#and everything else is stuff on wordpress

[emuwarum]

I don't understand how the wild at heart isn't more popular... guess I have to make my own fanart

[nqueso-lies]

I applied to write for ScreenRant years ago and honestly even the application process was a massive turn-off. I have a master’s degree in journalism from one of the best schools in the country, just for context.

At the time I applied you had to submit multiple samples, which is normal for an online publication like this seen, but they stated that they could take what you’d write and use it themselves even if you were not hired. Not a fan of this, not sure if this has changed since. You were accepted into training and into a discord and had to write multiple articles unpaid during what was basically an incredibly demanding boot camp. These articles had to be written on their Wordpress site so you had very little access to your own work. Maybe that’s changed idk. I wrote 5 articles in a week during this period.

Once you submit the article (that you’re still not being paid for) they’d give almost aggressively awful feedback. You had multiple people reading everything and giving feedback and they’d contradict each other. Communication was a mess since it was all through Discord. If you didn’t know how to use their software, which at the time I didn’t, good luck because you were fucked. After the first round of edits they decided to keep you on or let you go, before you reached the next article. Rinse and repeat times however long you stayed.

Also the pay: $15 per article. So you’re encouraged to just write low effort, trendy, repeated topics to make cash. They run SR harder than some of the larger, traditional outlets I know, yet the hard vetting of the work seems to end with the training and then you’re let free.

I didn’t end up working with them because I got a higher paying, salaried, offer somewhere else. Thankfully. But knowing how SR runs stuff…it makes sense that the articles they publish are lackluster, repetitive, and all for the clicks.

Holy. Fucking. Shiiiiit.

Thank you for sharing this! My lord a DISCORD?! I hope it's changed.

This is an older ask but I'm so happy you shared your experience with me and I'm so glad you got a great job in the end!!!

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

do you have any posts already or if not would you be willing to share any information about what the process of getting the website up and running was like? i'm really interested in getting a site going for some other photo/record keeping projects and i know a decent amount about website design and basic html, but not that much about the process of actually getting it online;^;

Happy to share!

To be clear, my level of coding skill began with teaching myself html for neopets and ended with cobbling together vaguely custom css for my OG personal tumblr in 2011. So in terms of the physical backend of the website… it’s just Squarespace.

Getting it online is pretty simple if you’re not writing the code yourself, but there’s some stuff you’ve got to figure out first: what the name of your site will be, what url (domain) you want it to have, where to buy it, and where you want to host the site (like squarespace or Wordpress).

Once you’ve got the details sorted, you get an account on the hosting platform you want to use, and then set up the site and connect a domain. Squarespace lets you buy domains directly through their interface, but it tends to be more expensive than buying it directly from a registrar company like Namecheap or GoDaddy. If you’re comfortable teaching yourself to navigate basic internet stuff via Google, it isn’t too hard to learn how to tell a domain you bought elsewhere to point at your site. (Everything I’ve done to run all my websites has been self-taught via Google and Reddit, with the assistance of some very patient techie friends).

Once you’ve got the crunchy stuff set up, you build the site! I use Squarespace preferentially over Wordpress because a) I like the aesthetic of the templates and b) it’s what I know how to use. Wordpress is cheaper but trying to navigate the visual layout of the site annoyed me to the point it wasn’t fun anymore, so I personally will pay for ease of access on layout and design stuff.

To build the site, I thought through what I wanted the user experience to be, and how I wanted people to navigate, and I built with that in mind. For the photo repository, my goal was very clean visuals that really showcased the photos, and I wanted people to be able to navigate the taxonomy both visually and from a list. Honestly, just play with it, and try different things until you find a layout you like.

Then you try to break the site you’ve built. Because there will be errors and bugs and as much as I do appreciate it when y’all send me problems you encounter, I’d rather fix it first. I always check a new site on a desktop computer, tablet, and phone, and then ask a couple friends running different operating systems to do the same. That’s a good time to get feedback on things like layout and font size and readability, too.

The biggest time sink for the project has actually just been the photo management. I had to figure out how I needed things organized to build the site, and then taking the time to upload them all is the major rate-limiting factor.

You can launch the site so it’s “online” at any point during this process after you’ve paid for hosting and the domain and set it up, but I tend to wait until I’ve built the site and beta tested it sufficiently.

