#and even then only a few of those people who know both use tumblr and love palaeontology

[moonlume]

This was mostly for Instagram as I've always felt much more comfortable on Tumblr, whether I'm on or off-topic, but I figured it's good to post it here too just as an update on what's been going on with me! I'm slowly getting back on track with things, I'll do more varied posting here too now I think :')

Plain text version under the read more:

Hi! Long time no see! Apologies for the sudden radio silence. I needed a long overdue break from social media. The truth is that I've been struggling with severe burnout for the last couple of years now. Between failed projects, changes in social media, and health issues, I've sadly developed a really negative and unhealthy outlook towards myself and my work, and I got really stuck in that mindset for a long time. Recently I heard a quote that was very fitting for what's been going on with me: "Don't start cleaning until you understand the mess." That is what I've been trying to do! I've been thinking and overthinking how I want to move forward with Moonlume, trying to understand those negative feelings and where they come from, and maybe, just maybe, I've found a path that I'm comfortable with. I'd like to delve into some of these topics with you, so read on if you're curious! Changes are coming!

SOCIAL MEDIA

I've been "in a relationship" with social media since I was about 15. I used to love it. I'm 30 now, and I've been trying to understand what made me so negative about it nowadays; not the parts I can't control, (algorithms, scams, AI, ads...) but my own presence and interaction with it. In hindsight, I should have realised what the main problem was sooner... When I was younger, the blogs I remember having a fun time running used to mostly be about what other people have made, and the things I enjoyed. I've been a small biz girlie since I was 16 (I used to run @FrozenCrafts before this! :D) but I've never liked being in a position where I only share my own work and nothing else. It's too much spotlight for me, too much pressure, especially with social media requiring consistency nowadays. I've always been an anxious, introverted person, and I now realise that this spotlight has been eating away at me. (Which is odd to say as someone who runs a small biz, I know.) I started getting even more anxious when, due to multiple reasons (more on that later) my output of new art really dropped off. Even though I've been working on Moonlume this whole time in the quiet background, I had very few new things to show for it. I couldn't help but compare myself to artists I really respect and look up to, who make new things every month, every week, and yes of course comparing yourself to others is a recipe for disaster, but... we all do it to some extent.

(And I definitely went overboard. At my lowest, I voiced some really awful things about both myself and my work...) Over time, the anxiety and frustration with myself got so bad that I couldn't stomach doing anything creative for a while, and eventually, I stopped all social media activity entirely. People say that burnout catches up to you and what do you know - the people are right... So... What's the solution here? Again, in hindsight, this should have dawned on me sooner. I've put myself in a cage just because "well that's how I've seen other people do it". And I'm sure many people will agree with the idea that a shop/smallbiz/brand account should just be about the brand! I totally get it! But I've realised that's not for me. From this day forward, I'd like to work towards making the Moonlume social media spaces be about everything cute, colourful and fun. I'd like to create an environment where it's not just about "Moonlume the art and products", but a place for everything that has inspired me, a place where I can share my favourite video games and artists with you, a place that isn't just a spotlight for me, but a spotlight for everything and everyone that made me fall in love with the cute and colourful aesthetics of this world. And I'd like to try and just have fun with social media again! It's been so long since I've been genuinely excited about making posts, yet here I am thinking "ohh I should take cute colourful layout pictures of my old 3DS and ask people if they're still using theirs!!". It is so relieving to feel excited again. Even typing this out feels like a rock being lifted from my heart.

And don't worry - the heart and soul of Moonlume is not going away. The colour explosion you see on my profile? That won't be changing! That is the vibe I'm going to keep here. Just with more variety, and less pressure on myself :)

HEALTH ISSUES

I mentioned that there are multiple reasons why I've become incredibly slow at releasing new designs. One of those is that I'm genuinely swamped with work all the time - running Moonlume is 95% emails, admin, customer service, etc. (I've been stuck in a "too much work for one person, not enough work + income for two people" stage for a long time now and I'm still trying to figure that one out.) I may not have much new creative work to show for it, but I DO have quite a few announcements to make soon! Opportunities for art I've already made kept coming up, so I've been prioritising those. The main reason, however... My joints. Ohh, my fail joints... For the last 3-4 years my wrist has been declining, or at least I thought it's just my wrist - it may be all my joints. Getting any answers from doctors as a "totally healthy" 30 year old has been frustrating - I still don't know what's wrong, scans have been booked and then lost, "oh just do stretches", "just wear a brace", "just need to rest". I listened to their generic advice at first, but considering that my hand was in pain almost all day yesterday, without me doing anything, I don't think rest is gonna save me here :/ All I can do is continue bugging them until they give me some answers. Until then... I have to work around my joints screaming at me. All this hit me really hard, because over the last couple of years, I've been trying to accept that I will no longer be able to draw the way I used to. Which sucks. I learned to do something I'm happy with and now I can't do it anymore. The work I used to make is just too detailed for me to tackle now - every set of designs would take about 4-5 days of intense drawing, and, apparently, I've also been holding the pen wrong since childhood which put extra strain on my wrist?? I've tried to unlearn this and couldn't... Holding a pen any other way is alien to me lol. But yep, that checks out - sometimes even writing grocery lists gets painful towards the end of the list, which takes like 5min. Or, sometimes, lifting a mug "wrong" sends lightning through my whole hand. So... How can I move forward with this? I doubt my joints are going to get any better, but I still want to continue running Moonlume. Besides using old designs for new products (not very exciting, I know, but people want them and that has helped so much - we are saving up for a family and I'm thankful for any income I can get!), creatively, I think I'd like to start calling myself less of an illustrator, and more of a product/stationery designer? A mouse doesn't strain my hand as much, depending on the day anyway, and I've been able to release at least something new with simple shapes recently - like my “You can never have too many stickers” sticker book! I'm really glad it's been well received, I've just gotten a second batch of these books in, it made me hopeful that there could still be a future for me in the world of stationery if I just change things up. Yes, I will forever be sad that I can no longer tackle the dreamy, detailed designs anymore. I had a lot of sketches and ideas ready to go, I had goals and skills I wanted to reach for... But I've been grieving this for way too long now and I want to learn to let go and move on.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So... Yeah. Everything I've just said, that cocktail of emotions and problems, it was really affecting my mental health over the last few years. I've been stuck in an endless cycle of disappointment in myself. The shame over not doing enough, not making new things fast enough, or as interesting/meaningful as other people, on top of struggling to let go of past failures and getting frustrated with joint problems... all that made me develop some really messy feelings towards both myself and my work. There were points where I was fantasising about burning it all down just to have a fresh start. It was bad :( BUT! With a clearer head and armed with perspective from people I love, I can say this: I AM proud of what I've made so far! I no longer look at my work and loathe it like I did for a while. Looking back, damn, that was a super unhealthy perspective and I'm glad I can recognise it now. And even though, thanks to my fail joints, I'm no longer able to make things the way I used to... I'm learning to accept this and I'm looking forward to the future. I'm excited to talk more about things I love, excited to make the Moonlume social media space be more varied and give it a breath of fresh air! Posting about my work/products all the time also left very little room for discussion and chatting with you guys, and I miss the feeling of community, so I'm excited to make this a livelier space! That doesn't mean that the art part of Moonlume is going anywhere - it's still my beloved little shop, and I'll still be making things for (hopefully!!) many years to come, just at a slower, much more comfortable and sustainable pace. ♥

Thank you so much for reading this and hearing me out. The support I've received from everyone here over the last 8 years has been genuinely invaluable - my head spins daily from the thought that my little creations have had the chance to travel the whole world thanks to you... It's truly magical. I hope that with this new chapter I can reconnect with the community once more, and move on to a brighter future! Love you all! ♥

Maple

[basoogil]

hey guess what, my freaking name is Basil and i'm Ace and I am genuinely quite scared how did the universe know?!?!??!

Yo I nearly didn't realize it was International Ace Day, and THEN I nearly forgot I had this art I did a few years ago, and honestly not only do I need to finish this set (Paleo-pride, all Paleo critters in fun pride colors!) but I also just need to share them more bc I'm very proud of them???

Anyway, pls enjoy this BasilACEsaur!!!

[fading-event-608]

You may have seen my previous post [here] where I lament about daily donation decreases while getting large amounts of reblogs.

I still update Falastin's campaign daily, hanging on every donation. The trend of notes far outweighing donations has not only continued - it is getting worse. Despite Falastin’s campaign being vetted both here on tumblr and on Instagram, Instagram nets no donations, and Tumblr nets so few in spite of the campaign receiving constant updates and attention. 

In the last 24 hours she received only 55 dollars. This campaign needs to provide for 24 people - the rate donations are currently coming in is far below the necessary minimum for their survival. Prices in Gaza are astronomically high, but even if they were similar to prices in the US, and even if we take a better day like yesterday, $200 in donations - approximately $8.33 per family member - would not be enough to survive on. Would YOU be able to survive on that money? This must buy food, water, medicine, and all other supplies, including tents. Half of the family is currently sleeping on the street, and what little shelter they have access to will not keep winter off their backs. 

