#do i want to bother with a ton of fandom tags. not really

[spinchs-field]

“If I die, you die too!” and other hilarious jokes you can tell yourself

unshaded version plus a version without the text

[olderthannetfic]

Genuine question: what's the point of writing fanfic? As in, what's the purpose? No one in the fandom I'm in comments on fics and I even got told off by one person for doing so, as it "encourages bad writers and makes them think they're good". So it seems that it's a lot like book writing, where people work hard and are creative, but instead of getting paid and getting comments on the work, you just sit there silently hoping someone will press the kudos button and make a number go up. I feel like that time and work could be better spent on making something you might get some kind of profit off of. Don't get me wrong, I love doodling fanart, but I don't post it, as I'm aware that there's no point to doing so, and while it's a nice way to fill the time on a commute, it's not something that takes me as much time and effort as fanfic does. So... why do people bother? Sometimes I describe ideas I have and people I know in my fandom will tell me I should write it, but I don't see why. I get more interaction from just saying "imagine if [thing here]" than I would by sitting down, writing for hours, editing and posting [thing here], so what would the point be? I'm not punching down or going "haha women and their fanfic lol!", I genuinely do not get what the point is and this blog feels like it might have someone reading who knows the answer.

--

Do you make art for profit? Genuine question.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being motivated primarily by external factors, but it's not actually why a lot of people create things, whether it's books or recipes or doodles in a notepad.

I enjoy the actual process of writing.

I think many people lose sight of that aspect in an era where tons of <500-word fics that are mostly outlines and "Imagine if..." posts get disproportionate attention for being easy to consume. But the satisfaction of doing a bigger art piece and doing it right is real and motivates a hell of a lot of creation.

I suppose you might be thinking "Okay, but why not just write it alone and never post?", but I like sharing. Showing off my finished creation is part of the joy, and sharing with other people like me is too. But those aren't quite the same thing as worrying about kudos. It's like dressing nicely when you leave the house because you feel great when you know you look good vs. needing another person to tell you you look good.

To be honest, though, this type of feeling has grown in me the better I've gotten at a craft. The closer my finished projects get to the vision in my head, the easier it is to find them fulfilling and to be excited to share them. When I fall short of my own ambitions, it's discouraging no matter how much attention I might get from others.

I feel like it's time for my regular reblog of Adam Westbrook's video essay series The Long Game.

The third and least known in the series is all about this idea of who you're making art for if you're not getting material rewards in the short term. It talks a lot about autotelicity—being internally driven instead of externally.

--

But if you really just want clicks, anon, start a blog that accepts anon asks and posts about wanky stuff. Actually tag things, unlike me, so people can find you.

No, writing for attention isn't worth it.

The time investment is too great and your brain will always fixate on the times people didn't respond instead of the times they did.

But that's not actually why most people write.

[kiwiana-writes]

Six(ish) Sentence Sunday

Don't forget, Fandom Trumps Hate bidding opens 8am EST on March 5th! Details of my offerings are here, and a roundup of all the RWRB offers can be found here.

Remember a couple days ago when I said thanks to the people who tagged me in the WIP ask game but my list had just hit 62 and I couldn't be bothered writing them all out? Well, welcome to #62. I watched a film, realised how many fics I've read based on it across a ton of fandoms in the last couple of decades, entered some sort of weird fugue state, and then there was a Google Doc open. As usual.

2019 Outside Kensington Palace, with the car waiting to take him back to the royals’ private airstrip, Alex seriously considers taking Henry’s phone out of his hand and plugging in his phone number. It’s the same tug in his gut that led him across a Buckingham Palace ballroom to poke and prod at Henry’s perfect princely veneer; the one that dragged him across the room to introduce himself at Rio; the one that used to pull him out of his bedroom and into June’s to open a magazine.  But that’s not what’s happening here. They’re not friends, even if Alex did see a glimmer of something resembling a personality while lying elbow to elbow with Henry on the dusty floor of a cupboard. It’s a PR stunt, nothing more, and they both have people who are literally employed to make sure they both come out of this looking good. No point in complicating it. In the end, Alex only reaches out when it’s time to shake Henry’s hand in farewell, and then he climbs into the back of the car and ignores the nagging sensation of something left unfinished. 2029 Alex rolls out the crick in his neck as he steps off the plane in Austin, his shoulders relaxing with every step into the familiar terminal. A couple of months into his second congressional term, he’s only just starting to feel like he really has a handle on the House schedule and the punishing weekly commute back and forth between Texas and DC—but just because he doesn’t have a spouse and kids to come home to like many of his colleagues on the Hill, it doesn’t mean he’s not still spending as much time in his district as he possibly can. Even if it does mean he has an even heavier reliance on caffeine than he did during college and more frequent flyer miles than he’ll ever know what to do with.

