#i am getting pretty good at html from these too

[kedreeva]

When I was a kid, maybe 14 or so (which is, you know, 20+ years ago), I belonged to a Yahoo! mailing list for an anime called Gundam Wing. It was mostly populated by other teens, of varying ages, as it was started by a teen and her friends. Eventually it migrated, when Yahoo! groups started as forums, and even branched off into non-GW related stuff in a second forum.

One of the things I remember the most clearly is the oldest person in the group. Her name was Steelsong. She was a 40-something Dom with a sub whose name we knew even though we knew nothing else. She ran her own fanfic archive because the web was still handmade HTML and navigated in webrings and I’m pretty sure Google didn’t exist or was only barely, barely launched and not well known. She was kind and patient and we loved her. She treated everyone on the group with the respect given any adult, even though most of the rest of the world was still treating us like we were children. Not teenagers even, but children. She never once condescended to any of us, never made our youth a barrier to her respect, never treated us like we were incapable of being full people or like we were less than her because we were young.

I remember that she hosted our fanfiction, as absolutely terrible as it was (and I still have some of it, I am WELL aware of how cringingly terrible it is, just absolute nonsense garbage), right there alongside of other fic that was soul-achingly beautiful. Not a separate section for her friends or for kids, just right there like we were good enough to feature alongside other authors. I never once received crit from her that I didn’t ask for, only support. Only love. I am still writing today partly because Steel was so kind about our fic, fanfic and original.

I remember that when I started doing clay sculpture, she commissioned a tiny pair of dragons from me, to support me doing artwork. She sent a check my mom cashed for me, and my mom helped me mail it when it was finished. It broke in transit, and Steel assured me that she mended it and that it was still beautiful. It was a small gold dragon curled up with a small silver dragon.

I remember that her patience knew no bounds. I remember that she was there for us, regardless of reason. When we wanted to know silly things like what to do with a single AA battery, she answered. When we had serious questions about sex, she answered.  When we had questions about writing, she taught us. When one of our group members, a young gay teen in Australia, ended up in the hospital and then stopped making posts, and we all knew what had happened, she let us talk to her about it because we couldn’t go to our own parents, even though we had just lost a friend.

She was not a replacement to my parents, but she was an extra parent, in some ways. A friend, certainly, but someone that had been through more life than we had and was willing to pass on knowledge if we asked for it. Someone older that we trusted with things that were too uncomfortable to go to our parents or teachers or whatever about, because we already knew she wasn’t going to judge us or something, and that we would get an honest answer.

I don’t know why I’m remembering this so hard tonight, and I’m not sure if there’s a point to sharing this, except that I know she’s gone now. She was ill the last time we spoke, and her site went down a long time ago, and I miss her. She was a huge influence on my life, then and now. She was hope, for me, that life as an adult didn’t have to be boring, it wouldn’t have to mean giving up the things I loved and Becoming Only Responsible With No Fun. Her presence meant I had hope I could still write and play with friends even when I wasn’t ‘a kid’ anymore. And she’s gone, and I miss her, and I wanted to share her from the perspective of youth, and the perspective over twenty years later has provided me.

And I think of her, when people go off about older folks being in fandom with younger folks. I’m an older folks now, or at least middle aged folks because there are certainly folks older than me still, but I wasn’t always. I’ve been here since i was a younger folks, and I know how much Steel’s presence and support meant to me, how much she helped not just me but everyone on that group. And I think of the people saying older folks don’t belong in fandom, and that they shouldn’t interact with younger folks at all, and I just think... I can’t agree. I needed that kind of solid presence in my life back then and even at the age I am now, I need the folks older than me to stay. I want them here.

So I guess, like, if you’re here and you’re 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever, I want you here in fandom with me, still. Your presence here is a comfort. It is hope. It is a reminder that life will continue to be fun, even as I get older, myself. And if you’re younger and you have this sort of elder in your groups, I hope that they are like Steel. I hope they are kind and patient and supportive, and that knowing them gives you hope for your own future. I hope in twenty years you look back and remember them fondly.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

I want to start by saying thank you so much for running this blog! Also I'm writing this after an all-nighter so my apologies if it's not very comprehensible.

Just noticed something interesting I haven't seen anyone discuss but may be some good fodder for further speculation (one might even say a clue) - One of the early scenes in Season 2 Episode 1 Aziraphale takes a few records he says he requested from Maggie's store, apparently they're all by Dmitri Shostakovich, and the camera focuses on the top one which is "Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op 47". Apparently it's pretty famous since Wikipedia has an extensive article on it, as does PBS ( http://www.pbs.org/keepingscore/shostakovich-symphony-5.html )

Not to speculate too much, I'll leave that to someone who's more willing to dive down a rabbit hole, but I do think there was an intentional choice to bring attention to this piece (especially since even the CC somehow managed to get the name right).

Shostakovich was persecuted by the Soviet Government for his work, and it seems he was deeply conflicted between helping others and keeping his loved ones safe throughout his life. there seems to be a widespread belief that this piece in particular is intended to covertly convey false praises to a tyrannical government while in actually experiencing profound suffering. Maybe that is the connections Mr. Gaiman was going for?

Hope some folks (who are hopefully less sleep deprived then I am) will speculate further on this now that it's being brought to their attention, and or at least get someone to listen to some fantastic music.

Hiya! Oh? 👀

[pacalternative]

BIG OL' UPDATE!

Hello everybody, you all know how sporadic posts have been on here, but I have been working pretty hard on updating a few things...So here's a few to keep in mind!

• • • •

PAC AU LORE CARRD!

Pac Alternative lore website is still being worked! The plan at first was to make a Toy-house World section to stuff in information regrading the AU, but It was met with some... technical difficulties. ( I underestimated how complex HTML can be.) Which is why the Toy-house update was taking a bit longer than it should have.

But luckily, I discovered last second I can just make a carrd. site with all the info people need to Start with LOL. Progress has been moving very smoothly. There's of course a lot of work to do, but what we have so far is looking pretty good.

You guys deserve a preview...

This is subject to change at any period of time but it's a start!

━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━ ━━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━

UPDATING CHARACTER REFS

To put it bluntly, the character references from last year don't hold up all too well now. Call it perfectionism or stubbornness, but after taking the time to look back on my methods of doing them, I wanted to handle it in a different approach.

Each of the refs going forward are going to be a bit more complex so I can have an easier time drawing outfits for the characters and understanding how to draw their body types as a whole. Think dress-up dolls as in ( under-garments, main and casual outfit). Not EVERY character will have this, but the ones I will be drawing the most, most definitely will.

I'm already learning a ton from this way of doing them, It is going to take me a longer time showing the cast to you all. But I am happy to say that the Pac-people are ALMOST completed! I can't wait to show them off, but you are more likely to see them early on Toyhouse..,

━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━ ━━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━ ━━━━━

COMIC UPDATE?

The comic writing wise is still in it's early stages...! After the site is completed I will be more motivated to get chapters 1+2+3 all written out by this or next year so I can finally start drawing out the main story! For now, though, mini comics will be more often to come out.

Sorry for this part of the update in particular taking a bit to get running, but the previous updates above are what I am the most focused on right now.

• • • •

ANDDDDD That is all for now! Thank-you to those who have kept interested in this project of mine and keeping me motivated.

Until next time folks!

[louroth]

Well, well, well. Would you look at what the cat dragged in. (it's me, Lou!)

The time is here, and oh man, do I have a lot to say! Ever since this post was posted on my personal tumblr, on the fifth of may, I have been working like a machine on all things OUROBOROS. I had originally planned for this to just be a progress report/ announcement on what I will be working on now that I am free of the shackles of work, but, somehow, I managed to finish all bullet points, and more. So, let's get into it!

First off, the title.  Ouroboros becomes all capitalized OUROBOROS. Idk. It's neat. Next!

Art. Whew. I didn't think I could draw like this anymore- drawing has been more of a struggle than writing has been, forever, always- it was something I really strived to become good at, for a time. And I gave up. Only to pick it up again when I started ouro, and ever since I released that pressure, something just clicked and I have been churning out art like never before. I don't know if this is a fluke, a stroke of luck or if all that hard work I once did slaving away with menial art practice… but I'm grateful nonetheless. (A note on official RO art: I lost my ipad pencil somewhere on the lawn, lmao. I haven't been able to get a new one yet, so there is a slight delay here.) I am hoping that I get to make some commissions too, in the near future. Visit the forum to see some works in progress (amongst them, Yor's RO portrait!)

