due to the nature of federation, so I can only zoom out and talk about "the normie experience" that I'm seeing.

I think people are using Masto as a bit of a panacea; they see a familiar Twitter-ish interface, but are lost with the tech-speak of federation and what it might mean. I've seen ambitious people start their own instances and think it's "building a new Twitter" in terms of scale expectations, but it's not. You're essentially building your own pillow fort.

The thing is, I think some people might be... hoping otherwise? Like, the stuff that's interesting me most about Masto is the Lord of the Flies scenarios happening in certain circles, where they're finding out:

How much work actually goes into moderation, and how unsexy it is

What happens when people you don't know/can't vet are joining your instance

What happens when people have a visible person they can point their grievances to

To be honest I'm not optimistic about Mastodon but I think it serves a purpose in educating people about what was convenient about Twitter. They'll go crawling back, and maybe a few people will embrace the "local" group they've now joined.

Some normies literally have never had the experience of joining a small forum and learning to love that community; this isn't that. It's more like Reddit, where one account enables you to post everywhere, but you might find a "home" subreddit.

I've been using Pinafore as a better UI for Masto and I've been enjoying it.

Other thoughts

I joined The Hive about two seconds ago, but I'm moreso just reserving a username in case it blows up. A two-person team and being on the market for multiple years before this kind of makes me wary, mostly because I think they're hungry to accept any kind of winning milestone, and that means they're going to listen to anyone if it makes them think they can keep the momentum.

Tech users largely don't know what they want, and it's going to waste the resources of a dev team in order to try to get everyone satisfied. If they're doing crowdfunding, I'm kinda also pessimistic, because man that's setting up for some "I paid for X!" complaints.

What's funny/cool is I've gotten "mattd" on all these platforms, not "mattdemers." Kinda nice to shift a little bit because I'm very insecure about saying my last name verbally and having people be able to find me. Oh well.

It's the URL of my new Substack too, where I'll be posting more things like this, if you want more. It isn't launched yet, and is under construction, but it's there if you want to move early.

[thefenrathaesaga]

Bit of an Update 5/9/2023

So I managed to inflame my right rotator cuff for the third time since May of 2022. Which means that art has been very, very slow. Digital art has been very, very slow, at least. Mainly because in order for me to draw on my laptop, I need to unplug some things, rearrange the laptop a bit, plug some things back in, then hook my graphics tablet up to my laptop, which requires me to plug several things in. And I don't want to try to do that with my right rotator cuff right now!

So traditional art it is, for the time being! Good news is that I can still use my laptop with minimal pain, meaning that I can still write and work on stories! Another good thing is that my primary care doctor put me on a stronger anti-inflammatory medication to help with the inflammation and pain!

He also seems to agree that I might have a mild case of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I've never fully dislocated a joint, but I sure have subluxed most of the joints in my extremities! Only took me fifteen years to realize that my elbow joints and finger joints, for example, feeling slightly out of place at least once a day is not actually normal for someone who doesn't have hEDS. Which is why I've gotten onto the waiting list to see my local area's leading expert on EDS. That being said, he's not seeing any new patients for another eight months. So once I gather enough mental focus to call up another local rheumatologist, I'll be calling said other rheumatologist!

I may wind up having to pay for the rheumatologist, myself, because either Medicaid doesn't cover rheumatology visits or the rheumatologists in the area don't take Medicaid. Either way, if I do wind up having to pay for an appointment with a rheumatologist, then so be it. I feel like I need a diagnosis for this, even if it isn't hEDS.

But yeah, I'm gonna start treating the issues with my right rotator cuff as a condition from now on, rather than an injury. Because whatever it is that's causing my right rotator cuff to keep getting inflamed, it's not gonna go away anytime soon!

Also, I've been scripting out the comic pages for the first chapter of Volume 1 of The Fenrathae Saga! So far, I've scripted up to page 30! As of right now, I'm not planning on drawing out the comic pages for a while yet. Mostly because I want to ease my way back into digital art, and because I don't think my right shoulder is ready for digital art yet. But also because I'm still kinda burnt out on drawing.

