Penny Wilder's Blog

A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An absolutely lovely happy queer story!

Look. It is April of 2020, and most of the world, if they are lucky, are stuck inside their homes, trying not to get COVID19.

I’ve been absolute garbage at writing reviews since the 2016 US election. I’ll go into that more at some point, but I’ve been writing angry letters to my congresspeople instead of talking about books.

But T.J. Klune’s work has been a bright spot in my universe for a long time. When I was suffering from severe MDD in 2015, Klune’s The Lightning-Struck Heart was one of the first things that really made me laugh again after going on meds. He’s been through a crazy shit-show in the past year with his mostly former publisher Dreamspinner Press, and so this book, Klune’s first book with Tor Books, I have to talk about it.

This book is just heartwarming. And fantastical. And ridiculous. And, like everything else I have ever read by Klune, I fucking love it.

Whether you are stuck in quarantine or not, this book will make your world just a little bit brighter.



View all my reviews

aprillikesthings:

fierceawakening:

tinkdw:

dimples-of-discontent:

impostoradult:

There is a particular take on the destruction of Tumblr that I keep waiting for someone to write, but no one has yet. Which means I apparently need to do it myself.

The take is, essentially, that not only should adults have access to adult content – in itself, valid and true – but also it is important to cultivate SOME social spaces where the overtly/explicitly sexual overlap with the non-sexual. (Not all spaces; I still think it should be illegal to have sex on the sidewalk. But SOME spaces that enable the sexual and the non-sexual to exist side-by-side)

Part of what I think leads to the dehumanization of sex (and subsequently allows the stigma and shame to cling so heavily to it) is the complete bifurcation of life into SEX and EVERYTHING ELSE and never the twain shall meet. When we – at every turn – put all aspects of human life into one sphere, and sex into another, we dehumanize it. We remove the full subjectivity of people from it, which is a problem. 

I think we need to actively cultivate spaces LIKE before-time!Tumblr where we can be people, and talk about what happened at work today, and the funny thing our dog did, and how our parents make us crazy during the holidays, and how dare they do X thing on Supernatural, and here’s a great version of that distracted boyfriend meme, and ALSO be able to talk about being horny on main, as the saying goes, and find the right porn clip to fap to. Or post nude selfies. Or hunt down that sweet, sweet NSFW Symbrock fanart. 

Having spaces where the explicitly sexual and the non-sexual overlap is important to humanizing sex and, subsequently, de-stigmatizing it (which, it should go without saying, is particularly salient for marginalized people who often suffer way more heavily from sexual stigma) 

This. As someone who is half French half British I’ve forever struggled with the frankly pretty Puritan British attitude towards sex and our bodies and the open French attitude. I know which is healthy and which isn’t from personal experience. People not discussing sex, nudity etc in a safe environment leads to so many issues around lack of education, understanding and future deep emotional and physical issues for young adults trying to figure life out. It can last our entire lives if not addressed.

My friends and I got naked in front of each other as teens to change like it’s no big deal and yeah on occasion we looked and compared bodies, it’s thanks to this that I know that my nipples which I hated for being so huge are actually not that weird. My friends all have completely different body shapes and it made me comfortable in mine knowing it was ok to not look like a model/porn star and be different because we all were.

I’ve learned so much from tumblr just from discussion and I share this with others, it’s embarrassing how little people know about their own bodies due to a lack of a forum to discuss it. This is such a good place for it and I’m so sad it is so niche already let alone if that now collapses.

Due to lack of discussion of sex and just human bodies someone close to me didn’t address the pain he had every time he had an erection until he confided in me as an open friend and it turned out he needed a medical circumcision. He went 10 YEARS with this pain (and not having sex) because he had no one to talk to about it and nowhere to look it up. Fucking ridiculous.

So yes, even for non trans / queer folk it’s so important to have an open forum somewhere regarding these things let alone how hugely important it is for these communities.

While at the same time I’m also angered that sex and nudity is villainised while nazism and it’s ilk is fiiiiiiine.

This . Is . Wrong .

“also it is important to cultivate SOME social spaces where the overtly/explicitly sexual overlap with the non-sexual.”

This.

One of my favorite things about rl kink communities? That we also went to munches (get togethers at restaurants) and just hung out, and sure we’d probably casually mention/joke about being huge perverts at some point because it was safe to do so among people we knew wouldn’t be offended, but the nice thing was just being able to be around people and talk about anything.

