#its a tumblr glitch of my very own keeping

[emuwarum]

ten hands jerma

Splatoon 3 should have this as a win animation

[describe-things]

This post is made with speech to text because my hand hurts from typing so much today. Please forgive any typos or speech to text swapping similar sounding words.

If you would like to start writing your own image descriptions, feel free to ask any questions.

The main things to keep in mind is that they should begin with some variation of image description start or ID, and end with some variation of image description and, and ID or something like that. This distinguish the image description from the caption or anything else.

Image descriptions should not be written in italics, bold, all caps, or any colors. If text in the image is in all caps, write it in regular case, and simply note before or after it that it's in all caps.

Image descriptions should describe all images in the post, without skipping any. This includes images that are nothing but text.

Plain text image descriptions in the body of the post are more accessible than alt text alone, because many people who need image descriptions cannot use alt text, and Tumblr is known for its glitches, so the accessibility of the alt text all by itself varies widely over time.

It is more accessible to have the image descriptions indented than not, because this helps to visually separate the image description from the caption. Having brackets or parentheses at the end is also helpful for this. This allows people to easily distinguish between the caption and the image description if they need to.

If you are an artist, writing image descriptions for your art will give you full control over the image description, and will allow you to correctly identify details that others might miss. This gives you the opportunity to show which parts of your art hold meaning to you and are important to notice.

If you are describing real people who are unknown to you, unless it is specified within the post or you are already aware, please do not assign any gendered terms to them, or any " male presenting or female presenting" terms like that. This is completely unnecessary and leads to misgendering. It is best to simply describe visible facts about the people. Hair color, length, clothes and style, pose, expression, the light or darkness of their skin, things like that. Do not assume that someone is white simply because they have light skin.

Do not use image descriptions to lie to the audience in any way and do not use image descriptions to make jokes where the audience reading the image description is the butt of the joke.

As an example, if there is a very clearly fake screenshot, do not say that it is simply a screenshot, or if a photo is very blatantly photoshopped, do not say that it is simply a photo. Say an edited photo, a badly edited photo, a screenshot with editing, something like that to indicate the changes have been made and then what you are going to be describing is not the natural version.

As an example, you would say a crab photoshopped to be driving a car. Rather than a photo of a crab driving a car.

Unless you are transcribing a text within the image, do not use meme speak within image descriptions. Do not refer to dogs as doggos for example, unless it is to specify that the dog in the image is, within the image, labeled as a doggo. Do not describe someone walking downstairs as breasted bubbly downstairs, even if it is an actor humorously walking down the stairs to imitate that sentence. Describe the facts of the movements, and then you can make the comparison for clarity.

If someone adds an image description to your post whether this be an original post or a reblog that you have added an image to, it doesn't matter how many notes to post already has, please copy and paste that image description into the original post or your original reblog. If it is a new post that has only a few notes from friends, after you update the original, you can just ask your friends to delete the reblogs of the inaccessible version and reblog the new one. Most people who are good people and care about disabled people will happily do so.

Keep in mind that image descriptions are accessibility tools. Treat them as such.

Anyone can write image descriptions. You do not need any special qualifications or training. As long as you are willing to take constructive criticism if you make a mistake, an image description written by someone who's new to it and honestly doing their best with good intentions is better than no image description at all.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, so please feel free to add on more tips and advice.

[astercontrol]

If KOSA passes

Or if any other form of censorship (there are many in the works!) ever succeeds at stepping in to impede our ability to communicate online:

We have to make plans.

Now, I dunno who'll even see this post. The few followers I have are TRON fans (who despite the fantasy we live in, tend to have realistically dismal views IRL about Disney and the various corporate uses of software).

And this fandom, on average, is pretty tech-savvy. It's where I've encountered the most people under 20 years old who actually know how to use a desktop or laptop computer.

So, if there's any hope for what I'm thinking about, this is prolly a good place to start with it.

(As with all my posts, I encourage reblogging and containment-breaching.)

(Gifs are clips from TRON 1982, mainly the "deleted love scene," from the DVD extras.)

Anyway.

Current society has moved online communication much too far onto major social media sites for my comfort. Whoever you communicate with over the internet, chances are you do it through a service owned by a big company: Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, whatever. Even TikTok (shudder).

These sites, despite their many flaws, can provide experiences that are valuable and hard to get otherwise. And once all your friends are on one site, you can't just leave and stay in touch with them all, not unless they all go the same place. It's easy to see why it's hard to abandon any social media platform.

But a backup plan is important. Because, as we've seen over and over, social media sites can't be relied on. They change their policies suddenly, without good reason-- and are inconsistent, even discriminatory, about enforcing those policies.

If they're funded by ads, the advertisers are their main customers, and your posts are the product. Their goal is that the posts most valuable to the advertisers get seen by people the advertisers consider desirable customers.

Helping you communicate-- making your posts get seen by the people you want to communicate with-- is optional to them.

Not to mention that the whole business model of an ad-funded website is generally unsustainable. Many of these sites are operating at a loss, relying on shareholders in a fragile bubble, doomed to fail soon just from lack of real profit.

And the more restrictions --like KOSA-- that the law puts on freedom of online speech, the likelier they are to go down or just become unusable. Every rule a site is required to follow is another strain on its resources, and most of them are already failing badly at even enforcing their own self-imposed rules.

If we want any control over our continued ability to stay in touch with our online friends-- we need to have a backup plan. Maybe it'll be simple at first, a bare-bones system we cobble together-- but it's gotta be something that will work. For a while at least.

There are lots of really good posts about ways to build your own website, using a service like Neocities. I VERY MUCH recommend learning this skill-- learning to make websites of the very simplest, most stable, glitch-resistant type, made of html pages-- which you can upload to a host while you store backups on your home computer. If you value the writing and art that you put online, this is probably the safest you can keep it.

But that's for making your own creative work public.

As for communicating with others-- for example, receiving and answering other people's comments on your work-- that gets more complex. I personally haven't found it worthwhile to troubleshoot the problems that come with having a system that allows visitors to comment publicly on my website.

But what we do still have-- and likely will for a long time-- is email.

Those of us who came of age before social media's current hold... well, we might take this for granted. Email was the first form of online contact we ever encountered… and thus it can seem to us like the most ordinary, the most boring.

But in the current world, it is a rare and precious thing to find a method of communicating that doesn't require everyone in the chat to be signed on with the same corporation.

Email is, as of now, still perfectly legal-- as much as social media companies have been trying to herd the populace away from it. I'm sure there are other ways to share thoughts online that are not bound by laws. But I am not going to go into that here.

Email service is provided by law-abiding companies, which will comply with subpoenas if law enforcement thinks you are emailing about doing illegal things. So, email is not a surefire way to be safe, if laws become dystopian enough to threaten your freedom to talk about your own life and identity.

But it's safer than posting on a public social media page.

For now.

Email is beautifully decentralized. You can get an email address many different ways-- some reliant on a company like Gmail, others hosted on your own domain. And different people, with all different types of email addresses, hosted in all different ways-- can all communicate together by the same method.

