#like i just don't think a lot of people realize how much work it is to really do background fandom labor long term

[goodluckclove]

Wife Appreciation Post

Wife said they wanted to work on their game for a while. I think it's a 1st person roguelike shooter but it seems like a lot of stuff is changing. I'm on the couch in the office behind them editing and every so often I can look up and see them testing some movement or typing some code, and it is so impressive. Oh man.

I tried to ask them to explain to me how they can visualize the code they're typing as they program their game and I got confused immediately. But it's so cool. I have so much respect for people who know how to do things like that.

How do they know where to put the words? I see just a pile of random words and they can somehow turn that into a visualization of a video game.

I didn't even know what a rouge-like was before I met them.

So far I'm the only one that has gotten to test it and it's really fun. They're going for some PS2-style janky graphics and it's a super cool aesthetic.

It's just cool. I really admire skilled people. Plus they've said they want to get more involved in the indie dev scene around Portland and so I think I might get to see them do this type of stuff more often. And that makes me happy.

When Wife eventually releases the game they're working on now I'm going to secretly post it here and I hope everyone downloads it and plays it. I think they said they're going to make it like .69 cents or some funny price. And it's a super neat take on the shooter concept using an arbalest that you can power up until it's crazy. I am not a gamer but I really enjoy it so far.

You aren't allowed to tell them that I'm the one that showed it to you, though. It's our little secret. They don't really understand Tumblr so I don't think they realize I talk about them as much as I do.

I like my wife. That's all I want to say.

[sciderman]

ARE WE AFFIRMING YOUR GENDER?! IS THAT WHAT WE’RE DOING?!

Sci, first of all, I’m so sorry your dad said that listing your pronouns is embarrassing. It’s 2024. What’s embarrassing is being a parent who cares more about what other people think of them than what their child thinks of them. People don’t have to understand you, they don’t even have to agree with you, but if someone says they love you, the least they can do is make the attempt to show you they respect your identity as an individual person. I know this is particularly difficult for parents sometimes but it’s not impossible. I sincerely hope that someday your dad realizes how spectacular you are and how lucky he is to have the opportunity of knowing and loving someone as truly kind, funny, and generous as you are.

Second of all, LET’S GIVE ANOTHER SHOUT OUT TO THOSE PRONOUNS. Oooo I like the way you wear he/him. It’s loud, it’s rebellious, it’s confident, it’s authentic! It’s everything those angry white boys with podcasts WISH they were! You are entering your “boys will be boys” era and it’s covered in bright colors, zany patterns, sequins, and ATTITUDE.

I am so fucking proud of you for taking this big scary step into being your true self and laying it bare before the world. Just last night I was thinking about how one of the reasons I was so miserable in my 20s was because when I was around 21/22 I went back into the closet to make myself “more palatable” for the people around me. Less confusing for them. Less work for them. And I’ll never actually know what experiences I lost when I lost myself. I’ll never know what I could have done, the opportunities and stories and memories I missed out on because I was only living as half a person. I’m back on track now though, and the good news for you is: now that you’ve taken this step you never have to ask that question again.

I’ve gotta say, Sci, announcing your true pronouns is definitely one of the sexiest things you could ever do. And Wade agrees. <3

hooougghh bless you @nobutforrealthough - you're so cool and sexy and ough...

i feel so very exhausted in the head lately about identity things. i think a lot of people thought i was some kind of gender icon when really i'm just piecing things together as best as i can. i feel a little exhausted that people thought so much of me and i'm not delivering on it. (but i've felt that way all the time, all my life, from pretty much everybody.)

i guess it's difficult to do all this alone, without anyone in your corner. i think writing wade and peter, they sort of felt like friends to help me through it, because i don't really have anyone else out there to help me through and speak to me on my level. so – i kind of had to invent voices to give me courage. and it helps. but i worry that it's a little sad, too. sorry. i'm feeling very frank and bare this morning.

it's a lonely old world when you still haven't figured out where you fit in it. and maybe you're not meant to fit. but you kind of do need to fit, for your sanity. for your survival. so you contort and compromise and squeeze yourself into weird shapes and bug your head. and it's all so, so exhausting for me. and i think my body's finally telling me it's time to retire. my body is so, so tired...

[amusingmusie]

Is Evie canon to the Yours Truly universe? I absolutely love her already, and I can only imagine the kind of hell she put poor Nel through growing up. Al would be so proud. Good on Nel for starting a law firm, too! That’s our queen!!!

But also the general heartbreak that Nel must have felt as every day Evie looked a little bit more like the man Nel thought she knew. Just looking at her daughter one day only to see someone completely different but so familiar staring back. :(

I’m also so curious how the realization that Nel was pregnant went down. Not well probably. Was it before or after Al died? How would Al have reacted if he was alive (He very clearly didn’t want kids). How on earth would he have behaved around a pregnant Nel?? Also not well probably.

