#me in 10 years. if this platform still exists. I want you to go through your diary and I want you to see how far you’ve come. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bekolxeram · 8 days

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I'm not on bird app, and TikTok is geoblocked here, so I don't usually get too deep into fandom drama, nor am I interested in it. Unfortunately, it seems like the drama is spilling over here, and it has me questioning my reading comprehension for the past few days honestly. So here goes nothing, if you don't want to read about fandom discourse (which I recommend, for your own mental health), feel free to ignore this post. I just feel like I'm going insane so I need to get it off my chest.

From what I've read here, someone on bird app demanded Lou to explain some racist/misogynist memes he posted on insta over a decade ago, which were still on his page until very recently. Lou replied with this screenshot:

(Username crossed out to protect their identity.)

I've heard rumors of a certain subsection of the fandom impersonating bucktommy fans in order to stir up controversies. Again, I'm not on those sites, I can't confirm that, but I do admit the timeline is a bit suspicious. I get why some of you immediately rush to defend Lou and theorize that he was hacked, but I feel like it's such a cop out. Too many problematic figures get off scot-free just by claiming they were hacked. I'll hold out my judgement on that until more verified information comes out.

So for consistency's sake, I'm going to play devil's advocate, let's assume it really was Lou who tweeted that. I still don't see how it makes him an ableist?

First, it wasn't him who made this comment, the owner of that instagram account did. It wasn't even someone else's tweet or meme that he reposted, or did he signify his agreement to this statement. It was literally someone else's insta bio, a line that somebody else used to represent themself.

Second, look at the insta account itself. It's a K-pop stan account with 0 post and only 1 follower. It follows 19 celebrity pages, so it's safe to say someone made this account especially to snoop on celebrity news. How did Lou even find out the existence of such an account? That user must've initiated some kind of contact with Lou first, either through DMs or comments. Lou's an actor on a hit TV show, I'm sure he gets random comments from strangers every day. For a random stan account to stand out, they must've made an impression, probably not a good one either.

Third, it was posted as a direct response to someone demanding explanation for Lou's past problematic insta content. Why would he make an unrelated ableist joke about bullying blind kids in response to that? It's clearly a sort of gotcha attempt at pointing out the hypocrisy of the people pestering him online lately. They accuse Lou of being a bigot and try to get him fired, but at the same time they make jokes like this, so they're not in a place to judge him. Which is..... a shit retort. Lou's social media history WAS problematic, people have to right to question him on that. Him hitting back is whataboutism, but it doesn't make it less true, those people ARE bullies.

As I've said before, you don't have to be okay with Lou's past. I personally don't care, as I don't know him as a person, I also don't know who he was 10 years ago and what kind of environment he was in. As long as he's not actively using his platform to promote harmful views or using his fame to exploit people, I'm as okay with him as his co-workers are.

You do you, you can dislike him, outright hate him even, but you have to ignore all context and twist words around in order to paint him as an ableist asshole with this and this only.

#lou ferrigno jr #i just want to go back to the helicopter stuff #fandom discourse #I have the same bigoted jokes made around me TO THIS DAY #I have bigger fish to fry #I was a kpop stan nearly 20 years ago #We've lost so many people over online bullying

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drowninginthoughts27 · 9 months

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5/9 Train Word Count: 1120

(general angst) @jegulus-microfic

The first time James Potter met Regulus Black was on the first of September on the Hogwarts Express.

“It’s 10:56. Where is he? The train leaves at 11 o’clock sharp!” Sirius runs his fingers through his hair, stressed beyond belief.

“Again, are you sure he exists? Anyone with the name ‘Prongs’ sounds made up to me. Like an imaginary friend or something.” Regulus snorts, he’s tugging on Sirius’ jumper sleeve to try to drag him onto the train.

“Yes I’m sure he exists Reggie, unlike you I have friends!” Smirking, Sirius twists himself free from Regulus’ grasp. “Hey that’s not fair I have Pandora and Evan! They just aren’t idiots who want to risk missing their first day at Hogwarts to wait on some possibly made up boy.”

“If you wanna go and find the carriage you can but I’m waiting here until just before the clock strikes 11. He won’t miss the train believe me,” Regulus dosn’t respond to that. Having to navigate the train alone is almost worse than missing the Hogwarts Express. And as much as Regulus hates to admit it he does trust Sirius.

So he opts to just stand by Sirius’ side right in front of the open train doors, fidgeting with the hem of his new robes. Unlike Sirius who’s in an old jumper and jeans, Regulus had changed into his school robes before arriving at King’s Cross Station due to his pent up nervous excitement.

“Reggie look, he’s here! I told you he was real! I told you he would come!” Sirius is now waving his arms excitedly jumping up and down on the platform.

The boy who had previously been looking around like a lost puppy notices Sirius and starts bounding over to them. Tripping over the trunk he’s lugging every few steps.

The boy has a rather disheveled look about him. He’s on the taller side. Dark brown curls sticking up in all directions, giving the impression that he had just rolled out of bed. His chocolate eyes are full of mischievous excitement. He’s decked out in all red and gold- Gryffindor house colors. His socks are mismatched, his shoes left untied, and he sports a sloppy, toothy grin.

“James!” Sirius exclaims; still jumping up and down with joy. “You almost missed the train. We were getting worried ya know.” Sirius is now sporting an almost identical grin to the one plastered on James’ face. “This is the infamous Reggie!” Sirius says, gesturing to Regulus with a wide sweeping motion with his hands.

“Ya, sorry about that,” he says to Sirius.

And then lowering his head to match Regulus’ height he says: “Hi Reggie, it’s nice to meet you! I’m James!”

Regulus is more nervous than he was before.

No wonder Sirius had found him a replacement. He doesn’t stand a chance next to James and his obnoxiously cheery personality.

Snapping out of his trance he mumbles “Regulus is fine,” in James’ direction.

The warning whistle blows telling them it’s nearly 11. So with that all three of them rush off to go and find the carriage Remus and Pete had already claimed for the five of them.

The train ride is chaotic and weather is persistently somber but despite the rainy day outside Regulus arrives at Hogsmead Station in a weirdly good mood. The mood ends up lasting with him until well after the first years had been carted off across the Black Lake. James’ energy is apparently infectious.

———

The last time James Potter and Regulus Black Meet is on the fifth of January, back at Hogwarts.

Well it’s not truly the last time they meet but from then on out Regulus is not truly Regulus any more. He’s nothing but a shell of his former self. One known formally as Regulus Arcturus Black.

“Sirius, he's gonna come, trust me!”

“I’m not sure about that James, it’s almost 11. Regulus is never late for anything. Especially when it comes to his academics.” Sirius is getting progressively more worried by both the lack of an appearance from his brother and the growing distress in James’ voice.

“Nobody can be perfectly punctual all the time. He’ll show up, trust me,” James persists.

Just then the warning whistle that signals the trains nearing departure sounds.

“James, we have to go! We can write to him later or for all we know he might already be there,” Sirius forces out a laugh in hopes to lighten the mood.

James looks like he’s on the verge of tears and Sirius can’t have that happen.

“Now go do your head boy duties, it’ll distract you. Reggie will be back before you know it. I promise,” the minute he says it he regrets it, he can’t promise anything regarding Regulus these days.

Nearing the Christmas Holidays Regulus had become far more on edge, his actions nearing irrational, and his stress levels clearly through the roof. James just didn’t want to admit anything. He was clinging on to his last pieces of hope, living in delusion.

Halfway through dinner that night Regulus walks through the large entry doors to the Great Hall. Almost immediately James spots him.

“Always did have a flair for dramatics didn’t he,” Sirius scoffs.

“Regulus, Reg, Reggie!” James shouts to him, bouncing in his seat with anticipation.

But despite James’ countless efforts to get his boyfriend’s attention Regulus struts right over to the Slytherin table. Ignoring James completely and sitting down in between Pandora and Barty.

After dinner James makes up some lame excuse to Sirius, Peter, and Remus to hang back for a bit. Telling them that they can leave without him and that he’ll meet them back at the dorms later. He knows they can see right through him. He was miserable the remainder of dinner and barely touched his dessert. But right now he can’t find it in him to care that much.

