#i guess i'm publishing essays on tumblr now?

[suzylbooks]

Who Owns a Fanfic?

Throughout the past four years, one online community has gone from niche to power-player. Booktok has transformed from a hashtag with simple book recommendations, memes, and reviews to a cultural phenomenon that has publishers scrambling to monetize. The previous success of BookTube in the mid 2010’s laid the groundwork for BookTok’s current state—filled with hauls, wrap-ups, and homogeneity about what books become and stay popular. 

This is where Manacled enters the conversation. For the uninitiated, Manacled is a mega-viral fanfiction based on Harry Potter by author SenLinYu. It’s dark in nature, with the quick, catchy premise of Harry Potter meets the Handmaid’s Tale, with Dramione (the fan-favorite pairing of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy) at the core. At the time of writing, it has nearly eigh million hits on Archive of Our Own and sits at over 370,000 words. It has cemented itself in fanfiction history alongside Cassandra Clare’s Draco Trilogy and Tara Gilesbe’s My Immortal as fanfiction that has taken on a life and fandom of its own. A quick search on Tiktok and Instagram reveals that Manacled is treated like any other book, with the Manacled tag having over 470 million collective TikTok views in February 2024. There’s fanart, dramatic edits to favorite quotes, people recording themselves crying over the ending—and, most importantly, there are videos of people learning bookbind so that they can make themselves a hardcover copy of Manacled. 

Printing fanfiction is hardly new. In the early days of fandom, before mobile phones could let you bring your fanfiction anywhere you wanted, people would print out their fics, put them into three ring binders, and carry them to school. This stands in a shocking contrast to the Manacled hardcover copies. These look professional—they’re often printed on specialty paper, with gold-foil cover designs and decorative formatting. And, most shockingly, they sell on Etsy for over $100—though, as I was checking this story before hitting publish, I noticed that many of the Etsy listings had been removed. This cannot be said for the dozens of listings for other Dramione fanfics. 

In February, author SenLinYu announced that she had signed a book deal to see the traditional publication of Manacled, reimagined in a different, non-Harry Potter universe and retitled to Alchemised. In their post announcing the deal, they stated that her primary reason for publication was not monetary—the sale of bound versions of her books was both a violation of her intellectual property and copyright infringement on the Harry Potter franchise, and this move would protect her fanfic and fanfiction as a whole. Fanfiction has long held the defense that authors do not make any profits off of the work they create, since their existence has been a hotly contested legal issue (hello, Anne Rice) and protected by Fair Use. Those Etsy listings were putting the Organization for Transformative Works in danger, because they meant someone was profiting off of fanfiction, as well as stealing from SenLinYu. They have, as far as I am aware, never made a cent off of Manacled. Her FAQ page on Tumblr states clearly that she does not allow sales or commissions of bound Manacled copies, and that anyone who wants to create fanart, fanfic, or remixes of her work is allowed to do it so long as they do not make any money off of this.

Clearly, Booktok didn’t get the memo. In her post, SenLinYu laments how she has been unable to protect her own works from ‘exploitation,’ and she states that she cannot take the fanfiction down yet as the sudden disappearance might only make the issue of bootleg copies worse. 

While explaining this phenomena, SenLinYu’s decision suddenly appeared as a checkmate—by making Manacled into Alchemised, it alchemizes itself into copywritten material, and with the help of a major publishing house’s legal team, Senlinyu will actually be able to take back ownership of their work.

This poses a question—who owns a fanfic, and why does the modern state of fandom seem to encourage fans to think of a fic as public property? 

To be clear, the writer of a fanfic is the owner of a fanfic. Just because it is transformative work doesn’t mean it is somehow less than original work. Someone took the time to write it—it is their writing, and it is their work. Whether or not they’re able to make money off of it doesn’t make it a public good for someone else to make money off of. 

In the last decade, fanfiction has turned from a small hobby to a mainstream activity—with fanfictions being published, albeit with character names changed and typically set in alternate universes. When Fifty Shades of Grey exploded into the mainstream, E.L. James denied that her book was originally fanfiction and lied about its origins. Now, Reylo fanfictions are hitting the New York Times bestsellers lists, and Harry Styles fanfictions are seeing movie adaptations. This change in cultural awareness also comes with a change in cultural interaction. 

WIRED noted in their recent piece on the SenLinYu story that the increase in fanfiction has turned it from a tight knit community into a traditional author/reader relationship, or worse—a creator/fan relationship. Fandoms as they existed in the early 2000’s on forums or even in the early 2010’s on Tumblr are dead, and the pressure to monetize our art and creations has compounded with changing cultural awarenesses over fanfiction. It’s no longer seen as a fun thing that people put online for other fans to read—there are pressures to update and keep churning out chapters. I’ve noticed it in my own fics over the years—I’ve written fanfiction for fourteen years across several platforms, and there’s something different now. 

Kaitlyn Tiffany’s Everything I Need I Get From You details the evolution of fandom from its beginnings in the infancy of pop culture to its modern-day form. Teenage girls would share their paper zines for the Beatles and Star Trek, and it was decidedly counterculture. Once the internet became popular, fangirls used it to create blogs and forums dedicated to their favorite characters and ships. Over time, fanfiction became easier to access with centralized sites like Fanfiction dot net—and, later, AO3—and this made fanfiction more commonplace to general fandom members. 

During this time, writers would often put disclaimers at the start of their fics that they did not own the characters they were writing in an attempt to avoid legal action (even Manacled, originally published between 2018 and 2019, contains one of these disclaimers). Archive of Our Own, the current king of fanfiction, is run by a non-profit (the Organization for Transformative Works), and, as such, its formation acted as a more explicit step toward legal protection for fans. There was an awareness that fanfiction was not something to use for monetary gain and that there could be major consequences if someone were to monetize their fics, since a creator would then absolutely be able to sue an author or website for copyright infringement. In this sense, there was an awareness that fanfictions were the creation and property of the author—it was theirs, because no one could own it in a legal sense, but there was an honor rule. After all, you were enjoying something for free—why would you want more?

With the explosion of Booktok and the traditional publication of fanfiction with books such as The Love Hypothesis and You, Again, fanfiction has hit its next stage: consumption and promotion by influencers. Manacled is promoted organically, just like any other book, and someone unfamiliar with the fic could be forgiven for thinking that people are discussing a book that had already seen traditional publication. It has spawned a fandom of its own—where it might have once been elevated as the most popular fic among Dramione shippers, such as Isolation by Bexchan a decade ago, it has instead found success with readers who have never read fanfiction before. And those readers might not be aware of this unspoken rule. It’s online, and you can download the complete PDF from AO3—so, why wouldn’t you be able to make it your own? Why wouldn’t you be able to bind it and sell it? After all, you’re putting in the work of binding it, who cares if the author won’t see any money? Why shouldn’t you buy it—your money is going to the binder, and didn’t they work hard? Aren’t you just showing your appreciation for the fic? 

As I wrote this, I asked myself why people were so determined to have a ‘nice’ binding of this fic. After all, printer paper and a three-ring binder seemed to work before. Was it to get clout online? Was it for the aesthetics of displaying it on a shelf? Was it because it was your favorite fic of all time and you never wanted to risk it being taken down, like it will in 2025? Or was it because you wanted to make yourself feel more elevated, like you weren’t reading fanfiction anymore? 

I considered the option that Booktok itself had created and promoted a culture where it wasn’t enough to read 370,000 words, you had to also show it off in a physical and aesthetic way. Last year, the rushed release of romantasy sequel Iron Flame came with an explosion of think pieces asking if Booktok had an overconsumption problem. Time and time again, we’ve seen Tiktok and similar platforms encouraging overconsumption through everything from Shein hauls to Stanley cup shrines. While I feel that this culture of owning for the sake of showing off plays a major factor in seeking out physical copies of Manacled despite the author's requests to not, I can’t say for sure that it is the root cause. 

I might not know why, but I can speak to the effect it has had. With the rise of bound fanfiction being sold online, the rights that transformative authors—a fancy term for fanfiction writers—have has been violated. While there might not be a moral wrong in pirating the works of a famous, rich author, there is a moral wrong in profiting off of work that has been put online for free. SenLinYu isn’t the only author pulling their fics, either, and I worry that this could signal the death of a free, fun fandom—or online fandom as we know it. 