And of course I can’t forget about the extended family. Where’s Grace, my beloved, in all of this??? The absolute agent of chaos that she is, she and Evie would cause so much havoc — I just know it. And I can’t tell if Marie would be ecstatic up in heaven or rolling around in her grave at the news lol. I’m assuming by this point in time she’d have passed away, but to know she just missed the big news — damn. Poor Grandma Marie. Nobody thought Al had it in him 😔

Sorry for the giant block of text lol. I adore Evie and she’s got my brain in overdrive rn. Your writing is amazing, and Yours Truly is genuinely such a wonderful read! Also don’t feel pressured to answer any of the questions if you don’t want to or if it’s spoiler territory — I just had to get all that off my chest :)

Stay safe out there and take care of yourself!!

No PLEASE send me asks about Evie I fucking love her and barely ever get to talk about her because I've kept her so private for so long!

Evie is "canon" to Yours Truly but not in the way you might think. She is never going to be born, she doesn't exist, but she will eventually have a small cameo in a later chapter. The rest is a mysteryyyyyyy for now. However, I love thinking about the au where she's alive since I LOVE family drama and angst.

The girl is a menace. She's a strange mix of Darla Dimple, Jessica Lovejoy, and Heather Chandler but also can be oddly endearing? There’s a strange innocence to her. Yes, she did stab that man but she hugs her momma extra tight when that haunted look comes over her face. There are a lot of layers to the silly gay girl that VERY few people will ever see let alone notice and process.

If Al was around for Nel actually being knocked up and aware of it, he'd be annoyingly overbearing. 100% he'd treat her like she's made of glass even though she's trying to bite his throat out for being so condescending. It would be a giant clusterfuck of Nel randomly crying cuz her hormones are raging and she’s too big to bend over and buckle her shoes, and then Alastor is staring at her like she’s insane because it’s Nel, crying. They’d make it work though. Well, in another universe at least, because in the drabble-I-posted-verse uuuhh….he wasn’t really around to know that he has a child kicking around on earth.

But heeeeey she and Grace are BFFS! They definitely gang up on Nel together while she smokes 28 packs of cigs with a thirst for blood in her eyes. Little shits of a feather flock together.

If Marie was around, she would SPOIL that child. Her only grandchild, and a little girl??? Whatever Evie desired Marie would deliver and you wouldn’t be able to tell that child no without her granny defending her. It’s probably for the best that they never met since Evie would be worse than she already is.

Thanks for asking more about her cuz I like to yap :D I can't really say too too much since I don't wanna accidentally spoil YT, but man do I adore this strange child of whimsy.

[katlyntheartist]

Knuckle series is out!! Any thoughts? Does it affect your Jojo and Gang au?

Spoilers for the Knuckles series people! Avert your eyes children!

First, let's talk about the things I liked:

- Sonic and Tails were great for as little screen time as they had. And Maddie trying to be patient with Knuckles while also not strangling him was great, haha. As someone who worked at a Daycare, I related to her dealing with kids like Knuckles and Maddie's facial expressions when she was grounding Knuckles were on point. Also THEY HAVE A PLAIN BED FOR TAILS AND A TRUCK BED FOR KNUCKLES AHHHHH!!!!!

-Pachacamac is a Jedi Force ghost? Alright then. I don't know much about this character outside of Sonic X but I thought that he was fine. And Christopher Lloyd does a great job as usual.

-Wade was not terrible. I like how he has some character growth through the series and at the end he isn't a master warrior/fighter. He's still a goofball but now he's thinking things through and using what he has and his current surroundings to his advantage in a fight, and isn't just hiding and waiting for Knuckles to save him. But him breaking out of the cage in episode 4 was a bit ridiculous. What was that cage made of, cardboard? He really should have broken his hand or something.

-I liked the villains but I wish that we got to see them more involved in the story, especially the buyer. Who was menacing for about five minutes and then was crushed to death like, dang 0-0

-NANA WHIPPLE AND KNUCKLES SPINOFF SHOW PLEASE!!

-Knuckles was the best part of the show. He's the strong tough warrior but with a big heart and good intentions, though a bit misguided at times. Idris did a great job, nothing new there.

And now let's get into the things I didn't like:

-The show is %70 Wade bowling story and %30 Knuckles adjusting to earth and his backstory with Pachacamac and his tribe and his connection to the master emerald and everything else that the show should have been about. The Wade sub plot takes up so much time that we don't get to explore Knuckles. I wished that we had gotten to see him learn to appreciate and call Earth his new home instead of him just accepting it at the end. It just felt so rushed.