Of course any of these people, individually, can lose their email address for some reason or other, and have to get a new one. But as long as they still know the email addresses of their contacts, they can reconnect and recover from that loss. The structure of a group linked by email is reliant not on a single company-- but on the group itself, the friends you can actually count on.

This is why I am trying to promote the idea of forming email lists, as a backup plan to give people a way to stay in touch as mainstream social media sites prove to be unsustainable.

I'm envisioning a simple system of sending emails to several addresses at once, and making each reply visible to everyone in the chat by using "reply all" (or, if desired, editing the To field to reply to only some).

If enough people get used to using email in this way, it could fill most of the needs met by any other group chat or forum …without depending on a centralized social media company that's taking dystopian measures to try and make the business profitable.

So here are some thoughts about how I personally imagine it could work.

(Feel free to comment and bring up any thoughts I haven't addressed, or suggestions to customize how specific groups could set it up. This is meant as more of a starting point for brainstorming than a catch-all solution.)

As I see it, here are the basics of what you and your friends would each need to start out:

An email address. Any kind, hosted anywhere. You should use a dedicated email account just for this group, one that you do NOT use for other communication. Being in this group will result in things you don't want happening to your main email address-- like getting a TON of email, one for every post and reply. Or someone could get your email address that you really don't want any contact with. Use a burner email account (one that you can easily replace) and change it if needed.

The knowledge of how to "REPLY ALL" in your email. This will be necessary in order to add a comment that everyone in the group can see.

The knowledge of how to EDIT THE "TO" FIELD in your email, and remove addresses from the list of all recipients. This will be necessary if you want to CHANGE WHICH PEOPLE in the group can see your comment.

The knowledge of how to FILTER WORDS in your email. This will be necessary if a topic comes up that you don't want to see any mentions of.

The knowledge of how to BLOCK PEOPLE in your email. This will be very important. If someone joins this email group who you do not want to interact with, it will be up to you to BLOCK them so that you do NOT see their messages. (If they are bad enough to evade the block with multiple burner accounts, that's what you have a burner account for. Change it, and share the new one only with those you trust not to give it to them.)

Every person in the group will be effectively a "moderator" of the group, able to remove people from it by cutting their email addresses out of the "To" field. Members will all have equal "moderator" privileges, each able to tailor the group to their own needs.

This means the group may naturally split, over time, into other groups, each one removing some people and adding others. Some will overlap, some won't. This is good! This is, in my opinion, what online interaction SHOULD be like! There should be MANY groups like this!

In this way, we can keep online discussion alive, no matter WHAT happens to any of the social media websites.

If the dystopia got bad enough to shut down email, we could even continue with postal mail and photocopies, like they did in the days of print-zine fanfiction.

If it looks like the dystopia is gonna come for postal mail too, we'll use the connection we have to preserve whatever contacts we can with people who live near us.

Not saying it's GONNA get that bad. But these steps of preparation are good no matter exactly what kind of bad stuff happens.

As long as some organized form of communication still exists, we'll have a place where it's at least a little safer to be your true self…

to plan events and meetups…

and maybe even activities a little too risque to make the final cut of a 1982 Disney movie.

They're trying to censor us. We want a Free System. So we're gonna fight back.

For the Users. Not the corporations.

Peace out, programs. <3

[accessible-flatland-art]

[ID: White bubble text on a black background that reads, "Please describe your art! I am too disabled to keep up with you all!". Next to this is an original Flatland character, Hauntlight, an Irregular line who has many bends, and whose back end branches out into a narrow fork. It has a white glow on its outside, and its insides are filled with simple blobs of different shades of purple and pink to show its internal organs. End ID.]

The goal for this blog was feasable when it was only a few people posting, but now with the sudden surge of new fans posting undescribed art every single day, I literally have no hope of keeping up unless other people start describing their own art, or at least adding descriptions to other people's.

If someone adds an image description to your art, copy and paste it into the original post. It should be in the same format as the one on this post: Plain regular text with no italics, color, or bold. Describe what is in the image. Pretend your friend's internet isn't working and the image won't load for them.

A plain text image description is more accessible than ALT text alone, because tumblr is glichy as all crap, and even if the ALT text is working fine today, it might not be tomorrow, or a few months from now. For several months they literally had the ALT text be white text on a neon purple background. Do not trust tumblr's staff to keep their accessability features actually accessible. They break this site all the time. Plain text in the body of the post itself, like all of this whole post is, is less likely to be broken by glitches and changes to the site.

Image descriptions are for blind and low vision people the way subtitles are for the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as people with brain damage who can see fine, but still struggle to process images.

Learning to describe your art will make you a better writer and artist. It will allow disabled people to appreciate your art. It will make this fandom, and any other fandoms you make art for, more welcoming for disabled people, and will make the internet overall more accessible.

Please start adding plain text image descriptions to your art. There are hundreds of tutorials on tumblr alone you can find, and many blogs dedicated solely to creating image descriptions that you can follow to see more examples.

Image descriptions should go directly below the image they are describing, above any other commentary. Do not put them at the very bottom of the post if the image is the first thing in the post.

Also, do not put anything you wouldn't be okay with losing forever under a read-more. If you ever delete the original post, change your username, or have your blog terminated, everything under a read-more will be deleted forever, because the link breaks.

This is why image descriptions should not go under read-mores unless the images they're describing are also under it.

Please add image descriptions to your art before you post it. I could slowly work my way through the fandom's posts when it was only a few people, but this is just becoming unmanageable and I don't want to have to give up from being completley overwhelmed.

Make image descriptions for your own art. Make them for other's art. At the very very least, when someone makes one for your art, add it to the original post. Please. Irregulars are in this fandom too.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

The Big OSR Post

What better way to close out the blog's first month but with a huge repository of fun OSR games? I'm not personally a huge fan, but I understand this is a genre people really enjoy, so as a compromise, I'll do every OSR submitted in a masterpost. I understand this is probably a pretty controversial move, but I simply think the genre's too similar to each other, I might be wrong but that's just the vibe I get! I'm sure there's some very fun and creative OSRs out there, they're just not made for me. I'll keep myself from sharing my thoughts on the genre for now, but rest assure these are cool games recommended by people who actually enjoy the genre!

