#that's almost exclusively why i follow people. for the content they reblog

[tagedeszorns]

(Violetbirdie here) I think it's complicated due to a variety of issues. 40k as a franchise is huge, but it isn't the sort of thing that tends to have overlap with tumblr type fanspaces. It also doesn't help that 40k is a fractured fandom featuring tons of different factions, so it's not like a standard fandom where there are main characters and a main story that people will always flock to. The primarchs are the closest thing we have to that, which is why there is naturally more content for them. In addition, fandom itself is in a bit of a flux state and has been ever since the 2018 nsfw ban which caused a lot of people to leave for twitter, which is now undergoing its own huge changes right now (and I just hate twitter on principle).

I suppose the one thing I think would help, would be somehow getting the 40k tumblresque fandom space more consolidated as a whole. Like, somehow have a blog that is popular for all factions that posts headcanons about everything, thus getting people interested in parts they don't normally think about. Because 40k is a huge time investment to learn about. I've been listening to audiobooks for what feels like nonstop for over a month, and even then I could only ever feel confident telling people about Emperor's Children. So it naturally is harder for new people to get into the fandom and focus on some of the smaller things because there is just so much. It's almost how I view your blog. I check it daily for fun art/headcanons/just general character stuff, and you made me more interested in some of the captains and such. But even then, you have your focuses. So a space even more general where someone would reblog art from everything 40k would likely be nice? Maybe I just miss the livejournal days of fandom. As far as more engagement, I think having silly things like character weeks which encourages people to draw or write or talk about specific aspects is a huge benefit. It sets a schedule and makes people feel like they are shouting less into the void.

But as someone new here, maybe its my weird perspective, but I don't feel like things are getting less popular. If anything, from just checking AO3, it seems like things are only getting more popular for less of the reddit type and more for the Tumblr wanting to see hot dudes and their complicated feelings type. Also more people are getting into 40k in this side of the space through rogue trader. Like people I never talked to about 40k are starting to look into the series because they played Baldurs Gate 3, and needed a new RPG to play, and conveniently Rogue Trader is filling that for them. So, I'm optimistic if anything. Sorry about the long ramble! Just kinda dumping my thoughts out.

I love Tumblr because, unlike Twitter or Bluesky, it allows for way longer, way more elaborately structured posts. I love it when artists don't just slap their pics into a post and be done with it, but instead add stuff like maybe "I read this book, here's a quote, and it gave me this mighty need to draw this". Or "please listen to this music here while looking at my pic! It goes perfectly with it!". Or just a multi-paragraph-essay (preferably very unhinged) about the character in the upper left corner.

This in advance, so you can see I'm totally with you on the "miss Lifejournal"-thing, because blogs are so much better than just 500 characters, four pics and nothing else. And why I think Tumblr is a very good replacement for Lifejournal.

The multitude of Tumblr-blogs with their many different angles are such a treat and provide such a rich ecosystem! I follow artists posting exclusively admech-stuff, others solely Drukhari, some writers focussing on just one Astartes Legion ... it's phantastic and the depth of their niche-knowledge is mindblowing.

I agree with you that this will be overwhelming for new fans coming from rather monolithic stuff like Rogue Trader. And the key to keeping those new people involved and making them feel welcome is showing them all this variety without scaring them away.

Maybe this new feature Tumblr is working on, can be helpful here. I haven't read much about it yet, but it seems the "Community"-feature has the potential to bundle stuff in a way that's more approachable for new and old fans alike. Maybe there's room for your idea of having "character weeks" (I like that! Sounds very MacDonald's. I'll have Fabius with extra pickles, please! 😁).

I'm sharing your optimism that both the new games and maybe the new series/movies will bring a lot of new fans over and some of them may even stick around. I am a bit wary that there's the possibility of a MCU-situation starting to build up, but since Warhammer-lore is in a constant state of flux anyways this might just add some spice to the mix.

So, yeah, hope for the darkest of futures!

#warhammer #Fandom #Tumblr #Meta #Warhammer 40k #Community

[wifegideonnav]

I'm new to Tumblr. How do Tumblr users usually engage with each other?

well first of all welcome haha. the main ways to engage with people are:

liking and reblogging. platforms like instagram and tiktok run on likes and an algorithm, but on tumblr, people almost exclusively use their dashboard and turn off suggested content, so they’re only seeing what people actually reblog onto their dash. that’s why people on this site are so adamant about reblogs, because likes basically do nothing. i saw someone say once that anything you would like on a different social media, you should reblog on here, and i totally agree. and don’t worry about how old a post is, or about reblogging something you’ve previously reblogged. there are posts from 2014 that i regularly see on my dash a decade later, so literally don’t feel awkward, it’s 100% normal to engage with old posts.

tags. there are three main ways tags are used: labeling original content so people find it in searches, internal organization systems when reblogging or posting (for instance, many people have a tag for their original posts, and will tag reblogs by fandom or character or whatever - important note that reblogs do not show up in search results), and to make sotto voce comments on a post. it’s normal for people to make jokes, add their own commentary, ramble about something semi relevant, or say something to op in the tags on posts they reblog.

reblog additions. every time you reblog, you have the chance to add something to the post, which unlike tags will be retained when someone reblogs from you. a good rule of thumb is to comment instead of tagging when it’s something you actually want other people to engage with, as opposed to tags where you’re just kind of expressing yourself lol. don’t be surprised however if you see people’s tags getting screenshotted and added to a reblog. if this happens because the screenshotter likes what the tag writer said, it’s jokingly referred to as “passing peer review.” (and of course people screenshot tags to criticize or mock them as well.) essentially, tags are like being at a big group dinner and saying something to the person next to you as an aside, and then sometimes that person goes “hey everyone listen to this”

post comments. there’s also an option on every post (unless op has turned it off) for people to comment on the post itself, not on a specific reblog. mostly this is useful for talking to people on personal posts or posts with reblogs turned off. on a bigger post, just reblog it and put your thoughts in an addition or tag.

asks. seems like you figured this one out! lmao. asks are used for a wide variety of things, but essentially it can either be a prompt for someone to make a post or a way of having an interaction/conversation with someone without dming them.

dms. these work like dms everywhere else, except the functionality is limited and it kinda sucks.

games. there are also many varieties of games that people play with each other, ranging from ask games (things like “rec me some music” or a post with prompts and people send you some from that list), tag games (typically there are questions you answer then you tag other people to fill them out for themselves) handwriting tags, follow chains, giveaways, name/url playlists, and more. with the addition of polls, brackets have gotten popular too (eg the tumblr sexyman bracket). there also used to be a lot of in-character ask blogs, where a user would set up a blog and roleplay as a specific character that people could send questions to (there still are some but way fewer and way less popular than there used to be)

to be honest i feel like i have to put “discourse” and “drama” on this list too. people on this site loveeee having the most insane arguments of all time and then everyone else memes the hell out of it. google “sonic for real justice” for an example lmao. (of course there’s also very unfunny political and fandom discourse that goes on as well. i would advise you to avoid discourse blogs as a general rule regardless of whether you agree with their position or not)

tagging people. you can also @ people in posts you think they’d like or if you feel like they have relevant input. typically this is something you would do either to people you’ve spoken to before, or a big blog with an established persona and rapport with their followers (eg if you follow a blog about snakes and you see a random post with snake info that seems wrong but you’re not sure, so you tag them to ask for their expertise).

and this isn’t a specific “mode” of communication but it’s also a thing to “interpret” (for lack of a better word) other people’s posts. for instance, people drawing a photo from the original post (i cant find it but there was a post going around recently where op posted an aesthetic photo of an egg cooking and then several people painted it), or people trying/recreating something a post was about (example). it was also a thing for a minute there where people would rewrite funny exchanges as shakespearean dialogue

those are all the ways i can think of, although im sure i’ve missed some (if other people think of any pls add on!). good luck, and i hope you’re able to meet some cool people!

#asks

[justalonelyslytherin]

My Kingdom, Your Kingdom | One

previous chapter | Masterlist | next chapter

Pairing: secret king!Steve Rogers x heir apparent!female Reader

Summary: Steve, Sam, and Bucky start off their vacation in the remote lake town with an adventurous evening stumbling over three lost girls in the woods.

Warnings: Reader is mentioned once or twice having brunette hair for the convenience of setting her apart from her sisters, no otherwise description of her appearance, wandering in the dark in the forest, mentions of wild/dangerous animals and killers/assassins

Wordcount: 3.2k

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider leaving a comment or reblogging. I don't allow for my content to be copied, translated, or reposted on other websites/apps. Please don't steal my work.

A/N: The first chapter is a little bit different, almost exclusively in Steve's pov. We'll switch towards a Y/N focused pov starting in chapter 2, with the sprinkle of Steve's pov here and there. the beautiful Dividers are by the lovely @/firefly-graphics

Taglist: open, will be tagged in the comments

“Everything is handled. Although I can’t promise it will stay that way for long. Enjoy your getaway while you still can.”

“Thank you Hill.” Steve ended the call, slowly lowering his arm and shoving his phone into the pocket of his pants. With a sigh, he leaned back in the car seat and looked out of the window.

“Vacation,” Sam huffed in an amused tone, eyes focused on the road he was driving on as he barely shook his head. “Can’t remember the last time I took one.” 

Steve smiled, “Me neither.”

Bucky in the passenger's seat snorted loudly. “Time you got one.”

That Steve could only agree with. And it was exactly why they were on their way. They’d been on the road for a couple of hours already, making the track from one end of the country to the other one. There was only one place Steve could imagine spending a wintery holiday just before Christmas. It was a small and quiet town, nestled between the shallow foothills of the mountains and surrounded by a bunch of smaller lakes not far away from the border. Not many people chose to visit it. 

