#(btw I meant about the post and reblogs don't have the feature where you can filter old and new ones)

[who-knows-how-long-ill-come-back]

After months of search I finally found it!!!

.⁠·⁠´⁠¯⁠`⁠(⁠ᗒ⁠ᗩ⁠ᗕ⁠)⁠´⁠¯⁠`⁠·⁠.

!!! BUILT LIKE BILBO BAGGINS !!!

[gomzdrawfr]

want to join the fandom cause it seems fun seeing fanarts and you and others interacting but I don't know how...and with the whole ai thing im scared...

my advice: just do it

really! sometimes all you really need is a leap of faith, and that was exactly how I dropped into the cod fandom. When I joined the ghoap discord server I talked to one of the artist I really like and respected from my lurking time (hi @bressynonym) aaaand the rest is history

I didnt know how to draw properly, nor digitally, all I did was scribbling on OneNote (yeah!) and rambled about cod characters, it is daunting and it is scary to interact but after a while? you may just be able to find someone to brainrot together with

start small, like commenting, reblogging, talking, chatting- doesn't have to be towards artist/writers, it could be the art/fic enjoyers!

you need to put yourself out there if you want something

as to if you want to start in the fandom as a creator, here's some more tips (which are all based on my experience, I am no pro at doing this, hell Im still learning myself, and I am by no means speaking these on behalf on others!)

establish a goal: what are you making? fandom based? original creations?

as with starting new, everything may take a while for stuff to happen, you'll feel like you're speaking to the void at times (esp with original arts, but do know that your stuff do get perceive by others as time goes, I would advise to draw fandom stuff as a beginning to get that boost going if you want! or else it's going to be quite hard to get things rolling)

imo this is hardest part of any new creator, you'll have to bear with it and try not to give up (but I understand how incredibly demotivating it could get, there were times when I stopped posting about Raven entirely, but eventually I post it anyway cuz surely someone out there will like them, it just takes a lot of patiences and perseverance)

btw, engagement can also vary from time to time, you may be booming for a bit, then suddenly you dont, it is a cycle that will bound to happen

take rest regularly, and I mean a break from social media because numbers, discourse and everything can get to you, very quickly (I cannot emphasise this enough)

the numbers are not worth it over your mental health (comes with practice to really solidify this thought)

study the algorithm (pain): see what other creators are doing to get where they are, what tags are they using in their post? what features/niche do people like?(this is, if you really want to grab some form of engagement, bcuz reminder in the end you are creating art for yourself first!)

example: I think posts would get more reach if you tag it with the ship name first, followed by the characters' name (doesn't work all the time tho)

that's the thing about algorithm, it is ever-changing, and you'll have to learn to adapt with it when it does!

expanding on that, studying algorithm could be about ships (for example, ghostsoap is most popular in the fandom), or really good rendered art/flashed out fic that leaves your jaw on the floor, or ships that gets lesser attention in general which puts you, who make content about them, easier to be brought into the light (like Faralex)

bUT, it can also be personality!

(again, not saying this is meant for everyone and strictly from my own experience + what I observe) for me, I made up the lack of my art by establishing a personality: a wild panda who yaps about price and their oc and also kinda everywhere in the place (just like this post LOL), OR you're the person who named themselves after Soap's ash particle number OR you're the one who likes bottom Ghost- literally anything goes, you want to make an impression in different ways, some more funny/goofier than others but it works (be mindful and stay respectful tho, dont wanna be the asshole in the fandom now do ya?)

efforts ≠ engagement (not all the time, but most time) and this is a fact. Sometimes, you can't expect a piece you did for 10+ hours to get thousands views and likes, especially in a fandom space. You need to understand algorithm is that wonky. (very disheartening, but again, you make the art for you and the few others who genuinely likes them, and those people can go a long way) be mentally prepared for such events, and try not to beat yourself up too much for it

ultimately tho, do it, do it scared but do it anyways and again, draw the things that bring you joy, I hope these could be helpful in some ways!