Honestly, I feel like I shouldn't post my art. At least, I feel like I shouldn't post it in places where it would do well, i.e., Twitter, DeviantArt, Instagram. And that's mainly because I keep seeing all the people who have been taking advantage of the fact that AI-generated stuff is still generated in a very unethical way, and have been feeding the AI with the stolen artworks of others. I still see a whole bunch of webcomic artists posting their webcomics to DeviantArt for more reach, but I've heard that the front page of dA is still full of AI-generated images and NFT art. Plus, dA has explicitly allowed people to link artworks to NFTs.

And Twitter? Every fucking time I post my art there, it seems to get more attention from AI dudebros and NFTbros rather than from actual artists. I mainly retweet stuff I see on Twitter, but it's always other people's art or activism stuff. So despite the number of artists who follow me, it appears that they never see any of my art, no matter how much art I post. Plus, Elon Muskrat has ruined Twitter to the point where no artist can use it. I literally have 45 followers there, most of whom follow me for my activist retweets, but the artists who do follow me either never see my art, or they never think to interact with it.

As for Inkblot, no matter how much art I put there, nobody sees it or if they do see it, they don't bother with interacting with it. Granted, I only have like, 6 followers, and I'm following way more people than that. And Cohost is kinda the same, but I only have one (1) follower there.

So yeah, the struggle of trying to build an audience is really reducing my drive to make art, too. Just bear with me.

[seventh--fonon]

(crosspost from cohost)

this is a bit of a ramble, but a post I came across on Cohost about Mario 64 and 'collectathons' got me thinking (again) about Horizon: Zero Dawn, which I finally came back to and finished a bit over a month ago, and about and many other modern open-world/adventure games, where an issue I find myself coming back to is that the game ends up feeling like a giant to-do list, without much actual...game.

but more particularly, I think the question I have is whether the assumption that players will rely on things like HUD compasses, waypoints, maps, etc. results in or reinforces what I see as a lack of emphasis on wayfinding within the game world itself¹, leading to this sort of unsatisfying (for me), "marker-to-marker" gameplay.

I chose to play H:ZD with the HUD off and with all collectible maps and such (other than quests) disabled, partly because with them on, it felt like everything was just another point to reach—it took away most of the sense of discovery, and of actually understanding the game world².

now, maybe I'm just not very observant, but this made really hard to actually find any of the "collectibles". in the end, I had to turn on the maps to manage to find everything (which I was doing mainly for the little bit of worldbuilding you get), and at that point it really felt like completion for completion’s sake, which I don't enjoy.

I see this difficulty as coming down mainly to a lack of visual/environmental cues: when it comes to wayfinding/discovery, the Banuk figurines give you the most information, using a series of rock paintings to lead you to them; the metal flowers have only a triangle of pink flowers around them and are hard to see in visually busy areas; the ancient vessels are essentially indistinguishable from other rare loot; and the visibility of datapoints varies but generally require constantly scanning or manually checking the compass.

of course, leaving this up to maps/HUD markers is a perfectly valid choice, if that's what you want the player experience to be. it's just not an experience that I enjoy, and I suppose the question at large is how conscious the choice is, versus how much of it comes down to "this is just how AAA games Are." it seems like quite a lot of games follows this formula, even games like H:ZD where (in my opinion) stronger visual wayfinding would vastly increase the player's immersion in the world (arguably the point of open-world games like this)³.

as it stands, because of this general issue, I’m often finding myself having to play creatively and/or do a lot of mindset adjustment while playing a game in order to not let the quest list and collectible lists that so many of them have turn into chores. which...isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but it also kind of feels like there should be a better way? I don't know.

to provide a contrasting example, advancing the story and doing sidequests in, like, older Tales games never felt like just ‘going through the motions’ in this way, and I feel like a big component of that is that they don’t tell you where to go or who to talk for every little thing (which the newer Tales games started doing) while most of the time⁴ giving you enough context for you to figure it out.

or for an open-world example, there’s BotW—the shrines get a little 'completion-y', but the game generally does a good job of encouraging you to actually explore the world, and of drawing you to salient points in a natural way.

anyway, I guess what I'm trying to think through is, what’s a good balance? how could it be better (at least, for people who share my preferences)? how does this change depending on what the game is trying to achieve? what perverse incentives might be at play (e.g. achievements/trophies creating a sort of 'gamification of gaming')?

