#50 favourite people

[correct-hermitcraft-quotes]

Impulse, laughing, with the loudest construction sounds in the background: I did warn you there might be some noise. But I didn't expect it to be this.

Skizz: You said might. You didn't say there'd be an F5 tornado localised centrally in your guest house.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Taylor has a song about how a dry spell (among other things) lit the fuse about her fantasizing about a man she would come to despise and about her realizing her long-term relationship was dead and some pearl-clutchers think she’s offended that her boyfriend accidentally implied that they cannot relate to that feeling anymore lmao

[polling-sonic-fans]

Polling Sonic Fans for their opinions on all manner of things. Share good questions to indicate what you want asked. Submissions open.

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

a couple of years back i was pretty vocal about not getting when people complained about their art not getting "enough" notes. but i'm getting to recognise a sub-category of that frustration these days that, in fairness, was maybe what people were talking about all along? but i've also seen other posts mention how fandom spaces feel changed since the last few years, so maybe it's a new thing or at least a thing that hadn't reached my fandom corner until now.

i truly don't mind if my writing doesn't garner a lot of attention (although i say this from a place of priviledge where my writing has so far always garnered some attention, and often a lot more than i anticipated). but what is really starting to grate a little is the amount of attention vs. the amount of reaction. For example, before the latest update on my big multichapter fic, it sat at ~ 33,050 hits. since then the fic has been clicked 400 times. the kudos count went up by maybe three and there were three new bookmarks - this isn't super surprising because i don't expect to be reaching a lot of new people with an unfinished 100+k word fic in a dwindling fandom, and if they're return readers they can't leave new kudos. but five people have commented on the fic since the update. One percent of readers who have clicked on this fic have reacted. Did all these people see it on the recently updated feed, started to read it, didn't vibe with it and moved on? That honestly wouldn't bother me. But it's been steadily gaining attention for the last few weeks, long after it moved off the first page of the recently updated view for the fandom. so rather, I think it's mostly subscribed users (the fic has a little over 400 active subscriptions so that would make sense) or people actively checking back on the fic. in which case they must be at least somewhat invested in it.

and again, i'm not owed any feedback. i put my work out for free and people decide what to do with that. but fandom is a collaborative space, and it's been feeling like less that for a while. people seem less ready for conversation, and i think that's sad, and quite demoralising for creatives (at least for me personally). fandom work isn't meant as bingeable content that you consume and then leave. if you do that on netflix, that's fine, because you're paying the platform and they're at least supposed to recompense the creatives who made the show you just watched. fandom artists don't get that. we make things for the love of it, and because we wanted to share that love. it doesn't feel like sharing though when you put something out there and nothing comes back. it feels like standing in an empty warehouse telling my stories to nobody. and, again, i'm personally lucky enough that it's not like that all the time, but i get why people stop doing it. and i get that engaging with art as an audience member doesn't come easy to everyone, but fandom culture needs it. it's supposed to be an exchange. it's supposed to go both ways, and i think if you want to sustain the culture, you simply need to try and give something back, whatever that is.

because putting something you made out there and nobody looks at it is definitely not a great feeling, but having anonymous masses file by and look at your thing and then meet you with deafening silence feels... worse.

[rwby-confess]

Confession #194

[finniestoncrane]

said to my counsellor that i wasnt built for friendship because everyone always eventually just. stops speaking to me and she went “ok why do you think that is?” and then when i finished my dumb sad list she went “ok so maybe you aren’t good at friendship” and i. have never regretted spending £50 more in my life lol

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

'you could just google-' I know. But when I pose a question to people, I get stories. I prompt memories. I get different reactions.

I say 'does anyone know what a kiwano is?'

