#something something mortifying ordeal of being a tumblr user

[tinybreadpolice]

I see the web weave posting djbrjfhd sending you a virtual hug 😔

This is actually so so sweet

[hergan416]

@xokiddo tagged me in this post and I actually didn't miss it I am just behind on replies and such.

(replies?? hergie are you still running an RP blog you don't know about? ANYWAY I'm behind.)

The general premise is to post recaps of our favorite works that we've written for the year and then tag some folks.

If you take this meme from me, please do like I did here and create your own post, tagging me. Don't add on as a reblog to this post. Sorry I'm Old and Resist Change.

Lets tag some writers...

@nenya85 @winxhelina @kaibacorpintern @touchmycoat @mydetheturk @user-needs-new-hyperfixation @seeingteacupsindragons (I know you don't do fanfiction but if you want to promo some of your original writings you put on tumblr or something else?) @leviathiane @sakuplumeria @rivaltagonist @vitya-nikiforova and anyone else who wants to!

Fics below the cut!

Poison Paradise (sherlouis, rated E(xplicit), background alwill)

I thought I couldn't stick with a longfic before this. Seriously. Thank EVERYONE so much for the reception on this. This is perhaps the thing I am most proud of from this year.

Malafide (sherliam, rated M(ature), drug use)

I think this is stylistically my best work this year. I actually put in effort into figuring out why I wanted to tell the story I was telling, into the word choice and description, into making sure it behaved "as intended." It tries to actually say something, and I believe it succeeds. Although it is also a bit of a "mortifying ordeal of being known" work for me too.

Gravitational Pull May Vary (various pairings, chapters have ratings ranging from T(een) to E(xplicit) and are each standalone)

I'm so glad I chose to write a bunch of short stories for Albert's birthday. It was a very fun exercise, and I got to try out a bunch of pairings I haven't otherwise written. I hope to repeat the experience with different characters at some point.

Relay / What Louis Wants (M(ature) & (Explicit), alwill and moriarthree)

I regret not continuing more of this series -- it is fun and I still have additional headcanons I want to describe via a third fic (or more). I just have so many other wips now. I really enjoyed Louis' perspective in the first chapter of What Louis Wants, and I really think I managed to capture what I wanted of the AW relationship very well in Relay, it wasn't just smut.

Midnight Stroll (E(xplicit), louiliam with background sherliam, dubcon/non-con, somnophilia)

I just want to add something from my more recent ... uh "horny era" [don't ask me how it go hornier] and honestly-- this one is dark and probably not for everyone. But I had fun writing it, and there are some things that were premises (Like Louis actually being kind of close in size to Sherlock, especially post-TS) that are worth exploring, even if most people might not have chosen this to do it.

[visdiefje]

YOO WTF WHY DID TUMBLR LET ME UNFOLLOW U 😭😭

I HAVE NO IDEA BECAUSE I THOUGHT I WAS FOLLOWING YOU TOO??? I FEEL LIKE I WOULD HAVE REMEMBERED IF I UNFOLLOWED ON PURPOSE and I have no idea if that's a Tumblr fault or not because what if I messaged someone going haha tumblr made me unfollow you that's so weird and then they reply hm this is awkward I actually softblocked you super on purpose. what do I do then. so I can never ask

[helium-vibes]

thank y'all for the love on my previous text meme posts :D ! I enjoy making them for my commission info (all proceeds go to top surgery!) check out my Twitter & Insta: @ helium_vibes [ID: Text meme number one is Tumblr user sabigoe saying "can a man not be both pretty and pathetic. a wet rag covered in glitter." Next to it is a photo of Smallish Bean's Last Life Minecraft skin. Text meme number two is Tumblr user unlawfulroach saying " [does normal stuff but in a manner that makes it obvious there is something wrong with my brain] " Next to it is a photo of Mumbo Jumbo's Minecraft skin. Text meme number three is Tumblr user arunima saying "the best love language is being irritating." Next to it is a photo of Good Times With Scar's 3rd Life Minecraft skin. Text meme number four is Twitter user wolfpupy saying "I'm well aware that I've accidentally set myself on fire and it's none of your business. I don't need your pity water either. Let me burn in peace." Below it are photos of Solidarity Gaming's, Zombie Cleo's, B Dubs', and Smallish Bean's 3rd Life Minecraft skins. Text meme number five is Tumblr user thedreadpiratejames saying "the mortifying ordeal of being known by twenty thousand bees." Next to it is a photo of Grian's Minecraft skin. Below them is Tumblr user onenicebugperday saying "That's twenty thousand new friends!" Next to it is a photo of Good Times With Scar's 3rd Life Minecraft skin. Text meme number six is Tumblr user verylargedog saying "I'm not interested in being polite or heterosexual." Next to it is a photo of Zombie Cleo's Minecraft skin. Text meme number seven is Tumblr user johnnyjoestarsofficial saying "My mom likes to tell me "you have to pick your battles" well I'm full of rage and I'm picking all of them." Next to it is a photo of Grian's Minecraft skin. Text meme number eight is Tumblr user dorothy-cotton saying "I'm not a murderer some of my best friends are alive." Next to it is a photo of Etho's Minecraft skin. /End ID]