Tagging @agame-writes @affectionatelyrs @anchoredarchangel @anincompletelist @celaestis1 @celeritas2997 @cha-melodius @clottedcreamfudge @cricketnationrise @cultofsappho @daisymae-12 @dumbpeachjuice @firenati0n @getmehighonmagic @happiness-of-the-pursuit @heybuddy-drabbles @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @indestructibleheart @indomitable-love @inexplicablymine @leaves-of-laurelin @littlemisskittentoes @lizzie-bennetdarcy @magicandarchery @matherines @myheartalivewrites @ninzied @nocoastposts @notspecialbabe @orchidscript @rmd-writes @sherryvalli @ships-to-sail @smc-27 @sparklepocalypse @ssmtskw @stereopticons @three-drink-amy @tintagel-or-cockleshells @welcometololaland @whimsymanaged and, as always, anyone who wants to play! (If you take the open tag please tag me so I can see!!)

[anbaisai]

About the Blog

Commissions: [OPEN]

Hey there! ✨

You can call me Syder (pronounced like “cider”). This is my art blog where I post my art for quite literally anything - OCs, fanart, doodles, etc. It may seem centered around certain fandoms if I’m into that at the moment, but really it’s just a miscellaneous art blog.

My main blog is over at @part-sadist, so if you see a follow or interaction from that account, that’s me. I can’t follow via this side blog and unfortunately tumblr doesn’t seem to allow me to swap this one to my main 💦

I am an adult, and while this blog is not 18+, I may sometimes talk about or draw content with more mature themes. Please do not follow if that bothers you.

Other stuff

Pronouns: both she/her and they/them are fine

EN/中文/日本語 OK

Asks are welcome! Mentions are okay, but please only send DMs for business inquiries (i.e. commissions) unless we're mutuals

DO NOT repost my art or use it for AI learning

Current main fandom is Twisted Wonderland, but a few other things I like include: FFXIV, Splatoon, Chainsaw Man, Dandadan, Ace Attorney, otome games, Vocaloid, etc.

Please also note that this blog is not spoiler-free ⚠ I do tag spoilers but sometimes I may forget to, so proceed with caution!

Tags guide, masterlists, & FAQ under the cut!

Tags Guide

(Note that some of these tags will include work by other people)

#my art - All artwork, click this one if you want to see just my art

#oc - Art featuring my own OCs

#others ocs - Art featuring other people's OCs

#twst or #twisted wonderland - All Twisted Wonderland related art

#shiokawa mayu - My Twisted Wonderland OC/Yuusona

#jamimayu - Jamil x Yuu content

#syder txt - Miscellaneous text posts

#gifts from others - Artwork, writing, etc. I received from other people

Masterlists

Twisted Wonderland

[To be continuously updated...]

FAQ

Do you take commissions?

Commissions are currently OPEN, please see this post for more information!

Can you draw [insert idea/prompt here]?

I do take suggestions, but please understand that I can’t guarantee that I’ll get to it.

Can I draw your OC?

Alone or with canon characters (if they’re part of pre-existing media), yes. If it’s with your own OC or a character I don’t know, please ask me first.

Can you draw my OC?

Only if I’m hosting an OC interaction or request event, otherwise I prefer to focus on my own projects & ideas first, sorry!

Can I use your art for a profile picture/banner/etc.?

If it's fanart, yes, as long as you credit me properly! However, please do not use any of my OCs as they are very personal to me 💦 All commissions are also intended for the commissioner's use only.

What do you use to draw?

Clip Studio Paint (PC). I can’t tell you what brushes I use because I downloaded tons and just pick one randomly based on whatever I feel like using that day, but if you ask me specifically about a piece I may be able to recall which one I used 😭

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm sure @staff has kind of a lot on their plate right now but while I'm thinking of it, this would be nice to have:

Add a Fandom community label. Or a dedicated universal tag, or a box you can check during post creation, or just anything that has the ultimate effect of allowing users to filter fan content.

This could at-least-slightly ameliorate problems with the search.

I have come into acceptance of the fact that fixing the notoriously dysfunctional search, even on individual blogs, is just way, way, way out of scope for some reason. Tumblr must know that a functional search would radically increase engagement, so I assume that the persistence of this glaring problem means that there is simply no way to fix it. I tell myself that "search" really just means "give me a handful of related suggestions" and not "show me every instance of X". I am learning to live with this.

What compounds this issue is that there is no way to separate fan content from content directly related to your search terms.

EXAMPLE: I search for a popular movie, and the results are so overburdened with people's personal stories and drawings that it's impossible for me to find anything actually related to the film. I give up quickly and Tumblr loses engagement from both me and the people who post screencaps/gifs/music/production info/etc.

EXAMPLE: I'm searching for something--anything--but my commonplace search term happens to be related to a very specific fandom. Perhaps I have never even heard of this fandom. But after scrolling through yards and yards of fan fiction, I have to give up, and Tumblr loses engagement from me and also whoever is posting about the actual thing I wanted.

OTHER NEGATIVE EFFECTS:

1. I stopped tracking ALL tags because they were constantly serving me fan content. I haven't bothered with tags for years because of this.

2. I blocked tons of innocent users because I couldn't avoid seeing their fan content; in order to stop seeing it, I have to sacrifice our entire ability to interact. I'm not alone there, sometimes I even see a note about this in someone's header ("Sorry you're blocked, it's probably because Tumblr won't stop showing me your fan art").

