#idk if it's gonna be a weekly thing again but I've got a couple of ideas lined up

[tinystepsforward]

i've still been keeping tabs on what's happening at automattic. a couple of things i've observed:

toni schneider (who is a man btw), the interim ceo, has been quite open with staff in ways that mean they generally seem relieved to have him leading the company for now. i've heard people speak optimistically about him from all parts of the spectrum (by which i mean: staff who are trans tumblr users right through to staff who are "anti-woke" or whatever and were absolutely intolerable to work with as a trans person), which seems like... a good sign? maybe.

this relative transparency includes things like weekly updates from an executive level, as well as openly saying that he did have to directly speak to matt and encourage him to, you know, stop posting.

matt is back to his usual milquetoast blogging, and replied to someone on mastodon about the AI issue saying he'd comment on it when he's back in may, so whatever toni said to him seems to have worked for him keeping out of it for now.

people have no idea what it's gonna look like when matt's back.

the best case scenario is that schneider manages to create a significant enough boost in morale and productivity that "it'd be nice if we just kept him" becomes a sentiment that isn't held just by the rank and file. i don't know how likely that is, but there's a sense of cautious hope and of making the most of this reprieve from matt's increasingly erratic decisions no matter what.

the tumblr staff statement was approved by schneider and hr, so i am also hopeful they won't face repercussions. what they said might seem pretty mild from the outside, or carefully worded, but it's pretty clear to me and to most people who've worked at companies like this that it's a pretty bold one.

i'll quote a friend:

keep reminding the more histrionic elements out there that: 1. there really are trans people, INCLUDING TRANS WOMEN, in the fight here. 2. we don't have nearly the power they seem to think we do. 3. we're fighting anyway. was the statement we wrote enough? fuck no. does it fix everything? fuck no. but we literally called out the CEO, and got the greenlight for it from the interim CEO. i don't know where this will end, but that's not nothing.

i'm not sure automattic deserves the immense honor of having this many of its brave, dedicated trans staff put effort into trying to make it better. but it has them, and it would be wise to do its best to keep them. so many of us — even me, even now — believe in the ideals that drew us to the work automattic does, and hope that it can return to them. we will see!

other things i want to say:

the wellbeing of my friends on staff is my priority. i am interested primarily in their safety, and won't pressure them to give me goss. the ways i've spoken publicly are already pretty scary to people who might worry about retaliation against them just for being known to be my friend.

this is a regular personal blog. i'll keep updating if there's shit to update about, but i also don't work at automattic any more (thank fuck, again), have a life, and am not interested in declaring matt my specific nemesis or otherwise acting purely out of spite.

some of youse really deeply do not understand companies, the internet, generative ai, or pretty much anything else i've said. that's okay — big tech in particular is fucked up on purpose bc it benefits those in power to have it be incomprehensible! but maybe it's not a great position from which to get mad at me specifically or at staff for idk not personally assassinating matt.

got tired of blocking transphobes so i've turned anons off. i'll probably flick them back on eventually.

[jtl07]

jt's plan for writing shenanigans

i wasn't sure if i should do this because *gestures at the world* but i figured just try and see what happens.

anyway, i've been having a hard time with writing lately and i realized that part of it is because i'm now working on larger projects that take more time - which i'm not used to because my forte up to now has been short fiction that i could dash out in a couple hours/days. i was able to kinda juggle different projects last year (did i share the gantt chart-ish thing i made? it was fascinating to see actually) but i'm finding i can't really do that with work and health stuff and all the things now.

which leads me to what i'm calling "writing shenanigans"! i had a ton of fun last week just riffing with folks about different musicians/band AU ideas so i wanna start doing that more regularly. i'm thinking maybe weekly and just kinda idk, riff and spitball different headcanons, half-formed noodles, maybe a ficlet or two. i figure it'll also help me lower my expectations and just have fun again.

i'm gonna try to start tomorrow (Tues July 23) just posting random stuff throughout the day. the reason i'm sharing this now is because if you've got a pondering - a prompt, a request, a half-formed noodle thought, an ask - drop it in my ask or DM or reply here or whatever! i'm not gonna promise i'll get to it but who knows! (i sure don't lol)

[juddygirl]

Oh my god I’ve missed it so much I’m so excited

Oh hello lovely anon. 🥰

I hope you're good.

I'm so glad this news brings a little bit of joy to you. I've missed it too. I hope this chapter won't disappoint.

It should be up tomorrow.

[acerace]

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo) 

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad 

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway) 

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet 

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will! 

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers 

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe 

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao 

[gunsatthaphan]

Hi Doreen, hope you're doing well and are not overworked (I've seen you write in some recent posts that you have a busy schedule lately). After having watched ep7 of bad buddy I have a couple things eating away at my mind that I need to share with someone, this time anonymously, not to be annoying:

1. This show has potential to become one of the most wholesome bl shows so far, that is, if they don't decide to throw in some cringey tropes like dumb miscommunication, evil exes plotting to get back together with one of the leads, infidelity, arranged marriage or sending one of the leads off far away (the list could continue forever). So far I feel like Pat and Pran try to communicate with each other to the best of their ability (for Pran, especially after they started the 'bet',cause while Pat was always rather straightforward, Pran tried to conceal his feelings in the beginning).

2. Even though Pat is this typical bubbly main character, by no means is he one-dimensional and, joke about it as much as I might, he is not a one-braincelled guy at all. The way Ohm portrays Pat's more pensive and introspective moods is so brilliant, it's a testament to his acting skills (but what's new here). Not only that, it's also thanks to the directing and scriptwriting.

