#i'd say keep it moderate because they are real people

[aquavierra]

No one can't really describe how freakin' bad I feel, how uncomfortable and how weird it is to see attractive male celebrities got sexualized and harassed on screen. Also, to add salt on the wounds, the audiences just laugh. Here, I am pinching the bridge of my nose because I've experienced it as a woman and how concerning it is that people take sexualization of men as jokes.

[devsgames]

On AI-Driven Conversations In Games

The AI gang really shot themselves in the foot by leaning so hard into capitalist exploitation angle, because now whenever they present a use of the tech that is actually moderately interesting the baseline reaction people have to it is just going to be hate because it's associated to AI in any way shape or form.

I mean, obviously I understand why people react this way, because most of the practical applications of AI are just a veil for replacing of labour and increasing profit margins for the executive levels. But I feel like nowadays you'll also just see a lot of people hating an idea because it's implicitly tied to AI in any way, despite the core conceit of the idea actually being fairly interesting. (Remember when Spiderverse used Machine Learning to generate some of it's incredibly labour-intensive frame-by-frame effects and then a bunch of people got mad because it used Machine Learning for that?)

People have been pointing to the use case of "what if you could talk to an NPC in a game and have their reponses generated via AI", and laughing at it like it's the dumbest suggestion ever, but honestly in my opinion I think that's the exact kind of system AI was practically designed for! To me that feels like an excellent application of the tech that is now just marred by the mention of AI in the first place.

Anyway, to ruminate on the concept a bit: I see that use of AI enabling a dev to fill out a world with more NPCs who help it feel more populated, as well as potentially give them incredibly varied responses that are more relevant to the NPCs immediate context of the game. I imagine instead of replacing full-on player choice dialog it would instead replace the throwaway barks of awkward and out of place open-world NPCs who look at you and say "I have nothing to say to you" and giving them something to directly say about your adventure or the context around them instead.

Instead of having the intern narrative designers be forced to write little barks and blurbs like "I have nothing to say" (which I understand narrative folks usually view as grunt work and hate writing in he first place), they'd be writing little prompts for that system instead. End result is when you talk to random farmer NPC #344 outside of town they say "Crop's doing well this year, here's hoping a dragon doesn't attack us" instead of "I've got nothing to say". I think on paper that's a genuinely good and interesting way to improve an antiquated open-world problem like that. Should it be helpful? Probably not. Would it be interesting? No. Would it be a little more flavourful than what we currently have going on? I think so!

It's not an AI shill fever dream, I can see exactly how it would work and I'd bet money that there's a studio doing something like it in R&D right now. I imagine it'd also probably be pretty adaptable between projects too, so the similar system could be applied to different areas of the world.

Should it be trusted to give the player directions or do any sort of leading that a narrative designer should do? Almost certainly not because it would be inconsistent and have too big a possibility window, and AI is nothing if not horrible at performing essential tasks that might block progress.

Should it be done with the tech as it is now? Hell no, unless you want to wait five seconds for every reply to be generated and for it to be tied to some server bank that's guzzling all of Arizona's water. Also it would probably need an internet conncetion to work, which is asking a lot for an open world game.

Should it be done by these studios who are more interested in using it to replace labour and make the end result cheaper to make so they can keep more profits off he top? No, and that's the real reason why the applications of this tech sucks - because spoiler alert they'd all love to save money.

Obviously this concept isn't doable right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ships in a game in some form within 5-10 years tops.

Again I get why at this point in capitalism there's almost no applications of machine learning that are easy to trust, nor should we ever believe studios are doing it for any reason outside of trying to make development cheaper. I just think when it comes to tech it's worthwhile to keep execution in mind separate from intent; Tech isn't implicitly evil, it's the system it's built under that is. :)

[cearthduo]

very interested in what u have to say the ctommy line "he's like my owner" about cdream and cdream having ctommy listen to a disc of him being tortured in exile. please rant about that slash not forced

This is a really fun ask because boy oh boy do I have thoughts. And I'm sure it will upset the masses (especially my take on the second part of this ask)

Now, to start with the owner quote... genuinely the bane of my existence. Mostly because people tend to use it to try and understand discduo's general dynamic when it should only be used to understand how Tommy feels. Tommy sees Dream as his owner, sure, but this doesn't automatically mean that Dream feels the same way. The only thing this quote does on Dream's behalf is highlight the amount of control he had over Tommy during exile. Or at least, shows how much power Tommy percieves him having. I say percieve because in reality, Dream had no power at all over Tommy. The realization of that is what motivates Tommy to leave exile in the first place and what keeps him going afterwards.

That quote, to me, shows Tommy's mental decline and his dependence on Dream as his only "friend" the only thing "keeping him alive" someone he depends on. Very similar to a pet and owner relationship. No matter what an owner does, a pet is unable to fight back, unable to run, unable to escape because it depends on it's owner for survival. This is how Tommy sees himself and Dream during exile. And that's all that quote is meant to show. I'd argue that Dream saw exile as more of a "mentorship" preparing and molding Tommy into a weapon he could use. Not unlike Techno post exile (though he definitely went about it in a moderately better way)

Now. Let's get into my favorite topic. Post prison discduo's relationship, because absolutely NO ONE has gotten this stage of their dynamic correct so it's all up to me. This will upset the "Dream is so obsessed with Tommy that he started fucking with him the second he got out of prison for no reasom" crowd, so i ask you to get your sighs and eye rolls out of the way now and enjoy the rant.

Before we can talk about the torture disc, we first have to talk about Dream's appearance on exile island. So... what was that about? Did Dream, fresh out of prison, really decide his first course of action would be to torment a child for no reason?

Well!

Obviously not.

Dream went to exile island for one reason and one reason only. To retrieve the axe of peace and repay his favor to Techno. Tommy just happened to be there and so Dream took the opportunity to scare him. But why? You might be asking. Why would Dream attack Tommy? He could've just left. Well, the answer is obvious, in fact Dream out right says it before he starts attacking Tommy.

Dream's main goal once he gets out of prison is to get revenge on the people who allowed him to be tortured in prison. Obviously, that means Sam and Quackity, so why then is Tommy attacked? Simple. Dream believes that Tommy direct caused and supported his torture. And this isn't a random moment of Dream blaming Tommy for his problems either. Dream is attacked by Quackity immediately after Q talks about Tommy's death/revival and Dream asks if people "thought it was cool." That makes it pretty obvious that Q was torturing Dream at least partially on Tommy's behalf. And given the fact that Tommy is the only person alive who has been affected by revival (and the reason Dream's life was originally spared due to Tommy wanting to keep the possibility of seeing Wilbur again) It makes perfect sense that Tommy is not only the reason that Q wants to torture Dream, but also may be the reason he wants the book at all.

Dream is not an idiot and could've easily pieced this together, causing Dream to treat Tommy the way he did Sam. Taunting, scaring, and threatening him as payback.

