#i might still host it on my personal website still

[jaffre]

alright i found my notebook with my notes for the next pages of the thieves and boulevard. just need to prep the new website (hosting on comicfury) and draw the next pages! hopefully by next month, but i dont want to promise anything

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Okay, this is super preliminary, but since we've been talking about zoo accessibility I wanted to launch a project I've been planning for a couple months.

One of the hardest things about visiting zoological facilities when disabled is the lack of knowledge ahead of time, right? Often the information on the zoo's website about accessibility doesn't contain everything folk need to know to plan a visit. I think we can probably help fix that, even if it's with just crowd-sourced knowledge!

This is a google spreadsheet for recording accessibility information for various zoos. It is super unfinished right now, FYI. That's partially because I need to fill in more of it from my own experiences, and partially because there are things I didn't note or experience - which I'd love for y'all to chime in about.

Categories for the spreadsheet so far include rentable assistance options, service dog information, accessible bathroom locations, mobility, vision, auditory and sensory issues (or accommodations), food allergy options, and general notes. I'm also including the information each zoo website provides, and guest assistance phone numbers, so all the information is in one place.

To add to this crowd-sourced zoo accessibility resource:

Send an ask to the blog, or comment on the appropriate cel on the spreadsheet (if the facility you want to comment on is already listed).

Provide the name of the zoo/aquarium/sanctuary and the approximate date you visited.

Tell me your experiences / information, and what categories they belong in.

Feel free to submit photos, if that's useful info! I'm going to see if I can find a way to host them and link in the spreadsheet.

I'll take information as it's submitted and integrate it into the sheet. If the zoo you've visited isn't on the list yet, I still want to add it! This resource is going to stay US-based, however. (I just don't have the capacity to manage an international one).

Obviously, I can't personally verify everything people submit, so this is very much a resource and not a definitive guide. Date stamps are crucial important for keeping track of what's recent and what might have been updated since someone visited.

Let's make zoo, aquarium, and sanctuary visits more accessible for everyone!

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Post NaNoWriMo - Now What?

So if you've only been loosely paying attention, the NaNoWriMo organization has collapsed in a controversy of mismanagement, lack of oversight, abusive forum moderation and a whole host of issues that's resulted in souring the whole thing for a great deal of people. While the spirit of NaNoing will probably continue, a lot of people understandably don't want anything to officially do with the organization anymore.

But you - like I have - still think NaNoWriMo has been very useful to get writing done. Here's some ideas on how to keep going.

How to Get Started

Think Local - All those places you used for NaNo events, libraries, schools, cafes, etc - may be more than willing to launch something similar with enough interest. Just because it won't have the NaNoWriMo name slapped on it doesn't meant it can't continue. My local library has started a monthly write-in event, for example.

Take the Initiative - If you know of a group that you usually NaNo with, it's never too late or early to reach out to them about create an alternative plan. You probably aren't the only one thinking about it!

Talk to your (former) ML - Many Municipal Liaisons I know feel burned by NaNo and won't join it again, but they did love running the event. My local ML is continuing our group under a different name, and yours might appreciate getting assistance or sharing resources about how to run a month-long writing event if you ask.

Find Your People - If you're in school, new to an area, or just not good at reaching out, I feel you. But if you do nothing, you get nothing. Reach out to people you know. Online Discord or Zoom meetings can work just as well as in-person events if you're too remote or broke to meet.

What to Use to Get Started

Shut up and Write provides quick and easy ways to find local groups or form your own to carry the write-in momentum all year round.

MyWriteClub copies the writing tracking method of NaNoWriMo to keep track of your wordcount.

Pacemaker Planner offers multiple ways to track your writing.

Regular old Excel. Or LibreOffice if you'd prefer to wash your hands of Microsoft. It's not as exciting, but a regular spreadsheet with an AutoSum of your daily progress can work just as well as a fancy website.

You can keep going with the NaNo energy without the official name. My local library has started a monthly write-in, and I know many people who have found success with Shut Up and Write. Look into what works for you!

[astercontrol]

If KOSA passes

Or if any other form of censorship (there are many in the works!) ever succeeds at stepping in to impede our ability to communicate online:

We have to make plans.

Now, I dunno who'll even see this post. The few followers I have are TRON fans (who despite the fantasy we live in, tend to have realistically dismal views IRL about Disney and the various corporate uses of software).

And this fandom, on average, is pretty tech-savvy. It's where I've encountered the most people under 20 years old who actually know how to use a desktop or laptop computer.

So, if there's any hope for what I'm thinking about, this is prolly a good place to start with it.

(As with all my posts, I encourage reblogging and containment-breaching.)

(Gifs are clips from TRON 1982, mainly the "deleted love scene," from the DVD extras.)

Anyway.

Current society has moved online communication much too far onto major social media sites for my comfort. Whoever you communicate with over the internet, chances are you do it through a service owned by a big company: Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, whatever. Even TikTok (shudder).

These sites, despite their many flaws, can provide experiences that are valuable and hard to get otherwise. And once all your friends are on one site, you can't just leave and stay in touch with them all, not unless they all go the same place. It's easy to see why it's hard to abandon any social media platform.

But a backup plan is important. Because, as we've seen over and over, social media sites can't be relied on. They change their policies suddenly, without good reason-- and are inconsistent, even discriminatory, about enforcing those policies.

If they're funded by ads, the advertisers are their main customers, and your posts are the product. Their goal is that the posts most valuable to the advertisers get seen by people the advertisers consider desirable customers.

Helping you communicate-- making your posts get seen by the people you want to communicate with-- is optional to them.

Not to mention that the whole business model of an ad-funded website is generally unsustainable. Many of these sites are operating at a loss, relying on shareholders in a fragile bubble, doomed to fail soon just from lack of real profit.

And the more restrictions --like KOSA-- that the law puts on freedom of online speech, the likelier they are to go down or just become unusable. Every rule a site is required to follow is another strain on its resources, and most of them are already failing badly at even enforcing their own self-imposed rules.

If we want any control over our continued ability to stay in touch with our online friends-- we need to have a backup plan. Maybe it'll be simple at first, a bare-bones system we cobble together-- but it's gotta be something that will work. For a while at least.

There are lots of really good posts about ways to build your own website, using a service like Neocities. I VERY MUCH recommend learning this skill-- learning to make websites of the very simplest, most stable, glitch-resistant type, made of html pages-- which you can upload to a host while you store backups on your home computer. If you value the writing and art that you put online, this is probably the safest you can keep it.

