#meaning that liking a post alone can get it on peoples dashboards

[anotherpapercut]

favorite thing ever is when people make their little "tips for newcomers" posts and say smth like "likes have 0 purpose, they're only for bookmarking!! there is no algorithm on Tumblr!" because there literally IS an algorithm on Tumblr and even if there wasn't a like still gives the post a note and tells the op that someone liked their post....... generally the exact purpose of liking something online............

[mwagneto]

hungarian/nomadic magyar tumblr circa 998AD dashboard simulator

🏞️ vándor-ló-979 Follow

not yall still spreading emese's foundation myth??? she literally claims she fucked a bird????? like either she's lying or she cheated and she's trying to cover it up or well. i dont even want to consider the third option

🪺 magánügyek Follow

tengri forbid women do anything???

735 notes

🦅 szél-könnyű-szárnyán-szállj Follow

okay im sick of the discourse let's do this.

8,572 notes

🐎 istván-rovására Follow

that took so long lmao -> !!!!!!!∧◇ᛏ⋈∧

481 notes

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

i'm so serious rn if you support """istván""" in any way just unfollow and block me. we do NOT need him or his dumbass god and what he's been doing to our people to spread his religion is shameful.

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

btw we all know your real name is vajk stop larping as a christian it's EMBARRASSINGGGG

✝️ esztergom-örökké Follow

love seeing my mutuals reblogging this /s anyway op has multiple posts on their blog supporting quartering and human sacrifice. in case you were wondering. anyway stand with István

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

1) we dont even do human sacrifices, are you fucking stupid??? show me ONE post where i talk about that. 2) are you seriously forgetting that your bestie istván LITERALLY QUARTERED HIS UNCLE?????

#sorry to put this dumbass on the dash😭 dont even engage just block them #ur not making it up the tree of life lmao #discourse

3,264 notes

🌅 bolygó-kárpáti Follow

friendly reminder that just because you're white passing doesn't mean you're not a real magyar!! people with mixed parents are just as valid <3

🏇 attila-népe Follow

cranky coz ur ancestors decided to mix with the europeans arent you

🧺 lemezelő Follow

isnt your girlfriend literally frankish????

🏇 attila-népe Follow

you had to have done some serious stalking to find that💀 and first of all i didn't have a choice, my parents picked the tribe, and second of all she's not my "girlfriend" i got her via ritual kidnapping (WITH consent. before anyone gets weird)

🌐 a-kiber-kovács Follow

Couldn't you have kidnapped another magyar woman? Or someone from another mongoloid tribe?

🔅 hadúrsimp Follow

ohh sure so now human pet guy is gonna chime in to advocate for the kidnapping of our women while being lowkey racist. what are you even doing on nomadblr????

🌅 bolygó-kárpáti Follow

what the fuck happened to my post

19,276 notes

🪔 rakabonciás Follow

for the nth time, you're only a true shaman if you were born with teeth OR with extra fingers OR in the sac. the rest of you are faking & we can tell.

🦅szél-könnyű-szárnyán-szállj Follow

okay people keep spreading this but this is literally just wrong?? like congrats on the 6 fingers op im glad u and Little Golden Father have a special connection (genuinely) but like. táltos and sámán and mágus and garabonciás and javas etc are all different things with completely different requirements and life paths which you should definitely know if you're claiming to be one?? especially since your post says shaman but you're listing the criteria for a táltos, and your username looks like a play on garabonciás so. which is it🤔 maybe get your facts in order before trying to gatekeep

anyway don't listen to op!! your connection to the Upper World is yours alone and you're the best judge of what the Fathers and Mothers want your path in life to be!!

646 notes

🛐 mea-culpa Follow

It breaks my heart that the majority of my people still refuse to see the One True God and insist on sticking to their pagan spirits. I fear that when judgement day comes, we will all be wiped out thanks to their foul godless ways.

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

how tf am i godless when i literally have dozens of gods? little mothers and little fathers are in everything all around us & it must suck ass to live in a world where you're not surrounded by the small gods that inhabit everything. manifesting that the fene and the guta tag team beat your ass tonight

🔅 hadúrsimp Follow

hadúr will literally strike op down personally. he told me himself. whispered it to me sweetly even

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

while i agree with you, i feel like you might also have ulterior motives, nomadblr user hadúrsimp

#but live your truth! doubly so on the posts of these freak repressed bible lovers. meanwhile on the #COOL side of magyarhood we walk around butt ass naked!!! op have fun never experiencing joy ever again tho #discourse

198 notes

👑 sanctus-stephanus Follow

posting from an alt so i don't get cancelled but lowkey i'm starting to think koppány was right.... maybe this christianity thing isn't gonna work out after all

👑 sanctus-stephanus Follow

WRONG BLOG

👑 sanctus-stephanus Follow

THIS WAS A JOKE. IGNORE THIS

🪺 magánügyek Follow

ISTVÁN????????????? 💀

[uncivilliberties]

>unfairly banned

>checks internet archive of her blog

>99% of the posts are completely unlabeled pornographic text and fantasies, not even a tag

>checks tumblr guidelines:

"Nudity and other kinds of adult material are generally welcome. We’re not here to judge your art, we just ask that you add a Community Label to your mature content so that people can choose to filter it out of their Dashboard if they prefer. You have the option to add a community label when making a new post, reblogging a post, or editing an existing post. Depending on your content, you can label it as generally mature or choose a specific category such as “Sexual Themes” if your post contains sexually suggestive subject matter."

if you actually give a shit about transfems who are getting harassed left and right then stop martyring people who are getting banned for not labeling NSFW content they post.

and god before anyone tries to have a fit and accuse me of some bullshit, i do not have anything against NSFW, i'm not a puritan asshole, what i DO have an issue with is people posting sexual content without any content labels (yet alone tags) meaning people who don't want to see that content can end up getting exposed to it anyway, even if they've taken the time to filter tags.

What are you fucking talking about? 99%? She posted about music and chatted with friends and made shitposts. It would take an extremely bad faith reading of her blog to find out uniquely objectionable UNLESS you were already inclined to find trans women's existence inherently sexual.

In your reply to this post you accuse her of constantly posting about her kinks and fetishes, helpfully including a link to the Internet archive. Let's take a look, hmmm? Wow, that's a lot of posts about music. In the limited snapshot available at that link I see one (1) masturbation joke that wouldn't even be a blip on the radar if this were anyone else's blog, a goofy ask about breasts that she answered in kind, and a couple of references to being a deergirl. Oh, I see what you mean. The crazy thing about this is that it took one single word to turn it horny. She could have said deer and not deergirl. You absolute dipshit.

"I'm not a puritan asshole, I just wear puritan asshole pants and a big puritan asshole hat and shout puritan asshole bullshit." Even if there was NSFW material somewhere in her history it would still be the thinnest possible excuse for banning her. It would still be blatant selective application of the terms of service weaponized against trans existence. Do we really need a community label on every single dick joke on this site to keep the children safe from harm? Cis people get to make dick jokes with impunity!

"People who don't want to see that content can end up getting exposed to it anyway" This is not the foundation for any sort of moral imperative! This cannot serve as the basis for any sort of course of action! The idea that we need to tag and police and bubble wrap any potentially objectionable thing online is exactly the excuse they are using for KOSA. It's no kink at Pride discourse. It's this post about Pete Buttigieg.

Straight people don't get policed like this. Cis people don't get held to these standards. Are you Staff in a wig and fake nose pretending to be a user supporting their rationale?

[actual-changeling]

A small 'this is how you use tumblr' for the people that haven't been here very long. These are in no particular order, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them!

Since I probably did not mention a lot of things, you are welcome to add to this post with your own advice.

a) Reblog posts. if you like it, reblog it. even if you have zero followers and ESPECIALLY if it's art or writing of any kind. We will see the reblog in our notifications and that alone brings joy. One reblog can start a chain and push the post onto many people's dashes.

b) Tumblr is not a very functional website, if you want to survive without losing your mind, there are two things you need: xkit rewritten and dashboard unfucker. Play around with the settings until it is to your liking. Additionally, change to firefox if you haven't already and install ublock origin to get rid of ads, tracking etc.

c) If you go to your settings (account! not blog) you can find this under dashboard at the bottom. Turn off at the very least 'best stuff first' since that will fuck up your dash and not give you posts in chronological order.

The rest are a perfonal preference but it will keep your dash tidy and easy to control if you turn them off, too.

d) Apropos settings—get a profile picture, a header, write something human in your bio, anything. Otherwise people will assume you are a bot and block you on sight.

e) Blocking! Do it generously and whenever you want, this is how you keep whatever remains of your sanity. It's not a lethal offense, it is (usually) not even seen as rude or anything along those lines. You block people and they block you and everyone is happy.

f) Under account settings you will find this:

Just like with blocking, use both options to your heart's content.

g) Tumblr is not like other social media platforms, spam liking & reblogging and going three years deep into someone's account is NORMAL and encouraged. You can search a blog by post type, tags, or even go to the archive and scroll through the posts there.

h) Lastly—interaction. We already went over reblogging (I mean it, REBLOG), but there are also replies and asks. If you add something to someone else's post please behave like a kind human being and don't be an asshole; based on my experience, that's easier said than done. On top of that, the tags are ALSO used for communication, go unhinged, ramble, leave your thoughts, or simply use them for organisational purposes. Everyone loves a good insane tag wall.

An open inbox (either anonymously or with your blog attached) is to be used! Please send people asks if they have them active, use it like DMs or a comment section, use it to recommend something, ask questions, participate in an ask or prompt game—we love asks here.

(We do not like harassment in our inboxes, same rules as above.)

[duhragonball]

Akira Toriyama (1955-2024)

I wouldn't say I'm feeling better today, but I'm feeling less bad than yesterday. So let's see if I can put some words together.

In case anyone still hasn't heard, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1, 2024. This news was made public on March 7 or 8. I woke up early on Friday morning and found out while I was checking Twitter. I had a long, busy day at work, and I kept getting on my phone to scroll through fan reactions and tributes.

I think that, more than anything, is what's gotten me so worked up about his death. My Twitter timeline and my tumblr dashboard were just chock full of touching message and images about how Akira Toriyama's work has changed their lives. I wanted to write my own tribute, but I'm not sure what else I can say that hasn't already been expressed by Archie Comics, professional wrestling trio The New Day, and the Republic of El Salvador.

