#legitimately there are some things on a site you get used to and they aren't bad but there are Definitely other things
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I wouldn't even necessarily mind a layout change if it were good but with the negative association I have with twitter, opening tumblr to the exact twitter layout is actually making me angry + the more time I spend on it it does feel cramped + the notifs on "following" (and now "home") are sooooo annoying somehow it's worse to me than the sparkling store icon and it's harder to just ignore than the notifs on "activity" because at least those max out and stay the same whereas this is constantly changing. the constant glitchy-looking appearing and disappearing of the following/for you bar as I'm scrolling was irritating enough without a changing number on it (also why would it make sense for that bar of all things to follow you down your dash. even if I used the for you tab, why would I switch in the middle of scrolling and lose my place?? it doesn't make any sense). but I'm getting off-topic. I don't understand every website copying all of twitter's famous-for-being-bad decisions right now. I hope all the things people are trying will work. looking forward to the probable xkit fix. thank you xkit devs for everything.
#also it's harder to find everything now! left that out of the post bc that just comes with moving things around but it's still annoying#this is so obvious it almost has me wondering if it's bad on purpose for some reason. except that they're making other bad changes too#tumblr update#this is actually a good reminder that there are probably things I conditioned myself to ignore that I might actually be able to change#with ublock or xkit#sometimes curating your experience also means changing the actual site#legitimately there are some things on a site you get used to and they aren't bad but there are Definitely other things#that when you get rid of them after a long time it's such a relief because it really was bothering you#'if you don't like it try to change it' are words to live by (with anything tech really) and easy to forget. I should look into it#personal
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SwapOut/Webcomic/Twitch PSA!
Hi everyone 👋🏻 Zk here >< or Cats, for older followers
So I've been getting back into doing SwapOut again, but I would like to appeal to everyone who reads and loves the comic. Much love to all of you who's still sticking around 🙏🏻💙 But something has also always been bothering me throughout this journey.
As many of us know, we artists do these comics for free (especially fan comics), starting them out of love and taking a LOT of time and energy out of our lives to continue making them.
And it's amazing how many of you come from translations or comic dubs on Youtube, which are also very well-done and take a lot of effort to make, much love to them too. There is a difference, however.
Monetization.
And I'm not asking for pity! I'm appealing for understanding.
Because some comic dubbers on Youtube are able to earn ad revenue from the videos they upload. From the beginning, we artists have given them the permission to dub our works. But we don't receive anything from it, nor do we usually charge them for using our art (against our better judgement).
We let them use our comic pages in their monetized videos for free. And occasionally these videos receive thousands and millions of views, which I imagine gives a decent amount of ad revenue, while the artists themselves don't usually earn anything from their own artwork, nor do we ever want to put it behind a paywall of any kind. (we like reading free comics too so don't worry x|)
... But doing full-colored comic pages for free eventually gets hard to sustain without any income from it, even more so when we need to give our time and energy to other jobs to earn money for a living instead. We legitimately keep going on our comics purely out of love. Truly, we would LOVE to do our own art for a living. There's things like Patreon but it's only feasible if we're also able to produce bonus content or show BTS, and only people willing to spend money for them can help us, and not readers who aren't able to.
And we understand that not everyone can afford to support us monetarily. And that's okay!
But if you love these comics and want to really help us to keep going, there ARE ways you can easily support us for free!
For example, affiliates on Twitch (like myself) are able to earn ad revenue very early on (they must have at least 50 followers, quite a requirement, but still easier to obtain than Youtube's 1000 subscribers).
(my Youtube, btw. not much rn but drop a subscribe?)
But simply put, if the vast majority of readers from the yt numbers visit and stay for ads on the artists' Twitch streams (remember to have adblocker disabled for the site, if any), they'll be making an actual, physical contribution to the artist themselves, at no cost whatsoever. We earn up to 55% from any ads that run on our stream, so the more viewers, the better!
(this is my twitch on average 8 viewers, with a 3 hour stream. again, the more the better!)
(ofc you can also buy subs to watch ad-free and supports me directly, but i'm typing all this to share the free ways people can support their fave creators ✨)
And even if that doesn't work out, I'd be happy enough to see most of you there 🙏🏻💙 I've been treating my streams as work, so I'm striving not to break the streak.
So drop a follow on my Twitch, and catch the streams when you can!
They're great if you need company or background noise, and also great for co-working~
Currently streaming WEEKLY,
Mondays, Wednesdays (SwapOut) and Saturdays, 10.30AM EST
(art by @cupcakepaints)
>> twitch.tv/zkcats <<
Anyway thanks for listening to my Ted talk, please share this around for others as well >< 🙏🏻 Artists, make this a reblog chain or something! Promo your stuff!
And apologies for the essay, I wasn't expecting to type this much sdghsgh this itself is not an ad for Twitch or whatev, I'm just a little frustrated with needing to juggle all this.
I was also considering hosting SwapOut somewhere that could get ad revenue, but I wasn't sure where until I realized I can probably earn that from my Tapas now (i think?? sdfhgh up to 70% ad revenue there but i haven't seen any yet) So maybe I'll post there a day earlier than here or something? We'll see. Go subscribe there! Check it out! Reread it! Help ME help YOU!
... Much appreciated ><
#catschats#undertale#webcomic#swapoutcomicupdate#typed this out mostly for people who aren't aware that ads support streamers etc.#im super tired now wheezee but im living
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Complete FuniFuni Collection!
After many years of hunting I was finally able to complete my FuniFuni collection! I almost never see these plushies discussed in comparison to Fumos so I thought I'd talk about what I understand about them since the Circle that made them, Phantasm Screen, seems to be completely defunct.
The initial run of Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae first showed up in July 2009 and the most "recent" additions, Satori, Orin, Remilia, and Flandre first showed up in August 2010. The only record of legitimate online sales of these plushies I can find is an old entry on Melonbooks for the hanging strap version of Orin from 2010. Some evidence suggests they were sold on Toranoana and at IRL events as well. They were most likely distributed at a few more events and probably at IRL bookstore/doujin shops after the final set was made before the Circle closed up shop. I would reasonably expect that all of these plushies are roughly a decade old, and no more new ones have been made since then. As time has passed it has obviously become more difficult to find online auctions for some of these, you can still find auctions for Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae somewhat often, but the plushies released later don't show up as often since there were fewer distributions of them. The full sized version of Satori was particularly difficult for me to locate, I think I won the only auction for the full sized Satori plush I had seen in 5 years? (For the absurd price of $12 plus shipping.)
These plushies are smaller in comparison to Fumos.
In my opinion the Funis are generally a bit more detailed than Fumos. More fabric types are used, with a lot of the frills Touhou outfits are known for are made of lace on the Funis versus the satin ribbons that Fumos use.
Additionally, if you'll forgive me for talking about plushie tooshie, Fumos generally stick with the exact same basic design for the area where the plushie sits, but Funis are willing to go into detail even down to the footwear. The bloomers are modeled like actual clothing, and look at Satori's socks and house slippers!
