#that was the most engagement I ever had on this site

[lizluzz]

reblog to give more people the chance for one last boop!

#boop #that was fun #sorry for everyone I didn't get to boop and boop back I couldn't keep up but I love you all #that was the most engagement I ever had on this site #I promise no more boops after this #lizluz

[inkskinned]

i. about 2 weeks ago, i was told there's a good chance that in 5 or so years, i'll need a wheelchair.

ii. okay. i loved harry potter as a kid. i have a hypothesis about this to be honest - why people still kind of like it. it's that she got very lucky. she managed to make a cross-generational hit. it was something shared for both parents and kids. it was right at the start of a huge cultural shift from pre to post-internet. i genuinely think many people were just seeking community; not her writing. it was a nice shorthand to create connection. which is a long way of saying - she didn't build this legacy, we built it for her. she got lucky, just once. that's all.

iii. to be real with you, i still struggle with identifying as someone with a disability, which is wild, especially given the ways my life has changed. i always come up against internalized ableism and shame - convinced even right now that i'm faking it for attention. i passed out in a grocery store recently. i hit my head on the shelves while i went down.

iv. he raises his eyebrows while he sends me a look. her most recent new book has POTS featured in it. okay, i say. i already don't like where this is going. we both take another bite of ramen. it is a trait of the villain, he says. we both roll our eyes about it.

v. so one of the things about being nonbinary but previously super into harry potter is that i super hate jk rowling. but it is also not good for my mental health to regret any form of joy i engaged with as a kid. i can't punish my young self for being so into the books - it was a passion, and it was how i made most of my friends. everyone knew about it. i felt like everyone had my same joy, my same fixation. as a "weird kid", this sense of belonging resonated with me so loudly that i would have done anything to protect it.

vi. as a present, my parents once took me out of school to go see the second movie. it is an incredibly precious memory: my mom straight-up lying about a dentist appointment. us snickering and sneaking into the weekday matinee. within seven years of this experience, the internet would be a necessity to get my homework finished. the world had permanently changed. harry potter was a relic, a way any of us could hold onto something of the analog.

vii. by sheer luck, the year that i started figuring out the whole gender fluid thing was also the first year people started to point out that she might have some internalized biases. i remember tumblr before that; how often her name was treated as godhood. how harry potter was kind of a word synonymous for "nerdy but cool." i would walk out of that year tasting he/him and they/them; she would walk out snarling and snapping about it.

viii. when i teach older kids creative writing, i usually tell them - so, she did change the face of young adult fiction, there's no denying that. she had a lot more opportunities than many of us will - there were more publishing houses, less push for "virally" popular content creators. but beyond reading another book, we need to write more books. we need to uplift the voices of those who remain unrepresented. we need to push for an exposure to the bigotry baked into the publishing system. and i promise you: you can write better than she ever did. nothing she did was what was magical - it was the way that the community responded to it.

ix. i get home from ramen. three other people have screenshotted the POTS thing and sent it to me. can you fucking believe we're still hearing this shit from her when it's almost twenty-fucking-twenty-three. the villain is notably also popular on tumblr. i just think that's funny. this woman is a billionaire and she's mad that she can't control the opinions of some people on a dying blue site that makes no money. lady, and i mean this - get a fucking life.

x. i am sorry to the kid i was. maybe the kid you were too. none of us deserved to see something like this ruined. that thing used to be precious to me. and now - all those good times; measured into dust.

/// 9.6.2022 // FUCKING AGAIN, JK? Are you fucking kidding me?

#witches and wizards #kids need to be able to play games without knowing the extended universe #playing was easy #i knew i wasn't gonna be able to explain chronicles of christomancy #but we could pick up a stick and run around #nd say we were magic that would be enough backstory #and i think the last time i felt that sense of community #was the summer of pokemon go #it's about cross-generational connectivity bro #yes there are insular communtities but EVERYONE had fucking read harry potter #which is me saying - i think maybe people don't miss HER or the ACTUAL BOOK tbh #they miss... feeling connected #think about how so many people felt so weirdly ashamed and lost after Game of Thrones ended - #they did SUCH a bad job that the entire community just... vanished. #where beforehand people would have GoT weddings #we are just animals who love stories and love feeling like we speak the same language #btw i am not on twitter so i hadn't seen some of the shit she was doing #and then when i was 19 she published the ''american school'' hogwarts stuff #and was reading it casually bc again a huge nerd #and in it shes like ''the british taught the natives their more civilized magics'' #and that was like..................... oh okay. okay. so.....

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I'm an A-Level student and so many of my classmates use ChatGPT for essays in Law and RS and stuff - like, they sound proud of themselves, as if they're cheating the system and being clever? Just makes me feel very bleak. What are we doing man

Well, the unfortunate news for them is that they are going to struggle if they make it to uni.

This is the big problem with AI - it cannot analyse a single thing. If I were to say to you "What are the features Tumblr users would most want and why?", you are a human being with a brain and experiences and decision-making skills, and you could probably sit and come up with an answer. You would base that answer on things you personally find lacking, or want to see; you would also base it in things you have seen others bemoaning on the site.

For example, I reckon I'd say something like:

The permanent ability to boop people with a cat paw, which is implemented as opt-in. Also customisable, so you can choose whether you want a random cat paw to appear on your screen each time it happens to you. Also a different animation for super boop/evil boop, and maybe more boop options than those two, and maybe also different paw colours.

Actual enforcement of hate speech rules. We all agree to them when we join, so it's perfectly legal to delete someone for spouting Nazi shit AND YET.

No more banning or censoring queer folks' accounts

More ability to adjust the interface for disabled bloggers, e.g. colour and contrast, font, layout, switching off moving GIFs or other animations by default, etc.

Tag editing, it's frustrating having to delete whole tags.

Tag memory! Where have my tags gone??? For a year now I have slightly better luck on desktop, but for the most part, which of my tags are remembered by autofill and which are never, ever offered to me has been wholly divorced from how often I've used them. And my tags are often lengthy and odd, so it's become much harder to use mobile.

No data scraping. This is the anti-cap site thank you. Also on that note, get rid of the For You section and any other algorithmic tracking, because it's just as likely to show you a Nazi blog as an anti-Nazi one as long as you have spent any time at all discussing Nazism.

Better blocking ability, on that note.

Better search function

I could go on, but you get the idea. That's analysis that I've done, based on discussions I have seen and taken part in, and my own experiences.

I just asked ChatGPT. Here's what it had to say:

"Tumblr users have diverse preferences, but there are several features that many users would likely appreciate: 1. Improved Content Discovery: Tumblr is known for its vast array of content, so improving content discovery mechanisms such as personalized recommendations, trending topics, and enhanced search functionality can help users find more of the content they enjoy. 2. Enhanced Customization Options: Tumblr users value the ability to customize their blogs extensively. Providing more themes, layout options, and customization tools can empower users to express themselves creatively and make their blogs unique. 3. Integration of Multimedia Formats: Tumblr is a platform where users share various types of multimedia content, including images, GIFs, videos, and audio. Enhancing support for different media formats, improving media upload and management features, and optimizing the viewing experience can enhance user engagement. 4. Improved Mobile Experience: Many Tumblr users access the platform via mobile devices. Therefore, optimizing the mobile app for better performance, usability, and feature parity with the desktop version can greatly enhance the user experience. 5. Community Engagement Features: Tumblr has a vibrant community, so features that facilitate interaction among users, such as improved messaging, reblogging, tagging, and commenting functionalities, can foster a sense of community and increase user engagement. 6. Content Moderation Tools: Given the diverse content on Tumblr, providing users with robust content moderation tools, including options for filtering, blocking, and reporting inappropriate content, can help ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for all users. 7. Monetization Options for Creators: Many Tumblr users are content creators who would appreciate opportunities to monetize their content. Introducing features such as ad revenue sharing, subscription-based content, or integrated e-commerce capabilities can incentivize creators to produce high-quality content and invest more in their Tumblr presence. 8. Accessibility Features: Improving accessibility features such as alt text support for images, screen reader compatibility, and customizable text sizes and color schemes can make Tumblr more inclusive and accessible to users with disabilities. 9. Privacy and Security Enhancements: Enhancing privacy controls, data protection measures, and account security features can help users feel more confident and secure when using the platform, which is especially important given concerns about online privacy and security. 10. API and Third-Party Integration: Opening up Tumblr's API and allowing for easier integration with third-party services and apps can encourage innovation and development within the Tumblr ecosystem, providing users with more options and flexibility in how they use the platform. Overall, focusing on improving content discovery, customization options, community engagement, and user safety while also providing opportunities for creators to monetize their content can help Tumblr retain and attract users in a competitive social media landscape."

It's possible that feels alright, on first glance. But take a closer look.

Every point made is vague, and disconnected from any real life examples. In the very first point, it thinks we want better search functions (yes!) but also more algorithmic recommendations (no!). It wants us to have personalised recommendations AND better security, in fact, which are incompatible - but an LLM doesn't and can't know that. Monetisation of the platform is something that has historically faced appalling backlash from users, and this thing is suggesting ad revenue sharing and subscription services.

Because, its suggestions are generic suggestions. These are not Tumblr-specific. No mention of queerphobia, no mention of Nazis, and absolutely zero understanding of what the specific users on this site actually want.

... all of which is to say...

It's what is academically known as descriptive work. It lays out some facts, but there's no depth, no analysis, no interpretation of those facts at all. Why would we want third party integration? What apps are we calling for? Give examples. Would that aid ad-blocking? Search functions? In that case, wouldn't third-party integration be tackling the symptoms and not the cause? Shouldn't we work better ad-blocking and search functions into Tumblr at a base level?

And in school - even up to A Level - that's okay. You won't get top marks for that, because it's all too vague and too descriptive, but it's fine. School-level assignments tend to be more broad and less applied, too, which LLMs fare better with.

But in university, you start with descriptive facts, and then you are expected to analyse. If you cannot analyse, you run a very real risk of failing. Which means if you've spent your GCSEs and A Levels not bothering to learn those analytical skills and letting ChatGPT do the work for you, you are going to face an extremely uphill struggle when the expectations of study increase.