Well, except this one:

Trespasser is really good. It's a mix of the Combat of 4e, with the dungeon crawling, character creation, and general vibe of OSR, it's a really good time, and its a high recommend from me personally Now on to the list of games actually by people who care about OSR:

This one's a very very popular one, Mausritter is based on stuff like Redwall, and it's chock full of incredibly high quality fanmade content, if you want an OSR where you play as a little rat, check this one out

This one's pretty interesting, I was debating giving it its own post because it just breaks so many OSR conventions but it calls itself an OSR, so in here it goes ig. Fist is a game that takes the narrative first approach of a PBTA game, but combines it with lightning speed disposable character creation, to truly give you the experience of being an expendable mercenary going against unfathomable odds. This game's pretty fun, I'd check it out even if you're not into the OSR genre

this one's pretty popular, Electric Bastionland is a simple OSR that focuses on exploring a huge underground city, its very rules lite so you can usually get up and running with it pretty quick so go check it out if you want a simpler game

https://punkpadour.itch.io/yokai-hunter

Yokai Hunter's Society, its a good rules light game, a recommend if you want to hunt weird folkloric monsters

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/399483/Into-the-Odd--Remastered

This one's not on itch so sorry if you're allergic to non-itch.io websites

it's set in an underground society where one explores to find treasure. its a good fun time for all involved

look the tone isn't because i dislike these games, its because i wrote this entire post once and then tumblr glitched and made me lose all of it

https://emielboven.itch.io/tea-01

the setting's really fun, and the rules are lite, it's a good time. The setting is specifically based on Morrowind, Dark Sun, and other weird fiction.

https://graculusdroog.itch.io/vaults-of-vaarn

Vaults of Vaarn is a psychodelic ttrpg set in a postapocalyptic earth, its weird, fun, and also i believe its like entirely hand drawn which really adds to the aesthetic

https://tuesdayknightgames.itch.io/mothership-players-survival-guide

Mothership is a space horror OSR, its a biiiit more complex than the other ones, but its also got a shit ton of fan resources, and its also pretty basic in its character creation to make up for it

https://diogo-old-skull.itch.io/primal-quest-essentials

I got this one in a bundle actually

While the rules weren't for me, I think the setting is really cool, stone age fantasy is just really underrated as a concept, we need more of it!

We Deal in Lead is a weird west ttrpg, so if you're into that aesthetic, go check it out. its focused on exploration and player choice, and it can also be played with only one or two players

Beetle Knight is cool, its set in a tiny world where bugs are an organized society, think hollow knight, it's not out just yet, but its something to keep an eye on

OK I've actually PLAYED this one, so I can have an opinion on it: the WIthout Number series isn't great. BUT, there's a few rules which are ridiculously fun and well designed, so I honestly think this is a YMMV franchise. the biggest issue is how the rolling for HP works, if you can fix that, they're perfectly acceptable OSR games

Songbirds 3e is a surrealist game about being chosen (Or cursed) by death to help spirits passing on, when spirits are left stuck on earth they grow more and more monstrous every day, and its YOUR job to stop them from growing into a problem, no pressure. https://davidblandy.itch.io/lost-eons

Lost Eons is neat, its a game set in a solarpunk post apocalypse where magic's all around and actively mutating everyone around. It's got a cool post human look at the world, fairly simple yet fun rules, weird and interesting spellcasting rules, and more!

Knave is a streamlined classless OSR game, i heard a lot about this one and from what I can read its actually a really fun time, so check it out https://yochaigal.itch.io/cairn

(these last two go together since they're both Knave derivatives just with different settings and some more interesting mechanics) https://killjestergames.itch.io/errant this game was pitched to me as "Maximalist second only to literally just D&D 1e hacks", so thats about as much of a pitch most people really need. It actually looks pretty interesting

https://gormengeist.itch.io/greed

GREED or: Oil for the Blood God! It's an intensely surreal game by @gormengeist, its from what I can tell a sort of deconstruction of the OSR genre of game, so definitely a bit more on the niche side, but its fairly interesting and well designed

[eldritchtransmasccrow]

HEY? HYE THAT SWAGOWENDOONS THING. IM LISTENING SO MUCH PELASE I LOVE THAT IDEA CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE AU??? Sorry I’m a bit feral ignore me uhm

✨ Wanna be friends ✨

SWAGOWENDOONS IS SUCH A BETTER NAME JGKFHDLA I dont know how i didnt think of that, long but to the point and not broken up like how orange swagdoons is hjgrflda in the au, redd and ash are gods, owen is mortal (but technically not because redd intervenes) :3 redd is the god of souls, and ash is the god of universal disruptions (essentially glitching). there's a LOT in the au since it spans so many different mc series (and is formatted in such a way that every smp, every mc player, regular players, fan characters, ccs, people that i know of or dont know of, can all be canon to it- its very very open world and formatted in a way that i can easily implement changes or new interests of mine :3 it sort of stemmed from me trying to keep solid track of headcanons i had, putting them all in one timeline, and then it became more of an au... 'specially with these guys) but, some snipits about these three guys in particular: Redd has been a god as long as he's lived, but Ash was originally mortal! Ash earned his ascension to godhood (which, is not something he's supposed to be able to do btw, hence why he's a glitching mess. he fucked up the universe's code by becoming a god and so it didnt know what to do and just flipped on itself), he was offered to be mentored by one of the older gods (one of the big most powerful ones, actually! guy from "the council", group of four- made the universe), but he decided he didnt want that and so he just does his own thing. (potential cw? owen gets very fucked up but idk what specifcially to say here, injury and extreme injury warning, maybe?) Owen is honestly more machine than he is human, at this point; he drowned in lava and so little of him survived that, that almost no part of him is actually him anymore, almost every bit of him that is human isn't his original flesh, and the mechanical parts certainly arent his original flesh. He has a mechanical heart, most of his bones are mechanical, he has mechanical lungs, a mechanical arm (in the art i made you can just barely see he has it wrapped around Ash, and if i were to show his ref sheet you could very clearly see it! idk if ive showed that on tumblr before or not, tell me if you want me to post that/add that to here), two mechanical legs, and he also has New limbs- he has these mechanical spider-like limbs (that you can see in my art) and a mechanical scorpion tail. In the au, which i call 7au, griefers (the weird kinda scorpion-like monsters from in the maze in outsiders smp, and.. also the book+movie series its based off of) are entirely mechanical beasts, they were used for military operations, the older models being manually-operated tanks essentially, and the newer models being entirely ai driven ^^ (any "out-of-date" model gets shoved into the maze, btw! thats how they get there), they're "the peak of military innovation", seen as essentially super soldiers. so. when owen kinda got burnt to a crisp, people in power saw that as a chance to... make something "better" out of him, persay. they gave him "upgrades". hence, the spider arms and the scorpion tail! he was meant to be a super soldier of sorts, but the only thing it really ended up doing was stripping him of any of his lasting bits of human identity. Also half of his brain is mechanical, and he has a like half-autopilot mode he can switch on!

[ambidextrousarcher]

Thanks for the tag @enigma-the-mysterious !

I have a fanfiction.net account that I have long stopped using, not least because I started disliking the site, as well as the character whose name I had used as my username on that site.

I had a Wattpad phase when I was 15. I haven’t opened that in years.

Definitely have an Ao3 account! AmbidextrousAecher

I do not like either reading or writing smut, maybe it’s part of my manifestation of aroace news.

I used to roleplay with someone who had been a friend of mine, online here on Tumblr.

I have beta read fics and fic related scenes for both former and current friends.

I have definitely published an unbeta’ed fic! Most of my early works in the Mahabharata fandom were unbetaed, as well as most of my fics for all other fandoms I have written in.