[drysauce]

I saw the post of self-inserts and realized I don't ever tag them when I reblog because I forget ಥ_ಥ if they bother you, is there any tag you want me to use so you can blacklist them in peace?? Sending lots of hugs ꉂ(ˊᗜˋ*)♡

oh hi vivi! please don't worry about it too much, really. also this is going to be long because your ask made me go back to that post and i realised i could've been easily misunderstood and i want to make some things clear while im already talking about this topic, so sorry in advance jshxjshs

in my tags under that post i wasn't referring to you or any other mutual who reblogs fics, i meant the writers. because even if someone reblogs a post without adding their own tags, if the original poster tagged it with a tag i have filtered, it still will be filtered for me

but the thing is not everyone does that, and even if i have so many tags filtered that if i screenshoted them rn it would take a few photos, some writers tag their works with such unusual things that i would never come up with and therefore i still see them, they're also usually without the read more feature so i have to scroll through a post equivalent to the "do you love the color of the sky" and it's... annoying

also while we're at it i want to generally clear up some things. it's not that the existence of fanfics bothers me. im not against fanfiction and writers at all - the opposite actually, i think writers are doing great job and it's cool that the readers can find many types of stories they would like. i don't read fanfiction but i think it's cool that it exists, even the self inserts. with these i have special problem when they appear on my dash because of personal reasons lol, im very very romanse repulsed when it comes to non-platonic interactions directed my way in a non-joking way so i think you can imagine that seeing a story where i am supposed to be a character getting in a relationship or whatever with a fictional character that i would never think of in such a way is... quite uncomfortable to me, and that's why i try to filter it. also because im simply not interested in reading literally any fanfiction but that's another thing

btw i don't even recall seeing any fanfiction reblogged by you on my dash so you don't need to worry at all, they were probably properly tagged by the writer. but even if i did it's still FINEEE, you're my mutual and friend and i won't get mad that you reblogged something you liked without tagging even if im not personally a fan of it

but answering your question, if you're okay with it, tagging them would certainly help if you ever reblogged a story that wasn't originally properly tagged (simply as "x reader" or "fanfic" to make it more general or smth similar to this should work lol) but don't think too much about it please, you really don't have to do that like really it's not a big deal that i would spend extra 5 seconds scrolling through a post jshxnshs but i really appreciate that you asked ^^

and thank you for the hugs, much appreciated <33 im sending hugs and good vibes back your way!!

[sideprince]

Wasn't gonna reblog this again to reply but then I thought, fuck it.

Feel free to look in the notes for my response to giosnape's reblog, who at least was courteous and nice (btw, it's super fun to have your post reblogged with a comment you're uneasy about but not your response to it, am loving that whole experience).

Also feel free to add your own meta or whatever to posts (even though this post wasn't meant to be meta, it's literally me saying "I would like to think this" and not me saying this is what I think would have happened), and by all means feel free to do so without commenting on the OP personally.

All of these are invitations, btw, I'm not telling anyone what to do. I will remind everyone, however, that we all know that this fandom is full of people with trauma and when you don't know someone you also don't know what their triggers are. So just as general advice, I'm going to throw out there the idea that you can share your thoughts on a post without saying judgmental things about the other people on that post, including the OP. You can comment on their ideas without singling them out as people and calling them out. That's actually a very easy thing to do and it also costs you nothing.

And tbh, if anyone feels this is rude of me, or I'm taking something too seriously, I'm fine with that. I have an absurd number of followers on what is a sideblog and I don't know why. If tumblr had a feature where only mutuals could see your posts, I'd be on it like butter on toast. I maintain, though, that I shouldn't have to put a giant "this is not meta it's just me having fun with thoughts, as is demonstrated by my word choice of 'I'd like to think' so please don't treat it as meta k thx" disclaimer on every post that's just me having fun with thoughts.

Sometimes I wish we had seen the rest of SWM. We know the Marauders were bullies who targeted Snape more often than anyone else. We're given the impression Snape wasn't popular and that the people nearby came to watch him be bullied and seemed amused. Was there a moment, though, maybe, when they stopped being amused?

That maybe it was funny to them to see an unpopular kid hanging there with his underwear exposed, but when James removed them, it stopped being funny? I keep thinking of the scene in GoF at the Quidditch World Cup where the muggle family are being treated the same way, how some of the wizards in the crowd were laughing and pointing up at them, but then Mrs. Roberts is flipped upside down and she struggles to lift her dress back up because underwear is exposed. That's the point when Ron says, "that's sick... that is really sick."

I like to think there was a moment when James took off Snape's pants that the crowd stopped being amused and started feeling uncomfortable. Maybe quiet settled on the onlookers as they realized wait, hang on, they don't want to see this, it's invasive, it's going too far. For years the Marauders had bullied Snape and no one cared, but they had bullied everyone else too. We know this from the stack of old disciplinary cards Harry has to sort for detention. How many people in that crowd were bullied by them, or had a friend who was? Would they, in that moment, have thought "this could be me"? Would they have simply just thought, "oh this isn't funny anymore this is just sad and upsetting"?

