interesting

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sundragon:

starcrossed-sky:

starcrossed-sky:

Hey Twitter(/Reddit) alternative seekers

Okay, fandom. Everyone’s all worked all the time about this or that new alternative to Twitter and how it’s either awesome or it sucks. I’m here to tell you about an OLD alternative: Plurk.

(Note that this was originally formatted for Twitter so forgive the jank thread paragraphing)

Disclaimer: This information is specifically aimed at people who use Twitter for fandom purposes; it is not intended to cover the exhaustive list of things that people use Twitter for (professional networking, art/photography promotion world news, etc). It’s friend-centric rather than follow-centric, at least as the existing site culture goes.

So what is Plurk? It’s a threaded microblogging platform dating back to 2008 that has only ever seen extremely niche use in English-language use. (Its primary userbase is Chinese-speaking.) It has a purely chronological timeline and a lot of privacy features that you haven’t seen since the LJ era (assuming you’re old enough to remember that).

Plurk functions through an exclusively-chronological timeline on your homepage (desktop) or in the app. Algorithmically sourced content? We ain’t got it! (There is a different page for viewing top content but you have to go there specifically.) Instead, your timeline shows your own content and the content of other plurkers you friend or follow, and the occasional ad (MUCH more occasional than Twitter).

Each top-level plurk can be replied to, and this creates a chain of replies that can be used for conversation. Unlike Twitter and Reddit, replies don’t form branching threads; each plurk is only one stream of conversation. Plurks with unread replies will be lit up as unread; however, they can be “muted” to stop them from giving you notifications.

(Two small caveats: You cannot mute your own plurks, and there is actually a cap of around 200 muted plurks. Mutes will fall off from the oldest, so you’ll sometimes see an ancient plurk pop back up on your timeline if someone comes back to it. You can just mute it again.)

Your plurk timeline has a global privacy control. If your timeline is set to private, only people you have friended can see what you say on there. If your timeline is public, then anyone who comes to you page can see what you’ve posted, AND logged-in users can share your post on their own timeline with the “replurk” function (works just like a normal retweet), as well as reply to it.

There is also an “anonymous” option, which anonymizes you and also the names of everyone who replies (it randomly generates names like “lemon354” and “libra262” for repliers to differentiate them). Anonymous plurks will stay within your timeline if your plurk is set to private, but can be replurked if it’s public.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE, because individual plurks can also be given specific privacy levels:
-> Friends only (if your timeline is public but you don’t want this one getting around)
-> Private to “cliques,” which are Twitter circles but you can have more than one
-> Individual users (including those not on your friends list – this is plurk’s equivalent of DMs)

Your own plurk homepage is also insanely customizable, if you want to break out the CSS or even just have a custom background. You can also alter your display name (though the character cap is VERY short), and your display name color, as well as the standard avatar change. Usernames cannot be changed as a free user, but can be changed by paid users (more on paid options in a second).

Plurk also has its own image hosting, and a pastebin-alike plaintext called Plurk Paste that has no character limit. (The character limit for top-level plurks is longer than Twitter’s.)

It also has CUSTOM EMOTES in addition to its (somewhat wild) default selection. They’re similar to Discord’s customs, except that you can use GIFs from the get go; what’s restricted is the number of slots you have as a free user. (And size is capped at 48×48 px.)

Plurk has ads, but they’re mostly unobtrusive (and can be clocked entirely with ad blockers, but I didn’t say that). Plurk keeps the lights on through a subscription model called Plurk Coin, which is very cheap (under $2.50 USD/month) and can be gifted to other users. Coin gives you a number of benefits including the “Except” privacy option, more username colors, response editing, and a bunch more custom emote slots.

Concerned about harassment? Plurk has one of the most robust blocking systems in social media that I’ve ever seen. You block someone, and they can’t see you (even by going to your profile) and you can’t see them. That’s it, done. Full no-contact.

NSFW/18+ content is allowed. There’s a specific flag for it when you first post a plurk. Plurk does expect you to use that tag when appropriate, but is otherwise very forgiving of NSFW content, at least in my experience. (Again, though, English plurk is a very small community ATM).

The thing to remember about Plurk is that it is very much a remnant of an older internet, from the days before algorithms. Like Tumblr, it’s a social media where you won’t see anything if you don’t reach out to follow and friend people. It predates “going viral” as a goal of internet usage. The goal is to talk to people.

