The Monoprice Messiah

Hello there! Do you have a tablet from Monoprice, Huion, or another UC-Logic tablet? Are you considering buying one? Are you having technical issues? You're in the right spot!

[themonopricemessiah]

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

It’s been a long time coming, but now it’s time to make it official: I’m shuttering this blog.

The askbox and submissions page are now closed. The blog itself will remain as an archive.

Going forward, I recommend visiting [Digital Art Tablet Guides], [Graphics Tablet Guru], and/or [draw2much’s FAQ that started it all, way-back-when] for your tablet reviewing and/or troubleshooting needs.

You may find me on Tumblr ([personal/shitposting] / [art]), [DeviantArt], etc.

Thank you all for sticking with me for the six years TMM was operational. <3

[themonopricemessiah]

Ever wondered about what a graphics tablet's guts look like? Here's a peek.

Why do I have my poor Huion opened up here? Because I was a clumsy idiot and spilled coffee on it.

AGAIN.

LIKE A COMPLETE DUMBASS.

Ideally, we'd all avoid drinking at our desks. Or have sippy cups or something. But nobody is perfect, and shit happens. In the event that you're clumsy like me, I humbly present:

☆ﾟ°˖* MORG'S GUIDE TO (HOPEFULLY) RESCUING YOUR GRAPHICS TABLET AFTER YOU SPILL A DRINK ON IT ☆ﾟ°˖* ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Equipment:

*a screwdriver, preferably from an electronics-geared screwdriver set (my tablet had little Philips-head screws)

*a container to gather your screws so you don't lose them

*nitrile gloves (the kind your dentist uses)

*isopropyl alcohol (I used 99% concentration; you can use 91% if that's what you have access to, but it won't evaporate as quickly)

*eye protection (woodshop glasses, lab goggles, etc)

*cotton swabs / paper towels / an old or cheap toothbrush

Precautions:

Work in a well-ventilated area. Isopropyl alcohol gives off fumes you Do Not Want To Inhale A Lot Of™. If you have any form of lung protection, now is the time to wear it.

Similarly, you don't want highly-concentrated isopropyl alcohol on your skin. That's what the gloves are for. You may also want to wear an apron, in case you spill it down your front.

You might cut yourself on plastic / metal edges of your tablet, or have a piece of plastic snap off and try to ping you in the eye. The latter is what the eye protection is for. As for the former: go slow and be careful during disassembly.

If you're not comfortable with working on electronics, find someone in your circles who is. This procedure is theoretically safe, but if your tablet has a rechargeable battery in it, there runs the risk of electrical shock.

This WILL void your warranty. In an ideal world, you'd only do this if your warranty is expired anyway, like mine is, or else on a tablet you can afford to replace. Once you open up your tablet, the manufacturer / retailer can no longer help you with it.

In short: YOU and YOU ALONE are responsible for your safety, and for the results of your work. I have informed you of the risks, and therefore I am not responsible for any errors you may make. If you screw up and hurt yourself / wreck your tablet / rip a hole in space-time, that's your problem.

With that all said, let's hop to it! ☆ﾟ°˖* ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Procedure:

Step 1: unplug tablet as soon as something spills on it. Tilt the tablet so the liquid flows AWAY from the hotkeys and USB port; you don't want that circuitry to pick up any more of the spill than necessary. Drain as much liquid as will flow out of the tablet.

In my case, however, I wasn't quick enough to get to step 2 while the spill was fresh; I got my tablet apart after the coffee got to dry and leave syrupy residue behind. I shall henceforth refer to this residue as "sticky crap".

Step 2: Pop the back off the tablet. The screws are likely to be under any rubber feet the tablet may have (as in my case), but they might be exposed, depending on the model. In addition, my tablet had little pressure clips along the sides, holding the panel in; I pried one side open with my screwdriver (although something like a butter / palette knife may have worked better) and pulled the panel off.

Step 3: If your tablet has a battery, unplug it from the circuit board. (If it's not unpluggable, then your tablet manufacturer is a jerk. Desoldering, unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this guide.)

