Weird internet forums and how to find them (and their drama!) 
+ a bunch of forums I found and what I found there - 51
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HOW TO FIND ✨ACTIVE✨ NICHE FORUMS AND RARE DRAMA
1. go to boardreader.com
2. type something into the search box
2a. either put in a current drama like "bud light" or "target pride" (sorry, even AI auto detects that TQ+ drama is most dramatic thing on the internet these days 
) or something like "tipping"
2b. You can also try ur hand with just "flamewar" or any random slur, insult, or dramatic phrase like "STOP LYING ABOUT ME" --get creative!
found with the query "stop lying about me"
3. use the cool search options
boardreader is good for finding current drama bc it's default setting is things within 3 months. There's an option for sorting by freshness instead of relevance and you can search by threads instead of posts to find even more stuff
boardreader.com indexes an AMAZING amount of stuff, not only does it know about dozens and dozens of specific hardware, auto, photography, cycling, investment, hiking, (YOU NAME IT!) forums it's got up to date index of lipstick alley, narialand, kiwifarms (when they're clearnet lol), small active forums no one's heard of, resetera, even fricking stormfront & similar sites (the blurbs of EVERY result from them are always 
<- but if every text was "JEWS!" rotfl )
My favorite thing about board reader is that it finds ACTIVE forums, bc I always hate looking for niche forums and noticing "oh, the last active thread was in 2017, everything since then is just spam 
"
a few sites I found today in BR results:
This one gets a special mention because it's huge and because
https://www.city-data.com/forum/index.php
I didn't even know city-data.com had a forum 
they're active af... with chuddy headlines, they seem to be obsessed with dramatic type stuff 
and they have FREQUENT flamewars and meltdowns but if I summarized even one of them this post would be too long and I would have spent six hours trying to figure it out and then I would quit posting on rdrama bc i would have been assimilated by then 
jk
It's most flamin' flamewars seem to be the religious ones
Some assorted forums:
https://scambaitingforum.com/ - a small but active forum for scambaiting 
https://templeoftcap.freeforums.net/ - Chris Hanson fanclub? They cyberstalk predators and enjoy watching predator catching content?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/ -- athiests and... terfs?
https://www.shroomery.org/ - shrooms. They get into arguments sometimes.
https://www.pprune.org/trending.php - Professional Pilots Rumour Network (sounds cooler than it is, the UFO threads I saw were boring 
)
https://www.theapricity.com/ - phrenology forum (founded by a furry brony?? 🤨) full of people who say words like "methinks" and "no trolling allowed or ELSE. This is a serious forum, not for lowbrow jokes."
figuring out what was going on with "the aprecity" 
took a lot out of me so no more screencaps
https://boards.cruisecritic.com/ - catty people talk cruises
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forums - a few dozen bland leftists talking to eachother every day. The only interesting thing I can say about them, is sometimes use lolcat speak for some reason when discussing kittehs. Maybe we should too. 
I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER? I'd think it was ironic, but what if they never stopped?
https://www.disboards.com/ - 
there's... thousands of them... they call themselves "DISers". They have meetups. They REALLY like disney. Getting Juggalo vibes but I don't know why. 
https://www.godlikeproductions.com/ - world's largest collection of freerange schizos.
https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php - doomsday doomers dooming. They also write and critique each other's short form fiction, because you can't talk about the end of the world all the time 
Head janny is online and it says he joined in 1997 
https://forum.lowyat.net/ - large Malaysian forum, mostly in English
https://sigforum.com/ - active firearms, has a cool [ENTER] page with epic 
themed graphics which more websites should have. That's the only reason I'm mentioning it XD they're super active tho
https://www.lipstickalley.com/ - yall should already know this one, it's gossipy women 
https://forum.bodybuilding.com/index.php - u should know this one too, they have had some of the flame wars of all time which have been posted here
https://gossip-rocks-too.proboards.com/ - gossipy women forum but 20 people and new
https://freerepublic.com/tag/*/index - ancient rightoid forum with NO css. Ok, maybe I exaggerated: body { background-color: white }. That's all their css. Honestly, kino, I love how uncluttered it is. Agressive CSS was a mistake. so don't click on my profile Oh yeah, this site has a bunch of rightoid boomers in all the replies.
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php - Susans's Place - Transgender Resources - "We Stand at the Crossroads of Gender, Balanced on the Sharp Edge of a Knife" 
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/ - ppl (mostly women) trying to find missing people and eternal discussion of Madeleine McCann & serial killers
https://wildequinesv3.proboards.com/ - incredibly neurodivergent "wild horse" roleplay forum the edgelord black horses with glowing red markings and grimdark backstories is amusing though. They're networked with warrior cats rp forums and all that kinda stuff. Bleh.
https://heirapparent.boards.net/ - a far more serious RP forum. Amazing aesthetics tbh. Sometimes I forget this kind of thing still exists. I'm not gonna look at it any deeper than surface level tho 
edit: it's AMAB ppl halfway cybering eachother with pictures of sexy women and taking it into DMs 
ok no more rp forums
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/forum.php - they're still going 
there was a lot of crying back when "The Daily Paul" forums shut down, so I guess the community moved to here? 
https://shaggysasquatch.proboards.com/ - active, but very new forum (less than a month old?!) where 3-4 people talk about bigfoot. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!!
https://scoobyaddicts.proboards.com/ - scooby do fans. Now you know who has "that" mystery machine back tattoo from that meme. They do RP. Sometimes wear scooby fursuits. Well, that one guy does anyway. Maybe he'll cause a cryptid sighting one day, resulting in a shaggysasquatch/scoobyaddicts crossover event. They have reviews of Velma (2023).
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/forums/list.page - moms (and dads🙄) in the urban DC area. They like to talk about European vacations, chronic fatigue, if being rich is worth ur husband, how to deal with ur husband's affairs, and rant about ppl that don't respect trans rights enough. 
Yes.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/nanny-forum/forums/list.page - nannys & housekeepers in the urban DC area (peasant containment zone)
I'm running out of steam bc I will NEVER stop finding new forums using board reader. It's been hours and now I'm sifting through [groomercord -> free forum] type forums and I don't want to list every roblox & (clean) rp forum that started on groomercord. There's a never ending stream of sports forums and those hardware forums that also discuss politics for some reason.
If anyone has anything cool to add (more forums, information on weird forums) pls share 
If there's interest I'll start a ping group for this sort of thing, but I don't know what it should be called 
@Cdace, the effortpost has arrived
EDIT:
NEW PING GROUP for posting (non reddit) forums:
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Edit2: I'll categorize this list by activity and create sub-categories later today and probably add to it over time. I put it together so it'd be easier for people to find fun fringe drama or otherwise be entertained. Enjoy!
Please comment if you have others to add to the list. I bit off more than I can chew because apparently there's thousands of these, so I omitted ones that were boring, inactive, and/or redundant.
General or Misc Fringe
New Age
Paranoid/Classic
Religion, Politics, & Conspiracy (aka BORING)
Occult
Scientific & Historical
Lifestyle
Lite
Edit: Oops, pressed enter too soon
- giga_jannies : GOOD post
- JimothyX5 : Stupid, unfunny and completely unrelated to drama
- boogiecat : oh yeah? YOU'RE stupid, unfunny, and completely unrelated to drama
- FukmasSukmasCukmas : Transphobic post
- Birdpost_Enjoyer : This post makes my laptop sound like a jet engine
- Tardish : transphobia
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Hello hello my cuties! 
I've been planning on making this post for months now, but I've constantly been putting it off because of just how much shit there is to dig back up again: to briefly sum it up, there's the backstory of Aimee and her child male feminist Dad and husband, her polycule of diaper loving "babyfurs", her secretive hiring through a secret admin Groomercord that I accidentally snuck into, my initial leaks and how they spread, the resulting Streisand effect when the Reddit admins tried to shut it down, her firing, and the eventual under-reported shitshow when /r/lgbt realized that their sub's entire mod team was part of Aimee's diaperfur roleplay crew. But hey, it's 2023 now so I may as well kick off my first big effortpost of the year with probably my most successful internet hitjob ever - the firing of a notorious furry libertarian Reddit admin. This all happened around early 2021, the awkward period of time where both /r/drama was dead and rdrama.net didn't exist yet so there was nowhere to share it with at the time, but I guess two years late is better than never!
Note: The pronouns of all people involved have been respected, because as we all know, someone being a horrible person doesn't give you the right to misgender them 
A Brief Introduction to Aimee Challenor AKA Mucky Meerkat
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Starting from the top. For the uninitiated, Aimee Challenor was a trans furry bong, failed politician and Reddit powermod who had been on the radar of many avid lolcow watchers for years prior to shit really hitting the fan. On the Reddit side of things, she went by /u/bpwpb (as in blue-pink-white-pink-blue, the colors of the trans flag 
) and would at first just seem like your average 
Redditor with subreddits like /r/actuallesbians, /r/trans, /r/transgenderteens and (more crucially, but more on that later) /r/lgbt and /r/PAN in her mod repertoire. Her Reddit activity isn't what she was first noticed for back then though - because it turns out all is really not well in the Challenor household. 
You see, separate from the rest of her online activity, Aimee had a secret furry alias known as Mucky Meerkat which if you know anything at all about furries, that name alone should raise about a dozen red flags - "muck" is furry/adult-baby slang for pooping yourself while wearing a diaper.
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That's right, she would get off to doing erotic scat roleplay, specifically while playing the part of a 2 year old furry baby character. 
I'll save you the horrors of the more explicit screenshots, but it's confirmed that Aimee would also bring her fricked up fetish into reality and go as far as wear diapers and shit in them IRL, sometimes flat out skipping the diaper part entirely and just doing it in her pants. This doesn't even scratch the surface of the degeneracy yet to come, but it certainly sets the tone of what to expect going forward.
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As it turns out, the mucky apple doesn't fall far from the shit tree, which gives a fair bit of insight into where Aimee was likely first introduced to this horrible shit. Aimee's father David Challenor also funnily enough happens to be an old-school furry, who strongly identified with Baloo from the Jungle Book to the point where he tried to change his legal name to Baloo. He also kidnapped a ten year old girl, tied her up in the attic of the family household and repeatedly r*ped her while dressed in a diaper and little girl's clothing like something straight out of Silence of the Lambs. This happened back in 2010, but it wasn't until 2015 that he became known for his crimes, and 2018 that he was finally convicted for it and sent to 22 years in prison. This had all happened while Aimee and the rest of the family were living in the same shitty council house, so there was zero chance they didn't know exactly what was happening at the time. It's also worth noting that Aimee continued hanging out with her child male feminist father even after what he did became widely public information, right up until his eventual sentencing.
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Failed Political Aspirations
Despite the skeletons in her closet (or kids in her family's attic, rather), Aimee decided in 2015 that it was a good idea to begin a public political venture as part of the Green Party of England and Wales, the furthest left and most pro-trans party in mainstream UK politics. During her 3 years of membership, she was elected as the official party equality spokeswoman and wrote articles for mainstream outlets like HuffPost and The Guardian. Eventually she got cocky enough to run for the position of party deputy leader in 2018, conveniently right about when her libertarian Dad was put behind bars and rumors of her sordid internet activity had already begun to circulate.
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Remember how I mentioned that Aimee continued associating with her known-child male feminist father right up until he was locked away? Well turns out that she also hired him as her official campaign manager just as he was due to be sentenced a couple of months later, and this set off enough alarm bells that even the Green Party (albeit reluctantly and after sitting on it for a while) decided that Aimee was too much of a liability and y'alled her from the party. Aimee afterward ran to the BBC to pull the "you can't fire me, I quit" card, claiming the real reason she got suspended was because of... *drumroll* ...transphobia! 
Not to be dissuaded, Aimee would later that year join the Liberal Democrats instead, the second-most pro trans party in mainstream UK politics - who I guess must have decided that her at this point very highly publicized scandals weren't enough of a deal breaker for them. Not to worry though, as Aimee was determined to one-up her previous libertarian shenanigans, and she was removed from the party in 2019 when it came to light that she was now online-dating (and later married IRL) an open libertarian and self-professed proud furry MAP from burgerstan known as Kharon Alpua AKA Nathan Knight, who writes graphic child erotica on DeviantArt. 
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She's still married to this scrote and now goes by Aimee Knight to this very day, by the way. 
This was all a brief summary of everything leading up to the parts of the story I have more of a personal hand in, but all this and more is covered much more in-depth over on her Kiwi Farms OP as well as her Wikipedia page.
Reddit Hiring, and the Leak
So from this brief and very darning summary of Aimee's history thus far, one would reasonably conclude that she's dangerously tolerant of libertarians in her personal life at best (being very generous there) and should never be in any position of authority or important decision making. Well, apparently not the HR team at Reddit Inc., who decided that her fine mopping skills and diverse status should earn her a promotion from "doing it for free" to a full member of the admin community team! This means she would effectively have a say in how the site deals with how to process and action reports of groomers, libertarians and other dregs of society through channels like /r/modsupport - nothing could go wrong there, right?
This all began when she volunteered to mod the experimental streaming subreddit /r/PAN, which was Reddit's short-lived and botched attempt at building a bootleg Twitch platform within Reddit that nobody ever bothered to use - however, the few jannies that were entrusted with helping the admins on this project were granted access to a secret admin groomercord server for communication and cooperation, which meant that networking and butt-kissing to get friendly with the admins wasn't far behind. Aimee was particularly candid in this regard, and she quickly became besties with the Reddit employees involved in this project as well as senior community team members like Redtaboo. It's worth noting that the admins mainly sought out dedicated mods that weren't your typical janny i.e. Merari or N8TheGr8 who squat on 500+ subreddits, but rather active mods from smaller more niche subs - so Aimee's tireless efforts in the LGBT sphere apparently made her a perfect candidiate for this role. Overall, the server had like 10 admins and 15-20 jannies in it if I remember right, and I guess the server being a tight-knit circle of only Reddit admins and the most trusted of jannies made Aimee comfortable enough to announce on the 4th December 2020 that she had been offered a paid full-time role as part of Reddit. And thus, that's where this screenshot originates.
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But now you might be wondering, if the server was so incredibly exclusive and hard to get into, and this was the only piece of evidence in existence to suggest Aimee Challenor was now a Reddit gigajanny... who could have taken this screenshot and spread it? Who was the rogue janny who knew of Aimee's past and decided to blow the whistle, where otherwise nobody would have ever found out the truth? 
The answer frankly, is that I did it. As part of a completely unrelated separate gayop, I somehow accidentally stumbled into this super secret admin groomercord under an alt account that the other powerjannies foolishly mistook for a former one of their own, and when I first got that ping it didn't take long for me to realize I was sitting on top of a huge scandal. The only question was how and when to spill the beans for maximum impact, to ensure that both Reddit and Aimee went down hard for this.
As hard as it was for me to do, I decided to sit on it for a couple of months and waited for a good opportunity, since the server was so small that I was worried that leaking it too early would get me easily caught out, losing me access to any future juicy leakable information. The conversation with @justcool393 below is a smidge of evidence that the leaked screenshot is mine, the messages predating any public info about Aimee's hiring. (I censored my alt account's info here just in case I ever need it again for future tomfoolery)
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After 3 months, my opportunity arose. On March 12th 2021 I got a server ping from one of the admins, alerting me to the news that Aimee had already gotten into an r-slured scuffle with the lesser jannies on her first few weeks of the job. Three days prior on March 9th, Aimee was caught printing and handing out free Reddit awards worth hundreds of dollars to her diaperfur polycule (more on them in part 2 - stay tuned!), and this was considered such serious business that a small handful of the voluntary jannies quit in protest, and Aimee herself deleted her /u/bpwpb account over it. Perfect time to spring a leak, now that the people who quit would be the prime suspects. 
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That same day, I made a Kiwifarms account for the sole purpose of breaking the big news, as well as revealing her new admin account handle /u/isnottheimposter - hence my fitting username and avatar. 
I made up the parts about it already being "well known" and that I was no longer in the server in hopes of minimizing my chances of getting my alt caught out.
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The TERFS Take Notice
Whilst the Kiwis dug into this new line of information, the first instance I found of this news travelling outward was a popular TERF account on Twitter who directly lifted the screenshots and evidence and spread it to their followers on March 16th; I assume they found it by using the farms as one of their key sources of happenings.
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Later that very same day, word had spread to notorious cancelled TV show writer and train hater Graham Linehan (known for Father Ted and the IT Crowd), and a brief story about Aimee's hiring was published on his substack.
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And here's where the story gets interesting: at this point the news has now spread to a significantly sized audience, so rumors on Reddit itself were bound to begin spreading. Or at least they would, if any single mention of Aimee Challenor on the site didn't get your account permanently suspended. Whether this was being manually done by Aimee herself or it was some sort of automated system to protect Reddit staff from being doxed is a mystery to this day - the admins would ultimately claim it was the latter, but this is heavily disputed as many users were suspended for even alluding to it just before it blow up too much to contain. Here's an example of a poor soldier who tried getting the word out: interestingly, it looks like this guy managed to appealmaxx after all the drama was said and done, since his account is now back up.
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The /r/UKPolitics Mishap
Fast forward a week to March 22nd. Aimee's assumed attempts to stifle the news on Reddit seemed to be successful so far, as the news still hadn't escaped the fringes of the web yet. That was, until Aimee once again got too cocky and decided to royally shoot herself in the foot, abusing her gigajanny powers beyond reason in an attempt to wipe clean any news of her buried political career.
Bong Redditors found that the /r/UKPolitics subreddit went private overnight, reopening the next morning on March 23rd with news that one of the head moderators had been permanently suspended for posting a mainstream rightoid newspaper article critical of the Green Party, that just happened to mention Aimee's scandals in passing. The only reason given for the suspension was "doxing", leaving the entire mod team confused and asking for answers that the admins initially neglected to provide. As luck would have it though, the answer was already published and put into the open just a couple of weeks prior, allowing the more chud-aligned UKPol mods to put two and two together and figure out Aimee was the culprit! 
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The UKPol mods in their statement were able to give just enough hints to let their users figure out on their own the censored identity of the Reddit employee responsible, while many non-bong tourists from SRD and /r/outoftheloop were eagerly watching on... and this was the point of no return for Aimee, her plan had backfired spectacularly. Due to a perfect storm of immaculately timed events putting a spotlight on her new role at Reddit that she tried and failed to bury, it was only a matter of hours before the Streisand effect went into full swing and entire site knew the name Aimee Challenor.
The Mass Subreddit Revolt
News rapidly spread that Reddit was censoring the name of a libertarian-adjacent employee, with many other poor souls sacrificing their accounts to verify whether the rumors were true. Anecdotal evidence from moderators of multiple national subreddits seemed to suggest that their comments were not only being removed, but also manually edited to hide their contents from the sub jannies. 
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This only caused the situation to blow up even further beyond my wildest expectations, and before long it got impossible for the gigajannies to stop the tide of rightfully enraged Redditors. When March 24th rolled around almost every post on /r/all was to raise awareness about Aimee. Every single top post on /r/AskReddit was about Aimee. And it wasn't just the users who were furious at the admins, but all most of Reddit's jannies were too.
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Kaffin AKA /u/Blank-Cheque, a dramatard-aligned powerjanny seized the opportunity to cause the maximum possible damage to Reddit and throw more gas onto the fire by spearheading an impromptu campaign to mass shutdown every subreddit until Aimee was fired, which included huge default subreddits such as /r/Fitness and /r/Music, as well as subreddits from all across the political spectrum from /r/Conservative and /r/KotakuInAction to /r/DankLeft and /r/196. /r/TheLeftCantMeme and /r/TheRightCantMeme even went dark together in an amazing sign of unity, it was honestly a beautiful sight to see. The full exhausive list of participating subs can be found here.
Capitulation
At this point even the mainstream media had their eye on the situation, with articles flooding out from various outlets about Aimee's hiring and the subsequent protests. In a feeble attempt to stem the bleeding, the admins released a half-assed response apologizing to the UKPol mods about the suspension, where also they make the claim that it was automated. 
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The admin post was also incredibly vague as to what it was even referring to with no mention of Aimee, and it got expectedly dunked on by pretty much everyone. When the protests from both users and mods showed no signs of slowing down, Spez himself was forced to come out to address the angry mob, where he announced that Aimee was no longer an employee of Reddit and gave the interesting piece of news that this supposed automated y'alling system was put in place on March 9th - right when Aimee had her initial Groomercord falling-out. In other words, if true, I couldn't have possibly timed my initial leak any better. 
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After this, Aimee's admin account was demopped and abandoned, and Aimee herself was never heard from again, having cemented her legacy amongst millions as a creepy babyfur libertarian fricker. And would you look at that, I've just hit the maximum character limit! 
Average sized nips, small sized in spirit 
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TLDR 
An article was published to a medical journal suggesting that there may be a link between the rapid explosion of gender dysphoria and social factors, especially for young girls. Gender activists seethe and call for the resignation of the editor of the journal and retraction of the article. The activists get told they can't remove the article becuase they're mad it disagrees with them. Activists seethe and pressure the journal to remove the paper based on a technicality
Background Infomation
Littman walked so Chuds could run
Before we talk about the current paper being published we have to discuss how this whole event was set up, and that starts with Lisa Littman
Real chuds already know that Littman is a medical doctor that specializes in studying gender dysphoria and specifically those who detransition. She was even the individual that created the term "rapid onset gender dysphoria”. Littmans major controversy was when she published an article to PLos One titled "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports". The study surveyed parents of kids who had transitioned and seemed to hypothesize that there could be social contagion, especially among young females, that contribute to gender dysphoria.
While the study itself had several prominent weakness, it was an interesting report that had potential to be expanded on. But backlash from Gender activists led to Littman's university to retracting support for her:
Along with the journal being republished with several corrections to make sure its readers know that the article is VERY limited in it's scope and is a weak study.
Surely, journal publishers would always be this scrutinizing when deciding which research papers to publish.
But nonetheless that brings us up to date so we can discuss the similar issue that occured just recently but this time in [CURRENT YEAR]
The Controversy 
Current Year Problems
The controversy began in Late March of this year when an article titled "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases" was published to the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior of Springer Nature by Suzanne Diaz and Michael Bailey.
The study explored the same ideas in the Littman study by to a greater extent. The original Littman paper surveyed 256 parents while Diaz and Baileys study surveyed 1655 parents. The paper was able to corroborate several of the findings in the original Littman Paper:
This data bolstered Littman’s findings about the onset of gender dysphoria after puberty, predominantly in girls, in conjunction with preexisting mental-health conditions, heavy social-media usage, and peer influence. They also corroborated Littman’s 2018 finding that an overwhelming majority (90 percent) of concerned parents are politically progressive, undermining the common narrative that criticisms and concerns about gender affirmation originate in conservatism.
As mentioned before, The Bailey and Diaz paper seeked to expand on Littmans original findings. And thats what they did:
Females are more than twice as likely to pursue social transition. However, among those who experienced gender dysphoria for at least one year, males were more likely to undergo hormonal interventions. Moreover, a majority of parents reported feeling coerced by gender specialists to affirm their child’s new identity and endorse his or her transition. Parents who facilitated their child’s social transition reported that the child’s mental health “deteriorated considerably after social transition,” and that their relationship with their child suffered.
The purpose of the paper was to provide evidence against the currently accepted approach of "gender affirmation" suggesting that "hey, maybe we should slow down and actually find more research before experimenting on the young kiddos". Obviously no one should have a problem with this.
REEEEEEEEEE THIS IS A PROBLEM
One day passes after the article is published, and Bailey and Diaz recieve a list of questions from the executive committee of the International Academy of S*x Research (IASR) about their Institutional Review Board (IRB) ethics-approval process and with the journal raising “significant concerns about the ethical conduct and integrity of the editorial process” .
For those unaware IRB boards are committees that review research studies to ensure that they comply with applicable regulations, meet ethical standards, follow institutional policies, and protect research participants. Basically they make sure you have consent from patients before you go probing their bussys in the name of science.
Keep this all in mind, because we're going to touch on this point again.
Bad Faith
News of the Baileys and Diaz article begins to circulate and a group of hundred plus scientists (on the right side of history) draft a lengthy open letter to Springer Nature and the IASR. The letter was seething about how Diaz and Baileys study was heckin bad faith and could hurt the homo community:
The publication also raises concerns over scientific integrity. Despite mentioning longstanding academic critiques of research around “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” it does not seriously engage with these critiques nor integrate insights drawn from those critiques into the study methodology, replicating the severe methodological and interpretive flaws of previous research
Publishing work on LGBTQ+ issues that does not meet the highest standards of academic and ethical rigor has caused a severe deterioration of the reputation of Archives of Sexual Behavior within LGBTQ+ research. By granting scientific legitimacy to articles that do not meet the highest standards of academic and ethical integrity, Archives of Sexual Behavior is not only undermining trust in science but also playing a distorting role in ongoing legislative and judicial debates over gender-affirming care in many countries including the United States. These actions impugn the respective reputations of Springer and IASR as a publisher and sponsoring organization.
NOOOOOOOO, If people don't trust the science we can't continue doing what we want to do
The aforementioned letter additionally demanded for the resignation of Springer Natures editor, Kenneth Zucker, and demanded for his replacement to be a person who understands the importance and has integrity on LGBTQ issues. The scientists threatened to withhold submissions to their journal if the journal didn't give into their pleas.
The severity of our scientific and ethical concerns calls for replacing Dr Kenneth Zucker as editor of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Until an editor who has a demonstrated record of integrity on LGBTQ+ matters and especially trans issues replaces Dr Zucker as editor, we will no longer submit to the journal, act as peer reviewers, or serve in an editorial capacity. We encourage our peers to do the same. If the situation is not remedied in a timely manner, we will consider terminating any involvement with the IASR and with members of Archives of Sexual Behavior’s editorial board.
While this letter makes the scientific community look like a bunch of cucks there was a counter protest to the letter that recieved over 2000 signatures telling the soycucks to shut up:
That same day, FAIR in Medicine, a nonpartisan professional network that advocates “the highest ethical standards in medical practice,” sponsored a counter-letter. This document underscored their support for Dr. Kenneth Zucker and called for an “academically robust and unbiased editorial process” at ASB and the “uninterrupted publication” of Diaz and Bailey’s study. Rather than capitulating to activists’ “censorious demands," FAIR in Medicine urged for an “open debate about the paper.” The counter-letter garnered over 2,000 signatures
Nice!
We're So Back! 
Now back Diaz and Bailey.
It was stated earlier that Bailey and Diaz conducted their research with survey response answers from willing volunteers, but even in this case, anything that involves collecting data from study participants requires consent per IRB policy before research ever begins and the IRB can't retrospectively approve already collected data. But due to Diaz not being associated with the University he was able to circumvent these polices and just have Bailey be a coauthor on the paper.
For Nature and Springer their policy on IRB approval porcess states:
Hence, you can underatand why the scientists before were calling for the resignation of Spingers current editor. But it appeared that the activists attempts to remove the article were futile and that Diaz and Bailey wouldn't have their article retracted
It's over 
After a continuous pressure campaign from homo activists, Diaz and Bailey recieve an email from Springer telling them to get fricked and that they should have gotten EXPLICIT consent beforehand and that they have no choice but to remove the paper:
The participants of the survey have not provided written informed consent to participate in scholarly research or to have their responses published in a peer reviewed article. Additionally, they have not provided consent to publish to have their data included in this article.
At this point it's clear that the activists couldn't get the article removed on the basis of heckin wrong think but rather on this technicality.
Bailey and Diaz were going to have their article removed no matter what but they were provided an option to prepare a statement that disagreed or agreed with the decision that would be included with the retraction:
Bailey raised three major objections to Springer’s decision to retract the paper. First, he contested the grounds for retraction as an ever-changing “moving target.” Initially, Springer’s concern hinged on a potential ethics violation arising from the absence of IRB approval brought to its attention by activists. When this challenge proved to be without merit, the focus abruptly shifted to concerns about the informed consent of the study’s participants.
Second was Springer’s assertion that the study’s participants did not provide “written consent to participate in scholarly research or to have their responses published in a peer reviewed article.” As Bailey explained, the parents who took part in the survey were enthusiastic about contributing data related to ROGD, given the scarcity of information on this novel presentation of gender dysphoria. The introduction of the survey, taken by all participating parents, mentions the dearth of data on the topic and the need for parents to “seek out this information on our own” to “help us gain a better understanding” of this new phenomenon. Upon completion of the survey, parents were informed that their “answers will help us gain a better understanding of which children are more vulnerable to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and what we can do to help them better.” The data, parents were told, would be made public online once a sufficiently large sample size was achieved.
And finally, the funniest point was Bailey pointed out that Springer’s "consent policy" wasn't even applied consistently:
Bailey pointed out Springer’s inconsistent application of their putative consent policy. He cited “a slew of ‘scholarly publications’ [by Springer] based on survey research in which the respondents did not provide explicit permission for ‘scholarly research’ use—and often apparently did not provide consent for any research purpose at all.” Examples included at least six publications using data from a health survey conducted by the American College Health Association that “included intensely personal questions relating [to] substance use, sexual behaviors, and other highly sensitive topics.”
It's never been more over 
Tragically, even with Baileys argument, Springer went ahead and retracted the article on the basis of Bailey and Diaz not receiving proper consent. But they did thank Bailey for making them aware of the other articles that didn't recieve proper consent and now they're being investigated was well (lmao)
While it does seem like a common L for the chuds, Bailey and Diaz are planning on submitting their manuscript to another journal that's (hopefuly) less ideologically driven.
In conclusion, never stop trusting the science and Thank you for reading!
Additional Readings
[Anatomy of a Scientific Scandal](https://www.city-journal.org/article/anatomy-of-a-scientific-scandal
- SubsequentlySneeds : h/kino
- Soren : Ok?
-
Trailer
:
- SonamyEXEShippingCompany : All I want to know is if the prophesized child of rdrama will come to birth soon...
-
boogiecat
:
hi
- 676974 : If @R-slur_but_spooky doesn't wear condoms maybe
- CREAMY_EGG_NOG_ORGASM : Put me in the screenshot
- jesus : SNEED
- HarryTrumanDorisDay : This rdrama post needs a post on rdrama, be the the first to tldr and reap the marsey updoots
- Frank_Williams : r*pe
- Healthy : Google "War Plan Red"
-
ChristmasforIsrael
:
- SCD : 500 comments I can't be bothered
- snaildaddy : who fricking cares neighbor
- dingleface : dumb meta bull shit
-
smolchickentenders
: 600 comments, top rdrama post of all time is high school tier LE S*X drama
- of_blood_and_salt : alexa, hide thread
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TL;DR - SPAL leaks messages with 
@R-slur_but_spooky where they discuss their mutual intentions to keep fricking 
@TED_SIMP after she implies to each party that the other had r*ped her.
DISCLAIMER: I offered both @R-slur_but_spooky and
@TED_SIMP to come on the show and share their side of the story, of which they both declined. The offer is still open if they are so inclined. I also made sure to scrub any names that were shared, other than SPAL, who freely uses his name. If I somehow missed something, PLEASE let me know right away and I'll scrub it.
Today, we'll be exploring a cautionary tale of the E-girl and the destruction she leaves in her wake. This will be a story of r*pe allegations, of a love triangle gone awry, of the consequences of simping, and most importantly of a man being banned from a gay cat gossip forum.
Let's start with the catalyst for this situation. R-slur messages SPAL (who I will be calling sirp because I already wrote these as notes for my show lmao) with a hard hitting question - did he r*pe Ted?
sirp responds with proof that they were meeting up again and nootices a discrepancy - Ted had told him she was r*ped in February. Something isn't adding up 
R-slur responds, confirms that they fricked in February, shows the message Ted sent to him about being r*ped in August
Sirp puts on his thinking cap - Ted has alleged that she was r*ped to both of them at different times. Something isn't adding up.
R-slur asks for a timestamp and reveals that there is a 3rd man who warned him that Ted has a habit of r*pe claims. WHO IS THE 3RD MAN???
sirp asks if they were dating, posts him confronting ted about this conversation.
Group chat between the 3 is formed. Ted proceeds to sperg out at them for nooticing she lied to them, vows to cut ties forever (spoiler: she did not).
Ted leaves the conversation, the Sirp and R-slur get down to business. The 3rd man is mentioned again.
They continue on to compare notes, the most pressing matter of which is what Ted's body count is lmao
Sirp talks about how good she is in the sack, R-slur talks about how she always blocks him but he finds a way back in over groomercord. Sirp then says he'd like to continue fricking her despite the light r*pe allegations and that he's happy to share her. Very progressive and polypilled 
R-slur agrees and says he keeps in his back pocket for ez kitty. Proceeds to say he never uses condoms, which enrages Sirp, who is extremely worried about contracting STDs. Sirp asks for R-slurs name to level the playing field.
Sirp continues to ask for R-slurs name after getting told no, ted claims that R-slur freaked out last time she fricked another guy
Sirps asks one more time for name, is rejected, asks if R-slur can tell Ted that he's sorry and to please talk to him again. R-slur asks what he said to upset her, Sirp accuses her of having a r*pe fetish. She spergs.
R-slur claims that Ted seeks out getting r*ped as a form of self harm and that Ted thought r-slur would r*pe her when they met up. Explains why he got mad at her, which totally had nothing to do with her fricking other guys.
