#Why can’t a functional site be enough for them

[moonknightproductions]

the only reason I’m not crying over this life-altering development is that I’m already cried out from earlier today

[the-curse-of-neoclones]

Moderneopets Artist Mistreatment

Edit as of 11/16/23 10:40 AM NST:

Removed names where I failed to do so before. I'm very sorry to the affected parties, this snowballed so far out of my intended scope.

Edit as of 11/16/23 5:30 PM NST

Please see this post for a small update.

As of 11/16/23 10:10 PM NST, Hazer the site owner has formally and publicly apologized to myself and Velu, the other affected artist. As far as I'm concerned he has officially handled the situation as best as he could, and I hold no further qualms with Moderneopets. I hope to hear of its management continuing in this direction.

The following post is left up for archival purposes only.

*****

Hello, I’m wren. I'm an artist responsible for some of the pet assets on the neoclone, Moderneopets. I'm just going to get into it.

Hazer was extremely lucky to somehow cultivate a dense group of largely professional artists to work together to make assets for his site. When it comes to his own management as a site runner, he’s largely hands-off of the art department, which is a good thing! If he can’t be active in the art panel enough to know what goes on in there, he shouldn’t be running it— we have many strong, capable artists on the team who are passionate about recreating the neopets style, who work together on every pet that has been released ever since critique became a requirement. 

It makes sense that, with a project this large, Hazer should have to designate moderators to enforce rules when he is absent. Choosing to bring on moderators was also a good decision. Unfortunately, he chose poorly. 

Art panel issues should have separate Art panel moderators to take care of them. People who are not overburdened with generic moderation duties from the many other channels of the server, for example. In the same vein, artists should not be moderators. When an artist has an issue with another artist, who happens to be a moderator (which has happened many times, with many people— If the mods actually open threads for all complaints they receive, they should have evidence of this & if they don’t they are not being truthful), the artist would likely not feel comfortable approaching that same artist-slash-moderator to complain about what happened. It breeds an aura of fear and discomfort any time there is an issue with an artist/mod, and that is why the two moderators on the team should have to choose one or the other if hazer wants to cultivate a healthy atmosphere in his panel. 

I’ve created many pets for this website. Neopets has been a passion of mine since the third grade. I’m also one of those professional artists I mentioned— my work is also art, industry or otherwise. I care about breaking neopets down into their core, recognizable shapes. I care about keeping them on-model and in the spirit of the original TNT art team, with improvements made where I and the other panelists think they make sense. I have redlined for other artists to an even greater degree, just as other artists have redlined for me and helped me finalize each pet into something simply good: something that made sense to get put on a little passion project website for other people with a similar passion to enjoy. I found the panel to be a community of likeminded artists with which to discuss our favorite childhood petsite while we made art for a clone, as if we could pretend we were making art for neopets-dot-com. It was nice. 

It wasn’t perfect, though. In fact, shortly after I joined in 2021 I took a hiatus because the art panel was fairly dead. I came back a little while later to see we had several new species, as well as an art director, and lots of activity! That was very exciting. Over the next year I would reach out to the panel or, if nobody was sure of how to proceed, I would reach out to the art director to propose ideas for how to make the panel a little more functional; quality of life updates, if you will. I don’t take credit for all of these alone, there were other artists with similar ideas all communicating to the director in private, but some examples: 

A designated “collab” zone where artists could seek out other artists to complete pets with. 

“The Purge,” in which the team was whittled down to ~25 current, active artists to refresh the team and allow for new artists to join. 

“The Approval System,” which I first sat down with in my workshop (public to all artists) to hammer out the details with as many other artists as wanted to give their input— a method for pitching new ideas to eventually break through the “new species/color freeze” that had been plaguing us.

Speaking on the approval system: like most things that required Hazer’s direct input in the art team, it was left without response for a very long time. Artists with ideas for custom species or colors would occasionally murmur about their excitement for the system to get a look-over by hazer, to see if our approval system pitch would be approved. But hazer is busy, as we all know, and the pitch sat for a while. We had new & returning artists on the team to keep everyone busy. 

What I would expect from a years-old panel of artists, when new additions arrive, would be some manner of tutorial. New artists would need to know the pipeline (here’s your workshop, you can post WIPs and anything else in there; here’s how you ping for critique, here are the spaces in which to ask for it; make sure you always ping before your work is submitted on-site), and there would likely be some acclimating on both sides. What I did not expect (but should have), was pushback from new artists on things that hadn’t had pushback in a long time. Why can’t [x] color be a posechange? Well, we’ve created many already and none of them were posechanges. Why can’t I use colored lineart? Well, that isn’t in line with the style standards set by this color; see, nobody else is coloring their lineart. 

Suddenly there was a divide between veteran artists, the director, and the new blood. The divide felt greater when Hazer came to his new artist’s aid to say, approximately: “Eh, if someone wants to go above and beyond and make better art, they shouldn’t have to adhere to the guidelines.” Then he threw the art director under the bus for not somehow knowing that his intentions were always to keep the panel loose and unstructured. But don’t worry, that isn’t the first bus and won’t be the last.

My personal investment in the panel waned around that time. I think a structured “work” environment with easily accessible rules and deadlines is necessary to any project of this size. If we didn’t want to enforce color standards, nor prioritize certain colors for release, and anyone could just submit whatever Nice Art they wanted, why not open it up so any user could submit pet art? Why have a panel at all? Isn’t Hazer taking any opportunity to dunk on Leopets because he wants his site to be better? How is this different? 

But I stuck around. This was a hobby I really enjoyed, after all, and I really believed it could get better. It had a good core, and despite my grievances with individual artists, none of them were bad people. 

But I noticed some trends. New artists would receive feedback that they didn’t agree with and retaliate by bringing in their emotions or personal preferences. Any disagreement where multiple veteran artists stepped in to say their piece would escalate to the point of very long messages on both sides, and would need to be left to hazer to give a final input. Often he didn’t come around to it, because he’s busy, as we know. I didn’t step in to every argument; they became cyclical after a while, and I didn’t have the time or energy to spend simply tapping the proverbial sign (or style sheet). I would try to give positive suggestions when I could, for example: I don’t think this color needs another alt for just one single design, but we did talk about eventually making this color that your design would fit into really well. 

I’ve done my time having arguments on the internet. I really just want an art environment where the rules are set and people actually enjoy following them, because I do— I see art rules as helpful guidelines at best and obstacles to cleverly navigate at worst, which is still fun. But of course not everyone is going to feel the same way, that’s normal; that’s life. 

On 11/9 I was given this message by Hazer: 

It reads:

Hello wren,

I am reaching out to you today to inform you that effective immediately you are being dismissed from the Artist and Consultant Panels. This decision has been reached through discussions and based on repeated offences in the form of user harassment and subjecting the panels to a toxic atmosphere, after multiple reports and concerns brought up to us by other users.

While we understand concerns regarding panel management, there is a distinct difference between criticising and condeming the way the panel does things and criticising and condeming users that are on the panel, and we believe this line has been crossed one too many times, further supported by concerns brought to us.

We appreciate the passion and drive of our team—all of them—and we understand you have been very passionate about the panel. Given some of the messages we see, we have also concluded that due to things in the panel not working out as you have wished, it has caused you much stress and upset as well, which we do not want. All in all, we've decided that the atmosphere of the panel and your own enjoyment of the website are hampered by your presence on it. Because of this, we have decided it is best to have you part ways with the staff sections of the website.

Effective immediately after this message, we will be permanently removing you from the panels. While normally we do a temporary removal, in this case we've seen that your compatability with our management and handling of the panel will not improve, and it will just bring stress to both sides.

We understand you have put a lot of passion into the projects you have been working on for release in Moderneopets, and in lieu of that, we offer you the option of having the project(s) still be released even after dismissal. Rewards will still be granted for releases per usual, and credit will still be given. If you decide, due to dismissal, you do not want your unreleased work to be released on Moderneopets, simply state it as such, and we will discard all progress on projects you have been working on to respect those wishes.

This decision is final and will not be revoked.

Best wishes to you,

The Moderneopets Team

[end caption]

My response:

It reads: 

No warnings huh?

[end caption]

Hazer didn’t have an answer for me. I was already removed from the panel. 

This came as a shock. I’d been there for over two years, I felt I had a good rapport with the other artists, I felt I’d been a helpful and active addition to the team. Like I said, I’ve done my time having arguments on the internet… what toxic behavior? Discussions over style guides? Giving redlines to people with permission? Working with the whole team to bolster several new color releases? I had an entire species that Hazer wanted ready to go since March— I just pushed through the Swamp Gas release, I just created the Mystical alt? 

No warnings?

Let me reiterate: I have never been spoken to by any staff about my behavior. Hazer, his then-four moderators— none of them have ever been in my DMs to issue a warning. I have spoken TO the mods about others’ behaviors, and nothing ever came of it. The one time (and I mention this for full transparency only) the art director came to talk to me about something I said, it was stated clearly that it was not a warning, and even so I adjusted my behavior around said issue accordingly. And that was well before the purge. 

But, don’t take my word for it. Here it is from hazer himself, speaking over his mods who were busy telling the rest of the panel that they always issue warnings: 

It reads:

No in this case I do agree that this has been an abrupt situation and I understand the blind-sided-ness of it. No official warnings were given out regarding the actions that resulted in the removal of artists today and that’s on fault of myself and deebs not working things out properly despite the moderation team bringing issues to a us a few times – also due to our lack of availability recently.  [end caption]

So… What happened? Well… here it is from Hazer, in longform: 

For those who use screen readers, above are several enormous discord screenshots; I've placed it in a paste bin here: https://pastebin.com/dHLiBRTF

Two other artists immediately stepped down. Hazer admits here in his message that he and the mods had multiple tickets opened about my behavior, that they had known they wanted to remove me. They never gave a warning, never talked to me until the moment of my dismissal, but they had known it was coming for months? 

Why did Hazer and his gang of mods let me continue working on art for their panel? Why did they let me work so hard to pull Swamp Gas together for an official release? Why did they let me put together a whole custom Alt and workshop it for so long? I’ve been active this whole time. Why did you let me keep working if you knew you wanted me gone? 

I am a professional artist. My work is art. Hazer made the knowing decision to exploit my time and effort for his website. He’s not paying me, he’s not paying any of us. It’s volunteer work. But I did not volunteer to be mistreated like this. To not even be given a chance to defend myself. To him, artists are disposable. To him, if someone has worked on your team for years but speaks up when your friend tries to overturn the system, even civil discussion is cause for disposal. Civil discussion negates years of effort, passion, time and care. 

