#be the change you want to see

[thepeacefulgarden]

[dangerphd]

Calling All Spinning Ships, There's a Rising Tide (of yarn spindles)

So, I don't actually need all these spindles and got carried away with the process of designing and printing them (yay, new toy!). After setting aside a set for my one IRL buddy who spins, I have, um, some extras.

This is a first come first served post, good until I run out/never feel like printing another batch. I'll delete the post when that time comes.

If you are someone who cannot afford to support small businesses and creative types by purchasing a supported or drop spindle from a maker, can't make one from a hobby wheel/furniture coaster + dowel for whatever reason, are ready to try out spinning, willing to promise to show us pics of the string you make, and don't think it's too weird to send your mailing address to a stranger on the internet...

Hit me up with the style you want {supported (cone or globe whorl) or drop (top or bottom whorl)} and your mailing address. I will send you a whorl and a shaft (probably not glued, just components), and some floof.

Please do not hit me up if you are well enough off to support the maker community, or able-bodied enough to craft a spindle on your own, I am trusting karma to allow me to commit a mitzvah.

A caveat: these are very much prototypes! They are all functional and centered and spin well, but may have some cosmetic blemishes from filing/sanding off the printer supports, or rough patches I missed. Spindles received may vary from the ones in this pic, but they'll be this style/rainbow gradient ABS.

[nerdygaymormon]

[trashbaglord]

I loved the Viking look on Morty <333

[coldblooded-angel]

Of course my first foray into this fandom would be contributing a multi chapter fic thats already 4k+ words long and nowhere close to done WITH NO SMUT !! GODAMIT I NEED TO STFU AND MAKE THEM KISS ALREADY

[the-badger-mole]

Were you people always bitter about Zutara not being the endgame ship, or was it something that developed over time?

I will answer that as soon as you tell me if you people were always in business that didn't concern you, or is it just that you don't have enough happening in your part of the fandom?

[alicewhimzy]

SURPRISE!

This character has almost NO fan content.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE!

🐎🥧🏇

[zisgarbage]

2002 Will Graham you are such a bad bitch

[animalsoutloud]

[cynosurus]

I'm rewriting Snape's backstory in my mind permanently in this very moment. Right here, right now. Forever.

No more noble incels!

[thepeacefulgarden]

[hs-killjam]

if you hate peppino x reader just block the tag lol

[furbyfubar]

You know how everyone agrees that the Internet has turned to shit?

Well, at least almost everyone who was around when the web was young agrees on it. This isn't a post to just bitch about the enshittification of everything online. No, this is a post to tell you what you can do to fight it!

But first let me just quickly sum up what the problem is:

The issue is mainly that the Internet and the World Wide Web went from being this cool thing where you could find almost everything to being the place people to use the same dozen or so apps, and to use those apps increasingly shitty desktop versions if they're on their computer. And any other sites you find with Google are more and more likely to be AI-generated bullshit listicles with well-made SEO that only exist to show ads.

Don't get me wrong, there are content creators on those dozen apps/sites who are still putting out amazing things! But since they don't control the platforms they're posting to they don't really fully own their own content. This is especially true since those platforms will of course make it as difficult as they legally can to move the content off of their services. Services that can and will change their terms of service to be increasingly shittier for their users the more of a hold on the market they get.

Then when the apps get shitty enough to not gain new users and thus eventually die, all those amazing things their users have created there either dies a slow death of obscurity, or the servers shut down and the content is gone for good.

So what can you do to fight this? You can be the change you want to see! So what should you do? Two things:

1. Set up a linktree and/or mailing list

The easiest way is to set up a Linktree account to link all your social media together (without taking up too much space in your bio). That way someone who wants to stop using a specific app/site at least know where else they can find you. But this doesn't help you all that much should your main social media suddenly shut down or bad your account. The best protection then is to use some free service to set up a newsletter/mailing list that you can plug to your followers. Then the people who want to sign up for it won't have to rely on noticing that you've stopped posting to find out your account has been banned. You don't have to use this mailing list to start sending out a periodical newsletter. It's OK to say "This is a backup mailing list that will send updates should I no longer be able to post where you usually follow me."

Bonus advice to protect yourself from losing touch with content creators you like following: Make a new bookmark folder called "Linktrees" and make a habit of bookmarking the Linktree (or equivalent) pages of people you follow. If you realize that someone has stopped posting you now have a place where you can check to see if they are still posting in other places (or under other usernames).

2. Set up your own website

This is typically not entirely free, and I'm not saying it's low effort. But if enough people do it, it will make a change to how the Internet works!

How? I promise you it's still easier than you probably think! Especially if you remember that the issue you're trying to solve here is that the web is lacking personal sites where people like you post things they burn for. That means that your site doesn't have to look good. Content is still king!

Learn some basic HTML and make a web page where you can post whatever content you want. That web page can then link to the other web pages you make. Do that and, congratulations, you've now made a website!

OK, so you've made a website that can only be loaded from your own hard drive, so maybe don't celebrate just yet. The next step is to sign up for a some web hosting service that lets you post anything that's legal for them to host. There are still free web hosts that survive by adding ads to your site, but if you can afford it I would advice you to find a cheap service that doesn't do this. If you only intend to host HTML and images so you don't need database support this still isn't all that expensive given that you're not likely to hit even the lowest bandwidth limit.

Next register a domain name. Make sure you have auto-payment set up for its renewal, and set a yearly alarm in your phone to make sure you don't lose the domain name due to forgetting about checking you e-mail at the wrong time. (Domain squatting trolls who register the domains that expire to either show phishing scams OR sell back the domain name to the original owner at an obscene markup are still sadly a thing.)

What should you use you website for?

Whatever the hell you want! If you're already a content creator I'm not even saying that you should stop posting to the apps you have followers on, but this gives you a way to post the same content to a platform that you control should something happen to your app of choice. Keep posting your photos, fanfiction or whatever content you make to the services you usually do, but now also upload them you your own website!

If you're making video you can still host if from YouTube (or Vimeo or whatever) so that you don't run into bandwidth issues. YouTube isn't likely to shut down out of nowhere, but they might start showing so many unblockable ads that you no longer want to have that be the main place your videos are hosted. But if you embed those videos on your own site and (vitally) make sure that you keep the raw video files backed up, you now have a way to change where your videos are hosted!

[jacob-lockley]

"be the change you want to see," i mutter to myself as i write completely self-indulgent Bruce Banner-centric PTSD fic after finding Ao3 Severely Lacking

[approximateknowledge]

im noting a pronounced lack of halkri fics on ao3...

guess someone has to write the first one? i guess...

[zisgarbage]

Sometimes a comfort character is a divorced dad who’s also a night guard that almost got fired like 10 times