#interesting.

[cpericardium]

[queerpyracy]

i just think it's interesting how all the concerned posting i'm seeing on other websites about political violence is concerned entirely with political violence against the wealthy and powerful and doesn't seem to consider deployment of the national guard to US cities or police repression of protests to be political violence

[cotgar]

My thoughts as someone who has been fixated on Pressure for the last two years + even did official art.

For those of you like me who need to move on but are scared to because the media is close to you.

———

Hi. Since this is going in the pressure tag, I might as well introduce myself. I’m Cotgar, the artist of the Gotchapon birthday artwork and the most recent Sebastian Solace reference sheet. I’ve been fixated on Pressure since October 2024, even committing personal things to it such as cosplay, merchandise, personal poster works, and two years of fan art.

My statements here assume you know the bare minimum of what happened: Zeal sexually assaulted the previous soundtrack musician, Ren.

**These statements also originally came out on 4/8. Specific thoughts may differ a little, but my message stays the same. I have uploaded a final thoughts post here, which pertains to Zerum’s impact and my thoughts moving forward.

———

I want to approach this as a community member first and foremost.

My take? The game’s done. I personally wish to see no more support for it, as although the main focus of the document is Zeal, Ren mentions cruel involvement from the dev team and their blatant coverups of Zeals actions, painting Ren as “unstable”. I have promptly left the discords, which I encourage you to do as well.

As for what to do mentally? That’s the hard part as someone who’s been so invested in the lore, story, gameplay, and every other aspect of the game. I literally doodled gotchapon this morning all over my work papers. But as someone who doesn’t wish to support the game anymore, I really find it hard to just cut that off. I am not defending the devs in any way by saying that. I am coming purely from a hyperfixation standpoint where my blorbos are jingling around in my brain.

I would like to say: you will not be incriminated to still love the characters for who they were before this point. I will still forever adore the characters I’ve grown to love. But not the ones who wrote them. Anything with them beyond this point in time is considered Not the characters I’ve surrounded myself with. With losing your sense of humanity as a person and involving yourself in disgusting shit like that, I believe that you lose the right to keep people “doing what You want with their characters”. AKA. If I were to still draw Sebastian, let’s say, I could with no connection to the writers. I will not draw him with his wedding ring, for instance. He does not deserve to be “married” to a dev self insert. It’s not the self insert that’s the problem, mind you. It’s the dev.

I suggest now is the time to maybe review that list of shows you’ve been dying to watch. Check out those games that maybe, if you’re like me, you’ve been scared to play because of fear that it’ll take over the hyperfixation.

Move away.

————

My connection and statement as *technically* an artist for the game:

I am horrified. One of the most prevalent things in Ren’s document was the use of cute animal imagery to lull Ren into a sense of security. (From my experience), Kat and Zerum do the same thing. It is unbeknownst to me if it was manipulative. That is not my point. My point is that it’s real language used in the dev team, and it does not surprise me it’s being used maliciously. I am more so scared because I began picking up this habit because people I thought were “cool” were using it as fun conversation. I am impressionable. I began picking it up. Ren’s document showed this to me and I suddenly felt my gut drop.

I will be brief. I have past experience of mental abuse and manipulation. Reading Ren’s document was familiar to me. Not to such a sexual extent, but in a manipulation extent. Seeing the bunny imagery sickened me, as it made me realize that trauma flares that I had worked years and years in therapy to get rid of were now validated: I don’t know whether to trust the devs that were smiling and being so polite to me.

I will not work with Pressure anymore. End of story.

———

You are allowed to still like the characters. The lore. The story. But supporting it is different, and I am ashamed that I have for this long. Am I sad that I probably can’t post any more drawings of the silly fish being sad? Oh fuck yeah. That dude fucking rocks.

But this is not about me. To fellow people who feel sad about it too, this is not about you.

This is about being a fucking human being

————

I await to see what the devs say to try and damage control.

Edit: Be civil. Suicide is never good, no matter what the person has done. Did we all curse him out? Yes. Is he a criminal? Yes. That does not validate death.

Be civil. Please. And do not bring it to my page. Do not bring any further discussion about Zeal to my page. What’s done is done. I will not mention any more. I need a minute.

[911onabcbts]

interesting

[noodles-and-tea]

So that’s what they’re calling it nowadays…

[dostoyevsky-official]

Man arrested near US Capitol allegedly intended to kill prominent Republicans

A man arrested in Washington DC near the US Capitol building on Monday with a folding knife and two molotov cocktails intended to kill the prominent Republicanpoliticians Mike Johnson, Pete Hegseth and Scott Bessent, federal prosecutors have alleged in court filings. [...] English said that he had left his Massachusetts home intending to kill Johnson, the US House speaker, and Hegseth, who recently secured Senate confirmation to serve as defense secretary under the second Donald Trump presidential administration. English called Hegseth a “Nazi”, according to evidence provided to a federal court in Washington. He allegedly added he also wanted to kill Bessent, Trump’s new treasury secretary, after learning that the hedge fund manager and investor had been confirmed by the Senate on Monday. Investigators said they suspected English may have also potentially wanted to burn down the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing lobby group that supports Trump and is near the Capitol. English had been aware that he could have died as a result of this attempt, prosecutors said, and had written a note to a loved one apologizing for this. “Fuck them for pushing us so far,” he wrote. “You don’t deserve this.”

[creekfiend]

it is so frustrating to participate in discussions about Institutions And Systems with people who work for those institutions and systems. for many reasons. but a big one is that when you bring up having experienced abuse within those institutions and systems, people go "wow I'm so sorry that happened to you. anyway--" and it's like no I'm bringing this up because I know more than you. these are my credentials. lol. I'm not trying to get you to feel sorry for me, I'm trying to get you to understand that my depth of knowledge exceeds yours