#all my original posts are but sometimes I know people look for tags specifically so there it is

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! I’m working on an original character project that I want to include a lot of casual representation in (“casual” meaning that the characters don’t need a justification for being disabled/fat/POC/etc, they just are because people can and do exist that way in reality!)

I was wondering if you had any suggestions for finding resources for drawing facial differences(and maybe other visible disabilities), especially in a cartoony style. I’ve looked through the Facial Equality Week tag but would like to see more examples, and since my art is so… goofy, for lack of a better word, I would love any help I can get in integrating differences without being offensive or upsetting.

Sorry if this is a bother, and thank you for all that you do!

Hi!

I'm not aware of any guides for drawing facial differences specifically (or at least, good ones. There's 1 billion tutorials telling you that scars are just a Singular Line, always, but that's not... correct), but perhaps someone in the notes could help out?

For my own advice, you could check out this old post I made. Because you mentioned your art being cartoony, I would specifically urge you to not overexaggerate facial differences the way they often are. Prime example would be how a lot of cartoons portray strabismus;

It's just a funny gag to them rather than, IDK, how some of us look like. Not to mention that one of these is also a mockery of intellectually/developmentally disabled people with "Derp" in the name, but that's beside the point here.

It's the whole "the character is crazy/stupid/wild/whatever and that's why they have it" that's the problem with how it's often shown. You can also see it in how characters who don't even normally have it will be shown with it for a scene where they're saying something nonsensical, etc.

Another example that's nowhere near as rampant is the like... split-face thing with various facial differences being used. Mostly vitiligo but sometimes also facial palsy. I'm talking about this weirdly perfectly halved face that looks extremely different on each side, often used to signal that a character is two-faced or that the author doesn't know how vitiligo looks like.

[note: vitiligo also shows up on lighter skin. I wanted to make sure it's visible here for tutorial clarity purposes.]

This one is just weird because it straight up doesn't look like that? I have no idea where it came from, but it should go back there. Facial palsy doesn't make someone look like the antique comedy/tragedy theater mask.

Unless I'm forgetting some other annoying cartoon trope, these would be the big ones that you should stay away from.

Outside of that, it's really on a case by case basis on how a specific FD should be drawn because they're so different! A birthmark can just be a differently colored patch of skin, but a craniofacial difference would require some more changes to be included. Alopecia is well, lack of hair, and can be done very easily but ectrodactyly can be more complicated to show properly because of the limitations of a cartoony artstyle when it comes to hands. And while I do think it would be great to see more of those facial differences that tend to not be included in art at all, there's nothing wrong with deciding to go for the things you can represent more faithfully, especially if you're just starting.

I will say that if you're making an honest attempt at being respectful and trying to get it right, most of us will still be excited to see your work. Even if it's not perfect or has some inaccuracies. I will take a "'yeah more or less' correct with a happy, human character" over a "Very Technically correct but tagged as #tw burns and with blood splattered on them" any day.

Lastly, I wanted to share some art featuring characters with facial differences (and other visible disabilities) that are done in a cartoony, or at least somewhat simplistic artstyles (I'm using both terms very widely here, but like. Not Realism) - maybe it will give you some ideas!

Man with Treacher Collins syndrome (also one of the first pieces online where I saw a character with an FD portrayed in such a lovely way! A fav of mine) Girl with Pfeiffer syndrome Too many characters to count! Woman with burns Woman with a limb difference Multiple characters again Animation featuring people with Down syndrome [youtube] Multiple characters, including a girl with neurofibromatosis, a burn survivor, a girl with a cleft lip and another with TCS! [twitter]

If you have a more specific art question ("how do I draw a person with XYZ facial difference?") you can send me an ask on @saszor! I prefer to stick to the writing theme on this blog but would still like to help if you need it:-)

Hope this helps!

mod Sasza

Edit: apologies for the lack of alt text on one of the images, it has been fixed!

[v-anrouge]

Verryyy long ranting under this about vil and how this fandom treats him for absolutely no reason pls excuse any mistakes and feel free to correct me with any accidental misinfo i passed <3

Mentions of racism, fatphobia, eating disorders, elitism & ableism and also SPOILERS for Vil's character story (eng only)

Ever since this game started getting super famous in tiktok and twitter it seems that people just love to butcher literally every character in Twst and sometimes it's genuinely baffling how wrong some of the takes are, it really does make me wonder if some people just don't read the story and just skip every character who isn't their fave, and if they really do that, what makes them think they know enough about the rest of the cast to post in the character's main tag the most rancid read on a character, often accompanied by some accusations of literal crimes of bigotry that really should be taken more seriously instead of being terms thrown around.

I'm gonna be talking about Vil specifically but characters like Leona, Jamil, Sebek and a few others have it exceptionally bad as well (especially Leo and Jamil who's haters can even be quite racist)

I've been playing for a very long time (in eng) i remember being there to watch the Heartslabyul final release and the release of Savanaclaw's chapter and through these years ive seen the most horrific takes on Vil's characters, ranging from the accusations of racism (which have been debunked again and again especially by JP players) to accusations of supporting eds, fatphobia, elitism and ableism. The funny thing is that even with a very quick read of any of Vil's story you'll find out there is no support for any of such claims. They like to use the incident with Epel's accent when for years JP players have pointed out how this was strictly an error of localization since they couldn't find a situation similar to the one that is portrayed in the original game to put in eng twst, they went with the one we have where Vil asks Epel to "hide his accent" (he really doesn't he was talking about the way Epel is rude and disrespectful which would definitely end with him being beat up and then expelled bringing a bad fame to Pomefiore and also making Vil look bad for not properly guiding his dorm students) which is a terrible choice but alas it seems people prefer to ignore facts to stick with their claim that Vil is some sort of monster when this man is literally a teen. He's 18 years old and has to constantly look out for his image in and out of school since he grew up in front of the cameras.

Vil's character is all about beauty and self care and self acceptance yet for some people this seems to translate to "starve yourself if you don't want to be a disgusting fat pig" which is very weird to say the least considering all mentions Vil makes about diets he is talking about keeping a balanced diet to nurture your body and even has a voice line pointing out the importance of eating. Vil himself may be coded to have an ED in his overblot and Lab vignette but he has never and would never encourage one, he literally goes out of his way to annoy students to take care of themselves what makes anyone think he'd encourage them anyways? It's such a weird thing to assume of a character.

A lot of people seem to think that Vil is also the "beauty standart" king which doesn't even make sense considering vil is a gnc man, he already doesn't follow beauty standards and would definitely be against it, Vil's vision of beauty for himself may be twisted due to his traumas and troubles yet his vision of beauty for others is always exclusively on the person being their best version, this includes dressing how they want to and feel comfortable in, using whatever makeup they want (or just not using it at all) etc.

The way Vil speaks is often misunderstood as he tends to be strict and can be read as mean (I've already shared my theory on what may have caused this behavior here before so i won't be getting into too many details) but Vil is a famous and respected housewarden because if you actually stop and think about his advice the end result is always an effort to make the person's desires come true. (a good example is how Vil made Epel clean the windows and although Epel was displeased with the hard labor in the end he notices how the task may help with muscle growth and gets happy)

Vil's way of caring for others is often misunderstood and obviously that's understandable, not everybody may get his "rougher" way of handling advice, but also it's a bit weird how people react to it when in game all of the characters seem to be okay with it, Pomefiore has a lot of students and if they considered Vil to be a bad leader he would've been voted out a long time ago, no? And if i remember correctly wasn't it said in game they had very few transfers? (as in characters moving out of Pomefiore and into other dorms) That wouldn't make sense if Vil was really the cruel leader some people make him out to be. The truth is Vil is a nice caring person and his students recognize that which is why he is respected all across the school and not simply on his dorm (because ive seen people say Vil has brainwashed the Pomefiore students into thinking he is a good housewarden 💀)

Vil surely has issues he needs to work through, after all this game is literally about that, dealing with troubled teenagers and their internal struggles and the importance of asking for help (omg friendship is magic...) but Vil is also a teenager, and he is one of the characters that show the most desire to get better, immediately showing regret and apologizing to Yuu and his classmates for the danger he put them in, that is because Vil genuinely does care for them.

