#it just wasn't a problem

[hookedwayfinder]

Fandom Etiquette

Some unspoken rules of fandom communities on Tumblr (aka fandom etiquette) for people new to Tumblr.

If you post AI on your blog, prepare to be blocked by a TON of people. Why? AI shits on artists. The majority of people on Tumblr respect artists. If you share AI art on your blog, a lot of people are going to block you, which is probably not what you want. So don't post AI! (Same goes for reblogging AI shit).

Do not steal art from artists. Reposting art is usually frowned upon and if you wish to do this without people getting mad at you, credit the artist by name and link. For example, "This is drawn by Bob on Instagram - link to instagram here" If the artist if already on Tumblr, just reblog their work, don't repost it!

Do not redraw art from fanartists without their permission first! And if you do get permission, credit the original artist in your post, if not, people will think you are a thief and you will once again get blocked by fandom regulars. (redrawing official art from the fandom you're in is usually ok and a great way to learn. Learn to differentiate official art from fanart.)

Pinterest is the den of thieves. Great for finding a ton of lovely artworks with no way to get back to the original artist. Do not follow their example. That's not what anyone wants Tumblr to be. If you've got 50 fanarts saved on your pc and wish to share them with tumblr while you don't know the original artists? Then don't. That's the answer. Don't share art if you don't know who the artist is. Or learn to reverse image search.

Tagging is a way to communicate with the fandom about what you post on your blog without it afterwards showing up in reblogs. You can tag with character names, fandom names, ship names, and also personal tags such as "my fic" or "my art" - so that people checking your post can verify that it's made by you and not just stolen from someone else. Use tags to clarify if art or fic is yours when you post it.

Posting fanfic recommendations is usually a good way to make friends and earn yourself respect if you're not very creative yourself. Drawing fanarts or making edits for said fanfics will earn you god-status. Answering asks or posting meta or headcanons are other things you can do if you're not very creative otherwise.

Be careful sharing gifs and edits that you did not make yourself, even in-between your essays. Once again, it is technically theft, though I think most people view it as a lighter form of theft than art-theft. Crediting is still usually appreciated. Sadly a lot of photoshoppers accept this type of theft as part of the deal.

No matter which rule you broke in the past, you can always learn to do better. When in doubt, ask around in the fandom what you should do with a specific thing you want to post. Making a mistake does not get you kicked out of the fandom necessarily, so don't sweat it, just do better.

Even if you try to be a perfect fan, you will at some point break a little fandom etiquette here and there. You might reblog an AI art by accident... Share an image that was edited without you realizing it... Use someone else's gif without credit... It's ok. We all make mistakes. As long as you respect the fandom in 99% of your posts, nobody's going to cancel you for that.

This is by no means a conclusive list.

[krysmcscience]

Did somebody say Bill shouldn't be allowed to swear? I think somebody said Bill shouldn't be allowed to swear. Thanks to that, have these retooled The Good Place jokes:

The "powers that be" can refer to either the Theraprism staff, the Axolotl, or just. Ya know. Disney in general. Or all three! Whichever you think is funniest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The "party" Bill's referring to is Weirdmageddon, of course. He was quite the ashhole to everyone back then.

Ford has probably gotten pretty good at the 'tune out your psychopathic ex with dank memes' challenge.

It must be very cathartic to be able to make Bill shut up whenever you want with just the press of a button. I'm sure Ford doesn't abuse this ability at all.

Oh, sure, 'Not now,' he says, before he immediately backs out of the newly-made hole in the Theraprism wall. 🙄

Don't worry, Bill doesn't get far.

also yeah i know this one doesn't have an attempted swear - i just wanted to use the joke because of the massive stink-eye involved in it because it makes me laugh

