#I want to link the original post but tumblr is being a ''functioning website'' again and wont let me find it

[hermigeddon]

Original poem by @noctude

[nickywhoisi]

wow i'm starting to hate the heart for likes...I guess i was unfortunately correct about the likes being equivalent to my wants being ignored, and that not being okay anymore as an artist, and as a human being in general, sharing my thoughts? Just. Maybe Tumblr should make an update where only the reblog function exists, and could...be the like heart? Just mashing them together maybe? If that would help?

I don't know man. I guess it just hurts to see something i poured my heart and soul out on and established my boundaries with just got the same treatment as what I originally complained about. This fucking stings is what I'm saying. Fuck the people on here using this like twitter or facebook. It makes me all the more grateful to see when somebody has reblogged. I wish that happened more often.

So anyway, I had meant to provide some links to some new places I'm going to post my work on. I tried to find a simple photo uploader, but shit wasn't going right there. My god everything is going to shit here.

But here's the good news! I have some places in mind; one is on Gaia online, which still exists! Wow no wai guyz, but yah wai. I'm Foxishpeep, and another one of mine is NicolleneCosplay. I encourage you guys to make an account if you like, and get access to things like my profile and journal, and make comments on threads I make in the future, because despite what things happened there, you don't necessarily have to keep up with monthly collectibles, and it's one of the most iconic avatar designers on the internet. Buying items with real money is just like any other gacha; optional. And I'd actually say gaia has gotten fairer about getting gold and fancier items now. It's way easier than in the past! I like that. I'm gonna post my art and writing, and just generally play around with avi customizing, as I always have. It's actually a fun way to render original characters!

Another spot I have is on Pixiv, NickoWicko, which is exclusively for art posts. That might be good for comics too, so I'mma try it out. I've already posted some concept ideas for my Fate/ fanwork, Fate/WildPinnacle! I have SO MANY SCRIPTS FOR THIS ALREADY. But for anything I want to create visually for it will go here. As for writing...

I have overheard of a project called Neocities, and I haven't decided what mine will be named, but it will basically be my tumblr here, but even more personalized and just better all around. This is where I guess everything will go. Just wanna see if I can spread myself around. I'm especially excited, because while I basically know next to nothing about coding, I have always wanted to make my own website since all the way back in the late 90's. THIS IS AN OLD DREAM THAT HAS A CHANCE TO COME TRUE AGAIN, HOW CAN'T I GET HYPE ABOUT THAT. I'VE GOT THE POWA

The other two places I have in mind is Fanfic.net or AO3, exclusively for writing. I have actually been making more written work than art lately...because I have never found the free time or a safe space to wind down and have a focused atmosphere to create like this. I can still type, but my fucking god I miss being able to have a quiet draw session... It especially hurts because I want to post pictures with my fanfics and original works! Uuuurghgrhgg

REBLOGS > LIKES, THANK YOU!

[sharksmirk-reblogs]

Tumblr's reblog chaining has been a dumpsterfire from day one and is often mentioned as a reason why this site regularly devolved into a cesspool of toxicity. And since Tumblr was built in a way that every reblog creates a new version of the original post, the inability to delete or edit the original post meant that posters would get harassed for years because a bad-faith interpretation of their post can keep floating around indefinitely. Even the guy who added quote retweets on Twitter said he shouldn't have done it as it fosters toxicity, and those can only go one level deep (and you can remove the original). Hell, it's why Tumblr is now giving people the option to turn off reblogs since they can't change how the underlying reblog chaining functionality works. (And I will be doing this on my post, too, because I've been here long enough to know what's good for me. If you wanna tell me something, use @ mention. If you want to add something, use a link.)

And Tumblr didn't allow marginalized voices to be amplified because of reblog chaining (???), but because it had always been kind of a odd-ball/train-wreck site with limited mainstream appeal, which allowed marginalized communities to finally have a space of their own. It's kind of like the Eurovision Song Contest of websites, which was abandoned by the normies only to be upcycled by the gays. There's a lot of great POC and LGBT+ posters on Twitter, they just keep getting drowned out by everybody else. Hostility and silencing of marginalized members aren't due to some technical fault in how Twitter and Facebook work that Tumblr magically evaded, they're a consequence of marginalized members once again being the minority of users.

Anyway, here a post all the way from 2014 discussing how Tumblr's reblogs are structured in a perfect way to drive rage-engagement (also one of the reasons this site didn't need an algorithm to get you hooked lol): https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/

Meta Monday: Missing the Marginalised Megaphone

[ID: Banner graphic featuring a megaphone with the words 'Missing the marginalised megaphone' issuing from it. In the background are heart and reblog icons. /End ID]

Recently, many Twitter users have been wondering what website they could use as a replacement. For today’s Meta Monday, we’re looking at Missing the Marginalised Megaphone, an essay written by touretticflower which compares Pillowfort to Tumblr in terms of how it can boost marginalized voices. They explain that, despite its advantages, the impossibility to reblog comment chains on Pillowfort makes it harder to get the intra-community discussions that can happen on Tumblr.

Read the whole essay on Fanlore and tell us what you think!

---

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

[camelotsheart]

It has recently been brought to my attention that there has been a lot of reposts happening in regards to Merlin edits, so I want to make a post to talk about this issue. Both to speak up for editors who’s edits are being reposted and to help new editors with resources and tips so they don’t end up turning to reposts.

Consider the gifset above. The left gifs are unedited, while the gifs on the right are. This is to give you an idea of the amount of adjustments we do to scenes on a show, which are often dark, have horrible colour balance, and lack sharpness. This applies to fanvids, photo edits and any other kind of edited content. It is not fair, then, for someone to take an edit from a creator’s account and use it to make their own. You are disrespecting the creator and the time and effort they spend into making these edits look presentable. You are also violating Tumblr’s rules regarding reposting and attribution.

For our reposters who don’t know any better because they are new to tumblr and haven’t yet been told of the rules regarding reposting and gif-making, consider this your first lesson: never, ever use other people’s edits as part of your creations . This includes gifs, photos, manips, fanvids, and all other kinds of original content (e.g. don’t use a gif to make your own, don’t make a gif from a fanvid, don’t take photos of a gif to make a photo edit, don’t use another person’s fanvid in your own fanvid.... you get the idea). Doing so will run the risk of the owners of these creations reporting you and your account getting suspended.

Now that the nitty gritty part is done and over with, I’ll offer solutions to three of the most common complaints I’ve seen with creators who are at the initial stages of trying their hand at creating content 😊 :

1. “I don’t have HD files of my show so any edits I make are bad quality.” Try asking around! Make connections, join a tumblr group, join a discord server, heck -- ask your favourite giffer! They’ll certainly prefer you asking them for files than stumbling across a repost of their gif. Lots of people are willing to help new editors ✨

2. “I don’t have fancy programs to edit with.” Photoshop is by far the most efficient and popular program for editing. Again, don’t be afraid to ask around for download links! (Here are some very detailed step-by-step tutorials for giffing on photoshop: 1, 2, 3) Another option would be Da Vinci Resolve, which is free to download here.

If neither Photoshop nor Da Vinci works on your laptop because it takes up too much RAM, there are also online programs that are free to use like photopea, which has similar functions as photoshop. Here’s a tutorial on how to make gifs using free onlline websites. The above gifsets were made using this method.

3. “My editing skills are horrible.” Practice, practice, practice! Editing is a hobby and a hobby should be something you love. Believe me, it’s much more satisfying when you learn to edit scenes the way you want it to look instead of mix-matching from other people. The gifset looks way prettier, and you won’t run the risk of someone reporting you and getting your account suspended.

All in all, have fun! Don’t stress if your first edit doesn’t end up as good as you want it to be - we’ve all been in that position. Keep on learning and growing, don’t compare yourself to other people, do what you love to do and never stop as long as it makes you happy ✨

[manonamora-if]

ave u seen the post on wip about likes? guess ur post is WRONG they DO matter!

/rambling again

Hi Anon,

Yeah I saw it too. And it may be true that like to matter in Tumblr's algorithm. I mean, Tumblr's engineers know more about their code than we, the users, do.

Granted, they do have an algorithm (used in stuff in your orbit and "Based On Your Likes!" settings options and the For you tab) that may add posts to your dashboard. And those algorithm are most likely taking into account those likes. Personally, those options and tab felt more intrusive to the enjoyment of my personal dashboard (curated with blogs I actually enjoy), and would show me posts that weren't for me or would have been blocked if it had been tagged properly. I would want to know how many people actually use those options, tho.

Still, I winced at their first point (Firstly, there is actually no imbalance between them, and, interestingly, people have come to believe there’s a problem here). Based on my own experienced and the experiences of other creators I talked to or who talked about this issue on their blog, it doesn't look that way. I didn't say this willy-nilly then and still not saying willy-nilly now. I see more views/play on my itch page when larger blogs reblog my content. If it is not a clear causal link, there must be at least a high correlation there. My goal for that post was more about if you like something and want to support it, here are some ways you can do it and here are some ways that are MORE effective to help a creator see their work being shown. If I didn't believe likes were part of supporting an author, I wouldn't have included it (and at the top too).

At then end, I wouldn't know how Tumblr could fix this issue. They don't think it is an issue based on their response of that ask. The more I think about it the more I see there is probably no good way to fix it to be honest. You can't (and shouldn't) force people to do or not do things on your website (aside from your ToS), same goes for those like/reblog functionalities or their settings options (I WOULD HATE IT if you couldn't disable those). But I think there could be some sort of Best/Better Practice, like encouraging their uses to use the reblog buttons more.

