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Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
★
Cosimo Galluzzi
@theartofmadeline
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@kiwibigj
While adventuring in a HAUNTED FOREST, you encounter a small group of SKELETON GIRL ADVENTURERS. They tell you that they have uncovered a dungeon they wish to explore and would like some help in exchange for a share of the loot.
You know that SKELETON GIRLS are more trustworthy than most monster girls, but there is still the possibility of this being a SEXY TRAP. What will you do?
> Risk it > After all, a Skeleton is already inside me > May as well risk that being 3 skeletons
The picnic, and why I’m no longer hosting it
I used to love hosting the San Francisco Trans Ladies’ Picnic.
I went to one of these picnics in the Fall of 2013, hosted by a friend. I thought it was great to have a place where trans / CAMAB people could congregate, chat, and generally have fun. I connected with many other trans women by hosting the picnic, and hope that those who attended have made worthwhile connections as well.
Even though it was supposed to be B.Y.O.B., and there were some people who did, I usually did the organizing, bought food, and brought the food, but this was a small price to pay for community building, and since I was making decent money at the time, I didn’t mind this expense at all.
I hosted my first picnic on April 20, 2014, in Dolores Park. It was both Easter AND 4/20, so this made for an interesting experience. The picnic was a success, and as soon as April’s picnic was over, I created a Facebook event for May’s event.
The May event was equally fun, and by the time the June picnic (during Trans March) was planned, I was super psyched.
Everything went well, until one particular person showed up. As soon as this person (who I shall call #1) sat down, every incredibly loud sentence out of their mouth was either about killing cis people, or about how they were sexually abused.
This talk made all of the attendees incredibly uncomfortable, including myself. Luckily, after a while, #1 went elsewhere, and the rest of the day was pleasant. Later on, #1 friended me on Facebook, and I accepted because I felt sorry for them.
A few months passed, and I heard nothing from #1. However, #1′s practice of tagging me, in Facebook photos that I’m not in, irritated me greatly, so I unfriended them. I would directly have asked them to stop, but I decided that I really didn’t want to engage #1 in any way.
I continued to host the picnic monthly, including a relatively unsuccessful run at a coffee shop during the winter months. March of 2015 eventually rolled around, and I took a trip to Portland, OR for a few days.
As I was leaving Portland, #1 attempted to friend me again. Once again, I felt sorry for them, and accepted the friend request. I was incredibly happy, though, that they were in Portland and that I was in San Francisco, so I wouldn’t have to engage this person.
As luck would have it, #1 moved back to the Bay Area a few weeks later, and also started tagging me in their photos once again. This time, though, I simply quietly removed any tags, and went on with my day.
Soon, a group of trans women were on a crusade against the leather establishments of Soma, for their exclusion of trans women. They would carry on this crusade by going to these bars, and antagonizing anyone who came across their path whose behaviour or action they did not agree with. I was behind their idea of a collective, which included people #2 and #3, but didn’t want any part in the antagonism.
The members of the collective were soon attending the picnic, which made other attendees a bit uneasy, but I didn’t want to tell anyone how to conduct their lives, even if I didn’t agree with their methods.
As the weather became warmer, #1 once again started to show up at picnics. I knew that they were disturbing the other picnicgoers, but this time I didn’t want to engage #1 for fear of violent behaviour against me.
At the same time, I had a friend, #4. I had found out through the grapevine that #4 and #5 were dating, #5 had accused #4 of sexual assault, and had told #4 not to attend the picnic, none of which I learned about until after the fact. I then decided that, to cool things down a bit because it sounded like there’d be a picnic fist fight, I asked that neither #4 nor #5 attend that month. Both said that they understood.
When #1 arrived, it was very similar to the incident of the June before, and a few people started to move away from them. A cis man walked over to the picnic, said hello for some odd reason, and mistakenly misgendered #1. I was trying to politely tell the guy to leave, but before that could happen, #1 chased the guy out of the park. When they returned, they said “I should have gotten out my knife”.