James stands there, waiting by the exit of the dinning hall. The minute he sees Regulus walking alone to the Slytherin dorms, relief floods through him. It’s all gonna be okay, he tells himself.

Taking his chance he runs into the crowd to walk besides Regulus. This only causes Regulus to speed up.

“Wait, Reg, wait!” James is frantic now, jogging beside him. Dodging people left and right in an attempt not to run into anyone.

“Shove off Potter”

This causes James to take a step back in shock. His bottom lip is trembling, he’s stammering over incoherent words and phrases. Really just jumbles of nonsense at this point.

“It’s over!” Regulus growls “It really shouldn’t have been anything in the first place!” With that Regulus turns his shoulder on James, storming off into the crowd.

#so ummm #yeah #I originaly planned to write this in between classes #but I had a shit tone of work to do for my latin class #so instead I wrote this in Starbucks well sipping on my over priced coffee #and then edited it in between reading for classes #also this is longer than normal #so there’s that #Em’s microfics #marauders #jegulus #james x regulus

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doppelwertig · 6 months

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Into the floods

It's 7:30 a.m. and I decide to head to the peaceful spa town I've been avoiding for five years now. It is the small place for which, or rather for the person living in it at the time, I moved to the south.

This town has been a spiky thorn in my heart for the last few years and I just couldn't bring myself to walk the old streets again. But today, December 21st, 2023, the time has come. I just spontaneously travel there. I left work behind. It will still be there when I get back, although I don't know when that will be.

I'm setting out because I want to part with an item whose absence would have hurt for a long time.

About the importance of beloved objects

In 2012 I bought a bracelet and had my master put it on me. Even though I parted with my necklace and collar, I couldn't part with the stainless steel around my wrist. I don't even like the strict feeling of metal...but it's soaked in memories. It is now rusty, grimy and can hardly be closed properly.

The thought of getting rid of the bracelet tore me up years ago. I wasn't ready. Probably also out of pain about how much I missed what I had in this relationship. So I've tried reframing for the last few years. But how effective is changing your thinking with an object that was placed on you by someone who is still so close to your heart?

I have to at least replace it. It took some research, but then I found a bracelet that looked identical. Ultimately, I love the style and meaning too much to part with a look that suits me. It will be here in a few days.

I wanted to give the old bracelet to the river we sat by so often. At first I planned to just walk a few meters to the river part in my city, but it is more correct to visit the place where it all began.

New and old

It is said that it takes the body 7 to 10 years to completely replace all of its cells. However, the skin cells are recreated after just a few weeks. In May it will be 7 years for this body. I always liked the idea that soon there wouldn't be a cell in my body that he touched - a kind of cellular new beginning. Even if the descendants may vaguely remember the bittersweet touches.

With these clammy feelings, I got off the train and stumbled to the new display board, which didn't exist the last time I was there. I no longer knew in which direction the small island in the river that I wanted to go to later was. Luckily this map existed. I planned the route like this: to his old apartment, then through some backstreets, on to the island and then to one of the train stations, depending on what felt right later.

Just walking a few meters on the platform tore me apart. Here I was often picked up or send home accompanied by a small dog...time for a certain song.

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Ewigheim - …

On the way to the old apartment it became more and more difficult. I couldn't see the old porch because of the now very tall hedges - but the entrance at the back offered the same barren sight as before. Even the black dirt seemed to still adorn the same parts of the house wall.

I saw the crack where we found the lost cat under the balcony and the outline of the old rusty bicycle popped up in the driveway.

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Die Heart - Eins (feat. 8Kids)

It was time. I said goodbye to the apartment and chose a new song. Shuffle gets you the right thing. This part of the journey, especially with this song, was hard. Tears formed as I slowly had to pass a train stop. Some guy pointed his phone camera at me. I stared up angrily, but continued on, undeterred.

Soon the climax of the song was approaching and I wanted to scream so much, but I can't. “That’s what my soul sounds like,” I thought. She croaks from all the internal screaming.

So just keep going. I wanted to be close to the river, so I had to go to a place where countless dogs are walked. Two people and their worried animals eyed me as I headed towards the front of the river island, bundled up and with a red face.

All the way to the sea

I had worn the bracelet until now, but I could hardly feel it due to the thick winter padding. I pulled out my phone. I wanted to capture the location of the river: dirty-looking rapids where the water roared past me with incredible force. Then take off the bracelet and take a photo of it at the location. Great, no problem at all.

Now put the cell phone away - “Oh, change the song first”. I anxiously fumbled the phone in and out a few times.

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TANZWUT – Meer

I knelt down and held the shimmering stainless steel ring in my hands. Somehow I wanted to let go - to stop being so attached to this person. I remembered the beautiful moments, all the things I miss and the things for which I haven't yet found suitable new people. But my heart should be open to it.

Big tears and the snottiest snot in a long time burst out of me. I just let everything go. This is probably the sadness that only the sea can contain.

I longed for the sea.

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TANZWUT – Bis zum Meer feat. Moran Magal

After killing two more tissues, I prepared to put the bracelet in the river with a new song. I didn't want to throw it, I wanted to dip it in slowly and then let it go, feeling the cold water on my fingers.

It took me a while to gather the courage I needed. My fingers were already completely cold when I left it to the waves. I immediately lost sight of it. Tears streamed down my cheeks again.

Although I couldn't promise myself that it would be the last time I shed tears over this person, I at least knew that all the water in the world would be there for me.

My gaze lingered on the waves for a while until I decided to leave. I disposed of the small ball of snot flags in the nearest wastebasket and began the slow walk back to the train stop. I didn't care when the next train came. Just wait there and see.

Longing

An incredible longing for the Baltic Sea spread within me. Actually, there's nothing I'd rather do right now than take the next train and stare at the sea for a few days. But I have responsibilities and obligations.

Now I'm waiting for the new bracelet. Let's see how that feels.

#writing

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carrotkayt · 3 months

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Introduction, rabbit hole, personal note

Personally I've lost sense of what a feeling sounds like. I just know my sight to see the world is veiled by my ambivalence with being a part of it and that feels like something.

What trips me up is the words and phrases all smashed into 90 second videos, interfering with my ability to actually do anything because I'd rather watch than play, an unfamiliar game. All the words we have for brainwashing. Insemination, dogmatic, narcissistic, propaganda shoved down the opticals, spectacle.

The ironic, the hopeful, maybe this will help someone else while they go through the process, now I'm wondering if sharing actualizes what you're doing, and I'm afraid to share. Or if it just contributes to the fog. Discovering that this fog is a smoke filled consciousness echo, saying fix this fix that fix it. Inside a self righteous thunderdome for the entertainment of many, and the first platforms to live stream genocides.

Have you not experienced ego death? OH, its radicalizing, you have to see for yourself then maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.

Am I being dramatic.

Whatever, I'm bothered.

Bothered by society, bothered by humanity, or the lack there of, fully aware that I'm bothered by my perception but I promise I've seen through others, brightly colored, softly toned, calm stone below the crisp and shallow puddle but still underneath it all, I come back here for a reason.

There's something with our psyche, a bug, a virus, an error alert you can't just hit X. Ultimately I feel like we could at least agree on that. We deal with these popups all day, in many different ways.

Ok ok, scroll past the rabbit hole or read me through

It's intermission during the show and we decide mid conversation to start remembering backwards all the things we had said. And its really fucking hard, like memory is weird enough and now it's being tested? But I really think it's necessary, and arguments are inevitable. And to get past it all we need to be is open with a filter, the rest is just the process, processing, in a perfect mind.

But were not, we don't have perfect minds, we don't live in a perfect world, I haven't been able to re trace a conversation without yelling since the first time I tried when we were like 10 or something.

So what if we're required, to stop and listen, hear the experiences around me, its not just mine that weighs when I'm crying, there are so many of us and we all have our own to share.

Small set backs you re-calculate and re code, continue with the day. Within that we have different understandings of a small set-back.

But harsher road blocks are placed systemically for us to go through together because how the hell can a mind be well, when you have a piece of it brutalizing and dehumanizing itself with its apparently gained power? I know we can do this to ourselves everyday in small ways.

And how are we supposed be okay with this as reality! It's so easy to close your eyes when the worst isn't happening to you. The thing is there's a worse state of being that you just thought of, or you might agree that it's a malfunction to normalize the effects of poison without treating it's sickly condition. A trick of the mind.

