#like why do i have to beg for art reblogs or compliments when everyone else can get them without looking like a pathetic attention seeker

[hangryyeena]

:)

[artificialqueens]

How To Motivate, Encourage, and Inspire Writers - A Masterpost

Hey guys! I am reposting this guide because it got mysteriously deleted. This version includes some new additions and advice for readers.

This is meant to be a guide to help people give valuable, inspiring feedback, as well as how to send in prompts and requests that are more likely to be used. Remember that these are simply suggestions designed to help YOU as a reader get more of what you want. <3

Please let me know if you have anything to add, as this post was a collaborative effort and it can only get better with more input.  

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What Readers Can Do

1. Like and reblog the stories you enjoy. Fanfic authors don’t get paid. Their only “currency” is notes and feedback. Seeing the notes climb, as silly as it may seem, is a huge motivator to write more. If you are shy about using your main blog for this, you can always create a sideblog and reblog the fic you like there. Authors will notice this and it’s also a great record when you want to go back to fic that you enjoy!

2. Positive feedback! A simple “I love this” or “I can’t wait for more” is great if that’s all you have to say, as well as general writer appreciation, but even better...

3. Comment with specifics. What did you like about the story or writing style? You can talk about the plot itself, characterization, dialogue, the writer’s voice or sense of humor, how the story made you feel, what you’d like to see more of...anything, even the smallest detail, that made you enjoy reading it. Nothing is more motivating for a writer than knowing that their hard work is appreciated.

Some examples of great comments with places to fill in the blanks with specifics. Feel free to use all or part of these as templates when you want to send a comment but you’re not sure where to begin:

[Author Name] - your last fic was so [complimentary adjective]! You really [description of something they did well]. Can’t wait for your next [story/chapter].

[Author Name] - I love [Title] so much! I especially love [part you enjoyed].

I hope we get more of [Title] from [Author Name]. It is [complimentary adjective].

Just read [Title] and [exclamation]! I am [emotion or state of mind].

I really loved [Title] by [Author Name]! My favorite part was probably [specific impactful theme or moment in fic], because it really made me feel [emotional response].

I am [emotion or state of mind] over [Title] by [Author Name]. It was so [descriptive adjective] when [describe moment in story].

Some more examples of really great, detailed, inspiring comments.

4. Start an actual dialogue with an author. As mentioned above, reblogging with comments (even just in the tags) is great. You can also send asks directly to their blogs, DM them, or send additional asks when they respond. Authors may have questions for you, and being able to interact can easily spark something or help them find direction where they were stuck. You can find a list of authors’ sideblogs here if you want to send messages directly to them.

5. Direct requests and prompts to specific writers who you enjoy. Start with why you like them and then explain your idea or request. By doing that, they will start off knowing that they are appreciated, making them way more likely to get excited by your suggestion. Try to phrase things in an open-ended and positive way. “I’d love to see how you would handle [prompt situation/pairing/suggestion]” or “here’s an idea, I think you could do something really cool with it.” The more detailed and supportive your prompt is, the more likely it is that someone will get excited and inspired by it. If your request is for “more” of something that exists, include a reason why you like that story, author, etc. If your request is for something different, talk about something else you liked and why.

Examples of how to send in requests and prompts to specific writers, or include a compliment:

[Author Name(s)] is/are awesome and I would love for them to write more [ship or thing you love].

I would give anything for more [ship or request], especially if it’s similar to [Title(s)], they are my favorite!

I love [Author Name]’s style so much, and I’d be so happy if they wrote [ship/thing you want from them].

I wonder how [Author Name] or [Author Name] would handle [idea]? I would love to read that!

[Title] by [Author Name] is so [positive adjective]! It makes me really want them to try [idea] because I bet they would [motivating phrase like “kill it!”].

[Author Name] - have you ever considered writing [prompt]? [Motivating sentence like “I would die for that!”] 

I really love [ship], especially [story title(s)/author name(s)]. I would love to see one where [prompt].

6. Creating artwork, edits, moodboards, or anything inspired by a story you like. This is like, the PINNACLE for most writers. Knowing that someone connected to something you wrote enough to take time out of their day to create something inspired by your story. It’s like drugs. ART IS DRUGS PASS IT ON.

7. If you are a writer, comment on other writers’ stories! You know more than anyone how hard they worked, so please show your fellow authors some love.