So, to round off, try not to get too discouraged. You know you aren't doing it, which means you are the one actually learning and developing and growing. Others will learn eventually, and probably more painfully. You do you!

#asks #chatgpt

[ackerfics]

to the girls who are failed by the narrative: masterlist | jjk

enclosed here are stories of tragedy; of loving someone too much that his loss becomes your ruination, of waves of blue and black that threatens to wash your cheeks with the colors of summer, of curses trapping you in prophecies not even a red string can break, of unlikely saviours and damsels who fell harder for each other.

note: all of these are connected. every character has their own 'reader' (except for yuta). once we move on to the next character, the previous reader will be given a nickname. i am actually excited about this <5 consider this as my official comeback (?) here on this site.

my love is mine all mine — zen'in toji (later fushiguro) x reader

: 'the glorified womb', 'the heir bearer', 'the blessed flower of the jujutsu society' — they are just some of the titles given to the women of your mother's clan, and all of them eventually fell to you, the prodigal firstborn who has the misfortune of birthing someone who will be stronger than their predecessors. with the fate of someone's clan on your shoulders, there are only a handful of things told to you while growing up; be as demure as you can be, never open your mouth and squash your thoughts, sit with a posture befitting that of a lady wearing an invisible yet heavy diadem. but the one that rings the most goes like this: your only purpose in this world is to be a silent wife to a man who will give you the opportunity to carry the next generation of powerful sorcerers. you remember all of these as you walk toward zen'in ogi in your uchikake, the constricting material around your waist akin to the gripping hold of your cursed technique.

and in fate's funny little ways of fabricating legacies and stories, you forget them when you are spirited away by the man who always welcomes the coming of the seasons with you without fail.

chapters:

i: their redness talks to my wounds

ii: in our circle of green

iii: the answer will be an echo: why did you do this?

iv: coming soon !!

v: coming soon !!

to love and be loved is to rest  — gojo satoru (w. geto suguru) x reader

: you knew you will never love gojo satoru, the godling that will make kingdom come if he so wished it, the moment he pushed you into a puddle of muddy water the day your older sister was announced to be engaged to the possible heir of the zen'in clan. with your new kimono drenched in brown splatters and your hair in disarray, the little white rat had the gall to cackle in front of majority of the jujutsu society. that was the day you vowed to always harbour hate for him. yet for some weird reason, gojo becomes a constant in your life — the only one to ever see you at your weakest when your sister abandoned you to become the next bride and the only one who promised to return your youth to you by being your semblance of normalcy among the decaying beliefs and elders of the jujutsu society.

you thought you will never know love until you met geto suguru and all his gentle smiles, warm demeanour, and weird fringe. and before you know it, your little world with gojo expanded to include geto, ieiri, and the colours of summer throughout the year. but summer will always fade away to autumn, a season that chills you to the bone and sets glaciers in your blood, its fingers promising change like no other.

because it was fall of 2007 that you wish you never knew what love is at all.

chapters: coming soon !!

except for your eyes, no blade can control me  — fushiguro megumi x reader

: coming soon !!

[bonus] hearts be burned asunder with love — okkotsu yuta x oc

: it's a new generation of sorcerers and the flower of the jujutsu society truly lived up to her fate of carrying new heirs for a dying clan. from her union with the nefarious sorcerer killer comes a blessing and a festival; a shepherd of umbras in the shape of animal curses and the other an amalgamation of opposing energies.

the moment fushiguro matsuri first sung her pleas to the world, the shadows danced and the flowers tried reaching for a speck of light. and it is when she was finally swallowed by the mass of shadows that her twin brother first saw how cruel their part of the world can be.

it's november 2017 and a cursed womb has been spotted hanging like an ominous raindrop of cynicism above a remote forest near a clan compound. all sorcerers near the area are dispatched to the scene but fushiguro megumi has one request to his mentor (begrudging uncle), bring the first-year jujutsu high student he met a few months ago to where the cursed womb is. after all, okkotsu yuta is the only sorcerer megumi openly respects to save his sister and matsuri is the only person everyone expects to neutralize the queen of curses if the time comes for the sword to reap its harvest.

: coming soon !!

send an ask or reply if you want to be added to the taglist <3

#— rory's passages 🌼 #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo satoru #gojo x reader #gojo x you #satoru gojo #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #toji x reader #toji x you #toji zenin #toji fushiguro x reader #megumi x reader #megumi x you #geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #geto x you #geto suguru x you #megumi fluff #toji angst #gojo angst #yuta x oc #yuta okkotsu x oc

[xjoonchildx]

Yeah I totally agree as to how writers are leaving. I agree. Why are they leaving you think?

me figuring out how much trouble i wanna get in tonight

lmaoooooooooo

okay, listen. i have thoughts. i have observations. and i’m going to share some of them with you.

in my experience, most writers have been leaving for one of these three reasons:

1. engagement (rather, the lack thereof)

yeah, yeah i know, writers post about this a lot but here’s why: it’s true. readers on this site, for whatever reason, don’t interact with fics as much as they used to. even some fics that get a lot of likes may only have one or two comments, maybe a couple of reblogs with no feedback.

for what it’s worth, i’ve always felt that for the size of my blog (and how flipping long it takes me to post something) i get wonderful reader feedback and engagement. but i see so many writers struggling out in these tumblr streets, posting really great work that gets very little feedback and it’s discouraging for them. i get it.

i will also be transparent and say that as a writer who biases a “less popular member” it kills me when amazing stories about him (and other “less popular members”) just fall flat.

one of the best hobi stories i ever read had 20 notes when i found it by accident. twenty. it had been posted for some time. in my mind, that was a crime—that story was an absolute masterpiece and it had 20 notes (!). i sent it to every person i knew short of my mama because i was offended that people hadn’t recognized its brilliance. sadly, that writer left tumblr and took her masterpiece with her which brings me to my next point:

2. drama and writer-on-writer crime

phew y’all, there’s just so much of it. i don’t know what it is about tumblr that makes some people lose their absolute minds but they sure damned do. i’ve been here for a minute and i have seen it all.

writers mounting anonymous hate campaigns against one another (this happens a lot). writers mounting anonymous hate campaigns against people they pretended were friends (this one happens a lot a lot). writers sending themselves a boatload of hate anons to get sympathy and attention on the dash (this one happens a lot a lot a lot).

popular writers going out of their way to befriend up-and-coming writers only to then turn around and start nasty whisper campaigns about them when the up-and-coming writer’s blogs and stories eclipse their own in popularity.

insecurity is a hell of a drug.

there are some writers who get on here and they’re cool and they stay cool and they enjoy success and guess what? they’re cool about it.

and then there are the writers who get a few thousand followers and a bunch of notes and delude themselves into thinking they’re real-life celebrities. to those writers i would say: pick the fanciest restaurant in your city, call to make a reservation on a friday night and if they don’t have a slot make sure you let them know you’re really big on tumblr. let me know how that works out for you, okay?

it sounds stupid and it is stupid but this happens on this site all the time. what makes me sad is that it drives people away. they take their personalities and stories and contributions to this insane little space we have here with them, which sucks. the author of that amazing hobi fic? deactivated her account over tumblr drama.

so if you have a blog here and you are so wrapped up in jealousy and insecurity that you feel the need to harass someone off the site (including “friends”), log off and seek help.

3. life (adulting, sigh)

this is the boring one, but it still tracks. this community blew up when covid hit and we all had a lot more time to muse about what kim namjoon would look like in his underwear. but so many people had to get back to the grind after a while, and that meant less time for tumblr and for writing in general (wait is this entire one about me oops)

when i started tumblr i wasn’t working full time. then covid hit. so i had a long stretch where i could dedicate a lot of time to writing and posting. and YES i was still slow, so go ahead and throw that tomato lmao but STILL. it really does impact the number of stories going up and some people who joined during the pandemic just don’t have the time to go back to this like they had before.

so yeah, that’s what i’ve personally seen and experienced on this site. the good news is that for every nasty, insecure writer on this site there are dozens of great people telling great stories. i’m going to stick around for them and i hope you do, too 💕

#anagrams 💕

[end-otw-racism]

End OTW Racism Link Round-Up: Week 1!

We are now in week two of our action demanding that OTW live up to its commitments to address racist harassment & abuse, which ends May 31st! There was a lot of great discussion during the first week, so we wanted to post a round-up of some of the longer-form discussion/analysis that people have been sharing (we're going with posts on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and other sites, as well as Twitter threads that are longer than three tweets). These are posts that we think would be helpful to consider as fandom engages in the necessary conversations about these issues.

If we've missed something you've written, we'll be doing another round-up of week two, so it's not too late! You can either submit it on tumblr, tweet at us, or email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com. We do reserve the right to only share posts that are in line with the intent of the campaign and that we believe are adding to the conversation.

