#my time. i have other stuff to do and limited functionality to do it all since I'm disabled and still work as much as i can

[dsntwrk]

help me i've gotten so deep into the steddie rabbit hole i haven't gotten this stuck on something since destiel

this really isn't good for my health

THESE ARE THE FICS THAT I SUBSCRIBED TO / LIKED READING (I'VE BASICALLY READ 1/5 WORTH OF STEDDIE FICS COMPARED TO DESTIEL FICS - I GOT INTO DESTIEL 4 YRS AGO, I ONLY STARTED READING STEDDIE FICS SOME TIME LAST MONTH WTF)

tbf, i have taken breaks from destiel to read other fandoms/fics so, ig the timing works out? if you think about it?

[rllybadfanfic]

You know what, actually? As a writer, I just keep going back to writing the things that people comment on. I had one fic that I was so excited for and it got absolutely zero reception and you know what? I haven't written anything on it since. I have another that I updated after a couple years, immediate enthusiastic response, I haven't been able to stop writing for it.

If you like a fic, leave a comment. That could be the difference between seeing it finished or seeing more from that author in your fandom in general.

I actually kind of regret signing up for a fandom event in one fandom bc I'd rather be writing this fic for another bc the other fandom reliably comments more and it is a spike of endorphins every time. That is especially effective for me bc I have ADHD, the 'can't produce endorphins correctly' disorder.

If you don't know what to comment, literally just key smash or leave a smiley face or quote your favorite line. You could literally leave the same comment on every fic or every chapter, it doesn't matter as long as you leave something. It's just to show that you were there and the time you spent meant something to you.

Thank you to every single person who comments on fics, you are really making someone's day.

And P.S. to fic writers, when you get a comment, responding goes a long way in making people want to continue to comment. Even if you just slap a 'Thanks for reading!' and/or a 'I'm glad you liked it!' when appropriate.

Fandom is about community interaction, so don't be afraid to interact with your community!

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

it's probably the sunnier weather that's doing stuff to my brain to make me more optimistic but it's so interesting having a brain that craves a lot of self-fulfillment to the point where I can move past some hang-ups around perfection by going "oh I really wanna do that though" and then I do it well because researching how to do it right is also a rewarding part of the process

[arolesbianism]

hello gamers minor life update I have been doing Real bad lately so I will likely continue to be very inactive, but hey on the bright side I have been fleshing out some eternal gales lore I reworked a while back and I can happily say that Dodie no longer completely contradicts the very nature of reality in eternal gales and the fog tower™ officially has a real reason to exist again so hell yeah to that

[civildisorderstream]

2023, The Year of Self-Sabotage

Has anyone noticed the trend businesses have been on in 2023? There's a LOT of self-sabotage going on in the business world. Throughout my life, and everyone else has their own observations too, once in a while you see a company make a boneheaded decision about their product or service. And once in a while you'll see a decision get made that is bad, but maybe it at least has some justification (even to an anti-capitalist goober like myself). But this year has been nonsensical moves of greed or product/service sabotage that make no sense for longevity or harm what's in the best interest of the consumer.

Activision-Blizzard: The Overwatch debacle, and Diablo Immortal's scummy practices.

Netflix: The account sharing debacle.

Twitter: Maximum divorced loser Elon Musk destroying its functionality and branding and we still call it Twitter.

Reddit: Inspired by Musk's stupidity, the API tools debacle. Shame on the Reddit communities for not knowing how to strike btw (you don't put a time limit on it).

Hollywood: Pulling shows and films from streaming services to declare them as failed products and somehow get a tax write-off for it.

Also Hollywood: Willing to take quarterly losses greater than the annual cost to meet the demands of two striking unions put together.

Unity: Announced in the past day that it will charge developers a fee for installations because greed.

Titan Submersible: "Safety is for losers" says billionaire who proceeds to use his shoddy tech to do a murder-suicide.

Starbucks: Breaking ALL of the labor laws to try and stop unionization. Admittedly a reach to be on this list but the situation (like all the others) is ongoing and can compound.

Embracer: A massive corporate company that bought a bunch of smaller companies. Thought a 2 billion dollar deal with the Saudi government was a sure thing, so they spent 2 billion dollars on stuff. Deal falls through, so they start closing companies they acquired.

That's just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. These aren't business decisions done for the sake of consumers. These are all decisions done to spite consumers or the workers who produce the products and services.

People try to remember years as being the "year of" something. And it's a thing I do too. For me, 2023 is the year of corporate self-sabotage.

[lightyaoigami]

☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ how to resume ⋆｡ﾟ☾｡⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎ ﾟ

after 10 years & 6 jobs in corporate america, i would like to share how to game the system. we all want the biggest payoff for the least amount of work, right?

know thine enemy: beating the robots

i see a lot of misinformation about how AI is used to scrape resumes. i can't speak for every company but most corporations use what is called applicant tracking software (ATS).

no respectable company is using chatgpt to sort applications. i don't know how you'd even write the prompt to get a consumer-facing product to do this. i guarantee that target, walmart, bank of america, whatever, they are all using B2B SaaS enterprise solutions. there is not one hiring manager plinking away at at a large language model.

