#source: YouTube somewhere

[threemoonwatchers]

Kai: What does “A” stand for?

Wyldfire: arson!

Kai: and what does “B” stand for?

Wyldfire: BARSON!

Lloyd: (wheezing)

Kai: and C?

Wyldfire: COMMIT arson!

Lloyd: (dying noises)

Kai: What about D?

Wyldfire: DON’T COME NEAR ME, I’M GOING TO COMMIT ARSON!

Kai: I raised ya real well.

[wandering-aloneo-o]

honest question, is dropout just like... studio c but different?

[crescentfool]

so you want to use OBS

hello! i’ve decided to compile information on my OBS setup and some resources that have helped me along the way.  this is mostly for personal reference, but maybe others can make use of this information!

some notes before i get into it:

i use OBS for both offline recording and (twitch) streaming. any footage i record is edited using DaVinci Resolve 18, which is free.

most of my OBS captures are of video games (through a USB capture card, specifically elgato), and the occasional screen/application capture (like clip studio paint, and sometimes PC games).

as such, the information here is reflective of these experiences. this post is not comprehensive to all of OBS’s features- this is just an overview of the settings and configurations that are most relevant to me.

with that out of the way, all the information will be under the cut!

Basic Setup

file format:

how to change: settings -> output -> recording -> recording format -> press “apply” once finished!

I save most of my recordings as .mkv files- it supports multi-track audio! i prefer .mkv over .mp4 because if your power goes out, you still have a recording to work with. 

.mkv files can be read by DaVinci Resolve without an issue- but for Adobe software, they'll need to be remuxed to .mp4 within OBS! (file -> remux recordings -> press the … to select a file -> press the “remux” button)

video resolution and framerate:

how to change: settings -> video -> output (scaled) resolution

my obs canvas is @ 1920 x 1080p (16:9)

i switch between 720p and 1080p as needed! if you're concerned about space, you can probably just go for 720p. i also record at 30 fps, simply because that’s what my capture card supports.

video bitrate:

how to change: settings -> output -> encoder settings (located in both the streaming and recording tab) -> press “apply” once finished!

bitrate is a bit of a doozy to explain, but the most important thing to know is that bitrate affects your video’s quality. lower numbers = lower quality, while higher numbers = higher quality. 

generally speaking, you'll want higher bitrate when you're recording things with high depth of information (e.g. you’d want a higher bitrate for something fast-paced like splatoon, compared to a slower-paced game like animal crossing).

my video bitrate is either set to 3000 or 4000 kbps! and here's some of my other (related) settings while i'm at it:

you can put your bitrate at much higher values than me if you're a stickler for quality- but keep in mind that a higher bitrate means:

bigger file size

more information to upload (when streaming)

your computer will need to encode more

i’d recommend reading twitch’s guidelines on encoding, bitrate, resolution, and framerate to get an idea of what values to pick. for people who are doing offline recording or streaming on a different platform, i suggest googling the appropriate resources!

multi-track audio:

this is mostly applicable to anyone looking to do video editing!

multi-track audio basically allows you to separate your audio sources (e.g. discord, game audio, and your own microphone) into different tracks. 

this is an immensely helpful tool because it lets you adjust audio levels in post-production (editing). some examples of how this can be used:

increasing someones microphone volume if they speak too softly

increasing/decreasing game audio

muting swear words/sensitive information

completely muting voice call + microphone if you want to upload a no commentary video

and more!

to set this up, take a look at your audio mixer panel, and press the ⚙ icon. this will bring up advanced audio properties.

by checkmarking a track box, it puts the audio on that track. to make the above screenshot easier to digest:

track 1 consists of ALL three audio sources- desktop, elgato, and microphone.

track 2 only has the microphone audio.

track 3 only has desktop audio (i use this for voice calls)

track 4 only has the elgato capture card audio (game audio). the volume has also been lowered so that any speaking voices can be heard clearly.

tracks 5 and 6 are unused.

you might be wondering, “why do all three of these have 1 checked off?” this is what i call the universal audio track. i recommend having a universal audio track for a few reasons:

when you stream from OBS onto twitch/youtube- you have to select ONE audio track.

it’s also a nice backup in case you didn’t separate your audio correctly.

if for whatever reason you need to move around your individual audio tracks in editing, the universal track acts as a nice reference point.

mark off your audio tracks for each audio source as you see fit! once you’re finished with the advanced audio properties, go to settings > output.

for the streaming tab, you’ll want to have the number of your universal audio track selected. in my case, that will be audio track 1.

for the recording tab, checkmark all the audio tracks that are applicable to you (in my case, audio tracks 1, 2, 3, and 4). by default, only audio track 1 is selected.

if you don’t check off the additional audio tracks in the output > recordings section, you will not have access to those audio tracks in editing, and you won’t be able to edit your audio tracks independently of each other. so don’t forget to do this! 👍

custom browser docks

custom browser docks are a great tool for when you’re streaming and want to have access to your twitch chat and/or activity feed! (or if you wanted to have some other web browser on OBS).

to create one, go to docks -> custom browser docks.

you’ll be given a table interface that asks you to put the dock name and URL. for streamers who want to have chat and alerts available, do the following:

on twitch’s homepage, go to the upper right and click your icon

then, click creator dashboard

once you’re on your dashboard, go to stream manager

click the vertical “...” on my chat OR activity feed.

press “pop-out chat” OR “pop-out activity feed”

copy and paste the link into the table back into OBS

press apply once you’re done

click and drag the docks around at your leisure to put them where you like!

if you ever decide you don’t want to have something on your OBS dock (or want to bring something back), go to the toolbar, click “docks,” and click the appropriate dock!

third party things

a section of optional things that you may enjoy having.

streamlabs alerts

this is basically for anyone who streams and wants to have their chat and/or follower notifications visualized on screen!

streamlab alerts can be added to OBS by adding a browser source into your scene, and the specifics can be customized on streamlabs itself. it’s pretty self-explanatory, so i’ll just leave a link to streamlabs website, where you can log in using the streaming platform of your choice: https://streamlabs.com/

discord overlay

this is a browser source that can be set up to show people who are in a server's voice chat and who speaks. i recommend this to people who make multiplayer content- it can help viewers distinguish who is who but also it can be helpful in editing.

to set this up, go to https://streamkit.discord.com/overlay, click “install for OBS,” and after logging in with discord, go to “voice widget” and click the server and voice channel you want.

you are able to apply CSS if you'd like more control over the visuals, but the standard layout tends to work fine for me! a search of “discord overlay css” on youtube can help you get more information.

veadotube mini

this is a pngtuber software that a friend recommended to me! no webcam is required- mouth opening and closing is based on your microphone input!

