#Literally I clicked on it and on the site I literally said 'no I've seen this manga its different'

[frobby]

*crying* FUCK YOU IM GOING HOME *jumps inside my twink boyfriend*

[hello-nichya-here]

So I've asked you this in private, but I thought the rest of your followers should see this as your thoughts are quite entertaining.

What is your opinion on the idea of stuff like this being the only acceptable method of pornography?

*cracks knuckles* Let's get the easiest part out of the way first.

Saying Something Is "Female-Friendly" Is Just Marketing

I'm sorry (not really) to be the one to state the obvious, but at best labeling any kind of pornography as "female friendly" means "most of the people that enjoy this are women" - which is very different from saying "ALL women are into this" or "No guys are ever into this." It's the good old "this cartoon is for boys, that one is for girls."

It's not a radical statement, it's not revolutionary, and it is at best a morally neutral mention of a random statistic that is being used to find the best demography to advertise to and at worst just pointlessly trying to force people into boxes with that they are/are not allowed to enjoy based on their gender.

Don't believe me? Well, too bad because this image you're seeing is literally part of a facebook ad for a porn site. The name of the site and of the artist they were working with can be seen at the top in the uncut version. Like I said, it doesn't matter how "radical" these claims of "this product is made for/by X minority group" pretend to be, at the end of the day it's just marketing.

"Oh, but people obviously support the message it's sending anyway!" True... but that message is at best filled with poor word choices, and full on terrible at worst.

Consent - Important In Real Life, Meaningless In Fantasy

In the context of this being an ad for a porno site, I think it's safe to say "Consent-based" is just a way of assuring viewers that every actress was fully consenting to every sexual act and was not pressured into anything in any way, which is the bare minimum.

HOWEVER, I've seen plenty of people misunderstand or flat out lie about the "consent-based porn" term means. Like I explained, it is meant to be about the ACTORS consenting - but their "characters" don't need to consent to anything because they are not real. A hardcore CNC fantasy with the actress pretending she doesn't want the sex/is not enjoying it while her co-star pretends to force themselves on her is STILL consent-based if the actress playing the victim role can stop the scene for literally any reason and even walk out completely if that's what she wants.

Unfortunatelly, because kink-shaming is still very much a thing, people act like that is crossing a line and totally counts as legitimate assault - even in videos that the actors before AND after the scene mention how excited they are, how great it was, openly discuss their kinks, etc.

Nobody needs to watch something so extreme if they don't want to, but I have a serious problem with people saying stuff like that shouldn't ever happen. If the people involved in the role-play are doing it WILLINGLY and can back down at any moment, then it isn't in anyway immoral.

Sexual Attraction Is NOT The Same As Respect/Acceptance

Once again, I'm sorry (not really) to be the one who has to tell you guys this, but "representation" in porn is meaningless because:

1 - It doesn't matter how many porn videos there are of any minority group - each individual person picking something to watch will only click on the ones that show people with the body-types and genders they are attracted to, doing stuff they personally find appealing.

2 - "This kind of porn is popular" does not in anyway translate to "this is what society deems morally acceptable". A ton of homophobes LOVE lesbian porn. My country, Brazil, has always had porn with trans people and crossdressers as one of THE most popular trends - yet we are also the country that commits hate crimes against them the most, even when compared to places where being trans or crossdressing is literally a crime that earns you an authomatic death sentence. Incest porn has been obscenely popular everywhere for decades yet most people STILL find the thought of real-life incest absoutely repulsive.

3 - "I am not usually/ever attracted to people of group X" doesn't authomatically mean "I HATE people of group X." Just cause I like red-heads and brunettes, doesn't mean I'll be commiting hate crimes against blondes. If that was how things worked, sex-repulsed asexuals would hate literally all of humanity.

Wanting porn to be inclusive is utterly pointless because sexual attraction is 100% morally neutral. Which brings us to...

What Even Counts As "Objectification"?

Once again, if by "Don't objectify people" we are talking about how "Just because you hired this person to star in a porno, it doesn't mean you can just ignore their consent, comfort and safety for the sake of your fetish" then yeah, that's the bare minimum.

However, if you're saying "don't objectify people" as a way to say "Don't make the video too graphic/obscene/kinky" then we absolutely have a problem here because, my guy, it's porn. It is all about letting us see hot people looking slutty and fucking in great, explict detail.

"Oh, but these sexual acts are humiliating and gross!" To you, maybe. But not to the actors that are very willing to do it. I've had some of my fetishes be called both deeply disturbing and gross AND the most vanilla shit ever. That kind of stuff is 100% subjective, and the only people who can say "I felt disrespected/unsafe/abused" are the actors themselves. Once again, if THEY consented, there's nothing wrong with it regardless of it appealing to you or not.

"Oh, but we'd be wasting an opportunity to educate people/give X group more representation"

If I ever click on a porno and there's a two minute intro with the actors, both belonging to some minority group, talking about how one of them is also historian and the other is a astronomer, I will STILL only care about seeing them fuck even though I love both history and astronomy - not because I don't think they can't possibly know what they're talking about since they are sex workers or because of some kind of bigotry, but because, surprise surprise, I only check out porn sites for the porn. That's what EVERYONE does.

Hell, bad porn can be used to educate people. 50 Shades is awful and a ton of ignorant people think it is 100% accurate to how BDSM actually works. However, this has led to entire groups of people who are actually kinky to discuss REAL BDSM with vanilla people and educate them on how it can be a great thing. And, of course, there's people that enjoy those shitty novels/movies but KNOW they are not accurate representiation of BDSM because they are aware that PORN IS JUST FANTASY, NOT A GUIDE TO HOW SEX SHOULD WORK!

"But it's so shallow to focus only on these people's looks and know literally nothing else about them!"

Yes, and? Being "shallow" isn't always bad, and feeling attracted to someone solely for their looks is not a crime.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a goddamn fanfic writer and I was once the classic "teenager that totally thinks she'd have a chance with that famous rockstar that is old enough to be her dad", I KNOW that the thought of a real connection (emotional, intelectual, etc) CAN be hot - but there's nothing wrong with "These two people whose names I don't even know look hot, I wanna see them fuck, then I'll go take a nap and never think of them again." These porn stars are not crying themselves to sleep because people whose faces they've never even seen don't know anything about them other than how they look without clothes on.

"Female" Pleasure - Yet ANOTHER Hollow Marketing Term!

Seriously, that last one REALLY irritated me because it's one of those things that tries to sound progressive, but are meaningless at best and downright sexist at worst, because it implies:

1 - There must be a strict separation between "female" pleasure and "male" pleasure. A sexual act cannot possibly be enjoyable for both the guy and the girl, and gender prevents men and women from EVER being into the same thing (as a woman that finds more porn that fits my taste in "male-centered" sites than in most "porn for women" sites, this one gets on my nerves).