But that's for making your own creative work public.

As for communicating with others-- for example, receiving and answering other people's comments on your work-- that gets more complex. I personally haven't found it worthwhile to troubleshoot the problems that come with having a system that allows visitors to comment publicly on my website.

But what we do still have-- and likely will for a long time-- is email.

Those of us who came of age before social media's current hold... well, we might take this for granted. Email was the first form of online contact we ever encountered… and thus it can seem to us like the most ordinary, the most boring.

But in the current world, it is a rare and precious thing to find a method of communicating that doesn't require everyone in the chat to be signed on with the same corporation.

Email is, as of now, still perfectly legal-- as much as social media companies have been trying to herd the populace away from it. I'm sure there are other ways to share thoughts online that are not bound by laws. But I am not going to go into that here.

Email service is provided by law-abiding companies, which will comply with subpoenas if law enforcement thinks you are emailing about doing illegal things. So, email is not a surefire way to be safe, if laws become dystopian enough to threaten your freedom to talk about your own life and identity.

But it's safer than posting on a public social media page.

For now.

Email is beautifully decentralized. You can get an email address many different ways-- some reliant on a company like Gmail, others hosted on your own domain. And different people, with all different types of email addresses, hosted in all different ways-- can all communicate together by the same method.

Of course any of these people, individually, can lose their email address for some reason or other, and have to get a new one. But as long as they still know the email addresses of their contacts, they can reconnect and recover from that loss. The structure of a group linked by email is reliant not on a single company-- but on the group itself, the friends you can actually count on.

This is why I am trying to promote the idea of forming email lists, as a backup plan to give people a way to stay in touch as mainstream social media sites prove to be unsustainable.

I'm envisioning a simple system of sending emails to several addresses at once, and making each reply visible to everyone in the chat by using "reply all" (or, if desired, editing the To field to reply to only some).

If enough people get used to using email in this way, it could fill most of the needs met by any other group chat or forum …without depending on a centralized social media company that's taking dystopian measures to try and make the business profitable.

So here are some thoughts about how I personally imagine it could work.

(Feel free to comment and bring up any thoughts I haven't addressed, or suggestions to customize how specific groups could set it up. This is meant as more of a starting point for brainstorming than a catch-all solution.)

As I see it, here are the basics of what you and your friends would each need to start out:

An email address. Any kind, hosted anywhere. You should use a dedicated email account just for this group, one that you do NOT use for other communication. Being in this group will result in things you don't want happening to your main email address-- like getting a TON of email, one for every post and reply. Or someone could get your email address that you really don't want any contact with. Use a burner email account (one that you can easily replace) and change it if needed.

The knowledge of how to "REPLY ALL" in your email. This will be necessary in order to add a comment that everyone in the group can see.

The knowledge of how to EDIT THE "TO" FIELD in your email, and remove addresses from the list of all recipients. This will be necessary if you want to CHANGE WHICH PEOPLE in the group can see your comment.

The knowledge of how to FILTER WORDS in your email. This will be necessary if a topic comes up that you don't want to see any mentions of.

The knowledge of how to BLOCK PEOPLE in your email. This will be very important. If someone joins this email group who you do not want to interact with, it will be up to you to BLOCK them so that you do NOT see their messages. (If they are bad enough to evade the block with multiple burner accounts, that's what you have a burner account for. Change it, and share the new one only with those you trust not to give it to them.)

Every person in the group will be effectively a "moderator" of the group, able to remove people from it by cutting their email addresses out of the "To" field. Members will all have equal "moderator" privileges, each able to tailor the group to their own needs.

This means the group may naturally split, over time, into other groups, each one removing some people and adding others. Some will overlap, some won't. This is good! This is, in my opinion, what online interaction SHOULD be like! There should be MANY groups like this!

In this way, we can keep online discussion alive, no matter WHAT happens to any of the social media websites.

If the dystopia got bad enough to shut down email, we could even continue with postal mail and photocopies, like they did in the days of print-zine fanfiction.

If it looks like the dystopia is gonna come for postal mail too, we'll use the connection we have to preserve whatever contacts we can with people who live near us.

Not saying it's GONNA get that bad. But these steps of preparation are good no matter exactly what kind of bad stuff happens.

As long as some organized form of communication still exists, we'll have a place where it's at least a little safer to be your true self…

to plan events and meetups…

and maybe even activities a little too risque to make the final cut of a 1982 Disney movie.

They're trying to censor us. We want a Free System. So we're gonna fight back.

For the Users. Not the corporations.

Peace out, programs. <3

[tichiox1]

☆Sibling rivalry☆

Sumarry: A fan girl won an event where they get to meet the famous rock stars from the band 'Tokio Hotel'

but little do they know that only one fateful meeting can turn the twins relationship to each other upside down.

Tom x reader x Bill

Word count:1.8k (idk i just guessed)

☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆-☆

"Hey Y/n have you heard about this new website?" Your friend asked her voice excited.

"What website?"You asked confused an eyebrow raised slightly.

"Oh my god you're clueless!!" Your friend said as she suddenly grabbed your shoulders and shook you in excitement .

"Come on just tell me!!" You said your voice raised .

"Fine! The band Tokio Hotel is hosting an even where one lucky fan gets to meet them and spend a day with them! Can you believe that!!?" She said her voice raising as she shook you again harshly.

"I swear if I'm the one who gets picked i can die happily!" She said as she let's go of you and went on her phone opening it and checking the website.

After she opened the website she shoved the phone on your face to make sure you see it.

"Is it legit?" you asked getting interested while looking at the device infront of you.

"Gosh of course it is! Tokio Hotel themselves are advertising this event ! , have you even checked ?" She said .

"Not yet but how do you sign up?" You asked taking the phone and scrolled at the website.

"Ok ok! All you have to do to sign up with your name , phone number and address after that you just have to wait " She instructed as she snatched the phone and showed you how to do it.

"Ok I'll do that , but how do you know if you got chosen ?" you asked again.

"Well, from what I've read they'll just give you a call and that's it" She answered.

"Ok I'll try to sign up"You said as you took out your own phone out of your pockets and opened the website .

"ok done!" you exclaimed while holding the phone on your hands grasping it tightly while praying to get chosen.

