#+some other rando sites I don't remember

[olderthannetfic]

hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

--

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

--

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

--

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

--

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

--

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

--

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

--

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

--

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

--

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

--

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

[neechees]

Hi! Do you have any information about how to vet PayPal-based donation blogs based in Gaza? I got an ask from this user (screenshot below) and on their blog it seems that the only donation source is PayPal, but my understanding was that PayPal didn’t work there. I really don’t want to not help people because I misidentified their blog as suspicious but I don’t want to lead anyone to a false link or donation. Any help super appreciated.

First of, this user is a scammer. They're already on the scam list, and their pinned post is directly copying this genuine gfm (buy we know this can't be the person from the gfm, because the gfm doesn't link to this tumblr or offer that paypal the tumblr blog uses as a form of accepting donations)

Regarding vetting, I'll say, and this is important, that 1. I myself don't do the vetting, I call out the scams that are definitely scams and that I have proof of, and 2. The people who are doing the vetting are multiple Palestinian users on here (such as 90-ghost, nabulsi, el-shab-hussein-, & others) who have been on tumblr for quite some time, and who can confirm what Palestinian fundraisers are real because they either know them, know someone who knows them, or have talked to various Palestinians who have made new blogs and determined them to be genuine due to a number of factors. Most scammers are either not trying to talk to real Palestinians doing the vetting because they know they'll get caught lying (and many will block the users doing the vetting), OR the ones that DO are quickly found out anyway for various reasons (such as for obviously using something like Google translate).

But if you want tips on how to suss out who you think might be a scammer on your own, try these:

If a suspected blog claims to be "vetted and verified!" In their donation post or ask, go and look at their posts and blog: most genuine fundraisers who claim to be vetted will @ the users that vetted them, sometimes might even provide a link to a post of the vetter confirming them to be genuine, and/or you'll see a Palestinian user verbally confirming them to be genuine in the notes in one of their posts, OR you can go to a vetter's blog & look for their url. If they're actually vetted you'll find them there. Additionally, the person confirming them to be genuine MUST be a popular Palestinian user who is currently volunteering to be a vetter, it CANNOT be the suspected blog in question "verifying" themselves or any other rando. But many scammers are lying by starting off their post by saying they are "vetted" & sometimes even name dropping random users hoping nobody will double check to see if they're lying. Double check. You won't find any vetter in their notes confirming them to be real. If you're still unsure, don't interact with the blog or reblog their donation posts until you find evidence theyre vetted.

Go to the blog @kyra45 and have a look at our resources where Kyra helpfully gives tips on how to spot scams, and lists the really popular scammers & the stories they like to reuse. Also keep tabs on the "users pretending to be Palestinian" post there, where Kyra & others give daily updates on which users are scammers pretending to be Palestinian on the same post & give proof for why.

Connected to our resources post, but look at the tips posts, anc give the blog a scan to see if it fits any of the common red flags that of a scammer (and remember, these things have to be taken in context together, it can't just be one thing). Does the blog fit the description of any of the scammers we listed (such as one who constantly reuses the fake story of being a diabetic Palestinian & mentions humalog)? Does their paypal location match where they claim to be (such as, they say they're in the U.S but the paypal link says they're located in the Philippines)? Are they using a knockoff site instead of the more popular one (such as gogetfunding instead of gofundme)? Do they ONLY link to a paypal set to USD instead of a gofundme? Does their profile photo show up in another place but they're claiming its a photo of themselves (such as one I found where the photo belonged to a woman in Pakistan, & the scammer pretending to be Palestinian claimed the photo was of them)? Copy & paste the ask or parts of the ask they sent you: do other asks with the exact same or similar wording show up on lots of other answered asks in the tumblr search from now deactivated blogs? Does their donation post seem to have multiple replies, but the replies section shows nothing except a notification that says "some replies may be hidden or deleted", and/or replies are turned off? (<- this usually is an indication that this blog is a scammer, and people were calling them out, & so they hid those replies so no one could see the evidence). Does their url show up in the scam list? Things like that.

But if you're still unsure and want some help, and think a blog might be a scam, bring it to one of us scam busters (& there's about 8 of us currently active) & we'll have a look at it. If you think a blog might be real, visit a Palestinian vetter's blog and see if that url shows up. In the meantime when you still aren't sure, don't interact with blogs claiming to be Palestinian that you can't be sure are genuine.

[skrunklowumbo64]

DISCLAIMER: Don't engage with a toxic user that's being called out, just block, report, ignore, & move one.

Remember when I made a public apology for making a callout tweet about a certain Tumblr group of IDW Sonic critics (a certain fox was one of them) on Twitter like roughly 2 years ago?

Yeah, I was in good terms afterwards, but a year later, when I randomly saw the edgy sadist fox man wishing death on a comic book writer showing up in my personal Twitter timeline, I took my apology back from him (plus some of his associates overtime) & gave my two cents about it.

The reason why he wished death on a comic book writer was because the satanically evil boogiestans were harassing & doxing his friend who had cancer. You know the old saying, 2 wrongs don't make it right. This isn't the only toxicity thing he has done & I got several evidence to show below.

CW/TW: Excessive Slurs, Bigotry, SH, & SA

(Uncompressed Image Link)

(Uncompressed Image Link)

BONUS EXAMPLES

Plus archived links to his Twitter & Tumblr accounts.

There are way more than what are shown in the images & I can't expect to find them all. Several or so of them are from a few years or nearly a decade ago, but it does prove that he's always been an heartless irredeemable sadist, even before IDW Sonic existed & before you pull that "years ago" defense card, his behavior hasn't changed for the better, like these for example (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13).

What do I think about him?

He's overly smugged, to a point of being arrogant.

He gets overly insecure whenever, for example, any Sonic game gets any criticism &/or negative opinions from people who're either fans of Sonic or not.

Most of his "critiques" are in bad faith.

He has extreme accusatory behavior (I.E. He accuses people of hating Sonic & not playing the games for daring to like anything non-game Sonic related, getting things about Sonic wrong, & making AU fan fics that differs from the games).

He has a habit of blocking anyone over the most pettiest things (I.E. Anyone using the term, Mobius, being told to calm down, people liking transgender Bridget, people liking SnapCube & Team 4 Star (he also wants them banned over it), etc.).

