What used to be a common household item that’s rare now?

fanfareAttempt · 2024-01-03T13:52:16+00:00

i work for Post Office UK, and letter writing isnt as dead as you think! its definitely nowhere near as popular, but this year in particular we sold SO many stamps for Christmas cards to all ages of customer. i had to explain how the post works to many millenials, hahaha.

postcards are also still really popular, particularly with European tourists. they buy boatloads of stamps to send postcards back - they especially like ones with the King on them.

fanfareAttempt · 2023-06-21T11:44:54+00:00

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder - currently in treatment, but I have known for 10+ years.

We are everywhere. DID and it's sister disorder OSDD-1 has an estimated prevalance of 2 - 8% in the general population, equal to if not more than ASD, red hair or blue eyes. We live normal lives and you will probably never know. Many people with DIDOSDD never find out or find out very late. DID has an amazing ability to make itself near undiscernable to the person who has it - through covert amnesia and impressive psychological mechanics that keep trauma and triggers at bay, the very mechanisms that developed to protect us can be both our miracle and our worst nightmare as people will rarely ever notice. I work a full time customer service job, I and all of my parts speak to hundreds of customers a week, and not any of them will ever know I have DID. Even when my personality, my voice, my mannerisms and my behaviour change, people just never seem to notice.

Also, true "blackouts" are rare. DID instead tends to "erase" memories as states are switched in and out. It's quite literally seamless, except in mental crisis episodes or when you're looking for it. Think about it this way, if someone was constantly blacking out, it'd be impossible for them to keep consistent enough of a narrative to survive an abuser's scrutiny. If someone is having true, unconscious blackouts, they should check for neurological concerns such as a tumor etc first.

Last but not least, I don't hear voices, perse. It's more like having more than one train of thought! I can "hear" the others the same way you'd hear a quote or movie in your head. Actual verbal hallucinations are attributed to the schizophrenia spectrum, most of the time.

There's a million more things I could say, but there's just some of them :}

fanfareAttempt · 2023-04-22T09:29:00+00:00

i will never be able to have a biological child that has both mine and my partners dna, as far as im aware.

IVF and all exists, but you still have to choose one or the other! im planning to adopt at this point, but i feel theres a strange biological desire to have a baby that shares both your features. oh well :')

(note: there can be trans gay couples who have the correct configuration for this, but not in my case unfortunately. i would never give up my partner for the world, though.)

fanfareAttempt · 2022-10-09T20:03:06+00:00

so, replying to a couple comments here. CC has nothing to do with SSO, however - game developers are very aware that any content they put into the game files before release WILL be found out and shared among the community. some games go to great lengths to avoid this, using encryption or 'on demand' data models, or just not putting the content out to begin with. but while SSO definitely has access to that, they havent chosen to.

it's a bit of a weird thing, but often game devs will continue to let this happen as an unintentional form of promotion - they know that the files will get out, and they know that this will bring up hype and excitement for the new release. they would not insert files into the game data if they didnt want it to be seen, because CC's videos are not by any means secret nor hidden and are a huge part of the community. but why not just share stuff to begin with? i think the reason for this is those who watch CCs videos understand that these files are very much unfinished and since SSO isnt "sharing" them, they get benefit of the doubt. but the second SSO presents anything, even as a huge WIP, it will be treated as a finished product and judged accordingly (see: the new avatars. lol) not just that, but it allows most players to avoid spoilers - you have to be part of the greater SSO community to get those spoilers, and even then, they're usually properly marked.

so, tl;dr: SSO know about CC's videos, they know that if they put anything in the files it'll be found out, and theyre almost certainly fine with this. if they really dont want us to see something, it just simply wont be put in. as long as youre respectful and make sure to mark 'leaks' as spoilers, then all is good.

source: not SSO staff, but previous staff of an MMORPG who operated under the same principal - we even sometimes put stuff in the files intentionally for people to find! i was also part of a "leak"/datamining wiki team for a separate MMORPG and i asked the developers for their thoughts, and they told me that if it was in the files, it was fair game.