As an aside: Since I originally wrote this up, I’ve seen rumors about Japanese fanartists moving to plurk and even seen one or two mentions of it in the wild on my Twitter timeline as people talk about following those artists. Fantastic! If that’s you, then I hope you find this slightly more in-depth guide to features helpful.

If this sounds up your alley, I’ve made a public plurk specifically for Twitter refugees to come meet people and get more information on how plurk works! You can find it here.

Twitter version: [link]

Please replurk to spread this information about!

Apparently the news of the morning is that longstink wants to remove blocking except as a DM feature! That probably violates some kind of EU law! But we’re bumping this again accordingly. Please consider Plurk i swear it is a real website and not a bit.

Genuinely hoping Plurk gets popular again. It was never huge but I remember it being active and fun in the early 2010s, Livejournal graphic makers would make icons/banners for it and all that.

Tags:

#Plurk #interesting #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

Introducing the ability to mute users

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

{{Title link: https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/24853 }}

ao3commentoftheday:

ao3org:

In our ongoing efforts to give you more tools for curating your Archive experience, we’re rolling out a new interface to let you hide content by specific users.

Muting hides content from your view of the Archive. Blocking stops another user from interacting with you. This muting functionality is a really exciting update following on from the announcement of comment blocking back in June of last year.

Many thanks to the volunteers on AD&T who coded these changes and to the volunteers who tested and reviewed the code as well. I’m so thankful for all of your hard work ❤️

Tags:

#AO3 #interesting #the more you know #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess:

headspace-hotel:

thesixthstar:

annabelle–cane:

I think a lot of people spent their childhoods being very deliberately forced out of their comfort zones by parents / teachers / whomever in a way that was just deeply unpleasant and degrading and so, when they reach young adulthood and are finally allowed real control over their lives, become set on only doing things they know they’re comfortable with forever. that’s a really important thing to be able to do, especially if you’re so used to having your boundaries routinely ignored that you aren’t even certain what you like vs what you can bear, so I absolutely see why a person would have a negative reaction to being told that discomfort is good: it can very easily sound like being told that all that work they’ve been doing to prioritze their needs for the first time ever is Bad and Selfish, actually. and to that I will say two things:

one: as long as you aren’t hurting or, like, being a dick to anyone, just staying in your comfort zone isn’t an immoral action. if you just want to read one type of book (or just fanfiction), or just eat one type of food, or just watch one type of movie, or not go to new types of social events, you aren’t being a bad person for that, and if people say that, they are soundly wrong and just trying to get a self-righteousness kick.

two: trying new things because you want to expand yourself feels a hell of a lot different than trying new things because you’re being forced to. you’ll feel better about trying new foods if you know you have a back up familiar one in case you can’t stomach the new one, it’s easier to read new books if you can experiment with audio versions or reading it in little five-page chunks by yourself, you can breathe a lot easier going somewhere new if you aren’t chained there for three hours because your parent is your ride home, etc.

tl;dr: new things are good. I get why you might not want to try new things, and that’s fine, but it’s also more comfortable to try new things as an adult with your own agency so, yeah, what have you got to lose by trying a weird old art film?

It’s really important to recognize that the negative reaction you might have to being forced into something new might make your reaction much worse than if you had the no-pressure option to explore it on your own. I always try new foods when no one is around, or only some few close friends I trust on that level, because I feel judged for being a picky eater – even if people aren’t *actually* judging me, I feel judged anyways and the pressure makes the whole experience unpleasant and I’m less likely to enjoy the food

It’s also important to recognize that sometimes, newness, in and of itself, can trigger a disgust reaction. For this reason, when i’m genuinely trying some new food/drink, I take a small bite/sip or two to get over the initial “this is new and new is bad ew ew ew” reaction, and then take the next bite/sip to actually evaluate how I feel about the flavor/texture/etc. Even when i don’t end up liking the food, this often takes a food I’d be super grossed out by and moves it closer to the “eh i simply don’t like it” category.

huge part of being autistic (and why that is Literally Traumatizing) is that your comfort levels and sensory experiences are so out of touch with everyone else’s that you’re just routinely subjected to awful, terrifying, torturous stuff as a kid and you are told “no one likes this, everyone is scared sometimes, but you just have to do it”

because the adults in your life think you’re experiencing a normal, bearable level of discomfort? because that’s what they themselves would experience, in your situation?

And you have never experienced being another person, so you think you are experiencing a normal, bearable level of discomfort, and just over-reacting to it.