Step 4: Undo all the screws holding the circuit board in place. At this point, I was faced with a metal plate - likely an RF shield. That will lift off once all the screws are out, and when any tape holding the edges is removed.

Be smarter than I was - take a photo of your assembly BEFORE you start taking out screws, so you know where they all go back. Not all of my tablet's screw holes had screws in them.

Wipe up any remaining standing liquid with a paper towel as you find it.

Step 5: My metal plate had a plastic sheet between it and the circuit board. They both lifted off easily.

Chances are, depending on the nature of the spill, these metal and plastic sheets will have sticky crap on them. Mine sure did. Apply isopropyl alcohol and scrub off whatever sticky crap has accumulated. Do the same for the back of the circuit board, the big part that corresponds to the active area of your tablet. Let the isopropyl alcohol evaporate.

Step 6: You'll likely see some foil tape covering up a small part of the board to the side of the active area. Peel that up gently. (Try not to get hairs / lint / etc stuck to it. You can get them off with isopropyl alcohol, but it will reduce the stickiness.) Clean up the sticky crap off the part of the back of the board where the circuitry is. The cotton swabs are invaluable here for a gentler touch.

Step 7: Gently remove the circuit board from the case plastic and set it aside somewhere safe. Clean any sticky crap off the front of the board / the circuitry / in the USB port / the back of the buttons in the case.

Step 8: Examine the plastic case pieces for any sticky crap, and clean it off as needed.

Step 9: Reassemble tablet. Press back down any foil tape you peeled up from the circuitry, as neatly as possible; lay down the circuit board; lay the plastic sheet between the circuit board and the metal sheet; ensure everything lines up with the screw holes; refer to the picture you hopefully took in step 4 so you can remember where all the screws go.

Step 10: Walk away for like 10-15 minutes so any remaining isopropyl alcohol can dissipate.

Step 11: Plug in your tablet and pray.

My tablet has survived 2 courses of this treatment, from 2 different spills, and still works as well as it did before said spills. This is what worked for me; I do not guarantee it will work for every kind of spill, or for everyone who tries this. Your mileage may vary.

Apologies for the dash-eating post. I wrote this from my phone because my internet's acting up.

[blaiddaddy]

deviantART, Google, etc’s TOS

Everyone is panicking over TOS-es right now as they find a new home as Tumblr gets flushed down the toilet. I don’t like those random TOS breakdowns because the analysis is always wrong. 

Anyway this is what people pay me to do and I will now do it for $0 because I’m tired of everyone spreading misinformation. This post is not a substitute for legal advice etc. Reblogs are appreciated because I literally see TOS nonsense on my dash every day. 

Any more experienced copyright lawyers please feel free to weigh in - it’s part of my field yes, but my wheelhouse is more film production COT rather than derivative works.

Google Drive (TOS)

Google doesn’t have rights to do whatever they want to files you upload to Google Drive

Their TOSes are annoyingly broad in drafting but essentially boilerplate clauses that they need to host your work, use google translate on it, make it searchable etc. They cannot steal your fanfic. They cannot modify your art and use it for whatever.

Your work MAY be threatened (that is, deleted) thanks to FOSTA/SESTA, which imo is a clown provision signed by a clown that sent safe harbour down the toilet. This and this has more information (I’ve skimmed but not perused both), but the tl;dr is: similar to Tumblr, there was a ham-fisted attempt to protect victims of sex trafficking and all it really did was make cloud based services start deleting user files whether relevant or not. 

deviantART (Submission Policy) (TOS)

Uploading work to dA doesn’t give them a license to sell it to Hot Topic. This post is incorrect. Debunked here and corrected by the artist himself here. Your art is safe. 

There’s a breakdown of the TOS in there that’s pretty much wrong on most points, if someone wants me to do a not-wrong version, ask. This may help.

All you really need to know is that like Google, I checked it over and nothing in there puts you at risk for dA asserting ownership over your work or selling it - they need those rights for thumbnails, search functions, resizing etc. 

Sexually explicit fanart is not allowed, as well as “obscenity”, which is an oddly broad term covering things like “sexually orientated commercial telephone messages”. 

