#share multiple urls

[kyra45]

Scammer pretending to be Palestinian v4

This list has been remade.

The purpose of this post is to compile a quick list of accounts confirmed to be stealing their information off of legitimate fundraisers or otherwise are shown to be taking their posts off Facebook and using it themselves. This list is intended to be a quick access point so if searched someone will see info explaining why the blog they shared from is a scam. Before asking if a blog is a scam, please refer to this post for better details regarding these particular scams:

Please keep in mind this post isn’t to say all Palestinian blogs needing aid are scammers; Rather, the purpose of this post is just to keep track of the accounts that scammers are using. As it goes on for months on end, this post may update accordingly with new urls so please make sure you’re checking the original post if viewing a reblog. You can see a few sources here for commonly used content stolen by scammers. You can find the third version of this list here. For a list of other fundraisers to support, refer to this post.

Please refer to the new list.

—

Names below are associated with these scammers, and may appear across multiple accounts. This is an entirely new list as the other one may have names that no longer are used. These names often are from real people being impersonated. They are not linked,related to, or associated to the person they may claim to be.

Rawan Abu'M (this name is impersonating a real person from a legitimate GoFundMe.) | maryline Otieno | Nicholas Ochieng | Jeff Owino | Grahy Marwa | Taheera Abdallah | Gloria Naomi | Amisi Twaleh | Salima Abdallah | Aisha Mahmood | Remmy Cheptau | Newton ombogo | Godwin Okoth | AHMED SHIMBIR | Wafula Valentine | Rahwan AbdiMahady (same reason as the above; Impersonating a name from a legitimate GoFundMe.) | Nada'r Ab hussein | DIANA MUTENYO | Hakim Malfadho | Leila Rajab | Elizabeth Omasete | George Ochieng | Cecil Wangila | Leila Rajab | Emmily Kimesis | hezron onyango | christine wambura | princereinhard baraka | Iyvon Wabuyele | Wafula Valentine | Raobh Tingo | Sophia Magubo | Sharon Opiyo | Nada,r Ab'r Hus'sein | Jared Orwa | Zalka Yusuf | Khriytine wambura | Ann Stephen | Niva Wangila | Dorine nanjala | Taheera Mohammed | Dorine nanjala | Jastus Kimanzi | Paul Sila | MERRINE ATIENO |

Laura mae Noro (Name associated with a scam account) | Maureen jane Aloot (Name associated with a scam account)/ Omar Mensom - OMensom (Name associated with a scam account)

—

To report scam accounts: Report -> Something Else -> Unlawful use or Content -> Phishing (If possible)

What else to do: Alert anyone sharing the scam posts and show them it’s a scam by linking to any post that explains how.

Additionally, blogs with GoFundMe links are highly likely to be legitimate accounts who may already be verified if you check the notes of their posts. A blog with a linktree link claiming to be a GoFundMe link is not a legitimate account. Also search the username if a day old blog says their vetted/verified and don’t have a GoFundMe link.

[heywriters]

Rescued Writing Links!

When cleaning out the HEY, Writers! Pinterest I moved some links here. The internet has changed a LOT since I started collecting these, so some links may include outdated info. All were still active when I made this, but it's been in my drafts for a hot minute.

Protip! In Firefox, check to toggle reader view when reading these (mobile: the page icon in the url bar; desktop: same icon or hit F9). This removes popups, ads, screen clutter, and often has an audio option.

Survivors of Internet Decay Award!

These active sites featured most often in my collections so they get the top of the list.

Helping Writers Become Authors

Mythcreants

Bryn Donovan

Getting Started (Ideas & Intros)

How to Start Writing a Book: Learn One Writer’s Process | Marian Schembari

How to Start a Story: 30 Opening Scene Examples | Bryn Donovan

Don’t Panic! What to Do When You Have Too Many Story Ideas | Faye Kirwin

How to Write a Killer First Chapter | Rae Elliot

How To Write A Captivating Opening Sentence

Outlining

How to Create a Flexible Outline for Your Novel | Faye Kirwin

Protagonists

How to Write Believable Characters | Bridget McNulty

4 Ways to Write a Likable Protag at the Start of the Character Arc | KM Weiland

5 Tips for Writing a Likable "Righteous" Character | KM Weiland

I Hate Your Protagonist! Want to Know Why? | KM Weiland

The Secret to Writing Dynamic Characters: It's Always Their Fault | KM Weiland

A Protagonist’s Moment of Realisation

Antagonists

Blurring the Lines: What Are Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains?

Antagonists: Inner & Outer Demons | Kristen Lamb

How to Write Multiple Antagonists | KM Weiland

Character Building

The Epic Guide to Character Creation, Part 1 | Kylie Day

Pick Up A Bad Habit | Maggie Maxwell

How To Write Characters from the Opposite Gender | Rachel Poli

Top 4 Tips for Using Backstory in Your Novel | Diana Anderson-Tyler

Depicting Background Characters | Chris Winkle

Scene Building

The 5 Elements Of A Good Scene | Amanda Patterson

A New Way to Think About Scene Structure | KM Weiland

2 Ways to Make the Most of Your Story’s Climactic Setting | KM Weiland

8 Things Writers Forget When Writing Fight Scenes | Lisa Voisin

Descriptions

Master List of Facial Expressions | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Words to Describe Voices | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Physical Description for Writers | Bryn Donovan

Writer’s Guide to Serious Injuries and Calamities | Bryn Donovan

How to Ground Your Reader (in the setting) | Rachel Craft

The Forgotten Fifth Sense | Writer's Relief

Never Name an Emotion in Your Story | KM Weiland

Show, Don't Tell: How to Write the Stages of Grief | Ruthanne Reid

100 Words for Facial Expressions

Dialogue

How To Write Good Dialogue: Ten Tips | Irving Weinman

Seven Dialogue Don’ts | Jason Bougger

10 Keys to Writing Dialogue in Fiction | Katherine Cowley

Points-Of-View (POV)

What Every Writer Ought to Know About the Omniscient POV | KM Weiland

Motivation & Support

What New Writers Need To Know About Fear | Bryan Collins

How to Discover Your Writing Process with Gabriela Pereira | Kirsten Oliphant

Editing & Revising

18 Overused Words to Replace When Writing | Oxford Tutoring

An Easy Way to Immediately Improve Your Character’s Action Beats | KM Weiland

Want More Depth to Your Writing? | Sacha Black

How Much is Too Much Backstory? | Ellen Brock

Why Your Writing Sounds Weird (And What You Can Do About It) | Joe Brock

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers | Jenny Bravo

Favorite Revision and Editing Tricks

Short Stories & Flashfic

How to Write a Story a Week: A Day-by-Day Guide | Emily Wenstrom

How Flash Fiction / Microfiction Can Help With Your Writing | Rhianne Williams

Worksheets & Downloads

Writing Worksheet Archive

If anyone out there loves making lists and wants to transport this to another site, you have every right to do so! Just let me know in a reblog so I can share it here again :)

---

HEY! Writers' Links

Tip Jar! If you enjoy my blog and advice, support me on Ko-fi!🤗

Follow me on AO3 for fanfiction

Visit my Pinterest & Unsplash for visual inspiration

[fanfictionlibrary01]

AO3 Data Scraped for AI Training Dataset

What is happening, and what you can do. Check for potential edits with additions at the end of the post!