you can download it here (it’s pay what you want!): https://olmewe.itch.io/veadotube-mini

for a proper tutorial on how to use it, i recommend checking out the app's documentation, which you can read here: https://veado.tube/help/

source record

have you ever wanted to stream something with a chat overlay/layout, but wanted your recording to ONLY be the gameplay? or maybe you wanted to record BOTH your gameplay AND your webcam so that you can have a crisp zoom-in on your webcam!

source record is a third party plugin that can help you with that!

the general gist of source record involves applying the “source record” filter on either a scene or source, and customizing the encoding settings accordingly. the exact details of how to set it up is beyond the scope of this post, so I'll just direct people to this video instead (it was very helpful to me):

⚠ a quick note about source record: this plugin can be intense for your computer. be sure to do test recordings and the like to see what your computer can handle (and see if the recordings come out the way you like). it took me a few tests before i settled onto something i liked!

you can download and install source record here: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/source-record.1285/

vdo.ninja

have you ever wanted to do a collaborative video or stream where you feature someone else’s video on your stream? or maybe you’re doing a multi-person streaming event! vdo.ninja is the perfect tool for you!

vdo.ninja turns your OBS virtual camera into a browser source link- which your collaborator can add on their stream! this is a new tool that i’ve added to my arsenal recently- since my friend and i are planning to stream a side order challenge together! i’ve still got to iron it out a bit more, but i like what i’ve used of it so far.

try it out for yourself at their website here (with documentation and demos available on the homepage!): https://vdo.ninja/ (no downloads required!)

ok! i’m set up! what now?

and with that, that’s all of the settings and tools that i thought would be worth mentioning! while most of my setup was written with video games in mind, some of these plugins and setups may be applicable to other types of videos (e.g. tabletop gaming with a physical camera)!

now that i’ve outlined all these settings, i have one more thing i have to say: regardless of what you're using OBS for, do a test recording before doing anything “official” with it. this recording can be as short as 30 seconds. it’s a good habit to develop that can make sure your streams/recordings turn out the way you want them to!

here are the kinds of things i like to check! it’s not an exhaustive list, but this can be a starting point:

video:

does my video look the way i want it to (and can my computer handle that)?

can my computer handle the load of encoding? - OBS will note in the bottom if the encoding is overloaded. if it can’t handle it, turn down your bitrate or adjust other encoding settings (e.g. i had to toggle psycho visual tuning OFF because it was causing lag)

this is especially the case if you're recording PC games- you don’t want to have slowdown on either your game or the recording!

audio:

are my audio sources (e.g. desktop audio and microphone) correct? - if you plug/unplug devices a lot, be sure to check this (settings -> audio).

are any of my audio sources muted? - make sure you don’t have anything on 🔇 if you don’t want it to be muted! otherwise the audio will be lost forever… (i lost my friend’s VC audio once… it was sad)

are my audio tracks separated properly? - requires you to boot up your editing software, but it's worth doing! for the test recording, just have something from all your sources playing at once, and see if your editor has things separated into tracks.

can i hear the voices clearly? or does the music and/or game overpower them?

if for whatever reason your OBS crashes, or you want more information on anything “critical” or “warning” worthy in your set-up, you can go to help > log files > upload current log file > analyze. crash logs currently can’t be analyzed by the log analyzer- but they’re a valuable tool when asking for help on the OBS forums!

and that’s all! for real, this time. i hope that some of these tools and settings can help anyone wanting to get more out of OBS. there’s definitely other things i didn’t touch upon (e.g. audio filters for noise compression, suppression, etc.), so i suggest doing your own research and trying things out!

happy recording/streaming, and thanks for reading! ✨

[herefortheships]

I noticed someone on Reddit commented something similar to my theory about how Betelgeuse and Lydia are linked (this post I wrote in October) and instead of crediting me they wrote something like "I read someone say...". I didn't think much of it, but was a little startled to see someone clearly referencing my theory without crediting me. I let it go and didn't mind it originally because I thought it was cool that this particular idea about how Betelgeuse and Lydia are linked is spreading. But now I saw a second person post, this time under a YouTube video, about the same theory but saying "Something interesting I read on Reddit about the wedding ceremony". Now THAT annoyed me because the comment on Reddit they are talking about is the one that clearly referenced my post without crediting me.

Why not say my blog name or post a link or something? Like I said, the first time I wasn't too bothered because I think it's cool that my little theory is spreading around in the fandom (and hey, maybe someone wrote a similar theory and I just never saw it, after I wrote mine, and maybe that was their source), but now that I saw this second person post about it referencing the Reddit post like it was that person on Reddit who came up with it, now I am bothered.

The person who posted on Reddit wrote "I read somewhere" so it wasn't their original thought, why not credit the source? It might not even be MY post that was their source, who the fuck knows? But I think it's shitty to make a post with someone else's ideas and NOT credit them, and then those ideas keep spreading around from that uncredited post and nobody knows where the theory actually originated.

Anyway, if their source was someone else who hadn't read my post, then I think it's cool that more people are reaching the same conclusions and coming up with the same theories, but whether it was my post or someone else's who inspired that person to post that comment, they should have credited the source of the idea they wrote about.

If you're going to make a post using the ideas someone else wrote about, then CREDIT that source! Because then the ideas just keep spreading around and then the person who originated those ideas is left uncredited and I think that's unfair.

[4-the-l0ve-0f-art]

Reverse isekai... Caleb... Cat... Part 2 Link Ao3 Link

Caleb loved you more than anything in this world. 

Or at least, that's what you would've liked to imagine if he was real. But he isn't. And you're not in a pixelated little world called Linkon City and none of your hopes and dreams about having a happily ever after with your military husband and childhood best friend were coming true. 

You stared at the fanfic left open on the phone screen, wishing to see your husband in your dreams to ease the ache of loving someone you could never have while in your loneliest moments. 

If only he could be real. If only he could become real from Astra knows what power and fall in love all over again. With you this time instead of the MC who seemed to resemble anything but you. If only. Too much to ask for, yes, you know. 

No, he wasn't real, and no, he wasn't there to fall in love with you as you did with him. And you had your own life to live and work to do and tough times to get through on your own tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. 

So, leaving you no other choice, you drifted off to sleep as the delusion shattering ache in your heart seeped in.

-

It was raining. You opened up your umbrella next to the entrance of your workplace, greeting your coworkers goodbye. You were tired. Your brain was fried from working since morning and you felt like the walking dead. 

The thoughts of cooking something up for dinner made you feel like flopping down on the sidewalk you were walking on and passing out. You had the free will to do that, of course, but the rain pitter pattering along with your dragged steps only reminded you of all the cleaning you would have to do after practicing your so-called free will. 

The street lights turned on and you continued onward, just a block away from your home. 

As you walked by an alleyway, your heart almost jumped out of your chest at the sound of metal clashing onto the ground. You froze, holding your breath as you turned around. 

