#LJ 2.0

[cesperanza]

I saw your addition to the post about the enshittification of fandom alongside much of the rest of the internet and realized I had no idea that you were among the founders of ao3! I have been following your work for a DECADE and I feel embarrassed not to have known that about your place in fandom history 😅

I wanted us to own the goddamned servers!!! *holds up fist!I*. And now we do!!

(I laugh a TINY bit because A DECADE is really not even anything in my fannish career, lol. I was old THEN! lol)

But anyway, a lot of us who started the AO3 were archivists of one kind or another - I had inherited the DSA (Due South archive), and astolat had Yuletide, and there were other people who were central to fandom in popslash, smallville, highlander, stargate, etc etc. It's a huge responsibility and there was the fear of those small archives falling into the sea, and then there were all of these fic communities on LJ that were essentially also fic archives--flashfic communities and other kinds of communities, etc. Those people also came hurrying to help because we all wanted a safe place to preserve fanworks, both from venture capitalists/ Web 2.0 but also from just link rot and technical degradation.

The people who rushed to help were really all central to fandom at that time, a Dunbar's number of fannish folk who knew each other and who were themselves individually connected to lots of other fans. A very highly charged network so to speak--and people reading this, you know who you are!! :D. YOU AND YOU AND YOU WERE THERE! --and they're still here on tumblr, so many of the first wave OTW! <3 <3 Because we were and are mostly fandom lifers, FIAWOL folk.

[olderthannetfic]

As one of your younger followers I’m surprised that blogs are. . . New? Newer than I thought at least. I guess I always misunderstood what Web 1.0 really was (I grew up web Web 2.0) and I always thought that, outside of informational topics, a big feature of Web 1.0 would be people talking about their lives and interests — tho granted with little to no communication/replies from others. Huh, TIL.

--

Yeah, things really changed a lot and perhaps even more quickly than now at some points in the internet's development.

At the start of the 90s, it was all Usenet groups and service providers with their own forums you could only see if you had that service.

Free e-mail addresses became a thing in the mid 90s. Prior to that, it was all paid stuff like AOL, and prior to that, it was your university or IT job e-mail with your actual name in it. There were very few services, paid or otherwise, that provided you with an e-mail and access to the internet generally: it was all about selling access to a given company's proprietary hangout. There were some. My e-mail is from one. But that wasn't the norm.

(And, of course, prior to like 1995, "the internet" did not by default mean the web. Now, everything is the web or a web interface for your e-mail or something.)

When eGroups and Onelist and then Yahoo Groups arrived, it really changed things for fandom because you could run your own mailing list without knowing technical things. Some of the action drained away from Usenet to mailing lists.

Fandom dipped its toes into blogging sites immediately, but the giant wave of people getting Livejournals wasn't until 2003. I had one in 2002 through a friend, and it really wasn't this big fandom thing at the time. Some time around 2002/early '03, fans started trying to round up invite codes and get their favorite writers on there, and then LJ dropped the need to pay or have a code, and the flood away from mailing lists began.

(I guess web-based forums go in here somewhere, but I wasn't as active on them.)

In some ways, Discord is more like fandom on the early internet than either the LJ era or Tumblr eras were/are.

Most of the 90s stuff was more topic-specific. People socialized because people are people and frequently off-topic, but you were hanging out in The Place For Anime Fanfic or something, not so-and-so's personal diary with a comments section.

[bullet-prooflove]

Seperation!Series Part Four: Not Enough - Mitch Ripley x Reader

Tagging: @spaghettificationandpretzels @mini-bee-bee @mandy426 @phoward89 @kmc1989

Seperation!Series:

Marley 2.0 - Mitch doesn't realise your hiding a secret from him.

Not Your Problem - Mitch feels you pulling away from him.

Pill Popping - Mitch confronts LJ about what happened in St Clair.

“I pissed myself didn’t I?” are the first words out of Mitch’s mouth when he wakes up in one of the bays in the ED, tucked into a hospital bed wearing a nothing but gown and paper underwear. 

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” You ask him, your grip tightening on his hand. “Or would you like to remain in blissful ignorance.”

His eyebrows furrow into a frown before he winces, his fingertips brushing over the stitches holding the gash in his forehead together.

“Seven stitches.” You tell him as he runs his fingers over it. “You hit your head on the way down.”

The coffee table, he summarises before he returns his attention back to you.

You look like hell, dark circles under your eyes, waxy skin. He can tell you’ve lost weight, it’s in the way you don’t quite fill out your clothes the way you used to. He stares down at your hand, so small, so dainty in his own and he thinks maybe he got this wrong, maybe it wasn’t about L.J.

“Marley,” He says softly, his thumb chasing over your wedding ring. “I don’t understand how we got here. One minute we were happy and the next…”

He shakes his head as he struggles to find the words.

“What was the breaking point?” He says finally, his eyes stinging. “What was it that I did that made you not love me?”

“Mitch…” You begin and he knows that tone, it’s the one you use to placate him but Mitch he isn’t looking for comfort, he just wants answers.

