#people who aren't really participating in the tumblr fandom

[zaptrap]

Seeing that you've been here since 2012 is INSANE like you've witnessed it all huh. You've seen probably SO many weird and crazy things in this fandom like man that's so cool for you I feel...

ive def seen and participated in a lot of dumbass bullshit over the years LMAO. although notsomuch during the skybound-to-seabound era cuz i'd lost interest for a bit

Random shit I remember off the top of my head (plz feel free to fact-check):

deviantart era: (2012-2013)

that bright green ninjago ask meme

like, literally everybody making self-insert purple ninjas (sometimes orange, teal, or rainbow) and shipping them with their fav ninja

everyone making their own genderbends of the ninja. cole was almost always called nicole or colette lmao

people also naming their accounts (name)-the-ninja (or "teh-ninja", since this was 2012)

there's a non-zero probability that if you were in the fandom during the season 1 era, you're a furry now

naruto crossovers

half-snake ninja aus.........wonder who uh......who could've done that.....heheh (me) (that was my whole deal pre-nindroid!jay lmfao)

everyone posting like, doll-maker things they made of ninjago? especially dragon ones

(me) posting leaked screenshots of season 2 eps that i found on the lego wiki or smth lmao. this is also how i found out zane was a robot. i think i kept posting leaks when i moved to tumblr

legends of chima releasing and i thiiink it was supposed to be a ninjago replacement? like, legitimately? though a lot of people weren't happy about it. "furry gang drug wars" was a phrase used a lot lmfao.

tumblr era (2013-2016 for me) (may overlap with dA era)

everyone losing their minds over the shirtless ninja in ns2 lmfao

that one video of kirby marrow (rest in peace) saying cole was 14

that other vid of like, behind the scenes and it was the ninja's actors but like in-universe? it's where "cole bucket" comes from

also some behind the scenes vid with the actual voice actors lol

thinking back on this, im like 100% sure it was bullshit but when the end of rebooted aired, there was a rumor going around about fans being so upset over zane's death that they carved a snowflake on their stomachs. lots of people were freaking out lmfao

the rise and fall of "fucknoshittyninjagoOCs" (ashamed to say i heavily participated in harassing this blog even if i rlly didnt like the premise.........)

maypong

lots of tension with instagram cuz of all the art reposts. like. tons of reposts. i remember someone blocked me when i said to take something down but then unblocked me the same evening and apologized LOL so

roleplay twitter accounts (twitter was kinda not-as-a lot at the time)

nindroid!jay of course. its so old there was an update that was made in flash lmfao...

absolute fucking shitloads of AUs and headcanons. i dont think this has changed much but like. there were so many lmfao. entire threads

actually there's too many fucking AUs. im scrolling through my main blog and i cant fuckin find anything cuz ITS ALL THESE STUPID AU THREADS THEY AREN'T EVEN LIKE DEEP LMAO

ask-all-the-ninjagians

the absurd screenshot redraws i did. like they were super stupid lmfao. icr which blog they're on but they're on my comp still at least

ninjagians just. being a term used at all lmao

the ninjago fan-tournament during ns4. people would draw/write about their ocs doing whatever prompt was posted and then everyone came together to defeat a big bad snake man

tbh i started naturally losing interest during ns5, and then VERY QUICKLY dropped the show (and therefore fandom) when skybound came out lmao............... so i dont really remember a lot from this era and everything after

and now im back :D

i hope this is insightful! xD

[olderthannetfic]

I do think a lot of the problem and the reason that more people (like the ones who seem to think that "top/bottom as myers-briggs personality types" jokes are exclusively coming from female-centric fandom spaces rather than gay male offline culture - which, btw, ignores that a whole bunch if not most female fanfic writers are themselves queer and there's a similar set of jokes and stereotypes in the lesbian community, but I digress) don't seem to understand what offline queer culture is like on here is that way too many of the people setting the tone for this in The Discourse on Tumblr are very young people who are newly out. In particular, a huge amount of the gay men on here who are telling people how very Problematic this is (when they're getting it from gay men and not circular discourse among other women in fandom who are claiming to speak on gay men's behalf) is coming from young gay men who don't have much of a community offline, and especially young gay trans men who often aren't yet presenting as male outside of the Internet. It's really hard to talk about, because it so easily risks saying those people's identities aren't valid - and like, we've seen TERFs weaponize that discourse to suggest that gay trans men involved in fandom are just straight women who identified too hard with their blorbos or something, as well as the endless use of "passing privilege" to suggest that bi people in F/M relationships are "basically straight" - but I think one thing people need to understand better is the difference between "your identity is valid, your personal experiences with homophobia/transphobia/etc. are valid" and "your judgments about the larger community that your identity makes you a member of are valid." Like, you do actually have to participate in a community to be able to be able to talk about what the consensus in it is, what the cultural norms are. You have to actually look up the history in order to know that history. If you're going to speak on behalf of All Gay Men you probably should know some beyond yourself - including ones who are not Very Online and/or aren't active in fandom - and that goes for both cis and trans gay men. (And the same is true for every subdivision of LGBTQ+, I've seen similarly bizarre takes about "lesbian culture" from 17-yro lesbians who clearly haven't talked to any outside of Tumblr and insular, dramatic Discords.)

Like, to use an analogy here to another kind of oppression: say you have a black person who was adopted by a white family very young and lived in an exclusively white neighborhood and doesn't know any other black people. Obviously, they are still black, and obviously they still experience racism (probably especially because they're an outlier in that community). Obviously, their own understanding of their identity and their experiences with racism are valid. But they aren't necessarily going to have any better of an understanding of the broader black COMMUNITY - cultural traditions, history, etc. - than a non-black person who was similarly not exposed to that community. They can only speak for themselves. And someone who isn't black but grew up near/in black communities (for instance, perhaps another transracial adoptee who was adopted by a black couple? or even just a non-black person who grew up in a heavily black neighborhood) might actually have a better sense of that broader community/culture than they do.