He constantly relies on ad-hominem attacks & vulgar insults whenever he talks to anyone he doesn't agree with, either directly or behind their backs by screenshotting their posts then posting them in his clique chamber to complain about it or both.

He's got this obnoxious Anti-WokeTuber vibes going on despite claiming to be against bigotry.

He gets easily butthurt over people enjoying any non-gaming media or anything in general of not just Sonic, but also Kirby, Castlevania, Dragon Ball, TMNT, & more as well.

He's a massive hypocrite, like for example, he hates anyone making & enjoying non-canon Sonic material while he's faving/making rule 34 fan art & fan fics involving sonic characters voring each other or any other fetishy things (which are also non-canon material).

etc.

If you're wondering if I'm aware about his certain questionable fan fics & favs, I knew already cuz I was the one that caused a chain-reaction on Twitter in the first place by randomly DMing some one rando about it & I honestly wish they shouldn't bring it up whenever they argue with said fox. If you want me to talk about what I think of this Dwai guy nowadays, maybe, but not right now.

How do you think I found out? I just googled the username, checkout their account on some furry site, & went to their profile from some controversial bunny site that's publicly shown on their profile bio out of morbid curiosity. Before you ask, I don't have an account on that controversial bunny site & never will.

My reaction to said content on there was disgust & uncomfortable. I hardly engage with those UCP addict types cuz they're not the most pleasant people to talk to & they're always predictable.

Did you know that he was banned on Twitter seven times, plus all tweets made before 2023 aren't searchable & apparently his first 6 bans had something to do with involvement with you know what? If you're morbidly curious about it, examples here. Remember, don't waste your time trying to argue about it.

The more I see toxicity from him, the more I having trust issues increased & regret making an apology to him, to a point where I think he's too FUBAR to deal with.

If he sees this, he's gonna be like, "TWEEGARD ZNOHVWEHK!", "MUH VWEE ZPEECH/VWEE KONTWEE!", "DOT TEEL MEE WAT 2 DOO!", "PEEOHWEETON!", "KOHTIZT!" "VWEEN/EYEDEEDUBBAHEW STAEN!", "CHUHZT SEH YOO HEHT SAWNIK GEHMZ & GOH!", "YOO HEHT MEE CUZ I KWEETESEYEZD VWEEN!", "CHUHZT PLEH DA GEHMZ!", "SWAENDOHAHR!", "STAHKR & HOHWAZZAHR!" the no you card, strawmanning, "At least I don't (Insert whatever bad thing the stans did)!", ad-hominem attacks, the "Stans are being mean to me!" sob stories, the whataboutisms, screenshotting then whine &/or being smugged about me in his clique-ish echo chamber, & more, guaranteed.

If you're saying I made this because of that one argument or whatever, I always had issues with him before it, not because of different opinions, but because he's the most insufferable individual to talk to due to his arrogant, nihilistic, cuss-happy, & creepy nature regardless if it's about Sonic or not.

For those who're about to ask me to make more callout posts about the people associated with him, I'm not interested & please don't beg me into making them.

If you also have issues with him, share your thoughts here, it also doesn't just have to be about IDW Sonic or Sonic general.

[lesbianforlottie]

Guys how do I make friends here. Cause I have moots but not really friends 😭 I've been on tumblr for a while but I never really figured out how to reach out to people like I have with other social media sites. Like I see people doing tag games and such but I don't want to just tag some rando who doesn't even remember following me 😭😭

[eisforeidolon]

Remind th eu con anon stuff that flew round tumblr a while back? Seems that same person is still trying to claim they were right, despite j2 being announced for multiple cons together since and I’m just amazed at how much certain people on this site and in this fandom will rewrite history to suit their narrative

There really are some people who decide what to believe and then spend all their time doing mental gymnastics to justify that belief. Especially by coming up with all kinds of reasons and rationales for why the facts that don't fit magically don't matter.

So Jared is totally no longer booking Creation conventions or any other conventions with Jensen because they're no longer friends. Except this one, and that one, and that other one. Okay, well, fine, sure, he booked those ones, but Jared wasn't announced for any of the latest round since whatever month, so it's definitely true now! It's definitely about getting away from Jensen and he totally is going to 100% stop doing cons with him, Jared was just waiting until now because OH HEY LOOK OVER THERE! Except then more announcements happened and [sad trombone noise]. And I'm sure there's some new reason why this time doesn't count either. 🙄

I mean, just today I saw a heller asserting the debunked conspiracy theory about there being an alternate original script for 15x18 as truefax proved by the Spanish dub. It has been debunked by fans seeing multiple versions of the script, by multiple crew members present during filming, by at least one editor who saw all script versions, and by Misha himself. The Spanish dub actor who plays Dean explicitly attributed the addition to his director's "intense abilities" to change the dialogue and they didn't even see it as romantic! But some rando on tumblr claims they talked to the translator who said they did not remember doing that specific script but surely if it was added in it must have been in the script. Aha, see?! EVIL CW CONSPIRACY TO SUPPRESS BI DEAN!!!

The convention thing is just a less intensely batshit version of the same nonsense. What I believe is true, period. You'll see!

[watermelinoe]

You're bi correct? Do you mind, when did you realize you were bisexual? Has it been easy or difficult for you?

i started questioning my sexuality when i hit puberty, around 12 or 13. the thing was that i was a pretty online kid. and i was unfortunately exposed to a lot of fetish content bc of my interest in webcomics (sites like topwebcomics didn't separate adult comics from general audience comics) and that made it really difficult for me to figure out if i was actually attracted to girls or just seeing other girls as sexual objects. the other thing was that i didn't really know you could be bisexual. i knew you could be gay. i read yuri manga and webcomics like "i was kidnapped by lesbian pirates from outer space" and i drew original female characters in lesbian relationships. but my impression of bisexuality came from maureen from rent and whatever was going on in rocky horror picture show. it seemed purely sexual.

i was really frustrated that i was sexually into girls but romantically interested in a boy. it was confusing because i knew i liked this boy, but with my girl friends we'd have sleepovers and we'd sleep in the same bed and i thought about what it would be like if we kissed, and meanwhile i didn't really think about kissing the boy i liked? i designated all of my female friendships as platonic, by the way. the kissing thoughts were just thought experiments, i guess. i tried dating a different boy who asked me out in middle school and it just felt embarrassing and burdensome and the intimate moments we had made me feel unclean. i just thought my feelings for boys and girls should be the same if i was really bi, and they weren't.

