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avaantares · 1 year

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Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

#fanfiction #ao3 #piracy #dmca #pirated fanfic #please signal boost #i'm mad but also laughing that my dmc fanfic is now a 'number one best selling novel' lol #i'm also a traditionally-published author #so this is both hilarious and deeply insulting to me

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traegorn · 1 year

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So there's a thing that a lot of tumblr users don't know about -- older ones because it didn't used to be like this, and newer ones because... they're new?

Anyways -- one of the biggest pains of Tumblr is that finding old posts can be hard. The search is terrible, and is overall useless. The easiest solution to this has always been that you can go through your "archive" -- for example here's mine: https://traegorn.tumblr.com/archive

Notice how that URL starts with my username. Longtime users will be like "Of course it does. That's your Tumblr URL." But here's the thing -- a lot of new accounts don't have that. Like, if you type it in (minus the /archive part) it kinda works still -- but it redirects you from username.tumblr.com to tumblr.com/username. And from there, the archive function does not work.

You see, to make your "Tumblr Blog" an actual, well, blog you have to turn it on manually now.

To do that, on the web, go to your blog settings and find this one:

Turning on "custom theme" will enable your blog to function and give you all the features.

Now there are reasons some folks might not want to do this. First off, that does mean sites like Google will be able to spider your blog and things can end up on public searches. If you don't want your Tumblr activity public do not turn it on. That's a choice I leave up to you. But, like, also... I've seen Tumblr accounts ostensibly set up to promote people's works but not have this turned on making the audience they're trying to reach less likely to find them.

But this is a thing that used to always be on. I found out one of my old sideblogs had it turned off that I never wanted it to be set that way. The choice is yours, do what you want.

I'm not your mom.

#tumblr

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timeflow · 11 months

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good evening reddit users, welcome to the website. not seen one of these that tells you how to make this website bearable so here goes

starting off with dashboard settings you want to turn off endless scrolling (it slows down the website after a while of scrolling), turn off shorten long posts because one of the main things about this website is the total lack of a character limit (as an alternative to this setting, you can press j to skip to the next post on the dashboard if the current one is kind of long). turning on timestamps is convenient because it allows you to check when a post was made (don't get me wrong: this website absolutely LOVES reblogging old posts, but there are times when it's worth checking if a post has very old news in it)

turn off best stuff first right away. one of the main reasons cited for joining tumblr is because "there is no algorithm". this is not entirely true, we have one but we routinely turn off anything algorithmic that staff adds. turning off best stuff first means your dashboard will be reverse chronological no matter what, and turning off based on your likes and stuff in your orbit will get rid of the rest of the algorithmically-recommended content that appears on your dashboard

following tags is nice because you will occasionally see posts with tags you follow sprinkled into your dashboard. this is considered good because it's almost always recent, I personally recommend turning on include followed tag posts and just following a bunch of random tags that you think could be interesting (characters, media, topics, whatever)

this one's a more personal thing but I would absolutely turn off any community labels because tumblr staff has recently been just putting a bunch of random posts under this despite being entirely sfw. if you ACTUALLY want to filter content, then go to filtered tags:

unlike the community labels which are put arbitrarily by staff, tags are put on by the actual users and so you can MUCH more reliably filter out content you don't want to see by putting filtered tags. this also works for any kind of content unlike the community labels, meaning you can just filter out stuff that you don't want to see (a particular character, a particular piece of media, a certain topic, anything you want really)

turn on custom theme immediately. the standard view of tumblr.com/url will give people who are not logged in a forced login wall, meanwhile url.tumblr.com will not. by doing this you also get access to your post archive at url.tumblr.com/archive, which lets you look through your posts more easily (the search function is awful). the main benefit of this, however, is that you get to have a custom look to your blog: going to edit theme brings up a menu that allows you to customize your css, add pages to your tumblr blog, etc. all very useful stuff

it's also worth taking the time to consider whether or not you leave your liked posts and list of blogs you follow public (most people have likes turned off, following is also commonly turned off but I personally don't care about others seeing who I follow)

turn off the let people blaze your posts. blaze basically allows you to pay money to show a post to a random group of people by paying money, suffices to say that allowing others to blaze your posts without your consent will inevitably lead to one of your personal posts getting blazed by some prick and now hundreds of people have seen it

asks are one of the main ways of interacting with blogs so absolutely turn them on. whether you allow anons is your choice, anonymity allows people to say nice things without feeling embarrassed about how everyone knows who said that, but it also allows people to send hateful stuff with no consequence.

submissions are like whatever. I personally leave them on but in my 5 years of having this blog I've been submitted to twice.

