#bluesky mastodon and pillowfort I never use

[winged-mammal]

given *vague gesture* everything, here's where I can be found elsewhere

bluesky

mastodon

pillowfort

dreamwidth

discord: winged_mammal

twitter (only a technicality in that the account still exists)

AO3 (doesn't really count but I guess you can always leave a comment on something to get in touch if all else fails)

I don't have a cohost yet but if I end up getting one it'll be the same username as everywhere else, with an underscore if allowed or with a dash if not

[sabertoothwalrus]

are people actually using bluesky. I never used twitter and I never joined any of the other social media apps that kinda lost steam (pillowfort, mastodon, cara, etc). but twitter seems like its been shitting the bed harder than usual so I'm wondering if this time it actually might get replaced

[ungrateful-cyborg-moved]

Social media comparison

Alright. I've tried different new/alternative platforms lately in hope to find something I really liked, and there are very promising ones. I didn't try everything, of course, but this is a kind of overview of my journey so far? Or just my thoughts on the matter.

I've tried Pillowfort, Bluesky, Mastodon (didn't last long enough to have much of an opinion, it simply didn't click), Dreamwidth and Cohost (as of today, can't post there yet).

My comparison under the cut:

► I appreciate that they're algorithm free, whether it's because they truly believe in an Internet rid of the most invasive of them or because it's too expensive to implement on a brand new platform or some other reason. Only the future can tell, but for now it's nice.

► Pillowfort: beside the post formatting that I find extremely comfortable, my favourite thing is probably communities. I feel like this is the strongest "pro" in favor of Pillowfort because this is where they truly distinguish themselves from other social media.

Communities, in a way, remind me of forums. They're however easier to take in hand since you don't have to deal with as many options and choices. In my opinion, communities on Pillowfort are a bit lacking in functionalities though. I think more tools to easily organize them would help, like a widget or something to link stuff so you can create and animate events within said communities.

(I also feel like Pillowfort would gain from not being dark blue. We have more than enough dark blue websites, and it doesn't go well with the warmth invoked by its name in my opinion, but that's a minor detail and just a matter of taste.)

► Bluesky: basically Twitter but better. No algorithm, for a start. The curated feeds are nice. They're a bit like communities on Pillowfort since they can be moderated but from a non-mod user, it's even easier to post in them: you just have to use the right keyword for your post to appear there. Well, if the mod left it open to all rather than chose to vet who can or cannot post in it. Lots of flexibility and control over your timeline overall.

I don't like the 300 characters limit, however. Never liked it with Twitter either. It's not really conductive to conversations, and the general design tends to make the website feel rather impersonal. It's really more like parallel talking than community building.

Overall I think it's a good tool to promote your (visual) art or website, etc. but not great for hosting conversations past commenting briefly what others are doing. I mean, you can make threads but it'll never be as good as Pillowfort or Tumblr for this.

► Dreamwidth: I'll start with saying that Dreamwidth isn't a social media, it's a journaling platform and I haven't used it much yet. Had in plan to post my headcanons about my muses there and stuff like that so I did spend some time trying to figure out how it works.

First, there is a lot of options to let you have complete control over who can see what. Like, a lot.

You can entirely personalize what your journal will look like. It's a bit easier than having your own website—since I reblogged a post about that yesterday—because you don't start from 0, so it might be a good option if you don't feel comfortable jumping into Notepad++ to start coding. You can just change a thing here and there, or nothing at all, or almost everything. It's pretty old school though, so for those completely unfamiliar with early/pre-web 2.0, it might not look very appealing at first. However, I'd say don't let that stop you! If anything, it's a good opportunity to learn a bit of code without pressure.

You can also create communities, which as you might have guessed is very important to me. When creating one, you can set up whether everyone can join, everyone can ask to join but has to be approved by a community admin or to limit the access to those you have personally invited. Like for your own journal, communities are completely customizable, and Dreamwidth allows adult content.

I'm not sure you can top DW communities in terms of functionalities—aside from making a forum—but it's not as intuitive as Pillowfort (though in exchange you get more customization). You're also more limited regarding image hosting (see here). That said, hosting services exist, many are free, and that's without mentioning that you can post on Twitter and the like and use the picture link in your DW posts. I don't think many will only use Dreamwidth anyway.