I’m not aware of any content purges.

AO3 (TOS)

Yum. I like this one. Easy to read and clearly explained for most people with basic reading comprehension. Section G - What We Do With Content will tell you everything you need to know.

Basically, they have the same clauses about you granting AO3 a license to modify/etc your work, but they take the trouble to explain to you exactly what that means, and how they use it to improve accessibility etc. 

No history of content purges as far as I know. Explicit content is allowed with limits eg. no child porn. 

Wordpress (TOS)

Same deal - you’re looking for 1. Wordpress - Responsibility of Contributors, with the exact same thing as everybody else. They also do a decent job of explaining what they use the license for (though once again, it’s standard), albeit not as beautifully as AO3. 

However, images of sexual acts (including fanart) are against TOS.

I found no history of content purges.

Dreamwidth (TOS)

Same old standard licensing clause, again doesn’t let them steal your stuff.

Incredibly…open content policies…you can basically do whatever you want so long as you don’t break laws or commit fraud it seems? If I’m wrong, feel free to correct.

Hope this helps. Feel free to force me to read and explain any other site TOS documents. Again, more experienced copyright lawyers, feel free to correct me if I clowned up somewhere.

[bippycorgan]

u ever think about how these huge restrictions on tumblr and facebook n shit are primarily centered around ads, and like, in essence, we have become a product that these social media sites sell to their advertisers? its like, that facebook policy update is like “you better not even INSINUATE you have tits, you sick fuck”. shit even saidd you weren’t allowed to specify sexual attraction.

we’re too rowdy for like, lays potato chips or whatever. gays are TOO rowdy to be nestle customers, so are any sort of women that feel at peace or liberated enough w/their bodies to talk about them, the little debbie cakes foul in my gross tranny presence, right? 

facebook, tumblr, all shit like that, they’re Quality-Assuring their product, which is us, pal. They’re weeding out anyone that isn’t a homogenized boring shit that is cleared to ship to the corporate customer.

i feel like a cracked fuckin’ egg

with like a baby duck in it that hates the concept of money

[dan-mcneely-deactivated20210328]

going thru phone pics and found this thing that was tacked up next to the toaster at my old job, if anyone needs some light toast eating reading material

[selfcarepropaganda]

Would anyone be kind enough to transcribe this or link to a text version?

[anxiety-depression-recovery]

Everything Is AWFUL and I’m Not Okay: Questions to Ask Before Giving Up on Yourself

Are you hydrated? 

If not, have a glass of water. Dehydration can mimic or increase feelings associated with anxiety and a well hydrated brain functions optimally. Avoid excess caffeine. 

Have you eaten in the past three hours? 

Don’t be a victim of hanger! Get some food–something with protein, not just simple carbs or high-fat. Nuts, hummus, and veggies are great options to feed your studying brain. Keep healthy snacks within reach to avoid mindlessly chowing down on sweets. 

Have you stretched your legs in the past day? 

If not, do so right now. If you don’t have the energy or time for a run or a trip to the gym, just walk around the block or building. Even minimal exercise preps the mind for learning so that you can focus better and recall things easier, plus it’s good to get a change of scenery. 

Have you said something nice to someone in the past day? 

Do so, whether online or in person. Make it genuine! We bet your study partner would appreciate a compliment. 

Have you moved your body to music in the past day?

If not, jog for the length of a song at your favorite tempo, or just dance around your bedroom for the length of an upbeat song (singing along is a bonus) 

Have you cuddled a living being in the past two days?

If not, do so. Don’t be afraid to ask for hugs from friends of friends’ pets. Most of them will enjoy the cuddles too; you’re not imposing. 

Have you started or changed any medications in the past couple of weeks, including skipped doses or a change in generic prescription brand? 

That may be screwing with your head. Give things a few days, then talk to your doctor if it doesn’t settle down. 

If daytime: are you dressed? 

If no, put on clean clothes that aren’t PJs. Give yourself permission to wear something special, whether it’s a funny t-shirt or a pretty dress. 

If nighttime: are you sleepy and fatigued but resisting going to sleep? 