I’m happy to answer other questions, I’m just not sure what else would be helpful!

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

Hi! am working on big resource library of writing by nonspeaking & nonverbal people , ( some stuff by speaking people who know us deeply or disabled people who have similar but not same experiences that important to understand our lives but I am mostly centeirng us). is sorted by topic - communication methods is one , relationships & emotions & trauma is another , sensory & motor & cognitive & language process & body experiences is another , ableism is another section , terminology section , section on race culture language ect.

1 ) is it ok if I include some of your posts on our library? is mostly so far writing by nonspeaking spellers & supported typers but really want include more diverse range experience.

2)if yes , do you have any specific posts you want linked? or recomendations for posts of other people.

3) do you prefer links to your tumblr , instagram or other social media?

thanks!!!

ough this made me so excite!!. would love talk more w u abt this!!! would love see

1) yes, absolutely!

2) none on top of head. tag “#loaf screm” maybe helpful for this. need go through them n sort them some point anyway tho so can talk in DM abt it

3) tumblr have everything. but also been thinking long time about (re)create website blog on wordpress (or sth else. WP is only thing know abt) for list more formal writings, since this tumblr is mess. plus if try look tumblr link without account can get weird funky lock you out.

TL;DR yes! can link tumblr + future more put together blog. will look thru my posts n you also feel free look thru, n then tell me which ones u wanna link n so can prioritize post those on (wordpress?) blog :)

edit

oh some good ones

[eliotlime]

End of September Update

Just as a heads up, I'll be closing my commissions after the first week of October (06/10/2024) just so I can focus on other projects! If you'd like to order a bug from me or get any of my other regular commissions now's a good time to do so!

(Bugstyle | Regular Comms)

I made a really brief post on twitter about what I'm up to but since tumblr supports more text I'll just go into more depth on what projects I'm working on at the moment and general life updates!

I used to write blog posts on wordpress for school and it's just hilarious that I stopped doing that considering it feels like I was born to blog!

In general, I've been trying to crawl out of this very odd mood swing-y state I've been in for the past year. I've been semi-public about it but I graduated with a degree in animation same time last year and have sort of been recovering from the absolute burn out of that as well as watching the animation industry essentially collapse just as I left college.

I'm hoping to get into UI/UX design this coming October and try to piece what little control I have of my life back together. I don't really know what I'm doing to be honest and it feels like I'm just pawing in the dark with a lot of this stuff.

In lighter news I've been trying to get into something I've always wanted to for years which is comics! I'm not sure how much I can speak about it at the moment but I just got into an anthology which is very exciting.

I applied to shortbox last year but didn't get in :( but fingers crossed I'll get in next year! On a related note I've made a Cara profile which I'm using as a comics portfolio and archive.

--

Those of you who've been following me for years know that I've had a webcomic project called, Happenstance (which I've restarted endlessly for about 10 years at this point). While I don't really have a concrete update of that for you guys I will say that the story is more or less fixed and whatever version of it I have now is most likely the version I'll proceed with in the future.

I did try to get the ball rolling with this at the start of the year with a pilot comic but it made me so miserable to work on it I abandoned it and started making an unrelated zine instead haha

I do have plans on finishing this eventually and it'll be up on my itch.io and gumroad like everything else!

Speaking of the zine, I'd just like to thank everyone who purchased Cute Thing! I think for my first independent book project it did pretty well! It was incredibly embarrassing and nerve wrecking to promote it but I'm glad I did it.

I don't know why there's an 18+ warning on this considering this zine is pretty tame.

I guess it also helped that that stupid ass diary comic i made blew up at the same time so I got to shill my wares in relation to it. Even though I think it gave me some kind of psychological damage but every time i gain minor internet fame i shrink back into my shell anyway, this is just the first time i really felt so much.. vitriol from randos lol.

It's just hilarious it overlapped with whatever guilty gear obsession I had at the time as well. Thank you to everyone who stuck around and uh.. sorry! I walk wherever the wind takes me and it's frequently towards my own characters.

But! Speaking of Guilty Gear, I am working on an Abacelsus zine I briefly talked about on twitter a couple months back. The title is sort of pending at the moment and while I did say it might be free as a digital download, I'm probably going to charge a couple of dollars because of how much effort I'm putting into this.

