#like ��oh well this person posted their art/writing/creativity online

[sadkachow]

if i hear one more pro-ai take i fear i may start exploding people with my brain

[ceilidho]

Hi, really strange question, so feel free to ignore, but how do you deal with the constant surge of content - art, really. You seem to be a generally more well known/viewed blog, and so I'm sure you've developed quite a community on here, whether it be people you know or interactions with other artists. And I've been following you for quite some time, and I always get excited when I see the "updated now" for your blog. But (here is my actual question), do you ever get overwhelmed knowing that you can't read/see/experience everything? I'm very new to social media, and online spaces in general, and it's generated this fear in me that if I don't keep up with what has been posted by those I follow, I am now suddenly lost. Missing a piece of what should have been catalogued in my mental history. Fanfiction has become such a relief in my life now, and I've gained this new appreciation for human creativity and the beauty of sharing yourself in your art. But I am constantly left wondering that if I miss something, will I also miss an opportunity. I love learning more, and reading, and viewing; appreciating beauty in this lifetime, but I don't know how to combat the overwhelming feeling when I cannot keep up with those who I admire, what's left of me, simply as a viewer?

Oh absolutely!!!! I wrote about this in another post around the traditional publishing industry in general and this overwhelming sense of FOMO that’s super evident in both readers and writers (for readers, that they won’t be part of the current discourse and won’t be part of the reading community, and for writers that they won’t keep up with demand and lose their reader base to other more prolific writers or just to new trends in general because to be honest, the constant microtrends in the book community are hard to keep up with even if you are a relatively fast writer).

I think I’m lucky that for some reason I tend to write very fast - I have a solid backlist of ideas, when I do sit down to write it tends to all come out at once, I (fingers crossed) haven’t dealt with a really bad bout of writers block in awhile - but yeah even I sometimes have moments where I feel guilty that I’m not writing enough. I think it’s super easy to feel like people are simply going to forget about you if you take any time off or if you start a multi chaptered fic and it takes you awhile to finish it.

And I won’t lie, sometimes that pressure isn’t just imagined! Most people that leave comments like “more people!” “Part 2??” “I need more of this!!” are simply expressing their love and I understand that, like I’m not completely insensitive to that (some creators tend to take it very very personally and I understand that too but I think we all have to have a little bit of grace and understanding and give each other the benefit of the doubt), but I will say that I have gotten some seriously rude comments before about taking too long to finish a fic. There is a grain of truth to the fear that some readers will lose their patience with you for simply taking your time to write.

I experience this more as a “creator” rather than a reader (tbh I don’t feel much guilt about not being able to keep up with what my mutuals are posting because I know it’s always there for me when I’m ready) - although actually now that I’m saying this, I take that back. I do sometimes feel very very guilty when I don’t have time to get into a friend’s fic. Oh wow yeah that was a huge lie, I DEFINITELY have felt extremely guilty before about not having enough time to read someone’s fic and feeling like I’m letting them down in some way and not adequately supporting them. Yikes. Goes to show ya.

I am hoping that as more and more people become aware of this that people will start appreciating slowness and ephemerality - taking your time to read or write something, starting incomplete fics just to appreciate them even if they’re short lived or never completed, forgiving yourself for not being able to read everything or write everything right now and realizing that you’ll get to it when you get to it. It’s easier said than done and I do feel guilty sometimes about perpetuating this by being a very fast writer, but yeah! Unfortunately it’s sort of on each of us to do this since the very medium of social media demands instant gratification - tumblr and ao3 (the latter by virtue of being an archive) are perhaps the least egregious of them, but it’s definitely in the nature of social media to induce this kind of behaviour.

[despairforme]

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

[ Oh man this post got long (and surprisingly serious) fjfjfjffjjf I wrote this 2 days ahead of time because I was so excited about it ahahaha --- I'm wishing you all a wonderful 2024!!!!!

2023 was a year of surprising development for me. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or if I'm simply moving into a different mindset. I loved this year! It was awesome, and I'm so happy to see that I've written MORE for Nnoitra this year than I did in 2022 ( even though my overall word-count went down from 290 000 to 280 000 ). I can't say I completed many of my goals ( or any of them LOL ). I had lots of goals for 2023, but I was unable to complete them. The past few months, especially, have brought forth big changes in my creative flow and focus.

I've realized that I need to change my priorities, to better fit my new mindset.

Roleplaying is no longer going to be my main focus. In the past, whenever I've wanted to write, I've always focused on finishing drafts, asks ect. I've mostly written on here, since that's what I prefer. Or, rather - what I used to prefer. This is not to say I don't have muse for Nnoitra, because I always feel inspired for him. What's changed are my priorities. I've come to the conclusion that what's important to me is creating stories. Since Nnoitra's story ( main verse ) has become so stagnant, it feels less important to me. I know I can drive the story on, push it forward and thus find it important once more, but - I don't want to do that. I want to create my own, original stories instead. Becoming a professional writer has always been my dream, and that's simply not possible to do when I'm prioritizing rping. Roleplaying is going to have to take the backseat.

--- That being said, I'm absolutely not quitting! I can't imagine myself not writing for Nnoitra, so I'll be writing on here like before, and I'll even try to be more consistent. An enemy of mine in 2023 has been procrastination. One of my goals for 2024 is to conquer this, so that I can be more efficient with my time. I think that by dedicating less time to roleplay, I'll be more efficient when I do sit down and write for my muses. My activity the past few months have been spotty, so I'd love to get into a better flow.

2024 GOALS:

FOCUS ON PERSONAL PROJECTS. I have a lot of them. Two (three?) book projects, two long OC-centered fanfictions.

WRITE FANDOM PROJECTS. I have a lot of ideas for fanfictions, and I want to make the time to write them. Some are long, some are short. Getting feedback on my stories has always been a great feeling, and fanfiction is the best way to get that serotonin.

CHANGE MY WRITING HABITS. My habits are bad. They lead to a ton of procrastination and wasted time. I want to be more structured when it comes to my writing time (and my time in general, but especially my writing time). I want to stick to schedules, word-count goals, page goals ect. Conquering procrastination is going to be key.

CONSISTENT RP POSTING. Even though I won't be focusing on roleplaying, I still intend to do it regularly and get replies and asks out in a more timely manner. I'll probably set off some time in the evening to get replies done, and have some fun on the dash when others are online. I'll try to be consistent across my blogs, not just on Nnoitra.

CREATE THINGS THAT ARE PHYSICAL. I've come to realize that I love things that translate to the real world. Not just words on a screen, or a digital artwork, but things that you can touch. It's why I've absolutely fallen in love with watercolor painting. I'm going to try to print some of my writing work so that I have physical copies. I'm also going to print my art so that I can hold it in real life.

FIND A SHIP FOR NNOITRA. It's been so long since I wrote a ship for him, and I need it back in my life. I've been looking for a ship for him the whole time, but I need to put more effort in, and let him interact with more characters, as well as continue to develop the relationships he does have ( in case one of them turns romantic? ). I'd love for 2024 to be the year Nnoitra falls in love again.

I am SUPER excited for 2024! I love new years and fresh starts, and I feel so incredibly inspired by the changes in my mindset. I feel like I've been stuck for a good while with rping. Don't get me wrong, I've loved every second of it, and I've learnt so much about writing - and met the most amazing people. It's just that it's time for a change. Time for me to create other kinds of stories. I thought that things were aligned for me to write books last year, but I really didn't have the right mindset - but now I do! I'm hyped!! Hope you're ALL going to have the most amazing 2024 guys!! ]

[cupcraft]

I just think it needs to be said that adults have to regulate themselves in online spaces in a way that is responsible for minors in fandom spaces. This will be long im sorry.

