#something something relying on algorithms isn’t good actually

[soup-of-the-daisies]

i am this (THIS 👌) close to deleting the clock app its filtering system is SO bad. when i’m looking for vids under a tag and tap the ‘hashtag’ function i want to see videos with the specific tag i’m searching for. i don’t want to see videos with vaguely related tags. i also don’t want to see videos with the tags i’ve blocked months ago. HOW am i supposed to live laugh love (curate my internet experience) under these conditions.

[mariacallous]

If there’s one term that’s been used more than others when describing this year’s Spotify Wrapped, it’s this: flat. The New York Times said it. So did TikTokkers. Between its “Pink Pilates Princess Roller Skating Pop” phases and AI-generated mini-podcasts, lots of listeners took time away from the time-honored tradition of posting their cringiest Wrapped stats to say that this year’s offerings were milquetoast at best.

“Spotify Wrapped is a bit … underwhelming this year,” wrote one X user. “NOT worth the hype,” offered another. The annual tradition “lost what made it so dynamic in the first place,” wrote a third, citing things like location- and music-based Sound Towns that rolled out with Wrapped in previous years. “Which is to say that PEOPLE make things better. Those layoffs are showing.”

Quite a few frustrated Spotify users referenced layoffs at the company and questioned whether its shedding of key talent was to blame for Wrapped’s fizzle. The company let go of some 1,500 people, 17 percent of its workforce, this time last year, something CEO Daniel Ek later acknowledged “did disrupt our day-to-day operations more than we anticipated.”

Seemingly, Wrapped relied on AI more than ever this year, with AI podcasts to analyze your listening habits, an algorithmic playlist hosted by Spotify’s AI DJ, and bizarre, probably AI-generated genre descriptions.

Yet it seems unlikely the layoffs were the only thing that impacted the quality of Wrapped this year. It could be that the algorithms are just losing touch.

That’s not to say they’re not tracking stream numbers the way they used to—although there are conspiracy theories to that effect—but rather that everyone now knows they’re being tracked, and algorithms just aren’t able to pick up on organic trends the way they used to.

After years of embarrassingly finding out that they spent more time listening to My Chemical Romance breakup songs than they did listening to their friends’ advice, people are now self-conscious about what they play and in what volume. Just as much as everyone went into this year’s Wrapped season prepared to brag about their Brat Summer, they were just as worried about telling on their Sad Bastard autumn. Parents, once again, found that their Wrapped wasn’t about their own tastes, but their children’s.

Wrapped has ceased being about one person’s surprising listening habits and more about nebulous shifts in vibe. Yes, lots of people listened to Chappell Roan and Kendrick Lamar this year. Is anyone the least bit stunned?

But this isn’t even just a Spotify issue. Lots of platforms now offer year-in-review wrap-ups, and nearly all of them feel like a collective shrug. Over on TikTok, the company touted that its users were very interested in being demure, very into Moo Deng. Yeah, no kidding. These revelations are about as shocking as the fact that there were 1.2 million BookTok posts in the first 10 months of the year, something anyone who has ever opened the app could probably tell you is a big part of the platform.

Reading its annual report, I was reminded that, perhaps, TikTok’s algorithm has gotten too good at pointing people in the direction of sure-fire hits and less good at loading FYPs with videos people will find incredibly inventive or fascinating.

In other unsurprising news, horniness was big on Grindr this year. The hookup app’s Unwrapped report also named Charli XCX as Mother of the Year and found that the Sex Position of the Year was missionary. Actually, maybe that is surprising. For Grindr, at least.

My final thought, though, comes from a year-end mainstay that (I don’t think) is algorithmically based: Oxford University Press’ Word of the Year. Determined by popular vote, input from experts, and, as Oxford Languages president Casper Grathwohl told The New York Times, a little bit of “dark art,” this year’s word is … drumroll … “brain rot.” Er, you know, the degeneration that comes from too much time looking at dumb stuff online.

First, yes, that’s two words. Second, other people also noticed this discrepancy, proving that maybe all of the internet’s beloved year-end traditions are feeling the heat of social media scrutiny this year. “Brain rot” also beat out “demure” and “romantasy,” the frequent BookTok topic. So, ultimately, maybe algorithms did impact this one, too, just not in the way you might expect. Maybe the real brain rot was all the decisions we made along the way.

[pixelephant]

ok long ass paragraphs of nuance time

so i totally get why watcher has made this decision, running a creative business on youtube is difficult because algorithms are fickle and views are SO obviously geared towards just when shane and ryan specifically are in content. they can’t branch out into new ventures and cast members and ideas without taking a huge monetary risk of if people will actually watch the damn thing. so streaming gives them that opportunity because no matter the viewership, they still get that income.

but on the other hand, the lack of diversified content is exactly why im hesitant to pay money for the service. there’s just not much there outside of shane and ryan led shows. don’t get me wrong, love their stuff! but if i’m paying for a service, i’d prefer it to be something i can go to for a variety of things.

it’s a catch 22 imo, can’t diversify without the money, can’t get the money without the content they know gets them the views, and so it goes back and forth ad nauseam. personally, i can’t see myself immediately paying for it, but maybe in a few months time when they have that freedom to actually change up their roster i’d be more interested

okay shifting gears, not to be the guy that compares this to rooster teeth and dropout but im gonna be because people are picking one or the other to support their own argument and its bothering me. "rooster teeth proved this method doesn't work!" not true, they shut down because they were owned by warner brothers, a big media conglomerate that doesn’t care about restructuring something to make it work, only dollar signs (while also not exactly being well known for being the best at handling their money). i still think rt could’ve continued to exist in a different capacity if they had never sold to wb (and didn’t have so many scandals) but i guess we’ll never know.

“dropout proves that this system works!” also not true they offer VERY different kinds of content (game shows, story based stuff like d20, pure improve comedy, etc.) from what watcher is doing, they are not a one to one. also as good as they’re doing now, they’re still kind of recovering from the verge of bankruptcy, trying things out, seeing what works. the system itself is not a guarantee for success.

all this to say i get why some people hate this decision. it’s yet another subscription based service to pay for in a media landscape that is frankly too rife with them. it makes things once free now costly. it puts exciting content behind a paywall that some people genuinely cannot afford.

but the people making the exciting content need stable jobs. the company needs a consistent cash flow to be able to pay their employees and continue making cool and interesting things. they can’t rely on the fickleness of youtube views, algorithm changes, and third party sponsorships at the pace they’re going (which is also part of the problem, they grew to fast and honestly set too high a standard of content from the jump for how early into the company they are but hey let’s not go on yet another tangent).

i think the announcement as a whole could’ve been more successful if it wasn’t hyped up ahead of time and/or if it was a more gradual shift to paid shows than a ripping of the bandaid. i also think essentially saying anyone can afford it for $5/month is a bit insensitive so now people are just grasping onto that instead of discussing the reasons for the change. but saying, “a majority of your audience is broke college students this isn’t the move!” isn’t gonna help or change their decision. i’m sorry but they don’t care. companies are not your friends.

[qwilman]

random thoughts about AI art

a problem i feel like we've got already with discussions about AI art are people who are ostensibly on the right side of the argument, but are so excited to fight the good fight that they end up being completely intellectually incurious about what the actual problems are.

"real art is made my humans, not computers" is a argument that throws a lot of helpful, efficient tools for artists out the window. this argument as applied to this situation cannot be used without procedural generation as a whole being raised. all of a sudden using blender's geometry nodes is now potentially invalidating. speedtree is a sinful tool for all game developers.

"it's always looks wrong and gross and creepy" is an argument against virtually all outsider art. wrong and gross and creepy are very useful tools in the artists' tool box. the uncanny is the striking, or the means by which we invite the audience in with comfort only to have them discover something shocking with their own examination. of course, i'm making the argument for its intentional use, but to use this against someone who tries to create beauty and lands on ugliness is an argument against every artist who is still learning.

"it can't even make hands" is a neighbor to the last argument, basically the idea that these systems will always be imperfect in their execution, and will always have telltale signs of what they are. that's simply not true. as long as they're continuing to be used and mastered by the people using them they will improve. they'll become more and more sophisticated and better adapt to modern sensibilities. if you're relying on "real artists will always be more technically proficient than computers" you're volunteering your heroes to fight larger and larger dragons every year.

the central issue (for me at least, your milage may vary, i am not a doctor, this is not legal advice, etc) is that every AI art generation algorithm i'm aware of was trained at least partially on stolen art. this was kind of always a necessity. the volume of data required to start getting useful results was always going to make assembling thousand and thousands of contemporary artworks legally financially infeasible. the engine needed fuel, and it's inventors were reckless about where they got it. now the influence of all that art is caught in the ephemera of these models in a way that it's simply impossible to remove. they will always be the result of this unethical act, and that is the driving argument against them.

this isn't NEVER brought up, obviously. i hear it most often from actual artists who are constantly walking a tightrope between making their art as accessible to the public as possible and trying to preserve it's value and retain any sense of ownership over their work. the general population, people who's hearts seem to be in the right place but lack stronger familiarity with the issue, have developed a habit of jumpin into arguments passionately arguing points like "a computer can NEVER make REAL art," "it ALWAYS looks GROSS and STERILE and CREEPY" or "it can't even make HANDS!!" these are surface-level objections, so reductionist as to not really be very helpful. they're the art-tech equivalent of "Trump is a bad president, he's so OLD and FAT and UGLY."

[ninjakittenarmy]

Was thinking about the trend of people compiling oneshots from unrelated fandoms into one published anthology labeled as a crossover and I figured like some others I’d try to explain a few things to people doing this for why this isn’t a good idea.

Putting multiple fandoms into a work gets it labeled a crossover. The expectation is that the two+ settings will be featured in one story. There’s a wide variety of types of crossover but people generally expect stuff like characters from each setting interacting, or characters from one setting being transported into another or an overarching story relevant to both worlds even if they don’t interact directly or stuff like that. It’s fairly self explanatory. If you tag with more than one fandom, that’s what people usually expect. I can think of other things that could justify it but not separate stories that are unrelated. You publish those as separate works. If you’re going to publish separate oneshots as an anthology, they best ALL be crossovers. Anything that isn’t should be published separately. Otherwise it clutters the search results and makes it harder for everyone to find what they’re actually looking for and that is only going to attract negative attention to your work as people grumble about them while scrolling past.

There’s not much benefit to publishing anthologies on AO3 to begin with. Anthologies of unrelated short stories are typically published like that for convenience for the reader and publisher. It’s far easier and cheaper to buy a whole book of short stories than to buy them as like, pamphlets. More profitable too because more people buy them as collections. That’s not relevant here since you already have a website full of search results for all of these stories. Only real reason to publish oneshots together is if there’s something tying them together. Same continuity, same theme, same scenario etc. and DEFINITELY same fandom and preferably ship(s). This sort of anthology makes sense because it’s meant to be viewed as a whole work as well as a collection.

