#the system stinks

[turtleblogatlast]

Every day I’m haunted by the fact the boys happily swim in sewer water

Even if it’s filtered somehow there’s no way it’s not still nasty 😭 Bet they can defeat any of their villains just by accidentally giving them diseases I swear

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #bless their hearts but they’re nasty #it’s funny because like #each and every one of them has moments #where they’re a typical disgusting teenage boy #and then the next they have STANDARDS #can’t blame Leo for being so determined to go to a spa #even if he nearly licked his own foot that’s prob cleaner than anything else the boys have been up to in years 💀 #thank you shelldon for all your hard work cleaning after then 🙏 #they’re all gross teenage boys!!! #even Donnie he is NO exception here #bro was DRINKING A BEVERAGE while wading through sewer water he is just as gross as his bros #bro also talks with his mouth full he is no more refined than his equally gross bros fr and I love it #but yeah no way that water isn’t disgusting even filtering it would still leave grime on the walls of the sewer for yearsss #pros of them moving into an abandoned subway system is fixing their sense of smell enough to not be as gross #100% that’s part of why they didn’t mind being so filthy pre shelldon #because I mean they were literally raised in the sewers and they’re teenage boys like that’s a double whammy #THEY ALSO DONT WEAR SHOES #the few times any of them do the shoes are discarded before heading home 💀 #I love them tho they are endearing anyhow #April’s immune system must be godlike just being around them fr #honestly no joke Mikey’s probably the cleanest of them all #just by virtue of being a chef #Leo I see as a mixture since he no doubt loves to pamper himself so he’s clean like #a percentage of time before he goes out and ruins his own hard work #Donnie is similar in that he’s just VERY SELECTIVE about what he thinks is too gross #Raph may be more on the stinky end but it’s not his fault he has his stinks and eats things of dubious origin(esp since his bros ate poison) #Donnie and Leo really have the gall to be sick about Raph eating the origami salami but they have no room to talk #all their villains are prob like please stay away from us we have salmonella now

[genericpuff]

on the closure of MochaJump, and why we're our own worst enemies in this industry.

"MochaJump? What was that?" is probably your first question, and I'm gonna simply respond with, "Exactly."

MochaJump was a small startup platform made by /u/nunojay2 and a second site engineer (whose name I am not informed of) on reddit. It wasn't anything extraordinary, just a startup site that aimed to offer a more viable alternative to Webtoons and Tapas, with a focus on offering equal visibility to creators, focused recommendation algorithms, loosened restrictions on NSFW content, and bigger cuts for creators on their generated revenue.

Of course, such promises are a tall order, but the creator did their best to host regular discussions with creators in art and webtoon communities to get feedback on what creators really wanted out of their platforms, and they researched what they would need to make in order to keep the site afloat (it came out pretty low at $2 per user per month). Hopes were high and the site launched with a small but eager userbase.

It stayed small. The site shut down in November 2022, just 6 months after launching in May 2022.

Now, I'm not gonna sit here on some soapbox and blame anyone for the site closing down. I unfortunately didn't get much chance to use the site myself so there's surely more I could have done on my own part to help it gain traction. But this is a regular occurrence for start-ups like this, especially in an industry that's as notoriously unprofitable as webcomics. We've seen titans such as SmackJeeves and Inkblazers fall, and MochaJump was merely an infant by comparison.

But it makes me think of how we view and treat these startups as a whole. How we as readers and creators alike have become so trained to exclusively use corporate platforms like Webtoons and Tapas on the promise of "bigger gains". Unlike these bigger companies, platforms like MochaJump depend on building a strong userbase as quickly as possible, and need to find ways to generate revenue to keep things running, otherwise it's only a matter of time before they close down. They don't have a massive conglomerate like Naver or Kakao to pad their pockets through their failures. They don't have the money or reach to inject themselves into society through bus terminal ads and convention sponsorships. They don't have the investors to sink money into their platform until it becomes profitable in return.

