#and like what's up with the algorithm stuff why do I see the same shit on my feed for half a day

[rednqueer]

how can tumblr's UI be this aggressively awful like,,, this has to be intentional there's no way they managed to find this many incompetent designers and developers and got to hire them all, and only them

#seriously. using this is actively torturous #it hurts my brain to use this site #and like what's up with the algorithm stuff why do I see the same shit on my feed for half a day #while the tags I follow have a bunch of new stuff on them? #all y'all'd have to do is order posts by their date of creation #and you failed even that. #it's not even an entire SQL statement #what on earth is going on here

[aberrymilk]

No, but like, WHY do people care so much about other people ship preferences?

I get it, I don't ship the obvious ones or the "right" or what was given to me by the author, but IS JUST A SHIP.

Look, don't get me wrong, I'm not angry at other preferences when it comes to this. What I get annoyed at is that when there is an illustration, an edit, a fucking fic, any kind of media, that shows that romantic dynamic between the characters they will be like

"siblings 🩷" "omg no how could ship that? They aren't like that." "Have you read the books ?" "Omg, people actually ship them?" "The author said..." "omg but this (name of other ship), it's so much better," and so on.

My beautiful person who comments in every edit of (some examples, but I'm sure that there's more) harmony, lunami, zutara, sasusaku .... do you really think that they/we don't know or care about this ? Do you know what you look like when u comment stuff like that? An idiot who can't let others have a different opinion on literally fiction character's romance life, like that one kid in kindergarten who saw another kid getting a toy and go's on about how that toy is lame compared to theirs, a spoiled brat.

You have so many things to be arguing about in the actual plot, but you can't cus you think that the idea of nami and luffy together is so wrong that you go around in every media of them "oda said..." But with other members of the crew, oda said absolutely nothing... not only that, but are we really discussing this ? Can we be talking about I don't know... how racist and hypocrites are some people in this famdon? Really give your disappointment and disgust to that(what is actually important).

Harry and Hermione are another great example of "I know they aren't like that but I like the idea of it" WE KNOW THEY AREN'T LIKE THAT but we think is cute it could HAVE BEING cute, sometimes people just grow up shipping and seeing they as a possible couple, like people who grow hating sakura and now simply can't have a actually good argument of why she should be hated on... that was an ironic comment by the way but also not, ( no, her not liking the main character the same way shouldn't be one, or the author not giving her screen time either much less cus of the fact the the anime did her dirty with so much disconnect things from the manga, like her relationship with sasuke <his perspective of it > or naruto himself for that matter, hate on a literally 12 years old for saying shit that every fucking person in the village grew up thinking, funny, why not hate on the thirdkage then? The person who could have actually stopped the hate on a little kid) [Sorry that got out of the main point]

Or zutara, my God, people get personal with just as harmony, relax, just cus I like them doesn't mean I hate kataang, surprise or not I do think they are indeed very cute, I'm pretty sure some other people who ship zutara too... we just see the potential, what could have happened, once again, enemies to friends to loves, the plot, you know ? There is no need to get offended by the IDEA of it. We love the drama and the fic, the illustrations, the edits are just a format that represents and shows it, share if people who likes it, you don't like it ? Oh well, let me tell you a secret, ignore it, you probably ignore so much more important things, why not a fucking edit of ship you don't even like ?, oh you can't ? You can't see other people "toy" and shut about your disappointment on it, is it that hard ?, oh well, have you actually not known that there's an amazing thing within social media, when you hold/press or simply click on the 3 dots on the top of the post, there's a option there, that's right, BLOCK IT the algorithm will understand if you continue blocking it, unlike some people.

I'm just rambling about this because I'm sick and tired of people being such a killjoy, I just want to enjoy "my ship" and see the comments of people who actually likes it to, not yours "siblings 🩷" in post which is definitely not about that, or "oda said..." when i didn't ask what he said, you know people have different things that brings them a scape from reality that brings them a funny giggle (no killing others people joy, when it's such a basic no harmful thing), wave of emotion for those who don't get to feel much in the day-to-day life or simple just cus.

It just petty of you, be better.

Ps.. There is no offense for those who ship other characters within these plots(or different ones), original, popular, or unpopular. Do your thing. Be happy. Just don't spoil others.

Ps2... NO I'm not defending incest that's no it at fucking all ( sorry if I didn't make it clear). I said "siblings" when it came to lunami and Harry x Hermione (cus people like to comment that on posts that aren't even about it < the platonic soul mates comment>), they AREN'T related or grown up at such. Point is you hating the idea of it and going on every post about the ship and hating there. hate all you want, but not on ,obviously, posts that are for the fans of the ship.

#lunami #ships #sasusaku #harmione #harmony #zutara #kataang #levihan #harry x hermione #harry potter #naruto #sakura #luffy x nami #atla zuko #atla katara #one piece #sasuke

[yuurivoice]

A lot of creatives have a point where they have that sorta "Nobody's gonna wanna see this/nobody will care" feeling about their work.

I was wondering if you've ever struggled with that sort of feeling, be it about your audio content or even just other creative projects? If so, how did you end up overcoming it in the end? Do you ever feel that way these days?

Only if you wanna answer ^^

Oh plenty of times! Whether it's due to imposter syndrome, or just a general numbers slump, or something you worked really hard on just not doing as well as you wanted it to...plenty of ways to end up with that sorta hopeless feeling.

This is one of the times where it truly matters why you started doing the thing in the first place, when your intentions get checked. That big ass filter will hit you eventually. Are you here because you wanna create, or because you want number go up? Would you be doing this even if there was no compensation, or are you tapping out the moment you aren't profitable?

So you take a deep breath, feel bad for a little bit, then take a look inwards. What could you do better? What can you change or do in addition to your current approach? What are others doing that's working, and why isn't it working for you?

Sometimes auditing yourself to see what's not working can be rough. Looking at your peers might press on your insecurities. But if you actually want to improve in terms of reach and growth, you can't just piss and moan about algorithms, or how other people are successful, or any of that.

You can always improve in some way or another, and there are always alternative paths to success. Whatever that might look like for you!

When Finn's content was first coming out he didn't do super great. He was cute but he wasn't doing numbers. It bummed me out and soured me on pushing him real hard at the time. Years later, his compilation with many of the same videos I didn't love ended up being my first video over a million views.

There is ALWAYS a way to make shit work. It might not be right when you expected it to be, but it can surprise you if you keep hustling.

A lot of the recent changes I made with thumbnails and other stuff came about because I was frustrated in this exact way. 7 years into it and I was still looking for ways to get better and kick more ass. It'll happen again and again because I'm here for this shit and it's not just a job, it was a hobby that I fell in love with and take pride in. I like getting better, whether it's in the business side or if it's my writing and acting.

But I've never immediately spring back from that initial feeling of frustration. I'll mope and feel bad and get frustrated and upset.

Then it's over, and I get back in the saddle.

So keep on trying, keep on creating, and try to find the joy in it all!

[problematicbyler]

i think people misunderstood me a little with the other ask lol. by saying "this stuff didn't happen in harry potter fandom" i meant no one was judging people for engaging in smut content. not that i know of anyway. i myself have read so many harry x ginny smut that holy water cannot save me lmao

on the byler tag some uers like to offer many creative variations of the word creep to refer to us, some of them being "we watched them grow up" (i can see why this can make some ppl uncomfy and i respect that as long as you don't force your personal opininon as the correct and only one) "these are teenagers you are sexualizing when you're an adult"

those things also apply to harry potter but i never came across anyone trying to cancel people the same way puritan bylers do.

I know what you meant, Nonnie!! We were just responding to the fact that another Byler somewhere in the tag did in fact argue that sexualizing teen characters didn't happen in other fandoms such as HP/PJO/etc when it very clearly did.

Not to be like *shakes fist* kids these days but I do think the anti mindset is a much more recent thing. If I'm correct in my fandom history, it really broke out with Sheith vs Klance in the Voltron days. But it's also just younger folks who don't know how to be in fandom, or folks who are mostly normies delving into Ao3 and then being surprised when the website for "freaks" has freaky shit on it. Or folks who are used to algorithms that put things on their feed instead of them having to curate their own feeds. It doesn't help that Stranger Things is a lot of people's first real fandoms.

IDK, it's a lot of factors, probably. I grew up in the Supernatural fandom where a large portion of fans were Wincest shippers and I learned very early how to filter tags, what ship-and-let-ship was, don't like don't read etc. I don't feel like many in the Byler fandom have really learned those things.

#spicy byler #byler #anonymous #ask #harry potter mention #(fuck jkr)

[trojanteapot]

Alrighty folks buckle up because I'm gonna rant

Just feel like some of you out here just don't really understand nuance? And it's like what was I expecting because it's social media nuance is dead.

Anyway so all three of you out there who follow me that aren't bots, or people that I know IRL, know that my favourite character in Infinity Train is Simon Laurent, the French incel bastard man. And yeah I know he's terrible but also I must ask the eternal question: Is he actually though??????

Hear me out. Because look I know dude is a murderer and a hypocrite and a whiny little bitch but also consider the facts:

he's a teenager

he got trapped on some nightmare train when he was only ten. TEN!

his denizen was THE CAT, who from his POV manipulated him and then abandoned him!

