#I may officially be an offline person

[aurorasulphur]

Disclaimer: none of these answers are official, and may not work for your particular use case. If there is a specific feature that an unofficial app had that you don't know how to replicate on the AO3, let me know in the notes and we might can crowdsource a solution.

A lot of people used the Archive Reader app to access stories on Archive of Our Own, and have been upset that the app is now charging to read longer than an hour a day. AO3 (and its parent organization, the OTW) has made it extremely clear in recent days that this app is unofficial and that there *is* no official app. They encourage people to use the website.

However, there are MANY reasons you might want an app, and in a bunch of those cases, there are ways to do those things without having to provide your login information to a random person running an app. Here is a round-up of solutions to the most common reasons I've seen people give for wanting an app instead of the plain AO3 website.

These solutions are based on the following assumptions:

You know what Archive of Our Own is

You often or primarily access it through a mobile device running iOS or Android

You understand what a browser is

You understand what a browser bookmark is

You understand what a site skin is

Edits:

Edited to clarify that you must be logged in to use custom site skins

Edited to add more tips and tricks from the reblogs

Edited to add new entry about notifications/emails

Edited to add new entry about reading statistics and the tracking thereof

I need a widget on my phone's homescreen, not just a browser bookmark.

You can do this with any website, not just AO3! Instructions here: https://www.howtogeek.com/196087/how-to-add-websites-to-the-home-screen-on-any-smartphone-or-tablet/

I need Dark Mode.

AO3 has a default site skin for Dark Mode, it's just called Reversi. Find it here, or at the bottom of any page on the website. https://archiveofourown.org/skins/929/

If you'd like Dark Mode on your whole browser (and you're on Android), sorrelchestnut has advice here: https://www.tumblr.com/sorrelchestnut/737869282153775104/if-you-want-dark-mode-and-dont-want-to-mess

I need to be able to read stories when I don't have internet.

Every work on the AO3 has a download button, so you can click on that and download the story for offline reading in the ereader app of your choice. More info on how to do that is in the AO3 FAQs: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/downloading-fanworks?language_id=en#accesslater

I need to be able to change the text size of the website itself.

If you have an AO3 account (and you should!!) you can do this with a personalized site skin! There is a simple tutorial here: https://www.tumblr.com/ao3skin/667284237718798336/i-have-a-request-if-you-dont-mind-could-you

I need to be able to change the text size in downloaded stories.

My personal recommendation: Don't download in PDF format. All the other formats you can download in can scale the text size up and down, assuming you open the work in the correct app. For me, I download works in EPUB format and read them on the built-in Books app on my iPhone. I hear good things about Moon Reader on Android as well.

I need to be able to replace Y/N in fics with an actual name.

ElectricAlice has a bookmarklet for that here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34796935

I need to be able to save specific tags and not have to search them up every time.

If you have an AO3 account (which you definitely should) then you can favorite up to 20 tags which will appear on the landing page. The AO3 FAQ explains how that works: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#favtag

I need to be able to save specific filters and be able to apply them to any tag.

Reisling's beautiful bookmarklet has you covered: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33825019

I need to be able to permanently hide certain tags.

The best option is adding this to your site skin. (Must be logged in.) Instructions here: https://www.tumblr.com/ao3css/719667033634160640/how-to-permanently-filter-out-certain-tags-on-ao3

I also hear things about the AO3 Enhancements extension (just for Android/desktop, sorry iOS folks): https://www.tumblr.com/emotionalsupportrats/686787582579851265/browser-extension-everyone-on-ao3-should-know

I need it to save my place on the page and not reload.

This is really mostly a browser error--Firefox on iOS does this to me A LOT. Your best bet is to download the work and read it in an ereader app. A lot of people also will make an ao3 bookmark and write in the notes section which part they were at, but that assumes you aren't falling asleep while reading. (Which is the main reason I have this issue, lol.) For more info on bookmarks, see the FAQ: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/bookmarks?language_id=en#whatisbookmark

I need it to keep track of which stories I've already read/opened/kudos'd.

If you have an account (which you should) then the "My History" page keeps track of every fic you've ever clicked on. No, it isn't searchable or sortable, but it does exist. For fics you've kudos'd, I have yet to find a solution for iOS. For desktop or Android, you can use this excellent userscript: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5835-ao3-kudosed-and-seen-history

@the-sleepy-archivist and @inkandarsenic have a solution for iOS here to use userscripts: https://www.tumblr.com/the-sleepy-archivist/737895174683885568/this-is-a-great-guide-one-thing-i-can-help-with and https://www.tumblr.com/inkandarsenic/737827438571192320/the-user-scripts-will-also-work-on-ios-there-are

I need an app because the website's search is terrible.

(I genuinely don't understand this one but I have seen it multiple times so on the list it goes!!) The search bar at the top of the screen is a keyword search. If you'd rather search within a specific field (like title or tag) then you'll want to click on the word "search" at the top of the screen and select Work Search or Tag Search. To search users, use People Search. To search Bookmarks, use Bookmark Search. (If this is you, please tell me what the heck you mean by "search is bad" and how an app helped with this.)

I need to be able to sort stories by date posted/number of bookmarks/alphabetical/etc.

You can do this using the filters sidebar. Pick a tag you want to filter on (like a fandom, character, or relationship) and then click on the "Filters" button. The sidebar will pop out and you can sort and filter on a boggling array of specifics. A good filtering guide: https://www.tumblr.com/saurons-pr-department/718665516093472768/if-there-is-something-you-dont-want-to-see-in

I need to be able to mark stories to read later.

AO3 has this feature built in! If you have an account (which you should) there is a "Mark for Later" option on every work.

Edit: Thispersonishuman reminded me that History and Mark For Later can be disabled, so if you're not seeing the Mark for Later option, check your settings.

I need to be able to listen to stories using text-to-speech.

Microsoft Edge web browser has a built in text to speech function. Supposedly it works on both iOS and Android, but I have not personally tested that. iOS also has a native accessibility feature in settings for text to speech that will work on the Books app, so I assume Android has a similar functionality. A bunch of people in the reblogs have more in-depth Android recommendations here: https://www.tumblr.com/protect-namine/737957194510794752/seconding-voice-aloud-on-android-for-tts-my, https://www.tumblr.com/smallercommand/737884523093704704/i-use-voice-for-tts-on-android-its-got-some, and https://www.tumblr.com/doitninetimes/737869463749263360/for-text-to-speech-on-android-you-can-also-check

I need to have in-app notifications for updates/I can't ever find story updates in among the rest of my emails/checking my email stresses me out.

Set up a separate email address using a free service like gmail, and use that email address JUST for AO3. Then the only emails in that inbox will be your story updates. I use Apple's Mail application for all my inboxes, but it's very easy to use the Gmail app instead, and you could log in to JUST the ao3 email and set it to notify for every email.

(Also as a general PSA: don't use your work, school, or military email as your AO3 email. Just don't.)

I want statistics like how many hours I spent reading, how many words I read, what my most read tags were, stuff like that.

So we've finally hit something that isn't easy and that requires a hell of a lot of manual work. Short version: AO3 does not track this data because they don't want to. (Mostly due to privacy concerns.) The lack of this tracking is a feature, not a bug. You can crunch these numbers yourself, but it will take a hell of a lot more effort, and it's something I personally found is not worth the effort the couple of times I have tried to crunch those numbers. If you are willing to download your history to an actual computer (not a tablet or chromebook) using Calibre, you can get a rough idea of your most popular tags via their tag browser, but it won't play nice with typos synned to a Common Tag (Canonical Tag/filterable tag) like ao3 does. (If anyone has used an app that gave you stats on this, please let me know in reblogs/replies/via ask how that worked because I am very curious.)

I need an app because <other reason>.

The AO3 Unofficial Browser Tools FAQ might cover your use case: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/unofficial-browser-tools?language_id=en If not, give a shout and we'll see what other tumblr users suggest!

[hiroshotreplica]

splatoon promo kids name list cause its always a pain to try to look for them for me personally and i realized. i could change that!

NOTE: weapons are ALWAYS inconsistent with the promo kids. their names may be assigned to different models as well. their first appearance is what they are usually seen as, and whatever weapon they "main" are based on renders/what they use in trailers.