Immediately after that, the picnic was over because most of the people left. Later on, five separate people told me that, if #1 was attending, they would not attend, because they no longer felt safe at the picnic. #2 witnessed what happened, also went home, texted me and asked if I wanted to talk about it. We did so, and tried to create some ground rules about asking those who were being violent in these spaces to not do so, or be asked to leave.
As soon as some folks found out what was being proposed, #5, a person we’ll call #6, and another we’ll call #7, took me to task for trying to take these steps to avoid violence. Let me be clear: I DID NOT EVER WANT TO PERMANENTLY EXCLUDE ANYONE from the picnics, but wanted to take steps to ensure that everyone felt safe. #1, whose violent behavior was scaring away most of the picnic attendees, is on the autism spectrum. Therefore, the people who took me to task claimed that I was then being an ableist, for what I thought was my trying to make things better for everyone. #6 and I had a disagreement, but settled it like adults. #7 was a complete and total asshole, and basically shouted me down until their way of how they thought things should be was implemented by me. They threatened to post our conversations, and I relented, not because I felt guilty, but because I spent all day bickering with bullies, and I didn’t want any more of it. To this day, I do not care if they post what I said. In fact, I invite it.
I also got a random angry text from #3 (of the collective), who took everything they heard about me out of context, and told me that I was a horrible person whom they didn’t feel safe around. I retorted with “Well, I don’t feel safe around you either, so…”.
The number of attendees at the SF Picnic soon dwindled down. I moved the picnic to Duboce Park for a change of scenery, and because the park rangers post-Northern-Dolores-Park-opening were being downright Draconian.
A few new people showed up, but none of the old people who were scared of #1 did. The last picnic had just four attendees, myself included. I simply didn’t make a new Facebook event for the next month, and it was over.
I unfriended #1 recently, because I mistakenly invited them to my birthday event, and they replied that they were going. I uninvited them, unfriended them, and moved the event to a new venue just to avoid them. When they found out about the unfriending, they verbally attacked me on Facebook, and also called me ableist and misogynistic.
I honestly think that half the people didn’t want to come back because they didn’t feel safe, and the other half didn’t want to attend because they got it into their heads that I’m an ableist fuckhead.
And that’s how the best of intentions can kill a good thing. The picnic brought a sense of joy into my life, and I thought that I was doing something good for our community. All I wanted to do was create a space for people to come together, and instead, the space dwindled down to nothing, and I was even vilified by some. But I did as I always do… the best I could with what I had.
This is terrifying, but knowing what I do about #1, it makes perfect sense. You and your associates deserved much better and I’m sorry that the picnic is no longer being held. For the uninitiated, #1 is someone I’ve covered previously, and is arguably one of the most toxic, insane, abusive individuals I have ever encountered. Not only do I know you’re telling the truth, but that, if anything, you are understating things.
A Tumblr article by LordHuchefant has been getting shared recently that makes a number of untrue claims about the Trans Lifeline. We…
Trans Lifeline has posted an official response to the misinformation that is currently being spread.
“A Tumblr article by LordHauchefant has been getting shared recently that makes a number of untrue claims about the Trans Lifeline. We decided to go through line by line and debunk post. You can view the original article here.
“Ever since the Presidential Election results came in, there’s been post after post of people spreading around the phone number for a supposed suicide hotline for trans people, called Trans Lifeline.
What people don’t know is that this “hotline” is a huge scam meant to fund the founder’s’ personal lives,…”
Nina Chaubal and Greta Martela are two trans women who were software engineers in San Francisco. When Greta was suicidal, she experienced ignorance, mistreatment, and abuse while trying to get the help she needed. They decided they needed to do something to help other suicidal trans folks, so they left their jobs where they made a combined income of $260,000 in order to found the Trans Lifeline. In 2015, the both dedicated themselves full time to the Trans Lifeline. Greta collected a salary of $28,800 that year, and Nina worked without pay for the first fifteen months of Trans Lifeline, living entirely off of her savings. In 2016, they are each collecting a salary of $30,000 (since they work 70 hours per week on average, that is practically minimum wage) for a combined income of $60,000.