ATS scans your resume in comparison to the job posting, parses which resumes contain key words, and presents the recruiter and/or hiring manager with resumes with a high "score." the goal of writing your resume is to get your "score" as high as possible.

but tumblr user lightyaoigami, how do i beat the robots?

great question, y/n. you will want to seek out an ATS resume checker. i have personally found success with jobscan, which is not free, but works extremely well. there is a free trial period, and other ATS scanners are in fact free. some of these tools are so sophisticated that they can actually help build your resume from scratch with your input. i wrote my own resume and used jobscan to compare it to the applications i was finishing.

do not use chatgpt to write your resume or cover letter. it is painfully obvious. here is a tutorial on how to use jobscan. for the zillionth time i do not work for jobscan nor am i a #jobscanpartner i am just a person who used this tool to land a job at a challenging time.

the resume checkers will tell you what words and/or phrases you need to shoehorn into your bullet points - i.e., if you are applying for a job that requires you to be a strong collaborator, the resume checker might suggest you include the phrase "cross-functional teams." you can easily re-word your bullets to include this with a little noodling.

don't i need a cover letter?

it depends on the job. after you have about 5 years of experience, i would say that they are largely unnecessary. while i was laid off, i applied to about 100 jobs in a three-month period (#blessed to have been hired quickly). i did not submit a cover letter for any of them, and i had a solid rate of phone screens/interviews after submission despite not having a cover letter. if you are absolutely required to write one, do not have chatgpt do it for you. use a guide from a human being who knows what they are talking about, like ask a manager or betterup.

but i don't even know where to start!

i know it's hard, but you have to have a bit of entrepreneurial spirit here. google duckduckgo is your friend. don't pull any bean soup what-about-me-isms. if you truly don't know where to start, look for an ATS-optimized resume template.

a word about neurodivergence and job applications

i, like many of you, am autistic. i am intimately familiar with how painful it is to expend limited energy on this demoralizing task only to have your "reward" be an equally, if not more so, demoralizing work experience. i don't have a lot of advice for this beyond craft your worksona like you're making a d&d character (or a fursona or a sim or an OC or whatever made up blorbo generator you personally enjoy).

and, remember, while a lot of office work is really uncomfortable and involves stuff like "talking in meetings" and "answering the phone," these things are not an inherent risk. discomfort is not tantamount to danger, and we all have to do uncomfortable things in order to thrive. there are a lot of ways to do this and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. not everyone can mask for extended periods, so be your own judge of what you can or can't do.

i like to think of work as a drag show where i perform this other personality in exchange for money. it is much easier to do this than to fight tooth and nail to be unmasked at work, which can be a risk to your livelihood and peace of mind. i don't think it's a good thing that we have to mask at work, but it's an important survival skill.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ good luck ⋆｡ﾟ☾｡⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎ ﾟ｡⋆

[timeflow]

good evening reddit users, welcome to the website. not seen one of these that tells you how to make this website bearable so here goes

starting off with dashboard settings you want to turn off endless scrolling (it slows down the website after a while of scrolling), turn off shorten long posts because one of the main things about this website is the total lack of a character limit (as an alternative to this setting, you can press j to skip to the next post on the dashboard if the current one is kind of long). turning on timestamps is convenient because it allows you to check when a post was made (don't get me wrong: this website absolutely LOVES reblogging old posts, but there are times when it's worth checking if a post has very old news in it)

turn off best stuff first right away. one of the main reasons cited for joining tumblr is because "there is no algorithm". this is not entirely true, we have one but we routinely turn off anything algorithmic that staff adds. turning off best stuff first means your dashboard will be reverse chronological no matter what, and turning off based on your likes and stuff in your orbit will get rid of the rest of the algorithmically-recommended content that appears on your dashboard

following tags is nice because you will occasionally see posts with tags you follow sprinkled into your dashboard. this is considered good because it's almost always recent, I personally recommend turning on include followed tag posts and just following a bunch of random tags that you think could be interesting (characters, media, topics, whatever)

this one's a more personal thing but I would absolutely turn off any community labels because tumblr staff has recently been just putting a bunch of random posts under this despite being entirely sfw. if you ACTUALLY want to filter content, then go to filtered tags:

unlike the community labels which are put arbitrarily by staff, tags are put on by the actual users and so you can MUCH more reliably filter out content you don't want to see by putting filtered tags. this also works for any kind of content unlike the community labels, meaning you can just filter out stuff that you don't want to see (a particular character, a particular piece of media, a certain topic, anything you want really)

turn on custom theme immediately. the standard view of tumblr.com/url will give people who are not logged in a forced login wall, meanwhile url.tumblr.com will not. by doing this you also get access to your post archive at url.tumblr.com/archive, which lets you look through your posts more easily (the search function is awful). the main benefit of this, however, is that you get to have a custom look to your blog: going to edit theme brings up a menu that allows you to customize your css, add pages to your tumblr blog, etc. all very useful stuff

it's also worth taking the time to consider whether or not you leave your liked posts and list of blogs you follow public (most people have likes turned off, following is also commonly turned off but I personally don't care about others seeing who I follow)

turn off the let people blaze your posts. blaze basically allows you to pay money to show a post to a random group of people by paying money, suffices to say that allowing others to blaze your posts without your consent will inevitably lead to one of your personal posts getting blazed by some prick and now hundreds of people have seen it

asks are one of the main ways of interacting with blogs so absolutely turn them on. whether you allow anons is your choice, anonymity allows people to say nice things without feeling embarrassed about how everyone knows who said that, but it also allows people to send hateful stuff with no consequence.

submissions are like whatever. I personally leave them on but in my 5 years of having this blog I've been submitted to twice.

to close off this post I'll leave my personal thoughts on reblog etiquette:

reblogging is great. reblog the fuck out of anything. does the post amuse you slightly? reblog it. go wild

that being said please don't put anything in your reblogs unless it's like a really important comment. your comment will be immortalized forever if someone reblogs the post from you and on popular posts I have to constantly go back a couple years to get rid of an annoying comment like "LOL THIS IS SO FUNNY" because that person didn't realize that their addition was wholly unnecessary

if you DO want to add something to say your thoughts on the post in a quiet voice that doesn't get permanently added onto the original, consider talking in the tags of your reblog. this is considered nicer since when the post is reblogged from you your tags are not going to stick around. there is also this process known as "peer review" in which if your tags are sufficiently funny one of your followers (or sometimes a random person browsing the notes of the post) will screenshot/copy and paste your tags into a reblog, which is a much more natural way of having your comment added into the post

tags are also nice to use or organizational purposes. clicking on a post with a certain tag on your blog will show you every post with that tag on your blog allowing you to find posts later, alternatively you can go to url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/[insert tag here] to a similar effect.

