#I know it’s because of ads/algorithms. I literally said that in the tags

[ukulelekatie]

not to be all “old man yells at cloud” but why is the internet suddenly allergic to simple tutorials? why is everything an 11 minute long video where the person talks for unrelated nonsense for the first 3 minutes? why is every written tutorial inundated with ads and other useless info you have to scroll through in order to get to what you need? what happened to a quick step by step guide with maybe a few pictures for reference?

[pensat-i-fet]

Sweet treats (Micky van de Ven x Reader)

**A lovely anon suggested this could be a cute idea for a fluffy imagine and it inspired me to write a quick one. Hope you guys like it ❤️**

Word count: 1750

Masterlist

Wattpad

Creating social media content was one thing people thought was very easy to do. But it really wasn't. Trends kept changing and the algorithm was absolutely ruthless. So life as a content creator was not that easy. Also, you hated the word influencer but kept being called that.

What you could influence, or should we say who you could influence, was your boyfriend. Because you had him wrapped around your finger and he'd do anything you needed him to do for you.

“Micky!”, you called while you walked around the house with your laptop in your hands. “I need your pretty face to get more likes. The last few posts didn't do well”.

“Huh?”

Micky took his earphones off to listen to what you were saying while he got up from the bench where he was lifting weights…shirtless.

“Give me a second…”, you said, placing your laptop on the floor and grabbing your phone to take a photo of your boyfriend. “That would get a lot of likes but it's going to my private collection. Not sorry”.

“What are you doing?”, laughed Micky.

“Brainstorming. I don't know what I can post next but I need you to be in the post. It gets more likes”.

“Brave of you to tell me you only want me for the likes”.

“I was literally drooling 10 seconds ago. I also want you for the abs”.

Micky laughed and kissed your cheek before finding a towel to remove the sweat from his face.

“We could do a couples workout. People like that”.

“It's not a bad idea”, you nodded, adding that to your list of potential post ideas. “I could get a brand to sponsor it if I wear their clothes”.

“I like it when you wear sexy workout clothes”.

“I bet you do…I'm fine with you only wearing your Spurs shorts like you're doing now. But wear a t-shirt if we film this video. Only I get to see you wearing so little”.

“You and my teammates”, he laughed.

“Yeah…lucky boys”.

At the beginning of your relationship, you were more reticent about posting about Micky. You were aware that dating him made your content more popular but you also wanted to build your own career without his help. Also, there was the worry that Micky would think you were just using him to get more popular on social media. But it was also so much fun to film content with Micky. And he joked but he didn’t mind being in the posts at all.

“I wish people knew how hard you actually work”, said Micky when he saw you sitting down on the floor writing.

So a week later, once you had the sponsorship you wanted, you both got ready to film the video. While you waited for him to get to the gym, you kept writing in your notebook the exact names of the clothes you had picked from the collection sent to you. You’d need to tag them on the post and people would want to know the exact model. Then you had to link the pieces on the stories you posted too…

“It’s a lost battle, babe. But let’s get ready for our video”.

The video performed well. You had told Micky to repost it on his stories a day after it was posted and that made the brand from the sponsorship happy because it drove a lot of traffic to their website. But reading the comments made you overthink. They were mostly positive but you noticed that what people liked were your interactions with Micky. They wanted to see the real you, not the parts where it looked like you were reading from a script. Because you were actually reading from a script.

“People like us”, you told Micky when you sat down next to him, still reading comments.

“I would hope they do…”.

“No, I mean they like our relationship. Our banter. There are so many comments calling us cute”.

“Well, we are cute”, said Micky, smiling and wrapping his arms around your waist to bring you closer to him. “We can make more videos together. You know I don’t mind”.

“Yeah…not so soon after this one. But I’ll ask people what content they want to see and I’m sure lots of requests will include you”.

“Your fans like me more than they like you then”, he teased.

“I can’t blame them for that. I like you quite a bit too”.

One of the things people wanted you to do was a Q&A. Easy content so you got a lot of questions ready for a live on Instagram where you could answer them.

“Alright, everyone. I thought I would make this a bit more fun by also baking while I answer your questions. And I’m terrible at baking so this should be interesting but…you can’t go wrong using cake mix, right?”, you looked at the camera pretending to be scared. “Right?”

The first few questions were the usual ones so you got those out of the way while you mixed all the ingredients. The oven beeped to let you know it had finished pre-heating so you put the cake mix inside of it and set a timer.

“Now I can answer questions better…”.

By the time you had already spent 10 minutes answering questions, you heard the front door. Micky wasn’t supposed to be back so early, which is why you were doing the live then.

“Hi! What are you doing?”

“Umm…a live on Instagram. Wanna say hi?”

The reaction to Micky joining the live was the one you’d have expected. But it also worried you because people would think you did it on purpose and you hadn’t.

“What were you doing? The kitchen is full of flour”.

“Baking…”.

“Baking a cake for me?”

“For both of us”, you laughed. “I also wanted to try and do a cupcake recipe but I already embarrassed myself struggling with the cake mix in front of our lovely audience”.

“I could help you do the cupcakes. So they all laugh at the both of us”.

The issue with livestreams was that you either were too worried about what people saw, like before Micky arrived, or you forgot there was a livestream going on. The latter happened when Micky joined you. It was so easy for you to forget the rest of the world existed when he was around.

“When did you learn to bake?”, you asked Micky, noticing how well he followed the recipe.

“I didn't”.

“You're really good at it for someone who didn't learn”.

“I guess I did a bit of baking with my family but I’m no expert”.

Once the cupcakes were ready to go in the oven, you both waited for the cake to be done and answered some more questions. The live had been going on for almost an hour by then.

“Should we decorate the cake?”

“What do you have for that?”, asked Micky, looking around.

“Frosting and sprinkles. I’m not going to the next edition of Great British Bake Off like you are”.

“They should invite me to the celebrities edition”.

“Hey Channel 4”, you said, looking at the camera. “You heard him!”

Micky thought you could write your names on the cake and then try and do some funny designs. A bit ambitious for someone who didn’t know how to bake.

“How big do you think this cake is, babe?”, you laughed. “Maybe we can write the names here and save the rest of the frostings for the cupcakes”.

“Ok…”.

You were also impressed by how nice his handwriting was…while using frosting. That just seemed unfair. But you were also used to Micky being good at almost everything he did.

“I’ll order my next birthday cake to the van de Ven bakery”.

“They’ll probably give you a discount too”.

“In exchange for what?”

“A kiss?”, he asked, leaning down to kiss you. Again, you had both forgotten about the livestream but the people watching were loving your interactions.

When the cupcakes were out of the oven, you mentioned decorating a few and ending the livestream. But when you were about to start, your mum called you.

“I need to answer this”.

“Ok guys”, whispered Micky to the camera when you were gone. “I made this one for her. What do you think?”

He showed the cupcake he had decorated with a bit of frosting to make a heart. Then he used sprinkles to write your initial. He saw the responses were mostly full of heart emojis and smiled.

“But we’ll need to finish this live now. It’s been going on for too long but it was fun. We’ll see you soon. Bye!”

Talking to your mum was always nice but you also couldn’t wait to eat some cupcakes so when you ended the call, you went back to the kitchen quickly.

“I ended the live”, announced Micky. “And made these for you”.

“Thanks…”.

Seeing all the different decorations on the cupcakes made your jaw drop. How on Earth did he manage that?

“You like them?”

“Are you for real? Have you always been an artist and kept that information from me?”

Micky laughed. “I just felt inspired today”.

“These are perfect”, you told him, kissing his cheek. “You’re literally the sweetest”.

“Sweeter than the cupcakes?”

You nodded, forgetting about the cupcakes to just focus all your attention on your sweet boyfriend.

What seemed like just an anecdote ended up becoming a tradition. A very sweet tradition. Soon after the day of the livestream, you went on a little work trip and came back home after 3 days out of the country. Knowing Micky was still at training when you got home, you just made your way to the room to take a shower. But then when you got back to the kitchen, you noticed a box on the kitchen island.

“No way”, you laughed picking up the box. It had van de Ven bakery written on it and when you opened it, you found more cupcakes baked by Micky. The order they were placed in spelled welcome home and your smile couldn’t get any bigger.

That started the tradition of Micky baking for you whenever you needed a little sweat treat. When you were working too much, when you weren’t feeling great or whenever you achieved something big. Micky always made sure to get cupcakes and cakes ready to make your life sweeter. But he still was sweeter than all the treats. 

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

Genuine question: why does disagreeing (without being all ‘u r wrong’, but simply just saying ‘cool! Here is my take on this’) with how others see a character get you immediately labled a ‘transphobe’? Or just labled as anything really. Like. Fandom space is for having fun, fandom space is a place of many different & wonderful headcanons & new ways of seeing things! Yet ‘headcanon’ is still not ‘canon’, and can be disagreed with. Hell, you can very well disagree with some of the stuff canon does! It doesn’t make it less canon of course, it just makes your experience with it more palatable to you.

So when a person says ‘here is my blorbo! I imagine him as trans and like viewing related content!’ and you say ‘awesome take, i bet there are a lot of interesting things you can do with this if you explore this more! I personally like thinking of this character & looking at content of him as biologically male, as described in canon!’ shouldn’t the answer be ‘wow! Two cakes! So cool!’ instead of ‘u r just a bigoted transphobe, the only right way to see him is as [insert specific gender identity] or literally as anything BUT what u see him as, because canon mentioned these select things that pertain to said character taking on masculine and feminine traits specifically from a narrative standpoint’ ??

I’m seriously just so lost. Just because someone doesn’t like seeing a certain character a certain way, (without disrespecting other interpretations,) it suddenly catapults them into being an awful person??? huh??