Let's talk about tags. In a world with bootleg Fumos, the presence or absence of a visible tag was probably the first thing people attempting to obtain one were taught to look for. Scalpers are not trying to duplicate Funis for fat stacks of cash so whether or not a Funi has a tag is more of a personal preference, or for a feeling of reassurance. I was able to obtain 12/13 of my Funis with tags, pictured below. (Did you think I was going to let the absence of a tag prevent me from buying the only Satori I had seen in like 7 years?)
Anyways, I've been hunting these for a long time and I'm very happy to have completed my collection. If you also enjoy Touhou plushies and are annoyed/infuriated with the resale market Fumo prices, and a character you enjoy is available in the limited selection, consider a FuniFuni instead. They are a highly detailed alternative plushie that generally sell for a fraction of the price of a Fumo. If you're interested in picking up any of these cuties you'll have to hunt on auction sites, but with the existence of Buyee now making proxy services easily accessible to most people, it's easier to get Funis for decent prices from JP Yahoo Auction. If anyone else out there is hunting for these I do wish you luck. Anyways, I need to get back to being mad about the fact that there aren't any Shinmyoumaru plushies, or goods in general. See'ya around!
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Photoshop and AI: An unintentional masterclass in cynicism
(You can also read this post on my blog/personal site!)
My feelings are very mixed on the topic of AI, mostly because I believe it is being grossly misused right now. It has incredible power to improve our ability to utilize large amounts of data, whether by allowing more effective, intuitive command processing, by utilizing that data to generate more reliable statistical predictions, or countless other legitimate uses that can actually make people's lives and interactions with technology easier and better. This isn't blockchain or web3 or the metaverse or any of the other digital snake oil that's been peddled in the last few years, there are real, powerful use-cases for AI to make the world better.
And instead of using it for any that, because the technology is primarily in the hands of out-of-touch executives at massive conglomerates, we're using it to try and eliminate jobs, gut creative work, and invent self-driving cars that totally don't commit automated hit-and-runs.
What I want to talk about today is a commercial that Adobe, one of these out-of-touch corporations trying to push AI into places nobody asked for it, has been pushing the last couple months, because I feel like it has no idea how depressing and soulless a depiction of AI's utility it has wound up presenting.
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The premise for the video is pretty simple. Now you and your child - because let's be honest most small children will need an adult's help to use photoshop - can use generative AI to create your own fantastical images! On its face, this seems like a perfectly reasonable sales pitch to make.
And yet I find it an extremely depressing premise, because the AI isn't being used to accomplish some impossible task the child could have never done before. It is being used as a substitute for the child drawing the art in-question themselves.
The pitch Adobe is making is that the world is better if your child's drawing were automated and done by a machine, and that is...just so, so depressing.
I loved drawing as a kid. This sort of "Me in a magical garden with bears and cats and a castle" idea is the kind of thing I would've spent an entire afternoon having a blast coming up with. All the cats would've had names and personalities, as would the pegasus!
And all of that is just handled by a click of a button and an algorithm, and that's...sad to me. Sure it probably looks much "better" than the small child's handiwork. The kid would probably draw a bunch of stick figures and blob cats around a rectangle with triangles on top for a castle. In terms of looking "professional" it's not even a contest.
But basing the merit of the child's drawing on that completely misses the point to me. A child's drawing isn't supposed to be a masterpiece, or a professional quality work you can publish. It's an opportunity for a child to be a child, to have fun and enjoy the act of creating. Foster and learn a creative pursuit that could become a lifelong passion. None of that happens with a couple keyword searches and a click of a button.
More than anything though, there's no excitement. No joy. A child's drawing may not look impressive, but there is love and passion in it, an excitement and earnest joy that shines through even absent any fine detail. The drawings my parents saved from when I was a little kid aren't impressive visually, but they were truly labors of love. I loved making them, and I had a ton of fun doing so. That was the real value. Not something that looks like the dust jacket of a grocery store paperback's, but a kid getting to make something they loved, bringing their idea to life, and crafting every bit of it with a passion and glee a lot of us lose as adults. They didn't save those drawings because I was Rembrandt at seven, they saved them because every one of them had every ounce of care and focus my tiny hands could muster, and that meant the world to both them and me. Far more than any spit-shined generation.
That enthusiasm and wonder are truly, genuinely magical. This whole ad posits that we're better off replacing them with an AI generated amalgamation, because Dall-E's interpretation of "A pegasus on a castle" looks more "professional" than the drawing your kid spent an hour on. It fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and beauty of children creating art, and that is just...sad for what is ostensibly an art company.
I can tolerate marketing your AI features to professional adults. I mean shit, when I used to be a photographer, I'd occasionally use tools that amounted to primitive AI to fix red-eye and similar issues. There's some valid sales pitches to make there. But marketing it based on its ability to replace a child's drawings is just so unbelievably cynical, divorced from the whole point.
Every time I see it, I don't think to myself "Wow, what a cool feature," I think to myself "Wow, how jaded and out of touch was the marketing team to think that this was anything other than depressing?" It reeks of people who're so concerned with making every single thing have a neon shine and a mirror polish that they're completely oblivious to the human element that makes art worth making and consuming in the first place.
Which, thinking about it, makes a lot of sense given the features they're touting here.
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Last week, a representative of an Israeli social threat intelligence firm Cyabra spoke at a Knesset session about how a coordinated influence campaign from Iraq was using bots in the first days of the war to impact public opinion.
I've discussed this a little, and I spent some more time looking at the bots attacking my account.
Social media allows attackers to quickly adjust their methods to see what is working and what isn't. I'm finding that they are getting more effective at their messaging.
The ones attacking me are specifically trying to turn the Israeli public against the war. They post almost exclusively in Hebrew. They are using a few vectors for their messaging that would resonate with Israelis: attacking Netanyahu's leadership, pretending to care about the hostages, and claiming that the IDF is hiding things from the public during the war and things are going badly.
When they create new bot accounts, they will use Jewish and Israeli iconography in their profiles - lots of Israeli flags, for example.
They'll use typically Jewish and Israeli names - lots of "Levy" and "Cohen" and "Friedman"s. And there is a hierarchy - some older bot accounts that have been around for several months that aren't specifically Israeli sounding are feeding a second tier, which might have 30-150 fake followers of other bots, and then the bottom tier will only have one or two followers. Nearly all of the bottom tier accounts have been created within the past few weeks.
Often, the accounts will start off by following and retweeting actual popular Zionist accounts (including mine) to make themselves look legitimate,. and sometimes this fools real people into following them, making it a little harder to identify them.
I don't know where they get their content, but it is getting much more sophisticated every day. Here is a video that was posted by hundreds of those bots where they use humor to try to demoralize Israelis into thinking the IDF is killing hostages and being killed by Hamas because of stupidity. This one seems to have been created by an Arab account but they added Hebrew messaging.
As I mentioned last week, Iranian-linked sites are bragging that they are learning Hebrew and studying the Israeli psyche to fine tune these sorts of messages and make them appear to be truly from Israelis.
To these botmasters, Israeli dissension on how to conduct the war and anti-government protests are a godsend. It makes some of their messages look like they really could be from left-wing Israelis, and some of their material may indeed be from a fringe of Israelis. The sheer number of bots makes it appear that Israelis are far more divided.