We rationalize our misfortunes under the pretense that one is better then one, then dare to say we deserve what we have because of who I am. And who are you?

The child of a mother of a mother of a mother, where do you think I came from?

I'm going to share a corner of grief, because under the screen under the stars under the eye lids and empty hellos, I'm really fucking lonely.

I noticed you in my fear of connection, reconnecting, wanting to connect.

I've deleted, blocked and removed myself from all social platforms at least 3 times, and in just that moment of humiliation erased every number, every face, every voice, every friend that ever existed within a 10 year sphere of community. Which sounds just digital but it showed me how badly I keep in touch. That has something to do with being seen, and everything to do with seeing myself. Why is that so disgusting. 12th house sun? 1st house rising? Probably my Mercury in Pisces, something aspects around and around this deep dark pit and it makes me so fucking difficult to be around.

They tried to teach me but I don't think I understand.

And I think that's what I am most pissed off about. From the age of diapers, according to my mom, I had an expression of no fucking way are you gonna control me. Have charge over me. And with that one moment I became free to destroy myself as long as it was safe.

As long as someone could watch.

As long as someone knew.

And I never got prepared to protect myself.

With all the appreciation and gratitude I owe my parents, and the adults that raised me in tandem, and the blessing of a life I was gifted into, today I still I have to stop myself from blaming every figure that just watched me as I walked myself off a fucking cliff.

I was a kid, why wouldn't anyone stop me. Or why didn't they know? I guess they tried in they're own way, even today the way people help doesn't seem to get though my thick ass skull. So it really is still.. me huh.

Because I knew EXACTLY what I was setting myself up for, it just happened to be rooted in slowly slowly slowly ruining myself, my ambition, my hopes, my dreams, my goal was never to succeed, not in a new smart gifted way it was to ruin myself so I could at least now, finally, have a concrete reason for why I just cant get it done.

And that's going to be a whole conversation about privilege.

Right now I just feel failed by myself and anyone who could have guided me. Even typing I'm thinking fuck! I should take it all back!

And this is the feeling, so maybe to forgive myself and everyone else I have to be okay with this feeling. Because I know things now, and I knew parts then, but I stayed quite, silent, dismissive, and willing to see what would happen. Which sounds a lot like eating the poison.

But I don't know where I am now, 10 years have passed and in a very very strange way, I'm back where I started, with a twist, and it's kind of laughable, and I am maybe enjoying this, but there is a lot, a lot to talk about.

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mspirations · 1 year

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Let me start by saying this is NOT goodbye

(I'm not mean, I'm just tired.)

I know that each of you would like to see your favorite character here, but I am not able to create them all. It's still a one-person blog, and like other bloggers, we all have our own lives. Over the past year and a half, you've sent me a lot of character suggestions.

Creation takes time, and some of them take a lot of it. And I'm not talking about months, but years.

You must remember that sometimes it happens that a character wears 1 outfit for several episodes, such as Clarke Griffin and yes, such characters are less demanding, but there are also such characters as Fallon or Cheryl who can change clothes 6 times in one episode (Fallon even 9 times).

Someone may say that I use other people's work, so it should be easy for me. Yes, these sites are a big help for me and I am very grateful to them for what they do. Unfortunately, not everything is there. If I am unable to find what I need on such a site, I start looking for it myself and sometimes I succeed, and if not, at least I have a similar item that I can use.

Those sets are not just clothes...

Browsing through all screenshots, looking for the smallest detail and the best picture that shows it (e.g. earrings or rings), copying, pasting, cutting, adding clothes, accessories, putting everything together, editing the focus and brightness of photos, etc. It all seems like a quick and easy process, but if you want to do something right, you have to put time and heart into it. Yes, I can take a few more characters on the workshop but then these sets will lose quality and I care about it and I believe you care too.

On this site, the blog has existed for almost 5 years, on the previous platform that was sold, it also existed for about 5 years (less active). Which makes 10 years. For most of that time, I never thought that I would ever stop doing it, but for the last few months I feel terribly overwhelmed by everything, tired and I feel like I'm slowly burning out and i don’t like it.

I haven't taken a break from creating these sets for a few years, maybe except for the month I moved, but it doesn't count. Day by day, episode by episode, a new piece of the puzzle was created.

At the same time, fandom art was created, which was an escape from all fashion sets (series/movies). Thanks to this, over time I added 3 permanent points of the blog, such as Halloween month, Valentine's weekend or birthday and I'm proud of them.

Don't get me wrong I love this blog and you guys and I would like to come up with a plan to keep creating and publishing, but maybe the perfect plan doesn't exist? Maybe I just needs a longer break? It wasn't an easy decision for me, and I'm not going to give up that easily. I have specific plans for this year and I would like to come back and make them real.

Last year I wrote that there is a possibility that in 2023 there will be a new survey, and I would like to do it too.

So... in short:

- I'm not saying goodbye

- I'm just taking a break (I don't know how long)

- While I'm gone, posts I've made will still be published (non-fashion related)

- I'm not disappearing from tumblr or pinterest so we can still keep in touch

Hope to see you soon!

- M

#mspirations

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cheesybadgers · 10 months

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I read the post about people not using the ask feature anymore. So three asks:

1. Do you think the ask feature has been decimated by Discord Servers? I find that's where most of my fandom discussions happen nowadays. It's collaborative and less clunky once you get a critical mass of like minded people.

2. What kind of asks do you miss most? Questions about your current fandom? Questions about your personal life or preferences? Something random and batshit insane?

3. How do you feel about anonymous ask? I hate being perceived, so here we are.

Hey there, Anon! Ooh these are some great questions that have got me thinking this Friday evening, so thank you for sending them 😊

I'll put my answers under the cut, as er, they got a little long and rambling, oops lol.

Yes, I think Discord has definitely played a part, especially since Tumblr got rid of its group chat function. I don’t know what they were thinking with that decision tbh. It was a feature I actually used and it was nice to be able to talk to several mutuals at once without it being completely public.

Not everyone on Tumblr necessarily uses or wants to use an entirely different platform to communicate. I’ve tried a couple of Discord groups and one I liked because it was quiet and manageable (although it’s defunct now). I knew everyone in the group pretty well and we used to be in a Tumblr group chat together. The other one was people I didn’t know very well who all liked the same show, but it was too fast paced for me to keep up with. And nearly everyone else was in a different time zone, or knew each other better, so there wasn’t much point in showing up hours after the conversation ended, scrolling through tonnes of messages just to add something that was mostly ignored anyway lol.

I think Discord serves a purpose for existing friends wanting to chat in private, or if a subgroup of a bigger fandom wants to congregate somewhere, but as a main discussion platform? Hmm I don’t know. A lot of them require invites and rely on you knowing they exist in the first place. If you’re new to a fandom or just want to lurk for a bit to get the lay of the land, that puts you at a disadvantage straight away.

I’m going to show my age here, but this is why I think I still lament the heyday of LiveJournal and forums/message boards (I know Reddit still exists but the forums I used were fandom-specific and entirely run by fans). LJ struck a good balance between public and private and between fandom and personal, as you could add friends to your LJ account and restrict blog access to friends only. Meanwhile, you could also join community groups for whatever fandoms you were into and post in those without having to share the inner workings of your mind lol.

Of course, you added friends you met on the community groups and that’s how you got to know people. And because it didn’t have to be a free-for-all, you actually got to learn a lot about the people you followed. They shared their names, photos, details about their lives, their families, school/college/jobs etc. as well as the fandom side of their personalities. Personally, I would never be that open on Tumblr because anyone could stumble across my page. There’s no happy medium anymore. It’s either share everything with the entire internet (or at least all registered Tumblr users) or hide away in a private chat group.

I had a similar experience to LJ with a band’s forum in the ‘00s as well. I haven’t spoken to a lot of those people in 10-15 years but I still remember their usernames and real names, what they looked like, which other forum members they were in relationships with, forum meetups, iconic forum dramas and fallings out we all had. Oh, and I married someone I met on there too lol. I know online romances still happen on Tumblr, but what I’m getting at I suppose is back in those days fandom felt like a proper community.