And im not specifically talking about adults with lists of DNI minors and block anyone at or under a certain age as well as make it clear their blog may not be safe for minors (ie spaces with a lot of nsfw content). Though curating an experience is a big part of being responsible of course. This post though is mostly delving into adults' behavior and how you need to be aware of your behavior.

For example, if you're an adult who purposefully curates a blog dedicated to fandom discourse, harming other people in the fandom, vagueing, and just having general toxicity about people ESPECIALLY when the targets of said harassment and toxicity are often the youngest in the fandom this is something you really need to reevaluate yourself about for a million reasons but including how this harms and serves as a poor example to younger people what a fandom space is meant to be. Like when I see minors involved in these types of toxicity, not to say they shouldn't be informed or held accountable or the ppl harmed should forgive them, but as an adult I mostly feel sad. I feel sad because I hope they're going to be okay when they're my age and look back on themselves. I hope they're safe esp when the adults around them act like this kind of behavior is normal and okay even though they've long graduated high school (even though ot wasn't okay then either for the record). Like does it not bother you that you're an adult who feels superior sending hate campaigns and ask box harassment and cyberbullying to minors on the internet because you're insecurities are that large and you've no ability to regulate them healthily? Does it not bother you that you teach young ppl in the fandom to do similarly by your actions, and affect their experience? Does the harm not bother you?

Because it should bother you. When you grow up especially in online fandom spaces you do need to be more aware of not only your words in general, but how many people may look up to you and use you as example and that you have a responsibility to be healthy online for the sake of yourself, others, and esp the youngest of the fandom.

Because it hurts to think ppl can grow up in fandom to think "oh sending kys and gore and dead animals over [insert discourse] plus potentially bigotry is normal because everyone around me does it and I want to fit in and I also fear speaking up against the adults who do this because you know the harassment".

And you might say "well cup im just gonna block all minors the end I get to harass people forever hahaha haha!" And well okay, but for another post (plus ones I've made before) there's still a million reasons this is fucked up you see but I'm just focusing on one aspect rn in this post.

And then there's the adults in fandom who all of a sudden hit my age and all they do is belittle kids and the way they act and there is all of a sudden a Certain Maturity that needs to be upheld for Everyone but Especially Adults.

So on the first point this includes adults who are like "I hate kids!!!! They are so [insert anything negative]" and it includes any comment to meta/writing/art/etc that is like not allowing a younger person in fandom to grow. Like the way I talked as 11 years on the internet was incomprehensible and frankly would've been subject to "omg kids are so cringe ew!" For sure these days, ig I was lucky my online friends were also 11 at the time. Looking at my old fandom Meta posts when I was 15, like I could imagine the way I see adults talking about takes like "oh shit I was worse!" Which is just a bag full of insecurity for me, but I also can't imagine being young in fandom and directly experiencing such critiques all the time. Like does it not bother you, once again? That you don't want to see kids in fandom grow into their creativity and co-exist safely in fandom as they do in public and experience overall and public joy? Why do you hate I mean hateee kids as an adult and why does their joy spark hate and misery in you (you might need therapy or to work that out srsly). And do the effects of your actions not bother you? What do you think you're doing other than silencing the creativity and joy in people and invoking ways to people please or for minors to Act Mature (in reality acting the way these adults want to avoid harassment ofc!) Instead of of course just experiencing joy and fun and community as they would normally.

And that brings me to my last pt of the effects of you hit [adult age] and must Act Mature and not Care About Cringe Fandoms or Watch Cartoons and do anything that would indicate you god forbid Don't Have a Real Job. This is the reality for growing up in fandom its finite once you're 19 no more Cringe of course /s! Because I've been subject to this take before as a criticism, and I've seen essays about how adults who watch Bluey are destroying the world forever, and I can take it because I go to therapy and I'm secure in my own maturity where it matters and joy where it matters. But imagine how younger people in the fandom feel. Like you're basically telling kids "btw once you're at Adult Age you must stop having fun forever and you must have a Real Job (or Education) and stop enjoying Immature things like fandom (even though I am in fandom btw im not a hypocrite saying this) or you're a freak immature adult who will never grow up". Like wow.

Like the conservative and near unnuanced take of to be Mature you need a real job (whatever that means) and to only watch adult shows in a normal manner (again whatever that means) aside, like you're really telling kids to grow up and be insecure. I'm serious! Like of course as you grow up it's important to mature no duh, but with real maturity means realizing there are times to be serious and there are times to enjoy things. Maturity doesn't mean I can never watch bluey god forbid else I have a not real job or become media illiterate as a consequence (esp when actually marketing wise a lot of kids shows are meant to also be entertaining for adults watching with their kids... and lo and behold your media literacy doesn't go away magically the moment the show starts). Like you really want younger ppl in fandom to be miserable and grow up miserable and create a cycle of miserable lest they become Cringe Adults that watch a harmless cartoon and enjoy it.

I'm never good at ending rants like this but conclusion. Get a grip on yourself and insecurities and be really careful how you foster fandom community for yourself but also to those that grow up in these spaces too.

As always add on/send asks/correct me/add nuance/etc. ❤️

[for-a-longlongtime]

Wow. Y'all. I truly never expected so many awesome responses on the post I wrote last night about Dieter, Goya and Pedro on Talk Art. It is the first 'fun' thing I've written in so many years - after having felt blocked/paralyzed re: creative pursuits since 2020 (shit happened) -, without stressing about how I wrote it, and it means the world to me that so many people liked it and shared it.

I don't want to clutter up all the feeds by individually sharing and responding to the reblogs etc, so I'm throwing it together in one post here - because I want y'all to know I appreciate it so much. And it honestly made me even more excited that some of my favorite PP fic authors did so, because I've been enjoying YOUR work so much!

@chaoticgeminate Sending those hugs right back, and your fic was absolutely not a silly little piece! I truly love(d) it, and I'm glad it sent me down this little rabbithole. And yes, while writing that piece I also became more convinced that Pedro himself was a really big part in shaping Dieter and his background story. It's so damn intelligent and very much his style.

One thing I didn't mention yesterday (and I'm sure this is something a lot of people already spotted since the first day that the movie was online) is that I also came to realize how much Pedro has based Dieter's outfits and some mannerisms on Jeff Bridges' character The Dude from 'The Big Lebowski'. Never really saw that movie but I put it on today for a bit, and it was striking -- I'd even dare to say that the "'Bola, hold my hair!" moment on the toilet is a nod to how The Dude (who has longer hair) gets his face shoved into a toilet. Also, at one point when Bridges' character is addressed with "Mr Lebowski", he dismisses that and tells the guy to call him Dude, or even 'Duder' which, yeah, that's just a small step from 'Dieter Bravo'.

amycben on Reddit said the same thing about Bridges, and shared these Dieter pics, which definitely made it clear how our Feral Raccoon Boy's style is inspired by 'The Dude' <3 I don't care much for the Lebowski movie, but I love a good reference, especially since it's a Coen brothers movie - and we all know that Pedro now has a small role in Ethan Coen's upcoming movie 'Driveaway Dolls'. Anyway, I honestly hope that at some point Pedro will be asked about the work he did in shaping Dieter, because I'd love to hear more about this. There's no chance in hell that'll happen, because which journalist would ask him this? But I'm cool though if the universe wants to manifest one of us getting to interview him some time in the future, haha.