Just last year, Hbomberguy detailed how a single Youtuber had made a silly amount of dollars by stealing the words of queer writers and filmmakers, many of whom were never paid for their work in the first place. The video itself saw massive views and started a discussion about plagiarism across the internet. The success of the video was rooted in the fundamental understanding that stealing someone else’s work is wrong, and that people who plagiarize should not be able to make money off of it because they are, plainly, jerks. 

Publishing Alchemised will allow SenLinYu to finally be paid for her work—any other author who had sold over seven-million books would be able to live off of royalties for a long time and be offered countless opportunities—but it will also allow for her to use the laws in place for protecting authors from having bootleg versions of their works sold without seeing any money. While she was previously unable to stop people from profiting off of her work, she now has a way forward. And, perhaps most important, her two-book deal will allow her to publish more through Del Rey at Penguin Random House.

That WIRED article mentioned that years ago, the act of pulling fanwork for publication was seen as a betrayal, but now it’s seen by many as an accomplishment. Taylor Lorenz notes in her book Extremely Online that when Instagram began disclosing brand partnerships, both the app and influencers feared that they would be abandoned for ‘selling out’ and running ads, but fans instead saw them as a sign of ‘making it.’  The publication of Alchemised hasn’t been without criticism, though—a quick search through social media turns up comments calling the removal of the original fanfiction (a move that must be done for legal reasons) a ‘slap in the face.’And beyond that, there are countless, and I mean countless, posts where people say that they are actively downloading the fic before its removal. SenLinYu is aware of the downloading rush, and is giving people plenty of time to do so in order to preserve something that means so much to them—not to think ahead so that they might sell a hardcover copy of a ‘rare’ fanfic. 

This isn’t the piece to rehash tired discourse about the trend of fanfiction being edited and published. This isn’t the piece to ask why the publishing industry is beginning to look toward fan spaces for manuscripts or why agents and editors now seek manuscripts that read like fanfiction—or just are fanfiction. 

This is a piece to acknowledge that while fandom has always been a public, collaborative experiment, the work being produced does not belong to the public. Fanfiction is not ownerless in nature simply because the writer doesn’t own the original characters or world. The state of writing and intellectual integrity has never been more fraught with the rise of AI and the rapid shift away from new authors, and SenLinYu’s move to protect her work signals a massive change. 

No one, not even fanfiction writers, should be okay with people making money off of their words.

Works Cited

Alter, Rebecca. “Hbomberguy Didn’t Want to Make That 4-Hour Plagiarism Video.” Vulture, Vulture, 22 Dec. 2023, www.vulture.com/2023/12/hbomberguy-interview-james-somerton-plagiarism.html.

Bosker, Bianca. “How a Crowdsourced Novel Became a Young-Adult Obsession.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 18 Dec. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/crowdsourcing-the-novel/573907/.

CarefreeDreamer. “R/Dramione on Reddit: Mancled Is Getting Published!!! And More Works by Senliyu🖤.” Reddit, 5 Feb. 2024, www.reddit.com/r/Dramione/comments/1ajl17r/mancled_is_getting_published_and_more_works_by/.

Ellis, Maddie. “Harry Potter Fan Fic ‘manacled’ Has the Internet under Its Spell. How the Author Turned It into a Book Deal.” TODAY.Com, 26 Feb. 2024, www.today.com/popculture/books/manacled-senlinyu-alchemised-interview-rcna138822.

Grindell, Samantha. “A ‘Harry Potter’ Fan Fiction That Imagines Harry Died in the Wizarding War Has Taken over the Book Community.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 25 Sept. 2023, www.businessinsider.com/manacled-harry-potter-fan-fiction-explained-2023-9.

Held, Elizabeth. “From Friends to Lovers: The Fanfic-to-Romance Pipeline Goes Mainstream.” Vulture, Vulture, 29 Aug. 2023, www.vulture.com/article/fanfic-romance-reylo-publishing-trend.html.

Jackson, Gita. “Anne Rice Really Hated When People Made Her Characters Bone.” VICE, 13 Dec. 2021, www.vice.com/en/article/88gqjz/anne-rice-really-hated-when-people-made-her-characters-bone.

Karl, Jessica. “Fourth Wing and Iron Flame Author Rebecca Yarros Needs a Reality Check.” Bloomberg.Com, Bloomberg, 8 Nov. 2023, www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-08/fourth-wing-and-iron-flame-author-rebecca-yarros-needs-a-reality-check.

Lorenz, Taylor. Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence and Power on the Internet. WH Allen, 2023.

Minkel, Elizabeth. “Lots of People Make Money on Fanfic. Just Not the Authors.” Wired, Conde Nast, 28 Feb. 2024, www.wired.com/story/pull-to-publish-fanfic-senlinyu-manacled-fanbinding/.

“PMJ Spellbound by Senlinyu’s Standalone Dark Fantasy.” The Bookseller, 5 Feb. 2024, www.thebookseller.com/rights/pmj-spellbound-by-senlinyus-standalone-dark-fantasy#:~:text=Alchemised%20is%20a%20standalone%20dark,all%2Dconsuming%22%20PMJ%20said.

Rizer, Addison. “Is Booktok Changing the Way We Talk about Books?” BOOK RIOT, 20 May 2022, bookriot.com/is-booktok-changing-the-way-we-talk-about-books/.

SenLinYu. “Announcing SenLinYu’s Debut Novel ‘Alchemised’ .” Tumblr, 5 Feb. 2024, senlinyu.tumblr.com/post/741499573811445761/im-excited-to-announce-that-i-have-signed-a-book.

SenLinYu. “FAQ.” Tumblr, senlinyu.tumblr.com/faq. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.

SenLinYu. “Manacled.” Archive of Our Own, 27 Apr. 2018, archiveofourown.org/works/14454174/chapters/33390198.

Tiffany, Kaitlyn. Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2022.

[yandere-wishes]

Who are your fav authors on here, why and what are your fav fics from them?

Anon, I don't think you're aware of the beast you've just unleashed!

So strap in cause this is going to be long.

Right off the bat, we have, @thefudge. I'm trying so hard not to sound like a deranged fangirl right now. But trust me when I say that I am OBSESSED with every single thing they write! I have read their fics SO SO many times and It's impossible to pick a single favorite one. So here are my top 5

Waiting for the barbarians

Within you is everything I am

I won't be these clothes I burn

His little dead wife 

god complex

Honestly, guys go check out their work they have so many stories spanning countless fandoms. They're literally the ones that got me into Star Wars in the first place! @thefudge I SWEAR I'm not a crazy fangirl, I just really love your writing and works!!

@yandere-romanticaa goes without saying, I've been a HUGE fan of Ana's since literally forever. She was actually one of the Yandere blogs that inspired me to start writing on Tumblr. Again I can't pick just one of her works I love so here's a top 5 list

Wanna Be yours 

Yandere! William Moriarty 

Yandere! Miguel O'hara

Yandere! Nikolai #1 and #2

Yandere! Dazai comparisons

She writes for so many fandoms and updates very frequently. She's also such an amazing and fun person so hearing her stories is always a treat!! Love you lots bestie!!

@fragileheartbeats is another amazing author I love her frigid aesthetic and how it adds a layer of etherealness to all her stories. Her scenarios are magical and written in such a way they evoke such sweet feelings. Honestly reading her stories makes me feel like I'm wrapped in a blanket with hot chocolate watching as the snow silently falls outside. 

Cute little things that melt their hearts (jjk) 

White Swan (jjk) 

How it feels to be loved by them (jjk) 

First kiss (jjk) 

When they become dads (jjk) 

These five are my TOP FAV works from her they're honestly so well-written and utterly adorable!! Guys I'm not kidding go follow her, she is literally my wify!!

@irresistible-revolution

I'm new to their work. BUT "A Coffin Made of Glass" is so beautifully written. It's dead dove yet so utterly bewitching. It takes place in the space between famous Star Wars scenes and gives a more in-depth view of the character's actions and sentiments. 

@spacexseven, omg where do I even begin? Okay, so they just have such a natural way with words. Their stories flow SO smoothly it's honestly astonishing! They've written two Childe fics, "Broken Vows" and "Mandatory Obligations" that I'm wholly obsessed with. The dialogue they write also feels so natural and forthcoming, it's absolutely enticing!!

@rrairey another author whose work I've recently gotten into!! If you're a Sukuna fan then her blog is the place to go. 