⬇️ More goofs beneath the brief ramble if you wanna skip it lmao⬇️

Why is Ford even there, you might ask? Well, he either decided he preferred to watch Bill suffer in person over being distantly and repeatedly harassed with the same evil desperation book for the rest of his life, or he got roped into some kind of contrived community service for 1.) all his many counts of interdimensional thievery, and 2.) his ignoring all the very clear warnings to NOT summon Bill in the first place (which I like to imagine is also illegal). Theraprism staff were just like, 'Wait, this guy matters to Bill? Ooh, we can USE that! It might be the only thing that can help him want to get better!' It is not considered that throwing Ford at Bill so soon after Weirdmageddon could instead make them both WORSE - in new and altogether special ways! :D

Anyway, I'm calling it the Community Service AU, and I am most likely not going to do anything else with it beyond appropriating these silly Good Place jokes. So, feel free to adopt the concept if y'all wanna??? Just make sure that Bill is still not allowed to swear, no matter what, full stop. It's gotta be a real linguistic corkblork of a situation for him, is all I'm sayin'.

Finally, have these bonus Good Place jokes, but with Handyman!Bill this time:

'Opposite tortures' doesn't sound so bad...at least until it's an all-powerful chaos entity known for torture saying it.

you may think i forgot mabel's cute pink cheeks but the truth is that i did in fact forget but then immediately stopped caring which makes it okay, SHHHHHHH

And, finally:

lmao this is shit

True facts, if you cram Season 1 Eleanor Shellstrop and Michael into a singular triangle shape, they turn into Bill Cipher. This is science, look it up. Or don't, and just trust the source that is me, bro.

Anyway, I should be in bed, y'all have fun with these, I guess. Tune in after like a week or so and maybe I'll have an addendum to my comic about how Bill was drawn naked for karaoke night. Because him actually being naked was not the only thing I considered as a plausible explanation. XD

Also if you see any inconsistencies or errors in any of these comics, No You Do Not :D

Also also, reblogs are rad as hell and I appreciate every single one, just don't repost, please and thanks. Every time a repost is made, an artist somewhere cries. :,)

[canisalbus]

saw your last post! you should draw them both wearing the scarves.

headscarf and bitch sunglasses just scream Machete

I don't know about scarves, but this might be an apt time to share these doodles I made last summer, of him in bitch sunglasses and a great big hat.

[notbrucewayne48]

"aphobia doesn't exist"

bitch literally not that long ago an aroace youtuber animator was insulted by almost half of its community for being it

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (page 82-85)

THAT LAZYBONES!!

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[lacilyvictorian]

Mental health treatment really is a mess. Like I go in because I can't get stuff done and after 5 anti depressants someone suggests I might have ADHD, but while we wait to probably decide you don't quite meet the criteria (i do) let's give you therapy to help you deal with your anxiety, removing your one functioning motivator.

[hajihiko]

'Strong opinions about femininity and masculinity' moment

[foxflowershrine]

hey, small psa:

fictives are just people. you wouldn't walk up to a person you saw on the news once while they're having dinner and say "holy shit guys it's Jimothy Cumwomble, great job on stopping that armed robbery, sorry your brother died in the process". that would be completely socially unacceptable - you'd be butting in on their life, overstepping not just their boundaries but basic social decency, and bringing up potentially traumatic life events. it's rude, infantilizing, and potentially directly harmful. so why would you do the same to a fictive just because you know, or think you know, their source?

and that's not to say "never bring up a fictive's source to them", plenty of fictives enjoy talking about their sources! but there's a little thing called tact. you can ask whether they're okay with talking about it, or join in on a conversation where they already are, even just a "hey if you don't mind could we chat about your source" would go a long way. but suddenly changing the topic to their source not just without warning but by singling them out as "weird" or "interesting" and saying things about their source that would never be appropriate to say to a singlet about their past is not cool.

TLDR, a fictive existing in a public space is not an excuse to single them out, put a spotlight on them, and bring up potentially traumatic parts of their history just because you think their source is neat. have a little common sense about timing and approach, or just let them exist in peace.