There's this immense, global community of fans, and it's easy to lose sight of just how big it is. It's easy to get bogged down in the infighting and petty squabbles. I saw one tweet responding to the criticism of Dragon Ball not being like this "entry level" franchise compared to other, more high brow anime and manga. It's popular with so many people, that critics will assume it's designed to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator. But the opposite is true! Dragon Ball is accessible, which is how so many people from so many different places and walks of life can get into it. The guy telling the story was such a master storyteller that he could grab an audience's attention and make it look easy. So easy that the haters would start to think that it was a trick, and he must be overrated.

Let me talk about this panel for a minute.

Last night I started going through the original manga, looking for panels to screencap. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe a selection of panels that really stood out for me might be worth posting. I'll probably still do that one of these days, but I got to this one, where Gohan tells Chi-Chi about Goku's death, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

This was a powerful scene in the anime, of course, but in the comic it's even more profound. It's just one panel, no dialogue, because the reader already knows what's happening here. We know Gohan is telling his mother that Goku died in the Cell Games, and that he refuses to be wished back, because he thinks his presence on Earth will attract new enemies. It was hard enough to hear when Goku said it to Gohan and the others, and now Gohan has to relay that message to Goku's wife. All she can do is lie prostate on the floor and weep.

And look at the composition. She's surrounded by all that negative space. Gohan's there for her, but she still feels so alone, surrounded by her husband's absence. Pots of flour for food he'll never eat. An empty chair he might have sat in. Their son, who will have to grow up without him.

I saw this, as though for the first time, and it was so gut-wrenching that I had to post it by itself. I felt like it summed up my feelings better than any words could. We're all Chi-Chi in this panel, reacting to Akira Toriyama's death. And we're all Gohan too, each of us consoling one another with our own thoughts and tributes.

So what did Akira Toriyama mean to us all? Lots of people have answered this in a lot of different ways. Obviously his art, storytelling and cultural impact speak for themselves. I've seen people compare him to other luminaries like Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka. I'll try to add my own two cents with this:

I wrote a post about "Dragon Ball Daima" back when it was first announced, and I led off with this image of a note from Akira Toriyama. I guess this was from some big fancy presentation about Daima at a convention. I forget which one. In particular, I was skeptical that the Daima rumors were even true, and if they were, the whole idea seemed half-baked to me. Turning Goku into a kid had been done before, and it wasn't exactly successful the first time.

But this note from Toriyama was very reassuring to me. More than the trailer clips and character designs, this was what got me interested in the show. That's because he took the time to not only hype up the show, but also to explain what's going on behind the premise. He took the time to tell everyone that he's working on this show, and what "Daima" means, and why all the characters get turned into kids. It's "due to a conspiracy", and the good guys will have to "fix things". In short, he established a plot, conflict, and resolution to the story. He didn't just slap this together to sell new merch. I'm sure that was part of the motivation to make Daima, but there's more to it than that.

I think that's the loss I feel with Toriyama's passing. It's not that there won't be new Dragon Ball stories in the future. I'm sure others will continue telling their own versions long after I'm gone. I'm not that worried about the fate of Daima. I'm sure they'll figure something out, whether it's delayed, rewritten, or canceled. But we'll never see another message from Toriyama to promote a new project, and that's what I'll miss. From here on, his credit will just be an acknowledgement of his past contributions.

There's this great credibility with Akira Toriyama's name. Fans will argue about how involved he was in a project as a way of establishing how good or bad it was. Dragon Ball GT has his name on the credits, and he provided some designs and artwork early on, and for some fans that proves the series has his endorsement. For others, the sole problem with the show is that he wasn't directly writing the script. There's similar debates over Dragon Ball Super, where he was involved, but only writing those mysterious "notes". So if a fan doesn't like something in DBS, who do they blame? Did Toriyama lose his touch, or did his co-creators fumble the ball? Dragon Ball Evolution basically ignored all of Toriyama's advice and bombed, while Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Broly, and Super Hero all put Toriyama's writing credits up at the very beginning, and each film made plenty of money. I read his comments on the Daima confirmation, and immediately thought "Okay, this should be pretty good. Akira Toriyama knows what's up."

That's gone now. I mean, there's still a lot of talent out there, but we'll never again have the little gas mask-wearing robot telling us that this story will be good because he worked on making it good. I don't think I really appreciated how much I trusted that guy until now. I still can't believe he's really gone.

I'll probably have more to say about this in the coming days, but I'll stop here for now. Thanks for letting me ramble a bit on this.

[elumish]

You know, a while ago, I saw a post that was something along the lines of "On Tumblr, you could write a post saying 'I like pancakes' and people would reply with 'So you hate waffles???' like nah man that's a whole new sentence!".

These anon you've been getting are really proving the point of that post's OP. I'm sorry you have to deal with Tumblr's often rather mediocre reading comprehension.

FWIW I follow you for being one of the people with actually nuanced takes instead of that weird thing most of this site has got going on, where it's either "If you EVER even think of a character who did ANYTHING wrong in any remotely positive light you're irredeemably evil" on one side and "If you ever so much as imply that maybe there's some things people write or put in shows that can cause harm to real people, you're irredeemably evil.". I hope they all grow out of their black and white thinking. Or at least learn to leave you and others alone.

I appreciate it.

I think, if I'm to give a little bit of grace now that my frustration has died down a very small amount, that people have become so conditioned to reading one argument that they assume everything that looks even remotely similar is the same thing.

On my dashboard, most of what I see is people arguing the same exact points as the anons, usually using fiery overgeneralized language to rile people up about the dangers of censorship online. And so if all you see is people getting mad over and over about this point, written in a way that paints everyone who is critical of any content in fiction in the same broad brush, you are going to start to believe that it's all one thing.

And they're not entirely wrong about the dangers of censorship and harassment--there are, obviously, broad efforts across the United States (and I'm sure other places, but the U.S. is what I'm most familiar with) to censor certain types of literature based on conservative fears of their content.

There have also been efforts, generally well-intended, from the left to reduce "problematic" content. While some of these have been great (e.g., sensitivity readers), others have been abused, often by people who lacked the cultural competency to understand what they were reading or who wanted an excuse to harass people. Many of these efforts, especially those that were implemented most ineffectively or most abused, were focused on the criticism and removal of writers or existing content.

I understand the sensitivity, I really do. I also disagree with efforts that have happened across the board to remove wide swaths of content just because they made someone a little uncomfy.

And yes, I do talk about content moderation, because I also recognize the difference between "made someone a little uncomfy" and "we are welcoming to Nazi content" and unfortunately certain places err too much on the latter side rather than the former in the name of universal free speech with no exceptions.

But most of what I talk about is writing, because I'm a writing blog. I do want to change how people approach writing, because I believe fundamentally in our responsibility as human beings to 1) do what we can to avoid harm and 2) do what we can to improve the world around us. And if that means that there's less of certain content, like magic that relies on biological essentialism and love stories involving SS commanders, then I'm okay with that.

[corsairesix]

Krakoan Tumblr Dashboard Simulator

🧛🏻‍♀️lesbian-nate-essex follow

It's crazy how kids these days don't think that flatscan is a slur. Most of your parents are human you literally wouldn't exist without them.

😈worldlimbochampion

Oh so now the Mr. Sinister fanblog is going to preach to us?

547 notes

🌿whoredeculture follow

Hey has anyone tried smoking thr krakoan plants. Like, can you smoke one of the portals?

🌿whoredeculture follow

healing gardens

8,301 notes

❌xavier-school-dropout follow

Can't believe I got decimated and it turns out the Scarlet Witch isn't even Magneto's kid. What was that all about then?

💗andyoullmissit

I think she's his kid again. Kinda. It's complicated

💣mutant-magnet

Leave Magneto alone he's a single dad of 2-6 kids lmao

187 notes

💃🏼omega-libropath follow

OMG I just found out that Serafina Hayes is a mutant! She's the pen name for St. John Allerdyce, who actually lives on the island! I can't believe I could actually meet him!

🧛🏻‍♀️lesbian-nate-essex follow

St. John Allerdyce is actually super problematic. He used to associated with Fred Dukes, who is incredibly homophobic (callout post here)

⬛mutant-presenting-nipples follow

You literally spoke to Fred at the Green Lagoon this morning?

👨🏼‍🦲xavier-was-right follow

girl both of them were terrorists

🕰️tiktok2009

#like truly who wasn't? grow up

254 notes

😾nukehenrygyrich

Okay listen... You can't spell MLF without- no I shan't say it

🕰️tiktok2009

Then I will

M

💣mutant-magnet

I

😈worldlimbochampion

L

🧬skinny-genes follow

K

🕰️tiktok2009

😾nukehenrygyrich

Stop reblogging this

12,059 notes

🧑🏿‍❤️‍🧑🏼krakoangayiconbracket follow

Krakoan Gay Icon: Final Round

🦎lizardgay follow

This is just mean

47 notes

🎆69thsummersbrother

We need to get Cyclops on here he's a natural born poster I just know it.

#this is based on nothing i can just feel it

0 notes

💪🏻otherotherguthrie

The only reason that posts like the "down with flatscans bus" post exist is because the people making them would make a down with mutants bus if they could

🌌what-is-a-neo

i mean there was a down with mutants bus. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but there very much was a down with mutants bus.

#also i would totally make a down with flatscans bus

39,025 notes

🎯emmas-boston-accent

They should make the theme for the next hellfire gala camp, I want to see Tony Stark squirm

3,045 notes

💪🏻otherotherguthrie

I just saw Wolverine run by naked and growling? Hello?

💪🏻otherotherguthrie

Right in front of my salad?

😈worldlimbochampion

That happens sometimes

🦎lizardgay follow

Wait, which Wolverine?

🎯emmas-boston-accent

You know which one.

160 notes

🩻ohmyglob

Why do the X-Men always say "hope you survive the experience" brother I will just die

[stellernorth]

[dashboard simulator of a world without the ghostfacers effect where the true supernatural show is perceived]

🫀waityourrturn Follow

spot the difference stick figure violence and samruby moments

(1 note)

🟪 sparklezzstiel Follow

if i was the mall cop who got kid sam in trouble for stealing nail polish i would have instead helped him steal more nail polish. also i wouldn’t be a cop

(184 notes)

🧪dogsogdog4 Follow

hey i’m finally watched lazarus rising and i cannot see anything when “castiel” enters its just fully white and the static noise is kind of painful tbh lol. is this a my computer problem or what

(7 notes)

🎉 rowenapublicindecancy Follow

(52 notes)

🫐 numberfff000 Follow

you all aren’t taking like medical advice from supernatural right??? the medical advice that has resulted in canonically [checks notes] one (1) instance of blindness due to ingesting rubbing alcohol, two (2) toe amputations and one (1) case of SEPSIS?!