¹ with the acknowledgement that separating the HUD, etc. from the 'real gameplay' like this is kind of artificial/not always justified—all of a game is part of the gameplay in some sense.

² also, not sure if they ever changed this, but when I first played the game at release, the HUD was "all or nothing"—it either marked all gatherable items, or nothing at all. I hated this, which is the other part of why I disabled it. maybe they've added more settings since; I never actually checked. thanks to this, I can recognize all of the gatherable plants in the game at a glance, though.

³ which can, of course, exist alongside a rich map/interface. they don't need to be mutually exclusive.

⁴ most of the time. (weary sigh)

[tetrafelino]

look at him

okay now you can read my intro

My DNI is my blocklist.

tetrafelino is my main blog on Tumblr. Here's some of my sideblogs:

@withthesamesweetshock, my music/most-other-artforms appreciation sideblog

@camundongodebabel, my mostly inactive langblr

@get-hungry, food porn blog

@spockslefttit, my Star Trek blog

@resource-source, where I reblog anything and everything that might be useful

I don't expect anyone to follow me on all of these, but if you feel curious about any one of these and want to check them out, be my guest.

So what do I post here?

Three things, mainly. Fandom stuff, personal posts and tumblr/online community stuff. But really, it's for anything I care about - and I do care about serious and political topics as well as the lighter stuff, so you will see that here as well.

I'm sorta in the process of separating fandom stuff to new sideblogs, but it's a bit of a long process, and I do like to keep some stuff here :3 (To expand on this: if I notice I'm posting a lot about a certain fandom over an extended period of time I might make a sideblog to organize that, but fandoms I'm more casual about stay here.)

Tagging system:

There's barely one. I'm really bad at tagging. But here's what I try to do.

miau⁴ - most of my original posts (and some notable reblog additions). Stuff slips through the cracks sometimes.

no man is a queue entire of itself - queue tag

I also have good morning and good evening reblog tags; mornings are usually cute animal videos and evenings for general positivity and good news.

I have some blackout poetry if want to check that out, and my trinket box is where I keep my favourite posts and stuff I want to keep at hand.

Trigger/content warnings: tw ed, police brutality, nudity, racism, antiblackness, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, antiarabism, orientalism

Feel free to ask me to add something to this list, and/or warn me if I forget to tag something. I really appreciate it.

Can you find me anywhere else?

If we're mutuals, and we've talked before, you can totally have my discord ID, just hmu. Other than that, there's cohost (same usename).

[spineofdeathwing]