“…and that the hotline barely answers their calls, if ever.”
Since Trans Lifeline launched in November of 2014, we’ve answered 17,064 calls.
“A twitter was made a while back to cover the small, almost nonexistent amount of operators on the line, but it is now inoperable because the founders found out and shut down the source of the twitter bot’s information, because how dare someone provide the truth.”
Kiwifarms is a website dedicated to harassing autistic trans women into dying by suicide. Kiwifarms launched a personal attacks on staff of Trans Lifeline including Greta, Nina, and an intern. This attack included leaving explicit harassing messages, death threats, and attempting to disclose their personal addresses online. Frustrated that their attacks did not dissuade us from offering life-saving support to trans people who were suicidal, Kiwifarms supporters created a twitter bot to defame Trans Lifeline and spread lies. Kiwifarms is being investigated by the federal government as a hate group in connection with this incident and a number of other alleged malicious crimes.”
READ MORE
By “lies,” she means “completely accurate truth,” and you can check that yourself. I encourage you to, in fact. Even if you completely disregard the content of our ongoing article coverage of Trans Lifeline, you’ll find our citations are completely accurate and almost entirely taken from TLL itself: https://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Trans_LifeLine Fact of the matter is, Trans LifeLine is a dangerous scam: Most suicide hotlines require extensive training and dozens of hours of prep time so operators can deal with issues; TLL gives a powerpoint presentation and a course less than four hours long. TLL employees are not vetted for prior history and this has resulted in callers being hung up on by operators for tiny infractions like a mis-used word. It’s not credited by any legitimate medical agency (such as the American Association for Suicidology) because of it does not believe in calling the police, even if a caller disconnects intending to off themselves. TLL employees are on-record saying that they will not call the police even if lives are in jeopardy, and the justification for doing so boils down to “misgendering” and a multi-page rant of how the police should not exist. It responds to less than 20% of calls by its own admission. Multiple users of TLL have posited that it’s virtually impossible to get through on a given day. Bots and independent investigations into TLL have backed these findings. Its budget is full of holes and its operator is on-record for committing open inurement; TLL’s operators have used the hotline’s funds for personal business on multiple occasions. TLL has been completely unable to account for massive gaps in its bookkeeping.
All the above and more is covered in our Lolcow Wiki article.They’re absolutely shameless and their actions have led to multiple suicides that they’ve then blamed on the Farms because it’s an easy target. Know the facts.
Amanda Waite / Manapan on Kiwi Farms - suspected of being involved in the suicide of Elizabeth Waite
Don’t fall for this. Phil, AKA ADF, is part of the same group that sat around and did fuck all when Elizabeth Waite (a transwoman with severe psychiatric problems) was suicidal, and then proceeded to attack Elizabeth’s spouse because said spouse had the gall to ask too many questions of how Trans LifeLine, which ADF is a big proponent of, dropped the ball on this. I encourage you all to do your own due diligence; you needn’t listen to me, but the citations we have covering TLL’s litany of offenses is well-known. https://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Trans_LifeLine ADF is an asshole who is trying to cover his own ass. He has a long and glorious history of exploiting suicides in the most blatant, sick fashion imaginable to push an agenda.
For example, here’s his sick tattoo of another suicide victim. He has zero shame.
Trans-Racial Adoption is a Hate Crime
Reasons why:
1. They are denying the child a culture, since white people don’t have a culture.
2. They are looking for a living accessory.
3. They are cultivating a new recipient of white privilege that will ultimately be self-hating. In the end, the only beneficiaries of whiteness are actual white people. No matter how hard the child will try, they will never be physically white, and therefore useless to other white people.
If this is the case and white people have no value, why are all the countries that currently have slavery run by non-whites? As well as the ones with the largest histories of human rights abuses? White People aren’t the fucking devil. Holy shit, what a concept.
Another Goddamned Brexit Post
Like if you, like me, believe that people mindlessly screaming "racist" as the only goddamn argument for #Remain has led you to find the arguments against #Brexit LESS convincing.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
I’ve been tired of this fallacy for years and for some reason it’s popped back up again the past couple of days.