AO3 already has a feature for putting stories into collections. Collections have their own tags for stuff common in all the stories. Title can reflect the reason they’re paired together. The stories still show up individually in the search so everyone finds the one they’re looking for without sifting through all of them but they’re still told they’re part of the collection so they’re prompted to look into it. Tutorial here.

Adding on to that, there should be a reason for these stories to be in a collection aside from the fact that you wrote them since people can just view your author page for that. People do actually click on those pretty often.

There’s no algorithm on AO3. This one you’ve probably heard shouted in bold text in large fonts often. I’m trying to keep this more calm since that can get overwhelming at times. There’s no feed on AO3, just search results, and the search results are based solely on what is entered in the field. This means that there’s no inherent benefits or drawbacks for stories of long or short lengths. This is in contrast to social media sites, a lot of search engines, and video platforms who prioritize promoting the content the company believes is most profitable for whatever reason. On say, YouTube, you see stuff like content creators combining videos that were posted in parts into longer videos because the algorithm used to favor short stuff and now favors long stuff, and that fluctuates a lot. We don’t have that on AO3 bc it doesn’t matter what becomes popular there. AO3 doesn’t make revenue off the site, it was designed not to because companies and authors have sued a lot of fic writers and sites for copyright infringement if they did. Fanfiction.net gets away with having ads so long as it’s nonprofit, but AO3 relies solely on donations because advertisers tend to demand you make sites friendlier to their brand and that’s a whole other can of worms. Point is, AO3 doesn’t care which content becomes popular, it’s just a place for it to exist at all. More or fewer tags, fandoms etc. won’t game the algorithm to promote your stuff. Only thing it changes is who’s looking for it. People who want long stuff search for higher word counts and vice versa. Without an algorithm trying to convince you to favor something, it’s a complete toss up who reads what as far as you’re concerned. Which tags you use and how many also do not boost your work’s likelihood of showing up.

[acourtofmishapandmistakes]

Do you support AI art?

That's a very complicated question, and one that I don't want to avoid answering given that it's a very real and present debate right now.

In short, no, I don't personally support AI-generated art as it currently stands.

While I'm open to the idea of using AI as a tool to enhance learning and creativity and generally believe that the increasing use of AI can create a more accessible world, I feel that AI art, in its present form, operates with too few restrictions. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven't done extensive research into all the nuances of the debate. However, as fast as AI is advancing, I believe we need to have open conversations about it and be willing to learn. Based solely on what I've seen and read—particularly from artists who have spoken out on this issue—I believe AI-generated art, at this point, can be harmful. AI often relies on existing artworks as input, producing works that utilize techniques or styles of actual creators without giving proper credit or compensation to the source material. This strikes me as deeply unethical and is something I'm growing increasingly concerned about.

I also want to acknowledge upfront that I'm likely guilty of sharing AI-generated art unintentionally in the past. I’ve been making an effort to be more mindful and seek out sources for the art that I share, so I can directly support the artists rather than contributing to algorithms that can exploit them.

I understand that AI has made it much easier for people to bring their fantasies and dreams to life, which is fantastic. The ability to visualize complex and imaginative ideas more easily than ever is a significant advantage, especially for those who may not have the financial means to commission an artist directly. However, this often comes at the expense of creators, whose work is being used without permission or compensation to fuel these AI visions. This raises serious ethical concerns about the origins of these works and the impact it has on the creative community. I see it as a double-edged sword—imagination becomes more accessible, but at the cost of the artist. Personally, I avoid using AI art altogether, choosing to support artists over the instant gratification that AI might provide. That said, I’m not one to judge or blacklist someone who uses AI, as long as they’re not reposting and claiming the art as their own.

I also recognize that AI can be a useful tool for artists, particularly when it comes to generating reference images for body proportions, poses, or movements—things that can be difficult to find through a simple Google search. I know a few artists who have used AI art generators for this specific purpose as they continue to learn and grow. I don't feel it’s my place to decide whether this is right or wrong. For many growing artists, AI can serve as a valuable resource in developing their skills. As AI technology evolves, I can see it becoming a powerful teaching aid, potentially helping artists refine their craft in ways that weren’t possible before. However, at this point, I believe AI art is doing more harm than good.

I’ve definitely seen AI art that has left me in awe of its composition and detail. However, I remind myself that this art was created by drawing upon the work of someone real, living, and working—often without their permission. This makes the issue feel morally complex and, frankly, a bit uncomfortable.

Ultimately, this is a complicated issue and a moral dilemma that we all need to grapple with. I don't denounce those who use or appreciate AI-generated art, but given my very limited understanding of the full scope of the debate, I feel it isn’t my place to make definitive judgments. As I continue to learn more, I hope to develop a more nuanced perspective and back up my views with solid research. For now, these are my messy, complicated feelings.

If you're interested in exploring this topic further, here are some articles discussing the ethical implications of AI that I've read in the past:

[mollybrown423-blog]

Algorithm awareness and behavior on social media – does any of it matter?

This week’s readings discussed the digital divide, algorithms, social media users’ characteristics, and digital data analysis. When reading Lazer et al.’s (2021) article, something that came to mind was whether we should even pay attention to technological research if the measurements are unreliable. The authors say that “measurements relying on a single digital device or service” should be interpreted cautiously (Lazer et al., 2021, p. 192). The authors pointed out that different platforms elicit different behaviors from users. So, it isn't easy to get a reliable and consistent idea of someone or a group of people based solely on online information. The conversation about ethics in this article resonated with me. I think social media users need to be made aware that their information could be used in research at some point. Most people know that social media sites are selling our data anyway, but users should at least know that a third party may choose to conduct research on social media, and their profile could be part of the data.  

Gran et al. (2021) discussed algorithm awareness and whether awareness parallels a new digital divide. After reading this article, I’m not sure I would say that algorithm awareness is equivalent to a digital divide. I think algorithms are so widespread in many things we do that people know they are there unconsciously. Further, the knowledge of an algorithm doesn’t really impact how you use technology, at least for me. They argued that knowing what shapes the internet is necessary to be an informed citizen. This is true only to a certain extent because there are ways to get informed outside of the internet. I can appreciate their argument, but I can't get behind that “algorithm awareness and literacy, as a meta-skill, are necessary conditions for an enlightened and rewarding online life,” (p. 1792). I think online life will look the same whether you know an algorithm is there or not, basically because there isn’t a way out of the algorithm (unless you stop using social media and technology altogether). I did find it interesting that higher awareness of algorithms meant negative attitudes towards them. Further, this finding correlated with higher education levels. As someone with a higher level of education, I would say I have a more negative view because I don’t get to see the content I really want to (i.e., friends and family) and instead see something the algorithm thinks I would like.

The Ke et al. article was a great study and broke down who tweets about what. Using self-reported information alongside actual Twitter posts filled the gap that Lazer et al. (2021) discussed. While the researchers only researched Twitter, it sets up a good model for future studies to replicate with other platforms. Also, replicating this study with a larger group on Twitter might result in new findings that build on our current understanding. I think the politics topic would change the most should this study be recreated. The results showed that users in their 60s tweeted the most about politics, and users in their 30s tweeted the least. I expect to see an increase among all age groups and genders. With all the historical events happening as of late, it would be fascinating to see who is involved in the discussions online and how education levels correlate with the number of tweets. 

[arachine]

this is gonna be silly, and I’m sorry :(( I’m not very good at communicating.

where did you learn to write? the way you write is just so.. unique. I’ve never been able to actually envision the words that are written in books and stories until I found you. I’m sorry if this is weird, or makes you uncomfortable, I’m very stupid sometimes and don’t know boundaries. but I’d like to write someday, and you’re an inspiration. so any tips, anecdotes, pointers.

no this isn’t silly at all!! kinda got carried away but i really wanted to answer your question in the best way i could 💞

i’ve always excelled in english throughout my middle school/high school years, and i had really good teachers that encouraged me to write on my free time and stuff like that, which helped me hone my skill.

i think a big part of it is already having an interest in it, and having the strength to push yourself to get better. like if you’re writing for clout, then you won’t see the results you desire, but if you write because you have genuine interest in it and it’s something you’re passionate about, then you will see lot of improvement.

for the envisioning part, i usually like to write scenes by describing them in the most dramatic ways ever. i like to use the five senses as a guide. so, if i’m writing a kiss scene, i’ll maybe describe how it felt. were their lips soft, rough, wet, or dry? then i might describe how it tasted. did it taste sweet, salty, or maybe a mix of both? (these are just two examples but you should get the gist).

if i’m writing a scene where reader is about to confess, i might build it up and add in a lot of filler. how long have they known each other? how long has she been in love with them? why is she confessing? this might sound silly but if you write out your fics like essays and outline them with questions to hit, it can help a lot with specific scenes that you want to be impactful.

to add onto what i said before, you can never have too much detail or too much background. it’s always a good thing to describe to your audience what both of the characters are feeling, the things they’re seeing, or how they might react to something in the moment. it creates good flow in fics and helps to make it less choppy.

also, gonna go on a tangent here so bear with me, but my relationship with writing wasn’t always the best. i used to actively compare myself a lot to other writers and it would honestly demotivate me and push me into periods of writer’s block. when you’re surrounded by a lot of talented people, especially on an app like this that heavily relies on reblogs/notes, it can be really easy to feel inadequate. but you have to remind yourself that it’s not you, or your writing, it’s just the algorithm and people suck at supporting authors.

[angeloncewas]

as a person who usually uses twt just because there’s a lot more artists on the platform along with the livetweeting, one thing that bugs me about mcyttwt is the whole censoring thing,, i mean sure it’s good to do sometimes but also i think that the twt algorithm just sometimes suppresses certain trends,, and that no matter what you do, myct will trend and gosh idk it just seems like a bit of a toxic mentality, like you should definitely raise awareness to issues but i don’t think it’s an issue if you also talk about your interests you know?

What is the appeal of livetweeting ? (/gen) because I've always just liveblogged and you're the second person I know who's said that they use Twitter for livetweeting specifically.

Anyway, yeah. The censoring thing is really weird. In a sense I get it because the algorithm is pretty shit, but I made a passive-aggressive tweet about this myself earlier; they actively encouraged people to stop tweeting about the pride MCC that was FOR CHARITY, but they were stoked about getting #TECHNOTWT_OUT on trending today. Do y'all think there's just no problems in the world today? What happened to "more important issues"? Fuck off.

(This got very rant-y very quick, sorry.)