► Cohost: I was expecting nothing when I registered earlier today, but this is an overall good surprise: it's Tumblr, but better.

More control of what you see. More user-friendly UI. It's not fucking blue. Adult content allowed. You can change your main blog page and make it private.

The only two downsides I'd mention here would be that you can't customize your blog page appearance and you have to wait for one or two days before being able to post. Although if it means less bots, I'd rather wait.

And this ends my rather non-exhaustive tour of the social media/blogging/journaling platforms. If you catch any mistakes let me know. I didn't dive deep, this was just me sharing my thoughts.

(As far as I know, they all allow adult content and give you tools to not see it if you don't want to.)

[xannador]

Have you considered going to Pillowfort?

Long answer down below:

I have been to the Sheezys, the Buzzlys, the Mastodons, etc. These platforms all saw a surge of new activity whenever big sites did something unpopular. But they always quickly died because of mismanagement or users going back to their old haunts due to lack of activity or digital Stockholm syndrome.

From what I have personally seen, a website that was purely created as an alternative to another has little chance of taking off. It it's going to work, it needs to be developed naturally and must fill a different niche. I mean look at Zuckerberg's Threads; died as fast as it blew up. Will Pillowford be any different?

The only alternative that I found with potential was the fediverse (mastodon) because of its decentralized nature. So people could make their own rules. If Jack Dorsey's new dating app Bluesky gets integrated into this system, it might have a chance. Although decentralized communities will be faced with unique challenges of their own (egos being one of the biggest, I think).

Trying to build a new platform right now might be a waste of time anyway because AI is going to completely reshape the Internet as we know it. This new technology is going to send shockwaves across the world akin to those caused by the invention of the Internet itself over 40 years ago. I'm sure most people here are aware of the damage it is doing to artists and writers. You have also likely seen the other insidious applications. Social media is being bombarded with a flood of fake war footage/other AI-generated disinformation. If you posted a video of your own voice online, criminals can feed it into an AI to replicate it and contact your bank in an attempt to get your financial info. You can make anyone who has recorded themselves say and do whatever you want. Children are using AI to make revenge porn of their classmates as a new form of bullying. Politicians are saying things they never said in their lives. Google searches are being poisoned by people who use AI to data scrape news sites to generate nonsensical articles and clickbait. Soon video evidence will no longer be used in court because we won't be able to tell real footage from deep fakes.

50% of the Internet's traffic is now bots. In some cases, websites and forums have been reduced to nothing more than different chatbots talking to each other, with no humans in sight.

I don't think we have to count on government intervention to solve this problem. The Western world could ban all AI tomorrow and other countries that are under no obligation to follow our laws or just don't care would continue to use it to poison the Internet. Pandora's box is open, and there's no closing it now.

Yet I cannot stand an Internet where I post a drawing or comic and the only interactions I get are from bots that are so convincing that I won't be able to tell the difference between them and real people anymore. When all that remains of art platforms are waterfalls of AI sludge where my work is drowned out by a virtually infinite amount of pictures that are generated in a fraction of a second. While I had to spend +40 hours for a visually inferior result.

If that is what I can expect to look forward to, I might as well delete what remains of my Internet presence today. I don't know what to do and I don't know where to go. This is a depressing post. I wish, after the countless hours I spent looking into this problem, I would be able to offer a solution.

All I know for sure is that artists should not remain on "Art/Creative" platforms that deliberately steal their work to feed it to their own AI or sell their data to companies that will. I left Artstation and DeviantArt for those reasons and I want to do the same with Tumblr. It's one thing when social media like Xitter, Tik Tok or Instagram do it, because I expect nothing less from the filth that runs those. But creative platforms have the obligation to, if not protect, at least not sell out their users.

But good luck convincing the entire collective of Tumblr, Artstation, and DeviantArt to leave. Especially when there is no good alternative. The Internet has never been more centralized into a handful of platforms, yet also never been more lonely and scattered. I miss the sense of community we artists used to have.

The truth is that there is nowhere left to run. Because everywhere is the same. You can try using Glaze or Nightshade to protect your work. But I don't know if I trust either of them. I don't trust anything that offers solutions that are 'too good to be true'. And even if take those preemptive measures, what is to stop the tech bros from updating their scrapers to work around Glaze and steal your work anyway? I will admit I don't entirely understand how the technology works so I don't know if this is a legitimate concern. But I'm just wondering if this is going to become some kind of digital arms race between tech bros and artists? Because that is a battle where the artists lose.