Put on PJs, make yourself cozy in bed with a teddy bear and the sound of falling rain, and close your eyes for fifteen minutes while focusing on breathing deeper with every breath- no electronic screens allowed! Adequate sleep is a necessity for stress management. 

Do you feel ineffective? 

Pause right now and get something small completed, whether it’s responding to an email, loading the dishwasher, or tidying up your room. Good job!

Do you feel unattractive? 

Take a darn selfie. Your friends will remind you how great you look. You are always insta-worthy. 

Do you feel paralyzed by indecision?

Give yourself ten minutes to sit back and figure out a game plan for the day. If a particular decision or problem is still being a roadblock, simply set it aside for now, and pick something else that seems doable. Right now, the important part is to break through that stasis, even if it means doing something trivial. 

Have you over-exerted yourself lately–physically, emotionally, socially, or intellectually? 

That can take a toll that lingers for days. Give yourself a break in that area, whether it’s physical rest, taking some time alone, or relaxing with some silly entertainment for a little. Time spent refreshing yourself is never time “wasted!” 

Have you waited a week? 

Sometimes or perception of life is skewed, and we can’t even tell that we’re not thinking clearly, and there’s no obvious external cause. It happens. Keep yourself going for a full week, whatever it takes, and see if you still feel the same way then. 

You’ve made it this far; and you will make it through. You are stronger than you think.

[queenology]

Now this is interesting

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

Article: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mjxg/apple-tumblr-porn-nsfw-adult-content-banned

[knaveofmogadore]

YES!! I LIKE THIS TAKE!!

[knaveofmogadore]

Basically, because I know Mobile is bad with links, the article points out hat the broad, “sfw only, no titties allowed” wave on the internet in recent years is largely due to Apple’s absolute stranglehold on the App Store. Apple has strict guidelines about NSFW content that choke creators right out of mainstream social media, even on sites like Reddit, for users of their products: 

But there are fewer and fewer mainstream sites and services that support porn and adult content, and much of that attitude has grown out of Apple’s strict controls over the App Store and the iOS ecosystem. Steve Jobs famously suggested that “folks who want porn can buy an Android phone,” and Apple has repeatedly leveraged its unprecedented power over millions of smartphones to sanitize the apps that are available on iPhones. Apple does not allow apps “that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic.” In 2016, Apple famously deleted all third-party Reddit apps that allowed users to toggle NSFW posts on and off; even now, it is impossible to access porn on an iOS Reddit app unless you jump through various hoops.

remember though that this anger isn’t about Being Horny On Main, it’s about sex workers, their platforms and followers, NSFW creators and their art, and adult content communities that are continually being shoved out of spaces they created in recent years: 

Tumblr’s leadership seems to believe that the community using Tumblr for adult content is the same as any other porn site—showing a serious disconnect with how its users actually interact and connect on its own platform. “We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community,” he wrote.

The value of Tumblr for NSFW creators and fans was in the autonomy to curate something original, and the freedom to express and share what they’re into—something that can’t be replaced by algorithmically-suggested porn on the rest of the internet.

it was mentioned before somewhere else, but 20% of Tumblr’s traffic is brought in by content they’re now flagging as “adult” 

This is yet another example of a platform ignoring adult content when it helps the platform flourish, and then leaving those users out to dry when it’s time to crack down for some monetary gain or face-saving. In addition to being a terrible way to treat your user base, banning adult content on Tumblr will stifle a lot of creativity.

and of course, Apple is also one of the companies that has repeatedly come under fire for censoring lgbtq/queer identities on their sites, the app store, and also caved to russia’s anti-lgbtq policies like a stick of rotten bamboo

The communities that will feel this change the most will be the already-marginalized. “Tumblr banning adult content is a huge loss for the LGBTQ community, especially those with overlapping marginalized identities,” Kitty Stryker, a queer porn performer and consent activist, told Motherboard in an email. “For many, that’s the one place we could find porn that represents us, made by indie performers who created their own content outside of an often racist, transmisogynist, fatphobic industry. Tumblr was where our content could exist without pushing us into the restrictions of a misogynist, male dominated workplace.”

