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findafight · 1 year

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Okay I kept thinking about this post and Steve being a BNF of Corroded Coffin message board of the internet of yore.

Alright so way back in the nineties Suzie hooks everyone up with the internet, yes? Yes. Eddie and Steve got together in '92 after some mutual pining and a few disastrous relationships that couldn't handle 1) Steve and Robin's general QPR clinginess 2) Eddie's intensity 3) the secrecy required if having multiple years of monster fighting and subsequent NDAs and the trauma associated therein. They're older and more settled and ready for an Adult Relationship.

Corroded Coffin is gaining traction and doing really well and the internet is still a brave new frontier, so Steve says to Eddie something like "I'm going to see if there's some message boards about you 🥰" and find them he sure does. So he makes accounts and posts under the username EddiesOnlyGroupie because he's hilarious and also the mods banned him from using EddieMunsonsHusband (he figured it was fine on the internet because nobody actually knew who he was but APPARENTLY NOT homophobia lives on in the digital age). He gets pretty well known in the Corroded Coffin fandom, most assuming he's a woman because he will go off on how hot Eddie looked at a gig. Like. Saying unhinged internet shit because 1) true and 2) he and Eddie think it's so funny. Everyone kinda believes the groupie thing too because of all the performance pics he's able to post and how he'll sometimes offer tidbits if knowledge about the band.

When they transition from chatrooms to livejournal etc he follows, with the same username. He's kind of a legend by the mid aughts. EOG is the acronym people use when discussing theories on his identity, and he's like "guys I'm literally his only groupie it's self explanatory. Guys why don't you believe me Eddie hasn't slept with anyone but me since 1992. We're basically married". He goes "it's not a mystery we literally are in love and Jeff and I go to Cubs games and cry when they inevitably lose together. Gareth is Godfather to my cats" (Eddie is still offended that he was not named Sassafras and Moonshine's godfather when Steve and Robin adopted them in '89). No one believes him.

Possibly because he still thirsts after Eddie and whenever someone posts a new Eddie pic those in the know wait for him to pop up with comments like "I want to bite his neck omg" "he has no ass but nobody is perfect I'll settle between his thighs anyway" and "literally a crime I am not married to him right now what the fuck" As twitter grows he swoops in to grab his handle, and follows a bunch of other CC fan accounts (some of them old friends, some of them new to the scene)(EOG 100% has his own fanlore page, which also has speculation on who he is and how he gets all the bts pics. It also doesn't believe when he says what it says on the tin. He's Eddie's only groupie.)

tumblr and tiktok come round and Steve is like. Openly horny on main. He's seen some shit go down on the internet but he's still commenting on Eddie fan edits that are title shit like "why am I attracted to this middle-aged white man" and "retro cc fancam" with things like "I'd let him lick the inside of my ear and only bring it up to tease him on special occasions" "his FINGERS" "back in '89 Jeff and Howie and Claire staged a mutany over this song because they were 'sick of Eddie only writing about biting bats' lmao" and "Jeff is my favourite member of cc"(just to stir the pot)

Eddie comes out in the 2010's and he's like "yeah I've been in a long term relationship with someone who is usually mostly a man kinda (gender is fucky) for the past twenty years, lol. His name's Steve. I love him a lot even if he mocks me online." and of course EOG comments "the mods of that old message board should have let me keep my original handle of EddieMunsonsHusband. When're you gonna make it reality, Munson? smh" and everyone is like Huh?? EOG is a MAN? And he's like yeah? Sometimes?? Not always?

(He 100% thinks this is him telling people he's Eddie's Steve. They don't get the message)

Anyways life goes on Steve continues to thirst under pictures of Eddie, he has his pronouns and name in his bio on twitter (Steve, he/him, she/her, Eddie Munson's first and only groupie 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ ) and continues to post behind the scenes photos that shockingly few people question (she always says "because I'm his groupie" though. He and Eddie think this is VERY funny and also true. Robin groans. They've been making the same joke for two decades.) and people believe it because Eddie has interacted EOG sometimes, liking photos or videos, commenting sometimes. (Steve has a more professional realname account that he rarely uses but Eddie usually tags Steve there)

And THEN Internet user EddiesOnlyGroupie says he's taking a few weeks off for her honeymoon because "I'm finally marrying the man of my dreams!" And people are happy for him but also bummed because Eddie is also taking a two week hiatus but EOG promises wedding and honeymoon photos. (Face reveal! Sorta!)((he doesn't get why people are excited because he's pretty sure he's been in a lot of Eddie's recent pictures, but whatever)

Imagine the Internet's surprise when Eddie Munson posts a collection of pictures spanning '86 to his 2016 wedding of him and Steve, including one of Steve looking seriously at an old desktop computer, captioned "Steve starting his internet career" and tags EOG.

Steve qrt with "I told yall. I'm his only groupie, and they should've let me keep EddieMunsonsHusband even if they WERE homophobic. Because now it's TRUE"

Niche internet community drama chaos ensues.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #rockstar eddie munson #rockstar!eddie #cc bnf steve #stranger things #this is cleaned up from a version i word vomited in a discord group lol #also Sassafras and Moonshine are steve and Robin's rescue cats they got when they went to adopt one but then found out they were bonded #and stobin had already agreed that theyd eventually get two cats and call them sassafras and moonshine after Stone Soul Picnic #so when faced with platonic soulmate Cat Edition with the names they already wanted. it was a sign.#finda's rambles #finda writes stuff #genderqueer steve harrington

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wilwheaton · 1 year

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Elon's new blue-check subscription service was a massive flop, and the sudden removal of nearly half a million blue-checks suddenly made it crystal clear to Twitter's user base that the blue-check club going forward was going to be populated almost entirely by right-wing weirdos. There would be no hanging out with Stephen King or LeBron James; your fellow blue-checks would instead be a few notorious racists and jokes from (checks notes) influential wag "catturd." In fact, by so clearly labeling the worst of Twitter’s worst people, it spurred a genius #BlockTheBlue backlash, in which people gleefully banned the blue-check trolls that now populated the top of every single prominent Twitter thread (like those of actual celebrities announcing their refusal to pay for what was now a worthless mark). The visible unpopularity of the program wasn't just embarrassing for Musk. It's an existential threat to the program’s viability. Musk sold the subscription service as a way to become one of the site's Important People without merit; if all the Important People didn’t just stay off the program, but mocked it, only the most diehard of Musk loyalists would be eager to sign up for that. As the collapse of the program became self-evident, third parties had already begun working on automated #BlockTheBlue plugins that would systematically block all checkmarks. So Musk immediately set out to salvage the reputation and very existence of the $8 club—by forcing Important People to be in it whether they liked it or not. And by "immediately," we mean "by afternoon."

Elon Musk's Twitter Blue is a verified disaster

I was one of Twitter’s early adopters. I was one of those accounts they suggested you follow when it started to get big. I went from a few thousand followers to a hundred thousand in a matter of days, and was at 3 million when I closed my account.