Love

Sukuna vs Plushie (a literal BANGER!!)

Gojo vs Plushie

Trust

Bracelet

Seriously, go check out her work!! The way she writes dialogue between the characters and the reader is so utterly perfect. It makes you feel as if you are right there saying those exact words. The scenarios (although) fictional feel so real thanks to her wonderful writing style. 

@dear-yandere needs no introduction, she's a staple in the yandere community. Her stories always blend love and creepiness to a perfect extent. Can I take a moment to just appreciate how poetic and GORGEOUS all her stories are?? Like seriously!! "Almost god" is my favorite fanfic of ALL TIME!! And don't even get me started on "Cry for Me"!! 

This turned out long I don't think anyone was expecting an essay. To be honest I consume more fanfics than published books nowadays so I guess it's a given to have such a long list. 

[kittyit]

I enjoy your writing a lot — whether it’s your essays or your reviews. In a weird bit of coincidence, actually, I independently followed your letterboxd, medium, and tumblr and only realised it was all you today. And now it’s obvious because whatever the platform, I keep being drawn to your writing — it’s matter of fact yet still tender in a way, and your essays are so incredibly thorough and well-researched.

I guess I wanted to ask 1) how long it takes you to put these things out and 2) how do you manage yourself so you’re not burnt out by all the legwork? Maybe it’s my grad school fatigue speaking but the idea of putting my pen where my mouth is feels daunting, so any insight would be welcome.

side note: I found you on letterboxd because I unknowingly had a “transbian” oomfie who was overly-familiar but not particularly off-putting — until he was very, very mad at Envy/Desire which then piqued my interest and yada. Glad someone also found it funny — hilarious on a meta-level especially. Call me a hater but nothing quite so delicious as getting to witness such a flood of AGP self-owns in real time.

and my answer will most likely be incredibly unhelpful to you. i'm actually seeking (in a life quest way but making some moves recently) ways to become someone who can write more regularly and in a more consistent way. i was kind of fascinated by the concept that i would be putting in legwork - it's the other way around, sort of.

i have ideas for several essays right now, and when i write an essay, i usually just sit down for 1-3 hours and write it all in one go. i have the sources i need because they're things i've already seen or know about, it's just referencing the references in my head. i think i wrote the envy/desire review in about 45 minutes and then just published it. sometimes i try to edit for a few days but often i just pull the trigger (NEED TO NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

i have an incredibly fraught and difficult relationship with writing (or making anything) that has caused me a huge amount of emotional torment in my life so it's really nice to get a genuine compliment that seems to assume i am not just an insane person who sits down and writes insanely which is pretty much what happens

KITTY'S CREATIVE CYCLE: i am thinking about this so much → oh man i'm getting pretty pissed off/sad/beside myself/overwhelmed by the joker nature → i am snapping and sitting down and writing insanely → don't do anything for a year because i dislike myself so much → fuck i'm really starting to think about something a lot

but quite often i rev up on the first two parts of the cycle and then just fritter away to nothing for no reason. it sucks! it is not a good way to be a creative. but i am trying :) and that's what we can do as women. despite all of the ways i feel (very negatively about myself and my work), i can still take the action steps (writing whenever i can, taking myself and my thoughts seriously) to add to feminist intellectual legacy and encourage other women to do the same thing

everyone can write an essay (or a review). just go crazy

[maryellencarter]

Letters from Watson (the Sherlock Holmes book-club Substack) started reading the short story "The Stockbroker's Clerk" today, and the titular clerk is a young cockney who uses a fair amount of (Doyle's approximation of) then-current slang, so I wrote up some approximations in the LfW discord (which is a very fun place). @jabbage asked if I was going to put the information on Tumblr for reference, so I guess here it is? Cleaned up a little bit and with help from other people in the discord.

* St Vitus's dance: A disease that makes you twitchy and shaky. It was a general term for conditions like Parkinson's or the twitching that can be a side effect of rheumatic fever.

* Cockney: The technical definition is a Londoner born within the radius where you can hear the bells of St Mary le Bow, "within the sound of Bow Bells" for short. The implication is that Mr Hall Pycroft, our stockbroker's clerk, comes from a lower or working class, and the stereotype would be that he's somewhat irreverent and not very bright, although ACD takes care to give us a little essay about how we should actually consider him hard-working and professional.

* Outré: French for outlandish or surprising. Holmes really likes this word, so we've probably discussed it before.

* Lost my crib: We've heard "crib" as meaning a bank or business before, in The Red-Headed League, when John Clay would "crack a crib". Pycroft is using it to mean job, with an implication that it's what we might now call a cubicle job, done at a desk in narrow indoor quarters.

* Soft Johnnie: A soft touch or soft Johnnie is someone who is easily scammed, often in reference to being an unquestioning mark for a con artist.

* Billet: In this context, a job. StephenHunterUK in the Discord mentioned it's likely from the French word for "ticket".

* Were let in: Were damaged or injured. I'm not sure of the etymology.

* Venezuelan loan: StephenHunterUK pointed out there was a Venezuelan sovereign debt default in 1892. Stockbroker's Clerk was published in March 1893, so it would have been topical at that time, but of course it has to take place not later than 1889, so this reference screws up the chronology even more than it already was. At any rate, the implication is that Mr Pycroft's old employer made a bad investment in Venezuelan securities and had to close down.

* Came a nasty cropper: This can mean anything from falling downstairs to having to shut up shop, but often indicates either death or something similarly final.

* Ripping good: Very good. Slang term Doyle is using to make Mr Pycroft sound less formal, more cockney and enthusiastic, also possibly a bit like a schoolboy.

* The smash: When the old job was ruined and had to close. I usually hear this in reference to investments or stock market crashes.

* On the same lay: Looking for the same type of work. Can also be criminal slang meaning people who work at the same type of crime, such as pickpockets.

* E.C.: StephenHunterUK provided the information that this is the postcode for the "City of London" area -- not the London metro area, but the one-square-mile area in downtown London known as the City, mostly associated with banking and law work. Hall Pycroft is saying that he's not sure how familiar Holmes and Watson are with the City of London area.

* It was my innings: Cricket reference. Means that Mr Pycroft feels he has had a lucky win.

* The screw was a pound a week rise: The pay was a pound a week more than Mr Pycroft was making at his previous job, so £4 a week or roughly £200 a year. You can see that the sketchy pottery company's offer of £500 a year more than doubles what he'd make at the reliable firm Mawson's.

* In diggings: Renting a room.

* A touch of the sheeny about his nose: A "Sheeny" is a derogatory term for an ethnically Jewish person, especially male. Pycroft is saying that Pinner had a somewhat hooked nose. The stereotype is also that Pinner might be either very financially shrewd or a con artist. (I don't know if this phrase made it into the warnings document.)

* A little sporting flutter: A bet.

* The mentions of Brussels (in Belgium, north of France) and San Remo (in Italy, southeast of France) are implying that the Franco-Midland pottery company is a big deal, with offices all across France and spilling out the corners.

* In the swim: In the thick of things.

* Deal chairs: Cheap wooden chairs. Geoharee in the Discord brought up that "deal" here refers to pine wood specifically -- pine is very soft, easily dented and stained, and is a fast-growing tree, so it was used for cheap low-quality furniture that wasn't intended to be long-lasting or durable, the sort of furniture we'd make out of fiberboard these days.

* Very badly stuffed with gold: Pinner has a badly-done gold filling in one tooth.

[olderthannetfic]

It's not unusual for shitty authors to go after competition. Not even that rare to have really shitty bigoted reasons for it, kinda interesting to see one of these actually blow up. I've heard it mostly be handled internally by the publishing houses, agents and lawyers though, I didn't know the authors themselves are expected to intervene.

like so many are shocked rn abt smth like that happening, but I guess some ppl only get all their drama from big names opening the doors and don't know abt the rest of the times it happens. Queer stories regularly get review bombed by queerphobes. Queer stories getting review bombed by other queers. Pocs get review bombed by racists. Pocs review bombing other pocs happens a lot. Problematic stories getting review bombed by the book-version of antis and pearl clutchers. Authors top rating their books with sockpuppets or just asking friends and family to give full star reviews, pretty commonplace. Sending threats to publishers or reporting other authors. The publishing world is just filled with assholes, guess this time the stars aligned and ppl get to see one of the 1000s of times this happens regularly.