[inu-fiction]

PSA: Stuff You Maybe Didn’t Realize You Can Back Up To AO3, And How To Tag it

Tumblr seems to be in potential death throes or at least, incredibly volatile and unreliable lately, but we’ve done some pretty good and informative work on canon analysis and reference guides so I was looking for ways to back it up without losing it…and the solution became obvious to me: Archive of Our Own, aka AO3.  “What?” you might ask if you are less familiar with their TOS. “Isn’t that just a fanfic archive??” No! It’s a fanWORK archive. It is an archive for fanworks in general! “Fanwork” is a broad term that encompasses a lot of things, but it doesn’t just include fanfic and fanart, vids etc; it also includes “fannish” essays and articles that fall under what’s often called “meta” (from the word for “beyond” or “above”, referencing that it goes beyond the original exact text)! The defining factor of whether Archive of Our Own is the appropriate place to post it is not whether or not it’s a fictional expansion of canon (fanfic), though that is definitely included - no, it’s literally just “is this a work by a ‘fan’ intended for other ‘fannish’ folks/of ‘fannish’ interest?”  The articles we’ve written as a handy reference to the period-appropriate Japanese clothing worn by Inuyasha characters?  The analyses of characters? The delineations of concrete canon (the original work) vs common “fanon” (common misconceptions within the fandom)? Even the discussion of broader cultural, historical, and geographic context that applies to the series and many potential fanworks?  All of those are fannish nonfiction! Which means they absolutely can (and will) have a home on AO3, and I encourage anybody who is wanting to back up similar works of “fannish interest” - ranging from research they’ve done for a fic, to character analyses and headcanons - to use AO3 for it, because it’s a stable, smooth-running platform that is ad-free and unlike tumblr, is run by a nonprofit (The OTW) that itself is run by and for the benefit of, fellow fans.  Of course, that begs the question of how to tag your work if you do cross-post it, eh? So on that note, here’s a quick run-down of tags we’re finding useful and applicable, which I’ve figured out through a combination of trial and error and actually asking a tag wrangler (shoutout to @wrangletangle for their invaluable help!): First, the Very Broad: - “ Nonfiction ”. This helps separate it from fanfic on the archive, so people who aren’t looking for anything but fanfic are less likely to have to skim past it, whereas people looking for exactly that content are more likely to find it. - while “Meta” and “Essay” and even “Information” are all sometimes used for the kinds of nonfiction and analytical works we post, I’ve been told “ Meta Essay ” is the advisable specific tag for such works. This would apply to character analyses, reference guides to canon, and even reference guides to real-world things that are reflected in the canon (such as our articles on Japanese clothing as worn by the characters).  The other three tags are usable, and I’ve been using them as well to cover my bases, but they’ll also tend to bring up content such as “essay format” fanfic or fanfic with titles with those words in them - something that does not happen with “Meta Essay”.

- I’ve also found by poking around in suggested tags, that “ Fanwork Research & Reference Guides ” is consistently used (even by casual users) for: nonfiction fannish works relating to analyses of canon materials; analyses of and meta on fandom-specific or fanwork-specific tropes; information on or guides to writing real-world stuff that applies to or is reflected in specific fandoms’ media (e.g. articles on period-appropriate culture-specific costuming and how to describe it); and expanded background materials for specific fans’ fanworks (such as how a given AU’s worldbuilding is supposed to be set up) that didn’t fit within the narrative proper and is separated out as a reference for interested readers. Basically, if it’s an original fan-made reference for something specific to one or more fanworks, or a research aid for writing certain things applicable to fanworks or fannish interests in general, then it can fall under that latter tag. 

- You should also mark it with any appropriate fandom(s) in the “Fandom” field. Just like you would for a fanfic, because of course, the work is specifically relevant to fans of X canon, right? If it discusses sensitive topics, or particular characters, etc., you should probably tag for those. E.g. “death” or “mental illness”, “Kagome Higurashi”, etc. 