🎪 kevinscriminalrecord Follow

no we aren’t doing that

🌠 mixtapesextape Follow

Sounds like someone hasn't heard about the kitchen accident diy stitches girl from LiveJournal. So weird that the fandom today doesn't know about her, back in the day it was everywhere.

🎪 kevinscriminalrecord Follow

huh???

🧔‍♀️ heritagepostsof-spn Follow

Heritage Post.

(1943 notes)

🥬 fishhooklove Follow

day 1 of asking john winchester to put his cigs out on me

🤟hannahgirl Follow

could you stop

🥬 fishhooklove Follow

oh here come the buzzkills. i bet you thought it was hot when bela did it to dean. but i’m not allowed to express my interests i guess.

(218 notes)

⛸️ mangojuicecas Follow

Um Guys i had this guy i’m seeing over and we were taking. about watching a movie. and. im the most embarrassed i’ve ever been i can barely type this. and i opened my computer and clicked to the netflix tab. and it was paused mid crypt scene blowjob kill meeeee 😭😭😭

🩶 charlierowena2024 Follow

why would you ever stop halfway through. that's like looking at half of starry night then closing your eyes and leaving the museum

(78 notes)

🧑🏻‍🦳s6monster Follow

Uquiz - Which Supernatural scars are you?

I GOT RUBY’S ARM SCARS WAAAH

(3 notes)

👩‍🦰 cleopatralumineersrowena Follow

depeche mode master and servant spn bdsm and fight scene compilation amv we're really in it now

#using lyrics as censor bars is the innovation of the century

(59 notes)

🌂 kansaslawrence Follow

for everyone who said dean slamming his hand in the impala door when he was drunk wouldn't do that to his fingernails i did a similar thing (accidentally, before the show aired) #deancoded loll and it looked basically the same. here are pics of my and his hands afterwards side by side for reference

(482 notes)

🍄 0nth3h34d0f4p1n Follow

Another reason samruby is queercoded is how her spitting blood into his mouth parallels the champagne scene in my beautiful laundrette

(38 notes)

🎃 sammmyspooks Follow

2.16 "this disease pumping through my veins and i can't rip it out or scrub it clean--i've tried; i'm a whole new level of freak" and 8.21 "you used to read to me when i was little i mean really little" etc we all remember sir galahad speech. sooooo how young do you think sam was when he first tried

(739 notes)

🪼 ccoldfridge Follow

just remembered how dean tried his best to ask cas to take a female vessel so they could fuck heterosexually in ftbyam and i nearly passed out in the post office . castielllllll he was saying he wanted to fuck youuu

(63 notes)

🤵 a1waysenduphere Follow

comparing the endverse sam arc to the classic structure of a shakespearean tragedy

part 1: aloneness and exposition

keep reading

(382 notes)

👩 isolationnatural Follow

the way people #coquette #lanadelrey #femaleangst -ify claire's s12 shoplifting eating disorder getting into fights self medicating situation is so so weird and fucked up. we saw stanford era dean do literally exactly all the same shit but with him it's ohhh classic beautiful americana what a tragic figure i understand his emotions have depth and complexity THEY DID ALL THE SAME STUFF maybe think about why you see the situations differently

(294 notes)

🔵 butchruby4femanna Follow

why did i have to see dean naked that many times. just wondering again

(2 notes)

⚡ cassandrasam Follow

ok spn 5x20. so sam's kissing the demon possessing brady out of nostalgia and grief for his dead boyfriend, the demon's kissing back because he knows it will make sam more likely to listen to him, imagine if dean had walked in in that moment

❗greendean Follow

or crowley

(158 notes)

🍇 notgoodnatural Follow

hey everyone. wjsh i could have seen dean naked more times.

(10 notes)

[pigeonwhumps]

A look at what a BBU Tumblr dashboard might look like!

@bbu-on-the-side

CWs: BBU, pet whump, dehumanisation, everything that comes with that

🐢 turtleonhigh

As you start contemplating gifts for your loved ones, remember guys, a pet is for life, not just for Christmas! If you've never had a pet before, Domestics or Platonics are the best starter pets, but make sure to do your research thoroughly to keep your pet happy and healthy. Additionally, adopt, don't shop! There are so many pets desperately in need of loving homes. If you're insistent on purchasing from a supplier such as WRU rather than a shelter, choose refurbished. Give a pet the second chance they deserve!

🌟 thetruthinourstars

In Liberation this month: The shocking truth of WRU training away from prying eyes

🥸 bookworm420

https://www.liberation.com/20240423457899

(again. A year and a half after the first article and they're still having to expose it because no-one will listen...)

Oh come on, OP, everyone knows that's bullshit, spread by pet lib manipulators. Everyone: this is what bad actors look like!

🦀 just-a-crab

Sources?

#and before anyone leaps on me #i mean both of you #a reminder to always check where informations coming from

🍵 tea-and-pets

If prev was a pet, what would you give them as a little treat?

🐳 awhaleofatime

You guys are sick and perverted fuckers, I hope you know that

🌵 prickle

You're in the minority there mate

https://www.yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/explore/HumanPets

🐳 awhaleofatime

🌞 sunshinestarlight

Stfu and let people have their fun, dude

#if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all #pet love #srsly dude leave us alone #polls

🐭 mouseandsammy

Sammy just adores his new outfit! Look at him go!

🌞 sunshinestarlight

❤️

🪶 fansofafeather

Ew, why am I getting WRU adverts on my dash constantly? Do I look like someone who would buy a pet to you?

🦴

Yes

🪶 fansofafeather

This was originally just a vent, but since you asked so nicely...

Does it help? Does it really?

Sources:

Stats show that 42% of vulnerable young people surveyed are scared of being picked up by WRU. Furthermore, spending on welfare in the UK has decreased by 26% over the past ten years, with ministers even saying that those who need help should become pets and go where they're wanted, where their "place" is. Vulnerable people need help, not encouragement to sign their lives away, and the pet industry isn't helping with that (even if you say that it isn't WRU's fault for merely existing, their adverts aren't glowing examples of a non-manipulative company).

I could go into way more detail, about the manipulation and propaganda, and what's been associated with them over the years, the politicians in their pockets holding up legislation that would hinder sign-ups, not to mention that this is actual, literal slavery, but I'll leave it here for now. If you're actually bothered you can ask, but I get the feeling you're not anyway.

How do you see your future? | YouGov

How do you feel about the alleged forced sign-ups by WRU and similar companies? | Liberation

Fact-check: Has welfare spending increased? | BBC Verify

Secretary for Work and Pensions overheard suggesting that welfare recipients "go where they're wanted" and become pets | The Guardian

WRU adverts 2000-2024 | National Archives

👯 pet-love

Callout post

Be aware. User @/sam-the-multifandom is an active member of the pet lib community, who has engaged in targeted harassment of pet owners and supporters. Evidence is in their top posts. Block and report, and spread the word to other members of the community so we can stamp out this disgusting behaviour.

👁️ eyesonthewall

Oh ffs OP. This is your evidence? Seriously? Stop lying and go back to the hole you crawled out of.

💗 nolongeracult

Proving OP's point right there. I'm former pet lib, and I can honestly say it's the most toxic community I've ever been a part of.

🍰 twopets-twocakes

Even more than the Star Wars fandom? 😝

💗 nolongeracult

YES

#pet love #their choice #petlib is toxic #love your pet #pet for life

[arttsuka]

Read your post earlier about being harassed by some scum and just want to say I'm sorry to hear about it my dude (idk your pronouns I'm sorry, but I call everyone dude regardless of gender.) It can be quite hard sometimes, just simply existing and being nonsensically bothered for it. I can understand this quite well as a visible butch, whenever I'm out alone, I'm always slightly afraid of being confronted (if I'm not mistaken for being a boy first.) But no matter where you look, there will be assholes. Yet on the other hand, there are perhaps more lovely, kind human beings out there. Whenever your art comes on my dashboard, it makes me chuckle to see the mountain of wonderful jedtavious pieces that you've created. It might seem hard in those moments when you're being harassed and the overwhelming wave of fear of confrontation hits you, but know that the wave will eventually pass, even if it seems like your drowning. Get well soon my dude and to quote Jedidiahs bestie Arthur Morgan, you're ok boah

This made me tear up, thank you.

I know there are kind people out there behavior (this ask is proof of that, someone who doesn't know me being kind for no reason other than that they can), it's just that society promotes bad behavior. It's 'normal' for some people to pick on others for a quick laugh, it's what they were taught growing up. I have hope that the new generation of kids will be better on that regard, have more compassion for the people around them. Patriarchy hurts everyone but that's common knowledge at this point.

And I know my existence does not warrant harassment, it's just hard to acknowledge that all the time. The negative confrontations stick to my brain and it's like a pile, building up until it becomes too hard to ignore.

I have that mentality that you should treat people how you want to be treated (just like newton's 3rd law, or is it the 2nd?) and it really sucks that this isn't the reality we're living in. No matter how kind you try to be there are always some bad apples out there.

I'm glad my drawings bring some joy to people, it really means a lot to me (I'm always very critical of my 'art' so relieving compliments is very awkward? in the sense that i never know how to respond without sounding robotic).

Thank you for taking time out of your day to send me this long paragraph, I really appreciate it.

Btw I too think dude, bro, gurlll etc are gender neutral.

I'm really bad at words, I can't articulate my thoughts very well so I hope I'm not coming off as I'm uninterested or ungrateful.

[neveragainfools]

Let’s talk about art since apparently I’m a dumbdumb idiot who knows nothing about it or the internet.

Am I salty? Yes. Let’s get into it. So, you might have seen the Keith Haring AI Unfinished Painting going around with my commentary of disdain, and then a bunch of people reblogging it with commentary on how it’s an obvious troll/bait post and how stupid I and those who chimed in in the same fashion are. Apparently the post made it to trending (though I never saw it there, because I mostly just pay attention to my dashboard.)

Of course it doesn’t feel good to get “got.” I think if someone hadn’t sincerely pulled a similar stunt with the Mona Lisa recently, I would’ve seen it as a troll post. I did actually take a moment to consider that it might be a troll before I reblogged with commentary. But that damn expanded Mona Lisa came to mind, and I thought, “no, there are people out there who absolutely think this is okay” and went on my little rant. Jingle my bells for I’m now the court jester. I took the bait.

