#also I changed my username and url on all my socials

[littlehousetomoon]

my most recent painting :) currently hyper-fixated on abandoned houses so that’s all I’m interested in drawing/painting rn lol (instagram @littlehousetomoon)

[the-first-spinjitzu-master]

Hello

What’s the best episode of fraggle rock in your opinion?

Hi!!!!!!

So sorry, I have no idea how long this AAM has been sitting in my inbox!

Hmmmm… there are a ton of them that I rank in my personal favorites, and I could answer this according to that list, or from an objective angle based on overall writing and thematic traits.

Objectively, I’d say the best episode is “Change of Address”, as it’s the full circle moment that the series has been building up to- not to mention that I get CHILLS every time “Magic be With You” starts playing in that haunting choral arrangement. It’s impacted me so much, and maybe it sounds odd to anyone else, but it was the song I sung to my newborn niece to soothe her the first time I met her, and it worked. Overall if’s just a beautiful episode, and I’m always teary afterwards.

Other strong contenders based on objective reasons are “The Day the Music Died”, “Gone But Not Forgotten”, and possibly “River of Life” (?). I give RoL a hesitant nod because it’s so somber that I’ve only been able to watch it twice- and I’ve seen the entire series otherwise so many times I couldn’t even guess, maybe upwards of 30-40 full views? Probably more, honestly, since it’s been my favorite companion since I was a tiny kid.

In terms of my favorites though, I have a long list! It doesn’t have huge overbearing weight in the story, but “Capture the Moon” has always been one of my biggest comfort episodes, as have “Boober’s Dream”, “Red’s Blue Dragon”, and “Wembley’s Flight”. Oh, and “A Brush with Jealousy”!! Man, the song from that one… “show me the light in a butterfly’s eye/and show me the dreams of the earth and the sky”… ahh.. so pretty.. I just feel refreshed upon hearing it. :)

Capture the Moon is where the foundation for my two main Fraggle OCs comes from (and weirdly enough, I came up with them due to a very specific Fraggle dream I had as a little kid, so that’s probably why they’re so dear to me! Hah!)

I also (hot take, I know!) do have a couple episodes I don’t actually care for that much. Of course, I love them all, but I do definitely have some least favorites. (I have never really liked “The Great Radish Famine”. I can’t place why, but it’s 1000% near the bottom of my list, LOL!)

Anyway, you asked a short question, and I totally blathered on for way too long! I’m not sure if I gave a very satisfactory answer 😅 I do suppose I could be more specific and take a more analytical approach if you’d like!! There are several ways to answer this specific question, HAH! Please feel free to ask more!!!! :0

[diamondsheep]

Hi there guys is me Ram ✨!! I just wanted to tell you that i changed my URL and that I'm going to be changing this blog's appearance

BTW my old URL is still active but it will link to my art / archive blog @ramdraws 😅

[smellslikebot]

how to keep following people when a major social platform implodes

(...and you don't want to join 20 new websites)

First, get an RSS reader*-- here are some free options:

Desktop: Feedbro (browser extension), Fraidycat** (browser extension/web), Thunderbird, Dreamwidth (web)

Android: Feeder

iOS/Mac: NetNewsWire

You'll be able to make a custom feed to follow blogs, webcomics, social media feeds, podcasts, news, and other stuff on the web all in one place. To follow something, find its "feed URL"-- often marked by an icon that looks like this ↓-- and paste it into your reader of choice as a new feed.

Some feed URLs for social media/other sites:

Tumblr: Use username.tumblr.com/rss or username.tumblr.com/tagged/my%20art/rss to follow a blog's "my art" tag (as an example)

Cohost: Use username.cohost.org/rss/public

Mastodon: Use instance.url/@­username.rss

Deviantart: Info here

Spacehey: Info here

Youtube: Go to a channel in a web browser, view page source, and use Ctrl-F/Command-F to find a link that starts with "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id="

Reddit: Info here

Lemmy: At the top of a community's main page, there's a small RSS link next to where you sort posts/comments.

Some additions thanks to @innumerablewounds:

Dreamwidth: https://username.dreamwidth.org/rss (users can opt out of this).

Ao3: Tags have an "RSS Feed" button.

Bluesky: Add /rss to the end of a URL.

Neocities: https://neocities.org/site/username.rss

Sites that won't work all that great:

Twitter: Feedbro and Fraidycat** may be able to use Twitter profile URLs as feed URLs. Otherwise, use nitter.net/username/rss (or other Nitter instance) Public Nitter instances are dead/dying, and Twitter is now very hostile to pretty much anything that makes it easy to generate an RSS feed. For popular accounts, try this workaround using Google News...?

Instagram: Feedbro may be able to use Instagram profile and hashtag URLs as feed URLs. Check Feedbro's "scan interval" setting-- you could be rate limited or temporarily IP banned from Instagram if it makes requests too often!