Obviously there were idiots and people you didn’t like, but because it was moderated and there were rules about abuse, it taught you how to keep things civil and to just ignore/scroll past stuff you didn’t want to see. If you disagreed with someone, you couldn’t send them anon hate or try and get their account suspended out of spite; it forced you to engage with someone else’s point of view and to debate. There was also a much wider range of ages than Tumblr, which, much to contrary belief on here sometimes, isn't actually a bad or dangerous thing lol. I learnt a lot from older forumites when I was an angsty teenager. It wasn’t perfect and there was the odd power hungry mod and people you were just never going to see eye-to-eye with, but that’s life, isn’t it? That’s how it works offline as well. And in hindsight, I’m so grateful I got to experience my formative years in that version of online fandom rather than the version we have now.

2. What kind of asks do you miss most? Questions about your current fandom? Questions about your personal life or preferences? Something random and batshit insane?

I guess I just miss more good faith/no ulterior motive bonding over shared love of characters/shows etc. whether that be in asks or not, and whether it’s with fellow creatives or people who’ve never created anything.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t answer anything personal, random or batshit insane though…within reason of course 😂 But I don’t naturally really talk about myself a lot unless someone asks or it’s relevant to a conversation. I’m like that offline as well…I guess it’s just my introverted nature. So, fandom stuff always feels like easier ground to ramble about on Tumblr. And the more personal stuff usually follows suit once there is an established relationship of trust. That’s one thing that's been hard to find in the last few years, because too many people have screwed me over lol. I suspect that’s probably a barrier to making new connections across the board if anyone has ever had bad past experiences in fandom. It certainly makes you more cautious.

For comparison’s sake, back in 2015, I was involved in a small but very active and interactive fandom. Everyone sent asks to everyone about the characters, discussed the show vs the book, different ships, ‘what if?’ type questions. I remember receiving quite a few asks, even though I had only made a handful of gifs and graphics for the fandom and generally didn’t create much. I don’t remember there being a divide between creatives and non-creatives though. We were all just collectively losing our minds over the source material and it was absolutely joyous. There was a group fanbook made and even an in-person meetup. Again, it was a proper little community for a while.

Skip forward to 2020 and the fandom I got involved with had elements of community when we were all in lockdown and more people were hanging out online because they were stuck at home. But I think the difference by this point, at least in this specific fandom, was that it was very difficult to feel heard if you weren’t also creating.

I remember having a very specific thought at one point of ‘You either get stuck in and contribute the things you want to see that aren’t already there, or you move on’. It wasn’t in terms of thinking I had to ‘earn’ my place in the fandom, but more I thought I had something different to offer but just quietly saying it in tags or piggybacking on someone else’s posts weren’t enough anymore, especially when I wasn't necessarily getting much back at times.

And I think I managed to carve out my own little niche corner of the fandom in 2021. I got some lovely asks about my fics, I used to chat back and forth in reblogs with a few people and I’ve had some insane essay-length comments on my fics in the past that I never expected in a million years, so I do appreciate all of that, obviously.

I can’t pinpoint when things changed exactly, but I think it must have been as the fandom started getting bigger and the TikTok effect became more pronounced, that the gaps between creatives and non-creatives and between the popular creatives and the smaller creatives grew wider. Competitiveness between creators in general seemed to get worse and a lot of smaller and diverse creatives weren’t treated well as fandoms within fandoms developed around the most popular people. Then it just became a giant popularity contest rife with high school politics rather than it being about the characters and source material, or making friends.

I appreciate I’ve compared a small fandom and a rapidly expanding fandom here, and I'm sure there are still some corners of Tumblr left that are more like my 2015 experience, but my 2020 onwards experience isn’t an isolated incident from everything I’ve read on here and Reddit. Something has shifted even in the last couple of years, let alone beyond that.

I also think perhaps the immediacy and short lifespan of fandoms makes it harder to interact in general, because streaming services often drop an entire season in one day. You know your mutual will be watching it because they’ve been hyped about it on their blog, but you don’t know which episode they might be up to. So, you don’t want to be sending messages/asks potentially spoiling things they might not have got round to yet. Or they’ve watched it all in 24 hours and it takes you several weeks to get round to episode 1, by which point half your dash has already moved on to the next must-watch piece of media. That’s how small the window of opportunity is sometimes now; it’s insane.

3. How do you feel about anonymous ask? I hate being perceived, so here we are.

As long as people aren’t being rude/abusive, I don’t have a problem with anons. I know what you mean about being perceived, so I wouldn't want to remove the anon option for that reason. I've had some lovely fic related anons in the past too, so as long as it's all respectful, I'm cool with it.

But I know anon hate is a problem on here, and I think it partially ties into the whole high school politics thing again. A lot of people don’t know how to deal with their own insecurities and jealousies without taking it out on someone else. The stats obsession that has infiltrated fandom from social media seems to bring the worst out in people, especially re: comparison and not feeling good enough. It's no excuse, but I think that's probably where it comes from.

I’ve also noticed some creatives getting upset by entitled anons just coming into their inbox and saying ‘Part 2 of X fic please’ or being pushy about the next chapter if it’s been a while since the last one. So, I also think a lot of fandom etiquette has been lost in recent years, this being a prime example. People seem to forget they're talking to a human being and just see content, content, content.

And I don’t really know what the answer to any of this is tbh! I would like to think the writers’ and actors’ strikes might help paint a bigger picture of how social media and the way fandom has changed are all interlinked with the big studios’ practices. But who knows? I do see quite a few more posts pointing out these problems nowadays, so I guess that’s a step forward.

#Ask #Asks #Replies

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sundaysundaes · 1 year

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Hiii omg this is so sudden but i just wanna say thank you???

Yes thank you for writing such a great fantastic and all the greatest words exist out there, fic. i know you're hiatus in writing nct fic, and actually i dont really mind bout that since this is just me late in appreciating your hard works. i have been your reader for idk how long but i just have one thing to ask you, pretty please i hope you wont deact or delete this acc and all your stories at least 10 years from now LMAOOOO this is so funny but i know how some good writers leave this platform and take their works with them, i'm pretty sure they do that because they don't want their works to be plagiarised or they wanted to forget everything but i can't help to be sad whenever i wanted to go back reading a fic that once make me all happy and feeling the butterflies and found out it's gone cuz the writers deact. and im not the type to copy the fic into word and save it even for personal use since im a writer myself and for me its still against the copyright rule altho its just a fic.

This becoming a long rant now lol. But yes, thank you again for all your hard work and willingness to write thousands words and sharing it for free here and I hope I still can get to read your existed works again and again few more years from now.

Wishing you a nice days ahead and happy and healthy life! 🍀💝

HELLO BABYYYYYY omgomgomgomgomg I'm so sorry for the late reply 😭😭😭😭😭 I just went through my inbox for my main blog again and I just realized I haven't replied to this one yet, I'm the worst ugh PLEASE FORGIVE ME 😭😭😭

AAAAA CAN I JUST SAY HOW SWEET YOU ARE FOR SENDING THIS TO MEEEEE 😭 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS MESSAGE AND FOR LOVING MY STORIES!!! Don't worry babe I won't delete the stories I've posted here even if I don't write for NCT anymore. I'm not the type to delete my stuff, once it's out, they'll stay on the internet forever so you can come back and read anytime you want hehe ❤️ (unless tumblr goes to hell then I can't help you LMAO)

#this includes that one lousy harry potter fanfic i wrote when i was like thirteen on fanfiction.net LMAO #it's still there oh my god 💀#anyway thank you for being so nice and sweet I LOVE YOU SO MUCH #please stay happy and healthy wherever you are darling ❤️❤️❤️#kana gets some love!#kana answers stuff

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shuppityduppity · 1 year

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The thing about game development

is that right now we exist in a space where games are being developed on a 5-10 year cycle. It's not unusual for games to be in development for 6 or 7 years. There was a post talking about this and I was going to reblog off of it but I can't find it so here we are.