that's all I have to say on this subject. have fun on our glorious website

edit: oh yeah also unfollow staff. it will make you look normal 👍

[kaijutegu]

hey friends if you're looking for a way to limit social media consumption because your family makes you sad or you get into some real dark thoughts whenever you open twitter, here's something good you can do for yourself.

first, figure out what your muscle memory social media sites are. like for me, i usually pop open a twitter or facebook tab regardless of what i'm doing. i don't think about it, my fingers just kinda. go there, for checking on stuff. i use other social media sites but i have to think about going there, these are just my muscle memory social media sites. oh before i go further, this is for desktop/laptop, my advice for mobile is just uninstall the app versions of your muscle memory social media sites are.

then, download LeechBlock. there's other blockers too but like, that's the one I use bc I enjoy its functionality.

throw your muscle memory sites into the blocker. one of the things I like so much about LeechBlock is that you can give it blocks of time that you can access the site. if you have people you're checking on, if you want to get news from wherever, that's ok, but genuinely, do not give yourself unfettered access to the worst of what humanity has to offer. because that's what a lot of these muscle memory social media platforms are. because that's what a lot of social media has become. (not you tungl.hell, you're special.)

anyways here's what i set up. i noticed that it's facebook and twitter being my scylla and charbydis of doomscrolling, so i just created a custom filter to block them and just set my time limit to forever.

and if you NEED access to these sites you can set up times where you can block them more specifically, but for me, accessing them in my main browser is... a bad idea.

see, the whole point of this is to wean me off of the muscle memory. i'm use to pressing f+enter and facebook comes up. now when i want to access fb, it's a pain in the ass. that minor inertia keeps me away from it, and i can still easily access it in my work browser when i need it for herp society stuff. but that tiny barrier to entry makes a huge difference.

another thing you can do is log out of these sites each time you leave and have it not remember your login and so that makes logging in an intentional choice each time, which is often a disincentive or at least promotes spending more time deciding to be there. but that's more work than my lazy set it and forget it method.

the truth is that these sites are not likely to help you unless you're doing something specific and can avoid most of your feed. even if you have lots of good friends and community, you can't opt out of the terrible algo posts, and they are going to serve up polarizing content and right now, you probably don't need that. or if you do, you need it in a more mindful context, you need to not be sort of... drifting to your social platforms. i'm not saying don't engage at all, i'm saying be smart and thoughtful about it. as always, you are responsible for curating your own internet experience, and this includes after a real bad election. this is a tool you can use to protect yourself and stop doomscrolling before it starts.

[hotheadedhero]

i am absolutely in love with your writing style and i see requests are open hehehehe

perhaps a rise!donnie with a gn reader that is “high intelligence low wisdom”? like, theyre smart and all and can understand a lot of his work, but they next moment they do something absolutely idiotic?

anyway thanks for considering <3

AN: If I've got the right idea then oh, ohoho, I think I can do this. Kinda describes me as a person 😅 And thank you!! I'm glad you enjoy the spoils of my crazy brain <3

A Dichotomy in Donnie's Dearest

Donatello x Reader

Donatello has a field day with you. Finding another entity as smart as him is unfounded but you're an enigma altogether. You're not necessarily the next Einstein, but your ability to fathom even half of the stuff that comes out of his mouth is impressive. Some nights, you'll both have conversations about biomechanics, nuclear chemistry, or anything that weasels its way into the mix. It isn't uncommon for you two to stay up until the break of dawn when you get caught up in such exchanges. In fact, your propensity for science drew him towards you in the first place. You make quite a pair, like how a covalent bond is a formation of electrons shared between two atoms.

Although, he supposes that if that is the attractive force in this analogy, your disposition for thick-witted conduct is the repulsive force. The difference between your divine intellect and your misshapen ability to function in society is an astounding, if not worrying prospect. It's as though you completely forgot yourself and he can only speculate how.

Initially, he chalked it up to a faulty memory: forgetting to switch the socket on when you plug your laptop in, not realising your phone is in your hand whilst it's 'lost', completely losing your train of thought mid-conversation. Standard, everyday predicaments that aren't unfounded amongst the greater world.

That assumption was quickly abandoned when he took closer note of some things that come out of your mouth - certain "theories" of yours that he hopes are funny thoughts and nothing more.

"Do you reckon tissues get their name from the fact that when we sneeze, we say, a-tissue?" you ask him.

You can't be serious, surely. Perhaps it was merely a bad attempt at a pun. If so, he'll have to limit your spending time with his oh-so-dear brother, Leonardo. It's bad enough having one person galivanting around thinking they're funny, let alone two.

He can't even begin to form a base for what you've just asked him, and instead replies so, "Life is too short for me to answer such questions."

It doesn't end there. He wishes he could say it does but it doesn't.

"I just figured out why a peanut is called a peanut!" The unparalleled excitement in your voice is enough to shock him out of his mortal body but the content source of your jovial commotion is mind-boggling and not in a good way. When he does nothing other than stare, you continue, "They're like peas in a pod but the nut version!"

"A dazzling deduction, my love," he remarks tiredly, wondering how you're the same person he discusses string theory with. "The limits of your knowledge truly know no bounds."

He's just glad Aristotle isn't around to see this side of humanity. It isn't limited to what you say, either. Worst of all, it's the things you do. Such as, when you try to eat something despite the fact it's just come out of the oven. Bonus 'dumb-dumb' points if you try to take food out of the oven without gloves. To put it simply, he doesn't trust you in the kitchen - a caution further validated when you rubbed your eyes after cutting jalapeno peppers once. You have been effectively banned.

He's lost count of how many times you've elbowed your own hip whilst rolling over in bed, or the many instances you've attempted to pull a push door and vice versa. That isn't even taking into account the countless times you have visited the lair without waterproof clothing, despite how long you've been coming down. Let's just say that the already long list is seemingly never-ending.