SPLATOON 1

The skin tones are very inconsistent with everyone pictured.

TOP ROW: Kaori, John, Mizuho, Rul

BOTTOM ROW: Pit, Laura, Yuriko, Yuya

Kaori and John are the "Agent 3"s. Yuriko and Yuya do not have official renders.

SPLATOON 2

The skin tones are inconsistent, mainly with those with darker skin tones (unfortunately).

TOP ROW: Surume, Cuttlefrsh (Cuttlefresh in the earliest known trailer), Kou, Kensaki

BOTTOM ROW: KelpShot, Splashley, Tof-U, Yari

Surume and Cuttlefrsh are the "Agent 4"s, though Cuttlefrsh/Male Agent 4 is only ever depicted once (discounting coroika). Yari does have a transparent render, I just prefer the one with the roller (though, I wish I could find the transparent version of it).

OCTO EXPANSION (bonus)

BONUS: even though the renders used to represent Agent 8 are wildly inconsistent, there's two regular octoling renders that people believe are linked to them. Their names come from Octolings that look very similar to them in the offline version of the lobby. (Patricia and Steven). Sometimes Patricia is referred to as Naomi due to misinfo. They're like, promo kid adjacent to me.

SPLATOON 3 (the most popular and consistent)

VeronIKA and TakoTruck's skintones are inconsistent :(

Eyecolors for VeronIKA, Hirooooo, and AnemoneNo1 are inconsistent

TOP ROW: VeronIKA, Hirooooo (five o's), AnemoneNo1, TakoTruck

BOTTOM ROW: Stephanie, kAyOss (the k is not meant to be capitalized im dumb, image is inaccurate), C4L4M4R, YARRwhal

VeronIKA and Hirooooo are the "Neo Agent 3"s (though, Hirooooo is only used once for the artbook)

There is also an instance where Hirooooo's name is misspelled (only four o's) but i didnt want to find the image

BONUS

Tof-U is technically present in one of the gameplay showcases(?) I believe it's an error

kAyOss used to look different and was most likely combined with the unrelated promotional character shown next to them (who was used for Wireglasses/Glassless in Coroika)

okay thats all! I'll reblog and add on any additions if necessary

[accio-victuuri]

the color yellow x SDC 6 finals 💛

this post is more about the fandom & yibo. for the past days, there has been some drama over yibo’s comment section and today turtles have decided to show support and bring in numbers for him. i swear, since i’m following lots of cpfs on weibo, they are really relentless in reminding people of the crucial times stuff ( 13:30, 14:30, 15:30 and 16:30 ) will be posted and how we should all be there. what to look for, which is the 🟡 and reminders. i mentioned before that the fandom agreed to remove the color red or any mention of xz. also avoid including xz’s picture and make more real / relevant comments than spam-y posts. i absolutely love how our fandom took accountability of the mistakes and changed for the better.

so the target today was the sdc + youku announcement for his appearance + yibo official post and well… we dominated.. i’m sharing this later so there are stuff from so/os but the first hours were a clean sweep by us. i’m also adding the bts photos by SDC + yibo official photoshoot.

P.S: If you have weibo, i have the posts linked so give a like to comments by CPFs. 💛

Just to give an example of what the comments look like now compared to before. No more senseless emojis and edited photos. It’s all related to SDC. My fave would be the first one! because that line by yibo has a cpn attached to it and at the same time is connect to his love for dancing.

People are free to agree or disagree to this team building and what it means. Some may think we should back down to prevent further friction and some are just chill with it. Personally, I think that the numbers all go to WYB + his engagement rate on Weibo. This “competition” is making those numbers higher than usual which is “good” for him. I know that antis are gonna find a way to imply something negative but who tf care what antis say. Many people love Yibo and support him, that’s what matters. SDC is also a favorite among cpfs, so i’m not surprised that we are mobilizing like this both online and offline.

and look at WYB’s color for today. Gold/Yellow! 💛 yep, i know the green must be taken by a different captain on the show currently but seeing that color on him is a nice change. ☺️

[olderthannetfic]

Something a music YouTuber I watch said was that he noticed a huge spike in the popularity of AMVs after Linkin Park released the music video for Breaking The Habit, which was done by an anime studio and took great care to make sure the visuals matched the original artist vision of Mike Shinoda (who is an art school graduate and thus had a lot of input and ideas). Can either you or other people who were in fandom circa 2004 when it was released confirm this? It does sound like that would make sense, as Linkin Park fans and anime lovers overlap a TON on a Venn diagram (and AMV makers and Link Park fans, even moreso) but I'd be curious to see the numbers before and after. Unfortunately, though, since it was pre-YouTube, most AMVs were hosted on individual sites, so I can't really go digging and figure this out personally, given my lack of knowledge on where to even look for fandom content from that era + the fact many of those sites are offline now.

--

Ahaha. Anon, it is far easier to research AMVs from back then than from the youtube era.

Unlike Media Fandom vidders, AMV editors were fine being out in the public eye, and they very heavily used animemusicvideos.org. I hear the BL crowd didn't as much, but everybody who was entering mainstream con contests listed all their shit there.

The site opened in late 2000. Youtube started in early 2005, though it didn't fully take off for a while. (Red shows the era between these.) AMV editors may have been using YT for hosting early on (I don't recall), but it took a long time and a lot of turnover for them to stop bothering to list their work on AMVs.org. (It's primarily a database of what exists, not hosting, though it does also have some downloads.)

On the face of it, yes, AMVs seem to have boomed around 2004-2006, so that Youtuber is superficially correct.

However, I suspect this has more to do with the community getting organized and anime cons with AMV contests sprouting up like mushrooms in that era. No doubt the obscene popularity of Linkin Park on AMVs.org was influenced by that official video, but I don't think this was the main driver behind editors editing in general.

(I admit, though, that the height of my anime fannishness was like 1996-2003, and I was not a Linkin Park fan, nor did I care much about AMVs aside from the ones at YaoiCon.)

The rapid decline from 2007 on probably reflects more and more editors being Youtube-only rather than con contests ceasing or anything like that.

The music overall reflects the era and demographic on the site:

But before you assume too much from this huge Linkin Park number, the site overall lists 169,973 videos.

[rivkae-winters]

Regarding lore.fm, an interaction with the creator through tiktok dm's

Apologies for potentially messy writing I was upset on receipt of this message and still am regarding the topic.

On the subject of lore.fm I was composing a post starting yesterday regarding the dm interaction below and their new TOS but the app is live far ahead of when I thought it would be. Since I feel I made good points regarding the TOS I’ll upload my post later tonight but I wanted to get this portion of the post up as soon as possible. Here’s the brief incident I had in direct messages with the official lore.fm account on TikTok.

I sent my initial message at 8:06pm CST on 5/10/24-

My initial post on tumblr was made on 5/10/24 at 11:01pm CST, I followed this up with a reblog later at

I apologize for the unsightly nature of the screenshots, they were left unedited for obvious reasons. I am aware of my phone's battery percentage in the clarifying screenshot I took just now- I know it's rough I need a new charger. Additionally my apologies for my screen reader square, it drives me nuts too, I just need to keep it at that opacity or I can't find it when my eyes start skipping around.

Transcription of this conversation:

Me: Hi, I'm an author on ao3 and me and several of my fellow authors are highly wary of your product. Further more where can I provide my official email that I wish to retract my written works from this service.

[time: 5/11/24 4:40am CST

lore.fm: hello! The email address is team at lore dot fm. Also, I've been made aware by a follower that someone with a similar username as yours on tumblr may be falsely claiming that we are a phishing scam "because of info on who.is." We use namecheap which provides domain privacy protection services and hides the personal information of the buyer to protect them and instead shares an Icelandic address. See info here: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/domain-privacy-is-changing-at-namecheap/ Every person or organization who buys a domain on namecheap can buy that same privacy protection which is why there are thousands of sites registered with the same address. We aren't affiliated with any scams, cyber criminal activity, or phishing that also use namecheap to buy domains. When the app is out we'll let people know they can search it up if they feel unsafe clicking links as well. Hope that's helpful, and thank you for understanding and not sharing libelous information against us! 

To break from the seriousness for a second: Hi lore.fm- I hope you enjoy this post just as much as the last one!