i think by high school though i was thinking of myself as bisexual. i didn't really ever have to come out to anyone that i remember. i was the only girl in my class with short hair who didn't wear makeup. some other girls were uncomfortable with me, i knew, especially when we had to change together in p.e. or choir or theater. my haircut was even a point of contention with the directors in one of my extracurriculars because every other girl in the performance had long hair and i ruined the homogeneity. i tried to grow my hair out my sophomore year and even wore contacts and mascara, i couldn't stand it and had it all cut off again before it even reached my halfway down my neck fjhgksfjdg

(as an aside i'm forever grateful that the trans social contagion was only a point on the horizon when i was k-12 bc my crossdressing ass might not have gone unscathed)

but as i touched on before, i really struggled to recognize when i was attracted to other girls. i would draw boys (or male celebs) that i found attractive, and that artistic motivation seemed obvious. meanwhile i had a close friend and i once named a piece after her because some drops of ink spilled on it and reminded me of her moles. we exchanged portraits of each other. yet i was oblivioussss i fumbled her so hard, i was dumb as hell.

it got difficult again when in college i discovered i don't want to look at or interact with dick in any way, and i had to reconcile that feeling and decide if i thought you could be penis-repulsed and bisexual (yes bc all forms of attraction count toward your sexuality)

tl;dr i probably realized when i hit puberty, the inconsistencies in my feelings really bothered me for a long time and the sense that i wasn't like other girls had me feeling alienated on some level, but i had some really strong female friendships and that helped me. the fact that randos can look at me and tell that i'm into other women makes me anxious abt their reactions and it frustrates me when people act like all bi women look straight. being bi is kinda difficult ngl but i am happier w my sexuality now than i've ever been

[seaofolives]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

@ofdemonsandangels tagged me! I don't get on this site much anymore so idk if this has gone around at all but if you're a writer who's reading this and you have time to burn, pls feel free to answer these questions for yourself!

also i didn't bother linking any stories so just uh here's the link to my portfolio

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

232 but I need to note that at least 31 of those are drabbles (that I couldn't put into one multi-chapter bc of the varied ships)

2. What's your total AO3 wordcount?

2,002,567 (what the fuck) but I also need to note that several of these are stories in at least two languages and that some of these are not written with the Latin alphabet system so the word count would be different in those

3. What fandoms do you write for?

g witch is my homebase rn! but I'd love to be able to write at least one ffxv fic again next year which is the biggest collection of fics in my ao3 rn. briefly I was also active in sk8 and even more briefly in hadesgame (but that's not counting the pre-pandemic years)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

HUH my ffxv fics have been completely nudged out of place! :ooo this is a surprise but hygge remains unbeatable since I published it uhhhhh 2017? it's a 30-day fic challenge where the brodinsons settle into earth following the events of ragnarok so that's why it's so popular I guess. the next fics are (from most to least) お持て成し omotenashi, weather report (the only hadesgame fic, the others are sk8), 浮世 ukiyo and save the date.

5. Do you respond to comments?

absolutely! they took the time to let me know their thoughts, I need to honor their generosity. THO I did delete some anon hate once bc my friends told me it's not worth it to engage and my friends are much smarter than me so

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

HUH man idk. like I define angst so differently than others (most people: liv why is this so angsty??? me: it's not???) but off the top of my head, the meeting on the turret stairs? mostly bc it's unresolved forbidden love gladnis and I really upped the ante there…i don't remember if it's to match the tone of the original artwork or if it was a client decision

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there's a lot!!!! I'm not just all bittersweet stuff, I can tell other stories, I swear, but most of them are probably gladnis stuff but uh…if you filter my portfolio to just the fluff category, it's probably all of those there

8. Do you get hate on your fics?

HAHA oh man. so that anon hate, right? it was that time I posted my first guesulemio fic (forget me nots is the title) and I woke up to like 5-7 anon comments who got upset that I tagged it as sulemio (never mind that I also tagged it as polyamory but ehh there's a certain type of ao3 readers, right? we all know this) and like, 1 other anon baby later on in the day when I refused to remove the sulemio tag bc it was a fic where guel, suletta and miorine weren't a closed triad yet. to be fair, that was a fairly educational experience! I read up on some reddit stuff about tagging ot3 fics and while some people don't mind if the all-encompassing ot3 tag was used indiscriminately, other people, especially in the cases of open triads or where one corner of the triangle is missing, would love to know what subship of the ot3 they're going to expect going in. anyway that was the first and only fic I locked away from public bc lord do the anon babies have a lot of time in their hands (not a lot of reading capacity tho)

surprisingly the one before this—not hate, just disappointment—was a fic where gladio married that rando woman (we're talking about ffxv now) he mentioned in the hammerhead camp prior to the insomnia chapter. that's the woman that only exists in the English localization. the ending was that they got married in spite of gladio and ignis' committed relationship so there's basically three of them now. and people apparently hated that even tho one of the points I wanted to make with that fic was how gladio and ignis would always be together no matter what happens 🤷🏻‍♀️

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

what do you mean what kind isn't smut is smut is smut???? I mean yes I do write smut but damn if I know what kind of smut???? it's just smut?????

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

YES I love crossovers!!! of the ones posted on ao3, I think it might be joche in ffxv? mostly bc I couldn't fuse a lot of the lores together (kaoru was a lucian locked out of insomnia when Regis put up the wall, Kojiro was an altissian, that's it) but I do have one fic that I deleted from ao3 which is basically suikoden characters and events in the lore of pacific rim. and it's not on ao3 rn bc you could really tell I was just pulling shit out of my ass, it was all so bad and jarring 😂😂😂

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

MAN idk like i highly doubt it but I also don't take the time to find out you know?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated

ooh yes, two yeses in fact! mog (and ulan??) have translated some of my filipino fics to english but there was also a stranger who asked if they could translate one of my hadesgame!patrochilles ficlets (patience) into russian! that was very thrilling. and then just recently, I joined a guesule advent calendar project in Japan and the friend who invited me told me to give them a machine translation of my ficlet and they would go over it and clean it up to make it more readable to the jp audience. that ficlet isn't up on ao3 yet (it's on pixiv) but man I gotta remember to ask the project organizer if they would mind if I uploaded it there

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

YEAHHHH we never finished it tho!! it was a friend I made on some final fantasy rpg yahoo group and it was going to be a retelling of ff7 or smth? I don't remember much else, this was during ff.net's heydays.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

clerith. which i have barely written for (I mean i used to write them a lot back when I was still some 13yo anti-cloti lmao) but if we're talking about like based on recent fic counts and productivity and stuff, gladnis.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh man, I got this zares reincarnation au going that I got distracted from with ghost of tsushima and then now g witch (it's the "I'll get back to this after xyz" kinda thing) and I'd LOVE to finish it! I know I will, I have a 99% wip-finishing rate, but I'll need to replay hadesgame to get some voices and inspo back, you know?