They have been displaced more than twenty times. With each displacement, they lose a great deal, because the time they have to evacuate is not enough for them to pack up their belongings. This is only getting worse for them. Meanwhile, people who have the luxury of turning away seem to do so more and more. Falastin doesn’t have that luxury - these are her loved ones in danger. So many of her family members have been martyred already. She cannot lose anyone else.

You stand at a point in history, and in many years you will look back on yourself now and see either action or inaction. You know which one you will regret more. This is why people are angry at those posts, why they scream of scams - because it's much better for your consciousness to have excuses for inaction.

An action does not need to be some grand noticeable gesture - small actions are just as meaningful, if done at a pace that allows them to add up. If you act alongside everyone, they may add up still more. 

Please don’t just reblog this. Find some other small way that you can help, and take that action. Maybe send this campaign to a friend or a family member, or link it in a groupchat. Even if you can’t personally donate, there’s a chance that someone you know would like to.

Please check today's rates before donating:

10$ = 102 SEK

25$ = 257 SEK

50$ = 514 SEK

100$ = 1,029 SEK

Vetting info: #282 in El-Shab-Hussein and Nabulsi's spreadsheet [here], #957 in the Butterfly Project spreadsheet [here]

Falastin's account: [link]

[calypso-apologist]

Could you do Hermes and/or Apollo head-cannons if there s/o is like a princess but her father (the king) was both verbally and physically abusing her thx :)

tumblr user arsonist123 really making me reconsider adding the heart after every post's title but i'm commited to the aesthetic

Hermes and Apollo with an abused princess darling ♡

Hermes

Hermes is the type of guy to straight up kidnap you. Consensually, of course. If you'd let him, he would absolutely just pick you up and fly off, giggling loudly.

But of course, you're too kind for this world despite all the suffering and hardships you've endured and you don't want to leave the people in your kingdom with the tyrant king.

It's adorable, of course, but come on, the kidnapping thing would've been so much fun!

Still, Hermes adores your cute self too much to just go against your wishes like that. And so he starts to think of a plan to get you to himself. He might be getting some tips from Athena, but he decides those are too boring. And then he has the brilliant idea to ask Zeus for help.

Because asking Zeus about romance obviously always works well.

Still, no matter who helped, Hermes did come up with a plan! Sort of.

His plan is to quite literally scare your father shitless. He uses his role as the Messenger God and delivers your father a very scary (and very fake) prophecy from Apollo himself. Yes, he got his help to write it. To make it more believable.

And then cashed in a few favors, getting Zeus and Poseidon to cause some nasty storms around your island. Maybe some shitty crops if Demeter agrees to help. And maybe a tiny plague with Apollo's help.

And the "prophecy" clearly states your father has to give up his crown to you and leave the palace to live as a beggar among his people.

And it also includes you making a visit to a certain god's temple to get his blessings and so the curse placed on your land is undone. A temple that belongs to someone who's not afraid to... send a message.

Of course you go to his temple, knowing damn well who the "prophecy" was about. And you confront him about it, flicking his nose.

"You've made the whole prophecy thing up, didn't you, Hermes?"

You only get laughter in response.

Apollo

When he learned that his precious little ray of sunshine is getting hurt, he comes up with a plan.

Now, of course, he'd be delighted to simply shoot your father, but that would put you at risk of being given away to one of your suitors.

The suitors you, of course, keep refusing, absolutely enamored with the God who composes songs and speaks poetry just for your ears each night.

And so, he plans to free you in a way that you'll probably consider very sweet and romantic.

He disguises himself as an artist, a musician, who wishes to work in your father's palace and asks for your hand in marriage.

Of course, while your father laughs at him marrying you, he does enjoy music, so he lets the mysterious man stay and play for him.

He is immediately the only one you care about, sneaking away whenever you can. You're happy! You're just so happy that he's there, always giving you that soft, adoring look as he subtly serenades you, his words so masterful that only you understood, everyone else assuming his songs were about the beauty of nature.

Eventually, even if it takes weeks or maybe even months, he softens your father's heart and asks again to have you as his bride.

It's worth noting that with just how your father has grown to adore the new musician, he's also stopped harming you in any way, easily soothed into sleeping if he was nearby, charmed by Apollo's words.

And then, once the king finally agrees, Apollo reveals himself as the god of music and poetry, taking you away from your father's kingdom...

And then he still shoots him, of course.

[anistarrose]

I don't even use Bluesky very much, nor do I want to use Bluesky very much; it's got it's own problems — but if only more social media sites would just adopt their strategy of "remind people to include alt text, with a message that also explains who alt text is for."

The reason this has been on my mind? I've seen some artists who consistently include alt text on Bluesky, and consistently don't include alt text or image descriptions when posting the same art to Tumblr. That's clear evidence that Tumblr, and other websites that squirrel away their "add alt text" button where no one sees it, could be doing more for accessibility with just a few simple changes — which would make a meaningful difference for screen reader users.

And to be clear, Tumblr would also have a lot of work to do to make their alt text less glitchy in general — which is one of many reasons you might still see people writing IDs in-post, or even putting them both places. But I can't stress enough that a lot of progress will quickly result from just teaching people, on a wide scale, that:

Blind and low-vision people do in fact use social media, and

There's a thing you* can and should do to accommodate those blind and low-vision people.

(*If you're experiencing a barrier to writing IDs, like a lack of mental energy, not knowing how to describe something, or needing IDs yourself, then that's nothing to be ashamed of. However, in that case, it's good to familiarize yourself with methods of crowdsourcing IDs.)

[ekingston]

Hello! So sorry to bother, but have you had any updates on the Word-Stream/Speechify situation?

Just one: like I posted on Xitter and Bluesky last night, as of yesterday afternoon, the links to individual works as they were listed on WordStream are gone from both Google and Bing. Hurray, right? Surely we’re all sick of this whole debacle and there’s far more important things to worry about. If all is well that ends well, surely there’s no need to still be angry.

Well, I am. Here’s why:

When I checked on Wednesday, the links to my own work on WordStream were still listed. So rather than it taking a week after Cliff Weitzman first hid the fanwork from view, it took a little over a week from the moment he first promised privately that they would be deleted. Which, fine. Perhaps Cliff didn’t really know what he was talking about when he gave that timeframe. Or maybe he told a little white lie to create the impression that he always intended to do the right thing. It seems more likely to me, though, that Cliff still believed—even after the backlash he received—that he would get away with honoring only individual takedown requests. Or worse, that he needed just a little bit more time with the stolen material to figure out an alternative way to profit off it—preferably without us noticing, this time.

But who knows? I certainly don’t! All we can do is speculate, because publicly, Cliff Weitzman has remained completely silent on his copyright infringements. All we got was the initial justifications he and his sockpuppet accounts used in comments on the original Reddit and Tumblr posts. After those were so understandably ill-received, Cliff only ever communicated with a few individual authors who contacted him directly and repeatedly, blocking people who addressed the issue on Twitter and quietly distancing himself from WordStream by deleting a blog he’d posted to Speechify.com dated December 20th—where Cliff promoted WordStream’s platform specifically to fanfiction readers. (See my enormous timeline post for details and screenshots of said posts before they were taken down.)

And this is why I’m still angry: As long as Cliff Weitzman faces no real consequences for his actions, he won’t see a need to own up to his mistake; and as long as he’s able to delay taking responsibility, this isn’t over. This didn’t end well.

After all, wasn’t this the next-best scenario for Cliff, second only to him turning WordStream into a (for him) effortless, infinite money-making machine? He took something we provided for free and fed it to AI so he could more easily put it behind a paywall; we found out and protested; Cliff quietly erased all evidence of his crime; and we went—almost equally quietly—away.

I want to make sure you know that I continue to be genuinely amazed and intensely grateful for how quickly the news about WordStream’s copyright infringement was shared—and continues to be shared—throughout fandom, on tumblr in particular. If it hadn’t been for our collective outcry here and on Reddit, WordStream would very likely still be up in its original form, and Weitzman would be reaping the benefits (those subscription prices were steep) today.

But it’s been frustrating to see that, with the exception of mentions in articles on Substack and Fansplaining (the latter of which is a particularly awesome and thorough read on fandom’s decontextualization) and a Fanlore listing, our outrage never really spilled out beyond the safely insulated, out-of-the-way spaces that are tumblr, a handful of subreddits and bluesky. And I believe that—unfortunately—we are collectively responsible for that part, as well.

Most of us seemed content to only spread the word by circulating the same two posts on tumblr. (Have we all given up completely on every other social media platform? Am I the only remaining straggler?) And soon after Cliff Weitzman hid WordStream’s fanfiction category from view, our interest in the issue took a sharp dive even there. Are we genuinely deceived into believing the issue has been fully resolved? Do we truly fail to realize that Weitzman’s refusal to admit that what he did was wrong left the door wide open for the next greed-driven tech bro to wander through? Or is the true naivety in thinking that, as a community, we can keep this kind of attack on fandom from happening again? Has our disillusionment already gotten that bad?

However the situation spins out from here, Cliff’s actions will set a precedent. If we fail to show Cliff and his ilk that attempts to profit off fandom’s unpaid labor have consequences, their tech companies will keep trying until something eventually sticks. They might be a little smarter about it next time; obscure their sources a bit better, maybe leave the titles and the authors’ names off. Or maybe they’ll go a bolder route: maybe next time they cross the line they’ll do it boldly enough for IP holders to take notice and stop tolerating fanwork entirely.

