#or a shutdown by another method

[gatorbites-imagines]

Sanji x m reader where he's kind of in a cranky foul mood, maybe something had happened that upset him, maybe he'd had a nightmare, etc so sanji was not taking the signals that said in bright red above reader's head "do not approach" seriously and decided to miss with reader with their usual vulgar banter but that only sent reader off the edge. With sanji ending up on reader's lap crying and sobbing while his ass is red as a tomato with reader's letting out oddly-sincere thank-yous to sanji with a lighter heart and a clearer head.

Sanji Vinsmoke x Male reader

Drabble

Normally Sanji was great at reading people, you especially. You two had a special relationship, having both grown up on the Baratie and training to be chefs under Zeff. It had led to an immediate rivalry between the two of you, lasting all the way up to this day, as you butted heads and snapped and snarled about recipes and cooking. It reached the point, where you would agree on a method, but find another way entirely so you would side with one another.

You guys didn’t actually hate each other, in reality you were both close and trusted the other with your life, but the relationship between chefs always ended with arguments and outright fights at times. You both had your pasts, Sanji being a Vinsmoke, and you being one of Big Moms many many children.

Your childhood always weighed heavy on you, causing anything from nightmares to full shutdowns, though you had started coping much better with them over the years with the help of the people on the Baratie, and Sanji’s friendship and later love.

It took the crew a long time you realize you two were together, as Sanji was still such a weakling to women, and not a day passes where you two didn’t scuffle about one thing or another. But the moment a woman actually tried to seduce Sanji and tempt him with them, he politely turned them down and said he already had a partner.

Members like Luffy and Usopp had immediately wanted to know who it was Sanji was talking about, much to your shared confusion. You both didn’t understand the surprise that went through your crew when they learn how you two have been dating since your early teens, as you guys thought you were being obvious.

It was because of your long past that Sanji was sure he would read you better than anyone else. Maybe it was just a lapse of judgement that made him not fully realize just the state you were in, as he grumbled and argued about your usual topics, not even noticing that you weren’t replying, your expression just growing darker and darker.

His rants and comments finally seemed to be just what you need to snap, lunging forwards and grabbing him by his tie, dragging Sanji after you towards your shared bedroom, much to the entertainment of your crew. Sanji found himself stumbling after you, his usual complaints sputtering out as his cheeks start growing warm, the familiar feeling of a nosebleed starting, appearing in his senses.

Instead of being thrown on the bed and having his world rocked like you guys usually do when either of you are worked up, Sanji ends up almost squeaking as you throw him over your thighs, tucking his slacks and briefs down his thighs.

The only moment you pause in your actions, is when you grab his chin to make Sanji look up at him, confirming that he’s fine with this and that you have his consent. Sanji quivers and gulps, a bead of red already gathering in his nostrils as he nods, wiggling his hips as he arches his back, almost presenting himself for you.

Your nostrils flare like an enraged bull, the heated look in your eyes leaving Sanji feeling like you are about to devour him. A loud smack rings throughout the room as you lay into him, barely giving Sanji time to keep up or expect the next spank, as your strong hands rain down on his behind.

As chefs, you both care deeply for your hands, which only means the act of you spanking him adds further fuel to the fire of arousal coursing through Sanji. This isn’t the first time and won’t be the last you guys have played this way, meaning Sanji can take a fair number of swats, until the tears finally start rolling.

Theres no rhyme or reason to the number of spanks you lay down on Sanji’s ass, even smacking your palm against his upper thighs, right where he would feel the burn when he sits next. The knowledge that there is no way to know when you feel he’s had enough, is what makes Sanji finally bury his face into the sheets, staining it with his tears, drool, and the blood dripping from his nose.

His erection grinds against your thigh every time your hand lands on his almost glowing cheeks, his pale skin turned bright red and burning as Sanji gasps and keens. Its almost impossible for Sanji to make head of tail of anything happening around him at this point, so focused on the sting of your hand and the heat burning across his ass and thighs.

After who knows how long, you finally feel pity and love for the wobbly shivering vision Sanji makes across your thighs, finally deciding to take mercy on him. Reaching down one last time, you grasp onto one of the red, hot to the touch, cheeks, giving it a tight squeeze, making Sanji’s hips jolt into your thigh again.

The intensity of your hand gripping onto him, and the feeling of his sensitive shaft dragging against the fabric of your pants, is what finally makes Sanji tumble over the edge, spilling against your leg as he gasps and drools into the sheets, eyes almost rolling back into his head as his entire body twitches.

Sanji is loose and pliant as you rub a comforting hand over his burning cheeks, tears still running down his cheeks as you move him up into your arms so you could cradle him. The thank yous and praise spilling from your lips only serves to make Sanji feel lighter and floatier than before, tucking his face into your neck as he basks in your love and touch.

Spanking Sanji, or similar, had always been one of your ways to let off steam you couldn’t in any other way, to get the pain of your past to lose its power, at least for a while. And it also helped that you had a partner who drooled at the very thought of you spanking him or edging him.

After giving Sanji some time, you lay him carefully down on the bed on his front, finding the ointments and different items you know you’ll need to treat the huge bruise covering his ass and thighs. As you rub the ointment into his skin, Sanji sighs and goes lax against the bed, shutting his eyes and letting you take care of him, like you always do.

[unnerving-presence]

Hi, i just read the coochie unhooking and im in love omg 🥲💕 could we have another part with the huntress, pyra and a third one of your choice? Thank you, you're the best 👀💕

GAGAGAGGH YESSSS I LOVE THESE 😭 TARHOS HAS BEEN INFESTING MY BRAIN SO HE WILL BE THE LUCKY THIRD !!

ooc shit incoming this is literally abt them loving them thighs i do not gaf i tried to make them in character somewhat anyways hehe

could you tell i’m utterly obsessed w tarhos right now i wished i could’ve written more dear lord

i had already written this for huntress initially but i did want to revise it a bit to be more in character. still sort of experimenting with it all. enjoy though :)

♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎

Anna:

Straight confusion and a.. little bit of panic? She’s never had her prey attempt something like what you did. It catches her so off guard she practically thrashes around as much as you do to get you off of her. She doesn’t like feeling so vulnerable and very much does not appreciate it when you manage to escape the hook and her alike. She can’t shake that ghostly feeling of your thighs around her. It’s like you’re still there. She can’t discern whether she likes the feeling or not.

You’re interesting prey, prey that she enjoys hunting. She mostly does it for necessity and to please the Entity, but she likes you. She likes that. She especially likes your drive to survive. It amuses her, makes her curious about you. Anna would be angry about the ordeal thinking about it, but it simply makes her intrigued now. She simply can’t brush aside the concept of your thighs around her. It was like a warm embrace she hadn’t felt since she was a child. She likes it.

She decides she will observe you more. Watch as you speak in a language she doesn’t understand and interact with those she sees as nothing more than human animals. You’re afraid, but you’re also determined. It’s cute. Perhaps she’ll conveniently place herself near the hook she puts you on next time, just to feel you fight to survive, just to feel those thighs around her again.

Pyramid Head:

Pyramid Head would have absolutely never expected this to happen.. ever? Considering his absolute fridge of a head he’s.. startled to say the least that you managed to both effectively wrap your thighs around him AND have enough leg strength to take him down AND unhook yourself. It doesn’t all come to mind at first but he’s definitely a bit aroused. Unfortunately, that is an emotion that fades quite quickly. He has a job to do, he would very much like to get back to that. If he could get back up from the ground from his big ass helmet holding him down 😭

Pyramid Head is simply indifferent about the situation. A tiny bit excited at the though, but would quickly move on. It would certainly stay in his mind if you had done it several times over though. Some part of him is glad he has this unbearable helmet over his head, he might have had a full system shutdown had your thighs gotten too close to his face, though your thighs being around him in the first place is more than enough to turn him on a bit, not that he acts on it of course. He prioritizes his role in this realm more than anything else.