So we don't use them. Readers don't use them because we don't see the point in using a platform that has no content... and thus creators don't use them because we don't see the point in publishing our content on a platform with no userbase. Creators seek a place that's "tight knit" and "easy to get seen", but will only post to places that come pre-loaded with massive audiences; because it's not enough anymore to have a couple hundred followers, we're in 2023 now, in the year of consumer bloat, where we expect to now pull in thousands if not millions to be considered a "success". And readers seek a place that offers high-quality high-amount content at the tip of their fingertips, but don't want to pay for the access to these works, and in the case of apps like WT, have given up in trying to support these creators through the platforms themselves because they know that those artists they want to support will likely never see a dime.

The fact of this problem is simple, yet many people seem to ignore it - we cannot expect to have a platform that is tight knit, profitable, and sustainable. These places do not exist, not so long as we continue to raise the bar on what makes a "successful" subscriber count, not so long as we continue to patronize platforms that exploit their artists and writers, and not so long as we keep chasing the dragon of "what these websites used to be". These platforms never used to 'be' anything, they merely existed in one point of time that is now long gone, when owning a smartphone was a luxury and not a need, when online video content wasn't being tethered together by ads, and when the Internet wasn't owned and entirely managed by the same three corporations, the likes of which we haven't seen since cable TV.

Platforms like Tapas and Webtoons are - besides unsustainable - unable to exist and profit in the way they do without undercutting someone along the way. Whether it's underpaying their creators, undercutting their communities, or underexposing the works that have been buried, someone will get the shit hand in the deal and that someone is usually ALWAYS someone who will rarely ever stand to gain anything in the long run from using these platforms despite their issues. The 1% got theirs, and the 10% are barely getting by, while the remaining 89% are pushing onwards, because they have faith in the systemic online enshittification that demands conformity to a single formula for "success".

We are our own worst enemies in this industry. Webcomics are one of the few online mediums that still truly belong to the people - anyone can make them, anyone can find joy in them, but we're letting platforms like Webtoons and Tapas and all the other massive corporate apps rob us of that joy and accessibility in the pursuit of "success" and profiting. Webtoons was never the sole way to profit off this medium and yet I still see people every day who underestimate the existence of legitimate publishing houses and self-publishing, who think that publishing on Webtoons and landing an Originals deal is the only way to find success in this industry. This is meant to be the era of creators, of self-starting and self-actualization, and yet we're still handing all of that control over to corporations that only seek to exploit our art, bodies, and labor, while convincing ourselves that this will somehow all be worth it. We stick with Webtoons, despite the numerous controversies it's been involved in and the lack of support it's given even its own hired creators. We stick with Tapas, despite the undercutting of its most core components such as its community and the outlier genres it used to be known for hosting. We find new ways to justify using platforms that are steadily going downhill - Patreon, Twitter/X, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook - because we've been convinced that these are the routes to success, so if we acknowledge their failures, then "success" can no longer exist.

Because we need to pay rent. Because we need to eat. Because we need to survive. Because it's a lot more complicated than just "stepping away". Because the startups just don't have any of the surface level potential for us to immediately identify and get on board with, so we don't give them a chance.

I realize this post got very existential and depressing. I've been creating comics for well over a decade now, largely unnoticed, and I've fallen victim to these same limiting mindsets that we have to stick to one way, one "formula" for success - a formula that changes with the wind and only works for those who get in on the ground floor. It's been slowly killing me from the very beginning, robbing me of my joy to create, of my reason to even do this in the first place - to tell and share stories with others, to express myself creatively, to live my life surrounded by art and stories and creations made by and for others. It's made me tired and miserable, and I can tell it's done the same to those who have shared that boat with me.

But there's one silver lining I can always be sure of, and it's one I was reminded of after realizing I was still in the MochaJump Discord, with one announcement post that I hadn't yet read.

Webcomics are one of the few online mediums that still truly belong to the people. Corporations are trying their hardest to take that power away. Let's not continue to let them.

If you want to help sustain, patronize, and contribute to the growth of sites that are still being operated by small teams (or even one man armies), please, consider checking out the following websites, some of which serve as platforms or publishers, others which operate as link directories for independent sites run by creators.

ComicFury GlobalComix TopWebcomics The Webcomic List The Webcomic Library Hiveworks SpiderForest SmackJeeves Archive Inkblot.art And whoever wants to use the GitHub source code used for MochaJump (RIP)

Let's do our part to decentralize webcomics again. We may not be able to leave the platforms that weakly sustain us, but we can still support those that strengthen and support us.

