#y'all me's tired :')

[wanderer-clarisse]

early morning sunlight at Bag End

[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.

[shellem15]

Can I just say, I really appreciate how Critical Role plays the Devil trope straight. There's been this phenomena in a lot of modern media (I'm not going to mention specifics but I'm sure a few examples pop up in people's minds) where Hell and the Devil aren't scary or malevolent forces. Hell is portrayed as being basically the same as our world just "edgier", and the Devil is a pretty decent guy actually. Heaven are secretly the real bad guys!

But Critical Role doesn't do that. In Exandria, Asmodeus *feels* like the Devil. He's malevolent and manipulative and terrifyingly powerful and he hates you, personally. We never see that type of portrayal anymore! And it's amazing! And he still manages to be sympathetic and tragic without losing his edge!

And the "Good Gods" are portrayed as flawed without being secretly evil or something! Like, actual nuance? In my Heaven/Hell dichotomy? What!?

It's just such a breath of fresh air after so many "The Devil was right, actually" stories. So props to Matt and Brennan and the cast.

[fairydrowning]

"People cry out of fatigue. But how horrible it is to hear someone say, ‘she’s just tired.’ Tired, yes, certainly, but just? There’s nothing just about it."

– Heather Christle, The Crying Book

[bunnyboy-juice]

NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???

[2aceofspades]

HAPPY 3K EMD!!!

I won't even lie, it took me over a week to think up something special to do to celebrate but aaaaa-!!!

And I won't get too sappy, I promise..But!

I do want to say that I am constantly inspired by and proud of the lovely artists that bring this story to life. Thank you Somni and Teaa for sharing your amazing au 💖 and congratulations on hitting 3k! 🙌✨!!

(:

[fuedalreesespieces]

kagome haters confuse me because anyone who can acclimate to a setting as dangerous and violent as the feudal era, quickly learn to shoot a bow with spiritual powers they didn't even know they had, adopt a kitsune kid, remain calm and come up with plans after getting kidnapped (multiple times), push aside ire or jealousy to help heal someone who tried to kill you, take detours during an important quest to help those in need, fight possession, resist evil temptation while being trapped in the dark alone for three days and three nights, all while being told that nobody will come get you, but still holding onto hope because all this time, throughout these traumas and death and destruction, you've always had hope...all while being a fifteen year old junior high student trying not to miserably flunk out of school....

...well, they have my permanent respect. but what do i know.

[theminecraftbee]

alright, so, one more thing i've been thinking about during all of this, and apologies, because i normally try to keep my blog fairly discourse-free in the grand scheme of things. but.

there are hermitcraft fans who act irritatingly morally superior about this fandom. i think it's out of some impulse to try to distance yourselves from any other mcyt fandom. it needs to stop.

the worst behavior during the polls was from the hermitcraft fans.

period.

there were so many instances of hermitcraft fans accusing the other side of cheating, of hermitcraft fans making attacks on the character of their guy's opponents, i have heard what i HOPE are isolated reports of racism in the grian/quackity fight (it was genuinely impossible to keep up with the blog's notes that round without both going into a death spiral thanks to the horrible behavior of scar fans during techno/scar and also without losing track instantly of where we were due to the frankly insurmountable volume of notes, so i did not see it, but unfortunately i fully believe it). i have seen people receiving awful asks - saw people being accused of 'betraying' the hermitcraft side due to voting for quackity or techno, for example.

and for a fandom that likes to act like it's better than the other guys, well. the dsmp fans were generally very well behaved in comparison. (shoutout, for example, to quackblr - i saw maybe one or two possible instances of bad behavior, but for as intense as you all were, you all were normally mostly just retaliatory towards whatever energy was thrown at you.) it wasn't supposed "outsiders coming in" that was doing this bad behavior, either.

folks, you can't blame the dsmp when the problem is inside the house. you can't blame twitter users when you're doing it here. you can't blame the reddit when you're the ones throwing the first death threats.

get off your high horses. we're all mcyt fans. we're all having the same fun. get off your high horses. you can hardly claim we're entirely all "unproblematic" when keralis accepted a sponsorship from the wizard game and xisuma periodically gets another round of getting shouted down over something he said on xisumasays. get off your high horses. you can't claim we're the accepting, good behavior fandom, unlike those other guys, when you're the ones causing the problems.

now, as always, i'm sure this is a law of large numbers thing to some extent. as technoblade, wise as he is, said: sometimes when you get a large enough group, you're going to have a few serial killers. but for the amount that hermitblr likes to act better than Those Other Minecraft Fandoms, and those Other Fandom Websites, it wasn't those guys that made me cry.

to be clear, the majority of you have been well-behaved. but there's a persistent tendency in this fandom to act strangely morally superior to other fandoms. and, y'all? you aren't.

you just aren't.

and the sooner you acknowledge that, the less likely this is to happen again, because once you admit that yeah, we can be toxic too? that's when you can start actually looking at yourself and trying not to be.

anyway, sorry again to make this post. i don't want to be a downer, hence why, outside of the official mod statements of "chill the fuck out", i didn't make this until now. (it also helps that i wanted to wait until i was no longer furious, upset, and death spiraling.) i have seen a lot of the best of this fandom over the past two weeks! i've just also, unfortunately, seen some of the worst, and feel the need to make this statement because it's just... been eating at me.

i don't want this to continue to be a trend. i think we can do better. do so.

[serendippertyy]

also this is totally his jam

finally got one of the refs done!! ref sheets are veryy time consuming but very fun! I don't even think I managed to fit everything I wanted to say but this is already cluttered LOL I just love my little guy so much and I hope you guys do too 🫶

[bumblingbabooshka]

Saw another bad faith take about T'Pring being a murderous bitch, gotta write another fic that paints her in a warm and sympathetic light

[coffeecakecafe]

so tomorrow will mark a full week of me being in the hospital. I'm gonna be fine, but I had some bladder cancer removed and we're dealing with an infection and some crazy swelling in the fallout. They did get it all, but we're waiting on a bunch of test results and hey it turns out it Super Hurts if a lady goes digging around in the walls of your organs cutting things out and burning things off like a lovely little arts and crafts extravaganza

I'm not here to ask for money - I am very, very lucky to have a support net under me - but. If anyone has photos of just very cute small animals? I would like to see your kittens and cats and baby whatsits. It would help my healing I think. I haven't seen my cats since I got here so I need images to tide my soul over.

thank u in advance I'm probably about to zonk out for the night, I will see babies in the morning 🩷

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

zombies + text posts

[kvtnisseverdeen]

Duty is sacrifice. It eclipses all things, even blood. All men of honor must pay its price.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON | 2.01 "A Son For A Son"

[kiisaes]

get me off this train!!!

[michsmeesh]

"there was only one bed" this, "there was only one tent" that, HOW ABOUT THERE WAS ONLY ONE CIGARETTE!!! HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks btw to avi and lucas for feeding my brainworms over the past 48 hours i really appreciate it

[foxglovefaun]

burnt up burnt out