Now I know what some of you already saying at this point:

-"uh that doesn't justify all the murdering!!!" -"he's an egotistical jackass!" -"he's not a child he's 18! he would go to adult jail in real life!" -"he died in the narrative thus justifying my hatred!" Okay well consider this: it's pretty much canonical that Grace did exactly the same amount of murdering as Simon but y'all are so ready to embrace and forgive her because she had a change of heart?

And which one of you when you were 18 made completely rational not emotion-driven decisions based on pure facts and logic??? Which one of you are capable of doing this now????

And he didn't have a normal childhood to develop his brain in a normal way, again he boarded the Train at age ten!!!! And finally which one of you was a teenager who wasn't a little egotistical???

If Simon was egotistical then what does that make Grace, the leader of the Apex who made a throne for herself???? What does that make Amelia who rejected the Train's attempts to help her move on and instead tried to recreate her dead fiance to the point that there are just renegade failed clones of that person just running around????

Also, I feel like it's important to mention that Amelia probably did more crimes than both Grace and Simon combined but she just didn't get her face eaten by Ghoms just because she was an adult at the time and could outsmart the Train. You guys are willing to forgive her and all the stuff she did... as an ADULT, but not Simon, a teenager, because... reasons???!!!

And other stuff I feel like should be mentioned here:

I think it's important to consider why episode 4 of season 3, came right before episode 5, you know the one where he kills Tuba. Episode 4 was when we learn a ton of info about Simon. Notably that the Cat was his denizen and we all know how the Cat is!

I'm pretty sure we were supposed to draw several conclusions from that episode namely:

- Cat is a schemey little shit - he was a kid when he knew the Cat - he seems to claim she was fake and manipulating him - that seems believable from what we know of the cat - ep 5 hits, Tuba and Simon have heart to heart - Simon then kills Tuba

So why did Simon kill Tuba? IT'S BECAUSE SIMON THINKS TUBA IS MANIPULATING HIM LIKE THE CAT WAS

And my friend brought up a good point where if you think about it, the Train was using Tuba to manipulate him, and using Hazel to manipulate Grace.

The Train we've seen just runs on pure algorithms and doesn't give a shit about the passengers. The Train just sees them as a number that increases or decreases. It just calculated that if Hazel & Tuba met Grace & Simon then it would have the maximum likelihood that those denizen + passenger combos could get their numbers down the most efficiently. It of course did not account for the fact that the Cat went on vacation and then ran into Simon, thus reminding him to not trust denizens.

Simon had as much of a likelihood to do a change of heart like Grace did! But hey, spanner in the works and all that.

Some of you just like hating on him because he's a white guy and coded cishet and it really shows.

I'm sure y'all are gonna say I'm defending the patriarchy or whatever for defending cishet white guy colonizer man Simon Laurent as a queer femme POC but also fuck off with that bullshit and just look at the actual text of the narrative presented to us instead of reading bad takes on Twitter.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

#infinity train #simon laurent #grace monroe #samantha the cat #the cat infinity train #tuba infinity train #hazel infinity train #infinity train book 3 #rant #in defense of simon #im showing my whole ass i know #i am going to hell #and idgaf

[uo6ep]

god i hate searching for shit nowadays. looking something up. whole first page of results is like. clickbait. “hmm i wonder what kinds of transparent fabrics there are”. page title: 11 transparent fabrics. page preview doesnt say anything useful. its like an intro. id love if they just started listing the fabrics right away but whatever. opening the website. 3/4 of the article is basic info i didnt ask for just to make me scroll and look at ads. its all in a random order too. just watery empty text. the chart i wanted to see is in the very end. and like. i feel like this is largely what the experience is like

also google lens is shit

on a similar note. youtube search function. worse and worse and worse every day. yeah they have been adding random shit in search results for a while. but WHY does it have to be 3 vaguely relevant videos 3 random videos 3 more relevant then like 6 random ones etc. like…. it kind of helps to search by upload date but not always

the recommendations under videos.. like.. is it just me or is it always the same shit. like. for example i like asmr. im watching a new video that came out yesterday. in the “for you” under it is all videos i have already seen. like. doesnt that defeat the purpose. or have i broken the algorithm and youtube is confused with me. like if youre gonna show me stuff at least make educated suggestions?? what are you doing

tumblr search by blog just doesnt show you 90% of the relevant posts that youre Sure exist on the blog like wow thanks. i feel like it only functions on the html blog version

idk i just dont get it. is the internet too big cant search engines handle it

[witchersmistress]

Simmering Rage

Hello my darlings!! you are in luck today!! ive got a couple of chapters for you, typing this out on a cellphone wasnt the best but i made do with what i had.

Trigger Warnings: Anger, Rage, Blood and violence, and self hatred

Word count:4.3 K

August pov

 My phone chimes with a notification on the seat beside me. I check the screen. Lo again. I haven’t seen her since my car . After I found out what Harper did, I was in a bad place for a while. I don’t remember much of the rest of the mission. The monster operated in my place, holding space for me until I was ready to come back. When the mission l ended, and I had time to think things through, I stopped thinking about what Harper had done and finally looked at the facts behind it. Of course, my mind went straight to the one person who could have told her about Hockington—Gloria Walton.

They’d gotten close, thanks to me, and I fucking paid for it. For letting a Darling into my life, letting her get in with my friends. That’s what I get for letting anyone close to me. Still, it’s a dick move on my part not to at least give Lo a chance to defend herself. If she wasn’t the one who told Harper, I cut her off for nothing. Harper could have bribed someone who worked there, seen me leaving with someone and tracked her down, rooted through my stuff or Dad’s when she was at our house and somehow put it together. It’s better this way, though. Better not to have anyone around me who knows shit about my life. When Lo found out about room 504, it felt safer to keep her close, to give her a reason not to tell anyone. Even if we never talked about it, never talked about our families the way I did with Harper or any real shit, our friendship was real. 

But letting people into my life is a mistake. People blackmail and betray. And if it was her, if she told Harper… Well, Preston can fucking have Gloria. When my phone rings a minute later, I sigh and pick it up. We can talk once. Just to clear some things up. I’m not going to give her a ride anywhere, like I used to when she didn’t have gas money. My car smells like a swamp from all the times I’ve dropped my muddy boots and rubber coveralls in here this summer. Gloria would ask questions, and I’m not about to answer. “Hey,” she says. “I figured you’d ghost me again.” “What’s up, Lo?” I ask, my voice sounding weary. “Do you use the OnlyPics app?” “No,” I say flatly, bristling at the insinuation. “Why would I?” “That’s not—I didn’t mean you’d put stuff up.” “Why?” I ask. “You don’t think people would pay to see my dick?” “No!” she says quickly. “I mean, they would, if you wanted to put it up. That’s not why I was asking, though.” “So, you don’t want to see my dick? That’s not how I remember it.” I’m being an asshole, but she’s basically calling me a whore. She knows better than to ask if I use an app that’s basically a sex worker platform. I don’t get paid for sex, and I don’t need to sell pictures of my body for money. The OnlyPics app was supposed to be a companion to OnlyWords, which is a texting app with, as its name implies, only words in the messages. Everyone likes OnlyWords, but it has no photo sharing capabilities. So the same company made OnlyPics but it was basically a knock-off Instagram where you can’t use captions and the hashtags are hidden, only used by the algorithms to know who to show them to. It probably would have died a quick death if it weren’t for the sex worker industry, who cashed in on three key features—the ability to add a link to profiles, where they added their payment link; the fifteen-second video limit, which let them put up teases to get people hooked; and the private chat feature, which let them send someone the rest of the video for whatever fee they wanted to negotiate or even video chat for a live show.

 I don’t use the app because I’m not an amateur porn star, and if I want to watch porn, I can do it for free like everyone else. If I need a live feed, I have a phone full of numbers of chicks who would be happy to put on a show for me, and I can do more than watch and jerk off. I’m not interested in that any more than I am this app. “Okay, let’s try this again,” Gloria says. “You remember how Harper  disappeared off the face of the earth when you dumped her?” I stiffen in my seat, yanking the wheel to pull off at the nearest exit at the last second. The car behind me lays on the horn, but I ignore it. The noise is almost drowned by the pounding of blood in my ears. “Yeah, what about it?” I ask Gloria. “Well, I think I found her.” “On a porn site?” I ask, hoping like hell someone just uploaded the video of her sucking someone’s dick from last year. It fucks with my head to think that one year ago today, I didn’t even know the name Harper Avery. It was another month before I would see her giving head in the parking lot behind the tampon factory. “Hey, don’t judge me,” Gloria says. “Your brothers have been out of town all summer, and you’ve been ignoring me. I’m having a dry spell.” I could tell her the twins are back, but if she ran her mouth to Harper, I don’t want her around my house, running her mouth to my brothers. So I point out the obvious. “There are more than three dicks in this town.” “Once you go Walker, you never go back,” she says lightly. “And anyway, I only saw it because she sent it to Dawson.” I’m glad I pulled over at the exit, because I’d probably run someone off the road right now if I were still driving. I grip the steering wheel with one hand and close my eyes. My voice comes out so normal you’d think I was just a guy who dumped a girl and didn’t give a fuck about what happened to her since. “I’m afraid to ask, but��� Does your brother always share porn with you?” “No, you weirdo,” she says. “Someone DM’d him, and I’ve been obsessing about her all summer, so he showed it to me. He thinks it’s funny as shit.” “Why are you obsessing about Harper?” I demand. 