Of course it also works the other way, and with many other things, which is just as weird, which is exactly the point of my question here.. bros, the world... 💔 (m so sorry this is so long ong. i tend to ramble. pls don't answer if u don't have the time, have a good one <3)

oh man this is. first of all i'm not sure if this is in reference to some specific post or tag or if it's just because i've been very opinionated recently. but i do love to talk, so you're in luck.

also i'm not. sure if this is bait? i'm going to answer under the assumption that it isn't because it's. honestly a pretty good summary of a very real issue not with fandom exclusively but more so the internet as a whole. if anyone else has gotten this exact ask copy-pasted in their askbox let me know in the replies. (sorry if this is 100% genuine op, there's just a Lot Of Bait on this topic going around at all times forever and it's. june. so.)

objective disclaimer: don't. insult or accuse people of things. because of the art they make?? especially not fanwork for free for fun??? have you seen the state of the world right now? Now Is Not The Time To Be Arguing About Trans Headcanons. i'm answering this because i have a lot of thoughts on the nature of fandom, not because i think knee-jerk anger at anyone is helpful right now. if you're big mad, write to your senators or donate to the trevor project.

anyway.

basically: it's twitter's fault. [not just twitter, but twitter is The example of this] the algorithms of most websites, especially social media websites, prioritize arguments and things that are generally clickbaity because if you're spending a lot of time arguing, you have your eyeballs pointed at the site for longer and therefore you see more ads and therefore the advertisers and therefore the app makes more money. therefore the kinds of "you're disagreeing me therefore you must be bigoted against my opinions" kind of kneejerk discourse gets a lot of clicks and very mainstreamed. this is an issue the entire internet has, and also politics. it's twitter's fault. i hate it here.

in the specific circumstance you're describing. it's a few things, a lot of it being. gestures at the current state of the world. there's a lot of genuine anger towards genuine injustice boiling inside of a lot of people, and it's getting thrown at the nearest target because systematic change is difficult and slow, and sometimes it feels good to give someone a hard time for a tiny microcosm of something you're angry about because you can't wrestle god or throw a brick at a politician.

a lot of us in fandom are queer and scared. it doesn't justify hurting other queer people over different interpretations of a media property, but that is often why it happens. can't stop current events? yell at someone you feel is putting art in the world that Isn't Queer Enough (don't fucking do that, yall. there is room in the world for a lot of art. and just because it's not Visibly Queer or Queer In The Way You Are doesn't make it less valid as art. certainly don't accuse people of bigotries about it.) or that they feel like their space is being encroached upon by an outsider (no one has to tell you their list of marginalized identities to have their art allowed past the threshold of Queer Enough! don't fucking do that either, yall! you sound like cops!)

there's also the fact that people tend to put themselves in their art and interpretations. so seeing "i don't view this character this way" can feel like "i don't think You are valid". it's important to recognize when you're taking something Personally when it Isn't Personal. you're allowed to have your Big Feelings about particular art or interpretations. god knows i do! but the artist probably has Big Feelings about their art too, and while you may not understand them, that should be respected.

and this "seeing yourself (or not seeing yourself and it hurts) in art" goes both ways. a lot of the same body types often gets headcanoned as trans, because it's a very easy in for Baby's First Trans Headcanon, and as far as human sexual dimorphism goes, there are some patterns. but, say, what if a skinny, short, baby-faced cis man wants to see art of babyfaced cis men, without feeling within the queer community the kind of scrutiny he experiences outside of it, the assumption that his masculinity must be different, that obviously someone who looks like that is a trans man. what if a six foot tall cis woman sees the way that big, tall women in media are so often headcanoned as trans, more often than shorter, thinner women, and feels othered by it? wanting to represent themselves in art does not become somehow less valid because of their gender identities. that's ludicrous.

but people are angry and scared, and people put themselves in their art, and people get angry when they feel like their space is being encroached on, and they lash out. it's not fair, and i hate how common it's become, but i see how it happened.

honestly, i've thought about this specific issue a lot, so thank you for possibly-baiting me, anon. this is such a. it's such a bubble issue, but it's a microcosm of a very widespread problem of outrage merchants and Doing Things Correctly and What Is Allowed To Be Queer.

it's all allowed. all of it. even the stuff you hate. even the stuff that's Too CisHet. there are so many bigger problems than fanwork right now.

[isa-ghost]

@staff​ out here once again saying the dumbest, most untrue shit about their site in the universe. When the fuck are you guys going to listen to your userbase? We’ve been telling you things that ACTUALLY could improve this site for eons and again and again you start trying to speak Miserable Corporate Data-Mining Hellscape at us like we’ll be stupid enough to listen.

Maybe read the above reblog and rethink this trillionth post spewing utter bullshit. I don’t know where you get your analytics for these claims, assuming they aren’t completely baseless (which wouldn’t surprise me), but I have never read something that fails to understand the Tumblr climate more in my entire 6+ years of being on here. Tumblr is SO INSANELY EASY TO USE. Literally any site is “hard to use” if you’ve only been on it for like 3 days and haven’t taken the time to fuck around and find out how it works. Have y'all seen ANY of the super helpful, lengthy posts from veteran users giving new users tips on how to have a good time and use this site properly? I swear to god we do a million times more work than you bumbling shitheads do when it comes to user experience. It’s laughable.

And on the note of new users, do you like. Realize that Tumblr has become a SANCTUARY SITE? Reddit is crumbling under greed, Twitter I don’t even have coherent words for without turning this into a novella. And guess where the users on those sites who don’t want to be tormented by algorithms, ads, and other corporate soulless “content” bullshit escape to? HERE. Why and how the hell are you going to sit here and claim Tumblr is failing and confusing and clunky when you’re getting floods of refugees from other falling sites who are immediately in love with the climate and culture here? I’m seeing nothing but positive feedback from posts that cross my dash and yet here you are claiming there are masses of users saying Tumblr is a terrible site with awful interface. Which is blatantly false.

You know what parts of Tumblr have become terrible and clunky and hard to use? The ones you changed despite there being nothing wrong with them, like the tags or moving tons of shit around on the mobile app. For the umpteenth time: Start following the concept of “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” Time and time again you’ve made completely unnecessary and at times totally tone-deaf changes to Tumblr as if there aren’t countless posts with bullet points of ideas that would ACTUALLY improve how Tumblr works; some which have existed for longer than some of us have been on this site because there have always been certain features users widely agree would be amazing to add.

Like the above reblog said: stop treating your users like they’re stupid and incapable. In fact, that attitude feels like you’re implying users are brainless and need constant streamlined and instant content no matter it’s quality or source, like a bunch of needy monkeys straight out of some dystopian sci-fi movie. STOP. Tumblr isn’t a fucking feeding trough and we aren’t pigs who’ll just devour whatever gruel you put in front of us be it ads or actual user-made stuff. We know how to curate our own experiences on here and we do it well. We do it strictly. We even implement add-ons made by fellow users to make doing so even easier, since you can’t. We curate our things CONSTANTLY.

For once, just actually fucking listen to input from your users for once. Put out feelers, ask questions, just SOMETHING properly communicative that takes genuine and intelligent effort so you can get REAL, factual feedback rather than taking these ridiculous leaps in thought and action based off claims that your core userbase cannot for the life of themselves figure out where the fuck you got them. Maybe if you did this, you’d stop being met with nothing but venom and spit in your faces from every user who sees you spout this kind of stupid shit.

Oh, and, as always: Maybe forget dicking around with things that don’t need changing on this site and START TAKING ACTUALLY EFFECTIVE STEPS TO ERADICATING YOUR STUPID FUCKING BOT PROBLEMS. If we started a drinking game where every user takes a shot every time you start fiddling with something on this site that doesn’t need to be fiddled with instead of solving the bot problems somehow finally, Tumblr would ACTUALLY collapse then because we’d all die of alcohol poisoning. You can start being actually useful instead of spouting out buzzword-ridden capitalism algorithm bullshit that’s untrue about the site literally any time. We’re all waiting.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[mywitchcultblr]

NSFW and the importance of AO3

My biggest concern if Twitter really die is nsfw artist and sex workers. Us NSFW artist has been betrayed time and time again by many platform who used to welcome us then spit us out once the platform is big enough or to bow down to advertisers.

TikTok censorship is beyond ridiculous

Pinterest wouldn't even allow topless art of a woman

Instagram too not that friendly to nsfw artist

Tumblr banned porn post 2018 and wouldn't hesitate to delete your blog

I'm not sure about pillowfort i heard it's allow nsfw but not as free as twitter? Correct me if I'm wrong tho i never use it

Facebook? Nah i wouldn't even bother.

There's Pixiv but it's not accessible for all people

Mastodon is still new and frankly many said that it has a steep learning curve

DeviantArt turned it's back both to both nsfw and sfw artist with their censorship (literally i see more and more artist who have to censor tits, cock, asshole and even pussy) and also their bullshit piece of shit AI generation + stealing from artist for their generator

Sites like Rule 34 and Hentai site are there but they are not really platform to grow your audience as an artist + too many art thief

Patreon I heard implementing more censorship? It's not social media but many artist using it

Poipiku is a Japanese platform and not all people are native Japan speaker

The fucking dystopian corporations like apple and Google ( and purity culture both in fandom and non fandom) keep sanitizing the internet and wiped out nsfw content for profit (it's not for protecting children or blah blah blah it's all for ads) kicking out all nsfw content creators from all platform they touch, forcing us to wander with no home to express ourselves. NSFW artist still have some wiggle room to thrive but I think sex workers have it harder to thrive on a more mainstream platform...

I know there's many sites for sex workers like for camgirl or whatever but mainstream sites that once more accepting of nsfw has been kicking down sex workers down to the curb again and again and again

If Twitter let's say goes down suddenly or gradually goes down and maybe banning nsfw... Artist will lost the last mainstream global platform that allow them to grow an audience as an nsfw artist

This for fandom nsfw artist who are not using site like poipiku and pixiv it left us with only AO3 to store our art

Yes you can post art to AO3 just tag it as art, literally it is the best safe haven for writing + art with it's mission to protect people creation, they even have lawyer and stuff to protect your rights + AO3 is super nsfw friendly literally you can upload anything that is legal within the USA law (that's a lot of things, thank God it's not based on my country Indonesia law or you wouldn't even see gay people kissing)

But AO3 is primarily used for fanfic + it's not a social media and shouldn't ever be a social media, it is an archive to preserve fanwork. It is fanwork library of Alexandria. The downside because it's not a social media and thus doesn't have features like chatting, algorithm and stuff is that it's harder for you to grow like in other social media. Let's say Twitter really gone if i want to post a series of comic/manga

Then i have to post the sfw/censored pages to Tumblr + post the nsfw page to AO3 it'll be a hassle for both me and my readers but it's possible

Still such a hassle and it'll be easier to just post to Twitter or when Tumblr still allowed nsfw

Also original artist will find it harder to gain audience faster on Tumblr and AO3 because both website are primarily for fandom. Like i can draw a sketch of let's say Anakin Skywalker and it'll get more traction than a fully rendered piece of original artwork

I mean it's possible but if you want to get traction easily as an original artist your art have to be godlike to be noticed amongst seas of fanart that the general public sees as more favorable... I mean you can try to build audience with doing fanwork and once you got big you can post more OG art

Still... It's easier to grow as an original artist on Twitter than on Tumblr or other platform...

Look yeah it's fun to see Twitter on fire but if it's really gone it'll be a disaster for nsfw creators/artist especially those who are making money from it to keep the roof above their head. I hope Twitter doesn't die tbh (I only made acc to see nsfw art, if Tumblr didn't ban porn i wouldn't even bother to use it or too many social media) also this situation brought back the reminder of AO3 importance as the safest and biggest archive especially for nsfw writers and fan artist that keep losing places to post their work, express themselves and earn a living

[jellybeanforest-a-go-go]

I hope this is OK, but I've seen your posts on AO3 and I was wondering what your thoughts are concerning racism on the site. I'm not on ao3 a lot, but I've seen BIPOC users complain on tumblr about racist content on AO3 and it not being addressed. Do you think there's a way (should there be a way) to address the issues of racism on AO3? Idk, just something I'm thinking about and would like to hear someone's input. Sorry if this is vague.