-Episode four wasn't awful but I didn't care for it. Also you can NOT show us the Flames of Disaster from '06 and not have Silver or Blaze show up. You can't do that >:(

-Knuckles and Maddie didn't get to have a heart to heart conversation which is what I and many others thought that was what the show was building up to. Also he never gets in trouble for running way and we never cut back to seeing Maddie or Sonic and Tails realizing Knuckles is gone, or even Sonic and Tails trying to cover for Knuckles. I get that the CGI was expensive and voice actor and actor schedules might not have worked out for it to happen, but my point still stands.

-Wanda was useless and you could have cut her out and lost nothing. Don't get me wrong, the actress is good but she feels wasted here. Her character is so annoying and serves no purpose other than to be mean to Wade. And why do we have to have the "siblings who hate each other but make up at the end" cliche? I would have liked Wanda more if she was nicer to Wade from the start and if they had a fun sibling bond with each other. Also if she was able to actually use her skills as an FBI agent to at least hold her own against the gang when they attack Nanna Whipple's house. Also the dad needed to be more comedically villainous, he was too generic.

-Like I said the villains here are fine but the Buyer's whole character is to just show up, have a cool robot fight, and die. We don't get to see him be a threat to Knuckles at all, he just appears for the climax and then is offed in a snap. And the two agents were fun but a lot of their dialogue was graining.

-And that leads me to the main problem with the series. The writing. I'm aware that the writers for the main movies didn't work much on this series, except Jeff did do the first episode. Which is why it's the best one. There is no balance between the jokes and the emotional moments. The show is so focused on trying to make you laugh every five minutes that it sacrifices genuine emotional growth for the characters especially for Knuckles. You know, the whole reason for the show existing in the first place. It suffers the same problems that the live action Ton and Jerry movie had, where the main stars weren't allowed to be the main stars of their film. All of the screen time there went to the human characters who weren't interesting or just plain annoying and mean.

And the dialogue for the show teeters back and forth between actually funny/well written and being dangerously close to obnoxious. And kids shows having jokes all the time isn't a problem. Rottmnt and the Lego Movies are both kid properties that fire off a joke every minute but they knew when to cut back and let the emotional moments shine. The jokes in the Knuckles show felt more like they were pandering to four year old's then actually trying to be funny and the emotional moments felt kind of forced.

I don't want to give any of the writers or anyone who worked on this show a hard time. I can see that everyone worked hard and had fun with this. And I had fun too. There were some good moments between Knuckles and Wade and even a few jokes that got me. But the problems I listed above are just to hard for me to ignore. If you liked the Knuckles series then great for you! I'm happy you were able to have a great time! But for me it was just ok.

Not great. But not bad either. 5/10.

Now, about this affecting Jojo and Gang. I think what I'll do is have comic take place a month after the Knuckles series. And use my AU to focus on Knuckles getting accustomed to Earth and learning to call it home. Basically my AU will do what the Knuckles series didn't.

[unforth]

Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.

That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.

That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.

That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.

That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.

That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.

That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.

None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.

I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.

If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.

Celebrate fan work!

To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.

[lennsart]

Me :

You all :

????? I'm—

I will answer to every comments I just need time (to cry on the floor, notably)

Thank you all 💜💜💜

[ladsofsorrow24]

one of the... weirdly good thing about AI art invading the illustration field is that now, whenever i look at art that doesn't cater to my weird fucking taste, i'm able to appreciate the efforts and creativity that are put into making the artist's own personal vision come to life

[adore-gregor]

study smart not hard (altough both is best actually) this saying is so true

[theghostofashton]

.

[down-with-the-mafia]

mu was a child with too much power surrounded by some of the most violent and shitty adults like of course she turned out the way she did

[girlscience]

Okay, obviously I have some body image issues. This is very clear to pretty much everyone who knows me. I have had them since I hit about 10 years old I think? That gives me 15 years of disliking the way I look, for one reason or another. I have tried a lot of things throughout that time to change my perception of myself. And currently, I feel like I am stuck in a weird place that I can't figure out how to escape.

I understand that there are studies now showing that dieting and working out don't actually work long term for most people. I know that getting into that mostly causes things like yo-yo dieting and circular weight gain/loss. I know that being fat is being shown to not actually be unhealthy in the ways it has often been shown as and perceived to be. I know that literally all the media everywhere is blasting me with idealized bodies that pretty much do not exist or only exist through extremely unsustainable/unhealthy means.

I have tried for so long to believe in and promote body neutrality or positivity for myself and other people. I constantly refuse to let myself think about what I see in the mirror or in pictures. I tell myself to get exercise for the physical and mental health benefits, not for my physical appearance. I try to view my body for what it can do and not how it looks. I tell myself to live the life I want to live now, rather than waiting to live it till I have the body I imagine living that life. Without exaggeration, I am fairly certain I think about these things every single day.

And none of it is working.