2 - Pleasuring one's partner cannot possibly be enjoyable - so, say, a girl cannot possibly enjoying giving her boyfriend head, and vice versa.

3 - Sex is a competition and women NEED to win because "female" pleasure is apparently more moral than "male" pleasure (hence the "ALL porn can and should be 'female' friendly")

4 - ALL women are turned on/turned off by the exact same sexual acts, and the level of pleasure they get is always exactly the same. Preferences are not individual and never change over time. (Seriously, a woman directs a sex scene between two actresses, the editor is a woman, and all the viewers are women - which one will speak for her entire gender and decide what "female" pleasure looks like? You see how silly this sounds?)

Conclusion

Sex and sexuality can never be over-simplified like that, and fantasies are just harmless fun.

[icaruskeyartist]

this is a potential bear to poke but for people who are sour on those pushing for folks to actually vote and to vote for Biden:

The US is functionally a 2 party state at a federal level. This will not change until we abolish the electoral college and/or support 3rd parties on a local and state level.

The electoral college is literally the only way for Trump and Republicans to win as it gives disproportionate power to red states. Voting for a 3rd party on a federal level, particularly for president, is the same as voting for Trump. Voting for Biden, even in a red state, is a tiny chip at the potential votes Trump may earn, especially if young folks turn out en masse and challenge older citizens' stranglehold on the polls.

Trump has literally said that Israel should "finish the problem" re: the Palestine genocide.

Project 2025 doesn't just strip protections of one or two minority groups. It hits pretty much anyone that isn't part of a tiny circle of privileged folks. If you're not rich, white, cishet, neurotypical, etc, you are gonna get fucked.

I am sorry that I as an individual can do nothing more than provide a small amount of direct mutual aid through gfm and click to donate sites. I am sorry that I reached out to my representatives of both Alabama and Pennsylvania and that's not enough to stem the both sides ness and implicit thumbs up that the US government is giving Israel while it pats itself on the back for withholding a single shipment of 2k pound bombs. I have tried, and I continue to share what I can.

Who do you think are donating the most often to the gfms that constantly circulate tumblr? What do you think is going to happen to that direct, actionable aid if Trump is elected and starts making life hell as he turns the US into a fascist state? How do you think the world stage will react to the US getting actively worse? I've seen posts from Canadians about how Canadian equivalent of Republicans have gotten bolder after Trump's first term.

The left has a tendency to cannibalize itself and that makes us incredibly ineffective as an uniting force. If talking about what's gonna happen to the US convinces people to vote blue then let us fucking talk about it. Writing your guilt trippy posts right now of all times is just a good way to convince people to not vote at all, and you can't treat an election like a boycott.

A boycott only works when you can remove money from the problem. The average American is not going to have that power.

We have a duty to vote, to protect those who can't in our country, people tumblr purportedly cares about. And we have a duty to vote for, yes, the lesser of two evils.

One side is committing a genocide.

The other side promises two. They have the history to back up their promise.

If talking about what will happen here convinces people to vote blue, then let us talk about it. When we get through this chapter of world history we can start picking apart how to be better people. But we gotta fucking get there first.

[peachygifs]

hi! i saw you upload your gifs to google sites now. do you happen to have/know of a guide to do that (tumblr literally won't let me put a question mark there). i've been curious about it but haven't seen anything on it. thank you!

hi there !! no worries at all, i'll upload the steps down below ( below the cut because i'm a big picture person ), but if anything seems unclear, just let me know & ofc you can always format your site to your needs, not just how my own is set up <3

step one:

go to sites.google.com and click the blank site button at the top !

step two:

set up your site home page however you'd like ! you can add an image, or leave it blank, chances are no one's going to use it as a landing page, anyway ! for the sake of this, we'll just carry on like you didn't make any edits to it !

step three:

on the right hand side, you'll see a sidebar with three different tabs, and you'll click on the one that says pages. as a blank site, you'll only see the home page to start.

step five:

at the bottom of the pages there will be a button:

hovering over the button will give you four options, and you'll choose the full embed page option.

step six:

give your page a title, then click the three dots on the side and choose hide from navigation. you'll do this with any future page or subpage you create.

step seven:

going back to those three dots on the side, you can click properties to edit your page's name, as well as give a custom url path.

for example, i've set up my google sites to sort my gifs alphabetically by their first name:

step eight:

your new page will look like this, and you'll click the add embed button, and you'll choose the embed code tab.

step nine:

like any gif page you would make for tumblr, you'd paste the entire page html in this box ! it's probably easier to upload your gifs to one of these pages first and then copy over all the code in one fell swoop, but it's at your discretion !

step eleven:

clicking next will give you a preview of your page with its new code, and clicking insert on the preview page will generate the page.

step twelve:

in the upper right hand corner, you'll then click publish. here, it'll prompt you for a web address, which i suggest you make the same as your blog that you're publishing gifs on, or something otherwise identifiable to you and your gifs.

for example, mine is ( understandably ) peachygifs, and it serves as the foundation for any additional pages you'll create later:

and that's all there is to the initial creation !

like i said, you can set your site up in whatever way makes sense for you, or suits your needs best, but below is just an example of my pages, and how i use subpages to further organize, and what the combination of custom path urls looks like when all put together:

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Has anyone else noticed youtube recommending random videos to them? I don't mean random popular videos, I don't mean videos by big name creators you're not subscribed to, I mean literal random videos that were uploaded by nobody half an hour ago with 2 views. This didn't used to happen, but my feed is FULL of videos on random topics I have never interacted with from channels that nobody watches. They're not even tangentially related to stuff I'm watching, they're just random! I mean, I guess it's good for those channels; if I were them I would want my nothing-burger videos to be seen by everyone, but the thing is... I'm not watching them! I'm not clicking on them. They don't interest me at all. I don't like the titles or the thumbnails, they're completely outside my wheelhouse, and I don't understand why youtube is recommending them to me all of a sudden? It's been like this for a month or two, but I haven't said anything about it until today. Is this a site-wide thing? Is there a setting I got opted into?

A railroad media archive video, 13 hours ago, 1k views

Someone named Rin spinning a wheel, 20 hours ago, 211 views

A podcast about sunglasses, 36 minutes ago, 203 views

Markiplier AI cover of some meme song I've never heard of, 3 days ago, 16 views

Some sort of anime boba drink tournament, 1 day ago, 27 views

Turning colored pencils on a lathe, 9 minutes ago, 0 views

Who are these for? They're certainly not for me!

