#i will be petty and block you

[greatrunner]

Rinko Kikuchi said, "I'm gonna die in everything I appear in from hereon out" and by god, she's been consistent in her Special Guest appearance-to-death pipeline so far.

[tossawary]

Having written a lot of complete, novel-length fics at this point... I want to say that it's a lot of work and that it's not weird to struggle to complete a creative project. I don't think it's a moral failing to have WIPs or abandoned works or ideas that just don't pan out for whatever reason. It's not a Bad Thing that you've done to yourself or to anyone else.

Like, I don't want to position myself as a big fandom authority here, I just want to speak from my experience and maybe reassure someone by agreeing that completing any creative project is not easy. I have WIPs and abandoned works you haven't seen. I have ideas that I know I'll never follow through on, both achievable and unachievable ones. Writing takes time and effort that has to be taken from elsewhere, and sometimes work is too exhausting and dinner still has to be made and decent sleep is too important, so you just can't do it. Dedicating time to any one hobby means less time for others and that kind of sucks sometimes. Sometimes, I just don't FEEL like writing and I'm not going to "suffer for my art".

It's flattering to be held in high esteem sometimes for writing long and complete fan stories (I have other fan creators I personally admire for similar reasons), but I do want to make it clear that it's a lot of work (writing is work no matter what you're writing!), I'm pretty lucky to be able to do that work more frequently than many others, and I personally don't think anyone should hold it against themselves (or against anyone else!) if circumstances get in the way. Sometimes, things just don't work out and we need to give ourselves time, or even just move on. I appreciate people's slow-to-update WIPs and abandoned works and stories on lengthy hiatus and fic ideas that will never be written.

So, like, if anyone is feeling a little down because they have a story that they're struggling with... I feel that. I don't think it's weird if your fanfiction is important to you or to feel like you've fucked it up somehow. I don't think you're a bad person or a bad writer if you take years to finish a story or if you have to give up on one because you've outgrown it. I think it's cool to share what you have if you want to share it. I think you're cool.

[thornescratch]

There was so much going on in that fight, not the least being the fact the arena music playing when it kicked off was ABBA's "Dancing Queen", but I really think the best part is Poehling and Lappy just standing there with their arms around each other while Ovi tries to pull Garny's head off and then Willy pulls Garny down to the ice.

Look at them. In a punch-happy sea of hair and wrath between former comrades, two other warriors crossed enemy lines for a fleeting and fragile love. I can respect that.

[godbirdart]

literally why would i want to poison my brain immersing myself in petty internet drama all day when i can go outside see the sun and seek out the positive activities that are actually beneficial for my mental health

[becca-e-barnes]

Becca what about DBF!Bucky fucking the reader until she squirts? I feel like he would be so cocky about it and would 100% try to get her to squirt again

🍑 anon

You're not wrong here, he would be so cocky and I nearly think he'd be condescending about it? In a very sexy way though 😩

I can't stop thinking of this with Bucky railing you while you're bent over the kitchen counter. The edge of the marble is digging in a little with how delightfully he has you pinned down. "Mhm, you feel like a dream." He grunts, marvelling in the glistening slick that coats his length as he drags himself slowly out of you before slamming back in again.

Your little yelp almost makes it sound like you had no idea he was going to fuck back into you so hard and it makes him chuckle quietly to himself.

"You take me like such a good girl, you know that? Happy to bend over anywhere for me and take every inch of this dick like it's all fucking yours." He can hardly control himself, his thrusts getting a little faster and it's just mind-blowing.

"Such a good girl for you, daddy. O-oh fuck, please, that's so good." You can't help but go a little stupid. His thrusts are punishing, hitting deep and hard at a pace that makes your legs a little weak but God, it's incredible feeling so much pleasure all at once.

His thrusts are landing a little too nicely though. It's a lot and there's no fucking break from it, not that you even really want one. You can feel the flutters in your tummy, gentle ripples of pleasure getting more and more intense with each thrust until you're babbling nonsense, almost ready to cry because it feels so damn good.

It doesn't take long for your head to fall onto your forearms and you feel all that build-up come to an earth shattering climax. It's a peak quite like nothing you've ever experienced before and you feel your body gushing in response, a stream of hot arousal pouring down the inside of your thighs.

Bucky's groan is fucking beautiful, clearly he didn't expect your body to react like that. "Oh god, good girls don't squirt like that, honey." His voice is so low it sends shivers down your spine.

"It really feels too fucking good for your silly little brain to handle, doesn't it? Dumb little thing squirting on daddy's cock. Go on baby, let me see you do that again. One more and then I want to feel that against my tongue."