Though he won’t pass up the opportunity to listen to your cries of pain if given the chance. They didn’t mean much to him before. But now he rather likes the sound. He’d even say he rather likes you more than anything else. Maybe he should stick extra close to you from now on. Perhaps you’ll try other suggestive methods of trying to escape him. Either way, it feeds into his desire to punish and his desire for you.

Tarhos Kovács:

Tarhos is trained for moments like this, when the enemy has the upper hand. He cut through hundreds of swordsmen far more experienced than you could ever wish to be. He wields his imposing claymore and knows he strikes fear into those that dare cross him. He is anything but one to be so easily defeated. It should’ve been impossible for him to be taken down by someone in such a pathetic position as yourself. It has to be the Entity’s assistance. It has to be. He can barely get himself together again before you dash up the stairs and out of his reach. He grumbles and pushes himself up off the ground, more determined than ever to put you in your place.

You don’t survive the trial, but it’s very clear you did something to him. He’s angry, but there’s some other emotion, like a smoldering fire that was once not even worth a passing glance had suddenly burst into a wildfire. It could be confused with bloodlust. He can barely tell the difference between the two until he sees you again by the campfire next to those worthless maggots. He watches only for a moment and in that moment he wants more. He wants more of whatever you did to him.

He will never come to terms with these feelings. He believes it’s your fault. Your existence shouldn’t even be welcomed in this place. You can so easily disrupt the balance of death, sacrifice, bloodshed. He wants nothing to do with you if you think you can deter him from his rightful privilege of endlessly butchering such peasants as yourself. He hates you more than he hates Vittorio, he thinks. Vittorio was an imbecile who thought he had the answers to peace. But you? God, you actually do something to him and you don’t even have to try.

[ovaryacted]

Randomly ranting about AI.

The thing that’s so fucking frustrating to me when it comes to chat ai bots and the amount of people that use those platforms for whatever godamn reason, whether it be to engage with the bots or make them, is that they’ll complain that reading/creating fanfic is cringe or they don’t like reader-inserts or roleplaying with others in fandom spaces. Yet the very bots they’re using are mimicking the same methods they complain about as a base to create spaces for people to interact with characters they like. Where do you think the bots learned to respond like that? Why do you think you have to “train” AI to tailor responses you’re more inclined to like? It’s actively ripping off of your creativity and ideas, even if you don’t write, you are taking control of the scenario you want to reenact, the same things writers do in general.

Some people literally take ideas that you find from fics online, word for word bar for bar, taking from individuals who have the capacity to think with their brains and imagination, and they’ll put it into the damn ai summary, and then put it on a separate platform for others so they can rummage through mediocre responses that lack human emotion and sensuality. Not only are the chat bots a problem, AI being in writing software and platforms too are another thing. AI shouldn’t be anywhere near the arts, because ultimately all it does is copy and mimic other people’s creations under the guise of creating content for consumption. There’s nothing appealing or original or interesting about what AI does, but with how quickly people are getting used to being forced to used AI because it’s being put into everything we use and do, people don’t care enough to do the labor of reading and researching on their own, it’s all through ChatGPT and that’s intentional.

I shouldn’t have to manually turn off AI learning software on my phone or laptop or any device I use, and they make it difficult to do so. I shouldn’t have to code my own damn things just to avoid using it. Like when you really sit down and think about how much AI is in our day to day life especially when you compare the different of the frequency of AI usage from 2 years ago to now, it’s actually ridiculous how we can’t escape it, and it’s only causing more problems.

People’s attention spans are deteriorating, their capacity to come up with original ideas and to be invested in storytelling is going down the drain along with their media literacy. It hurts more than anything cause we really didn’t have to go into this direction in society, but of course rich people are more inclined to make sure everybody on the planet are mindless robots and take whatever mechanical slop is fucking thrown at them while repressing everything that has to deal with creativity and passion and human expression.

The frequency of AI and the fact that it’s literally everywhere and you can’t escape it is a symptom of late stage capitalism and ties to the rise of fascism as the corporations/individuals who create, manage, and distribute these AI systems could care less about the harmful biases that are fed into these systems. They also don’t care about the fact that the data centers that hold this technology need so much water and energy to manage it it’s ruining our ecosystems and speeding up climate change that will have us experience climate disasters like with what’s happening in Los Angeles as it burns.

I pray for the downfall and complete shutdown of all ai chat bot apps and websites. It’s not worth it, and the fact that there’s so many people using it without realizing the damage it’s causing it’s so frustrating.

[pillowfort-social]

Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2024 with a Community Update after a very eventful end of 2023. We’ll give you a look at what Staff have been doing behind the scenes, an update from our Developer Team, and a preview of what’s in store for the platform. Community Stats: 

As of January 19, 2024 Pillowfort currently has over 170,467 registered users and over 9,928 Communities. The rest of this post is under the cut.

In 2023 we have…

Avoided shutdown thanks to your generous support.

Launched Pillowfort Premium

Tested and launched Drafts 

Added new premium frames. 

Updated our Terms of Service.

Updated our Business Plan.

Continued work on the PWA & Queue.

Blocked ChatGPT Bots our platform.

Announced our upcoming policy on Generative AI.

Increased weekly invitations keys to from 10 to 50. 

Continued patching bugs. 

Welcome New Users!

Welcome to Pillowfort. We are so glad you are part of our community. If you haven’t yet, check out the Pillowfort101 Getting Started Guide.

Thank you for keeping Pillowfort Alive! 

Your support during the End of Year Fundraiser helped us avoid ending contracts with our Staff and averted the end of our platform for another six months (July 2024). We can not express our gratitude enough to you. This has been an extremely challenging and stressful time for each member of the team. We are going to work hard to keep Pillowfort online. You have motivated us to continue the fight to be a viable platform. You may have noticed that our donation bar has reset to $5,000 at the beginning of January. This number is our monthly operating costs going forward.  Each month in 2024 that we meet our funding goal it will extend Pillowfort’s life past July 2024. 

Generative AI Ban Policy Update

We will be implementing our updated policy regarding Generative AI in the next site update. Prior to when the policy will be implemented we will share with the community what our definition of Generative AI is and our moderation process. 

We're aware that there are concerns about how moderation systems surrounding generative AI have been abused and used for harassment on other sites: we have consulted with experts on how to avoid those issues, and the suite of moderation methods from international universities also assist with identifying harassment. Abuse of reporting systems will be taken seriously by Staff.

End of Year Fundraiser Limited Edition Badge Gift Form

The form for gifting the Limited Edition Badge to other users who couldn’t donate is now live! Click Here to Fill Out the Form. (Note: We’ll be also making a separate Staff Alert with the link as well.)

Updated Business Plan

The Pillowfort Premium subscription model remains our primary answer to generate the necessary funds needed to cover the costs of running our platform. We will continue to offer optional premium features which can be purchased by users a la carte. However, we will be working on completing the following major projects / updates as an expansion of our revenue strategy in the first half of 2024:

Release of the Progressive Web App w/ Push Notifications - The data is very clear that the lack of a mobile app is hindering our overall growth. A PWA will allow our mobile users to experience all the functionality of a native mobile app and will be much easier for our Developer Team to build & maintain than a native app. We also won't have to worry about App Store content restrictions.