“I just need to know what I did wrong.” He whispers.

“It wasn’t you.” You find yourself telling him. “Something happened to me after you left St Clair, something I didn’t know how to deal with…”

His grip on your hand tightens and you pause because the truth is you don’t know how to vocalise the next part because the moment you do it changes things, for you and your marriage. However you can’t keep going on like this, you owe it to Mitch to be honest, to help him understand that it isn’t him that’s the problem, it’s you.

“A couple of days after you left I had miscarriage.” You say quietly, your gaze fixed on the paper hospital hand looped around his wrist. “L.J was there, he realised what was happening, took me to the hospital, called my mom…”

“You were pregnant?” He asks, his voice rough with emotion and finally your gaze raises to meet his.

There’s such agony in those eyes of yours, so much distress. You’ve been carrying this thing around with you for weeks, keeping it all locked it up inside and it’s only now that Mitch realises that you were grieving, that’s what the distance has been about, the pulling away from him. You’ve been trying to cope with this all alone and Mitch can’t fathom why.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asks you. “I could have helped you. I could have…”

“You don’t want kids Mitch.” You say quietly, pulling your hand away and tucking it into your jacket. “And it wasn’t until it happened that I realised I do.”

“Marley.” He says, that familiar ache starting to blossom in his chest. “You know my history…”

Mitch, he would give you absolutely anything in the world except for one thing and it’s the one thing you’re asking him for. He won’t bring a child into this fucked up place, not with him as a father. He won’t do that to you, he won’t do that to his baby.

“I do…” You tell him, your eyes lined with tears. “And I thought I was ok with that.”

“But now you’re not.” He says, his mouth setting into a grim line because this right here, right now, it feels like a betrayal.

The two of you have talked about kids, he wanted to have that discussion before you got married because he wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into. You’d told him you didn’t need babies, that your love for him was unconditional and Mitch, he had been stupid enough to believe you.

“I want a family with you Mitch.” You tell him, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand. “I want to raise children together, to have a house filled with laughter, with love. Do you think… Do you think that maybe that’s something we could have?”

“No Marley," He says sadly. "It’s not.”

His gaze strays down at the silver band on his finger. This is the end, he can feel it because Mitch isn’t enough, he’ll will never be enough, for you or anybody else.

“You should leave.” He tells you and you both know he’s not talking about this hospital bay. “I can’t give you what you want so you need to do what's best for you and leave.”

Love Mitch? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[vimesbootstheory]

CK S6 Pt1 Thoughts

Do we still call this "the cut" or did we leave that behind on LJ? Anyway the thoughts are under the cut. I haven't looked at anyone else's thoughts yet, no idea whether this is echo chamber stuff or if I watched a different show than the rest of you.

Overall I honestly had a blast, I'm probably gonna talk more here about stuff I disliked but that's because positive stuff kept me glued to the screen while negative stuff sent me to vent in the notes doc I had open in another window lol

Eagle Fang was Johnny's thing, not an extension of Kreese's Cobra Kai, and I was so angry at the show for not understanding that that I burst into tears

I continue to think that the big cast is spreading character work too thin, such that most characters were either made much less interesting than they have been in previous seasons (e.g. Daniel, Miguel) or were given too little time with the character work they had (e.g. Robby, Kenny) or both.

Characters I made particular note of who are now boring: Daniel, Amanda, Sam, Hawk.

I was surprised in particular how Daniel was given virtually no character work other than this token Miyagi thing. I prefer when Daniel's a bitch. Daniel being The Reasonable One is incredibly boring.

We kinda got slutty gi back? In hallucination form? Briefly?

This was a hard realization: I don't think I ship Daniel/Johnny in these episodes. I'm still absolutely bonkers for them in previous seasons (1-4 mostly) and in the fandom sphere but honestly I wanted Johnny away from Daniel most of the time in s6e1-5. I found it really off-putting how much Daniel was trying to change Johnny into someone he's not.

Fave new character was Kwon. Enjoyably silly. I like his anime hair.

Delighted that Jarmen baby is a girl, even more delighted that the topic of the baby was pretty backgrounded, didn't spend a lot of time on it.

I am filled with incandescent rage that they neutered SamTory; it was weird rooting for Johnny's terrible strategies to make them frenemies instead of friends. But it looks like they're not quite done yet so I'm gonna cool my heels on this point.

Team Captain nepo babies lol. I would be so pissed if I were any of the other Miyagi-Do students.

Loved Johnny championing his female students. In an ideal world I would not have had a little voice at the back of my head wishing he'd spend the same kind of quality time with Robby (How about some Robby time? Robby? Robby now? Johnny and Robby?); nevertheless for what it was, I still really like Johnny supporting Devon and (to a lesser extent) Tory. Meanwhile Daniel over here in his sexist era I guess, ok. Like he really only wanted to send his daughter and no other girls.

Peyton List is the part-season's MVP, obviously obviously. She was so great. Kicked ass, kicked acting's ass. Tory was probably the meatiest character of the season, too, though that's not saying a ton.