I have definitely written self-indulgent fics. A King’s Fortune is one I can think of immediately, though that one is angst central right now, as well as Let Not Sleeping Skunks Lie, which is the height of self-indulgence.

I usually write grammatically correct sentences, even in comments, something I have been teased for. No keysmashes, sorry.

Yes, I have left kudos on many fics twice, at least in the form of comments. @starlightasteria and her amazing fics are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I do love me some good fluff sometimes!

No, I have not written for same sex ships. I don’t ship in general, with some very rare exceptions, all of which are somehow cishet ships.

Fan fiction is definitely a genre of its own!

Definitely multifandom. Mahabharata, ASOIAF, Jodhaa Akbar, Baahubali, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, have fics I have written fro them that are published, including two crossovers. I am writing a fic for the Thor (Marvel) movie, as well as have ideas for fics on the Ponniyin Selvan fandom, which I intend to execute. Oh! And I also have a fic for the TV serial Kuch Rang Pyaar Ke Aise Bhi, though most of that fandom would flame that fic, because it is very biased to the male lead, being in his PoV with a lot of canon divergences.

I enjoy research before writing! Have spent many happy hours in that.

If a mental outline counts, I keep an outline of sorts, yes.

Who doesn’t wait for feedback after publishing?

Haven’t received or commissioned art.

Have about 8-10 unpublished fics, mostly having Jaime Lannister in multiple universes.

I actually…like editing?

Oh, most of my ideas strike right before bed, in the middle of the night, or when I startle awake after a nightmare.

I don’t drink alcohol, tea or coffee, so those two are out.

Yes, I think I have a fic that deserves more attention. Darin is one of my favourite pieces that I have written, and hardly anyone reads it. (Understandable, it’s a Mahabharata crossover with the Hunger Games)

Yes, I hope to publish my novel series which is solely from Arjun’s PoV.

Sorry for not reblogging, I wasn’t able to, app glitch. Credit for the bingo to the original poster.

Tagging @harinishivaa @hum-suffer @selkiesstories @hindumyththoughts @favcolourrvibgior @chaanv

[high-pot-in-noose]

Okay, after braving the wilds of Threads, I was compelled to try out a couple of other social media apps/sites as well.

I will go ahead and say that, while Threads does indeed need a lot more work, and it does indeed keep track of far more of your information than a site should period . . . the facts remain that this stage is literally just its beta, and Ol' Zuck would have already been tracking that information on you through FB and IG. TBH, if you were already using IG, there's no real reason not to use Threads outside of if you just don't want to.

That scare of 'you can't delete Threads without deleting IG!' is not technically incorrect, but it leaves out the fact that Threads isn't actually an independent app at this stage (if it'll ever be) but an off-shoot of IG. Wanting to delete your Threads account without removing your IG would be like trying to remove your basement without taking apart your house.

Also, the gist of the claim that you can't delete ignores that you can deactivate -- it's effectively the same as deleting, but it leaves you the option to come back, and prevents people from being able to snatch your handle.

Also ALSO, you can very much uninstall the physical app from your device, it's just your account will remain yours no matter what.

I don't personally recommend Threads yet since the search function is basic, tags aren't a thing yet, you can't see the posts you've like, there's no explore page or DM function, and they're still working out glitches, but those are things the staff has reported that they're actively working to address. TBH, as far as a straight bird app clone goes, it's already better than, say, Spoutible.

Now, Spoutible is purporting to be trying to be the next Twitter, but after testing out the site and app, I'd say it's more like if Twitter and Facebook had a child, but it turned out the child was actually adopted and just happened to share a number of traits with its parent sites. Spoutible is not under Muskrat's X Corp umbrella nor Zuck's Meta umbrella; they're their own thing.

Their functionality isn't great, but they technically have everything a person would want from a social media app. My main gripes are that I can't change my location to say anything but the United States (I can't select anything but the US despite there being a dropdown list), things that should scroll DON'T scroll unless you finesse it in a very non-intuitive way, and the site itself just feels rather bland. Clean, but bland.

Also, it apparently isn't available for iOS yet? This last part isn't a gripe, just a statement of bemusement. With the type of posts I see on this site, you would think it would be filled with iOS users -- these people just give off that vibe. Do with that information what you will.

The one that really surprised me, though, was Cohost. Let me say this out of the gate -- it's in beta. It's unashamedly in beta, and they have what they're working on right on the side of their main page/your dashboard at all times, but . . . it's in beta the same way that AO3 is in beta.

Cohost is known for trying to be a Twitter alternative even though they loudly reject that claim, but it actually has more in common with Tumblr. The profile page is like Twitter, but the dashboard does posts and reblogs in exactly the same manner as Tumblr, their tagging and liking function is the same, the feed is exclusively chronological, you can save post drafts, and they filter content through a blacklist as well.

Color palletes are part of their paid features at the moment, but considering it has no ads and promises to remain that way, AND the only restriction against 18+ content is that it must be tagged and marked appropriately, that's a small compensation. They're still rolling out features like asks, and DMs aren't a thing yet, but I'm actually really hopeful for this one. It gives me the same energy as when AO3 was first becoming a thing.

It's also primarily filled with furries at the moment, but that's just a matter of fact and something to be taken as a pro or con depending on the individual.

With Cohost and Pillowfort marching steadily forward in their development, I actually feel really good about Tumblrina's being able to find a new and suitable home if Tumblr ever makes itself completely uninhabitable. Really the only downsides to moving over to these two sites right away is that there are still a number of features left that Tumblr does better or has that they don't, and that there's no telling exactly when these sites will be at the state that their staff teams consider officially out of beta.

[air--so--sweet]

So, I already edited and added to this one before and it took two hours and then tumblr glitched and saved none that and instead posted my original messy draft and I didn't realise for several hours and was very annoyed which is why this is coming now rather than sooner.

I've decided to save my full David and Syd analysis until after watching season three, so this is just my stray observations post while watching the last three episodes of season 2.

- If David hadn't been off fucking Future Syd maybe he could have prevented the delusion spreading through Division 3 and maybe Ptonomy could have survived. Also, I know they were limited timewise, and I know they haven't really known what to do with Ptonomy since season 1, but couldn't we get at least one shot of his friends mourning him?! If not David and Syd, at least Melanie? Wasn't it implied they worked together a significant amount of time at Summerland? I know his consciousness is being kept alive in a computer or whatever, but they didn't know that at the time!

- I want to know how Clark and Syd's 'girl talk' moment came to be. Do they meet for tea regularly? Talk about their love lives and exes? I'm not sure how I feel about Clark's story about the boy in the army he loved who kept jumping out of planes to get away from him. I feel like it might have been better to get something more real in that moment than bizarre (especially when we know he had a husband and son that he lost due to his obsession with David). I read a review that treated the army boy story as serious and emotional but like... he parachuted away from him, and then one day his parachute didn't open?! It's just occurred to me thst I might be taking this too literally like the autistic stereotype I am but honestly in a show like Legion that's the sort of thing that would be intended to be taken literally and not as a metaphor so I don't even know anymore...