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have the brain of a project manager, hence the 99% wip-finishing rate.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I can hardly write or even translate if i hear sounds! whether it's the TV or the radio or if it's someone talking to me, I can't do it bc I can't hear my own words

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

IF IT MAKES SENSE ABSOLUTELY I was soooo happy when I got guel and lauda to speak in my hokkien bc they're Chinese in the Manila au I have but also like, since the pov is guel (or miorine, who's also Chinese in that au), it makes sense to me for him to hear and understand the dialogue in the language. but if it's say like suletta who's filipino through and through? I would just write it like "meanwhile, Guel and Miorine are speaking in Chinese and, though Suletta doesn't understand a word, she can tell from the tension on their jaws that no one is happy". and also like, yes, especially for us multilinguals, I say we should flex our knowledge, but these dialogues need to get translated in the common language, too. if it's just purely flexing without understanding, then it makes no sense to even use a different language in the first place

19. First fandom you wrote for?

it was rpf 💪🏽

20. Favorite fic you've written?

lol pls I have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to my fics. as soon as it's done (and optionally up on ao3), I forget about it as I'm writing a new story. but like…I don't finish or share a story that I made that I don't like. every one of those that I declared finished is bc I was satisfied with them and wouldn't change a thing about them

[okanra]

hey kah, first of it all, i wanted to say that you're an amazing artist and i really love your work !!

ive been following your dbz AU since i can remember, and i saw you're going to reboot the webcomic. you intend to post it elsewhere besides tumblr and twitter? (tho I don't really think you'd post on twitter)

Hey hey hey 👋

Thank you for loving my work and thinking of me as an amazing artist 😊 Are you one of the first people who follow this series? 👀

For the Reboot I actually plan to post it on a few webcomic platforms like Webtoon, Tapas, Mangadraft, etc. Besides my socials. I would love to continue updating this on Twitter as well since my more outgoing personality actually fits there more than here, Tumblr is more like an intimate place y'know? 🤔😊

-----

So to clear things up about my thoughts on twitter.

I like Twitter the most but the Musk's constant stunts as well as too many viral contents with the same vibes somewhat exhausted me. People/artists there begin to create/draw a few specific types of themes to try and attract audiences as well as to appease Musk's idiotic policies and algorithm much more. You would recognize the pattern if you pay a bit of attention to it, most of the viral contents would always be: gag, nsfw, wholesome stuff, fanarts that have these specific themes, meme, shitposting, hot takes, and toxic takes bc people are exhausted, hot and bothered due to summer heat. The posts may look different but the vibes would always be the same, it's the key to success on the internet. Or at least on a specific site like the current Twitter. .

and idk I guess I just feel kinda overwhelmed with all of that, especially when I see professional working creatives don't even get as much exposures as what I listed from above (for example, Quentin Tarantino, and many other storyboard artists, etc). It's discouraging, no wonder they all use LinkedIn or just uploading stuff to Instagram for fun. But don't listen to me too much, I'm just a rando lol

But. There's always a but.

I still want to return and update things there. Although my stuff don't have that many fans, some readers who loved, followed and commented on my work made me really happy. I love reading their thoughts and I remember quote retweeting some of my favorite comments from them from time to time. So yeah, I would still hope to return to it soon even when there's no one left behind to read my stuff lol. I guess in the end I just like to connect and converse with people, I'm actually a social person irl as well. Just want to connect thru art, yo ✌️

So yeah, if you want to read comic only, I suggest webcomic platforms. If you want to read my ramble, my socials are always ✨️open✨️(except Instagram, idk how to update this to that page, seriously).

[honestmagpie]

Hello y'all I just woke up from a nap and I just had the funniest fucking dream.

I dreamed that Tumblr had fixed a glitchy in-post game that had been on the site for so long that everyone had forgotten it had ever existed. It was a card game where you had three factions that would battle I guess, but it never worked so people only used it to shitpost and dunk on tumblr's broken website before it basically disappeared from everyone's consciousness.

Anyway in my dream they FINALLY fixed it after YEARS and now everyone was getting sorted into one of three factions and trying to figure out how to play or whatever.

There was a combat faction that was all pictures of fists, armor, attacks. It was boring and only useful for the game itself so no-one ever picked it, because everyone was just there for the meme reaction images it generated.

There was a magic class where every card was just a really basic big letter on a page, like they'd do in the start of chapters in chapter books, and it was meant to look elaborate but mostly people just used combinations of them to spell out swears or reactions, and there was a third faction. I don't remember what it was but it also had decent functionality in the meme sphere.

Anyway I knew nothing except 'oh yeah tumblr used to have some kinda game attached to it' and somehow accidentally ended up in the combat faction with the shitty boring cards for a game no-one really understood how to play.

Basically any time you played a round (and god only knew who you were playing, tbh, just because they fixed it didn't mean it made any damn sense), you'd get this like, Gigantamax-esque cutscene where you'd go through this elaborate process of turning in old cards and getting like three new ones, they'd get laid out dramatically on the play field, then they'd flip over, and it was all filled with basically the pokemon crowd noises from sun and moon. Not much control over anything at all but it looked really cool.

Anyway the first time I did that, it flipped over three cards and they were three cards PERFECTLY in sequence of a guy getting decked in the face, the fist doing the decking, and then the arm of the dude decking the first guy.

I had zero control, the game just played out like a perfect meme reaction image of punching some rando in the face and I thought it was hilarious.

Anyway some other shit was happening too but that's way less important than the dream imagery of basically three red magic-the-gathering cards in sequence of some poor armored knight getting punched in the face, an elaborately-armored fist, and just an armored arm of some guy throwing a punch because fuck that guy in particular, with artwork all lining up too perfectly to be a coincidence.