On the plus side that means I'll probably be putting more effort into it! I'm aiming for 24 interior pages of stuff and hoping to release a digital version of it by Halloween 2024!

I'm trying to work on more prints and stickers for conventions as well and I never posted about my convention escapades here all too much but you can check out this instagram post for what I had up the last time I boothed!

That's kind of all for the stuff I'd like to get done within this year but other projects that I'd like to aim to get done by 2025 is a continuation of my Cute Thing zine that I'm aiming to collate by Valentines Day, hehe how romantic.

There's nothing terribly concrete for that at the moment but I do know I want it to have more pages than Cute Thing. It's called My Boy and yes it's named after another Car Seat Headrest song.

I've got a lot of irons in the fire and another iron is that I'm also planning a 4-panel comic series for my band characters that I've posted some pilots about before!

Pretty messy planning but most of my long form stuff looks like this.

A 4-panel comic series is just less intimidating than a fully coloured webcomic series (Happenstance) that I know will be finished decades later. I've also seen a lot of webcomic artists I've beloved just.. abandon their years long project and it's kind of scary to me that will definitely happen to me!!!

--

The long and short of it is that I've got a lot of projects and a majority of it is not making me any money. I'm extremely lucky to be surrounded by people that support my work but it gets hard to just do all of this by yourself with no guarantee that it'll go anywhere.

Patreon's a beast I've tried to tackle but it's kind of an ass of a website to use so I'll probably try to use ko-fi a bit more. I've kind of never really liked the subscription model and really do prefer to launch curated PDFs of my work every few months, but again I'm really just clawing at the dark and grasping at anything I can.

Let's wrap up this long post by mentioning that I might want to give streaming a shot! I used to stream a little when I was a teenager but I'd like to give it another go!

I don't think I'm going to have a dedicated persona or vtuber avatar but a small little png-tuber would be frankly hilarious. Maybe something casual to start of with, it gets pretty lonely spending everyday working on images alone.

--

Thank you for reading! It's an extremely long post to all but say that I'm scared but working on projects still! If you'd like to support me, here's my ko-fi page and while I'm working on getting more stuff on there here's my itchi.io & gumroad as well.

As I mentioned before I'm closing my commissions on the 6th of October to work on my Abacelsus zine so if you'd like to get a bug or any of my regular style commissions now's a good time to do so!

(Bugstyle | Regular Comms)

I'm hoping to make more update posts like these in the future and not psyche myself out every time because they're really good for me to collect my incredibly jumbled thoughts. Thanks again to everyone who's followed, supported or even just looked at my stuff it really means the world.

If you have any questions or just generally want to talk to me about my characters, my DMs and askbox is always open! Any professional enquires can be shot towards me email as well: eliotlime@gmail.com

XOXO, Stay weird!

-Eliot :)

[victusinveritas]

Where do you find alot of your stories and history!! It's incredible what you post. But you never have source links and I'd like to go on a real deep dive of some simular topics they have always fascinated me!!!

Thank you so much I hope they aren't linked somewhere else on your blog and I look dumb for asking lol.

Thank you!!

Thanks for asking. Whenever possible, I'm trying to get a lot better about posting sources (especially with the amount of fake news and rumors floating around, that sort of shit is important)--if something slips past me, folks have been very nice about politely calling out when something is wrong, or, may the Algorithm bless you all with cute animal posts, posting links to sources.

My process tends to be roundabout. I spend way too much time on Facebook, unabashedly evil but it's also how I keep in touch with a few people not found on other social networks. Because the Great and Powerful Facebook Overmind has determined that I like history it will suggest, unbidden, various (largely history) posts. I tend not to trust these posts as they stand, and hop on Wikipedia to check what I can before posting some version of whatever anecdote or neat archaeological site is the focus of the original Facebook post. The same goes for art posts, slightly more sourced commentary on politics from various antifascist and anarcho-tendency groups, etc.

For memes and shitposts, I get a lot of that stuff direct from screenshots of other social networks, tumblr included, on Facebook--for posts originally from tumblr, when bothered I will track down and reblog the original post, but if I can't be arsed or the post is older than a year, I'll often just post the screenshot, because I've got better things to do than attribute everything to everyone. If that bothers the collective you, please remember that this website is free and I genuinely do not care about your negative opinion on a given post or the way it has been conveyed--I am a petty and vengeful blogger of the old ways (Livejournal, Blogger, Wordpress, etc). Constructive criticism (someone finding the source post itself) is great, just saying 'you could have hit reblog' is not something I give a fuck about.