to close off this post I'll leave my personal thoughts on reblog etiquette:

reblogging is great. reblog the fuck out of anything. does the post amuse you slightly? reblog it. go wild

that being said please don't put anything in your reblogs unless it's like a really important comment. your comment will be immortalized forever if someone reblogs the post from you and on popular posts I have to constantly go back a couple years to get rid of an annoying comment like "LOL THIS IS SO FUNNY" because that person didn't realize that their addition was wholly unnecessary

if you DO want to add something to say your thoughts on the post in a quiet voice that doesn't get permanently added onto the original, consider talking in the tags of your reblog. this is considered nicer since when the post is reblogged from you your tags are not going to stick around. there is also this process known as "peer review" in which if your tags are sufficiently funny one of your followers (or sometimes a random person browsing the notes of the post) will screenshot/copy and paste your tags into a reblog, which is a much more natural way of having your comment added into the post

tags are also nice to use or organizational purposes. clicking on a post with a certain tag on your blog will show you every post with that tag on your blog allowing you to find posts later, alternatively you can go to url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/[insert tag here] to a similar effect.

that's all I have to say on this subject. have fun on our glorious website

edit: oh yeah also unfollow staff. it will make you look normal 👍

#reddit migration #reddit #196 #r/196 #r196 #curatedtumblr #r/curatedtumblr #think those are all the relevant ones. hi redditors btw #r/tumblr

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pleasanttaleswithkaityb · 3 months

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How to Create a Structured Navigation Page on Tumblr: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

Creating a navigation page helps moots stay up today on your posts, especially stories or series on your Simblr. Below are the steps I used to help me organize and create my navigation system!

What Does "Mobile-Friendly" Mean?

A mobile-friendly navigation page keeps users within their Tumblr app while they explore your links. This ensures a smooth user experience for those primarily using Tumblr on mobile devices. To achieve this: - Use links that are generated within the Tumblr app or dashboard viewer. - Avoid using direct URL links from a web browser, as they may redirect mobile users from the Tumblr app. - You can test the links yourself on the Tumblr app to make sure they open correctly without redirecting out of the app.

Step 1: Planning Your Content

Before creating your page, plan the content and sections you want to include. Think about categories like:

Household stories

Series updates

Character profiles

FAQs

Gameplay guides

Mods and CC (Custom Content)

Step 2: Pinning Your Main Navigation Post

To ensure that your navigation is the first thing visitors see, you can pin a post on your Tumblr blog. Here's the process:

Write Your Navigation Post: Create a post with all your navigation links and information. This post will serve as the main guide for visitors to your blog.

Pin the Post: - Open your Tumblr dashboard. - Navigate to the post you want to pin. - On the top right of the post, click the "..." (more) button. - From the dropdown menu, select "Pin this post to the top of your blog".

Set Pin Duration: Decide how long you want the post pinned.

Check Your Blog: Visit your Tumblr blog to ensure the post is pinned at the top.

By pinning your main navigation post, you make it easy for followers and visitors to understand how to explore and enjoy your content right from the start.

Step 3: Organize Your Tags

Establish a tagging system that works for you and be consistent. For example here are some of mine:

Use #the[lastname]household for family-specific posts.

Tag seasonal stories with #fall1, #winter1, etc.

Create special tags for FAQs, such as #askkaityb for questions.

Step 4: Create Hyperlinks

Transform tags into clickable links that lead to filtered content:

- Write out your tags in your blogs search bar - Click a tag, the page should change to all your post with that tag. you're going to copy the URL and hyperlink that to your navigation post (for example here what mine looks like: https://www.tumblr.com/pleasanttaleswithkaityb/tagged/pleasantview%20legacy) - Repeat for each tag you plan to use.

Step 5: Design and Layout

Make your navigation page visually appealing:

Use headers to denote different sections. Consider adding icons or images for visual interest. Keep the layout clean and readable.

Step 6: Publish and Promote

Once you’re happy with the page:

Make sure to publish or reblog your new navigation page in a post to inform your followers.

Step 7: Maintenance

Regularly check your navigation page to reflect new content and ensure all links work. Now, anytime you tag a post with your hashtags, that link's thread will automatically be updated!

Tips:

Keep your audience in mind. Use clear, descriptive titles for your links.

Update your navigation page regularly as you add new content.

Encourage feedback. Ask your followers if they find the navigation page helpful.

Feel free to customize this guide to match your blog's specifics and needs. Let me know if y'all have found any of your own tips & tricks for creating your navigation system! Happy simming!

@bambiwhims - Hope this helps :3

#new simblr #simblr #simblr help #how to organize #tagging system #ask kaity b #kaity b answers #kaity b resources

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ao3commentoftheday · 6 months

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sorry if it is wrong place to ask. it's about some japanese fandoms that have 2 or more media (anime & manga) eg jujutsu kaisen, demon slayer, etc. when crossover exclude is selected, unrelated fandoms are removed but it also gets rid of fics that use two media tags. it isn't hlpful when, like, 80% fics that use those tags. i have over 130 tags excluded and it's causing problems like slow load and doesn't appear in my history. how do this problem get solved effectively? like, it keeps fics with those 2 media tags while unrelated fandoms are out. i did ask support while back but their answer is disappointing and doesn't solve problem. sure, some anime that don't follow manga like first fullmetal alchemist anime but anime adaptions being excluded from main fandom tag don't make sense. "[fandom name] manga & anime" doesn't work either. sorry for rant.

The way the "crossover" include/exclude filter works is it basically just looks to see how many fandoms are tagged on a work. 1 fandom tag means no crossover. 2+ fandom tags means crossover.