[fledglingmaster]

Heavy talk, cancer sucks, fatphobia literally kills, I'm so angry and sad:

A week ago, my friend started her journey with hospice. My friend that endured 11 rounds of intense chemo treatments and had a bad reaction to the last one. (She broke out in hives everywhere.)

My friend that in her early 20s got into such a bad car accident she broke her back. This was shortly after she gave birth. While she was healing up exes were sharing "revenge porn" and she was being harassed and judged by strangers. Remember the site IsAnyoneUp that thrived on stolen and hacked content? She was on there. People told her she deserved to be in the accident because she was a slut. People told her it would have been better if she died. Randos that didn't know anything about her! Being obese you can imagine the other horrible things they said. "Aren't sluts supposed to be skinny?" or "you should be thinner with how much sex you have." Once again these people didn't know her from anything other than the photos she took for her at the time boyfriend that then posted her nudes.

During covid she decided to lose weight to improve her quality of life. She still says how beautiful she was at her heaviest, and she was. I had/have a crush on her. When I met her, she was in the 500s somewhere. She wanted to be more mobile and she set her mind to it. She lost 300 pounds by changing her diet. No weight loss surgery (though she never has shamed anyone who started their journey like that) no exercising until after she dropped that much weight either. It was hard but she did it. She then got skin removal surgery around her stomach and torso and almost died...technically she coded twice and both times she needed blood transfusions. Whoever did her surgery barely stitched her up on the inside, so she kept hemorrhaging under her skin. She tried to sue but it was brushed off as "a surgery risk." What?! Risks are when the unexpected happen or there's a complication NOT when the surgeon does a sloppy job! Others who have had major operations done or have given birth at the same hospital have also reported how bad of a job that they do. Many people have tried suing but nothing gets through. She lost so much blood that they really did basically replace all of her blood twice. If SHE didn't catch it in time, she would have died then. The doctors and nurses wanted to send her home ASAP when she was already showing clear signs that something was wrong!

Why does all of this matter? She is one of the toughest people I know. She is not going down without a fight. Life has attempted to take her out multiple times and she said 'not today!' She has always fought for body autonomy for all. She was body positive before it was trending and still is! She's just as supportive of people that want to stay fat as she is of people that want to lose weight. She lets people know how beautiful they are at any weight. She has always uplifted others. She's funny as fuck. The first time I met her she helped me through a panic attack while my shithead ex-friend was off doing who knows what. She also kept an eye on me when I drank too much because there were some sketchy guys hanging around me and it was a house party. She's a very kind, genuine person that wants the best for everyone.

After everything she's been through, cancer is what is going to take her out. Cancer that she might have recovered from had they found it sooner than stage four that spread to multiple organs. Cancer that they would have looked for if at the time she was thin. She is going to die. Fuck, she's going to die. Her birthday is next month and who knows if she'll even live to see it. She is only a few years older than me, she is in her mid 30s. The last time I saw her, will be the last time...

Fat people are often dismissed and told their health issues are only because they're fat. That losing weight will fix everything. I am so fucking pissed! Why are fat people treated like they don't matter? I don't give a shit if they really did cause all their own health problems, what they suddenly don't deserve health care or to be treated like a person? How absurd! As if thin people are automatic healthy? You know how many thin people I know that eat like shit? They might not have weight on them, but I bet you they're just as out of shape as bigger people. I'd love to see how clogged their arteries are as well. Weight isn't an indicator of health! Health is not an indicator of being a good person for that matter anyways.

I backslid slight with my own weight loss journey...but when I was at 196 on the scale, I can tell you for a fact I was the healthiest I have ever been. I don't care what my BMI said, I had more energy, I was strong, I no longer got out of breath when I walked/hiked and I could walk fast. I look at 115 pound me and I was at the WORST shape in my life. (Never mind all the ableist shit "you're too young to be this sick" or "your weight is good, you shouldn't be having heart problems.") I've been underweight to obese by BMI standards. I will NEVER be healthy because of my genetics. But I can personally say I was actually much, much sicker when I was skinny. (In a way I was brushed off a lot when I was thin too because I was assumed healthy! I was told being underweight was healthier than being overweight by doctors. Great advice to tell someone with an eating disorder...how about not commenting on someone's weight?) Weight should not be a factor of a patient being listened to or not. Doctors sign on to help ALL. That includes fat people, they aren't some kind of subhuman because of a number. My friend is just one of many, many people that have been mistreated by the medical system. Everyone deserves to be listened to! Everyone deserves proper medical care! It's a human fucking right!

Far as I see it, cancer might be what kills my friend, but it started with fatphobia. I won't turn a blind eye to how the medical field treats fat patients. I will never shut up about the unfairness. I will fight tooth and nail for fat people, no matter where I am with my own weight.

[othernaut]

Character Creation Challenge 2025, Day 8: Unknown Armies

It struck Liv as she was stuck on a streetcar, mashed into the sort of rush hour traffic that shouldn't matter to her anymore: Tracy Chapman was an oracle and a blessed soul, and to follow her into paradise would be an act of divine sublimation.

The sublime, she had learned, leached into the world through happenstance. That's what they told her on IRC. The current happenstance was that she had taken her Discman out but not her CD sleeve and she was sick to tears of Alanis Morisette. The city had pared back the temples and sacred spaces as time went on, but even so, with a transit day pass and a MasterCard, you could still visit what sites of power remained. Come Along Brother Records & Comix still thrummed with the same dizzying power that it had in 1996 when she picked a copy of Garbage (by Garbage) out of the New Releases bin and pinned her soul firmly to the corkboard of the firmament.

Times may change, but some places remember the old ways. The 17-year-old stoner behind the counter was now a jovial 46-year-old with one leg gone to diabetes and a teenager of his own. They'd pivoted heavy into vinyl when the market shifted, but you could still find racks of CDs along the back wall with the VHS tapes and heavy metal posters. He'd always get her in a conversation at the checkout, waiting for his ancient taped-together card reader to remember how to do math. Bitching about the rent. Bitching about work - the job she didn't have anymore. He'd gotten into yoga. Good for him.

