#i made this post in november of 2021...........

[thefabelmans2022]

when the butter is frozen

[teakoodrawz]

[ Next ] 1/2

[neonemoji]

after seeing @/mrspider’s raichu gijinkas a while back i finally decided to give my raichu wives an overhaul and also give their cyndaquil baby a human design :)

[lieutenant-amuel]

I was sorting out my videos, and it somehow made me feel nostalgic, so I decided to make a compilation of all my Gabe edits because why not.

Bonus: fanfic/video covers (I also made a cover for my favourite Gabe scenes video but I didn’t save it apparently akjsjdkf), a collage, and this one aesthetic.

Two versions. I had to edit the first one because of the Wattpad cover proportion.

That’s iiiit.

[el3ctraaa]

If you've ever read my poetry you'd know I looooove writing long poems, which is how "Monday at the Chicago Institute of Art" got to be 1000+ words. Now what I want to know is how I can write a 1000 word poem that'll only be seen by like five people but can't write a 750 word paper worth 20% of my grade 😭

[lunarharp]

never done one of these so i thought i'd try it.

my 2nd full year as an Artist.... developed a lot. looking back at stuff from a year ago is painful as usual. first half of this year was mostly takarazuka. in march i started "painting", in the summer i started doing "lineless", then i realised that's basically painting but now i understood it and was having fun.

in september i started doing tons of black and white stuff to clear my head and because i was so inspired by witch hat atelier.

i want to keep improving

[fallloverfic]

I'm very curious about 2! (From the Ennead ask meme)

2. How did you discover the manhwa?

I actually saw fanart on Tumblr in late 2021! I cannot remember what it was unfortunately (the stuff I have from that time seems to come from my browsing the tag the day after I'd read it, notably this Khemmis art I was and am still obsessed with). I didn't know what it was when I first saw it (though I remember it looked nice... I think it was Seth fanart?), scrolled past it, did a double-take when I saw people mention "boy's love, Egyptian mythology", went back, googled, and caught sight of the Horuseth official cover art, was immediately like "Egypt stuff and a boy's love series with gorgeous art??? This is my jam???" (I've loved Egyptian stuff since I was really little, and I love m/m). So I immediately went searching for the manhwa, found the censored version on Tappytoon, read it in an evening, went browsing for anything I could find on it, discovered people posting panels I hadn't seen, and discovered there was an entire non-censored version, and read that the morning after lol

Bit of a fever dream 24-hours lol The ask meme if folks wanna ask questions :D

[no-passaran]

Spain lied about not selling weapons to Israel.

Even after October 7th, Spain has sold more than 1 million € of weapons to Israel. Norway and Finland make it possible.

In January, Spain made headlines word-wide when the government's Minister of Exteriors, José Manuel Albares (PSOE), claimed in Congress and later again in a radio interview that Spain had stopped selling weapons to Israel ever since October 7th. Israel's intensification of violence in Gaza following October 7th meant that, on top of decades of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, between October 7th and January 23rd Israel had already killed 28,000 people and forced 2 million out of their home. In this context, many people were demanding their governments stop arming and funding the genocide of the Palestinian people, and here on Tumblr and other social media sites like Twitter I think we all saw the many posts praising the Spanish government for this.

Well, it turns out it was a lie.

According to Albares, "Since October 7th there are no more weapons exportations [from Spain] to Israel". But in November alone, Spain exported weapons to Israel for 987,000€, as was published on the Spanish Government's official website dedicated to exterior commerce (Comex). A researcher from Centre Delàs (an independent centre for peace studies) found it and published it, and it has also been verified by newspapers such as elDiario.es.

This 987,000€ worth of weapons in November was not the only ammunition that Spain has sent to Israel in 2023. In 2023, Spain exported a total of 1.48 million € in war material to Israel.

All of the weapons sent in November come from the factory of Nammo Palencia (Castilla y León), a corporation that is 50% property of the Government of Norway and 50% owned by a public Finnish business. However, even if the owners are foreigners, the ammunition was sent from Spain and thus it had to be authorized by the an organism of the Spanish Government named Junta Interministerial de Defensa y Doble Uso, whose deliberations on whether a weapons exportation is accepted or denied are kept secret. The only cases where they have denied exporting weapons to Israel have been when they thought that Israel would re-sell these weapons to the Philippines.

Spain has had a close relation with Israel for years. As published by the Spanish Government, Spain has sold 20 million € of weapons to Israel between 2012 and 2022. Spain also buys weapons and military software from Israel (for example, the Spanish Intelligence Service has been using the Israeli software Pegasus to illegally spy on Catalan activists, journalists, politicians and civil society members and their relatives to attack the Catalan independence movement), and Spain has continued buying from Israel and allocating defense contracts to Israel even after the October 7th attacks. It is very difficult to track the concessions of public contracts such as buying weapons, but some contracts have been known. For example, on November 24th 2023, Spain bought 287.5 million € of missiles from Israel. This is not unusual: between 2011 and 2021, it is publicly known that Spain bought war material from Israel for at least 268 million €, but experts say that the real number could be two or three times as much.

Spain has also continued allocating concessions to Israel. For example, on December 15th 2023 Spain allocated a contract worth over 576 million € to Israel for a rocket launcher programme. On November 22nd, Spain allocated another another Israeli company to provide missiles for 237 million € at the same time as the Spanish army bought Israeli inhibitors for 1.4 million €. The very next day, November 23rd, Spain signed another military allocation to Israel for 82,600€. The following week, Spain signed yet another allocation with a different Israeli military corporation for 3.7 million €.

Spain also allows Israeli weapon manufacturing companies to produce weapons through their branches located in Spain. This way, Israeli weapons make their way to markets with which Israel doesn't have diplomatic ties but Spain does, like Saudi Arabia. And since Spain is a member of NATO, Israeli weapons produced in Spain are approved according to NATO standards and access it easily. In the same way, these Israeli weapons manufacturers also access European Union defense funds through their branches in Spain. (source).

As I said, I saw a lot of positive posts around when Albares said Spain was going to embargo, but I haven't seen any post about how they didn't do it. I also (personally) haven't seen anything on international media, and barely anything on Spanish media, which is already busy with the PSOE covid material corruption scandal. So I share this in the hope of helping put pressure on Spain to cut all ties with Israel immediately.