Anyway, again @chaoticgeminate - thank YOU really. I needed that deep dive more than I knew thanks to your writing!

@nicolethered thank you too for being responsible for my deep dive, haha, it were your screenshots that made me recognize the other Goya paintings! <3 (and I love your gifs btw!

@mysterious-moonstruck-musings well hearing from you that you loved MY writing is just such a super awesome thing after how much I've been enjoying your Dieter story! <3 <3

@julesonrecord I'M TOTALLY IN hahaha, I saw your comment right before I went to bed last night and it made me smile so much!

@imaswellkid I'm def not an Apatow person either, and I'll be honest - the first time I watched the Bubble I couldn't get past the first half, haha. But I later began to realize that you should indeed watch it through a critical lens and as a reflection about the craziness that was going on, rather than 'oh this is a movie about the pandemic'. The Mando bud is great btw! But even better is the Baby Yoda bud - I have no clue how growers/dispenseries (I'm in the midwest) get away with naming their product after Disney stuff, but I'm sure glad it got me to try that hahaha.

@lunapascal IKR artist Dieter is so damn underrated, and I'm so glad that at least a whole lot of fic authors are giving him more of what he deserves! OK and I totally want to write some too now, hahaha. Especially because there's a lack of Dieter x OMC/m!reader fics, which tbh needs to be fixed.

@survivingandenduring @sp00kymulderr @thesimulationswarm @pedrit0-pascalit0 @gemmahale @sin-djarin @perotovar @ladamedusoif @gracie7209 thank you so much for your kind words, they honestly mean so much to me! @angelofsmalldeathandthecodeine WOW, that Dali piece is fuckin incredible! And @basicoccult woahhh maybe y'all did!? See now I feel like I need to inquire about whether y'all take new initiates! <3

@chronically-ghosted God don't get me started, it's so tempting - next thing you know I'll have suckered myself into writing Dieter fic (while I'm only just getting started now on two other WIPs), haha. But yes I'm so curious about what the unspoken canon is there -- and most probably Pedro is the one with answers to that since it seems so much like he created Dee. I ended up googling some Apatow interviews this morning and saw that he set out to make the Bubble as a sort of Christopher Guest movie (the mockumentary style), and other articles said that there was a lot of improv involved - so obviously Pedro must've contributed a lot. Particularly because I've read at least interviews with four directors (Zeke who did Prospect, Craig Mazin from TLOU, I wanna say Patty Jenkins, and I'm currently blanking on the other name) who spoke about how involved Pedro was, down to specific dialogue and character's motivations etc in shaping the movie (I think Zeke said that Pedro worked with them to tone down Ezra's Shakespearian manner of speech a little, which I can totally see happening since Pedro has done/read so much Shakespeare and it's easy to picture that he wants to fine tune it so it's accessible enough for audiences). Ugh, it's probably gonna take a long while until there'll be any long form interviews with him again, and sadly interviewers are probably not gonna ask about any of this.

Re: painting or acting, yesterday I read @blueeyesatnight 's That's Not Your Name-Dieter fic (LOVED it, can def recommend it!) and one of the coolest things about Dee's character development there is that it indeed delves into 'okay how did he pick acting versus art' and more background story, plus how in the current day events of the story he is even making his own oil paint. That has become my headcanon now <3

@tessa-quayle I'm so glad you liked my post!! I really really wish that Russell and Robert would do another episode with Pedro. I love Russell in particular (sorta followed his work since Being Human was released, which holy crap was already 15 yrs ago?), but the way they attempted to interview Pedro back then was kind of a hot mess - and I say that lovingly hahaha. They were so enthusiastic that they talked over him so/too many times, so I'd love a tad calmer conversation where P has the opportunity to go more indepth.

@tvversionperson IKR there is SO much plot and character development to be explored with Dieter in that movie, which of course it doesn't have room to delve into but shit I wish they would/could. Or at least to just hear Pedro talk about what his thoughts are on it, because you know he most definitely had Dee's entire back story fleshed out in his head when he shot this movie.

Super long post, but again, I just wanted to thank y'all for the love. This is the first time I've done anything writing wise re: the PP cinematic universe, and all your responses have been so heartwarming and really encouraged me to do more stuff in one way or another with the Pedro boys, be it rabbit hole analysis or fic.

[sw33t-oubliette]

tumblr doesn't have times new roman 12 font so just bear with me and pretend that's what this is written in please & thank you ^.^ apologies for sending this on anon im a coward. enjoy and i hope this doesn't come off too weird, i saw the post about someone sending 3 paragraphs of hate and thought "asshole" and then i thought "they're an asshole AND a weakling. i can beat them. im going to write a 5 paragraph essay of positivity AND cite my sources." because I bet they didn't even use MLA formatting. like the coward they are. hope the formatting is ok i tried my best

Anon A. Anonymous Anonymous 1

Professor Anonymity

Tumblr University

18 October 2024

Why That Bitchass Anon Is Wrong

Tumblr user sw33t-oubliette has many good qualities to it, and has received unfair hate towards him, as evidenced in the post "just got a three paragraph anon telling me how much they hate me" (sw33t-oubliette, Oct 2024).

Throughout its time on the social media app known as Tumblr, sw33t-oubliette has contributed to the platform with a variety of posts, including but not limited to art, analysis, jokes, and other original posts. These posts have brightened the lives of others, and have caused others to regard him as a funny, smart individual.

While sw33t-oubliette has received hatred from anonymous users, this should not be taken seriously as a judge of its character. Sw33t-oubliette has not been hateful, bigoted, or otherwise mean-spirited to other users, and as such has done nothing to warrant criticism or hatred from others. Sw33t-oubliette has made the online communities it frequents better with his positivity, creativity, and humor.

Additionally, there is data to back up the claims of sw33t-oubliette being well-liked. In a recent poll, data showed that roughly 96 percent of people who took the poll did not harbor any hatred towards sw33t-oubliette. Only one person who took the poll did, and they may well have misrepresented their answer by misclicking.

To conclude, while sw33t-oubliette has received unfair hatred, this means nothing in the grand scheme of things, as sw33t-oubliette is a well-liked being and has brightened the lives of others.

Works Cited:

sw33t-oubliette. “DIDNT LOSE IT, NO, I SET IT FREE!” Tumblr, 25 Aug. 2022, tumblr.com/sw33t-oubliette. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

OH ????? SNILING SO WIDE OH MY GOD ?

[amethystina]

Oh gosh, sorry to hear you’ve been getting lots of critiques recently. Even when it’s valid and solicited criticism can be rough, and the out of the blue stuff is always worse :/ And I say that as someone who works in the arts for a living.

I wish I had something better to say than that every artist you admire has likely felt the same way at one point or another, as even the best of the best of the best get complaints, but I don’t, so know at least that you’re in good company. (In theatre we actually have a saying that the day you can truly call yourself a professional is the day you get your first really bad review, so I always take comfort in the universality of the experience, even if it super fucking sucks lol)

I know I could also tell you that your writing is phenomenal and for every person who has a complaint there’s a bunch more who are having the BEST time (myself included xD), but I also know that doesn’t fix it when someone’s made you doubt yourself. For the record though, I will say it. Your writing IS phenomenal, and it DOES bring both me and others quite a lot of joy. I get very excited every time I see you’ve updated (either fic that I’m reading xD), and I find it genuinely a bonus that this particular story is so long. Because it means that the experience of reading it for the first time doesn’t have to be over yet.