Tumblr

beatrice-otter: Why AO3 needs to be accountable for reducing fandom racism in its internal culture and the archive [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: End OTW Racism and the “Fed” Accusations [link]

aretethegreattelleroftales: You don’t understand what EndOTWRacism is asking for here, and because you clearly do not understand it, you should have known better than to speak on it. [link]

vex-verlain: In response to the reactions I’ve seen to #EndOTWRacism [link]

unrealromance: I don’t really understand how people don’t know the difference between ‘whoops I’ve fallen into a racist trope’ and 'I am literally writing hate speech that is unveiled, mask off’. [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: Codification of a Living Document as a solution to Harassment on OTW [link]

indifferentvincent: RE: End OTW Racism Derailment [link]

elumish: In light of some of the backlash to the End OTW Racism protest, and particularly the concern that an anti-harassment policy would lead to abuse of reporting mechanisms or censorship of unpopular authors/ships… [link]

seepunkrun: How to Find and Attend OTW Board Meetings [link]

indifferentvincent: The people who use the excuse of saying ao3 is an ‘archive’ and so 'must preserve’ the most vile, intentionally racist fics just sound like the most privileged motherfuckers on the planet to me. [link]

spacebeyonce & pretty-weird-ideas: wow this is such a normal and rational thing to say about having a diversity consultant to help ao3 fix their bullshit. [link]

indifferentvincent: I have to assume this is in regards to my promotion of the end-otw-racism call to action, because I don’t know what else it could be referencing. [link]

princeescaluswords: Writing Doesn’t Happen in a Void [link]

mousieta: There is a place, a magic place, a giant, ever growing park filled with sandboxes of every color and shape imaginable. [link]

Twitter

spacebeyonceart: alright so I want to talk about this post I made two years ago now that the #EndOTWRacism ball is finally rolling. [link]

generalfrings: This shit makes me so goddamn angry, yall. [link]

eruthosish: One of the calls of #EndOTWRacism is to improve the AO3's Terms of Service and how the AO3 deals with fanworks that are part of an offsite harassment campaign, so I wanted to share a story about the only time I have ever reported offsite harassment and had Abuse agree with me. [link]

buttonthemdown: They've proven they can move quickly *when they want to*, but the fact the OTW hasn't made an official statement acknowledging their lack of action and pledging to do better sends a signal they don't care about their POC fans. [link] 

Clonehub7567 Seeing the reactionary dismissals of #EndOTWRacism from white fans who pretend to care about racism is reminding me of the backlash i/we got for #UnwhitewashTBB. [link]

hydrochaeris3: ppl who are worried that not participating in the call to action will get them labeled racist..... first of all once again yall are showing that you care more about what others might label you than putting forth tangible effort into caring for a community [link]

m_sketchyart: If you think that #EndOTWRacism is censoring your escapism, here’s a thought to chew on: why is being anti-racist a threat to your escapism? Is true escapism not also leaving racism, antiBlackness, fatphobia, abeism, misogyny, etc out of your escapism? /rh  [link]

lunedraws: Have you wanted to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, re: racism, in one or more of your fandom spaces? This is a concise and timely line of actions we can take. [link]

aliasmarionette: One thing I see a lot in #EndOTWRacism comments which are in favour of the status quo is assumptions about who we mean by fandom, and about the user base of the Archive. [link]

SapphicScholar: New profile photo while participating in the important fan-led campaign to demand that OTW make good on the promises it has already made to address issues it has already acknowledged as problems in the archive—that is, instances of extreme racist harassment and abuse [link]

Fansplaining: Since the endotwracism campaign has begun, we wanted to highlight the timeline they've put together about the OTW's communications re: hiring a diversity consultant since their initial statement of commitment in the summer of 2020. [link]

gwenpendrcgon: ive seen so much backlash over #EndOTWRacism which shouldnt surprise me (also majority of this comes from tumblr is also to be expected) but most if not all backlash received by this event is done is such bad faith and complete wilful ignorance [link]

fiercynonym: so op of the #EndOTWRacism post on reddit dm-ed me and the situation is even more fucked up than i originally knew???  [link]

kitschlet: seeing a lot of people confused about what the OTW can do to address racism [link]

generalfrings: poor AO3 maintaining a 'absurdly heavy site'. all that text! [link]

RukminiPande: Fan scholars should be paying attn to #EndOTWracism. [link]

Saathi1013: The thing to notice about all the assertions that people know who's behind EOTWR is like... Okay, there are a few things, actually [link]

buttonthemdown: If you think that victims of racism need to "develop a thicker skin" you're a fucking racist [link]

mousieta: if i could have people understand one thing abt #endotwracism right now is that This issue matters not because racism makes you feel bad, or uncomfy, or squicky but because racism is actively harming Real Living Breathing Fans right now. [link]

fiercynonym: okay so…you know how OTW has been saying, when asked at meetings, that they have a budget surplus of about USD $1 million? well…manogirl & i did some digging, and it might actually be more than TWO AND A HALF MILLION USD. [link]

runpunkrun: Speaking of OTW Board meetings, if you're interested in attending, here's what you need to know [link] 

Dreamwidth

satsuma: A Chronic Habit of Avoiding Responsibility? #EndOTWRacism [link]

bcgphoenix: I have a lot of feelings about OTW and End OTW Racism as a book conservator/general preservation person, most of which verge into tl;dr territory. [link]

killabeez: Looking at past archive policies [link]

nyctanthes: End OTW Racism (Fannish Fifty #47) [link]

chestnut_pod: Be more democratic, be more autocratic, OTW [link]

Other sites

Lady’s Weblog: End Racism in the OTW [link]

The Rec Center: #384 Final Thoughts [link]

Stitch’s Media Mix: I’m Supporting #EndOTWRacism [link]

#end otw racism #racism in fandom #otw #ao3 #organization for transformative works #archive of our own #fandom racism #link round-up

[learnthebreakdown]

I made this post about how moved I am yr addressed racism with Felice/Simon. It prompted me ponder issues about this fandom (starting how the nonwhite characters are treated in this fandom, and if people would sympathize with Wille as much if he was black instead of white, for example. But then it spiraled into other things as well) I've never had the courage to post about before, but yr gave me courage lmao (putting a disclaimer that I don't hate any of the characters as people...actually I adore most of them...except August). This season showed how ingrained racism is, it exists in so many "invisible" ways, where people can act as if it's not real since it makes them uncomfortable to deal with their own hidden biases, or worse, because they think their biases are actually justified. I've seen some mentions about how the audience of this show reflects the exact prejudices the show claims to criticize.

There's a notable pattern where even minor rich kid characters receive disproportionate sympathy/recognition and others face unwarranted criticism, reflecting societal biases and how we are conditioned. While tumblr has been better this season especially with time, tumblr (and esp other social media) sites often have much more sympathy for Wille over Simon, for example. Simon across sites gets a lot of undue downright vile comments from the fandom, or is just disregarded more. Part of this could be because Wille is the main character, and Simon's perspective was not shown super well in season 2, but Simon/Omar often get a lot of comments that aren't unsimilar to the racist and vile comments we saw Simon get in the show. It made me wonder- if Wille had not been white, if he had been black, would people still have found as much sympathy for him during his angry outbursts? How strange that many people seem to find sympathy for Wille and even August, but not for Simon, even though if we are being realistic...Simon is an equally complex character that has not done many bad things? How interesting that people barely discuss Felice's storyline, but there are people that gag over the rich white kids, stederika and henry/walter (especially after Felice's storyline this season, and when we have Rosh as a canon sapphic lower class girl). How wild that the girls' storylines- Felice and Sara's- are disregarded? People often act like Wille and Simon have gotten the same amount of hate, but if you've been in this fandom long enough and seen the overall situation, I think people know that Wille is favored over Simon overall, and the hate/disregard they get is not equivalent, especially considering Simon is the second lead.

I'm not saying all of this is due to prejudice, or that everyone who has ever done these things is an awful person, it's more just an observation that if we are honest with ourselves, hidden biases certainly play a role in ALL of our thoughts/behaviors. Even for those who may not actively engage in it, do we enable it? And with a show like Young Royals that is attempting to (not always succeeding, but an attempt was made this season) to critique these social structures of racism and classism, wouldn't it be nice if, as we go into this final episode, we look inwards and see what biases we may carry that affect our perception of this show, and more importantly, real life? Life imitates art, after all.

#young royals #wilmon #simon eriksson #felice ehrecrona #prince wilhelm #stederika #just some thoughts I'm not trying to start a fire here #just thought it would be cool if we think about some of the issues the show brought to the forefront #sara eriksson #damn I mentioned so many characters didn't I

[itoshi-s]

i'm sorry i'm sorry i saw your tag about older brother's best friend aiku and i actually SCREAMED because that's such a thought inducing idea . . . he does have that vibe, and he pulls it off so well !! i feel like he fits the trope of someone you've known your whole life but who was always just a bit too old for you to actually spend time with — until you eventually get a bit older too and start getting closer with him and that's when the fun starts yk lmao

i'm- babes i am looking so respectfully this is SO right 🤕

˚୨୧⋆ 𝑛𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑔𝑖𝑎

wc: 1.3k. cw: slightly suggestive, reader is referred to as sister/might be femcoded, this started as a drabble and well.. we're here now, could be dc potential, could just be some pining ꒰ minors/ageless blogs dni ꒱

you've known aiku since what feels like forever, and he's always had this confident, slightly intimidating aura to him, even back when all three of you were just kids. the age gap between you two wasn't anything crazy, at least not by the time you were both grown adults, but the four years seemed to pose more of a problem back when you were still in school. you were always a bit timid around your brothers friends, palms growing clammy when you'd have to come into his room and call them for dinner or fetch something - but they were only ever nice to you anyway. you were just there, your brother's little sister, perhaps a bit too young to fully understand their jokes or why they're so clumsy when stumbling up the stairs at 3 am. but hey, it's not like you felt bad about it, really.

your brother and his friends were good kids, however - oliver included. never got into too much trouble, always so respectful when coming over and talking to your parents. by the time your brother dropped soccer somewhere in the middle of high school, aiku was already considered a national gem and proudly carried the weight of being japan's hope.

finally about to step into the lifestyle you saw your brother and all his friends engage in for the past few years, you weren't surprised at all to only ever see aiku, the nicest one of the group (the most handsome, too) on the tv screen anymore. he's left for some kind of soccer project, then got scouted by the ubers back in italy, and you truly felt so happy for the boy after everything you've seen him go through. the two of you wasn't exactly close, not at all, but he's always been so kind to you, told you sincere words on how you should never give up your dreams no matter how silly they felt; helped you with the stupid physics project that your brother couldn't figure out for the life of him, either (it runs by blood, after all).

you don't keep in touch with any of the guys, but stumble upon some of them on the streets of your hometown ever so often. you exchange smiles, familiarize each other with what you're up to now, then go off with your day as usual.

(you don't know each of them teases your brother on how well you've grown. he tells them to shut the fuck up every time cause, fuck, the thought alone is gross, and he'd rather kill them than allow you to get involved with either of 'em.)

oliver's the one you see the rarest. it's only natural with his field of work, busier than anything any of you could ever put your minds to. it is kind of funny to see his face on gossip sites, though, so if there's ever any disappointment threatening to build up on you, it works just well to ease it.

the first time you properly meet him again after three or four years is when you just happen to be going through the worst shift you've had in ages, and he's the one most annoying client, casually stepping into the store mere minutes away from closing.

"aiku-kun?" you sound surprised when you make out the familiar features, sharp yet warm eyes flickering under the bright lights when he grins.

he sets the ramune bottle down, pushing it in your direction.