SHAME ON EVERYONE WHO GIVES ISRAEL THE MATERIAL AND MONEY THAT WILL BE USED TO MASSACRE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. SHAME ON SPAIN, NORWAY, AND FINLAND.

[throwing-summers-at-the-walls]

What if I were to dig up my suicidal John fic that I started like 2 years ago. What then. What if I were to mega project on him once again.

[zellergraham]

pondering my orb.

[jesssssssssica]

invisible string ln4

yourusername

liked by landonorris, maxfewtrell and 1325 others

yourusername happy birthday to my bestfriend @landonorris been there for me since day one ❤️ i’m proud of everything you do and will always be there for you — y/n

landonorris we were too cute

username2 YOU CANT LOOK AT THIS POST AND THINK THAT THEY WERENT MEANT TO BE

maxfewtrell 🤮🤮

yourusername shut up 😽

username3 soulmates.

username1 this is too cute

13 November 2018

yourusername

liked by landonorris, maxfewtrell and 5342 others

yourusername you made it! happy birthday to my best friend in the whole wide world, you truly brighten my day! here's to many more - y/n

(ps. you look so silly)

landonorris i was smiling up until the last part :(

yourusername you love me really mr norris 🙄

username3 next year i’ll beat lando to the likes because DAMN hes fast 💨

username2 nearly a year later and i still believe they are in love

maxfewtrell 🤮🤮🤮🤮

yourusername die.

13 November 2019

yourusername

liked by landonorris, maxfewtrell and 7527 others

yourusername happy birthday idiot i love you and i hope you have the best time out! sorry i couldn’t join you 😽

landonorris it’s okay my lovely

yourusername 🫶🏼🫶🏼

username3 he beat me to it again 😞

username1 🗣️ THEY ARE IN LOVE

maxfewtrell 🤮🤮🤮🤮

yourusername SHUT UP

username9 they are the IT COUPLE WHOS NOT A COUPLE

username5 maybe next year 😞✊

13 November 2020

yourusername

liked by maxfewtrell, username3 and 12,375 others

yourusername i love you ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?

username4 THIS ISNT A HAPPY BIRTHDAYBFOR LANDO

username6 ZOOWEEMAMA

username7 SHE ATE THIS UP

username2 she really stole the show on HIS BIRTHDAY

13 November 2021

landonorris posted a story!

13 November 2022

yourusername posted a story

view stories replies

username3 WHO IS THIS MAN

username6 IS IT LANDK?

14 November 2022

yourusername

liked by landonorris, maxfewtrell and 15,282 others

yourusername

And isn't it just so pretty to think

All along there was some

Invisible string

Tying you to me?

landonorris 🧡

maxfewtrell this is cute

username3 FINALLY

[likeadevils]

Midnights Timeline

This is a very long post that puts all the songs on Midnights in order of Taylor creating them. I’ve also included a few other songs she worked on while writing Midnights and quotes from Taylor and her collaborators talking about her process.

If you don't want to read all that, check out this playlist of the album in order, or this playlist of her entire discography. WARNING: there is a very large chunk on the playlists that I have no information on (Maroon-Dear Reader).

I’ve also added this color coded scale of how sure I am of the date: 

Confirmed: There is some type of official source for the date

Inferring: Nobody has officially said “This is when we wrote it,” but all available evidence points to that date

Speculation: This date is based off pure vibes and guesswork and is highly likely to change.

Unknown: All that is known is the year (from the US Copyright Offices

Renegade: March 7-15, 2021 (Confirmed)

Aaron: “I wrote the music [for Renegade] at some point after we finished [evermore], and sent it to her, because she was inspired by a llot of the Big Red Machine stuff we were working on. And she had already sung on Birch, a song that hasn't come out yet but is one of the major ones on the record. And I think she wanted to write a song for Big Red Machine. She very much feels like part of this community to me. So I wrote Renegade, the music, and sent it to her. And not unlike a lot of the things we've done together, one day I woke up to a voice memo from her and she had written this incredible song about how anxiety and fear get in the way of loving or being loved. And she was clearly thinking about Big Red Machine. And then we recorded her vocals and everything the week of the Grammys, when I was there in LA, and it was really nice to have something to think about that wasn't related to the Grammys - just to make music because you feel like making it." (transcript from jaimie)

High Infidelity and Would've Could've Should've: March 7-15, 2021 (Confirmed)

Aaron: [Would've Could've Should've], we wrote that song together, and recorded it while we were together in LA for the folklore Grammys. It goes back that far. And the same with High Infidelity. Those songs, we actually recorded in her house, the vocals, we recorded them then. And I just kept making music, and it was kind, after we had made folklore and evermore, I started to have ideas which I would share. And eventually, she obviously made most of Midnights with Jack, and it became something different. But High Infidelity, and Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, and The Great War, and we made Hits Different with Jack and Taylor and I also, and it was great to be part of that record in that way. (transcript from @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes)

The Great War and Hits Different: between April-October 2021 (Speculation)

In the above quote talking about his songs on Midnights, Aaron says "Eventually, she obviously made most of Midnights with Jack, and it became something different," implying his stuff was written before the bulk of midnights in fall. He also says High Infidelity and Would've Could've Should've "[go] back that far," which implies they were some of the earliest stuff on Midnights, so it's safe to assume TGW and Hits Different come sometime afterwards.

Summer 2021: Jack has a session with Sounwave, Sam Dew, and Zoe Kravitz, where the instrumentals for Lavender Haze and likely Glitch are written

Rolling Stone interview with Sounwave: Before Antonoff began to work on Swift’s tenth album, he was cooking up tracks with Spears, Dew, and Zoë Kravitz [...] During a brainstorming session, the quartet put together a track that would eventually become “Lavender Haze.”

November 3 2021: It was announced that Joe has been cast in Stars at Noon, alongside Margaret Qualley, Jack Antonoff's then girlfriend now wife. Since Joe was parachuted into the film last minute, filming had already started, making it likely he left as soon as possible.

Taylor: We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama. Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.

November 8: Jack gets back from touring with Bleachers. Let the games begin.

Vigilante Shit: November 2021 (Speculation)

Vigilante Shit is the sole solo writing credit on the album, which implies it was written before her and Jack were holed up together 24/7. Also Scooter and his wife divorced in July. Beyond that there's no evidence this is early in the process, besides it making sense that Taylor wrote this alone, brought it to Jack, and then fell into a creative inferno.