Additionally, if you are backing it up from a Tumblr you may wish to add: - “ Archived From Tumblr “ and/or “ Cross-Posted From Tumblr ” to reference the original place of publication, for works originally posted to tumblr. (I advise this if only because someday, there might not be “tumblr” as we know it, and someone might be specifically looking for content that was originally on it, you never know) - “ Archived From [blog name] Blog ”; this marks it as an archived work from a specific blog. And yes, I recommend adding the word “blog” in there for clarity- Wrangletangle was actually delighted that I bothered to tag our first archived work with “Archived From Inu-Fiction Blog” because being EXTREMLY specific about things like that is super helpful to the tag wranglers on AO3, who have to decide how to categorize/”syn” (synonym) various new tags from alphabetized lists without context of the original posting right in front of them.  In other words, including the name AND the word “blog” in it, helps them categorize the tag on the back end without having to spend extra time googling what the heck “[Insert Name Here]” was originally. 

Overall, you should be as specific and clear as possible, but those tags/tag formats should prove useful in tagging it correctly should you choose to put fannish essays and articles up on AO3 :) Oh, and protip sidebar for those posting, especially works that are more than plain text: you can make archiving things quicker and easier for yourself, but remember to plan ahead for tumblr’s potential demise/disabling/service interruptions. The good news: You can literally copy and paste the ENTIRE text of a tumblr post from say, an “edit” window, on tumblr, straight into AO3′s Rich Text Format editor, and it will preserve pretty much all or almost all of the formatting - such as bold, italics, embedded links, etc! But the bad news: keep in mind that while AO3 allows for embedded images and it WILL transfer those embedded images with a quick copy-paste like that, AO3 itself doesn’t host the images for embedding; those are still external images. This means that whether or not they continue to load/display for users, depends entirely on whether the file is still on the original external server! As I quickly discovered, in the case of posts copied from the Edit window of a tumblr post, the images will still point to the copies of the images ON tumblr’s servers. What this means is that you should back up (save copies elsewhere of) any embedded images that you consider vital to such posts, in case you need to upload them elsewhere and fiddle with where the external image is being pulled from, later.  Personally, I’m doing that AND adding image descriptions underneath them, just to be on the safe side (and in fairness, this makes it more accessible to people who cannot view the images anyway, such as sight-impaired people who use screen readers or people who have images set to not automatically display on their browser, so it’s win-win)

[fansplaining]

This has been in our queue since before ~Tumblr’s big reveal~ but post-reveal….! Please share widely. Those not-quite-fic headcanon posts, drabbles, ficlets from prompts, meta of all shapes and sizes: the AO3 is not just for traditional short and long fiction. And, of course, visual art of all kinds! 

[tranarchist]

When Tumblr bans porn, who loses?

Verizon is leaving the engine of internet culture to sputter and die, and its communities to scramble for a new home.

A former staff engineer, who recently left Tumblr and asked to remain anonymous for professional reasons, tells Vox that the NSFW ban was “in the works for about six months as an official project,” adding that it was given additional resources and named “Project X” in September, shortly before it was announced to the rest of the company at an all-hands meeting. “[The NSFW ban] was going to happen anyway,” the former engineer told me. “Verizon pushed it out the door after the child pornography thing and made the deadline sooner,” but the real problem was always that Verizon couldn’t sell ads next to porn.

Porn on Tumblr is something Verizon needs to wipe out if it’s going to make any money off what it thinks is actually valuable about the platform — enormous fandom and social justice communities that, just before the Verizon acquisition, Khalaf was insisting the staff figure out how to better monetize.

On that note-

Two former Tumblr employees said they were alarmed when Khalaf chose Black Lives Matter as an example of a community that the company should focus on converting into Yahoo media consumers. One told The Verge, “Simon explicitly said that Black Lives Matter was an opportunity to [make] a ton of money.”

[smitethestate]

Capitalism is disgusting and ruins everything.

[anosci]

cool! unsurprising!

[albymangroves]

Please read this whole article. If you’re still clinging to the vague hope that it’ll all settle down and it’s gonna be business as usual, it isn’t. It can’t.