She'd heard Tracy Chapman on the radio as a kid, but never really gotten into her until now. It was enough to send her back, back before she'd resolved to decide what she wanted to be and gotten it horribly wrong, back before Peerless Law and the decade, the fucking decade of threats and withheld pay and weird team-building oo-rah in the break room, back before her boss had stuck her head in the sink and held her there until she admitted she was fat and stupid while all the other girls watched -

Back when she was 17 herself, and maybe had a little bit of a crush on the guy who worked at the record store, and wanted to practice law so she could save the world, and read history books by her sparkle-pink lava lamp while the radio chewed through a late-night indie block, and imagined what the future would be -

A jerk as the streetcar started and stopped again. A smear of face in a shop window. No wrinkles yet, but yeah, that was a double chin. Her nasolabial folds had gotten deeper these past few years. In the distortion of two layers of plastic, she couldn't tell whether her hair was gold or grey.

Popped like a bubble. The spell gone in an instant. The future wasn't what it was supposed to be.

The Discman's anti-skip chugged, rewound. Crossroads came through from four seconds ago and it all began to build itself again.

I'm trying to protect what I keep inside...

That there, that empty condo storefront, it used to be an aromatherapy studio. She'd hang out there on cold days and sniff all the little vials of oil. It closed out the next year, re-opened as a daycare, but when the door opened you could still smell the pine oil and sandalwood infused into the brick and wood.

All the reasons why I live my life...

They tore it down and left it fallow for years. Three years ago, they put up a condo. Modern white plastic siding in lumped blocks of indistinguishable density. The street-level retail had been empty all that time, still held piles of heaped PVC piping caked with layers of plaster dust.

Some say the devil be a mystical thing...

Time passes, they say. You can't go back, they say. All the things that happened to you are all the things that ever would. You don't get a redo on the future you were promised. You don't get to be the person you always hoped just because you know better now.

I say the devil he a walking man...

But what if they're wrong? What if some of the ASCII spellbooks downloaded from randos on IRC produced actionable effects?

What if it only happened because you listened to Tracy Chapman on the streetcar, and remembered? What if other people can do it too? What if you could burn this scam future to the fucking ground? What if you could build it back up again, just like it was?

She leaned her head back against the window, the old Discman popping and whirring in her hands like a lost heart reclaimed. Sparks flared in her memory of old buildings, discontinued cereals, dust-choked demon-haunted points in time. It all began to build itself back again, the edifice of memory that resolved itself into power. The power to remake, rewind, remember. The power to fuck up paperwork in an untraceable way. The power to know and notice others like herself. The power to hope, still have hope, for the girl she once was.

What else can you do when you don't know yourself anymore?

What else is warranted for a world unrecognizeably changed?

*****

Liv St. Simone Concept: Burnt-out paralegal eager for comfort and justice (via magick) Objective: Get my old workplace condo tower condemned. Obsession: The 90s (Nostalgiaturgy) Noble: The Little Pleasures. A cold can of pop and a greasy slice on a park bench at lunch. Good music. A rainy day and a nice candle. Taking the time for those little things to remember the world isn't just awfulness entirely. A shared sandwich and a nice conversation can change someone's whole life. Rage: Victimizing the Weak. There's no excuse for punching down. Are you absolutely sure you don't have a better way to exercise your power? And it's so fucking common. Fear: (Helplessness) Poverty. It's been the sword at my throat for years - do what I want, or you're out on the streets. I know what that level of deprivation does to people. Can't be me.

Identities: Nostalgiaturge (Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick) 60% Paralegal ("I'm a paralegal, of course I can make sense of exhaustive paperwork, interpret legal jargon, endure unrelenting tedium and/or stupidity." Substitutes for Knowledge, Substitutes for Lie, Resists Unnatural) 60% Charges: 8 minor Wounds: 50

Relationships: Favorite: Monica Myers, on-again-off-again ex. Been long enough, been through enough that we're not bothering with labels or status anymore. It's just that when we need to, we hang out in the ravine like the old days, drinking bad beer, occasionally kissing. Sometimes things really do never change. 65%. Guru: Bertie Cunard, old law teacher. Retired, doesn't practice shit anymore beyond upright bass, but he's from a time in the framework of the law when the why mattered as much as the how. Still advocates. Should have gone into politics, if it wouldn't have killed him. If I ever need a refresh on that why, he's here. 60%. Mentor: The mash of millennials, lost media advocates, creepypasta writers, digital archivists, IRC buddies, Tumblr mutuals, message board peers, and general weirdos who help me, guide me, talk me through this nostalgia-magick, keep my mind where it needs to be. Can be hard to talk to them (like hell am I buying a MacBook), but I need them all the same. 65%. Protege: The Workplace Abuse Group at the local library. I can't say I need them anymore, not after the magick. Not after figuring out how to fix this. But others need me. Others are going through what I went through. At the least, they need someone to listen, even if I can't reveal much in return. 65%. Responsibility: All the girls still working at Peerless Law. I'll get you out. I'll make this right. I'll burn it all down. 40%.

Shock Gauge Violence (0 hard, 0 failed); Self (5 hard, 1 failed); Unnatural (1 hard, 0 failed); Helplessness (0 hard, 0 failed); Isolation (0 hard, 0 failed) Connect 65/Struggle 15, Knowledge 40/Lie 40, Notice 60/Secrecy 20, Fitness 65/Dodge 15, Status 65/Pursuit 15

*****

So this one was hard for me, for a number of reasons. Prime being that I fucking love Unknown Armies, secondary being that I'm doing this exercise alone.

Unknown Armies is more of a collaborative exercise than most RPGs. It's not something that you can easily theorycraft in a vacuum, something that you can build a character for and present to your friends like you're lifting a birthday cake out of a box. Building my character for this exercise felt off, felt incorrect, absent the social space where one person can ping their ideas off the forum. It felt like I was, somehow, imagining wrong. Which ties into the primary difficulty, as this setting kicks several degrees of ass and I want to do it right. I want to imagine in those channels dredged for me. I want to dream correctly.

And I was excited for this character, too, because I'll take any effort to delve into the world of post-modern magick, asshole demons, weird money wizards, houses that eat you, and sheer throbbing human need that Unknown Armies brings. That, at least, was an unequivocal success, a warm bath in the books and conversations and supposition about Unknown Armies. I'm going to go back to doing exactly that, once I've finished this post, had a shower, and finished the additional stuff I've assigned myself for this individual exercise for some reason.