Onto the hellscape that is coding! I have been growing more proficient with CSS and html with the help of the ones that run so that we can walk; I have studied and researched and tested and tinkered until my eyes crossed, finding my way into this medium with the incredible guidance of the giants of whose shoulders I stand on. I will talk about this in detail on a later date. So I think it's finally time to reveal that yes, I am working on a twine version of ouro. I will develop it in tandem with choicescript; the porting over from one to the other isn't the herculean task I thought it would be.

Why am I doing this? Because I need to have a save system. I am continuing to write the whole alpha draft in choicescript in hopes that CoG will announce the ability to have a native save/checkpoint system, but if that doesn’t happen, I can’t publish this story without one. Unfortunately, I am not willing to code in a savesystem in choicescript myself, because this will be a large game, with far too many variables for that to be sustainable. Trust me, no one is more disappointed by that fact than me. If it comes to the point that twine publishing will be what I do, I will set my sights on writing a smaller game for hosted games. 

Now the meatier announcements!

New Socials!

Tumblr: You are looking at it!  This is the new, exclusively OUROBOROS blog where I will share all announcements and sneak-peeks, and future updates. I worked together with the dev of the theme and made it oh, so pretty and functional. Please check out their portfolio here, if you are ever in the market for sprucing up your (desktop version) of tumblr. They were a pleasure to work with. Amongst other things, it has a gorgeous header (again, only if you visit on web and not mobile) where I am showcasing fanart and official art. Go check it out! This month, I am showcasing a truly breathtaking art from KAIRELART, and you can find the full art here, or follow the links in the “FEATURED ARTIST” tab in the top bar.

I hope you enjoy this new haven for OUROBOROS! I will be answering questions once a week (saturday) and ramping up as I adapt to this new schedule, more on that further below.

My old tumblr, honeypeabrain, will revert back to being my personal blog. Feel free to keep following me there, but know that it will be inundated with shitposts, crass humor and the occasional poetry dump and personal post. You’ve been warned!

Discord!

By the good graces, this was ROUGH to set up. Working with discord bots is akin to wrangling code, and it was well and truly, a war. But with the help of many, it is finally all done and ready for anyone to join and talk to me and others about OUROBOROS and anything else between heaven and earth. 

I will also greatly appreciate if any future bugs and feedback are submitted through here, so I can keep easier track of it. Come join us! (18+ ONLY.)

Patreon & Ko-Fi

Yep! Ko-fi is just a place to toss me a coin if you wish to help me towards the goal of new PC parts to make testing easier, or to just show appreciation for those that have it to spare. Patreon however, already has a multitude of posts and will be a hub for exclusive NSFW sidestories that you get to vote on, loredives and extensive sneak peeks, Q&A’s, polls and weekly dev logs. 

Right now, there are only two tiers, but I expect it to grow as my story does. I have many plans, but I am going at a steady pace. 

Amongst tiered content, there is a (free) NSFW story with female MC and Idren to read there right now, if you want to check it out! I am mgoing to post it on tumblr and the adult thread here over the weekend.

NOTE: I stupidly didn't realize that patreon had a review process after I pressed launch, which I did just a few minutes ago. Sigh. I am going to post the short on tumblr and the adult forum thread as soon as I get to it.

It is not mandatory by any means, so if you do choose to support me, you have my eternal gratitude as these places will be the sole source of income for me.

Onto writing:

The best news out of this whole bunch is that I have worked so hard on editing and writing, that in the past month I have all but finished a two chapter update! I have a chunk of about 5-6 thousand words left to write, and I am going to buckle down over the weekend to see it through. I wanted to have it done so badly for today, but I lost three days of writing time last week due to still being weighed down with work. I hope it isn’t too disappointing to have to wait until monday for the demo update! I am going to post a link to an as-I-write updated demo on Patreon and Discord, if you want to see the ugly face of raw wip drafts. Otherwise I will post the demo update here on Monday with a comprehensive post!

And now!  the biggest news is… from now on, I am writing full time!

This is what I have been tossing and turning about every night ever since Easter. It started as a silly idea while talking to some friends and family about how I was looking for a change in career. And then, little by little, that idea whittled down to a plan, carefully carved by my partner and his whispers of a happy future, a finished dream project, and something to be proud of until the day I wither and die. 

Somewhere between then and now, I grasped a tiny sliver of bravery and held on for dear life. 

I quit my job as a teacher, and instead of accepting a cushy office job, I started behaving as if OUROBOROS and writing was my work (for all the moments I could afford). I have researched and tried different methods from week to week, and although I was still tired from work, I felt like I was onto something that could build into a sustainable future. 

I have no doubts that this journey will be bumpy and long, but sometimes all it takes is to take that first step, and do it with determination. It might all crash and burn and fail in a spectacular way, or with a whimper, but then I will know that I have tried. I will know that I gave myself the chance to be who I want to be, work on what means so much to me. 

And that’s it. I think the hardest part of formulating this post (I’ve written about 50 versions of it!) is getting to the point; the kernel of what makes it so special to me. So, in my heart of hearts, what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm gonna give it my all- and while I know the road to having a sustainable career in writing is rough and ever winding, I do know for sure that I am ready for a challenge, to pour my heart and soul into it until the day I rush out of the office screaming IT IS DONE. IT IS DOOOOONE!!! 

If you decide to join me, I will treasure your company like a lantern in the dark. Hand in lovable hand, let’s fucking go.

[musashi]

I’d LOVE to talk about it!!!! There is NOTHING like holding a physical copy of a fanfic you love in your hands, whether it is yours or someone else’s. Though I do recommend you get a physical copy of your own work first and foremost, it really cements the fact that you wrote a whole ass novel, or a collection of short stories. The first few fics I ordered were ones I wrote myself and I still go out into my living room to pull them off the bookshelf and just hold them, sometimes.

There are a lot of websites that exist where you can print books without publishing them. The website I use to print fic is Lulu. There are other websites but this one is my fave. Some people have probably written beautiful guides on book binding but I would rather just have a service do it for me.  i thought it might be fun to make a whole ass tutorial on my process, if anyone is interested? Because I really think this should be something more people do, I am telling you it'll change your LIFE. Wanna re-read that old fave in your bookmarks? Cut down on screentime! go GRAB IT OFF YOUR SHELF and settle in all cozy :3

SO: HERE IS A WHOLE ASS TUTORIAL ON HOW TO ORDER PRINT BOOKS OF YOUR FAVE FICS.

I use google docs. There are probably ways to do this in other word processing software but google docs is my friend. So this is how I do it. Google is also your best friend when figuring out how to make these adjustments in other word processors fghdg.

So you kinda want to set up the skeleton of your physical fic first. You wanna make a blank document, go to file > page setup and change the paper size to A5. This’ll put it in peak book format! Hurray. You’ll notice things are a bit cramped here but don’t worry, the margins are supposed to be like that. I like single spacing with the typical indent (.50) so thats what I do. I know some people prefer double spacing, so if that’s your jam do it! Just keep in mind it’ll make your book a lot thicker, it really depends on how you want to condense things. Font size is also a factor here. Personally, I LOVE to condense–12 point times new roman font and single spacing is my jam, heres what that looks like:

But again, depending on how long of a story/collection you want to make, you can space things out too. 

Make a nice title page! Mine are pretty simple, just the title and the username. Sometimes I’ll put the fandom name like ‘a [fandom] fanfiction’ but for the most part thats just for PDFs i share of my own fic. When it comes to my own fic I also like to put little dedications at the beginning for flair. Again, that’s just for me.

this is from my sicktember anthology, which is just all my sicktember fics in a neat little book. here's Down's:

this is my favourite part of printing my own books. i like to get sappy with it.

Add page numbers! This is something you can do automatically in most word processors. You can put em anywhere, I always put mine as footers ‘cause I really just like my fic to feel like a real book. This is under 'insert' in gdocs.