[eggnogo]

is there an alternative to any of these websites that doesn't blow ass?

cohost is unfinished and lacks a lot of simple features, same kinda reach issues that pillowfort has (I'm also there but I never use it)

mastodon is horrible to navigate and every time I hear something about it it's from one of those people with the same brain worm that makes you never shut up about linux

bluesky is so far working as a spot to post my other stuff but it makes all my uploads crusty so even if I make a sfw spot there it's not gonna serve any purpose my personal art page doesn't already serve

at this point I'm gonna start an email list

I have been made aware the cohost moment was misinformation, I'm still not interested in it, in it's current state

[cuppajj]

if you leave tumblr, where would you go? mostly asking so i can follow your accounts on other sites if something falls through.

Bluesky, Pillowfort, or Mastodon are the main ones, but I may also consider opening up my own website? That might come later though once I have a shop and commissions open. The site depends on their policies though, I don’t trust these websites enough to take a stance against ai art so who knows if it’ll happen eventually? Though any place that hasn’t sold out is still probably better than a site that has sold out already.

Unsure if I’d leave immediately after the deal goes through though, maybe wait a week or month in case resistance is good enough for them to break it? That and/or I’m nightshading/glazing all my posts from here on out. But yeah this sucks overall, I’ve never liked creative ai tools and it sucks exponentially that tumblr could do this. Anyway if I do decide to leave, I’ll make a post about it on all my socials and where you can find me.

This is all if tumblr doesn’t give us an anti scraping option in our settings which I HOPE they do but they might use the shitty tos to get out of not doing it or something who knows

[duckprintspress]

Meet Aether Beyond the Binary Contributors Flore Picard and Alec J. Marsh

We are 57% of the way to our funding goal for AETHER BEYOND THE BINARY, with 19 days to go!! This awesome anthology featuring non-binary and genderqueer characters in aetherpunk settings has been in the works for a year, and we’re optimistic that we’ll reach our funding target so that we can publish the book as an e-book, trade paperback, and hardcover. Slow and steady, race winning, you know the deal. 😀 Things have definitely slowed down, as is normal for this stage of the campaign, so just a note that we’d always appreciate your help with spread the word about this project so that more people will know it exists! You can find our “main” posts about the campaign on different platforms using these links:

Bluesky

Dreamwidth

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

Mastodon

Patreon (public post)

Pillowfort

Tiktok

Tumblr

WordPress

Thanks in advance!!

You can learn all about the campaign, the book, the merch, and the authors, by visiting our Kickstarter campaign page!

And, today we’re introducing two more contributing authors: Flore Picard and Alec J. Marsh!

The Light Organ by Flore Picard

About Flore Picard: I’m a linguist and translator who lives in France and I have been itching to write since I learned how to. I started writing (fan)fiction more regularly when I was procrastinating on my PhD dissertation, and I haven’t looked back since. I’m also an artist who loves drawing both fanart and original art, and I have a passion for patterns and systems, for the beauty at the edge of chaos and the complexity of being human. I tend to write about queer and disabled characters finding themselves and each other and learning to take up space in the world.

Links: Instagram | Twitter

This is Flore’s first publication with Duck Prints Press.

Title: The Light Organ

Tags: angst with a happy ending, capitalism is the real villain, coming out, disabled character, emotional hurt/comfort, family, fraught family dynamics, illusion, in the closet, magic use, mechanic, musician, non-binary, parenthood, present tense, science fiction with magic, teenager, third person limited point of view, transphobia (mentions of) (past)

Excerpt:

“No, no, no—the organ, the light ring—it’s all about the imagination, not the mechanics,” Kas exclaims, gesturing widely to encompass the aether pool behind the glass.

“I’m just here for the tubes,” the tech—Gilbert—says flatly.

His face betrays no emotions, not even annoyance. Kas almost wishes he would yell or be rude, if only for the sake of feeling like they’re having an actual conversation, but Gilbert has always been polite. He just never seems to care.

“Fine,” Kas gives up. “We’ve got glitches. They started about a week ago. It could be a leaking tube, I’m not sure.”

“What kind of glitches?”