Another accusation people make is ableism, i remember seeing many posts saying Vil wouldn't respect disabled people and/or mentally ill people which is 1- extremely fucking rude to say? 2- absolutely wrong. Again just a quick read on Vil's character will tell you everything you need to know about how he'd feel about disabled people, he'd treat them like everyone else, and would adjust his handling accordingly to their needs, i really don't get where this claim comes from but it's quite ironic because a lot of Vil haters tend to be ableist themselves by claiming that Vil is a bad person mentioning traits that are often caused by mental illness and the effect of traumas, failing to analyze how their treatment of a character that displays common mental illness symptoms may affect people in real life who displays the same symptoms, and often being ableist themselves by judging these actions irredeemable and inherently evil/heartless, once again dehumanizing people with mental illness in real life who deal with the same symptoms.

Another common thing is the constant invalidation of Vil's trauma. A lot of people seem to read book 5 with their eyes closed and take away from the story that the reason Vil "got pissy and almost killed a guy" (wording of a terrible post i saw a few days ago<333) is because he's a "spoiled brat who couldn't handle getting the paper he wanted in a movie boo hoo" which is kind of funny with how terribly wrong it is, i really don't know what your thought process has to be to get his backstory this wrong but sure, let's start; The start of Vil's problems with being cast as a villain starts from when he was very very young, he was just a child when after being cast as a villain for a movie he was almost beat up by a group of boys for being an "evil guy" and by his reaction it wouldn't be impossible that this wasn't his first time dealing with that kind of thing. Vil also tells jack (who scared away the group) that he had trained so he would be able to deal with them on his own which again, could be a hint that this wasn't that uncommon in his life. In Vil's overblot dialogue is all we really need to know to debunk this claim.

What Vil wanted wasn't just to be a hero in a movie, he wanted to be seen, to be heard and cherished, he wanted to be more than a pretty prop they could put on the front to get attention only to be taken out of stage when he was no longer necessary in the next scene, do you get it? He wanted to be able to see his hard work pay off, to see his efforts of years being rewarded, to for once not be exchangeable for someone more favorable. Vil wanted to feel like all his pain was worth it in the end because finally he could shine in the stage, being himself instead of just another persona to attract people. In his overblot it's shown clearer than ever that Vil does not have a stable view of his own image unlike what he has trained himself to show, even calling himself ugly and begging them to not look at him. I don't think Vil is used to be being vulnerable, which would explain why he was so freaked out when the overblot happened, and why he cried when his beauty (the one thing about himself that was always recognized by others and therefore the thing he'd always been the most desperate to nurture) was taken away by aging in book 6 (note; the fact Vil sacrificed it for his classmates also just debunks the people saying he only cares for himself, if he did he wouldn't be who he is.)

I said i wouldn't give my thoughts again but i will, just briefly, i believe an easy explanation to Vil's behavior (the tough love he gives and his strictness) might be because of the industries he grew up in, we can't know for sure how similar twst's version of the movie and modeling industry is when compared to the real life one but considering the way Vil is, my guess it's that it's pretty similar, especially in the regard of their treatment towards children, in Vil's overblot he hears two staff members talking about how he'd never be able to pull off a relatable role because he is too perfect, and sure those may not look like insults, but to Vil who's only dream his entire life was to be seen in good light, those words stuck to him so deeply they'd come back to him during his overblot. (note; i have not seen a jp translation of the overblot scenes so i don't know if they also suffered from localization issues, if anyone has a link to one i could see id really like to see what the staff said to Vil)

The general point of Vil's overblot was how his efforts and hard work were always overlooked and ignored in favor of someone else, this happens with quite a lot of characters and happens as well with another overblot (Leona, who happens to be quite similar to Vil in many ways) and although i don't expect anyone to read it and think of analysing it more deeply even with a shallow vision of his overblot it's still incredibly insensitive to call it a "non-problem" especially considering the fact this is Vil's ENTIRE life, he's been working hard and failing for years again and again and that does get to you. I remember when i posted my first rant on Vil quite a lot of people who reported to be skilled at something (say for example music or dancing) as a child that any failures absolutely destroyed you inside, and that people who haven't passed through the same tend to call them dramatic and say they're overreacting to situations that can be classified as trauma depending on how much it mentally impacted said child. (and in Vil's case it's clear it had a massive one, after all he wouldn't have overblotted if he didn't have issues that had been bottled up until they finally exploded)

Mentioning Leona again, he and Vil share the same sentiment of anguish for being discarded and having their hard work be thrown away, the difference in them is the way they reacted to it, while Leona ended up not seeing any value in attempting to do anything because he assumes the outcome is always going to be the same, Vil overworks himself and forces himself to do things he might hate clinging to the hope that this time it'll work out.

Since we're talking about trauma ill already answer some things that may or may not come with this post (because in my first one i got this response a lot) "Vil's a fictional character it doesn't matter" and sure if you think like that cool, personally, when im talking about a fictional character that tackles real life traumas and issues, i talk about it as if referring to a real person because the character has been written with one (or multiple) in mind.

Twst may have issues but the character writing is undeniably about real life traumas and experiences, and the characters are quite accurate and good representation of the issues they tackle, so when you invalidate them, you are by result invalidating real life issues. Of course this won't stop anyone and i know that a few people will probably scoff at this and brush it off as being too sensitive but personally if you wouldn't dare invalidate say for example Riddle's traumas because you know it's a representation of mommy issues, which is a very real problem, to not go against your own morals you should also respect the issues of all the other characters, even if you personally think some are more "serious" than the other.

[luna-loveboop]

Wait...

It's November. It's November first. Yesterday was October 31st, so October is over. ...it's over. Is it over?

Inktober, artober, whumptober, flufftober, linktober, every tag ending with -tober that's been circulating for the past month... is it over? I don't know why it's just hit me but...

This matters. So I will try to get the message across, even though I'm not the best at it sometimes

Fanartists, fan writers, artists, fic writers, people making comics, every single one of you that has created art for the past month...

Thank you

This is my first October on tumblr. When I started seeing the "tober" tags, seeing the posts from artists with wips, saying they were going to make something every day to a prompt, making masterposts to update with each day, I thought "cool"

But every day this month, I have gotten on here and smiled.

And I don't mean smiled. I mean I smiled at least 20 times every time I got on the app because I saw all the art and fics. I got to see artists/writers connect stories through different day prompts. I saw people having the most brilliant ideas and creativity, flowing from their hands into their posts. I saw artists responding to continuous asks, telling them how amazing they are. I saw artists getting behind, and keeping going.

I saw Free. Beautiful. Emotional. Amazing. Original. Creative. Art.

Every day

I haven't committed to anything of this before, so I can't directly relate to what you guys were thinking and feeling. But I'm willing to guess; I think you probably enjoyed it, because most won't do such a huge project unless they enjoy it. I think you probably saw it as a challenge you were willing to fulfill, and an opportunity to grow and develop your skills.

... but I'm also willing to bet you did it for us. For people like me, who love art, but don't do this specific type, who are in fandoms, who love tracking and watching you art and sending you compliments, who take joy in your work. For the other artists (and writers!) who admire each others styles and love to learn from each other.

If anyone ever tries to tell me that humans are inherently evil again, I will strap them to a chair, pull up these posts and say look. Look at what these people did. Look me in the eyes and tell me these sorts of actions don't come from the most loving hearts. Tell me these people don't want to make others happy, that they aren't inherently good. And I will tell you you're wrong.

I have so much going on, yet somehow it slipped into my life that I was constantly looking at your art for the joy of it without me even noticing.

And how is it possible. That we have such a beautiful community of people here that we will share. And communicate. And exchange compliments. And literally do things and send asks solely for the purpose of making someone smile.

I'm almost crying by now. God I can't express it well enough! But I am so. So. Grateful

You guys brought me a month of joy! You gave headcanons, and art, and stories!

Even yesterday, Halloween, I was blown away. Because I had expected... I didn't expect anything. And then I log on and see people sending happy halloween asks, exchanging doodles of candy, and headcanons and gifs.