I like to think that when James finished and let Snape back down, it was because the crowd had gone tense and quiet and he felt people staring at him and the ego boost had been cut off and he felt the pressure of feeling disliked all of the sudden. Snape wouldn't have noticed, the humiliation would have stung too much and he would have been in survival mode just trying to get the hell out of there. But I like to think James felt that he had gone too far and word of the incident spread. That, after that day, he was less popular. That he had to endure people muttering about him for days. Maybe overhearing people in the halls saying things like, "sure he can play quidditch, and who doesn't like a bit of bullying here in this magical equivalent of a British grammar school in the 70s, but that was fucked up" and "I heard everyone got really quiet and even when they were telling him to stop he just kept laughing like a psychopath."

Most of the students would have gotten over it. James would still have been wealthy, sporty, and a good student. But he would never have gotten the respect back. Maybe the other students were more just polite to him after that, than friendly the way they had been before. Maybe they were more nervous around him. Because maybe, just maybe, before all this they would think, "if James Potter or his friends inflate your head, just laugh it off, be in on the joke, and they won't have a go at you again, just pretend you're fine with it and it's all good fun." But now they would smile and have somewhere else to be, because who knows when James Potter and his friends will get carried away and you're the one who's helpless, vulnerable, and publicly shamed?

I like to think that, for the rest of their lives, the onlookers in SWM carried with them the memory of how Snape looked in that moment and how horrible it made them feel. That maybe some of them taught their children not to bully because of it. That it left a mark in them and made them more empathetic. That some of them sent their own children off to Hogwarts making sure they knew to respect Professor Snape.

[thedreadvampy]

I don't want to respond to this directly in a reblog bc it doesn't really have to do with the content of the rest of the post (which is great, by the way! I'm really happy that things are going well on an artistic side and your work is lovely!) but this aside has me feeling some kind of way.

I don't think it's a fair characterisation to say the mechanisms 'misinterpreted' the universe of Doctor Carmilla, because it isn't really the same universe. The continuity between Doctor Carmilla & The Mechanisms and The Mechanisms as a standalone band seems to me to really be legacy only, and to the degree that Carmilla is mentioned in-universe it's an acknowledgement of the band's origins, not an attempt to write a Carmilla story. Seems to me like it wouldn't be appropriate for the Mechanisms to write stories about Doctor Carmilla and the universe Maki developed in her absence, nor would it be fair to pretend Maki never existed or that Carmilla wasn't deeply involved in the foundations of the Mechanisms universe.

like if you approach the Mechanisms and Doctor Carmilla as one unified story led by Maki then sure, it comes across like the Mechanisms misinterpreted ideas and dropped threads. But that's...not what it is? They're two separate stories with a common root. Maki hasn't been involved in writing with the Mechanisms since 2011 and the band finished in 2020 - in almost a decade with different people writing, a good number of whom weren't even involved with the Doctor Carmilla era of the Mechanisms, yeah, it isn't the same entity and I don't think that the Mechs have ever acted like it's meant to be? Doctor Carmilla is Doctor Carmilla and the Mechanisms are the Mechanisms and they exist in separate universes with some crossover points - that seems to me to be the best approach?

Like, it would be valid to say that the Mechanisms misinterpreted Carmilla's universe and character if they had ever written stories about Carmilla or about the ideas Maki had for her story. but they.... haven't? ever really done that? They've written stories featuring Carmilla, which is really kind of an acknowledgement that the band started with Maki, but only really in apocrypha or performing songs developed with Maki as far as I can tell? and beyond that when they've introduced new characters or story elements they've avoided going back over ground that would mean reinvolving Carmilla without Maki's input. bc from what I've seen they're pretty careful about not writing stories About Other People's Characters without getting substantial input and signoff from those people.

I don't really know the precise circumstances in which Doctor Carmilla and the Mechanisms became two separate entities - that's a wee bit before my time - but my impression was that nobody pushed anybody out or was cut out, that it was all pretty amicable, and that the Mechanisms wanted to perform more and Maki was going in more of a solo direction so they went on performing separately. I have no idea if that's a correct impression (and I'm happy to be corrected if not) but either way it's not abandoning a character to carry on without them when the person who played them is no longer involved, and it's not misinterpreting or abandoning an idea to build your own thing on the foundation it's set. I like both the universe Maki's made for Doctor Carmilla and the universe the Mechanisms made for their stories, they don't need to be in competition and there doesn't need to be One True Correct Canon, especially since Maki has continued making really great work on Doctor Carmilla's story without the Mechanisms. They can and should just be separate entities, that's allowed.

