As of today, November 17, 2018, any post with links, any links, even to other tumblr posts, just don’t show up anymore in tumblr’s search engine.
I just found out about it, after I posted a fic with a link to my masterlist and it got little to no notes (it shuldn’t). I was right – the moment I deleted the links, my post magically appeared in the search again. Wow.
Please spread the word to warn the others.
This affects artists who want to cross promote their work, writers who want to link to previous chapters or to a masterlist, and editors who want to link to their YouTube channels, among just a few. This new policy will kill content creators’ ability to spread their work, and for what? A poor attempt to use the algorithm to crack down on porn bots and scammers? Sad.
In the meantime, here’s what I suggest: post your work with no added links, and tell people to check the notes for your masterlist, story navigation, links to ko-fi, patreon, and other social media sites. Make sure you have all those things ready, then paste it into a reblog and have people access them that way. It’s stupid, but it’s a work around we’ll have to use until tumblr gets their act together.
Reblogging this here because I put links in pretty much all my posts so I’m going to basically disappear from Tumblr searches, more so than I already have (as a NSFW blog I’m already mostly invisible). I’ve been using a redirect for my patreon link that doesn’t even work on mobile, as many of you have contacted me about, but since it doesn’t matter anymore I’m just going to go back to using the direct link. All of my comics have links to other pages so this will also be unsearchable through the main tumblr platform.
Reblogging is pretty much the only way new folks are going to be able to find works with links in them anymore so consider reblogging works you like more frequently so that people will see them. At least until this terrible website dies lol.
As of today, November 17, 2018, any post with links, any links, even to other tumblr posts, just don’t show up anymore in tumblr’s search engine.
I just found out about it, after I posted a fic with a link to my masterlist and it got little to no notes (it shuldn’t). I was right – the moment I deleted the links, my post magically appeared in the search again. Wow.
Please spread the word to warn the others.
This affects artists who want to cross promote their work, writers who want to link to previous chapters or to a masterlist, and editors who want to link to their YouTube channels, among just a few. This new policy will kill content creators’ ability to spread their work, and for what? A poor attempt to use the algorithm to crack down on porn bots and scammers? Sad.
In the meantime, here’s what I suggest: post your work with no added links, and tell people to check the notes for your masterlist, story navigation, links to ko-fi, patreon, and other social media sites. Make sure you have all those things ready, then paste it into a reblog and have people access them that way. It’s stupid, but it’s a work around we’ll have to use until tumblr gets their act together.
Reblogging this here because I put links in pretty much all my posts so I’m going to basically disappear from Tumblr searches, more so than I already have (as a NSFW blog I’m already mostly invisible). I’ve been using a redirect for my patreon link that doesn’t even work on mobile, as many of you have contacted me about, but since it doesn’t matter anymore I’m just going to go back to using the direct link. All of my comics have links to other pages so this will also be unsearchable through the main tumblr platform.
Reblogging is pretty much the only way new folks are going to be able to find works with links in them anymore so consider reblogging works you like more frequently so that people will see them. At least until this terrible website dies lol.
When I was in high school, I was the part-time henchperson of a Mad Scientist.
I’m not exaggerating about “Mad Scientist”. “Riley” (Name changed for his family’s privacy) was a former Medical Doctor, as well as an artist, microbiologist, pilot (as in, designed and flew his own experimental aircraft), magician, computer programmer and musical composer, and had an outbuilding attached to his house where he kept things like his hand-made 3D printer, electron microscope and drone-dirigible assembly devices.
Riley had ALS and was eventually wheelchair-bound, so by 2006 I was being called in on the odd school night or weekend to go out around FoCo and the surrounding mountains. “I need a younger set of legs and someone with no fear of heights” He’d say. Being that I was a very boring child that had no interest in sex or drugs and always called when I was going to be late, and that Riley was a trusted family friend, My parents trusted me to go out at like 9PM and come home at 2AM on a Tuesday.
…To do things like scale locked fire escapes and climb around on rooftops that we DEFINITELY did not have permission to be on to do things like install speakers and bluetooth broadcasting devices at strategic points around Old Town so that if you download the right app onto your phone (I’ve got it backed up somewhere, I’ll post it when I find it) , you can walk around town and be exposed to the ghostly, extremely shady side of FoCo history for his 2007 Halloween project.
We did get caught by the cops but I was 17, short and white as goddamn mayonnaise so when the cops asked me what I was doing “It’s for a community art project!” actually worked.
My favorite Mad Science Project was in 2009, Gallus rostromegalus.