What is happening? What do we know?

A user going by "nyuuzyou" on the HuggingFace platform uploaded a dataset a few days ago - containing scraped content from AO3. HuggingFace is a very popular platform and widely used for sharing machine learning and AI models/datasets. The scraped dataset includes fics, fanart, and other fanworks - all taken without permission and intended for use in training gen AI models. You can find more information in this Reddit post.

This dataset is one of several compiled from various websites—at least seven in total. While two datasets have been removed, the AO3 one was only disabled on HuggingFace. This means that it’s not downloadable at the moment but still visible. It may also return if takedown efforts end up being challenged/reversed by that user.

Key Details

Scope: On AO3, all content with work IDs between 1 and 63,200,000 has been targeted. The work ID is the number at the end of a work's URL — for example, in https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345678, 12345678 is the work ID. You can find it by simply opening the work and checking the URL in your browser’s address bar. So, if your work falls in that range and is publicly accessible (i.e., not locked and open to everyone, including guests), it’s mostly likely included in the dataset. This dataset is currently disabled on HuggingFace, but that doesn't mean it's gone. It's only a temporary takedown as of now.

Takedown notices have been issued, but this user has also uploaded the dataset to other sites after backlash and partial removal.

There are talks in the discussion forums of potentially moving this dataset to Telegram, torrents, and/or other private channels.

HuggingFace AO3 dataset page

Other distributed sites listed here (as per a Reddit comment)

Currently deleted from ModelScope

What can you do?

Should the dataset return again and you see that your work was affected: file your own DMCA or copyright takedown notice. The uploader, in their own words, "has not agreed to take down the entire repo. At this time, the scraper has agreed with taking down art from the person who owns the copyright. That means each of you will need to request a takedown."

Instructions and a sample CSV template to list your work IDs for removal are provided in this guide. You can find more details in this announcement by PaperDemon.

Lock your works! It would limit visibility to registered users only, and is a very good step to prevent scraping or unauthorized use. To lock all your works on AO3, go to “My Works,” click “Edit Works,” and select all. Then click “Edit” and check the box labeled ��Only show to registered users.” Scroll down and click “Update All Works” to apply the change.

⚠️ | Final Notes:

This user has so far shown no signs of stopping and is continuing to redistribute the data across multiple sites, even after numerous takedown requests (read more here). So, we can only recommend to be cautious and beware, lock your works, feel free to make use of takedown notices if you're unfortunately affected, and spread the word to fellow creators.

Follow up on this and get the latest updated in the Fanfic Communities Network (FCN) Discord Server!

If you have more information regarding this - e.g. if works from other sites are affected too - please reach out to us in the FCN!!

Edit (2025-04-26):

The user who has scraped the works has, upon request by another person, posted a way to convert ao3 json to markdown:

https://huggingface.co/datasets/nyuuzyou/archiveofourown/discussions/170

https://gist.github.com/nyuuzyou/b2f83669ad80a22e435728245ebcdf9f

This shows us that nyuuzyou continues to show no signs of taking down the scraped works.

Edit (2025-04-28):

A user warned that even archive-locked AO3 fics were included in a scraped dataset (most likely taken while the scraper was logged in, before they were banned or switched to public-only access). Some public works were missed as well:

https://huggingface.co/datasets/nyuuzyou/archiveofourown/discussions/213#680fcdb76d9e022324a70cf1

Edit (2025-05-03):

Hey everybody, this is a bit late, but the AO3 dataset has been permanently removed from HuggingFace: https://huggingface.co/datasets/nyuuzyou/archiveofourown. While this unfortunately doesn’t prevent it from being shared elsewhere (like torrents) nor does it guarantee any deletion of past downloads and whatnot, having it taken down from a major platform like HF is still a significant step forward. (There is more info about other sites on PaperDemon.)

So please don’t be disheartened—every action counts, and this shows that pushing back and filing DMCAs and copyright notices as appropriate does make a difference. We’ll certainly keep an eye out for more info and post updates here, but thank you again to everyone who helped report, spread the word, or supported the effort. Keep reading, keep writing. ♥️

[crash-bang-boom-corp]

Random simplyplural formatting things I found out recently. behold:

click for better quality.

TL;DR:

the html entity "& ensp ;" <- remove spaces, tumblr just tried to eat it. is a blank space that acts like a typed character. You can use it multiple times in a row to get the effect of an indent. It can also do in-line formatting to add space between words, since its basically the same as a letter entity as far as i know.

the markdown formatting for an image, if you negate the URL, gets you yellow text. I don't think it's possible to change the color but...yk...yellow is cool too i guess. formatting = "[alt text here](url)". You can change this to be "[text](no url, just empty parenthasies)" to get yellow text. Found this from a google search.

If you're unfamiliar with markdown, the humble hashtag can get you headings in three sizes. Big = 1 hashtag, medium = 2 hashtags, small = 3 hashtags.

fancytextgenerator and coolsymbol dot com's font changers work because all of the "fonts" are actually fully accounted for html entities. Hence why you can copy paste **those fonts**, but not **any random font** found on say, google docs. This means they'll work in simplyplural as well.

This isn't a comprehensive list of tips by any means, but I found these out recently and thought I'd share since most simplyplural / markdown type things on tumblr are pre-made formatting things, not general how-tos. (as far as I know)

sincerely, Chatters A and B, who had immense fun with this.

Update: go to settings and accessibility and preferences and change the highlight color to change it from yellow to another color!!

[galedekarios]

plagiarism in the bg3 fandom

disclaimer: this post should not be taken as a springboard to harrass anyone involved.

-

as i've stated previously, i didn't want to make this post because i have a lot going on in real life, but i have been watching this being done to others and myself for months now and i can't not speak about my experience anymore.

laiostoudenn (prev urls: lathanderr/spellbooking/wizardblood on tumblr / circleofspores on bsky) is a plagiarist and he has a history of stealing from other creators like @minthara, @mercymaker, @onewingedangels and others.

in this post, i, finally and after much and long deliberation, want to add my voice to theirs.

i'll try to give a chronological overview of what happened as i have come to experience it, through others and myself, and as condensed as possible and to make it easier for myself to tell:

the story

i became aware of this new blog after he @ me and he messaged me. he's been following me. i was slow to engage because i have a lot of things going on in my real life that cost me a lot of energy during the day. i have also grown cautious of too quickly becoming close to strangers online. i became aware, however, that he had been doing this with multiple bigger creators in this space, like my friend @hawke, who is also a creator in the bg3 space, and who has experienced the same behaviour. they asked me if i knew him and i replied that i did not.

that was it for me at that point and i didn't engage much beyond that because i didn't know him and i thought nothing of it - until later.

during that time, whenever i saw his creations pop up increasingly, either in the tags or on my dash, i noticed more and more that they looked familiar to the works of others, from @minthara, to @mercymaker, to @onewingedangels and other creators, including myself.

it was then confirmed that i wasn't simply imagining things when, months ago, two creators were brave enough to speak up about the fact that he has been plagiarising gifsets and edits from them:

@minthara and @mercymaker:

@onewingedangels original set posted on 31st december 2023:

his set posted on 29th january 2024 (now deleted):

this was done without consent, and after he had already copied prior sets from @onewingedangels.

i would greatly recommend reading the posts shared above, and looking at the examples provided in it, so that you get a clear picture of what's happening here. it's not one isolated incident.

if you take a look at the notes in the post, you can also see other creators speaking about their experiences.