Side note: I glanced through the notes to see what other users are saying about it, some agreed with the response, some didn't, and some made fun of it. But I think it's interesting that one person mentioned how the user culture changed compared to say 10 years ago (same point I made a few days ago) where people rebloged stuff more consistently. I'm sure it was bound to happen, seeing how the use of Internet has evolved overtime.

(I'm not going to edit my original post, if that's what you wanted Anon.)

EDIT: Another point raised in the reblogs of that Staff ask : Reblogs give the opportunity to people to say things (as text or in tags), it creates conversations. Less reblogs, less conversation/interesting points

Reblogs>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Likes

[mechanicalinertia]

STMPD Recommends Bubblegum Crisis Fanfiction (Sort Of): Terror From The Deep! Ancient Fansites! Pre-Millennial Relics!

Tumblr wiped my first draft of this post, but let's give it another go all the same. Basically, I've spent many a late night hunting Bubblegum Crisis fan 'pages' (back when a website was called a webpage, boy wasn't that a time) via various links, links to other links, links to sites that can only be accessed via the Wayback Machine, ancient internet archaeologist shit. It's... fascinating work, to say the least. There's a lot of good, a lot of bad, and overall a lot of content that I feel that fans wouldn't dream of producing nowadays. RPG fansites, for example, chronicling various mecha a play session threw together via Mekton and whatnot. Or just straight-up review and explanation sites. Or sites dedicated to holding an author's fanfiction independent of Usenet or wherever.

Are any of these useful resources for a Crisis superfan? Probably not. Are they as engrossing as a good fanfic? Again, probably not, unless you're weird like me. Either way, let's get right into it.

Andy Skuse's Raven's Garage: Probably the biggest fansite still being hosted, on an individual server no less. Old, too, it got its start in 1995. Let that sink in.

Raven's Garage is a massive site, grown over the years by virtue of archiving other people's lost 'infosites', Bert Van Bilet's fanfiction, download links to Duke Nukem 3D reskins, and Craig Wigida's Fanfiction Guide... and one of Skuse's own pieces of fanfiction (it's not very good, we'll leave it for later). It's massive, not all of it is totally functional (but that's all the bits Skuse lost to time, not his fault), and it's just... essential, I guess? Yeah. Essential sounds right.

The Bubblegum Crisis Center: While this site does exist fully on the web, it's worth noting that it's primarily focused on the AIC-solo outings of Crisis (2040, ADP: To Protect And Serve, Parasite Dolls) instead of, you know, the good stuff. (Parasite Dolls always lacked a certain something for me... creativity? It's not badly written the way 2040 is, but it feels like too much of a retread of old ideas.) So we're just going to ignore it for now.

Bubblegum Crisis Links Page: A nice little Geocities (how many of these sites have a black background? Geez) dedicated to linking to other people's stuff. It's pretty big, but it ultimately pales in comparison to...

A Bunch Of Links With No Name: I'm not actually sure where I found this page, but what I do know is that it's very useful to track down small or otherwise insignificant dead pages which might be marginally amusing. You know, the kind of pages marked as 'shrines' to a given fictional character (this was before the term 'waifu' got into discourse courtesy of Azumanga Daioh). There's some weird shit in here, much of it of dubious quality, but it's funny? You can sort of giggle at how stupid people were on the internet even back before social media got just about everyone online for good. Like, and this is just an example...

The Disgruntled Fan's BGC Page: There's a few pages like this out there, where basically one guy has a beef with Priss for existing and just extrapolates that anyone who likes her is stupid. Fanfics like this, too. I've long held that if you don't like Priss, then you may not really like Crisis as much as you think you do, for she is its emotional core for better and for worse. But noooo, somehow her being part of the story makes her a screentime hog who prevents the story from reaching its true potential. Whatever that means.

(Is BGC's story not high art? Sure, but does it neeeeeeed to be? Moreover, was that Priss's fault or just the fault of creators who wanted to make something fun that didn't try to be more than it was? I'd argue the latter.)

Still, though, the writer here doesn't like No Armor Against Fate, apparently because Priss slept with a cokehead in the original version (not Neo, I don't think), and because he felt that Hagen shoved lesbian tendencies on every girl in the series. Which, hey, knowing Hagen he's probably not wrong! Still doesn't excuse the snobbiness that feels incredibly cringey in retrospect. Oh, and speaking of which:

JChao's Bubblegum Crisis Review Site: This is comedy gold. Cringe comedy, mind you, but comedy nonetheless. This is another one of those guys who wanted BGC to be 'deeper', which sounds all well and good (okay, he likes Sylia more than Priss and wishes the former got more screen time) until you click on his ADP Files review:

"This series may easily be what BGC should have been."

Grammar problems aside... yeah. This guy thinks that High Impact Sexual Violence The Anime was somehow a masterpiece of deep insight into the human condition, which should tell you everything about how seriously to take his opinions. No, really. It's funny. Laugh.

Sylia: Da Bomb: This is probably the only 'shrine' page I'll put in here, because I think it's... interesting? Y'all know I'm a serious Sylia / Celia simp, so I was interested to see what this was about when I found it on a links page. The argument the guy is laying down is essentially that Sylia is a) probably a Boomer, b) she's the coolest Knight Saber, and c) she's a stone-cold bitch who cares mostly about the mission and keeping the Sabers together, not about them individually, and we ought to love her for it. Which... yeah? Kind of? Maybe? The point is this guy makes some half-decent points (and ribs on Rei Ayanami fans) that maybe you might even halfway agree with. So if you want a decent shrine, check this out.

Bubblegum Marriage Prospects: Priss and Sylia: Even before the term waifu was popularized... there was simpage. Deep simpage. These two pages are but one part of a massive compendium of nerds writing about whether or not x or y anime girl would be good to marry and have kids with I am not making this up. And they come off very differently.

Priss? She's sexy, fast, wild, furious, dangerous, you could make good money off her rockstar career ("If you can manage a pop star, you can probably reap an enormous amount of cash"), just don't bring her home to mom and get ready to do most of the housework. Sounds great.

Sylia? Relatively attractive, but cold-blooded, solely dedicated to The Mission, and the sex? Get this:

"At first glance one would expect her to be vanilla to the core; but positions of power, abnormal childhoods, high levels of stress, and outward emotional repression are often associated with sexual... eccentricities. Do not be overly surprised to find yourself bound hand and foot, gagged, and/or suspended from the ceiling at some point during your honeymoon."

See what I'm saying? This is funny, how much thought people put into this shit like twenty years ago. And what's even funnier is that I can form opinions about this that disagree with these two writers, I have put enough thought into this. What is wrong with me? A lot.

Christian Conkle's Bubblegum Conundrum: Now we get into RPG-based fansites, which as a rule are a little less chatty and have more nice, calming spreadsheets outlining large mecha used to kill people. How pleasant.

Anyway, this site focuses around a campaign set in the Cascadia Metropolitan Axis, (Portland-Seattle-Vancouver - take that, Shadowrun!), one where the PC's and other characters actually get marker-drawn art of their fine selves and their hardsuits, plus other gear... so that's a high bar to clear right off the bat, having actual art of everyone and their toys. One gets the sense that Conkle understands the tone of BGC, too, cyberpunk that's just a little superheroically melodramatic, focusing on macro plots instead of micro plans. So it's all great fun to read.

Also worth looking at is Conkle's great big 'Garage' section, which contains tables used to rapidly construct various big bad mecha in the RTAL system... give or take some house rules. Good house rules, but house rules nonetheless.

Christian Conkle's Dragon Knights 2050: It's a later campaign Conkle did, this time constructed as an Eva ripoff, where humanity uses giant mecha piloted by kids to fight the orbital Boomer Kingdom. I never looked into it much, because hey, it's an Eva ripoff, it's really BGC. I include it out of amusement more than anything else.

Robert Farquhar's Bubblegum Crisis Web Archive: It was discovering this page, one of the many recommended by RTAL via BGC EX - that one expansion I gushed about a few posts back - that inspired me to write this whole post. And if that doesn't mean something to you... yeah.

See, even if Farquhar (whatta name that is) was focused more on an ADP-style campaign with upgraded Masamune Shirow-lookin' battlesuits, the thing about this site is that it contains the work of several other player teams uploading their hardsuits and Boomers and powersuits and characters and even a few Cyberpunk 2020 conversions for all the world to see. So there's a lot of cool concepts, and even some MS-Paint-lookin' art of some of said concepts. For that alone, I love it deeply.

Actually, there's one particular piece of art which I think was made by a guy who designed a separate hardsuit concept that I really liked. I tried finding the guy's site, but it's gone, too. Another unsolved mystery.

Kain The Seeker's Bubblegum Crush: Another site featured in BGC EX, focusing on a campaign set in Cyberpunk 2020's Night City, but alas, it's woefully incomplete. The only part of the campaign site, really, is some background and some stuff about the characters, and that's it.

Luckily, we have a rough idea of why this site is unfinished thanks to Farquhar: apparently the hard drive of 'Kain' (I do so hate people using that name for edgy fictional characters) crashed, the site was lost, and then it was resurrected, with all the Boomers and whatnot that we see fragments of on the Web Archive. Alas, that site proper is lost to time.