One person immediately goes 'oh, I know I've heard about that before, it's... oh what is it?' and they're clicking their fingers and furrowing their brow in thought as they try to grasp an answer that's on the tip of their tongue. and they might get real quiet but you can see them trying to remember

and another person goes 'I've never heard of that before, where'd that word come from?' and if you tell them they'll use context clues to try and piece as much together as they can to solve the mystery

another person says 'yeah I have and they're actually my favourite fruit! I only discovered them last year in the supermarket and I had no idea what it was so I got one. Now I love them. The taste reminds me of...' and goes on to describe it from their perspective

yet another person will go 'oh God yes, my grandma loved them but I thought they were disgusting! I remember she...' and they'll go on to share a memory of their grandma that stood out to them, maybe one they hadn't thought about in years

and so often there'll be a person that will pull out their phone and Google it for you because now they're curious. And they'll read out what they find online, and make remarks as they learn new information, they might turn the phone around to show a surprising photo or maybe they'll end up asking follow up questions and chasing more information

and when all these people are in the same room a simple question can bloom into an unexpected, joyful , fun conversation

and yeah, I can ask Google. But Google just tells me a kiwano is a horned melon. that isn't really comparable in the slightest. sometimes I just want knowledge, sometimes I want to pose a question to the room and see what will happen.

[bmpmp3]

i was watching a music video for a japanese song and it had built in youtube english captions so i went to turn those on but then i saw that there was like an option for "English" and then a second option for "English (Canada)" and i realized in a few seconds it was just a workaround to having two sets of english captions, one with colour changes in the lettering and one without for accessibility (the canada one was the non-fancy lettering) but for a moment i was living in a world where they were making dedicated canadian english translations for things..... measuring temperature in celsius and height in feet...... paying with loonies and toonies... going to the WASHROOM

[widevibratobitch]

me when im obsessed with dead singers from 50 (well... mostly 70-120) years ago and im heartbroken to know i'll never see them on stage... never hear them breathe, never see them sweat, never even touch the hem of their garment...

it really is enough to drive a person mad...

[in-study-hell]

ohh that double life animation is looking absolutely gorgeous so far, my goodness. you will forever be the goat when it comes to life series animatics/general life series artistry in my eyes orz

Thank you so much!! I’m so glad you like it anon, this monster’s been occupying my thoughts for so long I really appreciate your kind words, knowing it can reach people even at this rough stage gives me energy to complete the rest XD

[turniplvr]

didn’t fully read the tags of a re8 fic and now realizing that SOMEONE is gonna die😭 literally says right there in bold letters

[lryghe]

MDZS thoughts; lan wangji

The longer I spend in the MDZS fandom, the more I realise how much I like Lan Wangji’s character in forms of adaptations (despite my general avoidance of anything that isn’t the novel). At first, Lan Wangji is introduced as just some uptight loser, but the more the story progresses, the more you realise he’s YOUR uptight loser and you like that about him. I wanted to talk about a few of my favourite things about him because he’s so so so complex, something that MXTX unfortunately forgot to give her later love interests (not a jab, just an observation of someone who mourns a Hua Cheng backstory every day). This post will contain spoilers from all adaptations of MDZS and this thought process comes as an apology of sorts to Lan Wangji after I flamed him in my last post. 

on silence;

I’ve talked about this extensively in my ‘MDZS thoughts; silence in MDZS’ post a while back, but Wangji’s use of silence is so important. Because there’s different types of silence, born out of different reasons, and Lan Wangji employs the most basic form of it for the most part. He’s quite literally silent majority of the time, and it’s so interesting to think about because it's like. He clearly has thoughts and feelings and personal motivations past what people expect of him, but never voices them. He’s seemingly content with his silence, knowing that there ARE people who understand him, even if it’s like 3 people. And people must expect so much of Lan Wangji, the ‘bearer of light’ Hanguang-jun, the second jade of Lan, brother of the Lan Sect Leader, the perfect man. Yet he never speaks out about these expectations, a surprisingly mature response for some guy who’s a teenager for most of this. Younger Lan Wangji is surrounded by people and yet is silent throughout his time in Cloud Recesses and in the aftermath of the Wen invasion. And I think this particular silence is borne of him knowing that no one will really listen to him, because they all have these grandiose ideas of who he is and how he’ll react, so he sticks to his lines (ha, or lack thereof) and continues onwards. Once we hit the time skip, Wangji very clearly gives off a different vibe, despite not being any chattier than he was before. This one is a confident, more isolated silence, having been worn down by a decade of grief and death, Lan Wangji is now silently assured in himself and his place in the world. 