Facebook: Feedbro may be able to use public Facebook group/page URLs as feed URLs, but see the warnings for Instagram.

Threads: Come on.

Also see how to find the RSS feed URL for almost any site. Try using public RSS-Bridge instances or Happyou Final Scraper to generate feeds for sites that don't have them (Pillowfort, Patreon, etc).

*You can set up your subscriptions in one reader and import them into another by exporting an OPML file. **Fraidycat's intended use is following a lot of people across different sites, so it's well-suited for this post and I'd recommend keeping an eye on it-- but I didn't recommend it initially because I had some issues with it, and it hasn't been updated in a while. The last time I used it, it didn't have a setting to change how often it makes requests to websites, causing me to get IP banned from Twitter and Instagram...

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the AH for refusing to change my online handle for someone else to use?

It's come to my attention I apparently stole a username handle? Which is confusing since I ended up looking when I made my tumblr and when they made their instagram. I made my tumblr in 2016 and have not changed the username while they made their instagram in 2019 and their page info has that they've changed their username twice in this time span.

So, they run an instagram page and have some fans. I won't say what their instagram page is filled with to avoid doxing, but what I post on my tumblr is completely different than what they post. I do also have this username for other sites where I post works I too. Now, when I made this tumblr I made the decision I would be a content creator and would be careful what I post since I've been chronically stalked by several people from IRL for years. I will admit, I haven't been able to post updates or creations regularly cause I started going back to school in 2016. However, during the summer semester I would take off is when I'd work nonstop to make content and post to my tumblr. During 2021 I got an anon saying to change my url since I go so long without updating and to give the url to someone else. I was appalled. Covid was very hard for me as it was to others, but I decided to use that as a wakeup call. I set up a queue to have several things reblogged a day and took part in many content challenges I could find. Late last year I had to turn off anon since I got another anon message telling me I'm using someone else's handle. Now, if this person contacts me I'm open to discussing their problems cause those anons were uncalled for. However, I refuse to change my handle. I picked it specifically for my content and I won't apologize for working on myself and going back to school to try getting a nicer job than the previous job I worked. I really do enjoy making content, just life happens so I can't change it. I guess what I'm asking is am I the AH for refusing to change usernames cause someone on instagram has their own fan base for different content? I won't list where else I have this username, but let's just say I have it all most social media's except instagram.

What are these acronyms?

[abybweisse]

Hello! Not a kuro related ask but can i ask how can u tell if someone is a bot or not on tumblr? Also can they do any harm to your account?

⚠️ I originally expected to give a short answer, but there's actually a lot I can say about this, having become a regular target of bots. My blocked list has quite the collection! So it's kind of a long post.

How to spot bots and why they are bad

Some bots are easy to spot while others are not. And they are getting harder to spot, as whoever programs the bot generators is learning how to make them less noticeable. Or an AI that's been made is learning. 😳

Blog name patterns

You might have noticed how default blog urls here have four random words stuck together, and early bots used a similar pattern. But it has evolved. I recall seeing names that were two or three random words and a two digit number, typically from 20 to 50, presumably meant to be seen as a person's age. Like these:

Then a different pattern was used, like two or three words then a hyphen then a number. Then another, like a first name mixed in with random words, etc. Now, it's harder to see a pattern, so some bot names now look more (or less) random... more like real blogs. If you see a new follower with a random name, it doesn't mean much, but if you see more and more followers with names that seem to fit a pattern (and it's not simply the tumblr default username pattern), then chances are, they are bots created with the same or a similar program. Here's an example of getting new followers where the names seem too random to be real but you don't really notice until you get a bunch in a row, and the randomness is itself a pattern:

Profile pics that real tumblrs wouldn't choose

Often they used to have closeups of female faces. Now they still tend to have pictures of women, but not so zoomed in, and some even feature two women. Like here:

Notice that three of the above examples follow a naming pattern of what could be actual people names and a number. The fourth is like that, too, but with a hyphen tossed in.

And bots sometimes have default profile pics that may or may not be changed later, so watch out for default pfp's that later get replaced with pics of random women. Usually young and somewhat attractive. Most of the bots are geared towards attracting hetero men, hence the female pfp's of generally attractive women. The hope is we see one of these pics and think that's actually what the blogger looks like.

Truth is, Tumblrs rarely choose pfp's like that. This isn't the kind of social media platform where we typically show our faces (unless it's a personal fashion or cosplay blog, and then we are probably wearing makeup and costumes). We choose pics of plants and animals, fictional characters, historical figures, celebrities, artwork, etc. It's unusual for us to market ourselves based on personal appearance. So, when you see a blog with a pfp that looks like it's from Instagram or LinkedIn... or from a dating profile... it's probably fake. They are just random pics found online and essentially stolen from whoever originally uploaded them.