My worst fears were not realized re: Johnny's character. He still isn't the fully-realized guy he was in early seasons, but relative to other characters, he's having a pretty OK season IMO. Knock on wood.

I was unexpectedly all riled up on Anthony's behalf. Why does he HAVE to get into karate? Why does he have to be Daniel 2.0? At least this was addressed textually.

So pissed on Kenny's behalf. Justice for Kenny. He deserved one of the top 6 spots. He got poo pants instead. Jesus Christ.

Loved the Lawrence vs Barnes fight, very metal, excellent choreo, love watching Zabka move. I would bet the cobros are lighting up at having an answer on that particular head-to-head.

This has been a running thing with Cobra Kai for a while, but I'm not even sure how I as an audience member was supposed to see Johnny's current teaching style? Honestly I loved his day of blended-style lessons. Obviously broken glass in the koi pond is not a great idea. But like. Jesus Christ, Daniel, katas HAVE STRIKES. WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT.

Did they really just write Chozen out without any goodbyes? :(((

Daniel's ego flare-up and "I'm the boss" moment, contender for only interesting aspect to his character in these five eps. Hell yea hell yea. Show some goddamn teeth Daniel LaRusso.

One thing I think CK excels at and has always excelled at is keeping the stakes up for tournament-style fights, such that more often than not, I can't tell just through narrative signposting who's going to win. Robby vs Miguel in particular was a nail-biter. I did a full-body arm-pump when Robby won. Though the stakes were weird because it's not as someone can't win in Barcelona if they're not a captain? That was confusing and makes me think it's going to be their way of doling out successes across the main four kids. Like Robby and Sam for the captains, and then Miguel will win, presumably Tory too when she flip-flops back to team good guys again.

Interesting acting/directing/writing (idk which) choice during Robby vs Miguel, Johnny visibly rooting for Robby.

I love that Johnny brought up losing his mum when Tory's mum died, but I really hope they get the chance to bond over it at some point.

The fuckin magic jewel bottle cap got me so bad. Resourceful DIY toys is poor person realness and it was so cute and heartbreaking.

It's weird that new!CK got into the tournament because it's clearly not really the same dojo, so they haven't really qualified.

I'm so pumped about Kreese being the main villain. That was true before the season began and I still feel that way.

I'm excited for part 2!

[decepti-thots]

I wonder if age/generation has a lot of bearing on the decrease of fandom meta; like, the age of understood concepts/etiquette like “don’t like don’t read” or simply choosing not to interact w interpretations you don’t like aren’t really a thing anymore. People in general seem to have gotten way more aggro with conflicting ideas/interpretations and specific “fanon” tends to get established very decisively. Not to mention the larger internet culture has changed to be so, idk, personal? like sometimes i just see how younger people behave/interact on twitter or tiktok and they can be SO aggressive and eager to make someone out in the worst light possible, stuff like that, idk if this makes sense but yeah. culture changes, I guess

Oh, I have to disagree with you anon. "Don't like don't read" started because people had to be told that, told it often, told it frequently. The flamewars back in the day about things as innocuous as "who tops" were once legendary, after all. My experiences on LJ were full of constant drama, much of it nasty as fuuuuuck. Back in my day, making someone's beloved blorbo gay could get you death threats.

I don't think what has changed is any of that as much as the delivery mechanism. What did used to be easier, IME, was choosing how and where to interact to minimize unwanted contact with the people having those bad faith arguments, and the way those arguments were confined to static spaces once upon a time. Web 2.0 didn't make people act worse, but it did make sure that folks acting badly were algorithmically boosted on basically every platform. It's the reblog thing again, isn't it? A stupid take on a forum or a personal blog or even a community might get linked around (who else was there for fandom_wank, shout out), but it didn't get endlessly reproduced. I am wary of arguments fandom culture got "more toxic" in the abstract because I think it obfuscates the role that centralized platforms and especially the corporate idea of "user content" as something to be treated as a kind of resource to be exploited play in our current... situation? Twitter needs a main character to boost engagement to sell ads in a way that web 1.0 spaces just couldn't dream of. And the end result for everyone is that by design, avoiding the nobodies with rancid takes and ongoing drama is simply not possible now. No closed ecosystems. There's a reason the very common request for Tumblr to implement a "make this post unsearchable" function is unlikely to happen. (I'm still astonished they gave in on reblog controls, frankly.)