“How long until we are there?” Bucky groaned as he shifted in his seat and stretched his arms high above his head. As high as the ceiling of the car allowed him to. Steve could hear his longest friends' joints creak through the motion.

“Not long,” Sam grumbled, glaring at the brunette before he glanced back at the road again.

“We are almost there,” Steve agreed, eyeing the familiar scenery. It warmed his heart as he spied the hints of the lake peeking through the trees. Shortly after the road curved to the left, following the outline of the lake as the town came into view.

“Wow,” Sam, whose first time it was there, exclaimed in awe. Both Bucky and Steve were equally mesmerized however much quieter. They had traveled there many times, yet the first view of the town never wasn't magnificent.

Driving through the town many heads turned as the townspeople watched them pass by. “Turn left here,” Bucky’s gruff direction came as they had passed almost entirely through the town, the Townsquare and most houses already behind them.

“Here?” Sam asked doubtfully as he eyed the small dirt road that was easy to miss. The snow covering it made the street blend into the surrounding trees so well, one might miss it entirely not knowing of its existence.

“Yes,” Steve agreed, his heart jumping in his throat as they pulled into the inconspicuous road, “just follow it.”

Leading away from the town for a good 10 minutes it felt as if their car was swallowed by nature. The road took a couple of winding turns until after the last one the trees to either side of the road parted and revealed a big plot of land. In the middle of it sat a cozy, sleepy cabin. Three stories high and big enough to house an entire little village of its own, Steve instantly felt at home.

As the car came to a halt before the double-door garage, he couldn’t get out fast enough. While Bucky went on to open the garage, Steve stepped through the snow and rounded on the cabin. Standing before it he craned his neck. Memories flooded his mind as the smile on his lips grew with each passing moment.

“I thought you said the cabin hadn’t been used in a while.” Bucky took his stand beside his friend, glancing up at the cabin too.

“I asked someone in the village to set it up for us a couple of days ago. Everything is defrosted and we got a stocked pantry and fireplace.” Grinning, Bucky looked over at Steve.

“Now that sounds like a proper vacation, even for us!” Both of them laughed as Steve shoved his friend by the shoulder.

“You could have had a proper vacation even before. No one will recognize me here.”

“Not with that mug, no.” Bucky agreed and eyed the dark hair on the blonde’s lower face. Before Steve could say something, a shout came from the garage.

“Some help maybe?” Sam had already started to open the trunk and empty out their bags. In unison, Steve and Bucky walked over to help bring their bags into the cabin.

“A fire, then a nap and food, how does that sound?”

"Ha! It's cold!” Sam shuddered as he stepped onto the veranda, closing the glass doors with his elbow as his hands were filled with three beers. Steve and Bucky, who were already sitting on two chairs with a small fire lit in a brazier out of metal and stone, chuckled at their friends' antics.

“I told you to wear a damn coat,” Bucky teased him, earning a glare. Sam gave one of the three bottles of beer to Steve and held the other one above Bucky’s head, just out of his reach.

“Yeah and next time you can get yourself your own beer, Barnes.” 

Steve rolled his eyes at his friend's quarrel. He was used to them being at each other’s throats. He also knew that it was mostly for show and deep down they both cared deeply for one another. They just were too stubborn to acknowledge it. 

Nursing his beer the blonde leaned further back in this chair and spread his knees out. The residual snow, after they’d cleared most of it off, crunched beneath his feet.

“Man, this is serene. I could get used to this view and the quietness up here.” Sam sighed as he dropped into his own chair. Two hums followed his words, agreeing with them. 

“Just laying back and doing nothing,” Steve mumbled as he glanced towards the treeline. It had gotten dark about half an hour ago, even if it wasn’t that late yet. The sun set quickly around here.

“Oh come on, you’d be bored by midday.” Bucky scoffed and looked at the blonde as he rolled his eyes. “And then Sam and I would have to hunt you down and stop you from getting into trouble.”

“Not like we don’t have to do that on the regular already.”

Steve wanted to protest, in fact, he had already opened his mouth to give them a piece of his mind when they heard a crack not far away from the forest.

“You heard that?” Sam asked as all three of them watched the darkened scenery with watchful eyes. Then another noise came from within the woods. This time, not a crack, it sounded much more…human.

Steve put his beer on the ground and stood up. Stepping onto the edge of the veranda he strained his ears. “It sounded like a person,” he mumbled. There was no third noise which seemed strange to him and without further thought, he decided to investigate.

“Steve…Hey! Steve!” Bucky shouted after him as the blonde already bounded down the steps into the garden and strode towards the edge of the woods.

“For fucks sake,” he grumbled as he looked over at Sam. Putting down his beer with enough force to crack the bottle he jumped over the railing to follow the blonde. Sam scrambled into the house to get his coat and ran after the both of them.

“You can’t just walk into the goddamn woods in the dark Rogers!”

“Without us even less Punk!”

Steve however kept marching on, paying the two of them no mind. He had a mission now. Whatever had caused the noise in the woods it must be special. The woods around the cabin were always quiet. The occasional birds or deer could be heard or seen in the mornings but they made many different sounds. Something in his gut told him to investigate the noise and Steve never went against his gut feeling.

The path he chose through the trees was unsteady and went every which way there was the most space to get to where the noise had come from. Steve stopped as he heard twigs breaking. Looking back Bucky and Sam were standing still too, Bucky shrugged his shoulders. It hadn’t been one of them then. Another crack made Steve look into the dim maze of trees until he spotted something light peeking out between them. With newfound vigor, he stepped forward when a hand landed on his shoulder. Glancing behind, Bucky glared at him and shook his head. 

Sam walked past, taking the lead. Only when he was several meters in front of them did Bucky retract his hand, “Don’t be stupid punk. I won’t hear the end of it if you manage to get yourself killed on your vacation.” 

Before Steve could answer that he wouldn’t get himself killed, shouts sounded from further ahead. Steve could distinctly hear Sam’s shout of “Whoa!” mixed with a second voice.

“Sam!” he shouted and sprinted forward as he saw his friend go down. Skidding to a halt in what was a small clearing in the snow-covered forest Steve and Bucky didn’t trust their eyes. Sam was sitting on the ground, clearly surprised but fine at first glance. Before him stood a young blonde woman who seemed as surprised to see them as they were seeing her. Her arms were still stretched out from whatever movement she had done to send Sam onto his ass.

“What the hell?!” came his exclamation as he fought to get up from the slippery ground. Steve held out a hand to his friend, pulling Sam up. Bucky meanwhile didn’t take his eyes off the strange young woman.

“Who are you?” he asked gruffly and sternly. Before the blonde could answer, more cracking of twigs resounded before two figures barged out of the trees behind her.

“Yelena! Are you okay!” The taller one of the two new women asked, her brows drawn down in concern, eyes flitting over the frame of the blonde one. 

“What were you thinking walking off?” The redhead asked her, arms crossed before her chest and scoffing. It was only after that they noticed Steve, Sam, and Bucky just a short distance behind Yelena.

Steve’s heart made a leap as the eyes of the brunette landed on him. She was pretty, he noted, very pretty. Her gaze was electrifying, rendering him unmovable as her eyes fixated on him. She moved slowly, carefully gauging their reaction, to step between the blonde and them. 

“Who are you?” Her silky smooth voice caused a shiver to ripple down his back. Steve quietly gasped at the sensation, at the way her voice seemed to penetrate every pore of his being. 

Had it not been for both Bucky and Sam scoffing and guffawing Steve would have been stuck in his daze forever. Now however his eyes jumped to his friends, who were ready to step forward and chew these girls up. He held a hand out, stopping them. Bucky shot him a disbelieving look followed by an eye roll. Subtly he crossed his arms and flexed his muscles. Steve couldn’t blame either Sam or Bucky for reacting in this way, protecting him was an automatic response neither could shake off.

“I’m Steve. This is Sam and Bucky.” Steve pointed at himself and then at the two others before he trailed off, once more getting caught in the beauty of the young woman standing before him. She looked reluctant and cautious. The unsteady flicker of her eyes between all three of them clearly showed how uneasy she was to have met them in the middle of the forest in the dark, how distrusting she was of them. In Steve it only caused curiosity to sprout. What were they doing here this late? 

“I’m Y/N. My sister's Natasha–” she pointed at the redhead, “–and Yelena,” then at the blonde she was shielding.

Only after she gave him a timid nod, he thought to elaborate. Swallowing, he mumbled, “We, uhm, we heard some noises and wanted to investigate when we came upon..” 

Yelena, who he was sheepishly pointing at, cut him off, “When they scared the living daylights out of me. I thought they were wild animals trying to attack me.” Bucky snorted amused at that.

“There are no wild animals here. At least none that are dangerous. They don’t venture that close to the cabin or the village.”

“So we are close to a village?” Natasha spoke up, her voice sounding hopeful. Confused, Steve eyed the three girls closely, they looked exhausted and frozen. He noticed the way all three of them were trembling and shifting from one foot to the other. Y/N’s hands were shaking as she curled them into fists and unfurled them over and over again. She tried to hide it, shoving her hands behind her back after she caught him looking. 

“You are lost, aren’t you?” he asked them, glancing up at her eyes once more. There was a spark in them, the brief flitting of a look that reminded him of a spooked and cornered animal. It was gone in the blink of an eye, so fast Steve thought he might have imagined it. What he didn’t imagine was the way she shifted and bit her lip, glancing back at her sisters.

Both Natasha and Yelena were tense, glancing at each other. They opened their mouths at the same time, forming the first letter of what Steve suspected would have been an unconvincing ‘no’ had Y/N not spoken up first. 