[adulthoodisokay]

Export your blog

You can export of all of the content you’ve created for your blog, and we’ll package it up into a convenient ZIP file for you to download. To start the process, go to your account settings on the w...

if you run a NSFW blog or post NSFW content, here’s how to export your blog 

[nerdlingwrites]

Just a note on this - IT DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK. I lost the entire content of my old blog (thecheshirecass) and my writing blog because the whopping 65gig file was corrupted.

The larger the file (and a lot of blogs are HUGE) the greater the chance for corruption. Some important info/advice from Twitter:

IF you can get the backup function to actually work (and keep in mind it took literal DAYS for the file to be created) be sure to check everything to make sure it works. I know there are other programs/sites that will do this as well, but I have no insight on how they work. I’m also not sure how it works on Apple systems so YMMV.

@becausedragonage could you please share this since your following is so much bigger than mine? I’m hoping it can help some folks from suffering through major disappointment.

[sluttylotor]

As we are moving towards a period of more decentralized fandom, if you want to support the artists who are going to be hard-hit by this loss of platform/audience, here’s what you can do to help to help the art-side of fandom stay motivated enough to produce content:

credit artists

link to their current media/platforms to the best of your ability

with artist’s permission, share their credited work on whatever fandom platforms you end up moving to if it’s not a site that they have migrated to

help others keep track of where their favorite artists are now

if you’re using discord to look at art, remember to check out the actual link and maybe give feedback there, because telling your friend that you like the art they linked does nothing for keeping the artist arting

Erotic text is still currently allowed under tumblr’s new policy, but it might not be later, so keep these things in mind for fic authors too. 

And just in general, it’s not just content creators that need support and security. Look around at the friends you’ve made here. Think about how you’ll keep in touch with them. Think about how you might reminisce and be sad if the “next tumblr” comes along and they felt too lost to have stayed in fandom long enough to meet you there. Be kind; show love. Everyone’s a little scared and sad now - creators, rebloggers, and lurkers. We’re all looking forward at December 17th with uncertainty and indecision, and that’s okay. 

We’re not scared because we loved the blue background or the activity page design, we’re scared because of the people, friends, heroes, admirers, peers, validation, love, and happiness that we feel slipping away. And so long as we hold onto the bonds that matter most to us, this will all pass a lot less painfully than we fear. 

If you’ve been meaning to get in touch with someone, but have been putting it off or feeling shy, now’s probably the time. If you wanted to make friends, note down someone’s accounts, form a discord or mailing-list with your buddies, now’s the time.

“Fandom’s not a place, it’s a people.”  —Thor, probably.

[kreftropod]

Yknow, part of me want to be upset, or properly angry, but a larger part of me finds it, in a way, amusing to just watch the chaos unfold.

[puppehgal]

#I’m so completely unsurprised by all of this#it’s like#they’re desperately trying to heave water back out of the boat#but instead of using buckets they just drill more holes and hope the water runs back out on its own

Those are some excellent tags there phanter

[silvysartfulness]

Honestly, I don’t even post, consume or reblog all that much adult content on here.

But the way @staff has handled this makes me absolutely furious. It’s about so much more than wanting erotica on my dash.

Tumblr has always been a community that is very female.dominated, with lots of content-creators, fans, sjws and just women talking to other women about the things women want to talk about. Sometimes, these things are sexual in nature.

And on just about every other site, that’s an impossible thing to do, because on the one end of the scale, anything to do with sex, especially female sexuality, is shamed or prohibited (this is where tumblr’s headed! Yay, purity culture!) or on the other hand, dominated by male gaze and predatory behaviour.

For Staff to pretty much shrug and say “you want sex, go someplace else” means to ignore the user base that built this website, that found a secure community here, that dared explore their identities in a relatively safe space.

The pornbot plague is an intrusion of those “other places” into our space, and instead of dealing with it, Staff decided to punish those who have been here all along. Like shooting a patient because they contracted the measles instead of nuking the infection.

Nipples are nipples, tumblr. There is nothing inherently sexual about some and not others, depending on the shape of the body they’re attached to. We’ve had this discourse for years. Adding the word “presenting” doesn’t tidy that over.