And some are still catching up to the schedule or whatever, and that's ok! But at the beginning of this post, when I was simply realizing it was November, I asked myself "is it over?"

Is it over?

... I don't think so. I've seen artists say they're going to continue and expand on a piece they made and especially liked this month. Some people are still continuing, catching up to a voluntary deadline. All those masterposts with your whump/fluff/link/ink tober art? I know many as well as myself will be going through, looking over your posts with smiles, catching up on some things they missed this month... it will continue in the people and artists I didn't know existed before, but now follow. In the skills and growth in creativity! In the community we've grown, and art you've made, and the art to come, at a normal rate like every other month, even if it's not October anymore!

But my artists, writers... thank you so much. I don't know if you guys know how valuable and amazing you are. How incredible it is that you exist! People say it's amazing we exist under a sky of such stars, but how incredible is it that you made a stranger on the internet smile every day! Your life is so. So. Valuable. I can't even express how grateful I am that you exist, that you somehow are selfless enough to share the most beautiful parts of yourself simply to create, and to create joy. Thank you so so much.

(And this applies to all artists, in any fandoms, not just mine. And I'm just as grateful to people who couldn't do something every day, or only one day! You still share your art, you're just as... incredible. You are incredible.)

Okay.

So I'm gonna do this, and if others want to do it in the reblogs that's great! I do not care at all about reblogging or likes, but I want to make the people that have brought me such joy some appreciation- I hope I can bring you even a smidgen of the light you have brought into my life. So I'm gonna tag all the artists/writers I know of/can think of that have done any sort of October challenge, all of you creators that have made me smile. If people wanna want to tag others in the reblogs or replies to spread love that's cool.

(Basically I don't know social customs or anything at all, so if you don't want me to tag or if I was supposed to do something different or something let me know I have no idea what I'm supposed to do)(if I like accidentally tagged someone who isn't an artist/writer or forgot someone I follow... sorry)

@skyward-floored @kikker-oma @adrift-in-thyme @blueskittlesart @zeldaseyebrows @smilesrobotlover @bahbahhh @soso-dedeck @lennsart @arecaceae175 @illcamp @breannasfluff @solarfire-art @26kabeuchi @cathianemelian @truffeart @scribbly-z-raid @uniquevoidflowers

To all the artists and writers out there: thank you so much!!! You are amazing and I'm glad you exist. Your life is precious, and you matter. Thank you so much for sharing your beauty with us, we love you too!!!!!

... yeah. Just want yall to feel loved... because you are. Again, thank you. Thank you so so much to my beautiful creators who create joy as well as art, who keep storytelling alive. Just... thank you.

:)

[lesbianralzarek]

tumblr in reddit terms

blogs: personal subreddits where the theme/topic is 99% of the time just “me and whatever the hell i feel like at the moment”. for reference, the most common other theme rn is “wizard roleplay that never breaks character”

reblogs: crossposts. these are crucial to maintaining tumblr’s ecosystem. due to blogs generally having fewer followers than subreddits have subscribers, this is the way that posts get seen and passed around. the vast majority of posts on a person’s blog tend to be reblogs, so if the people you follow dont reblog a whole lot, your dashboard is gonna be a ghost town. post limit (combined total of reblogs and original posts per day) is 250, so feel free to go hog wild

tags: this one is complicated. theyre a combination of flairs and Comments But Low-key. you can use them for organization and to avoid seeing content you dont want to (go to your blog, settings, account settings, content you see, and then add tags you want tumblr to warn you about before seeing it). if op tags the post #reddit (in the tags, not the body of the post), itll show up in the #reddit tag when anyone searches that tag. tags are also used for comments that dont really add anything to the post. you know how a jpeg gets kinda gross when its been through a million screenshots and has ifunny watermarks and shit? thats what adding “lmao same” as a comment does to a post. comments stay on reblogs, while tags show up in 4 places: op’s notifications, the notifs of whoever you reblogged it from, when someone clicks on the “notes” button of a post and actively looks for the tags left on it, and when people view your specific reblog of the post (like a follower would on their dashboard)

likes: upvotes but weaker. almost everyone turns off all the algorithms (settings, account settings, dashboard preferences, toggle off the first 3 options. also, make sure your dashboard is on "following" and not "for you". this is highly recommended), so leaving a like doesnt boost the post in any way. they still matter to some people. you can also use them to bookmark a post and go back to your likes later

enthusiastic and/or hyperbolic tags: reddit gold. you wanna let op know you like their art? leave something like ”#printing this out and stapling it to my forehead #op you wanna get married?” in the tags

pornbots: both reddit and tumblr have an issue with them. we block and report them on sight. they usually have hot women as their icons, no posts or reblogs, and a description like “22, brazil, nurse <3″. try to not look like that if you dont wanna get blocked by everyone you follow

blocking: you have this as well, but it seems like a bigger deal on reddit. the reason we are not twitter is because we block bitches who annoy us and move on with our day. do not feed the trolls

things we dont have:

karma: clout-chasing is The Most embarrassing thing you can possibly do on this site. we are all in this circus together and the clown who gets the most laughs is still a clown. popular users will literally deactivate sometimes because clout is a burden. no one here makes money

[moghedien]

So someone is in your inbox asking for money

I'm not going to say that every single instance of this happening is a scam, but in my experience, random people following you and then sending you an ask to ask you to reblog a post or donate, they are almost always a scam.

You may feel bad about ignoring them or deleting the ask, but doing so is probably going to be the best course of action. Not only so that YOU don't lose money but so that you don't give the scammer access to you followers.

But how could you know that the person is a scam and not the one instance where someone really needs help? Let's go over some ways to check for signs of a scammer.

this is the post I got in my inbox today. I've personally never dealt with this particular version, so I didn't immediately delete. I probably wouldn't have reblogged anyway, but I wanted to look into this specifically.

The first thing to do is go on their blog. In this instance, the post they want me to reblog is pinned, and it also has a donation link. I'm NOT going to click on the link because there is no indication at all to what this might lead to and I'm going to instead hover over link and see what url pops up

in this instance, the url shows me that I'm going to be redirected to paypal. IMMEDIATELY a sign that this is a scam. people can still scam with gofundme and other sites like that, sure, but at least with those sites, there is some accountability in that you can see if the donation goal is being met or not. with paypal, you're just blindly donating, assuming that this donation amounts are what the person says they're at.

And also this is not to say that honest people can't use paypal for donations, sometimes that's the only option. But if you're going to donate to someone via paypal, you should at the very least be personally aware of who you're donating to and that they are an actual person.

But let's look deeper just in case. The next thing to do is look for other sketchy signs on the blog. So I scrolled through to see what they were blogging about otherwise, and there were red flags here.

Just glancing through the blog, I could see that they almost exclusively posted about Taylor Swift and the Mandalorian. They posted A LOT within the past day (this is why you should have times enabled btw) and exclusively from the same four or fives blogs.

But maybe they just post a lot. You can actually very easily see their posting habits by looking at their archive.

We're going to go to the three dots and click "view archive"

You can also just type in "[username].tumblr.com/archive" for any blog and access anyone's archive as long as they have a public account. But what's the point of doing that. Well, in the archive, we can get a very quick overview of someone's posting habits.

And here I've circled in red the first and last thing this blog has posted in the month of February 2024 (the month I'm writing this). You can see that both of those posts were posted on the same day. Meaning all of their posts in the entire month of February happened on the same day.

But what about posts outside of February 2024?

Well there are none

You can sort posts by month and year and doing so for this blog shows that they ONLY posted in February 2024 and ONLY one day in February and it happened to be the day before I got an ask in my inbox asking for donations.

These are the most obvious tells, but there are other signs you can look out for.

For instance, all of their posts are without any sort of tags. They never comment on anything and their only original post was their one asking for donations. If you click on the search function in their blog, nothing comes up

There's also the fact that the blog is clearly targeting at making the people who WOULD care about someone needing insulin sympathetic. The fact that they use BLM, identify as a black man, have pronouns in their bio all are on purpose to make people who might care feel like this is a person who deserves help. the scammer is using your empathy against you. DON'T LET THEM. Be smart and always always think before you act, even if that action is just posting. You can help people in need without feeding the vultures that want to take advantage and want to use YOU to steal from your community

But let's just be REALLY REALLY sure this is a scam.