[saunteringvaguelydownwards]

🐛 🐛 🐛 Talking about WiPs, here's some little guys

Yes, more love for the works in progress! 🐛 Great WIP (go comment)

MCU - F I R E F L Y by SheDreamsByDay (tumblr?) There is so much going on in this fic, but here's the super CliffNotes version: set right after the end of the Hawkeye series, Kate is lonely, Yelena is out on missions, but they start chatting over the phone and become each other's anchor. They get together when Yelena gets back to town, and start trying to take down Red Room 2.0 with the help of Clint and fam, Yelena's parents, Natasha, Wanda, and Shuri. This one is so fucking intense y'all, and has eaten my brain in the best way. I pretty much mainlined the first 24 chapters in 3 days. I mentioned in a comment there that this is a stunning example of the quote "You’re in love with her, here’s the best part: she loves you more than her own life. Here’s the worst part: she loves you so much more than her own life." The things these two are willing to do for each, how far they'll go... There's drama, there's action, there's so much angst and trauma, it can get really dark in places, but the author is very good about putting warnings at the beginning of each chapter about what comes next. Updates regularly every Sunday, and the author replies to pretty much every single comment.

~

SG - Evil by @thingsanddreamsandstuff Metallo!Lena from the Mxy episode decides that Kara is to blame for her pain and suffering in life, so she hops dimensions to try to kill her. Kara decides that the best way to deal with this (and also the fact that her Lena isn't talking to her) is to go to Other Lena's prison cell in the DEO and become talking buddies. Very angsty, lots of great conversations in various configurations of Kara, Lena, Other Lena, Lex, and Alex. Like, some truly eviscerating lines that make you wince by proxy. According to the stats there's only one chapter to go, was last updated in May, and in the notes of the latest chapter she said the next/last chapter was already partially written, so maybe some comment love will help.

~

WN - can i get your house key? by @piratekane OMG THEY WERE ROOMMATES! Avatrice college AU where Ava comes crashing into Bea's life (literally) and decides to never leave. Bea's got serious issues thanks to her fucking parents, Ava is sweet but kinda oblivious, and once again these two have taken up residence in a pine forest. The chapters don't follow a strict linear progression, there's time jumps in between. It's more like a series of moments, until later when they're starting to get their shit together. Again, according to the stats there's only one chapter left, and was last updated a week ago, so very much an active WiP. Plus I think GK and I have been buddies since like LJ or something, so give my pal some love.

[xazz]

Ok so you reblogged this:

So you have no one to blame but yourself for all the dumb questions I'm about to ask you.

1) They Were Giants

• Are you planning to continue this fic?

• What inspired you to write it? How did your original idea differ from what you ended up going with in the first chapter (if it differed at all in the first place)?

• Were there any bits that you really liked but had to cut due to pacing/them not fitting the plot?

• Is there anything you can tell us about where you could see the characters going in the future without spoiling the story (if you plan to keep on writing it, that is)?

2) The "Flocking Movement" series

• What inspired you to write this story, and how much planning did you do before writing it?

• Were you at any point surprised by the direction your story took?

• How would Lucy Prime react to Lucy 2.0 (idk what else to call them lol)? Had Lucy Prime been put in the position of Lucy 2.0, would her actions have differed in any significant way? (+ would she have been an Angel as well or is that just a Lucy 2.0 thing?)

• What does the world created by Desmond look like 100+ years in the future? Are any of the immortals still hanging around? Have more of them popped out? (big question, I know, but I am legit curious about what your answer will be)

• Had Daniel lived (while also being cured of whatever Vidic did to him) what would he have done?

• Some fun facts about Cain, Tiamat, Baldur or any of your other OCs?

• Could you see yourself ever returning to this timeline?

3) General writing questions

• Are there any new WIPs (Ac related or not) that you're really excited about right now? Can you tell us anything about them?

• Do you have any advice/words of encouragement for your fellow writers?

There's a bunch of 'would you write X again?' questions in here and. I do have prompts and requests open on @ahungeringknife. If you want more AU stuff you're more than welcome to ask so long as it's not 'more of this Au!' without any idea of what you want lol

1) They Were Giants

• Are you planning to continue this fic?

Eventually? Maybe? I have the ideas just not the desire to write it rn. Hyperfixation ran out. TWG has also mostly been written on commission.

• What inspired you to write it? How did your original idea differ from what you ended up going with in the first chapter (if it differed at all in the first place)?

I got a request for God!Altair with AltMal and I just went from there. I wrote the first chapter based on it and then I think someone paid for a second chapter so I wrote more. The first chapter is real different from the others because it was supposed to be a one shot. I had to make up Eagle to give Malik something to do lol. Again the second chapter was supposed to Be It and then someone paid for a third and I had to write more. So I tried to wrap up chapters as I go so there aren't dangling ends. Except for recently bc the last chapter or so I wrote for myself.

• Were there any bits that you really liked but had to cut due to pacing/them not fitting the plot?

No really? The parts I'd change would be drawing out the Tarazed thing a bit more. Having him and his priests all die in one chapter was very fast. I'd probably do some sort of red herring Malik thinks he's killed the priests and then building up to killing Tarazed.

• Is there anything you can tell us about where you could see the characters going in the future without spoiling the story (if you plan to keep on writing it, that is)?

Malik leaves Eagle to find out what's 'wrong' with Altair. He meets a bunch more stars and learns that they aren't the only gods. Desmond gets to come with and maybe Lucy? I hadn't planned her and then she popped up.

2) The "Flocking Movement" series

• What inspired you to write this story, and how much planning did you do before writing it?