If you’re doing an anthology collection or a lot of fics in one book, a table of contents is good to have! If you apply a heading effect to each story/chapter in google docs, you can automatically insert a table of contents. I usually have to play around with mine a little (and edit it after, pin in that for later) but it’s a good thing to have. But in order to make a table of contents you have to actually have the fic in the doc, so let me teach you how to do that.

Congrats @pictureswithboxes, you are hereby my guinea pig. Because your fic is a good length and it’s the first one that isn’t my own that I’ve turned into a physical copy. Everyone please watch as I turn Turnabout Substitution into a book.

There are many ways and many formats you can download an AO3 fic in. Personally I prefer the HTML format–don’t ask me why, it’s just the best one I’ve seen for keeping things easy to edit and intact. If you work better in PDF or EPUB feel free to download those, but it’s my tutorial so you get HTML.

I drop the HTML file into docs. When you open it, you get this nonsense:

'cause that's a whole ass webpage, obviously. so open it AGAIN, this time using this button up top:

And that gives us… well, a lot more nonsense–it drops all the tags in, authors notes, whatever. You’re welcome to keep author’s notes if you like, personally I do without them (i love to read them digitally! I just keep them out of my physical copies) and everything is in 11 pt times font. The first thing I do is highlight the body of the fic and ONLY the body of the fic. I do this chapter by chapter.

Once I have chapter 1 highlighted, i change the font to my preferred size and typeface–in this case, 12 point times new roman. And then, with the body of the chapter still highlighted, i fix the margins/indent–left to 0, first line to .50, and right to 6.50. Then, with all of that highlighted, I paste it into my ‘book’ doc and all the indents/font choices carry over. Easy peasy.

I go ahead and make a chapter header. I think when doing a proper manuscript a chapter is supposed to start at the mid-point of the page, but i usually have the title at the top and the body text starting halfway down.

(my doc is in grey to avoid eye strain. if you do this, make sure it's white when you save it xD)

After a chapter–or any time you want to move onto the next section–use a page break! These are under the ‘insert’ tab. They will automatically jump you to the next page, and they will be necessary, for many reasons, but also because!!!

A new chapter should always start on the right page. In order to keep this correct, I take note of if my right pages are evens or odds in page number. Your first page will always be on the right. If you add a table of contents, it should also start on the right–so add a couple page breaks between the two to make a fully blank filler page. In my experience, because page 1 is always right, this usually means your right page will always be an odd number, but for some reason I'm having some weird mandela effect where i swear it wound up evens one time. huh. never hurts to double check! and triple check.

I ignore this all while I’m pasting the chapters in, but then at the end I go through all of them using google docs’ outline feature. Which is honestly NECESSARY for something like this, if you aren't already using it:

(anything marked as a heading will show up here! or you can highlight something, right click, and add it to outline manually. It's great!)

If my right page is odd-numbered, i check each of them one by one to make sure they all start on odd pages. I add an additional page break in the chapter before if they’re not, to make a filler page. it might feel weird to have all these blank pages in your doc but trust me you will appreciate them when you are actually holding the book.

As I am doing this, I also scroll up to the end of the previous chapters to look for orphans/widows. These are single lines that wind up on their own on the page and look kind of awkward and personally irritate me. Most word processors also have a feature to get rid of these, in google docs you just have to highlight the whole paragraph the line is in (or the paragraph before it, if it’s dialogue or a single line on its own) and apply a heading to it. You can highlight it and click ‘update heading to match’ to do this without changing the font. Good as new! It’ll show up on your outline on the side, but you can delete it by hitting the x beside the lines.

Another thing I do with the body text is i scroll through the whole doc and look for line breaks. AO3 has built-in ones you can insert, and you’re welcome to keep those if they are in a fic you like. Personally i prefer the look of a space to separate, though, so I actually edit them out and replace them with 3 line breaks. Literally just hit the enter key 3 times.

TS here is a case fic, told in the style of the ace attorney vn, which means each chapter has a few locations and timestamps displayed. I do 3 blank line breaks before these, and two after. Because it’s what looks nicest to me. You can play around with aesthetics and see what you like.

Once everything looks good, I scroll back up to update the table of contents if I have it. Google docs has a feature where you can ‘refresh’ it, but… I do not recommend this, because if you formatted your table (which you most likely did, it looks kinda terrible on its own) this will reset the formatting, and that will more than likely space out things or add unnecessary things (like those widows and orphans you marked before) which will add to your page count which means your TOC will be wrong ANYWAYS. So what’s the alternative?

Open your doc in two tabs. Same doc, two tabs. In one tab, stay on your TOC. In the other, click through your outline and input the new page numbers yourself. A little painstaking, but less prone to error. Easy peesy! Here's a bit of my finished TOC for my sicktember book:

Like all things, you can play with fonts and margins.

Your book is READY TO GO. Save it as a PDF, you can do this by hitting the print button in docs and most other word processors. Then instead of choosing a printer hit ‘save as PDF.’ Scuttle on over to Lulu and make an account. Yes it is worth it. Fic!

Lulu is awesome because it has lots of customization options. If you wanna get fancy with it, you could insert images into your PDF and get a colour book! But I just order print books, basic black and white. Once you name and upload your PDF, you can choose EVERYTHING. What kind of paper you want. If you want hardcover or paperback. The world is your oyster. Lulu will then give you a template for your cover, fitted to the dimensions of your fic book based on page number and what options you choose. They technically have a guide that lays this all out for you, but I find it incredibly confusing, so here is the streamlined wendy version:

There are a lot of options for how to make this cover. You can use an image editor, like photoshop, or you can draw fanart, or you can simply go into MSpaint and add some shitty little text to a solid colour if you don’t feel like anything fancy. A lot of people also use canva, which has tons of templates and assets you can throw together. I use canva so much i actually paid for a pro subscription lmao fsdghfgh but I also use photoshop a good deal. I made DTE’s covers in photoshop:

And Down’s cover in canva:

When I’m doing canva covers, I always just save the PDF, pop the template into photoshop, and then paste the images over it and rearrange them to my liking. I think Lulu also has an in-site canva editor but I don’t like learning new software. Photoshop is easy gfhfhg.

WHEN YOU ARE SAVING YOUR COVER. LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN THIS IS IMPORTANT ESP IF YOU NEVER TOOK GRAPHIC DESIGN OR HAVEN’T PROFESSIONALLY PRINTED ANYTHING. When you are saving your cover. SWITCH YOUR COLOUR PROFILE TO CMYK!!! Do not save it as RGB! RGB is good for digital graphics, but if you EVER print something you need to switch it to CMYK. I FORGOT TO DO THIS SOMEHOW when I printed my first two fic books, so their covers look a little washed out. When you do this in your photo editing software, they will look washed out there too–this is normal. They will print SO much better. Just trust me. 

Make sure you save your cover as a PDF and pop it onto Lulu! It’ll show you a preview of your book and cover which you can go by page by page to look for mistakes or anything you may want to change. In this preview the cover will ALWAYS look like a shitty, jpeggy mess. IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THAT IRL. I was so concerned fghfg but they print fine the preview just sucks.

wow so cool. this is for Down's hardcover which has a lot of margin. the closest summation of what your book will be like is to turn everything here off but the folds:

so cool. thats my book.

And you’re good to go! Enjoy your fic!!! PHYSICAL FIC IN YOUR HANDS!!! I got to experience the most magical thing recently: my friend bought a copy of Down, and then SHIPPED IT TO MY HOUSE, and i got to SIGN IT. I got to SIGN a copy of a BOOK I WROTE. They loved it that much. And I had the PDFs. PDFs I need to update, because I didn’t know half the shit I just wrote here when I made them. BUT I GOT TO SIGN MY FIC!!! SOMEONE LIKED IT ENOUGH TO BUY IT, AND THEN SEND IT TO ME, TO SIGN!!!

All the money here goes to printing costs, if that wasn’t obv. Paperbacks on Lulu can be under ten bucks depending on how thick they are, and hardcovers are usually under 25. It’s insane to me how cheap it is to print fanfic, and once you try, you WILL be addicted.