I left Twitter long before Musk took over, but I kept the account to protect it and the branding it comes with from bad people.

Last year, before Musk bought it, I posted a couple of tweets to let those three million accounts know that my memoir had been published. It seemed silly not to. I turned replies off, and just let it be an announcement.

Then Musk took over, and I watched Twitter turn into 4Chan. When it started to become 8Chan, I deleted my entire archive, unfollowed everyone except family, and then made my account private. I figure I still need to protect the username.

I don’t look at my account, but someone told me the check was gone. (Oh, I was one of the earliest verified users, too). I was thrilled. I didn’t want anyone to think I gave that bozo my money.

Then the same person told me the check was back, shortly after I think all decent people had concluded that blue check = red flag (or red hat). So I signed back into my account and updated my bio to make sure nobody ever thinks I gave that dumbass any of my money.

I know I’m not alone. That check mark is now toxic, and I’m not the only longtime verified user who doesn’t want anything to do with it. I wonder if someone more famous than me, with more at stake, makes noise about the implied endorsement / affiliation the blue check now carries with it, and the brand damage that comes with it?

#fuck elon musk #blue check = red hat = white hood

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bowlofsoob · 9 months

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SOOBIN AS YOUR MUTUAL THAT YOU HATE IRL — part one

part two

soobin x gender neutral reader

you and “steve” have been mutuals on twitter for almost a year as you both run bebe rexha fan accounts. he uses a fake name and you guys get along well, you talk to him more than your irl friends atp. on the other hand you and soobin don’t get along irl after constantly competing for the number one spot on the academic leaderboard. since then he always gives you a rbf and says he finds you too obnoxious. but that all changes when you finally decide to meet your favorite oomf in person.

notes; this could be an entire smau lowk but i’m lazy so take the part one and part two xx

later that week

__________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐་༘

Your stomach was swarming with nerves as you made your way inside the cafe, the scent of freshly made coffee and sweaty college students surrounding you as you slid into line. Admittedly, you never thought you’d get the chance to meet Steve, or whatever his actual name was, he was just your cute internet friend and nothing would ever happen. That was, until today.

It was a bit embarrassing that you stared at the selfie he’d sent for longer than you should’ve. It was difficult to comprehend the boy you’d been talking to for so long was hiding such a pretty figure.

You eye the display of cakes and decide to pick one up for the both of you as Steve had already promised to get you guys coffee. You felt bad going empty handed after finally meeting him.

You reach down to grab onto the last chocolate slice and your hands meet another. Usually, you’d let it slide and choose something else even though you touched it first. But, when you looked to your left and locked eyes with your self-proclaimed enemy, Choi Soobin, those thoughts washed away. You were going to fight for that slice of mediocre cake.

“Not you again,” Soobin sighed, tugging the slice towards him, “Don’t be obnoxious.”

“Says you,” you scoff, tightly grabbing onto the plate, “Why are you always so rude towards me?”

“Ask yourself the same thing,” Soobin replies, his large hands tugging the cake closer towards him, “Choose something else.”

“You choose something else, I got to it first!”

“Ok and?” Soobin questions, like the little shit he is.

“Fine, just take it,” you sigh, not wanting to make Steve wait. But as you let go of the cake and step back you notice Soobin’s outfit. He was adorned in clothes that oddly resembled the photo Steve had sent you.

“You made me lose my appetite,” Soobin mutters, dropping the cake and shuffling past you. You shake off the familiarity and make your way towards the back. Most men wore the same clothes, it was nothing.

__________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

You eye the walls of the cafe until you come across the tiled design. You start scouring the seats for someone that resembled Steve but the only person in your vicinity was Soobin.

You inch your way closer towards him with morbid curiosity, hoping that your suspicions would be proved wrong. But as you got closer the drinks on the table and location of your rival were too similar to the photo Steve had sent you.

Unfortunately, Soobin locked eyes with you.

“What do you want? Are you here to apologize?” he questions, playing with the straw of his drink as he barely give you a glance.

“Steve?” you tentatively ask, your voice hoarse from the nerves. This couldn’t be happening.

Soobin pauses.

“What?” he slowly asks, turning to look at you, “What did you call me?”

“Oh my god,” you gasp, “Are you pagebebe?”

“What…,” he starts, catching on, “You’re bebeyn4lyfe?”

Your username sounds foreign on his tongue but it was him. Soobin was your steve. Your beloved Steve was the same guy you’ve been on bad terms with all year. Just your luck.

Before Soobin could comprehend anything or you could answer, you decide to do the most mature thing anyone would do in that situation.

You run.

And he doesn’t follow.

__________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

#txt smau #txt x reader #soobin x gender neutral reader #soobin x reader #soobin x you #soobin x yn #soobin x male reader #soobin x y/n #soobin smau #soobin texts #txt x gender neutral reader #txt x gn reader

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justaboutsnapped · 2 years

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Begging you guys to look at what's happening in China

If you have a minute to spare, please consider reading and sharing this post.

[image ID: various photos about the #A4 revolution that is happening in China.

1st photo: a piece of white A4 paper with the following text on it: "Protests have been breaking out in many cities and university campuses across China thsi weekend in response to the highrise fire tragedy in Urumqi. Protesters called for end of zero-Covid policy and even an end to the Xi Jinping regime. The sheer number of particiipating cities and universities in this wave of protest have not been seen since 1989, after the June 4th Tiananmen Square Massacre where protesting students and citizens were murdered by the Chinese army. Freedom of expression and protest are luxuries in China. Even holding a piece of white paper in public can get you into trouble with the police. We call on Chinese nationals from every corner of the world to join in the #A4revolution and simply post a picture of an A4 blank paper on social media to speak the unspeakable and support the brave fellow Chinese citizens who are taking it to the streets in China." In the bottom right hand corner are the hashtags #白纸革命 and #A4 revolution.

2nd photo: protesters holding up pieces of white, blank A4 paper. The third photo is has protesters holding up paper on the left side, and a row of police standing guard right across from them. The fourth photo is of a piece of blank A4 paper

3rd photo: protesters holding up paper on the left side, and a row of police standing guard right across from them.

4th photo: a blank, white piece of A4 paper

end ID.]

I don't wanna guilt trip people and say things like "if you don't reblog this you don't care". but not a lot of people in the world know about what is happening in China right now so I'd really appreciate it if you'd share it with your family, friends, and peers.

