professional-idiocy

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inaturalist user appreciation post. a huge chunk of my posts would not have corresponding images if not for the people who decided to snap a photo of a cool bug they found and upload it. thank you <3

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i actually need to know people's thoughts on this because at least in my experience the answer to this has drastically changed since i was on tumblr in the 2010s and its driving me fucking insane

*im talking about fandom takes specifically. not someone being horribly evil about a real-life issue or or blatantly factually incorrect. literally just harmless fandom disagreements or differing interpretations of a text/character/etc.

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Alright! Sorry for being so absent today! I was building a tool so you can all check your own names on demand.

I am asking that you not talk about it on Hugging Face. I'm sure word will get there eventually, but I'd like to avoid them accessing this as much as possible. Feel absolutely free to spread around Tumblr.

AO3 search tool is here! Use page 1 to search scraped fics by username. Use page 2 to search by work ID (which you'll need to do if you're looking for an anonymous work).

Or you can use this version, which is strongly recommended if you've published more than about 20 fics on the username you're searching.

If you're unsure which to use:

The first link is better if your entire username is a common word. For example, if you're username is just "bread" then you probably can't search yourself in the second link. The first version is way slower, so I recommend trying the second link first and using the first link as a backup option if the second fails.

The first link contains a page to search by work ID. This is good if you have an anonymous or orphaned fic, since that's not going to appear by searching your username.

The second link is better if you have a LOT of fics. It will give you a count of fics so you don't have to add them up. It will show the top 2,000 work results found.

If you have more than 2,000 published works, first off, I am jealous of your motivation. But second, that won't display right on the public version of the tools. You can send an ask or DM to have me do a custom search for you if you have more than 2,000 total works under 1 username.

You can also ask or DM if your entire username is a common word, because you're likely to get drowned out of the search results in that case. Try the tool first, but if it returns a lot of author results for your search, and YOUR name isn't in the results, ask me! There's a decent chance you're in there, but one of the tool's weak points is searching extremely common words.

In case this post breaches containment: this is a tool that only has access to the work IDs, titles, author names, chapter counts, and hit counts of the scraped fics for this most recent scrape discovered in April 2025. There is no other work data in this tool. This never had the content of your works loaded to it, only info to help you check if your works were scraped. If you need additional metadata, I can search my offline copy for you if you share a work ID number and tell me what data you're looking for. I will never search the full work text for anyone, but I can check things like word counts and tags.

Please come yell if the tool stops working, and I'll fix as fast as I can. Version 1 is slow as hell, but it does load eventually. Give it up to 10 minutes, and if it seems down after that, please alert me via ask! Anons are on if you're shy. Version 2 typically loads results within 1 minute and handles most users well.

On mobile, enable screen rotation and turn your phone sideways. It's a litttttle easier to use like that. It works better if you can use desktop.

Some FAQs below the cut:

"What do I need to do now?": At this time, the main place where this dataset was shared is disabled. As far as I'm aware, you don't need to do anything, but I'll update if I hear otherwise. If you're worried about getting scraped again, locking your fics to users only is NOT a guarantee, but it's a little extra protection. There are methods that can protect you more, but those will come at a cost of hiding your works from more potential readers as well.

"I don't want to know!": This tool is 100% optional. If you don't want to know, simply don't click the link. You are totally welcome to block me if it makes you feel more comfortable.

"Can I see the exact content they scraped?": Nope, not through me. I don't have the time to vet every single person to make sure they are who they say they are, and I don't want to risk giving a scraped copy of your fic to anyone else. If you really want to see this, you can find the info out there still and look it up yourself, but I can't be the one to do it for you.

"Are locked fics safe?": Not safe, but so far, it appears that locked fics were scraped less often than public fics. The only fics I haven't seen scraped as of right now are fics in unrevealed collections, which even logged-in users can't view without permission from the owner.

"My work wasn't a fic. It was an image/video/podfic.": You're safe! All the scrape got was stuff like the tags you used and your title and author name. The work content itself is a blank gap.