You waited. 

One beat. Two beats. 

Nothing. 

And then, there it was again, the sound of something thuding around. 

Without thinking, you made your way towards the source of the sound, your heart bearing in your ears. A dumpster came into view. 

Something, or someone, seemed to be struggling inside. You called out. 

“Hello..? Is anyone in there..?” Your voice trembled. 

No reply.

You slowly got close to the dumpster and opened the cover with shaking hands. 

Widened blue-pink eyes with a pair of black ears and tail stared up at you through the piles of garbage. 

“What the fuck?”

-

The cat jumped out of your hold as soon as you entered your home, shaking off water from its fur and scampering away from you as fast as it could while you were struggling to put down the wet umbrella. 

“Okay, rude? I bring you home with me to avoid the guilty conscience that would follow tomorrow if I found you dead from the cold somewhere and you pay me off by drenching my floorboards!”

You let out a frustrated sigh. 

He silently watched you from a corner of the room as you made your way to the kitchen island to wash off your hands. 

“Make yourself at home, I guess..” You mumbled, more to yourself than to him. 

I have a cat in my apartment. What now? 

-

First and foremost, it was bathtime. You were NOT about to let a stinky ass wet fur ball run around your home. 

You tried to pick him up again but he bolted around the living room, paw pads making skittering noises in the process.

After about 10 minutes of running around, you gave up, standing defeated. You called out to him as a last resort. 

“I just want to give you a bath. Please.”

“Mreow!” He protested, sitting on top of the kitchen island. 

“Fine. Whatever. Live with the stink all you want. I'm tired and you're taking up my gaming time.” You rolled your eyes. 

Maybe leaving him alone for a while will ease him a little.. You hoped. 

And so, you turned around and sat down on the couch with the TV remote in hand, ready to open YouTube and rewatch the same goddamn trailer for the 100th time. 

[Love and Deepspace | Caleb's Trailer]

-

He didn't know how he ended up here. One moment he was feeling immense, needle pricking pain across his entire body, the next he was in a dumpster. With paws instead of hands. And the world seemed thrice as large and intimidating. 

Well, At least I have shelter from the rain for now.. Though I feel like a wet rat. 

He watched the girl settle down on the couch. 

I wonder how long I can stay here. I need to figure things out..

Then, he heard something that caught his eye. 

“What, you don't recognize me?”

He stared at the video playing on the TV screen. 

“Did you honestly think I would always be the kind hearted boy from your childhood?”

His ears perked up, all pointy, and his eyes widened. 

That's me. 

He watched as the figure on the screen bit an apple as lightning flashed in the background. 

That. Is. Me. On the TV. 

A/N: Interest check? Very self indulgent... Kinda, sorta, really wanna turn this into a one-shot fic maybe... Haha.. Ha.. But I'll have to play through all the content released in the past few months.. 😭

Wrote this half asleep someone bonk me to sleep please

[stellophiliac]

how to build a digital music collection and stuff

spotify sucks aaaass. so start downloading shit!!

file format glossary

.wav is highest quality and biggest

.mp3 is very small, but uses lossy compression which means it's lower quality

.flac is smaller than .wav, but uses lossless compression so it's high quality

.m4a is an audio file format that apple uses. that's all i really know

downloading the music

doubledouble.top is a life saver. you can download from a variety of services including but not limited to apple music, spotify, soundcloud, tidal, deezer, etc.

i'd recommend ripping your music from tidal or apple music since they're the best quality (i think apple music gives you lossless audio anyway. .m4a can be both lossy and lossless, but from the text on doubledouble i assume they're ripping HQ files off apple music)

i also love love love cobalt.tools for ripping audio/video from youtube (they support a lot of other platforms too!)

of course, many artists have their music on bandcamp — purchase or download directly from them if you can. bandcamp offers a variety of file formats for download

file conversion

if you're downloading from apple music with doubledouble, it spits out an .m4a file.

.m4a is ok for some people but if you prefer .flac, you may wanna convert it. ffmpeg is a CLI (terminal) tool to help with media conversion

if you're on linux or macOS, you can use parameter expansion to batch convert all files in a folder. put the files in one place first, then with your terminal, cd into the directory and run:

for i in *.m4a; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i%.*}.flac"; done

this converts from .m4a to .flac — change the file extensions if needed.

soulseek

another way to get music is through soulseek. soulseek is a peer-to-peer file sharing network which is mainly used for music. nicotine+ is a pretty intuitive (and open-source) client if you don't like the official one.

you can probably find a better tutorial on soulseek somewhere else. just wanted to make this option known

it's bad etiquette to download from people without sharing files of your own, so make sure you've got something shared. also try to avoid queuing up more than 1-2 albums from one person in a row

tagging & organizing your music

tagging: adding metadata to a music file (eg. song name, artist name, album) that music players can recognize and display

if you've ripped music from a streaming platform, chances are it's already tagged. i've gotten files with slightly incorrect tags from doubledouble though, so if you care about that then you might wanna look into it

i use musicbrainz picard for my tagging. they've got pretty extensive documentation, which will probably be more useful than me

basically, you can look up album data from an online database into the program, and then match each track with its file. the program will tag each file correctly for you (there's also options for renaming the file according to a certain structure if you're into that!)

there's also beets, which is a CLI tool for... a lot of music collection management stuff. i haven't really used it myself, but if you feel up to it then they've got extensive documentation too. for most people, though, it's not really a necessity

how you wanna organize your music is completely up to you. my preferred filestructure is:

artist > album > track # track

using a music player

the options for this are pretty expansive. commonly used players i see include VLC, foobar2000, clementine (or a fork of it called strawberry), and cmus (for the terminal)

you can also totally use iTunes or something. i don't know what audio players other systems come with

i personally use dopamine. it's a little bit slow, but it's got a nice UI and is themeable plus has last.fm support (!!!)

don't let the github page fool you, you don't have to build from source. you can find the releases here

click the "assets" dropdown on the most recent release, and download whichever one is compatible with your OS

syncing

if you're fine with your files just being on one device (perhaps your computer, but perhaps also an USB drive or an mp3 player), you don't have to do this

you can sync with something like google drive, but i hate google more than i hate spotify

you can get a free nextcloud account from one of their providers with 2GB of free storage. you can use webDAV to access your files from an app on your phone or other device (documents by readdle has webDAV support, which is what i use)

disroot and blahaj.land are a couple providers i know that offer other services as well as nextcloud (so you get more with your account), but accounts are manually approved. do give them a look though!!

if you're tech-savvy and have an unused machine lying around, look into self-hosting your own nextcloud, or better yet, your own media server. i've heard that navidrome is a pretty good audio server. i unfortunately don't have experience with self-hosting at the moment so i have like zero advice to give here. yunohost seems to be a really easy way to manage a server

afterword

i don't know if any of this is helpful, but i just wanted to consolidate my personal advice in one place. fuck big tech. own your media, they could take it away from you at any moment