@minthara has recently also uploaded a google docs with the screenshots of the sets stolen from them because they either have been deleted, or lead to nothing due to now multiple url changes.

i was made aware today that he, following the first posts detailing @minthara and @mercymaker's experiences, apologised at first and admitted to what he's been doing on 31st march 2024:

but sadly, this wasn't to last, and the opportunity to learn and grow wasn't taken.

instead what happened was now painted as "bullying" from other creators, as "clique" behaviour and as "gatekeeping", despite many of us operating independently from each other. i, myself, have only started speaking to one other creator involved now that i have noticed the stealing and copying still ongoing.

i have in my time on this website never gatekept anything. i have shared metas, gifsets, creations, mods, art, tutorials, and many other things freely.

but back to the matter at hand: after he has been trying to ingratiate himself to me for some time now, following me, unfollowing me, and refollowing me again until i blocked him for my own mental health, i tried to remain civil before this point, engaging rarely if at all, hoping everything would go away on its own - which was a mistake in hindsight, i realise - i noticed that once again he's been lifting entire concepts and frame-by-frame gifs and sets from me.

things that he now claims - likely after he has been made aware of my prior personal posts and @minthara and @mercymaker's post circulating again by being reblogged by other people who have been affected) - were simply "remade" or "expanded" upon, that he may have been "subconsciously" influenced, while simultaneously claiming that he didn't know these sets existed in the first place, that he came up with the ideas independently, and that it's simply inevitable to use the same scenes because it's a limited game.

this doesn't hold up under scrutiny, however.

i want to make clear that i very much understand and that i am acutely aware that i do not own scenes and i do not own mods or outfits. however, what i do like to pride myself on is coming up with concepts and scene choices and captions accompanying these concepts that are unique, inspired by my metas, headcanons pertaining to gale and my own ocs altonaufein and karl, all of which i have seen copied by him several times now.

this is not as simple as simply gifing the same lines of dialogue from a scene as he and others supporting him are now postulating and i want to make that very, very clear.

another reason why this statement doesn't hold up under any scrutiny and, what ultimately confirmed my suspicion that he has been copying me, was when he - after the first post exposing his behaviour by @minthara and @mercymaker was made - reached out to me, asking if it it's ok to copy a gifset i made (note: again, this happened after he was called out for plagiarising the first time):

i didn't respond quickly enough, so he went ahead and posted it without waiting for my response (the response i gave him is pictured above and for transparancy, i responded about a day later bc of work and irl obligations).

below you can see the stolen post and what i managed to save from it:

the set was a 1:1 copy. he wanted a version for his oc so bad that he went ahead and stole my concept anyhow, without even waiting for the permission he asked for.

he went to take it down after my reply, made cautious most likely by his still fresh callout done in march 2024 by @minthara and @mercymaker, and i thought the issue was resolved and it wouldn't happen again, that he wouldn't take again without asking, despite having been told not only by myself, but by other creators as well, no. we are not comfortable.

but no. he "remade" the set, switching out gifs while complaining about how he "had to make it original":

my set in question was made on 1st february 2024, he reached out to me on 22nd april 2024 to "remake" the set. he is well aware of the existence of these ideas and concepts and sets he wants to copy, underlined by the need to ask for permission when it's simply too obvious to otherwise deny.

it's no coincidence.

like others have had the experience, i too noticed that he often would not engage with content he planned on stealing or did go through with stealing. he would sometimes present it as his own "remake" of a set he did, of another he was "inspired" or wanted to "expand upon", sometimes crediting, sometimes crediting someone largely unrelated, sometimes and, more often, not crediting.

as i mentioned above, this was not the first and not the only set/concept, which he copied from me - whether that was before asking or after asking, or not asking at all, if it was ok to copy.

i use this example mainly to show a clear pattern of behaviour that exists across the board: he takes concepts from other creators and inserts his own oc and/or favourite character into it because he wants a version of it so very badly. it does not matter if said creator might be hurt, if they told him no, or if they exposed his behaviour before. it doesn't matter how old the set is or how recent.

it is still going on today, the only difference is that he has stopped asking at all once again.

my story completely echoes that of @minthara and @mercymaker's.

concrete examples

i will now go into more detail about the concept sets he's been copying, include the caption or quote attached to it. i'm sorry that these will not be in chronological fashion. i will add at a later point, just like @minthara has done, a google document to better do side by side comparisons, highlight the similarities visually even more, and preserve some of the sets, which have now been deleted by him as recently as today:

the theme of hands in gale's romance

-> mine posted on 23rd september 2023

versus

-> his 1 posted on 24th february 2024

-> his 2 posted on 17th june 2024

i want to preface this by saying that the theme of hands was and still is incredibly important to story of my oc altonaufein and has concept of romance with gale. again, while i do not own these scenes, i wished to highlight a theme that i identified as poignant and profound within the relationship context. it's also why i added the poetry and quotes accompanying the set.

notice how even the caption format matches. the only thing lacking are my quotes / poems.

the format matches almost entirely: gifs from the same scenes (pulling gale out of the portal, the bench scene in an illusionary waterdeep, the astral sea scene, the boat scene, and more of the boat scene). the only thing that was added in this gifset are scenes that weren't available to me back then, namely the updated proposal scene, the kisses patches, and the epilogue as they came out well after i made my original gifset.

the second re-make even contains a gif that's not only the same minute detail of a larger scene - one that anyone who played gale's romance knows contains a multitude of other parts that could have been used - but also the same frames:

mine vs his:

i suppose adding that one to the original post with the same format i had chosen for mine would have made it too obvious, but that is only speculation.

gale + missing waterdeep/home

-> mine posted on 30th september 2023

versus

-> his (deleted on 18th july 2024) so i will have to include screenshots so you may compare:

same caption format, overlapping scenes chosen, only new additions are of content that wasn't available to me back when i first made my original set (the epilogue, kiss patches and proposal scene).

an attempt at "credit" even though he is only referencing my tags on an entirely separate set of a different creator, not the concept i came up with in my original set months prior.

and even though i have told him no before, just like others have told him no before.

i think it speaks volumes that this set is now, like some others, have been suddenly and coincidentally deleted.

gale of waterdeep vs gale dekarios

-> mine posted on 20th november 2023

versus

-> his posted on 13th may 2024

the concept is entirely the same, the scenes are largely overlapping, again, the caption format is almost entirely identical, with the sole difference of me including the full quote and devnotes as i'm wont to do.