The images above are reposted from the instagram account @citizensdailycn. If you speak Chinese and are not up to date regarding the situation please check them out at https://www.instagram.com/citizensdailycn/. They are also on twitter under the same username: https://twitter.com/CitizensDailyCN. If you speak English, you can check out their English counterpart, @whatsup_beijing: https://www.instagram.com/whatsup_beijing. Actual footage of the protests can be found on the Instagram account @northern_square: https://www.instagram.com/northern_square. If you want to distribute posters, here are some designs protestors have made: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vgjmsp8dgjnav93/AAD04p5ljQZ1hi9YSz4TAfmHa/%E6%9C%89hashtag%E6%B5%B7%E6%8A%A5?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1, https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vgjmsp8dgjnav93/AACsR7d5ICrG7hlYPErJSIuEa/%E6%97%A0hashtag%E6%B5%B7%E6%8A%A5?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ql2CyIZfWy36nFRn0ahu83oCxh5zRXAj

This is the first time I've posted anything like this, and it is 2:49 AM in the morning so my post might not be perfect. If anyone has any resources or additions please feel free to add them in the reblogs! Also if you think the image IDs need improvement, or that I need more trigger/content warning tags please let me know by sending an ask or a message. Thank you.

#china #politics #protests #current events #human rights #covid 19 #tw politics #tw police #important #long post

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getvalentined · 4 months

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FF7 Fandom PSA

This is not a callout post, this is a warning about a genuinely dangerous abuser who uses fandom spaces to acquire victims.

Apparently my abusive ex is ingratiating himself into fandom spaces again, so if you're in the FF7 fandom please keep an eye out for someone calling himself Pix or Pixeled.

The details of what he did to me specifically are available in a post from almost exactly two years ago, readable here. Other people have shared their own stories, but I don't have the energy to dig up all of them. Trigger warnings for gaslighting, emotional abuse, violent threats, forced isolation, manipulation, and more that I'm definitely missing.

Known usernames:

Instagram: midgardsomrnights, pixeledartsy, okgoosefus, pixeledpalace

AO3: pixeled, pixeledxxx

tiktok: pixrexpen, gaywrathlet

FFXIV: sarielperedhil (on Brynhildr)

ko-fi: pixrexpalace

Other: pix pendragon, pixeled pendragon, pixrexpendragon

Some of these are current, most of them are not; he's no longer active here or on Twitter that I'm aware of, so I'm not referring to his usernames there, but he uses some combination of parts from these for his usernames everywhere so they followed the same theme.

This is not "fandom drama," this is a sincere warning to anyone in his orbit to be careful and be safe. Please love yourself more than he wants you to.

With that in mind, there are more personal details under the cut, discussing the fallout of going public with his abuse and more of his behavior; no screenshots on these because it's years in the past, not all of the related accounts and spaces still exist, and back when I was first gathering evidence I had to stop before it lapsed into the territory of emotional self-harm.

Same trigger warnings as above, plus racism, (implied) sexual exploitation, sexual manipulation, and discussion of Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

I want to be very clear that I was not the first person to go through this, I was just the first to go public afterward. I have lost relationships with people I thought were friends by doing so, and actually been referred to as abusive in response to my initial thread on Twitter letting people know what he'd done. I've had people who used his treatment of me as an excuse to join in with hurting me go on to co-opt my abuse to make themselves look like victims, claiming that we were best friends until he drove us apart—or worse, to use him as a complete stand-in for their own behavior, implying or outright stating that he forced them to isolate me from friends and fandom activities and treat me like shit, all while these people have me blocked on every possible platform where I could reconnect with them.

Pix was the Bad Guy of early 2022 on FF7 Twitter, and while he deserved the title, not everything everyone said about him was true. Not everything everyone said about me was true, either, but people tend to take anything connected to fandom as "drama," even when it involves literal abuse.

One thing I never told anyone except my closest friends is that Pix drove me to the verge of suicide multiple times. He put up videos insulting me to be "funny" and got friends laughing along, when I asked him to stop teasing me all the time he exploded and said that he was allowed to express himself however he wanted and if I had a problem then I should break up with him so he could finally kill himself guilt-free, he told me that he wasn't going to placate me anymore by saying "I love you," he told me in public spaces to shut up because I didn't know anything. He used racist slurs against Asian people behind my back and told everyone who called him on it that I'd told him it was all right, leading to a continuing belief among some circles that I have some deep internalized racism toward my own fucking ethnicity.

He told me that his mother saw me as a whore and a homewrecker, because I'd seduced him away from his boyfriend of eight years—in spite of the fact that I told him outright I did not want a romantic relationship with him because he was already in one, and I wouldn't be party to cheating. When I went public with what he did, he claimed that I pressured him into a romantic relationship, neglecting to mention that he'd been pushing for one almost since we met and that I'd shot him down because he was already with someone else. He said that I'd forced him to break up with his boyfriend, and seemed to be implying that I'd somehow sexually exploited him because I'm a cisgender lesbian and he identified as an aro/ace trans man at the time we broke up. When we got together, he identified as a bisexual nonbinary person.

To be completely honest, though, his orientation and gender identity doesn't even fucking matter with regards to the implication that I exploited him because we never had any form of sexual contact—unless you want to count RP, which I don't, and if I did I would be calling him a cheater because I was not his only RP partner.

To be completely clear, we were in a long distance relationship, thousands of miles apart, and we had no sexual contact. We never sexted, we never had phone sex, we never even exchanged dirty pictures. Our relationship had no sexual element whatsoever. He eventually told me in no uncertain terms that if/when we got married, he wasn't going to sleep with me because he didn't have a sex drive anymore due to trauma, and that since I loved him so much I'd have to be happy with that.

He would remind me of this when my Body Dysmorphic Disorder began to relapse constantly from the amount of stress he had me under, because my experience with the condition is rooted on my lack of physical femininity and leads me to see myself as completely sexually repulsive. When I was triggered and trying to untie the knot in my chest that made me want to throw up at the thought of my own body, he would remind me that I didn't have to worry about being too ugly for sex with him, because he was never going to fuck me anyway. That it didn't matter if I was disgusting, because he found all bodies disgusting, so really I was lucky to have him. He didn't even care that I was disabled and that my arms and legs are too long, that my joints slip out of place all the time, that the way I have to move sometimes to keep from hurting makes me look "weird and stupid." I was so lucky to have him, because even though he was very aware of all those things, he didn't actually care. He wasn't going to fuck me anyway.

The last Christmas card he sent me literally had the words "You deserve a high-five!" printed on the front, and on the reverse he'd written something along the lines of "okay but you know I'd be sure to miss and slap you in the face, sorry not sorry."

He made my life hell in every possible way, and people said it was drama because we met through fandom—and that I deserved it, honestly, since I was so fucked up and he was such a good person for even caring about me in the first place. I deserved it, people said, since I turned around and stabbed him in the back after he'd done so much for me for the years we were together. It was just fandom drama, they said, and I was just thriving off the social capital it allegedly earned me.

And now he's back and making new friends, but it's fine because this all happened years ago, and everyone with a brain should be able to see that it's just fandom drama. But it's not. It never was. Don't let him convince you otherwise.