I tried to make this tutorial easy to follow, i hope it was! If anyone has any questions about the process, I am always happy to answer. Or, um, if you just want me to do all this formatting FOR you… I might be open to doing it for free. Mutuals get first dibs but I genuinely LOVE formatting docs for printing. I can’t help you with covers (i flounder even making them for stories I love) but I’ll always format a fic or several fics for you. Just HMU ghfghgf

[kittydesade]

I'm very sorry. Six months ago you commented on a Gordon Ramsey accessibility post that your job to help make websites accessible. How do I get that job? I would love that so much. I'm sure you've answered this before but I can't find it.

I, too, am sure I've answered this before, but I can't remember where and I'm not about to brave the Tumblr search feature to go looking, so you and @the0dd0ne get a twofer.

Hi, I'm not a bot, and I was wondering if I could ask you a weird career question? I saw your addition on that "Accessibility Nightmares" post where you mentioned it's your actual job to email websites about their lack of accessibility and what they need to do to make it accessible, and can I ask how you got into that? I got injured on the job and need to make a huge career change, and that type of work has always been really interesting to me, but I don't even know where to start to get into it! Also feel free to ignore this lol I know it's out of left field.

(This is actually the third question I've got on this, so no, not that out of left field.)

So the first thing to understand is that it's actually pretty hard to get into digital accessibility because there just aren't that many companies doing it. As far as I know from company meetings there aren't that many schools teaching it as a part of their core web development curriculum. It's just not that common to think about it as part of web development. Which is vastly irritating.

I started mucking around with the web when there was first a web to muck around on, but when the pandemic hit and my Mom suggested (in a hilarious twist of circumstances) that I go to one of those Learn to Code boot camps to get a certificate that said I actually knew my shit so I could get a job in web development. A number of these boot camps also have job placement programs and pipeline agreements with certain companies. and in a nutshell that's how I got into it. The company sent my boot camp a letter saying "we need N warm bodies" and they sent the company a list of names, I got interviewed, I got hired as a contractor, and after a couple years of good work for them I got invited to interview for a permanent position, which I got.

These days due to the state of the everything, there are probably 10-50 programmers for every open development position, depending on language and job type and company. It's a rough field out there and I got very, very lucky in my timing. But if you want to try it, the boot camp to job pipeline is probably your best bet. Ask the boot camp recruiters if they have connections to accessibility firms. If they don't, you can always try asking if they have connections to web development/site packaging firms and then check if the firms have an accessibility department. Tell the recruiter up front what you're looking to work in, and keep in mind that the recruiter's job is to convince you to give the boot camp your money. (Mine was $12k USD.)

For resources to study in the meantime, there's the A11y Project which has discussions, videos, articles, posts, etc about digital accessibility, a lot of good information. You can also look at the resources for the CPACC exam, I don't recommend taking it unless you have a few hundred USD to burn but you can definitely study up on the Body of Knowledge, which is a free PDF to download. And there is, in fact, an accessibility job board, although I don't have any experience with applying for any of these jobs cold.

The languages I use most in my job are HTML and jQuery, and I passively use (meaning I read and interpret but don't actually program in) JavaScript and CSS. This is mainly because we work with client sites and there's only so much of the client code we can touch; if there's a problem in the client code we can't touch we have to write it up and tell them to fix it. If you end up in house for some large brand you may end up working in more web development languages, but a lot of accessibility can be handled by basic HTML attributes called ARIA attributes (and roles) and there's the documentation on that. Another tool to have is your soft skills: communication, specificity of language, writing up good descriptions of what code does what so you can explain exactly what needs to be fixed where and why. You might also want to look at documentation on what makes good alt text, where it's needed, what kind of labels are standard, etc. I think you can find that in the A11y Project pages, but honestly I just learned it on the job working with senior developers.

It's a hard time to get into software development at all, let alone a niche field like web accessibility. But Europe is about to have a digital accessibility law come into effect in July of next year (that encompasses more than just the web, that's just my area of expertise) and the US is making slow but steady strides in requiring digital accessibility as well, so there are jobs out there and there might be companies hiring to capitalize on the need. There will definitely always be companies putting off conforming to regulations until the last possible minute, and then needing services and specialists. So study up, practice, and good luck!

[ashfae]

A03 meme

A03 meme time, except I've been writing and posting fanfic to the internet since before A03. And before fanfiction.net. And before Geocities. And before the World Wide Web. There's fic of mine with ASCII doodle illustrations somewhere out there where the wild BBSes once roamed…I was tagged by @moveslikebucky; thanks Buckie, here goes. <3

how many works do you have on Ao3? 54. (and yes if we added in all the fanfic outside of A03 it'd be a larger number but I can't be bothered to consolidate it all)

what’s your total Ao3 word count? 341,744, which is better than I was expecting, yay.

what fandoms do you write for? At the moment it's just Good Omens, but there's been a lot of Dragon Age, some Lord of the Rings, and way back in the day there was Harry Potter and a lot of anime. I am toying with dipping my toe back in LotR, there's a thing I wrote ages ago that's entirely finished and just needs editing and I've been meaning to get it out there for ages. It's long though, so that'd be a commitment.

what are your top five fics by kudos? What Custom Strictly Divided (507) Like an Echo Far Away (415) (this one wasn't in the top five last week when I first started writing this post! So I think @mielpetite gets all the credit for boosting it with amazing fanart) What Comes From Your Hand (402) Give Me Your Illusions (346) Nightswimming (307)

do you respond to comments? Yep! Sometimes just with "Thanks!" or hearts but I try to. Though they get away from me sometimes and then I do a bunch all at once.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Definitely Warmaiden, which is my "What if Éowyn got the One Ring?" fic, from an idea that occurred to me one day and wouldn't leave. Clearly that doesn't end well for her, or anyone. From GO fandom it's probably Silent Night, which I still want to expand into a larger fic to be a set with Give Me Your Illusions. Someday, someday.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most of them! But for the happiest I'd say Swan Lake Revised, cowritten with @mostlyjustgoose. And if we ever get part three up it'll be even more happy. And smutty. Very smutty.

Do you get hate on fics? Very rarely. I've been lucky there.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh here's the irony. I used to do a lot a lot a LOT of online roleplaying and mygod I wrote smut. So much. So. Much. I don't do as much rp these days but even so the threads I have going are still frequently pure filth. But in fic, much less so, even though I want to. Why it all gets channeled into rp and not as much into my fanfic I do not know. Honestly I want to write a lot more of it. Smut forever!!

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Sometimes, when I have a good idea. But the craziest one I ever wrote, ages ago, was a pure crackfic for my 21st birthday, where I imagined a bizarre party for myself in which LOADS of fictional characters (mostly from anime) showed up so I could make them interact in wacky ways. It was utterly ridiculous but amused me. Making all the characters voiced by Megumi "She's Everywhere!!" Hayashabara meet up and wonder why they all sound alike, for example. Also I wish I'd written an Artemis Fowl breaks into Gringotts to rob it fic before I became so disillusioned with both Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter. Heigh ho.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yep. It was impressive how lazy the person was about it too, they stole all the html as well. Someone brought it to my attention pretty quickly.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Twice, yes. Into Portuguese, as I remember.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Hi @mostlyjustgoose, I adore you, please co-write things with me forever. <3 Our baby is Unusual Strings, a reverse omens AU love story, and it's SO. CLOSE. to being done. So close. Aughhhh. I love our angel!Crowley and demon!Aziraphale so, so much.

What’s your all time favorite ship? Aziraphale and Crowley, Faramir and Éowyn, Hiccup and Astrid. Don't make me choose between those three, my head will explode.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Shut up shut up I will finish all of them ALL OF THEM I SAY…sigh. Beauty and the Battousai. Though I should probably mention A Demon in the Dreaming and The Queen Bee. (they're plotted and outlined and parts are written aaahhh come on ADHD meds help me out here)

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue, definitely. I'm good at putting humour into things. Got compared to Patricia Wrede once and honestly, life goal achieved there. I can do memorable phrases and descriptions and edit well.

What are your writing weaknesses? What is plot. Why does it hate me. Why are my original characters one-dimensional cardboard. What is worldbuilding and how do I do it without getting stalled into paralysis. Baaaah. This is why my original novel will never be finished and I keep running back to fanfic instead.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Hoo boy contentious subject! I love reading it so long as it's translated somewhere in the footnotes, I'd be happy to write it if I knew other languages, the question of whether it should be italicized or not has apparently Officially been settled by The Publishing Industry on the side of Not.

