sugar--brown

[sugar--brown]

I don't have a PowerPoint presentation but I want to add something important:

ACE AND ARO CHARACTERS CAN AND SHOULD BE SHIPPED OR SEE THEIR IDENTITIES CHANGED IN FANWORK!

Why? Because everything is possible in fandom and we are already doing it for other kind of characters. Cis straight characters are often changed to be trans or gay. And vice-versa.

As an aroace person, I don't want to be treated or my identity treated like a fragile special snowflake. As long as everyone is respectful and doesn't deny the character's identity in canon, everything is cool! Because fanon is for fun and giggles, everything is okay as long as it's made with respect!

[sugar--brown]

It's standard galactic language (Used in the games Commander Keen and Minecraft [the enchantments])! If I translate it means:

And the walls begin to tear!!!!!!!!!

ᔑリ↸ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ∴ᔑꖎꖎᓭ ʖᒷ⊣╎リ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ℸ ̣ ᒷᔑ∷!!!!!!!!!

What.

Que.

Was.

Can someone translate

[sugar--brown]

The potluck metaphore is really great! Artists are like chefs cooking dishes that everyone can eat no matter how many people want to and the eaters are giving smiles and compliments to the chef when they had enjoyed the dish!

A fandom is a potluck!

(Hang on I think I have a pictures related to the topic...)

(The comics in colours are from kitten-kin, didn't found the artist of the balck and white ones)

Yeah so, this what fandoms are. And it's pretty sad that society and internet push us to consumption and capitalism and rates and distance...

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[sugar--brown]

Hell yeah! He is so human like that people thinks he painted his skin, and then they touch him.

Talking about pumping heart, it reminded me my fic with the ship two of hearts :D

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52586299

i love the idea that drumbot brian is so human like that it’s creepy, he eats, drink and “breathes”, to the point where he even bleeds - albeit oil but his heart has to pump something around his body. this creepy humanness is the biggest trigger to his dysmorphia (is the word dysmorphia i’m not sure), where he just can’t get over that he’s not human anymore… yet he does human things.

this is an incoherent ramble i know but if i think about the mechs too much i get sad and i need somewhere to ramble

[sugar--brown]

Yipee!

Hello enjoyers of women!

Mechanisms Women’s Week 2025 will officially be held August 4-10!

This gives everyone all summer to brainstorm, write, draw, or do whatever other creative work they want to do. If you want to ramble about your ideas or WIPs, feel free to send asks! I’d love to hear about what you’re working on and your creative process.

Here is this year’s prompt list:

Prompts can be taken as loosely or closely as you want, and you’re free to use one or both words for each day. Each prompt is only intended as a jumping-off point to inspire ideas.

Happy brainstorming, and I look forward to seeing you all in August!

[sugar--brown]

Please Reblog is Your Blog is Safe for Non-Binary People.

If my mutuals can’t rb this then we can’t be mutuals

[sugar--brown]

I fell in love with a song again...

[sugar--brown]

Litterally us:

mechs keychain pre-order is open over on my etsy!!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

[sugar--brown]

I need to do that!

GUYS. DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN WRITE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE FICS ON AO3

[sugar--brown]

About the doc's lab!

Since Raphaella is present during Dr Pilchard's song and Jonny is refering to the lab as "the doc's lab" and it's clearly inhabited by something dangerous, I would say Raphaella didn't take Carmilla's lab and made her own.

But it's possible that it changes after that, they live for a long time! And I already saw fanfictions stating that Raphaella did take the space for herself.

this isnt reslly a hc i can throw one in at the end if that makes my question viable

do we know if raph took the docs old lab or if she got her own? i AM. writing that fic. just need 2 know so i can continue onwards

oh. um. toy soldier can eat stuff and hide it inside itself (it frequently eats jonnys cooking only for the plate to reappear fully intact. once it ate tims gun upon a very funny request from jonny and tim caught it throwing it up a decade later)

its eaten marius 'caps and has its own stash. once brian was having teatime with it and soldier forgot it hid like 4 'caps in the teapot

(teatime inspired by that one fic about brian and ts having a fake teatime picnic cause neither can eat/drink)

-🐺

i do not know if raph took the docs lab, i assume she did but who knows.

also yes the ts just,,, eats stuff. for fun.