Guess racist white woman going bananas on X with fake screenshots and blaming her racism on her racism-meds and an imaginary friend, while her real friends joining is just more spicy than all the other situations. Fair tbh, racist going bananas blaming it on the racism-meds and imaginary friend is more exciting that most of the times I see it, most ppl are honestly kinda boring when they get caught. But it gets especially spicy when the receipts are publicized by THE [Name redacted]!!! Woohoo drama, this person is know for their hot hot youtube essays, let's go and watch this drama!!! Top rated influencer! Damn look at all that drama!!! Look at this spice! Choo choo coming through with the pathos folks! Woop woop. Not speaking against [redacted] but I think people can all agree that this situation only blew up because [redacted] has the social media presence they have, because otherwise it would've disappeared the same way all the other times these things happen in the publishing world. Probably dealt with internally sooner or latter, or not at all fuck if I know.

People wanna have a bit of current drama, be outraged, from seeing how drama happens in a different field. I'm anticipating that most the people reacting to it rn are gonna forget about it in a few weeks because it's not current enough. I do actually wanna see if people being angry right now, claiming they wanna support the debuts are actually going to buy the books when they do come out next year, or if it's just a reaction to "issue of the week". Would be cool for the debuts to get some extra sales, but who knows normally this publishing drama goes nowhere. TL:DR Just read the entire thing or don't. lol

--

It's not unusual, especially on Goodreads. This particular instance is a little juicier than some because a bunch of these people were friends in Reylo circles.

This isn't the only one to blow up though. They don't all make it to my tumblr, but they do often make it further than just behind publishers' closed doors.

[if-confessions]

I've been in the IF fandom for almost two years now, and I don't think I've ever found a fandom I've liked as much. I like the community here, the stories, creativity, how diverse the games are compared to other media I see.

I like reading IF, but more than that I'd really to create an IF game myself. I've been creating stories since childhood and I've always wanted to tell them to other people. However, I was never able to find a suitable medium for doing so. Creating video games is a passion that met reality and died too fast, writing traditional books makes me incredibly anxious, and comic and visual novels require way too much drawing when I'm a concept artist at best. And IF... IF seems to be exactly what I was always searching for. But here's a twist.

I'm not a writer. I'm really not. The amount of writing that I've done that wasn't for my studies is... not a lot. Which makes me extremely self-conscious of my writing, and I'm a very anxious person to start with (and English not being my native language doesn't help). I just don't know where to start, I've never even written fanfiction. And then if I end up actually writing something and posting it for people to see, I'm afraid of what they'll say, of me not being good enough, or of people being uninterested in anything I create. It's dreadful really. And I know that this feeling is possibly shared by so many other people, but I just don't know what to do about it.

I had wanted to post this earlier, but Tumblr ate my essay again...

Welcome, Anon, to the wonders of IF! Have a seat, and a cookie, and enjoy the ride! It's quite the experience, you'll see...

Totes understand your worries. With so many good projects out there, it's easy to not feel... adequate (in writing or proficiency); and with many in the community having opinions, to be unsure whether to publish said work.

But here's the thing: many of us in the IF community (especially as hobbyist) have not studied writing (for a while or at all)* or are writers either, and quite a few of us are ESL (hi, hello!)**. So you are in very good company!! *sidenote: some of us consider ourselves game dev/creators before writers too. **Dear... you wrote an essay of an ask with no mistake (that I could find) - I would not have guessed you were not a native speaker, if you hadn't said it before.

To relieve those anxious feelings, here are some advice, from one ball of anxiety to another one:

You don't have to publish anything you don't want to have public. If you prefer to write for yourself and yourself only, it's more than fine. Having fun is what matters.

There are ways to "hide" your project from searches (on itch or tumblr) to have a bit more privacy, as well as disabling replies/comments/ratings...

Setting boundaries from the beginning with people interacting with your projects (whether it is in asks, or doing beta/feedback rounds/etc...) can also be quite helpful (even if some people don't follow them...).

Join writing groups and share snippets/ask for feedback. It's helpful to get some boosts of confidence and get pointers on how to improve.

Have beta/playtest rounds for longer feedback needs (like when you are ready to upload/update a demo, to catch bugs or typos and stuff).

Joining game jams with small projects can help with testing ideas/stories/gameplay, and get comments/feedback from people.

Anyway, we all start somewhere, and very often (most always) that somewhere is not good at all. But that's ok :) There's always room and time for improvement and change (until you're finally happy with it). The beauty of online games is that you can always tweak it and fix it when something doesn't feel right. Nothing is ever set in stone!

Good luck :)

[novoaa1writes]

hiya!! just wanted to say i am absolutely losing my mind over your writing, genuinely its a masterclass in writing. i aspire to your level of creating a scene and wonder if you have any tips on writing for the things you enjoy / in general? any and all tips are so so appreciated. thank you again for sharing your talents with us. - <3

omg omggg i love it when people ask me things, and yes absolutely, i have some tips that (i hope) are helpful to you

i got a bit long-winded with it, so i'll put it under the cut.

without further ado:

the thesaurus is your friend. any time i'm writing—whether it's an essay for school, or fanfiction, or occasionally even an e-mail to someone i don't know terribly well—you best believe i'm switching from one tab (google docs, e-mail, etc.) to the other (thesaurus.com) like it's a professional sport. it's a quick, easy, and effective way to switch up your writing by avoiding redundancies in word choice.

read, read, read, and then go read some more. ever since i was quite young, i've done quite well at written assignments of all kinds—fiction writing, research papers, etc. i don't say that to brag; i say that to set up the following point: i truly believe that so much of what makes writing come somewhat naturally to me now is a credit to the many hours, days, years i spent with my nose so far into the spine of a book, it's a wonder i ever got it back out again. i look at my writing now, and i'm able to pinpoint a number of patterns that can be traced directly back to the writing styles of authors i admire. reading the work of others—whether it be fanfiction or a published novel—will give you a better sense for what flows and what doesn't, what evokes emotion in readers and what merely provides filler, what you wish to emulate and what you wish to do differently.

be experimental! don't be afraid to switch around word order, or utilize dialogue in lieu of descriptive text, or alter the flow of the narrative from the typical linear plot convention. especially when we speak of fanfiction, there are a lot of exceedingly common "-ism"s (phrases, word choice, etc.) that appear again and again across the board in a large majority of works—which isn't necessarily a bad thing, to be clear. that said, it does sometimes complicate matters if a goal of yours is to make your writing stick out. and honestly, if you try something and it doesn't work, who cares? writing is a continual exercise in learning. but if you try something, and it does work? hoooly shit. it's a great feeling.

proper grammar, spelling, and formatting are not the be-all and end-all. sure, when i'm reading a fic, it doesn't escape my notice if the grammar is wrong, or a word is used incorrectly, or the formatting choices do not match up with what i might've opted for. but guess what? i'm not the author, i'm not their beta reader, and unless they specifically asked for that feedback, it's not my place to give it. what's more: good writing is not synonymous with quote-unquote "proper" writing. (see: prescriptivism.) for me, barring the case in which the prevalence of writing errors renders the work completely unreadable (which has literally never happened), i don't actually give a shit if the author wrote "your" when it should've been "you're." phonetically, it's the same. plus, english is hard, even for native speakers! (this goes for any language, mind you.) if the concept of the story is good, and it's compelling enough to keep me clicking that "next chapter" button, you best believe i'll continue doing exactly that—and enjoy the hell out of it.

proper grammar, spelling, and formatting are not the be-all and end-all—to a point. i know, i know, i just said they weren't- look, i'll explain. and, as a brief caveat: this is highly dependent on how much the breadth of the audience you're trying to reach matters to you. that said, let's get into it. on numerous occasions, i've seen fanfiction readers (particularly on tumblr) post about instances where the formatting of certain fics has actively discouraged them from reading. especially paragraph breaks. and, in the case of the tumblr site itself, including a "read more" for fic posting. although i have and continue to read fics that make minimal use of paragraph breaks, and/or don't include a "read more," there have been occasions where i've seen these formatting choices and have elected to simply not read the fic. if it's on ao3, i'll often mark it for later, but at this point, my "marked for later" list has surpassed a mile wide, and there's no telling when i'll return to it—if i ever do. proper grammar and spelling are less of an issue, it seems, but formatting can prove to be a deciding factor in whether or not people take the time to read what you've written.

write for you, not for anyone else. if you're a fic writer, requests are a great way to engage with your readers. however, you shouldn't write them for the sole purpose of appeasing said readers—especially not at your own expense. i've seen a number of writers who, after starting an intensive schedule to fulfill requests from their followers/readers on a consistent basis (weekly, daily, etc.), eventually burn out, deactivate their account, and go on hiatus—sometimes indefinitely. so, take care of yourself. never forget why you started writing and, if applicable, publishing your works. to this day, i have yet to meet a single writer whose motivations for writing have simply been recognition and renown. sure, that can certainly constitute some part of it, but above all else, we do this shit because we love it. so, take your breaks. pace yourself. write what you want to write. you, and the writing you produce, will be better for it.

alright, those are all the points i could think up for now. again, i did get slightly long-winded with it, as i'm wont to do, but i did my best to not ramble. also, most of the examples i used had to do more with fanfiction than any other type of writing, so i hope that was okay. you're welcome to message me if you wanna chat any more about this (or anything else, really)!

anyway, thank you for this absolutely lovely ask. it made my week <3

[toseeclearly]

i deleted everything by accident

I deleted everything by accident, and now I am grieving.