Do I still stand by it? Yes, for the most part. One could argue that the troll is a form of art, and I played a part in the performance. Much like Fountain by Duchamp (a piece in which he literally signed a urinal and displayed it as fine art and it nearly burned down the art world), this piece inspires rage, and the rage is the most important part of the conversation. I’ll make no bones about my position on AI art. When the “art” is simply an image generated by an AI tool, that is not art to me. It is a commercial image. The use of an AI tool to “complete” or “expand” an image with the intention to create a vast reaction, and post it in such a manor can be argued as performance art, the same way Fountain is. Machine learning can also be used as a tool in the process to create a piece of art, but a generated image alone is not art.

So then why do I stand by it? A big problem with art types like this is that it’s callous, cold and doesn’t respect the work that it’s “building on” or “elevates.” Whether it’s Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans, Lichtenstein’s rehashing of comic panels, Duchamp’s Fountain or this AI piece, in all cases, it uses the originator without concern for the content of the art itself. Someone at the toilet company had to design that urinal. Someone at Campbell’s had to design the soup can label. Lichtenstein took panels from real living comic artists and re-rendered them with less skill and care. Those works are never co-credited with the people who did the initial designs. The twitter person who made this mess used a heartbreaking piece about a man’s grief and frustration about his own untimely death due to AIDs, and a lot of people weren’t familiar with it before this viral moment. Sure, it starts a conversation into the nature of art, as do all of these “subversive” pieces. But especially with Haring, who was concerned about computers and their eventual intelligence and would likely hate it, especially because we DO know the original artist, and those who are meant to be angered are familiar with the original piece (mainly lgbtq people), it feels especially rude and poor taste.

Other works wouldn’t cause such a visceral reaction. The personal nature of Unfinished Painting why “finishing it” is so controversial. No one says art has to be respectful. No one says art can’t steal, remix or transform works that came before it to create a new meaning. I’m still allowed to hate it. I’m still allowed to think it spits on Keith’s grave. The choice to do something so disrespectful is integral to the point of the piece, all in the name of showing how reactionary people are to AI generated images. It’s still a shitty thing to do. Perhaps something so visceral that causes such bad reaction is necessary for us to find the boundaries of where AI is or isn’t okay to be used in art. I hope for this twitter person’s sake it is.

There are so many things we could take from this debacle: reactionary nature of the internet, the question of consent and collaboration vs. remix in art, whether artists and their art should always be questioned, the list goes on. I’m happy to continue that conversation.

tldr: Sure, I got "got" by the Keith Haring Unfinished Painting AI "finishing". You could classify the act as art. It stimulated conversation into the relationship between AI images and art. But I think it's still a shitty thing to do.

[kerink]

how to make friends on tumblr

wrt the last poll i reblogged, here is my actual advice for how to make friends on tumblr. i've been here since 2011 and this has always worked:

identify what you're interested in and what your hobbies are. tumblr is a community oriented space, think of it like a community center and every room is rented out for different groups. the "rooms" are the tags you're going to use. (tumblr only seems like it's mostly fandom because rather than having one "fandom" room, fandom is a wing and each specific fandom has its own room.)

search the tags for the things you're most interested in. often times this means sifting through who's a reposter and who's a genuine creator, and i'm sorry but you're just gonna have to deal with this. it sucks but it's part of the process. find real people who are engaging meaningfully in the tag and follow them. 2A. look at how people you admire tag their work, use this to start over step 2 and use it to inform you in step 3

begin posting your own content. this is where the sanitation of the word "content" really hurts us because i don't mean post your creations. content is anything: questions about the topic, reflections of your experience doing the thing, analysis or headcanons you've been toying with, reactions to the material, and yes your actual art. 3A. if you're new to tumblr or new to an interest, it may help to create a "welcome" post where you introduce yourself and express your interest and intention and tag the thing. maybe this is a text post maybe it includes a small sample of your work. i would advise making one per tag for each interest rather than mass tagging one post, this way you don't look like spam. 3B. if you have a backlog of work you're wanting to repost to tumblr, i would suggest making 1 post per piece and using tumblr's queue feature to stagger your postings. this will make it much more likely people will be online to see your posts and will also increase the chances that they'll meaningfully engage with them.

for the next few weeks to months alternate between engaging with your dashboard and the tag(s). read the posts made by the people you followed in step 2 and find ways to interact with them. like their posts, leave comments, reblog with tags, send them asks. the intention here is to 1. show that you're interested in them, 2. that you're willing to do the leg work and carry the weight of the conversation, and 3. you have something meaningful to contribute to their experience of the interest (many of my mutuals were first just blorbo from my notes). all the while keep going into the tag looking for new people. 4A. decide if the people you follow are potential friends or are just inspiration. this is totally fine and acceptable, not everyone on tumblr wants to make friends, and even if they do they may not be right for you. it's okay to simply be a fan of someone. 4B. examine why you want to be friends with someone. if you're trying to get something out of the experience (free art or ideas) the other person is going to know that. at best you'll be politely engaged with but held at arms length and at worst you'll be blocked. 4C. recognize that often creators get used for free work. creators in all fields often have people who pretend to be their friend but the relationship is purely transactional. this can cause a lot of trust issues and may impact how quickly someone warms up to you. if hearing this bothers you, return to 4B.

keep making your own content. you're in this interest because it's your interest. i know it sucks to not have people engage with you or to feel alone, but i promise your passion with shine through. if you show you have something to offer and you keep up with step 4 you'll find people who want to have a meaningful, reciprocal relationship with you.

being willing to do the work and put yourself out there is the biggest part of making friends on here. being willing to start conversations and carry the conversational load, feeling comfortable sending asks off anon, supporting creators by reblogging their work all go a long way to show people that you're genuine and interested. and making your own posts sharing your thoughts and feelings* also shows people who you are and gives them the opportunity to decide if they want to follow you back. become the person other people find in their step 2.

there's no shame in recognizing there are also relational levels too. are you a fan of someone? do you want someone to mentor you? do you want to be co-creators on a project? are you only friends with this person when talking about this one particular topic? are you friends who talk about things other than the topic? do you talk about real life and support each other when struggling? not everyone will have a deep connection with you, maybe they'll be your best friend until you change fandoms and then you never speak again. this is possible and happens and sucks but is okay and normal. not everyone will become like a sibling. just be clear with your intentions, keep communication open, and be transparent with your boundaries.

* this doesn't mean just art. i want to make it very clear that anyone can be a content creator and engage with an interest in a meaningful way. this also means you have to get rid of your own bias when you search the tag. read people's text posts, care about what they have to say and think, don't just filter search by photo. if you want to make friends, you'll have to recognize that you have to get to know them, and this means getting to know them not just their art. this also means allowing yourself to be known in ways other than just as a creator.

[northwest-cryptid]

Curious about the VRChat equality thing

Oh boy time to get into weird shit about how capitalism infects the brain through being able to benefit from it and how despite the stigma, even pirates and communists believe people deserve fair compensation for goods and labor but what is fair is an often debated topic.

So this is going to be a really long post if I'm actually being entirely honest, and as such I will give you a tl;dr up front, however I will say that if all you read is the tl;dr you're going to maybe understand about 15% of the overall situation on this and that's merely because there's no way to explain everything without giving a ton of context and information first and then going into dumb details about it all.

TL;DR essentially people took a model of a communist utopia, learned they could profit from it; and then capitalism took hold and is now destroying not only an entire application through basically micro dosing on micro-transactions, but also through creating extremely hefty barriers of entry to an already expensive hobby that once existed in a way that equalized people.

Now to actually get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm actually talking about here. If you've followed me for any amount of time you likely know the drill by now, I'm putting a "Keep Reading" here to save everyone's dashboards in case you don't already use the feature that automatically scrunches long posts since this is likely going to be pretty hefty as I'm fairly passionate about it and have a lot to say.

I ask that if you've made it this far, and actually clicked the keep reading button; that you stick with me and don't go skipping all over the place. I say this because I'm going to start off pretty boring and seemingly off topic but I promise this is all important for understanding my views on this topic; if you don't agree with me that's totally fine but I ask that you at least try to understand how I'm looking at this from my specific viewpoint.

Point 1 - We are all equal in the eyes of the Internet.

The internet, yea? It's kind of weird to talk about the internet because different people will see it as a different thing. Some of us may see it as nothing more than a collection of data that can be updated, called, and sent between a shared network all over the world. That alone is pretty cool, but others of us may see it as a visible extension of cyberspace. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, I feel as though people ask too much of cyberspace. While I won't get into it here, I have a lot of thoughts on the topic of things like "phantom sense" as VR becomes more of an accessible thing for people, I've found that specific subcultures begin to pop-up, and among them there are people who desperately want Virtual Reality to simply drop the "virtual" and become akin to meatspace.

Now if you're asking me, I personally think that much of the appeal of cyberspace comes specifically from the "cyber" part. Virtual Reality is inherently Virtual and there's nothing actually lesser or wrong about that. People gauge much of Virtual Reality AGAINST Physical Reality, which is dumb. They're both their own reality, why do we want them to be functionally identical, we could make use of so much of what Virtual Reality has to offer if we embrace that it's Virtual. Let's take a quick moment and think about that, what does it mean to be Virtual? To exist within a digital realm?

Well here's a thought experiment for you, let's say I take you and 9 other willing participants and put you all inside different rooms. In these rooms you have nothing but a computer and a desk. On that computer you can access a virtual chat room, there are no profiles, no images or avatars; you merely choose a name to represent yourself and are dropped into a chatroom with 9 other people.

How old are the other participants? Are they around your age group? Are you even aware of their age? Does it matter to you? Did it matter before I asked?

Following this line of thinking, let's look at some other features, are they all the same gender, or different genders? How tall are they? Do they come from a wealthy family? Do they have a job? Are they perhaps disabled at all, in any way? Do they make a lot of money if they do have a job?

I do ask these questions genuinely, so to make this little thought experiment easier to manage let's have you think of this; narrow the number from 10 participants to just 3, you're 1 of them so there are two other people here with you. You cannot physically see them, and everything from their usernames to their appearance is up to your personal interpretation. So I ask you to look over those questions and give them even a baseline answer, it doesn't need to be elaborate; you don't need to give it a lot of thought. You're not making a D&D character with a lengthy backstory. For anyone who said "I'm not doing that" I'll do it as well right here for you, you can ignore this if you wish to do this yourself; I do believe it's important to making my own.

The first other participant other than myself will be an older woman in her late 50s who works as a butcher, she lives a fairly average life; she has a roommate to help pay the bills as she is lower middle class. Even living in a fairly average home, renting no less; she has to save up for any purchases that aren't absolutely necessary for survival.