Doesn’t that make you angry, too?

There’s this whole other mess of thoughts I would love to be able to untangle about how commercial influence is contributing to the steady erosion of fandom’s foundations, but I’m tired, and other people have said it all much more eloquently than I ever could. Seriously, go read that article on Fansplaining. Or listen to the podcast version of it. Better yet, as long as you’re wearing your noise-canceling headphones, go listen to a podfic of one of your favorite fandoms’ works, and enjoy the collaborative joy and creativity of the people who Cliff Weitzman refuses to believe exist. (In one of Speechify’s other blogs, Cliff claims there are only 272 podfics on AO3. Would you like to run that ChatGPT prompt again, Cliff?). Honestly, much like Cliff Weitzman’s infuriating denial of the fact that fandom fucking has this covered, thank you very much, there’s so. Many. More. Things for us to talk about. There’s the connotations of WordStream’s dubious ‘upload’ button, for instance, or the fact that the app scraped (and in some cases, allegedly, still lists) copyright-protected original fiction as well, or WordStream’s complete lack of contact information, which is illegal for an internationally operating app. And oh! Has anyone reported more thoroughly on Cliff’s app’s options to ‘simplify’ or ‘modernize’ uploaded works, or—my own very favorite abomination—to translate them into something Cliff calls ‘Gen-Z Language’? Much like his atrocious AI book covers, it would be hilarious, if it didn’t make steam come out of my ears.

Anyway, there it is. I highly recommend you do all of that. And then, if you aren’t familiar with it already, go do some research re: fair use and your rights as the copyright owner of your works. A good number of people commenting on this controversy expressed stunned surprise or fearful hesitation about claiming any sort of ownership of their fanfiction. The more informed we are about our rights, the more willing we will be to defend them.

Please don’t stop writing or sharing your work. If you can’t bring yourself to work on your WIPs today (trust me, I get it), post about this situation instead. Tweets, skeets, whateverthefucks—about WordStream’s theft, about how this reflects on Speechify’s already shady business practices, about how Cliff’s actions and justifications have personally affected you. You’re welcome to share or copy my posts on these platforms, but since Cliff already blocked me, I very much prefer you post your own. If you do, call Cliff Weitzman by his full name and tag or include both WordStream and Speechify to ensure Weitzman will recognize he has both a personal as well as a professional stake in handling the situation with integrity. Leave your concerns in reviews on the Speechify app. (We weren’t provided with a more appropriate place to put them, after all!) Consider calling for a Speechify boycott until Cliff accepts accountability for his actions.

Do avoid making exaggerated claims, and don’t call for physical retaliation against Cliff’s person or his property. We don’t want to give him or Speechify even the weakest of grounds to claim defamation or threats of violence. Focus on the facts: they’re incriminating enough by themselves. Show Cliff that we’re determined to keep bringing up his company’s wrongdoings in public spaces until he demonstrates that he understands why taking these freely shared fanworks and monetizing them was wrong, and takes steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

One last thing—and this is really more of a general reminder—please stop suggesting I handle this situation for you. People have come to me asking for action items. The resulting flashbacks to my days as an office assistant were extremely upsetting. In all seriousness, casting me as some sort of coordinator or driving force behind this backlash actively hurts the cause. Not only does it downplay fandom’s collective efforts, it also makes our message extremely vulnerable. It would be all too easy for Cliff to silence one singular source. Wikipedia will not maintain mentions of this controversy as long as it leads only to Easter Kingston’s attempt to summarize what happened as it was happening. You only know my name because I stumbled upon WordStream’s theft and decided to get my friends involved. I am not more knowledgeable, more skilled or more angrily invested in this issue than you are (or can, or should, be). I draw pictures and I write stories and I worry about the shift I’m seeing in fandom after having been on this ride for even a few pre-livejournal rounds.

I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. But I am going to allow myself to step away for a bit, make my wife dinner, and catch up on our shows.

I trust you’ve got it from here.

[jiraisupportgroup]

Important Update:

It has been brought to my attention by several people that there was / is a blog that is impersonating me and posting very hateful & harmful things aimed at the jiraiblr community. This blog had a username very similar to this one (jiraiisupportgroup and then jiiraisupportgroup both with double “i”s at different points in the username) they copied my profile picture, header image, blog description, pinned post(?), and even went as far as to copy anonymous asks I have been sent and send them to themselves to reply to to create confusion and trick people into thinking that blog was me.

In light of this I want to make a few things clear:

- This blog is a side blog. It cannot follow you, it cannot like posts, and it cannot send asks. All of those things would instead link to my main blog. If any blog that looks like this one ever follows you, likes one of your posts, or sends you an ask please block them immediately.

- If this blog does get terminated for whatever reason, any back-up blogs to replace this one will be made as another side blog. So please know this warning to block any blog that looks like this one if they follow you, like one of your posts, or send you an ask will never change.

- In the event that this blog is ever terminated, the first few posts of any replacement blog will be proof that it is actually me. What this details I am not entire sure of at this exact moment, and likely will not share to avoid the case of another disgusting copy-cat.

I want to give so much thanks to @bpdgrrrl1312 @bl0odied-kittypaw @criminaldoenjangjjigae @twistedsweetheart @sakiyaki-sashimi @oneeyawn @jiraikasa-kun as well as any others I may have missed (and all the anons who contacted me) for bringing this first of all to my attention, but more importantly to everyone’s attention. Thank you all so much for spreading awareness about this impersonator, and for helping distance myself from the horrible horrible things this person was saying.

As far as I can tell at the moment it appears that the blog is deleted? (Can anyone help me confirm?) But I will keep an eye and ear out to make sure, and update everyone if they pop up again. Thank you all so much for reporting this blog while I was not online for the night T-T not only for myself but also for the jiraiblr community as a whole.

It really hurts my heart and sickens me to know that someone impersonated my blog to spew hatred and vitriol. I did not get to see a majority of the things the blog did post (I saw screenshots of maybe 2 or 3 of the posts), so I can’t even imagine what else they were saying (especially to get banned so quickly because tumblr typically does not ban accounts very fast).

If this blog targeted you or even if you had the misfortune of seeing this blog, I am so deeply sorry. Please know that no matter what this person may have said you are loved, you are important, you are valid, and you deserve to be safe and feel welcome. I truly believe that, and I am so sorry that anyone tried to make you feel otherwise.

I am sending all of you so much love and as much support as I can ♡ I know many of us are stressed going into holiday season and this whole situation did not help with that. From what I can gather you all handled it quite well and for that I am so so appreciative. ₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊ love all of you so much and I am sending everyone the warmest wishes and happiest days I possibly can ♡ ♡ ♡

[youryurigoddess]

Aziraphale, Raphael, and other angelic names you should probably know

Yes, I’m digging out my oldest piece of Good Omens meta. If you’re one of the very few people who might remember it from my main blog or had followed me on Twitter before it was shared there last year, you should already get the gist of what’s going to come next. For the rest of you, this might serve as a nice warning of how true brainrot begins.

We will start at the very beginning: the name-giving. Since God has created the world with one word, in the Bible and related Jewish tradition names of things are considered of great importance. As the life-givers, they imbue meaning and power to those who bear them, and often lead them towards a certain predetermined path. The concept of true names in general is a global phenomenon, with traces of this belief to be found everywhere from Plato's Theory of Forms through Grimm’s fairytales and beyond, not only in religious, but also philosophical and anthropological context. Considering the vast number of options to choose from, coining a new name instead of just repeating someone else’s is certainly a choice.

Unsurprisingly, the one who came up with the name Aziraphale was Terry Pratchett, and according to an interview it was originally pronounced Aziraphael:

“It should be Azz-ear-raf-AE-el, but we got into the habit of pronouncing it Azz-ear-raf-ail, so I guess that’s the right way now.”

Don’t worry, we’ll get there in a moment. The second thing you need to remember from this interview is Terry’s answer to the question about the name’s origin:

“It was made up but… er… from real ingredients. [The name] Aziraphale could be shoved in a list of ‘real’ angels and would fit right in…”

Conveniently, I’ve already explained who he was and why he was so important in Judaism in one meta discussion on Tumblr, so I’ll be lazy and copy-paste my thoughts and expand them to add some details from other Abrahamic religions.

Before the Beginning, or the Angel of Love

Long story short, Libbiel was one of the archangels working with God on the creation of humans. The idea was opposed by some of them, especially the Angel of Truth, who was promptly cast down from Heaven to Earth (but promised to spring back out of the Earth eventually, don’t worry).

Unlike Michael and Gabriel, Libbiel (“God is my heart”) warned his angelic troops to accept the Ineffable Plan in advance and saved them from the Fall, which granted him God’s recognition and a new name, Raphael, the Rescuer, appointing him as the Angel of Healing (“God has healed”).

This seems to check out within the Good Omens universe: Aziraphale was involved in the Earth creation project before the rollout and had enough access to the human plans to see them with his own eyes and share this knowledge with the angel that eventually became Crowley.