#PSA #personal #abuse tw #should I tag this with the fandom?#should I put it on the block?#it's dangerous #for me #but I think it's worth it #to keep others safe #final fantasy 7 #FF7 #final fantasy vii #FFVII #rufus shinra #tsengru #rutseng #the [redacted] files

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neolando · 2 months

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idk how tumblr works

i seriously have no clue, but i use twitter frequently and it’s like the same thing? idk but if anyone wants to be moots follow me!! i’ll follow back!

some stuff about me:

•my names Thomas! i use he/him, and i’m European :)

• like i said previously, i don’t know how tumblr works but i’d like some moots and maybe share some content or sm?? yeah idk

•i like f1 and f2 and my fav drivers are: LN4, SV5, OP81, KR7, KA12, MV1, CL16!! (i like literally the entire grid and a bunch of past drivers so i can’t list them all 💀)

•i like kpop (pls i promise i’m not one of THOSE kpop fans) i mostly like bg’s but here’s my fav groups: skz, nct (im sure you can tell by my username lol), txt, enhypen, red velvet and nwjns!!

if you wanna be moots follow me and reply to this post if you want? have a nice day :)

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jinkiesjunko · 10 months

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Loona fwom the silly hell show x3

i never noticed how she just has 900 shades of grey on her. it's all grey. what

also might open comms soon !!! not sure if anyone's gonna be interested on here but thought i'd mention it anyways uwu and i got more stuff on my insta and twitter X incase anyone wants to follow me on there too uwu same username as here ! (jinkiesjunko) <3

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bhryn-art · 3 days

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SHE LIIIIIIVES

Okay so there's been some time since I last used my Tumblr, and I guess we'd better chat - HI, how are ya? This will be a decent chat, I'll do us all a favour and pop it behind a careful little barrier so you can read at your leisure. Before that! WHERE AM I? Find me at these places: TWITTER/X: Bhryn BSKY: It's still Bhryn CARA: Take a wild guess - Bhryn Ao3 (it's ALL Fire Emblem not sorry!): Bhryn Astairre What's happening with Bhryn/Ferai? Well...

It's been a long time coming, but I think almost anyone who had been close to me has known this was going to turn up one day. And hey, I had a good long run. I never finished Endwalker. I got to around level 77? I think? And I just... didn't feel it anymore. I told myself I'd go back when my interest picked up. It never did. I instead became a lot more invested in other things, and took a huge break from everything to try dealing with my declining health. To that end; thank you, for all the wonderful friends I made on FFXIV, for the fun times we had. But it's time I moved on. I have no immediate or long term plans to return to FFXIV, and I wish everyone who still plays a great, fun time with the game going forward. I won't say for certain that I'm leaving, but I know for now, it's far back on the shelf for me. A large part in this is my decline in health. I'm currently bedbound - I wasn't a couple of years ago, but times change! You just have to roll with the punches. One of these is having a frankly rubbish laptop that wheezes when I play Content Warning and Lethal Company. I dread to think how on fire it would be if I tried even loading the FFXIV benchmark! I also made the choice to get a Steamdeck rather than a new laptop. This laptop still runs my art programmes and lets me write and talk to friends, so I don't need the upgrade badly (I say, side-eyeing the loud and grating noises it keeps making on waking up from sleep with nervousness). The other big punch is the worsening of my hands. Years ago I mentioned to my friends and followers that my EDS was never going to settle for just being a pain in my hip, knees, neck... any joint basically. EDS was always going to be a slow progression. I fought hard against it, and I'm still fighting! To the best of my abilities! But there came a point when finishing off a piece of work for a client, that I realised I simply didn't have the physical stamina or the dexterity in my hands/fingers to do long term brief work anymore. This loss of skillful motion has affected me playing games. I used to joke about having 'old lady reflexes' but honestly, I really do have them now! So I stripped back artwork to be 'just for me, just for fun'. The same for games. Anything that I cannot play well on a controller? Not worth it. I can play Ninja in ffxiv on a controller, but we come back to my Craptop Self Immolating if I tried. So what happens now to me? Now, I try and relax best I can (I caught the Rona four weeks ago, I'm still sore throat and itching in my chest/wheezing/terrible crackling in my chest) and work on my surroundings to give myself the best chance going forward to improve my life. This tumblr, when I made it, it was for me to play my FFXIV character. I have a couple of choices open to me, but I think I would like to change it completely over to an art and writing blog, just in general. To do that, I would have to go and take my username from my old blog and put it on this one. OR, I let this stay as an idle blog and dust off my old tumblr and move ahead with that. I'm still undecided! But, whatever I choose, I want you to remember; You're great. Be kind, do kind things, leave the world better than how you found it. You got this. You always did. With love; Me xxx

#ferai caolann #bhryn #tumblr changes #going forward #ffxiv #art #writing #where to find me #update #love you all #thanks for all the fish

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swords-of-a-soilder · 4 months

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Bless you for compiling what’s going on with that ex-bird app. It’s been genuinely insightful for me to understand the thoughts of the kinds of people behind those accounts.

That person trying to cancel creators for associating with Forever (and probably advocating for his lore to be excised from the server) saying “but I can’t possibly give up guapoduo, it’s My Hyperfixation” is very telling. Hypocrisy specifically in the context of “separating the art from the artist” isn’t something I’ve seen before, shockingly, so I guess I get to add that to my Social Media Discourse Bingo. (I had an online friend in 2016 who I was terrified to talk about my interests with because I didn’t know what angry punk teenagers on tumblr had deemed “evil and disgusting”, and even SHE stopped listening to some of her favorite metal bands when she learned they were homophobic, and had absolute turmoil when she learned that David Bowie might have allegedly slept with an underage groupie in the 70s. Her constant, unpredictable rage at seemingly random pieces of media was awful for my mental health, but at least she wasn’t a genuine hypocrite.)

Also that tone of “I’ve had good memories here… but I just can’t handle it anymore.” It sounds like someone whose meaningful but soul-crushing work has finally broken them, almost sounding like someone I knew at the frontline worker job I had mid-pandemic who missed her own birthday three years in a row, got repetitive stress injuries, and then got passed over for a promotion that was given to someone who did a fraction of the work. But the “God willing, I’ll never come back” was followed by “I’m 13” …damn, I got whiplash so hard that I astral projected into a universe where things made sense for a second. Because of course kids don’t have a complex view of other countries’ political systems or cultural pressures. Or the nuances of personal change and redemption. Or that sometimes people are just not online for a few days. And of course a 13-year-old doesn’t understand how dumb and petty they look by trying to ruin other peoples’ careers in the name of Activism (tm) while having a fandom portmanteau username.

“I didn’t want it to come to this but… I’m going to delete twitter!” I hope so, but more for their own sake, honestly. I actually have less anger towards most of them now. Many are kids with a false sense of grandiosity that makes them believe they are the ultimate moral authority, but have very little understanding of how messy people or societies can be. I just hope they can learn one day, and look back on who they are now and cringe. (And then many years after that, have the grace to forgive themselves.)

Oof, sorry for the wall of text.