Outside of that hypocrisy the two main problems I have with their censoring of names and obsession with the trending tab is its inherent uselessness and the unrealistic expectations it creates.

1 - Things are gonna trend. They're always gonna trend. Trending is for the hot topics of the hour. Usually music, sports, and some innate discussion that's started from a viral tweet (apple juice v orange juice, that Bonnie and Clyde thing, etc). There’s actually even split categories so that people can browse according to their interests - "for you," entertainment, whatever.

So you censor names and MCYT doesn't trend. Fantastic. Super productive. Guess what does? Ariana Grande's birthday. The new episode of Riverdale. The name of some long-dead celebrity next to another one who's just irrelevant. The slots that mcyttwt doesn't use aren't gonna be handed off to a good cause because that's just literally not how it works. They're gonna be given to the next most popular thing. And if that's a social issue that needs coverage, that's wonderful - I guess. What's the point of that, though?

Twitter isn't the place for unbiased news. Sure, it can be, and there are a lot of valid opinions and unique perspectives you can find on such a site, but it's also just that. A site. Social media. It's full of misinfo and random bullshit and if you're relying on the trending tab - something plenty of people probably don't even touch - to reflect what's actually important in the world you're literally just not going about this whole "awareness" thing correctly.

2 - Fandom is meant to be fun. This doesn't mean that you can turn on your device of choice and suddenly the world will have stopped - and it doesn't mean that you should ignore the misogyny, racism, ableism, etc that oftentimes permeates a variety of kinds of media - but it does mean that activism and entertainment are not inherently linked.

We talked a lot about this a bit ago and it actually made it to Twitter, but instead of understanding our points and re-evaluating the culture they've created, they now insist that "retweeting carrds isn't activism, it's literally like the bare minimum" every time. And while yes, carrds are not in fact activism - thank you for showing us that you have some self-awareness - that's not at all the point. The point is that mcyttwt is drilling it into their own heads that they're not allowed to talk about anything but social issues should they arise. Which is ridiculous, because the social issues they deem important enough to do this for are usually America-centric and random at best, but also because that's not what fandom is.

You are allowed to be happy and have fun because the tragic fact of the matter is that if you set aside your personal interests to focus on the injustices and horror in the world, you'd literally never go back to them. They don't even allow themselves the small grace that is using Twitter to talk about media; not only are they a bad person if they're not talking about [thing], they're also a bad person if they talk about anything other than [thing]. I can't imagine how taxing that must be and it just isn't healthy.

[miaclemeverett]

Wilbur, Fundy, and Purpled were interviewed for this great article on the Dream SMP and the Minecraft community! Full article below the cut. 

"Minecraft" launched over a decade ago and the video game is as popular as ever. With over 126 million players worldwide, the voxel-based survival game drops adventurers into a world where they can craft, build, explore, destroy, and create to their heart's content. Aided by tools, blocks, and creativity, the simple sandbox world allows anyone on PC, console, or smartphone the chance to project their own feelings and creations directly into their virtual space.

"As long as you have the mind for it, you can really just do anything," 17-year-old "Minecraft" YouTuber Purpled, who has 700,000 subscribers, told Insider. "Because of how simple Minecraft is and how easy it is to build with it, you can create whatever you want."

In recent years, Microsoft's never-ending game has evolved into a tool for content creators to express themselves, leading to high-profile collaborations with some of YouTube's biggest personalities. By creating their own private "Minecraft" servers, creators have been able to craft ornate worlds and stories that they can explore in streams and videos, immersing fans in a cinematic-style universe.

Minecraft has a long history on YouTube

"Minecraft's" versatility has made it an incredibly popular game for content creators and influencers. In 2012, a change in YouTube's algorithm promoting watch time over video clicks led to a renaissance of "Let's Players" who recorded themselves reacting and playing their favorite games. "Minecraft" was one of the most successful, spawning some of the largest channels of the time like SkyDoesMinecraft (11.3 million subscribers) and Tobuscus (6.25 million subs).

Though the popularity of "Minecraft" remained fairly steady, content about the title waned a bit over the next decade either due to content fatigue or newer titles like "Fortnite" taking the spotlight. 2020 flipped the title back into the forefront, with both streamers and YouTubers capitalizing on the title's popularity.  

The biggest breakout star for "Minecraft" in the past few years is Dream, an expert, faceless player with a neon-green avatar with over 17 million YouTube subscribers. YouTube labeled him the second overall content creator of the year and his streams consistently pull in a quarter of a million people.

In May of 2020, Dream decided to create a small, private server for his friends to play around in. This SMP server, or "survival multiplayer," started off with only a handful of content creators being invited. Soon, the server would expand to over 30 members, bringing in millions of views from fans who chronicle every moment of the lore the creators eventually created.

Viewership on Twitch of "Minecraft" content went from 17 million hours watched in January 2020 to 74 million in January of 2021, according to data from analytics company Rainmaker.gg.  

How the Dream SMP grew from a private server with friends to a cultural milestone

Purpled has been playing "Minecraft" for the past eight years and is a high-ranking player in a multiplayer game mode called "Bed Wars." He had started talking to Dream in the summer of 2019, when the pair were both small, mutual fans.

"When the SMP was in its infancy, I just asked him if there was any room because he said how it's just for friends and if a friend wants to join, they can," Purpled said. "So I asked him, he said, 'Sure.' He sent me the IP and I was in."

The server was originally just a place to create and hangout, with no intention of creating an overarching story or plot.

Fundy, a 19-year-old Dutch YouTuber with 2.7 million subscribers joined when only a handful of other creators were on."I had talked to Dream on a few occasions, out-of-the-blue Dream sent me a message about a survival world that they had going on. It was very small at first," Fundy said. "I thought it could be a fun little side-project I could stream every now and then on Twitch, so I decided to join."

Fundy joined in the early days alongside Wilbur Soot, a 23-year-old YouTuber with 3.8 million subscribers. Soot, after attempting to create an "illegal potion shop" on the server, decided to establish a nation of non-Americans players called L'Manberg. Soot said he wrote a "treatment" for how the formation of his country would go, creating an official canon that fans could follow along with.

"I was invited into the Dream SMP near its inception but I only joined fully when I had an idea for building a country in 'Minecraft'," Soot said. "I write up a series of plot hooks and points that should tie together, however we improv dialogue and comedy throughout to take us from point to point."

These streams and pieces of content all had a canon that could be followed and consumed like a television show. L'Manberg eventually started a war against Dream for its independence, staging a rebellion chronicled in YouTube videos with millions of views.

These streams and videos aren't just randoms in "Minecraft" trying to defeat the end-game Ender Dragon — these are performers putting on a show that their fans can't miss. As the lore expanded, so did the rules needed to keep a sense of continuity and order. For example, each player only has three lives before they are removed and deleted from the server.

"It went from a casual survival game to a whole story-line filled with plots and twists," Fundy said. "Role-playing at this point is a key-feature of the Dream SMP, some parts are scripted, some parts are improv, and some parts are 'non-canon,' where it is just counted as a standard 'Minecraft' server."

The fan communities have risen up and made their voices heard

Over the next few months, the lore and world would continue to grow and so would the fan base. Hundreds of thousands of viewers would tune in for these streams, trying to keep up with the lore and content. To help catalog the story, a network of fans established themselves as lore keepers, documenting each moment for those that had to miss a stream.  

The "DREAMSMP UPDATES!" account on Twitter has established itself as one of the most popular locations to find all this content and lore on social media. Starting in December 2020, the account has grown to over 147,000 users with just a team of seven administrators, ages 14-17, in different locations around the world, posting updates and stream notifications for fans. "Minecraft" is a game that appeals to all ages, but the audience for this content tends to skew younger, with 41 percent of Twitch's user base being 16 to 24, according to GlobalWebIndex.

"You can tell they're all friends and it's a lot more lighthearted in general and it shows," mod on the "DREAMSMP UPDATES!" Twitter account eclaire said over chat app Discord. "When it's not lore you see them actually having good chemistry and it really pulls you in because it almost feels like being pulled into a friend group."

User SamHQ first started the fan account with a couple of friends from high school but the group quickly expanded after the account tweeted that they needed more fans of certain streamers to join. She is online and runs the account "24/7" but "it's just like answering a text."

"When I started the account I knew lots of people who couldn't catch up because of work or school," SamHQ said. "So I gathered friends to help and now people rely on us when someone's streaming or to catch up with the lore when they can't watch."

For the fans that run the update account, keeping up with the Dream SMP isn't dissimilar to following the Marvel Cinematic Universe or a long-running television show. Characters come and go, but the improv and roleplay stay.

"The Dream SMP did something really special — taking an original idea, creating new things that have never been seen on 'Minecraft' and incorporating them with humor and characters that you can become easily attached with," mod NotAlex said.

Though other SMP roleplay servers, like EarthSMP and SMPLive, have been created over the years, none have been as successful or popular as the Dream SMP.

Finding a fan base on the Dream SMP can lead to major growth.

For the performers on the server, addressing fans and their responses comes with the territory.

"The Dream SMP viewers are very important to the Dream SMP, and the fact that they openly speak their mind about how a certain stream went only helps the streamers improve," Fundy said. "It's basically an instant review of what was liked and what wasn't."

Like most major fandoms with a young audience, fanfiction of these streamers has popped up online. Dozens of Dream fics and drawings exist online, some going a bit far and putting underage characters together. Dream responded on Twitter to those "ships," writing that they shouldn't "ship creators that are uncomfortable with it, and especially not minors."

The Dream stans, or the super fans, also tend to be very vocal online about the SMP. Hashtags on Twitter like #dreamnotfound and #dreamfanart consistently break-through to the trending page, confusing those who have no idea this world exists. The most ferocious of stans sometimes overstep the boundary between polite disagreement and outright harassment. This vocal minority has sent death threats and waves of harassment at those who criticize or disagree with their favorite content creators.  

The growth and future of these channels is in large part due to the Dream SMP server

The popularity of Dream SMP has helped grow the content creators that take part in it. Since joining the server, Purpled is gaining three times as many subscribers a month on YouTube and has been introduced to an entirely new fan base. His streams used to pull in 3,000 viewers but now his average is closer to 35,000 to 40,000 viewers.

"Some people think of them as obsessive or stalker fans, but those are people that really like to talk about certain creators and really get invested in things," Purpled said. "And it's really nice because they care a lot more and connect more with the creator than the content."

These creators understand the power of the fan base and know that they come for the content.

"I think the Dream SMP is popular thanks to the brilliant creators and funny improv moments," Soot said. "I think we'll be seeing the emergence of a huge wave of roleplay-centric gaming communities."

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Book 2 Chapter 2: My Breakfast With Evan

Just a couple dudes getting to know each other.