Now, let's go back to the original topic, the torture mixtape. We've already established that Dream has a real reason (in his mind) for targeting Tommy. But why did he do it the way he did? Well, we see during most of the post prison lore that Dream is not at his full strength. Tommy and Tubbo comment on how slow and weak he is during the dsmp finale. Dream also needs to recruit Purpled just to take down Quackity, who would've been easy work for let's say doomsday era Dream (minus the slime army which Dream didn't even know about when he recruited Purpled)

Dream's inability to fight is very important because it explains why Dream resorted to taunting, threats, and triggering Tommy's trauma. It's a scare tactic. Because scaring Tommy is really all he can do to get him off his ass. Even though Tommy is a weak opponent, Dream wouldn't be able to kill him in genuine combat. I mean, hell, Dream barely even comes close to harming Tommy or Tubbo during the finale. And so soon after his escape Dream was much weaker than we see him during the finale.

Post prison, Dream's goals barely even include Tommy anyway, and he's more of an annoying obstacle than a genuine opponent at that point. Tommy isn't even worth half the effort Dream gives to Quackity and Sam. Dream used the threats and mixtape to scare Tommy into avoiding him so that he wouldn't have to fight yet another opponent.

Also sidenote: Dream definitely knew Tommy was getting that axe to try and kill him. Again, he's not an idiot. Keeping Tommy too afraid to try anything is important for Dream's survival and his overall plan for the server.

Anyway! That's all I have to say about this topic. I haven't slept and I'm slowly going insane so uhm... if I repeat myself too many times justttt pretend I didn't.

[qqueenofhades]

I just saw that Emmer is the current gop nominee. What do you think his chances are? He appears to be one of the saner gop (which isn’t saying much when the vast majority barely pretend at wanting to govern and would rather just attack anyone who is even a centimeter more to the left then they are). Part of me really hopes he just says screw the freedom caucus and maga crowd and decides to work the the democrats so we can have a semi functional government for a bit.

He's already doomed. He voted to certify the 2020 election and he supports aid to Ukraine (don't get me wrong, he's terrible on every other policy because he's a Republican) and this alone makes him "too moderate." Even though he signed onto the stupid lawsuit to throw out all votes in swing states filed by the felonious Texas AG Ken Paxton in December 2020. Trump has been railing at him on Truth Social and that means he's toast. I'd be surprised if he even got as far as a floor vote, and it's clear the Freedom Caucus immediately turned on him after Daddy Trump yanked the leash.

The Republicans don't want a speaker. They have no interest in electing a speaker. They will keep causing this chaos over and over, even while we're more than halfway through the emergency 45-day funding stopgap. They will, in all probability, let it run out and shut down the government sooner than elect a speaker, because they think a shutdown will be bad for Biden and/or they can pull their usual trick of Blaming The Democrats for it. I suspect it will be ESPECIALLY hard to sell this time, but the media will try to help.

Yet again: these people don't want to govern. They don't want to do anything except fight each other and scream about Real Conservatives. They want the government to be paralyzed (especially since they think it will somehow slow/stop the progress of the criminal cases against Trump). This is a massive mafia racket doing its damndest to protect its orange crime boss, who continues to sabotage the US government with the assistance of his loyal minions. It will be the same for Emmer and anyone else, so. Yeah.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

Hi there! How are you doing? I have some questions, well, a rant *plus* some questions.

I feel... safer with allo allies than I do with aro/ace communities (online). Does that make me aphobic/bad? I don't go by labels because for me, they're not necessary. If I *were* to label myself based purely on definitions, I would be aroace, specifically, demiromantic asexual. I used to go by this a while back.

I don't fit the stereotype of being aroace at all. I'll talk about the aromantic side. Unlike most arospecs i've seen online, I LOVE Valentine's day! I LOVE shipping! I LOVE consuming romance fiction. I LOVE romance et cetera et cetera and yet I don't experience it like allos do. I need a strong bond with someone in order to fall in love and it takes me really, really, long to do so. But once it happens, my love is not 'weak'. It makes me pass really well as allo because of this, but it makes a lot of people in the aro community mad because I'm 'stealing' a label to 'feel special'. I was always told I was not aroace, that I couldn't be aroace by definition. That I was alloromantic asexual pretending to be on the arospec. That I was too scared to be 'basic'.

On that topic, and I think this is unintentional, but... why is nobody batting an eye when an aro or an ace person shames an allo or calls them weird or basic? Because they're doing exactly what allo aphobes are doing to them. I had this conversation with a friend and he said, 'that doesn't happen, allo people don't get shamed especially by aspec people', yet, I keep seeing things like 'I fucking hate allos so much' and 'To all my aces, we're not like allos, we're better' or something along those lines.

Whenever I enter an aspec online space, I'm made to feel like an intruder because, as I said, my experiences are very similar to the allo experience EXCEPT for the fact that I don't feel romantic attraction unless a strong bond has been formed. I'm not saying the aroace community is bad in any way, don't get my wrong, I'm saying that there is a massive gatekeeping problem going around and so much bubbling hatred and separation, and I don't understand any of it. In a prefect world, I'd happily identify as aroace, but I feel ashamed to do so now.

The gatekeeping... the infighting, I don't want to hate the online community of which I'm supposed to belong but this... this isn't right. The allo allies don't do things like this. They don't make me feel insecure about myself. And yes, while I don't experience romance like an allo would, I feel safe around them. I need to ask, have you seen this too? Have you experienced this? Is this truly all in my head? What do you think?

I apologize for the vent or if I seem aphobic, I just really need answers and I'm tired of the constant hatred... How are you? Did you drink enough water? Did you sleep well today? Did you eat? Again, I'm so sorry if I made you uncomfortable with this!

Vents are totally welcome, Anon. Don't worry.

I'm really sorry you ran into gatekeeping, Anon. I feel like that's something that's really been on the rise especially over the last couple of years. It's a real issue and it causes a lot of harm. This should go without saying, but demiromantic people are aro, and have just as much right to be here as anyone else on the aro spectrum.

I do think at least part of the problem is social media in general and how things are set up these days. We don't have community spaces as much anymore, in particular we've lost moderated spaces where gatekeepers can be properly dealt with. And there's very little curation or organization. Things are chaotic and fragmented, and one person's experience and what kind of posts they say see may vary wildly from someone else's. There's also a competing needs issue, where one aro may need to vent about romance, another may need their romantic side validated and there's no way to organize so each can find the space they each need.

If finding aro spaces/blogs that are more accepting is important to you, Anon (and it's OK both if it is or isn't), my big advice would be seek out demiromantic blogs and posters specifically. There's some very good ones around and they'll be posting about aro things that are relevant to you, and even more importantly won't be gatekeeping demi identities.

For more aro-general blogs, there are ones out there that are also inclusive and anti-gatekeeping, but it may take a bit of work to find them. Be very liberal with your unfollow and block buttons. If someone is gatekeeping block on sight, but also if they're not posting the type of aro content that you need or want to see, you're allowed to organize things so you don't see their posts. Sometimes unfollowing is enough, but blocking also doesn't necessarily mean the other person has done anything wrong, it's just a tool to make sure you're not seeing a blog you don't want to see.

