#using a blog and substack

[misangela]

Whittling Away the Socials

This is a crosspost from SubStack. I usually post from here to there, I wanted to try something different. The other day, I logged out of Twitter (“X”), probably for good. I was seeing the exact same posts with different users and slightly different titles – the work of bots, no doubt. It’s bad enough I can’t see anything from anyone I follow, but adding bot posts to a feed that’s already…

[mousedbrain]

new substack post just uploaded!!

(birthday edition)

go read it here:

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Improve the Quality of Your Stories. Blog Posts, or Substack Newsletters Using Editorial Checklists

Writing, Editing, Curating, and Marketing We include several checklists and also a video presentation of Illumination’s former and new editorial checklists Using quality management checklists for writers ensures consistency, accuracy, and adherence to standards, which boosts the quality of written work. Checklists prepared by experienced editors can help writers maintain a structured process,…

[dem0batz]

Kind of weird energy that the SYKD organizers don't want book influencers to know about their events. I get that it has led to large site traffic in the past but how are you going to say that you want to keep the event "in community" when the newsletter is difficult to find and so much of said community doesn't find out about the events now until after they're over? Explain that logic to me.

[woundedwizard]

To fill in the void that War and Peace left me, I decided to read...

And I intend to do it one chapter a day, just like WaP(& emails).

Just read the first chapter and it has me riveted.

[iminmypeace]

[fairuzfan]

hello!! I don't know if this is appropriate (pls do not feel obligated to answer) but i was wondering what were ur thoughts on the israeli grass-roots movement Standing Together. I first found out abt them through a tumblr post that shared this substack article (https://theconnector.substack.com/p/if-its-not-helping-then-shut-the). the article immediately put an extremely bad taste in my mouth towards the movement and its founders, but i dont know if i'm being overly-critical of them.

Hey thanks for sending this in. No worries, it's totally ok. I was actually debating whether or not to publish this, mostly because I was afraid this would distract from Gaza, but I decided that it's imperative to stop normalizers from squeezing their way into the movement. Remember, the demands of the Palestinian people begin and end with liberation. Everything else is irrelevant and pointless to the cause.

So first off — I don't think you're being overly-critical of them at all. The first red flag of both this article and the group themselves is that they often exchange "Palestinian" with "Arab" and "Israeli" with "Jewish." That right off the bat shows me they have no respect for Palestinians and see Jewish people and Palestinians as mutually exclusive categories. I've spoken on this blog before about how racist it is to assume no Palestinian is Jewish and vice versa and this group really illustrates the forced division they imagine within their own goals and wording.

The article itself is quite anti-Palestinian in its erasure — it talks about avoiding words like "genocide," and "apartheid," and "ethnic cleansing" because "they are serious people trying to actually get something done." I really don't understand why not using those words makes you a serious person. If anything, it erases a description of how to define what it happening to Palestinians.

The whole redefinition of "peace" in this article and group is just calmness. These people are not advocating for peace in which families are reunited and land is given back — they are advocating for a muted version of the status quo of the current political system, just with less obviously fanatical governments. Peace cannot be attained when the people directly affected cannot have a say in defining it. They won't even say the word "apartheid." It's not some scholarly word with no meaning — it has actual consequences and effects on people (click). Palestinians are tried in military court. Their movement is monitored and restricted. It means that there are different legal systems for different people (click)! If you reject that this exists, then you're not interested in making the lives of Palestinians better — you're only interested in making your own life more comfortable.

As soon as you remove our ability to say words like "genocide" and "apartheid", you remove our ability to determine what happens specifically to Palestinians based on racism. By only saying "Palestinians are getting killed" an Israeli can come in and say "well so am I, by Hamas! Let's work together to end the killing" when it ignores that this is a systematic effort to completely wipe out all trace of Palestinians from the world.

It's like saying, "Don't say you have arthritis, say your joints hurt. And well, that happens to everyone, so let's just find a way to stop all our joints from hurting!" Then you work with people who fundamentally don't understand your pain and symptoms, oversimplifying your situation to the point of malicious universality. Sure, everyone's joints hurt, but my joints are hurting because my immune system is attacking them, not because of old age. You can't help my arthritis the same way you can wear a heat/cold patch to sooth your joints — there are other problems you're ignoring that all work together to cause me systematic pain and might cause bigger problems in the future if left untreated properly.