Just straight news from newspapers, places like the BBC? Whenever possible direct from the source, link included.

[dearheart42regenerated]

emerging from fandom hibernation/agonizing over my unfinished fics because it sounds like tumblr might actually be approaching its death throes for REAL in the near future, and I'm sad because the motorcity fandom is so lovely and tiny and niche, and I'm scared we'll never find each other or have another place to congregate if tumblr goes down...... :(

are there any active/semi-active motorcity discord servers right now? any MC fandom spaces on other sites where we can share stuff?

I also just panic-created a couple wordpress domains I can use to try preserve as much old fandom content as I can ("motorcityfandom" and "motorcityarchive", but I'm open to other suggestions too!) I don't trust myself to moderate anything bc ADHD flakiness lol, but I can use the power of Hyperfixation to preserve old fandom content! downloading/screenshotting @peopleofmotorcity's entire blog will be hard (I'm also eyeing @fyeahmotorcity's content) but I'm gonna start chipping away at it as best I can. this cartoon and fandom holds so many good memories for me and I'd be heartbroken if everything disappeared.

if anyone else has ideas for preserving stuff and/or migrating to other spaces, pleeeease pretty please chime in I don't want us to die out ;_;

[irrealisms]

Something I really appreciate about reading your posts regarding the psychiatric system is that you’re very upfront about how nonconsensual the system is. How you’re given the illusion of choice so on paper they can make it look like you MADE the decision to be medicated, you chose to be put in an institution. When in reality that door was locked either way and there was no real way out. It was either accept your fate or be forced into it. Then at the end of the day, the psychiatrists and therapists can deny accountability when they’ve most likely made you end up worse than how you were before.

The system has never helped me, it has only made me worse. How many labels can they stick on me and push around, and take away until they admit they don’t truly know what they’re talking about and just want a reason to prescribe me a bottle of pills.

Sorry if this is not the place to say this, but you’re one of the few people I’ve seen with an open mind towards how fucked the people who are “supposed to help” are.

thank you so much <333 my inbox is always open to patients, ex-patients, anyone labeled mentally ill or intellectually/developmentally disabled... it's absolutely the place to say that sort of thing. some of my favorite and most cherished asks are from people who saw a post i made abt psychiatry or found my psychiatry tag and appreciated it. i mostly fandom blog bc it brings me joy to look at my special little guys but ultimately if i can do nothing else with this blog my biggest hope is that i have carved out some amount of space where other crazy ppl, esp psychiatric survivors, can feel seen & not alone. it's fucked, it is so so so fucked, i am in fact incredibly lucky and privileged in my experience with the system (& with escaping it!!!) and despite this those experiences have been profoundly fundamentally fucked.

if you want more people who talk about how fucked the psychiatric system is-- idk how active #survivingpsych is these days but it was useful to me many years ago? and there are a lot of good ppl i reblog from a lot in my #psychiatry tag; off the top of my head lifeafterpsychiatry, trans-axolotl, librarycards, and transmutationisms stand out to me as active antipsych bloggers i respect a lot. sadhoc is also wonderful if you don't mind a blog like mine that is Primarily Fandom Secondarily Disability. realsocialskills is no longer active afaik but still wonderful. a lot of my most formative bloggers on the subject of psychiatry were off-tumblr (remember wordpress being popular?) autistic self-advocates fighting against ABA and institutionalization; everything by Julia Bascom is incredible (if you haven't read it, Quiet Hands was very influential on the autism and neurodiversity self-advocacy movements), ditto everything by Mel Baggs (hir most famous work is In My Language, but the one that affected me the most was What Makes Institutions Bad; I'm sure there was a lot of other writing between 2014 or so when I was devouring all of hir blog and hir death in 2020). Mad In America is very hit-or-miss depending on the author, especially around medication, but has some valuable stuff; I prefer Psychiatry at the Margins which tends to be a bit drier, but both of those are YMMV. I remember enjoying the Psych Survivor Zine although I can't find my copy of it or the tumblr post promoting it at the moment and I can't be bothered to search much harder since it's 2am for me. in general the keywords you want are mad pride, psychiatric survivors, and antipsychiatry (antipsychiatry is the most common but also sometimes has scientologists trying to slide in and plug their cult, so keep an eye out). I'm tempted to also recommend art that's been meaningful to me that isn't explicitly activist or antipsych in nature or more serious TheoryTM books but this post is already way too long with unsolicited recommendations lmao. anyone can feel free to ask though i love talking

Point is, you're not alone. The psychiatric survivor movement has been going strong since the 70s and we're not going anywhere.