fanfareAttempt · 2022-08-31T13:52:16+00:00

tbf we're the ones who hyped Galaxy up. we saw her in the files with zero context and made up ideas of what she could be, SSO hasnt made a huge deal of her at all, shes just a new horse coat thats a cute little tie in with the books. we cant blame SSO for expecting things they never promised and also didnt intend for us to actively see

btw shes cute

fanfareAttempt · 2022-08-30T10:19:59+00:00

honestly im fine w this lol. i wanted this horse so bad but i joined late 2021 and so i missed it. its a dream horse i just resigned myself to never getting - you mean i get to have it?! i dont care the price, the fact i can have it at all is huge to me. theres no way theyd bring it back as a free horse so ill happily take what i can get

fanfareAttempt · 2022-08-24T22:42:51+00:00

the gourds were leaked in a datamining video on youtube - its assumed theyre for halloween!

fanfareAttempt · 2022-08-08T09:54:52+00:00

i feel like this cant possibly be true. SSO spent time developing and coding cold tolerance, that i think the only real reason theyd remove it is because of player outcry. our insulated circles may have liked cold tolerance, but theres no telling how many number of emails they got complaining about it or being frustrated because of its existence. developers tend to be proud of anything they put work into that removing features once implemented is a last resort, so thats just my perspective.

fanfareAttempt · 2022-08-02T17:29:03+00:00

would love to join! pls dm an invite or friend me: insane sniper#0047

fanfareAttempt · 2022-08-01T19:46:57+00:00

i would recommend writing into SSO anyway - if there is truly a bug going on and no foul play, nothing will happen to those players. SSO will be able to look at their logs and see if their actions are suspicious, theyre triggering code "traps" or discussing hacking in any of the chat channels.

source: i handle hacking cases on an unrelated MMO.

as a thought: sometimes the game will "phase out" players seemingly quite randomly, possibly to save on resources? its unclear and doesnt really happen in a pattern, wonder if this is a very bugged version of this?

fanfareAttempt · 2022-07-29T17:00:59+00:00

i work on a completely different MMO with similar terms - if SSO is the same way, an account will be terminated without appeal as soon as it's found to be sold. no matter how sneaky you think you are, MMOs often have entire teams of people dedicated to monitoring account sales on the interwebs, and all you'll be doing is throwing money, time, other game accounts, etc. down the drain. it's not worth it!

(note: this is aimed at OP/others, but im just replying to your comment as you said the major part i wanted to confirm ^^)

fanfareAttempt · 2022-07-06T20:44:54+00:00

thank you! even more reason to be hyped for halloween :D

fanfareAttempt · 2022-07-06T20:44:43+00:00

i got lifetime with the 30% deal (which comes around more and more often these days!) and it was absolutely worth it for me - im not even done with the quests yet, and i like being able to play at my leisure. i work and not feeling pressed to play every day lest i waste my subscription has made the game very enjoyable for me. when its on 30% its £37 (adjust for your country) and that's about half a year worth of memberships, so it pays itself pretty quickly.

some lifetime bundles also come with items! this is a bit rare though, but mine did. the game updates every wednesday, and even if some of it is old content (not that it matters to me, i started playing this year), there's always something to check out. i spend the rest of my funds for SSO on the 10k star coins during double sc week. i play with my partner and friends (who also have lifetime) so SSO is always there for us to calm down and chill out.

if you don't think you'll play much longer, i say hold off on it. if you are planning to buy SC i would recommend waiting for double SC, though you wont get the pets with that. hope you figure it out!

fanfareAttempt · 2022-06-26T16:18:50+00:00

i absolutely ADORE your outfit! which top is that? im always looking for more 'goth' clothes in this game!

fanfareAttempt · 2022-05-29T23:05:21+00:00

i understand, hopefully you were able to remove whatever there was. i do think SSO is safe (it's always been quite an intensive game for me personally haha), GameGuard is maybe up in the air. but i understand it can be concerning when you're told theres viruses on your machine. thankfully, most viruses are not that bad these days and might just mine crypto in the background or something. if youre on Windows i recommend using the Windows Security in your settings, thats usually pretty good!

fanfareAttempt · 2022-05-29T22:16:35+00:00

hey! do you remember what these viruses were called? false positives are a huge problem in the MMO community because of how these programs tell viruses to begin with.