An Overdue Apology Letter To The WRA Community

As most of you folks probably already know, I'm Gallows/Jerymiah and I've done a lot of shitty things in the past and some pretty shitty things in more recent times. I want to preface this letter by saying there's no excuses for anything I've done both past and present. While my upbringing, mental health, etc. can be used to explain some of the behavior, they do not excuse it - and they never should. Most people that know of me and don't like me - for very valid reasons of course - are familiar with the person I used to be during the time period of 2015-2016 (along with that stupid fucking thread I had in 2017 with the BLM supporter, which ironically enough I now agree with in present day with everything they said and completely disagree with everything I said back then.) During those years I was an unironic altright troll and in my own words from back then, a "proud fascist". I did and said a lot of really stupid and hateful, downright cruel shit during this time - a lot of it I can't even remember, but the people I hurt back then sure do. I know it hurts them even more to hear I can't even remember who they are or what I did to them, because it's just downright frustrating (to say the least) to have been so vehemently wronged by someone that their cruelty left a lasting imprint on you and yet you haven't been on their mind at all since then. While I may not have specific names and faces to dwell on, I do think back on that time a lot. I agonize over it and despise myself over it. I was bullied all my life relentlessly from preschool to high school, and yet here I was doing that to other innocent people for nothing more than to feel like a big man in front of some douchebags who I wanted to impress for some dumb as fucking shit reason. I can never say sorry enough, I can never change enough to erase what I did back then. No matter how sorry and awful I feel now about that time, it doesn't change the fact that I did it and people are right to hate me and not trust me because of it. While I can happily say I am as far from a nazi/fascist as anyone can possibly be these days, it doesn't erase the fact that at one point in my life I zealously supported this mindset and ideology. I won't waste your time or my own explaining why I had fell in line with fascism and those assholes in Demagogue/Clergy of the Great One... cause it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what my reasons were or what the situation was at the time, or how I was feeling mentally/emotionally at that point in my life. Those things don't excuse what I did, and I can't keep hiding behind them to try and avoid the repercussions of my actions. I hurt a lot of people back then, and I'll never be able to fix that. I can only say that with all of my heart and soul that I am truly, deeply, sorry for everything I did and said back then and that if I could I would take it all back and never go down that path. But life doesn't work like that, and I gotta own up to what I did - which I always have done, but until now I always tried to blame it on those aforementioned excuses rather than just admit to myself instead of trying to explain it all away. Post 2016, I was in a weird and awkward phase where I was trying way too hard to be all-of-a-suddenly PC and friendly with people who really wanted nothing to do with me but were either too polite or just downright terrified of me to say so - I don't blame them. I said some really cringy and weird shit, especially after I was learning more about my own ethnic origins. At the time I had just learned that I had Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish ancestry from my abuela and went a little crazy with it, ended up saying something dumb, cringy/admittedly creepy to an artist/rper 'Buttart/Poeful' in an ask on Tumblr at this time which really creeped/weirded her out and I honestly can not blame her for feeling that way and I cannot say sorry enough for this - I'm even cringing looking back at this and thinking to myself, "why the FUCK would you say that to someone??" In 2018 I had a falling out with a friend due to my own actions causing them to distance themselves from me which made me lash out at them in frustration - this was incredibly childish and selfish of me, and I'm deeply sorry to Fig for how I acted at that time. Though I will say this though: I actually reached out to Seb not too long ago to apologize for my own behavior and we actually buried the hatchet after they admitted that the uproar they'd instigated at this time about me (which led to my former friend distancing themselves from me) was entirely fabricated and apologized for it. Nothing had happened at the Halloween RP party event I had cohosted with Basil and Kott, or the farewell to UC event they'd hosted prior that I also helped out with. But more importantly, I acted like an ass and Fig was totally valid to cut me off for it. I still maintain my innocence when it comes to the weirdly specific/similar anonymous ask that Fig's friend Catbat had received trying to warn them about Fig. Which would have been fine, but no... I instead crossed the line by making a new tumblr in order to try and message Fig in order to try and vindicate myself but ended up just acting like a pissy little child - AGAIN, which just overwrote any shred of credibility I might have still had at that point. It'll never be enough to make things right, but I AM sorry about all that Fig. You're a really cool and fun person, I was upset that my own shitty behavior had cost me a good friend, and I unfairly took it out on you or anyone else who supported you during that ordeal - this included Buttart/Poeful. Who is another really cool, fun, and talented person that I'm truly very sorry for how I've treated both back then and recently. I can't take back what I called you, Buttart. But I am sorry I called you the C-word. You didn't deserve that - I let my own paranoia and poor self-control lead me right back into the shithouse and there's no one to blame for how I acted at that time but me. The same also goes to you, Hypna. I blew up on you in Orgrimmar when you had done nothing wrong to me, I went paranoid again of my own fault and lashed out because I know you've always been very vocally opposed to me and my presence in the community. I'm sorry, I really am. I don't really know you, but you seem like a cool enough person - I'm sorry that I couldn't have met you/known you under better circumstances. That can be said for everyone in the WRA/MG RP community who knows me/knows of me, though. I really wish I could fix everything I've done wrong over the years and just start over - but I can't. Life doesn't work that way, you don't get to just say "I'm sorry! D,:" and then everyone instantly forgives you in order to let you try and build back up again with a fresh start. It'd be nice, of course, but it's unrealistic... and that's something I've been fighting against for a long time now and just need to learn to accept. Really all I can do is just say that I'm so sorry to everyone I've ever hurt, and if there's ANYTHING I can do in order to make things even just the tiniest bit better for you - please don't hesitate to confront me and make it known. I will do the very best I can to accommodate your wishes.  I don't ask for instant forgiveness or everything to go back to normal, but what I do ask for is a real chance to actually try and start over and earn this community's trust again, and if your view of me will never change - that's okay too. But just leave me alone, okay? That's all I ask, just leave me alone if you don't like me, don't let me live rent-free in your head. I'm not worth it, honestly.