Kinkmeme on LJ prompt was something like 'Desmond meets Ezio in Montergioni'. Or maybe it was 'Desmond meets ancestors for real'? And then I just went insane. Very little planning happened in the first story but I very meticulously planned 17th, Triad, and TT.

• Were you at any point surprised by the direction your story took?

Jacob was a surprise. So was Tommy. Fan fave Baldur and Cain were also surprises.

• How would Lucy Prime react to Lucy 2.0 (idk what else to call them lol)? Had Lucy Prime been put in the position of Lucy 2.0, would her actions have differed in any significant way? (+ would she have been an Angel as well or is that just a Lucy 2.0 thing?)

Prime would have been disgusted by L2. Not because L2 is disgusting but because of what the Proeathans did. Like the disgust is not at L2, it's what they did to her. But also big 'I've only had synth me for 2 days and if anything happened to her I'd kill all of your and then myself'. L2 was 'programmed' to want Desmond. Prime I think just liked him because they were stuck together and in a terrible situation but once out of it wouldn't have stayed with him. So stuff L2 does that revolve around her feelings for Desmond Prime wouldn't have. Idk what Prime would do if put in the situation *thinky face* She'd probably work with the Assassins properly though. They'd probably meet her when they run into... Andrew. Right Desmond's dad is Andrew in that fic XD I almost wrote William. Prime would have been an angel but not in the same way. Tommy is a watered down version of Desmond. Prime would be a watered down version of L2. L2's biggest plus is proeathan stuff doesn't register as 'human' which is why she can get past their security, Prime is a person/human so does.

• What does the world created by Desmond look like 100+ years in the future? Are any of the immortals still hanging around? Have more of them popped out? (big question, I know, but I am legit curious about what your answer will be)

I have a half finished fic for Legacy that covers that. I just didn't think it turned out very good lol. Altair and Micheal stick around the most. Micheal is very invested in being a grandpa to all of Desmond's kids. Desmond's life gives Altair some purpose and structure. Also Jacob stays in Atlantis. Once Tommy dies Jake and Altair get back together. Cain and Ezio are bother wanderers. Cain 100% starts a fucking cult about himself.

• Had Daniel lived (while also being cured of whatever Vidic did to him) what would he have done?

idk. He doesn't live. I never thought about it lol. There is no timeline where Daniel lives. Ubisoft tortured him enough in canon he gets to fucking rest.

• Some fun facts about Cain, Tiamat, Baldur or any of your other OCs?

Cain's human half is from Turkmenistan. Or that's what Cain says and I'm not about to argue with him. Baldur is trans 👏👏Just in case there was any confusion. She's mtf. She and Thor end up adopting a kid. Tiamat becomes the AI that oversees Atlantis and the Embrace when she eventually dies. She allows Desmond to do that to her so long as she maintains complete control. You never meet her but Desmond and Lucy have a daughter named Saturn and she IS A MENACE. Tiamat loves her. Kaley would have been a stronger pyromancer than John or Desmond.

• Could you see yourself ever returning to this timeline?

I think about it from time to time. But like with TWG just... hyperfixation isn't there. If people prompted for it maybe? I just have written most of what I want for the AU.

3) General writing questions

• Are there any new WIPs (Ac related or not) that you're really excited about right now? Can you tell us anything about them?

There's 2 Destiny AU ideas I have that I'm just *vibrates* about. But there's no 'story' only vibes and setting atm. As for new WIPs? Not really? And always my constant original fantasy WIP.

• Do you have any advice/words of encouragement for your fellow writers?

The mind editor is the thief of joy. Do not let the editor in your head ruin your fucking art.

If you don't feel like your writer's block is going away and you've rested and gone fallow here's the trick they don't tell you; sit down and write through it. It will probably be painful. You probably won't like it. But if your fields are fallow and you feel like they've rested long enough sometimes you have to till the dirt yourself by hand.

In a positive way; no one cares. No one really cares if you make a continuity error, or if you don't have the exact facts right on something, if your headcanon changes mid story. In the 14ish years I've been writing fanfic no one has ever said to me 'um actually you're not right about minor X fact'. I've had people who can't read or understand hyperbole but no one is standing around fact checking you on what you're writing. It's fine. No one cares. If you can't find the exact stat you want fuck it make it up. No one cares enough to check. I say that as a writer and a reader. I'm not out here fact checking someone. Even if I know the information is wrong. Who cares? It's a fanfic.

m/f f/f is just as good and valid as m/m and you should write more of it

[sadsoftserve]

I'm not crow but I am in hellsite 2.0!

-🟣

And yes I am the real loud anon I just wanted to be a little shit for once okay

I'm done now I got bored after like the first 2 asks but felt like I had to keep this up for the sake of consistency. Sorry sadsoftserve

NO.1

if you were in the Hellsite, you'd know everyone calls me either

Lj

Soft

Or Sads.

Two, if you're in the Hellsite, prove to me, what my latest concept is that I have yet shared here.