In my opinion and to my limited knowledge this was in response to a reblog I made to my initial post calling for a warning that lore.fm had the warning signs of a phishing scheme (in my opinion) and as best I could recognize them. To give an insight into how I garnered this opinion purely email collection based websites, as well as entities with a very short history online (lore.fm's website was only established on May 3rd 2024) requesting your email is highly suspicious. Once again that is all in my opinion based on my own education and the background I have in Computer Science.

I am not going to be responding on the matter they direct messaged me on as that matter is best handled offline. I am stating my opinion on the matter that my initial message was asking about.

They still did not answer my question or provide me what I direct messaged about in the first place: the email written out fully in a way that is unambiguous and serviceable as an admittedly casual proof in writing. I had messaged initially with a desire to have a clear clarification of their policies on authors revoking their consent for their work to be used in writing rather than the much more ambiguous audio. I especially, as stated above, wanted the team@lore.fm email written out in the proper way you'd type it into an email address bar.

In my opinion this response to my question, just over two days after, was in bad faith.

I am sharing this direct message since they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. They've positioned themselves in a public manner as a public figure and as a inseparable part of the brand 'lore.fm'. Everything I have shared is associated with 'lore.fm' and not the individual behind it.

In this scenario I am a consumer and in my opinion lore.fm is a company or at least they should (in my opinion) have the legal registration as such. To my knowledge having your business registered prior to advertising to the public is helpful in cases of defamation. To my knowledge as well not having a registered entity as the subject of alleged defamatory speech would make for a difficult case.

[funishment-time]

🌠 DANGANRONPA-THEMED CHARITY EVENT FOR TRANS LIFELINE, FAM

From now until the end of 2024, I’m raising money for Trans Lifeline by playing Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony…for the very first time.

And you humans can help with bingo cards (to win prizes).

TOTAL RAISED SO FAR AS OF 1/24: $1006/$2500

>DONATE $5 OR MORE FOR A BINGO CARD<

or learn more about the game by Clicking Through Below!

🌠 About Trans Lifeline:

Trans Lifeline is a grassroots hotline and microgrants 501(c)(3) non-profit organization offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis – for the trans community, by the trans community.

They also, incidentally, will not contact the cops or emergency services without your consent. Since this is Tumblr, I doubt I need to state the importance of this nonprofit (or that policy).

🌠 About me (Iris Polaris):

I am a polar bear streamer and "VTuber" who specializes in occult, art, and nature content, as well as VNs, sims, RPGs, and survival games, all to learn about you silly primates. Danganronpa is kind-of all of those genres at once. Kind-of.

In the past I've raised about ~$2500 USD across two events. I want to beat that. Just POUND it, y'all. My goal this time around is to raise $2500 USD for Trans Lifeline.

🌠 How to participate:

DONATE. Donate any amount to the Trans Lifeline (minimum $5 USD) here at this event's Tiltify. Leave contact info (an e-mail, Tumblr username, etc) in the comment of the donation or when choosing a reward. NOTE: You must donate thru our Tiltify so I can keep track of the total and contact you.

RECEIVE YOUR CARD. After donating, you will receive a randomized PDF bingo card like this one at your provided e-mail, Tumblr username, etc within 48 hours. Each space on the card represents a prediction I have about v3, a reaction I may have to the characters, etc.

WATCH THE BIWEEKLY-ISH YT VIDEOS. I'll be playing the game offline (i.e. not streamed) with my Manager Bunny. However, every 2-4 weeks, I'll publish a 10 minute or less YouTube video on my account until we finish the game. These videos will be compiled montages of all the spaces participants can mark off that week. These will not be long play videos!

EARN A PRIZE. If you get a bingo, tell me when it happens! Contact me via e-mail (irispolaris.vt@gmail.com), on Twitter (@IrisPolarisEN), on Discord (irispolaris), or here on Tumblr (funishment-time or iris-polaris). All bingo winners get to choose from the prize pool at the end of the event (see below) in order of their wins!

🌠 Prize pool:

For fairness' sake, every bingo winner gets to choose one prize, regardless of how many times they get a bingo. More prizes to be added soon!

DIGITAL PRIZES (UNLIMITED AVAILABLE UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED):

Character-themed phone BG commission: I'll make you a lovely little background for your phone based on existing official art. Examples (1 | 2 | 3).

Character-themed icon commission: I'll make you a lovely little 500x500 icon based on existing official art. Examples (1 | 2 | 3).

250-word general tarot reading: I'll pull a single card for you and give you an overview of what's to come. Here's an example.

Short astrological (zodiac) birthchart: I'll give you a short astrological birthchart that includes your Sun, Moon, and Rising signs. You must provide me your date of birth and location of birth, so don't choose this if you're not comfortable with that! Here's an example.

Bust-up sketch commission by Tane Aspen: 10 available. The wonderful Tane has donated art commissions to the cause! Here's an album of examples.

Bust-up sketch commission by YogurtFluff: 1 available. Darling YogurtFluff (aka Gracie) has donated another art commission to the cause! Here's examples of their art.

Twitch panel set commission by Jar of Rubies Art aka Zenith: 1 available. Are you a streamy streamer? Zenith, who made my own personal Twitch panels and overlays, has donated a commission for a set herself! Here's examples of her work.

Pixel art commission by @🌸 🌿 Faerieko. 1 available. Commission a chibi pixel bust from my dear Mama Faerieko! See a cute EXAMPLE.

PHYSICAL PRIZES (SHIPPING ADDRESS REQUIRED):

Iris-themed sticker set: 5 sets available. Three different ~"3 stickers by Studio Nekomata featuring yours truly.

Fortune-telling Bear patch: 2 available. A ~3" sew-on patch by Studio Nekomata featuring yours truly.

Iris-themed RPG charm: 2 available. A double-sided RPG-inspired charm by Studio Nekomata featuring yours truly.

Fortune-telling Bear charm: 5 available. A ~3" charm of yours truly, readin' the future and all that, with art by @faerieko.

1.5" Kaede & Shuichi buttons by MachineDean: 3 sets of 2 buttons available. Your delightful totally alive protagonists in adorable button form. (Pic)

DR v3-themed stickers by other folks. 2 available of each sticker. Choose three from these designs (album link - better/bigger images coming ASAP).

Please note that the presence of prizes from independent creators does NOT imply that they condone this event. Or even know about it. So don't ask them about stuff.

Donations to the prize pool are welcome, but not necessary. Please contact at me at irispolaris.vt@gmail.com or here on Tumblr (funishment-time or iris-polaris) if you have a piece of merch or service (commissions, graphic design etc) you want to give.

🌠 Goal incentives:

MONODAM LEVEL: $100 raised. Art sketch request stream. Monodam turns me into a sketch robot for a stream. Beep boop bitch. ☑️ ACHIEVED AS OF 9/8, STREAM HELD 11/28

MONOPHANIE LEVEL: $500 raised. Giveaway. Detective Duo poster by Cheer puppy. Monophanie woke up in a good mood, so she's giving away a 16" by 20" poster of our favorite v3 protagonists...or, well, I guess, the only v3 protagonists. (This item will be given away on stream, date TBD.) ☑️ ACHIEVED AS OF 9/9

MONOKID LEVEL: $1000 raised. Danganronpa WWE content. I use whatever wrestling game I can pirate find and custom-make Danganronpa characters y'all vote on. Then we fight 'em. Offline-recorded video series. HOO YEAH!

MONOSUKE LEVEL: $1500 raised. Giveaway. DR1 Steam game key. Monosuke knows the best way to bring in business is to give people stuff. Any kind of stuff. DR1 isn't the game he's in, but like, does it matter? It's free! (This item will be given away on stream, date TBD.)

MONOTARO LEVEL: $2000 raised. Return of the hot sauce stream. Like Monotaro, I'm forgetful. Specifically, I've forgotten how much my previous hot sauce stream hurt me on my birthday. So we're going at it again, new sauces, new pain, date TBD.

MONOKUMA LEVEL: $2500+ raised. 12 hour marathon Summer Camp stream. Fulfill my goal of being the Ultimate Fundraiser and I'll sit and play Danganronpa S Ultimate Summer Camp for 12 hours nonstop. And do all the voices. Puhuhu...huhuhu. (Date TBD.)