#also bonus: if you're willing to pay like $10/year for the domain name you can get free hosting on comicfury #essay post #decentralize the internet #decentralize webcomics #fuck webtoons #support small platforms #don't be a coward #use the sites that only net you 20 readers #it costs you literally nothing but a little extra time #i guarantee most of these sites come with more features and more supportive userbases than webtoons #webtoons doesn't even have a fucking TAGGING SYSTEM #why did we allow ourselves to be convinced that webtoons is setting some industry standard ?? they're PISS #WT is literally persephone #riding off daddy warbucks' money while being a big stinking failure of an entity who no one likes but still calls a hero #no wonder WT loves LO so much it's literally an autobiography at this point

[butwhatifidothis]

okay. but riddle me this. it's wrong for dimitri to want revenge on the person whom he believes is responsible for his trauma and the subsequent disasters that befell both faerghus and duscur - which, even if she didn't do it personally, was done FOR HER BENEFIT EXPLICITLY... but when edelgard revenge kills TWSITD it's like, yas queen slay? weird.

Lot of it has to do with how they frame Dimitri's vengeance vs Edelgard's. Dimitri's vengeance is bad because it's against the "wrong target," while Edelgard's... isn't typically framed as vengeance.

Given how I've consistently seen edelstans portray Dimitri's vengeance, they tend to focus most of their energy going on about how Dimitri's vengeance is bad because it's against the "wrong" person - not that it intrinsically tends to drive people to a destructive path for both themselves and others, but that it's aimed in the wrong direction. Just look at how Fleche's similar quest for vengeance is treated by the exact same group of people; she's justified in getting her vengeance, her vengeance is "rightful," despite it also leading her down a path of singularly focusing on vengeance at the dismissal of all else just like it does Dimitri when he stays on his path of vengeance. Hers is directed in the "right" direction, meaning it is okay and even right of her to have.

(This is ignoring how if Fleche is right in wanting vengeance against Dimitri despite him not being the one to actually kill Randolph, then Dimitri is damn sure right to want vengeance against Edelgard despite her not actually committing the Tragedy. Dimitri pushed Byleth into killing Randolph as a mercy kill; the desire to assist Edelgard later on down the line has TWS conspire and commit the Tragedy. If Dimitri being the cause of Randolph's death rather than him being the one to outright kill him makes Fleche in the right to want to kill him, then Edelgard being the cause of the Tragedy's happening rather than her being the one to outright commit it would make Dimitri right in wanting to kill her. It shouldn't matter that Dimitri is technically wrong in why he wants vengeance, since it doesn't matter to them that Fleche is technically wrong in why she wants vengeance.)

(it also ignores that yeah edelgard literally is complicit in the tragedy by hiding it for years just so her allies don't get ratted out lmao so yeah)

Now look how both of those things compare to Edelgard's vengeance and how it's framed by edelstans. She, unlike either Dimitri or Fleche, is above such base and narrow-minded pursuits such as revenge - she is doing what she is doing not out of selfish vengeance, but out of heroic altruism. She may have been wronged, yes, but she has moved past the want to relieve herself of that pain and now all that she wants to do is prevent others from ever going through what she went through. And if she could, she would help Dimitri and Fleche move on from their vengeance just as she has moved on from hers, even if she's "rejected" by them (like Dimitri), because she's just a sweetie pie like that.

Now, this kiiiiinda ignores the fact that Edelgard literally does want vengeance for what was done to her family, or at least it can easily be argued that's she wants. She frames it as "doing it for their sakes" which is literally also how Dimitri and Fleche basically frame their vengeance, as doing it for the sake of those killed. But acknowledging that Edelgard is doing what she's doing even partially for revenge doesn't make her as uwu special and better than the poor lost souls that she gives guidance to. So instead of saying that Edelgard could even arguably be motivated partially by vengeance (as well as being a violent imperialist lol) they make her completely selfless. She has to be the hero of the story, out to help and save as many people as possible, motivated by nothing more than a want to help others.