(and this isn't a go at you, btw, this is just like I've heard this take a few times and it seems like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of how creativity works. The Mechanisms are allowed creative ownership over their own universe - they were working with Doctor Carmilla for under a year and they've been developing stories together for the better part of a decade and it seems like a pretty unfair approach to all involved to cast that as a shadow of Doctor Carmilla's universe as if the only way you're allowed to keep using the same band name is if you follow exactly the preordained narrative of someone who hasn't been part of the band for years. Doctor Carmilla as a story and a character has certainly changed and developed over time, musically and narratively, and that's good! That's as it should be! so I don't know why the Mechanisms' narrative universe not being the same as it was when they were ...And The Mechanisms is sometimes framed as a bastardisation of Maki's work rather than like. an evolution and development of their own creative voice and stories)

Like. Assuming that we agree that it's good that the Mechanisms existed post separating from Carmilla and went on to make new music and write new stories, how would that do this in a way that wasn't a 'misinterpretation' and/or 'abandonment' of Carmilla's story? Either you have to try and tell Carmilla's story, which would be inevitably a 'misinterpretation' because. They're different people. And it would be pretty inappropriate to try and tell the same story as Maki wanted to tell without her and potentially have two versions of the same story competing. Or you do what the Mechs did in practise, and largely leave Carmilla's story and the surrounding universe for its creator to play with and go ahead and make your own thing with its own universe and rules that won't impact on the story they obviously want to build for their own character and world. You can characterise that as 'abandonment' but I'm not sure what the better option is then, other than just Nobody Who Has Ever Made Anything Involving Doctor Carmilla Can Ever Do Anything With The Characters They Made For That. like. It seems like the only alternative to keep creating with those characters (which, again, people developed as onstage personas for themselves) that couldn't be called a misinterpretation or an abandonment of Maki's original vision is like, to only ever do anything with Maki in charge, which is a pretty big limitation to put on a band, especially if I'm right in my understanding that they parted ways because Maki wanted to take a different approach to her work that didn't heavily involve the Mechanisms, so would she even have had the time, capacity or interest to lead on a whole other project alongside her own work back in 2011? When people have this take that the Mechanisms were somehow disrespectful of Maki's story by not just telling Maki's story and instead making their own thing, I just have to ask like what exactly is the alternative version where the Mechanisms make their own creative work with their own creative voice in a way that isn't either reinterpreting or moving away from the Doctor Carmilla story?????

[metaphysical-human-being]

....white ppl don't know when to fucking quit do they-

Okay, for the first like paragraph I was vibing along then I had the misfoturne to continue reading and oh my god u...wow just wow is all I can say, girly.

Okay-

1) I'm not op. I reblogged it from the ✨amazing✨ op(shout out to u maria) when I saw the shit u said and simply had to respond because oh god was there a lot.

2) lemme break this down for you real easy, okay girly?

- u right. We didn't have jail system until the end of slavery. U make some good points but here where you went south; that still don't matter.

Not anywhere in the original post or in ops editions is slavery talked about. This is what I'm saying when I say that white ppl love bringing up slavery cus that's all they really got. Like I said before, I only know america(sadly) so that what I'm going with. America only enslaved people of color. Like, that's it. Unless you count prison yards but like outside of that yeah just poc.

And, also, poc. People/person of color. All of them, not just black ppl. We inclusive here.

-And ur right. They did use those tactics to see black people as a threat(oh, and btw since u probs don't know, many black people prefer black instead of african american because we are so, unfortunately, disconnected from our african roots) and they still do. This wasn't no "whoopsie daisy" this shit was planned. They been doing this shit to poc for fucking centuries, girly. Centuries.

Yeah, we was unfortunate but I know damn well there won't no accident behind that.

Racism didn't begin with slavery. It's been there for much longer. Native americans? Tho original badass motherfuckers running this country? Remember them? Yeah, the killing and the enslavement and all the other stuff? Yeah, kinda shitty of white ppl. Oh, wait sorry, I meant colonizers.

(eh, same thing)

-Race is associated with skin color and hair texture and features and shit like that, u right girly look at you. And yeah, it is a social construct but the way I see it, it was made by white ppl, for white ppl! And when us poc finally found confidence and and joy and community in that y'all suddenly think we should get rid of it as a whole.

Typical, but sad nonetheless.

-Yeah, I thought it was funny. I though it was the funniest shit Ive seen today. You wanna know why it's so funny to me?

Cus it's a joke.

And why was the joke made?

As a trauma response.