First fandom you wrote for? Oh gosh I think it was the Dragonlance books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The first that ever got shown to other people was Ranma 1/2 though.

Favorite fic you’ve written? It's still What Custom Strictly Divided. Though Unusual Strings comes very close.

Gaaah I'm always worried I'll tag people who don't want to be tagged so, erk, um...if they're willing, @racketghost, @indieninja92, and @holycatsandrabbits! And you, if you're reading and want to do this, please say I tagged you. I meant to really, honest. ;)

[calendae-creations]

Hello. Do you have any tips on getting started selling your handmade goods? I am disabled too and sometimes the only thing keeping my sane is knitting. Right now I'm knitting things for myself and friends. I think I may get to a point where I want to sell things I have knit instead of just gifting them and I was curious how you go about doing it and if you have any tips for getting started.

I'm not like, wildly successful at this by any means, so if anyone else has any tips, omfg please share your wisdom.

That said, first of all fuuuuuuuuck etsy. Not only do they have shitty policies in a number of ways (you can google it if you want; i don't feel like getting into that series of rants), I never really made many sales there in the decade or so I tried. And tbh most of the knitted things up for sale there are so disgustingly underpriced, it might be hard to get enough money from a sale to even cover the materials cost, let alone labor time.

Once I had given up on etsy, I was selling on twitter for a while? But we all know how twitter's going, so I don't even remember my login info to delete the account, lol. I did make way better money than I ever did on etsy tho! Like, twice the sales in one year than I got on etsy in ~10. Not even exaggerating. I made decent sales on facebook from a page for my business, but stopped trying after the third time they changed the interface in less than 6 months. If you can figure out how it works though, go for it!

I'm trying to build a proper website of my own for Calendae Creations, but html is hard and so is the rest of my life, so that's on the back burner for now. I'm really not sure how successful it'll be if I ever get it up and running.

Currently this is my only sales presence online, and I haven't tabled at an in-person event since 2018. I've been pleasantly surprised at being able to generate any income at all on the website famous for not making money, lol. I do really want to get into more in-person sales, but I really can't speak much to how well knitting sells at different kinds of events, because when I used to do ren faires and flea markets I was mostly selling pottery, jewelry, and live plants. I'm pretty hopeful about trying to get a table at Staunton Pride next fall though?

Tbh, as much as I love my job, I really would not recommend this as a full time primary source of income to anyone who has literally any other options. I'm just too disabled to do anything else anymore.

Related, does anyone know how to file USA income tax for this kind of thing??? I am so lost trying to figure it out.

[mtmlabrys]

besides just clowning on staff and the TUMBLR CEO WHO I CANT TAG I also am obligated to help my trans sisters. You all should make a website at https://neocities.org/ it's a good skill to learn and they have great tutorials. Here's my shitty website and if my lethargic ass can make pretty boxes you can too!!! you have pretty much full control and there's lots of templates out there too! protect your spaces! protect your trans brothers sisters and siblings! love one another! don't let one cis prick force you to internet migrate yet again. neocities is just hosting your website which means you have access to all the custom html and css you've made and if it gets nuked you can at least do SOMETHING to keep your space.

If i have to buy a website to be on the fucking internet i'll do it. You'll never break my spirit. You'll never stop me from protecting those I love. fuck you phototwatt. i hope a big piano falls on your head and you come out of the wreckage like an accordion and your teeth are all replaced with piano keys.

[sherifftillman]

@cheerscoopscentral's cheerscoops week 2023 | day 3: social media-specific AU

Title: A Discordant Romance Pairing(s): Steve Harrington x Chrissy Cunningham, some background Gareth x Will Byers if you squint Tags: Stranger Things (series), fluff, modern AU, streamer AU, chatfic (set in Discord) Word Count: 5.7k Summary: When Eddie Munson gathers all his streamer friends from all the walks of his life, sparks fly for two in particular. A/N: I don't know why I thought making a chatfic based in DIscord was a good idea, but formatting this was a nightmare lmao. Still, I think it paid off. Other than the fact I've had to replace the usual @-system with "@." in the preview so that this hellsite doesn't' tag random blogs, even when I explicitly remove their tag links from the HTML editor. Love that sooo much.

read on ao3 here! preview under the cut:

Server: eddie’s minions - #general

EddieTheBanished @.everyone figured instead of wasting a good server for a one-time event, i’d keep this up in case people wanna stream together again

aguywhohatesparties really? that’s what you came up with?

EddieTheBanished it’s my server i can name it what i want to 🙂

madmaxmay making a new server where everyone’s equal, who’s in [☝️13]

EddieTheBanished 🙁

Server: better name pending - #general

EddieTheBanished there, is that good for now?

madmaxmay i actually kinda dig it permanently

CallMeTheFreak Same. Should also be our next album name.

madmaxmay i want writer royalties

EddieTheBanished why?!

CallMeTheFreak Deal. [🤝3]

EddieTheBanished et tu with the reacts, @.GarethTheGreat @.JeffWithAJ? what is this mutiny

madmaxmay lol you guys are great. you should come back on tud sometime

lilmisschriss ooh, could a certain bat-wielding orc also make an appearance there?

kingsteve oh no

madmaxmay OH YES

you’ve been watching us?!

@.JaneTheEleventh !!!!!!!!!

JaneTheEleventh i am glad you are watching @.lilmisschriss. i like watching your streams too, with max. you are very friendly with your chat and it’s very nice. [❤️4]

madmaxmay pleasepleaseplease join a campaign with me and el!!!!!!!!! @.lilmisschriss

lilmisschriss you girls are so sweet, but i don’t know the first thing about this, i’m just learning as i’m watching and there’s so much to catch up on!

madmaxmay i’ll teach you everything. if we can get @.kingsteve to play through a whole oneshot without his character dying, we can do anything

ToothlessBard sorry, remind me, who is this WE you’re referring to? because i’m pretty sure I’M the one who taught steve everything he knows

kingsteve you know i can still read that, right? [🤷1]

okay fine. i’ll do another one of your stories ONLY if @.lilmisschriss does it too. and if henderson gets off his high horse

madmaxmay @.WiseWilliam GET WRITING, WIZARD BOY WONDER [🫡1 🧙1]

[menciemeer]

okay I was scrolling through your blog (a normal amount? too much? I'm sorry if this is weird I don't know if dragging up old posts in acceptable on this site!) and saw one where you said you use vim and I am curious about that! I tried it a while ago and was like... okay I can see how this might be faster once you get REALLY good at it, and it would definitely be useful to have the ability to export easily in multiple formats because I have realized suddenly that it seems like AO3's downloads frequently mess up the formatting? (Or maybe just fail to fix messed-up formatting that the browser smooths over?) Sooo yeah do you use it to write or just for code or what? is it worth it to become a Vim Person?

HELLO this is actually one of the things I most love to talk about because vim is my Favorite Piece Of Software. I love it well beyond a normal amount. That being said it's ummm not for everyone and not for everything. I'm putting this under a readmore because this is too long to inflict on poor unsuspecting souls who are just here for Hannibal content.

Section 1: The ways in which vim is useful

Vim is most useful when the stuff you're working on is more structured and what you're doing is more rote. So something like code (which, yes, is what I learned it for) is very formally structured, and something like html is sort of vague scaffolding around text, which is pretty much a blobby mush where really nothing means very much of anything. (The number of times I ct. only to get pulled up short by an honorific is very high, and I am grouchy.)

Part of the thing that makes structure good is that vim is more useful (relative to a traditional editor) when you can precisely define the action you want to take. Getting better at vim is really about improving your vim-vocabulary so that you are more able to make precise statements about what it is that you want vim to do. I use a "normal" markdown editor for drafting, because what I want to do is "write the next bit" which is not a very vim-interesting action and obviously not very precise. I do use vim for editing, though, because often the things I want to do are, like: "replace this word with some other word" (cw), "delete the end of this paragraph" (D), "rewrite this bit of dialogue" (ci"), "remove this whole paragraph" (dd)--you get the idea.