gale + i love you

-> mine posted 16th september 2023

versus

-> his 2 (a "remake" of an "older" set of "his") posted on 13th may 2024

again, the concept is entirely the same, it's same caption format, the scenes largely overlap, some of the gifs added that were not available to me when i made my set (which, again, would include the epilogue, kisses patches, and the updated proposal scene).

mermay gale

-> mine posted on 13th may 2024

versus

-> his posted on 21st may 2024

it's the same concept again, the caption format is similar, it's the same setting (camp at baldur's gate), the same armour, the same armour tint, the same 3/4 pose except mirrored, and, this time, his tags were inspired too:

my tag: #i have the worst art block still and virtually no time but i still wanted to do smth for mermay so have this

his tag: #i can't do art so heres my mermay contribution i guess

copied oc post

-> mine posted on (likely) 30th september 2021

versus

-> his originally posted on may 7th 2024, which has also now been deleted on 18th july 2024:

the only thing different was the font. sadly, i deleted my oc post since i have redesigned some of them and wanted to make an updated version of it in the future.

thankfully i found the link on my friends blog, @ayrennaranaaldmeri.

as you can see, all of these happened after the first cases of plagiarism and after i personally told him that i'm not comfortable with him "remaking" my concept sets as his.

conclusion

there are many other sets that i suspect have been copied or plagiarised, i want to remain objective, however, and include the ones i feel are the most damning examples, supported by the fact that he has been deleting some of them today while again, trying to set up his narrative to his audience.

again, i want to highlight the pattern is here with him. my post is not the first, my suspicious are the first.

he knows what he is doing wrong, highlighted by the fact of trying to ask for permission, by deleting sets in question, by, at first, apologising, whilst now talking about "gatekeeping", "bullying", "inevitable repeats of scenes", "taking inspiration", "scrolling by", being "subconsciously" influenced, etc.

as a conclusion, i can say nothing more on this topic other than that i'm very sad. it doesn't give me joy. it stressed me immensely then and it still does now. i wish he'd have taken the already admitted wrong-doing to heart and grown from it, instead of attempting to change the narrative and doubling down on his past behaviour, not examining what he has done and is doing several times over by now.

i have blocked him now, as have done many others, and will not engage further with him. we have been through this before and at this point, i don't think he will change.

what i do very much hope, however, is that this is the last i hear of this happening.

edit:

updated the links to lead to his "archive" so you can access the stolen sets that he still hasn't deleted and seems to have no intentions of doing so.

[rythyme]

Introducing the Thai Drama AO3 Trends Dashboard! (Beta) 🇹🇭

Over the last several weeks or so I've been building an auto-scraping setup to get AO3 stats on Thai Drama fandoms. Now I finally have it ready to share out!

Take a look if you're interested and let me know what you think :)

(More details and process info under the cut.)

Main Features

This dashboard pulls in data about the quantity of Thai Drama fics over time.

Using filters, it allows you to break that data down by drama, fandom size, air date, and a select number of MyDramaList tags.

You can also see which fandoms have had the most new fics added on a weekly basis, plus the growth as a percentage of the total.

My hope is that this will make it easier to compare Thai Drama fandoms as a collective and pick out trends that otherwise might be difficult to see in an all-AO3 dataset.

Process

Okay -- now for the crunchy stuff...

Scraping 🔎

Welcome to the most over-complicated Google Sheets spreadsheet ever made.

I used Google Sheets formulas to scrape certain info from each Thai Drama tag, and then I wrote some app scripts to refresh the data once a day. There are 5 second breaks between the refreshes for each fandom to avoid overwhelming AO3's servers.

Archiving 📁

Once all the data is scraped, it gets transferred to a different Archive spreadsheet that feeds directly into the data dashboard. The dashboard will update automatically when new data is added to the spreadsheet, so I don't have to do anything manually.

Show Metadata 📊

I decided to be extra and use a (currently unofficial) MyDramaList API to pull in data about each show, such as the year it came out and the MDL tags associated with it. Fun! I might pull in even more info in the future if the mood strikes me.

Bonus - Pan-Fandom AO3 Search

Do you ever find it a bit tedious to have like, 15 different tabs open for the shows you're currently reading fic for?

While making this dash, I also put together this insane URL that basically serves as a "feed" for any and all new Thai drama fics. You can check it out here! It could be useful if you like checking for new fics in multiple fandoms at once. :)

Other Notes

Consider this dashboard the "beta" version -- please let me know if you notice anything that looks off. Also let me know if there are any fandoms missing! Thanks for checking it out!

The inspiration for this dashboard came from @ao3-anonymous 's AO3 Fandom Trend Analysis Dashboard, which I used as a jumping off point for my own data dash. Please give them some love <3

[starleska]

so many televisions...but who is Tenna, and who is Mike?! here's what we know (with some speculation) 📺

from left-to-right, we have all of the television sets which seem relevant to Deltarune Chapter 3. these are: 📺 the leaked border image graphic of a snail-like TV-headed character likely from Deltarune Chapter 3 📺 Toriel's television set crossed out by Spamton in a hidden gif on deltarune.com, with the url d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a 📺 Toriel's television set in the daytime during Deltarune Chapter 2 📺 Toriel's television set during the night-time after everyone has fallen asleep at the end of Deltarune Chapter 2 📺 Toriel's television set after Kris creates a Dark Fountain and is swallowed by it at the end of Deltarune Chapter 2 there are two (presumed) upcoming characters in Deltarune who could be any of these televisions: Mike and Tenna.

Mike is a character referenced by Spamton NEO, and from his dialogue lines, it seems that Mike may have been Spamton's friend or recorded for him in the past. creation-wise, Mike is probably a reference to this Big Shot soda commercial from 1997 starring Mike Ditka, presumed by many to have partly inspired Spamton and his 'BIG SHOT' catchphrase/theme. we can also see a hidden reference to Mike on the d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a page: if you press ctrl+f and type 'Mike', or simply highlight all the text on the screen, you should see it at the bottom of Spamton's rant. Tenna is another character referenced by Spamton, but with a great deal more wrath. it's clear from the above page that Spamton despises Tenna, calling him a '[Boob tube]' and saying that everything is his fault. as we know that the next chapter is going to have a television-themed antagonist, we assume that 'Tenna' is a play on a 'television antenna', and 'Mike' is a play on 'microphone'. in Deltarune Chapter 2, Spamton gives you several interesting bits of dialogue while in his shop, starting with:

the 'easel' in question is most likely Swatch, who describes Spamton as having been a regular at the Colour Cafe and highly valued. adding to the intrigue, 'CRTs' stands for 'Cathode-Ray Tubes': an older type of television/computer monitor display that was prominent before LCD and plasma screens. now if Spamton has negative feelings towards CRTs, he has negative feelings towards televisions...and the most likely candidate for being a television is (ann)Tenna, not Mike 👀