- Literal or not I did not miss the parallel of Syd jumping out of a plane and parachuting down to get to David. Honestly, parachuting into the desert and immediately kicking your boyfriend in the shins is such a power move.

- In general it feels like the show doesn't know what to do with Clark, and I worry that he'll meet a similar fate to Ptonomy as a result. Hopefully not!

- Admiral Fukuyama was created to keep the secrets safe from the telepaths...now he works with them? I liked seeing some of how he came to be, but it honestly it left me more confused. Also, if all he has is the metalwork around his head, I don't really get why he wears a basket...its probably just a meaningless visual I'm reading too much into... I love the visuals of Legion a lot, but I do feel like sometimes 'this would look cool/weird/strange' is the only reasoning behind things and it doesn't always land with me.

- So this absolutely should have gone in my TUA comparison post, but I remembered writing it, got confused, and thought I'd already posted it rather than stuck it in a stray observations draft...whoops. David choosing to not tell anyone his plan as Farouk would read their mind and instead manipulating them all as an alternative - it's the first time David, as David has acted based on his own thoughts and feelings and I'm questioning if he's doing the right thing. I couldn't help but think of Five Hargreeves line to Viktor in The Umbrella Academy, 'You know what they call a superhero who acts alone and doesn't listen to anybody? A villain.' (Having now reached the end of the season I wasn't wrong)

- Farouk previously talked about David's white father taking over and telling his people what to do (sidenote: who are Farouk's people? I thought he might mean mutants, but the white part of the line then doesn't make sense. It's unclear if Farouk is Moroccan like the comics or Iranian, since he speaks Farsi, but in this universe, did Professor X colonise Morocco/Iran?!?) He also talks about white people being cast as the heroes when speaking with Future Syd, and he's got a point, but the show needs to commit if it truly wants to address this. Yes exoticism has been used as short hand for villainous in the past, yes the writers of Legion didn't create or name Amahl Farouk, they're just (loosely) adapting the comics, and yes David does reveal himself to be a villain rather than a hero. But like...Farouk is still also a villain? So yeah, your blonde blue-eyed white man might be a monster, but that doesn't erase all the things Farouk has done (including helping turn David into a monster). Also, him being free at the end is down to his manipulations and control of others, right? Because the whole of Division 3 isn't so stupid as to let him walk free, right?!?

- 'You're the song they play outside a hostage crisis to keep criminals from thinking clearly.' This is just a great line I wanted to highlight. Syd could have just called Lenny a distraction but went with this beauty instead.

-The show that talked about delusion and moral panic then tries to blame technology for helping create narcissists and not seeing others as real people. It feels like that stupid 2014 video that claimed using our phones meant we'd miss out on meeting the love of our life because we won't ask her for directions. It's such nonsense. I've seen people who watched it when it aired say that technology is just a framing device for discussing narcissism and not meant to be seen as the blame, but if that's the case, sorry, they did a shit job because it absolutely feels like its proselytising about the evils of tech. It feels so incredibly out touch and tactless, and I wish they cut it, especially as the John Hamm narrative segments had reached a natural conclusion just the episode before. Having enjoyed the segments until now, it's disappointing that this is what they were building to.

-I think they were aiming for 'the desolate' or 'desolation' but 'Le désolé' just means 'the sorry' I checked with a French friend to make sure, and they confirmed it. You can use désolé to mean desolate, but only if there's a noun in front of it so this doesn't work.

- I'm not sure if the two David in David's mind are meant to be alters or like a devil and angel on his shoulder (really hope it's the latter because DID has been demonised enough and I don't trust the show to not be another Split honestly) but as someone who watches with subtitles I got the fun insight that their names are apparently Divad and Dvd.

- I've seen some people say Legion is set in the '60s/70s but we're never given a year, right? Considering it's a parallel universe I thought it was just another present day low/no tech AU like The Umbrella Academy or Manic. Especially as a lot if the tech we see feels more steampunk than 1960s . I get why a reviewer called the depiction of an MRI scan in season 1 anachronistic now, since MRI was only invented in 1977 (sidenote: as a student radiographer I will still never get over that scene. I was so ready to just accept it as a made up experimental scan and then they said the words MRI and I had to pause it, I was laughing so hard because it's sooo bad)

- I watched two whole seasons of this show and thought Melanie was played by Kim Cattral, but she isn't, she's played by Jean Smart! TWO SEASONS. I hadn't heard of Jean Smart before now, but honestly her and Kim Cattral are twins.

[jigenstits]

I see your tragic scenario and raise it Jigen at some point has to fake his death the way Lupin does (likely due to some bullshit with the exes) and the others are Not In On It

Lupin takes it so bad Zenigata thinks he fell off the face of the earth just like where is this man

tumblr glitched out and ate my original reply to this :( anyway teehee time to emotionally destroy this man

i feel like jigen would take way too long to tell anyone he's actually alive, for both his own and the gang's safety SO;

once he's "dead", lupin is completely emotionally numb at first, then it slowly starts to sink in that, oh god he's really gone

lupin cant get out of bed for the next few days, its just a nonstop cycle of waking up, crying for like an hour and then going back to sleep fujiko and goemon both try to get him out of bed but he just. cant bring himself to do anything

he takes it the hardest out of the three because he feels somehow responsible for jigen's "death", that if he had been there or if he had done something different then he'd still be alive

(tw for this next part being dark oops)

his mental stability just spirals down the drain, and he starts to question whether he should even keep going since like. whats the point if his partner is gone

he confesses these suicidal thoughts to goemon, and he steals lupin's gun just in case (him and fujiko also keep a very close eye on lupin after this as well)

eventually, jigen finds a way to contact the gang and tell them he's fine lupin cant believe it at first and needs to see jigen in person to believe that he's really still alive

when they do meet up, jigen hugs him close and apologizes profusely for not telling him that his death was faked after so many days of breakdown after breakdown, lupin is too emotionally exhausted to bring himself to be angry with him for not telling him, and instead is just incredibly relieved that he's fine his complicated feelings about this whole situation causes him to cry uncontrollably in jigen's arms

after this whole situation happens, lupin is really not sure how he's gonna handle it when jigen actually dies, and dreads the day when he does jigen also carries immense guilt for having put lupin and the rest of the gang through all of that, and will never forgive himself for not saying something sooner

[widowshill]

read me.

I. content advisory.

LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA, VOI CH'ENTRATE. this blog features violent content including (though not limited to) murder, suicide, and cannibalism/vampirism, as well as a narrative background of infidelity, period homophobia, questionable consent, and incest (among other staples of the gothic genre). graphic images will always be tagged. current warnings are as follows: gore tw, blood tw, noose tw, hanging tw, needles tw, nsfw tw. if you need anything else tagged, let me know and I will add it. I also liveblog my ds watch through here: the tag is "ds liveblogging." what I don't tag for: faceclaims, written descriptions of violence (unless extremely graphic), generally any supernatural violence (like vampires), or mentions of incest. this is the incestor vampire zone. blacklist any ship tag you want its free and I will never know. do not complain to me about a ship. do not pass go. do not collect $200.