The other individual I am in this chatroom with is a younger nonbinary individual who claims to be 23, they don't currently have a job as they're studying and attending law school. They come from a wealthy family and while not rich; do enjoy a life as an upper middle class household. Despite their hefty schooling costs they're never short on money to pay for things they want.

Alright cool, now I know who I'm here with; and you know who you're here with, so here's the most important question to ask.

...Does any of that really matter here?

This isn't a deep philosophical conversation, it's a very simple question. Let me elaborate.

Does age define knowledge? Not really, it can help understand something better if you've spent a lot of time with a specific field of study, and yes our brains pick up knowledge better at certain age ranges, but overall it has no real merit over how well we can navigate something. If a 50 year old and a 20 year old are both passionate about learning how to model an avatar, script a code; or exist within a VR space they'll both be able to do so roughly just as well as the other. Sure we're all human and have our own quirks we work through, someone might pick up something far easier than someone else. However the capability to learn is always there.

Does money carry any weight in a digital world? Well, here in this chatroom no. It really doesn't. There's no pay to win system in a social setting like this. Having $1 to my name, or a million doesn't make a difference. I'm not able to see what computers everyone else has, perhaps someone has a really fancy, fast, nice computer; while I'm working with something a little more "run of the mill" but at the end of the day they both access the same internet data.

Things like money, age, physical ability, even social or economic standing; they have no real sway over the virtual. Not unless you account for third party outside influences.

Point 2 - But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge.

So now let's go back to a simpler time on the internet, when VR was still new and we all had to pay upwards of $200 - $300 and even sometimes $400 to strap an oversized projector to our face so we could experience what it's like to have a monitor not even inches from our face. Applications like VRChat were all the rage because most VR applications and games felt more like tech demos, people didn't know how to use the tech yet and most actual home VR headsets were development kits.

VRChat was fairly open source at the time, lending most of it's success to a community building assets, systems, and avatars for their own use within the application.

As with any good open source application a lot of the files and thus the understanding for how things worked were being shared around and people began to notice a pattern as with any form of labor.

Not everyone wanted to put in the time and effort to actually learn. In fact plenty of people who were purchasing VR headsets were fairly wealthy people, sure not everyone; some people got them as gifts or saved up money over the course of a long time; or they'd use large sum of money given during tax returns or holidays as a means to purchase a VR headset while they were on sale.

However yes, a lot of people had a lot of money sitting around and wouldn't mind throwing a couple bucks your way if you were willing to go through the trouble of making them an avatar, world; or asset.

Now, this isn't anything bad on the surface; but it poisoned the well and it began the conflict.

"So you're saying artists commissioned work is bad and it should all be free and artists should starve." Only as much as I'm saying we should piss on the poor. Which is to say, no I'm not saying that; but if you jumped on that train immediately I don't blame you for thinking I'm going there, but bear with me.

As time went on and we developed more and more for VRchat's main engine; we also developed tools like Udon; a scripting language made for VRChat specifically. The ways in which we could customize avatars, worlds, and even assets was ever changing and it seemed like it was only getting more and more complex.

So what happened? Did people provide tools, lessons; and understanding to those around them in hopes there were others who would pick up the knowledge and create brilliant things to continue the ever exponential progress?!

No. Well yes, but mostly no. See some people did in fact provide easy to follow tutorials! You can find plenty out there, at least for basic things; but many saw the chance to really make a point with this.

A point that they understood the system, and you did not.

A point that you were better off paying them for the things they know and you don't.

A point that you should never question them, and that if you fuck up it's your own fault and maybe next time you'll listen.

If you think I'm exaggerating you should consider yourself lucky to have not come face to face with the truly disgusting underbelly of asset sales.

See I don't mind selling goods and services; I am an artist myself and I believe fair compensation is important! If someone likes what you're selling and deems it a fair price that's great, that's a win win; everyone's happy.

However what if the person purchasing your wares doesn't understand their value?

Asset flipping is something we see a lot of, done entirely legally through fair use mind you. People will buy assets along with their commercial license, and then quickly and easily slap those assets onto an amalgamation of other cheap gimmicks only to sell the new model at a profit from it's component parts.

"But that's how things are sold Cryptid, what's so weird about that?"

Well, okay let's look at how sales in physical space works right?

If I buy a single banana, and that costs me $1; then to turn a profit I'll need to sell it for something like $1.25 this is literally just because once you buy my banana, I don't have any more bananas to sell.

So if I sell the banana for $1 I'm at a net neutral, I don't have the ability to generate any additional funds off the single banana I've bought. So let's say I buy 4, I sell each for 1.25 and all 4 sell, now I can buy an additional 1 and I've only made .25 cents.

Well shit, it looks like I need to hike the price by a decent margin if I'm actually going to make any sort of sustainable income from selling bananas right?

But what happens if we say, I have 1 banana that generates infinite bananas. I bought my infinite banana generator for $25 + Tax. Now I could say I want to sell my bananas for $30 because I had to pay $25 to get this one.

However, I can also make infinite bananas, and if my bananas are good quality; they should sell out; or at least sell a decent amount. So rather than pricing a single banana higher than the original price, I should logically sell my bananas a lot cheaper; let's say I sell them for a simple $1.25 same as before. Once I've sold about 20-ish bananas I'll have not only made my money back, but I'll likely have made a small bit of profit.

"But Cryptid, you could have made way more from selling even one single banana at $30! Why gamble on 20 people buying a banana instead of just selling the one!?"

Because if I sell my banana at $30, but you can buy an infinite banana generator for only $25, what's stopping you... wait... what's stopping you from-

No. Hold on you don't know how it works! You couldn't possibly use the banana generator like I can!

NO DON'T GO LOOKING AT THE SOURCE SALES, SURE I LEGALLY HAVE TO CREDIT THE BANANA GENERATOR BUT-

Listen to me it's a very difficult device to understand! You don't have the years of understanding I do! You should pay me instead! You'll only fuck it up! You'll WASTE YOUR MONEY if you buy it from the original creator!

IT'S ME BOY THE PS5!-

Ahem, sorry I got a little sidetracked there. My point with all of this is how digital sales work far differently given that I'm not actually giving up any resources when I make a sale, the product is infinite; and I could sell it over and over again. So selling it for less than it's component parts is essentially saving my buyers some money over buying each individual part and putting it together themselves. I save them time as well since I'd likely have put together all the shaders, blend trees for emotes, menus and submenus for toggles- oh no... hold on why is that still pink? OH MOTHERFUC-

Point 3 - Missing and Outdated scripts, assets, shaders, and best of all fear mongering!

See a big part of this whole sales concept for virtual good comes from the idea that if I sell you an avatar, world, or asset; I'm selling you a completed product. Something I devoted my time and expertise to that you may not have to devote to it. So then what happens when I no longer allow you to contact me for support, and half the product is missing? Well there's no refund policy on the website I use so uh, tough.

This is unfortunately very common. Outdated scripts never being updated while assets still remain up for sale with scripts in them that will absolutely DESTROY your project unless you specifically dedicate time to going through your files with not only an understanding of what each file controls, but also the surgical precision to remove the files in such a way that doesn't accidentally trigger a chain reaction.

Because believe it or not, most of the avatars, worlds, and assets for sale are not ACTUALLY quality made models.

"But Cryptid, the artist sets the price and the consumer deems it fair when they purchase the goods!"

Correct! However, at what point do we argue for false advertisement?

Not only are many of the avatars, worlds; and assets for sale priced at insane prices (we're talking upwards up $150 - $460 for some) but most of these avatars, worlds, and assets do not disclose important information about their products that consumers should be allowed to know prior to purchase. Like how in some cases a file is so big that it can take more than 2 real life days of uninterrupted loading and then still crash unity. Enjoy your $460 world map that doesn't have active support, says you're shit out of luck if you fuck up importing it at all; and doesn't actually load because don't forget, there's no refund policy.

So let's say an avatar, world, or asset DOES actually import correctly.

Once you get through all the fear mongering about how you need to import the model, and no I'm not joking; people are openly lying in their readme files to scare people into following useless instructions.

i.e according to one readme if you import the shaders after the avatar your entire project will become corrupt beyond saving and you'll need to restart from scratch. In reality shaders automatically update if a model calls for them; so importing the shader at any point would simply just update the model to use the correct shaders. In that same vein let's address "YOU NEED TO START A NEW PROJECT, DO NOT IMPORT THIS AVATAR INTO AN EXISTING PROJECT OR IT WILL FUCK UP AND I WILL NOT HELP YOU" guess what? I tested it, like any other avatar/model importing the unity package at any point in the project just, you know; imports it.

I have also heard stories of people saying there are scripts in the unity files that can corrupt your computer's core files if you don't follow their instructions SPECIFICALLY, which A. isn't true; and B. why are you selling what you basically call a potential trojan?

So anyways, once you get through all the fear mongering about how you clearly can't do anything on your own (literally one of the readmes had a link to visit the site that tells you how to log into your account. For reference/context you're not even allowed to get to this point and upload an avatar/world until you've logged into VRChat and been an active user for about a week. They talk down to you and treat you like you're stupid because they rely on you NEEDING them to tell you exactly how to navigate this "super scary" application otherwise you wouldn't pay them upwards of $80 for a model they basically took from other people and used a plugin to glue together.) You can now look over your avatar/world, since you've managed to do the unthinkable and import a unity asset pack correctly!

Not all assets are made equal, and I think it's very important to understand that while yes the artist and consumer enter into an agreement over price that they both deem fair; it's important to understand how capitalism comes in many forms.

In this case I've noticed that Gumroad recycles almost all of their assets from other people on the website, and their models are extremely sub par when you compare them with far cheaper models on Booth. While some Gumroad shops do link back to their Booth counterparts, a lot seem to want this to remain a eldritch knowledge.

So on the off chance everything just works, you're good to go; congratulations I genuinely hope you enjoy your likely overpriced avatar because ultimately that's what matters, if you're happy with what you paid for then there's no harm done.

However in more cases than I care to admit, the readme will tell you to go buy various other plugins and asset packs to make the thing you just bought work.

Now as an example of how to do this right, and it's still shitty; but at least I think it's done right. There's a fishing system for sale that directly mentions in it's website based description that you'll need two other asset packs, those both being linked. Here's the hard part to justify though, for the system itself is about $23 after conversion, the other two asset packs are respectively $50 and $10, so in total something you thought would only be $23 is about $83 if you want it to actually be functional.