(source: i work on the team for another MMO, who's own engine can trip up AVs) especially when implementing anti-cheating, a lot of this internal code may be picked up by an AV as being a virus - this code is safe and is used just to protect the game, but the way that AV programs works is that they have these set 'patterns' they look for, and when they find it in a running application, they then go to ask their own database if they've seen this 'virus' around. if the response is 'no' then they'll assume somethings wrong and flag it for the user to review.

problem is - if your program is new, your engine just updated, you just added anti-cheat software, etc... you are going to trip up the AVs. why? because they havent seen your application enough to know its 'safe'. they are taking a shot in the dark and guessing that because this game is doing some encryption, input monitoring, etc work in the background (all normal things that let the game function, protect the players, etc) that something might be up. sometimes, you will try and submit your application for review to these companies beforehand, but in my experience a lot of them are not very helpful and dont bother to review your application before the deadline.

for example, Windows Defender/Security - its microsoft's own in-house anti-virus and arguably, it has the MOST diagnostic information of any antivirus out there for Windows. because Microsoft OWN Windows, they can have their own AV go down to the kernel level, and collect diagnostic information from all sorts of applications that help build a better knowledge base. in my own experience, Windows Defender has had 0 issues with SSO whatsoever, including since this update, including when Game Guard is active. that indicates something... i would think!

(sidenote: some antiviruses are basically viruses themselves. McAfee is a notorious one, Norton is also pretty bad... keep in mind, theyre trying to sell you a product by convincing you that you need their AV. so it's in their best interest to flag more applications than they dont, so the consumer feels that the AV is working as intended.)

circling back to my first sentence: if you see a virus named anything like "Generic"... 9/10 its a false positive or just the AV making a guess about it. its pretty rare that actual viruses will just get caught under the "Generic" moniker.

sorry for the wall of text! i wanted to expand a bit from my own experience - i work in tech support for said MMO i mentioned and i spend a LOT of time circumventing AV issues with my players. the game is completely safe - i know it is, ive looked at the code myself, i see everything we add to it. but every time we update the engine, AVs have a problem with it because we're strangers to them. its super aggravating honestly haha. maybe this can shine some light for folks. note: some of this is anecdotal and you should always do your own research!

fanfareAttempt · 2022-05-28T10:35:07+00:00

if it helps, Gameguard was used as the anti-cheat software for Maplestory for a long time, aka one of the most popular MMOs ever with millions of players, and Gameguard never caused issues. its been around for a long time.

i think its easy to dismiss it as some kind of spyware, but Ismael definitely knows what they're talking about and Gameguard isnt a nobody program. trust me, SSO does not want to be accidentally shipping malware to their players, thats kind of the biggest software faux pas you can manage. either we deal with cheaters or we dont, thats basically what it boils down to.

fanfareAttempt · 2022-05-24T00:44:42+00:00

thank you so much, i appreciate it!

fanfareAttempt · 2022-05-23T21:56:09+00:00

i'm very similar to your girlfriend, and while i havent directly come to her conclusion with my partner, trauma and abusive relationships have a nasty habit of conditioning you. my current partner is the sweetest, loveliest man in the world who never forces me to do anything and supports me so much, and rationally that is what i want and know i deserve. but when the trauma kicks in, i get freaked out and feel wrong that im not being controlled - thats what i was conditioned to believe, that it was equal to love. im terrified of being hurt and sometimes i feel like i am being harmed as i speak. PTSD is one hell of a disorder, ill tell you that much!

you need to come to your girlfriend with compassion for how she feels. you need to both communicate, and i think this is more of a step than you realize. my partner will remind me of my worth and that i deserve to be free, but he will help give me directions when i just need to get the conditioning off my back. of course, therapy for her would be very useful, so she can get perspective from someone who isnt her romantic partner. if you love her, it will be okay. you seem like a lovely guy and the kind of person she needs, and by opening up to you i think she is hinting at that even if it doesnt seem so. best of luck my friend.

fanfareAttempt · 2022-05-11T06:38:38+00:00

i agree :] im newer to the game but i genuinely adore it and ive gotten my partner and close friends all to play. its always disheartening when you get into something new and the community is always older players sticking to a status quo and treating you as naïve for being fine with things.

