mscaptainwinchester - Tumblr blog

[mscaptainwinchester]

ARTIST SIGN-UPS ARE OPEN!

SPIDEYPOOL BIG BANG 2024 ARTIST SIGN-UPS ARE OPEN!

The Spideypool Big Bang is a yearly collaborative event celebrating and producing content for our fave masked duo! 

You can find our Rules, FAQ, and Schedule on our wiki page. 

We have made several rule changes this year, most importantly banning the use of generative AI, so please make sure to read them before you sign up. 

If there’s anything not covered by the information links above or there’s something you’re unsure about, feel free to contact us at spideypoolbb@gmail.com or send us an Ask. 

Sign-ups for Artists will be open from May 1 to May 31 at 18:00 EST via this form.

For those over 18, feel free to join the “Isn’t it Bromantic” Spideypool server through this link. Please make sure to introduce yourself and state that you are a participant in the SPBB, as well as what role you have signed up for so that we may assign you the correct roles. This will grant you access to the SPBB rooms, where you can discuss your creations freely. 

We look forward to having you with us!

Your Mods 

MsCaptainWinchester and Nimohtar

[mscaptainwinchester]

I'm gonna say it.

It's unhinged to assume that someone's taste in fiction equates to what they believe is moral or good, or is something they want to see or experience in real life.

That is a bonkers assumption to make.

I'm tired of humoring people with long arguments about it when the simple fact is it is a totally fucking absurd reach to accuse someone who enjoys something in fiction of being in favor of it in real life.

I'm tired of pretending like this is a legitimate position to hold-- that they should be afraid of fiction's dire influence on a reader's moral decay or that it's a sign of what the author secretly wants for realsies in real life.

[mscaptainwinchester]

Well, I'm about to lose it and I'm not sorry

At this hearing, I stand before my fellow members of The Tortured Poets Department with a summary of my findings. 

Album tonight. 

Fortnight music video tomorrow at 8pm et.

https://taylor.lnk.to/thetorturedpoetsdepartment

[mscaptainwinchester]

Sliding in the archive version of the article in case you, like me, are being shoved in front of a subscribe screen instead of being able to read the original.

As promised! I wrote about the illegal fanbinding that's led to writers deleting their works recently, how that connects to the current pull-to-publish wave, and what happens when the rapidly expanding sphere of fic readers starts to get disconnected from *fandom*:

The ever-increasing reach of fanfiction has inched the practice away from text-written-in-community to a more traditional author-reader relationship—and the context collapse that’s come with viral works being treated like any other romance novel has spurred clashes between different types of readers with different sets of expectations. In the past few years, fic authors across all corners of fandom have increasingly complained about shifting attitudes from readers who treat them like any other content creator, demanding the next chapter as you might demand your favorite influencer’s next video. But unlike on creative platforms like TikTok and YouTube, the fic writer doesn’t get revenue from their new installment.

We'll also talk about this in some capacity on the next episode of @fansplaining! (In contrast with today's episode, on the non-monetized, gift-economy practices of many fanbinders, whose hobby is also imperiled by the people selling and buying fic.)

[mscaptainwinchester]

pete's fly-eating instincts intensify - end under cut!

[mscaptainwinchester]

Angry 🕷️

[mscaptainwinchester]

Angry 🕷️

[mscaptainwinchester]

ilson, fanart, artist:

分开

[mscaptainwinchester]

SPIDEYPOOL BIG BANG 2024 - OFFICIAL SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED

Hello Fans, Friends, and Frenemies!

The Spideypool Big Bang 2024 Event is officially starting on 1st February!

Please check out the official Schedule, Rules, and FAQ which have finally been updated. There are a few amendments, including an update to the draft requirement to sign-ups (Writers only need 25% + an outline to sign up now!), so even if you've participated before, it would be wise to read through!

For those over 18, feel free to join the Spideypool Isn't It Bromantic server through this link to chat all things Spideypool until Sign-Ups open. Following Sign-Ups, SPBB specific rooms will be available to meet and make friends with other event participants.

If you have any other questions or concerns, you can contact us via spideypoolbb@gmail.com, the Ask on Tumblr, or individually on Discord (MsCaptainWinchester#3164, and Nimohtar#6708).

Make sure to follow the tumblr for all future announcements!

The Mod Team MsCaptainWinchester and Nimohtar

[mscaptainwinchester]

SPIDEYPOOL BIG BANG 2024 - OFFICIAL SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED

Hello Fans, Friends, and Frenemies!

The Spideypool Big Bang 2024 Event is officially starting on 1st February!

Please check out the official Schedule, Rules, and FAQ which have finally been updated. There are a few amendments, including an update to the draft requirement to sign-ups (Writers only need 25% + an outline to sign up now!), so even if you've participated before, it would be wise to read through!