Default header images or more random women

Usually, bots have blank or default blog header images (see the examples above). I used to see a lot of bot blogs where the pic used for the header is the same as the pfp; those usually have descriptions where it's just a name and a suggestive emoji or a name and a plug for dirty pictures. Like:

More recently, they've started using images that show women who match or at least look like the women in their pfp's, but they aren't the same photos. Just like those pfp's, the header images are likely stolen from profiles elsewhere or random pics online. The ones that have header images that "work" with the pfp's also have a tendency to include links in their blog descriptions.

Sus blog descriptions or none at all

Most bot blogs lack blog descriptions entirely or just have a name or something about photos, like those examples above. But lately I've been seeing ones where there's a short description. In those cases, it's usually a link to who knows where, and it's best not to even find out. The text, whether there's a link or not, is usually an age (assume that's fake), something about the person's identity or preferences (often of a sexual nature), sometimes a reference to ranking on OnlyFans (it wants you to think any link there might take you to that sort of content), and a collection of oddly chosen emojis mixed into it.

Zero posts or sus posts and reblogs

A lot of legit blogs are created for the sole purpose of following content they want... and maybe asking questions, usually as anons. Those "don't follow me, I'm just lurking" type blogs rarely post or even reblog anything. Most bots also take this approach.

But some reblog sexually suggestive posts and some reblog more explicit content -- even links advertised as naughty games -- but the most realistic looking ones reblog a mix of sexual and innocuous, even innocent-looking content. As you scroll down through images of puppies, mysteriously inviting landscapes, and teacups next to open books... you eventually find images and even sometimes gifs of very mature content. Often with suggestive emojis and links that should be avoided at all costs. Some even just make one or two posts with links and leave the blogs untouched for years. Like this one:

This blog only has one post, and it's from 2019. Claims about some free training program that'll earn you large incomes. Notice the tags on it are kind of generic, and some don't fit, like #home #decor #gardening. But it's a link to... something.

They might try to chat, but what they say is sus

It's very rare, in my experience, but I will occasionally get a dm from a random blog that just doesn't sit right.

Sure, sometimes a new follower will contact me to let me know they found my blog and enjoy it. Even longtime, mostly silent readers/followers will occasionally decide to reach out and privately tell me they were a particular anon in an ask... or simply that they finally found the nerve to say hi. That's all fine and dandy.

But when a new follower (who doesn't seem to share interests with you or has interests that don't match your blog topic) or a random content blog that doesn't even follow you just dms with "hi" or "how are you?", I get very suspicious it's just a bot. Their blog might look default or not but lacks content. It might be full of content that simply has nothing to do with your content. And they send a random starter message, completely open to your response. You can test them by asking if they are a bot. If they ignore that and respond with something like "I'm lonely" or "what are you doing tonight?", they are definitely a bot. If they say "no I'm not a bot" (or something like that) then ask leading questions like the "what are you doing" one, they might not be a bot, but they are likely just phishing/scamming.

One of the best tests is to ask them what they think about your own blog posts. If they ignore that and act like they might be following a script? Bot. If they say something very generic, like "I like it a lot" but immediately change the subject back to personal questions or something phishy (might also be a bit scripted)? Scammer. Either way, best to report the chat as spam, which will also remove the conversation from your view.

It's often not one thing but a combination

If you get followed by a blog that looks completely default, the best thing to do is maybe dm them to ask if it's a real person/legit blog. If they don't respond within a decent timeframe, they might just be too shy, but chances are they are a bot. If they respond with something that feels too general or scripted, probably either a bot or a scammer -- some are sleepers that wait for you to contact them. But a blog just being default doesn't mean it's bad; it could be a shy lurker or it could be someone new to tumblr who hasn't chosen pics, themes, etc. yet.

However, if you see a follower pop up (either new or their blog has changed since they started following), and the blog has some combo of the traits mentioned above, chances are super high it's a bot.

What bots do

I'm not entirely certain about all the different things they can do, and some of the things are likely more harmful than others.

I've gleaned a few ideas from posts I've read about the bots, though, including a good one I saw that had been reblogged by Neil Gaiman. I reblogged it from him, though I might have moved it to @aby-off-topic.

My understanding is that the same creator (person or program) makes a whole bunch of them. And there are probably many different individual creators, each making large groupings of them. Some of the bot blogs have content, usually of a sexual nature but occasionally not, like cryptocurrency or some random-sounding business venture. Those will have links to other sites, though some might actually link to other, related blogs in the same grouping. The content blogs also tend to be full of various tags, typically reusing key tags copied from the posts they reblog. If they have "original" posts, those will probably have the same key tags. The grouped content blogs boost each other and make their suspicious content become more noticeable to users who follow certain tags. It mostly clutters those tags with useless content, annoying those tag followers. But the point of them is to lure in the occasional individual who doesn't know any better; once they click a link, they could fall victim to stuff like:

Automatic exposure to malware

Mature content that requires payment (and might steal personal and financial information at the same time)

Phishing attacks of various kinds

Cryptocurrency and/or NFT scams

Companies that sell fake products (like cheap knockoffs, items that just don't work as promised, and items that are never shipped and might not even exist in stock/inventory)

People who try to recruit for MLM (multi level marketing), pyramid schemes, and similar money pits. These days it could still include wasteful timeshare programs, but now there are AirBnB scams and all sorts of things. Something that requires a time and money commitment and promises profit or some other benefit, but it just drains your energy and funds. Someone profits, but it's not you.

