#using fandom tags to boost

[shotorozu]

Hello 🖐

I am Abdulrahman, and I am responsible for my mother and sister. I was at the beginning of my dream to study and work, but the war came and destroyed my job and studies. I want to leave Gaza and protect my family as soon as possible. Please help me by donating or sharing my story 🙏🙏.

The war has not only destroyed dreams but uprooted our lives and taken away our sense of security. Amidst the devastation, my heart still beats with hope. My mother and sister deserve a dignified life, far from the sounds of bombing and constant fear. Your support is the light we need to start a new life 😥💔.

https://gofund.me/bc721399

hello! thank you for reaching out.

to everyone reading this, please help abdulrahman by either donating or sharing his story (reblogging). this is another palestinian family that burns bright with hope for the better, and another family deserves support— support that should not be a privilege, but a right.

abdulrahman deserves to achieve his goals, and so do his mother and sister. they deserve to be safe.

[densewentz]

DenseWentz’s End of '23 Commission Information

Alrighty guys!! Ol' Dense has to pay some dental bills so lo and behold my ever-rare commissions are opening back up!

I am open to drawing both fandom and oc content. You can check out my art tag here or my instagram for more examples of my work.

For full commission and contact information check here

Notable Terms

All prices are USD and all payments are through Paypal Invoice only

If order total is under $50, full payment is due up front, otherwise 50% of payment is due upfront, and remaining 50% is due after initial sketches are sent

Commissions are being opened with limited slots available 

I reserve the right to turn down commissions for any reason

All artwork delivered is for Personal Use Only and any use/affiliation with any sort of AI program is absolutely prohibited

Commission slots are limited and will close again in a few weeks so if you’re interested be sure to contact me with your concept and your references!

If you’ve got questions or want to pitch a commissions please feel free to message me here, email me at densewentz@gmail.com or add me on Discord as densewentz

Let's make some art!

[skeepy-deepy34]

Reposting this from my TikTok considering I doubt most people on here will see it on tiktok

Also here’s a doc that has more screenshots

DOC

[purple-phesh-and-cheps]

My family is still staying in half of the church that wasn’t affected by the bombing because there is nowhere else to stay other than tents. They are limited to one small meal a day and one shower a week. They are sleeping on the floors, but no one can sleep since there is bombing everywhere around them. Even when there is no bombing, they can still hear the loud buzzing sound of the military planes above them, which would keep anyone who hears it awake. Along with everything, My grandma has diabetes and osteoporosis, so she can’t walk. She has to take her insulin medication along with many others; however, she has run out of many of her medications.” Am on my knees requesting for donation. Target $450

I am sorry, I am unable to donate, but hopefully some people who see this can

[blue-skelly]

Just wanted to highlight another campaign! Reem is stuck in Gaza with eight people in her family: her children, Sahar, Dana, Mona, Yehya, and Malak; her husband Fahed; and her mom Mona. She's 87% of her way to her fundraiser goal and she needs money to support her family! If you have $5 (enough for a coffee) to spend, please help this family in Gaza! Thanks!

This campaign was verified by el-shab-hussein as a completely legit fundraiser!

https://www.tumblr.com/el-shab-hussein/749777880017502208/another-fundraiser-i-trust?source=share

Their verification process involves looking at IDs, checking their numbers to see if they have the Gaza area code, and checking if they speak Palestinian Arabic.

PLEASE REBLOG NO MATTER WHAT!

[harpieisthecarpie]

Mildly important fanwork/fandom interaction questions! Anyone can feel free to answer!

Thinking about fandom interactions, I'm wondering about how we as fan communities can create fun environments and engage with other fans more!

You can answer (or not answer) however many of these questions as you want! The questions bolded with their number in purple are the ones I'm most curious about.

Feel free to reply in the reblogs, tags, or comments!

If you can, please reblog so we can get more answers :)

Questions below!

(There's sections for fans that make fanworks, fans that interact with fanworks, and fans that enjoy fanworks but don't interact.)

Fans that create fanworks (fanart, fanfic, edits, etc):

A1. What are your favorite kinds of interactions/comments? Ex. Long rambles, analyses and theories, strings of incoherent garbled yelling

A2. Where do you like to get them? Ex. Ao3 vs Tumblr, reblogs vs tags vs comments, in DMs?

A3. Do you want or enjoy people creating stuff inspired by or modifying yours? (Creating as in art of your fic, fic of your art, etc. Modifying as in translations, podfics, etc)

A4. Do you want or enjoy people promoting your stuff? Ex. fic rec lists, sharing in groupchats, posting about your stuff with links to it

A5. How do you feel when you get nice comments or have good interactions?

