The Shadow of Sorrow

hellhome

[ayeforscotland]

I just don't feel like I can trust a monetised political blog to be entirely honest. Especially when you're talking about the oppression of others. It's in your financial best interest for that oppression to continue because it draws attention to your ad reads.

This is a very confident accusation built on a misunderstanding on how any of this is monetised.

This blog does not generate any ad revenue. Tumblr does not pay me for political writing and views on my videos here do not earn me anything. For the videos that can earn money based on views - Only TikTok, YouTube and Instagram count.

When I mark something as an Ad on Tumblr, that's me being transparent that a studio, publisher, or creator agency has sent me a key to play the game, or the video has the potential to earn money based on its performance elsewhere. I usually link those other platforms and explicitly say watching there is a way to support me financially.

Yes, some people support me voluntarily through Ko-Fi. Some subscribe to me on Twitch and I'm genuinely grateful for that support. But I also work full time - AyeforScotland is not my livelihood, and I'm certainly not making enough from it for political oppression to be some financial necessity.

Turning that into "It is in your financial best interest for that oppression to continue" is an extraordinary leap.

By this logic, journalists covering wars secretly want them to continue, foodbank workers want people to remain hungry, and climate campaigners are financially invested in the planet getting hotter.

I've been arguing for the same political outcomes since long before there was any earnings from being 'AyeforScotland'. My desired endpoint has always been the same: I would quite like the things I complain about to stop happening.

You're welcome to be sceptical of monetised creators. You should be but if you're going to accuse me of materially benefitting from oppression continuing, you'll need a lot more that "Some of your followers might also watch your gaming videos somewhere else."

[thebibliosphere]

Local man actually follows the law about declaring ads/gifted keys for his video game content—unlike 100% of the drop shipper sellers on this site that masquerade as meme blogs—and gets accused of dishonesty.

You couldnae make it up.

[thebibliosphere]

It never fails to amuse me when I get “hello influencer” emails wanting me to push questionable products to my followers.

Like worstie, I can barely promote my own published book without wanting to curl up and die.

The fuck makes you think I’ll shill your discount wish shit?

[thebibliosphere]

Also, it's Tumblr. If I try to tell anyone about your knock-off Wish-quality sex toy there’s going to be a horde of Autistic lesbians doing a power point presentation in the notes about safe sex toy material and correct battery storage.

Which I am 100% down for, but it will not get you any sales.

[cookieoppressor]

I was trying to figure out if you were someone important on a other platform, because there's no way in hell anyone actually thinks you can be classified as "Influencer" if you have a big Tumblr blog.

And then also think advertising to this mob would be a good idea

[thebibliosphere]

There are actually lots of people who sell stuff successfully on here, usually drop ship stuff.

They’re just not disclosing it as ads, which they are supposed to do, and instead it's marketed in a very Tumblr-esque way which can be summed up as “omg guys look how CUTE this is” followed by a different account underneath going “omg found it!!” and it links to a drop ship site with the item(s).

And the link usually has an affiliate tracker in it, which you may or may not be able to spot unless you’re familiar with them, which is also something you are legally supposed to disclose.

I used to get a lot of offers from around 2016-2020 to sell “moon lamps” on here, y’know those orb lights that look like a moon? Yeah. I was offered a higher kickback to make it look like I wasnt posting an add because these sellers know Tumblrites don’t like ads.

They wanted it to look as organic and hyped up as possible and then I’d just so happen to be like “omg you guys it's on sale” and post a link. Which is skeevy as shit and also illegal af in the US.

It’s like the insta/tiktok girlies saying “link in bio” to get around saying “here’s a product I make money on if you buy it” because they want to sound like your friend because people are more likely to impulse buy stuff if a “friend” is recommending something.

They’re also trusting that everyone knows “link in bio” means “affiliate link” which is technically not enough of a disclosure but whatever.

This is why I tag all my own book promos with “affiliate links” because depending on which storefront you buy Hunger Pangs from, I may get a kickback from the vender which I do to help mediate the fees I lose from distribution. It’s not much—literal pennies in some cases—but I’m still legally required to state it.

It’s also why when I do post products I use or like, I make a point of letting people know I’m not an affiliate and not sponsored because despite the legal ramifications these people are flirting with by not disclosing their affiliate status, I want to be fully transparent with my followers when it comes to me trying to sell them things.

Y’all keep my lights on by reading my work and through my ko-fi and patreon. I am not about to risk that trust for the sake of some shitty vibrator sales from a sketch-ass drop shipper who wants me to pretend I’m not selling you things.

So, yeah. People do successfully sell stuff on here. A lot of us small indie creators sell our own work all the time.

But there are also drop-ship sellers on here who get enough of a kick-back from affiliate links to make selling cutesy kitsch stuff worth their time on here. They’re just making sure you don’t know you’re being marketed to.