All of these scenarios happen to me and other users all the time and we have been vocally complaining about this. And I know Tumblr has rebranded itself as the fandom app in recent years, but I would say that even a fandom person still wants to see i.e. actual movie & TV show stuff and not just other people's drawings and stories.

So basically Tumblr has two big, related problems: Search doesn't really work AND is clogged with fan content that drowns out everything else.

BUT what if we could just have ONE problem? What if the search had a toggle that includes or excludes fan content. Then even if the search only gives me limited results, I can improve those results by making sure they are ONLY related directly to the thing I want. This would make the Tumblr search instantly, hugely more useful and I would do way more with it, way more often.

Maybe it could even work both ways, like I can choose to ONLY see fan content for a given search term, fandom folks would probably have a use for that. But the main thing for me is that even if search functionality is unfixably limited, I could refine the limited results and get only the most relevant stuff by excluding one common piece of metadata. Problem not-solved, but significantly reduced!

[nausikaaa]

Ten Questions for Writers

thanks for tagging me @larkral!

How many works do you have on AO3? 43

What’s your total AO3 word count? 151,263

What fandoms do you write for? currently Carry On and Ancient Greek Religion and Lore, though a few older fics are the for MCU, and i used to write tons for Percy Jackson.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, unless it's just an emoji, in which case I don't really know what to say in response. But otherwise, yes, because I always like it when my comments recieve a reply!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Some of my old, atrocious wattpad fics were posted on some dodgy fanfic site but i don't think anyone even used that site, so it didn't really bother me.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? I've written a few with irl friends, and one with some Carry On mutuals.

What’s your all-time favourite ship? You can't make me choose! Snowbaz is my longest-lasting, but I'll never commit. I also really love Pyrrhus and Hermione from the Trojan War cycle, which is such a rare ship even Ovid hated it.

What are your writing strengths? I've been told I write dialogue well, which is good because it's what I mostly structure my writing around as I find it easy. But then I've also been told that I'm good at descriptions, which is the exact opposite- I feel like I'm crap at it so I put way more effort in to it, and I guess that pays off?

What are your writing weaknesses? I know I'm absolutely rubbish at anything that requires blocking, which includes both sex scenes and fight scenes. Also anything sappy makes me cringe just to write it.

First fandom you wrote for? Percy Jackson! Solangelo still has a special place in my heart.

i tag @shrekgogurt @aristocratic-otter @ic3-que3n @forabeatofadrum @artsyunderstudy @j-nipper-95 @that-disabled-princess @hushed-chorus @cutestkilla @ileadacharmedlife but if you're not tagged and want to do this, go ahead and say i tagged you!

[saturn-sends-hugs]

ok, this has been burning a hole in my notes app and i’m just gonna send it out there:

Why (i think) the Finale was Like That:

to preface, if you liked the finale, good for you!! that’s totally valid and i’m not trying to bash that. but i know a lot of people were left wanting more, and i’m one of them. anyway, to my point:

as silly as it sounds, this show is not written for us.

we’re fans. the producers already know we’re gonna watch the show. they don’t need to convince us to give them our attention, they already have it. why waste time digging into random side characters in the larger Star Wars saga when the average person doesn’t even know who that is?

their real job is to convince outsiders to watch. to get hooked. to see an element they like, probably from the main movies, and tune in, even for one episode. if they can get them hooked with fennec or ventress or hell even rex, that’s a win for them.

the plot lines wrap up in such an unsatisfying way because honestly? they cant waste time focusing more on these characters than they have to. the people writing and designing the show might love them and want to include more meaningful resolutions, but that takes too long and costs too much money. you know what’s cheaper and will satisfy the average viewer? kill the mystery clones, cut off the “trauma hand”, and wrap it all up in a nice little “look, she’s joining the rebellion, guys!” moment because the more bland and broad the ending, the more people will understand it.

i mean, remember the Fives mention? Echo didn’t react, he didn’t even stutter, he literally moved the conversation along like they were talking about where to go for dinner like HELLO. we already know they cannot be bothered to show real important emotional scenes because that would take too much spotlight away from the whole star wars politics plot or whatever were supposed to care about. (honestly, who is watching bad batch for the og trilogy implications? woah tarkin and a couple other empire dudes are talking about project stardust definitely gimme more of that and not any meaningful connection between these characters i love)

it’s scummy, it sucks, it especially kills me that the story is basically lost to corporate greed but let’s be honest, this is Disney’s Star Wars. i could literally just leave it there. meaningful moments will always be sacrificed for shock value and character cameos because the random guy seeing an ad is only gonna watch the show if he thinks “oh cool, tarkin, i didn’t know he was in that show, maybe i should see what that’s about.”

and yes, i know, there absolutely is a ton of love and care poured into this show. i appreciate the effort that went into it. i’m just sad they didn’t have full creative freedom under Disney to give us the story we wanted.

but you know who won’t sacrifice story for money? you know who’s guaranteed to have the fans’ interests in mind? you know who does have full creative freedom and is equally pissed about bad show moments and want to do them better? FANFIC AUTHORS. Fan artists, theorists, even roleplay accounts and every other type of dedicated fandom blog is here for that shit and will reshape things however they want a million different ways because that’s the point. the show simply cannot give us what we want, but we can make it ourselves.