Post Promotions & User-Submitted Advertisement Opt-Ins - Users will be able to promote their posts (as advertisements) by paying a fee. No subscription is required to promote a post. By default, this promoted content will only be displayed on a page specifically for viewing promoted content. While this will mean potentially less revenue, it is important to our philosophy to respect our user’s experience and not force advertising on everyone. However, users can opt into viewing promoted content in their home feed, and will receive a discount on premium features for doing so.

Subscription Gifting - Users will be able to purchase subscriptions that can be gifted to other users. Subscriptions can be gifted to a specific other user, or can be added to a communal pool for any unsubscribed users to take from. We will provide special badges for users who gift subscriptions.

Pillowfort Premium Price Increase - We will be adjusting prices to help us fund our overall operating costs. We will notify the community before any price increase is final.

Mobile Pillowfort Premium Frames - Add an option for mobile users to view Pillowfort Premium Avatar Frames in their feeds.

Other Goals for Completion in 2024 (Goals are subject to change)

Release Queue & Scheduling

Rebuild the post image uploader widget.

Rebuild the way notifications are logged & retrieved in the back-end to be more efficient & reduce errors.

Release an Onboarding Guide for new users.

Release Multi-account management/linking.

Add 2-Factor Authentication.

Enable Community Membership Applications.

Release Community Topics/Organization Options.

Help Us Keep the Lights On!

At Pillowfort we do not receive any funding from venture capital or other outside investors because we are committed to keeping our user experience a priority, and not being beholden to outside interests. While this approach allows us to stay true to our ideals and content guidelines, it also presents many challenges to our team in the form of limited resources, personnel, etc.

Our continued survival depends on the generosity of our community. If you are able to, please consider supporting us with a one-time or recurring monthly donation to help keep Pillowfort online. Any money donated to us now will be applied as a credit to your account when we release paid features & benefits in the future.

Bug Bounty Reminder

We are still offering a Bug Bounty. If you find a bug on the site, particularly one that could pose a threat to the security or functionality of the site, contact Staff through our Contact form or directly at info@pillowfort.social. If you are unsure if we received your report, you can send us a DM to the Staff account here, or DM one of our social media channels to check on the status. 

We sometimes do not receive all notifications from users on other social media. DMing the Staff account on Pillowfort to check on the status is the preferred method. 

The first individual to notify us of a certain issue will be eligible for monetary compensation, depending on the severity of the issue found and the information provided.

Abandoned / Modless Communities Transfer 

We are taking Ownership Transfer requests for Abandoned and/or Modless Communities. The form is available here. 

Pillowfort Dev Blog

Follow our very own Developer Blog for the latest updates from Lead Architect & Founder Julia Baritz.

Follow Us on Social Media

Interact with Pillowfort Staff, ask questions, plus learn about upcoming features and more on social media. 

Pillowfort: Staff Pillowfort Dev: PF_dev_blog Bluesky: pillowfortsoc.bsky.social Tiktok: pillowfort.social Instagram: pillowfort.social Facebook: Pillowfortsocial X/Twitter: @pillowfort_soc Tumblr: pillowfort-social Reddit: pillowfort_social Threads: @pillowfort.social

Best,

Pillowfort Staff

[noticiassincensura]

Russia to ban Discord: nearly 40 million people, including gamers and developers, will be cut off.

A new blow for every gamer or developer in Russia, another method to control information and the channels from which it comes and goes. The world is becoming less global, and freedom of speech is being censored under the guise of supposed security that has the planet on edge. In the U.S. and Europe, as well as China, Korea, or Japan, social media is being censored, as many documents have shown, to combat so-called “fake news,” misinformation, and sensitive information. After Telegram, now Discord is next, with Russia set to shut it down in days.

Globalism is over, and now it’s time for the protectionism typical of a pre-war scenario, if we’re not already in several wars and that isn’t enough. The control of information and media is vital, and platforms like Telegram, X, or Discord, following the internal regulations that Meta and Google are facing, have become the targets of governments. Putin is crystal clear about this — no doubt about it.

Russia to ban and shut down Discord in a few days for violating the law Russia-to-ban-Discord-after-violating-these-5-laws In the West, at least they come up with an excuse to justify what they do, even though the result is the same. They want to give the appearance of justification. In Russia, it’s a different story, and the Kommersant newspaper openly shows this by stating that Discord will be completely blocked in record time.

Every IT professional, whether a technician, developer, engineer, or consultant, as well as millions of gamers, will be cut off from the platform that connected them and allowed them to exchange information — one of the few remaining safe havens in Putin’s country for doing so. According to local reports, Putin has taken measures based on five new decisions against Discord, claiming that it violated the law.

Specifically, they argue that it was the Law on Information Technology and Information Protection that was breached in these five points, prompting the Kremlin to take one action for each violation.

No explanations, just the desire and order to block Putin-is-watching The worst part is that there are no explanations about what was violated, how it was violated, or by whom. Russia is going to shut down and block Discord from all angles, including VPNs. In fact, the platform will not have any license to operate in the country, so something must have been happening in its chats for Putin to make a decision similar to what he did with Telegram at the time.

The newspaper points to a total shutdown and block within just a few days. Vasily Ovchinnikov, director of the Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry in Russia, told the newspaper that “the problem is that for Russian developers, communication with the community, including internationally, and technical support are done through Discord.”

As if this blow to the platform wasn’t enough, today a Moscow court fined them nearly $40,000 for failing to restrict access to prohibited information. Therefore, without knowing the specific causes — assuming they even make them public — it seems that either the platform refused to censor content and hand over the keys to privacy, as Telegram once refused, or it simply couldn’t censor what Putin and his government demanded.

Russia seeks sovereignty in all aspects, just like China Russia-and-China-Putin-and-Xi-Jinping In fact, the Kremlin is now seeking digital sovereignty, as it has also attempted in other areas, like the chip industry we discussed last year. Needless to say, these attempts have not borne much fruit, but they’ve even gone as far as censoring Wikipedia, it seems, copying only the content they deem appropriate.

The folks at PCGamer have thrown some criticism at all of this, which we fully support, as it’s as true as it is humorous: “In Russia, Wikipedia edits you.” This is a clear sign that freedom in all its forms is disappearing, and everyone is striving for a controlled environment like China’s. Useful idiots who don’t even consider rebelling against the establishment because they think it’s all done in their best interests and for their safety.

By the time we wake up, it will be too late — assuming we don’t end up in a war first. Russia banning and blocking Discord is just another sign of where we’re headed, and Europe and the U.S. aren’t exactly better in this regard, with their own coercions and threats.

[davekat-sucks]

the weird part with the good fandom antagonist is that we have so many of them theoretically in post canon. you have alt calliope, although it could be argued that she's neutral fandom given that she is a total shutdown of all fanon. you have both meat and candy callie, which lets be honest, the two timelines are definitely colluding. they're not directly evil, but goddamn is the constant secrecy aggrivating. you have the sprites, see previous comment about secrecy. and then you have mspar, which pq couldn't decide if they're not a bad person who just wants to help, or the next incarnation of the demiurge and a total selfish prick. like for a story that originally painted its main villain as a mockery of old act 5 fans, and is supposed to be a positive story about fandom, its weird how many jabs at said good fandom exist.

mind you i'm not complaining about people having negative feelings about fandom cause given where we are, I Get It, but still. feels a bit disingenuous.