"in the flesh", he chuckles, "you doing night shifts now?" the man asks, almost sounding just as taken aback (one thing he remembers about you is that you've never liked to stay up late, and hated being out when it got dark).

you just give a shrug.

oliver learns you're not silent because you're busy ringing him up or still shocked to see him - you sniff and wipe at your eyes haphazardly and only then does he realize that you're feeling down, and probably cried at the back minutes before he came in.

"they're paying me better for these," you mumble, manicured nail tapping on the register. you don't look up when speaking, too embarrassed to let him see you this messed up when he looks so stupidly handsome. italy treated him well- time, too. "is that a-"

you glance up upon the sound of clinking glass. there's another bottle of soda standing next to his, and it just happens to be your favorite flavor, too.

(he remembered, and as sweet as it is, it's not a big deal. then why are you blushing? why are your palms suddenly clammy, like back in the old times?)

"wrap it up, i'll be waiting outside." oliver offers, thick lashes fluttering as he blinks. almost expectantly, but it's not like he wants to pressure you into agreeing. (it'd be nice, though. and you just happen to be as meek as always, and crumble under the intensity of his gaze instantly - as if that's what his true motive was all along.) "unless you're busy?"

you shake your head, wiping your hands on the back of your jeans. "no, not at all."

you join oliver on a quiet drive down the streets of your neighbourhood, eventually reaching the local view spot that you've spent all too many late nights at - both of you. the only difference's that it's all nostalgia to him, and it's still your very present, a weekly way to hang out - perhaps just following what your older siblings did.

and even though it's your very first time sitting in a car so expensive, the defender's presence is oddly comforting. familiar, in a way, and you only ever realize how much you've missed it when he wordlessly encourages you to open yourself up before him. he's always been so effortlessly charming, inviting in a way - and he still is, even though your heart wants to leap out of your chest when his fingers brush along yours as he helps you push the round marble down.

"so," the brunette clears his throat, "he dumped you over a text?" he knocks the bottle neck of his drink with yours, bicolored gaze seemingly burning through you as he watches you nod.

you hum, taking a sip of the bubbly beverage and looking out the city's panorama. oliver rolls his eyes, rubbing at the nape of his neck and leaning back in his seat.

"that's a real dick move, you know?" he states matter-of-factly, to which you snort, "guys like that don't deserve your tears, kid."

"says who," you quip. from your peripheral, you notice him turn his head back to you. "i've seen the articles, loverboy. m'not sure if you're the best advisor." you tease, cheek resting on top of your bare shoulder as you grin at him.

the man bites back a laugh, canines on show when he smiles to himself and frankly, the sight's making your tummy flutter with an unknown, fairly new feeling, no matter how much you try to ward the butterflies off.

you don't know it yet, and aiku's quite sure of it, actually - there's the exact same sensation bubbling somewhere in his chest, too, when he shamelessly, ravenously takes in the soft glow of your skin, decolletage on show thanks to the tiny spaghetti strap top you're wearing. your eyes are as wide as ever, despite all the burdens and daily struggles simmering behind your affection and interest-blown pupils, and there's this almost dreamy, captivating smile, one that beautifully compliments your now more womanly-like, refined features.

perhaps it's better you don't ever become familiar with the thoughts that start to simmer in his head - you, moaning into his mouth as he steals kisses from those taunting, plush lips of yours, that he's sure currently taste of the artificial sweet pineapple you're sipping on; you, down on your knees in front of him, giving him the same soft, gullible look, on the verge of pleading for all the attention he forwent in the past.

and fuck, he's aware of it - annoyingly so - but oliver has agreed to let go of a few too many things in life already.

you're not about to be one of them, too.

© itoshi-s. do not plagiarize, repost as your own or mention on other sm platforms.

#✧.* zaria writes #oliver aiku x reader #blue lock x reader #aiku oliver x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock x you #bllk x you #blue lock imagines #i got way too into it omg iM SORRY #i promise it was supposed to b just a little silly drabble.. i got carried away:3 he's just so !!!!! UGH #couldn't be helped i guess

[iraprince]

do u have any advice for those that want to run a quest?

it feels a LEETLE silly answering this when all my own are currently on hiatus bc i got busy (SORRY TO CALLIST0 READERS LOL) BUT!!! yes i do. i have only ever run quests/interactive comics on the site questden, so i guess as a baseline this will kind of all be geared towards that, but i think most of this should translate to any hosting situation

you have to be cool with your plots branching and mutating in unexpected ways, and you have to be willing to play ball with your readers. quests are a collaboration between the author and the audience. it often feels a lot like gming a tabletop campaign (and that's the origin!! questden, specifically, was originally an offshoot of /tg/.) -- we've all had or heard about bad GMs who view their position as that of a narrative dictator who exists to punish and prod a captive group of players thru their own personal novel, but a good GM is interested in telling stories as a group. u have final say and have to stay true to the important stuff abt ur story, but if u get mad or frustrated when ur readers want to explore something "off topic" or aren't following the threads of ur narrative the way u expected them to, u don't actually want to run a quest, u just want to make a webcomic w mandatory comments. (the flip side of this is: consider if the story u want to make is the right one for an interactive quest. if it is REALLY important to u that the plot beats of a story go a certain way, maybe save it for a medium where u have more control!)

keep it loose and fast. the art does not matter. i am rly guilty of not following this one, but i still think it's really important! one of the things i like best about quests is the barrier to entry is very low and you SHOULD be able to start and maintain one very quickly. if i were better at keeping my art scrabbly and sketchy and loose, my stuff would not go on hiatus as often as it does. draw fast! it's NICE if the art is gorgeous to look at and definitely will draw readers, but it's way better if the art is simple enough that you can update frequently and without much stress. the quality of ur writing + character building, and whether u are telling a story that's engaging and that ur readers feel meaningfully involved in, is 100000x more important than the art.

on the more nitty gritty side: try to have a hook in each update. one of the most common reasons suggestions die off is readers being unsure of what they're supposed to do next. sure, too much spoonfeeding could end up feeling like railroading, and you don't have to end every single update by getting right in their faces and yelling "WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT??", but when you finish an update try to take a second to put yourself in a reader's shoes and see if there's an obvious next step. is there a course of action to decide on/debate, are there clear questions they can ask an npc, etc -- i can't think of a great way to describe it, but you want to avoid ending an update on a note where the player character and readers are basically sitting there looking at each other like "um... okay. that's that, then." some ppl even just end all their updates w multiple choice options, which is a super simple way to keep things moving if it fits the style of what ur doing. if you don't want it to be that overt but you still can't think of a way for there to be a clear hook, you can at least try to leave a little nudge in the narration that invites the readers to try to tie whatever they've just done/learned back into the pc's main goals/motivations or current tasks. (on this subject, VERY useful for your main character to have a very specific goal or end destination that everyone is on the same page abt. it's harder for your plot to lose momentum if you can always point at what your readers are supposed to be moving toward!)

finally: KEEP UPDATING EVEN IF YOU GET VERY FEW/NO SUGGESTIONS. it's a niche genre. questden is a small website. it's hard to get people to read something new, especially if it's in a new and unfamiliar format (and especially especially when it's on a website that looks like a chanboard lmao). picking up readers takes a long time, and a lot of people lurk without suggesting (ESPECIALLY if it's a difficult/plot-important decision, and also especially in the opposite, if it's a very obvious next step and someone else has already commented what most ppl would say). it's very tempting to want to wait for more suggestions bc u "only" have one or two, and then that wait becomes stagnation, and then you're frustrated and u end up dropping the quest bc "nobody cares." instead u just have to push thru!!!! u only have two suggestions and u wish u had more? maybe next update u'll get more. u have NO suggestions and u feel like that means ur quest is dead in the water? NOPE! the solution is to update again, bc maybe ppl with latch on more and have something to say in the next scene. the more u update ur quest, the more u'll be able to talk abt it (and maybe get more readers), and specifically in the case of questden the more ur thread will be bumped to the front page. think abt how many times you've seen ppl talking abt a webcomic or a book and thought "i need to check that out eventually...." but it takes months for you to actually do it. 99.9999% of the time, ppl need to see something MULTIPLE TIMES before they check it out!! most readers do not come from clicking something the very first time they see it!! i know it can feel lonely and discouraging, but u owe it to ur art and the stories u want to tell to keep trying, even if engagement is very low at first, otherwise you're killing it before it's even had a chance. like, get shameless about it. ask your buddies to comment on your quest. but give that horse a few really good whacks before you decide it's dead!! i think that's my main thoughts. if you have any more specific questions i'm happy to help if i can! but also i think you'll learn the most by just jumping in and fucking around. quests are easy to pick up and easy to drop, and imo do really well as a playground where u test different ways to draw and tell stories, so might as well just get messy.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Feb 15th

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1. Hi! This is for fic finder. Its similar to "wide enough and wild" by impossibletruths. The difference is, in the fic that i want to find again is WWX is a sect leader of wen remnant. There are a fight between the wen remnant because of land and WWX has to resolbe it as sect leader. WWX and LWJ adopt Wen Yuan formally like they ask granny wen for permission to adopt Wen Yuan and there are some ceremony to solidify the adoption. LWJ get drunk and stole a goat (?). It involve a goat but i dont remember if it was LWJ or JWY who stole a goat. WQ has a student. Close to the end of story, WQ goes to Yunmeng with JWY and the title of sect healer goes to WQ's student. I think thats all i can remember. Thank you! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

NOT FOUND stay, fury, your wrist wrapped in silk by spookykingdomstarlight (E, 228k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ LWJ, LWJi loses his golden core, yiling wei sect, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Major Character Injury, Injury Recovery, Temporary Character Death, War Crimes, Wen Remnant, Wangxian Get a Happy Ending, Revenge, LWJ goes dark for a while, WWX has a hard time with the bad shit going on around him, JGS is a bastard, Protracted Sunshot Campaign, War is war and hell is hell and of the two war is a lot worse, temporary impotence, growing intimacy, LWJ and WWX and the Wen Remnant live in the Burial Mounds together, WWX travels with LWJ and stays at his side post-Sunshot, Spanish Translation)

FOUND! sounds like the epilogue chapter of A Narrow Bridge by FrameofMind, Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle) (E, 700k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, slow burn, getting together, first time, pining, pining while fucking, burial mounds settlement days, angst w happy ending)… but that's a really short piece of that particular fic to remember so I have doubts ^^; the goat part sounds like way earlier tho, when they get a goat, if I remember well.