▄︻̷̿┻̿═━一 -----------------------------------------

The room dark and dim , but laughter of two girls disrupted the silence.

"Y/n ! The results will be out today ! Are you excited i swear if i get chosen i would never curse again" Your friend nervously .

"I would too , i would sell my kidney for this" You said hoping to get picked .

After you said that you reached onto the remote and opened the Tv to see who would the lucky fan be .

You opened the Tv with the remote and changed the channel to where the result would be announced .

"Hello hello Tokio Hotel fans!" The announcer yelled onto the mic he has holding.

"Come on just get on with it!!" Your friend said getting annoyed .

"You all must be wondering who would the lucky person be? , to spend the day with the one and only Tokio Hotel!!" The announcer yelled once more , while pointing at the door .

The door opening revealing the four boys , Bill waving at the camera excitedly , Tom did the same with a flirty smirk on his face, Georg had a small smile on his face waving at the camera , Gustav waved with both hands his smile grew once he saw the camera pointed at them.

"Gosh they're so cute!!" Your friend exclaimed .

"Good evening everyone , We are Tokio Hotel" Bill introduced the mic tightly on his hands .

"All of you must be wondering who would the lucky fan be? The lucky fan who would accompany us in our upcoming tour?" Bill excitedly exclaimed while smiling brightly at the camera.

"Who knows it might be you?"Tom teasingly said as he pointed at the camera.

"Please please" Your friend mumbled under her breath praying silently.

"We will give the lucky fan a call , Goodluck to everyone!!" They all said in sync .

"Huh !? They didn't even say who it is!!" Your friend said groaning .

"It's fine ! Didn't they say they would just give the winner a call?"You said towards your friend .

"Right!! I forgot" She said, a small giggle leaving her mouth.

"Shit i better go, i still haven't done my chores" Your friend said realising .

"Well you better go , your mom's gonna be mad at you " You said teasingly.

"I know!! But i better go, see you , I'll just update you on who won"She said while taking her things and shoving it in her bag And heading out the door.

"Bye F/N !!" You yelled .

"Bye Y/N!!" Your friend yelled back.

After watching your friends figure disappear onto the road , you sighed to yourself as you walk back to the living room, taking the remote and opening the Tv again.

Once you opened the Tv the channel of Tokio Hotel still on you kept on watching for a few more minutes.

After a few more minutes , your mind wanders as you reached onto the remote and closed the Tv once more not realising that the results will be shown.

But after a few minutes a sudden ring from your phone made you turn to the direction of the sound .

You walked onto the direction of the phone , as you reached onto it and picked it up .

After you picked up the phone you said "Hello?" Softly , the other end suddenly said .

"Congratulations Lucky winner !! You got chosen to be the one to accompany Tokio Hotel!" The announcer loudly exclaimed , his loud yelling made you wince .

"Wait WHAT!!?" you said in surprise , your mouth agape in shock , your eyebrows lifted .

"Are you sure ? Is this true?" You asked trying to confirm if what the person on the other end is telling the truth or maybe this might just be some type of prank.

"Yes miss you have won the opportunity to join Tokio Hotel on their next tour!!" The announcer yelled once more onto the phone , you felt your hands shaking in excitement .

"OMG!! What the fuck!?"You said not believing what the person was saying .

"You better believe it!! The information would be emailed to you as soon as possible congrats again "

The person hung up the call , after they hung up , you stared onto the wall dumbfounded , the phone still on your hands.

"AAAAAHHHHHH"You screamed excitedly , you then grabbed the phone once again , dialing the phone number of your friend.

"You won't believe what the fuck just happened ?!"You said almost yelling ,startling your neighbors .

"What is it !? Also the winner has been picked , you know what the sad thing is ?! It's not me!!" Your friend said in a mocking sobbing tone.

"Yeah It's because i won" You said bragging .

"No you didn't" She said , even on the phone you could imagine her mouth dropped to the floor.

"Yes i did i just got a phone call"You said .

"You're so lucky!? I swear if you don't take a picture and video every interaction you have woth them ,i would choke you!!" She responded .

"I will jeez , but I'll get an autograph of all of them i promise for the both of us!!" You said your voice becoming high pitched.

"Wait a sec , I'll hang up for a bit , I'll just check the email , talk to you later?"you said your nerves pumped .

"Fine but i swear Georg is mine!!" She yelled onto the phone .

"He's all yours don't worry jesus" You sighed at your friends childish behavior.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Yoo sorry for not updating yesterday my lazy ass couldn't even think of anything to write but here !!

Don't worry this will get a part two promise , i just thought of this idea a few days ago but now im in class with nothing to do i just wrote a quick thing.

And uhh I'm working on other stuff aswell , but don't worry ill try to update everything because i know how frustrating it is when you're already hooked to something your reading and theres no next chapter i feel yall .

But i will update once i get home and what do you guys think of my idea??

Thank you for reading.

[spotofmummery]

Once More - On Creating a Personal Website

Over the weekend, I wrote the above post on my main blog about a new FREE webhost called Nekoweb. While I still use Neocities myself, I just wanted to toss this out here as an alternative, especially given where sites like this and WordPress are going in terms of the lack of your content's safety and your control of your work.

Learning basic HTML is pretty straightforward, and there's lots of templates out there to get you started. Once you get the hang of it, you might surprise yourself with how much fun you have designing your own site and not being held back by anyone else's design and content choices!

The cool thing is, you can make your own website, then link your stuff here (like I did above) to share it to any social media you like. But it's not TIED specifically to Tumblr or X or Bluesky because you host it somewhere else. So, you can still post it to social media to get the word out about your writing or art, while maintaining control of where it lives in the long run.

HTML files can be backed up. So if something happens to your host, as long as you keep your website files on your computer or other media, you can always turn around and upload it to a new host. No fear of having your stuff wiped forever because it's locked in a social media account database you can never reach.

Just some considerations!

[muchomago]

I'm not interested in posting on this blog anymore! I may revisit it in the future, but I also probably might not. :p If you would like to keep up with my work - my art and my music - then I suggest you visit my website! That will always be updated and available.

MY WEBSITE

If you're mostly interested in keeping up with the free-to-use graphics that I make, you can bookmark the resources section of my website. I've been adding a few more things every now and then, so check back in sometime.