A6. Most importantly, what would you say to people who are scared to or or don't know how to start interacting with fanworks?

Fans that enjoy fanworks and interact with them:

B1. What kind of comments do you like leaving and where do you leave them? Ex. Ao3 vs Tumblr, reblogs vs tags vs comments

B2. What makes you more likely to interact?

B3. What made you start interacting?

B4. Have you made any friends or mutuals by commenting and interacting?

B5. Has leaving comments and talking with creatives changed how you feel about or approach your own fanworks?

B6. How has interacting with fanworks and the guys who make them improved your fan experience?

People that enjoy fanworks but don't interact (no judgment! We're all different 💛):

C1. Do you want to interact more? If you do, what makes you want to comment or interact?

C2. Is there anything holding you back? Ex. nerves, unsure how, bad past experiences, etc.

C3. Do you make your own fanworks? Has that affected (or been affected by) your choice not to interact?

C4. Are there ways other fans could help or encourage you to interact or get involved? Are there any ways you want to encourage yourself?

THANKS FOR ANSWERING IF YOU DO :D

PS. Add a 💛 or <3 to your response/reblog if you want me to make an anonymous survey focusing on this topic!

I'd compile and post the results so we can see how our fellow fans think :)

[earthfromadistance]

a post I absolutely hate to make but I am in the trenches. I recently had a fall which aggravated an already miserable chronic pain issue and had me in and out of the emergency room. I currently live paycheck to paycheck so missing even a day of work unfortunately causes a huge financial burden.

This is the current state of my bank account. Everything in savings has to go to rent which is due on the first. My car insurance payment of 210 dollars was due on the 23rd which I asked to pay on the 27th, but then ended up missing work to be in the hospital on 10/19 and 10/20 so my paycheck was 380 dollars today. I ended up back in the emergency room on 10/25 which means my check on 11/03 will be short as well and rent(1400) and my phone bill(200)will need to come out as well🫠

I have no talents to offer in return but I would be eternally grateful even just for a reblog

I have:

c@shapp - tmeachh

venm0 - tmeachhh

z3lle - tanisharose83@hotmail.com

If there’s any questions you can contact me on my main blog: @choreo-mania . The only reason this is being posted here is because my main blog is shadow banned 🤡

[jinglerat]

Maybe you could use a public library or rent a laptop, or why can’t you use your phone??? You can’t look for jobs on your phone??? before begging strangers on the internet, in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis/inflation ever, who are all probably struggling also, and using multiple fandom tags to get peoples notice.

Very sketchy and sus.

I think you assume I live in the US or in some first world country where public libraries have laptops to loan out. I live in the Philippines, a country with a very underfunded library system that does not rent out laptops. And if I wanted to use/rent a public computer, it's only available at a computer shop with units below industry standard and at a significant hourly fee for use. Can't even take the unit home.

The jobs I apply to and qualify for require having a laptop with specific specs to meet the industry standard. I can apply to jobs on my phone but they won't entertain me once they ask for my computer specs because I'll have no computer to show for.

You could have just blocked or reported me if you thought I was scamming people. I used those tags because those are the fandoms I'm in and where I make friends.

Do you think I'm above suffering with the cost of living crisis? My monthly salary is the equivalent of 600 US dollars and I can barely afford an apartment with windows and without mold. And that's already considered a "decent salary" locally. Inflation has hit such a record high in my country, 1 US dollar is worth a barely decent meal. Two years ago, that amount could buy me two meals in a day.

I'm gonna go look for jobs now while this company issued laptop is still in my possession.

I hope you have a great day shitting on other people who are just like you, also trying to get by with this crisis.

For the rest who bothered to read this and would like to help out a trans filipino who lives alone and has no family who could help them out or fall back on, the original fundraising post anon is angry about is here X. You can reblog it or just send a dollar my way to feed me for another day.

[whoblewboobear]

It’s strange, I’m used to hyperfixating hard on things like HARD (beats my 2yr long beetlejuice musical obsession back with a stick) but Starbreaker- not even fantasy high itself took me over to the point of feeling like a teen about. Like I haven’t had this much fun in fandom in years. I haven’t like- interacted with people this much in fandom in years (which is still not enough but if I beat myself up about social interaction again I’ll jump off a cliff)

But there’s never been a concern of like “this obsession won’t fade for a while but it’ll lose popularity” and that’s fine and surprisingly it hasn’t. But it is different. It’s like adapting to it constantly as the thing itself changes even when there are aspects that you’d like to stay the same. Like that ‘I don’t go to this school of thought, but I’ll still take the class bc it’s interesting’ sorta thing.