Maybe that's for the best, though. Some of those Boomer designs are literally 'lol your waitress Boomer now has a laser gun concealed in her, prepare to die player characters', a cheap-o CP2020 trick if there ever was one. I don't want to know what the rest was like.

Bubblegum Crossfire: Sabers and Angels: A simple little site focusing on an LA-based group, featured in BGC Ex. There's not a whole lot to recommend it, the art's small portraits and not very good ones at that, the story's a little less exciting than Conundrum... but it's there.

Bubblegum Crossroads: Chicago 2033: No art, but it's a complete RPG site with some cool worldbuilding and a cool concept for interchangeable 'battlegloves' allowing some modularity for combatants.

That's it, so far. Go forth, my children! Explore the Dead Net!

[knitting-with-norbert]

Four SMP Factions Complete

First of all, can we just appreciate how many fucking blanket squares I’ve completed now? They barely fit into a photo together and I’m very proud of myself because they look pretty cool

Anyway! I’ve been hard at work trying to knit up some of the faction flags or faction indicators for my Dream SMP-inspired blanket! 

I should first say that three of these designs are not mine, I just adapted them into knitted form based off of their flag designs. However because Tumblr is weird about how tagging when you put a link in posts, I’m not going to link to their socials, but you should 100% check them out!

Before we jump into it, though, I just wanna say something to you guys - while I really appreciate the likes on these posts and it’s so, so lovely to see my work being found and appreciated, but I would like to ask you guys a favour if possible! Would you be able to perhaps reblog this or check out the full post on my blog (link in bio to not mess up Tumblr tags) or to check out my twitter (bio again) and help me spread the words over there a little

Basically, any vouch that you guys can give me if you like my stuff is so, so appreciated and, yeah, would mean the world to me!

Anyway, lets get into it!

As you can see I got four faction symbols completed! The flags of the Eggpire, Las Nevadas and Kinoko Kingdom and then my own design to represent The Syndicate

the original Eggpire flag was designed by Nikiforosisgone! There’s not a close up photo with the faction members because I haven’t yet done the squares for the individual faction members for the Eggpire - but this is a cry for help. Please send me ideas for Bad (and any of the others, really, aide from Ponk) because I’m completely stumped as to what to design for his square!

Any and all suggestions will be so very appreciated!

The original design for the Kinoko Kingdom flag was created by estchiyu on twitter!

I think that the flag came out looking pretty good! It looks better in person actually, because I was taking these photos after, like, three hours sleep so I wasn’t really functioning properly to be honest with y’all. But what’s also pretty exciting is that I’ve done the first drafts of almost all of Kinoko Kingdom now! Just Drista to go and then all four residents will have their squares completed for the first time

(of course I’m gonna have to go back and improve them all afterwards, but that’s pretty cool, right?)

And I also have plans for what I’m going to do for Drista, which is even more exciting!!!

The Las Nevdas flag design was originally made by Fundy on his stream a couple of months back

Out of the four pieces I made this time around, this is probably the one that I’m the least keen on - I made some mistakes when writing up the pattern and so it has meant that I somehow fucked up and the emblem isn’t centred, so I’m gonna have to start from scratch I think to figure out where I went wrong there

But I think the colours and shades I used are pretty spot on - I just need to figure out the gauge for the white wool because it doesn’t seem to be right, if you get me? 

But this is gonna be another quick cry for help: I’m pretty stumped as to what to do for the designs for Slimesicle and Fundy (I don’t want to just do a fox, you know?) so if you have any ideas as to what I can do to represent their characters please let me know! 

This design for the Syndicate is actually made up by me - it’s not a flag, of course. But I needed something to represent their faction as a whole, so I settled on this

There’s a lot more details about this design in my full blog post (link to my site in my bio if you’re interested!) so I’ll skim over some of the more important parts

I knew I had to include the end portal/table somehow, it was just a matter of doing the table as a whole or using the design for the blocks as a border - I’m gonna be playing around with this design a lot more in the future and I think it’ll probably end up with me using the portal design as a border for the design

Then I couldn’t decide what to do on either side of the table - I wanted to do little icons for every member or the initial of their codename, but then wasn’t happy with how they came out looking and so eventually settled on the firework rockets, but they’re much more of a placeholder than anything else

Regardless, I do think that it came out looking pretty cool, considering that when I started I had basically no idea what I wanted it to look like!

I also need help for Niki and Ranboo’s individual squares, so if you have ideas... send ‘em in!

If you are interested in checking out the full post which goes into a lot more details about all the squares and also the blanket plans in general then there’s a link to my website/blog in my bio! As I already said, my social links are also up there and any support you can offer me either on this platform, on my twitter or my instagram is so, so appreciated!

Freddie 🐸

[comfy-whumpee]

Whumping Safely 101

Many people in this community have mental health problems, face various types of discrimination, and have complicated relationships with some parts or types of whump. In particular, I aim this at people who care about the experience of survivors and others with triggers – partially because I am an abuse survivor who often flirts with triggering content as part of my love of whump.

Keeping your blog safe is difficult, takes effort, and is never a perfect process. But as the community grows and grows, it’s really important that we hold ourselves to a high standard. I would argue that this is a responsibility of all content creators, but especially those of us in the messy playground of whump.

I’ve got three sections in here: content warnings, writing with care, and community interaction. I’ve tried to make it navigable. It’s about 1.8k words. Shorter than a lot of drabbles! I welcome good-faith criticism on this topic and further questions on my own views.

Content Warnings

The biggest responsibility, in my opinion, is empowering your reader to make their own decision on whether they want to expose themselves to your writing. This also happens to be by far the easiest way to help people whump safely.

What to warn

This is a big and ever-changing topic. Some things you should warn for as a rule of thumb are anything NSFW, pet whump and box boy whump, drugs and alcohol, medical and hospital content, graphic gore, intimate partner violence, and animal harm. It can be tricky to draw the line of what counts – what needs a warning? If you’re in doubt, just warn it anyway. It doesn’t hurt.

If someone requests a trigger be warned for, even if it’s something that feels obscure or tame, show compassion and agree to the request. This is someone who cares enough about being able to read your writing that they wrote in! They want to be able to read it and enjoy it. You’re being complimented.

Otherwise, look at what other blogs tag for. You’ll see some variation in styles and levels of detail, but it’s a good way to gauge what people think is warn-worthy, when we’re often writing stuff that would already be R-rated in mainstream media.

Read Mores

The easiest way to make sure people don’t see your triggering content is to use a cut. Tumblr is not a very functional website and likes to delete cuts, but a cursory check of your posted content will usually tell you whether it’s worked. With asks, cuts are very spotty, so don’t be afraid to post an ask response separately with a screengrab of the original question. People often then respond to the ask itself with a link to the post, especially if it’s a whole drabble. Tumblr is weird and bad so just do your best.

Content notices

I.e., a quick summary before the drabble, usually in bold, to state what will be coming. I like to distinguish between using content notes (CN) and trigger warnings (TW) to indicate severity. Others might use the old phrase ‘dead dove do not eat’ to indicate this is a heavy piece, and often you will see qualifiers like ‘intense’, ‘mild’, ‘mention’, ‘referenced’ (i.e. it is discussed but not actively happening), and ‘implied’ (as the opposite of ‘explicit’). I’ve also seen a couple of people use ‘vibes’, which is a really nice way of demonstrating that it’s there, but not the focus. A quick paragraph like this, or just a line, lets people make a quick risk assessment on their reading.

This is also important if you’re sending in asks or requests to people. If you want to ask about something triggering, send an inquiry first about whether the blog is okay to hear it.

Tagging

Tagging is a chore, but it’s your primary way of warning people about your content. The main benefit of tagging is that you can be as detailed as you want, because can be tagging for content in general, not just triggers.

In a best case scenario, you’d tag the kind of whump you’re doing, tag triggers, tag characters, and even your ‘verses, because tagging is your index for your blog. If you tag reliably, you help your future self and your readers find stuff, and you also make your blog really dang safe. People who have unusual triggers can blacklist tags, and will pick up on your content tags to help them.

Don’t just tag your own writing. Tag your reblogs, tag your prompts, tag your asks. Yes, edit your asks to add the tags. Tag your images and gifs. Tag your images as images and your gifs as gifs.

If you aren’t up for detailed tagging for whatever reason, just tag for triggering content, and add stuff to that list if you’re asked to. My usual technique is to make a mental note of tags while I’m formatting and editing before posting.

Be aware that your first five tags will be used in search results. If you’re using tags that are associated with kink too, such as ‘shibari’, you might want to rethink your tag order if you don’t want interaction from those blogs. Also think about what tags might come up in non-whump contexts, such as ‘collar’ or ‘PTSD’. Some tactics for getting around this I’ve seen are adding ‘whump’ after the content or writing the tags in past tense (i.e., ‘collared’).

It is also a good idea to watch out for when you might be reblogging something whumpy that is intended as kink / porn / fetish, especially in images. Tagging these as spicy / nsfw / kink is a sensible move.

Writing with Care

Okay, now for the harder stuff.

I mean here to lay out some guidelines for how to write in a way that helps your reader build good faith. This is a much more nuanced topic, and it’s different for everyone. There will always be differing opinions on what should and shouldn’t be written about, what a good depiction of a sensitive topic is, and how to discuss that topic. I tried to strip this back into absolute basics that I hope we can all agree on.