Similar symptoms don't mean similar causes and ignoring that is fundamentally ignoring the root issue and attempting to trivialize Palestinian's suffering. As soon as you take away the words to describe our situation, it doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Now, basically, the... weirdest part of the article is this excerpt:

People like him in Israel are very aware of how the left here is talking about them, and it’s not helping. “You can call me a colonizer or a settler,” he declared, “but I’m not going anywhere. And neither are the Palestinians.” When people chant, “Palestine will be free,” he said, “we Israelis hear, ‘without you.’ In the same way that a lot of Palestinians hear the ministers in Bibi’s government speak and think they want to do the same thing to them.” The problem as they both see it is that we are caught between two polar opposites. “Hamas believes in Greater Palestine,” Green said. “And on the other side we have people who believe in the idea of Greater Israel.” Indeed, that concept is in the charter of Netanyahu’s Likud Party. “Both sides have very problematic governing bodies,” he added. And the status quo of maintaining the occupation and managing the conflict has been exploded now.

Well, first off, Hamas is not the only one who believes in "Greater Palestine." Palestinians around the globe have been fighting for that since 1948. Second off, it's quite odd that you would center yourself in the wake of the ongoing slaughter of 10,000 people, with no end in sight. Right now, I would assume you'd be advocating for an end to the mass killings first and foremost, but you seem to be more worried about your right to stolen land.

Third, this completely erases the violence done to Palestinians the past 75+ years in favor for a "peace" that will only allow citizens of Israel comfort in their lives. Sure Palestinian citizens of Israel might have more comfortable lives, maybe (although I doubt it). But what about Gaza, which has been ravaged by Israel? What about the people in the Occupied Territories, whose economy depends on Israel, which controls it? What about the millions of refugees around the world who can't so much as see the place where they grew up because they've been exiled? The colonization of Palestine by Israel is not so old — there are people STILL ALIVE who participated in the massacres of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and walk around without facing any real consequences for that. My great-grandmother had seen both and she only passed away a couple of years ago. Where is the "peace" for her? Where is the "peace" for millions like her who still dream of going back to their childhood home?

This group AND the article tries to cloud your view into illustrating two opposing groups with equal power. They aren't. Palestinians, unfortunately, endure systematic oppression both within Gaza and throughout Palestine. Each and every time they try to resist peacefully, they've been shot, abducted, or imprisoned. The Great March of Return is one such example. BDS is also an example, yet that has constantly been outlawed by American governments. There have been a plethora of Palestinian artists, writers, and filmmakers who have been silenced or killed for advocating for a Free Palestine. Most recently, this included Heba Abu-Nada who was an award winning poet and writer who was martyred on October 20th after getting shelled by an Israeli missile. Ghassan Kanafani also was assassinated last century. The list goes on. Palestinians have no hope of "changing the system from within" because that internal change will always depend on the mercy of the Israelis that pretend to ally themselves with the Palestinians. Someone in Gaza cannot leave their refugee camp and go back to their ancestral home because no one in this group is advocating for that — and remember, the right of return is an essential part of the demands of the Palestinian people and we cannot ignore that for a forced "peace" that favors calmness over actual justice.

Now as we examine the group themselves, here is their mission statement/goal:

Standing Together is a progressive grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality, and social justice. We know that the majority have far more in common than that which sets us apart and only a tiny minority benefits from the status quo. The future that we want-peace and independence for Israelis and Palestinians, full equality for everyone in this land, and true social, economic, and environmental justice — is possible. To achieve this future, we must stand together as a united front: Jewish and Palestinian, secular and religious, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi, rural and urban, and people of all genders and sexual orientations. As the largest Jewish-Arab grassroots movement in Israel, we are committed to creating an alternative to our existing reality and building the political strength to make this transformation possible.

Yet again, they are separating "Palestinian" and "Jewish," reinforcing this dichotomy that's so harmful. AND they're interchanging "Palestinian" and "Arab," which erases the diversity within Palestinian society. A group that makes the distinction between "Palestinian" and "Jewish" shows that they are not interested in the restitution of Palestinians but rather solidifying their own position within society by emphasizing a false dichotomy between "Palestinians" and "Jews" with no potential for overlap.

They mention "true justice" but "true justice" doesn't exist if there are no reparations towards the people who have been exiled and displaced, murdered, and tortured the past 75+ years. Justice is not an abstract concept — it is adhering to the demands of the people most impacted by systematic oppression, which is the Palestinians.