With that, I can't really say anything about the system as a whole. You either know what it is, in which case you're eager for anyone spewing words about it, at any time, ever, or you don't, in which case it's a discovery waiting to beartrap you in the future. I can throw a bunch of adjectives about Unknown Armies at you, or I can point the way to the rabbithole and let you catch your own ankle. But I'll just leave it at that I love this world, this perspective, this back-alley slapfight of a universe enough that I wrote out some homebrew for it - which means that, yeah, I'll likely be posting the Nostalgiaturgy adept school later, once I've ironed out the non-functional sort of weirdness.

Next up: A sepia snapshot of intentional loneliness.

[maladaptedreader-writes]

Mal's ramblings/sources for TGOE Ch 1

The quote at the top from (Pseudo-)Apollodorus 3.7.1, translated by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A. can be found on the Tufts website, which is where I find most all my Greek/Roman texts. The website explicitly says Apollodorus, which is why I labeled it as such.

The Theoi Project has a lovely rundown on our titular Eleos, which is where I found the quote in the first place. (The Tufts translation had less parenthesis. Ironic that I put that in parenthesis?)

A supplicants branch sounds kind of obvious, but, like, what kinda branch? Well, I found this fancy PDF from something called "The Nature of the Act of Supplication" that specifies it's an olive branch, and now I feel a little silly for not coming to that obvious conclusion on my own.

Mycenaean Greek vs. Achaean Doric Greek I got from Wikipedia. Technically Achaean Greek is shorthand for Mycenaean Greek, but that seems really easy to mix up. And if I use "Mycenaean" if emphasizes the regional players in a way that Achaean doesn't (at least to me).

Can't remember where I read the thing about ancient Greek writers being able to muddle their way through a newspaper, but I've seen similar sentiments on other sites, so I'm just going to assume it's a thing people seem to think in academia in general.

We know thermopolium were a thing around 79 CE, and kapeleion in 400 BCE, but what about, like, 2700-1500 BCE? Were eateries a thing in bronze age Greece? While this lovely paper talks about food and its relation to class (to put it simply). Here's a quote from early in the paper: "...rural population of Greece used scarce ingredients and culinary elaboration to differentiate between daily meals within the household and commensality on ‘special’ occasions involving hospitality to ‘outsiders.’" The paper has nothing to do with eateries. But I'm looking at this quote and thinking a lot about Xenia and the stories and just how they're told and what they do and don't say. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But, for now, we're gonna go with "eateries weren't a thing in bronze age Greece."

Oral stories are not generally considered fictional stories. Maybe they're cultural lessons, but it's important to remember that they're histories first and foremost. With Greek stories (among many others I'm sure), they were retold in ways that would relate to the listener. No one expected Jimmy down the block actually fought in that battle multiple city-states over, but it's more fun to hear about Jimmy than some rando. (Seriously, this paper talks about oral myths as memes, and it's super fascinating.) I'm personally on the side of (some) oral stories being like Klingon stories. Exaggeration is just part of the game.

I can't remember where I found the thing I did about possessives and Greek names, so I now refer to this debate about it on Stack Exchange as evidence of "rules? what rules?"

Oh wait! I found it. It has to do with syllables. Now, if I don't go back and fix all the things, I'll annoy me. (Note to self: Make offerings to the god of Ctrl+H)

I think it was FlaviaFulvia who pointed out that only Achilles and Helen use "I" in the Iliad. I want to read more discourse on that.

[diseasedcube]

*adding another 300 images to my cutthroat album in one go, like a normal sane person without a hoarding problem*

[olderthannetfic]

I'd followed Deadcat here after reading some fic, and ended up unfollowing rather quickly, as a a lot of the rhetoric, way she spoke on tumblr, etc., was frighteningly similar to some abusive people I've known. I assumed I was overreacting, but still unfollowed/stopped reading her work. Not sure how I feel about my gut instinct potentially being correct (I'd always like it not to be, in this care), but it is what it is.

But regardless of all that, AO3 makes the rules VERY clear, and considering there are humans behind emails.... of course it takes time? No one gets shoved to the top of the queue simply because they have more words, more fics, more 'fans', etc. With the sheer amount of people using the site, it shows how damn hard AO3 is trying that they got back to her so quickly, imo. I've been on the other end of that type of job (paid, though) and it still took ages at times, no matter how hard I worked. It's not feasible to assume a massive website run by volunteers will drop everything else to deal with one person breaking their TOS. It's just baffling to me, especially after skimming her current posts. One would think it's easy to simply not ask for money in any way.

I link my tumblr so people can chat (no ko-fi or anything), and even as a "small" author get random asks/followers when I post. A "big" author? Will get more, and people will see a ko-fi/etc link just by clicking the blog--no need to mention money, donations, buying a coffee, etc....

I do remember, in the short time I followed her, her asking for money a lot, though. which ofc on tumblr? fine, I can't judge, but I do find it odd to then also do on ao3 when the rules are SO damn clear

and sorry if you're done talking about this, and def no need to post this ask if you don't want to/are done, I just had a but of a "omfg them" moment, followed by sheer bafflement 😅😅😅

--

Well... At least it means your instincts are tuned to the right thing, I guess? A lot of people have had that sense reset to something unproductive (often by an abuser intentionally painting good boundaries or something as bad).

She made some hilariously idiotic comment somewhere about the "offices". Perhaps she thinks OTW is a corporation with a lot of paid staff instead of the Abuse team being a dozen randos at home on their computers in their spare time. (A dozen? Two dozen? I have no idea how big the team is these days, but I know it's tiny compared to the size of AO3.)

