#RBING THIS ONE THOUSAND TIMES

[zykamiliah]

the sandman au where everything about the dreamling storyline is the same but it all happens in tumblr and because hob's drunk shitpost "The only reason people die is 'cause everyone does it. You all just go along with it. But not me. I've made up my mind. I'm not going to die"

It has thousands of reblogs and responses, including one ominous reply by user thedreamingking: "Since you have no intention of dying, you must tell me what it's like. Let us exchange direct messages in a hundred years time."

and then hob rbing 100 years later "hey mate what the fuck"

they talk in the DMs

[dgdraws]

Maybe saying this on my 18 follower art sideblog is silly, but I want to offer some gentle pushback on the sentiment that's been going around re: notes on art and lack of engagement.

TL;DR make it your practice to be the person who rbs art with nice tags and you can build a community of likeminded folks

There are myriad reasons why online comment culture has shifted, I'm not gonna waste time pinning that stuff down, bc it's actually immaterial to my perspective, which is:

You can find or create a community of people who will lift up your art. But it requires that you participate in the culture you want to see more of.

I had been a lurker on this site for a decade. I held back participating in discussions, creating or sharing art, engaging directly with anyone outside of following blogs and rbing posts without commentary. And during that time, I made no connections, no friends, built no community.

I was afraid of scrutiny. I have felt the humiliating lurch of earnest engagement turning to dread and exposure and a deep regret of allowing myself to be vulnerable. I pulled up the ladder behind me so I would never have to hear the slightest dismissal or repulsion or ridicule from others. In so doing I also cut myself off from praise, understanding or connection. If no one gets a chance to let me down, then it's as though they're holding me up, right? Wrong!!!

I paid good money for a therapist to help me work out the lie there. The realization that I felt isolated and misunderstood because I never gave people the opportunity to show up for me was so hard to grasp. How could my safety net be the cause of my profound loneliness? But it is true. The people in my life couldn't disappoint me, but they also couldn't help me or support me or really love me the way I needed.

Opening myself up to disappointment has been a long, tough road (and goodness knows I'm not ready to let my parents let me down (again) yet). But my relationships are strengthening. My sense of identity is more stable. I am not inconsolably lonely deep in my heart anymore. Because it turns out people do show up when you give them the opportunity.

Not every time. Not every person. But enough of the time that it builds resilience. Every time I reach out and someone reaches back, I get a little braver. I trust a little more.

To bring this back around to online culture and community: I started receiving interest (and notes) after I started showing interest in others. Once again it turns out that people want to turn up for you, but you must give them the opportunity. This means making yourself vulnerable. It means taking the first step.

If you want a community, a group of people who interact w a certain set of values, you have to demonstrate it. Live those values. This is how we create culture. We choose what behavior we want to encourage and we set an example. This is as true in a workplace or a family as it is for tumblr or ao3. If your boss puts up a sign that says "we see mistakes as a chance to learn" but they punish people when they mess up, that's just words on the wall. If they accept errors graciously, if they work to suss out the root of the problem to resolve it, if they are open about their own mistakes, that is the culture.

So if we want to see more reblogs, but not just that, real engagement and chances for connection, then it starts with you.

Here's what I do that has helped me make friends and spark genuine interest in my work;

Reblog LOW NOTE art as much as, if not more than, posts with thousands of notes. Feel proud to give someone the first note on their work!

Incorporate leaving nice tags into my gratitude practice (it is a form of mindfulness! noticing what specifically draws me to art I rb both engages me more deeply with the work and makes my own art better)

Queue up several art posts from the same artist (people notice when you are consistently in their notes!)

Participate in art events like artfight, various -tobers, other challenges (as with making friends anywhere, repeated exposure leads to familiarity and chances for connection!)

Follow people back or even initiate following blogs who interact with your posts (do not approach this with a f4f mentality, only follow people you actually want to hear more from)

Set up post notifications for portfolio style art blogs (ie sideblogs exclusively for original content) so you keep up w your network/mutuals even if you're offline when they post

Low key notice what the people engaging with you like most about your work and consider expanding on those ideas. This is not about "tailor your work to an audience" it's about thinking, "so-and-so left feral tags on my post about this oc so I'll do my practice sketches of them" or "people seem interested in this storyline so let me feed off that enthusiasm and develop it more"

Don't get hung up on it when individuals don't reciprocate. Assume good faith. You never know what is draining someone's energy. Remember that you are offering a gift, your time and energy yes, but also the chance for someone to show up for you too. If it starts to feel like an obligation, reassess where you're putting that energy, but don't be afraid to be generous.

This has worked wonderfully for me. I went from a person scrolling longingly past posts about beloved mutual culture, not quite believing it could really be like that, to a person who happily gets 3 notes on my former flop posts and posts reblog bait for my besties and reblogs the bait they post for me :)

Apparently I had a lot to say! I kinda hope this doesn't break containment but if it does, please be niceys. I understand if this mindset is not available to you bc of social trauma, depression/anxiety, disability, mental illness or whatever else but please avoid venting that on this post. I love you and I hope you can get here someday, because you're worth it. In the meantime, try to be gentle with yourself and others. xoxo

[vanesawye]

Hello my friend ٫we Jabalia Rehabilitation Society is the only institution in the northern Gaza Strip that provides services to a large group of people with disabilities, especially those with hearing disabilities. It is considered a center for health, psychological and educational support in Jabalia camp that is no less important than government institutions. It is considered one of the contributing and supporting institutions alongside the government health and educational centers in the camp and shares the burden and community services with those centers.

