#on social media and being open to criticism and stuff. and of course we're being graded/given extra credits for completing all 31 days.

[thefirstknife]

Hi Bel,

I keep seeing comments about people complaining about the quality of destiny’s writing and story in the last few weeks. I haven’t really engaged with destiny since season of defiance, what’s currently gotten everyone so riled up? I thought that people were enjoying Season of the Deep/Witch in terms of narrative, why is Season of the Wish causing people to deride the destiny writing staff again?

I don't know!

Deep and Witch have been absolute bangers in every aspect to me. I've been enjoying all interactions and lore tabs we've received. A lot of them are stuff that we've never had before, a lot of reunions and closures, a lot of development and interactions between characters who you wouldn't really think would have much in common.

Sloane's return and healing from what she's been through has been fantastic, Drifter opening up with her to help her because he also got help from others was fantastic, Sloane reuniting with Aisha and Shayura brought me to tears (Shayura's descent into madness was triggered by immense trauma of Sloane staying on Titan and Titan disappearing), everything with Sloane and Zavala...

Witch was just incredible in every single way; the focus on Eris, the amount of Eris and Ikora content!!!!! Everything about Xivu and Savathun and their interactions together!! Eris finally fulfilling her goal she promised Savathun YEARS ago, getting that closure.

Wish so far has been equally great to me. All the new stuff about Ahamkara is amazing, finally giving us proof for long-standing speculation about Ahamkara and how they aren't universally evil creatures and expanding on them as a species. I love all interactions we've had so far; finally we have Petra back, Mara's singleminded focus on figuring out how to defeat the Witness and her continuous work to improve as a person, ALL SJUR MENTIONS!!!!! I won't talk about the "leak" because we have no context for it so I will wait for the full story to be revealed before I can pass judgment; something that I think should be a lesson to learn from this entire year. Maybe wait for the story to finish before judging the story.

Literally everything this past year that involves Osiris, but especially this season now that he's back in his element with the Vex. And of course every little detail we get of him and Saint. Osiris honestly shaped this year for me with everything that he's done to uncover the biggest mysteries. I think a big reason is that a lot of people just don't like Osiris, which I consider a massive skill issue.

Other than that, I don't know what are the issues people have besides just not being interested in any of these storylines and attributing it to a nebulous "bad writing" claim. I also genuinely believe that way too many people get wrapped up too much in fandom, imagine storylines they want to see and then get disappointed when the actual story doesn't go there. Almost like people forget that this isn't their story and these aren't their characters. A lot of it is also fandom completely warping characters into not what they actually are and then feeling like the canon story is the one that's wrong.

Whatever is the reason, I guess everyone is entitled to their perspective of the story and everyone is free to explore the story in different ways through fanfics and AUs and whatever. I do that too!

But I would definitely ask people to be normal with how they engage in criticism, especially in the current state of affairs. Writers are developers; they experience a ton of harassment and negativity from the community and also from inside the company. And they are online: they can see what we're saying. It's been documented that community commentary has been used to harass writers:

Imprint this into your brain and never forget what these people had to go through. Let's not forget also the way people treated Seth Dickinson on social media when he was active with Destiny fans. "Fans" were actively arguing with him about his own work (telling him that HE is wrong) and were utterly disgusting towards him when he tried explaining what he wrote. His works are now hailed as the best writing in Destiny and people want him back. If I were him, I wouldn't want to come back ngl, not with how he was treated and not with how fans are still treating writers (and hey, Seth wrote LF Collector's Edition! So he was back, technically, this year!). Let's not forget that a lot of writers are members of various marginalised groups. And I'd definitely not want to go back with zero support from leadership.

Which is also an important aspect for all developers, including writers: sometimes they have orders they may not like, but can't argue against. They do the best they can with what they're given, the time they have and directions they receive. And with that in mind, I am enjoying everything we've gotten this year, obviously with some specific complaints about things I didn't particularly enjoy (like the universally mid reception of Defiance; I've spoken about my gripes with it before, a big one being the shafting of Suraya who should've at least been mentioned in a lore tab).

I can tell that there is passion in their work, even if maybe they would prefer to do more with it, but can't. Maybe even if they want to take different routes, but can't. But from what we got, I can feel that they care about this world and these characters. I can tell that someone lovingly wrote about Sloane and her friendships with two grieving women. I can tell that they deeply cared about Sloane's friendship with Zavala and that they loved showing us Saint and Drifter caring about a fellow trauma survivor.

I can tell that the writers are immensely careful and loving towards Eris; everything she went through was crafted with love and passion from both writers and her VA. Eris' story is such a fundamental aspect of Destiny and I can tell that this was important to the writing team and that they gave her everything they could to do justice to her character and her arc and her healing and her release from the cycle she was trapped in for so long.

I can tell that there are writers who care a lot about Osiris and Saint and their relationship. I can tell that someone cared a lot about expanding on Ahamkara and giving them more personalities. I can tell that someone cared DEEPLY about Sjur and Mara and that her repeated mentions are the passionate work of writers who want us to remember her.

I could go on. And I know that not everyone sees it this way, which is fine; we all have different ways of perceiving stories. I enjoy discussing things we in the fandom disagree on and I enjoy hearing different perspectives! Unfortunately, this has recently become rarer and rarer. And for the love of god, please try and treat writers with some respect, especially now, especially those who are still working and doing their best with the shitty situation they're in. None of the cries of "poor devs" ring true to me unless the same is given to writers, instead of treating them like punching bags.

[stvlti]

Being a content creator who runs a blog where no one is interactive sucks ass >:c I’m tired and I will quit because what is the point anymore?