[eossa]

How I'd Make Tumblr More Profitable

Yes, this is going to be controversial, since I know nothing about the behind-the-scenes spending, economics, and all that jazz. But I've been on Tumblr for long enough to have a rough idea of the userbase wants - which is what positions Tumblr in a niche other sites don't really utilize. Most of the points I list here are about improving the experience of existing users, as keeping users might be harder for tumblr than attracting new ones.

Please note that this posts reflects my personal opinions and some stuff I've seen people complain about it. Do not attack me over anything I've written here, it's not worth my time and I will resort to blocking if I'm being bothered. Constructive criticism is fine and encouraged!

[under the cut because this got quite long] [last updated 20th July 2023]

Features to Add

Block posts. Xkit has/had this feature, it was great. Sometimes I just don't want to see a specific post, and others probably agree with that.

Send asks and replies from sideblogs. Would literally make a lot of things easier and better.

Delete individual reblog additions from a post. Sometimes, you have a post where there is one"relevant" addition, multiple "irrelevant" additions ("yes!", "[repeated phrase in bold]", "this is a must reblog"), before there is a "relevant" addition again. But right now, you can only remove all reblog additions, not just individual ones. I feel like this would be a neat feature.

Direct blocking of anon hate which also tracks the IP and blocks the associated account(s). No rights for cowards, that's all I'll say.

Features to Bring Back

Reblog chains. Prev tags are the backbone of lots of interactions on here. If I click on someone's username in a reblog chain, I want to see that post on their blog, not their blog starting from the newest post. The loss of this feature is one of the things people constantly complain about in the replies of @changes.

Several text formatting options. As a theme maker, it would be nice to have proper preformatted text again - it makes code so much more legible. Other formatting options I miss are marked/highlighted text and text lines, which are really helpful to visually break apart passages of text.

Features to Ditch

Tumblr Live. There I've said it. If I want to see stuff like that, I have TikTok, IG Reels, Pinterest Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Twitter also has something like this. It's oversaturated, and aparently there are still enough cyber security concerns that it's not even accessible outside of the US and Canada.

Ads in lightboxes. Especially on mobile, there are already more than enough ads on the feed, no need to add more nested inside other elements.

Features that Make Money

Pay for NSFW. If this site allowed full nudity etc. again but hid it behind a paywall, we'd kill two birds with one stone: The site would probably still be allowed on the App Store, and the money influx would be huge. The userbase would also increase again.

(If Tumblr Live is kept.) Pay to snooze Tumblr Live permanently. It's the most complained about thing in changes' replies, so I feel like people would pay on a subscription base just to not see TL anymore.

Pay to increase limits. 250 posts per day is the maximum that can be posted - and there are people hitting those limits. If there was an option to buy a higher limit (500p/d, 750p/d, etc.), people might generally use it. Like those add-on charges for mobile data. Same goes for posts in the queue, posts in drafts, images in a photoset and so on.

Pay to pin posts at the top of a tag or search result. Ebay Kleinanzeigen has this neat feature where you can push your small ads to the top of a search query so that more people can see it. This could be a cool feature to try, as it would work in a more content-aware way than Blaze does.

Pay to buy inactive URLs. There are some really cool usernames on here that are taken by blogs that haven't updated for 5+ years and only have one post (or none at all), and I feel like it would be neat to be able to buy one of these cool usernames attached to an empty account. To make sure that usernames attached to redirect or something else don't get bought, tumblr should send an e-mail to the username owner - if the user doesn't react to that for 3 months, the usernames changed owners. [added 13th July 2023]

Existing Features to Improve

NPF posts. I feel like a combination of legacy and NPF would be neat. Think selecting a main element like in the legacy editor (e.g. video, image, audio) and then adding a caption that can add different content types like NPF does. Or at least create a better overview over NPF variables and release the full base code with documentation to make things easier for the web designers on here. There are more issues with the NPF format but I won't list everything people dislike about it here.

Block people. The block feature should make sure that the person being blocked doesn't see any posts made by the person they were blocked by, even if those posts were reblogged by another user. Also, like IG does, there should be an option to block either just a specific blog or the IP address attached to block side-blogs and other accounts of that user.

Color palettes. The color palette options for the dashboard are generally a nice idea but I think it would be better if there was a dropdown menu to choose a palette from rather than having to click through all the different options. For example, if I want to go from Cement (light mode) to Dark mode, I have to click through 10 options until I reach Dark again. There has to be an easier way. [added 20th July 2023]

Other Improvements Needed

Nuke spam bots. Users are reporting all the spam bots, yet, it doesn't seem like they are dwindling in numbers. Also - at least this is how it's being perceived by the userbase - tumblr isn't doing enough on their end to reduce spam bots. This is definitely something that needs to be fixed.

End hateful and criminal activities. It's the year 2023, yet there are still outright N*zis, violent tr*nsphobes, literal p*dophiles, and other people committing to the daily bit of hate speech and other illegal activities (fraud too considering all those fake GoFundMe sites) on this website. I'm not saying free speech should be banned but there is a bright red line between what is free spech and what is hate speech (or should get you jailed considering fraud and p*dophilia).

A through-out, perhaps even interactive, beginner tutorial. "The site is too complicated to use for new users!" – then explain how it works in easy terms, with examples, images, and videos. Every other application or web app has walk-throughs, just do the same here.

Improved ad relevancy. The ads I see on tumblr are usually so out-of touch with the userbase, and many of them feel like the sort of stuff you see on a spam-ridden torrenting site. I feel like increasing the relevancy of ads to what the users usually blog about would cause a higher click-rate and turn-over-rate than the current ads do.

Summary

There is probably more I could add, but that's it for now. Should I make any later additions directly to this post, I will mention it to prevent misunderstandings. If you have any ideas or constructive criticism, let me hear about it in the replies or reblogs of this post.

[inklore]

hi lauren. i was the anon before that asked if you were ok with answering writing advice. lately i've been dealing with a lot of self doubt with my writing. and as much as i hate to say it, the amount of reactions i get on here has been making me think i'm just shitty at writing. do you have any advice to combat writing insecurities like this?

hi darling, i hope you're well and hydrated <3

and i want to first start off by saying that every writer goes through this, even published authors have self doubt and struggle just as this. i go through this, i'm currently going through this. it's hard to combat especially if you're dealing with it alone. it's always nice to have friends and followers and mutuals to help combat these feelings. but sometimes not even that can kick the self doubt in the ass.

with that said i don't think there's a 'fix all' for this. there's things you can do to kick it to the curb and push through, but just remember this is all a part of being a creative being. we hold ourselves to high standards because we know we can create great things, we have before. and it's hard. not everyone is blessed with the ability to create, whether that's writing, art, designing damn buildings. so just know you're absolutely amazing and talented for writing at all. writing good, writing bad, it's all writing, creating, and that's fucking amazing!!!