Also, the place that vim goes from "ok, this seems pretty good" to "this is invaluable" is really when you want to repeat stuff. Something like "the compiler is giving me 25+ pedantic warnings because the file I'm working on was written prior to the introduction of the C++ override keyword" or "I'm rewriting an API so I need to fix the function name in these dozen callsites, remove the first argument, and swap the places of args 2 & 4." These examples are programming-related because I haven't found a use for macros in writing yet. (I live in hope.)

Section 2: If you want to learn vim, here are my tips

I don't really want to tutorialize because there are a lot of those out there already. I do wish to dispense some general philosophical wisdom. (!!!!!)

First of all, keep in mind that the bar is very low. Normal editors are not really that productive. Fancy WYSIWYG editors (which I hate, equal and opposite to my vim-love) are negatively productive for me, because I will get distracted and/or distressed by all the available buttons, formatting options, and whether I accidentally italicized any of the spaces. You don't need to be maximally productive in vim to make use of it, and you don't really need to know that much to match the capabilities of a normal plaintext editor.

If you want to learn vim, I would pick a small set of keys to understand first. Like, i and I (capital-i) to enter insert mode, <Esc> to get back to normal mode. bwhjkl as basic movement options. u and <ctrl>r for undo/redo. If you must, y and d for copy/cut, p and P for paste. (System clipboard--I'm sorry--accessed with "+, so "+y or "+p for example.) That is probably well over enough.

After you get a handle on the basics, the fun part of vim is figuring out where your inefficiencies are and learning how to improve them. Realizing that you're pushing more buttons than you want to be pushing, figuring out how to describe the thing you want to do in a google search, and then finding out that vim has a key to do that. gg G } { c % $ ^ zz . ; and so on, and so on. The world is your oyster &c. (The sheer delight I felt when, more than half a decade after starting to use vim, I found the aforementioned ci"? Indescribable.)

Section 3: In which I address the actual ask

Ok ok okokok sorry. I've written all of this to tell you that I don't actually know what the weird formatting stuff you're talking about is. I read pretty much all long fic on an ereader after downloading as epub and I haven't noticed anything bizarre with the formatting? When I do want to go in and poke around in an epub I usually just use calibre's built-in editor.

In terms of exporting your own plaintext/markdown writing to multiple formats, I use pandoc. I've been very happy with it, but it isn't anything that couldn't be done by hand (and also doesn't require you to start from Vim In Particular). I would love to talk about pandoc but aaaggggh this is already way too long (sorry).

I do have strong feelings about writing in plaintext (glorious! small! no weird formatting distractions! what you see is what's in the actual file you're really writing it there's no secrets) versus WYSIWYG (too many buttons! what do they do! am i using it wrong if i don't push them! why is the filesize so big! what are your secrets, renamed .zip file!) but vim isn't the only choice if you want to go the plaintext route only the best one no, look, I spent the whole of section 1 talking about this, I am not allowed to go backwards. Honestly, though, if you're interested I'd say go for it! Vim is fun to learn and very clever! Knowing vim feels a little like knowing a weird, hyper-specialized little language.

[kedreeva]

I posted 8,066 times in 2022

That's 329 more posts than 2021!

1,893 posts created (23%)

6,173 posts reblogged (77%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@fiore-della-valle

@redbirdblogs

@idkfandomwhatever

@seananmcguire

@sleepymccoy

I tagged 8,043 of my posts in 2022

#stranger things - 1,920 posts

#asks - 932 posts

#steddie - 722 posts

#anon asks - 532 posts

#all the laughter - 517 posts

#good omens - 490 posts

#my pets - 481 posts

#good things - 438 posts

#peafowl - 405 posts

#eddie munson - 377 posts

Longest Tag: 96 characters

#we are all uncertain if our work is good or we've just been loving it despite its flaws too long

I sent 10 gifts in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I hope that once everyone's done laughing at the important blue checkmarks (no rush, it's fucking hilarious), Tumblr considers other icons we can put by our names. Like little hats or something we can send to friends for a day for a dollar. Little animal companions. Good job stickers.

28,252 notes - Posted November 10, 2022

#4

A snake in Thailand spent enough time sitting still in the water to grow moss and turn into a dragon, apparently.

More video at the source account!

34,063 notes - Posted March 3, 2022

#3

Oh god, I just aged several years in a single second, a friend of mine sent me a snippet from a fic that read someone put a VHS into a VCR and took so long getting back to it to press play that the menu screen had looped multiple times

36,575 notes - Posted September 1, 2022

#2

When I was a kid, maybe 14 or so (which is, you know, 20+ years ago), I belonged to a Yahoo! mailing list for an anime called Gundam Wing. It was mostly populated by other teens, of varying ages, as it was started by a teen and her friends. Eventually it migrated, when Yahoo! groups started as forums, and even branched off into non-GW related stuff in a second forum.

One of the things I remember the most clearly is the oldest person in the group. Her name was Steelsong. She was a 40-something Dom with a sub whose name we knew even though we knew nothing else. She ran her own fanfic archive because the web was still handmade HTML and navigated in webrings and I’m pretty sure Google didn’t exist or was only barely, barely launched and not well known. She was kind and patient and we loved her. She treated everyone on the group with the respect given any adult, even though most of the rest of the world was still treating us like we were children. Not teenagers even, but children. She never once condescended to any of us, never made our youth a barrier to her respect, never treated us like we were incapable of being full people or like we were less than her because we were young.

I remember that she hosted our fanfiction, as absolutely terrible as it was (and I still have some of it, I am WELL aware of how cringingly terrible it is, just absolute nonsense garbage), right there alongside of other fic that was soul-achingly beautiful. Not a separate section for her friends or for kids, just right there like we were good enough to feature alongside other authors. I never once received crit from her that I didn’t ask for, only support. Only love. I am still writing today partly because Steel was so kind about our fic, fanfic and original.

I remember that when I started doing clay sculpture, she commissioned a tiny pair of dragons from me, to support me doing artwork. She sent a check my mom cashed for me, and my mom helped me mail it when it was finished. It broke in transit, and Steel assured me that she mended it and that it was still beautiful. It was a small gold dragon curled up with a small silver dragon.

I remember that her patience knew no bounds. I remember that she was there for us, regardless of reason. When we wanted to know silly things like what to do with a single AA battery, she answered. When we had serious questions about sex, she answered.  When we had questions about writing, she taught us. When one of our group members, a young gay teen in Australia, ended up in the hospital and then stopped making posts, and we all knew what had happened, she let us talk to her about it because we couldn’t go to our own parents, even though we had just lost a friend.

She was not a replacement to my parents, but she was an extra parent, in some ways. A friend, certainly, but someone that had been through more life than we had and was willing to pass on knowledge if we asked for it. Someone older that we trusted with things that were too uncomfortable to go to our parents or teachers or whatever about, because we already knew she wasn’t going to judge us or something, and that we would get an honest answer.

I don’t know why I’m remembering this so hard tonight, and I’m not sure if there’s a point to sharing this, except that I know she’s gone now. She was ill the last time we spoke, and her site went down a long time ago, and I miss her. She was a huge influence on my life, then and now. She was hope, for me, that life as an adult didn’t have to be boring, it wouldn’t have to mean giving up the things I loved and Becoming Only Responsible With No Fun. Her presence meant I had hope I could still write and play with friends even when I wasn’t ‘a kid’ anymore. And she’s gone, and I miss her, and I wanted to share her from the perspective of youth, and the perspective over twenty years later has provided me.

And I think of her, when people go off about older folks being in fandom with younger folks. I’m an older folks now, or at least middle aged folks because there are certainly folks older than me still, but I wasn’t always. I’ve been here since i was a younger folks, and I know how much Steel’s presence and support meant to me, how much she helped not just me but everyone on that group. And I think of the people saying older folks don’t belong in fandom, and that they shouldn’t interact with younger folks at all, and I just think... I can’t agree. I needed that kind of solid presence in my life back then and even at the age I am now, I need the folks older than me to stay. I want them here.