On whim, I copied the text straight from the ask in my inbox and put into google and then added "tumblr' at the end. You'll be shocked to know there were immediate results and not from this blog

First one was a reblog from over a year ago. the exact same wording minus the cost of the insulin and the call to action at the end

I clicked on the original poster for this and the blog was cleared out!

Minus them using the exact same photograph in their header as the blog that sent me an ask today, of course.

The second instance I found was slightly different wording, but using similar enough wording that it can be assumed came from the same scammer. This came from another ask in an inbox, but the receiver rightly called them out as a scam. The post is from two months ago and the blog that asked it as been deleted outright

All of this to say, there are always scammers on tumblr, but there have been a lot recently. This one happened to not be posing as Palestinians in need, but a lot are (in that instance, Palestinian bloggers have been vetting who is and isn't real so you can always check to see if they're getting support or getting called out from actual Palestinians). They won't always use these methods and won't always been this obvious, so even if you don't donate to someone yourself ALWAYS be thorough in your checking before you reblog a donation post. Make sure the charity its collecting for is REAL and if its a person asking for money, make sure that person is real as well.

You can help people without getting scammed or giving scammers access to your followers, and not reblogging every donation post doesn't make you a bad person or mean you don't care. Its important to be careful, and not being careful can do more harm than good. it makes actual people in need look sketchy and takes away resources that could have been given to them. So if you aren't sure if something is real DO NOT REBLOG IT

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Ok. It's pretty clear you are more welcoming of AI, and it does have enough merits to not be given a knee jerk reaction outright.

And how the current anti-ai stealing programs could be misused.

But isn't so much of the models built on stolen art? That is one of the big thing keeping me from freely enjoying it.

The stolen art is a thing that needs to be addressed.

Though i agree that the ways that such addressing are being done in are not ideal. Counterproductive even.

I could make a quip here and be like "stolen art??? But the art is all still there, and it looks fine to me!" And that would be a salient point about the silliness of digital theft as a concept, but I know that wouldn't actually address your point because what you're actually talking about is art appropriation by generative AI models.

But the thing is that generative AI models don't really do that, either. They train on publicly posted images and derive a sort of metadata - more specifically, they build a feature space mapping out different visual concepts together with text that refers to them. This is then used at the generative stage in order to produce new images based on the denoising predictions of that abstract feature model. No output is created that hasn't gone through that multi-stage level of abstraction from the training data, and none of the original training images are directly used at all.

Due to various flaws in the process, you can sometimes get a model to output images extremely similar to particular training images, and it is also possible to get a model to pastiche a particular artist's work or style, but this is something that humans can also do and is a problem with the individual image that has been created, rather than the process in general.

Training an AI model is pretty clearly fair use, because you're not even really re-using the training images - you're deriving metadata that describes them, and using them to build new images. This is far more comparable to the process by which human artists learn concepts than the weird sort of "theft collage" that people seem to be convinced is going on. In many cases, the much larger training corpus of generative AI models means that an output will be far more abstracted from any identifiable source data (source data in fact is usually not identifiable) than a human being drawing from a reference, something we all agree is perfectly fine!

The only difference is that the AI process is happening in a computer with tangible data, and is therefore quantifiable. This seems to convince people that it is in some way more ontologically derivative than any other artistic process, because computers are assumed to be copying whereas the human brain can impart its own mystical juju of originality.

I'm a materialist and think this is very silly. The valid concerns around AI are to do with how society is unprepared for increased automation, but that's an entirely different conversation from the art theft one, and the latter actively distracts from the former. The complete refusal from some people to even engage with AI's existence out of disgust also makes it harder to solve the real problem around its implementation.

This sucks, because for a lot of people it's not really about copyright or intellectual property anyway. It's about that automation threat, and a sort of human condition anxiety about being supplanted and replaced by automation. That's a whole mess of emotions and genuine labour concerns that we need to work through and break down and resolve, but reactionary egg-throwing at all things related to machine learning is counterproductive to that, as is reading out legal mantras paraphrasing megacorps looking to expand copyright law to over shit like "art style".

I've spoken about this more elsewhere if you look at my blog's AI tag.

[peridot-tears]

Fic Writer Q & A!

Tagged by @dragongirlg-fics UwU

How many wips do you have currently?

2 for Lianhua Lou, 3 for Mo Dao Zu Shi.

Lianhua Lou

strings played against his throat, my whumpfic in which FeiHua's escape from Jiao Liqiao goes wrong, and Di Feisheng marries her to ensure the wellbeing of Li Lianhua, who becomes her concubine. Just updated uwu

My unpublished modern AU where Di Feisheng is an MMA fighter cowboy, Li Lianhua is his chiropractor, and Fang Xiaobao is the new sheriff in one of those Chinese towns they built purely for tourism. In this case, it's an Old West theme. Here's a preview.

Mo Dao Zu Shi

My Mo Dao/Percy Jackson crossover where WangXian and friends romp through Camp Half-Blood!

My Wen Xu/Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji AU where Wei Wuxian is adopted by the Wens instead of Jiang Fengmian. I swear I subvert so many jianghu tropes, this could be its own original novel, but here we are lol.

My two-part where Jin Zixuan flees to Lotus Pier and manages to alert the Jiangs in time for the Wang Lingjiao's attack. It's mostly written from Yu Ziyuan's perspective, and it's been a delight.

More Q&A below the cut!

Which one are you finding the hardest to finish?

Definitely #1 under Mo Dao. It's a huge labor of love, but I'm thinking maybe I thought too big with the plot. It could have just been a fun teenage romp, but then it turned into a drama that handles much larger themes, and the trouble is in being able to tie up all the plotlines I suddenly have.

What does it usually look like when inspiration strikes for you?

Usually when I have two days in a row off of work, so my brain has had at least 24 hours to clear out and think about fun. I go into a pleasant fugue state, meaning I'm focused, but I can occasionally take a five-minute break to chatter about it with my frens or listen to a song. (I'm answering this post while I'm working on fic btw.)

Do you curate playlists for each fic or is your process different?

Oh nah lol. I sometimes line some chill songs or ballads up in the background or like a Buzzfeed Unsolved marathon for background noise, but sometimes it has the opposite effect where I can't focus at all. So sometimes I just write in complete silence.

Do you go balls to the wall and write as you go or are you more organized?

Balls to the waaaaaaall babeeeeeee. Aside from the ones that're born from me chattering with frens. Both my Lianhua Lou fics and #2 under MDZS are from very specific and thorough chats that I screenshotted for reference.

I tag @westiec @theleakypen @kingsandbastardz @tavina-writes @heyholmesletsgo @the-wintry-mizzenmast and whoever else wants to do this, how do I know this many people lol.

[lastoneout]

New Pinned/Intro Post!

Hi, I'm Loo(or Alex), I'm a disabled queer artist and writer as well as a furry vtuber who streams four days a week on twitch(mostly Minecraft but also Soulsborne games and a variety of other stuff).

You may know me from The Tuna Post, in which several thousand of you came together to "force" me to buy damn near 30 American Dollars worth of imported fancy canned tuna to eat and review live on stream. If you're here for it, said live review can be found on twitch and on my youtube channel. TL;DR: 10/10 would recommend.

I currently can't work, so if you like what I've got going on here and want to help me out, I take donations over on my ko-fi <3 Aside from that, follows on twitch help a lot, even if you never end up watching!

(Also, I sell my twitch emotes as stickers on redbubble!)

I don't have a proper BYF, but as a heads up I'm heavily introverted and have ADHD, and between those and my disabilities eating up my energy I often take a while to respond to messages/tags/reblogs/DMs and sometimes forget entirely. This isn't anything against you, and it's something I'm working on, but just something to keep in mind if you plan on interacting with me a lot.

FAQ:

Do you take commissions?

Not at the moment, but hopefully in the future!

What do you use for art?