He also appeared extremely anxious at the very mention of Crowley’s obligation to dissent and wanted to save him from any negative consequences even at the cost of interrupting the conversation he’s been enjoying so much.

We’ve noticed some peculiar reactions of Aziraphale to any mentions or acts of love, right? They usually involve reaching out to Crowley and might either suggest his feelings toward him or how physically overwhelmed he is with the very concept of love (or both, actually).

Interestingly, one of the official titles of archangel Raphael is Angel of Love. In Christianity he is considered a patron saint of happy meetings, matchmaking and marriage, and his healing powers involve especially eyes and… heart, in the context of both mental health and human love.

Raphael also has a canonical (at least in Catholicism) episode of playing a human matchmaker on God’s behalf in the Book of Tobit, in which he appears on Earth under the disguise of a man named Azariah. Aziraphale seems now like an obvious portmanteau for Azariah, Raphael’s alias used while disguising himself as a human, and Raphael, the name given to him by God as a commendation. An archangel embracing some humanity of his own volition.

Raphael’s color is sometimes mentioned as light blue, exactly like the light Aziraphale emits in the S2 opening sequence, and his symbol is a serpent (the ancient Caduceus, but I feel like at this point we can call him Crowley).

The angelic couple, or Zophiel and Barachiel

Remember that bit of Terry’s interview about real ingredients? Raphael’s backstory already seems complicated enough, but what if Aziraphale had not one, but two angelic prototypes? I happen to know one more angel — a cherub said to possess great feminine energy — whose story rings some alarm bells.

This is Jophiel (“The Beauty of God”) or Zophiel (“My Rock is God”, “Widom of God”, “God’s Rage”), believed to be a companion to the angel Metatron, regent of the Principalities and leader of the Cherubim, a heavenly protector — one of the child amulet angels.

In Jewish tradition Zophiel takes on the role of the guardian of the Torah as well as other books and knowledge itself, based on the fact that he was the one to guard the Tree of Knowledge and, armed with a flaming sword, drive Adam and Eve out of Eden. He also watched over Noah and his family during the Flood and was serving as an assistant to King Solomon when he spoke on Wisdom and wrote the books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiastes. In the Anglican tradition he is recognized as an archangel and typically depicted with a fiery sword in hand. The color belonging to Zophiel is yellow.

Lynn Fischer in “Angels of Love and Light: The Great Archangels & Their Divine Complements, the Archeiai” (November 1996) describes Zophiel as one who

“stirs the feelings through radiation of illumination and into aspiration … help in absorbing information and studying for and passing tests; dissolution of ignorance, pride, and narrow-mindedness; and exposure of wrongdoing in governments and corporations. Jophiel helps in fighting pollution, cleaning up our planet, and brings to [hu]mankind the gift of beauty. He also provides inspiration for artistic and intellectual thought providing help with artistic projects and to see the beautiful things around us.”

While this angel is mentioned in other works of fiction, Zophiel makes his most notable appearance in John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, as the warrior “cherubim with the swiftest wings” in the battle of Heaven, where he was believed to assist Michael as the standard bearer. He’s presented as a spy returning from a reconnaissance mission to the rebel camp, much in the way Aziraphale had infiltrated Hell and fooled its demons in the wake of Armageddon’t.

As Zaapiel derived from Za’ap (Hebrew) meaning rage, anger or storm, he is also recognised as the angel of storms and, under the variant Zafiel, the angel of rain. This might be the reason why Zophiel is traditionally associated with the archangel of lightning and thunder, Barachiel (“God’s Blessings” or “Lightning of God”, especially when transcribed as Barakiel or Baraqiel) — to the point of being mentioned as his partner or consort.

Barachiel is the angel of lightning, but also — as the name suggests — blessings. In Catholic iconography he is usually depicted with a staff, a basket of bread, or a rose, each petal of which is representing a blessing from God, tossed out as the angel pleases to bless people. He is the chief of guardian angels, but in particular watches over young children, and sometimes takes on the task of delivering the blessing of offspring to prospective parents.

Like Zophiel is believed to have taught humans languages and wisdom found in books, Barachiel is commonly revered as the angel who taught them astrology, the wisdom of the stars.

Nothing lasts forever

Raphaelic legends aren’t all fun and games, but also mention the less marketed aspect of being an archangel: signaling the Day of Judgment. In Christianity, this is usually assigned as another one of Gabriel’s jobs, but he’s on the run right now, isn’t he? Well, good news! In Islam, Raphael is called Israfil or Israfel and believed to be the angel who blows the trumpet to signal Qiyamah, a counterpart of the Christian Second Coming, instead. The fact that Aziraphale has taken over Gabriel’s position in Heaven might be much less coincidental than some think.

And it’s important to remember that this power is not only destructive — while the first blow will kill all creatures and creations, the second one will revive them and prepare for the Last Judgment (yes, the very same one that in Christian belief will be administered by Jesus with the help of Book of Life). Very much in line of what Adam, the Antichrist, has done with the help of a certain shoulder angel and shoulder demon.

This is exactly the sentiment found in the poem “Israfel” by Edgar Allen Poe. In a material world nothing is meant to last forever, which is a curse and a blessing. A curse because it means death and destruction; miracles may sustain a certain bookshop in its current form through millennia, but as a tombstone to the life they led instead of a home it once used to be. A blessing, because it also means change and a new beginning — as long as there’s enough life force to replace whatever is lost in the process.

Nothing on Earth lasts forever, but we should use it for inspiration, savor momentary bliss, and hold it in our hearts. Only Heaven and the passions of its angels (fallen or not) are truly eternal.

And we can expect at least two of them to keep loving each other beyond the human concept of time, perhaps in a nice cottage on the South Downs.

[ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral]

I wasn't planning on posting this today, but this idea came to me today and I must share it! (I'm still working on my special au to celebrate two big tumblr milestones! Hopefully it'll be done by the end of the week!)

With all of the dehumanizing propaganda labelling magic users as "inhuman monsters" that Uther spread during the purge, people who are attracted to magic users are probably labelled as deviants. In Camelot, saying "yeah I'd bang a wizard" is considered completely taboo. But that doesn't stop people from fantasying about what they can't have.

This, of course, spawns a whole genre of steamy romance manuscripts featuring evil sorcerers kidnapping fair maidens and falling in love with them, powerful wizards seducing innocent princess with their dark magics, dark and broody warlocks tricking naive ladies into becoming their lovers through a devil's bargain, etc. These cheesy romance manuscripts are quite popular with the ladies of Camelot, as they have a forbidden aspect to them in both the owning of such stories and the material of the stories themselves. Plus, when you're a noblewoman trapped in a loveless political marriage, the fantasy of a dark and powerful magic user becoming enamored with them and stealing them away is quite the appealing fantasy.

To many people in Camelot, magic users become the ultimate forbidden romance fantasy, being (in their imaginations) secretive and powerful creatures who can use their magic to exert their will and their dark desires on their innocent victims.

The few people in Camelot who have actually slept with magic users don't help these rumors either, as they only add fuel to the fire. Gwaine certainly has plenty of stories to share about how much fun sorcerers and witches can be in bed with their magic, and the people in the tavern listen with rapt attention and furious blushing when he tells those stories.

But when tales of Emrys, the last dragonlord and the most powerful sorcerer to ever live, travel from the druids to Camelot? The wizard-fuckers in Camelot went wild.

Within a couple weeks, there were dozens of steamy (and VERY imaginative) romance novels and manuscripts written and passed around Camelot, all revolving around the mysterious and brooding warlock Emrys.

As people's dirty imaginations ran wild with what Emrys might be like, the general perception of Emrys became more and more ridiculous. According to some of these stories, Emrys was a seven foot tall brooding warlock whose magic made him irresistible, forcing people to succumb to his will.

Pretty much everyone in Camelot gets their hands on one of these manuscripts or hears about them. Gwaine has his own collection of them, which isn't too shocking to anyone, but, to everyone's surprise, Merlin starts collecting some of those stories too (to make sure that no one else gets their hands of such embarrassing material, but people just assume that he has some sort of kink). He even blushes whenever someone mentions them (out of mortification).

Eventually, Arthur finds out about his kingdom's dirty fascination with this Emrys guy because people kept teasing Merlin for his crush on Emrys. Arthur demands to know who Merlin has fallen for (for security reasons, of course, not because he's jealous). It's at that point that Gwen and the knights have to tell Arthur that his entire kingdom (including Merlin apparently) has been thirsting over a hot mysterious sorcerer that no one actually knows anything about.

Arthur almost blows up when he hears this, furious that his entire kingdom has been having dirty fantasies about a dangerous man who's most likely their enemy! And don't even get him started on how Merlin, his Merlin, has the audacity to be more attracted to this Emrys than Arthur himself! This is outrageous!

However, no matter how much Arthur tries to point out to Merlin that being attracted to Emrys is a bad idea and nothing will ever come of it anyways, he still keeps on catching Merlin with those dirty manuscripts about Emrys! (Because Merlin is still trying to secretly get rid of them all).