It's not that these things were important, technically. I deleted a tumblr I barely used or looked at; a place where I would start to write a post, get cold feet, and then leave it in the drafts until I no longer wanted to do anything with it. That's all it was, a graveyard to things I was never going to complete, ideas I'd given up on, plans I never followed through with.

But still, the day they rip the memorial down is still sad, and you'll forever walk by that lamp post and remember that, at one point, there were flowers here.

So I guess I just... use this how I used to use the internet: like a diary. I was once a dedicated blogger, back in the days when being a "blogger" had some sort of caché (I think if you said that now, someone would assume you were using some sort of throwback term, like asking aloud if anyone knew of a video store they could check out. Are there any video stores left? I don't know, and I don't feel like googling right now). I wanted to be a writer, a blogger, I wanted to be like all the cool teens I followed who had custom webpages with sections where they'd post about their thoughts and other sections for cool things they did with their friends. I wanted to be their friend and be posted on their cool blog! But this was the early 2000s, where the only way to contact these people was to either stalk a forum they might be on, or email them directly, and both of those always felt unappealing. So instead, I wrote about my life and my friends, read my friends blogs, hoped to be cool enough to be included. Hundreds of posts, stories and essays and quiz results and absolutely atrocious poetry, we wrote so much, I wrote so much. And all of it is gone, now. Blogs long deleted, websites no longer active, everything lost to digital decay. Or, if you're me, you delete your tumblr by accident while massively tired and only realise too late what you've done. More decay, more insignificant pieces of the web burned away. I'm the only one who cares, but that's fine. I can... rebuild. Or just use this space for my own terrible navel gazing.

I write a lot. I have a fair amount of published work, but I also write a lot that never sees the light of day (and probably never should, mostly for quality control issues). I spent a lot of nights writing Parkdale Haunt, a lot of very late evenings hammering out page after page after page until my eyes hurt and my brain was trying to escape my skull, but it felt good. It was a good time. There's several episodes where I wrote the first draft in a complete haze, like when you're running a marathon (NOTE: I have never run a marathon, but like, stick with me here, I'm just extrapolating from my time as a long distance runner) (SECOND NOTE: I hated long distance running and quit to focus on sprinting and hurdling, which I loved, because sprinting is designed for people who want all their endorphins RIGHT NOW and hurdling is designed for masochists, and the 400m hurdles is the perfect race if you just want to punish yourself for any feeling of hubris that you've ever had in your entire curséd life) and you're just zoning out and pushing through any thought you might have that says hey man, what if you just - oh, I don't know - lied down on that patch of grass over there? Yeah, that would be sick as fuck. Writing feels like that for me sometimes, like hey, wouldn't it be nice to just go to bed? Yeah, bed is good. But then I would look down and there'd be 15 pages in front of me, and I'd feel... great. And also exhausted and vaguely headachy, but great. Then I would just spam Emily and/or Ian with screenshots of scenes at random times. Being in my vicinity means you're getting unhinged screenshots at some point.

So I've been writing again. I've got two scripts going for a new show, here's to hoping it works out. And I guess I can write here when I need/want to procrastinate. I don't have much of a footprint left after I threw my fucking shoes in the ocean.

All this has done is made me miss hurdling.

[cordeliawhohung]

could i ask how you find the inspiration and motivation and ability to write more than 2k~ per chapter/piece? i’ve never really been able to crack past that except for maybe twice and that was only to 5k and i’m so curious and in awe of writers who can do that consistently. i absolutely know it takes a lot of time and dedication but sometimes i worry that i’ll be boring with too much backstory or exposition or xyz but it’s like i want to share so much but then i try and get absolutely fuck all written ): thank you so much in advance for even reading this, i absolutely adore you and your writing. you make me want to be a better writer.

!!!! i am certainly the WORST person to ask this because you're about to get a whole twenty million paragraphs of shit that just probably doesn't make sense but i'm gonna do my best to answer!! <3 (also i'm going to use a lot of examples from soft spot ((because it's my baby)) so... beware if you haven't read that series there will be spoilers lmao)

first off! i'd like to make it clear that having chapters/works/pieces that are like 2k words is totally fine! your work doesn't at all have to be long to be "good." there are tons of works both irl and on tumblr that i read that hit that mark for chapters and honestly it works just as well, if not better, than a long 5-10k word chapter. (i'm pretty sure most publishers recommend keeping chapters between 3-5k words anyway but this is tumblr and we're lawless) ((if i ever get published my editors WILL hate me))

now, as for me personally, and i know this... probably isn't a good thing to do (lmao) but when i'm thinking of my stories in my head, i think of it like i'm watching a tv show. my chapters are episodes. which is why most of them are so fucking long. how does the episode start, what happens in between, how does it end? for example, let's take a look at blood soaked cotton. what all happens in that?

simon is at the bank

simon and spook talk

simon chills at his apartment for a bit

back at the bank (spook is injured) and they talk about her injuries

the HANDKERCHIEF

simon back at the apartment but no handkerchief ):

NEW HANDKERCHIEF

simon realizes spook is lying about how she got injured

spook invites simon to the bar

they kinda sorta talk at the bar

eric comes in and harasses spook

simon punches the fuck outta him

simon walks spook home and she patches him up

i wanna say that was about like 6k words long. someone could turn that into a tv show and that could honestly easily be like fucking a 30 min episode i crammed so much SHIT into that. i guess what i'm trying to say is that, if you're wanting a higher word count, you've got to have a lot planned. i'd recommend not trying to draw one scene out into 6k words. remember, this isn't an essay you're trying to meet word count on, you're writing for the sake of writing. so throw some stuff in. change up the scene and day and whatnot. helps keeps things feeling fresh and flowing (:

now, if you're worried about backstory/exposition, i GET you. i struggled with that for a long time. it's so easy to just start a story and just dump everything on your reader because you want them to know!!! everyone says "show don't tell" but holy fuck is that a lot harder than it sounds. honestly i still struggle with that a lot, which is why i try and limit myself to like, no more than 3 or 4 paragraphs of exposition at the beginning of my chapters, IF that.

now, as for actually incorporating it into your story, something that i'd recommend is not revealing everything all at once. when you walk into a room, you notice the big things right? the color of the walls, the furniture, is the window open, the scent. but you actually have to spend some more time in that room to find the slight crack in the wall, or notice there's a draft. make sure when you bring your readers into the room, they see things at the same pace. if that makes sense?

for example, in the first part of everything you touch, simon returns home to the apartment and of course things are different. i mention a little bit about the plane ride, then the cops being there, the markers, anything broken and the blood in the living room. these are very glaringly obvious things anyone would instantly recognize if their home was trashed, ya know? but then as the 141 are talking and planning and whatnot, little things get brought up over like 2k words worth of shit. kyle asking what the beads are on the floor, and boo dashing in at the last second with a broken paw. there's tons of dialogue throughout, and i think you just gotta find a way to weave them together so that it meshes well! that way you can share all the little details, but it's not all at the beginning. i think it's really easy to compartmentalize things so that dialogue is all together, and then back story is all together and separate them, when really that's not quite how things end up working irl. they coexist and weave together and it's how you form the whole picture!