The bots that have no content except links in their descriptions are just hoping someone clicks. Then the unwitting person might fall prey to the same things listed above.

Bots that just follow but have zero content? Well, that's possible but not always true. The ones that truly have zero content might want you to interact with them in messages. Other bots don't have any posts or reblogs, but they might allow you to see the posts they've ❤️'d and/or the blogs they follow. You have to check out their Likes and Follow tabs to get this information, so it makes the blogs seem kind of legit and innocent. You are snooping around their blog, after all, right? But some of the posts they "like" and some of the blogs they follow will send unsuspecting individuals down a rabbit hole that might quickly lead to content blogs with those same suspicious links and too-good-to-be-true schemes.

Harming your blog

Ultimately, their main goals are to part people from their money and steal information. But they can cause problems for your blog, too. Like:

Decreased exposure 1: By making your posts disappear in a sea of junk posts with the same tags, it might be harder for new readers to find your content that matches their interests.

Decreased exposure 2: Similarly, people who follow certain tags and typically read your content that way might stop following those tags. They might choose to follow you directly, but they might not. They might unfollow a tag and then realize they don't recall your blog name. Some will be interested enough to figure it out and others won't.

Damaging your reputation: It's not common now, and changes to the website/app might have actually helped to stop this, but some blogs used to reblog others' posts with one or more images, remove the original text, then add their own links and tags. This happened to several of my old posts, too, and the alterations made it look like I'd posted manga panels or whatever with a link to a porn site or something. I had to report the reblogs and also assure readers that my original posts didn't contain these potentially harmful links. To get this remedied, I think I had to use a special reporting method that allowed me to give the Tumblr reps specific information about what the blogs were doing to my post content. I also explained that those blogs were doing the same thing to posts from other bloggers. Were they truly bots? Idk, but possibly.

Simply put, they can decrease your exposure to readers, make the tagging feature less useful for everyone, and even cause a PR nightmare for your blog. All in the name of trying to scam the occasional person who falls into their traps.

When you decide a blog must be a bot, please report them as SPAM (more likely to get it removed) and block it.

[kierans-crow]

m'kay. changes upcoming and catching up on a few "announcements" so to speak:

so I wanna keep the "courtlycrow" username to art, I think.

This blog's URL will change in the near future. I'm looking at "kierans-crow" right now, as I've picked up Kieran as my chosen name. It's not the name I was given at birth, but I'm also not the gender I was given at birth. I'm not killing my birthname. I just prefer Kieran to it. You can call me Kieran or Crow. You do you. (my pronouns are they/them).

I'll be sacrificing polyhedric-fate, which is the username for my DnD OC side blog. It's not getting used as well as I wanted it to. I'll be changing Polyhedric-Fate to CourtlyCrow and giving it several updates, while this, my main blog will be for my general reblog bullshit :)

Polyhedric Fate does see some reblogging though, but since I mostly draw OCs, it's perfect for a dual-purpose art blog and space for me to yell about my OCs!

My public Writing Blog which - also not seeing much use, and I've changed how I plan on using some features will remain the-corvid-scriptorium.

I will be also launching a Ko-fi and Community discord soon!

More info under cut.

the Ko-Fi will have 2 tiers, a $1 tier that gives you discord access, including WIPs and probably art that will never see the light of Greater Social Media. They will also get holiday discounts to the Ko-Fi shop.

The $5 tier gives you all that, special bonus discounts outside of Holidays or greater discounts on holidays (we'll see how it works in practice) as well as exclusive shop content.

the shop will contain packs of character art you can use in your DnD games under a private licenses (though, you will have permission to use the character in streamed Actual Plays, even if the streams/VoD are monetized)

the $5 tier bonus shop content gives you access to character packs that can be used for commercial purposes, and permission to ask for slight modifications to purchased Characters, like adding scars, or tattoos, or other markings.

[jheselbraum]

How quickly did you have to act to snag that username? I'm always curious, whenever I come across something like that.