“It’s as if… as if the story stops responding to me. I know how that sounds, but I swear that’s what happens. It doesn’t last more than a few seconds, but it’s getting worse. Earlier, I powered everything up to tune it and it kept flickering.”

“Flickering,” Gilbert repeats, mumbling into his neatly trimmed beard.

Kas grabs a cane in each hand and makes their way to the organ’s seat. “I can show you.”

You’re Gonna Get Older by Alec J. Marsh

About Alec J. Marsh: Alec lives in the Pacific Northwest, where they write romantic adult fantasy and self-indulgent fanfiction. They make candles inspired by their favorite characters.

Links: Etsy | Instagram | Twitter

Alec is one of the editors for Aether Beyond the Binary and has also published multiple titles with Duck Prints Press. His novella To Drive the Hundred Miles (modern, f/m, trans male lead) was recently successfully crowdfunded and orders fulfilled. His two erotica stories Heart’s Scaffold (sci-fi, m/m) and Study Hall (modern academia, m/m) are part of the Contributor Short Story Bundle add-on.

Title: You’re Gonna Get Older

Tags: arranged marriage, christian, coming of age, coming out, cults, fraught family dynamics, friends, in the closet, lesbian, midwest, misgendering, non-binary, north dakota, past tense, post-apocalyptic, relationship of convenience, religion, song fic, teenager, third person limited pov, trans man, trans woman, transphobia

Excerpt:

There was a radio in the room, an old two-way they had found on their last visit and hidden in an empty supply closet. It was still there. They slid open the battery pack and snapped in a fresh battery from their aether lantern. Chips of the meteor had been encased in metal tubing to mimic the lithium batteries of the Before, but they were precious and had to be used sparingly. Stardancer knew better than to use precious energy on something this frivolous.

They popped the battery cover in place and pressed the power button. It crackled to life. They cradled it like it was made from glass. The dials made a tak-tak-tak noise as Stardancer scrolled through channels. Music came through softly. It faded in and out, cut through with static, but it was music, and not the kind made on an acoustic guitar. They adjusted the antenna and turned up the volume.

It was like nothing they had heard before, fast paced with a heavy beat. Even over the fuzzy AM connection, it was invigorating. They wanted to dance. They wanted to sing along with words they had never heard before. The singer screamed their triumph, and Stardancer felt invincible.

There's no time like right now to become a backer and help us reach 100% funded! Check it out!

[arcadekitten]

So given that Twitter thinks it's a good idea to remove the block feature, have you considered of jumping ship? Just figured I'd mention it since I care about the well beings of others even to those I don't know in person.

I've considered it! I've been considering it with pretty much every stupid change, lol. I think the thing for me at least is that like, it's hard to move somewhere new when everyone you know is in one place.

I also hate having to make new social media accounts unless I absolutely have to(its just too much to keep track of). Being on the internet as long as I have I've seen plenty of people start new social media accounts elsewhere (Artfol, Pillowfort, Mastodon, Threads, etc) only to never use them and come right back to twitter, instagram, and tumblr in a circle. Everyone is talking about BlueSky right now and while it seems appealing, I don't think I can start an account there unless everyone actually does migrate over and use it as regularly as their other socials.

However, the block button is pretty important to me. After all having fans(very grateful for you guys btw) also comes with people who see it fit to be mean and harass you. I don't think hiding replies and muting people will be satisfactory enough for me. So if this really goes forward and the block feature is removed I might not be very active there anymore--or at the very least I wouldn't interact with people as much as I try to.

I don't think I'll necessarily delete my account or anything, but I might just use it to post game releases and artwork if everyone does move. Maybe with limited replies, we'll see.

Hopefully they change their mind about such a backwards feature removal! But you'll still be able to find me here and on instagram!

[bonesandthebees]

Honestly looking at the decay of tumblr, I’m considering moving to mastodon or bluesky as Twitter alternatives that are more stable than x is right now. I don’t trust x to not implement pay to post or something so I’m hesitant to set up ship there. I don’t know, there really are not a lot of good options.

yeah my only issue with options like those (I've also considered pillowfort) is that I never hear about anyone being on there. like, it's all well and dandy to set up shop on an alternate social media site but if no one's using it that kind of defeats the purpose yknow?

trust me I hate twitter right now and I don't trust it to not pull shit like that either but as the closest alternative to tumblr with an active userbase twitter seems to be winning the race

[onemillionwordsofcrap]

So it sounds like tumblr is in for a long slow shutdown. I'm gonna post mah socials.