“Yes,” she answered timidly, still not entirely sure if she could trust these three strange men, “We were on our way when our car broke down.”

“And you decided to walk aimlessly through the woods instead of calling a tow service or even a taxi?” Sam asked in utter disbelief. It was very cold up here, especially without the sun the temperatures quickly turned deadly. The three girls kept silent, pressing their lips together and furrowing their brows.

“You have a phone, do you?” Bucky asked them and the girls reacted the same way. “You don’t have a phone?” He asked once more, surprise evident on his face as they nodded.

“Could you point us to the village perhaps?” Natasha asked, clearly uncomfortable and done with the questioning. 

“Sure. It’s another 4 miles in that direction.” Sam was very frank and dry in his answer, uncrossing his arms before his chest and pointing his finger deeper into the forest.

“Sam.” Steve chided, frowning at him. Neither Sam nor Bucky seemed concerned or apologetic about their blasé manner, Steve however didn’t feel right treating the girls that way. Sending them on their way back into the forest when it was only going to be darker and colder into the night even if the way to the village wasn’t that long left a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

While Natasha and Yelena turned around, ready to head back deeper into the forest, and Sam and Bucky also turned around to make the short track back to the property, Y/N and Steve remained motionless. Eyes on eyes, they hesitated. Steve wasn’t sure if it was his concern for their well-being or the pull of something else that was radiating between her and him. He didn’t want to let her go. Everything in him shouted to stop her and to have some more time together, get to know her. 

What he couldn’t know, Y/N felt the same. She was intrigued by the blonde man with sparkling blue eyes, which when she looked into gave her the feeling of safety. It felt like she had known him for an eternity instead of less than thirty minutes.

Her mind had been running ever since they mentioned a phone. Before she had never thought about it but now the realization settled heavily in the pit of her stomach. They didn’t have a phone, they didn’t have money. They had nothing on them besides the clothes they were wearing. Even if they found the village, how were they supposed to pay for a room in an inn? 

Steve sensed her hesitation on top of the pull and it seemed the others had by now too.

“Y/N?” Natasha asked, having turned back around.

“Nat, we don’t have any money with us. How are we supposed to pay for a room? For anything?” They couldn’t even get the car fixed and turn back around. They were stranded. Utterly screwed up. Natasha remained silent, looking directly at her older sister.

“Well, shit.”

“You don’t have anything with you?” Y/N looked back at Steve and hesitantly nodded. He wondered just who these girls were to be stranded this far out in the country, so close to the border, with nothing in their possession. Bucky and Sam’s eyes were practically burning into the back of his head, both of them knowing exactly what Steve was about to do but neither agreeing in the slightest. 

Before he could speak up, he was pulled back by his neck. Bucky looked at him furiously, before he turned to the girls. “Give us a moment,” he told them gruffly pulling Steve further backward. A short distance away from them they huddled together.

“You can’t be offering what I think you’ll be,” Sam spoke up first.

“Yeah punk. We don’t know them. It’s not safe.” 

“What if they are unhinged hitchhiker killers? Or assassins sent by the North? Repay a debt or some of that crap?”

Steve looked back at the girls. They were standing huddled together, rubbing and blowing on their hands for warmth. He could still see them trembling, even from afar. They didn’t look like killers to him, they looked like three lost girls who desperately needed a warm place and some kind strangers to help them. His and Y/N’s eyes met as she glanced up. There was that pull again, only furthering his sure feeling that they weren't a danger.

“Look at them, Buck. They are cold and you heard them. They have nowhere to stay. We can’t let them wander in the cold throughout the night. They'd be dead before they reach the town.”

Bucky groaned loudly, “Fine punk. But they stay downstairs in the wing furthest away from your room. One of us takes the room before you and the other the room in front of the stairs at the beginning of the hallway.” Steve could live with these conditions. 

“And tomorrow morning we’ll drive them into the town and get them a hotel room,” Sam added. Steve was fine with that too and if he secretly planned to use his rank to meddle with it, then they didn’t need to know it.

For now, he turned around and strode over to the three girls. They turned towards him, three pairs of eyes curiously looking up at him, one of those which lit a fire in his stomach and made his heart do backflips.

“We are staying in a cabin just at the edge of the forest. It’s much closer than the village and we don’t charge anything. So if you’d like, you can stay the night and we’ll show you the way to the village in the morning. Work something out?” 

They looked at each other, eyes jumping back and forth, brows and mouths furrowing and curling. It reminded Steve of the silent conversations he would have with Bucky when they were in meetings or during formal functions. As Y/N turned back towards him, he held his breath in anticipation.

“We’d like to. Thank you.”

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x you #my kingdom your kingdom #king!steve x heir apparent!reader #royalty au #modern royalty au #christmas au

[themthouse]

The Internet Archive, Misinformation & the Problem of Digital Lending

I am in the embarrassing situation of having reblogged a post with misinformation. Specifically, the "Save the Internet Archive" post featuring the below image and its associated link to a website called "Battle for Libraries".

The post claims that the recent lawsuit the IA faced threatened all IA projects, including the Wayback Machine, which is not true. The link to a petition to "show support for the Internet Archive, libraries’ digital rights, and an open internet with uncensored access to knowledge" only has one citation, which is the internet archive's own blog.

After looking for more context, I found that even articles published from sources I trusted didn't seem to adequately cover the complexity of what is going on. Here's what I think someone who loves libraries but is hazy about copyright law and the digital lending world should know to understand what happened and why it matters. I am from the U.S., so the information below is specifically referring to laws protecting American public libraries. I am not a librarian, author or copyright lawyer. This is a guide to make it easier to follow the arguments of people more directly invested in this lawsuit, and the potential additional lawsuits to come.

Table of Contents:

First-Sale Doctrine & the Economics of E-books

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

The “National Emergency Library” & Hachette v. Internet Archive

Authors, Publishers & You

-- Authors: Ideology v. Practicality

-- Publishers: What Authors Are Paid

-- You: When Is Piracy Ethical?

First-Sale Doctrine & the Economics of E-Books

Libraries are digitizing. This is undisputed. As of 2019, 98% of public libraries provided Wi-Fi, 90% provided basic digital literacy programs, and most importantly for this conversation, 94% provided access to e-books and other digital materials. The problem is that for decades, the American public library system has operated on a bit of common law exhaustion applied to copyright known as first-sale doctrine, which states:

"An individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner."

With digital media, however, because there isn't a physical sale happening, first sale doctrine doesn't apply. This wasn't a huge problem back in the early 2010s when most libraries were starting to go digital because the price of a perpetual e-book license was only $14 -- about the price of single physical book. Starting in 2018, however, publishers started limiting how long a single e-book license would last. From Pew Charitable Trusts:

"Today, it is common for e-book licenses from major publishers to expire after two years or 26 borrows, and to cost between $60 and $80 per license, according to Michele Kimpton, the global senior director of the nonprofit library group LYRASIS... While consumers paid $12.99 for a digital version, the same book cost libraries roughly $52 for two years, and almost $520 for 20 years."

Publishers argue that because it's so easy to borrow a digital copy of a book from the library, offering libraries e-book licenses at the same price as individual consumers undermines an author's right to license and profit from the exclusive rights to their works. And they're not entirely wrong about e-book lending affecting e-book sales -- since 2014, e-book sales have decreased while digital library lending has only gone up. The problem, they say, is that e-book lending is simply too easy. Whereas before, e-book sales were competing with the less-convenient option of going to the library and checking out a physical copy, there is essentially no difference for the reader between buying or lending an e-book outside of its cost.

Which brings us to the librarians, authors and lawmakers of today, trying to find any solution they can to make digital media accessible, affordable and still profitable enough to make a livable income for the writers who create the books we read.

Further Reading:

1854. Copyright Infringement -- First Sale Doctrine

The surprising economics of digital lending

Librarians and Lawmakers Push for Greater Access to E-Books

Publishing and Library E-Lending: An Analysis of the Decade Before Covid-19

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

Controlled digital lending is a legal theory at the heart of the Internet Archive lawsuit that has been proposed as one solution to the economic issue with digital media lending. This quick fix is especially appealing to nonprofits like the IA that are not government, tax-funded programs. Where many other solutions, like a legally enforced max price on e-book licensure for public libraries, would not apply to the IA, CDL would essentially be manipulating copyright law itself as a way to avoid e-book licensure altogether and would apply to the IA as well as public libraries.

Essentially, proponents of CDL argue that through a combination of first-sale and fair use doctrine, it can be legal for libraries to digitize the physical copies of books they have legally paid for and loan those digital copies to one person at a time as if they were loaning the original physical copy.

It is worth noting that the first-sale doctrine protecting physical media lending at public libraries does not cover reproductions:

“The right to distribute ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. See 17 U.S.C. § 109(a) & (c). Since the first sale doctrine never protects a defendant who makes unauthorized reproductions of a copyrighted work, the first sale doctrine cannot be a successful defense in cases that allege infringing reproduction.”

This is where fair use comes in, which allows some flexibility in copyright law for nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses. Because the IA and other online collections are nonprofit organizations, proponents of CDL argue that they are covered by fair use so long as their use of CDL follows very specific rules, such as:

A library must own a legal copy of the physical book, by purchase or gift.

The library must maintain an “owned to loaned” ratio, simultaneously lending no more copies than it legally owns.

The library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed.