His frequent sighs of annoyance never offend you. If anything, it makes you laugh that much more when he appears physically pained by your antics. It's as though you enjoy his suffering. From your perspective, there's no harm in the odd hiccup here and there. You're merely enjoying life for what it is and know when to have a giggle at yourself.

Donnie believes himself to be a prodigy and he is! He can solve most if not all conundrums thrust his way but you - you - are the one he can't figure out. Yet, no matter how many times you engage in these idiotic behaviours, he still loves you. Besides, thinking any less of you would be a stupefying case of hypocrisy if he weren't to acknowledge his own blunders. Granted, his mistakes are often in the name of science but you are truly a match made in imbecilically astute Elysium.

AN: Btw, the things about the tissues, peanuts, and elbowing hips? Real stuff from me. Idk how I function

[hellspawnmotel]

the way you've used color for years has inspired me beyond what I can explain. I remember trying to pallet like you when I was 14 or something...I'm 22 now and I still look at your art across multiple different years to study how you've used color and try to understand like you do

oh man. well, I'm pretty terrible at responding to big compliments like this other than.... thank you!! I'm very flattered and it means a lot that you think so. make no mistake though I think I still have a LOT to learn about color and I'm always trying to improve myself and be smarter about it all.... a ton of trial and error goes on behind the scenes, I owe my life to the tonal correction and select color gamut functions lol. a huge part of it is being willing to experiment with colors that you dont even think will work together, or that arent even close to the color you were originally going to pick, but you have to try just in case.

personally I've found that I end up happiest with the colors in pieces where I stuck to fairly limited palettes, not necessarily very strict ones but the same general areas of color, yknow? like this

I also basically taught myself to color good as a teenager by drawing small and simple pieces with pre-made palettes, such as...

I would've been?? 16??? when I did these I think. not that I even said I was using pre-made palettes or credited the people who made them lmao. how times change

and I've also learned a lot from studying how color is used in older anime, especially ones from the 90s. evangelion in particular was a HUGE influence on my coloring and what colors I use the most (red and orange, lol).

I know you didnt exactly ask for advice but I wanted to give it anyway! I want everyone to use exciting colors and have fun doing it. just like, watch and look at a lot of stuff. not just my stuff. watch metropolis (2001) that movie has INSANE color blocking. watch the tatami galaxy as well. play mother 3. work until you get better at it than I am, that's what I want. and thank you again!

[currentfandomkick]

Re-Making Ghost King function

Ghost King is a lot of OP!Danny and skipping other avenues to explore how that could work, so i have IdeasTM to add weight to the role and make it Worse For Ghost King or add costs to acting outside of the role.

Adding possible story ideas to each example i give, and up for grabs just tag me if you do anything :D

Ghost king is a curse and death sentence.

It drains your core and keeps you from your obsession. It is the realm’s denizens deciding ‘fuck this guy in particular’. The draining of the king’s core causes them to go insane (known problem) and the energy goes to sustaining a number of youngers and newly forming ghosts in the Ghost Nurseries.

Yes, Danny’s main area of the Ghost Zone is included in Nursery where ghosts of similar species and backgrounds intermingle with parents of neverborns, form firghts and later move deeper into realms, unless their obsession includes the living. Then they tend to gravitate to portal rich areas, and areas that spawn in their preferred time and regions of living world.

This means Danny? Is possibly going to deal with going insane if he’s crowned, especially as Pariah is around still. Realms are convening on if Danny’s a bigger threat than Pariah after defeating him. Go nuts on court and legal arguments between various ghosts. JLD may be called in by [character] to find a way to save Danny from this BS, while Danny is staging another prison break and probably forming another army on his side that he does not lead and like him enough to keep around but do not agree with him in terms of leadership. So his new friends are kidnapping him for his own good, while a trial is held over if a halfa can be given the cursed role of ghost king, and if Danny should be cursed to future madness

Go nuts on political drama, jail break fun and Danny debating if this makes him a McGuffin, and why his life is Like This

Team ups everywhere

Ghost king is the loosely diplomat between the Infinite Realms. And other realms sometimes.

Pariah decided war was the best way to get everyone to shut up and unite and maybe not make all their issues his problem for five minutes.

Danny is now expected to handle this as physically beating opponents to establish credentials is vital

Danny is shit at remembering his powers. Or how to switch between them outside his main ones…

Cue danny finding mentors to help and runs into hero of your choice for help (yes this means Batman isn’t the best to handle this, if he’s around have him shuffle Danny to another team or frequent meetings with a lot of heroes)

Feel free to unleash him onto Hero Team of Choice and make him their problem as ‘oh its me or the guy who’s main response is world domination! My mirror likes traveling and a few of my friends are activists. I dont want Conqueror McGee in charge of this stuff. I’m just here as the muscle/backup, and engineer. And space stuff. I am not the negotiator, i am the negotiator’s bodyguard.’

Danny is here to play Guard the Diplomat and act like he is not, in fact, the diplomat Legally.

Heroes? Doing their best to train danny up, likely bonding with him and his crew (tagalongs of your choice. But please let Val be there too, and calling Danny out on ‘crap tactics’ in a teasing manner.)

Ghost King is Extremely Limited in living world regardless of previous powers

Ghost Kings only have their full powers in the realms of the dead, and said powers vary by monarch and region they are present in

Yes this helps explain Danny’s weekly new powers if we include Clocky as a previous king who saw Dan become king and thought early intervention on powers might prevent Dan. Did not work as intended.

In the living realm danny acts more as a medium and can answer questions about the dead, but cannot use his powers anywhere but Amity as Amity is a Veil City (city that exists in both the IR and Living Realm) but is anchored more on living side… outside of the city wandering about as it pleases

Danny is mostly human in human word besides having an encyclopedic knowledge about the dead, burial sites, which death realm one resides in or returned from, ect.,

In the infinite Realms he is eldritch though. As a treat.