Looking at their leadership, there are only a couple of Palestinians with the vast majority of them being non-Palestinian. Sorry, but I'm wholly uninterested in "peace" and "equality" movements that are not made up of majority Palestinians. It's only common sense that you would expect such a movement to be led by Palestinians themselves — but this group seems to use Sally Abed as a token Palestinian who furthers their narrative of wanting "peace" in Israeli society. And even looking at their action items, you can see they make a point about emphasizing safety for the *Israeli* citizens above all else, stating that their far right government does nothing to serve the citizens of Israel. They claim it will also bring safety for Gazans, but how? You can advocate for a change in the government, yes, but if the people in Gaza are subject to getting their rights taken away based on the whims of whoever happens to be in power then no amount of "internal" activism in Israeli society will help them. They will always be at the mercy of the people who have a vested interest in erasing the people of Gaza and the West Bank so that they may take over their land.

Please remember, the civil rights movement of the 60s and the BLM Movement of this century were led by and FOR Black people of the United States because they were the ones making the demands for a change in their circumstances. Because at the end of the day, the people who are the most oppressed deserve the right to decide how their future appears and should not be dictated by the oppressor in any way.

This group tries to make a separation between the "Israeli people" and the "Israeli government." Right away, I have to laugh. They act as if the colonization of Palestine is too old for anyone to remember its origins — no. I had family living in Palestine as recently as '67. Maybe *this* generation didn't choose to settle in Palestine, but the previous generation did. And the generations before that. Before 1948, Israel didn't even exist. Hell, before a couple hundred years ago, BORDERS didn't exist. Not to mention, mandatory conscription means that most civilians will have been directly part of the suppressing forces, making them liable for the material effects of colonization. Why are people so resistant to the idea of undoing colonialism and its effects? I cannot think of any other reason than because they have a vested interest in keeping those borders up, in emphasizing nationality because they're one of the groups of people that is benefited from the establishment of a "Jewish State."

So in that, unless you call for an end to the idea of the "Jewish State" in Palestine, then I cannot think of you as a sincere advocate for Palestinian rights — this group especially plays at normalization of a muted version of the status quo rather than actual justice and reparations. The "Israeli advocates" within this group will benefit first and foremost in their own activism — therefore it's hard for me to view them in a positive light.

All activism for Palestinians should center around giving Palestinians reparations, as well as giving reparations to all indigenous victims of colonization. I think this group only tries to muddy the waters to make people forget what they're fighting for. I honestly do not understand why liberation scares you, if it means that no nation-state will have complete and total power over you and your family.

"Free Palestine" is an anti-colonial movement. Such a thing is possible — but you have to try to make it possible. Those against the unending liberation of all people are one of those who have the most to benefit from the continuation of colonization.

Right now, your main concern should be the people of Gaza and the people of the West Bank, and ensuring their safety and longevity in the face on continued erasure. "Peace" is all well and good but who exactly gets to define that? Who gets to benefit most from it? Unless you can unequivocally answer "ALL Palestinians," then you're not an ally — you're only interested in helping yourselves.

Remember — the fact that we even had to fight for our rights is itself an injustice. At the very least, ask the people who are most affected what they want before you listen to Israelis who have a vested interest in keeping the state of Israel alive.

[oweeeeendennis]

Dead blog

I couldn't trust that the stuff on this blog wouldn't be used to train AI, therefore I took it all down. This isn't a debate about AI, it's just that I want control over how my work is used.

This blog will now only exist to be a little bookmark for people to know where else they can find me:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/oweeeeendennis.bsky.social

Substack: https://owendennis.substack.com/

You can also find the info to contact me or my manager at my website, which is just my first and last name with no space and then adding a dot com to it.

If I continue to post here, it will be solely for promotional work. If you reupload my work, please glaze it and/or use nightshade.

It's been a cool 10 years. Thanks for all your kind words about the stuff I've written and drawn and it's importance to you, I really have no idea what I'm doing or saying most of the time so that's cool that it works for you.

Please continue to watch my work when it's released. I enjoyed making Infinity Train and I'm looking forward to people being able to watch the Among Us TV show.

Thank you!

-Owen

[hotvintagepoll]

Welcome to the HOT AND VINTAGE MOVIE STARS poll blog! The Hot & Vintage Men Tournament and The Hot & Vintage Movie Women Tournament are now wrapped—congrats to Toshiro Mifune and Eartha Kitt! If you are here for the Dracula Daily polls, those will be posted regularly following the progress of the Substack newsletters.

All polls—including ongoing polls, previous rounds, old tournaments, the various shadow brackets, the Dracula Daily polls, and fun mini polls—can be found in the #hotvintagepoll tag.

FAQs:

"What is the next tournament?" We'll either do the scrungly little guys contest or the Ultimate Hotties tournament.

"When is the next tournament?" Sometime later this summer. I need to take a break, but then I'll be back.