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2. hello! I’m looking for a modern wangxian fic where wwx and lwj are high school (?) lovers but then lan qiren (who is also the director of the school I think) finds out about their relationship and sends lwj to the Lan school London. And then there’s a time skip and lwj ends up working at the school and the school system gets hacked so they engage the tech company that wwx started to fix the problem. And then they get back together - please help me!

FOUND? Tempo Rubato by Spodumene (E, 107k, WangXian, Modern AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Romance, Persuasion au, Separations, Mutual Pining, Depression, Miscommunication, Emotional Roller Coaster, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Reconciliation, Eventual Smut, Jane Austen Fusion, Underage Kissing) / Hello! I'm fairly certain that #2 on the most recent fic finder is in fact Tempo Rubato. I just finished doing a reread of that one and the details provided all line up :)

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3. hello! i hope u guys can help me find this fic. wwx and lwj are camboys then one day, wwx watched lwj for the first time just before his stream. (i think lwj is the no. 1 in that site) lwj watched his stream, wwx gave him his address and lwj went to his house. i know that its in my bookmark but i cant really find it. thank you in advamce!

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4. hi there are some fics that are continuously bouncing around in my head so some help in finding them would be very much appreciated and if my memory serves me correct all these stories were one shots

A) all I remember is that WY was a phoenix captured by the wens and LZ meets him during his capture and falls in love around this time, also not very sure if WY had healing powers or his tears turned to peals because he heals LZ and that LZ tells him to cry just because WY feels like crying

B) the story starts of with WY and LZ on a date arranged by all of their friends and other memories of it include NHS telling WY that LZ had made a separate group without him to warn them from ever repeating what they did WY also went out with LQY in (idk) high school and with WQ but they broke up because WQ had to focus on med school and didn't want to do Long distance and that WY seems to know that LZ is in love with him and LZ cries after telling WY that he's happy being his friend along with ending on the note where WY and LZ confirm that they are officially friends to every one else

C) this one revolves around WY being a sacrifice and LZ is guardian till his death but they fall in love I think WY was to be sacrificed on his 20 some birthday also the way the sacrifice was interpreted wrongly by the sects and in it WY and LZ also sleep together before WY is ultimately sacrificed but it was a happy ending that's all I remember I apologize if the descriptions are too vague but I read them a good while back and thank you so much for your help

4A)

FOUND! a thousand hills, no birds in flight | 千山鳥飛絕 by defractum (nyargles) (E, 26k, WangXian, Mythology, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon adjacent setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort)

NOT FOUND! Breathing Firestorm by ladyshadowdrake (M, 110k, wangxian, angst, fluff, captivity, creepy WRH, no non-con, dreamsharing, politics, people making the best decisions they can, epic length, mythical creature WWX, canon-typical violence, dark, happy ending)

4B)

FOUND! yeah theyre just bros thanks for asking by victortor (T, 10k, WangXian, Intimacy, Modern AU, Aromantic Character, Established Relationship, Communication)

4C)

FOUND! The Sacrifice's Last Guard by 0_Heta_0 (E, 24k, WangXian, Falling In Love, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending)

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5. hi there! for the next fic finder — im pretty... sure... this is a jiang yanli-centric fic? but a lot of the POV was also madame yu. i remember that cangse sanren survived (this is not time charm). cssr, madame yu, and,, another woman who i forgot (possibly lwj's mother?) get into a relationship, and they raise the children together. im pretty sure jfm also dies alongside wcz (unless im mixing up two fics). either way, theres a scene where someone sneaks in the wives rm n mdme yu kicks their ass // (i'm the yzy/cssr/madame lan anon) i know for *sure* now that im mixing up two fics, but same ot3. it's not sami's sail away sweet sister. the character pov was yzy annd she was a lot more unsure about the whole thing bc she was painfully aware what she's like.

For the most recent fic finder #5 is absolutely Sail Away Sweet Sister. It's in Chapter 3, 2/3 of the way through. It may be conflated with another one, though, as that particular section is in Madame Lan POV (her name is Tang Lijuan). Sami tells stories in multi-POV though, so there are other sections from Yu Ziyuan's POV relating the incident.

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6. Okay so, looking for a fic where lwj or wwx accidentally summon incubus/succubus wwx or lwj. (I can't remember who was the sex demon or who was the human but it is a wangxian fic)

So, the succubus needs food and it is, unsurprisingly, cum. As in they have to literally eat cum to survive. So the human lets the demon feed from him. The human is followed by this succubus/incubus everywhere he goes to including his university.

The human loves feeding the sex demon and even lets him feed in the uni bathroom during breaks.

Does a fic like this exist? Does it ring any bell?

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7. Hi I'm looking for a fic in which Lan wangji and Lan Zichen got yin poisoning. And because Lan wangji in on the verge of death. Lan zichen decided to ask for Wei wuxian help on extracting yin energy but Lan Qiren prevented LAN zichen from fetching Wei wuxian because of his injury and decided the LAN Qiren himself will go and get Wei wuxian. And in this story Lan zichen and Jin gungyao will end up together jin gungyao was poisoned by his father. And wen Qing helps treat him thank you for the help @routel

FOUND? The Untamed: For the Love of Two Boys by YenGirl (Not rated, 181k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, JC/WQ, 3zun, Yin Metal poisoning, wangxian wedding, XiYao wedding, 3Zun wedding, Single minded LWJ, Caring WWX, Supportive lxc, Supportive LQR, Prickly JC, Sweet JYL, Good JZX, Badass WQ, Cinnamon roll WN, adorable a-yuan, Supportive NMJ, Redeemed JGY, Evil JGS, Supportive Madam Jin, Annoying JZN, Evil XY, Rescued SS, Jealous SS, Useless Sect Leader Yao, Supportive Lan Healer OC, Accupuncture, Golden Core Reveal, Yunmeng sibs reconciliation, Implied mpreg jokes, stygian tiger seal, Burial Grounds fight, Meng Shi's grave, Jiang Sect Ancestral Hall, Lan Sect Ancestral Hall, wedding nights, minor OCs,nMingshi & Calming Bell)

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8. Hello I am looking for a fanfic where Wei Ying finds out that he still has family that’s alive on his fathers side. He travels with Lan Zhan and ayuan to meet them and finds out his father was from a rich merchant family but his father left them to become a cultivator. He meets his grandmother who has dementia and his family business ends up boycotting the Jins when they find out what they did to Weiying. I know I bookmarked this fanfic but I can’t seem to find it.

FOUND? Keep Holding On by abCEE (M, 316k, JC & WWX & JYL, wangxian, canon divergence, role reversal, YLLZ JYL, yunmeng sibling dynamics, good uncle LQR, sunshot campaign, PTSD, established relationship, angst w/ happy ending)

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9. Hi I really loved the fic A Myriad of Blossoms!! It's one of my favs now! Thank you so much for suggesting that fic.

Next I was looking for two fics :

A) Where Wei Wuxian after being expelled from CR is also "expelled" from YMJ and he works as a spy for Madam Yu and later when she dies the spy organisation is taken up by Nie Huaisang.

B) Where Lan Wangji asks Wei Wuxian to give up the Yin Tiger Tally and as a result WWX loses his new Yin core all over again and is severely hurt and LWJ regrets.

Thank you again!! @yilinglaobunny

9A)

FOUND! 🔒 Pendulum by ShippersList (M, 69k, wangxian, graphic depicitions of violence, rape/non-con, underage, A/B/O, Canon Divergence, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Misunderstandings, Canon-Typical Violence, Spies & Secret Agents, Fake Character Death, Slow Burn, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, BAMF WWX, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canonical Character Death, Mutual Pining, Good JGY, Introspection, Self-Sacrificing WWX, Love Confessions, Protective LWJ, past child sexual abuse)

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10. Hi! I was hoping to have some help finding a specific fic? It was really long, a zombie apocalypse au? Where WWX gives birth to A-Yuan and LWJ is the father and then they get separated? And there's a big cruise ship? I remember the title was something like Nowhere Man? And it was finished! But I can't find it anywhere! Appreciate any help in finding this fic, thank you!!! @ariel-nolikeshakespeare

FOUND? For #10 could it be that its this fic? nowhere man - Red (zuwujun) At least if you search on google "nowhere man zombie ao3" thats the first result and it is a wangxian fic from the summary snippet visible from google. Sadly its currently hidden for a challenge

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11. Hi! I really appreciate the work you do. I'm looking for two fics: A) a deity!wwx au fic (not many tags beyond pairing, incomplete, hasnt been updated in a few years). Lwj meets night deity!wwx as a teen, befriends him, and during sunshot everyone thinks hes blessed by the sun god bc he has a branding iron he uses as a weapon. wwx turns himself mortal. B) The second is a cql post-canon fic: wwx sends lwj note hes in trouble from a night hunt. Family brings food to cave. Sex curse? Defeat Yao in lake. @classygreydove

11B)

FOUND? Fire in the Blood by Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle) (M, 20k, wangxian, First Time, Post-Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, hurt/comfort themes)

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12. Hi! I'm looking for these two fics:

A) WWX is the boss at some company and wants to keep LWJ from leaving because he's such a good employee so he offers him to double his salary or whatever he wants, LWJ says he won't leave if WWX offers himself. It's a modern AU.

B) During his stay in cloud recesses, WWX overhears two guys planning on cursing a woman with a toy connected to her, WWX stops them and changes the curse towards himself. The issue is that LWY confiscates the toy. That's what I remember.

Thanks!