In situations like you're talking about where there is a manga fandom tag and an anime fandom tag, they'll always be considered "crossovers" from the perspective of the filter.

(any AD&T volunteers can correct me if I'm wrong on my understanding here, btw)

If you want to be able to see search results for both the anime fandom and the manga fandom at the same time, you'll need to set up a specific filter for them. I'll use Jujutsu Kaisen as the example. If you're doing this on mobile, you'll likely want a notepad open to help with the copy/paste aspect of it.

Go to the Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) fandom tag. At the top of the page, you'll see a bunch of buttons. Click on the RSS feed button. This will either open a new page for you or download a text file. It will look like a bunch of code, but all you need to find is about 5 or 6 lines down where it has this URL https://archiveofourown.org/tags/28410929/feed.atom

From that URL, copy the number after tags/. That's the tag ID number.

Do the same for Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime). Now you have two tag ID numbers. You're going to combine both of those into this:

fandom_ids: 28410929 OR fandom_ids: 49281637

Then you can go into whatever your favourite tag is - for example, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence put those fandom IDs into the Search Within Results box of the filter menu, and when you sort and filter, you'll have results with all of the Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence fics in the Jujutsu Kaisen fandom that are tagged with either Manga or Anime or both. You won't have to filter out crossovers, either, because all of your results with have just those fandoms.

You can also do this with character_ids and relationship_ids, and you can keep adding OR in between to add as many of them as you'd like. The filter menu does have some theoretical maximum for how many you can add on, but I've never personally hit it.

#asks and answers #i hope this answers the question?#but if not then please ask again #long post #how to ao3

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moghedien · 3 months

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So someone is in your inbox asking for money

I'm not going to say that every single instance of this happening is a scam, but in my experience, random people following you and then sending you an ask to ask you to reblog a post or donate, they are almost always a scam.

You may feel bad about ignoring them or deleting the ask, but doing so is probably going to be the best course of action. Not only so that YOU don't lose money but so that you don't give the scammer access to you followers.

But how could you know that the person is a scam and not the one instance where someone really needs help? Let's go over some ways to check for signs of a scammer.

this is the post I got in my inbox today. I've personally never dealt with this particular version, so I didn't immediately delete. I probably wouldn't have reblogged anyway, but I wanted to look into this specifically.

The first thing to do is go on their blog. In this instance, the post they want me to reblog is pinned, and it also has a donation link. I'm NOT going to click on the link because there is no indication at all to what this might lead to and I'm going to instead hover over link and see what url pops up

in this instance, the url shows me that I'm going to be redirected to paypal. IMMEDIATELY a sign that this is a scam. people can still scam with gofundme and other sites like that, sure, but at least with those sites, there is some accountability in that you can see if the donation goal is being met or not. with paypal, you're just blindly donating, assuming that this donation amounts are what the person says they're at.

And also this is not to say that honest people can't use paypal for donations, sometimes that's the only option. But if you're going to donate to someone via paypal, you should at the very least be personally aware of who you're donating to and that they are an actual person.

But let's look deeper just in case. The next thing to do is look for other sketchy signs on the blog. So I scrolled through to see what they were blogging about otherwise, and there were red flags here.

Just glancing through the blog, I could see that they almost exclusively posted about Taylor Swift and the Mandalorian. They posted A LOT within the past day (this is why you should have times enabled btw) and exclusively from the same four or fives blogs.

But maybe they just post a lot. You can actually very easily see their posting habits by looking at their archive.

We're going to go to the three dots and click "view archive"

You can also just type in "[username].tumblr.com/archive" for any blog and access anyone's archive as long as they have a public account. But what's the point of doing that. Well, in the archive, we can get a very quick overview of someone's posting habits.

And here I've circled in red the first and last thing this blog has posted in the month of February 2024 (the month I'm writing this). You can see that both of those posts were posted on the same day. Meaning all of their posts in the entire month of February happened on the same day.

But what about posts outside of February 2024?

Well there are none

You can sort posts by month and year and doing so for this blog shows that they ONLY posted in February 2024 and ONLY one day in February and it happened to be the day before I got an ask in my inbox asking for donations.

These are the most obvious tells, but there are other signs you can look out for.

For instance, all of their posts are without any sort of tags. They never comment on anything and their only original post was their one asking for donations. If you click on the search function in their blog, nothing comes up

There's also the fact that the blog is clearly targeting at making the people who WOULD care about someone needing insulin sympathetic. The fact that they use BLM, identify as a black man, have pronouns in their bio all are on purpose to make people who might care feel like this is a person who deserves help. the scammer is using your empathy against you. DON'T LET THEM. Be smart and always always think before you act, even if that action is just posting. You can help people in need without feeding the vultures that want to take advantage and want to use YOU to steal from your community

But let's just be REALLY REALLY sure this is a scam.

On whim, I copied the text straight from the ask in my inbox and put into google and then added "tumblr' at the end. You'll be shocked to know there were immediate results and not from this blog

First one was a reblog from over a year ago. the exact same wording minus the cost of the insulin and the call to action at the end

I clicked on the original poster for this and the blog was cleared out!