The good news is that their attempt to use these bots to get a ceasefire or demoralize the Israeli public means that Hamas is losing, badly. But every social media user must understand how extensive and sophisticated these campaigns are to manipulate you. Tens of thousands of fake accounts, with millions of messages, is not a small scale campaign.
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having some Weird Thoughts currently about tumblr's place in the modern internet ecosystem, vis a vis twitter melting down, macebook/feta losing its shit, and a bunch of folks joining up here either for the first time in years or the first time at all.
namely, I really do believe that automattic/tumblr's current leadership is very very slowly and very very carefully implementing a bunch of changes in preparation to bring back adult content in its entirety, as part of a larger scheme to try to monetize without resorting to data scraping (which is basically impossible to do here the way it is on other sites anyway). it certainly seems like that's what they're doing, between post+, the tip jar, community labels, and the ability to make posts non-rebloggable. obviously these features have plenty of use outside of adult content (except maybe post+, which makes literally no sense outside of sex work), but what they seem to be doing is building up a logistical means by which to allow adult content, and allow it to be monetizable.
and like, no, I don't think tumblr the company is Our Best Friend; yes it is a company that needs to profit under capitalism to survive, but so is everything, and there is genuinely something funny and weird (in a very stupid, ironic way) about tumblr as a social media site operating in the 2020s. It just legitimately doesn't have the capacity to scrape data and sell targeted ads the way the giants of the modern internet do, both because it is a product of an earlier age when that wasn't yet a standard profit mechanism, and also just 'cause like. tumblr's fucking code is shit. I'm sure it's a lot better than it was circa 2012, but jokes about tumblr's legendary goof goof dildo spaghetti code used to be really common, and anyone who's been here longer than a couple months either remembers or at least has heard of just how weird and fucked up and bad the site's basic functionality used to be. Legitimately, the reason why tumblr feels so nice rn compared to the heyday is as much because it's just so genuinely more functional than it was ten years ago as it is because there's so comparatively few people.
but point being: if tumblr under yahoo had been handled with any semblance of basic competence, they might've seen which way the wind was blowing w/r/t targeted ads and data sales and we might have an entirely different, much worse hellsite than we actually have. or it probably would've died because yahoo would've actually fully ran it into the ground, more likely. but also it probably wouldn't have worked because the assumption of anonymity is so much more baked into the incredibly weird, broken, decade and half's worth of layered bullshit code that even if anyone previously could've realized that the smartest way to make money would be to scrape and sell data, they'd never have been able to implement it.
and so we have the tumblr of today: weird, unmarketable, ungovernable, proudly cringe, and deeply resistant to the mainstream. so not actually that much different to tumblr circa 2012, if a lot smaller and more battle-hardened.
but like. by the standards of what's available on the modern internet, tumblr is honestly one of the best, most versatile spaces still standing with any amount of a userbase? straight up, the dominance of twitter and instagram has made a lot of people really oddly perplexed by the concept of being able to write detailed essays in the body of a post, let alone the idea of dozens of images per post, or audio like, at all. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things about tumblr that I wish were different or better that just aren't compatible with how tumblr is set up at a base level as an LJ user every day I miss threaded comments and LJ-style cuts I LAMENT them I tell you, but of the options out there, tumblr is fucking wild in what it can offer. but I don't just mean for artists and fandom and weird little gremlins like those of us who've been here this whole time, I mean like. fuck. like.
watching the White House's twitter account try to lay out complex policy initiatives in 280-characters is fucking painful sometimes, and yet we've all gotten used to it in the past decade plus. leaving aside the fact that it's bonkers and deeply unsettling and generally bad that world leaders are beholden to usamerican for-profit corporations to communicate in general, of all of the socmed sites out there, it's kind of insane that twitter is the one that got big in the official political scene. (don't get me wrong: twitter is genuinely quite useful for disseminating quick bursts of information in crisis, and it's been fucking brilliant for coordinating in both natural disasters and evolving political/social disruption. but it's terrible at detailed, nuanced information sharing)
I don't know where I'm going with all of this necessarily, and I think twitter eating shit and going down in flames is pretty terrible for global democracy even as it is also on a surface level funny as shit. I don't want tumblr to replace twitter, or facebook, or insta, or tiktok, in being the place where everyone lives online. I want tumblr to stay as the little gremlin art ho fandom clown car, and lbr, it probably will. It'll probably never be what twitter is, for better or for worse. who knows if it'll ever be what it was in 2012 again. I like the ecosystem the way it is these days, with way fewer users, most of whom have been around the block more times than we can count, and are too jaded to start shit anymore. but tumblr needs money to survive, and as much as we're all enjoying posting cringe, tumblr's twitter is pulling off a masterwork balancing act luring twitter users over here, and it's working.
tumblr needs to do what it can to survive. we still don't know if all of this effort staff has been putting in these past ~10 months or so will be enough; the writing has been on the wall for years now that if tumblr doesn't find a way to financially justify itself, it won't survive another sale. automattic took a maybe unprecedented (and extremely positive, imo) risk this past year, and has been trusting current staff to listen to user input and implement positive changes, including finding ways to monetize without invading users' privacy, which who knows if the site even has the capability of doing anyway, even now. if we are all very lucky, and are willing to pitch in and treat this place like our community, we might even collectively succeed, and prove to the wider internet that it is possible to run a popular, high-traffic website without compromising user security. if tumblr is doing what I think they're doing, and very carefully building up a secure, socially, financially, and legally defensible way to support adult content on a site with american servers and a place on the app store in the 2020s, then we're off to the races and who knows where we'll go. if twitter does actually implode beyond salvaging, a huge chunk of the world will feel its loss, and many people, including all the normies and politicians and your mom, could very well cast their gaze to the website people wrote off as in its death throes four years ago. they probably won't, but as I was just vividly reminded earlier today, the White House did, in fact, have a tumblr once upon a time. who knows what the future holds.
but John Green deserves an apology, you weeaboo shits.
#tumblr#twitter#important blue checkmark#tumblr crabs#twitpocalypse#our cyberpunk future#megan whines into the empty abyss of cyberspace
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Do you have any advice for new writers? It can feel a little sad when you pour your heart and soul into something and it feels like it isn’t being read. I definitely am experiencing a writers block and I can’t tell if its because it’s hurting me emotionally to keep writing stories that feel like they may be underwhelming to the fandom. I still love reading fics and am thinking of possibly just writing for myself but not posting anymore. I hate to feel that way, especially when this is a virtual space lol, but just trying to understand from other authors what kept/keeps them going.
BOY HOWDY DO I
First of all, give yourself a hug, okay? A nice big squeeze -- you were brave and strong and creative and made something from nothing and took the steps to share it and that takes fucking GUTS, okay? The nerves you have to overcome to even do that in the first place are immense, and YOU DID IT. ❤
Second of all, lemme hit on a few points here:
"It can feel a little sad when you pour your heart and soul into something and it feels like it isn’t being read"
Listen, I know this pain. I know it might seem like I don't since I do get interaction, but I didn't always (and still don't, depending on the subject of the fic) -- and I get this. It's really sad! Writing is something that can be so personal, by default it affects you emotionally no matter what reception it gets. But also, when feels like it isn't being read is a special kind of pain, because the whole reason we share on this site in the first place is to find the people who want to scream with us. If you don't have those people, it can seem very very lonely. I get it.
