lgbtlunaverse - Tumblr blog

[lgbtlunaverse]

this started as a joke but then i started actually thinking about it and now im really annoyed that IDs have this one letter that doesnt mean anything for cis people and is a huge pain in the ass for trans people when we could instead have literally lifesaving information so emergency medical services could just check ur wallet to see which blood to give you so you dont die or whatever But No

[lgbtlunaverse]

Worst Sect Leader?

[lgbtlunaverse]

Alright, before I overthink this…

The events of the last few weeks with Lore.FM have made a few things glaringly clear:

1) There is a need within fandom to utilize TTS technology for a variety of reasons

2) Many folks (through no fault of their own) are unaware of what TTS technology is available how that to improve their experience

3) Podfics are not as widely known and circulated as I assumed

In light of that, I have made a very basic guide. It is in no way a finished product or definitive, just my effort to make a positive out of a negative. It covers iPhone built in TTS, Edge Browser for mobile and desktop, Android Reading Mode, other user-suggested Android apps, and podfics. I would love to add more and encourage you to contact me with suggestions or feedback. This was put together in a wild rush and off of mine and my family’s experience with these tools, so I fully expect deficiencies and flaws. The Edge and iPhone options contain a demo with a short snippet of my own work to show how it functions. I don’t have one of these for Android but if someone would like to coordinate a recording, I am happy to add it.

Special thanks to the users on the AO3 subreddit who suggested apps and podcast archives or were willing to test. Y’all rock. The original link now contains a link to take you to the updated guide.

Whew!

So without further ado…

Using Text-to-Speech Tools for Fanfiction

[lgbtlunaverse]

I do not envy Finneas sometimes like how are you as an older sibling supposed to keep it together when your younger sibling comes to you and is like "hey make me a sick beat for my song about how much I wanna eat this girl's cooter" like bro if that was my job I woulda quit by now

[lgbtlunaverse]

I know it's because of how Melinoë was raised but like the deference she shows to others is wild compared to Zagreus, who mentally categorizes everyone he meets into "homie" or "hater" and acts accordingly

[lgbtlunaverse]

I've drawn Marcille with the idea of her being a deer/elk as a chimera, that's also based off of her dungeon lord outfit, but then a goat appealed to me and it makes a LOT more sense. An animal often sacrificed, but could also be the one who is sacrificed to. In a way Marcille used herself as a goat reviving Falin, and yada yada-- I think this is going somewhere. Mithrun would go apeshit, no doubt. But I love doomed yuri, love it a bunch, so a pheonix is such an interesting choice because I already have a sad little intricate plot in my head with it in mind

A really old and really silly sketch, but I found bells on the types of animals who are known to be quiet are a fitting design

The goat one is quite literally the deer draft but with meaner horns and coined pupils. Both were based off of her dungeon lord outfit since: fluffy. But bruh?? I don't have creativity stores-- all depleted. Gone. Ate it all the night I came home with wrapping paper and a sword gilded sword(with sword prints ON the prints)

Now I got a WHOLE doc just for this one; see that flying serpent right in the corner? Took the multi wings and tail frizzle(it doesn't have that, but I didn't want to add a pair of pings on a tail) right from it. I had THOUGHTS and IDEAS

basic idea: she's got a LOT of new stuff only to be hindered by it because her body is NOT built to do the things it does. Her human half is still as flammable as it can get, which would be "compensated" by Phoenixes defining trait: resurrection Plays WELL with how destructive Marcille is, both to herself and foes And here are weeks OLD doodles that have marinated in my brain juice

[lgbtlunaverse]

The problem with using ao3 stats to gauge "quality" of a fic (besides the obvious that "quality" is subjective and popularity by any metric may not line up with your personal standards/expectations):

Using hits in a ratio ("#of kudos should be 10%+ of # of hits" or etc) does not account for people returning multiple times to a favorite story;

Comment #s may be affected by authors who have turned off comments, filtered comments, or locked commenting to logged-in users only;

Afaict (correct me if I'm wrong), the "filter by # of comments" option counts total comments, not comment threads, which means those numbers can be weighted more towards authors who reply to every comment or fics where a spirited convo happens in the comments, and both comment threads and overall comment numbers can be goosed by posting more shorter chapters that some readers will comment on individually as they read;

(side note: if you judge a fic based on # of comments but never leave your own comments... that seems a little counter-intuitive. Just sayin'.)

Bookmark #s depend on readers having accounts, so it's less accurate in fandoms where a higher percentage of people don't have accounts yet;

...and all of these numbers have a bias towards fics that have been around longer to accrue those numbers, so you're not necessarily finding the neat stuff that's newer.

"But how do I find good stories?" Other than the blithe "just read them and decide for yourself" answer:

Find authors you like and read their fics - start associating "stuff I enjoy" with a person, not a particular tag/ship/trope/etc - stories are written by people, they're not "content" that magically springs from the aether;

Look at content of bookmarks, not the raw numbers - see how many people rec it, see if people have left notes/reviews (def rec leaving your own notes/reviews on your own public bookmarks, too);

See if someone who's reviewed a fic you like has more public recs/reviews of other fics you might also like;

Find blogs/discord servers/other community hubs that rec stories you might like;

Start using filters more, to include stuff you like and exclude stuff you don't (but remember that variety is the spice of life, so don't get locked into the same filters too much).

And frankly, if you're in a fandom where you're overwhelmed by choice - lots of stories by lots of authors - remember that that is a blessing, not a burden. Some fandoms/ships are the size of a teacup with three authors taking turns making each other cry, and they can also be amazing, but a popular fandom/ship is a fucking feast by comparison - enjoy it while you can!

