#anyway niche post of the day

[sesamestreep]

absolute highlight of my night last night was looking up the publication date of Frank O’Hara’s Having a Coke with You and encountering a blurb from an online encyclopedia that described it as being written for a woman he dated.

like…bestie… Frank O’Hara??? you sure about that????

[fictionadventurer]

Never underestimate the power of a good mediocre piece of fiction.

It's not deep. It's not mind-blowing. It's not going to blow you away with its layered character arcs and intricate themes. It's just a story that's just well-constructed enough that you're not going to be distracted by major flaws, and it's pleasant and relaxing and doesn't demand too much of you.

Those kind of stories are a vital part of any interior landscape.

[kiddokori]

where my kingkiller chronicle heads at. where my kvothe heads at. please where are you its so dark in here someone say something

[aroaceleovaldez]

i mean it when i say we've gotta bring back askblogs. bring back making character chat posts with poor choice text colors over random backgrounds. bring back blogs dedicated to what outfits you think characters would wear.

fandom is an ecosystem, not a numbers game. these types of blogs/posts/etc still exist in concept, because people still want to make them and they're a great way to get your thoughts of an idea out in a simple format, but most people make them on like tiktok or instagram reels and that's where the problem lies. Those videos don't go anywhere. The format doesn't allow for the discussion to spread through the community and they're less likely to be engaged with in general. And to make them most people have to either show their face or figure out editing software, so the barrier to entry is higher (editing) and/or they have to forfeit an amount of privacy.

those types of posts/blogs are the first rung of the ecosystem. they're the perfect environment for younger members of the fandom to begin safely interacting with the larger community and putting their own thoughts and ideas out there. roleplay is the other major spot for that and those communities are diminishing as well, honestly (if you know of an rp forum board site, cherish it. and if you can make one, make one). they allow younger fans to begin engaging with the source material on a different/deeper level, but still at a very low barrier to entry, and begin conversations with other fans, which also helps them build skills which in turn may encourage them to pursue other avenues within the fandom (fic writing, other formats of askblog - which itself usually leads to art, cosplay, also fic writing, etc). Without those places to build those skills, they might feel discouraged from trying to begin when surrounded by curated people who have built their skills up for years.

And those conversations they foster also in turn help the community, by offering ideas to artists or fic writers to extrapolate on or building community jokes. And that text/blog format specifically is extremely beneficial, because it allows younger members of the fandom to remain anonymous and keep their privacy without concerning themselves with having any platform or having anything attached to them (very important for young fans figuring themselves out and navigating online community spaces for the first time, since they can remove themselves from spaces easily if they decide they don't like it and they're protected, rather than PUTTING THEIR FACE ON THE INTERNET). And those posts they make will spread a lot more into the community since they're in a significantly easier format to be reposted (few people are gonna be reposting tons of random short-form videos versus spamming their instagrams with reposts of 10 random fandom images yoinked from tumblr, or reposting to pinterest or something). Like, don't repost art, at the VERY least don't repost without credit, but also I am not ignorant to the fact that my art is not just the first google image result for "pjo pride" and related searches, but also the 4th, the 6th, the 9th, the 10th, the 11th, etc etc., and pops up in the search results before the official ReadRiordan does simply because people reposted my work more (most with credit, thankfully).

For fandom to be a community, it needs to perpetuate itself. There needs to be engagement with one another and conversation. If that bottom rung is cut off, then new fans won't be able to grow into the other niches of the fandom, and the fandom will be solely reliant on the source material and die out extremely quickly, and there won't be a community. There's no conversation! There's no reason to stay beyond the original material! But if you don't have points of entry for new fans, they won't have any way to build the skills needed to move into those niches, or engage with the community in a healthy way.

tl;dr: Bring back askblogs and character-based text post blogs. They are vital to fandom ecosystem.

[skitskatdacat63]

"Non paeniteo potitus."

+ details & process

And, process !!

The jump btwn the second to last and last always surprise me whenever I make one of these because I always forget to take snapshots after I start painting. It's always like: oh yeah heres the lineart with some colors- BOOM fully finished✨️

What he's holding are the Austrian imperial scepter and orb, seen below:

I was going to draw the crown too but decided I don't hate myself that much(maybe some other day), and gave him a golden laurel crown, bcs I'm obsessed with that as a motif, and also its very remincient of the boy king statue that started this whole thing!

There's some symbolism of this, both intentionally but also just historically. I love that the orb represents that the monarch is holding the world in their hand, basically every old monarchy has one of those, and I think it's very cool for symbolism. But also bcs of that, I was forced to basically draw catholic fanart so, you win some you lose some. The star halo above him head is both to reference those religious statues with star crowns(I saw them a lot in Europe and they imprinted onto my brain), as well as: his four championships of course!