"It's slow.": Unfortunately, a 13 million row data dashboard is always going to be on the slow side. I think I've done everything I can to speed it up, but it may still take up to 10 minutes to load. It's faster if you can use desktop, but it should work on your phone too.

"My fic isn't there.": If it was published after March 15th, 2025, that was likely after all of the scraping took place. Otherwise, from what I can tell so far, the scraper's code just... wasn't very good, so most likely, your fic was missed by random chance. I am continuing to look for methods to reduce the chances of a work getting scraped anyway, and I will share on this blog if/when I find something that works.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cost to host the tool! I appreciate you so so so much. As of this edit, I've received more donations than what I paid to make this tool so you do NOT need to keep sending money. (But I super appreciate everyone who did help fund this! I just wanna make sure we all know it's all paid for now.)

(Made some quick edits to the post on 04-May-2025 to update information a bit!)

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This is why I say colors are a lie

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hello my loves <3 do not ever, ever, ever "officially" create for an IP that you have not signed a vetted contract to be paid for. this is a tactic companies use to get a free writer's room they don't have to pay for. you won't see a cent and they will own your work. don't do it.

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@staff our identities aren’t nsfw and we will not stand for them to be treated as such

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Speaking of loving bird noises. If you want to keep hearing them KEEP YOUR CATS INDOORS!

dont take bird noises for granted

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Saving this again

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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Man, it's almost like they're projecting or something xD Trying to blame people wanting to just vibe for the shit they do, huh.

Genuinely curious to see if most of the "gender critical" or more accurately, transphobic pieces of shit, are pedos or if it's just pedos manipulating others into blaming people who just want to exist for their crimes.

british 'gender critical' domestic abuse activist found guilty of abusing and molesting multiple children over the span of 20 years, including one child whom she referred to as "a tranny"

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You know, the one thing they don't tell you about having a pet snake is how adorable and loveable they can be. Like, I am feeling so loved right now that I'm tearing up.

See, Nuudeli has started to try to make this journey from the corner of his terrarium to the other end of it upside down with nothing but his abs as support. He usually falls because he can't defy gravity, so this time I opened the sliding glass door to stick my hand in there to offer him support so that he doesn't fall.

He was confused for a moment, but once he smelled my hand he recognized me and knew I wasn't a threat. So, he continued his journey and this time he succeeded after using my hand as support during the times he would usually fall.

The reason I feel so loved because of this is that two years ago Nuudeli used to think everything was a threat and would act really defensive since he was tiny and thinner than my pinky finger, so a giant like me would obviously eat him, but that's not the case anymore! Even if I still instinctually fall under the category of "potential predator" he has learned I'm harmless, which goes against all his instincts.

So yeah, I am feeling very loved right now because an overgrown shoelace doesn't think I'm gonna eat him.

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Manacles on the mind. Characters that are restrained so often that they have shackles around their ankles and wrists, and a big heavy metal collar around their neck. Never allowed to take them off. Always one padlock and a length of chain away from being hung off the ceiling. Ankle chain peeking out from under the bed covers, wrist manacles locked together, heavy collar made heavier with chains leashing them to a metal loop in the floor, literally chained to their desk, bruising under the metal that was so tight at first but nowadays clinks against protruding bones with every shift. Lasting marks that never go away.

give them some heavy metal jewellery theyll like it and more importantly theyll look so so pretty and it will be much harder for them to forget their place and they will grow used to the constant pressure and even when taken off they will find it weird not to have their shackles and collar on and they'll feel anxious and naked and will want the little bracelets whumper gave them back and please put some heavy restraints onto a pathetic quivering little guy who looks like he couldn't lift a single pebble on their own for me its like enrichment for them and especially me its my enrichment do it for me i must feed

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behold, using the latest gene splicing techniques we've managed to resuscitate the fennec fox from extinction

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"average estonian consumes 10 litres of pure spirits per year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average estonian consumes a reasonable amount of pure alcohol per year. Booze Cruise Georg, who sails over from Finland to buy 10,000 litres of booze each day, is not an estonian adn should not have been counted.

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Winter has arrived on Poob.

Start your 7 day free trial of Poob today, and watch smash hit Martin Scorcese's Goncharov.