Maybe your whump involves abuse. Maybe it’s gaslighting. Maybe it’s severe mental health problems, or addiction, or slavery, or you write about or analogise real-world issues. Whump deals with the dark stuff, and that’s a big part of its appeal. But don’t ever forget you’re writing the dark stuff.

(Try to) Know what you’re doing

Some of us play fast and loose with plots, medical accuracy, worldbuilding, and other things that get in the way of the pain we crave. This is all well and good, but when we start using whump that speaks true to people’s lived experiences, we shouldn’t be careless with it. I’m particularly talking about things that get represented poorly in mainstream media, such as abusive relationships, issues around marginalisation, mental illness and disability.

Be critical of media that you’ve consumed. Think about how its depicted things that you want to depict in turn. Look for opinions on fictional representations of those issues. Be aware that you might be more ignorant of things than you realise.

Look at how others are writing these issues, particularly if they’re writing from a perspective different to yours. If you haven’t personally experienced what you’re writing about, e.g., if you don’t have PTSD and you want to depict a character who does, seek out stuff written from or with experience. Listen to the experts.

If you’re looking for stuff about representation specifically, I recommend this collection of posts about ‘Braving Diversity’ cultivated by Writing With Colour, who are in themselves a fantastic resource for this topic, and have recommendations for other blogs that deal with intersecting issues.

Listen to others

Missteps are inevitable. Nobody is perfect. If constructive criticism is offered, that’s also a compliment to your writing. Someone read your work and thought about it, and thought you’d care about improving it. They’re offering themselves as a resource for helping you see your work in a new light.

Criticism is hard and sometimes hurtful, but even if we don’t think it’s accurate, there’s often a grain of truth in it. If someone tells you that your writing is harmful, think about why they’ve said that, not whether or not they’re correct. This is an opinion! Opinions are subjective! But what drove someone to send that in?

You don’t have to respond to all your criticism and definitely don’t respond straight away. Being respectful to those who are trying to help you means taking the time to consider it properly. Sometimes, they don’t need a response. Others, you might want to learn more about what they think before deciding. You might have already discussed the topic, in which case, you might just want to reblog your previous posts.

If it’s sent in bad faith or is outright hateful, you’re well within your rights to just delete it and move on. You might get the same criticism over and over again, and that’s exhausting, and you don’t have to retrace your steps for everyone.

But if it’s new, even if it puts your hackles up, you can always stop and wonder why someone felt that strongly about your work.

Take a step back

One of my better-known characters is a pet whumper who conditioned his victim to adore and depend on him. It’s not always easy to represent how deeply messed up that is within the text – though I think that’s part of the challenge – but in meta-commentary, I am always describing him as a creeptastic bastard lacking compassion and self-reflection. I hope to always give the reader the confidence that I know just how wrong it is.

This is a really simple thing you can do just to give readers good faith in you. Show that you know what you’re writing is dark and messed up. Show your understanding for the issues you’re handling and that they’re complicated. It might seem self-evident, but when you’re writing the really dark stuff, or unhealthy relationships, or institutionalised whump, you can inadvertently create the impression that you just think it’s fun. The fact that it’s fiction does not automatically absolve you. Show that you care about doing it right.

Community Interaction

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet because I will almost entirely be preaching to the choir here.

Be polite to others. Imagine saying what you’re saying to their face.

Don’t send anon hate. Just don’t. If you can send criticism off anon, do so.

Nobody is obligated to interact with you.

Nobody is obligated to monitor their own reader base.

If someone says do not interact, do not interact.

If someone says do not interact, why they’ve said that is none of your business.

You don’t need to spread the word about someone’s bad politics.

Ask yourself if your input is needed, or if what you’ve said has already been said.

You don’t have to take a side.

Take care of yourself. Take breaks. Remind yourself that whump is a small part of the world.

That’s all from me, folks. Stay safe.

[raevenlywrites]

Things I have legitimately thought about paying for on tumblr in the past:

A NSFW account. I would pay to see the tiddies (and more importantly, pay to support NSFW artists and sex workers and keep them around. I want an uncensored internet damnit. I'm an adult and I'm willing to pay for an adult space)

An unlimited asks option: tumblr gave me that for free so cool I guess, but back when you could only send 10 per hr I thought over and over again how badly I would pay like a $5/mo subscription free to not have to put up with that crap

USEABLE. SEARCH. TERMS. omfg. I've never thought about HOW I'd monetize it but every time I try to search for something I KNOW is on my fucking blog I find myself praying to all gods including the almighty dollar (this is more like I'd pay to make tumblr a functioning website rather than a subscription. Like, if tumblr had a bake sale to raise money to hire an actual coder or whatever this hellsite needs to get right with itself)

Links/Pages that work on mobile: There is like, NO way to organize your blog for mobile, at least not that I've found. This thought is more like "I would pay someone to set this up for me" ie, actually paying for a custom theme, but ONLY if it worked on both desktop AND mobile. I post a lot of crap, and I'd love a way to showcase my original stuff while still being able to be a hot mess on main

[dragonofthedepths]

29/100 (29th of June 2021)

(29/100) Written/posted for the #100daysofwriting challenge by @the-wip-project

I spent several hours today filling out a survey on my fanfiction reading habits! This was not supposed to take several hours, but my inability to answer any free form question without writing multiple paragraphs dragged it out much longer than it was supposed to be! Considering that this was done around baking, having a friend over, and finishing a drawing that according to the timer on my art program took me a cumulative 22.5 hours to complete, I figured I would just copy and paste some of my more interesting answers here for today!

Here’s the link to the survey if you want to take it yourself, apparently it’s part of some kind of collage study: 

https://robertgordonuniversity.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/fanfiction-questionnaire

Question:

What type(s) of library/libraries do you use? What activities or purposes do you use them for?

Answer:

The local library. I go there every now and then when I’m looking for an actual book to read, I usually have what I want already in mind, but might end up picking up something new from the same section if anything particularly catches my interest. Very occasionally I grab a few reference books, usually on things like religions that are harder to find a comprehensive reference for online beneath all the sensationalism and opinions.

I almost always spend at last a couple hours there, looking through my selection and reading a chapter or two. the only reason I’ll leave without sitting down and beginning at least one book is if I’m already late for something somewhere else.

Tldr: I use my local library, I do not go very often but I take my time when I do.

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Question (fanfiction.net):

If possible, please explain your typical process for finding fanfiction to read.

Answer:

Whenever  I get interested in a new show I’ll latch on to a concept or particular character interaction eg. Villain!hero, ensemble finds out secret, character A needs a hug, character A adopted by character B, character C & character D friendship & hurt/comfort. Sometimes (especially if it’s a lesser known thing/has a small fandom) I’ll be as vague as favorite character, timetravel, wingfic, or soulmate AU. Whatever it is that I’ve latched onto, I’ll enter it into the search bar on whatever browser I’m using, and open whatever links look most appealing in a new tab, giving preference to stories from any website except Wattpad* over any king of collection, and links to Ao3 preference over links to anything else.

From there I work my way through everything that was offered, and as I do so I eventually come across new things that capture my interest, and —in general terms— follow them.

On ff.net I’ll follow the link back to the page for whatever franchise this is, then open the filter menu, select "all ratings" and begin using the filters to look for whatever character or pair of characters (seeing as looking for idea is not really possible on ff.net) interests me most in either the family, hurt/comfort, or angst genre depending on which has the most stories, unless one of them has stories in excess of 3 or 4 hundred, in which case I’ll pick whichever has the least stories. I’ll then go through the offerings, opening any story that look is interesting in a new tab. If I make it through all of that and somehow haven’t found something better to do on Ao3, then when I’m done I’ll go back to the genre filter and pick whichever had the middling number of stories, then after that the one on the opposite end of the spectrum from most to least. If at any point I’m offered more than 1,000 stories I’ll add additional filters until the results drop below 1,000, because I am not dealing with slogging through that much ff.net at once. If there is that much written for whatever I’m looking for, then either there’s some on Ao3 and I can leave, or I’m actually looking for something more specific and was just over-estimating how vague I’d need to be to get results at all. This is very methodical probably because I do not like this site and am putting up with it only to find what I’m currently looking for, I never get new ideas prompted to me or am enticed to wander off the beaten track. I don’t use ff.net very often, though still more often then I go to the library.

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Question:

Are there any search features or filters you wish fanfiction.net had for readers and searchers?

Answer:

Fanfiction.net is not a functional website, it’s a particularly shitty ghost town that is actively crumbling to pieces around its few remaining inhabitants. I it’s a hassle to read on and I only do so because I’m a fan of rare pairs, and have to take anything I can get, and because I’m a fan of a particular kind of low-brow overpowered-hero fanfiction that tends to be more common there then on Ao3 or Tumblr.

I wish it didn’t have adds in the middle of a page, every time I hit next chapter, ect.

I wish it didn’t have pointless captchas every time I  start a new session.

I wish it had a visually pleasant format for presenting the stories for you to select from. Whether they’re search bar results, the results of a filter search, stories in a collection, or stories on an author’s page. It’s the same aggressively bad format and makes it hard to tell them apart from eachother and hard to pick which one(s) I want.

I wish stories could have longer summaries. They are so short that it forces everyone to sound same-y and rushed, and if an author want to include trigger warnings they have to be even shorter.

I wish there was a way to exclude/search/mark trigger warnings.

I wish you could select more than four characters in the filters, I wish authors could TAG more than four characters.

I wish there was a way to search/mark platonic relationships instead of only romantic.