This has been something I’ve been thinking and reading about for months, so this is going to be a long answer.

First off, I think it’s important to note that this is not an issue unique to AO3. Racism can be found on AO3, but it also be found on Tumblr, FFN, Wattpad, Twitter, Discord, Youtube... basically any site with a large userbase. Racism is a problem in fandom spaces, including AO3, because it is a problem in society in general. 

Secondly, AO3 is first and foremost an archive, not a social media site as some people have claimed. There are no forums for people to gather and discuss and organize, no algorithms to recommend other material based on what you have clicked on or favorited, no DMs/PMs, no personal journaling/ephemeral posts, etc. There are comments on individual works, but these are all siloed and specific to the work, and most more-general communication is done off-site on sites like Tumblr or Discord. As an archive, AO3 does not moderate content in the same way your local library does not screen its catalogue for respectability and will contain all types of objectionable content, including books by literal Nazis. AO3′s mission, which has not changed since its inception, is to host all fannish content, and they will “not remove content for offensiveness, no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled [they] may personally find that content to be.” They are never going to moderate content, because once they make an exception for one thing, then people will clamor to remove additional categories of things. If they remove racism, what about ableism? Or homophobia? Or sexism? Can a fic depict these issues at all (especially considering that the authors likely to write about discrimination are likely people who experience it IRL, which I will get to later in the post)? What if it’s an element that exists in the original canon (like Gone With the Wind) or I’m writing an AU set in the American Civil Rights era? What if the fic has more subtle racist undertones instead of being outright racist? How do they deal with that nuance? Adding to all that, racism is also going to look different based on culture. How will AO3 moderate a Chinese-language fic that depicts the Japanese in a very negative light? Is it okay if such a fic is set during the historical Rape of Nanjing? Basically, how are you going to standardize it so that the application of such a rule is even across the board and sensitive to other cultures? I don’t know the answers to all these, but I do know that content moderation has basically been the slow death knell of every fannish site to date (e.g. the FFN purges, LJ Strikethrough) and was the reason that AO3 was created and has since thrived. They will host literally any fannish content that is legal in the state of New York, where they are located, because it is a clear line with actual legal standards that make this content easier to identify, remove, and report to the proper authorities.

That being said, I do believe that racism should be addressed in some way because it can become an accessibility issue for POC, where they may feel unwelcome if a troll operating in bad faith decides to flood multiple large fandom tags with shitty racist fics with slurs in the title and/or additional tags. We’ve already seen this happen with the infamous STWW fic where the author, after their one month suspension (due to death threats in the Author’s Notes, though some people have pointed out they may have also broken the TOS because their excessive tagging made the site unusable for screen readers and crashed mobile phones), came back and changed the title to a bunch of racist and homophobic slurs, updated the tags to include the largest fandoms and pairings, made the summary into a block of text where one letter was on each line to take up as much screen real estate as possible, and then proceeded to update daily for several days so as many people as possible in the multiple effected fandoms were subjected to it until it was ultimately restricted AGAIN by AO3 and then deleted by the author. (I don’t know why it was restricted a second time, but that has to count as harassment, right?) Anyway, to combat similar situations, I believe that AO3 users should have the ability to mute/block not only authors (which is in the works already) but also blacklist tags without having to type them into the Exclude filter every single time. I have also seen some suggestions for disallowing certain words in the metadata of fics (e.g. title and tags, but not the actual body of the fic), and this could work, though the database for it is going to be large to accommodate multiple languages, cultures, and sensitivities. This solution would also require discussions about what should count as a slur for purposes of metadata restriction, but I do think this is a worthwhile solution that will allow maximum inclusiveness of fic while giving users the tools to curate their own experience on the archive.

I have seen other solutions that have been suggested on Tumblr, but many of them would be impractical to implement, not have the intended effect, and/or make the situation significantly worse by increasing the potential for harassment.

One suggestion is to add a Mandatory Tag for Racism. Currently, there are four mandatory archive warnings for fics on AO3 for underage, major character death, rape/noncon, and graphic violence. There is also "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings," which basically means the fic can have any of the above, but the author is not specifying which one applies. Generally, AO3 will leave tagging up to the discretion of the author, but if one of the archive warnings do apply and the author doesn't tag it AND they don't tag "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings," then readers can report the fic, and AO3 will reach out to the author to change it. If the author still doesn't want to tag the mandatory warning, AO3 will add a "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings" tag to the fic that the author cannot remove, because that is exactly what they have chosen to do. Some people have suggested that AO3 add a fifth warning: Racism. While well-meaning, I sometimes wonder if people have really thought this through, specifically what would be the steps to implement it and what a “Racism” tag would actually mean.

Before you implement a new Mandatory Archive tag, you have to consider what to do with the millions of fic already on AO3. Should they contact all of the authors to inform them of the new warning? Add "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings" to all of them to cover all bases? Grandfather older fic in so that anything past a certain date must be warned for (similar to what they did with the new tag limit)? Wait for reader reports and assess each one by hand? (Keep in mind, everyone is a volunteer and there are millions of fics of various lengths that can be altered by the author at any time.) To assess such fics, you need to standardize the guidelines for what requires the tag. Again, how do they assess whether a fic warrants the tag? Sure, some stuff is obvious, but what about more subtle forms of racism? How would this be defined and standardized so that the guidelines can be applied evenly and fairly across the board. You may notice that the mandatory archive warnings tend to be fairly objective, because what do you think is easier to figure out: Whether a major character dies in a fic or whether something is racist? You also have to contend with bad actors who will use any type of content moderation to harass content or ships they don’t like. I’ve seen takes on Tumblr and Reddit that interracial ships are racist and/or ”harmful” to minorities because one shouldn’t ship a person with white privilege with someone that will never attain white privilege or this will be “diluting” minority culture, which is just a racist argument against interracial relationships that (poorly) co-opts progressive language. I’ve also seen (more common) arguments that some all-white ships are automatically racist because they ignore prominent non-white characters. Basically, I wouldn’t envy someone who has to shift through hundreds of reports of FinnRey or Reylo fics supposedly being racist that have little to do with content and more to do with ship wars. But let’s say that AO3 does implement a new mandatory archive tag, are able to figure out what to do with the old fic, draw up objective guidelines to judge these fics, and somehow no one uses this new policy to harass people (a huge stretch, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that everyone is on their best behavior), there are still two hurdles:

1) Like any Mandatory Archive tag, if the fic requires an archive tag, and the author chooses not to warn for it, AO3 is not going to do more than slap on a “Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings” tag on it. 

2) Used correctly, the Racism tag wouldn’t even be an indication of whether a fic is actually racist. For instance, a Tony Stark/Rhodey fic set in the late 1980's that deals with the realities of being an interracial gay couple may deal with themes of homophobia and racism and be rightly tagged "Homophobia" and "Racism," but that doesn't mean the fic itself is homophobic and/or racist. 

So, if people try to say that everything tagged “Racism” is actually racist, just know that they’re going to include a lot of work by BIPOC that deals with depictions of racism in a critical way, and if your ultimate goal is to be able to filter out racist fic, then a new mandatory tag isn’t going to work real well for that purpose. In fact, stories by minority writers are often the ones that are most often reported or flagged for such incendiary content (even compared to works with similar themes by white authors). This dovetails with another suggestion that I’ve read about: Reader-generated Trigger Warnings. Some people have suggested that AO3 allows readers to flag works as racist. AO3 wouldn’t even be the first site to implement such a feature. Storygraph (for traditionally published books) gives readers the ability to flag triggering content. 

Anyone want to guess what happened?

Anyone?

If you guessed that trigger warnings were weaponized against marginalized authors, with their books being flagged more often for content warnings and some works being flagged with triggers they don’t even contain as a form of harassment, then you get a virtual cookie. In fact, Storygraph had to implement author-approved tags (similar to what AO3 has now) to get around the issue of readers being absolute dicks and purportedly trying to discourage people from reading content by marginalized authors. If you don’t think AO3 will suffer the same problem with reader-generated tags, then you honestly have way more faith in humanity than we deserve. 

So, in closing, I think the best way to deal with racism on AO3 is to allow users to block, block, block. AO3 doesn’t have to take down content; they don’t have to give us well-meaning-but-poorly-thought-out tools that will inevitably be used to harass the people they are trying to protect, but I think we all would like to be able to remove certain users and content from our fandom experience entirely without having to use special skins or having to re-enter long exclusion filters. 

[nocapesdahling]

As the World Falls Down - Chapter 1

Helmut Zemo x Gender Neutral Reader

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Summary: You are the head of Research and Development for your squad in Sokovia and also serve as its handler. Your leader is the esteemed Colonel Helmut Zemo, your best friend though you’ve often sometimes wished that it could be more than that.

Rating: Mature (17+)

There is currently no explicit sexual content planned for this fic, but there may be things heavily implied as we move forward so rating it M to be safe. Please respect the rating.

Chapter Warnings/Tags: Slow Burn; Canon pairing of Heike Zemo/Helmut Zemo; implied potential polyamory; Zemo likes to be called Sir; Referenced Age Difference; Angst will be coming in subsequent chapters.

A/N: Hi everyone! Helmut Zemo and this idea would not leave me alone. This is my first reader fic and my first fic published on Tumblr, so I would love to hear what you think. This will be a multi-chapter fic, covering Age of Ultron, Civil War, and TFATWS. The first three chapters will cover AOU. Zemo and everyone in this chapter are speaking Sokovian, but it's written in English. It is assumed that the reader’s nickname exists in the Sokovian alphabet.

Chapter 1: Beneath a Fallen Sky (Age of Ultron) - Part 1

Word Count: 3k

Chapter Summary: Everything was normal. Well as normal as it could be in the day in the life of a handler for a Sokovian covert intelligence squad when robots began to attack Novi Grad and things…well, things went downhill from there.

You had met Baron Helmut Zemo years ago, though you hadn’t known he was a baron back then, in what felt like another life and had been by his side ever since. You served as the tech wizard and handler for his team of EKO Scorpions, outfitting them with gadgets, designing their suits and masks, and acting as tech support for their missions. Zemo had jokingly referred to you as Q when you presented him with his purple mask for the first time and to your slight embarrassment it had stuck. No one on the team had called you anything else since.

Now, machines had attacked Novi Grad and you had to do something for Sokovia, for her people. You tried hacking the machines to no avail. You’d get into one and then it would fall over lifeless as though it never worked in the first place. The algorithm was constantly changing and the AI was too complex without your specially designed work equipment, which was currently in your base miles outside the city and not your apartment, so it was time for plan B.