Since the beginning of the war on Gaza on October 7, the institution has been a center for sheltering thousands of displaced civilians, especially those with disabilities and their families who benefit from the institution's services. However, after the Israeli occupation forces entered Jabalia camp for the second time in the war on May 12, they destroyed and burned all the buildings and facilities of the association after it had been a shelter for thousands of displaced people. Help people with disabilities please

👇👇

https://gofund.me/b96b4647

🙏🚨⚠️🇵🇸

everyone help out the Jabalia Rehabilitation Society by donating, rbing, & resding their statement above!

[lycanr0t]

I think it's really silly and unhelpful to make comparisons between fan artists and fan writers such as trying to determine who gets more interaction and who "has it easier" and who is more appreciated.

Neither has it easier. Btw. It's a useless overly generalized comparison to make that does nothing but put one group down and pit the two groups against each other when we should be uplifting each other.

each have their highs and lows in terms of interaction. This is a fact that will remain true for all of time purely because they are different forms of creation that require viewers to engage with it in different ways.

some artists may get more things such as likes and reblogs/retweets on visual heavy platforms like tumblr and twitter. But there seems to be an attitude among some that artists universally get attention with ease and i promise you thats simply not true. for every artist whose work is popular theres hundreds upon thousands of artists who get absolutely nothing. Just like writers.

writers DO have a hard time on platforms like tumblr. It's hard to convince people to read a whole fic on a website that is designed for and caters to quick casual scrolling. It sucks but that is a reality. You have to understand not every space is catered to every form of creation. Visual art is faster to see, like, and move on from. So naturally in an environment build for that interaction it has a better chance at doing well.

But at least in my experience, writers when they get interaction, are much more likely to get MEANINGFUL interaction.

Artwork I posted just a week ago (or less!) gets next to no notes, maybe some likes. In it's whole lifespan it maybe gets a handful of replies or tags that say one-two word compliments. (I am in no way putting this down. A compliment is a compliment!) meanwhile a fanfic that I wrote literally 10 years ago still will get comments on ao3 describing to me how much they adore it, telling me the specific parts they liked, and taking the time to really TELL me they loved it.

My point being that social media sites like tumblr and twitter are designed for shorter, smaller interaction. Visual art you can easily do that with, but it does tend to lead to less in depth interaction which does leave a lot of artists feeling used and unappreciated. written works DO require people to sit down and take the time to read it, which does mean less people will take that time, but (in my personal experience + what i have observed) the interaction that fics DO get is much more likely to be in depth and thought out.

EDIT:: forgot to add that since fics do often struggle to get interaction started, that also can lead to feeling unappreciated! both groups have instances of feeling this way!!

My experiences are obviously not universal. But that's my point exactly. Each artist, each writer, we all have different experiences with what gets more or less love/interaction. There are so many factors that play into this and no group is to blame here. No group has it better or worse its just different. And it's incredibly silly to point fingers and claim "oh artists have it better" or "oh writers have it better" babes we ALL have it rough.

Creative works across the board are unappreciated and across the board people are busting ass trying to be seen. No site is perfect and not everyone will get huge amounts of interaction. Let's not get so hung up on trying to figure out who is better off and instead put that energy into uplifting everyone.

if you see fanart you like then consider leaving a reply/comment/tags/ask/etc telling the artist exactly what you like about it! try and put effort into making it longer than 1-2 words! sit and really absorb the art!

if you read a fic you like consider sharing it with others! consider rbing or sharing it, leaving a nice comment, like/kudos, send the author an ask telling them you like it!

we ALL can use more appreciation, but understand we are all people also. no one owes anyone interaction, and guilting people into it and playing petty "i have it worse" games is not the way to go.

love others work. do it openly and passionately but do it to your ability. And realize in fandoms NONE of us magically have it easier just because we make a certain type of creation. It's not a competition. Fandoms are communities built on shared passion and mutual sharing, not marketplaces fighting to be the loudest most successful business

[butchviking]

i’ve seen this post around a lot & referenced by a lot of other posts. this time seeing it i clicked thru to op’s blog and she’s rbing posts abt sex-based oppression. so like. why were y’all getting so mad at her why did a meme get added calling her a genderist why was she challenged to talk about sex-based oppression like she’s too cowardly to do that when. she is doing that. and u know smthn that particularly stands out is the line abt “see how long it takes you to get called one of the “evil idiots””. op literally said one of the two main groups we’re left with is “a group of regular idiots who think any thought deeper than “let women do what they want” makes you part of group 1.” like she did in fact address exactly that issue. exactly the issue that saying anything significant about feminism gets you labeled as an evil idiot.