Maroon, Anti-Hero, You're on Your Own Kid, Midnight Rain, Bejeweled, Labyrinth, Mastermind, Paris, and Dear Reader: November/December 2021 (Inferring)

I don't have enough info on the making of any of these songs to give them each their own little blurb, but if anything pops up I will update this post and reblog it letting y’all know.

Question..?: After November 21, 2021 (Inferring)

We know Rachel Antonoff, Dylan O'Brien, and Austin Swift were there the day they recorded it thanks to this behind the scenes footage of them recording the cheering vocals. Dylan was filming The Vanishings at Caddo Lake in Louisiana sometime between October 5 and November 20. I don't know exactly which dates he was filming-- he was in New York for All Too Well filming in late October and to attend the premiere on November 12, but since we know for sure he was in Louisiana on the 20th, I'm just gonna Occam's Razor it and say Question was written sometime after he got back from that.

You're Losing Me: December 5, 2021 (Confirmed)

December 17, 2021: Filming wraps on Stars at Noon, and with it the bulk of recording for Midnights.

Lavender Haze: Early 2022 (Speculation)

Lavender Haze, Snow on the Beach, and Karma are the only songs to have Henson Recording Studios credited (I can't find studio credits for the 3am tracks so there is possibly more on there). This could point to them all being recorded around the same time time, or it could be in reference to Jack and Sounwave's original recording sessions taking place at Hensen. I lean towards the former, since 1) it seems like the Winter 2021 sessions were mostly between Taylor and Jack, and the spring sessions have other collaborators, and 2) the tabloid rumors about Taylor and Joe getting engaged really started heating up in February 2022. On the other hand, Sounwave implies that there was a notable stretch of time between Lavender Haze and Karma, so I totally understand if you want to put it with the rest of the Winter 2021 sessions. Rolling Stone interview with Sounwave: A few months [after Jack and Sounwave wrote the instrumentals], Antonoff reached out to Spears, Dew, and Kravitz to see if he could pitch [Lavender Haze] to Swift, who loved it immediately. She wrote lyrics inspired by a Mad Men scene, numerous tabloid rumors and online gossip about her relationship status, and “1950s expectations.” “When Jack brought us in the hear for the first time, all our mouths dropped. She took it to a whole new world and made it her own. She created different pockets we did not hear.”

Glitch: Early 2022 (Speculation)

Rolling Stone interview with Sounwave: "Glitch,” one of the bonus songs on the Midnights (3am) edition, was born from the same studio session as “Lavender Haze.” I don't know if this means the instrumentals to Lavender Haze and Glitch were done in the same session, Taylor wrote the lyrics in the same session, or both. For the same reason as Lavender Haze, I lean towards this coming later in the process, as well as Glitch mentioning being together for six years, and in November 2021 Taylor and Joe had been together for a little over 5 years. That being said, Taylor could've assume the album was going to come out in 2022, and that she would stay with Joe until then, and bump up that date a bit. It's still very up in the air.

February 5, 2022: Taylor is photographed leaving Jack's house holding a keyboard.

Sweet Nothing: Spring 2022 (Inferring)

Joe is a co-write on this, meaning they likely wrote it after he got back from filming. It also mentions their trip to Ireland in 2021 and refers to it as "last July", implying it was written in 2022. While I was writing this timeline Taylor liked this post on twitter, implying that at least the second verse is in reference to Paul and Linda McCartney. The quote is from his poem Blessed, which you can read in this interview (TWs for death and cancer)

Bigger Than The Whole Sky: March 2022 (Inferring)

Claire Winter, a close friend of Taylor's, posts on Instagram that she miscarried. (I toyed with whether or not to add this, but seeing as Claire Winter made the information public herself, I decided to put it in. If she ever takes that Instagram post down, let me know and I'll delete this part.)

Snow on the Beach: April 1, 2022 (Inferring)

On April 1, Lana Del Rey posts a video on Instagram of Jack in the studio with an unidentified female voice in the background. Two days later she posts this photo, which Taylor and Jack both include in posts about Midnights/Snow on the Beach. Lana: Well, first of all, I had no idea I was the only feature [on that song]. Had I known, I would have sung the entire second verse like she wanted. My job as a feature on a big artist’s album is to make sure I help add to the production of the song, so I was more focused on the production. She was very adamant that she wanted me to be on the album, and I really liked that song. I thought it was nice to be able to bridge that world, since Jack [Antonoff] and I work together and so do Jack and Taylor. Taylor: And with Snow On The Beach, which features the genius Lana Del Rey, very lucky to have collaborated with her on that. And Dylan [O’Brien] was actually in the studio with me and Jack, because a lot of the time we record at his place, and Dylan was just hanging out, drinking wine with us, and listening to stuff, and he was just trying out the drum kit there. He wasn't serious. But we were drinking wine, and we were sort of like, 'We haven't recorded the drums for this one yet! See if you want to...' and he played the drums on the song. Sometimes it just happens like that. (transcript once again from jaimie)

Karma: Spring 2022 (Speculation)

Rolling Stone interview with Sounwave: The bubbly “Karma” came later [than Lavender Haze and Glitch], when Antonoff reached out to Spears for any other ideas he may have to contribute to the album and its synth-pop vision. “‘Karma’ was just a last-minute Hail Mary,” Spears says. “I remembered I was working with my guy Keanu [Beats] and had something that was too perfect not to send to her. As soon as I sent it, Jack was instantly like ‘This is the one. Playing it for Taylor now. We’re going in on it.’ The next day, I heard the final product with her vocals on it.”

April 19, 2022: Elle's interview with the Conversations with Friends cast is released, and when Joe is "asked if he hopes to continue writing songs, Alwyn simply says, “It’s not a plan of mine, no.”" It's possible this means Sweet Nothing was yet to be written, but I think it's more likely Joe was just denying in order to not create hype around a song that wasn't officially announced yet.

May 2022: Taylor teases Labyrinth lyrics in her NYU Commencement Speech and says m i d n i g h t very prominently on this instagram post, meaning by early summer she was likely confident in the album's name and which songs would make the tracklist.