Danny is not able to be summoned unless he’s in the infinite realms. Pariah is the backup summon though. And he’s bitchy about it.

High crack, comedy and angst potential

Summons can be anyone, and danny is Done with Cultists and makes a point to tell them to fuck off with the power crap. He will take questions about the dead, and only if he gets a burger shake.

As King Phantom he’s basically a Glorified Realms Secretary in his opinion. He makes Pariah the King when he wants to be bitchy to people, and vice versa.

No rule against Pariah and Danny in a weird joint custody of the title as ‘i beat you, i won’ vs ‘you only meet the credentials half the time. We work in shifts’

Ghost King with Serious Limitations the way most monarchs have.

King Phantom cannot help you with… finding your missing friend. Danny Fenton can.

Fenton gets no access to his powers when going against what Phantom is allowed to do. Including his healing factor!

Much whump and angst potential

So many scenarios to put this in, especially if you have another person pissed at danny for not doing more with his own powers and get reality checked with danny seriously injured for Not Following the Ghost King Restrictions

Fenton making tech to help where he cant is highly applicable

I say engineer Danny working with Hero Of Choice as Gadget Guy and finding out powers afterwards and former hero status could be fun too!

And there’s all i got ATM, if anyone has other ideas to make Ghost King less OP or have other angles, let me know so we can circulate other ways this can work.

Tag whoever may be interested or have other ideas to rework the ghost king concept

[yukipri]

Some thoughts on Cara

So some of you may have heard about Cara, the new platform that a lot of artists are trying out. It's been around for a while, but there's been a recent huge surge of new users, myself among them. Thought I'd type up a lil thing on my initial thoughts.

First, what is Cara?

From their About Cara page:

Cara is a social media and portfolio platform for artists. With the widespread use of generative AI, we decided to build a place that filters out generative AI images so that people who want to find authentic creatives and artwork can do so easily. Many platforms currently accept AI art when it’s not ethical, while others have promised “no AI forever” policies without consideration for the scenario where adoption of such technologies may happen at the workplace in the coming years. The future of creative industries requires nuanced understanding and support to help artists and companies connect and work together. We want to bridge the gap and build a platform that we would enjoy using as creatives ourselves. Our stance on AI: ・We do not agree with generative AI tools in their current unethical form, and we won’t host AI-generated portfolios unless the rampant ethical and data privacy issues around datasets are resolved via regulation. ・In the event that legislation is passed to clearly protect artists, we believe that AI-generated content should always be clearly labeled, because the public should always be able to search for human-made art and media easily.

Should note that Cara is independently funded, and is made by a core group of artists and engineers and is even collaborating with the Glaze project. It's very much a platform by artists, for artists!

Should also mention that in being a platform for artists, it's more a gallery first, with social media functionalities on the side. The info below will hopefully explain how that works.

Next, my actual initial thoughts using it, and things that set it apart from other platforms I've used:

1) When you post, you can choose to check the portfolio option, or to NOT check it. This is fantastic because it means I can have just my art organized in my gallery, but I can still post random stuff like photos of my cats and it won't clutter things. You can also just ramble/text post and it won't affect the gallery view!

2) You can adjust your crop preview for your images. Such a simple thing, yet so darn nice.

3) When you check that "Add to portfolio," you get a bunch of additional optional fields: Title, Field/Medium, Project Type, Category Tags, and Software Used. It's nice that you can put all this info into organized fields that don't take up text space.

4) Speaking of text, 5000 character limit is niiiiice. If you want to talk, you can.

5) Two separate feeds, a "For You" algorithmic one, and "Following." The "Following" actually appears to be full chronological timeline of just folks you follow (like Tumblr). Amazing.

6) Now usually, "For You" being set to home/default kinda pisses me off because generally I like curating my own experience, but not here, for this handy reason: if you tap the gear symbol, you can ADJUST your algorithm feed!

So you can choose what you see still!!! AMAZING. And, again, you still have your Following timeline too.

7) To repeat the stuff at the top of this post, its creation and intent as a place by artists, for artists. Hopefully you can also see from the points above that it's been designed with artists in mind.

8) No GenAI images!!!! There's a pop up that says it's not allowed, and apparently there's some sort of detector thing too. Not sure how reliable the latter is, but so far, it's just been a breath of fresh air, being able to scroll and see human art art and art!

To be clear, Cara's not perfect and is currently pretty laggy, and you can get errors while posting (so far, I've had more success on desktop than the mobile app), but that's understandable, given the small team. They'll need time to scale. For me though, it's a fair tradeoff for a platform that actually cares about artists.

Currently it also doesn't allow NSFW, not sure if that'll change given app store rules.

As mentioned above, they're independently funded, which means the team is currently paying for Cara itself. They have a kofi set up for folks who want to chip in, but it's optional. Here's the link to the tweet from one of the founders:

And a reminder that no matter that the platform itself isn't selling our data to GenAI, it can still be scraped by third parties. Protect your work with Glaze and Nightshade!

Anyway, I'm still figuring stuff out and have only been on Cara a few days, but I feel hopeful, and I think they're off to a good start.

I hope this post has been informative!

Lastly, here's my own Cara if you want to come say hi! Not sure at all if I'll be active on there, but if you're an artist like me who is keeping an eye out for hopefully nice communities, check it out!

[audiblehush]

Okay, so post-P1 trailer, the thing I’m MOST excited about for is Colin and Penelope’s ACTUAL friendship!

Because while Colin has always viewed Penelope as a genuine a friend, she has always had the added lense of “I’m in love with you,” and that changed the way she interacted with him.

But now, to Penelope, Colin has essentially closed the door on him ever seeing her in a romantic light, both with his end of S2 words AND their “friends” handshake in S3. “Okay,” she probably thinks, “that dream is dead but friends. I can do friends.”

