cacodaemonia

[cacodaemonia]

Average color of US states based on satellite imaging.

#ohhh i love this #maps #art

[cacodaemonia]

#a-fucking-men #apps #also i think my favorite thing about this graphic is that it has the same vibe as the 'just walk out. you can leave' skeleton meme

[cacodaemonia]

Long-spined limpet shell

#waaaaaaow!! :O #so cool

[cacodaemonia]

***INTEREST CHECK NOW LIVE***

Calling all Clone Wars fans!

We're launching our interest check for Song of the Captain - a Captain Rex fanzine! This interest check will be open until MAY 10. Please take this survey if you're interested in participating in the creation, or purchase, of this zine!

Please spread the word and share far and wide!

#signal boost #rex #tcw

[cacodaemonia]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many you like).

Thanks for the tag, @theproblemwithstardust! :D

This is the last line in chapter 6 of the 'civilian' AU I'm working on:

Exhaling a long sigh, he goes back to humming, and Waxer dozes off to the meandering, unfamiliar tune.

No-pressure tags: @elismor @greenharrow @marbled-polecat @seascribbling @petrifiedforests @brokenphoenix99 @indira-korr @lyntergalactic

EDIT: idk why but Tumblr is doing its weird thing where it refuses to actually load the tags for some people, so 🤷

#last line game #tag game

[cacodaemonia]

Made the worst brownies ever created just now

#lsdhasfh reblogging this solely for the surinam toad tag XDDDD

[cacodaemonia]

Fishing by moonlight in an estuary, 1806, William Anderson

#art

[cacodaemonia]

"All clones are bad at lying."

This is Hardcase erasure and I won't stand for it.

#exactly #that boy is SMOOTH #hardcase #tcw

[cacodaemonia]

Today is everyone's favorite day: WIP Wednesday!!!

Here is a little update from the mer poll.

I'm making some headway with tails and the water. I still have to finish painting Wooley, the sand, and the tookaaaa!!

#212th gold!

[cacodaemonia]

Okay, you know what? After reading this post, I jokingly said we should all just make a pact to reblog it five times a day forever. So I'm gonna do this louder for the people in the back:

AO3 WAS CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS

AO3 IS RUN BY FANS (VOLUNTEERS, NO LESS)

AO3 IS PART OF THE NON-PROFIT, ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS

AO3 IS NOT OWNED BY ANY COMPANIES AND DOES NOT EARN REVENUE

AO3 OPERATES ON DONATIONS FROM FANS

again:

AO3 WAS CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS

#ao3 #archive of our own #otw #fandom #fandom history #fanthropology #just gonna keep reblogging this in the hope that more newbies see it and stop acting like ao3 is a for-profit company

[cacodaemonia]

Mace Windu can do whatever he likes with whatever attitude he wants actually cause he's in charge of wrangling a group of superpowered, psychic adreneline junkies who like to have heated academic debates using laser swords in their spare time. and then. AND THEN!! he has to regularly talk with politicians too??? disgusting. awful. my man is so tired.

#hahahah #yes #XD #mace windu #star wars

[cacodaemonia]

I see a lot of posts going by about comments and kudos and hits and...well... I've been thinking about the three quite a lot lately--as both a fic author and someone who spends a lot of my professional life looking at web metrics and determining which are actually important/accurate measures of user engagement.

Mileage varies, of course. And this is all just MY opinion, so do feel free to ignore it wholesale.

What I think when I see someone say that sorting by a hits to to kudos ratio is a good way to find "good" fic:

Hits are a measure of quantity (how many times your story or art has been viewed), but without knowing how AO3 defines a hit, it's actually kind of a meaningless number.  We know that our own views of our work do not count toward hits, but...if my BFF looks at my story 7 times in one day because she keeps trying to read it but getting interrupted...is that one hit, or seven? And if it's seven, then the numbers are artificially inflated because it's really just Bestie trying to get her Codex fix. And...if Bestie looks at it three times today and four tomorrow...is that 7 hits total, or two? 

Some transparency on the part of AO3 could clear this up handily, but until we get that...shrug. All it is is a number that may or may not be an accurate reflection of how many actual people looked at the page your fic is on.  Did they READ it? Or did they nope out?  No way to know.

Kudos are intended to be slightly more qualitative, but there is no way of knowing why the reader gave them. (Similar to likes here on tumblr.) It might be that they loved the piece. It might be a simple acknowledgement that the reader was there. It might even be a pity kudo. We have no way of knowing. It's, again, just a number.

Obviously, everyone is free to interpret both hits and kudos as positive reaction/interaction. I might do that myself if I didn't spend my workdays explaining to people that 50,000 "hits" to the website could be 50K people who came to learn about us or...simply the result of the computer labs on campus having the university homepage set to default.