MY GRAPHICS

I host my websites on Neocities, by the way. I definitely recommend that you make a website for yourself. Your website can be anything, a shrine, a blog, or a gallery for your art or music. Coding may seem daunting at first, but the reward of having your own personal space on the internet unbound by any algorithm or restrictions is very much worth it. Neocities does also have a social component to it, as well, if you still feel like there are some aspects of social media that you enjoy. Here are some links to get your started:

A Beginner's Guide to HTML and CSS by Pauli Kohberger

The Cave of Dragonflies HTML Guide (An oldie but a goodie)

sadgrl.online Webmastery Directory

[kradeelav]

status update ~

thought i'd write a summary of what I've been up to, and what's next art-wise! honestly, I'm finding that I work well mentally consolidating projects to quarters of the year; it gives me hard deadlines while allowing nuttiness to blow up two weeks (or more) of my life at a time and still not be stressed.

year recap first!

(Q1) collaborated with @/lululeighsworld to give gunter the fabulous possessed gacha entrance he deserves!! leigh's writing here to this day feels uncannily and perfectly in-character, no small feat with the mind games this devious possessed old man likes to play ~

(Q1) also finished the 140k your ruin, my ruin gunter/corrin revelation fic! the reception from y'all has been absolutely exceptional and while I don't think I'll ever write another fanfic of that length (lol) being able to point to it re: my fire emblem fates: revelation feelings is so ... satisfying. the ossan smut holds up pretty damn well too.

(Q1) NaZine (I) anthology printed and completely sold out, but the digital version is eternally available on the shop if you're still interested. I'll admit that anthologies are not normally my thing for being too prim and milquetoast, but this is anything but. if you've been dying for more sleazy uniform fetish, we got it there!

(Q2) Comics-wise, both Dead is Calling and YRMR:[Epilouge] were finished and ready to be collected in my planned gunter/corrin doujinshi called ashes and ghost; there's one more (eye-blistering smut) strip planned there with a few internal pages.

(Q3) Website-wise, IRON CROWN moved to rarebit from wordpress, and the main landing page was revamped entirely to better pave a road for preparations to self-host the website.

that's not even counting the smaller flash artwork like the fe: alphabet challenge, and hellsing exchange work also done in between everything else.

what's next?

(Q4) you might have seen me show wip's from a FE:Heroes (gacha) comic; while it's tonally softer than my usual work, It's 14-ish pages of some very, very guilty pleasure topics. raw feelings but in a different way? idk, you'll see.

(Q4) I have a personal deadline to get the website updates done by November, namely moving my art/update logs off of wordpress, and also likewise either moving to a different host or self-hosting the entire site (on a rasbpi lol) and removing the middle-man entirely.

(Q4/2025) finishing ashes and ghost (the gunter/corrin doujinshi)! I've been taking a needed break from it (something learned back in the webcomics days) but I can't wait to get back in some hentai level smut that's frankly, going to push me in so many ways. :D;;

(2025) NaZine II will likely be printed in the upcoming year with the same team heading it up. There's delicious stories already planned including multiple shotas and Daddies, oh my - needless to say, it's the kind of sleaze and sauce i dig.

that's all for now!

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomic 'Homestuck' Canceled For Promoting Bad Password Security

(page 456-459)

8/10/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: INCORRECT

8/11/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: CORRECT, but behind at least 10 layers of irony

In the far future, somebody might call this update a time capsule of the 2000s. If computers change significantly, or something. page 456 comments on Dave's bro's computer being password protected, suggesting that this isn't a cultural norm - the newly-released Windows 7 still doesn't require user accounts to have a password. In Homestuck, the password is used to protect 'incredible top secret shit,' so password protecting a personal home computer might be associated with shadier online behavior.

Bro's password is six characters, and is 'the most awesome thing it can be' according to Dave and his bro, so it's probably lilcal. (It could also be puppet, but personally my passwords are always specific characters, song titles etc, not general concepts. I don't know if other people are different. for what it's worth lilcal is also a slightly more secure password than puppet which is A SINGULAR DICTIONARY WORD). Bro also trusts Dave with his password - either because he doesn't think Dave will do anything to mess up his computer, or because he's daring Dave to use it, similar to leaving the Xbox switched on mid-game.

On page 457 we see Bro's desktop, which we can compare to Dave's desktop on page 323. They both have wallpapers from And It Don't Stop, showing us a chain of game recommendations from Bro -> Dave -> John. Dave, like Rose and John, has some character in the names of his desktop folders, while his bro has seven identically named New Folders scattered around the screen. This adds to the sense that Bro is paranoid about people looking at his computer - he's purposefully making it impossible to navigate. The hidden-identity hat and dark glasses iconography on the password entry screen has the same effect.

Bro also has a program called Delirious Biznasty, which has a rad skater dude for its icon. This could be a web browser, but I think it's more likely some kind of torrenting application, I think that'd fit his vibe. The web browsers we know are Typheus, Cetus and Hephaestus, which are all Greek mythological references with cartoon-styled icons, and Delirious Biznasty doesn't fit the pattern. Based on Dave's relationship to his bro, Bro probably uses Hephaestus too and just doesn't have a desktop shortcut.

Dave and his bro both use the Complete Bullshit content aggregator, which we are forced to witness on pages 458 and 459. Content aggregators are pretty common customizable feeds that people use to keep up with a lot of websites at once, when checking 20+ separate sites a day gets too time consuming. RSS readers are a common form of this that can host a lot of different types of content, but there are also aggregators specifically for webcomics. These are controversial - they're generally well intentioned projects made for free by webcomic fans who want to check for updates easily and keep up with a lot of stories, and want to help other fans do the same. However, they can redirect traffic away from actual sites that host webcomics, meaning that independent webcomic artists might miss out on ad revenue or merch sales, or are less likely to sell ads because their sites don't look as well-trafficked as they are. I don't know if Andrew Hussie has a strong opinion on comics aggregators, but it's possible this terrible to use, unstable and unreadable version is a criticism of the concept.

Complete Bullshit also feels like Dave's bro's equivalent of Serious Business, as they're both digital programs with adjective-noun titles. I wonder if Rose's mom will get her own software.

It's sweet that Bro keeps up with Dave's projects, including Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff and his GameBro review blog. It shows that their relationship isn't 100% one sided, Bro cares for Dave and/or thinks he's cool at least a little bit. It's also fun that Dave is checking to see if his own webcomic has updated, which could be bad memory due to having a lot of projects on the go, or could be Dave checking to make sure his update has gone through and posted successfully. Very reasonable, as it must be a challenge to upload such high quality images.