I wish there was a way to search/mark a single character in multiple separate relationships eg. [A/B] and [A/C]

I wish there was a way to search for certain tropes or cliches without relying on pure hope that either the author used part of their limited summary space to mention it, or that someone else already made a collection for that trope and managed to find at least a few (they never have all) of the fics containing it.

I wish you could copy and paste the text without having to switch to the mobile version of the website. I don’t personally know why you can’t do this on desktop but I’ve heard other people say it’s because it’s actually generated as a pdf instead of genuine text.

I wish there was a way to open the whole story in one tab instead of being forced to go through it other by chapter.

I wish there was a way for authors to include author’s notes without it being part of the chapter.

I wish there was a way for authors to respond to comments without doing so in the author’s notes.

I wish the formatting wasn’t so aggressively bad as to be actively harming the quality of the story. I have found stories that were posted on both Ao3 and ff.net and read them on both websites, no differences in text, in punctuation, in anything at all, but on Ao3 it flowed much better, was much easier to read, and I’d have given a higher estimation of the author’s skill level if asked. All because it wasn’t actively being dragged down by ff.net’s formatting.

There are probably a fair few more things that I’m just not managing to think of at the moment, but considering there’s no way ff.net will ever be fixed and is in fact very likely to completely implode and die in the near future, I think this is good enough.

Sorry for the essays every time I’m allowed to write an answer but you’re asking loaded questions.

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Question (Ao3):

If possible, please explain your typical process for finding fanfiction to read.

Answer:

Whenever  I get interested in a new show I’ll latch on to a concept or particular character interaction eg. Villain!hero, ensemble finds out secret, character A needs a hug, character A adopted by character B, character C & character D friendship & hurt/comfort. Sometimes (especially if it’s a lesser known thing/has a small fandom) I’ll be as vague as favorite character, timetravel, wingfic, or soulmate AU. Whatever it is that I’ve latched onto, I’ll enter it into the search bar on whatever browser I’m using, and open whatever links look most appealing in a new tab, giving preference to stories from any website except Wattpad* over any king of collection, and links to Ao3 preference over links to anything else.

From there I work my way through everything that was offered, and as I do so I eventually come across new things that capture my interest, and —in general terms— follow them.

On Ao3 I’ll head back up to the top of a fic I really enjoyed and click on the tag for whatever little bit of it I enjoyed the most, and begin browsing again from there, refining with filters and following links and tags from new stories.

I will filter out reader inserts, original characters, y/n, or notps if I keep seeing too many of them in my results, but otherwise I’ll just scroll past them. Sometimes if I’ve been reading for a specific idea for a while I’ll sort by word count and begin going through it from least to most to see if there’s anything I’ve been missing because it’s not been updated recently. And sometimes if I feel like reading fanfiction but don’t have anything particular in mind I’ll just head to the Ao3 page for the main character (more reliable then a fandom tag, if a franchise exists in multiple forms of media they’ll usually each have their own tag the fanfiction will be scattered accordingly) of one of the bigger fandoms I’m in and start trawling the page for anything that looks interesting.

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Question:

Please use the box below to write any thoughts or opinions on this questionnaire or the subjects within it that you did not get the chance to share.

Answer:

On how I find fanfiction to read on websites that are not ff.net or Ao3, copy-pasted from the original all-encompassing answer I wrote before I realized you were looking for answers only about the website you’d just been talking about:

Wattpad (which I did not select when asked what websites I search for fanfiction on because I never willingly go looking there I just end up on it sometimes to my great frustration.):

Whatever idea it is that I’ve latched onto, I’ll enter it into the search bar on whatever browser I’m using, and open whatever links look most appealing in a new tab, giving preference to stories from any website except Wattpad* preference over tags or other collections, and links to Ao3 preference over links to anything else.

(*If links to Wattpad make it onto the first page of results, I’ll take whatever meager scrapings I was offer from other websites, then give up the search as a lost cause and pick a new idea as a I mourn the lack of the content I want to read. Only if I am already very attached to an idea and very desperate will I follow a link to wattpad. That website is the only one I have ever encountered worse then ff.net and it is an absolute unnavigable MESS.)

Tumblr:

If I’m on tumblr (mobile, I’ve never used tumblr on the computer but I don’t think it works the same) then once I find one thing to read that I like, I’ll begin tapping my way through the suggested posts on the bottom based on whatever looks the most interesting from what little I get to see of it. Sometimes I’ll end up on a specific blog or a specific tag, and I’ll just scroll through reading anything that looks even mildly cool regardless of whether it has anything to do with what I was originally searching for or not, until I click on a specific post for some reason (usually a “read more“), and then I’m back to navigating by suggested posts again. I tend to wander through fandoms and subfandoms a lot faster here, trading one interesting idea for the next as they’re presented to me. It’s a lot of fun and I sometimes discover completely new stuff! I’ll often end up following Authors I really like so that their stuff will end up in my feed, and this is really the only site on which I do that.

Just another couple comments on my general media consumption habits that I didn’t really see anywhere else to put:

Everything I stated about my fanfiction habits when getting into a new show applied if it’s a movie or book or game too, it’s just that 90% of the time it’s a show. My favorite movies are documentaries so I’m not sure what fanfiction for them would even look like, I prefer video essays and theories for games, and I just don’t read as many books as I used to. About half of the remaining 10% of the time is actually probably musicals.

It’s not unusual for me to have seen only three or so episodes of a show, but to have read insane amounts of fanfiction for it. I have difficulty sitting down to actually watch a show, and I usually only expend the effort for my absolute favorite series, so most of my interaction with most shows ends up being fanfiction. Getting into a new show because I came across some really good fanfiction for it is not uncommon either.

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[tripstaysnoided]

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

[202010731dci2021]

David Thacker's Adaptation of ‘A Doll’s House’

David Thacker and Realism

David Thacker’s 1992 television production of Henrik Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ replicates the theatrical naturalism that is evident in Ibsen’s original version, and uses realism to portray the life of a marginalised and oppressed member of society.

Realism is shown through Thacker’s use of authentic period furniture, specifically the cast iron stoves that appear in a corner in the hallway (Figure 1) and in the living-room (Figure 2).

Figure 1.

Libre, K. (2019).

Figure 2.

These stoves are specific to 19th century Norway, and so have intentionally been used by Thacker to indicate the setting and the time period that this adaptation is set in. However, the purpose of these stoves is purely decorative, as when Nora goes to make up the fire in the stove, she goes to this one (Figure 3). 

Figure 3.

The position of this stove and the accompanying furniture is a part of the staging included in the original version by Ibsen, and so suggests that the others were included purely for historical context, and as part of the director’s own interpretation. This attention to detail by Thacker reinforces the realistic ideals that were prevalent at the time Ibsen wrote this play, as realism was utilised to create drama that was authentic, and that created the effect of the audience looking into their own homes to make them feel part of what they were watching, thus allowing them to see the inequalities and social issues within their own lives.

Costume

The costume choices for this adaptation reflect the clothes that would have been worn within this bourgeoisie society, as the dresses that were fashionable in the 1870s are described as having an “[…] elongated and tight bodice and a flat fronted skirt”, with “Low, square necklines […]” Victoria and Albert Museum (2016).

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

In Figures 4 and 5 above, you can clearly see both the tight-fitting bodice, and the low-cut, square neckline on Nora’s dress.

Figure 6.

What is also significant about this dress is its colour, as it’s the exact same shade of green as Torvald’s jacket (Figure 6) that we see right at the very beginning of Act 1. This costume choice foreshadows the ending of the adaptation with Nora’s speech, when she says, “You arranged everything according to your taste, and so it became my taste too […]” (A Doll’s House, 1992, 2:00:38-2:00:41). These ‘shared’ tastes are indicated through the matching colours of their outfits, and has been used by Thacker to reinforce Ibsen’s original idea that Nora is a character who has been controlled and moulded into the type of person that the men in her life have wanted her to be, thereby reflecting the 19th century social issues of gender inequality.

Figure 7.

Torvald’s costume (Figure 7) is also exceptionally accurate, specifically with his jacket, which is “[…] thigh length […]” and “[…] buttoned high on the chest” Victoria and Albert Museum (2016).

Original Staging

When ‘A Doll’s House’ was originally performed it would have used a stage with a proscenium arch. This created the effect of a photo frame that literally ‘framed’ the action, and made it so that the audience were looking inside this fictional house with its missing fourth wall, much like the fourth wall would be missing in an actual doll’s house. This created the effect of the characters being the audience’s dolls that they’d watch being moved about and ‘played’ with, in order to portray Ibsen’s desired effect.

Thacker’s adaptation means this type of stage is unable to be used, as it’s not being performed in a theatre. Instead, camera angles that allow the audience to feel like they’re following the characters through the house have been used, which still creates this feeling of being immersed in the drama, as seen here: https://www.youtubetrimmer.com/view/?v=ZJDnHQT2BDk&start=1667&end=1672

Single-Scene Analysis

The scene in Act 3 where Torvald reads the letter and everything that Nora has hidden from him comes to light, is one that handles the themes of conflict and identity. When he starts shouting for Nora and calls her a “miserable wretch” (1:49:30-1:49:31), the conflict begins, and we also see Torvald’s true identity during this scene.