"I definitely am experiencing a writers block and I can’t tell if its because it’s hurting me emotionally to keep writing stories that feel like they may be underwhelming to the fandom."
If you aren't in a good headspace, it's going to affect your ability to create. Period. ESPECIALLY when you're hurting emotionally. Feelings like those take up all the brain space, and I would never encourage anyone to force themselves to write while they feel like that. Give yourself some grace, be kind to yourself, and take a break from the site. I have many, many thoughts on this place and how it has a direct correlation to self esteem and self worth, and if you're feeling these things, I can tell you right now, it's this site. Take a break, my lovely ❤ I take them all the time when I get this way! They help immensely.
"I still love reading fics and am thinking of possibly just writing for myself but not posting anymore."
Honest to God, this is legitimately the only way to go. You HAVE to write for yourself, because if you don't, what are you writing for? The story is YOURS to tell. The characters are YOURS to shape. The ideas come from YOUR mind and YOUR heart. No one else can write it the way you do. Everyone wants interaction and yes, finding your community to share these personal things with makes it all the more fun and satisfying, but it HAS to start with you writing it for yourself.
This might not be true for everyone, but what keeps me motivated to write is exactly that: writing for myself. I think "what do I want to read", or "what do I want to share", or "what scenario do I want to explore" -- and the entire time, I am only considering myself as the audience. That way, when I do work on it and write it, it's all the more satisfying because I am the only one I am trying to please -- if that makes sense? If you wrote it for yourself and you are happy with it, then you have accomplished the greatest, hardest part about writing and you should be fucking PROUD. "I'm gonna give myself everything I've ever wanted" is the theme!
Sharing it with others is a privilege you extent to strangers, and if they don't take to it like you hope, the blow will be softened because you have this cushion of joy and contentment that you wrapped yourself in before sharing. ❤
If you feel like taking the time to write for yourself and not post, do it! What I typically find is that a break from this site allows your self esteem to build back up, which decreases the bad headspace, which allows you more room for creative thoughts, which lends itself to better (and happier) writing, which makes it easier at the end of the day to share with a nice hefty inner heart full of self confidence and worth, which makes everything easier. ❤
This is very long lol and I am SORRY -- I have a lot of opinions on this topic. If you want to chat more, DM me!
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Artificial Incompetence
The conversations around "artificial intelligence" are getting a bit bonkers. Not that they're really conversations so much as screaming matches. And not that we're talking about true artificial intelligence so much as algorithm blending programs.
I don't like the recent fad of ABPs. It has a lot of the same earmarks and defenders as NFTs had, and boy howdy did that not work out well for folks. I don't think ABPs have been tied to the fake currency market, but their current implementation is still going to do more harm than good, in my opinion.
I'm not gonna say that writing or art should be "hard" or that people need to "struggle" in order to create things. I do, however, believe that they need to do the goddamn work themselves. Feeding prompts into a content generator doesn't make you a writer or artist. Well, scam artist, maybe. It's taking words/brush strokes from someone else and claiming credit for it. Even if you mention you used an ABP you still didn't create the art yourself, you just fed a program some prompts or the name of some artists you like and it spat out something you claimed as your own.
That's one of the big hangups I have with this fad: taking credit for someone else's work. Reaping all the perceived benefits (kudos, reblogs, etc) without actually doing anything to earn it.
If I give someone a prompt and they write a fic based on it, that story isn't mine. Sure, they might mention I gave them the prompt, but they were the one to write the actual story. Not me. My name doesn't go on the author line and I can't boast to others about the fic I wrote. Because I didn't.
I'm all for accessibility tools to help people complete tasks, and if ABPs were being widely used to help make creative efforts more accessible, I might have a different opinion. As it stands, however, the vast majority of people currently using ABPs aren't using them to help with their own creativity, they're using them as a substitute.
The arguments about data scraping and plagiarism are important, especially if we want to make sure that ABPs stop doing that, but from where I stand it still all boils down to people trying to loophole past responsibility and effort.
It gets worse when you switch gears from fic writing to essays and articles. At least in fiction stuff is supposed to be made up, so, all jokes aside, if some details are wrong it doesn't really matter.
When students start submitting essays to their teachers that they didn't write or sites try using an ABP to write articles, facts become a lot more important. And ABPs are infamous for making shit up whole cloth, even to the point of citing imaginary sources for their facts. That is, quite frankly, dangerous.
You think the past few years (decades, centuries) of misinformation have been bad? It can get a whole lot worse. These programs can seed in just enough "real" information to sell their bullshit as legitimate, and if even some experts have to double-check stuff to figure out what's false, where does that leave the rest of us? Especially all the ones who don't fact check at all before reblogging/believing something they read?
I think the future of artificial intelligence- real artificial intelligence- could be incredibly cool, and when the first AI submits a fic to AO3 I hope I'm around to read it. Right now, though, it's less about exploring potential and all about exploiting it.
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I want to make a note that if you had you blog terminated for speaking about your experience with identity inconcruence, this is not because it's against tumblr guidelines but that you were spammed with reports.
You CAN get your blog back oftentimes if you badger the email enough- making a workaround could land you in valid trouble.
Part of the reason our pinned makes it clear that we don't advocate to self harm or harm of others, is because if we get termed by spam reporters, it's easy to see our blog was not designed for harm. None of our content is advocating for violence or hate. Nothing about this blog violates community guidelines.
If you get termed, most people say submitting a ticket twice a day is what it takes to get them to pay any attention / not forget you (but 1 a day would probably be best so you arent flagged as spam.) Stay patient, no offense but you aren't going to miss that much in a week or 2 if it takes that long.
"What if I have friends there?" You should always have backup ways to talk to your friends, and risking a perma/IP ban is not worth it IMO.
If your account is termed for a legitimate reason, you should get an email explaining it, if not, it may have been a glitch, which happens disgustingly offen.
When you send a support ticket, don't do it through their email. It doesn't work. You HAVE to do it through their website.
You must include your URL and your email. Stay kind and patient and professional and understanding.
Within the hour or so, you should get an automated response. If you dont- you need to use a different email in the support ticket, because the one you used was declined due to the association with the banned blog. INCLUDE THAT YOUR ACCOUNT EMAIL DID NOT WORK.
Do not check your email for updates, they don't always / simply won't contact you there. Reload your blog every once in a while, if it reappears, log back in.
Making work arounds over and over is not a good look.
These are the guidelines transid blogs are usually spam reported for.
Discussing your relationship with your internal self is not any of these things, if it is, you're doing it wrong. Your discussions should always be kind and with the best interest of the person you are speaking to. If someone is being rude, they are most likely baiting you. Block them, and if you need, turn off the computer and get some fresh air or a change of scenery for a moment and cool off.
They used to do the same thing to blogs discussing nonbinary genders and neopronouns. I remember it- its the exact same attitude, recycled arguments and attack patterns.
There are brighter days coming but until then the best thing to do is to be patient with your platform and to not dignify hatred with a response.