And the issue here, right, is that our thoughts on game development-- the trends, the graphics, the tools, the mechanics-- they're all 6 or 7 years "out of date" at this point. The games that are cutting-edge, coming out right now? Those games are built off of mechanics and styles from half a decade ago. Midnight Suns [2022], the Marvel game that is pretty good? It's very bluntly based off of Xcom 2 [2016]'s central design philosophy. (I know it's also based off of Chimera Squad [2020] but that game's mechanics are also from 2016 lol.) That new Suicide Squad game that people are posting pictures of? Many people have already pointed out that it clearly resembles PUBG [2017] and the many, many games (such as Fortnite [2017]) that ape its style. We're literally experiencing the growth of the video game industry through the process of fucking time dilation.

What we really need, see, is a form of game development that takes like... one year. Maybe two. Even the indie sphere's greatest hits are known for taking around 3 years to develop (a better number, but still not a good number). Can you imagine if games iterated off of each other on a yearly basis? We'd see industry growth and design philosophy shifts nearly FIVE TIMES as fast if you think about everything iterating at the same "rate." Can you fucking imagine??

Anyway. I think that you should make a cool little game. Something tiny and niche and awesome that doesn't take you that long to make. Please. I want to play it so badly. Send it to me. Let's make weird flash-like games again. Let's make silly platformers again. Let's make clicker games again.

I'm tired of all this.

#game #design #design philosophy #game development #video games #art #this should apply to other industries as well tbh

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fractoluminescence · 3 months

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January 2024 Monthly Writing Wrap-Up

Originally posted to Dreamwidth on February 4th 2024

I don't really know how to start this, since it's my first time writing anything like it. I did make a first post when I created my journal, but this feels different - and while I have a habit of briefly journaling during my writing sessions, I rarely reflect on what I've accomplished beyond a couple of days back. I thought this would be as easy as any entry - but now that I'm here, I hesitate, I dread to look back - which is so unlike the writer part of me.

Well, here I am. And I've got a month of entries to go through, and a lot to say, so I'll be alright.

I've had several things going on this past month - as I usually do. What was new was the Dreamwidth account - I'd never used a traditional blogging platform before, so it took some adjusting. I took some time to figure out how the website worked - am still figuring it out, to be fair - and what I wanted to do with it, because it looked fun and wouldn't it be a shame to leave it be now that I have access to it. And wouldn't it be a good opportunity to have a neat archive of my writing journey - not a messy day-by-day journal like I have set up on Notion, and not the what-am-I-even-doing-with-these journal entries that I've got all over pretty much any account and paper journal that I use.

I guess I'll find out if it's meant to be soon enough.

GYWO is going well. I worked on my writing on 12 days in January - the minimum my pledge had me aiming for being 10 days. It's a good thing, of course - especially since I know there are months during which I tend to write significantly less, so (like November, ironically enough).

There are two writing projects I'm focusing on right now, the first of which is the story I'm writing for the IchiBowl event. It's a tough one for me - I'm not really used to writing short stories, because most of the stories I come up with instinctively are at least novella-length. It trips me up - there was no already-existing plunny I could use, and I've got a minimum of 5k words to write in a couple of months total, which is longer than the short stories I'm used to writing (when I write any at all). And I can't even tell if it's going well - I got myself into a bit of a pickle because I realized when I started the second scene that some of the themes and symbolism were reminiscent of Shakespeare's The Tempest, so I decided to take some time to read through it while taking notes. For inspiration purposes.

I had miscalculated how long this was going to take me, of course. It's early February though, and I'm finally done with it. I've still got roughly two weeks until the next check-in, so as long as I don't run into a wall of some kind (I always do, but most walls I can climb over fairly easily), things should go fairly smoothly.

The second project I've got ongoing - well, it's the first project out of the two really, becauseI've had it ongoing for years and it's been the love of my life - is whatever the fuck what I used to call Isolated has become. It was meant to be a single story - but now that I've learned to outline and I know it's SEVEN FREAKING BOOKS (probably), things have started making a lot more sense - and looking a lot more messy now that I know what a mess looks like.

That's where my writing progress this past month comes in - but first, some more context. I'm mostly focusing on the first book - or what I currently think of as the first book, the order may change since different books follow different characters - which I've temporarily titled You Only Die Twice (a title that has ironically come to downright contradict elements of the wider story since I first picked it). And I've been having this issue with it...See, originally - back when this story was meant to be one book, and was a crossover - back when its main character Lydia was as two-dimensional as a sheet of paper and the genre was supposed to be romance - back then, I introduced a subplot about the second lead. Or - I mean, I guess I'm not sure if he's the second lead in this particular volume anymore - maybe he is. At any rate, I introduced a subplot because of the crossover aspect - and when I removed that aspect just a couple of months into writing the story, I kept the subplot, because it was fun.

Yeah, except it didn't fit with the rest of the story at all. It didn't fit with the themes that the story developed over time - nor with the worldbuilding, nor with the character it was supposed to be centered around. I spent years trying to make it work - and a year or two trying to remove it, because it was starting to impede my story and made it so much harder to write. The worse part is, it didn't even have any impact on the rest of the books - but it had been there for so long, and was so deeply anchored in the whole original concept I had for YODT, that removing it was genuinely really hard.

Well, guess what. I've removed it. I've finally found a way of extirpating it from the story. It felt like removing a bunch of supporting beams, and now I've got holes to patch all throughout the 20 or so chapters I've already written, but I roughly know what to fill them with. And the character development for the second lead makes a lot more sense now. The story seems...so much more in harmony with itself - and with me. Now that it's removed, the pattern is re-knitting itself together in a way that works and it look so much better.

Other than that, I've worked on the worldbuilding for Isolated a bit. It's mostly just fanwanking, but this story specifically is too interlaced with the worldbuilding for me to take it lightly, lest I awkwardly tread on eggshells trying to make it make sense to the reader without revealing I have no idea what I'm doing.

In short, I've spent the month reading through The Tempest to get inspo for my story for the IchiBowl event, as well as figured out how to get rid of that one subplot that has been plaguing YODT for years. It has been a productive month.

#crossposted from dreamwidth #because i want it to be on here too #writing thoughts #monthly writing wrap-up #fract writing

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indiaraetoday · 5 months

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India Hareld Stanton

What is Social Media?

Social media is the perfect way to portray what we mean when we say America is a melting pot, but it’s so much more than race, and cultural backgrounds. In the beginning, it was simply another way to communicate, keep in contact with your loved ones, and share your daily thoughts. Although those reasons still exist today, it has become so much more over the last 20 years and I think we really saw that during the pandemic in 2020. That was such a scary year for all of us, because of the pandemic and because of the constant divide due to someone's political stance. For COVID 19 specifically, we were able to come together as a country strictly by using some type of social media platform. We were able to spread awareness, and help guide each other through the toughest things most of us have experienced. With that being said, social media to me is an outlet for a lot of us. Whether it’s to express your feelings about how your day went, sharing your newest project, whether it be in the workplace or a personal goal you’ve created for yourself or to simply gain knowledge on a specific topic. One small hashtag, video, or simple status can bring so much attraction and awareness to a topic most people might’ve never thought to research prior to. Social media can be a harmful place in a lot of ways, but the good will always outweigh the bad.

In today's world, in my opinion, I believe you have to be an intentional social media user. Meaning, you have to know what content you want to see/create across all platforms and that might look different for each platform. I know for me, Facebook is where I keep in contact with family members, and old classmates from high school, some even dating back to middle school. Instagram is where I see more actual content creators showing the world something they have high interest in, whether that be makeup, clothing, hair, etc. Twitter is where I go to keep up with current events and trending topics that range from social media related news, or political news. When you set these clear intentions, you’re able to go onto these platforms and not have to worry about seeing unsolicited content.

My strengths would have to be knowing the power social media has. Over the years, we’ve seen many things that have been posted on social media turn either bad, or good. For example, I remember when H&M created a commercial to advertise a new sweater that said “Coolest Monkey”, which most would think is an innocent saying, but there was an African American child wearing it. That caused outrage across the UK and the US, questioning the brands intentions as the word “monkey” has been used in a derogatory way towards African Americans in the past. Another example would be families and/or individuals being invited to the Ellen DeGeneres Show because of something they’ve posted on social media, and it caused such good feedback. If you’re a Ellen fan, you know if you get invited to the Ellen show, you’re not leaving empty handed, and 9/10 go home with more than some can handle (house, car, money, etc).