Minus them using the exact same photograph in their header as the blog that sent me an ask today, of course.

The second instance I found was slightly different wording, but using similar enough wording that it can be assumed came from the same scammer. This came from another ask in an inbox, but the receiver rightly called them out as a scam. The post is from two months ago and the blog that asked it as been deleted outright

All of this to say, there are always scammers on tumblr, but there have been a lot recently. This one happened to not be posing as Palestinians in need, but a lot are (in that instance, Palestinian bloggers have been vetting who is and isn't real so you can always check to see if they're getting support or getting called out from actual Palestinians). They won't always use these methods and won't always been this obvious, so even if you don't donate to someone yourself ALWAYS be thorough in your checking before you reblog a donation post. Make sure the charity its collecting for is REAL and if its a person asking for money, make sure that person is real as well.

You can help people without getting scammed or giving scammers access to your followers, and not reblogging every donation post doesn't make you a bad person or mean you don't care. Its important to be careful, and not being careful can do more harm than good. it makes actual people in need look sketchy and takes away resources that could have been given to them. So if you aren't sure if something is real DO NOT REBLOG IT

#long post

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all-hallows-street · 9 days

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All Saints Street Extra Comics Translations 1-3

Apologies for the delay! We are finally publishing translations for the All Saints Street manhua.

We will be uploading them on this drive for now and later upload to mangadex. I will have to ask you to NOT SHARE this drive PUBLICALLY, feel free to share it privately.

Example of what to do: sending the drive link to friends on discord.

Example of what not to do: posting the drive link to twitter. We are going to start with some older extras that were never translated to get a good idea for a workflow and fix problems as they rise. After that we are going to prioritize translating chapters 486-500 (why? well, if you know you know) so we can also start working on simultaneous text translations for new chapter releases. What I mean by this is that as soon as a new chapter comes out, we can upload an english text translation alongside it, like the japanese translation team does now.

Here is an example with the bonus comics:

I am also hoping this will be a good accessibility feature. Likewise, I am releasing to the public the table I translated from the japanese group. It is a rough Work-In-Progress table, but for me it has been an invaluable whenever I have to look up a certain chapter. I even made a search engine to look up chapters by character appearance.

Meanwhile we will be going back and re-lettering chapters that have been translated by independent efforts and uploading them to Mangadex. We have obtained permission from both @saints-street-translated and @wan-sheng-jie for this! After that the translation will continue in two fronts: the comic translations from 501 onwards and releasing text translations for new comics.

Translating the whole manhua will be a looooong process. Right now, we have text translations for all extra comics, but the lettering has been going slow. That's why we are still open to more volunteers to join us for the role of cleaner/typesetter! You don't need qualifications or even software (we will get it for you cough), just time and a disposition to learn.

TL;DR

ASS manhua translation is resuming.

Older Extra comics will be translated first.

We will translate 486-500 ASAP.

We will release text translations for newer comics.

We will remake the translations for 405-485 to upload to MangaDex.

We need YOU to typeset the ASS comics into English!

#all saints street #1031 万圣街 #wan sheng jie #manhua #translation #translated manhua

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ridiasfangirlings · 2 days

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How to buy K merch in the Year 2024

I got several asks about this so rather than do each individually, I’ve decided to just make one big How to Buy K Merch in the Year 2024 post. I’m going to skip over the more obvious western sites like eBay and focus more on Japanese sites here. Because there hasn’t been much new K merch in some time keep in mind that most of what you will be looking for is secondhand, which means availability will vary.

Shopping Services

For some of these sites you will need a shopping service, so we’ll start there. This is by no means a comprehensive list of available shopping services, just ones I’ve used and liked.

FromJapan - This one is very straightforward — copy and paste the url of the item you want into their search bar. For anything in certain sites like Rakuten this will pull up a page that will give you the item and its price in your currency and you can just click add to cart. For other sites you may need to request a price quote, there’s a small form to fill out and they’ll get back to you on if they can order it. Timing depends on when you make the request. The nice thing about FromJapan is they will hold items for you for 45 days, so you can collect multiple purchases from multiple sites over time and have them all shipped at once. The bad side is that after 45 days they will discard your items, so keep an eye on when your oldest item arrived (you can see how long it’s been at their warehouse on your account page, and they will email you as the deadline gets close too).

Treasure Japan - Treasure Japan is a much smaller service than the others on this list but also the one I’ve used the longest. Being a smaller service means they tend to be more able to purchase items that might have seller restrictions, particularly from places like Mercari. Some listings when pasted into other shopping service sites will have a ‘cannot purchase from this seller’ warning, because some sellers don’t want to deal with shopping services. I haven’t had much trouble with this merchandise-wise, but when I’ve run into it with j-fashion Treasure Japan has been able to order when the bigger services couldn’t. Their site is set up so you will input different sites in different sections, there’s one for auction, one for ‘flea market’ (this will be places like Mercari) and one for shopping sites.

