operaofsocks

[operaofsocks]

soooo, hey. you guys have probably noticed tumblr pulling some fuckshittery lately. i don't think i'm gonna up and leave overnight but i'm trying out cohost again, and as such, i've decided to make a version of this blog over there as well. you can find me here!

i'd love to know if any other billdips are over there, and also i'd encourage those of you who aren't to try it out yourself. it's got some really cool features. the staff also doesn't make matt or musk levels of incompetent decisions (my feelings on some of their previous choices notwithstanding, they're still not that bad).

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oh yeah i was gonna keep revising the older chapters too. i guess that might help get me back into the swing of things?

every time i find some reason or another to start talking to someone about lrth, i nigh-immediately start thinking about working on the current chapter again

not to mention all the nice comments i've gotten since the last one. i really ought to get back to it

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every time i find some reason or another to start talking to someone about lrth, i nigh-immediately start thinking about working on the current chapter again

not to mention all the nice comments i've gotten since the last one. i really ought to get back to it

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It's so nice to get a reminder in 2023 that Bill Cipher was/is THE villain of all time. He's the worst thing that ever happened to a random town in Oregon. He's a triangle. His backstory is basically the novel "Flatland" from 1884 but with more arson. He projects his family issues onto a 12-year old girl and subsequently tries to murder her. He's a fan of Dr. Strangelove. He's questioning his sexual orientation. He was defeated by kittens, then tickles, then by a senior citizen in his underwear. He's utterly terrifying. He's pathetic and cringefail. He lies about being happy "for courtesy." He lies until he's not lying anymore. He refuses to grow up and mature. He once fell down a flight of stairs on purpose. No one will ever do it like he did

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hi i'm tox and i like billdip. (he/him, 28 years old, queer as hell)

i tend to keep most of my fandom bullshittery to my main, @prismatoxic, but billdip is special to me in a way that just made this make sense. plus i have a lot to say about my fic writing for it that seems better kept to a specific audience.

speaking of fics--my magnum opus, so to speak, is Long Road to Hell, a bill redemption chapterfic that i've been working on since 2016. yes i'm still updating it. i promise! it's technically a slow burn, though once the romance actually starts it goes from 0 to 60 very fast. i can also assure you that bill does not turn into an uwu smol bean baby, and in fact i've tried really hard to make him believably start to alter his thoughts and actions while remaining kind of an abrasive bully. dunno if i always succeed, but i am trying.

it also does deal in bits and pieces of bill's backstory, so. come summer 2024 alex hirsch is most likely going to outdate just about everything i've written. maybe i can have the fic finished by then :')

i'm a dead dove enjoyer and dipper being underage or being manipulated by bill isn't something that bothers me (in fact, i welcome both). i also like humanoid bills just as much as his real form; i love seeing the different designs people come up with, and i think they all have merit, so don't come at me with that cringe culture shit. cringe is dead, i killed it myself.

i roleplay billdip from time to time with a heavy preference for playing bill. i'm always down to meet new people to do that with but if you're under 18, no. do not try. i am not interested. i also like talking to gf/billdip fans in general but the same rule applies. no i don't care that gravity falls is a cartoon. i'm not barging into your space by liking it and i'd appreciate you staying the fuck out of mine.

all that said... i also draw sometimes, so you might see some of that as well. my humanoid bill is a tall goblin man and i love him dearly.

[operaofsocks]

well, gravity falls is long over, i can probably just make up shit about bill's backstory to suit the needs of my fics or roleplays. we're well past the point of me needing to worry about--

alex hirsch: hey guys in july 2024 i'm releasing a book all about bill's backstory!

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I feel honored and excited to do this.

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i should really make a new pinned lmao

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no seriously it is so endlessly funny to me when gf youtubers (that one guy who posts the box set recordings) and gf fans try to demonize billdip

without billdip the fandom and the show itself would not be as large as it is. we were the entire fandom in the 2010s and we still are, the only difference is cancel culture and the influx of antis coming from tiktok. It's exactly like ereri in attack titan.

you are coming into the billdip fandom and then getting pissy about all the billdip. if you dont like it maybe gravity falls isnt the fandom for you

[operaofsocks]

if i may...

being a popular and well-known fic author isn't really like... a thing? in modern day fandom? maybe in some, sure, but your cassandra clares or whoever else just don't really happen anymore. fandom is much bigger than it used to be, and you'll always be putting your work onto a pile of existing works, unless it's a small fandom, in which case you'll be one of the few posting it but also one of the few even around to read it.

and, look, here's the thing: your fic will be popular, at best. you, as a person? that still requires some legwork. you cannot just write well and become a household name in the same breath. like even for famous published authors, how many people do you think know who stephen king is as a person? his name is certainly "household", but he's also been putting out an obscene amount of work for decades.

now. i'm not actually trying to be disparaging, here. i just wanted to get the ugly bits out of the way first.

here are the metrics on my most popular fic:

and here's the raw text of that screenshot:

Comments: 397 Kudos: 2,351 Bookmarks: 170 Hits: 29,345

i'm sure there's tons out there with more than mine, but for my fandom i think this is pretty good. now let me tell you how i did this:

i wrote what i wanted to.

this is not a guarantee. it is not a surefire way to become popular. but it is fun, and people will recognize your passion. they'll enjoy your work more because you're enjoying it. writing what you want, how you want will always be better for EVERYONE involved, i promise. if you write to meet a quota, to appeal to the common denominator, people can tell. it's not nearly as fun to read unless you're really, really good at it, in which case you'd honestly be better off using that talent on things you like anyway!

and my fic has not made me popular. is the fic popular? reasonably speaking, sure. but i've been plugging this tumblr into the comments of every chapter for a few of those now, and the people who have followed me are few, and the people who've actively spoken to me are even less. and this isn't a bad thing! i don't want anyone to feel obligated to talk to me because they like my writing. in fact, if they actually want to do it, it's way more fun for both of us! sound familiar?

if you want people to like your work, you need to make work you can be proud of, anon. people will be far more interested in you if you do. and they'll give you nice comments and theorize on where you're going and write essays in your inbox about their favorite parts. that feels so good. way better than raw metrics ever could!

do not chase the high of popularity. it will only hurt you, i promise. someone will like what you do, and if not, write something else you want to write, and keep doing that until someone does finally come along and go, "oh, wow, look at all this content for this thing i didn't think anyone else would like!"

anyway, sorry for the ramble. hope it helps.

my biggest obstacle as a writer is that i desperately want to be a popular and well-known fic author, but my main fic inspiration comes from characters most fans don’t want to read fic for, or ideas that go against popular fanon/characterization and so are doomed from the start. i end up feeling paralyzed and like i can’t write the unpopular ideas I want to write, because i hate knowing i could have done better by writing something with broader appeal. but whenever i try to write solely for numbers i lose motivation while the halfway through the fic. so i end up unable to write anything and feeling miserable because of it.

i want to see my unpopular ideas come to life, but i don’t want to see my fics crash and burn and keep missing the chance to create fic that people really love. so most times, i don’t write anything, but i hate that i’m so hamstrung by my own anxieties. i so desperately wish i could create one of those extremely well-known long fics that most people love and always rec everywhere, but i feel like i’m completely incapable of that. i know i should be writing for myself, but i’m greedy and want results and for people to like my fic, however unlikely that is. wanting to write my ideas but knowing i’ll limit my audience if i do is something that’s constantly on my mind. do you have any advice for me?

My biggest question after reading your ask is simply: why?

You're very clear about wanting to be a popular writer. You want to write a fic that lots of people talk about, and you want people to know who you are. Have you examined that desire at all?

You say that the things you actually want to write are not the things that will make you a popular author. That means you have a choice:

write things you don't care about with no guarantee of becoming that Big Name Fan or

write things you love and enjoy spending time writing and know that BNF status will probably never happen.

Writing fanfic is really not a great way to try to become popular. It's an even worse way to try to become "famous" in any kind of way. So dig into what it is that you hope to get from the "broader audience" that you could appeal to by writing something you don't really like.

Are you trying to get a feeling of being liked? Respected? Looked up to? Do you want to be someone other fans look to for advice or for setting the tone of the fandom? Do you want love? Power? Some kind of community connection? Recognition of the effort you put into your works?

Some of those things likely will require you to pretend to be someone you're not. You might even manage to write that one big fic that gets thousands of comments and tons of people talking about it on tumblr (or wherever else you care about, social media-wise).

Others you can probably still get by writing your "unpopular" ideas but seeking out your fellow fans. It will take more legwork to find them and you'll need to be willing to be the first one to reach out for a conversation, but it can definitely be done.

I'll leave it up to you to decide what you actually want, anon. But take your time and scrape off the top layer of shiny thoughts about popularity first. Then you'll be able to see what's underneath.

[operaofsocks]

you like redemption arcs. like, a lot! you probably played undertale with an aborted genocide route.

so true. except the last part. i played pacifist and cried and then played pacifist again

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A persons fanfic tells you a lot about them, i , a fanfic writer, realize in terror

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anyway. have some general, not-lrth billdip

...surely it hasn't been that long since i drew my bill in his normal outfit. let me just check the date on the last time i--

hm.

[operaofsocks]

there's a playlist for the fic btw but it's disjointed and short

if you have any songs that remind you of lrth... tell me about them.........

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WAUGH

THANK YOU... i am still working on chapter 22 i prommy

yall should read the long road to hell by tox (@operaofsocks ) its really good

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Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:

In general, I think "Is X out-of-character?" is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.

A better question, I believe, is "What would it take for Character to do X?" What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT'S where a potentially interesting story lies.

In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from "What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?" As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you've got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.

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If you are a fan fic writer and you're alright with people making fan art of your fic, reblog this 💚