Ah, but Pesterquest is LOCKED OUT from the base canon or sequel dubious canon webcomic. MSPA Reader is not part of it. Why try to tie in that now so late when it barely had relevance in the first place? MSPA Reader also doesn't just represent the good fandom. It just represents the general audience, the readers, etc who read the webcomic. The sprites that aren't ARquiusprite for plot because Lord English component or Davepetasprite^2, are nothing more than jokes. Why else they kept Fefpetasprite still talking like "833" and not with actual words despite all the supposed JOKES that she is a chatterbox. Did they give Erisolsprite^2 any significant role for Vriska's Hell? Considering both boys (Eridan and Sollux) do have connections to Vriska's actions (one was an ex and the other was used by her to kill Aradia)? No. Any implications of it is OFFSCREEN. Just like how most of the shit for Post Canon tends to be. Jasperosesprite^2 is special case because they are also active in the role of assisting or going along with Jane Crocker in the side bonus story, even if it has not been updated yet but not outright cancelled by James Roach or HICU. How are they supposed to represent the good fandom if they help the antagonist of the shitty sequel? Plus, Japserosesprite and Davepetasprite talking is nothing more than another ROSE AND DAVE CONVERSATION. Take out Jaspers and Nepeta out and nothing about them as characters or their interactions about what is going on in the plot, changes. They are still Rose and Dave in a different coat of paint. The two Calliopes working together as one full antagonist could work as it may mirror to how Caliborn manipulates for everything going his way. But Calliope's method may be more passive that she barely does much and only does small pushes on other characters doing the work to help achieve her goals. A contrast to Caliborn's brute force when he had to make sure his ascension as Lord English will always come. Plus, Homestuck^2 was originally made not only just out of spite from Andrew Hussie and the crew towards the fandom, but also as a money laundering scheme to payback Viz Media. The sequel is already disingenuous itself and James Roach & HICU are just building on top of it. It's questionable why they continue it despite the controversy behind it. That's like saying you would work on animation series in the same studio that had horrible crunch labor.

[antlerkitty]

The demiverbal spectrum

Hey there, I’m demiverbal! The definition of demiverbal has changed a fair bit within the autism community since it was first made, so I figured I’d make this post to explain. These are my own definitions based on what I’ve seen.

Where the demiverbal spectrum starts (around where the semiverbal spectrum ends): Mild difficulty with speech most-all of the time, and multiple times a day verbal shutdowns/very long verbal shutdowns

Where the demiverbal spectrum ends (right before autistic-verbal*): Either mild difficulties with speech around half the time, verbal shutdowns multiple times a month, or some combination of the two

Demiverbal people may:

Have mild (but still significant compared to verbal people) difficulty understanding language

Structure sentences oddly

Use echolalia along with other speech

Use “their own language”, or elaborate metaphors to communicate (this is due to difficulty with normal communication)

Sometimes use AAC to type, speak, or both (due to struggles with forming concepts into words or another reason)

Use gestures to communicate instead of spoken words or AAC (this is my preferred method, and easiest for my brain to understand)

And more, every demiverbal person is different!

Hope this helped and was informative!

*Autistic-verbal is a term I made up to describe autists that are fully verbal but still have occasional shutdowns and such. You can have shutdowns and not be demiverbal.

[squwooshk]

I wrote this essay for another platform, but I want to share it here.

Capitalism is killing art, in every part of the process. From the creation, the consumption and finally the preservation. In this serious of essays, we'll be looking at the preservation in particular. Looking at the ending of the process, and working backwards, will help give us a stronger understanding of the concepts and powers at play in the production, for the preservation and consumption directly effect the creation. This first part of the series will look into the effects of capitalism, and private property, more specifically intellectual property, on the preservation of art and the methods of art preservation that are at odds with capitalism.

Emulation & Video-game Piracy

An important part of the process of preserving art is making sure that the art work can be experienced by as many people, for as long as possible. When it comes to video-games in particular, there's plenty of fans who are dedicated enough to the art for to make sure retro games are always playable for a more general audience, and with as much accuracy to the original experience as possible. These dedicated fans create emulators, software programs that are able to replicate the functions of older video-game consoles, in order to allow older games to be easily playable to modern gamers.

Emulators themselves, are fully allowed under the law[1], however we do encounter a problem. The data that emulators are designed to read, is often illegal to distribute on the internet. The spread of this software, the actual data of a particular video game, is considered digital piracy, a theft of intellectual property[2]. This is an argument often used by corporations like Nintendo to shutdown websites that host these data files[3]. However, these same corporations often give no good alternatives to emulation, and in extention this piracy.

Many of these companies do not re-release these games, at best they may remake them or occasionally offer a limited selection on their own emulators, which can often have errors or be tied to a subscription service, as is the case with Nintendo.[4],

The preservation of these games often come down to an effort from the fans, an effort that is in direct conflict with the intellectual property owners. Without emulation, many more obscure games, and a good number of games with complex licensing agreements, would be permanently lost to time.

I would like to take the time to look at two examples in particular, Metal Gear Solid (Game Boy Color, also known as Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel in Japan) and Mother 3. These examples are far from being the only examples worth talking about, but I think they both greatly exemplify the ideas I wish to discuss.

Metal Gear Solid (Gameboy Color) which I will refer to as Ghost Babel for the rest of this essay, for simplicity and to avoid confusion with Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation) which is a completely different game, is a game released in 2000 by Konami for the Nintendo Gameboy Color. The game was a spin-off of the Metal Gear Solid series. The game has never been re-release.

This is primarily due to the lower sales of the release brought in compared to any mainline Metal Gear Solid game (all of which have been re-release and remastered many times) and the little market demand, especially in the AAA gaming world that Konami is a part of, for 2D stealth action games. There is little profit to be found in porting over Ghost Babel to more modern systems, so it just isn't done. Art that isn't profitable is cast aside by the capitalist.

The only way to play this game, and comply with the laws of a capitalist society, is to own a Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance or a DS (but not a DSI or 3DS) and an original physical copy of the game. All these items are no longer being produced, they are all in the second hand market, and as the supply will never rise, the prices can tend to get high pretty quickly.

Not only is pricing an issue, but these objects will not last forever. The cartridges used to store the data of Gameboy Color games have batteries that will one day die, preventing saved data from being written on them[5], and the electronic parts in these systems, and in the cartridges, will one day fail as any other machine will without constant maintenance. Preservation through the ownership of the original hardware is limited in scope, and is doomed for failure.

The only method of preservation that solves all these problems, the problem of limited supply, high prices and degradation of hardware, is digital emulation and piracy. This is however, in direct conflict with the intellectual property of the capitalist. The capitalist wishes to actively suppress these acts of preservation in the name of preserving their intellectual property[6]

Mother 3 is a video game created by Nintendo that has never been released outside of Japan. The reason for this is once again a profit one, Mother 2 (know simply as Earthbound outside of Japan) did not sell well at all when it first came out and Mother 1 was never released outside of Japan untill way later, where it got a digital release, do to the growth in a western Mother Fandom. The Mother series has a very particular style and humor, that doesn't always sell as well with western audiences, making localization a process that yealds little profit, thus the localization is never made.

For anyone who lives outside of Japan, the only way to play this game is illegally. You must rely on fan translation and emulation. No one other than Japanese people, or people who know Japanese, own a Japanese Game Boy Advanced, and have a copy of the game, can play it without going in direct violation of the interests of the capitalist and violating their intellectual property rights.

Music preservation and Intellectual Property

Video-games are far from the only art from that's preservation is at threat from capitalism. Music is another art form that has been plagued by intellectual property. From songs that quote passages of other songs, to song that uses samples with licensing issues, so much art has been altered, limited or destroyed by capitalism. I'll be looking at three different examples.