And it also ignores how Dimitri wants revenge not for himself, but because he genuinely thinks that is what the dead want him to do. It ignores that the entire reason Dimitri gets so consumed with vengeance is because of his empathy and want to help others morphing into something destructive and deadly - he can't have those good traits, because those are good traits and Dimitri must be the villain to Edelgard's heroism. It ignores how Fleche is wrong in her quest for vengeance, and that regardless of who actually killed Randolph she was wrong to let herself be so overwhelmed with the need for vengeance just like Dimitri - she is directing her hatred towards Dimitri, The Villain, and thus she must be right in doing so.

It, either deliberately or not, ignores so much of what the game is telling, because the focus for edelstans first and foremost is to make Edelgard out to be the best and most morally upstanding character in the game. They have a conclusion they want to be true, and then work backwards from there to make everything fit into place. And then when others don't perform the gymnastics required to come to those conclusions they belittle and mock those people for not "understanding the game" as much as they do. Annoying as shit lmao

#ask #anti edelgard #anti-edelgard #edelgard critical #edelgard discourse #just to be safe #it's like a tier system yeah #Dimtiri is F tier: he is motivated by vengeance and his vengeance is against the wrong person AND that person is specifically Edelgard #so he is completely in the wrong and he is completely shitty for wanting to get revenge and also he stinks and he smells bad #Fleche is like. C tier. Yeah her wanting revenge is bad but she's RIGHT in her target FOR vengeance and thus she's way better than Dimitri #plus her target is specifically Dimitri who is the Bad Guy and that thus makes her vengeance even more just by default #while Edelgard is of course SSSSSSSSSS tier: she is definitely not motivated by vengeance and she totally just wants to help everyone #so she is completely beyond reproach #meanwhile the only person among these three that actually genuinely gets over their want for vengeance IS in fact Dimitri #and the only one of these three to actually help people is Dimitri #but they don't wanna acknowledge that lol so shhhh

[gxre-pxrn]

God you're such a fucking faggot freak with this Tony guy the hell is wrong with you?

Not only are you probably some faggot, you ALSO believe you're a fucking did system? Grow the hell up or slit down to the fucking bone bitch

Youre a waste of space please fucking kill yourself

Tony is my gay lover and we live in Europe ♥️♥️♥️

It's our 1 year today we r gonna have violent gay sex and think about you ^_^ 😚♥️

Get your panties out of a twist dawg

#pof sillies ^_^ #ask #millionare #tony stark is my sugar daddy trust me guys #i love tomy stink #did system #ajax genshin impact #tony stark

[laku-incarnate]

Crossness Pumping Station, London 

#Crossness Pumping Station #London #sewage #Great Stink #miasma #Joseph Bazalgette #Disraeli #meliorism #Victorian architectue #London sewerage system #sewers #story

[juleteinthrum]

A little hello?! Wavey! From me!

#look at my ANTENNAE THAT WAS MOSTLY WHY I DID THIS #lil expression practice #animation #gif #me tag #invader zim #fictive #introject #system posting #zims stink #actually plural #my art #digital #headmates #irken #wave #actually traumatized #actually osdd #osddid #headmate euphoria #12 fps #37 frames

[ink--theory]

painfully remembering why I don't like playing quads in open with friends 🚶🏻‍♀️

#facing the same team over and over again stinks lol #esp if it's like one-sided on either team? ugh #kept facing the same team multiple times in a row who were like top level competitive ppl who be on this game 24/7 just now #I normally try to be the positive one in my group while playing but that shit be kinda demoralizing ngl #and makes me not wanna touch this game as much other than to play salmon or solos #and it's not like the other teams fault either like tf they gonna do? NOT play the game? they ain't got no where else to go BUT open lol #ok mini rant over..I just needed to get that outta my system lmao #ty for coming to my ted talk uwu #may delete later

[kaustic]

the moment a european tiktoker opens their mouth about the us or americans i just know they’re gonna say the wildest shit i’ve ever heard in my life and be so confident in their inaccuracy

#or what social media shows them #i have yet to see a european with a good take on the us #out here acting like their shit dont stink too #jesus christ #just heard the wackiest shit about colonialism #‘everyone colonized everyone’ #yES BUT YOUR COUNTRY AND THE MAJORITY OF YOUR CONTINENT IS STILL BENEFITING #FROM THE SYSTEMS OF IMPERALISM THAT THOSE NATIONS PUT IN PLACE #losing my goddamn mind over this shit #acting like america is the only one still with colonies jfc #our shit absolutely reeks but take the damn tree out of ur eye #it was literally a reply to a comment talking about how people of color have horrible experiences in italy #good lord the world is so braindead #at the risk of sounding arrogant: being smart is a fucking curse

[fiendishartist2]

guys what if i want to make my own apollo justice game.