For the shaming allos question, I do think it's a complex topic. For me it depends on context. I definitely do not believe in any kind of ace/aro superiority, being ace and/or aro, or being allo are both neutral. Nobody's smarter or more moral or more pure or anything like that. But sometimes people say things as a vent in the moment and are reacting to a difficult situation they've been in. So for example someone may say 'allos suck' but it comes from a place where they've been very badly treated by allos for being ace or aro but they're referring more to the societal systems that are in place that privilege allo people and make life more difficult for ace/aro people, they don't actually believe being allo makes someone a bad person. (It can be hard to tell what's going on just from a post, again it's OK to unfollow and block, especially if it's just not what you personally need to see in the moment).

Personally I don't come across a lot of this type of stuff, but this is what I mean about things being fragmented, the blogs I follow just aren't posting about the infighting or gatekeeping and I don't happen to see it in the tags when I go in there. But I do hear about it second hand, and it seems like it's a problem on other social media sites I'm not on as well.

I'm sorry you've had a hard time, Anon. But I am glad you've found people you can be comfortable with and be yourself around. That's really important too. And thanks for the reminder that I really should drink more water today.

Hopefully at least some of this is helpful, but if you have more questions or want to discuss anything in more detail, feel free to send in another ask.

All the best!

[cy-cyborg]

I'm seeing a lot of people here and on other platforms getting angry at people who have come from Tik Tok (and youtube to a lesser extent) who refuse to say words like death, racism and anything relating to heavy topics. Sometimes they won't even say the names of minorities either.

Any I get why this is frustrating and just not a good practice. The people criticising these folks are absolutely right, we need to get comfortable saying these words and discussing these topics. Not to mention the fact that self-censorship can cause issues for people who are legitimatly triggered by those topics (e.g. due to trauma), But as someone who spent a lot of time on Tik Tok and youtube before coming here, I think there's some vital context missing here.

I'd say a good 75% of the people on tik tok, and by extention, people who have moved elsewhere from Tik Tok, using words like "unalive," "r#pe," "sewerslide" or whatever else aren't using it because they're uncomfortable with the topic. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They want to talk about it, but Tik Tok's content moderation is so wildly strict that they can't. Even saying the words would get you flagged by the algorithm, ESPECIALLY if you had captions enabled or the actual word written in text from the in-app editor. This was especially true for people from minorities trying to talk about issues affecting their community or even just themselves (hence the hesitation to even say the minorities name sometimes).

This isn't just some conspiracy theory either. Tik Tok staff admitted to doing this intentionally on several occasions as a way to "keep the peace". I remeber when I first joined, it came out that they intentionally limited views on videos of visibly disabled people, both to prevent bullying but also because "some users find that content disturbung." I couldn't even show my stumps in videos without my videos getting stuck on 0 views at best or account warnings for "inappropriate content" at worst. I got DMs from several people after my video about disability pride month in July asking why their comments wishing me a happy disability pride month got removed, when I went into check the filtered comments, they'd all been hidden for "bullying". The same thing was happening with people commenting and saying the word "autism." And that's just the disabled community. I know similar stuff was happening in other communities too.

Most of the time, you had to speak in coded language to get your point out there. It's not that they're uncomfortable with it, it's because the videos would be dead in the water if they didn't. Getting the message out using these "toned down" replacements was better than not getting it out at all.

"OK, but this isnt tik tok, they shouldn't do that here" yeah, I agree, but for a lot of kids, Tik Tok was their first real experiance with social media, it makes sense that they're going to assume other platforms will be the same. YouTube is just as bad, if not worse, in some respects. Tumblr even has its fair share of censorship issues, too (e.g. queer people's posts being flagged as mature for seemingly no reason). It's not a stretch to make the assumption they'd need to continue the practice of self-censorship here, too.

This isn't to say that NO ONE is using the censored words to avoid hard topics/because it makes them uncomfy, but in my experiance, those people assume this is the best thing to do because everyone else was using it. They don't stop to ask why. They just repeat it, which in turn contributes to making them umcomfey with the real word.

I'm not saying don't pick people up on this stuff. We NEED those words, and we need to be more comfortable with them so stuff like the above situation doesn't happen and become a self-perpetuating cycle. But it started from a real, genuine need to censor ourselves to even get the message out, and I think it's important to keep that in mind. It's not just kids being "too sensitive."

[xythlia]

I kinda wanna get something off my chest before the new year that's been weighing on me heavily, and it's that some people on here are not the "spread kindness and community uwu" sweethearts they want you to believe they are.

some people on here will act absolutely repugnant when anonymous is on or when they think they can make a billion empty side blogs because the moderation for harassment here sucks ass. case in point I've personally been getting harassed since fucking august by a specific person but I keep it to myself because I know nobody gives a fuck about it and doesn't wanna see that bs all over their dash. I just block the ips and delete the asks every time but it's infuriating seeing that person pop up so many other peoples asses as this "oh I'm so kind and love everyone in my fandoms" type when I know in my guts that's such a bold faced lie.

if you genuinely think it's okay to hide behind a grey pic or a sock puppet account to send suicide bait, bully, mock, and degrade someone else you need to take a hard look at who you really are inside in the new year because you have some type of rot in you im not joking. idk it's been becoming a heavy burden dealing with this silently especially because it's about to be 2024 and part of me genuinely thinks this incredibly unwell person will continue the behavior which is seriously insane, it's hands down nuts to fixate on someone for almost five months and I can't even begin to tell you how it just wears you down consistently getting msgs like that especially when you haven't done anything to warrant that treatment. cardi b said I got condos in this bitch head well im beyond condos I'm the sole fucking real estate developer in this bitches head and I do not enjoy it.

I try so hard to be a truly positive person. I try hard to mind my own damn business and not bother anyone. I try very very hard to make my blog a nice space. I'd like to continue doing that but christ some people really make it so incredibly difficult and that contributes to the overall shitty behavior in fandoms.

anyways it's nice to let that out, for once instead of sitting here with it and feeling those little wriggles of dread every time I open the app.

if you've engaged in behavior like that towards anyone this past year though I highly recommend making a resolution of self reflection and learning some basic compassion, or at the very least taking stock of yourself and considering getting some irl help because idk what to say other than it is, in fact, not normal to treat people like that and it does not make you a good person.

[clever-fox-studios]

Art Lessons

I'm just dropping this here because the idea keeps floating in my head about revisiting something I did back in the SAMS server (yes, hi, I was there, some of you probably know me from art chat) that I really enjoyed and I've been considering trying again to provide accessible resources to young or under-skilled artists.

So, back in the day (early 2023) when I was there (SAMS), I held a couple of streams where I tried to explain anatomy and breaking down bodies into shapes and how those lessons overlapped into other subjects like non-humans. I felt there was a moderate success, as I am and always have been, self-taught and thus I don't have the formal knowledge that comes from university classes (though I would like some one day); having been online enough I've seen the biases in the art community with the agism and such where older people who "missed" the window of opportunity are often pushed aside because they're expected to "know" by now how to Do The Thing when they weren't given the same opportunities then.

I've also seen how most how-to books, videos and classes, in many countries, seem to lack general fundamentals as part of their criteria; the number of 'students' who professed that their teachers or the instructor seemed to assume they had a basic idea of how to draw already before starting class was... staggering to say the least.