Sirp worries that if she gets r*ped too much, she will contract an STD that she could then pass to him. Rather than opting not to frick the woman who lies about r*pe, his solution is to use a condom and take PREP. Sirp and R-slur vow to help each get back into Teds good graces, R-slur laments that he's blocked on everything by Ted
They vow to reconvene, R-slur considers not talking to her anymore. Spoiler alert: He continues talking to her. Sirp once again impresses the importance of safe s*x upon R-slur.
R-slur laments that a mid woman is boring to talk to and contributes nothing to their conversations. They both lament that Ted won't be their long term FWB because she's too boring. The 3rd man has also complained to R-slur about this.
Sirp reveals that he knew she wasn't the one when she wouldn't read the substack articles he wrote and sent her. R-slur laments that she was going to move to his area and didn't because he wanted to frick her more.
Sirp states that fricking a bpd e-girl brought back his confidence post-divorce, decides to be happy it happened instead of sad it ended (spoiler alert: it didn't). R-slur talks about Ted having a meltdown after he suggested they don't talk about literally nothing all the time. Conversation ends.
THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE E-GIRLS BACK
In a now deleted post, @TED_SIMP called Sirp "Creepy", which led to him posting the leaks that got him banned, which included her underwear photos, first name and job. So you might ask yourself, what led to the dissolution of their FWB relationship?
Well, sirp had referred to her alleged molestation at 9 years old as "prior sexual history" when she attempted to use it to skirt his grilling about why she won't come see him. Two manipulators using their tactic of choice to manipulate each other, and as expected, it ends poorly. As far as I know, this led to the dissolution of their relationship and kicked off the drama we have today.
THE INTERVIEW
Some notable excerpts from the interview (you'll have to watch it to get it all 
)
I got Sirp to read his entire side of the
Sirp alleges that he's not a libertarian and that it is infact
@CARPMASflorist who is a convicted felon and sexual offender. AFAIK this is entirely unsubstantiated - he claims a comment on his most recent substack article backs this up but it leads nowhere for me.
Sirp states that his ex-wife was a bugchaser trying to intentionally infect him with HIV and a braphog who was heavier than he is.
Sirp states that he is, in fact, still down to hook up with Ted despite everything that has happened. Ball is in your court, Ted!
MY THOUGHTS
ESH 
This is, ultimately, the story of 3 people who are fricked in the head. @TED_SIMP is an attention seeker who consistently tries to garner simp-athy using her history of sexual assault and mental illness, and whether it's real or not, she knows playing the victim will usually work in her favor.
@R-slur_but_spooky is deeply in denial about his feelings for Ted. I actually believe that when he was talking to Sirp, he matched the detached energy to not seem stupid for his feelings. Get some self respect buddy, because she's using you as an emotional tampon. You sperging out and getting angry on her behalf is embarassing and I believe you can do better. Sirp is waaaay to old to be acting like this. If some r-slurs on a gay cat gossip website call you a libertarian, maybe you shouldn't say things that give them ammo and then sperg out on the BPD chick you were fricking. He dropped the underwear pics and name maliciously, without a doubt. He also did this interview knowing that it would embarass the heck out of both other parties, and probably gets off to it. I'm more than aware of that aspect. This is just too much of a shitshow for me to pass up.
As far as people who will say I've gone too far and am a bad person for inserting myself into this, I don't give a frick about the gay butt e-friendship you've forged over groomercord. I use this website for the lulz and if you're playing friend simulator on here, that is beyond pathetic. That's not to say I don't like some of you people - this is my favorite website, and I enjoy the community a lot - but there is a reason that most of the userbase disdains the groomercord strags. Everyone in this story brought it upon themselves by sperging out on this website, which led me to start sniffing around. If they had just kept their pants on and their mouth shut, this would have never happened - but cows can't help themselves.
Let this serve as a cautionary tale - you can't use a mentally ill woman for easy access to free casual s*x and get away clean. You can't use mentally ill men for easy access to free validation and get away clean. One way or another, it'll all come down on you, and there will be no one to blame but yourself.
- forgotpw : Enabling piracy and IP infringement
.webp?h=10 "Merry Fistmas!")
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so with all the posts about Yuzu and seeing a few people confused how to get it setup (@Bussy-boy) I thought I'd just make it's own post
If you feel confident in following directions you can just directly use the guide I used here. I will be assuming you're on Windows 10/11 64 bit
For those of you who don't know, Yuzu is a Nintendo Switch emulator that recently got taken down. Someone has forked their source code luckily tho so you can still use it. There are other ways to play cracked Switch games but this seemed the easiest to me. Lets get started
Download Yuzu
You can download the Early Access build here. Just click the "Windows-Yuzu-EA-####.zip" link and it will download a zip file. Extract the folder to wherever you feel like. Then open the extracted folder and run the yuzu.exe file. This should install the program and run itself, but you'll get a prompt about missing encryption keys
Encryption Keys
You will need an encryption key file to get the program working. You can download it here or DM me and I can send you the source since it's just text. Once it's downloaded, open Yuzu and go to File->Open Yuzu Folder. This will open the working directory for the program. What you need to do is put the prod.keys file in the keys folder (make sure if you opened it in notepad it didn't rename it to prod.keys.txt). Now restart Yuzu and there should no longer be a warning message.
(Optional) Firmware
You don't need to do this step but it says that some games will crash if you don't. You can download firmware from here, just use the latest one. Unzip the folder, and open the Yuzu folder again. This time navigate to "nand\system\Contents\registered" and paste all of the NCA files from the firmware folder into there
okay now Yuzu is setup, we need some games
Installing Games
Here are a few websites you can download Switch games from:
https://nxbrew.com/
https://nsw2u.xyz/ (https://nsw2u.com/)
https://nswgame.com/category/switch/
https://www.ziperto.com/nintendo-switch-nsp/
https://switchedtwo.to/
I'm going to use Zelda Breath of the Wild as an example because it has an update and some DLC. Note that you can only use NSP and XCI files on Yuzu. NSP files will typically be separated into the base game, updates, and DLC; which can also sometimes be split into 5GB chunks. XCI has everything together, but I haven't really seen any of those. So I'm going to download all the files from this page using MegaUp which is estimated about 30 minutes. Torrenting would also probably be a bit faster but that's up to you, I don't really use it.
Okay so now we have 3 base game, 2 DLC, and 1 update NSP files. First it's recommended we create a folder to put our Switch games. Then we will need to merge the 3 base game files. I was having massive problems with the built in Windows zip utility so I recommend getting 7zip and using that. Just select the part 1,2,and 3 zips together, right click and extract files to your Switch games location; this should merge all of them into a 14.1GB NSP file. Do the same if your game's DLC or update files are split
Before we run the game we should install the update and DLC files. To do this, simply go to File->Install Files to NAND and then select what you want. These are copied to the Yuzu folder so you don't need to keep a copy
I recommend adding your Switch game directory to the main window in Yuzu by clicking "Add New Game Directory", selecting your folder, and then when it's added right click the folder and check the "Scan Subfolders" option. You can also tell from here if your game is being read properly and the Add-ons column will show if the extras were installed correctly. Now just double click the game and you're good to go
Linux Stuff - from 
@TriHard
Yes. There are only a couple of small things to note:
- On Linux, you want the AppImage release. Most Linux distros support AppImages.
- Once you download the AppImage, try running it. If it doesn't work, it's probably because you're missing FUSE 2. Install it with your package manager (I use
Artix btw so mine is Pacman):> sudo pacman -S fuse2 - Keys can be installed directly in Yuzu by going to Tools > Install Decryption Keys, and selecting prod.keys.
- Firmware can be installed by going to Tools > Install Firmware, and selecting the folder containing the extracted firmware files.
- By default, all Yuzu-related files are located in
~/.local/share/yuzu.
End
I don't have all that much experience actually using the emulator so I'm going to skip this part and say just refer to the linked guide. This will help with optimizing Yuzu for your system, show you how to make save states, load mods, etc
If you have any question or if I did something wrong/inefficiently let me know. Otherwise have fun crackers!
- AgentSix : >9,284 words 62,917 characters
- Noahface : Formatting is fricked on mobile
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stoploggingmeoutuwu
: Tilt removed? Glow added
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Greetings Dramatards
Last time I was covering the sinking of the Oceanos, where a cowardly captain attempted to flee a sinking ship from the South-Eastern shores of South-Africa, and where heroic gigachad 
passengers stepped up to the occasion to save their fellows during an extreme storm.
Well I was made aware of a similar situation which had occurred upon the shores of South-Korea, where another cowardly captain and crew literally jumped ship to save themselves at the expense of their charges. This time however, the outcome would be substantially more grim, whereas the Oceanos rescue was a stunning success which resulted in the saving of literally every single passenger with zero fatalities, the sinking of the Sewol Ferry was horrific, resulting in over 300 deaths, most of them school-children as a school trip was booked to an island off of the coast of Korea during that unfortunate day.
The Sewol Ferry sinking is also SUBSTANTIALLY more dramatic and absolutely r-slurred than the sinking of the Oceanos, because of the unbelievably absurd degree of preventability there was involved in the needless loss o life, and the systemic levels of ineptitude shown by literally every single government body/agency and individual involved.
When I first researched this unholy shitshow this weekend, I would binge every single youtube video made by foreign Press regarding the event, and I had thought to myself: hey these are pretty good mini flash-documentaries covering the events of this absurd manmade neglect disaster, (here are some of the 1st documentaries I viewed)
28 minute documentary from the New Yorker:
27 documentary from Coffeehouse:
And on and on, there are like 10 or 12 of these documentaries by youtubers or news organizations which cover various aspects of the disaster, the shitty rescue attemps, and the aftermath:
BUT OOOOOOOOOOOOOH NO. The more I read, the DEEEEEEPER the rabbit 
hole kept sinking.
Dramatards, the depth of depravity, incompetence and stupidity involved in this disaster is near bottomless, it's lower than shark-shit 
shade at the bottom of the sea abyss.
Like just one of these 25-50 minute documentaries simply didn't capture the absolute 3rd world 
response that the Korean coast guard, and all authorities involved had regarding the greatest non-rescue ever in modernity.
So welcome dramastrags 
and let's go down this never ending hellish 
rabbithole together 
WHAT IS THE SEWOL FERRY:
The Sewol Ferry was a passenger and cargo transport ship which made 3 trips per week from the harbor of Incheon to the Island of Jeju - with each one-way 425 kilometres trip, taking about 13.5 hours to complete.
The Sewol would frequent Teju Island, the largest of South Korea's islands, and a popular tourist destination for Koreans themselves. Teju island has been described as the Hawaii of SK.
Teju is that big island directly South of SK. The Sewol would take trips between the island and the western coast of SK, meaning the children onboard would constantly be within range of cellphone service of the mainland. While the 13-14 hour trip is long, the ship is outfitted like a cruise ship. While not nearly as luxurious as the Oceanos, it was still a ship with many amenities and comfort. There were dorm rooms, bunk beds and convenience stores, so for high-schooler standards, this was living the high life. 
DATE OF DISASTER: 16 April 2014, Wednesday.
The Ferry would be boarded at approximately 9:pm on 15 April 2014 (at night), but the disaster would not strike until the trip was almost over, and the ferry was near Teju island 12 hours later. The idea was that the the students would sleep during the long boring journey, eat breakfast, and basically arrive at the Island at about 9-11AM.
At the moment of disaster, there had been 476 passengers onboard the Sewol Ferry. Most of those were High-School students, with most of those high-schoolers being from the same school, the reason being that they were on an annual field-trip organized by that school. (Danwon High School in Ansan City)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28519921
It is because there were so many highschool students simultaneously on the same ship booked, that parents were alarmed that many of them were bombarded with abnormal and cryptic messages from their children declaring their love for their parents or shouting their peril at the ship capsizing.
It is this moment which had made the Sewol Ferry sinking especially famous internationally - that parents of these schoolchildren, told them to follow the guidance and instructions of the crew and authorities. The korean words for "Do what they say" would become a famous negative-meme, meaning that instead of a joke a lot of koreans after this disaster would discuss this event, and the implications that korean culture had upon the extreme discipline in which korean youth were expected to obey their parents, their elders and all authority figures. Korean youth would "negative-meme" this phrase of "do as they say" whenever discussion would arrive about whether it was a neccessity to docilly obey authority and elders in all matters of life.
The reason this moment and this negative-meme of "do as they say" has such particular resonance with modern koreans, is that effectively that all those passengers, and especially school students who obeyed the following demented commands of the cowardly Sewol captain would end up drowning; and all those who disobeyed, would end up alive and rescued. This is especially galling considering that a similar event occurred in 13 Feb 2003, when a subway train caught fire, and the moronic and cowardly conductor would order his passengers to stay put, in wait of rescue, when, and you guys guessed it, the conductor himself fled for his life just like the cowardly Sewol Ferry captain would! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire
Even worse still, amongst the found footage of those who drowned, were cellphone footage of students discussing their doubts about the unease they felt in obeying the captain's orders of staying put - and that they verbally expressed their instinctual fear that the similarity to the Daegu subway disaster in which only those who disobeyed demented orders were the one who survived - and yet still was their compulsion to obey seniority that they still were amongst those who drowned.
For the parents, this would be especially traumatizing and they would mention to foreign and local interviews the incredible guilt they felt for telling their children to obey authorities, not realizing that their faith in the crew and gov authorities were misplaced due to the following peerless levels of ineptitude. Haggard looking korean parents would express remorse for not telling their dead children to ignore stupid orders, and flee for the top of the ship, instead of remaining in their cabins as the Captain of the Sewol had ordered all passengers, before the frick himself would GTFO from the ship.
SOME ADDITIONAL DETAILS:
It's important to note that he Sewol Ferry is more cargo ship, than passenger liner. Apparently 75% of profit was made from transporting trucks to Teju island and back, with ferrying passengers as a side-gig effectively. (Don't worry we'll get to this image later 
)
But the point is that it wasn't just school students on this specific trip, there were other passengers going to Teju island on their own honeymoons or whatever, and a lot of truck drivers whom would get off of the dock at Teju, them come back at the end of their routes to continue transporting supplies. Many of these same truck drivers would aid in saving the weaker children.
FERRY BEGINS LISTING:
(For those of you whom don't know ships, Listing when a vessel takes on water and tilts to one side.)
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/south-korea-ferry-disaster-timeline-of-events-0
At some point at 8:50AM passengers hear a loud BAND reverberating through the ship, and 10 minutes later the ship would begin listing to the left 30 degrees.
Ever heard of the words Ballast-water? 
Now this is something I never knew about! 
Now you'd think that a 30 degrees Listing would mean instant capsizing for a ship, but ships of the scale of the Sewol are built with what are known as ballast tanks. Ballast water is water carried in ships' ballast tanks to improve stability, balance. The idea is to act as counterweight to the motion of a ship, improving its balance!
However, the cargo of the ferry: the trucks and vehicles transported by the Sewol was NOT tied down. Meaning that as the ship began listing, all of these vehicles would be swept in the imbalence and flung to the left side of the ship, thus overwhelming the counterweight of the ballast tanks.
All ships need a low center of gravity, the lower the better, as top heavy ships swing and list from site to side in extreme weather and swells, and are more exposed to tipping and capsizing, the ballast tanks aid this as well.
Well guess WHAT?! The r-slurs of the Sewol crew had not pumped enough ballast water into the inner chambers in order to save time and speed
Thus the center of gravity was at the top of the vessel, and the near empty ballast tanks could not counterweight the listing 
Why no ballast or near empty ballast tanks?? So they could load more cars they got rid of the ballast water so that they could make room for the fricking extra cargo
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2995313
So the vicious circle keeps going, the more the listing, the more vehicles keep slamming to the left, listing the ferry beyond salvation.
Thus the crew begin to realize the ships is going to unavoidably capsize.
1ST EMERGENCY CALL BY STUDENT:
When very massive vessels like the Sewol lists or sinks, it isn't always immediately obvious to passengers, in the same way in which excessive airplane turbulence is when the plane is for a certainty going to crash.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/27/world/asia/ferry-south-korea-teen-remembered
The first emergency call was made by Choi Duk-ha, a Danwon High School student aboard the ferry, who immediately understood the danger, and was suspicious of the ship's intercom continious telling the students and passengers to "stay in their cabins, it was dangerous to venture outside; wait for rescue". The crew of course knew the opposite was true.
HECK BREAKS LOOSE: KOREAN COAST GUARD IS INEPT
At about 9:07AM the Sewol crew finally tells the SK coast gaurd that they are in deep shit, and that the ferry is unstoppably listing. However these clowns 
call in so many different agencies and authorities, that they cause intense communication chaos.
The SK Coast guard would also lie to the media and SK people, that when they received the mayday from the Sewol, that they were not aware that near 500 people were on board - this specific lie would cause massive fallout later, we'll get to that!
The coast guard tells the Sewol crew, that any passengers must put on life-jackets. The Sewol for some fricking reason tells the coast-gaurd back that their announcement system was broken, which we know in hindsight would be a massive lie as student's cellphones were recovered after their deaths with the repeated anouncement to stay put 
why on God's green earth they would lie about this is WTF 
Just like the Oceanos the crew would have no communication with passengers, to tell them the situation or cause of the listing, only the anouncement was the sole communication the crew would ever do with their passengers!
The coast guard on the radio would say, ok butthole, well if the PA system was broken, fricking go tell your passengers to put on their life jackets, and whoever was on the walkie-talkie that moment was like "eeeehhhhhhh" then he walks around taking a smoke, jerking off to the sunset, walking around for a bit, and came back to the walkie-talkie and said that they had told the passengers to put on their lifejackets, evidence from the recovered cellphones would prove THAT HE DID NOT DO THAT WHYYYYYY 
He just straight up lied to the coast guard he had taken list of the passengers and personally saw to them - hoooollly smokes it just gets worse and worse from here on out
So at this point, whichever low level drone is at the helm of the coast gaurd communication (is actually the only competent guy in this equation), tells the Sewol captain and crew to unfrick themselves, and prepare quickly, a rescue helicopter is 1 minute away, and another search and rescue boat is like 5 minutes away, get passengers ready for rescue. 
And our boi, the 69-year-old Captain Lee Joon-seok, goes full r-slur and replies: "bro that's no enough to save everybody, there's more than those vessel's capacities" 
you know as if that matters , fricking who cares.
So at this point the passengers are still being told to stay put. As the ferry was sinking, it became clear that it would be inverted. The 1st people to be rescued........was the captain and some of his senior crew. Sounds familiar to the Oceanos???
https://nypost.com/2014/04/17/25-dead-in-south-korea-ferry-disaster-as-captain-remains-cagey
https://abcnews.go.com/International/deeply-ashamed-ferry-captain-abandon-ship/story?id=23357650
Here is a Youtube video of the cowardly cuck fleeing the ship, and being the literal 1st to be rescued from a nearby coast guard boat:
And oh yeah, notice something?! He wore ORDINARY CIVILIAN CLOTHES!! He deliberately disguised himself! 
i did personally was not aware of this specific one detail prior to researching this shitshow!
I repeat: he deliberately disguised himself as a passenger 
Once he was rescued, he made zero attempt to help, and basically fricked off. He relayed no information about the cause of sinking or the amount of passengers and their whereabouts on the listing ship. He just straight up fricks off....
https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/03/30/picture-of-the-day-most-hated-man-in-korea-appears-in-court
"f there is something oddly familiar about the news that the erstwhile captain of the ill-fated South Korean ferry—which capsized and sank just a few hundred meters from dry land—botched the evacuation order and jumped ship before his passengers were safe, it's because we've heard about this sort of maritime cowardice before. It happened in 2012, when Italian captain Francesco Schettino rammed his Costa Concordia luxury cruiseliner into the rocks off Giglio island. He, too, was among the first off the ship well in advance of the bulk of the passengers."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-koreas-ferry-disaster-gives-us-a-new-cowardly-captain-to-hate
Captain cuck is currently one of the most hated men in all of SK. When the depths of his depraved conduct and cowardice slowly leaked down the grapevine of news and gossip, the entire SK media would blow up in outrage.
Sewol's captain under fire for fleeing sinking ship:
https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/633440.html
"News that the captain and crew of the Sewol passenger ferry fled the sinking ship early on rather than helping passengers is generating an angry reaction among from family members and the South Korean public.
Of the crew members, only 22-year-old Park Ji-young gave up her life vest to stay with the passengers - at the cost of her own life. One student said of her, “If she hadn't have been there, I don't know what would have happened to me.”
Evidence that surfaced on Apr. 17 indicates the Sewol's chief engineer told several crew members to evacuate, even as the captain was broadcasting a message for passengers to wait until further notice."
LAST MOMENTS FILMED BY DROWNED VICTOMS:
There were several reccorrdings recovered from the dead student's cellphones where they could clearly be heard pronouncing their confusion: why must they put on their Life-Jackets and also stay put in their cabins like the PA announcement system was repeating on auto?
Their confusion, first starts with lite joking, and eventually turns into sober horror, as the realization that the situation with the tilting was becoming a threat to their lives. The most comprehensive evidence was of students on the 3rd floor of the Sewol Ferry.
By the end of this footage, many students start proclaiming that they do not wish to die, and begin messaging their family/parents with messages of asking forgiveness for past fights, and that they love them, ect. It is from these horrifying messages which freaked out the majority of the 250 students from the same high school, to which about 500 parents would organize a trip to Teju Island, to find out what the frick was happening with their children.
KIDS CONTINUE TO OBEY PA SYSTEM UNTIL THEIR DEATHS:
In spite of their instincts and fear, the schoolchildren would still continue to obey the instructions of their parents to obey their seniors, and most would remain put within the ferry, even as the ship continued its listing and eventual capsizement over the next hour.
CBS NEWS Youtube video showing; teenagers were slow to grasp their dangerous situation; some kids could be heard joking they were in the titanic, and even jovially singing to cope with the pressure:
BBC Youtube video of youngest person saved from ferry; both her parents and brother would drown; SK would ask for any family to come forward and claim her; one distant uncle would luckily come forth:
Additionally in the videos, the school children will remark from the recovered footage, that they smelled something bad, that they smelled something like boiled eggs - they were smelling gas escaping the
The hyper discipline of their children makes them place false hope in their seniors, and fully believe up until their drowning that the authorities know what they are doing, and follow the instructions of their parents.
Oh yeah, and the horror keeps compounding - there were not enough lifejackets, so many students sacrificed theirs for their younger peers, and some truck drivers would give theirs to children.
One passenger, Koo Bon-hee, 36, told the wire service "that there were not enough life jackets for everyone in the area on the third floor where he and others waited. So crew members — two men and two women — didn't wear any so that all the passengers could have one."
SOUTH KOREAN MAINSTEAM MEDIA DECEIT:
SK mainstream media is and was extraordinarily corrupt, and would lie to citizens over many things. Things would come to climax in the Sewol Ferry sinking fiasco, and the absolute shamelessness of SK mainstream media could cause a massive rift between the citizens of SK, and their trust in the gov and news.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-KRTB-5797
Mainstream media had started reporting that all passengers had been rescued from the Ferry as it was still tipping over with 300+ passengers still inside, and had given many of these SK parents whom had received horrifying and cryptic messages from their kids about saying goodbye, and that they were dying, were giving these parents false hope that their kids were safe ! 
In the following months, as the media circus was dug through by people, and the SK public began to systematically uncover the heaps of lies that the mainstream SK media told everyone, including the parents, questions would be asked as to WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 
why would they fricking lies about this? Lie about kids and passengers having been saved from the ferry in those critical 2 hours as the ship was capsizing??
It would come down that President Park was a massive bully and would go to extreme lengths to bully mainstream media outlets in SK who even remotely critisized her administration. So feared was president Park, that many mainstream reporters and producers were basically used to just straight up lying in emergency situations, to make her Administration's response to stuff like this Ferry sinking disaster, as positively as possible, before she even demanded. (We'll come back to this)
Tanwan highschool parents were given a false sense of security.
However, despite this deceit, the parents began immediately noticing discrepancies within the false reporting of everyone being saved from the Sewol. They could not phone or reach their kids, they became aware thatt many other parents had also received cryptic and alarming messages, and soon pooled information between each other on WhatsApp groups and so on.
Additionally, horrifyingly, the parents would notice an anomaly similar as to Kraut citizens during the 2nd World War being fed propaganda about how good the Eastern Front campaign was going, meanwhile the locations of successful battles kept creeping closer to Berlin....
Similarly, these parents would notice that at 1st the reporting kept changing from ALL the passengers had been successfully rescued, then MOST of the passengers, and then.... you get the idea as the media adjusted their bullshit as the failing rescue operation was producing more corpses.
Then later it was reported 150 passengers out of 475, how many passengers have been rescued you frickers??? How the frick is the reported passengers being rescued LOWERING?
PARENTS TRAVEL AS GROUP TO CHINDO ISLAND:
Chindo Island is a tiny island, nearest to the sinking. And from where the rescue operation was being undergone.
Because they can't trust the media, and the parents basically organize a 1000 person trip immediately to the Chindo Island, and book acommodations and hotels, as well as venues for gathering. The PARENTS are organizing all of this, as the coast guard nad rescue authorities are all incompetent bumblefricks.
So dramatards hear this shit, the rescue operations heads, and coast guard had brought these giant white boards with lists of names of the rescued written on them. And the giant gymnasium venue which the parents organized as a meeting conference place, quickly turns into chaos as the parents jostle to get to the front and see whose child is fricking safe. But of course these are propaganda names, lied about by the SK media to make the Park Admin look good.
So the parents quickly realize they are being lied to and become enraged. Here is Youtube video of parents lashing out at authorities.
They scream at the gov goons who had callously written these names of survivors on the whiteboards, and ask where the frick their kids were, if they supposedly were saved?
The parents finally become so incensed at the lack of coordination of the coats guard, that they fricking hire their own boats to go to the sunken ferry, they are enraged at the lack of fricks given by the gov officials, whom apparently are just passive about the prospect of hundreds of people currently under threat of drowning.
https://news.sky.com/story/ferry-disaster-parents-hire-own-rescue-boats-10409326
========(from article)
Parents of missing teenagers aboard the stricken ferry off the coast of South Korea have been hiring rescue boats to join the search overnight. Many relatives stared out to sea, huddled in blankets, sobbing, as hopes their loved ones would be found alive faded.
Others expressed their anger, claiming that the rescue operation was botched and choosing instead to go searching themselves.
The father of one missing child could not bear to wait.
Advertisement
He and 10 other parents paid 61,000 won (£35) each to hire a boat to take them to the scene, along with a local reporter and a diver.
"There was no rescue operation going on," he said on his return to Jindo.
"We clearly saw there is none. What they were doing at the time was stopping the oil spill. I'm extremely angry.
"The media says the rescue operation is still going on. It's all a lie. It makes me so furious."
======(end quote)
At this point it's fricking night time, and the parents are going in a frenzy at the authorities not telling them squat, and with the mainstream reporters being useless ad unhelpful. There appears to be no hurry when the ferry is already nearly on its side and its obvious people are trapped with no way of getting out.
Only Newstapa was willing to work with parents and not lie to them or the public, and majority of footage came from them.
THE "RESCUE":
The entire rescue was an ongoing shitshow. And despite media lies, most passengers were not being successfully rescued.
The thing that most angered the SK public, after the disaster, was the sheer ineptitude of the SK authorities during what was dubbed the "Golden hours", the 1st two hours after the Ferry began capsizing, and when it was entirely feasible to save everyone.
In those precious moments the coast guard and Park Admin kept repeating moronic requests of seeing a visual feed of the tilting ferry, instead of giving out deceisive commands for rescue operation. They kept asking moronic questions 
about whether the situation was serious, to which the helicopters and patrol boats would reply: yes butthole this is serious, the fricking ship is sinking, and on and on they would waste 90 fricking minutes with this r-sluration.
https://apnews.com/article/70fc61f2fecc459cb2220ee859a0849b
Rescue officials then missed a series of opportunities to save most of the people until the ship fully submerged underwater at 11:50 a.m.
The coast guard, which received a distress call from the ferry's crew shortly after the ship began to drift, was required to guard the waters that the Sewol passed through with at least one large patrol vessel.
But on the day of the sinking, the only vessel nearby was a small patrol boat whose nine-member crew was woefully undertrained and lacked basic communication equipment.
The boat did not arrive at the Sewol until 9:30 a.m. Rescue workers then wasted further time with indecisiveness.
SK COASTGUARD IS INDECEISIVE AND USELESS:
By this point at about 09:00AM to 09:30AM there would be like 3 rescue helicopters just circulating around the tilting ship, not being helpful, only like 3 passengers had been saved, and they had climbed upon the deck of the ship all on their own.
The rest of the patrol boats are just standing there drifting, with their peepees in their hands. Because there had been no centralized command given by the Park Administration, and because not central authority had taken first step, all of them are just loitering there being useless frickwits.
All of them are waiting for the park admin to give specific orders, instead of taking deceisive action, and the Park admin in turn is sitting on their thumbs waiting for "video of the incident" before even making a decicion! 
and worst of all is that Prez Park would be missing AWOL for at least 7 hours, unavailable to give commands, and many gove beaurucrats are to cowardly to take initiative in case something goes wrong, and they shoulder the blame,
so everyone there onsite are waiting for someone else to fricking take initiative, so they they would be the one in charge and thus responsible for any possible negative fallout. So everyone is just fricking standing there like imbeciles, waiting for each other!!!!
Remember the US Navy vessel nearby? USS Bonhomme Richard was nearby and had immediately notified SK coast guard they were available for assistance. The USS Bonhomme Richard is a vast amphibious assault ship, with a crew of over 1800 men. At that time they had a full complement of marines capable of rescue operations.
The ship was a semi-aircraft carrier and carried several helicopters capable of advanced search and rescue operations, SK told them to take a hike - this truly was the most needless loss of life in modernity.
The rescue teams only made token efforts to save any people which had already already come to the surface, or were climbing themselves on top of the deck in their bright orange lifejackets.
To make matters oven more dysfunctional and utterly 3rd world, was that the coast guard vessels, and the helicopters hovering above the ferry were communicating to sepparate entities, some were in contact with the Park Admin, while others deferred to the local cost guard authority, and yet others to the provincial and national coast gaurd authority!
https://time.com/3572092/south-korea-coast-guard-ferry-disaster
https://maritime-executive.com/article/South-Korean-Coast-Guard-Disbanded-2014-05-19
Park has been hit hard by an angry nationwide outcry over the government's response to South Korea's worst civilian maritime disaster in 20 years and the seemingly slow and ineffective rescue operation. Park said the coast guard had not only failed in its search and rescue duty but that, in its current form, it would be unable to prevent another large-scale disaster.
"The coast guard continued to get bigger in size but did not have enough personnel and budget allocated for maritime safety, and training for rescue was very much insufficient," she said.
Basically compared to the Burgerland Coast Guard, the SK CG was a dysfunctional shitheap. They had no central authority, and local and provincial juristictions made many of their patrol boats redundant or badly lead. There was zero coordination between local, provincial and national authorities. Nobody knew what in frick they were doing 
MAINLY CIVILIAN BOATS AID IN RESCUE:
To further compound public anger in the wake of this needless catastrophe, would be footage of civilian boats from local fishermen performing fricking better than the coast guard patrol boats and rescue helicopters just idling like fools waiting for orders. These small vessels would daringly and valiantly brave the danger of coming close to an almost capsizing ship, and pick up passengers jumping in the water, or trying to pull of passengers from the rails of the deck.
Once again a glaring similarity between this and the Oceanos, where civilians strived to the occasion to show heroism, while sailors sat with their thumbs up their asses.
ROK AGAIN DECLINES AID FROM JAPANESE COAST GUARD AND US-NAVY VESSLE:
When the Sewol ferry was sinking, it would be near instantly mayday'd to all surrounding vessels, including vessels just seeing the slowly capsizing ship. Both the US and Japan would be aware of the disaster unfolding the moment the ferry began tipping, and would offer their aid immediately.
The Republic of Korea would decline, to merely save face, and would lie that the majority of passengers had already been rescued, and that they supposedly were already being rushed to shore....
So here we were in the Golden Hours where practically everyone could have been saved, the coast guard helicopters and patrol boats no nothing, the Park Admin is unavailable, everyone is waiting for everyone to initiate and take responsibility, and the US Navy keeps contacting SK to offer aid, and repeatedly gets told to buzz off.
It is theorized that Prez Park is an immensely arrogant individual, and was to proud to ask burgerland for aid, in the aspect that SK would look weak and incapable of even rescuing their own people, and had to beg for help.
Burgerland Navy vessels are so well equipped, and marines themselves are required to be strong swimmers, as they are highly specialized aquatic infantry whom must be capable of advanced doctrine like island hopping and beach landings.
While not as proficient as burger Coast Guard, they still have a strong doctrine of practicing civilian rescue operations at sea.
MEANWHILE!!! 
The SK coast guard was at that time ESPECIALLY badly equipped for rescue operations. They effectively existed as glorified patrol boats, to protect the SK coast from Chinx 
fishermen from depleting their shores. They had little experience in actual recue operations.
Which is why additionally, so many patrol boats didn't take the initiative, most of them were incompetent or untrained in rescue missions, and was fearful their ineptitude would be exposed when they fricked up publically.
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/658695.html
COAST GUARD LIES ABOUT NOT KNOWING THAT SEWOL FERRY STILL HAD PASSENGERS INSIDE:
The SK coast guard would try to cover its butt for being so stunningly fricking 3rd world in their "rescue" attempts, that they gave public statements that they believed that all passengers had in fact evacuated, and that they didn't know there were people still inside drowning.