I literally only have this username because I follow the person who used to have it and happened to see when they changed it. Helps that Jheselbraum is relatively obscure outside of the Gravity Falls fandom (and even in the gf fandom, she's still a character with only one appearance on one page of the tie in book, so it's not like she's the first character someone who's casually interested in gf would think of), so there weren't like, a million people clamoring to snatch up the url all at once. I have more trouble with syncing my art blog's username (@indylemon) across social media sites than I do with jheselbraum tbh. Heck, jheselbraum is my Ao3 username, and that's the one place I'd assume it'd be forever taken since its subsection of the gf fandom is almost exclusively populated by people who would know who she is. I don't think I could get away with snagging a username like stanfordpines or anything, and definitely not for a fandom larger or older than gravity falls. It also helped that the person who used to have this username just changed it one day and didn't, like, leave tumblr or abandon or private their blog or anything, moving on with their life but leaving the username taken pretty much until the servers blow up.

[spikeinthepunch]

rebrand conflict

idk how to decide what is a good or bad decision in terms of like...wanting to rebrand. i wish i could count back to how long i have used "morrysillusion" overall, i dont have a specific date. but i know after the white/brown antelope/wolf fursona, i think i dropped "moreyytilatot"? i think i tried to just go by "morey" in some form (i recall "princemorry" url). and then i dropped the 'nisovinsillusion' url maybe in early 2016? but i also had the coffini url here for a good while after. i cant remember if i used morrysillusion outside of tumblr around that time so. idk...

and heres the thing-- i dont really feel disconnected from my username, its fine and i think its p cool. but also in my head i keep wanting to change it, and part of that is wanting to claim a super old username i have no bad associations with. and i think part of that is bc of all the ways i am trying to do the things i was denied through my younger years-- so i am just reliving a lot of nice things and recalling the vibes and online trend etc i had. but also like.... attitude? personality wise? i feel like im not reflecting that w my current "brand" so to speak. at the very least if i didnt change my username, i still dont feel like the current look is something i want. i think the urge on the username change is just an additional feeling to push away from what i have been under this name.

the username i keep wanting to fall back to is 'spikeinthepunch/spikedpunch' (had the short one on xboxlive and the long one on deviantart) which was a short lived username but has no negative relations to anything, and i wished i kept it for a bit longer. and its kind of an edgy username lol. but in my recent years of growing as an adult, moving out, and being my own person, i feel soooo different than how my accounts have been presenting me. i guess ive been like soft, simple, and stiff in presentation? i think i fell into this when i was thinking id keep doing art commissions etc in a "professional" way, and especially bc i was doing my CN internship around then and wanted to still look presentable for the industry when looking for jobs. and while i certainly would love to work in the creative industry potentially, i obviously dont need to keep up that Normal-er image, i never should have, but also at that age and time i didnt feel like i could be that way at all. i was far more nervous of people interpreting me badly, negatively, etc if i was more edgy or mature. i was young and not dealing with my issues and so fixated on trauma etc.

this is also lining up w my plans to rework my website too. and i think a lot of this feeling also comes along w my "mascot" who i think is lovely! but him being a "mascot" makes him.... very detached from me as a person. i havent had any sonas to relate to in almost over a year... and my mascot was never meant to be a sona, just a Guy to represent my vibe (the colors, aliens) and social media appearance. and i guess i dont like that vibe anymore. i havent even felt all too into the shift i made to Mikike just having a vague spacesuit either, i felt i was just forcing that in order to fit the simple minecraft skin format for readability. (if people were to draw my skin, making it plantigrade and less animal would be easier)

and of course an additional observation i have had in more recent times are manic episodes that make me uproot parts of my life and change a lot of stuff about my identity etc. it may not seem like that happens online but its bc i manage to hold back on changing things abt my online branding lol- but it often results in making sideblogs for whatever new fandom/media i attached to in my episode and irl changing my entire appearance to fit and much more (and promptly drop both in about a month or so- its why i have so many abandoned sideblogs). this is obviously the bigger issue bc its what makes it Very hard for me to not do this (n yes i am in a bit of an episode rn despite my medication so...). and shocker, so many of my username/url changes and failure to ever keep one long enough to form an identity is related to that as well! its a surprise i havent done it in years but it was the expectation to stay with one identity, one look, in order to be Normal and recognized in a professional way, and i dont like that.

making this post and dumping thoughts has me thinking on a solution. as i said i dont really feel detached from my username. but what i dont relate to the most now is the way i feel i have gotten stuck in presenting myself online, and as a "brand". i want to toss out my color scheme, my mascot, my outward attitude. i want to let myself actually present in a way i like and not in a way that feels "clean". when my wcrp got shut down i had to come to the idea of acceptance and letting go of things i cannot control. and the reality of what truly doesnt matter in terms of what people may think of me. that was a huge pressure left on me for YEARS thanks to 2014-16 tumblr mindset and it is so so much harder to break esp if you want to try and be a creator and build an audience. i felt like i had become aware of this, and i have, but i didnt really click the fact that i wasnt into my current online presence bc i was still living with a piece of that era.. the fear of getting popular and being 'called out' for something for years ago, that wasnt even serious or bad, feeling like i was stepping carefully everywhere even when nothing was wrong. this doesnt entirely tie to WHY i want to do all the above. its just an observation on one of the things that hold me back too. just staying the same and staying safe. i hardly ever post, and while its something i chose to do its also a 'bonus' to not giving people much things to read off of me and assume from too.

this is getting too long and i think i have my point. idk what im gonna do but im thinking a lot abt how i should take control of my online life.