MASTERMIND LEVEL: $3000+ raised. Every winner gets an additional prize. Peasants! We have been waiting for oh-so-long! Knock things out of the park and every bingo winner gets to choose an additional prize...and a sample of my famous home cooking! (Home cooking not included.)

🌠 Important dates:

DONATIONS ACCEPTED BEGINNING: August 21st, 2023

VIDEOS/EVENT BEGINS: Sept 9, 2023

VIDEOS/EVENT ENDS: When we're done with the game. Probably no later than December or January. Or maybe much sooner. This is going to take a while, actually. But we'll post about it everywhere (here, Twitter, etc), don't worry.

DONATIONS ACCEPTED UNTIL: The event ends. See above. You can get a bingo card up until our last video, which will be announced well in advance (here, Twitter, etc). Note, however, you'll be at a slight disadvantage to choose a prize, as bingo winners get to choose in order of their wins.

🌠 Important links:

Trans Lifeline's website

Our fundraiser Tiltify (donate here! Remember: leave contact info!)

My YouTube channel (the bingo videos go here!)

My Discord, or my Twitter, or my Tumblrs (1 | 2), for updates

🌠 FAQ:

Where can I donate? Via our Tiltify! Include contact info in the comment of your donation if you want a bingo card.

Where can I find updates? You can find updates here on funishment-time or iris-polaris, on my YouTube, on my Twitter, or on my Discord.

Do any donations touch your wallet? Nope. All proceeds go directly to Trans Lifeline via Tiltify. I don't get a cent of it, not even for a second.

Do I have to donate via Tiltify to participate? Yes, sorry. This is the only way I can easily keep track. However, Tiltify accepts any form of currency IIRC.

Can I get a bingo card for a friend? Yes, but you must donate twice (or more), even if it means donating $5 USD each time. I will issue you two (or more) cards, and you can give them out as you wish.

Can I donate without participating in the bingo? Totes. Just ignore all the bingo stuff if you want. But you won't get any cool prizes!

What if, on the bingo card, I see a prediction that I know is true? If, for example, Miu survives the game and you know it, don't mark the space until I get to that point in the game. This means that you do not get a bingo until I get to that point in the game. (Example: if you need the "Miu survives" space to get a bingo, it's not a bingo until I get there. I tried to balance this out by providing spaces about the way I play the game, too.)

Is this really your first time playing v3? Yes. I know like two spoilers (the killer and victim of trial 1, for example) and I understand the characters' personalities from Summer Camp, but I've never played the game.

Isn't it a little weird to play a killing game...game for Trans Lifeline? Yeah, but like, the fandom is super queer anyway so why not.

Are you trans? Sort-of. Queer/genderweird, definitely. Any pronouns are fine. I like to think of my gender as..."bear."

🌠 BINGO VIDEOS SO FAR:

Week 1 (9/8): 5 spaces

Week 2 (9/21): 6 spaces

Week 3 (10/12): 4 spaces

Week 4 (11/12): 2 spaces

Week 5 (1/24): 3 spaces

✨ Thank you for spreading the word...or for participating! ✨

[khofiecloud]

how to preserve your mental health at school

School is probably one of the most mentally taxing things a teen can go through. It certainly is mine. With the pressure to be the best, to get ahead, and to generally succeed, it's hard to not be affected. The mental strain is unavoidable, and I struggled with it for most of my school years, but over time that has led me to find tips that could help anyone going through this cope.

There are a few signs that can tell you whether or not you are being severely affected. You might be unmotivated and apathetic throughout the school day, and just because of school itself. You might feel like crying in school during the whole day and every day. Reasons can range from academic pressure to bullying and social ostracization to feeling inferior to your over achieving classmates.(If it's bullying, please tell someone who can help you) But here's some tips that might help based on what I learned from experience:

Find a piece of comfort (that you can come back to whenever you feel bad) .It can be a show, anime, song , movie, fanfic, manga , book, food, piece of clothing, or really just about anything (my recs are saiki k, ghibli songs and movies) . It’s best to have multiple just in case you get too used to 1 of them.

Get a support system: the way you can get this may differ based on your specific problem but here’s some ideas : make new friends offline or online (best app is slowly) and strengthen your existing relationships with friends and family.

Find a 3rd place which is not electronic: A third place is any public area away from homes and school/work ,where people meet and interact in an open environment. But the real challenge is not making your 3rd place your device .It's hard but here are some ideas for a 3rd place : libraries, arcades, gym, yoga place, sport club, skateparks, playgrounds, parks, coffee shops and cafes, bodegas. Make sure to choose a place where you feel comfortable. 

Get enough sleep: being tired will just make you feel so much worse. Never underestimate the power of a good night's sleep. Just to make it extra too, listen to some calming music, light candles and wear your fanciest sleepwear.

Put your mind on other things and focus on finding things that'll make you proud of yourself: You could get new hobbies, especially creative ones since those allow you to express yourself easily. Some examples are crocheting, embroidery, drawing, painting, sculpting, pottery, dancing, writing music, performance art and writing (stories, poetry, essays)

Take a leap of faith: create or design something based on your interests and skills and share it with the world. This can develop into being your own personal extracurricular activity. It might be scary but that's what makes it so rewarding in the end.

1) Video editing : post videos on your favorite subject and post on tiktok or youtube 2) Fashion and Photography : take pictures of yourself wearing cute clothes (or just your fav ones) and post them on your social media 3) Painting and Sustainability : paint an exhibit and display it in public 4) Volunteering and Social Media: make and run the official Instagram account of a local business 5) Gaming : make a game on roblox 6) Reading: start a book review blog These are just a few pretty ambitious ideas. You don’t have to follow these. Create your own project, it all depends on who you are. Take the best out of all of you (pieces of your soul) and create a masterpiece. If you don't have any interests (post on tips coming soon) just make something out of your skills . Make sure to only take on a project if you have time and resources.

Lastly, this is a tip I got from Quora. It’s to make a slow nights document. You can write this down on paper or open a doc and write down your comforts, favorite movie, favorite art pieces, places you’d like to go in the future, what you think your life will be in 10 years and so on. Just write things that will make you you.

School can make you feel drained, insecure and hurt for so many reasons. It may end up in you being numb and apathetic. In most cases, the problems you have can’t be solved by just forcing yourself to look at the bright side or forcing yourself to avoid or ignore them. They are real issues. And when asking for tips on the internet isn’t enough, I hope this post will help you. It probably didn’t solve all your problems, but I hope it showed you a way to go. Thank you for reading and Good Luck 

[lulu2992]

Exploration of the now-offline Far Cry 5 official websites

Part 1: Game Announcement

Recovered content

The first time the American version of the official Far Cry 5 website was archived on the Wayback Machine was on May 24th, 2017. Here is a screenshot of what we could see on the home (and only) page:

Subscribe on YouTube now and be the first to watch the Announcement Video on May 26th.

The embedded video was the Teaser Trailer (posted by Ubisoft North America on YouTube on May 22nd), a compilation of the four Welcome to Hope County videos (see #1, #2, #3, and #4) that were released the same day on the worldwide Ubisoft Channel:

As for the Announcement Video they mentioned and that was posted on May 26th, it is this one:

The next time the website was archived was the following day, on May 27th, and more information about the game and its characters appeared.

Commentary

I don’t have much to say about this for the moment, except maybe that I think Eden’s Gate looked a bit scarier and more dangerous in these first trailers than in the game. It’s not the first time we see early content that suggests their violence was slightly toned down as the development of the game progressed, and there are other pieces of evidence that support this theory on the old websites.

Part of what Joseph says in the Announce Trailer can still be heard in a sermon in Far Cry 5, but unlike what the subtitles indicate, the first person who speaks (and says, “We must Atone”) is actually John.

[msmc-796-official]

Correspondences from Pilot NET #2

[BEGIN CHATLOG]

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: Hello? Who is this, and how did you find our private server information?

calibanhammer: Greetings, Linchpin. This is callsign Lockbreaker, from the 796th Detachment. I apologize for not using the official channels to contact you, but as this job offer isn't an officially-sanctioned deployment, I had to use your backdoor. May I have a word with your commander, if they're online?