[astrobei]

hii tumblr user astrobei i hope ur having an excellent day !!! 2, 21 n 30 for the soft asks !

also:: being mutuals means u have 2 deal with my odd nicknaming habit so. how do you feel about "orts"

hi vin ! i am having a strangely good day actually but this ask definitely made it like 200% better !! also i love nicknames and u can literally call me anything u want sdfjsdj i would be flattered to be associated w any name u give me :^)

(also this got a little bit on the longer side even though it's not That long so i'm adding a read more just in case oops)

2. what's your feel-good movie?

omg i have so many but for the feel-good genre specifically probably a really cheesy classic rom com? clueless, ten things i hate about you, mamma mia, any movie in this genre of rom coms is an instant feel good for me !! (feel-good and comfort movies are Different categories to me btw idk if people use them interchangeably oops)

21. if you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be?

(dear reader by taylor swift starts playing) sdkfndk i could write like. an essay on this but no one wants to read that so ! there are many things i would tell my past self bc she was a mess and also still is kind of but one thing would probably be is that No One Cares. not in like a. no one cares about you kind of way because obviously there are people who care about u !! but like. i am someone who's always struggled with feeling self conscious and the mortifying ordeal of being perceived by strangers and i think in the last few years i've learned that honestly. no one cares as much as you think they do !! like everyone is just out living their lives and even when u mess up or do something embarrassing no one will remember and that's definitely made me more confident i think . maybe

30. what reminds you of home (doesn't have to mean house... just things that remind you of the feeling of home)?

oh this is so sweet and also so hard for me to answer LMAO um. i have a lot of food-related memories with my friends and family so things like. cooking soup or banana bread or sunday brunch !! good morning or good night texts !! whenever someone sends me something that made them think of me and i'm like damn... i really exist in people's heads even when i'm not around... those all definitely feel like home to me :-)

[latefrequencies]

2, 5, 9, 11 for current WIP/s (:

finally getting onto these!

2. What tropes or fandom headcanons are you involving? Are you challenging any tropes or headcanons?

Well, I’m invoking the extremely common headcanons that Ford Prefect is non-binary and pan and that Arthur Dent is bi (I feel like everybody in the fandom seems to agree with this take on their identities?) Uh there aren’t any common headcanons that I’m intentionally challenging with this fic. The main thing I’m challenging is the canon’s comedic attitude towards Ford’s excessive drinking. Also, tropes. Uh shit I don’t know enough about fanfiction to know what tropes are common. You would expect me to be a reader of fanfiction as well but I only really write it. I don’t know that I’m invoking any tropes on purpose. If my work reads differently to anyone, tell me, I’m curious. 

5. How do you feel about posting chapters before the fic is finished (with this one and/or in general)?

I used to really, REALLY hate the idea of doing that until I felt confident that I’d written enough of everything until the final chapter where I could safely finish that part before I had to post it. (Things ended up not working out that way for me but that was due to particular life circumstances.) This ended up being the right choice, because every so often, someone’s input would lead me to add or change something. For example, I tagged my current fic with ���Non-Binary Ford Prefect” because I characterize Ford as non-binary in these fics (I had done so in The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Cared About). Someone commented saying they were excited to see how that tag factored into the fic, and I then realized that I hadn’t touched upon Ford’s gender at all in this one. That’s what led me to write a whole paragraph about Ford’s gender and orientation, which I’m very glad I included. I think posting parts before it’s ALL complete can lead to you getting and being able to use valuable input from the readers.

9. How do you feel about this WIP? Is it frustrating? Fun? Strange?

I’m certainly enjoying writing it. It’s giving me a lot of opportunities to do things I’m good at, which makes me feel good about my writing. Although every so often I do look at it and remember how strange the whole concept of writing a serious alcoholism recovery fic about a character from a sci-fi comedy really kind of is. Although it is a kind of strange I am glad I’m putting into this world.

11. Is this WIP inspired by anything/anyone?

Between 2009 and 2015, I was (online) friends with a guy called Sebastian Blake Stott, known to the internet as tumblr user grahamarthurchapman (his blog still exists). He was entirely unlike anyone I’d ever met before; he seemed to live in a world of his own that he filled with his literary and historical and musical interests, about which he was intensely passionate and would infodump to anyone. He experienced a lot of trauma throughout his life, including a particularly bad thing just before we met. I had no idea about any of it until he started opening up about it years later. He also had a drinking problem that had started when he was a teenager but that became even more pronounced when he reached his country’s legal drinking age of 18. Part of it was social for him - he claimed the alcohol was what made him so charming (although like everything he ever said was better about him when he was drunk, I had my doubts). Part of it was to cope with trauma, past and present. Towards the very end of it, I wondered if part of it was just intentional self-destruction. It wasn’t his alcoholism that killed him - it was suicide, the last of many many attempts. We’d spent six years of our lives being friends and we’d never gotten as close as I hoped we could have. 