Thus they were not at fault for not ordering an evacuation, or participating in an evacuation measure. But proof of their lies were in the form of the students having called their parents about the sinking ship, and most infamously the emergency 1st call made by Choi Duk-ha about the listing ferry at 8:52AM so everyone knew they were lying through their teeth The kid even gave the exact location of where they were sinking at Chingo island.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/27/world/asia/ferry-south-korea-teen-remembered
CIVILIAN RESCUE DIVERS AND PARENTS WHO RENTED BOAT ARE SCREWED BY COAST GUARD:
On 16 April 2014 when the parents whom had hired a boat to travel to the capsized ferry, they found confusing and conflicting orders and measures from the moronic coast guards. Some said that civilians could enter the cordon around the Sewol, but the coast guard could not 
what/??
The coast guard were completely unhelpful to the civilian divers, they would prevent civilians from doing any help. When fishermen tried to break the windows still exposed above the surface live, in the hope of rescuing some of the students, the sk coast guard would stop them, claiming it was too dangerous.
Meanwhile when the ferry had finally capsized, and was hanging upside down, the coastguard would not go down in the 1st day with divers to check up upon any survivors, which further enraged the parents, and fishermen.
WASTE OF OPPORTUNITY:
Now the ferry just like the Oceanos was sinking very very slowly. By 10:00PM (that evening) about 15 hours after the ferry had listed, then capsized, but was semi-drifting with its butt above the waterline.
Sometimes when ships capsize, they capture large airpockets in which crew can survive for hours or days more. There was a statistically and historical likelyhood that many students and other passengers were likely still alive, and capable divers like the men in the Thai Cave incident would have been able to retrieve them. But once again the SK coast guard didn't even make an attempt the entire 1st day.''
The parents would see during the night of the 16th that the coast guard do jackshit the whole night!! Parents would shout at the coast guard from their hired little boat, at 12 oclock midnight to fricking go into the ocean and dive!
COAST GUARD LIES ABOUT DIVING OPERATIONS:
But the SK coast guard didn't want to admit they did not have the competency and experience to do rescue divers, but to save face 
they could not admit that, they had to shift blame or pretend that another department had to have the responsibility of the incident.
So everyone of these differing departments are just waiting around the capsized ferry, not wanting to expose their incompetency, but also wanting to save face, and we have this absolute r-slur moment of SK coast guards just driving around the ferry not doing anything, meanwhile parents on that hired boat screaming at them to do their effing job.
The mainstream media and coast guard claimed that they were doing diving operations on TV, but the parents could fricking see with their own eyes throughout the night, them doing nothing. The parents would record on their phones the inaction, and send footage to all mainstream networks.
PARENTS THROW WATER BOTTLES AT MINISTER IN ANGER: 
All of these mainstream reporters would lie about this farce of no rescue operations being conducted by the coats guard, all because they were under the threat of the Park Admin, they all were too cowardly to literally report the truth, so as to not make her admin look bad.
Because of this the parents would form their own close knit group, on WhatsApp, and would coordinate information to bypass the lies of the Park Admin gov officials, and the coast guard.
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140417000784
========(FROM ARTICLE)
Prime Minister Chung Hong-won made a visit to a gymnasium in Jindo to console the families of victims of the sunken ferry in the early hours of Thursday, only to be attacked by angry parents.
Parents of the students onboard the Sewol ferry shouted, threw objects, and pulled clothes from the prime minister.
Chung made the visit to the gymnasium in South Jeolla Province, just hours after returning from overseas tours to China and Pakistan. Family and friends of those who went missing in the sinking are waiting in the gymnasium for news of their loved ones.
Chung apologized repeatedly and tried to leave the gymnasium, as tension escalated, but dozens of parents blocked his way and surrounded him.
Some family members threw water bottles and empty cans at the prime minister.
On Wednesday, around 250 parents staged a protest at Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, demanding a list of passengers who had been rescued after conflicting news reports about the survivors.
========(end article)
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/24/world/asia/south-korea-ship-sinking/index.html
=====(from CNN article)
Angry relatives of missing South Korean ferry passengers cursed government and police officials Thursday for failing to do enough to save the lives of their loved ones as hopes dim of finding any survivors.
The relatives berated Fisheries Minister Lee Ju-young and two coast guard officials, accusing them of misleading the public about the operation and of wasting time.
“How can you fool us into believing you were out there trying to save our children?” one mother yelled at the officials.
=====(end article)
The minister had to be escorted out with the aid of police, otherwise the parents were literally trying to rip the guy to pieces with their bare hands.
PREZ PARK ARRIVES:
The parents had reeled in their anger when next the President had visited the gymnasium, in the hope that she would see the corruption and incompetence of her underlings, and would come and help save the day; 
unfortunately she would also spark the ire of the parents, with another canned response about the gov doing all it can ect ect, when the parents could see with their own eyes the complete absence of effort the gov and coastguard were doing to save their kids!
They would end up shouting her down as well, when her coast guard master chief straight up lied about having as many as 500 divers attended the operation last night to try and save the people still trapped in the ferry, the parents raged as this shameless deceit on public media, as they themselves had spent the previous night trying to shout the idle coast guard patrol vessels into action to no avail!!
ATTEMPTS TO INJECT OXYGEN INTO AIR POCKETS FAILS BADLY:
By the 2nd day of the sinking, it was decided that air needed to be injected into the capsized ferry, in case any survivors were struggling to breave and were still alive
Problem! 
The fricking entire SK Navy and coast guard didn't have the cowtools or experience to do such an operation. Once again the very capable US Navy vessel USS Bonhomme Richard offered their aid and expertise, and once again our proud Korean frickwits declined, and lied that they had everything under control
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/16/world/asia/air-pockets-south-korea-survivors/index.html
So they had to bring in private sector diving companies. The companies quickly tender for whom could achieve this, and a company called Undine Marine Industries Co is selected. They bring giant funnels and airpumping machines, but this group is incompetent and proceeds to also frick it up 
They are not trained for water operations as they claimed, and the air injection proceeds disasterously.
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140430001220
====(from above article)
Undine Marine Industries Co., the company leading the search for the Sewol's missing, is turning up more controversy than results.
Undine has been leading the search for the Sewol's missing, which now stands at 90, since April 17, the day after the ship sank off the coast of Jindo Island, South Jeolla Province.
Undine, however, has not only taken the center role in the painfully slow search but also in the growing controversies stemming from the tragedy that has so far generated a confirmed death toll of 212.
=====(end quote)
The US Navy with all their mega spy drone 
shit or whatever they use to spy on their allies, are completely aware of this continious frickup of the Koreans, and offer their specialized aid for A THIRD TIME 
and SK declines again
Eventually it would be found that no air pockets remained by the time the company
1ST CORPSES RECOVERED BY CIVILIAN DIVERS:
By the 3rd day the 1st drowned corpses were recovered by civilian divers, doing the job for the coast guard. This body recovery would be a monumental and traumitizing undertaking for the civilian divers. These civilian divers were very valiant in their undertaking, and many would spend 2-3 months away from home and family to aid in bringing home the bodies of kids to their grieving parents.
The recovery took an extremely long time, as the situation was very precarious underwater, and beneath the still hanging capsized ferry. The ferry was disintegrating as walls, and furniture would continiously fall from the upside-down Ferry, a great deal of debris had to be manually removed by hand, before the divers could even enter the darn ship. Hallways were very cramped, and divers could get easily stuck in the mazelike interior of the vast ship.
These divers had to very slowly and incrementally place guiding ropes, lights, and ventilation tubes for air to be pumped down to where they worked for hours and hours underwater to excavate corpses. If these ventilation plastic tubes accidentally knotted or got caught on an obstruction, the divers would choke to death from lack of air supply, it was a perilous undertaking.
https://nypost.com/2014/04/25/divers-recover-bodies-in-freeze-frame-of-panic-at-ferry-site
The bodies found by divers showed many schoolchildren having hugged each other upon death, and had tied themselves into a fish-knot, thus forcing divers to untangle the children, before transporting them through windows, and to the surface.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/7/27/a-divers-pain-living-with-the-ghost-of-sewol-tragedy
Another diver was so traumatized on being forced to carry the bloated dead with his bare hands, that he had developed a phobia on touching the skin of other humans, including even that of his wife and child.
And lastly to compound the grimness of this undertaking, one diver would end his own life.
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/748728
THE SOWEL FERRY COMPANY UNDER INTENSE SCRUITINY AND FIRE :
So with so much anger and grief within the SK public, amplified by the parents whom were front and center of TV wailing about their dead children, anger mounted in SK for the culprits and causes of this catastrophe.
https://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/05/06/2014050600343.html
=====(from article)
The ferry disaster off the southwest coast has put the spotlight on the ways in which Korean society often sacrifices safety and reliability for faster, more immediate gain.
The ferry operator, which blatantly flaunted safety rules for the sake of squeezing a few extra won from the business, is a textbook example. Chonghaejin Marine ignored passenger safety because the revenue from fares was relatively small compared to the money it could make from cargo.
Overloading had become routine. At the time of accident, the ferry carried a whopping 3.7 times its cargo capacity of 978 tons. It was more like a cargo ship that grudgingly permitted a few passengers on board, and then abandoned them to their fate the moment something went wrong.
In order to squeeze more cargo on board, the ferry had discharged the ballast water aimed at providing balance, thereby causing the tragic accident.
The operator also hired Lee Joon-seok, a 69-year-old man well past retirement age, on contract for a monthly pay of W2.7 million, to scrimp on the average pay of W3.06 million for coastal ferry crew. An official with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said, "It must have been hard for Lee to feel any kind of responsibility in such a low-paying job."
And despite the ship's age the operator added more decks to accommodate more passengers, which rendered ferry's center of gravity dangerously high. 
========(end article)
COMEDY OF ERRORS:
So to summarize this chain-reaction of r-sluration the ballast tanks have been emptied to make room for extra weight in terms of cargo, so that the company may make more money on the Ferry's circuit.
The crew was sloppy and inept, and didn't tie down ANY of the vehicles of trucks, leaving them vulnerable to being thrown about during and listing. The ballast tanks were also nearly empty, providing no counter weight
The Ship had been modified with passenger compartments, by adding 3 new deck levels, thus raising the ship's center of gravity much higher than its original design intended for, all so that the company may make additional money from passengers, as a side-gig, in addition to transporting goods and vehicles.
But it gets worse, and the r-sluration keeps going and going.
Remember how the ship had begun listing in the 1st place? Well you guys won't believe the reason. You see this specific vessel was known to be unbalanced because of its new higher center of gravity, and crews had been instructed to never turn it more than 5 degrees when steering.
For some reason the incompetent would in fact steer the Sewol more than 15 degrees in turning, causing imbalance, which ignited the keg of events which cascaded into the eventual capsizing. 
WHYYyyy they did it is believed to be mere incompetence. This specific ship was just that crappy, and could not oversteer.
So the unsecured and untied cargo and trucks all begin sliding to the left, which begins the vicious circle of listing, and the ballast tanks cannot correct it, and slowly the whole ship just ends up sinking. All the hard smashing of vehicles breaks holes and openings into the lower hull, and water begins leaking into the ship.
ALSO https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/asia/sewol-ferry-accident.html
Did u guyz know that ballast water isn't just one singular compartment, they are all separated into sub-compartments, just like subreddits 
There's multiple tubs in these type of vast ships, usually placed strategically on forward, backward, left and right positions, so that water can be pumped between these sub-sections by pumps located between each sub-compartment, thus allowing the crew some measure of fine tuning the balancing or counter acting rough weather if the ship rolls too much of one particular side, allowing correction.
In a functional ship, with a competent crew, these pumps could be immediately activated , to counterbalance the ship, in just such an event, as the listing which started on 16 April 2014
BUT, the pumps were broken 
and had remained so for multiple journeys before the fateful capsizing.
NATIONAL GRIEF AND HORROR FOR SOUTH KOREA:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/world/asia/south-korea-sewol-ferry-grief.htm
To compound their incompetence, the whole crew was also cowardly, and were the 1st to be rescued after the Sewol Captain. This inspired rage.
Other footage aired on national SK TV, showed traumatizing footage too hardcore for even WPD.
Here are female students seen on tape throwing chairs at windows to try and break them, coast-guards can be seen SEEING her, and doing frick-all, and remaining stationary.
For the South Koreans this singking was a really big deal, it was a capstone event, because on average SK is a very meritocratic high-functioning society. 
They have little theft, violent crime or dysfunction as we have here in South Africa
If I had read this story having originated from RSA, I would not even have been surprised, but SK public is not used to these spectacular 3rd World levels of corruption, incompetence, and petty stupidity. And the 300 dead upon the Sewol Ferry was the fault of multi-intitutional failure which many koreans were not used to. The gov was inept, the coast guard was inept, the media was inept, the local officials was inept, it was a cascade of r-sluration 
and systemic failure on every level.
And it would shock the South Koreans to their core, every bit as much as the trauma and grief would affect them as they wept at the death of 300 souls.
BILLIONARE OWNER OF SEWOL FERRY FOUND EPSTEINED 
As public anger mounted in the wake of the sinking, everything and everyone connected to the Sewol Ferry became radioactive, and koreans would go hardcore in determining who was responsible for what. The Mysterious billionare owner of the Ferry was on that public stoning list. 
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/21/world/asia/south-korea-ferry/index.html
====(from above article)
The Sewol ferry disaster appears to have taken another life – this time of the man whom some blamed for the sinking.
Yoo Byung Eun, the subject of an intense, nationwide manhunt who went missing after the South Korean ferry sank in April, was declared dead, police said Tuesday.
Yoo's body was found decomposing in a plum field by a farmer on June 12. Police used DNA and fingerprints to positively identify him.
Prosecutors believe Yoo, 73, and his sons controlled the shipping company that operated the deadly ferry. The ferry that capsized, killed 294 people aboard, including hundreds of high school students who were on a field trip. More than three months after the incident, divers are still searching for bodies, with 10 people missing.
Yoo, through his representatives, vehemently denied any connection to the Chonghaejin Marine Company in late April. His defenders, including members of his religious group, maintained that Yoo, a businessman and religious figure, was made into a scapegoat for the tragedy.
Much of the blame has fallen on Sewol's operators who were accused of prioritizing profits over safety in an investigator's interim report this month. The report found that Sewol had carried double the amount of cargo allowed and that the heavy load had not been properly secured. They also found that the vessel had been licensed on falsified documents.
Manhunt
For months following the sinking, Yoo defied summons to report to the prosecutor's office for questioning. Yoo was wanted for questioning with an investigation into alleged funds embezzlement, tax evasion and other irregularities that prosecutors say could have contributed to the sinking.
Wanted posters including possible disguises for Yoo popped up. Even South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye weighed in, accusing Yoo's family of “mocking the law and causing public rage.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/28/world/asia/sewol-yoo-manhunt
With nearly 8,000 police officers dispatched on the case, the inability to find the septuagenarian became another source of controversy. But the search ended Tuesday when police announced Yoo's death.
The cause of death is still under investigation, said Woo Hyung-Ho, the police chief of Suncheon, the city where Yoo's body had been found. Police could not determine when he had died. The body was decomposed.
=====(end article)
AFTERMATH FOR NATION:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/18/world/asia/south-korea-coast-guard/index.html
The entire complex of Korean coast guard would be disbanded due to their systemic failure to save lives, with much approval from the angry public. However Prez Park would only do this in a desperate attempt to shift attention away from her and her administration. 
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/28/asia/sewol-ferry-captain-jailed-murder/index.html
The Sewol ferry captain would be jailed for murder of 304 passengers.
And sentenced to 36 years imprisonment.
4 of the senior crew of the ferry were arrested, and sentenced.
HUNDREDS OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS ARRESTED:
"The Sewol disaster raised questions regarding governmental regulation of shipping in South Korea. Shipping is regulated by the Korean Shipping Association, which is also an industry trade group, something experts consider a likely conflict of interest. In addition, government regulators outside the Association frequently move to jobs as part of the association after their government service."
https://associationsnow.com/2014/04/association-officials-arrested-south-korean-ferry-tragedy
Hundreds of these shipping officials, regulators and inspectors would be arrested and imprisoned for taking bribes in overlooking serious safety standards involving the Sewol Ferry.
FERRY CLAIMS LAST VICTIM:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/21/world/asia/ferry-vice-principal-funeral/index.html
====(from above article)
Kang, who was vice principal at Ansan's Danwon High School, was rescued from the sinking Sewol ferry.
Just two days after the accident, he was found dead after apparently hanging himself using a belt from a tree in the city of Jindo. In a note, he expressed regret he had survived while so many others had died. 
Kang's body had been found Friday in one of the small mountains near the Jindo Gymnasium where bereaved families are taking shelter, according to local police. He had gone to Jindo with the school in an effort to support families, said one fellow educator.
“As the one in charge of the safety of the students, he was suffering from guilty feelings,” another teacher had told Korean media. When some familes directed their anger at him, he became “brokenhearted.” 
=====(end)
CONSEQUENCES FOR PREZ PARK 
President Park faced so much heat for this incident, that koreans would be walking in the streets, protesting and demanding her resignation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-27176844
The Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won, would resign after immense pressure from the parents and the public, due to his mishandling of the Ferry disaster. But the heat would only stop where the buck ended, at prez Park's feet.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/29/world/asia/south-korea-ferry-sinking/index.html
"The web of blame in the South Korean ferry sinking is getting wider, and now the country's president is accepting some of the heat. President Park Geun-hye apologized to the nation Tuesday over the government's initial response to the Sewol ferry tragedy."
WHERE WAS PARK???
Questions began to arise about Prez Park's absence 
during the critical 1st 7 hours after the ferry began sinking. The public would speculate where Park was, and why she was unreachable for her underlings to give clear orders to the coast guard and whoever.
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180329000933
====(from article above)
The '7 hours' mystery
The former President's whereabouts on the day of the Sewol tragedy had been a controversial topic even while she was still in office. In spite of repeated public demands, the presidential office at the time refused to provide a clear explanation of why she had not been briefed in person on the accident for about seven hours, until she showed up at the disaster control center at about 5:15 p.m.
Her staff at the time only insisted she was attending to “official duties” at her residence in Cheong Wa Dae on the morning of the disaster. They did not offer any additional information, despite the families' demands for details on what Park was doing for the seven hours on the day of the ferry's sinking.
=====(end)
People were claiming she was on mega aids drugs, or beset with some mystery orgy ceremony, because she was part of some batshit 
cult, which I could only try and summarize as the korean equivalent of Scientology?? 
Anyways point is this was mega controversial in Migookland 
FERRY SINKING LEADS TO PREZ PARK'S IMPEACHMENT 
Mass protests against president Park would follow in the months after the Sewol Ferry sinking. Prez Park began to rapidly lose popularity and support from her voters and supporters, and her political allies began abandoning her.
Asians are pretty organized and disciplined protestors !!!
These demonstrations would go on for weeks, and according to the organizers themselves, about 1.5 million protestors would walk the streets of Seoul for months!
They are really amazing at protesting! No riots or property damage, looting or abject random violence, go SK!! 
Anyways that's all I got, good night 
- 195
- 235
Y'all prolly heard bout this incident. It's proper for gentiles to remain ignorant, but a friend asked for an explanation so, having already decided to write it up, I'll let you in on the tea.
The Beginning
Orthodox Jews fall into three camps.
1. Modern Orthodox: follow halacha (jewish law) but have jobs, wear modest secular clothing, shake foids' hands (eg. Ben Shapiro)
2. Yeshivish: most have jobs, wear 1950s clothing, usually won't shake with women unless pressured to
3. Chassidish: many don't work, wear 1850s clothing, don't shake 
Obviously other differences exist.
Hasidism started as a pietist movement in the 1700s. Chosids all follow a spiritual leader named a Rebbe who holds court and is basically a king or dynast. Bobov hassids follow the Bobover Rebbe, Amshinov chasidim follow the Amshinover, etc. It's an inherited position. Sometimes the old rebbe appoints one son as the heir, sometimes he splits his following between sons (one in New Jersey, one in Israel, etc), sometimes he doesn't say much and there's a leadership dispute.
Sometimes a rebbe dies without a successor and a new one never arises. These are called "dead hasidim" 
Chabad-Lubavitch
One of the oldest khasidic dynasties. They get their name from the town of Lyubovichy, in white Ruthenia, where many of the early Rebbes held court.
The 6th - or Frierdiker - Rebbe died without a son.
His son-in-law inherited. Guy you might have seen before.
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn: the Rebbe.
An extremely beloved, interesting, and powerful leader. At 17 he'd already memorized the entire Talmud - thousands of pages of dense and obscure Aramaic - with commentary. The author of hundreds of books, innumerable letters and speeches. He founded thousands of institutions.
During his life the Rebbe had fled from the Soviet Union, the Nazis, France. In New York, he made his court at a building in the neighborhood of Brooklynn - today bougie and expensive, then working-class.
The address? 770 Eastern Parkway. A building so iconic in Judaism it's known simply as 770.
Chabad's Mission
The Rebbe saw that many Jews by the 60s and 70s had only a minimal connection to their religion due to American integration and other negative spiritual factors. Most were far from the fold not on account of a deep seated atheistic conviction but because their parents had integrated, were overcome by their desires, feared antisemitism and wanted to spare their kids, or whatever. They were like infants captured by idolaters in battle - a halachic status which made them unaccountable for their transgressions done in ignorance 
Many Orthodox Jews were sad but dismissive of the plight of their misguided brethren, seeing it as a lost cause. Most Orthodox shuls did not do outreach, have special programming, or do anything else for secular Jews.
Not the Rebbe. He sent dozens of his devoted followers to every city in the US and many outside of it, especially places with no Orthodox community.
They wouldn't charge for access to the house of worship (common in most other synagogues) or wait for Jews to come by - instead, the Rebbe's emissaries (shluchim) would go to Jews where they were and bring mitzvos to them. This is called mivtzoyim.
In the process Chabad shliachs had to deal with many novel things like learning English, interacting with scandalously clad women, etc. They did so admirably, remaining true to halacha while tactfully navigating the secular world.
The Rebbe's campaigns led to tens of thousands of Jews and Jewish families returning to Judaism and are seen as an unmitigated success across the Jewish world, inspiring most other denominations and branches to start their own outreach programs, and even forcing secular Jewish movements like reform and conservative 
to put on fun events lest their congregants desert en masse. Many of the returnees joined Chabad-Lubavitch and became disciples of its chassidus. Even secular and non-observant businessmen donate to it as part of the mitzvah of helping a fellow Jew.
Trouble in Paradise
During the 90s, the Rebbe, already an old man, got sick.
His followers were in great torment. Nobody had inspired this much fervor - nobody could ever fill his shoes. Especially as the Rebbe had no sons or daughters - all klal Israel (the Jewish nation) were his children.
Many chabadniks even believed he was moshiach. Note that this isn't a deity or the "son of" a deity, whatever that means, in Jewish thought:
A king will arise from the House of David, who is learned in Torah and occupied in the observance of commandments as David his ancestor. He will compel all of Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and reinforce the breaches (in its observance). And he will fight the wars of G-d.
One who accomplishes these things is a potential moshiach and deserves to be followed. The actualized moshiach:
Is victorious over the nations around him. And he builds the Temple in his place. And he gathers the dispersed of Israel.
On an infamous day in 1994 - Gimmel (3rd) Tammuz by our calendar - the Rebbe died.
The Chabad community were thrown into disarray. Emotions ran high and within each community, every group, each family of Chabad, people reacted very differently.
Some were sad but accepted it. They would keep the memory and teachings of the Rebbe alive, without central leadership, but fulfilling his mission. Yes, he was worthy of being moshiach, but had died, which according to the majority view, renders one unfit for the status.
Others refused to believe it. The Rebbe was moshiach. Either he had died and would be resurrected or hadn't died at all. Maybe the tomb was empty... They became known as meshichistim (messianics) - the first group, as antis.
An extremely small proportion of the second - mostly women, ignorants, and the insane - went as far as to claim, contrary to all halacha and Jewish thought, that not only was the Rebbe moshiach, he was even, heaven forfend, G-d himself.
History enjoyers will note the parallel to the passing of a certain oily fellow of the 0s
Lubavitch Today
The movement was split. In such an environment christians disaffiliate from each other and muslims wage jihad. We close ranks. All Israel is one nation, one family, and even a big disagreement like this is not enough to cause bloodshed or enmity. (Paul's mistake was bringing in gentiles. Shat the whole thing up)
Chabadniks agreed to maintain their institutions - synagogues, study halls, houses of learning, charities, etc. - by consensus.
Mostly, it worked.
In general, the majority of Chabad adherents are, in public, anti; the most egregious claimants otherwise are technically shunned by the movement. In their own settings, most do affirm that the Rebbe was or is moshiach. There's a push-pull between emphasizing his holiness (+ messi) and not turning off the entire world with crazy claims (+ anti)
The older ones, who actually knew him as a living man, are more likely to be anti. The much larger younger generation - a hasidish movement's demographics are closer to Niger's than anywhere western - lean messianic. Like the wokies of the western world, meshichistim wormed their way into many of Chabad's educational centers to spread their ideology to gullible youth.
The worst mashichistim attend or attended the Chabad yeshiva in Tzfat, in Israel. An institution that was extremely subverted by the aforementioned process. Lubavitchers from the land of Israel tend to be much more messianic than American ones for sociological reasons I don't feel like getting into. Double whammy.
Many of the tzfatis go putting up stickers like these:
Tunnels under 770
770 itself has faced a lot of issues. As the center of the Chabad world, every claimant wanted it, or at least a piece of the pie. This featured acrimonious legal cases and battles, both in the Jewish juridical system and secularly.
After many years, a court gave ownership to a consortium of educators and general representatives of the worldwide movement.
In practice, the synagogue - which every devout chabadnik has been to, prayed at, and loves - is governed or controlled by gabbaim, who are older, respected men. However, many bochurim (unmarried youth) visit and live there or nearby for a year. It's a popular program within the chosidus. Israelis especially get special religious visas just to come and study at 770.
You can see where this is going.
Over time, the number of worshippers, and especially meshichistim, at 770 has built up very high. One factor is the birth rates, which of themselves would mean an increasingly crowded building. More to the point, messianics revere the Rebbe's building more than antis. Also, certain gabboim at 770 encourage meshichism. It brings in donations to the site specifically, instead of the rest of Chabad's institutions. Lastly, tzfaty youngsters who overly revere the Rebbe - many descended from recent returnees to Judaism or from broken family backgrounds - have a huge presence at the site.
Everyone agrees 770 needs expanded, but the planning and permits process to expand a building in New York City, the den of the Democrats, is not fast or easy at the best of times. Imagine with the decentralized state of the Chabad movement today. Many of the meshichistim in particular believe the Rebbe gave them an order to expand the building.
At some point over the past couple of years, some of these bochurim decided enough was enough. They found an abandoned mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) nearby and dug a long butt, big butt tunnel from it to the shul. Furnished with beds, a study hall, etc.
Recently the building commission, fire department or some other fake jobs program found out and got mad. Apparently it's a structural risk to the building 
They shut down the lower story and brought in cement mixers. The bochurim responded by rioting and disconnecting the cement mixers 
The NYPD came in, evacuating the whole building til further notice and arresting dozens of bochurim.
Now everyone's mad. The elders are realizing the problem with letting meshichism spread so easily and widely among the young. Many think Chabad needs to recentralize or at least establish a committee capable of handling issues. The bochurim are upset their friends got arrested for a righteous cause. Everyone hates that a couple of youngsters are making Chabad and the Jewish people look bad. This is a big deal in Judaism as it leads people to desecrate and disrespect G-d, who is after all G-d of the Jews in particular (and the world in general). The cops, being antisemites. are glad they got to arrest Jews: the only winners in this debacle.
Now you know the whole story. The vids are worth a watch if you wanna see bochurim hit cops with benches
- 47
- 168
Hey ya, how's it goin'? Long time no historypost, and that's why today I wanted to recount one of the most dramatic single events of the Early Reformation—The Siege of Munster! Prophets, princes, the cloth, and the lay come to duke it out at the End of the World smack dab in the middle of Sixteenth Century Germany! They've all gathered for one purpose, and it's to answer the question "What if we made that homeless drug addict constantly screaming 'THE END IS NIGH' on the street corner a dictator?" Well, if you're curious about the answer to that question, then keep reading!
========
CONTEXT
========
The year 1517 should sound familiar to you. It's when a certain godless 
nailed 95 demands on a church and ripped the religious landscape of Europe asunder (or at least it would've been if that story weren't probably apocryphal). You might recognize the bigger players of the reformation, but there exists a (comparatively) little known protestant faction who made quite a stir sometime in the 1530s in the North German city of Munster.
The Anabaptists! Now, Anabaptism was a very decentralized movement. There is no one "true" Anabaptist faction, and no singular point of origin for the movement either. Although the first reformers that may be called Anabaptists were disillusioned followers of Zwingli (a Calvinist preacher). I have to stress that these "original" Anabaptists shouldn't be looked at as the forefathers of the wider movement, but merely the first independent Anabaptist group to develop chronologically (kind of)(sort of)(maybe).
Sub groups within the larger Anabaptist movement, mostly divided by which leading figures they chose to follow, agreed on the same general points:
1. Christians should come to the faith of their own free will rather than through coercion or circumstance.
2. The events in the Bible all literally happened.
(Obviously, this isn't all of Anabaptist theology, but they're the two most important points for our purposes here)
That might not seem like much now, but these ideas had very radical consequences back in the day. The first point meant that Anabaptists rejected the common practice of infant baptism, so second baptisms were common among them as they did not view the first time as legitimate (this is where the term "Anabaptist" comes from: it means "rebaptiser"). Since the other major sects and religious authorities of the time upheld infant baptism, and because second baptisms are a big no-no according to the bible, this alone branded them heretics. The free choice doctrine also meant that Anabaptists held no loyalties to any organized church, be it Protestant or Catholic. The intertwining of church and state common to this era makes this practically anarchical when viewed by both the authorities of the day and Anabaptists themselves.
Biblical literalism, when applied to the Book of Revelation, imagines an eventual apocalypse in which the second coming of Jesus Christ and establishment of His holy Kingdom on Earth is precipitated by a great struggle between all true Christians and the hordes of the godless. Revelation being a favorite portion of the Bible among many Anabaptist leaders and their followers, the "True Christians" are substituted for members of the Anabaptist sect and the "Godless" are imagined to be everyone who isn't them. Belief in being the chosen elect coupled with the assumption that Revelation's events were soon to come led to some rather rambunctious behavior. 
================
THE NEW JERUSALEM
================
Melchior Hoffmann was one such Anabaptist leader with a penchant for apocalyptic soothsaying. He roamed the cities and towns of Northern Germany, pronouncing doom to the unfaithful and imminent thousand year reign of the Lord. He prophesied a New Jerusalem where the Lord would descend from Heaven and begin His rule, and that New Jerusalem was to be Strasbourg. Not wanting to lose out on the holy action, he lead a number of his followers to settle in the city, waiting for what was surely to come.
Unfortunately for Hoffmann and company, the Strasbourg city council did not share his expectations and promptly imprisoned him along with many other Anabaptists. He would spend the rest of his life in that Strasbourg prison, preaching out his cell window at the streets below.
If you asked me, it's a little too convenient for the New Jerusalem to have been a city so near and accessible to Hoffmann and his followers, but I guess I'm not a prophet. 
But you know who is? A tall, lanky Dutchman by the name of Jan Matthias, that's who! He was one of Hoffman's disciples that escaped imprisonment in Strasbourg and now he's got it into his head that he's actually Enoch, one of the two witnesses of Revelation, endowed by the Almighty with holy powers and tasked to spread His word. That may seem a little out there, but 
tendencies are somewhat normal for Anabaptists.
Obviously Hoffman had been wrong about Strasbourg, but that didn't mean his was wrong conceptually. The city of God must just be elsewhere! And so Matthias journeyed North Germany in search of this city, peaching to the region's residents, and picking up a certain cloth merchant by the name of Jan Van Leyden as a follower (yes, they're both named Jan). But enough about preaching prophets; let's talk about our setting.
==================
MONSTERS IN MUNSTER
==================
Sitting on the River Aa, with strong walls and a double moat protecting its residents, Early 1530s Munster provided a safe and secure shelter for manufacturers and merchants alike. One such merchant, Bernard Knipperdolling, along with his allies on the city council and in the guilds, had leveraged that defensiveness and economic power to gain quite a bit of autonomy from their feudal lord, Prince-Bishop Frederick Von Weid.
Interesting thing about Von Weid, he once kidnapped and imprisoned Knipperdolling while he was out travelling on a business trip to Lubeck. The merchant was only saved when his brothers scrounged up enough money to ransom him, but not before he was tortured for 6 months and made to swear he wouldn't be too public about his Protestant sympathies. Not how you win friends.
On the spiritual side of things, the city was one of the more tolerant. The council had both Protestant and Catholic members, and securing autonomy from the Bishop took precedent over any religious squabbles they might otherwise get into, but not everyone could put aside their sectarian concerns.