we have a few little extra bits corroborating Tenna as the television-headed character's identity. after you defeat Spamton NEO and return to the Trash Zone, you can talk to the Addisons who give us more background on Spamton's past as a 'big shot'. they mention how he was always bragging about TV deals, and when he was evicted, Spamton left a phone hanging off the receiver...but all that could be heard was 'garbage noise'. many fans have attributed 'garbage noise' to Gaster...but i believe it could actually refer to the sound of television static, which we see playing in Spamton's eyes when he remembers Mike. based on this reaction, it's a fair guess that Tenna hurt Mike in some way. okay, so if Tenna is the big bad and not Mike...and the big bad is the TV-head...what's up with the differing appearances between the snail-eyed figure and the larger TV-head? take a look at the snail guy...and then look at Spamton and the Addisons. they share a few features, don't they? especially the long nose and pointed mouth! it's implied that Spamton and the Addisons are the same 'species', with Spamton being a variation who perhaps deteriorated over time. i believe that the snail guy is Tenna, but a different version of him. we haven't seen a full view of what the larger, purple TV-head looks like, but as a television, who's to say he isn't capable of 'possessing' multiple forms? if he is still partially stuck in Spamton's head in the form of 'garbage noise', wouldn't it be interesting if Tenna moved from one, more Addison-like form, to another, larger, more powerful one? many real-world objects have larger-than-life applications in the Dark World, and i think Tenna will have more than one form, and can likely move between screens, or even people. that's why Spamton specifically has Toriel's television crossed out. and of course, the final, silly bit of evidence that we have: both snails and televisions have (an)Tenna(e), don't they? 😉

[leveragehunters]

Downloading fanfic from AO3

I've been downloading a lot of fanfic lately for personal archival purposes, and I figured I'd share how I do it in case it's useful to anyone else (and so I have it written down in case I forget!).

There are lots of different ways to save fic, including the file download built into AO3, but I find that this gives me the nicest ebooks in the most efficient way.

(Under a cut cause long.)

Download Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/ or (clickable link).

Calibre is about the best ebook management and control program around and it's free. You can get it for windows, mac, and linux or download and run it from a portable storage device (I'm using a windows PC).

Install it and run it. It's gonna ask you where you want to put your library. Dealer's choice on this one. I recommend your internal drive (and then back up to external/cloud), but YMMV.

If you want to keep fanfic separate from the rest of your ebooks, you can create multiple libraries. I do, and my libraries are creatively named 'Books' and 'Fic'.

Customise Calibre

Now you're gonna install some plugins. Go to Preferences on the menu bar (far right), click its little side arrow, then choose 'Get plugins to enhance Calibre'.

At the top right of the box that pops up is 'Filter by name'. The plugins you want to get are:

EpubMerge

FanFicFare

Install them one at a time. It will ask you where you want them. I recommend 'the main bar' and 'the main bar when device is attached' (should be selected by default). When you're done, close and reopen Calibre.

The plugins you just installed should appear on the far right of the toolbar, but if you can't see one or both of them, fear not! Just click Preferences (the button, not the side arrow), then Toolbars and Menus (in the 'Interface' section) then choose the main toolbar from the drop down menu. That will let you add and remove things - I suggest getting rid of Donate, Connect Share, and News. That'll leave you room to add your new plugins to the menu bar.

(Do donate, though, if you can afford it. This is a hell of a program.)

Now you're ready to start saving your fave fanfic!

Saving fanfic

I'll go through both methods I use, but pick whatever makes you happy (and/or works best for what you're downloading).

ETA: if the fics are locked you can't easily use FanFicFare. Skip down to the next section. (It does ask for a username/password if you try and get a locked fic, but it's never worked for me - I had to edit the personal.ini in the configuration options, and even then it skips locked fics in a series.)

Calibre and FanFicFare

You can work from entirely within Calibre using the FanFicFare plugin. Just click its side arrow and pick from the menu. The three main options I use are download from URL, make anthology from a webpage, and update story/anthology.

Download from URL: pick Download from URL (or just click the FanFicFare button) and paste the fic's URL into the box (if you've copied it to your clipboard, it will be there automatically). You can do more than one fic at a time - just paste the URLs in one after the other (each on a new line). When you're done, make sure you have the output format you want and then go.

Make Anthology Epub From Web Page: if you want a whole series as a single ebook, pick Anthology Options, then Make Anthology Epub From Webpage. Paste the series URL into the box (if you've copied it to your clipboard, it will be there automatically), click okay when it displays the story URLs, check your output format and go.

Update series/anthology: if you downloaded an unfinished fic or series and the author updates, you can automatically add the update to your ebook. Just click on the ebook in Calibre, open the FanFicFare menu using its side arrow, and select either Update Existing FanFic Books or Anthology Options, Update Anthology epub. Okay the URLs and/or the output format, then go.

Any fic downloaded using FanFicFare will be given an automatically generated Calibre cover. You can change the cover and the metadata by right clicking on the title and picking edit metadata. You can do it individually, to change the cover or anything else specific to that ebook, or in bulk, which is great for adding a tag or series name to multiple fics. Make sure you generate a new cover if you change the metadata.

Browser plugins, Calibre, and EpubMerge

You can also use a browser addon/plugin to download from AO3. I use FicLab (Firefox/Chrome), but I believe there's others. FicLab: https://www.ficlab.com/ (clickable link).

FicLab puts a 'Save' button next to fic when you're looking at a list of fics, eg search results, series page, author's work list etc. Just click the 'Save' button, adjust the settings, and download the fic. You can also use it from within the fic by clicking the toolbar icon and running it.

FicLab is great if you're reading and come across a fic you want to save. It also generates a much nicer (IMO) cover than Calibre.

You can add the downloaded fic to Calibre (just drag and drop) or save it wherever. The advantage to dropping it into Calibre is that all your fic stays nicely organised, you can adjust the metadata, and you can easily combine fics.

Combining fics

You can combine multiple fics into an anthology using EpubMerge. This is great if you want a single ebook of an author's short fics, or their AUs, or their fics in a specific ship that aren't part of a series. (It only works on epubs, so if you've saved as some other format, you'll need to convert using Calibre's Convert books button.)

Select the ones you want to combine, click EpubMerge, adjust the order if necessary, and go.

The cover of the merged epubs will be the cover of the first fic in the merge list. You can add a new cover by editing the metadata and generating a new cover.

Combing with FanFicFare

You can also combine nonseries fics using FanFicFare's Make Anthology ePub from URLs option by pasting the individual fic URLs into the box.

Where there's more than a few fics, I find it easier to download them with FicLab and combine them with EpubMerge, and I prefer keeping both the combined and the individual versions of fic, but again YMMV.

Reconverting and Converting

Once I'm done fussing, I reconvert the ebook to the same format, to ensure everything is embedded in the file. Is this necessary? YMMV, but it's a quick and easy step that does zero harm.

If you don't want your final ebook to be an epub, just convert it to whatever format you like.

Disclaimers

Save fanfic for your own personal enjoyment/offline reading/safeguarding against the future. If it's not your fic, don't distribute it, or upload it to other sites, or otherwise be a dick. Especially if the author deletes it. Respect their wishes and their rights.

This may work on other fanfic sites, eg FFN, but I've never tried so I don't know.

If you download a fic, do leave the author a kudo or a comment; you'll make them so happy.

This is how I save fic. I'm not pretending it's the only way, or even the best way! This is just the way that works for me.