[starscelly]

hi! would love to know orchid, edelweiss & aloe vera. 💚

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

so warning i am a punk music fan so it may not sound like Great to a lot of people probably. but "scorpion hill" by PUP is one of the songs of all time. they're my favorite band and the emotion and vibe changes through the song mwah mwah mwah and its like Narrative it's a little story its very fun. "i can't pretend to know how this will end" from the ending is also what i put on my high school graduation cap lol. super super fun to see in concert as well and throw yourself around in the pit to when it changes from slow to fast in the beginning.

edelweiss ⇢ how’d you think of your url/username? what’s it associated with to you?

half of it is pretty obvious - celeste is my full first name. its not from the game it is just what my parents named me at birth. the "ki" bit is actually. horrifically. a shortened version of "killa" because i for whatever godforsaken reason chose the name killaceleste making my first social media account like 8-9? years ago? but uhhh obviously don't love that now, im just not creative enough to come up with something new so. just ki. kiceleste. ive considered making it more stars/hockey related but i got Nothin. also i am in too deep with this i fear

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

i'll give a diff answer than my last one for this ! i'd really like to start up a little garden and take care of it by myself. i feel like the little gardening tasks count as mundane? i just dont and will not have the space to do so in the near future but i really want to just have a garden and deal with all the little tasks from it like regularly watering and weeding and all that. i would like to be a Plant Guy.

tysm for asking !!!! <3

[merlilica]

For the ask game you reblogged I’m going for ivy, taro, orchid and edelweiss (you don’t have to do all of them if you don’t want to). Besides that, I hope life has been kind to you and that you are doing well! 💖

Ooo these are tough and under a cut because I like to talk a lot

Ivy: what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

When I talk i use my hands a lot so I know that when I’m excited I like. just go EVERYWHERE. I have hit multiple people and I feel so bad about it. when I’m happy about something I have caught myself hand stimming a few times/jumping up and down.

Usually when I’m tired/done in a conversation I just completely tune out and space so far I reach the andromeda galaxy lol. If it’s way too much I’ll put in earbuds because a solid consistent bass/beat gives me a kind of undertone to focus on.

Taro: if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

I really hate to say this but I probably wouldn’t respond. I am uh. Very Not Social. Phone calls/texting/emails kinda freak me out because I can’t read the conversation as well.

If someone came up to me in person though, I’d definitely respond. Probably just say like hi, how’s it going, still working at [place], how’s [university] is it fun, etc.

Orchid: what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

Bear with me because I’m about to show my whole soul here. Ik it’s like cringe or whatever but I’m cringe and I am free. Imagine dragons Amsterdam. I listened to it when I was like 15 and cried. Very personal song to me.

I’ve also gotta say some weathers songs of course. Rehab, Umbrella company, sucker, casual mondays, shallow water. Not in any particular order but I did make about 36 gifs from the rehab music video so I think you’ll know which one if my favorite. I wish wish wish I could add carsick because I SCREAM it whenever it comes on my playlist but there’s one. single. line. That I just don’t like. Yes it’s the words cut like a knife line.

Everything else about that song is stunning though. 10/10 would destroy my vocal chords

Edelweiss: how’d you think of your url/username? what’s it associated with to you?

So uh. Bear with me again here. As a kid my username for EVERYTHING was preppycat. It is still saved somehow in my phone’s autocorrect (even though I didn’t have a phone at the time) and I think my early early days roblox account still exists. It was taken from this. I’m so sorry that you had to listen to that.

We travel a few years after that and holy shit the original marvel avengers is everywhere. My friends and I decide to draw each other that cat avengers. Catvengers if you will. We made fun little portmanteaus of our names with avengers characters and/or words related to cats. (I.e. Lokitty. Adorable.)

All that to say it’s like 3 generations of changes from my name with an avenger and a cat, now completely unrecognizable to what it once was. I love it.

Now it’s definitely associated with the semi-persona that goes with it for me. I think “lica” And I don’t think of me watching avengers, I think of some funky little [gender] with a mask and some suspenders.

Thanks for asking because I had a great time completely exposing myself to the world lmao. Hope you’re doing well also and be sure to drink water and have some snacks!!

✿ ask game here ✿

[friesian]

🌿 HELLO!! i’m elf! 🌿

TEMP NOTICE AS OF 3/12/2023; URL CHANGE FROM KRALKATORRIK TO FRIESIAN.