What the fuck. Maybe I should have kept in touch with Lo. She could find out shit, maybe even the truth. “I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t you think it’s weird that she just… Vanished? I mean, I’m not saying you’re not worth going off the deep end over, or that you couldn’t eviscerate her heart so completely she could never love again. She liked to play it cool, but she really loved you, August. Like, the kind of love that eats you alive, and you’re never the same again.” “Put that shit on a ninety-nine cent Valentines card. You could make real money.”

“Keep playing, you didn’t feel it, too,” she says. “But y’all broke a lot of hearts when you broke up, not just your own. Everyone figured you’d get back together.” “What’s your point?” I snap. I don’t need a fucking lecture about how much I disappointed everyone. She can add it to my fucking tab for all the times I fucked up and pissed off everyone who matters. “My point is, even if Harper was devastated beyond repair, she’s not the kind of chick who would let a breakup destroy her. She’s stronger than that. You may be irreplaceable even to her, but you’re still a boy. And it would take more than one boy to break Harper.” Maybe not one boy. But one boy who shared her with two more against her will? A broken hand and a rope she couldn’t get free of, a swamp full of snakes more poisonous than her? Yeah. That could do it. “Then it obviously had nothing to do with me,” I say. “Maybe she got hooked on Lady Alice or Pearl Lady or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, and she’s selling herself to pay for it like a regular junkie. Hell, her mom basically said as much.” “It did blow up the scene right around that time…” Gloria muses. “Maybe she’ll tell you for the right price,” I say flatly. “That’s all she’s ever cared about.” “August…”

 “What?”

 “Look, I don’t know everything that went down between you, but I know what it’s like to walk away from love. Just because you broke up doesn’t mean your heart wasn’t decimated, too.” My laugh is brittle, like stepping on glass. “You’re funny, Lo.” I could ask her, just come right out and be blunt, like King. But I can’t acknowledge that much aloud. The hotel is its own world. When we leave, we don’t mention what goes on there. I don’t tell the school that Gloria is a scholarship kid. I elevated her. And she never tells anyone that I get a room there every few months. Would she risk telling someone, knowing she could lose it all? Even if she hates me, she loves her status too much to risk it. What would make her turn on me like that? Harper didn’t tell that creep where she found out the information. But it has to be Lo. No one else knows. So, I hung up the phone, letting her think this is about a breakup.

 That it’s not about a murder, not about a girl coming back from the dead, a ghost dragging her broken body from the swamp and crawling back into my brain to fuck with it even more. I open my email, the one connected to the OnlyWords and OnlyPics apps by default because it’s all made by the same company. I barely remember thumbing away the automatic notifications I got when someone sent me a message this summer. I ignored them all, knowing they were porn spam. My chest is hollow as I open one from my spam folder. It tells me I have twenty-four new messages on OnlyPics. I follow the link and open my direct messages. The first one is a thumbnail of a video, sent this evening. If it’s from Harper, she changed her handle from BadApple. For a few seconds, all I see is a closeup of part of her tattoo. I take it in, examining it until I realize it’s her hip crease, and pressed along the back of her thigh, an expanse of pale skin. It takes me a minute to make sense of what I’m seeing. Whoever she’s fucking, he’s got her folded in half like her legs are over his shoulders while he nails her into the bed. There’s no caption, and there are no words even on the messenger, so I have to click on the profile to find an explanation. Apple Cream Pie, $1k/min. Time seems to skip. Some caveman part of me must take over, because the next thing I know it’s five minutes later, and I’m five thousand dollars lighter, and I’m slamming my phone against the top of the steering wheel over and over. I feel it crunch and snap, but I keep pounding it until there’s nothing left in my hand, and the pieces of it are scattered across my lap and the floor. Time skips again. I’m in my driveway at home. Blood is dripping down the steering wheel and into my lap. 

I open my hand and find pieces of glass jutting from my palm in a dozen places. And all I think about is that day my car was bombed, and Harper tried to pick the glass from my face with her tiny, careful fingers. I climb out of the car. There’s a black Jaguar parked on the gravel, a tall figure leaning against it. I walked up to him. Something in me seems to have been knocked loose, and I think I might fucking kill him, even though it’s just Oliver Finnegan, who never goes inside. He doesn’t approve of the family business. “Hullo, August,” he says, his Irish accent distorting the words. Or maybe it’s the ringing in my ears. “Am I in your spot? I can move the car.” “Don’t worry about it.” He cocks his head, his weird, pale eyes taking in the blood on my pants, my hand. “You alright, mate?” I shrug and head for the house. Just as I’m about to step inside, his brother steps out, a black duffle in one hand, probably full of cash or those fucking pearls everyone’s on about. Colin Fucking Finnegan. My eyes narrow, my fists clenching until I can feel the glass biting deeper, piercing through my skin and into the muscle and sinew. “Was it you?” I grind out. Part of me knows it’s impossible, but maybe he sent the photo on his way here, or maybe he took it earlier. I need Baron to find the date signature on a video, if it’s even possible. For all I know, Harper’s dead, and she took those videos herself while we were together. If she’d sell my dignity for a scholarship, why wouldn’t she sell videos of herself fucking 2other guys when she was with me? “Whatever it was, I bet it was me,” Colin says, flashing me a knowing grin that shows off his chipped front tooth. “Are you still sore about that beating you took last spring?” “You know what it’s about.” “If it’s not that, you’re pissed you didn’t get a cut of this,” he says, jiggling the bag. “Don’t fucking push me right now,” I warn. His creepy eyes go smug. “Or… You still on about that whore? I figured that’s what set you off last spring. Everyone in town knows I fucked her first. Are you just finding out?” “Where is she?” I demand, grabbing him around the neck and slamming him up against the wall. “Where the fuck do you have her, you cum guzzling, festering wad of infected dick cheese?” A cocky, defiant grin stretches his lips. “Aww, did you catch something off her?” he asks. “Wasn’t me, mate. I popped that cherry when there were barely three hairs on her pussy. Haven’t touched her since.”

I don’t know exactly what happens next. I don’t see Colin Finnegan in front of me anymore. All I see is red. The next thing I know, my brothers and Dad are holding me down on the steps, and Oliver and their uncle are holding Colin back while he curses and struggles and spits. The white gravel is painted red like the day the Darlings vandalized our house, but this time, it’s blood. “Let me up,” I growl, shoving off the step and wrenching free of my family. I stalk toward Colin, who writhes like a cat getting a bath. I can feel blood trickling down my face, the jagged edges of a few broken teeth, and the throb of one eye that’s already swelling shut. But I don’t feel pain. The other thing that lives inside me has swallowed it, and I can’t feel a thing. “Come on,” Colin yells, dancing in the grip of his brother. “Let’s do it again. I can go all night. Whoo! I feel alive!” I stop in front of him, ignoring my brothers, who have rushed up behind me to grab me if I lose my shit again. But I’m calm now. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I say to Colin. My lip is broken and swollen so thick my words come out slurred. “If I find out you’re the one who sent those videos, you won’t be alive much longer.” I turn and walk inside. I don’t know why I care. I watched two guys fuck her. I gave them permission. I made sure to watch, so I knew I could never want her again, never think she was mine. I broke her on purpose, but piece by piece, I’m the one falling to pieces.

Harpers POV

“Are you Mr. D?” I demand, standing in the Phantom’s bedroom, my whole body quaking. I hold the tag in between my finger and thumb, waving it at him. He just walked out of the shower, his body all steamy, a towel around his hips, mask over his face. He shrugs. “What about it?” Anger seethes through me. “That’s how you knew where I was that night. Isn’t it?” He opens his dresser and pulls out his underwear. I know where he keeps them. I know where everything in his apartment is. But I didn’t know his name, have never seen his face. I come when he calls, practically live here two days a week, like a goddamn whore. He promised he’d fuck me one day, and now he has. I don’t know why it matters suddenly. I never cared before. He nods vaguely toward the windows. “I keep an eye on things.” “On me,” I say, sinking onto the edge of the bed. “You keep an eye on me.” “I told you, I can be anyone you want me to be,” he says with a haughty little smirk. “As long as you’re you, Miss A.” “As long as I’m August’s fuck toy,” I correct him. “That’s why you take those pictures, isn’t it? To send to him and show him what you’ve done to me.” “What I’ve done to you?” he asks, turning to face me after pulling on a pair of sweats. They hang low on his narrow hips. Above them, the ridges of his abs are carved deep and sharp. His body is a finely chiseled sculpture. I’ve never noticed, but he’s beautiful, even without a face. “What about what he did?” He paces forward, stalking, his voice laced with fury that makes me shrink back on the bed, as if he could hurt me more than I’ve been hurt. As if he could take something from me that he hasn’t been taking all along. “You changed me,” I whisper. “I saved you.” I stare up at him, feeling guilty for feeling anything but gratitude. He works out, takes care of himself, wears exquisite clothes to work at his standing desk with three monitors, an ergonomic keyboard, and a fancy Mac computer. I’m the one who should be ashamed. I don’t take care of myself until he tells me to. He tells me to shower, puts me in fancy clothes, makes me look like a girl who could be, in some fairytale in his mind, deserving of him. And he treats me like I am.