I’m VERY much rambling now, but try and be kind to yourself is I guess at the heart of what I’m saying. Take care of yourself, take your time, and come back to things when you’re ready. You’re allowed to feel hurt, or doubtful, or whatever, and if time is what you need to take care of yourself, then you should take it <3.

To be honest, I would be genuinely surprised if I was somehow able to avoid getting criticism. It's just a natural part of posting online, it would seem, no matter one's skill level or the fandom.

And, usually, I can handle it pretty well. It just so happens that everything piled up on the same day and that got a little overwhelming. It honestly felt a bit like the universe was ganging up on me for no apparent reason xD

Thank you so much for your kind words, though 💜 It's true that there are no immediate fixes to the kind of doubts that arise from unsolicited criticism, but it certainly helps to know that there are people who enjoy what I do. Because, in the long run, it's not about writing the most perfect, flawless fic, but rather sharing the joy and excitement I feel over the stories that I write. So thank you so much for taking the time to tell me 💜

And yeah, I'm doing my best to rest right now, partly because I did end up getting sick. So I've mostly been drawing highly questionable Strangers From Hell fanart and, earlier today, I hyper-fixated for hours and randomly did a playlist for Who Holds the Devil. Which is VERY unexpected since I don't really connect music to my writing?

I blame @sofapup17 who made a wonderful playlist for my Strangers From Hell fanfic, which I've been looping while drawing the aforementioned fanart xD (and I also stole three songs from it to my own playlist ;D ) And that of course made me wonder if I could do one, too. Turns out that I can! It's hella long but, uh, that's both on-brand and appropriate considering the fanfic, I guess? I honestly didn't expect to find as much music as I did.

So yeah. While I'm not writing on Who Holds the Devil right now, I'm keeping busy with other creative projects. There never seems to be a shortage of those, somehow x'D

Thank you again for your kind words. The fact that so many people are willing to take time out of their day to cheer me up is so incredibly humbling. Thank you 💜

[facetsofthecloset]

15 Questions 15 Mutuals

Was tagged by @meteor--shards​, but tumblr tumblred and didn’t notify me at all! I just happened to see the post while scrolling luckily lol

(idk why this keeps happening even when people tag my main blog. should probably contact support about that >_>)

Were you named after anyone?

Yes, my first name came from my dad’s tai chi teacher’s wife. Which sounds like a weird random connection, but they were practically his second set of parents so, yeah.

When was the last time you cried?

Yesterday. This morning? idk man i’m on an emergency trip back home at my parent’s place for mental health reasons i am not at my most resilient rn

Do you have kids?

As in actual kids I birthed myself, hell fucking no, but considering the age gap between me and my brothers I half-consider them my own kids in some ways.

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Why no, never. Not at all. Not even the tiniest slightest bit. Perish the thought.

[^i’m lying for the bit] What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Uhh, never really thought about it, but if we’re meeting in person, probably their height?? Just because most people are taller than me so the first thing I have to do is crane my neck lol

If we’re talking about online, I only ever use tumblr, so probably their tags

What’s your eye color?

Brown. Pretty much black though.

Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, usually, because for a long time I was too wimpy for any kind of horror. In recent years I’ve really started getting into it but I still tend to go to media for happy endings because real life generates enough horror for me most days MY GOD what is happening with the chickens!?!

Sorry our flock of chicks was being really loud just now because one got separated by a thin concrete wall that was very echo-y lol (they’re fine now)

Any special talents?

Eh, dunno about that. My party trick used to be leaning over backwards really low (think, like, for playing limbo or Matrix bullet-dodging) without falling over or touching the ground, but the pandemic nuked my stamina and all physical ability, so I’ve just been in mild but constant pain for the past year or so.

I guess I’m decently quick at picking up the very basics of new creative mediums (paints or embroidery or whatever), maybe that counts.

Where were you born?

Japan. Oh dear that chick got separated again hang on

nvm it was a second chick that got separated earlier as well and was hanging around the kitchen door, which was why it was so loud. It’s fine and much quieter now.

What are your hobbies?

Writing and drawing mainly, but I’m the kind of person who has five million hobbies because I need to rotate between them to keep myself interested. So auxiliary hobbies include costume making (covers a lot of different hobbies honestly), swimming (in the ocean. and not like, proper forms and all that. just being in the water basically), parkour (can’t at present for physical condition), roller/ice skating (once again, not atm), started woodcarving the other day (kinda falls under costume making because i’m trying to make a wizard staff lol) and whatever else I feel like taking a stab at for one day and then maybe never again (I should try fencing. maybe when my back isn’t in constant pain)

Have any pets?

At my parent’s place, there’s a cat, a dog (both fairly elderly), bunch of half-wild chickens, various fish, and a tortoise (the kind that get big). Don’t keep any pets at my place because I travel back and forth too much and it wouldn’t work logistically.

What sports do you play/have you played?

Like on an official team/club? None, aside from parkour briefly. Otherwise it’s stuff I mentioned in hobbies that I learned either on my own or had a friend casually give me tips or something. My parents have been teaching me tai chi on and off through the years? Does that count it’s a martial art isn’t it I mean

How tall are you?

5′2″ is what I tell people. Technically I’m just a hair too short for that but it sounds defensive to say 5′1.8″ when I don’t actually care that much lol

Favorite subject in school?

Art, enjoyed the marine biology course I got to take in hs. Was good at English but never loved the way any of my teachers taught it. Technically my hs history class was my favorite but that was bc of the teacher and not the subject matter.

Dream job?

I’ve always wanted to be a fantasy writer, but I figure that can be a long term goal. For now, for a job that would sustain me? I would LOVE to be involved in theater costuming or even just grunt work in a production company. Something creative and silly. I’m considering applying to work at Tokyo Disneyland despite grievances with the company overall just because being in a themed environment every day and getting to see ��behind the scenes” does sound fun. Even though I’m sure the work culture is probably horrible. idk something to do with costumes or practical effects would be amazing.

I also love bugs and animals but I have a harder time visualizing myself working in related fields there

I don’t have 15 active mutuals, but: @mariegoos, @vonlipvig​, or anyone else who wants to play, feel free! No pressure tho

Thanks for the tag! It was fun :)

[armedjoy]

a long and (later on) personal post about my engagement and future on this site beneath the cut

to start, some observations about my time here:

disco elysium holds the record for the first fandom im truly engaging with. i check the tags, read the 'spinoff' fiction, its fun. one could say our ideological milieus here are themselves a fandom, but in terms of something thats strictly media, this is it. going on 11 years here and thats what broke the streak, its that fucking good.

i regret deleting my sideblog 'information-nexus' back in '15. it was an organized and well-tagged news, theory, "how-to", and resource blog, but it was taking way too much of my time. i was attempting to make a whole ass virtual library on tumblr, which is far too ambitious for one person, especially considering that it would never pay bills. i shouldve opened it up to some friends to co-mod it and dialed back my involvement. oh well

i regret less the deletion of 'film-space' in '14. posts were just the movie poster with a brief summary of the plot and then a quick review. i came up with my own system that reworked the 4 star ratings into how id recommend based on genre preferences. film reviews in print seem to belabor the point and online reviews seem to lean too heavily on arbitrarily defined scoring. the point should be to either encourage or dissuade readers from seeing it, not remind them you're the wittiest person in the room or that you've atomized the medium into an exploded diagram, and i held to that. it forced me to watch movies more critically wrt to both the art form and the politics it portrayed. but i took an extended break from the site and lost momentum. it just seemed... pointless

ive been pretty bad with managing every inbox/ chat ive ever had - except this one, the personal blog. i tell myself "i'll get around to answering that" and thats been a lie most of the time. the vast majority of my time here is spent reading things that cross my dash, so getting a question on a completely different subject seems to exceed my bandwidth. i genuinely enjoy most of my interactions here but im simply not in the correct mindset most days. that said, most of the mail 'left-reminders' has gotten just feels like im being asked to do an undergrads homework.