II. source.

"Canon" is whatever to me and I'll be picking and choosing very liberally (as in: a box of legos, not a model ship). sometimes –– oftentimes –– I make decisions based on what is the most interesting /satisfying / fun to explore, rather than what I think is "right" or what the creators intended. that said, the og show and not the tie-ins –– audio dramas, comics, books, spin off shows and films –– are my canon for right now. I'm currently in the mid 700's of the show so I have quite a ways to go yet, I don't mind spoilers, and spoilers will be present here. (sorry!) I also won't remember every single detail and am liable to make a mistake now and then, don't feel bad about bringing it to my attention!

III. etiquette.

I don't mind personal blogs interacting and in fact cherish u. I ask that you please refrain from reblogging in-character writing between myself and my writing partners, but other than that, go crazy. I don't care if you practice reblog karma or not. send me 20 memes. send me 0. follow your heart. same goes for reblogging other stuff from me and not from the source. do not care, be free ♥ please, please, if you're going to block me, hardblock instead of softblocking. I am liable to think softblocking was a tumblr glitch or my own mistake. I promise I won't take a hard block personally!

IV. shipping

I love shipping a heck of a lot. I'm also multi-ship and I like to fill my plate by indulging in a little bit of everything. I ship Vicki with mostly everyone in some capacity except Jeff/Peter lmao (though I will keep her marriage to him as canon & its effects on her character) but by far, nearest and dearest to my heart is Roger & Victoria. to that point, I want to emphasize that I don't write her as Elizabeth's daughter. I have a longer write up in her dossier, but the tldr; is I follow the Hanscombe storyline with significant canon divergences.

[masterjedilenawrites]

AHH Lena ive got a problem!! so i think my blog got hacked into???? but theres nothing diffrent/changed so im not sure but it i was looking at stuff and it says i was "active" at some place ive never been to? but the thing is that weekend i had traveled and somewhat close (like to the neighboring state but it was on the other side away from me) and im not sure if it could just be a glitch? but im still quite worried. i mean i just changed my password but it says it was active recently and i dont know what to do and i dont want to delete my blog (its super small anyways so it wouldnt matter tho)

Don’t panic friend! I’ve got some ideas for you based on some research I’ve done.

(Also apologies for any typos, i’m typing this out on mobile in a waiting room lol)

So, i hadn’t heard of this “active sessions” section of Tumblr before, but quickly found it on the web version under account settings. According to Tumblr’s FAQs, this shows any log ins/access sessions to your Tumblr account by browser, and includes location info, to help you keep your account secure.

Looking at mine, I recognized various devices I’ve used over the past several months, with the locations as my home town. Two logs stood out to me though. 1 - my current session (marked as “current” in green) says my location is in a different part of the state. Odd, but could be due to having a new phone? 2 - apparently a session back in April came from a completely different state. Very odd right?

If i’d come across this back in April, i probably would’ve freaked out like you anon. But the fact it happened 3 months ago (and i haven’t noticed any unusual activity on my account), i couldn’t help but wonder how accurate these locations are…

Hence a research rabbit hole about IP addresses. You’ll notice underneath the city/state display is a string of numbers. This is the IP address of the browser’s network connection. There are several free websites where you can search that IP address and get a much more accurate location… Apparently, IP addresses may not always be accurate due to the geolocation databases they run through. So at the time of that connection, my location was displaying as one place when I was really somewhere else. But when I search that IP address now, it shows my current and accurate location.

I’ve also experienced odd location issues in other areas… like when I access Netflix from a new device and it sends a confirmation email, it usually has the city wrong.

So… this is what I did to look into the odd location activity on my account and i’m comfortable saying it was a IP address geolocation error. It’s possible that’s what you’re seeing on your account too.

If not… next step i would recommend is to double check the email address you have on the account. If someone actually hacked your account, that would be one of the first things they’d change in order to keep access. Really look at the address because sometimes they’ll try to throw you off by making a similar email but with like an added dot, or an extra letter that you wouldn’t catch at first glance. You can change it back to your own address in addition to changing your password.

Those are my two main ideas. I’m not an expert in these things but that’s where i would start, especially if you’re not seeing any suspicious activity on your account. Anyone else with ideas or experience here, feel free to chime in!

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, April 2024

It's time once again for my roundup of marketing and SEO news/resources for small and microbusinesses in ecommerce! April has been a very busy month, with a lot of Google & Meta news in particular.

Reminder that you can get news and my own posts from me a variety of ways:

blog emails (both Tumblr and my website blogs posts)

Patreon (the fastest and easiest way to get everything)

Bluesky

LinkedIn

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Don't know much about SEO but want to learn how it can help your ecommerce website? I've collected some trusted resources for you. (Bookmark that page for future use, as I plan to keep it updated.)

Google has recently been emphasizing that links to your site are not as crucial as they used to be. From Google’s John Mueller: “There are more important things for websites nowadays, and over-focusing on links will often result in you wasting your time doing things that don’t make your website better overall.” Here’s another instance of staff telling people you don’t need many links.

When doing keyword research, especially for niche/longtail terms, “think about think about 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 not search query volume.” Many less common searches will have a ton of slightly different variations, and a well-written piece will be able to target all of them. [It’s a good reason not to avoid really low search volume keywords that fit.]

Contrary to recent speculation, pages with ads on them can still rank well on Google; the real problem is ads that negatively affect the reader’s ability to use the page. 

Google has started testing its “Google Search Generative Experience” (AI) in regular organic search results. This was a US-only test, at first, but results have now been spotted in Australia, the UK and India as well. Note that Google’s AI still provides really lousy responses for lots of questions a full year after it debuted, including making stuff up. 

Google has been taking a lot of heat for bad results lately, especially for ranking forum sites above quality experts. SEOs have been piling on, and Google is getting a bit defensive, saying that sometimes it is just showing what people want to see. 

If you missed some Google changes in March, here is a complete accounting of all the updates. 

Not Google

Bing is apparently going to follow Google, as it is testing removal of cache links. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

A lot of people are confused about what “federated” social media means, so here’s a chat [text and audio] with the CEO of Bluesky that covers that and other goals of the social media site that started as part of Twitter but is now fully separate. Bluesky posts can also now be embedded on websites. 

Twitch is one of several social media sites introducing a feed similar to TikTok’s, for both livestreams and recorded videos. 

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta is rolling out its new political filter to Instagram and Threads, requiring users to opt in if they want to see political content. The change will be added to Facebook in the future. 

Starting in May, all AI-generated content on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will display a “Made with AI” label, Meta announced. “The old policy prohibits videos created or edited using AI tools that make a person say something they didn’t but doesn’t cover the wide range of AI-generated content that has recently flooded the web.” 