And three, I have a sneaking suspicion that if somehow, you are in the Hellsite... You are either Arospecbandgeek, Noah, or wren (tho I highly doubt that last one)

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

omg i just found your podcast and it’s incredibly cathartic to listen to as i have felt the loss of fandom spaces over the past few years (tumblr dying and twitter being hard to use for that). livejournal sounds so nice. I wish there was another social media site that would allow that sort of community again for art and fandom and connection.

Thank you so much for listening and writing in! The loss of fandom spaces is always so hard and sad -- I (V) still mourn the landscape of individually run HTML fansites that ran all the way to the horizon back in Web 1.0. I miss fun layouts! I miss image galleries! I miss fandom mailing lists! (And I highly recommend The Rec Center if you don't already subscribe to them).

I actually think that Tumblr isn't dying so much as accepting its size and scope -- it ISN'T a social media site, and it's never been something that was going to be able to compete with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for mainstream, everyday-Joe users. People who don't have a hyperfixation or a fandom want to see a variety of content and are easy for The Algorithm to feed. Tumblr users... are not.

Tumblr may have started out with the goal of being a hub for Srs Bsns Photographers & Poets/Writers, but everything about its format makes it the perfect site for fandom to flourish.

I'm really happy that Tumblr itself is embracing that now! AFAIK their actual slogan on the Apple App Store is "Tumblr: The Home of Fandom." Fandom is a niche subculture. We're just not gonna have the numbers of a Twitter or a TikTok. (And honestly, thank fucking god. Can you even imagine the chaos. I shudder to think.)

Tumblr is a microblogging site. It's for people who write too much for Twitter and whose images aren't the vibe of Instagram. It's for gifsets, which are an art medium unto themselves that social media sites wouldn't have any use for, really. And it's definitely not for Norbert in Accounting to connect with his grandma on like Facebook.

The anonymity of Tumblr is antithetical to modern social media sites -- even though IT IS INSANE TO ME THAT PEOPLE PUT THEIR REAL NAMES AND PHOTOS ONLINE, DID WE NOT LEARN ABOUT STRANGER DANGER??? -- and the fact that Tumblr is inherently ABOUT transformational, shared, "yes and" content, rather than mostly original pithy content like Twitter and IG and TikTok, makes it attractive to people with the hyperfocus of fans more than people who want to scroll and scroll and just see Stuff. I mean, obviously on Tumblr we're all looking at Stuff, but you can CURATE your feed on Tumblr in a way that you can't on social media. Curation is the enemy of The Algorithm. And Tumblr users fucking hate The Algorithm.

And honestly? The Algorithm hates fandom, because it's really hard to market things to someone with a hyperfixation. I don't CARE about your product, and seeing it instead of the thing I want to be looking at makes me HATE your product. The Algorithm really needs to be able to feed you a lot of different types of content to see what you're interested in. If you go into a site already knowing what you're interested in, then... ::shruggie:: Sucks to suck, Algorithm.

All of that said, yes -- community is definitely an aspect of Web 1.0 that feels like it's missing, or very hard to find, on Tumblr. I know a lot of people are finding great fannish communities on Discord these days, but I am elderly and don't know how to find Discord communities in the first place and also I'm painfully shy, so. I just Tumbl.

But I think that the loss of a sense of community is also part and parcel of Web 2.0, from the formats of websites to their function. It was easier, in Ye Olde Days, to feel connected to other people who found your fandom online because... not everyone WAS online. There was a sense that if you loved a thing enough to find your way to a fansite, or to LJ, or whatever, that was already taking the first step towards opening yourself up to friendship. Now, with social media and with smartphones and whatever else, literally everyone is online all day long. It isn't already a little club of nerds, yk?

I don't know. The internet as a whole has changed its shape and scope so much in the last ten years, let alone the last 20, that it's a whole different arena than it used to be. I don't really have any solutions or suggestions. Maybe once we get our Patreon up and running or something we'll start a TWIFH discord that people can join and make friends on.

But all of that is to say --

tl;dr, Fandom itself is antithetical to "social media" sites, and it needs blogging sites like Tumblr or LiveJournal or hand-coded HTML fansites to BE ABLE to exist. /opinion

[nanjokei]

but this is indirectly a sequel to the generational differences i talked about in my post about how the anime fantasy genre is on its deathbed, you can tell exactly when someone got into anime by how they talk about it— you can tell if its a babby zoomer who knows it through tiktok and streaming (probably during lockdown too). you can tell when its someone who got into it thru post-2015 twitter anime boom. you can tell if it was from tumblr or livejournal (depending on the age its one or the other, sometimes both if old enough), you can tell if they got into it when myspace and forums were still around, you can definitely tell if it was pre-web 2.0, you can so so so tell when its someone who was circulating fansubbed tapes around a university AV club

but yeah, this is why i dont really bother getting too mad about that kind of thing, but i really am deeply nostalgic for the eras i was young and active in (forums~lj/tumblr)

[athelind]

I answered <tumblr>, because LiveJournal is generally considered to predate the advent of Web 2.0 social media.