I will probably make a post digging into Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff at some point, but I'm still peeling the onion of its irony right now so I'll just say: when exactly did Dave find the time to make these comics?

[lunanoc]

Hey I'm doing some fanlore edits (https://fanlore.org/wiki/Daomu_Biji) and do you have any sources for popular ships in Chinese fandom? I basically just cut it down to pingxie and heihua because those were the ones showing up in 2021 lofter data (https://hardwareabstractionlayer.tumblr.com/post/649989752761810944/the-top-100-ships-in-chinese-fandom-according-to) and like basically ONLY pingxie is on ao3 in any numbers but I'm pretty sure HuaXie was a whole big thing I just can't find a source for it... Thanks in advance!

hi! i don't know if i'm necessarily the best person to answer this question because my incursions into the chinese DMBJ fandom are very curated and basically mostly limited to pingxie spaces, so my knowledge of other ships and their hubs is pretty sparse

that being said, finding centralized hubs to get full numbers and stats from for dmbj ships historically in the chinese fandom is complicated for a number of reasons, one of them being that DMBJ is an older fandom, which means a number of fics were hosted on websites and forums that no longer exist. another is that due to the state of chinese internet, fans also host fics and fan art of ships in closed access forums that are sometimes more or less difficult to gain entry to so as to create safe spaces. that being said, there are still ways to somewhat measure the current popularity of a ship. since this is an ask, i figured i'd turn this into a small informative post if anyone is interested in a surface level overview of what's popular in the chinese fandom by comparison to the english-speaking one. just keep in mind that because of all the above reasons, this is only ever going to be an overview of what's currently popular in general and not everything that exists, because arguably probably everything exists in some capacity, and of course this is all very surface level, so i'm sure someone else could do a more in-depth deep dive, especially if they get around more

disclaimer: because i know some might take this the wrong way, to be clear this is NOT meant to spark any kind of discourse surrounding ships, nor is it here to say that some ships are "better" than others. it's purely numbers i've tried to present as objectively as possible, mostly to provide comparison between two different sides of the fandom that behave differently and have sometimes vastly differing preferences

Chinese DMBJ Fandom Ship Popularity

to start off, i think it's relevant to point out that ao3 isn't the best way to measure a ship's popularity in chinese fandoms even if it can give you a rough idea. it can get you rankings to some extent (and even then it really depends), but the numbers aren't going to be at all accurate considering ao3 isn't the platform of choice for chinese fan fiction for several reasons i won't get into here, but that i'm sure people who've been in cdrama/novel fandoms are probably aware of

so your best bet to get any sort of idea of what ships are most popular is by looking at how they rank on big public platforms, namely lofter and weibo

lofter has yearly rankings like the one OP mentioned that people talk about, and it's a fairly good way to get an idea since it's a pretty popular blogging website for fan fics and fan art. lofter isn't cooperating with me right now, but i'll be using the data compiled for end of 2023 (or as of february 2024) by this bilibili video for the 200 most popular ships on lofter. among those 200 most popular ships, 3 of them are DMBJ ships, and are ranked as follows:

XiePing (not to be confused with PingXie, because yes, chinese fandom differentiates ships by top/bottom dynamic) at #120

HeiHua at #25

PingXie at #2

no other DMBJ ships make an appearance on this list, and if nothing else, it tells you not only that both PingXie and HeiHua are by far the most popular DMBJ ships in general, but also gives you an idea of just how insanely popular DMBJ is in china overall to have three ships in the top of a general fandoms ranking

next we have weibo where getting an idea of a ship's popularity is a bit different, and there are multiple ways to do it, but one of the easiest ones to get an idea is by looking at how high a ship's super topic ranks on both the real time and weekly popularity rankings. super topics function similarly to how communities work on X and aren't tags, so not everything tagged with a ship is necessarily going to reflect what's posted in the super topic and vice-versa, but it still gives something of an idea of overall popularity. looking at the today's super topic ranking in the fictional characters category, again the same two ships show up in the rankings:

HeiHua at #23

PingXie at #5

for the sake of comparison, because it's easier to actually see figures with weibo super topics, i also looked up both other ships that do get some traction in the chinese fandom despite being less popular, as well as ships that the english-speaking fandom tends to talk more actively about (in tumblr spaces anyway)

HuaXie at #174, which has an audience, but the numbers are already very different and speak to the fact it's generally speaking a smaller ship as of now (for reference, 万 that you see on these pictures is a unit for ten thousand, so here 1.1 万= 11,000)

HeiPing (unranked), which is in somewhat of a similar situation as HuaXie, but considering HuaXie is ranked, it's safe to say that's probably the only other ship that's even remotely popular by comparison to the two giants that are PingXie and HeiHua

allXie at #160, which is less a ship and more of a bottom!wu xie enjoyers cocktail that has a little bit of everything under the sun, though is mostly a mix of wu xie being shipped with some of the main male characters (i.e. xiaoge, hei xiazi, xiao hua) as well as other more minor characters such as zhang haike notably. it's not really a thing in the english-speaking fandom, but it's worth mentioning because it does exist enough to be represented

PangXie (unranked), which is quite honestly one of the bigger contrasts between the chinese fandom and the english-speaking one in that this ship is pretty much non-existant, or at least i've never seen fan fiction for it. again, my view of things is biased because my experience is deliberately curated so it's entirely possible there are things i just don't see, but the numbers don't seem to contradict that impression

PangYun (unranked), which i'm providing here mostly because pangzi is most often shipped with yuncai (and usually as a sideship that i can tell), though these numbers aren't necessarily representative of what content exists for this ship, since most things tagged as PangYun are posted to the general DMBJ super topic. if anything this mostly gives the impression the ship doesn't have much of a dedicated following, especially given it's part of the other category rather than the fictional characters category

PingSang (unranked), which is one of the only two ships that have any kind of following that involve liu sang, is also in the other category, and along with PangXie and his other most notable ship, is most definitely a rarepair, which is another notable difference with part of the english-speaking fandom where liu sang ships tend to be both fairly popular and have active communities

CanSang (unranked), which is in yet another category (CP as in couple as in ship), though this one's rarepair status might be explained by the fact that, if you couldn't already tell, the chinese fandom has little to zero interest in secondary or minor characters, and beyond that, the core of the chinese DMBJ fandom doesn't care much for the dramas/live action adaptations and is largely centered around the books, so given the premise of this ship is based in the adaptations, it's not surprising