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🌵 your neighborhood southern high fantasy cowboy elf!!! 🌵

but you can also call me ly or my username in any fashion.

my pronouns are he/they. i’m nonbinary transmasc and i’m 25 years old. you can find my pronoun page here.

i’m disabled, autistic, and neurodivergent so bear with me if i don’t like conversing too much!!!

@voryn-dagoth -- my elder scrolls side blog

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stuff you get if you follow me: MY OCS!!!!, cowboy stuff, desert images, horses, appalachian-based posts, elder scrolls (lover of tribunal and dunmer, altmer, and bosmer), ELVES IN GENERAL, high fantasy stuff, GW2, GW1, world of warcraft, early 2000s cartoons, metal gear solid, silent hill, my art, MLP, furry stuff, the hee-hee haha funnies, and just posts that i make randomly. this isn’t limited of course because if my brain just gets stuck on something i most likely will be posting about it in rapid succession!! stuff in bold is stuff you can expect me posting a lot.

i do not do commissions at the moment as i’m working on trying to shift my art direction! i also do not do requests but may do trades for mutuals depending on what they are! my art is usually tagged “lys doodles” or “lys art” but you have a better time most likely just going to my toyhouse linked a little bit below!

DO NOT ASK FOR MY DISCORD!!! if you want to message me please DM me here!

you’re welcome to seek out other socials but i prefer not to hand them out!

you can find all my characters (so far) here on my toyhouse!

you’re always welcome to ask questions about me or my ocs, or send just random asks. if you need anything tagged feel free to ask!!

(send me cowboy things. for the love of god please send me cowboy things or things that make you think of me or my characters. you’ll mood boost me for weeks.)

(he says howdy btw)

[smellslikebot]

"how do I keep my art from being scraped for AI from now on?"

if you post images online, there's no 100% guaranteed way to prevent this, and you can probably assume that there's no need to remove/edit existing content. you might contest this as a matter of data privacy and workers' rights, but you might also be looking for smaller, more immediate actions to take.

...so I made this list! I can't vouch for the effectiveness of all of these, but I wanted to compile as many options as possible so you can decide what's best for you.

Discouraging data scraping and "opting out"

robots.txt - This is a file placed in a website's home directory to "ask" web crawlers not to access certain parts of a site. If you have your own website, you can edit this yourself, or you can check which crawlers a site disallows by adding /robots.txt at the end of the URL. This article has instructions for blocking some bots that scrape data for AI.

HTML metadata - DeviantArt (i know) has proposed the "noai" and "noimageai" meta tags for opting images out of machine learning datasets, while Mojeek proposed "noml". To use all three, you'd put the following in your webpages' headers:

<meta name="robots" content="noai, noimageai, noml">

Have I Been Trained? - A tool by Spawning to search for images in the LAION-5B and LAION-400M datasets and opt your images and web domain out of future model training. Spawning claims that Stability AI and Hugging Face have agreed to respect these opt-outs. Try searching for usernames!

Kudurru - A tool by Spawning (currently a Wordpress plugin) in closed beta that purportedly blocks/redirects AI scrapers from your website. I don't know much about how this one works.

ai.txt - Similar to robots.txt. A new type of permissions file for AI training proposed by Spawning.

ArtShield Watermarker - Web-based tool to add Stable Diffusion's "invisible watermark" to images, which may cause an image to be recognized as AI-generated and excluded from data scraping and/or model training. Source available on GitHub. Doesn't seem to have updated/posted on social media since last year.

Image processing... things

these are popular now, but there seems to be some confusion regarding the goal of these tools; these aren't meant to "kill" AI art, and they won't affect existing models. they won't magically guarantee full protection, so you probably shouldn't loudly announce that you're using them to try to bait AI users into responding

Glaze - UChicago's tool to add "adversarial noise" to art to disrupt style mimicry. Devs recommend glazing pictures last. Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

WebGlaze - Free browser-based Glaze service for those who can't run Glaze locally. Request an invite by following their instructions.

Mist - Another adversarial noise tool, by Psyker Group. Runs on Windows and Linux (Nvidia GPU required) or on web with a Google Colab Notebook.

Nightshade - UChicago's tool to distort AI's recognition of features and "poison" datasets, with the goal of making it inconvenient to use images scraped without consent. The guide recommends that you do not disclose whether your art is nightshaded. Nightshade chooses a tag that's relevant to your image. You should use this word in the image's caption/alt text when you post the image online. This means the alt text will accurately describe what's in the image-- there is no reason to ever write false/mismatched alt text!!! Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

Sanative AI - Web-based "anti-AI watermark"-- maybe comparable to Glaze and Mist. I can't find much about this one except that they won a "Responsible AI Challenge" hosted by Mozilla last year.