Bernard Rothmann, a University of Cologne-educated clergyman certainly couldn't (and yes, him and Knipperdolling also have the same first name). He was the preacher at the local St. Mauritz church, and a skilled one at that. He'd recently returned from meeting with various protestant leaders, including the big man Martin Luther himself, and he's got a few new ideas about the faith. He's preaching all about how infant baptisms are dumb and how Revelation is soon to come. 
Where have I heard those before...?
In any case, he gets back and immediately leads his congregation to ransack his own church. Paintings of Mary and other religious figures are desecrated, cowtools of worship trashed, religious works of art smashed, and literature excepting the vernacular Bible burned, the whole nine yards of iconoclasm. Not content with confining his ideas to one congregation, Rothmann walked the streets of the city, preaching openly.
Maybe, if you were the average resident of Munster, you could ignore some rando preacher yelling out in the street, but he wasn't alone. He had followers with him, breathing fire and brimstone and at the head of the crowd, next to Rothmann himself, is Bernard Knipperdolling. Councilman, successful merchant, champion of your home's independence from the tyrant wearing a Bishop's miter. If such a respected member of the community is part of this whole thing, surely that Rothmann guy must know what he's talking about.
===============
CLEANSING FLAMES
===============
Rothmann's influence grew with his congregation. He was practically untouchable, having enjoyed the protection of Knipperdolling. Catholic churches across the city were given the same treatment as St. Mauritz, with at least one report describing a painting of the virgin Mary being smeared with feces. Witnesses claimed to have seen Anabaptists shedding their clothes, running and rolling around in the muck of the street while rambling as if possessed. Rothmann's influence secured him a place at St. Lambert's Cathedral, the city's largest church and one that was conveniently located overlooking the market plaza. He butt heads with the other clergymen there, who appealed to the Bishop to put an end to his heresy.
But things aren't how they used to be. The Bishop is old, tired of the struggle against the city's council, the Lutherans, and even his own colleagues in the church branding him a protestant sympathizer. His own influence within the city had long been eclipsed, with attempted enforcement of his rule likely to end in bloodshed. Rather than face the issue, the Bishop resigned.
His successor died within a few months so I'm not gonna talk about him! 
But HIS successor, a man by the name of Franz von Waldeck, was an aristocrat and career clergyman. A caricature of all the abuses and corruption of the church, he was given his station through his connections as nobility, rather than merit or devotedness to God. He was greedy, power hungry, and gluttonous, if his portrait is anything to go by. He was wrathful, rewarding any perceived disloyalty with a trip to the gallows, as quick to end a life as he was to stuff his face. He was also a fricking fatass. His bold approach to the recent upheaval was to hire a mercenary army to pressure the city's council and inhabitants.
While Franz gathered his army, events inside Munster's walls continued to escalate. The City Council had long been suspicious of Rothmann and his Anabaptists. They tried to force his exile from Munster, but an angry mob descended on the city hall in opposition. Portions of the city fell under the control of the Anabaptists and a standoff ensued. In defense, the council called up hundreds of rural presents, armed with farming cowtools for weapons.
Upon arrival, the council's men were met with crowds of zealots yelling "REPENT! REPENT!", claiming God's wrath shall befall them should they not flee this holy place. The (by now) entirely protestant council, still having the problem of the Bishop at their backs and who had lost the sympathies of much of the city, agreed to a peace with the Anabaptists. Brokered by Landgrave Philip of Hesse, one of the only halfway reasonable actors in this story, the peace forced the peasants to leave and the council not to evict the Anabaptists.
Upon the departure of the peasants, the sky was suddenly bathed in red, flames dancing across the clouds while three Suns appeared beside them. The Anabapists took this event as a sign from God, that they really were His chosen. Catholic historians believed it to be the Devil's work.
==========
RESTITUTION
==========
A city divided against itself couldn't stand the looming threat of the Bishop. Unfortunately for the old guard of Muster, or what was left of it, the scales had tipped against them. Throughout Rothmann's rise, he hadn't just been recruiting locals. Many Anabaptists, discontent with the persecution they faced in their homes, migrated to Munster. Fathers, mothers, and children left their families and homes to settle in this like-minded safe haven. In fact, so much of the original makeup of Munster had been displaced or assimilated by the Anabaptists that they'd built up enough political weight to force a council election. The new council was staffed entirely by Anabaptists.
As it would happen, a certain Jan van Leyden was one of these migrants. Remember him? He's the disciple-guy of Jan Matthias mentioned earlier, and he saw opportunity in recent events. Matthias was still searching for his holy city and the supposed miracle that vanquished the peasant army seemed sufficiently holy to justify giving Munster that title (notwithstanding the friendly government and supportive populace). Van Leyden sent word to Matthias.
Matthias' arrival made waves immediately. He'd already been a popular figure among Anabaptists, but seeing him in person was an entire world apart from mere news of a roaming prophet. He was tall, skinny, wrapped in black hooded robes with a forked beard nearly reaching his waist. Heading processions with a burning gaze and fiery words, preaching of the Kingdom soon to be grown from the nourishing blood of felled heathens, it wouldn't be a far stretch to believe this man truly had witnessed Revelation.
The prophet intended to make good on his promise for heathen blood. His rhetoric was aggressive, more aggressive than even Rothmann, not shying from making targets of the remaining non-Anabaptist Munsterites. By now, the city was practically a theocracy lead by the zealotry of the mob, Matthias at its head. A deadline was set, February 27, 1534, for the remainder of the city to convert or face the blade.
February 27 was cold, freezing rain falling from a dark sky. Lead by Matthias, the Anabaptist faithful raided the homes of the godless, stripping them of valuables, leaving them in rags, and forcing them out the city gates. The sick, elderly, and young received the same treatment as the mature and fit, stripped of all resources and exiled. Some reported infants, a few days old, carried out the city in their mother's arms under the sleeting storm. They were only spared harsher punishment by the intervention of Knipperdolling, having appealed to Matthias for exile rather than death.
Knipperdolling's mercy is strange here, considering his later actions. It's possible he had practical concerns. Anabaptist rule was young and hardly concrete. Maybe he still had reservations against harsh treatment of Munster's residents, heretic or not. He was, after all, the man who had prevented their subjugation to tyrants.
[Snide remark about immigrants or whatever. 
]
===================
RIDER ON A WHITE HORSE
===================
Whatever reason for Knipperdolling's uncharacteristic softness, there'd soon be no room for it. The Bishop's forces were knocking at the gates, and that statement wouldn't stay metaphorical for long. There was a last-ditch (and half hearted) attempt at peace between the two, with a neutral party sent to negotiate for the Anabaptists.
Dr. Friedrich von Wyck, the principal negotiator, was a Lawyer practicing out of Bremen and native Munsterite himself. Not being an Anabaptist, the only allegiance he held was to his home town, its survival, and its independence.
Von Wyck would be executed by the Bishop after negotiations fell through in early February. It seems no one was interested in peace.
Before it had been necessary to hold talks, if not to obtain favorable terms in a genuine settlement, then at least to appear the reasonable party. With the events of the 27th, all pretentions toward a nonviolent solution dropped. The Bishop had amassed a large (and equally expensive) mercenary army and the Anabaptists were left the only faction within the city. The Bishop began a loose blockade of Munster on the 29th, strangling commerce while drawing up plans for assault. The siege had begun.
===========
CITY ON A HILL
===========
Now that Matthias occupied his rightful place, guiding the flock of Christ's true children, it was time to get some changes underway. Usually prefaced with an episode of catatonia during which Matthias received visions from the Lord, any decrees from the man were followed without question. To doubt God's witness would be to doubt God's will. With these visions. Matthias transformed Munster's socio-political landscape.
Earthly wealth, you see, has no value in the eyes of true Christians. Therefore, it is only right that all things must be held in common, to be made use of in ways the community sees fit, rather than to satisfy the vanity of individuals.
Personal valuables were seized from their owners, to be exchanged for provisions from the outside with which to conduct the siege or to bribe the Bishop's mercenaries to abandon their client. Foodstuffs were appropriated, to be distributed equally among the community, according to need. Houses, especially those once owned by the exiled godless, were used to house new arrivals or those who had previously done without shelter.
All must also work. God's kingdom has no place for lumpenproletari—er, the sinning slothful. Those with jobs were compelled to continue them. Those without, or those with jobs found useless to the community, were assigned work. Those who did not work were imprisoned.
Icons of the old order were destroyed or converted for practical use. All church spires within Munster were demolished (save St. Lamberts, used as a gunnery), their parts used for construction. Streets were renamed to things properly God-fearing. Cowtools of worship (rosaries, candles, crosses, etc.) were confiscated from their owners. Even newborn children had their names restricted to those from the Bible.
Knowledge not in service to God is not knowledge at all. All books were burned, save the vernacular Bible. Independent educational institutions were made to spread God's word and God's word solely. Church attendance was mandatory, where commissars would instruct the masses of true ideology preachers would bring the true word of God to the lay.
Dissent was crushed. Can't let freedom of conscious get in the way of a good revolution. I-I mean... get in the way of service to God! Yeah, service to God... 
If you don't get it by now, Matthias was a dirty !commies bastard and that fact isn't lost on past and contemporary historians. Though, admittedly, it is a little more complex than that. 
pretentious academic voice If Matthias was communist at all, he was a proto-communist at best. You see, the social conditions necessary for the development of communistic theory were far from extant in Matthias' day, 
and he held no illusions toward abolition of the state. Really, Matthias' ideology may be compared to virtually any brand of totalitarianism. 
The prophet aimed to capture the whole of people's hearts, minds, and actions, orienting them to serve God and the establishment of His kingdom. Just replace "God" with "The State" or "The People" or "The Nation" and, boom, you have totalitarianism. Unless you don't believe in the concept of totalitarianism, but now you're just being reductionist. 
===========
FINAL VISIONS
===========
The thing about relying on visions from God to guide you is that you can't refuse when He gives a bad suggestion.
Good Friday, April 3rd, 1534, and Jan Matthias is laying face down, silent and unmoving, at a wedding. Anabaptists high and low alike were in attendance, Knipperdolling and Matthias fraternizing with common artisans like the carpenter Henry Gresbeck. The prophet's behavior might be slightly worrying if it happened to any other sometime-between-middle-aged-and-elderly man, but with Matthias, it merely signaled another of his divine revelations. None batted an eye when he collapsed, later rose from his seat, sang praise to God, and kissed all attending on the lips before departing without another word. Just typical Matthias. Maybe there'd be another law tomorrow.
The time had come for some REAL miracle work. Transforming society to align with God's will is one thing, but it does nothing to vanquish His enemies outside your borders. Once again, that was to be Matthias' job. God instructed him to ride out the gates, alone, and route the heathens single-handedly. Some might raise doubt of the efficacy of such a plan, the prophet himself apparently disliked the prospect, but there was little to be done about any misgivings. Rejecting the plan either meant admitting Matthias' visions weren't divine or that God could be wrong. Neither were really options.
Matthias donned his armor, mounted his horse, and rode with a dozen or so men to meet the Bishop's army on April 5th, two days later. His head would adorn a pike in view of the city.
His severed genitals may have also been nailed to a city gate, but that claim is as dubious as it is amusing.
The next few days were uncertain. The de facto, if not de jure, leader was dead. Rothmann and Knipperdolling were still around, but neither could command quite like the prophet. Rothmann was an intellectual, educated, and a good propagandist. Knipperdolling was a political veteran, but couldn't capture the passions of the people. Someone with charisma was needed, one that could whip the population into subservience. Someone that could convince everyone that God had chosen them to lead, just as He had chosen Matthias.
Jan van Leyden, if not chosen by God, was at least a good actor. He had experience, once participating in street plays back in the Netherlands. Putting that knack for theater to use a few days after the prophet's death, van Leyden appeared publicly in the market square before St. Lambert's, fully nude, and screaming pleas for repentance from the citizens of Munster. He ran the streets of the city in this manic state until he collapsed. Signaling that he wished to communicate, but could not speak, he was provided a writing utensil and paper.
His message read that God rendered him mute until he could receive a proper vision of the city's future.
Aaaaaaand that's where I'll leave you. This post is too long as it is and there's still a lot more information. I'll continue in another part so look out for that if you care. I may also make a post on /h/lit about the sources I used if the post does well
touch foxglove NOW 
Guide to (good) AI Marsey Generation 
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There is a lot of enthusiasm about generating marseys using Stable Diffusion. Recently @float-trip did something that just a few months ago I predicted would take five years - make a marsey generating bot (
) (
to be fair my point was about the long-term costs involved in running a bot on a node that has the capabilities to do so ). Anywho, there has been a flood of new marseys that have been submitted, prompting that rat bastard carp to tell you all to knock it off 
(AI-chads are the most oppressed minority on earth). BUT some AI marseys are really good and cute 
so how can you make good marseys using AI?
SETUP
Alright so this guide is only for non-poorcels that have a decent GPU. By decent GPU, I mean NVIDIA 
. (I recently upgraded my GPU from an AMD RX570, and I tried my absolute hardest to make it work on my AMD but I couldn't get it. There are """guides""" online but there are a lot of implicit assumptions about what type of GPU you are using, it has to have so much VRAM and it has to be certain series and the documentation is a FUCKING nightmare (@DrTransmisia can relate))
(Also, I am running it locally because I want to generate tons of variations in the background while I am wageslaving. You can run it via the cloud too if you want tho)
You will need:
A PC with a GPU with a decent amount of VRAM (10+ GB is best, but the requirements keep going down as CS-chads continue refining the model. nowadays you can technically run it with 4GB with certain versions of the code but YMMV because i haven't done that yet)
Python 3.10.6 (You should add it to PATH)
git (technically optional but it will make your life easier)
@float-trip's model. float trip is the real MVP here btw, he has been trying several different things to get this project to work with tons of compute.
mad respect my nigga
Get AUTOMATIC1111's webui repo. This is the best repo out there for this kinda stuff, partially because it was made by 4chan autists who were trying to generate waifus. If you have git, you can just open up a command prompt and type
git pull https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui.git. Otherwise, I think there are redneck ways to get the code as a zip file but that's a pain.Place float-trip's model in the /models directory. Rename the model to "model.ckpt"
Double click webui-user.bat in the main directory.
Wait a few minutes for everything to load, until the text stops moving and it tells you to open a weblink.
Open your webbrowser and type "localhost:7860". Viola! You should see the webui
GENERATING MARSEYS - GENERAL TIPS
If you have done everything correctly, and you type the word "marsey" into the prompt, you should see a marsey appear. If not, you may see something related to the planet mars. If that happens, make sure you have the correct model that I linked above. Also try restarting your computer, that helps for some reason (
).
With most words, longer descriptions are better. However, with "marsey" I have noticed that sometimes the AI "loses the plot", so to speak. For instance, if I type "joe biden as a dark wizard, very detailed, greg rutkowski, award winning, trending on artstation", I will get a badass picture of DVRK BIDVN. However, if I do "marsey as a dark wizard, very detailed, greg rutkowski, award winning, trending on artstation", the picture generally won't be of DVRK MVRSEY. I think that's because CLIP may be confused about what "marsey" actually is - is she a cat 
, a person 
, a style 
, or an idea 
? Who knows??? Anyways, all that to say that shorter is generally better.
](/images/16648117837966726.webp)
stylized using a greg rutkowski type prompt. notice that marsey doesn't really resemble marsey
](/images/166481243720002.webp)
no stylization
Also, remember that you can use (((noticing))) on words and phrases you want the AI to pay closer attention to. No, that's not a joke, that is literally a part of the code. For instance, if you are finding that "marsey as a knight" is generating pictures of human knights with the wrong style, try "(((marsey))) as a knight".
With most prompts, if you want to get high-quality outputs you should set sampling steps to 150 (otherwise the output will be blurry). However, when generating marseys, I have found that 50 sampling steps is enough to get good marseys. I say this because sampling steps increases the amount of time needed per image generation linearly, so imo it is better to spend that time generating more variations of marseys than a few with marginally higher quality.
Another thing to keep in mind is CFG scale. CFG is "Classifier-Free Guidance". Basically, the lower this number is, the more closely the output will be guided by the prompt. 7, the default, works fine for me.
](/images/16648148875020278.webp)
comparison of CFG scales and step count for the prompt "(((marsey))) as a dark sorcerer"
I like to generate marseys in batches of 100. By default, the UI only lets you do batches of 16. To increase this, just open ui-config.json, and set "txt2img/Batch count/maximum" to 100.
](/images/1664818680864382.webp)
inspiration! prompt was "COLUMN (((marsey))) as a ROW"
FIXING YOUR MARSEYS
Now, no matter how good your favorite outputs are, they probably aren't ready for submission yet. (Hence why carp was mad). Some fixing may be necessary.
The first order of business are the eyes. AI-generated images are often bad with the eyes (although the recent model is pretty good). The reason for this is actually that AI isn't bad with eyes, it is as good at eyes as it is everything else, it's just that our monkeybrains are a lot less forgiving of eye-imperfections than any other imperfection.
There are a couple of different ways to fix the eyes. You can squish them, you can resize them, you can rotate them. If push comes to shove, you can also entirely replace them. Don't feel bad, that's how 99% of marseys are made in the first place (, 
, 
)
I use paint.net for marseys because it is free and easy, if you understand paint you should be able to understand paint.net. For most edits I use the brush tool with a size of 4 and 100% hardness. I also color select from other similarly colored parts of the marsey to make sure I am following a color-pallete (most marseys dont use very many colors)
Another tool I use is gaussian blur to blend colors more evenly. Also make sure you remove the background and crop to the marsey cleanly.
It doesn't just have to be fixes! Let your imagination go wild, and use the AI's output as a starting point. For 
I made her match the russian flag by coloring her sneakers red, and made her tracksuit an adidas tracksuit.
Oh one more thing. Most of the time, marseys will be inline, which means they will be relatively small. So you should make sure that the output is easy to parse from a distance. People should be able to understand it intuitively as a symbol without seeing it up close. 
is probably my favorite marsey because it works so well as a symbol from a distance - it is obviously representing music or listening to music and is hecking cute.
FINAL STEPS
To avoid spamming carp 
maybe make a post on /h/marsey first and see what people think before submitting it. I like to tell people what the steps I took to improve the marsey were, and also provide the original, and a few that I like but didn't make the cut. They will probably call you a lazy faggot but that is the essence of rdrama so don't worry about it
also stop making OMG THIS IS THE FIRST THING THE AI OUTPUTTED ISN'T IT SO COOL 
posts. we know
OTHER FUN TOYS TO PLAY WITH
if you have an idea for a marsey, but you are a shit artist, try sketching it and feeding it into SD. in the webui, there is a tab called img2img. Upload the picture there, and type a description of the image you drew, and click generate. This should generate variations of what you drew.
- there are several things to play around with there. try tinkering with the CFG scale and Denoising level. I have found that denoising about 0.7 gets sufficiently novel results, but try playing around with it on your own. A tool that can help you is the X/Y plot script, which should be fairly self-explanatory.
you can use AI to upscale your results! sometimes this is a bit derpy, and I haven't played around with it much, but it is possible! see the "Extras" tab for that stuff.
you can make LOOPING marseys. That's right, if you want to have a cleanly looping wallpaper of marsey, you can do that! just check the "tiling" checkbox.
](/images/16648946685480123.webp)
a single looping marsey tile
](/images/16648947762218437.webp)
same tile, tiled
- want to make ungodly abominations? you can do that! try changing the width and height to something besides 512x512 to see some really wacky stuff. now, the marsey model performs pretty well compared to most other things, and you can get some normal pictures, like this happy family
](/images/16648963477249868.webp)
... but you can also get really weird stuff, like this guy
](/images/16648963979961226.webp)
IS IT ART?
I think there is more art to this process than people think there is. Firstly, I would argue the act of generating and cherrypicking the best results is an artistic process itself. You type in a prompt (a form of artistic inspiration) and you look for outputs that you like (also an artistic process). Also, as you learn how the software works, and get an intuitive feel for how it works, you actually gain skill. For instance, knowing the effect of CFG scale, and what other AI tools can improve your work, is a form of mastery.
Secondly, of course, there needs to be an editting process, and this also shows about the same level of artistry as 75% of marseys. After all, most marseys are kitbashed anyways by amateurs so what's the big deal.
+ = , for instance.
Ultimately I think art is mostly about making things that people enjoy rather than a specific process. I think most people here would agree. I think that is a good thing as long as it is used sparingly, with an eye for quality instead of quantity.
I think a lot of people rush to the most negative possible conclusion about a thing rather than considering the positives. I think that AI art has drawbacks, but I also think it can make the world a slightly nicer place, with more cool things to look at 
How to Enrage Redditors by LARPing as a Christian: The Definitive Guide 
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TLDR: Be friendly but passively condescending
Hey dramatards, have you ever wanted to make redditors seethe by your very existence? Wanted to pretend to be a Christian, but got called out for being too on the nose? Well, follow this simple set of steps, and you too can become incredibly annoying and seethe inducing! Come, follow me, and you will become fishers of redditors. 
Full disclosure: I am not a Christian, but I once was a very devout Protestant. This isn't meant to preach to you that Christianity is true or dunk on you if you are a Christian, but merely how to be super annoying while larping as one. The character I will be describing is based off of my personal experiences with Christians, and my interpretation (and creative mis-interpretation) of the Bible. Also note that the character I am describing does not describe all Christians, in fact, it really doesn't describe most Christians. Your average 2022 Christian has learned that arguing with atheists online is a complete waste of time.
https://cdn.groomercordapp.com/attachments/720901326644445225/973341271785615390/unknown.png
if you ever feel dumb, just remember someone typed this out unironically
The Basics
I'm just going to assume most of you have an at least workable understanding of the Bible. The basic story, for review, is that Sin enters the world through Adam and Eve, Jesus dies on the cross to save us from our sins, and at some point in the future Jesus is coming back to kick some Satanic butt. obviously there is a lot that I am skipping, but this basic understanding should be good enough for you to at least pretend to be a Christian. In fact, there have been various studies that have shown that atheists know more about the bible than christians, so actually a lack of biblical knowledge is somewhat realistic
https://media.groomercordapp.net/attachments/720901326644445225/973340787276382249/unknown.png
pictured: most biblically literate redditor
Killing them with kindness 
One thing that I see a lot of people get wrong when larping as Christians is that they lean really heavily into the Fire, Brimstone, and Holier-Than-Thou aspect of Christianity. And, yeah, that is a part of Christianity as a set of beliefs, but in general, that's not how most Christians act. I would actually say that the opposite set of behaviors is both more realistic and more seethe-inducing.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13
Atheists don't realize just how much of the Bible is about love, because they generally have a viewpoint that God is an evil Hitler-esque dictator. And while an argument could be made that this is true, an argument could also be made that this is not true:
[16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 3:16&version=KJV) - John 3:16
After all, if God just wanted to toss us all into Heck, why send Jesus? Anyways, you might be wondering why being loving could induce seethe. Well, remember that redditors are absolutely fuming about Christianity as it is. You don't have to do anything else to make them angry - they already are extremely mad. So, how can you make them even madder? Well, the Apostle Paul explains the art of seethe:
[But If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.](https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Romans 12:20) - Romans 12:20
Being friendly and charming when someone is already angry at you causes people to go absolutely ballistic. For one thing, you are completely ignoring their complaints, and acting like nothing is wrong. For another thing, it causes them to look like buttholes, because you aren't being mean to them, they are being mean to you. (of course, you are subtly egging them on - more on that later). It's also just really funny to watch someone get angry over someone literally not doing anything.
Egging them on 
Now, while being outwardly friendly, we start to passive-aggressively tease them. Remember, the impetus behind your character talking to the redditor is on the one hand out of obligation (Jesus said to), but more importantly, pity. You (subconsciously) view them as a broken, pitiable thing that needs help, and you see sin as a symptom of the disease of sin.
One thing a lot of Christians do that inadvertedly causes seethe is blaming mental illness on the problem of sin (and, tbh, in some circumstances, they are right). Most notably, depression and anxiety. People are depressed because they keep trying to fill their soul with something that can't satisfy, but as a Christian, you aren't depressed because you have the love of Jesus in your heart. People are anxious because they don't have the certainty of Jesus - etc, etc. It's a pretty good bet that most redditors think they have muh depression, so you can just whip that one out anytime you want for a good bit of anger.
I can't prove this, but it is my feeling that part of the reason redditors hate Christians so much is because they are intimidated by how they perceive them to be, in general, better people. I mean, think about it. Christians don't smoke or jack off, two things that losers do. Christians have a reason to be friendly and charming, as opposed to your badass basement dweller. Christians do more for the community than Atheists, in terms of helping out (will an atheist bring you dinner when you are sick?) They tend to be hard workers, and be fiscally conservative. All this combined makes them, ironically, more sexually successful than your average redditor, because those are qualities that are attractive to women. Indeed, a lot of Christians get married young (no premarital s*x) and start pumping out babies ASAP (no contraception needed).
Annoying stereotypes/arguments 
Here are some plausible stereotypes to embody that are sure to get a rise out of our euphoric brethren.
I Fricking Hate Science 
If there's one thing redditors love, it's their hecking science and rationality. Well, the Christian has the perfect, seethe inducing answer to science - faith. Now, faith is a tricky word to define, but it can be summed up as "believing in something because you believe in it". IE, a refusal to change your beliefs. Christians may disagree with me on the specifics (there is this debate over "blind faith", ie I have faith that the sun will rise but I have reason to believe it) but I don't really care, I'm not here to preach a sermon.
The fact that Christians have no proof that God exists usually seems like the strongest slam dunk to atheists, which makes Faith so seethe-inducing. You completely refuse to acknowledge their strongest argument, while also invalidating their entire belief structure.
thank u based @Dramarama
You're only mad because you know I'm right 
This one is a fun one. The bible says that everyone actually secretly knows that God is real, they are just in denial.
Humorously, this verse reminds me of subs like /r/egg_irl, where people "figure out" that they are trans and just in denial. Atheists are akin to transphobes irl? Anyways, this verse is great for seethe because there are two possibilities. They either seethe because you are claiming that they are something they aren't, or they seethe because the verse makes them very worried (more likely). The intended effect is that people ask - am I in denial?
Jesus: Living Rent Free in your Heart 
Okay, so this one is going to be trippy. One thing a lot of Christians experience is "the presence of God". It is, in short, an altered state of consciousness, in which a Christian "experiences" God. In fact, I have a theory that this experience, which is invoked by a variety of things, ie music, intense concentration, etc, is similar to the experience of LSD, without the hallucinations. Specifically, the concept of "Ego Death". I am not a druggie, so I have never done LSD, but it is a theory.
Anyways, a lot of people take this experience as absolute, 100% proof that God exists. This is funny for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is bad evidence - it's a personal anecdote, and impossible to verify. Secondly, and more humorously, atheists simply cannot relate to what is being said, so they feel like they are missing out. Christchads take home another W, leaving atheists seething.
Apologetics for Trolls 
Okay, so the bad news is that there are a lot of good critiques of Christianity. The good news is that your average redditor probably doesn't know these good critiques, and will mostly parrot what Rick and Morty says about it. There are a lot of resources for snapping back at easy atheist talking points. The best is probably CARM (The guy running CARM is a bit of a lolcow himself, but that's another story for another day). For HECKING SCIENCE, Answers in Genesis is pretty r-slurred, which makes for some good trolling.
Here's a few very, very common atheist arguments that continually resurface:
"but the bible says u can't eat shellfish, why are you eating lobsters? checkmate." 
"well soyjak, these instructions were given to the Israelites, who were under the old covenant, but as Christians we aren't beholden to that, instead we are under the new covenant".
"you know the bible talks about slaves. ha. you like slavery." "actually, soyjak, slavery in roman times was much different than in colonial times, and slaves were, in general treated much better than their modern counterparts. also, the bible neither explicitly endorses nor condemns slavery (IIRC), as Christianity did not have much political power in the Roman empire, instead instructing both master and slave to be good to each other in the system they operate in."
- "if God is so good why do bad things happen to good people?" "it's because sin entered the world because god gave us free will"
- "actually the bible is full of contradictions." "name one" (soyjak then looks up a list of biblical contradictions, and lists one. chad then looks up the same contradiction on a christian website, finds an explanation, and replies with the explanation. seriously, the bible is a finite set of verses, meaning that there are a finite number of possible contradictions - they've all be discovered and debated to death hundreds of years before you were born)
Again, the purpose of me telling you these isn't to convince you that Christianity is correct, but merely to demonstrate how to dab on brainlet atheists who think that they have a galaxy-brain. There are still some pretty good biblical difficulties - for instance, why did god order the destruction of entire states, including women and children? (tbh, they did live in a time in which such brutality was the norm and if they hadn't the messianic line wouldn't have made it to when jesus would have been born, but there are other ideas as well, and in general people nowadays aren't too keen on imagining less than ideal circumstances)
If someone really backs you in a corner with bible verses, remember that you can always just accuse them of taking it out of context and change the subject. This is a pretty foolproof technique and also generates seethe.
Beyond Reddit 
It wouldn't be a HeyMoon post if I didn't dunk on the rightoids, so I will. There is a trend among the alt-right to claim to be BASED Christians. The thing about these BASED Christians is that they generally don't act like Christians or have any real understanding of what Christianity is outside of "Red Man Bad". Be sure to ask these people if they go to church, how often they read the bible, and how often they pray. Also be sure to ask them what they think about the fact that they literally worship a JEW. Also ask them why they hate [PEOPLE GROUP] if the Bible says to love their enemies.
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Rdrama.net is, for many of us, a very special place that is unlike the rest of the Internet. It has the soul of the old web, and it's own brand of humor that can't be found anywhere else. The site's main jannie, Carp, is genuinely hilarious and adored by the community. Despite the constant shit flinging and sneeding, there is a deep feeling of unseriousness here that is refreshing in a world that takes itself too seriously.
This article is not about this gay butt site, however, it's about another site that took the internet by storm in the early 2000s and was the genesis of many extant aspects of Internet culture. It's the story of the man who made it possible, and how his internet fame ruined him.
In November of 1999, a man by the name of Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, a dropout from Vanderbilt University, would get fired from his job as a quake gaming journo for making fun of an old r-slurred coworker of his. With his newfound free time, he would begin to write articles and publish them on his fancy new website,
SA began as a sort of ripoff of Maddox's "best page in the universe" with edgelord articles being posted nearly daily to the front page. SA had a forum where readers could comment on the articles, and it quickly drew a large following of the early denizens of the Internet, which were mostly neckbeards and edgelords. In a few short years, the forum had become more popular than the front page, with a very active community of "goons" that would create content in the forums that would feature on the front page. In 2002, Rich began charging users a $10 fee to access the forums, and the users obliged, as the fee deterred trolls and stupid children from pooping up the site. You also had to pay 5 bucks for a profile pic, but you could anonymously spend 5 bucks to change another users pfp as well, which was funny. Lowtax also banned l33tsp33k on the forums and required people to write in complete sentences.
The community became a massive success, and eventually grew to over 100,000 users. Memes, raids, "let's play" videos, and even 4chan were born from SA. Lowtax was making six figures just off of registration fees, and at this point, was still in his 20s. He had money, time, and a massive community that loved him. What could a man with so much potential do next?
Lowtax decided to start banging the female users of the site, known as "Goonnettes." In 2005, he got one of them pregnant and got married to her shotgun wedding style.
In 2006, Lowtax would have a year that would begin the downward slope of his life. Two major events would change his relationship with the site.
In March, Lowtax posted a thread to "General Bullshit," SA's general discussion board, talking about a particular brand of juice that he liked. It was a brand of "Mangosteen" juice (A mangosteen is a small purple fruit from southeast Asian btw). The users quickly realized that this was an affiliate marketing link and teased Lowtax, who reacted by throwing a temper tantrum, calling everyone cute twinks, and then deleting the post and banning everyone that made fun of him. This really soured many users of the site to Lowtax, who before this time was seen as a lovable goofy site admin.
Things got worse later that year when Lowtax would publicly accused a shitty movie director named Uwe Boll of being a child molester. Uwe had been organizing an event to box the critics of his shitty movies, and asked Lowtax if he wanted to box him. Lowtax agreed, and the two would meet in September of that year, in a shitty events center in Vancouver. Lowtax would get his butt kicked in this event, which would stream to 7000 viewers (which was unheard of in 2006. he would then sneed in the parking lot after the event in a post fight interview.
Between this incident and the Mangosteen debacle, Lowtax would post much more infrequently to the site, as he wasn't really able to live those two things down. He would begin renting a shitty strip mall office, which would be the HQ for SA. He supposedly rented the space to run the site, write articles, and make content with animator and best friend, Shmorky. Usually though, Lowtax would mostly go there to get high and stay away from his wife, who now had two children with him.
Lowtax's wife was devoutly religious, whereas lowtax was a neckbeard atheist. As Lowtax spent less time with the family, his wife would begin teaching Sunday school, much to the chagrin of Lowtax. The two would fight about religion, Lowtax's lack of doing anything other than being a drunk r-slur, and the tension would culminate in a physical altercation in 2010. At this point, his first wife would file for divorce.
The site itself, SA, was beginning to lose it's relevancy as other platforms rose in popularity. The company that went on to buy reddit offered Lowtax 14 million for the site in 2007, but he turned it down, as this site was his life's work and the community were HIS people, right?
Back on SA, the makeup of the community had begun to shift dramatically. Starting in 2008, a Kenyan man named Barack Hussien Obama ran for president against crippled war hero John McCain. The goons that supported McCain decided to wager their accounts on the election results, and after McCain lost, many of the goons that supported him (chuds) were banned from the site and never returned.