“If you must know,” Evan sighed, spearing a glistening sausage on the end of a flimsy plastic fork, “my jackass older sister thought it would be hilarious to give me a cupcake she'd baked with about a dozen powdered viagra for my fifteenth birthday. I wound up passing out eventually. Burst a lot of blood vessels. Damaged the erectile tissue beyond usefulness.”

Titus froze mid-coffee-sip. “Seriously? What a bitch!”

“Buddy, you don't know the half of it.”

“So... no signs of life down there?”

“Nothing for twelve years.”

“I think I would literally kill myself.”

“It's not so bad, I guess. At least I don't have to drain the blood out of it any more.”

“Eugh! Fuck! Did not need to hear that!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to.”

“Do you get, like, blue balls all the time, then?”

“That's basically my ground state of being.”

Titus whistled flatly, avoiding looking Evan in the eye. He settled for staring at the table. There wasn't a lot of Evan's face that he felt comfortable looking at; every part seemed to at least be adjacent to some unpleasantry or another. About the only safe area was his right eye, which, as luck would have it, was directly opposite Titus's 'good' eye. Titus rallied and met Evan's gaze again. “Alright, your turn.”

They'd agreed on a sort of mutual interview process, taking turns asking questions to suss out what the other was capable or if he was worth having around. Evan took a bite out of the sausage and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who's Moreno?”

Titus hissed through his teeth. “A real piece of shit.”

“I'm going to need more than that.”

“I'm getting to it. He's basically, like... a freelance henchman? Like, sort of a mercenary criminal. Sells his services to the highest bidder.”

“And why's he matter?”

“That's another question.”

“No, it is not,” Evan said, quiet and serious. “Do not argue with me in bad faith, Titus. I have very little patience for it in the best of times.”

Titus regarded him for a long moment. The man across from him was wider than the table they sat at. His muscles were so pronounced in some points that Titus could tell when he was about to move by the way they bulged and contracted. Yet he gave the impression that he was constantly trying to pull himself inward, to make himself smaller. He spoke quietly and with a simple formality, but only hours before Titus had watched him single-handedly beat down some of the nastiest people he'd met in the past month.

Hmm.

“Fine. Moreno matters because I'm after the guy he's working for. You see, Moreno isn't just a normal scumbag. He works for people who need nasty things done. Not like regular nasty, either. How much do you actually know about magic?”

“I've got some... notes. So far I'm not able to find a lot of coherent rules. It mostly seems like it relies on things that nobody would normally do.”

Titus snapped his fingers and pointed at Evan. “Hit it right on the head. Rituals, reagents, that kind of thing... the reason—well, one of the reasons—magic doesn't just happen all the time by accident is that it's all weird little things. A lot of the more heavy magic relies on some pretty elaborate and obtuse shit to get it going.”

Evan momentarily thought back to the Book of Fate and his ritual in the woods. “So Moreno does these things for people?”

“Yeah. Thing is, though...” Titus stopped raising a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and set it down again, as if he'd momentarily lost his appetite. “The people who use his services generally practice some pretty vile magic. Real depraved shit. And to empower depraved magic, you need depraved rituals. Moreno is the guy you go to when...”

“I think I get it,” Evan interjected, since Titus seemed to be struggling with deciding whether to continue. “Your turn.”

Titus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, then looked Evan in the eye. “How smart are you?”

The scars on Evan's face squirmed around as he actually smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Hey, we agreed no 'whys'.”

“Alright, alright. Well, there's really no objective metric for it, but... I have Master's degrees in computer science and theoretical physics, Bachelor's in those in addition to mathematics and electrical engineering, and associate's degrees and certificates in everything from EMT training to ballet. I should have my doctorate in physics, but...” he said, with a bitterness that Titus made a note of, then changed gears. “Oh, and I also speak Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Arabic pretty fluently. I also know ASL. I can get by in German and Russian, too. I don't know if any of that is what you meant but--”

“Jesus, I get it,” Titus muttered, rubbing the side of his head. “How the fuck do you make money?”

“Software consulting, mostly. I specialize in security and processing efficiency. People pay me to break into their systems and then patch the holes, or to make their code run quicker or make their programs smaller. I've got a few patents I've licensed that bring in most of my income nowadays, though.”

“Anything I would have heard of?”

“If you've used a computer made in the last four years it probably has something I wrote integrated somewhere into it. I also helped develop a protein-sequencing program that helped develop a vaccine for this nasty SARS variant that broke out in China last year. They say if they hadn’t nipped it in the bud it could’ve spread worldwide and we’d be looking at millions of deaths by now.”

Titus scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, just say that like it’s no big deal.”

“I’m just glad it turned out not to be one. What I'd really like to do is get my compression algorithm out there, but if I do that, somebody's going to try to hoard it all for themselves.”

“Are you talking to yourself or me?”

“Look, I... a few years ago I figured out a way to compress memory down by a exponential factor of six with zero loss. All it takes is a couple software plugins that don't take up much room themselves. Essentially, I could make a gigabyte fit in a kilobyte with very little trouble, now that the math's figured out.”

“Holy fuck, that's insane! Why haven't I heard anything about this?”

“Mainly because I don't tell people. If I put it up on the market, some ISP would buy it and bury it. If you make information smaller, you make it faster. Can you imagine what it'd do to internet access if dial-up and barebones cellular networks suddenly had the bandwidth of fiber optics? It would... maybe not revolutionize our society, but it would level a lot of playing fields. Bring a lot of underdeveloped areas of the world��hell, this country—up to modern levels with no extra cost. The telecomms would crash and burn so hard. But I don't have the means to get it out there without going through someone else. Yet,” Evan added. “So I basically work watered-down versions of the compressor into the software I make. Nothing that can be duplicated, and nowhere near its full potential, but enough to get me hailed as some kind of genius and pay the bills.”

“So why aren't you on your own private island or something somewhere instead of puttering around God's Ashtray in a shitty old Bug?”

“Hey, the Beetle is not shitty,” Evan said, defensively. “And I'm just waiting for the AC in my RV to get fixed or I'd be driving that.”

“Oh hot damn! Now that's the way to live!”

“Not the one I'd choose voluntarily, but it could be worse.”

“How come you're doing it, then?”

“I think it's my turn to ask,” Evan said, mildly.

“Fine,” Titus said grumpily, crossing his arms.

“How do you make money?”

“That's easy. I'm basically a freelance bailbondsman. I just roam around, drop my advertising around bars and courthouses.”

“You get many clients that way?” Evan asked, cocking his remaining eyebrow.

“Oh, you'd be amazed how desperate people can get,” Titus said, shrugging. “Of course, they're usually not the most responsible people, so when they bounce, I track 'em down myself, drag ‘em back to jail, get the money back. My eye usually makes it super easy. Sometimes they don't even see me before I get the cuffs on 'em.”

“Why did you feel the need to rob a bunch of drug dealers, then? The thrill of it?”

“I had a pressing need for a large amount of cash that my normal work doesn't bring in. That got me enough to hold it off for a while. My turn.”

Evan waved down a waitress for a refill of his coffee, trying not to take it personally when she gasped upon seeing his face. “Go ahead…”

“No, no, hang on.” Titus waved a hand dismissively. “I want to try something. Take your hair out of the ponytail.”

“What? Why?”

“Humor me.”

Evan groaned and reached back, removing his hair tie. After shaking his head, his hair fell over his face, obscuring everything but his nose and mouth. Titus pursed his lips and regarded him seriously for a moment.

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough to not walk into things, I think, and I could probably read if I had to.”

Titus snapped his fingers. “Good. Go with that from now on.”

“Why?”

“Because now you don’t look like God’s mistake. Now you look like a big, dumb-but-lovable goon. Like Jack Black would voice you in a cartoon.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Do you like seeing people contemplating their own mortality and the general cruel absurdity of the tragic farce that is human existence when they get a glimpse of your face?”

Evan felt his cheeks burn and was actually grateful his hair was covering most of his face. “…not particularly, no.”

“Then there you go. You’re welcome. Okay, question time. Uh… how did you get your powers?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, now who’s arguing in bad faith? Fucking all of them, you thick-lipped gargoyle.”

Evan had the feeling he hit a sore spot. Titus's easy-going, jocular tone had bled away from him, leaving behind the hard-edged razor-blade of a man that had ambushed him the night before. He decided not to belabor the point.

“I don't know why I can rege—why I heal so quickly. No, I'm serious, as far as I know, it just started happening sometime in the past few months. I can't remember. Don't look at me like that, I'll get to that in a minute. When I was younger I recovered from a lot of injuries a lot quicker than the doctors thought I would, so maybe it's something I was born with and it just got stronger recently for some reason.”

Evan took a sip of coffee, mainly to buy a few seconds to think of how much to explain for the next part.

“The ability to shut off powers... that's part of, well, I guess you'd call it a magic ritual, because I don't know what else to call it. I found a weird old book that said it contained the key to making someone an instrument of universal justice, or something of the sort. Since then I can see... I guess they're souls? Maybe? I can sort of move mine and when I run it into someone else's it seems like I can shut off their powers. Or... take them entirely, if they're dying.”

“Horseshit!” Titus scoffed. “That's... that's like meta-magic. I don't even know if that's real.”

“No, seriously! I don't think it's just magic powers, I think it... 'normalizes' things.” He briefly recounted his encounter with the pain monster.

“Are you kidding me? That...” Titus took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly and loudly. “Look, I don't know much, but the fact that you even ran into something like that, let alone survived... those odds are astronomical. And you say you negated not just its powers, but its whole form?”

“Yeah. Once I... reached into it, like I did with you—oh don't make that face. Grow up—I kind of disrupted what made it... different, I guess? Like I cut it off from its special qualities. Like it was...”

“Disjuncted,” Titus cut in.

“Yeah, that's a good word for it. Like the old Mordenkainen spell?”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Eat my ass. Anyway, after I killed it, I was able to reach into its... soul? Animating force? Aura? I don't know what to call it. I was able to grab something and pull it out and it just got pulled into me.”

“Not aura.”

“What?”

“Aura's a different thing,” Titus said, dismissively. “So what did you get from doing that?”

“I.. I feel pain differently. I don't flinch or get adrenaline rushes from injuries that don't actually impede my ability to function. I think I have a better sense of what is actually dangerous to my body now. It still hurts, but I don't react to pain like people normally do. It's like...hmm.” Evan drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you know anything about video games? Fighting games, specifically?”

“I used to fuck around on an old Alpha 3rd Strike cabinet when I was a kid. Why?”

“Do you know what 'super armor' is?”

“Isn't that where a move can't get stopped by being hit when you're doing it?”