 He cooks me fancy dinners and buys me everything I need or could want without me having to ask. He even took care of my mother. I don’t treat him half as well. I don’t cook or offer to help clean up. I don’t even talk to him when I come over. While he cooks, I sit curled on his fine leather sofa, sipping his fine wine. The only thing I do for him in return for everything he’s done is spread my legs. If he’s made me a whore, I’ve let him do it. The first day he bought me something, the phone, I could have said no. But I didn’t. I let him dress me up like a doll, treat me like property, and fuck me like a whore. If anything, he’s shown me he values me more than I value myself. He bought me fucking diamonds. A girl like me, I have no right to even hope for this kind of man, this kind of treatment. I’m lucky to be his whore. But for the first time in months, I want to speak, to voice my desires. “You’re right,” I say. “You’ve treated me well. But I’m done being your whore.” “You’re not—” He breaks off, pressing his lips together and shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. That’s not how I see you, Harper.” “How do you see me?” He stares at me a long moment. “I just wanted to take care of you,” he says at last. “I saw what they did to you. You’re not the only person…” He shakes his head again. “And yeah, I wanted to fuck you to piss off August. I’ll admit that. But I never saw you as a whore. I only gave you what you needed.” “Like these?” I ask, upturning the jeweler’s bag. The box falls out, the lid askew, one of the diamonds dangling out the side like something obscene. “Fair enough,” he says, moving across the room and sitting heavily on the bottom of the bed. “Maybe I had selfish reasons. But I never thought you owed me.

 I know you won’t believe me. I know what I look like. You think I can’t get laid unless I buy a girl diamonds. And you’re right.” “What about your girlfriend?” I ask, my voice thick. He scoffs. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Look at me.” “So you dressed me up and pretended you did,” I say, feeling like some weird blow-up doll. I’ve acted like one. I haven’t been a whole person since before the swamp. I’ve been a doll, broken into a million pieces, and he’s pieced some of them back together—at least on the outside. But he can’t fix me inside. He can reach in, but he won’t find anything to piece back together. I’m hollow. “I never pretended to be a good guy,” he says. “Don’t act shocked that I’m exactly who I was all along.” “But you never told me who you were,” I point out. “You never asked.” “I did.” We sat side by side for a while, neither of us speaking. “You don’t want to know who I am,” he says. “Look at me. Look at what I’ve become.” I could say the same thing. 

 When I tell Mr. D I’m not coming back, he doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t get ready to take me home as usual. I ask if he’s taking me home, and he says no, but he doesn’t stop me when I take his keys. I keep waiting for him to come after me, but he just studies me, his face behind that infuriating blank mask, his one good eye watching me leave. In the garage, I climb into his truck. I’m sure he’s going to come down and stop me. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely get the key in. I open the garage on the bottom level of his building, and I drive out. I keep checking the rearview, sure I’ll see him coming after me. But he lets me go. Some sick part of me deflates when I turn into my driveway and he’s not there. Not even Mr. D thinks I’m worth hunting down. I climb out of the truck and go inside. Nothing has changed. But everything has. Without the Tuesday and Thursday excursions, I stop leaving the house. I ignore the staff that comes in and cleans my house on a weekly basis. I don't care where they came from or who hired them.

 There’s no point. I Don't even return his truck. It sits like an oversized monster in our driveway, drawing attention from anyone and everyone. I hide the keys inside a tear in my box spring, I sleep with a switchblade in one hand for the nightmares that plague my every waking moment, as if my fall from grace has given them permission to terrorize me, maybe they can smell my brokenness, my weakness, the way I can smell alcohol on Duke’s breath. And even though I was sure I felt nothing all those months, now that I don’t see the Phantom, there’s an ache left inside me that he once soothed. 

When I wake myself up croaking feebly, from a dream where I’m gagged, silenced as I try to force sound from my strangled throat, there are only blankets to wrap around me instead of his strong, salient arms. I stop leaving the house, stop doing anything. I can’t remember why it mattered to be clean, to eat, to live. One evening, as I’m lying corpse like in my bed, a tap sounds at my grimy window. I’m so startled I sit up before my brain can kick in and say what it says about everything—it’s not worth it. It doesn’t matter. Turning my head I see a crow pecking at the shiny part of my window. Standing up and making my way into the bathroom, I turn on the lights avoiding the mirror. I don't want to look at the girl in the mirror. I just can't.Turning on the hot water in the sink letting it fog up my mirror, I scoop the water with my hands and splash it on my face.

  I know I should care but I can't summon the energy. My sponsor is gone. There’s no way out. I’ve given up, accepted the fact that I’ll be just like my dead beat mother. Turning off the water and raising my head, reluctantly I look back at my reflection, I meet my soulless eyes and stare. I should want to rage against this weak girl that I've become, to become the monster those boys wanted me to be.. Turning off the lights and walking back to my room. Dropping back down into bed, I looked out the grimy window and let out a deep sigh, I can't stay like this broken doll. But I just don't care anymore..

A while  later, lying in my bed, I think maybe it’s time I did.

#henry cavill characters #henry cavill x you #august walker fanfic #august walker #august walker fanfiction #august walker imagines #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill #henrycavill smut #henry cavill thirst

[96percentdone]

I've been ruminating on fandom lately. Criticizing fandom at all will get you barraged by very defensive fans who will accuse you of hating fun, not understanding creative expression, and being an art snob, and I am about to go a LOT harder than most of the posts I've been exposed to, so in an attempt to preemptively curb that indignance: I like fandom. I have written fanfics, and theory posts, and meta, and I've reblogged countless fanart. A lot of what I engage with or have made meets the standards I'm about to critique, and I understand completely that for many, fandom is a hobby. People would like to escape from the struggles in their lives. They find comfort in the media they love, so they immerse themselves it. It can be hard to make anything in this capitalist hellscape, so if you've achieved something at all, it's a miracle. I get it. I really do. I'm not an art snob; I think it's fine if things aren't that deep, and they're primarily wish-fulfillment. I have some grievances with the critics too, and they'll come up. This post isn't about you specifically; it's bigger. Fandom content suffers a lack of substance because of superficial engagement with the source material.

Many fandom critical posts on this website bring up shipping culture as the reason everything is samey and uninteresting, often referencing ao3 in specific. I sympathize with these posts, I also find shipping prominence can be fairly tedious when you want to read ANYTHING else, but why is it when complain about fandom, we point the finger at fic? Why do we use shorthands like "he would not fucking say that," and drop ao3 tagging conventions, and mention fanfic websites? Have y'all LOOKED at the fan art you reblog? A lot of it is just posing and kissing. If you wanted to analyze it for any further meaning, I don't think you'd get very far. I am not positioning fanfiction as superior; as everyone points out, a lot of it is repetitive and derivative, but let's not pretend that this is a fanfic exclusive issue. We can take it further out! Look at the absolute state of meta. Most analysis is done in service of promoting a headcanon or a ship if it isn't just a theory wildly speculating an explanation for an unresolved or ambiguous plot point. We're gonna include those guys who make power scaling rankings, filling out the wiki, etc too. They're fans! Everyone agrees those people aren't engaging with the text in a deeper way, but that doesn't make them NOT fans. It is the way their appreciation manifests the clearest! We're all fans; we are doing the same thing in just a different form.

Most of what gets popularized I all these spaces is based on a strictly literal understanding of the work; it's about plot events and how characters relate to it and one another, and the meaning people get out of it—from shipping to theorizing to memes to tierlists—never goes beyond that level. If people don't know how to look for themes, to interpret symbolism and examine the construction of a work to see how it contributes to how the whole is operating to affect them, because their education on how to do it sucked shit, then obviously they won't. But I don't think that's enough to explain the heart of the problem.

Critics will bring up the fandom wash cycle, an analogy for how way fandom will spend more time engaged with itself than the source material, and perpetuate its own tropes and fixations ad nauseum. This is true in any fanspace you can spend your time in, including those "who would win" bros. I hear this, and I think of social media, the place most of fandom lives now. People making original work often talk about how their stuff never gets any attention compared to fandom stuff; the biggest fandoms are sprawling franchises with corporate entities behind them. Social media algorithms promote what is already popular, what will generate the most clicks, so you stay online and make their corporate overlords more money. It is the depth of human experience streamlined into easily digestible chunks.

You're spent because life is hard and the world sucks and the only relief you can find is in the media you love. You don't want to expend a lot of energy today, so you'll consume or create ship centered content, or fan theories, or memes and gifs. You'll wonder who would win in a fight. Even without social media, people feed their own algorithms, because the system is designed to encourage it. Fandom is part of a larger whole.