i havent posted my face in, what, 8 years? which i might change. i mean im already fucked - ive posted some wild shit before [REDACTED] was a meme, and my face is already linked to this blog & backed up somewhere at fort meade. whats another hole in an already sunk ship, yeah?

funnily enough, i originally joined to post my photography & short stories. look how that turned out lmao

why am i posting this? ive been seriously evaluating my continued presence here. for some time ive had a desire to leave, which up to this point has been greatly outweighed by the reasons to stay. there are other platforms that are bigger, faster, algorithmically supercharged to provide every niche interest you allow it to know... but im still not as invested as i am here. tumblr's appeal is equal parts utilitarian and sentimental - no other platform has been this educational, informing, and entertaining. this place really is the internets bleeding edge for both humor and anarchist/ communist discourse. and for more personal reasons, i have greatly valued sharing this little corner of the internet with you all. i have enjoyed sharing each of your interests and discussions, witnessing your personal developments. know that this random guy on the internet is & always has been rooting for you.

ive had some serious rough patches over the last decade, and ive used this site as a grounding rod as much as a resource and social outlet. but my friend group is vast now, im living healthier, and im making positive changes. for the first in a very long time, i am truly feeling better, finally moving beyond 'managing' into 'growing.' and more than anything, i need to grow creatively.

simply put, writing fiction is the calling of my heart. and if im to commit to it, i cannot divide my attention. beyond being my sole committed creative outlet, it helps me manage daily life. writing feels like gardening: in the structure it builds to do it right, the determination it requires to continue when i fail, and the joy it inspires when i create. when an idea settles in and i can piece it together while going about my day, only sitting down to write when i know most of it. the emotion i experience after unwinding something that has rooted itself around my mind is tremendous and complicated - it feels like an exorcism, of sorts. the feverishness that seizes me to get it all down before it slips away, the relief when i know i can finally move on, the pride of creation, and the dreadful anticipation of being read - all of it is a bittersweet cup that i will gladly return to.

i need to make space for that, with whatever little amount of bandwidth i have to work with. i refuse to wake up one day knowing that i have postponed the only thing thats ever meant a damn to me, only to realize ive run out of time. i will not squander whats left.

at some point, i know i need to put this behind me. this, and several other self-imposed obligations, must greatly diminish or disappear entirely. it might be in a few weeks or a year, but it has to happen. i might keep this one up, sporadically popping in for occasional exchanges, and pass off the sideblogs to someone else. i've already scrubbed the archive. or maybe i'll just delete entirely; perhaps virtual presences are best if they resembled a sand mandala, something designed to be swept away to make space for something - or someone - new.

i had to write this down, get this all out, if only for myself. i cannot begin to estimate the amount of time ive spent here, so it had to be said for my own reconciliation of that time... and to keep myself to it.

when im ready to leave, i'll let you all know.

[zannolin]

hi! this ask might be a bit strange in which case i apologize in advance, but i just wanted to ask if you ever felt something like an imposter syndrome relating to your works? you're one of the authors that i look up to no matter what fandom you write and i often use your fics as an inspiration for my own (i really like your style!), and i just recently started posting my own writing online and it's been really stressful because i keep thinking how bad it is compared to other people's art (especially considering that english isn't my first language). maybe you've gone through something similar?

again, so sorry if this is weird, please feel free to ignore me if i made you uncomfortable!

trust me when i say this is something pretty much every creator i know or admire has dealt with. like not just fic authors—you can go read like, sylvia plath's journals and see it there. i'm actually taking my first fiction writing class this semester and any of my friends could tell you for the last two months since i registered i've been running around freaking out going "oh my god but what if i'm a BAD WRITER???" lol.

it's very much just part of the creative process at points that you struggle with this kind of thing, at least in my experience. especially on the internet it's really tough not to play the comparison game and doubt your own work. no matter what we do as writers or artists or other kinds of creators, what we put down on paper is never going to be as good as it was in our heads and we're always going to be keyed towards seeing the flaws because we made it! we know it better than anyone else! we know how we struggled and what didn't turn out like we intended! but it's important to keep in mind that your readers don't know that and are approaching your work from a different perspective. there's always at least one person out there who will enjoy what you're writing, so don't stop!

there's a tumblr post i actually read to my fiction class this week because we were discussing (you guessed it!) exactly this kind of thing. i'll link it but it says "why you should write horribly: you'll never write anything if you don't." that's what i always tell myself when i'm having a down day. writing is a skill that can be learned and honed. pretty much nobody is perfect or even good right off the bat and everyone learns at different rates. just keep writing! practice really does make perfect, and reading (especially reading things and considering what you like about them, what works and what doesn't, what makes it good) will help a ton as well. just keep going!! that's how you get better.

[romilly-jay]

Thoughts on Writing: Mostly in Response to this Great Session from Glasgow Worldcon Which I Didn't Make In Person so Watched on Catchup.

Or: Maybe Work On Your Titles Game

So, this was originally an early and obvious choice for me to attend in person but a few things HAPPENED. (Best Harold Macmillan voice "Events, dear boy, events!" - nope, no idea precisely what his voice was like but I'm guessing RP/received pronunciation?)

First, I clocked the opportunity to volunteer as a facilitator on the academic track of the conference - which was a wonderful gift because it gave me a default place to hang out in and because the presentations were thoughtful, well-researched, and engaging.

Second, I decided to take a holiday from drafting (having just submitted my MFA text) and funnily enough, that flowed through into finding I wanted to take a bit of a break from thinking about the writing process. That wasn't planned but it was I guess predictable.

Third, my con-comrade suggested starting the conference at Dune! The Musical. We did. And it was *marvellous* (pic/deets below).

Oh, and fourth, I somehow convinced myself that this was going to be about the art of *marketing* a writing group. It really really wasn't.

I know this because returning to London lit some kind of starter gun - time to think about writing... time to think about what I'm trying to achieve with the current WIP... time to set some goals... time to find a new place to develop the writing? (That hadn't really occurred to me TBH but it's maybe my main takeaway from listening to the session!)

Soooo, this in mind, this was the session I started with as part of my mini-project to catch up on some of the parallel track sessions I couldn't make in person. No doubt understanding that many people would be in this position, the conference organisers have arranged for certain sessions to be available online until the end of the year with a Worldcon membership. Honestly I don't know if that's still available to purchase or only on a legacy basis for existing con members? No doubt the website would clarify. (This being me deciding that it's a piece of research I don't need to do...)

It was PRACTICAL. The approach was self-described as "intense" but maybe that's partly a function of collapsing attention spans generally because it didn't seem ridiculous (to me). Just required doing the reading in advance and dropping in brief comments for discussion in session. Yes, actually doing it. The reason my piano and classical guitar lessons didn't do me any good (failure to practise in between). Idea being that the workshopped writer and the people who've read that piece all turn up having had time to absorb the writing/feedback and have a conversation that builds on 1st impressions.

NICE.

There was an encouragement to work with people at a similar level of skill. Plus, side-note that the negotiation to get to this can be ticklish (/tricky) because there's a tendency for writers to over-estimate how good we are (at writing, at critiquing, at receiving critique). This was an arrow that met its mark for me. Pretty sure I've consistently over-estimated my own brilliance in the things I'm confident about, possibly matched by under-estimating my competence at the rest.