[sugar--brown]

Okay real talk!

What we know is that Jonny threw Carmilla out of the airlock, she came back, but left again. Long enough to be declared "gone".

We also know that Marius and Raphaella weren't mechanized by Carmilla. And Tim... depends of the source (the fandom usually does a 50/50 situation like Carmilla creating the eyes but the mechs putting them in Tim).

Dr Pilchard is also a special case. The verse can be heard three ways: "Keep away from me", "Keep her away from me", and "Keep it away from me". We never had clear confirmation if Carmilla had come back and I vaguely remember the right verse is "Keep away from me".

But a lot of people in the fandom considers that Carmilla was around since it's a song where everyone (official member at least) is present.

clarification, were raph and marius there during carmilla? havent read the things (forget the name) and i dont know how to format a google search to get this result

-🐺(i have a hc adding onto the good dr.carmama keeps her childrens organs in jars thing)

i dont think so? from what i read they joined after she left. but she’s implied to have been there in the ignominious demise of dr philchard (i got this from the wiki).

[sugar--brown]

Awww! I just can imagine her being glued to the porthole when a spwhale is near à ship, like a kid watching a toy shop during christmas time.

"Look Aurora! It's a mother with her child!"

Doc Carmilla really likes whales and just big sea creatures

ooohh yes :]

[sugar--brown]

Come have fun with us!

Greetings stowaways, artists, writers and all those who do both!🚀✨💫

Welcome to the SpSummer Polymechs Exchange! This is, as the same implies, a mechanisms exchange! During the summer! Woah!

I come here, to your tag, or your dashboard, with news:

🎉🎉🎉SIGN UPS ON AO3 ARE CURRENTLY OPEN!🎉🎉🎉

Artists are welcome this time around! Draw things! Also Write things! Both! Both are a thing this time!

You may ask, How do I, a potentially interested mechanisms fan/enjoyer/stowaway aboard aurora/test subject in dr. carmilla's lab sign up for the spsummer polymechs exchange?

This year, things look a bit different than the spwinter ones many of you are used to participating in. In order to remedy any confusion:

We have written a guide on how to sign up here!

Join the exchange! Receive a gift! Make something beautiful! Succumb to the narrative! Join the exchange!

[sugar--brown]

Oh the Becile Boys live in my head rent free like they are canon!

I have sooooo many fanfictions I want to write about them...

I forget it wrapped up so I check time to time and see if it updated and then I’m like “oh right, it ended and I saw how it ended!” Forever grateful to witness the end of such a well-written story.

Cheers to the tin-men, the humans, the mannequin, and the cutest kitten!

I keep Skull in mind from time to time, what a cool dude.

Thank you, I needed this kind of positivity today <3

They're still in my heart too.

[sugar--brown]

Me after being wealthy with my book. I want to win the game of capitalism and just fuck off.

Fuck societal norms. Marry your best friend for benefits, start that illegal community gardwn, paint your house purple, have however many families fit live together in a house, co-sleep with your found family, eat that whole cake, be happy

[sugar--brown]

I read a fic where it's acknowledged (awesome fic, go read it, link below) and Nikola didn't actually killed Jon's friend, they just killed a mech fan and loved TS voice so it just copies it.

The fic in question, it's about the tma avatars forming a sequel mechs band

I love a 'mechs was Jon's college band' AU as much as the next person, but I there's something that isn't talked about enough with them. it's the implication that, if the mechs exist, then Nikola stole the voice box of one of them, one of Jon's friends. the angst potential of that is INSANE and it'd make every Nikola-Jon interaction that much more horrifying. I really don't think it's talked about enough.

[sugar--brown]

Art always had been present through difficult time in History. I know the governement and generally the society think art is the last priority, but it's not.

It's what keeping us afloat. It's what keep us hopeful enough to fight.

Not everyone can be Che Guevara or Ghandi. But everyone can help. Even if it's with "pretty pictures".

Feeling rough lately.