Then in 2010, a game called Dangan Ranpa released. It's an anime game about murdering teenage girls, so naturally, it was a smash hit with the 
s on tumblr. SA was one of the first places on the web to feature "let's play" videos. Lowtax was pissed that these tumblrites were watching his premium SA content for free, and put the "let's plays" behind a paywall. Tumblrinas needed to buy a forum membership to view the "let's plays," and many of them promptly did and never left. The word "
" comes from the words and goon, and originated on SA. There was also a dedicated politics board called "Laissez Faire," but the users from this board would brigade other boards (especially the chud board, "FRICK YOU AND DIE," or FYAD), so Lowtax decided to delete the Laissez Faire which was essentially a leftist containment board) and thus, a somewhat apolitical forum culture was permeated with a leftist political slant that continues to this day.
As for Lowtax, he wasn't doing so good. He had started a shitty gaming channel called "gaming garbage" that never took off. By 2014, registration fees had dropped significantly and would not recover. His site was still running on 2002 era software, and he was too fricked up all the time to really address any issues with it. Also in 2014, Lowtax fired Shmorky, as he was starting to trans out and was doing shit like wearing a cape and a yarn wig and speaking with an extremely creepy high pitched voice. He had a schizo gf as well, and posted a video of her having an actual schizoid attack to SA, which caused the community to disown him.
In 2016, Shmorky was outed as a diaper furry scat fetishist libertarian (really) and disappeared from the internet forever (people think he killed himself). Lowtax was beset with anger, as he had allowed Shmorky, a man who was once his best friend and someone he trusted, around his children. He took to the SA forums to talk shit about Shmorky, as he needed the cathartic release of bullying this wierdo, but the users mostly defended Shmorky because he is "non-binary" and if someone is LGBTQIAA+, cannot be made fun of even for being a sick frick.
Lowtax had realized that he had lost the community that he cared about. These new users were gay r-slurs and not cool and all the real neighbors left long ago. At this point, Lowtax decided to make a change and fix the site, but the rot was so deep it couldn't be cut out at this point. He did weird shit like segregate all the black users to a board called "negrotown." (Lmao)
In 2016, Lowtax would go to Canada to frick another goonnette. While there, he would meet Ashli, his soon to be second ex-wife. He flew her back to his hometown in Missouri and the two would be wed shortly thereafter. Lowtax wouldn't bother to complete her residency paperwork, making Ashli technically an illegal immigrant.
Ashli was not a goon, but she believed in Lowtax and though SA could be great again. He made her a mod, which pissed off the other mods, but the users seemed to actually like Ashli. She recommended that Lowtax make a patreon to raise money for SA. He already had one, so he marketed it on the forum and was began making like $15k a month from his paypigs (who could give a shit about Lowtax but like using the site.) She really wanted to light a fire under Lowtax's butt, but much like his first wife, found herself caring for a lazy, drug addicted manchild who spent his time and money on dumb shit, like rented sports cars and luxury cakes. He chose to bask in the success of his youth, which had already faded, and a rift began to grow between the two. In 2019, Lowtax would take a "business trip" to frick a 25 year old BPD slut for a month. He would leave his wife and child in the midwest, with no money or car, in the middle of the coldest time of year. When he returned, his house was empty, as Ashli had escaped to a woman's shelter with the help of Lowtax's first wife. Lowtax made an angry facebook post accusing his soon to be ex-wife of kidnapping their child, further drawing the ire from his community. His eldest daughter contacted him asking him what his problem was, with Lowtax telling his teenage daughter to go frick herself. This would be the last time they spoke.
The slut Lowtax hooked up with was a piece of LA BPD trash named Logan Day. She and Lowtax tried to claim repeatedly that their relationship was strictly professional, but the users of SA knew this was bullshit.
His patreon was bleeding about $1000 a month until he got down to about $7000. Later that year, in july, Logan would accuse Lowtax of hitting her in a strange Facebook post, and by that time, his community was done with him. His patreon collapsed in a matter of days, and he was left with only a couple hundred a month. With mounting legal depth and no more future income, Lowtax had to make a very painful decision. Below is a picture of his patreon:
In late 2020, Lowtax would sell the site to some twink named Jeffrey of YOSPOS, who was supposedly a crypto millionaire. He got about 400,000 for the site, a bit less than the 14 million he was offered earlier in 2007. Jeffrey would then auction the right to ban Lowtax to a lucky user, and Lowtax, shortly after selling the site, would be banned from his own forums, never to return.
At this point, Lowtax had almost no money, no income, and was in a legal dispute that was costing him thousands. He had lost most of his friends and his family. It was now 2021, and Lowtax was 45 years old with no assets, skills, and with poor health. He turned to doing streams on gaming garbage, his dogshit youtube channel, which would only attract around 12 or so viewers, and he would show up on stream fricked up and incoherent. He did streams where he would eat meat sticks for money, barely making more than a couple hundred at most. 
Below was his last stream, Nov 6th, 2021
On November 7th, 2021, the judge in Lowtax's court case against his ex decided the following:
-Lowtax had deliberately spent the 400,000 in 14 months in order to not pay it to Ashli
-Lowtax had physically, emotionally and verbally abused Ashli
-Lowtax had failed to pay the Guardian ad Litem (this is sometimes required in a custody battle, where the child has to essentially be cared for by the court. The guardian ad litem in this case was named Dana Outlaw, which is a cool name)
-Lowtax told Ashli ahead of time that he was going to move Logan in to the house and expected her to "be OK with that."
-Lowtax was ordered to pay Ashli a lump sum of $92,000 (which had been seized by restraining order so Lowtax couldn't spend that too)
-Lowtax was also ordered to pay Ashli $6,500 a month in spousal support for 2.5 years
Two days later, on November 9th, 2021, Lowtax would shoot himself.
His death was announced to the users at SA by Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen, a longtime admin and best friend of Lowtax. His forum mostly dunked on him, and he is remembered for being a colossal piece of shit who stumbled into greatness and squandered it all away.
His family was left with basically nothing. He blew everything on games, luxury $70 pies on goldbelly.com (which is like etsy for baked goods) and rented sports cars. He also spent tens of thousands on mobile games. He also rented his house and had no assets other than something awful, which he had already squandered the proceeds of.
These days, most people don't know who Lowtax is. The only people who currently discuss him are on kiwifarms, and its just to sneed at how much of a piece of shit he was. He really was, too. He left three children and two mothers without a father, and was buried by his mother who was dying of leukemia, and passed away about 4 months after Lowtax did. His oldest daughter Lauren was especially haunted by his death.
He was once seen as a figurehead of internet culture back when it was niche, and nerdy, and kind of a counterculture.
SA is now a dead mall of the internet, with a front page that hasn't been updated in three years.
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading this. Today is the 2nd anniversary of Lowtax's death and I wanted to say that I love this site (rdrama) because it reminds me of the spirit of early Something Awful.
- Arran : I save but don't upmarsey effortposts :)
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carp this'll be good, it's full of incredible retards
Digital Dating Environment
If you have been taken and/or have been touching grass recently, online dating apps are now the way that most people meet their partners. It's essentially taken what used to be a fairly time consuming process of meeting new people through mutual interests, and condensed it into a literal digital meat market. Most apps lie on a spectrum of how much they lean into this. If you're unfamiliar, or are currently dating and out of the loop, the main players are:
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Tinder - The original swipe app. You're shown a photo album, a brief bio (usually a joke), and you can say yes or no by swiping left or right
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Bumble - Bizarre feminist version of Tinder where women have to message first. Usually slightly better quality women, but they have to make the first move in a text and women are useless at this
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OKCupid - The OG dating site, now mostly full of Filipina women looking for green cards
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Hinge - The better dating app IMO. Premium allows for some pretty strict filters (education filter set to college or higher acts almost entirely like a fat filter, it's amazing). No swipe mechanic, you have to read a profile and like something specific about them, with a message attached if you want.
OKCupid used to run a pretty great blog back in the day before they got bought out by wokies. They used to run experiments on users and then publish the results. One of the more interesting ones was where they removed the bio of people's profiles at random, and saw what happened to their match rate.
](/images/16708785773157976.webp)
Absolutely fucking nothing
](/images/16708785272514682.webp)
](/images/16708785768394148.webp)
They also tried removing people's pictures and matching them at random to see if they'd connect. On average, people had much longer and deeper conversations (increases in number of messages and average message length). Most women will only message you back if you're much better looking than them, which is kind of unsurprising. You would too if you were getting a lot of attention. When you take that away, and even if you go on a blind date, they're generally pretty happy.
](/images/1670878708808731.webp)
Then they turned the lights back on and showed everyone who they'd been talking to, and more than half of them instantly unmatched the other. The conclusion they drew was that people (as a general population) are exactly as shallow as their dating apps will let them allow.
](/images/16708785769541185.webp)
There also used to be a separate score for looks and personality, which were pretty much an exact match.
The whole point of this is to illustrate what turns the gears of online dating: it's photos.
Photos only.
And only the first photo.
As a personal anecdote, this girl I was really into broke up with me and I took a bunch of stupid posey photos to revamp what was a profile full of just average pictures to try and sleep with someone hotter than her. I played with lighting and shot composition. Didn't lose any weight or gain any muscle (5'11" 163lbs for ref, relatively fit) or change my bio at all. I went from one irl date maybe every 3-6 months, to 6 in a week. It's fucking nuts how much of a difference it makes.
Redditors and Not Getting Laid
That last section should not come as any kind of surprise and if someone posts that, please tell them to rope.
It is, however, news to redditards. Despite general public opinion, Zoomers and Millenials are having significantly less sex than previous generations and that's a good thing. I am consistently amazed at what people will show as part of their public profiles, especially to people they're trying to sleep with.
Here's some highlights:
And some women for fun too:
They also can't fucking text if they ever even get a match:
You'll hear a lot of shit about women only going for the top 10-20% of men on dating apps. This is the primary reason - most men are shit candidates. They look like this, take bad photos, give creepy ass intros and replies, and then don't get laid, and are completely surprised how this could happen.
What does this mean for drama?
Aside from the fact that most of these people I've shown are dorks, they post feedback threads pretty regularly. Most of them end up being threads about how "Oh your photos are fine, online dating's just hard!". Or they'll tell people that all they need to do is reorder their profiles.
I call on you, hard-working dramanaut, give these people the feedback they actually need. I will find you the first few, and all you need is to give them some helpful life advice. This is your chance to reaaally get creative with it. Here are some bad examples:
| Instead of... (Real Reddit Comments!) | Say This: |
| [It’s your look. Hinge is more of a relationship oriented app. It’s not tinder. Be yourself but just understand that’s probably why you aren’t getting matches.](https://old.reddit.com/r/hingeapp/comments/zdnjkv/im_not_good_with_the_prompts_instead_of_the_about/iz5olco/) | Bitch, you're fat as fuck. No wonder you aren't getting matches. Lose some weight and try again |
| [Not sure why your post is getting downvotes, but just wanted to say I think your pictures are pretty good man](https://old.reddit.com/r/hingeapp/comments/zgfwtg/25m_hinge_profile_review/izhphd7/) | Did you lose a bet, or are you trying to stay a virgin? |
Das Tuub | Titanic R-sluration
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I just found out about this submarine like an hour ago. I feel really bad for the people trapped inside, especially the kid, but they kinda deserve it for even getting on this thing. Everyone's laughing at the CEO for his dumbass DEI policies, but this is just surface level stuff (lol). No one's actually explained the depths of how r-slurred this guy and his company are, so I thought I'd take some time out of my actual engineering job while I'm sitting in a boring butt zoom meeting to properly call this guy a fricking r-slur, so you can all find this just as funny as I do. I thought you all might appreciate it a little more than just some sporadic tweets about the DEI shit he did. This is going to be like a Challenger-style breakdown and what exactly went wrong so you can appreciate this frick-up.
There's gonna be a lot of naval puns in this so bear with me here. A lot of this is coming from my friend, also an engineer, who's done more research into this than I have.
In the Boatginning
Dramatards, I'd like to introduce you to Stockton Rush. Owner of the the most startup founder-ish name in history, this guy has been making janky submarines his entire life. He got his start in the aerospace industry, as a test engineer on the F-15 with McDonnell-Douglass. Anyone familiar with the industry will note that experience with McDonnell-Douglass is not necessarily a good thing on your resume.
He's made a career out of building submarines that are cheaper and more accessible to the general population, and his company, OceanGate, has had a few successful designs. What's notable about his history, however, is that he's made them cheaper largely by bypassing safety standards. His first submarine that they operated was called Antipodes, was a refit sub built by a different company. Originally intended for research purposes, they used it instead for tourist dives.
The first actual submarine they built was the Cyclops 1, a carbon-fiber (we'll come back to this part) submarine controlled using a PlayStation controller, with an operational depth of 500m. The submarine is deployed/recovered from some weird floating drydock concept, which crucially allows them to not use human rated cranes to recover the submarine.
After seeing some moderate success, he's gone and built the submarine in question, the Titan, which is built from a composite carbon-fiber and titanium. They bought the hull from a company called Spencer Composites, who intended it to be SINGLE USE. The submarine was built to a factor-of-safety (multiple of how much of the expected load you can withstand before it breaks) of 2.25 (which is frick-all, especially for a submarine - should be at least 6, probably more like 10). . A lot of journ*lists who went on board the thing noted that most of the parts on the interior were sourced from local hardware stores, as were the ballast tanks. They were not, as you could imagine, comfortable about being on board once they realized this.
DEI-ing At Sea
https://x.com/CatchUpFeed/status/1671372796876984320?s=20
This guy's team is a bunch of young, impressionable diversity hires. He's explicitly avoided anyone with experience because they are old and white and men. They're not very inspirational, and so they don't have a place on Rush's team.
Anyone who has worked on an engineering project before knows that any engineer with less than 2 years of practical experience is a massive drain on the project and need to be babysat constantly, ESPECIALLY if they might kill someone. They're usually worth investing in because they'll give you a great return in the long run, but boy are those first couple of years hard.
I didn’t hire experienced people because I’m a racist
oh no my boat sank, how could this have possibly happened
This is going to go a long way to explain why what happened did happen, so buckle up.
Frick-up #1: Carboat-Fiber
Let's talk materials for a second. Carbon-fiber is what's called a composite material, because it's made from a couple of different types of material. You have the carbon fibers themselves, which are really resistant to being stretched in-plane (like pulling apart a sheet of paper), but have very little strength out of plane (like poking a hole in paper) or off-axis (they're woven into almost a cloth, if you pull at a 60 degree angle to that weave, they lose 80% of their strength).
Carbon fibers are usually set in place with solidified plastics, like epoxy. It solves a lot of problems as far as directional strength goes, but you still need to be careful with it. In a specific configuration, it has similar material properties to a common aerospace aluminium alloy (T-6061), while being a fraction of the weight. Great for airplanes and race cars, where mass is a factor.
Steel is the best material, and the only reason you use anything else is either because you don't want it to rust, or because you can't use steel. It's cheap, strong, and (crucially) it can be stressed over and over again without building up stress fractures. If you keep it under a certain limit, it will never break. NO OTHER MATERIAL DOES THIS.
This makes ideal for something that you're going to put under pressure, and then remove it from that pressure, over and over and over again, in a scenario where weight isn't a factor. Like, say, a submarine.
Stockton Rush, however, is way too cool for steel 
. He has instead decided to build his submarine out of the super cool airplane material, without understanding why its there in the first place. Composite materials are generally vulnerable to snapping if they're loaded repeatedly, which is why the company that built this refused to endorse it after finding out it was going to be used like it was.
It's never been used on submarines before, and with really good reason. It's not just not an optimal choice, it's literally the worst one possible. From the Business Insider article:
The Titan sub was never checked to see if it was up to standard because of its "innovation," OceanGate said in 2019. The sub features a carbon fiber hull that had never been used on submersibles before, according to the "Unsung Science" podcast.
Rush managed to bypass safety standards yet again by using completely different materials and then claiming that the standards aren't relevant. They make you sign a massive waiver when you sign up. No one has actually checked if this thing is safe. There's no standard it's being held to, there's no regulation, no third-party review. No matter how good you are, you can always frick up. Their cavalier attitude towards safety has now probably killed the CEO and four other people.
From their blog:
But it's ok, because they have a corporate culture of safety.
Frick-up #2: Electronixed
So this is an interesting note that I found is that the submarine has no onboard navigational system,. Yes, you read that correctly. They operate it by having a different ship monitor its position, and then send it text messages telling it where it is.
These people are all going to die
That's part of the reason they can't find it, is because the submarine doesn't know where it is, and can't tell anyone even if it did. It even failed before, and they still didn't fix it. That's not just stupid, it's criminally negligent.
The controls of this thing consist of a single button, and is piloted by a PlayStation controller. I'll point out that the idea of using a gamepad as a submarine helm control is not necessarily a bad one, and was actually implemented by USN submariners to great success. It's intuitive to zoomer helmsmen, really easy to teach, and was actually a way better control scheme than what they were using before. That being said, USN submarines are extremely well designed, very redundant, and extremely well-built. This stupid thing has none of that.
Because of the lack of navigation and emergency beacon, these people are very likely going to die, and it's going to be very unpleasant. It's really hard to find submarines even when they want to be found, and there's still no means of even rescuing these people even if they're found. They've got anti-submarine-warfare aircraft searching and everything, but still nothing.
Frick-up #3: Oxy-Constants
I can't think of a good pun for this. There's no real good source on this that I've seen because it's kind of an obscure problem, but they also fricked up the gas lines on the ship.
When maintaining an atmosphere for people to breathe, you have to be pretty careful with the gas composition. You need gas cyclers to remove CO2 buildup, and replace it with oxygen. Nitrogen doesn't need to be replaced because it's not consumed. This is standard on airplanes, submarines, spacecraft, anything sealed. Failure to do this was infamously the cause of the Apollo 1 disaster, where a pure, high-pressure oxygen atmosphere caused a dramatic fire when some nylon started to overheat.
Can you guess what OceanGate have done?
That's right, they've been injecting pure oxygen into the cabin, with untested electronics on board.
Jesus Christ, guys. You get so many startup CEOs bitching about safety standards, and every now and then when they push the limits, we all get a very public reminder of why they're there in the first place. And it usually costs the lives of people who were tricked into getting onto that stupid butt vehicle in the first place.
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Pre-Homestuck
2004
Andrew Hussie came online in the midst of a boom in webcomics during the early 2000s, his interest in computer science and adventure games inspiring him to create his own called Team Special Olympics. The comic perfectly frames Hussie as another child of the early 2000s internet, irreverent and ambitious with zero interest in political correctness. The comic is unremarkable but evolves into a collaborative process, drawing together 288 people as the comic moves from Hussie's hands to others after 2006. Hussie moves onward and upward, seeing the possibility of an adventure game webcomic which allows for user input he creates Jailbreak which serves as the foundation for all of Hussie's later work, the simplistic structure and irreverent humor driven by user commands becomes his calling card.
2006
Jailbreak is the format at its most simple, presenting a simple narrative that is totally open-ended for audience exploration, little thought was put by Hussie into what would happen. By the end, Hussie started to have an inkling of the possibilities of the format, building increasingly complex narratives from dissonant user commands which served to create a dynamic story with split storylines that merge.
2007
Hussie takes the end of Jailbreak, narrowly the fantasy elements introduced by user request, and spins them into Bard Quest with an accompanying website called MS Paint Adventure. The story is never finished though serves as a progression of Jailbreak into a more coherent world and characters with greater authorial control and highlights Hussie's obsession with clowns which will become very important later. The story features timeline splits which would figure into Homestuck in a major way.
2008
Hussie abandoned Bard Quest within an unfinished state for a film noir detective story called Problem Sleuth. Hussie having finally gotten a grip on how to create his faux adventure game webcomic driven by user command starts fresh. The story begins with a recreation of Jailbreak with the titular problem sleuth escaping a locked room before blossoming into a complex adventure that deftly weaves video game references, internet culture, and science fiction within a tapestry driven by user command with comparatively little authorial nudging. This is Hussie at his most nimble, allowing user commands to dictate the story while weaving all these dissonant threads into something that is totally coherent and extensive. The story is complex but manageable, the characters numerous but memorable, and the quirks of the systems nuanced but parsable. Problem Sleuth receives a proper ending, the first story of Hussie's to receive an ending of substance, as the symphony of Problem Sleuth reaches a satisfying final movement.
Spades Slick and the Midnight Crew originate here and are carried into Homestuck as well as the fixation on an alterworld.
He also makes some Star Trek edits.
Homestuck
2009
Comic Itself
Hussie, high on the success of the very well-received Problem Sleuth, decides to set to work on his next project inspired by Earthbound and the percolating video game elements and internet culture that seeped into Problem Sleuth. This next project would be defined by these elements from the start rather than being introduced later as additions. The project is termed Homestuck, starting from a simple image and blossoming into an incomprehensibly complex and long story which wraps around itself. The key differences between Homestuck and Problem Sleuth are evident in hindsight, Homestuck was planned like a traditional story, in advance, which meant that user commands were still used but contorted toward furthering the story already planned as well as the length, the exponentially scaling complexity necessitating deft management. Authorial intent was a dictatorship veiled by an inherited aesthetic anarchy from Problem Sleuth. Homestuck was so popular from the outset that Hussie started to select from the innumerable suggestions for user commands exactly how he thought would fit best. Eventually, he gave up the charade and turned Homestuck into an authorial dictatorship with vestigial user command inputs.
That doesn't mean that Homestuck lacked audience participation, the participation was transformed from being a direct submission of user commands into referencing and interacting with an ever-growing fandom. This produced a dialogue between the audience and the author which transfixed many, drawing people into an all-consuming obsession with Homestuck. He inducts more people into the Homestuck team, including a young Toby Fox.
Other distinctive elements of Homestuck would be a very extensive multimedia format, sometimes featuring elaborate games, and typing quirks, every character had not just a distinct vocabulary but an associated typing quirk which followed very rigid rules. This sometimes made certain dialogue inconvenient to read but also made roleplaying as that character very obvious and easy.
Within a year the comic moves through four distinct acts, each focusing upon a different human character, John, Jane, Dave, and Rose. They're introduced, and moved through running jokes with a complex computer science-inspired video game world overlaid on the real one. A Lot of references are made to computer programming, indicative of the composition of the fanbase of his at the time, these would be gradually substituted with insular fandom jokes. The fandom would be the main point of reference when the comic entered Act 6 with other elements being functionally deprecated.
For instance, characters had inventory accessed through computer programming mechanisms like punch cards and arrays
2010
Comic Itself
The comic reaches an apex with the release of Act 5, introducing a break from the previous narrative with the introduction of trolls, a break which prompts some to tell people to just start with the trolls. These characters, exaggerated caricatures referencing different parts of internet culture and themselves a direct reference to internet trolls, cause Homestuck to catch fire which allows Hussie a lot of lateral movement. They also serve to drastically reconfigure the composition of the fanbase, a change which would worm its way into the comic itself.
This period, Act 5 and Act 5 Act 2 serves as the apex of Hussie's reputation and sanity. He found himself with a lot of money, a lot of influence, and a lot of fans,[S] Cascade released on Newgrounds and crashed the site, and Snoop Dog tweets Homestuck fanart.
Favorable waters for a young artist who wanted to set the world of fire. Hussie, wanting to interact with his growing fanbase, creates a Tumblr account which puts him in alignment with the Tumblr portion of the fanbase as well as founding What Pumpkin to manage the growing business enterprises like music CDs from the much beloved Homestuck music team. The fanbase was devoted enough that they even made a fan-made animation. Interestingly Acts 1-5 serve as the halfway mark for the comic in terms of pages and two years of the total seven years of the comic's lifespan.
The Homestuck fandom was prolific and unemployed giving lots of content produced
Also fancomics
The Decline
2011
Comic Itself
The comic exited Act 5 Act 2 with a change up, relieving itself of all the major characters and events for a soft reset which would return the comic to its roots. The narrative had grown complex and alien to the origins which had incubated it and the solution to the insanity of [S] Cascade was the humbleness of Act 6 Act 1, a new set of human characters within an altered world that mirrored Earth. Homestuck starts to lose its fanbase after the dizzying heights of [S] Cascade, the newly introduced cast eventually links up with the old one after years of pages leaving the comic deeply disjointed for a time. Importantly there is a change in direction for Homestuck's style, within the first 5 Acts pages are released frequently, often multiple released within a single day, and the dialogue is long but has a reasonable amount of accompanying actions. From Act 6 onward the comic would start to attrition fans, the quality of the comic starts to deteriorate as the threads start to not neatly weave together as they once did, the characters start to become more numerous with uneven development, which came along with a slower release of pages with more dialogue per page.
As the threads grew more numerous and the layers of the story more complex the issues started to compound, this is something which only becomes a problem when entering into Act 6 and intensifies with each passing year until they're resolved with the retcon.
Hussie's Orbiters
Homestuck general on 4chan
/co/ on 4chan had a recurrent thread, /hsg/, establishing the concept of a general of the board on the basis that without it the rest of the board would become unusable as a result. The thread was filled with role players and other degenerates, members scheme ways to infiltrate Hussie's circles which eventually fills his court with neurotic sycophants. The most notorious being an arch sexual degenerate ipgd which would slip into Hussie's circle.
The Drama Starts Here
2012
Homestuck Kickstarter
With Homestuck in full swing and with a planned ending on the horizon Hussie started to look toward the future, his most vaunted vision was the creation of a Sierra-style adventure game which had served as the inspiration for Problem Sleuth and Homestuck. He envisioned this as a minor diversion that wouldn't crossover with the main story and wouldn't take that much of Hussie's time with absent details beyond an announcement date of 2014. The project, later christened Hiveswap, receives 2.5 million dollars with lavish promises.
Here's a timeline for reference
Comic Itself
Hussie introduces the Dancestors, mirrors of the trolls, which were all Tumblr references. Like a social justice obsessed volcel obsessed with trigger warnings and a suckysucky geisha that spoke in broken Japanese. These proved to be controversial.
2013
Comic Itself
This period had a single notable hiccup which in hindsight would serve as an ominous grave marker, he would refer to the human characters as Caucasian, to anyone sensible this was obvious. Dave Strider's character only worked in the context of being white but this broke head canon, Hussie apologizes in a groveling nonsensical post on Tumblr before abandoning the site and some of the tarot cards are changed to DEI equivalents presenting the human characters as a rainbow of races. This starts Hussie's descent into being a broken buck. The only criticism he would take was the progressive political demands to remove problematic elements conceded with ostentatious apologies while he would be belligerent to everything else. Shortly after Hussie stopped updating the comic for a year to work on the game and other particulars to the growing Homestuck business empire, termed the Gigapause, which combined with the changing of the guard in cast served to end most people's Homestuck experience.
Homestuck Kickstarter
What Pumpkin Studios with Hussie at the head decided to take a short diversion from the main path with a dating sim called Namco High where you can date the ship from Galaga alongside a smattering of references to Homestuck.
Following on the heels of the Hiveswap Kickstarter the Undertale Kickstarter was created by Toby ‘Radiation' Fox who had led the Homestuck music team. This was given front-page treatment by Hussie and without him knowing the torch had been passed.
2014
Homestuck Kickstarter
In 2014, the year the game was supposed to be released, Hussie stated that his work on the project was finished with the rest being handled by a studio handpicked to give the most authentic Homestuck experience possible, a team called the Odd Gentlemen.
The Odd Gentlemen was an out of the way studio that had made puzzle adventure games during the dark age of the genre which made them a seemingly perfect fit for Hiveswap and for the King's Quest revival which had them serving two masters.
With 2014 closing a surprise announcement was made, The Odd Gentlemen weren't working on Hiveswap and the game would be passed to What Pumpkin Studios for finishing touches. The game would also be released in an episodic format with a second game released after called Hauntswitch. All of this occurring during the closing months of Hiveswap's release year led to speculation, why this drastic change in structure and a change in studio, the answer would be given by ipgd one of Hussie's friends.
The Odd Gentlemen had taken 788,000 dollars and had spent that money making King's Quest and Wayward Manor, Neil Gaiman's game, then went radio silent toward Hussie. The one-year pause was reframed as caused by the Odd Gentlemen constantly cucking Hussie as they funneled money into projects to earn a real place in the industry rather than a webcomic for tweens. They presented to Hussie an unusable demo that had eaten most of the Kickstarter budget which hadn't been consumed by physical rewards. The Odd Gentlemen presented a deal to Hussie, they would get back half the money that they were given, 390,000 dollars, in exchange for no further action against them. The beleaguered and cucked Hussie accepted this given that very little Kickstarter money remained after the Odd Gentlemen and naive physical rewards had eaten almost all of it. The turn to an episodic structure was an attempt to keep the raft afloat by getting a cash infusion mid production despite the fact that everyone interested in the game had already bought it.
The first real side project which was actually released is Paradox Space, a traditionally styled comic that is ‘dubiously canon', a distinction that would become very important later. The project relied on guest writers from Hussie's increasingly large stable of talent and lasted an entire year before being shuttered. Those involved had their names scrubbed from the project.
This official story would be cemented through the use of an NDA.
The actual story, corroborated by inside sources, is that Hussie failed to provide the proper documentation for the planning of Hiveswap, stalling the project and leaving the Odd Gentlemen unable to continue working. Hussie then tasked them with working on the Act 7 animation, doing 3D work, which eventually resulted in the Odd Gentlemen deprioritizing the project to refocus on game development. Hussie then demanded that the Odd Gentlemen finish Hiveswap immediately as King's Quest was set to ship, causing the Odd Gentlemen to transfer the project the What Pumpkin. The design document which would form the basis of the game would only be completed at the time when the game was intended to originally ship, throwing the project totally off track by Hussie's mismanagement.
An Unholy Axis
2015
Homestuck Kickstarter
The traditional telling is that Hussie is stripped from the comic again with another long pause which pummels remaining interest in an already beleaguered franchise. Most of the fandom has left, and most of the people who are talking about the comic aren't talking about the new pages, Homestuck has started to become a zombie with its life force drained by an ailing video game project which necessitates completion.
Hussie, a battered housewife at this point, personally oriented the project within his crack team hand selected by the studio which he helmed. To inspire faith in the project a 3D trailer of Hiveswap was released in 2015 which is noticeably incomplete as the game was restarted due to nothing the Odd Gentlemen provided being salvageable. King Quest is released afterward with stolen Hiveswap money to good reviews rubbing salt in Hussie's wounds.
An announcement is made that Hiveswap is now a 2D game, scrapping the work done because the money to finish a 3D version wasn't there, news about the team at What Pumpkin starts to bleed through the veil as people start to speculate and get irate at the perceived incompetence of the Hussie and his crew. Hussie's penchant for secrecy met his perennial organizational incompetence in increasingly public ways.
According to inside sources Hussie had been handed a workable version of Hiveswap Act 1 as early as 2014, needing to be cleaned up but nearing completion. This was a truncated and 3D Act 1 which was scrapped, the transition to 2D and scrapping attributable to Hussie's penchant for disappearing for long periods of time before returning to order sweeping changes. The transition to 2D was done on a whim and the money issue could have been papered over with merchandising money but Hussie had a consistent policy of keeping money tight and letting projects fail if it passed an arbitrarily allotted amount. Hussie consistently acted in arbitrary manners then used the cowtools available to keep an oath of silence around that fact, the important conversations occurring behind closed doors with his inner circle which would then be dictated outward in grand sweeping changes.
Another pause, termed the Omegapause which lasts six months is done to accommodate and the decision is made that Act 7 will be a single flash animation.
Importantly during this period Undertale, announced after Hiveswap was released, it became an indie sensation and served as the surrogate replacement for Homestuck for many.
Hussie's Orbiters
At this point it's clear that Hussie is an arbitrary God which disappears for large amounts of time before ordering sweeping changes upon his return, most of those working upon Homestuck had limited or no access to him. The only ones that had consistent and meaningful access to Hussie and could influence him were a core cast of characters. The most notable being ipgd, plucked from /hsg/ after sending Hussie a horse dildo before slowly burrowing herself ever deeper into Hussie's core group. The dynamics of the inner workings of Homestuck meant that that Hussie's inner ring had the ability to modify canon through suggestion with Hussie, guiding the future of the comic according to their fanfiction desires. ipgd becomes, with zero talent, a leech which acts as Hussie's attack dog to fabricate narratives and Hussie's Yoko Ono. Certain changes like Dave being retconned as gay can be attributable to ipgd to mirror her degenerate libertarian fanfic. Allegedly you could trade kitty or trussy for changes to canon. Like being able to create Davepetasprite or make Vriska trans.
An ipgd vine making Dave gay
The What Pumpkin stable are neurotic progressives which are fans first and workers second, they were selected first for alignment with political values that Hussie had adopted during the surge in Homestuck's popularity on Tumblr. The Hussie of Team Special Olympics had been buckbroken into one which increasingly became afraid of his own fan base and fearful of crossing a social justice line that wasn't natural to him. His irreverence had transformed into a hollow shell as he started to apologize for jokes and surround himself with people from the Tumblr section of the fandom which meddled with his work.
Hussie, embattled and with a string of self-inflicted failure, sought to pander to progressives to circle the wagon around his dying project more and more, relying on political partisans to stave off any criticism as attacks on a wholesome progressive eboy. These progressives were noticeably incompetent and antagonistic on Twitter, a place that Hussie treated like LinkedIn.