Sometime before Sebastian died, I wrote a fanfic in which Arthur starts worrying about Ford’s alcoholism and holds an intervention for him. It ended unsuccessfully and was about how I wished I could do something for Sebastian but knew that nothing I could do had any chance of saving him. If it sounds like I’ve described the first fic in the AU Where Ford’s Alcoholism Is Taken Seriously series, that’s because it is. That fic was a rewrite of the one I wrote about Sebastian. Eventually, the series became not just about how I couldn’t do anything for Sebastian but about how I wish we could have been closer, about how I was in love with him the whole time, about how, had he just gotten to exist under better circumstances, recovery could’ve been possible for him. Sebastian is the answer to that question. The entire series is inspired by him. 

[cryptvokeeper]

(I said you should examine the way ao3 prioritizes works over fans some time well surprise the time is now)

cuz like to some extent I do agree with art for arts sake. theres something really comforting to me about the concept that the act of creation is enough in and of itself, and that a piece has value regardless of who does or doesn’t read it. That anything made has value regardless of how people feel about it

...THAT BEING SAID

theres also something so dismissive about that attitude, you know? like, the idea that the audience and their feelings are irrelevant to a work is kinda horseshit. There is literally never going to be a piece of writing that no one in the world has ever seen, it’s not possible. Even if its just the person who wrote it, that’s still an audience, but when your posting your work on the internet for anyone to see, that audience is obviously gonna be a lot bigger! “I don’t write fanfic for other people I write it for me” ok then Why are you posting it online? why not leave it in Google docs forever? If youre gonna post your work in a public place, whether that’s just A group chat for a Couple of your friends or the entire internet, I really do think taking an audiences feelings on a piece into account is essential. It needs to be a part of the creative process and how we judge creative works. It’s not fair to treat writers like some high-minded auters and their audience like a bunch of ignorant plebs who don’t matter because the art exists with or without them. that’s stupid.

there’s also the argument that, if you’re posting your work in a public space for the purpose of validation, you’re making an unspoken agreement to open yourself up to being judged for that work. Mortifying ordeal of being known and all that. Dont like don’t read has become a common mantra and I do agree with it wholeheartedly, but on the other hand I think a just as valid mantra would be dont like don’t post. If you can’t handle the possibility of criticism of your work and you put it in a public setting where anyone can see it, then you’re gonna have problems. In the same way we criticize readers for expecting a fanfiction to be their safe space where no content can hurt them, I think we should also point out that posting your fanfiction isn’t a safe space for writers where they’re free from criticism. I think maybe if ao3 didn’t have things like comments or bookmarks or subscribing it would be different, but those tools are specifically designed for engagement. Ao3 is an archive, not a social media platform. I firmly believe that statement. you as a writer have the option of moderating those methods of engagement, turning off comments and such. But if you keep them on, you know the risks.

ok now onto unrelated speculation

All this being said makes me wonder about how the archive is going to be implementing their upcoming block feature. Like so far I’ve only seen in discussed in the context of a feature that lets readers block specific authors so they dont have to see that users works. But I wonder how it will apply to writers? Cuz like here on tumblr when you block a user that user can’t look at your blog and see your posts unless theyre reblogged by someone else right? If a writer blocks a reader, will that reader no longer be able to see Their fanfictions? That feels kind of antithetical to ao3’s policy in a way, keeping certain users from being able to read certain fanfictions. Maybe blocking a reader just prevents them from commenting/interacting With the fic? thats probably be a bit more likely, as it’s more in the spirit of the site.

idk many thoughts head full.

[michaeldempsey]

Being Known is Being Loved

Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. 

- I Know What You Think of Me by Tim Krieder

We have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

This line, which came from a 2012 New York Times essay, then became a meme in 2018, always has resonated with me. The core idea of the essay could be summarized in an equally as powerful statement brought forth by another Tumblr user:

Being known is being loved.

Both statements frame a visceral feeling that is hard to properly explain but is almost immediately understood in the comfort and complexities of knowing someone, and the emotions that come from that journey.

To know someone is to understand their inner workings. It is to know the foods they hate, the ways they deal with stress, the goals they have, the secrets they keep, the time they spend, and hundreds of other smaller things that define someone, and your journey with them as you get to each other's cores.