on grief; 

On the topic of grief, the way Lan Wangji’s grief is portrayed is something that I see a lot of newer fans (I say this as a fan of 4-5 years now, I am no amateur) have not exactly a wrong idea about, but more of an uneducated view on? Because it's always, “I love the MXTX protagonists and how they wait for 5/ 13/ 800 years”, but MDZS is something entirely different from SVSSS and TGCF. Hua Cheng actually waits for 800 years with endless devotion and patience, Luo Binghe’s ‘wait’ is driven by delusions and a demon sword driving him crazy, but Lan Wangji is inherently different from them both. Because Lan Wangji doesn’t wait for Wei Wuxian, he’s actively mourning him. 13 years of playing inquiry was because he believed him to be dead, and just wanted to have a second to speak to his spirit. Going wherever there was chaos wasn’t to find Wei Wuxian himself, but to find situations which reminded him of him, even if it was just a second of something happening that would make him feel closer to the boy he fell in love with. Lan Wangji was never waiting for Wei Wuxian to come back, because he’s surprisingly mature about everything and knew that he was gone when he found nothing at the burial mounds. And it’s slightly upsetting when people ignore his mourning in favour of some type of optimism that he doesn’t have any more that Wei Wuxian would come back, because that’s doing such a disservice to him and his character. 

on isolation; 

Something that relates back to the concept of silence is Lan Wangji’s continued isolation throughout the novel. Because he’s introduced as like this pillar of righteousness (which he genuinely is, he’s an actually good guy), and this image is only furthered the more he continues on with life. He’s always emitting an aura of “ice and frost” towards everyone, and people have been placing him on a pedestal since he was 14, “every word and action of his set as examples of excellence”. And this must be such an isolating experience, you being at your formative years and you are still so alone, mostly out of your own actions, but also because no one wants to make an effort to know you past that exterior. And it is an exterior, because Wei Wuxian notes rather early on that Lan Wangji can simply just “become” the indifferent Hanguang-jun, this (mostly) self-imposed mask being what drives a wedge between Lan Wangji and just about everyone, notable outliers being Wei Wuxian and that’s it. I did a lot of rereading the introduction of the novel to find the quotes I used, because I really wanted to emphasise this point of his character, because it's so damn interesting! He’s so complex and the three points I’ve defined and explored are only at the surface level of what I could have rambled on about. But I’m nice and have toned it down. 

This post turned into a love letter to Lan Wangji and I’m not sorry at all. If there’s any mistakes, feel free to call me out (but nicely because I’m very sensitive).  

Words: 964 

Reading time: 3 mins 

[cruelsister-moved2]

----

um yeah this is an utterly bizarre thing to say like no one is calling him a pedophile they're literally just making fun of how he was mean to a teenage girl for being cringe and then writes supernatural fanfiction. to me its about the frankly misogynistic condescension that everything you do is profound if you approach it as a white man with an MFA and anyone who disturbs your Great Work is deserving of abuse for the moral crime of being stupid BUT even without going there its literally just lighthearted taking the piss bc I think if your whole persona is being excessively condescending bc ur so above it all then yeah it's really funny if u write sherlock and supernatural fanfiction and listen to Cake.

i wwonder how this aged after his continued escapades but either way you're literally the one who made the leap from "watches show for teens" to "pedophile" like please point to the part of this that actually evokes that remotely in any way. getting so so tired of people who act like this you need to grow up

[vullcanica]

D&D verse: war criminal battle wizard vs domestic dad, husband and beloved fellow villager 🥰 ▪︎ picrew

Tagged by: @vilestblood 💕💕 icons for you and your celestial boyf you commit atrocities with! Now I need an Avita to complete the set. Oh and added Dawn bc.. 👉👈 she deserves to be in that verse too

Tagging: 🫵

[danceintheskies]

GRANT IS GAY BIG WIN FOR THE "GAYMERS WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING" CROWD

[ellie-skellie]

check out my gay ass cats

Oliver's the chunky one and cheddar Bob is the skinny one. they’re both huge cats and i would die for them