"I didn't know what [this] meant, I was just told to do it."

"We were never taught how to break this down, we just had to copy [this]."

Etc.

Nevermind the style biases; I despise the "Anime isn't art" arguments and how they try to force a style onto the learners as if they're superior for being 'traditional' or 'realistic'. I'm a person who does push for the fundamentals because they can be applied to all styles in some way; learn the rules to then break the rules and all that. Technical skill is not the same as style, in my book.

So, that being said, I would really love to revisit those streams one day soon, if the interest is still there. I'm planning to open a discord server for it where I can host the small-scale streams until I get a platform open for larger audiences; I'm thinking Twitch, but my set up isn't really good for that, and I need a certain amount of watch time/followers on Tiktok and Youtube (for some stupid reason) so while I figure that out, discord is better than nothing. VODs could be made or uploaded to Youtube later for review until I make proper edited stuff, but that's much later.

I just really miss offering help because art should be accessible and no one should feel isolated in the "you should know by now" bubble simply because their living situation or environment didn't afford them the time or resources to sit and draw all day, every day and teach themselves where classes failed or assumed they knew what they were dong already. Also, that live feedback can help a lot and allow others to run at their own pace instead of getting steamrolled by the 'natural talent' as I can repeat or revisit something and answer questions in real-time (as much as I'm able).

So if that's something that seems fun or interesting, I'd leave it open to any age (behave yourselves) to come learn; if I get enough interest I'll start making the discord and think of a schedule plan, but for now it's an idea!

Thank you for dropping by!

[simnostalgia]

@hugelunatic Hi, it's me, the person who scraped GOS! Sorry I couldn't reblog the original post so, here is my response.

First of all, I wanted to say. Thank you for everything you do for our community. You've really been a major part of The TS2 community from the beginning!

Second, you'll stop me from archiving when you pry the archiving software out of my cold, dead hands.

Do you know about Plumb Bob Keep? That's a real question because as the TS2 modding community gets ever smaller and becomes more and more insular it gets harder to know who is on what moderation team and who co-runs what. However, if you do know Plumb Bob keep you'd know that recently the owner died. Which meant that suddenly the entire community had to scramble.

Fortunately, they were able to get in contact with the family (in their time of mourning) to ask "Hey, sorry about the dead girl, can I has password please? I need my fix of virtual doll clothes"

I don't blame them for this. They'd obviously put a lot of time into this and the reason I know that is because I got approached to see what I could do when the site was offline and they were still trying to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, when a site's only existing documentation exists in the WayBackMachine that makes it basically impossible to scrape.

And this isn't even the first time this happened, when Yahoo Groups shutdown, ArchiveTeam had trouble talking to MOST older simmers because they were so fucking touchy about their content. Literally our community has a reputation for being obnoxious about TOUs and 'rights' to the point where they'd basically given up trying to archive anything that had to do with The Sims.

So if you thought that this was because I was concerned that you were running into the ground. Rest assured, I'm doing this in case you get in a fatal car accident so we don't have to call your mourning loved ones to ask the very cringe question: "Do you know about the forum from 2008 that your spouse/son/father/sister/daughter/mother ran? Can we have access to it please. I have recolors that I'd DESPERATELY love to get back."

As far as bandwidth goes, I do my best to make sure that I scrape with as little intrusion as possible and your load is lighter since you don't host any of the actual CC or even 75% of your own images.

Now, we could talk about what this really is: a pissing contest. But don't worry. I have no real interest in encroaching on your territory of running an alternative style sims 2 forum from 2008. I love GOS, or I wouldn't have made sure that it didn't fucking disappear into the ether.

But believe me, no one is choosing to look through a list of 10,000 zip files without images or descriptions as a replacement for a fully functional forum with like... images of the items. My archive of GOS is pretty much only for creators and people who know EXACTLY what they're looking for.

And that goes similarly for everyone worried about their precious TOUs in the comments of the original post. No one, and I mean no one, prefers to dig through an entire fucking ass ton of files labeled shit like "[POOKLET] SKYSIMS MESH 007 - UNNATURAL COLORS"

In fact, I've had several creators thank me because the scrape unearthed some shit they'd thought they'd lost. And if you don't like it, or me, get in line. I assure you there is metric fuck ton of people from patreon who hate me far more.

However, I would like to say that whenever you / or any other creator who is mad about this / literally any simmer, is searching for a dependency because someone got in some obscure internet drama and deleted all their cc or Mediafire got shut down by the RIAA or whatever the fuck.

You, for as "annoyed" as you are, will remember the big ass zip file and CTRL + F your ass to what you're looking for. And I'm going to say it now, for when that moment comes:

You're welcome. No hard feelings.

[scarlxtleaves]

✧ ━━ Romance Headcanons.

Name: Arsene Lupin

Nickname: Lupin, Thief, Crook, Dashing

Gender: male

Romantic orientation: Heterosexual

Preferred pet names: There aren't many things that he'd prefer because it's all about the names THEY chose for him and that alone means significantly enough for him, but for the sake of this question he wouldn't mind being called things like: mon trésor , mon chéri , mon diable. Along with the common things like 'honey, dearest and even baby.

Relationship status: That's definitely a verse dependent thing answer, but again for the sake of this post I do have Lupin shipped with two muses. (though at one time it used to be four but that was a few years back.)

There's @more-than-a-princess Sonia, I think as mutuals we ship the hell out of 'em but as of right now they're in that 'will they/won't they' limbo because Sonia herself is wondering if Lupin's feelings are genuine when IN HER defense the world has been nothing but a big stage for Lupin but he does really end up falling for her but knows she has A HELL of a responsibility towards the country he loves. Honestly if it were up to him he'd definitely just kidnap her if she allows him to.

And it's @maljefe Loni, who is this tough girl on the outside but Lupin saw a little glimpse the softy she could be and there was also that little drabble of them exploring an extremely haunted mansion and she was soo clingy.

Opinion on true love: Lupin is a romantic, so his opinion on true love is positive. It's something that exists but there's also the reality of knowing that it's not there for EVERYONE either.

Opinion on love at first sight: He believes it's infatuation rather than 'love' itself. Love..even TRUE love takes time and effort and it's not something people can grasp on their first meeting.

How ‘romantic’ are they?: DO NOT TRUST LUPIN! At first anyway, He's a man that wears so many masks, HELL if you meet him on the streets he would not even give you his real name. Flirting is a means of indulgence and a tactic for manipulation BUT that said he DOES end up catching feelings, genuine feelings for a potential lover, it's just his 'exciting' life that keeps him from truly committing to what COULD be. It's probably why he flirts as he believes a harmless fling would not amount to anything.

NOTE: His flirting goes as far as hand holding and deep gazes. You'd break him if you gave him bedroom eyes.

Ideal physical traits: He's not exactly the pickiest. You could be physically fit or even a little on the chubby side and he'd love you regardless. That's how much of a romantic he is.

Ideal personality traits: Kindness, Selflessness, moderate intelligence (but huge plus if you're a genius), outgoing personality, a little of a rebellious soul.