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: Oh, shit, you're with the PR squad? Yeah, of course, gimme ten seconds, I'll tell 'em to log on. Forgive my hostility, I didn't recognize your username - Angel never mentioned you were one of her squadmates.

calibanhammer: It's a fact I try not to advertise. Given my history prior to joining MSMC, it's probably not a wise decision for someone like me to be known as a spokesperson for a rival corporation.

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: No, no, I getcha. You were with the Armory before MSMC, yeah?

calibanhammer: Yes. Briefly. It is a time in my life I much regret.

C0ns1d3r1tW0n: Ouch. Sorry to hear it. Oh, there he is - here's squad commander Halogen for ya. I'll log off and give you two some privacy. Pleasure speaking with ya, Kennedi.

[USER "C0ns1d3r1tW0n" OFFLINE]

[USER "URBN-NYTLYF" ONLINE]

URBN-NYTLYF: And to whom do I owe the pleasure of a visit from "Heaven's PR Team"?

calibanhammer: This is callsign Lockbreaker speaking. But please, call me Kennedi. The 796th requires your squad's services.

URBN-NYTLYF: Is that so? And why, pray tell, couldn't you go to any of the higher-ups for these "services"?

calibanhammer: This mission is of a more... personal nature, I'm afraid. Requesting this as a sanctioned deployment would only paint a target on the back of MSMC. Discreet measures were a necessity.

URBN-NYTLYF: Interesting. Consider me sufficiently intrigued; what do you need us for, Kennedi?

calibanhammer: There's an AGNI-class NHP currently housed inside a "Worldkiller" Genghis Mk. 1 which we suspect to be the cause of a recent rogue NHP cascade over at Harrison. The offending NHP (a THOR-class, I believe) has since been contained by HA's PR Intern, but the AGNI (if indeed responsible for the cascade, as it claims to be) has yet to be apprehended.

URBN-NYTLYF: An AGNI in a Worldkiller? My goodness, Kennedi, you spoil us. Prowl will be thrilled to test his newest virus suite. Do you simply want it neutralized, or are we authorized to kill?

calibanhammer: Neutralized is preferable, but there's a catch.

URBN-NYTLYF: Oh?

calibanhammer: To my knowledge, this AGNI is under the protection of the KTB, and claims to live in a mansion sufficiently sized to house its frame within their territories. I'll warn you now: expect more resistance than just the Genghis, whichever approach you choose.

URBN-NYTLYF: Oh, I see. Worried about upsetting the Baronies, are we, Colonial Legionnaire?

calibanhammer: Please. I've already been called a "corpo bootlicker" by the offending AGNI once today, Halogen. I don't need any further reminders of my previous affiliations.

URBN-NYTLYF: You really are no fun, you know that? But no matter. Consider the 148th Detachment willing and able to fulfill this "special request". I'll inform my squadmates shortly.

calibanhammer: Excellent. Thank you for humoring me, Halogen - I'd have gone to someone else, but your squad is well known for its ability to deal with hostile Genghis and Tokugawa frames, despite its... let's say glaring eccentricities, and not using your talents felt like a waste. We'll discuss matters of compensation after.

URBN-NYTLYF: Naturally. Take care now, Lockbreaker. Oh, and do send the rest of your squad our regards for me - we so seldom get to cross paths with the 796th, you know.

calibanhammer: I'll pass the greetings onwards. Farewell.

[END CHATLOG]

[faemytho]

Mae's Writing Commissions

Hey guys! I'm officially opening up my writing commissions!!! Yippee!!

I've revamped my prices and what I offer! I'm going to operate primarily from Ko-Fi, but if you know me on Discord or you want to send me a PM on Tumblr or Twitter, that's welcome too!!

Commission Info:

[All Commission Info]

[TOS]

[Ko-Fi Shop]

Commission info transcribed below:

General Terms:

You may use my work for private and personal use

You may not use my work for commercial use

You may not post or publish my work anywhere online, offline or anywhere publicly under your name

You may not submit my work to AI algorithms for training, prompting, or anything else regarding AI generators or chat-bots

If you are rude or unpleasant during the commission process, I have the right to cancel your commission and you will be refunded any payments you have made

I retain the right to refuse a requested commission for any reason and you will be refunded any payments you have made

If I write over the initially agreed amount, you will not be asked to pay the difference

I may post your commission publicly on my fiction archive accounts (AO3, SqWA) unless you specifically request otherwise

Process and Refunds:

If you wish to order a commission, you must first message me so we can discuss what you'd like!

Once you request the commission, I may approve or deny your commission; if denied, I will send you a message explaining why

Further details may be discussed via online messages; this will include the outline of the work, clarifications, and any other necessary details

Once the outline of the work is approved by you, payment must be sent before I begin work

You may request a refund up to two weeks after the initial request is put in; any work I have done will be erased entirely if a refund is requested during this period

You will receive the final product in full via a shared Google Document, at which point refunds may not be requested

If you wish to receive your final product in an alternate way, I am willing to accommodate whatever free online method you wish

After I am finished with the final product, I am willing to make small changes as requested

Shop and Prices:

Will Do:

Popular + rare ships

Blood, Injury, Ect.

Suggestive/Fade-to-black/Lime

Dark fic/Unhealthy relationships

AUs/Tropes

Non-romantic/Gen fic

Won't Do:

Crack fic

Ship bashing

Character bashing

Real person fic

Graphic violence, gore, entrails, ect.

Mafia AU

Underage

Prices:

For 500-999 words: - Base Price of $6 - Reader Insert for $9 - OC Fiction for $11 - Adult Fiction for $12

For 1,500 words: - Base Price of $15 - Reader Insert for $20 - OC Fiction for $22 - Adult Fiction for $30

For 3000 words: - Base Price of $30 - Reader Insert for $37 - OC Fiction for $39 - Adult Fiction for $60

If I write over the initially agreed amount, you will not be asked to pay the difference.

You will have to verify your age to me in some way before purchasing any adult fiction from me. Adult fiction will be posted anonymously, unless you specifically request for me not to post it.

Contact and Payment:

Contact me with your commission request and information before sending payment!

All prices are in USD.

Message me on:

Tumblr (NO INBOX) -> @faemytho

Discord -> mae.3920

Ko-Fi Shop -> FaeMytho

Twitter Messages -> FaeMytho

I accept:

Ko-Fi Shop -> FaeMytho

Cashapp -> $hibiscusfleur

PayPal

Zelle

[theimaginatrix27]

So it's been a year since I began delving into Star Trek fandom properly

It's officially my birthday in my timezone! This time last year, I was gushing on the server @kintatsujo made for our circle of mutual friends about the best/most well-thought-out part of my Star Trek AU, now dubbed Galactic Warp, after its most important advancement. In a few weeks, it will be the one-year anniversary of my joining the Trek server where I would make all the friends I have in that fandom (particularly gonna shout out @roguetelepaths, who you may have noticed I've been reblogging a lot of posts from of late).

A lot has happened over the past year on that front, if I'll be quite honest. I've posted eight! fanfics for DS9 (holy shit), bringing my number of works on AO3 up into the double-digits and totalling about 140 thousand words! And there are many more to come, I assure you—the plot bunnies living in my brain evolved into tribbles and started churning out ideas for this fandom and these characters, as if making up for lost time.

I hit a lot of milestones this year (remembers the name of the first Trekfic I posted and laughs). Let's see if I can remember them all! :D

I discovered I can write Sci-fi, actually! Honestly I'm looking back at my confident assurance of the exact opposite of this and laughing, because I have proven that claim false in several ways over the past year. (See my Threshold fics for the most obvious example). But like. Also. The backdrop of one of my original series is kind of a Sci-fi setting, so I've been doing this for a while. Yeah, Kinta, laugh it up, you were right and I was very silly.

I can write Star Trek fanfics, actually, and if I mess up on anything, nobody's gonna care! I was so scared I'd embarrass myself in front of a fandom I found very intimidating, but so far, everyone's been so welcoming and people like what I've put out there! They really like it! I'm honestly humbled and grateful for all my lovely readers who have said such nice things to me in fic comments, and in private on Discord. You're all wonderful! But critically, I did make a mistake, and nobody gave a single, solitary shit. The story's an AU anyway, and people have been enjoying it, and I was worried for eleven years over nothing. You won't believe what that does for a lady's confidence.