And that's all for this timeline! Check out my others:

TIMELINES: debut • fearless • speak now • red • 1989 • rep • lover • folklore • evermore • midnights PLAYLISTS: debut • fearless • speak now • red • 1989 • rep • lover • folklore • evermore • midnights • entire discography GENERAL: tag

[ohnoitstbskyen]

The overwhelming misery of going viral on YouTube

In April of 2021, I posted a short to YouTube - a 60 second video in the format of their TikTok competitor. In the nature of shorts, it was a one-minute, necessarily un-nuanced hot take about a subject I like to talk about: character design. Specifically I made the mistake of lamenting that the character design of female heroes in major games tend to prioritize attractiveness rather than using their body shape to do storytelling about their lives or capabilities.

It did okay, garnering about 38k views in its first month. Didn't set the world on fire, but I got my point out there, and while there were some crappy comments, for the most part people seemed to understand what I was driving at.

The short had eventually climbed to about 100.000 views after a full year of being online, which is respectable, but in the world of YouTube Shorts a fairly middle-of-the-road level of success (these are extremely short videos being served extremely quickly to a huge base of users). Fast forward to November 8th of this year, and... something happens. More than a year after it was originally published, it starts gaining traction.

Slowly at first, a few thousand views, but by the 14th it's gained 80.000 views in a day. On the 16th, 400.000, on the 17th, 680.000. I have no idea why this is happening, there's no influx of viewers from any outside source, there's no topical news event that would make the video suddenly relevant.

I tweet about it, bemused by the sudden jump, but also hinting a bit at the other side of this story.

"There Is No Such Thing As Negative Press"

On YouTube, there is on the systemic level very little difference between positive attention and negative attention. If you create excellent work that brings joy into people's lives, they engage with your video and the algorithm reads that as success. And if you create miserable, hateful content that makes people angry and stokes them to responses of outrage, disgust or jeering, the algorithm reads that as a kind of success, too.

Hate-bait and rage-bait YouTubers operate in that latter space, churning out inflammatory or distressing content, hoping to elicit either reactions of horror, or gleeful cheering from people who like it when their favourite online personality trolls the Other.

But there's another way to garner negative attention, and that is to create content which is not at all designed to bait or elicit a negative response, but whose subject matter nonetheless produces a negative response from a certain kind of person.

That is the unfortunate slip-and-slide I have found myself on.

At the time of writing, the short sits at 6.8 million views, has been gaining on average 2 million views per day, and it still seems to be accelerating. Despite those skyrocketing numbers, however, it only ("only") has around 1300 published comments underneath it.

That is because, after the first couple of million views, I told YouTube to automatically hold all comments for review. That is, YouTube allows users to comment on the video, but those comments are not published until I manually approve them.

The reason I did this is... well, it's easier to show you with some pictures. Content warning, these are unfiltered YouTube comments, so expect casual bigotries.

These are screenshots from the "held for review" tab of my YouTube Studio backend. YouTube in recent years has gotten good at filtering out content like overt racial slurs and the worst of the worst insults, which is nice, but the filtered comments tab is still not a particularly pleasant place to read through right now.

Most of the comments are like what you see above: casually rude, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise unpleasant. Some of the comments are more intense, threatening me with violence, insulting me personally, "I hope your mom gets raped by a [racial slur]," and worse. The worst comments are a small percentage, but as you can imagine, they do stand out in the mind, and a small percentage of a huge number can still be a lot of comments.

And that's the thing. There are hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of comments. I scrolled for fifteen minutes and did not see the end of it. YouTube doesn't keep a visible count on how many comments are held for review, but I'd not be surprised if the 1300 comments count would have been doubled if I hadn't stopped it when I did. And since the video is still accelerating, that number is likely to skyrocket as well.

This provides me with the best theory I have as to why the video took off: the YouTube algorithm started showing it not to people who it thought would like it, but to people it thought would dislike it enough to react, to comment. And the more people did comment, the more the algorithm showed it to other people just like those who commented, who were also likely to dislike it.

This causes a feedback loop of negative attention, which the YouTube algorithm (horrifyingly) interprets as a success and an incentive to keep pushing the video.

Moderating this comments section is now physically impossible - I would need a staff of a dozen to handle it, which I can't afford and who I wouldn't want to expose to it, and while this deluge is going on, moderating the comments of other videos becomes next to impossible as well, since the "held for review" tab is utterly monopolized.

One fix for this problem, of course, is to simply disable the comments. But in my experience, doing that only encourages the worst of the commenters to seek out your other content and leave even worse comments there instead. In fact, a couple of dozen particularly irate people have already sought out my other channels to post insults there, adding to the stress and workload of dealing with all this viral "success."

How YouTube Makes YouTubers Worse

This situation is stressful, because humans are monkey creatures with monkey brains that do not like being exposed to a constant stream of rudeness, cruelty and casual bigotry. However rational you try to be about it, however detached and cold, it wears on you. It chips away at your mental defenses and becomes a constant source of low-level stress and misery.

But as far as YouTube is concerned, it's a huge success.

YouTube's systems are all set up this way. They celebrate increases in numbers with cheerful messages and positive green arrows and "helpful" statistics showing just how much things are growing - meanwhile, if you post otherwise positively received work that doesn't attract as much attention, it will give you dour "your content received fewer views due to lower interest this month" messages and greyed-out downward arrows. If you have a video that does really well on the numbers, YouTube will even play a little fireworks animation on its statistics to celebrate.

It's a form of not-so-subtle psychological manipulation. As a YouTuber you are dependent on your statistics to inform your work - if your rent depends on making those numbers go up, you essentially have no choice but to pay attention to them and let them guide your decision making. And so YouTube designs its systems to push its creators towards the behaviour that the platform finds most beneficial: numbers optimizing.

And the thing is, if I went only by the numbers, I would look at the success of this short and go "oh, there's a viable content strategy here!"

I could try and replicate its "success" by creating more content around the same topic, by targeting the same kind of outrage-baiting, by identifying the contentious subjects and trigger points brought up by the angry people in the comments and hitting them repeatedly, hoping to make engagement fall out.

YouTube would reward me for that, quite handsomely, in fact, even as mental health and professional happiness would absolutely crater. I don't have the personality for that kind of content creation, it's not what I want to do with my work, it's not the kind of person I want to be.

But I am not immune to propaganda. I have already changed as a person from doing this job, I know this for a fact. My priorities have shifted, my wants and needs have changed. Not for the worse, I believe, not yet, but the platform is constantly, constantly pushing on me.