I didn’t have to make art for you, Hazer. And you don’t deserve the team you have. How many artists have voiced their discomfort with your actions? How many artists are taking a break from the panel because of how you handled this? Ah, wait, you wouldn’t know… you’re busy. 

Hazer and his mod team are just another corrupt group of individuals unfortunately heading what could have been a fun and promising petsite. Everyone who speaks praise of modneo does it by and large because of the new and unique art. Hazer was extremely lucky to cultivate a dense group of largely professional artists to work together to make assets for his site. 

If Hazer wants to show any sign of his potential to be a better person, I believe he needs to formally apologize to his site for the misuse of his power and the mistreatment and exploitation of artists on his team. He needs to apologize to you, the players of his game, the subscribers to his patreon, for allowing this to happen under his watch and under his word. You know you fucked up, hazer. You shouldn’t have sided with your friend without any actual evidence of misconduct. You shouldn’t have spoken about me like I was a toxic, subhuman hindrance to your art team. You shouldn’t have treated me like that. I didn’t deserve it. None of us did. You can apologize to me and the other lost artists publicly.

[iamgonnagetyouback]

𝟷.𝟼𝚔 || 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔 (PART 3)

♡ ︎ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: The constant tours, postponed dates, and then Sirius again leaving for a tour makes you realize you couldn't do it.

♡ ︎ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: Angst

♡ ︎ꜱʜɪᴘ: rockstar!Sirius Black x reader

♡ ꜱᴏɴɢ: Miss you by Louis Tomlinson

♡ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ : part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Your phone buzzed on the edge of your bed, but you barely glanced at it, too absorbed in the headlines splashed across the screen of your laptop. They were everywhere. Sirius and the boys—James, Remus, and Peter—dominating every tabloid, every music blog, every gossip site.

"Black Dog Hits Number One—Sirius Black and His Band Soar to New Heights!" "The Wild Nights of Sirius Black: Partying Hard and Playing Harder!" "Black Dog Goes Viral—Is There Anything They Can’t Do?"

You scrolled through the pictures. Sirius with a guitar slung over his shoulder, grinning in that effortlessly charming way that always made your heart skip. James with a drink raised high, Remus laughing at something off-camera, and Peter surrounded by people who adored them. They looked happy. They looked fine.

Your fingers trembled slightly as you closed your laptop, the screen going dark. It had been four months since you’d broken up with Sirius, four months of trying to bury yourself in music, in anything that could distract you from the gaping hole his absence had left in your life.

Except, there was one problem.

You hadn’t written a single song in those four months. Not one.

Every time you sat down with your guitar or opened your notebook, the words just wouldn’t come. You’d strum a chord, hum a melody, but it all felt wrong. Your creativity had dried up, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t bring yourself to make music.

It was torture. Your fans still loved you—still sent messages, flooded your social media with support, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were failing them. You were failing yourself.

And yet, Sirius? He was thriving. He was out there, living the life you thought you’d both wanted, playing sold-out shows, going viral with every new performance. The universe hadn’t even paused for him—it had catapulted him forward.

Your phone buzzed again, snapping you out of your thoughts. With a sigh, you picked it up and saw Remus’s name flash across the screen. You hesitated for a moment before opening the message.

Remus: Hey, Y/N. You asked how Sirius was. He’s great. Everything’s good.

Great. Good.

The words echoed in your mind, stinging more than they should. Why was that hurting so much? You were the one who ended things. You were the one who said you couldn’t handle it anymore. You should have been relieved that Sirius was doing well, moving on with his life, living the dream.

But instead, it felt like a knife twisting in your chest.

You threw your phone aside, groaning as you collapsed onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling. You didn’t know why it hurt this much. Maybe you hadn’t fully prepared yourself for what it would feel like to see Sirius everywhere—thriving while you were stuck in some emotional quicksand, unable to move forward, unable to create, unable to let go.

Your mind spiraled. You kept replaying that night, over and over again. The argument, the way Sirius had looked at you, the door slamming as he left. You thought you’d made the right choice. Long distance wasn’t working, the endless tours had pulled you apart, and you were tired of the constant ache of missing him.

But now? Now, it just felt like you’d ripped a piece of yourself away and you were left trying to figure out how to function without it.

And now Remus’s message confirmed it—Sirius was fine. He had moved on. Maybe that should’ve been enough for you to do the same. Maybe you needed to finally face the fact that it was over.

Really over.

You swallowed hard, trying to push down the emotions rising in your throat. Maybe it was time to stop overthinking everything, stop wallowing in what could’ve been. Sirius wasn’t going to come back, and you couldn’t keep living in this limbo.

If he was thriving, then you had to, too.

You pushed yourself up, wiping your hands across your face. You hadn’t touched your guitar in weeks. Maybe now was the time. It wouldn’t be easy, but nothing ever was. You could sit here and overthink everything—overthink how Sirius had moved on, how you hadn’t written anything in months, how you couldn’t seem to shake this endless feeling of failure—or you could get up and do what you did best.

You could write.

Taking a deep breath, you reached for your guitar, fingers grazing the familiar strings. The weight of it in your hands felt both comforting and foreign after so long. But this was your safe place—music. No matter how lost you felt, it had always been your anchor.

You strummed the first chord, the soft hum filling the empty room. It wasn’t much, just a simple melody, but it was enough. Enough to make you feel like maybe you weren’t as stuck as you thought. Maybe you could create again, even if the process was slow and painful.

Maybe you could find yourself again.

The words came slowly at first, tentative and unsure, but they were there. They were always there, waiting for you to reach out and take them. This song wouldn’t be about him, not entirely. It would be about you—about letting go, about finding your way back to yourself. About all the things you’d been too scared to admit, even to yourself.

And as you started to write, for the first time in months, you felt like maybe—just maybe—you could move on.

[fantasticallyfruity4]

Okay idk abt where y’all are from but my local HS had a paramedic on site for football games at all times.

And considering we’re all down bad for paramedic Steve rn, this feels like a great au (Also, has to be punk Steve bc like, it’s me come on, I want to give Eddie a heart attack.)

Lucas decides he wants to try out for football fall of sophomore year and the part is, begrudgingly supportive.

And max and Dustin are on marching band, so they’re at the games to. And Mike and el and will and Jonathan are just there on the basis of comradely and good friendly support. And of corse Eddie and his van have to be the kids chief mode of transport.

And Eddie doesn’t meet paramedic Steve (cute paramedic Steve with the lip ring and the nose ring and the eyebrow stud) because poor sweet little Lucas got squished by some freak out on the field, or bc his good friend chrissy took a hell of a tumble coming down from a cheer and he’s such a worried friend fussing over her like a mother hen, or bc somehow someway Dustin got whacked in the nose by a flute.

No, he does this all by himself. All his own brilliance. He went to check on the Byers + co contingency before going back to hovering over his little band babies + his two accidentally adopted jocks, and takes a fucking header off the bleachers. Clears a good 3 feet if he doesn’t say so himself.

So sweet pretty paramedic Steve of corse rushes over to him in an instant, sitting him up against the side bleachers, shining a light in his eyes, asking where he is, when it is, his name, and they’ve got a little crowd of the byers + wheeler + the little Mayfield and Henderson but Steve’s paying them no attention and Eddie doesn’t even see them.

The paramedic introduces himself as Steve, he says “I’m Steve and I’m gonna make sure that you’re feeling okay tonight, okay sir?” And eddie nods dumbly.

And Eddie is answering sure, but he’s really making Steve worried bc he’s so wide eyed and taking a second to answer and it’s just worry some (he’s having a very in love mental breakdown, okay, let him be. He’s speed running visions of a life together. He’s understanding what “love at first sight” means for the first time in his life.). He’s got a the man he didn’t even know was in his dreams fussing over him. He’s going to explode.

“If I knew I’d have such a cute paramedic I’d have fallen off that wayyyy earlier tonight” Eddie says then slams his mouth shut and goes wide eyed in horror. Steve just laughs, a beautiful sound. Not at Eddie, no it doesn’t feel taunting, it’s a beautiful sweet sound.

“We’ll, if you’re thinking clearly enough to hit on me I think you’re heads definitely okay. Do you have a headache at all? Any dizzyness? You took a hell of a header, Eddie.”

Eddie shakes his head. “No just like my actual nose hurts from smacking into the dirt”.

Steve nods. “May I?” “Corse man it’s your job”.

Steve chuckles. “Stop making me laugh man, I’m on the clock. Does this hurt?” “No” Eddie answers in the most nasally voice with Steve’s fingers still squeezing his nose and he wants to die because what was that sound? But Steve just smiles softly. “Good, awesome. No pain? Breathing okay?”. Eddie nods dumbly. “So I’m gonna bet it’s just sore from smacking into the dirt, not broken.”.

Eddie nods dumbly. Again. For the 20th time that night. He can’t function. “So why don’t we just get these cuts here cleaned up?” Steve decides, reaching into his bag for a million supplies. “Think I’m gonna get any cool scars?” “Nah sorry man, not with these little guys. But it’s for the best, why mess with perfection anyway, right?” Steve winks dabbing some shit that BURNS on Eddie’s cheek before putting on a bandaid and Eddie might be going into cardiac arrest.

“I like your uh, piercings” Eddie spurts out like an idiot.

Steve grins. “Thanks. Got a peak of those bats when I first came over, got any more?”. Eddie snorts a laugh. “Yeah a shit ton. Nothing easy to see though my uncle would hang me if I made myself any less hirable”. Steve chuckles at that. “Hey man the whole f-d is all old military dudes covered in their shitty navy tats, i wouldn’t be too worried.” “Oh so there’s more where this came from? Maybe I should fall more” Eddie taxes, just a little. “Watch it” Steve chuckles.

“Okay I think you’re pretty patched up, handsome. But considering everything don’t drive tonight, especially if you have passengers. You have a ride home? Someone to call?” “Yeah I’ll just make it one of my friend Jonathan’s problem, that’s fine”.

“Okay, good” Steve nodded, taking out a small pen and pad from his pocket and writing something. “And this friend Jonathan… he’s not a boyfriend, right?”.

Eddies jaw fucking drops. Literally drops. He’s going to spontaneously combust. “Nah, no, nope man” he stutters out. “Okay, gotcha. If anything starts hurting tonight, if you get dizzy, any nose bleeds, give me a call. Or… you know, when you’re feeling better give me a call too”. He hands eddie the piece of paper with a smiley face and the name ‘Steve (the paramedic)’ with 10 scrawled numbers on it, as he stands up, offering eddie a hand up himself.

Eddie doesn’t want to think about the strength steve has that this that easy to lug his 160 pounds of trailer trash ass up. Or how he feels about what looks like the singular inch steve has on him, even in his boots.

