#comment discourse

[cinnabea]

"no one leaves comments anymore" "I'm afraid to comment" "It's okay you can COMMENT ANYTHING" "but not that" "if I can't criticize I won't comment" "the author never responds anyway so I don't see the point" "no one leaves comments anymore" comment discourse is an ouroboros!!!

I am taking fanfic writers by the hand I am so gently encouraging you to find your own motivation, your own community, outside of just ao3. Even finding one person to share fics with (or leaning in to writing for just yourself) will make the uncertainty of public reception bearable.

Yes I love kind comments from complete strangers, but I only want them if the reader has something to say, not because I've got a knife to their throat. And if they won't comment because I don't respond, that's fine too, because that's not the kind of comment I probably want either.

Writers have to post without the expectation of comments. Readers have to comment without the expectation of a response. And if they get something more out of it, that's great, but let's stop guilting each other for not engaging more in an internet landscape that is already built on manipulating us to maximize engagement.

[cardentist]

hey, so people need to be aware that youtube is now (randomly) holding basic features for ransom (such as being able to pin comments under your own videos) in exchange for Your State ID/Drivers License, or a 30 Second Video Of Your Face.

not to pull a "think of the children," but No Actually. I've been making videos as a hobby since 2015 (and I've had my channel since middle school), I was a minor when I started and I'm not sure I would have understood the kind of damage something a seemingly simple as a video of your face can do.

this is a Massive breach of privacy and over-reach on google's part No Matter What, but if they're going to randomly demand a state ID or license then they absolutely should not allow minors to be creators.

google having a stockpile of identifying information on teenagers is bad enough, but the Alternative of recording your face and handing it over to be filed away is Alarming considering it opens the gates for minors who Aren't old enough to have a license.

and yes, there is a third option, but it's intentionally obtuse. a long wait period (2 months), with no guarantee of access (unlike, say, the convenience of using your phone's cameras for either of the other two), with absolutely No elaboration on what the criteria is or how it's being measured.

it's the same psychological effect that mobile games rely on. offer a slow, unreliable solution with no payment to make the Paid instant gratification look more appealing (the "payment" in this case being You. you are the product being offered).

and it's Particularly a system that (I think intentionally) disadvantages people who don't treat their channels like a job. hobbyists or niche creators who don't create regularly enough or aren't popular enough to meet whatever Vague criteria needs to be met to pass.

markiplier would have no problem passing, your little brother might not be able to. and while Mark's name is already out there there's no reason why your little brother's should be too.

something like pinned comments may seem simple, you don't technically Need it. but it's a feature that's been available for years. most people don't look at descriptions anymore. so when there's relevant information that needs to be delivered then the pinned comment is usually the go to.

for my little channel that information is about the niche series I create for. guides on how to get into the series, sources on where to find the content At All (and reliably so). for other creators it can be used for things Much More Important.

Moreover, if we let them get away with cutting away "small" features and selling it back to you for the price of your privacy, then they Will creep further. they Will take more.

Note: I have an update to this post here: [Link]

[intermundia]

[dathen]

Random but it’s kinda funny and sad that every silly word that people come up with to describe a character they have emotions about turns into a “you’re not allowed to” thing

Eons ago, “woobie” was just a trope name for any character you felt the urge to wrap in a blanket and comfort. No commentary on purity or innocence: just the reaction of sympathy from the audience.

Then “meow meow” jokingly became the self-aware “yes I am feeling soft over a very sketchy character.” Almost a preemptive “I know they’re not pure but I am going to defiantly like them anyway.”

Then “blorbo” is your most distant, vague expression of fondness there is. It doesn’t specify what TYPE of favorite the character is, just that they’re on your mind.

And then recently I saw people complaining about the “blorbofication” of characters, which was explained as “a character that is liked more than they deserve” or whatever. “They’re not your blorbo! they have [flaw]!” is just the same “they’re not your meow meow! they’ve done [bad thing]!“ and the descendent of “ugh you like them? you’re woobifying them!!”

like turning having emotions over fictional characters into something you gotta morally justify is so *tiring*

[aboutiroh]

Why would a greengrocer travel the world to sell a single cart of cabbages? Are the cabbages so bad that the news spreads like wildfire (“I heard Sung’s cousin’s skin turned green and that he hasn’t left the house since”), forcing him to move towns every few days? Have we actually ever seen him sell a single cabbage? Or is his cart always full? If he does sell cabbages off-screen and is not travelling with the same cart of cabbages, where does he get new ones? Is it plausible he's first travelled back home every time we encounter him in a new Earth Kingdom town? Is it plausible we just happen to stumble upon him whenever he's gotten new products? Or are the cabbages merely a cover for a larger conspiracy? In this essay I will

[etoilesbienne]

please remember wilbur isn't the representative of the mcyt community as a whole, and does not represent all cc. there's been a lot of doomspiraling over the past few days, and i understand the lashing out and feeling hurt or betrayed, it makes sense in scenarios like this.

but he is not the end all be all of mcyt content, if you look in his apology tweet right now, you can see dozens of other mcyt cc speaking out against him or standing up for his victim. or even the people in private she came forward to that supported her coming out. don't let a bad apple cause the efforts of the rest of this community go to waste.