The part that really digs itself into your psyche is the certainty that you can’t expect the world to be kind to you. That suffering so much is just and even necessary. The feeling that the whole world will see you in excruciating distress and think it’s unnecessary to help you, just, scars some deep primal part of your brain

it me

Tags:

#as does this‚ in a way #and yeah‚ consent matters #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #interesting #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #autism #(…I don’t have a dedicated tag for immune bullshit as such‚ but that bit in the comments about) #(”the adults in your life think you’re experiencing a normal‚ bearable level of discomfort because that’s what they themselves would”) #(sure is a thing)

And on the topic of Cary Elwes… (Iocane Powder in The Princess Bride)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

greenekangaroo:

endreal:

endreal:

Remember that scene in The Princess Bride where Westley challenges Vizzini to a battle of the wits—you know, the one with the iocane powder?

The last few times I watched the movie, something about that scene didn’t set quite right with me, and I’ve been developing a theory about what’s really going on.

Westley was involved in a battle of wits against Vizzini, a battle which, necessarily, involves a certain amount of deception. I think that Westley was deceiving Vizzini about his use of the iocane powder.

Westley describes iocane powder to Vizzini as being “odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man.” 

When presenting the poison to Vizzini, Westley also gives him the explicit instructions “Inhale this, but do not touch.”

While I believe Westley may truthfully have spent several years building up a resistance to the effects of iocane powder, I propose that rather than poisoning both goblets as he claimed to have done, Westley didn’t pour the iocane powder into either cup of wine!

Especially since the iocane was in powder form, I suspect that rather than being an ingested poison, it was an inhalation poison!

Vizzini wasn’t poisoned when Westley poured (or didn’t pour) iocane powder into the wine goblets, but when Westley told him to waft the vial of iocane powder. Since iocane powder is odorless, Vizzini wouldn’t have noticed that trace amounts of one of  the “more deadly poisons known to man” had been introduced into his system…trace amounts that were still enough to kill a man within minutes.

And since iocane powder came from Australia, and it’s well documented that Australia is home to some of the most venomous species of plants and animals on earth, there’s no reason not to believe that such a small quantity iocane powder could have killed a man of Vizzini’s stature.

Westley had already won the battle of wits before it had begun, and was simply stalling for time until the poison took it’s effect.

All quotes from the script accessed from this site: [X]

This is, in all likelihood, the most important post I’ve ever made on this blue-bordered website.

holy shit. 

Tags:

#interesting #Princess Bride #meta #poison cw #death tw?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

lateforcakes:

cd7f3720f2f379129b69e22b415dc7401ecbe7e0
fabfa6dee74daef93ebfdfeeeb0895f5274419c6
b89cadc3d2c106049ad7f495021d2609c17ba3ad
4dfb0e4545d78a1688ad99a6660686bcc78c12e8
309b700ac6fd4a630b9b63a9276dbce1db520fb2

big ole comic about adult ADHD diagnosis + big feelings + making sure childhood me is okay

Tags:

#hmm #that’s an interesting way of looking at it #(I don’t have ADHD but there’s a similar dynamic with a lot of lifelong conditions) #art #comics #ADHD #abuse cw?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

pedanther:

miseriathome:

{{ https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_raeis6EzSv1qlkqmz.mp4 }}

https://www.tiktok.com/@tylerandhistummy/video/7086509725671722286

Video description and transcription:

Tiktok by Tyler from Fig (tylerandhistummy)

[Tyler faces the camera and speaks to it.]

If this video helps even one person, it was worth it.

So, I’ve got a ton of ingredients that my body reacts to: corn, citric acid, gluten, chocolate, bananas, peanut oil–I’m all over the place.

It was so hard to read ingredient labels and just find food that I could eat. Grocery trips were unbearable, they took like two or three hours usually.

But I always had this idea on how to make it easier. So I quit my job and helped build an app over the past few years. And that app’s called Fig.

[A phone screen showing the app interface, which Tyler scrolls through.
Top text reads: “First up: Do you follow any of these diets? Dietary restrictions are complex – it’s ok to select more than one!”
Underneath is a checklist of ingredients and dietary restriction, including categories with suboptions.]

What makes fig unique is we’re trying to help pretty much everybody that has to avoid certain ingredients.

That means we’ve got a ton of things that you can select from–even really specific ingredients.

[Camera briefly returns to Tyler’s face again.]

And like I had dreamed of for so many years, checking ingredients is as quick as this.