2016
Comic Itself
The comic approaches a close, Caliborn wrecks the cast enough that the only solution is to Retcon reality to the moment before Vriska dies, this serves as the most controversial decision of the comic as it overwrites most characters character arc and effectively deprecates 95% of Act 6. All of the character development is alluded obliquely in a friendship montage and the conflict is resolved in a big dumb fight scene which omits most of the plot elements of the story.
Act 7 is substance less, not really resolving anything and ending the series with an endless amount of loose threads which leaves many faithful unsatisfied.
Homestuck 2 Version 1.0
Hussie announced Homestuck 2 which would be scrapped because it was apparently so shitty that even Hussie wouldn't release it.
The Homestuck Rogue's Gallery
The lead writer of Hiveswap was hired straight off Twitter, a bisexual Jewish man whose writing is grounded in antifascism and social justice. He had zero experience beyond a Twitter following and clown jokes handed a beleaguered project. The platonic ideal of a soylennial including wrestling at conventions. He wrote for a PC only genre while never owning a functional PC. Somehow got banned from Penny Arcade
A male feminist who smashed equipment in a fit of rage from having his romantic advances rebuked
A woman who considered mocking shipping to be an example of misogyny while ranting about entitled nerdbro. The rant is in reference to Caliborn and Calliope. She got hired and was given the ability to modify canon since Hussie was fricking her sister.
The infestation is so complete that the official Homestuck and Pesterquest accounts now post shit like this
Epilogue Era
2017
Homestuck Kickstarter
Hiveswap Act 1 releases to decent reviews though are incapable of generating any money, everyone who might be interested in the game had already bought it, they were still bound to release a second act so the project carries on before ending at the eight-year mark in 2020. Act 3 never.
Hussie sits upon a property that seemingly has prospects and value, unparalleled name recognition and nostalgia, but which had grown tiresome and stigmatized. Now Megalovania belonged to Undertale and so did the Homestuck style.
2018
Comic Itself
Homestuck is sold to Viz media as part of a one million dollar deal, flash reaches its twilight years which means that Homestuck needs to be converted to HTML, the conversion is noticeably shoddy which prompts fans to create the Homestuck Unofficial Project to preserve the webcomic as originally intended.
Viz Media starts to make physical Homestuck books with interesting commentary from Hussie, the absurdity of turning a uniquely digital mixed media project into a physical book isn't lost on Hussie though the books stop halfway through Act 5 due to Hussie and everyone related to him leaving Homestuck.
The Foundations of Post Canon Homestuck
Hussie, clinging to relevance, decides to authorize three projects under the Homestuck aegis with little involvement from himself. His eyes would be turned toward a new video game called Psycholonials. The three projects are Homestuck^2, Pesterquest, and Hiveswap Friendship Simulator.
Pesterquest and Hiveswap Friendship simulator are modeled after Namco High, the ironic dating sim that Hussie created in 2013 centering on the characters from Homestuck and Hiveswap respectively while being ‘friendship simulators' rather than traditional dating sims.
To connect Homestuck to Homestuck^2 Hussie launched his final foray into Homestuck with the Homestuck epilogues collaborating with those set to continue the Homestuck legacy. The epilogues are the grumblings of a buck broken old man pondering where his life went awry while coyly remaining aloof of accepting any responsibility or changing himself for the better. Instead, he wastes your time with the gayest shit ever put to text as the compounding issues of Homestuck finally reach a breaking point, the post canon era begins.
2019 and 2020
The Homestuck Epilogue
The Epilogues serve as an acknowledgement that Homestuck served two masters, those who were interested in the complex and esoteric plot which wound around itself and those interested in interpersonal character interactions. You would imagine that these two would be possible to square within a single story but Homestuck lost this balance as Act 6 went on and failed to ever rebalance itself to the point of creating a coy ironic division, the epilogues are split into two mutually exclusive scenarios which are both stated to be equally dubiously canon to allow people to take one, neither, or both as canon.
The epilogues epitomize the writing of the era, taking nostalgic properties and turning characters into unlikable buttholes fused with progressive politics serving to create something that nobody wanted. You would think after 8,000 pages that characters would be more likable and mature, considering that the entire theme of Homestuck is coming of age and the villain is a manchild, instead they're less likable and less mature than in the introduction.
Hussie's Orbiters
The reactions to the changes are decidedly negative and some like Optimistic Duelist(Homestuck YouTuber and writer for Homestuck^2) feel that transmisia is responsible while admitting that the Post Canon team are horrible people
Though seeing his favorite character die, representation even, made him want to an hero
Homestuck Kickstarter
Hiveswap Act 2 is finally released, the fabled Hauntswitch never materializes, and the Homestuck Kickstarter is finally a closed chapter eight years after its funding and six years after its intended release date. Act 3 never
Comic Itself
One of the few good developments of the Post Canon era was fans deciding to take matters into their own hands as to the fate of the comic, the original website presented a mangled and broken version of the comic attributable to the transition away from Flash and to zero work being done as to preserve the time sensitive elements of the comic. The Homestuck Unofficial Project rectified this through emulating flash and bringing back time sensitive elements to emulate how the comic was originally presented as closely as possible.
2021 and Beyond
Post Hussie Homestuck
Comic Post Canon
Homestuck formally passes from Hussie's hands to Viz Media and is whored out to Hussie's crew, hand-selected over the years to produce continuations.
Homestuck^2 served as a sequel produced without Hussie's involvement, funded through Patreon donations, while Pesterquest was a social sim which doubled as bizarre fetish fanfiction by Hussie's gaggle of degenerates. The important elements were the retconning of canon to service the new masters which had been selected for progressive politics. If you're familiar with any fandom property during the twilight of the 2010s and dawn of the 2020's then the specifics of these retcons are to be expected. As expected, the people dictating these changes are on twitter and refuse to take any criticism with grace, going on long tirades calling any distaste of the changes motivated by bigotry.
Post Canon Changes
Vriska is made trans, specifically a non passing trans woman and always was.
John Egbert, the central character, a nerdy little neurodivergent which struggled with women was groomed into a real trans woman. This was done through a contest conducted on twitter through a real life tombolorone hunt.
Roxy is now a trans man
Jade has a dog peepee and had a furry child named Yiffy
Terezi is overweight now
The New (Red) Guard
These decisions were made by people like a communist hon called Kate Mitchell who claims to have radicalized Hussie into being a gender queer commie, self inserting as Vriska.
Retconning canon constantly while being belligerent to any objections. This trans communist was banned from /r/communism as well as reposting children's artwork without credit.
Posts memes like this about being the only true revolutionary
Accused of grooming a minor and selling nudes that will give PTSD, especially when minors get them
Ran for office and lost to a corpse
Worked on an Overwatch franchise team as an assistant general manager for the Washington Justice, threatening to g*mergate people
Kate's enforcer on twitter is Dani Lalonders
Complaining about chuds and that there aren't enough black people in Homestuck
Central figure in G*mergate 2(Sweet Baby)
When all people want is the thing they paid for, obviously she's unsympathetic due to her running the ValiDate kickstarter scam
Hon solidarity called into the void and summoned another creatura from the dark, a hon named Sarah Zedig
Watch this video until you tap out
Obviously annoying on Twitter
Naturally this person was hired onto the team without a day of experience
Hussie's Orbiters
Hussie would intervene to try to shut down any criticism of those involved, Kate was banned from the Homestuck subreddit for being a belligerent butthole, accuse the mods of running a cp ring, then Hussie would intervene with the reasonable suggestion to just hand the subreddit to Kate.
TLDR
Juicy Cuts
Hussie
The mods
Hussie just demands the subreddit to decide later how to democratically decide on new leadership
Hussie pulls the trans card
People weren't happy about this
Hussie's Post Homestuck Antics
All this failure is noted by popular Tumblr historian and video essayist Sarah Z, releasing a slightly critical video, talking about the history of Homestuck with a decent degree of reverence due to its importance to Tumblr culture and to Sarah Z target audience, Zoomer and Millennial women. Every criticism comes with an accompanying affirmation.
To which Hussie sends a legal cease and desist without having watched the video, even light criticism related to his bad business practices was beyond the pale for Hussie. He attempts to come across as cool and aloof, speaking with a condescending tone, which comes across as desperate and pathetic. He demands that she follow the official line, crosschecking information with him and having his information override any of her sources. Sarah Z responded by releasing Hussie's pathetic email chain
He attempts to hide behind his typical eboy irony while threatening real legal action without any basis. Also Sarah is literally killing trans people by criticizing a trans person for misconduct.
Hussie himself went on to a new project as he formally left Homestuck, Psycholonials, promising a spiritual successor to Homestuck which would tackle contemporary politics. The visual novel serves as an indulgent and emo political manifesto for a personal brand of anarchist politics with a fixation on the revolutionary nature of clowns. A self celebratory dramatization about how Hussie fricked up all the money for the hiveswap kickstarter, ran away from his work, came back for patreon money, just to slip right back into his ironic eboy clown persona to absolve himself from responsibility. He also admits that he deliberately didn't credit someone for retaliation for bad mouthing him.
It releases in episodes to little fanfare alongside a proclamation that Hussie is now clown gender, this appears like an ironic statement until Hussie decides to announce that he's nonbinary and starts to ‘ironically' dress like a clown and eboy on Twitter. Hussie is now reborn and redeemed of his sin through the assumption of a trans identity with it/they pronouns.
He has an incredibly public and pathetic mid life crisis for all to see.
His final bid was to distance himself from Homestuck and to save America as an influencer
The story presents a modern path to revolution in which the catalyst for the overthrow of an imperialist system is not the military strongmen of old, but a young woman with social media savvy. The figure of revolution in the eyes of Hussie's story is in fact, an influencer.
https://www.polygon.com/features/22674181/andrew-hussie-interview-homestuck-psycholonials
Tragically this wasn't a winning strategy
End of an Unwanted Era
Homestuck^2 was too smart to succeed
Even after they struggle sessioned Hussie
Because the evil fascists killed the project
Homestuck^2 failed to the point of killing the company contracted, Snake Solutions, though the real impetus of Homestuck^2 was to keep the barge afloat. This meant financial schemes to defraud the remaining passionate out of any cash while exploiting fan labor. Naturally, as you might have expected, Hussie threw these people into the garbage, giving them an impossible project to make up for financial gaps left by Hussie's mismanagement as Hussie moved on to his r-slurred clown game. It was basically a scam
Hussie 'returned' to Homestuck with James Roach, a Hiveswap composer, to reopen the patreon for Homestuck^2 now retitled Homestuck: Beyond Canon to avoid the stigma. The fabled Hiveswap Act 3 and Homestuck^2 is 
Even Daji Falls
ipgd for her part returned to the void from whence she came, vanishing into the Aether after one final sperg out for old times sake
Who could have predicted this
When Homestuck was at its peak, a single man called Bill Bolin, someone who did music for Homestuck, often nonconsensually, and worked with Hussie called the ending before the climax. In 2010 he talked about how Hussie was equal parts incompetent and abusive to those below him, having the organizational skills of a child and the ego of a diva. All the previous events weren't Hussie truly changing into an abusive r-slurred dictator obsessed with opacity, that what he always was. In the end, Bill Bolin was right.
Anarcho-Syndicalist-Trotskyist-Stalinist Cuban Revolutionary 
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When it comes to comfort food, congee (or rice porridge) is one of my favourites. It used to be poorcel food when people didn't have enough rice, since cooking rice in a lot of water would make the end product appear a lot more filling to the poorcels 
Because of this it's considered a taboo to have it during the Lunar New Year because it's unlucky or something like that, however in modern times you'll find that the humble dish is often elevated with expensive ingredients like abalone, dried scallops and whatnot 
Having said that it's still more common to find it paired with more common ingredients like shredded chicken, minced pork, sliced fish and century eggs because we're a bunch who might just want an affordable and yummy meal 
For the Chinese there are generally 2 types of congee or porridge, one would be the Teochew version that's basically just water in rice, and the other would be the Cantonese version that's silky and thick, and we will be focusing on the latter version because that's the one I like
While I'm aware of the fact that there are no winters in Singapore and it's hot as heck, it's still a popular dish here especially for breakfast. You'd see long queues and long waiting times at the popular outlets here everyday still, so I can only imagine and be envious of how nice a warm bowl of congee during a real winter
The recipe I'm using is for the plain version of it without meat or anything so it's up to your imagination what you want to pair it with. The usual salt and pepper seasoning would probably work with most types of meat that you'll just dunk in the pot when it's 10ish or so minutes before the congee is done cooking.
Ingredients are simple:
Rice (any type is fine but Thai Jasmine rice probably works best IMO)
Water (I use a 8:1 water to rice ratio because I like it thiccc but you can use more water if you prefer)
Ginger
Spring Onions
Cilantro/Coriander Leaves
Chicken Stock/Bouillon
I've not listed the amount you'd need because in cuisine we would usually just eyeball an amount that's required according to our preferences lol, but if you really need a visual guide here's the amount of aromatics/garnishes that I've prepared for a serving of 2-3 bowls of congee. Ignore the dried scallops because I don't know how accessible they are to get for westoids and they're expensive, but if you're able to source for it then go for it I guess (crush the dried scallops into smaller pieces, soak it for 10 minutes, use your hands to shred them even more before finally dunking them into the pot 10 minutes before the congee is done)
Steps:
1. The trick to getting your congee silky and thick is that the rice grains need to burst or something like that while cooked, so we will be soaking the rice in water first to get that effect. Rinse the rice 2-3 times first before soaking it in water for 3-4 hours (it probably doesn't need to be this long idk). Some of the recipes I've seen say that it's not necessary to soak the rice grains if you use the right type of rice, while others would instruct you to freeze the rice the night before. They might be right so you could try it if you're short on time but I'll be doing the trad way of soaking the rice so don't @ me if it turns out bad using the other methods 
2. Once you're done soaking the rice, boil water that's 8 times the amount of rice you're gonna cook, but it's really up to you if you want to add more water later if you don't like it to be too thiccc 
Once it boils I'd toss a couple of chicken bouillon cubes and stir until it's dissolved. Canned chicken stock or powder would probably work too but bouillon cubes are just more convenient IMO. They look like this if you're confused:
3. Throw the rice in and stir for it for a bit like 10-20 seconds and then leave it to cook for approx. 25 or so minutes without touching what's in the pot because apparently that helps the rice not to stick to the pot or something like that
4. Once 25 or so minutes are up, whisk the rice in the pot for 2-3 minutes until you can see it getting thicker
5. The dish is technically done after you're done whisking but I like it really thick so I'd leave it to cook for another hour or so, but I would add in the ginger and any meat/fish/seafood accompaniments 10 minutes before the hour is up and stir it around for a bit, it's really a preference and time thing. This is the thickness of my congee at the end of it all:
6. Garnish it with spring onions and cilantro/coriander leaves and you're done! The yellow/golden things are dough fritters (Chinese churros I guess) which go perfect with congee and I personally love to spice it up by dousing a lot of pepper in it
It might look plain and boring but because the rice grains have burst they absorb the flavours of the other ingredients cooked along with it, which in this case would be the chicken bouillon and dried scallops, so it's a real burst of flavours happening when you take a mouthful of congee. Furthermore it's easier to digest than normal cooked rice so it's the dish you usually see asians serve to people recuperating from illnesses or something like that 
!jannies please pin effortpost 
- CREAMY_EGG_NOG_ORGASM : Unpinned because I'm kinda doing a thing rn. I'll repin it later
I present my very meta rDrama effortpost — An analysis and overview of RWBY 
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To clarify this post is dedicated to both RWBY and Roosterteeth as a whole. RWBY's lifespan and Roosterteeth's golden age into decline are linked imo so it's a good opportunity to tackle both at once. RWBY's initial success is part of what convinced RT to try becoming a full on production company after all, and the show's post Monty malaise also lines up with RT becoming bloated and ultimately unable to cover their growing expenses.
This will also be a very meta post in which a number of dramatards are quoted and referenced. This is partially to cover gaps in my own knowledge since I'm familiar with RWBY and Red vs Blue but not so much with Roosterteeth's podcasts/channels/non web show employees. I'm also doing it so as to use rDrama as a microcosm for how neurodivergents the internet over feel and have felt about Roosterteeth. In their heydey RT was disproportionately influential to the internet culture of the noughties and early 10's. A lot of the oldstrags here were familiar with their gaming content if not outright fans of theirs, and RvB and RWBY were well known in their day. (The latter often in infamy, but still 
) For better or worse this is a topic a lot of us 
are familiar with.
I've also seen a lot of rdrama questions related to RT and RWBY. Questions like, "Why did RT shit the bed so bad?" and "Why was RWBY ever made?" and "How much irreparable harm has RWBY done to western society?" Hopefully this post will be able to answer everyone's queries. 
For those who don't know, RWBY is an American "anime-influenced" 3D computer-animated web series created by Monty Oum (more on him later) and released by RoosterTeeth. RWBY was their first wholly original production unrelated to Machinima and it has since been the flagship of RT's "original IPs". RoosterTeeth itself is a, well, it's sort of a production company but it really started as a handful of dudebros who knew each other and had good chemistry deciding to make Halo parodies at the height of Halo's own popularity in the gaming world. From there the company grew to the point of collapsing under its own weight because of, uh... reasons.
In this post I'll outline the history of both the show and Roosterteeth and explain how their stars rose and fell. Along the way we'll see some guest appearances from some of our favorite users. 
RoosterTeeth and Red vs. Blue 
In the beginning RoosterTeeth was indeed a handful of people who got famous for playing Halo. Btw if anyone knows more than me on the specifics of RT's history then feel free to chime in.
Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC (at least that's what it's called now) was founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman. While attending UT Austin 
Burnie and Matt collaborated with Joel on an independent film 
This didn't go anywhere but it gets referenced a lot when I look into RT's history so I'm guessing this is how they met or at least when they got used to working together. While working out of college Burnie met Geoff (then named Geoff Fink), Gus, Dan Godwin, and Jason. Their first venture into dudebro content (And I must emphasize that as soy as RT's fandom is now, dudebros were their original audience) was drunkg*mers, a website where they reviewed various video games while drunk. According to Ramsey, the group tried to receive free games to review, but "incurred the wrath" of several game developers in doing so.
Sorola and Burns said that the name was changed from 'Drunk G*mers' to 'Rooster Teeth' because nobody would give games or sponsor something with 'drunk' in the title "because it was so unprofessional." The term Rooster Teeth comes from "cockbite", a memorable bit of dialogue from the very first trailer for Red vs Blue. 
Burnie Burns: When we went to make the actual production company we decided to register that, but the state of Texas wouldn't let us register “Cockbite Production Inc.,” so we decided on Rooster Teeth instead.
RWBY's Older Brother 
RT's first real production, the 2003 series Red vs. Blue was a Halo machinima — a web show "filmed" in a video game using video game assets and mechanics. Initially there wasn't much plot or anything. It was simply a Halo parody making fun of the classic capture the flag game mode. The main characters were all multiplayer avatars stuck in an endless conflict over their flags, except they mostly stood around talking and lamenting their pointless jobs fighting over a pointless box canyon. It's satirical you see 
If something that even managed to capture the exact spirit of RvB came out nowadays — even if it was based on Fortnite or Helldivers or Palworld or whatever the frick the youngins are playing 
— I doubt it would make as much of a splash. RvB was right place and right time since it came out in the rising rocket trail of Halo's extreme popularity. 
Everything Halo got a lot of attention back then.
To give you an idea of the era, other popular Halo web memes include Jon Graham's Master Chief Sucks At Halo in which Master Chief is a literal action figure who speaks with the Microsoft text to speech program
And Randall Glass' Warthog Jumping, which is basically just a gameplay video of peepeeing around with in game physics. This and RvB were actually referenced by Bungie in a Halo: Reach easter egg
Red vs. Blue was only planned for one season but was continued after taking off in popularity. Apparently the first episode got twenty thousand downloads in a day, and keep in mind this series was getting popular back when dial-up internet was still sorta common. Some people would wait like 30 mins for these episodes to finish downloading. 
Red vs. Blue would run for many seasons and followed the Halo series itself as it went from Halo 2, to 3, to Reach and beyond. Meanwhile Roosterteeth slowly started up other projects. Apparently their paid premium service actually first started way back in 2003. Over the years this would evolve into the FIRST program, something that allowed paypigs special perks and discounts 
RT also started working out business deals such as commercials with GameStop. Eventually they started making merchandise and DVDs and sold them through retailers like, again, GameStop. Apparently Joel was a driving force here.
In 2004 RT released The Strangerhood based on The Sims
In ‘05 they moved out of Burnie's house and into an office. They attended the Sundance festival 
They released PANICS based on the game F.E.A.R. and apparently at the request of the Monolith Productions devs. In ‘06 there were "RoosterTeeth comics" and in ‘07 they moved into a fancy Congress Avenue office. They created 1-800-Magic based on the game Shadowrun and Red vs. Blue reached 100 episodes. In ‘08 they created Achievement Hunter (And I might be wrong here but I think that was their first gaming meta channel thing or whatever. Other dramanauts probably know more about this side of the company) They released Stroyent and The Drunk Tank podcast came out. At this point there was actually a pilot for a Red vs. Blue animated series. 
And in 2009 they hired none other than Monty Oum as an animator 
Extremely Powerful Autism 
Cuz Monty's final Fantasy/DOA fight videos
Monty was hired by RT to be the lead animator for Red vs Blue. Now, you may be wondering why Roosterteeth even needed an animator for a machinima. Well, remember the season 1 trailer I posted earlier in the thread?
This is what the show turned into. 
(Also notice that the show eventually got a real soundtrack? Jeff Williams was the composer for RvB seasons 8-10 and later worked on RWBY)
I like how you can tell his personality and hobbies just by looking at him.
As for the man himself, Monyreak "Monty" Oum got his start making fan videos. In fact he loved making fan videos so much that he dropped out of high school to make more vidya content. In January 2007, he discovered some reverse engineering techniques online that allowed him to extract models from Halo 2 and, utilizing assets from Super Smash Bros. Melee, created the "ultimate showdown" between a SPARTAN (Halo) and Samus Aran (Metroid) in a video called Haloid. This was followed by Dead Fantasy in which characters from Final Fantasy and Dead or Alive fight.
These videos went viral and a lot of people including some of the zoomer-boomers on this site were already familiar with Monty before he started working on Red vs. Blue.
In a way RWBY would evolve from the cgi action show that Red vs. Blue gradually became, or rather from RoosterTeeth's demand for a serious action IP that they didn't really have since, you know, five guys playing Halo. RWBY was based off ideas that Monty had been developing for years, and working with RT allowed him to propose the show to Burnie Burns during the production of RvB Season 10. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum "If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want."
Not only was Season 10 finished on time, the very first trailer for RWBY debuted shortly after and was attached as a commercial to the end of a RvB episode. From then on countless Americans would be consigned to eventually training out 
Fun fact this trailer was supposed to be several minutes longer and the extra content was just Ruby Rose (the character in the trailer) fighting some more. Someone convinced Monty to cut it down.
Also to give some insight into how RWBY was "written" — it's part of Ruby's character premise that her legendary hero mother disappeared when she was very young and she always wanted to follow in her footsteps. As for how this was conceptualized,
When questioned about who was in the grave, Monty replied "I don't know. We just thought it would be cool if she visited a grave." Jeff Williams went on to ask, "What if it's her mom?" To which Monty answered, "That's cool."
As for why Roosterteeth greenlit RWBY in the first place?
—
@1
I think RvB's escalating budget and evolution from a Halo parody into a 
serious action/drama/(sorta)comedy shows RT's intent. It's clear that as they grew someone or other decided it was important to have a real intellectual property under the company's belt. Something that went beyond vidya content. Something that could be licensed out and used for merchandising 
To an extent RT did make money off of Red vs. Blue. They sold DVDs and also started producing RvB merchandise. I've always wondered about the exact legal details there since even if RT made the show itself, Microsoft still owns all the, not-quite-sure-what-it's-called, visual rights associated with Halo. Because it started as a machinima the RvB characters wear Halo armor. Use Halo guns. Drive Halo vehicles. In particular I remember the Red and Blue team emblems showing up on merchandise even though these came right out of the game. Microsoft must have looked the other way or maybe they got a cut or something. In any case RvB wasn't entirely original. RoosterTeeth couldn't say it was entirely theirs.
Monty's idea was an opportunity for a new media franchise, and indeed it would become the flagship of RT's properties once the show started to take off.
RWBY 
Still the most baffling about [RWBY] is the creator is just an animator
He is just so popular and has power that he "create" the show but humble enough that he is shit at writing so he gave the concept art to 2 r-slur RvB writer to write it. There is a clip of him giving the 2 r-slurs "anime homework" to weebify them to write this "anime".
The whole thing is so embarrassing it single-handedly end my weeb phrase
--
@skitzo
In this section I will describe what RWBY is and how it was made -- God willing I won't sperg too much and this'll be at least somewhat interesting to you guys We'll also explore a brief history of American weebery. Some people on this site have claimed RWBY started this trend, but no. It's only a milestone on a very long road. 
I'll also attempt to answer why this show went viral and how it became so corruptingly influential to certain sections of the internet 
RWBY is sort of a fantasy series, though it's more specifically like those Final Fantasy settings where modern conveniences like firearms and electronics exist alongside magic and monsters. The series is basically a battle shounen with female protags in which the initial plot -- the four main characters are training to fight monsters called Grimm -- is fundamentally an excuse for fighty-fight. The tone of the show is whatever the frick the writers felt like for that episode. I think RT really tried to reach across the aisles for this one to attract as many genre fandoms as possible, even if the result ended up a big fantasy shitpost.
According to Monty, the basic idea of a team of female action heroes each associated with a color came to him in a dream. 
He told RT employee Kerry Shawcross about this and when it came time to make the show he also recruited Miles Luna. The three were the initial showrunners. Shane Newville is another animator who also worked with Monty on RvB. Dillon Gu joined later for Volume 3. These two animators were later fired from RT in a controversial moment. (And in modern news rumor has it they're interested in the now up for grabs RWBY IP rights)
A true creative 
Monty had been shitstorming fantasy esque ideas for years and prompty used them to fill out the new series. For example, the "gunchucks" used by Sun Wukong and the character design of Qrow Branwen actually predate the RWBY leads, and even though they're minor characters, Sun's team SSSN was the first to be fully designed. 
Beta team JNPR was also finished before the protags.
The basic designs for the main characters were drawn up by Monty and further refined by artist Eileen Chang, who Monty was apparently a longtime fan of. The 3D animation models were developed from there. Virtually all RWBY characters were designed under two philosophies. Monty decided each character would be associated with a color as a "hook", an idea possibly inspired by RvB itself. Characters also allude to fairytales, mythology, folk tales, and real historical figures.
I suppose the color rule speaks for itself. It's interesting to wonder if Monty suggested this as a way of tying RWBY into Red vs. Blue when originally pitching the concept to Burnie. It's sort of evidenced by the leading teams (RWBY from Ruby, Rubies are red/JNPR from Juniper, berries that are blue) In that case RWBY's color obsession ultimately descends from the simple multiplayer conventions of Halo.
[Monty] made the world shape by smashing ketchup in a napkin
As noted by resident white supremacist Hotep RWBY's setting is inspired by fairytales and other old timey lore and draws from a wide range of ideas. Monty pitched the idea for Ruby's character to Burnie as "a badass Red Riding Hood". Sure enough the Grimm antagonists are also based on folk critters, with the ones debuting in Ruby's trailer obviously based on werewolves. Other examples,
Mythology: 
is based on Achilles, said in some sources to have had red hair and to have once disguised himself as a woman named Pyrra
Folk Tales: 
is the scorpion who stung the frog. He's an evil assassin because it is simply his nature.
History: 
Based on Joan of Arc, I guess. 
Furthering this his season 1 school bully 
was even inspired by Henry Beaufort, who is commonly said to have overseen Joan of Arc's prosecution 
The writers also liked to give some inspirations a darker twist, like 
and 
being Rapunzel and female Aladdin, but evil 
The signifigance of these allusions is all over the place. 
Has the backstory of Cinderella if she snapped and killed her step-family, becoming a tragic villain in the process. Meanwhile 
is based on the Roman god, but the only real connection is that they both run a lot.
On finding the correct tone and inspiration for the series, Kerry Shawcross cited Grimms' Fairy Tales as well as... uh... The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as influences. 
RWBY is funny because it was developed like the opposite of a comic book. Instead of having a writer create a script and guidelines that the artists would follow, in this case Monty was the animator and he got scriptwriters to follow his lead in developing and refining the story bits he didn't care enough to manage himself. As mentioned earlier the writers were given anime "homework" so they understood what Monty was going for. This list possibly included the likes of Gurren Lagann, Sword Art Online, Full Metal Alchemist/Brotherhood, Soul Eater, FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Akira. Of course Monty himself was working off his many video game influences, Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry, Blazblue, Dead Or Alive, and probably countless others. 
Monty came up with major character arcs and plot points, such as Beacon's eventual destruction and Pyrra's death. Otherwise he just did the fight scenes as he saw fit. The scriptwriters came up with everything else, tasked with trying to explain how Fight Scene A would go to Fight Scene B.
Volumes 1 to 3 were animated by the internal animation team of Rooster Teeth's studios in Austin using Smith Micro's Poser software, which Monty had years of experience in. Assets were modelled on Autodesk Maya. Apparently some motion capture was involved but I'm not sure how much. This initial animation was very, let's say, "indie" and often used animation cheats, as an example many background characters in Volume 1 are really just silhouettes and don't have real models. Regarding the design, Oum wanted to "present a two-dimensional, toon-shaded look, but with all of the depth and complexity of a 3D-animated production".
Everyone always says RWBY looks like jank but you have to understand this was all very new and low budget, plus they couldn't just use Halo assets like RvB. Also everything 3D looked like jank back then so people accepted it.
To give credit where it's due, the animation has improved in all these years.
For all their faults one thing RoosterTeeth didn't cheap out on was the soundtrack. Jeff Williams returned to compose the majority of songs all the way to Volume 8.
I don't expect you guys to listen to all that but even just a few seconds makes it clear the show received professional quality music. Many of these songs features vocals by Williams' daughter, Casey Lee Williams. Despite the deep sounding voice she was only fourteen or so when this was made. 
RWBY -- Backwards for You Become a Weeb and R-slurred 
--
@HOTEP
So now we know Monty made RWBY because of I guess Final Fantasy 
and RoosterTeeth funded it because they wanted money 
But why would anyone watch this, right? I will explain exactly why I think RWBY resonated with so many people, because it was undeniably popular for a good long while there 
Some blame RWBY for the existence of American animu 
The spread of weebshit through the Anglosphere truly deserves its own longpost but to briefly sum it up I would disagree and lay blame at the feet of the 90's.
First of all, I'm pretty sure Xoomers were getting their hands on anime even going back to the 80's and that they were forming their secret societies ever since 
Second, Toonami was a Cartoon Network programming block that premiered in 1997. A lot of dubbed anime was shown to a wide audience in the United States for the first time through Toonami. Notable examples include Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Voltron, Robotech, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, The Big O, Outlaw Star, Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. You even had some shorter series like Evangelion 
and movies like Char's Counterattack 
It must be noted that these were simply marketed to kids as action cartoons and were shown alongside western cartoons like ThunderCats, Jonny Quest, and the DC Animated Universe shows. Kids growing up in this era -- the same kids that would be high school/college aged going into the 10's -- didn't seek these animes out because they were already weebs. They were converted because they were unfortunate enough to be watching Cartoon Network at the wrong place and wrong time. They would prostrate themselves before the electric Nip much the same as they'd watch wholesome Anglo programming like Justice League 
or Ben 10 
As for the birth of "American anime", I'm pretty sure we can safely blame Gen X for that. 
T'was their number who ultimately gave us increasingly anime inspired western media with the 2003 Teen Titans, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Godzilla: The Series, The Boondocks, Megas XLR, and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! as just a few egregious examples. These aren't shows with animation exported to East Asia to be sure, but properties that intentionally drew from Japanese pop culture even if they were produced by entirely western teams and studios. This was all shown to children right alongside an unprecedented amount of dubbed anime.
Proto-Coomers and Proto-Weebs who didn't know how to watch Anime in 2013
RWBY's timing was well positioned to take advantage of these poor children as they reached their teenaged and young adult years. While I'm sure there was content out there for the savvy, anime whatnot streaming was only just starting to get somewhere by 2013 and wasn't as widely known as it is today. I can see a lot of early weebs being attracted to RWBY when it first went viral and having it be their gateway drug. 
If RWBY premiered now it wouldn't be anything special, but like RvB it had the perfect timing to be quite novel.
All these years I specifically remember how the Red trailer was attached to the end of RvB's season 10 and how confused a lot of people were in the comments. While many of the classic Halo dudebros didn't make the transition, I'm sure a good chunk of Red vs. Blue fans were willing to give the new series a try as a built in audience. After all RvB itself had ceased being a true machinima by then and RWBY was more of the same for those who liked the cgi.
And of course Monty Oum was well known in some circles and a lot of people came to RWBY just to see what he was up to. He was well respected in nerdom 
Furthermore RWBY was kinda brilliant in how it managed to attract both moid and foid neurodivergents through different aspects of its premise.