You focused on getting your people out of the city and saving as many civilians as possible. A swarm of robots attacking seemed like something that would attract the attention of the Avengers, but they weren’t here yet and you couldn’t sit idly by waiting for them to arrive. You called the members of your team and reached almost all of them. They were stationed around the city, doing their parts to help civilians as covertly as possible. Your team was not used to doing anything without their masks, which you did not tend to bring home, but this was an extraordinary situation so you would all do what you must.

You had reached everyone, except Helmut. He wasn’t picking up via his phone or his earpiece, and you couldn’t help but worry about him and his family. You had all been called to (well, ordered if you were being technical) to defend the city, but your squad wouldn’t function the same without its leader.

You needed Colonel Helmut Zemo.

This was the first time in a long time that you had been out in the field, preferring to be behind the scenes, but you were capable and skilled enough to be there. Zemo had made sure of it.

________________________________________________________________

Flashback:

You were designing an exploding pen in the lull between missions, just for fun, when you registered Helmut’s presence in the room. You had no idea how long he had been standing there as you often got lost in your head, especially while working on a diverting project. Your brain flitted from one thought to the next and fixated on solving different problems or creating new gadgets. The outside world became a blur to you. Helmut’s voice was one of the few things that could draw you out of it. It had been like that since you first met him. Maybe, it was the timbre of his voice that always seemed to reach you even when you were figuratively miles away. His deep voice was so lovely.

“How useful do you think that would be, my Q?” Helmut’s voice was amused and fond.

You turned to face your best friend ready to excitedly tell him the multitude of uses for the exploding pen in the field, when your breath caught in your throat. Sometimes, it took you aback how handsome he was. He was wearing his military uniform today and he looked too attractive in it. It wasn’t even fair.

His hair often fell on his forehead, giving you the urge to brush it away. It was difficult for you to resist the urge to touch that lock of hair and him in general, but you were succeeding so far. Somehow. You gave yourself a metaphorical pat on the back for that. You thought you deserved it.

A man shouldn’t look so good with a gun in his hand either, even if it was one you designed. There was something undeniably sexy about the way Helmut used your gadgets, which took you so much time and effort to make. He took the time to understand them and utilize their full abilities. It made you feel like he was making the effort to understand you.

His smooth and confident motions were also mesmerizing to watch via the screen, while you directed the squad on missions. You had never allowed yourself to get too distracted by him, but acknowledged the beauty of his savagery that he occasionally employed to get the job done.

It was a toss up between which look you liked better, the military uniform or the dark purple sweater and coat he wore for certain missions. You had made sure that his shoulder holsters fit under it and that everything looked smooth. God, you loved how he looked in that coat. (You would also admit to admiring how the shoulder holsters looked on him too).

You took him in. His hands were encased in black leather gloves and his hair was mussed from his mask, but he looked good like always even having just come back from a mission. You took a glance down at his hands.

No blood this time, thank goodness.

You attempted to snap yourself out of it, hoping Helmut wouldn’t notice. Your brain was being particularly uncooperative today, pointing out everything you shouldn’t notice. Your mind was filled with of images of how it would feel for Helmut to caress and handle you the way he did the guns and gadgets you presented to him, what the leather of his gloves would feel like on your bare skin, and how it would feel to trace the multitude of scars you knew he received from missions not just on his chest but all over his body.

Maybe, it was time to find a new romantic partner that Helmut couldn’t scare away. He had intimidated the last one away within minutes of meeting them, and you hadn’t bothered to try to meet someone since.

What was the point when Helmut vetoed them as soon as you introduced them?

Given some of your current thoughts, it was probably time to do something about the lack of romance in your life. With your luck however, they would take one look at Helmut and run for the hills in both a figurative and literal sense. The man was quietly intimidating at the best of times, but when he actually tried he oozed danger. You almost couldn’t blame your possible partner. Meanwhile, when his full focus and attention were on you, you felt flustered and hot in a way you had never felt with anyone else though you attempted not to show it. You thought that you had been rather successful at that, though who could tell with Helmut? The man might have known about your crush on him for ages, but hadn’t said anything to save your pride.

(Helmut did in fact know and found it adorable. He and Heike had once mused about adding you as a third and equal part of their relationship, because both had seen the way you watched them even if you might not have noticed them watching you back. That reminded him that he needed to bring that up with Heike once more when he returned home. He schooled his face to give nothing away before continuing to watch you as you stayed lost in your thoughts. He would coax you out of it soon, but enjoyed watching your face as your brain worked.)

You attempted to shake your thoughts away again, knowing that at this point if Helmut hadn’t noticed your inattention before then he certainly had now. The man was happily married to a wonderful and gorgeous woman, who you adored, and you were his son’s godparent for goodness sake. You might have had a chance at one point years ago. You had thought your friendship might have become something more, but that had been before Helmut had met Heike.

What chance did you have with a Baron, anyway?

Helmut had stepped closer, while you were lost in your musings and reached for your hand. “Where have you gone Q, darling? Have I lost you in your head again?”

You snapped out of it and almost jumped back because of his new proximity. His brown eyes bored into yours with slight crinkles in the corners, showing his joking mood. You shook your head and hoped again that he didn’t notice the reason for your distraction, though you didn’t have much hope. The man noticed everything.

“I was just thinking about the improvements I could make to the exploding pen and how you all could use it on your missions!” you exclaimed, excitement in your voice and face as you spoke of your work. You hoped your enthusiasm would divert him from questioning what had distracted you.

Helmut chuckled softly and played along, “May I?”. He indicated the pen that was still sitting in your hand. His lips were slightly upturned. He knew how passionate you got about your gadgets.

“Of course, Colonel,” you smirked back and handed him the pen. Your hands brushed, the leather of his gloves caressing your palm.

Helmut stepped closer to the light and examined the pen. “I can already think of several uses for this, my Q, though I did happen to notice something about this particular pen.” He turned on his heel and held the pen up for your perusal as though you hadn’t spent the last hour examining and perfecting it. You played along, leaning closer as if to examine the pen. Helmut loved his games, and you had never been anything but a willing participant.

“Hmm?” you made a questioning sound as you straightened your blazer and looked away to avoid eye contact in the hopes that he would come closer with your faux avoidance of his question.

You heard him step nearer, knowing that he could walk silently if he chose and that he wanted you to hear him. “Look at me, my Q. Where has this shyness come from, hmm?” His hand was on your chin, tilting your head up before you could respond.

At some point, when you weren’t looking, he had taken his gloves off and you had to stifle a shiver as his gun calloused warm hand touched the bare skin of your face. A brief thought crossed your mind of what that hand would feel like elsewhere before he let you go, staying a little too close for your piece of mind.

“There you are,” He smiled at you, a full one that was more rare than you would have liked. “Now, Q, you know what I noticed? This pen,” and here he drew your attention back to the pen by playfully flourishing it like the showman he was, “is one of mine. I am the only one on the team that uses this brand. Do you know how much a Mont Blanc costs, darling?”

You shook your head and smiled sheepishly. You knew vaguely that they were expensive, but it was the best kind of pen for this sort of thing so you hadn’t thought twice. “No, but it was the most sturdy pen and I knew that you, Boss, would be the one most likely to use it once it was done. So I thought you wouldn’t mind if I used your pen.”

Internally, you wanted to laugh. You knew that Helmut would not have let another member of the squad get away with some of the stuff you pulled. You were the only one who called him Boss, though you had experimented with calling him Sir like the rest of your squad. That had brought an odd light to his eyes that you had never been able to quite decipher. He had almost looked hungry. You refrained from calling him Sir too often after that, except when you really wanted something or intended to tease him.

Helmut smirked at you as he slipped the pen into his pocket, “I’ll be keeping this, Q. Usual activation, I presume?”

You smiled back, attempting to stop yourself from bouncing up and down on your heels. He and the rest of the squad always praised your gadgets, but it gave you a secret and special sort of thrill to have Helmut’s approval in particular. “Of course, Boss.”

“Now, for the actual reason I came here before we got so delightfully distracted by the products of your brain, you and I are going to the gun range. I happened to notice you haven’t been there in some time, Q.”

“I’ve been busy,” you protested while knowing he wouldn’t buy it, “Being the team’s handler and tech wizard is hard work.”

You had never enjoyed committing violence yourself, so tended to avoid the range, though you had never minded watching Helmut on his solo missions and as he lead the team on group missions. The thought passed through your head again that the man looked sexier than he should in full uniform with a gun in his hand. You shook your head in an attempt to dislodge your thoughts. You weren’t sure where they had come from today, but you wanted them to stop and stop now. You resolved once again to pursue a new relationship. Helmut was your friend and could not be anything more, no matter your fantasies and dreams.

“I know you work hard, darling Q, and that you can handle yourself, but you must practice in case the worst were to happen and we needed you in the field. I know you have the needed patience, my Q, with your line of work, but you must gain the experience. A person can do anything if they have those. You can do anything… I’ve known that ever since I first met you when you were a young student. How many grades did you skip again? Look how much you’ve accomplished and you’re still so young.”

You ignored his question about the grades you had skipped. You had been something of a child prodigy and had been younger than the average grad student. “Yeah, yeah, Boss and you’re such an old man. Also, I’m not that much younger than you. Do you remember our first conversation in the library?”

“Of course, Q. I’ll never forget it, even when I am actually an old man. You got my attention by your book selections. Machiavelli and hmm what was the second one?”

You noticed again that Helmut truly was in a joking mood today. The mission must have gone well. They hadn’t needed you to act as the handler for this one, but you were glad there’d been no mishaps. Sometimes, after a difficult mission, Helmut brought his field persona back to the base. During those instances, his demeanor gave off the impression of a man who would do whatever necessary to accomplish his goals. No matter what was required. You hated to say it, but when he was like that you were a little turned on. (Well, more than a little but you weren’t going there at the moment). 

You had always had a thing for intelligent and ruthless men, which now that you thought about it had started once you met Helmut, and his domineering field persona made you feel hot. You gave up on controlling your thoughts today as that seemed to be a lost cause, and internally sighed. Heike was a lucky woman.

“You’ll never let that one go, will you? It was for my course. Read one German erotic book or two, and no one ever lets you forget it.”

“Or two, my Q? Who said anything about a second one?”

“No one. Not me. Moving on, anyway you think anyone younger than you is young, Helmut. Also, you look younger than your actual age.”

“Yes, I know. Helps for undercover missions.”

“Of course, it does. Did you even need those glasses you were wearing when we met or were they just there to make you look more studious?”

He laughed and gestured for you to lead the way to the range, not answering your somewhat rhetorical question. “Let’s go, Q. I have to see how rusty you’ve gotten. Afterwards, perhaps if you’re good, I will teach you how to wield a sword.”

“Oh I’ll show you how good I can be, Sir.”