i think a lot of y’all are way too quick to fall into an us-vs-them, and you’re really not always allying yourself with who u should be. like i know we all know terf is a stupid term arbitrarily applied for saying anything vaguely feminist or for daring to be homosexual or even acknowedging the existence of sex half the time. but surely we also all know by now that there are transphobes in the world? including transphobic conservatives, and also including women who define themselves as radfems. whatever they call themselves, there are women who mostly spend their time hating on any & all transwomen online & never actually doing anything or addressing any other issues out of the thousands of problems women face worldwide. like we know that right we know that group of women is real? that’s group 1. most of you are not in that group. but i think you kind of self-sorted into that group because you’re so used to that being how you’re seen? the point about “any thought deeper than “let women do what they want” makes you part of group 1″... that is something actively acknowedged and complained about on radblr! by feminist women in general! so why are you disgreeing with it? why is this woman the enemy for saying the same thing y’all been saying???? why would you rather ally yourself w those (again, like half-conservative) transphobes who genuinely never seem to give a shit about any womens issues other than ~the transgenderism issue~ and often like do not have feminist ideas of gender at all (like ive seen straight-up tradfems who fit the description of group 1 here lmao) than ally yourself w a woman who says she wants feminism to have teeth again, condemns the branding of any feminist thought as evil, and literally acknowledges sex-based oppression. like WHAT is the angle on that one.

(little note 2 add im not against going off at some of the ppl in notes im sure there are some honest-to-god anti-feminist gender-worshippers in there lol but. once again they are the group 2 op condemned.)

so what's it going to take for mainstream feminism to grow some fucking teeth?

[waka-chan-out]

<3

[pyronado-moved]

please stop putting lil nas x on my dash oh my fucking god

[rivthewriter]

I apologize for rbing this without being tagged!! i just thought this would be a lot of fun to do since I usually am not the best supporter of my own works! Im sorry again! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Baby You're A Haunted House (aka BYAHH) (QCard); My favorite fic I've ever written, without a doubt. Just goofy haunted house antics, existential crisises, and romance! I became really close friends with someone because of this fic! (Lemon, my buddy, my friend! Im glad this fic allowed us to meet! ^0^) Content Warning: Death, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Hauntings, Poisoning. | link! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And if on our darkest days we cry, sing til we put our fears aside (RussEd); You ever have a dream that you um you you um you- No but in all seriousness this little fic popped into my brain during an really bad bout of insomnia, it was originally just supposed to be one or two chapters but then I got really into the swing of writing this. Kinda like a pirate au, kinda like a mystery fic, with lots of fantasy elements and a lot of just, strange magic. Content Warning: potential to grow more morbid/dark in later chapters depending on how i want to take this. Memory loss, pirates, malicious ghosts. | link!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excuse me sir, there must be someone you've confused me for (JohnnyV); Ive had some ups and downs with this fic, a total love hate relationship with it. I've rewritten most of the chapters over fifty times which is why it takes so fucking long for me to update. Just a shorter fic in which Johnny and V get a bit closer than what they were supposed to. Content warning: There is a chapter that has some smut. Trauma, Death, Depression, Fear, References to near death experiences (kinda), computer garbo lingo (about the relic). | link! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Too Much All At Once (Vicar Max/My Captain); You ever play a game and start crying over the connection two characters have but there's no romance in the game? yeah. this was born because of that. Lots of hurt/comfort, kinda slowburn but when i started writing this i didnt know how to really write slowburn.. Content warning: references to death, near death experiences, fear, trauma, anxiety, disorientation, smut. | link! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And finally... Love me, Love me, Love me, I beg of you. (Victor Frankenstein/Frankenstein's Monster); Written as a crackfic for pridemonth (because there is not nearly enough content for this ship and i did promise a fellow tumblr user i would write this), I actually had a lot of fun writing it, its really stupid, goofy, with more or less a 'and then they boned nasty style <3' ending because I decided against making it smut. Some fourthwall breaking happens where I say (and this is straight from the fic 'Deep down he felt like this was borne from something beyond his control, like.. A young man behind a typewriter (Or some futuristic equivalent, powered by lightning and glowing with the light of a thousand suns) during a special month to the el gee bee tee plus community (hi fellow LGBTs and monster-fuckers <3)' like. this is just a shitty little fic for fun!! its crack! its messy! its short! but it was really amusing to write!! | link! ~~~~~~~~~~~

(i dont really have anyone to tag so uh.. if my mutuals see this, go for it <3)

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

Tagged by @ftld42

kindling (snos, suna & sunasis)

ah yes, the classic togaki snos breakup/makeup through the lens of one sassy sunasis. this one is for all the people who crave hurt/comfort // link

all that i am (atsusuna, osamu & atsumu)

atsumu is a mess and a half, and suna isn’t helping any. a fic about misplaced love, misidentified love, familial love, and future love // link

A Certain Indiscretion (stanxeno)

just a good ol’ genderbend bodyguard au where two lesbians are crazy for each other and also just plain crazy // link

I’m in a field of dandelions (nanago)

i will never not love this fic. it’s pure serotonin, super fluffy, super domestic. roommates nanago out of high school who just act like they’re an old married couple // link

It’s Art, Shizun! (liujiu)

honestly i don’t even know what to say about this fic. it’s crack. it’s misunderstandings upon misunderstandings upon misunderstandings engineered by one fujoshi Mastermind. there is (1) yqy casualty in the makings of a power couple. (2) if you count mf’s poor dignity // link

Now it’s your turn: @astrasia @justsomeoneunordinary @dewbells @ohmiyamy @tirralirralirra 💛