Bigger numbers are just that....bigger numbers.

Comments are the only objective way to judge how someone is reacting to your fic or art.

So, what then? Sort by number of comments?

You can do that, sure. (I think. I confess I have never once gotten the AO3 search to work as well as people rave about.) But do keep in mind that many authors answer their comments. So, something with, say, 20 comments may be 20 people telling the author they loved it. Or it might be ten people and ten author-replies. OR, it might be three people having a conversation in the comments. You have to look and see.  

Bigger numbers are just bigger numbers.

Okay, fine Elis. What am I supposed to do then?

Look, I'm not your mother or your therapist and you are free to assign whatever meanings you like to these things. I, personally, find "good" fic through a combination of things including: recs, the fandom grapevine, dumb luck, events, and just...reading some of it and not feeling guilty if I nope out for some reason.

This all sounds a little depressing when laid out like this, huh? Especially when you take into account the downward trends in interacting and the rise of folks treating fic and art as content to be consumed. 

Here's what I have learned from writing fic for 30 years (well, 28 and counting):

As an author (and an artist, I would presume), you have absolutely no way of predicting which of your work will land and take hold and which will not. It's alchemy and luck and the weird (and not actual) algorithm of fandom. Sometimes, the piece you whipped out in 30 minutes and posted on the fly will land in the right person's inbox and they will share it and their friends will share it and it will get big.  Sometimes, the piece you slaved over for weeks and weeks will do that...sometimes it won't.  Sometimes your genius manifests and resonates, sometimes it does not.

My personal favorite fic of my own--the one I think is probably the best thing I have done in SW fandom-- has like 8 kudos and 4 comments (2 of which are my responses). Is it disappointing? Yes. Is it an indication that the fic is objectively "bad"? No.

The mercenary in me suggests that if you want to get lots of comments and kudos, you should pick the pairing that is THE pairing in the fandom and write for that--because that's where the eyeballs are, because that's where the connections are.  But that is not why I write, so it's just that--a very mercenary way of looking at things. Not that there is anything WRONG with doing it that way. Supply and demand run the world. If the people want Codywan and you want the people....give them Codywan. No shame in that.

And there is no shame in wanting or seeking validation for your work, either.

But it breaks my heart to see authors (and artists) give up on themselves when they do not receive piles of kudos and comments. It's not you. It's...the luck of the draw. It's...fandom. It's...an artificial and murky set of measurements that have almost no basis in anything meaningful.

Keep writing. Keep drawing. Keep sharing. You are what you make, not how people respond to it.

#yes exactly! #such a great synopsis of how all those bits and pieces work (or don't work) #ao3 #let's talk about fic baby #fandom #kudos and comments #ao3 comments #kudos #hits

[cacodaemonia]

From above the Blue Whale almost looks like a submarine...........

#so pretty #blue whale #video

[cacodaemonia]

holo of generals kenobi and skywalker reviewing plans for a joint operation in the outer rim

+ still detail:

#obi-wan #anakin #cody #art #tcw

[cacodaemonia]

General Kenobi makes contact with a disgruntled local, but as usual, negotiations end with the other party eating out of the palm of his hand.

#ahh this is so cute! #and very pretty #art #obi-wan #tcw

[cacodaemonia]

What makes this even funnier is if you’re a rich guy and do this the actual poker players will shower you with praise and stroke your ego (especially when you win hands through sheer variance) and say you’re great and to keep doing what you’re doing because they’re just siphoning money from you and want you to keep it up. Like, that’s the original definition of a “whale” in the gambling sense

#mhmm #elon mush

[cacodaemonia]

Ive noticed recently that my generation has... no concept of what the various economic classes actually are anymore. I talk to my friends and they genuinely say things like "at least i can afford a middle class lifestyle with this job because i dont need a roommate for my one bedroom apartment" and its like... oughh

You guys, middle class doesnt mean "a stable enough rented roof over your head," it means "a house you bought, a nice car or two, the ability to support a family, and take days off and vacations every year with income to spare for retirement savings and rainy days." If all you have is a rented apartment without a roommate and a used car, you're lower class. That's lower class.

And i cant help but wonder if this is why you get kids on tumblr lumping in doctors and actors into their "eat the rich" rhetoric: economic amnesia has blinded you to what the class divides actually are. The real middle class lifestyle has become so unattainable within a system that relies upon its existence that theyve convinced you that those who can still reach it are the elites while your extreme couponing to afford your groceries is the new normal.

#this #i grew up dirt poor and i'd say my partner and i became middle class less than 10 years ago #but i feel like we have insane amounts of money because we don't have to panic over every vet bill #and we can get maintenance done on the car before it breaks down #and i can tip other artists i commission #so to me that's like insane rich people shit but it's really just middle class #class #us bullshit #mostly