If you’ve ever loved someone, Natasha’s writing will make you feel this deeply:

“i know your pizza order” “you have freckles on your ears” “you make this face when you’re tired” “you order green tea on a good day black on a bad day” “you always make that face before you try something” “the tips of your ears turn red when you’re angry” “i knew you’d say something” “you must be exhausted to miss the class” “your favorite pie is pumpkin, right?” “i know your phone number, don’t worry” “you miss me, i can tell” “you fiddle with your pens when you’re bored” “you don’t like converse unless they’re high tops” “your favorite cereal is cinnamon toast crunch and you first ate it when you were 8”

The fog of being known, & volatility

I sometimes think about knowing someone as a Fog of War map. For many parts of someone, there are areas that you uncover and don’t expect to change, ranging from seemingly inconsequential preferences to deeper personal values to lifelong pursuits. And then there are parts of people that do change, and these more volatile areas you have to revisit, check in with, and explore to continually know...and to continually love.

As we uncover more of this map, “mortifying” really is a perfect word to describe how we feel about being known in the 21st century. The satisfaction, emotional exposure, and time investment that comes from being known is non-trivial and high risk. It requires you and another person to embark on a journey together that theoretically is high ROI, but more likely, just high volatility.

Over the past 10 years, a lot of the dynamics have changed surrounding what it means to be known, for better or for worse. Especially this year these dynamics of what we qualify as "knowing" someone has been top of mind for me across both personal and professional contexts.

Our world has turned into one that inflates to a minimum viable aesthetic. We want to show a version of ourselves online that is most attractive, most agreeable, most interesting, and most admirable. Perfect pictures, curated stories, high level tweets designed to garner likes and RTs, and a catering to the masses of our minimum viable audience. This is the seemingly agreed upon dominant strategy whether seeking influence, capital, or something else.

We string together fragments of various selves, but rarely do we see the entire self, because what’s the incentive? There’s just too much risk in being known. By being somewhat known we are effectively minimizing some of the beautiful human volatility I mention a few paragraphs above.

Maximum vulnerability = maximum volatility = maximum upside.

(tweet source)

In investing, higher volatility usually equates to higher possible returns. In today's world of online expression, we settle for lower expected value, market-level outcomes so as to not ruffle any feathers and not take any outsized risk. We're basically hoping to allow people to know us enough so that they include us in their passive index of humans they hold in moderate regard, like that vanguard ETF that their finance friend told them to buy and never think about until they were 60.

As I write that sentence, I think that perhaps we go back to the parable of humans being viewed as commodities or indexes. We can debate this at a societal level but on the professional side, I think this is entirely true within my bubble of venture capital and startups.

When we think about the products that venture capital firms offer the talking points are either the people (which partner do you work with) or the capital. The capital is a commodity today. This pushes seed round dynamics into sprints measured in days in order to get to a decision of who to partner with for the next 7-10 years of your company. One could make the argument that founders should take their time and be more intentional, but let's be real, that isn't net dominant for a founder or their highly optimized process.

As an industry we like to equate picking a co-founder to marriage and draw similar comparisons when picking a lead investor/board member. Despite this, we have yet to figure out the solution for understanding these relationships in a newly compressed timeline outside of social capital (how does an investor reference), shotgun weddings (was great to meet you yesterday, give me the highest price and get out of my way), and brand network effects (firm > people). But this information is sparse and humans are....say it with me...VOLATILE. So you never really know.

This insight is what led various VCs to become content marketing machines in order to increase exposure and surface area. I heavily adapted this playbook early in my career (as many have) and it certainly helps people get to know you...sorta. I should say, it gets people to know a part of you.

And I feel like we've conflated the idea of knowing someone with having an idea of someone. You can't know someone after 9 days (if Kopelman is correct) but you can get maximum context by understanding the corpus of their being on the internet...or at least that's the best attempt I can muster up in my reality.

My reality is that I can't buy my own bullshit/sell my soul enough to tweet out tech proverbs or repurpose old parables for likes. My reality is that I don't have the skill to transactionally aggressively network and I can't sustain the energy from social interactions to exponentially scale deep connections to the tune of 25+ meetings/week I care about. So instead, my only option to be loved is to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. To wear my heart on my digital sleeve, a proverbial sleeve that's threads are made up of a sum of all of my writing, social media accounts, in-person interactions, and more, not just a curated feed of minimum viable story filled with dopamine-inducing 280 character lines.

I write about the areas I care about, founders I partner with, my struggles with my industry, my lessons of growing up, my allegories for friendship or love, all to be known. I tweet to be known, I joke to be known, hell I sing to be known.

And in writing this my only goal is to express my disinterest in what passes the bar today for "being known" in our communities, and to ask others to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

So here’s my sleeve where you can start to get to know me. I look forward to descending the staircase together.

(this Image 2x for thumbnail purposes)