But what this opportunity does is this give us Penelope functioning in this friendship as an ACTUAL friend, and not just “yes sure friends but I can’t get the heart out of eyes enough for it to be truly genuine because I’m wearing a mask so you like me” - That didn’t make her a bad person; it made her a girl with a strong crush worried about his view of her; it’s normal! But it also obviously led to her putting on airs around him, while also having him on a pedestal and not seeing him as a fully realized person.

But these “lessons” allow for them to be around one another without expectation. That scene of them giggling in the ballroom like dorks, as if no one else was around them??

ABSOLUTE PERFECTION!!!!

Colin will begin to see Penelope as a true friend because she’ll LET him; she’ll drop her guard enough to be real instead of trying to impress him all the time. THAT is (hopefully) when Colin starts to realize his feelings: because Penelope will finally be her authentic self… while feeling more confident because of her new wardrobe. He’ll be attracted to her new confidence, and her ACTUAL personality she’s letting him finally see, not just her physical glow-up (the candle symbolism!!!!).

COLIN will now have heart eyes for her, and maybe the one to have her on a slight pedestal… only for the LW reveal to happen and shake his world… letting us see his hurt, his anger, his worry…

Once they work through all that is when these two see each other for who the other REALLY is, flaws and all, fighting to grow individually, as a friendship, as a COUPLE… and choose each other every time.

THAT. IS. MY. JAM.

I still have my concerns about the season. I do NOT want Colin only realizing his feelings once some other guy pays her mind. I NEED him to already be struggling with and analyzing his feelings before Debling get involved. If I had to guess, it will be more than Colin is like “okay, I’m pretty sure I have feelings for Penelope, but how do i know for SURE when I’ve thought that before?” (thanks S1…) … but then Debling comes along looking for a wife, and Colin is suddenly between rock and a hard place because now he has a sort time limit to sort through really complicated feelings.

Violet says “ what more could SHE want?” mostly likely about Penelope and Debling, because Debling is wealthy, titled, and has strong interests and beliefs he is committed to (based on his promo info, anyway). This has already been an insecurity of Colin’s since S1. He’s a third son (with wealth, yes), but he has been searching for “his purpose” for ages now; it’s all over S2 how lost he is and how that frustrates him. His family tends to tolerate him at best and kind of ridicule him at worst, and so he flits by being easy-going and “charming” when he just wants to know who is and be accepted for it. So Violet says all this and Colin says “but you said friendship is the best foundation” and she tells him to follow his heart.

But that’s the problem: Colin struggles to KNOW HIS OWN HEART, and not just romantically! So I just want to know how much of his feelings for Pen has he grappled with at that point? How much exploration outside of his Pen stuff has he done regarding his own person? Because he IS a person outside his relationships, but HE doesn’t feel that way.

EDIT: Also, ALSO Yes, Colin is hyping pen up, but I want her to hype HIM up once she sees that he’s not as confident as he acts. She’s seen glimpses of that in S2, but S3 can let her be like “actually, you are AMAZING…” and without romantic intentions, just her telling her friends he has so much to offer the world.

I’m also scared Penelope will make some awful choices (Nicola hinted at this in interviews) and like, i get it we need conflict, but my poor heart can only take so much…

At the end of the day, it’s all speculation. It’s so hard to say with how trailers are cut, and I know they can’t include it all, and most people are here for the romance so that is what they would lean into… so I’m really trying to avoid doom-theorizing, or even getting attached to things I WANT to happen. We won’t know until it’s out, so I’m just trying to contain both feelings of nervousness AND excitement.

I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH, YOUR HONOR!!!!

[mediumgayitalian]

“Halt!”

Across the common, three suspicious figures freeze, glance behind them, and then resume walking as casually as they can.

“I said halt! Do not move! Cease all function!”

Milling nervously towards each other, Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest pause, shifting the three massive cardboard boxes they hold each.

“Hi, Annabeth,” Will says, smiling innocently. Cecil and Lou Ellen match him, eyes wide, expressions angelic.

Annabeth stomps over to them, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She is entirely unmoved by the cherubic display in front of her. Nico stays right where he is, hidden by the shade of Cabin Eight.

“Explain yourselves,” Annabeth orders.

The three stooges exchange a look.

“Whatever do you mean,” Lou Ellen asks, shifting the boxes to free up her hand only to place it delicately over her chest. “Why, we are only helping our dear friend William —”

“Our dear, dear friend,” Cecil adds.

“— carry these many boxes of medical supplies, so as to lower his great burden —”

“Massive burden,” Will says sagely.

“— and free up his evening in order for him to spend his limited time with us, his most cherished friends.”

“Especially cherished,” Will and Cecil chorus together.

Unable to bite back a smile, Nico rolls his eyes so hard his skull hurts. They’re not even trying to not get caught, at this point.

Clearly agreeing, Annabeth scoffs. “Yeah, right. Boxes down, all three of you. You’re being detained for suspected illicit substances.”

“Annabeth!” Will cries, mock outraged, “after all I do for this camp, you would accuse me of being — illicit?! Me?! The outrage! The insult! The impugn, the —”

“Can it, Solace. Open the boxes.”

Huffing in perfect unison, the three of them carefully lower their boxes to the ground.

“Tape off.”

Intentionally slowly, they run a nail along the edge of the packing tape.

“Flaps open, guys, c’mon.”

With flourish, the trio fling open the thin cardboard panels. Inside each box is rows of bandages, packaged syringes, sterile bands, tongue compresses, and more that Nico can’t name.

“See?” says Cecil, gesturing grandly. “The shipment just came in from my dad.”

Annabeth’s eyes narrow. “Your dad is in a conference with the rest of the Olympians right now, Markowitz.”

“Well,” Cecil says, and then nothing else.