It was actual real child pornography with real victims that got you in trouble, tumblr, not nsfw-fanart of consensual adults getting it on.

This is betrayal of the users that have been here all along, it sucks, and I hope the backlash gets bad enough it forces Staff to reconsider. Until then - enjoy the Exodus and meme the hell out of it as you go, dear mutuals - hope to see you out there!

[silvysartfulness]

It’s perfectly fine to reblog it, please do! And feel free to add your own thoughts and comments as well - this is an important angle to the discussion, and it should be heard, loud and clear!

[prokopetz]

I think the real problem here is that big media corporations seem to believe that social media userbases are fungible, and persist in acting on this belief no matter how many times it’s demonstrated to be wrong.

There’s a specific pattern of events that plays out over and over (and over) again, and it looks something like this:

1. Social media platform becomes popular

2. Social media platform is purchased by big media corporation in order to gain access to it large user base

3. Big media corporation realises that social media platform’s demographics are not the demographics they want to sell things to.

4. Big media corporation institutes measures to drive away “undesirable” users, apparently in the honest belief that the outgoing users will automatically be replaced by an equal number of new, more demographically desirable users

5. This does not, in fact, occur

6. Social media platform crashes and burns

You’d think that, by the sheer law of averages, at least one person who’s capable of learning from experience would become involved in this whole process at some point.

[miscreant-side-puffs]

*Looks back at Bolt and Bolt 2.* Yup pretty much spot on.

[queenology]

Now this is interesting

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

Article: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mjxg/apple-tumblr-porn-nsfw-adult-content-banned

[wide-awaaaaake]

Alternatives to Tumblr if Yahoo goes any further

Soup.io - well-known alternative to Tumblr. Reblogging, post types, themes, collab blogs, dashboard, artsy, great community already there. Soup can auto-import everything you’ve posted on Tumblr.

TypePad - Includes reblogging. Dashboard and post types similar to Tumblr.

Jux - Artful posts, beautiful blogging experience

[bollymusings]

Reblogging cause one day it just may be neccessary.

[arubbishmedic]

It became necessary

[mckaytriarchy-2-deactivated2018]

WordPress will also import Tumblr blogs.

[theveryworstthing]

i’ve gotten a lot of suggestions for pillowfort and mastodon and even newgrounds, but here are some other alternatives.

[arkadykoshka]

From someone who’s survived MySpace, livejournal, deviantart, and fanfiction.nets’ content purges and bad policy updates, here’s some advice on how to get through tumblr’s recent bullshit:

- don’t knee jerk delete. I know it’s tempting to peace out immediately but hang on and do the other steps first. Out right ghosting and erasing everything is how fandoms die.

- archive everything on your blog you want to keep

- tell your followers how they can archive and keep your work too. A lot of fic and art were only saved from ff.net and lj because other people saved it first. If you’re cool with other people saving your work for them to personally keep, let them know this. You can absolutely discourage reposting but I really do highly recommend you allow people to personally save fic and art they like and are worried will disappear forever. Digital Dark Ages are a real thing.

- tell people where you’re jumping ship to. Give links. Keep that info up, even if you’ve left the site.

- go through who you follow and find out where else you can follow them. Save their work if they’ll allow it. It’s tedious as hell but if you want to keep up with people on here clicking on their page to check in is the best way to do it.

- support places like ao3. This is exactly why ao3 asks for donations a few times a year. They are a 100% anti-purging, judgement free, ad free non profit run by an elected board and protected by lawyers. Places like ao3 literally save fandom so please continue to support them and other similar archives. This is exactly why ao3 is so important.

[polararts]

If you think your art blog is going to be deleted:

You can save all your posts with these instructions I’ll do it too just to be safe, I honestly don’t remember what I’ve posted here over the years.

[1ivoryandsalt1]

You can also import a copy of your blog into wordpress. YMMV if you have a huge amount of posts.

[polararts]

Oh thanks!! This is also a good one!! In case the first doesn’t work or you don’t have the memory for a whole zip of your blog~