“Right. I'm kind of like that now. Pain doesn't interrupt me.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Evan's fist involuntarily clenched. “I'm trying to put this in terms you can understand, you stupid reprobate. My experience with your judgment thus far hasn't given me much faith in your intellect.”

Titus burst out laughing. “So he does know how to banter! I thought you might be one of those Rainman types.”

“Oh sure, call it 'banter' to try to excuse the fact that you've been insulting me for the past half hour. Do you say you're ‘just joking’ when people get mad at you for saying stupid shit, too?”

“C'mon, lighten up! We're partners now! Tell me more about this soul thing. I still think you're full of shit.”

Evan sighed through his nose, then held up his left hand, forming his fingers into a circle and peering through them.

“Yours is... a sort of cross between a sea green and an oil slick. The tendrils of it keep reaching out and snapping back, going all over the place. It seems to keep expanding and contracting. It's almost flickering, like... it's indecisive. Very chaotic. The tendrils that aren't snapping around seem to be kept pretty close to your body, wrapping around you like... I can't tell if it's protective or restrictive.”

Titus's expression slowly became serious. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know. I have a lot of theories, but nothing solid to go on. I'm not sure if it's allegorical or a literal representation of a person's... power, maybe? Yours definitely looks a lot different than most people's.”

“I don't believe this for a second. Let me see.”

“How would I do tha—hey!”

Titus grabbed Evan's wrist and held his hand up to his eye. “Ho-lee...”

He pulled back from Evan's hand, staring at him. Then he looked around the room, mouth slack as he took in the diner's other occupants.

“Huh. Did you know it keeps working until you blink?” He said after a moment, a faraway tone to his voice.

“I didn't even know other people could do it,” Evan said, awe in his voice. “Hey, wow, you're right!”

“Jesus, yours is, like, really blue. It looks like... a bunch of steel cables. It's weird, I felt like I both could and couldn't see the edges of it...”

“I can kind of move it, but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it beyond interfering with people's powers. It's like learning to use a muscle you didn't know you had.”

“Huh.” Titus was again silent for a long moment. “Your turn.”

“Can you do anything else supernatural? Besides your time-eye?”

“Don't call it that, it sounds stupid. And... sorta. I seem to have whatever innate talent you need to actually do magic, but it's not like it's easy to find instructions. Most of the people I know who can use it just dabble with half-broken magic items—wands, amulets, charms,” he pulled the silence charm out from under his coat and bounced it at the end of its chain. “I guess I'm sort of a dabbler. I know a few tricks, I can use a lot of magic tools, I can sense magic pretty well, I can dowse... Most of the time I really never have to use anything besides the eye, though.”

“Is the eye all-or-nothing?”

“Yeah. It's not nearly as useful as you'd think, but any edge is an edge.”

“When I turned off your power and it was coming back, though, you started speeding up—or, I guess, everything else was slowing down? You were moving faster, one way or the other. You were able to touch me, and those punches hurt.”

“Huh, yeah, you're right.”

“Do you think there's a way you could learn to only partially activate it?”

“That'd be great, wouldn't it? Thing is, just using it is a huge strain, and that time spend outside of time adds up. Going by normal calendar time I'm only 26.”

“Fuck, I'm 27!” Evan laughed.

“Yeah, well, I'd rather be prematurely gray than what you've got going on. My turn. Uh... huh, I can't really think of anything else. Uh... are you gay?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“No, but the question still counts.”

“I'm bi,” Evan mumbled, crossing his arms across his prodigious chest. “Not that it matters. And before you ask, no, you are not my type. We're done talking about this.”

“Huh. You ever sucked--”

“We. Are. Done. Talking about this.”

“Fine, God. Go.”

Evan mentally circled back to an earlier question he felt hadn't been properly answered. “Why are you after Moreno?”

To Evan's surprise, Titus didn't hesitate. “I'm actually after his current boss. He's just the best lead I have to go on.” He took a deep breath, then started talking with a rushed, deadpan pace, as if he was eager to get the words out as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be in his mouth very long.

“Moreno is working for a guy only known as the Soultaker. He has an innate supernatural ability to pull a person's soul out of their body. When that happens, the person just... shuts down, usually. No motive force behind them. Eventually they just die of dehydration, usually. I've seen some people so set in routine that they keep going without a soul, but... it's not really life.

“It seems like the extraction process takes a while, so he can't just walk past you on the street and pickpocket your entire essence. So he needs people rounded up for him, held until he can do his nasty juju. So that's where a degenerate like Moreno comes in.

“So when he pulls out a soul, it, well, it looks like this.”

Titus pulled a battered, faded Crown Royale bag out of his jacket. It bulged strangely and made a quiet clacking when he set it on the table. He pulled out what looked like a large marble, or maybe a dull pearl, and handed it to Evan.

Evan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered into the milky depths of the sphere. After a few moments of staring, the murky clouds inside the thing seemed to clear and a face floated to the surface. A black man, maybe in his late 40s, going thin on top. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, but his expression had a look of discomfort to it, as if he was having a bad dream.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, “I've seen this guy... Martell Calloway? I saw some news article about how his family found him tied up in his apartment and completely comatose! But he didn't have any injuries beyond being a black eye... so he's dead?”

“Life support,” Titus said, taking Mr. Calloway's soul back from Evan's unresisting fingers, “technically, he's one of the lucky ones. They found his body before it wasted away to nothing, and I was able to intercept his soul before it got to a buyer.”

“Why would someone buy something like this? What use is it? Can you fix him?”

“A human soul is a damn near exhaustible arcane battery,” Titus said gravely. In the split second between sentences, Evan noticed something—after he'd put the bag back into his jacket, Titus surreptitiously touched a pocket on the other side of his jacket, as if he was making sure something was still there.

“If you know what you're doing, you can power a lot of magic using a soul. And you can reuse them as long as you don't overdo it. If you know what you're doing, you can wring all but the last drops of essence out of a soul and let it heal or recover or whatever, and it'll eventually be back to full strength. Very resilient things,” Titus continued. “I don't think they're conscious in there, but... anyway, it's supposed to be really hard to extract a soul. But this guy was born with or spontaneously developed or somehow figured out a shortcut to the whole process. So the market is getting flooded with torture-batteries and ECUs are getting flooded with vegetables. And families are winding up with loved ones who are as good as dead, without having any idea why this happened to them. Dozens of them have been taken off life support in the past few months. Half these souls have no body to return to. And no, I can't fix it. At least not yet,” he sighed again. “I was hoping once I found him, I could somehow get the secret out of him or force him to put them back, or... maybe I thought if I killed him it'd reverse the effect. He needs killing, either way.”

Titus's eye widened as a thought struck him and he looked Evan in the eye for the first time since he'd started the story. Evan realized what he was thinking and looked down at the tattoo on his left arm, flexing his fingers.

“If you can take people's powers after they die...”

“...then we can save these people.”

Titus put a hand over his mouth and for a moment Evan thought he saw his eye well up.

“I'm in,” Evan said, a sense of righteous purpose welling in his heart. “I don't really know what the universe wants, but I doubt... I know it's not this. We'll find him, we'll stop him, and we'll save as many of these people as we can.”

“...thanks,” Titus mumbled behind his hand. He swallowed hard, then seemed to come back to himself. “We're back to square one, though.”

“You said you could dowse? Like, for real?”

“Yes, for real. I can find things and people with the pendulum method. It's handy for tracking down bounties.”

“Why don't you dowse Moreno?”

“Why didn't I think of that?!” Titus said incredulously, smacking his forehead. “Because he's warded. He's not magic himself, but he's collected enough gear through his career that my normal methods don't work.”

Evan rubbed his chin. “What if we used an abnormal method?”

-------------------

An hour later, they were in the RV. Titus was poring over the collection of Evan's notes and the strange papers he'd bought from Delmann's shop. Evan was very carefully slicing a strip of skin from his own ankle up all the way up his leg. The Guiding Light—the Finder's Follysat on the table between them, filled with fresh blood.

“Even if this works, he's going to know we're coming,” Titus muttered, engrossed in the pages. “Remember what I said?”

“That's why we're not going to look for him,” Evan said, adjusting his grip on the potato peeler. “I don't know how we'd even write his name. Can you read that, by the way?”

“Kind of. This is... most of this is written in, like, arcane pidgin. Who compiled these notes?”

“I did, I think.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to clarify on that. Apparently a couple months ago, before the ritual, I drilled a hole in my own brain to erase some kind of very dangerous memory.”

“You what.”

“That's not a metaphor or anything. Really did it. I could show you the video.”

“I'll pass. So you don't remember where this came from?” Titus shook the Book of Fate at him.

“Nope.”

“Jesus shit, do you have any idea--”

“How reckless that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm still here and I'm the answer to your fuckin' prayers, aren't I?” Evan gave a whoop as the peeling skin reached his thigh. “Got it this time!” he said cheerfully, snipping the flesh-ribbon off with scissors.

“God, that's so fucking gross. Anyway, you haven't explained how we're going to use that thing to find Moreno.”

“We don't set it to look for him. We look for somewhere he's been. Maybe the last place he slept. Do you think you can describe him well enough in that language for it to work?”

Titus looked like he might actually be impressed, but he hid it well. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. I've got a dictionary I've put together on that tablet next to you, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe it'll help?”

---------------------

Two hours later, they had it.

Find where a man born between the 27th and 28th north parallels during a new moon under the sign of capricorn with black hair and green eyes who has killed at least 10 people slept in the past week.

They really had to squeeze the letters in, but when Evan put a flame to the wick, it sprung to life, wavered for a moment, and then pointed east. Both men cheered. Evan threw Titus the keys.

“Drive! Drive north until I tell you otherwise!”

While Titus started the engine, Evan spread a map of the United States on the table in front of the lamp, then produced a protractor and a notebook from a drawer. “Okay, you bastard... let's see where you've been hiding...”

It took three days—one spent driving north, one spent driving back to where they'd started, and one spent driving south. While Titus drove, Evan made meticulous notes of the flame's direction, marking angles on the map. Finally he threw the pencil down triumphantly.

“He's in Salt Lake City.”

“Well, that narrows it down a little, I guess. So what, do we just go there and hope this thing points us in the right direction?”

“Too slow,” Evan called, stepping back into what used to be his bedroom and sitting at his computer. “Now I work my magic.”

After parking, Titus walked back to look over Evan's shoulder. The half-dozen monitors on the wall were flickering between rapidly-changing pictures of faces and what appeared to be CCTV footage.

“What is this?”

“This,” Evan said with dramatic pride, “is Blaccat. Facial recognition algorithms that the CIA wishesit had. I actually started working on it years ago before I thought about the implications of it, but I shelved it. I figured since I may be needing to, uh...”

“Be Batman?”