Now again in that case everything is listed on the website clear as day and this is at least generally how I see things being listed which is okay with me. However I've seen more cases than I care to admit where this information is advertised as "this avatar has XYZ" and then in the readme says "you'll need to purchase XYZ from [User] to get the XYZ system working!" So now we have false advertisement AND hidden fees?!

When avatars can cost more than $250 and not be a unique model of your own OC or something commissioned and still be missing additional features, sometimes shaders; which require a monthly patreon subscription to access. Only to then see that the avatar/world/asset comes with a ton of stipulations and regulations of use? It's all very hard to figure out what "fair" is anymore.

It may just be my opinion, but when someone sells me something I expect it to be a complete thing that I then own, not something I'm not "legally allowed to edit" or that isn't entirely completed and that I'd need to go purchase additional things for.

Important reminder here, all of this is for a VR application where you just kinda vibe and hang out in a virtual space. People are happy to pay expensive prices for good quality, but few people are willing to deliver good quality; fewer without a ton of rules and restrictions.

Literally not but a week ago my partner was looking at an avatar that specifically said VIEWING the blend shapes was "breaking terms of service" so that's cool. For the record blend shapes are literally just adjustable values most people use for editing an avatar without needing to mess with the mesh. It allows you to hide parts of the avatar so that clothing will fit over the mesh without clipping, or lets you easily adjust face shape to better manage your expressions or facial features.

Can we also quickly touch on the fact that I was helping a friend edit something on their avatar, and found out that the person they bought it from had positioned an entire 3D watermark of their username inside the head of the model which;

they bought the base from someone else. they bought the clothing from someone else. they bought the gimmicks and additional features from someone else. All they did was actually slap it all together.

"Yea but that takes effort" no it really doesn't see that's the thing about Avatar creation, the more you know the less any of this makes sense!

There's a plugin called Modular Avatar, it basically does all the work for you, all you have to do is select the clothing, hair, whatever you want to add to your model; right click it and select modular avatar's "setup outfit" button. It then manages all the bones for you!

This person put more effort into branding the model than they put into putting the avatar together!

I know this because while working on adding one thing to the model, one of it's core outdated scripts fucked up and caused a bunch of issues that we managed to work around by literally never allowing the avatar to enter play mode. Which makes it significantly harder to work with, so we're using two variations of the same project open at the same time, one of which is entirely fucked; but lets us nab values from the avatar while it's in play mode; the other can never enter play mode and must continue to contain a broken and outdated script; because removing it causes the blendshapes to entirely fuck up.

This would be like if I went to google images, found a bunch of pictures of anime characters; slapped one of their heads on another ones body, took another one's hair and slapped it over top, poorly merged all the layers together and then aggressively plastered my signature on it while also totally admitting where I got all the art.

Now I do admit there's a little bit of weird grey area here, see no one is commissioning these avatars; they're just up for sale. So someone who buys it is saying they feel like purchase of this avatar as it is, is entirely fair for the price. Whether or not that's true is besides the point because you could argue that the buyer wasn't forced to pay for something if they didn't want it.

But like, let's do a quick simulation...

Hi welcome to my Gumroad shop, $30 please.

What do you mean you do not want... uh... Shipiku my totally original avatar I made (with assets from other creators) for like $30?! HE HAS GIMMICKS.

...Okay yea looking at that image is physically painful to me, I have created something truly horrific. We should move on, to my favorite part of all of this which is-

Point 4 - The Eroticism Elitist-ism of the Machine!

With the Oculus Quest being a more budget friendly VR Headset for people to pick up more and more people got into VR and thus VRChat by extension. So how did VRChat respond? By making the Unplugged Quest basically the standard for "good quality" which means that a ton of worlds and avatars just won't be accessible to the VR equivalent of taping a chromebook to your face; and yet that will be the new norm. This created a pretty sizable divide in how things function. Now you have a camp of people who refuse to even permit entry to their private worlds unless your avatar is rated "good" because of "performance issues" but why would they care about cramming so many people into their world?

Oh... it's because they are monetizing access. Yea, of course they want everyone to have access to their world, the only way to get in is to know someone who's already in, or sleuth around until you find their discord; then you need to boost their discord and more often than not pay either micro-transactions inside VRChat (because that's a thing now) or pay directly through patreon/donations to the world creator.

On the other hand you have some creators who outright refuse to let quest users access their world. Even though technically the world is optimized enough that a quest user COULD access the world, there are scripts that have been implemented into various worlds that are outright hostile towards quest users, where if it detects you're using a oculus quest headset that isn't plugged into a computer; you'll essentially not be able to interact with the world. There are many ways this is accomplished, in some cases it's literally just having hostile entities that cause you to constantly respawn, other times it's more directly just moving your spawn point to a box way off the map so you're effectively locked behind a prison you can't respawn out of.

As you can imagine there's a good bit of elitism on both sides. Which yes, is just another way people are gatekeeping VR behind a paywall. Not only do you need an expensive headset, but you better buy "the right one" not to mention you'll likely want to/need to pick up full body tracking, and pay a considerable entry fee or upkeep fee to a good handful of private worlds.

"but Cryptid, people are allowed to charge for access to things they create, that's just business!" Yea I'm not saying it's not allowed, I'm saying it's shitty.

I don't insert these blurbs as though I feel like you, the reader; are ALWAYS aggressively saying these things while reading my post. I put these here because they're things I've been told before, and they're things I want to address. So please understand that these aren't hypothetical cases of arguments in my head; nor are they meant to project any personality onto you.

That in mind, let's address this; I'm not saying people aren't allowed to seek capital investment in their hobbies. Obviously as a streamer I would love if people donated to me. However this is more akin to locking my streams behind a paywall, again; totally legal and totally allowed but still kind of a dick move. Why do I have so much problem with it? Well let me explain it this way

I work at an escape room, my CEO once asked my manager what the difference between a group of 7 and a group of 2 was. My manager confidently responded "we make more money from a group of 7" to which the CEO corrected him "no, there is no difference. We do not use any more or less resources, we don't take more time to reset the room; there is no difference." We have also been asked if a group of 2, and a group of 7 come in at the same time; who do we prioritize? The answer? Whoever booked first.

What's the core concept here? Well it's a simple ideology, if we don't use any resources hosting a group, there is no difference between groups; if someone took the time to book with us earlier, we see to them earlier. It's basic logic that we take into account the care that someone has put into being here, and also what we lose in providing them the service of our escape room.

So let's apply this to a private VRChat world.

Remember, VRChat hosts these servers, so I'm not paying any upkeep costs for having an active world. Considering how scripts and programming work I have little need to pay someone to monitor or moderate my world; especially considering I do not take responsibility for the acts of those who visit my world.

Then what is the difference between a private and a public instance of my world?

Well, I'll tell you because there actually IS a difference here.

See private worlds have two very special properties.

Public display, whether streamed to an audience or done in a public world; of any NSFW imagery or behavior will result in a ban. The important take away here is if this is done in PUBLIC. Private worlds and instances are exempt from this. VRChat doesn't care what you do in private as long as it's not being streamed publicly.

Likewise, Private worlds require access to be granted via someone already in the world, and the only people who can access the private world are it's creators. Meaning that if someone wants into my world they HAVE to go through me. If I make it public, then anyone is allowed to access the world, and even host their own private instances of my world. There's one more thing about this that people don't like but we'll get into that a bit later because that's going to be a pretty lengthy discussion.

So what IS the difference? Is it just that you can partake in NSFW shit in a private world? Well, kind of; but it's more that second point that's important.

People understand that VRChat as a whole is a very, let's just say passionate place when it comes to ERP. I have no judgement on the topic, but I think the exploitation of it is a bit unnecessary. By which I mean the hosting of private worlds designed specifically to be clubs, sex parties, or otherwise exclusive NSFW events that people must pay to access. Now obviously any NSFW world is going to be private, but not all require the use of financial compensation to access.

If you're wondering how I know all this:

A. I frequent NSFW communities, my side gig is literally adult animation. Who cares. B. I have a lot of friends who participate in that sort of thing, I personally live with my partner and while I do understand the appeal of that sort of thing, it doesn't really interest me.

Regardless, it's not exclusive to NSFW worlds, more so that those are the ones I've seen asking extreme prices.

More often than not it's done through patreon, you are given a special role in a discord or you're given access to secret worlds if you pay enough monthly, with some worlds stating that for $100+ a month you can have your picture in the world. Yes, a picture; of your avatar; in an exclusive paywalled world... for $100.

Again I know this goes back to "if the consumer and the seller deem it fair blah blah blah" but if you're still arguing that, you're missing the grander point here.

If that's the case allow me a moment to try to make sense of a summary:

the internet is a place where we leave behind any inequality; a place where you and I, no matter our background, financial situations; or social standing, are equals. We bear no difference in status; only in interests. That is, unless I have access to parts of the internet you do not.

So you pay $499.99 for a headset, congratulations; you had to get a cheaper model because it's what you could afford. Now you're the target of much harassment and general dislike as you bought "the wrong headset" without consideration for how you'd be treated for it. You can't access much of the virtual net, so you decide to spend even more money to buy a few accessories; a cable that will link you directly to your computer for example (or better wifi if you use the wifi link, which yes; good internet also costs money and isn't available to everyone depending on their location. Again it's inequality.)

Now you blend in, you appear to be a PC user like anyone else, congratulations you now have access to almost just about everything, except you don't. You try to join me in a world only to see I'm in a "private instance" and my social obligations say I'm not allowed to answer your invitation request because you didn't pay to be here. I send you a discord link, it's to some random group you've never heard of, you need to join this if you want access to this one world. You can live without it, so you don't click it.

The next day you see I'm again, in a private world. You go to a few public worlds and find they're mostly populated by younger children, random people who don't want to talk to you; and most only have 1 - 2 people, with most instances of even the popular worlds being set to private. So what do you do? You ask to join me, and I again; send you a different link this time. A patreon link, that states you can gain access to the world I'm in for $10 a month, payment up front; and then you'll need to get approved through a discord.

Oh but you can't show up like this, your avatar quality is "poor" you'll need to optimize that. Looking it up online most people say to buy something off Gumroad or Booth, so you look; most avatars are extremely sexualized; the ones you can find aren't "good" quality nor are they optimized and some are outdated by a few years.

Eventually you find one that's not horrible; it's an extra $25. At this point you're paying the following, grabbing these numbers directly from the internet mind you:

$499.99 for a headset. $79.99 for a link cable (it doesn't even charge the headset) $24.99 for an avatar that is allowed on the world. $10 a month for access to the world. Oh but wait, you're not assured a slot in the private world; it can only support up to 30 people per instance and if you want to reserve a spot you need to boost the discord server, so let's tack on nitro as well, and extra $9.99 per month.