God, yeah. I remember being wigged out at first when I got on tumblr and it was just this free-wheeling place where someone would complain about their bad day and their next post would be a reblog of pornographic fan art with graphic comments in the tags. 

You can follow people who make nsfw content (photos, fic, art) and get to know them as people. You can follow people that aren’t content creators and get to know their tastes in kinky shit. You can have friends you met because you liked the same kind of porn and find out all the other stuff you have in common and become real friends. 

I don’t talk about my sex life on fucking facebook (other than in very locked groups, lol). Hell, I’m not sure I’ll do it on twitter unless I start a separate one for that (which….tbh I might; I liked having a sideblog here for me to post nudes and sexual tmi). 

I’m really gonna miss the way that stuff was all mixed together here. 

This…..

plaidadder:

aenariasbookshelf:

anaisnein:

xenoqueer:

The Vox article that I was interviewed for is up and running, and it contains some serious fuckign information about this whole fiasco.

Information that tumblr just straight up refused to provide to its userbase at all.

Unsurprisingly to those of us watching this website deteriorate over the last year, this full content purge and ban has been in progress for a solid 6 months. The date got moved up because of the child porn thing, but it was always coming for us.

Equally unsurprising: Tumblr’s management and ownership are absolutely destroying the actual staff working on it. The company has been hemoragghing senior staff without so much as a token attempt to keep them in place. So the drops in site quality are real, and wil probably only be getting worse.

Truly astonishing is the fact that apparently this crap was supposed to “double” the userbase by the end of next year. Boy, howdy, that’s not gonna work out well for them.

good luck with your plan to sell ads targeting a user base that doesn’t exist any more, @staff.

@staff @support you may want to read this. No one seems to think this nsfw ban move is a good thing. Your credibility is circling the drain at this point.

This has all been done in such a tragically stupid fashion. And it makes it worse that they actually planned it for six months before initiating it. 

The Vox piece doesn’t even really portray the extent of the devastation. They’ve broken this website for ALL of their users.

When Tumblr bans porn, who loses?

writingwithcolor:

Woo, I’ve got a lot of reading to do…

If you’ve read any of these books please share your perspectives on them – or add recommendations of your own not seen here!

Some particularly potent (and sometimes painful…looking at you The Color Purple) reads I personally recommend from the list:

The Color Purple by Alice Walker


The Autobiography Of Malcolm X 


Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe 


Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Also, Mod Alice loves and recommends all things Octavia E. Butler.

-Mod Colette, WWC 

42 Amazing Books Written By Black Authors

mojoflower:

Can I post my porn ficlets (like, original or fanfiction with explicit real person porn gifs embedded in the text like this one) on the following platforms?  Or just straight-up host a Penis Friday?

AO3?  YES
Dreamwidth?  YES
Pillowfort?  YES

(must be 18 to register):  18+ content allowed with this exception – Posting sexual, violent, or otherwise offensive content, persistently and in an unrelated community or tag (i.e. ‘spamming’) with the intent to offend and disturb other users.

Twitter? soft and poorly defined YES

“Twitter allows some forms of graphic violence and/or adult content in Tweets marked as containing sensitive media. However, you may not use such content in live video, your profile, or header images.”

LiveJournal? soft and poorly defined YES

you can but you must: “Mark Content estimated by Russian legislation as inappropriate for children (0 −18) as “adult material” by using Service functions.”

DeviantART?  NO

you cannot use it “to upload, post, or otherwise transmit any material that is obscene, offensive, blasphemous, pornographic, unlawful, threatening, menacing, abusive, harmful, an invasion of privacy or publicity rights, defamatory, libelous, vulgar, illegal or otherwise objectionable…. DeviantART strictly prohibits the submission of materials classified as pornographic or obscene. There is no exception to this prohibition. Certain content may be deemed obscene by the administration and as such the staff reserves the right to remove such content immediately upon discovery. The administration reserves the sole right to review and classify questionable material as obscene or not obscene.”

Instagram?  NO

“ for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.”

Pinterest?  NO

“We remove porn. We may hide nudity or erotica. Most artistic, scientific or educational nudity is OK. We may hide this and other explicit content from public places. Paintings, statues and other real world art, and content that shows breastfeeding or mastectomies are always OK. We always remove images of explicit sexual activity or fetishes, and nude or partially nude people in sexually suggestive poses.”  [They actually have examples of what’s ok which is nic ]

Wattpad?  NO

there’s a huge amount of info on what’s not allowed. From what I can gather it’s a no to PWP, no non-con or dub-con and no pictures, gifs or videos containing nudity or sexual acts ‘regardless of whether private parts are visible.’ “The following sexual content is not allowed on Wattpad, and will be removed: Pornographic stories. Wattpad considers content to be pornographic when it exists solely for the purpose of sexual stimulation.”  So not even written erotica!!!