[read-write-review]

cool writing tipz

tools

google docs reads your files and deletes them without warning if they're too sexy, so don't use it for creative writing anymore. ms word is almost as good, & it has yet to sanction/censor any of the advertiser-unfriendly stuff i keep on it. i use a pirated 2016 copy on desktop, the free app on mobile, & onedrive to connect the two. plus obsidian (mobile) for quick notes. see what tools are out there & what works for you.

as search engines enshittify & also to stay focused, you can set up home screen shortcuts for apps & websites you use for writing e.g. merriam-webster dict, cambridge dict, oxford dict, wikipedia, wiktionary.org, thesarus.com, rhymezone.com, tfwiki.net.

drafting

drafting is writing linearly to the end of a section without stopping to pick the next word or going back to change things. trying to edit as you go can kill your momentum & make you lose focus, forget things, get frustrated, etc. it can be hard to drop this habit, but it's worth the effort.

try using [bracketed text] as placeholders for stuff you don't know, don't remember, or just don't wanna deal with yet. this can be anything from a single word to whole sections of the work. it might not look pretty, but only the final draft needs to look pretty.

editing

try doing structural editing before line editing & plot before prose, AKA big-picture stuff before details. it will save you from some tedious back & forth like correcting typos only to then rewrite the whole scene and have to correct new typos, etc.

no work is wasted. don't delete anything permanently. as you edit, move the changed & deleted parts into dedicated "scrap" documents, esp if you liked or put a lot of effort into them. manage file versions and back up your files on & offline. this part of the process can feel tedious at first, but it pays off in peace of mind.

sharing/posting

you don't need to share or post any of your work, or keep it online/public. it's ok to keep it private or restricted to chosen readers. it's ok to make private/public versions, sfw/nsfw versions, softcore/hardcore versions, etc. it's ok to edit after posting.

ao3 > wattpad > tumblr > other sites/platforms. using these sites is not an endorsement of their owners' shitty actions, it's just what we have rn. you can even disclaim that on your posts if you want.

please take some time to learn how to format your posts to make them accessible, use content warnings, searchable tags, & follow the distribution/attribution rules of any illustrations.

it's not inherently spammy to crosspost, repost, & self-promo your work, ask for shares, & other "engagement" stuff to help your work reach more people, and human spam > AI slop anyway.

feedback

it's ok to disclose you're new to writing/sharing your writing, tell people if you're easily discouraged, & ask them to be nice. it's ok to ask people to clarify their feedback. learn to discern good/bad-faith criticism, ignore the bad faith, & appreciate the good faith.

don't worry about numbers (wordcount, views, likes, comments, etc.), esp if you have a family/personal history of addiction. you're not a content machine; you're a creative writer. this is not a plausible path to money & popularity, so don't hold your breath & just try to enjoy some part of the process and/or result for its own sake.

fanfic

don't worry about "canon compliance" or staying "in character". you might wanna clarify what changes you made, but you don't need to justify any of them. reasonable readers will understand this is your personal interpretation, & if they don't like it, they can critique it in good faith or stop reading. there's no "right" or "wrong" here, just canon & non-canon. Word of God = Word of Some Guy.

conclusion

some things you can only figure out with time, practice, & experience no matter how much info or advice you get, be it from randos like me or rich & famous published authors. some people will never stop trying to convince you otherwise; they'll insist that "one weird trick" will fix all your problems. they're either lying or ignorant. happy writing!

hii! any tips for getting into writing? (specifically fanfiction) other than basic grammar tips and stuff? been wanting to get into it for ages but sometimes i struggle a lot with wording or i get too repetitive (feel like that comes from masking tbh) so im curious if anyone has any pointers for it or for getting into it or navigating that community cause im completely new (other than just reading fics here and there)

[ultralaser]

thinking today about all the social media sites i have lost over the years

2018/9 to today - twitter

cause of death - a robber baron having a midlife crisis, or maybe a multi level marketing scheme of authoritarians aligning to take down a protest hub

what we lost - a reliable, expansive feed of traditional Wierd Internet, breaking news, esoteric discourse, and minor celebrities who might actually follow you if you had a good bit of humor or outrage go a bit viral

2010 to 2018? - instagram

cause of death - facebook buyout, the algorithm, monetization

what we lost - started as a nice way to share pictures, then it became very difficult to see your actual friends pictures under all the Content, then they pivoted to video (stories aka snapchats), then they pivoted to video AGAIN (reels aka tiktoks), now they've somehow pivoted to video YET AGAIN and buried your friends reels under an avalanche of reposted tiktok Content, if they havent all been shadowbanned anyways for only posting pictures

2008 to 2018/9 - tumblr

cause of death - yahoo, digital gentrification, a legitimate need to clean out all the csm that went really badly and ended up breaking everyone's trust

what we lost - a full decade of community building of all the quirky independent artisinal discourse this site became known (and then maligned) for, leading to the last three years of twitter users whinging endlessly about tumblr bs while i'm all "why are you booing us, we're right!" bc this is where we were radicalized and twitter is where trump happened

2000? to 2015? - facebook

cause of death - nazi apologia, maga regulatory capture, broken ass algorithm, pivot to video, "it's meta now", etc etc

what we lost - it started as a fun simple way to keep up with your family, and friends from hs and college and old jobs, and to share cat photos and baby photos. it ended up as a radicalization vector for turning your grandparents into far right trolls.

2003ish to 2005ish - my movie critic friend luke's web forum on his personal site

cause of death - actually i don't remember, it might still be there, oops. but probably hosting fees vs just moving to facebook

what we lost - a fun little community of luke, me and some of his other internet friends, some of his irl friends, and his cool irish uncle, plus random angry strangers, just talking mostly positively about movies. it was a good vibe, felt like working at the movie theatre again

1999? to 2002? - killingmachines

cause of death - hosted on a server in my brother's office, which died and killed the archive and also nuked the code, which, will definitely happen to someone's mastodon instance in the next 3-6mos, oops

what we lost - a budding community of us and our friends and also a bunch of early internet randos i never regained contact with but still remember fondly to this day

1999 to 2001ish - the raving toy maniac "toy buzz" forums on toymania dot com

cause of death - hosting fees, the internet changed, my group had already aged out like two message board generations ago as we graduated hs, etc

what we lost - being yelled at for going off-topic unless we were hiding our conversations in replies to old posts way down the board, a community of like minded toy nerds who absolutely believed that scalpers were an organized cartel ruining the hobby for everyone else, the naivete of the late 90s dotcom era, getting to watch week old posts and reply chains slowly disintegrate as they fell off the bottom of the page, getting to append NT for no text to posts where you put your whole short reply in the post title so no one needed to click through to that post on slow-ass dial up connections. but also, the pure anticipation we all felt for the star wars prequels in the summer of 1999 when all we had was a trailer, a promise, and a MOUNTAIN of merch on the way

1995 to 1999 - email

cause of death - too much god damn email

what we lost - a manageable amount of primarily non-spam email. 95% of what email used to be is just what facebook became, and twitter perfected it, becoming what email could have always been but never got to