I will... probably try to figure out Dreamwidth and Mastodon again. xDDD; Never got too far with those but if I end up using them I'll edit this post.

I am on Deviantart under the name Onemillionwords.

I am on Bluesky under the name Tamar Brandt (I have barely used that account but I guess it's time to start!)

For the Neopets people, I am on the Neopian Times Writers' Forum under the name Breakingchains

I am on reddit under the name Millionwordsofcrap

I am on pillowfort under the name Onemillionwords

OH AND INCIDENTALLY, A WORD ABOUT PILLOWFORT:

Listen. Pillowfort is the perfect replacement if you just want to jump right back into a tumblr-like environment, but friendlier, better and with absolutely no bullshit. They don't show you ads. They aren't beholden to shareholders. There is no capitalistic creep here. If there is one social media site I really want to see thrive and get past the financial squeeze it's currently in, it's Pillowfort.

It's no longer pay-to-join--they have a very short rolling waitlist for free signup, while instant signup is $5. If you want on there right this minute without paying, I still have lots and lots of referral links, just drop me a message at any time and I will get back to you with one. I'm a friendly gal and my inbox is always open.

The old internet is dying a new internet struggles to be born 🙃 Please consider supporting the people who are doing things ethically.

[femslashhistorian]

Hope you all had a god start of the new year! Still no time / energy for a new proper rec. But time for a quick social media review.

A few years ago I happy used twitter and tumblr in parallel and they served different (fandom) needs for me.

And now?

My (very subjective and not scientific)  social media platform review, early 2024. From worst (for me) to best.

Twitter: Dead to me. I never log on anymore. I should probably delete my profile (some day).

Facebook: God no. Never used it for fandom, last used ca 10 years ago.

Pillowfort: I hold no hope anymore. Have not used it actively for a while.  Right now for me only the place some artists use to publish art they can't publish on tumblr.

Mastodon: I loved  the idea but not working well for me so far. Some good apps but generally a bit clunky to use. Few people to follow for me. I have not completely lost hope, but I am skeptical for my fandom needs.

Bluesky: The new shiny. Not sure yet what I'll do there, but I have some hope. After the first 15 minutes I have found a lot of people I follow on tumblr. And I found some artists what I used to follow on twitter. This looks like a really decent twitter replacement. And apparently also a place some artists use to publish art they can't publish on tumblr 😲.

Tumblr: Home, I guess (please Tumblr, don't fuck it up).

Never used (not my cup of tea): Discord, Instagram, Threads, Telegram (is telegram a thing for fandom?)

And hey, why not make a poll? I am curious.

Edit and re-launched (twice 😭), I forgot Threads (which gives an indication how much I use it 😂 )

Feel free to add comments e.g. for 'something else'

[didntaskforfrozenyoghurt]

endpage.

tumblr will probably keep going for a good while and i'll be here still. but i'm keeping this up anyway

context part one here. part two here. part three here!

art portfolio (note i'm still here)

instagram

neocities: dontaskforfroyo (gallery page)

activitypub (mastodon/pixelfed/akkoma/lemmy/etc): here (will be my public feed like this place was)

artfight: ~daffle_b

talk to me

email: nofroyo [at] protonmail [dot] com

discord: quantefiant 4857

if you make yourself known here or at either of those, we can arrange some other method.

yeah you can try my activitypub too, but i'd rather not rely on that for anyone.

misc

other portfolio work shows up at my itch.io page

and i have an ao3 with one (1) taz fic. if you'd like to find me, ask.

i will probably never join cohost or bluesky. cohost is run by like five people (while the management may be enough there, we probably can't all just pile on it anyway), and i don't like either group's vibes. i plan on heading this sort of stuff somewhere on activitypub, but wherever i'm going I *will* be blocking out Threads.

i'm gonna miss seeing regular updates from you all. and i'm gonna miss walking around this site like i'm at the club. we're not done here yet, but remembering 2018, the move's not gonna be easy.

so please if you don't want to lose me like my primary school friend lost me when the moshi monsters servers went down, especially if you don't use the sites above: send me an email!

if you found any of my posts fun go on and screenshot them. you may not be able to find them again if this site goes under.

and give pillowfort some money or something, idk. i don't even go there, so your discretion.