Meta’s new AI assistant pulls results directly from Google and Bing, in real time. 

Meta’s Advantage + Shopping Campaigns have new targeting capabilities, allowing advertisers to select interested accounts that are not current customers. 

Beware of Facebook ads glitches that many companies report have increased their costs.

If you aren’t happy with the traffic and interaction on Facebook, consider trying some of these 8 tips. [infographic with some text]

Court documents revealed that Meta tracked some of Facebook users’ activity on other apps such as Snapchat, perhaps without adequate disclosure. 

In yet another court action, advertisers who placed ads on Facebook and Instagram have a class action for $7 billion, claiming Meta reported more ad views than actually occurred. “The advertisers suing Meta allege that the Potential Reach metric used by the company to determine advertising costs relies on the total number of social media accounts rather than individual users. They argue that this approach is problematic because it could include bot and fake accounts, resulting in advertisers paying more money for their ads to be served to bots.” 

Instagram

Instagram has some pointers for getting more interaction on Stories. 

Here is a comprehensive list of various features on Instagram that might be useful to promoting and selling, including very recent updates. 

LinkedIn

A study of LinkedIn posts in 2022 and 2023 revealed a few tips for getting more engagement.

Because everyone wants to be TikTok, LinkedIn is beta testing a short video format. “While you have always been able to post videos on LinkedIn, the new dedicated feed is  designed to boost engagement and discovery on the platform by presenting bite-sized videos that people can quickly scroll through.”

Reddit

There’s been a lot written about how Reddit and other forum websites are really benefiting from high Google rankings for many basic knowledge queries; this article details Reddit’s search rise in the past year. “The most visible URL in r/buyitforlife, for example, is a thread on the “best coffee maker” which gets an estimated 10980 organic clicks per month. This one thread on one subreddit, on one domain which competes for visibility with nytimes.com, epicurious.com, target.com, cnn.com and bestbuy.com, to name just five on the list of over 1000 domains that are also on the competitor list for the URL.”

Threads

Threads users in the US, Canada and Japan can now cross post in the fediverse. This mostly works with Mastodon at the moment. 

It looks like Meta is going to make advertising available on Threads in the second half of 2024, which is earlier than expected. 

TikTok

TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program is now out of beta, and rewards users for 4 different metrics: “Originality, Play duration, Search value [and] Audience engagement.”

Tiktok’s photo app has now launched: "TikTok Notes” is now available in Australia and Canada [article contains screenshots of the app]. 

Twitter

No, Twitter is not currently at its highest traffic ever; the graph Musk tweeted was estimated web traffic only. Roughly 80% of Twitter’s traffic is through the app. 

Twitter may be banned in Brazil if the company doesn’t comply with government orders to block some accounts there. In related news, Bluesky is now allowing heads of state to open accounts, after their surge in Brazil. Brazil’s president was the first to sign up. 

YouTube

YouTubers now must admit when they use artificial intelligence (AI) in their creations, other than the most minor changes or “generating scripts, content ideas, or automatic captions.” This will be an interesting development to watch, as there are probably other platforms considering this type of rule right now. 

Over 25% of YouTube Shorts creators are receiving money from their short term videos’ revenue sharing option. Here’s how to monetize your Shorts. There are also increased ad opportunities for Shorts now. 

Buffer analyzed YouTube videos posted through its site to find the best times to release your pieces. “The best time to post on YouTube is on Friday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m….Other high-view times are Tuesday at 2 p.m. and Thursday at 6 p.m.” [Worth reading if you rely on YouTube for views, as it also includes tips on increasing traffic.]

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

With so much AI-generated content out there, anyone writing new pieces will need to rise above computer-generated regurgitation. Make sure your posts contain new information, such as your own tests or personal experience, or go way beyond the superficial. 

Yahoo is beta-launching its new creator platform, “Yahoo for Creators”, for lifestyle content from writers and influencers. Participation is currently by invite only. 

This is a decent calendar for planning an entire year of content marketing around theme days/weeks and special events. It’s not too early to plan your content marketing for May; there are several major events and holidays to work around. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google Shopping now allows US buyers to upvote or downvote suggested items, to help Google find what you are looking for. 

If you program your own Google Shopping ads, be aware of recent and upcoming changes in several feed areas. 

The 2023 Google Ads safety report claims they are restricting far more ads and suspending more accounts than previously. How come they can’t stop the scammers advertising a “support phone number” for Etsy then? 

Instagram ads are more profitable for Meta than YouTube ads are for Google, according to legal documents. 

STATS, DATA, TRACKING 

Periodic reminder that while the Google Search Console is often the best Google stats package we have access to, it is still missing a lot of data. 

You can use the Google Search Console and Google Analytics to diagnose traffic changes on your website; here are a few tips.  

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

“Pre-loved” clothing is on the verge of taking 10% of the world fashion market. “[T]he US secondhand market grew seven times faster than overall fashion retail where sales were flat in 2023 from a year earlier.”

An oldie but a goodie: how to write an apology letter to customers. One that companies often miss is “Explain clearly what you or the company will do differently next time to avoid this happening again.” When a business screws up badly, I want to know how the problem will be prevented in the future. 

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

Canva has purchased Affinity, potentially making the platform more attractive to those with professional design skills. The 2 companies have now confirmed that Affinity users can keep their one-time licenses, and will not be forced into subscription plans. 

MISCELLANEOUS

Michaels has reduced prices on over 5,000 items, some as low as pre-2019 prices. “Prices on frequently purchased items including paint, markers and pens have been reduced up to 15%, papers and stickers up to 20%, canvases up to 35% and T-shirts up to 40%, among other reductions.” This could affect anyone competing with Michaels in these areas. 

[cherricloverr]

my tumblr app keeps glitching and scrolling either up or down just like on its own very suddenly like girl no let me read slow pls

[zelda7999]

New Horizons where Neon gets on Horizon's lap to loosen his suit collar 'cause it's bothering him

I may be stupid, but I couldn't find this scene and to say i was sad about that would be an understatement.

I really badly wanted to read this scene since it sounded so cute but I couldn't find it. I reread the whole fic to see why i couldn't remember it from my first read through (which your ifc is amazing by the way! gonna probably reread it again after this ask) and couldn't find it.

I could very well be blind but didn't see it. Then again Ao3 has been glitching on me recently so maybe its hiding it from me?

Hope you have a nice night dear!

- A tired blob

Oh! It's in chapter 13! Here's a link -> boop!

It's from the alt timeline chapter, I had a lotta fun with it!~

and here's a lil copy n paste incase you wanna read that part on tumblr instead! I'll throw it under the cut so you can see the full scene!

here's the whole scene:

You were told someone would be picking both you and Horizon up for the event, which you were very thankful for considering you couldn’t drive. A fancy car pulls up to your pick-up location and you enter, Horizon is already inside and he looks… Uncomfortable? He looked good, stunning even, but he did not look comfortable in his suit. Tugging on his sleeves and collar while making no attempt to even pretend he’s currently comfortable.

