#celebrating fandom creators

[onlycodcanjudgeme]

It's that time of the week! Admin might be slow to respond, but please tag us in your cod fanworks and we will reblog :)

[secondbeatsongs]

with twitter imploding, people are talking about how much it'll suck to have celebrities and brands on here, but...I think celebrities can exist on tumblr in a healthy way.

because I've already seen it happen.

I don't know if you guys remember, but there used to be a decent number of celebrities on here! I mean, the white house had an official tumblr! so did my local library for some reason! everyone thought tumblr was the place to be!

we had George Takei, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Hayley Williams, Ariana Grande, Dylan Marron, Dante Basco, Rebecca Sugar, John Green, Hannah Hart, Jacksfilms, Daniel Howell, and Ashens to name a few, as well as brand accounts for Doctor Who, Sherlock, Denny's, and so many others.

(Cole Sprouse was even on here, and it was fine. don't act like it wasn't. it was really not a big deal! it was fine!)

there were plenty of celebrities and brands on tumblr a decade ago - and it worked fine when people knew to stay in their lane!

did Obama's official account give a shit when people posted Obamney slash? absolutely not!

did we pay attention to whatever the brand accounts were posting? we did not!

and so we existed pretty well together on this site - because, after all, we don't have to look at anything we don't want to. we can block people. and they can block us. and we can keep posting what we want, no matter what any celebs or brands have to say about it, just like it's always been.

the only thing I think needs to change is, well...hey...remember how I mentioned John Green and Rebecca Sugar up there?

yeah the reason we don't see them on here anymore isn't because tumblr isn't a place they'd thrive - it's because a bunch of assholes harassed them until they left.

and that's not fucking okay.

so look, if you see celebs/brands on here, follow them, or don't! block them and ignore them, or don't!

but if you send threats and harassment to anyone on here, whether it be a celebrity, brand, or average tumblr user, you are the asshole. full stop. sending threats to other people is never okay. never.

and yes, this goes for the corporate accounts too! those are still run by people!

it's somebody's job to run those accounts, and guess what! that poor, probably-underpaid person doesn't deserve to get sent gore and death threats because their job is running a corporate tumblr account!

just, whatever happens when twitter explodes and dies a horrible death, it's gonna be okay. but please be kind. above everything else, please, I am fucking begging you, be kind.

it's really the most important part of thriving here

[seventeendeer]

this isn't at all meant to be condescending or finger-waggy because 100% we all have blind spots like this, but I'm really, really hoping that the people who never found Gaiman's approach to his own fandom concerning in any way will take this all as a learning moment.

he was an older, hyper-famous author engaging directly and frequently with an online audience of largely vulnerable young marginalized people. he presented himself as cultured and worldly, and made himself approachable as someone to go to for advice, encouragement and "wisdom." his manner of speech was extremely pathos-heavy and clearly intended to be comforting and encouraging in exactly the way his target demographic needed it to be to swallow every word. the way he spoke about stories and creativity was designed to make young creative hopefuls feel special and important, while sweeping real analytical techniques under the rug - in hindsight, likely so no one would think too critically about the disturbing amount of patriarchal abuse played for cheap shock value and voyerism in his own body of works.

Gaiman saw a target demographic that was desperate for an older creative role model to tell them they were worth something, and he exploited that pain to twist a narrative around himself where he was king and any critique leveled at him or his works were the enemy.

to be clear, he could have been innocent. he could totally have been just an out-of-touch old man saying nice things to people because he wanted to be kind and he thought he was a lot smarter than he really was. red flags are warning signs, not a surefire way to tell if someone is actually "secretly shitty."

but if you used to look up to him, PLEASE take this moment to revisit the ideas you absorbed from him. did you take his words to heart because they seemed to have objective merit? or did you take them to heart because it felt good to believe what he said? do you still hold these values? does knowing he was intentionally manipulating his online audience make you less certain? do you need more information from a different source before deciding one way or another?

again, I'm just really, really hoping people on here will take a moment to reevaluate the ideas and opinions he's injected into tumblr fandom culture, because his reach is immense and he has absolutely been manipulating popular perception of relevant topics to gain further influence and control the narrative around both his own and Pratchett's legacy. please, please take this moment to notice what he's been doing - and next time someone tries to pull the same shit, hopefully we'll be able to apply what we've learned from experience.

[twizzie-lairs]

Hazbin Hotel Doodle Raffle Time! 😈🎉

With an overwhelming majority...

I'll be doing a hazbin hotel style doodle raffle!

We got to 400 before the poll ended, so to celebrate, we're gonna do 4 winners! 🥳

Raffle Entry Period:

Feb 16 - March 16!