I’m still not over the whole situation with Forever. I miss his energy, and his accent, and his silly bits with Richas that always dragged on too long, and N.I.N.H.O. (and everything it represented), and how different he and Cellbit are but how they understood each other WAY too well, and how he tried to make people who didn’t log onto the server as often still feel welcome and wanted, and how happy he got when anyone non-Brazilian even tried to speak a little bit of Portuguese. (I was learning, but I’ve barely touched it since.) I won’t lie, it’s affected me far more than I thought it would.

I miss Forever. Thank you for your blog being a little space where that’s okay.

I'm honestly a little worried for the kid (s), not in a "oh I just want the best for" fake bs way just a little concerned tbh. I still don't like them but I don't hate them either, they're a kid.

But at the same time I'm worried for their well being, they have like 5,000 follower on their main Twitter and 28 on curious cat (which is apprantly high for that app )

That's 5000 people (teens or not) waiting for you to tell them how to feel that can't be good for their mental state, not for a 13 yr old kid.

Most of their life was spent learning about the world and their still learning, these are the ages where you're worried about the sun blowing up.

You haven't seen how awful the world can be yet, You haven't seen how much worst it could get you haven't learned calculus yet!

To you the world is only these 13 years and you think if you don't act now everything will be over.

I get it, I had that fear too, most people grown into it and realize just how shitty it can get an settle in choosing their own battles and not letting It consume them, because no one had time for that anymore.

You want to experience the most out of live while you can and the older you get the easier it is to balance.

To me it looks like one of those situation where you'll look back and think "I wish I enojyed my childhood."

Because 5000 people waiting for you to tell them who to bash, 28 people prasing your while admitting they use to hate you.

It can't be good. And if they were to read this they'd probably say "oh you don't actually care you just want to shit on me."

And like, yeah I don't care, but am I saying all this because I want to shit on them? no I'm just pointing out concerns.

Apart from that I fully agree with anon.

#Ask #Qsmp #qsmp discussion

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princessmuk · 4 months

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Man, I don’t know what I’m gonna do if this site goes to shit. I deleted Twitter ages ago, Instagram is shit, TikTok is an actual hellscape and I only have the app to watch things my mom sends me, Reddit is insane, Facebook steals data and is old af, Pinterest is just masquerading as social media, Discord servers are intimidating, and any other site that seems cool costs money to join. I’ve been thinking about maybe making my own website but that would be more for sharing my creative endeavors, not for being social and interacting with fandom.

If anyone has suggestions, feel free to tell me. And to my mutuals and followers: Don’t hesitate to DM me your contact info if you think there’s a chance you’ll leave the site. Discord works best for one-on-one convos, but I’ve also got WhatsApp, Skype, email, and texting ofc.

If anyone wants to add me on Discord, my username is princessmuk, same as on here. Just lmk what your tumblr @ is so I don’t think you’re a spam bot lol.

#my post #tumblr is dying #I wanna be here until they force me off #but if the transphobia continues idk if I want to #also the ai shit? not cool #I love the fandoms chronological posts recycling of ideas etc #but this is getting ridiculous

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bizarrequazar · 1 year

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GJ and ZZH Updates — June 4-10

<<< previous week || all posts || following week >>>

This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)

[Glossary of names and terms] [Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]

06-04 → Nothing of note.

06-05 → Flora made a tweet showing that On Aura Tout Vu, the design company that posted the previous week about making one of the outfits at the Zhang Sanjian concerts (“for the amazing new collaboration ... for Zhang Zhehan”), had posted photos of the same outfit almost a year ago being worn by a showgirl. Their older posts (plural) are still up. In fact, the oldest post they have of the outfit is from March 2020, advertising it as part of their summer collection for that year. The black suit that On Aura Tout Vu also posted about was likewise a re-embellished older piece and the jewelry they’re advertising as “custom-made” for him is also from 2020.

→ 361° posted a video using Gong Jun’s travel photos to tease the video they would post the following day.

06-06 → Gong Jun posted nine scenery photos to Weibo. Caption: “The heart is steady, the results are good, and the seven-coloured clouds* are for everyone, jiayou!” The caption is presumably because it was national exam day. *symbol of good fortune Fan Observation: The post as a whole, especially the photos, are very similar in style to the 不想匿名 account (see the bottom of this post). The previous day, the account had been restricted by Zhihu and required to change its username; the specific reason is not known at the time of this post, but it was noted that another account with “匿名” in its username had the same happen.

→ 361° posted a video celebrating the second anniversary of their endorsement with Gong Jun.

→ The Instagram posted a video of “Zhang Zhehan” playing guitar.

→ #ZhangSanjian trended on Twitter.

06-07 → #TheRealZhangZhehan trended on Twitter.

→ A post was made by Sina TV announcing the passing of Ma Tao, Word of Honor’s producer, reportedly from liver cancer. A number of other staff who had worked on the show made posts in mourning.

#Word of Honor producer Ma Tao passed away# and #Word of Honor# got on Weibo’s entertainment hotsearch, Word of Honor and Ma-jie trended on Twitter.

→ The Instagram posted three photos of “Ma Tao” and “Zhang Zhehan” because these people have no fucking souls. Fan Observations: None of the photos are real, just fyi—obvious signs of photoshopping and “Ma Tao’s” teeth are wrong. Zhang Sanjian’s hair in the photos is the same as in the 2022-05-04 divorce video, so it’s suspected that these were prepared last year but weren’t used for some reason (likely because Ma-jie would have dragged their asses through the mud for trying to use her in their scam.)

→ The Rising with the Wind Weibo account posted a group promotional image featuring Gong Jun.

06-08 → Lexus posted a fake chatlog with Ma Tao in his Instagram story “in mourning” that claimed Zhang Zhehan had stayed with her while registering his case in 2021. Lexus is reportedly in Japan right now if anyone wants to go punch him in the gut.

06-09 → Tiffany & Co. announced a jewelry line using jellyfish imagery and whalers embarrassed themselves trying to claim that one of the most famous luxury brands in the world is trying to appeal to haizhes. The jellyfish brooch at the centre of the line was designed in 1967.

→ 361° posted three photo ads featuring Gong Jun.

→ A private wake was held for Ma Tao’s funeral, attended by Gong Jun. It is rumored that Zhang Zhehan was also in attendance, but this has not been confirmed in any capacity.

→ Zhang Sanjian paraded around the Shanghai airport in black, nominally “on the way to the wake,” because the scam gang have to make every moment about him. Fan Observation: It’s reported that the wake was held in the morning, while this Zhang Sanjian appearance was in the afternoon. The scam gang either didn’t know the time it was to be held at or they were trying to avoid the possibility of running into Gong Jun, who flew back to Haikou via the same airport after the wake.

6-10 Addition 06-14: The Singaporean paper Shin Min Daily News published an “email interview” article about Zhang Zhehan, taking the Zhang Sanjian scam and concerts as legitimate, with the first line of the article saying that Zhang Zhehan visited Yasukuni Shrine. This article was celebrated by whalers, with some blatantly omitting this first line—when confronted about this, they claimed it was no big deal for the very smears at the centre of 813 to be repeated here. The article also went on to say that Zhang Sanjian was “grateful for the opportunity” that his cancellation gave him.

