#by reblogging and linking their work. but it is also. exploiting their art for advertisements without apparently asking or compensating them

[toytulini]

not to shill for tumblr or be a mobile user on main but i do just wanna point out i think the response to the dashboard clown thing is a little disproportionate, all things considered

like if you just dont like the show thats fine but the way some of these posts are worded very weirdly and acting like its somehow way worse than.....literally any of the other ads? like yea tumblr is a company and not your friend, netflix is unethical and sucks. but like. are we pretending tumblr hasnt had ads for like. horrible fad diets and the fucking trump coin and god knows what else but like this really isnt worse than like. the fact that ppl with strobing triggers are constantly endangered by the ads on this site.

and maybe its super bad on desktop or something but so far this ad campaign has actually been one of the less obtrusive ones vs their other ads, imo. I dont think ive really seen them in between the posts on my dashboard? (hard to tell bc I try to automatically ignore those anyway) but like it feels like most of this ad campaign has been. a little fictional character at the top of the dashboard. and like. a separate dashboard "tab".....that i dont have to look at, and i dont. and its fine. i barely even noticed it. i probably wouldnt have thought twice about it if everyone hadnt started complaining about it. if tumblr wants to do more ads that are just dashboard tabs that I dont actually have to look at and arent interrupting my main dash i think im fine with that actually. like. obviously no advertisements are better than ads but like i dont have a particular problem with the structure or honestly even the content of this ad. its for a show that i might be intrigued to watch honestly. but its also not being targeted to me personally based on data harvesting its just blanket targeting to everyone.

again, id prefer no ads, but if we're going have them: i would actually prefer it be for things i might be interested in, but without the data harvesting to do it. if i HAVE to see ads, this is a way that i dont mind as much.

[shinesurge]

in a fit of minor despair i blazed TWO (2) comic posts, and by chance a very kind reader ALSO blazed a completely different post the next day. Some insights from the new dashboard (assuming they're accurate lmfao), in case it helps anybody:

The major takeaway here is, as much as we all hate booktok ads and despite what people insist, nobody actually wants a real synopsis of your thing, they want zero-context clickbait.

All three of these were for 2500 views, mine were both targeted towards identical tag audiences and the Kind Follower's was ALSO for 2500 but they chose some different (still applicable) tags.

The pinned post, with some actual comic pages, the elevator pitch, and some basic info about the comic gained around 37 engagements, including 6 reblogs. Worth noting that I formatted this post specifically to be clear and painlessly sharable, it doesn't stretch the page or have clickable links and has all the info about the thing right out front, the sort of thing I respond to.

The softer world edit I originally made because I like making them, with no intention of using it for advertising and which includes zero context for the characters, also no links, got 80 engagements, 6 reblogs and one new follower.

And finally, the follower's blazed post was an actual comic update that differed from the usual for Reasons; instead of a real comic panel it ALSO had a softer world edit attached. None of the text was formatted well for an ad at all, just being the usual links to the comic's website. It gained 36 engagements overall, with 4 reblogs.

And no matter WHAT the post looks like: nobody clicks links.

I'll also mention that pinned post has been there since February, and before I blazed it it had gained around 175 notes in five months. A lot of my static character posts will get 70 or 80 notes without me tagging or trying or really doing anything to promote them, because. They're not meant to be used like that lol

Granted: tumblr as a website is a mess, these numbers could be wildly inaccurate, this is not a super scientific study, but Man.

Personally, I do not respond to this sort of clickbaity booktok shit very well when it's INTENDED for advertising, specifically because I feel like it disrespects the audience and, worse, imitates genuine art to exploit peoples' genuine feelings. It feels VERY close to those covert influencer ads, it honestly makes me kinda sick. But I have talked about this phenomenon before, and the numbers here do back it up. I do think there's some nuance here, but it would take a whole other post to get into it I think.

And I mean, when I make stuff about my own comic it IS always genuine. The audience for "fanwork" I make of my own stuff is extremely small (mostly Me) so it's not like it would be lucrative to crank out a ton of random fake fandom posts; they're not any less earnest if I use them for ads now and then. So I dunno, I guess it's not EXACTLY the same as those gross publisher ads pretending to be teen girls, but it's irritating to be here. I know what I'm looking for wrt ads and getting into new things and I try to treat others the same way. It would be cool to get some traction while treating my audience like Real People, but clearly that route doesn't work seeing as my comic career now has a very real expiration date lmfao. Get out there and make some memes I guess?

[nbapprentice]

[this is a compilation of information on the artist Saffron, previously known as Asif. Due to the size of the document we can’t easily change name and pronouns through the file and images.]

