#THE COMMENTING

[alwayshappyhoursomewhere]

#remember how most LJ culture occurred in the comments?

Remember how LiveJournal let you have several icons (or avatars or "pfps" as you might call them now)? And you'd carefully choose an icon to fit the subject matter, your tone, and the blog on which you were commenting or posting?

And it could make your argument look that much snarkier if you used a rude one? Or you could use it to add a multiplier to a joke?

And icons, alongside banners and wallpapers, were a whole genre of fanwork with its own design language, conventions, and norms, including carefully crediting people for them?

That was neat.

[jandjsalmon]

Fun Story to Share.

I got my (now 18-year-old) daughter into Ao3 back in 2021. I taught her she should always comment - even if the fic looks old or abandoned or whatever. She did.

Well - she got this email this morning:

The fic was written in 2014 and essentially abandoned.

Bethy read and reviewed in 2021 (and was actually the only person who had commented at all).

Today in 2025 - the final chapter was posted by the author and this was her reply to Bethy’s comment.

———

Never question whether a fic is too old to comment on.

[trekscribbles]

This week, I read a fic that was around 20 years old, which had originally been posted on the author's personal website and which she added to AO3 a few years ago. She listed her email address with the fic, so after I finished reading, I sent her an email saying how much I enjoyed the story, how much I appreciated the work and effort she obviously put into it, and thanked her for uploading it to AO3. She responded the next day and thanked me for my message, then said she had a few more stories in the same series that she hadn't gotten around to uploading. I checked this morning--she added a 35,000 word novella and thanked me in the summary.

👏 comment 👏 on 👏 old 👏 fics 👏

[lrndvs]

compliments from girls go hard

[guiltyidealist]

new favorite YouTube comment just dropped

[thescriptorium]

no way ppl are using ai to write ao3. what happened to being a tortured writer. what happened to blood on the page. what happened to the ao3 curse. people used to get run over, have their houses burned down, break their entire spines and they still put in the work to finish a chapter. fuck you, using ai. y’all are weak

[gayestcowboy]

this shit is the only remaining good part of twitter

[willgrahamscock]

[lemonemenom]

No one owes artists anything.

But existence is lonely and sometime you throw hours and hours of effort into a void, on the slim chance it will say something back.

[caleohateclub]

new reason to stay alive: outlive the trump presidency. In fact, outlive Trump. He isn’t immortal. We can live to see the day he's guaranteed to never be in office ever again and we can make sure he knows that he'll never have enough power to kill you

stay strong, friends, this isn't your fault

[atinymexicanbird]

Ark siblings in all universes 🪐

[ratcarney]

TUMBLR 101: a helpful guide for tiktok refugees

are YOU a former tiktok user trying to learn how to use tumblr to fill the void the american tiktok ban is leaving in your soul? here are some things you should know, from someone who’s going on their eighth year on this hellsite:

1. you can say anything on here. gone are the days of having to use words like “unalive” and “seggs.” murder! kill! sex! fuck! speak your mind!

2. there is a community for you on here. regardless of what you’re into or however small the fandom is, you have a place here. at least one other person will have heard of your weird obscure interest. strike up a conversation!

3. followers don’t matter. tumblr is one of the last remaining social media sites in which your number of followers means absolute jack shit. this can be disorienting at first, but once you lean into the fact that everyone on this website is equal, it’s very freeing. clout means nothing here.

4. similarly, you can post at any time. while tiktok has an algorithm that favors certain times, tumblr has no such algorithm. post whatever you want, whenever you want. every post has virtually the same chance at getting notes, regardless of when it is posted.

5. tags can have spaces between the words! this one is very exciting. tags can be a whole sentence. you can also use the tags to comment on someone’s post without actually adding onto the physical post itself (which is sometimes frowned upon and called “derailing” if you use this feature to bring up a completely different point other than the one that’s being made on the original post).

TL;DR: speak your mind, find your place, followers don’t matter, post anytime, have fun with tags!! tumblr is a wonderful site used to share things you’re excited about. be patient with yourself as you’re learning and have fun!

[mochasucculent]

Dumb thing that would not leave my brain

[tawnysoup]

Finally now that the comic is fully public on comicfury, I get to share it with all of you here, too <3

If you enjoyed, please consider supporting by buying a PDF of the comic on itch.io: https://tawnysoup.itch.io/home-in-the-woods

[wearegoingfuckinganywhereman]