Buyee/Tenso - Buyee is a shopping service, Tenso is a forwarding service. They’re owned by the same parent company but are separate sites and you’ll need a separate account for each. Buyee is directly integrated with some sites like Mercari and Yahoo Japan, you can put in the url into their search bar and get a listing that you can buy immediately. Like FromJapan, any sites outside of the ones they’re integrated into will require you to request a quote (I found this more difficult with Buyee than FromJapan, personally) and they will sometimes be unable to purchase items. They will hold your items for 30 days at no charge, and you can request to consolidate packages for shipping.

Tenso, as I said above, is a forwarding service and somewhat more complicated. Basically when you sign up they will give you a Japanese address (presumably one of their warehouses) and you can then buy directly from Japanese websites, inputting the address you were given in the address field and paying with your own credit card. The items will be shipped to Tenso and from there you can have them sent to you. Obviously this is more complicated than a shopping service. I’ve used it mainly for things that didn’t involve an item being shipped (this is how I signed up for Fan Clan back in the day, for example, though my lottery goods were sent via Tenso too) or sites that require you to sign up to purchase from. I wouldn’t recommend it for any marketplace type site unless you’re fluent in Japanese, since sellers on those sites may try to communicate with you.

Stores

AmiAmi (no shopping service needed) - AmiAmi is mainly for new goods but I’ll mention it here anyway, in case K ever gets more merch. AmiAmi usually sells out on preorders, you place your order and they will let you know when the item arrives. You pay at that time. They do sometimes get used merch though so you can keep an eye out there, sometimes there will be decent deals on items that only have small flaws like the box being damaged.

Amazon Japan (may or may not need a shopping service) - Did you know overseas people can buy from Amazon Japan? You do now! You will need to make a new account, even if you have an Amazon account in your country. Whether you need a shopping service or not depends on the item. Anything sold directly by the company will likely not need a shopping service — the majority of my K manga and the stage plays were all bought directly from here, and when I was supplying raws for Countdown and LSW I was buying the magazines from here as well (I’ve also used it for Pokémon plushies and sewing books). If the item is being sold by a third party seller though you will likely need a shopping service. The site will tell you when you try to check out.

Surugaya EN (no shopping service required)/ Surugaya JP (shopping service required) - This is a secondhand shop and a great place to find merch. The main difference between the English site and the Japanese one is that the Japanese site has a larger selection (particularly doujinshi, and even more particularly spicy doujinshi). The English site periodically has free shipping sales so keep an eye out. Surugaya also has physical stores and will sometimes share merch between the store and the site so keep that in mind too, I have had items canceled before because they sold out in store and the listing hadn’t been updated yet.

Mandarake (no shopping service needed) - Another secondhand shop similar to Surugaya. I have not actually purchased from them myself and am not fond of their interface but I know people who have bought things from here. Like Surugaya they share stock with physical stores so something you want can sell out even after you’ve purchased.

Lashinbang (shoppng service required) - More secondhand shops. Lashinbang is rather small though so they don't always have much stuff, at least not for K.

CDJapan (no shopping service needed) - This is also better for new merch than secondhand but still worth a mention. I’ve found their prices tend to be worse than a lot of other stores though, this is more of a last resort for me.

Otaku Republic/Goods Republic (no shopping service needed) - Otaku sells doujinshi, Goods sells merch. The main draw is that these two are easy to search if you’re uncomfortable dealing with Japanese sites. I haven’t used them in quite a while but when I was buying from them they would send me free gifts with every purchase (my S4 cup came from them, as well as a bunch of clear file folders that I didn’t take pictures of because they’re being used as sewing pattern storage right now). The main downside is that while shipping is free over $50 they massively mark up the base prices to make up for it. I eventually stopped using this site because the shopping service was cheaper even with shipping and fees, you are paying for convenience. A lot of their ‘inventory’ is just listings from other sites including Surugaya, so check there first.

GoraShop (shopping service required) - This is Gora’s direct bookshop! They only have the season novelizations and Idol K books right now, as well as some Ayaka stuff.

Kinkurido (shopping service required) - This is the King Amusement Creative shop. All Memories was sold through this shop but is currently sold out, if they ever restock Gora will likely announce it on their Twitter. They do have some other small K goods available, including some CDs and artbooks (and Sarumi body pillows).

Marketplaces

Mercari Japan (Shopping service needed) - If you’ve ever used the English version of Mercari, here it is again but Japanese edition. You can find a lot of good used pieces here but prices are set by the individual seller so be wary of overpaying the first thing you find. Be sure to use a translator to look at the description in case you're buying a damaged item. Sometimes shopping services can try to negotiate the prices if you ask.

Yahoo Japan Auctions (shopping service needed) - Similarly as above, if you’re familiar with eBay this is fundamentally the same thing. Some shopping services will allow you to place last minute ‘sniper’ bids, and most will let you set a maximum bid and keep bidding on your behalf until that max is reached.

Shopping tips and things to know

The good news about buying from Japan right now: the yen is weak, so you can get deals! In the US, anyway. This may depend on your country so if you’re unsure on the exchange rate you can google “[your country’s currency] to yen exchange rate” and it should give you an approximate.