12A)

FOUND? What's Wrong With Secretary Lan? by silverclaw (T, 5k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, Modern, Inspired By What's Wrong With Secretary Kim? (TV), JZX and WWX are best friends, LWJ is "going through a rebellious phase")

12B)

FOUND? 🔒 The Golden Cutsleeve by syrus_jones (E, 77k, WangXian, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Crack, Humor, Aged-Up Character(s), WWX POV, WWX is a gremlin, Internally Screaming LWJ, No Sunshot Campaign, First Times, Accidental Sex, Masturbation, PWP, Porn with Feelings, WWX experimenting with things he shouldn’t like always, Happy Ending, Porn With Plot)

~*~

13. Hello— looking for a fic (au).

A) The Twin Jades go to Lotus Pier. Madam Yu makes WY stay out of the way (maybe even sleep outside?). LXC sees WY using talismans & is impressed. The next day he brings his brother & LWJ falls for WY:)

B) The twin jades are at Lotus Pier & MY makes WY sleep outside? But LWJ runs into him (and sees him using talisman:)

Thanks!!! @snowrose24

For number thirteen in the last item finder, I know that fic is an omega Wei Wuxian, but I can’t recall the title. Hope that helps? Definitely an alpha Lan Wangji.

~*~

14. Hello, I am not sure how this works 😅. I think I am supposed to write my request here. I am trying to find a WangXian fic. It is a modern au. Lan enterprises is hacked and Nei Mingjue send Wei Ying to help them and by the end of day Lan Wangji and Wei Ying are set for a date. In this fic Wei Ying is a CEO of a big security company I think. Also they decided that Wei Ying will be an intern to catch the hacker. @veeru19

FOUND? Wangji's Beautiful Stranger by xxxMiaHikarixxx (G, 47k, wangxian, WIP, Modern, Soulmates, older LWJ, younger WWX, LWJ is So Whipped, Not Jiang Family Friendly, A-Yuan and Jingyi are best boys)

~*~

15. Hi there! I'm looking for a fic that I sadly don't remember much about. The few things that stick in my mind are (1) Lan Wangji's father is alive, but they do not get along since his father left them, (2) Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a baby (can't remember if it's A-Yuan or an OC), and (3) there's some family event where Lan Qiren brings Lan Wangji's father and Lan Wangji (somewhat reluctantly) allows his father to feed the baby as a sign he's willing to try to start mending their relationship. Thanks for all the good work you do! @lucky-cat-13

~*~

16. Hi! This is for fic finder. I dont remember much, unfortunately. What i remember is WWX send a letter to other clan. Like, there should be someone who married in to wen remnants right? So he send letter to those family to ask if they want to take their wen family back or not. I think LWJ help him too. That is all i can remember. Thank you! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

~*~

17. Hello! I'm looking for a fic where Lan Wangji is an emperor. Lan Xichen dies in the war against the Wen and none of the other clans provided support to the Lan. Wei Wuxian helps in the background, including saving the Dafan Wen. Lan Wangji demands Wei Wuxian as part of the treaty/alliance with with other clans post winning the war. Wei wuxian thinks he is a war prize/prisoner, but he is treated really well by the Gusu Lan for his efforts in the war.

It was WIP and I thought I had this bookmarked, but I lost it 😔

Thank you!!

FOUND! golden when the day met the night by glitteringmoonlight (Not rated, 95k, slow burn, sugar daddy LWJ, light, angst, fluff, developing relationship, eventual smut, WIP)

~*~

18. Hello again! Thanks as always for your help. Do you happen to remember that one fic where wwx has wildly overworked himself by taking in too many foster kids, and LWJ, his boyfriend, buys him a Fitbit to gently dom him into eating and sleeping enough? @balleyboley

I know number 18😭 I'll try to look for it. Wei ying wouldn't sleep or eat and didnt realize it, I hope someone finds it!

FOUND? underweight by sixstepsaway (E, 7k, WangXian, sex used as bribery lmao, Eating Disorders, Anxiety, full time dom!lwj, consensual control, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs)

~*~

19. Hi, So i'm looking for two fics a) pretty sure his one is a one shot but it's basically during the sunshot campain and wwx is putting souls to rest when one of them wants something for him. The soul is all flirty and so on and after some time they find out it's nhs and nmj's father. b) also during the sunshot campain, nmj sees wwx being sickly and is like I'll take you under my wing, he feeds him just takes care of him @thatperson0-0

19A)

FOUND! Win Some, Lose Some by nirejseki (G, 3k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Talkative Ghosts, Marriage Arrangements, NHS & LWJ friends agenda)

~*~

20. hii. this is for ficfinder

I haven't read this but the summary of the fic was smth like wei wuxian disappears and I think sometime later lan wangji finds a man named mo xuanyu, I think it's a modern au, but I might be wrong!

thank you!!!

NOT FOUND! 🔒 Where You Fell by Sweet_William (E, 303k, wangxian, 3zun, JC/NHS, JYL/JZX, Modern, Angst, Mutual Pining, Homeless AU, Getting Together, Slow Burn, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, accidental sugar daddy LWJ, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Esteem Issues, Coffee Shops & Cafés, Autistic Character, WWX Has ADHD, Panic Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex Work, Implied/Referenced Substance Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending)

NOT FOUND! vintage youth by sami (E, 13k, WangXian, Modern AU, references to past LWJ/others, references to past WWX/WQ, Family, Sexual Tension, set in the early 90s, Background Xicheng)

FOUND! don't leave me waiting, don't leave me here by sassybluee (M, 13k, WangXian, WangYu, Modern: No Powers, Missing Persons, Sex Work, Lawyer LWJ, Ambiguous Relationships, Hopeful Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, POV LWJ)

~*~

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic finder #wangxian fic search #the untamed #wangxianficfinder #long post

[doberbutts]

genuine question coming from a place of good faith: is it wrong of me to be scared for transmascs right now? the harassment of transfems by both radfems and now even tumblr staff is fucking horrendous, but im terrified that due to so much recent discourse, people are going to blame transmascs for it and hate us even more than they already do.

i genuinely do care about transfems and it’s utterly ghoulish what’s going on right now, and it needs to stop, but I can’t help but get this awful sinking feeling over how it could affect transmascs by proxy — but I’m not sure if that’s wrong of me? is it wrong to worry about, should I be focusing entirely on transfems right now? is it transmisogynistic of me to be concerned about both of these things instead of just the one? I don’t know if what I’m feeling is wrong and it’s stressing me out so badly :(

I don't think it's ever wrong to be concerned about multiple real problems at once.

I have stayed pretty quiet on this situation, mostly just adding stuff to my queue if I agree with it but not weighing in personally. Mainly the reason is that I genuinely don't know anything about the trans woman in question who all of this fuss is for. But, I have seen other trans blogs get nuked for seemingly flimsy reasons, and I have seen self-professed terfs and radfems crowing victory with the latest victims of their mass-reporting.

And I think this is a bit of a PR nightmare, but I also think this site does have a serious harassment problem the staff does not take nearly seriously enough while it also seems to punish in equal amounts blogs that get harassed AND blogs that were literally just minding their own business, with really the main similarities being that they are blogs owned by people belonging to seriously marginalized and at-risk demographics talking about controversial topics like racism and LGBT politics.

It is really quite frustrating that there are now accusations that trans mascs talking about their own oppression are behind this, when not only is there no proof behind the claim but also even without a lot of direct knowledge I am seeing a certain demographic cheering that their mass reports worked and I gotta say, that demographic largely isn't trans mascs.

I also think there is a lot of hypocrisy floating around, because some of these blogs I'm seeing mad about this latest streak of bans are also people who themselves have advocated for harassing others and mass-reporting others who simply fail the vibe check while just existing as themselves, off this website. And while those users don't have the power of the literal CEO, they're failing to see how they've contributed to the problem of this website's user culture of "send the most vile thing you can think of en mass until they break and leave and good riddance".

I say this as someone who also has been harassed by a band of people wanting to chase me off of this website. It is why I don't interact much with dogblr anymore. I have had several people who joined in that dog pile later approach me and apologize, but the damage is still done and I am not interested in engaging with a "community" so willing to tear someone apart on flimsy accusations that weren't even true. I almost killed myself that night, I had a mental break and turned off my blog completely for several days just to make it stop, and returned to see people similarly crowing with delight that they'd successfully run me off. It's happened to me, and the perpetrators were almost entirely white cisgender women, and I have been very reliably told by multiple other people that both my blackness and my transgender status were significant motivators in their poor behavior.

This also happening in the wake of yet another transgender teen killed by their peers has left me simply mentally and physically exhausted. I began involving myself more in the transgender community on here because I wanted this to stop. I wanted to help uplift my siblings and get them out of the pit before the whole thing caved in. It's feeling very hopeless right now for trans kids around the world and in the mean time it's also apparently my fault a trans woman I don't even know got banned I guess..

In any case. Hold your head up. We'll get through this, somehow. We always have. We always will.

[royalsofhistory]

Empress Elisabeth of Austria and her Corfiot palace through the eyes of the Greek royals.

Greece was destined to offer the Empress Elisabeth the hospitality of its soil. She chose Greece as the country where she would hide herself and her sorrow. At Corfu she bought a site of ground from an old Corfiote Statesman called Braïla, and on it she built the Palace which she called "Achilleion", after her hero Achilles, whose statue was in the middle of the top garden terrace, and represented him at the hour of his death, drawing the arrow out of his heel. When in Corfu, it was understood, she was to be strictly incognito, and her wishes were always respected. One day, suddenly, when we least expected it, she arrived at Athens, having travelled by the ordinary steamer, and called at the Palace accompanied by a lady -in-waiting. She asked the porter whether she could see the King and Queen. On the porter's inquiring who she was, she replied she was "the Empress of Austria." Whereupon we were brought down to verify that statement . It seemed impossible╴but it was the Empress of Austria! Needless to say she obtained her interview, and after half an hour's conversation she took her departure, insisting that her visit should not be returned by my parents. As she was anxious to study Greek culture, she decided to learn modern Greek, and applied herself to the task with great energy and perseverance. She engaged a tutor for Greek conversation. Her first was Dr. Christomanos, an author and poet, who wrote a charming life of the Empress, which was translated into several languages. Her last was Count A. Mercati, who afterwards became Master of King Constantine's household. Accompanied by her tutor, the Empress used to go off on a five or six hours' walk, all over the island; and even for the picturesque ceremony of combing and brushing her hair the tutor had to be present, talking Greek to her all the time. She learnt to speak Greek quite faultlessly. In the arrangement of her house the Empress took great pride, setting up the statues of all her new "Gods"; Sophocles, Euripides, Plato and Aristotle. She also had a statue of Heine, the poet, erected in a shrine. When the Kaiser bought the Achilleion, he at once banished Heine, and raised Achilles from his recumbent position into a standing War Lord, with gilded helmet and shield, so that the first sight of Achilleion should be his glittering helmet. It is a pity that the Empress tried to improve the natural beauty of the spot. Her lack of taste, I may even ungraciously say her eccentricities, were almost an eyesore. There was a grotto of artificial rock and mirrors, destined as a home for monkeys, who luckily never came to inhabit it. Though the island abounded in oranges, she sent to Italy for her fruit. The view from the terrace over all the plain of Corfu, with its olive groves groups cypresses on one side and the sea and the mountains of Albania on the other one of the most exquisite I have ever seen.