[constantvariations]

The most annoying problem of rwby is how it will say something like "the White Fang assassinates board members of the SDC" while never actually following up on it. We spend several seasons in Atlas and not once does this come up

Despite Weiss literally being the one projected to take over the company, she never interacts with the business and the danger attached to it. No board members popping in to talk to her or Jacques, no guards talking of upping security as a result of another attempted attack, no personal escorts for any of the Schnees whenever they go to the recital

The show says that Schnees and associates are under constant threat by the White Fang, a threat that should have escalated after the fall of Beacon, but nothing in the show's actions even suggest this. Jacques only complaint is about the embargo costing him money, Winter has washed her hands of the SDC entirely, Whitley's focus is being Weiss's annoying (affectionate) little brother, and Willow barely exists

Yet rabids will call you stupid and illiterate for asking the show to... show these things. Just because things are said or things like guards and spies are logical for situations like this doesn't mean that the story gets to slack off in implementing these elements

Shows are akin to a court case. You can't just point at someone and cry, "They're a murderer!" You have to establish a timeline, motive, and method, and provide physical evidence like the weapon used or footage of the person at the scene of the crime. No jury worth its salt would condemn a person on he-said, she-said

You want me to care that board members are being assassinated? Introduce me to them so I can either want them protected or pray for their death. You want me to believe that the Schnees are under constant threat? Have Willow be paranoid to the point of never going outside and never letting Weiss and Whitley go anywhere without a ton of security. You want me to worry about spies? Ilia would've been perfect here! Have her play the demure servant while we see her sneaking into Jacques's office to steal SDC documents

Not only is relying on distant dialogue and exposition a lazy way of establishing elements of the world, not only is it a surefire way for folks w bad memory/auditory processing issues (me) to miss out on important information, it's fucking BORING

[swiftfootedachilles]

super popular gallavich blogger/writer blocked me for absolutely no reason! okay! i was honestly a fan of their works but alright!

[extraaa-30]

PJO & Palestine pt. 2

This is going to unpack some bullshit I've seen about Rick Riordan. For pt. 1 about why "boycotting Disney" is not actually the thing you need to be doing right now, go here.

Imma try to keep it brief this time <3

In addition to the misleading info about Disney as a boycott target, I've seen some ridiculously facile takes about boycotting the show because of Rick Riordan.

As far as I can tell, the drama stems mostly from this blog post, where he shares his (fairly tepid but still principled) view of Palestine and Israel.

Here are some key takeaways:

The blog post is from Oct 17, 2023. Only ten days into the genocide, and with plenty of attention still lingering on Oct 7 worldwide. As far as I know, he hasn't shared any updated reactions

Should he? Maybe. Here's what he has to say about it in the blog post:

He goes on to talk about having readers in both Israel & Palestine:

Maybe you think he should pick a side. Maybe you're sick of both-sideism and if you see one more media take equating Israeli grief to Palestinian grief during a motherfucking genocide you will launch yourself into the sun. Rick goes on:

I don't know what you were expecting from a children's author whose overarching theme is, "You might think you know who the monsters are, but be careful; black-and-white thinking like that reduces us all."

[SPOILERS for non book readers] In PJO, Percy ultimately agrees with Luke that the system is unjust and can't remain as it is. Luke's willingness to sacrifice the lives of their friends is the thing he can't support.

The series deeply explores questions of monsters vs. victims, how our circumstances shape us, institutional injustice...

I get the anger when people, especially celebrities and the media, use calls for nuance to avoid taking a stand. I don't think it's accurate to say that's what's happening here.

I said I'd keep this short and I've obviously failed, so let's get to the most damning part of Rick's blog post:

This is what has people calling him a Zionist. And do I kinda hate it? Yeah, I do. That line "security and support" is propaganda that Israel has spent 75+ years feeding into the global media machine. I also hate that the overwhelmingly pathetic response of most public figures has conditioned me to be impressed by breadcrumbs like 'Palestine should also be secure and supported and free.'

So there you have it. Rick's opinions from 10 days into what has become a 100+ day genocide.

Maybe this all sounds unforgivably centrist to you, and that's your right. You don't have to engage with his stories. Approaching content with an eye to the author's real positions and attitudes is a healthy way to interpret media critically.

However, I'd really like people to remember two things:

This is not a JKR situation. Watching the show does not give money to someone who actively uses their platform to spread hate.

If this is about your own media purity, I have bad news for you. Literally none of your faves are perfect, and neither are you. Trying to only interact with un-cancellable media is futile, discourse-killing, and self-absorbed at a time when there are more important things we should be doing.

Ultimately, the choice of whether to engage with content from someone whose views you don't agree with is your own. You get to decide where to draw that line.