Eventually, Arthur gets frustrated enough that he'll try anything to get Merlin's attention away from Emrys. He thinks over how he could do that for a while, until one day he overheard two ladies of the court talking about how much they enjoyed it when their partners in bed roleplayed as a powerful magic user like Emrys, and Arthur begrudging came to a solution.

The next day, when Arthur catches Merlin reading a story about Emrys and blushing wildly again, Arthur clears his throat, looks a mortified Merlin dead in the eyes, and asks, "if I took you to bed and pretended to be Emrys while doing so, would that finally get you over your ridiculous attraction to this criminal of a sorcerer?"

Arthur was perhaps a bit too blunt in his delivery, as Merlin promptly started choking on air after Arthur's question in lieu of an answer, much to Arthur's annoyance. You see, as much as it would irritate Arthur to have to pretend to be another man, let alone an enemy sorcerer, in bed, Arthur had a plan.

Arthur obviously needed to rein in Merlin's lust before his servant did anything stupid (like fall into bed with an actual dangerous sorcerer), and what better way to do that than slake Merlin's lust himself? Truly, Arthur was the most generous king there ever was (ignoring his own rampant attraction towards Merlin). And once they were in bed, Arthur would prove to Merlin how great and how proficient a lover he is, and any thoughts of Emrys (or any man who wasn't Arthur for that matter), would be forgotten immediately in the face of how superior Arthur is!

Arthur mentally pats himself on the back for coming up with this genius plan as Merlin's coughing fit finally ends.

"Arthur, why on earth would you even ask that?!"

"Because you're clearly enamored with this sorcerer, so perhaps this will finally get that stupidity out of your system!"

They go back and forth like this for a while, until finally Merlin, to his own shock, agrees to Arthur's proposal. Arthur feels alight with victory for a few minutes, until he realizes that he'll have to learn how to act convincingly like a powerful sorcerer for one night. At that point, Arthur goes out to buy some dark robes for himself to hopefully get more into character, and even "studies" some of those spicy manuscripts to get an idea of what Merlin would be expecting.

Arthur barely managed to finish one of them from how scandalized he was at their contents. Why were these so popular with his subjects?! Still, Arthur soldiered on, reading more and more of the embarrassing romance manuscripts until he finally felt confident in what Merlin was looking for.

Of course, when the time came, Arthur was terrible at roleplaying as a sorcerer, but Merlin didn't mind one bit (most because Merlin was torn between laughing hysterically or being embarrassed beyond belief at at Arthur's poor impersonation of a poor interpretation of Merlin himself, so he decided to instead just enjoy being with Arthur).

And that's all for now! I'm thinking about doing a continuation of this later on, where Camelot (who's been thirsting over Emrys) learns that Merlin had been Emrys all along. Please let me know if you'd like to see that one day!

And, as always, thank you for reading through my ramblings! :D

[letsgobarbs]

ANNOUNCING: A FOOL'S TRIP

A Harry Castillo x F!Reader fic coming to the tumblr near you, as soon as I have watched the movie. Inspired by Noble Wife Wants No Love a web novel by Gongzhi Wen Zheng. Special thanks to @probablyreadinsmut for their contribution and their ear.

PROLOGUE

If there was anything people could say about Mrs. Harry Castillo, it is that her life's greatest achievement was to be married to Harry Castillo. And that she was just the sort of horrible woman who knew it. She constantly threw around her weight and threw around his money— only the finest and best would do for her.

Of course, it made sense, the people thought as they gleefully tittered behind their hands. She would need something to fill the hole that had formed from not having her husband’s affections. Everyone remembers Harry Castillo's wild pursuit of the matchmaker and the subsequent fallout. And everybody knows he's still pining for her— she's practically still a family friend! It must also be a real slap in the face for your in-laws to prefer your husband's ex. Everyone also knew Mrs. Harry Castillo's relations with her in-laws were tenuous at best— but always antagonistic.

Of course, Harry Castillo wouldn't recount his wife and their marriage that way. Men had a way of being blissfully unperceptive and unmindful of the weight and significance of each word and action women used against each other as weapons. No, he wouldn't know anything about that.

He remembered his wife as a fresh-faced, bright-eyed, intelligent young girl who he saw at family gatherings. But somewhere along the way she had turned into this nasty, vapid, bully. He didn't mind her spending habits— money wasn't a problem, she could be as spoilt and high-maintenance as she pleases. But ever since the day he had married her, Harry hasn't known a single day of peace.

He didn't know her, he shamefully admitted. Their grandfathers had been best friends who had promised them to each other before either of them knew what marriage or love meant. When she had been in high-school, Harry promised to marry her when she was grown up. When she was in college, Harry promised to marry her when he had made something of himself.

Then her grandfather had passed away and her family fell on hard times— they practically disappeared from society. His grandpa insisted he marry her then to save her and her family, but he had just tasted the first morsel of success and independence so marriage wasn’t on his mind. It wasn't that he didn't want to marry her— Harry fully intended to honour the promise his grandfather made. But waiting for a few more years wouldn't hurt, right?

Moreover, his mother clearly disapproved of her. She had been very vocal on multiple occasions that she thought his wife was nothing but a gold-digger— some pauper grasping for his wealth to maintain an elusive former lifestyle. He had explained to his mother many times to be civil to her. But she was just as worse, always riling up his mother and locking heads with her at every turn. So, he decided to wait a few more years— just until they learned to be polite with one another.

He realised he was keeping her waiting— leading her on. So, he cut her a deal. If by a certain age, they had both not found love then he would definitely, absolutely, marry her then— for real this time. It was for the best. Certainly, she never expected to have some family promise hold up her life. So he gave them both a chance to find real love. And after Lucy, his time was up. He kept his promise this time. And ushered everyone into a match made in hell.

Harry wasn't blind, he knew the girl liked him. She had basically announced it to everyone who would listen and even those who won't. Her eyes had always innocently shined with love every time she looked at him. He had not felt the same but believed that affection for her would grow in him with time. But her love has only grown more obsessive with every year that passed. He winced as he remembered the altercation between her and Lucy. It was far too embarrassing for everyone involved.

But still, he hesitated as his pen touched the divorce paper. The scent of home made food lingered in the apartment. She always made the effort for him. And it was human nature to ruminate over things that are ending— wondering if they could've done something different. He regretted not keeping his grandfather's promise of always taking care of her. The old man has always been blind to his wife's faults— as far as he was concerned, she could do no wrong. Harry considered adding to her already substantial alimony.

“Sign it, do it, you little shit. I triple dog dare you.”

His head whipped up in surprise at her words. But his wife was still pitifully crying into the handkerchief he had lent her. Even his lawyers looked like they hadn't heard anything. It had been a long flight home. Was he just tired and hallucinating?

“Darling, please don't do this. I'm begging. I'll get on my knees. Please. I'll be such a good wife to you. I even cooked us dinner,it's your favourite. I'll try harder, I'll do everything you—” she whined. Her voice was getting on his nerves, like a persistent itch he couldn't scratch.

“Please Mrs Castillo. Let's not make it any more difficult than it has to be. My client has already given you a sizeable alimony as well as this apartment…” his lawyer drones on. He hadn't wanted to embarrass her in front of others. But he knew it would be nearly impossible to talk to her during one of her tantrums. So he threw that task onto someone else, along with a hefty cheque for their efforts.

“That bitch better have given me a good alimony. I looked it over and eek the apartment, the car, the vacation house, all my jewellery and a few of his shares too? I almost don't hate him teehee.”

Harry peered at her face, she really hadn't said a word. His wife was still shedding one shimmery tear after the next while looking at him like a spurned lover who had the very clothes ripped off her back. But it was unmistakably her voice. Was he sick and hearing things?

“I won't sign the papers! I won't even read them. I don't want anything. I just want to be with my husband”—she turned to beg him—“Please, baby. Think about gramps. He's ill and he'll be so shocked to hear about the divorce. Let's not break his heart. Tell me how you want me to do better. I swear I'll work on myself. Do you think I'm fat? Is that why you're divorcing me?”

“Fat, my ass. That's right, nice, thick, juicy ass. She deserves better. I deserve better. Gramps will understand that hot milfs and dilfs in the area are waiting for me. But I swear I must be rid of this man TODAY.”

Harry could do nothing more than gape at his wife. She gave a strangled sob, “Is that why you haven't touched me? Your mom blames me for not giving you a baby. But, husband, I didn't tell them you haven't even touched me.” She could barely get the words out towards the end from the heaving hiccups.

He felt anger licking through his veins. They both knew that despite their differences his mother and his grandfather would be angry at him for not treating her properly as his wife. Was she threatening to tell on him?

“What are you scowling at me for? That's right I'm threatening you. Quick, get angry, pick up the pen, sign the papers. Hahahahah. Tell me you can't spend another second being married to me. Say you'll divorce me, DO IT.”

Harry set the pen down on the papers. He tried to read the letters on the page, hoping to focus his mind on something else so the voice would disappear.

“Sweet, baby Jesus in heaven. If there was ever a time you come out swinging for me, now is the time, my good Lord. Set me free from the shackles of this marriage. Make this man sign the divorce papers.”

No such luck, it seemed. He looked at his wife. She looked hopeful.