[theminecraftbee]

okay, so in a rare moment for me, there's a discourse thing i want to bring up, and that thing is. okay. so on iskall's stream there's this thing that can happen where someone brings up a criticism of his content or vault hunters. frequently it's self-evidently wrong, but sometimes it's not. and then iskall spends the next thirty minutes shadowboxing this guy, explaining himself, and completely derailed. and this is an iskall trait we all know and sigh bemusedly about, because he cares about the community and wants people to understand his intentions! he wants the community to understand his decisions!

however, it's not the community as a whole he's fighting; he is in fact, arguing with One Guy, who often doesn't represent the wider community, and who normally won't have their mind changed. hell, sometimes it's believable that they're satisfied having just managed to upset iskall, and they'll leave, no change to their mind, perfectly pleased that iskall's responding at all (that's what i firmly believe the people who poke at the 'you don't upload enough and that means you're falling off and a bad person' wound are trying to do, at least).

in the vault hunters community, we refer to this as iskall getting One Guyed, and it's typically viewed as bad, because it ends up focusing an entire moment on a single guy's negative opinion as opposed to on the larger picture. and it's an understandable thing to have happen! but it's frustrating to watch from the outside.

and so now i am looking at that cat poll. and the way everyone is still shadowboxing someone who has since apologized. and the way i would have never ever known about any of the negative comments about jellie if it weren't for fellow mcyt fans constantly putting them on my dash to dunk on them. and it's like. if you look through the notes most of them are just... normal? it's only a tiny few of people (and the pollrunner, who has since apologized) who were being dicks. it's a very, very ignorable demographic.

but. well. there was One Guy. and we had to correct them.

and folks, i don't know how to say that i almost never see "lol mcyt is cringe" type comments unless one of you puts it on my dash. both because i don't go looking through the notes of things that are likely to have them or go looking for reasons to be upset and because it's just... not that common! very frequently these days it is, in fact, One Guy!

i have almost never seen that poll on my dash without at least one instance of the One Guy. instead of being for fun, it's mostly become about explaining ourselves to someone who will not listen and will not change their minds, and treating this as a the whole of the Other Side of that poll, when most people are being... fine. they're fine! the majority of the people voting for the other side are doing it for perfectly normal reasons that don't require fighting about.

and man. let me tell you. after spending as long as i have watching vault hunters development? it can be just as frustrating to watch a fandom get One Guyed as it is to watch iskall.

[majachee]

HOW COME she shows up for only ONE EPISODE... SHE IS SO CUTE... BRING ME BACK MY LESBIANS.

[marysblo0d]

Fun fact: you can like both Alicent and Rhaenyra. You don’t have to pit them against each other just because the narrative does.

“But alicent did this” “but Rhaenyra” they would not have had to do those things if the men in their lives weren’t constantly pitting them against each other.

It is very much possible to be team women and say fuck you to the men who caused all these problems in the first place.

[tesco-finest-aromantics]

i feel like the queer community lost when we started policing labels and making sure everyone used the Correct™ labels instead of letting a person decide what feels right for them

[sofiadragon]

Hey fanfiction loving friend!

AO3 has the ability to turn off comments, moderate comments, restrict comments to logged in users only, or let anyone comment on your story. Most other fanfiction hosting websites do not allow comments to be turned off and in the case of some (wattpad) highly encourage comments even on individual paragraphs.

Over on reddit, someone said it is an unwritten rule of fanfiction that you should never leave a negative or critical comment on a story. This was countered most strongly by many arguments. Despite many people asserting that their stance was the one truth and that there was no debate on the topic - there was a lot of debate about what criticism even is and where the line should be for if giving concrit is alright.

So give this some thought:

If you have tea to spill, examples or an argument you want to make, please do. I have some that go both ways, but I'm going to wait for a few responses so I don't pre-empt the results. I'm not going to vote myself for a while, either, so I won't know which way the poll is leaning when I do pour my tea. I tried to cover all the flavors of debate I've seen in the many "definitive" posts I have read here and on reddit. Please reblog for a wider sample!

[jakeperalta]

honestly I really just think the only bad guys in the fight for eras tickets are the scalpers reselling tickets and the scammers tricking money out of people. that is it. not the fans going to more than one show, not the "locals" just wanting to go have a good night at a fun show. like if you're gonna be mad at anyone during all this at least make it the people profiting at others' expense!

[qutiepai]

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[qwainte]

People are so weird about Halsin and other characters, I hate fandom sometimes.

[lowpolyanimals]

pokémon are animals?

y/n

Pokemon are judged on a case by case basis, e.g:

Yes - eevee (fox/rabbit), sharpedo (shark) etc.

No - magnemite (magnet), oddish (turnip) etc.

[sqlatoon]

HAPPY 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO SHIVER SPLATOON GENDER DISCOURSE!!!