Oddly, I experienced more of a sense of actual community and camaraderie on LiveJournal, AOL forums, UseNet and even '90s-vintage mailing lists than I've ever managed to find on the "social media" sites.

That includes this one, as much as I love my moots -- and a significant number of my mutuals are people I've known since LJ and UseNet.

(If Discord is considered "social media", does that mean IRC would be, too? What about MUCKs?)

*for our purposes, a youtube account only counts if you’ve used it to post videos.

reblog for reach/bigger sample size!!

[darkmaga-returns]

Amid the current chaos of Trump 2.0, Larry Johnson offers some hope. I highly recommend perusing his:

Has Trump Derailed a Deep State Plot to Attack Iran?

Regular readers will recall that I have basically refused to engage with the supposed Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. I have, mostly in what amount to asides, dismissed this supposed plot as a Deep State ploy, as opposed to the all too real plots to assassinate Trump that failed. Those real plots, in stark contrast with the made up ones, were all of the home-grown variety.

I’ll only summarize LJ’s post—which is very important, IMO—so do follow the link.

Basically …

LJ first notes the hallmarks of the recruitment and grooming of Farhad Shakeri abroad—a drug smuggler who was arrested but then provided with another easy source of financial support: The US Deep State. To me, the mechanics of this plot all ring true. Please note, there is nothing in any of this to suggest that Shakeri was taken into the confidence of the Deep State—probably far from it. He was a tool.

LJ then moves on to Elon’s meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the UN, and argues that the dispatch of a now trusted Trump insider to this meeting had Trump’s blessing and was part of thwarting the Deep State effort to immerse the US in a crazy war with Iran—a war so disastrous that it might have caused Trump 2.0 to be stillborn. This also rings true to me.

LJ next contrasts—implicitly to some extent, explicitly otherwise—the understandable freakout over some of Trump’s bizarre appointments of folks who are on record saying absolutely crazy stuff about Russia, China, Israel, Iran. Here’s what I mean: Contrast the extremely rational use of a highly savvy guy like Elon, with the knuckleheads like Rubio and Hegseth and Waltz. That stark contrast between Elon’s prominent role and the other knuckleheads should raise your antennas. Here I’ll quote LJ:

[bullet-prooflove]

Halloween Bingo Card 2024: Ghost - Mitch Ripley x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @spaghettificationandpretzels @mini-bee-bee @mandy426 @jareaulamontagnes

Companion piece to:

Seperation!Series:

Marley 2.0 - Mitch doesn't realise your hiding a secret from him.

Not Your Problem - Mitch feels you pulling away from him.

Pill Popping - Mitch confronts LJ about what happened in St Clair.

Not Enough - Mitch realises he won't ever be enough for you after you reveal what happened in St Clair.

Therapy Sessions - Mitch talks through his issues with his counsellor.

Hollow - Mitch returns home to an empty house.

Swings - Mitch steps up when you recieve some life changing news.

Don't Hold Back - You struggle after spending the night with Mitch.

Field of Daisies - Mitch knows exactly how to get you out of your head.

Mitch doesn’t do churches.

He doesn’t believe in a God that allows the shit he’s been through. He doesn’t believe in a deity who can do this to you, who can ravage you so thoroughly you don’t know which way is up.

That’s not the point though, the point is that you do which is why he’s standing here beside you in Saint Thomas the Apostle, watching as you light a candle for the baby you lost. He understands that this is part of the ritual, a way of letting go of that ghost so you can begin to heal, to move on with your life.

With him or without him.

You don’t say anything as you sit down on the pew beside him, instead your hand seeks out his, fingers entwining. It’s the first time you’ve reached for him since the night the two of you spent together and he takes it as a step in the right direction.

You stay there for an hour, your gaze fixated on that candle until it burns down to the wick. It’s almost mediative in a way, peaceful. He feels a tiny wrench in his chest when the flame is snuffed out, the smoke pluming in it’s wake. He remembers in that moment that it was his baby too, his son or daughter snatched from the world. He won’t ever get a chance to hold them in his arms, to cradle them, to love them.

He doesn’t realise he’s crying, not until your fingertips brush the tears from his cheeks. The way you look at him in that moment, it’s with an expression so empathetic that it breaks his heart all over again.

“I thought you didn’t care.” You say softly. “I thought you were glad they were gone.”

“No.” He says his voice rough as he uses the back of his hand to wipe at his eyes. “I was just scared. I didn’t know how to be someone’s father…”

It comes tumbling out then, all the shit he’s been discussing in therapy. How the distance after St Clair made him feel insecure, how he shut down because he felt like he wasn’t enough, that he was never going to be enough.

“I’m sorry that you had to go through that alone Marley, that you couldn’t come to me about the baby.” Mitch tells you, his thumb tracing over your knuckles. “It is one of the biggest regrets of my life that I made you feel like you had to endure that on your own.”