 “Hi Horizon,” he looks over to you and his eyes lift as he looks at you. You were wearing a neat dress-shirt with a dark purple overcoat, as for your pants they were simple black dress pants. Not over the top, but just enough that you felt like you looked good, and based on how Horizon was simply staring at you and stopped pulling at his suit… You must done something, though it’s hard to tell if it was something good or bad.

 “Is there something on my face?”

 Horizon shakes his head, “No, no. You look amazing!”

 “Aw, thank you! You look stunning too, however…” You move across the car’s seat and position yourself on his lap to reach up to his collar, which you promptly loosen and unbutton so it’s not as tight around his neck.

 Satisfied with your work, you smile up at him “I think you’ll prefer it like that.”

 Horizon is simply staring at you, and you can almost hear the gears turn but your own thoughts are interrupted by the car moving. You’re thrown forward into Horizon’s chest, and all four arms are instantly around you.

 “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry!”

 He doesn’t speak immediately instead opting for lifting your chin and checking for injuries, “Are you okay?”

 You nod, the hand on your chin following as you do. The remaining three still snuggly around your waist, easily keeping you safe while the vehicle continues moving. This was most definitely not safe, but you were not going to complain. Especially as your face is quick to burn with a blush you knew was painted on your face. You should move over to a seat and buckle up, but you wanted to stay right where you were. Caged by Horizon’s arms and snugly sitting on his lap.

 “You know… I probably shouldn’t move while the car is moving… For safety reasons, right? and- and you’ve got me, right?”

 Horizon’s arms tighten around you as he nods, “Of- Of course! You’re much safer here until the car stops moving.”

[tinygameroom]

Interactive Fiction to Look Out For On Itch.io

itch.io is a trove of interactive fiction games, visual novels, and kinetic novels of all types, and I’ve run into a good handful that I think are worth highlighting (and playing again myself!)

Many of these I haven’t finished yet due to the sheer amount of content or because I went for the ending I wanted straight away, but I’d love to finish them thoroughly and perhaps review some of them in the future. 

A couple notes! First, it’s been a while since I’ve played some of these games, and some of them I haven’t seen all of the paths. I try to give warnings where needed, but my warnings might not be complete as I don’t know absolutely everything in each game. Please check the games’ pages and look after yourself!

Secondly, many of these are available free, and some are for sale at a low minimum price, but I encourage you to supporter the writers, artists, composers and developers in any way you can, whether that’s giving them a follow, donating, or just leaving a nice comment. Supporting indie creators is a huge part of what this blog is about so give back to those who create things you love! Now let’s get into the list!

Visual Novels:

Hikeback is a horror visual novel about hitchhiking, time loops, and murder. It gives a lot of incentive to keep playing and replaying, as the story advances almost every time you start again, with new choices and details being revealed as it all unravels. This game is incredibly engaging and beautifully written, and lives up to the promise of time loops and meta game mechanics. I recommend this for anyone who wants a good spooky, existential story. Be warned of loud noises, jumpscares, glitch effects, blood and violence, abuse, and themes of self harm, suicide, and depression. The itch.io pge has a list of content warnings as well as a full spoilery breakdown of warnings if you need them. You can find Hikeback on itch.io here!

Nothing to Say is a Visual Novel dating sim where you go on a date with Zoe, a girl you really like. The only problem is you’re very, very nervous. In this smart little game, you’ll be limited in how many letters you can use to express yourself, and you’ll have to unlock further dialogue options by getting to know Zoe, being honest with her, and being cute together. You’ll only earn letters from dialogue options once, encouraging you to explore more dialogue each playthrough until you get all the options to fully tell Zoe how you feel. Nothing to Say is playable here on itch.io!

Text-Interactive:

The Three-Body Problem is a queer romance interactive fiction about celestial witches living in a dark, magical wood when they encounter a young stranger. It features a nonbinary character, a potential polyamorous relationship, and healthy dom/sub dynamics. I found this story sweet and charming, with likable characters and pretty, easy to follow story writing. The Three-Body Problem deals with themes of abuse in a compassionate manner, and is in large part about healing and finding people with whom you are safe. I recommend it for anyone wanting a nice queer romance read with fantasy elements. Watch out for themes of abuse and sexual themes. You can purchase The Three-Body Problem on itch.io here for $5 or play a free mobile version from Wattpad!

Raik is a deeply Scottish fantasy melded with reality. You play as a young woman dealing with anxiety and stress trying to make it through her day, while a fantasy world unravels around her. This story has layers, and all of it is beautiful. The portrayal of anxiety is poignant and real, and the writing is gorgeous. I don’t want to say anything else to spoil it, but this game is fantastic. I recommend for anyone who likes to daydream. Please be warned of themes of anxiety, stress, and panic attacks as well as some fantasy violence. You can buy Raik here on itch.io for 3 GDP (or more! Please support the author!)

Space Frog! (I saw a lunar eclipse) is a story of a frog in space. He’s a frog and he’s in space! This is a cute, short interactive fiction with low stakes, no worries, just cute adventures of a frog in space. You can direct frog as he travels and learn more about him. It has adorable illustrations and clickable text that reveals extra flavor information. I recommend to anybody looking for a smile. You can play Space Frog here on itch.io and also download a zine of the game for $2 or more!

Floor is a text-interactive game about lying on the floor. You can lie on the floor, and you can get off the floor. What you do next is up to you! This is a short game with no real stakes, just real life boredom and activities. It may evoke feelings of loneliness or disappointment, but you can also just have some hummus. Floor can be played here on itch.io!

Apple Spice Pancakes is another short game about making pancakes with your sweetie! It’s entirely wholesome and adorable. The game text is all dialogue - the dialogue you read is from your partner, and your choices are your real-time responses to them. You can help them design your perfect breakfast while being disgustingly cute. Apple Spice Pancakes is available here on itch.io!

A Witch’s Word is a romantic text game where you have made a deal with a witch, offering her your firstborn. The only problem is you don’t have a child. Or a partner. The witch is here to help. Explore three potential relationships as your witch continues to introduce you to new sweethearts, trying to find someone who you are willing to love and who is willing to give up your child. And if you don’t want any of these people the witch offers you... maybe play the game anyway. See what can happen. A Witch’s Word is available here on itch.io!

Other:

Novena is an interactive poem! It’s a pixel art game that you navigate around, interacting with parts of the environment to read through the poem, which is about the ocean, and wishes, and expectations. And compassion. It has absolutely stunning visuals and music, and the poem makes me cry each time. Be warned of some really heavy feelings, but it will do its best to comfort you. The poem takes about five minutes to read and is here on itch.io waiting for you.

I hope a few of these games are of interest to you and that I’ve inspired you to support these great indie developers! If you wanna support me and see more articles and reviews on indie games, or encourage me as I learn to make my own, you can follow me here and on itch.io and support me with donations on ko-fi! Please reblog if you like this article, since tumblr will make it very hard to find with all these links. Have a great day and play some good games!