Iron Triangle at #65 is getting a special mention, not only because it is ranked, but also because it's not necessarily what you think. the 角色 or fictional characters category for super topics isn't limited to ships, so you also have super topics for characters on their own in it. what chinese fandom considers to be the six main DMBJ characters, aka wu xie, xiaoge, pangzi, xiao hua, hei xiazi, and huo xiuxiu, each have their own super topics that are in the top 200. the iron triangle topic is ranked, but it's more in the same vein as those, that is to say it's a gen super topic, not a ship super topic. the chinese fandom doesn't seem to be into polyships in general, so that might explain it

i'm not sure how informative this post is, since i get the feeling some of this information is either obvious or things that people already know more or less, and i'm also not sure it really answers OP's question about finding reliable sources for numbers, but it's a surface level attempt. if anyone has more in-dept knowledge or would like to add onto this with different sources or data feel free to!

[themonsterthing]

Millenial Art Musing

Gather round, younglings, I’m about to tell a story about ye olde days. *rocker creaks*

My first and most beloved art form, the art that made me who I am, that made me as good as I am at what I do, is dead, is gone, is unreachable.

That might sound dramatic, but I mean that literally. My art form does not, can not, exist anymore. And that's a good thing, because of what it says about accessibility.

I was listening to one of my favourite ever albums when I had this realization today, Johnny Hollow’s 2003 self titled symphonic goth masterpiece. How I found this album was because they had an amazing website. No, really. Amazing. It was a flash masterpiece, where bugs crawled across the screen, different sound clips echoed over different sections, and you unlocked hidden tracks if you answered riddles. It was an artistic triumph. I do believe it won awards.

To modern internet users, that sounds absurd. But I was a web designer back in the days of hard coding, of fixed resolution design, of the surety that everyone was looking at your work from a very similar setup. I got out of web design when it become about scalability, when content management systems were becoming the new norm. Flash hasn’t existed in years, as a design form.

HTML is still the bones of the internet, but it has grown wings and learned to fly. This is good. My art form was not about making things as useable as possible - it was about individual design. Oh what, you have trouble reading 8px Courier in low-contrast color tones? Oh well! It’s art.

The internet should be for everyone, and what I was designing was not that. Yes, it was beautiful, but it was definitely art, not for conveying useful information or accessing tools. Would it be cool if I could make that kind of art again? As pure art? Yes. But there would be no way to make that happen, unless you did something scalable but artistic for the eight million ways people access the internet now. Which is not possible, so maybe if you could control every aspect of the way it was consumed. Which is not possible. Maybe I could do it as an art exhibit, where people came and sat on computers and clicked through incredibly slow pages on 56k to the humming of the computer fan. Ah, the old days.

I am who I am because of my first art. I became a programmer to make Sailor Moon websites, back in the days of Geocities and Angelfire. I learned whole other languages, could speak them fluently, still know common hex codes. (People ask my favorite colour, and I always say French Grey. But really it’s #E6E6E6.)

It is a bizarre and beautiful world to have come from. I miss the camaraderie of the my fellow web designers, those of us trading CSS hacks and joking about the best font style. One person with a credit card who owned a domain and hosted all their buddies, the joy of ridiculous subdomain names.

I am delighted by what the internet has become. But oh, the olden days.

</ramble>

[stick-by-me]

you got any good recommendations for good little stickers that aren't too expensive? I'm wanting to decorate a Bunch of toploader cards if that helps give an idea for what I mean

I'll admit, I had to google toploader cards (and even then, I'm not completely sure what you're looking for, vibes-wise?) Regardless, I tried to assemble some of my picks for things I thought would work.

Of course, if you are able, my first suggestion will always be to go to craft/toy stores near you and see what they have. It's almost always better to see your project materials in person, just to make sure they work for your vision. Even generic stores like Target sometimes have hidden gems, often found near the greeting cards, the arts-and-crafts section, or by the register.

Of course, the internet is obviously a wonderful place full of stickers.

When I think small, cheap stickers, my first thought is usually Korean stationary. If you want wholly decorative stickers, such as hearts or ribbons, that would certainly be my recommendation, though they are often a very distinctive style that could clash with the vibe you're going for. I know Sunset Studio DIY is doing a clearance sale right now, but frankly if you just google "Korean stickers" you should find a bunch of cute stuff for pretty cheap :]

I think I'm biased in recommending them, but I really do love Mrs. Grossman's micro stickers. They're just... so cute. I have the bugs. And the dessert. And the shoes. And the discontinued weather...

If you want a more vintage look, or even just more variety, I'd take a look at Sticker Magic. I have not bought from their website, so I unfortunately don't know if shipping would rack the price up. If it does, and you're US-based, I know Sticker Planet has some of their stuff for pretty cheap, too. Though, a lot of them are a bit thicker than your average sticker. So if you need your cards to lay flat they may not be the best option.

If you want to focus on a particular animal and just buy in bulk, I think I'd recommend Beyond the Box Creations. I admittedly haven't bought from them myself, but I've had my eye on their dragon set for a While. Might be a bit large for what you want, though?

I wouldn't consider Pipsticks minis super cheap, but I don't think they're super expensive either. You get a decent amount for the price you pay, and Pipsticks is pretty good quality all around. And some of them are just. Really cute 😭.

And, if you truly, honest-to-all do not care about consistency or cohesion, sometimes it's fun to just buy a sticker (flake) grab bag! In the past, I've gotten some from CandySweetDesignShop, TakeASipCo, BookishStickerClub, ArtfulLynnz, KawaiiPackrat, and probably more. (I have a problem.) The risk you take with these, of course, is that some of what you get might not work. Still, they're fun! And you can almost always find one in your desired genre for decently cheap. You can find them on almost any multi-hosting shopping site (like eBay, Etsy, Mercari, etc.) If you want small stickers, it might help to clarify "sticker flake grab bag" or "sticker mod grab bag".

As an expansion on that last suggestion, I'll let you in on a little secret. This is the best vintage sticker mod mystery pack I've found, as of now. AND it's in stock!

I hope these were helpful! If you want more specific advice, feel free to send another ask to help me narrow it down :D

[hkkingofshades]

Tumblr's new policy, and updates going forward

Yeah, I bet we all saw this coming, huh.