“It wasn’t just you.” You say, squeezing his hand lightly. “Part of me wanted to pretend it didn’t happen and if I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t have to face it. I pushed you away and I need to own that. I just wish…”

You trail off and he knows what you’re wishing for. That it hadn’t got this far, that the two of you could have been open with each other, dealt with your loss together.

“I don’t want a divorce Marley.” Mitch says laying all of his cards out on the table. “The separation was about giving us both some breathing room and all it’s done is reaffirm that you’re the person I want to be with. I know you’re hurting right now but that family you want, it can still be a reality. We can look into fostering, adoption, surrogacy. There are still a lot of options on the table and I’m here for whatever you do decide-.”

“We.” You correct him, your head tilting up to meet his gaze. “Whatever we decide.”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[fuckyeahkagepro]

SERIOUSLY ILLEGAL

[grison-in-space]

I miss HTML-style indicators from when we all had to know how to format our posts with basic HTML if we wanted to use <i>italics</i>, because those were almost always written out in full ([/sarcasm], for example). And you will pry asterisked indicators of actions from my cold, dead, clutching fingers. *drums fingers thoughtfully on the desk*

Emoji are just not the same, okay? Especially because the shades of meaning from an emoji are often just SLIGHTLY off depending on what emoji set a given program uses. But for the love of little green apples, don't ever assume acronyms are universally accessible or understood across communities, let alone platforms or generations or subcultures.

I think that's one of the things I miss about forum culture, actually: both forums and LJ-style comms made it much easier to tell what community a given piece of writing was intended for, and as a consequence onboarding and translations of local idioms in those spaces were way more common, because people were constantly entering and leaving spaces. On Web 2.0 social media where posts are relatively easy to transfer between communities, you lose a lot of context very quickly--and good grief I am not even going to try to understand how the fuck anyone communicates on TikTok or has, like, conversations. Do people still have conversations there? Or is it mostly just passive interaction?

what do you think of tone indicators in general?

unfortunately my thoughts on tone indicators are somewhat nuanced. fortunately, this is tumblr not twitter, so I can just write out my full thoughts in one post and be as verbose about it as feels necessary.

speaking as an autistic person (and I know there are other autistic people who don't hold this same view, this is just my perspective), I think as an accessibility tool, the extended set tone indicators in current popular use is fundamentally misguided.

the oldest ones, /s for sarcasm and /j for jokes, make sense. their notation isn't the most intuitive thing ("does /s mean sarcastic or serious?") but it's not too difficult to explain what they mean. I've had to spend my whole life learning by brute force what different tones of voice mean and what they change about how I'm supposed to interpret something, so I already know what "read this in a sarcastic voice" and "read this as a joke" are supposed to mean. my existing skills can be translated into the new form without too much effort.

the same thing applies to emoji and emoticons. I know what facial expressions mean, because I had to learn what they mean. figuring out if :) is sincere or not from context is a skill I've already needed to develop. it doesn't come naturally for me, but it's something I already at least somewhat know how to do.

most of the tone indicators in current use uh. don't work like this.

tone indicators like /ref or /nbh don't correspond to specific tones of voice. I don't have a "I'm making a reference" voice or a "I'm not talking about a person who's here" voice that I can picture the sentence being read in. these do not indicate tones, they're purely disambiguators. they clarify what something means without necessarily changing how it would be read out loud.

and on paper, that's fine, right? like, it's theoretically a good thing to take an otherwise ambiguous statement and add something to it that clarifies what you meant by it. the problem is that these non-tone tone indicators are not even remotely self-explanatory. it's up to me, the person who is being clarified to, to know what all these acronyms are supposed to mean, and how they change the way I'm supposed to interpret what something means.

it's, quite literally, a newly-invented second set of social cues that I'm expected to learn separately from the set that I've already spent my whole life figuring out, and it works completely differently.

sure, these rules are (in principle) less arbitrary than the rules of facial expressions and tones of voice and how long you're supposed to wait before it's your turn to speak, but they're also fully artificial and recently invented, which means they're currently in a constant state of flux. tone indicators go in and out of fashion all the time, and the "comprehensive lists" are never helpful.

in theory, I appreciate the idea of people going out of their way to clarify what they mean by potentially ambiguous things they post online. if it worked, that would be a really nice thing to do.

however, sometimes I imagine what the internet would be like without them. what if instead of using /s, the expectation was that if you're sarcastic online there's no guarantee that strangers reading your post will know what you meant? what if instead of inventing more and more acronyms to cover every possible potentially confusing situation, we just... expected one another to speak less ambiguously in the first place?

so, I on paper like the idea of tone indicators. I think it's good that some people are trying to be considerate by being extra clear about what they mean by things. but if tone indicators didn't exist, and people who wanted to be considerate in this way instead just made a point of phrasing things more clearly to begin with, I think that would be vastly preferable to even the most well-implemented tone indicator system.

also /pos sucks because there's something deeply and profoundly wrong for an abbreviation that means "I don't mean this as an insult, don't worry" to be spelled the same way as an acronym that's an insult

[izzyizumi]