Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.
That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.
That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.
That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.
That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.
That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.
That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.
None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.
I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.
If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.
Celebrate fan work!
To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.
my stupid fucking aunt loraine bought us an air friar for our wedding present 🤦♀️ the apartments barely big enough for the two of us now weve got this dumb asshole flying around preaching at us ... every time i get a migraine he tries to give me herbs and poultices 🙄
[ID: A stock photo of someone with short brown hair lying down on a couch and holding a bucket of popcorn, with a smug/intrigued expression on their face. /End ID]
So Universal Pictures may have just intentionally over-pruned all of the city owned trees in front of their LA corporate office in an effort to fuck with the WGA/SAG-AFTRA picketers during what is predicted to be the hottest week of the year so far:
the thing is this dashboard change isnt the end of the world ill get used to it whatever im just fucking dying of embarrassment that its supposed to look like twitter
as a genderqueer person who's biggest threat comes from their transphobic mother and has a passive father who doesn't take initiative to defend me against my mom, xanthe's story in spirit world hits so fucking hard
it's really nice to see mothers who aren't perfect and hurt the characters without the narrative apologizing for them like they usually do bc society seems to believe that moms are perfect angels who can do no wrong and only fathers can be abusive when my mom is the one who's caused most of my trauma, not my dad
(also shout out to constantine for being a good queer elder)
Do your part to support japanese artists on tumblr by following the らくがき (doodle) tag so you see newly uploaded pieces of art that often get 0-5 notes at best
Miiight be thinking a lot about playing MC since my computer is out of commission for now,, and ok not to be possessed by the spirit of a horse girl from a movie who has a beautiful yet unexplainable bond with her once-untamable steed but if u ask me what's the best Minecraft mod ever I would say this on a heartbeat
U can CALL UR HORSES TO UR SIDE!! No more leading over rivers or abandoning it somewhere!!! u can RUN EVERYWHERE WITH H O N S E!! SPECIALLY IF U PLAYING WITH MODDED BIOMES WHERE THERES SO MUCH TO SEE SO MANY PLACES TO GO SO MANY SITES TO EXPLORE 10000000/10 THIS COMPLETELY CHANGES EARLY-MID GAME
I caught myself thinking "man I love my horse :]" more than once when playing with it I dreamed about Minecraft horses a few nights ago bc of this mod. Would recommend.
That thing, in particular, was a thirty dollar Barnes & Noble gift certificate. I was still too young for a part-time job, so I didn’t have this kind of spending cash on me, ever. I felt like a god.
Drunk with power, I fancy-stepped my way to my local B&N. I was ready to choose new books based solely on the most important of qualities…BADASS COVER ART. I walked away with a handful of paperbacks, most of which were horrible (I’m looking at you, Man-Kzin Wars III) or simply forgettable.
One book did not disappoint. I fell down the rabbit hole into a series that proved to be as badass as the cover art promised (Again, Man-Kzin Wars III, way to drop the ball on that one). With more than a dozen books in the series, I devoured them. I bought cassette tapes of ballads sung by bards in the stories. And the characters. Oh, the characters. I loved them. Gryphons, mages, but most importantly, lots of women. Different kinds of women. So many amazing women. I looked up to them, wrote bad fiction that lifted entire portions of dialogue and character descriptions, dreamed of writing something that the author would include in an anthology.
This year I decided in a fit of nostalgia to revisit the books I loved so damn much. I wanted to reconnect with my old friends…
…and I found myself facing Mary Sues. Lots of them. Perfect, perfect, perfect. A fantasy world full of Anakin Skywalkers and Nancy Drews and Wesley Crushers. I felt crushed. I had remembered such complex, deep characters and didn’t see those women in front of me at all anymore. Where were those strong women who kept me safe through the worst four years of my life?
Which led me to an important realization as I soldiered on through book after book. That’s why I needed them. Because they were Mary Sues. These books were not written to draw my attention to all the ugly bumps and whiskers of the real world. They were somewhere to hide. I was painfully aware that I was being judged by my peers and adults and found lacking. I was a fuckup. And sometimes a fuckup needs to feel like a Mary Sue. As an adult, these characters felt a little thin because they lacked the real world knowledge I, as an adult, had learned and earned. But that’s the thing…these books weren’t FOR this current version of myself. Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.
There is a reason that most fanfiction authors, specifically girls, start with a Mary Sue. It’s because girls are taught that they are never enough. You can’t be too loud, too quiet, too smart, too stupid. You can’t ask too many questions or know too many answers. No one is flocking to you for advice. Then something wonderful happens. The girl who was told she’s stupid finds out that she can be a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore. And that is something very important. Terrible at sports? You’re a warrior who does backflips and Legolas thinks you’re THE BEST. No friends? You get a standing ovation from Han Solo and the entire Rebel Alliance when you crash-land safely on Hoth after blowing up the Super Double Death Star. It’s all about you. Everyone in your favorite universe is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT YOU.
I started writing fanfiction the way most girls did, by re-inventing themselves.
Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.
As a girl, being “selfish” was the worst thing you could be. Now you live in Narnia and Prince Caspian just proposed marriage to you. Why? Your SELF is what saved everyone from that sea serpent. Plus your hair looks totally great braided like that.
In time, hopefully, these hardworking fanfiction authors realize that it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle and their characters adjust to respond to that. As people grow and learn, characters grow and learn. Turns out your Elven Mage is more interesting if he isn’t also the best swordsman in the kingdom. Not everyone needs to be hopelessly in love with your Queen for her to be a great ruler. There are all kinds of ways for people to start owning who they are, and embracing the things that make them so beautifully weird and complicated.
Personally, though, I think it’s a lot more fun learning how to trust yourself and others if you all happen to be riding dragons.
it really is sad that algorithmic feeds have broken peoples' brains so badly. people really do come here and go "wait, i have to CHOOSE who i follow to get posts on my dashboard???" because a social media site working the way they were always supposed to work is so alien now. people will assume the site is a ghost town because they don't follow enough active users. there has to be a constant stream of New Content every time you refresh, regardless of whether or not said Content is any good
you can never just get caught up on your feed and put the phone down, because that's not what tiktok and insta and twitter and facebook have conditioned users to expect. putting the phone down means you're not looking at more ads and generating revenue for the site. when you venture off of the following feed twitter's algorithm is very transparently designed to show you bait tweets and other things that will make you angry, because getting people to argue is one of the easiest ways to drive engagement. it's no wonder threads just launched with no following feed whatsoever, just an infinite stream of algorithmic slop. these sites don't want you to curate your own experience because then you might develop a healthier relationship with them. that's not what they want. they want addiction
It's important to me that everyone understands that if you've got an autistic friend who periodically sends you pictures/videos/whatever of your Thing, because they know you're into it... They love you.
Now don't get me wrong, It may not necessarily be romantic love, they might not want to run off to a little farm in Montana where you'll be married forever and raise little sheeps...
But they definitely love you. And they're so happy when they spot a post about X and go "ooh, my friend likes X! I'll send it to them!".
lambsprout
animentality
unforth
glyphsmash
galahadiant
xenoqueenie
atomic-cat-dragon
amalgamasreal
catmask
pop-and-lock
dunkstein
dipsybelle
catchymemes
bucket-of-amethyst
ohapossum
unwinona
geekmehard
aethersea
thoodleoo
ALT
redscharlach
ponett
foone