Unattractive physical traits: No preference, you could even be missing a limb.

Unattractive personality traits: Greedy, selfish, murderous, the type to abuse their power to oppress the meek, the type who steal for their selfish desires.

Ideal date: Depends on the time frame. For a more historic-era Lupin the best places for him would be a garden or even a theater because he really does love art. Modern days the movie or a restaurant where he could spend time with his beloved.

Do they have a type?: Adventurous, strong woman with a touch of darkness in them.

Average relationship length: He's a locked-in for life type of person but I'd imagine given his life as a thief and often travels between paris and england I'd say he might probably be in a relationship for a month or two.

Preferred non-sexual intimacy: He'll put his hat on his lover's head and then proceed to kiss them and from there it's a matter of just sitting on a bench to just enjoy the stars in the sky, maybe even dance for a little while.

Opinion of public affection: He's a gentleman, whilst he would kiss his lover on the hand, hold her and even cuddle he still would refrain from passionate kisses in public as he believes that's something for them to enjoy in their moments of privacy. But there are exceptions to this rule of course like being overjoyed or the pain of separation and they can't help but kiss. Things like that.

Past relationships?: I mean canonically speaking I'd say Josephine Balsamo.

tagged: @more-than-a-princess (thanks for tagging yo boy)

tagging: Steal it if you're interested homie. Tag me though cause I'd love to read it.

[md-confessions]

I'd like to throw my hat into the ring on the whole "romantic Nuzi vs QPR Nuzi"

Just stop fighting over this crap.

I've seen it from both sides, saying one is better than the other.

write your AUs and fics for whatever interpretation you want of Nuzi, but accept that it will be a certain way in canon. It's very likely romantic, but even the nuances of how they are in that romantic relationship are bound to be different in canon compared to how people headcanon it.

And just because two characters are in a romantic relationship DOESN'T mean the platonic side of that relationship is lost. They don't have to be making out at all times and declaring their romantic love all the time, they can still be friends. They can still make jokes with each other and laugh or talk about their interests. Just because people focus on the romantic part, doesn't mean they've forgotten the platonic. People can focus on different things and at different times.

I know I've been harsh to the QPR side in this ask, but that's because I've seen a bunch of people in support of that side here that just seem to straight up hate the romantic side and call it bad. Dislike the romantic side all you want, that's fine, but just because you dislike something doesn't make it bad.

And if romantic Nuzi ends up becoming canon, you have to deal with that. That's the decision Liam Vickers made and just because you prefer something else doesn't give you permission to shit on it and call it bad despite it not being objectively bad, and it doesn't give you permission to insult people who support that interpretation.

This goes for every ship. Just because Nuviz is my favorite ship doesn't mean I go around saying my interpretation of the main trio's dynamic is better. I hope Nuviz becomes canon, but that doesn't mean I'll be put off by the show if it doesn't.

And if there are romantic Nuzi fans out there that are actually shitting on QPR Nuzi fans for no good reason (I haven't seen it much but I know it's out there), quit it you babies. It'd be the Nuzi vs Envy thing all over again and I don't think any reasonable person wants that. Accept that other people have other preferred interpretations and stop shoving it down their throat that "I was right, my version is canon." Good for you, now fuck off to the corner so everyone can have fun again. Just because your interpretation is canon does not give you permission to shit on other people's interpretation. I know I said earlier that if romantic Nuzi is canon then the QPR Nuzi fans have to deal with it, but it doesn't mean they have to abandon their interpretation and it doesn't mean you get to insult them and proclaim you are a god amongst men for "getting it right."

TL;DR learn to accept other's opinions rather than imposing yours on other fans and the creators. And do be kind to each other, we're real humans after all, not just profile pictures and walls of text.

And to those who do want their interpretation of Nuzi, romantic or QPR: Write a fic about it. Trust me, it will make your day to write the media you want to see. It's what I'm doing, and I've really enjoyed my interpretation of the main cast despite it being quite different in canon.

In the the end, I just want people to be happy. And if there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that if you stop hating so much, you'll be much happier. I used to hate a lot, and I was a miserable soul. I don't wish that fate on anyone.

Uh, apologizes for the long confession, and again, I apologize to the QPR Nuzi fans for targeting them mainly in this confession. You guys are completely valid and I encourage you to keep shipping them like this regardless of how they are in canon, as long as you don't impose that interpretation on their canon versions. Like I said, write a fic about it. You'll be happier.

(Also I put that TL;DR way too early but I'm too lazy to go back and reformat this. Also, I apologize to the moderator for this blog if I insulted or offended them in anyway, I just wanted to voice my thoughts on this situation so people could maybe chill a little.)

.

[utilitycaster]

i saw a comment on reddit about what previous villains may return as result of magic prisons dispelling, like Trent or Vecna. And it got me thinking I prefer C2's separation from C1. While bringing 3 campaigns together is fun. With the Mighty Nein, Keyleth, J'mon, Vax and everyone involved it feels like Bell's Hells are a tiny cog in the wheel, not the heroes? Which is realistic. But (bar Imogen and Orym) it doesn't feel like their story anymore? They keep asking 'why us' and I don't know either

So I'm going to just state that I dislike and don't use Reddit as a platform anyway and have specific reasons to mistrust the CR Reddit's rules and moderation. I take any comment made on the Reddit with an entire shaker of salt and would advise people to just not look at it, because I don't think worthwhile discussion is encouraged there.

On the one hand, "why us" is at some point a question most D&D groups ask (and that does include Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein). This is such a massive undertaking that any one group or individual cannot just fix it, and significant and powerful NPCs are a normal part of the game even for past campaigns; J'mon couldn't fix all of Vox Machina's problems so there's no reason to believe they can fix Bells Hells' problems either. Bells Hells are a small cog right now, but missing a small cog will still entirely stop the gears from turning properly.

It's fair to say that because of the setup of this campaign, that sense of "why us" is heightened: most campaigns would probably either build up to the events of episode 51 as the final boss battle, or alternately introduce it very early, before the party can do much about it at all, as something they will build up to solving. Having it as the party hit mid-levels and when they were extremely involved in the lead-up, sometimes at the cost of character development/party meshing is admittedly tricky, and I've said before, the lead-in suffered at times. But that doesn't mean it's not their story. I have had my frustrations, and to be clear if we spend a protracted amount of time in Zephrah I will not be a fan of that specific decision, but since the solstice it has finally, to me, felt like they've been properly in the driver's seat.

I'd also add that my takeaway for quite some time from this campaign has been the theme that imperfect but thoughtful action nearly always is far superior to unrealized perfect ideology. "Why us" isn't really a question they need to answer. Who cares why. It is them, so it's time to shoulder that responsibility. Honestly it's when someone like Ludinus says "yes, it should be me" that we get problems. Had he perhaps looked at all of the things he claims are problems, after serving in positions of power within two separate major governments, and made an effort to actually fix them in real time rather than developing a centuries-long master plan involving draining the life out of various fey creatures, and blowing up the moon we might not be having these problems.