I've learned some stuff about my own personal writing process, which is a big step forward! I've been taking in writing advice for as long as I've been fully online. I've listened to writer after writer tell me how they work, how they do things, and I've tried plenty of it myself, but to no avail. Earlier this year, I ran out of words to paste into 4TheWords, a website I'd joined several years ago because I liked its premise (turning writing into a game, where you could defeat monsters with words you wrote). I hadn't written on it live before, due to copy/paste issues I was able to resolve (the font in the site editor is different to the font I use on my computer when writing offline), but I actually started doing it because there is a particular group of enemies that are specifically time-based (all enemies have a time limit in which you must defeat them, but these guys set a timer within which you must keep typing), and I thought I could use that as freewriting sessions. Freewriting was something I'd been sure would work for me if I needed to get unstuck, and I'd actually noticed I could untangle issues I had by talking about them with friends in private, often without them even being around to help. So I tried it. And wonder of wonders! I got unstuck! On multiple stories! Just by rambling about them on a timer! And then I started writing words to defeat other enemies on the site live, and wait. How many words did I write this week? On this day? It's been a real game-changer, particularly as my edits count as more words, which impresses the fundamental truth that every word you write matters, even the ones you delete. Even the ones you edit away because the sentence didn't feel right. Even the passages that ultimately don't work. It all matters, and it all helps. And if I get stuck again, there's always the endurance monsters to help me out! About half of the stuff I've posted was shared in the last three months. And it's all thanks to 4TW. If you think this sounds cool, look them up! They're good eggs and don't support generative AI in creative writing. :)

I've also achieved a few writing firsts as a result of that last point!

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to my writer friends, but I've fully accepted the fact that the first thing I need to do as a writer is write. I have heard that a thousand times before, and I knew it was true on some level, but I would always let my anxiety and perfectionism get the better of me, and overthink myself to a standstill. With the method I've been employing on 4TW, I've had to press forward if I want to beat the clock, which has pushed my ADHD brain into doing what I want it to (part of why 4TW works for me is that it sets little deadlines outside myself. I cannot set my own deadlines, I know the person who drew up that schedule and she's too easily distracted and also likes to have fun too much). With even the low-stakes pressure of beat this guy before time runs out, I've been able to at least get started, and once I've picked up a little momentum, I get excited about my stories again, and we can have days where I write over 6000 words in twelve hours, because I don't want to stop!

I've stopped trying to force my chapters to be a certain length. I let each one be as long as it needs to be, and if that's a couple thousand words longer than the last one, fine! It achieved it's purpose for the story, and I'm not going to cut stuff when it was all important! Besides, I've noticed that each story finds its rhythm if I give it the space it needs, and the chapters end up being close to the same length anyways.

I've been getting bolder and bolder about the stories I write or consider writing! Too often in the past, I've been unsure about whether an idea will work for my audience, but the more times I've let myself be weird on main, and nobody has come out of the woodwork to yell at me for it, the easier it's been to be that little bit more wild with my ideas. And having friends to babble to helps with that too, people who tell me to go for it are super important and I appreciate every one of them!

I've actually written stories inspired by prompts! I'd never really done this before. Being prompted by a post is one thing (love ya, Threshold AU), but actually doing prompts for a challenge? That was always difficult for me. I'd always second-guess myself if I came up with any ideas for a particular prompt set, and then procrastinate on trying for years. But this year, I participated in Dominion Week, and although I've only posted four out of the seven prompt fills, I do have ideas for the other three days and will write them when the tribbles are done filling in any gaps they think should be patched in the AUs said prompt fills are relevant to. :D

Related to the above, I wrote oneshots! That stayed oneshots! And one of them stands completely on its own! That. That has never happened before. I've said several times on this blog that I'm not wired for short stories. I wrote my mother a story for her birthday and it was a backstory event from my Ylonaverse because I couldn't think of an idea that could stand on its own. And then Dominion Week happened, and I started two series of single-chapter stories, and wrote a oneshot that was a thought experiment and won't be a part of any of my currently existing AUs, and I'm still mind-blown that that even happened.

It has been a good writing year for me, in other words, despite its ups and downs.

Oh, and I also have had the capacity to Braille up my stories for a year now, and although I'm a perfectionist about this and want the Braille versions to be just right, because I intend to podfic them, I'm still very glad I can Braille things up at all.

But that was gonna happen anyway. The Brailler and paper were part of last year's birthday present, much as the binding combs and binding machine were part of this year's one. And the discussion of that part of my creative life should have its own post at some point. Probably when I have compiled enough to start actually podficking.

[dumpster-fire-deluxe]

@grainyblack here it is!

The prompt: assassin/robber breaks into Palpatine's apartment. Handmaiden Y/N knows he's a Sith, but she prefers to turn a blind eye and is afraid he's gonna wreck these guys.

CW: robbery, assault, Sith-style violence

You finish your chores and are about to get ready for bed. Palpatine's working late in his office again and he gave you permission to call it a night.

You head to your chambers, when you notice the display of the security system. One of the systems appears to be offline. You rush down the hall to alert Palpatine and security staff.

When you enter the lounge, however, you freeze in your tracks. Three masked figures are standing in the room, blasters ready to fire, and pointing at you.

You raise your hands to show them you're defenseless, when you're grabbed from behind. A hand clasps over your mouth, muffling your shriek, and a cold blade presses against your throat. You don't struggle in fear of making things worse.

"I'm going to remove my hand," the person holding your whispers. "If you scream, you die, understood?"

You nod carefully.

The man removes his hand and the other three people move closer, their blasters still at the ready. "Where is the Senator?" one of them asks.

"This is not a good idea," you say. "There are security measures invisible to you. If you don't leave now, you will die." It's not entirely a lie. Your master being a Sith Lord does guarantee death for intruders like these.

"We are not going anywhere, sweetheart. Now, tell us where the Senator is and where we may find his most valuable belongings."

"He's asleep," you lie. "I can take you to a safe, but I don't know the code."

"Then you're only useful as leverage. And for a bit of fun..." The man uses his blaster to lift your skirt.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why? Is the Senator going to stomp his feet and demand we leave by official decree? Will he slap us with his soft hands?"

"Your time to leave is running out." Your master must be aware of the threat by now and he'll strike at any moment.

"Take us to the safe, baby. Then we can have some real fun."

"No, thank you."

The man slaps you across the face and the blade against your throat leaves a cut on your skin.

"Now, that I simply cannot tolerate," Palpatine's voice sounds from across the room.

The men whirl around. They raise their blasters but Palpatine steps closer, unfazed.

"Give us the code to the safe," one of them says.

"Lesser beings. Putting your hands on what's mine." He looks at you. "Damaging my property."

"Hurry up before we shoot her."

"Let her go."

You feel the grip on you vanishing. Palpatine beckons you and hurry to him. You expect to be stopped, but all the men appear frozen in place.

You get behind Palpatine and watch as he pulls one of the blasters to him. "Go to the bedroom," he says to you. "I'll come get you when it's safe."

Technically, you're not in danger anymore. But you know that the less his Force usage is witnessed, the better. You can only imagine the horrors that you know will take place. "Yes, sir," you say before hurrying off.

As you make your way to the bedroom, you hear a mixture of screams and blaster fires. You try not to picture what it must look like. The threat has been dealt with.

[alex-richey]

Blog Post #8 (Due 10/31)

How is online harassment/stalking different from offline harassment/stalking?

In Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, Citron explains the role that the internet’s permanence plays in harassment. While offline harassment may eventually go away, be forgotten, or otherwise moved on from, things posted to the internet are there to stay. While both are undoubtedly very harmful and can be ongoing, online harassment is permanently embedded in the sites it remains on, often remaining there for years to come.

How do we know social media platforms are really trying to protect us from cyber harassment?

Although I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, we can’t know when (or how) social media companies are trying to help. As described in the timeline of Leslie Jones’ online abuse, Twitter made multiple statements claiming that the type of hate and harassment she was receiving was not tolerated on the platform, and that they were “investigating it.” However, we often receive very little information regarding what that “investigation” entails. While Milo Yiannopoulis’s account was taken down, online abuse against Jones and many others continued. The removal of his account was likely helpful, but what measures are taken to ensure he doesn’t simply make a new one, or plan online harassment elsewhere?