[ID: an old black-and-white photograph of two women sitting down. Next to them are two protest signs: "MAD WOMEN FIGHT BACK" and "BET YOUR ASS WE'RE PARANOID".]

While I'll never begrudge people who need the system, for whatever reason-- I really do hope you're able to find joy & meaning & healing, whatever that looks like for you, free from a system that has only hurt you.

[asksoldieron]

SO-31: And We're Back!

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but I am working on it and I will add it retroactively. I hope.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for April Fool (260|31) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Okay! WordPress's latest updates have given me the power to do simple things I should've been able to do years ago without a plugin - for example, freezing the backgrounds. I HAD TO REFORMAT EVERYTHING due to missing style options FINALLY being available in the templates. I may have broken some stuff trying to fix it, let me know.

And we're doing the fascism now, I guess? IRL? I mean, I'm not, but I'm definitely hearing a lot of voices ready to slide into denial or be oppressed. Like, because that's the rules. Just hand the obvious shrieking fascist all the toys and shake his hand, because anything else would be bad for democracy. I honestly did not expect that to be the story. Like, from Biden and the establishment, OK. They never believed democracy as really in danger in the first place. But I'm also seeing it from the media and individuals who are left-of-centre, politically. That shit's fucked.

I'm not certain how to amplify my assertion that the shit is fucked, and my fictionalized methods for coping with it, but the sporadic nature of the updates needs to stop. You're not gonna remember what's going on and you're gonna miss stuff!

I may need another break when this six is done, just so I can get a head start on everything I've been putting off and stop taking all these breaks. I am working on a new way of illustrating, but my eyes are also improving. I was told I'd have a year's recovery at most. I appear to still be recovering. My blurry vision isn't as bad as that sheet I rendered a few months back, I can compare. I have started driving again - short distances, no highways yet. I want to draw, but I'm not sure if I should wait and see if my eyes improve enough to give me more options, or how long I would be waiting in that case. (I definitely need to collage less. The Public Domain is infested with AI images and I can't always tell them on sight anymore. I'm not even going to be able to avoid AI by cutting up magazines like I used to, or by buying stock images. WTF?)

But, in the meantime, you get a text-based six pack! And David's back! Yaaay?

Well, I like him. Everyone in the story is more ambivalent. It is April 1st, in-universe, so maybe they'll forgive him his little prank. That's him pretending to be Erik as soon as he spins around in the chair the second time - his language is a little more sloppy than the real Erik, he can't help making fun of the kid, but it's subtle.

I will eventually get you the three versions of David's backstory, all of which have elements of the "true" one. Erik knows what really happened already - it's pretty bad. David prefers his illusions.

Did I break the screenwriting rules and have the good guys fail to save the cat? Well, you'll have to wait a while to see. I thought they'd be home by now, but there's a whole world out there to explore. It took way more words to do it any justice.

[dreadfutures]

1) "it's so scummy they rolled this out without telling anyone." They made an announcement, and have not yet gone through with a deal with any generative AI form. This is pre-deal. They're giving users a tool to opt out of that deal before it's made, UNLIKE Tumblr live. What else do you want? (No deal at all -- me too.)

2) You're opting out. Theoretically that should cover all your content on your blog and content you own/post, right? I don't think this requires deleting your art or your blogs. I mean if you don't want to be on a website that is partnered with AI at all, that is definitely a valid choice to make (like with DeviantArt and ArtStation), but I don't think panic about your stuff being scraped (more than it already has been) you must delete everything ahhhhh is the most reasonable reaction rn (which is all over my dash). You are opting out, and THEORETICALLY that means something. Again, for sure it's a rational decision if you principle-wise don't wanna be on a site that's going to work with AI companies, and for sure if you don't trust Tumblr. But that's principle, not panic over something theoretically they're giving us control of (yes I am also doubtful).