--
@Dahl_Fook
Somehow the moids who made this show figured out the perfect blend of foid-coded cartoon and young adult novel, because RWBY attracted the usual suspects (teh penguin of doom) like flies on a pile of pasture poo. I think g*mergirl types were just inherently enchanted by the pretty colors, female representation, shipping potential (
) fanfic potential, and JRPG influences they could smell from several spork lengths away 
The show also has a high school slash boarding school setup not unlike Harry Potter that every YA fan seems to like. It's not a coincidence that everyone remembers the characters being students, many people unaware that the plot ever even progressed from there 
But the show also attracted a lot of dudes, and not just future MtFs either. The fight scenes were enough for some. The show's emphasis on weapon autism was another aspect a lot of moids enjoyed. It's not as though tumblrina types care about things like whether or not the main character's bolt action rifle cycles correctly, but I can speak from firsthand experience when I say that it was the littlest of these small details that attracted many moid neurodivergents to RWBY when it first came out. RWBY weapons have as much thought put into them as the characters wielding them and did a lot to reel in the male JRPG crowd.
Plus there are tons of moids who love to watch cute animu girls fighting and if anything were conditioned to feel that way by the above media.
And there are certain moids who came for the "2D art" -- moids that shit up my notifs with their three letter fetishes 
Otaku Ouroboros 
I bought a licensed cereal of [RWBY] because it was on sale.
--
@911roofer
RWBY generated viral hype from the moment of its announcement and first premiered at a RoosterTeeth convention in 2013. It was popular enough to fill the seating at three showings. Oh and also RT started hosting its own conventions and some people willingly paid money to attend them. 
RWBY was initially released on both RT's website and YouTube. By mid-2013, the series had reportedly contributed to a 9% increase in views for Rooster Teeth's official YouTube channel. In August 2013, streaming website Crunchyroll announced it would simulcast RWBY. DVD and Blu-ray sales soon followed and the show's success led to a greenlight for season 2 and beyond.
RWBY grew rapidly in these golden years of the mid 10's, an era coinciding with RoosterTeeth at its spendiest 
Netflix picked up the show going into Volume 3. A spin-off RWBY: World of Remnant released in '15 and the lighthearted RWBY Chibi in '16. This cgi is even more nightmare inducing than the original.
There's also some whatever spinoffs that I don't feel like keeping track of like a DnD campaign. Two video games were released, Grimm Eclipse and Arrowfell. There's also some mobile shovelware like a card game or something.
RWBY also went on to achieve the highest honors a weeb could ask for,
Matt Hullum: This is the first time any American-made anime has been marketed to Japan. It definitely usually works the other way around, and we're really pleased about that... As huge fans of anime, we are honored that RWBY is the first American anime production to be exported to audiences in Japan.
Monty Oum: Some believe just like Scotch needs to be made in Scotland, an American company can't make anime. I think that's a narrow way of seeing it. Anime is an art form, and to say only one country can make this art is wrong.
The show gained a following in Nipland and a dub was released there starting in '14. This was handled by Warner Bros Home Entertainment Japan, which may actually represent the very beginning of RoosterTeeth as a whole eventually coming under WB. RWBY Volume 4 even got a limited theatrical release there. 
Eventually the 
would produce two RWBY mangas
And finally an actual anime spin-off
RWBY characters also showed up in the crossover fighting game BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, apparently because series creator Toshimichi Mori was a personal fan of RWBY. They're notably the only participants in the base game to not hail from a fighting game series already and to have entirely original in game assets made for them. 
Back in the west the series would get an official comic book published by DC followed by a crossover with DC characters
The crossover was adapted into one of DC's animated movies.
And let it be known that Kang promised to review these for us. Don't let him forget.
Of course these particular RWBY releases weren't a thing until RoosterTeeth became more involved with DC's parent company Warner Bros. Let's check back up on RT.
RoosterTeeth's Expansion 
At the time the early 10's seemed like a golden age for RoosterTeeth. As an original property with no Microsoft strings attached RWBY was milked for everything it could have been worth, and the company dipped its toes into anything that might have expanded their internet presence.
In Which RoosterTeeth Tries to "Compete" with Tech Giants 
In 2011 they started RTX, a gaming, internet, and all around shitpost convention held every year in Austin, and for a time in Sydney 
and London 
too. Your boy here even went to one in '15. (Funny story there, it was completely involuntary 
) In '13 RT began a newsletter and started their Extra Life live stream charity. In '15 they opened a division in Los Angeles called Funhaus and made their feature film debut with Lazer Team. In retrospect I do remember RTX being themed around that back when. RoosterTeeth Games was created as the company's very own gaming division and RT also released an iOS app intended as a hub of sorts for their service. ScrewAttack would become a division of RoosterTeeth.
Burnie Burns: We didn't join YouTube until late 2008, because when we first looked at it, honestly, I viewed them as a competitor... Now we're not competing with the PewDiePies and the Homestar Runners of the world. Now we're competing with Netflix and HBO and Amazon. And we're more than ready for that challenge.
As RoosterTeeth grew Burnie at least saw a comparison to the first dotcom boom. He genuinely saw all the tech powers of the time as challenges RT should rise to meet. I can't be sure what the end goal would have looked like -- I mean, what would a RT version of Amazon have looked like? In any case we can see their intent in exanding the company from a small team of dudebros into hundreds of employees, with a greater emphasis on both IPs and "influencer" content. The company also obsessed over its website, app, and FIRST program because they didn't want their users to be using "competitor" websites at all.
In 2014 they were bought out by Fullscreen, an entertainment company which offered cowtools, services, and consultation to social media content creators and brands. Burnie said this provided "the resources and cowtools" to be competitive against other producers. RT's entire business strategy changed from here on and they would never be independent again.
But with the general upward trend of my post, surely RoosterTeeth's prosperity continued into the second half of the 2010's and beyond? Surely things were only on the up and up for them? And RWBY most definitely continued to increase in quality with every new season? 
Monty's Death 
--
@tothenines
In retrospect the history of not just RWBY but RoosterTeeth as a whole climaxed with the sudden death of Monty Oum on February 1st, 2015. He was only 33 years old.
I've heard different versions of the story but this is my understanding. Upon achieving success in the creative industry, Monty further realized he could obtain the dream of every Asian-American otaku. He landed himself a mid white woman 
Monty's wife wanted to take in a stray cat she found, but Monty was very allergic to cats. He agreed to go to the hospital and get some kind of allergy shot treatment. Unfortunately he had an allergic reaction to these shots and died in the hospital. 
Following this his wife launched a kickstarter and started ethot posting. 
It's been said that RWBY with no Monty is like Breaking Bad with no Vince Gilligan or Seinfeld with no Larry David. In any case many people have criticized the show's decline ever since Monty's departure. The "FNDM" (four letters like team RWBY geddit 
) has been divided in half ever since and if you ever see a fervent RWBY hater online then there's a pretty good chance this was a Monty era fan that came to hate the show. People who never watched aren't very likely to bring it up. Not unless they lost someone to RWBY's "influence" or something 
Meanwhile RT continued with RWBY and a few other original cartoons and an assload of podcasts and programs and other fluff bits of debatable quality. From what I've written so far it would seem RoosterTeeth was on track to becoming an unstoppable juggernaut of internet culture. And yet, they're set to go out of business this year? What could have dragged them down from so great an apex? 
As I wrote this post I realized it would have to be a two-parter with Monty's death as a logical stopping point. Hopefully you wonderful rDrama people appreciate this post because if I come back it would be to detail how all this came crashing down. How did Fullscreen lead to RT ending up under Warner Bros? What future might RWBY have? For now you'll just have to stay tuned. 
Since this post was very meta -- many dramatards were followers of RT and even RWBY back in the day -- I'd like to close with a funny meta arc in which @Dahl_Fook slowly comes to regret getting pinged whenever someone typed "RWBY".
Kaamrev Autism Longposts Archive - 38
- 89
===============================================================================
SOUTHERN AFRICA LONGPOSTS:
===============================================================================
Afrikaans lady says Kaffir 50 times and gets sent to prison.
https://rdrama.net/post/190355/marseyflagsouthafrica-afrikaans-lady-says-kword-50
Story of Zimbabwe's Hyperinflation
Cape Town 2023 Taxi Striking Drama
https://rdrama.net/post/195711/marseyflagsouthafrica-cape-town-taxi-strike-rioting
Famous 2010 BBC reporter interview with Julius Malema which made him famous.
https://rdrama.net/post/195984/that-time-when-a-bbc-bigbongpeepee
Story of the ANC Youth League transformation into the EFF.
https://rdrama.net/post/197035/marseyflagsouthafrica-the-great-2013-schism-of
Random Rhodesia Bush War Scandals
https://rdrama.net/post/197556/random-rhodesia-bush-war-scandals
Story where I recount how China has exploited Mozambique
https://rdrama.net/post/191698/chinas-exploitation-of-mozambique
Story of the worst rendition of the South African National Anthem of all time.
https://rdrama.net/post/189486
Story in which I recount the corruption of the Free State Province's various municipalities, and how they have been indebted to ESKOM, the nationalized electricity provider for South Africa. The post focusses on how their bankruptcy has led to the modern problems of ESKOM not having the finances to repair or maintain Power Stations in the Free State, and how this has aggrevated the causes of Loadshedding.
https://rdrama.net/post/183743/marseyflagsouthafrica-free-state-province-municipalities-stop
Stories where I recount the various controversial and banned films throughout Southern Africa's histories. I made a series of 3 posts which recount controversial and dramatic films, from the earliest filmmaking devices in SA, to modern controversial movies.
https://rdrama.net/post/186601
https://rdrama.net/post/185786/marseyflagsouthafrica-a-short-history-of-banned
https://rdrama.net/post/185294/marseyflagsouthafrica-a-short-history-of-marseyban
Story regarding the 2009 South African Election, when seemingly the strongest competitor to the dominating ANC party in 12 years, arose from a deep ideological schism in the ANC party, and several high ranking ANC members would mutiny to form the COPE (Congress of the People) party. Story recounts the leadup and hype in 2008, towards the disappointing dismal performance of COPE in 2009.
https://rdrama.net/post/181062/marseyflagsouthafrica-2008-south-africans-cope-when
Story where I recount the cause and events of the RhodesMustFall student activist movement which crippled the University of Cape Town for over a year, and how it lead to the removal of the prominent statue of Cecil John Rhodes.
https://rdrama.net/post/180474/marseyflagsouthafrica-rhodes-must-fall-marseyflagsouthafrica-the
Story regarding the famous Cango Caves, and how an obese lady got stuck doing an adventure tour through its more difficult tour courses through the original route of the first cave explorers, and how she trapped 22 other tourists on the other side of the only exit.
Story where I recount the situation of LGBT treatment in South Africa, and how usually react when they are criticized about Africa-Specific homophobia and bigotry.
https://rdrama.net/post/177282/some-turbo-nuclear-cope-marseycopeseethedilate-in
Drama in 2016 when South African volunteer firefighters strike and Toitoi during a diplomatic mission towards Canada when Canada had just suffered one of their worst recorded forest fires.
https://rdrama.net/post/176974/marseyflagsouthafrica-saffer-drama-back-in-2016
Collection of drama in South Africa when Afrikaners refer to National Heritage Day, as National Braai Day.
https://rdrama.net/post/174767/marseyflagsouthafrica-mini-drama-in-rsouthafrica-8
Story where I recount the drama when the famous offroad French race across the Sahara, from Paris to Dakar, Senegal, was cancelled amid French tourists being killed amid violent war arising in the region.
https://rdrama.net/post/172357/drama-when-the-yearly-dakar-4x4
Where I recount the various spats between Israeli and Palestinian students at the University of Cape Town.
Story where I recount the various Dramas resulting from the poaching and near extinction of South Africa's Rhinos.
https://rdrama.net/post/169713/marseyflagsouthafrica-south-african-rhino-breeding-drama
Story about Mozambique, where I recount the collapse of the Mozambique economy when Credit Suisse and other banks were caught in a scandal involving the giving of excessive debt towards corrupt Mozambique officials in secret, and the global community discovered that the Mozambique had accumulated more debt than it could feasibly repay.
https://rdrama.net/post/168955/that-time-when-one-of-the
Story about Botswana's Elephant overpopulation, and the drama involving their population control as well as the questions about culling as population control via foreign Trophy Hunters.
https://rdrama.net/post/167478/botswanas-elephant-overpopulation-and-hunting-drama
Story in which I recount the catastrophic Mozambique Civil War against the Portuguese, and then between themselves as Capitalist and Communist factions splintered the country during the Cold War era, and led to the burning down of the Mozambique Surveyor General's Office - which resulted in chaos for the land parcel management thereafter.
https://rdrama.net/post/167201/that-time-when-mozambique-commies-burned
Story where I recount a collection of dramas involving provocative advertisements by the Chicken restaurant foodchain Nandos, which is famed for putting out controversial ads.
Story about the complex drama regarding Wild Game farmers and Lodge Masters unwittingly create a bubble in the Wild Game market, by focusing on Colour Variants breeding, which Rowland Wards would refuse to acknowledge.
https://rdrama.net/post/165435/marseyflagsouthafrica-south-african-wild-game-colour
Story about how a South African High Court decision regarding the accountability of Wildebeest owners have towards cattle infected by the deadly Snotsickness, led to the mass culling of Wildebeests all over RSA.
https://rdrama.net/post/163958/marseyflagsouthafrica-south-african-wild-game-high
Story about the exposure of the existence of the Guptas - corrupt Indian brother caused destructive state hijacking of many RSA institutions - when they brazenly organized a wedding in Sun City, and utilized military airports to land secret Indian guests.
https://rdrama.net/post/162984/marseyflagsouthafrica-south-african-theme-park-racism
Racist South African Shampoo advertisement drama.
Story where I recount the drama of Cellphone companies struggling to keep their data and mobile signal towers operating throughout the COVID pandemic, after cartels repeatedly steal the backup batteries for these towers so frequently that many communities are effectively left in signal dead zones.
https://rdrama.net/post/160940/marseyflagsouthafrica-south-african-cellphone-tower-marseygossip
Drama about how PRASA - the government organization for SA's railways - ordered train coached which could not fit on most of SA's track.
Olympics drama when Intersex athlete, Caster Semenya, destroys all competition in the female 800m items, about a decade before burger trains started to crush female athletes in sports.
https://rdrama.net/post/158750/chadwomanblack-caster-semenya-south-african-intersex
Drama about the African Renaissance Monument built in Senegal.
Southern Africa bribing storytime.
History of the famous Afrikaans singer, Steve Hofmeyr's, dramatic antics throughout his career.
https://rdrama.net/post/156827/saffer-rslur-post-father-of-south
Flagsexuals screw over protest against Farm Murders by flying the Union of South Africa flag during rally organized by SA whites.
https://rdrama.net/post/155453/giga-rslur-effortpost-marseynecklacesoooth-efrican-farmers
Republic of South Africa Navy is borderline derelict.
https://rdrama.net/post/153065/only-one-of-sa-navys-four
The 1st longpost after other dramatards asked me to make a more cohesive explanation regarding the Loadshedding situation in South Africa.
https://rdrama.net/post/149505/marseycrackahwitoid-ceo-who-tried-to-pull
The post that started it all.
https://rdrama.net/post/146251/we-are-so-fd-now-southafrica
===============================================================================
NON-AFRICAN LONGPOSTS:
===============================================================================
Drama in 2004 in Mexico when British cave diving specialists butt heads when British military personnel got stuck in Alpazat cave after a flash flood.
https://rdrama.net/post/176694/marseymexican-meccicans-go-full-3rd-world
https://rdrama.net/h/slavshit/post/162509/effertpost-drama-from-a-year-ago
Reddit Ultrasoy which invested /r/truegayming
https://rdrama.net/post/163696/the-redditultra-soy-which-posted-the
https://rdrama.net/post/163530/greedfall-a-game-about-colonialism-by
Obscure Rightoid Youtuber Christcuck
https://rdrama.net/post/163455/obscure-rightoid-schizo-christian-crusader-drama
https://rdrama.net/post/152286/marseytwerkingvery-importante-marseytwerking-chuds-and-rightwingcuck
1st Worlders Cucks 3rd World gayemers
https://rdrama.net/post/148174/the-entire-turkroach-marseyturkroach-gaymer-demographic
Wokefication of Age of Empires 3
https://rdrama.net/post/195059/drama-2-years-ago-about-the
Terfenstein
https://rdrama.net/post/191974/terfenstein-3d-on-steam-holy-fricking
Exceptional post by @SmallNips
https://rdrama.net/post/135751/orania-the-town-that-has-been
- Impassionata : most impressive
- whyareyou : being unironically helpful to reddit is dramaphobic
- Soot : ^ Even DOE it is drama-positive to screw over subreddit powerjannies
EFFORTPOST 17:18 update: the pedo saga is over already? "He was 16 so it's not pedophilia" "Oh okay thanks!" The powerjannies are organizing another protest and I've been allowed into the server (my main is now banned but it's ok bc i have 4 accounts in the backchannels my main didn't even have access to)
- 266
- 319
This post here convinced them to give me full access 
Stay tuned for excitement! I'll wait until they actually get some stuff together to start dumping content en masse. Might just pull the whole server again. We'll see how hysterical they get.
update: I am not able to see some channels but it's okay I still have access to them and am making this known!!!
update: I have created cognitive dissonance by spreading "FUD"?? which google says means "fear, uncertainty, doubt"
update: I am testing the waters in another channel
update: The Jannie Letters are now being discussed
update: My main has now been banned for posting content it did not have access to, like that is going to do something, somehow? Leaks to follow once they get a game plan going. They're currently considering NSFWing all their subs because ads aren't served on NSFW subs which is actually a really good idea. Though they're afraid to do this because they might get demopped by Reddit.
Last words, as seen from yet another account. Fittingly it was a train who banned me.
https://discord . gg/mKudvApxD5 - invite link.
Get in fast, Wuz is going to link this thread there for the craic.
Remove the spaces around the .
They really did not like this thread and so they've revoked the general purpose invite link. New one to follow if they reissue a new one and don't smarten up. They're in a tizzy now combatting leaks that haven't even happened yet instead of doing their union larp.
I have made this thread public to be sporting. Meeting in a few, updates on hold UFN.
Final preview:
Imagine being a webdev and being reached out to by a volunteer internet janitor of some subforum on a gay orange messageboard lol
MEETING OVER, TIME FOR UPDATES
// MOST RECENT UPDATE BEGINS HERE
Multi-page discussion about the scaaaaary fish in one of their secret channels. I was banned and never had access to this but I can still see! Get it together @femilip! 
"rdrama never changes" indeed @demmian 
And now we discuss rDrama!
There is a 100% chance it will be leaked, @JayRy27. I told you all this when I first joined the server and was given limited access. Femilip decided to yall me instead of accepting generously given, excellent advice. And now we're doing this again. Are you happy?
Yeah, paywalling the API is super gay, but you know what else is super gay? You, @LunarOlympian 
Why are you "ramp[ing] up the verification"? You guys were all just talking about how leaks aren't a problem because this is so popular!
Even when they're trying to be mean it just makes you want to take their lunch money and dunk their heads in the toilet even more. Also! Stop using the default Midnight theme here dummies, we have much more beautiful themes once you're logged in. Dramblr is amazing! So is Coffee! And Tron!
And here are their AI-generated "open letters" which they, somehow, couldn't write themselves and are forming committees to discuss how to improve them? N8 only proposed AI generating the letter as a joke but these tards ran with it lol.
The leaks will continue until my main is unbanned and given full access to all channels so that I may be a charitable voice of reason.
Newest as of 13:27 EST
NEW INVITE LINK -
https://discord . gg/34mHx6RZ
Remove the spaces.
minor update
@sir I tried to send you a message but it says I need to be groomcord e-friends with you before we can talk
and you're not accepting my add, so I guess I'll just respond here:
ONE: rDrama actually has an extremely robust slur and profanity filter, which users can toggle on and off. Both are on by default and on for logged out users. Like see here? BIPOC. That is THE N WORD. I typed the N word. But it will appear for you as "BIPOC" - there's a LOT of these, both for actual abusive language and for just cheeky things, like Discord being changed to groomcord and such.
TWO: We actually have native support for multiple communities! You can see this both here and on http://watchpeopledie.tv. Here they're called Holes and function much like subreddits, but with way more features. They're user-created and user-run. For example: /h/toomanyxchromosomes (women ☕) and /h/slackernews (tech stuff). On WPD, they function differently and they're just called Flairs and they're used for categorizing content for easy access and/or filtering. WPD's are admin-created and admin-run.
A mostly-comprehensive list of rDrama's features can be found here: https://rdrama.net/post/151246/rdrama-featureset
It's very impressive! And completely free and open source! We're banned from GitHub because of course we are, but you can find it all on Gitea here - https://fsdfsd.net/rDrama/rDrama. Feel free to fork! We'll even build new features and stuff for you if you'd like. Maybe even for free. Our only requirement is that you don't remove Marsey, the cat mascot. You can definitely use different Marseys though; we've got over 2500 already and are always adding more user-created ones. But at least one must be present.
14:00 EST UPDATE
Here is their tentative tl;dr rant:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/
And here is the autojanny macro for it to annoy people with as it links them to a novel that none of them will read because holy shit
https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xod4y/a_modmail_macro_you_can_use_in_your_subreddit/
Hello @BuckRowdy! Dedicating several paragraphs pleading with the porn addicts to rally to the cause so they don't have to use the official Reddit app to jerk off (most already do anyway??) is a bold move. Let's see how that goes.
14:04 small update
Arkontas! I have more accounts verified in there than I even remember now! But I have a helpful textfile with a list of credentials for them so it's not really an issue. Please accept my add so we can chat!
update: He has accepted my chat and we are having a nice discussion though I am in another meeting now. Groomcord handle removed at his request.
I don't even need to be signed into any of these at this point. I am getting inundated with screenshots from other people lol
how do you do fellow hatecircle members?
14:15 EST - rDrama isn't a problem but also we need to keep this hidden from rDrama 
They keep going on endlessly about how it's not a secret and rDrama isn't a problem but they also keep revoking the invite link so no one can see it.
Will post new update link when available.
I already did that dummy! I'll repost here at the current end:
Here is their tentative tl;dr rant:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/
And here is the autojanny macro for it to annoy people with as it links them to a novel that none of them will read because holy shit
https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xod4y/a_modmail_macro_you_can_use_in_your_subreddit/
Hello @BuckRowdy! Dedicating several paragraphs pleading with the porn addicts to rally to the cause so they don't have to use the official Reddit app to jerk off (most already do anyway??) is a bold move. Let's see how that goes.
14:42 EST - THE APEX OF DELUSION
Also old but hi again @BuckRowdy!!!
As requested, you are in the screenshot @I_POGCHAMP_INFANTS. I remember you from the NNN leaks! Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
Super minor
Not even updating the timestamp in the flair over it, but posting the invite link here and showing them this thread functioned exactly as intended and they are now having to deal with constant requests to generate unique invites (for free!) to bring their jannie friends, since the general purpose invitation concept has been removed:
15:05 EST - They got our boy greg 
@hoodatninja 
They're also BRIGADING. Moderators! Brigading!!!
@SkorpioSound is the only one with a conscience smdh
STOP TALKING ABOUT RDRAMA PLEASE STOP 
15:50 EST - @LunarOlympian is going bigbrain mode 
@TheSpookiestUser who has provided several new sidebar images is getting ready to quit over all the leaks 
15:56 EST OH SHIT THEY NOTICED THIS 
Demoralization sets in 
16:00 EST - rDrama is now a no-no word 
16:06 EST The abyss stares back
Watching @TheSpookiestUser's slow descent into madness has been a real treat:
Annnnd @LunarOlympian who said he was going to infiltrate rDrama but gave up without making an account is assuring the other jannies that the verification is working just fine 
16:57 They've just been wordswordswords posting for awhile now but /u/nerdshark is extremely unhappy with something that I'm not reading lol
/u/nerdshark's most recent comment on Reddit is...
and then he jannied the very popular thread, locking AND deleting it lest people stop spending all day on the subreddit for an imaginary disorder
Anyway here's the current level of discussion:
Incredibly boring.
Forbes started covering it this morning though, unrelated to Reddit's volunteer janitors:
Retards.
u/nerdshark just posted this while I was making this update. What's he got in his closet? Is he a pedophile? Crypto nazi? Did he once call something gay? Let's find out!
Hilariously, digging through your post history would be a million times easier if you got your way and pushshift came back. If you do win this, I am excited to see what we find!
17:07 /u/nerdshark has some weirdly specific fears about porn and children 
17:08 OH NO NO NO BOMBSHELL HE WAS CALLING OUT SOME REAL PEDO LOL GO OFF KING 
@Xyreo what's going on big guy?
Infant puncher guy why are you defending pedos? AGAIN??
Sharky appears to have jannie clout that infant rapist guy does not. This is getting ACTUALLY DRAMATIC now.
17:14 The pedo saga concludes with "ummm guys we have a confirmed pedo who sends porn to and hits on kids here but that's not really relevant, can we please stay on topic?"
17:16 lol oops sharky confused "xyreon" with "blocks" who he confused with "cocacola"
and it keeps getting better as /u/MotleyBlondie comes out swinging with 
the boy was 16 so it's not pedophilia
But let's get back on topic
It all falls apart... 
- 30
- 98
So last month a pretty Amazing thing happened, DIU (the Defense Innovation Unit) published a 14 page whitepaper named DIU 3.0 which is by itself is pretty unremarkable, but within it, it says that DIU 2.0 was pretty successful but could not live up to the potential to deliver commercial dual use tech to INDOPACOM or EuroCom and specifically the Specifically Assistance Group-Ukraine (SAG-U) because it was hamstrung by the DoD and Pentagon.
(I'll link the entire pdf down below)
The 3.0 approach cuts through all this and can leverage commercial industries to ramp up or down production and supply tech in fight with belligerent nations by circumventing the entire Pentagon and reporting directly to the SECRETARY OF DEFENSE.
Think about it. An innovation unit will say they have procured assurances from the private sector to someone who has direct access to the President.
The DIU 2.0 had used its Other Transaction Authority to use commercial tech to create prototypes of dual tech (cheekily named as Alternative Defense Investments) which raised more than $30B in the private sector
And it has unveiled a matrix (consultant behavior) with pretty alarming language
So what does all of this have to do with SXSW?
Well, the US ARMY is one of the biggest sponsors of SXSW ( https://www.sxsw.com/sponsors/ ) and the DIU has one of its major offices in Austin. Also, each year, the DIU hosts the annual SXSW Tech conferences. Although it is ignored by most music lovers, it holds the key to all your tech and defense portfolio holdings for the foreseeable future.
Here's the official endorsement of SXSW at DIU.
https://www.diu.mil/latest/diu-at-sxsw-connecting-technology-and-talent-from-around-the-world-for
And here's the DARPA and DoD endorsement:
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/sxsw2024
The 2024 lineup of keynote speakers at SXSW:
Selected interesting personas:
Privacy-in-Progress: Redefining the Boundaries of Being Online: Founder and CEO of Block Party and co-founder of Project Tracy Chou and Head of Product Design at Block Party Deonne Castaneda.
Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Web: CEO of Patreon Jack Conte
Managing Director of Charts & Data Operations at Billboard Keith Caulfield
Celine Joshua, and Executive Vice President of Charts & Data Partnerships at Billboard Silvio Pietroluongo to find out how the Billboard Charts have been modernized and globalized to reflect the many means of music consumption in an ever-evolving borderless digital and social age
CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy Patrick Moorhead
Michael Dell
CEO of Blackbird Collective Bridgid Coulter Cheadle and author and founder of Backstage Capital and https://HireRunner.co Arlan Hamilton
Selected Fields: (Do not discard sessions which have randomized titles like "We need more Women of Color". The DIU is more intelligent than you to hide their conversations under the pretense of absolute rampant DEI.)
{Go to Sessions to see individual conferences and all the speakers}
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/artificial-intelligence-track/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/energy/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/game-industry/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/government-and-civic-engagement-track/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/startups/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/tech-industry/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/tech-industry/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/transportation/
https://www.sxsw.com/conference/xr-track/
What you can do by listening to the speakers, seeing which particular government official is present in which session and looking back and tracking the tech developed by said companies and how much portion of it is funded by the MIC or does it produce dualtech products is up to you. I am under no obligation to give you any advise regarding your investments.
But do look out for words like director, deputy director, heads of particular COMs (Command theatres) in those sessions. Those are the most interesting.
Fin.
Epilogue: Full 14 page whitepaper on DIU 3.0
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/CNAS-Report-DIU-Finalc-020624.pdf
- PraiseHim : Marriage or Celibacy.
- ticktocktrain : brother is crying about fruit loops icant
- 64
- 134
I wrote this article because I couldn't really find a good article/documentary discussing the PUA movement without being super gay and cringe in it's delivery, either sneeding about "patriarchy" or telling you to go "MGTOW bro" instead. The following is an abstract of the history of the "Pickup artist community."
Even though nearly every user on rDrama is a raging homosexual,
some of us have been cursed with a preference for the "fairer s*x." For some of us straggot moids out there, talking to women comes naturally, or we are at least able to overcome our social r-sluration enough to become a somewhat suitable mate. Unfortunately, for an increasing amount of young men, the touch of a woman seems to exist as an unattainable, unknowable enigma. Many of these spurned males, in their sexual frustration, can develop a deep animus towards all of womenkind, and become "incels." Other men may have more middling success, but become disillusioned with the concept of dating and marriage itself, and get on the highway to "MGTOWn." Both of these communities have become quite prominent pillars of the online "manosphere." While these communities are relatively new on the Internet, another "manosphere" community has been online for over 20 years.
The "seduction," or "pick up community," is a collection of neurodivergent men who attempt to overcome their unfortunate s*x lives by donning rockstar personas, dressing like anime characters, and approaching random women in clubs or in public using silly questions, word games, and other cringe shenanigans like "accidently" hitting them. The community has undergone changes in philosophy, tactics, and scope over the years due to changes in social norms, technology, and leadership within the PUA community. The movement would hit the mainstream in the mid 2000s, but by the late 2010s, had largely retracted into the underground once more, but with a new life on tiktok.
While books about picking up women have existed since the 70's, the modern "seduction community" would begin around the late 80's with a man named Ross Jeffries, considered by some to be the "godfather of the pickup community." He would teach courses in "Neuroliguistic programming," or NLP. Basically a combination of hypnosis and psychology. "Students" would study under Jeffries before starting their own pickup gathering spots in their cities, sometimes called "lairs" or "lounges." In the 90's, a real estate agent named David DeAngelo would create a more comprehensive approach to dating and relationships, emphasizing self-improvement and the "cocky/funny" personality.
With the rise of the Internet throughout the 90s, websites would emerge that would feature independent writers, discussing and self-publishing their methods for approaching women, usually in the form of articles or eBooks. One of the most notable of these websites was pickupguide.com, which featured a bevy of free articles for aspiring "Don Juans." These articles would be compiled into a comprehensive, 300-page academic publication, titled, "HOW TO LAY GIRLS GUIDE" also known as "The Lay Guide." This foundational text of sacred knowledge would fall into the hands of a balding manlet who would go on to become the posterboy of the PUA movement. A man known as "Style."
THE GAME 
In 2001, Neil Strauss was an AFC. As you can see, Neil looks like a LVM. His hair looks like he fell down headfirst onto a pile of freshly shorn pubes. Despite his career as a Rolling Stones contributor, where he would regularly rub shoulders with rockstars, actors, and other interesting characters, Neil was remarkably unremarkable. The woman he spent the most time with in his entire life (besides his mom) was Marilyn Manson, and the last person to kiss him was Tommy Lee. Neil wasn't a virgin, but he never saw himself as attractive.
He would try to turn a one-night stand into a two-year relationship because he didn't know when he was going to luck out again. He had maybe only 5 or 6 partners up to this point, and had been single for quite a while.
One fateful day, Neil would receive a call from his editor, Jeremie Ruby-Strauss (no relation) asking him to read and write an article about "The Lay Guide." Neil would be intrigued by this request, and upon reading the first few pages of this document, something in Neil's tumbleweed-butt lookin' head clicked.
The Rolling Stones writer thought back to his younger days. After graduating college, Neil's friend Marko had introduced him to a dude named Dustin, who was what we would call, a "natural." Dustin was a true AMOG. He could "DHV" with ease, pick up on "IOIs , "isolate", and "close." He had never shown shyness around women, he just always seemed to know EXACTLY what to do. Dustin had lost his virginity at the age of 11 to his 15 year old babysitter, and had been fricking women ever since. He would even frick people's girlfriends, it didn't matter to him.
Dustin was somehow born with the knowledge that had eluded Neil his entire teenage and adult life. Neil had always assumed you either had "it" or you didn't, but here "it" all was, laid out right here in front of him. These men knew what Dustin knew, and they were willing to teach anyone willing to learn. An entire world was opening up right in front of Neil's giant shnoz and beady little eyes. He would devour these texts, being introduced to an entirely new lexicon:
PUA GLOSSARY
"Pickup" features TONs of r-slurred terminology to set themselves apart from normal men who also like to have s*x with women for fun. This is to signal to eachother that despite trying to appear like an "player" to strangers, they are still neurodivergents at their core.