I actually feel I dislike my appearance now more than I did even a year ago. I feel like I am constantly noticing things about my body that I never did before or new changes to my body, and I am deeply uncomfortable with them. And I want to do something about it, and clearly simply changing my mentality isn't doing anything. I want to diet and exercise. But I also know it likely won't be a permanent change. I am concerned that I would give myself an eating disorder. And I'm also concerned that I would be feeding into diet/exercise culture. I am worried about hurting the people around me who are also fat. I am anxious about the fact that I am not actually that large so I don't want to talk about it with other people because I know it will make people who are larger than I am feel terrible. I don't want to make other people who are gaining weight feel bad for that. But, I hate the way I look.

This is not sustainable. At some point something will break and I think it might end up being my brain. I am worried about how that would end up. The things I do for my brain and my body shouldn't be about how it might affect other people, it should be for me. But I don't want to be bad for the things I do. I want and have wanted for so long to look like a powerbuilder/warrior/dwarf/strongman lifter/crossfit athlete/etc. I want to be big. I want to be visibly strong and powerful. And I am absolutely not. And I know I struggle with commitment and discipline and all of that, but I also know I struggle a lot with how this desire appears to other people.

Really, I think what this is all coming down to is other people's opinions. I dislike the way I look and am told that's bad. I want to change the way I look and I'm told that's bad. I do nothing and get told that's bad. I have to want these things for the right reason, in the right way, and have to talk about it right all the time. And I just can't. I don't like the way I look and I wish I looked like a brick shithouse and everyone else can fucking suck it.

[elytrafemme]

friendship is cool bc you get to have these funny little guys who make you happy and become a better person or whatever and laugh a lot. but then there’s the horrors (trying to see and message them frequently enough when you know you can’t possibly juggle all of them all at once and never knowing the best answer)

[maddy-ferguson]

yeah I get your point, and I was thinking the same way after vol2 for months. I used to think mike realized his sexuality in s3 and he already knows he likes will and he knows he's not in love with el and he lied in his monologue to save el's life and plus he was pressured by will etc etc... though that's not what I think the writers are going for upon a closer examination. like i am saying this as someone who used to believe in all those things + that i was a strict gay!mike truther (but i am not anymore bc i think the writers won't discard mike and el's romance completely but will rather portray it as a past thing that happened.)

and i just think... i guess i wish ppl would be more open to the idea that mike didn't lie and that his sexuality won't confirmed to be gay instead of ignoring that plot possibility.

at the end of the day i am okay with either, but i am worried about what most ppl's reaction will be in s5 when they see that what the writers were/are going for with this love triangle situation is very different than what ppl thought it to be (such as mike not lying in the monologue + him being still oblivious + him not receiving an obvious sexuality confirmation etc). will people just call it bad storytelling and weak writing? that's what i am worried about tbh

that's kind of a unique trajectory it's usually the other way around so kudos to you for standing out

i feel like there's a lot of people who are open to that though, it just might not be the biggest blogs/the one who are the most vocal because saying "you can't be sure" isn't as strong an opinion so people don't feel the need to express it as much. and i don't think anyone is ignoring the possibility, it's just that most people have made up their minds by now so they don't feel like going back on it 24/7. i get what you mean though but i really don't even think most people aren't open to mike not being gay/not having lied in the monologue, i feel like mike's specific sexuality not being that important is still a widespread opinion

can i just say i think it's funny that you say people shouldn't act like they know for sure and then talk like you know for sure what the writers are going for. at the end of the day i think people are gonna be disappointed if what they think of as the better story isn't the story that ends up being told. yes i am talking about myself in the third person. and i get why you wouldn't want that like really i get it but isn't having high expectations a good thing? you're more likely to end up being disappointed but of course you're gonna expect what you think is the best. if what people are now calling weak writing ends up happening, yes they're probably gonna say it's bad storytelling and weak writing. if everything isn't exactly like they'd hoped but it all comes together really well and everything makes sense in hindsight then they won't

something else i wanted to mention is that we've never had anyone realize that they loved someone on screen. we've never had an "oh my god. i love josh" moment ever so that's why a lot of people just don't see mike having one onscreen moment where he very explicitly realizes he's in love with will

[mare-the-silly-scroingle]

not popular not lonely but a secret third thing (has a significant number of online friends but is incapable of talking to anybody frequently enough to forge actually strong bonds with so now she’s just forming pseudo-best friendships with a lot of people without there actually being much of anything there aside from my capacity to give people what they want sometimes and the farce that we all put up) 

[trans-axolotl]

having emotions right now about like. not being 14 and miserable anymore

[ghostlyheart]

Happy Valentines Day!! 💝 I hope you spend the day being haunted by someone you love 👻 (or if you're like me, just eating a lot of heart-shaped candy)

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