If fandom will ever be more than what it is, you have to be willing to put in the work to fix it. Criticism won't cut it. As the saying goes, be the change you want to see in the world. Create what you want to see, use what you make to teach what might be lacking, seek out more of the things that look like what you want fandom to be (I assure you it exists), not just what you already know. Fandom is perpetuated by fans. Being a fan doesn't make you predisposed to creating cyclical, watered-down content. Every fan has a rich internal life with a whole host of experiences that should inform both how they make their works and how they read it to begin with, because they're people.

People are far too diverse to be defined by an algorithm; maybe with enough effort, we can write a new one.

#hope.txt

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi! its incredible/intrusive tjoughts anon. honestly its nothing serious i just want advice lol.

so basically i identify as pan(tomantic) and non binary (transmasc).

basically i have this cousin who im REALLY close eith since shes the only family close to my age (we have a year differencs)

basically i do live in a very homophobic place, as i think ive said before but i think that she might be queer (bi specifically)

and here are my proofs:

1) the subtle one being, when its just the both if us watching something all she points out is how beautiful/amazing/gorgeous wtc the women look. nothing abt the guys. (not that im complaining cz women serious do slay)

i know that she also likes men because i remember watching this scene with her and one other cousin where the guy (wesrung a ehite) shirt fell into the water and was coming out (of the water).

me, personally, i was disgusted and i thiught my cousins would share the same opinions. nope. they rewatched the scene twice i think, their eyes were glued onto the screen ans they were both red.

2) the second one being, as ive mentioned before, i am a religious person qnd so is she. but we have this tradition where we go onto the roof and just talk about stuff we normally would never talk about. we basically kid of vent to each other too.

and there we've talked alot about queer people, and being a religious queer person and its clear that our views on the topic are very similar.

(i never bring up queer people bcz im scared of giving myself up, and usually people do not go around asking others abt their opinion on them. and yeah i feel like she was relieved when i explaijed that the last thing i wanted was for them to die)

niw into the veey obvious tells:

3) my cousin and i were bored so i took out markers and we decided to draw on my leg (dont ask me how we decided that that was the best thing to do.) but basically out if everything she couldve drawn, she drew the rainbkw but as a bi flag.

i saw it and when i pointed it out, she kind of looked panicked? so i just left it.

4) this one is like glaringly obvious tell. basically obv everyone knows, the tt algorithm works overtime and honestly i rarely get anything im not interested in.

so me, obv i have short hair, and when im sleeping/when im alone with other women you could easily tell that wtv is happening is not straight cis shit.

but basically i was changing so i just shed off my outer layer, underneath i was wearing this like sleeveless sweater and i had tracksuit bottoms underneath. my hair was oulled back in a half bun.

tell me why she says oh you look like thise masc lesbians in my tiktok fyp.

like FIRSTLY what are the masc lesbians doing on ur feed?? how have you watched them eniugh to know the specific terms??

basically idk if im maybe reading inti this but sometimes i genuinely feel like im going mad and i want to kind of come out ti someone irl cz i litr need someoen to see me, and recognize my efforts.

so. i just need advice, cz she knows quite alit if the terms as well, and ive noticed that homophobic people usually do not. (e.g. my brother does not know anthign other than gay and lesbian and queer cz he likes to throw them out as insukts)

but she does know, not all, but quite a few. (i only know nearky all cz for a while my obsession, idk what people call thus but basically i become obsessed with a tooic, research alot about it and then just leave it?. was like all the different types of labels and which umbrellas they fall under. so ive done alot of research on this matter which actually freaks alot of people out)

ive just realised i actually ramble alot so thankyou for making it this far lol

(also i just got hiccups wriitng this and theyre OISSING ME KFF)

Hi!

I feel like it's a pretty good assumption that your cousin is open-minded. I think it might be a good idea, next time you guys are having a rooftop conversation, to bring up queer people you know. Celebrities, mutual friends, etc. Ask her how she feels about those people. If she's cool with it, that's a good signal that you can come out.

Also think about- if you've told her other secrets, has she told other people? If not, then you can trust her with something like this.

As far as your cousin's sexuality- I'm not sure if you're reading into it. But remember, even if you come out to her, she might not return the gesture even if she IS queer. She might not be ready, and that's okay! Just continue to be a safe space for her no matter who she likes.

#ask #asks #ask cas #incredible anon

[mshexley]

Between Cory and RTGames having their stuff age restricted and Berleezy getting terminated. YouTube shows that they really do pick and choose when their rules matter and should be enforced.

TLDR: YouTube uses vagueness and plausible deniability to fuck people over.

Like, not to sound like a conspiracist and this is all just from observation but it feels like they leave most of the work to their “flawless” algorithm despite people proving its tendency to throw folks into an alt right pipeline (that includes Pr*ger U ads) and it’s general ineffectiveness.

however, they often seem to single out someone to strongly enforce and prove that their very advertiser-sided rules work and they choose someone with that’s big but not heavily connected to their image as YouTube, if you get what I mean. Like it’s why Cory’s Mortuary Assistant video gets age restricted while other names like Mark and Jack’s don’t. Like I don’t know how to properly explain it because it’s like even though Cory is a big YouTuber it’s this sense of he’s not intrinsically linked to YouTube identity within a general populace. Like it’s a status reserved for certain YouTubers who made it big before a certain era.

This air of enforcement is also there when RT has his 2022 Best Of video age-restricted but not any of the sole videos featured in that clip and even RT goes into detail about the changes which include that people’s videos from before certain policy changes will still be viable for flagging, age-restriction, and outright blocking even private ones.

Surprising no one, YouTube hides behind the “what about the children” arguement when it comes to this penalties but I’d like to remind folks that the reason COPPA is now a thing on YouTube is because the SITE ITSELF was founded to be targeting children for ads. Fun fact: If you upload on YouTube you can now flag your videos to say that it’s not intended for kids. This doesn’t mean shit. Because on YouTube’s end, it’s not about being child friendly but about being advertiser-friendly.

Which brings us to….YouTube KIDS. YouTube KIDS the brand of YouTube made for kids….has ads. Not in the way the you’d normally experience ads tho. These ads are soft ads. They are Videos meant to market stuff to kids. This is not even mentioning how YouTube Kids is very much like Tiktok where it provides instant dopamine. I made an account to see it for myself and I didn’t even bat an eye when I saw the Wednesday dance pop up because it went viral on TikTok and kids always wanna do the dances and it wasn’t until I saw an interview clip of Wednesday that it clicked. Both the dance and that interview was uploaded by NETFLIX Netflix but you can’t click on the uploader name to see more of their stuff. If you search Netflix in the search bar, you’ll get Netflix Jr & Netflix After School but not regular Netflix.

Of course, you can argue that it’s a way to protect kids from seeing stuff they shouldn’t on Netflix’s account which IS THE POINT. If Netflix has TWO channels on YouTube Kids where they upload clips from their child and tween friendly shows, then why are two videos from their regular channel up there in the first place? Why didn’t they upload the dance on their After School account?? We’re not gonna even go into how Wednesday by its contents shouldn’t even be featured on a site where the threshold is 12.

And I’m not saying any of this to be a prude but if YouTube is going to act like they have some moral high ground by claiming to protect kids from what they MIGHT be exposed to and age-restrict videos that the CREATORS THEMSELVES have stated and abided by YouTube’s own policy aren’t for kids, then they need to keep that same energy for ALL OF THEIR PLATFORMS.

Not only that. But they need to keep that same energy for the people they allow to advertise on their site. If a creator incorrectly flags their content, they will be penalized except for when they bring in heavy traffic to their site and bring the site money AKA the alt-right pipeline when they allow hate speech against marginalized groups because they’re skirting around the actual terms and allow for plausible deniability. Compare that to leftist creators who will receive heavy penalty for correctly stating that their videos are for political education because they say the quiet part out loud.

Another instance is through its politcal ads. I live a place where it’s common to Trump 2024 plastered over people’s lawns and as such I went in and flagged in YouTube’s ad preference to say that I don’t want ads featuring politics HOWEVER during the election, I still got political ads. RIGHT-WING political ads and Pr*ger U ads. Why? Because these groups pay to have their stuff shoved in your face. Should they pay enough, YouTube will let anything slide….how do I know? Because you know who else is on YouTube Kids???? Prager fucking U but much like Netflix….Prager U is not clickable.

have you realized the running theme tho? YouTube operates on plausible deniability. They operate on this vagueness where they can not say what’s wrong or what’s right. When creators on the site ask for transparency, they’re met with silence because being upfront means exposing that they have been letting certain people get away with breaking their rules.

I should clarify that obviously creators like Markiplier are not willing participates in this whole thing. But they are unintentionally set up through YouTube’s lack of transparency. Because creators can only speak from their own experience and will use them as points of reference, it’ll seem like creators like Mark get an unfair advantage all because YouTube doesn’t want to admit that they themselves haven’t been playing by the rules they set for everyone else.