Even if you only do these as a one time payment to access this world once. Here's what you're out, in total: $624.96 before even factoring in taxes.

All of this, so you can experience a few hours of hanging out with a friend. Well, was it worth it? Let's see;

In America, the average hourly wage (not minimum, average) across all 50 states is $29.81 as of December 2020. You can look that up if you'd like I found this number via Indeed so grain of salt and all that.

But let's go ahead and say it's $30 an hour. Now for the record, most people I know work for far less, but we're not concerning ourselves with minimum wage just yet, but we will.

So if you're making $30 an hour, and you need to reach a total of (again rounding to be fair here) $625 and we're not accounting for tax eating half your pay, we're looking at:

((30 an hour * 8 hours per day) * 5 days a week)

or 240*5 = $1200 a week.

Well hey that's not so bad! You make enough in a WEEK to almost buy this all twice o-oh no. I didn't think about cost of living...

Well no this is fine let's just check the average rent!

A quick internet search will tell us "The average rent for an apartment in the U.S. is $1,718."

Well... okay, that sucks. How much is gas right now? Right okay well Forbes says "today's average price of gas in the U.S. is $3.47 per gallon" and I need about 30 gallons per tank, and I need to get gas about twice a month, I live about 15 minutes from my work and I drive a fairly fuel efficient car but that's still roughly $208 I'm spending on gas each month.

What about groceries? Again a quick search says "on average, Americans spent $779 per month on food in 2022" which means we're looking at, without even factoring in utilities, taxes, or ANY leisure activities a grand total of roughly $2,705 per month?!

This mind you, is the AVERAGE. We're low balling some of those prices and not even caring about taxes, fees, and utilities.

But hey it's okay we're making 1,200 per week! So we take that number and multiply it by 4! That means before taxes we're left with 4,800!

Hey speaking of, how does that work? Let's do another average!

Well it turns out because of how taxes work averages are hard, but I'm seeing that about 13.3% is a safe bet, so let's go with that.

13.3% of 4800 = 0.133 × 4800 = 638.4

okay, that's not TOO bad right? That leaves us with 4161.6 and then we can pay the monthly costs which leaves us with $1,456.6

Alright so now we can afford rent, gas, groceries, taxes, the works! Plus we have enough left over to pay for our fancy headset, an avatar, and access to a world, plus nitro and... jesus that's a lot isn't it?

What are we left with after all of this? $831.64

I sure hope you don't have any student loans, no credit card payments; no other obligations.

You're left with less money for the month than you made in a day of work.

"Okay sure, but the bulk of that comes from the headset!" Correct again!

One of the cheaper headsets available at that!

But did you notice that the average person would only be able to scrape by if they went out of their way to purchase something and jump through all these hoops? All for what? Paying an extra roughly $45 (20 of which renews every month) for basic access to the thing they bought the $500 headset for? That's considering the avatar you bought was actually only $25, actually still functional; and has everything included with it.

I won't make us run all the numbers again, but I want you to consider that minimum wage in America is $7.25 or just $290 before tax PER WEEK.

Let's contextualize that...

an avatar that costs $25? That's 3.44 hours. $10 access to patreon? 1.37 Tack on another 1.37 for nitro boosting.

Total cost for that $45? 6.18 hours of work before tax.

Now if you're lucky enough to have a full time job, that's not TOO bad; but this is also just for one singular world. For one singular avatar.

Remember, the cost of living stays the same; the price of gas doesn't change just because you don't get paid as much as the guy at the pump over from yours.

Working at minimum wage you'll make $1,160 a month again; before taxes. That's not even enough to cover the average cost of rent.

So if you don't make enough money to splurge on patreon and discord access, I guess you're just going to have to stick to public lobbies.

Again, it's possible; and it's legal, and that's all fine and whatever.

It's not about whether you CAN; it's about whether you should HAVE TO.

Not only is it true that not everyone can, but I genuinely don't believe anyone should have to.

It's not that I don't believe people should be paid for their hard work, or that some work doesn't "deserve compensation" rather I believe equality extends to things like paywalls.

There have been studies that prove that piracy drops the second people can afford a product. Using a piracy as a "try before you buy" format is one of the most popular; and we see this being so prevalent because for so many people, money is just so tight they can't afford the luxury of leisure activities.

Technically speaking you can access VRChat without the need for a VR Headset, however most worlds are designed around the headset and hand controls. Furthermore, arbitrary rules being held by people with private worlds allow creators to literally make the demand that you use a VR Headset and in some cases you'll not be allowed in the main instance of a private event unless you have full body tracking; which can cost upwards from $300+

Which yes, does in fact mean that gatekeeping doesn't just stop at the paywall, it extends to the disabled.

Imagine if you will, being turned away from a private event that you paid money to go to; just because of the fact you happen to be in a wheelchair and not have the ability to use leg tracking. You love to see ableism slipping into "quality control" don't ya?

Okay so what all do we know now? Let's quickly recap before I get to my last point because boy is this one gonna be a doozy and I want to make sure we're all on the same page before I break that ice and dive into that iceberg never to be heard from again.

For starters we understand that, as far as the internet is concerned; we're all equals. Money, social standing; even your background don't really mean anything here. You're an identity you put forward, allowed to be whoever and whatever you want. Chatrooms, forums, blogs, video games; these things DO but shouldn't; gatekeep their communities by putting up paywalls quite often. This is generally frowned upon more often than it's not, even when it's understood.

We know even when a company states they need to charge membership for the sake of keeping a game running or keeping a website up; we still frown upon the idea of a company gatekeeping content or usability behind a paywall. Yet in spaces like VRChat this gatekeeping is often disguised behind the idea of fair market trading and "supporting indie developers" which in some cases, is actually what's going on, and in others is sleazy cover from the likes of people like me who will point out when putting up a paywall and making demands of your users is, while totally legal and technically allowed; STILL just as shitty.

Which brings us to our next point, which is that even among that market; we have extremely overpriced and broken avatars, worlds, and assets; many of which don't come as a complete package requiring you to obtain other goods and services from other creators to get them working; most of what you can find is a jumbled mess of other people's stuff, haphazardly thrown together and thrown at you for a quick buck, a typically overpriced quick buck at that. With extremely predatory fear mongering designed to keep you from exploring unity and the VRChat Creator Companion to possibly find out how to do things yourself, because remember that this is all absolutely just wizard magic and if you fuck it up your computer will catch on fire and open a portal to hell and then slenderman will come out and Jeff the kill you! Or... you might need to restart unity or something, yea that's more likely... Oh and speaking of actually using VRChat!

Most of the actual populated worlds are hidden behind discords, patreons; or other paywalls. With most public worlds including additional features only available via patreon or by purchasing a subscription through in app micro-transactions. With costs for something as simple as having your picture presented in a world costing as much as $100 per month in same cases. If you attempt to go the route of using the non-VR app you'll likely face elitist gatekeeping where map creators do not want "ugly default posing avatars" in their private worlds they charge people to get into, so you'll still not be let in unless you buy a proper headset, and no; they don't mean the cheap ones, unless you're willing to purchase an additional attachment to make it function just like the $1,000 alternatives. Even then you may STILL be kept from the "main" instance if you don't have additional $300+ full body tracking in some cases.

So then, what do you do?

If you want to enjoy the absolute brilliance of VR in the modern era, if you want to see what it's like and experience it before capitalism chokes even more life out of it where are you to turn?

Point 5 - AHOY! WE BE COMMUNIST PIE RATERS ON THIS HERE INTERNET, TAKE YOUR CAPITALISTIC ASS BACK TO YOUR 9-5!

I have never seen such hatred and fear for anything like I have for piracy in the VRChat community.

Now this might largely stem from the idea of "rippers" people who literally rip assets live, this is why a lot of people won't put their worlds up for the public. Because they fear someone will come along and just reupload their world; and I think that's really silly because if you pay attention, it happens and it doesn't change anything because the people who are actually going to publicly available worlds continue to access the same publicly available worlds they've been going to, rather than reuploads. Most people use favorites lists or find a world through a creator, so reuploading the world will only really fool maybe a small handful of new first time users into maybe actually spending some money on a micro-transaction for a reuploaded world. Which can easily be remedied by getting rid of micro-transactions and instead maybe relying on a direct donation system if anything.

People are very up in arms about people ripping avatars and assets; and the reasons for this branch from "that's stealing" to "it's a violation of someone's personal identity!" Which sure, I can understand that somewhat.

So here's the other thing to consider, the majority of models; including "unique models" are actually just pretty simple edits or whatever of existing models.

You may not believe me, so here's a quick example:

Popular Vtuber and Twitch personality Filian!

Great model, absolutely stellar work on this one; and I am not joking, I'm not being sarcastic. Yea, I love Jingo's work... what? You thought Filian made that herself? Oh no wait you likely thought it was commissioned right? Like she had this made specific for her?

Nah she's using a Rindo base!

AND THAT'S NOT A BAD THING!

JINGO is a great avatar maker, and Filian has done some minor edits to the $46 avatar:

Oh huh? Yea no you heard me correctly, Rindo is only $46 USD.

She comes with a few toggles for outfits, she has plenty of blendshapes (and JINGO won't yell at you for adjusting them), she even comes with her own custom emojis and voice clips! Really easy to edit features and tons of clothing that is very affordable you can easily set up using modular avatar.

If you're not a fan of her base, you could use a Moe, or maybe a Selestia base fits you better, or a Kikyo; oh you want a male avatar? Try Minase he's pretty good as a base, he's the male counterpart of the female base; Shinra! All of these base models come complete with everything you need baked right in, or if they do need a shader; it's entirely free for download and the link is provided; the prices for these? Roughly range around $50 entirely affordable, easily editable; you can make your own entirely unique avatar right now using any of these as a base.

"Cryptid I thought you were talking about Rippers! Where's the PIRACY!"

Oh well, do you remember what I said before? When you make something affordable people will still buy it. There's a ton of places where these models are available for download whether or not you wish to buy them from their proper respective shops. However most people I've spoken to admit they go back and purchase the base after making their model with it because "it's affordable, a fair price for what you're getting; and the bases are very good quality!" Couldn't agree more.

But I also say this because if we humor the idea that someone rips Filian's avatar, what do they really get? They get a free Rindo with minor changes. They didn't hurt Filian, they hurt JINGO if anything; and even then "piracy is a victimless crime" applies here as well.

I will say I don't really endorse the idea of ripping things live, but the idea that live ripping is any different than piracy is also a little silly if I'm being honest.