[we-are-inevitable]

long distance javid that starts on tumblr: well-known fan creator edition

(thank you @roideny for listening to me rant!)

jack kelly is a fanartist who starts posting his digital works when he's about 13 and by the time he's 17, he's well known in the fandom he creates for. he gets requests, he does commissions, he uses it as a way to save for college- and also because it's fun and he likes drawing his silly little favorite characters doing their silly little tasks. he has a separate blog for non-fandom pieces (anything from OCs to scans of his traditional paintings, even the odd piece of vent art) and that gets a lot of traction, too. jack kelly rises to Ikimaru/Viria/Burdge level fame on tumblr and its all just this 17 year old Mexican kid with a silly little drawing tablet his foster mom got him as an adoption gift.

david jacobs is a fic writer, and a well-known one at that. he started when he was about 12 and unsupervised, writing really bad Percy Jackson fanfic on wattpad, like any young gay should. his fics started gaining traction and as they did so, his skill became better too; by the time he's 17, he's cracking out chapter fics and fleshing out huge complex AUs. a lot of people follow along for his NaNoWriMo content and original works as well, like his poetry or original fiction pieces, but a LOT of his followers come from his fanfics. his AO3 has at least 85 works and he's one of those people who has thousands of hits on his works bc he's just really good (even if he doesn't think he deserves it). you know how sometimes, you read a fic, and it kind of changes your outlook on life for a bit? davey's the fic writer who creates that. he wants to be in the editing/writing business and he's making it known.

anyway!

jack and dave meeting over tumblr bc theyre in the same fandom. becoming mutuals, constantly rbing each other's stuff, tagging each other in posts, the works. they REALLY start interacting by jack drawing scenes from davey's fics and davey writing little drabbles inspired by jack's fanart, and pretty soon they're kind of Known in the fanon circle- people see one of them, and immediately think of the other.

soon, they start talking about more than just fandom stuff and find out that they're the same age, they like the same stuff, theyve been in the same fandoms for A While and just never put two and two together. and though they live pretty far from each other, their friendship is like. Cemented. they exchange other socials and start video chatting, facetiming, discord voice calls, etc. and are so In Like with each other but also long distance is Scary and Not Ideal and they're both embarrassed to say they met their crush on tumblr anyway so they just ignore it

and this goes on for YEARS. they FINALLY meet up when they both go to a con- as fans, but eventually they'll be vendors (jack for his art and davey for his eventual book series)- and they click instantly. i imagine they do some pretty sick Percy Jackson cosplays, bc i love headcanoning that they both grew up with it, and they have so much fun together. they stay up so late talking about anything and everything, they fall asleep next to each other even though there's another bed in the room, and they both wake up red-faced and awkward bc Wow He Looks Pretty With The Sunrise In His Eyes.

(side note: i imagine they share a hotel room, but Medda and Esther share a room as well, and they become close friends throughout the weekend! these boys aren't completely unsupervised.)

they both part ways- Jack going to New York and Davey going back to Chicago- but their friendship is just that much more important. they talk every day, from junior year of high school to sophomore year of college, and when they FINALLY get together for real, it's at another con. they've both moved onto different fandoms but they're still SO close and just ,, jack, 20, having his first ever booth at a con, and asking davey to come for "moral support" but really he just wants to see him. davey helps him run his booth, helps restock and sell and run the "business" side of things. and when it's less busy, jack beta reads some of davey's new work, but the majority of the time they're just. talking. they stay in the same hotel room that night and it's one of those "i really want to hold him but i don't want to be weird" moments and it's so painfully obvious that they like each other but they're both Really scared of distance

and boom! they kiss in the hotel and the rest is history.

i think ,, davey transferring colleges to be closer to jack, and they move in together once he's For Sure going to school in the city. jack isn't going to school, he's an artist full-time, and his commissions and prints/stickers/mugs/merch/etc. rake in enough to pay the bills, plus with davey's added income from his part time job, they live modestly but comfortably.

once davey graduates, he starts sending his book- one he's been working on and editing and worldbuilding since before he even knew jack- out to editors, and then publishers, and eventually its hitting the shelves in every major bookstore in the country because it's such a hit.

and david gets to brag that his husband drew the cover art.

[0x1-home]

Hi guys it's Diana!

So as you may have noticed I haven't been so active recently and it's because I've been thru personal situations + high school, it's been not harsh but complicated and the reason I used to check in was bc of my lovely mutuals/friends here and your lovely asks, tags and rbs:

I took the decision to take some time from social media which includes Tumblr and that's why I want to let you know, so I don't just disappear but to explain myself to the most beautiful people I've met in this site: I love you so so much! Here I made more friends than irl and I will never forget that!

I'm not deactivating my account, I will just stop using it for a while, I don't know how much time I will take but even if it's more than thought I want to tell my beautiful mutuals to whom I will tag bellow :

You're amazing people!!! I wasn't the kind of person that made friends easily, much less thru internet! But you made me feel more confident and proud of my passions and likes, I love talking and rbing from every single one of you! It's amazing how in a couple of months around here I met so much wonderful people!

All the inside jokes and chats were personal and deep to me, my mutual likes and nicknames for every one of you! I'll miss it all.