[theslightestbitofahint]

My experience today with a therapist that was actually helpful:

As I’ve been writing about here and there on this site, I’ve been in consistent, extreme pain for over two months. I’ve been trying to access pain management medication while awaiting various appointments and have been continually denied.

Talking to my therapist about my upcoming appointment with pain management, she had me explain to her what I have been saying to providers so she could get an idea of why they may be reacting the way they are.

She suggested telling them what I told her, and ADDING how the pain has been impacting my quality of life.

I’ve been assuming that explaining the nature, severity, and frequency of pain would/should be enough for providers to be able to see how it would be hard to concentrate, communicate, move, and basically exist. But she said that giving them real examples of how the pain is preventing me from participating in life and the impacts on my functioning and mental health can give them more concrete reasoning for WHY I would benefit from medication. She said that proving I’m participating in the healing process by showing up for appointments, taking the medications that I have been prescribed to no avail, and actively advocating for things that I need to move things forward other than medication may help them to see that I’m not just trying to magically make the pain disappear, but instead trying to increase my quality of life in the meantime.

So I’m preparing a list of examples and I’m gonna be looking for ways I haven’t thought of yet that I’m being impacted to add them to the list between now and my appointment in a week.

Hopefully it will work, and if not, they’ll at least have a record of me saying what I’ve been experiencing. And that may help the other people who can’t prescribe but have been trying to help me have some more backing when advocating on my behalf.

[redfish-blu]

An Open Letter to the Danger Days Tumblr Community:

Now that you’ve read that overdramatic title and are wondering who fucked up, I have something to say about the Danger Days Tumblr community: I Love You.

Danger Days was the first fandom I ever posted for on any site. All the way back in middle school (ho-ly shit). And let me tell you what I found out even way back when: this is not an easy fandom to be in.

For one, most people don’t even know it exists. For two, even less know it in the way it’s been cultivated on Tumblr. Almost every single person has such a niche interpretation of every little detail, that it’s impossible to draw a line through any two versions of the story. Which is a fact I personally love, but I also think it scares a lot of people away. You have to work to be in this fandom. Both as a passive and active fan. It requires patience and tolerance for disappointment.

But that’s exactly why I want to encourage everyone who creates and everyone who listens to Keep Doing That. Like I cannot stress this enough, that is what keeps this fandom and IP alive. Danger Days as a universe would be absolutely nothing without fan work (re: the California Comics), especially a decade later. Without fans who care about this story way more than it has warranted us to care, it would be six feet under. And sometimes I really think that’s what it deserves (and maybe the writers think that as well), but for the life of me I just can’t let that happen. I’ve tried to let this fucking thing go, believe me.

And funny enough, that exact feeling is evidenced by the community on this site too. Which has changed faces almost completely from what it was three years ago for better and less better in some cases. And it’s something I still struggle with adjusting to, but I look at the tag daily. I look everyone’s posts and blogs and art and effort. If you have posted even once in the dd tag my eyes have 100% seen it. So even if I still feel a little out of place, like a ghost of fandom’s past, at least I know everybody. And I know people feel the same way: No rest for the wicked.

When I reanimated from my fandom coma I was fully expecting to find that the community had gone extinct. Partially because all the blogs I used to frequent had straight up died in the three years I was gone. But I pulled up to the gates of the Danger Days tag like Rick Grimes outside of Alexandria, fully expecting to be devastated, only to find New People tilling the fucking field. And it didn’t matter that I now had no idea who any of you people were, it was The Most welcoming thing ever.

I’ll be the first to tell you this fandom bares almost no resemblance to the one I left, and I’m not going to lie and say it’s better now, but the foundation didn’t get blown away in the storm. That’s what I find uniquely profound. That everyone here still wants to try. And that makes me really want to try. And I’m sure everyone would agree that there is often little reward for the effort; but that’s precisely my point in saying all this shit. That even despite the not fun aspects, we all still clock in; and there’s a new post, headcanon, drawing, or fic every freaking day. It’s commendable, really.

If you’re lurking, or post sometimes but feel afraid to actually take a leap here because (the fandom is comparatively tiny to the greater MCR fandom) you’ll be way more out there, and the already established figureheads of the fandom will definitely see your stuff: post post post. This is my formal endorsement to Just Post That Shit. And Interact With That Shit. I spent a year gathering the courage to publish the tiniest thing while behind the scenes I literally wrote about 60+ works. You have to respect your own creativity and trust that other people will give it the time of day.

So do not feel crazy or discouraged about your ideas here! Like we literally need them to function, I would not be here if it wasn’t for all the people three years ago who just posted all their thoughts about Danger Days. About everything. Obscure or not. It’s truly a gift that this fandom has attracted people who are willing to work their brains because the original creators let it fall flat. I cannot tell you how much being in this fandom has actually helped me out in my writing and analysis skills.

So yeah. I fucking love this fandom, I love being in it and I love seeing that people are still stoking the flames. I wanted to say all this crap because I knew I’d be able to articulate it for the people who can relate but don’t want to be the first to say it. Which is okay, understandable. As I said earlier this fandom is like yelling your thoughts out into a very echoey room that only has a few people in it. So I’ll shout first and maybe it’ll make other people more comfortable to shout back.

[greater-than-the-sword]

Op of this blocked me but i thought it was important

So I left out their part of the post but copied everything under it

quote, “

Just saying: Tumblr loses several million of dollars per month. It has been losing millions of dollars per month for ... years. We are not even close of changing that and make this site profitable yet.

And if that doesn't change, you may not believe it, but tumblr will close. Back in 2019, if Automattic hasn't bought it, I'm pretty convinced Verizon would have closed before the end of the year. This time, once Automattic says "we can't keep losing millions per month on this"... I don't think there will be anyone else willing to buy this hellsite, even for a single dollar.

Personally, I would prefer Tumblr to be paid by its own users and not being reliant on advertising. I work here, I could have almost everything for free, but I pay my own blazed posts and crab gifts because of this. But we are FAR from getting enough income from people subscribing, blazing or buying gifts. FAR.

And we are not talking about Facebook-like greed here, "Tumblr wants to squeeze us to make even more money!!!". We are talking about Automattic keeping Tumblr alive for three years already, losing millions and even if doing it costs a significant percentage of the income of the company. And no company would let something like that happens forever.

So if you like tumblr, if you enjoy this boiling cauldron of feral goblins, boicot advertisement if you want, but then toss a coin to your tumblr each month.

GIF by imagine-all-the-things

And it's ok if you can't, but then please, let people, or companies, blaze their posts in peace. If they bother you so much, just install an ad blocker.

But if you are actively trying to make advertisers to flee Tumblr, or bullying people who blaze posts, you are actively working towards the closing of this site. So why don't you just move your shit to TikTok or wherever and stop trying to ruin this place for the rest of us?

jv

Oh I have looked through the notes and holy f-ck, how does some people even function in the outside world?

There are several variations of "we have to keep this site unprofitable!!". And holy shit. Christ on a stake.   Forgive my French, but me cago en la puta hostia como se puede ser tan corto.

Repeat with me:

You.Don't.Keep.Any.Site.Unprofitable.

Because if it's unprofitable,

you don't get to keep it for long.

Full stop.

Do you know why Tumblr has stayed around for so long while being unprofitable??

Because it had been run by FOUR DIFFERENT COMPANIES IN THE LAST TEN YEARS.

So each one of those companies tried to make it profitable for two, three years and failed. And at that point, they just sold it to someone else to try.

The last time, Verizon sold it to Automattic for the business equivalent of a jar of peanut butter and a half-full cola bottle. Because they were going to close it anyway, so better to get that than nothing. And you know why Automattic could get it for cheap? Because. No. One. Else. Offered. Anything. Verizon announced very publicly they were trying to sell it and they got one (1) offer. Because purchasing Tumblr means you are purchasing a thing that puts you several million in debt PER MONTH.

So can you picture, can you imagine, what it will happen if the current owners decide that they can't keep having this thing that costs them so much money per month to maintain?? It has been owned by Automattic for three years already, longer than what it was owned by Yahoo or Verizon. Can you imagine what it would happen if they decide to stop losing money on this thing??

No, there won't be any new owner.

And no, there won't be any fucking tumblr anymore.

akorah

I see your point. The problem is we've seen every single social media site turn into an algorithmic hellscape once they started having major advertisers like this. How can we be confident Tumblr won't do the same? How can we be confident that Tumblr won't get dollar signs in their eyes with these brands escaping Twitter, and start changing the site to accommodate them? We've heard promises before from other social media platforms that things will get 'better' once the money comes in, and we've been betrayed by algorithms and absolutely heinous business practices.

jv

Because the presence of big brands or not is not the symptom of being an algorithmic hellscape or not. Data collection is.

Big brands were advertising on the internet way before the hyper focused ads and data mining became The Way of paying for internet services.

If tumblr starts asking you to fill a profile with your personal info, ask you to connect your contacts, etc, that's the symptom of a turn towards an algorithmic advertising business model. But Tumblr could have done that at any point in the last 10 years and become a money-making machine like the other major social networks. And it didn't happen, for a reason: neither the current management nor the past one wanted to do that and they always have been trying to make Tumblr the platform that manages to succeed while respecting its user's privacy.

You know, I personally don't care about Marvel, but I have gotten blazed posts by Tor books and I was delighted. And if you think about it, marvel blazing its posts is EXACTLY what we want to happen all over the internet. Being realistic, we are not going to make this site to be 100% user funded for a long while, so ads are inevitable. That being the case, what's a better option than the brands sending their ads to everyone, without any segmentation, paying for N impressions and that's it. That was how internet ads were before Google and Facebook became the big brother and started selling our info to advertisers so they could convince your uncle to embrace fascism.

And if Tumblr manages to get to profitability with a mix of "old school ads" and users paying for stuff, we will be demonstrating that there is another way to make a social platform sustainable without it being a facade for a user-data mining gig. But if we boycott every single other way to make money here, not only we would kill Tumblr, but we will also make it the case study proving that privacy invasion and data selling is the one and only way to make money with any social network.

jv

@catfluff

I already wrote about this in another post, but let me do a quick explanation of what's going on here. Before Automattic/tumblr, I used to work in an ad network, so I learned quite a bit about online advertising and how it works.

So…

Why do I get ads that seem to be tailored to me on Tumblr if Tumblr doesn't sell my data 101

So. Most of the ads you see on Tumblr are not really something a company contacts Tumblr directly to put in here. There's is this thing that's called "ad exchanges" that is where a big chunk of internet advertising comes from. Basically, when you have an app, or a site, and want to put advertising on it, you reach a deal with one, or usually several, of those ad exchanges to 'sell' your ad space through them.