So I guess, like, if you’re here and you’re 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever, I want you here in fandom with me, still. Your presence here is a comfort. It is hope. It is a reminder that life will continue to be fun, even as I get older, myself. And if you’re younger and you have this sort of elder in your groups, I hope that they are like Steel. I hope they are kind and patient and supportive, and that knowing them gives you hope for your own future. I hope in twenty years you look back and remember them fondly.

44,929 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

If you're ever worried about whether your writing is too self indulgent, I just want you to remember that Sharknado had 5 sequels. I'm only partway through watching Sharknado 6: It's About Time, but already they've traveled through time and ridden a pteronadon into a Sharknado so they could use the magic teleportation portal inside of it to travel forward in time to King Arthur's time, where they are currently battling a Sharknado full of fire-breathing dragon sharks with Excalibur, which is a chainsaw sword that calls lightning. You're fine. In fact, be a little more self indulgent if anything, because I am having a BLAST watching this specifically because I can see how much fun the writers were having.

45,937 notes - Posted June 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 5/30/2023

I feel like I worked really hard last week, and yet I don't actually have much to show for it. I guess a lot of it is little stuff that piled up. I mean, I very much do still have a bit pile of dumb little tasks to do, but it's smaller than it was last week. I feel like I've had to do a lot of driving and socializing lately, too, which not only take up time, but wipes me out both before and after.

If you like extra features, I did finish up my go places addenda post last week. I have a lot of ao3 comments to reply to, but aside from that, I guess I'm pretty much done with that one. It gave me a lot of grief while I was writing it, but in the end, I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I have some good feelings about the end stages of sitting with it.

Onward and upward!! Sorry if this is old hat to my regular followers, but just to get everyone up to date, the new project is Ductwork, the next part of Heart is a Muscle. The preview summary I slapped on the end of What We Do with Our Hearts reads "Renji tries to not make it a big deal when he gets his long-damaged kidou ducts fixed; Rukia is having none of it. Byakuya would like to be removed from this narrative and yet can't seem to manage it."

I started it about a year ago, immediately finishing Hearts, and knocked out about 7700 words of it at the time. I'm kinda gun-shy, because last summer I really really wanted to finish a little in love and I tried and failed (tried and died, basically), a thing that has not been made better by the fact that people have started sending sad little messages like "i hope you finish this someday..." That being said, I am trying to be more realistic about my capabilities, especially because I have a lot more Mom-duties in the summertime. My goal is to make 20,000 words of progress before I fizzle out this time. I mean, if I do finish it, that would be great! I'm not gonna stop dead if I hit 20k. I do hope to participate in the Bleach Returns event this July, but whether that consists of a small break or a big break, I don't know. We'll see.

So, I already have a significant chunk of the first act done, but I'm having trouble moving forward, because I don't have a great idea of how the second act is gonna go. For now, it's two acts, it's evolving, and I'm letting it. I'm trying to let myself exist in creative mode and have some fun with that. In that vein, I just went ahead and let myself write The Big Scene, the scene that is the entire reason I am writing this fanfic. I wrote 3500 words on it this week. It's not done yet, but I am having fun. I've also been having little bursts of inspiration for scenes that follow and other things I want to do, so overall, I am in a good place. It's nice. This is good.

The overall document length at the moment is 12,617, which means I've done about 5k words since I started working on it, which is a quarter of the way there! That's distinctly Not Bad!!

In other news, I've been increasingly dissatisfied with Google Docs, so I am experimenting with writing this one in Microsoft Word. I don't deal with change well, so for now, I hate it, but I'm figuring out ways to make it more the way I like, and at least it doesn't constantly reload back to the top of the page. I will keep you updated. It's not like I can't just cut and paste it back into the other program, which I would end up doing anyway, because GDocs works pretty well for beta-reading and the AO3 auto-html script is handy.

[askauradonprep]

Uhh, you mentioned in a post a while back - like, 25 march 2021? ish? (lol, not me going through all your posts ever) - that you've accidentally joined cults before, and I wanted to ask about the signs? Since, as far as I'm aware, no one in my family has been in one and I want to know what to avoid/be wary of? Because I DO want to keep myself, my family and my friend safe from anything I can, so any infor/help would be appreciated!

Okay, first of all, never 'not' about going through my posts. I love when people do that! Even aside from the 'happy chemical boost', I like seeing what you guys enjoy when I post. The reason I have fifteen million posts about Huma is because people liked and reblogged those posts and that spurred more head canon creation. Engage with the posts you wanna see on my blog.

Now, for the actual reason you wrote -

I'm gonna start by saying my experience with cults are probably not the kind you're thinking of. One was when I was like...six. My babysitter was telling my mom and posting flyers at school about an art camp that rented a room at her church. Well, surprise, turned out to be a cult that brought us to the auditorium and lit fires and made us sing hymns and come and pray in front of the fire before they brought us back like five minutes before pick up time and gave us 'crafts' like 'dump glitter on a rock so you can tell your parents you did art today'. Well, I was TERRIFIED of fire and so I was extremely quiet when I got home. My mom noticed and my friend told her what happened at camp. She LOST IT. So did our school principal actually - he was going around tearing down flyers himself the next day. My poor babysitter was horrified - this wasn't her actual church putting on the camp, just some group that rented the room and she had no idea what was going to happen. So that was cult number one.

The next one was secular and primarily online but it was still abusive and harmful like, say, Scientology. People still have some lingering health problems from shit the leader made them do. I'm being vague on the details because the leader's still around and is known to trawl online to find mentions of himself or his cults and I'd really rather he not know who I am. I was only there for a month or two before I realized the group wasn't what I thought it was (it presented itself as a fan-space with a lot of the cult stuff happening behind 'closed doors' so to speak. I wasn't privy to a lot of that but I saw the effects on everyone else and it tipped my 'y'all are weird' alarms).

One of my friends is also a cult survivor and this is the test she uses. It was originally based around harmful Alcoholics Anonymous practices, but it's useful for identifying habits in a cult. https://www.orange-papers.mx/orange-cult_q0.html

Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias is pretty good too, according to her.

Also - Leah Remini. Look into what she says about Scientology. LOTS of good stuff about escaping scary, no shit, 'people who try to leave disappear sometimes' cults.

Now, MY advice?

Is there a leader of a defined group who is either somehow Specially Capable, whether it's a divine connection, psychic abilities, or just really really profound Super Duper Special insight into people? Are they always always right and they (or their followers) get super defensive if they're questioned or caught out lying? Red flag.

Are you free to leave the group without there being totally unreasonable responses like being treated as a totally horrible person forever or losing your whole community? If not, that too is a red flag.

LOTS AND LOTS of abuse tactics like gaslighting, 'bread crumbs' where they drop little hints and lay groundwork for believing things (like say, talking about believing in the possibility of life on other planets (something lots of reasonable people believe in) and talking a lot about New Age stuff people believe and slowly ramping up 'coincidences' until the target takes the risk of going 'OMG you're an alien'. This is how you get cults believing their leader is a Divine Alien. "Well I'd never believe that" - Well, sure, probably not at first. Give it a couple months getting softened and softened up until YOU take the risk of sounding like a weirdo instead of the leader), emotional abuse, intentionally putting you in dangerous or emotionally heightened situation with no warning so you're easier to control, lots of wearing down self esteem, sabotaging other relationships, isolation, 'us against the world' crap, etc.

BRAINWASHING TECHNIQUES. Sleep deprivation is really common, especially if the leader and others get crabby if you try to get a break and go to bed. Even if they're not though, they might still be trying to keep you awake as much as possible so you're less likely to think through the lies (and there's ALWAYS lies upon lies upon lies - or at least bullshit upon bullshit upon bullshit, in the event the leader really believes their own Kool-Aid.). Again, isolation, absolute obedience, some sort of punishment for failing like physical abuse or isolation, etc. If they can use their worldview or framework to totally reframe your identity on their terms, that's one way they can do it (like if you complain about sleep deprivation and they go 'Oh, don't worry, it's normal for aliens, you'll adjust eventually'. Y'know, because you found them as an alien so you're totally one too, you Cool and Clever so and so. Oh but don't tell anybody else outside the group or you'll end up in a lab somewhere). LOTS AND LOTS of guilt trips and again, gaslighting. This isn't all of the tricks but they're the ones I'm thinking of off the top of my head.