A stunning amount of blogs get ban because of spam reports. Do not assume Staff has it out for you. While I do not stand by MANY of their site choices, they are not maliciously shutting down your blog and ignoring your emails while giggling- queerphobic users are reporting you in mobs for fun, and tumblr is too understaffed and strangely built to always get your support inquiries.
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I hope this doesn't come across as rude or anything, as I'm bi myself, but based on some posts from confused danmei fans I've found on the TTEOTM tag, I'm afraid that Tantai Jin or the drama are not gay enough for Tumblr to lose it over him, like they did over MDZS 😢
I'm a lesbian and I'm not offended lol. I think for things to draw the tumblr audience, it's not so much that they have to be gay as they have to be potentially gay.
And by that I mean potentially gay and about men, specifically, because fandom is frankly like 75% less interested in stories about women and it's still rare for a women-centered series and an f/f ship to break out and be super popular.
So something like TTEOTM doesn't really have a lot of m/m shipping potential. There's a bit of a spark between Xiao Lin and TTJ near the beginning, but it sort of pitters out. Nian Baiyu and TTJ are close, but they just don't really have that vibe that makes them feel super shippable. There's no getting around that the most compelling relationship TTJ has in the series is with a woman (though you all, the enemies to lovers vibes you all love are here and they are so good). I've been trying to get all my fellow queer friends to watch Love Between Fairy and Devil because I'm like 'IT'S REALLY GOOD I PROMISE' and I have succeeded with several of them, but the m/m shipping potential is definitely minimal so it probably won't ever catch fire in fandom at large.
Add in that, and this is more important than anything else in this specific case, it's a Chinese drama, which is not something widely popular on tumblr EXCEPT for The Untamed and Word of Honor, both of which are based on canon bl novels, and there's just no hope of drawing people in.
I don't want to insinuate that things are just popular because they're gay or potentially gay, because I do think there's generally a level of quality that they need to have to get people actually into them. And many of these shows have SO MUCH more going for them than just 'they're canon gay' so it's a bit of an insult to insinuate that's the only reason they're popular. I feel like there should be a balance in discussion where you can go 'hey a lot of people may have tried this out because it's canon gay, but the reason it sustained a large following is because it's legitimately a really excellent story with great characters, in addition to the gay.' I always get super defensive when people say Yuri on Ice is only popular because it’s gay.
There's after all plenty of gay or just really slashy shows no one cares about on this site because they're not good. There are exceptions to this (I mean is SPN good? No), but I do think fandom on the whole has gotten choosier in recent years, which is not a bad thing. People are definitely less tolerant of stuff that strings queer viewers along like BBC Sherlock.
MDZS is very good. Wei Wuxian is probably my second favorite fictional character ever. I have issues with the actual narrative of Word of Honor (it's just kind of shoddily written at times), but the characters themselves are very good, and that's what matters most in fandom.
I can never fault people on tumblr for checking into canonically gay media because it is gay, because hey, almost all of us are queer here and we want to see stories about ourselves. But I guess I do get frustrated when over and over the biggest fandoms on here are things that aren't gay, but are just about men that people find shippable. And TBH I think people miss out on so many great stories and characters when they just kind of go purely from big slash fandom to big slash fandom, whatever is popular at the moment.
I also think that, and this is maybe my most salient point of all, people in fandom should try just... not watching everything with a fandom mindset. Like here's a great show, but there's not really a popular ship in it with a lot of fanworks, so people don't watch it. But why not? Not everything needs to be a fandom for you. Sometimes you can just enjoy media, and who knows, maybe something will surprise you and you WILL feel fandom-y about it.
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Reply too big to keep in replies, forgive me
Flash emulation won't actually work with the way the site is coded. It's really difficult to truly illustrate HOW fucked the site is if you aren't familiar with it.
So the flash games are INTEGRATED into the site. They don't just play. They send scores and those scores are validated by the site and then affect the game in real time by awarding points. Thats backend stuff and it seems EASY. But flash EMULATION will not really let that process work. Not blanket. Ruffle is a browser add on for flash and you can play some games with it but every game has needed to be worked manually and individually to try and get it to play correctly and to let it send scores.
Here, so like. Last year you may recall having heard about the data breach. It was a long time coming. Neopets has terrible security and always has. So someone got backend access, downloaded the server and this had all of the usernames and passwords ever used. Were they hashed? Yes. Was the hashkey stored in the server and thus also available to the hacker? Also yes.
As a result neopets finally moved from http to https. Great!
Not for flash games.
Every game has links in it right. Backend stuff. Mechanics. But all those fucking links redirect to http, not https. And you cannot change that without editing the game and you can't do THAT without a program that makes flash elements. So they're basically unfixable on site. On one fell swoop, every single flash game broke at once. You could play them but scores were now unsendable.
The workaround neopets USERS found was, I shut you not, using developer tools to modify the way your entire computer communicates with the internet
"oh, that seems simple"
Look the fuck at what is IN the js file
It is 538 lines! It is manually overriding the links used in these games. This IS hacking. Technically this is against the rules, it's just not being enforced.
Don't worry, I'm terrified.
The workaround before this STILL had you download a new browser, modify it, take your internet offline and manually reinstall an old version of flash to create a jury rigged flash browser. Oh my God this is so dangerous and we Still do this. Did I do all this fiddler stuff? Yes! I did! Because neopets is very much like transformers in that there is a small user base but every single person there is fucking insane!
So.... Emulation is not a solution. Every game needs to be individually ground up REMADE in html5. And you can't just import the old game and tweak it. It has to be made from scratch. That's why there are so few html5 games. It's incredibly difficult and time consuming and probably not all that worth it when there's so much to be done.
This is what I mean when I say the site is virtually unplayable. This is the kind of shit that we have to do to make the site work. You basically cannot play unless you are accessing fan sites and communities to find resources that can offer fixes to everything that is broken. There are legitimately pages of this website that have not been updated since 1999. Until like two years ago you still could not say "gay" on the forums because the chat filter caught it. And do you know why?? Staff literally did not know where the chat filter was stored in the backend. They could not find it. The site traded hands and staff so much that no one remained who knew where it was.
There is LITERALLY a guy who found backend access several years ago and can, whenever he wants, get into the server and look at everything. HE could have stolen those passwords (which the other hacker was selling for $10,000!!) At any time he wanted. Instead he just made an anonymous reddit account where he would post info about how the fucking site works and why things are broken and "yeah they lied about fixing this its still broken" or "yeah actually they secretly shadowbanned a bunch of people from submitting scores to the big yearly event next year if you dm me I can tell you if you're on the list"
And he IS STILL THERE!!!! HE STILL HAS SERVER ACCESS!!! ITS BEEN YEARS AND THEY HAVENT KICKED HIM OUR BECAUSE THEY STILL HAVENT FOUND THE BREACH!!!!!!!
This. THIS is what staff is dealing with. THIS is the absolute shit storm they need to tackle if they want this site to work. The way pets are stored, the way accounts work, all of those things cannot be changed without causing severe issues conflicting with users accounts, pets, items, and all of that was originally coded in 1998/1999 and it cannot be changed. It cannot be modernized. They need to find ways to integrate old code that cannot be changed into a site coded for a modern internet. That is beyond the scope of normal site building.