You are beautiful, valuable and amazing beings!!! Remember those things even tho I'm not around here. Promise it! Promise me you will keep fighting, you'll keep your head up, even if it all goes wrong, my darlings please HOLD ON!! Keep your faith in the future! And chase your dreams and goals, attach to them at all costs!!!

I will miss you so much. And I'm so sorry this needs to happen, I will miss leave Asks to make sure you were doing good. Make sure you check on others time to time! Spread love and accept it from others!!

I hope you understand why I am doing this.

Sending thousands of love to yall,

Diana xx.

I'm sorry if I miss someone! Lovely amazing people in no particular order: @tanktop-lou @whaleharry @farawaytatmybeloved @purplepantsniall @ladychlo @holyshit @larrys-love-child @dragmedown @bitnotgood28 @quetzal-28 @idontknowwhatitshouldbecalled @heyangels @hisfearlesshaz @loulovehome @herefortommo @bluewinnerangel @longhairedlouismybeloved @bymadhatter @marrltt @accio-sirius-black @zouisgf @badreputation @chrisltomlinson @nouislover @iicflicker @fondlinson @finexbright @curly-headed-one @inbluehalove @adoreinbloom @callouiee @sunsmile-lou @thesunflowerlou @avocadolouis28 @smolhilariousbeans @thehornoftheunicorn @thelastfunctioningbraincell @itsjustaboathome @louispoppunkera @casthefallenangel @rainblou @imclowning @skyfulloflarry

[mithliya]

I was looking at your anons that you shared. But I feel you are missing the point though I maybe wrong. Thing is culture and environment does greatly affect the way men view and act on things. A man raised in a liberal, cosmopolitan environment is less likely to have violent misogynist tendencies and more likely to support women's rights (though liberal misogyny may still be present) than a man raised in a place where women are subject to chattel slavery and covered or locked up in houses. You can look up global opinion polls where there's a clear hostility towards women's equality and lgbt rights and more support for conservative religiousness in middle East, Africa and South Asia (obviously not all countries in those) compared to Europe or the Americas (including South America). Obviously a man who is from such an environment is more likely to be misogynistic (in terms of actions) than a man from a liberal environment on an average. This has nothing to do with race, because the same man had he been raised in a better environment would've likely been better (on an average). It is fair to blame the global geopolitical game and actions of the Western powers for the current situation in middle East or Afghanistan etc, but that doesn't change the fact that men from these places are more likely to be misogynist due to their environment and culture (not due to their race). What do you think?

i would like to preface this (for future anons) that im simply rbing and tagging that stuff for future reference, these aren’t all there is that ive said on the topic and it’ll take me time to go thru everything ive said on the topic so what ive reblogged is by no means the entirety of my perspective. additionally, ive talked so much about this that i actually have no desire to really have a discussion on it. maybe a civil private one in dms or something, but not a public one on my blog. it’s just bc i found talking about this topic and discussing it with very blatantly racist ppl last month was very emotionally draining for me. so i would appreciate if this discourse isnt reignited bc my intention isn’t to reignite it, but rather simply to find all thats been said on it so i can share it with another blogger on here.

OKAY so onto what u said. i agree that environment plays a massive role, in fact i think it’s predominantly what drives people’s behaviours in this context. however, i disagree with the argument that it’s about culture. i think it is about society and environment, but culture in itself isn’t the root of the issue a lot of the time. you brought up afghanistan, and i think that’s a good example of what i mean. culture is very deeply rooted and our cultures often have hundreds if not thousands of years of history behind them. what we’re seeing in afghanistan today isn’t the result of culture— it’s the result of an extreme societal change that happened several decades ago. not to say afghanistan didn’t have their own battles with misogyny before taliban got power, but taliban getting power and coming to exist isnt because of afghan culture (which ive seen many people argue and then use to point out that “well their culture led to this, and since they created their culture this goes to show these people are innately more misogynistic and violent”) but rather because of foreign powers. communism was on the rise in many nations in the middle east and in afghanistan as well. on another end, there were also islamists. they existed (afaik, we have saudi to thank for that) but they were weak and didn’t have influence. western powers, namely US, thought of communism as a threat to their power & to their livelihood, and thus supported and empowered the “lesser threat”, which are the Islamists. this helped the Islamists gain power and take over. this led to a major societal shift in afghanistan. what was once a country where women could walk around dressed however they liked, turned into a country where women were being forced to wear a burqa. what was once a country where women were getting educated, now became a country where women had to pretend to be boys if they wanted to learn. there’s some famous images showing this (ofc they don’t give us the full picture of life in afghanistan before taliban took over, but we get an idea), all of them being afaik from afghanistan in the 60s and 70s:

so i firmly am against the argument that the primary issues involve their culture. the islamists existence AND their power were both things that came from outside influence and outside powers. what i think is fairer to say, is that the difference in extremes of misogyny is to do with society and moreso social progress. we cannot argue that misogyny in Western Europe is less extreme because of Western European culture, especially when European society, around the same time as the images above, had a lot of undeniable misogyny. for example, at around the same time, italy had a law where women were forced to marry their rapists so that their rapist can basically get away with it, and in the 60s was the first time when a woman publicly refused to do so (her name is franca viola). women like the aforementioned one pushed for social progress which has made life better for women today, it wasn’t about the difference in culture.

with some practices, i would give culture more credit. for example, fgm is an ancient cultural practice in various countries. however, some practices aren’t cultural. taliban is far from a reflection of afghan culture. and of course men took advantage of the taliban and became more overtly misogynistic. the number of men that come from places where women’s rights have made massive progress, only to go to other countries and be incredibly misogynistic to the women in said countries, points to me that even with social progress, men will try to find a way to be misogynistic in a way thats acceptable enough (ex: sex tourism or mail order brides).

this is a long reply and by no means everything i think on this, but hopefully you understand now where im coming from. i don’t disagree culture can play a role, but a lot of the time what people blame on culture isn’t even about the country’s culture to begin with.