Whataboutism - like, sure, I burned half your stuff when you fell asleep on me, but I didn't hit you so this TOTALLY isn't a cult. Or, hey, I don't make you pray, just ~meditate~ so it's not a cult. Those religious ones, they're the cult.

They always always always need more from you for the group. More money, more time, more devotion, etc. Nothing's ever good enough. Oh, but if the leader gets bored of you and moves onto someone else and pushes you away, it just sucks to suck. Never mind the fact they've trained you to build your life and self worth around them. Again, sucks to suck.

EVERYTHING has to be on the leader's terms. It's the Leader Show, all the fucking time.

If all of this is sounding like 'abuse, but make it religious/otherwise small, enclosed group dynamics', then ding ding ding! We have a winner. You're absolutely right.

If you're reading this and going 'oh my god, I think I might be in a cult', first - try not to beat yourself up. You're NEVER too smart/savvy/mean/untrusting/etc. to get snowed. In fact, the more you believe that, the more susceptible you are. Arrogance is absolutely a vulnerability cult leaders use too. Next, try to figure out ways to build up resources to GET OUT. If the cult leader and your other members do not live with you, this is a lot easier. If not, try to look into Leah Remini or others who've escaped cults and see what they did. I specify Leah Remini and other Scientologists because even among cults, Scientology is NOTORIOUSLY hard and dangerous to leave. You basically need a lawyer to do it. They'll have a lot more advice than I will. The general 'leaving an abusive house' tips stand - try to squirrel away money, important documents, anything you can't stand to lose or leave behind because it might not be possible to get it back once you leave. Don't tell anyone ahead of time you're leaving. Try to find a therapist with cult deprogramming experience. I'm sorry, I don't have many specific tips here. Due to the nature of the cults I was in, I never had much difficulty leaving. My friend who left was basically taken home by her mother "just for a few days" and by the time those days were over, she was ready to leave and told the leader she wasn't coming back. She'd already taken most, if not all, her meaningful possessions with her (and the leader was living with people who weren't in the cult so they could always help her get any other personal items back via mail or whatever).

If someone you love is in a cult, try to follow the 'friend in an abusive relationship' playbook. Voice your concerns gently and carefully, don't argue when they push back, and try to be there for them as much as you can. Cult leaders THRIVE on isolating their followers so it's crucial not to let them cut you off from your loved one as much as is possible. Recognize there will be times you're mad at your loved one or burned out, but try to keep present as much as you can. Don't call the police unless it's EXTREME MEASURES time like they're in actual, physical danger. When you're with your loved one, try to provide them as much autonomy and support for their self worth as you can. Ultimately, your loved one will have to realize the cult is a problem on their own. Sometimes the bullshit builds so much you get to the point you just....cannot swallow one more piece of it and the next bit blows it all down. That's when you really need to be there.

Again, I'm not an expert here and I've never had to leave from somewhere imminently physically dangerous, so if you'd like, here are some more resources: https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/cults. I particularly recommend the cult survivors list.

https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/ - The BITE model is great too. 

And above all remember that not all cults are mystical, and not all of them are religious. A lot of them front like fan pages or multi-level marketing schemes (LOOKING AT *YOU* DOTERRA) so just...keep your eyes open.

[lord-vermin]

Hey, if you've got the time, is Tapas worth publishing on, or am I gonna hafta battle their interface for the privilege of getting ignored by an opaque algorithm? I have a mess of content that I'm trying to get people to look at, and I am sloooowly illustrating it. I meant to put it up somewhere as I got the art done, but I never found a functional platform that wasn't going to make me fight my fellow creators for supremacy. Cursory investigation shows a lot of people complaining that the app barely works, but I also barely work, so that's not a deal breaker...

Tapas for me has been great- my only concern with it going forward is they’re kinda vague on their boundaries with stuff like horror, I just don’t know what is gonna get my in trouble with them in the future but I usually air on the side of caution and should probably be alrighty, they’re just trying to abide by the App Store rules so they don’t get taken down - which I totally get at least. I can’t say they don’t play favourites bc they’ve absolutely got their big players like heart stopper that they’ll promote at any given moment but it’s absolutely brought new eyes to my stuff - it’s easy to update, simple layout, not the most customisable but for what it is it’s really good. I don’t use the app I use the browser version tho - which from what I’ve gathered works better then the app 👁️👁️

Comic fury is another one I’d recommend, it’s forum based and gonna be honest there’s some,, characters on there - but I don’t really use the forums so I live in relative peace, I absolutely haven’t updated the new pages on there so I really really need to fix that - they just have a recently updated page, loads of ways to promote your stuff through chatting in forums and you can code the ever loving hell out of your comic page like it’s 2000s and you’re discovering html blogs for the first time. They don’t mind any type of horror, nudity, etc, pretty hunky dory with all of that stuff so you’ll find a lot of gems on there that can’t be on other sites. Some really fucking weird shit too but like - it’s worth it for the good stuff

Webtoons - do not. Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t torture yourself like that. It’s ran by a bunch of fucking cunts who treat their established artists & writers like utter dog shit. I’ve never posted my work on webtoons because they’ve had such a bad rep and genuinely one of the best decisions I’ve made - they’re comically villainous sometimes

[taffyforever]

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ HAPPY JUNE, DUNCIES !!!! ヾ(˵ •̀ ᴗ •́ ˵ )

happy summer, happy pride month, and a happy afternoon from me to you, duncies !! welcome to my BRAND NEW taffyblog !!!!!! i told yall i would do it and here i am !!!! ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

as my first order of taffyblog business, i encourage you to look around the site ! i havent edited tumblr html in ages so it was super fun going back to my roots for this project ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡ you may notice a... new face in that header..... i didnt want to go thru the effort of creating 2 headers for when i redebut, so congrats ! you get a sneak peek at some new art for the new design ૮(˶˃ᆺ˂˶)

i need to make a dedicated tweet for it, but my comms are very open rn !! if you're looking for a last minute summer outfit, or a very early winter outfit, i'm your gal ! of course my strengths lie in gyaru and similar fashions, but ive done anywhere between elegant seamstress to gothic vampire. send an ask here or dm on twitter/discord if you'd like to comm me or discuss any other services (illust, reactive png, etc) (๑>ᴗ<๑)ぐ〜♡

aight, business out of the way. how have you been, duncies ? (seriously, send me an ask and let me know !) i miss yall a lot, but i know im making the right decision being on hiatus. there's been some recent developments in my life that are making things a lot nicer for me, so i'm doing very well as of late. my physical health is pretty good ! isnt it crazy how when you take medication it makes u feel better lol. i am scared for the summer, as last year's heat wave was a major factor in me getting as sick as i did. i do have air conditioning now ! so hopefully things will be a lot easier. my mental health is also better, though i still need to take many steps in ensuring the best for myself. like, im good now, but im not set forever just yet. we work hard one day at a time 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

ultrakill news: i've spent a loooottttt of free time cybergrinding......... like i might just guerilla soon because ive gotten much better since last you've seen. marksman my beloved im coinpilled now <3 i also got a p rank in clair de lune ! (haven't bothered to try the other levels yet i love cybergrind too much)

i have no geoguessr news that game is still as ass as ever </3 still love her tho (✿˶•ᵕ•)♡(• ᵕ •˶)

redebut is still set for august 25th ! very very excited to come back more cracked than ever ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ if you'd like to support me until then, follow my twitch if you havent yet ! you can also support me financially (IF YOU ARE IN A GOOD SPACE TO DO SO) by commissioning me or sending me a gift from my throne ! i am reworking my tipping page, so tips/donos are currently unavailable. i would heavily appreciate anything, but it is in no way necessary. you reading this and supporting me is enough <3 o(⸝⸝✦ᗜ✦⸝⸝)☆

thank you duncies for everything !!!! ⋆˚✿˖° i'll be updating this blog every so often before my redebut to keep yall posted on anything cool in my life. i really appreciate all of you for being here for me. i'm very excited for my return ৻( •̀ ᗜ •́ ৻) !!!!!!! ♡ ༘*. stay tuned on twitter for some rebrand changes (❀❛ ֊ ❛„)ಇ

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF BE KIND TO OTHERS KEEP IT P.L.U.R. ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