For those over 18, feel free to join the Spideypool Isn't It Bromantic server through this link to chat all things Spideypool until Sign-Ups open. Following Sign-Ups, SPBB specific rooms will be available to meet and make friends with other event participants.

If you have any other questions or concerns, you can contact us via spideypoolbb@gmail.com, the Ask on Tumblr, or individually on Discord (MsCaptainWinchester#3164, and Nimohtar#6708).

Make sure to follow the tumblr for all future announcements!

The Mod Team MsCaptainWinchester and Nimohtar

[mscaptainwinchester]

When Dean and Cas got married, Dean was given a very small piece of Cas’ grace. In turn, he’s now able to see Cas’ wings when he unfurls them.

Some mornings Cas gets up before Dean wakes to stretch his wings in the early light. It takes Deans breath away every time he sees it, pretending to sleep so he can watch Cas be so at ease and peaceful.

[mscaptainwinchester]

2024 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

For those who have used it before: the 2024 Word Tracking Spreadsheet is now available!

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, the annual word tracking spreadsheet is a robust Excel sheet (it can be used in Google Sheets) which allows you to track your wordcount goals and actual wordcount across several projects. There are graphs, time tracking, and all kinds of little bells and whistles.

This is a spreadsheet that I started using in 2012 and it’s been in constant change, adding new things as I discover things that I want to track, or better ideas to help motivate myself. I’ve been sharing it for a long time (I forget exactly how long!) and am happy to post the blank spreadsheet each year.

Both the spreadsheet and an instruction document are available.

2024 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

Word Tracking Spreadsheet Instructions

[mscaptainwinchester]

Amazon's been trying to sell me this book for weeks, but this was a better marketing campaign, for sure.

What do you mean I have to do ~professional marketing~ why can’t I just tell you to go buy my gay vampire book because it’s steamy and cute and explores kinky predator-prey dynamics in a healthy (but still super hot) way?

[mscaptainwinchester]

A/B/O dynamics is such a weird fantasy sex trope. Like you’ve got all these weird elements of mpreg, soul mating/bonding, biting/vampirism, sex pollen/pheremones/Pon Farr, lycanthropy/canine-like anatomy, strange genitalia, breeding kink, complicated gender relationships/imbalances…. and it’s all customizable and everyone does it different, but somehow it’s still comprehensible to fic writers/readers we all just decided a few years ago to roll with it and write it into thousands of fics. Good job folks, it’s so weird but it works

[mscaptainwinchester]

One of the best tips for writing descriptions of pain is actually a snippet I remember from a story where a character is given a host of colored pencils and asked to draw an egg.

The character says that there’s no white pencil.  But you don’t need a white pencil to draw a white egg.  We already know the egg is white.  What we need to draw is the luminance of the yellow lamp and the reflection of the blue cloth and the shadows and the shading.

We know a broken bone hurts.  We know a knife wound hurts.  We know grief hurts.  Show us what else it does.

You don’t need to describe the character in pain.  You need to describe how the pain affects the character - how they’re unable to move, how they’re sweating, how they’re cold, how their muscles ache and their fingers tremble and their eyes prickle.

Draw around the egg.  Write around the pain.  And we will all be able to see the finished product.

[mscaptainwinchester]

Saw my first post with someone admitting they used chatGPT to ‘write a fic’ which they then shared here on tumblr and on Ao3.

To be clear, using AI to churn out a piece of fiction is not writing.

Using a bot (possibly one that was trained using a scrape of Ao3, that is to say, the theft of work from every writer who has posted their work on Ao3) is NOT WRITING.

It is theft. It isn’t creation. It’s a regurgitation of the consumed collective work and effort and heart and time of every writer who has shared their work on Ao3.

‘I’m not a good writer’ is no excuse.

Want to be a writer? Put in the time everyone else does to practice.

Don’t feel confident in your work? Open yourself up to the same vulnerability and risk that the rest of us do.

You don’t get to use a fucking bot to vomit out an approximation of a story and pretend you’ve got skin in the game.

The sad thing? This bot-assembled fic wasn’t bad. It was bland, but it had internal logic, some passing context to character and canon. It wasn’t like those early AI art pieces that had surreal compositions and extra fingers. It wasn’t immediately obvious it was made by a bot.

In this instance the person who posted it admitted they had used a bot. Which, actually, I have some respect for. But it probably isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

I don’t know that there’s a solution to this, but it is both hurting my heart and enraging me.

[mscaptainwinchester]

“Illustrations From A Gay Fantasia” - Joe Eason 2023

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Individual posts:

“The Mage & The Knight”, “The Paladin & Her Sorceress”, “The Rogue & The Bard”, “The Knight & The Ranger”