I do still prefer the Mighty Nein as a campaign for a number of reasons, and I still believe that a lot of what I found rough in the earlier campaign would have been improved by, if not the same limitations of the Nein, at least a similarly well-informed character creation process. But that's not something that can really be addressed now, and the appearance of, say, J'mon Sa'Ord is a nonissue entirely unrelated to that.

This is not the first question I've gotten in this vein recently so I'm going to repeat a bit more clearly: I respect people finding that this campaign isn't for them, and as all the above outlines I have had my own issues. However, this is something you should be talking about on your own blog and not my inbox. I probably will answer some, especially if I see a hook to talk about my thoughts, but I'm not going to be terribly validating to you if that's what you're looking for, and I'm not really a good person to vent to if that's all you want.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Grow Up

So I've been seeing a lot of people commenting as a reply to me about "boo hoo 40 hr work week too long" and I want to throat punch people.

First and foremost, we live in a system where you work for IOU's. That IOU is Money. Let me explain WHY you work for IOU's today.

We live in a society now where there are far more people and far more connections in today's world. Combine that with modern technology and you have more than a few issues when it comes to archaic trade and barter. We no longer live in a world where you can just farm and trade wheat for a chair and table. You can't just trade a few gems for tools. That world is LONG since past. And even if it had not, we'd be babysitting a large chunk of society.

It's a pretty basic reason why too. Only so many people can farm. Moreover, there are SO many people that have ZERO real world skills and certainly no trade skills. IE: A lot of you produce nothing of ACTUAL tangible value. And while you might be insulted by that, it's the truth. If you create content online, you do not create tangible value. You might entertain people or make them happy but that's it. It's a feeling. You create a feeling. But in the broader scheme of things what you do does not have tangible effects on the world.

And even if I look at this from a philosophical bleeding heart point of view of "UwU well actually feelings are tangible" I'd be lying. We have tried so fucking hard to make everyone, in every way feel special. Thing is? There are jobs out there that are far more important than some of the others out there. That's just a fact. (Moderate clarification here. If you are a content creator or a job that does not produce tangible value that doesn't imply your job or whatever it is has no worth. As I'm sure that will be the take away. That's not what I mean. Value vs Tangible Value are not the same. Take that however you will.)

Here is the other thing that pisses me off though. This bitching and moaning about 40-hr work weeks. Maybe you are too young to know this but back in the day work weeks were MUCH longer. This until Mr. Ford decided that he wanted to make the work week shorter for his company. He did this while not reducing the pay or benefits of the people working for him. And people might say, "Well I should be able to work LESS hours today because I'm lazy and can't time manage". I'm sorry but that's not my fault.

And before I get the "Wage slave" or "minimum wage" bullshit I'll go ahead and address that next.

Wage Slavery is what you would refer to someone who is BOUND to their job and can't get another job. Effectively an actual slave. In the US and most Western Nations you always have the ability to either get a new job, or move up in your current job. Or worst case, to work more than one job. Something that people have done for actual years prior to now. You existing in today's world does not mean that you get things handed to you on a silver platter. And what's more, you have the ability to work for what you see as what you are worth. The issue? Most of you value your work far more than it's actually worth. Because we live in several generations of entitled shits that are lazy and demand the world cater to them.

And I refuse to keep sugar coating this. Life isn't fair. It will NEVER be fair. Now to address minimum wage. Minimum Wage is now and always has been for low skill jobs. Jobs that you can get in High School or right afterwards while you are still figuring things out. M.W. is not meant to be lived off of. And this idea that "Well uhm akchewally it used to be the min needed to live well off of". No it didn't. Businesses that do well, and need people that are educated or experienced will pay you more to work for them. Like take Walmart for instance. They currently pay 13$ an hour starting. I think with POTENTIALLY only being cart pushers. And that might not even be the case because they may actually get the 13$. And while I hear you WHINE like a child that it's not enough money to live off of; You'd be wrong.

Well partly wrong. Fact is politicians on both sides at least in the US and the current sitting president have DECIMATED the economy. However if you look to California what you will see is what the disgusting nature of the Democrats looks like. What do I mean.

That would be this. Here is the kicker though. You know who got a pass on this bill? Panera. Do you know why? Because they donated 150k to his campaign. This bill also ended up costing over 10k, workers because people, mostly the ones that complain about all of this stuff don't understand jack shit about economics. Not shocked by this because most of you are lazy Marxist FUCKS. You think people should be slaves to YOU and what you want. You demand other peoples labor as if it's YOUR right. It's not. And the Gov pushing for higher wages don't make people's lives better. It makes them worse.

Because it puts the bar for starting a small business so fucking high that it's near impossible to do. All it would do is create a system in which only the exceptionally rich are able to start businesses. IE: Corporatism. Wages being controlled by the state more or less makes it so that businesses will ONLY hire the VERY best people. No interns. No way to come in and learn. You would be a burden on their system when all they are trying to do is pay to run their business.

Stop working Min-Wage jobs. Start looking for higher paying jobs or go into jobs with the intent to move upward in those jobs. Take on more responsibilities. Work later hours if you have to. Stop relying on big daddy gov to do everything for you. They are not and SHOULD not be your babysitter. You see that they screw up most EVERYTHING and you want them to ruin more shit? Sure hand them more power let's see how that pans out for us. Watch as the rich flee from the country and we end up with less and less jobs in the US. Also let me address one last thing. 40 hrs a week is basically nothing. That's 8 hrs a day, out of a total of 24 hrs in a day. Meaning probably 2 days off. But also what is 40 hours a week? 168 hours exist in a week. And most jobs offer vacation time AND benefits. Benefits you would pay much more for if you didn't get it through subsidy of your company. That factors into your wages.

But the reason this post is called GROW UP is because I'm tired of you fucking CHILDREN worshiping systems like Marxism (Communism and Socialism) when if you were ever put under those systems you'd be slaves TO those systems like everyone else. And you are too indoctrinated to realize it. Economics is actually a relatively easy thing to grasp if you start learning about it. Most people don't care to learn about it though. They just want to whine.

Finally the last point I will cover is one I have made posts about on their own. Minimum Wage and Minimum Living Wage are NOT the same thing and never were the same. Minimum wage is the least amount that the USG says a business is allowed to pay you. You a US citizen. (They can pay illegals less but that's not the point of this post......LOOKING AT YOU TYSON) Minimum living wage is a joke of a concept because you can't gauge it. Because no two people have the same amount of bills.

What's more, there's a bigger issue in the fact that rent isn't the same in any two places. Car prices are not identical between same year cars. Phone plans are not created equal. Some people have kids. Some have spouses. Minimum Living Wage is a fucking gimik. Because that number is not only different from person to person but from city to city and from state to state. Legislating it would not just be impossible but it would make our system as a whole crumble.

Because imagine that you decide to move into the most expensive houses that you can, get the most expensive everything else, keep your lights on all day and your water running. Why should your company have to pay for that? They shouldn't. Because that's you taking advantage of them. AND what's even funnier is the fact that they would ONLY hire people in the WORST and cheapest accommodations and avoid hiring people in more expensive places with higher bills. IF by some way it was able to be legislated. Which it can't be.