I want to learn more about the back end of social media. Where it started, how much it has grown over the past 20 years and where it could go in the foreseeable future. The options are endless when it comes to social media, and the current generation of young adults is what makes it what it is, believe it or not. I am excited to learn more about the technicalities of social media, and get a better grasp of what it takes to work in the field.

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inner--islands · 8 months

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In Conversation with Stag Hare (August 2017)

Stag Hare has been the musical and visual project of Willow Skye-Biggs over the last 10 years. She just released her final album as Stag Hare, “Starlights Gloom”, in May on Inner Islands. I, Sean of Inner Islands, have been talking with her over the last month through email about “Starlights Gloom”, the history of Stag Hare, and future projects.

What were you inspired by (both musically and otherwise) when you started the Stag Hare project and what are you feeling inspired by now, at the close of the project?

Well, in some ways things are similar in terms of inspiration - mainly non musical - which is kind of interesting considering how long it’s been. But in other ways I’m really in a different place now. As far as what I am listening to now vs then, almost no cross over in terms of actual playtime. In other ways I think that the sound in my head I attempt to translate into music, or the feelings I want to convey are in some ways the same deep down but quite different in the way they manifest is all. When I was starting Stag Hare I was on a tail end of a lot of noise/freak folk obsession and listening to a lot more song based music, i.e. songs with a folk structure and lots of lyrics and such. And then also any “new age” music I could find, especially contemporary underground stuff. I definitely listened to a lot of Valet and White Rainbow and Lucky Dragons, which I think informed that sound more than anything else, but it was more in just giving me the confidence to do what I wanted with music when I wasn’t hearing a lot of anything else that was in a similar approach. I also just have always listened to a wide variety of music to try to always have context for what I’m doing in a larger picture - which sometimes can be overwhelming - but in hind sight a lot of my favorite music now I was not really fully aware of at that point in time. Midway through the project I would get really into Grateful Dead and then later shift into all the house and techno I am listening to now. I also was an avid Arthur Magazine reader and that sort of filled in the gaps for this vibe I was interested in. My biggest inspiration in some ways has always been movies though and I was just discovering a lot of foreign classics in that time period. Lately I have been listening pretty heavily to lots of house and techno, deephouse, techhouse, deep tech, minimal tech, progressive house etc. And that I would say is a pretty major paradigm shift for my general approach to music as of now. Where I was more inspired by a psychedelic living room then, I’m more interested in the secular dance temple as a platform now. In a lot of ways I feel like it’s all been this process of waking up out of a deep deep dream and getting closer to waking reality. A lot of what I wanted to do with music and where I imagined it being played and who was listening to it seemed like something I just imagined and was just some fantasy and after years of trying to find it for awhile I decided it probably didn’t exist. Now I’m just still aiming for the same things but I’ve found that there actually are lots and lots of places where people come together to experience sound in the way that I’ve always imagined, (so it wasn’t a fantasy, I was just looking in the wrong places and making some general assumptions) and so that world is definitely inspiring me a lot right now as I feel like I am sort of finding a new voice. My deeper goals with music are still the same just different ways to translate it and attempt to reach more people in a meaningful way. I’m not going to overly define those goals though, I think people who know know. I’m still obsessed with the forest and land in general, but also letting a few more people into that world now, and expanding territories so right now I’m working in a mindset of forest green to black swamp zones. I guess I could say I feel like Stag Hare was more about bringing myself into a deeper place and stillness and centeredness, and calm a lot of anxiety, and right now I’m interested in movement and empowerment. Expanding the headspace sound into a full body sound.

Do you feel like the pieces on Starlights Gloom are closer to those aims of movement and empowerment?

I feel like Starlight Gloom is maybe about as far as it is going to be explored with Stag Hare….. but also, that’s kind of still its own thing, so I’m not sure whether I think so or not?? Maybe some tones of that yes, but overall maybe not….

Do you feel like it was significant at all to pull fragments from previous Stag Hare work to create Starlights Gloom, as it’s meant to be the final album? Like a summation of sorts. Or was that simply just a method to create some new work?

Well, honestly at the time I started working with that method I wasn’t conceiving it to be the final stag hare album specifically, although I suppose it kind of did feel like that. It wasn’t particularly conscious though, no. It does seem like it works out well though. At the time I was just thinking about music made out of samples and realizing I had more than enough material to do that while just sampling my own material… And also just not feeling inspired to record any new sounds but wanting to put tracks together, basically.

At what point did you realize that the guitar drone was going to be a staple in every Stag Hare piece?

The whole project basically started out of the concept of using guitar as a minimal sound generating device rather than as an instrument to “play” notes or melodies on. At the time I wasn’t very experienced at the guitar on general and was just fascinated by that idea and mainly by the feeling I’d get getting lost in the sound I was coming up with running my guitar through a digitech digidelay pedal. After that it just slowly shaped out that anytime I tried to create a track that wasn’t built around that drone centerpiece is didn’t feel like a stag hare song. And eventually it just solidified into the general concept that the whole project was just one long guitar drone with various ways to decorate on and around it.

Do you think you’ll return to drone-based work at all post-Stag Hare? I know it’s a long life… but do you have a sense from your current vantage point?

Oh I fully expect to make more drone/ambient based music for sure. Not sure about using the guitar in quite that same way anytime soon, but certainly not closed to that. I just know I don’t want to use that as much or rely on that consistent element. I’m really not sure exactly what this will all sound like but regardless that type of music will always be really close to my heart and meaningful to me and I still am not satisfied with everything I’ve done in that particular medium yet I don’t think.

Speaking of mediums, after doing Tastes Like Mandy do you think you’ll want to get into more installation work?

Absolutely yes. I completely loved that process and have always been very interested in more visual mediums, and specifically the interaction between visual and sound as in Tastes Like Mandy. I have plans to do related installations in the future, as well as standalone sculptural work and am also starting the process for my first short film/video project hopefully taking off this fall! I keep meaning to make music take a backseat to focus on other projects but somehow I keep getting sucked into music again! This is literally what I’ve been doing for the last ten years, music was always just something for me to work on “right now” while preparing for other projects but apparently “right now” is still now….. haha

Was the "Imago" video your first video work to get released? How do you feel about that piece at this point?

I believe that was my first official video release? And still the only thing I’ve released that’s involved as much work as that did as well. I was really happy with how it turned out, and still think it was a good exercise for me in translating ideas visually…. I was always on the fence about doing too many videos for stag hare though, so I still have mixed feelings about that. Honestly, non creatively speaking, it’s kind of not something I enjoy watching at this point as it was made during a pretty painful time in my life and has a lot of heavy reminders in that regard…. But, I suppose that’s what happens when you continue to make art throughout life and inevitabley will have those kinds of moments.

How and when do you listen to music? What do you focus on (or not focus on)?

It seems like I have different levels of music listening. I listen while I’m doing things, like driving, cooking, reading, and then I have focused listening when I am only listening to music, usually with headphones but not always. I’ve lately been in my car a lot so listening to a lot of music in that environment, which I like because it is a sort of enclosed little space and you can get really engulfed in the sound while still keeping pretty much to yourself. My favorite way to listen lately would be at an all night event of some sort, with well tuned high quality speakers with decent low end playing good sounds for hours on end. It feels very satisfying and therapeutic right now to be able to really feel the sound physically and be surrounded by the music. Regardless, if there’s music on I have to be listening to it and am automatically dissecting it in some way or another. Sometimes at a restaurant I have trouble hearing what people are saying because I can’t not focus on the music. In a way it’s rather obnoxious. But I seem to be just wired that way or something. So when I am not specifically interested in listening to music (generally a specific type of music depending on my mood) I don’t want to listen to anything at all. I’d rather listen to no music than music I don’t want to listen to. But, that said, if someone else is choosing music, I usually love that. It’s easier for me to relax and passively listen that way - although I will still be analyzing. It feels like someone doing the dishes for me or something.

When you make music do you try to acknowledge the different levels of listening that you find in your own listening habits and dialogue with those? Do you try to imagine other people’s listening habits?