“You won't sign them? I knew you felt something for me, baby! I love you so much! I promise…” Harry couldn't stand listening to more from her so he tuned out the rest of her words and picked up the pen again.

“YES, yes. That's right. You're irritated at me saying I love you. I knew it was the perfect thing to say! MUAHAHAHAHA. My beauty, my charm, my youthful, pretty years all wasted on this vanilla potpourri. I'll go on my trip. My Fool’s trip. And I'll fuck so many people nyasty style, it's about to be the hot girl summer I deserve. Oh-M-Gee Lucien de Leon was soooooooo flirting with me the other night. Maybe I'll call him up tonight and pretend to drown my divorce sorrows by BOUNCING ON THAT MASSIVE DICK. GOD BLESS.”

He caught it. The most minuscule up-tick of the corner of her mouth that she quickly hid behind more high pitched crying and her palm. He was hearing her inner thoughts.

“Husband…” she twisted his handkerchief anxiously in her hands, “Don't cast me out. Don't divorce me, please.” She tearfully and longingly gazed at him.

“Okay, I'll give you one more chance.” He acquiesced. He ignored the exasperated huff from his lawyers.

“Oh, thank you so much, darling. I won't let you down. I'll be the bestest wifey ever!” She smilingly declared.

“WHAAAATTTT???? YOU WON'T SIGN? YOU WON'T SIGN THE DIVORCE PAPERS? THEW THEW THEW. I SPIT ON YOU. I SPIT ON YOUR ANCESTORS. YOU SHIT HEAD, ELECTRIC CHAIR. DEATH TO YOU. A THOUSAND DEATHS TO YOU. ASSHOLE. SET ME FREE. LET ME OUUTT. MY TRIP. MY HOT GIRL SUMMER. ALL THOSE BEAUTIFUL SEXY PEOPLE WAITING TO FUCK ME. FUCK YOU.”

For the first time in perhaps years, Harry Castillo smiled at his wife.

[arenaconspiracy]

soon i am getting a new laptop that i will have to use in public, and i am thinking of doing the most arcane, malevolently set up, Doug Rattmann crazy levels, most incomprehensible Linux setup on it, so that nobody who isn't me, or atleast is not familiar enough with the specific linux utilities, can use it.

so that in the event i happen to leave the laptop unattended in public, (which i do not plan on doing, as i innately keep my backpack on me 100% of the time, so much so that multiple people have found it offputting, but in the event it do) nobody knows how to work it, or how it even works.

currently i've only a few ideas, such as - using i3wm with a fully rewritten key configuration, including having some common windows shortcuts such as alt + F4, ctrl + shift + esc, ctrl + alt + del, et cetera pull up premade messages heckling you for trying them - using only command line tools like feh, mpv, nmtui, & others for basic tasks - possibly automatically lock the session while the machine is in use if you fail to enter a password into a window, probably one it doesn't open automatically so you also need to know what fucking program to start from a terminal to enter a password you also need to know. (and possibly not have the program in the $PATH for extra evil)

LINUXPOSTERS OF TUMBLR - i call to you in a time of peril - heed my call, give me your most diabolical ideas on making an installation as hostile and arcane as you can. the machine doesn't even have to be 100% usable by myself, i'm fine with it being annoying as fuck to use if it means that it's bafflingly unusable to those around me.

no holds barred. if it's funny, or actively hostile to a user, or both, you may suggest it.

[mxtxfanatic]

Just wanna say for those of y’all who came into this fandom late: just a few years ago, speaking on Jiang Cheng with anything less than glowing praise used to bring so much harassment that “angry grape”-related tags had to be created to circumvent jc stans finding and subsequently dogpiling your posts. I’ve since seen this tagging convention appropriated by his stans to be an “affectionate” petname for his character. If you wrote a wangxian fic in which Jiang Cheng did not appear, your fics would get bombarded with stans flooding your comments with their own headcanons on why Jiang Cheng isn’t around but “this is how he’d react if he was” and “everyone loves him, they’re definitely thinking about him, rn” and “when is he supposed to show up, op???” If you read a wangxian fic and Jiang Cheng did appear, there was a 95% chance that you would have to slog through thousands of words of abuse apologia paired with every character (except maybe Lan Wangji, maybe) claiming that Wei Wuxian deserved to be abused and should just learn to handle it better because abuse is really love. It took me a year of reading purely (only, exclusively) wangxian fics to find a single fic that had both 1) canon Jiang Cheng and 2) did not twist the other characters into fanon iterations to justify canon Jiang Cheng’s abusive behavior. When more canon writers started appearing, their fics got flooded with negativity, claims that the fic wasn’t realistic because “jc isn’t like that,” and demands to change things. They started moderating their comment sections. Eventually, jc stan writers even stopped tagging Jiang Cheng in their fics despite writing him as a major character because people began to avoid reading fics if they knew from the tags that his character appeared.

The “canon jc” tag was created on tumblr because jc stans said that if we didn’t like being attacked for canon opinions we should “create our own tag.” It was not a tag that always existed. Nobody used it until my friends created it. And every few months after that, we’d get a new “flood the tag” campaign by jc stans pissed at the name until it died down… until twitter refugees arrived, bringing with them a new faction of jc stans. That jc appreciate week or whatever they call it that starts on Halloween? Created by jc stans in an attempt to flood out Wei Wuxian appreciation posts on his birthday by making sure that new Jiang Cheng content would dominate all the major tags on that day. I watched the creators brag about that.

One BIG fandom upset happened when a jc stan wrote a horribly mistagged rape and murder wangxian fic and had their friends promote it so that wangxian lovers would read the fic and be traumatized. They gloated about having "successfully baited people," then tried to delete their tweets admitting it when they got them in trouble. I was there for that, too, and I only dodged being triggered because I saved the fic to read for later instead of cracking it open immediately.

Some of y’all may see me around now, but I’ve been watching this fandom for much longer than I’ve been making posts, before even the friends and mutuals I know now even knew I existed (yes I was a lurker lol). I’ve seen the development of all this play out across tumblr, ao3, and twitter (despite my best efforts to avoid the twitter side, that’s how ubiquitous it was). That’s how inescapable it was. I saw so much shit go down that I already had a mile-wide blocklist before I made my first post, and even then, I still got hate commentary on some of my posts the moment I dipped my littlest toe into metas. I had anon off for like a year because I didn’t want to deal with any harassment, and the moment I turned it off, I started getting bait anons (though not as bad as the others I’ve seen, holy shit). When I started this blog, all I did was liveblog and reblog other people’s art and metas. I was so stressed entering this fandom because the shit I had seen off rip was absolutely disgusting. That’s why I have very intentional rules of engagement that I try to hold to for myself. I may never be the first to start the fight, but I damn sure will defend myself and my friends. I also will never run away from admitting my mistakes, but I will also never be bullied into treating someone’s personal fantasies as equal to the actual factual text.

This isn’t to say that fanon enjoyers don’t get harassment. Another big fandom scandal was that a popular fanfic writer obsessed with canon had been harassing other writers through a series of bot accounts into leaving the fandom. What a lot of people don’t bring up in their bid to paint canon enjoyers as particularly prone to “fandom bullying,” however, was that the “canon” they were obsessed with was tied almost exclusively to the canon wangxian’s top/bottom sexual dynamic. I’d read that person’s works before—enjoyed them, even, before the scandal happened. They wrote fanon into their fics in other ways. The fanon/canon divide isn’t the problem; entitlement to unanimous fandom praise and recognition is.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying canon or fanon, nothing right or wrong or morally superior for either camp. But do me a favor: go into the main jiang cheng character tag right now, and count how often you see a post about Jiang Cheng that portrays him in a negative light. Not one that portrays him as an snarky asshole or a teacher’s pet or a helicopter parent or a crybaby who only wants to be loved, but one which shows him in all of his uncensored glory as a piece of shit antagonist. How often do you see fanart of Jiang Cheng that isn’t “best jiujiu” or “sad didi” or “badass sect leader”? How often do you see metas that don’t include some iteration of “everyone is just so mean about poor little jc who just didn’t have a choice in anything he ever did 😢”? Go to the main novel tag and do the same. Hell, go to the wangxian tag and see what you find while you’re at it. How many of those posts are viral compared to “look at jc with his dogs!” or “look, I made lxc and jc kiss!” Then tell me whether or not you believe that jc stans are being specifically targeted for some unique and undeserved persecution by the fandom at large.

[farlynthordens]

Pillowfort vs Wafrn Comparison

hello to fellow tumblypoos who may be on the lookout for places to migrate in case tumblr does implode one day but don't know what the alternatives are like. i made accounts on 2 frequently mentioned tumblr clones, pillowfort and wafrn, and tested them as of April 2025. i hope this can be helpful!

SIGNING UP

Pillowfort: sign up free and be put on a waitlist, or pay $5 for instant access. The waitlist time was very short for me. Once you have your account, you get 50 invite links per week that you can send to others for instant signup access.

Wafrn: mods review every signup, but i still got access within a couple hours.

VIBES

Just my own personal observations from a very short period of use

Pillowfort: has a more "cozy and quiet" fandom and media-sharing vibe. it emphasizes using communities when you sign up (but you don't have to join any if you don't want to). most communities that currently exist are either super huge general ones (ex: "Anime") or tiny ones people made for their own friend group but i see potential for fandom-specific spaces to grow.