I’d post this to a more appropriate blog but it seems that blog has been gone for quite a while, I wonder where it went! It is a mystery.
You are the wind beneath my wings
Do you believe that the search for a "cure for autism" is ableist in and of itself?
Yes. The idea that autism needs to be cured is one deeply rooted in the ableist practice of pathologizing or medicalizing autism (and other disabilities, for that matter). Asking whether it is okay to search for a cure for autism means the same thing to me as asking whether it is okay to search for a cure for my gender or my race. The idea that autism needs to be cured can only exist within a framework that sees autism as pathology or defect, and as something that Autistics need to be rid of if they’d like to be able to live a meaningful and rich life. Well, we’re here, and our lives are meaningful and rich as we are, as Autistics – curing us of autism would be akin to curing us of ourselves. You might remove some negative or unpleasant experiences that we have because we’re Autistic, but you would also remove the many, many positive and wonderful experiences that we have because we’re Autistic, as well as our very thought processes, emotional lives, and human existences. So yes, it is ableist to search for a cure for autism.
If you’re going to spend any time on Tumblr, you’re going to find this contingent of people who are big on using Autism claims as a defense from criticism, and not really big on giving any press time to the actual people who actually suffer from the condition. These people embrace Autism as an identity, but are happy to rob the agency from people who would do anything to have something resembling a normal life, because they’re unable to speak or do anything with complex motor skills. These people don’t care that they’re throwing people with legit issues under the bus, and will cry ableism if you point it out. It’s one more thing Tumblr appropriated to claim lack of privilege. Yes, let’s ignore the huge number of people suffering from crippling maladies as the result of Autism - that will result in less people being able to duck behind the ‘Tism as an excuse for their terrible behavior, and what will they do then?! WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES?
Alison Rapp Was a Prostitute.
THIS IS REAL, THIS ACTUALLY IS A THING.
That’s actually her.
Alison Rapp’s “side business” was as an escort.
EXAMPLES: https://archive.is/UivUH https://archive.is/41Q5Z https://archive.is/XJd08 https://archive.is/x5TBM https://archive.is/VDTZK https://archive.is/jbUnI https://archive.is/TyzYm
Her link where she’s an escort: http://archive.is/3VjBf
And more: http://archive.is/e1BSN
Ralph Retort Link: http://theralphretort.com/coin-rush-alison-rapp-call-girl-409016/
It just gets worse from here. Seriously. The hill Anti-GG wanted to die on, folks.
FUCK YOUR ARACHNID BULLSHIT
Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem
I am a gamer. I followed the call of Cthulhu and ran in the shadows with hackers and shamans. I traversed the ancient lands of Greyhawk, Faerun, and Eberron with companions new and old. I swung from an airship and buckled swash over London for the Kerberos Club. I threw dice and flipped cards and ground men into dust playing table-top wargames.
I don’t do that anymore.
Since July of 2015 fans of the game Malifaux have been attempting to overwhelm me with death and rape threats for no other reason than I am a woman who has opinions on the game. Wyrd Miniatures is silent on this matter and hangs up whenever anyone attempts to discuss the harassment. Given that a large number of threats identify the senders by name as Wyrd staff members, I do not find this surprising.
But that’s not what this article is about.
Keep reading
So this was recently shown to be horse-shit. For the uninitated, This user basically tried to get themselves appointed an “ambassador” for tabletop gaming and the FLGS and Playerbase was having none of it.
https://postmortemstudios.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/gamers-the-nicest-white-terrorists-youll-ever-meet/ Have fun alongside Brianna Wu in that zone of increasing irrelevance, asshole. Gaming as a whole has no need of sensationalizing identity politics-driven idiots with delusions of grandeur.
I was about to get disappointed BUT INDEED IT’S CORN
GENTLEMEN.... BEHOLD!! CORN!!
Watch: How toxic masculinity follows men from birth to death.
if someone claims to be feminist but doesn’t support this, then they aren’t a feminist
IMPORTANT!!!