NOTES DO NOT EQUAL TALENT!!!!

COMMENTS DO NOT EQUAL TALENT!!!

REBLOGS DO NOT EQUAL TALENT!!!

i've seen fics on here that are not ones i enjoy, i don't click with the writing, the prose, what have you, but the note count will still be high. the interactions amazing and i think: damn am i the problem? and no i'm not. people like what they like. just because i thought the story was meh does not mean every one does. just as the four mutuals who read my stuff and interact with it NOT interacting with certain stories of mine because it's not their cup of tea, does not make them bad or mean i wrote something bad.

every pot has a lid and sometimes you ain't that lid. it's a tough reality you gotta face sometimes, BUT IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE A BAD WRITER OR ANYONE IS BETTER THAN YOU ON HERE.

do not compare yourself to ANYONE on here. we ain't stephen king. idc if this other author has 5k notes on each fic, has turned one of them into a published story: NO ONE IS BETTER THAN ANYONE ON HERE. do not compare your talent and story telling to anyone else's because it's only going to make YOU miserable. why be miserable when you can be writing stories YOU love? for YOUR friends, followers, mutuals, FOR YOURSELF. life is too short to keep that negative mindset. so ignore it (harsh but you gotta if you wanna create bby).

there is no easy or simple way to get notes or interaction. i can post in fandom A and get a lot of traction, but if i post in fandom B i get barely 100 notes. there's new people who gain traction so easily, there's accounts who constantly have interaction but then they write for a different fandom and that traction goes away. it's literally a yoyo effect on here, you never know if somethings going to be up or down, if this will work or if people won't be interested in the way you wish, hope. we can't fix that. hate to say it but we can't. it's the reality of being on this site.

it's something you gotta know does not = your talent. does not determine your talent.

people who say 'write for yourself' mean well, and yes i do think at the end of the day no matter what you're writing it is self indulgent; we post for people to see. if we didn't want people to see our writing we would leave it in the drafts or get a diary. our work is NOT just for ourselves. we want others to enjoy these little headcanons and prose and what we made. and that's beautiful, amazing, the best thing about creating. and it feels like crap when we get 2-100 notes at most. but it doesn't mean what you're writing is bad. that you have no talent.

and as hard as it is you gotta keep writing, babes. don't let anything stop you from doing what makes you happy, from your passion and creating. it's so so fucking hard. but you gotta find the joy somewhere in it or you'll only feel negative feelings when it comes to writing.

so ignore the notes, ignore the ghost readers, ignore the popular accounts who act like it's all sooooo easy, hell ignore the paragraph where i talked about people liking this that who they whatever!!! remember why you started writing in the first place. make friends, mutuals, people who understand this feeling. support each other. talk it through with them. scream into a damn pillow if you need to. but don't let anything take away this blessing of being able to create, to write and share your stories.

there will be good and bad days on here, there will be writers who annoy you and make you feel like shit. but there's also good on here. good people. good stories that YOU are helping to create. curate a safe space for you to write and feel amazing about it <3

some more advice after ranting:

block anyone who makes you feel bad/jealous/any negative way about your own writing. if they get butt hurt over it that's on them. it's not personal, you're protecting your own mental health, love.

read every. single. story. you've ever written that, while writing it, made you feel proud or reminded you 'oh yeah this is why i like writing'

make friends!! this can be hard but trust me you'll find your people, and if you haven't yet hi i'll be one of your people!!! <3

make a playlist that boosts your creativity and listen to it while writing or to get yourself in the mood for writing. happy, sappy songs that make you smile and cheer and swoon when you think about writing scenes to them.

rejection is a part of writing, even fanfic, and you gotta accept and ignore it. be like 'oh ok' and move on to the next thing or you'll be in the same spot and it'll take longer to get out of it.

can't write? feeling like shit over it? watch a favorite movie, ya know the one that has you kicking your feet and twirling your hair or makes you laugh until you cry, or cry like a baby because it's so emotional: WATCH IT!!!

writing in the bathtub feels amazing. try it. that is all.

you could be the next stephen king but you're not right now so stop putting so much pressure on yourself to BE something. just write what makes you giddy and happy and smile or clutch them pearls because it's filthy as hell.

dance! put on some playlist and just move your damn body. literally make yourself sweat and gasp for air, you'll release endorphins AND your brain will be too distracted to make you think of negative stuff. or workout if you like that kinda thing lol.

go for a walk, write somewhere new, by yourself a yummy little beverage because you deserve it <3

read physical books. please please pleaseeeee don't JUST read fanfic. not to say it's bad to only read it. but consuming published literature actually helps in growing your trade and it's an amazing habit to get into to help combat a lot of mental health issues (personally for me at least).

selfcare days work better than you think. eat junk food (unless that makes you feel worse then stay away from triggering foods), watch comfort shows, face mask it up, paint your nails, draw, color, knit, reorganize your room, whatever gives you joy do it for a whole day. don't talk to anyone. just be with yourself and remind yourself that yeah life doesn't always suck. or if you hate doing stuff alone call a friend and have a selfcare day together (or in person).

read the struggles from published authors. look up how they got through the self doubt. know that you're not alone.

you could also, with the previous point in mind, look up their writing routine and challenge yourself to do it for a couple days, a week, whatever. it'll be fun!

post the fic. close the app. do something else. don't look at the notes when replying to those who comment or rb. literally do not let your eyes look at that stupid irrelevant number. or hell, even post and then forget about it and move on to the next thing. queue reminder reblogs for your followers, but forget about the fic for a day or two and then reply to interactions. no interactions? sad, annoying, but let's write the next one love. let's keep that writing high going!!! maybe the next one will be the one everyone goes gaga for, or maybe it won't, but hey we are literally growing with our writing and creating and those who do enjoy it are screaming from all these posts!!!

take breaks!!!! write for three days and then don't. or write for a week and then don't for a week. breaks = rest. rest = a fresher mind.

tumblr is nothing in the grand scheme of life bby, but the art you make and post and share and take your time to give yourself and whomever else see's it, IS EVERYTHING. notes don't pay the bills. they give us joy. but NEVER let them take away the joy or happiness. because it's NOT THE NOTES that keep you writing, creating. it's that little beautiful creative mind of yours <3

[brionysea]