[toxicanonymity]

When you engage with confessions accts, you're encouraging this kind of parasocial hater behavior

Note added for context: A "confessions" account has been posting anon hate mostly toward writers in the pedro pascal fandom. A parasocial hater of mine discovered it and has been going to town. I posted this after a revolting analogy they used (screenshot at bottom of post).

Obviously I am disgusted that anyone would post such a deranged analogy just to stir up fandom drama. FYI many of these are from the same individual who has been fixated on me for a while and i know others have their stalkers too. We block them but when a "confessions" acct is active, they have a platform. I'm sorry to everyone who has been attacked.

warning: hate, trivialization of abuse & genocide, gross stuff.

the screenshots below are all from after I blocked this person

I normally don't address things like this, but that's only because I'm trying to keep it off your dash and off my blog for reasons including not wanting to give the hater a larger audience for their message. Normally I block/delete. But thanks to a blog dedicated to posting anon hate, some of this is already on the dash, and additional context could be illuminating.

a couple weeks ago, this person chimed in on my non-fandom post, and their comment made me uncomfortable. Their blog tagline was antagonistic. They weren't being earnest. I checked to see if they followed me, and they didn't. I wrongly assumed they followed me from a main account since they were commenting on an un-tagged, un-reblogged post. I replied, taking issue with their comment and asking them to keep their thoughts to themselves rather than coming at me from a sideblog. But I now realize they were simply hate checking my blog.

These first ones are from their burner after I blocked the account that started it:

(Blocked the burner too)

They were saying this last bit preemptively - I've never talked about stalkers here until this post you're reading rn. I didn't include all their anons in this post, just enough to show they clearly out themselves as being the same person.

Sometimes they will act like they're laughing and pretend to be multiple people. They also sent asks targeting att*********h and made comments off-anon before she deactivated this wk. In other asks they use large font to praise a former writer (jr****t) and insult everyone else - they sent one of these off-anon and reblogged another.

This post i'm making may only make it worse idk. I want to trust people not to automatically believe and repeat accusations, but my experience leaves me pessimistic.

I won't be dropping this creep's url in this post: This week they have repeatedly changed their url anyway, along with their display name and blog appearance. I had never heard of them.

Now the ask that prompted this post, idk if it's the same person or not but they def sent multiple asks

Note the "our" 🙄 typical hate stalker tactic pretending to be more than 1 person. I used to get "we are laughing" asks after like every post I made.

I haven't included nearly all the hate in this post, only the last one which crossed the line pushing me to make this post and all the others to illustrate how one person can go so wild. In other posts, I was sexualized without my consent (TOS violation) and it was really gross. And then miscellaneous hate.

Note - yes you can share this if you want. It's already out there anyway. Also feel free to DM for the known urls but do NOT contact them / rile them up.

Update - the anon-hate account referred to above, pedgeconfessions, has deactivated after violating multiple TOS including doxxing (not of me) which can put people in real world danger. It wasn't the first such acct this summer and may not be the last.

[lonniemachin]

FOR ALL FOLLOWERS/POTENTIAL FOLLOWERS

I am not Palestinian. I cannot verify or vet fundraisers.

I can share, boost, and when I am financially able, I donate. I can draw you a picture in exchange for donation money, or sell you one of my well-loved things. But I can’t tell you whether a fundraiser is legitimate or not unless it has been verified by others. Palestinians here and elsewhere have discouraged non-Palestinians from verifying fundraisers for a reason. If you see someone say I verified a fundraiser, it is a misunderstanding.

My methodology for sharing is this:

- If a Tumblr blog messages me, I will look at their account or look up their URL to see if they’ve been vetted by a Palestinian blogger. If so, I will share it.

- If a Twitter account messages me, I will trust their fundraiser if they have multiple unique pictures and videos, their account has a long post history, they have been verified/shared by Palestinian users, or all.

I try my best not to share fundraisers I am unsure of. But again, please keep this in mind —

I can’t, and don’t, vet or verify, and I have never claimed to. Thank you.

[lutiaskokopelli]

Lore Map Update!

First off, big thanks to @white-hole-station who helped out a ton with these new lore cards! They decided to share their work on documenting and analyzing Hearthian dialogue, and this shall save me a lot of precious time :D

I will try to regularly post updates like these if you don't mind! One purpose is to remind people that the Outer Wilds Lore Map exists, sure, but most importantly, it's so that you guys can give criticism on what's being put in it. Do you disagree with the conclusions or the wording? Are the tags wrong? Do you see a typo? Tell me all about it so it can be fixed!

A couple lore cards in this bunch seem to me like there is definitely more to explore here, and that some debate may be in order (because there already has been some debate while writing them already!). So if you have more evidence about this or that, please comment here so we can have a proper conversation!

Without further ado, here is the list of today's new additions:

And the save point that will let you open them and view their full contents all by yourselves:

{"Pins":["MarlTreeKeeper","MarlBigTree","RutileMarlGrudge","MoraineMarlGrudge","EskerMarlFriends","EskerMarlGrudge"],"DLC":"Show"}

(grah I hope Tumblr won't be dumb about copy/pasting these. I do not want to have to figure out a URL-based system for save points PLEASE)

.

A few screenshots:

PS: Let me know if you'd like me to make posts like these also for lore cards that are already present on the web page, so that you can give them the same kind of scrutiny and criticism! Alternatively if you see something you'd like to talk about, you can totally @ me or DM me (though it'd be best if multiple people could join the conversation and give their opinion --- that's what the Discord server is for! Purely lore talk to debate what is or isn't appropriate to put on the Lore Map).

I've already seen one post taking a screenshot of a specific lore card -- you can do that and @ me in it if you have some criticism about it, that way it's public and anyone can take part in the debate!

Since this is an alternate kind of wiki, this means that agreeing with what you see there is crucial. Agreeing with only 99% of it is not good enough if the 1% of disagreement you hold is factually true.

.

.

.

And now for some fun bonus ramblings strictly meant for speculation/headcanon territory and the funsies:

[charl0ttan]

Thanks to you changing your url I finally figured out that a consistent IDB ConstraintError I was running into was caused by multiple blog urls sharing the same UUID!

LMAO

[jyndor2]

🍉🍉🍉 GIFSETS FOR PALESTINE 🍉🍉🍉

I've had something like this in the plans for a while, and I've even done it before but this post by dante aka @teethburied -

WHILE YOU ARE HERE, GO REBLOG HIS POST

- inspired me to get it together!

🍉🍉🍉 WHAT TO DO 🍉🍉🍉

Donate to any of the vetted Palestinian fundraisers from this spreadsheet by @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi.

Donate $5 - 9 USD to request a textless gifset of any media

Donate $10 USD and up to request a gifset of any media with text

Feel free to spread your donations around to multiple fundraisers! I also will of course do gifsets for you if you have a Congolese or Sudanese fundraiser you want to support, please just send the following to me via tumblr DM and if possible forward the confirmation to gifsetsforpal@gmail.com. Don't worry, I'm not gonna share your emails - I just want to make sure these are actual donations and not screenshots you found somewhere.

url and email:

fundraiser link:

proof of donation:

gifset request:

backup request:

🍉🍉🍉 WHAT MEDIA TO REQUEST 🍉🍉🍉

Anything! Any TV show, movie, music video, event, etc that you want. If I have a hard time finding something, I will probably do the backup request, so please make sure it's for a different media. Here are some examples of my gifsets, and here is a gifset I made for a mutual who donated in the past (it features a palestinian poet).