It takes minimal thought to get through all of what I just went through. VERY little critical thinking is needed to get this far. Sure things back in the day were cheaper and yes you could live off one person's wages. Except the moment that women got equal rights to work and legislation started being pushed to make sure the workforce pushed them into jobs you lost that right. Is this me shitting on women's rights to work? No. This is me making a statement of fact that the west got duped. Effectively, 50% of the population of the US was not being Taxed. Who do you think actually benefited most from women's equal rights to work? The IRS and the USG. We expanded the US workforce from 50% of the population the 100% in the span of a month. The market could not compensate. And frankly speaking with the intake of massive amounts of illegals into the US it STILL can't.

People seem to think that everything "Progressive" is a great idea but they never think through the unintended consequences of pushing certain things. Women can be self sufficient now and that's awesome. Sadly that comes at a cost. The cost being that there aren't enough jobs to go around in some instances, and the fact that prices actually have to go up to compensate for that hit to the market. Prices going up after the 1980's make sense for that reason.

Critical thinking is a skill. And not everything is just "Corporate Greed" or "Sexism" or "Racism". Sometime things are just a result of changes in culture. This is a change that everyone today seems to mostly endorse, so guess what? You will never again be able to live off of one income unless it's over 80k and you pinch pennies. Or unless you make 100k and make sure to invest in things and monitor you money. Or you could live in places with lower living costs, but most of you don't care to do that because you'd rather just bitch until the place you live changes for you.

The real world doesn't work like that. You are not wage slaves. 40 Hours a week isn't long. Kindly get your head out of your asses.

@capitalism-and-analytics Feel free to gloss over this and add anything even if you do or don't agree.

[antisocialxconstruct]

Hi Charlie! Do you have any recs for some indie cyberpunk games? 👀

My god do I.... A lot of these, especially the proper deep cuts, are fairly short and fall into the IF/VN category, eventually if I have the time to go hunting through more of my to-play list hopefully I can recommend a wider variety.

I'll start with a couple more mainstream titles and then get into the real weird stuff.

Obviously anyone who's been around here a while knows I never miss a chance to profess my love for the Shadowrun games by Harebrained Schemes, although that's pushing the limits of "indie" lmao but for a worthwhile rpg experience that also does a lot to counteract some of my biggest gripes with the cyberpunk genre (particularly the way they handle mental health, addiction, and bodily autonomy), I really can't think of anything better.

Also in the "only indie in the broadest sense" category, for anyone who missed the hype train on Stray I do heartily recommend it. I think it's easy to dismiss that one as sort of a "gimmick" game with how much coverage focused on the pc being a cat and not a lot else, but the game definitely has a lot to say about like... human legacy and the steady march of time. It's hard to say much else about it without spoiling major plot points, it's fairly short but well worth the experience.

Another long-time favorite of mine is RUINER, although I'll freely admit this one is not what I'd call... deep lol. What it is, is absolutely dripping with edgy cyberpunk style and intensely fun to play. I think it does have an underlying commentary on like, the commodification and expendability of human bodies, but it doesn't really take a lot of time to invite you to meditate on that because there are big guns to pick up and sick combos to execute and so, so many people to kill. But maybe that's also part of the commentary 👀

Hacknet is a hacking simulator (go figure) that's very slick and stylish, and if you're not overly familiar with coding and command prompts and such it does a pretty good job of making you feel like you're doing cool hackerman shit without actually asking too much of you on a technical level. I like its sense of humor but I also like the way it occasionally drops a bombshell of a moral quandary on you in the midst of all your petty crimes. I highly recommend getting the Labyrinths dlc to go with it, especially because it'll give you some fun stuff you can take back into the base game.

Hypnospace Outlaw plays like a love letter to the web1 era (and to the power trip of being a community moderator before centralized social media lmao). It has a loose story about what's essentially a shared dream internet, and you're charged with enforcing community guidelines which unfortunately makes you a bit of an outside observer rather than a proper netizen. That provides some context and will carry you through to the conclusion pretty quickly, but ultimately its play/replay value is in uncovering secrets and just delighting in the nostalgia (or the novelty if you're not a 90s kid). The devs are currently working on a sequel(?) that looks like it will actually let you build your own website and interact with other characters in the world, which I'm very excited to see.

Broken Reality is a weird one, and feels a bit like Hypnospace Outlaw but for the early idea of VR. It's also fairly short, but I think it's exactly as long as it should be for the gimmick not to wear out. It starts out as essentially just a surreal walking sim and it's gonna feel like trippy self-referential vaporwave nonsense right up until the tone takes a hard left turn in the third act.

Vapor Trails is still in development, and I admittedly haven't played too much of it mostly because I'm very bad at platformers, but it's got a really nice aesthetic, clever character writing, and what I've seen of the story so far has me intrigued enough to keep throwing myself at it. One to keep an eye on, at the very least.

_transfer is... something very odd. More of an "interactive experience" than a game in the strictest sense, and intended to be played in many short sessions that build on each other bit by bit as you connect with a variety of other intelligences to recover memories about yourself and the world. I don't think I fully understand the story it's telling me and I'm not sure I'm even meant to, but I've played through several sessions and each one leaves me feeling kind of discomfited but fascinated. (I will say $10 may feel a bit steep for what it is, I got it in a bundle.)

Momotype....... okay listen. You're going to go look at this game and think "Charlie has clearly lost its mind, there's no way this is cyberpunk." I need you to just trust me and play it. It's free, it'll only take a few hours to get all the endings. It's Momo.

LOCALHOST is another short one with a fair amount of replay value for the surprisingly varied dialogue trees. You're tasked with wiping some damaged AIs off several hard drives, only to discover that they're all quite chatty, and now you have to decide what to do with them. This one also has a sort of unsettling vibe, and I like the variety of perspectives it has on how AI personalities might manifest.

Subserial Network is by the same developer as LOCALHOST. I've actually only just started this one so haven't gotten very deep into it, but I already find the concept pretty compelling. It's structurally similar to Hypnospace Outlaw, or maybe more accurately to something like Orwell, requiring you to comb through the internet archives of fellow citizens to incriminate them as "subserials": androids who want to forsake their human programming and become more machine. The language used to describe the serializing process has some pretty obvious parallels with both transgender healthcare and treatment for neurodivergence, so I'm really curious to see where it goes with that allegory.

A couple of honorable mentions that aren't really cyberpunk, but have a vibe that just makes me want to include them on this list:

The Magic Circle is essentially a game about game development, with a lot of commentary on artistic integrity and creativity, but the real novelty of it is the amount of stuff it lets you do inside the "game" of the game. It's really hard to explain but it's very open-ended and satisfying.

The Turing Test is, on the surface, a pretty standard "trapped on a space station solving a mystery" puzzle game, and I will say upfront the gameplay probably isn't going to be anything you haven't seen before. The puzzles are pretty good, if you're into puzzle games, but the real reason I'm putting it on the list is because this game was my first introduction to the "Chinese room" thought experiment, and it genuinely had a huge impact on my views and opinions on artificial intelligence.