While this model first earned its name in 2018, it has been practiced by a number of digital collections like The Internet Archive’s Open Library since as early as 2010. It is important to know that controlled digital lending has never been proven officially legal in court. It is a theoretical legal practice that has passed by mostly unchallenged until the Internet Archive lawsuit. This is partially due to the fact that before releasing their official CDL statement in 2018, the IA had been honoring Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests of books in CDL circulation, which authors claim they are not always responding to or honoring anymore. The legality of CDL essentially depends on a judge's interpretation of current copyright law and whether they see the practice as an infringement, which would set a precedent for similar cases moving forward.

There are, however, U.S. court decisions that have rejected similar cases, like Capitol Records v. ReDigi, which argues that digital files (in this case, music files) cannot be resold without copyright holder’s permission on the grounds that digital files do not deteriorate in the same way that physical media does, implying that first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to digital media.

In 2019, the Authors Guild, a group of American authors who advocate for the rights of writers to earn a living wage and practice free speech, pointed out this court case in an article condemning CDL practices. They also argued that not only does CDL undermine e-book licensure (and therefore author profits off e-book sales), but it also would effectively shut down the e-book market for older books (the market for copyrighted books that were published before e-books became popular and are only being digitized and sold now). The National Writers Union has also released an “Appeal from the victims of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL),” that cites many of the same complaints.

Further Reading:

U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index

Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries

FAQ on Controlled Digital Lending [Released by NYU Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy]

Controlled Digital Lending Is Neither Controlled nor Legal

Appeal from the victims of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

FAQ on Controlled Digital Lending [Released by the National Writers Union]

 The "National Emergency Library" & Hachette v. Internet Archive

While the Internet Archive is known as the creator and host of the Wayback Machine and many other internet and digital media preservation projects, the IA collection in question in Hachette v. Internet Archive is their Open Library. The Open Library has been digitizing books since as early as 2005, and in early 2011, began to include and distribute copyrighted books through Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). In total, the IA includes 3.6 million copyrighted books and continues to scan over 4,000 books a day.

During the early days of the pandemic, from March 24, 2020, to June 16, 2020, specifically, the Internet Archive offered their National Emergency Library, which did away with the waitlist limitations on their pre-existing Open Library. Instead of following the strict rules laid out in the Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending, which mandates an equal “owned to loaned” ratio, the IA allowed multiple readers to access the same digitized book at once. This, they said, was a direct emergency response to the worldwide pandemic that cut off people’s access to physical libraries.

In response, on June 1, 2020, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit against the IA over copyright infringement. Out of their collective 33,000 copyrighted titles available on Open Library, the publishers’ lawsuit focused on 127 books specifically (known in the legal documentation as the “Works in Suit”). After two years of argument, on March 24, 2023, Judge John George Koeltl ruled in favor of the publishers.

The IA’s fair use defense was found to be insufficient as the scanning and distribution of books was not found to be transformative in any way, as opposed to other copyright lawsuits that ruled in favor of digitizing books for “utility-expanding” purposes, such as Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust. Furthermore, it was found that even prior to the National Emergency Library, the Open Library frequently failed to maintain the “owned to loaned” ratio by not sufficiently monitoring the circulation of books it borrows from partner libraries. Finally, despite being a nonprofit organization overall, the IA was found to profit off of the distribution of the copyrighted books, specifically through a Better World Books link that shares part of every sale made through that specific link with the IA.

It worth noting that this ruling specifies that “even full enforcement of a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, however, would not excuse IA’s reproduction of the Works in Suit.” This may set precedent for future copyright cases that attempt to claim copyright exemption through the practice of controlled digital lending. It is unclear whether this ruling is limited to the National Emergency Library specifically, or if it will affect the Open Library and other collections that practice CDL moving forward.

Further Reading:

Full History of Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive [Released by the Free Law Project]

Hachette v. Internet Archive ruling

Internet Archive Loses Lawsuit Over E-Book Copyright Infringement

The Fight Continues [Released by The Internet Archive]

Authors Guild Celebrates Resounding Win in Internet Archive Infringement Lawsuit [Released by The Authors Guild]

Relevant Court Cases:

Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust

Capitol Records v. ReDigi

 Authors, Publishers & You

This is where I’m going to be a little more subjective, because each person’s interpretation of events as I have seen has depended largely on their characterization and experience with the parties involved. Regardless of my own ideology regarding accessibility of information, the court ruling seems to be completely in line with current copyright law and precedent. Ironically, it seems that if the Internet Archive had not abandoned the strict rules regarding controlled digital lending for the National Emergency Library, and if they had been more diligent with upholding those rules with partner library loans prior to the NEL, they may have had a better case for controlled digital lending in the future. As is, I agree with other commentators that say any appeal the IA makes after this point is more likely to damage future digital lending practices than it is to save the IA’s current collection of copyrighted works in the Open Library. Most importantly, it seems disingenuous, and even dangerously inaccurate, to say that this ruling hurts authors, as the IA claimed in their response.

The IA argues that because of the current digital lending and sales landscape, the only way authors can make their books accessible digitally is through unfair licensing models, and that online collections like the IA’s Open Library offer authors freedom to have their books read. But this argument doesn’t acknowledge that many authors haven’t consented to having their works shared in this way, and some have even asked directly for their work to be removed, without that request being honored.

The problem is that both sides of this argument about the IA lawsuit claim to speak for authors as a group when the truth isn’t that simple.

Authors: Ideology v. Practicality

Those approaching the case from an ideological point of view, including many of the authors who signed Fight for the Future’s Open Letter Defending Libraries’ Rights in a Digital Age, tend to either have a history of sharing their works freely prior to the lawsuit (ex: Hanif Abdurraqib, who had published a free audio version of his book Go Ahead in The Rain on Spotify before Spotify began charging for audiobooks separately from their music subscriptions) or have alternative incomes related to their writing that don’t stem directly from book sales (ex: Neil Gaiman, who famously works with multiple mediums and adaptations of his writing).

In these cases, the IA lawsuit is framed as an ideological battle over the IA’s intention when releasing the National Emergency Library.

Many other authors, including a large number of smaller names and writers early in their careers, take a much more practical approach to the lawsuit, focused on defending their ability to monetarily profit off their works. This is by no means a reflection of their own ideology surrounding who has the right to information and whether libraries are worth protecting. Instead, it is a response to the fact that these authors love writing, and they simply would not be able to afford to continue writing in a world where they do not have the power to stop digital collections from distributing their copyrighted work without their consent. These include the authors, illustrators and book makes working with the Author’s Guild to submit their amicus brief in  Hachette v. Internet Archive.

These authors claim that controlled digital lending practices cause significant harm to their incomes in the following ways:

CDL undermines e-book licensing and sales markets, as most consumers would choose a free e-book over paying for their own copy.

CDL devalues copyright, meaning authors have less bargaining power in future contract negotiations.

CDL undermines authors ability to republish, whether as a reprint or e-book, out of print books once their publisher has ceased production. This includes self-publishing after the rights to their work have been returned to them.

CDL removes the income from public lending rights (PLR) that authors receive from libraries outside of the U.S. which operate on different lending and copyright standards.

The amicus brief provides first-person anecdotes from authors, including Bruce Coville of The Unicorn Chronicles, about how the rights to backlisted books, or books without an immediately obvious market, make up a huge portion of their annual salary. Jacqueline Diamond cites reissues of out-of-print novels as what kept her afloat during her breast cancer treatment.

It is worth noting that according to the Author’s Guild, some authors who originally signed Fight for the Future’s open letter defending the Internet Archive have even retracted their support after learning more about the specific lawsuit, including Daniel Handler, who writes under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket. The confusion stems from the use of the term “library” by both the Internet Archive and Fight for the Future. While authors overwhelmingly support public libraries, online collections like the Internet Archive don’t always fit the same role or abide by the same regulations as tax-funded public libraries. Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, has written the following:

“To this day, I am angry that Internet Archive tells the world that it is a library and that, by bootlegging my books, it is simply doing what libraries have always done. Real libraries do not do what Internet Archive does. The libraries that raised me paid for their books, they never stole them.”

Further Reading:

Amicus Brief [Submitted by the Author’s Guild]

Fight for the Future’s Open Letter Defending Libraries’ Rights in a Digital Age

Joint Statement in Response to Fight for the Future’s Letter Falsely Claiming that the Lawsuit Against Internet Archive’s Open Library Harms Public Libraries [Published by the Author’s Guild]

Copyright: American Publishers File for Summary Judgment Against the Internet Archive

 Publishers: What Authors Are Paid

Some of the commentators I’ve seen are disgruntled specifically with the publishers suing the Internet Archive, and I will say that many of these complaints are valid. The four publishing companies behind the lawsuits (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House) are not known for the stellar treatment of their authors and employees. With the HarperCollins Publishers strike ending only a month before the IA lawsuit ruling, many readers are poised to support any entity at odds with one or more of the “Big Five” publishers. In this particular case, however, the power wielded by these publishing companies was used in defense of author’s rights to their works, for which The Authors Guild and other similar creator groups have expressed gratitude.

When it comes to finding solutions to the digital lending problem in general, it is important to understand what and how authors are paid for digital copies of their work. Jane Friedman has created the graphic below displaying the industry standards for the Big Five publishers. You can read more about agency and wholesome models here.

As you can see, authors and publishers alike benefit from e-book library licensure when compared to individual e-book sales, especially when you consider the time limits on library licensures. But advocates of this licensure model argue that the high prices for e-book licensure are designed to make up for the lost sales in e-books. While library goers buy more books than book buyers who don’t visit the library, the copies they buy typically vary by format. For example, a reader may borrow an audiobook from the library, decide they like it, and purchase a physical copy for their collection. While readers may buy a physical copy of a book after reading a physical library copy, they are unlikely to buy a digital copy after readying a digital library copy, making e-book lending a replacement for e-book buying in ways that physical lending doesn’t fully replace physical book purchases.