“...yeah...that I should get back to work on it. Right now it's comparing faces to the description you gave me and cycling through every damn security camera in the city looking for it.”

“How illegal is this?”

“Soooooo illegal.”

“Oh, hey, can you get into police department records?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“See if you can get into the Las Vegas mugshots from... February 2019. Run your face-recognition thingy there.”

“Alright.... and... is that our boy?”

A handsome Latino man in his early 30s with shoulder-length jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stared at them from over a booking clipboard.

“That's him,” Titus breathed.

“Perfect! Now I just have to feed that into... wow.” Evan made a gesture and a black and white video popped up on the biggest monitor. The man in the mugshot was walking along the street, flanked by a short stocky man in bandanna and a lanky man with the ugliest white-boy dreads Evan had ever seen.

“That's him! Where is that? When is that?”

Evan grinned up at Titus. “That's live. I can track him and put us at the nearest intersection.”

Titus smiled, eye overbright, and began breathing heavily through his nose. “We got him.”

Evan met his eye and nodded. “Let's get him.”

[painted-crow]

Bird systems, trees, crystals, and glass

No, this isn't about yoga or anything. I'm cracking Algorithms to Live By open again for another Obscure Bird Metaphor!

The anon in the post right before this one got me thinking of a thing...

They were a burned Lion modeling Bird, talking about how they hate their system being poked at because (essentially) it's fragile and they're relying on it. I am therefore restraining myself from asking them about this 😂 but I wonder if their system is constructed differently from a healthy Bird's.

Trees

I gave this advice a while back about unburning Bird primary.

Basically: healthy systems have a structure. There’s a hierarchy of beliefs, or as I prefer to think of it, a tree--with very basic core concepts at the trunk: things like "human life is inherently valuable," which can be relied upon not to change a whole lot.

Other beliefs follow from those. If you start from "unnecessary suffering is bad," you can branch into a whole lot of other stuff.

Once you've built up your tree a bit, you just start going through the world and testing everything you hear for truth. A Bird primary does this pretty much unconsciously. They also might start running into conflicts and having to prioritize.

For example, they might hear someone say "suffering is bad! Therefore we should eradicate this genetic disease... by [horrible methods]!" and the Bird will (hopefully) go "no, that is eugenics, and it is Bad because human life is inherently valuable."

So why am I talking about this?

The problem is that things aren't always as obvious as that. The trunk of your system tree might be very solid, and so might the branches that build off of it! But once you start getting into sticks and twigs and leaves, you get more potential for them to cross over each other and need pruning.* So it's very important to have this structure, so that pruning one thing doesn't take down the whole tree.

*That's an actual thing with pruning trees, apparently. I like this metaphor.

When you have time to construct your system at peace, as with a full Bird primary who develops theirs as a kid, or as with someone who just picks up a Bird model because they like it or someone they care about uses it, you usually end up with some semblance of this structure. When your system building is in response to Burning, though...

Crystals and Glass

Stable system structure (say that five times fast) takes time and patience, and is probably incompatible with the "I am relying on this prototype to keep me Okay" of using it as a crutch while Burned.

Systems work by being tinkered with. They're always a work in progress. You can try to come up with one all at once, but it's almost certainly very brittle. (This isn't a judgment on you if you're doing this--it's just, yeah, what you're trying to do is hard and it probably breaks a lot.)

And! I have a new metaphor:

In the late 1970s and early ’80s, Scott Kirkpatrick considered himself a physicist, not a computer scientist. In particular, Kirkpatrick was interested in statistical physics, which uses randomness as a way to explain certain natural phenomena—for instance, the physics of annealing, the way that materials change state as they are heated and cooled. Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of annealing is that how quickly or slowly a material is cooled tends to have tremendous impact on its final structure. As Kirkpatrick explains:

"Growing a single crystal from a melt [is] done by careful annealing, first melting the substance, then lowering the temperature slowly, and spending a long time at temperatures in the vicinity of the freezing point. If this is not done, and the substance is allowed to get out of equilibrium, the resulting crystal will have many defects, or the substance may form a glass, with no crystalline order."

Quote taken from Algorithms to Live By, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, in chapter nine, "Randomness"

The annealing process is an interesting one. I'll try to explain--it's like... sometimes, if you make all the obvious immediate right choices, you can railroad yourself into a solution that isn't optimal because you aren't seeing the bigger picture. You reach what's called a local maximum: you've found the best solution available... in the tiny corner you looked in. It's like trying to pack a suitcase without taking some things out and repositioning them to see if they fit better.

This is why healthy Birds really like to poke at even their core or core-adjacent beliefs sometimes. It's why you get nerds arguing over the trolley problem for funsies. It's why Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story that poked the question, "is there any situation in which sexual assault could be justified?" (I really hate that story, and if I were in his place I wouldn't have published it, but I understand why he wrote it.)

Needless to say, these discussions can be... provocative, and our Lion friends do not always appreciate them, for very understandable reasons--especially if we don't make it clear that we don't actually expect that the discussion will change our beliefs in the end. We just want to poke at things, because they're interesting, or because we want to know how far our internal rules can be stretched and still hold true, or just out of habit.

But Burned primaries modeling Bird are not only uncomfortable with those discussions, they can actually become unstable because of them. There's no room for the usual Bird annealing process. They don't have time to spend on melting their system crystal and lowering its temperature slowly, hanging out at melting point for a while to get it to form a stable structure. They need a solid now, so they're left with glass... and glass shatters.

...Ow.

So, what are you supposed to do in this situation? Can you make it better?

I think you can, to some degree.

Ideally, you'd unburn your actual primary, but that's difficult and might take a while--you need a temporary solution, which is why you're modeling Bird in the first place.

It's probably doable to pick out some stable core beliefs, so at least you have something if the rest of your system goes haywire.

Once you have a solid core to work from, it might help to poke a healthy Bird whose judgment you trust while you're building up your modeled system, especially if your tree is currently shedding branches, because they're really good at debugging stuff and will often offer to clone one of their tree branches to graft onto yours, so you can feel better and also grow lemons or something.

You might want to let them know you're having a rough time and this questioning isn't just for fun, so they don't get too far into the weeds (and let them know if they're stepping into uncomfortable territory if they do, because which topics are considered difficult is different for everyone).

Also bear in mind that you are potentially asking for emotional labor from them, depending on the topic; it might hit some of their more sensitive subjects, which they may still be willing to discuss but only when they're in a stable mood.

Alternatively, you can try leaning on a different crutch instead of, or in addition to, your model--like asking other people when you're stuck on something. This is the more direct form of the previous suggestion: instead of helping you build up your system to make decisions, you just ask for help when you need it. This is more like the "outsource your morality to someone else" tactic that's also popular with burned Lions.

Whatever you decide to do, remember to cut yourself some slack--you're speaking a foreign language here, primary-wise, and it's hard and stuff breaks and it's best if you try not to be too hard on yourself. Give yourself space and patience to recover. I'm rooting for you!

[backofthebookshelf]

Your Handy Guide to AO3 Searching and Filtering

In the spirit of YKINMKBYKIOK (aka let other people have fun and stop complaining that they exist, jeez), and also because I am a Nerd and will apparently do my actual literal job for free if it involves fandom in any way: How To Find Fics on AO3

There are two basic ways to go about this: searching and filtering. In this age of Google we're all kind of used to searching, but Google's search engine is...special, and also not really how a well-constructed database search works. There's a lot of reasons for this, many of which involve "the unstructured chaos that is the Internet at large" and "Google's secret algorithm which we will never understand," but tl;dr you've probably noticed that searching for a specific fic or type of fic on AO3 doesn't always return the results you expected. There are ways to make it work, but I vastly prefer filtering to find fics I want to read.

First off: I usually have something to start with, most of the time it's a fandom. There are a bunch of ways to find your starting tag; usually, to be honest, I'm bouncing off of a direct link to a fic. If you're starting from AO3's homepage, though, you can use the tag search - the plain search box in the upper right won't do it for you, usually. Hit the search tab, pick tag search, and search for canonical fandom tags. 99 times out of a hundred that'll get you your fandom.

Now if you're looking for a specific character or pairing you could browse the resulting page, the one that gives you all the child tags (those would be tags that only apply to this fandom, usually but not always characters) and relationship tags. If your fave is rarer, this is a good place to start. Otherwise, click that Works button up on the top right.

Now you've got the page you're probably used to: your fandom's tag, newest works at the top. If you like to start your fic-reading from AO3's homepage, there's a handy Favorite Tag button up in the top right; if you click that it'll show up on your homepage for you and you can always and easily check the newest fics. But if you're reading this you're probably looking to do something more complicated than just read whatever was posted most recently, right? This is where the magic Sort and Filter option comes in.

Let's start with Include.

This is where you'll get your basic preferences nailed down: how much adult content do you want to see? Do you have strong opinions about any of the official archive warnings? Do you want a ship, or gen, and if you want a ship do you want het or slash or femmeslash or lots of ships or whatever this fandom might have decided "other" means (usually it's tentacles)? Click the checkbox for whatever you want to include. EXCEPT. Keep in mind that the checkboxes work as an AND search, not an OR - that is, if you check both "M/M" and "F/F," you'll get only works that have both M/M and F/F pairings. Anything that’s just M/M won't show up, and vice versa. If you have multiple categories and you'd be okay with fics that match only one of those criteria, hold onto that thought for a while. (If, on the other hand, you only want fics with graphic violence and character death, this is where you'd go.)

Now you could just keep moving on, but I like to click Sort and Filter at this point, because the options it gives you in the next section are sorted by popularity, and sometimes you'll get more of the options you want when you set your base preferences. The screenshot on the left is the Fandoms, Characters, and Relationships filters with no other preferences set; the one on the right is with them set to Rating: Teen, No Archive Warnings Apply, and Multi. You'll see that some of those crossovers have dropped out, the characters have shuffled a bit, and several pairings are just gone.

From here, with these kind of numbers, I'd probably just pick one tag I'm interested in - do I want jonmartin fic, or Jon fic of any description, or oooh, hey, Sasha/Tim - select that checkbox, and go from there. But if you want something really specific, like only jonmartin fic in which Daisy appears, go for it. You don't have to change any of your earlier selections, just click those checkboxes and click Sort and Filter again.

Huh, that's genuinely more fics than I expected.

Now, if instead of having something specific you know you want, there's something specific you know you DON'T want, you have the next section: Exclude. This is relatively new, and it's magic. Don't wanna see Explicit fic? Banish it. Never want to read Major Character Death? Boom. Tired of Jon and only want fics where he doesn't appear? You can do that, too. These checkboxes do work on an OR search, which means you can check as many as you want, and if a fic matches any of the checkboxes you ticked, it won't show up in your search. If there's a pairing or a character you just cannot stand, you can exclude them, click Sort and Filter, and bookmark the resulting page. You'll see every new fic posted to the fandom tag except for the ones that include the thing you've already decided you don't want to see - you can just pretend it doesn't exist. It's wonderful.