End Flashback

_____________________________________________________________

Well, the so-called worst had happened and you were out in the field, facing killer robots of all things. You were working in conjunction with your squad to evacuate and protect neighbors and strangers alike, but it was different being out here as opposed to behind a screen. You had finally been able to reach Helmut, and he had gotten Heike and Carl to safety outside the city with his father on their estate. You had breathed a sigh of relief at that. They would be safe there, and you did not need to worry about them. He had also reported that the Avengers had finally arrived and that they had been able to see them from their car window, which meant that it was time for your squad to finish up and get out of there.

Helmut was elsewhere in the city, and your squad was one of the only ones still in Novi Grad proper, so you were spread thin. Yet you couldn’t help but wish to see Helmut, to embrace him for what could be the last time. You had faith in your squad and the Avengers, but this was your country and your people at stake. That unwavering faith lasted until Novi Grad’s, your home’s, streets began to splinter and the city began to lift from the ground faster than you would have thought possible and no one seemed to be able to stop it, not even “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

[levyfiles]

Watcher fumbled their launch. No one I know is arguing otherwise; what was a hard launch should have been a soft launch to a small group in their fanspace while their website was in beta test mode. We don't know just how long this plan was in the works for them because the internet didn't let them do much in the way of explaining; any mention of their business as a reason to make the move had people calling them greedy, capitalist assholes who didn't care about their audiences. A simple statement as "we wanted to choose a price we thought everyone would consider affordable" has now been twisted to "that must mean they think I'm poor because I disagree with the price".

All it took was one commentary youtuber sitting in his bedroom in front of a single camera googling them once and saying "they have 3k patrons; they must be ad-friendly because they don't capitalise on drama like I do, and I make plenty of money on Youtube so clearly they're doing this out of greed."

They literally say in the Goodbye Youtube video that they are constantly at war with being able to make content for two different audiences: their fans and the advertisers; they cited Weird, Wonderful World, a show that most of their fans love which does not get the views that Ghost Files gets--as one of those the streaming service would give them an opportunity to give us back without the pressure of the algorithm.

You mention that Watcher's failing was that they said money was their reason for jumping platforms and in the next line you directly cite Keith and Zach complaining about being demonitized.

You see, my issue isn't that the Try Guys was a better launch. I have been a Try Guys fan and with the full roster of people joining their team I'm just as excited as I am for Andrew and Adam joining Watcher.

My issue is that the end game is the same; Watcher should have had an opportunity to advertise their new talent, their new medium and even potentially continue to collaborate with an ever broadening market of diverse content both parties are launching but the Try Guys merely dodged the front line bullet, got to watch hellfire and racism rain down on their old colleagues, delay their own announcement to pivot the spin, and their fandom is being so ugly dropping in the Watcher tag with the same old misinformed narrative like they've successfully summarised why Steven deserved the name-calling and the racism, why people telling them to lay off their employees was the answer, telling them to go back to the quality they had with their limited resources and lack of ownership at Buzzfeed, why their response to the backlash is still not good enough because the internet--for some reason- believes that entertainment and content is a human staple like food or water. Like it's some kind of justice move that people like you still believe the lie that they were privating videos at the time of launch (what?) or that they're not a smaller company than the try guys trying to make it on the scorched earth platform that is Youtube now.

It's the same damn thing and villianizing them for the move while accepting the Try Guys for it is hypocritical especially because the people who have real grievances with what this means for the industry of free internet content are being shoved toward bullying Watcher for it.

I said this before in April and I guess I gotta say it again. Creators who have any real investment in their audience and their craft are eventually all going to migrate and instead of bullying these creators or starting up an unhealthy narrative by not supporting each other or even saying a word edgewise in support when the tide was so ugly, get on the advertisers and Youtube and social media platforms for enabling the shift which values attention mining spam and distraction propaganda over really good content that we all collectively actually enjoy!

The Try Guys sure didn't mince words in their flagrant attempt to ride the wave on Watcher's mismanaged launch by acting like they didn't already have this in their pocket as they watched Watcher being raked through the coals.

Imagine supporting your fellow independent creator. Imagine going through a terrible scandal yourself that had you guys pinned as the laughing stock on SNL but you really launched the same damn thing with all the smug wording knowing that it would get people angry all over again at Watcher.

[kmcarras]

Part 4 only got 4 notes!? That's nuts! For the record, I did find your reddie storyboard here on tumblr first, but now I follow you on twitter and instagram too (and youtube) so I ended up seeing it in my youtube subscription box first and then liking it on twitter and instagram and I didn't check tumblr until now. Maybe there's less notes here because people tend to see it/share it on the other sites first? idk but I want you to feel appreciated, you're doing God's work (I'm atheist but u know)

haha yeah i think it’s up to 17 now. i posted it both in the master thread with all four parts thus far and on its own, so it got a few more in the master thread, but in general i think because the master thread is considered just a reblog of part 1, it doesn’t show up high in the tags or whatnot. part 4 never got a whole ton of notes, even when i posted it on here without sound. like the one that got the most notes was when i posted part 1&2 as a combo the first time without sound, and they’ve all kinda gone downhill from there. i’ve chalked it up to that the reddie fandom has mostly died down and that it’s really noticeable on tumblr because tumblr has also mostly died??? but yeah i’ve gotten decent feedback on instagram. i’ve literally taken out ads on instagram so that it gets seen because it getting seen is what motivates me to keep working. because it takes so long for me to make one part, i don’t post often between those, and the instagram algorithm favors those who post frequently, like practically everyday. unfortunately, instagram has not been approving my ads lately, my guess is because of the cussing, but i have a decent number of followers now on there who are really nice and vocal. i honestly haven’t been coming on tumblr as much because it kind of depresses me, so i mostly stick to instagram. that being said, the people who do reach out are so incredibly kind, and the people who reblog with comments really brighten my day. and thank u! i’m agnostic and i use that phrase sometimes too. i hope i’m not coming across as whining. i just know myself and i know that this is a long story and an ambitious endeavor- we are only about a third of the way through it— and im very scared of losing my motivation and not finishing it. edit: but yes i’ve considered that too, that maybe it’s just being shared on other sites. i’m trying to just have tunnel vision for instagram where it’s doing well unless it picks up steam on the other sites.

[same-side]

I just finished DBH and Im seriously so in love with it! But when I came on Tumblr, all I could find is all this content around Gavin, and Im just so confused, because he seemed like such a jerk in the game. Why are people so into Gavin? Did I miss something?

Hi there!

First off, allow me to welcome you to the fandom!

In regards to Gavin: you literally did not miss anything; he is absolutely a one dimensional jerk in game!

Its important we make a distinction here between fanon Gavin and canon Gavin. You’ll find the fandom is incredibly divided - a lot of people adore him, a lot of people hate him. The reason for disliking him is understandable, of course - there’s a slew of incredible and well rounded characters in dbh (North, Luther, Kara…) that are swept under the rug in favour of a veritable avalanche of content for rat man reed. He has 14 minutes of screen time in which literally all he does is antagonize and threaten the player. But people have to understand, when someone says they love Gavin, they mean fanon Gavin. I don’t think theres a single person that is actually a canon Gavin stan. 

Keeping that in mind, you also have to take into account the drop off - at this point, the only people still left/creating content in the fandom are generally the ones that are balls deep and clinging to the headcanons, au’s, etc. that they’ve built with friends. This applies heavily to Gavin for reasons discussed below. Additionally, the algorithms for sites like tumblr and instagram won’t recommend old posts; old posts don’t show up in tags. Artists with a lot of clout that have since moved on from the fandom’s work have basically disappeared into the void (rebelflet, for example). So it may seem like there’s only content of Gavin / Gavin ships, but in reality there’s a ton of jericrew and Kara crew out there from when the fandom was still new / bigger - you just have to know where to look.

So… why do people like Gavin… I mean, it helps that canonically he has beefy tiddies, a cool bad boy jacket, and a pretty face at certain angles.

That being said, I think one of the biggest reasons Gavin (and RK900, by extension) are so popular is that they aren’t well rounded, fleshed out characters. Because we don’t really know anything about them and they have minimal screen time, they’re easy to project on or to add onto, and no one can tell you that you’re wrong because there’s no evidence against it. It’s almost like a universally shared OC that the fandom has developed together. Since they have no canon backstory, and in rk900’s case, no canon personality, it allows for a lot of creative freedom and the ability to explore character interactions, foils, and growth within the dbh universe. The growth aspect, I think, in conjunction with the projection aspect, is key point for the popularity. It tends to be fairly formulaic. Take the canonical asshole Gavin, stick him with an android - whether its RK900 as his partner or Connor as a coworker. Have him come to care for the RK model, and deal with his own insecurities (and usually a traumatic past, the flavor of which might depend on the creator’s own life struggles). Repent, redeem, grow. This redemption arc is the same exact vein of growth and change that makes Hank and Connor such an appealing partnership for players as well - only, in Gavin’s case, it allows for complete freedom in how to get from point a to point b. People like a character they can relate to - and when you can smack your own possible trauma (being an illegitimate child, having an abusive lover, abusive parents, abandonment fears, body insecurity, whatever it may be) on a character because they’re a blank slate, you relate to them and vent through them. Even little “silly” projections or projections that aren’t necessarily traumatic can make someone love a character even more - for example, “Gavin loves Hello Kitty,” “Gavin can’t handle spicy food,” “Gavin is Latino.” Even when the creator isn’t projecting, adding these kinds of headcanons make him a fleshed out, three dimensional character that people can relate to or empathize with, especially when giving his actions an explanation besides just fear of losing his job.

I came into the dbh fandom a little late; by the time I knew what it was, the hype had died down and reed900 was already a firmly cemented, heavily present part of the content. Given that, I’m not sure what its exact origins were, or if it seemingly popped up overnight. It could have been crack. My best guess is that people saw the positive change between Hank and Connor, and thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be rad if we stuck the other Connor with the other dysfunctional DPD bastard?” . I admit, it makes a nice parallel, which may be part of the appeal in additional to the previous reasons. Speaking of those kinds of interpersonal relationships, there’s also a popular headcanon (that’s been mentioned/liked by d*vid c*ge himself) that Kamski and Gavin are siblings/half siblings/cousins. This stems from the fact that Kamski and Gavin are both mo-capped/voiced by the same actor. By taking this headcanon into account, it adds depth to Gavin’s hatred of androids and allows for interesting backstory exploration, growth, and reconciliation.

Another reason is the enemies-to-lovers trope. For a lot of people that trope really jimmies their neutrons, and what could be better than an android hater and an android to fit that cliche? Once again, analogous to hankcon. The angst potential is also incredible when you take convin or hankvin into account instead of reed900 - reading into Hank and Gavin’s interactions it would seem there’s a tumultuous past between them. And in Connor’s case, Gavin can actually kill him or he can KO Gavin, which allows for a good deal of enemies-to-lovers and angsty regret material. Besides, a lot of people are really into hate s*x.