Basically, they are like ebay, but for ad space and only used by computers. When you are browsing tumblr and the app decides that is time to show you an ad, what it does is pinging one of these ad exchanges telling it "hey, I have space for an ad of these characteristics (size, format, etc)". Then the ad exchange put the space 'on sale', all the potential advertisers bid for it, and the one with the higher bid sends the ad you are going to be shown. All this bidding happens in milliseconds, so there are a lot of folks like me who work on making computers smart enough to win those bids over other competing advertisers, etc.

The thing is that when you are one of the services that are bidding for that ad space, you get some data from the ad exchange so you can tell if you want to bid or not. The most basic info, the one you get from apps that don't really share personal info, is just things like the ip address, the advertising id from your phone, maybe your general geographic area (mostly, your country), the languages your browser or your phone accepts. Then, if the app is doing some spying on you, you may get some extra data: Your gender, your age, all kinds of "profile" info advertisers can use to decide if they want to bid for that ad space or not.

Now, the advertisers are continuously getting this info and there's really no way to tell them what to do with it. And they are smart enough to not just let it waste. Every time they get one of those ad opportunities, they store the data, even if they don't win the bid. And then… they can do things with that data.

Imagine you use, for example, an app that's mining your data and selling it to advertisers through an ad exchange. The advertiser gets the opportunity to show you an ad, and whether they bid or not, they store the data they get. Your ip, your ids, the profiling data the app is sending to them, everything.

Now, you close the crappy spying app and decide to spend some time browsing this hellsite. Tumblr also wants to show you an ad, so it sends the request to the ad exchange with the minimum information possible: your ip, your phone unique id, your language. The advertiser gets pinged to be told about this chance to show you an ad, but they can't profile you, so it's not particularly interesting. Unless… oh yeah, they have a record from 10 minutes ago that matches your ip! And in that record, they have that you are in Calatayud, Spain, that you are a woman between 25 and 30 years, and that you like dogs. So … yeah, they decide to bid for the tumblr ad, and send you an ad based on the information about you they have recorded. Bam. You get an ad about a pet shop next to your street and you go "WTF, tumblr is selling my data!". Fair, but not really what happened.

The best example of this is when you travel internationally. Let's say you are in Germany, and your phone is full of german-language ads. But you turn it off and take a plane to Portugal. When you land, you turn your phone on again, and, for a while, you are still getting german ads all over. Why? Because the advertisers stored your phone id back when you still were in Germany, so if they are sending you an ad in an app that's not really sharing much about you, they are just checking you up in their databases. And it will take a while for them to get enough information about you for telling that you are now in Portugal and adjust the ads they serve to you.

How is this even legal?!?!? well, if you are in the US … mostly everything is legal there. If you are in the UE, they are technically not storing any personal information about you (because IPs or phone ids aren't considered personal info), so there is no link to your name anywhere, they are ok to store all that data about you (if you ask me, that's A HELL of a technicality). Everywhere else, I really don't know the legal framework to talk about it.

So… yeah. That's it. That's the thing. That's how an advertiser can profile you even on tumblr, even if tumblr doesn't tell them much about you to them.

deactivated-662bce

One correction: IP address is protected personal information under GDPR.

But yeah, tl;dr

tumblr costs millions to operate and is not profitable

3rd parties WILL harvest your data wherever you go, whether it's legal or not (something something Cambridge Analytica)

use Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection, Ghostery, some Ad Block, VPN, whatever

enabled Do Not Track in your browser and phone

reset your phone's Advertiser ID every couple of weeks anyway

also remember that an INSANE amount of information you share (and even which don't share!) on facebook, youtube, instagram, google, tiktok, etc all get scraped, processed, and sold to third parties

even if you never say "I like cats" on facebook, but interact with a lot of cat photos, facebook WILL KNOW THAT YOU LIKE CATS, and WILL SELL THIS INFORMATION. Tumblr doesn't - but if your blog is public, anyone can scrape it and derive this information themselves.

by default FACEBOOK FOLLOWS YOU on every site that has the cursed Like button, fb comment section, or similar widgets! Disqus, Spotify, YouTube, Twitch, all similar embedded widgets harvest your data as well!

TIKTOK READS WHAT YOU TYPE INTO OTHER APPS, UNINSTALL THAT SPYWARE JUNK RIGHT NOW

you joke that "your FBI agent this or that" but NSA genuinely has tons of information and a psychological profile on every single one of you, whether it's obtained legally or (most often) not. They know if you're a climate activist. They know if you joke about blowing up . You Are On A List.

"Over 26,000 individuals were at one point catalogued on an FBI list of persons to be rounded up in the event of a "national emergency". [source]" <- this was in 1976, long before Internet, what do you think they have now?

do not blame Tumblr for trying to survive financially

pay for ad-free tumblr, $40 a year is very likely less money than facebook+insta+tiktok+youtube+reddit makes off of you every year

this is not a hellsite, this is a hellworld, and Tumblr (the company; not your blog as such) is somehow the smallest privacy concern that you can possibly have (today)

[kamilah-is-queen]

Could i request a kamilah mc and aiko fic..i love a jealous aiko of mc and definitely jealous kamilah. Where aiko crashes the wedding when they ask do any one objects, she does. Turns out kamilah had a drunken fling night before the wedding. They break up, years pass, although kamilah is the one who breaks mc ❤ she is the only one who can mends it. Mc dates someone who she brings to functions where jealous kamilah shows up. One of these events kamilah corners mc in the bathroom, mc breaks down showing her how much she hurt her. Kamilah explains why she did it. They make up and make out. They elope the next day, mc has a home gathering with there friends and surprise them kamilah comes out and they announce their marriage. Angst smut Fluff ending all in one

I just want to say what a fantastic idea this was. Thank you for submitting this Anon and allowing me the chance to express this in a unique creative writing style. I very much enjoyed working on it. Also, I’m terribly sorry for this ask being answered after two years. 😅

Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Amy Parker) briefly Kamilah x Aiko

Warnings: Fluff, smut, and angst as requested

Tagging: @ta-sayeed, @kamilahtopme, @nydeiri, @genietotherescue, @rhonda-sayeed, @helpconfusedpersonhere, @millasayeed, @vonda-be-real, @livvynka, @queenkamilah, @leenasayeed, @skylarkxxyy, @choicesgrp, @ilove-kamilah-sayeed, @justavampirefan, @iamsimpforpoppy, @friendlybuddy

“Habibti, what do you fancy for dinner?”

Kamilah’s smooth voice cooed into Amy’s ear, her warms arms wrapping around the woman in a gentle embrace from behind.

“I would say you, but I think I’ll go with spaghetti and meatballs tonight.” She replied, breaking out in a grin.

Kamilah pressed soft kisses to her neck as she chuckled, heartily, into Amy’s skin. “You really are cheeky, aren’t you.”

With a sarcastically long wink, Amy cockily spoke back.

“And you love it.”

“And you love being punished for it.” Kamilah answered, smirking to herself as the younger woman broke out in a heated blush.

“Yeah yeah, go before we can’t stop.” She giggled, blushing harder at the idea of another passionate round of the day.

Not long after the aroma of sweet, fresh tomatoes and the herby richness of basil filtered through the penthouse. Kamilah didn’t waste any opportunity to use the herbs from her garden into her delicious home cooked meals, much to Amy’s delight.

She couldn’t help but stare lovingly at her wife, her cheek upon her palm as she watched in a daze.

Kamilah frowned in concentration as she chopped garlic for the sauce, prompting a subtle smile to arise on Amy’s face.

Afterwards, she created a small mound of flour on the kitchen island, ready to make the noodles from scratch.

She began cracking the eggs into the plateau, whisking and adding small bits of flour as she went along. Soon enough she was kneading the dough, sprinkling flour on it too, to keep from sticking.

Not long after the couple were snuggled on the sofa, blankets pulled up around their legs as they cozied in with Kamilah’s delicious spaghetti and meatballs just to top it all off.

Amy couldn’t wait any longer to delve face first into the bowl, a nerdy grin breaking out on her lips as Kamilah bellowed softly at the adorable, picture-worthy site.

“Only one week until our wedding, you know.” Kamilah’s eyes remained fixed on Amy, a mix of love and awe deep within her chestnut eyes.

Amy let out a soft sigh, “I know… time just flies by.” She set down her dinner on the coffee table and turned her attention to her fiancée “it won’t be long till we’re making babies.”

“Oh? I wasn’t aware you wanted offspring.” Kamilah hid her grin against the mouthful of noodles, her renowned charm making it’s glamorous appearance.

“You must be a crazy fool if you think that I don’t dream of having little Kamilah’s running around our home.” Amy gently brushed her thumb against her lover’s cheek, time seemingly slowing down as her heart began to quicken. “As if… I don’t want to wake up to these promising brown eyes of yours, and a bunch more of them too.”

Her voice picked up an octave as they both radiated love, intimacy, and hope for a promising future. “Kamilah, you’re the light of my life. You’re the one thing that’s keeping me grounded, sane, and the only one pushing me to be the greatest Amy Sayeed that I could ever achieve. If you mean that much to me… imagine how dear I’ll hold and cherish our young daughters.”

She let out a comforting smile, tears welling in the blood keeper’s eyes before she reached to wipe them away, “I don’t have to imagine.” The older vampire softly pressed her lips to her lover’s forehead, lingering there as her arms pulled her wife in for a lovely hug, as a way to make Amy feel secure in her own arms. “I already know that you’ll be the greatest mother, and most inspiring figure that a child could ever dream of. They will… and myself included, be the luckiest vampire’s in existence to have someone like you in our lives Amy. I would never choose anyone but you.”

Amy broke out in a sob and clutched Kamilah tighter, as the elder vampire smiled through teary eyes.

‘Oh you melt. You always make me cry.’ Amy said, laughing softly as Kamilah softly wiped away her tears. ‘For the record, I’d never choose anyone but you either Kami. I love you.’

She reached forward, giving Kamilah a soft kiss before the elder vampire could reply. ‘I love you too, Amy.’

Wedding day…

‘Oh god Adrian, I feel so nervous. I-I feel like being sick. What if, what if she says no!?’ Kamilah anxiously paced outside the doors to the wedding hall, Adrian pausing her by placing his hands firmly on her shoulders.

‘It’s okay to feel nervous, but I assure you Amy won’t say no. She loves you more than anything Kamilah, and everyone can see that.’ He smiled softly, watching as the tension slowly left Kamilah’s body.