It's unpleasant and it's stressful. It's hostile design, coupled with primitive and insufficient moderation tools, coupled with an aggressive algorithm which will go out of its way to ensure your relationship with your audience is toxic, if that toxicity produces better numbers for the platform.

Viral success is often thought of as a desirable thing, something which can launch a career or skyrocket an unknown to success. The reality is, it is mostly just overwhelming. I'm a grown man and I have done online content creation for a long time, and I have learned strategies to manage toxic comments sections over years of experience.

But imagine if something like this happened to a sixteen year old. Imagine if it happened to a teenage girl just starting out making videos. Or a trans person. Or, hell, any person from a marginalized community. I am sheltered by my privileges, but I have seen how dark it gets and how fast it gets dark for people who don't have those extra protections.

Well, it does happen to them, and no matter how rancid, bigoted and horrible the abuse they receive, they will log in to YouTube Studio to see happy fireworks and "Nice! Your video got 20 million views!" with a little green upwards pointing arrow right next to it.

You might have seen articles and thinkpieces around "creator burnout," and I want you to know that a huge part of what burns creators out is the primitive, profit-optimizing, hostile systems that power these platforms and monetize our worst experiences on them as "engagement."

In case you're wondering how much money I've earned from those 6.8 million views, by the way, it's about $20.

YouTube says they're rolling out full Shorts monetization next year, so I guess I just picked the wrong month to go viral.

---

If this story resonated with you at all, do me a favor and leave a nice comment under the work of an online creator you enjoy. It helps more than you might think.

You can tip me on Patreon or Ko-fi if you want to.

[wintfleur]

🍂 ͡ ꒱ JULIETTES RELATIONSHIP WITH MAT & QUINN

au masterlist - everything for the AU is under #🍂 ͡ ꒱ Juliette Leclerc

°. — everything for the couple under #⋆ ˚｡⋆୨🤎୧˚ Juliette’s lovers

°. — you can find anything smutty under #⋆ ˚｡⋆୨🎞️୧˚ smutty lovers

ᥫ᭡ BASICS!

★ When did they meet Mat and Quinn met when they were kids at a hockey tournament, and they instantly became best friends. Juliette and Mat met at a party in 2021, Auston Matthews introduced them (August) Quinn and Juliette met at a Canucks game in 2021, their PR agents wanting them to film a small video together (November)

★ When was their first date, and who asked Juliette was the one to ask them on a date, she invited them both for a night at her place, she wanted it to be just them where they didn't have to worry about hiding. They made dinner together, laughed and watched movies, and just talked as they had some wine and got to know each other more. (february 2022)

★ When did they start dating, and who asked Quinn and Mat asked julie to be their girlfriend after a long and emotional conversation, and they asked her out after they celebrated her win in Emilia-Romagna (April 2022)

★ When did everyone find out their friends and family found out weeks after they became official , taking their time until they were comfortable to tell their loved ones. The public found out when an article was posted , the sole reason to expose them and ruin their careers. The article had pictures of them , intimate details of their relationship and honestly just stalker behavior from who sent in the information. (June 2023)

★ Who said i love you first Quinn was the first to say i love , they were cuddling and mat and julie were being very soft and sweet to quinn who was having a really hard day , he was just so overwhelmed with love from the two of them , and just whispered it. Mat and Julie were so happy and they of course said it back , littering their boy and each other with sweet kisses. (july 2022)

ᥫ᭡ DETAILS!

★ Their tropes Dom!Mat x Switch!Quinn x Switch!Julie , Friends to lovers , Talker!Mat x Listener!Julie x Talker!Quinn , Hyper!Mat x Sleepy!Quinn x Sleepy!Julie

★ Their love languages Mat’s; physical touch , acts of service. Quinn’s; words of affirmation , physical touch. Julie’s; physical touch , gift giving.

★ Their favorite sleep positions Hmm they don't really have one , it always changes. They really just love being close together , mat and quinn are more clingy when they sleep and julie doesn't really move much unless she gets too hot. Mat moves a lot in his sleep so he's not in the middle a lot , most of the time it's quinn or julie who's in the middle.

★ Their pet names for each other They honestly call each other every pet name under the sun. Mat uses baby , love and sweetheart the most. Quinn uses honey , angel , and babe the most. Julie uses darling , love , and handsome the most. Mat and Julie also like using a lot of pet names in french , it makes quinn really flustered.

★ Their couple songs Seven by Jungkook & Latto & Sweet by Cigarettes After Sex

★ Their contact names for each other Mats contact list; ‘Julie baby🤎 ‘ ‘Q💙’ Quinn’s contact list; ‘barzy💙’ ’juliebug🤎’ Julie’s contact list; ‘matty💋’ ’quinny💋’

ᥫ᭡ FUNFACTS!

𐙚 They love going on vacations together, mostly tropical places.

𐙚 When Julie and Mat first met at the party, they shared a tipsy kiss. When Mat got home that night, he called Quinn and told him all about it. It was just one kiss, but God that was all Mat could think about.

𐙚 Quinn didn't admit it , but he was a little jealous of the fact that mat and julie kissed. His feelings for Mat were confusing and honestly scaring him a little bit . . . but he wasn't jealous that Mat kissed someone else that wasn't him, no he was jealous that he also didn't get to kiss julie and he wasn't there to see it happen.

𐙚 They planned on keeping their relationship a secret for a while until they were comfortable enough for the public to know, but sadly that didn't happen.

𐙚 They are all very family oriented, and they can't wait until they can have a family of their own

𐙚 The boys both have their own place, but they practically live with Julie at her place in Monaco when they don't have hockey.

𐙚 They love late mornings where they can wake up late, cuddle in bed for however long they want until they get up to make breakfast.

𐙚 They love doing sports together, going golfing, and playing some tennis !! They are a very active couple.

𐙚 The boys love to take advantage of the fact that they're good at the two sports, loving to help her. “Helping" means pressing their body close against hers and whispering tips in her ear . . . little do they both know that she pretends to be bad just so she could feel them pressed up against her.

𐙚 Mat’s filthy dirty talk always leaves Quinn and Julie a flustered and breathless mess . . . he loves the hold he has on them.

𐙚 They all love how domestic they are when there together, especially in the mornings. Waking up in each other's arms, soft music playing through the kitchen as they make breakfast before eating it on Julie's balcony that gave them the beauty of monaco.