That…. makes a good segway. I may as well mention the elephant in the room for Gavin’s popularity. There’s a culture of fetishizing abuse in fandoms and Gavin is a prime target for this because “”he’s asking for it.”” It’s also easy to make one character a psychopath when they don’t even have a canon personality. This shows up a lot, whether because of writers treating it as a kink in fanfic or artists using it as a gag because its “funny”. I… won’t really go into detail on this, but it is a phenomenon that adds to the slew of Gavin content. This is another reason for why a lot of people hate Gavin / hate reed900. I started out feeling this way as well. Their perception of it is coloured by the abusive stuff or the mishandled stuff that seems to be prominent. I just have to say that this blog is a safe, sane, and consensual zone.

Sorry, that was a really long breakdown but I hope that gives some insight into the Gavin phenomenon. Last point. He winks like a dumbass. How can you not love that face.

[renegade-is-in-my-blood]

Being in the blogging business for around 8 years now I came to learn a lot. Let’s hear from the old bitter blogger about the difference between being an ambassador and being a customer. When you’re investing more than you’re gaining from the collaboration it’s not really a collaboration you’re looking for.

There is a new trend going around social media, especially Instagram. I’ve been getting collaboration offers on a daily basis even pre COVID times but now the amount of pseudo collaborations increased.

Hands down it is an incredible business strategy from the business point of view.

Everyone wants to be an ambassador.

Ambassador became an even more prestigious title than an influencer. Influencer posses some sort of responsibility for their actions whilst ambassador is just being paid for simply being.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Many brands use this knowledge to the fullest and offers these pseudo collaborations.

So what is a pseudo collaboration?

Well, it starts off by being contacted by a brand.

You’ll receive a ctrl+c ctrl+v message from a brand-name-scout. The message contains several cute emojis and addresses you as a gorgeous, pretty, cutie, love, honey, sweety, and if they really want to get you, even by your Instagram name.

It’s usually followed by a bunch of compliments about your fashion style, vibe, Instagram, or whatever. Then there is a lie about following or just generally noticing you for a while without ever seeing your insta story, like any of your posts, or even actually following you.

Now it’s time for an offer beneficial for you.

Usually, it’s free products, a way to earn a commission, or just the sheer option to be able to call yourself an ambassador. Every single brand out there offers a “support” like anyone really knows what’s that supposed to mean. I had several ones even offering me a travel trips, but never elaborated on it after my further questioning.

Now comes the hook with a “do you want to learn more?” question.

If you think I’m exaggeration for the story and I can’t be generalizing all of the collaborations offers into a simple standard form I wish you were right. Here are some of the screenshots of my current Instagram DMs:

You might think: “What’s wrong with that? They’re trying so don’t be mean. Just ignore them.” let me remind you how dumb Instagram algorithm is.

If your account is followed by bots, messaged by bots, liked by bots Instagram assumes you’re one of them or you got hacked by them. Sweet of them for trying to protect you thought, but holy hell did that made everything super complicated for me.

I got several messages from the brand scouts messaging me again because their previous account got deleted.

No shit Sherlock, it’s like you can’t keep creating accounts, following and messaging a bunch of people at once and ask for money anymore.

So now every time my account gets suspicious activity such as too many likes/follows/messages Instagram suspects my account got hacked. Each time they require I change my password and let me tell you I ran out of password ideas months ago.

That’s not the worst part though.

After each time I change my password I’m blocked for 7 days from liking, following, or adding tags to my posts and that sucks. Just to get a better picture of this issue I’m blocked approximately once sometimes twice per month.

The block comes hand in hand with a shadowban that lingers for god knows how long, meaning Instagram is not gonna support you in any way. That’s why I have around 40 likes on a posts with 47K followers most of which are bots anyway.

I loath Instagram app yet I spend hours a day on the hellish site and I’m not only one.

We spend so much time on Instagram anyway so when a chance to earn money form it comes along you’re tempted to take it. Brands know that.

Imagine you’re a small-town girl with around 400 followers on Instagram. You already feel pretty popular right?

Now imagine you get the messages I shared above but you get just one. Someone out there thinks you’re so popular they want you on their team, you are just like the big influencers, you get job offers for being an Instagram star. You’re the next Kardashian.

You can have all of the things they said to you BUT you need to do something for them first. You have to pay for it.

And here is the catch with all of the pseudo collaborations.

What they don’t say to you in their first message is what it’s gonna cost you.

Many offers you free stuff but you need to pay for the one-time shipping. Some brands offer you a unique discount of around 40-60% off so you’ll pay just a part of the price and you can call yourself an ambassador.

I don’t know about you, but I thought that was called the customer. You buy a product, you wear it and occasionally you take photo of it on your social media sites. The new term is an ambassador apparently.

I get why so many people agree to this kind of collaboration. It’s new for you. It makes you feel good and successful in your friend’s and families eyes. And there is that hopefully undertone of making money from it.

Aren’t the brands unprofitable when they give away discounts and free stuff?

In a theory, yes, but there is one thing all of the brands that messaged me had in common except for the audacity.

Overpriced products.

I got messaged by jewelry stores, fashion stores and gym equipment stores most of the time. I took the time and did my research on every one of them.

When a store sold jewelry, they had the same products as the rest of the jewelry stores I got contacted by. A small variety of around 8 products most of them sold out anyway. And let’s not forget the ridiculously high prices. You can’t charge a cheap Chinese necklace you can get on amazon or aliexpress for under a 1$ for 40$.

So even if you’re paying just around 30$ for your ambassador order they are still making a profit on your wannabe Instagramer need cuz they purchased said items for far less.

Well, I’m being a little miss know it all right?

How can I talk about pseudo collaboration like this when it’s all based on assumptions. Well you know me, I’m curious as hell and I actually went through 3 pseudo collaborations myself just to prove a point.

I literally spend money so I can tell you about it right now so here is how my 3 pseudo collaborations went like.

All of the ones I choose were jewelry based pseudo collaborations. With the corona times, post offices are overwhelmed with parcels. I ordered big parcels in recent times and they arrived with around a month delay. I figured smaller jewelry in an envelope form would be quicker to arrive and I was right.

Pseudo collaboration number one VONACHI:

A simple yet luxurious-looking website with very few decent pieces of jewelry, offered me 3 free pieces to take a photo in and promote. I would also get a 60% discount code and every time my code would be used I would receive 30% of the money amount. Incredibly overpriced amount in the first place.

Here is the list of all of the benefits they offered.

The scout that approached me was very eager. They kept insisting I place my order right away. No time to waste.

To make it clear I got a simple code to apply in a check out that subtracted the price and I got the pieces for free. All I had to do was pay a 20$ shipping fee what seems like nothing but for 3 small necklaces, it is way too much.

Another thing that was odd was that I was required to take a screenshot of my order and send it back to scout. I guess to prove I was legit.

After bunch of further compliments and claims how excited they are to be working with me we ended our conversation.

If you think I was being reckless to give my credit card and home address to such a questionable site don’t be.

Honestly, I trust zero people, sometimes I don’t even trust myself. I used a card I have no to very little money on and I got it shipped to a work address.

My parcel from china arrived in around a month and a half. I got one black box with one necklace and the other 2 necklaces were in small plastic bags. I received a note about welcoming me to the program and asking me to contact vonachi’s official Instagram account for setting up my discount code and that’s exactly what I did. The official page responded after longer time period with just a “this is your code” message. I took a photo, tagged vonachi as a business partner, and shared my code. I did my part and I was never contacted by them again.

My 60% code is VONAMBNAT and as you might have guessed no one used it so far.

Or at least no one told me it was used. If someone were to use my code I would be contacted by vonachi and here is the problem. I’m supposed to trust them with their credibility cuz there is no other way for me to check it for myself. This is what it’s missing from the old Time collaborations of mine. I would get a tracking code, an account login, graphs, statistics, and one on one communication with a brand in my previous collaborations. But you know Golden times for influencers are long gone.

Now I’m left to just simply trust them.

Why would they ever confess someone used my code? If a customer gets 60% off and I’m getting 30% from already discounted item there is just a very little left for vonachi. They don’t say anything and get to keep my 30% share.

They didn’t put much effort into tracking system cuz they are not expecting their ambassadors/customers to make any sales anyway.

The products were not that bad. They came in a bit rusty and tangled but I was excepting much worse.

Hell, I was not expecting them to legitimately arrive.

Pseudo collaboration number 2: ENGELSINN

I initiated this pseudo collaboration myself. Engelsinn paid a significant amount of money to Instagram promoted post and that’s where I found out they are looking for ambassadors.

I filled out an application form.

This one felt more legit cuz they actually asked for followers count and all of the communication occurred via email. Automated emails but still it reminded me of good old days.

I was given a 40% discount code to use on my first order. The shipping was free but it still cost me another 20$ to get the product. Since placing my first order I got a 20% discount code “nat7x20” for my followers to get 20% off their engelsinn order.

When my code is redeemed 2 times I get one jewelry of my choice for free.

Do I even need to mention that I didn’t get any email since?

Well, that’s not exactly true I got 2 more emails each with another discount code I could use for 24 hours and buy more of their stuff. But none about redeemed code.

Engelsinn is a german based brand and living so close I got my parcel in around a week. I got myself a rose gold knot bracelet and I feel like a hypocrite but I actually really love this one and wear it every day. I know I wouldn’t get it if it wasn’t for the research but I’m glad I did.

Btw the ad about engelsinn looking for ambassador is still up there and it still says they have only a few places left. It’s been 2 months.

Pseudo collaboration number 3: CUZETTE

I got messaged by them on my Instagram and their offer was super confusing. They promised it all. 3 free stuff now, free stuff every month, paid trip to several destinations, and even 50$ voucher. The scout called me sweety exactly 9 times during our conversations. It was super annoying.

So I choose another 3 free items and paid another 20$ for shipping. When I asked about the 50$ voucher I was told I would need to refer 5 friends who would also become cuzette ambassador or delegate as they named it, to get the 50$. No info about the travel trips though.

I was told to contact the official page for more info but it took days for them to finally reply with nothing new just more compliments and excitement about the future. It’s been 2 months and I still haven’t received my order just as I was expecting.

Later on, I endorsed in conversation with several other brands asking for more info, looking for something different than standard copy and paste form. Unsuccessful.

Every time I asked how many ambassadors they have in their program the answer was always “around 3000“. Once again, you have 3000 customers and not 3000 ambassadors. If the only people who buy from you are people you ask to buy from you, you’re doing something wrong.

But your business plan is on point.

When I asked about who and where makes their products I was either met with a silence or a sweet talk about a responsible brand.