#Youtube #berleezy #coryxkenshin #rtgame

[rollercoasterwords]

I’m so genuinely intrigued and curious abt that post you made abt reaching out to the authors when you find a paper you want to read bc.. how are you finding these papers in the first place?? Do they show up on your tiktok fyp?? Do you just search up whatever topic you wanna read about on google scholar? I think that that’s really cool that you do that and I also would like to read about research that like actually interests me and not just papers assigned in class but I dunno where I would start looking for them. Sorry this ask is probably so random but do you have any tips?? lmao 😭

WHAT a fun question!!! of course i have tips!!!

first of all....free urself from the tiktok fyp i am begging u <3 like. ok i am sure there are people on there who are sharing academic articles and such but....more often with tiktok at least in my experience u just end up getting stuck in an endless scroll rather than actually following up on any interesting reading/research suggestions. also i think it is just like. a valuable and enriching skill to be able to think of things on ur own that u want to learn about and then go and find resources urself! like. approach tiktok w caution perhaps it could be helpful for some but i worry a bit that we are all becoming a little too reliant on algorithms to feed us Content, y'know?

anyway! as for how i find papers 2 read that interest me! most often it is a matter of finding something that sparks my interest + then going down a rabbit hole. and there are soooooo many ways to do this!! the internet is an amazing resource!!!! here is a list of some ways that i find interesting articles:

tumblr <3 lol i follow various blogs that post interesting stuff abt theory + academia every so often, and if i see a quote that interests me i'll go and try to find the article it came from! (you could also use tiktok this way if you've found some good people to follow! my main hesitation w tiktok is just that. it's an endless scroll + an algorithm which are both 2 things that i find distracting, and why i prefer tumblr)

substack - same kinda deal as tumblr; i subscribe to bloggers who write about topics that interest me and if they cite research in their posts i'll go try to find that research to read it myself

news articles/blog posts/essays that i come across online - again, if there's some interesting research cited, i'll go and try to find it

search by writer - if you keep hearing about an academic or someone suggests "oh read some so-and-so," go and look up so-and-so and see what they've written + what u can find online for free! most really famous/influential academics will have some free pdfs of their more influential work floating around online, and for smaller/niche academics--email them!

along the same lines - if u find an article or essay or speech by an academic and u like it, go find their biography page on the website of whatever school they teach at! schools will usually list professors' work, or at least a few examples, and you can find more stuff to read from that same person whose article you enjoyed. this is especially helpful if ur researching something kinda niche

wikipedia! people shit on wikipedia all the time as if it's not a "real source" but that's simply false! wikipedia is a great jumping-off point if you're interested in a broad topic but don't know where to start. go scroll through the wikipedia article about said topic and see what's cited there to get an idea of where you might be able to find some interesting articles/research to narrow ur focus!

look through the bibliography/citations on other research! if ur reading a book or article on an interesting topic + want to learn more, actually take a minute to scan through the citations and see if any titles catch ur eye!

ask people for recommendations! if u have an old/current professor or a friend or something who u know is interested in the same topic as u, ask if they have any reading recommendations!

if ur a university student--take advantage of that shit!!! look thru the papers on ur syllabus and scan the citations of the most interesting ones for further reading or go look up the writers u like best from the course to find more stuff they've written! look at the class listings for classes u aren't taking and if ur interested, ask those professors if they'd be willing to share their reading lists with you! keep an eye out for free lectures or events on new topics that interest you as a jumping-off point for finding new things to learn about! ask ur friends in other majors what they're learning about and go look it up if it interests you!

go to the library and look through the nonfiction section for topics ur interested in; check out books with cool titles! if they're boring, u can just return them

go to thrift stores or used bookstores and do the same thing! look for nonfiction books with interesting titles! i loooooooooove love love love looking through gender studies sections of bookstores for nonfiction--and then if i find a book i like, guess what that book's gonna cite?? more articles + books!!!!!! there is so much research + knowledge in the world just waiting to be shared!!!!

anyway. these are just some ways that i have found interesting new things to learn about! it sounds like u are currently a student--and like, trust me, i get that when ur constantly being assigned readings for classes it can just become a drag. but college is an AMAZING resource; i still go back and reference old notes from school to find research that i'm interested in, and some of my classes introduced me to articles that i still return to + cite today. research can be so so so fun + rewarding when ur just doing it for the joy of learning; the key really is to treat it like a little spiderweb. maybe most of ur assignments are boring, but this one article for class was really interesting and u actually find urself wanting to learn more--look at the research that article cited! google the names of the writers to see what else they've written! ask ur prof if they have any more suggestions similar to that article! the possibilities are endless!!

+ if ur a student, ur institution probably has access to a whole bunch of research databases where u can find articles + books for free, which is amaaaaaaaazing take advantage of that shit. but i am not currently a student, so my process for finding articles usually goes:

google + see if a free pdf magically pops up (happens more often than you'd think honestly)

failing that -- if it's a book, i check the online collection at my library + also on openlibrary and project gutenberg and zlibrary; for articles i usually check library genesis (sometimes i look for books here too) or sci-hub (usually works best if you search by doi)

failing that -- if it's an article, i go hunt down the email address of whoever wrote it and email them to ask for access! for books, if you really really want to read it you can usually put in a request at your local library for them to get it, but sometimes i do just have to give up if i can't find a book for free online anywhere :(

hopefully some of this was helpful !! and if ur looking for nonfiction book recs i have a post here with some stuff i've read over the past year or two and i also have a post here with like...some suggestions for intro gender studies/queer theory reading (mostly articles)!

#ask #this got really long sorry lmao #i just. love researching! and looking things up! and reading about them! #learning can be sooooooooo fun guys i know school kinda sucks the joy out of it a lot of the time but. it's soooooo fun trust me #and i also personally just. really feel a sense of accomplishment when i'm seeking something out + reading + thinking about it myself #as opposed to just like. only ever letting other people summarize stuff for me #which i think kinda happens if ur only engaging with theory through like....social media + not ever actually reading it urself #summarizing is good and helpful sometimes!! it's just not enough on its own if u wanna learn abt a topic in-depth

[hatenayuri]

TW for transphobia, bigotry of all kinds, suicide, and generally unpleasant shit. It keeps getting worse ✨✨✨reposting it here for anyone interested how twitter is doing.

we can all agree this site is cooked like a soggy dumpling by now, but if you ever wanted to have the biggest proof of it, just look at all the post about trans day of visibility this year. years before all the bullshit of twitter changing hands it belongs to, it wasn't all that bad. it was a relatively nice split of majority of the people saying "have a happy trans day of visibility" but now you have to scroll for a long while before you see anyone doing so.

Most of it i imagine comes from how the x algorithm works now - people with paid twitter land at the top, and "coincidentally" all of those people are right wing nuts, grifters. People filled with malice or those who have their own narrative as to why they act like dicks.

Also company policies and all the firings inside of twitter. We all heard of or seen the famous screenshots where negative posts about cis people are suspended in visibility, while negative posts about trans people are send out far and wide to everyone.

or the quiet removal of the deadnaming and misgendering policy.

it might have something to do with more people leaving twitter because of those exact things, too. there is no more any semblance of actual human beings in this god accursed place - just people with a lot of excuses for things that are unexcusable - bigotry, transphobia, and more

This year's excuse comes from easter sunday - which easter does not have a fixed date while trans day of visibility does - happen on almost the same day this year. sounds fine, that kinda stuff is bound to happen every so often, right? both happen on the 31st.

after looking it up, it's not the first time this happened and not the last. in 2029 easter will be sharing date with april's fools. but alas. claims of "this is a war on christianity", denial of trans people, and ofc classics the magnitute of the one joke.

and the worst parts, such as posts about suicide numbers, accusations of shootings. I guess a coincidence on which two days share a SIMILAR date is enough to invoke rage in all of the good natured christians. because they definitely know this is what Jesus wanted.

there is so many mentions of those things, of how this is a "war" and trans people are the "enemy". slurs, insults and denial are commonplace in these posts. Let me remind you, a bunch of these posts are from big names - these screenshots are taken from the top of the tag.

Sorry for the long ass rant

make sure to stay safe, all of you. and don't let these fucks get into your heads. after all, reality tends to be better than the cesspool of shit that this toilet of a website is.

#DO NOT READ THIS POST #twitter #is not doing so hot #fuck twitter #i don't even know what to put here #i'm fucking flabbergasted

[six-of-ravens]

aloha friends and people who left annoying incorrect opinions on my posts, raistlin is a waif he is the waifiest waif it doesn't matter if his twin is a brick shithouse you are WRONG I am kinda sorta back. maybe only for one tipsy night, but who knows. listen, I'm 1.5 ciders in and feeling Properly Tipsy as opposed to last night when I drank jack and cokes for the first time in a while and just felt nauseous, so I'm Thriving atm. ANYWAY.

i feel like i have cleared some cobwebs from my brain. kind of. mostly i redownloaded bc i have the irresistible urge to natter about my life. tbh i considered deleting tumblr for a while bc there are some things about this site (but also social media in general) that annoy the absolute shit out of me, and also i feel like I dedicated too much ~mental energy~ to this site in the past (not to sound like some new age crackpot) and I need to cut down on how much scrolling and getting mad about other people's incorrect opinions I do. However, there are a few beloved mutuals on here that I miss talking to and also tumblr is kinda Home, y'know?

anyway TLDR I'm back, kinda. might still delete the app during the day so I can focus on IRL shit instead of being a zillennial social media addict, so I apologize if I miss messages etc but. yeah. for the sake of my mental health I have to be better at self-policing. Also, no longer going to allow myself to use the For You tab, so sorry if I don't see your posts bc tumblr only served them there. I can't control it lmao. frankly the algorithm here just ain't good enough and I don't want to cry AGAIN bc a video of a naked woman jiggling her stomach with a caption about how much she hates herself and wants to lose weight came up on my feed. Frankly since this is tumblr I'm not sure if that's porn or self-harm, but either way, fuck off with that shit, man! I kinda hate my body too and I don't wanna see that!! I don't want that in my brain!! Hence why I quit and went to ig-only for a while. My IG is all pottery and miniatures and painting and European travel vlogs it's so PEACEFUL!

now onto the fun stuff, a list of things I consider interesting that happened in the past 3ish weeks:

have done a whole lot of reading lately: Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh which is weird and off-putting by very worth reading, then a reread of the Unicorn series by Vicki Blum (always a delight) and finishing Princess Jellyfish (there's quite the plot twist in the last few books but overall it's a delightful series), then my hold for Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk came up (extremely interesting and worthwhile read, especially after listening to the No Dogs in Space punk series, very sad ending though bc of course a lot of the punk musicians passed away young), and now I'm rereading The Mermaid's Secret and The Dragon Prince by Vicki Blum as a palate cleanser, and then hopefully I'll start the LoTR reread I've been meaning to do for a while. So yeah I read like 16 books in 3 weeks. this is the power of quitting social media.