𐙚 At the lake house they have a loveseat in the living room where the three love to curl up with each other , watching movies with Jack and luke. Mostly scary movies . . .

𐙚 Physically Mat is more protective out of them all, but vocally that's julie. She will not stand for them to be disrespected or talked down to because of their sexual preference. Quinn is also very protective, but in a more of an intimidating way if that makes sense?

𐙚 Mat and Quinn get along wonderfully with Julie's friends , they feel very welcomed with them.

𐙚 It's bittersweet when the boys are together and Julie can't be there with them, they are happy to be with each other, but it's just not the same without their girl.

𐙚 They all proudly talk about their relationship when asked, but they usually keep it to themselves. All of them like their privacy, and even though they were exposed they were still going to sorta private about each other . . . Which is almost impossible, the amount of pictures that the paparazzi take of them is crazy.

𐙚 They once went on a cruise where they invited their parents and siblings and their significant others. They had a great time and it definitely brought them all closer , especially Arthur with Mat and quinn.

𐙚 They love the city and living by a lake, but they absolutely love living in the country. They have talked about it many times being their own land to build a home and stables, ranch and vineyard, growing old together with their family . . . it's their dream.

𐙚 Whenever they do have arguments which isn't often , they all have different reactions. Quinn normally just needs some time to himself to calm down and collect his thoughts.

𐙚 Julie wants to fix things right away , she hates the idea of them being upset with her and she feels terrible and gets hard on herself.

𐙚 Mat is like a mixture of the both of them , he needs some space but he also tears himself up with guilt.

𐙚 Mat definitely is talking in their group chat the most , and poor Julie wakes up with tons of messages she has to read through from the two of them.

𐙚 Out of all of them , mat is the most open about their relationship with the public/media

𐙚 The boys love getting in contact with Julie's assistant so they can plan surprises for her!

𐙚 Julie loves taking her boys shopping , trying on different outfits for them and picking out clothes for them to wear. They pretend to hate it but they all know they dont.

𐙚 They love when Julie sings to them or plays the piano.

𐙚 The boys love when Julie goes out with them and their teammates, they just love seeing how well she gets along with all of them.

ᥫ᭡ THEIR THINGS!

𐙚 Judging everyone and everything together.

𐙚 Cozy nights on the couch with a warm blanket and bottle of wine.

𐙚 Matching jewelry in some way, Mat with a necklace, Quinn with a ring, and julie with a bracelet

𐙚 Always texting each other good morning and good night.

𐙚 Spending weekends on her yacht.

𐙚 Skinny dipping

𐙚 Spending their nights in the hottub on her balcony or at the lake house, laughs and tipsy kisses Shared between them

𐙚 Clubbing! . . . well more like Julie and Mat dragging Quinn to the club with them.

𐙚 Going on late boat rides at the lakehouse, so they can relax and watch the stars.

𐙚 Quinn and Mat playing one on one at the rink while Julie watches and cheers them both on, a lot of bets are won like this ;)

𐙚 Slapping each others asses

𐙚 Always touching each other in some way

𐙚 Mat planning spontaneous dates

𐙚 Going to carnivals/fairs and the boys competing against each other to get Julie the biggest stuffed animal.

𐙚 Nights where they make homemade pizzas and play video games, a loving competition of course between mat and quinn.

𐙚 Quinn and Julie holding hands while Mat is holding one of their waists, wherever they all walk together.

𐙚 Their hands in each other's back pockets.

𐙚 Juliette sending them love letters.

𐙚 Always sending each other flowers when they are apart, the flowers remind them of each other.

𐙚 Having amazing communication

𐙚 Counting down the days until they see each other again.

𐙚 Having access to each others calendars

𐙚 Whenever they call their parents , they end up talking about each other.

𐙚 Giving each other massages

𐙚 Being each others biggest supporters

𐙚 The boys painting julie's fingers and toes for her when she doesn't want to go get them done

ᥫ᭡ INTERNETS FAVORITE MOMENTS!

𐙚 The day after the article exposing them came out, Julie proudly said that both of her boyfriends were in attendance at the race when she was being interviewed . . . She then went and won the race and then proudly kissed them both after the race.

𐙚 An interview had asked Quinn a very highly insensitive question about his relationship and Quinn was quick to snap and shut the reporter down, a very very intimidating glare on his face while doing so.

𐙚 In the background of an instagram story Charles posted, you can see mat, quinn and julie cuddled up in a hammock in the beautiful leclerc home backyard, smiling and laughing at Arthur who was trying to impress them with a hockey stick that Quinn and mat had bought him.

𐙚 When Julie made a special appearance on lando’s stream and the two were talking about a night out they had with mat, quinn and a few of their other friends. Julie was talking so fondly about the two boys and Lando had a great time playfully teasing her about it.

𐙚 When a video of the three of them dancing (grinding) together on the dancefloor at a club went viral . . . along with a clip of mat pouring champagne from the bottle into julie's mouth, quinn licking and kissing up the few drops that rolled down her neck.

𐙚 The photo dumps Julie posts whenever they go on vacation together.

𐙚 Every time Julie is shown on the big screen at their hockey games , or when the boys are shown on the screen in the paddock.

𐙚 The clip of mat and julie going on the big screen at quinn’s game , mat having his arm wrapped around julies shoulder as she was snuggled into his side as she sipped on a beer , both of them wearing a quinn jersey , then it showed quinn who was sitting on the bench smiling as he saw the two of them on the big screen.

ᥫ᭡ LOCK SCREENS!

﹕─┈ Mat’s Lock Screen is Julie and Quinn when they all went to this really cool record shop while exploring the town they were visiting , mat thought it would be cute so he took the picture!

﹕─┈ Quinn’s Lock Screen is a picture of Julie and Mat after a date night , they both were quite tipsy and just flirty and giggly. They were both just so happy beautiful so he of course had to take a picture.

﹕─┈ Julie’s Lock Screen is a picture of Quinn and Mat when they all stayed together at the family ranch when they all had a break , it was a very therapeutic experience for all of them. Julie loves horses , and she loves her boys . . . So it was perfect.

ᥫ᭡ MOODBOARD!