These brands are providing people with content. You get to take photos of the items you ordered and you get to be as creative as you want. In these COVID times so many brands had to cancel or postpone their collaborations with bloggers or Instagrammers. I saw huge travel/luxurious instagramers switch form hotel and travel collaborations to promoting kitchen wipes. Times are tough and you got to do what you got to do.

Yet these small businesses with hight prices are thriving?

You know it’s not about the product but about the potential.

Profiting on greediness.

So smart.

To prove my point even further I got to confess one more thing. I mentioned before that I manage Instagram accounts for different brands and among them is one fashion store. I was not only at the ambassadors’ side but on the scouting side as well.

All I had to do was search for people who looked like they would be willing to become an ambassador for our store and had decent amount of followers. I had saved message form and all I did was try to guess peoples names so the message seemed more personal. Once they agreed to a discussion I let my boss take the lead.

So yeah, try to really think about the offers you get.

Look at it from all points of view and ask yourself if it’s profitable for anyone else but the brand.

If you want to have offers pouring your way try adding #ad #spon #collab to your next Instagram posts. That’s how they look for their next ambassador.

Everyone wants to be an ambassador. 

Pseudo Collaborations- Everyone wants to be an Ambassador Being in the blogging business for around 8 years now I came to learn a lot. Let's hear from the old bitter blogger about the difference between being an ambassador and being a customer.

[swafena]

Why Start Shopping Online?: 5 Steps To Safe Shopping From Sketchy Social Media Stores

After Instagram added the Instagram Checkout payment tool these sketchy Instagram stores that pop up in my ads  became even more irresistible. Just while seeing my friend’s Insta story of him dancing like crazy last night these bags pop up in my ads . Am I crazy or I’ve just became in a  desperate need of a new bag?  If you don’t know what I’m talking about you are not using Instagram the right way. Then again, excuse my previous judgment, you might be a guy and the Instagram Bags store might not be targeting you! Anyhow, whatever Instagram stores are targeting you, aren’t these ads so seductive. I don’t even have money and they still lure me in to buying their things. Having said that, Instagram Stores sometimes can be somewhat untrusty. I don’t want to give out my banking details to someone in India that is just waiting for my stupid ass to purchase that fake bag. I know the bags are persuasive but I kind of don’t want to get robbed from stupidity. In this article you can find 

 But First, why you should start shopping on Instagram?

Let’s be honest,  21st century is all about standing out and Instagram stores are exactly the place where you can find those unique fits.

I personally have come across such exclusive brands through pop up ads. I am always am left shocked  by how I’ve never heard about their products previously. In particular my favorite discovery was the brand “Motel Rocks”. They offer exceptional designs that make your figure out of this world. I know that they’ve recently attracted quite a lot of attention but I’ve ordered some pieces from them even before the huge hype only due to pop up adds.  

Let the Algorithm work in your favor

If we forget for a moment of how every platform just waits for us to search for something so they can start bombarding us with adds, the algorithm can actually work in our favor. In reality, Instagram shows you only the adds that you’ll be 

interested in. Take advantage of that! How to do that? - you ask, well it’s pretty easy. For instance, this one time I wanted to buy myself some distinctive jewelry and I typed jewelry store in the search section of Instagram. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything that really appealed to my style. I kid you not, literally two minutes later some rings popped up in my suggested page. The more I deep dive in to the jeweler world of Instagram, the more jewelry adds started following me. After only few minutes I wasn’t the one looking for rings and necklaces but the brands were seeking me as a client. This really helped me find the perfect jewelry designs even though I was not even putting effort but was just paying attention to my suggested adds. 

 Read the Reviews, Please!!!

Instagram is such an accessible platform. Everyone has a profile and it’s easy to review something. It’s even easier to comment your opinion on one of the brand’s posts. Therefore, for us the clients, reading the reviews becomes even simpler. In particular, I was looking at this store that offered swimsuits.

 I loved the designs but I wasn’t sure about the legitness of the company because they didn’t have a big following. For the purpose of me getting the perfect summer fit I had to turn on detective mode which is why I started deep diving in to their comments section. That was useful to some extent, yet I would personally recommend going through their tagged photos. This is where you’ll see real people wearing the real products. Not only that but many vloggers will review small boutique products or make big clothing hauls for huge brands. Therefore, you might even see an actual rough video and an actual rough opinion of the thing that you want to purchase.

 Check Prices while scrolling through their feed.

Literally, having an Instagram store is equal to having a website these days. You can get access to all the information you need just while scrolling through photos. Isn’t that the best? I can spend so much money without even realizing. Putting aside the fact that I’m soon to be broke, I honestly enjoy the simplicity of using the platform. I don’t even have to go to the actual website and I can check the prices of fits that I desire. It’s convenient,  especially in the cases where brands are extremely overpriced and I can’t afford them. It takes me only one tap to feel the disappointment but it saves me so much time.  

  Secure your bank details by Using Virtual Cards 

Needless to say, one of the biggest cons of Instagram stores is that some of them are very untrustworthy. They might offer compelling products but at the same time you have no grantee that you will actually get your products. That’s why trusting them is not the easiest task. The number of data breaches around the world was up by 33% since last year and the total number of exposed reports have doubled. This has made everyone online be hesitant about giving their personal data to unreliable online store. I personally would never give my bank card details to any online store. The way I shop online is by using virtual cards. First and foremost, these cards could be linked to an alternative account than your primary and provide additional security features. I can top them up whenever I want to and I can freeze them as easily. My personal favorite thing is that I can distribute my budget better. For example, If I haven’t spent anything on clothes last month, I could top up the account that my virtual card draws money from. Thus, I’ll be able to have a specific portion of my budget for my online shopping. It’s perfect because this stops me sometimes from overspending too much on online shopping.  If you want to have a variety of Virtual cards like I do, you can use “iCard”. The app sadly operated only in Europe. I’ve tried similar applications but it never worked out in my favor. I like “iCard”  because I can actually distribute my budget in a more secure and proper way. On the other hand, I like their stylish products like the NFC Keychains - keychains through which you can make contactless payments. Amm, excuse me, if am going to spend my entire salary on pointless purchases at least I could do it with style.

 So, now that you know how to securely spend your money on the Internet, go and get something new to walk around your house in. The pandemic might have made us feel sad and lonely but you know what they say – “Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness, didn’t know where to go shopping!” Enjoy!!!

[spill-the-milk-tea]

YouTube Rant

(Probably wrong, please don’t come @ me—actually please do, I like to be proved wrong so I can be informed :))

I think the biggest flaw with the YouTube algorithm and how it recommends or demonetizes videos is that it’s basing a lot of its info on the viewer demographics. At least, I can only assume. Why else would YouTubers like James Charles, Danielle Cohn, and Logan Paul get videos to trending with blatantly inappropriate or sexual content despite (or perhaps, because of) their large, primarily minor audience, when actual wholesome youth creators like LifeWithMak get flagged simply for having adult viewers and inappropriate comments? The system actively rewards creators who show and promote inappropriate content to their underage audience, while punishing appropriate creators who are being harassed, when it should be the other way around. You shouldn’t be regulating content based on who’s watching it, you should be regulating content because you know who will be watching it. Assuming the appropriateness of content based on its viewers is so misguided and is the fundamental flaw behind the algorithm that makes everything so backwards.

I think the “algorithm favoritism” can be explained this way also. Big creators like Shane Dawson and Pewdiepie who are literally OG YouTubers that have defined the platform and continue to be huge to this day, are almost never found on the trending tab; as opposed to much newer, comparatively more problematic creators. They rely entirely on their existing fame and dedicated fan base for views. The way I see it, Pewdiepie and Shane Dawson used to be defined by their mostly minor audiences. Now those audiences are all grown up, and most of their fans are now adults. Understandably, I think YouTube favors creators who have mostly young audiences because children are simply more bankable and easy to influence in the advertisement game. Children are also more likely to stay on YouTube longer, and go to YouTube sponsored events like fanmeets or Vidcon, and buy merch. Basically, children are a lot easier to engage and retain on the platform long-term as opposed to adults. I mean, it’s literally a running joke that twelve-year old YouTuber fans are stupidly dedicated and are the reason why problematic creators get so big. So those with older audiences are phased out, and newer creators with newer, younger audiences are favored by the algorithm. Of course I definitely think there are other factors and flaws in the algorithm, like how certain “controversial” tag words in titles or within the videos themselves are immediately deemed un-advertiser friendly, such as LGTBQ+ words or even topics about mental health. The biggest indicator to me is cursing, which immediately gets videos flagged for less ads, since it’s inherently seen as inappropriate for children.

YouTube as a whole seems to be transforming the entire platform and building it entirely around their one interest-group/demographic, which is children. And it’s pushing out any sort of meaningful or somewhat controversial content in the process simply because they don’t think that demographic will respond to it. I think more than just YouTube protecting their advertisers, the advertisers themselves clearly know who they want to target, and any content that doesn’t appeal to their target audience is avoided. That’s why I think there’s a lot of confusion over who is calling the shots with these unfair demonetizations—advertisers themselves, or YouTube. I think it’s both. The interests of advertisers and YouTube itself have merged into one singular unit, and it’s hurting content creators. There’s suddenly no middle man between them and the people who give them their money, protecting their content and making sure they can still get a paycheck. Advertisers themselves are basically scanning their content to determine who gets paid and who doesn’t, and there’s a palpable fear being shown in the content created. There’s so much more censorship, both deliberate and subconscious, in my favorite creators’ videos. Everyone’s afraid to say things they want to say or need to be said because they feel like Auntie Advertiser is always watching. The only real place I feel like I can get controversial, informational content is from channels who share clips from TV shows owned by big media companies, because of course they’re safe.

Maybe I’m speculating too much because I’m stupid, feel free to correct me in the harshest terms possible. That’s just my theory tying together all the reasons why YouTube has gotten worse in recent years.

[patricianandclerk]

Oh. Oh I just went through your Horace Dripp tag and I don't fully understand what happened to the disgusting man to make him so disgusting but I... I do kinda love him? How is the disgusting man so oddly likeable?

Dripp is in From Files To Physicality (as well as this little Dripp/Whittle thing), but to be honest, he’ll probably appear in more fanfic. 

HORRID!

So, okay, the reason that Horace Dripp is The Way He Is...

So, Dripp is the youngest sibling of seven, and he’s got all older sisters. His mother didn’t really want a son, to be honest? Not in a like, big time nasty way, but just in a loosely neglectful one - she just didn’t know what to do with him, and never really took the time to figure out a plan of action, especially when she had all of his sisters to look after, so Dripp was very much used to trailing after everyone else and having to really whine to get any attention at all.

He was always a little messy as a youth, because his mother sort of brushed off a lot of his uncleanliness as being a boy, and sort of being an inherent part of his boyishness rather than something that could be washed off, so he never developed the best of habits before he started at the Unseen University. He was very, very excited to be a wizard because it meant people would actually pay attention to him, but pretty much as soon as he got to UU, he, for the first little while, actually forgot about wanting people to pay attention to him, because he realized he really, really liked magic. 