All that is to say... I'm hesitant to believe things will improve, not because I don't think staff wants to, not because I don't think they have the drive and the passion to throw everything they have at it. Just because... Jesus dude I don't know if they actually have the resources to fix this mess at all.
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What's your favourite artist?
Oh many!!! Buckle Up cos I'm going all in on this one
I'm gonna include SFW and NSFW artists haha. I'll mark what each of them do so you aren't blind sided. And of course there wont be NSFW images linked here. Their names will have links to either their main Twitter, or other primary site you can find their art. And I'll @ their tumblr if I know it below that
For sure Junji Ito for horror stuff. That almost goes without saying and I don't think I really need to link his stuff xD he's an absolute titan of horror art
MackleNG (SFW & Horror)
Absolutely amazing linework and generally incredible vibes. They are drawing a webcomic called CHOKEPOINT i have been meaning to check out but I adore their art just in general. I've been using a lot of their art as inspo lately and can't get enough of their cyberpunk designs, horror vibes, and use of pops of colour to emphasise and showcase their incredibly in depth line work and details!
QSY (SFW & NSFW)
@qsycomplainsalot
I continue to come back to their art and they are also a huge inspo for me. I'm generally trying to find a way to adapt their colouring into my own style because it's absolutely gorgeous! The way its simultaneously crisp and crunchy, while also soft and expertly blended! It's like candy for my eyes! Add into it their fantastic expressions, excellent pallette choices, incredible weaponry, and of course some excellent NSFW with really great curves, colour, and characters, and they're easily one of my top 3 artists
Tyto_Alba (SFW & NSFW)
Do you like Mecha? Do you like guns? Do you like cute girls and/or boys!?
Well, hot shit, me too!!! You NEED to check out Tyto_Alba! Straight up, another one of my top 3. He has legitimately changed the way I do my lineart, the way i draw soft shapes (like butts and stuff :3c) and my god the mechs as well! I legitimately had a hard time finding a good singular piece of their art to use here cos they are so fantastic at both sexy art AND mechs that i really had to find something that showed off a little of both!
Something that I personally have noticed with their art as well is just how fuckin incredible they are at drawing HANDS! I am obssessed with their skill with hands and I hope to match up to them some day in that regard! I feel like I'm getting there but I LOVE the way theyre always so Shaped and well posed. As well as how detailed they manage to be without being too attention grabbing unless intentionally in the focus!
What's more, they use simple colours so effectively! Much to be loved here!
And of course, their NSFW content is top tier! Really excellent soft shapes and squish and really fantastic context and intensity!
RizDraws (NSFW)
Listen... LISTEN OKAY!!! We're hitting the NSFW exclusive part of the list and you have to understand that NSFW artists are just as incredibly skilled as any other artist and that porn is FINE AND NORMAL!
Having sexual interest is not unusual. Having a desire to draw these things is a human and regular thing. I could talk for paragraphs about how puritanism is harmful and ultimately denying something natural and inherently human and anyone telling you otherwise has ulterior motives. But that's not what this post is about. I say this because an artist showcase tends beat around the bush with this stuff but I am unwilling to be vague about this. NSFW art is valid and, what's more, Important!
That being said, Riz is incredible!
The squish! The faces! The fluids! The Dicks! All so good! They somehow straddle the line between pinups and porn in such a brilliant way that I would be happy to have their art on my wall and I'm not kidding haha! The particular way they colour with the chalky texture is often sought after and I see why! Personally I don't look to emulate it myself but I most certainly enjoy looking at it! The way Riz uses their lines and their particular style of chalky colour to make the squish of clothes against flesh really look real! It's somethin else!
Andava (NSFW)
Now where Riz does the mid point between pinups and porn, Andava is definitively porn haha! xD That being said. Hot damn dude!
In particular the way they do bodies and have a variety in body types, shapes of boobs and faces. Especially faces. Their characters are really good too and it's very easy to develop a favourite (for me it's Erika and Alexis)
There's a reason people have cosplayed their characters and it shows! Absolutely love the variety, the situations/positions they draw! Theyre incredible as making stuff feel messy as well! Highly recommend browsing through their stuff and finding a favourite OC of theirs haha!
I was lucky enough to get a commission off them years ago when they were still fairly small in terms of following. So long ago that Tumblr still allowed porn at the time haha! I dont think Discord even existed yet! Still wanna grab a commission off Andava of the same character one day!
ALRIGHT
I think I will leave it there for now! I could absolutely go longer and talk about even more of my fave artists and why I like them, and how they've inspired me but I get the feeling I should hold off haha (unless of course people would like to see more)
I hope this has thoroughly answered your question. Though I know for a fact i will kick myself over not mentioning an artist i should of included later but forgot to lol
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I have a ton of posts saved to read later that I dont reblog yet BECAUSE: I've seen people mistag, I've seen people not disclose things on purpose, and there was that whole scandal last year about the underage thing that wasn't appropriately tagged and a ton of people who liked or reblogged to read later also got under fire
I reblog once I read, I cant say everyone else does. But you do have to realize one thing, AO3 you can't necessarily reblog. You can bookmark and pin and like and comment, and if by chance there is a way to reblog then im dumb and completely missed it. I was one of the people who had an AO3 first and then came to Tumblr and didn't know at first to reblog.
There are some people who want interaction who have less then 50 notes just begging for love, and people keep complaining that their first that have THOUSANDS aren't being shared. I get that it sucks! But also, you are having interaction. I still know people who like fics to read later and won't reblog until after they read it.
Also, I have mutuals who will like their friends fics but not reblog if it has one of the things they don't like. For example, my friend doesn't like daddy kink and another mutual always writes it, so they'll like the fic but not share and that has been discussed
It is discouraging to me to see people say they want to put things behind a pay wall, there are sites for that that you can legitimately do that. But fanfiction is art and it should be shared, and I understand it hurts when people don't reblog, but there are many different reasons people don't as some are listed here.
It makes it discouraging to even interact with people and not even read things at all anymore. I started out not knowing, and then got blocked by a blog because I at the time had only liked things because I didn't know reblogging was what people wanted on here. Is it not all interaction? Is it not all love and gratitude being shown? Since when did we weigh the merit of one thing over another?
We joke that Tumblr doesn't have an algorithm but it does! I see stuff recommended my mutuals like but haven't reblogged. And I see stuff that gets a ton of interaction.
Maybe I'm wrong, and I would love an explanation as to why people want things reblogged (again coming from other sites where you couldn't, not just AO3). I genuinely don't understand and this isn't any hate towards you I have reblogged your fics before and love how you write, I just don't get it?
I understand it might sound whiny to some, and I understand AO3, but it can also help when someone bookmarks it and it ends in their profile, for mutuals to see it as well.
Wattpad may not have a reblog button, but saving the story and commenting in it, helps the story go up in the tag, appear before than other works thanks to the engagement, and also, when you save a story in a public reading list, mutuals can also see it.
Tumblr does have the possibility to reblog your work, and the engagement on here with OTHER people is also easier. Not only by comments, but by asks like this, or responding through the comments or the reblogs themselves. It's more personal and real.