your support, your creativity, and your determination to give these characters what they deserve is how we can solve the problem.

i didn’t really mean to turn all “we’re all in this together” here lol but yknow what i really do mean that. i think supporting the community around you is the best option we have for truly enjoying all of this show’s potential.

tagging a few people cause i value your input!! and let’s be honest i’m probably leaving a few things out that you might be able to expand on: @the-bi-space-ace @inkstainedhandswithrings @phantom-of-the-501st

[pendragaryen]

Merry christmas, my dear friends, mutuals and followers and all the best wishes for the upcoming new year! 🧡🫶🏻🧡🫶🏻🧡🫶🏻🧡

The last bit of 2022 and the whole of 2023 have not been very kind to my family - and so I'm standing here today, looking back at the past 13 months and finding myself almost back and stuck in the emotional state that I had been in after the separation from my long time boyfriend/life partner in 2009... That was a very dark time. I was trying to live and breathe with a constant black hole in my chest and soul for a couple of years then... I felt so empty and lost. I had a very similar feeling for the span of a couple of months after I had been kicked out of my job in 2017. But nothing, and I mean it, nothing has the rug under my feet pulled away and made me hit rock bottom like the cancer illness of my sister, the death of my grandma and now the fact that my mum is diagnosed with a tumor in her spine, all in the span of just 13 months... Please, we all need some rest in my family so desperately. But now we're all very anxious bc of the surgery my mum has to go through at the 12th of january. It's a difficult surgery. No-one knows for sure at this point what kind of a tumor it is. It causes her legs getting more and more numb and if they don't do anything, the risk of her ending up using a wheelchair rather sooner than later seems very likely. If the tumor should be malignant (please, god, no, NO!) the consequences would be even worse bc it could've spread already... But the fact that the doctors pushed for a fast surgery likely speaks for the possibility that the tumor is benign and seated in just one place... Well you see, this really keeps me busy... We all hope desperately that she will get better after the surgery, and not worse... We have plans! We want to travel together again! To the Netherlands next! Or to Danmark!

Don't get me wrong, there HAD been good things that happened in the last year, not at least the fact that my sister is now considered as cured. We're all so relieved and thankful, I have no words for it! But then... the death of our grandma... and now the tumor and surgery of my mother... I feel like i'm trapped in a constant state of emotional stress, like standing in the dark and screaming into the void with nobody being able to hear me... I can't even begin to imagine how my sister must've felt or how my mum is feeling now. Sometimes I think I'm too empathetic, the way I suffer with and for my beloved ones... that can't be healthy. I'm so tired.

Sorry to bother you with all this. I'm not around here that often anymore. Sadly I have to say I lost joy in many things I once loved or loved to do over the course of the last years. I'm unmotivated most of the time. But now... I have to function, I have to be there for my mum. It'll take half a year at least for her to recover from her surgery (if everything goes well - fingers crossed please!!!) and so I have to be strong - and I WILL be strong! For her! For my family! I hope my sister will support me then... The relationship of her and our mom is a little difficult... Sadly. But she's working on it..

I said I lost the joy in many things I loved once, but one thing I'll never get tired of is, on the rare occasions I visit this site, to read you all at our weekly BFSN, to see the 100 fam still being so creative and devoted, so that our favorite show never really gets forgotten. Thank you so much for that! And please keep tagging me in things! I read you, look at your photos, and I smile, even though I may not answer. This little corner of our fandom is so dear to me, it's almost a little like homecoming when I log in here. A comfort place.

Thank you all for your kind, empathetic, couraging, and motivational words at the last BFSN. I appreciate each and every one of it.

I hope the year has been kind to y'all and that these christmas holidays and the new year will be filled with tons of health, luck and love for you and all of us! Here's to a well deserved rest for us all!

And may we meet again. Here and in words. Maybe one day in person? Who knows?

Always.

Anne

@sunflowerkru: @togetherkru @carrieeve @ninappon @roguetwelve @bellamyblake @jeanie205 @geekyogicheese @natassakar @heartbellamy @okmcintyre @immortalpramheda @igotbellarkeforthat @infp-with-all-the-feelings @isweartobreathe @kizo2703 @travllingbunny @bookwormforalways @lee-em-dee @julibernardo @broashwhat @its-tea-time-darling @delicatebluebirdruins (and each and everyone else I maybe forgot, please excuse me)

[zorilleerrant]

For the ask game, ship you’ve unwilling come around to!

Oh, I have so many NoTPs in every fandom, and, unfortunately, a ton of them tend to be canon or popular in fandom! The ones that bother me so much I had to block the tags are Dick/Babs, Tim/Kon, and Spike/Buffy. I think those are the only ships I currently have blocked, but some of that is just because the other ships are less popular (or fewer people I follow care one way or the other).