[carrotmakar]

sometimes when I see fic rec lists or blog rec lists that bigger creators make & it’s always the same 7-10 ppl that have thousands of notes on their stuff and it’s just .... kind of disheartening. Like those creators are seriously talented & deserve notes & recognition but when ppl talk abt low interactions killing fanfic on here, it’s more abt small creators because no one is reblogging & I even get big creators liking my writing w/o rbing likee what am I supposed to dooo :(

hey hun!! i am in fact guilty of reading out of those same 7-10 people that write for harry (i know that we’re probably thinking about at least some of the same people tbh) but i definitely do try to read some smaller creators because i’m definitely not what could be considered a big writer / creator. i really try my best to read and reblog from anyone!  i definitely know what it feels like to have big creators like your work and not reblog it. that’s really disheartening and it’s kind of messed up imo, because some of those creators that like my work and then don’t reblog it are the same ones that are pushing to reblog instead of like, or to do both. and yeah i definitely, definitely understand what you mean about low interaction killing fanfic being more with small creators. i know that i get a decent amount of notes on my fics (def not as much as some of the large writers on here, but i’m happy that i get interaction in general tbh) but when i first started writing / when i write for new things the interaction drops to basically nothing and it bums me out sometimes.

i’m not really sure how to get more people to read your writing tbh :( i basically just tag my fics with harry styles, harry styles fluff, harry styles angst, harry styles writing and hope that the tags work and that people want to read it! also, a lot of times, i don’t read fics that don’t have warning(s) / summaries listed because i always want to know what’s going on before i get into it (this is because i’ve read some things that have really messed me up because there were no warnings / summary listed so make sure that you put a summary / warnings because a lot of times people won’t read as much if you don’t have those things! if you already have them, that’s great!! also, the one thing that i’ve learned that really makes writing a lot more fun and enjoyable, regardless of the interaction, write for yourself! i know that can sound weird, of course you write for yourself but what i mean is to write what you want to read, because there’s probably someone out there that wants to read it too!

i know how hard it can be to post your writing here, so if you ever want to message me / send me an ask about anything, feel free to! and if you want to send me your fics whenever you post them, i’d be happy to read and reblog them!!!

[i-cant-promise-that2]

Smh some people do not understand how Tumblr works. Rblog the hell out of everything! Back in the day everyone used to hit the daily post limit regularly. There's no such thing as spam reblogging (aside from rbing the same post a thousand times in one sitting)

seeing a lot of "why would i reblog anything i don't have something to add" like

sir this is the user-circulated content site

[ilovemosss]

rbing for a second time cuz i didnt see parts 1 and 2. those two had me so upset because it's true. the typical education system likes to kinda crush the arts. i was super duper lucky. i went to a school for the arts from 5th grade to graduation. i managed to graduate with my arts diploma, and i got a lot of opportunities while i was in school. i was a music major for all of my eight years with that school, and it honestly helped me through so much

a lot of kids never got that chance. a lot of people that could be amazing artists never get the chance because they're forced into "normal" careers. but one of my core beliefs is this:

humans are artists

not just some humans. all humans. we love it, we thrive on art. it helps us express ourselves, writing and music and dance and visual arts and the theater are so so essential to us. it's part of our culture. and not just one culture. all cultures, all over the world. all over the planet for thousands of years, we've been creating and loving art. it's practically in our dna

so fuck the modern culture of "you have to have x level of talent" cuz that's bullshit. you're an artist no matter whether you're da vinci or just a kid who draws for fun. art is art. no matter who you are, where you come from, or anything else that makes you "different" art is something that brings us all together. we really do need it, and i'll stand by that until i die

US AGAINST THE WORLD by Gavin Aung Than

This is the third appearance of the Ballet Boy and his father. You can read PART 1 and PART 2.

[comingoutofthecauldron]

rbing my tags here bc they deserve more clout

#i'm picturing like. fake glasses nose + mustache combo#one time he bleached his hair and walked round looking like an eboy for a decade or so#ALSO he must have had to fake the appearance of aging??? so like can we assume he's secretly proficient at costume makeup#one day genya isnt available to tailor alina and the darkling is just there like. say no more#whips out his set of morphe brushes#AND PORTRAITS#portraits must have been a thing right?? monarchies love that shit and the darkling was probably important enough#each king must have tried to have a portrait of him painted and he must have had rly dumb excuses every time#'sorry your majesty i'm allergic to portrait artists'#'the fumes from the paint set off my powers and i could cause an apocalypse ://'#'i'm just rly self conscious 😔'#like i hate him with everything in me but there must have been some Shenanigans#it can't have just been a thousand (?) years of non stop brooding and war crimes

since the darklings were all one person i think it's safe to assume that whenever he faked his death he had to come back with increasingly ridiculous disguises until he could be sure no one would recognise him