There are some more neat options down at the bottom - got strong pro or con opinions about crossovers, or unfinished works? Got a few hours to kill and want something 10k+ to keep you busy? Hoping there's something written in your native language that isn't English? These options also exist, and they stack with the other filters as well, so you can filter only by crossover status or by rating and wordcount or by language and pairing, however you choose to combine them. (My favorite combo is Complete works only, wordcount from 10k (leave "to" blank if you don't need to set a higher limit), and exclude the fandom's most popular pairing. There's some good shit in that search in pretty much any fandom.)

Don't forget the sort! You don't have to see newest fics first; if you're still getting caught up on the canon, you can sort by oldest first and be careful never to read past the date you're caught up to. You can sort by word count to get the longest fics first or the shortest, by hits to see what people read the most, by kudos to see what the most people liked, by comments to see what gets the most interaction, by bookmarks to see...honestly I'm not sure what bookmarks indicate, but you can sort by them. Also by title and author, if you prefer an alphabetical organization for whatever reason.

Unfortunately there's not a good way to clear the filters, so if you change your mind about what you're looking for, you will have to go back and un-check the boxes you've selected before you do another search. Or you can just click on the fandom tag under the first fic in your results list; that will take you back to the main tag with no filters on it, which is what I usually do.

And there you have it: AO3's excellently curated filters, which allow you to curate your fandom experience. If that still isn't enough for you, there are some browser extensions you may want to look into (ao3 savior for tampermonkey; AO3rdr) that let you do even more customization, but those are tricky to use on mobile or if you're switching between multiple devices, so I prefer to rely mostly on AO3's built in tools.

If any of this isn't clear to you I am happy to answer questions! Note that I have nothing to do with AO3 personally other than having been a loyal user for 13+ years now, I'm just a librarian and a nerd for good organizational systems. And goddammit, AO3 is amazing.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hi ash! i know you said before that you're not autistic you just did a lot of research to depict chris realistically- do you have any advice for finding resources on writing disabled characters that isn't like... horribly abelist? im writing someone with an intellectual disability from head trauma and who is nonverbal, and i want to get it right but everything online seems very autism-speaks-y. im autistic and semiverbal but i dont have an id and i want to be realistic and respectful.

I cannot speak with any expertise or sense of speaking from enough experience to be taken as an expert here, and defer as always to those with lived experience with intellectual disability!

But I will give a few more general tips for what to do when looking to write a character with a neurological makeup that doesn’t match your own, as far as what has worked for me with Chris:

1. The story should never be ABOUT their lived experience if you do not also have it. Chris’s story is not about autism, or being autistic. I would never presume to try and write a story like that because, whatever my intentions, I don’t have that knowledge that comes from living it. I would at BEST be taking the experiences of others, their voices. At worst, I would be someone standing with a megaphone shouting over those who deserve to be heard.

Making the disability what the plot revolves around is... generally just not going to be a good idea, in any sense. It’s moments like this where I feel like it’s best to defer to the writers who have lived it, instead. 

This is not to say “never write someone different than yourself”, because... I don’t think that’s at all good advice. I think that way lies stunted writers who never push themselves. But it does mean “do not center the story on this thing if you have not experienced it and don’t have that knowledge and understanding”.

2. At the same time, don’t try to be coy or dance around or hide the disability behind purple prose or refuse to acknowledge its reality. Trying to make a disability sound cute, or talk around it instead of speaking it out loud, can be minimizing or shaming in ways that I think it’s easy to miss, if you don’t live with that disability yourself! To me, this touches on one of my hugest pet peeves - characters who are written as having a particular neurodivergence in media, or shown on tv, but they never expressly admit to it or name it. 

I know I hesitated with Chris, more because I didn’t feel comfortable giving him a diagnosis until I understood autism better myself, and I do regret how long it took me to embrace that reality about him. I just thought it better to err on the side of researching before I embraced. But I do feel some guilt about waiting so long when I had readers who were identifying so heavily with him, and I kind of knew, but just didn’t feel comfortable owning it yet.

3. On a related note - disabilities in a story that become melodramatic tragedy or turn the disabled character into a ‘redemption story’ for an abled character. This is so, so prevalent in common media and pop culture and once you recognize it for what it is, it’s so hard to not see it in so many places. Think of how many movies, novels, etc contain a disabled character who exists to teach abled people some virtuous lesson about living life to the fullest or ‘what it really means to be human’ blah blah blah blah blah. Don’t do that. Please. (I mean, I kind of feel like you definitely won’t, but I’m just speaking very generally here). If you find the story going in a direction in which abled people learn something from the disabled person, please think very carefully and critically as to why the story is heading in that direction.

Language alone can also be a problem here - think about the difference between openly describing a character moving around their life with a wheelchair vs. calling them “wheelchair-bound” or “reliant on a cane”, when the cane or wheelchair may actually represent freedom to that person - an aid they need, yes, but one that allows them to live with far more agency than they might have had otherwise. 

To describe them, especially from their own POV, as “wheelchair-bound”, may ring false to disabled people who understand that the wheelchair isn’t a cage, but a tool that allows that individual person to feel less caged by being able to more freely leave home.  

(This varies person to person, just providing an example)

4. Educate. Research. And don’t just do so by asking people with disabilities to tell you their stories. I often express gratitude to the autistic readers, those with ADHD, etc who spoke up about Chris, talked about their own experiences, identified with him, found him very resonating for aspects of their own lives. 

These stories, this information, this sharing of their lives was given freely to me, and I’m fucking amazed and grateful for how welcomed Chris was, and how willing readers were to share about themselves when talking about him.

Their willingness to speak about these things is something I treasure. But I absolutely would never believe that a single person owed me the story of their life to make sure I got Chris right. That was my responsibility, you know? I try to keep in mind the concept of ‘emotional labor’. Asking a disabled person to be your resource is asking them to give, and give, and give of themself. They may want to give you that kind of labor, they may not. But I definitely wouldn’t ask it of anyone without understanding it was something they were happy or felt comfortable giving.

Research, on the other hand, is essential. You mentioned things being “autism speaks-y” when trying to research on your own, and oh god, do I feel you. It sucks that autism speaks is the first thing to pop up when trying to research the lives of autistic people - and in my research, I was lucky to already know AS sucks and write them off and anyone who heavily referenced them as not helpful. I can see how someone might not know that, though, and stumble on them and believe they were a helpful resource for writing autism when they... well. Nope. 

Try to think about the express disability you are writing for this person, and why, and then go research! I looked up “books on autism recommended by autistic people”, and found some invaluable books, yes, but also papers published online, websites, etc! Each of them vetted and looked over and recommended by autistic people, so I knew I was getting information that came from people with those experiences and that understanding. A good example - I picked up a book on the history of diagnosis and treatment of autism in the United States, mentioned it here, and @redwingedwhump recommended a book called Neurotribes... which turned out to be immensely more helpful, spot-on, and provided some really excellent foundational information I wouldn’t have found in the first book at all.

There’s a lot of information out there on Traumatic Brain Injuries and their lasting effects on individuals who receive them, so I would start there. What you’re describing sounds like a TBI with lasting effects! So I would start your research there, and also look up being nonverbal separately, as well as combining the two. Make sure you’re not just looking at the top links - often paid ads or problematic organizations that are able to pay more for better exposure - but also scanning for blogs, nonprofits, lived-experiences stories, too.

I found a lot of information on the second or even third page of results i would never have seen if I only stuck to the first. Remember the algorithm on search engines is usually showing you what other people are clicking on, not necessarily the best source.

5. This is one you the asker already know, but I want to include it for general reasons: do not ‘dumb down’ the thought processes of a nonverbal or semi-verbal person. I see this in fiction surprisingly often, and I think it’s this sense we have as abled people (’we’ just meaning I’m including myself) that being verbal is required to have a highly complex thought process, and it’s... it’s just fucking not. Speech and though are related but not completely wound around each other, and the ability to verbalize is not the same as the ability to think. 

Like I said, I know you know this, asker, but it’s something I see in fiction/media and it drives me up the wall. So I wanted to include it.

6. For the love of God, do not use medical terminology unless you actually know what you’re doing/talking about. Many disabled people or those with serious medical conditions become what amounts to experts on their own diagnoses, because they have to. They have to be experts to receive the care they should be able to rely on. If you constantly fuck up terminology - trust me - it will be noticed, and it will take people out of the story or hurt their ability to suspend disbelief while reading.

There are ways to do medical scenes/conversations with doctors that avoid falling into this problem! I would just be very very careful to heavily research before using any complex terminology.

7. This disabled person does not exist to evoke pity. They are a human - nuanced and multi-layered - living their life, and their story should always, always reflect that. I don’t really have anything else to add to that.

I would love to hear further advice from anyone with anything else to add.

[writing-with-olive]

Expanding your reach

There’s been a lot of talk in writeblr recently (and for a while now) about the importance of interacting with other people’s posts beyond just dropping a like and keep scrolling, and while that is important for helping creators grow their reach, there are actually a few things you can do yourself that can also help. 

*note: this is in no way meant to replace the conversation about interacting with others, nor is it meant to blame creators for not having reach because that sentiment is toxic and unproductive. Rather, it’s tips creators can choose to impliment or not in addition to the ask that people do more to interact.

Anyyywaayyy...

1) Tag your shit 

Tumblr’s search algorithm works pretty much exclusively on tags (it’ll sometimes put things on your dash based on people you follow, but don’t rely on that). Basically, the more tags you put, the easier it is for people to stumble across.

The first five tags on your post will be the ones that will make your post show up in tags people follow (for example, if someone follows #writing advice and that tag is in your first five, it will show up in that person’s tracked tags). A general rule of thumb is to put popular tags in your first five. For writing, those might be (#writing, #writeblr, #spilled ink, #writing humor, #writing advice, etc). Which tags you choose will depend on the content of your post.

The first twenty tags (including the first five described above) will show up when you put something into the search bar. When it comes to these, do not hold back. The more tags you put, the more likely it is for someone to see it. Key think: make sure tags are relevant to your post. If you tag a post that’s an advice post about worldbuilding and tag it #writing memes, you’re not going to gain a lot of traction based off the tag because people will search that looking for -- you guessed it -- Writing memes! 

All tags on your post will show up in the blog navigation search bar, so if you have specific tags for say, original posts or something, the place to put that is often after your original twenty tags if you have a lot.