[waywardimpalawriter]

Hey luv! It's been a long time since we've talked! Hope you're doing fine!

Led astray

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x ReaderRating: PGWarnings: Angst, sadness, being bumped, anger, Seb’s a bit of an ass in this one, curse words Word count: 1,441Notes: Requested by the very lovely @chrisevansthedoritobastard I’m so very sorry it took me over a year to get this written out. But better late than never right? *looks hopeful* Hope you enjoy sweetie. The idea actually came from listening to the radio one very early morning. The local station has a segment called ‘2nd Date Update’ the rest as they say is history.  

Forever:

@winters-buck @angryschnauzer @feelmyroarrrr

 @aquabrie @fandommaniacx  @supernaturallymarvellous  @smoothdogsgirl @becs-bunker

This story: @not-another-fangirl

You’d given it thought, rolled it over in your head for the last few days, asked friends, hell even your sister, all agreed that this idea would come back to bite you in the ass. But you just had, no needed to know and hopefully understand why he hadn’t returned your calls or texts. Sure the same old thoughts came to mind, he’s busy, sick, working or just plain dodging your calls. Enough is, enough you needed answers and this seemed to be the only way to get them.

Though now as you wait for the host to come back your nerves start to get the better of you making you pace the short distance between the kitchen island and stove. Cell pressed between your shoulder and ear, hands wringing like a wet washcloth, till a male voice comes back to the line.

“Good Tuesday morning to ya this is Jason Douglas joined by my cohorts Megan Wright and Michael Masters on 93Q country. It’s 6:45 just this side of the dawn, on a fine morning and we’re bringing you 2nd date update.” There’s a slight twang in his voice while speaking, flipping switches and taking a sip of his coffee. “Morning Y/N thank you for joining us this fabulous morning.”

Clearing your throat, “You’re welcome,” swallowing to try to coat your dry throat once more, “Thanks for having me.”

“So I hear you went on a date a few weeks ago and the guy hasn’t called you back?”

“Yeah, yes,” rolling your eyes at how stupid you sound thinking this may be the disaster everyone warned you about. “Sorry, I’m just a little nervous.”

“Don’t be, we’ve had many people call wanting help trying to find out why calls haven’t been returned. It’s only natural,” pops in Megan, voice bright and cheery for how early in the morning it is.

Nodding though no one can see, you’ve finally sat down on a barstool, cell in hand now. “I thought we’d hit it off, the conversation flowed, we laughed, shared things about each other.” Shaking your head not wanting the tears to come and clog your voice. Had you been wrong about him?

“Tell us more about your date and how the night went? Did he seem put out by how the date went? Had you done something to offend him or him, you?”

“NO,” the one-syllable comes out louder than intended laced with a small amount of anxiety. “I mean I don’t think so like I said it seemed to me the date went well. For my part I thought we hit it off from word go. It’s why I’m so confused as to why he hasn’t called me back.”

“Well alright then let’s get this settled and call up Sebastian,” flipping a few more switches, Jason brings up what he needs. “Now remember Y/N you’ll be listening in try not to say anything till I cue you. He won’t know until that moment so if you want answers, you’ll have to be patient.”

Nodding, realizing they couldn’t see you, your voice cracks as you answer, “Understood.”

“And we will get to that call right after a few words from our sponsors,” sitting back the three of them talk while you’re on hold hearing nothing but elevator music for almost two minutes.