[entwinedmoon]

There have been a lot of changes recently with social media, and if you're an independent artist trying to promote a creative project—podcast, novel, album, artwork, etc.—these major upheavals can really screw up your plans. I thought it'd be helpful to share my personal experience with attempting to use various sites for promoting creative work right now.

So here’s the current State of Social Media:

Twitter: An on-fire garbage can being set more on fire every day by the idiotic supervillain who owns it.

Instagram: In an attempt to compete with/rip off TikTok, they went all in on video posts by fucking the algorithm so no one sees your photos. Once everyone switched over to video, they promptly fucked the algorithm so no one sees your videos either.

Facebook: Your QAnon uncle lives here. He will comment on your posts.

TikTok: You must obey a set of arcane, ever-changing rules whispered into a geranium in the garden of a Jain monk’s hermitage every other Thursday lest ye be shadowbanned. If you do break a rule, they won’t actually tell you, much like your passive-aggressive grandmother. Your views will suddenly go from 2000 to 2 and you will never know why.

YouTube: Like Instagram it’s trying to be more like TikTok in many ways, such as by pushing short-form videos and inexplicably banning people for no reason.

Mastodon, Pillowfort, Bluesky, or any of the other Twitter alternatives: Everyone says they’re going to move to these. No one has moved to these.

Reddit: They have taken the bridge and the Second Hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes... Drums. Drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A Shadow moves in the dark... We cannot get out... They are coming.

Pinterest: I don’t know how to use this site and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.

Discord: Too overwhelming to even look at for my particular brand of autism, but other people seem to like it…I think…?

Tumblr: Somehow the best social media website now, purely by default. The native inhabitants of this environment are supportive of independent artists but hostile to all forms of advertising—even coming from independent artists. Also, its search function sucks.

In conclusion, if you’re trying to build an audience and promote your work on social media right now, you’re fucked! 🙃

[notanotherzerofan]

Considering my options

So, first wanna apologize regarding the 'spamming' of posts related to this whole Tumblr/Wordpress AI debacle. Honestly, this is a real important issue to me and I'm hoping the more I boost on this stuff, the more people it reaches. I'm also going to keep doing so in hopes that effective change is made.

Now, my options, part of me wants to just stop posting my work here and keep it almost exclusively on Pillowfort, and possibly to a lesser extent, Mastodon. My main issue with that is both sites is lack of content that I'm looking for, especially in Masto's case.*

In either case, I'm going to against my better judgement and still post stuff here

My reasoning is I still have a bunch of stuff saved in drafts, so if it's already on the site's severs, it's probably already been included, so there's really no point in not posting it. I also like sharing my dumb humor too much, so there's that.

My other options:

I don't really have plans to go back and post anything new on DA for the time being as it's now pretty much crawling with AI crap.

Never posted any work on Cohost either as certain things about that site kind of put me off.

While I do have a Bluesky now, I don't plan on using it for posting art all that much.

Other options are to either make an account on another art site or make a personal website from scratch.

Now, while I plan on eventually doing the latter, the former I'd rather do more research on before diving in, though for if I were to go that route, Artgram and Cara would be my top pick at this time.

I also have other ideas that I'd like to eventually get to specifically for the art/creative communities, but those are things that are going to take time, effort, and money.

*I'd still recommend Pillowfort though as there's still interesting content.

[goombasa]

Hello World!

Hi there everyone!

The name's Goombasa. I'm a professional fox PNG. I've been on the internet for a long, long time, and I've tried a lot of different things, most of which I've never really kept up with before. I'd like to change that starting this year. I'm going to start off by trying to keep up with a blog here, and in other places. I'm not entirely sure yet what sort of form this is going to take, but for now, I'm just happy to have a place where I can place my musings, share stories, and just have an excuse to actually sit down and write a little bit each week, something that I admit, I haven't been great about over the past couple of years.