I was home from college for summer, and Riley had been messing around with Rotational Physics and had managed to make Giant (24’ x 18’) extremely realistic Chicken eggs, weighted and everything so that if you picked one up, it would feel like there was a heavy yolk wobbling around inside. They’re amusing all on their own, but after leaving them in the slash pile from spring cleaning, Riley realized they had POTENTIAL.
So we went around getting permission from a few businesses and the art museum, and I spent a few nights making plausible enormous chicken feathers in Riley’s lab out of grass, acrylic glaze and some other odds and ends laying around, and filling up the back of my mom’s van with as much of the backyard slash pile as fit in there, then drove out in the middle of the night to set up giant nests for the eggs, strewn with feathers and surrounded by Traffic cones and orange construction mesh and signs from the entirely fictitious “Department Of Fish And Wildfowl, Specious Relocation Division”
(an incomplete nest on the steps of Fort Collins Museum of Art)
(signage, responsibly warning people to stay away in case of giant chickens)
Riley even made QR codes that linked back to an obviously false Wiki- if you scrolled to the bottom, the page was covered in feathers and after five minutes it would start to make chicken noises.
People. Went. INSANE.
Crowds turned up to take selfies with the nests and Riley tracked down literally dozens of tagged photos captioned “IS THIS REAL????”.
Someone wrote a very worried and not terribly facetious-sounding letter to the editor concerned that Giant Chickens were roaming around FoCo, something that big could hurt someone! There was an entirely-serious-sounding counter-letter that we Humans have clearly invaded this majestic creature’s natural habitat, where are they SUPPOSED to make their nests, huh?
Multiple people called the police to report having seen the elusive Gallus rostromegalus up in the hills or skulking around downtown. Reports claimed it was anywhere form five to twelve feet tall, with dramatic plumage and an eerie, yodeling sort of call.
A few nights after installing each nest, we went back, collected the eggs, and left broken ‘eggshells’ and extra down feather around each of the nests. One of the nests was put up at the local Garden Center and I remember one of the assistant managers coming outside just after we finished the ‘hatching’ and shrieking “OH GOD I THOUGHT THOSE WERE FAKE THEY’LL GET TO THE TOMATOES SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE!” That woman would later become my manager when I worked there for a summer, though she never made the connection between me and The Chickens.
Riley passed away in 2015 after a good and well-lived life, and was kind enough to leave me The Eggs in his will.
It was a truly splendid bit of ruckus, and I miss him terribly, and I very much treasure the memories. And the Eggs, which I am absolutely going to inflict on some unsuspecting neighbors at some point, in his honor.
(If you’ve enjoyed this story, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Paypal so I can support myself telling stories, thank you!)
Hakone in Kanagawa prefecture is considered a refuge for the inhabitants of Tokyo from their hectic lifestyle and busy schedules as well as a point of interest in many a tourists trip to Japan. Amongst the regions features are the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, a botanical garden, a golf course and onsen resorts. The relative short distance from Tokyo makes this place a popular destination to catch a breath from the hustle and bustle of the big city as well as longer sojourns in the beautiful villas that line the shores of lake Ashi.
One of the highlights of a stay in Hakone is to see its Geisha perform. This is made relatively easy by the Kenban and there are many offers online to book parties with Geisha for tourists and first-timers. A unique way to see Geisha training and during the odori season is onstage of the newly renovated (the wooden pannels in the background of the photo are a distinctive feature) Hakone Yumoto Kenban, where two window facades may be opened to the street, giving it an open air vibe!
There are about 100 working Geisha registered in 26 okiya in Hakone and a speciality of the region is the term “Kirariko”-san for their apprentices up until the age of 30. They style their own hair and wear furisode kimono. Geisha wear hikizuri but are also often seen in yohatsu and tomesode. The 380 year old tradition is felt throughout their refined artistic expression but while the Geisha have a very traditional look, the Kirariko feel more modern, also due to them not opting for nihongami except during the odori season. On certain occasions the fully fledged Geisha will wear the katsura wig without the oshiroi makeup, characteristic of onsen Geisha.
When a Kirariko advances in her studies and age, she will take an exam in which her grade is determined as either “dancer grade A” or “dancer grade B”, a testament to their hard work and intense training. The gei learned in Hakone include Nagauta, percussions, Minyo and flute as well as dancing and shamisen, the staple of the Geisha. So even though for most people Hakone is a tranquil spot of recreation and relaxation, for the artisans working there living and learning is just as demanding as anywhere else.
Hakone has become a new home to ex-maiko Katsufumi of Gion Kobu and also Kyoto native Yumiko who helped translate the infamous “Memoirs of a Geisha” into Japanese.
Chartreuse Abstruseness Export 