#i need to write a prequel to aa4 pls pls pls pls pls #okay get this: so phoenix isnt disbarred yet and he doesnt have trucy. hes still taking and winning cases #one day he gets a call from edgeworth and hes all like ''wright i need your assistance'' and hes like what for and edgeworth goes #''ive been given the most ridiculous case and i think youre the only man in law who can take care of it'' #so phoenix bikes his ass to the detention center and boom. child behind bars #and phoenix is like ??? hey kid what are doing here. and this kid is the most surly mfer on the planet like you couldnt get- #-a word out of him if you tried. hes kinda giving phoenix the stink eye too but hes just the littlest guy on earth #and phoenix feels bad for him so he tries to get a rundown of the case (maybe edgeworth gave him an autopsy report or smth beforehand) #but get this. the kid still wont speak. he hasnt even moved a muscle. and after some prodding you find out this little dude- #-doesnt speak english (i dont love aa6 but i think apollos tragic backstory can be interesting so we're going w that but taking it seriousl #anyways so maya is like omg this kid is speaking khurainese but hers is kinda broken bc shes not from the mainland and only knows it- #-from like prayers #so you only get bits and pieces of the kids testimony. plus he still doesnt wanna talk bc ''dhurk told me not to talk to you'' #so you start following the new lead but you ask too many questions and apollos like oh shit i said too much and wont talk to you anymore #but now you have two leads: khur'ain and a man named ''dhurk'' plus the fact that this is kid might be new to america since- #-he cant speak english but is smack dab in the middle of california. its all v curious and phoenix wants to get to the bottom of it #for the rest of the case i feel like it would go in the direction of ''we dont know exactly whats up w this dhurk guy or where this kid- #-came from but we do get him acquitted and phoenix is able to save him from the dark path he was heading towards'' thus steering apollo- #-in the direction of law and giving him a wayyyy better reason than aa6 gave him <3 #i kind of like the interlinked nature of ace attorney's storytelling. like everything leads into smth else and everyone is impacted- #-by another person before they even become properly entangled w each other's lives #like how mia faced dahlia years before she met phoenix but dahlia was the one to connect them #or how trucy gave phoenix the diary paper but she's also the one who ropes apollo into the waa. even before they know they're siblings #or how lamoire left apollo and trucy as children and when they reunite as adults they cant recognise each other but they all find each- #-other anyways #i could go on but i think this could be cool yknow esp bc i think the most interesting thing about apollo's aa6 backstory is his life- #-post dhurk. like where did he stay? was he a foster kid? was he put into the system? how did that affect him? what kind of ppl took him in #i just wanna know how that whole thing would have effected him bc like when yiu think about it how did he even get to america?? his dad's #-considered a terrorist. idk man i think its interesting and apollo and dhurks interactions are one of the only good parts of aa6

[killerchickadee]

Didn't even make it to Madison before Oscar threw up and had diarrhea all over his carrier (and himself). So that's going well.

But I'm sitting in a parking lot after trying to clean up the mess (I should have brought hand sanitizer) and two sandhill cranes flew overhead. So. There's that.

#so note to self stop at every possible rest stop to give him a break #it's because he had breakfast right before we left #like cleaning up the puke like oh there's the chicken #hoping he got it all out of his system and he'll be ok? #cause we have another 8 hours of this #poor baby 🙁 #also now my car stinks but THANK GOD i remembered the paper towels and trash bags

[chaosmenu]

nothing will disillusion you to capitalism like learning about the history of capitalism

#op #you know your economic system stinks when 2/3 of the major beginning players in it flop within the century because of unregulated scams

[ltyear]

.