as for the inspiration/motivation/ability to write chapters as long as i do: autism. i'm only half joking. i hyperfixate on what i want to show my readers and i do not stop writing until i get to the end of the episode. i honestly try so hard to make my chapters shorter, but i literally cannot. idk if it's a gift or a curse. there's a few parts i've written that could have easily been split up more, but i just wanted to show everything that i had planned out. if i show everything i wanted to for my "episode" and it's 4k words then it stays that way. i don't try and write more or add something. if it's 10k words then it stays that way too. i don't know how else to explain it i know it's such a weird thought process i'm sorry ;-;

i think something that also sorta ups my word count is that i am a... very emotional writer. i have not been very secretive about using soft spot specifically as a trauma fic haha. while i am happy and appreciate that some people enjoy my work, or even find comfort in it, a lot of what i put in there is just me coping with a lot of personal shit, and so when i'm writing i put a lot of effort into the emotions. like i'll write a line or two of dialogue and there will be a paragraph or two just explaining how the character felt about it. or i'm turning the exposition into terrible foreshadowing or something like that. honestly, i think there's tons of writers out there who could take my work, say the same shit, and have half the word count just by taking all the extra fancy feely words out haha. (one day i will look at my dialogue to exposition ratio and SOB)

all in all, word count doesn't really matter. i think it's really easy to get lost in the "but it's only Xk words!" or compare yourself to another writer who writes more words/longer works, but that has no bearing on the story at all! never once have i heard anyone complain about a story being too short. i'm thinking like ray bradbury's short stories or something like that. short works that people RAVE about. i have, however, heard people complain about books being too long! (think the stand by stephen king ((fucking 500k words)) or les mis which is reaching close to 550k lmao) and you know what? all of these books are still popular. even the ones people bitch about for being too xyz, because it's not really the length they care about, it's the content.

write until you feel like it's finished. that's honestly the best advice i could give, because it's honestly exactly what i do. be it 2k words, or 10k; don't try to morph your beautiful words and your story around silly numbers, trying to confine them into chapters. shape your chapters around your words instead. because i promise you, your readers probably don't care all that much about word count anyway if they're too busy enjoying the story (:

i hoped this helped, if even a little! thank you so much for your kind words, and i wish you luck on your writing! <3

[skye-blacke]

Welp. Guess its my go to make one of these pinned posts things if Tumblr does go the way of the dodo.

Howdy folks. My name is Skye Blacke, I'm a Filmmaker, Streamer, Content Creator, and Wannabe Writer and I'll be your host this evening. I've been creating content on the internet for a couple of years now. Working as an editor or in various niche communities - and about two/three years ago I started actually making things for myself. A lot of it you can find over on Youtube the content is not always frequent but I do my best. If you want more frequent Skye Blacke then I'd suggest following me on Twitch where I host a show known as a "Filmmaker Plays" where I use my Masters degree in Film to analyse Video Games. Its like a Video Essay but live! There is also the Skye Blacke Discord where people from the above two come together to do the same and hang out. I'm also somewhat present on other sites. In recent months I've also joined the Video Game industry and become a Game Dev/Publisher so expect some stuff about my journey through that soon. Lastly. I also run a Kofi. Kofi allows me to continue to create content more frequently and support goes along way in not just money but finding interest as Kofi supporters get behind the scenes and exclusive content. Hope you all enjoyed this and I'll see you in the next one.

[reasonablysurmised]

(re-posting a previous reblog response brain-vomit essay from this morning, because I actually care about what happens to this website and want to know if other agree I guess?)

To whatever second-tier Silicon Valley social media business consultant came up with the Tumblr Updates plan: 1) stay away from this website, and 2) the "new users" aren't gonna sleep with you.

Okay that was salty but in all seriousness: this reads like a plan by someone who came in with pre-set ideas about how social media is "supposed" to work, spent two weeks running numbers while absorbing little to nothing about what people actually enjoy about this website, and spat out a plan that could well be correct on "the numbers" but is off-target about everything else--in a way that WILL end up impacting "the numbers," because people will leave.

Ultimately, this reads like a plan to "optimize" not just this website, but the PEOPLE who make up the user base--the fundamental "problem" with the current user base is that we can't be optimized and despise all efforts to do so. Personally, I will walk away from this website in a heartbeat the second it starts to look like "optimization" is the new raison d'etre, and certainly if it starts to impact the functioning and content of the website and the interactions I have on it. I've quit Facebook and Twitter and breathed a sigh of relief over both; it wasn't difficult and I experienced zero regret.

If Disneyland stops being fun because they've started "streamlining the user experience" by mandating that you go on rides in a particular order that they've decided "maximizes fun" I WILL STOP BUYING TICKETS TO DISNEYLAND (metaphorically, I'm not actually a Disney adult, though godspeed to them as they partially enable DeSantis' demise).

"Oh but you don't actually pay for anything here anyway," okay, valid and fair; if the PARK starts introducing "helpers" who smile at me and usher me to a particular bench and say "this is the view we think you'll like best based on the data we collected on you without your active awareness, the dogs are cutest from here, the sunset looks best from here, by the way YOU look best to other users from here (but also in case you want to look better here is a company with a monthly subscription to receive the most flattering clothes for your body type!)"......I will fucking run so fast from that park. I will never come back. I will start reading more, I have a backlog that can last me for years, don't try me. If I miss the outdoors and every single public park is like this I will start trespassing in people's wooded backyards before I will come back. I believe that I am metaphorically in the majority for current Tumblr users with this sentiment.

Now it's possible, maybe probable, that the part they're not saying out loud is that 1) they know they'll lose a lot of current users but they believe the glut of new users they will allegedly get by taking these actions will offset that loss, and 2) they believe that the new users are the type who can make the website money, while the current users are, by their nature, an obstacle to this website making money--to be fair, maybe an obstacle to them making enough money to keep the lights on and pay staff, I don't know.

If this is the thinking, here is my plea to @staff, on the offchance they will ever read this:

let's start with the good stuff. Thanks, weirdly and horrifyingly, for publishing this. I hate it, but I'd rather know it's coming if this is the future (you know, so I can start packing).

IMO, changing the experience for logged-off users in order to introduce them to different parts of the website seems fair enough (although it would be great to ALSO use whatever onboarding experience you come up with to introduce them to the DIY functions and general ethos the site currently has and thrives on); at any rate it probably wouldn't impact most of the Tumblr loyalists who are still here, as far as I know. So if you want to salvage one part of the plan, that's probably it--so long as it doesn't actually affect the current "user experience" for logged-in users, and DOES point the new logged-out users in the right direction.

I know we don't make you any money. Sorry. You picked the "become ungovernable" website, so. Kinda foregone conclusion. Some of us do understand that websites need some basic funds to operate. I personally really liked the crabs and little silly things introduced over the past year or so, the ones that showed an actual interest in the absurd spirit of this website. I would in fact consider buying a color-of-the-sky mug.

Onto the bad stuff: I'm no second-tier Silicon Valley social media business consultant, but I DO NOT BELIEVE you will actually get the wave of new, optimizable, profitable users you think you will, and here is why: reputation (and actuality). Every conversation I have with other people where I mention tumblr they give me a funny, bless-your-heart smile and say things like "Tumblr, really? Why?" I describe to them what I like about it--they're nice about it in the sense that they can see I like it, but clearly not INTERESTED; the overall CONTENT is not really their thing, but neither is the IDEA (that they have) of tumblr, and that won't change. Tumblr is, fundamentally, the weird kid table, this is what the current user base likes about it, and also why the Cool Kids you're targeting will never actually sit here--even if you change things, the legacy is there and the Cool Kids don't want to seem desperate.

@staff If you read one part please read this part: Sometimes when trying to explain to people why I still use tumblr, I mention that it seems like the last place on the internet that ISN'T obsessively capitlizing on human interaction and identity, that ISN'T being algothrithm'd to hell and back, and that is the one thing that sometimes gets traction and interest instead of polite dismissal. Most people I talk to about tumblr will never sign up; the few potential "new users" I encounter in the wild are interested in the fact that it's the opposite of the "optimized" social media experience. Namely, the style of website that already exists and that your current plan seemingly aims to discard.

Just in case you believe the departure of current users won't ACTUALLY be that bad: it will. Of course it can depend on what changes you make EXACTLY, but overall if you re-tool tumblr to be Quirky Artsy Twitter, the current users absolutely will leave in droves. If you do it all at once you'll see a porn-ban-sized exodus; if you implement changes gradually thinking you can frog-in-boiling-water the situation, we'll still leave, albeit equally slowly. If you're watching other user bases from other imploding social media websites, running numbers that somehow show that THOSE implosions weren't too bad: we are not those users.