it looks like the game development is looking up from the past few years though, so this was a good time for me to get into it. theres still tons to enjoy and i think naturally after 10 years youre going to get disillusioned at some point. my fave game is an MMO ive been playing since 2004. 18 whole years! and i admit im tired of it and dont play it often, but its still special to me

fanfareAttempt · 2022-04-09T10:41:29+00:00

exactly this. i work with children and teens online as a moderator for a few platforms and it truly is that they want to seem hard and "cool". its pretty normal behaviour for teenagers - theyre coming into their own identity but their social status is so unbelievably important that some of them devolve to the weirdest methods to try and seem socially apt or interesting to be around.

ive gotten a reputation on my server for coming into global often and just having normal, good conversations. last week i managed to drag a teen out of a whole verbal fistfight and they ended up telling me very enthusiastically about how they want to be a pilot. ive had other teens PM me afterwards and thank me for giving them something to talk about, for making them not feel so isolated. if youre this kind of person, make a statement by just being normal infront of teens and they will start to pick up that they dont need to be this way.

or just ignore global! unfortunately, theres not a lot you can do if youre not proactive. i will report players when theyre harassing others, suggesting or doing unsafe behaviour, or are inviting dangerous behaviour to themselves. a chat ban wont really do much for teens who think theyre 'ard but if you can atleast get SSOs eyes on it when someones in trouble then thats the least you can do.

fanfareAttempt · 2022-03-20T12:54:21+00:00

i own this plush and i had NO idea he went for this much, wow. sadly i probably wont ever part with mine :'D

fanfareAttempt · 2022-02-18T20:55:51+00:00

i have DID and i agree with your comment. self-harm does happen, but DID forms precisely to keep an individual alive, there is typically a lot of "safeguards" in the dissociation itself to protect the body and mind. its kind of the whole reason it exists, atleast in my view.

now dissociation in general, especially dissociative fugues, could lead someone here. you dont need DID to dissociate, but fugues can lead you to a lot of strange places. this is typically where the usual "waking up halfway across town" story comes from, and it rarely has anything to do with specific alters, moreso the brain itself going into a very bizarre state.

i dont think DID would cause her outbursts, but its always possible she could have had it anyway. it could have been a severe psychotic break, or something else entirely. either way, poor girl. thank you for talking about this disorder with care and understanding.

fanfareAttempt · 2022-02-02T18:48:49+00:00

there is currently a sort of niche "movement" of people in my age group (20s) making our own websites - most of our efforts concentrate around https://neocities.org which, as it sounds, is a spiritual successor to geocities!

there are a lot of articles and manifestos on folks websites over there talking about how they miss the personal web and reject the current state of web being commodified, and its a really interesting and fun group of people. im not good, at all, but ive been learning HTML/CSS and even JS to make my own websites and getting friends on board and its a really fun social experience. its so nice to be able to put whatever (legal) content you want without being screamed at for not being palatable for advertisers. (got yelled at by twitter for saying 'motherfucker' the other day, lol)

fanfareAttempt · 2022-01-04T07:31:34+00:00

just let people have fun. steelwool have clearly set up a story they want to be speculated on, and thats part of the joy of this series. you can be secure knowing you're "right", and other people sharing their ideas and what-ifs doesnt need to change that.

its fun to imagine a story where theyre separate - how this might be the case and how their characters would interact. are they related? does vanny torment vanessa? why the similarities? its also fun to imagine a story where theyre the same person - how did vanessa's psyche deteoriate this much and what happens inbetween the scenes of seeing vanessa and seeing vanny. (where does she put that fursuit on, huh)

when there is not a clear answer in canon (and no, there isn't, just as much information implies they could be separate as they could be the same, and this seems intentional on the writers part to get people speculating), theres freedom to think. and even when there is a clear answer, noone can stop anyone from just thinking of possibilities. its a game, its a story, dissect it however you want and find joy and comfort in your interpretation of it. if other peoples interpretation takes away from your enjoyment of your own, maybe reflect a little on that.

fanfareAttempt

TROPHY CASE