When I was reflecting on this, the following recent post by John Scalzi came to mind - seems initially like it's about something else but for me, it reads as a different iteration of the same kind of thing:

I think what's going on, in part, is a sorting desire - I'm GREAT (or its opposite I'm AWFUL) on the self-assessment vs they're PERFECT (or they're IRREDEEMABLE) for the creatives / actors / crazed billionaires whose work and/or lives we admire or envy (/both).

Scalzi's antidote seems sensible: love the work as much or as little as you wish to and resist the tendency to canonise - then trash - the makers of it. Assume that on the inside their lives just feel like - lives.

I particularly like his reframing of the "What Would x Do?" sentiment, where he suggests that instead of projecting onto a poster-person, we ask what the very best version of ourselves would do. Like it.

[irregularmelody]

I don't exactly know when my passion for writing began. One of my earliest works dates back to 2016, where I wrote for popular media back at the time like Miraculous Ladybug and Five Nights at Freddy's. I was a child with a phone in my hand and infinite liberty on the internet. Perhaps I fell down a rabbit hole and came to realize now. 

Like everything I do, I felt insecure about it. I still do. Even though I was eleven years old, half mindless of my online behavior, I put effort into it. My lexicon wasn't perfect and my writing style was terribly wonk. Lots of spelling mistakes. Formatting? Never heard of it. Planning concepts and scheming out a proper narrative? Nope! Wrote whatever came to my mind, regardless of continuity. 

It naturally came to me, inspired by the works of the others. I wanted to give it a try. And it naturally flourished. With it, slowly was born things such as media literacy, analytical skills, comprehension of symbolisms and metaphors. You know, the whole deal. It was a journey of learning and growth through those eight years. 

I self-taught myself by the way. I analyzed others' works and carefully picked out elements that interested me and those that didn't. Never did I watch or read tips in writing or ever participated in circles meant for beginners. Like always, I prefer to be an autodidact. If there's a word I don't know, I immediately go after its meaning. I have read pages about literary movements such as surrealism, symbolism, realism. I ended up finding my place in symbolism. And just like that, little by little, I molded my writing style. It's nothing special nor revolutionary but I am proud of it.  

Then, I stopped it. 

What do I mean by that? I stopped writing for IPs as a personal project of mine created and assembled in 2020 was born. During that time, I have watched Neon Genesis Evangelion (2019) and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (early 2020, before the pandemic hit). Its themes, its narrative and the overall way they were told made an impact on me. That was it. It was the trigger for the desire to write something original. Something that came from the deepest parts of my mind, unstoppable creativity.

It's still in progress. 

As I focused on this project, I haven't written anything for a piece of media I knew in a very, very long time. I had settled in being a reader rather than a writer out there in places like AO3 and Wattpad. Of course, being the way I am, I developed the art of analyzing (characters and narratives) and writing walls of texts picking apart the smallest of details I found interesting. Madoka Magica is there as proof. Nowadays, poor Null. 

And speaking about Null. Oh, well. What a shocking plot twist. I never saw this one coming. 

A flame I thought it had long lost has been snuffed, rekindled. And the culprit? The Baldi's Basics franchise. More specifically, Null and his little spectacle in Classic Remastered. It has been a while since a character got such a firm grip on me. Homura Akemi was soloing her stay on the podium for four years and this invisible bastard came and decided he wanted to share it. Yes, share it because I love them equally. Same level of obsession. 

It is kind of a rabbit hole of how I got into BBIEAL only now when I knew the game since 2018 but the earliest checkpoint in this entire thing is after the completion of the 404 page arg in the Basically, Games! website. The password one. Skipping a few details aside, the Down by the Docks arg (created by someone who later became my friend, woohoo!) happened and after a few days of its end, a terrible, horrid voice came to my head.

An idea and a proposal. Write something for it. And post it.

…I don't want to spill too much details of the absolute mental torture I put myself through when this popped up in my mind. All I got to say is, HOLY SHIT, IT WAS HELL. I was constantly beating myself over it until I finally got a grip, wrote it and posted it under anonymity. I didn't have the balls to expose myself out there yet. I called the creator and showed it to him and waited for the inferno to arise while I hid in the shadows. At least I had an advantage, they will never know it was me!

Incomprehensible whiplash followed suit as I was met with positive reactions. They liked what I wrote. Even called it a love letter. Maybe it is, I was so overcome with emotions while I wrote that and it spilled onto my words without me knowing. It had been so long since I wrote anything outside my personal project and it was for the Baldi's Basics franchise, for a fantastic arg, for Null. My notes on that work shows my dumbfoundedness. I was surprised with myself. I was surprised by everything.

Time moves forward, other experiences happened and I found myself writing again. Not for my project but for… Yeah. Baldi's Basics. Null. I am a writer inside this community. I am a writer for this community. I vaguely remember once tweeting on how I would stop being so shameful of my works and proudly expose them for the world. So I did. I removed the anonymity and now my name is there for all eyes to see. 

As I speak here, I currently have five works for the Baldi's Basics tag on AO3. Every time I receive a comment, I want to run away from it like a frightened child but all these feelings dissipate when I see that people actually enjoy what I write. Hoping for more. Call me stupid, call me emotional. It makes me want to cry sometimes. 

This insecurity of mine is a matter I have to work on but I promise, as long as I keep writing for this community, my name will forever remain in display. Writing is my tender love and writing for a circle that received me so well is deserving of my blessings. Thank you.

[mostspecialgirl]

another solo ramble post - relicverse, ocs, flg, and 'succeeding as an artist'

one of the first pieces of digital art i’ve tried to do (not counting back when i was a kid on chickensmoothie) was a '100 OC’s Challenge', which, even at the time, little me thought “what? Just 100? bitch i’ve got this in the BAG” (i did in fact, have it in the bag) and so seeing it again made me want to do a redraw of it. y’know throw in their modern updated designs, maybe try to give them a little more expression, switch the order around and whatnot. but i asked myself “Well in that case, why don’t I just redo the whole thing instead of making it a redraw? Stick in some new series since little me got lazy of drawing from a list at like 75, and it can be something nice to refer to.”

(pictured: old ass disgusting FLG page of the 100 oc’s challenge, as well as the infamous Crusty Backup Of An Old Version of the Ancient FLG Pixel Art Sheet)

then i remembered it’s ONLY 100 slots. by now, i’ve got WAY too much going on and i’ve had another “oh. Well shit. I forgot I’m nuts about this shit” because quite honestly I could probably do 300 without having to think too hard. And maybe that’s a bit of an issue. what is a girl doing with 300+ characters floating around her brain. i’ve got tens of stories where NONE have PROPERLY seen the light of day because i’m scared of comitting to a shitty adaptation that interests no one. or i get too overly ambitious in what’s actually possible and blow out my motivation to wanting it down in consumable form at that time. here i am cooped up in my little shack with the same problem i’ve had my whole life:

i’d love to have one or two eyes on my work who care about it, but i’ve never had any knack for attracting an audience. i spent YEARS on instagram to the tune of Only Making A Single Friend I Fell Out Of Touch With. All of the success I’ve had on twitter over the years is directly tied to “well did Friend 1 or Friend 2 Retweet This?” (With an exception i’ll get to) and only QUITE RECENTLY (in the scope of my artist career) have i made friends who LOOK at my ART and press LIKE. i just feel a little suffered! maybe i’m just scarred from instagram cause’ i was shit at drawing back then. maybe i just have to do fanart with the skills i have now and inevitably i’ll have followers of my own who i don’t see through the lens of “borrowed, not earned”. but i’m scared of failure. i’ve long failed, don’t get me wrong, but i’m afraid of falling deeper, despite how insignificant an Online Existence Like This already is.