While he’s shouting at Nora, we see how insensitive he is to her feelings, as well as how self-centred he is, especially when he says “[…] you’ve completely destroyed my happiness. You have ruined my whole future for me” (1:50:26-1:50:34). In this moment, we see how truly heartless Torvald is; he doesn’t even give her the opportunity to explain that she got herself into debt out of her love for him, and now, when she needs her husband’s support more than ever—as she knows she could be arrested for this—he completely disregards how she’s feeling about this, and instead starts panicking about what’s going to happen to him, and his future.

Figure 8.

This still (Figure 8) from the scene shows the Christmas tree in the background next to Torvald, and is symbolic of things coming to an end; Christmas day has passed, and the tree is dying, and now that Nora’s secret is out, her life of deception and of being controlled by Torvald is now also coming to an end.

The scene continues with Torvald reading Krogstad’s other letter that has Nora’s I.O.U. inside, and then exclaims “I’m saved, Nora! I’m saved!” (1:53:47-1:53:48). Again, he’s completely insensitive towards Nora, and only after being prompted by her does he add on “Yes, you too, of course” (1:53:52-1:53:53). In this moment, Nora sees Torvald for who he truly is. After burning the evidence, Torvald then says, “There’s nothing left now” (1:54:45-1:54:46), which refers to both the letter and their relationship, and foreshadows it’s end.

A crucial turning point in this scene is when Nora says, “I’m taking off this fancy dress” (1:56:21-1:56:23), which again has two interpretations: that she’s physically taking off her costume, and that she’s also taking down this façade that she’s created while being in this relationship. When she comes out of the room in her day clothes, Torvald remarks that she’s changed, to which she replies, “Yes, Torvald. I’ve changed” (1:58:03-1:58:05). This line holds so much power behind it, as it shows Nora is no longer going to be this submissive housewife, and that she’s also no longer going to be “his property” (1:57:23-1:57:24).

A part of this scene that effectively conveys Nora’s lack of identity is when Torvald says “First and foremost, you are a wife and mother” (2:03:45-2:03:48), to which Nora replies “I believe that first and foremost I am a human being” (2:03:50-2:03:52). Torvald believes Nora’s identity to be one that is built up of functionality, and in how useful she is to him. When Nora realises this, and decides that she wants to be seen as a person, and not as what her roles are in this society, she realises that she doesn’t have an identity at all, and that really alarms her; it’s at this point that she knows she has to get away from Torvald and live her own life, otherwise she won’t ever be seen as a person at all.

Overall, this is a powerful moment in the play, as not only does it show the themes of conflict and identity, but it also shows Nora’s inner conflict, due to her lack of identity.

References

Link to David Thacker’s 1992 television adaptation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDnHQT2BDk

Link to Victoria and Albert Museum website: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history-of-fashion-1840-1900/

Cover photo used on blog:

Libre, K. (2019).

Personal disclaimer for Tumblr: The subheadings were underlined however, Tumblr’s formatting doesn’t show this once the post becomes published.

[indig0tea]

Final 2020 Update: 2021 Goals!!

Cross posting from my devART

Also links to all my alts and shit will be at the end of the post if you need them!

So some of these may be unrealistic due to my struggles with ADHD/Depression Combo but. I wanted to get these down somewhere so you guys can see them and be aware..

Please note, my executive functioning abilities are absolutely Butchered on the regular by my ADHD alone, and the various stressors of 2020 have absolutely taken anything else I might have had in that department and tossed it out the window.

Something something something, financial stressors outside of my control sends me into shut down mode and I can't do anything productive or even fun until it's handled, but because I'm not doing anything productive, I'm not making any money, and the stressors gets worse and worse and it just ends up in a horrible cycle where I constantly want to die because I'm not able to create anything to relieve the stress! Which is why you've all seen... pretty much a standstill on my productivity save one or two pieces a month if I'm lucky

That said, I'm going to start trying (hopefully with some outside help/accountability to keep me on track while I'm unmedicated) to put a system in place that doesn't make me constantly want to die while like. maybe actually getting stuff done! So I'm making some optimistic goals for 2021 regarding both my art and ability to make money, so here goes!

I'm breaking this down into 3 parts:

Changes to expect regarding my social media, commissions in general, posting, etc;

Overall Goals for 2021;

and Goals for January specifically.

Changes to expect going forward from here:

I'm going to be making some changes regarding my social media accounts, including this one, mostly concerning when, where, and how I'm posting.

I am also going to be making some changes to my commission policies, prices, and payments in the coming year, namely:

Lastly, I will be making some changes to my art discord server!

Moving forward, I am going to be MOST active on my twitter and tumblr accounts. They're just easier for me to maintain in general, and although I hate twitter's formatting, it's just easier and faster, and frankly after deviantART and Instagram fucked with their websites/algorithms, it just makes the most sense for me as an artist.

I'm also going to be making an effort to make scheduled cross-posts on all my accounts. In the past, I've been really irregular about when and where I post things (most things got posted to my old tumblr account but never here, i rarely remember to post to instagram, etc).

This is going to include commission slots, finished piece dumps, etc.

I will also be making an effort to semi-regularly post sketch dumps, both digitial and traditional. I am also considering at this time offering a monthly digital download of my sketch collections, though I am undecided as I'm not really sure how many people would be interested.

Increasing commissions prices to reflect time spent working on specific commission types, as well as my personal cost of living.

Planning and announcing commission slots in advance.

Taking and finishing regular commissions to cover living expenses on a monthly basis

Payments will be exclusively through paypal invoice, and will be broken up in halves: first half will be taken up front after I have started and given proof of start (base sketch), the second half will be paid after completion, with WIPS given between first and second payment. Fully completed art will be given after receipt of second half. This is both for my personal protection as an artist, as well as for the comfort of the commissioner as my completion time can sometimes be long due to my ADHD/executive dysfunction.

Moving forward into 2020, my discord will be SFW, but 18+ only. This is a personal comfort thing. I'm 25 years old now, and just really don't want to spend time hanging out with teenagers.

I'm also going to start trying to schedule art streams again! Since this is the only place I can live stream due to my art computer's limitations, it just makes sense to like. Schedule them so more people are able to attend. I haven't decided exactly how that's going to look, but once I have I'm going to make an announcement and formatting guide somewhere for people to see so they can make an informed decision about joining the server.

I will also be regularly posting in the server again. This may or may not be cross posts from twitter and such, we'll see, but I DO plan on being more active there since it's been kind of dead.

I may also reformat the whole server again. We'll see!

Goals for 2021

Regular Adopt Sets -- 2-3 per month. Size, price, and number in set will be decided on case by case basis.

I'll be doing a monthly prompt for myself as well. This is just to get me back in the habit of creating things I like for myself to just feel... less bad about my art in general, and about making art. Also it'll be good for my artistic development i think?

Keeping a monthly sketchbook for warm-ups and in-between pieces. May be offered as a paid download at the end of the month, we'll see.

Might start a patreon? This is EXTREMELY dependent on what my userbase looks like. Tiers and rewards to be decided at a later date

Regular traditional sketches + scan and upload of said sketches. May also be offered in the monthly sketchbook.

Draw more self portraits & self-expression pieces! I don't know if any of yall realize how repressed I've been in the last year without therapy, and I did't either until I forced myself to pursue a vent piece earlier this month, and then felt immensely better afterward so. Going to start doing that! Maybe I'll feel better weee

Regular posting to social media! (see changes above)

Drawing less fantrolls bc I'm just bleh about them lately, drawing more original content!

Drawing fancontent that ISN'T homestuck? We'll see but I'd like to. I don't usually draw fan art bc like. Idk in my mind I don't feel like my interpretation of things is important or cool and I think thats a confidence thing and I'd like to change that so! I'm gonna start making more fan content.

Draw more full illustrations & backgrounds in general because I actually enjoy doing them it turns out?

Practice painting more !! Both traditionally and digitally....

Goals for January 2021

Finish at LEAST 1/4 of my art queue. I'm shooting for half, really, because fully completing it might actually kill me but! We'll see! Maybe I'll surprise myself. But I'm setting the goal low to keep my mental health problems in mind.

Finish and release the base set i've been working on, on and off. It's an homage to  the old pixel doll days of 2009-2012, and the full sheet will be free to use (with stipulations, as I have some people blocked that I don't want using it). BUT! There will also be a mix and match .psd that will be pay to use (it'll be pay to use a, bc it'll be huge, and b, bc the edits to make it mix and match results in like 6 seperate bases in general so.... yeah. pay to use)

Finish the pay-to-use base pack i started in june (i may scrap and restart though, we'll see)

Possibly release all old p2u bases of mine in one pack on gumroad? price tbd but it will include old iterations as well as unreleased remakes.

Making some dainty-specific bases! One will be f2u, one will be p2u.

I have a whole dainty YCH set for january! I just have to finish the example... (:

Perhaps I'll be announcing a collaborative project later in the month! It depends on where each of us are at, at the time! We'll see! (: You should be excited though! It'll be a ton of fun!

EXTERNAL LINKS

Instagram

Twitter

Tumblr

deviantART

Discord server

[whatarubberchicken]

Lukadrinette - Part 10

Because I lost all of my bookmarks when I moved to a new computer, and because Tumblr is such a pure, good, well-functioning website, I cannot find most of my posts for this story, so I have finally decided to post it to Ao3. I will leave the original posts as they are here on Tumblr, and if you can find them, great. If not, it’s now listed under:

My Sweet Blueberry Sandwich

(ff.net link to come)

(If anyone has any suggestions for tags, I am more than willing to hear them! I still suck at tagging.)