Here's some examples of requests to get inspired:

five music videos from 2024

ten lyrics from x artist or album

favorite character + fire motif

ship + lyrics/quote

scenery from x movie

astrology/signs/tarot + character

TV show + color

etc etc etc

Thank you so much and please even if you can't afford to donate right, reblog this post as well as any other vetted fundraisers you see and spread the word! Let me know if you do anything similar and I'll signal boost it too!

🍉🍉🍉 FREE PALESTINE 🍉🍉🍉

[gayszlen]

For the yet-to-be-informed, let me preach to you the gospel of Das gayszlen

What is Das Gayszlen?

Das gayszlen, generally translated as the "whip" is a technique in historical longsword fighting from 15th century German tradition. The basic mechanics of the gayszlen are as such: a single handed strike with the nondominant or lower hand, where the sword is released from a traditional grip to allow the blade to sweep towards the leg of your opponent. Some also define other one handed strikes, slices, or thrusts as a gayszlen, but (in my experience) the more common interpretation is the narrower definition I provided. There is some difficulty however in knowing definitively how it was used historically, beyond the general difficulty in knowing anything for certain in HEMA that comes with the territory of reviving a dead art. Much proverbial ink has been spilled online about how, when, and if it is appropriate to use, and many consider it to be a cheap trick, not to be used in serious competition or incorporated into a revival of historical fencing systems. I have Thoughts™ about it and my new URL change inspired me to detail those thoughts, continued below.

Where does it come from?

Ok. so. maybe "15th century german tradition" is a bit generous. There is a grand total of ONE source for the gayszlen, which is in a fechtbuch (fencing book) by fencing master and author Hans Talhoffer, one of the most influential and prolific of his time. His numerous manuals cover a wide range of weapons and techniques including grappling, dagger, polearms, mounted and armoured combat, as well as some more silly things like duelling/long shields and "man vs woman" duels (last two pictured below).

Despite all that and multiple depictions of many of the techniques for these silly "niche" styles of combat (at least in the context of modern HEMA practice, they likely were somewhat prevalent at the time and used to resolve legal disputes) there is only one illustration of the gayszlen, in one of Talhoffer's books. It depicts an exchange between a fencer in a "free point" (afaik the only time that term is used as well, though it is a position that is quite common in german longsword fencing, being a sort of hanging guard or the midpoint of a strike like a zwerchhau) and another performing the gayszlen against the aforementioned fencer, shown below (figure on the right is performing the gayszlen).

You may notice the text on the image, next to each figure! These say Ain fryes ortt and Das gayszlen, again translated as "a free point" and "the gayszlen". You may ask "but what does the actual caption or description say about it?!" I'm so sorry to disappoint you, and I share in your misery: this is all there is. Truly sad, I know. This lack of source material is (in my opinion) why there is so much difficulty defining it and so much debate over its historical usage and value in modern use.

So how do people interpret it?

As stated earlier, the (general) consensus is that it is a one handed strike (a hit, hew, or cut, as opposed to a thrust or draw/push slice) made with the offhand to the lower half of the opponent's body. One of the main disagreements on how to interpret this is whether the sword is "whipping" or cutting to the left from the right, or from the right to the left. Based on the foot position, it might look like the fencer performing the gayszlen (hereafter referred to as G) is bringing the sword from their left side to swing into the opponent's (hereafter referred to as F) left calf. However, this hand position and movement of the sword leaves G entirely open to attack anywhere on their torso or the right side of their body generally. An example of me (right) executing this interpretation is below: you can see that I do actually get the hit, but my opponent nearly hits me with the first strike to the right side of my head, where I am most vulnerable, and follows it up with another strike to my head. If this scenario played out with sharp swords and no protective gear I would lose this fight.

Another interpretation of the gayszlen is this: G holds the sword in any guard on the right side of their body (higher guards may be better for generating more force or deciding to do literally anything other than the gayszlen) and releases the sword from their right hand, holding the pommel in the left and sweeping the sword towards F's right calf. in the picture we have, it may be that the "free point" is meant to be a response to the gayszlen, and therefore F is retracting their foot to avoid the gayszlen, while striking G to their unprotected body. An example of me (left) attempting to execute this interpretation is below: even though my opponent fails to parry or suppress my attack, it wasn't necessary. I didn't have the reach to hit her leg, though her dodge may have saved her even if I had been a bit closer to begin or had extended farther.

Something that I believe supports this second interpretation is the general attitude of historical German longsword manuals to favor attacks and guards from above, to high openings, or generally closer to the upper half of the body than lower attacks and guards. A reason for this is detailed in many European sword systems, namely the destreza rapier tradition, thibault by extension, and meyer.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tPHbG28niyc

The above image and video are pretty simple explanations, the core idea being that a sword and arm extended at the height of the shoulder (or nearer the shoulder) will have more forward reach than a sword and arm extended higher or lower than the shoulder. Because of this, F theoretically has somewhat of a reach advantage over G, as their sword and arm are closer to their shoulder. though the utility (as I'll talk about more later) of the gayszlen is that it is done in a grip that extends G's reach beyond a normal grip like F has.

There are also interpretations that point to it being a thrust (like I attempt below) which is supported by similar techniques showing up in other European sword systems, which I could spend a whole equally long post talking about, but this is plenty long as is, maybe a topic for another time. The two lame reasons I have for not liking this interpretation is that a thrust doesn't seem very "whiplike", and also a thrust to the legs with one hand is harder to pull off than a cut to the legs or a one handed thrust to the torso.

How can I incorporate the gayszlen into my modern HEMA practice?

To preface this, throughout all of this I'm mixing terms and concepts from Fiore and Liectenauer and Talhoffer and Meyer and probably some other stuff. I primarily study and practice Liechtenauer blossfechten via Ringeck, Danzig, and Lew, as well as most of Fiore's system. This is just my opinion on what purpose the gayszlen can serve in the frog DNA filled world of HEMA longsword, this is not pure to any martial art system, just an application for the sport.

That being said: I believe the gayszlen's place in modern longsword fencing is similar to that of guards like the boar's tooth, long tail, or the key, all of which can use distance deceptively. they place the sword further back than it would be in an iron gate or a plow (guards which are somewhat close to those I mentioned) and allow the fencer using them to seem less threatening than they would with more aggressive guards. Likewise, I often find myself throwing gayszlens from positions where I'm somewhat retracted or seemingly out of distance, or preparing for an attack to another opening. This can often allow an attack at an unexpected timing or from an unexpected angle. I find it works well when your opponent is static in a guard and you to a distance juuust outside of where you could hit them with a normal grip, and the switch to a one handed pommel grip gives you the couple inches you need to get the hit, and hopefully enough speed to avoid getting beaten away by their sword. One of the big dangers with the gayszlen is the opportunity it presents for getting hit. When you employ this technique, you give up basically all protection your sword has to offer, you can't block any incoming attacks, and you don't have a good enough grip to bat your opponent's sword out of the way. This means that if you don't plan well, you leave yourself totally open to a double or a hit to you if they avoid your gayszlen. See below! The fencer attempting the gayszlen (right) goes in with his head down and totally unprotected, allowing the opposing fencer to get a really beautiful hit to his head as she dodges his gayszlen. This is what you should do if you encounter someone who is eager to use the gayszlen and you wish to discourage them.