So, given tungl dot hell(tm)'s new deal with midjourney, I think pretty much all artists on tumblr are, well, not having a great time. Like deviantart, tumblr has provided a way to opt out from having your blog content scraped, but like deviantart, it's a little unclear what has already been shared before the opt-out went into place, and how much they'll actually work to stop machine trawlers from trawling opted-out blogs.

I'll put the tl;dr up front:

King of Shades will not be leaving Tumblr, but due to the new policy, I won't be posting full pages here anymore.

There's no point in taking down all the pages I've already posted. Deleting them from my page won't delete subsequent reblogs, and there's a pretty high chance that tumblr has already scraped them. (haveibeentrained.com seems to think I haven't been yet, at least. I don't think I really have a big enough following for that to happen, although I don't want to jinx it...) But I certainly won't be posting the full-size pages here anymore.

Instead, I think I'll go the Trying Human route and post a little preview of the update (possibly heavily watermarked; my computer can't run glaze/nightshade, unfortunately), so you guys will still get notifications, but you'll have to visit the ComicFury main website in order to read it. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience (although I will say that I think it's a much better reading experience over there)!

Speaking of which:

I have never and will never ask for any kind of compensation (other than your wonderful feedback, which I've just been absolutely blown away by) for doing this. Even putting legality aside, that's not why I'm here! However, if you've enjoyed this comic, ever thought that you might be willing to tip me on ko-fi if I had one, or even just want to continue having an internet that isn't entirely a corporate wasteland, I ask that you consider donating to ComicFury instead.

ComicFury is a relic of the old, good internet: it's been around for at least 15 years, and it's all hosted and managed by one guy (Kyo). Aside from his team of volunteer moderators, everything on this website is done by one person with a passion for supporting artists. I've chatted with him a little, and he's a great dude! Most of his operating costs are paid for out of pocket, and the site is currently hurting a little bit because it doesn't run ads, it doesn't have subscriptions or paywalled content, it doesn't have any corporate interference or monetization of any kind outside of his Patreon. And—perhaps most relevantly for this post:

I will cut right to the chase, we have decided not to allow AI-art based webcomics on the site. [...] As for our reasoning, there are obviously ethical concerns regarding the source images of most commonly used AI image generators (namely them just being scraped off the internet without anyones permission). But even beyond that, another concern is that due to the extremely low effort involved, webcomics of this nature could just over time completely drown out in numbers art by passionate people who put a lot of time into it , which would be a real shame. So we asked ourselves what would be better for the community, and we agreed that banning it would probably be the better thing overall.

—Kyo has been quite firm that he will not allow AI art to be posted to or scraped from any ComicFury domain. While this isn't a protection against huge web trawls or people putting someone's art in individually—there's not a lot anyone can do about that yet, even with tools like glaze and nightshade—it's a little peace of mind that the art posted there won't abruptly be sold en masse to the highest bidder.

The Patreon starts at $2/month, and Kyo has said that he doesn't mind people pledging for a short time and then dipping if they can't afford an ongoing subscription. If and only if this is something you can afford, and you want to continue seeing independent webcomics including King of Shades, please consider donating!

The Patreon is here. There's not much in the way of reward tiers, especially if you're not a member, but I posit that the real reward is being able to read free webcomics done by real humans as labors of love, without being advertised to or sold as the product. And also maybe the friends we made along the way. Or something.

Once again, there is no pressure, and no shame if you're not willing or able to give money. But if you've ever thought you might be willing to tip me for what I do, consider passing it along to the guy who makes it possible instead.

Thank you for your time!

P.S. Page 64 is coming, I promise! Recent developments kind of kneecapped my motivation for making online art 🙃

[mortmere]

One thing I haven’t seen much (or maybe at all?) in @ds30below is fanart recs! I get it, it's hard: I’ve tried compiling some themed art rec lists for the fest, but there are just too many wonderful things out there! So I thought I’d list some ways to find dS art at all, old and new, for the History week. Sadly, a lot of our fandom’s earlier art history is scattered all over barely functional old websites, if not lost completely. DeviantArt’s search has gone crazy - I can’t find the old dS stuff there anymore. A lot of the older (and even not that old) works on AO3 have broken image links, because image hosting has always been a big problem for fan artists (but not anymore: now there's https://images.squidge.org/). 

That said, where to find due South fanart?

Those old personal sites - if you can find them AND if the images aren't broken. Here’s an archived one where at least the wallpaper section still works (Nicci's art is F/K and some are NSFW).

Please, if you know other old or archived sites like this where the images still work, post about them!

The media files for the dS zines on Fanlore are a treasure trove, because there's a gallery view - check especially the files for slash zines, that image gallery has two pages.

Of course, the “Art” tag on AO3 has plenty of treasures (direct link below). I confess I haven’t probably looked through all of them myself yet! I recommend starting from the last page so there’s more new-to-you stuff unless you’ve been in the fandom for ten years or more. Don’t be disheartened by the broken image links, there are so many that do actually work.

Check out my sideblog, Due South Fanart Appreciation - there's also some older stuff there if you browse further. If you use Tumblr on a browser, the Archive is a nifty way to get a kind of a gallery view of the blog, though it only shows the first image in each post and does a disservice to artists with multipart works. The browser version also allows you to use the Tag list - it takes a while to load, but if you have a favorite artist/character/ship, you can find the relevant posts easily). 

I hope you enjoy the stuff you find in the above links - and if you find something you love, save the images, they might be gone tomorrow!