It is also a site where it can ENCOURAGE the writers to keep doing it. This is a site where we can actively support someone, unlike other sites.
We write cause we want to, that is true, but even myself when i wasn't on here, and only used wattpad and AO3, it also discouraged me to not have votes or kudos, or subscriptions on the works.
This hurts more because i can see the activity of people. We can see it. And it is discouraging in a way of also wondering if our writing is bad, or if it was too much, or too little.
And like you said, tumblr has an algorithm, but that algorithm can break if people reblog. It just helps the work we put into, to be shared around because we love it, we wrote it, and we spent time with it and it's like an artist with a finished painting, putting their artwork in a gallery, and everyone just passes by.
That's how it basically feels. We always try to look past it, to say 'oh, it doesn't matter' but sadly, it does.
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Hey, so.
I think you had a point, about NSFW art.
Artistic censorship is a massive issue, and the dwindling places where it can be posted is a real issue. There's a reason that AO3 is such an important website - the same thing happening to NSFW art happened to slash fic. AO3 was created and now it protects NSFW/slash fic from being removed from the internet.
Art needs it's own site like AO3, set up for the purpose of archiving and protecting NSFW art, and not a social media site subject to the whims of advertisers and whoever else is paying the bills.
But using the Burrito Test outside it's context of the institutionalism of disabled people was a misstep.
I don't think you meant to be ableist, at all. I don't think you are. I just don't think you thought about it, or really understood what the Burrito Test means to the disabled community.
It's not an analogy, really, firstly. And it isn't just that it's a legitimate thing, that if you're -not allowed- to exercise your autonomy as an adult to just get up and make a burrito on a whim at 3am, or go to bed when you want, that you're not really living in a care home, you're in an institution, and your "care" is more abou the convenience of abled people than the quality of life of disabled people.
It's that its like a sample of what it is to live as a disabled person. It's like the experience of being disabled concentrated: infantilisation, humiliation, artificial limitations, lack of accessibility, being helpless and vulnerable to the people who are supposed to support us.
Disabled people are angry, and the Burrito Test is like a wound. You said you had a lot of people telling you graphic stories about what it was like for them to be forcibly instituted, so you can see how it's honeslty just a huge source of trauma for some people.
It was a mistake to try and make an equivalent analogy from the Burrito Test. And maybe you didn't know that, and it's unlikely that people who've never heard about it would know why it was a mistake, so you didn't start getting pushback until it came to the attention of the disabled community. And chronic pain causes people to be short-tempered and grumpy, in a way that's really hard to fight against.
I'm not trying to scream at you about it here, and I hope this isn't coming across as condescending, because I don't mean it that way. I'm just trying to show you why it got the enflamed reaction that it got, and explain why using it in that way was wrong, even if you didn't mean to do it.
I think it's easy to forget that people who aren't in the disabled community don't just know about the stuff we talk about all the time. If you wanted to know more, and I know your experiences might have soured you on us, but you could try looking through the cripplepunk tag, if you wanted to, to give you more context, maybe.
You kinda put your finger into a wound you didn't need to poke at with that post, and people lashed out at you.
I don't think you're evil. I don't agree with people telling you to kill yourself or swearing at you. I think you did the right thing pointing out that NSFW art needs a place to be hosted online.
I don't think you would have said what you did if you'd known how sensitive the Burrito Test and it's related topics are to the disabled community, and I don't think I'm wrong about giving you that benefit of the doubt about that. I hope I'm not.
I don't know if that's context and explanation enough for you to understand why your post got the reaction it did, or if you feel inclined to retract and/or apologise, but at least you know.
Drop me a line if you want to talk? IDK.
I don't know man. I get what you're saying, I really do. But at the same time I have friends who are also physically disabled saying, "the way people are treating you here is fucked up, what you said was absolutely fine if you don't take it in deliberate bad faith." I'm not sure I buy that this is the reaction of "the disability community", as it seems to be pretty much relegated to a particular clique who followed crippled-pvp, and given what sort of bile said clique was willing to throw at me, how far they were willing to pervert and distort my words, I don't feel like they are the authoritative source for what lens this should be viewed through.
In fact, I'm not sure that I will trust the judgement of anyone who claims that they way I was treated here was deserved, or that there is an understandable excuse. "People with chronic pain can be angry and are quick to jump on an outlet for that anger" feels like more a condemnation of them than of me. I have understanding and I have empathy, but there's no excuse for treating other people like shit. There's no excuse for using their negative reaction to being treated like shit as further impetus to treat them like shit.
I will accept that for a lot of people that post wasn't helpful, or that the wording could potentially rub them the wrong way. I will apologize for that, but I don't really think that it is particularly my fault either. Enough people have contacted me now and told me that they found the framing I used helpful, or that it validated their own emotions by drawing parallels to when they themselves had been institutionalised, that I don't think it's accurate or fair to point at what I said and call it "wrong" or abstractly ableist, even if I do accept that the misreading people are complaining about was perhaps inevitable as the post blew up.
I also definitely don't think that it is wrong to make comparisons between modes of rhetoric. "Mentioning a thing" and "mentioning the rhetorical mechanism of a thing" aren't in and of themselves crimes or bigotry or whatever else I am supposedly guilty of here. Specific rhetorical ideas are not the claimed territory of any specific community. If I am guilty of anything, it's of not including adequate disclaimers to clarify my meaning, and I loathe the implication that by not doing so I invited this harm.
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Idk who needs to hear this but uh... Criminals and organized crime aren't special back-woods exceptions of people out there who magically do not go online or have internet. I don't mean this in a "be wary" kind of way either. I intend it as general cultural and situational awareness.
Everyone currently getting away with massive fraud, running and making drugs, actual human trafficking, actual grave robbing and various high profile thefts, crimes against children, profiteering etc... are ALSO just some guy on the internet who's probably scrolling social media and seeing largely the same posts as you.
Same with many celebrities and rich people, btw...
I am starting to get the impression that the average internet user assumes these people exist in a fully separate world, so if I or anyone refers to these groups of people in a post in language that directly addresses them, it is assumed we are simply likening another group to them to be dramatic and make a strawman of them, instead of taking what we are saying the way it is meant, literally and at face value.
For example, if I go on a post by an Egyptologist, and agree with them about Egyptian curses, and then -for example- go on to say that anyone removing things from tombs disrespectfully or in a way that isn't meant to conserve culture [names and identities etc], ie; actual grave robbers, are the ones who have to worry about curses and should "put it back"... I do not know why the base assumption being made is that I am calling Egyptologists grave robbers, instead of say, addressing people actually taking artifacts from sites without proper clearance and cooperation from the relevant government and cultures. You know, actual grave robbers, who actually exist, are committing an actual crime, and do in fact use the internet and see posts because I don't think most criminals operating in international markets can afford to not be internet literate. You utter fucking tumbleweeds [and to such a degree I had to block about 100 people to get the anon bullshit out of my inbox].
The only reason I can come up with for this kind of misunderstanding happening on various topics, is to think the base assumption being made is that the groups I am actually referring to or turning to address directly for a moment, are being assumed to not actually exist or be present in order to be addressed... And that the person getting sensitive is also insecure about being lumped in with that group for some reason [possibly legitimate or not depending on the circumstances], to the point that their reading comprehension starts to fail.