The memoirs of His Royal Highness, Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, My fifty years, 1926.

I was a child when the Empress came to Athens and saw her only once or twice, but I remember her more vividly than many people I knew far better. I imagine it was the same with everyone who came in contact with her. Her brilliant, beautiful and restless personality left an indelible impression. She was so enchanted with Greece that she decided to build a villa in Corfu. The site she chose could not have been more beautiful, about twelve miles outside the town, set on a high hill overlooking the sea on one side and a chain of mountains on the other. But she was too impatient even to look at the plans and gave the architect carte blanche. So instead of the simple cottage she had intended he erected an orate and hideous palace lavishly adorned with frescoes, statues and bronzes of every description. This atrocity cost the Austrian Govemment twelve million crowns, I believe. The Empress's life was dominated by the fear of losing her beauty. As she grew older it became an obsession. Hours were spent every moring brushing the glotious brown hair that she wore gathered into two great plaits coiled around her head. This hair-brushing was a matter of solemn ritual. Any hairs that fell out during the process were carefully collected and presented to the Empress on a silver salver. If their number proved to be too many the entire day was blackened to her. Once a captain of a Russian gunboat reported that he had seen a yacht coming into the Piraus harbour with a woman seated on the deck whose mass of hair reached down to the ground while two attendants stood behind her brushing it. " That could only be the Empress of Austria." said my father, when he heard the story. Later in the day a carriage drove up to the Palace and a mysterious visitor was announced, a lady who refused to give her name. It was, as we expected, the Empress Elizabeth. She insisted on preserving a strict incognito while she was in Greece, although it seemed rather unnecessary, since everyone knew who she was. She detested nothing so much as being photographed, or even looked at for that matter, and always carried a large fan with her on her walks, so that she could unfurl it and hide her face from the passers-by. The Empress was a fine woman in many respects, far finer, I think, than most of her biogtaphers have represented her. Intelligent, intuitive, sensitive, she had all the qualities to make a great empress. But she was tragically lacking in a sense of proportion. Even in the small issues of everyday life she had no idea of modera-tion. She could not take anything up without making it a mania. While she was in Corfu she set herself to learn Greek, although she had gone there to rest. Now Greek is a complicated language and its study is hardly to be recommended as a restful pursuit. The Empress certainly did not regard it as such either for herself or any one else, for she wore out her two teachers, Count Mercati and Mr. Christomanos. Every day she walked ten or twelve miles with one or the other, talking Greek all the way and, even during the hair-brushing ceremony, one of them was always present reading to her. Her figure became another obsession with her. Although she was exaggeratedly slender when she came to Greece (she weighed, I believe, only seven stones) no Hollywood film star could have followed out a more Spartan regime. Her constant dieting made her irritable and depressed. Even when she lunched with my mother and father she would often eat nothing but a salad and some fruit, and she would start off immediately afterwards on one of her exhausting walks, skimming over the ground like a restless, beautiful wraith.

The memoirs of His Royal Highness, Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark, 1938.

#long af post i’m sorry #empress elisabeth of austria #empress sisi #greek royal family #prince nicholas of greece and denmark #prince christopher of greece and denmark

[bitternest]

/rubs eyes it's seven am who gets up at 7am

People who get dinged repeatedly about Tumblr shutting down apparently.

Christ on a bike. Okay, long post inbound. On Tumblr's fate, enshittification and navigating the post-web2.0 world.

So I've been meaning to make a post like this for a while now, but because tech is literally my job I... haven't.

First off, Tumblr isn't being shut down. It's being put on legacy support. Maybe one day it will be shut down, but Automattic seems to have the costs dialed in and don't seem to want to nuke it. Yay.

This day was always going to come for one simple reason - social media websites are fundamentally impossible to fund. The cost of that much image and video hosting and bandwidth is not scalable without passing that cost over to the user. In most cases, this is done by making the user the product. But this is non-sustainable. As Tumblr discovered, as Twitter is discovering and as Google Has Ordained, that social media will inevitably be censored and restricted at the whim of the people actually paying - advertisers. And then your users stop caring. Some sites get around this by also robbing you of your dopamine production as well as your privacy - i.e. getting you engaged with their Algorithm.

So, enough with the reasoning, what can you do about this. Well, you can try the next big thing. For many people, that's bluesky. I don't know about you, but I don't think highly of Twitter 2.0 - from the dude who couldn't make Twitter profitable the first time around. And to be clear, its sole goal is to be profitable. It's a corporation. That's... it's purpose. It's purpose is to extract wealth.

For me, the only two vaguely viable options are cohost and the fediverse. Cohost because haha palette-swapped Tumblr but also because the core ideas the founders had are neat and resonate with me.

And the fediverse because that's the only technologically viable way forward for what we've come to expect social networks to be. It is a network in the real sense, an interconnected sprawl of self-hosted servers that individuals or communities are responsible for and the best way to deal with the costs of social media - distributing them. Mastodon is the most famous service in this space, but there are others. Explaining the fediverse outside of "a network of social networks" is beyond the scope of this post and is a real issue with adoption because, no, it's not necessarily easy.

But now we get to the real crux of my post:

The resilient things aren't easy. If you want to build and participate in something lasting, you need to do some hard things. Sometimes that's learning what the fuck @[email protected] is supposed to mean. Sometimes it's learning how to read an RSS feed. For artists it can mean learning to set up your own website, with zero code and for free even! (sorry @varethane, i'll get the post up eventually) For tech people it means finding an IRC (what, you think Slack is gonna survive its own enshittification?).

Frequently, it's learning how to back up your posts. Because no matter the site, the day will come when hosting 20 billion jpegs overtakes the cash flow of shiny rainbow crabs.

It is a requirement of the post-web2.0 world that you become more tech-savvy. As we tire of corporate horseshit, we must become more capable of forging our own way. If you want to stay connected, you need to learn how to make and maintain those connections, both social and technological.

And to not end this post on a somber and self-important note, that mastodon id isn't me - I never joined because no server ever appealed to me. If anyone's got suggestions I'm listening. I'm bitternest on cohost as well. Mutuals can DM me for my Discord.

Miss me with those bluesky invites tho

#tumblr #cohost #bluesky #mastodon #fediverse #tumblr shutting down

[secret-subject]

Is now the WORST time to start a hypno themed content channel? (Yes, but do it anyway!)

So this is going to be a wild ride into hypnosis content creation, inspired a lot by my recent return to making it and how things have shifted over the years. This is in no way trying to deter people from making content, quite the opposite, I want to inspire others to take this as a sign to go for it if you've been thinking about it.

So WTF is going on online?

Welcome to YouTube a platform where anyone with some good ideas can start their own hypnosis channel. A place where you can be a spiral with text, an asmr creator moonlighting as a hypnotist, full cam video or an anime girl with a passion for mind breaking. It's actually wild how things have evolved and I love the shift in the medium. Back in the early days of hypnosis YouTube it really was the wild west, and a lot was able to slip by the community guidelines without a blink of an eye, and I should know, I really did push my luck with some of my own videos. YouTube isn't the only platform in this situation now where you can do hypnosis. You have here on tumblr, twitter (or x, make up your mind Elon), patreon, soundgasm, hypnohub, devient art, twitch. Name a platform or site and odds are someone is doing hypnosis there. This is great because it means the community is growing and the potential reach is expanding but it also means that working as a hypnosis creator is now harder than ever.

Back in 2017 I started a YouTube channel which I had no clue would as of today lead me to 95k subscribers and my entire income being funded through patreon. But if you look at my content from then to now there had to be some massive leaps to keep my name and my work in peoples attention span. Most content creators don't last years, I know I am an outlier and not a norm. This is due to the fact that over time tastes change, the algorithm changes to reflect this audience shift and what you did back then is just not good enough comapred to now. I had to be drastic to weather the storms of mental health, physical health, audience rention and analytics galore, branding shifts, shifts in community. It's all a lot to deal with but if you want to do this in any format you have to be ready to put yourself through it to be a success and even then I look at my work now and I don't think it's truly successful, yet.

I haven't made it and I don't think I ever will because that "made it" feeling, the top of the hill, is such a subjective metric that's hard to describe. Back in 2017 if you'd asked me, "Secret, when will you know that you are a great creator?" and I would have told you, "100k on YouTube, I want my silver play button." I still do want it, but not like I did before. Before it was clout to be quite honest. 100k means you are powerful enough to do what you want to do, to be able to reach brands, to make friends and collab with the bigger channels, to have people look at you and take you seriously as a creator. But none of that matters now. Subscribers are less important than ever. What matters now is attention. Retention. Clicks, engagement and views.

Now back in 2020 I was really rude. I made a video called Seduced into Obedience that blew up my channel. It got half a million views before YouTube made me take it down earlier this year. It's an achievement I could never expect to relive and it was all based on cheating the system. See I knew that back in "the day" people loved doing those audios on YouTube where you would "comment I am a good slave" in the comments. Knowing what I know about YouTube I decided to run a little test, an experiment on my channel. A risk that I thought just might pay off and if not, oh well, worth a try. I made an audio with the aim of making people like it, and comment in the comments. In the same style of those before me, I took a concept that was not often seen and honestly a little stupid, I made it and the worst part is, it worked. It got me seen by huge content creators in the mainstream who memed on me for it. It skyrocketted in views and kept going. It was my first video to hit 100k on YouTube and it is a moment that will never happen again. It was age restricted which killed the growth but the channel kept going and it wasn't a viral hit, but it was a dark horse that built my reputation on YouTube and then I went and changed everything.