How to Enter:

- Just "like" this post! That's it! 😊

Thank you all for your support so far, I hope you stick around for more stuff from me!

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #5289:

I hate this cycle:

Step 1. Very valid and not too harsh criticism of a writer, actor, creator etc

Step 2. People taking this way too far and lashing out at the person, far disproportionate to the original offense, calling for anything from boycott to harassment to violence

Step 3. Others standing up against the backlash to defend the person

Step 4. The original criticism is never actually addressed

[fearandhatred]

.

[audioroleplayconfessions]

I usually avoid posting my own opinions, but I've seen a few posts like the one in the screenshot below creep across my feed lately and they're bugging me too much to keep my mouth shut. I censored the identity of this particular example because I don't want to start a Tumblr war or make them feel like I'm singling them out or attacking them.

I don't feel good about celebrating black history month through a character who was both written and performed by a white man. I know this is all just low-stakes fandom headcanon stuff and I'm not trying to control what other people do, but something feels not-quite-right about taking a character played by a white VA and deciding (on his behalf might I add) that he's black and using him as your example of black representation in the audio rp fandom.

There are black VAs out there, they can represent themselves. I really think it's disingenuous to sort through a cast of characters all played by the same white guy and assign POC races to them in order to give a singular white guy's one-man show racial diversity, then celebrate said "diversity".

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a Tumblr drama queen. If you're the person from the screenshot (or have posted something similar), I don't think you meant any harm. Your post probably wasn't meant to be that deep and not the worst thing in the world, but I don't know why you would pick a random character written and performed by a white guy and cheer "Rahhh, let's celebrate black history month with this!". If it really matters to you, you can celebrate a black VA, or a canonically black character, or even just a listener character that you/others HC as black. You can celebrate fan artists and writers who are black.

Why use characters played by Redacted for this? I promise I'm not trying to start a fight, or accuse people who've made posts like this of being racist or cancel anyone. I don't think they mean badly. But I see this a lot even outside of the context of BHM. It's almost always with characters written/performed by Redacted and it's always made me a little uneasy, especially with the amount of enthusiasm people throw onto the race they decided to HC for this one white man's characters.

If you disagree with me, I'm open to hearing you out. I don't want to try and dictate what people can/can't do in a fandom space or send a mob after anyone, but something feels off to me about using Redacted characters to celebrate BHM.

-Ringmaster

[the-cockroach-that-survived]

I’m just gonna vent about the ridiculousness of being a MCYT stan rn, especially a DTeam (previously DTQK) main…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ok but on a real note cause I do actually have stuff to say lol.

Aside from creator drama/controversy/etc. (content creators be normal challenge GO !! /silly /lh), which also stinks (RIP SBI, lovejoy, bench trio, DTQK, etc.) I’m just really tired of how this affects my personal relationships

ATP, I feel comfortable and confident in my own interests and opinions enough that I don’t really listen to the internet anymore, nor do I have any sorts of moral panics over watching these guys, and I don’t really think I should have to defend myself for liking them, but the unfortunate reality is that I do have to defend it, constantly.

It just really sucks

The DSMP in particular, both the lore and the creators, have been a special interest of mine for going on 4 years now, and the many many ways that it has impacted my life makes it so it’s really hard to be friends with anyone who has an even slightly negative opinion of it (even the totally fair ones)

I feel bad, because I very much have the standpoint that ruining friendships over fandoms is stupid and such arbitrary things shouldn’t be able to hold so much power, however unfortunately, being AuDHD, and being friends with mostly other AuDHD people, our interests are very important to us, and so is justice, so it’s not that easy.

I KNOW what I KNOW about these creators and I am confident and comfortable in that, but most of my friends don’t know all that, and when they know ANYTHING about these people, it’s almost always negative information.

I so badly want to correct them and debunk all the negative and false boohockey that gets spread around and give them reasons why these creators are good and why I like them because it would make me and our friendship more comfortable, but usually they’re so uncomfortable or at least suspicious and skeptical of these creators based on their preconceived notions that me TRYING to correct or explain things always gets shut down with “I don’t want to talk about this anymore” after just a couple points.

I’m happy and glad that most of my friends are mature and responsible enough that regardless of their opinions, they can respect my interest and not talk negatively about it to me and such, but it also sucks knowing that I can’t share so many huge parts of my life with them because of it, or at the very least I feel like I have to be vague or half lie in order to.

It’s not fun feeling like I’m walking on eggshells

All this over watching people play video games no less

It’s just frustrating and I never know if I should keep trying to explain things more so they can understand things and hopefully change their viewpoint, or if I should just let it go and accept I can’t talk about a lot of things with a lot of my friends.

I don’t like having friends that I can’t be that open with, friends who don’t get me.