I will post a chapter a day until we catch back up, but no promises for after that. Hopefully, NoNaWriMo will be good to me this year.

That being said, enjoy! (Nothing too explicit this time but I’m still gonna put it under the cut, and yes, I did write this chapter before “Desperada” came out, so I was laughing REALLY hard during that episode.)

........

Adrien was not pouting, thank you very much.

After all, how could he be? Here he was, with the girl of his dreams and the boy who’d made him question his sexuality, eating thick, hot soup after a day filled with fantastic sex. He was certainly not panicking internally on all the many ways he could’ve screwed this up already, or mentally listing all the things he could buy them to make them let him stay for just one more day, or—

“How long are we gonna play the silent game?” Marinette asked. Adrien’s eyes flew to her face to see her smirking at him as she tore her bread in two.

“I—uh… was too busy eating!” he said quickly, digging into his soup for another bite. “It’s really good!”

The look she and Luka gave him told him he still wasn’t fooling anyone.

“I… um… what do you wanna talk about?” he asked timidly.

“Hmm….” Marinette tapped her lips with her spoon as she pondered. Her eyes lit up. “Celebrity fantasy hook-ups! Who would you want if you could have anyone?”

Are you kidding? I’m kinda living it right now, Adrien thought silently. Out loud he answered, “You guys know I’m a celebrity, right? And that I’ve actually had celebrity hook-ups?”

“Yeah, but not fantasy celebrity hook-ups,” Marinette teased.

“This isn’t fair,” Luka complained. “You already know mine!”

“Huh?” Adrien raised an eyebrow at him questioningly. Luka grinned and pointed at him, then Marinette, and then raised his fingers to his eyes in a blatant imitation of a mask.

“Oh,” Adrien said, ducking his head so they couldn’t see him blush. He had a feeling he’d be donning some sort of Chat Noir costume in the very near future, and honestly, he wasn’t against it. It would certainly be nice to Mari in her spots again….

“Oh, come on,” Marinette pouted. “You’re telling me neither of you have even entertained thoughts of a Jagged Stone/Clara Nightingale threesome?!”

Both boys thought about it and shook their heads.

“Clara’s too perky,” Adrien said, “don’t get me wrong, her flexibility is… amazing. But no, she’d probably try to sing to me while—yeah.” He shook his head again.

Luka snickered. “Note to self, don’t try to sing to Adrien while fucking him,” he said, pretending to write on his hand. Adrien made a face and chucked a piece of bread at him, pleased when his lover caught it in his mouth.

“As for me,” Luka said, swallowing, “Jagged Stone is no-go territory, babe.”

“You were happy enough to meet him,” Marinette said, scowling.

“True. True,” Luka nodded. “He’s been my idol for as long as I can remember. But…,” he winced a bit. “When I was little, my mom… hinted heavily that he was my dad.”

“WHAT?!” Marinette and Adrien both stood up, shocked. Luka held up his hands.

“She wouldn’t confirm anything. And she left that part of my damn birth certificate blank, so there’s no way to know unless I ask him for a paternity test—which I am NOT gonna do,” he added quickly, shaking a finger in Marinette’s direction. She puffed her cheeks at him angrily.

“But—”

“Babe, I am all grown up,” he said, grabbing her hand and rubbing it soothingly. “If I ask him now, the press will catch it, and they’ll make it look like the band is trying to land some sort of favoritism angle. I’m not doing that to them. Especially not now.”

“But, Luka—” Marinette tried again.

“Besides, the test could always come up negative,” he pointed out. “Just let me dream.”

She still looked upset.

“Ugh, now I’m not gonna be able to fantasize about him either,” she pouted, sinking back into her chair.

“Are we doing something wrong, to make you want to fantasize about other guys?!” Adrien exclaimed, also sitting.

“He’s too old for you anyway,” Luka added, winking. “Unless you’ve got a daddy kink you haven’t told me about.”

“Ewww, gross!”

“NOPE!” Adrien said, loudly enough to make them both pause. He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, guys, but that’s a hard no from me. If you guys are gonna be doing any ‘daddy’ roleplays, I can’t be a part of it. Just—no.” He shuddered.

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, I can see why,” she said. Adrien’s hopes rose a little. If anyone could understand just how deep this ‘squick’ went, it would be her.

“Don’t worry, Adrien,” Luka said, nodding at him. “It’s a hard no from me too.”

“No daddy kinks all around,” Marinette agreed, raising her glass high. They sealed the agreement with a toast, clinking their glasses together.

“So, Adrien,” Luka said, looking thoughtful. Adrien’s pulse spiked. “If you wanna—”

“What’s that sound?” Marinette interrupted, looking around.

Adrien and Luka also fell silent, listening. Adrien felt himself flush when he realized his phone was buzzing. He dug it out of the pants Marinette had forced him and Luka to put on after they’d tried to jump her while she was cutting vegetables. (He was personally glad Ladybug’s Lucky Charms had all been innocuous objects. Mari with a weapon was scary!)

The caller ID had him groaning, though.

Erica.

How dare she call him after ghosting him last night and leaving with another man?

“Your girlfriend?” Luka guessed.

“Ex,” Adrien corrected, growling. “I don’t deal with cheaters and she knew it. We were over the moment she left the club without me.” He moved to put the phone back in his pocket.

“Answer it,” Marinette said, exchanging a wicked smirk with Luka. “Put it on speaker.” Adrien blinked at her, then obeyed, feeling a little thrill go through him when they both abandoned their seats to come stand behind him.

“Adrien?!” Erica’s shrill voice filled the air. “Oh my God, why haven’t you been answering your phone?!”

“Because I didn’t notice you called,” he said. It was a lie, he’d seen it when he’d checked his messages earlier, he just hadn’t cared enough to call her back. He gasped. Marinette had just run her fingers through his hair, with extra emphasis on the nails against his scalp.

Oh sweet Jesu! If it had been a hard no from him with those other kinks, THIS was an exultant YES!

“Sorry, sweetie!” Marinette called, to his delight. “We’ve kinda been keeping him busy!” She scratched him again, and Adrien couldn’t hold back his moan.

“Who the hell—”

“Very busy,” Luka added on his other side, deepening his voice a bit and giving Adrien’s earlobe a quick nip. Both those actions sent a jolt right down the pit of his stomach. “We’d like to thank you for letting go of someone with such stamina! We’ve had quite the day!”

On the other end, Erica had gone conspicuously silent. Adrien pulled the phone closer to himself.

“So, uh, yeah,” he said softly, “as I’m sure you already know, we’re through.”

“How dare you!” she shrieked. “After everything I’ve done for you!” Marinette snorted in derision and started massaging his shoulders.

“What?” Adrien laughed, leaning back in his chair to relax against her minstrations. Oh, this was priceless. “What exactly have you ‘done for me?’”

“I—I—”

“Besides leaving me on my own so you can fuck another dude?”

“That’s—We’re just cousins!”

“Oh, kissing cousins?” Adrien laughed again. It would’ve actually been funny if he hadn’t heard that same excuse a thousand times over from his other casual encounters. “You had your tongue pretty far down his throat before you left, babe. Try another one.” Luka chuckled in approval and swirled his tongue around Adrien’s ear.

“Like this?” He whispered. Adrien wanted to whimper.

“Fine,” Erica seethed on the other end. “Fine! Be that way! Do your new partners realize how codependent you are?! How much you cling to whoever you’re fucking?!”

Luka and Marinette’s attentions stopped and Adrien felt his breath leave him. Oh God. Oh no. Please don’t let them…. He looked up at Marinette and Luka. They both still looked amused.

“That’s okay,” Marinette called towards the phone. “I like to cuddle!” To emphasize this, she wrapped her arms around Adrien’s shoulders. Relief and warmth flooded him. If he hadn’t already been sitting, he would’ve fallen over.

“And there’s two of us, so we should be able to handle it,” Luka added, kissing the top of Adrien’s head. He wanted to cry. It felt so good. He was safe, and happy, and loved—

“Oh, you are just sick!” his ex spat. “Boys and girls? It’s—it’s unnatural!”

Adrien stared at his phone in disbelief. She’d known he was bisexual from the start! She’d never seemed to have a problem with it before!!

“Somebody sounds jealous,” Marinette drawled.

“You’re a freak!”

“And you’re,” Luka leaned over to tap on Adrien’s phone, “cancelled.” He hung up on her and grinned at Adrien. “And that, my friend, is how you take out the trash.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Adrien said, letting out a shaky breath. “Usually my break-ups require a few more shouting matches and bottles of wine.”

And more of me sobbing into my pillow, he added silently.

“Aww,” Marinette cooed, holding him tighter, “poor Adrikins.”

Adrien gave a weak laugh. “Please don’t ever call me that again.”

“Only for Chloé, huh?” she pouted, pulling away.

He shot her a wry grin. “It just sounds weird when you say it.” To his surprise, her face softened.

“All right then, kitty,” she said softly. Adrien felt his heart leap, especially when she let him go and stroked his hair again. Yes! Yes, that one will do quite nicely, thank you! “Let’s get supper cleaned up and then we can go cuddle, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered, leaning into her touch desperately.

“Why don’t you two go ahead,” Luka suggested. “I’ll clean up.” He started clearing the table.

“You sure?” Marinette asked, giving him a quick peck as he passed by.

“Yeah. You can,” he gave Adrien a suggestive smirk, “get him ready.” Adrien gulped, wondering just what they might have planned for him—

“No sex tonight,” Marinette suddenly declared.