And this isn't a hypothetical. I've heard stuff like that about feeling like outliers in black American culture from everyone from the aforementioned transracial adoptees; to multiracial black people who were raised primarily by their non-black family; to black people who are recent immigrants from Africa rather than descendants of slaves; to black people from Europe or other parts of the Americas, who have some similarities in their culture but it's not completely 1:1. And especially from people who are some combo of the above. They have an understanding of themselves as black and of their relationship to race and racism, of course, but don't really feel like they have a particularly strong understanding of The Black Community or The Black Experience as we understand it in the USA.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that newly-out queer people are often like that. A lot of other marginalized identities - like being a cis woman (this applies less to trans women unless they've known from early on) or being a POC - are ones where you grow up with an understanding of what that means and often a connection to a broader community that gives you some kind of consciousness of what it means to be A Woman or Black or Asian or whatever. But with queerness, it's usually not something you fully understand about yourself until adolescence or adulthood, and even when you do, you don't necessarily have access to a "community" around that until that age because you're probably being raised by cis straight people. You have to take time to discover that community and learn about it, and the culture and history that goes with, and when you start out you're going to be just as ignorant as a straight cis person who is similarly isolated from queer communities. (And frankly, a straight person with a lot of gay friends might know better than you do at first! As a lesbian with a lot of gay male friends, most of whom couldn't care less about my slash fanfic hobby if they even know about it, that's precisely why I know that these takes on Tumblr are so bizarre)

(Disability is the interesting one because it sometimes overlaps with this, sometimes doesn't - and one of the big divides in the community IME is around people who have lifelong understandings of themselves as "disabled" vs. came to it more recently, whether because the disability itself is a new thing or just their diagnosis of it. A lot of people in the second group can have very similar experiences and act in similar ways to newly-out queer people, and I know because I've lived both myself, lol.)

I think people have taken the idea of "everyone is the best expert on their own experience with oppression and their own identity" and distorted that into some weird essentialism where being gay or bi or trans or whatever gives you automatic understanding of "queer culture" or "queer history" without having to do the actual work of talking to people, participating in that community, studying history, etc. but that's just not true. Anyone can study that history and get to know those people. And yeah, as a queer or trans person you'll have a better opportunity to really deeply know and be part of that community than straight cis people with queer friends ever will, but you still have to like. Actually put yourself out there! You're not going to find it by just discoursing in a vacuum of ignorance.

--

Sadly, to all the Olds, this is very, very obvious, but there's no way to make it obvious to the people doing it. It's a matter of experience.

[isa-ghost]

What does tea blogs mean?

I'm gonna assume you're in the Jacksepticeye fandom since you're asking that so if I say something under the assumption you understand it, reply to this with further questions. I saw tea blogs for Markiplier & a couple of their other friends but generally speaking afaik, it was mainly a JSE thing.

Anyway

"Tea blogs" were hate blogs back in 2019-2021 that would claim they were posting constructive criticism or "hot takes" about Sean, his community, his friends, etc. but really it was nothing but anonymous hate, straight up rumors, and other vile shit about both Sean AND members of jseblr.

The ringleader of it all stalked my blog for a long time because I was so outspoken about hating the blogs. I made a block list of blog urls for people and everything. They retaliated by making a side blog stealing my pfp at the time, which was my friends art, putting clown shit over it, and doing other stupid shit to harass me. And anyone else who spoke against them for that matter. Blogs I once admired turned into these repulsive asshole people spewing the most untrue, disrespectful bullshit I've ever seen.

It got so bad that throughout the time the blogs were a trend, jseblr genuinely fucking died. And in my opinion, never really fully recovered. People left Tumblr for Twitter or elsewhere. Or left the community altogether, be it because they fell for the lies being spread by the blogs, or out of fear of being harassed by them and their supporters. My dash got so quiet I eventually went radio silent on here through a lot of that time span too. There was no use in fighting the blogs so I just went silent so they'd go away. Blocked any new ones I found and moved on.

When the tea blog trend blew over, a few of my really close friends came back, but the community still isn't the same these days. Whether people found other interests to focus on, just didn't come back to the fandom, didn't come back to Tumblr, or something else, jseblr is still a ghost town more or less. At the very least, in my corner (which mind you I follow/am mutuals with a lot of "big popular blogs" in the fandom, this shouldn't be this way) it's quiet.

Between being stalked, harassed and witnessing the genuine, long-lasting damage the blogs inflicted on the community, I will NEVER forgive anyone who ran a tea blog, sent asks to them, or participated in their bullshit in any other way. I hope they're all absolutely miserable, because what they've done to the fandom was and still is devastating.

I fucking miss my friends and favorite blogs that aren't active here anymore.

[snowflakechallenge]

Snowflake Challenge #1

Introduction Post * Meet the Mods Post * Master Post on DW

Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

Happy New Year, fandom! As we look to the beginning of a new year (is it really 2024 already?!), it’s time to freshen up our online spaces. This is a good opportunity to create a new profile post or simply update the one you’ve already got. Your profile can be anything you want it to be: a list of the fandoms you participate in, your loves/hates in fandom, a tour of your fandom journey, or anything else you want people to know about you.

Challenge #1

Update your fandom information. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

If you need ideas or inspiration, feel free to visit the links below for examples of how others have done it. There is no right or wrong way to do this, so write what makes sense to you.

Misbegotten misbegotten’s profile post

Dizzydrea: dizzydrea's profile post t (and a peek at dizzydrea’s sticky post)

Vriddy: vriddy's profile post

Spikedluv spikedlus’s profile post (and a peek at spikedluv’s sticky post)

Check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.

(If you want us to reblog your response here at our Tumblr, we’re tracking: snowflakechallenge2024.)