“He meant it in the royal sense,” Lou Ellen pipes up in his silence. Cecil nods frantically. “You know, ‘just’ as in, like, recently, as in this morning —”

“Do you three think I’m stupid —”

“It’s just medical supplies! You can look through them if you want —”

Even if they weren’t acting like criminals, Nico knows his friends. He knows his boyfriend, especially, and recognises that damn look on his face. He can also physically see Annabeth’s stress ulcer coming back.

Closing his eyes, Nico fades into Cabin Six’s shadow. It’s a quick jump, so the stretch is easy, and the darkness bows easily to his hold. He reappears silently behind the group, taking advantage of the setting sun, and darts out to grip Lou Ellen’s arm.

“Boo,” he whispers.

She shrieks at the top of her lungs, jumping three clean feet in the air. Coincidently, the boxes of medical supplies flicker, turning into a truly baffling amount of instant mashed potato boxes as her grip on the Mist loosens.

“I knew it!” Annabeth shouts.

On cue, all three doofuses turn to Nico, jeering and complaining about ‘ruining the fun’. Nico’s glare is ineffective on Doofus #1, but the other two can be cowed. He focuses on channelling the flames of hell to reflect in his eyes like his father showed him until they look away, muttering at the ground.

“We still don’t have any illicit substances,” Will insists, glaring right back. Nico sticks out his tongue. He crosses his eyes like a four year old. How immature, honestly. “So we’re just gonna take our stuff and —”

“Absolutely not, Golden Boy. Put that hand away.”

Wisely, Will draws slowly back from the boxes, tucking his hands in his pocket.

Annabeth stares, hard, at the three of them, flicking her dark eyes from the potatoes and back. The tips of her worn-out converse tap slowly on the packed grass, tip-tap-tip-tap, as they all squirm.

Understanding suddenly dawns on her.

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, for the strawberry plants.”

They squirm harder.

“Oh, you godsdamn bitches.”

“It would’ve been really funny,” Cecil mumbles, staring at the ground. “Rain making the ground turn into a sea of mashed potatoes. Like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.”

“The only meatballs around here are the ones clogging up your skull!” Annabeth shouts, which doesn’t quite make sense but sounds clever coming from her anyway. “Who was gonna clean that up, huh? Magic?”

“I mean, probably,” Lou Ellen says, promptly shutting up at Annabeth’s glare.

“And you, Will! I cannot believe! Where is that responsibility you’re known for, huh?”

Will pouts. “I can be responsible and do fun things.”

“Fun, he says. I’m going to fucking kill you. The one day I’m left in charge, I cannot believe —”

“If it helps, it’s less about you and more about April Fools being tomorrow,” Cecil interjects tentatively. “Like, we were going to do this whether or not Chiron left.”

Annabeth glares darkly. “Of fucking course you were. It’s always you three, I swear to the gods. I should have known.”

“It’s honestly kind of embarrassing for you guys, stopped before you’re even started,” Nico adds. He smiles smugly at them, relishing in their rolled eyes and mocking hands. “Like, everyone expected this. You did this to yourselves, honestly.”

“Boo, you jag,” Lou Ellen protests. The other two knuckleheads joint in the booing, Will taking it an extra stop forward and blowing a raspberry, both thumbs pointing down. Nico responds with a bright grin and two middle fingers.

“Enough,” Annabeth says, rubbing her temples. “Extra chores, all three of you. Go help the cleaning harpies until sundown. And not another peep of complaint or I’ll have you on chores tomorrow, too.”

Without another glance at them, she turns around and walks away, muttering at least you caught it early at least you caught it early at least you caught it early over and over to herself.

“Pretty sure you guys have physical labour to do,” Nico says brightly when she disappears into the Big House. “I’d get started on that, if I were you.”

“Butthead,” Cecil mutters.

“Kiss-ass,” Lou Ellen agrees, making a face.

“Traitor,” Will whispers, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he walks past.

Nico watches them go, standing guard over the boxes in case they try to come back for them.

He can’t help but think that they all look a little too jovial for having their plans ruined before they even started.

[eepyfaggoth]

Job Opportunity in Boston

Hello! I'm a multiply disabled medically complex wheelchair user in greater boston who relies on caregivers and i am hiring! No experience necessary, just be resourceful, patient, covid cautious, dependable, and an enthusiastic learner. Especially looking for other fat people! Hoping for someone who drives but I am accessible via the T.

Turning to tumblr as a bit of a hail mary because i am having a really hard time finding someone who can do the job, show up, and also be normal to me as a fat disabled queer through local channels, and i have one worker now who comes as often as they can, but ive been without adequate support for a while. i would appreciate anyone and everyone who reblogs, to possibly get this in the eyes of someone who might be a good fit! welcoming advice as well!

I have the sweetest esa cat

Pay is 19$ an hour funded by masshealth, i have 30-35 hours available and you can work as many or as few of those as you want

Im still very much trying to figure out life with my disability and how to function and organize and communicate my needs and navigating what I'm emotionally able to accept help with, but in general I need help with housework, cooking, managing my medical care, pushing me in my manual wheelchair, sometimes help using a slide board, and I'm still trying to figure out what things look like on a daily basis. going places with or for me. helping me get in the car, helping me pack a backpack if i need to go somewhere. getting mail, helping clean and pick things up off the floor, organizing medical appointments, making phone calls, unpacking medical equipment. emptying a pee jar. Helping me manage/charge medical equipment. I have a hard time lifting my arms a lot because of really bad neck issues, and i have really limited stamina. Putting drinks in smaller bottles, taking packaging off things. I also kind of need help with dressing and bathing sometimes but I have a really hard time coping with that and so like. That happens when it happens and is what it is. I have some systems for washing my hair without actually getting in the shower. I have variable conditions so things might not be the same all the time, on a good day I might be able to sit up for a while and do tasks, on a bad day it's very hard to bring a drink to my lips.