[bunnieswithknives]

AGhghhh writing is so hard. Im struggling with the pages after this but these finalized enough that you shouldn't have to keep waiting for them

Next

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

was having trans marty thoughts again and i came to a realization about this scene

[galedekarios]

i still think abt this every day btw:

the tressym would only accept a good-hearted master

tara not only fighting for gale so hard because she loves him so very much, but also because she knows he has a genuinely good heart i'm >-Io

[egophiliac]

I love the idea of teenage Malleus hating his new baby brother Silver but slowly falling for him

words cannot express how much I adore that Mal's reaction to seeing a human baby for the first time was "the fuck is this. why does it look like that. gross." (then he immediately got stuck on babysitting duty and the rest is history)

I am SUCH a sucker for that trope of "non-humans being fascinated by normal human behavior", so between that and all the delicious angst going on I was eating VERY well. >:) Malleus being so impressed that two-year-old Silver can walk, because it took him twenty years to stand on two legs! Lilia barging in on the Zigvolts at 2 AM being like "he won't stop crying what do I do"! Lilia trying to feed Silver rats and Malleus being like "...please just stick with what the books say to feed it"! it is all so. chef's kiss.

[lazylittledragon]

y'know what. sometimes there is something wrong with you. and i don't mean in a "you are broken and that makes you unworthy" way, just in the "your brain/body does not work the way it's expected to and that's why things are so hard" way

like as someone who grew up constantly being told there was nothing wrong with me and i just had to try harder to clean/socialise/work, knowing i had ADHD earlier would've saved me a LOT of guilt. knowing i have IBS would've prevented a lot of pain/embarrassment from not being able to manage it yet. i wish someone had told me there was a reason i couldn't do things instead of just telling me i was fine. people reassuring me i didn't have any issues to spare me the shame of being "different" only made me feel worse about not being able to function like everyone else!!!

idk sometimes i just wish i knew there was something different about me sooner bc then i would've had an explanation and a way to get better instead of just a lot of self loathing

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

I think we should stop giving Lance family problems and instead give everyone else family problems and then drag him into all of them as universe's most unpaid and unqualified therapist. As god intended

[mollysunder]

The Medarda arc of s2 struggled to be good, because the plot viciously smothered it. You can argue that Arcane was never about politics but you cannot say the Medardas were never explicitly a family defined by politics. So when the show shifted it's priorities from a drama steeped in political conflict where even though the setting was fantastical the stakes were grounded to a shift where magic is the end all be all threat to humanity, the Medardas are rendered largely irrelevant.

In s2 Mel's agency over her own story is both largely stripped from her and poorly communicated. Arcane has Mel abducted from the plot to be the Black Rose's captive. Even when Mel manages to free herself it's not through the traits the audience understands are her strengths, her cunning and social intelligence, it's through an innate instinct that natural to her and indecipherable to the audience.

Ambessa as a character is more or less a villain of convenience, which would be fine if she wasn't immediately following Silco's act. Once Mel is removed from the story Ambessa is largely disconnected from any emotional tension fuels conflict between the characters and previously drove the plot in s1. She's there to play the worse bad guy for Caitlyn and then give Viktor the man power for the Glorious Evolution.

It's frustrating to see the Medardas used the way they are in s2 because when they're together I can see how it could be good. When they're together Mel forces emotion out of Ambessa. In Act 1, Ambessa proved she could do circles around Piltover's court, which could actually put Mel in a tight spot.

Their final scene on paper sounds like a good idea where the true resolution to Mel and Ambessa's story was that Ambessa saw Mel's own ruthless behavior as she not only betrayed Ambessa to the Black Rose, but used her as BAIT to double cross LeBlanc. Ambessa died proud that her daughter killed her the way she did, and that's so cool and tragic, but the execution was a flop.

One, their final fight is completely unimportant to the actual Glorious Evolution, Mel's grief can't even be a highlight because it's interrupted by Viktor's mind trap. Two, their fight didn't rely on any of Mel's actual strengths, just magic and the poorly explained MacGuffin LeBlanc gave her. How did Mel even know it would do that?

It's like the writers had the bones for a great story for the Medardas, but then they're like the world's worst archeologists and fit those bones together in the worst way possible because they were convinced the bones made a stegasaurus instead of a T-rex or something.