'the obsession with w*ll by*rs on this website does confound me because he was literally designed to be a majority off-screen character whose survival you only care about because OTHER characters care about him. like. why are you looking at me weird for thinking of him as mike's boyfriend and joyce's son and not much else? that's what he IS! that's the entire character concept and they haven't really done enough to make me care beyond that'

wow! i've never seen anyone on this site who doesnt like will before, but i've heard lots about them! i'm going to read more of your stuff to see more of your opinions and perspective, but my first reaction was this:

well, i think you've said it there above, that you do indeed care for will and yes, the show is trying to make you care for him. through the prism of these other characters, sure, but thats because he's fictional and therefore needs an entry point for you to care about him - in this case, his going missing. for example, you could say we only care about mike because will going missing, and finding el, exposed his caring side, his crisis mode, and that if ST was just a slice of life show with no major supernatural conflict, we wouldnt give a shit about mike wheeler either.

you might say you personally still would because you connect with him for some reason, but then that shows that the connection has occurred between your mind and the character of mike and is very personal to you. fair enough - visual storytelling requires both a creator and an audience to connect with a character, but that connection is usually built on what the creator has laid down, because at the end of the day a show is emotionally manipulating you, the viewer, in order to tell a story. they hope you connect with their story in a certain way, and therefore understand it.

the writers created what they thought was an empathetic character that viewers would care about with will, and they thought that they only needed a few access points in s1 for you to deeply care about this character: flashbacks + a soulful actor + the love of other characters. you not clicking with will as a character is perfectly valid, but it seems the overall idea of emotive storytelling has been lost on you if you think the duffers don't want you to see will as anything beyond a boyfriend or a son. at this point its not even about characterisation, but human empathy: even with only a few moments on screen in s1, they hope that you as a human can suspend your disbelief and view will as a real person, that you can empathise with him and treat him as a whole person that contains multitudes. no human and no fictional character is ever just someone's boyfriend/mother/son bla bla. they are a human, an individual.

to misunderstand this is either reflective of how you view people irl too, or a simple misunderstanding of the duffers intentions. will is not, for example, the guy from bennys burgers who was on screen for 5 mins in s1. he's not an extra. he's a core character so I'm sorry that you didnt connect with him emotionally because your experience watching the show really would be much richer if you had.

sorry but i just woke up and im not reading all that lol. i never said i don't like him (not until season 4 anyway, due to being played by That Man), he's just. there. there are more interesting characters

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[earth-scented]

I am of the opinion that Cody and Satori are extremely sus and I would like more debunking before I will believe they are real. If they are not frauds they should be willing to do more experiments, so I guess we will see. I think the next move is on them tbh, they are being called out, now we wait and see what they do and how they respond, the way they do both these things will give us an answer I think.

However I do not believe Sam and Colby are in on it at all, their reactions are too genuine for me to believe that so if Cody and Satori are scam artists/fakers then in my eyes SnC got played just as much as their audience.

Also in relation to your comments about 'deleted messages' the disappearing comments that you speak of have been explained as certain algorithms that come with certain sites, especially youtube any posts with links in for example, the youtube algorithm will automatically delete as ironically youtube has measures to protect against bots posting scams and things like that, often posts with links or certain words the site automatically erases.

Plus we know SnC don't really read the comments on youtube videos anymore (especially Colby) as they have stated as such in interviews they've gotten to the point where they just can't do it anymore which is actually really sad. So any deletions on that platform not related to the algorithm have probably been done by a member of their team whose job is likely to manage their youtube socials and keep it positive so will erase anything too negative.

The one place I've seen them interacting with comments about the series regularly has been on Instagram, everywhere else they appear online for a very limited amount of time and maybe reply to one thing each. I've not seen disappearing comments on these other platforms myself but feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

I will say I suspect they probably ignore a lot of the comments calling Cody and Satori out because a lot of them go about it in a very negative and unfriendly way which a person can only take so much of. So maybe we'd get more of a response from them on this topic if we were not so aggressive on the topic, and approached it more as a friendly debate I dunno.

But yeah, my two cents after seeing your last anon reply which seemed to imply you thought SnC were in on it all.

If they weren't in on it then, they certainly are now.

Like i said, they're choosing to push the whole "this is a life-changing thing" narrative, knowing very well it's a fraud. First episode was released in theaters, they got huge sponsorship moneys plus the entire series gives off "the new & improved conjuring house management" advert. Anyone with two brain cells can see this is a business deal involving a lot of money and legal documentation and nobody's gonna give statements, address anything or explain themselves unless it's prearranged and benefits both sides.

Satori's dad is well known for faking evidence on Ghost Hunters, she was literally raised into industry. Cody has been clicking his whatever for years on camera, before they met. Them claiming they don't take money for it is simply a lie because they run a website, a traveling museum, sell merch and get paid as the CH employees so what the fuck do everyone think that is, if not taking money and making profits? Which is fine! Just don't lie about it.

Comments are censored either by youtube settings or their production team. They're not some kids running around with a camera anymore, they have people paid to do stuff. It's their business and livelihood. I don't understand why are people so blatantly oblivious to that.

When money, fame and relevance are involved, integrity often goes out the window.

[malamai]

Today has been extremely turbulent at best.

I don't even know where to start. I woke up today in a tired haze because I'd fallen asleep waiting for the washing machine to finish it's current cycle, I was busy from the get go getting the laundry sorted and I sat down afterwards on the couch for my morning cup of tea when my phone buzzed and a name popped up from somebody who I know but don't see or speak to often and they had said "hey I think there's this fake profile of you, I've reported it. Just thought I should let you know. So I looked at it and it looked like a bog standard typical fake account you'd see from back in the MySpace days when somebody stole your picks, I'd had that happen before in the past, I honestly at this point wasn't worried or concerned about it at all. Then my phone starts buzzing and buzzing and buzzing with messages and I read one saying "I've just seen this profile this could cause you so many problems." And again I just thought it was an overreaction so I left it and then my close friend messages me saying "misty I think you may want to look at this profile, it's fake but I clicked this link in the Instagram bio and I felt like I was gonna go blind." And at this point I was in a state of just "oh my god." So I get to work and see the same friend because we also work together and I ask him all about it, and he was in disbelief and shock that I hadn't clicked the link in the bio, I just don't click links unless I 100% know they're fine and genuine links.

My friend literally gave me the worst news and told me that this person is using my pictures to con people out of money for pornographic content on a dodgy knockoff of onlyfans and when I look at the images used there's nothing naked of me on there that I know of or can see, but they've got blurred out naked bodies ect... and it's not great and I looked no further and didn't unblur anything or sub. I am terrified that its a deep fake and I feel violated because the particular bunch of selfies they have taken are from like 2 or 3 years ago and this person has gone through pictures of me, pictures of everything and everyone I love over years to get these pictures and exploit them online and making me look like a pornstar.