‘You’re right. I’m just- I’ve been so many things in my life… I didn’t think being a married woman would be one to add to the list.’ She chuckled, nervously fiddling with the hem of her white sleeveless jumpsuit.

Adrian laughed alongside her, fixing her mini cape and adjusting her golden necklace before bowing slightly, teasingly. ‘Well then, after you, Mrs Sayeed.’

Kamilah rolled her eyes and grinned, making her way to the end of the aisle with Adrian at her side as her best man. She tried reigning in her nerves, desperately trying not to let her emotions show too much to the crowd.

Amy, having a similar outburst, was soon accompanied by Lily who practically began to drag Amy down the aisle herself, before the young vampire eventually fell into stride after meeting Kamilah’s gaze.

Amy couldn’t help the grin that spread across her lips, and Kamilah couldn’t keep her eyes off of her.

She wore a beautiful lacy white dress, form-fitting but not too tight that had a slight plunge in the neckline. She also wore a white lily flower headband that connected to her veil, courtesy of Lily, of course.

Lily gave Amy a wink before handing her off to Kamilah, who was in literal awe. She leant across, gently taking hold of Amy’s hands before whispering, ‘you look so gorgeous, my love’.

Amy blushed, returning the compliment before the priest began to lead them in their vows.

‘Now then, speak now or forever hold your peace. Does anyone object to this union?’ The priest asked, with a voice that echoed off the walls.

‘I do.

Everyone in the hall turned, gasping towards the origin of the voice.

Aiko.

Amy narrowed her eyes, amused, as if it was some joke. ‘Yeah right, Kamilah’s mine, Aiko. Now back off.’

‘That’s not what she said last night.’

Amy gasped along with the crowd, turning towards Kamilah who was pale in the face. She stumbled for words, unable to form cohesive sentences.

‘Oh dear… you didn’t tell Amy about the fun that we had last night, did you, Kamilah?’ Aiko approached the older vampire, grabbing hold of her arm before being shaken off.

‘Amy, let me explain, this isn’t what it looks like-‘

Tears pore out of Amy’s eyes, the sound of Kamilah’s voice drowning out as rage consumed her.

‘Did you fuck her, Kamilah?’

Kamilah winced, bowing her head in shame. ‘Amy I was drunk, it didn’t mean anything.’

‘So yes, you did.’

‘Amy, it’s not like that. I promise.’

Kamilah attempted to reach for Amy’s hands, but Amy snagged them out of her grasp.

‘Save it Kamilah, we’re done.’

With that, Amy stormed out of the hall, throwing her veil and bouquet aside as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Kamilah sighed shakily, her mind racing back to the events of the night before…

Kamilah had planned to spend her last single night at home, in her own peace and quiet. No fancy bachelorette parties for her, no way.

She poured herself a glass of bourbon from the bar before she made her way to her bed, setting the glass aside and getting comfy as she picked up her current novel.

Before she realized, she had consumed more than 8 glasses of straight bourbon, which was far too much alcohol even for vampire.

Kamilah began to sway from side to side as she made her way towards the bedroom again, stopping when she heard the doorbell ring.

‘Aiko? What are you doing here?’ She said, balancing against the door as she tried to focus on the woman in front of her.

Aiko knew exactly how drunk she was, and she planned to make the most of it. How else would she take Kamilah back?

Aiko gently pushed Kamilah back into the penthouse, closing the door behind her as she stepped dangerously close.

‘I thought you wanted to enjoy your last night being single, don’t you?’

Kamilah tripped back onto the sofa, watching closely as Aiko straddled her lap.

‘I waaaas reading!’ Kamilah’s words slurred, as she pushed up her glasses proudly. ‘I looove reading.’

Aiko hummed, putting Kamilah’s glasses aside as she hovered her lips above Kamilah’s.

‘Then you’re gonna love reading the way my body wants you right now.’

Aiko captured Kamilah’s lips in a passionate kiss, tasting bourbon on her tongue immediately. Kamilah groaned, clearly thinking it was Amy at this point.

‘Oh Amy, you tease.’ Kamilah hefted Aiko’s legs around her waist as she stood, backing her against the marble countertop, clearing the mess on the surface before lifting Aiko onto it. Kamilah trailed wet, open mouthed kisses down Aiko’s throat, feeling the heat inside her core grow as she heard the woman’s lewd moans.

Both their eyes flashed red, desperate for more. Within an instant, Kamilah had ripped all of Aiko’s clothes off with one hand, her lips trailing down the woman’s sternum and stomach as she felt all control leave her body.

‘Yes Kamilah, fuck me.’ Aiko’s voice was desperate, before she was met with Kamilah’s warm tongue against her core. She moaned loudly, hips bucking off of the countertop as she tangled a hand in Kamilah’s locks, desperately begging for more.

It wasn’t long before Kamilah made her find her release, Aiko quickly pulling the woman up and kissing her with more passion than before.

‘Now my turn.’

Kamilah lifted Aiko off the countertop and spun them, staring deep into the brown eyes before her as she lowered Aiko to her knees. She clutched the countertop behind her for support, biting her lip as Aiko took her sweet time caressing Kamilah’s thighs with her hands and lips.

Once Aiko began to meet Kamilah where she needed attention the most, the older vampire couldn’t back her moans anymore. Her head fell back, eyes shut as she groaned Amy’s name once more.

She bucked her hips against Aiko’s face as she reached her climax, not waiting long after to tug Aiko into the bedroom to continue the night with her.

Years later…

Kamilah zipped up the back of her shimmering red dress that he chosen after reluctantly agreeing to attend Adrian’s gala dinner.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, her eyes catching the gold snake chain that accentuated her prominent collarbone and neck. Then, her eyes fell to her hips, the dress’s thigh slits ending just under the curve of her hips, revealing enough to skin to be tempting, but nothing too scandalous. She opted for gold Gianvito Rossi heels.

For once, she was proud of herself. She had learning to forgive her past, however cruel and selfish she was and began to live for her future, whatever that may look like.

From the moment she stepped out of her Maserati, there were cameras everywhere. God, how she hated paparazzi. She tossed the keys to the valet driver and briskly strode inside, enamoring every cameramen she strode past.

Once inside, she decided to settle herself with a harmless glass of champagne. The same glass that Amy was reaching for.

Their fingers brushed momentarily, before Amy quickly took her hand back, frowning slightly.

‘Amy, I didn’t know you’d be here.’ Kamilah’s voice softened slightly, offering the glass much to Amy’s dismay.

‘I do work for Adrian.’ Her voice was cold, emotionless. It sent a shiver down Kamilah’s spine to see the woman she loved so much being so distant.

‘Right.’ Kamilah cleared her throat as another woman approached Amy, who brightened at the sight.

‘Lora! Welcome back honey.’ She placed a soft peck to the woman’s lips, leaning in again and again purposely to annoy Kamilah.

Kamilah turned her head away, biting her tongue before she steeled her natural, unreadable face back to Amy.

‘And this is?’

‘Lora, this is Kamilah. My ex. Kamilah, Lora. My girlfriend.’

Kamilah’s heart sunk a touch at the words, but what could she expect. Amy couldn’t grieve forever, she had to move on. Perhaps to someone better, as much as that pained her to think about.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Kamilah.’ Lora offered her hand, Kamilah taking it keenly, crushing the woman’s fingers instantly.

‘Yes. Very nice.’ She spoke through gritted teeth, applying more pressure before Amy broke them apart, Lora clutching her bruised hand instantly.

‘Anyway. Bye Kamilah, Lora and I need to dance!’

Kamilah watched with a burning gaze at the way Lora held Amy’s hips, swayed to her tempo, and the way she kissed her.

She flared her nostrils, looking away as her eyes flashed red, unable to contain the jealousy anymore. As much as she wanted Amy to be happy, she couldn’t possibly bear to see her with someone else.

Unsurprisingly, Kamilah’s eyes were on Amy the entire evening, especially when Amy made her way to the restroom. Kamilah followed, at a distance, locking the bathroom entrance once she got in.

Amy didn’t notice her there until she came out of the stall, jumping as she Kamilah standing practically on top of her.

‘What do you want?’ She pushed past, washing her hands in the sink as Kamilah crossed her arms.

‘I owe you an explanation.’

‘What for?’

‘About what happened the night before our wedding, with Aiko.’

Any tensed at the words, but turned slowly, nodding hesitantly for Kamilah to go on. The elder woman explained everything in its entirety, telling nothing but the truth.

‘So…’ Kamilah sighed, ‘I’m sorry, for breaking your heart, your trust, and the dreams you had of our future together. But I swear it didn’t mean anything. I thought it was you. I wanted it to be you. And, if I may, I want to get a second chance to prove it to you.’

Kamilah eagerly searched Amy’s face for a reaction, raising her eyebrows as tears were streaming down the woman’s cheeks.

‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you Amy. I want to share a home with you, a family with you, I want to do everything as long as you’re with me. Because if you’re not… it’s… my life will remain to be meaningless. I’ve never been the same since that day Amy. It’s not your fault, but it broke me. Seeing the woman of my dreams just leave, I-‘

Her voice choked, but Amy quickly cupped her cheek, and stroked the soft skin with her thumb, urging Kamilah to go on.

‘I’ve never been the same without you Amy. I love you too much, and we both know that’s the truth. I love you so much that I can’t even stand that stupid Lora looking at you. I really do want a future with you, Amy. If you’ll let me.’

Her eyes were hopeful as Amy quietly gathered her thoughts.

‘You know, you hurt me real good Kamilah. And you broke me too. But, I can tell that what you say is the truth, and I trust you. I wouldn’t want a future with anyone but you, either Mrs Sayeed. Believe it or not, I love you. More than anything.’

Kamilah smiled and wrapped her arms around Amy, gently spinning her in celebration.

‘So, how are we going to break this to everyone.’ Kamilah asked, gently kissing Amy’s cheek.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve got just the plan.’

Amy had gathered all of her friends to her apartment for an “important announcement.” Of course, the suspense killed so everyone arrived on time.

‘I’d like to thank you all for being here today’ Amy stood in the living room, all eyes on her as she spoke, ‘because I’ve got a very special announcement.’

Everyone leaned forward on their seats, eagerly waiting.

‘I’m…’

Kamilah jumped out of the pantry, blowing confetti in the air as Amy did the same, giggling.

‘getting married again!’

Everyone cheered in unison, later taking their turns to congratulate the new couple once again.

Kamilah and Amy had agreed to respectfully kick the guests out early, as they packed eagerly for their upcoming trip.