WordPress?  NO

“We do permit mature content on WordPress.com, including text, images and videos that contain nudity, offensive language, and mature subject material. However, blogs that contain such content must be marked as Mature in our system. Please don’t: Post visual depictions of sexually explicit acts (such as, but not limited to, images, videos, and drawings) that can be considered pornographic”

Feel free to signal boost this so everyone can know.  I’m only asking yea/nay for explicit porn gifs, so if you want to know about drawings, written erotica, etc, then read the blurbs.

We all have to thank @charlio44​ for doing all the reading/research on these.  I just sat around on the other end and cried into my wine glass.

On the plus side, if you’re following me, you can now pretty much ignore any platform that’s a hard no, I just don’t see the point.  If you’re not following me yet, hit up the first 4 and I’ll follow you back.  It seems a pretty safe bet that Tumblr is going to pull the plug on my blog here.

SPREAD THE WORD

disseria:

chngeco:

feminismfuckyeah:

this campaign by CHNGE is everything

[image error]

dbdspirit:

In response to the NSFW ban being enacted by Tumblr Staff, on December 17th 2018 I propose that we all log off of our Tumblr accounts for 24 hours. 

The lack of respect and communication between staff and users is stark. Users have been begging staff to delete the porn bot outbreak, which has plagued the website for well over a year. The porn bots oftentimes send people asks and messages, trying to get them to go to a website full of viruses. They also spam advertisements on others posts.  

Users have also begged that Tumblr ban neo-nazis, child porn, and pedophiles, all which run rampant on the site. The site/app got so bad that it was taken off the app store.

However, instead of answering the users, Tumblr has instead taken the liberty to ban all NSFW content, regardless of age. But users have already run into issues of their SFW content being marked as sensitive and being flagged as NSFW, not allowing them to share their work.

Not only does this discriminate again content creators, but it also discriminates against sex workers. Disgustingly, the ban will be enacted on December 17 which is also International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

This ban is disgusting, and while I (and plenty of others) welcome porn bots and child porn being banned, the Tumblr filtration system is broken. It tags artistic work’s nipples as NSFW (when it is art), it tags SFW art as NSFW (when it is not), and does not stop the porn bots, neo-nazis and dozens of other issues.

This ban is discriminatory. This ban is ineffective. This ban is unacceptable. 

To protest, log off of your Tumblr account for the entirety of December 17th. Log off at 12 am EST or 9PM PST and stay off for 24 hours. Don’t post. Don’t log on. Don’t even visit the website. Don’t give them that sweet ad revenue. 

Tumblr’s stock has already taken a hard hit. Let’s make it tank. Maybe then they will listen to the users. 

Reblog to signal boost! We must force change.

betternerfanivia:

Tumblr staff r u homophobic or its because the cat is naked

olderglow:

this post will be updated as I find more websites to add! please check with the original before reblogging to see if there’s an updated version, and message me with corrections or more suggestions if you have them!!

websites in red have explicitly forbidden the posting of NSFW content. websites in orange allow certain types of NSFW content or have questionable / unclear guidelines.

for general use

friendproject.net – built on myspace, great blog customization

gab.ai – added for completeness, but has a huge alt-right + racism issue

joinmastodon.org – basically like if twitter and discord had a child??
mewe.com – privacy-focused, has groups and private messages

minds.com – allows you to exchange traffic for being promoted (??)
myspace.com – yes, it still exists, i’m just as surprised as you

nibblebit.com – similar to tumblr with reblogs / likes / customizing of blogs
pinterest.ca – easy sharing and collecting, but has many issues with theft

swarmr.com – looks like a clone of tumblr, though i haven’t tested

twitter.com – allows posting both text and photos in sets, allows retweets

geared towards writers and bloggers


archiveofourown.org – specializes in hosting fic, excellent tagging system

dreamwidth.org – a blogging site similar to livejournal or wordpress
fanfiction.net – another big name in fanfic posting
livejournal.com – still an option, but questionably safe for fandom
mibba.com – for creative writers, centered around community feedback
quotev.com – decent website for original / fan fic and fandom quizzes
royalroad.com – hosts webnovels and other fanfic, nice dark theme