˖ ་ 💭 roro’s notes ( AHH FINALLY ITS OUT !! I’m so sorry it took me forever to get out , I had a little struggle with coming up with some facts about them. I really hope you guys enjoy this , I love them so so much !! I’m not proud of the moodboard at all , it’s so bad !! Maybe in the future I’ll make a new one , it was just hard finding pictures for them !! )

°. — taglist ( @lovings4turn @toasttt11 @cixrosie @ru-kru @alwaysclassyeagle @theopenlocker @lavisenri @callsignwidow @willowpains @winterbarnesblog )

©️WINTFLEUR

[serahlink]

‼️EMERGENCY COMMS OPEN! || HELP A HOMELESS ARTIST ‼️

Reblogs are greatly appreciated!! :")

Making another commissions post since things have been getting worse as the month goes on. For those who are just coming across this, my name is Link and I'm a 22 y/o homeless artist. My family and I (father and younger sibling) have been in this situation for about three years now since November 2021 and I've been doing commissions to support us until something changes. We don't have anywhere to go or anyone to really turn to financially or housing wise, so we've been on our own since then. My father has managed to get his ID but with no transportation and jobs being too far out, it's made job hunting more difficult and we've yet to find anything.

This month has been one of the toughest with us owing 100$+ due to not being able to pay the daily rent. We do get extensions here but they're hard to keep up with when they double so quickly and work is becoming more hard to come by, and bumping posts on my other socials hasn't done much for us. Sadly, tonight isn't any different. We owe 190$ for tonight and for the last three days, we've been unable to get anything for it. If we can't pay tonight then we will be forced to leave, and I'm not sure what we'll do if we can't cover it.

My commissions are open for anyone interested in supporting us that way, but reblogs/shares also help us a ton since it helps spread the word to possibly get us the help we need :") I'm a fantasy oriented artist, mainly surrounding fandoms like DND, Baldurs Gate 3, Skyrim and Dragon Age, but I've done non fantasy related things as well like furries, feral creatures, comic or modern characters, I'm welcome to pretty much any fandom or request! My only donts are anything excessively violent or sexual (nonsexual nudity is okay), proship/all around that sorta content, and anything hateful (homophobia/transphobia/racism/etc.) if you have any questions about what I will do/wont do that isnt listed here, feel free to ask!

My turn around time can ranged from four weeks or shorter to a month or two given the complexity and how my situation is going at the time. I only take payments upfront with no refunds since we use the money immediately for the room or food and are unable to give proper refunds. My prices will be below and my messages will be open for anyone interested in supporting us that way, thank you so so much if you do help or reblog, I can't tell you how much we appreciate it. Especially with how things are going now.

~Prices~

Sketch (price depending on type of sketch) - base price of 15$

Sketch page - 15$ per sketch

Headshot - 25$ (+10$ if shaded)

Bust - 35$ (+10$ if shaded)

Expression Sheet (minimum of 3 heads per sheet, 10$+ per extra head) - 45$ (10$+ if shaded)

Half body - 50$ (+10$ if shaded)

Full body - 70$ (+15$ if shaded)

Couples Commission (a commission that includes two people) - 90$ (+15$ if shaded)

Group commissions (commission that includes more than two people, price dependant on the details) - 60 base price(one character, unshaded; each extra character is +75% to the original price) (40$+ if shaded) 

Paintings

[intricatedemonicrituals]

Canon Destiel Timeline Masterpost

I wrote this all in a fugue state while listening to Green Grow the Lilacs on repeat so forgive any mistakes. @gay-fae ask and ye shall receive

So much has happened in the long and storied history of his fandom so I've decided to try to document it. I've started by looking up every time that canon destiel, destiel event, misha collins, jackles, or some other search terms have spiked on Google and cross referenced them with tumblr or twitter posts from that day. I know a lot of this is Misha stuff, but he does tend to be the one to say things

November 5th, 2020: Season 15, Episode 18 "Despair" airs and Castiel declares his love to Dean. The presidential election, Georgia turning blue, the presumed retirement of Vladamir Putin, Dabi from My Hero Academia, Ouran Host Club season 2, Sherlock season 5, the president of Bolivia being attacked with dynamite, ongoing BLM protests, a twitter artist making racist art of Ted Bundy, Hetalia returning, a dead man being elected Representative for North Dakota, V for Vendetta, scientists discovering a "hell" planet that rains rocks and has lava oceans, and half of Europe being in lockdown all became tumblr news around the same time. Some of these are true, some not.

November 8th, 2020: Misha Collins, in a panel with Richard Speight, states that the confession scene was a "declaration of homosexual love", and that when Castiel goes to the Empty, it is an example of the "Kill your gays" trope.

November 19th, 2020: The finale airs and it is not well loved to say the least. The episode is short, Dean dies by falling on a nail to death fighting vampire clowns, and there are several characters left with dangling unresolved plot threads and arcs, including Castiel. The car is in heaven though. There is very little heard from the cast and crew, if anything.

November 22nd, 2020: Misha Collins, in a livestream, tells a fan that Castiel and Jack are remaking heaven together, Cas has his wings back, and they are rainbow-colored. He had, however, mentioned the rainbow wings before.

November 24th, 2020: The Spanish dub of the confession is released and a "rogue" translator has written "Y yo a ti" or "I love you too" as Dean's response. Destiel goes canon in Spanish. Tumblr stops working as a result.

November 25th, 2020: tumblr user @thebloggerbloggerfun claims Jensen Ackles said "I had a member of the film crew record the confession scene on my phone for me" #unsourced #releasethetapes

November 26th, 2020: Misha doesn't appreciate the rogue translator, but walks that opinion back later the same day

November 27th, 2020: A "leaked" Italian dub of the confession scene shows a mutual confession.

November 28th, 2020: President Obama follows a destiel account on Twitter

November 30th, 2020: The supposed "Italian dub" is revealed as a fake created by user @iotiamo using sound clips from other parts of the Italian dub on show.

December 1st, 2020: Twitter user @mothdean says "misha I know you have a stan acc and spy on us so can we have a hazel update please"

December 3rd, 2020: Misha tweets about Hazel snoring and this is taken as possible confirmation of Misha's secret stan account

December 11th, 2020: A script from Cas's perspective leaks. It says "We see Cass's POV of Dean again - his face drawn, drained of hope. But still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester."