Amy was packing clothes on the bed, relaxing a touch as she felt Kamilah’s arms wrap around her waist. She then felt Kamilah’s soft lips on the back of her neck, shivers running down her spine as she thought of what this would eventually lead to.

‘That Lora girl does know you’re mine now, right?’ She spun Amy, catching her lips in a heated kiss before she could answer.

Amy couldn’t help but give in, pushing aside the clothes she had just folded and sprawling herself back on the bed, tugging on Kamilah’s collar to keep her close.

‘I don’t know, does she?’ She grinned, biting her lip as Kamilah’s eyes flashed red.

‘She will once I’m done with you.’

[electricbluebutterflies]

Helnik + skinny dipping even though it's much too cold

Modern AU is a good time. PGish despite the prompt + also on ao3.

In hindsight, the phrases “beachside motel” and “October” probably shouldn’t go together in the Midwest, but the combination had been cheap and Nina needed to get out of the city for a weekend and…

Fine, she’s now completely aware why people don’t come up here voluntarily after Labor Day. She may even learn something from this adventure. Maybe.

Like most of her other flawless ideas, this one had been intended as a group outing, but there had been scheduling conflicts and then in turn a reminder that while her friend group is a pretty solid sextet they are also three separate…

“Couples” is also a big word, Nina thinks, considering only one pair out of three is currently functional. At least Jesper and Wylan have their shit together as much as either of them ever will – at least they’ve dealt with all the emotional stuff to a point where Nina’s speculating on how soon the taxes-and-hospital-visitation-rights courthouse wedding will happen. Kaz and Inej will probably stay passive-aggressive and mutual pining until they’re forty, and even that feels like an early guess. As for her own situation…

Everyone else noped out of the idea, but Matthias was willing. Matthias, who grew up somewhere even colder and theoretically knows better. Matthias, who Nina hasn’t quite managed to climb yet.

There is, it becomes apparent, nothing else to do for the weekend. Tourist season ended a bit ago, and they are… not the only guests at the motel, this is not quite the start of a horror movie, but at least the only guests who had to travel more than an hour to get here. Outdoor recreation is questionable; indoor seems limited to a couple dive bars, and Nina has standards, and-

 “I have an idea,” she says, sprawled on what she is pretty sure is not a king-sized bed like the reservation site said it would be.

Matthias, currently staring out the window at a parking-lot raccoon battle royale, doesn’t even turn for eye contact. “Going home early?”

“God no, we are not giving up on this trip,” Nina mutters, even though she’s thinking about it. “More like… how do you feel about public nudity?”

That’s enough to make him look at her, and apparently also enough to make him blush. This is why she hasn’t actually tackled him yet, she thinks, this is why she may never get what she wants, this is why-

“That’s a frighteningly open-ended question coming from you.”

“Well. We are near a beach. And we are, I’m starting to suspect, the only people theoretically staying the night here who haven’t wandered across the street to the Possum Lounge. And I was thinking…”

“You want to freeze off a limb?”

“It’s early October, dumbass. Don’t people do polar-bear plunges? Is that actually a thing in real life or-“

“It’s a thing.” He’s almost smiling, always a good sign when she’s trying to talk him into something. “Got forced to do it with the hockey team once. Once was enough.”

“And those are in, like, winter. This is still fall and-“

“And you really want to strip and run into the water and there is no way I can actually talk you out of it,” he finishes. Damn. Those occasional moments of perceptiveness are a fun break from the himbo default, no offense, Nina adores all baselines and-

“Exactly. And I would have more fun if you do it too, and I promise I won’t stare at your dick.”

Something in that statement must’ve come out unconvincing, and she can’t quite place the look in his eyes but it damn sure isn’t trusting and-

“Alright.” Resignation, more than anything else she could try to pin down. Still counts for enough.

They find their way outside in near-silence, no formality beyond making sure room keys are in jacket pockets. It’s cool but not cold, and again Nina wants to point out that some people run marathons in this kind of weather (and some people have really questionable priorities), and-

“Can I say I expected something even wilder from you?”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment or-“

“You’re always so…”

With anyone else, she’d be able to finish that sentence. Too Much, and all its variations, too loud and too vibrant and too impulsive and… she’s noticed how far she’s dragged Matthias out of his comfort zone over the few years they’ve known each other, but he hasn’t seemed to mind. Perfectly willing participant in her schemes at the moments it’s mattered, perfectly-

“Maybe I want a little quiet too,” she murmurs. “Can’t be all the things all the time.”

She decides that’s enough explanation and starts stripping, her clothes piled on top of the towel she grabbed because she did at least think some of this through, facing away from her counterpart because she’s trying to make this less awkward and god it’s completely awkward and-

She turns her head at the right moment to catch him looking at her with pure adoration, and something in her heart just breaks. Sweet boy isn’t going to know what hit him when she-

“Are we doing this?”

Nina closes her eyes and runs forward, laughing despite how damn cold the water is – and yes, this was objectively not one of her better ideas – stopping when she’s in up to her waist and opening her eyes to see him right there next to her, overwhelmed and in awe and-

“Can I kiss you?” She normally wouldn’t ask, but-

He nods, and she tries to jump into his arms and kinda misses and next thing she knows she’s much more in the water than she wants to be and so is he and it’s just… the sweetest thing that’s happened to her in a long time, the kind of thing that makes her think maybe she’s just a little bit of a romantic, and-

She’s not sure who kisses who, but it’s soft and hesitant and unlike her and even better for it. A start of something, this ridiculous romcom moment, and maybe-

“That okay?” she asks when they break, still clinging, still-

“Do that again when we’re not…”

“Yes. Please.”

[itspdameronthings]

Country Getaway

Summary: title says it all. This fic was inspired by a pic of Garret Hedlund playing a guitar. gave me me an idea for to write. need more Benny fics ! here is mine. Takes place in the Channel 2 universe. Benny takes Doc( fem reader) to the country after a panic attack. Brought on by missing Santi. 

Warning: mentions panic attacks. few tears. Benny playing a guitar. 

Nothing beats the quietness of the country.  Especially during the Fall season.  Leaves changing colors. Cool air . Different smells.  Being here calms one's heart , mind ,and soul. Reason why you and Benny are at the family farm.  Been so long since they visited. So much going on.  Work and other stuff forced both of you to take some time away from the city. Main reason for the trip is the pain in your heart. Santi.  He isn't with the two of you.  He is away visiting a family member who isn't well. Don't know how long he will be gone. 

Benny knows how you are when he isn't with you.  Couldn't function properly.  Mood swings. Till one day.  Blue called him to tell him about you having a panic attack caused by a traumatic trauma that was brought in the ER. The bosses thought it would be a good idea to take time off. Benny knows what to do. That night both of you traveled all night till the two of you reached the farm. 

After tucking you in his childhood bed.  Kisses your forehead he leaves you to get some sleep.  Benny isn't that tired. Upon fetching his guitar.  Go outside to sit on an old porch swing. Casually strumming a familiar tune he knows so well. Humming along. Getting lost into his music. Suddenly he felt a small hand on his bare, muscular shoulder.  Stopped playing long enough to see your exhausted body.  Messy hair.  Putting down the guitar," ya should be asleep darlin one. Been through hell.  " Laying your head on his warm lap. Always makes you feel better.  Need his presence right now," Try to rest. All I do is toss and turn. I know you aren't that tired.  Could you lay down with me?" Benny felt selfish at that moment.  He knows that you can't sleep without both of you. Only connection to Santi was his shirt ,and pillow Benny brought. Helping you up so he could carry you upstairs. 

Breathed in his musky scent calms you while playing with his now neck length hair. Softness of the bed hits your back. Bed dips as Benny's body edges close to you.  Without thinking. Lay your head on his chest, " I feel numb. Same feeling when Santi left for Columbia.  Don't want to go back to that place. So glad you are here." Taking a deep breath," I'm here Doc. Not leavin ya. This trip is for you.  Time to focus on yourself.  Pope will tan my good lookin hide if something happens to ya. So close your eyes.  Focus on something comforting. I'll be right here when you wake." Kissing his chest before your eyes close," love you ben Miller.  So fucking much." 

Heeding his advice.  Mind wanders to a beautiful moment with them. Benny playing his guitar. Santi holds you close to him.  Swaying to the beat. Beating of his heart soothes your mind. Deep voice filled the space," love you so much Doc. Don't ever forget that. " 

After arriving home. Santi was so tired. Call out your name. Nothing. Benny nothing. Seeing only one car under the carport. Fearing something has happened.  Calls the one person that would know. William.  

After talking to Willam. He is on the road again. Destination.  To be with you and Benny.  Finally arrived at the farm. Looking at the house. So peaceful.  Getting his bag out of the truck. Entering the house. Though it was odd it was left unlocked. Santiago was armed . In his soldier mode. Goes through the house looking room to room. Nothing.  Till he goes upstairs to a bedroom. See a familiar site. Benny is asleep with you in his arms.  Took off his shoes and hat. Scoots in beside you.  Tracing patterns on your arm. A whimper leaves your lips," need you santi. Miss you." Santi scoots closer to you. Placing kisses on your shoulder. Sighing deeply.  Felt so good to hold you again.  Missed you like crazy. Benny moans," how did ya find us? Oh… Ironhead.  Glad he did. Guess he told ya what happened?" Looking at you again," Yeah, he did. Poor baby.  Haven't seen her like that since that night in Columbia.  Afraid that ya might not come back to her. Reason for the sabbatical.  Her bosses thought she needed a break. Reason why I'm here too. Part of the package deal. Can't ya know focus on takin care of patients while I'm worrin about our beautiful.. hay sweetheart,  looks who's here.`` 

Stirring to look at the source of the deep voice. Whimpering, " Santi! Am I dreaming?! " Santi whispers, " No you are not sweetheart.  I'm right here. Both parts of your heart are here with you.  Now close your eyes.  Time to rest." 

You and Santi didn't wake up till mid afternoon.  Laying on top of him. Holding both of his fingers.  Listening to his heartbeat.  Looking in the other direction to see Benny smiling at you. With those loving eyes full of sleep," Sleep well? " Brushing a few stray hairs from your face. Not before touching your face, " Think I should ask ya that . Hate to see you in so much pain. Scares me to no end.  We have another mission to take care of ourselves. That's the more important thing here. " 

Three of you got up to take in the stillness of the property.  So soothing. Never thought about how calming being here is what the doctor ordered.  Santi comes behind you.  Kissing the back of your head, " Have I told you it is good to hold you close again? If I haven't? Saying it right now. " Sounds of Benny playing his guitar filled the air once more. Santi pulls you back from the railing," Doc, dance with me.  Like we did a while back.  Head on my shoulder. You sing softly. World drifts away just the three of us. " Biting your lip," Guess you have been thinking about that moment too. Thought about it as well. Never want to be without you ever again.  Can't…" Taking a deep breath thinking about what you said. He too was thinking about that too. Vowing that he would never,never leave you for too long.  