Weather finished up and Jason comes back, “Time is now 6:55 and we have Sebastian on the line, welcome sir and good morning to you. I’ve got my cohosts, Megan and Michael with me.”

Both give him a welcome before Sebastian himself speaks, “Morning.”

“Do we have your permission to talk with you and ask a few questions? This is on air and being recorded of course so if you aren’t comfortable with that speak now or forever hold your peace.” a soft chuckle leaves his lips at the corny joke he makes.  

Puzzled and curious as to what the radio station could want, Sebastian gives consent knowing he might get in trouble with his agent and manager later for this. As there are no movies or TV shows to promote at the moment. So that little voice in the back of his mind keeps poking. Saying this could bring trouble to his door.

“Can I ask what this is about? I didn’t win anything did I? Especially since I didn’t enter,” he jokes seeing the confused looks from his friends beside him.

“Well, it seems there’s someone out there that thinks you’re amazing and wanted to let you know. Do you remember going on a date with someone a few weeks ago?”

Thinking over his schedule, everything he’s done in the past few weeks, he remembers one and wants to smack himself. “There’s one that comes to mind.”

“Y/N?”

Sighing, running a hand through his hair, Sebastian steps away from the group to make the call a little more private. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“You don’t sound so happy to hear the name, did something happen?” Megan chimes in.

All the while you’re listening to the conversation trying to keep yourself from interfering, wanting to have this answers to put this behind you.

“No, nothing happened; Y/N’s a sweet girl I just didn’t feel any sparks with her. The thing I regret the most is giving her so much hope by agreeing to the date.”

Shaking his head, Michael speaks, “I don’t follow you, dude.”

Not wanting to sound too harsh but knowing the truth is always better than a lie, “We met at a party one night, thought she was a nice girl that we could have chemistry, I was wrong. We talked on the phone for a couple of nights before agreeing to a date. In that time I learned from a friend of mine that she’s a very clingy person, needy and always wanting to be the center of attention.”

“What the f*ck,” you couldn’t hold back your tongue anymore and let slip a curse word that Jason told you wouldn’t be allowed. “I’m sorry Jason it slipped out.” Breathing deep to regain yourself, “If your friend told you all that about me then why did you even agree to the date you asshole.”

“Yeah sorry Sebastian, Y/N has been listening in the whole time we’ve been talking,” butting in to explain just making sure to bleep the curse word.

Shrugging to himself, “Thought it would be fun, you’re a sweet girl Y/N just not my type is all. Besides you did talk way more about yourself than I did, I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise.”

“That’s a lie Stan and you know it you jerk. Why make up stupid crap like this if all you truly wanted was a good fuck. That’s what it truly was about, man up and tell the truth.” Anger building now as you jump from the stool sending it backwards to pace the floor, “And here I thought you were a better man than that Sebastian Stan.”

“Whoa, whoa there is this true y’all had sex and what that wasn’t good enough for you Sebastian?” Megan asks wondering if they were talking to who she thinks it is.

“Listen she called my cell, no blew it up more like it with calls and texts, every half hour wanting to know when and where we’re going back out. I told her when she left that morning, things wouldn’t work,” trying to push the problem in your lap, making things your fault rather than his.

“You know what fuck you, Stan, your dick wasn’t big enough anyway to satisfy a goldfish,” done with the whole thing you don’t wait for any answers. Instead deciding to hang up on them, grab the pint of Ben and Jerry’s you stashed for times like this and headed to your bed to cry it out over Pretty Woman and other chick flick movies.

Clearing his throat to get the shock out, “Well then, I take it there will be no second date huh?” laughter clearly in his voice as he looks at his cohosts with a shake of his head. “I guess being an actor and trying to find love isn’t as easy as people would have you believe.”

“So not funny asshole,” hanging up Sebastian shakes his head going back to the main part of the gym to finish his workout and forget the stupid call even happened.

“You know they air that shit on the radio these days? Your fans are going to hear it,” one of his friends states a smirk on his lips.

“Who listens to radio anyway?” is his comeback while flipping his friends off to lift weights.