With Dick/Babs, it's that I love their dynamic as childhood friends or as young superhero friends, and if they have romantic entanglements on top of that it feels like it's invalidating the friendship. There's a lot of 'this boy and girl are friends so they have to date' (see also: these two queer boys/girls are friends so they have to date) and it gets its ick on ships, even though generally I do enjoy a friends-to-lovers arc. It's also a little creepy to me that Babs was originally Bruce's love interest, and then infantilized to be Dick's love interest - the same reason that Kori/Jason and Raven/Damian bother me so much. Also, Babs is a lesbian. I really just prefer them as mlm/wlw solidarity and not in a bi4bi way.

Tim/Kon and Spike/Buffy are more a problem with the fans than any of the canon material. (Which is why I ship Tim/Kon in the HBO Titans universe, which I haven't seen many people being mean about.) I see a lot of Tim/Kon fans hating on Bernard and Tim/Bernard and also hating on DC in a way that honestly feels pretty homophobic. I don't think that's their intention but it really sounds like the same arguments people who just don't want canon queer characters at all make. I also see them hating on Steph and Tim/Steph sometimes in ways that are pretty misogynistic (and also biphobic) and I just don't like it.

Spike/Buffy is like... I enjoyed the dynamic on the show, where they were both unhealthily codependent and toxic to each other. Two people who think they're in love or have the potential to be in love because they won't address their own problems is my jam! Of course, most of the shippers seem to want to treat it like a real (or especially a healthy) relationship instead of a toxic situationship. There's also the problem that, like, they keep defending why Spike 'deserves' to still be in a relationship with Buffy after assaulting her, sometimes with pages long essays, and never once mention how Buffy might feel about that. Completely ignoring Buffy's opinion on the whole thing feels, to me, even more nonconsensual than the original incident (which I was willing to chalk up to bad writing and ignore). So now the merest mention gives me the creepy crawlies. This is most canon ships on BtVS, tho.

Most ships I'm open to, tho! I especially enjoy hearing about rarepairs and anything that couldn't happen in canon (crossover ships, etc.) because I can roll it around in my head until I understand it. Which is why even stuff that squicks me at first I'm willing to give a chance if the story sounds interesting enough.

[thekirammanjinx]

Those shippers incorrectly using the CaitVi tag when it’s full of hate or it just has nothing to do with CaitVi (you know the ones that just want attention) are seriously getting annoying. I’ve been blocking a ton of them because at some point it’s going to make me actually dislike their ship.

I like the platonic “ship” between the 2 straight bros, like shit sorry it’s always going to be fanon. we need more deep friendships between straight men without making it romantic tbh (topic for another day). And a “what could have been” straight ship - not particularly canon in the main universe. It’s like they are so bitter about a f/f being the OTP of the show and the driver of all the discussions around rep that they have to try to make themselves feel better. I’ve seen so much racist shit be said about Caitlyn recently, particularly coming from rabid Ekko stans. (Apparently his VA is making it worse)

Anyway it’s been a huge annoyance, they should just stick to their damn tags. And like I said, I love the characters in those ships and actually enjoy the ships (one of them in a platonic way) but their sexism, homophobia and lesbiphobia…with a touch of racism is really coming through . Like you can be BIPOC and/or queer and still embody those things

It's annoying when people act like if you don't ship the m/m ship then you're delusional. I saw someone trying to claim that sapphics have more rep in media over m/m pairings and that's so beyond true. The delusion to even claim that.

We truly can't have one show without fandom trying to discredit the relationship between women in favor of men. Why can't people just praise their ship without dragging sapphic rep through the mud to put their ship on a pedestal.

I have blocked so many j/ay/vik shippers for cross tagging just to hate, but they're like hydras, two more spawn in their place using the caitvi tag to hate. Newsflash, you can talk about how much your ship means without shitting on caitvi!

And then people try and blame us for just trying to enjoy our ship. Idk maybe if yall stayed in your lane we wouldn't even be bothering.

"Why can't everyone just enjoy their ship" oh idk because yall are berating and being ignorant towards the caitvi tag.

[shannonsketches]

Can I just say I love how you can be somewhat critical about certain things about totk without completely and unnecessarily trashing it and even adding humor. I wish more people were like that.

Aw, thank you! I'm just trying to make sure folks feel safe to enjoy things here (as long as, yknow, the respect goes both ways).

I definitely used to be someone who would trash stuff unnecessarily, and I'll always credit a mutual (although I did forget their handle,,,I'm so sorry) I had at the time for just letting me go on a long rant about why something bothered me and went, "That sounds really personal, but that got nothing to do with this." And all at once I realized I'd been projecting my needs/wants/expectations onto other peoples work (commercial or otherwise), and holding strangers responsible for serving me, specifically! Which is an absurd thing to expect from anyone!!

And sometimes I still forget the world doesn't revolve around me, glorious me, and I have to go back and apologize and do my mental health homework to figure out why I reacted a certain way, and why I took something so personally. But it's been really helpful to try and do the homework first, or type that whole salty take up and delete it or draft and review it again in the morning, before you make a stranger (or a friend!) feel bad or unsafe with you for the crime of enjoying something you didn't (which I have done, many times, and feel very bad about).