→ Gong Jun posted a promotional video for 361°. (1129 kadian) Caption: “Walk in love, act in life, and protect beauty with green life. Be a green guardian with @ 361 Degrees” The same was also posted by 361° ten minutes later along with the catalogue of their new line.

→ Gong Jun’s studio posted a video of behind the scenes footage from his recent endorsement ads. Caption: “Happy weekend! A wave of @ Gong Jun Simon's small daily work, gaining a moment of indulgence in a hurry~” BGM is Babe by Evenings.

→ QuelleVous tweeted a thread about Xiao Chu, Word of Honor’s scriptwriter, explaining that her husband has connections to 6Rooms (a livestreaming platform tied to CAPA) and that she has not had a script project since Word of Honor due to a contract dispute at the company she works for.

→ Fresh posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

Additional Reading: → N/A

<<< previous week || all posts || following week >>>

This post was last edited 2023-06-14.

#Lots of upsetting stuff this week :(#Zhang Zhehan #Gong Jun #Word of Honor #woh cast #lld timeline

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lnfours · 4 months

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hey everyone!

it’s been brought to my attention that i have the same username and bio as someone on twitter, and i just wanted to make it known that i had NO intention of copying them. i feel really bad about the whole situation and if they would like to dm me, i’m 100% down to personally apologize.

on that note, thank you to the person who sent me a message and i’m very very sorry to the owner of the twitter account.

edit: everything’s been changed to something new and i’ve personally apologized to the girl running the twitter account. she hasn’t responded yet, not that she owes me anything, but i wanted to let her know i was sorry beings she would’ve never saw it over here.

update: she dmed me this morning and everything has been settled! there’s no bad blood or anything between us and everything is all good for both sides! it was simply just a whirlwind of confusion and i’m happy we could settle it :)

thank you to those who were kind, and for those who sent hateful messages my way, please know that your words can effect someone’s mental health. i don’t hold any grudges with those who run those accounts or anything of the sorts, but all i ask is that you please be kind to others. you never know what someone is going through and words do leave a bigger impact than you think. i work hard to keep a positive atmosphere and energy on this blog and i welcome everyone with open arms, those who have followed me/known me for years know that.

and as always, if anyone has any questions or anything of the sorts my dms and asks are always open!

thank you guys for your understanding! talk to you super soon! :)

- jordan 🧡

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achocolatemouse · 10 days

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Fur Art Scammers and YOU

Hello fellow furs! I'm Mouse, I'm an artist who's passionate and knowledgeable about navigating the current digital art scene. I wanted to make a FUR ART SCAMMERS AND YOU post with a few details about the modern commission scene and how to keep yourself safe. I feel like it's never a bad time to reiterate and practice good online safety. A lot of this applies to both art and fursuit parts. I hope the people who read it find it useful!

First thing is how to use google lens. Simply go to google and clich on the camera icon next to the search to open google lens. Click on exact matches or find image source to find links to the image. Google lens is your first line of defense against a scam. Any image that's a "sample" image from an artist can be fed into google lens and look for the results. When you feed one of my images in, it shows up with my DA, FA and YCH.art profiles amongst others. They all share similar usernames. If you fed another sample in you'd see that it shows up in the same profiles. Check profile pictures too if they're art. If, for example, one sample is from a FA, another is from a different FA and a profile pic is from an obscure twitter they're probably stolen. You can double check by PMing any of those source accounts to see if they are associated with the account you're in communication with.

What do you do if there are no results for ANY of their samples? That's ALSO a red flag. An artist should have a consistently hosted gallery. Most real artists who are serious about it try to promote themselves on as many places as possible to broaden their audience and commission pool, so why isn't this one? The "samples" could be AI, stolen from obscure sources, or drawovers of other peoples work.

The second is how are they contacting you. You should be contacting the artist not them reaching out to you unless you post publicly, and then they should be replying publicly not DMing unless you dm first. Generally a legitimate artist will not randomly DM you. If someone randomly DMs you they are probably a scammer and most groups ask you to report and remove them. They will also use odd language; "I will make your furry dreams come true/bring them to life/make them real!" "Hi I notice you are in the furry fandom how long have you liked furry characters? I want to make friends, can I ask you a few questions about your fur fandom characters?" "Do you have any art of your fursona?" "Do you happen to be a furry lover" "Do you play vr chat game?", etc. It follows some scripts/chatgpt like responses, so take care.

If you still want to order from someone who has red flags, consider asking for past clients to contact, speedpaint videos, or pictures of one of the samples (your pick) with layers visible. A reliable artist should have these things going back a few years or can produce one they posted before. They should be able to pull from any of the samples they send to you and send you layered versions of the image to prove they made it. It should show not only the layers in the program but what the picture looks like with some of them turned off so that you can see if they make any sense, as opposed to just someone taking a picture and making a bunch of fake layers. When receiving your image the artist should be able to send you WIPs as well, make it clear you expect these so you can ask for changes.

Just say no to anyone who wants to use a sketchier payment form like wiring them money, checks, Paypal friends and family, etc. Just say no to anyone who asks you to send them any money before they send you money. If you say no to them "sorry I'm broke, not sure when I wanna order" they should take no for an answer immediately or they might be a scammer. Ask for a turn around time on your picture that happens BEFORE you can no longer issue a backpay or request a refund through your payment service.

Most scammers just try to take your money and run but some of them send you either a bad drawover of someone else's work, or an AI image. There's whole articles about how to spot these things so I won't go into it, a lot of it is vibes and asking to see layers on their work/WIP images helps prevent these things. If you receive one of these things it's important to know that you *likely did not receive an image you own or have rights to*. This is especially true in the USA where only human generated content may be copywritten or owned (see images). Bad drawovers will have the same problem - the person who owns the image rights is the person whose works were traced. For drawovers of AI, they're copying a public domain work and so the copyright is public domain. Given that what you paid for was a custom created work that you can post online and own, you probably still got scammed even if you received something.

-Help! I've been scammed! What now!?-

Depends on how badly you got scammed. You can request a refund through your payment facilitator or bank to recoup the costs if you used a safer payment method. You can issue a beware, through groups like artistbeware or big facebook art groups, etc. But if it is a straight up scammer with a fake profile and stolen/ai/drawover art, they will not care because they're not trying to keep their profiles or a good reputation. They will get banned and make a new one. At that point your best choice is to report their profile to the facilitating company (fb, discord, tumblr, x, etc. as a scam/fraud/phishing profile) and get them removed from your circles/groups through local admins. A beware only matters for artists with a name to protect, your best solution is to block, report, and move on.