[snoopyclarkey]

audio erotica

george clarke x fem reader <3

summary: you find yourself in a bit of a predicament one night out at a pub when you finally match the voice of your favorite audio erotica creator to his face.

a/n: not really specified in the fic but george isn't a youtuber in this one. and the audio erotica app mentioned is quinn!

wc: 1.5 k

content: pretty sfw, just a few lines of dirty talk without any actual sex scene lol

a single voice shouldn’t be able to stop you in your tracks, especially when you’re surrounded by your girlfriends in a busy pub, but somehow, it does. your friends and yourself had been at the pub for a few drinks and you’d heard many different voices and many fragments of conversations, but none have made you pause like this one. at first you just thought it was a nice voice drifting over from somewhere close in the pub. but you couldn’t shake how familiar it sounded.

you, almost unconsciously at first, start listening for the voice, slowly tuning out the recognizable voices of your friends. you’re usually an observer anyways, so your friends pay no mind to you as you keep to yourself instead of participating in whatever conversation you’d already lost track of. your ears perk up every time you hear it, eyes scanning around you for the source, until you finally land on a table only a stone's throw away from yours.

there’s a handful of guys sitting at it, all dark hair, young, and unfortunately for you, attractive. you know it’s impolite to stare, but you have to figure out who the familiar voice belongs to, just to quell your raging curiosity. but you’re pulled from your search by one of your friends, poking your shoulder to get your attention, “want in on another round?”

your glass had sat empty for a while but you had made no move to get up for a refill because of your little preoccupation. finally, you managed a nod and a thank you before your friends left you back to your own devices. you felt a pang of guilt for completely losing track of what this night was for, catching up with your friends. but your eyes quickly fell back to that bloody table as one of the men exclaimed, “george!”

george. george. george clarkey.

but it couldn’t be him, could it? it couldn’t possibly be the george that you listened to on a weekly basis on your silly little audio erotica app. no, it was definitely just some guy named george, right? but, a few more minutes of monitoring their table and eavesdropping makes your stomach twist but the voice is just too spot on. you can even pick out his giggle from across the room and it’s the same one that gives you butterflies when you listen to one of his ramble audios.

“come on, poppet, i know you can do it.” you had found george a few months ago on the app, he was new and typically you didn’t venture away from your usual voice actors, but something about his profile piqued your interest. his profile picture was what looked like a selfie, but just of the lower half of his face. but his smile was bright and kind and his beard was thick and dark. your typical type.

and his voice. god, his voice. the lilt of his accent always sent a tingle down your spine. the way he could be unbelievably sweet one moment and then incredibly dirty the next was what always kept you coming back to him. you held an immense soft spot for any of his friends to lovers audios. they just seemed to fit him and, arguably what you’ve built up to be, his personality. he was attentive and caring and when his voice washed over you- you just felt so fucking good. even just for a few quiet moments by yourself, george made you feel so good.

“don’t you wanna cum for me? don’t you wanna make me proud?”

and maybe it was a little bit pathetic so that’s why you keep that part of yourself locked away until you’re at home by yourself. so - this whole situation - is your worst nightmare. george, sitting only a few metres from you, talking with his big hands and making all of his mates around him laugh, was the worst way this night could have gone.

shame washes over you as you force your eyes away from the group, feeling like some kind of unwelcome voyeur. you turn your attention back to your friends, joining the conversation with perfect timing it would seem as your closest friend tells the rest of the girls her latest work drama. she had called you earlier in the week to tell you all about it so you’re able to sit back and throw in comments when appropriate (“that place would be nothing without you”) and eventually you're enthralled in the conversation again.

but your eyes can’t help but wander when you hear a chair scrape against the floor. george gets up from his table, walking past your’s in the direction of the washroom. he looked even better up close, hair soft and curls tousled, the mullet isn’t what you were expecting but you thought it really suited him. his lips looked soft, you could imagine yourself scritching your nails through the dark hair covering his jaw and his eyes were so blue. once he was finally out of your line of sight, thought, you took a big sip of your cocktail and steeled yourself to focus.

this was supposed to be a fun catch up night with your girls. even though you didn’t mean to find the guy who is now the only thing able to make you cum, it was still useless to give it any more energy. after all, you were just some girl in a pub.

and yet, you allowed yourself one last look his way when he made it back to his table. you gazed wistfully as he settled back into his seat and as he was bringing his pint glass up to his pink lips, his eyes cut directly to yours. oh shit, he caught you staring. you immediately dart your eyes away, instead looking down at your glass, bringing your sugary drink up to your lips to give yourself tsomething o do as you try to quell your growing panic.

you turn back to your friends, jumping into a conversation you barely have the gist of, as a distraction. but turning away from him means you miss the way his lips curl over the edge of his glass, grinning at you. you miss the way his eyes rake over you and when you and your friends get up to leave you miss the way his eyes follow you all the way out the door.

the following days are frustrating to say the least and you end up falling into a cycle of remembering being caught by george, feeling so embarrassed, and then trying to push the whole thing from your mind completely. but, nothing helps. you can’t stop thinking about him. his hands, his lips, his eyes, his voice were all you could think about, it was becoming a problem.

and you were also experiencing another problem, you hadn’t been able to get off since that night. you had banned yourself from listening to any of george’s audios in the following days, but nobody else did it for you anymore, leaving you completely unsatisfied.

but, you always end up aimlessly scrolling through the app anyways, just like tonight. multiple new audios were uploaded to the site earlier that morning, but nothing sounded even remotely interesting to you but then you saw it, his damned smile in his profile picture. you couldn’t help but feel like he was mocking you. but then your stomach drops when you see the title of his audio, “Meet Cute at the Pub”. oh no. then you read the tags he included, [M4F] [Strangers to Lovers] [Banter] [Slow Burn] [First Time] [Gentle] [Praise] [Curve Appreciation]. but what really gets you is the summary, “I caught you looking from across the pub, mind if I join you?”

you’re pressing play before you can even think about what you’re doing. your ears are initially filled with mindless chatter and the clinking of glassware, background noise, before you hear george’s familiar voice, “This seat taken?” followed by the sound of him settling into what you assumed was a bar stool. “I know us locking eyes for 1.5 seconds isn’t exactly an invitation for me to come over and bother you, but I guess I’m pressing my luck tonight.”

he chuckled, he was always able to make himself laugh, something that you would have found prickish in other guys, but always found it charming when it came to him. you scroll through the comments finding the usual gushing praise he always gets. you scroll all the way down to the bottom to find that the first comment is from…george.