The bad news: shipping is killer. Keep that in mind, especially if you’re buying heavy items like bags or shoes (yes, K has those, there are several SuperGroupies collabs. If you want a S4 purse or Yata Misaki shoes keep in mind you will probably be paying through the nose for shipping). For the European types, you may have additional taxes too so be aware of your country’s import laws. Ditto when it comes to customs. For my fellow Americans, I have never had a customs issue even when buying fairly pricey dresses so you’re probably okay on that end but I can’t speak for other countries.

Character tax is real. Basically, more popular characters will likely have more expensive merch because there’s more demand — for example, Fushimi and Yata merch tends to be more expensive than, say, Silvers merch. Keychains and pins are usually cheaper than larger items like figures and standees either way though.

Most of the Japanese sites will need to be searched in Japanese. For character names, I suggest going to the K wiki and grabbing your favorite character’s name in kanji and using that to search. For pairings, while marketplace sites like Mercari may have listings under the pairing name sites like Suruga will use the two individual character names so you’ll want to search under that. If your browser doesn’t have an add on to translate that’s very helpful to grab in order to make your experience easier. For K itself, in general this is really the downside of having a favorite series with a one letter title. However, using ‘Missing Kings,’ ‘Return of Kings’ or ‘Seven Stories’ can be helpful here but will likely mostly turn up merch made for that specific season/movie.

If you want to look up something specific like a plush but don't know the Japanese word for it, Jisho can be helpful. Look up the kanji for the word you want and then copy-paste into your search. The downside is sometimes there are multiple words for the same thing or a word may be in kanji but people use the hiragana more often and you won't know, but it should get you on the right path to start.

On buying spicier goods: most shopping services have it in their terms that they will not buy adult items. In practice, however, this depends. I've had FromJapan refuse to buy perfectly tame G-rated doujinshi. Treasure Japan has in their terms that they won't ship adult items but like 70% of my doujinshi collection was purchased through them, with an R18 Sarumi book purchased as recently as last year. I've heard Buyee also states that they won't ship adult items but it's hit or miss if they turn down your order, and if you buy directly using Tenso they likely won't even open your package. Keep your country's laws regarding importing in mind, especially if you think customs might be likely to poke around in your package. Don't get in legal trouble just for spicy drawings.

Buying secondhand is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes it takes a while for what you want to show up, so just keep looking! When I was collecting my nui set I literally bookmarked the search for “K ぬい” (nui) on Mercari and checked every day or so, which may be more obsessive than you want but it does get the job done (I was molded in the merch search mines of trying to find lolita dresses that haven’t been sold for 10 years, so I’m used to this kind of thing). If you keep looking you may even find things you didn't know you needed, like this Sarumi bedsheet I forgot to add into my collection post.

Happy hunting!

#k project #Talking K #helpful guides #there are other stores I may have forgotten but this is most of what I use #if anyone has alternate sites feel free to put those in the comments #the good news is since K is less popular now the merch tends to be cheaper but the bad news is it's harder to find #you just have to keep looking #I can't believe I forgot my Sarumi bedsheet #it's because this is an older picture I'm not using it right now

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genericpuff · 3 months

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Okay, what the FUCK is Inklore?

My ULO pals and I have been deliberating on this one since it was announced. "Inklore", the brand new imprint from Random House Worlds - which is, in and of itself, an imprint of Penguin Random House - and Rachel Smythe Presents, an in-house program of sorts that's dedicated to graphic novels, specifically those that "tell updated, romantic versions of classic stories and mythologies, and caters to readers looking for bingeable, relationship-driven stories with a distinct visual voice."

Basically it's exactly how it sounds - they're creating an imprint for works like Lore Olympus, and using Rachel as the leading lady.

But let's dig a little deeper. Because the more I searched on Inklore, Rachel Smythe Presents, and Random House Worlds, the more it started to paint a picture of what's really going on here.

INKLORE

I talked about this in my recent analysis of LO's pacing problems, but Inklore launching in Spring 2024 conveniently lines up with what would seem like a reasonable end point for LO. Rachel's always lined up LO's episodes with real life dates and holidays - even when it's been at her comic's own expense - and while we've kept our minds open to the possibility that it could end later than Spring, there's no denying at this point that LO itself is dragging itself out, which gives me stronger reason to believe it's just trying to make it to March, specifically March 20th, which is the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere. Because of this, our best predictions right now is that LO's series finale will either release on FP or unlock for free readers on either the 16th or 23rd of March (if it unlocks for free on either of those dates, that means we can expect the series to end behind the FP paywall on either April 6th or 13th, assuming they're aren't any more hiatuses, but at this point I doubt there will be.)

Moving on, let's look at the actual Inklore site-

Already you can get the vibe of what kind of work they're looking for through their imprint. This is for people like Rachel. Now, I'm definitely not going to rag on anyone's tastes, I myself am a weeb of epic proportions, but considering you're about to see what's really the highlight of this site, you'll get what I mean when I say this isn't for people like Rachel, this is for people like Rachel. Specifically Rachel.