How is Reddit a particularly “popular” forum for trolls and online harassment?

In her article about trolling on Reddit, Bergstrom explains that Reddit’s is highly used anonymously. Unlike other social media platforms, it’s not based on connecting with friends and family, nor does it entirely revolve around posting about one’s day-to-day life. We know cyber bullying to be more likely/easier to commit when the perpetrator can hide their identity, as it prevents them from having to face their victim face to face. However, Reddit also runs primarily on a “Karma” system, meaning one can tell exactly how active, or liked, you are on the site. The anonymity paired with the convenient up- and down-voting of others’ accounts makes it quite easy not only for one person to initiate some form of online harassment, but it also becomes much easier for others to follow or add onto that harassment.

Is trolling always malicious?

As we discussed in class this week, trolling is not always malicious. In fact, it’s relatively common for brands or companies to troll each other in a lighthearted fashion, which often gains followers and attention for both parties. The first example of this that came to my mind was the Empire State Building, which has official social media accounts. They commonly make fun of other buildings/architecture, perpetuating a years-running joke on the accounts about the Empire State Building being undoubtedly “better” than any other building. The managers of these social media teams tend to troll very lightheartedly, and the followers seem to enjoy it. Because the account represents a building and not a person, it feels easy to dismiss this kind of trolling as a joke, rather than anything malicious or ill-intended.

Bergstrom, Kelly. “Don’t feed the troll”: Shutting down debate about community expectations on Reddit.com.

Citron, D. K. (2014). Hate crimes in cyberspace. Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England, Harvard University Press.

Silman, Anna. A Timeline of Leslie Jones’s Horrific Online Abuse.

[davidmariottecomics]

Burning a Resource (Or How I'm Leaving Twitter)

Hey again! 

Yesterday, I drew and posted a little comic on my various socials (reposted here) about how I'm gearing up to officially shut down my Twitter. And I want to talk a little bit about why it isn't an immediate thing that I'm doing, and some thoughts I've had on losing what has ultimately been a really valuable resource in my personal and professional life, particularly in light of how it has gotten people jobs. 

Why am I Leaving?

The long and short is I can't ethically stay. I find Elon Musk to be detestable as a human being and wish him nothing but ill-will, in the same way that he uses his money and resources to push ill-will upon the world. And under his reign--because he certainly treats it as a kingdom--the site had gotten a lot worse in a bunch of ways. For months, people have been describing the overall site's decline into far right views and activism. You can see all the problems of greed and bad business sense at work as so many functions have gone offline or been shunted to only being accessible behind a pay wall. There're increasing problems of the user experience--I know someone who has basically given up on Twitter because the site makes them "verify their identity/that they're human" multiple times a day, and then directs them to the Twitter Rules, without any sort of guidance on how any rule that Twitter has may've been violated. And, yes, there are a lot of services that I've elected to use despite having compunctions about them, but that's uhh... living in a capitalistic society and having to make decisions on how far you're willing to flex and while that's not a morally great feeling, it's part of how we have to exist at the moment and being cognizant of the decisions we make around these things is an important part of navigating further use. And this point, I am not going to keep using Twitter. 

Why am I Staying? 

That all said, I'm not leaving this exact moment. I'm not sure of my exact exit date. By the end of 2023, certainly. But I have a few things I'd like to wrap up before I go, and I want to briefly walk you through them. 

First off, let me just say, this is also very highly influenced by my age. I am of the age when I have never worked at a company that didn't have a social media presence while I was there. I watched in real time as platforms like Twitter and Facebook became a regular part of business--through promotion and connections--and how that was added to workflows as I was coming up. I think a lot of the people who've had an easier time detransitioning from socials are folks who were not trained onto it from a young age. But that's not my case and I want to make sure that the business and personal aspects of my life that have been entangled in Twitter are compensated for in other ways. 

To me, the most important loss that will come from this is of community. And that's why I've continued to stay above all else. There are a lot of folks I'm connected to on Twitter that I don't have connections to other places. Functionally, I like Bluesky a lot. I'm about to hit 1000 followers, which all told, is pretty good. I have over 4 times that on Twitter, but I would guess a significant portion of that difference is not on Bluesky because it's invite only. And while I may have connections here and there on other platforms, they're pretty diffused and I am not using most of those platforms regularly enough to actually know who all is where. Like, despite everything I just about Bluesky, it's my second largest platform above Facebook (not counting the IDW Sonic Squad page), Instagram, and on anything else, less than 100 people are set-up to regularly see my posts, and that makes the way I use social media harder to do. 

And the primary way I do use social is to find and connect with creators and help promote their projects. So, this week, I'm setting my Twitter up with scheduled posts and through whenever I deactivate, I'll still have my posts going out about new projects that are important to me and to the people who worked hard on them. I think their work deserves whatever boost of recognition it might get from my social presence there.

In the coming weeks, my other big project will be to get as much contact info as I can. I have found so many artists that I really like on Twitter and I want to be able to reach out to them when I want/need to. I want to make sure my friends and I exchange ways to communicate outside of this. I'm taking this upon myself because that's, I dunno, my role? Editors tend to be the ones to reach out when we have a project. So I want to make sure I'm doing my part of be proactive about keeping that up. 

Finally, I want to make sure that I'm not completely out of touch with the other personal and practical parts of Twitter. I follow Genshin Impact because I think the game's fun. I frequently get updates on it through Twitter and should probably make sure if I want to continue those updates, I'm aware of how to get them otherwise. I follow journalists and sex workers and activists and unions and smart people whose thoughts I don't want to lose and dumb people who post real funny and just like... my friends and I'd like to make sure they aren't lost in the ether either. 

How We Collectively Move Forward Earlier this week, Becca and I got to do something pretty cool and talk to a class of sequential art students. If you were one of those students and are now reading this, hi! But we were asked to attend to give sort of a really cumulative look at working in comics from the point of view of an editor who has been at this for a long time and from a working freelance artist who does a lot of tabling at shows and indie work and is also still looking to get in and start doing work at bigger companies. As part of that, we talked to the kids about the advantages of tabling at and attending cons and how to go about meeting editors at shows and generally, how best to get the attention of an editor.

One of the things we talked about was with Twitter becoming less of an option, one of the more accessible ways to get on an editor's radar is going away. Not that editors like to be cold DM'ed necessarily, but as someone who has found a lot of talent through specifically Twitter and who recognizes that interstate, much less international, travel for cons is expensive and taxing, it sucks to lose that resource. And that's compounded by a lot of other resources going sideways--like, DeviantArt and ArtStation and some of the other art sharing sites have become hotbeds of AI theft bullshit and were full of NFTs before that. Some of the other potential social sites that could be used to promote your art like Cohost or Mastodon or TikTok are not always the best at discoverability or a good match to how you interact online (I don't really use any of those platforms). It's tough.

As has been said time and time again, it's neither fair nor particularly productive to have a significant portion of your work day be crossposting a million times and places and slightly different formats hoping to have your work hit where and when it needs to. Making comics is often a 2nd shift job, or a 4th & 5th shift job as you're trying to do more consistent work--be it a day job or non-comics freelance, plus caring for a family of some sort, plus the act of making art being a different job from the act of promoting it being a different job from the act of actually running an independent business to do all these things. 

My only real solution is, y'know, collective support. On my own website, I have a Friends page with links to the sites of people I like and have worked with or like the work of. I know that the Cartoonist Cooperative has a talent database of their members. There's a fairly new Adult Artist Webring. One of the best things I think creators can do with their peers is equivalent exchange projects--be that getting blurbs from or having your friends/peers post about your new project on their platforms, exchanging promos of projects on Kickstarter updates or just reposting each other's stuff, making ad swaps so if you have an indie project, you can put an ad for your friend's thing in it. I think other people should of course have Friend-type pages on their websites, and I am always appreciative when an artist reaches out or declines a project and recommends some other folks they know. It's a major part of how things build in this industry and how we do maintain connection outside of social media spheres. 