[nearsbday]

hello - this event is a wonderful idea, everything is so neatly organized, and i love the tumblr theme too! i would like to ask - am i mistaken in thinking an event like this pretty much consists of doing all this (wonderful) organization of the blog, the rules, the prompts - just leaving it all there for people to see, and then reblogging everyone's fanworks? (and of course, doing a great job at answering everyone's questions!) i've always been intimidated by how much work fandom events look to be, but it's occurred to me recently that a prompt-based, free-to-opt-in event like this doesn't involve all the job of putting out surveys and collecting their results, organizing teams of people, following up with unfulfilled submissions, etc. so i'm kind of hopeful i might be able to organize a similar event one day. you guys are doing it amazingly, it's no small job, but i was genuinely wondering because it also feels pretty achievable :) but of course that might be me being a bit naive. is there any other work behind the scenes? i'm honestly just curious to know how much work it takes either way! i've seen other people do a surprising amount of work for events like this - getting people to make countdown art, tons of surveys, interest checks, etc. did you guys also do something like that? do you think it is or is not strictly necessary for a prompt-based event? thank you so much in advance for replying, good luck with the event, and i hope it's a blast! (and i'm so sorry for being too long winded! i always get caught up in trying to clarify!)

HI! thank you for the question, and no worries about long-windedness. i'll do my best to answer your question. we did not do any surveys, because we had ideas for prompts already and wanted to use those! we also didn't really worry too much about doing a big interest check. i don't have a good explanation for that other than "personally knew enough people who were nominally interested to feel pretty good about it" lmao. if the event were more niche -- for example, if this were an event for a small ship, or a less popular character -- i think it would have been prudent / useful to do an interest check and to poll people for when they're available, but since Near is fairly popular (though arguably under-appreciated. in my totally non-biased opinion.) and his birthday is on a set date, interest wasn't too much of a concern, and the dates weren't too hard to land on, either.

so far, the graphics have been the largest amount of work, as well as thinking of how to organize and run things-- stuff like determining when to release prompts, how often / how to do promotion for the event, when to post reminders / countdowns, rules, submission guidelines, determining a tagging system for submissions once the event starts (we will be tagging with prompt, day, fan work format {fic vs art vs playlist etc}, whether or not it's sfw, username of the person submitting, and honestly probs at least one more thing i'm just forgetting rn)... so on and so forth. i have a lot of fun making graphics for fanfics and such, so i took charge of creating those, and what we have so far pretty easily took around... 14-16 hours? this is including things that aren't posted yet, like the graphics we have for each day of the event. i still have a few more graphics to make as well for things like the countdown :-)

it's hard for me to say how much work the rest will be, since it hasn't happened yet-- and since i imagine it'll depend on how much participation we get!! -- but, if you'd like to talk more about the set-up for an event like this, or if you'd like to hear what i think after the event is finished / listen to whatever lessons we end up learning from running our first event, feel free to reach out to me at @blondiest or @neallo <3 [i won't speak definitively for my co-runner, but i imagine she'd be happy to weigh in as well!]

[13eyond13]

Would you say the DN fandom is getting more toxic in recent years or has it always been like this? Last time I was here it was over half a decade ago and now I've come back and people are being more aggressive to eachother then before. Especially over ships. I've been and still am extremely into Lawlight (one of my main otps fr fr) but I've been seeing Lawlight shippers be so mean to other (much smaller) ships lately as well as really elitist about "the proper way to enjoy DN" which I don't remember happening this much before. Makes me feel second hand embarrassment as a Lawlight shipper ngl. Was it always like this? Or am I just being dramatic? Asking since you've been here for wayyy longer then me.

Hiya! So the last time you were participating in the fandom was 1/2 a decade ago and would've been around 2019ish?

To be honest I don't feel like I've noticed a HUGE uptick in toxicity or anything, but maybe I'm just not seeing the same posts you are or interacting with the same people as you are?

Honestly the main difference I feel now vs. back then are just that I don't feel as involved in the fandom in terms of answering people's asks about the series or fielding their jokes and takes every day in my inbox and whatnot (I used to get those kinds of asks basically every day, like not just about lawlight but about analyzing the story itself and all that, now I probably only get a couple DN asks a month?) And I am not really sure if that's just because I myself am less involved / not posting much DN content of my own or being exclusively just a Death Note blogger now, or because the fandom is smaller and less active, or moving more to other social media platforms, or just a mix of things? I feel like I'm a bit out of the loop because of that.

Also, my memories of the Tumblr DN fandom in 2019 were kinda that it was MORE dramatic sometimes than I find it now, as in I remember around then there was a small group of people who had really intense stances on certain things and loved to vaguepost about anybody who they didn't like and also dogpile with anon hate on bloggers they would agree to target together in their server or something. I thankfully haven't seen much of that lately, either because those people and I all blocked each other or they've just moved on.

The least dramatic and most laid-back and memey the DN Tumblr fandom ever felt to me was before that, around 2017-2018 maybe. Nowadays I'd say I don't notice a lot of drama, but that it just feels a bit more dead here to me now than terribly toxic, maybe?

However, I do agree that I get embarrassed as well sometimes when I see lawlight shippers get extremely defensive and/or act superior toward people who aren't even attacking them about it, as if this ship isn't by far the biggest one in the fandom already and just a super well known and popular classic ship in general. Going into other fandoms for a bit always reminds me that as a lawlight shipper you're actually pretty spoiled with the amount of great fan content and like-minded people you can find about it out there, and it's not like you have to fight for your life to keep the ship alive or something...

[yaboirezzy]

Alright, here's an explanation (post version):

So this is something I wouldn't usually say publicly because I don't really like telling and sharing my personal stuff online, especially on social places like tumblr or others because of how people usually react to someone feeling or saying anything about themselves. Also because I rather vent stuff in rather than bothering everyone close to me online about it. But I feel like making an exception just this once because this is actually about my tumblr blog.