A couple of other small notes about misc conduct;

*Ownership of copywritten works is tricky, especially if one person made a design but another person drew an image of that design. If you commission a work you typically own the character you designed/own, but you DON'T own exclusive rights to the image. The rights belong to the artist too unless otherwise stated. A good artist will have a ToS/contract that details what your rights are and what the artists rights are to avoid conflict. Common terms may be the artist can share the work in galleries/self promotion, the commissioner does not own commercial rights, or you can't use the image to support hate groups.

*In some states it's becoming SUPER illegal to even accidentally present 18+ content to a minor. (see; the e621 issue) If you are ordering/asking to access NSFW, it's becoming more normal for artists to ask to age check people to cover their butts. It's standard procedure on a lot of big discords to access 18/21+ channels now a days. Most places encourage you to treat it like an ID check at a bar or a con, we just want to know you're 18+.

*NSFW art production is SW. Respect your artists boundaries and consider being willing to pay extra for it since it comes with certain risks regular art does not.

*Artists can get scammed too, and sometimes will do a whole commission and then never get paid. Having been/seen folks get burned plenty will not start drawing until the work is paid in full or half is put down as a deposit. This is pretty normal. Better to use other methods than asking to pay at the end of work to avoid getting scammed.

*New artists might not have past clients but should still have a full gallery and at least art trades under their belt. Labor for labor matters too.

*Excessively low prices matter and are often cited as a red flag, and not entirely unjustly so. A decent fullbody picture typically takes an artist a couple hours at least, and they have to pay to keep lights on and account for time spent communicating. It varies based on country and state but if you're paying $12 for a fullbody they have to live in a country with a very low cost of living for that to be worthwhile. But if they're just taking your money and run, it doesn't matter much. Ordering discount art CAN be fine (maybe they do live in a low COL nation), but MAY be a red flag. Also debating prices is not OK. The artist has a reason to ask those prices based on how much time it takes them to do their work and what they need to live. This is true for fursuit parts too. Art is a gig economy profession. Many people argue against paying artists a living wage per hour for various reasons but it's pretty simple; if you pay $20-50/hour for private tutoring, dog walking, babysitting, house cleaning, DJing, etc. your artist is deserving of those wages too. This helps keep skilled, local, furry artists working in the scene and keeps the community healthy.

I hope this information helps people avoid scams now and in the future. Scammers are always changing their systems. We all know not the fall for a Nigerian prince scam, but there's other, better scams these days. So be savvy, ask questions, and stay safe out there furs!

#furry #furry art #scammers #got scammed #artwork #digital art #digital illustration

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author-a-holmes · 1 year

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Obviously ignore this if you want but I saw you mention that you recently got published (congrats!!!) and I had a question. I'm still far out from that, but I know how to write and can research how to publish but I don't know how to market. Not only am I autistic and not charismatic, I want to solely use my pen name and distance my writing from my face because of my professional life. Do you know how to actually get people who might like your book to notice that it exists as an indie author with no previous following? Thank you if you have any advice!

Hello Moshke!

Thank you so much for the congratulations! It's taken longer than I expected but the realisation that I'm published is finally beginning to sink in! It's very surreal ^_^

I honestly don't know if I'm the right person to give advice on marketing as, at the moment, my book's been out just over a month and I feel like I'm stumbling around in the dark, but I wanted to give your ask due consideration and, despite my hesitation, I think I still have some tips that could hopefully help.

The reason I think I might have at least some relevant tidbits is that I'm also writing under a penname and most people don't seem to realise that.

Now, in my case, it's not about privacy it's just that don't like my given name enough to see it on book covers :D So I don't mind talking about it, but marketing your book under a penname isn't that much different to how you would market the book under your legal name.

Tip No. 1

Establish your pen name as a functional pseudonym now. Don't wait until you're ready to publish.

So, this stage was a little backwards for me. I come from the age of internet use where you did not give your real name online, under any circumstances, so I've always used various "online names".

By the time I decided that I was going to use "Arista Holmes" to publish under, anyone who knew me online already knew me as Ari. Even my best friend offline will sometimes call me Ari when we're chatting, so it had become as much an actual nickname as an online pseudonym.

But that's exactly what I'm getting at. I'm not pretending to be "Arista Holmes", I am Ari. A writer in her 30's based in the south east of England. The same way I'm Josie to my mum, or Jo-jo to my Godmother.

Tip No. 2

Don't think about it as marketing your book, but as creating an author "brand".

I'm using "Brand" here in the absence of a better term, because I absolutely hate thinking about this as a "brand", but what I mean is think of your Penname as something people will google search.

In fact, Google search your pen name.

As I mentioned, I'd been using "Arista Holmes" online for a while, and I had accounts all over the place that I didn't necessarily want coming up when people looked up my books.

(I will deny spending my youth on Neopets, it's just TOO embarrassing!)

But jokes aside; Google your pen name. See what comes up. Scroll through all 20, 30, 50 pages of google. Some asshole looking for some embarrassing post from your teen years won't stop at page five, and neither should you.

Shut down any accounts you find, or if you want to keep them, change the username to something else. The only non-publishing related account linked to Arista Holmes now is my AO3. I figure it's still writing, so no harm in leaving that one up.

Tip No. 3

Set up social media accounts now; Be as consistent as possible across all platforms.

Now, and I want to put this in big bold letters:

Having accounts on all the socials does not mean you will be active on all of them.

Or use them at all, in fact.

Having accounts on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, Youtube, etc etc etc, just means that if, by some miracle, you make it big and draw in fans you'll also inevitably draw trolls and by making the account with your pen name; it stops them claiming that username and pretending to be you.

It's a form of pre-emptive protection.

On that note; Be consistent across your accounts. Use the same profile picture, use the same header or banner, use the same colour scheme, use the same "About Me/About Author" description, and (as much as possible) use the same username format.

That last one won't be possible on all platforms. Some of them don't like periods/full stops. Some don't like underscores, but try to be as consistent as possible.

For example my account on here is author.a.holmes, most other places I'm aristaholmes. I'd change it, but at this point, I don't want to break all my links.

Tip No. 4

Author Pictures Are Not Required.

I'm adding this point here because I mentioned profile pictures in the previous tip. Author Pictures Are Not Required.

Don't get me wrong, they're often highly encouraged, and I can't deny that they give a humanising effect to the author, but that doesn't mean you actually have to show your face.

I've chosen to put my face on my "About The Author" page in the back of my book, but that's a personal choice. You don't have to add one at all! It's only more recently that I've seen fiction author photos in the back of books.

Until about... 15 years ago? Ish? I wouldn't have expected to see an author photo unless the book was non-fiction.

If you want to add a picture of you, but don't feel comfortable or can't because of real world problems, consider an artist's caricature instead. Go one step further than a pen-name and give yourself a pen-picture! Jenna Moreci uses an artist's interpretation as her profile picture/logo, and Lemony Snicket only had pictures of the back of his head for ages.