[the-sundress-system]

Hi!! I hope it's okay to ask you questions! You sent me an ask on my main Tumblr, @sweetmuslimbabyboy about me being a system, and I wanted to reach out. I was wondering if you could explain what all of the terms mean? Like, what a protector in a system is, and stuff like that! I'm very new and am feeling a little lost😢 -sweetmuslimbabyboy

oh you can definitely ask questions :)!!! if you want we can totally dm more about this but i’ll go through a basic system glossary here in case others are wondering too!

System: the collection of alters sharing one body

Headspace/inner world: the “world” in which the alters live inside the head. Technically, it is made up by the mind (but I mean, what isn’t?). It can take different forms and is personal to your system and its needs. I’ve known systems with villages, entire societies, mansions, a vaguely defined property. Ours, personally, looks like a lot our highschool. Don’t know why.

Host: the alter(s) who front(s) the most. There can be more than one, called cohosts. The main host usually doesn’t have trauma but your system is absolutely valid if they do!

Protector: an alter whose purpose is to protect the system. Oftentimes there are Primary Protectors, which is kind of the head honcho if protecting the system (and they typical have the best or very good communication with the host, but this is different for every system!)

Persecutor: an alter who hurts the system. Often they are “misguided protectors”, who are trying to do harmful activities to protect the system and they usually don’t care what others think about it. For example, they can be very mean to headmates (other alters) or harm the body, and sometimes their motivation is they think they are protecting the system from more abuse. They more often than not hold trauma.

Little: a child alter. Can be a trauma holder or not, just like any other alter. Treat them like a child! They’re young and need help just like any singlet (non-system) kid would.

Trauma holder: an alter who holds trauma for the system. Pretty straightforward. They can be in different states of mind about it: we have a 39-year-old TH who is catatonic (she holds all the trauma), a TH who is 5 but mature, a TH who is 9 and mature and funny. Our primary protector holds some trauma, and he is a wonderful, functioning protector. Extremely valuable to our system. They are still their own alter, just like the rest of them.

Caretaker: an alter who takes care of other alters, especially littles.

Internal Self-Helper: an alter who resolves conflict and helps other alters inside. This role is not one we’re too familiar with as we only have a couple, you might want to find a better definition sorry lol

Introject: an alter whose personality & appearance are taken from an outside source. There are exceptions to both of those, of course, but this is a general description.

Fictive: an introject from a fictional source (TV, movie, video game, book, musical, etc.)

Factive: an introject who exists or existed as a real person (can take the form of someone the host or system personally knows, or a famous person, or an abuser, or literally any other real person who ever existed)

ANP: a trauma-free part

EP: a part that holds trauma

There can also be alters who take the form of a nonhuman entity, such as an animal or supernatural/religious being. (Not a comprehensive list, of course.)

This isn’t a complete and exhaustive list of the terms you’ll encounter on your DID journey (and believe us, it’s a journey, lol) but we hope this helps. And your system is valid! Much love to Camren and his alters!

Some reminders:

Take it slow. Breathe. You’re okay.

Communication with alters, especially in the beginning, is hard. Knowing you have a system is the first step. Try to make contact. Leave notes in the outside world if it is safe for you to do so. Maybe keep a system journal? Inner contact is important, though, too. Try to communicate with them. If you want, you can just generally say something in the headspace.

Don’t be too discouraged if you have a hard time contacting your alters. I know you discovered Kai recently and that’s really great!! If they can contact other alters, you can try that. Communication between certain alters isn’t always great. (For example, Marion, our host, and Jake have some communication difficulties, but Jake and Andrew can communicate just fine.)

Ask your alters’ names once you meet them! Ask if they’re comfortable sharing their name, pronouns, age, gender, etc.

Don’t be afraid to talk out loud, if it’s safe. We mouth or whisper words sometimes to communicate. It can help. See what communication methods work for your system. You can make a system Discord just for you guys!