RACHEL SMYTHE PRESENTS

Inklore seems to be just an imprint specifically for Rachel Smythe Presents, with a couple extra series tacked on to give off the impression of it being more credible than it is. It means the whole site can be dedicated to it, rather than having it shoved in haphazardly alongside Penguin Random House's other works. You'll see what I mean in a second, but let's magnify those questions real quick, shall we?

As soon as I saw the "we are not accepting unsolicited pitches for Rachel Smythe Presents", it dawned on me that Rachel's own fans don't know how imprints work. Why do I say that? Look no further than the comment sections on her announcement posts for RSP (which I'm abbreviating, but I assure you, it stands for "Rachel Sex Party"- /j)

Of course, there are plenty of "congratulations" comments and "please do xyz myth", in which case, please, don't let her touch more myths I beg you-

But then there are also the odd comments of people asking how to get involved themselves. People who are just, by all accounts, regular people on the Internet.

But wait, how do you get involved? Thankfully there's a handy URL in that FAQ telling us how.

And holy shit, it's hilarious.

Guys, it's so easy to get into Rachel Smythe Presents! All you have to do is finish a manuscript, find an agent who's willing to work with a new unpublished author (and hope that they're not a scammer), get your manuscript prepared for publishing and submitted to editors, and then hopefully land a book deal! Wasn't that so easy?? Thanks for demystifying the process, Penguin Random House!

Listen, okay, there's something to be said about how difficult it is to navigate the publishing world. While some of those difficulties are for good reason - to ensure that not just any piece of crap thrown on paper can get published - many more are rooted in privilege, racial gatekeeping, and sexism. It is still an industry being run by a lot of nasty old fucks who take full advantage of people desperate enough to get their book published.

All that aside, it's kind of hilarious - in a sad kind of way - to see fans of this comic assume that this project and its opportunities were ever made for them. It wasn't. It wasn't made for the Canvas creators, it wasn't made for the Wattpad writers, it wasn't made for the people who work in the medium that Rachel started out in to get where she is today. It was made for the people who are already 3 of the 4 steps into Penguin Random House's "helpful" guide on publishing. It was made for the Cait Corrains and the wannabe Rick Riordans.

At best, Inklore is simply a home that's been manufactured for Lore Olympus after it's done on Webtoons. It may remain on the WT platform forever - or maybe not - but Inklore gives it a way to be seen and acknowledged outside of its niche. Because, despite Webtoons attempting to make Lore Olympus a global phenomenon, it really hasn't sold well in other countries, especially those where it was translated which people from those countries have stated it's not translated well at all.

It goes to show that much of LO's claim to fame was manufactured within North America by Webtoons itself, and Inklore is just another one of those manufactured attempts.

Still don't believe me? Still think I'm wearing too much tinfoil?

There are still only two series that Inklore has to show for itself - and remember, it launches in two months - and of course the ones leading that charge are every single volume of LO, even the ones that aren't "new and upcoming" anymore.

And then there's their Instagram, which is just more of the same-

(wonder if they ever found a Marketing Manager? Not exactly the role you want to be left empty leading up to a launch, oop-)

But wait, doesn't that site layout look a little... off? Almost cheap, maybe? Am I being too harsh-

Oop, nope, it's the exact same template used for the LoreOlympusBooks.com website.

Wait a minute, what about the imprint that Inklore is attached to? Random House Worlds?

RANDOM HOUSE WORLDS

... Uhhuh. I'm not entirely convinced that Lore Olympus is in any way on the same level as fucking Star Wars but to the average onlooker, this would make Lore Olympus seem pretty big and important simply on the virtue of it sitting smack dab in the middle of a grid of massive franchises.

So I'll bite, where do these buttons go? They all lead to external sites selling books and merchandise (except for the Marvel Studios one, which hilariously doesn't have a URL attached, so that button goes nowhere LMAO)

... Oh. It's that layout again.

Not all of them have the same layout, mind you, but it seems to be the default layout for sites they just haven't buffed up yet. It would explain why the Star Wars and D&D sites are a lot more robust in their designs, while others just link back to Penguin Random House:

Now the Minecraft one does look better at first glance, but it's still just the same template as the LO site, with a slightly different layout, but working off the same design philosophy, like they just spent a few extra hours dragging things around and spiffying them up in a site editor.

So it seems a lot of the default sites are working off the same CSS stylesheets, which doesn't exactly look good for LO and Inklore's online identity.

But hey, it's gotta mean something that LO is sitting alongside such franchises as Star Wars, Marvel, Magic the Gathering, and Minecraft, right? These are some of the biggest franchises on the planet, and while LO does make a lot of money, it's still nowhere near the billions that these franchises generate every single year.

And that's what I would be saying, if I hadn't noticed the specific products that Random House Worlds was selling - all easily churned out merch, from cookbooks to spin-off titles, which aren't exactly the main draw for these franchises, simply stocking stuffers or otherwise fun gimmicks to try out.