What ISN’T accounted for in this graphic is self-publication and what is known as a right of reversion. Depending on the wording of their contract, an author can request their publication rights be returned to them if the work in question is out of print and no longer being published. The publisher can then either return the work to “in print” status or return the rights to the author, who can then self-publish the work. In these cases, the 5-15% profit they would have made off their traditionally published book becomes a 35-70% profit as a self-published book. This is why authors are particularly frustrated with the IA’s argument that it is perfectly legal and ethical to release digital copies of books that are no longer in print. Those out-of-print works are where many authors earn their most reliable, long-term income, and they provide the largest opportunity for the authors to take control of their own works again and make fairer wages through self-publication.

The most obvious answer to this is that if authors are being the ones hit hardest by library and digital lending, then it is the publishers that need to treat their authors with better contracts. The fact that some authors are only earning 5% of profits on hardcover copies of their books (whether those are being sold to libraries or individuals) is eye opening. Alas, like the “we shouldn’t have to tip waiters” argument, this is much easier said than done.

Further Reading:

What Is the Agency Model for E-books? Your Burning Questions Answered

What Do Authors Earn from Digital Lending at Libraries?

 You: When Is Piracy Ethical?

There are number of contributing factors to Tumblr’s enthusiasm for pirating. We are heavily invested in the media we consume, and it is easy to interpret (sometimes accurately) copyright as a weapon used by publishers and distant descendants of long-dead authors to restrict creativity and representation in adaptations of beloved texts. There are also legitimate barriers that keep us from legally obtaining media, whether that is the physical or digital inaccessibility of our local libraries and library websites, financial concerns, or censorship on an institutional or familial level. In fact, studies have found that 41% of book pirates also buy books, implying that a lot of illegal piracy is an attempt at format shifting (ripping CDs onto your computer to access them as MP3 files, for example, or downloading a digital copy of a book you already own in order to use the search feature).

The interesting thing is that copyright law in the U.S. has a specific loophole to allow for legal format shifting for accessibility purposes. This is due to the Chafee Amendment (17 U.S.C. § 121), passed in 1996, which focused on making published print material more available to people with disabilities that interfere with their ability to read print books, such as blindness, severe dyslexia and any physical disability that makes holding and manipulating a print book prohibitively difficult. In practice, this means nonprofits and government agencies in the U.S. are allowed to create and distribute braille, audio and digital versions of copyrighted books to eligible people without waiting for permission from the copyright holder. While this originally only applied to “nondramatic literary works,” updates to the regulations have been made as recently as 2021 to include printed work of any genre and to expand the ways “print-disabled” readers can be certified. Programs like Bookshare, Learning Ally, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print-Disabled no longer require certification from a medical doctor to create an account. The Internet Archive also uses the Chafee Amendment to break their Controlled Digital Lending regulations for users with print disabilities. While applications of the Chafee Amendment are still heavily regulated, it is worth noting that even U.S. copyright law acknowledges the ways copyright contributes to making information inaccessible to a large amount of people.

Accessibility is not the only argument when discussing the morality of pirating. For some people, appreciation for piracy and shadow libraries comes from a background in archival work and an awareness how much of our historical archives today wouldn’t exist without pirated copies of media being made decades or even a century ago. But we have to be more careful about the way we talk about piracy. Though piracy is often talked about as a victimless crime, this is not always the case, and each one of us has a responsibility to critically think about our place in the media market and determine our own standards for when piracy is ethical. In some cases, such as the recent conversation surrounding the Harry Potter game, some people may even decide that pirating is a more ethical alternative to purchasing. Here are a few questions to consider when deciding whether or not to pirate a piece of media:

Have you exhausted all other avenues for legally purchasing, renting or borrowing a copy of this media?

Is the alternative to pirating this media purchasing it or not reading/referencing it at all? If the former, how are you justifying the piracy?

Who is the victim of this particular piracy? Whether or not you think the creator(s) deserve to have their work pirated, you need to acknowledge there is someone who would otherwise be paid for their work.

If every consumer pirated this media, what would the consequences be? Would you be willing to claim responsibility for that outcome?

If you got this far,  thank you so much for reading! It is genuine work to try and understand the complexity behind every day decisions, especially when the topic at hand is as complicated as the modern digital lending crisis. Doing this research has changed the way that I understand and interact with digital media, and I hope you have found it informational as well.

Further Reading:

Panorama Project Releases Immersive Media & Books 2020 Research Report by Noorda and Berens

The Chafee Amendment: Improving Access To Information

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials

National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled

Books For People With Print Disabilites: The Internet Archive

Bookshare

Learning Ally

#Internet archive #IA lawsuit #digital lending #libraries #digital libraries #open library #controlled digital lending #national emergency library

[onlymingyus]

Hello, my name is Mars! I am a writer and creator on here Tumblr. I have been writing on Tumblr for the past 3 years where I have written over 374 imagines, drabbles, and fics.

I also enjoy creating graphics, gifs, and recoloring photos. I create my own graphics for my blogs and fics. Being creative has always been a huge part of my life and I love to share what I am able to make with others.

I live in a small town and work as a 911 dispatcher full-time. It is an incredibly stressful and sometimes thankless job but I still love what I do knowing that almost every day I am able to help someone in some way. I like living my life finding little ways to do that either with my job or my art so writing and creating was a way for me to do that at home.

During the pandemic, I fell in love with K-Pop and found a sense of community that I was truly missing. It gave me my best friend and has led to some of the most amazing adventures I have ever gotten to experience. I have met such amazing people in this community and especially among Carats. I am honored to call so many people I have met online, who live so far away, my friends.

K-Pop truly gave me back my inspiration and led me back to writing and creating. That is when my best friend and I started a writing blog together and have since made separate ones for personal writing.

Now to the reason why I am telling you this and why I created my Patreon. I wanted a way to have a closer sense of community with my followers. Sometimes the ask box can get overwhelming and demanding. Here I can offer more exclusive things for those who want to be here to support me a bit more closely.

Also, I mentioned my job as a 911 Dispatcher, and as much as I do love my job it is difficult to be a single woman with one job. I live in a rural area and drive 30 minutes to work in my own county. If I were to get a job outside of my county dispatching I would have to give up writing and creating. The thought of that is one that I am hoping to not dwell on for long. I am hoping to make the most of my creativity and writing here, to supplement my time off and make up the difference of not looking for that second job.

I appreciate any and all support and hope that you enjoy my content.

I know we all enjoy free content on Tumblr, and there will still be plenty of that given to you here. Patreon will be a place to get exclusive works and bonus content.

If you cannot subscribe and pay a monthly fee, I understand but please consider visiting my Ko-fi and making donation. If you are unable to make a donation please reblog so that others can find me.

#mars.rambles #about me #how to support me #seventeen writer

[sorenphelps]

12 years of Tumblr - stats are fun?

I used this website to get some nice stats for my blog which turned 12 years old this month.

I have 94,009 notes on the 1,155 original posts combined.

Average notes per original post: 81.39 notes

My top 5 most popular posts:

this post with 17,472 notes from Sep 22 2013

this post with 3,784 notes from Jan 9 2016

this post with 3,466 notes from May 4 2014

this post with 2,851 notes from Nov 30 2014

this post with 2,376 notes from Apr 19 2015

My peak was definitely about 10 years ago😂🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, to further commemorate this anniversary, I wanted to share some additional thoughts.

I am not good at social media, I just lack the skills and conscious determination of content creators, I mostly post randomly and I put little to no effort into growing my follower base. I've never really tried to become "famous" here (ngl, when I was younger I envied the popular blogs a little), but generally speaking, I just really like to draw and I want to share it with people, maybe getting to know some new people, making new friends even. For me, Tumblr's main purpose is being a platform for fandom interactions. I love how Tumblr operates with a different logic than other social media sites, how you have actual control over your own experience as it is not run by algorithms.

That's why it makes me a little sad how "Tumblr Etiquette" is not respected nowdays. I've been here for 12 years, and I am very extroverted, I have no problem with new people using this website, really, the more the merrier. As I said above, I don't really care about notes and follower counts, and I am not easily discouraged by having only a few notes on the stuff that I post. If I would be, then I will definitely put more effort into what I draw and create only what received more notes. (E.g. the Lily red carpet look pic has 14 notes as of today, while the domestic wolfstar pic is over 300, yet I am sure that I will not exclusively draw wolfstar from now on.)

Case in point, what I wanted to actually talk about is the poor reblog-like ratio. It makes me sad because I desperately crave the interaction and a like goes completely unseen here. (I know that you can make your likes visible, but most people, me included, check their dashboards only, and will check likes of certain people only if they are specifically looking for something.) My main driver is not the exposure or recognition or whatever in itself I get on my drawings (it is certainly a nice bonus tho). I want to interact with people, and I can only do that if the stuff I post is seen by them, aka reblogged. On my main blog I almost only post my artwork (I've reblogged 158 posts only in the past 12 years), but I have a sideblog especially for reblogging purposes (which comes with the nice bonus of making my "likes" searchable, because the tagging system is truly a wonder).

Let me further explain what I mean by presenting the reblog-like ratio of 3 of my latest most popular posts:

Reblogs > Likes! Please! I want interactions! Share your thoughts! That's what this site is for!

#lau gets personal #tumblr stats

[c-rose2081]

why don’t you like doing fanart anymore?

Because fanart almost always gets three times as many views compared to my original work, simply because it’s in a fandom.