I, personally, can respect a lot of what Rick says here. He's a children's author using his platform to speak to children. He has his eye on the long game. He still emphatically argues for a free Palestine.

There have been other betrayals from other artists that I couldn't tolerate. It's a personal choice.

So please, stop shaming people for watching this silly little show. Stop trying to police how others engage with media that isn't hurting anyone.

There's work to be done.

[kidfur]

ok yea i need to put pro kink back in my pinned.. its a pain i even need to but anti kink people following me is annoying LOL

[nicholasluvbot]

i HATE people on tumblr who ask to be moots first and then they get offended by something very stupid and just unfollow you

[pastafossa]

how long did it take for your fanfiction to start getting some recognition? did you "advertise" it or "promote" it in any way?

i know that people say this doesn't matter, but i feel like even if you love writing the feeling that you're just talking to yourself gets pretty exhausting at some point. so i'm not talking about having thousands of readers but rather like. what's your advice to have readers at least?

- someone who hasn't even started writing their ideas yet...

LONG POST INCOMING.

First I want you (and everyone else reading who may be struggling with this) to know I'm absolutely with you and generally think 'it doesn't matter' is a horseshit answer. It's this weird thing we do in fanfic that we generally don't apply to other artforms that I've seen. If you're a painter, a playwriter, a novel writer, and you say, 'I want at least a few people to love my paintings, I want some people to come see my play, I want my novel to be published and do at least ok' we all support them, we nod, we agree, we talk about how they can do that successfully. It's considered normal to want some amount of success. But hold up fanfic instead and it becomes, 'how dare you want that praise, you're being egotistical, you should be writing only for yourself'. I'm not saying you can't do that - there are some who do - but it's definitely this bizarre switchup to say there's this single artform in which we can't want attention on our work and that there's something wrong with us if we do. That can be an absolute creativity killer depending on what kind of writer you are (hi, extrovert writer here who only gets writy writy juice from social interaction - aka comments and discussion. So I totally get it being exhausting just doing this on your own).

So let me say this categorically: you're allowed to want things. You're allowed to want kudos, comments, and hits. You're allowed to want messages and asks. You're allowed to want some readers you can talk with about your story.

You. Are. Allowed.

Ok, now that that's out of the way.

Edit: more below the cut cause I didn't realize the length of this on mobile

TRT definitely didn't get popular overnight. The first four chapters were sporadic, and then I took a hiatus due to life things for a couple years. During that time, it kept slowly ticking up bit by bit on AO3, with occasional comments. Iirc it was hovering somewhere around 700 kudos by the time I came back in Jan 2021 - and that's a awesome! It's big! But it's also a number that was gained over a few years, to put it in perspective. It absolutely took off after I came back though, and over the past 2 years both TRT's popularity and the stats of my one-shots in the fandom have grown. Part of that's just the time frame (TRT's been up about 6 years), but it's also due to a couple things that I think built up TRT's popularity.

Building a tumblr presence was huge. Ironically I didn't really intend to do it for advertising; I just wanted a place readers could ask questions or we could all freak out about Matt or I could post some drabbles or updates on the fic. But considering the fact that AO3 and tumblr are the top fic sites online, I wound up promoting my fics unintentionally just by being a friendly, happy tumblr user and fandom goer. All I did was follow the courtesy rules I knew - post stuff regularly, reblog, comment, make friends with other writers, just be friendly in your neighborhood because you love the lady with the gif flower shop on the corner or the wise old pizza maker who serves hot fandom takes all day long. I built familiarity with my writing and name by posting short fics, and by taking part in challenges and prompt lists and short requests for drabbles if I saw them, though that's something that's hard to do if you don't have time (I've got less time now, but I started this blog in the early pandemic so I had aaaaall the time in the world to write and was using it to stay sane). I tagged religiously because I LOVE tags, but that helped, too. Tumblr's search system is half broken but the half that works means people CAN find your writing even if they aren't following. Doing all this over here got me a huge boost over on AO3.

I will say that if you can have a fandom tiktok presence, there's a lot of fic reviewers, edits, and good stuff that can get your fic some readers (I've had some people do this on tiktok for TRT and it sent a surge over). I personally haven't done anything there yet, in part because while I'm on tiktok I try to keep my actual, real person accounts separate from my fic/fandom accounts and i haven't bothered to make a second account solely dedicated to the Pasta name yet.

Longfics on AO3 have the advantage in fic stats in the sense that every time you add a chapter, it gets bumped to the top of the front page and you get seen again. Eventually a lot of people will click out of curiosity. They may not, however, give you a lot of user subs or add to your other fic stats at first, whereas if you do a bunch of oneshots you're more likely to get user subs but less hits on each fic. This is a decision you'll have to make, and I know folks in both camps who built their followings using different methods on each. Either way, it helps if you're posting regularly, either in a long fic or one-shots. I call this the Stephen King method, who said he just writes a ton and throws it all at the wall, and eventually you get enough good despite the bad that you start building a following.