(pictured: record of existence)

my one success, being twitter’s “GAYRETARDGF” was the first time in my life i received any attention that made me think “oh shit, maybe i’m actually a little bit funny and not just an insane unfunny person”. i spent years playing Jester for My Personal King that i’ve kind of lost any frame of reference pertaining to how i’m perceived by others. i’ve always been terrible at that. despite getting suspended at another Peak Growth Moment and the fact i’ve failed to reclaim that spark, it’s made me realize “Maybe I can succeed creatively”. after all, GAYRETARDGF’s thing was vulgar quips and drawn out nonsensical scenario posts and WELL. not to name names or kick any other artists under the bus, unlike most Crazy Posters “artist careers”, my art, i find, is every bit as unserious, witty, vulgar, and STUPID as my tweets were. (i think the writing in Puzzling Commission is a testament to that)

even if i failed to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was GAYRETARDGF, knowing people find my stupid bits funny is such a candle in the dark i’ve been in my whole life. i’m always telling my friends “i’m trying to be the new henry darger” and even though i’m joking, I’m afraid that maybe i will be to a few souls who stumble on my work. i’ve found my own 'personal dargers' over the years who i bemuse over, wondering where they are now, and if they still care about art. I don’t want to give up. I want to keep pushing. I’m coming up on the 10th anniversary of FLG and finally at this point in my life i’m seeing the signs that potentially I can make ONE person BECOME A DEDICATED FAN of the relicverse. my art’s almost there, my writing’s there, and all i have to do it wait for the wind to catch these sails. (i will however, have to find the right sails for the job)

i’m far from kidding when i say the relicverse is my life’s work. i think i’d like to make it succeed. i hope in this modern landscape it CAN succeed. so i’m going to bust my fucking ASS OFF drawing fanart on tumblr and see where it goes. I’d honestly be satisfied just being a mildly successful fanartist in a fandom i like.

SURPRISE! THIS POST ISN’T DONE YET!

for the second part here, feel free to stop reading, i want to talk a little more about FLG. FLG is the series younger me put my whole SOUL into. even 'sarah' which i’m going by now (due to a strange set of circumstances which i might talk about in a future ramblepost about Gender and Stuff), is taken from 'sa’ara pyrophyte byblis' who at the time was my favourite character. To repeat what i said earlier with a little more information, FLG is in fact coming up on it’s tenth anniversary and that’s HORRIFYING. i’ve been working on this shit since before UNDERTALE. BEFORE UNDERTALE!!!!!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?????

flg’s been sent to the backburner while i recontextualize a ton of lore, but in a lot of ways, it’s the reason the relicverse even exists. sure, these days, DEVIL’S MANNER opens up the gate, but the first series i wrote to acknowledge the planes and the presence of a shared greater universe is from FLG. hell, FLG’s story can be read as a parallel to Demiurge’s story (intentional) though… now that i say that, it’s not like anyone would know what i mean by that.

despite not DIRECTLY touching FLG in any significant way in these recent times, i think it’s only become more important to the greater universe. the kailash clan finds their origins in FLG, and by extension, the outer gods. hastur himself is a direct descendant of the outer gods, and despite being seen as an 'imperfect halfling' by the ancients during FLG, at the end of the story and before the events of sundown, hastur gains his proper respects as 'their greatest child', being half ancient and half elder god, essentially the image of purity they’ve been chasing. an ancient whose blood bears the love of their creators. oh. right. i guess now’s a good time to mention Hastur and by extension Ithaqua are both Kailash, though the two aren’t keen on identifying as such after everything Cass did to their friends family and home.

in the current scape of the relicverse, the Kailash are by far the only clan who has political relevance, both the berezaiti and sinai clans divided and mostly irrelevant in terms of modern planeswalker culture. The Kailash are like, kind of really important.

but, technically, the berezaiti are also from FLG. Ounon Thanast, chief of one of the Tindalosian Clans that find their homeworld in FLG’s Earth, is the parent of Yima Berezaiti, who, if for some reason you know my lore, is the whole reason the Berezaiti clan is a CLAN.

FLG’s earth, GENESIS EARTH, is pretty significantly important to the RELICVERSE. It’s one of the planes lying upon 'The Rim', with the control for influence over it contested by both The Planeswalker Association and the Hundred Nights Guild. Due to the presence of Azathoth’s Canvas Energy Offgassing, within GENESIS EARTH, everyone’s line of fate is rewritten to have them destined to awaken a Power (as in 'Powers' of 'The Five Elements') by lingering around in this plane for long enough, anyone can gain another unique ability JUST by doing fuck all!!!! which OF COURSE has led to the eternal struggle of planeswalkers upon their world.

Even the Trinity and RELIC EARTH aren’t safe, with Angelo Rust of INSIDERS being a Genesis Earth native and brother of the Sinai Clan’s Patriarch Einrich, Gervase Sinai, was condemned to the plane by the King of the Watchers, Samyaza, who is also one of RELIC EARTH’s Outer Gods. AND, SPOILER ALERT, GERVASE IS THE FATHER OF VIRGIL, THE PROTAGONIST OF FLG: SUNDOWN!!!

gaaaasp

There’s so many more little connections like that and yet somehow i never seemed to consider genesis earth as more than a footnote, until now, of course. but i’m not sure what i want to do with flg. the obvious answer is a COMIC, seeing as it’s about SUPERHEROES, but i can’t help but wonder if there’s another path also worth pursuing. Superhero media is everywhere these days, and with the success of works like Invincible’s adaptation, The Boys’s adaptation, and like, the crazy marvel movie explosion that happened with infinity war and endgame, Superhero stuff is back in the public consciousness. There’s a lot of avenues. That’s getting too far ahead though seeing as I’ve had a Big Inevitable Rewrite for it on the schedule… gruygh,,, there’s too much to ramble about today… what was it i was even trying to talk about…

oh. Yeah. Right. I’d love for FLG to find its success somehow, some way, someday, with beautiful 5 active readers, and 20 Asks in my Tumblr Askbox, but i’m a little fearful i might never have the time or power to get to it. I guess I’ll see. I’ll just keep plugging along.

Now shoo!!! Shoo!!!

[fancallindia]

Lights, Camera, YouTube! Your Guide to Starting a Thriving Channel with Fancall Magic!

You’ve got a great idea for a YouTube channel — maybe you’re great in the kitchen, a gaming genius, or skilled with crafts. But where do you start? Don’t worry, future YouTube star! This guide will help you create a YouTube channel that attracts a dedicated audience. Also find out how fancall links you to experienced YouTubers for priceless advice to take your journey to the next level.

Step 1: Find Your Niche and Rock It!

Think of your niche as the personality of your channel. What issues are you passionate about and where do your areas of expertise lie? Could it be makeup tutorials? Or board game breakdowns? Or maybe DIY home improvement tricks? You name it! Here’s the trick: Concentration. You can’t serve all masters. Identifying a niche will help you establish a loyal audience that is interested in the same things as you are. This highlights how passion can drive your creativity and content production.This could be anything — cars, fashion, politics, chemistry…”

Step 2: Craft a Killer Channel Name and Brand

Make sure to name your channel something very catchy, easy to remember and relevant to the kind of content that you will be posting on it. Think of words that people would type into search engines when looking for your stuff. Do some research to see if anyone else is using the same name on other sites. Moreover, it is important for users to ascertain whether the username is available on various online platforms for consistency in personal branding. Create an attractive channel art and profile picture. These items are like the front face of your channel; they should be both appealing and informative.