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’

Not when your self-esteem is already so low that you barely muster the energy to post at all. When I see a random piece of fanart from months ago get more likes or reblogs than something original that I’m actually proud of and want other people to enjoy, it’s really discouraging. Especially if I put a lot of time into that original piece only for it to completely flop. I love my original stories and characters far more so than any fandom.

In the fandom grind, people only want the fandom content and not whatever else I have to offer. Similarly, because that’s what people ‘want’ from me, I get so absorbed in fandom work that it suddenly feels impossible to quit making it, because you become scared that you’ll lose followers or people won’t like you anymore.

It’s why I do almost exclusively original content now, or very niche fandoms that don’t have a massive fan base. It allows me to be more flexible when I fixate on something, only to lose interest in it a few months later. It’s not such a huge deal when I stop creating for it.

I’ve learned how to keep my mental health safe from something that hurts me, even if not as many people care that way.

I still love other peoples fan art! And I do enjoy indulging every so often, but it’s not something I really get deep into now days.

#artist things #fanart #digital art #character art #original character #thinking thoughts

[veeeffvee]

Alright cool here’s that post about what’s been going on while I’ve been gone

(A bit of a warning: none of this is happy)

TL;DR - bad brain stuff and burnout

Hey everyone, looks like I’m back! Not sure for how long, but I sure am online right now!

...Man, I’ve been going over how I was going to write this post a million times in my head, and every version that I imagined just sounded really sad and made me cry just thinking about it, so I’m just gonna try to be more succinct than I originally planned.  

So right after finals week, I did try to get back into drawing the stuff I had planned to post, and I maybe got like... one idea done. There were a few more but the majority of them are still in the rough/sketch phase. I don’t know why, but as soon as I got off of school, I just lost all motivation to draw. 

Okay, that’s a lie---I know why I couldn’t draw anything. See, I’ve been in the GHOST fandom since... late 2018? So that’s three, almost four years now. And I’ve pretty much been posting exclusively GHOST content since then, with hardly a break. As much as it’s helped with gaining the following that I have (thank you all for that, of course!) you’ve gotta understand that posting about literally ONE fandom for four years straight is?? Fucking exhausting??? 

And yeah I know that no one was FORCING me to do that, this is all my fault don’t get me wrong! But just... being someone who isn’t at all confident in anything that I make, it felt like GHOST content was pretty much the only thing I was good at? And you know, that’s what you people followed me for, so obviously the moment I stopped posting it people would leave! And I didn’t want that at all! 

That’s why I tried my damnedest to keep myself interested in this fandom, with my stupid AUs. Mainly the DSAU and Karaoke AU. I was so embarrassed about them because they’re clearly just me desperately trying to make something GHOST-related, even when I had literally no steam left for it. 

And you know, it’s not really that I’m tired of the characters or songs themselves, I’m just... tired of doing the same thing for four years, haha. I’m not gonna stop, especially since everyone keeps saying that I’m one of the few people keeping this fandom alive?? (Like haha no pressure right?) And I do want to finish COLOR-TV, and keep writing for MWTM, and I want to eventually tell you guys the story I’ve come up with for the Role Swap AU, and much more! I still have so many ideas, it’s not like I’ve ever run out! 

I’ve just come to a point where it’s like... have I done enough yet? I’ve made mashups, I’ve drawn so much art, I’ve written stories, I’ve written over a hundred in-character posts, and I’ve gotten into making some videos. Have I come to a point where I can take a break without losing my following? I can never tell, really. I don’t want to take a break and come back with no one remembering who I am or what I’ve done, that thought terrifies me more than anything haha. I’ve always felt like I have to keep making things to stay relevant in this fandom, or else I risk people completely forgetting about me. And if that happens, then what was even the point of me being here, right? 

That’s another thing. Since I wasn’t able to make even a scrap of GHOST content after finals week, I figured... that there wasn’t a point to me being here anymore. “veeeffvee” has sorta just become mainly a Ghost and Pals fan blog, rather than a blog that I can use to fangirl over all sorts of things. And you know that even then, I’ve felt guilty over talking about or drawing things that aren’t GHOST-related. 

So if I couldn’t post what didn’t make me feel guilty, then I figured I shouldn’t even be here. Anything else that I would post would be just a fucking waste of time. Not only personal posts---even reblogs without any GHOST content interspersed made me feel awful. And I’ve already made it clear that I hate talking too much on personal posts (oh the irony right now), and I think I should shut up more, so... yeah. Why should I be here if I can’t give you guys anything good? 

Emphasis on good, of course. It wasn’t like I wasn’t doing anything while I was gone. Unfortunately I’ve started developing my O.Cs and drawing them more during my absence. I don’t think I have to reiterate just how much I loathe my own content, and how much I think that all of it is awful garbage no matter what I do. So that’s even more wastes of time, how terrible! I really hate myself for this in particular. 

...Okay, here’s the part I didn’t want to talk about, ever, but I don’t think I can avoid it anymore. There’s another reason why I’ve been making less and less GHOST content, and it has to do with GHOST themselves. I won’t get into specifics, because gog knows there’s enough drama within the nooks and crannies of this fandom and I really don’t any trouble, but here it is. 

I had a personal interaction with GHOST sometime two years ago where I needed to talk to them about something I needed help with. It was very important, and---for lack of better phrasing---they were a huge dick about it. Just, a complete fucking asshole. And I don’t mean this lightly; I don’t like being negative or talking negatively about anyone (I mean look how much of this I haven’t talked about until now!), but I cannot stress this enough. 

That interaction was such a far cry from how I expected them to be, as someone I had looked up to and made so much content for, it really soured everything in this fandom for me afterwards. I’m not saying that GHOST owed me anything just because I’ve made a bunch of fan content, that’s just absurd, but I didn’t expect them to be that bad. And now, as you can imagine, it’s been really difficult continuing to make fanmade stuff when I really, really despise the creator. 

And I just want reiterate that I’m not saying this to make people hate them too---I’m the last person who would want to spread negativity in this fandom, after how much fun I’ve had in it all these years. And I’m not some demon who’s going to go out of my way to bully them, that’s literally not who I am. I just needed to get this out here to further explain why it’s be hard for me to continue making GHOST content. Because hey, if there truly wasn’t a problem between me and them, why would I stop? 

I guess it also doesn’t help... that all of their recent music has just sounded like utter shit to me? Haha. Maybe I’m a bit biased because of that interaction and stuff, but their instrumentals have just sounded lazier (and WORSE with every STUPID GLITCH SOUND EFFECT THEY PUT IN making my EARS BLEED), and their lyrics have just sounded like word salad. Like cripes, tone it down with the distortion and reverse reverb, it’s getting repetitive and boring and hard to listen to. Plus I’m really not a fan of their current art style. It looks like DeviantArt bases and wikiHow art to me. 

(This last part wasn’t supposed to be a dunk on their current stuff, but I thought I would add it in as even more reasons for my lack of content. Again, I don’t like being hateful, so I’ll try to stop here.)

Anyway yeah, I think that’s everything? Man I hope I won’t regret being honest about all this. It’s been hard trying to keep all of this in, since I prefer to appear as cheerful and happy as my icon! As far as I can tell, no one likes negative people, and negativity drives people away. And I wouldn’t want that! Plus, I really do fear backlash or something for even daring to say anything bad about GHOST. Fans can be cruel, you know? 

I cannot apologize enough for my absence, and I really am sorry for not making anything good while I was gone. I swear that I tried my best, but a lot of this stopped being fun a while ago. It’s just become work now. I promise that I’ll keep trying of course, because what else am I good for, but... can I say for once that I’ll make GHOST content when I can again? It’ll be made when it’s made. 

...Ahh, no, I still feel guilty. Hopefully I’ll get hit with a wave of inspiration, however brief it may be, like I usually do. That typically happens. I just hope that you all can be patient with me for however long that will take. And again, I’m sorry for not working fast enough. I swear on my life I’ve been trying. 

#personal #vent-ish? #Believe me this was gonna lean more towards being a vent but I held off haha

[mack3030]

opinions?

What's really funny is that this person is attacking an early access creator for early access, for something they actually took time to make instead of going after paywall creators who are literally fucking stealing models and doing the bare minumum. Make it make sense? The fucking double standards of this community man. Like...if early access creators get treated like this, it's no freaking wonder folks like leaf-motif and sixam went to paywalling. Why do the right thing and follow all the rules only to end up with your work stolen, redistributed, or mocked by people who don't understand the work you put in it? [This is by no means me excusing these people from making the choice to do the wrong thing, but I'm just saying...like if a community abuses people long enough it won't take much for them to consider abusing that community back...] Like, the community can't be all "fuck paywallers" while treating the free and early access creators like machines who are just here to crank out cc for us to use and abuse. Like, that's not what these people are for. They are part of our community, and are important to support and uplift. Even if you cannot monetarily support these folks due to your situation, you can still send them a kind word, reblog their posts, share about them on social media, etc. I just am kinda sick of the cycles of abuse I'm seeing in the community tbh. Like, EA convincing us that the game isn't playable without all this extra money and DLC and addons, which then makes it easier for paywalling creators to exploit that pavlovian-training and convince people that it's the same for CC. And those creators trying to justify it as well by saying "Well you're not giving your money to a money hungry corperation and instead giving it to a small creator!" as if they aren't using the same techniques the corperation is? And then other people seeing how easy it is to milk the CC money cow and deciding the fuck the community and just go straight to putting all of their content on patreon with paywalls. Just from playing other games recently with healthier modding communities it just shows the absolute disconnect with reality. So what can we do from here? I don't know but I think some simple steps would be: 1) Stop abusing and treating early access creators like trash. Don't share their shit before early access is over, don't complain about the wait times, and actually appreicate they're making things for you and doing the right thing. 2) Realize that your game is your game, and you don't have to compare yourself to or compete with fucking anyone. At the end of the day, in 10 years it's not going to matter that you had a piece of CC that almost nobody else had because it was ~*~exclusive~*~ or that you had a perfectly blender rendered story on your simstagram. But what is going to matter is your mental health, which is gonna take a toll if you start engaging in the toxic behavior of comparing yourself to others or competing with others because you think they "play the game" better than you, causing you to buy things you don't need from people set on abusing the community. Nobody plays the game better than you because we each play the game differently. 3) Surround yourself with people and creators who emphasize community over content. Be around creators who care about the community and give back to it and are decent humans vs people who are cranking out "content" and trying to be a "brand". Because again, in 10 years you might not even be playing the sims 4 anymore, but you might still have friends from the community that you made. I don't actively play the sims anymore but I still have sims 4 friends who check up on me and ask how I'm doing. And I suspect I'll have many of them as friends for years to come.