[thebibliosphere]

Throwback to when I openly talked about this and got blocked by several huge “meme” blogs that were actually drop shippers who didn’t like me lifting up the rock and exposing how they hide their ads in plain sight lol

[futuremoji]

Your least most recent emoji predicts how your summer will end

[dyk-tv-theme-song]

Do you recognize this TV theme song? #780

I know this and can name the series

I know this but can't name the series

I might know this

I've never heard this

Remaining time: 6 days 19 hours

[actualized-animal]

as much as i poke fun at “tumblr prose,” i will acknowledge that sometimes when you’re writing and you’re really in the groove, you’re really feeling yourself, you’re on your capital-a Author shit, and you write a line that makes you go, “oh yeah, this is the Good Shit. this is so Subtle and Says So Much. this is Characterization. this is Themes and Motifs. you could write a whole essay about this one line. the master of the craft strikes again!” and then a month or whatever later when you’re editing you read over it again with post-write clarity and you realize you wrote some real “people die when they’re killed” bullshit

[jewish-joy]

Last year, I befriended a Catholic seminarian. We've gotten to be pretty decent friends. Seeing as he was staying in town for the summer and I wasn't, I entrusted him with caring for my plant.

He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"

"What?"

He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"

"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."

Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.

Listen, totally cool. My plant becoming Catholic is a great deal for her not dying over the summer. But now I must navigate this interfaith household. Keep me in your thoughts.

[gaslit-dipshits]

[appalachian-werewolf]

PoweredByWho — Who's Building Data Centers in Your Backyard?

Follow the money behind America's data center boom. Track 2,300+ projects, PAC spending, and the politicians who sign off on it.

[florencemachines]

Costume appreciation series: Van Helsing (2004) dir Stephen Sommers

Costume Design by Gabriella Pescucci and Carlo Poggioli

[butchbutera]

Everyone loves a cycle aware Orpheus but what about a cycle aware Eurydice? Eurydice who tries her hardest to resist the hunger and the cold. Tries to convince Orpheus to just LOOK UP time and time again to no avail. Eurydice who KNOWS and still fails. She knows he’s gonna turn around. She knows they’re not gonna make it out of hell together. But she hopes. Every time she hopes that he loves her a little bit less than the last time. Hopes he won’t look back. But of course, Orpheus is still Orpheus. And he loves her more than anything.

[finalbum]

Love Game in Eastern Fantasy, Episode 20

[future-crab]

Imagine being Anais Mitchell and writing a song about the rhetoric of fascism so incisive and prescient that 10 years later an actual fascist would use that exact rhetoric down to the highly-specific phrasing in his presidential campaign. But also it took 10 years for the project you wrote that song for to move from living room shows to concept album to theater workshop to off-Broadway to Broadway, and its Broadway debut ended up coinciding with said fascist's successful bid for the presidency, and now it looks like your song that you wrote in 2005 is a super unsubtle reference to that one particular and highly-topical politician.

Frankly if I were her I would have started killing.

[tsalala]

A mountain lion cub feasting on a mountain goat carcass. Photographed by Stay Wild Media.

[ziawouldntwannabeya]

[heatherwitch]

(Photo one source) (Photo two source)

These photos were captured by my friend Jeff Wirth! He’s a phenomenal wildlife tracker with a love for Mountain Lions, he went out specifically searching for the rarely seen—and documented by photographs only once before—sign of a Mountain Lion predating on a Mountain Goat. After he found the carcass he returned with his dslr camera traps and was able to get this mom and kittens returning to the killsite.

(Photo source) (Also on the cover for this book!)

Jeff is now doing incredibly important work down in the borderlands of Arizona, documenting the lions and other species in the area and how they’re impacted by the border wall that’s being installed, and advocating both for the wild world and the people who are suffering from it.

It’s a community funded project; his only source of income while spending all day, every day in the field is from Patreon and donations.

Stay Wild Media Website

Stay Wild Media Instagram

Stay Wild Media TikTok

Stay Wild Media YouTube Channel

Patreon

[vigilantsycamore]

Tumblr pillow fight

Reblog to hit the person you reblogged this from with a pillow

[deadpoets]

OLIVIA RODRIGO drop dead (Official Music Video)

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i can’t believe people ever called tumblr an echo chamber or a “hugbox”, i have never in my life been exposed to a group of people so thirsty to disagree with you. why did someone just say they wished they could crucify me bc i said i liked oat milk best. we all need to learn some lessons about friendship here

[feefal]

Gold, Silver, and Bronze!🥇🥈🥉

Now as sisters and with a complex sibling dynamic.

[feefal]

did you know 24k gold is so soft you can scratch it with a fingernail? Because bronze knows

[harocat]

Her ‘PE with my isekai dad’ fit is so underrated.