[necrotic-nephilim]

Sorry if this might be a rude question but why don’t you just make a seperate account for your nsfw fics?

not rude, it's a valid question! tbh it's a combination of a couple reasons.

i started posting anonymous dead dove batcest fics long before i had the balls to make a tumblr. at first i was content to just leave them unassociated with each other because i didn't really care about them being tied to me. i made this blog to actually show solidarity to my partner who wanted to make a sideblog for Sandman comic stuff so we could cheerlead each other and be brave together, since i've wanted to make a batcest sideblog but i've been nervous about actually having to get it going. (mal ik you're reading this go be brave and actually make your blog so i can cheerlead you damnit-) only did it dawn on me then that i should probably mention the fics i've written on the blog after like, three of them were posted anonymously. and it would've annoyed me to have half of them anonymous and half of them not, because notifications for them would've gone in different places. i could go back and take my fics off anon if i wanted to, but i can't switch the account they're on without taking them down entirely and that'd fuck over people who have them bookmarked already.

which, ties into my second reason, if i made an entire second ao3 account it'd be harder for me to see notifications, reply to stuff, and post things for both accounts because i'd have to constantly switch. and honestly i'd be terrified of accidentally posting on the wrong one on a brain fog day. posting fics is always the most tedious part of writing them for me lol. it's easier for me to stay logged into one account and have all of my stuff in one place for me and just use the anonymous collection when i feel like it. if ao3 pseuds worked like tumblr blogs, where you can't see all my side blogs but i can, i would've used pseuds, but since you can see all pseuds on an ao3, i felt it was a moot point.

and the last reason is i just feel more comfortable being anonymous on ao3 because of the rise in anti culture. on tumblr it's very easy for me to just filter that out and find the people i want to follow and block the people i don't. i don't mind getting hate, on tumblr or on ao3. but i think, for whatever reason you want to blame it on, there's been a massive boom of antis on ao3 who are very entitled about how they read on ao3. i tag extensively, but i just feel safer from getting targeted attacks if everything i write on ao3 isn't attached to one profile. if people like a fic i wrote, want to find more i always link my tumblr in the notes, but if an anti wants to get huffy with me, they can't easily track down my other things. they definitely could if they wanted to, but being anonymous on ao3 just makes me feel more secluded, in a weird way. it's like saying "if you want you can come find me but on here i'm just a weird faceless guy throwing stuff in the void". i've used ao3's anon feature a lot, actually, i used to be a hydra trash party dumpster kid back when that was in it's prime.

i also used to be vaguely popular on a different tumblr blog and my main ao3 and while i think it'd definitely be cool if i got a decent chunk of followers on this blog too, i don't really miss having fanfiction do so well i got targetted hate on all of my fics from the same people, i had my fics stolen, etc. it was really exhausting for me. i have 120+ works on ao3, not counting what's anonymous, and that level of exposure tires me, even when i use my main ao3 to post things that aren't trashy. it's just a weird feeling knowing so many people are subscribed to you on ao3 and what if you post something they won't like because you jumped fandoms again, or you're posting something niche, or you don't think it fills enough fandom tropes to be well-liked. i used to obsessively think like that, and it made me not write the things i wanted to because i cared about numbers. and i don't want to slide back into that hole. writing on anonymous is mostly to remind myself i wrote this for me, and if other people like it, they can come find me, but i don't have to perform like that anymore. if i get a really weird fucked up idea, i can write the really weird fucked up idea. at the end of the day, just makes me more comfortable! but i get it's a super confusing set up from an outsider perspective so, i really don't mind the question, thank you for asking!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

boy in silly sitting positions compilation

[teatitty]

Aizawa is a dom because no way a normal 15-16 year old would come up with the idea of a binding cloth [you all call it capture scarf in fics but Aizawa canonically refers to it as this] as a weapon choice and then proceed to not only use said binding weapon for the next 14-15 years but also brag about how you can't break out of it or tear it apart

Also? These shots speak for themselves. On top of that Aizawa's whole thing is hating being helpless/useless and being at his most comfortable when he's in control of a situation. He's a dom fellas

[odetokeons]

i love the band ghost

[jencsi]

[daddy-ul]

It's not that I don't know it, it's my brain that refuse to compute the information

[allgremlinart]

"there's no fan content for x character ://" then make it or pay someone else to I cannot stress this enough

[thresholdbb]

I never wrote about winning the cosplay contest at STSF (lol wild), but here's the prize certificate:

On the one hand, I (almost didn't enter and) didn't think I was going to win, but on the other hand, they kept talking about a cash prize. And ok, cash prizes have weird legal issues or whatever, but this certificate is bound only to the Creation merch tables, where they sell t-shirts and bags with AI art on them. I asked what I could use it for and the lady said "maybe" I could put it towards a photo op, but it also says no tickets, so that's still up in the air.

That night, Eugene Cordero was hanging out with us at the afterparty (lol hey Rutherford (!!!???) you're super chill) and someone mentioned I'd won the contest/I probably said something about my $500 worthless prize. So he signed it to make it worth "less"

ANYWAY, all this to say

If I can use it towards a photo op (doubtful), and there is a group Voyager cast shot (cause hello expensive and I am, how you say, not formally employed), I think it'd be hilarious to do Threshold mutant Tom Paris

It seems highly doubtful, but it's a thought that at least keeps me quite amused

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[mydemonsdrivealimo]

bryce lahela, the loser that you are, please continue to make jensen go on dates to niche author talks and panel presentations on topics nobody cares about and books nobody has read

[cypric-rat-hyperfixation]

As my following grows and as I meet more and more people who have rats, had rats, know someone who has/had rats, and love rats...

increasingly I wonder if/when a day will come... a day that I'll express rat enjoyment to someone and they'll enthusiastically ask me if I've heard of This Funnie Little Rodent Blog they like, figuring I may already know it or will enjoy it if not...

and it's.. my blog... and then I have to come out as popular Rat Tumblr blogger that they follow and now know IRL.......