4) Don't be afraid to call a spade a spade and highlight people who aren't acting in the best interest of the community. Like, I get that people enjoy my blog because I do this and that people have loved following @littleblackbooksims for that reason too, but like, if we ALL took part a little bit in this, then perhaps I and others wouldn't have to shout so loud. Because IDK about you but I'd sure as heck love to not have to post so much about abusive paywallers and be able to post more turtle pictures. Anyway, I hope that's enough "thoughts" for ya on this ask.

~Sunny

#ask #paywalling sucks #sims 4 #sims4cc #sims4 #sims4alpha #sims 4 cc #sims4mm #paywalls suck #sims4maxismatch #the sims 4 #ts4

[ktarsims]

Check In Tag!

I was tagged by @siancyaniam. Thank you!

Why did you choose your URL?

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, I discovered role-playing in a furry community back when I had not even a concept of what ‘furry’ meant. I ran a role-playing guild there for a while, based on FFVIII, and at one point I ran a contest to name the world. My own submission was: K’tarianen - which did not win the votes. Since it wasn’t going to be used there, I’ve since used various forms of it for my online nicknames, or sometimes character names.

How long have you been on tumblr?

One of my first posts on this blog was actually the Pattern Hoarder Tutorial, which was made in Jan. 2017. So... about five and a half years now? I actually do have a personal tumblr that I almost never look at anymore, which was created at least five years before that.

Do you have a queue tag?

I do not. Nearly everything I post runs through my queue or is scheduled though.

Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I started it in order to post the Pattern Hoarder Tutorial in a place where it could be seen and would not soon disappear or be lost. Patterns used to be the only CC I actually used, and I hadn’t found a tutorial for multi-layer (or multi-color channel) patterns, so I wanted to share what I’d figured out with everyone else.

These days I consider that I ought to turn it into PDF’s so that it could be easily uploaded anywhere. Perhaps someday I’ll make time for that.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

My icon is a crop of a photo of my simself. Perhaps someday I’ll change it, but I’m fairly satisfied with it.

Why did you choose your header?

Uh. I don’t think I have a header.. do I? *goes to look* OH. I do. LMAO. It’s the music room of the Olijar mansion which I spent far too much time on and was extremely pleased with when I had finished. They’re supposed to be the main family in my main save, but I think so far they’ve actually had less ‘screen time’ than some of the other households.

What’s your post with the most notes?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a tips post I made forever ago with things I find very valuable knowledge in-game.

How many mutuals do you have?

I have... not the faintest idea, honestly. I did a google search to figure out how to find that out, but met only with more confusion. 

How many followers do you have?

Looks like the current count is 880, for whatever that’s worth. As a note, I don’t really keep track, nor do I check to see if people unfollow me, nor do I spend time to try to block people who might be inactive, bots, etc.

How many people do you follow?

458 currently. I feel like this number used to be higher, but probably some blogs were lost to Tumblr’s shenanigans, and some people deleted their blogs. I follow almost exclusively blogs who post TS3 content, as it’s the only game in the series I’ve yet played, but I do follow a few TS2 blogs. I’m also pretty picky in that I require posts to be properly tagged, for there not to be too many of them all the time, and usually for there to not be too many CC reblogs. I follow most creators directly, and a few CCfinds blogs in case I miss things, and don’t like to constantly see the same thing over and over again on my dash. Which I actually do keep up with most of the time.

Have you ever made a shitpost?

Uh. I think someone would have to define for me what a shitpost is before I could answer this question. xD I have heard the term a lot, but don’t actually know what it means, precisely. (When you use sarcasm to call something out?)

How often do you use tumblr every day?

Typically, every day. Though some days get skipped if I am too busy. And a few times, several months were skipped due to life taking over.

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

I try to keep any disagreements I might have with other members of the sims 3 fandom on tumblr to private disagreements. Publicly posted arguments tend to blow up far too quickly and can result in unwanted consequences.

How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

Emotional manipulation has long been a tactic to get people to spread things they’d otherwise ignore. It doesn’t really work on me. I’ll reblog it if I feel the message is worth sharing, and appropriate to my blog, or important enough to be shared here regardless of what it’s about.

Do you like tag games?

I think tag games are kinda fun, I just rarely find the time to participate in them. ^-^;;

Do you like ask memes?

Since most of my gameplay is strictly gameplay without any well defined stories to accompany them, I usually don’t have much to say for ask memes. Sometimes they’re fun! Sometimes I just have no clue what I’d say.

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

Since, to my surprise, a lot of the creators I follow actually also follow me, I’d say there’s quite a few, so I won’t bother name-dropping.

Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I’m long past the age of crushes. xD They’re also very rare for me.

Ill tag: @murfeelee @simlicious @simsmono

#ts3 tumblr meme #ts3 simblr meme #nonsims #non sims #personal

[mindlesswicker]

I Don't Owe You A Follow, But Here's What I'm Looking To Follow and Not Follow If You Want To Know! ♡

This is the post about what I don't follow. I'll make a post later about what I'm looking for, as I think that would be good to add in a post that's great to reblog! This one is just my general no-gos I just got asked why I didn't follow someone back and here's a selection of reasons so you can do some self-reflection and not take personal insult! I know it happens so lets be clear! ♡ Because of the nature of the topics, I have chosen to put this under a warning label/read-more. TW for mentions of specific kinks including abuse, degration, and other morally meh topics.

Here's the situation: I only follow blogs I actually want to see the content of, and you have to be okay with that. You might post some of the most amazing content for this community and it's just not my cup of tea and that's okay! Good consent includes respecting kinks but knowing when and when not to engage with the people practicing with them. Please never ever think if I don't follow you back that I hate you or don't like what you're doing. You're great! Here's Why I Might Not Have Followed You: ♡ I haven't gotten to you yet! ♡ I may have accidentally unfollowed you and you're welcome to say 'hey, check out my stuff!' You, The Blogger: ♡ Don't meet the vibe check. I can't put this into words. I just may not feel like you're a good person to interact with, and it's hardly personal. ♡ Self-identify as a de-transition, sissification, or anti-trans blog. ♡ Are a cis-man who posts only degration dom kink content -- I don't trust you, stay away from me please. ♡ Are above the age of 40, and your content you post contains people who are clearly barely of legal age for consent or are very young. ♡ Only exist to get money out of people. I'm all for tipping, I'm all for sex work, I do not have money, and I do not want to interact with blogs that do exclusively that. I just think it's an insult to those folks! ♡ Your blog had something in your DNI that I fell under. Usually, it's "Cis DNI!" as I am someone who still identifies as a ciswomen, even though I don't use exclusively she/her pronouns. I am very careful about DNIs and very mindful of spaces. The first thing I check is your DNI always and I always try to look for it in the search engine to double check because boundaries are the most important thing to me. Here's some other things! Your blog: ♡ Doesn't post anything. ♡ Doesn't have an age on it. ♡ Is on a flag list and I've come and blocked you because you did something shitty to someone. (You would not be able to see this post at all if that were the case! ♡) ♡ Doesn't contain content I'm interested in.

You post:

♡ Excessive amounts of cock content. Lots of porn/gifs of sex/etc. Lots of nudity and suggestions to be a slut by showcasing it. I am an extremely modest person in real life, and while I'm here to support you being a huge whore, I am also not looking to see that content all the time! ♡ ♡ Lots of anal play, cum play, or drooling, all of which include bodily functions I cannot stand looking at. I am very grossed out by real photos of bodily fluids outside of blood. I usually can scroll past, but if it's all you post, I'm not about to destroy my timeline with it.

♡ Heavy, heavy degration that includes dehumanization, detransitioning, and straight up abuse. I will almost never follow blogs that post kinks with slapping, maiming, bruising, smacking, spanking, choking, etc. if I notice it's the primary content they post. This is not a trigger for me, so I will still follow blogs, I just don't need to see it a lot of the time! You can always send me an ask anonymously or from your blog directly if you want me to check out your blog or want to ask about other things I might be uncomfortable with too. Thanks for being cool! We love to see it out here. - Wicker

#wickerspeaks #safetyandconsent #dni list #follower guidelines

[sonicenvy]

ok so, like in all seriousness, I need any and all of the children™ following me to know this about the internet in days of yore. So like a major precursor to scrolling through dumb posts on social media sites was chain emails. This was a formative part of my early internet social experience™.

Basically someone you were friends with sent you an email with a subject line that was something like FWD: FWD: Silly Dogs. This email almost always originated from some other person that you did not know that was sometimes even located in a different country than you. It spread like MLMs (Multi-Level Marketing Schemes) wish they could spread. The originator of the email would have sent it on blast to everyone in their address book, and many, many, many people who received it (and enjoyed the content) forwarded it everyone in their address books. Sometimes people added comments onto it. You could see the entire FWD chain, which included the email addresses of basically everyone who'd ever received this email before you. This included, again, many people that you did not know.