Oh yes, this is something I think about quite a lot. I like to be as intentional as possible with what type of music I’m making and what type of listening state and system people will be listening on. But, I’ve found it’s not always useful to try to imagine what other people are going to do or not do, so I tend to just use myself as a reference point, beyond determining the intended function of a track. If it’s an intimate headphone album or something designed for live speaker systems, or what. Inevitably a lot of music will be heard on laptop speakers, phone speakers, and shitty apple earbuds as well which is something I also keep in mind. I like to have a track translate hopefully to different systems and still put across the essence of a track, although I will say sometimes you can’t do that. I want to be able to be more specific and nuanced with my mixes sometimes, and combined with doing a lot of work that is not melody based or doesn’t have a lot of focal elements going on in the mid range zone that comes thru laptop speakers sometimes it’s just a loss.

Is your newer (unreleased) work more focused on bigger sound systems where that nuance can really be felt? And how are your new productions going, in a more general sense? What can we look forward to from you and your work?

For the most part yes, I am finding myself splitting tracks into headphone/home listening and live sound systems with the latter being my primary focus at the moment. Particularly there is a certain environment I’m interested in producing for, not really a club, and not really a “main stage” kind of vibe but something like what I experienced playing at the Lunar Transit festival here in Utah this Summer. A space where things can balance between music to sit on piles of pillows to, or music to dance to essentially. I’ve been testing out new things out when I dj to see what’s working and what isn’t, for the most part I’m pretty happy with how things are developing. I have a lot of different things I want to express and put out there, so it’s mostly a matter of organizing all of that and working on being more specific as well as finding the right context where what I’m doing will sit well. I’m planning a series of digital releases to come out by the end of the year, mostly singles and working up to some EP’s. After that we will see…. I have a tentative plan to do a full album intended more for home listening and probably fitting closer to the Stag Hare sound within the year, but I feel like I need to get some other stuff out there first. From there I really have no idea what shape things will take, my goal is to just try to stay in touch with the creative energy and follow that where it goes…

#dialogue

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watcher0033 · 8 months

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Hi! I'm doing a school design project and I've decided to have a go at designing a Archive of Our Own app! I was wondering if you might be up for answering some questions to help me with my design (I need to show research in my project!)

If you are, answers to these would be SUPER helpful!

How long have you been engaging fanfiction sites such as Archive of our own, Fanfiction.net and Wattpad?

What are some of your favourite works or fandoms on those sites?

Are you a writer as well as a reader?

What drew you to these platforms and why do you stay?

How long have you been engaging with the site Archive of Our Own specifically?

What does your engagement with the platform look like?

How often do you engage with the platform?

What are your favourite aspects of the platform?

Do you think that you engage with all of the elements available on the platform?

Are there any elements of the platform that frustrate you?

Of the fanfiction sites you frequent, where would you rank the site as a whole and why?

What do other platforms have that Archive of Our Own does not, which you enjoy interacting with?

Are there any features unique to Archive of Our Own that you enjoy?

If Archive of Our Own were to develop a mobile app, what features would you like to see?

Would you like the app to be similar in aesthetic and function to the already established website?

Are there any features you would like to see added to the platform in the app?

If you're not interested no worries! Thanks so much

Hello, there!!! That project seems interesting and I hope it does well, GL!! And ofc I won’t mind answering a few questions really.

Well, I’m in my twenties so my first engagement with anything fanfiction in general bfor sticking to ao3 was fanfiction.net back in 2013-2014 I think. So about 10 years. Give or take.

4. and 12. One of the best fanfic classics from fandoms that aren’t as popular as the ones hosted in ao3 these days are still in ffnet like fics of western sci fi shows, western movies in the 2000s, animes from the late 90s-early2000s, you get my drift. So if your hyperfixation is about a movie/show pre-2010s and you’re itching for some fics. Go to ffnet. If one is especially part of a big fandoms that exist today, AO3 ofc is our best home. If you had a Worm phase (or just webnovels in general), or an intense intellectualism phase like I did go to spacebattles.com or sufficient velocity haha

Yes.

I stay at ao3 for the good fics and great comfort/convenience. I visit others when looking for something specific.

I was very pro-ffnet back in the day, it was my 1st comfort site. But the moment I got a taste of those filters I quickly converted back in uhhh 2016.

I read fics (ao3 engagement), filtered to most bookmarked. Exclude tags that I’d rather not engage with. Find a good work. Browse through the authors other works, and their bookmarks too for next recommendation fic to read.

Everyday. Every few hours if I’m not busy irl or other social media sites like this one.

The tags and the filters should be universally used and imitated.

I’d like to think so but there might be more features I haven’t extensively explored yet.

Can’t think of any at the moment.

1st place AO3, 2nd: FFnet, 3rd-4th Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity. 5th Wattpad ig?? Tho I don’t go there unless to read something from my local language.

Mostly just some fandoms have less works in ao3 than some other sites. But more of a people-fandom dilemma than platform one. I guess, I want a forum feature for ao3? Some sites i read works are sometimes interactive like were a poster would post a prompt or the first chapter. And someone would reply to add their own interpretation/what-happens-nxt scenarios and it becomes part of the story. I miss engagements like that.

The 👏🏼 filters 👏🏼 and 👏🏼 tags

And 16. Forum features!!

Hopefully, yes. With added features, but depends ig

#fandom #ao3 #ao3 asks #ask

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mirceakitsune · 9 months

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⚠️ My Patreon may be shutting down in the coming months

Wanted to post about this earlier but frankly I didn't have the energy or will to bother. This is an important announcement so if you're a Patreon supporter please read the first half.

Since the beginning of the year, Patreon has been harassing NSFW creators with a new policy requiring them to hand over sensitive documents to the platform. They've been doing this to target creators for age discrimination… sorry, I meant to say age verification. Hiding behind the excuse that Mastercard is making them do it, those who went through the process describe being asked to install a special app on their phone and film themselves holding sensitive identity documents in front of their webcam… yes, literally like ISIS hostages when they're filmed by their captors and the video sent to authorities for ransom. Needless to say no common sense observations, like the fact I've been on this internet for nearly 20 years and would have had to register on many websites when I was some -3 years old, are enough to make it clear I'm well in my 30's for those so desperate to kiss my ass about my personal and private life and identity. How does a child open their own bank account anyway… like you just walk into a bank and say "my name is Nina, I'm 10 years old, and mommy sent me to open an account and get my own credit card" in the minds of those people?

It goes without saying that I will not be subjecting myself to such abuse. Both due to the ridiculous and disgusting motive behind it, as well as it being blatant identity theft that should be illegal in any normal country. At the moment my Patreon is still functional and there are no restrictions only periodic popups, however they threatened that our ability to pay out may eventually be suspended. As such my Patreon is now on borrowed time: I'm using those potential last months to get as much as possible out of it before it all goes down. Unless some miracle happens and they get their heads screwed on straight, my plan is to shut down my page the second they introduce limitations that makes it unusable. For this reason I'd like all supporters to be on standby as I don't want you losing your money: I'll immediately make a new announcement the moment these bastards place restrictions so you know to pull out! If given the option I'll remove every supporter myself or revert to a non-creator page which should do the trick.

I've thought about requesting they revert my page back to SFW creator but don't think I'll go that route: First of all I'd need to find and delete countless posts I made over the years… those fools will surely look through all my stuff anyway, I don't want them seeing and judging it with their broken little primate minds that may perceive god knows what atrocity. My main problem is even if I made the request, they likely still label SFW content as NSFW even when it's not explicit; There are rumors of staff members being intoxicated about themes like furry / macro / vore into thinking it's undercover sexual content or some shit… something similar happened on Youtube, it's why independent animation has been impossible or at best risky to post there in recent years. I don't want to live with the feeling that I stand to be attacked for anything I post when I least expect it… platforms like Furaffinity and some governments are causing that enough as it is.

If I do shut down I'll likely keep creating content and posting it for free in the other galleries, as I always had before Patreon came into existence. For as long as even that remains legal and won't require logging in with the United Nations to be allowed to share or view art, seems that's what some psychopaths would like if they had their way. My goal is to move to decentralized platforms like Mastodon, though I'm still waiting for something better suited for media that uses mirroring / seeding for proper censorship resistance. In this way I plan on living off the money I have left and simply creating what I like how I still can, till I either die or am arrested for it under Western Sharia Law.