So on my blog I've been doing all kinds of stuff over the past few years, artworks (both digital and traditional), text post, memes, incorrect quotes, and so on. And don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, I was happy with it, but in recent times I really feel like I've done nothing but make some low effort garbage that people only viewed or liked out of pity and nothing else. I feel like I've slowly changed from a someone eager to share their love and interest for their favorite fandoms to an annoying little shithead that won't stop yapping about anything (be it headcanons, AUs, ships) regarding their fandoms.

Especially when the stuff they waffle about aren't even as good as to what other people do. Artwork? everyone else had done better artwork of their favorite hyperfixations, character fanart, ship fanart, you name it? then it's guaranteed that everyone else done it better. Text post? everyone has made ones that are much better than mine, some even I based or took inspiration from (which is pretty much stealing I think). Memes or meme redraws? again mine looks like something out of the early 2000s compared to others. Incorrect quotes? god I can't believe that these are what I started with and are what 90% of my blog is about, yet I can't even get them right or being good at least. And those are just the basics, picture this people usually make artwork to show their love towards something they like and usually show others why they like or spread the popularity of their favorite thing, well guess who fucking sucks at that aspect as well? Showing my love towards my favorite fandom though artwork or text or quotes? awful at it, you would think I was young kid who just got introduced to them, trying to increase the popularity of an otherwise underrated or unknown fandom of mine? suck at it, just showing an image of them would've done a better job promoting each series, what about trying to seem like an active fan and participating in trends or events within the fandom? well me not being able to follow an 'art week' thing and being late to a redraw trend should be a clear sign as to how that goes.

And that's the reason why I wanna end myself I've been feeling so terrible about myself lately, I feel like trash about not being able to do the stuff I wanted to do whether it's artwork, text post, or even interacting with others.

In terms of artwork and meme redraws I just wanna see my vision come to life be that in the artstyle, the position/posing, or look/quality, but I can't due to limitations and whatnot. That's why I'm always eager to see art from others, but I know everyone's got other things to worry about, it's also why I feel like an absolute leecher whenever I ask or even request any of my artist mutuals anything their art is so much better than mine and I hate how I couldn't even mimick a fraction of their quality. It just makes me feel sick that I considered myself the same to them, I have done nothing worthy like them yet I always try to fit in as an 'artist' among actual real ones.

In terms of text post and incorrect quotes, I don't even know why any of you liked those, or even reblogging them. I've seen people put genuine care and effort into their headcanons, AUs, fanfics, even incorrect quotes and yet here I am saying the dumbest ideas and thoughts ever. Not only are they so bad, so low effort, and so braindead to read for any rational human being, but they are just so not funny, like at all like please fucking make it stop, I mean from what you'd probably seen on others you'd at least expect me to be another one of those it's so bad it's funny kind of stuff, but no, I just keep making dishwasher slop over and over and people are liking them, why? why are you all doing this to yourselves? you'd have a better time watching the series my stuff is about than liking and reblogging it.

Again, this is really something I've kept hidden and I've only now talked about with one of my mutuals, but I feel the need to make this just so I can say from the bottom of my heart:

I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything I've said. I'm sorry for everything I've done, I don't care if they're good, bad, neutral, or means nothing at all. I'm sorry I couldn't done more or better. I'm sorry to all my mutuals and friends. I'm sorry that I'm broken, I couldn't be fixed. I'm just...I'm sorry that I exist here.

Please just let me be in pain alone...

[wajjs]

Do you have any tips or advice for how to find friends or a community in DC fandom when your blorbos are less well-known characters? I’d love to start writing and interacting, but everyone else seems to already have their friend groups with lots of private in-jokes, and any discords I can find seem exclusively Batfam-focused. I’d love to start participating, but I’m never the person who anyone in fandom reaches out to or wants to have around, and I’m worried DC fandom is just going end up being lonely and miserable for me. So far I’ve tried posting a couple of writing snippets, but no one cared, which I don’t think bodes all that well. But is there anything I can do to make sure it goes better and that I actually find people to connect with?

This is kind of an unpopular opinion, but if you ask me, writing is perhaps THE LEAST successful way to get people to talk to you. Writers aren't usually popular to begin with, unless you hit the fandom jackpot and become a BNF (big name fan) via having a super super popular fic. It's simply not something that happens often.

Leaving that aside, don't be discouraged. Tumblr in general is extremely Bat - centric to the point that unrelated DC character tags are regularly spammed with annoying Batman content; I know this is disappointing and disheartening, but it's not all there is to DC comics fandom.

When I started making the transition and slowly getting more into DC, my go to step was to... openly and honestly interact with the people that seemed to be equally as open, and friendly. I would leave lots of comments on ao3, follow them on tumblr, send asks off anon, interact in the notes, tag people in tag games. Everything that I could use to make friends, I used.

We all start as newbies and "breaking in" when you notice all these groups and cliques is hard. It is really hard. It took me a long time to form the friend group I have now (my polycule 💚) and that I wouldn't give up for anything.

My best advice is that, you gotta make yourself known to others by engaging with others. Starting things out by asking people to engage with you first is only going to make things feel harder and lonelier.

There ARE smaller groups of fans that are adamant about NOT being Bat exclusive. You gotta find your niche and go at it with love and respect, of course.

(There is the issue that DC comics fandom as a whole has a bit of a problem with puritanical/anti shipping fans, and these fans are more vocal in these smaller groups. Be on the lookout for that if that's not something you like.)

[thedasincolor]

Hi there! We received an ask but Tumblr has decided to eat it before our very eyes. The gist of the question was:

What's the best way to support creators of color in the fandom & the efforts of this blog, as a person who is not of those demographics themselves?

Here are some answers. Feel free to chime in with answers of your own, if you are someone served by this blog!

How to help Thedas in Color:

Reblog our mission statement post.

Reblog our calls for submissions to queue.

Share our blog in friendly discord servers and suggest people share as well!

Participate in #splash of color saturday, no matter who you are!!!!

Encourage friends to submit to us!

