#this is unrelated to the previous post about fearing commenting on something this is bigger and more messier

[jadetheblade4]

I really shouldn't have said anything im not that good at. Speaking. Whatever ill get over it.

[incarnateirony]

To confused Supernatural fraaands joining pillowfort

Making a “how not to get lost” tutorial. I know a new social platform can be really intimidating, and I'm getting a lot of people flocking in from tumblr, sending DMs asking questions -- and no, that's not a sign to stop, I just recognize there's a lot of questions I can give you a masterpost to share to your confused friends!

Included is: how and where to find people and content, maximize your reach and impact, how to actually use the interface to its best capacity, what bugs to expect, how to talk to the staff and suggest new features, dos, donts, and how-tos.

Pillowfort tutorials and stuff exist, and I'll link those in a bit, but I can not emphasize enough how important it is to find the right communities for you as a base line to start. So, have a list of the biggest Supernatural communities and a few not-huge-ones that may still tickle certain fancies.

Supernatural: show, cast, and ship positive

Destiel: Take a wild guess what the comm is for

ProfoundNet: The PB/Destiel server related, I dunno how much they upkeep it at a glance but everybody seems to stay in touch.

SupernaturalArtsAndFics -  All ships, all cast, don’t be a dick is the rule there.

DeanWinchesterIsBisexual

And lo, though I hate promoting it I will be fair, there’s The_Wincest_Community  and just “Wincest” - the members and content seems pretty identical.

There’s an SPN NSFW Art group too -

Castiel fangroup

SPN Multishippers group

SPN Reverse bang

SPN Fanart,

Destiel Fan Favorites Survey Community

Cockles

After here, groups keep getting smaller and are all like… 30 people or less, I’m stopping centralized listing at the 30-mark. And right now, small groups still have a chance to boom once more people migrate across. But this is where you can start to find MOST of your people at.

You can search the community feature for smaller, related communities. Hell, there’s a Drowley community with 7 members right now. A Sabriel , a Sastiel. Etc. There’s a bunch of fractal J2 hat groups that have like 3-10 people, one has like 20. Any time I try to search J2M I’m getting a nightmare deluge of unrelated results and freeze when I click to page 2 to find something relevant. The Team Free Will group looks young and may end up redundant on a feed, only time will tell. Actor based groups seem… smaller. There’s a J2 Fanart group, but not one for them independently. 17 members. There’s a misha group called Mishapocalypse . So that’s still needing to get built up over there all-around.

For what it’s worth, I tried to paste a few together:

Right now, Supernatural Meta has 19 members. You don't have to be a meta author to join.

Annnnd I just put together a “The Brothers - Sam and Dean”place to enjoy non-shippy talk, content and conversation about the brothers. Just forage up the rules and roll.

And I have a Bobo Appreciation club I just launched but the site is in lag-mode and I don’t have the will to find the link.

Disclaimer: I’m just going with the biggest groups I’ve seen. I have not personally investigated all of these. I can’t say I’m necessarily endorsing all of these as awesome places or whatever, but it’s a place to START on a new platform. And before I get a concern troll asking why I linked a Wincest group, whether we like it or not, Wincest is here. It’s not the biggest ship, it’s not the cleanest ship, it’s not the - whatever. I don’t agree with it, most of my followers don’t agree with it, but lots of fans are multishippers, are scattered abroad, and frankly… now is not the time to be separated bitching over our differences.

Now  a short bit about what communities are GOOD FOR and why I endorse them so much.

See, when you join a community, you get subscribed to all posts going through that community, whether you follow the individual or not. If you fear a community will give content you don't want to see, blacklist the tag on the sidebar under Filters & Blacklist and, if someone just utterly fails to tag their trash you don't want to see, there's always the block function. If a community has more bad than good for you, maybe try to find another, or make your own. There's lots.

But that said, it helps us find each other and content while this platform is young. If you post, say, to the Supernatural group, several hundred people get your post blasted across their feed, presuming you aren't using a tag they blacklisted. It keeps feeds active and keeps us from climbing into holes we lose information in. And, frankly, gives even the smallest account a chance to be seen by the world.

Okay cool, you've found a few communities, there's posts on your feed, you know where to start chattering and finding people, so how does this work past THAT?

Well, first there's a few realistic messages from early beta users and devs about the platform worth reading.

A sort-of masterpost of tutorials and how-tos.

Where to find the beta community, make a wishlist of features to suggest to the devs, introduce yourself, find known issues, contact the staff, history, find other base cornerstone communities outside of fandom, tips, how-tos, you name it. REALLY USEFUL POST. MUST READ.

Realistic expectations for the client in beta.

How to jerry rig it to work as a mobile app with notifications.