^^truth.
The correct response to any of these is to mock their ass.
Free From Student Loans.
Ate the whole thing.
I informed you thusly.
rock falls, everyone dies
Young Justice Season 3
Well written Harry Potter
Your OTP is canon
GLTAS is officially uncancelled.
Wonderful 101 2 confirmed.
Everyone is not dead
In the Bone Zone
okay seriously reblog if you're older than 12
COME ON PEOPLE, THERE HAS GOT TO BE MORE.
Technically I could reblog several times.
Brianna Wu Faces Malfeasance Allegations
So, a friend linked me to this Medium post, which I have helpfully archived here in case Team Wu tries to get it taken down.
The article itself is from a former Patreon backer of Brianna Wu’s, who alleges that Brianna Wu is lying about her associate, Natalie O’Brien, and argues that this individual does not exist, citing a number of sources, including Brianna Wu’s former staff at Giant Spacekat.
The article goes on to essentially establish that Brianna Wu may have made this individual up and is using her as part of an ongoing scam, and cautions other people to avoid donating to Brianna Wu’s Patreon unless she proves Natalie O’Brien was real.
Do your part to signal boost this. Brianna has a noted tendency to try to silence anything critical of her professiona victimhood operation, and the observations made by the writer are in line with our own long-held suspicions about Natalie O’Brien.
I keep getting variants of this ask so I’ll just make a nice, clean list of all my issues with Nintendo of America to direct people back to.
They’re not very interested in localization.
NoA has never been especially interested in localization. Whether this fact is due to the make-up of the Treehouse (they seemingly have very few actual translators, which is why they have to hire out help for text-heavy projects like Fire Emblem) or is corporate culture that comes down from above I don’t know. Chris Pranger’s attitude during his podcast appearance last August kind of cemented the fact, but you could always tell just looking at how many more games were localized by Nintendo of Europe. They’ve always localized more games than NoA but during the latter half of the Wii generation the number ballooned extensively. The Treehouse is a localization department that doesn’t seem to actually want to localize games, so of course someone like me who wants more games to be available has issues with them.
I hate to bring up Sony because I can already FEEL people getting ready to write me nasty asks for doing so, but Sony understands that even if a game is only a slight success, diversifying your platform’s library leads to a healthier platform and more loyal customers. Sony helped get Yakuza 5, Yakuza and Tales of Hearts R over to the west, and the first and last of those games are on dead or legacy platforms. But they did it anyway because your non-mainstream customers are also likely to be your most fervent supporters who talk nicely about you. For a company like Nintendo which has flat-out called their frothing fans ‘Brand Ambassadors’ their decisions are very confusing.
They’re not very interested in non-mainstream games.
Did you ever play Hotel Dusk? It was a pretty neat little adventure game on the DS. Fairly good writing, unique art style. It has a decent fanbase, too.
Did you know it had a sequel? A lot of people don’t, because it wasn’t released in the United States. It was however, released in Europe. In English. For whatever reason, Nintendo of America deigned not to simply use NoE’s english localization. This is doubly baffling since Hotel Dusk sold SUBSTANTIALLY better in the United States than it did in Europe. It was sure to make significantly more than the relatively low cost of printing and shipping copies of the game, but Nintendo of America still passed, presumably because it wasn’t mainstream enough for them. Is that really the reason? I don’t know, but there’s definitely a pattern to be found in the decisions NoA and the Treehouse make in passing on games NoE localizes into english. Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, Daigasso Band Brothers and Disaster: Day of Crisis were all similarly passed on. Disaster: Day of Crisis even voice work done on NoA’s dime, and they still passed on it.
It’s extremely embarrassing when two second-party games localized by Nintendo of Europe (Last Story and Pandora’s Tower) have to be published in the west by XSEED solely because NoA has their fingers in their ears going LA LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA.
But most famously was Nintendo of America’s adamant, stone-like refusal to let anyone play Xenoblade.
Xenoblade. Just Xenoblade.