This blog exists to boost the fans whose creativity and voices are often overshadowed due to systemic biases in fandom and society at large. We want to share content that our creators want to be shared. They a) need to know we exist, b) need to know we're a friendly space so they aren't afraid to tag us, and c) want what little extra visibility we can offer them.

Through the mods' friends and organic connections, we know a lot of people who fit the demographics served by Thedas in Color. However, checking everyone's blogs and catching all the creations and content that deserve more attention could be a full time job in and of itself. There's really only one or two of us who curate the blog and it's just not possible for us to queue things on our own very far in advance. The best thing for the blog is for fans belonging to ethnic minority groups who are writing, making art, making videos, making art resources, making cosplay, gifs, meta, and more, to feel comfortable tagging @thedasincolor on their work!

It's a free reblog! Please, please tag us!

How to help the creators more broadly:

Obviously this is a huge question and we can only make the most surface level suggestions. Common decency suggests making it clear through actions & words & content that you host on your own blog that you are a safe space and an open minded ally, for a person-to-person way to make fandom kinder to us. If your blog is absolutely sterile and wiped clean of anything to do with issues pertaining to minority groups, it's unclear if you are paying attention, or care--or worse, perhaps you think that issues pertaining to minority groups are Not Suitable For Your Blog. It can be a real reddish flag for some people to not see anything.

Listen to and speak up for (but not over) fans belonging to ethnic minority groups who are highlighting weaknesses in the source material, but don't be an attack dog or white knight. Those two things go kind of a long way to making the environment a little more open to dialogues, a little more trustworthy, a little kinder, for all.

But we're talking about creators specifically:

Reblog art.

Go to an artist's page and see if they have a commissions sheet; reblog it (or share on twitter).

Make lists of creators you like and share them to your followers!

Send them kind messages (or just leave kindness in the tags of reblogs of their art) about the elements you love in their art.

Reblog writing. Tag it appropriately for your followers.

Bookmark & subscribe to fic writers. Leave kudos if you can!

Make fic rec lists!

Go on an old-fashioned Reblog Spree on a creator's blog.

Share commissions sheets, and fics, and gifs, and cosplays, and meta, that you like, in discord servers and on twitter (linking back to the creator; if they are ON that platform, reblog/retweet/reshare something they've posted their, don't repost their own work yourself).

Commission artists, writers, gifmakers.

Give donations to Ko-Fis and such just when you're thinking of them, even if you're not buying something, even if it's a few dollars. The random amounts add up :)

Be a friendly face! Every creator big or small gets to know the names in our notes over time, and the steadfast support of just consistently interacting with posts of ours is a huge creative and emotional boost.

[swfandomevents]

Call for Collaborators

It's been more than 2 years since this blog started, and it's been great to see everyone reblogging events and enjoying being in the SW Fandom!

That being said, I've been running this blog on my own, and while I've been generally able to keep on top of the "upcoming events" page, the "complete events list" page hasn't really been updated since I initially made it more than 2 years ago.

I would really like to solicit help from anyone who would like to work together to go through and overhaul the page and turn it into a more current, useful resource for both participants and event mods.

Tasks:

Go through the list of events to find ones that no longer exist or have a post explicitly saying the event will not be running again

For events that haven't been deleted and haven't said they won't run again, make a note of when the event was last held (including in 2023)

Reorganize the list to divide it into types of events similar to the Upcoming events list (fandom weeks, big bangs, fests, etc)

For fests, exchanges, and big bangs, list when the sign-ups are generally posted in addition to when works are generally posted.

Reorganize the list based on when the events were held in their most recent year (some events may have been held in February 2 years ago, but July this year, so they have to be moved)

Add any newer events by going through the swfandomevents blog looking for events that aren't in the complete events list

Look around for events especially on other sites (dreamwidth, twitter/X, etc) to add to the list

Most of this will probably be done together in a google doc, with communication on tumblr or on discord according to everyone's preferences.

While it may seem like a lot, my hope is this will be achievable for a small group of 2-3 people (including me) within a few hours of work if we divide tasks well. Following that, if the same people are available we may be able to go through a couple times a year to do updates, but committing to help this time is not necessarily committing to help in the future, so no pressure :).

If you like organizing or making lists, scrolling through blogs looking for info, or have a presence on other sites like Twitter/X, and would be interested in helping out, feel free to drop this blog a message or ask. I'm hoping to do this within the next couple of weeks at the latest, so please make sure you have some available time on some days or weekends in the near future.

Thank you!

[teaveetamer]

Cap: *writes a blatantly sexist, racist, homophobic fic that is immensely popular and influential in the fandom and that many people have explicitly said made them feel uncomfortable when reading it*

Raxis: he's completely innocent everyone who says he ever did anything wrong are just hysterical liars with victim complexes

Moonlitboar: *says that they wanted Lambert to be more morally ambiguous and said they thought Sitri was happy in untagged posts that literally maybe a dozen people max ever saw*

Raxis: THEY DESERVED TO GET CANCELED THEY FUCKED AROUND AMD FOUND OUT THEY’RE AN ASSHOLE but i never did anything to them but i know who did but i won't tell anyone who that is BUT I'M COMPLETELY UNINVOLVED i just know exactly who is involved in this TOTALLY JUSTIFIED C A N C E L A T I O N (and totally not harassment because harassment is bad but cancelation to the point of harassment is fine)

LITERALLY what was the game plan here. His own logic makes it sound like he's actually completely down with Cap getting "canceled" AND he sounds like a blatant liar. Why couldn't he just shut his mouth for once

From the very beginning, no one on Tumblr has done anything that would break his personal definition of "normal" fandom participation. We're "harassing" Cap for talking about his fic and meta posts, but if you bring up Raxy's aggressive disregard for the block button, and how he disregards people directly asking him to leave them alone, he will be the FIRST to say "you put it on the internet so you have no right to be upset about me criticizing your dumbass takes".