When you build a 10 foot paywall to entry, people are going to build an 11 foot ripping tool to get over it. That IS the internet, and I wouldn't care if there wasn't such a big stink about rippers and piracy in general when it came to VRChat.

There's this idea that if you pirate something you're stealing from a small indie creator uwu and that's bad because now they can afford to eat because you were greedy! Or this concept that by pirating something and using it on your avatar, in a world; even if they'll never know, even if you're only using the models privately, you have in some way violated their privacy and commit identity theft.

As someone who has actually been the victim of identity theft multiple times, let me tell you right now, unless someone uses my avatar to specifically open another 5 Verizon accounts in my name I don't really care.

This is the only time in my life I've seen the internet HATE piracy so fervently and it made me wonder why; until I recognized that the loudest people were in the readmes of those gumroad avatars, the loudest voices weren't the creators of popular bases or models like Rindo, Kikyo, or Selestia; they were people on gumroad who fear monger and spread this message that "if you didn't pay for this avatar I will block you from my discord, ban you from ever accessing my world, and you'll never be able to buy from me again!" Like okay man I'll just go directly to the source you buy everything from get over yourself, guess I won't give you money for another overpriced avatar with awful optimization then.

When I listen to the way people talk about piracy in VRChat it's never seen as a victimless crime, it's never seen as being a normal thing the internet does, it's seen as a vile, evil; horrible soulless act of devilish greed! But they all share a common word that being "my" or "your" when people talk about it they say "yea rippers will reupload YOUR world without any care" or "yea someone took MY asset and reuploaded it on a file sharing site"

It's personal.

"Okay what about you Cryptid wouldn't you be mad if-" No.

Let me make this abundantly clear, if I ever made something for VRChat, an avatar, a world, whatever. I don't care what it is; if I made something and I put it out there on a site for like $5 and then I saw it on a website with someone saying "hey does anyone have this? I want it buy I can't afford it/don't want to pay for it." I am NOT fucking with you, I would simply answer the post myself and say "yea here ya go, if you need any help getting it set up let me know; I made it. If you ever feel like tossing me a donation or tip I'd appreciate it but don't worry if you can't afford it."

BECAUSE THAT'S COMMUNISM BAY-BEE.

I have, in the past; and even now, benefit from piracy. I'm pretty sure most people have. The only way I will ever listen to someone tell me piracy is wrong and bad and evil, is if they have literally NEVER benefit from any form of piracy, communism, or sharing of files and information; and even then I will simply understand that their opinion comes from a place of privilege.

I don't at all find it surprising that most of the people complaining about rippers and pirates come from:

Countries with good economies where they can actually afford shit (such as Norway)

Sites where they're allowed to sell the models at an extreme premium and offer no refund policy.

And that my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg of shit that goes on in Virtual Reality spaces regarding paywalling; gatekeeping, and general capitalistic bullshit.

Remember, piracy is all well and good when it benefits me, but if you want to take what I'm selling for significantly too much money, you're a soulless vile creature and I will make sure everyone knows it!

^ That's sarcasm if anyone out there has the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension.

I'm going to go eat a burger and touch grass.

[chemicalbrew]

tagged

by @radellama thanks bestie!!!

1. why did you choose your url?

multiple reasons:

I chose chemicalbrew as my go-to handle everywhere important, because the handle I picked for this purpose as a teen is cringe

I like having canon URLs; especially if they are kind of hard-to-get and\or subtle references, which this one is perfect for, IMO. The last time I felt good about a handle in this sense was when I went by theplanetbuster

I like katzero :) a normal amount :) and I always will I think :)

Chemical Brew is just a good track and I love being reminded of its existence every time I log on anywhere.

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them.

I'm too lazy to upkeep them, so I compensate with my tagging system... Well, there is actually one where I wanted to put my writing if I ever did any, but in the end all writing I do is roleplay stuff on discord that's not meant to be shared widely HELP. And what I do end up getting out once in a blue moon, I just put on AO3...

I used to hoard a whole lot of URLs, but I got scared of getting terminated for a second time, so aside from the almost empty writing blog I mentioned earlier, I just hoard five that I'd hate to see anyone else have (some of these I used to go by, too)

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

Almost ten years; I haven't remade once, so you can see this just by going to the archive (don't do that, actually)

4. do you have a queue tag?

I do, and it's a Transistor reference :) I can count on my hands the amount of times I've queued stuff, though.

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

Found this place while looking for Zelda fanart; thought it would be easier to use the dashboard instead of checking individual pages. At least I think that was the biggest reason. IDR

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

Zero I like him :) At this point it feels wrong if I don't have him as my pfp on here and\or discord so... here he is!!! (since I'm still Four on discord) Not to mention that I kinda need him here to match the rest of my stuff.

I put the NB flag border for Pride month this year for fun and I'm too lazy to put the old version back (also, once again, I like weird subtle shit like that.).

7. why did you choose your header?

I always choose my headers with purpose, though it's not quite the case here: this is a holdover from when I was cherrymegablaster, and it's meant to directly complement that URL in a way that's obvious if you played the game. LOL

I kept it because it's funny to call a drink a chemical brew (and because there's not enough DLC footage for me to make a nice gif with. There's a few stills I really like, but I prefer my headers animated!) ...and because I'm just really happy with the gif.

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

I can't be assed to use the site that scans for this stuff and I'm not proud of my ancient random shit that blew up a bit anyway. So... I'll just tell you this gifset I made on a whim is the one with the most notes.

I REALLY hope the rainbow katzero set outpaces it one day because it's also continuously showing up in my activity and it's easily the one I put the most work into. I need to get off my ass and make more gifs!!!

9. how many mutuals do you have?

...does anyone keep count of that? just the right amount to keep me happy :3

10-11. how many followers do you have? how many people do you follow?

343 \ 1414. why are these such nice numbers

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

Yes, but I don't post them, I just send them to my friends on discord. I'd say hatewar but it's on fire alone counts as a collaborative shitpost of the highest tier, but barely anyone knows what I mean and I love it.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

Ehhh, it depends... I know I check my activity mostly every morning just in case, and I check the dod3 and katzero tags once or twice a week, but it's not a strict schedule thing, I forget sometimes :] The tags are slow anyway, and I have sooo many active katzero posters blocked that it's even slower for me :p

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

I don't think so..? Definitely not in public, I've had arguments with friends I made here, but it's a different thing. I think everyone on my dash is largely chill and has moved on past the disk horse or whatever the fuck

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts

DO PEOPLE STILL MAKE THESE...

16. do you like tag games?

That and 'reblog and put your opinion on X \ what you did today' is always really fun, I <3 being annoying about minor details in my boring life (also I'm literally doing one rn, aren't I)

17. do you like ask games?

Yes, but I never get any asks, so I don't reblog them too often. :]

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

@/ositia, they're a very good artist and I miss seeing them around

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

I have only had two crushes in my life, and one of them was on a former mutual I've drifted apart from. I know he won't be reading this cause he blocked me, but I still think about him and I hope he's moved to a nice enough place, at least :")

20. tags

uuugh just do this if you want to

[animusbell]

people who argue against tone tags by saying you can always just explain your intent by writing more words are

missing the point of using tone tags, let alone the contexts they were created to be used in

sound exactly like not-online adults a decade ago getting mad they dont know what "lol" means

if it's not for you that's fine. for the most part it flourishes in communities where most of the people there want to use those tags, and outside of containment i almost never see tags beyond like, 3 or 4 ones that are common enough to be easy to memorize. but i am getting really tired of every other post on my dashboard discoursing or making fun as though literally anyone is using, like, deep dive obscure impossible to understand tags in their multi-paragraph tumblr posts all over their dash

[brotheralyosha]

Ryan wrote about Goncharov, Tumblr’s fever-dream Scorsese movie, in Monday’s newsletter, but since then there’s been an absolute explosion in press coverage — it went from Polygon all the way to the Guardian and the goddamn paper of record. 

But why? Why has this meme in particular captured the attention of an audience outside the bounds of the dashboard? I mean, Tumblr churns out platform-wide participatory memes all year round which barely get a look in edgewise from the gen pop. 2022 alone has seen the vocabulary takeover of “blorbo from my shows” and the iconic Live Slug Reaction, to say nothing of the GOUGAR. 

Unquestionably, it has more than a little bit to do with the “all eyes on Tumblr” energy of the past few weeks due to the ongoing Twitter meltdown; simply put, more journalists are paying attention to the site than before. But also, Goncharov is pretty damn impressive on its own. It’s as if knowing they were being observed, Tumblr decided to put on their best show, one that demonstrated at full force its best features as a platform. I mean, that’s not really what happened, but it’s a fantastic coincidence even so. 

Despite, or perhaps in spite of, observations that the Goncharov created by the hive mind really shows all the marks of its communal creators never having actually watched a real Scorsese movie, it is a perfect canon. The kernelsprite of the original silly shoe label was prototyped by the successive additions of the “this idiot hasn’t seen goncharov” post and then finally the poster by @beelzeebub, which provided the necessary names and faces as fuel for what followed: including over half a thousand fics on Archive Of Our Own. 

Goncharov is, and don’t cringe at this, really pure. Like a classic fairytale, it shows off the power of communal enthusiasm to make something genuinely moving out of almost nothing — in this case, a silly shoe. Scorsese works beautifully as its symbolic centerpiece: his crusade against superhero movies makes him the perfect figurehead for such an anti-commercial communal phenomenon. While Marvel fandom of course still has a strong presence on Tumblr, the site’s heyday as a center of franchise consumption is perhaps in the rearview mirror. This year, the platform obsessed over the Dracula Daily Substack and, when it was over, prepared to read Moby Dick in the form of Whale Weekly— as a hotbed of contrarian classicists it has never been healthier. 

Tumblr is a platform that has an incredibly strong identity and thrives on the continual re-evaluation and analysis of that identity, so of course Goncharovposting was followed by a spate of meta-Goncharovposting that analyzed the reasons and mechanics behind the meme behind the movie. A salient observation was posted by mrv3000, who argued that the phenomenon could be seen as a response to larger pop-cultural trends: “By media companies making The Story more and more exclusive and inaccessible to more and more people, fandom will turn to things in the public domain or even make up their own Story in order to have fun where anyone can join in.” 

If there were to be a center of a growing movement away from the pablum of binge-watching and towards something far more strange, of course it would be Tumblr, a true Library of Babel of our time. It’s Borgesian, it’s Nabokovian, it’s Calvinian. but most importantly it’s Goncharovian.