Asif is not the kind of person he has been leading everyone to believe.

this post has honestly been a long time coming, and we have been sitting on it for quite some time while collecting sources, and trying to figure out how best to approach it. while we did that, more and more information about the kind of person asif is has been brought to us. and there’s a lot. what started as an initial worry about asif’s hypocrisy, guilt tripping, and general blasé attitude towards being okay with pedophilia and incest apologists, among other things, led us to learn more and more as time went on.

we started this post before Asif admitted that he is fully and completely endorsing The Arcana and making fanart of it, pretending that this isn’t basically free advertising and support of it, and consuming fetishistic and racist content by playing it. this is also not shocking to learn, as he has already openly apologised to dana rune and implied that incest fetishism is ‘an opinion’.

we do not take any joy in what we have learned. it has been disappointing and outright horrifying to learn that someone we trusted and supported, and whose game we played, enjoyed, and defended, turned out to be like this. we are also not the only people aware of what he has been doing, but we are the only ones Asif has not managed to intimidate into silence. if we had not, none of the people mentioned in this post would have been able to say anything, and many others who we have spoken to and shared information about asif would have also been kept quiet.

asif’s main claims are:

only white people are against him, particularly because he is muslim

he’s never exploited anyone

blair is the one who wrote all the racist lore in Gehennam

there’s an age power dynamic at play in criticism about him

he has never exposed minors to nsfw

we have proof of all these being lies and manipulations, starting with the fact that multiple poc (including those who are muslim) have been involved in the creation of this post, of which include:

Mod N/Neo (mixed romani)

Rosie/thornyflesh @ tumblr (mixed race puerto rican)

Jewel/beserkerjewel/spellboundotome @ tumblr (black, muslim)

Akira/mexicanarthur @ tumblr (black, mexican, asian)

Maria/nataliesewell @ tumblr (pakistani canadian, muslim)

preface: any names shown, and any posts shown, are used with permission. names that are blurred out are this way on request, for the person’s safety. while the bulk of the writing of this has been done by mod n and mod nba, it has been contributed to by multiple others, as shown above.

asif @souratgar has exploited people and not paid for around $1k worth of work, one of whom was 17 at the time (while he himself was 20 years old). This is money they could’ve used for rent or other necessities, such as treatment for Blair’s depression.

this post will also touch upon his mistreatment of his friends during the making of Gehennam and another briefly planned visual novel, and his current lying and extremely flippant attitude regarding NSFW in his game’s blog when he knows he has minors following him, as well as apparent ableism, fat phobia, racism and xenophobia.

because of how screenshots would stretch the post, we have compiled all receipts and transcripts in ❗THIS DOCUMENT ❗. We strongly recommend going through its entirety, but for clarity’s sake we have also included summaries of the main points in this post. in order to more easily navigate the doc, there are some searchable tag terms related to the main points made in this initial post. please use the search function (ctrl+f) to search for the appropriate tag you wish to find.

on his refusal to pay a minor for their work, and his foul treatment of them

search tag: (#.n.a) Asif invited Noah, 17 years old at the time, to participate on a previous project of his, another VN. Noah accepted on the condition that he be paid back once the game was out in full and being sold. Noah then produced about $500 worth of art before Asif disbanded without paying him a penny, and has calculated that by the end of the project the worth of what he could’ve produced would’ve been around the $2k mark.

Through this process, Asif was extremely picky, demanding Noah re-draw and re-paint sprites several times.

search tag: (#.n.b) Asif belittled Noah because of his age, claimed Noah’s art made him “feel bad” about his own, and acted like Noah weighing in on a group effort was unreasonable.

Asif also claimed he “didn’t consider himself a boss” despite the fact that he was the creative head of the project, and was the one who kicked Noah out and dissolved the group on a whim.

on his taking $1000 dollars from Blair and mistreating them during the making of Gehennam

search tag: (#.b.a) For the making of Gehennam, Blair gave Asif $1000 dollars. Asif gave no details as to how this money was spent, nor did he ever give any of it back.

Blair never felt comfortable in the group, fearing that speaking out would get him shut down or even kicked out of the project.

search tag: (#.b.b) Asif would routinely humiliate Blair in the public chat over minuscule mistakes, or things that wouldn’t even qualify as such (such as Blair telling a friend, in private, the project might be picking up a new writer).