wattpad.com – modern pretty fic site with direct links to irl publishers

wordpress.com – old and well-established, often considered the default

geared towards artists and photographers


artstation.com – excellent website for posting professional art portfolios

behance.net – meant for professionals posting various visual media types
deviantart.com – huge community, allows posting art + sorting into folders

flickr.com – great community for photographers, can join groups

furaffinity.net – similar to DA but for furries, easy to display commish info

galleria.emotionflow.com – very similar to pixiv, with imo better tagging
instagram.com – photo and video posts, excellent tag search
newgrounds.com – an oldie but a goodie, allows a ton of media types

piczel.tv – allows both streaming and posting art / photosets to a gallery

pixiv.net – huge anime art community, allows livestreaming

poizen.me – gorgeous website designed for artists to post art AND track comms

this one’s still in alpha but looks incredibly promising as a platform and super pretty to look at!! go snap up a username before all the good ones are taken! favouritism what’s that



vero.co – app only, similar to insta but with MUCH more privacy control

chat or forum based

aminoapps.com – community-based, has blogs + chat, custom themes

discordapp.com – great chat app, text + voice, can join infinite servers

reddit.com – literally a community for everything, SO MANY CAT PHOTOS

18+ only


bdsmlr.com – microblogging + social media for people into kink

blogr.xxx – a tumblr clone created specifically for sharing porn

fetlife.com – considered one of the biggest kink communities online

libertine.center – beautiful + modern site for posting irl nsfw and kink stuff

thefetlibrary.com – for posting of erotic stories, replaces bdsmlibrary

paid platforms

patreon.com – subscription-based access to many diff types of content

pillowfort.io – still in beta, but should function almost identically to tumblr

typepad.com – similar to wordpress but with reblogging and a dash

defunct platforms

(so people will stop telling me i forgot them)

jux.com – shut down in 2014 due to lack of funds
shoandtell.me – now redirects to someone’s personal blog
soup.io – more or less closed down this year due to GDPR issues

ways to save your current tumblr posts

use the wayback machine! you do have to archive each page of your blog individually but once you do all the content, including media, will be saved exactly as it was at the moment you archived it.
wordpress allows you to directly import whole tumblr blogs, and if i recall correctly it’s something both dreamwidth and pillowfort have said they are working on.
if you have some knowledge of computers you can try this github solution which uses a python script to download your whole blog to your computer. even if you don’t know anything about programming or the command line they give a very good beginners tutorial on how to use it so you should still give it a shot!

if that’s still a little daunting you can try soarcodes’ tumblr post that also has a decent tutorial!


some notes

please note that every site on this list will have pros and cons, and i haven’t listed them here since this post would be a mile long otherwise. please do your research before moving completely over to another site in case they have policies you disagree with.

also, because I see a lot of misinformed people ranting about this: deviantart does not own the art you post. some years ago hot topic stole a ton of art from DA and sold it on merchandise and people assumed that DA gave them permission to do it despite there being literally zero evidence for that claim. DA explictly states in their TOS that you retain copyright and sole license of the art you post.

post version 4.7, 2018-12-04 16:31 AST

No clue where I am going, but somewhere where LGBT and sex-positivity content won’t be constantly flagged. And where shipping will still exist. 

thespectacularspider-girl:

If you’re wanting to show your displeasure, don’t just tag staff or support.  Take a page out of other consumer revolts and make sure your displeasure is known.  

Don’t be an idiot.  Do not threaten, harass or otherwise make this personal.  Contact these companies, make your displeasure known, alert them that you are a customer and you will be leaving their brand across all boards unless they reverse their decision.

Be clear, be concise, be polite, but make your displeasure known.

Tumblr

Email:         support@tumblr.com 
Mail:           35 E. 21st St., 9th FloorNew York, NY10010 
Twitter:       @tumblr

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/tumblr/


Oath Inc

Email:        –
Mail:           770 BroadwayNew York, NY 10003United States
Twitter:       @oath
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/OathBrands

Verizon

Email:        –
Mail:          1095 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013

Twitter:       @VerizonNews

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/verizon/

Note the following properties owned by Oath Inc.  Bring them up explicitly in your statement of leaving their services.

Yahoo and all Yahoo Subsidiaries (Yahoo News, Yahoo Mail, etc)
AOL
TechCrunch
HuffPost
Flurry
Kanvas
Endgadget
AutoBlog
Makers
Build
Ryot
BuiltByGirls
MSN
Outlook
X-Box

New Info Will Be Added As I’m Made Aware Of It

Edit: This does nothing if it isn’t shared around

This.