"I want to find my favorite hottie!" Try a tag search for them (ie, use a hashtag in my search bar to find every post I've tagged them in). If you still haven't found your hottie, they either did not fit the criteria of being a movie star from 1910-1970 or they did not make it past the prelims.

“Can I start submitting for the future tournaments? I have guys! I have propaganda!” Please wait for me to post a submission form or otherwise formally announce a tournament before submitting anything.

The views expressed in the propaganda are not my own. I don’t submit my own propaganda, and I don’t change what’s submitted beyond fixing obvious spelling mistakes. If you hate a poll bio or a pic, let me know and send me something I can use instead.

I don’t post or boost negative propaganda about any of the hotties. If you really hate that someone is winning, send me positive propaganda for their hot opponent instead. A lot of these hotties were flawed or problematic in some way—or straight up garbage—but for reasons I go into here, I don't boost anti-propaganda.

If I see repetitive, trolling, and/or bigoted remarks in the comments, I may block you from this bracket. If you want to point out a competitor's problems in the replies, that's fine, but if I see consistent bad-faith trolling or targeted harassment of anyone, you will be blocked.

"Tel me again who won the major tournaments?" Eartha Kitt was crowned the hottest Hot & Vintage Movie Woman, and Toshiro Mifune won the Hot & Vintage Movie Man Tournament.

"Tell me more about this shadow realm?" There is too much lore.

“My FAQ isn’t on here :(” send me an ask! I love hearing from you guys—just please check these basics first.

Tournament schedule post-hiatus:

Ongoing: Dracula Daily casting polls

Possibly next: Scrungly Little Guys contest (gender neutral)

Possibly next: Ultimate Hottie Tournament (top brackets of the hot men & hot women competing together)

TBD: Horror Hotties (Frankensteins, Draculas, Brides, etc.)

TBD: Dandy Detectives (Marples, Sherlocks, Nancy Drews, etc.)

fun mini polls that pit sets of characters from the same movie together, like the Philadelphia Story or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ones (these can be found in the #minis tag)

Thank you for being here! Enjoy the polls.

[how2forgive]

hello, what do you use substack for? i downloaded it but have no idea what type of content exists on the platform and how to use it. from here it looks like a sort of twitter (sorry) but with long text… do you have examples of nice things to follow there?

hellooo!! mainly i use it to read long-form content from writers i like. substack is kinda like an 'official' version of the traditional sense of a blog .. depending on the writer, the content could vary from personal essays to articles/thinkpieces or however they want to use it! which is what i love abt it. and yes thats pretty much true, just make sure youre not on the 'notes' page (this feels more like twt) but 'inbox' if you want to see the posts from your actual subscriptions !

and here r some substacks i adore! <3

ask polly

words from eliza

nobody in taipei loves me

evil female

barn sour

[wip]

Realizing that Tumblr users can easily follow my posts, I'm considering how to engage users without accounts. I seek auto email subscription tools to encourage visitor interaction without mandatory sign-ups. Platforms like Medium and Substack offer such services, yet lack theme customization. On the flip side, Webflow, Wix, and Wordpress allow theme customization but lack email subscription options. There's a notable gap, and I believe Tumblr, with its focus on creativity, could bridge this.

Answer: Hi, @shahrishi!

As it happens, we, too, don’t dig anything that prevents non-logged-in people from seeing content on a network either—but it’s also true that requiring an account more often has helped Tumblr grow a fair bit in the last couple of years, so there’s a balance we’re trying to maintain. However, easing up that login wall is unlikely as things stand today. But we do have a suggestion. A loophole, if you will.

We would remind you that every blog on Tumblr has an RSS feed that’s free to use and doesn’t have any login wall—just add /rss to any blog URL, i.e., https://cyle.tumblr.com/rss.

We understand this is probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but maybe in the same direction. We hope it helps either way—and thank you for your question.

[keepingupwiththekaramazovs]

Intro and Links

Welcome! This is a read-along/book club for The Brothers Karamazov! (Run by @sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks)

The first chapter is scheduled for Monday, September 9th! View the whole reading schedule here.

(I named this "Keeping Up with the Karamazovs" but it's pretty silly, so if you have a better idea for a name for this, please let me know)

You can subscribe to the Substack here if you want to receive the chapters in your email. You do not need to be subscribed to the Substack in order to participate in the book club!

The substack will be sending out the Constance Garnett translation since that one is public domain, but feel free to follow along in your preferred translation.

We have a Discord! Everyone is welcome.

Jump in at any point—you do not need to be caught up to participate in the discussions (especially if you've already read the novel before).