My anxiety is through the roof, they've followed people from the same town and I just feel like everyone is looking at me for all the wrong reasons and I've done absolutely nothing other than update my photos on my profiles like any other normal person on Facebook, Instagram, tumblr or any social networking site. I even ended up contacting my ex best friend that I haven't spoken to in years to protect my family because I know she has pictures of us all up and I don't want them blackened and burned by their association with me and I don't even know if she can see what I've sent her or she knows it's urgent because she's not replied and I feel like complete crap about it because it's her birthday tomorrow but this just couldn't wait.

People who are close to me keep just telling me to laugh it off and I know they mean well when they say it but it's hard when they are literally targeting people who walk by me in the street or know me and that's what makes it worse, they're targeting people that I know or know me whether that be personally or we just cross paths.

I honestly feel like I'm under attack and I don't know who it is or why.

[and-the-universe-said-au]

READ ME FIRST

Hiya :)

Welcome to The Universe Said, an interactive fan comic about the various series that Legundo has done. There is an overarching plot that does largely hold base in the function of the 100 days multiverse, however due to a simple unwillingness to horribly mischaracterize any of the characters in these worlds for the sake of plot, be prepared for the use of OC's. Also I got fun with the worldbuilding, it's an incurable disease.

IF you happen to dislike crossovers, OC's having a role in plot, or the mangling of canon, you likely will not enjoy this comic. This means that you have the simple option to instead click off, or block this blog. I won't be mad, I promise!

YOUTUBERS.

Hi! I see you. I know some of you exist on this webbed site. If you see this, interact at your own risk! I mean it. I don't know the extent of which you care for your characters and how they are interpreted and portrayed in media, and I'm warning you now! All of them are likely exaggerated to some extent, either for character conflict, plotline, or for sillies. The above note applies to you too. If you dislike this comic, you are welcome to block the blog as you wish. If there is something that makes you uncomfortable, you are welcome to let me know and I can retcon it as necessary, or again. I will politely point to the block button. My feelings will not be hurt.

Other notes

This is fairly self-indulgent. I like crossovers. I'd very much like to have fun with this, and as such, there will only be so much tolerance for anybody who stumbles across this and decides the correct response is trolling.

Something I'm going to emphasize here is that these are based off of characters played by the youtubers present. If there is no line for me to draw between character and youtuber their presence in this will either be non-existent or minimal.

Also, due to the currently unfinished nature of the 100dmv series, I am running with some of my own theories, but will be doing my best to keep some worldbuilding* largely canon compliant.

I intend to post information blocks about the OC's present in this as they come up and as information regarding them becomes relevant. Along with the prologue, I intend to post a small excerpt about the worldbuilding I've done.

This is intended to follow a kind of chaptered line. I have a brief plan for certain points to reach in each chapter before I will move onto the next. You will know when the current chapter will be finishing. Also, only the opening posts for each chapter will be maintagged as to avoid clogging it. I've seen it happen, people were grumpy

On that note, Chapter openings and chapter closes will be drawn in a higher quality than the majority of the comics.

Each comic will be tagged with the relevant chapter as well as a general story tag. Anything not comic related will be tagged with something else. Haven't decided what yet.

I will be adding more than just various Legundos. Characters from related Scenarios, and Dominion SMP may also make an appearance. I have a few in mind already, but that gets to stay secret for now ;)

*things such as how Decem, The Alterans, mystery 3rd party multiverse agency (????) interact with the world, though again. I point to the potential mangling of canon.

Final points, and Rules!

The askbox is not a place for trauma dumping, expression of personal political opinions, hate speech, bigotry, or other forms of hate.

If you have a problem with the way I am doing something, you are welcome to bring it up in the askbox, however keep in mind I am allowed to disregard it.

Yes I know the artstyle/character designs are going to be inconsistent. Woes of a constantly developing art style I guess.

I highly encourage you to share theories! On literally anything related to this. Worldbuilding? Character dynamics? headcanons? The OC's? 100Dmv series? Go for it!

At the beginning of each chapter, there will be a short list of all characters currently available for interaction. Any time a character is added to the scene, an updated note about current character availabilities will be posted and added to this post.

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE

N/A (it hasn't even started yet.)

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[servin-up-surveys]

survey #109

(taken january 31st, uploading surveys taken while gone... we're at least over halfway done? haha)

Have you ever gotten your legs waxed? No, that sounds absolutely excruciating, especially when your hair is as thick and long as mine is. Waxing my lip and eyebrows back in the day hurt enough.

Have you ever read anything by Edgar Allen Poe? Yeah, The Raven and The Tell-tale Heart off the top of my head.

Do you know anyone named Hunter? I do; he was my neighbor when I lived in the woods (I think where I've lived most of my life so far), and we used to play together as kids a lot. I'm quite a bit older than him, but he was still fun to hang out with, especially when it came to catching bugs and stuff and playing video games. He's all grown up now with his own girlfriend. :')

What was the reason for the last time you restarted your computer? Oh I was SO annoyed, Roman walked on my keyboard and did something where the computer totally, completely froze, and I was deep into an RP post so I was furious. Had to restart it incorrectly, but THANK GOD the drafts function on the site saved my post, lol.

Can you say anything in Korean? If so, please do: Nah, I can't.

Do you like horses? I absolutely love horses and I am VERY much looking forward to photographing horses soon thanks to a friend. <3

What are your grandfathers’ names? William/Bill and... WOW I'm awful, I don't remember Dad's dad's name. :/

Were you forced to read The Odyssey in high school? Yes; maybe not all of it, but I at LEAST remember reading some. We also watched the movie.

Have you ever seen a snake in real life? Yeah, both in the wild and as pets. I currently have one and love her to death.

Are you against seances? I don't care. I DO believe in treating the dead with respect though, if you're gonna do that; we don't have the slightest idea what really happens after death and I definitely do believe in angry spirits and their ability to loosely interact with our reality, so I wouldn't tempt shit, just to be safe.

Do you own any superhero shirts? No. I only have a couple Harley Quinn ones.

Game you were best at in P.E./gym? I absolutely hated P.E., so nothing.

Favorite crystal? Dragon's breath opal.

What did you learn from your first job? I am an absolutely horrible salesperson.

Favorite website from your childhood? Webkinz.

Least favorite flavor of food or drink? Cranberry flavored drinks are so awful I literally cannot drink them. I also don't like really fishy foods.

Least favorite pattern? Uh... I'm not sure. I'm not big on like, animal print as a fashion thing I guess. I love cool patterns ON the animals, of course, but not elsewhere.

Favorite weird flavor combo? I absolutely love waffles that also have a layer of peanut butter on them, like I prefer it over only syrup.