Dear Tumblr, we actually like it here. For now (but Watch Out). Your theoretical New Users do not (know they) like it here, do not have pre-established loyalty, and are at best an enormous gamble. How do you lose a userbase? You forget to cherish them. Something to consider.

[deadpresidents]

A writing question if you don't mind-when you write those longer articles or essays, do you write by hand or typing? How many drafts do you normally go through? I'm trying to find my own voice as a writer and any suggestions on process would be much appreciated!

My writing process is terrible and I am embarrassingly undisciplined when it comes to writing. I barely even write anymore! It used to be so much easier for me and my problem was that I was ridiculously long-winded, but now I have trouble just getting focused enough to knock out a few paragraphs. I'd kill to go back to the days where I just started writing and everything flowed, but it's almost as if someone flipped a switch and I just ran out of power. I have no idea when things changed, but they definitely did so over the past few years.

I have no formal training as a writer. (Obviously.) I've never taken a writing class or workshop, but I wish I had done so years ago. I feel like I've handicapped myself over the years because everything was self-taught and I really could have benefited from some sort of foundation. I never learned how to outline anything or even make some sort of rudimentary plan for the topic I plan to write about. I have a couple of notebooks with various ideas that I consider writing about, but the "ideas" are usually just two or three words I've quickly jotted down to remind myself of topics I might want to explore. And I imagine that 98% of those ideas are never revisited. Like I said, I'm awful at this stuff.

When I do finally zero in on something and start writing, I just start typing. In fact, I almost always just start directly writing whatever it is that I'm writing about as a Tumblr post. I don't write anything by hand and rarely even use something like Pages or Microsoft Word. I just start making a post. Here's the really dumb part: not only do I not write numerous drafts, but I usually just sit down and write stuff in one sitting, from beginning to end. If I get stuck or lost or don't feel like I can find the right ending for what I'm writing, I'll just delete the post. I have no idea how many words I've written on Tumblr over the past 15 years (!!!), but everything I've published is just a fraction of the stuff I discarded because I wasn't happy with it or wasn't feeling it. Even the things that I didn't complete give up on are frozen in time in the drafts of my Tumblr dashboard. They are currently 128 drafts saved to my Tumblr dashboard. I couldn't even guess when (or if) I've ever revisited those drafts; it's as if I kept them around just in case I completely and utterly change the manner in which I've created content over the years. Spoiler alert: I will not.

I'm an idiot, quite frankly, and should have taken some sort of writing classes years ago. I probably would have created a ton of content if I had some sort of a foundation that allowed me to craft better stories without feeling the need to start over at the first sign of trouble. If I'm writing something else that isn't intended to be published on Tumblr, I still have a similar "process" where I try to write my piece in one sitting and toss it all if it doesn't feel right.

I implore you not to try my idiotic writing "process" at home. It's undeniably counterproductive and I wish the Men In Black would have used their little memory erasing machine on me to erase those bad habits over the years. It's shocking that I was actually able to publish as much content as I have over the years despite not having the slightest idea of how to effectively and consistently write!

With all that said, I will add this about finding your voice or your own writing style: just keep doing what feels good to you. If you enjoy writing -- as I genuinely did at one point -- it doesn't matter what other people think about your work. It's yours and unless you're taking some sort of class or working some sort of job, nobody has any right to grade what you're doing. When you start worrying about how other people are going to judge your work it starts to actually feel like work, and if writing is an important outlet for you, it's important to not let strangers get in your way. That's when it stops being fun or fulfilling and if it's not one of those things or you're not getting paid money to make the changes to your work that people think you should make, then what's the use of writing in the first place?

[emoverted]

back to the streets where we began

Me? On Tumblr? In 2024?

Feels like it was just yesterday I patiently waited for Tumblr to be unblocked in Indonesia. The app wandered aimlessly on the phone of a 12-year-old me, just like herself, in the world supposed to be her's from her eyes. With little hope, the app soon came to life and became her world. No, she did not post anything unlike now, but being an observer was enough. Fandom after fandom and phase after phase (feels weird saying those words in 2024), she dived through in the pursuit of exploring herself continuously. While I can't say those days were the best (who would you be proud of their edgy phase?), they did bring me to the person I am today. I still am the same old flawed me, or as I would like to call myself on this site back in the day, potato. But I can safely say my approach in life has greatly differed. Again, not to say I am already living my fullest and best life. In fact, I wouldn't necessarily call it life if I'm fulfilled. Instead, I choose and am trying my best to view both the good and the bad things in life as equal. I'm grateful for the good days, but I'm even more grateful for the bad days. There has to be a deeper meaning when things don't go our way and I aspire to explore that more this year. As I've said, no matter how much I cringe in the remembrance of my Tumblr days, they undeniably shape my present self, and it's the same for other fragments of my past. Just now I realized how I've been lying to myself. I thought I'd put my past behind me, forgiven my younger, dazed, and clueless self when deep down, I still hold a grudge against her. Through this brand new year, I hope to slowly make sense of her wrong choices in order to make peace with my current self.

Well, that was a mouthful. Now as to why I decided that now is the right time for me to post the randomness inside my head in Tumblr specifically, out of all places. Surprise surprise, I've tried posting on more professional sites, I'll let you guess them yourself. But what I realized is it pressured me to publish eloquently written essays, having gone through the tiring process of drafting, editing, and proofreading, all leading up to the final flawless essay. The topic itself should also be something other people would be drawn into. These factors led me to dread what was supposed to be a reflective routine. I know I've loved writing ever since the day I could, but structures and all that jazz are not exactly my cup of tea, although I sometimes unashamedly enjoy the art of writing academic essays and papers. Nevertheless, it's not like I would willingly create a habit out of it. Long story short, I rekindled with Tumblr and realized that its format is just right for me to create as many mistakes as I could within my writings without the guilt following it. Besides, striving for progress and not perfection is on my bucket list, as a self-proclaimed perfectionist procrastinator. Anyway, I shall pour out from the tidbits to the very depths of my mind here with all of its nonsense. But when I do feel extra special for specific writing, I might publish it on those so-called professional sites. In the meantime, I hope you survive being exposed to my messy thoughts.

[thedude3445]

current irons in the current fire

Before I get to start new fun projects to kick everyone's asses, I gotta finish the stuff already out there, so let's remind ourselves what those are:

(gonna make a readmore cut thing because this got too long, as rambles often do)

Systemless, the very silly very gay epic that's wrapping up finally after 3 years, I'm aiming to finish in April. Honestly this book is super up the Tumblr alley and even has BL romance but I forgot to promote it on here lol. I'll do that when the ebook versions come out

Golemancer, which really bombed compared to my original expecations, but it's still a pretty well-liked story honestly. I am going to wrap up Book 2 since it's already almost done, then publish ebook versions, and if those do well I'll finish the series later on. I should have done this over a year ago...

Japan Romance, the codename for a long-gestating project I've been working on since 2019. It was a novel, then a comic, now it's a visual novel, and yes I'm intentionally adding these comma splices why do you ask? When this project comes out someday you are gonna flip out, I promise. It's gonna be my ultimate early career project.

Project U, a collab with Ktalaki, the actual mspa prophet and not me actually. This project will never see the light of day, on purpose.

Game Jam. Quinlan Circle is gonna do a week-long game jam during Golden Week. Unless the game is literally unplayable, we will post that online afterwards.

Project Z, this is a codename that's actually just the impending release of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, a game that I suspect will take up an entire month of my life. Still working on creative projects even while this game is out is going to be my life's ultimate challenge. When Fire Emblem Engage came out I totally failed at doing anything but playing that game (and also dealing with various life crises throughout February but that's a story for another time AKA an actual blog essay not this thing)

MSPA Reread 2023, a project that's semi-creative because it's unlocking entire spheres of my brain I forgot even existed. The sheer nostalgia that came with reading Homestuck Act 5-2 took up multiple days of my life reminiscing about old projects and long-dead forum thread. I'm on Act 6 Intermission 3 now as of today, and I think my friend group will finish around the end of April. Later, I'm gonna read the Epilogues and Homestuck 2 for the first time and see why people hate them so much lol. I know they're not "strictly canon" but I'm a long-time Star Wars EU fan, so fluid canonicty in layers is totally normal to me. Maybe not to other people...