“Made eyes with a gorgeous woman across the pub a few days ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since. Tried to get over it by recording this but nah, still thinking about her.”

the comment makes you shove your face into one of your pillows and scream. you were so fucked.

[neroushalvaus]

Okay I am going to use the Somerton situation to talk about something that is very important to me. Following the discussion I have seen former Somerton fans being disappointed in themselves and questioning how they can ever trust another video essayist again. I have also seen some people being smug because to them Somerton was obviously unreliable from the start. As a person who also saw the "red flags" in Somerton, I would like to skip the smugness and talk a bit about what the red flags were to me.

Someone else has probably posted something similar and Hbomberguy's & Todd in the Shadows's videos touched a few of these points, but they didn't focus on them or how to spot these things. I think it is a good thing: I think it would have reinforced the idea that Somerton's fans were to blame for being lied to, and these youtubers didn't want to pin any blame on the fans. Also, some of the things I'm going to talk about were not by any means proof of him being unreliable, they were common tropes I personally associate with people who are bullshitting on internet. Think of it as something like spotting terfs: If you consider following a tumblr user and find out they have at some point posted "males will always be a danger to females no matter what they say", it is very possible that they are not a terf. Maybe they were having a bad day and were just wording their post badly – But you should probably search "trans" from their blog before following them, just to be sure.

So, the tropes in James Somerton's content that I consider red flags:

Lack of sources. This one may seem obvious and Hbomb talked about this in his video, but the lack of sources in his videos was outrageous. Video essays are called essays for a reason, they are not supposed to be just a guy talking about whatever comes to his mind, they should be well researched essays. Obviously video essays should contain one's own thoughts and interpretations and those do not need citations. But James Somerton didn't come out of the womb knowing everything about LGBT history, Disney and film theory, if he actually knew something about all this stuff, he should have learnt it from somewhere. There should be sources he could point to. It is very common that even when a video essayist doesn't tell you where they got all their information, they open their video by saying stuff like "when I prepared for this video I read the book Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche and this one thrilling blog post about lesbian cruising in 1960s Sweden". From what I've seen, James does not really do this. From watching his videos you could arrive to the conclusion that James Somerton does not read any books, he just knows everything. There are situations where people don't feel the need to add sources, like when the information is considered common knowledge or when the topic relates heavily to the essayist's actual academic field or profession. This is okay and very understandable, but can sometimes be dangerous, since if the video essayist markets himself as a marketing specialist, people are more likely to take his word for stuff that has to do with marketing, even without sources. It is understandable that in many situations an essayist may think "why should I cite a source? I know this thing!", but doing your research well is partly about checking if the information you are certain of is actually true. Also, as Hbomb pointed out, if you can cite a source, your audience can go learn more about the subject. It's not about anyone doubting you know your stuff, it's about learning. That's why well-respected video essayists usually cite their sources very clearly.

Lack of pictures and screenshots. This is about different kinds of sources again, many things on this list are kind of about sources. An example: When James Somerton made a video about JKR, he mentioned something about Rowling at one time saying that trans students in 30-50Feralhogs (or whatever the wizard school is called) could use magic to present as their gender. If this was any other video essayist, you'd expect a tweet to pop up, or something else confirming Rowling ever said this. Nothing pops up, obviously because Rowling didn't say this, but you can't see anything fishy in that because things rarely pop up in Somerton's videos. He doesn't show you court documents when speaking about a court case, he doesn't show you the comments apparently mad at him for implying the gay anime is gay when he is complaining about people being mad at him. There is a reason people show screenshots and tweets in video essays. When a good video essayist says JK Rowling has tweeted that all people who menstruate should be referred to as women, the video essayist shows the tweet so people know they are not making it up. If there were hoards of annoying bitc-- I mean, angry white women whining about gay sex in HuffPost articles or Somerton's youtube comments, he should have no trouble showing you those. Remember that you should not trust someone just because they show you pictures or screenshots. Pictures can be photoshopped, screenshots can be doctored. Many youtubers are aware that you listen to their videos while cleaning or while walking your dog and don't actually see the screen all the time, and some may take advantage of that by saying something like "and here she threatened to kill me" while showing a text message where someone said "die mad about it". A screenshot alone isn't much but you should demand to see the screenshot.

Passive voice. I am once again bitching about this. Somerton repeatedly says things like "it's been said that" or "it was common knowledge that" or "a legend says that" or "according to most interpretations". He doesn't say who says it, making it very hard to fact check and that seems to be his goal in some cases.

Relying heavily on anecdotes. Writing a dense, analytical video about film theory or history can be exhausting and you may want to pepper in little fun facts. However Somerton seemed to rely on these heavily; he can't just talk about how he has totally bought every lie told by The Pink Swastika, he also needs to tell a cute little anecdote about SS men forcing sexual favours out of men. He can't just tell a story about a court case, he needs to add in ridiculous stuff about the jury booing. This is what I mean by not all the things on this list being necessarily proof of someone being unreliable. Many people use anecdotes and little stories in their storytelling, it makes the videos flow better and it's hard to decide which anecdotes are valid and which are not. A source obviously makes an anecdote a bit more believable, but here are some things that instantly make me fact check an anecdote:

It's a bit too convenient, poetic or ironic. Sometimes real life is weirder than fiction but if an anecdote is "perfect" and has an amazing punchline and you could write twelve poems about it, there is a possibility it was invented by pop science books.

It assumes your political enemies are stupid. Dunking on conservatives, MRAs and transphobes is always fun and after you've seen a lot of this kind of content it's easy to believe anything about these people. You must resist the impulse to believe everything that may make your opponents look stupid.

The person telling the anecdote implies it is an example of a larger, systemic problem. You know what's worse than taking a random happenstance from human history or internet and basing an entire political theory on it? The said random happenstance being made up. You should in general be wary of people telling one story and explaining why it's an example of everything that's wrong in the world. We live in a huge world. You can always find a white woman who loves cute gays but hates the idea of Nick Heartstopper and Charlie Heartstopper getting nasty but that doesn't mean it's an indicator of a larger issue.

Simplifying complex issues. We all know that "only the boring gays survived the AIDS crisis, and that's why gays started to only care about marriage equality and military" is a horrible, insensitive thing to say, but you also have to think about it for like two seconds to realize that it can't be correct. It kind of reminds me of the "roe v wade caused the crime drop of 1990s" claim in Freakonomics. It sounds logical and simple, like a basic math calculation. Societal issues rarely are like that, though. You should never believe anyone who tells you about a huge societal shift and says it happened because of one thing and one thing only.

These were some of the things I noticed in Somerton's content that caused me to distrust him. I hope these were helpful to you and feel free to add your own "red flags" if you feel like it!