Favorite potato food? French fries.

Earth tones or jewel tones? Oh, come on, that's hard! It really depends.

Do you call them fireflies or lightning bugs? I've used both, but I think I only ever said "lightning bug" as a kid.

Writing or drawing? I get more joy out of creating a drawing I'm proud of, but I'm much more likely to write.

Lamps, overhead lights, fairy lights, or sunlight? FAIRY LIGHTS!!!! For Christmas I got this "tree" that you can wind across your wall(s) that have little tiny light bulbs as its "foliage" and I cannot wait til we can move my bed and set it up because that shit is ALWAYS gonna be on.

Nicknames? "Britt" is the most common one that everyone uses. Online though, "Ozz(y)" is frequented bc of the username I usually use. In WoW, everyone in my main's guild know me as "Alessa" because my main character is Alessand(a)ra. Oh, and my childhood nickname from Mom is "Twinkie" lmfao, she gave all her children sweets nicknames. She still uses it sometimes. Girt's pointed out he wants to have the "perfect" nickname click for me one day, which I think is absolutely adorable, but he can't pick one.

How many phone numbers do you have memorized? I have only JUST memorized my mother's phone number, and that's it. It took months upon months of regularly giving it to doctors and stuff to learn and as terribly sad as this is, I'm literally PROUD of myself for finally internalizing a phone number.

Do you prefer heroes or villains? Villains, duh.

What political cause are you most passionate about? Proooobably LGBTQ+ rights. I just find it so, so remarkably hard to fathom how people are against people consensually being in love.

Have you ever considered having children? I've never considered it for like, that current moment, but I go back and forth about the future.

Have you ever considered acting? Nope.

Who was the last person you slept next to? Girt.

Do you think you can be in love and still cheat on your S.O.? No, I don't.

What is the most embarrassing thing anyone has on video of you? Oh who even knows.

Did you ever get lost as a child? Yeah, in a Food Lion I think? Maybe Wal-Mart? An old lady helped me find my mom.

What was the last dream you had? I had a newborn baby is all I can remember. I forgot it until I read this question.

What is the best television show you’ve ever watched? Extraordinary Attorney Woo had the most touching story to me.

What do you believe is your weirdest habit? I take my breakfast biscuits apart to eat each thing individually.

What color are your parents’ eyes? They both have brown eyes.

Have you ever had a surgery before? Yeah, tubes put in my ears and a pilonidal cyst removed. I'm also being put to sleep to get my wisdom teeth taken out; there's simply no fucking way I can stay calm through it with my newfound fear of the dentist. I very barely stayed calm during my last filling.

Would you rather visit the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower? Taj Mahal.

Was your mom over 30 when she had you? Yes.

Who is your 4th phone contact and how do you know them? Dad, and well... he's my dad.

Have you ever lived in a dorm? No.

Do you live in an apartment? No.

What’s the story behind your most noticeable scar? I passed out in the bathroom directly onto my chin.

Have you ever SERIOUSLY considered any kind of plastic surgery? I am very serious about getting loose skin removal on at LEAST my stomach if/when I lose all the weight I want to, and a breast lift also because of the effects of extreme weight loss.

What was the last thing you cleaned and why? My desk, because it was quite the mess.

Does blood make you queasy? No.

What physical features can you just not stand about yourself? My weight in literally every part of my body. How dark and thick and obvious my leg hair is. Cellulite and stretch marks. How insanely dry my skin is everywhere. I have absolutely zero ass. Because of my weight I developed sagging breasts. I could go on and on and on still but I'd really prefer to stop upsetting myself.

What is your favorite crayon color? I like hot pink ones.

Have you ever snorted cocaine? No and I absolutely never will.

Where is the scariest place you’ve ever been? In a bus-like... truck thing that carried me and other mental hospital inmates (some that were VERY unstable and aggressive) in full-body restraints to the local courthouse to argue about our expected stay lengths. If I hadn't argued, I would have been in this specific hospital for months. That whole experience, getting there and talking to the judge, was one of the scariest things I've ever done.

Do you like string cheese? No.

What state/province/country is to the west of your own? Tennessee.

Were you breastfed as a baby? Yes.

What is the cutest baby animal in general? Maybe I'm biased, but meerkats; they're cute when they're born, but pups become absolutely precious once their fur grows out and they open their eyes. I also really love kittens.

Do you find it difficult to tell others what you want for Christmas? Unless you're my mother, yes. Well, I'm even kinda uncomfortable telling Mom, but she's very insistent on us kids telling her straight-up what we want.

Do you enjoy literature from the past or more recent times? I'm perfectly capable of liking both; I don't have a preference. A good, strong story is a good, strong story.

Do you know anyone who plays World of Warcraft? Do you play? *raises hand* Girt also used to play, but it's not his thing anymore. My former roommate Jacob played, too, but he doesn't now (I know because we're friends on there and you see when they log on). I'm absolutely positive I have other gamer friends who have in the past too, just from like, contextual Facebook posts and stuff.

Have you ever been called a nerd? Yeah, but just playfully and not at all with degrading intent.

What is something that you do not like that everyone else seems to love? Manicures and pedicures come to mind. They make me uncomfortable. Oh, and the beach.

Do you enjoy poetry? I really do. I'd love to start writing it again... I even have poem concepts saved in my phone notes, I just haven't written them. I'm always so afraid of it not coming out how I want.

Have you ever written a poem? Oh, loads since middle school.

Do you own any fingerless gloves? Haha I sure do, all the way back from high school... They're still in my top drawer. I barely ever wear them anymore, though; they don't fit as well but also when I tried a few on the last time, I thought I looked pretty childish. I don't at all think fingerless gloves in general are, I think they're hot as fuck, but these ones just didn't look right on me anymore.

Last time you went out to eat, where did you go? We most recently went to McDonald's a good few days ago.

Tell me about the last animal you touched. My cat, Roman. <3 He's my literal shadow - he goes where I go almost without fail, unless he really feels like napping in bed. He's a COMPLETE cuddlebug that very, very obviously adores me/his mama and he's everything to me, too. ;_; <3 He is SUPER shy around strangers, like he will run and hide under our bed the moment he thinks he hears someone at the door, and it takes seeing you MANY many times before he's cool with you; like it took Girt months to earn his trust, and he comes over regularly. He is such, such a loving cat though once he's into you. Oh, and also very bossy, lol. He has such a personality.

Have you ever witnessed a birth? I've only seen cats give birth from my childhood; I absolutely fucking refuse to witness a human birth, I will not make it through it still conscious, and I also DO NOT understand the "oh but it's beautiful!" argument, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck no it isn't. I don't even like seeing videos of animals doing it, but it is slightly more bearable.