Xenoblade came out in Japan and was moderately successful. Then NoE announced they were localizing it. The whole time, NoA refused to say they were bringing it to North America. It released in Europe. They continued to say this. It really looked like they were going to completely ignore the (larger than normal) group of people who wanted to play this ALREADY IN ENGLISH WITH FULL ENGLISH VOICEWORK game. But finally they said 'yeah okay, sure’ and agreed to release the EU versions with absolutely no changes whatsoever (which is good, for reasons I’ll get to later.).
Then they cheaped out. NoA was so cheap they didn’t want to pay to have the game printed and shipped. So they gave it to Gamestop. Gamestop pays for production and shipping of the disks and gets sole distribution rights in North America for Xenoblade Chronicles. And then the game sold more on Day One in North America than it did lifetime in Japan, so despite all their whining and moaning and refusal to spend a bent nickle on the game, it was a success immediately. Except it wasn’t nearly as big a success as it could have been, because the game immediately became rarer than hen’s teeth because surprise, Gamestop is composed of scumbags!
After the initial launch print-run, Gamestop using Xenoblade to dishonestly bilk money out of people who wanted to play it. They 'found’ boxes of 'used’ copies they priced at 80 USD, 30 dollars above MSRP due to the game’s demand and supposed rarity (despite them being in charge of how many copies there were!) And this isn’t a conspiracy theory, they were caught. First-Run copies of Xenoblade use the original Wii DVD Case. After the WiiU’s launch, Wii games came in similar cases, but that had a colorless 'Nintendo’ logo above the disk, sticking out of the plastic. All those 'used’ copies had this, indicating they were clearly not 'used’ but rather games Gamestop had printed, opened, and sold for a significant mark-up. They created an artificial scarcity.
And what’s worse is that due to this deal, NoA can’t even release Xenoblade on the WiiU’s virtual console. That’s why it’s available in EU on E-Shop but not NA.
Maybe they just should have had some disks printed themselves.
Generally Sub-Par Localizations
NoA isn’t very good at localizing.
Their localizations get multiple things wrong, they regularly change characters drastically rewriting their dialogue, they add memes. And yeah, people get very hyperbolic over that last point, but it shouldn’t be noticeable enough for anyone to get hyperbolic about in the first place. Did we really need a 'doge’ meme in a game in 2015? C'mon.
But what bothers me more is just how samey their localizations are, and how completely inept they are when it comes to any character that doesn’t have a single defining trait for them to latch on. Play multiple NoA localized games in a row and you’ll see my point on the first one. Everyone talks in a very casual, 'quirky’ manner, regardless of what they spoke like originally and how fitting that tone and candor is. It’s very noticeable and jarring, especially since it’s every single thing they do.
And as for the second point, whenever faced with a character that doesn’t have a single defining characteristic to focus on, NoA is completely lost and has to make one up. The most recent casualty of this is Hisame in FE:Fates, who is obsessed with pickles for some reason now, I guess.
The Assassination of Fatal Frame 5 By The Coward Nintendo of America
Nintendo of America drowned Fatal Frame 5 in it’s bathtub.
And while there’s no real evidence that it was done deliberately so NoA could point to it as a failure when asked to localize other, future niche titles, it’s very curious that it happened almost immediately after Chris Pranger’s 'screw localization and screw people who ask us for localization!’ rant last august (that he was fired for, but I’m of the opinion he was fired for saying the company’s internal process, rather than being an angry nerd).
Fatal Frame 5 was requested by fans for ages. Then NoA said they’d localize it.
Then they said it’d be digital only. The game is too large to fit even on the deluxe Wii-U model, so to even purchase it you have to have an external HD attached to your WiiU. Something almost no WiiU owners do, and are unlikely to do for a single game.
Unsurprisingly, the game hasn’t sold very well. That’s what happens when you cut out 99.9% of potential customers. The sting is worse considering they deigned to release Devil’s Third, a universally panned title, physically only the next month.
There’s other stuff since, but I’m not really interested in the Fire Emblem Discourse and most of my problems with NoA are significantly larger than what they did to that game.
This is all true. Read well, friends.