There's no physically lifting my entire body, but I do need someone who can lift the 50lb largest piece of one my wheelchairs and standard everyday heavy stuff like groceries or boxes of protein shakes. And sometimes my limbs. There's also likely things like reaching and stooping, alas, I drop a lot of things on the floor. I have a lot of allergies and some tasks are more complicated than they otherwise might be, and Im really hoping to find someone who can pay attention to detail and is comfortable working through things slowly.

i have a lot of allergies so memory and attention to detail are important, as is a willingness to wash hands frequently. i have a disorder called mast cell activation syndrome and frankly the precautions i need to take feel absurd

covid precautions:

Masks required! I'm hoping to find someone who also takes other precautions.I also need someone to be careful about monitoring yourself and not coming in if you are sick with *anything* because I *will* get it and it *will* be a multiple week ordeal where I likely experience dangerous symptoms. must be able to test weekly and mask with a k/n95 while around me. ideally be someone who lives low risk (masks everywhere, doesnt attend crowded events / spaces, etc). cannot be someone with a high risk lifestyle (has kids in primary school, unmasked in food service areas regularly, etc) we can talk about my precautions too, right now i havent left my house in weeks, i have two way masking with my current pca, and occasionally an unmasked delivery person will come into my apartment though id like to work on solutions to this. i need to like. revamp my precautions. but i dont go anywhere without a mask, i only have unmasked contact with another person if someone comes into my apartment and i cant get to my mask, i am eating while my pca is here and they are masked, or when my also homebound and careful partner is visiting. if someone was working for me more than 25 hours a week and lived a very low risk life i might be open to having a bubble with them during non surge times with precautions like air filters?

i really try to create a calm and positive work environment, though i have complex and real needs and i've been struggling to survive for a long time and i am very overwhelmed. i care deeply about a humanizing workplace, and i am looking for someone who will care enough about my needs as a human being to take the job seriously even though i am as flexible as possible.

About me, in case that helps?

Fat genderfluid dyke. I'm on my third medical leave from college (like a champ!) but I study medical anthropology, disability studies, and linguistics. I don't get out much or do a lot right now because of my illness but i like fiber arts, music, I don't do tons because I spend most of my time in bed but im really passionate about mutual aid, it's been a a minute but I've been wanting to get back into d&d, I think the magicians is the greatest work of television ever written, and I've been trained as a clown and want to try stand up (well, sit down) comedy at some point. I'm a bit neurotic but very self aware. trying to sort out anticonsumerism in the context of my disability. i value creativity, resourcefulness, autonomy, and consent.

(if this went like really well, i am also potentially looking to apply for housing assistance with accommodation for a room for a live in aid, but probably in western mass. idk)

Gwen :) he/they

Message for details

[loremaster]

happy belated mermay! i drew that final pic after i went with my family to the new england aquarium recently, and picked out something they had there for each of the nocturnal detectives - plus kurumi! more description (spoilers) under the cut:

kurumi - piranha! it fits her color scheme, and her little freckles… and well, you know *bites you*

yuma - emperor tetra. actually i lied this one wasn’t at the aquarium i had to look it up

yakou - anemone man. ouughhh so sillyyyy

desuhiko - tried to ID the guy I took a picture of and it looked closest to the crosshatch butterflyfish. could be wrong though.

halara, fubuki - i could not find the labels for either of these fish unfortunately

vivia - electric eel (yeah he’s there, look again)

———-

the mermaids were kinda based off these species, except fubuki changed to a betta fish. bred for glamour, not for function. she is out there living her best life tho!!! nothin gets this mermaid princess down!!!!

obviously squid shinigami (squidigami) is based off ursula. but also i liked her having squid tentacle hair. woomy!

i imagine it would actually be kind of a reverse ursula situation though (reversula?). poor unfortunate amnesiac yuma would go up to sea witch shinigami asking her for his memories back, but she reveals she was the one who took his memories in the first place, and they’ve actually already made a deal. which she’s not going back on, sorrynotsorry lol!!! of course he’s actually not a mermaid at all but a human under a spell to go investigate…. something underwater. idk. maybe the mystery labyrinths are still a thing in this universe?

vivia, i’m sorry to say, would be a hundred times more miserable than we ever see him in canon, because guess what. no books. he’d still have some sort of coping mechanisms like watching other fish, watching stuff above the surface of the water, wanting nothing more to join them and fly someday. (the dragonflies, of course, are a reference to the famous water bugs and dragonflies story.) he’d still find something to get distracted by… although if he had his forte he probably would ghost up to the surface and read whatever the humans are reading up above. i guess this would make him the real ariel of the story.

kurumi of course is still based on a piranha, because it’s cute. of course these fish shouldn’t all live together but whatever. it’s mermaids. she probably is still some kind of informant, and probably hangs out near yakou’s place a bunch.

i could see yakou running some sort of shop. or if he’s still into detective work, he’d probably need kurumi as an assistant since he’s uh. not much of a swimmer. (he claims he can too swim, but it’s really silly looking. google swimming anemone. you’ll thank me.) he considers those little teeny fish to be pests (or at least claims they are. they’re probably helping him hide some sort of secret in there.)

desuhiko is a wandering trader with a keen sense of fashion. he’s great at repurposing sunken sails into mer-clothing, not so great at making sales. also the fact that his hair is gelled is way more obvious when everything is underwater. he’s basically got a helmet.

halara of course puts up an intimidating front, but has a secret soft spot for cute sea creatures. i asked my irl friend what she’d consider ‘the cat of the sea’ and she said pufferfish. i do think they are very cute and make a lot of sense as an allergen. but i don’t think halara’s taste is limited to pufferfish only, no no no. they like anything cute.

fubuki has got to have been kept captive before the story - by humans? or other mermaids? but either way, now she’s free and having a blast exploring the deep blue ocean. she really wants to know what kind of exciting creatures live in the deep!!!

and that’s it. hopefully all this description makes up for being 2 days late to mermay LMAO. i guess now it’s merGAY