But he did want to be recognised in his field, and he wanted to be able to show he could do Good Magic, and be able to be impressive to other wizards - the idea of someone quoting him and talking about Dripp’s Principle or Dripp’s Algorithm was absolutely enchanting to him, which is how he got into Catter’s Laws of Lushness.

Catter’s Laws of Lushness are part of the what it is philosophy: effectively, Catter says that no matter how much it rains in a desert, the desert will always be somewhat dry, because it is is a desert; an ocean shall always be an ocean, no matter how hot it get. One of the things Catter stipulates is that sand can only be so dry, and that water can only be so wet.

Dripp’s magic is pretty much centred around making water more wet - what he basically wants to do is thicken water’s viscosity, so that you’ve got more water packed into a smaller volume, and so that when you touch it, it feels wetter than water does. He wants to do this without changing the make-up of what the water actually is, without adding or taking away any “ingredients”, and instead just... gently bending the laws of physics and also magic.

He wants to break these laws pretty much because he thinks it is possible to break them, and he thinks it will be very impressive if he does. 

The problem is that like, in order to do that, he fucking... Set his staff aside, because he felt that using the staff for everything was making him less precise, which means that instead of a lot of magic crackling through his staff to use an immense amount of power for something the universe is pretty sure is impossible but go off I guess, Horace, it’s crackling through him instead.

This means:

Dripp can feel very, very little. He has incredibly numbed sensation, because of the whole “I electrocute myself a few times a day in the name of science” thing. With that said, when he does hurt himself, he does heal pretty quick, but it’s not a great trade-off.

Because of the actual magic he’s doing, his body overproduces... a lot. Sweat, sebaceous oil, skin (think dandruff except it’s oily and wet), eye sleep, snot, earwax, saliva, and other horrific bodily fluids you can think of (yeah, those ones) are being produced pretty much overtime. His hair and nails also grow weirdly fast, but he doesn’t notice that as much. 

The two above combine with already poor hygiene practices. And so, you get... Dripp.

At the moment, Whittle (Dripp’s even stupider boyfriend) is even more invalid that Dripp, because he does have good hygiene standards and a functioning nervous system, but he literally has Dripp wrapped around him every night and is like “this is fine”.  When Whittle figures out what the actual problem is (he’s gonna do this in From Files to Physicality, but he’ll do it in other ‘verses on his own), he will ration the amount of actual magic Dripp does a day, and basically step in and force Dripp to do better science instead of trying everything he can think of, while frying his own body in the first place. 

Doing like, 2-3 attempts per week instead of 3-7 per day will make his body just... way less... like that. His quality of life will improve immensely, as will the qualities of the lives of anyone that has to interact with him, or even fucking look at him. 

He won’t be fixed! Just... less. 

As for why everyone finds him endearing, I have no idea. I think it’s because he’s just so intensely pathetic that he evoke very strong emotions, whether one wants them evoked or not. 

[gummishiptardis]

Infuriating...

1. I have no problem with the people leaking non-story related things about the game. But it costs nothing to be a little more careful about tagging your content and adding spoiler warnings for the people who wish to remain blind. It literally takes all but 2 seconds not to be a toxic dickhole and say "Hey! This video contains things you may or may not want to see until you play the game for yourself" and make the thumbnail something that doesn't directly involve the content.

2. Blacklisting something doesn't work when you're genuinely interested in legitimate news about the game, but don't want to see spoilers, because YouTube's algorithms are idiotic and cannot tell the difference. It will suggest the video to you, and depending on what you're doing, it will automatically start playing. Yes, you can swipe away. Yes, you can choose to hide it. But the point is not everyone has the willpower to do so. And regardless if they do, it's not up to you to present them with that choice via your blatant disregard and disrespect for other fans.

3. Not all story related content is a spoiler: there are things we've already been shown in trailers and information we can infer simply from how characters interact in them and what we've been told by Nomura. But just like the above, the same can be said for gameplay.

Not all gameplay is considered "non-spoiler": If knowing something is there, and knowing how it connects/plays can potentially directly impact someone's experience with the game (which in many cases it can), then it is a spoiler and should be treated as such, whether it's related to the main story or not.

But when the thing you're uploading literally has the word SECRET in it's name, that should be a clear indication of the game designers intent on what should and shouldn't be considered spoiler territory.

5. No one wants to unwrap and install a game they've waited forever for, only for it to end up being a monotonous checklist of things they've already been shown, whether through trailers, leaks or otherwise.

6. No one is trying to control what the leakers upload. They're not even asking them to take the leaks down. They simply need a fucking heads up. Is that really so teeth-grindingly difficult to do?

Just when I think the levels of toxicity in this fanbase couldn't possibly get any higher... I genuinely don't care if the game gets spoiled for me. But the next person might. It's called empathy.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

have 8 million things to do very soon and I can tell that I'm riiiiiight on the edge of a depression spiral (which is itself at least partly caused by being overwhelmed, dealing with it poorly and becoming more overwhelmed, and hating myself for dealing with it poorly) which is SUPER GREAT TIMING. so obviously I'm making a list, because sometimes that helps.

things I absolutely must do this weekend:

finish the hair repaint on my current Etsy order so I can mail it Monday or earlier

do anything I might need to do for the other outstanding order that the customer also wants in time for Christmas somehow, so that when the parts arrive on MONDAY I can put the thing together and mail it almost immediately (damn well better show up on Monday, which is itself irritating because the site said free 2-day shipping but nobody really means that when they ship to Alaska)

wrap and prepare any gifts I want to mail out because I should also send those no later than Monday, and in fact earlier would have been better, but for some reason every year I'm like "eh, it's fine, there's time" right up until there suddenly isn't

do...whatever I still need to do with Tumblr. import to Wordpress, back up the whole thing to my computer with one of several methods I've reblogged, try to find specific posts I want to save (original posts and anything tagged "fic ideas" will be tedious but at least easy to find; no idea about other stuff)

semi-related: add something to my Dreamwidth profile so it's not...blank

haul some more stuff to Value Village and other donation sites, because I’m about to pick up a bunch of shit that will take up too much space in my car (somewhat related: books, music, movies, and toys are 40% off today and tomorrow, which is unusual for them)

set up the damn tree, like even if we don't put ornaments on it I'd at least like to have the tree up (requires digging it out of the garage, which is a disaster and very much not my disaster)

do something with my dad and sister for my birthday (but first, figure out what and when, and like...I don’t have the mental energy for that)

try to get more birthday donations for SPLC (I went with Trevor Project last year and got several donations without doing much to promote it, so I don't know if this one's getting a lot less because it seems more political, or algorithms are hiding this and a lot of my other posts, or a lot of people have deliberately snoozed me because of my political posts, or...something else, idk)

transfer stuff into my new planner, because my current one is close enough to the end that it's not very useful anymore

other things that don't necessarily have to happen this weekend but should happen in the really near future, both because they need to get done and because they're contributing to my overall mental load that means everything is overwhelming:

figure out how to send in the claim for my car accident last year to my life-insurance-and-a-few-other-things company, because it's worth $50 (should probably also see if I can get something similar for the earthquake, because I think it did fuck up my neck a little more, and $50 is $50 when I'm paying them that much each month)

list other things on Etsy...now that it's too late to take advantage of holiday sales 😖

sign up for actual training with Hazy

also, bug the rescue group again about recent vet info to figure out whether she has any pre-existing conditions and when she needs a checkup (maybe soon, because she seems to scratch herself a LOT and sometimes she gets kind of wheezy)

also also, try to figure out ways to work on her separation anxiety and general hyperness, which I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO because it's all a gradual process that I don't really have time for, and I have yet to find a smart/puzzle toy or a good chew toy that really seems to occupy her attention so I guess I still need to try more, and apparently mental stimulation through training can be good for anxiety and hyperactivity both so I should really be working on extremely basic commands on my own probably??

shit that's right I also need to figure out if I want to get her on VCA Care Club and do research for pet insurance that might be better than the one we had for Scully

get myself back into a better Planet Fitness habit, because I didn't go at all this week and I've definitely dropped off in the last few weeks, which is partly because I've been busy with other things INCLUDING THE GIANT EARTHQUAKE but partly because the main reason I was good about it before was that I literally tricked myself into wanting to work out so I could listen to The Adventure Zone, and once I caught up on that, nothing else I've tried (MBMBAM, occasional TAZ updates, Night Vale) has quite filled the gap of "hilarious goofs + suspenseful long-form narrative" that makes me actually want to work out, so...either I need to figure out how make myself go without that motivation (mixed success so far or I wouldn't be talking about it or feeling guilty about it) or find another podcast I want to binge. and try to figure out if there's any point to asking them to stop playing so many news channels (especially Fox two or three times and fucking OAN once) at the TV bank for the cardio machines, because that is...honestly another thing that makes me not want to go

related: somehow find a way to make myself do my core exercises regularly, because slacking on those and slacking on Planet Fitness is probably part of the reason my headaches and neck and general constant exhaustion have maybe been worse lately, AND ALSO start regularly doing the exercises that are supposed to help with my newish hand/wrist pain, all of which sucks because a big ol' theme here is me having a hard time forming un-fun new long-term habits (exercise, going to bed earlier) that are crucial for improving basically every part of my life and not worsening the health problems i already have

TYPE UP MY DAMN NOTEBOOKS and organize everything so I actually know how much I have in my current WIPs; now that my computer is back there's no excuse for not doing this

also like...write. in general. now that I have a Christmas-related idea I'd kinda like to do and I also want to do a Yuletide treat, and maybe Avengers: Endgame isn't really a deadline for lots of other fics but also it kind of is

actually organize my backups so they're not a disaster and it's not a crisis next time I have computer problems (plus like, I'm going to need everything backed up when I upgrade)

research and buy a CPU, motherboard, SSD, and maybe new PSU, ideally without spending a horrendous amount of money

make more progress in SWTOR because there's no guarantee how long it's going to be around and tbh it's ridiculous I haven't finished all the class storylines despite having been a subscriber for like. SEVEN YEARS

unfuck my iTunes library YET AGAIN

find a therapist, because I've probably been needing one for a while but a huge theme in all of this is being overwhelmed because I have too much to do and don't know how to deal with it, and then getting into guilt and self-loathing because I dealt with it badly and it got worse, and I'm increasingly sure it's my not-really-diagnosed-or-treated ADHD starting this old, old cycle to begin with and that means it's even more important to find a therapist who will actually. do stuff. with the ADHD. instead of just kinda...dropping it.

slight problem though, adding yet another regular appointment means less time for...everything else and that doesn't exactly help with being overwhelmed, so it's like...a disincentive to pursue it

the only thing I really want to do:

sleep for about a year