#(well the latter maybe just ace idk) I enjoyed how that aspect was discussed. having not much expectations anyway.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Teach The Torches To Burn

M/M Romeo & Juliet reimagining

follows a gay Romeo who falls for Mercutio’s younger brother, while tensions between the houses rise

and becomes friends with an aroace Juliet in their shared experience of wanting to defy their parents expectations

[stimtoybox]

Have you ever considered adding another mod who could just act as your editor? Idk, I was just thinking about your recent posts about how you can't make your posts as good as you want to, and I thought it might help take some of the pressure off if you had someone to help, so you can focus your spoons on more important things than fixing typos.

Oh, anon. You’re not the only one who’s reached out to me this week, by the way, on the subject of help and mods, so I’m kind of answering everyone in the one discussion. Can I say that it floors me, absolutely floors me, that people are taking such an interest in this little blog, and me, and want to see it keep going? I don’t have words, not really, but there’s teardrops splashing onto the keyboard. Thank you. Just - thank you.

I’ve been thinking about another mod for the last month or so and thinking about it more the last week. And I keep running up against one thing: me. So I’m going to talk it out here, so you can get a sense of where I’m at.

I’ll be honest: part of me very much wants to wrap this blog this chest and go mine, mine, mine. (Think the seagulls in Finding Nemo.) This is, I admit, because I’ve spent years and years blogging on various platforms and struggling to gain an audience for my writing and now … now, somehow, I’ve happened across the right topic on the right platform to not feel, for the first time in my life, as though I’m shouting into the void. And that? That is phenomenally amazing, and something about which I feel extremely possessive.

But it’s also unfair. This blog serves a community and this blog would not exist without the hard work of other people. Tumblr blogs, unless they’re all the blogger’s own content, are a collaboration. That mine, mine, mine feeling is factually incorrect and largely born of my own deep insecurity.

I don’t know if people realise it or not, but I started this blog as somewhere to post my own findings and collate and tag other things. Because Tumblr being as ephemeral as it is, it’s hard to find information that’s grouped together, and most blogs tag with an eye of other people finding their blog or advising for content; I’m doing the latter and tagging for grouping and collecting. (I’d be shocked if anyone found this blog through the tags!) There’s lots of great stim toy blogs out there, and I reblog from them, but I don’t think anyone is quite so obsessive about the archival side. Which is pretty understandable, because it’s a big job.

(It makes answering asks like the autism-owned store master post and the DIY master post so much easier to create. Tagging is annoying and the HTML coding for the tags pages even more so, but it is worth doing.)

That I’d have nearly two hundred posts in my draft folder (not counting the 100 posts in my queue) wasn’t in the plan; I thought I’d have problems finding enough content for regular posting. That anyone would ask me anything, about anything, ever … how do I express the depth of my surprise that it happened and has continued to happen? It never crossed my mind. Not even once. That I’d end up in a position of knowing things? That my time as a dabbling crafter and fashion doll collector would be relevant?

I’m trying to say that I’m spectacularly unprepared for what happened and I still have no idea how I ended up having to have this very conversation.

But. The thing is that I don’t play particularly well in shared sandboxes. (It’s a personal failing, one of many.) I’m particular and controlling and very much enjoy the freedom of doingthings my way, to my standards. Even when that way drives me up the wallbecause I cannot myself live up to it!

For example, I couldn’t give the tagging over to someone else. (There’s amulti-page document beside my keyboard instructing me on how to tag and I still make mistakes.I could never unbend enough to watch someone else tag and do it “wrong” - andby “wrong” I mean not “incorrect” but “not following my system 100% to theletter”.) I would likely drive a fellow mod up the wall by complaining or drive myselfup the wall by trying not to complain.

I like answering asks - Igenuinely enjoy looking things up and discovering new information, so a fellowmod would have to pry that out of my dead hands unless I have to take time off for resting/writing/appointments. If I were to ask someone tomod with me, in all honesty, I’d be asking them to do the grunt work of editing, image descriptions, maybeproduct links if I unbend enough … while I do all the fun stuff. And I think that’s a little or a lot unfair, personally, which is why I hesitate to ask. There’s also the financial aspects of things like affiliate links - in honesty, I’ve only made a dollar or two from my links, but I don’t know that I feel comfortable with making any kind of money when someone else is doing some of the work. I’ve also been thinking about putting up a tip jar (I suppose for that one, at least, the theoretical co-mod can and should do the same) so that those of you who might have an extra dollar or two and feel moved to help me out can do so.

(It’s complicated, because there’s always a part of me that’s thinking about my online presence and how I might make either any income out of it or gain the kind of internet presence (read: something that appears to be an audience already inclined to buy my work) that means an agent or publisher doesn’t toss my fantasy novel abouta physically-disabled, autistic, non-binary, stimming protagonist and hir mentallyill, ace trans companion straight to the slush pile as financially unjustifiable. I wish, I really wish, I were in a situation where neither was a factor and I could do this blog just for the fun of it, but I’m not, and so I hope you’ll forgive me for seriously thinking about the ways in which I can use this blog, now that the miraculous thing of people following me has happened, to help me with, well, living as a disabled, autistic creative who’s in the un-fun position of being far too disabled for full-time employment and not disabled enough for governmental support. Part of that might be through affiliate links and a tip jar. Part of that might be making you all look like an audience.)

Plus, in truth,there’s a high chance my fellow mods would come to hate me with a passion that flaresundimmed until the world ends…

So, I’ve dithered, and I’m still dithering. (And, like always, I’ve written a lot of words to describe said dithering.) I don’t know if it’d be best to take on a mod or two, or to post a list of posts and ask people to describe them for me, or … I don’t know. I don’t. Dithering makes it hard to know!

If this doesn’t get me closer to an answer, it at least lets you know what I’m thinking about and why. At this stage, I’m pretty firm in the “no decision yet” camp, despite taking on a mod being the super obvious answer, but is absolutely something that needs thinking about and deciding on.

(If anyone read this to the bottom … wow. Just wow. You’re amazing.)