Also I've kinda discovered that I'm just pretty... disenchanted with all book-fandoms online. it's just so...kinda annoying? nowadays? just the same old drama over and over and I don't caaaare lol. Read what you want, at whatever speed you want, idc, none of it matters. I read for funsies after work. Some people read 24/7 because being a book blogger is their career. Some people are 17 and still have the mental stamina to read a 500 page book in 2 days. Idgaf if you read Maas or Austen or Sanderson or whatever, there's no moral high ground (except maybe not giving Sanderson money bc WOW BYU is a shitty organization). Also I don't necessarily want other people's opinions on what I read or if a book I just bought has "mixed reviews" or whatever (unless the person is a mutual whose opinions I value lol). So I might start posting on the book blog again but just....not interact with booklr. Torn between the desire to communicate with others and the desire to keep my hobby all to myself and free from unnecessary judgement or bullshit.

Finally rearranged my bookshelves, by ~vibe or whatever~. Might post photos tomorrow but the living room is once again in a state of chaos since I started gardening today.

On that note, started my garden! planted some veggies, herbs, and a whole boatload of tomatoes in seedling trays (listen, MacKenzie seed were on sale 3/$5 today at the store and I'm weak for weird tomato variants and herbs. Still need to find rosemary and fennel though). Have more stuff to do, but I'm going to give the seedlings a couple weeks to get started and then maybe plant everything else Easter weekend. Last year was nice, garden-wise, but this year I really hope we don't get 30C weather in May. My allergies cannot handle it 😭

saw the Alien/Aliens double feature our cheap theatre put on and it was a DELIGHT

we also got a record snowstorm that weekend, which sucked bc it was the same week I'd had a random friday booked off (previously for traveling with my aunt, very glad that was cancelled now) so I basically did none of the other things I had planned.

also after said double feature, had to make my first 911 call. luckily I rot my brain with true crime All Day Every Day so I handled it like a pro 😤 (i am fine it was for another person, and uh, it turned out to not be so serious once the emergency people were able to get them to stop crying hysterically and realized this poor person was just intoxicated, underdressed for the weather, and a bit lost)

discovered the health foods store near my place has a bunch of funky herbal teas for like $5.50 a box so I've been going a little nuts there. I LOVE FENNEL TEA IT'S SO GOOD. ALSO LAVENDER MY BELOVED! they also have a bunch of local coffee blends, and I'm seriously considering getting a coffee bean grinder so I can try them

saw Lisa Frankenstein the week after the Alien double feature at that same theatre, it was fucking excellent I laughed my ass off, also at that theatre you can get your ticket and snacks and drink for the same price as a Cineplex ticket, it's excellent

finally watched Saltburn, which was great. love the Donna Tartt vibes. i watched it while somewhat drunk off Soju, which I think is how it's meant to be viewed.

also started a Ghibli rewatch, to justify not cancelling my Netflix just yet (I know I know, I should but I technically can afford it and it's my emotional support streamer you know? how else am I going to instantaneously watch Gilmore Girls on a bad day?) So far I have only watched Kiki's Delivery Service lol

Also, funny anecdote: last week I got my period and was VICIOUSLY craving alcohol. like I went to the store and bought the most bizarre range of random things (soju, honey jack, and mead...and then proceeded to drink them at my normal rate lmao). Realized afterwards this is a combination of my usual craving for sweet things + my very stressed coworker constantly joking about how we need to crack a bottle of something when this stressful project is finished. At the time however I thought my uterus was trying to make me an alcoholic.

Did my budgeting with my new rent and discovered that I'm actually fine, because I had DOUBLED A NUMBER SOMEHOW! and I basically had $150/month freed up. I'm so smart. I continue to procrastinate my income tax though (shhhh I have another month....)

Started writing a vague story about two women hiking to a portal to elfland, which is located near an abandoned train station. There are cultists called vampires living at said train station who are such a fucking delight to write (not real bloodsucking vampires tho, they are currently eating paella 🥘). It's fun and weird and I'm having a good time with it.

started listening to a podcast called No One Should Believe Me about cases involving Munchausens by Proxy, which is very interesting. the host has a sister with (alleged) MbP and genuinely wants to get her (and of course her kids) help, so it's actually a really good, compassionate take on an issue that's usually played for shock value. I have to listen to it slowly though bc it's Heavy

started knitting again! made 1 dishcloth and started a second. have decided I'm going to take these into work when I have a few done. If my boss won't buy us proper cloths then I'll pawn my knitting practice off on them lol

there is a lot of early road construction near my office since, aside from that random snowstorm, it's been a mild early spring. be glad you haven't had to listen to me rant about that lol

finally bucked up and got a duvet cover for my comforter that was lowkey falling apart at the seams. it's a good comforter aside from some light "my washer is evil" damage so I'm happy I can stuff it into a (less expensive) duvet cover instead of having to replace the whole thing

#hey hi hello #also goodbye and goodnight if my sober self decides to not redownload this app tomorrow #i will probably post less and interact less than usual and i apologize but you know how it is. #i feel SO MUCH BETTER when im just doing my irl stuff during the day and only on socials during certain times

[bluepuppethidinginafilingcabinet]

here we go again y’all

guess what guys it’s time for another episode of puppet history and my good student note taking.

right off the bat. chains on the box. yelling about said box. suspicious box.

also i have a feeling that brian david gilbert being here to win isn’t gonna end well for him. sad.

shade being thrown at new york

i love a good defenestration

charles university is in fact a boring name.

i feel like the professor being so chill about ryan calling him a douchebag was odd

i would hate to be found dead in my bathrobe

yeet out the window indeed

yes ryan we do have a word for throwing people out windows

example window scares me

why’d the professor seem a little distraught about the idea of being thrown out the window. i feel like normally he’d just threaten right back. this is odd. i might just be paranoid.

classic too many popes problem

no i do not know the name of the most important czech religious reformer of the 15th century.

welp none of those options seem more obvious than the others

why are they making the professors head larger and larger. i’m scared.

i do think that this guy has some really good point

that was a good chip joke. 12/10

“oh, yeah you murdered someone, well pay me 50 bucks and you can still go to heaven” is the same energy as “oh, you murdered someone? you got 40 bucks?” from the keddie cabin episode of unsolved

so true ryan bergara. you did not successfully murder anyone. or have you?

i don’t think jesus wanted people to die martyrs.

i love a good ritz cracker

too many jans

so true professor. everyone is exactly as they seem.

i mean showing up to church armed is certainly a choice.

um professor. heh. yeah. that is wild. can’t imagine that happening. at all. nope.

i love just throwing a bunch of people out a window

example window is still scary

thud from behind the theatre. was that supposed to be suspicious or was it just strange.

agreed not enough kicking pits.

honestly ryan as president would not be the worst president the us has had. not by a long shot.

is that the isaac newton puppet???

horse noises horse noises???? that’s not right. also i thought she was also dead????

also did the horses go to limbo when they died? because they were alive. i have so many questions.

the ad was uhhh something else

why defenestration? because why not

i love being drowned impaled and crushed by a wheel

i don’t know what creatively gruesome way i’d want to go. maybe i’ll come back to this.

i suppose being hurled out a window could be embarrassing.

dude being thrown off a church’s steeple would suck so hard

catholic lion brunch sounds like a nice little sunday activity

THEY BEHEADED TWELVE PEOPLE???? THATS SO MUCH WORK

you know maybe defenestration was the only thing they knew

mayor tossed out window? meh.

yeah why would you kill the person then throw them out the window???

oh boy here we go again

ah yeah that hot new sound of broken glass

yeah keep destroying stuff. that’ll end well.

great. good. mock trials.

aw nice upstairs.

ah fuck

i really do not like the example window

taking the hats is rude but also very funny tbh

“we’ll soon see if his mary helps him out” a banger of a line

very impressive to survive that fall.

b for blunder.