The Gun Song by Car Seat Headrest has two versions, the original version of the song, and the No Trigger Version. The differences between these two versions is pretty simple, the no trigger version is what you'll find on streaming services, and the original thay is only available on the Bandcamp version of the album. The reason for this is a lyric change due to copyright issues.

The original version of the song end with the lyrics "Down by the river, I shot my baby" sung with the same melody as the song Down by the River by Neil Young. Do to the shared melody and lyrics, this caused copyright issues. All releases of the song, other than the original independent release, have been altered to cut this part out. This song, as it was intended to be heard, has become difficult to access for most people.

The album Everything is a Lot by Will Wood and the Tapeworms was drastically altered when it was remastered, because all the samples used in the original ran into licensing issues. This lead to the more accessible version of the album (the only version getting physically releases) missing important parts of songs, in particular, the vocal send off on the track "Thermodynamic Lawyer" which originally opened with a sample from the movie Liar Liar, but now just opens immediately into the song, removing a lot of the punch of the original

The Faces mixtape by Mac Miller has faced a similar treatment to that of the Will Wood album, but on a more severe scale. The version of the album available on streaming has been gutted of many of it's samples (at least 9).

Intellectual Property & Profit Motive

Now, it's time to talk about how all these issues are an intrinsic part of capitalism. Capitalism as a system prioritizes one thing above all else, capital. Capital is itself a form of private property, and intellectual property is an idea or artistic expression turned into private property. The property holders will defend their right to profit off this property using the violence of the state, using the power of law to punish those who violate their property.

This become a problem for art when the profit motive gets involved. Profit is the driving factor behind all of these anti-preservation decisions we have discussed here today. With video-games, companies want to continue to indefinitely make a profit off of their old creations, but fail to offer an adequate way too, and often prioritizes only the cash cows. When the public tries to take this into their own hands, out of the love of art, they get punished. Their preservation is a threat, because they allow all games to be preserved and experienced freely, even the cash cows that corporations don't wish to abandon.

As for music, record labels (and in some of these cases film studios who own sound bites) want to profit off of royalties. When a song uses a sample, a good bit of the profit made on that song goes to the owners of royalty licenses, despite the fact that their intellectual property often makes up only a fraction of a truly transformational work. When they can't make their royalties, they leave the work to die.

Conclusion

Capitalism, primarily through the medium of intellectual property, a form of private property, actively disrupts the preservation of art. It seeks to destroy methods of preserving art that would eat into the profits of capitalist, without offering a viable alternative except when it seems financially beneficial to the capitalist.

Bibliography

1.https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njtip/vol2/iss2/3/

2.https://www.howtogeek.com/262758/is-downloading-retro-video-game-roms-ever-legal/

3.https://kotaku.com/nintendo-orders-rom-site-to-destroy-all-its-games-or-1847487357

4.https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/nintendo-switch-online-is-terrible-and-its-only-getting-worse

5.https://forums.atariage.com/topic/193374-battery-life-of-old-game-cartridges/

6.(to actually gain access to this you'll probably have to prepend it with 12ft.io/) https://www.scribd.com/document/709016504/Nintendo-of-America-Inc-v-Tropic-Haze-LLC-1-24-Cv-00082-No-1-D-R-I-Feb-26-2024

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: Dreads & Delusions

So last night I played Dread Delusion last night, checked socials later to find... Ubisofts Xdefiant will be shutting down June 2025 with 277 employees being laid off.

Hoo boy so if you've never heard of it, Xdefiant is meant to be Ubisofts take on a free2play Call of duty, much like Combat Arms, Blacklight Retribution, Crossfire X, Ironsight and so on and so forth. The most i've heard about was a lot of Cod streamers/"gamers" were raving about how this game will be better then the game they usually play because it removes skill based matchmaking or something.

By the looks of things though, it doesnt seem to have done much since its beginning its sunsetting process before being shutdown within June 2025. And of course because the game industry has a habit for it, 277 employees are losing their jobs. Great, wonderful, really making the industry seem apporachable and worth building a career in arent we?

I'll link a pcgamer article covering it, lets just move onto to our game.

We are approaching the moment in which indie games that echo the elder scrolls series are starting to pop up and I for one am all for it. For as much as Bethesda has earned negativity from their decisions lately, the elder scrolls is atleast an enjoyable series of open world rpgs that folks have created fond memories with, from traversing dungeons, fighting dragons, doing quests for daedra to get their artifacts, joining every faction to do their quests and end up being in charge of them all. Yep good memories. Anyways were seeing some elder scrolls-likes popping up and one we'll be looking at is Dread Delusion, a game that uses Morrowind as its inspiration, allegedly I think I dont lf the devs were inspired by it, though there is definatly large mushrooms.

DD's world is a bleak one in which an event known as the World Rend which messed the world up real bad, leading to Humanity and their gods to flee to floating islands in the sky to survive. Eventually humanity got fed up with the gods, started a war were they proceeded to kill most of them along with their followers and 40 years later are colonising various floating landmasses as the dogmatic Apostatic Union, who banned all worship and brought with them mechanical technology and trade.

You're a prisoner (as is tradition for elder scrolls games and such is for this scrolls-like) who is tasked by the Union Inquisition to apprehend a disgraced mercenary captain who plans to create an afterlife for humanity. My time in the Oneiric Isles got as far as Harrowshire for this playthrough, I havent gotten to the endless realm or the clockwork kingdom yet but I've enjoyed what I played so far. The game outright encourages you to explore and do quests as your main method of leveling your abilities depends on embracing delusions, which can be found in various places, temples, caves and ruins, with quests being another way to gain delusion.

Combat itself is a bit basic with a block that if timed correctly can parry an enemy leaving them stunned momentarily, along with a light attack or a heavy attack. So far I only had a sword as my weapon and i'm not sure if theres any other melee weapons to find. Theres definitely some ranged weapons with the throwing knives you can equip and I've picked up plenty of arrows but found no bows yet. Spells however is something i've managed to find in some places which is good since i've built my guy into a spellcaster, often hitting any enemies with a cipher bolt and then finish off with a stab when they get close. Hell once I got the spell that boosts your movement speed, I basically treated the Oneric Isles as my own personal Green Hill Zone.

So something I wanted to touch on was the games lore on the Union and Gods in this world. A lot of the people in the skylands used to work out a deal with a local god with the help of Wikkians, a sort of lawyer that covers Divine Affairs. The people get some help in boosting their harvests and population, the god gets some faith from the people. However a lot of these deals tend to be quite faustian with a terrible price needing to be paid in order to gain the gods help. One village you visit early on had a deal with a god where they had bountiful harvests of mushrooms for their tea. The catch? They had to sacrifice their young every now and then. Given how the wars ended 40 years ago, you can definatly find folks who lived in the pre-war time and consider the deals with gods to be absolutely cruel. Its easy to understand for folks in this world, why they'd want to do away with the gods, figuring they'd be better off without them.