Wafrn: more unabashedly queer and chaotic (positive) like if you were in a discord server but on tumblr. it's more techy and text post/chatting focused but still has huge media-sharing capabilities. you can host your own server if you know how to. it's recommended you connect your acct to bsky if you want more fandom stuff (or consider a fandom-oriented server elsewhere, tho from what i can tell those don't have a lot of users yet)

MEDIA

Both do not allow multi-select, meaning that you have to upload files one at a time. both allow putting a shitload of images in one post (i didn't even have the patience to upload enough pics to find the limits). but i recommend against mass uploading media. those are individual ppl hosting those servers. consider paying them if you plan to upload a lot.

Pillowfort: only images/gifs, videos must be hosted externally. files must each be less than 2MB. adding additional images is a little janky and sometimes the buttons pop in/out.

Wafrn: video and images/gifs. not sure what the exact file size limit is, but i was able to upload a video that was 145MB so its decently big. media is horizontally scrolled rather than vertically stacked. also note: alt text is required by default, and the "post" button will disappear if any media is missing it.

POSTS

Pillowfort: allows turning off reblogs and comments. you can edit this at any time. seemingly no feature/option to truncate long posts you see on your dash? but i haven't come across any super long posts so maybe it's there. but there is a "read more" feature.

Wafrn: you can turn off notifications for a post, but there is no option to turn off reblogs/comments which i personally find to be a big downside. posts longer than a few sentences automatically get truncated.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS, TAGS

Both platforms have likes, comments, reblog systems, and tagging.

Both platforms don't have a page to find all of your Likes. Likes are persistent, and you'll see the colored heart icon if something you liked before crosses your dash, but there is no dedicated Likes page from what i could find.

Reblogging works different on Wafrn, where you have 3 options: rewoot (=quick reblog with no tags), reply (=standard reblog where you have the OPTION to add your own reply and/or tags), and quote (seems to be similar to doing a quote tweet, can also add tags).

If you connect Wafrn to bsky, you can see more posts from there within the site but certain types of interactions don't work.

On Pillowfort, tagging works basically the same as it does on tumblr (can search tags site-wide or on your particular blog). on Wafrn you can currently only do site-wide tag searching, so you're not able to organize your blog if you're into that.

NSFW

Both sites allow NSFW content.

Pillowfort: new post > select checkbox to mark as NSFW (so users with "Show NSFW posts by default" turned off will see the post blurred)

Wafrn: new post > upload media, and then you can mark individual media as NSFW to blur it. Also a content warning checkbox you can select to add in cw tags (must write the tags yourself which leaves room for user inconsistency. there is no preset cw list yet)

DRAFTS, QUEUE

Pillowfort: has a draft, queue, and scheduling system. your queue schedule is editable from settings or the queue page. the queue and draft pages are underneath "Posts", but only show up when there are things in them.

Wafrn: no draft or queue system.

POST VISIBILITY

Pillowfort: in every new post, you can select if the post is public, only for logged in users, only mutuals, or private (only you). you can edit this at any time.

Wafrn: in every new post, you can select if the post is public, only for your followers, only for your server instance, or private (only you). this is not editable once a post is made

BLOG VISIBILITY

Pillowfort: in settings, you can turn on concealed mode which prevents people you're not following from following you or even viewing your blog.

Wafrn: there doesn't seem to be a way to hide your blog profile from certain users/logged out users, but you can change your default post visibility.

ASKS

Pillowfort: Does not have an Ask system, only DMs. Creating an ask system is on their to-do list.

Wafrn: has an Ask system that accepts messages from Wafrn users, logged out anons, or even other fediverse sites (there's a explanation how to do this if you go to someone's profile and try sending a message). you must go to settings to enable anon asks.

FOLLOWING

Pillowfort: by default, anyone can follow anyone. in settings, you can turn on concealed mode which prevents people you're not following from following you or even viewing your blog.

Wafrn: by default, anyone can follow anyone. in settings, you can turn on the ability to review all follow requests.

CUSTOMIZATION

Pillowfort: Dark and light mode for the whole site. blog editing is pretty basic, just changing colors of some page elements (with a little jank). in settings, you can upload multiple icons which you can swap between when making new posts. there are a bunch of pfp frames and badges.

Wafrn: Dark and light mode, plus many other preset themes. blog page editing allows for header images and custom css. you can have emojis (including animated ones) in your name.

MISC

Mobile: both have a mobile app, but Wafrn's is still a bit more experimental. both contain many bugs but when has that not been the case for tungle dot com either

Paid features: Both are free*. Wafrn has no paid features but dev has a patreon/kofi you can support to pay for servers costs. Pillowfort has options for paid icons or frames, higher file size limits (2MB->4MB), or doing a recurring monthly donation to pay server costs and seems to really need the help.

Sideblog support: neither has this yet but both seem to be exploring options for it. you cannot make more than 1 account with the same email.

Blacklist/blocking: both support blacklisting words/phrases and blocking users. Wafrn also supports muting (soft blocking), Pillowfort does not but it's on their to-do list.

Languages: both are only in english

Bugs and future updates: If you want to read more about what features each platform is working on you can check Pillowfort's staff post and Wafrn's github

--------

conclusion: no matter where you choose to migrate to, nothing will be exactly the same as tumblr and will certainly never reach its scale/longevity without consistent user support.

if we want the next gen of the internet to be free of advertising and selling user data, then we will all need to chip in for it. either you pay for your own server to host yourself/others, or you support the people/orgs hosting servers for the rest of us to make sure that the things you love can remain online. i HIGHLY recommend that if you move to any of these places, you consider doing recurring donations. this goes for not just pillowfort and wafrn, but mastodon, neocities, or any other fedi or independently hosted spaces.

fedi sites have a lot of potential, because you can theoretically CREATE a massive social network via connecting lots of little ones together. but interconnecting independent sites is still something that's very buggy and needs working out, and from what i can tell, just because sites are part of the fediverse does not make them instantly compatible/crosspost-able (ppl more experienced can correct me on this)

[megamagimugi]

Yesterday was the first Mar10 Day and my birthday I got to celebrate here on Tumblr. And it was amazing! Let me just tell you all, I was blown away by the amount of love I got here from so many people. If I'm being honest, my birthdays IRL aren't really all that exciting, and tend to be lonely. I haven't enjoyed any of my birthdays for the last few years at all. This year I didn't even do anything to celebrate, and only got a little money as a gift.

But this little wholesome community we have here? It showered me with well wishes and awesome creative gifts, and collectively made my 29th birthday the very best I remember ever having! If Nintendo had done something nice for Mar10 Day, like giving us The Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel's teaser, it would have been perfect. But it doesn't matter. It was still the best birthday ever! And I want to personally thank each and every one of those responsible for making it so.

First, I want to thank everyone who gave me beautiful birthday presents. I got these fics:

@silenzahra's amazing fic An electrical aura rewritten from Mario's POV that I once asked her to write for a fanfic writing related ask game

@vulpixfairy1985's sweet and wholesome Mario & Luigi Brothership fic that she based on my seven (!) prompts from a drabble challenge (thanks for sending me the mandala as well!)

@silenzahra's another absolutely incredible fic Without him which was a complete surprise and probably the best birthday present in my life as it was inspired by my art! I still feel like I could cry just thinking about it, both because of this very fact and because the fic itself was the definition of an emotional rollercoaster (Zahra, my best friend and spiritual twin, the Luigi to my Mario - and I know this feeling is mutual - how can I ever thank you sufficiently for your two beautiful gifts and making my dream come true? more than one dream, actually? I'm so darn lucky to have you!❤️💚)

And then there's the art I got:

@bberetd's cute hugging bros (you're nailing the squishy hugs, my friend!)

@smokszyvverstar's smiley Mario and grumpy Ninja-Turtle-masked mini Bowser

@dreamyluigi's adorable and funny, but also somewhat bittersweet Mario and Mr. L mini comic which was also kind of inspired by my art so it's extra special!

@itsavee4117's quite literally sweet drawing featuring Mario and a birthday cake! I didn't have an actual birthday cake this year, so thanks for giving me one, Vee

@xnderx's adorable festive Mario Bros.

@stripetkattelalala54's fun and cute Mario carrying a birthday cake (that's right! I got another one🎂)

Next, I want to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes or mentioned me in their posts:

@bberetd @silenzahra @peaches2217 @anartistwhowrites @elitadream @galaxygazer-lav @loud-kid2 @dragon-fly34 @galaxytitanbro @eleventhhourfactor @akiiame-blog @mrs-luigi-vargas @coffeecat1983 @roscolate @vulpixfairy1985 @kelbreyworshipper @heartholomewmewyeah @socially-inept-ghost @smokszyvverstar @pepperycar @doodleydoo101 @wiimapletreeway @dreamyluigi @okie-dokiie @itsavee4117 @xnderx @ask-physalia-prime @drones-of-innocence @stripetkattelalala54

As well as anyone I might have missed who wished me a happy birthday in tags or comments (@poppet-seed a month late, but I found ya!). As you can see, this is quite a large crowd and I'm both thankful to you all and slightly overwhelmed, hehe. I really love this community more than I know how to express❤️

Thank you, ALL of you, so much for making this March 10th a true Mugi Day!