Plus, I've learned that if you're someone who is always analyzing and critiquing things, those moments can be really good practice for (respectfully! privately! in your own space! not on that stranger's post! not in that poor dev's DMs!) considering what you might have done differently, assuming you had the same parameters and resources available. I find this is especially good practice if you plan on entering a creative field! I promise you get a lot more sympathetic with how things turn out when you force yourself to dream within a budget and a deadline.

(also being nice to professionals is good practice! Some of them are jerks, true, but 99% of devs artists designers directors etc are just doing their best under a ton of stress and pressure to make everyone happy, and they're usually really proud of what they're able to accomplish, and they are absolutely not getting paid enough to deal with the comment section)

Once you let go of that need to be Correct and have control over stuff that isn't about you, you end up having a lot more fun and a lot less limitations for playing in the sandbox, and with other creatives! Plus you learn about yourself, and what your priorities and tastes are. You become a better story teller and collaborator when you can not only find but actively look for the good in things you may have completely dismissed as a kneejerk reaction to not liking something about it.

And again, I'm definitely still an ass, a lot more often than I'd like to be. I still struggle with that need to be Correct and to have complete control over my sandbox. I still get defensive and have to navigate rejection sensitivity when someone's idea contradicts mine. I definitely understand the reactivity when something means a lot to us, and it takes practice to share when you're used to being protective! But it's so, so worth it.

You meet such amazing people and find such wonderful, supportive communities when you embrace two cake theory. I highly recommend making an effort to expand your perspective and be a part of that support.

Supportive Community Pro-Tips from a Fandom Old Guy:

You don't have to adopt a theory to enjoy or appreciate it!

If someone's takes upset you, just block them. It's okay.

Don't critique someone's work unless they ask for critique

Don't RB someone's work with negative/contradictory comments, just make your own post

DO freak out in the tags/comments/inbox if you like something

Obviously don't wish harm over ships/headcanons/etc, just block!

Remember someone else's work is not about you

Remember someone else's work is Not About You

Are they experiencing a thing? Are they sharing their experience with you? That's a gift! Treat it like one!

Elitism is a mind killer. Newer ≠ Lesser, Older ≠ Greater. We all have stuff to offer and we all have stuff to learn.

and if I may impart the most important thing I've ever learned in fandom:

BE NICE TO EACH OTHER, WE'RE ALL JUST MAKING STUFF UP!

Thank you for the lovely message and for letting me ramble I'm!! Sorry this got so long and preachy, haha

[feral-ass-raccoon]

making a new intro post bc i went to go update mine and it was fucking gone

hi welcome to the void (:

you can call me Feral or Raccoon

• i am aro/aceflux (:

• multi-fandom chaos. [i got tired of listing them all hjgjfjdg]

• if you follow me i will go look at your blog. Vibe Check

• i also give mutuals nicknames. sorry. it will continue happening.

• asks are always open, feel free to scream at me

• seriously send me shit abt fandoms. questions, headcanons, doodle requests for a character (may not get some of em done but i will always try), au shit, fandom questions, even just silly little memes. i fuckin love asks

• this applies to OCs too!!! i have them!!! a few, at least, please feel free to send a fandom i'm in and i will tell you the OCs i have for it :D [aske me about the Guys. please. i beg of you.]

• sometimes i draw shit, the tag i use for it is #raccoon's art

• I CAN BE BOTHERED!!! DO NOT BE AFRAID OF "ANNOYING" ME I DO NOT CARE. EVEN IF I DON'T RESPOND RIGHT AWAY, I WILL TRY TO.

• i do like tag games and such!!! feel free to tag me if ya want

• i schedule a shit ton of posts but i'm not always online btw so if i'm posting regularly but it's at even times, they're probably scheduled lmao

• DNI LIST: tbh i don't really care as long as you aren't a dick. if i don't like you i'll jus block you lmao.

• general boundaries are pretty much just idgaf, you live your life, and i won't bother you. unless you try dragging me into something i don't wanna be involved in. i will stab you /hj

[olderthannetfic]

how did you end up with a blog like this one? Running something like this seems very fun! I post pan-fandom meta and history on occasion, but how do I increase my odds of getting cool anons like you get?

--

Well, the biggest factor is just having anon on in the first place. Most people don't, and you get a ton more asks if you do (for better and for worse).

I didn't set out to make my tumblr like this. I was just kind of half-assedly posting about my fandoms when I had a new one. I did post a bunch of fandom meta and history (tagged #fandom meta and #fandom history back then), but for years, it didn't really get picked up much.

And then I posted about the history of fandom deletions 2 weeks before Tumblr pulled the plug on porn. Holy instant virality, Batman!

It wasn't only that post, but I think a series of a few specific mega-viral posts tipped me from some level of seen where I wasn't reaching people outside of friends-of-friends to a level where I was. Things have been snowballing ever since.

I'm an atrocious tagger, as you can see, but if you want more reach, I'd start by figuring out what pan-fandom meta/history tags other people are using and making sure your general interest posts are tagged with them.

Unless you're asking how to get good anons instead of crappy ones, in which case, the answer is to delete the extra terrible stuff so people know not to bother. If they get a rise out of you, they'll come back, and too much negativity turns off the people who are more fun.