Another important thing: tags on reblogs don’t show up EXCEPT within a specific person’s blog! This is to keep popular duplicates from showing up in the main search engine but it also means that if you don’t have any tags on your post, the only way it’s going to get passed around is through reblogs and we’ve all heard how that’s going.

(more tips below the break)

2) Reblog your own stuff

This is one that helped me a lot when I was getting started, though now I don’t do it as often. BUT it is seriously 100% okay to reblog your own stuff. Like with tagging, it helps with visibility, as it pulls it to the top of your dash, and it slaps it on all of your follower’s dashboards.

Similarly, if there’s a post you’re especially proud of, don’t be afraid to pin it (click on the three little dots in the top corner to get a dropdown with the option to pin your post). This won’t necessarily make it easier to stumble across, but it will be the first thing visitors to your blog will see.

3) Be consistant (depending on what style blog you run and its purpose, this one can be optional)

This is more aimed at increasing follower count than reblog count, but more followers usually means increased chance of reblogs, at least in some capacity.

People are frequently drawn to blogs because they are drawn to the content. People also frequently don’t reblog things they don’t like. Basically consistancy will help with visibility because people are more likely to engage in content they signed up for. 

Personally, I have also found that having a regular posting schedule/clear hiaitus posts to be helpful as well so that people don’t assume you’re a dead blog. Your posting schedule, should you choose to impliment it, can be whatever you want (schedule post/queue makes it fairly easy to post on time), though I would recommend putting the schedule in your bio or somewhere where people can see that you have a posting schedule. With hiaitus, what I do that works for me is make a post saying I’m going on hiaitus for at least X time and that I will update on X date. I also put in the tags what date I posted it. This can help assure your audience that you’re not a dead blog, while still being able to take time away for yourself because PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH!

4) Interact with others and be a part of the community

Two reasons for this: a) you can’t expect others to interact with you if you don’t interact with them. b) the more you interact, the more likely it is for them to see you and possibly check out your blog.

Some ways to interact: 

Comment

Reblog

Take part in tag games (no one’s going to get mad if you jump in without actually being tagged - go for it!)

Send people asks and take part in ask games 

Ask to be put on taglists

If you’re posting content that involves taglists, let people know that they can join if they want - (they’ll get regular updates when you post, so they’re more likely to see your stuff)

5) Make your blog a nice place to be

I’m not talking about the aesthetic so much (though do what you think looks good), as I am talking about how you conduct yourself when you’re on your blog. 

Some good things to do are:

Being friendly and respectful

Giving people the benifit of the doubt

Avoiding snarky responses or answers (sarcasm is okay, as long is it’s clear that it’s lighthearted and not intended to be hurtful or mean)

Avoiding posting or spreading offensive, harmful, or dehumanizing content

Avoiding pointless or toxic drama

Basically, once people associate you as not a nice person, or not someone they want to interact with, they won’t interact with you (except sometimes to antagonize), and you are probably never going to win them back. So if you have to take out your frustration, do it away from your blog, and preferably somewhere that isn’t public because a) no one likes that, and b) it will never make you look good.

But say you do mess up - you realize you’ve hurt somebody without meaning to, or you’ve done something that just wasn’t okay. Then what?

Apologize. If you’re realizing what you did on your own, make a post explaining

that you’re sorry for what you did

you understand why it’s hurtful (explain the why)

what your intentions were (if that’s relevant, sometimes it’s not)

that you recognize that your intentions and what happened did not match

if there is something to do to fix what was done beyond apologizing, explain what you will do.

If someone else called you out on it, do the same thing as you did above, and also remember not to get super defensive. If you believe you were not in the wrong, do a bit of research before responding - you may have crossed a line you didn’t know existed. If you do that research and you still believe that they’re wrong, do not attack them, and PLEASE be civil with your response. Otherwise you’re going to get swept up into petty drama with a lot of big feelings involved and that never ends well.

Remember - apologies are not meant to be ways to get attention, and you should not do the whole “wo is me” gig - it undermines the whole point. Instead, it’s about recognising that you messed up, and doing what you can to make repairs. 

6) Celebrate your wins

Maybe one of your posts did really well, or you get to a certain follower count - don’t be afraid to celebrate!

This can be something like a post saying “I just reached x-milestone, I’m so excited!”

Or you can do something special. For example, when I got to a follower milestone, I did a bonus post every day for the week.

Remember that it’s not about “we have to get to x-milestone in order to do the thing,” but it’s “hey we did the think that’s awesome!”

I know this post got long, so I appreciate that you’ve stuck with me this far - I hope you have a wonderful day :)

[egle0702]

[TRANS] Cosmopolitan November ‘20 - Wooyoung Interview

The Standard of “Adult Sexy” - 2PM’s Wooyoung

Wooyoung said he doesn’t worry about the image he shows anymore. His expression remained clear as he picked his words firmly.

 By COSMOPOLITAN 2020.10.27

It hasn’t been long since you’ve been discharged. Even though there’s been a gap in activities, you don’t look like you’ve just been discharged when you’re on shows.

It could be because I didn’t worry much about the hiatus. Usually dancers worry that their bodies will grow stiff if they don’t dance for a long time. But I didn’t worry about that. I thought that I would be using my body in the army anyways, and if I were to learn new ways to move, that would become my dance.

How did it feel to stand in front of the camera again?

Right after I got discharged, my first time in front of the camera was for this entertainment program. It was right when My House popularity wave was on the rise, so I had to spin my head (T/N.: sangmo spin) in my military uniform. I wore a real sangmo when I danced, and it actually started spinning. Haha. Back then I felt… I just marvelled at everything like a person who saw a camera for the first time. And my heart still flutters up to this day. I think I returned from the army well. Haha.

The entertainment world trends have changed a lot while you were on hiatus. These days, there’s no formula that says “If you do this, you’ll succeed.” “Tess hyung” is popular among the young, and it’s often that we see buried songs skyrocket up the charts because of YouTube algorithms. As someone who experienced it first-hand with “My House,” what are your thoughts on it?

That’s also something that I’ve been wondering about, something I wanted to discuss. Actually, it can be thoroughly confusing. I sometimes think I don’t know what I’m supposed to do [about it]. So, I chose to simply continue doing my thing. There’s no use to think about what’s right or wrong, or things like “this is popular now, so I’ve got to do it fast.” Instead of working on potentially popular music or visual creations, I think it’s more important to consistently work on the things I like and the things I can do. Especially these days, when you can’t predict anything.

 On the other hand, it seems there are more outlets for entertainment. The music world is fun these days. The audience isn’t enjoying solely the songs and their performances. Their reaction becomes yet another type of content. Even when we look just at the contents about you, there are popular videos like “Intro Master,” or “Saturi compilation.” The popular comments under those videos are also interesting. Wooyoung, have you ever looked up contents about yourself?

Since people were so crazy about “My House,” I’ve looked up the “My House” compilation edit video for monitoring. Ah! I usually watch the variety shows we’d done before. When I watch them, I think “That was so funny back then; It was really hard back then,” stuff like that. Haha.

 No matter how much the world of the entertainment changes, I think your mind as a musician remains the same.

That’s right. Just as I’ve mentioned, I don’t get carried along by the wave. Also, (Park) Jinyoung-hyung and Na Hoon-a senior have been in the industry for many years, right? Rather than feeling pressured that I also need to be active for so long, I wish I could naturally work for a long time focusing on the things I like, relying on the will that comes from within.

 Is there a song you’d like to experience a resurgence in popularity like “My House?”

The song “Come Back When You Hear This Song” written by Jinyoung-hyung. The choreography is nice, and the classic outfits that follow the “My House” flow were also good.

“My House” syndrome has to continue. You’ve also mentioned that you want to come back with 2PM as soon as possible, is there an image you’re aiming for?

I don’t really think about how we should release a new album these days. Because if I were to do that, I think I would forget what kind of dance I want to dance, and what kind of music I like. Right now, I spend my time focusing on myself, on what I want to sing, and on the feelings related to dancing.

 It’s probably related to your saying on a show that your way of life has become clearer, not too long ago.

I think I have faltered enough. There was a time when I was too busy lashing myself, having forgotten when I really like. I think I don’t need to do that anymore.

 The fact that you can say so in your early 30s means that you lived through, felt, and experienced a lot at a young age. 2PM members were with you at that time.

Indeed. I managed to go through it thanks to my members. We often say “like a fool,” among us. The members aren’t calculating. I think we’re way past the relationship of work colleagues. So, even if we’re on a hiatus, even on our casual days, we’re still 2PM.

 Maybe it’s because of your tough concept, but there’s always been the attribute “masculine beauty” next to 2PM. The perception of masculine beauty has changed over time, so how do you understand masculine beauty yourself?

It’s “a bloke who knows how to live properly.” What I mean is that you have to be able face yourself and judge yourself accordingly. Sometimes he should be able to say “I can’t do that.” Actually, back in the day, I was so desperate trying to present myself well that I would hide the things I didn’t know or wasn’t good at. I think being able to acknowledge your questionable qualities is what makes you an admirable person.

 You’re learning a lot about yourself these days. After a recent MBC “I Live Alone” broadcast, the professional loner Dr. Jang has even become a hot topic. Is there something you’ve discovered after living on your own for 8 years?

The less people there are around you, the more you have to come to your senses. The joy of freely living alone is brief. Because when you live alone, it’s really easy to grow into irregular weird habits that eventually destroy your body. Living along gives you the time to face yourself. If you use that time well, you attain maturity; if not, the opposite awaits.

 I think you’re spending your time with healthy body and mind.

It might sound weird, but in order to do that, I’ve tried out all sorts of stuff. Haha.

 Could you give some Dr. Jang health or living alone tips to Cosmo readers?

Puahaha. It’s nothing special, just be sure you have a glass of warm water when you wake up. Don’t drink cold water. If you savour and drink the warm water slowly, you warm up and your insides relax and feel refreshed, like after eating healthy food. The feeling of emptiness disappears, too.

 Just like you tried to get rid of yellow stains from your white shirts, is there anything you’re working on now?

Denim. I’m studying the ways to manage jeans and denim jackets without washing out the colour. Haha.

 Have you ever thought about how you’d like your influence to reach people?

I can’t escape the fact that my actions influence someone in one way or the other. Because I am someone under scrutiny of the public eye. There was a time when I didn’t know better, and I thought that I had to be careful no matter what and hide. Right now, I understand the influence that I have better, and I’m more aware of it. In the future, I want to use that influence properly at the right time.

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Credits:

Freelancer editor: Kim Sohee Photographer: Jung Jieun Stylist: Lee Hanuk Hair: Yang Hyungshim at YangYang Salon Makeup: Kim Doyeon at YangYang Salon

Source: Cosmopolitan WEB

Kor-Eng: Egle0702