Not worth going into any more of a rant beyond that. Just never forget that in the year 2023 during the age of logic science and technology, it became impossible or a danger to make a living off creating art, reasons including religious superstition left over from the industrial revolution about porn being harmful to children up to merely seeing or creating fictional art on the fucking internet. I'm just baffled to remember all the nice dreams I had about the future more than 10 years ago, when in my stupidity I thought we'd have a real civilization and America in particular would be heaven on Earth; Took quite the hard lessons to realize the human species will never evolve past the status of tribal savages, you could throw holograms flying cars and warp drives at this world and it will remain but a medieval society with some technology sprinkled on top. I'm past hating anyone for better or worse… at least people, I will die hating the concept of human morality and notion of "empathy" used in their attempts to control and destroy me: When my time comes, maybe even a not so distant future seeing this planet made it clear I'm not supposed or allowed to be alive and exist here, it will at least be without any real regrets.

#announcement #patreon #censorship

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blacklghter · 1 year

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It didn’t feel ‘cool’ to be on tumblr back then

attention - rumbling forward!!!

you were warned

recently i’ve watched some essay youtube videos of people that, just like me, were part of the tumblr (should i say community?) about 10 years ago when we all were teenagers about said platform. when i talk to friends (just one friend actually) younger than me about tumblr, they weren’t old enough to be on it, but somehow participate in the revival through tiktok - a idealized nostalgia - like every nostalgia, doens’t really express truly the experience.

i agree that tik tok can be very damaging to teenagers, girls or anyone trying to fit in that aesthetic-craze - but at least they are accepted now.

but honestly, it didn’t feel cool to be on tumblr. i was here because i was too lonely, sad and weird to be anywhere else. i did fake the tumblr persona to myself because i couldn’t afford cool clothes, straightned hair and hang out with my “i’m a freak” group of friends in american suburban neighborhood.

i come from a working class family in latin america, my parents were very strict, so hanging out with friends without an adult wasn’t a thing. i was thin, but wasn’t the “right” thin, my hair was wild, my smile cracked, my attitude shy and i had different interests than others. conclusion: was bullied from day one in middle school.

Add to that: i studied in a protestant school and i questioned the “religion” teacher because i saw of something called “atheism” on the internet (yes, i was that naive) conclusion: i was heavily bullied from day one in middle school til the day i left for sophomore high.

does that still affect me today? of course, dummy! i am 24 yo now, is saturday night and i am reflecting on the topic because i feel like shit due to a traumatic event i went through on monday. shit happens to me and everytime i spend hours and hours asking myself “why do i feel so awful?” and my mind always gets me back to those pleasent memories of the good ol’ teenage years.

i decided to write here because i got inspired by those yt essays, i want to vent about what happened to me on monday, but i can’t really vocalize nor write it yet. i want to go to a psychologist to understand what happened and cope with it properly before telling my family, i don’t want it to be a long lasting trauma like the bullying in school days.

10 years forward, i’m not a depressed, teen anymore. anxious adult? sure. but now i have a ~life and i don’t have to nor want to rely on a internet persona to be validated, to exist. i just want to vent, to rumble, to understant what i’m thinking before speaking to my loved ones, so they don’t ask me things i can’t answer and worrying (see the anxiety coming thru?).

So, tumblr.

what was the question? yes, “It didn’t feel ‘cool’ to be on tumblr back then” it didn’t, but it was special anyways. i’m not miserable all the time, but sometimes i do, other times i write. it’s a wrap!

you’ll never read this, but thank you, Frog, for holding me tight <3

see ya next time, folks

#is rumbling a valid tag? i'm a fossil in this site #blog site thing #blog website?

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risu5waffles · 1 year

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The next whack of 10 in the Archive

This reminds me of how i'd used to do recap episodes every 10levels i looked at on LittleBite-sizedPlanet, so i could take the earliest set of 10 off my playlist. Fell out of doing that when lbp.me went tits up, and collecting links in one place stopped being doable. i like this format, tho'. Setting up the b-roll for 10levels all in one go was a real pain in the rear.

youtube

i loved this level. Just well-presented enough to look like it was planned, just kludgy enough to still have heart, and a solid focus on pretty well-paced platforming. The difficulty was on the easy side of medium, which is a nice sweet spot for me to just play around wiv. i've never felt much need to really beat myself up just to flex on a superhard level.

youtube

This was a pretty chonky, ambitious level for LBP1. Aside from the second fight wiv the security drones, there wasn't anything too difficult, but it felt expansive, and it's really well presented (except for some issues wiv Magic Mouths, where you couldn't cycle through them if you'd missed something; i think that's LBP3 mucking things up, it's a pretty consistent issue playing LBP1 levels in it). It's maybe a touch too big to come back to often, but i had myself a good time wiv it.

youtube

i had a hard time deciding to share this level or not. i'm not embarrassed of it or anything, i think i did a pretty good job for not knowing what i was doing (even tho' there are a few jokes that will only make sense if you were teaching at Nova when it was going bankrupt in 2007, which is a vanishingly small audience). The issue is, 2008 was still very much in The Before for me, it would still be 11years before i really figured my stuff out. i didn't know if i wanted to share the secret (well, one of the secrets) in the level, since it's a message from a me that only kind of still exists to my ex-wife, but the sentiment, if not the speaker, is the same. And if it's going to be a real archive, i have to show as much as i'm able to do.

youtube

A tropical-themed level that doesn't use the Tiki kit? Be still my beating heart. Seriously, tho', that's a good kit, but it gets overplayed. This is a nice little level in what feels like should be called early-LBP2 standard, which sounds like i'm being backhanded, but there's a certain style you'd run into all over in that era of levels that still really appeals to me. It's impossible, but i'd love to see, like, an academic broad and deep look into the trends in creating styles over the different eras of LBP's community life. What points you'd find in commonality and the like. Something like that would just curl my toes in all the right ways.

youtube

This is such a weird one, even beyond it just being really weird. bing2go's levels are usually these really expansive, beautiful pieces of art, wiv a heavy reliance on custom stickers, like really make you sit up and pay attention jobs, and then one day they felt like doing some creating wiv their nephew and we get this masterpiece. i honestly love it to bits.

youtube

We talked about this one last week, but just go and compare this to Roasting Oranges 2! up top and see how much difference a bit over a year made for LBP levels (tho', these are different creators, so that's not entirely a fair comparison, but i do think the community in general had moved solidly in a forward direction in that time).

youtube

This is such a good one. The presentation isn't quite as tight as what we saw in Wooden Castle in the previous batch of 10 (tho', i have to say, i love that glossy red wood material, i don't think i've ever seen anyone else use it as a main ingredient like we see here), but i think it does a better job of keeping the pace up, and keeping the mechanical and gameplay interactions front and center. Some nice use of Wall Jumps too. You can do good work wiv that technique, but most times i see it used, it feels a little lazy? Fun side point, but if you ever see me just stop and do nothing for a bit midlevel, maybe just wave my arms a little, i'm probably grabbing the screenshot for the thumbnail. The thumbails/title page are all done in-game. Honestly, it's kind of fun, and i'm a little proud of this iteration on what i do for LittleBite-sized planet.

youtube

This level feels like it would be much better served as part of a series of levels, it's very much a "here's how you play the game, here's simple platforming as translated through LBP." i don't want that to sound like a dig, that's actually a really good kind of level to have; but there are a lot of them floating around the community, and i always feel a little like, "this is great, now where's the follow up?" Like, i would never complain about the first couple of levels of the Gardens, but it'd feel a little weird if the game just stopped there, you know? i do like the presentation here, for the most part, it's very warm and low-stakes, you know?

youtube

This one was a little charmer. The starting area was cute, and i really liked the SackThings just, kinda, lounging around the wharf? The shark was a nice touch too. Not a lot to say beyond i had a good time wiv it.

youtube

Serious question, but is there any better material than basic cardboard at the end of the day? Battered Cardboard is up there, and it has the edge in that the colour is tweakable right from the chump, but i find myself coming back again and again to just regular old, humdrum cardboard. There's something very tactile about it, and it maybe best sells the original conceit that these are creations kids could make. This level is... it's fine. Honestly, it's fine. Probably could have used a little more playtesting, because i think some of the jumps are a bit fiddlier than it feels like was intended, but, eh... you know.

#LittleBigPlanet #Little Big Planet #LBP1 #LBP2 #LBP3 #Youtube

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