[2n2n]

Hi, hi !

I've been getting back into tbhk lately and found your blog out of nowhere and wanted to say thank you for the great content. I've really been enjoying reading your posts !

So I wanted to ask, bc I saw you mention jp tbhk twitter, would you happen to have some twt acc recs/keywords for someone to search ? Since my hyperfixation seems to be back on tbhk/amatsuka, and I refuse to set a foot again in the cesspool pit that is the western fandom..... /shudders

Thanks if you do, but also thanks if you don't !

sure, I'll link most of the accounts I follow...!

from there, you can look at anyone's likes or retweets and find more branching artists and commentators to follow :3 a lot of people quiet down between things like chapter or volume releases. You'll see them explode the moment stuff is happening!!

I'll also suggest some other things to liven up your life and suckle at outside of twitter, and I hope that's useful. There is honestly so, so much out there, I don't think anyone needs to bother with most western engagements... it's enough to follow a couple of ramblers and helpful translators, a fangirl or two, and leave it at that.

there's also always a 5ch thread that updates... sometimes greatly amuses me

bilibili meanwhile is a chinese website similar to youtube (you won't be able to 'signup' for it though, as it requires an ID... if you want to save anything, you should just make a bookmarks folder in your browser. you can ignore notifications from bilibili to sign up and resume videos, so don't be intimidated. to turn off scrolling comments, click the little television symbol under the video) and there's tons of wonderful stuff there, like people doing vocal imitations of the twins and covering songs, animations to songs, AMVs, MMDs... there are some unique tags for certain trends, suchas MMD usually being tagged with 【地缚少年花子君MMD】 BUT not all videos bother, so you're best to just click around relevant things and plug in various terms and see what you get!

nicovideo also exists and you can use the tag 地縛少年花子くんMMD if you like MMD! I love this HanaNene one for Picture Perfect...

as for terms, here are various in different languages (with apologies that I can't provide all for all languages ... but it's a start!)

あまつか / 아마츠카 - amatsuka つかあま / 츠카아마 - tsukaama

普司 - amanetsukasa

司普 - tsukasaamane 柚木兄弟 - yugi kyoudai/yugi brothers 25日は柚木の日 - the 25th is yugi day 柚木の日 - yugi day 花寧々 / はなねね - hananene 普寧々 - amanenene あまねね / 아마네네 - amanene つか寧々 / つかねね / 츠카네네 - tsukanene 花寧々つか / はなねねつか - hananenetsuka 花寧々司 - hananenetsukasa

more likely what you would find on bilibili/CH fandom

under the cut here I'll link twitter accounts. Many periodically lock/private, especially while actively discussing spoilers for new events.

a note about a kind of cultural difference; western fandom often has a much, much stricter divide between things like hananene and amatsuka, with fans of one rarely tolerating the other. It's not often the case over yonders; often everyone will celebrate hananene illustrations and cute moments, or laugh about tsunene kiss and joke about them dating, even if the artist only draws the twins. That is to say that certain types of people won't survive in this environment!!!!!

https://twitter.com/ariarimap -- presently, mostly makes tsunene content, but likes the twins and hananene as well! https://twitter.com/bami_ko83 -- industrious twins stan. More of a tsukaama than amatsuka https://twitter.com/emotaro_0 -- twins stan! not very active right now but comes & goes! https://twitter.com/grcmk0 -- twins stan… https://twitter.com/bluehyke -- sadly not active anymore, but wonderful twins and some hananene https://twitter.com/chi1000ex -- atmospheric twins stan https://twitter.com/silawin1122 -- twins stan https://twitter.com/Wakame_21 -- mostly into the twins, dabbles in other things like tsumitsu lol, and engages in more fandoms than just JSHK https://twitter.com/Miiiiiihana -- a delightful tsukaama filled with hijinks. one of my favorites!! very funny tweeeets too when events GO DOWN!! https://twitter.com/1Shinru -- mostly a hananene! occasionally some flirty twins stuff hehe https://twitter.com/askrhnkkn -- amatsuka! my favorite reactions and responses to things..... my favorite amatsuka account! https://twitter.com/furagi_2585 -- tsunene!!!! https://twitter.com/appleteasoda22 -- hananene !

[umnitsa]

Hey, everybody...

Here is the thing: you guys know me. I'm a writer, and plagiarism makes me really mad, bc I put myself in the writer's shoes and... I would hate if that happened with me. So here is what happened: someone copied a fic I really loved reading, from the The Last of Us fandom, changed the name of the character from Joel Miller to Eddie Munson and posted it. When the original writer approached her and asked her to please take it down, she laughed and made fun of the original writer. Some people went into the writer's defense, she started deleting comments, there was a fight, nasty words were said. I did try to have my fun being a softspoken asshole, but... Not only it didn't work, but the girl had the gall to say 'I stole bc I wanted', 'I do what I want'. Basically, she let the conversation get heated so she could feel justified in her stealing behaviour.