Wacom Intuos tablet + Clip Studio Paint on the PC, though these days I mostly use CSP on a Samsung Galaxy Tab s6 since I can use it in bed on my low spoons days.

What do you want to go to school for?

Digital Art and American Sign Language!

You talk about being sick all the time/having health problems, what's wrong with you?

Too many things to list <3 but the most notable ones are chronic migraines, hEDS, and ADHD.

Queer?

I'm ace, bisexual, bigender, and butch. I'm also polyam but currently in a very happy monogamous relationship and don't have plans to change that. My pronouns are she/they, and while I would prefer to not have people use he/him with me you are highly encouraged to use masculine forms of address(sir, guy, dude, king, man, my guy, grandpa, dad, etc.) whenever appropriate. My assigned sex/gender at birth is none of your business.

Who's Yotsuba?

Yotsuba is an adorable little gremlin and the main character of my favorite manga, Yotsuba &!, and you should go read it right now seriously it's amazing go read it go read it GO READ IT-

What's "ask to tag"?

The tumblr equivalent of "author chose not to use archive warnings", I put it on anything that seems like it could use a trigger warning but where no one has specifically asked me to tag for that trigger yet. Things I currently (try to) tag for: flashing lights/eyestrain, insects, suicide, fatphobia/diet culture/disordered eating, my hero academia, gore/body horror, current events, us politics, politics, covid, cats, and anything nsfw goes under nsft.

I can't promise to be 100% consistent with these tho, between the ADHD and the migraines I am very forgetful, so slip ups are bound to happen.

Loo? Like the bathroom??

LOO is short for LastOneOut, I'm american and forgot people call it that, you can write it as Lou or just call me Alex if it makes you feel better.

LookingForLoo?? Like looking for the bathroom??

On websites where LastOneOut is taken I'm LookingForLoo because I'm literally looking for LOO, LastOneOut. I thought it was clever T_T

Sideblogs?

I have a nsfw alt @looafterdark (18+ only I swear to god I keep a loaded gun pointed at the follow list) and a writing inspo blog @last-scrapbook. I also once ran a couple of character ask blogs, though I don't plan on starting them up again, and I was the mod behind @pokeprofshowdown.

Who's Eugene/Ophelia/Sasha?

My ocs from an original story I'm working on. I get brainrot and post about them a lot. You are ALWAYS allowed to ask me about them!

What's your fursona/can I make art of you?

I'm a dog, kinda like a papillion but not really, and yes you may. My ref sheet is here.

Can I repost your funny text posts to twitter/insta/reddit?

Sure, all I ask is that you include the entire post and leave my username visible. You can also tag me if you want, I'm lookingforloo on twitter, insta, and reddit <3

Can I repost your art/writing?

Absolutely not.

Can I plug your art or writing into an AI program?

Absolutely not under any fucking circumstances.

Can I use your art in an amv/fandom board/as a cover for my playlist or fic/ect.?

Depends, DM me first.

Can I write fic/make fanart based on your fics/art/HCs/AUs?

Absolutely <3

Can I write fic/make fanart based on your OCs?

Art yes, fics no.

What's your stance on the discourse?

There is no amount of posting online about contentious topics that could ever match the sheer power of simply going out into your community and finding a project that helps other people that you can dedicate your time and energy to. Also wear a mask, vote(if you can), and listen to marginalized people when they speak about their experiences.

How old are you?

29

[digital-chance]

writeblr intro

hey i'm chance! i've done a writeblr intro recently but i didn't like it, so this is take 2. here's the old one.

─── about me -⋆⋅☆

name : chance

pronouns : they/he

likes : cyberpunk, romance, anime, kpop, music, history, design

age : 20

i tend to swear both on here and in my writing, so if you're sensitive to that, i don't think my blog or work is for you. i also use the word 'queer' a lot since i self-identify as such, when i do choose to self-identify.

i'm interested in so much, which would be impossible to fully state. there are so many new things out there and i love learning about them all!! this blog is mainly for writing but i'm not strict on that.

i also am pretty sure i'm neurodivergent (no diagnosis or anything yet) and tend to delve into hyper-fixations for weeks at a time. if i haven't posted for a while, it's probably because of one of my other hyper-fixations or school.

i'm going to college for my bachelor's in graphic design, which might make my responses during the school year delayed.

i'm always open to ask or tag games!! it might take me a few to respond but i'll respond.

─── writing -⋆⋅☆

you'll find a lot of diverse characters, the found/chosen family trope, romance or rom-com, angst, and references to actual history or historical events within my work. sometimes i throw in a little art fact since i'm an art student. in nearly every one of my works you can find a prominent lgbtq+ character, too.

i write for original works and fanfiction alike. i often alternate what project i'm writing on and tend to leave wips unfinished. there's no one specific fandom that i'm in since i tend to dabble in everything.

i enjoy reading all sorts of stories, but some of the tropes and genres that have a special place in my heart include:

[ genres : romance . action . sci-fi . dystopian . heists . cyberpunk . horror . comedy . mystery ] [ tropes : friends to lovers , enemies to lovers , fake/pretend relationship , college au , coffee shop au , domestic , fluff , angst ]

─── ⋆ looking for ⋆⋅☆

more writers to follow!

good vibes & friends

writing advice & critique buddies (will help critique ur work too)

─── works in progress -⋆⋅☆

nova futurum | original work | #wip: nova futurum

─── ⋆ status : brainstorming

a lgbtq+ mafia cyberpunk story with the working title "Nova Futurum." i've got the general information down and i'm currently working on fleshing out my main characters. for now it's in the very basic stages, but feel free to ask me about it or give any tips!

you still would've been mine | fanfiction | #wip: yswbm

─── ⋆ status : outlining, research, & writing draft 1

Steven "Steve" Rogers wakes up in the 21st century after crashing into the ice in 1942, leaving behind his life as the mascot of the USA along with his childhood in Brooklyn NYC. The Winter Soldier, a man left behind in the war recovers his memories as the man known as James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes after meeting Steve in the modern time. Steve and Bucky recall their childhood and their experience in the war as they recover.

matchbreakers | original work | #wip: match

─── ⋆ status : brainstorming

xavier works at match breakers. instead of setting people up on blind dates, he goes to dates and breaks up the couple. all sorts of people hire him, disapproving parents, jealous ex's, and those scared to see their ex's angry side. what he doesn't expect is falling in love with one of his own clients.

scars of duty | original work | #wip: sod

─── ⋆ status : plotting

Lucian is a hero who protects the city of Haines and the other members of his hero's league. They're a small-name hero just trying to make do with what they've got. A villain new to the city shows up and shakes Lucian’s perception of their own superpowers and the world.

< tag lists: if you'd like to be added for any project, let me know. i'm not the greatest at remembering the tag list but i will try! >

─── ⋆ more of my socials & my design portfolio

[destiniesfic]

Since I just gained a bunch of followers and I'm going to hazard a guess that some of you are new here (or returning after a long time away), want to talk about some Tumblr basics? First up, tagging.

You can put spaces in your tags on Tumblr! This is very exciting and often why you'll see people putting commentary in tags—because they can.

It's usually considered more polite to put commentary in tags, so as to leave the original post relatively uncluttered. I find this to be especially true of visual posts like fanart and GIFs. The best time to reblog with a comment is when you're actively looking to engage in some kind of dialogue with the post you're reblogging.

Tag commentary is kind of like a whispered aside. On my own posts, I often use that space for post-scripts of a sort. I have done this at the bottom of this post, for science.

On posts that you create, tags help other people find your post through their searches. It used to be that only the first five tags on a post showed up in a search, and now it's the first twenty.

If you are interested in a topic, you can follow its tag. So, for example, if I'm interested in [throws a dart at a board] seeing Daemyra content, I can follow that tag and posts from the tag will show up on my dashboard from time to time. Here is how to follow a tag and manage followed tags.

(It's worth noting that Tumblr uses ship portmanteaus but also sometimes longform ship names, so if you're posting your original Daemyra content it's often wise to also tag it "rhaenyra x daemon," "daemon x rhaenyra," and other variants as well. Remember, up to twenty of them count!)