“What?! Aww…” He and Luka made disappointed sounds.

“Nope,” she said firmly. “If we’re going to try for a real relationship here, we have to have more than just the physical. And since you two have already jumped the gun today—”

“I already apologized for that!” Luka protested.

“—then we need to have a session where everyone feels loved and accepted,” she finished, glaring at her blue-haired boyfriend. “So,” she turned on Adrien, “tonight we are going to cuddle your ‘codependent’ ass until you get some much-needed sleep.”

Adrien opened his mouth to retort, but then he closed it again. Who could argue with something like that?

[vivalamusicaltheater]

Types of art reposters, ranked by how much I personally hate them

Hey so I haven’t personally had art reposted bc I’m a small artist and not that good in terms of technique yet (this isn’t self deprecation, just an acknowledgment that I’m not that great at anatomy and lighting and shading and such yet), but I see art reposters all the time on Instagram and (occasionally, not actually that often) here, and I’ve seen the negative effects art reposts have on other artists and I’m big mad about them, so I decided to make this list. This is gonna be a long post so if you want to be salty with me (or genuinely don’t know why I think art reposting is bad and want to find out) just know that this is gonna be fairly long.

Disclaimer (and I know this may seem obvious so I’m sorry to everyone who already knows but I feel like I have to put this here because I’ve actually seen people confused about this): reposting is not the same as reblogging. Reblogging is a function on tumblr (the little black arrows in a square right next to the like button at the bottom of posts) where you can share an artist’s work to your blog. Reblogging is good because it provides an artist with more exposure, as you probably have people following you that don’t follow them, so the more people who reblog someone’s art the more people see it and the more attention the artist is able to get, and because reblogged art provides a direct link to the original post and the artist’s blog. This way if someone likes an artist’s work they can go directly to the artist’s blog and see if they have more work they like. Reposting (saving someone’s art to your device and uploading it to one of your accounts) is bad because it takes away that direct link to the original artist. This means that is is way harder for the original artist to gain exposure for their art and often leads them to be discouraged when they see a repost of their art that got way more attention than the original, which can make them a lot less motivated to make more art. That out of the way, time to rank reposters.

13) People who directly tag/provide a direct link to the artist and provide proof that the artist allowed them to repost their work/that they allow all their work to be reposted

I don’t actually hate you if you do this. I don’t really understand why you’d want to repost someone’s art instead of just reblogging it or putting a link on your Instagram story, or retweeting it if you’re on Twitter, but by directly linking to the artist and showing that you asked them about it or know for a fact that they’re okay with it, you’ve shown that you respect the time and effort they put into their work so thank you for being a decent human being.

12) People who directly tag/provide a direct link to the artist

Ok so you didn’t actually ask permission (or at least if you did you didn’t let anyone know that you did) so I don’t respect you as much as the people who do ask for permission to repost artwork, but at least you did provide a direct link to the artist so you’re not as bad as you could be.

11) People who provide the artist’s correct username and what platform they’re on but don’t directly link to the artist

Again, good that you provided their username and where to find them, but because you didn’t directly link to the artist, many people will just be lazy and like your post and move on, or like your post because they don’t have whatever social media the artist is on. This takes away notes that should go to the original artist, which frustrates me. I don’t flat out hate you but you’re on thin f*cking ice

10) People who provide the artist’s correct username but don’t specify what platform they’re on

Hey if you do this, especially if you post art that was originally found on another platform, it makes it significantly harder to find the original artist. People are even more likely to just like your post and go on with their days instead of checking out the original artist. This barely counts as credit and you have got to do better.

9) People who credit the wrong person

Usually when people do this it’s an accident, so I don’t hate you nearly as much as some of the other people on this list, but not taking the time to make sure the information about the artist you provided is correct is lazy and shows you don’t respect their work as much as you should. By the way, if you credited the wrong person on purpose so the original artist wouldn’t find out you were reposting, I hate you a LOT more.

8) People who ask the original artist for permission to repost their artwork but don’t actually wait for them to say yes before doing it

If you do this it’s clear that you are entitled and asked the artist for permission not because you actually cared about their answer but because you wanted to be able to say that you asked for permission. It’s clear that you don’t actually respect artists, and I hate you.

7) People who credit the right person but purposefully put a / right after the @ sign so it doesn’t actually tag the original artist

The only reason I don’t hate you for doing this is if the original artist knows you’re reposting their work but specifically said they don’t want to be tagged because they don’t want to deal with the notifications or something like that. If that’s not the reason than you’re likely just doing that so the original artist doesn’t get a notification that they were tagged in a post and thus doesn’t see that you reposted their work. That’s cowardly you’re a coward and a loser and I hate you.

6) People who don’t credit at all, but don’t claim to be the original artist and it’s obvious they’re not

If you don’t even bother to try to credit the artist then it shows you don’t care enough about their labor and just expect an endless supply of art that you can repost and get thousands of notes for even though you didn’t go through the effort of drawing it. I hate you with a passion. Credit artists you sack of sh*t.

5) People who say “credit to the artist!” or “credit to google/pinterest” or “I don’t know who made this but dm me if you do!”

Listen. The fact that you’re only my 5th most hated type of art reposter is not because I don’t hate you on an ASTRONOMICAL level, but because there are (unfortunately!) people who repost in worse ways than you do. “Credit to the artist!” is NOT actually giving credit to the artist because you’re not telling your followers who the artist is!! It’s not credit if you don’t specifically name who it came from!! I see this so much and I hate it I hate you if you do this. Similarly, “credit to Pinterest/google/some other website!” is not credit either!! A website did not draw that art, a person did and I will drop kick you off a cliff for refusing to acknowledge that!! Finally, and I think you can probably see where this is going, “I don’t know who made this but dm me if you do!” is, you guessed it, not crediting the original artist! The fact that you are so lazy as to not find the original artist but you also ask your followers to do it for you? Unbelievable!! The level of entitlement!! And these happen so much!!! I hate you I hate you I hate you.

4) People who repost work from artists who have specifically stated that they don’t allow reposts or who refuse to take down reposted work after the original artist asks them to

If you respect artists so little that you repost their work knowing they don’t want you to or refuse to take down their work after they ask you to, you are a horrible person. That art does not belong to you, you did not take the time to make it, and I HATE you so much for thinking you’re entitled to it. “Well then they shouldn’t have posted it on the internet -” shut UP that’s how they choose to share their talent! Art is art even if it’s not displayed anywhere, but artists who post their art on the internet are kind enough to share their talents with the world. Maybe the artist put their work on the internet so that they can find people interested in commissioning them, which helps provide them with funds that could be necessary to their survival. Or maybe art is something they do for fun that they could very well stop doing because of people like you who feel like they own sh*t just because it was posted on the internet (hint: posting artwork on the internet does not equal consent for everyone to use it)! I hope you have a sh*tty life. I hate you.

3) People who say “I’m not gonna credit, what are you going to do about it?”

If you do this, you’re most likely a troll, and most DEFINITELY an awful awful human being. If I met you in real life I would actually physically fight you regardless of whether I thought I could win or not because I hate you that much. Step on a rusty nail and learn basic respect for people’s time and effort. I hate you. (Also, if the original artist finds out what you’re doing they can at least file for copyright and hopefully get their work taken down. If you’re an artist whose work has been reposted by someone like this I’m deeply sorry for you and hope these reposters get all the sh*tty things they deserve in life).

2) People who pretend to be the original artist even though they’re not

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, but definitely not in this case. If you have the AUDACITY to take credit for the work someone else put their time and effort into and accept all the praise and attention that the original artist should be getting, I hate you so unvelievably much. How is it possible to be that awful of a person? You are stupid and I hope you lose your job or something else similarly awful. (Again artists if you have ever experienced this I’m so so sorry for you).

1) People who repost art for the sole purpose of making fun of it

Congratulations, if you do this you are the worst asshole on this list of huge f*cking assholes. Not ONLY are you creating all the usual problems that come with reposting but you ALSO have the nerve to call someone’s art bad?! There is a SPECIAL place in hell for you. Likely if you do this you also make fun of marginalized people or kids, as most “bad art” blogs feature lgbt+ artwork done by lgbt+ people, or art of people of color, or children’s ocs that have like rainbow hair and vampire fangs and wings or something. I don’t CARE how bad you think their anatomy is and I don’t CARE if they have the “calarts art style” or “tumblr art style” the fact that you are taking the time to repost something somebody spent time on and criticize it is despicable and I hate you more than I hate anyone else besides bigoted people. I also don’t care if you think it’s a “joke”, if the original creator of the art ever found your repost it could be really harmful to their self esteem, and could cause them to stop making art, which means they’ll never have a chance to get “better”. Doing this is a personal attack on someone’s passion and I hate you so incredibly much for it. If you want art that you think is good so bad then f*cking make it yourself. What’s that? Oh you don’t make art you just think you could do better even though you’ve never drawn in your life/you just know what “good art” is? Sit down and shut the f*ck up. I hate you.

(Disclaimer #2: this category obviously does not extend to things like art that is racist or transphobic or anything like that. There’s a difference between calling out something that is genuinely harmful and mocking artists for drawing things that make them happy. The former is good the latter is bad.)

Anyways that is my list of art reposters ranked by how much I hate them! If you are any of these kinds of art reposter besides 13, 12 and maybe 11, then congratulations I hate you and hope you have an awful day!