[A phone camera scans the barcode on a bottle of spices. Details about the product appear, including an ingredients list and allergen statement. The ingredient “citric acid” appears in red all-caps. There is also an accompanying message that says “This product does not match your Fig.”]

And finding food you can eat is as simple as this.

[The app displays a scrollable list of food items, similar to a storefront. Each item has a save toggle and is accompanied by a photo, the product brand/name, and its size.
There is a search bar labeled “search for a product.”
There are also menus for narrowing the search; one is set to “allowed,” one is set to “Whole Foods,” and another unaltered menu is titled “Category.”]

[The camera returns to Tyler.]

So if you know anybody with food allergies, stomach issues, other dietary restrictions, I’d really appreciate it if you shared it with them.

[The appstore listing for Fig: Food Scanner & Discovery.]

It’s called Fig, it’s completely free, and you can get it on iOS and Android in the US.

[Tyler smiles at the camera.]

Thanks for helping out.

Food Scanner App – Fig: Food Is Good

Currently only available in the US, but their website says they’re “excited to expand to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom soon”.

Tags:

#interesting #food #poison cw? #it looks like their business model is the standard intrusive advertising shit #so tread with caution #but it exists if you need it

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

mouserat-vevo:

c14813025c5ca93735fe171ca22ffa43acc6b1d3

Tags:

#huh #interesting #Doctor Who #(my first thought was that this was one of those memes-from-an-alternate-universe) #(but no this is apparently a thing that’s happening) #I reserve judgment but will probably actually bother to try his new stuff (unlike Chris Chibnall)

Anti-Monarchist is the Good King in Discworld

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

racefortheironthrone:

You once said that Carrot Ironfoundersson as an anti-monarchist royal is the true essence of the Good King. Could you care to elaborate?

Well, I first elaborated on it here way back when I was a youngun, but I can do a short version here:

Carrot is, at a direct metaphysical level, the True King of Ankh-Morpork. He’s got the Magic Sword, he’s got the Prophecy, he’s got a Destiny that can literally bend reality around it.

And yet, he chooses not to become king, to permanently stop anyone who tries to make him (or anyone else) king, to literally bury the evidence of his birthright. Because “Mister Vimes wouldn’t like it,” and Carrot Ironfoundersson has imprinted on Sam Vimes as the Avatar of Justice (not law – he’s got the book for those – but justice) like a baby duck. 

And what does Sam Vimes tell him about monarchy?

“But that’s not right, see? One man with the power of life and death.”

“But if he’s a good man—” Carrot began.

“What? What? OK. OK. Let’s believe he’s a good man. But his second-in-command—is he a good man too? You’d better hope so. Because he’s the supreme ruler, too, in the name of the king. And the rest of the court…they’ve got to be good men. Because if just one of them’s a bad man the result is bribery and patronage.”

This only becomes clear when you extrapolate beyond Guards, Guards to Men At Arms, where it becomes clear that Carrot knows, that he’s willing to make use of it for the best interests of the city, but that he’s decided that Vetinari as Renaissance overlord is in the best interests of the city so long as Vetinari is occasionally willing to have polite chats over tea about Watch staffing issues. 

Hence, anti-monarchism as the true essence of the Good King. 

 

theoutcastrogue:

In my humble opinion, Discworld’s anti-monarchism is SEVERELY undercut by the development of Vetinari from “comically authoritarian dictator autocrat OKAY FINE let’s call him Renaissance overlord” to “comically authoritarian autocrat who is somehow the best option, I mean he’s not a good man but he does have the best intentions for Ankh-Morpork, and besides he gets shit done, right? right?”

However, the above opinion is NOT informed by the sum total of Discworld books (I still haven’t read a bunch of them), so it’s entirely possible I’m off here. Honestly, I’d love to be proven wrong. And I don’t care about spoilers, so if anyone wants to argue, please go ahead and enlighten me.

 

honourablejester:

Oh, I have so many thoughts on Vetinari (I wrote fanfic about them), so I hope I’m semi-coherent this early in the morning (it’s not early in the morning, it’s 3:30pm, but it’s the holidays).

The thing with Vetinari is that he is, in fact, a tyrant. An explicit one, who outright says so. And that is because Vetinari has a thesis and a project on governance. If a system has been autocratic for centuries, and the people under it believe in autocratic power, then to change that you do in fact need at least one last autocrat. Because he can change things, and no one can stop him, because he’s a tyrant and that’s pretty much the definition.