Demotivators

1. Anything that sounds aggressive or demanding. You catch more flies with honey.

2. Complaining about the lack of a certain ship, ESPECIALLY if ANYTHING featuring that ship has been posted in the last month of so. Writers are reading these comments, especially if they have posted recently. Can you imagine how demoralizing it is to post a story and then 3 days later, read a comment bemoaning how there’s NOTHING from that ship, that ship is dead, etc? Like this, written about one of the most popular, enduring ships in the fandom with some of the most prolific, talented writers here:

Don’t be that anon. ^

3. Begging and whining, especially for something extremely vague - this sounds way less cute than you think, and reading something like “I will die if I don’t get more [ship]” is more annoying than inspiring. Especially if, as stated above, the thing you are dying over already exists.

4. Giving nothing at all. Most of the writers expect to at least see their work is noticed. If there are no responses at all, they can’t provide you with anything new. And worst case scenario, they lose the motivation to finish it because they think no one is interested.

Notes From Some Writers (and Readers!)

“I’m famously horrendously bad at abandoning fics but about 95% of my will to continue to keep writing is because I know other people are reading and interested that I keep writing, and I’m sure that’s how a lot of other writers operate too. We’re all fuelled by positive reinforcement, so please tell us! Oh, and btw, commenting just to get mad at lack of updates is not encouragement and is actually super irritating and stressful. Just so ya know.” - Edith

“Having an artist come to you and say ‘Hey, I was inspired by your story’ is FANTASTIC. And also encouraging because someone has taken time to create something and say ‘hey, I really liked the thing you made’. It becomes a cycle.” - Kitschy

“Take a look anywhere, on AQ or ao3 or any other platforms. You’ll see (on ao3), probably at most, 10:1 ratio for hits to kudos, alone. There are even less comments. On AQ, probably a 10:1 ratio for likes to reblogs, and the most popular fics only have a little over 100 notes period. Now, consider that it can take a writer months to be happy with a fic they submit. This takes countless hours. Fiction writers, in real life, get money for their work. We get nothing. Nothing, that is, except whatever appreciation you can give us. If we put work and our hearts and souls into something and get nothing, we question our talent, our abilities, our devotion. We refresh the pages where our works are posted constantly, hoping for some feedback, some appreciation, and most readers only read the fiction and give no feedback or appreciation whatsoever.

“All you, as a reader, have to do to make us happy is take 1 to fifteen minutes out of your day to leave a comment, send an ask, send a message to a sideblog. Leave commentary in the tags if you reblog. Any reaction at all. It is all we get for the work we put in.” - Miss Bianca

“My 2 cents I guess is just to get into a habit of acknowledging works that you like. Even for me I'll read stuff and really enjoy it but forget to comment or like it so I'm gonna work on it and I’d like everyone else do it as well. Once people get in the habit of commenting and liking it becomes second nature and with that kind of positive environment it allows writers to grow.” - MissChimKi

“Going back in time, my first work was posted two years ago, and the last comment I got was a huge thank you for writing such a good story and the emotions of that reader, it’s the kind of tiny little things that give me fuel to keep writing.” - Saiphl

“I once wrote 5000 words in a day simply because someone told me that they were reading my smut in church. So, extreme enthusiasm is awesome, but don’t feel like you have to exaggerate and say ‘this is the best thing I ever read.’ A simple ‘I am going to hell...I was in a church service reading Exposed chapter 9’ is more than enough!” - Veronica

“Something that motivates me as a writer is when readers pick out parts of my fic to say why they enjoyed them. Advice for readers would be to never think you’re complimenting too much! I’ve seen some readers cut their asks short because they don’t want to gush too much. As writers we love praise and attention, we’re like Tinkerbell really!” - Vixen

What It Can Feel Like To a Writer to Read the Asks (Inspired by @artificialeevee )

[utopianparadoxist]

This “Soft Dirk” bullshit being treated as people wanting to soften and Woobify Dirk is hilarious or it would be if it wasn’t heartbreaking

@swamp-wizard @kidgecko that’s p much it i either can’t remember or am blocked by everyone else.

Allow me to clarify the situation with Soft dirks and this whole discourse because a lot of you are profoundly misunderstanding it in your responses and I’m pretty tired of it. 

None of this is about making Dirk “soft” or “cute” and you don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on if you think otherwise. It’s not about weabooifying Dirk and stripping him of all flaws, either. 

Dirk still has severe issues in the “Soft Dirk” reading you’re claiming is about woobifying him. Dirk is still mentally ill, Dirk’s mistakes still hurt people (often WITHOUT his say in the matter which is the critical difference y’all keep ignoring), Dirk is still prone to hyper-isolating and closing himself off in unhealthy ways. 