Just Add A Regular Watermark - It doesn't take a lot of processing power to add a watermark, so why not? Try adding complexities like warping, changes in color/opacity, and blurring to make it more annoying for an AI (or human) to remove. You could even try testing your watermark against an AI watermark remover. (the privacy policy claims that they don't keep or otherwise use your images, but use your own judgment)

given that energy consumption was the focus of some AI art criticism, I'm not sure if the benefits of these GPU-intensive tools outweigh the cost, and I'd like to know more about that. in any case, I thought that people writing alt text/image descriptions more often would've been a neat side effect of Nightshade being used, so I hope to see more of that in the future, at least!

[sometownie]

Check In Tag

The wonderful @phoebe-twiddle tagged me to a yet another thingie, thank you!! 💚

Why did you choose your url? I used to play a hood called Sometown. It was the first long term hood I played with this account, so the username felt like a very easy choice :) Haven’t been able to change it ever since.

How long have you been on tumblr? Well like. 12 years. Or something. Simblr blog I’ve had almost as long.......................

Do you have a queue tag? I don’t really have any reason to use a queue tag. I think queue tags are good for people who want their followers to know they’re not really online at the moment their posts pop up. But like. I’m either always here or I don’t really want people to know for sure when I’m online or not. I only use queue anyway when I’m posting several gameplay posts at once - But I queue them only 10ish minutes apart.

Why did you start your blog in the first place? I joined tumblr because I’d seen friends use it and it seemed like a good alternative to Face/book and other social medias around. And when it comes to my Simblr blog, I created the original one because I wanted to try out posting my own gameplay pictures, as I’d seen others do as well. I created this blog with the same intention as the original :)

Why did you choose your icon/pfp? I just really like that hug :(((((((( And Greta, ofc.

Why did you choose your header? Uhhhh. Greta. Also the mobile header includes my self sim but I really need to give that sim a facelift and new hair.

What’s your post with the most notes? It’s What An Eyesore!

How many mutuals do you have? / How many followers do you have? The official total # is a bit over 1k.

How many people do you follow? Please note that I follow both simblrs and other interests on the same account, but still 615 WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Have you ever made a shitpost? 🤔 not really I guess.

How often do you use tumblr each day? I’m always here.

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won? Yeahhh no. I avoid drama like covid, and in general I mostly post for myself. I’m a bit lot unsocial, soooo :’)

How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts? If you tell me to reblog something I will most definitely not reblog it. If you can’t get your point through without guilt tripping people, then you gotta reconsider your point altogether.

Do you like tag games? YES.

Do you like ask games? YES YES.

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? Well like. I think in the Simblr community we all pretty much follow each other, and there are always blogs that get more traffic and messages and, well, popularity.

Do you have a crush on a mutual? I love y’all, mutual or not.

I FORGOT TO TAG HOPEFULLY THESE POP UP AFTER EDITING THE POST: @opalsims @hiippok @emperorofthedark @squeezleprime @mrslandgraab ♥

[sunfishsiestalah]

I've been staring at your username, wondering when follow you. But when I clicked on, recognized you.

Yeah, I changed it a few weeks ago because I wanted my username to be the same across all social media platforms, for the sake of convenience to myself and others, and I kinda don't vibe with that old URL anymore, feels too silly for my liking now :/

Although I'm a little bit relieved that some people still recognised me despite the url change and never announced it (´ω｀*)

Also the reason I put 'lah' at the end of this blog's name is I wanted to show of a tiiiiiiny bit of my identity, which can be explained here, if you're interested in the meaning of that word

[roppiepop]

bamboo, mahonia, and edelweiss for the ask game!

Yasmin!!!!!! Ty for coming in!!!!!!

Bamboo - do you change into a different outfit when you get home?

Omg i literally cant stand staying in my going out clothes for even a second after i get home!!! The pandemic didn’t help either lol now I’m just rlly used to not having to wear pants it’s ridiculous

Mahonia - what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

I’m always the most inspired by other stuff tbh!!! A good movie/song/artwork/book always gets me gearing up to create!!!

I also collect tiktoks and memes i hope to someday redraw for art block moments 😔👍

Bdhshshsjsjss usually i would draw but I’ve been barring myself from it until my thesis finishes just bcs I’ll have no self-control to go back to it if someone hands me back my tablet lol but in turn its just given me a lot of fic wips lately!!! But a lot of those have accompanying artwork planned so i guess???? I just made things double hard for myself????

Edelweiss- how'd you think of your url/username? what's it associated with to you?

Oof so, it started as my deviantart art handle in 2011 when i was originally planning to be an otome game developer LMAO and since it took cues from a rlly popular flash game artist at that time, pacthesis, i wanted a username that had the same?? ‘Nothing’ word vibe. This was like my first attempt at it ndjdjdjddjd

These days its just nostalgic tho!!!! I use it for basically all my main social medias just bcs i followed a lot of my old DA pals onto different platforms but since i was off tumblr for a bit almost no one calls me roppie anymore. (Feels nice that ppl are getting back to it tho!!!)