Some chain emails were the classic dumb "FWD this email to 10 people for xyz good thing to happen to you" or "FWD this email to 10 people in your address book or xyz bad thing will happen to you." Some of these emails were literally just a collection of funny, interesting, informative, or downright weird pictures with no sources. Some of them were "games" where you'd add something to the email chain that built on whatever the person who forwarded it to you built. Many of these emails have very similar formats to modern "reblog this post and say xyz in the tags," or "reblog this post for good luck," posts.

Here are some screenshots of one such email that I received in 2009, to give you an idea of this:

There would be, sometimes like 100+ email address blocks like the below before the actual email even started....

The above email contained 15 silly dog pictures btw. also, as was sometimes typical of such an email the end part of the email would have weird links to people's company websites that they had in their default email signatures. sometimes they had telephone #s too. Sometimes the bottom of the email just straight up had an advertising link for some kind of service that was attached to the originator's (or someone else in the chain's) email account provider because they had a free email account instead of one that they paid for. The internet was a very different place back then y'all....

As a sidenote, you used to have to PAY to have an email address with good features. When gmail beta came out in 2004 it changed the email game. It was pretty exclusive in the beginning so not a lot of people had it. By the time I got my invite and joined gmail beta 2008 it was almost to full release. That said, I didn't really start using my gmail until 2011 though because gmail still had, uh, issues at the time. Also because of the fact that I was still heavily into yahoo IM and like, yahoo answers. My email address before my gmail was an email address that my mom had bought for me when i was, like a toddler in 1999 with her dial-up internet service. I'm not sure why she bought all her VERY little kids email addresses they absolutely wouldn't be using for a few more years but there you have it. I sent my first email in 2004, which was, like fucking 20 years ago lmao. thinking today about how my first ever emails are older than a lot of kids on this site now.... fucked up because I'm not quite yet 30, so I'm like "don't let that be THAT fucking long ago..."

So yeah, uh, that's your internet history lesson for today kids.

#margaret babbles #internet history #i wish i'd picked a cooler gmail name at the time because it probably still might have been available. alas. #one of my coworkers knows someone who has their VERY generic first name as their gmail name. think [email protected]. which is like badass #she probably joined gmail beta in the very beginning in 2004-2005 #still fucking me up actually that my email account is over 20 years old and my first ever email turns 20 this year.... #that email was to my cousin in response to her email which was just a digital photo of her cat #the photo in question was SO low quality because digital photos sucked ass in 2004. like cameras were 1 megapixel or some shit #fucked up also that I'll be THIRTY in only three years. worse because i still live with my mom. being a broke adult sucks ass y'all

[corruptedremnant]

“Your art isn’t valued by the number of notes you get” okay but. If you spent 6 hours baking a cake for a party, but no one at the party eats your cake, it’s still disappointing.

This articulates something about the different between value and validation that I didn’t previously register on a conscious level.

This is why I tell people I feel more like an entertainer than an artist.

I want to hear them laugh, chat, comment, speak, roar, cry, get irrationally angry, I need people to respond to my art and get inspired and need more.

I don’t want a note, I want a response.

Responses are very nice. I like reading over them. They make me feel fuzzy. Of course, likes and reblogs are also very appreciated, but responses make me feel a special kinda fuzzy.

That’s the thing about the “oh, create for yourself, don’t worry about other people!” attitude (that almost exclusively comes from non-artists and people who have tons of followers and routinely get tons of validation for SOME reason) that doesn’t quite work. I guarantee you, most of us already ARE creating for ourselves above all-

But we POST our creations for human connection, and that’s not a bad thing.

I’m not sure when we all got to the point where wanting validation for something you worked hard at is seen as a bad thing. That you’re pathetic for wanting.

If you think that way it’s not only toxic as hell it’s killing creators.

Creating isn’t easy. When there’s nobody to look at your work and say, “You did a good job. This was hard.” The drive and ambition disappears, then so does the work.

Give your content creators value.

Reblog content.

#cr reuploads #cr posts #issues #interesting stuff #living online

[chattingwiththelightkeeper]

Ditching The “Real” Memes

Take a look at almost any of your kinktastic social media feeds and quickly most will encounter a post that says something like ‘real dominants are’, or ‘real submissives do’. These memes, pictures, and posts are something many of us have shared in the past. With that said, let’s discuss a couple of thoughts on why these are not the best or even good to share, reblog, and/or create.

Every person in the world is unique yet society seems to exert pressure on all of us to conform to things. Now there are things we should conform to, chewing with our mouths closed, being kind to

others, and doing our best to be our authentic selves but so much is hogwash. As an example according to some of the posts, some men are not ‘real men’ because they do not have a beard, drink wine rather than beer, or prefer classical to classic rock. There is nothing wrong if someone likes/loves all of those but just because they do not fit someone, it does not mean they are less than just the same their likes/loves do not fit you, it does not lessen your value in any way.

The thing about all of these posts directed to tell who is a real or true gentleman, lady, or any of the mumbo-jumbo out there deters people from discovering and being who they are. Often people try hard to fit in but it never seems to work for them and this can be because just like every other human, they are unique. As soon as they stop trying to be something or someone they are not, they discover amazing people who love them for who they are and they grow as a person.

When it comes to the lifestyle, the ‘real’ malarkey feels even more prevalent. Understandably, many of the reality posters are trying to draw attention to the people who use the lifestyle to manipulate others and while it is a noble idea, to highlight rotten apples, what creates a ‘real’ dominant, submissive, or switch is the person behind the label. Just like any place where groups of people gather there will be good and bad actors, the lifestyle is not different. Just because Master Mike may think Daddy Dylan is not a ‘real’ dominant because of how they practice the lifestyle however they are the ideal d-type for their partner. People must invest in educating themselves about the lifestyle rather than making judgments on who is or who is not based on internet memes. In a  Mr. T voice, “I pity the fool“ who thinks they can become a lifestyle role by following the advice of memes.

Social media, as well as lifestyle sites, are filled with an overabundance of blurbs stating what makes a person real or true. So here is a little challenge, rather than share a real/true post, take a minute and write a little something about the traits that you look for in a dominant, submissive, or switch and deep-six that meme. Everyone has preferences, but what makes someone ‘real’ is that they are who they are rather than trying to ‘fit in’. Endeavor to be yourself and discover the amazing people who will love you for this.

If you enjoyed this, I invite you to give my podcast a listen 'Chatting With The Lightkeeper,' a top 25% most-followed podcasts on Spotify but available on all the major podcasting apps and follow my socials for more exclusive content: Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) for a deeper dive into the wonderful world of D/S.

As with all of my thoughts, please see this disclaimer.

©TLK2023

#d/s relationship #dom/sub #bd/sm community #d/s community #d/s lifestyle

[princeminnow]

Hello, need advice... Made agere blog almost month ago but have no interactions if exclude bots following, even though reblog posts from other agere blogs, only few followers because followed them, but never interact... Said is agere in top and in pinned post, but don't tag because am really scared icky blogs will come if tag agere, is it why? Am too shy to talk to others because I've been socially isolated for four years and don't really know how to, but want to make other friends like me...

aw hi bud!! that is a pickle, unfortunately yea sometimes icky blogs do pop up, i still have no idea how they find me, and bc of that, curating my followers list is usually for big boy me, since otherwise that kind of content can be really upsetting while regressed. also ive noticed a real difference when i remember to include the “dni nsfw/kink” thing at the bottom, even if some bozos break that one rule, theyre the minority.

if ur making original content and you stick to agere exclusive tags, u should be way safer. and thats also how people can find you! also going into those tags yourself to find new content, you might even find other regressors looking for friends too!

as for the social thing.. believe it or not, i am actually pretty shy, and i worked up to regularly replying to posts, sending asks, etc. in baby steps! it can feel scary at first, but even just being a regular anon on peoples blogs can help a lot

p.s. im not part of any but there are lots of active agere discord servers, and if you wanted to join one and just be urself, leave some emoji reactions, also a great way to make friends!

#ask #anon #hope this helps!!

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Hi! I just saw the post you reblogged about likes... and while I definitely don't disagree, I feel like there's more to it for some people (or maybe just me). I personally have 0 followers. Well, I have some but they're all bots and I need to block them but haven't gotten around to it. Because of this, I usually only like things--because what's the point? No one else will see it. If I had followers I'd reblog, but I don't. So I don't.

hi nonnie! reblogs don't just widen the scope of people who see our stuff! they tell the tumblr algorithm which posts to boost onto other people's dashes with the tagging system. the more reblogs the post has, the more tumblr will promote it to the people following the tags we use. and also! it adds another note! it's like a double kudos! and why wouldn't you do that for your fav content creators?

so reblog stuff! it still helps us whether you have 300 followers or 3!

#and comment but ya know. i know that's harder for some people #reblogging takes literally 0 seconds #it helps us even if you have 0 followers #and maybe people will want to follow you if you're reblogging cool creative content! #that's almost exclusively why i follow people. for the content they reblog #anywayssssss i will probably never shut up about this issue and you will probably never come up with a reason that convinces me #that likes are just as good as reblogs #likes say ''i saw it but didn't like it enough to put it on my blog'' #again idc how many followers you have that's really not the point #reblogs say ''oh hey look at this cool thing this person made! i want to hang it up on my wall'' #it's just *better* #and tells me a lot more than likes ever will #(since the like button is used so ambiguously on this website) #sorry if this came off abrasive i haven't had my coffee yet sfkgjf #asked and answered #em answers #nonnie