And then there’s that feeling of WANTING to contribute but the thing has become such a beast that it’s like oooh I’m so out of my depths here.

Also like constantly having to look myself in the eye and be like ‘bitch you don’t have to talk or contribute to EVERYTHING’ and the sooner I accept that and accept that it is what it is, ill miss things, I won’t get enjoyment out of every aspect and every aspect isn’t for me and that that isn’t a bad thing, I’ll stop having moments of feeling weird and out of place. I have my lil corner and that’s okay

[summerstrash]

Something I find really frustrating but arguably useful about this year's Hellfire Gala & fan reaction to it is that I can finally put a name to the thing that stresses me out about engaging with other fans, especially in a critical context:

I treat other people's criticism of a text as though they are making an argument about its objective worthiness and likability. Not just expressing why they don't like something, my brain mistakenly insists that all criticism is trying to persuade me not to like the thing.

And if their argument seems logical and valid, especially with regards to politics, morality, or justice, I feel like I'm a worse person for having wanted to enjoy the thing, and I should therefore trust my own opinions and experiences of a text even less than I already do, because This Other Person Has Won A Moral Argument, Therefore I'm A Gullible Fool Who Can't Be Trusted To Like Things Properly.

And so many people's well-justified critical or negative reactions to X-Men stories do come from a place of feeling frustrated by the comics not living up to their (the comics', not just the readers') ideals vis a vis injustice, especially with regard to race, an area where I as a white person do not feel knowledgeable enough to have valid opinions to begin with.

Do any other white fans have any experience with this feeling, and especially how to move past this extremely unuseful reflex my brain has saddled me with? I'm frankly sick of not being able to productively process criticisms I objectively agree with, and I don't want to make this a problem fans of color need to solve, because it's absolutely not their job to help me manage my brain's bullshit.

[thebrokenbean]

I'm so freaking scared of this bill. I don't even live in the US, but I know people who do and I'm honestly so scared for them!

People in the US make up such a massive chunk of the internet. If this bill passes, it's going to ruin everything for everyone. Everyone is going to be affected in some way, shape, or form.

internet censorship bill about to pass congress:

ao3 is facing a ddos attack from an overseas right-wing anonymous group because it contains "degeneracy and disgusting things like LGBT and NSFW".

they're not the only right-wing group that is attacking fanfiction sites because of queer & nsfw content. the Heritage foundation, the US right wing think tank that writes laws for republicans, wrote an article about how "big tech turns kids trans" in which they're advocating for the Kid's Online Safety Act to pass because it will give state attorney generals power to sue websites for "potentially harmful content towards minors". in this article they point out websites like wattpad, tumblr, tiktok, twitter as sites that GOP attorney generals can and will target for censorship if this bill passes. all places where fandom, that's mostly queer, hangs out.

if you think this bill has no chance of passing because of all the red flags it poses, think again. it currently has 38 cosponsors in the senate, and is being pushed by the democrats as a "protecting the children!!" type bill.

there are left-aligned orgs in congress rn lobbying for this bill to pass. july is extremely decisive, because if KOSA goes through to markup it'll be bundled with the Earn It act, Restrict, and all the other bad internet bills and passed as a package, completely censoring the internet forever.

if you want to learn more about the bill, go here. also sign the open letter against it here

it's ESSENTIAL that you call your members of congress, specifically Maria Cantwell (you can call from out of state) and tell them DO NOT PASS KOSA. this site here connects you to your members of congress and gives you a short simple script to read off of! super easy and doesn't take much out of your day! please do this now!!

[mybrainproblems]

I don't read much fic but occasionally get the urge and part of me is like. Have I totally lost the skill to find what I want on AO3? But then I remember that we used to have a wealth of fic rec lists in tags with multi-sentence reviews that at least gave you a starting point for what's out there.

[sleep-deprived-person]

So apparently KOSA (2024 edition) is getting either thrown out until next year or put into effect in six days. That was a guesstimate based on a different person saying that's when Congress is back in session and may be false.

Update that's going in the main post at the top: it has enough support to pass Congress.

It failed the last two times because people were voting against it.

This time, KOSA has traction among the pro-LGBTQ parties. Because nobody is fucking calling their bullshit and screaming from the rooftops that calling it the "Kids Online Safety Act" is misleading.