This isn’t about making Dirk a hot anime boy, either! It has nothing the fuck to do with how pretty he is, the aesthetics of this branch of fanon are thoroughly secondary. I would personally fucking love greasy troll dissasociating Dirk if it’s your flavor, I want every brand of Dirk under the sun. 

Where you lose me is making Dirk malicious and elitist, superior-minded and holding friends to high standards. You lose me there because that Dirk doesn’t fucking exist in the story and he’s a fake lump of bullshit you assembled out of stray pieces of the AR and a couple of Brain Ghost Dirk lines--who is JAKE’S BRAIN, not Dirk himself. 

(You also lose me at the implication Dirk isn’t desperately, irreplaceably in love with Jake and vice versa which is well established and executed in the canon story we all claim to be fans of but w.e, I wouldn’t mind Dirkjohn if fandom at large actually understood and valued Dirkjake for what it is, a ship isn’t the problem here.)

The fucking perfect example of this is someone responding to the asshole STEM Dirk thing by saying Jade wouldn’t have been an asshole about STEM stuff because she would “tutor her friends” instead. You know who tutors his friends in the goddamn story we’re talking about? 

Literally Dirk, is who. 

Dirk, who accepts Jake’s adventurer persona but never even acknowledges Jake thinking he’s dumb except to compliment him all the while giving him length intellectual diatribes he knows Jake will understand. 

Dirk, who practically does a backflip when Jane so much as MENTIONS an apprenticeship even as he talks about how serious and important he’s sure she considers her own craft. 

THIS is what this fandom divide is, and this is why people are pissed about this asshole iteration of Dirk in fanon. It’s so prominent it drowns out the fandom’s ability to perceive Dirk as he ACTUALLY EXISTS IN THE COMIC, and the fact that it’s so pervasive is a problem for mlm people like me whether it’s convenient to your view or not. 

And yeah, you’re all being fucking assholes trying to reduce all of that to just people wanting Dirk to be a Sexy Pure Woobie. That’s not what anyone in this section of the culture is going for, and it’s reductive and boring to imply it is. 

People in your corner have literally called me--an mlm who relates deeply to Dirkjake as a queer narrative and hopes only that other queer mlm teens can find it as empowering as I do myself-- names like this is fucking highschool for trying to point out that maybe this overly harsh interpretation of Dirk isn’t sourced in the canon but in a bunch of hyper-moralizing that self-generated years ago and mixed with a bunch of homophobic sentiment. 

Yes, that is villainizing. Yes, that is homophobia. The implications here are that Dirk is malicious and/or demanding (and thus a more acceptable target for violence and mockery, like with that particular piece of art where Jake likens him to a trash can and symbolically sets him on fire for example). 

The implications here are ALSO that Dirk is disattached enough from his emotions that he would be untouched by being treated cruelly or with mockery anyway. This literally leads to dehumanizing a gay character by removing his emotions and desire for acceptance from his peers, which are oh...just the core elements his entire character arc revolves around. 

Not even to get into how detrimental the whole air is to Dirkjake as one of the canon ships in the comic, or the perception of Hussie’s handling of lgbt relationships at large. 

I’m tagging every single person who’s been contributing to this particular train of discourse. Please for the love of god if you have a retort to this just reblog it or send me an ask. Don’t vague me. Don’t come back with another post out of nowhere that clearly answers sentiments I’ve been spreading but doesn’t give me an opening to respond. 

@ me or something I’m right here and perfectly willing to have a conversation and even if I HAD the follower count to sic on anyone I don’t think anyone is being fundamentally cruel or Problematic here, that just plain old is not where I’m coming from. What on earth do you have to lose? 

Either have a conversation with me about this like I’ve been begging for for months or do me a favor and stop talking over a queer dude about this depiction of queer dudes and mlm ships in fanon. ESPECIALLY if you’re wlw. I have a niche in this fandom too, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that it be respected.

@swamp-wizard @kidgecko there’s a bunch of other people but I either don’t remember their names right or they have different mains or w.e cause I can’t @ them. Maybe I’m blocked by a few? Who the hell knows.

Wish I knew how to get this to the rest of the people I’ve interacted with about this. Information seems to get around in this circle of fandom so do me a favor and spread it around, I’m interested in hearing from everyone, including the people who have called me a geek. I really don’t care, I just want the conversation around Dirk in this fandom to evolve. 

Hoping to hear from you. I’m going to be reblogging posts from other people in this Dirk movement that will shed additional light on where we’re coming from. Maybe  you will actually read them, I hope?