[imagobin]

📸The Jacob Alden Files📸

Hi... guess what, I'm obsessed with this man, which is tough when most of his source material game aside had been WIPED off the internet... Being a Jacob fan in 2025 is like surviving on crumbs

But when I unlock a new fixation AND there's lost media involved? I get stupidly invested, it's like "Oh, you don't want me to find info about the guy...? Too bad" I'm terrible. But let's go! Let's give Jacob a taste of his own medicine and stalk him back!

Yee Haw I found the old site

Gotta give props to another Lurking for Love fan @starrgirlella for first finding about this, her pinned post started my hunt lol go check her post out too since she has screenshots of Noah Vega's corkboard (supposedly the other dateable character in the game)

Back in 2023 there was an official Neocities page about Jacob! Unfortunately, the original link to that page is dead now...

Or not quite as it turns out.

The page was just archived under a different name, and I found it ✨

SPONGEBOB

Yes, it's literally called Spongebob lmfao ANYWAY you'll see that the page itself is basically just a shell of what it used to look like, but it's still accessible so there's that.

However, in case even the archived site goes down, I did take screenshots of all the info there, to ensure this stuff isn't lost even once the full game comes out & some of this might not be canon anymore.

Screenshots wooo

In the past, Noah Vega's link was the only one that led somewhere, that still holds true, but unfortunately all it leads to now is a black page.

---

The voice claim

Big thaaaanks to @ alanorion on youtube for putting this together! If y'all ever needed to listen to the man's voice...

here you go ❤️

---

Lurking on AO3 for fun facts

I don't often go on AO3, buuut, through that video I did find out some canon Jacob facts are hidden on there, so I had to check things out lol.

Thank you to @ InZzzomnia707 on AO3 for translating all these from Russian to English!

WARNING! Some chapters on here are 18+!!

Jacob Alden's funfacts★ - InZzzomnia707 - Lurking For Love (Visual Novel) [Archive of Our Own]

This work is still being updated!!

I did take screenshots of all this too juuust in case, but I just wanted to share a specific one here that has really only made me love him even more.

Screaming-

---

Highly likely to be the official Jacob Playlist

Cause it's from the same account the playlist from the old site was, not sure tho, but enjoy regardless ✨

---

And that's it folks! This is all I was able to find... for now lmao there's bound to be moooore and I will keep looking until I burn myself out... jk

Hopefully these bits will be enough to feed some more headcanons about him? Some scenarios? It's definitely fed my brain at least- expect some works from me woo!

If you happen to have more canon stuff about him, feel free to add to this! ❤️

See yaaaa!

[interlink-au]

Genuine question for people who write fanfiction taking place in the time period of NES The Legend of Zelda or Zelda 2: Adventure of Link (the era of LU Hyrule):

Why is this version of Hyrule in fanfiction so often portrayed as a wasteland? Where did people get the idea that the water is poisoned and wildlife is barely surviving? Is there something I'm missing? Please let me know. (Non-fanfiction writers can answer, too.)

The color palette in those games might be a little odd, but I always thought the land looked beautiful. Lots of green forests and blue bodies of water. Is there somewhere that says the water is poisoned?

I was rereading the manual for LoZ and found this:

They called it "a beautiful and natural world." The paragraph also talks about good-natured people, which brings me to the question about how fanfic writers also seem to portray towns in this world to be hostile, when from what I've seen of gameplay, they are sources of healing and respite, with people just going about their daily lives. I have a feeling the hostile people are written that way because of the "monsters out for his literal blood" thing. But they seem no more or less friendly than NPCs in other eras. A little curt, due to the character limit and weird translation, but helpful.

Here are some more pictures:

Above map source: Daniel Engel

Even the desert has greenery. It's a desert, but not a wasteland.

I always feel weird asking this, as if I'm a desperate YouTuber or something, but I'd appreciate reblogs so I can get a larger variety of responses. My blog is pretty small. ❤️

[mrs-understoods-blog]

For people writing paralyzed Charles, here's some research I have done on living with spinal paralysis:

(disclaimer, this is all from research, and I may have gotten things wrong)

So from reading, paralysis is painful, even total spinal separation (which, from the movies, he likely didn't have entirely for two reasons 1) we see him move his legs very minimally (could just be actor error but still) 2) he moved his legs a bit before the bullet was removed, leading to the idea that Erik actually paralyzed him, meaning that it's quite possible the bullet didn't go further into the spine).

Even total spinal cord separation often allows sensations of pain in the legs, just not responsive to touch. This pain is phantom/nerve pain caused by nerve misfires. Nerve pain is usually a burning/sharp and specific pain (think hitting your funny bone x1000).

Because you're unable to move your legs entirely, in the morning, people often experience intensely painful muscle spasms and are dependent on muscle relaxers to prevent the spasming/shaking in the legs. This is from disrupted nerve signals and can be worsened by lack of bloodflow or movement. Because of this sometimes people with paralysis will try to move their legs around manually with their arms to prevent the spasms.

Because of these spasms, people with these injuries often strap their legs into their chair. This strapping in also prevents the legs from falling out of the chair/leg holds, which can be dangerous if there is no response to touch.

Charles had a very low spinal injury, most likely somewhere in the L4-L5 vertebral. The nervous system is like an upside-down tree, it branches out but does not go up, so anything above the sight of the wound is left unaffected, meaning Charles would likely have full range of motion of his entire abdomen.

Due to the location of the injury he would likely be able to use the bathroom on his own, but would do it with something called 'bladder training'. He could likely still feel body signals to use the restroom (not present with higher injuries).

Many people with this kind of injury will cover their legs with a blanket or wear baggy clothes for two reasons. firstly, aforementioned muscle spasms (they are NO JOKE), but also because muscle atrophy will occur due to lack of use and may lead to an 'uneven' appearance of the body.

There are also mental health issues that often come from these injuries. The permanence and lack of independence is a huge piece, and people often struggle with depression and lack of identity after injury. It's also not uncommon to struggle with opioid addiction due to the severe pain.

Paralysis lowers the body's immune system and causes a depletion of 'reserves' so to speak. Those with these injuries are much more prone to illness or infection because their body is already under stress. It doesn't actually lower the immune system like HIV would, but the stress on the body puts them at more risk.

Some good sources to learn more:

This video shows a man demonstrating how he gets out of bed in the morning with a healed lower spinal injury, and gives great reference for what spasms look like. His whole channel is super educational

This video shows how to get from the floor into a wheel chair. Again, fantastic youtube channel, good reference for writing wheelchair transfers.

These memoirs are all fantastic and real life accounts of what it is like to live with these injuries.