Like, I can’t do completely casual relationships of any kind, it’s just not comfortable or fulfilling to me.

And as stupid as I think it sounds a lot of the time, I can’t change the fact that MCYT, especially the DSMP, is extremely important to me and has greatly impacted many parts of my life, so being friends with people who dislike it to pretty much any extent is hard and uncomfortable and it sucks.

I don’t want to make other people uncomfortable and I don’t want to lose important relationships over this kind of thing, but this stuff is ALSO extremely important to me, and I know in the long run it’s best to surround myself with people who understand that.

Idk, I’m just tired of having to defend and explain myself, I guess.

It’s literally just people playing video games

[maaaxx]

dont get me wrong i am more excited for this atla remake and the inevitable renaissance part 2 than i have ever been for anything in my life. however im also terrified of what changes this is going to bring to the fandom. Obviously the 2020 renaissance brought a lot of new and good things (zukka, a ton of amazing fics, etc). But more people joining the fandom means new people joining ao3 and interacting with fics and authors and artists too. Even in the few years that i've been active in fandom i've noticed a dramatic shift in how people interact with artists and authors especially. And I can't see this not getting worse as more people whose main social media experiences include tik tok and instagram coming to ao3 and tumblr. Like these people are used to content creators who revolve their content around what their audience wants because its their job, and I know this isnt going to translate well to the culture around ao3 writers especially when unconsolidated comments and 'advise' is already a problem for a ton of authors. And for people who dont understand that fics and fanart are supposed be transactional in the sense that you need to leave comments and kudos and reblog stuff when they're used to simply liking something *maybe* being enough. Idk whats going on with other fandoms, but I do know that these things have been an ongoing issue for the atla fandom and like I said, I can't imagine having another 'renaissance' and this stuff not getting worse.

[elysianymph]

those people on tiktok who sit and rate fics or fanart are so weird to me... like you can't even draw a stick figure or write 2k words of meaningful text but you're criticizing other people's works??? that they posted for free??? for the enjoyment of the community you're a part of??? get your head out of your ass fr

[dandelion-bride]

the brain is all you need?

spitting psychology in discords at 8:40 am, still feeling out of community in the Tavtash fandom and general Gortash fandom, writing an AU but keep getting stuck on that fucking judgement loop.

in unrelated news, realized that if i was raised/socialized as a male, i would have become a priest. absolutely. no doubt in my mind. recall comments inferring the same from family members. would have been supported by my family in this - despite being first male of a generation, would have been of an unwed mother, so going into the seminary lets the married siblings time to pop kids out to be the true heirs.

we are not entitled to know what could have been (thanks Aslan), but man, "what if I got/get the support I need" keeps nagging my ass.

[xxswagcorexx]

thinking about that ashswag testrun ep......

[zealoussy]

God I'm so tired of people who defend their fav creators' silence on Palestine. They're ignorant, what more could possibly needed after more than 100 days of palestinians getting annihilated, destroyed, denied aid every fucking day? Look at yourself in the mirror, how much you actually care about human lives, when you refuse to speaking up "against" your comfort public figures? That much you can't do?

[fansplaining]

Episode 185: RPF Revisited

In Episode 185, “RPF Revisited,” Elizabeth and Flourish use a trio of listener letters to return to the perennially thorny topic of real person fiction. How does RPF fit into the broader fandom space in 2022? What does “canon” even mean when it comes to real people? How do fans reconcile with troubling new information about celebrities they’ve written and read about? And is RPF source material the same as fictional source material, or are there fundamental differences between the two?

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #4308:

People acting like anyone who likes or doesn't hate a piece of media or celebrity or whatever is personally a bigot, when the reason we're supposed to hate them is something an average people would literally have no way of knowing about unless they were terminally online

Sorry but the average person walking around with a Hufflepuff keychain likely isn't a transphobe. They probably just have a normal life that doesn't involve checking in on the current political opinions of the author of their favorite childhood series.

[onlycodcanjudgeme]

Welcome to our first prompt of the week!

We will be introducing the weekly prompt on Sunday and then sharing a master post of all entries the following Saturday.   We will have four options - you can include all four or only run with one, it’s completely up to you!  

The event is open to any type of creation, whether its fanfic, art, edit, playlist, moodboard...basically whatever you’d like/whatever you can think of.

Please feel free to share a snippet/draft if it’s still in WIP stage, and we will share the final version whenever you have a chance to finish it!

And now...the prompts:

Person A: "If you stay, you fight."  Person B: "Then let's fight." 

“Having the same enemy doesn’t make us friends.” 

enemies to lovers

meet-ugly (AU)

If you have any questions, drop them in our ask box.  Make sure to tag us when you share your creation @onlycodcanjudgeme!