AMOG - "Alpha Male of Group" These are the chads that used to bully PUAs in highschool, and have forever been the archnemesis of PUAs everywhere. A PUA will begin opening a set when the AMOG will spot him and make fun of him for being dressed like a lesbian, causing the women to laugh at him and remember the natural social order.
AMOGGING - Defeating/disarming, or "Mogging" the AMOG, usually by telling a funny story to endear him to you, or roasting him in front of everyone else to get a laugh and lower his social value.
AFC - Average frustrated chump.
Closing/Close - Getting a girl's number/setting up a time to meet again after first contact. Kissing a girl is called a "kiss-close, fricking the girl is called a "full-close."
DV - Domestic violence. That's right, sometimes to sweep a woman off her feet, you first need to SWEEP THE LEG. Just kidding, it means "Demonstrate Value."
DHV - Demonstration of higher value.
DLV - Demonstration of lower value.
Field - Anywhere one could
harasspick up women in public.
Field Report - After any public interaction with a female, the online "pickup artist" will rush to his favorite forum and write up an neurodivergently long effortpost on every nauseating detail of the interaction.
Game - Your methods of approaching/talking to women. This is broken down into Outer Game, which emphasizes your outward behavior, and your Inner Game, which is your
mindsetHVM grindset.
HB - "Hot babe," usually followed by a number rating, such as HB8.7, to denote a "Hot Babe" that has been registered as an "8.7 of of 10"
IOI - "Indicators of Interest" if a woman does any of these things near you: Touching her hair, laughing at your lame joke, blinking, or breathing oxygen, it means SHE WANTS YOUR BALLS INSIDE HER.
IOD - Indicators of disinterest. See below:
Isolate - Moving your target to another area alone, away from her fat friends that are trying to protect her from you.
Kino - While you and I know 'kino" to mean a lovely piece of moving picture magic, in the pickup community, it means "touching."
Kino Escalation - Physical escalation.
HVM (High Value Male) - Dramatards should be familiar with this one (as they are ALL HVMs).
LMR - Last minute resistance. It's when a woman has a moment of lucid thought after being courted by a PUA.
LVM (Low Value Male) - Dramatards should be familiar with this one as well (
)
Negging - Teasing a woman you are interested in. Many aspiring pickup guys will not understand how this works and straight up insult random women, which makes for some excellent cringekino. Women hate neggers.
Obstacle - Fat ugly friends that try to stop you. Also can be male friends, or the target girl's boyfriend/husband/"partner."
Opener - A "usually canned" opening line you say to women to begin your set.
Pawn - An attractive woman that you parade around to demonstrate high value for yourself (usually unbeknownst to her).
Peacocking - Dressing like an r-slur for attention.
PUA - Pickup
neurodivergentartist.
Sarging - Going out and
harassingapproaching women.
Set - A group of people that a pickup artist approaches, usually in a social gathering. A group of 2 people is called a "two set," three is called a "three set," etc. It is recommended to not approach a woman by herself.
Shit Test - If you play D&D, you can think of this as a "Charisma check." A woman will give you shit to see how you react.
Wing - Wingman. It's a word commonly used outside of the PUA community, but in the community, your "wing" holds a special significance. They are like a brother, rival, mentor, and occasional spit-roast partner. Choosing a good wing is VITAL to having solid game.
Workshop - Paying a pickup artist (usually thousands of dollars) to hang out with them and learn how to be a douchebag.
There are other terms not listed, but they are either frequently used in English vernacular, or used enough on this insane website that I have omitted them. Anyway...
Neil became a man obsessed with this underground society. He would begin seeking out online seduction groups and reading field reports. He would read articles by Juggler, a stand up comic, David X, a construction worker, Rick H, a millionaire, and Steve P, (apparently women pay him to suck his peepee). He would also frequently read posts on MSN groups. He would soon find his way into the digital pickup lair, "Mystery's Lounge". A magician from Toronto who wrote over 3,000 detailed effortposts about his exploits, discoveries, and theories, "Mystery" would pioneer many aspects of the "pickup theory." and also coined many commonly used pickup terms, such as "group theory" and "IOI." He had become a legendary figure in the online seduction community, writing field reports of banging models and strippers in the Toronto area, all while being only 31 and still living with his parents.
In October of 2001, Mystery would begin offering workshops for $500 for aspiring pickup artists. Neil would attend his first workshop in Los Angeles, where they would spend 4 days together. This would be the beginning of a very powerful friendship.
"STYLE" 
Neil would arrive at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to meet his PUA senpai for the first time. Mystery was a very tall, gaunt man with pale skin and black fingernails, and was wearing a top hat and a loose fitting black suit. Neil described Mystery as "a computer geek that got bitten by a vampire and was midway through the transformation." Neil would also meet Mystery's wing, a short, intense looking man named "Sin." Also in attendance was "Extramask," a gangly but handsome 26 year-old virgin, and "Sweater," a 45 year old Australian guy wearing a cosby sweater. Neil would hit the town with his wingmen in a white limousine, approaching women, getting rejected, and learning "The Mystery Method."
MYSTERY METHOD:
Preparation: Dress like an r-slur, this is known as "peacocking," which Mystery was extra famous for.
This shows people that you do whatever you want and don't give a shit. Also, stand up straight and smile everywhere you go. A smile shows people that you are a "somebody." Have a good sense of humor. Have a friendly, relaxed disposition. Have some good openers handy, and have your supplies ready:
- Gum (to neg women with).
- Condoms (idk what these are used for).
- Pen, paper (for writing down phone numbers, or taking notes like a sperg).
- Camera
- Props. This can include: cheap necklaces ("This is a really special necklace of mine, but I want to give it to you"), trinkets, sunglasses, shit to do magic tricks with, etc.*
THE METHOD
STEP 1. Smile when you walk into a room. See the group with the target and follow the three-second rule. Do not hesitate—approach instantly.
STEP 2. Recite a memorized opener, if not two or three in a row.
STEP 3. The opener should open the group, not just the target. When talking, ignore the target for the most part. If there are men in the group, focus your attention on the men.
STEP 4. Neg the target with one of the slew of negs we've come up with. Tell her, "Its so cute. Your nose wiggles when you laugh." Then get her friends to notice and laugh about it.
Use this helpful diagram made by Mystery if you are an
aspieaspiring negger.
STEP 5. Convey personality to the entire group. Do this by using stories, magic, anecdotes, and humor. Pay particular attention to the men and the less attractive women. During this time, the target will notice that you are the center of attention. You may perform various memorized pieces like the photo routine, but only for the obstacles.
STEP 6. Neg the target again if appropriate. If she wants to look at the pictures, for example, say, "Oh my god, she's so grabby. How do you roll with her?"
STEP 7. Ask the group, "So, how does everyone know each other?" If the target is with one of the guys, find out how long they've been together. If its a serious relationship, eject politely by saying, "Pleasure meeting you."
STEP 8. If she is not spoken for, say to the group, "I've sort of been alienating your friend. Is it all right if I speak to her for a couple of minutes?" They always say, "Uh, sure. If its okay with her." If you've executed the preceding steps correctly, she will agree.
STEP 9. Isolate her from the group by telling her you want to show her something cool. Take her to sit with you nearby. As you lead her through the crowd, do a kino test by holding her hand. If she squeezes back, its on. Start looking for other IOIs.
STEP 10. Sit with her and perform a rune reading, an ESP test, or any other demonstration that will fascinate and intrigue her.
STEP 11. Tell her, "Beauty is common but what's rare is a great energy and outlook on life. Tell me, what do you have inside that would make me want to know you as more than a mere face in the crowd?" If she begins to list qualities, this is a positive IOI.
STEP 12. Stop talking. Does she reinitiate the chat with a question that begins with the word "So?" If she does, you've now seen three IOIs and can kiss close.
STEP 13. Kiss close. Say, out of the blue, "Would you like to kiss me?" If the setting or circumstances aren't conducive to physical intimacy, then give yourself a time constraint by saying, "I have to go, but we should continue this." Then get her number and leave.
-Mystery, the Mystery Method Course handout, 2001.
After about 4 days of bothering random women in Los Angeles, Mystery and Sin would see a lot of promise in Neil, who would write a glowing review in their MSN group. Neil also put out a call for a wing in Los Angeles. The very same day. he would get a message from "Grimble," and the two, along with his buddy "Twotimer," would begin sarging together in LA. It was during this time that Neil would be introduced to Ross Jeffries, the hypnneurodivergent guy who developed "Speed Seduction" in 1988, after going through a dry spell lasting five years. Jeffries would demonstrate his hypnautism to Neil, who would add it to his list of abilities. Jeffries would also sneed about Mystery and David DeAngelo, his former students (he didn't like other "gurus").
At this point, it had been a few weeks since the workshop with Mystery. Neil had grinded up all sorts of XP in LA as a PUA. He had even winged with Sin after Mystery departed back to Toronto. In late october, while sarging at a strip mall, Sin would be sarged himself by the US Military, where he was recruited to sign up as an officer in the Airforce. This posed an issue, as Mystery was planning on doing another workshop in December, but his wing would not be available.
Mystery would reach out to Neil and ask if he would be interested in being his new wing. Neil would gladly oblige. Mystery would also mention that writers are lame and at the bottom of the social ladder, and that he wouldn't be caught dead with Neil Strauss, the writer. If he was going to be a REAL PUA, he needed a fake persona like the rest of them.
"You are no longer Neil Strauss. When I see you in there, I want you to be someone else. You need a seduction name, Styles?"
"How about Style?"
"Style it is. Mystery and Style."
EUROTRIP
The two would go to Belgrade, Serbia together to meet an old college friend of Style's, named Marko. Marko had actually introduced Style to his friend Dustin, the "natural."
After holding a workshop for some Europoors, the three would go on a roadtrip throughout Eastern Europe. Style was excited to be out on the open road with a WHOLE CONTINENT to explore with the greatest pickup artist in the world, right?
Well this may not be a surprise to you all, but Style was shocked when it turned out a guy that calls himself "Mystery" was a gigantic fricking manchild (NO WAY) Mystery would spend the entire trip essentially as dead weight, only talking about super grandiose plans for a Vegas magic show. While driving through Pridnevkhgsdfliahovskaia or whatever the heck it's called in a shitty part of Eastern Europe (it doesn't matter) they would get stopped at some kind of military checkpoint. They would be held at gunpoint, with Mystery continuing to blather on about his gay magic act, competely oblivious to the situation. Style would begin to lose his shit at Mystery, telling him to open his fricking eyes. This would set Mystery off, threatening to fight Style while their car was being surrounded.
To defuse the situation, and out of pity, Style would apologize to Mystery. As their driver Marko got out of the car to pay the bribe required to pass through the checkpoint, Mystery would open up about his childhood, explaining that he had a very strained relationship with his father. His dad was a very violent man, an alcoholic German immigrant, who hated his older brother for being gay. His mother would overcompensate for this by spending more of her time and attention with her older brother. Mystery Young Erik would often be neglected as a child as a result, and turned to magic as an outlet after seeing a kid in his class performing a card trick.
"MYSTERY"
Once described by youtuber "Chris James" as a cross between "Criss Angel" and "Willy Wonka," "Mystery" began his young adulthood not as a ladies man, but chasing his dream: being a magician. By the age of 21, Erik von Markovik had some success in his professional life, landing some gigs and even a TV spot doing magic. Unfortunately, like most magicians, Erik was still a virgin. To him, the "one of the greatest mysteries is the mind of a woman." 
He would begin taking the bus to downtown Toronto each day, going to bars, coffee shops, book stores, etc., getting rejected left and right. He would experiment with different approaches, and did this all without the help of the online forums or community. According to Mystery, it took him ten years to figure out his method of attracting women. After finding perfecting his " mystery method" Erik would be transformed into "Mystery."
While Mystery was skilled in attracting women, he lacked the ability to form meaningful, healthy relationships with them. He had a long-term on/off girlfriend for about four years, but they had fought constantly and split up shortly before the trip to Europe. Mystery also had a pattern of self-destructing and throwing world class manbaby tantrums, showing that he needed to be the center of attention all the times, whether it positive or negative.
Mystery would have a series of mental breakdowns during his tenure with Style.
"INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY"
Style would return from Europe and begin the next phase of his education. He would meet and stay with Steve P, another hypnneurodivergent, and learn his weird blowjob hypnosis shit. He would meet Ross Jeffries for the second time, and also attend a seminar ran by David DeAngelo. Style really didn't seem to prefer one philosophy of "seduction" over another, instead choosing to learn from all the different "gurus." Style would become well rounded in this regard, really beginning to establish himself during this time as a world class pickup artist, travelling with Mystery to Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco, and Chicago. to run workshops. Every time they left a city they ran a seminar in, a lair would pop up, if there wasn't one already.
"AVISHA"
After watching his PUA brother and wingman "Grimble" win on an episode of a dating TV show, and celebrating with him at the bar, Style would return home the next day from some lady's house. As he approached his apartment, he would find his old friend Dustin at his place. What a pleasant surprise!
Dustin would inform Style that he had become celibate, converted to Judaism, and lives in a Yeshiva (lil village) in Jerusalem now! He realized that banging random women was just filling a void in his life, and that what he needed was God, so he set out to find him. He also now went by his Hebrew name, "Avisha." Style was about to tell "Avisha" about his new life as a pickup artist, but the austere religious scholar informed Style that he had already known of his exploits. Their mutual friend Marko had told him.
"I promoted and dragged you into this whole pickup thing, as if what I was doing were the highest ideal a person could live for," he went on.
"So, to whatever extent I am guilty of affecting the natural goodness of your soul, I am deeply sorry."
Neil was floored. This ALPHA CHAD had been buck broken by his own hedonistic lifestyle of drugs and women, and decided to leave it all behind. Not only that, he had felt responsible for Neil's transformation into "Style," a man who's entire existence became hitting on women for a living.
Styler protested. Pickup had truly had opened many doors for him. His social life exploded, he had all these new friends, and men even looked up to him the way he once looked up to the man formerly known as Dustin. Dustin looked at Neil with a softness, saying he would always be there for him. The two friends bid eachother farewell after a few days, promising to stay in touch.
SWEATER IN 'STRALIA
Style and Mystery would travel to Australia to visit their buddy "Sweater," who was doing very well for himself. He wasn't living the "pickup lifestyle," he had instead used his seduction skills to meet a woman and have a long-term girlfriend. His appearance improved. He went from dressing like a dork to having a sense of style. He would also use his newfound social skills to expand his real estate business.
"I'm still having fun helping the guys here get girls, but I'm off the market," Sweater said when we asked how he felt about his decision to settle down with one woman.
"And as far as I'm concerned, I'm getting out at the top. I've come to understand that without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything, whether it's a relationship, a business, or a hobby."
- "Sweater," Neil Strauss's "The Game, 2005
Style was very happy for Sweater, but Mystery would lament the lack of companionship in his life. He had a girlfriend of about four years named "Patricia," but she wanted to get married and have kids. Mystery wanted to do magic tricks and have two bisexual girlfriends that doubled as magic assistants, so the the two didn't share the same outlook for their relationship, needless to say.
After returning from Australia, Mystery and Style would do a rare one-on-one workshop with a young Chinese Canadian college student named "Nick Kho." This fateful encounter would change the course of the pickup community forever.
"PAPA"
"There were three types of people who signed up for the workshops. There were guys like Exoticoption from Belgrade, who were normal and well-adjusted socially, but wanted to have greater flexibility and choice in meeting girls. There were guys who were uptight and set in their ways, like Cliff, who couldn't even handle having a nickname like everybody else. They tended to gather as much knowledge as they could but had trouble making even the smallest behavioral change. And then there were people like Papa—approach machines who compensated for a lack of social skills with a lack of social fears. Approach machines tended to improve the fastest, simply by following the flowchart of material they were given. But once they ran out of material, they floundered." - "Style," Neil Strauss's "The Game, 2005
A pre-law student, and son of a wealthy University President, Nick Kho, later to be known as "Papa," was very socially inept. Upon meeting Nick, and asking him about himself, the young student would flex his status as chair of his fraternity, as well as his Dad's position and income. Style and Mystery promptly told him that flexing your Daddy's accomplishments to "qualify" yourself to people is "low value male" shit. He nodded neurodivergently.
Style and Mystery would begin their workshops with giving their students their first impression. It wasn't to be a peepee, or to make fun of them, but to identify their bad habits when it comes to interaction. The goal isn't to change your personality, but to make sure you can be the BEST version of yourself. What Papa lacked in charisma and looks, he made up for in willpower/ autism. He would record every single interaction with the two pickup gurus, later transcribing and memorizing all of their material. "Papa" would learn remarkably fast in the next few days, all by using the lines that were given to him by Style and Mystery. The two were amazed in how a socially inept college student could command the attention of women by using the same canned lines over and over, and in such short order. It was also blackpilling, as they realized that pickup lines weren't "training wheels," they were the bike itself.
"I should have recognized the signals then. I should have realized what was going on. This wasn't teaching; it was cloning. Mystery and I were traveling around the world making miniature versions of ourselves. And we would soon pay for it." - "Style," Neil Strauss's "The Game, 2005
CONFIDENCE
Patricia was finally tired of Mystery's "tricks," and decided to pull a disappearing act of her own. Mystery would encounter his ex while out "sarging." He would lament that his ex-girlfriend had moved on and started dating other men, and this sent him into a spiral.
Mystery would take down his website and shut himself in his room, refusing to go out. This would put the entire online community in a crisis of confidence. Style would receive a call from Papa, telling him that he "felt the same way as Mystery," as "game" had consumed his entire life, and there wasn't room for anything else. Papa still needed to get into law school, but hadn't opened a book in months since he got into "pickup." This community had a way of taking over people's lives. Another PUA, "Adonis," was fired from his job after if was revealed how much time he spent on the forums while on the clock. Some people in the community were even quitting their jobs to "sarge" full time with other internet PUA, seeing it as lifestyle, instead of a hobby.
After Mystery was committed to a mental institution for threatening to murder his father and then himself, Style would travel to Croatia on his own to sarge with some new Europoors. At this point, he was considered the number one pickup artist in the world, with other members of the community clamoring to meet and sarge with him.
Papa would abandon his pledge to attend law school, instead going on a cross country roadtrip, meeting PUA gurus and students much in the same way that Style had after his return from Belgrade. He would meet David X, "Maddash," Juggler, and travel along the west coast meeting and networking with other pickup enthusiasts. Of all the men he met, it was a fellow Canadian college student that would become his lifelong friend and business partner.
"TYLER DURDEN"
Pictured here on the right, with "Taboo" from "Black Eyed Peas."
"Tyler Durden," also known as Owen Cook, was a philosophy major at Queens University in Ontario. Growing up, he was often made fun of for his stature and awkwardness. Growing up with Asperger's, Owen struggled to be successful with girls in high school. In college, Owen would meet and start dating his first serious girlfriend, but when the relationship came to an end, Owen was devastated, even dropping out of school. He took to the internet for advice on what to do, which led him to the seduction community.
Tyler took to the boards like an aggressive yeast infection, reading all of the relevant information from all of the prominent powerusers. After a few months, he would begin pooping out his very own posts about his sexploits, along with theories and field reports, attracting a small but dedicated online following. Tyler Durden developed his own method for breaking the ice with women, an idea he dubbed "Project Mayhem." Instead of saying "hi" to a woman, to greet her, the strategy is to lightly body-check, hit with an object, or otherwise physically accost her in a playful manner.
Tyler was quite a provocateur, and liked the subversive side of pickup. His particular brand of "game" was very aggressive and emphasized tearing down other men socially, or "AMOGGING." He and Papa would go on to become the face of the pickup movement in the 2010s.
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
Mystery had returned, and "with new cognitive models." Style was relieved to no longer have to be the "AMOG PUA," as that as too much pressure. Mystery had told Style of a new idea he had to take pickup to the next level.
"I've given it a great deal of thought," [Mystery] went on. "I only get depressed when I isolate myself. Look at what got me there: the pair-bond break with Patricia, new hotties staling and blurring, no career momentum, and being alone in the apartment with no one to talk to. So we need to design a social environment with people to motivate me—something like Sweater's place in Australia. We can all motivate each other. While I was at the hospital, I took a lot of notes on this idea. I showed them to my psychiatrist. Even he was impressed. I'm calling it Project Hollywood."
"I shine," he went on. "I see this now. I'm a superstar, just like I'm tall. I'm simply a superstar who's been holding himself back. And I'd like you to come be a star with me."
- "Mystery," Neil Strauss's "The Game, 2005
Mystery would ask Style to accompany him on a three month tour of Europe and the US doing workshops. At this point, Style had abandoned any future plans to go on any trips with Mystery, as the man was too mentally unstable, and Style was sick of playing babysitter. Style would tell Mystery he couldn't make the commitment, as he was dating eight different women in the LA area. Mystery would instead go with two up and coming PUA: Papa and Tyler Durden.
The duo had been staying in Toronto with Mystery, and would consume all of Mystery's knowledge over the next few weeks after his release from the hospital. When their tour brought them to LA, the two would arrive at Style's doorstep.
Style took Papa and Tyler out to dinner, and despite his best efforts, couldn't bring himself to like Tyler.
The two would meet, accompanied by Papa. Style would note that Tyler was irritating as frick to be around. He was one of those people that would talk and talk without actually saying anything. He wouldn't discuss anything but pickup, and had a grating personality.
Tyler and Papa would begin their own seduction workshop, called Real Social Dynamics. This would piss off Mystery, who had already called his workshop "Social Dynamics." The two would copy Mystery's business model to a T, including having the same price and schedule. They even used Mystery's client list. Mystery had spent too much time being an neurodivergent himbo and doing card tricks to learn what an NDA was, and because of that, his proprietary business model was essentially cannibalized by the two young Canadian Casanovas.
While Mystery only had six students per workshop at a time, Tyler and Papa would take dozens. They would feature students as instructors, and they built a community in a way Mystery could only dream of. Despite this, Mystery still let the two stay in his apartment and glean any trade secrets they could from the naive magician.
They weren't alone. There were now PUA doing workshops all around the world. This movement was growing, and the momentum would only ramp up in the coming years.
THE ULTIMATE AMOG
In 2004, Style would write an article detailing his experience in the "pickup lifestyle," which was published in the New York Times. His intention was to kill off his pickup persona, but it seemed to have the opposite effect, shining more light and interest on the burgeoning subculture. Shortly afterwards, Rolling Stones would contact "Neil," telling him that they were doing a cover story on a famous actor, and that he had asked for him by name after reading his article in "The Times."
Style would meet Tom Cruise, whom he described as the Ultimate AMOG. Tom Cruise's presence was immense, as everything he said and did was BASED. Cruise told Style that he believes in learning new things, doing the work required of him, and doesn't "hold counsel" with other people when he makes decisions. He decides for himself. Style was humbled by the experience. Tom Cruise, out of all the people he had met in the last few years, we the only man who seemed to have his head on straight, and was AUTHENTIC in everything he said and did.
Cruise's belief system stemmed from his significant involvement in the "Church of Scientology," an organization that a thousand sneedium posts could be written about. He give Style a tour of the Chuch of Scientology Celebrity Center in Hollywood, where Style watched Scientologists use soup cans to detect their alien-ghost readings. The temple, despite peddling obvious bullshit, had an air of authority to it. It was like pickup in a way. The church wouldn't be able to exist without recruitment.
Tom Cruise would try to recruit Style into Scientology, but the writer had already found his church. It just needed to be built.
PROJECT HOLLYWOOD
One of Mystery's disciples, "J-Dog" (pictured below) along with "Papa," would help finance the leasing of a large house in the Hollywood hills. This house would be the foundation of their movement. This would be "Project Hollywood," their headquarters for the seduction movement. Pickup wasn't just a hobby or advice. It was a lifestyle.
Mystery and Style would move into the house along with a host of up and coming AND established PUA, including:
- Herbal, a dude that's all about hippy shit and wears all white, with silver nail polish.
- Extramask, previously a virgin that had his first workshop with Style, Extramask had since gone on to become an experienced member of the community.
Papa
Playboy
These seduction masters would all join forces, starting a joint venture that promised to change the lives of the AFCs that they themselves had once been.
Style was already heard at work with advanced pickup theory, such as working on how to use the power of massages to get into a threeway with two women. He claimed to be dating 10 different women during this time, and was able to get some of them to have threeways with him. With the help of Herbal, Style was also on a "sleep diet," training his body to only need two hours of sleep each day in order to spend more time sarging. He physically looked like shit, but he was getting his peepee wet and was paid to party, so what's the big deal?
Tyler Durden would arrive at "Project Hollywood" and become a resident shortly after. Shortly after arriving, he would discuss his game with Style, telling him that he sometimes introduces himself as "Neil Strauss and that he works for Rolling Stone Magazine." Style thought this was weird as frick that this sperg was pretending to BE him. Tyler would call this "StyleMOGGING."
A few days after settling in, Tyler would travel to Las Vegas with Style and Mystery for a workshop, and the three would spend the night talking to women. Tyler would "AMOG" his fellow PUA, by doing things like calling Style "Elmer Fudd" in front of women he was talking to, talking shit about Mystery to other women, telling them he's an insecure manchild that does magic tricks to get people to like him (I mean he's not wrong).
Style realized at this moment that Tyler Durden was a big time cute twink. While Style would try to elevate himself to be worthy of everyone in the room, Tyler would tear everyone down beneath him. Tyler seemed to be more interested in getting revenge on the Jocks that AMOGGED him in highschool than actually picking up women. When Tyler saw Style make out with a woman that he had failed to pick up, he developed a deep resentment of him.
"THE POINT WAS WOMEN, THE RESULT WAS MEN"
DESPITE the vision of "Project Hollywood" being a world class "lair", awash with nubile, sexy women, it was instead packed with spergs, shitloads of computer programmers, struggling actors, and lonely millionaires.
A batch of these men would arrive every week, and the routine was almost always the same:
A PUA would take these dudes to the mall to buy platform shoes, tacky outfits, and get a shitty tan.
After dressing like an LA douche, they would take to the streets on the sunset strip, in packs.
They would all recite the exact same, stupid lines to "open sets."
The newly minted "pickup artist" would continue to loiter in and around the house, sometimes with stray partygirls in tow.
Tensions would begin to rise in the house, as Papa's desire to grow the business conflicted with Mystery's desire to have smaller classes more quality workshops. After many trials and tribulations, one woman would come along and bring the whole operation TO IT'S KNEES.
"KATYA"
Every Monday, our brave heroes would call the numbers they had received from the weekend before, to see if they would have any prospective sexual partners for the week. Mystery would make his rounds, calling the numbers from wadded up pieces of paper he had collected from the women he's impressed with his guyliner and cold reading skills. Of these numbers, only one woman would answer the call. She had told Mystery she didn't remember meeting him (BASED).
Katya arrived with her dog, Lily, who promptly took a shit on the carpet (GIGA BASED). After a few days of LMR, she and Mystery would hook up and become and item.
Her and Mystery really hit it off, and became attached at the hip. She would become a sort of "pickup denmother," helping Papa with workshops, helping apply eyeliner to Herbal, and cleaned up after the manchildren that lived in the $12,000 a month mansion. After three weeks, Mystery had decided to pop the question to Katya. She said yes, and the two were "engaged." It didn't take long, however, for Katya to also get tired of Mystery, who was extremely childish and arrogant, and would explode when being told what to do. She would begin hitting on other men in the house to spite Mystery. She especially took a liking to Herbal.
Around this time, Style had made friends with Courtney Love after doing an article on her in Rolling Stone Magazine. She was still absolutely a trainwreck, and got evicted from her apartment shortly after their interview. Style let her stay at "Project Hollywood."
When Courtney was due to appear on 'Jay Leno," she invited Style, Herbal, Mystery, and Katya to tag along. One the way to the studio, Mystery would have a massive shouting match argument with Kayta over the car radio's volume, even getting out of the car while on Rodeo Drive.
This event, along with a pregnancy scare, further drove a wedge between Katya and Mystery. After Mystery told Herbal he was "done with her, you can have her," Herbal IMMEDIATELY hooked up with Katya.
This would inevitably send Mystery into another tailspin, who would approach Style with watery eyes and sneed about "I loved her..."
Style was fed up with Mystery's bullshit, and called him out for being a baby and telling him that he only liked her, and basically every woman in his life, for their body.
Katya would move out and Mystery was told he needed to straighten up and get over this breakup, or he would be out as well.
LISA
While hanging out at the house, Style would meet a tall, statuesque woman named Lisa Leveridge. She was the guitarist in Courtney's band, and had dropped by to see her. She was tough as nails and cool as shit. Style was blown away by her beauty and confidence. She liked "Neil," but wasn't really a big fan of "Style." All of Style's magic seduction tricks didn't seem to work on Lisa, who saw through his act of being "too cool for school." For the first time in over two years, Style felt like an AFC when he was with Lisa.
Style would travel to Miami to sarge with PUA "Vision." While there, he would get phonecalls daily from Tyler, Papa, and others concerned about the state of "Project Hollywood." Mystery had been smashing holes in the wall and threatening people. He would also threaten a guy that showed up at the house to pick up Katya's dog. Mystery was out of control. Even though the house was Mystery's idea, the guy couldn't keep his shit together.
The house would come to a final solution on the Mystery question:
Katya is not allowed in the house for 2 months. If after those 2 months are up and Katya and Herbal are still together, Katya can come back.
There would be "Zero Tolerance" for violence in the house. If Mystery threatened Herbal again, he would be gone.
Mystery took this as "SO, YOU'RE KICKING ME OUT OF THE HOUSE," as, "not threatening people" was apparently a dealbreaker for him.
Style was just about done with this pickup shit. What he had envisioned just didn't even come close to the reality of it all. He wanted to be a part of a community that enjoyed women and elevated men. Instead he was stuck being a referee for a bunch of emotionally and socially-stunted men. The house had become a shitshow, literally and socially. The proverbial writing was on (what was left of) the wall. His relationship with Lisa would be the Catalyst for him to leave the lifestyle forever.
STILL NOT A PLAYER
Mystery was moving out. He had plans for a whole new operation, a NEW lair known as "Project Vegas," showing that he clearly didn't learn anything from this entire experience. Style would bid farewell to Mystery. The two had become so close in the last two and a half years. There is nothing that brings two men together quite like the joy of getting laid together. Mystery told Style he would love to have him at his side once again. Style, regrettably told him that he couldn't possibly go through all this again.
"I understand," he said. "Sometimes events turn sour, and we follow bad threads in our lives. I want you to know that, even though we haven't seen eye to eye lately, I will always be your friend, for life and a day. You don't have to manage your relationship with me. Enjoy your girlfriend, and we will always have time to hang out together. You are the most important man in my life."
- "Mystery," Neil Strauss's "The Game, 2005
Extramask would leave as well, deciding to frick off to India and leave the PUA thing behind. Herbal would leave to go be with Katya in Austin. Soon, nearly all of the OG PUA had left save for Papa and Tyler Durden. Style, no, Neil had realized that everyone (save for the RSD spergs) was waking up from this shallow extistence
All the new little sperglets in the house were now fully ignoring Style, who was focused on his relationship with Lisa. With nothing left for him in this life, Neil Strauss left "Project Hollywood," and the lifestyle, forever.
Neil Strauss would publish "The Game" in 2005, and the book became a top-rated effortpost on rDrama New York Times Best Seller for TWO MONTHS. The book blew the lid off the entire operation, and pickup would go mainstream (showing that people really didn't understand the message of the book).
In 2007, Mystery would be featured as the host of the cringekino series, "The Pickup Artist" on Vh1, which lasted for two seasons. I implore you to watch this show if you have the time, it's great.
REAL SOCIAL DYNAMICS
After the old guard had disappeared, Tyler and Papa had their chance to shine. Project Hollywood now existed as their command center. They had the opportunity to shape the community as they saw fit.
Mystery made thousands with his courses. RSD would make millions. They would begin offering online classes on how to attract women, which became extremely successful.
In 2010, they would begin a Youtube channel, "rsdTyler," that would feature aggressive "in-field footage," of Tyler and others grabbing drunk women, getting in pissing matches with men, and being overall super cringe. The channel was one of the first of it's kind on the platform, and quicky generated millions of views per month. Tyler had alot of faith in his product, as he believed pickup could cure depression and anxiety.
RSD would ramp up it's hiring of "coaches" to grow the business from 2006 to 2014. This included:
Maximillian Burger - A PUA who specialized in dating-app "game."
"Jeffy" Allen - A failed comic who lives in a van.
Julian Blanc - An edgelord who would become one of the most popular coaches on the site. He would give lectures on how to put your peepee in a woman's mouth like an ALPHA CHAD AMOG.
JULIAN BLANC
Julian would develop a program, simply called "Pimp," which was a comprehensive guide to meet and frick a girl in the same night. This program would become a massive success, quickly becoming the most popular course on RSD. The community was becoming a sort of self improvement cult, with hordes of young men owing their success with women to the site. The company would struggle to maintain it's edge as the new decade continued, and the site would produce edgier and more sensational content as a result.
In 2014, Julien would release "White Male F*s Asian Woman In Tokyo (And The Beautiful Methods To Do It),"** in which he would discuss how, as a white guy, you can do whatever you want in Japan. Asian-American feminist Jennifer Lee would kickstart the #takedownjulienblanc hashtag, and public pressure would mount against him and RSD as a whole. Their tactics for approaching women bordered on, or were, full on assault. Blanc would also drop this banger of a tweet:<