Now go on and write disabled Charles, armed with knowledge <3

[tanuki-kimono]

hello!! first of all, thank you for running one of the coolest blogs on this platform. your work is a real treasure trove.

i was wondering if you knew of the blog kumakimonokoi and its incredible ''kimono textbook'' ressource? it was a great catalogue of what kimono are worn during what season, what degree of formality, etc, i believe it was ran by billy matsunaga. the blog is now gone, and i don't follow her socials- so i'm not up to date. do you know if this ressource has been moved somewhere, or if a similar catalogue could be available elsewhere? it was so helpful, i'm gutted to think it might have vanished haha ;;

Hi! Billy Matsunaga is very much active, her new site is here, and you can find her on youtube and instagram :)

For the ressources, many sites do provide those type of info - depending of what degree of details you need of course. Search for kimono/着物 TPO (= short for Time-Place-Occasion).

Of what I believe could help you, here is a handy chart (source?):

And this seasonality one from AubergineFleur's blog, also covering accessories like obijime/obiage/juban:

The KimonoLady doesn't post thereanymore, but she has made this pattern chart in the past:

Hope it helps!

[glassesfreekjr]

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you hear the sound of a door opening... and you prepare to ride squidtastic grooves of your own design.

(Artwork by @angelhht. Reposted with permission)

What would a boss fight against Agent 8 sound like? When stripped of all the leitmotifs taken from other sources, whose music are we left hearing? Or are those motifs too intrinsic to remove? Would there be nothing left?

How could Project Memverse be expected to aid someone who can aid everyone but themself? Realistically, it can't — therapy isn't purely an external process. In order to reassert who they are, 8 must first find who they are, deep down.

And then beat the snot out of them. Yeah, that'll help.

(YouTube)

[foleys-help-blog]

Fun Selfshipping Activities!

Print out pictures of them to hang up on your wall!

If they wear jewelry, make it!

Make stickers of them! (There's tutorials on youtube of how to make stickers at home, or, you can get sticker paper on amazon for pretty cheap!)

If you do make stickers, put them on your sketchbook, journal, laptop, or whatever you feel like putting them on!

Make a google slides presentation on them! Alternatively, you could also write an essay about them.

If they don't have a canonical style of handwriting, find or try to write in a way they would write!

If they do, try making your own font of their handwriting that you can download and use. Or, try to learn how to write similarly to them, maybe write letters to yourself from their perspective.

If they have a birthday or there's a holiday coming up (irl or canonical), make a card for them!

Make them in the sims, or some other character creation making game. Or you could make a Minecraft skin of them.

Draw them as a character from another source. For example, draw them as a pony from MLP, or draw them in the style of a cartoon you like!

Make a playlist of Youtube videos you'd think they'd enjoy watching, and perhaps watch them again and pretend like you're watching them with your f/o.

Make food they canonically like, or you'd think they'd like!

Make a tier list as if they were making it! Like a fruit tier list, for example.

Compile an Amazon list or Pinterest board of clothes they would wear!

If you're able, buy snacks you think they would enjoy!

Name a stuffed animal after them or name a stuffed animal something you think they would name it.

Make yourself a sticky note as if they made it (like a doodle, a simple 'I love you', or something silly!)

If your f/o has a particular interest, look into it! Study it even, if you'd like!

Take quizzes as if you were them. Could be something serious, or something silly you find on uquiz.

If your f/o is romantic and you would want to have children with them, pick out baby names! Compile a pinterest board of baby clothes or toys you and your f/o would purchase together.

Build you and your f/os dream home in a building game (like Minecraft or The Sims)

Plan out a vacation of somewhere you'd want to go with your f/o. Maybe you could make a Google slides "brochure" to convince them to go.

If your f/o has a canon perfume or cologne they wear, or alternatively, their source created one for them (primaniacs website has a long list of series they've made scents for!) put the scent notes into fragranticas "search by notes" feature to find a dupe, or make one yourself you think they'd wear!

Compile a list of flowers you think (or know) your f/o likes, make them into a bouquet and maybe look up the meanings for each flower.

Compile a list of candles or body lotions your f/o would buy!

[lordofshitposting]

General Inumaki headcanons because we have too little content of him and as the head Inumakier I have to make up for it

He's not a natural platinum blonde, he just dyed his hair, since his hair in his original colour palette was light brown.

He's talented at drawing (since Gojō said he is [source:Jujutsu Kaisen Stroll Radio]).

He loooves kids.

As a kid, he was isolated from the outside world for a long time because of his CT.

He watches funny cat videos on YouTube.

Has a sleeper build.

His ass does NOT read books. Like, even if he started one, he would 100% drop it.

He would only go to weddings for the food fr (unless it's a close family member or one of his friends).

He's held and played with snakes in the clan. I like to think that they own a few.

His room is pretty clean.

If it weren't for morning assemblies, he would wake up at like 11am.

The Inumaki clan has very high athletic expectations from their sorcerers. This is why Inumaki is so athletic, + natural talent.

He knows martial arts. His combat style mostly consists of Karate, Kuk Sool Won and Taekwondo (the Karate idea came from him using a hand chop in the Thorny Road At Dawn novel and Taekwondo is self explanatory. Kuk Sool Won because I wanted to add something more and this one looks like one he would use).

He can jump extremely high.

If you insult onigiri in front of him, he will either look at you weirdly or say something like "we will torture you".

Once he hid somewhere and threw a silicon snake at Maki, imitating a snake sound to scare her. He got his ass beat afterwards (this one is something I did LMAO).

He's a deep thinker.

Consequently to not being able to communicate freely, he's gone through a lot of self-reflecting, and he understands people around him immensely well too.

This is why I think if someone liked him he would pick up on it fast, lol.

He's a foodie.

He has a ton of silly pictures of himself and his friends in his phone.

No skincare routine. His flawless, soft skin is a gift from God.

Once Yuji asked him to watch a movie with him. It didn't seem interesting to him from the description and the trailer, like AT ALL, but he agreed nonetheless so that Yuji wouldn't feel bad.

I don't think he gets sick easily, but when he does, he acts like a baby. And Yuta takes care of him.

He doesn't kill the insects and flies in his room, unless it's something disgusting like a cockroach; he picks them up with a tissue and puts them outside.

It may not seem like it, but he got some sass in him fr. After Hakari, he's the second sassiest boy in Jujutsu High

So it is canon that he has low blood pressure (or hypotension), and I think this gets in his way in fights when he's pushing himself past his limit. Extreme and sudden blood lose can trigger symptoms of hypotension, which in his case I think are blurred/fading vision, dizziness, fatigue and fainting. A good example of him experiencing all of these is his fight against Hanami. After finding out that he has low blood pressure and reading about it, this explains his lightheadedness and him passing out during the fight. Maybe the source of his hypertension is his CT in the first place, who knows.

He's an INTP

He loves it when people compliment him! His reaction is always so cute (source: Jujutsu Stroll Radio when Gojō complimented his artistic skills, his reaction when Yuji said his technique is cool)

I wanted to put some more things his interests and preferences, like his taste in music, his favourite media, his favourite sweets, but nothing sits quite right with me when deciding such things, and I usually don't agree with the headcanons of others on these either. I will post such headcanons too, if I come up with anything.