He will stomp his feet and throw a tantrum if you say anything even remotely critical of Cap's fic's actual racist, sexist, and homophobic undertones, but Moonlit had one milquetoast opinion about Sitri and Lambert and they "deserve" a brutal cancellation. By his logic Cap should have been cancelled about a thousand times over by now; I'm giving him one cancellation for every use of "girls" to refer to grown women.

He will consistently justify his mistreatment of people with "but someone bullied Cap first" even if the person he's literally harassing has had nothing to do with Cap ever, but if you bring up what he demonstrably did to Moonlitboar it's "how dare you, you shouldn't 'mistreat' me for this thing I demonstrably did and even if I did do it then it wasn't my fault because they deserved it :/"

The truth of the matter is that Raxy doesn't give a shit. His "rules" for engagement are literally just "I should be allowed to react however I want whenever my feelings are hurt, and you should only be allowed to react in a way that doesn't hurt my feelings." Except this man is quite possibly the most fragile human being I have ever encountered and everything hurts his feelings. He genuinely thinks saying "I think Sitri lived a good life" is equivalent in hurtfulness to "I think it's okay to make genocide 'jokes' on your posts". Because the Sitri thing hurt his poor feelings, but well if someone tells me it's funny to remind me that my family died in the holocaust it's not his feelings getting hurt, so who gives a shit, just don't make him look too bad and he doesn't care. I wish I were kidding but that was LITERALLY his primary concern in that situation.

Not "hey talking about how genocide is cool is fucked up" or "hey maybe stop telling the woman who just told you that her family was impacted by the Holocaust that genocide is really funny and something to joke about"

Nope, it's "shut up you're making us look bad, and look now you woke Nilsh up! Don't you know I worked so hard to harass him into leaving social media!"

Like be for fucking real dude, you aren't slick. I can sum up everything you need to know about this guy's attitude in two images:

His logic looks like a mess of spaghetti because it is. Because he works backward from a conclusion ("I should be allowed to do whatever I want and no one should be allowed to do anything I don't like") and he inserts justifications as he goes, with no regard for whether or not it actually makes sense. He went from "Moonlit deserved it because they had bad takes" to "Moonlit was actually harassing me" to "I didn't actually do it anyway" to "I know exactly who did it but I won't say but it wasn't that bad" to now, apparently, "there's a conspiracy against me". He just relies on no one looking closely enough at him to notice the clear pattern. If someone does suss it out he tries to harass them into shutting up about him or he tries to delete evidence of his past logic and behavior (all the better if the person he's harassing deletes everything too, because then he can just make shit up).

The thing that really gets me is like, just how clearly unable to function he is without someone he absolutely hates to bounce off of. Does he even make original posts, or does he just constantly whine about other people's opinions? Every post I've ever seen from him about 3H, even the ones that aren't reblogs or don't have screenshots included, are like 99% "someone had an opinion I didn't agree with! Allow me to debunk it!" posts. The other 1% are recycled talking points from other people's metas, which he writes like he's got a 5,000 word paper due tomorrow that he hasn't even started and he's trying to see how much "slightly reword the wikipedia entry" he can get away with.

And not even speaking just about Raxy, but this is what pisses me off so bad about certain people in fandom. They feel empowered to harass and bully the genuinely awesome, creative people who actually make things. Those people leave, and then they have the audacity to sit there and whine about how the fandom is dead, no one is making anything, everyone left for greener pastures. They suck the life out of vibrant communities and leave nothing but a hollowed out husk. It happened with a ton of fan artists and authors in 3H, including some I'm friends with, who just had to get the fuck out because of the damage it was causing their mental health. And before he says it, no. Saying "Cap's (a white man) fic has some kinda racist and uncomfy undertones I wish he'd take some criticism to heart and correct that" is not the same thing as stalking someone and sending death threats because they have a different opinion about your favorite character. Holy fuck.

Like hey wanna know why no one wants to talk about 3H anymore? Because of this shit. Because saying "I think Lambert doing Morally Complex things is Morally Complex and therefore interesting" is the kind of opinion that can get you harassed into leaving the fandom entirely.

[anghraine]

Hello! Sorry if this seems out of the blue and naive, but I have to ask: Do you write about P&P on an academic level and if so, is the fact that you write thoughtful near-academic content about it on social media detrimental to that? Basically I am trying to ask this:

Are you allowed to write academically about something after you wrote so much about it on social media? Especially since what you write about it isn’t, you know, “memes”, but textual analysis?

Again, sorry if this sounds weird and ignorant, but I also wrote extensively about my favorite novel on here and I also one day want to write about it on an academic level, but I don’t know if it is “allowed”, so to speak?

Sorry if this is a personal question. You can answer it in private if you want to or ignore it.

Hello! It's no problem.

I've written about P&P for grad school (both in my MA and PhD) and a bit in my dissertation, but much more about Mansfield Park. That's about all I've done with P&P academically. I've actually had more ... let's say, success as externally defined with early modern (Renaissance) stuff, which I also specialized in. So there's that.

But there's also the fact that my style and approach are quite different between academia and fandom. My Tumblr style is probably more academia-adjacent than is usual (partly for autism reasons, to be sure), but it's still comparatively casual for me and integrates fandom conventions far more than my academic work, so even when I talk about ideas that I initially was thinking through in Tumblr posts, I handle the discussion differently in an academic context and tend to advance it very differently.

So there's not much of a connection in terms of my colleagues and there isn't really anyone who's going to say, well, this basic point in the larger discussion was already made in a different context on anghraine dot tumblr dot com, you don't get to talk about it. I do avoid talking about ideas that strike me as really novel or really specific to me on social media, though.

That said, while I've maintained some separation between my Anghraine social media presence and my academic one, a lot of academics rely on social media to publicize their work and engage with other academics (for better and worse) outside the glacial pace of academic publishing.

I used to have a Twitter account for that (before the reign of Musk) and I'd just ramble on about academic stuff, including Austen, and it was usually in respect to Austen that I'd have really interesting conversations with considerably more advanced academics than me. People aren't going to want to share so much that full publications are meaningless, but they do often share enough to participate in academic discourses.