[c-h-stevens]

So... I got banned from Patreon. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Which is exactly what I expected to happen at some point, but right now it's pretty ridiculous. Apparently I crossed a line by not having my characters looking into the camera and saying "I totally consent to this sex act, btw". Even though there was nothing non-consensual in the chapters I'd posted. (But that's a discussion for another time.)

(If you're wondering why I published there if I expected to get banned eventually: it was a stopgap measure till my SubStar profile got approved. I genuinely didn't think I was breaking the rules yet, though I wasn't at all surprised when they arbitrarily decided I was, because they do that a lot lately.)

Anyway, I was thinking maybe some people here don't know Patreon goes for the scorched earth approach. I didn't even get a warning before they wiped out my entire account. It wasn't a problem because I keep everything double-backed up, but it's shitty not to give someone a heads-up to let them make changes if they so choose. Just in principle, y'know? The way they handled this you'd think I was distributing revenge porn or something equally fucked up, not fiction about made-up characters who can't be hurt.

Based on comments I've seen around, they have a moderator called Kris who is in charge of deleting beastiality (people say in the practice this includes furry stuff, though the rules say it's allowed) and incest. The person I got is Dawn, who seems to oversee the deletion of rape/sex under the influence/anything where the characters don't exchange signed consent forms before sex.

Anyway, I guess it's possible to see a scene from the stuff I'd posted as some kind of CNC kink (which is disallowed by the rules though that literally means consensual non-consent, meaning it's roleplay) but they didn't even bother explaining what part, or post even, was objectionable. They just send me a canned email after going Attila the Hun on my entire Patreon.

It's also possible they're using an AI to flag stuff, like Wattpad is doing now. I'm absolutely against making alarmist posts, but if you have art or writing with explicit sex up at Patreon, there's non-zero possibilities of getting banned without warning. You can of course appeal but I have no idea of how hard or convoluted that could be in the practice, because I'm not even remotely going to bother.

My real problem, though, is my SubscribeStar profile hasn't been approved. It's been nearly a month! I understand why they're so swamped, as they seem to be the only website that accepts most stuff. But then I poked around and found people reporting they've been waiting for approval for literal years, and I honestly don't know what to do anymore. I really need some extra money, but the only websites that'll let me in find my writing unacceptable. Fuck.

[cattstarr]

Questions I found that I'mma answer to distract me from the Big Sad™

1. How long is your "now"?

The amount of time it takes to say the word.

2. What was the moment where you felt most motivated?

When I started my first day of college. Boy, that sure bottomed out. 🙄

3. If you won the lottery, what would your "today" look like in five years?

Moderate sized apartment with a few pets and gizmos to keep me amused.

4. What are you holding onto that’s holding you back?

I honestly have no idea. If I knew what was holding me back, I would be able to be proactive about it.

5. If you didn’t know your age, how old would you think you’d be?

I think physically I look my age but if I'm basing it off of my personality, it fluctuates between like 6 and 12.

6. Do you "work to live" or "live to work"?

No.

7. Do you hate or love better?

My husband stayed happily by my side until the bitter end. I made a lot of mistakes, but my love for him guided me. There was a time where I'd say I hate better, but that time is behind me. 🩵

8. Would you rather lose all your memories or never be able to make new ones?

I would gladly be unable to make new ones. My best days are permanently behind me.

9. How do you measure success?

1:1 Success : Happiness

10. If you restarted your life from scratch, would you end up in the same place?

I don't know. Assuming I know everything I do now may already fuck with my timeline. But I would be more considerate and compassionate and I would try to find my husband sooner.

11. What is something you do differently than anyone else you know, and why?

I'm in my 30s and my marriage will be 21 this year. Seems like everyone I know struggles to find someone worth dedicating all their time to. And most people are bitter about romance, frequently calling me a liar about how mine was conducted.

12. What job would you do if you weren’t paid?

I don't understand the question... 😅

13. What is one part of your everyday routine that you'd be better off without?

Probably crying.

14. Can you ever commit a truly selfless deed?

Depends on your philosophy on that, I guess. Because it's not selfish to be happy with yourself for doing something helpful for someone else.

15. What previous dream do you see the most meaning in?

Bout a month ago I dreamed my husband sent me a decoded message from beyond the grave. I couldn't understand it because it was too encrypted. But he apparently left me clues throughout the history of our relationship and the more I tried to solve the message, the more confused I became.

Another one, I thought I saw him in a crowd outside so I ran to him but I couldn't find him. And then I was lost and alone.

16. What’s a question you wish people would ask when they meet you for the first time?

Idk 🫠

17. If you could have coffee with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

If my husband isn't possible, then Maynard James Keenan.

18. Is life a computer simulation?

I really fucking hope so.

19. Do we have control over technology, or does it have control over us?

Depends on the person.

20. How can a single moment have the power to change everything?

If my husband never spoke to me, I'd be a wildly different person now.

21. What if there were no experts, but everyone knew a little about everything?

...what?😅

22. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what about reality?

...again, what?

23. How much influence does a person’s name have over the course of their life?

I guess it depends on if they meet people who like their name a lot.

24. What happens if aliens are real?

I guess nothing because I'm assuming they already are.

25. If you had to support the idea that aliens weren't real, what would you say?

If aliens were real, I feel like we'd have more evidence of that now.

26. Who decides what the "right" thing is?

That's a funny topic. Everyone believes they're doing the right thing and yet we all bump heads so much. I don't think anyone alive is qualified for that decision.

27. Is time a construct?

Scientifically speaking you can see time occurring. If time truly did not exist, then decay and aging wouldn't be possible. We wouldn't have entropy.

I have a theory that before the Big Bang, time probably didn't exist. But entropy causes the flow of time. So when the universe was born, entropy pushed it to expand, change and grow. And entropy's push is time.

28. Why do most people work five days per week instead of four? Three? Two?

Because capitalism.

29. What shape is the sky?

Spherical

30. Who knew what time it was when the first clock was made?

My assumption is that it was based on the sun or moon's position. So they either started counting at midnight or noon.

What’s better: Being a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond?

Depends on how lazy you are, ig.

32. Was math created or discovered?

Math was designed to decode the world around us. It's a language that explains the universe. So it's a little of both.

33. Is fate a real thing?

Yes. 🩵

34. Does the "truth" exist, or is it all subjective?

Events only happen one way. The truth cannot be subjective.

35. Can you cry underwater?

You still produce tears, so yes.

36. Why is it called a "building" if it’s already built?

It can always be built upon.

37. At what point does working for a better life become an unhealthy obsession?

When it cannot be done.

38. What is your mother like?

Hot headed and vocal.

39. What is your father like?

Sociopath

40. What happened when you got in trouble as a child?

I'd get yelled at.

41. What is your greatest strength?

Husband says I'm amazing in a crisis.

42. What is your greatest weakness? 

Grief

43. What are some of your fondest memories?

Getting lit with Bunny and rocking out. 🐇 🎶

44. Who took care of you as a kid?

My parents.

45. What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of your life?

Life has no inherent meaning to me. The meaning of my own life was my husband.

46. What was the moment where you felt most grateful?

When my bunny got me presents.