However without the gods to help, the harvests end up going badly. Harrowshire, the next area you go to after the early game, is stated to be going through a famine with the unions only solution to import food from far away. This only ends up helping those that can afford the prices for these imported foods while others who cant are left to starve, the Union more interested in torturing and hanging suspected cultists then in looking for a more reliable solution to the famine crisis. In a way, the Union didnt really stop the cruelty from the days of god worship so much as replaced it entirely, without any of the benefits that the devout got in return. For folks who felt the worship of gods was cruel and oppresive, the god wars was a form of liberation that saw humanity break free and establish their independence. For the folks who felt the god worship offered more good than bad, a sort of necessary evil needed for prosperity, the wars are a dark time of oppression as gods are slaughtered, hundreds if not thousands of humans are killed as the Union proceeds to subjugate people under their rule. You can find folks and books in this game from both sides of the coin, both giving a point of view of such a large event that occurred in this ruined world. And thats fascinating as hell to me. Very good worldbuilding indeed.

So yeah, I liked Dread Delusion. From what i've played so far its a fascinating world to explore with its lore quite captivating. I'd recommend giving it a go. Now before I finish this off, I wanted to take a moment to share an observation I have so please bare with me.

So your most typical fantasy stories tend to feature the general tropes. Magic, dragons, elves, dwarfs, goblins and orcs, that kind of stuff. There are plenty of shows, films, games that have their own version of those general tropes and they can be sourced to J R R Tolkien who, while not the inventor of these tropes, is atleast the one who popularised these tropes into the main culture mindset. So many of these fantasy series feature these tropes so miluch that its become almost mundane. Easily recognisable and understandable by nearly everyone. Now that mundanity is not a dig at their overall quality, its perfectly fine for these fantasy stories to rely on these tropes and build on top of them.

Now on the other side is the kind of Fantasy that dont rely on these tropes, instead creating worlds that are outright alien. These worlds may or may not have some swords and sorcery, maybe some dungeons and some sort of "dragon" but theres a lot about these worlds that are outright unfamiliar and strange compared to the tolkienesque worlds. And i'm gonna call these Acid Fantasy, shamelessly stealing from the name of the bundle that Dread Delusion is a part of along with Lunacid (which I should definatly play for Midnight Gaming).

So we have Tolkienesque and then we have Acid Fantasy. A lot of it depends on how much it relies on the common fantasy tropes vs creating it own original ideas and worlds. Whether they play it safe and stick to whats familiar or change things up and get weird with it.

Tolkiens works are obviously Tolkienesque while Dread Delusion is Acid Fantasy along with Lunacid.

The Elder Scrolls series could definatly be Tolkienesque with some different stuff such as the khajiits and argonians. Though the deeper you look into the lore, the more Acid Fantasy it becomes with Morrowind itself being a whole region thats Acid Fantasy as hell. I'd put this as between the two but slightly towards Tolkienesque.

Warcraft could definatly fit in the same sort of space since while it has a lot of fantasy tropes, theres definatly some differences that set them apart from them. The orcs being from a different world, corrupted from drinking blood from space demons is just the surface of that universes lore. So it sits between but leaning towards Acid Fantasy.

Game of thrones doesnt have any orcs or elves, though it is very grounded with maybe some magic and definatly some dragons, so thats definatly in the Tolkienesque corner.

You'd probably say the same with Discworld but that series tends to usually feature those tropes solely to parody them or poke fun, usually to put its own twist on them, with a lot of its world mostly being its own unique brand of fantasy. Though not quite to the point of Acid Fantasy, it can sit squarely between the two.

Hylics, Acid Fantasy no contest, it is 100% weird as hell from what I saw.

This was just a small observation about fantasy worlds and you maybe wondering what was the point of this? To establish boxes to push different works in to judge and critique them on? To encourage a form of discussion about how fantasy worlds mingle with common tropes and ask why they tend to stick to whats familiar? Is it just an excuse to recreate that calvin and hobbes meme of his dad talking about earthbound and undertale??

Definatly the third, maybe the second...

Anyways, thats gonna do it for Midnight Gaming today, feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions. I'll talk to you all another day.

[autisticlee]

I often think about how many nonspeaking autistic people get treated like they are unintelligent, incapable of thought or learning, and will never be able to communicate, from the time they are time children. so many parents of autistic kids and even "professionals" base their intelligence and/or ability to learn and communicate on their ability to speak. it's so sad to see.

I always think about how many autistic kids might never get the chance to communicate because their judgemental parents don't try to teach them basic things or give them an alternative form of communication. so many "autism parents" seem to think if their child doesn't speak, or has impared speech, that means they are incapable of using or understanding words.

i'm sure there's a lot of autistic people who do have that disability, not being able to learn or understand words at all and therefore unable to learn communication methods i mention. but how many can learn to understand just fine and have the ability to communicate with other means that isn't physically speaking, but are never taught any language or communication skills? how many could use alternate communication if given the chance? what if instead of speaking for their child because their child can't physically speak, the parents taught them how to write, how to type on a phone/computer, how to use sign language, or use AAC device? (whichever they are able/most comfortable with) how many are denied that chance, treated like they are "stupid" and can't understand anything anyone says to them, but they understand it all and just can't communicate that to anyone?

I imagine it feels like being trapped. so much to say, but unable. people speaking for and over you, going against your wants and needs, deciding everything for you because you can't make words come out of your mouth, and they didn't give you another way to make words.

i'm semi-speaking, if that's the correct way to refer to myself? I can speak when i'm not overloaded. when i'm too overwhelmed and go into shutdown mode, i'm unable to speak at all even if i really want to. i mainly only speak to close family/friends when at home and have great difficulty trying to speak outside of home and with people i dont know well. it took me almost 2 years to be able to minimally speak to the staff at a place i volunteer every week, and still have trouble asking questions or even saying hell/goodbye. but on a good day, if I try really hard, I can say a few sentences! if i'm completely comfortable and in a stable or familiar environment, I can have "normal" conversation. though, talking exhausts me so I still can't do it for extended periods and prefer not to. I prefer to listen. I get tired and overwhelmed a lot faster if I have to speak a lot, especially when i'm not at home and in an overwhelming environment.

I know it's VRRY different from nonspeakers, but just from the experiences I had as a kid, I can kind of try to imagine how frustrating it may be for the ones who may be denied the chance to communicate: as a kid, school overwhelmed and overloaded me to the point where just the noisy school bus in the mornings caused a shutdown that lasted all day. I would be unable to speak at school at all and beat myself up over it because I could not get words out. I would try, but I was physically unable to produce sounds in the form of words. sometimes I could make a squeak sound or one word out of a whole sentence. if I did manage to get words out, it was too quiet or slurred and no one could hear or understand me. I couldn't answer anyone 99% of the time at school (or anywhere else that overwhelmed me)

people did and said things I couldn't respond to. my needs were denied. people decided things for me. other kids bullied me, the teachers bullied me, they acted like I couldn't understand them sometimes and treated me like a baby. I would sometimes write responses in a notebook or on a paper. i've had my responses torn up and thrown away by other kids and teachers. getting told to speak instead. it was so frustrating, isolating, and dehumanizing.

but there were rare times I could speak. this made them even more insistent about trying to force me to speak and was always told I was doing it on purpose (and they eventually made me believe it! I couldn't figure out why I couldn't stop choosing to do it! i had so much to say and didn't know why i could not say any of it!) trying to make me speak became a game for them. if I did say a word, they treated me like a baby or a dog doing a command. they would act like they won a game. it felt so dehumanizing like I was a circus act. they called me a scary freak and I felt like one... evenrually I learned I'm autistic and that's what's causing it, that sensory overload, overwhelmed, and stress cause me to lose my speech ability, that it's not my fault. i'm still not sure if I'm doing better now because I learned I'm autistic and can regulate it better and avoid triggers that lead to shutdown, or it's because i'm not in school anymore and spend most of my time at home where I control my environment and needs.

but I feel like that whole experience as a kid gave me a very small taste of what I imagine some nonspeakers experience. it makes me think about the ones denied a communication outlet a lot 😭 they must feel so isolated and frustrated and might not ever get or got the chance to tell anyone about it. we might never get to hear about their experiences and what they feel and go through.

even ones who are given an outlet and taught language and alternate form of communication like typing or AAC, or whatever they need, and are still treated poorly just because they are unable to physically speak or communicate...I think about you too and hope you're able to do well and keep going. I think you're doing great and i'm proud of you 💜 I haven't been able to find many posts online from nonspeakers, so if you want to share your stories, I will listen. you can write a post or find posts already made and send it to me and I will read!