(I actually own the Dungeons and Dragons tarot deck. It's shit. They don't actually tell you the suit of the cards, JUST the numbers, so you have to flip through the book and match up the pictures on the cards with the pictures in the book just to figure out if it's Cups, Pentacles, Wands, or Swords, which I'm sure you can figure out, if you're a tarot reader, is very inconvenient and doesn't make for a good card reading experience)

Point is, Random House Worlds seems to mostly be an imprint dedicated solely to the cheaper products and books they can make to pump up a franchise's merch count. Even the Critical Role site doesn't offer the campaign books, those are published by their own personal imprint Darrington Press and are offered on their main - and much better designed - site:

Instead it's selling printed versions of interviews and... mad libs.

Not made or even really endorsed by the Critical Role cast, because if they were, they'd be on the main site, where the good shit is.

Random House Worlds is, at least judging off what I've found here, the "trick the parents into buying it" imprint. It's simply there for parents to see, go "my kid watches / plays that!" and then buy a Beholder puzzle which their kid will undoubtedly start and then never finish and eventually throw out half-finished after all the pieces have been lost. It's the cheap merch money generating machine, with works written by people who were simply paid to write it, and not people actually involved in the larger franchises.

And this is the imprint that Inklore and Rachel Smythe Presents is going to be an extension of.

At best, Inklore will likely just be a home for Rachel's work post-Webtoons, with maybe the odd success outside of it. At worst, it comes across as nothing more than an ego project, another artificial attempt to place Rachel and LO on the same playing field as Marvel, Minecraft, Star Wars, and Dungeons & Dragons through the only means that they can - an imprint that specializes in off-brand books, which they're truly counting on people just seeing the logos and going "wow those are big franchises!" and associating LO with that status simply by affiliation - without it having anywhere near the actual level of prestige, household influence, or brand recognition.

Its readership is dying out, its stats dropping, and worst of all, the vast majority of people - of which its a very small amount - who have heard about LO without being a Webtoons user themselves have heard how infamous it is in its bad writing and poor art direction.

It has nowhere to go but down, and if you were hoping to be a part of Rachel Smythe Presents, then all I can suggest to you is to go through the very simple process of finishing your manuscript, finding an agent, finding an editor, and then (hopefully) landing a book deal with the 'esteemed' Inklore.

Good luck! ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

#lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical #inklorebooks #inklore

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maarriiii · 9 months

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Call Me What You Like | Wilbur Soot

A/N: I wanted to watch his latest stream so I could get more context about the video but I’m too lazy lol. Enjoy this short little thing after me being on hiatus.

Summary: Wilbur told you about the Genius video that he did.

Pairing(s): CC!Wilbur Soot x gender neutral!reader

Warning(s): None

my masterlist :))

You were nothing but buzzing with enthusiasm as you frantically typed into the YouTube search bar, mumbling curses as you keep making typos. When the page finally loads once you hit enter and the search result came about, your eyes lit up at the sight of the top video. You immediately clicked on it and once the ad had passed, the familiar voice started talking.

“I’ve had a lot of names.” The person began. “I’ve gone by Wil, Wilbur, William, and people often say to me ‘what’d you want me to call you?’ and it’s just me saying ‘call me what you like.’”

On the other side of your phone screen—and the ocean—the owner of that familiar voice smiled as he heard himself talking and he smiled even wider as he watched your excitement watching the video, wide eyes and all.

“Oh my God. This is huge, Wil—I mean, Genius? Are you kidding me?” You said, practically beaming. “How long have you kept this a secret?”

Wilbur ruffled his hair and rubbed his eyes. “Been awhile actually. Thought I’d wait until the video came out before sharing the news.”

“I’m so happy for you and the guys.”

“Thanks, love.“ He said. “You don’t think I look...odd in that video right?”

You frowned, then looked back to your laptop trying to see something that you might’ve missed. When you didn’t find anything, you turned back to Wilbur.

“I don’t see anything weird. I mean, you do look a little tired.” You paused for a second, eyes widening when a thought appeared in your mind. “Wait. You’re not drunk in this right? You look a little hazy in the eyes and when you’re singing—well, when you’re talking I suppose. You know, I’m slightly disappointed that you didn’t sing the words.

“Okay, first, I am not fucking drunk, thank you very much. That would be unprofessional of me to do so.”

You playfully shook your head and rolled your eyes, smiling while Wilbur continued talking.

“But, yes, I was pretty tired when filming that. That’s why I asked if I looked weird. And second, no, I don’t want to sing my own lyrics to a bunch of stranger whilst explaining what they mean. It’s...weird.”

You frowned, again. “You literally sing to a bunch of strangers as a career, Wil.”

“Well, yeah. But, that’s different.”

“Different how?” You countered.

Wilbur stared at you through the screen, as if daring you to say something more. You leaned your head on your hand, cheekily smiling at him.

“You’re lucky I love you.”

“I love you too, William.”

“That sounds weird coming from you, love.”

“Well, you did say ‘call me what you like’ right? I’m only taking you up on that offer, darling.”

taglist:

@ella-fella-bo-bella @lillylvjy @jadeissues @r-a-c-h-e-l @marifm (couldn’t find your url sorry) @vestafir @confuzzledhooman

Send me an ask, message me, or just comment if you want to be added to my taglist 💕

#wilbur soot #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur x reader #wilbur x you #wilbur soot x you #wilbur mcyt #wilbur soot x y/n #wilbur x y/n

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