So that your blog is safe for first time readers to follow, it would be appreciated that those participating tag anything that might be considered a spoiler for future chapters with “#tbk spoilers.” First time readers who wish to avoid spoilers can then blacklist that tag.

Use the hashtags "#tbk book club" or "#keeping up with the karamazovs." Try to keep spoilers for future chapters out of these tags, or hide them under a read-more.

@ this blog with any posts (meta, fanart, memes, etc.) that pertain to the current chapters, especially if they're older posts that won’t show up in the tags.

To make it easier for people to find posts pertaining to specific chapters, tag them with "tbk" and then the book number and chapter number. (Volume number isn't necessary because the book and chapter numbers don't start over with each volume.) So for example, if you wanted to tag a post that's about chapter 8 of book 8, you would tag it as #tbk 8.8

If you have any other questions (or suggestions!), feel free to comment on this post or send an ask.

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Substack Mastery Book: Chapter 11

Supercharge Your Substack Newsletters with Blogging on WordPress, Medium, or Other Platforms: Here’s What You Need to Know and How to Get Started Right Now I wrote this chapter because I gained significant benefits from blogging, especially within the last 12 months when I started intensifying my efforts on Substack. Until I deliberately blogged my content published on Substack or sent it…

[librarycards]

Hello, do you have any books on children's rights and patriarchy to recommend? 🥺

this is very much a category in-progress; children's rights discourse has advanced a great deal in the last few years (and will almost certainly continue to)! here are a few texts I recommend [with the caveat that these generally address children's rights but have other foci]:

Jules Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child (also, Jules's substack!!)

Eric Stanley, Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable

Stanley & Smith, eds., Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex [in both, Stanley / Stanley & Smith track the process by which youth, particularly queer/trans youth of color, are rendered unpersons)

Kathryn Joyce, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption [discussion of adoption –– in many cases, explicit child trafficking serving christofascist ends –– is inextricable from children's rights and is far too often ignored]

I have learned perhaps the most about children's rights and youth liberation from queer/trans disabled & Madppl. Remi Yergeau's Authoring Autism as well as Eli Clare's Exile & Pride have been pivotal here. Samuel R Delany's Heavenly Breakfast also has an incredible set of passages on youth liberation, harm reduction, and substance use.

Finding blogs like (now-inactive) We Are Like Your Child have been transformative, as have Mel Baggs's (z"l) body of work, which I discuss in more depth here. One final shout is to Parenting Decolonized, who call attention to the entanglement between racial capitalism, ableist cisheteropatriarchal white supremacy, and the oppression of children, incl. its reproduction via the nuclear family form.

[official-trainwrecks]

You are invited to the premiere of Trainwrecks, a free-to-read online serial following the lives of six Seattle-adjacent best friends from 2004-2015!

Do you miss that group of weirdos you used to hang out with in high school? Wondering whatever happened to your iPod Nano? Nostalgic for the days when you spent hours on Newgrounds and instant messaging your best friends on MSN? Then this series just might be your jam.

Meet the Cast!

Art by mangomangoj on Instagram.

Luna Cruz: (14) A nerdy and artistic girl who's had enough of being bullied about her weight. Her dream is to become a fashion designer. Or an ASL interpreter. Or both!

Dimitri Hale: (19) The most charming genius-turned-bag-boy you'll ever meet. He likes alcohol a little too much, but better booze than heroin, is he right??

Sebastian Velasquez: (16) The only thing keeping Seb from a life of debauchery is his best friend Dimitri, who he happens to have a crush on. Singing, dancing, and playing the guitar are his hobbies.

Jasmine Nolan: (16) Jasmine had the baddest reputation in her high school until she met Jesus. Now He's forgiven her, but she's having an awfully hard time forgiving herself.

Duke Kingston: (14) Duke might be one of the best friends you'll ever have! But if you're a bully, he's going to beat the shit out of you. No questions asked.

Victoria Hale: (14) Victoria's just moved to the U.S. from London, and she has her sights set on Juilliard. Beware her ADHD rage: She can go from 0 to throwing furniture in seconds.

About the Series

Trainwrecks: Season 1 (2004-2005) premieres Monday, September 2, 2024 on Substack. Each week, subscribers will receive both a narrative chapter and a social media chapter in their email inboxes. This entire story is free to read, but paid subscribers will receive four pieces of bonus content a month!

Follow the link in the bio to the official website for more information! (Note: This story will not be posted on Tumblr. This blog exists for promo art and reader interactions. Asks are open for both author and characters!)

Thanks for reading!