Learn learn learn. This is standard fic advice I always give, but it's still relevant. I think one of the reasons imo TRT has done so well is that I've spent a lot of time over the years learning how to write and edit - I read a ton of books (sometimes just to figure out HOW good authors structure their stories), I took a lot of English classes, I've taken some creative writing courses in my spare time. That two year hiatus was heavily spent doing a lot of research and practice around an original novel I want published one day. And I used ALL of that in TRT, just to see what it was like to put it all together. Be hungry for knowledge, be hungry to learn. The more you learn, the better your fic will be, and the more people that will click.

That learning also includes a looooong string of fanfics that started at a very novice level (hello 12 year old me), to fics that were ok and did moderately well but weren't anything huge. Hell, I had a tumblr account for my previous fandoms before I wandered over to Pastafossa, and while those fics did decently, I never had the huge reaction I've gotten here. But I used each and every one of those fics to learn and grow and adapt. Treat your own fics the same way. If it doesn't get hits, try to learn from it before moving on to the next idea a little wiser and a slightly better writer than before. There will always be people who start to follow you along the way.

A small one, but important: I swear to god, do not shit-talk yourself. Not in the summary, not in the tags, not in the A/Ns. I'm not talking, 'this is my first fic!' That's fine. I mean trashing your own work. Shit like, 'ha ha this sucks, it's terrible but oh well' will absolutely lower your stats, because people will believe you and will ditch your fic. On top of that, it's just mean to yourself, and as I said above, you want to be a good person in the fandom neighborhood. That means not breaking the windows of your own house.

People generally think of summaries as a side note, but a shitty summary can absolutely tank your stats. Treat it like the rest of your fic - this is the trailer before the movie, and it's a huge element of what gets people interested in the first place.

Lastly, like I said at the top, the biggest factor is time. There are people who post one fic and explode in popularity, absolutely. But far, far more little followings are built on the bones of time, of abandoned fics, of muttering and highlighting phrases in books in the middle of the night, of trying and trying and trying until we have at last have a breakthrough and then drag that breakthrough forward with us to the next fic. TRT is absolutely one part lightning in a bottle - the biggest success I've ever had anywhere with my writing, a confluence of fandom factors and world events that gave people (and me!) time to write and read. But it's also standing on the back of whole lot of fics I wrote that look like everyone else's: ones with no comments, low interaction, insults; ones where I had precisely zero idea of what I was doing, but wanted to try anyway. And the way I got through that, as a writer who needs interaction in order to create, was by building friendships in fandom so that even when a fic didn't do all that well, I still had friends I could talk to about the characters, the world, the fandom itself. I asked friends to look them over and give advice. I had friends being my cheerleaders. And if you're an extrovert like me, or just a writer who needs that to create, then those connections are vital as you build up a following.

That's a lot of what I've done. I know there are other ways to build a following, but this is generally what I've done, what I've learned to do, and it seems to have worked. Just remember that there are no bad fics - just learning opportunities. Learn something, and that fic's a success, and work as hard as you can to make those fandom connections to carry you through the process.

I absolutely hope to see your work around one day, so that I can be on of those followers!

[royalarchivist]

Every time I see someone cite one of my clips when telling people about a particular charater, analyzing a specific interaction, or making lore predictions, it always warms my heart.

[cinnamon-phrog]

A mutual reblogged a pr*ship post and their dni is now neutral. Unfallowed. Bolcked.

[bloobluebloo]

Bruh I reblogged that post about someone speaking personally about how they are dismayed that their language has become so villainized that just speaking it will have people who don't understand them assuming the worst and then a person comments "I wish my algorithm weren't always so negative" and unfollows me like ???? Some of you are so incredibly fragile for real and these are the people we have to put our faith in that they will somehow change the world by feeding into the status quo.

[junietuesday]

maybe im just following the wrong people to have seen these takes so many times but i dont trust people who go out of their way to make posts like “HEY. PEOPLE WHO MAKE ACE HEADCANONS ABT [CHARACTER]. youre Absolutely Wrong actually and heres why [insert a zillion paragraphs of evidence where they act victimized by those horrid asexuals pushing their headcanons on op’s precious allosexual faves]. ofc i respect aces tho hc whatever you want”

like. live and let live?? sure if you dont headcanon a character as ace then thats perfectly great, its your hc. but like Going Out of Your Way to Announce to Everyone that this one specific headcanon is wrong actually and the people who think it should shut up??? hello?