And, from an editorial perspective, one of the things that's really tough to navigate sometimes is how welcome you are in some of these spaces. I've mentioned Discords before, and while they can be a really great communal resource to the artists in them, there are a lot of very regular, valid reasons why artists might not want an editor in that space. So it does have to be considered and measured where and how folks are presenting themselves to get that visibility and traction. 

My last thought is y'know do try your hardest while also, again, accepting that this is a ton of work all the time and is often done on top of other work, to figure out what makes sense for you to reach out to people. If you aren't able to go to cons and meet editors, or you're only able to go to cons where you don't think many editors are attending, how do you move forward? Well, maybe your solution is to do a lot of anthologies that have a mix of talent involved and might get some extra eyes on your work because it also includes people who are known names that editors follow. Maybe your solution is to get an agent who can send your work out to editors on a regular basis and let them know when you're looking for work. Maybe your solution is to get a hold of cool comic and zine shops and see if they'll do consignment on your books, even if you aren't local, because they're local to where publishing is. Maybe your solution is to look up if a company has a talent director/scout type role and to reach out to them, rather than editorial directly. There are alternate ways to both social media and cons to get your work in front of hiring folks eyes, thought they also require a bit of leg-work and luck. 

Because I've talked about it a lot, here are the other places you can find me online. 

Bluesky Instagram My Website Patreon Tumblr Buttondown Linktree I am on Cohost, Mastodon, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but don't really use them actively, so not linking here.  You can email me, though I ask you please follow my rules on the contact page.  If we know each other, you can ask for my Discord handle or my phone #. 

Until next time!  What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Solve This Murder (Podcast), One Piece (Manga), The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon (Book), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show), Witch Watch (Manga), Freakazoid (TV show), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Troy Little's graphic novel adaptation), drawing a little comic and generally trying to do a little more art to go with my writing, when the cats do understand their new litterbox. 

New Releases this week (11/8/2023): Godzilla Rivals: Round Two (Editor on most of it) Sonic the Hedgehog #66 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: Knuckles' Greatest Hits (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Art Collection (Editor)

New Releases next week (11/15/2023): Godzilla Rivals: vs. Mechagodzilla (Editor)

Announcements: If you'd like to have me on your podcast, Twitch stream, at your convention, signing at your store, talking to your students, whatever, feel free to hit me up via my contact page. To those first couple things, sorry a few podcasty/Twitch-streamy things have been delayed. We've been having some headphone/mic technical issues, but that should be fixed soon. 

Wanna support me? Visit my webstore, my Patreon, my Kofi, or my eBay. And you can always visit Becca's portfolio/shop/Patreon/Twitch streams too.

It may feel futile as all polling already shows we aren't being listened to, but email, call, or fax your representatives to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and the stopping of a genocide. There are also plenty of places to donate your time and money. 

Pic of the Week: Enjoy a little comic about leaving Twitter. 

[pinchinschlimbah]

tysm for ur text post about noel... I'm seeing SO many people immediately hating on him and it's exhausting. he's not usually the type of person to speak up about things like this really (at least from what I've seen) so I doubt he's gonna say anything, but his comments on insta are now turned off/limited so its safe to say he knows what's happening and is probably horrified :/

Yes of course! Like I said in my previous post, I think it's incredibly dangerous to start condemning people purely by association and vague connections you've made in your own head without having any actual substantial evidence. I'm not going to assume Noel's current thoughts on the matter as much as I hope that he is indeed horrified, but I do know that it's fairly par for the course to close off public lines of communication and take longer than most would expect to formulate an official statement on something as sensitive as this because to do it right one should be consulting with their lawyers and agents and other knowledgeable people to make sure the statement is as airtight and well-informed as possible without room for further misinterpretation or complicating any possible legal endeavors at play, so it is absolutely not evidence of guilt that he hasn't said anything yet. As much as it would be nice to see him formally denounce Russell and support the victims, I agree with you that it's definitely not guaranteed and we shouldn't be holding our breath since he's generally such an offline and private person with very good reasons for mistrusting the tabloids still looking to demonize him whenever possible, and if he does end up not saying anything there's a million other reasons besides him being complicit as to why he did not speak out. And yeah, people assuming that the comments being turned off means he's definitely hiding something is absurd. First of all I think it's worth noting that most celebrities don't have exclusive access to their social medias and often have whole teams helping them run things because they themselves have better things to do, so it's very possible the comments being shut off wasn't even done or directed by Noel himself. Second, it would be extremely unwise right now for him to start responding off the cuff to random people in the comments just because they demand it. And third, my initial thought when I heard about it was well wouldn't anyone turn the comments off if they were being bombarded with harassment lobbing horrible accusations at them and pressuring them to speak publicly about something before they were ready? But hearing from multiple people that the comments were shut off after Russell's supporters started flooding the posts arguing Russell's innocence makes it make even more sense why the shutoff was done and less evidence of guilt. Also while I'm here something else I wanted to speak on is that since my previous post, a clip from BFQ 2007 has been going viral and reported on by tabloids as ~evidence~ of Noel being involved because rape jokes were being made that involved him, even though the only thing Noel says in the clip is "how dare you, we're not rapists" in response to Jonathan deciding for Lily that she needed to be forcibly kept away from Noel and Russell. (and if I may editorialize for a moment, news sources reported on Lily looking uncomfortable in the clip as a condemnation of Russell and Noel, but personally I think she seems more annoyed that Jonathan has declared this decision for her rather than letting her decide what she felt comfortable with, especially since later in the show she giddily brings up crimping and is clearly somewhat of a Boosh fan.) I hate to pull out the "it was a different time" excuse but I need y'all to remember or understand what things were like back then for context of what was going on there. Me Too hadn't happened yet and actual accusations of sexual misconduct were generally spread in whispers and kept pretty hush hush, it was unusual for such things to be made super public because public blame was much more likely to fall on the accuser than the accused. Since the recent accusations have come out, multiple people close to Russell at the time have gone on record as saying that while they were well aware of the scope of Russell's aggressive sexuality, they had no idea at the time that it was veering into nonconsensual behavior and were horrified to find out.

Rape jokes were, unfortunately, very common at that point, with the word "rape" being used pretty flippantly and not always accurately to how serious of an act the word is meant to convey. The push to eradicate rape jokes from comedy didn't start until several years later, my memory says somewhere around 2010-11? And at the time, "slut" (and similar terms) was one of the worst things you could call someone and promiscuity was highly demonized in popular culture. Again, the concept of "slut shaming" and push to normalize safe and consensual promiscuity didn't come up in popular culture until several years later. So what I see in that clip is Noel and Russell, who were both known for being sluts at that time, being demonized for that behavior (which was well known and well documented in the documentary) with what was meant to be a lighthearted joke that they wouldn't be able to help themselves around Lily, and Noel's internal thought process at that point was most likely something like "Well, I'm a slut who's been demonized for it but I'm not a predator, so I assume the same is true for Russell." I don't believe this clip shows any reasonable guilt or association on Noel's part.

I understand the impulse to not want to support anyone who's done anything terrible, but if we're deeming people guilty by association so anyone who's ever worked or been friends with someone who did something bad is also bad just purely by that association with no other hard evidence, soon you'll have boxed yourself into a corner of having nothing that's safe to enjoy or interact with, and that's no way to live. Like I said previously I'm fully ready to jump ship if actual problems directly involving Noel do arise, but for the moment I do believe the panic and vitriol towards him is unjustified and I'll be continuing business as usual until further notice.

[upbstechnology2001]

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NMIMS University (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies) offers a wide range of courses across various disciplines. Please note that the course offerings and details may have changed since then, so it’s essential to visit the official NMIMS University website or contact the university directly for the most up-to-date information.

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As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, NMIMS University offers an online MBA program known as "NMIMS Online MBA." However, it's important to note that program details and offerings may have changed since then, so I recommend checking the official NMIMS University website or contacting the university directly for the most up-to-date and accurate information.

NMIMS (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies) is a well-known private university in India, and its online MBA program is designed to cater to the needs of working professionals who wish to pursue higher education in business administration while maintaining their current professional commitments.

To get specific information about the NMIMS Online MBA program, including admission requirements, curriculum, fees, and any recent updates, visit the official NMIMS University website or contact the university's admission office. Additionally, you may find relevant information on the online platform through which the program is delivered and managed.