3) yeah this mcfuckin sucks. between not being able to host fanart and images ANYWHERE these days, to every hub or creativity and community allowing AI to feed on our souls, everything mcfucking sucks. I know and agree.

Edit:

Nope! they're covering their ass because they already fucked us, nevermind!

[igglemouse]

Hello there, welcome to the hmmm...3rd iggleverse! This time though, you don't need to read ANYTHING else to know what is going on in this one. That's right, it's all fresh, it's all new! There are a couple of rebirthed characters but consider them to be reimagined, reborn with a new backstory and new connections and having nothing to do with their previous iterations outside of appearance.

You might be wondering then, what is the Iggleverse?

What Is It?

Well, it is a Plotacy. What is that? Well, it's a legacy that is played like any other legacy except that it is heavily focused on plot and story. Each heir has a plot tied to them and although there is a lot of gameplay the other anchor is that there is a story.

The one overarching thing to my style of posts is that they are very Slice of Life. This means that you'll see my sims doing every day things. Cleaning, laundry, whatever the case, so there's a lot of humor (I hope) mixed in but I will try not to hold back when it comes to big elaborate scenes that are meant to advance a story.

As for the themes, well, since it is a legacy so there must be romance but other than that you'll find that I do like variety! One heir could be about aliens the next could be horror. You never know but thanks to heir voting you'll have some choice in what you wish for it to be!

I should also add that it is MATURE. There will be violence, sex, mature themes, mature subjects, so you have been warned. I'll try to trigger everything properly but if I do not know that it is not intentional and please just poke me so that I'll just add it

LET ME READ IT!!!

Well, sorry! Ok, ok! It's easy to read! Each heir has their own story but a lot of times the stories do intertwine. It's not necessary to read each one but it does make it better! They do exist in the same world.

Any ways! Here they are!

Generation 1

Maria Moya

Araceli Salcedo

Talla Castaneda

This will take you to their profile page where you can find a nifty episode list! You can read it on wordpress as well!

If you do read it here or wordpress or even the summaries then please like and comments are greatly appreciated! Just knowing that someone is reading and into it is enough!

HOW IS THIS DONE?!

Well, I’ll probably make a post about that soon for people that might want to know the settings and mods and stuff that I use. I think I will and I will link it here. Why put this section here if there is no link? To remind myself to do this...that is why.

[rainmustfallts4]

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down~

Sul sul! Welcome to my tiny corner of Simblr, thank you for stopping by my blog c: My name is Tiger (or Rain, either is fine) and I've been playing the Sims for a long time. I created Rain Must Fall as my attempt at the Super Sim & 100% completion challenge - that is, to complete EVERYTHING this game has to offer.

In doing so, I started a couple other saves (Project Pisces & DovahSims) because I didn't think those achievements could be completed in my main save (or they would be a pain to do lol) There's also loads of challenges and scenarios I want to complete, and short stories I want to write.

Originally, I was posting on my WordPress of the same name. No one read my stuff but that was fine - I was posting it as an archive for myself. However, WordPress has a media limit (unless you pay to upgrade) and I found myself quickly maxing it out. I wasn't sure where else to go, so I came to tumblr! I hope you enjoy my sims and their silly little lives ♡

To block all of my non-sims posts, you can block the tag #Not sims. Also, I cuss like a sailor lol My asks are always open but please don't send me asks for money. I will assume you're a bot because you didn't bother to read this before messaging me and you will be blocked.

I wanted to make a new info post because the old one was before I came here to simblr (it was from my wordpress) c:

☆ Navigation

》 Blog Stuff

◇ Tig Speaks 

◇ Quizzes & Fun Stuff | Ask Games | Tag Games

◇ Favorite Screenshots 

◇ Simblr Question of the Day (SQOTD) 

◇ Challenges To Do 

◇ Challenges I Made

◇ DovahSims / Skyrim Legacy Challenge (Gen 1-50 | Gen 51-100)

◇ Not Sims 

◇ Rain Posts 

◇ Cats (& other animals) 

◇ Halloween Posts

◇ Links Masterlist (Google Docs)

◇ Sims I've Made

◇ Builds I've Made

◇ Sims Memes

◇ Answered Asks

◇ Short Stories

◇ @therainroguedoodles (doodle side blog)

👻 SIMBLREEN 2024 Info 👻

》 Current Playthroughs

You can find links to each of my series via my masterlist, linked above.