[granulesofsand]

We’ve recently been researching ramcoa to figure out what happened in our expierience, and we think we had Alice in wonderland programming, but I can’t find a lot of information about it. Can you explain it a little more in depth?

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA, weird childhood torture shit, mild swearing

I don’t think we have an Alice in Wonderland script, but I can describe some of our features that might’ve been ripped off from it. There are a few people who’ve written long descriptions, but it’s not the easiest read.

A programming script is a piece of media superimposed onto a dissociative system. Alters might have roles or names tied to the story, the map of the innerworld similar to given landmarks, programs related to plot lines.

Alice in Wonderland is fairly common because of its age and thematic elements (an “induction” into another world, a guide figure, fantastical nonsense). There are also several versions of the media in circulation, which makes it easy to pick one for the kid to memorize.

The particular programs you have depend on the kid and the perps, and some groups have a set method of using a piece. The major points are all included in some way, but the variation can be pretty extreme because it’s been used in this context for so long.

It hasn’t been my experience that an absolute understanding of the media is required, but it’ll be pretty center stage if it’s the main script used for your system. Don’t look into the media if you can help it.

This is a mix of what I know and what I guess based on the stuff my system has, so feel free to take and leave as much as you want.

Some big ones (not all require the script, nor will the script guarantee these items):

Characters (can be 1 or more of each)

White Rabbit - programmer (introject or npc), guide role, sometimes carries a pocket watch related to programs

Alice - host or amnesiac alter, confusion and alienation from other alters, has a visitor effect for the programmed alter

Dodo - gatekeeper, introduces Alice to nonrules of Wonderland, opposites programming, sometimes scramble in the form of trained learning disability symptoms

Caterpillar - gatekeeper of sorts, apathetic guide, blows smoke that triggers memory movement (gaining or losing)

Cheshire Cat - gatekeeper, trickster guide, sneaky cat, important but uncooperative, smile and stripes usually stick depending on the role

March Hare - persecuter kinda, crazy and no escape programs, party guest at teatime

Mad Hatter - higher up, crazy and no escape programs, time loss amnesia, disobeys time and normality

Dormouse - sleep program, drugged sedation, doesn’t mind chaos, spooks easy

Flowers - no good programming, berate Alice and target weak spots, might be alter or landscape

Queen - higher up, strict enforcement of nonsense rules, obedience without question, trails and parties and croquet in the palace, commander of card army

Events

Rabbit hole - induction, sometimes includes disorientation or vertigo, feature of the innerworld, no panic despite situation

Eat me - if literal it messes with interoception or scramble/shutdown, also might be the name of a program or cue, the tear river and hall of doors as well as prop fan, gloves, and food may be traps in the innerworld. Enforces backwards thinking and lack of concrete rules

Teatime - may include the screeching duchess and pig baby, the Cheshire Cat takes Alice to the Mad Hatter. It is always 6 o’clock, but the date changes, enforcing amnesia for time loss. Everyone at the tea party insists Alice is the mad one. Lots of cue phrases come from this scene, the tea may represent various functions

Party - the Queen of Hearts throws a party and demands Alice join her game or croquet, obedience, fear, sometimes party refers to torture, leads to trial and escape

All of that is the first book. Another big thing is Looking Glass programming, where mirror fragments of alters split as a deterrent against exploration of forbidden areas. Card hierarchy, garden maze, and reality reversal are all possible too.

Lots of options, as with everything, and it’s entirely possible you have this script and don’t see any of these in your system. Consuming source media tends to reinforce programming, so have a support system who really knows how to handle your shit if you need to look.

[malamiteltd]

The Esper Woods - Beeby

The Beeby is a typically docile insect that resides in the Esper Woods. They typically spend their time building hives and making a uniquely sweet honey. They're larger than regular bees, and their colonies work slightly differently -- the average colony rarely exceeds 20, and rather than having different "classes" (queen, worker, etc.), they all work together doing all the important jobs. It's assumed that they communicate to each other telepathically.

They typically run away when danger approaches, but when they're pushed too far they will retaliate. One option is to use their stingers to incapacitate their threats. The venom in their stings will cause the stung area to go numb, or even be paralyzed, ranging from a few minutes to hours depending on how much venom is released. Too many stings in too many places could cause a total nerve shutdown for the victim, leading to death. It's theorized that Beeby venom could be used as an anesthetic. (Beeby stingers are not barbed, so stinging will not risking their well-being.)

Their second option, however, is a bit more unusual. They may begin to swarm the threat and expel beeswax in massive amounts, effectively encasing them in the substance. We have an image of a Leppicorn up above being subjected to this form of imprisonment. The worst part about this is that the beeswax of Beebies is very tough -- it's been compared to stone in hardness, though it is lighter and surprisingly buoyant. In this situation, it would require a strong tool like a metal axe to break the beeswax open.

The strange thing about this is that the beeswax method does not appear to be a tactic they normally use, as it's a tiring and wasteful method. Beeby colonies are often subject to mind control; in nearly all cases, another Esper Beast can cause the Beebies to act unnaturally. It's especially obvious here, where the eyes and antennae of the Beeby colony seem to glow. Chances are it's not the Beebies that are holding a grudge with this poor Leppicorn...

[southeastasianists]

It is now common knowledge that whenever protest movements could make political gains through digital media and technologies, the regimes these very movements seek to challenge would catch up with their progress.  From the 2010-2011 Arab Spring to popular contestations of Southeast Asia’s autocracies in 2020-2021, optimism regarding digital activism has been met with regime adoption of digital repression. 1 This development has reinforced ‘digital authoritarianism’ in the region. 2 Digital arsenals to suppress dissent have multiplied and diversified over the past decades, following disruptive mass mobilizations that challenged the status quo in countries such as Cambodia (2013), Malaysia (2015-16), Myanmar (2021-present), Thailand (2020-21) and Indonesia (2020). In long-standing autocracies like Vietnam in which the Internet is a potential regime destabilizer, stringent cyber laws and information manipulation through cyber troops enable ruling elites to tighten their grip on the population. 3 While domestic factors are key drivers, there is reason to believe that governments in Southeast Asia‘cross-learn’ tactics of digital repression and inspire one another. 4

Digital arsenals to suppress dissent have multiplied and diversified over the past decades, following disruptive mass mobilizations that challenged the status quo in countries such as Cambodia (2013), Malaysia (2015-16), Myanmar (2021-present), Thailand (2020-21) and Indonesia (2020). In long-standing autocracies like Vietnam in which the Internet is a potential regime destabilizer, stringent cyber laws and information manipulation through cyber troops enable ruling elites to tighten their grip on the population. 3 While domestic factors are key drivers, there is reason to believe that governments in Southeast Asia‘cross-learn’ tactics of digital repression and inspire one another. 4

Digital repression encompasses various methods of social control to preemptively deter and lower the impact of protest movements. Digital repression toolkits include Internet filtering, surveillance via high-tech spyware 5 and social media monitoring, state-aligned misinformation online, 6 prosecution of activists through cyber- or information-related laws, 7 and Internet shutdowns. 8 These can help governments achieve the goal of control, in many cases, without resorting to armed clampdown of challengers.