What will it passing do?

Nothing much, only prevent any education on LGBTQIA+ (it's that stupid fucking argument about us grooming kids again), shut down nearly every fandom space on the internet, and make it required for most big tech companies to have your ID.

Want to have resources for kids to discover their identity readily available? Yes? Then fucking speak up against this stupid fucking bill.

Fandom spaces like Tumblr, Twitter (? I thought the MAGA assholes liked Musk?), Tiktok, Archive Of Our Own, and any other website that hosts fanfic or fanart? Either shut down permanently, forced to uproot to a different country and down for a while (best case scenario, and they likely won't be able to send any data, and therefore fanfics, to the US), or gutted so that you only get to put G rated cishet ships on there, if any shipping at all. How to avoid that? I've already said it: Call your fucking representatives.

Want to avoid the fucking dystopic task of being legally obligated to give big tech your government issue ID? Again, cause an uproar. Call your goddamned representatives.

If they can pass this, the ripple effects could be catastrophic.

So, for fuck's sake, any Americans that can impact this stupid fucking bill and see this? Do everything in your power to shut it down because you have until February twenty sixth (26th) to send this bill back to where it belongs.

And if you can't do that? Reblog, copy my tags, and boost the signal.

Sorry not sorry for ranting, making you scroll through that, and swearing a probably excessive amount, but KOSA is a bill with a GLOBAL IMPACT being passed by ONE COUNTRY because some old people are scared of two guys with who were told they were girls kissing within five hundred miles of a child. Fuck this shit, I shouldn't have to worry about bad bills in America but I fucking do because I use the internet and would like to avoid mass censorship. Fuck this, fuck conservatives, and fuck the fact that some boomers make your country's policies.

Now, if you won't mind me, I'm going to be up until three in the morning downloading fanfiction or copying and pasting them into a a text file if I can't so I can read them by the end of the week.

[arrolyn1114]

This is SO important! Please don't do this, don't charge for fanfic. It puts us all at risk. If you wanna make money off something you wrote you gotta divorce it from the source material! Let's all protect fanfic and all our talented writers across all fandoms so we can continue to be creative and enjoy the fandoms we love. ❤️

once again, to the people charging money for fanfiction: be more freaking careful before you get us all taken down?!?!?!?! you shouldn't be doing that at all because you don't have any right to make money off someone else's copyright, but making noise about it risks legal repercussions even for people who don't charge! STOP THAT.

and DEFINITELY don't be advertising it on AO3

[benetnvsch]

Nothing beats the primal feeling of fear I get when something appears on my dash with tags i blacklisted For An Actual Serious reason just bc the original post had that tag and Not The Person who reblogged it oughhh-

[end-otw-racism]

End OTW Racism: A Call To Action

A fan protest against the lack of action from the OTW on addressing issues of harassment and racism on AO3 and within the organization

This is a Call To Action for Fans of Color and Allies

AO3 has acknowledged that they have a harassment & racism problem that its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), needs to address. Currently, people can use AO3 to harass others through fanworks, comments, and tags. Just a few examples include: racist Untamed “spitefic” that used anti-Indigenous slurs and was written specifically to lash out at fans of color; a Transformer fic that used its Black-coded character to reenact George Floyd’s murder in July 2020; someone naming a fandom scholar who criticized their Nazi omegaverse fic in the tags of the fic specifically to incite harassment to the scholar; writers using racial slurs against commenters who pointed out racism in their hockey fic; and so much more.

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the OTW committed to addressing these issues. It has been nearly three years and they have not yet implemented any of the changes they promised, other than a blocking/muting tool that was already in development before 2020. We need to hold the OTW accountable to their own promises. (See the section further down on “Why Are We Doing This” for even more detail.)

As fans, together, we are powerful. We are organizing to protest the lack of action on promises made by the Organization for Transformative works to deal with issues of racism and harassment on their platform, Archive of Our Own.

We call on fans to do any or all of the following actions any time between May 17 to 31, 2023 to send a message to AO3 and OTW that we will hold them to their promises.

On AO3

Change the title of ten (or more!) of your most recent or most popular fanworks to include ‘End Racism in the OTW’ in the beginning, and provide a link to this post in your summary or first/top creator’s note

Post a new fanwork any time between May 17th to 31st with “End Racism in the OTW” either as the title or at the beginning of the title. The fanwork does not have to be long - it can be a 100-word fic, a quick sketch, a podfic of a ficlet, a 20-second vid/edit, a short piece of meta, etc. In the summary or first/top creator’s note, provide a link to this post

If updating any WIPs with a new chapter, add ‘End Racism in the OTW’ to the title and provide a link back to this post in your summary or first/top author’s note

Update your AO3 icon using the profile pic graphic in our Social Media Toolkit

Plan to maintain these changes until May 31, 2023, or longer if you wish

Send a message to the OTW asking for an update on their 2020 commitments!