I think it would help reading comprehension and social media literacy in general if more people were to understand that a certain percentage of a post or reply is phrased in a way that is also meant to be seen by the general public, and EVERYONE that public contains, including fringe individuals.
Similarly, even when you are replying to a friend over a topic, you are ALSO generally phrasing it as something that will be seen by a general audience, and specifically by other people who generally hold similar political views as them. Otherwise you'd just be DMing each other.
So taking every side note and incidental phrasing as if it is intended as a deeply personal accusation, attack or criticism, instead of something said to be really clear to a wider audience with a lot of potential viewpoints and sticking points... Is a little fucking weird.
When I am replying to someone in public, I am replying to them, but also generally for the benefit of the audience, unless it's very personal joking around, casual back and forth or said in notes and sometimes tags [before they became the accepted way to comment at all].
If I get into explaining weird caveats, it isn't because I assume THEY or OP needs me to, it is because SOMEONE in the audience, including said fringe or exceptional individuals, might benefit from the added information, or might be someone I am just taking the opening to address because a subject came up in a public place.
Every time I get into an argument online, it really seems like the other person is mad because they are taking absolutely everything I am saying as if it is personally directed at only them for only their benefit and just *happens* to be taking place in front of strangers.
And it is deeply weird to me that they view the interaction that way to begin with, when to me -dare I say to most- that is antithetical to sites like tumblr being a public forum instead of a network of DMs.
So I just wanted to check in, and make sure, that everyone actually realizes that EVERYONE in the general public, some representation of pretty much every group you can imagine, has access to the internet and uses it regularly as some random user. The internet is truly the MOST public and varied space you can imagine. You need to understand that a lot of people make and reply to posts as if their audience is potentially that general, because they ARE generally aware of this.
There are organ traffickers on your posts right now, there are government officials, there are people who have illegally bought or sold ivory or human bones, there are doctors, republicans, lawyers, people who just woke up and are on their 20th day of consecutive brain fog, mycology enthusiasts, sex workers, steel workers, school teachers and their worst nightmares, there might even be a cop or two, there are murders, house wives, and violent rapists, there are literal children and people ranging up to the human limits of age. There are geologists, people you went to school with and people from every other country in the world. There are people who buy and sell human fingernails. You probably shouldn't continue being this online if you cannot internalize that.
The internet can feel like a series of closed safe corners, but the thing is that the doors are perpetually open to everyone you can imagine. We are all of us tossed in together and arguing over pokemon types and whether or not some groups of humans are okay to dehumanize. When you address the room, you are addressing all of them. When you are addressing op or another user, you are also doing it at all of them. All of these people each get that post up on their dash and read it as intimately and often as personally as you do as if it was served up to them, because it was, it came up on their dash just like it came up on yours.
Hope that helps <3
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Daft short story thing done for a laugh. Guess this is a misadventures of the smol knights or something (and I thought it was cute and wholesome)
Bath time!
"Who'd think Galar of all places could get so hot" I know Galar had its sub tropics but that was further south. Not in the Highlands! "I hate this heat".
"Ah wheesh wi' yer complaining" my colleague hissed. Equally fed up of my whinging as she was with the heat. " we were called to help the folk here with their research". It was a pleasant change for sure! Being called to help some scientists dig up some bones and artifacts instead of ... well other more grim jobs.
Still didn't make the heat any easier to deal with!
"I shall complain and to my heart's content if I so choose" I retorted jokingly. Truth is I was having a good time! Along with a change of scenery it was legitimately interesting to learn about how people and Pokemon lived way back when!
Speaking of Pokémon they seemed to be enjoying themselves. From just enjoying the uncharacteristically hot weather to helping us on the site. The team consisted of a mix of Pokémon from Excadrill, obviously to help with excavation amd moving rubble, to a selection of other ground and fighting types typically found in such projects. Machokes, Gurrdurr and so on. This time accompanied with my team.
Bandit the Gallade
Buddy the Bolthound
Corvknight
Cinderace and of course the two most helpful little knights.
After hours of digging it was finally lunch time. My colleague was quick off the mark to the kitchen. She must know something I didn't. One of the scientists tried to argue with her but soon learned she wasn't going to budge. " Know something I don't Kate?"
"Aye" she looked at me before glancing gesturing to the other with the ladel " and your stomach will thank me too! I've had her cooking before. It's diabolical"
Pulling up a seat I replied "come on it cannae be that bad. Can't be worse than mine".
Kate just looked at me "...think I'll go check on the Pokemon" and just as well as I caught sight of Ceruledge. She was absolutely caked in dirt! "Aye wee lass, come here! Bath time".
Hearing those two words would either be a blessing or a curse. She loved baths! But she equally liked to be .... Let's say difficult. Luckily she chose to come over beeping happily, giving a lovely muddy hug! "Argh! You just had to get me all dirty didn't you?" I teased, catching sight of her adopted brother jogging over "don't you worry you're getting washed too!".
Prepping a bowl of warm water and sponge. The small knight continued to get mud all over me while refusing to stay still. " Having a good time aren't ya? Awfully proud of what you've done aren't you?" My complaining was met with giggling as she squirmed and wriggled around. Splashing all who got close enough with warm soapy water. It was relief when she took interest in the sponge as it meant no more splashes of soapy water.
"And done! Off ya go and play now" I would soon regret saying this as she took off chirping happily with the sponge.
"you've unleashed a horror upon us" Kate tossed her two pence in. And right she was! For no one was safe. All were going to have a bath!
She ran up to Bandit who just looked at her getting soap all over him before running off to her next victim. "I've got ya bandit" a sigh escaping my lips as I walked over to rinse the soap off of him. This was my mess after all.
Ceruledge had set her sights on some of the scientists. Her cleaning them was met with mixed results, although most just seem to think it was cute.
Then she set her sights on me. And I was going to be a pest!
"I see you there! Looking at me. Is it my turn? My turn for a bath? Well then... You'll have to catch me first!" With a smile I took off with the small Ceruledge giving chase. "You shall never catch me! I shall remain dirty" I teased, searching for somewhere to hide. Once said hiding spot was found I hunkered down thinking this bush would be adequate, Not seeing that Armarouge was giving away my hiding spot.
Hearing her brother calling out. She ran as fast as she could to catch me. But I was too slippery! Managing to escape her and ran straight into Bandit who got hold of me. Unable to escape I met my soapy fate "Noooo! Curses! I've been caught".
"Better luck next time" Kate chuckled as she gave the curry a good stirring.
"Aye am gonna-pfft. Need it" I managed to spit out. Lifting the infant Ceruledge up after being freed from Bandit's grasp. " Happy now? Did you have fun?" She gave nothing but happy chirping and giggles, still trying her best to get soap all over me. " Sounds like you-pfftt! Peh! I do so like the taste of soap"
She just smiled, couldn't see it obviously but I could sense it. Clearly pleased with what she had done and honestly...
I wouldn't have her any other way.
#inane ramblings#awful writing is awful#Ceruledge#the smol knight#bath time!#armarouge#armarouge the smol#Bandit the Gallade#my inane writing
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