[lgbtlunaverse]

In Yemen the death count stagnated at 15,000 until the war ended and the people were able to count their dead. Today, it's commonly accepted that over 300,000 Yemenis have been killed by war and famine. We will see a similar situation in Gaza after a ceasefire.

[lgbtlunaverse]

This is embarrassing......

[lgbtlunaverse]

consider donating to fatma’s fundraiser. you can find her on tik tok at mydiary4112 and on instagram at fatma.alhoupi, which you can check out to see her life from before october too. she’s an artist from gaza, she’s 23 and trying to get herself, her mother and 6 siblings across the border. as of now, €16,315 is raised of €25,000 goal.

this is fatma's tik tok from 6 days ago. as of yesterday, she's in khan younes.

i have no association with fatma, but i've been following her for a while and she appears to have already been scammed by the previous gofundme organiser, so i want to boost this one.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Information about ongoing nationwide protests in Georgia

[lgbtlunaverse]

I’m confused about the app thing. I currently use Speechify to listen to fanfiction for accessibility reasons. It’s not uploaded and published anywhere for anyone else to access. I listen to it privately and it’s stored on my phone until I delete them when I’m finished. I still leave kudos and comments on AO3 and reblog fics on Tumblr. I took a look at the TikTok page and she said it does not host peoples work publicly, that it’s just a text to speech app that you can use to listen to fanfiction. It sounds like essentially the same thing I do now. There are also already lots of other existing apps/programs/websites that do the exact same thing. We all have text to speech we can use in the accessibility features on our phone right now. I have a disability and would not physically be able to read the amount that I currently do without text to speech technology. I feel like I’m missing something? I don’t understand what the issue is.

the main issue is not the TTS feature of the app.

per lore.fm Terms of Service they have the right to "utilize, retain and share" anything that is uploaded to their app.

They also have the right to make "unauthorized alterations to any content uploaded"

So this means that anyone with a registered ao3 account can go to my profile and download any of my works and upload them to this app. that user is innocently thinking that this app will do nothing more than read the text aloud to them. But by them uploading my work to this app they are giving the app permission to share and alter my hard work.

The creator of this app has been linked to several other apps including one that uses AI software to generate self-insert stories.

By someone uploading my work to this app they are giving the app permission to share my work, which includes feeding it into the AI software of the other apps owned by the parent company.

Beyond all of that, the only way to deny permission for your work to be used is to send the company an email opting out. but again, anyone with a registered ao3 account can download a pdf or epub of my fic and upload it to this app.

i wouldn't have an issue with this if it were in partnership with ao3 perhaps, or a browser extension or something like that. but this app is touted as being completely free and also ad free. the money for that has to come from somewhere and this creator being linked to shady AI apps makes me very suspicious of their motivations. I believe that I, as the writer, have the right to say how and where my work is used. I don't like the fact that someone else is able to give permission for my hard work to be shared or altered.

i don't like the fact that fic writers are increasingly seen as "content producers" and people are constantly trying to profit off of our hard work even though we legally cannot. we don't create fanworks to profit we create them out of love for the fandom and to foster community.

i would love for fic to be accessible for everyone and I would be supportive of something similar to this if it weren't tied to other AI story generating apps and perhaps made by someone within our community that would have the desire to maintain the integrity necessary to operate in accordance with the legal gray area that fanworks exist in.

i hope this helps explain why people are upset. I can guarantee you it is not because they don't want their work to be accessible to everyone!

[lgbtlunaverse]

Hey I don’t know if this is being talked about on Tumblr but thankfully the AO3 subreddit has a conversation going about this app that just went live.

TikTok user unravel.me.now has just launch an app (lore.fm) she is calling “Audible for AO3”. It’s an app that uses AI voices to read out fics.

🚨She is requiring any authors who do not want their fics to be on this app to OPT OUT by emailing team@lore.fm 🚨 🚨She has not given an actual template or how you’re supposed to prove you’re the author or said how her team will process this or how she will keep these requests secure🚨

I do not have this app. I haven’t seen anyone use it yet. According to Reddit users, unravel.me.now’s earlier TikToks stated she envisions the app being able to create libraries stored on that app and to have version of “Spotify wrapped”. That implies that eventually data collection must happen, if it’s not happening currently.

I don’t know the actual capabilities of this app. I don’t know the legalities. I do know that it personally feels like this app is trying to turn AO3 into a content generation source and I haven’t heard of the app allowing you to leave a comment or kudos or interact with the original work.

I’m just sad about this.

[lgbtlunaverse]

So, I recently learned about the “say their names to save their lives” campaign on social media that has helped Iranians sentenced to die by the regime in the past.

I am now asking you guys for help with that again.

There is an Iranian Jew named Arvin Netanel ben Siona, whose execution date is set for this Saturday. The Iranian Jewish community have tried endlessly to pursue his release, but to no avail.

Please spread his name.

[lgbtlunaverse]

[lgbtlunaverse]

When the anti "LGBT propaganda" law passed in Russia, all of you were going insane and cared. Give Georgia the same energy. If you can have sympathy for our oppressors on the basis of them being queer, you should keep the same energy for us, if not more.

If this law passes, every Georgian queer person I know is so severely fucked, myself included. If you make jokes about "being illegal in several countries" you better fucking care about the countries you're apparently illegal in, or going to be illegal in.

Make sure to spread this around. This is important.

[lgbtlunaverse]

"i can fix him" "i can make him worse" i can make her a woman and then forget she's not in canon