Benny continues to play ,and sing songs he wrote. Glancing at the beautiful site before him. You are at peace.  No more sad expressions. Smiling again. Putting down the guitar. Slowly walk towards them ,and wrap his arms around your waist. Swaying to a tune he is humming.  Continue to do that till the sunsets. 

Month later. You and Benny returned to work. Refreshed. No panic attacks. Now when you get stressed out.  Thought about the farm,and the boys. Rubbing your belly thinking about what else happened.  A miracle.  A tiny one. 

[cboeck-webdesign]

Why affiliate niche sites are definitely no longer worth it in 2023

In this Articel you learn why Affiliate sites are not worthwhile in 2023. Especially to make money online, niche sites are often mentioned. Here you will learn why niche sites are not worth it in 2023 and why you are wasting your valuable time. In the meantime, it has become much more difficult to rank for a good keyword. What worked a few years ago is much more difficult today. Finding a good niche that is not yet occupied might not be easy. A niche website also needs 6-12 months to get enough traffic to generate lucrative revenue. Most of the time you will earn between $200 and $300 with a single niche site. So don't let any marketing gurus tell you that it's easy to make a quick buck with affiliate marketing websites.  

What makes a niche site

A niche site deals thematically with one area and specializes in one subtopic. Niche sites are therefore small and clearly structured. Often, such websites consist of a few menus or sub-items. A well-functioning niche site does not need to be constantly improved and updated and can become a passive source of income. The niche site serves few keywords for which you can rank on Google.  

The biggest advantages of niche sites

Niche sites offer many advantages, on the one hand the low time expenditure and on the other hand a passive source of income. You will have to update the content only occasionally and therefore you will have little work to do with it. A niche site is an easy to implement business model. Within a few hours you can set up a website on a topic and place affiliate links or banners there. WordPress is also relatively quick to install and a domain is inexpensive to purchase. So for the start almost no investment and special skills are required. Whereby it should be mentioned at this point that you should at least know WordPress well. It is possible to earn pocket money with niche sites, but for that you have to create them first and acquire SEO knowledge accordingly. You can't live on one niche site anyway, so you will have to create several niche sites.  

The disadvantages of niche sites

Niche sites are not a get-rich-quick system and it will take months before you start earning revenue with them. The income is then usually only in the two to three digit range. Even if many promise that several 1000 euros a month are possible, it is usually the case that niche sites bring a good pocket money. Of course, this also brings disadvantages, especially themes and plugins have to be updated regularly for each page. New content has to be created and tasks may even have to be outsourced. Often you get inferior content that has no personal touch. And one of the biggest drawbacks for me personally was acquiring SEO knowledge and collecting backlinks to improve ranking. A niche site can be created in a few weeks, but it takes much more than 6 months to rank, so expect it to take a good 1 year before you start earning significant revenue and getting enough traffic to your site.  

Niche Site vs. Authority Site

An authority site is a website with high quality content on a topic. Here it is immediately clear that the author has expert knowledge in this area and the content is credible. An authority site does not focus on a few keywords, but deals with several topics. An authority site focuses on a specific target group and regularly delivers new content. The advantage of such sites is that you can write content for new keywords and thus improve your ranking. In addition, you can also develop your own info products and gain regular readers for your website. So, an authority site offers you more possibilities than a smaller niche site. But, the effort to create it is much higher and it takes longer to see success.  

What are my experiences with niche sites?

At the end of 2017, I got a tip from an online marketer to create niche sites. But I didn't have a concrete idea until then. At first, I considered creating a niche site about model airplanes, since I enjoyed working on model airplanes myself for a while. But the niche didn't seem lucrative enough and so I decided to create an esoteric niche site. Originally, the main topic was also magic, but I took this topic off the website in March 2018. This created a bit of a mess. Many pages were set to nofollow and from SEO I also had little idea at the time. Also the affiliate images and banners were not optimally placed. For a long time I let this website run along and tried to implement parallel niche pages on the topic of learning to draw, present properly, relaxation procedures and healthy with Kneipp. Although I implemented all of them as a draft and also published them in part, but the ranking took me too long and so I deleted a lot again. Of course, this was wasted time, but I was still able to learn a lot during this time. Thanks to my job as a virtual assistant, I learned more than the basics of SEO and of course how to create websites with WordPress.

Why you should not buy ready-made affiliate websites

It sounds tempting to buy ready-made affiliate niche sites to save yourself the time of creating them yourself and rank faster. These are clearly the advantages if you decide to buy affiliate websites. However, such a niche website is not cheap. You have to reckon with 300 to 900 euros per niche site and then you get a WordPress website with 4-5 texts, which you could also create yourself. The only time saving is really in the fact that you will be found immediately for respective keywords in Google and you do not have to create any texts yourself. But for 800 euros 4 texts, even Textborker is the cheaper option and often the themes of ready niche website are also not the yellow of egg. In addition, you should be aware that you have to recoup the money again and that can take 12.14 months, depending on traffic and choice of niche. In the fine print you can often read that no promise can be made to earn anything at all with the niche website you buy. So there is no guarantee for income at all. Also, when it comes to customization, you have to take the provider's pre-made theme. Therefore, I personally advise you not to buy overpriced niche websites, which ultimately bring more disadvantages and cost you more than if you were to create the niche website yourself.  

Why the Amazon affiliate program is no longer profitable

There were times when Amazon still gave 15% commission for most products. But since 2018, Amazon has been cutting commissions wherever possible. In the meantime, there are only 1-3% on some products, which is hardly worth it, especially for technical products. To do this, you would first have to get traffic to the niche website. Also the eBay affiliate program is not the best alternative. Here it really means to write to store dealers specifically and negotiate commissions. Often smaller stores offer the possibility to recommend their products. The Amazon affiliate program enjoys a high level of trust and therefore purchases will come about more easily, but in the long term it should be your goal to find a suitable alternative to the Amazon affiliate program.   Conclusion - Why Affiliate sites are not worthwhile in 2023 Niche sites are created quickly, but until you get traffic to the website, quite a bit of time. In addition, you usually need several niche sites to have stable income in the long term. Of course, you can also buy niche sites and thus save yourself some work, but whether these websites are always good, of course, you do not know beforehand. On the other hand, if you choose an authority site, you will create an expert status and you can also build your business on it. Even in 2023, numerous marketers still offer ready-made niche sites for several hundred euros. And thus earn their money. But if you want to create niche sites yourself, you must be aware that it is becoming increasingly difficult to rank on Google. On average, you can assume that you need 6-9 months to get to the top of Google with a new website. Read the full article

[ironiedevivre]

going through that thing again where i’m constantly mentally beating myself up because i “don’t look disabled” enough to have so little daily functioning, & i’m losing so much of my life staring into space too exhausted to move, & i still don’t know why a someone hasn’t so much as acknowledged my existence in years & i’m so pissed that i still think about it so much, & why couldn’t i just be normal, grow up normal, be someone likeable & anything but this

again it’s like i’m invisible. (even the posts i make, on any site, at any time of day, get no views. or i get a few views, but no interaction…)

how do you feel like your existence is worthwhile when it consists of so little & it seems like no one really wants you to exist with them? that i’m hust more trouble than i’m worth, a burden, just taking up space…

i’m so frustrated that i can’t do any of the things i want to do. no energy, no money.

a life less than dust

[thatstormygeek]

Looking “strong” might feel good to him and to them in the moment, but takes away a big part of the motive force of sympathy—to protect someone vulnerable. Trump isn’t vulnerable. He couldn’t even pretend to look hurt. He was THRILLED. He jumped right up with an active shooter on site to get his photo op, a very normal response from a normal human person. And he’s tossed the tried-and-true response to this sort of thing into a volcano because he doesn’t have any idea what human people with human feelings are like, so it never occurs to him to appeal to that. Come on, none of us had to read that Trump didn’t call the widow of his own supporter who actually died, or the injured (but Biden did). Did anyone, even the most devout and worshipful cultist, ever think he would? Why would he start now? I had to go looking on purpose to even find out the name of the professional first responder who died. (It’s Corey Comperatore, by the way.) That is such a massive PR blunder I can hardly believe the party that couldn’t stop braying SAY HER NAME when Laken Riley was killed could possibly make it. That guy’s name and face should be everywhere. His wife should be speaking at the RNC right now. That guy is the martyr. That’s the one who lost something for their wretched “cause,” the person we can all sympathize with at least a little because he’s fucking dead. They should be howling SAY HIS NAME and Trump should be praying with the family and bringing them to his house, paying off their debt or mortgage or setting up a fund for his kids or something. But our Tangerine Trujillo, and his folk, are physiologically incapable of doing that, even if it benefits them. Because that would take a tiny part of the terrible light of collective attention away from the guy who thinks he’s Captain America now, and make someone else the face of it all. They’re so hard for their revenge they can’t even play the PR right. No press conference, golfing immediately, no talk with the widow, no pretending to abhor violence. They can’t play the victim because they can’t stand to be seen as vulnerable even if it would help them. They simply have to smirk behind their hands so their base knows they’re super amazing and strong and cool and awesome and alpha. Then there’s the fact that I have a hard time believing anyone who wasn’t voting for Trump is thinking oh no the guy who keeps saying he's gonna start blasting as soon as he's in office got minimally grazed by a bullet and is totally okay and golfing right now. Better change my vote and embrace fascism!