If you do decide to commission an artist though, do explain to them that it will be included in your books, that you'll be selling, as they will probably want to add a commercial licence price to the artwork; But if you explain why you're having the caricature done I imagine most artists would be very reasonable about it.

***

That's all my tips for setting up and marketing yourself, as the author, under a pen name... but I can already hear the voices in my head muttering that I've not really touched on how to get people to find you once you've set up the pen name, and the socials, and your website etc.

And it's because I personally think that if you're writing under a pen name you need to establish it as an entity in its own right before beginning to try marketing it.

So, moving on…

Tip No. 5

Find your place on the great, wide, interwebs...

I mentioned I'd been online as Arista Holmes for about 8-10 years prior to deciding to publish under this name, but once I did decide to publish I went and made all my author socials (just like I mentioned in Tip No. 3)

That was in 2020 and it was part experimentation, and part letting people find me. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with multiple social media's, and I also knew I didn't WANT to, so I made the socials and I started posting on each platform and figuring out which platforms I liked. Which ones were easy to use, and which ones got me the most engagement with other people.

For me, this turned out to be Tumblr and Instagram. Twitter and Facebook are like graveyards for me, and Tiktok is only a little better, but your mileage may vary.

I cross post consistently with Tumblr, Instagram, because those are the places I get the most engagement... but I also maintain a blog on my website and any big pieces of news (such as asking for ARC readers, or publishing my book) gets posted across ALL platforms because, well, I live in hope that one day my tiktok will go viral lol.

But honestly, the multiple socials literally eat up so much of the time I could spend writing; I highly recommend picking two, three at most, and focusing on them.

But what do you post? I can almost hear you yelling <3

Tip No. 6

How to market when you're shy/introverted/not-charismatic/or any other thing you feel is holding you back.

You're going to want to throw something at me but lean on your strengths. It sounds so simple, and I know it's not, I'm sorry, but here's what I mean by that.

When I was still experimenting with all the socials to find the ones I liked, I stumbled across an image. I want to say it was here on tumblr but, honestly, I don't remember and at the time I was neck deep in every marketing and promotional blog or article I could find trying to figure this shit out.

It was called "The Periodic Table of Content Marketing".

I don't know why this helped me wrap my head around marketing, but it did.

I read over each of the types of marketing and I started getting idea's.

Ebooks... I'd heard about people doing reader magnets for newsletter lists.

Interviews... I've seen authors on podcasts. I'd seen people on tumblr interviewing their characters. I could do that.

Trends... What are popular tropes if not trends of the moment?

And I suddenly realised that this silly little graph was all the different types of marketing I could do, broken down simply, and laid out neatly, and I could pick and choose not only the bits I was comfortable doing, but the bits that I was confident with.

I'm never going to put my face on a tiktok video and lipsync to popular songs, but I could write a 12,000 words short story prequel to my series and make it exclusive to newsletter subscribers.

That was something I could do, because it leaned on my strengths; My writing.

Because I haven't said it yet, but two years ago I'd have described myself very similarly to you.

I'm not charismatic. While I'm not autistic, I am painfully introverted. I have severe social anxiety. I'm not funny, I can't talk with strangers casually or easily. Talking about my book more than once a week feels like I'm bragging or being pushy... But I can write.

So I started looking for opportunities to share my writing, and let it... not speak for itself, but let my words draw in the audience. It still took a bit of pushing on my part, I would look for tag games where the user had left an "Open Tag" and I'd hop on those and share some words.

This is part of the reason Tumblr is one of my favourite places to network with writers and readers, because the tag games let me share and tease content without having to push through my social anxiety all that hard.

It's a slower, organic, audience growth but it's definitely my preference.

The content I shared on here, produced to play tag games, I quickly realised that I could copy it onto a pretty image in canva, and share it on instagram easier than I could condense a paragraph into the twitter character limit, or make it look appealing on Facebook's janky system.

And the more writing I shared, the more people commented and followed. And the more they commented and followed, the easier it was to talk to them. And then I started getting asks. That was nerve wracking and sometimes they'll still sit there a couple of months before I can make myself answer them.

(Sorry Sleepy and Avra, if you're reading this! I'll reply soon, I promise!)

Have I gone off topic here? I kind of feel like I have but also... not really.

If you feel like your writing is your strength, lean on it. Let it do the heavy lifting for you. Show your hand with your words.

By the time I set up my mailing list and offered 'Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail?' for free, I got 12 people to sign up straight away. I don't know if that's a lot, but it was at least eight more than I was expecting.

When my book launched, I received 14 reviews, and sold 20 copies the first month. Again, I don't know if this is a lot, but it was a whole hecking lot more than I'd hoped for.

I don't know if I'm good at marketing, and maybe someone will reblog and reply to this with better advice, or tear apart what I've said, and if they do great! I really hope it helps you or someone else down the reblog chain because, as I said at the start, I'm really just stumbling around in the dark and hoping I somehow get it all to work out lol

But I do just have one more piece of advice, that isn't really my advice...

Tip No. 7

Fake it until you make it.

You're a writer. The beauty of the internet is that we have time to stop, and think about the words we're writing in response to someone.

I'm a shy, introvert, who doesn't know when to shut up when she gets started talking about writing (Or at least that's what it looks like based on the length of this post...)

But 99% of people I speak to online don't know I'm an introvert. They don't know that after sending an email I have to go back to bed for a few hours to recover my energy, or that I can't answer a phone without feeling nauseous for the rest of the day and it's because when I'm online I'm Arista Holmes, and I can write my responses in the same way I write my characters.

I'm not saying I'm not being me, I am, but I'm also being given the time and space to be the confident me I want to be, rather than the nervous wreck I actually am.

Write your socials, and market your book, as the you that you’d write if you were dropped into one of your own books.

Fake it until you make it.

Handy Resource List For Marketing:

Periodic Table of Content Marketing

Jenna Moreci's Youtube - I take her writing advice with a huge chunk of salt, but her marketing advice is top notch.

Bethany Atazedah Youtube - Co-wrote a Marketing For Authors Non-fiction series, but a lot of her youtube videos contain good, free, advice too.

Self-Publishing With Dale - If you want to market effectively, keeping on top of the current trends and changes in the market is important. Self Publishing with Dale is the best way I've found to do that; He really has his fingers on the pulse of the Self Publishing Market, and even if you're not publishing yet, checking out some of his videos can teach you loads about what to do, but more importantly, what NOT to do.

Michael Anderle's 20Bookto50k system - I didn't mention it as a tip but the BEST form of marketing a book is to write the next book. Michael Anderle talks about his theory that is you have 20 books published, your backlist of royalty income should net you around $50k a year. The hour and a half talk changed my whole marketing outlook and is why I'm focussed on a slow grown, more organically sourced, audience rather thank paid advertising.

Abbie Emmons Youtube - I'm not sure I should include Abbie in a list of marketing resources as she's often more about the writing side of the craft, but her videos have been invaluable to me, so she's just worth checking out in general.

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