For Readers: leave encouraging comments on fanworks with the "End Racism in the OTW" title to show your support of this initiative.

On tumblr

Reblog this Call to Action with the tag #End OTW Racism

Update your profile pics and banners using the graphics in our Social Media Toolkit

Follow this account for updates and signal boost our posts

On Twitter

Follow @/EndOTWRacism (remove the backslash) and signal boost our pinned tweet

Update your profile pics and banners using our graphics, and change your display name to include #EndOTWRacism

Use sample tweets and graphics from our Social Media Toolkit to tweet about your fanworks, and use the hashtag #EndOTWRacism

Help us make this a long-term campaign - sign up to help with other anti-racism projects and future actions!

What Do We Want?

Since their June 2020 statement, OTW has been working on updating their Terms of Service (TOS) to address racist and bigoted harassment, but with little transparency and only the vaguest of updates. It has been three years since their commitment to this update - we want to see the results of their work implemented in the next 6-12 months. Their TOS updates and complementary policies should include:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

These points are not particularly new and are not our own innovation; please refer to Stitch's article written over two years ago, asking for several of these very things.

OTW has also already committed to various process-based actions for longer-term works towards centering antiracism, including hiring a Diversity Consultant. The last update that OTW published said that the consultant would be hired within the next five years (after already having had three years to work on it since their original commitment). That is not soon enough. We want to see the following process-based actions implemented:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

Why Are We Doing This?

16 years ago, Astolat famously published her manifesto calling for a fandom Archive of One’s Own. In that time, AO3 has grown to be a central pillar of fandom, likely far outstripping its founders’ original vision. It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience. AO3 and the OTW must continue to grow and evolve with fandom over time to remain a healthy and functioning pillar of fandom. To that end, there are several areas in which the organization, as it admits itself, is lacking.

In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The OTW published a “This Week in Fandom” referencing the works of Dr. Rukmini Pande and Stitch, among others in which they discussed ‘making change for a better society’ through ‘conversations about race and racism’. In response, Dr. Pande and Stitch submitted a letter to the OTW calling for a more formal public statement than an offhand reference in a News Roundup that only served to call for thoughts and discussion without any indication the organization intended to do anything, policy wise, to address the issues being raised.

Eventually, the organization did remove the references to the works of Dr. Pande and Stitch and then made an official statement on the issue of racism within the organization and AO3. In it, they identified several things they would be prioritizing to combat harassment and benefit users. Some of those have been implemented (notably those that were already under development). However as of this writing, little else has been done especially in regards to:

Improving admin tools for the Policy & Abuse team

Reassessing the current mandatory archive warnings with the possibility of implementing others

And, most importantly, reviewing the Terms of Service (TOS) to allow the Policy & Abuse team to address harassment that is currently not covered by the existing TOS

By their own admission, the current tools and policies of the OTW are not sufficient to deal with issues of harassment and racism.

Several people who were involved in the founding of the OTW, including previous OTW Board members and staff on the original OTW Content Policy Committee, acknowledge that the founding of the OTW in 2008 and early board iterations failed us as a fandom by not doing enough, and by not even considering the way racism is perpetuated in fannish spaces, despite a long history of racism in fandom.

It has been nearly three years since the original commitment by the organization with little visible, measurable progress on these three crucial issues and a complete lack of transparency on where they are in regards to even beginning to deal with these issues. In fact, in Q&As, it was heavily implied by a member of the board that those calling for OTW to deal with issues of racism (which OTW had already acknowledged as a problem!) were not really fans but outside agitators.

This has cast significant doubt on the organization's sincerity and commitment to their stated goals, and on their position as leaders of a central fan tent-pole. Fans of color are not outsiders. They are right here, members of our community, and they are being harassed and targeted and driven out while space and platforms are being given to racists.

We, as fans of color and our allies, find the current state of fandom and current actions (and lack thereof) unacceptable. Fandom is our space, all of ours. We, as a fandom, have a right to a racism-free space and have a duty to our fellow fans to create that space. Unlike so much of the world, this is a space we can control and make better. It is a space we must make better. To read even more about this movement, visit our FAQs.