Also, in case anyone has missed it but would like to check it out, I also made Mar10 Day art of my own!

[doumadono]

ANNOUNCEMENT

This is a turning point for me. I've been silent for too long, but I can't stay quiet anymore.

I'm going through writer's burnout, and it has hit me hard. I've been writing on Tumblr and Ao3 for nearly eight years now (with about 1.5 years on my private blog, doumadono). Over that time, I've written more than 400 stories across various fandoms, created the Sinful Sunday event and a series that many people like, helped many with numerous emergency requests — so many that one masterlist wasn't enough to cover them all.

But all of this has brought me to a place where writing no longer feels like a joy, but rather a duty. In my effort to make everyone happy, I lost myself and took on too much, accepting even the most twisted and difficult requests. It made me anxious and unwell whenever I thought about writing. This is why I haven't been posting much these past few weeks. I missed the breaking point and let myself reach a place where I was seriously considering quitting writing altogether and closing both my Tumblr and Ao3 accounts.

There's something else I need to address. I feel completely detached from Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer. I no longer feel comfortable writing for those fandoms. From now on, I'll be focusing mostly on My Hero Academia. Even though the manga recently ended, both the manga and the anime hold a special place in my heart. I’ve fallen in love with the story and its amazing characters. This is what feels right to me at this moment. That doesn't mean I'll never write for Demon Slayer or other fandoms again, but not now, not at this time. Maybe in the future — who knows?

Some of you might know that I've been dealing with a flood of hateful anonymous messages. Even though I’ve grown stronger and no longer consider them relevant, it still hurts to read such nasty words. This is another factor why I need to take a break.

So, what's going to change?

Sinful Sunday will no longer cover requests, and the event won't be as regular as it used to be. From now on, I'll post some sinful pieces specifically written for this event whenever I feel it's right. I'll write only for the characters I feel attached too.

Emergency requests will be limited to two slots and will no longer have a 48-hour window to be fulfilled. Once both slots are taken, emergency requests will be closed until I manage to clear the current asks in my inbox.

As of today, my ask box has been completely cleared. I won't be replying to any past asks, regardless of their origin or topic.

Commissions will remain open, as nearly all the requests have been fulfilled.

Regarding the following projects:

The Kvitravn series will be completed this year, but I can't provide a specific date just yet as I'm still working hard to bring everything together.

There's also a new series on the horizon featuring Dabi in the lead role, with a psychiatrist!Reader as the other main character.

As for Kinktober, I made a hard decision it will not be held as an event on my blog this year at all.

As of now, I want to focus on my own little My Hero Academia based AU that I created with my best friend @crystalwolfblog , and this is something that brings me a lot of comfort nowadays, and it's what I want to focus on. I’ll likely create another blog to post everything related to this AU, to keep things organized (the blog will be linked to my pinned post). This little AU was and is my safe haven for the past year and half, and since it contains all of my favourite characters, I want to focus on it fully.

The time for purification has come. I need to rediscover my purpose and find joy in writing again. To those who understand and have stuck with me since the ThePaperPanda days — you’re amazing and adorable, and I can never express how much I appreciate you, guys 💞

I want to share one last thought. This isn’t a statement, but rather a plea to readers: please respect writers, no matter the content they choose to explore. Writing is not as easy as it may seem; it requires a significant amount of time and effort, often taking up our personal time to craft a story. Don't send anon hate. Spread love instead! The least you can do to show your appreciation is to leave a comment, even if it’s just a word or two. For you, it’s a small gesture that takes less than a minute, but for the writer on the other side, it may be a much-needed sign that their work is meaningful. So if you enjoy an author’s work, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. It truly makes us writers feel like we’re on cloud nine.

Love you all, Marcianna

[sinister-sincerely]

hi sin... :3c ... >:3c

we care youuuuuuu 💜💜💜

much sillies!! & much lovely art!! from @midnight-mourning @luckyyyduckyyy @soupdweller @wyervan & i, for you!!! 🫵

we hope that you are doing well! and that you are taking care, giving yourself grace through the highs & lows alike. it's not always easy, but you're not alone. hopefully this gets a laugh for ya to enjoy 💜

& in the future, if you'd like to draw together, or simply chill ambiently... the offer is always open!

... In full disclosure this took me a wretched amount of time to pull myself together to actually respond to.

(Its a long one, just a heads up. I do think its worth it though)

To say I was floored~ moved~ touched~ The words pale in comparison.

I believe the saying that a measure of someone being a good person is how they treat those that can do nothing for them.

And here I am, a stranger, being shown a kindness that I am not so sure I deserve but am grateful nonetheless.

To think that anyone, let alone all of you, amazing writers, artists, … people I respect and admire thought of me for even a moment to do something like this.

Depression- it holds me back a lot of the time.

It convinces me, like I am sure it does MANY of those readin' this, that your absence in this community, in this world, would not be felt.

There is a reason that I am a part of this community.

Its because it has a way of pulling together some of the most wonderful people I have ever had the pleasure of getting to know.

Now. I wanna return some of that kindness and talk specifically about the ones that pulled together to do this for me. (And also a few that are never far from my mind too)

@divinit3a

You are one of the only people I know that can just be there and your presence felt. Charismatic in the most brilliant way, I love the way your personality shines through everything you interact with (whether that be your writing or something as simple as a Tumblr post)

There is a reason that when you entered the community that people were drawn to you. You have an ability that is both captivating as it is striking in how powerful that magnetism is.

I am so grateful I get to know you, and I am so excited to see what else you create whether that be in this community or elsewhere.

I will always be a supporter, a fan, and most importantly a friend.

Read their stuff!

@midnight-mourning

Sometimes I get caught up in the fact I actually get to speak with the person who has wrote one of my favorite works on AO3.

I first stumbled upon your fic the day it was published and immediately fell in love with the snarky depiction of Sun (and the beautiful mysterious Moon) that you created in a world that has so much more left to be uncovered.

You manage to balance your life along side updating which in of itself seems like such a superpower that I envy to the core.

You also floored me with the kindness you've shown through out us chatting back and forth. Sometimes I feel just in awe that I can say we know eachother…

@luckyyyduckyyy

Talk about someone I've been actively following for awhile- Lucky, your ANE fanfic was one of the very first I read when stumbling upon the DCA community! It inspired me to take a chance at writing myself and posting it for the first time.

If I hadn't come across you- well, I wouldn't be here now… How do you even begin to pay that back?

I have no idea how I can thank you enough for doing that for me, let alone thank you for doing the above for me…

Its my hope that I get to continue to be friends with you, learn more from you and maybe one day manage to give back a fraction of what you've given me…

@soupdweller

AHH! Hi! So- I have no words but thank you.

I've admired your art for a very VERY long time and its such a cool, (and a bit) intimidating (but in a good way) gesture to have this coming from you too.

Your rendering is beautiful.

The way you laid out the DCA's internals still give me steampunk vibes in the BEST way with the colour palette~ I can gush forever but I also wanna seem cool and somewhat mysterious in that 'kinda quiet way'…

… I'll cut that out for now ^^

on a serious note, thank you, you don't know me very well but you still did this and what I mentioned before about the measure of being a good person- that describes you.

@wyervan

… Would it be weird for me to say that anytime I think of the DCA as humans I can't for the life of me not picture the AU forms that you created that has single handedly metamorphosized into a community Slasher Y/N multiverse?

That is an amazing talent, I am just in awe at what you've managed to not only do, but also how you've brought so many people together!

I have so much to say, and yet I don't wanna put my foot in my mouth by actually following through with the amount of admiration I wanna express.

Thank you for taking part in this for me, we don't really know each-other much just yet but I hope that changes. You seem like such an amazing person, I'd love to gossip about skinny, scrawny, somewhat unhinged guys with you sometime.

-

I have a few people I wanna shout out too

@amarynthian-chronicles:

Thank you for always supporting me, even when I don't think I deserve it. You've been an amazing person to me, and I hope I get more opportunities to return the favor

@gniteruirui

Gosh. You've been such a beautiful person to get to know this past year or so. Your artwork gives me life, and seeing your name pop up in all the ways it does makes me smile.

@lets-zofifi-stuff

I hope you continue to have more good days vs bad- I hope the sun shines on you and you always find random luck whenever its needed.

You were one of the first people I made friends with here on Tumblr… I may have also looked back and saw that you even made a post about me when I left Tumblr the first time.

@bubbiethesaur

I don't have enough words to express how much I adore you for just being you. Thank you, I hope I can be a friend that deserves you.

I just wanted to tag you- You are so talented, wonderful, and kind.

Something about you just makes me smile whenever I see your username come up. I've always wanted to get closer to you, friendship wise, but I also get scared because you're so cool.

I've been working on it.

Just know that our conversations in Qwille's discord have always been some of my favorite moments in this community.

@maldefekt

Thank you for reaching out to me- even that most recent time when you saved me from something I know would have haunted me forever!

I am looking forward to getting to know you more