Writing a novel is really hard and takes a lot of skill. My advice is to start by writing short stories to develop your writing ability. Post them online to get feedback. Keep slowly improving until you are good enough to write something longer.
There are plenty of online writing sites where users post their work for feedback. One good one is Critique Circle.
Didn’t expect to see something so deep on YSK, but you’re not wrong, Sorry to be hear it didn’t work out. You are heroes for trying in the first place. Not every kid is a fit for every family. You gave it a shot which is more than a lot of other people do. Thanks for that, you’re a kind family.
Signed,
A ward of state, who was adopted by a family member.
It reminds me of watching a particularly nasty break-up play out, with emotions running high and lots of bile being spewed.
I dunno - I never especially liked Reddit in the first place, so it's just a thing I see others do. I moved there sort of grudgingly about ten years ago because there just weren't any other visble alternatives, and I've been more or less actively looking for a replacemnet all along, so when the threadiverse took off, I was ready.
But I suspect that for a lot of people, it's essentially that they invested a lot into the relationship, and then suddenly their partner betrayed them, and now they're pissed.
I didn’t know they had their last episode until Jason mentioned it on another show. Pretty shitty it happened but I think that the new show can be just as good and hopefully better!
If you’re photosensitive, that’s more reason not to be using dark mode. I challenge you to switch to light mode on a low brightness and nightlight for a week and get back to me on how it feels.
I went from reading for an hour before my eyes got sore, to being able to read for about four. It’s a lifechanger.
No thanks, I get enough migraine potential from just when I’m forced to use apps that don’t have a dark mode.
I’m not using dark everywhere I can because it’s cool or because I read some random paper, but because it’s legitimately the only way I can use technology.
If it works for you, then it works, but some research (which you can find lots on both sides) won’t suddenly stop how my eyes work.
The Martian is a really fun, easy read. It was originally written as a series of online blog posts so it's pretty consistently entertaining without any big, boring filler chapters.
Personally though, I don't read a lot of fiction. There's also a ton of really entertaining nonfiction out there. I'd particularly recommend Isaac's Storm by Erik Larsen. It's about the devastating hurricane that leveled Galveston, Texas in 1900 and weaves in the history of hurricane prediction in a really interesting way, telling the stories of some of the people involved.
I dunno if that will turn out to be something you like, but just a little something different to consider trying.
(Also, I know everyone is saying library and they're definitely right you should do that. But also I wanted to share my favorite eBay book seller as another option for low cost books. Their selection is amazing: https://www.ebay.com/str/secondsalecom)
FYI: Many e-readers, whether hardware or software, have a special font built in that helps dyslexics. It's called OpenDyslexic and is a game changer. My wife uses it on her Kindle and it works a treat. Give it a go.
edit: Thought of a book recommendation. Check out the little known Avery Cates series, beginning with The Electric Church. Cyberpunk, spy, assassin. Good stuff.
I grew up abroad because of my dad’s job so we’d come back to the uk every summer to visit family. One year we were getting ready to fly back and I woke up the morning of the flight with the worst cold I’d had all year. Door to door the travel time was probably close to 20 hours if not more, with 14 in the air and 3 on the ground for a layover in the middle.
I loved Reddit, but after the API shenanigans and the doubling down I went sour... and then I read the latest TOS...
You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
i.e. whatever you post WE own forever and we never have to credit you. It's so horrifyingly immoral.
I've not seen this "waive moral rights or attribution" in any other site. It's not in Twitter's, it's not in Facebook, I don't think it's even legal in a lot of jurisdictions (moral rights cannot easily be contracted away).
The preserving of the integrity of the work allows the author to object to alteration, distortion, or mutilation of the work that is "prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation"
i.e. under the new TOS Reddit can edit your post to say that you eat dead puppies
Didn’t they straight up say that at one point? And I don’t begrudge that: it makes sense. Potentially the next big wave of hotness is being trained on existing content like Reddit. They are potentially profiting off Reddit. It’s fair that Reddit should get a cut of that.
But there has to be a better way than to go through swinging a hammer side to side and not caring who you bludgeon
You're seeing it more because Reddit has made a series of decisions, in rather rapid succession within the last few weeks, that were widely disliked by longtime users of the platform. API restrictions, the crackdown on NSFW content, major bugs with the official mobile app, mass deletion of DMs, removal of Reddit Gold and the rumored upcoming "creator program"...