Step 3: Gear Up (But Don’t Break the Bank!)

Getting started doesn’t require Hollywood-style equipment. A good microphone can work wonders with an ordinary smartphone camera. High-quality sound can be obtained with a cheap mic as well. Lighting should not be overlooked as it is essential for good videos; while you may wish to use sunlight from outside the house, consider buying some reasonably priced softboxes to ensure consistent results.

Step 4: Embrace the Power of Planning!

Make sure you take a few moments to think about what you want to say before you start recording. You should come up with several different ideas for videos which fit well within the topics or themes that interest your viewers. To help you with this process, here are some tips on planning: Developing an editorial calendar is essential if you want to maintain regularity in posting new material. If you prefer, write down words which will guide through each sentence or scene so that nothing is missed out when filming.

Step 5: Film Like a Pro (Well, Almost!)

Some brief guidelines to give your footage a professional look are shared below: Obtain a tripod to steady the unsteady footage. In selecting places for recording your video, go for spots that are orderly without any form of distraction. When starting filming, check if your sound is okay. Remember, there should not be any noise in the background. For lots of enthusiasm, don’t be afraid to be yourself; it’s infectious.

Step 6: Editing Magic — Make it Shine!

There are a lot of free and user-friendly video editing programs you can use. You need to have a basic understanding of editing so as to be able to cut out unnecessary parts, add music, and use exciting transitions.

Step 7: Titles, Descriptions, and Tags — Oh My!

On YouTube, it is important to have these things in order to be found. Make sure your video content reflects reality by creating catchy, compelling titles that also contain keywords that people are likely to use when searching for them.

Step 8: Thumbnail Power!

A thumbnail is the ad for your video. Make it attractive, clear and motivating for any viewer to click on it. Have high quality images, relevant texts, and think about throwing in a pop of color!

Step 9: Welcome to the Wonderful World of Uploading!

When you have finished editing your masterpiece, it is time to release it to the world! Choose a time for uploading that is when your target audience is most active.

Step 10: Engage, Connect, and Grow!

Building a YouTube audience is a slow burn, not a quick fix. Here are some tips to keep the fire going

Respond to comments: Show your viewers you care and build a community.

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[sineala]

How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

[women-loving]

do you have any advice for overcoming internalised biphobia? i... thought i was a lesbian for a long time but turns out im not purely gay. im bi... its like 90/10 ratio (90 being for women obviously) but still... its kindof... disheartening somewhat... for some reason i feel... less... proud about it... do you have any advice for getting over this? thank you

First of all I’m sorry it took me so long to answer this ask. I made a recent post about my absence from this blog, which will explain what took me so long. Maybe you don’t need my words anymore. Maybe you’re in a better place by now. I hope so.

But I’ve still thought about you a lot. And I’m still going to write you something, even if you maybe do not need it any more. Maybe circumstances have long changed. You can skip reading all of this if you don’t need it. Maybe there’s another woman like you who will want to read this.

I'm publishing this, encouraging any followers interested in offering their own advice to reblog and add anything they might have to say.

I'll just... say a lot of words, and you take what seems useful to you! It would be ridiculous to expect all advice to apply to every specific person. I hope something I say is helpful, and if it isn't, you can at least take heart knowing a bi women out there is thinking about you, wishing you well, put quite a bit of thought into trying to help you. I hope that at least offers you some comfort.

One option here is considering the root cause of your feelings and trying to address that. "For some reason" implies to me that you don't know why you're unhappy with being bisexual. And honestly, it is okay if you can't self-examine to a point where you know the root cause of your feelings. Too much self examination drags a person down. You don't need to know anything. You can live happily without having a deep understanding of yourself.

But maybe you do want to think about it a little and try to figure out why you feel unhappy.

I know for me, I feel can feel unhappy with my attraction to men because 1. they icky and 2. they treat women so poorly a lot of the time. Please note that extremely simplifies the issue, lol. Simple words for something big and complex.

And my personal solution to those two issues is to say "hey, who cares though? Just because I'm attracted to men doesn't mean I need to be romantically involved with them." And so the fact men are icky isn’t super relevant to me any more. I don't have to deal with their ickiness. I don't have to make them part of my life. I personally won't be treated poorly by a man in a romantic relationship because I won't be having a romantic relationship with a man.

Bisexual is who you are, yes. But how you live your life is in your control. You're not going to undergo some huge transformation... You're still wonderful, creative and imaginative you, and you can live however you like.

I snooped your blog a bit to get to know you a little better, and I see you are a writer. Oh, how wonderful to be bisexual and to be a writer. I'm sure the lack of seeing experiences like your's is hard, but you can write how you feel, you can create your own stories about bisexual women. When you're a writer, everything in life becomes something you can use for your stories. Even if you can't bring yourself to write now, if it hurts too much, you can use it. I'm a writer too, and I like to use some of my past painful experiences for inspiration.

Your passion can be your gift, and you can use it to get through so many difficult things. Us bisexuals who prefer women don't see ourselves reflected in a lot of art and writing. But we can make stories and prose that resonates with other women like us. If you wanted to, you could do something that really touches other women like you.

I have to admit, I myself am a bit of a coward in this regard. Sharing art online is scary! I'm sorry ladies!

If you do write anything about your bisexuality, I am begging you to let me know so I can reblog it. I want to read it! And I know it would mean so much to so many other women.

Maybe your displeasure with your sexuality comes from that, not seeing yourself in art. It's a lot easier to find stuff for lesbians then it is to find things for bi women who don't want to engage with men. But what we don't see, we can use our creative energy to make.

Another thing I want to touch on is the immense stress and anxiety so many women have with our sexuality.... I think to some level, there is too much fixation on it. I know I sound weird when I say that, I run a blog about bisexuality. But it's just a little piece of yourself, and you don't need to make it overtake everything about your life. Trying to let go of the stress can be a good idea.

Looking into mindfulness techniques, and learning how to feel an emotion and then release it instead of ruminating on it has been helpful to me personally.

Finally, maybe this is just me, but being bisexual does sincerely feel great and powerful. I feel like I can admire pretty people of all sorts. There aren’t nearly as many gorgeous men as there are women, but I can appreciate what they look like. I love being capable of loving any sex, and then making my own choice about who the best person is for me.

A lot of the women in their life, they seem to be oddly... helpless, to their sexuality. They have to have someone, they have to tolerate a terrible man because they’re attracted to him.... There is no “have to” though. We’re not confined to what our attraction says. We can all always choose the best person for us. We can also choose ourselves. We can focus on doing what we like without worrying about other people.

I really do feel like being bisexual is awesome... It can be hard for me to relate to true hatred of one’s bisexuality. I urge followers who have struggled with to share what helped them. For me, my sexuality has always been something I loved. I love being able to find anyone attractive, admiring all their best traits from afar, while dating the perfect person for me. Her and only her.

Even before I met finally met her, I was so happy to stay single and wait for her. Focus on bettering myself and my own life, and assuring that I have the best version of myself to offer her.

Well, that's all I can think of for now! I gave myself some time to think this over, so hopefully something in there is helpful. And if not, I hope maybe one of my followers might have some advice for you.

Good luck! Thank you for having the strength to reach out to someone. I truly do wish you well, and I hope any woman who is struggling with this and is reading this right now will one day feel better too.