Asif would express jealousy over Blair receiving any praise for his work on Gehennam, including praise from his own boyfriend.

search tag: (#.b.c) Asif’s abuse hurt Blair’s mental health so badly it pushed him back to drug use, and to a dangerously suicidal state of mind.

search tag: (#.l.a) Once Gehennam disbanded, Asif lied and claimed he was still friends with all except one person from the Gehennam group.

search tag: (#.l.b) Later on, Asif claimed Blair was the one responsible for all the racist lore (while claiming the rest of the lore was all his doing). More on that below.

From Blair: Image link; google doc transcript

on naz, who participated on gehennam, and francey, who participated in both Gehennam and the unnamed project Noah worked on

search tag: (#.f.n) two people who worked on gehennam, and one of whom later worked the other vn, naz and francey respectively, can also be considered at the very least complicit in asif's behavior.

naz was present during the development of gehennam and witness to how asif treated blair

francey was a part of the team later on, and he was present for the second vn and saw how asif treated noah, a minor.

neither of them have called out asif for any of this (as far as we are aware), and had not attempted to put a stop to it. francey is also shown a few times in this post, and is one of asif's more staunch supporters/defenders.

we have not been contacted by or been able to contact any others involved in either vn, although from what we can gather, only francey and naz are (openly) associating with and supporting asif still. whether or not others involved were also complicit, or perhaps victims, is unknown.

on asif’s xenophobia and anti-black racism

search tag: (#.r.a) Blair reports Asif would routinely use xenophobic slurs in the main chat and in his (now deleted) Ifritah roleplay blog

He would speak derisively of Arabic people, and has used the k slur for Jewish people.

search tag: (#.r.b) This is also reflected in his lore of the lotogh, who are based on Arab and Romani people. The original lore includes speaking of lotogh as if they were animals (only some would “show signs of intelligence”), who would resort to survival cannibalism to the point of eating their own children, and who would have an “alpha” according to the myths of how wolf packs work. Lotogh are also said to become slavers, with an emphasis on selling slaves into sex work.

search tag: (#.l.b) Asif claims this racist lore was written by Blair, but in the google docs where they were both working, Asif wrote the lotogh lore at the same time as Blair was typing lore for Vali.

search tags: (#.a.b) (#.a.c)He repeatedly has implied or said that mod n is white, and creates the impression that the only people against him are white

search tag: (#.r.c) He jokes about being black and having “a black card” because he has a black friend who humours this. Along this line, he makes jokes about “black on black crime.”

He has repeatedly reblogged posts with the n word in them.

He misuses AAVE.

on asif’s fatphobia

search tag: (#.v)  Asif boasted Gehennam as inclusive and containing many body types, but he was remarkably incapable of drawing Vali, Blair’s character, to his actual size, to the point that Noah was not even aware the character was fat when making fanart.

Every character of Asif’s is skinny. Vali, Blair’s character, is the only character in Gehennam who was not stick-thin.

on asif’s disregard of the boundaries and safety of his minor followers

search tag: (#.a.a) Asif has repeatedly posted, and is still posting, sexual content on his main and the official 1001 Days blogs. He often does not tag these posts, but even if they were tagged it is already wrong to put this content where minors can get to it.

He often jokes about Sinbad in sexual ways, including talking about nipple and genital piercings he may have, or how he personally wants to get “spitroasted” by Sinbad and Alibaba.

He has also said he would consider putting 18+ optional content in the game, as if it being optional would keep it away from minors.

When questioned about this he straight up claimed it was untrue and laughed it off, and says his blogs and game are minor-friendly.

He posts NSFW drawings without tagging them.

(#end) some final words

we're doing all of this not to tear down someone who's producing diverse content, but because we believe that content creators in our community need to be held to the same standards as anyone else, and their fans deserve accountability and to be made aware of the actions of the person/people they are supporting.

we would also like to emphasise that all of us supported gehennam at the beginning (we all met in a Gehennam fan discord server, in fact), nor is asif the first content creator that we have called out (The Arcana game and WTNC teams among others).

post the exposure of the arcana game devs, we have tried to make people aware of problems with VN devs before they get too attached to the VN and the creators, or at least inform them after the fact, and encourage them away from it. we do this as it's too easy to form parasocial relationships with a 1k+ follower blog and believe that 100% of what they do is beyond reproach, because we are all so desperate for content that represents us, and that it feels good to be acknowledged and treated with familiarity by our favourite content creators.

the reason for this entire post being put together is to give those hurt by asif at the very least, some closure, and to expose his behavior and lies, so that those who are unaware and supporting him can learn the truth. it has been made with the hope that he will not be able to hurt others in this way, and that those reading it will also now be able to see the signs of a boss who is manipulative and exploitative, and also the signs of a person who utilises their fame and online persona to create a false narrative about themself, and uses it to avoid accountability.