But another factor for me personally is that I actually try to avoid mixing full-throttle academic work and the works I love the most. People talk a lot about finding a way to commodify integrate what you love most into work and making it a kind of vocation, but for me, at least, that does not remotely work. It just drains the joy out of something I used to love.

I could have specialized in sci-fi/fantasy scholarship, for instance, and it would likely have been much easier in some ways, but it would also likely have soured me on SF/F (my great love otherwise). That was one of the main reasons I decided not to do it and instead went with things that interested me quite a bit, but not too much. So I tend to shy away from thoroughly mixing things that are extremely important and joyful for me with academia.

When it comes to stories I love, I kind of relate to them like a dragon with a hoard, you know? Nobody's going to take this from me! So a lot of the things I write about academically have rarely or never shown up in my fandom content because I maintain that bit of distance.

So it can be a bit complicated. I would say that I imagine publicizing some ideas makes them less likely to be published, but at other times, it's helpful in connecting with people and becoming part of academic discourse. It really depends, which is probably not very useful despite the length of this response. But there aren't many people who are in a position to allow or disallow me to write professionally about whatever I want and am professionally equipped to discuss.

[canonizzyhours]

Hot take: Both the 'canyon' and the wider OFMD 'fandom' can turn people away from the show. This fandom's infighting is a waste of time and everyone would be happier looking for fans they agree with vs. spending hours wasting their life arguing about pointless shit. (Yes, this post is ironic, but I'm tired of moralizing, and wanted to rant.)

You as a fan are responsible for curating the community you care about and finding passion there, not endlessly posting rants about how weirdly passionate other fans are.

Fandom is just a bunch of very opinionated people who get online and try to find community and for the most part, that's okay! You consumed a piece of media and have opinions about it, but know why you're creating a post. You're not actually going to get murdered by Izzy lovers if you properly tag your Tumblr posts as Izzy-critical. For example.

I write OFMD meta, it's very easy to pop on Stede Critical if I'm discussing why I don't like aspects of his arc, or Ed-Critical for how he was written in S2. Proper tagging shows respect to Ed-focused or Stede-focused fans without clogging the tag with hate. I enjoy aspects of Izzy's character, and if I'm negative I STILL tag Izzy-critical.

Trying to claim moral superiority for 'choosing the right side' in fandom looks immature on both ends. In the end, yeah, I'm sure people in both camps were harassing people. I've got 15 Izzy-focused words on AO3 in this fandom on all branches of loving-to-hating aspects of his character. I have gotten death threats, from both camps, I get it. But those are shitty people, regardless of fandom affiliation. I don't hate an entire subgroup due to that.

Izzy having a subsect in fandom is not really that different than Ed, Stede, Olu/Jim, or hell, S2 positive fans having their own spaces and communities.

I was in fandoms for Marvel (Loki), Supernatural (Castiel) and Witcher (Jaskier). I know how prevalent some side characters can be, it's as if it's y'alls first time seeing this shit. Liking or disliking a character isn't a moral failing. THIS is the ACTUAL reason I saw people leave the fandom.

Moralizing if participating in Izzy (and TBH, Stede) fandom made you a good person or if you were 'filling AO3 with another white man'. Don't complain you don't have water if you haven't even tried to dig a well. Vice versa with only 'pure holy radical leftist non racists' holding themselves above everyone else for liking characters like Edward, Oluwande, or Jim. Why are you wasting time complaining that they aren't represented on AO3?

If you want more Archie fic? Write Archie fic. If you want Ned to get the villian arc he deserved? Do it. If you really hated Izzy and wanted him to die sooner, you have your audience, be respectful of people and their time.

But reader of this post, you are not the moderator for all content created. Why do you spend your time caring about what another ingroup is doing instead of having fun with YOUR in-group??

When this fandom dies out, my stand-out experiences will be the fond memories of what fic I created and the many friends I made along the way. Can you say the same? Or will you remember OFMD because you keyboard warrior'ed your way into not even having fun anymore?

#304.

[goldenpinof]

Why do you think dnp’s views have dropped so much lately? Its odd because the fandom is actually relatively alive atm

i'm not really good at analysing such things. not enough data, i guess.

i think the core phandom is alive (although, could be more alive, imo). but not everyone came back, and those who did... i feel like half of them looked at things for a month or two, and left again. we're not even on 2018 level, there's a lack of engagement within the phandom, and i don't think we will ever come back to at least 2018. there were changes made, in dnpg content. and i'm not sure if people like it, or are interested in it. i'm not talking about gay stuff, btw.

also, phandom grew up. it's hard to keep up with so much content. people have job, families, other hobbies. we kinda had to find other hobbies during the hiatus, you know. October-December were fun and, dare i say, nostalgic. spooky week and gamingmas — that's what we knew before the hiatus. there was some interest in "how is it now, 5 years later?" but after that... idk, i have my thoughts on why people aren't watching dnpg videos immediately, or why they are skipping some altogether. but i can't say that what i think is based on something solid. not enough data. and making polls, asking if people watch every video, how long it takes to watch a new video, do they participate in the phandom, etc. — i feel like tumblr isn't the right place because those who are the target audience for these questions aren't actually here 😂

anyway. my main point is. the core phandom is here, casual viewers stopped showing up, youtube algorithm doesn't bring new people at all (unless it's the actual gameplay like Poppy and It Takes Two, or generally popular video topics like TikTok compilations or react videos). dnpg clickbait titles work 50/50. i feel like, even the outsiders know what titles are clickbait and what aren't. to be fucking real with you, i think "Dan and Phil are BROTHERS?" is hilarious. i'd click on the video exactly because it's clickbaity and because i want to hear commentary on that. the lore is so deep, it's fucking exciting. but, do others find it the same as i do? do casual viewers even know? like, if not, then this title is just a game ad. and the video is so poorly edited that returning to it would be painful. speaking of ads. people might be tired of them. and if they see that the video is clearly an ad (Dragon City or Brothers) they don't even click on it. people seem also tired of the sims, which is interesting to me. is it because the wedding is done, so now it's boring? idk.

i'd love to see the stats on the TikTok video. it's so different from everything else. like, it's the least dnpg video ever. it's literally the ap video, but it performed better not only because of the algorithm but also because it's on dnpg. i wonder if it made anyone subscribe to dnpg. every time i go to the channel, i see this video and i'm like, "wow! you really are here, with almost 500k views, something that even 2024 sims videos can't get. good for you, mf."