HERE IS WHAT I'LL DO (and I really invite you to join me):

I'm gonna notifbomb this person, bc from the conversation yesterday it seems they use tumblr mobile, and the person gets really annoyed when they get a ton of notifications. Don't need to say anything, I won't, I will just post a gif of Joel and tag this fucker in the comments madly until they take the fic down or block me, whatever happens first. But honestly, I'm feeling petty (and god, I love being petty, I'm so glad this asshole gave me the opportunity to be righteously petty), and you can be SURE I will create other accounts and keep the fun.

You see I didn't tag anyone. I want this person to get really annoyed and this is a surprise, I also don't wanna bother the original poster, but everything is documented on the tags: #joel miller x reader, #eddie munson x reader, #Eddie Munson x reader smut, #eddie munson, #stranger things, #stranger things x reader, #Eddie Munson smut, #joel miller smut and #joel miller x reader smut.

Ask me in DMS for all the links you need. The funpost will be tagged here as son as I make it. I really hope some of you join me on this and we can have fun annoying someone! <3

UPDATE: She deleted the post. I am taking the links down. Thank you for participating <3

[pinkywritesstuff]

A Little Introduction For You/DA RULES!!

Have you ever had an Animaniacs/Pinky and The Brain fic you've always wanted to read? Do you have that one nagging idea that just sticks in your mind and invades your every waking thought? Hi guys!!!! I'm Pinky and you probably know me from my blog @theonethatyaks93. You've probably seen my random Pinky and The Brain and Animaniacs posts floating around here for some time (January of 2023 was when I joined but I've been in the Animaniacs fandom since 2020). But I also write fanfiction for funsies and since the Animaniacs/Pinky and The Brain fandom has slowly been waning, I decided to make a sideblog to accept requests for fanfics!!! This is so the fandom can stay alive and other people can find it too!! I'm a tad bit late to the party, but I hope that you guys enjoy what I have in store! Now below: I've listed some of the rules, restrictions, and information about how-to submit a request here!!

To make a request, all you have to do is drop it into the ask box here on this blog! I do not want fic requests on my main blog!! Thank you!! :) <3

I tried not to set too many rules but here are the main ones(Most of this is taken from my announcement post on my main blog):

There will be absolutely NO 18+ content allowed. There are a ton of fics out there with mature labels that you can find; you don't have to look hard. I do not feel comfortable writing that stuff yet. Don't ask for smut of any kind because you will not get it, I guarantee that. The farthest I want to go is deep kissing (i.e. tongue) but I'm only willing to do that for Pinky and Brain exclusively, since it doesn't seem to bother the fandom that much. I WILL NOT do that stuff for Yakko and Max because it doesn't sit well with me since they are so young. If deeper, more aggressive kissing is involved in Brinky fics, the tag: mildly spicy mice, will be used to indicate this. It won't be in every fic, I promise. :)

NO WARNERCEST REQESTS!!! That will get you promptly banned off of both my blogs for the foreseeable future. I HATE THIS SHIP SO MUCH AND IT'S DISGUSTING!!!! This also ties into the no 18+ content label mentioned earlier. Do not ask for this.

Fic requests may take up to a week or more to complete. It will depend on the ask itself and the story ideas I compile together. I'm very busy with other life things and stresses that it will be difficult to find the time to work on these. I will optimize weekends for fic writing to my best ability, but I will let you guys know if I'm taking a break. When I'm taking a short break, the ask box will be closed temporarily, but it will be re-opened.

Other ships such as Billie x Julia, Wakko x Louie Duck, and Dark Pinky x Future Brain will be accepted if you request them. If these take longer to make, it's going to be because I haven't written for these ideas before and I will need time to make sure everything is done decently. I'm also accepting AU ideas such as gender-swaps (I have a really good idea if y'all want to see a gender-swapped Pinky and Brain) . However, parody ideas will be extremely risky to request since if I haven't seen the material, I can't make the parody and if I have seen it, I might make a whole fic based on it rather than just a simple one-shot. I am also not accepting Wakko's Wish requests until further notice; I have a few pending and I will get to those eventually, thanks for being patient.

If your request takes longer to complete and it's not a parody or a ship I haven't worked with before, it's likely because I am working on a fic for AO3, most likely my one-shots, or a tedious multi-chapter. Don't think I've abandoned your request; I will get to you ASAP after I'm done with whatever project I'm on.

Certain things that are banned from the askbox: mean comments, smut requests, Warnercest, non-Animaniacs/PaTB requests, harassment of other individuals. Certain ships, such as Warnercest and Brain x Julia will not be allowed either due to personal or emotionally scarring reasons.

Last thing: Enjoy it!!! Make requests that are angsty, silly, fluffy, sad, or happy! Think about what you've always wanted to see in a fanfic, or an idea that you would enjoy seeing my take on. Just make sure to follow my rules and boundaries so we can all enjoy this as a fandom.

I'm really excited to see what I can do!!! And I'm also really excited to see all the fun ideas you guys can come up with!!! I'm hoping I can make this fandom proud and maybe inspire others to dive into the realm of writing!! Gather your requests and let's all have some fun!! Narf!!!

-Pinky (theonethatyaks93)