December 16th, 2020: Newsweek runs an article about an article that Misha wrote about the Lewinsky affair while interning in the Clinton White House in which Misha comes off as rather thirsty for Bill

December 20th, 2020: All Supernatural related materials disappear off the CW's website due to a copyright dispute with Warner Brothers

December 31st, 2020: Mishapocalypse redux

February 9th, 2021: Spn cast members Chad Lindberg and Samantha Ferris tweet about a party at the Roadhouse and it grows to become a full Destiel wedding

February 16th, 2021: @steveyockey made a fairly benign post about Jensen Ackles. The notes went wild in a variety of ways and started a rumor that Spn writer Steve Yockey was dead

February 20th, 2021: Steve Yockey is not dead and he should say it

March 3rd, 2021: The German dub drops and it is also romantic in tone

March 6-8th, 2021: A virtual con happens where Jensen discusses Chaos Machine and Jared says he wants to be in their next project. They also show that WAP video. Jensen is giving full mountain man preparing to play Soldier Boy.

March 10th, 2021: The French dub is released. Cas says, "I love you, Dean" and Dean now responds, "Don't do this to me, Castiel"

March 13th, 2021: The company Amazon tweets about Castiel and Misha Collins asks if they ship Deancas or Wincest. Subsequently apologizes.

March 16th, 2021: Misha says he can't speak as Castiel because Warner Brothers" specifically forbade it. #cwsniperconfirmed

March 17th, 2021: Sam and Eileen are getting married! I have no idea how this came about but I'm happy for them

March 23rd, 2021: Chad Lindberg and Samantha Ferris claim on Twitter that the Roadhouse party was about Valentine's day and not a wedding. Ferris specifically said that she worked on the show and that people tried to make Dean/Cas into "something that it wasn't", She also stated she doesn't "know what queerbaiting is" and that it was due to an "agenda". This led to #deanisbi trending on Twitter and Tumblr.

March 31st, 2021: Some possibly fake leaked scripts come up for sale on eBay. Also, Jensen is Batman.

April 1st, 2021: Mishapocalypse redux

April 6th, 2021: Leaked scripts from the 2 final episodes pop up and have several mentions of Cas in them that were omitted. Dean even thinks about Cas's confession when confronting Chuck.

April 18th, 2021: Scripts from seasons 12 and 13 leak. These include scenes from after Cas's death

May 17th, 2021: Jensen's band Radio Company releases an album including the song Watching Over Me

June ~5th, 2021: Misha says at a convention that Watching Over Me is about Castiel. Jensen neither confirms nor denies this when asked about it

June 11th, 2021: It is announced that Misha is publishing a book of poetry

June 18th, 2021: The Russian dub airs and Dean's line is changed to "Don't you dare, Cas"

June 24-28th, 2021: Jensen and Daneel Ackles reveal that they are making a Supernatural prequel series following John and Mary Winchester (a story that NOBODY was asking for). Jensen will reprise his role as Dean and will narrate. Misha hints that he would like to be involved, as do Ruthie Connell, Samantha Ferris, Matt Cohen, and Julie McNiven (the perils of having a cast of mostly immortal characters). But Jared Padalecki first says that he is happy for the Ackles's, he later said he was "gutted", then responded to Robbie Thompson's tweet calling him a "coward" and saying "what an awful thing you've done". The next day, Jensen and Jared both do damage control and say they'll always be brothers

July 17th, 2021: People are asking if Destiel will be canon in Space Jam, Misha's poetry book's cover is revealed to lukewarm reviews and people are talking about a particular poem about piss, and Perfume Genius releases an article that is a self-insert vore fanfiction about having sex with Jensen Ackles

August 2nd, 2021: Perfume Genius is at it again with "Last Friday, I had my eyes removed by Jared Padalecki". No, I do not know why she is doing this.

August 9th, 2021: Destiel fics hit 100k on Ao3. Misha tweets his support and people remember that he sometimes reads fanfiction and theorize he has an A03 account

September 1st, 2021: Misha makes his first Tiktok. There is a short intro before he calls cut, walks behind a screen, and strips his clothes off

September 3rd, 2021: Jake Abel uses Michael and Adam to help sell his hot sauce brand

September 4th, 2021: Misha confirms that the love between Castiel and Dean was "reciprocated"

September 9th, 2021: A clip of the real Italian dub of the confession scene goes viral as it is revealed that, unlike the Spanish dub, they change the line to "ti voglio bene" or essentially "I love you like family". Misha responds with a video saying "Ciao Italia, ti amo" with the subtitle "Love is love in any language"

September 21st, 2021: Misha drops the fact that one of his poems is from Castiel's perspective.

September 30th, 2021: Jensen will be appearing at a con on the same day as Misha and not with Jared for "professional reasons"

October 4th, 2021: Misha responds to a fan's tweet by saying that Jensen has "crazy eyes and a knife in his pocket"

October 10th, 2021: Daneel posts a picture of Jensen intently reading Misha's poetry book in front of a roaring fire on Instagram. Misha responds that he misses them even more

October 12th, 2021: Jensen is cast in Rust, a (rather ill-fated) western and Misha says "Yippie-ki-yay" and calls him a stud in the comments

October 16th, 2021: Denvercon. Jensen and Jared reunite for the first time since THE INCIDENT

April 24th, 2022: Misha Collins says in terms of being an extrovert, an introvert, or a bisexual, he joked "I'm all three". This led to the internet celebrating Misha's newly revealed bisexuality.

April 25th, 2022: Misha Collins comes out as straight. Oops!

June 19th, 2022: According to Misha, Dean's heaven was supposed to be at the Roadhouse with all his friends and Cas was going to be there with him

November 7th, 2022: Misha calls Elon Musk a snowflake

November 12th, 2022: Tumblr starts planning another Mishapocalypse

January 24th, 2023: Jensen and the cast of the Winchesters throw Dean Winchester a birthday party, including wearing silly little hats

February 26th, 2023: At JIBcon 11, Jensen sings an improvised song about an angel while Misha sits cross-legged on the floor looking up at him

April 1st, 2023: 10 year anniversary of the Mishapocalypse

April 16th, 2023: A year after his bisexual whoopsie daisy, Misha says that Warner Brothers asked him to "let it go" and keep pretending to be bisexual.

August 23, 2023: Rogue Spanish translator is revealed to not have gone rogue at all but instead to have followed the script he was given, confirming the existence of a mutual love confession that was cut at some point.

If you can remember any events and dates that I haven't found, please let me know and I'll add them! I haven't really rounded out 2022 and 2023 yet.