People of color all across america have been terrorized and traumatized by white ppl since day one. We, as a whole, got a shared trauma of repeated racism and other bullshit from white people. We can't exactly get away from them as we ain't got nowhere else to go, so what do we do?

We cope.

And how do we cope?

With humour.

With jokes about how crazy white ppl can be. How tall don't season your food and you can't dance and you think using slurs is the funniest shit since shakespeare and how y'all love to take the good and leave the bad from different cultures. How were tired if it and-

How we don't. Fucking. Need. Y'all.

Cus yeah, all this time white ppl have kinda made poc think that their approval was the greatest thing since sliced bread and yeah we realized that y'all aren't. That we don't need yall, y'all need us. I mean, if we weren't here then who else would y'all get ur "culture" from? Who else would u argue with about whether or not they were "really oppressed"? Who else would be the punching bag besides us?

I mean honestly, aren't you a girl or sumn? I don't really know, just assuming off of ur pfp(cus we just love assumptions, don't we?)

Lemme guess, u think "kill all men" is serious, don't you. Goodness gracious, learn about trauma responses.

-who the hell said we were removing you from the population? U mean the joke u so poorly misinterpreted?

-im not dumb. Yeah, shit happens in other countries. Horrible shit that no human being should ever have to go through? I'm aware, you are too. You want a cookie? A sticker? This adds nothing cus we talking about this country and this one only and how shit y'all are to people of color.

-and yeah, I am tired of white ppl coming into poc spaces. It's fucking exhausting. Y'all already got the rest of the fucking country, cant y'all literally just give us this. This one tiny thing. This one fucking tumblr post. Like shit, y'all don't need everything, okay. You aren't missing much, just oppression.

And every fucking thing u said was rude, cus you saw us talking about our oppression and using our coping mechanisms and just had to but urself into a conversation that didn't fucking want u there.

-did it upset me? Fuck yeah, it's why I said shit. Did it upset you, okay but why? Cus I told u to go find ur own space? Cus I denied you this one thing we wanted for ourselves? God, cry a river, build a bridge and get over it.

- why did maria frame it that way? Cus she can? Cus she wanted to. Cus it's her oppression and it's her trauma response that we decided we could agree with and find solitude in. Don't tell us how to respond to our trauma. However we wanna do it, we will. Did it bring u harm? No? Then ur fine.

And u wanna know why it's different? Becuaee the reason behind it is different. When poc say that shit like this we are saying it from a place of tiredness. Of constant microagressions and gaslighting and general abuse from our oppressors that we express in a, literal harmless, joke. But when y'all say shit like "we don't need poc"...white ppl have said shit like that in the past and meant it. Saw us as useless because we no longer served them and brought more harm.

When we say it, it's to find solace. When y'all say it, it's to cause harm.

And tf u talking bout ur sister for? Girly, that's a specific situation. This is society in america as a whole. As a whole white ppl have made it so that whenever us, as poc, even think we might get to the top y'all beat us down.

Like clockwork.

I mean, ur doing it right now, girly. Do you not see that?

We're not actually saying to you and get rid of y'all but were saying it as a way to release even some of the frustrations poc, as a whole, have with white ppl.

Yeah, not all white people. Just like not all men. Just like not all straight ppl.

But at the end of the day it doesn't fucking matter cus it's the majority. And the rest of y'all pull silly shit like this.

(but honestly, whatever happened to ur sister, I'm sorry for her. Idk what she had to go through but I hope she's okay and is able to find solace and peace.💚)

-and no. It says what it says. The "I don't see color" type approach ur doing is here is dumb as shit. When white ppl say they don't see color, u are ignoring an important part of me and all poc.

I am non-binary, I am queer and I am black. And I'm goddamn proud of that fact. Ain't no whiny white ppl gonna take that away from me.

-and lastly, I never said u shouldn't exist. I would never say that, now would anyone else. Racism is bad, yeah, but reverse racism isn't fucking real because at the end of the day, girly-

U are not oppressed for ur skin. I am and I always will be. It may get the point where that is no longer a reality but I know it won't happen in my lifetime. And that's okay, so let me deal with it how I please. Let us deal with our trauma as we please and shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Saying we don't need you and you don't deserve to exist are two different things and white ppl need to learn that difference.

So yeah, like Maria said. We've surpassed the need for white™ ppl and we don't need y'all anymore.

Now, you've really pushed my buttons so I've used up all my kindness.

Unkindly, fuck off @mayday-gormet and maybe learn a thing or two while ur at it.

Society has surpassed the need for white people