Why change if it was going so well?

So one thing about the internet is you have to follow the success where it takes you. I could have made several more Seduced audios for YouTube and in fact I did do that for a little while but, tastes change. I changed. I stopped doing what I was doing and started being a vtuber, a faceless creator and I got into ASMR. At the time ASMR roleplaying was massive so this was a strategy I wanted to try, mix my love of acting and fantasy with my love of hypnosis see what happens. It worked pretty well as those videos also started doing pretty good and now I have a bunch of videos over 100K on YouTube. But this also trapped me in a box. Now I have had time to have a break and come back I noticed, YouTube especially is really hard on ASMR creators. It's hard on hypnosis creators. It's hard on creators because the platform is loaded with content. You have to be unique to stand out. You have to play to your audience. You have to gain people's attention through interest and ideas that are still fresh but not too specific to turn away the people who watch you. It's a battle to keep it going and it's one I have made many, many mistakes in. You have to give your audience the most, but not too much. You have to be avaible to people in the comments, but not too much. It's a fine balancing act and one that will drive you insane if you don't have a great support system.

So why am I sharing this with you?

I'm at a stage in my career as a creator where I am fearless to try new stuff. I am trying not to care about my reputation as a domme or as a person (more on that in a later essay, I'm sure). I'm trying to lead with my creative spirit and not be upset when a video doesn't "hit" or "pop off". I'm not going to leave a livestream anymore and cry because no one came to see me do a thing. I'm splitting my time between making music, gaming and creating fun things for me and making hypnosis and asmr roleplays for the people who want it and not being sad if my song doesn't go viral right away. Because recently after a death in my family, a health scare that nearly ended my career and the loss of a huge opportunity that turned out not to work for me, I have learned that life is too short not to make the fun things I want.

I want to share with content creators that doing this fulltime is scary and it is hard. It is tough to see posts do nothing. It's scary to see that platforms want to ban hypnokink. It's rough to have other creators disown you for being the wrong kind of degen. But if this is your passion and your dream to make this work, you can do it.

How do you get noticed in this challenging environment?

Lead with passion and your own point of view.

I'm not kidding here, it's the best and worst advice I can give you. Too different and you alienate people, not different enough and you aren't memorable. But you have to lead with passion. Passion carries through the screen. People can hear it in your voice, see it in your work. But outside of that, here are some other things you might want to think about if you are going to commit to making content of any kind:

Who is your target audience? If you say yourself, great! What do you like? What do you want? What are you goals with interacting with content? Follow that.

What is your brand (and can you say it in a single sentence) I'm literally not kidding. If you can't describe what you do in one sentence your branding needs work. Eg, hi I'm Secret and I'm a hypnotic nyanpire from New Zealand.

If someone was to see you on the internet, what should they remember? The other day I got a great comment on a piece of art I commed, "I saw this and I immediatly thought of Secret Subject, and then I looked and saw it was posted by her", your branding should be that strong because people see thousands of posts a day. What makes you different? For me, it's purple. It's goth mommy. It's cats and bats. Find your vibe and own it. Do not be afraid to double down and make your entire thing about it. Everytime I get art made, I make it about my character and it must have purple hair because that keeps the brand strong in someone's mind.

What is your purpose? For me without a goal of "this is why I make the content I do" I would be lost and unmotivated. Find your why and write it down, put a post-it on the wall. Tell a friend. Whatever you need to remind you, this is why I do what I do. When times are hard or you run out of steam/ideas go back to this and really hone into what it is you want to say.

Own your mistakes and bad days. We all have them. That thing didn't do well. That video wasn't great. There was a mistake in this thing or I accidentally made a tweet that went viral for all the wrong reasons. It happens. Be honest with yourself but exercise kindness. Own your mistakes and show people you are human even if you play as an anime vampire catgirl online.

Make connections for the right reasons. As an ex-vtuber I can tell you it's hard when people use you or befriend you "for something". It's okay to build business connections and make this all about business but be honest with people, it does go a long way. Have respect for people who are fellow creators and if you seriously are looking for "friends" that's fine but also know that being friends and colleagues in content are not the same and the lines get very blurry at times.

Be persistant instead of consistent. You've probably been told "constancy is key" a bunch here, hell, you may have heard it from me. I used to teach this as part of my content class at cons but it's not as important as just sticking with it. We are not robots. We can't just all schedule tweets to go out perfectly timed and are all amazingly funny all the time. You need time to come up with quality so take it, but do not give up. If you give up and throw in the towel often you won't make it. Especially on social media. Taking a break or hiatus is fine, I just had one myself, but if you everytime it gets too hard say "I'm done" and then come back on a cycle you are just hurting yourself.

Perfection is a creativity killer. Just post that thing. Sometimes just posting that thing will lead to a new classic for the community.

Time to make your mark

I'm still grinding, we all are still out here making it happen in our own ways. I am so excited to watch the next gen of hypnosis creators florish and thrive. I am a huge simp for my friends who take on this challege because they all work so hard and have so much passion for this weird niche kink we all have. I am in awe of people who feel the fear of this journey and keep doing it. I'm in awe of people who started before me and are still here doing it, because it is not easy and I am over pretending it is.

We need diversity in content and especially in hypnosis kink. I am a person from New Zealand, a small country where a lot of us tend not to make a big splash in the world. People like me don't get the kind of platform I am lucky and insanely grateful to have. I encourage you to take your point of view as a kinkster, and make your mark on the world too. Play safe, care about your content and do good. Remember that you don't need thousands of dedicated fans to be popular and you can be someones favorite regardless of how "seen" your work is.

#secret subject #hypnok1nk #content creation #hypnosis

[skippyv20]

Notes about The Diana Award

Hi Skippy & Friends-This year’s Legacy Award marks the start of The Diana Award’s 25th Anniversary year –20 exceptional young people, from across the world, were acknowledged. Taking place every two years, The Legacy Award is the most prestigious accolade a young person can receive for their social action or humanitarian work.

All the Legacy Award recipients – who come from the UK, USA, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, UAE, Oman, Romania, Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Australia - have had a huge impact on society. Independent judging panel was chaired by Baroness Doreen Lawrence- the title sponsor, Gilead Sciences Alex Kalomparis, Senior Vice President, Public Affairs.

My thoughts after taking a peek, is the award winners have been actually WORKING hard in the trenches of their societies to help very impoverished woman, children and families. They are doing serious heavy lifting, unlike the ones who strut on stages spouting word salad, wearing designer outfits (trying to at least) acting all so regal and intelligent. She would not last one hour with any of these winners IMHO.  Check out The Diana Award site and read all about them-they are the ones to know about!

By the way, we watched the latest Canadian/Dev Patel produced award winning documentary film called “To Kill a Tiger” which is incredible! It is the real-life story, filmed as it happened, (without them there covering this families awful legal battle it would not have made international news) fighting for justice for the gang rape of their 13-year-old daughter-the first time EVER in India a father has demanded a judgement??! It is riveting and you will be amazed at how fast it engages you…we were shouting at the screen from the get-go, at the insanity of what they had to deal with! The community, the legal system, the brutal beliefs, all make real life drama that had us on the edge of our “sofa” rooting for this very loving, intelligent father, who said this would be like trying to kill a tiger.

So, I hope this type of work by young, bright people will begin to help transform archaic behavior and reduce human suffering. I think the Joker Prince showing up on the screen as if they were at a local bar/pub, calling them “guys” sounding terribly sophomoric…was a downer to the importance of their awards. The real prince had left the building. Over and out for now. Pilgrim

Thank you dear Pilgrim!  Great post!❤️

[longlostlorian]

I don't want to add on to that good webcomic post with what I'm p sure is just my own fruitless navelgazing, but I started doing webcomics as a kid in the mid-aughts and the scene was basically unrecognizable from what it is now. I would come home from school and post sketchbook comics scanned in with minimal touchups, and I don't think I've ever gotten as much engagement on anything in all the years since. I didn't know how to implement a comments section (I was hardcoding everything in html on a domain my dad helped set up for me, lol) but I got tons of emails from excited/curious readers every week! A phpbb board (early internet forum) with 300+ human members (and all the fun of viagrabots I had to cull by hand)! People were just excited by what it was possible to see online. And that was for a bad comic made by a kid with minimal skills that nobody remembers today!

For better or worse, the grand majority of readers live on apps now. Webtoons and tapas host hundreds of the most niche, beautiful passion projects you can imagine, better than nearly anything available 20 years ago, but there's just as many stories that were literally churned out by content farms (studios with large teams producing a groupthink product they aim to sell/IP farm - in other words, something that's nobody's baby). And by and large, the userbase is simply too young to discriminate. They've literally been trained to view webcomics as content. Does that mean readers today are the problem? No, of course not! And it's hard to complain about greater access to free, often queer art that's technically better than it ever has been before. I'm glad young readers have easy access to things like that.

But webcomics have become subject to the same level of scrutinization as any other aggregated content. Don't post for two weeks and people will talk about you like you've died, and a week later they stop talking about you altogether. The culture that I grew up with by and large doesn't exist anymore, though remnants of it struggle bravely on. Part of this comes as the "wild west" aspect of the internet circles the drain. When comics are produced with the knowledge that they will go up on webtoons/tapas - sites with strong censorship requirements - people dull down their work. They have to. Anything that goes on those sites automatically becomes a product. And so the truly weird, the unexpected, the indie, and the unapologetically, freely, charmingly bad (and messy) aspect of webcomics is systematically sucked out, both by the exacting standards of a captive consumer base and by the requirements of the platform.

I don't know that I view wt/tapas as net evils or anything like that. I use them myself. And I've heard things about places like comicfury that make it sound like a great substitute for the culture that used to exist around smackjeeves, drunkduck, etc. I also think it's more accessible than ever before for creators to monetize their work, even if for most of us, passion projects never come close to paying the bills. So maybe what I really miss is the early internet and I don't think it's ever coming back.

#webcomics #idek what to tag this as because i rarely longpost like this #so... #longpost #? #I find it hard to express myself/organize my thoughts in posts like this so i'll prob delete i just like to have my grandpa moments #reminiscing about the good old days!!! #(I still love webcomics)