3. As for episode 7, I really can't get over being furious at Wai for guilt-tripping Pran into taking over his responsibilities. This was such a shitty and toxic move, I was really taken aback. Kudos to Pran, the sweetest boy, for doing Wai this favor but I really think he should have tried harder to find a replacement.

4. Pa and Ink endgame? Will we have this one? They're so cute together. (if so, poor Wai, though I don't rwally sympathise with him right now lol. Also, how funny it is - him falling for the sister of his self-proclaimed archnemesis)

5. I've just realised that the next two Fridays fall on Christmas eve and new year's eve. Does anyone here know if I will get my weekly fix of serotonin? Or will I have to struggle for THREE weeks?

Really sorry for the long rant ^^'

Hope you're having a good day and enough rest!

hello there anon!!! <3

first of all thank you very much 🥺 I'm doing okay, just feeling stressed every now and then. But I'll be fine.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!!! I'm gonna try and not make this too long:

1. I also hope they won't throw in any unnecessary drama but the plot is pretty nicely structured so far (give or take) so I don't think they will. But then again that's what we thought about DSN and look where it got us lol. I'm pretty sure the main drama will revolve around the parents though and not some annoying girl or miscommunication. The girls are all very lovely so I don't think they'll introduce some random problematic bitch lol.

2. agreed! Pat definitely has more layers than meets the eye and I feel like Ohm deeply understands every single one of them. He could not be more perfect for the role. We stan. 🥺

3. honestly I’ve been seeing so many people loving & praising Wai but I kind of disagree. He definitely didn’t deserve all the bullying but as a character, he’s giving me nothing. The guilt-tripping was definitely not cool and I know he’s not aware of pat & pran yet but I don’t like how he’s unintentionally driving them apart djkfhd.

4. I have no idea..... We can only hope I guess. There were so many moments where I was convinced that they’re gonna put them together but then Wai came along and ruined it lmaoo. No but realistically speaking I don’t think it’s gonna happen. If anything it’s gonna be Wai x Pa. oh well.

5. aah omg you’re right!!!! I didn’t realize that. I remember last year they didn’t air anything on the 24th and 31st but idk about this year? I couldn’t find any announcements but I hope they will? How will I survive otherwise 😭

have a wonderful day as well anon! <3

xxx

[kpoptrashlord-007]

who are your SF9, MX, ONF, and ONEUS biases? I stan all of them <3

Sf9: Youngbinnie, hwiyoung, jaeyoon and chani I think 😭 they battle it out from time to time for 1st spot 💀

Mx: maybe Kihyun and minhyuk with a slight im sneaking in, I just remember I had a massive simp phase with kihyuk duo 💀

Onf: etion mk and Wyatt battle it out every week

Oneus: Ravn and seoho peacefully stay at 1st , hwanwoong is ready to sneak in after I watched weekly idol ep where he said he would be fine with sharing clothes with his s/o and saying he like over sized (I'm a fat @ss so this just made me go 👀👄👀👁👄👁👉👈)

DANGER ERA SANDWICH!! a little spicy ayy, omo >.< some bad boy D&E w/ their good little reader, protecting while also corrupting, a totally bad influence that broadens the reader's horizons in many, many ways T_T

Heh I'm a simp, this got my mind going, im barely getting into the shower and you give mE THESE THOUGHTS⁉️⁉️😭😭😭😭 bestie you trynna kill me 😩pls me and my friend jokingly connected all my suju dreams where it's basically a love square consisting of ryeowook and eunhae 💀 gonna be funny if another suju member just comes into my dreams like 'new challenger has appeared' 💀💀

Neck sprains T_T that's so not good!! is it from your job? I hope they don't hurt too much.

It's just a weird thing that happens to me 💀I think it's when I used my shoulder muscle too much or something and I just pull the neck from stress from the shoulder (it's hurts but I just have to wear a neck brace for a days then it should be okay)

My shoulder is fine now 😩 just was painful for a couple of days

Also, another dilf has fallen victim to my dilf agenda and idk what to do about it cuz he's older than leeteuk so it's dilf of dilfs of my dilf agenda 😭 you like old school kpop? Like h.o.t /sechskies era kpop? 😭😭

- 🍒

okay I'm gonna try this again lol. Desktop Tumblr keeps kicking me out constantly and I'm going to lose my mind at this rate. anyway

Hello my sweet 🍒! hope you are well!

Chani 🥺 (yes, I googled the emoji because nothing better expresses my love for him askjdlsf) Great picks, great taste, great biases! somehow, despite the sheer number of bands listed, we don't share any biases?? what are the odds lmfao. also mood af about Hwanwoong, you and me both, I fucking adore him T_T

I can't think of any other thoughts better for a shower hehe.

LOVE SQUARE!! Living your best y/n life omg. If more come in, it'll be a reverse harem akshjdfkg a new challenger lolol I'm invested tho, I'm rooting for another member to pop up, add a little more spice n drama to this soapie-esque dream series

oh gee, yeah, that makes sense. once you hurt one thing, it's a domino effect, especially if you have to favour it and therefore put extra strain elsewhere. let's both take a spa day and get some massages lmfao we deserve it

I'm glad your shoulder is better now! <3

I'm quaking bb DILF agenda? ? the DILF of DILFs>? I gotta know WHO

older guys are just... FINE AF! ahem, anyway, yes :) to a degree. I don't know the members as well though. And I don't listen to H.O.T very often. Well, except for Woohyuk's solo work (I love him T_T). I don't know Sechskies very well except for the occasion song here and there, tho I love... gosh, darn those scandals. I've adored Jaijin ever since I saw him in a certain show haha.