#i cant complain on twitter anymore #or not about this at least #but louis writing out of my system truly was #yk? #peak #so true king #good thing i boarded the plane in june with this in thought but still STINKS to know i was right #anyways #back to living life and being too tired to do tumblr when i have some free time

[darkwood-sleddog]

i think youve answered this before but im struggling to find it; is there any alternative names thats been proposed to the mushing / etc breeds that use slurs / deragatory words targeted towards indigenous people in their names? ive just been shortening their names / using the non-offensive parts but that can sometimes get confusing

You can find the post where I discuss alternative naming HERE.

Something we must understand about dogs with slur breed names, slur derivative breed names, and even dogs that use indigenous naming as a way to add intrigue is that a majority of the solutions we have now are currently imperfect. It is REALLY difficult to get people to understand what dog breed or type you are talking about when you don't use the most common terminology used for them and it's even harder to get non-indigenous folk to care about the names they use for dog breeds (because it's just a dog breed stop being so sensitive!!).

Additionally the dog world is incredibly white and privileged. Most dog breeds with slur names (and there are even some I didn't touch on in my original post) were taken from their respective communities and applied a western idealized standard, racist naming and in many cases a mythologized and alternative history.

So what can you do? Just try your best to use respectful naming. For example it is very easy to just go "Oh you mean Canadian Inuit Dogs/Inuit Qimmiq." and continue with what you're conversing about. Change is difficult in the dog world, especially with established breeds, but when more and more people begin using and pushing non racist names into the breed conversation and terminology then that broader change becomes a LOT easier.

Something we can do right now though is put an immediate stop to the creation of more breeds that use indigenous imagery and wording to exotify new dog breeds. It's 2022 and we should know better. Tamaskans, Northern Inuit Dogs, Native American Indian Dogs etc. I am looking at you.

#dogblr #faq #indigenous racism #indigenous dogs #i think it's important to just...try and be respectful about it #it is going to be very difficult if not near impossible to wipe the term 'husky' from peoples usage at this current time. #but we can prevent past errors from happening again and becoming entrenched and harder to change yet again #and i do think that prior to kennel clubs acceptance of a lot of these newer breeds that a serious discussion needs to be had about #breed naming specifically #not that the kennel clubs will actually do this bc as i have explained the kennel club system runs on white wealth and privilege #and the leaders of respective breed clubs see no problems with these naming conventions #might i remind you all that when there was a push to rename the Canadian Eskimo Dog to the much more accurate and less racist 'Inuit Qimmiq #the Canadian Kennel Club had a huge stink about it because it would remove Canadian from the name #remove canadian from the name of a dog breed that the canadian government culled might i add #also its okay if you mess up or are imperfect when it comes to these names #trying is what counts and activism does not advance with purity ideals #just the desire for you to try your best to be aware

[gxre-pxrn]

What is slutty force user

It's a tag I use

It's like how Sunday uses "Sunday posting" or ajax has the Tony Stark ones :)

Just something silly yk

#millionare #pof sillies ^_^ #ask #tony stark is my sugar daddy trust me guys #i love tomy stink #slutty force user #sunday posting #did system #yeah

[detectiveconnor]

connor being reprimanded and put on desk work at the DPD vs several of his colleagues who did the exact same thing insisting they be put on desk work as well, rather than just reprimanded and let go. connor being reprimanded and being put on desk work and lifting his eyebrows just a touch about it bc that's going to last less than a day and also, he's not going to be doing just-desk work, he might stick around to finish some paperwork but then he'll take his accumulated leave and work anyway

#cpt fowler ft. unconscious biases in unbalanced reprimands and punishments #he's not. i'll. i like cpt fowler and so does connor #he also is just a little too grizzly and too worked-with-hank-for-forever to not have some underlying bits and pieces #yknow? #he's doesn't Stink he's just new to the thought and is getting his head around it #growing. but also had to navigate the system to become a police captain in the first place

[juleteinthrum]

A journey into what makes Me the unique Invader Zim fictive i am. My universe and how things kinda went by for me and my headmate, Dib. Why the series is kinda only a foundation that inspired the truth of our lived realities. Its silly, what an important thing a silly show did for us.

More parts on the way?

#zims stink #my dib #actually plural #invader zim #zim fictive #from the inspireverse system #system posting #system positivity #osdd #actually osdd #pseudomemories #introject #alter art #alter introduction #alter info #lore tag #alter lore #headmate art #system art #part 1 #ok to rb