♤ Baby Boom (Baby Boom Achievement/400 Baby Challenge)

♤ DovahSims: A Legacy of Legends (Legendary Legacy Achievement/Skyrim Legacy)

♤ Dynasty of Color (Not so Berry Legacy)

♤ Echoes of the Heart (Legacy of Hearts Legacy)

♤ Everhart Dynasty (Disney Prince{ss} Legacy)

♤ Exploring the Simmosphere (Globetrotter Challenge)

♤ Family of Shadows (Vongola Family Legacy)

♤ House of Lost Souls (Asylum Challenge)

♤ Human Error (Human Enough Challenge)

♤ Life in Bloom (Sims in Bloom Legacy)

♤ Project Pisces (Legacy Leader Achievement/10 Family Rotation)

♤ Rain Must Fall (Super Sim/100% Challenge)

♤ Surviving Sulani (Build A City/Survival Challenge)

♤ Tiger's Guide to Losing your Mind (24 While 24/Every Lot Challenge) {complete}

[sladewatkins]

matt mullenweg & the wordpress "drama"

hey listen,

i don't like wading into heated discussions. i usually try to say something before it blows up, or after. but considering i use wordpress and tumblr, both of which are currently under the control of matt mullenweg, i do feel like speaking on it is a big deal. however, it's also quite literally my job to be impartial. so, you're not going to get many opinions here. i apologize if that's not your thing -- but i have a really big point here that you might not necessarily expect, so please bear with me!

alright. obviously @photomatt has been pissing a lot of people off online. that's a fact. so, i want to focus on a couple key things i've been seeing online and try and bring this down to a simpler level.

yes, the WordPress Foundation granted Automattic a non-revocable license that covers the commercial side of its trademarks. Automattic explained this in a recent blog post. we'll see how folks respond to that, but the basic TLDR is this: Automattic holds commercial rights, Foundation holds the trademarks and non-commercial rights, so there's technically two owners. that might still be confusing--but that's what was said. don't shoot the messenger.

yes, it does appear that matt may have a conflict-of-interest by sitting on the board at the Foundation, being the CEO of Automattic (who was granted non-revocable commercial rights, which we talked about earlier), and fully owning WordPress.org personally. that last one is perhaps particularly egregious to many online, but could also be a legacy thing that just hasn't been dealt with.

what do i think he should do? i don't know. once again, i want to be crystal clear that i'm staying neutral on the issues at hand. we'll stick to facts here on this blog. i don't know anyone at Automattic otherwise i'd sit down with Matt myself and try and clear this up for the rest of the internet. for now, i'll settle for a Tumblr post:

until everything resolves, we frankly do not have all of the information to make an educated determination. thus, we cannot jump to conclusions. to do so is dangerous and leads to misinformation spreading like a wildfire across the internet. let's avoid that, hey?

and finally, to close: i don't want to be that guy but... PLEASE remember when it comes to something you're passionate about, constructive criticism is always the correct path. attack IDEAS, not people. mental health is a very important thing to remember when engaging with social media in general. i'm not asking you to drop your feelings, i'm asking you to consider other people's feelings when you go to write in that text box. let's be more considerate with how we use our words. i know what it's like to be on the receiving end of what seems like endless hate... NOBODY deserves that.

okay. i really need to sleep and then pack a bunch of boxes. (long story, might share it later.) if anything else happens with the WP stuff, send it my way so i don't miss it...or just drop me an email and say hi. doesn't matter, you can hit me at slade@sladewatkins.com as always.

hope this helped some of y'all. i tried to be as impartial as possible and not inject any feelings into this. good night, folks.

[biolizardboils]

Hey again.

I was saving this for when I'd wrapped some other stuff up, but it's taking too long. I'm just gonna say it while the words are fresh in my head.

The two-month break I've been on? I think I'm gonna stay on it. As in, stay logged off except on special occasions.

There's still things I want to finish here. I will answer what's left at @ask-the-all-consuming-void and bring it to a proper ending; The Secret Thing it was gonna segue into will go up, even if only as sketches and drafts; And there's another project I'm still helping with behind the scenes. But aside from those… I want to maintain my internet presence a lot less.