We really hope this helped a bit. Sorry if it was too detailed. If you have any questions, you can reply or DM us! We’ll be happy to talk. Don’t be a stranger :) And I’m gonna tag you to make sure you see this lol @sweetmuslimbabyboy

[terlezi-pyrope]

Alright I wrote a bit here on this last update and Homestuck in general. 

So, I don't like being so negative about Homestuck. I wanna be able to hope that this is going somewhere, and believe me, I do still think it is. BUT I guess I'm so uncomfortable because a lot of stuff that's coming up in the epilogues and now in Homestuck^2 is stuff that I thought we had moved away from? I'm not a long term Homestuck fan. I didn't get into this in my teens and then follow it until its end only to be disappointed by the new content now several years after Act 7. I spent a good five years trying to get through the first 5 acts of Homestuck and had to restart multiple times because the beginning KEPT putting me off so bad. The racism. The sexism. The repeated r slurs. The constant ableism. It made me go "THIS is what my friends are into? Sure these characters are likeable but how can I read something earnestly that's making me cringe on every other page?" And this was all when I thought I was a white, able bodied, person without a dissociative disorder (though I also thought I was bisexual and agender for much of that time, which were tied in with that ignored dissociative disorder). I'm still white, but literally all of those other things I know now to not be true. And the beginning of Homestuck makes me WAY more uncomfortable, now. But eventually I did persevere in reading it last year and I fell in love. I found these relatable, queer characters whose ultimate journey had a lot of flaws but that still connected with me. And somewhere along the way, that kind of thing became waaaay less prevalent and Homestuck became waaay more enjoyable. And then I finished Homestuck. And the Epilogues had just dropped so I jumped right into them. And I don't remember a LOT of them because the material made me ridiculously uncomfortable and caused me to dissociate quite a bit. And then I discovered my system and my OSDD. TAVRISPRITE, of all things, helped me discover I have OSDD-1b because it made me and my cohost examine why the feelings inherent in Tavrisprite were relatable as two consciousness fighting for control and unable to reconcile with one another, which led to us communicating better and seeking therapy. And then I saw the dissociative themes EVERYWHERE and the work became even MORE relatable. When Hussie made a comment about Karkat having what humans might diagnose as a dissociative disorder (and which kinda matches diagnostic criteria for OSDD-1a) we were over the moon that there was direct, word of God acknowledgement of themes we had seen since we discovered each other. And when HS^2 started, I was excited. I was hoping this would be a return to form, and a continuation of that relatability that I hadn't found in most other media. And in a lot of ways, it has been!! But the things that bothered me about the epilogue are a throughline into hs2 that are continuing to make me squirm and make it hard to read this work. I don't blame the hs2 writers for that. They've got to do the best to work with what they were given and with the outlines and stipulations of Hussie. But if I'm a little negative or upset or even (god forbid) unable to keep reading this as it goes forward, this kind of thing like was in the last update will be why, I'm sure. I don't want that to happen. I don't even think it will. But even if it gets better, it doesn't change that these things are kinda taking Homestuck back to a place that made it VERY hard for me to get into in the first place. Not so obliquely, mind, but enough so that it's noticeable and I'm definitely not the only one noticing it. And that's not even mentioning stuff like the Skaianet debacle which I wasn't even aware of until recently. Basically, I don't want to be so pessimistic about Homestuck. It's given me a LOT in this last year and I'm glad I read it. I've written more words in fanfiction in a year than I've written of my own original work in two years because I'm writing Homestuck fanfiction. We (my cohost and I) are helping make a whole fangame for God's sake. So, I'm not gonna stop reading. But I am gonna vent and I am gonna complain if something makes me upset or if it triggers my dissociation. This is a work that begs for criticism as much as for praise, and I love it so, SO dearly, which is why I have to make sure I communicate the parts that are a negative experience for me. I'm not going to pretend it's perfect, and I appreciate the fact that this community very rarely does. It's part of why I love being a part of it so much and have hyperfixated on this work for longer than I normally do for any one thing. Anyway, I'm essentially just rambling now but my point was when Homestuck's bad I'm not gonna act like it isn't. I love this story, and these characters, and this community, but I did not love where this last update is pointing certain aspects of the story. And that's okay