All of this has come down the pipeline in a relatively short amount of time, and is pushing people to the point of vehemency.
I’m assuming they did it because they didn’t want to spend engineer time improving their message system. Or some old USB disk on a forgotten computer had filled up.
Yes, I myself am a post-blackout refugee. We were not constantly shredding reddit at every opportunity 2 weeks ago. Despite having all left because we no longer found it acceptable. This change is what I’m trying to explore.
Not spez fucking shit up. I know all that happened, I talked about spez in my OP. It explains hatred of spez, but not the entire faceless website that doesn’t actually have any consciousness or decision-making power.
I actually think the fediverse is going to fracture very quickly. You’re going to have instances that will defederate with anyone that permits the slightest bit of anti-trans commenting and you’re going to have instances that will make 4chan look inclusive and will defederate from anyone posting “woke bullshit”
Ive posted on here before that its only a matter of time before someone like Volkswagen-Audi start their own instance so they can control the narrative and push their own content too.
And I can ABSOLUTELY see paid only instances for well moderated kid friendly content and also hardcore porn.
Yes, it will fracture, but hopefully at the fringes, as you mentioned. So thsie with extreme views find it difficult to get traction due to lack of users or lack of places to post.
It should mean that we don’t get brigading from communities. You can just block them. It should.nean that there are safer communities but they miss out on some content.
At the moment, the only large communities are general. That may change over time. I do hope that companies start their own instances. Not to control the narrative, but to be their official communication. I don’t want commercial users using the community instances.
Again, then, they can be blocked but also, they can be verified.
The issue as I see it is that once Meta or someone similar can start pointing to far right instances, child abuse materials or anything of the like and start painting Lemmy as a whole as the new 4chan “radicalising and grooming the children” only to release their “new app” which is just their instance then the “free fediverse” is going to BE the fringe.
Large companies will have no desire to be involved with “that place” because the sanitised, community guidelines having, data farming goliath will have 2 billion users. Why risk the bad pr?
Why risk the bad PR of being on meta when you can be on your own instance that any other instance can access.
It’s like email. People don’t hold Google responsible if someone emails them with profanity.
I expect there will be sanitised versions and free for all versions. Moderation will differentiate but it may be that it’s send regulated, like porn on NSFW instances.
One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve blocked the NSFW instance from my feed and any comments from there are blocked too. So users from instances with a lot of NSFW content may find they have less engagement. L it may be that more regulated instances have less freedom of speech but more people to listen.
Likely the realiry will be somewhere in the middle.
I think you have a very optimistic outlook on people. We understand how the fediverse works but I wouldnt trust most people to differentiate between the app and the content it serves.
Perhaps, once legal consequences of comments start kicking in here and there, the Fediverse will tend to remain fragmented to avoid having very large communities that also happen to act as a lightning rod for litigation
Why would they face any legal consequences any more than any other social media? The platform would not be liable for the content of its users. Obviously, they are responsible to remove illegal content, like child porn.
You have to have the ability to advocate for your rights under the law. Even if there are laws saying that the platform is not liable for content of the users, there can still be nuisance suits or prosecutions. Even if those actions are frivolous, it still costs to respond to them. They generally can’t be ignored.
Why would they face any legal consequences any more than any other social media?
Instance location. Content comes at you from all over the Fediverse but once its in your instance it’s actually located on your server. It’s obvious how even regular NSFW stuff can be a problem if your instance is sitting in a ME country but perhaps less obvious (and more troublesome) is text based content.
For instance if a user is enrolled on an instance located in Germany and then subscribes to Neo-Nazi content from an instance located in the United States. That NN material is now on your instance but much of it is probably illegal in Germany. What happens when the German Authorities find out and come knocking?
Even “Child Porn” isn’t nearly as cut and dried as most people think. Things like /c/tinytitties or /c/flatchested from lemmynsfw are arguably illegal in a place like Australia since the person can be perceived as under-age due to their physical characteristics. It gets worse when you toss in the AI Generated stuff.
Big Tech does a lot of juggling trying to stay clear of these problems and they have large legal teams to help them when they run into trouble. I rather doubt that most instance admins have the resources for it.
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