If you want to keep up with new dS fanart even from outside Tumblr, I also compile monthly art digests for the ds_noticeboard community on Dreamwidth:

I'll keep on trying to make those themed art rec lists! And more art, too. <3

[jazzzzzzhands]

Ok FOR REAL Theory Time!!! Gonna be massive spoilers plus mention of bugs/fungus! So I'm calling this the Mold Theory And what is the Mold? It's the black stuff under Home! (Mold under a house is very suiting, right?) The Mold has contaminated Every single thing that the Restoration team has found! The team talks about the envelopes, the antiques, and the artwork found for Welcome Home and how it is alwasys Wet and covered in Grime. The stuff that is "Growing" all over the found items... Staff must wear gloves or they will get covered in it

You can see it all over the gloves, the Walls, and even the Website Itself! It's also been shown on the restored art prior to the update. But one unfortunate person seems to have touched it. and that is.. The Question Answerer! (The head person of the Restoration team is also most likely infected) Now what this Mold does is, It seems to have an effect of the person's mental state. Causing them to see and hear things, as well as having lucid nightmares and an overwhelming urge to draw spirals. From the very moment of contact, it seems to have effect "When I Unwrapped the first letter, I felt it. I heard it. Open Open Open. I want it out, I'm Going to get it Out" Instant Hallucinations and Obsession! Now I'm going to be Comparing this Mold to a Real fungus called Cordyceps, or the Zombie-Ant Fungus. It is a fungus that can control BUGS (familar themes right?) and take over their minds, forcing them to act unnaturally and wander far in order to spread itself! ~Similarily~ this Mold can take control of the Host's mind as well. The "Spores" that it is trying to spread are the drawings of the spirals/eyes. And the more eyes are Drawn, the more Wally can SEE. Wally has made it truly apparent that he can see us through any rendition of his eyes. "I've seen you every time you've looked into my eyes" "I have more eyes than I did before, you know how to draw eyes You draw mine, many times. I know it is thanks to you, Neighbor.. That I can see.. but it is still.. I can't see" He is giving us instructions.. "You have work to do" -Giving us instrustions on how to draw an eye... "Please Open, Let me In" Now I find this last instruction very funny He doesn't say "Let me Out" No... He says "Let me IN" Into What? What are we Opening? Our doors?Our EYES? our Mind? our Heart?? I think that could be exactly it!!! Letting him.... into You!!! (The collective You) Isn't that Funny? A Funny little thought?! The Puppet becoming the Puppeteer! ooh hee hee hoo hoo I think I'm very clever about that! But there are so many themes of Strings/Control/Scripts That I simply couldn't help myself! Now does that mean I think Wally is Evil? Absolutely NOT I LOVE Wally, and hey, what's a bit of mind control between Neighbors? <333 I'll borrow a cup of sugar and you can borrow my sanity! That's what Neighbors are for! <3 Jokes aside, No I Do NOT think Wally is Evil!! No, he might become a Puppeteer over the Real world... (and It might be for good reason, to save his friends and himself) but he is still very much a Puppet himself. Literally and Figuratively, And the Real Mastermind behind the strings is... Home!

Afterall? Isn't that where the Mold is coming from? From Down Below? Below Home?

This image gives me BIG TIME Obediance vibes Reporting/Worship/Subjugation I very much see Wally as the Lure of a very big Angler Fish.. The bait, the perfect little puppet that has captured our hearts and led us by the hand into Welcome Home. Isn't that very much how it has gone in real life? (Oh I KNOW I got the Mold BAD!!! ahahaha) (I can't stop drawing himmm!!! :3c ) But this is where my rambling stops, Until Next Time! I will just say that: The Relationship between Home and Wally (And by extension, YOU) Is a Strange one for sure! And I cant wait to see it further! And Just one more extra note on this whole Fungus thing.. Did you know that the BIGGEST Organism on the entire Earth.. Is a Mushroom? It is because they are connected through their Roots... (Down Below) and Houses kinda are shaped like musrooms... I will Leave it at That! Ahahahaha!

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think there might be some problems that could develop with SAGE showcasing indie games? SAGE was created as an event for the Sonic fandom to make fan games, but now indie games have become part of it. Nothing against it on principle, but what about the legal area? SAGE is still tied to Sonic's image, would it count as using Sonic to sell other products? Or would it be a Chip 'n Dale's Movie Sonic case?

Top comment on the showcase trailer video:

If there were problems, Sega would be the ones causing them, and that's the official Sonic brand account giving their sign of approval.

SAGE was created, speaking as the creator of SAGE here, to demystify fangaming and show the world it had a positive effect on the world. Fangames were seen as illegal bootlegs when I started the event, and I sought to change that perception.

Now, yes, generally speaking, I think if you're trying to stay on the up and up, disconnecting your fangame from commercial promotion as much as humanly possible is the best way to keep your nose clean. Don't run ads on your website, don't run ads on gameplay footage, DEFINITELY do not in any way even LOOK at crowdfunding or paying employees. Stay away from any and all money I/O. Which is very difficult if not impossible because even hosting a website means you are exchanging money with someone in order to distribute your game.

So you have to decide an acceptable level to compromise your morals if you hope to put your game out there, and how much risk that creates for you depends on the company in question, I guess.

Hosting your game on Itch.io? Well, as long as you create a standalone account separate from any real monetized game creation you plan on doing, that might be okay. They don't run ads on Itch.io that I know about.

Hosting your game on Game Jolt? Slightly more risky, because Game Jolt serves ads on their download page.

Mediafire? More risky, because I feel like Mediafire shows extra invasive ads, including, last I heard, those ads that have fake download buttons on them. So not only is Mediafire making money, they are engaging in active deception.

Hosting it on a Patreon? Way more risky. Even if you have the post set to $0, you are bringing people to a page where they can give you money for your services.

I technically do this with some of my very old game projects, but none of those are anywhere close to finished games, and they are all almost universally just fragments of unimportant side projects. For example, I do not have builds of TFH up there, or MarioWeen. It's mostly just software I started and did not finish, mixed in with a couple of like, early alpha engine tests if I remember right.

I've also thought about just straight up taking them down and hosting them somewhere else (the itch.io archive might be my best bet, or even archive.org). It does make me uncomfortable to have them up there, but it was a stable, clean place to host things like that when I first launched that Patreon, like, what, 8 years ago? Now they're buried at the very very very bottom of my post list and I'm probably the only person who remembers that they're there.

Anyway, if it was a problem, I think Sega would let us know. And I say "let us know" instead of, say, just stomping their boot all over SAGE and killing it without recourse. I think, given what a positive force it is not just in the community, but in the indie gaming space, if it was a problem, they could talk it out with whoever is running the show that year.

But this is a place to cultivate future game developers. It is good for the game industry. And I've said it here, or maybe other places, but I've often wondered if Steam's multiple demo events they host every year was inspired by something like SAGE. It's kind of become a big deal, and it keeps growing to be a bigger deal every year, and at least so far, nobody's abused or exploited it yet.

Not that they even could -- SAGE is curated. Not a lot, but enough that I know there were booths rejected for 2024. You can be, and people have been, kicked out of SAGE for being abusive. Participating in SAGE is a privilege, not a public service.

So I think everything will be fine.