In the area of visuals, if you're tired of the blue ... ocean that surrounds us while they refine their visual experiences, if you're on desktop, I made a series of SPN skins. Follow the instructions to install the skin of choice.

Sam Winchester - Vivid; Warm tones, mostly red

Rowena; Dark, black, violet, red.

Team Free Will - Dark; amber green blue slate

Sam & Dean - Earth tones, medium theme

Dean & Cas 1 - vivid; bright, blue/green

Dean & Cas 2 - dark, blue/green, slate, transparent side bar, feather head navbar.

The second Dean & Cas one is the most extensive. The first were quick generated slap-overs to get rid of the most persistent blinding elements, D&C2 I took it a few steps further. It’s lightly responsive with glows on link hovers, more image overlays tucked around quietly, wider use of gradients and color filled posts to match the theme, which the others don’t have. In time I’m going to see if I can start styling the divs themselves such as changing shape/align. Pretty sure I can. I’m weathered in the fires of RPH profile editing to make CSS do ridic stuff.

And yes, I take requests. I do it for free, right now at least. It’ll probably go obsolete. I don’t have a huge number of requests. So why not?

Keep in mind, there's some differences between pillowfort and tumblr, which most people are migrating from. Personally, I consider these HUGE improvements and steps forward once this place gets bigger. So let's do a breakdown, in complement to some of the resources I linked above.

So what makes Pillowfort so fucking special?

Okay, so check it out. On tumblr, we’re used to reblogging shit into the  depths of the internet. As Pillowfort grows it, too, has that capability with some differences. The boldest difference is that when you reblog, your opinion doesn’t get attached to the end of the post. It just reblogs the base post. Some people initially complained and thought that was the loss of a feature but came to realize it’s a blessing.

You see, that means someone can’t kidnap your post with a shitty opinion to reblog it to their friends with a shitty opinion that all attach their heckling shitty opinions. Like, let’s say it’s someone that’s Destiel fandom reading this. Ever had an anti shit reblog your post and it run wild? Well, now, if they try to reblog it, all they reblog is… your Destiel post. Thanks for that.

So how do we actually say what we need to?

Well, fam, it incorporated elements from LJ/DW, in having threaded replies. Multiple threads if so needed. The threaded replies are capable of housing just about anything an OP has. So a blog post has, alongside Like/Reblog notifications, comments. Open the post, read the comments, start an actual conversation with some merit. Did some douchebag come to spam your comments since they can’t reblog? No problem, delete their shitty comments and block them, problem solved.

But it doesn’t end there.

Double back to the stuff about communities I bragged up, above. Notice what all that gives you. Realize you can blog into/out of/across different communities.

When you make your own communities you can have internal discussions or blog in/out posts, you can set rules, promote moderators, remove or ban problem users, and generally control the flow of your community to keep out shitlords. But, if for example, you subscribed to a community that turns out to be secretly run BY a shitlord because, IDK, maybe they don’t like that you think Sam is bi or something, most of these communities are large and blog in/out/engageable enough that you won’t lose your contacts, you WILL find your people over time, and you won’t be completely choked off to a singular abyss.

So the base beat is

PF treats every single post like any root post on an LJ/DW comm, but is able to be reblogged from/to communities or your own blog page as freely as tumblr.  PF takes the best concepts of current and previous fandom platforms in its base application and lays a groundwork that literally all of us can prosper on if it survives and continues.

“I kinda like PF but it doesn’t have X feature-”

Okay look, PF is a smolbabe, like I said. It’s in beta. The thing is, they’re adding things every day. They have a dev list like 2 pages long for goals and things are getting crossed off and added like, biweekly. It might already be on their list to add. And if it’s not, guess what?

The staff actually give a shit and react to questions and concerns. There’s entire beta groups to talk about features with bugs, and/or features that should be added or adjusted. There’s a comm to talk directly to the staff about things. They're linked above in this post, and you can find them, leave what you want to see modified or added... boom! Help make this platform WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE.

A small, young platform needs people willing to be out there saying what would improve the experience. You’re not just fandom pioneers, you’re social media pioneers if you so choose to be. It’s not mandatory. You can just fan in your space how you want. Or you can go to the beta groups and staff groups and tell them what you think would improve the experience.  Keep in mind, tumblr didn't start with all the bells and whistles it ended up with. It didn't start with a bazillion users. But some people put their toes in the water while others jumped in, and others stayed back for years until all their friends changed pools.

Hopefully this answers most questions, concerns, and wants for people tripping into Pillowfort from the fandoms I attend right now. If anything still confuses you -- don't be shy about making USE of the powerful differences. Pop open this post, leave a comment, hold a conversation and I'll help how I can.