OH NO NOT THE BEES AND THE BASKETBALLS. PROFESSOR THATS NOT THE JOKE. PLEASE.

they really fell into literal shit

why did the professor sound weird.

there does seem to be a lot of piles of shit just laying around

almost martyr is in fact a really useless title

yay another war! - said no one ever

i hope this war isn’t 80 years long

oh good it’s not

BUT WHERE IS MY C DOGS BUT DAMMIT

we’re back to bathroom guy

i highly doubt that’s the last defenestration ever

oh boy musical number time

not the window

oh yeah just an angry mob. it’s fine.

really appreciate the emoticons in the lyrics

ryan looks concerned in a different way than usual

banger as per usual shane, congrats.

oh oh boy oh no

THE ALGORITHM ACTUALLY EXISTS???????

also the professor be glitching

lmao not the soaring performance

the professor out here ignoring the algorithm

oh boy it’s the puppet crème again. it scares me. especially the spelling crème like that

ryan lost the auction against connie huh? fucking connie.

the professor’s little head tilting

also he’s failing to lie so hard

oh yay i love the weird little voice change. not uncomfy at all.

aw ryan drives him home

uh huh normal work. sure.

why are there jelly beans all over the fucking floor of the theatre

love a staring contest with the moon

oooo not the flashback

okay egg. egg hatching.

shane what are you up to. what’s going on. i have so many questions.

#watcher #watcher entertainment #we are watcher #all hail the watcher #ryan bergara #shane madej #puppet history #puppet history season 5 #the professor #brian david gilbert

[druid-boy-punk]

you know, i’m honestly against people using AI in place of creativity and work even if it’s freelance stuff. I get the appeal, I really do, but having AI replace all creative work it’s just going to suck. 

I have gotten to a point where I can immediately recognize an AI generated photo, drawing, or fanfic, because something about it is inherently repetitive, it feels so randomized and calculated all at the same time. It literally feels like how plastic tastes and smells.

Manufactured.

But I feel like we should all collectively not use most of our energy on addressing the problem among us freelance and small creators. 

why?

because like I am so fucking scared to just have to sit through any movie that was made from ai.

I am so fucking scared to have to walk through an art exhibit and it’s only filled with AI generated paintings.

I am so fucking scared to look online to only see a I generated drawings.

I’m so fucking scared that the only thing that we will ever get ever again is just blended up original creative work processed and shaped into looking like something new.

I’m afraid that everything we will ever consume again is going to never be new.

I understand that this probably won’t happen but at the same time it is so discouraging as a creative to just go online and see more ai generated shit be more gratifying to people and our consumerist structured algorithms. 

This is why I just want to quit any other social media except Tumblr is because their algorithm is so demanding of creative as it is. I’m not here to sell my art to you, i’m not here to fucking conform my art to what gets me the most likes, I fall in and out of things and with the help of friends I can make more consistent projects happen.  if I am here to sell my art, I will tell people that I’m here to sell my art, and that’s it.

but that’s different than being controlled by an algorithm that demands me to burn myself out for its profit. 

I get it, I really do. It’s gratifying to get big numbers from a lot of people on social media for your creative work, but it’s even more gratifying to be able to create something that other people can interact with that is graspable in concepts and meanings and emotions, because I made it.

I put time into my art.

that’s the best part.

And that’s what is at risk with ai generated creative works. 

It is about keeping creatives in jobs, but it also so much more than that. It’s about losing anything original that comes from someone’s deepest depths.

Hey maybe I’ll change my mind one day.

But before that day please please boycott any big corporation creative works that had used ai.

Keep protesting for creatives to keep their jobs.

and keep being patient and educating people who don’t understand how harmful ai generated creative work can be.

Peace and love

#anti ai writing #anti ai art #anti ai music #anti algorithm #rambling #serious post

[versegm]

A beginner's guide to tumblr

So you did it. You decided to check out this hellsite everyone keeps mentioning and made a tumblr account. Welcome! Now, the question is: how the fuck does this website works? How do you find people to follow? Are there any social rules you need to watch out for?

Here is a brief post to help you getting started.

Your dash

Your dash, your feed, your tl, call it however you want: the things you see when you open up tumblr, basically. Your dash will feature the following things:

Stuff posted by the blogs you follow

Stuff reblogged by the blogs you follow

The occasional ball-shaving ad if you’re American

All in chronological order. That’s it. No algorithm, no showing off posts that are in people’s likes, nothing. Just what you signed up for. That is the website’s main selling point.

But, you ask, how do I find people to follow? Well no worries, I gotcha.

Tags and search system on tumblr

You see that search bar up there? You can use it to, surprise surprise, look shit up. If you type up “blorbo” in there, the search function will return to you a bunch of posts that feature the word “blorbo” in the tags or in the body of the post. You can sort these posts by most recent, or by most popular.

I’m gonna be honest with you. No one really knows how the search function works. But it’s always a good starting point to find people who create the kind of content you want to see. One cool thing about the search function is that it will only show you original posts. Someone reblogged a post and added an annoying comment? Only the original post will show up, not the comments. You’re looking up a ship and someone’s url happens to be that ship name? You’ll only see the posts featuring your ship.

That search function is also why you will see older users censor the names of various shows/characters/ships when they’re salting about them. It’s a courtesy to ensure their posts won’t show up in the search function, since most people who look up “somethingsomethingshipping” are here to see ship art, and not random user #34 talk about how much they hate this ship. I encourage you to do the same; if you want to bitch about how this character is soooo overrated, by all means, please do! But censor the bloke’s name so their fans won’t accidentally run into your post.

Okay. Now we’ve covered the search system. But what if you only want to see posts tagged with a certain thing? Not “the tags include x” but solely the stuff with a singular tag about it.

Well don’t you worry! We got you covered. Just type in the url “tumblr.com/tagged/[whatever you wanna look up]” and the whole tag will be open for you!

TL;DR:

Use the search bar (or tumblr.com/search/blorbo) and you will find posts that are tagged “omg look at my blorbo” and such.

Use the tag function (tumblr.com/tagged/blorbo) and you will solely find posts tagged “blorbo”.

Tags and search system on personal blogs

So here’s a secret about the tags and search function: all that shit I just told you about tumblr? It also works on people’s personal blogs.

As you’re probably aware, you can see someone’s tumblr within tumblr itself, or you can look them up directly by typing “[username).tumblr.com” And if you do just that, the tags and search functions also work here!

[username].tumblr.com/search/blorbo will return a bunch of posts this user has posted or reblogged that contain that word. It also works in mysterious ways, but it’s always a good start if you’re trying to find content or blogs to follow or whatever.

[username].tumblr.com/tagged/blorbo will return all the posts this user has tagged as such. How effective that is really depends on how the blog owner uses them. Usually you will see artists tag stuff as “my art” or similar stuff, which is how you can binge someone’s entire art blog easily. Even if it’s been posted years ago, if it’s been properly tagged, you can still easily unearth it and get the engagement going.

Likes

You can like post by clicking on the little heart button. It will add it to your list of likes, on tumblr.com/likes. The op will get a notification that you liked their post.

That’s about it. Personally I use likes as personal bookmarks of posts I need to look at later. They don’t really do much aside from that. 

Reblogs

Reblogs! The bread and butter of tumblr. Reblogging means sharing someone’s post on your own blog while keeping a link to the original poster. Anyone who follows you (or manually checks out your blog) will see that post. Reblogs are what get the engagement going, which is why you’ll often see artists talk about how “reblogs > likes” and such. 

You can reblog something directly, or you can add it to your queue, and it’ll be posted automatically at set intervals. If you see someone’s posts being tagged with “queue” or the likes, it’s probably because that post was queued.

Speaking of tags! You can add tags to the posts you reblog. That way you can organize your blog as you wish. It’s also useful for blacklisting purposes. For exemple, if I know one of my friends who follows me is triggered by pancakes, and op didn’t tag it because they’re a background element of their painting, I can tag “pancakes” so my friends can filter it and not see it.

You can also add comments to the posts you reblog, but I advise you not to do that. When and how it’s socially acceptable to comment on posts is subject to social rules no one agree on, and honestly it warrants its own how-to post. In case of doubt, if you want to add something to a post, add it in the tags. Wanna compliment op? Say it in the tags. Wanna talk about a funny anecdote related to what op wrote? Add it in the tags. The tags are your best friends. On tumblr everyone babble in the tags. It’s a non-intrusive way to add your grain of salt to posts.  

TL;DR

Use tags to find shit you like. Use tags so others can find your shit. If you like something, reblog it. Use tags to comment on the shit you’ve reblogged, and check the tags of your posts to see people’s comments on them. Have fun.

There are a ton of features and extra details I didn’t talk about here cuz I wanted to keep it short, but that should give you a good idea of how to get started if nothing else. Also, general disclaimer that I’m not The Authority On Tumblr ™, I’m merely some guy who’s been in their own corner of tumblr for a very long time. I’m sure plenty of people will reblog this post with their own inputs on how to reblog and tag ect ect. As with any social space you want to join, I encourage you guys to lurk and observe how people behave & talk to each other here to get a better grasp on how shit works. Godspeed, have fun!

#tumblr