Off and on over the last decade or so, after getting out of college, I've tried my best to write at least a little bit every day, regardless of how long or what it is I'm writing, but a multitude of things have kept me from being able to keep up this habit. It's something I want to get back into, and while I won't be posting every day, but I will damn sure be trying to write a little bit every day, and I suppose that includes these blog posts. Guess we'll have to see if enough interesting stuff happens from week to week to keep me posting here or if I am a truly empty headed person, as I've felt from time to time. At the very least, I'll have some new ideas to discuss or throw out now and then.

I'll have links to all the various places I plan on hosting the contents of this blog, as I plan to spread this stuff across multiple platforms for those that feel most comfortable using one place or another, and the content will largely be the same, if all is done properly. So whether you prefer Tumblr, Co-Host, Pillowfort, or who knows, I might be using other places to post this blog as well!

So check me out over on Tumblr (You're Here), Co-Host (@goombasa there), or Pillowfort, and I'll throw in anything else I decide to use as well. Oh, might as well throw on my linktree as well for anyone who's interested in seeing my other socials. I'm over on youtube, mastodon, twitch, and bluesky as well! Just throwing myself all over the place as of late!

Hope you all decide to stick around and see what happens in the future. Hoping this new year is a productive one for everyone out there with their creative pursuits. I can't wait to see what's created this year!

[iffeelscouldkill]

I've been thinking of doing some kind of "current Tumblr alternatives" post and I might as well attach it to this. But I'm also not an authority on most of them, so I'll just talk about the one I'm most familiar with, Mastodon.

Yes, it's still a thing. The main thing I would want people to know about Mastodon is that it's not Twitter. The UX is similar but most people who join expecting a Twitter-like experience are disappointed. It doesn't have that big, bustling, always-on energy that I think appealed to people about Twitter (I say "I think" because I never really did fandom Twitter so I can only guess based on what friends have said).

You CAN get a more Twitter-like experience by going to a bigger instance (instance = a sub-community of Mastodon that you make your "home base"). But the bigger ones tend to be more chaotic and less well-moderated. For me, the strengths of Mastodon come from having a smaller, interest-focused space where I can actually get to know people. That won't be the appeal for everyone, but that's what's kept me coming back.

My instance (my personal "home base" on Mastodon) is fandom.ink. It's a generally fannish space and has cool people and is well-looked-after by its mod, Alis. It's invite-only to make the growth manageable but any existing user (like me!) can grab you one if you want to join. There are some other fandom-focused instances too like blorbo.social - folks there seem pretty cool, the mod is good - and federatedfandom.net. There are also some fandom-specific instances; Fanlore has a list though it's infrequently updated (mostly by me).

Anyway, you should explore and check out the different options - you can make as many accounts as you feel like. Each instance has slightly different rules for content and posting so do make sure you're familiar with those, but the good fandom ones are fine with NSFW (generally behind a content warning, which is like a cut) and encourage people not to be dicks.

This isn't a "how to Mastodon" post, though I'm always happy to help people get to grips and can answer questions based on my own usage for close to 5 years. What I like about Mastodon is that the instances give you a smaller-feeling space to vibe and post but you can also interact with a wider "world" of other instances and people. There's some granularity in terms of post visibility, in that you can make your posts visible to only people you follow, only people in your instance, everyone, or just one person (NOT the same as DMs - it's the closest equivalent but the admin can still see those messages).

A note about Pillowfort - I don't use it myself (yet - I just made an account) but in a moment of unfortunate timing (or maybe not, if this gives them a bigger audience?) they've just posted a fundraising plea because they rely on community donations and they're running out. They seem like good people - they're committed to providing a space for NSFW and they don't want to run ads - but if you're looking for somewhere that's not financially hand to mouth, I'm not sure that Pillowfort is it. However, I kicked in $5 to skip the invite queue and I intend to explore it a bit.

Please add onto this with your Mastodon/Pillowfort/Dreamwidth/Bluesky/Cohost experiences since I can only speak to mine, but I hope they're helpful to someone!

Out of curiosity, where do you plan to head if Tumblr no longer becomes an option? Tumblr moving most of their staff to other projects isn't an immediate death knell, but it's definitely not a good sign for the longevity of this place and it may still be around for a long while yet, just buggy and slow as hell--do you have a place you'd settle into? I still haven't seen the perfect place to move come along yet (though, I'm on dreamwidth or on Discord ( lumigffa ) and those will be around for awhile. How's Pillowfort going for people? Bluesky? Is Mastodon still a thing?