[homestuckpolyswap]

What is a Dear Gifter Letter?

A Dear Gifter Letter, or DGL from hereon, is a letter to your anonymous gifter outlining all the "please don'ts" that matter to you!

When signing up for a Polyswap event, you may want to include your squicks... but you just don't want to clutter your prompt up with things like NOTPs and headcanons you don't like. Some people are a bit more verbose than others, after all, and this is a way to circumvent AO3's "prompt box" character limit or just be a little more comprehensive on something you need to avoid.

While we encourage including the most important no-nos in your prompts, think of this like... an expansion or DLC! So, let's get into it.

Squick?? What even??

Anything that makes you go "nnnyyeegh" or hinders your enjoyment of something. Think of it like an ICK [for the younger crowds], or getting the heebie-jeebies. There's nothing wrong with a squick, but it's just not for you... and that's okay. A DGL allows you to outline squicks or peeves you'd like your anonymous gifter to avoid. Some common squicks include:

phonetic / "typed out" quirks, or having Thollukth talk like thith ["Sollux talk like this"] in a fic.

extremely saturated colors, or having an art piece with a lot of contrasting colors.

quirked dialogue, or having characters type in their quirks for a significant portion of the fic [which can interfere with screenreaders].

NOTPs, or NOT THIS PAIRING[s?] — the metaphorical opposite of an OTP or ship you enjoy very much.

specific headcanons, or re-interpretations of the original canon such as how tall or thin someone may be.

interaction types / relationship types, or particular dynamics you're just not interested in [such as Bro & Dave being really good brothers, or Eridan & Sollux being in a pale romance].

But what if I don't like really specific stuff?

The important thing to note about DGLs is they are not commission posts. You cannot control your gifter, nor can you enact certain headcanons / expecations on them. Polyswap is about making poly-shipping stuff for fun, and the fact that it's also a gift is the hilarious bonus!

While it's important to let both the moderators and your gifter know that a particular ship would totally ruin your day and thus your enjoyment of something, we can't enforce or encourage a DGL that outlines "rules" or "expectations" of the gifter. A letter is supplementary, and even if you really want to be thorough, it's important to know that your gifter isn't required to read a DGL to begin with.

Furthermore, Polyswap is a shipping event first and foremost. The primary focus of ANY gift should be... the shipping! Miscellaneous things like ships you didn't even list in your prompt, or dynamics that really don't affect your requests, aren't necessary. Sure, not everyone thinks that EriDirkFef is the best polyship ever; they might even hate it! But mentioning that hate in a DGL just clutters things up.

I don't want to be matched with X!

Anything in a DGL which implies a moral superiority or "Do Not Interact" vibe is completely unnecessary. We're all here to make polyship content. Any hardline "please don't match me to a specific person" or similar information should be conveyed to the moderators in your OFFER, which is private. Not written in your DGL for the whole world to see.

This is an all-inclusive event, which means that anyone of any background within the fandom can participate. We have an ALL AGES option, Prospit, as well as an 18+ ADULTS ONLY option, Derse, for sign-up. But that's where the lines end! If you're just not comfortable being associated with certain shippers, creators, or headcanon-enjoyers... then this event may not be for you!

Where to post my Dear Gifter Letter?

You can host your DGL just about anywhere that your gifter can access. We recommend a Tumblr post or a "view only" Google Document that doesn't record who visits. After all, your gifter has to remain anonymous, and we don't want you figuring out who it is too soon!

If you have any further questions about DGLs and how to get them to your gifter, just email us at HSPOLYSHIPSWAP on GMAIL.

[eleonkraken]

I'm back on my thinking about Doctor Who bullshit and like,

why do people unironically like and/or enjoy the Chibnall seasons?

I understand that people who view tv uncritically might enjoy it. It's hard to understand because I would think even those people would struggle not to be bored by most Chibnall episodes but I concede that it's possible.

The part that really drives me to distraction is how people who really care about Doctor Who can unironically like, and even love, this era of the show.

Why is that a thing that people do? I've been trying to come up with explanations but I don't know if they make any sense.

Because there's an actor in it that you think is incredibly skilled, feel personally invested in, or just generally really like.

Because there are more women and people of color in the show now than before, a more international focus, and more poc in prominent roles behind the scenes

Because you're a huge fan of Doctor Who in general and you go into it with a predisposition to forgive flaws and focus on the good. If you let anything ruin your enjoyment of the era then you've lost the chance to experience new Doctor Who for several years.

Because you gave up on Doctor Who at some point during Moffat's run due to his problems with plot and/or misogyny. You came back to find a female Doctor with a different showrunner and feel personally invested in the new era being just as good as, or better, than the preceding one (because you feel so much animosity towards the preceding one).

Because you feel that there's something that Doctor Who did terribly prior to Chibnall that has now been resolved, and this makes you appreciate the entire era (although I don't know what that would be).

Because you ship the Doctor and Yaz and you've participated in the creation of a fandom with its own fanon surrounding the two of them. You enjoy watching episodes that feature them because you're able to focus on their relationship through this fanon lens. (You're sad and/or annoyed that there aren't enough popular wlw ships so you feel protective and defensive of them and the perceived quality of the episodes in which they appear).

Maybe you can help me out, DW tumblr. Why do you like series 11-13?