A safer position (both to avoid getting hit and to avoid injury, as I'll mention in the next section) is a more upright stance and a deep lunge, though keeping your shoulder up, as I mentioned earlier, reduces your range to that lower point.

Why don't some people allow it in tournaments?

Many tournaments, in my area and others, don't allow gayszlens. some ways this manifests are bans on all one-handed cuts, all one handed strikes altogether, including thrusts, hits to the leg below the knee, etc. Some people just don't like the gayszlen, think it's too hard to judge, think it doesn't have enough historical basis, or think it is dangerous to the person doing it or the person having it done to them. A lot of those reasons are laid out in this article, which, while I disagree with most of the points, makes those points pretty well. It's also the first result when you search on google for gayszlen, which makes me sad :( Another argument regarding the safety that isn't mentioned in that article is that to get additional reach and evade strikes from above, some people get really low when executing a gayszlen, even exposing the back of their head or body, which can lead to some really nasty hits to the back of your head or your spine, which are vulnerable areas even when wearing gear, are are often the parts of the body that have the least protective gear. In my opinion, any ruling that is intended to ban gayszlens that we've seen is too broad. banning one-handed cuts (or strikes altogether) means that whole sections of manuscripts or traditions (such as fiore's uno mano plays) can't be performed, banning cuts to the legs or parts of the legs can give an advantage to taller fencers, discarding them automatically because they're too difficult to judge the quality of can punish those who have worked to perfect them safely, etc. At the end of the day it doesn't really make a huge difference one way or the other, and every tournament organizer is biased in the way they make their ruleset one way or the other, but I think the gayszlen is unfairly maligned. In my opinion, with proper attention to levels of force, protective equipment, and judging, the gayszlen deserves a place in modern HEMA tournaments.

ALSO IT HAS GAY IN IT TEEEHEE!!

some people pronounce it "guy-slen" and I usually say "gay-slen" and I don't speak modern or medieval german so idk how it should be pronounced but I like saying gay :) because homosexuality get it???? I

I've made the gayszlen a bit of a meme in my local scene by shouting "GAYSZLEN" whenever I do it, like an anime character. This is typically regarded with friendly annoyance, and it makes hitting this silly ass technique SO much more satisfying and makes whiffing it a lot less embarrassing :)

anyways thanks for reading my long ass post ily <3 if anyone has additional thoughts, please leave them in the comments! I'd rather not debate anything, but I'd be happy to discuss intricacies of the gayszlen's use and interpretation if you're nice about it!

[pokeballvictim]

Hey, a bunch of awesome girls pointed out your url to me after I read one of your stories. I hope you are finding some joy on this day, you're amazing! uhhhh I guess this is an ask, so how do you take your coffee?

hey this is wild. What the hell do you mean a bunch of girls pointed my URL out. Am I a household name? Do I have a brand? Who are these multiple girls and how did this conversation happen?? You don't actually have to answer these questions, its just wild to hear that people are talking about me and my stories outside of my field of vision.

Like, slight tanget but - she's my little sister and my roommate now but I met someone online through talking about a story, and we got to know each other, etc. And then she saw one of my first big-ish posts cross her dash and was like "THAT WAS YOU????" because that post had gotten shared in her discord servers and people talked about it. And i had no idea; i'm just fuckin chilling on tumblr over here. I don't know what people say about me or my stories anywhere else. there could be a discord server where someone has raved about one of my stories and i have no idea. Fucked up!!!

I drink my coffee black! Pet peeve is people who act like liking coffee is impossible without milk. I just like it!!

[donahdevotees]

Welcome to the donahdevotee's gift exchange, the event where selfshippers get to celebrate their fem f/o's and share their creativity with one another! (Sign up form is at the bottom of this post, please read through the guidelines before signing up!)

This gift exchange will cover art, writing and moodboards! So if you're not inclined towards art or writing you can still participate to share some love for other people's ships and have some love given to your own! On that note; all skill levels are welcome, as long as you're giving it your all, you're welcome to join!

Obviously the very basic requirement is to have a fem f/o! Your ship with her can be romantic, platonic, familial, queerplatonic, fwb, what have you! Every ship is welcome and so is every fem f/o! (If you headcannom your f/o as fem in any way, she is welcome as well!!)

GUIDELINES:

Art must comply with the rules of tumblr. A width of at least 540px wide, max file size is 20MB, please keep that in mind! If you’re drawing nsft art for your Giftee (You both must be 18+, minors are only allowed to create sfw works) you should censor it to post it. You can send the uncensored art to your Giftee!

Fics must be at minimum 500 words, no cap on the maximum however, go wild! (If you want to make a graphic to go with your fic, go for it! But it’s not mandatory <3)

Aesthetics/Moodboards should have a minimum of 4 graphics/images. You can make multiple for your giftee if you'd like! (Be considerate of eyestrain and/or flashing/etc. if using gifs!)

If you wish to back out at any point please let us know as soon as possible so we can work on a backup gift for your giftee, try not to leave it until the last day of the event!

Content that is NOT allowed: Self harm, Non-Con, Incest, Minors doing anything even remotely sexual, Pedophilia, Bestiality, Racist depictions or Fetish content.

Content that IS allowed: Anything else your Giftee has stated they’d enjoy. Character death and gore is allowed, smut is allowed. Everything MUST be tagged appropriately. If you aren’t sure; tag it!

SCHEDULE:

Nov 1: Sign ups open

Nov 10: Sign ups close at midnight

Nov 11-12: Participants are matched up!

Nov 13-14: INFO about your Giftee will be sent you via DM's

Nov 28: First check-in!

Dec 12: Second check-in!

Dec 23: FINAL DEADLINE, have all gifts submitted by midnight!

Dec 26-30: Post those gifts!!

Dec 31: List of participants and their gifts posted with links!

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR GIFT:

Option 1: Submit your artwork/fic/moodboard to this blog via the submit button!

Option 2: Send a google drive/google doc link for your gift to this blog through an ask or the submit button!

Option 3: Email your artwork/fic/moodboard to donahdevotees@gmail.com!

With your submission please include your selfship url just to ensure we don't have any mix ups! If you would like us to post your gift for you please mention that as well as we'd be more than happy to!

HOW TO POST YOUR GIFT:

You can post the gift directly to tumblr or post a link to your gift!

If you are posting your gift yourself please ensure you use the tag: #donahdevotee's gift exchange 2024 and also tag this blog and the blog of your giftee in your post!

You do have the option to ask the admins of this blog to post your gift on your behalf, where you and the giftee will both be tagged!