Have you ever known something that no one knew you knew? Uh, maybe?

Your thoughts on bacon? I like it, so long it's not mega crunchy or burnt.

Out of the 7 deadly sins, which are you most guilty of? Sloth.

Ever held a newborn animal? Kittens, yes.

Do your pets have collars? Describe them: Yes; Roman's is a light blue, and Cookie's is... wow, I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure pink.

Why do girls go tanning when it just makes them look orange? Because girls can do whatever the fuck they want with their own bodies.

What is the last thing you searched for online? "What is a revenant" haha, I've heard it plenty in fantasy material but I never really learned what it was.

Do sluts make you mad? lol no???????? If a person engages in a lot of completely consensual - and safe - sex and isn't keeping it a secret from a partner or something, that's whatever. If the person is open about it and takes care of their safety, that's their goddamn business that they shouldn't feel shitty about. Get mad over something that actually matters.

If you could live for a year with any foreign family, where would you go? Germany. If I hadn't had a boyfriend I refused to leave, I would've loved to do that in high school.

Think of a friend you know; how would you feel if they kissed you? I wouldn't be okay with anyone who is just a friend kissing me because I'm in a monogamous relationship. I would also probably stop that friendship because I expect my friends to respect my relationship. I don't think a kiss on like, the forehead or something from a close friend comforting me or something like that would upset me, but on the lips would.

Do you have bills to pay yet? No. Something Colleen once said that haunts me to this day is the claim that I'm never going to know what it's like to get my first paycheck and pay my own bills.

Will you be changing your hair any time soon? I desperately need a trim, so I hope I can at LEAST do that soon... but I can't afford to put money aside to dye it when I'm saving for my tattoo, no matter how badly I want it dyed.

Does your mom have a celebrity look-alike? I don't think so. There is, however, a deceased celebrity who had her exact first and last name, and people her age would sometimes point out how cool it was.

Why don’t girls like porn? ... Many... do...? I personally don't just because I have no interest in seeing two random people have sex, but that's just me.

Do you think it’s pretty when 100s of balloons are let loose into the sky? I don't even think about whether it's pretty or not, because I find it extremely, extremely upsetting. Those balloons end up as litter, and many animals even get wrapped up in the strings. If I'm not mistaken, in the ocean, some sea life mistake the deflated balloons as jellyfish and even ingest them. Don't fucking do this shit.

[olderthannetfic]

Do you have any ideas about how the heck those of us more familiar with AO3 etiquette can get the word out regarding not posting "help me find this fic" fics? There are a couple of fandoms I'm in (Boku no Hero Academia is the big one for me, but I've heard from others that the BTS fandom is also having a huge problem) where there has recently been a huge increase in this behavior (I assume from people coming over from Wattpad), and it's driving me crazy. If it was just one or two bad actors, that'd be one thing, but there's increasingly becoming this whole culture of people doing this, and then pointing to other people when you call them on it, saying "well LOTS of people do this, so it's fine!"

I've recently been going through and leaving a bunch of messages on "help me find this fic" fics that basically just say "Hey just FYI, AO3 works created solely for the purpose of searching for lost fanfics actually violate AO3’s terms of service. I’d recommend deleting this fic and posting this message on another site, such as Reddit, Tumblr, or Dreamwidth, or in a fandom Discord." Overall, most authors have gotten back with things along the line of "oh shit I had no idea", but today I received a message which said this:

I have read the official Terms of Service that we all click on the first time we visit. Didn't find the clause you are referencing. You seem to use this tactic a lot. I have seen your other comments on other "searching fics". Very old ones I might add. Which means you purposefully go lookinng for these fics just so you can post your high and mighty FYI comment. However, if you are trying to bring up the single line under the FAQ page then you are speaking of the general request to use the search function. As I (and others) have stated we have attempted this and it didn't work. As a proper web searching tactic we are attempting to narrow the pool of places to search. We know what Fandom it is and where the work was originally located. Perhaps we do not have or use any of those other platforms for various reasons. You didn't stop to consider or offer those options in a friendly manner. You simply say "FYI, you are clogging up the system. Go away". A little tact would be appreciated. I would say this kind of commenting is considered hunting, not moderating. I am glad to see people are starting to consider spite writing chapters to their searching fics just so people like you can't post passive aggressive things like this.

Which... I don't even know where to start with that. Like, first off, "help me find this fic" works are basically the definition of disallowed ephemeral, non-fanwork content, which is pretty clearly banned, and in fact is one of the only things that is banned on AO3. Then there's the idea that tagging something with specific fandom tags and tropes when you're actually just searching for something with those tropes is a proper use of the tag function, rather than a flagrant abuse of it. Then there's the fact that this person seems to think it's fine to break AO3's rules for this just so long as they don't have other options (which, to be clear, they do!). And then finally there's the fact that apparently people are considering only posting "help me find this fic" posts as author notes attached to real fanworks, which... that would be fine??? I would literally not mind in the slightest if people started posting shitty fanfics just so that they could ask where other fanfic was using the author's notes function – shitty fanfics are still fanfics!

I just... maybe this is me being a huge get-off-my-lawn retrogrouch, but it really feels like AO3 is having a bit of an Endless September, and I think it would absolutely suck if this became normalized to the point that every tag search was turning up a bunch of "find my fic" posts that someone made like four years ago and then never took down because they didn't understand the difference between an archive and a feed. Am I crazy? AITA here? And what – if anything – can be done, so that younger fans aren't discouraged from contributing, but also actually learn the basic rules of the archive?

--

Ah, the sanctimonious n00bs, I know them well.

You can point them to the ToS FAQ where it literally says not to post that shit.

Can I archive nonfiction?

Fannish nonfiction, which includes what is called 'meta' by some fans, is allowed. Where we provide a specific function (search, bookmarking, challenges) we will ask you to use the specific methods we provide for those activities rather than create separate works. So, for example, a request for recommendations for particular kinds of fanworks would not be an appropriate work. That search should be carried out by searching works and/or bookmarks. A list of recommended works on a particular topic would also not be an appropriate work. Recommendations should be done by using our bookmarking function. A description of a challenge for other creators would also not be an appropriate work. That should be carried out by using our challenge function.

In addition, as an Archive whose goal is preservation, we want permanent, nonephemeral content. To the extent that your content is designed to be ephemeral, such as liveblogging episode reactions, it should go on a journaling service and not the Archive.

No, you are not the asshole here. AO3's culture will change for the worse if we don't make some effort to let new people know how we do things.

I should really finish my personal guide to AO3.

[jellybeanforest-a-go-go]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyone want to guess what happened?

Anyone?

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

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