[pensivetense]

Also self-rbing my dumb little Annabelle ficlet because today/tomorrow are the last days I can pretend that she’s not evil and I’m uhh in denial

Full text under the cut bc I was too lazy to do that the first time I posted

The world is delicate beneath Annabelle’s hands. In a sense she’s always been aware of this; how easy it is to crush something irreplaceable with a single careless hand, how a single word can undo a lifetime’s trust. It used to paralyse her sometimes, and that was before she saw the threads of the pattern weaving it all together, how a single misplaced touch could cause a ripple to spread out and beyond the reaches of even her sight. How much destruction might be wrought with a breath. It amazes her how brashly and confidently some people stride through their own lives, as though any misplaced thread might not so easily lead to disaster.

That is how it happens, after all. A strand here, a pull and a tug there, a thousand little choices which are by themselves insignificant lining up in a perfect domino progression, and the world ends.

::::

She’s seven years old when she first sees the spider under the mirror after her bath, and runs sobbing out to tell her father to come and kill it. It’s nothing at all, just a little brown house spider, harmless save to the gnats. It terrifies her.

::::

Mikaele is a loud, brash man, to Annabelle’s first impression, and this surprises her. For all she’s heard about him, she’s never actually met him, and she expects... well, she expects the single man who outwitted the apocalypse to have been more careful, somehow, more wary.

But Mikaele Salesa is all loud, booming laughs and quick smiles. He says what he thinks, and does what he wants, and when she knocks on his door about a week after the Change (insofar as such things can be measured) he welcomes her in with no fuss and a surprisingly small show of the fear that she knows is skittering across his nerves.

“You must be Annabelle Cane,” he says, warmly enough. “Come in, come in. I’ve heard all about you. Though I must admit, I am surprised to find you on my humble doorstep. That,” he gestures vaguely outward, towards the edge of the bubble of normalcy that Annabelle can feel but not see, “that is your world, no?”

Annabelle shrugs. How bold of him, to greet a servant of the Web so familiarly. The Web is present with her always, but is weaker here, and all of a sudden she doesn’t know what to say back; the words tangling themselves in the twisted threads of future and past and consequence until she can’t tell which ones are right, which ones are good, which ones will make him tolerate her presence until she leaves with his protection.

“I missed the sun,” she says.

::::

She’s seven years old, hair plastered to her shoulders and still dripping wet with the speed with which she fled the bathroom.

Her father glances up from where he’s sat, poring over a book, withdrawn into the shadows of the table-side lamp and blank to the noises of his wife and children around him. “You’re a big girl, Anna,” he says absently. “If you want it dead, kill it yourself.”

::::

There are so many ways she could kill Mikaele. She sees them in the lines that tangle over his head and hands and heart, around his lungs and his throat. A knife-slash here, a blunt-force impact there. The twist of too many quick hands on his neck.

Some barely require her input at all. He’s got a weak heart that will give out given the proper encouragement, and there are, of course, a thousand ways to have an accident in a house as big and old as this.

Of course, he’s not exceptional in this regard. People are so delicate, and the consequences of their actions oftentimes so severe, she wonders sometimes how anyone ever dares to move at all. It’s fine for her, of course; with spidersilk threaded through her hands and limbs and mind she knows how to dance her steps along, causing only the ripples she wishes to cause and leaving the rest untouched. Of course, she dances her steps most often to the harm of those around her, but at least she knows what she’s doing when she does it. At least the harm is foreseen.

::::

The next night the spider is still there. None of her brothers or sisters have killed it—she’s surprised by this, but then again, they’d probably just failed to notice it. She can’t keep her eyes off it, afraid that if she glances away, even for a moment, it will vanish and reappear under her foot on her head or in her mouth.

“The spider’s still there,” she says to her father, assertive as she can but with wobbling uncertainty in her voice.

“Is it?” says her father, and turns back to his book.

She stands there for a moment, wide-eyed and jittery with nerves, then walks slowly back to the bathroom and stares at the spider for a long moment as it spins its web, uncaring of her, before losing her nerve and leaving again.

::::

Mikaele’s afraid of her, there’s little doubt about that, and yet he remains surprisingly, stubbornly unwary. He invites her in. He plays her songs on the piano, sometimes, when she’s not holed up in her room for fear of the looseness in the threads that usually pull at her limbs and straighten her spine, and he makes jokes to her even when she doesn’t laugh.

He shares his food with her. She hadn’t expected this, but he never seems to begrudge her hunger.

The food is his lifeline. The taps still work, and there’s plenty of air and light and shelter (and booze), but when he runs out of food he’ll die. He’s got his pantry stocked full of nonperishables, of course, but they can only last so long. The pantry is his timeline, the dwindling stocks in it marking out the time remaining to him.

When it becomes clear that Mikaele is rationing neither her nor himself, Annabelle takes it upon herself to cook. There’s not a ton of variety, but there’s a decent stock of spices and dried legumes and she knows her way around a vegan kitchen. Mikaele always appreciates her efforts, at least.