I've learned a lot about myself since I left: most importantly the hyper-empathy, compassion fatigue thing, and that being terminally online probably does more harm than help. There's trying to be a good, vigilant person, and then there's overwhelming oneself about things they can't control, with info that isn't always accurate. I've been doing the latter in different ways for years; late April/early May was a big wake-up call. Lesson learned: I've got to find balance, and I won't find it here.

The second-most important thing I learned is that… the reason I "joined" the internet in the first place? It's pretty much been fulfilled. Has been for a few years now, actually.

I made this tumblr in 2015, but I got my real start on deviantART and WordPress in 2011. Don't expect links; what people post in their preteens can stay between them and God lol. But I'll tell you what got me to make accounts: my confusion as a new Sonic fan. The way people talked about them, the way they talked to each other… it hurt to see.

I got it in my preteen head to set a better example. To not let my love for something become disdain for others of its kind. To explain instead of assume. And to assure anyone who'd listen that it's not shameful to like Sonic, that those who do deserve better, and that they could still have it better someday.

And now, 13 years later… we do. The hurtful stuff I saw back then is nearly gone now. When it does pop up, it's easier to counteract than ever. People realize how silly and petty and wrong it was, and can call it out accordingly. People can live a little truer to themselves, now that that shit isn't everywhere anymore.

I think that, specifically, is all I really wanted. Everything else—the reinvigoration of the characters and their world, the downpour in avenues once closed off by "cringe" and "not enough interest"—have been wonderful byproducts. I've been gassing up Sonic Movie 3 as the final step, but it's really more of a victory lap.

After realizing that, I just… don't feel the need to post so much here anymore. My self-worth and sense of morality shouldn't rely on what I do or don't type. I don't need to document every thought or choice I make and why.

The cause I've performed for since middle school no longer needs my time and energy, if it ever even did. I can just enjoy things in relative silence, and spend myself in other ways. Ways I've taken too long to get around.

Sonic Unleashed is what set me down this path. I watched it go from rejected at launch, to just divisive, to respected and beloved. I still wonder if, had it gotten a fairer chance, the current Sonic renaissance could've happened sooner.

But dwelling on that won't change anything. I'd rather dwell on how, this year, I got to scream Endless Possibility with hundreds of other people, loudly and proudly. No fear of who's watching, no need to self-sabotage. It meant the world to me.

There was a con in my area on June 23rd. I wasn't planning on doing anything that day until I heard about it. There was someone in attendance who helped me put a symbolic bow on this part of my life.

I think he did a wonderful job :)

I have one last thing to say before I go. That'll be its own post, so I can put it in the public Sonic tags.

Again, the stuff I've left hanging here will get finished eventually. But for now, this is goodbye.

Moots, followers: thank you so much. I will quite literally remember you all in therapy.

--BiolizardBoils

[ineffablefool]

Anyone out there have their own website and want to rec their host?

I'm looking for domain registration and managed hosting for a domain or three, good connection speed and bandwidth caps and such but no need for the leading edge. Preferably includes managed SSL (might as well join the 2020s I guess), database services (relational preferred but not required), and some kind of control panel interface (please don't make me relearn the command line), all preferably in the same package. Honestly everything should ideally be managed/hidden behind slick interfaces, so I can just click some buttons to upload my own content and then let everything else be taken care of by the professionals.

Don't care if it's Linux or Windows but it 100% must allow server-side scripting so I can toss up like a springboot site or something. (Nothing WordPress-only; I do not currently feel like learning that ecosystem.)

Very important that the domain registration piece be through a company where you can actually get your domain back from them relatively easily if you decide to move to somewhere else. I've heard horror stories.

Does not need to be free -- I actually specifically would like to pay professionals to do all the boring stuff for me -- but I'm hoping to stay under a couple hundred USD per year.

I am aware that GoDaddy exists, is very common, and will do the whole shebang, but I don't know if it's actually a good experience for a fairly technical but very lazy person. And I mean, I could google to see what else is out there these days, but [points at last three words of previous sentence], so! A post hurled into the Tumblr void it is. Hopefully it will not immediately land in one of the many dumpster infernos.

If you read any part of this post (even just this one sentence) then I hope your tomorrow will be unexpectedly wonderful.