(also I guess Psycholonials counts here? And the visual novel games? IDK about those quite yet)

Anyway there's one thing that I'm building to, and that's a project codenamed Really Big Story. You might be able to guess the story concept based on the codename. Quinlan Circle has been going for almost 5 years now, and we're getting ready to work on something super ambitious. But we can only work on it after we're all in better spots creatively. For me this means finishing (or quitting) all the stuff I've built up over the years. I have too many projects!!!!!

If you actually read this whole thing, send me an ask for which of these you want me to ramble about in my next mini-blog. I'll do that tomorrow or something (the mini-blogs will never be as long as this one, at least I hope so lol because this took like 20 minutes)

[aubigney]

by the time i reset my tumblr password and logged in, i forgot what i was supposed to say.

i've been doing a lot of thinking. thinking a lot of thots. doing some thinky thinks. i'm strongly considering going back to university to either get a new degree (masters) or finish a previous one (undergraduate). i know how to study now and i feel i can do a lot better, understand a lot more, and be a better human in general. plus, i really love studying. i love learning for learning's sake but i also love achieving things and stacking degrees. sue me, i like fighting my little battles (classes) and winning wars (graduating). maybe i'll actually go to my graduation this time!

learning to learn and learning how much i don't know is a powerful thing. i've started listening to audiobooks again, but making sure to listen at at least 1.5x speed to get the information into my brain as quickly as possible. my brain moves too fast to listen at normal speed, unless i'm writing and listening at the same time, like i'm doing right now.

how about that youtube channel, tho. i'm transitioning back to video essays, ones that i deeply care about, ones that mean something to me. my current video that i'm almost finished writing is on unlikeable characters. i didn't mean for it to have a deep underlying message, but it came through anyway. three cheers for sweet guessing what it is.

i have more and more ideas. that's the great thing about writing: i get more ideas the more i write. i get ideas from watching video essays, like drew monsen's one about being a drug addict, or tirrrb's newest one on depression. i've been into the leftist cooks and contrapoints recently, watching one of each today. (well, finishing one and starting another.) this is why i started my youtube channel: i have a lot to say about shows and movies. they are my first love, my parents, my girlfriends, my silly rabbits. they raised me, they nurtured me, they protected me--they still do all these things.

tonight lulu and i watched pearl (2022), a stunner of a film. mia goth is one of the greatest actors of her generation (coincidentally my generation also) and a true embedded warrior in the art of cinema. ti west did a great job with the directing and editing, eliot rockett with the cinematography, and mia and ti with the co-writing. could not fault this film at all. as the adage goes, never ask a man his salary, a woman her age, or a pearl what's wrong with her.

(it's a good time for me personally to mention that a main character in my novel Daughter Of The Valley is named Pearl, and she's a real sweetheart, just like the other pearl. my pearl was here first, though.)

speaking of my books, for some reason they were pulled back from stores and i'm still waiting on them to be re-published. the first book in JUNK! should have been out by now but for some reason it isn't. i was expecting smooth sailing and i was dashed upon the rocks of my warship's foolishness! all i wanted was to return from the battlefield.

i'll let you know when The Choice (JUNK! #1) is out. i'll most likely post a video about it. until then, sayonara suckers.

[crlsmmr]

GOOD RHYMES FOR BAD TIMES! — KENNY MCCORMICK

ship. isabella santiago (oc) x kenny mccormick

warnings. none other than my bad writing and like one sex joke/implication

note. ofc my first fic on tumblr is an oc x canon

word count. 960

started. february 1st

published. march 1st.

finished. N/A

Isabella couldn't sleep. She was tired but couldn't seem to get some good shut eye. Maybe it was all the stress getting to her, or the caffeine also getting to her. Maybe both! They're helping each other get her  sleep deprived.

So, here she was. Texting Kenny at 10pm. She was sending him random shit she thought of in the middle of the night. For example,

" coffee is just drugs liquidized "

.. I think that text alone speaks for itself.

She quickly went back to writing her essay and listened to music in silence before receiving a message from Kenny thirty minutes later.

my soulmate<3

' isa, why are you still awake? '

isa<33

' how'd you know? '

my soulmate<3

' im psychic 🙄 '

' nah, im kidding. i can see on spotify that you've been listening to your playlist for hours now. '

isa<33

' i cant sleep again '

my soulmate<3

' ill be there soon '

isa<33

' why? '

read 10:30pm

The girl sighed, not noticing the small smile that rose to her face reading his text. He was probably gonna get in trouble for sneaking out at 10pm just to see his girlfriend, but it made her smile that he cared for her so much.

In that short time it took for him to get to her house, she'd put on eyeliner (because obviously she would), tied her hair in a ponytail and wore a shirt and some jeans. (with her red converse.)

She was continuing to write her essay when she heard something being thrown at her window. She immediately rushed to her window to open it so that her parents wouldn't wake up.

" Are you cra— " She got cut off by dodging a rock that was aimed her way. " Sorry!   " He whisper-yelled, putting down the rocks before holding his hands out like he was gonna catch her.

She rolled her eyes playfully before looking down at how far the fall is from her bedroom window. It wasn't really far but she just didn't want to die. " Are you gonna catch me? '' she asked.

When he nodded she decided to risk it all and jump out the window. On one hand, she trusted Kenny! Why would he not catch her? It's not like he's Andrew Garfield when he was in Spiderman!

But, on the other hand, Kenny had weak noodle arms, and was extremely underweight for his age. Oh God, she's gonna kill him. Or he's gonna kill her. They're gonna kill each other D:

Too late. She's already jumped out the window.

To her surprise (in a good surprised way), Kenny didn't die and he also successfully caught her! Yay! But now she's now basically on his lap while he lays down on the grass.. probably unconscious if his eyes weren't open. I guess he fell over when he caught her! '9pm-and-tired-as-fuck' version of Sammie doesn't know shit about gravity and physics.

" Jesus.. that scared the living shit out of me. " Isa laughed nervously, planting a kiss on her boyfriend's forehead. " You okay? " she asked.

" Yeep. You might've broken my spine though. " He joked, getting a light and playful smack on the chest from his lover. " Ow-! "

" I'm not heavy! I'm only 87 pounds! " she said, getting off his lap and dusting herself off. Maybe they were both a little underweight.

" I wasn't saying you were heavy! I was just joking because of the impact! " he replied, sitting up and fixing his already messy hair.

Isabella playfully rolled her eyes, helping the other up. " So.. What did you come over for? " she asked.

Kenny stood there for a second, glancing behind him at her dad's garage. " We're gonna need your car. "

Now, look. He may have been able to afford a phone (he can't, Isabella got it for him.) And he may have a driver's license, but he can't afford a car! He wants to be romantic and shit, obviously. But does he have the money for it? No!

Isabella blinked in confusion, sighing. " Are you gonna destroy it? '' she asked. She didn't want to get in trouble. The car was expensive and she doesn't want her dad hating Kenny! He already slightly disapproves of him.

Kenny knew she would let him borrow the car whatever answer he gave. But he shook his head 'no' because he wouldn't do that! He wants her father to like him! Not hate him for destroying his daughter's car!

After a moment of silence, she agreed and took his hand in hers, going to the garage and grabbing her car keys.

" I don't want you making a mess like last time. I had to explain to my dad why the car door had a scratch. It was hard explaining! Plus, I got grounded. '' she said, unlocking the car and opening the driver's seat door.

" Wait, wait, wait. Can I drive? " he asked, watching as Isabella stood there thinking about.. whatever she was thinking about. " Fine.. Dont crash though! " she told him, walking to the passenger's seat and getting in.

Kenny smiled, raising his hands in the air for a brief second. Did I know how to explain that? Fuck no.

He quickly ran to the driver's seat and got in, starting the car. " You didn't answer my question, Kenny. Where are you taking me? '' she asked as he drove out of the garage and wherever he was taking her.

" It's a secret! " he said, not taking his eyes off the road. " .. are you gonna drive me to a forest and then ask me to have sex with you? " she jokingly asked, eyeing him up and down.

" What?! No! Not now at least.. " he said, joking about the last part. She playfully smacked his shoulder lightly, before going back to what she was doing.

note. wwwooo!! that was part one!! ill publish part two probably in like a month or something if it gets good feedback