Tags—of both your original posts and of your reblogs—also help organize your blog. I create specific tags for posts and answered questions about my fics that I try to use every time they're relevant to make it easy for readers (or, you know, me with my goldfish memory) to find them. Here's the tag for Out of Time.

You can organize your blog, or not, however you want. I also choose to tag characters prominently featured in a post, the media property shown, and so on, mostly just for my benefit. Here are most of my original and reblogged posts featuring Daemon Targaryen. Some people get very, very granular with their tagging, but some don't tag at all. Dealer's choice!

Lastly, Tumblr has pretty robust content filtering, so don't censor yourself in tags or in the body of your post. If you post, say, #p*neapple and someone is trying to avoid posts tagged #pineapple, you might accidentally ruin their day.

[fishyizm]

getting nuis and nesos from japan

from a guy that looks at listings as a hobby and owns a few nuis

--

this post is mostly about project sekai since i see alot about how people don't really know much about merch from japan and looking at this stuff is kinda my hobby lol

getting stuff from japan is pretty good since its wayy cheaper, especially right now since yen to usd is really low rn (unsure about other countries currency sorry) usually prsk stuff is scalped to the point where its better to get it from japan even with the proxy fee lmao (the price for wanting merch for something popular)

getting merch from japan is actually really easy through proxy services, which will order things for you in japan and then ship them to you in the country you reside. i use mercari (a secondhand market) through buyee but there are other proxy services too, you should probably do some digging to find out which ones best for shipping to your country and area. i like buyee but it only takes foreign paypals so that can be a downside

if you want to find merch for a specific character i reccomend looking up how the chracters name is spelled in kanji/however its spelled in game (the spellings are usually on the wiki in the character info panel, you can also get them in game but its easier to copy paste) you can look it up in english but you might get prices aimed at american audiences and machine translation is famously terrible with names. if youre looking for merch from a less popular thing then you can look up the thing's name but thingsll usually be listed under character names

once you have the name you can put ぬい (nui, plush) or ねそべり(nesoberi, those laying down ones.) there are probably other kinds but these are the ones i look into lol

if you want fast results you can go to the recommended tab in the top right but if you have the time i reccomend sorting by lowest price and digging through untill you find what you want, whichll probably give you the best price

for project sekai specifically if you want cheap plushes be a fan of leoni, momojan, or anhane lol popular character merch is anywhere from 1.5x to 3x more expensive than unpopular characters. even so itll be less expensive than english ebay lol. under the cut i have the usual pricing ive seen for prsk plushes but it all depends since mercari is basically japanese ebay, so this is only for old merch and crane game prizes. if you want more recent merch im sure theres people who buy lots and resell, i dont have any reccomendations for project sekai but i know @/enstarsgoods on twitter does this for enstars

(rant i did on this post's tags about nui pricing) [the chibi eye nuis r anywhere from 600¥ ($4) to 2000¥ ($14) depending on if its a guy/niigo or not (lmao) and nesos get up to 7000¥ ($45) (for guys) (i saw some of the girl ones listed around 4000¥ [$26]) and nesos arent listed (as) often. idk anything about the dot eye nuis and nuigarumis since i dont like how they look (lol)

keep in mind that these r resales so theyre a bit more expensive than if u just ordered one when they were in stock like nesos r originally only ¥2750 ($18) but r scalped to hell especially on english ebay]

on top of the price for the goods youll buy you also have to pay japan shipping (usually this is included but sometimes it isnt, it is on every listing if this is the case or not as well as the price) as well as a conversion fee per item which isnt much (i got away with 900¥ ($6) in total for 5 items) and shipping from japan to your country (for me it was ¥2300 [15] but i live in a very easy place to ship to so it may cost more for you) this is about the same as ebay shipping cost wise (for me at least)

--

i dont really know what people do with their project sekai nuis (except blend?? burn?? milk copypasta irl..) but with enstars people usually put cute clips in their hair and blush them which is super cute. people also make nui costumes that you can buy. you can search ぬい服 (nui clothes) and usually put the type of nui you have's origin/size (since they can be different demensions) people don't make them for project sekai nuis but im sure there are outfits available in that size/patterns around somewhere

[system-of-a-feather]

New Pinned Post

I'm no longer in need of back up money, so commissions aren't needed, but if you ever want to commission me, I'm usually open. I also occasionally put some of my art on redbubble.

Please read Boundaries before sending an ask.

Anyways, hello everyone, I am too lazy to find my old crack DID pride flag (it'll come up some day and I'll link it here), and I figured I should slowly update some of my intro stuff for this blog after not touching it for a fucking minute.

You can call me Feathers - we're a 21+ year old Buddhist mixed-AAPI intersex nonbinary system (they/them) that is at late stage recovery and often defaults to a fully fused state (though we freely play with our multiple identity and operate as independent parts whenever it works best for us; often for trauma processing or navigating complex life decisions). As a result, we don't always tag which part is out and sometimes tag "alter: fei" or, more recently, "feathers speaks" Sometimes we might tag which part is dominant, but it's all whatever.

For the most recent discussion on Buddhism, Full Integration, Final Fusion, and Functional Multiplicity written by our fully fused self before our recent decision to swap back to Functional Mulitiplicity, feel free to read here; it's long but a pretty cohesive understanding of our current experiences with our DID and shit. (5/15/2024)

We're diagnosed with DID, C-PTSD, autism, trichotillomania, OCD, and honestly a number of things cause complex-trauma life. We have some physical disabilities but nothing that typically causes too much obstruction in our day to day.

As a result of our state of recovery, we really don't have a set headcount, however we were / are polyfragmented.

Some fun things about us and things you'll see on this blog:

Due to the fact that DID is no longer really that much of an interesting topic / impactful part of our life, we only occasionally post about DID and our experiences with it. While it was the original purpose of this blog, as a depiction of our healing journey and what healing with DID can look like, we decided we would rather just post about whatever sparks joy in our life. As a result, rather than much content on DID, you will likely see things relating to the topics below. PLEASE feel free to send asks about ANY of the topics below. We love to talk about things.

We are Buddhist (primarily non-theistic; mostly non-denominational, largely Zen) and we really enjoy it. We particularly like the philosophy and do practice it. Admittedly, we identify as being god awful Buddhists, but thats okay cause its part of the process.

We love research and plan to go into it when our ducks are better aligned. We particularly love research and literature around developmental psychopathology, trauma, dissociation, animal behavior, and the more abstract neuroscience topics (particularly consciousness research). We likely won't post much on it as overtly here because I don't enjoy talking science on tumblr much because most people (in my experience) don't actually want to talk about research as much as they want to prove their point.

We are avid bird watchers and regularly document / photograph the birds we see and upload them to ebird. We really enjoy it as an activity and social engagement and really love sharing that joy and knowledge with people. We actually have a minor in Avian Science and have been tested on North American ID skills. We also know more than we need to about chicken biology as a result of said degree. If you want to send anything about birds, bird watching, or asking for a bird ID (even non North American), they are ALWAYS welcome and you are ALWAYS allowed to tag us in any bird related content.

We do a lot of creative work and have dedicated ourselves (without writing partner) to a large story world project that we've been writing for over a decade now. We actually specifically started grinding our art skills in 2020 specifically just to help build that world up. Art is one of our largest self soothing coping mechanisms. We are going to turn that story world into a comic and a TTRPG system so please check out @thedevaaffliction.

Overall, we really just like thinking about a lot of topics and things as part of both our interest in research, philosophy, and as part of our Buddhist practice. We don't really find an interest in arguing discourse / syscourse because we really dislike and see very little benefit in debate. That said, we love to discuss experiences, thoughts, feelings and perspectives on complex topics and as long as the intent is to discuss and share rather than to "win" or "prove", we really enjoy that sort of enrichment in our life so we do welcome it. That said, we withhold the right to deem any conversation as more debate than discussion and to abandon it.

Additionally, related to the fifth point, we believe in being fully transparent about our past and admission that we were wrong as we think it is very important to be able to re-evaluate your beliefs and opinions and grow. In our mid teens we actually were pretty far into the alt-right pipeline and until about a year or so ago, we were staunch anti-endos. These days we are basically commies and very pro-endo. If anyone has any interest on how we pivoted so hard in our opinions on those topics, we are more than open to talk and discuss it as well as any insights we pulled from the experience.