Governments in the region possess varying degrees of digital capacities, leading to their different tactical preferences.  Based on the 2019 Digital Society Project data, the most oft-used form of digital repression in Singapore and Vietnam is prosecuting online users, while in Cambodia, it is Internet filtering. In Malaysia and Thailand, social media monitoring was the most common trend. The two remaining electoral democracies – Indonesia and the Philippines – lean toward misinformation campaigns. Myanmar seems to be the only one among its autocratic counterparts that most frequently relies on Internet shutdowns.

[dire-kumori]

Here to put hollow fragment under a microscope again.

If either of its remaining fears (harm coming to Goldie or the hidden fear of being hurt itself) were exploited without having the means to fight back or stop it, ergo invoking the peril of helplessness, would it evoke any expression of distress responses from Hollow? Or is emotional shutdown the only mechanism it can access?

Hey, sorry it took me a minute to answer this. Actually, at one point, I did have a conversation with @lonelyfreddles where she brought up the idea of Goldie physically attacking Hollow. Now, this doesn't cause distress as we understand it as a human response. Hollow's emotions are either heavily suppressed or packaged up in Foxybro Fragment, so it's not able to experience emotional reactions the same way that most people do. But what does happen is that Hollow gets trapped in a sort of 'logic error' - a result of it nearly merging with the computer game to the point it's nearly a program itself. Hollow struggles to reconcile its mission with the realization that its actions have brought harm - however unintentionally - to the only person (or thing) it's even capable of caring about anymore. This causes Hollow to shut itself away as it struggles to reevaluate its mission and its methods.

Making Hollow helpless is a bit tricky, because for one, it is extremely powerful in the game world. Just not moreso than the actual human developers creating the game, so it's limited mainly by what it can get away with doing without drawing their attention. For that reason - on tip of being so numb - fear of being hurt isn't quite as applicable to Hollow these days. On the other hand, if Goldie were in danger, and Hollow were rendered helpless to do anything about it, that might possible stir the remaining dregs of its emotional responses. Or send it spiraling into another logic error.

I forget if I've actually talked about this on tumblr, but @lonelyfreddles and @honey-bunnysaurus and I have actually discussed a different idea, involving both Fox and Hollow existing at the same time. In which case, Fox is Hollow's emotional response. Actual, psychological responses given tangible form via supernatural and digital methods. So while evoking an emotional response from Hollow would be an exercise in futility, that doesn't mean there are no emotions to exploit. They've just been... relocated.

[hxperion]

13. what themes/motifs do you hope other people notice most about your character?

{questions for the mun] A major theme for Jack is Heroism corrupts. or the quote "you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" Because at the end of his day is a key theme to his character. Because he was technically a hero in the pre-sequel (with the underlying motive of take over hyperion and actually get into the vault on eplis). and disagreeing with the lost legion motive of destroying eplis which would of killed the thousands that lived on the moon. which of course we see at the end of that, he is more willing to slaughter all bandits or anyone who wrongs him on Pandora. who has a higher population then Eplis. This leads into another minor theme but also apart of his character is that money and power corrupts as we know from the first ever borderlands game, he used Angel to manipulate the original vault hunters to open one of the vaults on pandora and kill the monster inside, so he could later come and collect the eye of the destroyer to make into the eye of helios laser on helios that is used in the pre-sequel. another theme that is more present in borderlands 2 is that grief turns into rage or "why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief" Considering a lot of his anger especially towards Angel is because of her accidental killing of his wife (and her mother). and his initial hatred towards bandits for putting them in that situation in the first place. But we see it also when the vault hunters kill Angel as per her request to stop Jack from charging the vault key. we see when Jack no longer playing around and is determined to kill the vault hunters and all of the bandits on pandora to finish his goal and to get revenge for his daughter. its not a huge theme but its there. of course there is the theme of Icarus from the Greek legends of a man who flew to close to the sun and ended up having his wings that was made of wax melted and fell and drowned in the ocean. This is a good theme for Jack's character considering he did go too close to the sun by taking over Helios (which in greek is the Greek god of the sun) and getting too powerful but ended up being defeated by the vault hunters he underestimated the strength of even with all of his tech at his device and the warrior he relayed on to be defeated. furthermore, in tales, Helios does end up crashing on pandora due to Rhys and his group of friends, and the shutdown of A.I Jack, So the themes and motifs are there. Something important i would like people to know at least how i portray Jack is him having generational trauma, especially towards how he treats Angel. We see even before the death of his wife in Bl3, that in the audio logs that Jack did ask Angel to not- repeat any swearwords he says, upon being question by her when he did swear. Which we see that spirals towards him getting aggressive with her when she swears and often corrects her by saying "language". or being followed by a physical punishment. Something I headcanon personally he picked up from his grandma that raised him considering we know in borderlands 2 that we can find a buzz axe in the house that she had on pandora, and was label as her favorite thing to use for punishments, and we know from the pre-sequel he mentions being beaten by her casually when he was a child.

So i assume that he detests people who are below him either in family-wise or employees-wise of people swearing in front of him is something he detests and outlaws on Pandora and helios, even more so that he hates it the most when Angel does it. So it probably stems from generational trauma of dealing with his grandma and using a lot of her abusive control methods on those below him. It doesn't justify nor will it ever be a justification for the abuse he does because he's still actively doing these things at the end of the day and holds zero regrets in the long run.

[consistantly-changing]

Some things I will add regarding the Tumblr Utils method:

If you have other python software installed, you might need to remove them lest your computer have an issue with which version of Python to run the script on, I had to remove a C++ emulator which was clashing with the python for some reason, though admittedly that program never actually worked for me.

Use the command window rather than trying to download and run the code yourself, the link in the document points to a version of the code that was incompatible with the current Python version I was using and I wasted close to two hours trying to force it to run before giving up.

The API key request appears to be automatic, so you don't have to wait for one of the few remaining staff members to personally authorize you.

This is the current line of code that works to backup your account:

tumblr-backup --save-audio --save-video --tag-index --incremental blog-name

Replace "blog-name" with your blog name.

save-audio and save-video are self explanatory, however I did encounter some issues with posts where videos couldn't be saved. The program will give you a post number pointing to which post couldn't be saved, so if you wish you can go and save those videos/audios through a different method. tag-index creates an index of every tag you've ever used, which is helpful but also note that it means every tag. incremental is perhaps the most useful one, as it allows you to keep updating the backup. The document uses --i, which according to the script I ran is no longer used.

Good wifi is absolutely recommended as this thing ate up most of my bandwidth and took nearly 3 days for about 91000 posts. Another important command, especially if you have wifi troubles, is

tumblr-backup --save-audio --save-video --tag-index --continue blog-name

If ever your command is interrupted, this allows the program to continue from where the last increment stopped. I made a notepad file containing these two lines and just copied + pasted them any time the program crashed.

You can use your computer while this runs, I set mine up with a power connection and disabled the auto shutdown feature. I do recommend doing this, it's not difficult as long as you don't have the world's most unique computer problems like I did.

Btw much as I love to make fun of twitter and reddit's business decisions, I have 0% trust in tumblr's management to not go a similar route so this is your gentle reminder that you should regularly go to your blog settings to export your blog. That's a fancy way of saying you can download a backup of your blog so if everything goes down you'll still have a backup of your posts & convos.