Sometimes when she cooks she imagines how easy it would be to lace it with poison.

::::

Her eyes are glued to the spider again, the spindly blond legs, the sand-coloured carapace. It’s done with its web, apparently, and is just sitting there in the centre of it, still as though dead.

“I’m not scared of you,” she says to it. It doesn’t do anything, just sits there indifferently.

“I’m not,” she says. “I’ve got scarier friends than you at school. My teacher’s scarier than you. My mum’s scarier than you, and so’s my dad and my brothers and sisters. I’m scarier than you.”

She grabs a tissue from the box on the counter.

“I could kill you right now,” she says. “I could... I could just squish you. I should just squish you.”

The spider twitches its front legs, rubs them together as though it’s cleaning its hands. She starts back and drops the tissue, and runs out into the living room without another word.

“It’s still there,” she says, and her father grunts and flips his page.

::::

“Peaches?” Mikaele asks, proffering a tin. “I cannot offer you anything fresh, of course, but I find these nice in themselves. A bit of summer, to go with the climate.”

Annabelle glances up at the sun and wonders if it’ll ever run out, if Upton is caught in an endless paradisiacal summer or if, should they wait long enough, the weather will chill and turn to rain and fog. It doesn’t matter, of course. This place will be long gone by then.

She takes the peach half hesitantly, and it tastes like the last remnants of things departed.

::::

Annabelle leverages herself up onto the counter, as she has done the past several nights, eyes glued to the figure in the centre of the web leaning over a captive fly.

“I was right,” she says, “my friends are scarier than you. Vic beat up Jamie today behind the gym. I didn’t even know she could hit that hard.”

She scoots herself forward, leans in.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispers. “I started it. I told Vic about the book.”

The story spills out of her, and the spider, indifferent, continues to wrap its prey around and around until it’s nothing but a twitching bundle of white silk.

::::

When she captures and cocoons the Corruption-thing in its own shrieking slime, it’s with a certain vicious glee that she throws it back out again into a realm of the Desolation. Let the devouring flame take it, she thinks, and keep it in a place it can never truly die. How dare it approach the territory of a Daughter of the Web?

(How dare it blunder into their oasis, she doesn’t think. How dare it threaten this last fragile piece of safety?)

Mikaele cooks that night, in gratitude perhaps, or maybe he just sees that she’s definitely not up to it herself. Sapasui, if a heavily improvised version—they ran out of fresh vegetables months ago and tinned and frozen ones just aren’t the same. Still, it’s nice, and the noodles are filling. She chases them around her plate and watches them tangle and pull.

“Peaches?” she asks after dinner, and they share a can out on the veranda and watch the sky turn gold and red and indigo.

::::

“Look,” says her father, finally. “You’re a big girl, Annabelle, and quite frankly I’m sick of hearing about this. You want the spider gone? Fine. Pick up that tissue and go into the bathroom and kill it, and don’t come out until you’re done.”

She stands there for a second, startled and still.

“What are you waiting for?” he asks. “Go.”

She goes. Her stomach’s in knots and her hands are clammy, and she squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head away as she brings down her hand. She can feel the squish and pop of the spider’s body through the ply of the tissue, and when a fragment of web brushes the back of her hand she scrubs it over and over in the sink.

But it was easy, so much easier than she’d thought. It hadn’t eaten her or bitten her or turned to acid or venom and soaked into her hand. She’d just killed it. It was gone. A single motion of her hand was all it had taken. She feels a sudden, desperate surge of relief, and grins at her reflection in the mirror, giddy with adrenaline and triumph.

“Did you do it?” asks her father when she emerges.

Annabelle nods.

“Good girl.”

::::

Nothing lasts forever, of course. Her time runs out soon enough, and she knows by the tug of thread and the shift in the wind.

She doesn’t bother to pack.

She knows where Mikaele has hidden the camera, of course, and it’s only a moment’s work to retrieve it. She takes it down from its alcove and walks slowly out to the back porch and sits on the steps, cradling it, looking out at the oasis. Is it just her, or is there a crispness to the air that wasn’t there before, a scent of sap and dying leaves? The first blush of the last autumn of the world?

Mikaele finds her there several hours later, as she knew he would. He’s just done with his habitual afternoon piano, and, from the smell of it, his habitual afternoon wine.

He looks her over for a moment as she turns the camera over and over, examining the plastic retro casing and the spiderweb crack of the lens.

“It’s like that, is it?” he asks, and his voice is steady and offhand, as if she’d told him they’d finally run out of canned peaches.

She looks down at the camera in her hands and nods.

“Well,” he says, still light but with a hint of something underneath, “I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it.”

He sits down heavily beside her. “You know what I want,” he says simply.

“I do.”

::::

Annabelle is seven years old. She dances into the bathroom unthinkingly, ready to climb up into the counter and tuck her knees into her chest and whisper her day’s secrets into web and spiny legs.

She takes one look at the empty spot beneath the mirror and bursts into tears.

::::

As she walks away from the place which had been Upton House, Annabelle looks at the bloody strands trailing from her fingers, stretching out before and behind her and off into the shadows of the ruined world which seeps in to fill the void she’s leaving, and wonders if she ever had a choice, or if this was always, only, ever what she was.

Annabelle Cane I care you.