Also we love martial arts - I forgot that cause I'm not particularly XIV brained rn but we REALLY enjoy martial arts.

We suck at being labeled and having labels. We're just very very queer.

--------------

DNI:

People who put on their socks/shoes in the order of Sock-Shoe-Sock-Shoe

That's about it. We liberally block, so we don't really worry about DNIs. If we don't like your content for any reason, we will remove it from our dash. Whether or not you want to interact with us is up to you past that point. Generally, we welcome anyone to follow as it can make for good conversation.

[mamuzzy]

MAMUZZY READS HARD CONTACT: Introduction

Hey All, remember when I vented about how I will start my own re-reading because I'm annoyed about the existing fan-takes over this series, discouraging new fans to engage?

Now it's happening!!!! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

This one is an Introduction post about my personal thoughts before actually starting, not an actual chapter.

I don't have a specific agenda on what I want to achieve with this blogging, other than I want to share my thoughts with you, share my enthusiasm, collecting favorite or thought-inducing quotes, hunting for lore (clone, jedi, mando, kaminoan and character lore in general) and most importantly: thirsting over my favorite blorbos.

Maybe a bit want to counter all that negativity that surrounds this fandom with providing a different perspective.

Is this a masterpiece? Probably not. Do I enjoy it? HELL YEAH. And in the end, this is what counts.

I won't tag this as pro-jedi, or anti-jedi, or [insert a name/faction/author here]-critical or similiar kind of fandom faction fuckery. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

But before reading it, I wanted to share some thoughts...

-- About Critical Thinking... --

My first reading of the books happened without the influence of knowing anything about the author and I avoided repcomm side of tumblr like a plague. I didn't want the author's personal worldview or the existing factions on the internet influence me in any way while reading.

I think this helped me completely immerse in the story itself and not just looking it through a glass wall like an outsider under peer-pressure and with a strict community guide how is allowed to engage with the books otherwise you will be called names.

If you follow me through, I still encourage you to read it yourself so you can form your own opinion. But don't forget, you can always put down a book if you end up not liking it.

Everyone interpret the books differently: enjoyment or hatred depends on different life experiences, how old are you, what culture are you from, and often what opinions have you heard before about the said media. Sometimes it's just about basic reading comprehension (or the lack of it).

Critical thinking is not "skipping 20 pages because it contains Kal Skirata who is a shitty person and it taints you if you read". Critical thinking is able to form an opinion outside of the existing factions influences and resisting peer-pressure and being open minded for new information.

I'm just a random dude on the internet who will share you with his experiences about the books. But that is just one part of the truth. Just as an anti have their own truth. You will have your own truth.

But Mamuzzy, how can you be so gullible! This book is a bad representation to [insert a group here]! It conveys the wrong message!

What do you do with the wrong messages? You follow it through like it's some kind of ultimate truth anyway?

If you need fiction to hold your hand and tell you that you shouldn't treat your friends/family/partner/pets bad, the problem is not in the fiction, the problem is in YOU. If you feel you can act shitty toward people because that one fiction validated your urge to hurt people, the fault is not in the fiction but in YOU.

In the end of the day only that matters how do you behave with a living, breathing person in front of you.

-- Republic Commando IS A FANFICTION --

Bear in mind that mostly every written Star Wars book is a published fanfiction. Treat Republic Commando as such.

-- Star Wars is a fairy tale. RepComm is not. --

The Original Triology is a fairy tale. Good guys with blue lightsabers beating the bad buys with red lightsabers who hurt people and destroy planets and in the end good guys win. The roles are established. You know who to root for, you are spoon-feed with the narrative.

Republic Commando is not a fairy tale. Mando'a doesn't have a word for heroes, and this book doesn't have heroes either. Just people.

Protagonists =/= Heroes with unquestionable morals.

Am I supposed to root for THESE PEOPLE?

You are not obligated to do anything. Just know that this is not a traditional hero's journey story.

In my reading this story is about broken and lost people trying to find their place in the world while trying not to die. A literal found-family story.

-- About Jedi lore --

Karen Traviss doesn't make it a secret questioning the jedi about handling the whole war situation, about handling the clones, about being the puppets of the Senate/Sheev Palpatine and with it, Darth Sidious. But the conflicts and hostility between the Mandalorians and the Jedi are not Karen Traviss' invention.

Her characters are mostly Mandalorians who have grudge against the JEDI ORDER as a faction, and other characters who are influenced by mandalorian culture.

In the prequels, the Jedi Order is introduced like any other religious cult with govermental support behind them and George Lucas uses the same black-and-white thesises in this grey area. Darth Sidious didn't destroy the jedi with his sith force powers. He could destroy the jedi because he was damn effective politican and a master manipulatior who found the perfect pawns to execute his plans. That's my take on the jedi order in the prequels.

Also note that Karen Traviss' lore about the Jedi and the Force is completely different from George Lucas' thesises about the Star Wars universe.

I'll try and point it out these differences as we are advancing through the chapters.

-- No inhibitor chips in RepComm --

Inhibitor chips don't exist in Republic Commando universe and the concept wasn't introduced until The Clone Wars series. The troopers are very well aware of the 150 Contingency Orders, including Order 66.

Throughout my reading, comments and thoughts are appreciated! I'm open for conversation ^^

Because this is the first time I'm doing such thing, I can't say how much time I need to process a chapter, but I plan to do at least 1 chapter/week so I won't neglect my other hobbies, while surviving my increasing workhours as I go into the summer. :D

See you soon at Prologue + Chapter 1! (* ^ ω ^)

[self-loving-vampire]

I don't really want to reblog your post saying this because I feel like that could be annoying but I've gotten a lot into gacha games (specifically Bang Dream, Project Sekai, D4DJ, Blue Archive, and now Zenless Zone Zero, in that order) as a 25 year old plural trans failgirl and despite enjoying them I know they are bad for me and it is my policy to not recommend them

and basically every time I find myself posting gushing over their stories or whatever I feel the need to asterisk myself with "this is a gacha game so I'm not really recommending you check it out". And like, I don't know, I feel like I should say it and it's necessary but it also feels a little tedious I guess. Like, everyone who I follow and who follows me knows this already so aah. But also then again I thought I already knew that the psychological manipulation and gambling was bad and etc and I still ended up getting super OCD over it and losing a lot of time and money to them and I would not wish this condition on anyone else. Which I guess is a more than good enough reason to continue the asterisking even if it's tedious in the same way it's tedious to say "content warning" or "spoilers for _____" or tag anything bothersome so people can filter it and sometimes you might forget to but you gotta do it anyway.

Anyway I uh. I do have like fifteen years of game playing experience prior to the gacha games where I played no gacha games. So if that counts for anything my favorite games of all time (and these are all non gacha singleplayer games) range from like,

Psychonauts (1 and 2), Milk Inside a Bag of Milk, Subahibi, killer7, Night in the Woods, VA-11 HALL-A, Tsui Yuri ~Okaa-san ni wa Naisho da yo~ (the incest yuri visual novel), Shadow the Hedgehog, if found..., Kindred Spirits on the Roof, Dishonored, Gunpoint, Jet Set Radio Future, and most importantly Senran Kagura (but not the gacha one), and many others but I'll just stop typing them now

Also I recently played the System Shock remake, which is kino and beautiful

Anyway I hope this confession is allowed. I really like your posts and your ask box has a very confessional vibe to me sometimes so I still feel compelled to it. Um, yeah. I guess, play those games. And not necessarily any gacha games. (Do that at your own risk, but also probably, really, seriously don't)

I've been trying to write a more formal essay on how gacha games can have good things in them but unfortunately still suck but ironically it hasn't yet come together because I've been distracted playing the gacha games. Hopefully I figure out that problem... Maybe with drugs or something (please)

Yeah, I don't think they are entirely bad (I still look at and reblog horny pictures from some of them often) but I wouldn't play one of those again even with full confidence that I won't fall into a gambling addiction because even putting morality and financial risk aside the very fact that they are trying to push players into it ends up worsening the rest of the game design.