[phoenixyfriend]

Here's the thing, and I hope I can stop talking about this after I'm done:

I would apologize for the Reddit thing, and I would apologize for overstating the situation as plagiarism. I can't, because there is no line for communication, but I would.

(I'm not going to make this post rebloggable. This isn't me asking for you or Radish to forgive the parts where I fucked up. This is just me explaining that I've realized there's a full-on philosophical disconnect on a key topic here.)

My need to find people praising this fic and let them know why it was taken down was childish and petty. I should not have done that, and I wish I could say that I'm better than that, but I'm not. I was genuinely hurt by what I perceived as an admission of guilt: the choice to hide an entire widely-beloved project over openly addressing the topic. I took it out on the idea of the person that I perceived to have done that, in a place I didn't think they'd see, but hoped would cause them to reconsider their perspective if they did. I'm not going to deny that I vaguely hoped to hurt their credibility for, specifically, the origination of that idea, because I took the post where they simultaneously admitted and discarded it personally. And it was wrong. It was mean and petty, and it was wrong. I would apologize for this.

I'm not bragging about what I did. I just don't want to whitewash my actions. I do not like lying.

I would also apologize for using the word plagiarism in this context, as it is a loaded one. In this day and age, the word carries a lot of weight that implies much more than what I intended.

If anyone who was impacted by this actually sees the post: I apologize.

However... there's a bit of a disconnect on another point.

I do not need to apologize for considering it, at the least, a dick move. And, to myself at least, plagiarist behavior.

I've realized I'm using a stricter definition of plagiarism than most of you, I think. Probably, you are thinking of quotes lifted wholesale, entire chapters stolen.

I'm thinking about The FutureCop court case that stars in the opening of hbomberguy's video on Somerton.

I'm thinking about academic dishonesty, the kind of thing where you feel like maybe you don't really need to add a footnote or reference another text.

I'm thinking about the long and protracted argument we're having across the internet about whether or not it's some kind of theft for someone to ask Gen AI to create art in the style of an artist online.

A few years ago, probably before any of this but I can't find it to link, I read a post about what I'm going to call the lineage of ideas. It was similar to this post, but from what I remember, the topic was either genetic or literary, not botanical. For all I know, it wasn't even a post and I'm just half-remembering a YouTube video. If someone does recognize it, then let me know and I'll link it here.

In this post, the author spoke about how they had been researching something, trying to locate the origin of a certain piece of information. They found a source, and then saw that the information there was from somewhere further back. So they found that source, and found that the information was even further back. So they found that source, something from the 1800s, and found that the 'fact' that had been cited so many times had been overstated as fact. The original had been a theory, or an offhand comment, and then treated as more until people forgot entirely where that information came from.

And decades, even centuries of research, had been based on that fact as cited.

To me, this is important. Being able to find where a theory or concept stems from, that's important. It's why I link and cite one collective AU, two fics, three posts, and a book when sharing a silly AU about Anakin being a dragon. It's why I quote friends by name in posts where I share AUs that I brainstormed with friends. It's why, even when the story I wrote is different as all hell from the post or fic that first sparked the idea, I namecheck it in the A/N.

That's part of why I've spent half an hour trying to find one specific post about how sourcing properly can help you find the origin point of misinformation, and am still mad I failed.

EDIT: still haven't found the post, but this video that @penpalpixie linked is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Footnotes!

One of my core memories about cosplay were that whenever someone complimented my outfit, I would say, 'thanks! [friend] made it!' and the friend would then tell me that it was weird to do that, and made them feel like I wasn't actually enjoying the outfit.

That was... god, ten years ago. And even then, I was dedicated to making sure people didn't give me credit for things I didn't do, and hoping they would give me credit for things I actually did.

There are certain series, in fandom, that become so popular that they are used as basis for other fics. Double Agent Vader (fialleril) gave us a system of Tatooine Slave Culture that is almost omnipresent. Soft Wars (Project0506) has inspired lots of people to do fic set in the same universe. Integration Verse (Millberry_5) has inspired dozens of spin-off fics.

You know how sometimes, we talk about how we don't know where fanon came from and wish we did? How we chat about something Yan Dooku, and how it's not canon, and how it took us years to find an answer?

Can you imagine the rush that must come with finding out people love your idea so much they spent so much time wondering about it?

To me, that's what attribution is for. You want to find where the ideas and concepts come from. You want to know how stories and ideas and themes and trends change over time. You look at fandom and go 'huh, I wonder when this shift in shipping happened? I wonder why?'

And if things are cited, maybe you can find out why that one rarepair suddenly exploded in popularity, or that one style of AU is really in vogue but only since August 2024 or something.

The 25k words are so much that you clearly put the effort in, but let us know where the idea came from. You have the link. You told me to my metaphorical face. It's such a strange choice to be mad that someone ask you take the link, which you already have and already associated with the fic, and then put it. On the fic.

If the main inspiration was something else, why not just say that?

I think there's a lot to be said for the kind of hurt where someone makes something based on you, even a little bit, that you then don't get cited for.

I think there's a lot more to be said for someone telling you that you were an inspiration, even linking the exact post, and then making it clear that they don't consider you worth acknowledgement.

Like imagine your friend was setting up a birthday party for their SO, and you suggested a theme a few hours after you saw their text, and they went and did the theme! And it worked great! Their partner loved it! And then the next time you all hang out, you ask your friend, 'hey, did you get that theme from me, or like a tiktok or something?' because maybe they picked a theme before you got around to answering, but they confirm that they did get it from you. They quote the text you sent word for word, even.

And you're happy because you feel like you did something cool and then you mention later in the conversation, in front of your friend's partner, that you're happy they enjoyed the theme, and glad you could contribute to a great day. You didn't do much, all the money and effort was the friend, but yay! You helped!

And someone asks for clarification so you say, "oh yeah, I suggested it."

And your friend says, "no you didn't, that theme is everywhere. I got it from an online article."

And like... if that's true, why didn't you say so?

Why did you tell me I helped inspire you, and then get mad when I brought it up and wanted that tiny bit of credit?

Again, I'm not making this rebloggable. It's very self-pitying and I'm sure my frustration is obvious, but my first Big post about this topic was just timeline and links/screenshots. This one... this one is about the disconnect between what I view as the inherent value and importance of attribution, driven by decades of school pushing me to cite things in detail (like yeah, you have so many resources telling you Queen Elizabeth II's birthday, it's common knowledge, but Wikipedia still makes you cite The London Gazette), and what other people view as fair game in fandom.

So yeah. Hopefully you understand me a bit more now.