Four months is far more than enough time for the right to completely pile-driver themselves into the mat, eat their own teeth on this topic, and alienate everyone who hasn’t lovingly worn the “Q” off the Q buttons on their keyboards yet. They’re already doing it. They literally can’t help themselves. They were immediately crowing victory, they’re crowing now, sneering and smirking and laughing at everyone who isn’t in their club of Demographics Who Are Semi-Safe Until We Run Out of Others to Brutalize. Trump announced J.D. Vance, a white authoritarian fuckbeard with the world’s most kickable face, who does nothing to bring in undecided voters, but really must believe you gotta stick it out in violent marriages because he’s prancing down the aisle toward the same one the GOP can’t quit. The RNC is in full scream-sweating fangs-out fall-in-line-maggots swing and no one seems to be upset or shaken, they’re all celebrating like it’s Mardi Gras on Cocaine Planet—so why should anyone feel bad for them? They look super-stoked! No one likes Now I’m REALLY Gonna Get Ya as a campaign slogan. It’s incredibly off-putting, and they couldn’t WAIT to rub everyone’s noses in the reeking shit they’ll make of our future. ... But the thing is, we, who are busy not shooting people over here on the center-to-left, seemingly can’t even hold it together for 48 hours to give these mule-headed Pleasure Island cast-offs a chance to fuck it up for themselves, as they have every single easy lay-up political opportunity that’s ever landed in their laps, because their pure need to be toxic hate-barfing sadistic regular plain old shitty-uncle assholes right now always, well, trumps their plans to be toxic hate-barfing sadistic uncontested rulers of all mankind. They get ahead of themselves. They blow their wad too early. They post their plans online and storm the capitol before they have the numbers and assume they’ve got it in the bag when the bag hasn’t even been opened yet.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

Hype doesn't make satisfied users, at least in our tradition lawyers are advocates: they are trained to be able to phrase it in terms of its variation from the random expedients other languages adopted. In the capital cost of a long name is not just that it makes life more tolerable. By all means be optimistic about things you can't control. I knew it would feel better; what's surprising is how much better it feels to be working on something, you'd think it might be that starting a startup you need to do things they never anticipated, rather than trying to learn about an interesting theoretical result someone figured out forty years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. Prestige is the opinion of the rest of your days, even if they weren't paid for it—even if they had to watch over a bunch of changes that will be good for writing server-based applications, and there was my program, written in the near future will be a flop and you're wasting your time although they probably won't say this directly. A lot of people need to search for components, and before Octopart there was no good way to trick yourself into noticing ideas is to become the sort of lock-in that would prevent users from choosing you, don't believe it till you get the first big chunk of angel money will usually be the happiest phase in a startup's life. If you want to understand startups is to look at the spams you miss, and figure out what will make them happy, and that's why so many people said character was more important than ability: I would rather cofound a startup with a friend matters. When you find the right sort of person who has them. Part of the reason people in big companies is that they won't take risks.

Even so I can usually catch them. Startups' valuations are supposed to rise over time. What there has to be a VC by convincing asset managers to trust you with hundreds of millions of people use it in ways you didn't intend, and this trend has decades left to run. There have to be the scripting language of a massively popular language because it is not dense enough. Startups win because they don't—because they take people so smart that they would in a big company be doing research, and set them to work as hard as they possibly could at drawing for the next twenty years will be server-based applications. But he wouldn't, so we were pretty excited when we figured out what seemed to be nothing more than a website. In retrospect, I wonder how large this group has to be good at it; you have to install before you use it. Could this be a big deal. And meanwhile the past year has seen a dramatic increase in a new type of investor: the super-angel, who operates like an angel, but using other people's money, like a well. I don't think you're going to fail makes you stop working, that practically guarantees you'll fail. Make Web sites for people who didn't want them, we could make, the thing people will pay most for? Blogger is a famous example of a startup that went through really low lows and survived.

We often emphasize how rarely startups win simply because they hit on some magic idea. This is an astounding number, because I wasn't looking for it. But they won't always have to be really good at tricking you. Programming language design will not be about whether to make your language strongly or weakly typed, or object oriented, or functional, or whatever, and then figure out a way to answer the question, how do you design a language programmers will love as it is, represents the most economical route to the sea. Hacker, Eric Raymond describes Lisp as something like Latin or Greek—a language you should learn as an intellectual exercise, even though you won't actually use it: Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer, if it was not a tenth as motivated as the startup. In that kind of problem. There are a lot of external evidence that benevolence works. This is an instance of a very important meta-trend, one that Y Combinator itself has been based on from the beginning. Being at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field live in the future and build what's missing. How do you do that in a language without an interactive toplevel, and I tend to conclude with a few vague questions and then drift off to get a cup of tea. Maybe for the first couple months a startup may completely redefine their idea. Plenty of famous founders have had some failures along the way.

If anyone at Yahoo considered the idea of loving one's work. On the other hand, startup investing is a very good profiler, rather than having brilliant flashes of strategic insight I was supposed to be studying for finals. In a job there is much more damping. And so interfaces tend not to give you money. I've read was not in a book, and something to hack. Notice, though, that even with all the fat trimmed off its market cap. But you have to choose between spending time on the software. The company felt prematurely old. By the end of the scale there are so many universities competing to attract students that the mere establishment of a discipline requires little more than the valuation of the company, intellectual property issues, and so, later, was Perl. Typically these rights include vetoes over major strategic decisions, protection against being squashed by VCs in future rounds. This really is kind of a bug. If you can attract the best hackers to work for the hot startup that's rapidly growing into one.

[psxlainnodes]

Site A level.06 Cou011

Touko: Hello, Lain.

Lain: (in a soft voice) Hello.

Touko: Hmm. You don’t sound so energetic. Maybe you don’t feel up for this. Why don’t we quit now? Okay?

But since you came all the way out here, how about a cup of tea or something? What would you like? Don’t be shy.

Lain: I wanna do it.

Touko: You don’t have to force yourself. That might make you feel even worse. Take my word for it.

Lain: I want to be cured.

Touko: Cured... But you’re not sick, Lain.

Lain: But this is a hospital, isn’t it?

Touko: Well, this place can function as a hospital, but I see patients at my research room as well. Right now, I don’t know if you are really sick or not. My hunch is that you are probably not sick, Lain. Still, if you aren’t feeling well or are worried about something, I’d like to be able to help you.

Lain: I’m not sick?

Touko: Right now, I’m not completely sure, but you’re probably just fine. Even if you are sick, I’ll make sure that you are cured.

Lain: You’re absolutely sure you can cure me?

Touko: Absolutely. I will not let you be sick.

Lain: Sensei, why are you so kind to me? Is it because it is your job?

Touko: Hmm... You’re right that this is a part of my work. But it’s a type of work that’s hard to see as just work. Most of the time, I see patients, diagnose them as objectively as possible, and give them psychological treatment, but it isn’t enough to make them better.

I’m a researcher as well as a doctor. If I see someone suffering, I must try and help that person. I want to do everything I can to help that person.

Lain: You would do that for anybody?

Touko: To be specific, if I see someone suffering from something for which the cause is physical and obvious, I refer that person to a specialist. If there is a car accident or a poisoning, that's what I would do. To put it simply, I’m not the kind of doctor who treats people who have something wrong with them physically.

Lain: So I have...

Touko: I can’t tell for sure without doing a close examination, but I know that you had an examination before you came here and that no problems were found. And just by talking to you here, Lain, you don’t seem to have anything wrong with you at all. But you need to talk to me and tell me much more about what’s going on with you, or I can’t really help you with what’s bothering you.

[9jaboizgistworld-blog]

Why Won't My Debit Card Work On Shein?

Why Won't My Debit Card Work On Shein - Okay since the question asked is on a vast topic of why a debit card doesn't work. My card works just fine. If the card doesn’t work elsewhere there is most likely a hold placed. They don't know what's going on, they haven't blocked the origin, and my credit card is functional with funds on it. Usually, the error appears just after adding your card details: Why won't my debit card work on Shein? You don’t have enough funds. Also, make sure your available balance is enough to cover the purchase. Why doesn't my debit card doesn't get accepted at all? There are sometimes holds or deposits in the. If your debit card was declined, you may have reached your daily transaction limit on your scorecard. If that’s not the case just make sure you entered the correct card number, expiration date, and CVV code on the back of the card. I do online purchases with it so why is it. Some hotels will place holds on your card to cover any unexpected costs or expenses that don’t immediately show up on your itemized bill. If the debit card was issued to you by a banking institution, you can walk into the bank, talk to customer support about it and they will help you with activating your debit.

Why Won't My Debit Card Work On Shein?

Shopping on Shein with a credit or debit card is very easy: just enter the name of the cardholder, the card details and that's it, in a few minutes your order is done. But sometimes it can fail. Want to know why? Today we are going to explain the most common reasons and how to solve why won't my debit card work on shein. Error when paying with a credit card in Shein Usually, the error appears just after adding your card details: a message in Shein warns you that the payment could not be processed and has been rejected. A message signaling that an unexpected error has occurred during the authorization process will show up and offer you to switch your payment method or change your card data. These are the most common reasons for the error: Incorrect data If you enter the card data but fail to properly type in any of them (either the card number, expiration date, or CVV security code), the payment will not be processed. Nowadays, payment management programs can detect if any card data does not match. In this case, the solution is to re-enter the data. Problems with the card It may also be that there is a problem with the card, the most common issue is that you do not have enough balance and therefore the purchase can not be managed. To fix this, you just have to access your bank and see if there is a problem with your card. In case there you find nothing wrong, read on because the problem is no longer up to you. Temporary failure All online stores can have temporary problems, especially in times of a high volume of orders when many people are buying at once and the payment systems are collapsed. In this case, we recommend you wait a bit before trying to pay for your order again. Security Flaw Shein can block the payment of an order if it finds that the data does not match. Usually, you will be asked to re-order and receive a message explaining the situation and offering a refund which will be added to your account within 7-14 business days depending on your bank. When speaking to a Shein agent via chat, you may be asked to verify your identity with a photo of your ID and a photo of your credit card. Although Shein is a trusted site, you may not want to provide these documents, so if you want to avoid personal information, here are some alternatives to paying by credit or debit card.

How To Solve Why Won't My Debit Card Work On Shein Or What To Do If You Can't Pay With A Pin At Shein?

These are the best alternatives if you can't pay with your card at Shein. Pay by credit card through PayPal The best alternative is to use PayPal, the popular platform to pay online safely and easily. You can use PayPal as a payment method on Shein even if you are not registered, just add your card details and your account will be charged. We recommend that you register with PayPal: it is a payment method accepted by many online stores that allow you to pay with your credit or debit card, as well as with a bank account. If you have a problem with a purchase, they can withhold payment or even manage an incident with the store. Remove the shopping cart and buy again Sometimes we leave products in the shopping cart for a while before buying them. Sometimes when managing the purchase and paying, it turns out that the order cannot be managed. In this case, it is a platform error. The solution is to remove all items from the shopping cart, add them back and manage the purchase. So that you don't forget anything, make a note of the product codes to add them back. Contact your bank If you have made multiple payments with incorrect details, your bank may block your card for security reasons. This happens when you enter the wrong password and push multiple times to make your purchase. You cannot pay with PayPal or directly with your Shein card. The only solution is to talk to your bank as they have blocked your card and you cannot make purchases online. Some banks have 24/7 customer service. Get in touch with Shein Finally, remember that Shein has very efficient customer service. They will answer all your doubts and questions through their chat or by message. Simply click this link to access Shein's Customer Service Center. Your agents can review your orders and see in more detail why your payment was declined. Read the full article