Games these days (not even exclusively gacha) are sometimes deliberately made more tedious and inconvenient just for the sake of selling a solution to these invented problems. Paying to remove some arbitrary limitation or to skip a grind, for example.

The controversy around the new Star Wars Battlefront 2 contrasted with the original game highlights this very clearly. Things that used to just be a part of the game included by default are now things you have to either gamble for or play for an unreasonable amount of time to unlock. It really did not have to be that way, as demonstrated by the original game.

I think if you have been playing them and noticed all the issues it might be worth it to ask yourself if you're actually enjoying yourself on the net. Not just if the games have something in them that's worthwhile but if they are actually a fun way to pass your time. Is it play, or is it a chore you put up with to avoid falling behind or missing out on the things you do like? Would you be missing on much if you engaged with the story through youtube videos instead of playing the game yourself?

And if you do end up deciding you could be having more fun with something else, it's not like there's a shortage of other games, especially if you look into older games. Many of these are free or easy to emulate.

Looking at your list I think we have different tastes but if you enjoyed things like System Shock and Dishonored then you could maybe look into the first Deus Ex, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, or Arx Fatalis.

(Also this is a confessional now? I guess it gives people an excuse to picture me dressed up as one of those ero anime nuns even as I maximize blasphemy and apostasy.)

[magebunkshelf]

Hiya! I’ve been a huge fan of your content and have admired your work for a long while, and I’d love to perhaps draw some fanart sometime! Have you by chance posted reference sheets for any of your characters? Or maybe have a fanart tag for other artists? Thank you for your time and consideration! ^-^

Oh my gosh, that's really awesome of you! Thank you for listening, I'm really glad you enjoyed my stuff!

I don't really have reference sheets for my characters, I know some people have character design sheets for their OCs for things like fan art but no I don't have any refs like that. All the art I've used in videos, either commissioned or originally fan art that I asked if I could use, is on the lore wiki though! So for some characters like Mitch, Aru and Cay if you click through to their page there's a gallery for the official art. Most characters don't have an "on model" design though, for some other characters like Llyr there's fan art that other people have made that basically taken over my headcanon for how they look, but nothing official yet.

All this being said, I don't really like enforcing "on model" stuff for character designs. Only a few characters have set designs, like Mitch and the Respawn party, but even then it's really awesome when artists come up with their own things anyway! A while back someone made some really cool Mitch art that was pretty different from his canon design, but was still really amazing! If you want to make any art, please don't feel limited to sticking to a specific design!

Any character art you see in the videos, you'll be able to find it on the wiki. For all the other characters, I often have an idea in my head for how they look, and there may be fanart people may have made for them, but I generally don't have a set design. If you'd lke a written description for how I imagine a character looking, please feel free to ask! But again, it's absolutely fine by me artists want to go off-model, it's amazing seeing what people come up with

I don't have a fanart tag, not entirely sure how they would work? I think I'm still a fairly small-time creator so I've never really thought about it. But if you post anything here on tumblr or on bluesky, if you @ me I love reblogging / reposting to help get more eyes on it!

This really made my day, thank you

[goblinbugthing]

Bugthing’s brand-new Pinned Intro Post!!!!!!

Hi! I’m Bug, I’m a mentally ill emo artist and fic author. This is where I put my nonsense for you internet ppl to look at.

I’m transmasc, currently identifying as xenogender, and I use he/xey/it/they pronouns. Mutuals, and only mutuals, can use my other neos, blood/bleed and gore/gory. I’m solian/mspec veldian, fictoromantic, and fictosexual. Please respect that!!

Currently, I’m into Hollow Knight, the Kirby series, A Hat in Time, Bug Fables, Cult of the Lamb, Rain World, and Fate/Zero. Do be warned, though, I can fall out of these fandoms at any time — my interests are almost always fluctuating.

This blog is safe for minorities! (e.g. disabled ppl, LGBTQ+ ppl, BIPOC, Palestinians, etc.)

I am a minor. Don’t be weird.

Other stuff under the cut!

(divider gif via @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more)

My asks are open! Feel free to ask me stuff about my hyperfixations, or whatever you wanna know about me, as long as it’s not too personal.

Commissions are open! You can support me by purchasing one. Ko-Fi linked below!

My other socials:

My YouTube channel (I don’t upload much)

My Wattpad I can’t link for some reason. My @ is koko-the-ann0yance on there (I hardly ever touch this one)

My AO3 (All my fics live here now)

My TikTok (Why do I have this? I couldn’t tell you.)

My $$app (Consider supporting me and my reckless spending addiction)

My Ko-Fi (Commissions & tips!)

My other blogs:

@princes-creations-askblog — An askblog specifically for my OCs.

@ask-emporianroyals-au — My AHiT AU askblog.

@kirby-souljourney-au — My Kirby AU blog.

@hollowknightinsanity — My HK sideblog.

@kokothedrag0n — My RP blog, where I act as my sona.

Current works:

Kirby: Soul Journey — My Kirby AU fanfiction, taking place after Kirby and the Forgotten Land. (Read on Tumblr / Read on Wattpad / Read on AO3) (To be rewritten)

Kirby: Soul Journey oneshots collection — A set of oneshots created for K:SJ. (Read on Tumblr / Read on Wattpad / Read on AO3) (To be rewritten)

Hollow Knight: Empty Promises — A set of fics created for my base Hollow Knight AU, Empty Promises. (Read on AO3 / Wattpad link to be added)

My tag key:

#buggie’s rambles — Text posts

#buggie’s randoms — Nonsense stuff! In other words, my homemade memes

#buggie’s doodles — Doodles and sketches

#buggie’s characters — OC stuff

#buggie’s creations — Proper artwork

#buggie’s creations (in the making) — Work-in-progress artworks

#buggie’s building paradise — All my Minecraft build stuff :3 (here’s a list of all the mods i use if you want em)

#buggie’s stories — My original writing

#buggie’s answers — My answered asks

#buggie’s polls — Self-explanatory. My polls

#buggie’s queue — The Very Rare Queued Posts (the only one unaffected by the name change)

#buggie’s stims — Stuff I stim to

#buggie’s sluttery — A tag I made specifically for my ace friends to block so they don’t get suggestive content on their dash. Also known as my hornyposting. Please block this tag if you don’t wanna see suggestive stuff!

#buggie irl — IRL pics of me, mostly just my gender euphoria

#saved 4 serotonin production — My comfort tag

#quicksave — Stuff I want to look at later

#important — Self-explanatory. Important stuff

#semi-important — I’m honestly not sure, just scroll through the tag if you want an idea, because I can’t describe it myself

#besties doodles — Art from my mutuals

#besties rambles — Ramblings from my mutuals

#other’s art (it’s awesome) — Other people’s awesome art

#other’s rambles (sick af) — Other people’s sick af rambles (I tend to forget to use this one…)

#bbg tag — Posts both by me and by other people about my F/Os

#images that describe my gender — My gender envy tag. Don’t question the stuff that’s in there.

I tag triggers with #cw (trigger).

I tag OCs with #oc: (oc).

If I make any new tags (or remember any ones I forgot), this section will be updated!

Also, please keep in mind that tumblr is a bit fucky and sometimes doesn’t show posts under tags for some reason! Some posts might have my old tags on them.

DNI list:

If any of these fit you, do not interact with my blog.

Pro//shippers

NSFW blogs (I scroll through every blog that follows me. I don’t wanna see that.)

TERFs

Transphobes, homophobes, racists, ableists, sexists, misogynists, antisemites, etc.

H//arry P//otter enjoyers (I fucking hate J.K. Row//ling and all her works.)

D//anganronpa-specific blogs (Very sorry — this is just a big trigger for me.)

People who support Israel’s genocide of Palestinians (Stay FAR away from me.)

People who ship The Knight/Ghost and the Grimmchild (I mean, you do you, but I don’t wanna. See that. Feels weird.)

A//I “art” supporters (this includes A//I generated anything. Text, music, images, ANYTHING. Go away.)

H//azbin fans (😐)

And I believe that’s it! Enjoy your time here :)