Sorry, this caught me while I was half awake and I didn't know what to say. I crowdsourced some advice and I hope one of these help:

If you create copy-based content (fic, meta, poetry), honestly yeah that was me too until I joined several writing Discord servers. I also used to hang out in the local open mic & literary scene and am in several group chats with them folks and they're generally a willing audience. We like to share stuff with each other. So I guess, long story short, surround yourself with people who are into the same mediums as you if you want meaningful engagement and feedback (in the general sense of the word).

If you're more concerned with doing numbers though, then joining networks, participating in events and zines, tagging your posts strategically, and just generally plugging your content is probably the only way you'll get that engagement (in the digital content and social media marketing sense of the word). Unfortunately I've never really been very good at marketing myself because I get most of my dopamine from a handful of comments from friends, and numbers don't mean much to me, so I just don't even bother.

The nature of your content does matter obviously. Tumblr, though not a full fledged social media site as it still carries some of that weblog DNA, is still designed for microblogging at the end of the day and people's attention spans are short. They like stuff that are short and sweet, stuff that can go viral, and fics really aren't suited to that. This is why headcanons, joke posts, incorrect quotes, and stuff like that flourish, and if you really want to do numbers that's where the engagement is at.

This brings me to the other point. You should probably ask yourself why it is that you're creating content. Personally I do it because the characters and subject matters are important to me, and the ideas will eat me up at night if I don't exorcise them through the things I create (and also I'm just a nerd who enjoys the creative process). I do like being recognised for what I do of course but that's secondary to the craft itself. If I were to create for everyone else instead of satisfying my own creative impulses I imagine I wouldn't have much fun doing it - if I can motivate myself to do it at all. Maybe that makes me selfish, but that's how it is for me, and it saves me from focusing on the negatives, on what other people think about my work (discounting constructive criticisms). But if you can't satisfy yourself with just creating the thing without recognition and compliments then see Points #1 and 2+3 again.

I went off talking a lot about fic and poetry and meta - literary mediums, that is - but well, if we're talking about art and graphics and video edits then it's a whole different ball game. Easier, in fact. Because these are mediums you can bring to platforms with larger user bases, platforms like Instagram or Tiktok, to really get that exposure you need. And everybody likes a nice picture. They're more likely to stop and pay attention - and maybe share - an artwork. Not talking about Tumblr here though because I know that people stopped using the reblog function circa 5 years ago for some reason, but I'm just saying at least with art and what not you could always start anew on a platform with a wider audience 🤷

And if on the off chance you're one of those talented folks who can mess around on Ableton and make some beats then, hell, you got even better chances on platforms like Tiktok. And I'd say what are you still doing here on Tumblr because this site's one of the worst for hosting video and audio content 😆

Any way nonnie I hope you can find your motivation again. Do some soul searching and understand why you're creating and what you're creating content for, and then go do the thing that'll bring you the most satisfaction. And you may need to take a break. But no matter what you do, don't quit for real, because there is an audience for everything and they're probably out there waiting to see it represented in the things you create.

[myofficeisablanketfort]

I've been doing some thinking about this debate (?) recently and this is a really valuable perspective. sorry, this got *long*

I do resonate with the opposite idea that continuing to vote for people who are just "better than the worse option" and not a whole lot more lets that party continue to promote half-assed moderates as candidates and pretend they're the good guys. there's no incentive for actually leftist people to be supported by the party or for the party to actually do much that's helpful instead of just talking a better game than the opposition

and of course my soul is furious/depressed that this is the choice I have to make (that many of us have to make), and it really sucks voting for someone shitty to be in a place of power where they can hurt people

so I get the emotional appeals people have been making regarding this and I understand the hope that if maybe enough people let that pain be expressed through their voting decisions that it might actually help (please God let it help..)

but still this is a really important thing to consider. who will get irreparably hurt while we're refusing to play the "vote blue no matter who" game in an attempt to incentivise the party to change? if even incrementally better policies means a few less people suffer or die, that matters. if more politicians are at least saying good shit (or *not* saying rancid shit) because that doesn't give encouragement to bigots who will go out and hurt others, that matters

I still think it's important to talk about the idea of complicity in this discussion, but also the idea of coercion/power. ordinary people don't actually have all that much power in the US voting system and I imagine that's true elsewhere too. voting for someone in a system where you have extremely little power over the choices in front of you doesn't really make you responsible for everything the person you voted for does. (I have A LOT more thoughts about voting and consent/coercion, but this is already super long)

that said, if you're campaigning for Biden right now (or even informally being like, well we have to vote for him! or else we'll get trump! it's dangerous to criticize him to harshly or entertain the idea other candidates!) I have... questions. judgements? definitely concerns

part of this conversation that I don't see questioned is the idea that voting is the primary political action that matters, or only thing you can or should do

if you decide you can't vote for so and so, what other actions are you taking instead? if you do vote, what other actions are you taking to show your dissent against the system that forces you to choose the better of two evils (and not much more than that)?

talk about issues with friends, engage on social media, help neighbors, donate to funds, learn, boycott, talk to kids about how to be a good person, protest, be open to better ways of structuring government. and yeah, vote (at least for local stuff or propositions etc)

if all you do is vote or not, that's really when you are in danger of doing the prioritizing ideology over actual people ± participating in oppression thing in my opinion

Every time I advocate for voting people are like "no you shouldn't vote! Read this literature, it'll totally change the way you view voting!" And every single time it's the same fucking "you shouldn't vote because both parties are exactly the same so it won't make a difference who wins" bullshit wrapped up in some fancy language