This shows up best in Night Watch, and Jingo, and a bit in the Moist Lipwig books. But if you take the Ankh Morpork books as a whole and watch what he does throughout the whole decades-long arc, you get a picture of his plan for the city.

Night Watch is particularly good because you get to see, through the marvels of time travel, what started him. The system he was coming from. The old Patricians and what they were like, and the endless cycle of revolution that just put new ones on the throne. The King Patrician is dead, long live the King Patrician. None of the engines of power around them were changed, so the Patrician himself could be good or bad or dire and all it would do is change the number who directly died of them, and not much else.

Then we get Vetinari. And we get to see what he does.

(Keep Reading because this got so long on me, I have Thoughts TM):

Keep reading

Tags:

#Discworld #meta #interesting

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

hirilelfwraith:

squirrelwrangler:

ankkaneito:

When will creators of famous and beloved franchises realise that no fan in the history of fandoms has wanted the sequel with the new generation to have higher stakes and more angsty drama than the original.

A Fan: Wow, can’t wait to see the heroes’ children living in a world that has been made better by the original heroes, having a loving and respectful relationship with the hero I loved and respected as a child, and dealing with their own adventure that might not be as high stake as saving the world, but is important for their own personal journey. 

A creator: How about the world is ending again, the new generation hates the heroes, who have become major assholes for no reason, and everything is bigger and goes more boom.  

Hobbit/Lord of the Rings is the SINGLE exception to higher stakes sequel

and you know why? it’s bc nothing in lotr undid what happened in the hobbit

the hobbit was a lower-stakes story about bilbo helping some dwarves reclaim their ancestral home, and in lotr (the book at least) tolkien goes out of his way to talk about how bilbo lived for a long time rich and famous and happy, and that erebor and dale are prosperous and successful. the threat is something that bilbo brought home with him, but if bilbo hadn’t found it, it would have fallen into worse hands. 

the reason why higher-stakes sequels are so often disappointing is bc it’s a betrayal of the original work, and undoes its premise and its victory. in the hobbit, they were never setting out to save the whole of middle earth, so the fact that the whole of middle earth ends up in peril during lotr doesn’t feel like a betrayal. terrible things happen in lotr, but they are better than they would have been in the hobbit hadn’t happened, and that’s why it works

Tags:

#Middle Earth #meta #interesting

Big News!

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

arihi:

New year, new website!

Hey everyone! Read Only Mind (ROM) is an inclusive archive for mind control and hypnosis erotica made by a small team that wanted to add features for writers and readers alike, and to help foster a community of content creators. You can find us at our website here!

READ ONLY MIND

I am super excited to share this with y’all as we’ve been working on it for a while. Examples of our features include account creation to post and upload your stories at any time, a tagging system (!!), comments, following stories for that anticipated next chapter, statistics for authors to see how readers engage with their content, an advanced search bar, and more.

This is a resource made by and for community, and we hope to grow with everyone’s help and support. Go ahead and check our About section for Rules and our FAQ, and please check it out and discover the stories and features, bookmark it for future content, and write your own stories if you’d like!

Since this is Tumblr and I don’t have CHARACTER limits, I can talk about how I’m excited for this! The other admin and I wanted a website that could offer more than what we were used to, while not having to see racist stories scroll by. This website is the result of that! We have story likes (called ‘snaps’), comments and suggestions (that you have the option to turn off as the author!), you’ll get to see how many people view your story and the number of snaps you’ve received, and a bunch of other stuff! You’re free to post onto ROM and other places at the same time since exclusivity isn’t a requirement, but we have a few authors who’ve already uploaded stories and are making the move over.

Spread the word for this if you can! You can find our official Twitter account here where we’ll post updates, and our current discord link is HERE where you can join us and talk with some other content creators! It’s a first public push and we’re still taking bug reports should we run into any issues.

Thanks so much for reading!

Tags:

#interesting #sexuality and lack thereof #the more you know #nsfw text? #(for those of y’all who are outsiders interested in subcultural anthropology: #yes ”account creation to post and upload your stories at any time” is a big deal in context) #(at the big mind-control-erotica site you submit your stories to the admin and he goes through and puts them up once a week) #(sometimes there are no updates that week because he was on vacation‚ the implications of which are frankly very concerning) #(does Simon bar Sinister have an heir? does the EMCSA pass the bus test??) #(have we actually been trusting a vital piece of community infrastructure to a single fucking dude for the past 20+ years???) #(I’m not plugged into the scene enough to know whether there are answers to these questions floating around #but I *am* plugged in enough to wonder about it) #death mention